I read an article that said an author should try their
hand at writing other formats as a writing exercise.
Any format would work. The ones they suggested were a six-word
story. You need a beginning,
middle, end, and ideally a lot of tension. You need to set up and resolve
conflict in six specific words.
The next is poetry, which is painstaking to write. The next is Flash Fiction, defined
as “short short stories” or stories between 50 and 2,000 words. Try to pack a
complete story into so few words.
The fourth one is a
short story. The fifth is a news article. The value ere is the comparison of
styles – fiction vs non-fiction. It also it forces you to fill in the “five Ws
and one H.” This is of course the “Who, What, What, When, Where, and How”.
The last one is an
opinion piece. It should be novel, or at least presented in a novel fashion,
that is personal to you and not derivative of anyone else’s thinking. It must
exhibit original thinking. It forces you to find and use your voice.
I have written one
short story, which does force you to tighten your writing. I have never tried any
of the others, but I am considering the opinion piece and a news article. It might
be interesting. Anything to improve my writing skills.
What about you? Does
this sound valuable? Have you written in any of them? Does it help tighten your
writing?
What great suggestions, Beverley. Three years ago, I joined a group blogsite that does a holiday "anthology" of serialized short stories. Each author has 2-4 days in Dec. for her story. I hadn't written a short story since high school--back in the Dark Ages. What a challenge. Each year since, I've enjoyed that tight format. I think I'll try one of the others you mentioned.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing, Diane. It's nice to know that one works.
DeleteOccasionally, I write essays. I save them for blogs or subbing to other sites. It does work!
ReplyDeleteEssays sound interesting, and great for blogs. I my add that to my list to try. Thanks for sharing.
Delete