  Short Stories
This week: Making It Memorable Edited by: Legerdemain  
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Making It Memorable
A couple years ago, I won second place in the "Short Shots: Official WDC Contest" with a cannibal story. Short Shots is an image prompt contest and the image posted that month wasn't a picture of natives, or a victim cooking in a pot. It was a picture of several empty canoes grounded on a beach.
How does a writer make the leap of thought from a picture of a blissful beach to a cannibal story? I free-write. I look at the picture and jot down everything the picture inspires in my mind. Ocean - beaches - boats. Boats - cruise boats - snooty yacht people. Snooty yacht people getting stranded. Do they deserve some time on a beautiful island until they're rescued? Of course not. They get cannibals.
When entering a contest, keep in mind that your entry will be one of many that the judge or judges will read. Your entry has to stand out in their mind. Not only does the writing have to be good, the grammar reasonable, and the spelling absolutely correct; it also has to be memorable. How can you accomplish that? Think about the beach prompt. Your first instinct might be to write about a vacation, or falling in love on the beach. That's good, it can make a great story. But is it memorable to a judge? After they've read perhaps a dozen love stories, your entry might get lost. Cannibals were memorable.
Next time you sit down to start a contest project, think outside the box. Try free-writing, jot down all the crazy images and thoughts that wander with your imagination. Then cross off what you feel might be too ordinary. What is left can be the basis for a fun scene, a crazy character or a really cool plot idea. Even if it gets too far away from the contest prompt to enter, the finished work can be quite exciting.
This month's question: Do you like using free-writing as an inspiration tool?
Send in your reply below! 
And if you're curious about my entry: "Stranded" [13+] The picture prompt is posted above the story. |
Excerpt: It's 2:00 AM and I am sleeping soundly in my bunk room at the Coast Guard Air Station. I am suddenly awakened by this "excruciating" sound: WHAAAAAAA......WHAAAAAA.......WHAAAAAA. It's the Search and Rescue (SAR) alarm announcing an emergency rescue mission. I throw the cover off and roll out of bed thinking: GHEEEEZ, I am getting too old for this stuff...WHAT IS THIS ALL ABOUT? I am glad this is my last mission!
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#1702626 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: Jagadashik gripped his son’s shoulders and stared into his boy’s eyes. “Sawanebenase, the time has come for your vision quest. Go into the forest and ask your spiritual teacher for guidance. Return to us, your odoodem, your clan, when the spirit has spoken to you.”
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Excerpt: Two weeks before I murdered my familiar, Carlton, I found a heart lying in a glass jar upon the beach in Wainwright Provence just east of Berkshire. Believe me, I was just as stunned then as you will be upon reading this.
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#1673394 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: We make our camp on the most beautiful land that was kissed by sacred tears. This is the place where the Maiden Spirit lives. Father Sky gave her spirit back to the land and the people, for the great sacrifice she made to save them.
Excerpt: Not much happens for me once the opening credits crash in like a testosterone-fueled battering ram. Just when you think you’re having a nice moment, a nice romantic and carefree moment –WHAM! Music, lights, gunfire, stylized blood! I find it barbaric. They call it cinema.
I languish, alone and unwanted, upon the same blasted beach that I started out on for the rest of the film. I literally have no idea where the narrative has gone. Most likely somewhere ridiculous. Nobody bothers to tell me. I’ve served my purpose. Apparently, I’m supposed to be grateful I wasn’t killed off.
Excerpt: The wind was blowing across the sea and I could feel Dave’s sleeve as it ruffled against my bare arm. Physically, he was within my reach, yet, I could sense he was already entranced by the gambler at his feet who had caught his attention, and that he was already being sucked in by his banter, and was, in all actuality, mentally miles away from me.
Excerpt: It all happened the day of the Psycho Beach Party, an annual event held every summer as the beaches filled with college kids from nearby universities. It’s a no-holds-barred party that lasts for twenty-four hours, or until you drop. Actually, the last person left standing is awarded another beach party just in his or her honor.
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#1687117 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: A beautiful young woman approached a couple lying in the sun. She spoke for a moment before the man nodded assent and pulled out some money. She reached into her bag and handed him a small package.
“That solves that mystery. I think we’ve found our dealer,” said Mike.
Excerpt: "Fatima!"
Her mother's screeching cry pierced through the fog which had once clouded the daydreaming young girl's mind. Creeping out of her hiding place beneath the natural cove next to the muddy river, Fatima hitched the single colorful cloth around her flat breasts (oh how she wished they could be bigger) and waded thigh deep to pick up her floating clay pot
Excerpt: He tucked his board under his arm, got on his bike to pedal the couple of miles to the water, not telling anyone where he was going. His mother would lay a brick if she knew and his friends would hear soon enough. There was a hurricane off the coast of Mexico and a south swell was breaking, a big south swell. He was heading to where he surfed. He was a local there.
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This month's question: Do you like using free-writing as an inspiration tool?
Last month's question: Do your friends and family end up as characters in your writing?
D.L. Fields  replied: Sometimes my family ends up as characters. I agree that real life has to enter the story, otherwise the reader won't believe it.
I think it's Cafe Press that features a t-shirt, "I'm a writer, be nice to me or I'll put you in my stories and kill you off."
Something like that.
mskelly65 sent: You bet they do and so do my pets and acquaintances and college buddies and so on. Except for the pets, I try to only include one or two characteristics or make sure the character does the role model proud. I don't want anyone to be embarrassed by something I've written. When writing fiction, I also feel borrowing too much from an actual person's personality or life is almost plagiarism. If I can't get away from relating an incident exactly the way it happened or set of specifics about a person exactly as they are in real life, I won't use them. It's my own personal standard based on what I feel my writing should be. I don't hold other writers to this standard, and probably wouldn't know how much they were including anyway!
atwhatcost answered: Some of my favorite short stories I've written have family renamed in them. I'm a bit like Alfred Hitchcock in that all my stories have me in them, even if not a primary or secondary character. On the other hand, my new novel is about my stuffed animals. Does that count? ;)
J. A. Buxton  said: In my first novel, the bigamist was named after a relative who did have five wives, just not all at the same time. The title of the second novel in the "Home of the" trilogy was inspired by Valentine, a friend's large dog. Even a few WDC members end up in my stories. (grinning)
chopstixd submitted: All the characters I like seem to be based on me, and all the characters I dislike seem to be based on colleagues. Who says writing ain't narcissistic?
I wish I’d noticed last month’s question: Have you had a secondary character run off with your plot line?
In "Invalid Item" , the first person POV character is a secondary character. While developing the story, her POV allowed more interesting possibilities. More dominant characters like her Mother, Taylor and Mary, couldn’t span the same distance and time.
bertiebrite hoping for peace comments: I don't think I have ever conciously added anyone I knew to a story. However, sub-conciously I might have. It would be hard to say, because traits can be so universal.
Swilltastic  admits: I can't help but put veiled composites of family and friends in my stories. Half my ideas come from life experience! Sometimes it will be obvious who one of my characters is based on, but other instances I have to be a little more careful. And of course, the character is never EXACTLY alike the real life counterpart. Sometimes I will combine two real people into one character.
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Short Stories: September 28, 2011 Issue [#4632]
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