Story Starter Sunday 6/17/12

Time for this week's Story Starter. I'm still recovering from Pride yesterday. Our group had a small float and a section behind for marchers. A couple of friends wanted to ride the float, so I decided to hop on with them. Beats walking two miles in the heat, right? Nope. For future reference, standing inside a reflective metal box in blistering sunlight for an hour and a half is no less miserable than walking in it. But we had a great time.

So, today's Story Starter. Here's what I rolled (please ignore the sideways-ness):

And here's what I came up with:

Tommy Big Oak knows that most people's shadows follow them, not the other way round. But his shadow's always leading the way. When Tommy follows close, he finds a number of mysteries: fish who teach him to open locks, and the secret code on his cell phone that can switch any light on or off, or even a whole city! And when he follows Shadow to the remnants of a fallen star, he finds a bigger mystery--a starlit path from Earth to the Moon.

Anyone else want to give it a go? It's fun!

Story Starter Sunday 6/10/12

So, this past Christmas I got a fun gift from my good friend Brian. They're called Rory's Story Cubes, and they're used for...well, lots of things. Each of the cubes (dice) shows an image, and you try to create a story from the images.

I had decided to use them as an icebreaker brainstorming exercise. Then I figured, why not share the fun? So every Sunday I'll post the arrangement of Story Cubes I've rolled this week, along with my story idea. If you come up with a different, better, funnier, etc., idea, please post it in the comments! And if you manage to get a story published based on a cube arrangement, I'd love to hear about it!

So, without further ado, here's this week's arrangement. I've already formed the cubes into idea clusters, but please don't limit yourself to my pairings:

Okay, so here's my story idea for this week: An elderly optimist who can calculate advanced mathematics using an abacus forms an unlikely friendship with a pessimistic firebug with a compulsion for destroying light bulbs. When they discover the Turtle of Chaos has a scheme to take over the world's postal service, they band together to fight the foe.

What did you come up with?

New Story!

Recondite Curiosa will appear in the inaugural online issue of Title Goes Here later this week (hopefully). I'll provide a link as soon as it's up.

Lessons learned from rejection

A couple of months ago, I wrote a short story, one of the most enjoyable stories I've had the pleasure to write. It had everything I love: evil super-science villains working on a mad science island! Superhero spies! And one naive, conflicted man, caught in the middle. It was deliciously and unapologetically over-the-top. I love that story.

Sadly, I seem to be the only one engaged in that love. I got some mixed feedback from my peers, and I went back and did some revision. Then I sent it out to some markets.

Submission is the stage of the writing process where the writer discovers the disconnect between the brilliance she perceives in her own mind and the cold trained judgment of the editor. Two editors did go out of their way to personalize their rejections. 'The story almost caught me in a couple of places, but never quite made it.' 'The character development just wasn't there.' I appreciate their insights, and will keep them in mind when I work on future stories. However, I don't think I'm going to do any more revision on this story.

I think I understand the problem. While the story spoke to me, it just didn't touch other readers in the same way. Perhaps if I went back and tinkered some more, I would be able to alter the story enough to make it "marketable". I'm still developing my structuring and story-telling skills, and maybe I'm just not "there" yet.

But perhaps a sale wasn't the purpose of this particular story. I had a ball writing it, and it clarified some ideas I've had for a fantasy/sci-fi universe that I'll be using in future stories. I also used it to experiment with plot twists, something I've been told is lacking in my work. (As a caveat, one editor commenting on the story told me that plot twists are not a substitute for character development; but hey, at least he acknowledged the plot twist!) So for now I'm going to mark that story as an enjoyable learning experience and continue on with new projects.

Edited on: 01/19/10 to protect story name

Beyond Centauri now available

Last week I received my contributor's copy of Issue 23 of Beyond Centauri. Click the link if you'd like to purchase a copy. Also, if you're of the writing bent, be sure to check out Expressions Newsletter, also by Samsdot Publishing.