A New Short Story Form

~ susanoleksiw ~ Leave a comment

Annual meetings of library associations are always a fun way to meet librarians from your state or region, and my local chapter of Sisters in Crime (New England chapter) signs up for every one of them in our area. We make new contacts and catch up with colleagues, and I always learn something. 

I make a point of wandering the exhibitors’ room to find out how libraries are changing and what’s new in how things are done. This year turned out to be an eye-opener. I met Susan Ostrowski, co-founder and owner of Reading2Connect, who talked about her work with Alzheimer’s patients, and this is where my eyes were opened.

People with Alzheimer’s are losing their short-term memory but they’re not losing their level of intelligence and intellectual curiosity, which can make once pleasurable activities like reading frustrating and disappointing. The purpose of Susan Ostrowski’s program is to provide these readers with books tailored to their interests and limitations. 

The typical “book” published by Reading2Connect is 4,000 words in 30 pages and approximately five chapters, along with illustrations. The stories are written and structured to accommodate the specific limitations of fading short-term memory. The program has published dozens of stories in various genres but none in mystery fiction. They hope to change that, and to that end Susan Ostrowski explained at length the requirements for one of their books.

Each story will have only two to four named characters, and few or no other proper nouns such as the names of towns, streets, businesses, special buildings. The story is written linearly, with no flashbacks. Each chapter opens with a summary of what has gone before, and what the reader needs to know moving forward. A mystery must still include clues and all the other features of a mystery—crime, motive, clues, investigation, conclusion. The syntax is straightforward, with short sentences in basic declarative form with some variation. Susan stressed that they can take a short story and modify the syntax to meet their needs if the writer overall understands and fulfills their other requirements.

Her description brought to mind the short “Solve-it-yourself” mystery stories in Woman’s World magazine. Through the Short Mystery Fiction Society chat group I’ve met several writers who have published stories there, and appreciate the purity, if you will, of their construction. Although those stories are under 700 words (or thereabouts), they are clear, concise, few characters, usually one setting, etc. The language, though, is probably not exactly what Reading2Connect is looking for, but as I indicated Susan and her editors can work with that.

It’s rare to come across a new genre or even a new publisher today—more often they’re going out of business—but this one is intriguing. Over the years I’ve written short and long fiction, academic articles, nonfiction long and short, reviews, advertising, essays, themed stories and essays, brochures, research grants, fundraising appeals, and probably a lot of other stuff I can’t recall. But this Reading2Connect format is different and something of a challenge. 

Like many other people, the thought of Alzheimer’s is daunting, but I hadn’t stopped to think about it from the person’s point of view—to continue with the same level of intellectual ability and interest thwarted by an unreliable memory. I remember my grandmother at 85 working so hard to pull out of her brain something she knew she knew and just couldn’t find. She was a great reader and continued to read until it became too confusing and frustrating to bear, but she still kept a book nearby.

Susan Ostrowski changed how I look at Alzheimer’s patients in the early stages when they still should be able to enjoy as many of their former pleasures and activities as possible. Finding books written so they can enjoy them must be a great delight.

A final word on Reading2Connect. They have recently received a grant that will enable them to buy short stories for their program. They will pay $300 per mystery story (and perhaps other genres as well).

Accentuate the Positive

~ lanamfox ~ 8 Comments

“The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.”

                                                                                                         Sylvia Plath

               If I had a thousand good reviews and one bad one, I’d concentrate on the bad.

               Recently, I’ve heard from three writing friends who’ve had negative comments on their work. One was from agents, another from a family member, and the other a critique partner. All three felt like the comments were unwarranted, but they were still upset.

Why do we dwell on bad comments? It seems that we all do. Is it that self-doubt cretin that sits on our shoulder telling us that we’re not good enough, not smart enough, not creative enough to be a writer? Are we so convinced that it’s right that we have our feelings confirmed when someone says something is wrong?

I’ve heard many times that a bad review is just one person’s perspective. I’ve even said it myself. And it’s true, but it still lingers in our mind for days, a month, a year until we get enough distance and move on. A great review never stays in our mind that long!

               One of my writing friends never looks at her reviews. I think that’s smart, but I’m too nosey. I have to know what people say. Most of my written reviews on Amazon have been good, but I’ve gotten some one or two stars. Those never come with a written review and usually come when a book is first out. The last time this happened my book had only been out for a day. I don’t think they had time to read it before they went in and gave it a one and two star. Other authors I’ve talked to have had the same experience. Are there trolls out there who just love to mess up an author’s reviews?

               My books are on Goodreads, but I’ve never really paid a lot of attention to the reviews. The other day I went on their website and looked and there were a couple reviews that were hard to read. Did they have merit? Maybe if I look closely at what was written but I’m still dealing with the condescending way the writers gave their opinions. 

               I know we need to try and take the good out of a bad review and move on. But, oh my goodness is that hard to do. It’s the same with being rejected. They both sting.

               When I decided to write this article, I went online and typed “famous authors whose books were rejected” into google. There was quite a list. What if they all quit before they received a yes? We’d be missing some great literary works. J.K. Rowling, Stephen King, Dr. Seuss, John Grisham, Madeline L’Engle, and Frank Herbert to name a few. Some famous writers gave up on traditional publishing and went on to self-publish and were discovered and have gone on to have great success. What if they’d given up instead?

               My dad loved Louis L’Amour’s books. He read them all many, many times. So many that we’d tease him and tell him there were other authors out there who were just as good. He agreed, there was also Zane Grey, and he read his books over and over too. I don’t know about Zane Grey, but Louis L’Amour was rejected 200 times and went on to sell 330 million copies. My dad was glad he persevered.

               I guess the takeaway of this post is don’t let one bad review or a hundred rejections determine whether your book or short story is good or not. It’s your story. You know in your heart whether it’s good or not. And I’m certain that if you love it, there will be readers out there who will also love it. Everyone has opinions and likes and dislikes about stories. Just like a painting. You may look at a painting and think it looks very amateurish, while I look at it and think it’s amazing.

               I’m sure that we all feel the sting of a rejection or a bad review but try to put it in perspective. Don’t let one bad comment define your work. Do the best you can and keep sending your work out into the world. It will find its way to someone who will love it.            

The 30,000-foot view of writing

~ donaleeMoulton ~ 6 Comments

by donalee Moulton

We’ve been talking about editing, an essential element in the writing process that writers relish. When you’re creating characters, polishing plot, and tossing red herrings around to mystify readers, it can be easy to lose sight of the book as a whole, to remember what happened in chapter four when you’re on chapter fourteen.

Writers also get close to their work, sometimes too close. We spend time, often at 4 a.m., thinking about the novel, the action, the actors, the unfolding of the story. It’s hard to see the whole when you’re immersed in the parts.

That’s where editing comes in. But we’ve been talking about editing as if it’s one thing. It isn’t. There are several kinds of editing, and they take place at different points in the writing process.

Substantive Editing.

This is where the high-level work begins, the 30,000-foot view before we delve into the weeds. It involves rethinking and rewriting. This may mean rewriting whole paragraphs or the entire document. It may involve restructuring or reorganizing parts of the text. It may include identifying where new information is required or existing information should be deleted.

Editors Canada has this to say about substantive editing, which is also called structural or developmental editing.

Structural Editing.

Assessing and shaping draft material to improve its organization and content. Changes may be suggested to or drafted for the writer. It may include:
– revising, reordering, cutting, or expanding material
– writing original material
– determining whether permissions are necessary for third-party material
– recasting material that would be better presented in another form
– revising material for a different medium (such as revising print copy for web copy)
– clarifying plot, characterization, or thematic elements

Substantive editing is major surgery. It is about ensuring the medical team is ready to operate. Blood work has been analyzed, the plan for the procedure reviewed, the instruments lined up neatly, everything and everyone sterilized. The goal: to ensure a successful outcome.

That’s what writers want for their readers. Substantive editing helps them do that. Editors Canada notes that this type of editing supports writers as they define their goals, identify their readers, and shape the manuscript in the best possible way. It enables writers to clarify the argument, fix the pacing, suggest improvements, and draw missing pieces from the author.

It makes the view from 30,000 feet truly spectacular.

Learn More.

cover of Thong Principle by donalee Moulton
Saying what you mean and meaning what you say

You can learn more about this in donalee’s book The Thong Principle: Saying What You Mean and Meaning What You Say.

Guest Blogger ~ Lois Winston

~ patyjag ~ 14 Comments

Don’t Measure Yourself Against Another Writer’s Yardstick

By Lois Winston

My critique partner thinks I’m an organized person. When she told me this, I laughed. Like Santa, I make lists and check them, not twice, but multiple times. For instance, I have a list on my phone of items I need to pack for trips, but every time I go away, I invariably wind up forgetting to pack at least one of those essentials and need to find the nearest Target.

I walk into my office to do something, get distracted, and forget to do what I came in to do. Is it age-related? Possibly. I’m the first to admit I’m not as young as I used to be. But if I’m honest with myself, this isn’t a recent development. It’s occurred for as long as I can remember, going all the way back to my childhood. A touch of ADHD? Perhaps. Or maybe I just have an overactive imagination and so much going on in my brain that the less important things get pushed to the side.

Nowhere is this more evident than in my writing. I often can’t remember the names of all the characters in my books. Or the titles. However, I’ve been writing for more than thirty years, and most days, I can’t remember what I ate for dinner last night. So how can I be expected to remember all those characters’ names from books written decades ago? Then again, twenty-four novels, five novellas, and several short stories in three+ decades isn’t that much. It’s not like I’m Nora Roberts or James Patterson, knocking out three, four, five or more books a year. (I wonder if they remember all their characters and titles.)

When it comes to sitting down to write, I’m a pantser, not a plotter. Plotters are far more organized, but the few times I’ve tried plotting a book, I became bored with it, deleted the outline, and started over with either the barest bones germ of an idea or maybe only an interesting opening sentence. Rarely more than that. Pantsing is what I do. Trying to write like someone else is counterproductive to achieving an end result that I will be proud to release into the world. Plain and simple: Plotting just doesn’t work for me.

Like readers of mysteries, I want to be surprised. If I already know the who, what, where, when, and why of a story before I write the first sentence, I’ve eliminated the surprise. Writing becomes drudgery, and I know I’ll be letting my readers down. Readers are savvy. They can tell when an author is phoning it in, and when that happens, they toss the book aside.

This is not to say that pantsers are better writers than plotters. They’ve simply found a different path to The End. One that works for them. I wish I could be a happy plotter. Plotters probably don’t write themselves into corners as often as this pantser does. However, I’ve learned plotting is not an option for me. I’m unhappy when I plot, and it shows in my writing. I imagine a diehard plotter would be equally unhappy if forced to sit down and start writing without a clue.

In life, there’s never one right way that works for everyone. The same is true for writers. You can’t measure yourself against another writer’s yardstick. No two brains work the same way. We all learn differently. We each bring unique experiences and knowledge to our writing. Every writer takes a personal path to creating a novel. We all need to find the path that works best for us.

We all choose paths as we go through life. Whether you’re a reader or a writer, have you found the paths that works best for you? Post a comment for the chance to win a promo code for a free audiobook download of any available Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery or Empty Nest Mystery.

Embroidered Lies and Alibis

An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, Book 15

A Stitch in Time Could Save a Life…

When Anastasia’s mother Flora is offered a free spa vacation from Jeremy Dugan, a man connected to her distant past, Anastasia and husband Zack suspect ulterior motives. After all, too-good-to-be-true often spells trouble. Their suspicions are confirmed when the FBI swoops in to apprehend Dugan. However, Dugan isn’t who he claimed to be, and his arrest raises more questions than answers.

The Feds link Dugan to a string of cons targeting elderly single women across the country, but his seemingly airtight alibi leaves investigators stumped. Then, shortly after his release on bail, he’s kidnapped. A certain segment of New Jersey’s population is known for delivering deadly messages, and the FBI believes Dugan received one of them.

Meanwhile, bodies begin showing up in the newly created public garden across the street from Anastasia and Zack’s home. With two baffling crimes, no clear suspects, scant evidence, and every possible motive unraveling, both the FBI and local law enforcement are once again picking Anastasia’s brain. This time, though, her involvement is far from reluctant. Will she stitch together enough clues before she or someone she loves becomes the killer’s next victim?

Craft project included.

Find Buy Links here.

USA Today and Amazon bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston writes mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and nonfiction. In addition, Lois is a former literary agent and an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry. Learn more about Lois and her books at www.loiswinston.com, where you can sign up for her newsletter to receive an Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mini-Mystery.

Words, Beautiful Words

~ janispattersonmysteries ~ 2 Comments

by Janis Patterson

Okay, I admit it. I spend much too much time wasting time on Facebook. It’s therapeutic. It fills my surface mind with trivialities so my deep mind can wrestle with the snarled complexities of my current WIP.

Or sometimes it’s just fun – sort of like a forbidden candy bar late in the afternoon even though you know it will spoil your dinner later.

And sometimes – distressingly often, in fact – it is infuriating. And depressing. And downright disgusting.

I’m not talking about some of the opinions held by the posters – though many of them do fit the above descriptions with a few even more damning pejoratives added, but that’s the subject of another angry column – but about the way they are expressed.

Over the years I’ve been swimming about in Facebook the use of language has not only deteriorated, but downright imploded. Rotted. Disintegrated.

And I don’t mean the fancy $3.00 words I personally prefer – I’m talking about the plain old four letter or less meat-and-potato words that are (or should be) the concrete basis of lingual communication. Staid old standbys like want and be and to and even and itself which magically morph into won’t and bee and two and end in such profusion that one does not have time to worry about comprehension but must instead go directly to translation. And at times even that doesn’t work, so the poor reader is left scratching his head in a total lack of comprehension at what the poster was trying to say. It even makes one wonder if the poster himself really knows what he was saying.

When did we become a country that so disregarded the basics of communication? Even our written language – an elegant simplicity of 26 discrete symbols which can be arranged at will to form an unending combination of words – is being seriously challenged by both a confusing and sometimes contradictory sub-language of initials-for-phrases, such as LOL, BFF, FAFO and the like. Which, one must admit, can provide handy circumlocutions for today’s ever-increasing vulgarity, but offer little in the way of nuance and precision.

Much more alarming is the regression of written language to an almost completely pictographic form of communication very similar to the antique Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs – the emoji. A seemingly endless variety of trite little sketches covering everything from facial expressions to individual depictions of food items, emojis have attracted a following who claim that using them is so much faster than having to sit down and type out a long list of alphanumeric symbols… a claim which I cry is thoroughly specious. By the time it takes to find the exact symbol you want, figure out how to transfer it to whatever it is you are writing (I did mention that I am a total techno-naif, didn’t I?), and keep your original line of thought going enough to go fishing for the next symbol I could have written at least a blog post on another, less-illustratable subject.  Still…

I await with grim acceptance the arrival of a novel written entirely in emojis.

So – what are we going to do about our slipping grip on language? I accept, however reluctantly and largely silently, that most people are not linguists nor do they have the appreciation I do for my favorite long, complex and occasionally obfuscatory $3.00 and $5.00 words. I refuse to accept that our population has become so stupid that their ability to learn the proper use of the basic building blocks of communication, that their cognitive abilities are devolving to the sub-human range, so it must be some external influence. Perhaps it is the startling decline of expectations in our educational system. Perhaps it is a shift of societal admiration from those who strive and achieve to those who subsist and border on parasitical. Or something else that has not quite yet jelled in our collective consciousness. It is real, though, and our communication skills are suffering because of it.

However, I must admit that other than writing angry little screeds like this and yelling fruitlessly at the ignoramii who populate Facebook I have no idea of what to do other than to keep putting the best language I know out there and praying that somewhere it resonates with another linguist, then another and another and eventually we can reclaim and expand the pure and unsullied beauty of language.

P. S. If you like my blog posts, Volumes 1 – 4 of 50 Blogs on Writing and the Writing Life are now available for just $.99 each on Amazon.