Tag Archives: Short Story Writing

“Impossible Hope” Short Story Anthology is Released!

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A few months back, my friend and fellow author William Joseph Roberts let me know about an anthology being put together for a charitable cause. The Impossible Hope anthology came together as a means of promoting and supporting the medical GoFundMe for Bonnie Oliver, who’s suffering from a number of issues that require specialized treatment. This anthology is available in digital format to any who donate to the GoFundMe, and will also be available in a physical release sometime soon. Please consider supporting the GoFundMe, or at least spreading the word by sharing links and posting about it. Prayers and well-wishes are needed and appreciated, as well.

The theme of Impossible Hope was inspirational stories, stories that people could take hope from. There was no genre limitation, so the stories ran the gambit from nonfiction to fiction, literary to speculative. Since I can’t help but write speculative fiction, my story “Blue Pearls” was a modern-day / near-future fantasy about a deep dive worker operating out of Ago Bay in the part of Japan where they have a lot of pearl beds.

During his short tenure there my protagonist has managed to befriend a mermaid, who brings him a gift of pearls. But, before he can take the offered gift, disaster strikes. If they’re going to survive, they’ll have to work together. It’s a short piece, a little longer than what some would consider flash fiction (1,000 words or less) but not by much. In its original form a few years ago, it was short-listed for Flash Fiction Online, but ultimately didn’t make the cut for a variety of reasons, one of them being the sheer amount of grammar and spelling issues I hadn’t noticed in my muse-fueled haze of drafting and editing. The other issues with it required me to expand the story into the form you will find in the anthology. I’m happy with how it turned out, including the ending that’s a little open-ended. Depending on if you’re a glass half-full or half-empty kind of person, it’ll have a different result.

Yesterday, a few of us got together on a podcast hosted by Ben Wheeler and April Freeman, to talk about our stories and what inspired us to write them and to contribute to the anthology. It’s about 43 minutes, and was a lot of fun:

In the anthology, you will find the following stories by the following authors:

Do Something – Logan Lewis

Battle Buddy – Tom Rogneby

Queen’s Gambit – David Freiberg

Glastonbury Abbey – Josh Griffing

Four Funerals and a Wedding – L. Jagi Lamplighter

A Random World of Delta Capricorni – John C Wright

Shoulders of Giants – Dave Higgins

Sir Ronan and the Smooth Road – Frank Luke

Buddy – William Joseph Roberts

Bullies and Soggy Soup Bones – Woelf Dietrich

Battle Within – Musaab Sultan

Take My Breath Away – Sam M. Phillips

Ghosts of Camlan Hill – Ben Wheeler

Moulin Rouge’s Last Secret – Denton Salle

Life on the Fringe – B. Michael Stevens

Blue Pearls – Benjamin Tyler Smith

The Other Side – Heather Hood

Invisible Battles – R.J. Ladon

With Royal Beauty Bright – Nicholas Arkison

The Switchman’s lantern – James Pyles

The Hardest Part Isn’t Waiting for Word

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It’s the waiting that follows after you receive word.

Currently I have five short stories hanging out in limbo. A couple are on their first submission, while others have been steadily making the rounds to this magazine or that anthology. One of the recently written ones I’m particularly anxious about, as I think it’s a good fit for the anthology I submitted it to. But, I’m sure it’s up against others that are equally good, if not better. So, we shall see.

It’s easy to get something written, fire it off, and then just sit on your laurels, twiddling your thumbs and waiting for word when you really should be working on the next story to submit, and then the next. Yet, in the past I’ve fallen into that trap of getting so caught up with the act of submitting something that I don’t do anything else. I focus on my day job, I piddle away my writing time with reading or brainstorming, but no actual outlining or writing. No real forward momentum at all.

I thought I had broken that habit a few years ago, and then I wrote a piece and submitted it to a big publisher for an anthology. A few months after that I received word that the publisher was very interested in the story and they were holding it for consideration. I thought, “Oh, wow, this is it!” And even though they said it would be some time before they would get back to me, I settled in and decided to wait.

And wait. And wait.

After a few months I realized it was going to be a bit longer than I had originally anticipated, so I arose from my stupor and stumbled back to the writer’s desk, but that eagerness still clung to me like a limpet mine from a VUX Intruder in Star Control 2. I spent more time brainstorming sequel ideas for an as-yet homeless story, and a way to expand that short story into a full length novel, or at least an episode in a greater work. And none of those are bad things in and of themselves, but I let it… if not paralyze me, then at least slow me down and keep me from doing the things that really mattered. Namely, writing new stories.

Maybe you don’t have this problem. Maybe you get something written, polish it up a little bit, then fire it off and get on to the next work. That’s the better way to be. That’s the way I strive for daily. It’s very easy for me to get dragged down by whatever is going on during a given day, and waiting with bated breath for word on a story I have out there is one such temptation. I’ve gotten better about letting the anticipation spur me on to write more, but it’s still a struggle.

(Oh, if anyone is interested in Star Control 2, there are two ways to go about getting it: from GOG.com or the freeware remake The Ur-Quan Masters. Of the two, I’d recommend the second, and not because it’s free (The game is definitely worth the low price of $5.99 for admission, if you’re into space exploration, an epic good-vs-evil-vs-eviller battle, and you love a lot of humor). The freeware remake includes the voice-over that came with the game’s 3DO release back in the day, and for the most part it’s quite good. It helps with the immersion. But, I’ve played it multiples times either way, so you can’t go wrong no matter which you pick.)

Black Library Open Submissions

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Love Warhammer 40000? Love to write? Why not combine the two?

Nevermind Valentine’s Day. Let’s talk about first loves with books. I first fell in love with Warhammer 40000 way back in 2008, when Borders was still around. There was one right next to the office I worked in, and I’d spend more lunch breaks than I care to admit in the bookstore, browsing and trying to figure out what to read on my commute back home. I’m normally into fantasy, so you’d think my first foray would be a rousing, sword-slinging tale of Sigmar’s Empire and its eternal fight against Chaos, but no. The first one I picked up was the first Gaunt’s Ghosts Omnibus, “The Founding” by Dan Abnett. I burned through the first few chapters in my short lunch break, then bought it and spent the next several days reading it to and from work. Then I grabbed the next one, then it was on to the more recent ones that hadn’t been combined yet, and so on until I’d read them all and needed more Warhammer. At that point I didn’t care if it was fantasy or sci-fi; I just wanted more Warhammer.

That’s a really long lead-in to the subject of tonight’s post: the Black Library (Publisher of Warhammer fiction) is doing another open submissions period where they seek short story proposals from new authors. Back when I first started reading and submitting it was done more like a short story contest, where you’d be given some sort of premise, you’d submit, and there would be winners and honorable mentions. Now it’s done more like a magazine submission period, except you don’t need to submit the full story. In fact, they don’t want that. They want a brief synopsis (100 words or less) of what the story is about without giving away the ending, and a sample scene of no more than 500 words. Think of the synopsis as more of a back-cover blurb for a book, with a sentence or two of introduction, another sentence or two for the main character and his goal for the story, and then another sentence that presents a complication (But then…) with maybe a final sentence that asks a question (Will they…?). Take a look at all of the synopses on the Black Library’s website and you’ll see what I mean. The deadline is April 10th, 2018, so get to work! It’ll be here before we know it.

Following is a list of some of my favorite Warhammer and Warhammer 40000 books, with links to them on Amazon. Please note that all of these links are through my affiliate account, so any purchases made through that link will generate a little bit of advertising revenue for the maintenance of this site at no extra cost to you. It is appreciated! Now, enough of the legalese and on to the list:

A Whirlwind of Stories – 09/30/17

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Man, yesterday was a crazy day. I had to finish my touch-up edits on two new short stories, and then go back over a couple of older tales. All four had to be sent off by the end of September 30th, and with company over both in the morning and in the afternoon, that made for a tight schedule. My fault for letting the month slip away from me (My earlier post about PUBG is pretty damning, I know), but I think it all worked out in the end.

The first tale is “Necromotion” and in it a necromancer boards a root train in order to bring an undead client out of hostile elven lands. What is a root train, you ask? Well, it could be a glorified turnip truck, or it could be something completely different. I submitted that to the Fantastic Trains anthology, so if it makes it there you will find out! Well, regardless of where it lands, it will eventually be published. Either out there, or here. This story is part of a larger group of tales, some of which have already found publication. It is part humor, part mystery, part action, and all snark from the first person protagonist.

The second is “Divine Rescue” and it is set in the Ruma: Dawn of an Empire pen-and-paper game universe. Ruma is an alternate, fantasy version of Roman times where the Greek and Roman gods walk the earth and magic reigns supreme across the land. In my tale, a group of heroes enter a blasted wasteland in order to rescue someone left behind at the fall of Mount Olympus. This is a straight-up action tale, as heroism is the name of the game in this world.

The third is “The Sky has Fallen!” and it is a Cthulhu Mythos take on the old Chicken Licken/Little story featuring Foxy Loxy as the unfortunate protagonist. I wrote it years back and have recently gone through it again now that I have a slightly better idea on story structure and pacing, so I hope it has new legs and wings. Kathy Steinemann’s The Writer’s Lexicon really helped out with this one, and the other one.

The final one I will not name, as the place I’ve submitted it to prefers to keep things anonymous so as to facilitate blind judging. I will say it is a resubmission to the same place. The first was bounced back – I think – because of formatting errors due to my switching between OpenOffice and Microsoft Office. The original file got screwed up somehow and I had to end up dumping the story into a plain text file, then copy it back over into Microsoft Office and go back through to format paragraphs and other things in order to get it all right again. I also altered the beginning a bit in order to get into the action a little quicker, so I hope it will do well. Once again, the Writer’s Lexicon helped immensely with this tale. I will be writing a review of that pretty soon.

 

The first tale is a Necrolopolis short story titled “Necromotion” and in it

The more I work at this whole self-employed thing, the more I realize you need to be a master of your schedule. Without discipline, things can fall apart quickly. At the least, they can get tossed by the wayside and then you scramble to catch up.

WIPika Fridays: What Draft Is This Again?

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Another week, another bit of productivity.

First on the block is the editing for “The Lone Blue Strand” for Fictionvale. I received the edits on Sunday night, and have spent an hour or so every day this week working on it. There’s still a little bit left to do tomorrow, but for all intents and purposes it’s finished. I’ll send it off tomorrow morning and wait for the second round of edits to come back my way.

Second accomplishment has been the short story codenamed “Evaporated Ocean.” It’s actually a rewrite of a short story I wrote back in 2012 that didn’t go anywhere with publishers. Looking back on it, I understand why: it’s unreadable! There are aspects of it that are neat (Such as the setting), but the characterization and plot were blah. Not coherent in any way, shape, or form. The core setting is largely the same, but the characters and plot have been changed almost completely. I’ve completed three outlines of it, and have started on what could be the second/third draft of it. I plan to finish that tomorrow, and then Sunday work on heavy edits for it.

First line from it:

Jisan paced along the dry ocean floor.

The name of the story will have nothing to do with evaporated anything, so I hope the idea of the ocean floor being anything other than wet will stand out to readers and make them want to continue on. I try to start my stories either with a conflict, or with a strange premise that grabs them. Don’t know that I succeed at it, but I know I’m a lot better than I used to be.

That’s something I should post up one day. A list of story first lines, from my earliest works to now. Should be amusing for somebody, at least.

The novel outlining has had its ups and downs this week. I’ve completed more than I probably would have had I not been on any sort of schedule, but I’ve officially gotten behind. I don’t know that I’ll be able to make up any time Saturday, but Sunday I will have to put my nose to the grindstone and get caught up. Even if it takes all afternoon and evening, it’ll have to get done! Fortunately we have leftover pizza that we made last week, so dinner’s sorted.

Where reading’s concerned, I’m also behind. I had hoped to finish with Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson before the weekend, but that’s just not happening. Same goes with Writing the Blockbuster Novel by Albert Zuckerman. I want to take my time with them and really read them, so it’s taking longer than expected. Alas.

Still, not bad for the second full week of adjusting to a new writing schedule. I need to hold onto this level of productivity, and ratchet it up. As long as I don’t slide backward, it’s all good from here.

Drafty Wednesdays: A Look at “Snowmelt”

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Yes, I still haven’t come up with a working title for this viking-esque romp. I’m not fully finished with the story yet, so that’s probably why. Sometimes story titles refuse to come to me until I’m ready to push it out the door. Not sure if that’s laziness on my part or if I’m just bad at naming things. Either way, here we are.

I’m deviating from the (currently) established norm and will not show the opening scene to the story. Instead, I want to illustrate how well a fight scene can turn out once it’s gone from crappy rough draft to less crappy second draft to hopefully brilliant (At the very least, passable) final draft.

In this fight scene, Ylva (the protagonist) is facing off against Randolf, a subordinate challenging one of her decisions to the point of questioning her leadership entirely. She is an experienced shieldmaiden and has only just recently been made jarl of her town, following the death of her father. A more established jarl could get away with not accepting a challenge, but not in her case. So, the duel goes on.

This is my first time writing a fight scene since reading the book Writing Fight Scenes. In it, Rayne Hall breaks fights/battles/scuffles/violent action into six main areas:

  • Suspense – the proverbial calm before the storm.
  • Start – what it says. The opening blows, the opponents sizing each other up, etc.
  • Action – the fight begins in earnest.
  • Surprise – optional depending on type of fight, but adds depth. Could be anything from a sword shattering to a monsoon occurring.
  • Climax – the final, decisive moves.
  • Aftermath – the winner dusts himself off, spouts a noir-worthy one-liner, and heads off for the next big hurrah.

I would love to show the whole fight here, as its final version is no more than 820 words from the very beginning of the Suspense phase (Even a bit before it, really) to the part where the victory has to choose whether to slay the defeated or not. But, since I’m going to be shopping this around to some professional magazines, I’d rather not shoot myself in the literary foot for revealing too much. Instead, the Start, Action and Surprise phases will be shown.

Rough Draft:

Start:

They circled one another, each holding their shields close, but with the rims facing their opponent. She had learned from her father long ago to do it

Fight:

Randolf struck first, his axe head whistling through the air. Ylva stepped back. He swung again, too fast to dodge. She caught it on her shield. The blow reverberated up her arm. She hissed, and thrust with her sword, inside his shield guard. He jumped back. She pursued.

She pushed him back with a flurry of well-placed blows. She aimed at his thighs, his abdomen, his weapon hand. He dodged or caught the strikes on his shield. They approached the challenge ring’s edge. The crowd roared.

Randolf growled, and struck with his axe. Gods, he was fast. She blocked one blow, and then another.

Surprise:

A third strike connected. Her shield split, the axe blade held fast in the wood.

“Not even the Kraken could break that!” someone yelled.

A flash of anger ran through Ylva. Her father had given her this shield! She twisted and wrenched the axe from Randolf’s grip. She threw shield and weapon away.

Badly written, right? Well, that’s what rough drafts are for. Too much information (Does it really matter exactly how they’re holding their shields? They’re holding them. The reader can imagine it how they like), too many passive verbs (Was/Were). It’s also a bit lacking for a fight between individuals who are well-matched against one another, one with strength (Randolf) and the other with experience (Ylva). There’s also not much in the way of emotion on either’s part.

But, the basic structure is there. Let’s see what we can do to make it a bit better:

Second Draft:

Suspense:

They retreated a couple of steps, and then circled one another. Ylva kept her feet close to the ground, her boots clinging to the hard-packed dirt until she needed to move them. The crowd kept silent. No one wanted to miss the first strike.

Action:

Despite his earlier confidence, Randolf moved in cautiously. Ylva took advantage of his hesitance and slashed at his axe-hand. He jerked away and deflected her blade with the rim of his shield. He raised his axe to strike her, but stabbed just as he opened his guard. The point tore through his shirt and cut his chest. He grunted.

“First blood to the Jarl!” Tyr shouted, his voice almost lost over the screaming crowd.

Ylva tried to press her advantage, but Randolf counterattacked. The veins in his neck and head stood out as he advanced. His axe rose and fell in a flurry of blows. Ylva dodged some, but blocked others with her shield. The repeated impacts reverberated up her arm. Her shoulder grew numb.

Surprise:

Randolf swung again. Ylva raised her shield. Woodchips sprayed. He tried to jerk the blade free, but it held fast. She wrenched the shield back. The axe came with it. She flung shield and weapon away.

In this version another character, Tyr, is introduced. He’s basically the town priest and the one who oversees such challenges to the jarl’s authority. In this instance he’s part referee, part announcer.

So, it’s gotten better, even if not by much. There’s a definite build-up of action, and passive verbs have taken their peace-loving hippy ways elsewhere. While they’re all right in other scenes, they won’t do in action scenes. Or, I should say they’ll rarely do. There are few absolutes in writing, after all.

Now, for this last one – the final draft as of now – I’ll show just a bit more of the surprise phase. I decided on having two surprises during this fight: one where Ylva seems to gain the upper hand, one where Randolf seems to take the advantage back. It finishes in a brutal climax shortly after, but hopefully it’ll make it somewhere so everyone can read it.

Final Draft:

Start:

Ylva and Randolf circled one another. She kept her feet close to the hard-packed dirt. He made wide steps, as if to remind her of their difference in size. The crowd kept silent. No one wanted to miss the first strike.

Action:

Randolf lunged forward. Ylva danced back. He struck again. The axe glanced off her shield. She slashed at his exposed arm. He twisted away and deflected her sword with the rim of his shield.

He raised his axe. His shield shifted slightly. She stabbed into that sudden gap. Her blade tore through his shirt and pricked his chest. He grunted. Blood stained the ripped cloth.

“First blood to the Jarl!” Tyr shouted. The townsmen cheered.

A line of crimson ran down the length of Ylva’s sword. Her dagger had looked the same that day. Her chest constricted. Hot guilt burned through her. She couldn’t let it touch her. Not again. She flicked the accursed liquid away with a wild swing.

Light flashed overhead. Panic seized her. Sindri’s knife? No, Randolf’s axe!

She snapped her shield up. His heavy blade slammed into scarred wood. The impact reverberated up her arm. Her shoulder ached.

The veins in Randolf’s neck and head stood out as he advanced. His axe rose and fell in a flurry of blows. Ylva’s arm went numb. She gasped for breath. Gods, he’s fast!

Surprise:

He swung again. The axe bit into her raised shield. Woodchips sprayed, and the blade held fast when he tried to jerk it free. Her shoulder screamed in protest. With a cry, she wrenched the shield back. The axe flew out of his hands. She flung both away.

The roar in her ears drowned out the roar of the crowd. She rotated her left shoulder to work the numbness out.

Even unarmed, Randolf continued to advance. She stabbed and slashed. He dodged and blocked with his shield. Her sword went wide.

He stepped inside her guard. His fist connected. Pain exploded in her jaw. She staggered back.

Randolf slammed into Ylva. His weight bore them both down. She landed hard on her back. Her sword skittered across the dirt. She reached for her dagger.

He pressed against her flesh and pinned her left hand to her side. His arm pushed against her throat. She struggled for air that would not come. He leered down at her.

Ylva’s right hand scrabbled through the dirt for something, anything. Her vision blurred, and darkened at the corners. Fear jolted through her.

Ok, so part of that last bit is the beginning of the climax phase. But, I figured that last sentence was the best place to stop. The most dramatic place, in any event. Our heroine is seemingly down for the count. How is she going to defeat him? What’s for dinner that night? Oh, wait, that last one doesn’t get covered here. Sorry. (That’s what I get for writing blog posts before dinner)

It was during this draft that I really tried adhering to the 6-part structure, and I think it’s turned out ten times better than the previous iterations because of it. Is it good enough to sell to someone? Well, I’d like to think so. But, I know more work can be done on it. More work can always be done.

Oh, if you’re wondering what the “Sindri’s knife?” line is about, Ylva is suffering from a little bit of PTSD from the last battle she was in. I won’t say more, but there are instances of this scattered throughout the short story, reminders for her of a recent event that she is ashamed and horrified of.Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this foray into fight scenes. At the very least, seeing how horrible my earlier drafts are should encourage anyone to get a rough draft out. Even if you think it’s terrible, realize this: it’s terrible for most of us! Get through it, and get to the editing. Editing is where the real writing begins. It’s where the magic happens.

So, there you have it. My first attempt at writing a fight scene in 2015. Did Rayne Hall’s book help me? I think so. I’ve always loved writing fight scenes, but I don’t think I fully understood how to account for the build-up of action and the general ebb and flow of chaotic situations. But, I’ll have more experience in a short while. I’m currently outlining a book that will have several fights in it. I expect I’ll showcase more of them here.

Hurray, more exposure for my crappy first drafts!

WIPika Fridays: Novels and Shorts, Oh Me, Oh My

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Today is the first full week of 2015, and it’s been a fairly productive one.

As of this afternoon two and a half drafts of a fantasy short story have been finished. The story is, at the moment, called “Snowmelt” (Or “Viking Irrigation”) and is consistently coming in at around 3,000 – 4,000 words or so. Not sure what the final count will be, but I doubt it will be much larger than 4,500 words. I may even be able to shave some out of it.

So, what is the story about? Well, it’s set in the Wendigo universe, and follows a 15 year old shieldmaiden who has just been field-promoted to Jarl (Lord) of her land after her father was killed prior to the story’s beginning. She has also survived an assassination attempt by her uncle and his illegitimate son. Men loyal to her killed her Uncle, but she had to personally take down her cousin. They grew up together, and his death traumatized her.

So, how do you salve this hurt in her soul? Well, if we want to be nice to the character we spend the whole story putting her in situations where she can cope, grieve, and recover. But, we’re not going to do that.

Instead, she’s thrown right into the fire. The first place she visits in the story is the farm that her cousin owned, to break the news to his widow.

The following is from the third draft, so it’s subject to change. Also, the names are placeholders at the moment:

Blood pooled on the blackwood tabletop. Ayla raised the wet knife. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t kill you.”

Ylva sat stock-still, her hands pressed to her sides. She kept her voice level, matter-of-fact. “I am your next of kin, and your Jarl.”

Ayla snorted.

“And you don’t want your children raised by the woman who bereft them of father and mother.” Ylva’s hand strayed to her side and touched the hilt of her misericorde, the mercy dagger. The weapon she had killed her own cousin with.

Ayla’s eyes narrowed and her fair face flushed. She slammed the knife down. Its keen edge bit into the cut of goat meat.

Ylva kept her features smooth, but her insides roiled with nauseating guilt. Ayla, how can you ever forgive me?

Ayla sawed at the meat. “How did Sindri die?”

In other news, progress is being made on the Wendigo novel front. It will not feature any of the characters in this particular short story, except indirectly. It will be focused on the happenings of the mainland continent to the east of where this story takes place. No actual draft writing was accomplished, nor will it be until February. But, the outline is progressing very smoothly. The goal is to finish it by January 31st, but I would love to get it done beforehand, if possible.

Drafty Wednesdays: A Look at “Hero Defeats Ultimate Evil!”

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The first Drafty Wednesday of 2015 is a short one, because we’ll be looking at a flash fiction piece I spent the last week working on: “Hero Defeats Ultimate Evil!”

Maoyu_coverThe story began as an idea taken from the concept behind the book series and anime Maoyu. Unfortunately I have not read the books, but I have seen the anime and can comment on it. The anime is basically a good versus evil tale, but with the twist that the Hero and the evil Demon King end up working together to break the never-ending cycle of war and create a better world for all. In it the main characters have no names, instead being referred to by their class: Hero, Demon King, Rogue, Merchant, etc. The idea, as I understand it, is to show them as the archetypes that they are.

I thought of doing something similar with a flash fiction piece, though probably not nearly as ambitious. I grew up playing RPGs on the SNES and later the Genesis, and the running theme through nearly all of them was the defeat of some kind of ultimate evil. And in most cases the evil was something that had either been sealed away in ages past and was now running rampant, or it was now running rampant and the solution was for the heroes (i.e. you and your controller) to seal the evil away “for all time” or whenever the sequel could be made.

This gave rise to the full title of today’s story: “Hero Defeats Ultimate Evil! Seals away for future generations to deal with.”

Seriously, why not just kill it and be done with it? Maybe I’m just not as pure and good as the good guys in these stories and RPGs must be, or maybe I’m just a coward. If a bad guy’s facing me down with the intent to kill me or mine, then I want him dead. That way he can’t come back and finish the job later.

Anyway, as you can tell from the title this isn’t going to be your typical POV kind of story. The title, I hope, reads like a newspaper article. That was the idea of it in the beginning, anyway. This would be the journalist’s view of what occurs in many RPGs: the defeat and sealing away of a great evil, and what it means for those involved.

The rough draft of it was, as you would imagine by seeing, fairly rough. I really had no idea how news articles like this would have been written, nor did I care. I had a spark for the idea and wanted to get it down on paper. And I did, in a half hour or so. It’s amazing how quickly an idea can be written out once it’s rattled around in my head for a long enough time. The original draft was around 704 words and broken out into 15 paragraphs. Here is the first few paragraphs of it:

Hero Defeats Ultimate Evil

Seals away for future generations to deal with.

Reporter seeks bards to put epic story to music.

After a cataclysmic battle lasting three days and two nights (“Even heroes need to sleep,” Paladin was overheard saying after sprinkling holy water on her pajamas) the Hero’s Party has done the impossible. The Ultimate Evil is vanquished, its body broken and sent to the depths of a newly formed lake at the base of Mount Doom. It is not quite dead, but it has been sealed away.

“It will be many generations before the Ultimate Evil rises again,” Mage said. The gemstone on the end of her staff smoked from the amount of magical energy expended to carry out the world-saving deed. She wiped sweat from her dirty brow and pointed to the still-churning waters. “The lake will settle, but it will stir once more. Have no doubt of that.”

Reads pretty crappily, right? Well, for someone who doesn’t know the story at all, anyway. Who’s Paladin? And who is Mage? It becomes apparent that they’re members of a group called the Hero’s Party, but that’s not explained all that well in the beginning. It made sense to me, but I’m the writer. It hopefully makes sense to the guy behind the wheel.

After this I started reading up on wartime news articles, specifically the BBC’s stuff from World War II. I came up with a better idea of how a news article should be formed. Namely:

  1. Start with the punch line, the gist of the story. The title of the article already says it all, whether it’s “Hero Defeats Ultimate Evil” or “Normandy Invasion a Success.” Following that and maybe a subheadline, the first paragraph should say the most important thing that happened.
  2. The next two or three paragraphs expand on this punch line, going into a little bit more detail about what happened, what it means, or maybe what important figures or leaders have to say about it. A quote by a general, or something an eyewitness saw. Something that brings it all home.
  3. The meat of the story, or what I like to call, “Back to the beginning.” Here we go to the start of it all. The operation’s launch-point. We then work our way forward until we reach the aforementioned climax again and lay it out in more detail than the summary at the first of the article.
  4. The conclusion. Here the article pauses to reflect on the significance of the event, or to mention other things that were happening at the same moment elsewhere, or some such bit of reflective work.

Armed with this, I looked back over my work and came up with a much longer second draft. 1,274 words, and 32 paragraphs. Here’s the first bit of that:

Hero Defeats Ultimate Evil

Seals away for future generations to deal with.

After seven years of terror, the world is finally free from the clutches of the Ultimate Evil!

In a cataclysmic battle that sundered a mountain range, changed the course of two rivers, and left the magical city of Tarsis a smoldering crater, the elite members of the Hero’s Party (HP) have finally completed the impossible task placed upon them. The Ultimate Evil (UE) is vanquished, sealed away inside a newly formed lake filled with holy water.

UE struck the first blow in a horrific display of its tremendous power. A gigantic spell circle appeared in the skies over Tarsis, and moments later the earth opened up and swallowed whole sections of the city. The intent was to kill everyone in HP, but they had already left the soon-to-be destroyed city.

Better, but still not where I want to be at. We’re jumping into the meat of the story (“UE struck the first blow…”) too soon. Also, it’s a bit long for what is supposed to be a tongue-in-cheek story. I doubt I’ll keep the reader’s interest for much more than 1,000 words, so going nearly 300 over that is a bad move.

More revision followed. This time I analyzed several articles and tried to come up with ratios for the punchline summary, the meat of the article, and the conclusion. After going through several wartime articles I came up with a rough formula:

  • Punchline summary – 10-15% of the article. The fewest paragraphs I saw were three, and the most were five.
  • Meat of the story – 65-80% of the article. Obviously the bulk of it, as it is here we’re going into the most detail about things.
  • Conclusion – 10-20%. If the ramifications of the event are huge or some famous person makes a commentary about things, this will end up being longer. At other times it’s only going to be a few words or so. Still, the shortest I saw this section was around two paragraphs. The most was five, depending on how long the overall article was.

Now we’re talking. This is quite a bit of work for a simple short story, right? Sadly, this inefficiency spills over into my longer works, which explains why it’ll take me upwards of 10,000 words to write a 4,000 word story sometimes. Sad, but true!

Ok, here’s the final revision, the version I submitted to:

Hero Defeats Ultimate Evil!

Subheadline: Seals away for future generations to deal with.

After seven years of terror, the world is finally free from the clutches of the Ultimate Evil!

In a cataclysmic battle that sundered Mount Dour Doom, changed the course of two underground rivers, and left the magical city of Dilirin a smoldering crater, the elite men and women of the Hero’s Party (HP) have done the impossible:

The Ultimate Evil (UE) is vanquished, sealed away inside a newly formed lake blessed by Paladin and Priest.

Paladin struck her breastplate in salute. “The Gods are with us! Failure was never a possibility.”

Priest dropped to his knees and prayed for those who had been lost.

Earlier this week HP gathered in Dilirin to receive a magical talisman that would help in the fight against UE.

So, the title and first line of the story has not changed at all from the get-go. I only added “subheadline” so that a first reader/editor will be able to note that it’s not the real beginning of the story, but rather an extension of the title. Probably not necessary, but I’m quirky like that.

Here we have the punchline summary done in five short paragraphs, beginning with the declaration that the world is finally free from the clutches of the Ultimate Evil, a brief summary of the battle and the damage wrought, and quotes or actions from two members of the Hero’s Party (This time properly introduced). We then begin the meat of the story with “Earlier this week…” and the story proceeds from there to its ultimate full-circle conclusion.

It reads more like a wartime article than it ever has, and I feel like it’s now something I could do should I decide to write any more stories in this format. Will I? Not sure. Depends on how well this one does, as well as what else strikes my fancy. My writing tends more on the traditional sword and sorcery side, but I do like experimenting with new styles and different genres and subgenres. So, we shall see!

As for the final version of the story? I was able to trim it down to right at 1,000 words. How’s that for a rubberband effect? Went from 700 to 1,300 back down to 1,000. If I’d written another draft it might’ve ballooned again! Glad I got it fired off.

WIPika Fridays: WOTF Entry, Second Draft

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Another week down, but not as much to show for it as I would like. Christmas seems to be a multi-day affair in my wife’s family, and even though it happens every year I never fully prepare for it.

Despite that, most of the second draft of my Writers of the Future entry is finished. Spent last weekend and the early part of the week going back through the rough draft, transcribing it onto the computer, and taking down notes. I usually write the second draft on the computer, but I’m trying to do it by hand again to see what happens. This I’ll then transcribe, and begin work on the third draft.

I’m no longer confident that I will have this draft in a place where I’m comfortable to submit it to something as prestigious as the Writers of the Future, though. We’ll see what happens between now and New Year’s Eve, but I’m thinking it’s going to have to wait until the next quarter. If that’s the case, I plan to still get it finished within the next week or so. I don’t want to keep going back and forth on the story, because it will slow me down going into 2015. And I’ve got some big plans for 2015. More on that next week.

For now, back to writing! Still have a couple of scenes to finish.

WIPika Fridays: “Refocusing” and WOTF Entry

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This week was fairly light with regards to actually finishing stories. “Refocusing” is a flash fiction piece that’s stuck with me for awhile. And, if you read this week’s “Drafty Wednesdays” post you’ll have read the opening paragraphs of the story. It’s currently floating out in the submissions aether, looking for bites from first readers and editors. Will it succeed? Maybe, maybe not. The point is it’s out there. In the worst case, it will wind up on here sometime during 2015 as a lead-in to the Soulweaver Universe. An older version of the main character of “Refocusing” is going to be a supporting character in at least the first book, but I expect there will be more stories focusing on her as a child in the future.

I’ve also made good progress on my Writers of the Future entry for the first quarter of 2015. The rough draft is done! I wish I could post up even a tiny excerpt of it or what it’s about, but they are pretty strict about maintaining anonymity for entries. I won’t be able to post anything about it until after the quarter ends.

Suffice it to say, next week will be busy, especially with Christmas coming up. Not sure how much will get done, but we’ll see.