Another excellent Masterclass instructor. I would say the best so far, but I think that I am going to say that a lot with MasterClass. I signed up in November with the intention of just doing this for a year, but I often say to Steve when we finish a class, “You know, these are…
Month: May 2020
Lessons Learned: Reading
I read a lot these days. Last year was almost entirely books of short stories and books on writing or publishing. This year I’m transitioning to novels, but I find myself drawn to a different sort of novel than I have been in the past. I’m a lot less picky about genre and a lot…
Lessons Learned: Dare to Be Bad
I’ve tried to front-load the most important lessons learned that allowed me to write a short story a week. After learning what the parts of a basic short story is (see the 7 Point Plot Structure in earlier blog posts) the next most important lesson was to set expectations. Writing a short story a week…
Lessons Learned: Climax and the End
This will be the last post on the 7 Point Plot Structure. I’ve taken my time laying out the lessons because it was critical to know how to write a short story before it became possible to write a short story in a week. The final two elements are the Climax and the Validation. I…
Lessons Learned: Traversing the Muddy Middle
More on the basics I learned to allow me to produce 52 stories in 52 weeks. I’m working my way through the 7 Point Plot Structure because without knowing that, I couldn’t write a single story in a week. It took me weeks and weeks of trial and failure to get a single working story…
Lessons Learned: What’s the Problem?
I’m still discussing the basics I learned that made finishing a short story a week for 52 weeks possible. As a reminder, the 7 Point Formula for Fiction begins with a Character in a Setting with a Problem. Without a problem there is no story. It sounds simple. Just give the character a problem, the…
Lessons Learned: Character, Setting, and Depth
When I first saw the 7 point plot outline my eyes slid over “A character, in a setting, with a problem.” Duh! Right? It turned out that some of my greatest problems were in the character and the setting. I failed to imbue them with what Dean Wesley Smith calls ‘Depth.’ I should have known…
Lessons Learned?
Last night I read through all of the emails I wrote to Dean to accompany each of the 52 stories. Dean said not to whine and I tried my best not to. So, most of them were just “Here’s the story, hope you enjoy it.” But sometimes I had terrible weeks trying to write a…
52 Stories in 52 Weeks – A Burst of Joy
Last night I completed and turned in the last story of the Great Challenge (write 52 stories in 52 weeks). I’m beside myself with happiness. Too happy, in fact, to write a lessons learned from it. That will have to wait until tomorrow. I’m also too tired and too excited to be sure I’ve acknowledged…