Why?

We're in the middle of another round of winnowing at Flash Fiction Online. As it often does, winnowing makes me think about what goes into a good story. One of the things I noticed with this round of stories is that the ones I rejected as "NAS" (not a story) had something in common. They all failed to answer my "why" questions.

"Why is the main character acting like this?"
"Why is the world like this?"
"Why do I care?"

Okay, that last one grows out of the first two.

The best stories answer questions. I'm going to use an imperfect analogy for a moment. If you equate a novel with a movie, then a flash fiction piece is a short discrete section with its own beginning, middle and end. A short story or flash story doesn't work when it's only a scene. So, let's take Dangerous Liaisons (1988). If you were to write the sword fight scene toward the end of the movie as a flash piece you're going to have a problem. Valmont makes two decisions based on what's come before in the movie. We know why he makes the choices he does because the groundwork was laid. Without the groundwork, the fight scene and its conclusion are unfulfilling.

But wait, why did the Sixth Sense (1999) work? Wasn't the biggest why hidden throughout the story and only revealed at the twist ending? Not really. When you go back and watch the movie again (and again), you start noticing that the writer and director, M. Night  Shyamalan, littered the story with clues, some subtle, some less so. In fact, one of the characters tells you flat out the why and why it's "hidden" early in the story. We just don't notice. But our subconscious picked up on them in the first viewing which is why we don't feel cheated at the final reveal.

I believe that the reader needs to know or, at least, be given the clues to put the why together through the story.

Let's take another example.

The first few minutes of Disney's Up (2009), show the main character, Carl, as a young boy meeting the girl he'll eventually marry. We see the heart break of their learning they can never have children and the life they make for themselves. We see Carl's losing Ellie.

Why is showing Carl as a young boy, and then through his marriage, important? Because those minutes, a story story, tell you why Carl won't sell the house, why he's shut himself away from the world, and why he reacts the way he does when the mailbox is damaged. So, when Carl then makes the decision that changes his life, we understand it. Heck, we want him to succeed.

If you strip those moments off, and just start with present day Carl and his house surrounded by construction, the story no longer works. After all, it's just an old house. Why doesn't he get with the program and move? Carl goes from being a sympathetic character to just a grumpy old man standing in the way of progress. He hasn't been shown to have capacity to be more. It's a different movie all together.

If the why is only revealed in your "twist" ending, you might want to reconsider your story structure. Either show me, or give me hints to let me figure out the  big "why" of your story, let me know why your main character acts or is the way she is, and I'll keep reading. Let me wonder about her motivation, and it's easy for me to put the story down.

Thoughts From The Slush Pile

If you write, and submit those stories, you dread the slush pile. It's an inevitable part of the process. The way you get out of the slush and into print is to impress someone like me. Someone who has  volunteered or is low man on the totem pole and has not choice but to wade through the slush and pan for gold. So, I decided to give you another peak into the heart and mind of a slush reader (me) at Flash Fiction Online.

Sometimes what wins the heart and soul of the slush reader - to the point I'm willing to fight for the story - is hard to precisely define. Over the last several months we had two stories that illustrate the point. One of the stories I'll call a message piece, while the other was a funereal/memorial piece.

How were these very different stories alike:
(1) They were both well written. It was obvious that both writers were talented, and knew their craft;
(2) The stories were polished - no obvious typos;
(3) Both stories had voice and presence.
(4) Both took unexpected routes along the way/ presented something new.
(5) It was argued that both were not stories but rather vignettes capturing a moment in time. Usually the "NAS" notation is a death knell, but these two merited consideration regardless.

So, why did I choose to recommend one, and reject the other?

Tone.

The memorial piece was soft. It invited the reader in. Many of the memorial pieces we see are bitter or drowning in grief. This one was tinged with grief, but the act of moving through grief rather than wallowing in it was the story. It was painted with the lightest brush strokes. It also used a tried and true speculative fiction trope in a new way. Because the tone and emotion was so inviting, I was willing to overlook some things which might otherwise resulted in a rejection - such as a main character that did not sound age appropriate

Message pieces are difficult. You always run a risk of losing the story to the message. The best ones, in my opinion, are the message stories where you don't realize that it was a message story until it is done. If the message is laid in too heavily, no one is going to read the story. In my opinion, this second story was strident, and very heavy handed. It relied on a gimmick to beat me over the head with the message if I couldn't glean it from the prose. It was rejected because of it's tone. If you are working on a message piece, my advice for you would be to use a soft touch.

When we're writing, we need to pay attention to the mood of the story. Sometimes a mood will draw people in. Other times it will repulse them. Sometimes you will want to repulse the readers, but realize each time you do, you make it easier for the reader to put the story down. In a longer work, you're going to mix in the heavy moods with the lighter ones. But short stories don't give you that leeway. You can hit one emotional note. Make sure you're hitting the right one with the right intensity.

Good luck, and good writing.

Top Ten Reasons Why I Reject Flash Fiction Stories

I've blogged about being a slush reader for Flash Fiction Online, but it's been a while since I've updated you on it. In an average month, my team will have about 80 stories to review. Only stories with two votes for publication are guaranteed to move into the next round. A story can still be sent on if someone likes it enough to fight for it. So, when you submit a story for consideration your first hurdle is to get the slush pile reader to like it.

So over the last six months I've complied my top ten reasons why I reject a story. Keep in mind that the items on the list are my reasons for saying "no," other slush readers may, and probably do, have different reasons for rejecting stories. When I started the list I thought I was going to have to work to fill it up. Sadly, I didn't.

10. The "Meh" Response. Sometimes there's nothing technically wrong with a story, but it still isn't working for me. Often this is because I can't find anything "special" in it. What do I mean by "special?" If you are using one of the tried and true tropes (girl meets vampire, they fall in love, she becomes a vampire to be with him forever, for example), you need a new take on the trope to set it apart from everything else out there. Stephanie Meyers had sparkly vampires - that was new. The more tried and true your base storyline, the more you'll need those "special" elements to make the story stand out for me. It could be your main character (MC) doesn't have any particular strong traits and doesn't make me hate him enough to love him, or there's no real setting (or a "usual suspect one"). In every story you write, something and usually several somethings have to be special. It has to draw me in and make me take notice. Stories that get the "Meh" response are often at the "close, but not quiet there" level because the don't hook me.

9. The Main Character Is Too Stupid To Live. Okay, we've all done it. I've done it. If an MC is making obviously dumb choices just to move your story along, the writer will have a problem convincing me to move that story to the next level. Often this problem is because the MC doesn't have enough of a personality to make the stupid choice. We've all pick a path that was obviously wrong even when we knew it was. Why'd we do it then? Because that's who we are. The same has to be true for characters. A teenager making a bad choice (like shoplifting) on impulse, I'll find plausible. I won't find the same action plausible if the person is a fifty-year old male who is successful, rich, and a pillar of the community if  I haven't seen in advance that he has poor impulse control, or  some other credible reason why he's suddenly willing to throw his life away to snatch a t-shirt. A character's actions must line up with her personality traits and motivations.

8. Overuse of a thesaurus, "denseness" or other forms of "purple prose".  In my definition, "purple prose" or "dense writing" happens when the writer is busy showing us her style and that style is getting in the way of the storytelling. Fifty cent words are great when the character, and not the writer, would actually use them. Yes, use all five senses, but not in the same sentence. Not every noun needs an adjective. Not every verb needs an adverb. This type of "dense" writing is hard to read. My attention wants to stray to something else.

I tend to be guilty of "sparse" writing. I don't get into interior thoughts or scene setting enough. My editor's comments are often - "add more X here." As a result, when someone else is laying it on thick, I notice. Pare your work to only use the descriptions that matter. While a 66 word sentence are fine on occasion, they shouldn't be the norm. If your sentences look like paragraphs, you might have a problem to address.


7. Numerous Grammatical Errors. Bet you thought this would be higher didn't you?

No matter how many times you go over a manuscript, there will be typos, dropped words and other errors. I can forgive some. If you have a lot, you're telling me you don't care enough about the story and don't respect my time enough for me to waste any more on the story.

By the way, knowing when to break a paragraph is essential. Knowing how to write dialog, including internal dialog, is essential. Sixty-six word sentences (no joke, I do count) almost always need to be broken down as they express more than one thought.

Check to make sure your pronouns link to the noun you wanted. After a 66 word sentence with numerous nouns the word "it" in the next sentence refers back to the last noun, which is probably not the one you wanted.

6. A Forgettable Main Character  Or One I Have No Sympathy For. I don't have to like your main character, but it helps. If you are writing an unlikable main character you have your job cut out for you. You need to make me care about John the Bastard if you expect me to read his story. The anti-hero story can be wonderful when done right. And I can reject a story about a perfectly nice main character. Whether your character is likable or not, I need to have some connection to her. Without a connection, you make it easy for me to reject the story.

5. Lack of Clarity. I'm not going to work too hard to figure out what's going on. If I can't do so in a paragraph or two, you've given me a reason to stop reading. I MIGHT go back and look at the story again to see if my confusion was because I was tired or preoccupied, but I might not. Don't risk your story on that chance. Stories that I end up saying, "hu?" or "what just happened?" get voted off the island.

4. Telling me the character's bored or it's just an ordinary day. If the character's bored why should I want to go on a journey, even the short one in flash, with her? The same issue exists with telling me that "the day started out like any other. . ." I groan a bit when I see that. While common wisdom says start your story before your MC's world gets blown to heck, common wisdom is also wrong. If you need an "establishing shot" of every day life, it needs to be short and absolutely required for me to understand what happens.  I'll give you a paragraph (which in flash is generous) to give me an issue or a character to get involved with.

3. Not submitting a complete story.  This is actually easier to do than you would think, especially in the flash (500 - 1,500 word) format. I've seen some wonderful character sketches and scenes, but that doesn't make them publishable. A complete story has a beginning, middle and end. If your story doesn't have all of these it will get the "NAS" (Not A Story) label and a reject vote. Check out my post on the Hollywood Formula for Flash Fiction for more on this one.

2. Withholding the main character's name.  You aren't creating mystery; you aren't making your main character "any man." You are annoying me as the reader. There are a precious few times when you should withhold the main character's name like when your story is told in the first person, but the MC doesn't interact with other characters right away. But as soon as the MC does run into someone else, you should tell me the MC's name.

1.  Withholding information the Point of View character knows as a means to create a mystery or a twist.  This is PET PEEVE #1 for me so be warned. I see many stories where the writer withholds a critical piece of information that the point of view character knows, like the ghost in the story is really the main character's little sister, to "create suspense" or a "twist." If your suspense is based on hiding information from your reader, you don't have suspense, you have a trick.

The Sixth Sense worked because the main character didn't know the twist, and early on in the story the viewer is told the critical piece of information that makes the main character's lack of knowledge credible. If you dissect The Sixth Sense, you'll see hints scattered throughout the movie leading up to the "twist." It's why we accepted it.

If you are going to withhold information you have to be very careful which point of view you use so that person doesn't know the truth and the reader figures it out with him. Otherwise it's a quick trip to the reject bin for the story.

Anyway, those are some of the reasons I'll turn a story down. They apply to whether you're writing flash or an epic fantasy. Hopefully knowing how this slush reader thinks will help you get published. Good luck and keep submitting.

If you want to critique my work to see if I violated my own guidelines,  you can find my two short story collections, Paths Less Traveled and Shots at Redemption, at Musa Publishing, Amazon, Barnes and Nobel and Smashwords.

Six Questions For . . .: Six Questions for Pat Dey, Slushreader, Flash Fict...

Flash Fiction Online publishes stories from 500-1,000 words containing "strong, interesting characters, plots, and (to some extent, at least) settings." Check out Pat Dey's interview on how the process works at: Six Questions For . . .: Six Questions for Pat Dey, Slushreader, Flash Fict...:

The Hollywood Formula for Flash Fiction

I have a confession to make. I'm not a natural short story writer. I have to fight to keep myself from haring off after one plot thread or another. Writing short fiction is hard. So, I look for anything that helps me confine a story into the appropriate length and still have it be a story. One of the reasons we reject a submission at Flash Fiction Online http://flashfictiononline.com is that it's only a scene not a story.

So, how do you fit all the necessary story elements into 1000 words?

Writing Excuses http://writingexcuses.com did a podcast on the "Hollywood Formula" in Season 6. Lou Anders http://louanders.com visited the pod cast and talked about how his mentor, Dan Decker, divided any story into its three parts (beginning, middle, end). I recommend you check out the entire Writing Excuses podcast at http://www.writingexcuses.com/2011/10/02/writing-excuses-6-18-hollywood-formula/.

The short version of the Hollywood Formula: a story generally has three main characters and three parts. The three characters are the Protagonist, the Antagonist, and Dynamic or Relationship character. In a non-modified formula the first act takes about 1/4 of your word count, second 1/2 and the third has the final 1/4. In a Flash Fiction story that means roughly 250 words for the beginning, 500 for the middle and 250 for the ending.

Certain story benchmarks happen in each act. In the first act, you introduce the three main character and what they want. About a tenth of the way into the first act (or at about 25 -30 words), the protagonist makes the fateful decision. I think of this as the red light moment. If the protagonist says no, the story's over. Do not go past "go", do not collect $200. In Flash, you probably have until about 100 words for the protagonist to make that choice. BUT the protagonist must make a choice.

In the middle, the protagonist needs to be asking and answering questions. This section starts about 1/2 way through the first act (or 120-130 words) and ends about 1/2 way through the second act (word 500). Once the protagonist knows what the questions are, he needs to start answering them. Right about word 650 or so the protagonist hits his "low point" - the place in the story where things are at their worst and he's as far from his goal as he could be. Act II closes around word 750.

From the "low point" to the end is the final battle. In this act, the protagonist must defeat his antagonist, obtain his goal, and reconcile with the relationship character. The closer these events happen to each other, the more emotional impact your story will have.

But wait, you say, my short story only has two characters, does that mean I need to add someone else?

No. The three act pattern should get modified based on your story. Some stories are all about the final battle. Some are all about asking and answering questions. But, a story needs to include all these elements. Stories that fall flat are missing part of the formula. If you can't find these elements, you might have a scene, not a story. Now you know why short stories, and flash fiction in particular, are so hard to write. But you can do it. I know you can.

Tales of Caution - Second Person Narrative

A writer has three choices for grammatical person in telling a story: first, second or third person. Which “person” you choose determines which pronouns you use. In general terms a first person narrative is told to the reader by a narrator and uses “I”, “me” or “mine”. Second person uses “you” or “your.” Third person, the most common form for contemporary fiction, uses “he”, “she” or “it” and all the related permutations. For a detailed review of these narrative styles, see Grammar Girl’s excellent podcast on them.

When writing in second person. the writer often breaks the fourth wall, and talks directly to the reader. It works well for blog posts since I am talking directly to you. Writing second person fiction, on the other hand, is a risk. Modern readers aren’t use to it. When done well
in fiction – like in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off - it’s a powerful tool, and forges an instant connection between the reader and the main character. Done poorly, this technique is a disaster.

Recently, we had a few second person stories come through the submitted to Flash Fiction Online. Second person narrative fiction stories are hard to sell. I don’t reject them just for being second person. I want to see another Ferris Bueller's Day Off. But I don’t want to filter the thoughts of a serial killer as if they were my own, which is what second person does. I don’t want to be told “you draw the knife over the milky white throat. Warm blood spurts from the severed vein and coats you.” Yuck.

If your main character is vile or does vile things, you might not want to tell his story in the second person. I read and loved Dan Wells’ I Am Not A Serial Killer series about a teenage boy, John Cleaver, who is trying not to become a serial killer. John does some bad things, and some very bad things for good reasons. I worried about him. I wanted John not to slide down that very slippery slope. Dan told John’s story in the third person. Similarly, the main character in the Dexter series by Jeff Lindsay is a serial killer. The series is very popular, has a strong cult following, and has spawned a related television series. Dexter is written in first person.

But please don’t tell me a pedophile’s, murderer’s or rapist’s story in second person. I WILL reject it. But I might not reject the same work of fiction if the same story is told with some distance between me and the main character – in other words, third person or, even, first person. Good writing means knowing the “rules” and deciding whether the price you’ll pay for breaking them is worth the cost. Before you write fiction in second person, think about who your main character is and whether your reader wants to identify that closely with him. If not, you might better serve your story (and reader) by using a different voice.

What's In A Name?

I’ve recently become a slush pile reader for Flash Fiction Online ("FFO"). FFO publishes short stories of no more than 1,000 words. I've just finished my first round of "slush" - stories submitted in the hope FFO will publish them. Good Flash is hard to write, and I thought I'd pass on my thoughts on what does and doesn't make good Flash.

One of the "mistakes" I've seen in the submissions is something I doubt the writer would do in a novel-length story - not name his character. I put "mistake" in quotes because not naming a character is a pet peeve of mine, and probably not a technical mistake. In my opinion, it’s the rare occasion when a character should be nameless. Humans name things. If we don’t know what something’s called, we’ll make up a label to identify it. It’s unnatural for us not to. Even when an "evil overlord" is trying to dehumanize someone, he'll refer to that person by some label, Javert refers to Jean Valjean by his prison number in Les Miserables.

So what's in a name?

Everything.

By giving a character a name, you give me a way to connect with him. The main character's not a generic "he", he's Bob, or Jose, or Raj, or Apollo. Each name puts a different image in my head, and draws me further into the story.

When I've pointed this out to the writer, I always hear the argument that by withholding information, including even the gender of the main character, the writer is creating mystery. Occasionally, I'll hear the "any man" defense, but by far the "mystery" defense is the most recited.

It doesn't work, at least for me. You might gain a bit of mystery by not telling me the character’s name, but you lose one reason for me to care what happens in your story. It doesn't seem like a wise trade off.

There are times when a character might not have a name: she has amnesia, doesn't know it, and doesn't have anyone else to interact with who will give her a name. Another time not naming the character might work is when she's other-than-human and its culture doesn't have "names" as we do. But those times when this device is used should be few and far between.

Before you submit a story with an unnamed character, ask yourself why. If your reason is to "build mystery", you might want to reconsider that decision. If the immortal bard thought names were important, be certain you have a good reason to ignore his teachings.

Flash Fiction Online

A few months ago, I was asked to be a slush reader for Flash Fiction Online. Unfortunately, at the time, work and family commitments consumed all my time, and I didn't feel like I could give FFO the attention it deserved. While I'm not sure my time commitments have lessened, I decided to join FFO anyway.

So, I'm currently diving through my first pile of submissions. It's been an educational experience in a number of ways. In the coming weeks, I'm hoping to add a feature called "Lessons from the Slush Pile." Stay tuned.