What I thought of Aaron’s Story

Yeah, not only am I going to publicly trash-talk him, I’m stealing his posting day (again) to do so! I’m a doooooouche.

Last month, Aaron’s story was written in a few hours, and it was surprising how tight it was. While there were small things here and there that further proofreading would have fixed, it stood up to the test of not having any time (we think – nobody but Scott gives us any feedback!!!) However, in this month’s, also rushed at the end, all the seams show. There are numerous things that a good proofread would have caught (events that seemed to contradict the plot a bit, repetition of words and ideas, unclear narration… etc). There were also more grammar issues.

I like the idea of the story. Hell, I almost used it. If you look at my brainstorming earlier this month, I had briefly dabbled with a “trenchcoat-to-trenchcoat transaction” idea, which is pretty similar to what he went with. But having read this blog, I knew up front that he wanted to put something of a twist ending in there. Of course, knowing something like that does tend to take away some of the surprise.

After reading it, I did some heavy thinking, and I’m going to propose a fairly significant overhaul of the story. It may be too much for him to to tackle with only 3 days left in the month. Or he may hate it. But it’s a way of making the story (in my opinion) more believable and more surprising. He did actually say to me: “i think with a few pokes and prods i can turn this into something that doesn’t suck, so get on that.” I hope he considers it – not necessarily just the idea – but sees the problems I’m hoping my suggestion fixes. If he figures out another way to fix these issues, even better!

I’m finding a little of the steam of this project escaping. With January and February, I was excited to write. With March I wrote it early so I didn’t think about it much. But this month I sorta felt OBLIGATED to write, not free to do so. Maybe the topic wasn’t right for me, maybe the weather’s getting warmer so I’m thinking about playing with my kids and disc golf more, I don’t know. But I wonder if Aaron is going through the same malaise that I am. Or maybe he’s up 4x a night with an infant. That could also be it. I think we both realize this project won’t be at the forefront of our lives, but I hope it doesn’t become too back burner. I like MAKING myself produce. Either way, I’m hoping for a renaissance in May.

Tonight we go over our stories and pick out May’s topic. Stay tuned here.

 

What I Thought of MY Story

I had intended to do this yesterday (y’know, MY posting day), but these things happen. Anyway, I finished my story, and I am walking away feeling the same way I felt in March (where I turned in what I feel is the weakest story yet). One of my biggest joys in writing is surprising myself. It is quite rare that I have endings in mind when I begin stories. More often than not, I end up somewhere TOTALLY different than I’d anticipated when I wrote the story.

For instance, my January story had intended to be a pretty comical story about parents going nuts, but it ended up being a pretty heavy story about the son being the one descending into madness. February was even more tangential:

Rewriting the past –> mad about Teddy Bears –> Post-Apocalypse –> Did you know Roosevelt lived with a bullet stuck in him for years? –> Loss of all history –> Voltron –> Mount Rushmore –> George Washington saves the day and says “Bitchessss!” alot.

I really do enjoy surprising myself. With March’s story, I started the story knowing roughly where it was going to end, and when I got there, I thought “okay, yay?” Something similar happened in April. The overall tone came out different (and better) than I thought it would, but I really didn’t surprise myself much with it. That could be a sign that the story is really strong, or it could be like March where I just leave feeling a bit empty. It’s my shortest story, which I think was good – I didn’t want to get mired in the details here. Plus, with a first-person narrator (who was telling a story), I tried to eliminate unrealistic description. I mean, when you’re telling a story, do you say things like:

‘I feel my world has crumbled,’ she said dourly, her auburn hair glinting in the noonday sun.

No, omniscient narrators can get away with it, but I tried to go for realism.

Also, I wanted to tell two separate stories in one, which is something I feel I did quite well. I guess the “surprise” of this story is realizing who the story really is about. Anyway, I’m happy with the effort, all things considered, but I’ll be curious to think what other people think.

 

almost finished with april

derek and i have exchanged stories and are in the process of reviewing them for our monthly skype get together where we tell each other how much we disliked every 8th word and feel the majority of the story should have been written in swahili.

i haven’t had a chance to read his story yet, i’ll get to it this evening.  what i wanted to write about is how disappointed i am with my story this month.

i loved my idea (spies meeting daily at a bus stop) and though i had a fantastic basis for my story.  i had time issues this month which caused me to push it until the last minute (again) even though i managed to outline my story around the 6th of the month.  and then i got to the writing.

it never quite came together as i had hoped, although maybe it’s just me being over-critical.  my big hope this month is derek manages to see the potential in the idea and nudges me in the right direction for my 2nd draft.  i have faith enough to know that he will probably be brutally honest with me, make me cry a bit, but then be able to fix it up so i don’t hate myself until i finish writing the may story.

 

 

twice in a row?

well, derek and i pushed the date back for when our stories get turned in to each other.  even though i know i wrote that right, it still seems like our stories magically become the other one of us.  i hope it happens, derek showed me a movie years ago called ‘naked space’ (it’s a leslie nielson thing before you go thinking it’s something perverted) and every now and again it comes up in some conversation.  because of this, i feel the desire to shave off his eyebrows.

anyway, even WITH the extra two days to write, i am sitting here about 30 minutes before midnight with only ~600 words written.  i know i have all day tomorrow, and plan on using the kid’s naptime as a massive writing push.  let’s see if i can pull this off two months in a row.

i like my story idea.  it’s (derek stop reading, well, you’re probably done writing so read whatever you want) told over the course of a few days at the bus stop.  i have the first day finished.  the next day and the final day are going to be the two toughest to write i think just storywise, but the others should breeze by.  maybe i’ll get unlucky and the one month old is awake for most of tonight and i can write with him asleep on me like i did a little in march.

i’ve the feeling that i am rambling, so i will get away from computers and typing so as to not wreck my story as well as this blog post.

 

Fear of Commitment?

Aaron, go away unless your story is set.

Our submission date for this month’s stories was originally April 20 (it’s been moved to April 22), meaning as of last night, I had 53 words written and only 4 days to finish. And I was stuck because of stubbornness, or fear of commitment. I had two ideas for the story – one more subtle and sweet, one a bit more complex and perhaps convoluted. Both seemed plausible, with measurable pros and cons to each. So what was the problem? I couldn’t pick one, so rather than start one, I just let the ideas sit there for a while.

The main issue with it was the voice. The simpler story (the story about the older couple) would be easy to write, but I felt like an omnipotent narrator telling the story would have trouble making it interesting. Like, why would the story even be told? It’s sweet, sure, but insubstantial – at least by my lofty standards. The other story, the one with the detective getting involved, would be with a stronger, more assured voice. However, there would be backstory that an omnipotent narrator could easily put in there that I was struggling getting across with a character-narrator.

But I couldn’t waffle any more. With only a few days left of writing time, and stuff planned for the next three evenings, I simply don’t have time to wait for inspiration to strike anymore. So I plopped down 1000+ words last night, which took longer than it should have. And what is coming out might be confusing. It starts as an omniscient narrator (detective) talking with his superior (chief of police) at a bar – this uses normal punctuation for an omniscient narrator. Then it goes to flashbacks of the story he tells his boss, which is then told as a first-person narrator. But of course, it’ll bounce back and forth a little bit. So there are no quotation marks during normal speech, only when other people have spoken.

I don’t think this is a revolutionary way to write, but I worry that it will be confusing. But I have to commit to a story now, so I’m just doing it. I’m doing something a little different with margins to hopefully make it clearer. We’ll see if it works.

 

so much for time

well, i have managed to put off writing anything this month until last night.  i managed to whip out an extraordinary 57 words before i ran into a wall.  i have a great idea for my story but every time i attempt to write something happens in my house that causes me to put down the laptop and do something else.

last month i wrote my story on the last day of the month so i have full confidence that i will be able to finish my story in the next week.  what my fear is, is that it is going to come down to the last hours again.

in all actuality, that isn’t a bad thing.  at least this month derek will have time to review it properly, and i will have time to revise the story.

i’ll write more about my story next week when i get more into the writing.  chances are i’m going to end up doing a lot of it at work early next week.  judging by derek’s post, both of us are having the same issues.

also, don’t forget to send any and all feedback to us about the stories or the blog or pretty much anything.  we know we are sending the stories out to people.  we know people are reading the blog.  we also know that only about two people ever send us any feedback, be it positive or negative.  so feel free to either just post comments on the blog or email us at shortstoryproject2012@gmail.com

we would love to hear from all of you.

 

Traffic is down, thought process is down…

Are we losing steam here? Our followers are fewer, our feedback is less, and it’s the 12th and I have about 50 words written so far this month. I do know that having more feedback might spur us on, but really, there’s just an awful lot going on. And perhaps I’m using it as a crutch that this month’s topic is doing nothing to inspire me. I’ll talk about some topic stuff, Aaron, so use your judgment if you want to read on.

It’s been a week since my last post and so far I’ve had no new ideas. I’ve toyed with the idea of adding a strange trenchcoated-person to trenchcoated-person transaction that these two old people witness, but I wonder if that would cloud the story. On the other hand, is the tale of two old people talking every day worth reading on its own merit?

Maybe I’ll wait until tomorrow, as the 13th is when I seem to always get struck with some inspiration, but as of this moment, I got nothing on this story. Avid reader Carol had an interesting question about figuring out WHEN the two people stopping meeting – when will that happen? I don’t think it can happen right away, as the topic itself implies that they have to at least be meeting with some regularity first. So it can happen 1/3 or halfway through the story, or it could also be an ending. That gave me some food for thought, but unfortunately nothing else for now.

Or just maybe the deadline isn’t looming enough yet.

 

i have time to write this month

but i’m not exactly sure if i’m going to take advantage of it.

last month i was beyond unfocused and busy and ended up coming down to my lunch break on the 30th before i even wrote the thing.  in an email to me, derek wrote -

“I hope this doesn’t sting, but this was probably your smoothest story. I almost wonder if you’re overthinking and that might be hurting your process. I’m not going to say it was the BEST, but it came across as the tightest story, and possibly the best-written.”

with that, i am very tempted to impose some ridiculous deadline upon myself and see if i can catch lightning in a bottle twice in a row.  as i was writing my last story, pretty much the entire time i was thinking to myself “this is absolute garbage” over and over again.  i never re-read it after i finished it, i just sent it on its way once it was done, and i barely skimmed it as i was going through the edits derek made.  in fact, i am pretty sure i don’t even remember parts of the story (i’m going to have to read it at some point i suppose, but i’m in no hurry).

* um, derek, stop reading this here unless you’ve already finished your story *

so for this month, i am not 100% settled on where i’m going to come at the topic from.  i have a pretty good idea, but i’m running a through things through my mind just to see if i can actually pull it off.

lately, i’ve been watching the tv show ‘chuck.’  yeah yeah, late to the party, whatever.  anyway, i am thinking i may attempt to write some sort of spy story through the meetings at the bus stop.  something else derek said to me in that email was that he was hoping for some sort of a double cross or more violence at the end of last month’s story, only because my february story also had an ending that everyone sort of just left.  you know what derek?  the end of this months story is going to make the texas chainsaw massacre look like happy feet.

 

Different Direction

Aaron, you may be the only one to read this regularly. But go away.

There are many directions this new story can take. All I know is that I felt February and March were a little too close stylistically, so I definitely want to branch out somehow. Nothing involving a fantasy world – I want to set it in reality. Actually, my first impression is to do a very sweet story involving elderly people at a bus stop. I think it could be done right, but then again, would it be interesting, even for a 5000 word story?

I’ve also thought about having a God vs. the Devil thing, but that could be a cop-out. Truth be told, I have a very good idea for a story I’d like to write, and I could probably manhandle it into this topic, but then you run into a problem. March was a perfect example – it was a story idea I’d already had and I worked the sentences into it. Now, I think that one was pretty successful, but to do that here would be less successful.

I also gave some thought to having someone from the future visit themselves every day at a bus stop. I’m not sure why they’d do this – perhaps to convince them NOT to get on the bus each day? I’m not sure. The problem there – it’s quite close to another play I’d written, and although I feel that play could one day do for a novel/story adaptation, I don’t know that this is the venue for that.

There’s also been a part of me that wants to write about something other than people, but I think this isn’t the month to do that. After all, “people” is in the topic description. The month is only 5 days old, so I’m not to worried about having written 0 words or even settled on a basic topic.

 

April’s Topic

Two people meet every day at a bus stop. Until they don’t.