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mhelgens
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Joined: 16 Jul 2017
Location: Iowa
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Posted: 17 Jul 2017 at 1:33pm |
I wrote a 2400 word first draft and spent the next 8 hours cutting it to 998. đ Very painful to kill your darlings, but I think the story is still there.... Which makes me wonder what the hell I was talking about for the other 1400 words.... ? đ
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Read my R1 Story: LINK= https://forums.nycmidnight.com/topic51959_post550543.html#550543
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Archon1995
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Joined: 30 Jul 2015
Location: Roswell, GA
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Posted: 17 Jul 2017 at 1:55pm |
I stayed up for the prompts and had my story idea before I hit the sack. After a day and a half I couldn't in good conscience pare it down to the 1k limit. Too much setting info that had to be there or the reader would be lost.
So I wrote a completely new one starting 4:30pm Sunday. Geh.
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HeatherHaze
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Joined: 26 Jan 2010
Location: Earth
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Points: 175
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Posted: 17 Jul 2017 at 3:45pm |
Cowyoga wrote:
MattrickBT wrote:
No need to be testy, I'm always curious about the methods of other writers, that's all. I like to talk about the process with writers, not the work. I'm sure you'd find aspects of my approach equally puzzling.
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To be clear, I'm not testy or bothered by you even remotely. I'm used to you because you exist everywhere.
Since my process is both misguided and fascinating, I'll lay it out:
I start off by writing the story exactly as it comes to me. If writing a lengthy history of a creek that flows behind my protagonist's house is where it goes, I let it. When I sit down to write each day, I sometimes start with no idea at all. I start writing anyway and somewhere along the way, maybe in a detailed description of the slug damage on my hostas, I find the story. With a themed contest, I've done a bit more planning, but only a bit. I've spent part of a day thinking about the assignment and ruling out the obvious plots and cliches. I know who what where and when. When I start writing, I learn more. Maybe I learn in 942 words that the creek behind my protagonist's house was the same creek her father played in when he was a child. Maybe I learn that my protagonist lives in the kind of small town that still refers to a home as the old Mason place long after the last Mason has passed and the Meyers' have moved in. Maybe I learn that my protagonist walks to school along the creek instead of along the sidewalk because she thinks her dad is just swell and wants to be just like him. In my second draft, third draft, fourteenth draft, final draft? Yea most of that won't make it in. I'll cut that which needs cutting and put it in my graveyard. I won't feel bad for killing it, since nothing stays dead there for long (not unlike the cemetary that sits on the western bank of that creek, I might add.) Eventually, I'll pluck a cut scene or sentence about this now notorious creek and revive it somewhere new, somewhere that it has room to breathe and grow and then I'll give it entire chapters. I'll name the damn thing Sally's Creek and figure out who Sally is later.
Now, let's look at context. I'm not going to die editing this story (unless I'm so confused by revision and my own process, which surely no one would imply, that I don't even notice when that creek floods again and sweeps me away, extraneous details and all.) So with that knowledge, we can surmise that I was in no true peril when I shared that I'd written a 942 word backstory of the creek and would die in service of revising it. We can likely conclude, then, that it was a passing observation of my progress, shared in both jest and solidarity, on a post specifically about the challenges of the word count.
Any other questions will have to wait until tomorrow. I'm tired and now I have to figure out who this Sally is. Just let me know when you decide if you've made a powerful enemy or a hilarious new best friend.
Wanna know the real bitch of all this? My setting is a horse stable. You don't even want to know how many words that thing started off with. Whoo boy. |
That was epic. Please shut off the Internet. It doesn't get better than that.
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tcFlash
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Joined: 14 Aug 2014
Location: Michigan
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Points: 4844
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Posted: 17 Jul 2017 at 4:00pm |
Archon1995 wrote:
I stayed up for the prompts and had my story idea before I hit the sack. After a day and a half I couldn't in good conscience pare it down to the 1k limit. Too much setting info that had to be there or the reader would be lost.
So I wrote a completely new one starting 4:30pm Sunday. Geh. |
I should have done that a couple of years ago with a story I hacked down from 2200 to 1000. At the end it sort of looked like me in a pair of pants that are way too tight. You know, all the tight stretch lines? Not pretty. I should try to come up with a better comparison. For now, that ugly mental image will have to work.
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patsy
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Joined: 28 Aug 2011
Location: Ohio, USA
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Points: 4709
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Posted: 17 Jul 2017 at 4:19pm |
Cowyoga wrote:
I, for one, have to get back to writing the exquisite details of a stately old oak tree that personifies (somewhat inexplicably, but I'll make it work) the indignity of the standard gynecological exam. |
I just came from there. I'm not sure that indignity can be described - at least not to a male. ROTFL!
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Cowyoga
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Joined: 02 Feb 2017
Location: New Jersey
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Points: 274
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Posted: 17 Jul 2017 at 5:15pm |
ASharedNarrative wrote:
Cowyoga wrote:
I, for one, have to get back to writing the exquisite details of a stately old oak tree that personifies (somewhat inexplicably, but I'll make it work) the indignity of the standard gynecological exam. |
I must read this. Even if you cut it.
Save it and share it.
I must know.
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I did something for you. And I did it in second person future tense and gave everything two descriptions because I really wanted to be as pretentious and unnecessary as possible:
Others will find comfort in the old oak tree that sits in
the otherwise empty field on the northern shore of Sallyâs Creek, but you will
find it unsettling. Where they will see a certain stately beauty and comforting
familiarity that harks back to the tire swings and tree houses of their
youth, you will see some initially vague discomfort. It wonât be until later,
when the cloth of night has fallen and gifted you with the solitude and silence
youâd yearned for all day, that you will fit the pieces together: the deep cuts
in the bark, how raw and precise they were, like wounds that refused to heal in a million separate displays of defiance; the way the branches struck out, all
akimbo and unnatural angles; the way the others grabbed for any hold that might
help them seize access to heights to which they would always feel entitled; the
liberties they took with the hollows in the trunk as though the tree herself
were not a living thing, as though the tree were not home and hearth to so many
living things. You will sit there under the vast web of stars that, much like
you, will be at their most vibrant without the light of the city to dull them
while the picture unfolds before you. In the moment that you finally see it
clearly, after each piece has slid into place and the greater whole is revealed,
you will swear that you hear the tree gasp right along with you. Out there, to the air and to the sky and to
the creek and to the stars and to the tree herself, you will look up and you
will breathe out and you will say, âWomenâs healthcare is f**ked in this
country,â and the earth herself will agree.
<fin>
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ASharedNarrative
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Joined: 21 Jul 2016
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Points: 638
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Posted: 17 Jul 2017 at 5:22pm |
Cowyoga wrote:
ASharedNarrative wrote:
Cowyoga wrote:
I, for one, have to get back to writing the exquisite details of a stately old oak tree that personifies (somewhat inexplicably, but I'll make it work) the indignity of the standard gynecological exam. |
I must read this. Even if you cut it.
Save it and share it.
I must know.
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I did something for you. And I did it in second person future tense and gave everything two descriptions because I really wanted to be as pretentious and unnecessary as possible:
Others will find comfort in the old oak tree that sits in
the otherwise empty field on the northern shore of Sallyâs Creek, but you will
find it unsettling. Where they will see a certain stately beauty and comforting
familiarity that harks back to the tire swings and tree houses of their
youth, you will see some initially vague discomfort. It wonât be until later,
when the cloth of night has fallen and gifted you with the solitude and silence
youâd yearned for all day, that you will fit the pieces together: the deep cuts
in the bark, how raw and precise they were, like wounds that refused to heal in a million separate displays of defiance; the way the branches struck out, all
akimbo and unnatural angles; the way the others grabbed for any hold that might
help them seize access to heights to which they would always feel entitled; the
liberties they took with the hollows in the trunk as though the tree herself
were not a living thing, as though the tree were not home and hearth to so many
living things. You will sit there under the vast web of stars that, much like
you, will be at their most vibrant without the light of the city to dull them
while the picture unfolds before you. In the moment that you finally see it
clearly, after each piece has slid into place and the greater whole is revealed,
you will swear that you hear the tree gasp right along with you. Out there, to the air and to the sky and to
the creek and to the stars and to the tree herself, you will look up and you
will breathe out and you will say, âWomenâs healthcare is f**ked in this
country,â and the earth herself will agree.
<fin> |
Big damn hero?
Ain't you just.
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Hrafnkel
NYC Midnight Groupie
Joined: 26 Jul 2016
Location: Tucson, Arizona
Status: Offline
Points: 249
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Posted: 17 Jul 2017 at 5:39pm |
Cowyoga wrote:
ASharedNarrative wrote:
Cowyoga wrote:
I, for one, have to get back to writing the exquisite details of a stately old oak tree that personifies (somewhat inexplicably, but I'll make it work) the indignity of the standard gynecological exam. |
I must read this. Even if you cut it.
Save it and share it.
I must know.
|
I did something for you. And I did it in second person future tense and gave everything two descriptions because I really wanted to be as pretentious and unnecessary as possible:
Others will find comfort in the old oak tree that sits in
the otherwise empty field on the northern shore of Sallyâs Creek, but you will
find it unsettling. Where they will see a certain stately beauty and comforting
familiarity that harks back to the tire swings and tree houses of their
youth, you will see some initially vague discomfort. It wonât be until later,
when the cloth of night has fallen and gifted you with the solitude and silence
youâd yearned for all day, that you will fit the pieces together: the deep cuts
in the bark, how raw and precise they were, like wounds that refused to heal in a million separate displays of defiance; the way the branches struck out, all
akimbo and unnatural angles; the way the others grabbed for any hold that might
help them seize access to heights to which they would always feel entitled; the
liberties they took with the hollows in the trunk as though the tree herself
were not a living thing, as though the tree were not home and hearth to so many
living things. You will sit there under the vast web of stars that, much like
you, will be at their most vibrant without the light of the city to dull them
while the picture unfolds before you. In the moment that you finally see it
clearly, after each piece has slid into place and the greater whole is revealed,
you will swear that you hear the tree gasp right along with you. Out there, to the air and to the sky and to
the creek and to the stars and to the tree herself, you will look up and you
will breathe out and you will say, âWomenâs healthcare is f**ked in this
country,â and the earth herself will agree.
<fin> |
Congratulations on having written your first Terrence Malick film, in miniature, with a punchline.
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2016 FFC, 6th Place Overall 2019 MFC, Ch1 G28 The Favor
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roccapia
NYC Midnight Addict
Joined: 21 Mar 2017
Location: Poulsbo, WA
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Posted: 17 Jul 2017 at 5:44pm |
cbb, you sound like me. While most others have a problem culling down their word count, I have a problem making the word count. I got up to 986 on this round and never busted 1000. I'm a novelist mostly, and don't write short stories much, but I entered the short story competition and had the same issue, trying to make my stories long enough. I got up to Round 3 in that competition, so was proud of what I did, and I'm enjoying this competition because the word count is even shorter. Of course, my novels are usually pretty short too.
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MattrickBT
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Posted: 17 Jul 2017 at 6:01pm |
ASharedNarrative wrote:
MattrickBT wrote:
Why would a creek ever need a backstory? It's a creek.
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You need to read more French lit.
Hugo alone will bury you in geography and architecture that have backstories long enough to be their own novels.
And you will either find it very rich and rewarding, like one of those sundaes that are made from six kinds of chocolate that you can only take a few bites at a time from, because of its richness...
...or you're absolutely going to hate it.
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Different times, different styles. I am sure a lot of that was fairly historically accurate as well. To me there is a difference between exploring actual history and locations, and creating arbitrary history.
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