A Great Question and Some Clarity
In Today's Journal
* The True Pulp Kickstarter Is Live!
* Your Morning Serial
* A Great Question and Some Clarity
* The Numbers
The True Pulp Kickstarter Is LIVE!
The True Pulp Kickstarter went live yesterday.
Everyone please stop by and check it out. Backers get early access plus exclusive covers and content.
Authors, Merchandise, and Bonus Books. Oh My!
An exclusive, collectible cover you can get only through the Kickstarter. And really great stretch goals.
Be sure to read down for info on the authors, rewards for backing at the various levels, add-ons, stretch goals, and more. And please be sure to tell all your friends!
If True Pulp—Pulp with an Enduring Legacy—interests you, please show your support at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/troylambert/true-pulp-a-noir-anthology.
On Day 1 we've already almost funded! Help push us over the top and get some great stories with some of the best major pulp writers working today.
See you there!
Your Morning Serial
Currently on Your Morning Serial a "we went there" generation-ship SF story—The Ark: The Journey Home—is unfolding. Free.
Get in from the beginning. You can find the first chapter at Chapter 1 and then read the next two chapters. Chapter 4 will post today at 5 a.m.
If you subscribe (free) the successive chapters will be delivered directly to your inbox.
A Great Question and Some Clarity
A young, eager fiction writer sent me the following comment during a recent exchange of emails:
"I do 'struggle' a bit with wanting to start a short and then it blossoming into something larger. Follow the characters where they will go though. I’ve heard you mention before that the key with short stories is to just follow 'one event' instead of multiple events."
I'm so glad he wrote that, because it's a misunderstanding. Here's my response:
Just to be clear, it isn't that you "follow" one event. It's that by definition a short story is only ABOUT one event. That just means if the story wraps after the one event, it's a short story.
But definitely always follow the characters and let the story be whatever it wants to be. By all means, if other events continue to drop as the story unfolds, let 'em drop and keep writing. Then you're into novella or novel territory.
But don't worry about that. Don't worry about the length or what the story will be.
Just keep running through the story with the characters as it unfolds around you and write how the characters react to the events in what they say and do.
And if/when you feel stuck (and chances are, you will), cycle over what you've written and then Just Write the Next Sentence, then the next and the next.
Very soon the story will be flowing again and you won't be stuck anymore. Just remind yourself as often as necessary to trust the story and the characters.
You can even go back into a novel after the fact—after you've written and published the novel—and pick out one event, and copy/paste that section of the novel into a short story format and publish it as a stand-alone short story.
If anybody has any questions on this, please ask me.
In fact, if I write anything here and you don't quite get it, please ask. Different writers learn in different ways. Sometimes if I say something in a different way, that will make it clear for you.
If you don't understand something when I say it in one way, give me a chance to clarify.
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………… 590
Writing of Blackwell Ops 45: Sam Granger | Ghost Trail 2
Day 1…… 2637 words. To date…… 2637
Day 2…… 3648 words. To date…… 6285
Day 3…… 3483 words. To date…… 9768
CUTS…… -4437 words. To date…… 5331
Day 4…… 3212 words. To date…… 8543
Day 5…… 2715 words. To date…… 11258
Day 6…… 2044 words. To date…… 13302
Day 7…… 2280 words. To date…… 15582
Day 8…… 2901 words. To date…… 18483
Fiction for June……………………….. 5181
Fiction for 2025………………………. 468633
Nonfiction for June………………....... 3350
Nonfiction for 2025…………………… 129500
2025 consumable words…………….. 591623
2025 Novels to Date…………………….. 11
2025 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2025 Short Stories to Date……………… 27
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………..... 115
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 297
Short story collections……………………. 29
Whatever you believe, unreasoning fear and the myths that outlining, revising, and rewriting will make your work better are lies. They will always slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.
Writing fiction should never be something that stresses you out. It should be fun. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Because of WITD and because I endeavor to follow those Rules I am a prolific professional fiction writer. You can be too.
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Questions are always welcome at harveystanbrough@gmail.com. But please limit yourself to the topics of writing and publishing.
Thanks as always Harvey!
Sounds like great news for the kickstarter!