WRITING EXERCISES: PATRICIA ANN MCNAIR offers a strategy to bring structure to short stories: ‘When a student says they don’t have anything to write about, or when I get stumped myself, I know that it is not content we yearn for, it is structure…’
Author MARY O’DONNELL guides us through an excision of the exclamation mark in fiction: ‘So, how to perform what I call an Exclamectomy? For most of us, it’s actually a question of becoming more aware of the sound of things, and of the voice in which a phrase is uttered…’
WRITING EXERCISE: SHAUN LEVIN, creator of the Writing Maps guides for writers, looks at movement in short stories and how to check you’re getting enough: ‘Kafka manages, in a 181-word story, to include an account of: 1) what is happening, 2) questions regarding what might actually be happening, and 3) a mention of what had been happening before all that is happening started…’
‘The journey to the end of a story can be littered with plot holes, hold-ups, plans that need constant revision and, worst of all, a complete blockade. Enthusiasm will only get you so far…’ LYNDA NASH shares some valuable strategies to help overcome the dreaded writer’s block.
ALEX RUCZAJ explores the shapes and patterns of story writing: ‘In Kurt Vonnegut’s wonderful lecture on the shapes of stories, he draws curve after curve on his blackboard, showing the story arc – the ‘beautiful shapes’ that all traditional stories follow…’
LYNDA NASH guides us through a selection of exercises to battle those writing demons: ‘It’s difficult to write when your inner critic is telling you that your ideas are stupid, that you couldn’t string a decent sentence together to save your life, and that if you were a ‘proper writer’ you wouldn’t get blocked in the first place…’
WRITING EXERCISE: Writer and tutor EMMA STRONG suggests a way in which Twitter might revolutionise your writing day: ‘Does it provide us with a forum to share and discuss work, to give and receive feedback, or is Twitter just a narcissistic time-waster, best ignored?’
In ‘Read All About It’, ANNABELLE CARVELL walks us through the steps of a news story writing exercise that’s sure to get your fingers itching.
In The Sound of Music, Maria sings: ‘Let’s start at the very beginning. It’s a very good place to start.’ That might be the case if you’re an ex nun in the Swiss Alps but it doesn’t work so well in short story writing.
Author DOUG CRANDELL goes on a day trip and sets us a writing exercise.
