Category Archives: Writing Reflections

Writing Reflections

Writing Redemption

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As the editor of FiftyWordStories.com, I receive a lot of different submissions from a lot of different people. I publish some of them and turn down others, for a wide variety of reasons. Every time I turn down a story, I try to share my reasons for the rejection in a helpful and encouraging way.

Writing these “rejection letters” sometimes turns into an opportunity to share something that I think more writers should be aware of, or think about. Today I had one of those opportunities, and I wanted to share my response here.

I hope this response will be useful and encouraging to you, whether you’re a writer/author or not.

I wrote this email in response to a story submission that was fairly dark and hopeless…

Hi [author],

Thanks for sending this in. I hope it isn’t too closely reflective of your personal experiences…

With “dark” stories, I always go back to something one of my high school teachers told me. I showed him a dark story I’d written, based on a nightmare I’d had. He asked me where the story’s “redemption” was.

It didn’t have one.

I think this story is in a similar place. Life can be dark sometimes, and writing, as a reflection of life, can certainly go to those dark places, too. But as authors and artists, I think it’s important that we find a way to make those dark spots count for something. There should be meaning, hope, growth, or redemption of some sort in the dark things that we write, some kind of encouragement or a call to action, or even a cry for help.

This story is simply a descent into hopelessness, without any of those redemptive elements I just described. I’d like to encourage you to move beyond the darkness of a story like this and find a way to bring out a positive of some kind. Maybe that means finding something to hope in or hope for. Maybe it means calling people to come and do something to make a change or challenge the darkness. Or maybe the only thing you can do is turn it into a cry for help. (For an example of this, see Psalm 88.)

So thanks again for submitting. I won’t be using this story on the site, but I hope sending this in has allowed you to express what you needed to express, and I hope you’re able to find some redemption through your writing in the future.

Tim Sevenhuysen

Writing Reflections

When “Done” Isn’t “Done”

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Hide and Seek is done. Well, very nearly, anyways.

Last night I wrote, and today I posted, the final chapter in my longest Special People story arc yet. It was Chapter 55, and the total length of the story is about 50,000 words.

I have a brief epilogue to write, containing one final scene, and then that’ll be that. The story will be finished and I can move on.

Except not quite.

My long-term goal with Special People is to package up the story arcs into (self-)publishable, printable books and sell them through my Store, alongside my other writing. Why hasn’t that happened yet? After all, I’d already completed three story arcs before I even started Hide and Seek.

Well, put simply, it’s because those stories aren’t ready to publish. It isn’t enough for me to wrap up the serialization of the story and get every chapter up on the website; I also have to deal with editing and, in some cases, rewriting, and there’s nothing that shuts down my creative urges like rewriting… Yuck.

Of the stories I’ve written for Special People so far, I’d say Hide and Seek is maybe in the most publishable shape, though Who Killed Walter Carton? came out pretty decently, too. (Trends suggest that I’m getting better over time!) But before I can release Hide and Seek as a novel, I know for sure that there’s one specific chapter I have to significantly rewrite, because I forgot to factor in the use of a character’s special ability, and I’m pretty certain there are a variety of problems with the continuity and flow of the story, simply due to the fact that my writing time was spread out over such a long time period. I guarantee I’ve forgotten some of the details of the early story, and made some blunders in the later chapters because of it.

Then, on top of all that, I have to consider whether it would even make sense to publish Hide and Seek before putting out the arcs that came before it. This is a tricky one, because Hide and Seek actually takes place 10 years before Hands-On and King of the Dark, and doesn’t require knowledge of those stories, but I feel like those earlier arcs may do a better job of introducing the reader to the Special People “universe” and its primary character(s).

If I decide that I want to publish the stories in the order I wrote them, that means I have to revisit my plans to rewrite Hands-On and King of the Dark. There’s a great road plan laid out for me to do so, but it’s going to take time to do it, and like I said, that doesn’t exactly get my creative juices flowing.

Thankfully, I’m going to have a month to work through whichever set of edits or rewrites I decide to pursue, while the comic, Change, gets posted. I’ll keep everyone updated on my plans as and when I make any decisions.

Writing Reflections

Learning How to Write Conflict

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One of the main reasons I challenged myself to do the Year of Stories was to force myself to practice my writing. I’ve written 11 stories at this point and released 5 of them, with February’s batch of 4 more coming out soon.

Putting together a new short story every single week means that I have to explore lots of different plot types and methods of storytelling. Here are some of the lessons I’ve learned so far, relating mostly to developing conflict.

1. Clarify the conflict.

Sometimes I’m tempted to write a story that’s based more on a concept than a conflict. In Burns Mar the Sun-Grasper’s Hands, for example, there isn’t actually much of a conflict: the events of the story take place without a whole lot of tension, and it doesn’t really feel like there’s something at stake.

As a speculative fiction writer, I love a good concept. I love to build a story around an idea, a “what if” scenario, like I did in Diana and the Animal and A Kingdom of White. If the concept is all the story has going for it, though, then it isn’t much of a story.

Conflict and tension keep the reader reading, so that’s something I’m trying to be more intentional about creating as I come up with the ideas for my future stories.

2. Tell the story during the story.

In Discovery Two, a significant portion of the conflict has been played out in the past, and doesn’t happen during the flow of the story. Building a conflict outside the events of the story doesn’t involve the reader in what’s happening, and it’s very important for the reader to feel involved, I think.

In the case of Discovery Two, the “outside-the-flow” conflict was playing out as the backdrop to an active, “inside-the-flow” sequence of events, so I think the story reads okay because of that, but if I was writing the story again I would try to find a way to build those past events more directly into the flow of the storytelling.

3. Make the characters proactive.

Don’t let the story happen to the character. Make them an active part of its evolution and resolution. Having passive characters who simply react to a story playing itself out in front of them is the storytelling equivalent of using the passive voice to build a sentence.

Not to pick too much on one story, but Burns Mar the Sun-Grasper’s Hands is an example of the main character being largely reactive rather than proactive. I don’t think the story is terrible, but I feel like the way I constructed it didn’t allow for the strongest storytelling.

4. Resolve the conflict.

If I do all of the other steps above, building a good conflict, playing out that conflict within the flow of the story, and making the characters proactive in exploring that conflict, it will all come to nothing if I don’t resolve the conflict.

Obviously there are exceptions to this rule. Short stories are an especially fertile ground for cliffhangers, partial resolutions, and other forms of alternative plotting. But in general, a reader wants to feel satisfied with their experience when they come to the end of the story. The main questions should be answered. At least part of the conflict should be resolved.

A Kingdom of White is an example of a story that I think does this well. The overall conflict may not get resolved, but the conflict that is actually played out within the story–the character’s internal conflict–does get resolved. The larger, external conflict is left as a sort of cliffhanger. (That external conflict is something I’d love to expand into novel length, if I get the opportunity.)

Obviously I’m not an expert at applying all of these rules to my writing, not yet. I have a long way to go this year, and I expect to learn a lot more. I’m sure I’ll still see some of these weaknesses creeping into my stories here and there, but I’m growing and improving as a writer, and I hope that comes across to you as a reader.