Short Story Struggles
by JustBolger
I’ve been working on my short story for a fiction writing class. There’s one problem with that: I haven’t felt any inspiration to write on my blog while doing so.
This is strange to me because what I write there has nothing in common with what I would right here–not currently at least. Do I just have a particular quota of how much I want to write at any given time? Can I only rock one inspirational spark at a time?
I haven’t had any strong opinions over things I scrolled by on Twitter, nothing of high interest has happened in my world of student journalism, and I haven’t had the opportunity to try any new video games lately.
I’m lovin’ hanging out with friends and having a social life this term, so that’s nice. Usually I kill it with an overloaded schedule. Also, Avengers is awesome. If you see two movies though, try The Raven.
… Well, I guess I could chat on my progress with my short story. I am not a swift writer by any stretch. Every page takes me hours to write and tinker with until satisfaction–that’s after I already have a solid idea of what I’m going to put there. Some mysterious force refuses to let me move on before each word is as perfect as I can make it.
The good of that is this: I have a very solid first and last scene; they mean the most to me. I realize now I’m pretty confident in my ability to craft a sentence or paragraph, to weave a scene.
The bad: It’s writing a whole tale that causes me problems. I need quite a bit more to highlight the significance between the start and the finish. This order of process is far from how I’ve been taught to write. Usually chronology and letting characters decide where the story goes is suggested. Maybe I’ll learn that later.
Hrmm… I understand literary devices and how to use them, but I just need to learn to kick out the bones real quick, so I can flesh it all out later, I think. Do you have any suggestions for me?
PS: I read Battleground by Jennifer M. Hartsock. She’s just as talented as I always suspected. Like her book on Facebook to help the thing get published.
Hey, thank you for the blurb! And I have critique your story if you’d like. That’s $1.50/double-spaced page, hahahahahaha.
Anytime! I’ll rock a review or something when you get published. I might take you up on the critique offer, but we’ll see how I feel after the workshop. Either way, you’re more than welcome to read it when it’s done.
I can critique*