So, five days in, have I learned anything?
One: Go with your gut. After seeing the prompt, start writing the first thing that comes to mind. With “Bakery!” I remembered I’d taken a tour of a bakery in grade school. I don’t remember the mixing room, though—just that I didn’t have to share the baseball cards that came in the loaf of Wonder Bread I got when we left. Still, the memory got things going.
Two: Trust you can tie things together, even if you don’t see how. Keep writing and it will appear. In “Madness,” I noticed Clara’s penchant for vocabulary early on (“nullify this rubble” ... who says that?); it suited the character, but I didn’t know why. Then, as she gathered her treasures at the end—well, of course, she’d come across a vocabulary primer somewhere.
Three: Sometimes the final step comes early. This was more reminder than new insight. The “to die for/too soon” business in “Bakery!” came to mind right after poor Ed was found in the mixing bowl. Rather than trust I’d remember it when I got to the end of the story, I added a few blank lines to type the middle into and went straight for the ending. (I’ve had too many things get away by not writing them down immediately.)
Four: 250-259 words isn’t much. Each of the first drafts of the stories came in between 280 and 310. Editing (and whittling) improves the story, but it’s surprising what little is left.
No comments:
Post a Comment