dannedmind

WRITING TIPS: LEARN TO BE CRITIQUED

One of the hardest things in life is taking advice.

There are many reasons we don’t want to take advice. The most common is:

THEY ARE WRONG.

Also commonly phrased as:

THEY DON’T KNOW WHAT THEY’RE TALKING ABOUT

But even if you feel that way about advice given, especially if you asked for the advice from a peer or reader, you should look at why that advice is being given.

The why will help you understand whether or not that advice is worth taking.

When I first started writing scripts for short films, I’d exchange them with actors. I’ll never forget the one that was returned to me laden with curse words. Every line of dialogue had at least one. Sometimes multiple, with barely a word between them.

–-Not that curse words don’t have their proper place and time–

I threw out all that person’s changes. How could they be right about anything if their answer was to add the ‘f’-word to everything.

Later on, I learned the actor was a huge fan of Tarantino films, and it suddenly clicked. It wasn’t the f-word they wanted, it was the edge and wit. They just didn’t know how to do that because they were not a writer.

When you know where someone is coming from you can view their remarks through the proper lens.

It’s taken me a long time, but from my pool of early readers, I believe I know where everyone is coming from. And when I ask for a critique, I generally get back what I expected. I know what they’ll pick at–and when they don’t it means I did something right.

Of my 3 main early readers, I’ll sometimes send one a story first because I know they’ll help me get it to where the next reader will have less problems, or I’ll send it to the one that I think will tear it apart last–that way I don’t get entirely discouraged.

The thing with advice from others is that it can be a great tool to gauge your confidence. If you understand why they are saying something, maybe it reveals something you left out, maybe you didn’t ‘earn’ a moment in the story.

There is always some form of disconnect from what’s in your mind and what you wrote. People will react differently to lines. Trust their reaction.

Always think about who your reader is.

Interested in my thoughts on writing, well there’s more from the past months, but look for new WRITING TIPS every LAST WEDNESDAY of EVERY MONTH.

FREE SHORT STORY: THE LITTLE GIRL

Dear Potential Reader,

I hope you all had a Happy Halloween, but don’t think you’re safe yet. Novemember has always felt spookier. The leaves are gone, the night is longer, and there is a briskness to the air, and I hope you will feel all of that as you read THE LITTLE GIRL.

CLICK HERE TO READ

This story is an old one, probably dating back to experiencing fatherhood for the first time. No one can prepare you for the amount of worry that enters your life. To finally be responsible for a young life, it’s all I thought about. Is my child okay? Sleep was a matter of exhaustion, not something to relax during or to have in regular intervals. And when you’re deprived of sleep, strange things seem to happen, or perhaps we notice things we wouldn’t have before–it’s hard to say as reality bends. Your experience is true to you, but only because you aren’t fully awake.

So snuggle up somewhere warm and prepare for one more scare . . .

Hope you enjoy.

All the best,

DAN JIRE

WRITING TIPS: FORMULAS ARE YOUR FRIEND: START AT THE END

You remember basic algebra, right?

3 x X= 18

Most of us, trying to be fair this is a site for writing and reading short stories, will know that X equals 6.

Well, writing a story is a lot like that equation above.

3 – is the idea we have

X – is how we tell the story

18 – is the ending.

When you know the ending, finding X is a lot easier than: 3 x X = ?

Knowing an ending creates momentum and incentive to our writing. Everything we write is building towards it.

Some endings manifest themselves and those are sometime the most rewarding ones. But sometimes, what stands in our way is not knowing where a story is heading.

If you know your ending before you start, it makes writing X a lot easier.

Want more Writing Tips? Check back every LAST WEDNESDAY of EVERY MONTH . ..

FREE SHORT STORY: THIS ONE IS BENJAMIN

Dear Potential Reader,

Welcome to this month’s free short story. But wait . . . did you want to spoil a novella called THIS ONE IS DEADLY? Because if you’re fine spoiling the expanded version of the following short story then proceed and read the original: THIS ONE IS BENJAMIN.

CLICK HERE TO READ

The following tale was originally written as an exercise in shifting viewpoints to tell a story. I liked it then and still enjoy the brevity of it now. But at some point, years and years ago, I decided to expand it into a novella. When that novella was originally published, this original short story version was included in the back pages as an extra and now it’s here, free to read.

The novella will be anchoring an upcoming short story collection sometime in the coming year or so . . . titled THIS IS DEADLY.

Hope you enjoy.

All the best,

DAN JIRE

WRITING TIPS: FORMULAS ARE YOU FRIEND: HATCHBACK WOMAN EDITION

I practice writing. A lot.

I write throwaway stories. I write stories with goals to practice things like dialogue or action or group conversations.

The tales of THE HATCHBACK WOMAN began only as an exercise. I set a goal to write 10 short stories using a formula. Each story had to fulfill the formula in different ways.

The original formula to any HATCHBACK WOMAN tale was:

Character receives an item from the HATCHBACK WOMAN.
The item has a magical power.
The use of the item changes the character’s life.

Pretty simple, but not when you have to come up with ten stories (or the ongoing case of HATCHBACK WOMAN, where I’m over 30 tales as of this writing).

For #1 I came up with: theft, found, given, left in new character’s possession, rewarded, demanded, offered a choice, given by a person other than the HATCHBACK WOMAN and a few variations, like dug up after witnessing her bury something.

For #2, I tried to think of different superpowers. Whatever I could think of, from invisibility to fire power and control over time.

For #3, I tried to vary how the item affected the character. Did it make their life better or worse? The character ended up deciding this each time. And it’s what I ended up loving about writing the HATCHBACK WOMAN tales. It was hard to know if she was good or evil or if it was the character’s choice.

I’ve written a few HATCHBACK WOMAN tales that failed. But practice makes perfect, and sometimes, I just needed to change up who the character was that received the item or how they received it.

Setting formulas gives us a chance to change up what we’re brainstorming.

Instead of trying to come up with an original idea, we’re asking ‘how do we make this different than what others have read?’

Want other ideas on how you could write? I’ve got more, every LAST WEDNESDAY of EVERY MONTH.