Speaking of Short Stories…

Fiction is about people in trouble. When the trouble is resolved, the story is over.

A short story is a piece of fiction under 15,000 words. It has all the requisite elements of fiction: a protagonist, an antagonist, and a major point of conflict. The bigger the conflict, the stronger the characters. The stronger the characters, the better the story.

Your protagonist is always a reluctant hero. He is flawed. He is dragged out of his comfortable world into uncertainty. He changes internally because he is forced to look at his flaws as a result of the conflict presented by the antagonist. This conflict is the stimulation to his character growth. There should be internal conflict and external conflict in every scene.

A short story conforms to all that is expected of fiction. It is comprised of three acts: Act One: the Setup, Act Two: the Complication, and Act Three: the Resolution.

Act One shows the protagonist before the trouble starts, in his comfortable world, but with myriad problems. Act One ends when the protagonist is so tired of avoiding the impending problem that he believes it is easier to fix the problem than to continue to avoid it. This is when he embarks upon his quest. By the end of Act One, all the major players have been introduced, as well as the major point of conflict.

Act Two complicates every tiny point of conflict introduced in Act One. At the end of Act Two, the protagonist and reader alike are certain he will never be able to fix the problem. This is the darkest moment.

In Act Three, the conflicts begin to resolve as a result of the protagonist getting smarter. In the climax, he deals, once and for all, with the external conflict, and he takes a good look at his internal flaws. This is when he either succumbs to his failings or overcomes them. The reader is cheering for him to overcome his flaws, but characters do whatever they do. The point is that he must look at himself and be changed by what he sees.

In the final analysis, readers will remember what happens to the protagonist internally, which is ultimately more important than what happens to the external problem.

A short story can be told from any point of view, can include any number of characters, can span any length of time. There is no room for subplots, so stick to one good guy, one bad guy, and one main point of conflict. Give your characters passion, memorable names, quirks, angers, frustrations and depth. Include lots of sensory imagery, so the reader can be in the scene with the character, and reveal your character’s nature through the use of facial expressions and gestures. Differentiate the characters from each other, and from you. Give them a serious problem, throw them off the deep end, and watch them work their way out of it, given who they are and what they do.

Want to Write A Short Story?

I’ll be teaching The Art of the Short Story for Lane Community College on Thursday nights, 6:30-9:30pm, January 7-February 18 at the Downtown Center, room 321. Registration number is CRN 32718. To register via ExpressLane, if you have an L-number, go here.

As with all things, the more you put into a class like this, the more you will get out of it, but we’ll have fun and you’ll come out of it with some serious short story experience.

While short stories seem to have fallen out of favor of late, I am a firm believer in the art form. Unfortunately, most mainstream magazines only publish one short story per issue, if that, and most short stories are revered in the horror, science fiction and fantasy realms for their anthologies and magazines. But that’s fine. Writing short fiction teaches the writer many things about plot, character, scene and setting. It is always a worthwhile endeavor.

I grew up reading short fiction, and began my career with short fiction. A short story sale was my very first professional publication credit.

So while we’ll write stories, pick them apart and talk about them (both student stories and professionally-published stories), we’ll also talk about some marketing aspects for them.

It’ll be fun. Come and join us.

A Webinar on Writing

Next Sunday, November 1, I’ll be the guest of honor for an hour-long webinar at www.wiredwriters.net. I think the event begins at 1pm, with chat with Don McQuinn, and you’ll have an opportunity to submit questions which he’ll ask me when I show up from 2-3pm.

Rumor has it that Terry Brooks will join us, if he’s available.

Got questions about writing, publishing, agents, editors, protagonists, antagonists, short stories, articles, essays, science fiction, fantasy, discipline, or the writing process? Log on to the website, register for the webinar and submit your questions. Let’s make this a fun event!

A New Book Contract!

Contracts are due to land on my desk today for the publication of my latest book, Martini Moon.

This is sweet for me for a variety of reasons.

First, I love this book, and am more than delighted that I will be able to share it with my small, deeply-disturbed fan base.

Secondly, this indicates to me that the economy is on the upswing. Not only did the Dow close above 10,000 yesterday, and a headline today reads “Recession Ends in 79 Metro Areas,” but I got a book contract.  That means my publisher is investing in me and my readers, libraries, and the book buying public in general. We will not let them down.  Publishing provides jobs, from artists to copyeditors to box manufacturers to bookstore baristas.

And, of course, the sale of this book provides both public and private confirmation that I’m writing what people want to read. One person told me one time that I write “grim stories about unattractive people.” This is true. I do not write Danielle Steele books. But the people I write about are the people I know about. They’re real people. Real people have grim stories and many of them are unattractive. But they all have the spark of the beautiful inside them. This story, a mystery, is also about the little guy fighting city hall for what’s right.

I don’t have a publication date yet for Martini Moon. Most likely this time next year. Stay tuned, either here or on my website at www.elizabethengstrom.com.

I’ll let you  know when the launch party is.

Writing a Synopsis

A well-written synopsis of your book will encapsulate all that you wish to accomplish, from beginning to end. This blueprint will also help you circumvent a wealth of troubles during the actual construction of your novel.

 A synopsis will include your protagonist’s comfortable state of mind before trouble was visited upon him. It will include his reluctance to step into the problem. It will include his agreement to resolve the conflict so he can return to his peaceful life. It will include the antagonist, and his motivations. It will chart, in brief, the major points of conflict along the protagonist’s journey, hint at a few subplots and their leading characters, then end with the protagonist resolving both internal and external conflicts.

A good synopsis should be written in the same style in which you expect to write your book. If your book is funny, the synopsis should be funny. If your book is suspenseful, your synopsis should be suspenseful. You will revise the synopsis occasionally as your characters find their own course through your story, but a synopsis, frequently referred to, will also keep you and your characters on track.

Writing a two-page synopsis is not easy, but it will show an agent or editor that you know how to tell a story from beginning to end. Muster all the enthusiasm you can, use active, powerful verbs, a touch of dialogue if you want, and tell an intriguing story with clean, clear lines.

Kick Start Your Novel

In November, I’ll be teaching the four-evening Kick Start Your Novel class in Eugene, Oregon.

This series of four classes is an intensive, hands-on novel-writing workshop designed to get your novel going in the right direction. Classes are structured so you will learn about the internal structure of fiction and the key aspects of writing a novel, then you will work on your book in class.

This workshop is for the writer who has basic writing experience, is highly motivated and has at least a nodding acquaintance with the novel that dwells within. While you may work on a novel-in-progress if you insist, I strongly suggest that instead, you work on something fresh for the purposes of this workshop. Leave your old work at home and let the spirit of the moment move you. Trust the creative process and watch the magic happen. Trust me. I’ve taught this class many times, all over the country. I know what kind of magic we can conjure up. 

Plan to attend all four sessions, and spend non-class hours working intensively on your book as well. Momentum is important.

This class is not for the faint of heart, the weak-willed or those who are afraid of the intense internal examination that novel writing entails. Your level of expertise is not as important as your dedication to the process.

The class will take place over four consecutive evenings, 6pm-9ish November 9, 10, 11, 12. Space is limited to six participants.

Come with your writing materials, an open mind and a willing heart. You will be amazed at what happens.  For more information, or to register, pop me an email.

New Interview

Apex Books has put a new interview in their latest edition of Apex Magazine.

Want to Write Short Science Fiction?

Registration opened yesterday for Science Fiction Story Weekend at the Coast, and the class is already half full, so if you’re planning on it, better get registered.

Come join us! We’ll have a great time wreaking havoc with the space/time continuum with our alien pals.

The Art of the Essay

An essay is a short nonfiction piece told in the first person point of view. It is about the author and the author’s insight, precipitated by a simple thought, event, or experience.

It is about insight.

The purpose of an essay is for the author to coalesce the initiating experience into words on paper, so the reader may learn something about him/herself by reading the essay. In other words, the essay must have its genesis in something fairly normal, but have greater, broader, meaning and value. The essayist must pass that insight, as closely as possible, to the reader.

There are roughly three classifications of essays:

1. Observational, where the essayist observes something, teases out its meaning and documents the result.
2. Investigational, where the essayist engages in research to discover one thing and discovers other, more important things in the process.
3. Opinion, where the essayist believes his/her opinion to be of importance due to specific, unique insights about the topic at hand. (Be careful; an opinion essay without form devolves into a rant.)

Begin with the thesis, a provocative statement that kicks the whole thing off. 

 “When I finally quit playing the piano, the first thing I learned to appreciate was the possibility of my own silence.” —Daisy Eunyoung Rhau

“Fashion nearly wrecked my life.” —Barbara Kingsolver

“The human species, according to the best theory I can form of it, is composed of two distinct races, the men who borrow, and the men who lend.” —Charles Lamb

Then give as much background as is required, and as much information as is needed in order to have the reader follow the progression of thought all the way around to the end, to the insight, which should, in fact, explain the thesis. Be wary of indulging in too much extraneous biographical information. Stick to the topic at hand.

Essays are circular in nature, and the ending should not merely echo the beginning, but should tie in directly. The thesis is the ending. The body of the essay is an explanation of the thesis, and the ending is a restatement of the thesis, expanded with insight.

It is a simple, important form of communication.

As with all things, if you intend to write a good essay, go to the library, pick up a couple of books of essays, and read a dozen.

Science Fiction Story Weekend

I’ll be teaching Science Fiction Story Weekend at the Oregon Coast on October 23-25 this year.

A maximum of thirteen of us will gather at the mysterious Siltcoos Station for a weekend of speculation and writing of outlandish, otherworldly stories. We’ll engage in world-building and species-building exercises and then write a complete short story in twenty-four hours. Tuition includes instruction in the short story form, particularly science fiction, lodging and simple pot luck meals.

This workshop will be based on the format of the amazingly-popular Ghost Story Weekend that I hold every spring. We eat well, we write like fiends and we always make sure there’s time for long walks down the train tracks or country lanes, and for laughing together as only writers can.

This is a Lane Community College class, offered fall term, and will only appear in the Florence campus catalog. Registration opens September 4. Section  CRN 23262 includes lodging ($117) and Section CRN 23262 assumes you’ll sleep somewhere else (a shame, really) for $73. To register, click here. 

Please join us.  You might be surprised with what you write.