As we start to wrap up the year known as 2012, I wanted to reach out to the Lit Reactor community. First, I wanted to say thank you so much for your support of my Storyville column. The response has been great. I hope that in some small way I've helped you with your writing.
For 2013, I'm going to need some new ideas! Is there anything I haven't covered so far that you'd like to see me write about? Speak up, no topic is too basic, too taboo, or too specific.
Here's what's been written so far. You can find them all HERE:
01. Finding Your Voice
02. Cover Letters and Briding the Gap
03. The Journey (dissecting "Rudy Jenkins Buries His Fears")
04. Research and Duotrope
05. Where Do You Get Your Ideas
06. How to Get An Agent
07. Revealing Character
08. Dissecting "Twenty Reasons to Stay and One to Leave"
09. Writing Horror Stories
10. Balancing Life and Writing
11. Editing and Revision
12. Writing About Sex
13. Narrative Hooks
14. Dissecting "Maker of Flight"
15. Dynamic Settings
16. NaNoWriMo and Free Writing
17. Top Ten Authors You've Never Heard of Before (TBA-Nov)
18. Top Ten Short Stories Ever (TBA-Dec)
What else do you want me to write about, what else is holding you back, what are your weaknesses? Post up, people. And thanks so much for your help. Onward and upward.
1. Contracts, types of rights etc.
2. Probably somewhat covered in the dissection essays, but maybe one dedicated solely to Dialogue?
3. You did writing horror stories, how about writing Literary stories? (or how/why one might integrate literary aspects into genre fiction.)
Surprising your reader, effective twists in a story. That'd be cool.
Also the dialogue idea would be good. Maybe one on writing effective dialogue to drive the plot, one on banal dialogue and realistic conversations, and one on internal dialogue and thoughts. People might like those.
Oh, and how to change your story without making the reader feel cheated. Like, how to kill off your main character, or reveal your protaganist as the antagonist.
Here is a repeat: promotion.
1. Self-publish, Inquire an agent, or solicit to small presses?
2. Outlining your novel.
3. Writing Neo-Noir.
4. Making contacts, social networking, etc.
Making the most out of a short amount of writing time.
^ Can you have that one filed by tomorrow. Please, and thankyou. (If you need a headline try: Writing for War)
He are are a few ideas...
Writing with emotion/breaking your readers heart
Writing an unreliable narrator or finding the balance of a good "unlikable" narrator
How to tell if the place your submitting to is reliable or going to be worth it.
Giving cliches your own twist
And more dissecting of finished stories please
Also YES to the dialogue idea that Renfield suggested and YES to Dakota's idea about making contacts
I want to know:
What presses to submit to (I know about duotrope, but I get confused and lost sometimes)
A copy-edited story (with red marks and corrections). I love these. I'm trying to get Clevenger to post one. I want one from every writer I've ever read. It was my favorite part of King's On Writing.
Naked pictures.
Writing about things that make you squirm. How to make other people feel as grossed out as the writer is (this would probably touch a lot on 'on the body' techniques and such, but what is your method?).
Anything more about getting published. It's our secondary goal here - the first being to improve our writing. Getting published is harder than writing a good story most of the time.
I'd also like Storyville (and all the series of articles by the same writer) to have their own page on Lit Reactor (like the Palahniuk and Clevenger essays do).
great stuff guys. ah, i hate dialogue it's one of those essays i've been avoiding, but i'll add that to the list. i think i've done a column on promotion and social networking already, haven't i? contracts, ah, that's a tough one, not sure if i should even talk about it. i don't outline, so hard to talk about that.
i left these two columns off the above list: Promotion (linked above) and Endings, Twisted and Otherwise
here's the ones that seem possible:
dialogue (how to make it work and then disappear)
literary fiction (what is it)
surprising your reader
pros and cons of self, small press and agents
neo-noir (yeah, i might try to teach a class here on that)
making the most of your time (great idea)
breaking your reader's heart (love that one too) - getting emotionally involved
unreliable narrator (good one)
how to tell if a market/publication/website is sound and reliable
giving cliches/stereotypes your own updated twist (could be cool)
more dissecting (i don't have many markups of my stuff, i edit on the fly)
growing your brand and gaining an audience (maybe this is more specific than promotion?)
my master list of where to submit, with best suggestions per genre (why not)
writing about the grotesque (how to make your audience squirm, but not quit reading)
oh, and bryanhowie i do have a page for Storyville, kind of, anyway. on the magazine section, there is a sidebar with all of the columns. this is mine: HERE
great stuff guys, keep it coming if you have more ideas! thanks so much.
my master list of where to submit, with best suggestions per genre (why not)
want this now!
I'd love to see articles on character arc in short stories and short story structure/plotting.
^^^ What Jeffrey said.
Also, I like craft articles on when to break the "rules" (e.g. when to tell rather than show).
I'd like one on dialogue too. Actual dialogue and internal when it's first person. And one about story arcs in a novel or an overall lesson on writing a full length novel, not just the detailed stuff that goes into a story. The neo-noir idea is good too.
Ruchard I don't have new topics for you right now, but since you posted this I went back and read some articles in hopes of helping me in WAR. Thank you darling. Your instructions may have boosted my chances some, maybe, I hope.
BH i may do that one for the first column of 2013, kind of a "attack the year, here's how to do it" thing.
as for character arc and plotting, i don't plot, so it's hard to talk about it and i usually attach my character to their own self discovery, so it's not something i can much more than the column i wrote on how to reveal character.
although, i've never done a column on the basic plot structure of a story, the Freytag Triangle/Pyramid thing. you know, inciting indident (with hook), conflict, resolution, etc. maybe i can do that.
breaking the rules, that might be a good one. i think i've touched on show/tell in some of the columns
glad to hear, covewriter. makes it all worthwhile, so glad you got something out of my writing here.
How to Levitate Roses
lol...took me a second to get that one. it's a Salvador Dali, i love it. :-)
Dali was tops.
Richard, a pair of things for your consideration.
What's your approach to moving characters around within your stories? I like to bounce my characters around from place to place but it's not always easy to get across the intended idea. In my last workshop story I had a character crossing a bridge and it prompted some red flags from reviewers because they couldn't visualize what side of the bridge he was suppposed to be on when such and such an action took place.
Also, what's your take on irony? (This is the article that makes me ask: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/17/how-to-live-without-irony/). I went back and reread all my stories and it seemed like the better ones had less of it.
let me think on those, jeff. as for the logistics of moving people around, i guess it's common sense. i don't know if there's a whole column there, but mabye more people struggle with the action and movement than i think. could be a good one.
irony. i have honestly never thought about it. i think about justice, and vengeance. is it satisfying to see the really bad guy get what he dishes out in the end? sure. i also don't write a lot of humor, or satire, so maybe that is part of it.
do you have more specific questions or concerns? maybe there's something worth writing about here.
lol, now I have to think about it.
Common Mistakes You Can Easily Avoid
^about what? writing bad fiction?
That works, although you can plug in almost anything. Writing in general, contracts, or a mix of things you wish someone had told you 10 years ago.
good stuff. let me chew on that to see how i can put that all together, and see what advice i've already dispensed in my previous columns. but i like the idea of ten mistakes to avoid.
Cool. I'm not saying you made them all, but that sounds like something that could be a weekly/monthly column all by itself.
Might be too long but recently I've been paying special attention to subplots that inform and enhance the main narrative thread and inanimate objects that take on exceptional weight (like the jar of baby food in CAPOTE.) Also underpinning your main narrative with emotional development of those inanimate objects.
^good stuff, nik. i like the idea of subplots, and the notion of inanimate objects that have weight (the color blue, the use of sweat, the way that everything is described in menacing tones taking on tension). let me see if i can find a way to whittle either of those down into something. thanks.
