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Showing posts from February, 2019

Seven Good Reasons to Write Short Stories

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Seven Great Reasons to Write Short Stories Writing short stories is a good way to learn the craft of fiction writing. With a very small investment you will learn how to put sentences together to tell a story. You will learn the basics of character creation, world-building, creating natural dialogue and continuity. Most importantly, you’ll learn if you actually like writing. Especially when you’re still in the early stages of learning how to write well, it’s much easier to get people to read your 3,000 word story than your 80,000 word novel. Since stories are easy to read and to judge on both their writerly and structural merits and shortcomings, they are the perfect length to workshop. Workshopping can give you feedback, that you can use to improve your craft. There may well be a market for your short stories. You can send them to editors who could purchase them for magazines or anthologies.  They may even pay you money. It’s a time-tested way to start your writing care

What Do You Mean, "Read this"?

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"Atlas" - paper sculpture by Kenjio In my day job, I frequently give people documents with clearly written instructions for how to proceed. Please fill out your name and address. Payment must be made by cheque or money order in the amount of $500.00 to Monkey My Monkey Corp . There’s a 50/50 chance the instructions will be read and followed. If I highlight the keywords, my odds improve to 60/40. The rest of the people give back their documents, complete with contact information and signatures, while asking me, “Okay, how much do I owe you and who do I make the cheque out to?” Even when there’s a compelling reason, and clear directions to “READ THIS NOW”, many of us go to great lengths to avoid actually reading things. The instruction “Door Out of Service. Please Use Other Door,” is often ignored, or assumed to say “Grab the handle, push, pull, shake, then ask someone nearby “what’s going on?” As I think about how few people bother reading anything, I lau