My 997 word story 'There You Are, My Love' was accepted today by Every Day Fiction, sneaking in one last acceptance for both December and 2011. Yay for going out on a high note!
EDF is one of my favourite flash venues -- you get fantastic editorial feedback and the site is renowned for plentiful reader comments. It gets no better, for me: knowing that people read your story and were engaged enough to say something about it. That's what it's all about.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
New story available - One Free Go
My Halloween horror story 'One Free Go' is up today at Wily Writers
I've never had a story podcasted before, and it's a strange thing to hear your words read aloud by someone else. Especially someone with an American accent. Strange, but awesome!
- you can hear the podcast here and read the text version here.
I've never had a story podcasted before, and it's a strange thing to hear your words read aloud by someone else. Especially someone with an American accent. Strange, but awesome!
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Openings
From an article by Jane Rogers in Mslexia #49 - things readers are looking for in a first paragraph include:
Suspense: a hook.
Character: someone intriguing, someone to root for.
Setting: a believable world, a place we want to know about.
Atmosphere: menacing, humorous, fantastical, different.
Voice: an attitude to life, generated by the narrator's language.
Style: confidence and aptness in the language and punctuation.
Sense impressions: touch, taste, smell, sight, hearing.
Dialogue: to draw us into characters' lives.
Foreshadowing: a glimpse towards the story's ending.
Crumbs. As Jane goes on to say: no pressure, then.
No wonder they say the first paragraph is often the one that a) gets rewritten the most times and b) gets written last. You're not really going to *know* all of that stuff when you're actually beginning the story.
Suspense: a hook.
Character: someone intriguing, someone to root for.
Setting: a believable world, a place we want to know about.
Atmosphere: menacing, humorous, fantastical, different.
Voice: an attitude to life, generated by the narrator's language.
Style: confidence and aptness in the language and punctuation.
Sense impressions: touch, taste, smell, sight, hearing.
Dialogue: to draw us into characters' lives.
Foreshadowing: a glimpse towards the story's ending.
Crumbs. As Jane goes on to say: no pressure, then.
No wonder they say the first paragraph is often the one that a) gets rewritten the most times and b) gets written last. You're not really going to *know* all of that stuff when you're actually beginning the story.
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