Today, we have an excellent post from Trish Nicholson who advises us to:
Keep Your Words
I don’t mean you can skip the editing and avoid cutting out words you
spent hours wrestling onto the page. On the contrary, as a lover of flash
fiction I am by nature a slasher, but I do not advocate ‘slash and burn’. Don’t
‘kill’ your darlings – transplant them.
Remove your finger from that delete button. Get your file management system
in order and save every golden phrase and magnificent metaphor for another day,
another story. And this applies not only to the cuttings from your manuscripts.
One of my closest writing friends once confided to me: “I keep everything – notes,
feedback, comments, correspondence – you never know when you might make creative
use of any written material.” Thank goodness for digital storage.
But much of my research data, images, and past scribbles go back thirty
years and are only on paper. I’ve had to turn the box room into exactly that –
a room full of storage boxes – fondly, and euphemistically, referred to as ‘the
archive’. The main attraction is an extremely comfortable lounger along the
only empty wall.
I was reclining there one day, having completed a long non-fiction
manuscript and skived off to the archive to get away from the keyboard, when I
spotted on a bottom shelf a tatty but more recent file of my short stories. I
retrieved it and returned to the horizontal to browse at leisure. Some of these
stories I hadn’t looked at for two or three years, and I realised I was reading
them as if they were someone else’s. In a couple, I saw different meanings to
what had been intended – as if a slightly different reading self was reviewing
my writing self.
And then I noticed that in the same file were notes of successes and
failures in competitions, critiques, judges’ cryptic comments and feedback from
writing group members. The file even contained early versions of stories and
scraps of outlines – I could trace where a story had improved my writing and
why I had abandoned others to oblivion.
Short stories can teach us so much, not only about writing but about
reading, too. Writers must use apparent simplicity to create depth in a small
space; make every word count, and still find a resolution. Some understanding
of the writer’s task enriches a reader’s experience, shows the value of ‘close
reading’. I was having so much fun I missed lunch, but it sparked an intriguing
idea.
So I explored seven key issues: inspiration; character; theme;
structure; voice – the most challenging and rewarding – critiquing, and maintaining
momentum, choosing 14 stories to analyse, and another one to end with – a
not-too-serious account of my writing journey. I added some previous articles
of mine on writing, and wrote some new ones for readers, keeping in mind that I
wanted readers to share this as well as writers. It may seem these days that
everyone is a writer, but there are still a few readers who are not – yet – so
I had to take special care that they felt included.
It is not a ‘how to’ book; more a buddy to join you on the lounger for
a ‘show and share’ session over a glass of wine. You can decide for yourself
what you think of my efforts, because it is now published in digital and print
formats by Collca: Inside Stories for
Writers and Readers. I would love to have your feedback – and rest assured,
it will be filed in the archive.
[By the way, the print edition (available soon) also includes the
complete text of From Apes to Apps: how
humans evolved as storytellers and why it matters. The e-book contains an
extract.]
Trish Nicholson is a writer of stories and non-fiction, and a keen
photographer. She lives in New Zealand, beside a lake in the ‘winterless
north’, where she balances writing time with raising native trees, and
providing relaxation therapy.
Visit her blog at: http://trishnicholsonswordsinthetreehouse.com/
Critique Service for Writers
Flash 500 Flash Fiction Competition
Flash 500 Humour Verse Competition
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