short stories -

30Jan 2012 by diannagunn

Getting Feedback

Writing

Feedback is crucial to any serious writer's progress. It's nice to have someone read your work and tell you it's awesome, but that's not really why feedback is important. In fact, if somebody's looking at your first draft and telling you it's awesome, odds are they're just trying to flatter you. The reason why feedback is so important to a writer's progress is because we're often too close to our writing to see what's wrong with it. We love those pretty sentences that just don't belong. We're so deeply in love with our world that we forget our readers don't know anything about it. We already know the story, so we tend to skim instead of slowing down to find the spelling mistakes. A second pair of eyes helps us…

23Jan 2012 by diannagunn

Editing a Short Story in Five Steps

Short Fiction, Uncategorized, Writing

Over the last week of December and the first week of January, we worked on fairly long short stories. Now it's time to talk about editing. Editing a short story is a much less painful process than editing a novel. It's a shorter process, and if you go through each of these steps you can make it a lot easier for yourself. I recommend taking a day or two away from your short story before you start editing it. You don't want to stay away a long time. Particularly if your end goal is to make money, it's a good idea to have several of these on the market at one time. When I edit a short story, I usually follow these steps: 1. Proofread on the computer. Sure, you…

20Jan 2012 by diannagunn

Fiction Prompt January 20th

Prompts, Short Fiction

While I am hoping to use several of these prompts to create standalone flash fiction, writing responses to these prompts from the PoV of one of my novel characters is a really good way to build character. Today I've got not only a prompt for you, but a small response to it that I wrote from the PoV (point of view, for those of you who don't know) of Riana, the main character in Moonshadow's Guardian. Today's prompt: Guilt My response: It's been thousands of years since I protected Eternia, but I will never forgive myself for failing her. She was just a little girl the first time we met. I remember her cute smile, her little head all covered in long black hair like a curtain. I remember her…

02Jan 2012 by diannagunn

Working on a Longer Short Story

Inspirational, Short Fiction, Writing

Last week I challenged you to work on a longer short story. I'm going to spend 2012 working on writing stories shorter than anything I've written before--under 2, 500 words--but there's a short story that I wrote in the summer which I think will be better if I don't try to restrict its length. I'm working on a full rewrite of it now and considering extending the plot. A longer short story in this context is between 10, 000 and 15, 000 words. The word count allows you to cover a bit more ground without going into a complete novel. With the rise of ebooks, works of this length are becoming more and more viable. For me, whose short stories generally cover the span of a few days, aiming for…

09Jan 2011 by diannagunn

Prompt of the Week: The New Year

Prompts, Short Fiction

Today's Prompt: The New Year When the Phoenix flies overhead, the year shall be born again and all the things on this planet shall grow and once again life we will know. The Monastary of Dracon and Astarael was a beautiful place. It was three stories tall and many hundreds of feet long, deep within the woods of Appollinia. The building was black stone on one side and red stone on the other, built hundreds of years ago by devotees of both God and Goddess. On Astarael's side there was a bell tower which stood two stories above the rest of the building. Miriam had been a monk-in-training for three years now, since her mother died and her brother became a soldier. She truly loved this place; it was her…

09Jan 2011 by diannagunn

Prompt of the Week: Time

Prompts, Short Fiction

Today's Prompt Is: Time On a side note, I am seriously considering leaving Orble sometime in the near future. I'm looking into setting up a new site with a new domain someplace else at the moment. I will continue posting interviews and prompts here but be aware that Fictional Worlds will probably be moving soon. Thanks for all of your patience.

08Jan 2011 by diannagunn

Story Review: World of Ash

Book Reviews, Short Fiction

Since I'm still waiting on some authors to interview and I promised this review, here goes: Story Review: World of Ash by Kevin Hopson Rating: 7/10 [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0q_1yd4hrW4&fs=1&hl=en_GB] From the Back Cover: Jax has always succumbed to his boss’ wishes in an effort to please him. When he is asked to journey to the town of Tellare with a volcanic ash cloud standing in his way, Jax realizes the dangers, but he accepts the job anyway. He even brings along his friend Stu as company. However, Jax starts to regret his decision when Stu puts up resistance and conditions continue to worsen. What awaits them inside the ash cloud, and will Stu prove to be a liability when push comes to shove? As a Reader: As a reader I quite enjoyed…