Aaron’s first story

Perhaps because we weren’t frantically trying to cram in all our creative juices into just a few weeks, I feel like this story really exemplified why we do this project. Aaron presented me with a superhero story (which isn’t a genre per se, but you’ll see how it worked later) which was extremely rough. There were some real nuggets of good ideas there, but a) I felt like there wasn’t really any dramatic tension and b) I didn’t see it really read like a superhero story. I had sorta envisioned a comic book but without the pictures. He further had an additional challenge of writing the story in the present tense, something that I feel isn’t usually warranted and is VERY difficult to pull off.

When I read the first draft, I didn’t even take the trivial notes like grammar and stuff. I was going to make a couple of big-picture suggestions that I felt would round out the story and but also require somewhat significant rewrites. When I told him about them, he agreed with the notes (he had trouble putting into words why he felt his story wasn’t quite there to begin with, and it was largely the issues I had).

A few weeks later he gave me a story that was largely the same in terms of plot and characters but it worked so much better. He made a pretty bold (almost “gimmicky”?) choice on how to transition from the present tense to the past tense, and IT TOTALLY WORKED. Not only did it give a REASON for the story to be in present tense (aren’t most comic books?) but it also really made it a SUPERHERO STORY. It actually read to me more like a comic book just with this one addition. In fact, I suggested he continue to make that choice a tying element, something I think he will do in his final touch-up. Of course, the new play with tense resulted in many tense errors, but hopefully between the two of us we picked out most of those.

Also, he made the conflict much more immediate and threatening. It was in this strange place where it was MOSTLY an origin story but it also incorporated a fight scene. In his rewrite, he focused as much on the current fight, coloring it with how she found herself in that situation. That achieved two things – giving the story more importance, but also letting the character shine through more than it had. Aaron rarely writes women characters, and I’m glad he took a stab at one with such a distinct personality. It’s fun to see him playing around.

I think even with the extra time, both of our stories still have a slight feeling of being rushed because, as much as we like to pretend otherwise, we really write most of our stories in just a few writing sessions instead of writing daily or even weekly. I know with mine it shows by feeling a bit disjointed (something I tried to smooth out in subsequent rewrites). It shows with Aaron’s because I think more time would have fleshed out her character even more and evened out the tone of the past and present tense ‘stories’.

However, where this story stands at the “end” vs where it began is probably the most significant change in any of the stories he’s produced. Well done.

 

Well, it would appear Derek beat me to the punch today

i’m about halfway through reading and critiquing derek’s story, and thought i’d post an update since it’s been a little while.

i like it.

that is all.

 

the thing i find amusing about this version of our project is that we decided to not use the same topics, but we still ended up writing something similarly based.  the stories are pretty much total opposites in content, but there’s one idea that sort of hinges them together.

based on derek’s post just before, i think i already know what some of his ideas for my story will be.  when i sent him my first draft, i already had about seven or eight things i wanted to change, but i got delayed in finishing it up, so i didn’t want to wait any longer.  conceptually i really like my story, but i’m not sure it worked as well as i wanted it to in this form.

i wrote what basically amounts to a comic book super hero origin story.  which i think worked at times, and others it was a bit difficult to translate into a short story.  if i was working with an artist and actually doing a comic book, it would improve tenfold.  a lot of what i was trying to get across would have been so much easier with narration text and images, instead of what i felt was someone telling you every little detail of the past year of their life condensed into 3500 or so words.

i’m awaiting what he has to say about it, because i think we may be on the same page with a lot of things.  but then again, this is derek we’re talking about, so i’m sure he’ll surprise me and come at it from an entirely different angle than i’m expecting.

 

Draft 1 – Done-ish?

Clocking in at over 7500 words, I’m calling draft 1 done. That is with a whole bevy of asterisks, as I haven’t read any of it past maybe 1500 words since writing it (with the only exception of scrolling back to certain parts to make sure I was not actively contradicting something I had written already). I usually like to let the story simmer for a few days, forget what I’d done, then go back and read with fresh eyes. In all honesty, I’ll probably be on a third draft before I turn it in to Aaron for the first “review”.

I will go through and do a pretty superficial round of edits – I doubt I will do any gutting at this point, although I’m already pretty certain that a) I don’t like the actual way much of it is written, b) the enhanced technology might become a distraction, and c) the most pivotal scene of the story is written largely in pseudo-ASL, which may be jarring and reducing any tension I’ve built up. I’ll have to see how it translates.

After that edit, I’ll likely show it to my wife who is usually my first sounding board. I may do more edits at that point, but again, probably nothing large. I’ll take what she has to say and add it to what Aaron ultimately says after we trade stories, which I think we’re planning on doing around the end of the first week of Feb (with hopes to discuss around the 2nd week). That’ll give us plenty of time for major rewrites if needed.

Then, well, this year is different. We have a nice-sized group of writers who seem pretty eager to participate and help out and give ideas and critique. Will I give them copies of my 2nd (4th? 5th?) draft for additional comments? Is that a case of too-many-cooks-in-the-kitchen? If I get six people’s notes and they conflict, would I end up just throwing my hands up and keeping it how I wrote it anyway? Part of me is excited about having people interested in supporting each other’s writing, and part of me doesn’t have any clue how that might affect this project that, until now, had just been about Aaron and I kicking each other’s creative butts.

Anyway, I managed to get it done. It’s my longest short story to date as it stands and, despite never deviating from the PLOTLINE I had in my head, took several very strange and unexpected turns in practice. I’ll be very curious to see how it stands up in a couple of days.

p.s. I might be saying “Kim Kardashian” here just so I don’t feel weird putting it as a tag, hoping to get more traffic. #justsayin

 

In StorySpace, nobody can hear you… do anything

I’m at a methodical pace. That’s a polite way of saying this story is coming along very slowly. One of the unexpected side effects of writing a world where all people are deaf is the subtle changes that need to happen in the everyday vernacular. All words pertaining to sound (hear, sound, volume, noise… etc) don’t exist. I need new ways to describe these. Then I’m also running into the problem that the language they speak is basically sign language, but sign language is a language that exists within a hearing world. So in my world there is no sign for “noise” because as far as everyone knows there is no such thing. People don’t hear, they ear-know. They don’t sign, they use hand-words. It’s a minor hurdle, but I’ve had to strike a few “Are you even listening?” kind of sentences from their speech. Would speech even be a word? Hmmm…

I’m also finding that I’m abstractly taking a few ideas from myself and other authors in creating this story. I’m very politely adapting an idea from Vernor Vinge (in his novel Rainbows End) about real-time interfaces that interact with the environment around them. I figure in a world with no hearing, they wouldn’t use iPods, but they would have iSight, a device that places different veneers on the environment that you can see. It’s close to – but not exactly – his idea, and c’mon, that name is great.

From myself – Aaron and I for a long time had vowed (threatened?) to write a musical called The Great Depression. It was about a ragtag group of poor people who had survived for a long time on their skills of poor-dom. Once everyone else became poor after the crash and were hopelessly lost, this group suddenly rose to prominence because they were already adept at that style of living. They genuinely thought the depression was great news. Naturally, FDR is the bad guy in the play – I envisioned him how most people envision Dick Cheney. Heh. Anyway, I’m definitely taking the idea of a small resistance style group (those that can hear – and there are very few of them) trying to rise up against the government.

And here’s where the real delay is. I don’t know if I’m being unnecessarily wordy, but I’m about 2400 words in and I haven’t even GOTTEN to the government’s involvement yet. In fact, she just met her first other hearing character who is planning on introducing her to the family (the underground movement). It’s quite possible from there it will speed along, but since I’ll have to be doing some explaining at that point, I’ll have to find an engaging way to do so rather than “here’s a video all about it. Watch it and make sure to think very descriptively about what you’re seeing for the readers at home.” After a conversation on the FB page, I’ll probably write it out in a very sage-tells-all kind of way, hoping to go back later and find more interesting ways to reveal the information (and even withhold some that might not need to be revealed).

I find my best stories are the ones where I don’t know how they’re going to end (such was definitely the case in my two favorite stories from 2012, Finding Home and Cornered). This one I have entirely mapped out, and I’m afraid that’s going to make it an anti-climactic story. But onward we go.

Speaking of Finding Home and Cornered, I have started submitting stories to various publications for a shot at publishing them. So far I’ve gotten a few rejection letters, but it feels good to be actually DOING something about my writing.

 

Off to the Races

Lots of things have happened so far in this project and none of them are me physically writing down any part of my story. But the groundwork has been laid for a) this story, b) this year, c) the social networking aspect of this project, and d) Aaron’s fleas. He doesn’t have mange anymore, so I gotta talk about what’s what.

We’ll go in reverse. The social networking stuff Aaron touched on a bit in his email. We’re going to have a Twitter account, which is pretty monumental as I have never actually sent a tweet before (despite this being my third Twitter account – it’s a long story). We have our email (shortstoryproject2012@gmail.com). And now we have a Facebook Group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/633656743446717/) The Facebook group will be something of a hub. We’ll post links to new blogs we’ve written, we’ll try to figure out a way to get our Tweets over there. It might be the way we send out our stories, I’m not sure. Either way, most people have Facebook, so if you’re interested, go there and get into the group. It’ll probably be quite light at first until more people get interested, so at least you don’t have to worry about reading the updates taking up too much of your time.

Speaking of which, people are interested. I’ve had a couple of people so far express some interest in possibly being a part of the group in various capacities, from reading stories to possibly writing stories and whatnot. That’s an intriguing prospect and one we’d have to hammer out logistics on. For now, we’re keeping the official project just between Aaron and I, with the possibility open down the line of having “guest writers”. That being said, we are definitely encouraging all writers to join the Short Story Facebook group as a community of writers who are sharing info about their projects, tips, ideas… everything. If it ever gets bigger (which we’d love), we’ll cross that bridge later and figure out ways to get more people directly involved if it comes to that. Or we’ll just write these four stories and then take another 2 year vacation.

As for my story, I am using one of Aaron’s suggestions. Many didn’t leap out at me but one did: “a teenager fears they have lost the ability to hear”. I’ve been interested in deaf culture for years and can sign to some degree and communicate with deaf people. I’ve actually befriended a surprising number of deaf disc golfers over the years, so at least I’m not writing totally from imagination here. As per our guidelines, I’m not sticking to the suggestion by the letter, but I am using it as my springboard.

I envision a world where only one person, (my main protagonist, a 13 year old girl) can hear. Everyone else is deaf. Not sure if it’s a world, an island, or what. Also not sure if they’re human or not, but I think that is largely irrelevant right now. So for part of the story she has to figure out why that is, and also how to explain hearing in a UNIVERSE where it doesn’t exist, essentially. I like that idea. I already have a rough outline of the story in my head with some fun turns along the way, and in doing so I will actually end up using one of the ideas I supplied for Aaron. Well, it wasn’t one of my ideas, it was an idea given to my by another Facebook group I’m a part of. I won’t tell you what that one is, as it might give away the ending (should I decide to go the route in my head right now).

I was going to put a Google Image here, but deafness is pretty hard to encapsulate in a photo. I did like the cartoon of the Asian girl signing “You go restaurant?” but it seemed more racist than helpful. (Yes, I am aware that’s how ASL would sign it…)

 

thankfully 2012 has been the longest year on record

running into its 37th month, just so we don’t have to change the name of this blog.

first, let me welcome everyone back. it’s been a long time coming and we’ve finally decided to push ourselves again this year. we did have plans last year but they sort of fell through, i forget why. anyway, that’s besides the point. the point is, we’re here to write some more stories that end in awful deaths and/or sadness.

second, we have a new way to follow the process. a new twitter account. you can follow us @shrtstryprjct because we have no vowels. that, or any decent name was taken or too long for twitter. most everything on there will probably just a a note updating about a new post here, but perhaps we’ll slip in some different information as well. or just randomly spew hashtags, as i am come to believe is all twitter is good for.

and now on to the fun stuff

so as derek mentioned, we’re only going to be writing four stories this year. possibly a 5th one thrown in for good measure with one of our ‘crazy’ themes from last year (where we each wrote the into for the other one to finish, had to work the same sentences or characters into a story, had to write a prequel/sequel to one of the other’s stories), but the year is long and we have plenty of time to decide on that in the future. for this month, we sent each other a list of around 15-20 characters/themes/locations to choose from. i’ve had a few ideas for things floating around in my head since we were probably working on this project the last time and i’ve never done anything with them. some of the things on my list reminded me of ideas i’ve had, and after some modifications i think i can finally write one of them.

now, keep in mind our subjects don’t have to be verbatim this year. it really started to become a chore trying to shoehorn some things into my stories because they had to be there, and i know there were times when it was forced. very forced. i had zero way to include my final sentence into that story, so i literally just threw it in anywhere. did it work? maybe. did it work well? oh god no. i got a note about that. did i change it? are you crazy? i had a newborn sleeping on me as i wrote most of that one, so i was running on fumes and didn’t care at that point.

anyway, the topics i am forming my story from (i’m not giving the entire list, just what i’m using in some way or another) –

• a strong central female character (maybe lead, maybe not) that has a crippling fear or addiction
• a code needs to be cracked in time
• create a reality in which laws of physics are different but accepted
• a sound that could kill someone

like i said, i’m using bits and pieces from each of these ideas to form my story. i guess i can talk about it, since we aren’t writing the same topics and are trying to keep things hidden from each other until our first round of edits. so this is it, my first reveal of this year.

i’m writing a superhero story.

now, before you are all shocked and thinking ‘what does he know about superheroes?!?’ i’ve done some research (i watched two episodes of the tick) and i think i’ve got this. actually, i’ve been reading comic books since i was little. i’ve always wanted to give writing one a chance, and while i’m not actually writing a comic, this is basically the next best thing. it’s only a little tougher because i can’t just write a description of some action for 6 pages and let the artist do their thing. i don’t think it’ll be that bad, and i’m up for the challenge.

the actual story is based on a girl with powers that is trying to defend her neighborhood from the triad’s influence and hostile intrusions. the strong female character is her, she basically has to stop something before it happens, the new reality is that super powers exist and people know about them, and her powers will be auditory in nature.

at least i don’t need to do insane amounts of research for this one. not like when i wrote elihu root and charles fairbanks into modern day times.

why do i do these things to myself?

 

The Short Story Project is BACK

It is with a dash of pride that I announce that the Short Story Project is BACK for 2015, although it will have numerous changes this year. So yes, for BOTH of you who are reading this now because it’s on your RSS feed, there will be stuff to do this year. Aaron and I were pretty concerned with what happened the last few months of the 2012 project – that it seemed more like a chore than a joy. So this year, we’re not doing it monthly. But that’s only the first of many changes.

– We are doing 4 stories total, once every three months. This will hopefully prevent burnout. The extra time MAY allow us to write longer stories. We had generally aimed for 4000-6000 words, but I know I’m mentally considering 5000-7500 my target for this year.

– The point of this year is less about turning out quantity, and more about quality. That’s not to say we didn’t have some good stories in 2012. Actually, I’m currently in the process (hello belated!) of submitting two or three of my stories to various short story publishers because I think they’re that good. One is requiring I’d say minor tweaks and the other is receiving almost nothing at all in terms of revision – that’s how well they stood the test of time. But part of the goal for the first year was seeing if I could do 12 stories in one year. I can, though some were duds. This year, we want to produce 4 excellent stories each.

– As we are giving more time, the project will focus less on the END RESULT and more on the PROCESS. We’ll be exchanging what we have written (even if not complete) after the first 4-5 weeks for the other person to review. This way, if the story is in major need of a total overhaul, it can still be accomplished. If, however, we’re already on the right track, then we can use the time for more subtle criticism. Then we’ll probably do more work and hopefully hand over the first completed draft sometime around the 8 to 9 week mark. One more set of critiques will allow us time to still do a somewhat substantial revision if need be. Then we can have a final get-together to touch up the little things. We think this will produce better results.

– We are abandoning the idea of each using the same topic. In fact, topics now will be more guidelines rather than rigid structures. We’ve each supplied the other with a list of topics (ranging from full plotlines to a character we’d like to see to simple ideas). The other can use one of these, three, part of one, or none at all. Again, we’re focusing more on the storywriting process itself rather than simply seeing how varied we can make a topic.

– Because of there being no need for secrecy, we’ll be posting more details about our stories on the blog itself. I think there are other ways to get the word out, but I’ll leave that up to Aaron’s first post.

– We will each give the other person $1billion if they write the best story of the year. I can pretty much guarantee it will end in a tie.

 

These are the major differences. As it was in 2014, we’ll also be using each other as sounding boards (and always we listen to readers too. Actually it was a comment of one of my readers that gave me GREAT direction for what would ultimately become my favorite story). Also, we’ll offer the stories up at the end of the writing period to anyone who wants to read them. Hey, if all goes well, you can be one of the lucky ones to say “I read this BEFORE it was published.” All you need to do is leave a comment her contact us at shortstoryproject2012@gmail.com.

Now, I wonder if either of us knows the password for that email address…

 

Plans for 2014?

What’s this, you say? At least you might if you’re one of the four people who have RSS-feeded this blog to your readers or whatnot. I’m a little behind on this techno-babble. I still find it shocking that I have not one but two Twitter accounts (for which I’ve personally composed a grand total of 2 tweets.) This entry is only two or three sentences long and I’ve already drifted. Let me get back to the matter at hand.

Does this mean that the 2012 Short Story Project blog is back? Will Aaron and I be writing new short stories for 2014? No. No, we won’t. I’ve crushed all your dreams now. So go back to picking potatoes, as I’m sure that’s what the majority of our readers do for a living.

However, that doesn’t mean that this blog won’t see some action this year. For many years (more for Aaron than me), we’ve had some grand plans in our brains for novels. Personally, I’ve had an idea kicking around for a novel since I wrote a theme-mail to Will several years ago. I fell in love with one of the characters and thought he had legs to sustain a whole novel. Well, many years  and dozens of brainstorming sessions later, I think I have the skeleton of a novel in the works. The only thing that’s been stopping me is momentum.

So I figured if I set monthly deadlines for myself (just that I HAVE to write, not a specific amount that I NEED to write), I’ll be able to make a dent in this idea of mine. Aaron has agreed to review my stuff despite the fact that the general genre of my novel (noir) is not one of his favorites. Additionally, he has told me that he is interested in putting some of his long-standing ideas down on paper, so it would be a swap much like the Short Story Project of 2012 (lo those many years ago).

There are obvious obstacles to overcome, like how some months will have little or no contributions and others will have many. We’re not stressing. We both want to be writing again (lord knows I need something to keep me away from Angry Birds – seriously, why are those birds so angry? What did the piggies do to them, really?) We hope that having someone else expecting material from us will prompt us to actually provide some of that material.

So there is life in these creative bones after all. Will some (or any) of the stuff we write be available for reading by the general populace every month? I don’t know. Will we take criticisms from “the masses” and sculpt our writing accordingly? Got no idea. But we want to at least chronicle (to some degree) what we’re going through, so when we’re famous trillionaires (our debut novels each breaking record sales), we can print this blog out and sell it for even more money, because we’re greedy bastards at heart.

Enjoy the ride.

 

There may be life left in this ole’ project.

My wife posted this link.

http://www.npr.org/2013/05/04/180596004/three-minute-fiction-round-11-finders-keepers?utm_source=books&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=20130504

So much for no deadlines. We’d have less than a week to do this, so we wouldn’t be able to do our normal process. I’ll also be travelling, so I’ll have even less. Time.

But 600 words? Most of my blog entries are longer than that. Let’s do it!

 

Some Stats

So avid reader Carol posted her rankings (which I’ll copy at the bottom of this post, as she put it in a comment in one of our previous columns). She didn’t rank them 1-12, but rather lumped them into groups. Ones she didn’t like, liked some, liked a bunch, etc. So what I’ve done, being the stat nerd I am, is compile some stats on the 3 people who have read all our stories (us two and Carol). For each “1st” place, that story got 12 points. 2nd favorites got 11, etc, all the way down to 1 point for our least favorites. For Carol’s, where many tied, I added the points together and averaged them. So if 3 stories were here favorite, they each got 11 points (10 + 11 + 12). Pretty simple stuff. So here are our OVERALL rankings (if you’re new to this blog for some reason, the top guys are the stories you may want to request we send copies of – you can request that at shortstoryproject@gmail.com.

Aaron’s stories (3 people voting), from lowest-scoring to best-scoring:

10(T). March – Gaius the Bold (13 points)

10(T). April – The Fat Man (13 pts)

10T. October – The Baker (13 pts)

9. August – The Ledgers (15 pts)

8. February – Rigging the Future (16 pts)

7. January – Sign of the Times (17 pts)

6. December – My Name is Cashew (19.5 pts)

5. November – Dark November (21.5 pts)

3(T). June – Project Titan (26 pts)

3(T). July – Year of the Stone (26 pts)

1(T). May – Climbing for Her (27 pts)

1(T). September – A Life in Rouen (27 pts)

Derek’s Stories

12. March –  The Efficiency Expert (4.5 pts)

11. April – Leaving Gunite (13 pts)

10. June – The Exorcism of Anne Foster (14.5 pts)

9. February – Heads of State (15 pts)

8. October – Sleepytown (17.5 pts)

7. July – Two Pair (19 pts)

6. September – Seeing the Forest for the Trees (20.5 pts)

5. November – Sunset at Belham Bay Park (23 pts)

4. May – Unbecoming (23.5 pts)

3. December – Birth of the Stone (27 points)

2. January – Finding Home (27.5 points)

1. August – Cornered (28 points)

More than individual achievements, I’m seeing trends where we just definitely picked better topics than other months. Admittedly only two examples is a very small sample size, but it looks like the three worst topics are:

March – we had to incorporate 5 sentences into the story (two story total of 17.5 points)

April – “Two people meet every day at a bus stop. Until they don’t.” (total of 26 points)

October – “a baker puts a special ingredient in his bread that changes life in his sleepy town, while someone in the town discovers a surprising branch on a family tree” (total of 30.5 points)

The BEST topics were:

May – “a story that focuses somehow around 7 flights of stairs” (total of 50.5 points)

September – we had to incorporate 9 character names into the story (total of 47.5 points)

December – we had to write a sequel or prequel of one of the other person’s stories (total of 46.5 points)

A quick analysis of this info before getting to Carol’s actual comments:

1) Carol and I have wildly different tastes, particularly in regards to Aaron’s stories. What I thought was easily his best, she thought was his second-worst. What I thought was definitely his worst, she said was easily his best. Go figure?

2) The overall list for my stories seems to be fairly close to my own rankings of them. However, Carol & Aaron (and my wife) all think that my June story (the silliest one) was definitely one of the worst, and I think they’re all wrong. It’s a classic!

3) I had a story that received only 4.5 points. Rather than think I totally churned out a lemon, I’m going to pretend that all my other stories were amazing.

4) I had thought that the “gimmick” topics (the ones we did every 3 months that were not based off a specific topic per se) would either be the best or worst, but they’re all over the place. I guess like everything else – they’re hit or miss.

5) If anyone else has read all 24 stories and wants to write their own rankings, I’ll update this list (or if you only read one person’s, that’s fine – you can list their 12).

Onto Carol’s review:

“Okay, here goes. I have re-read the stories, and not surprisingly, my rankings are quite different from both of yours.

Derek,

My least favorite story was July. All those game plays bored me.

For me, your “meh” stories were March (odd, but humorous) and June.

Enjoyable were February (initially hard to get into), April, August (disliked language, but it worked with the story), November and December.

Excellent reads: January (surprise ending), May (lovely story), September, and October

Aaron, My least favorite story was April.

Your “meh” story was June- just not one of my favorites.

Enjoyable were November and December (Love the song)

Excellent reads: February (fun), March (adorably funny), May (fun), July, August, September and October.

And my hands-down favorite of all the stories throughout the year- your January story about the house.

I have truly enjoyed being a part of this adventure, and looked forward eagerly to each month’s contributions. I hope that you come up with another way to showcase your talents.”