  Short Stories
This week: Keep Checking Edited by: Leger~  
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The purpose of this newsletter is to help the Writing.com short story author hone their craft and improve their skills. Along with that I would like to inform, advocate, and create new, fresh ideas for the short story author. Write to me if you have an idea you would like presented.
This week's Short Story Editor
Leger~ |
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Keep Checking
I've suggested it many times, and sometimes I even follow my own advice! I was poking around my Newsfeed and saw a link Joy  posted. I like to look around, even if all I have is a few minutes to ramble on the internet. Anyway, her super helpful and interesting thing was this: https://mastersreview.com/files/2016/02/LITERARY-CALENDAR-2016_Part-I-1.pdf
I took a look at a few of the upcoming contests and what do you know, I see one to which I can submit a story. (For you poets, there are also some poetry listings.) So hey, even when you think you've exhausted all avenues for submissions, take time once in a while to see what is out there. Every year new contests come out, just like our member contests on WDC.
And please, take the time to read all the entry requirements. Just like WDC, if you don't meet all the requirements to enter, your entry will hit the trash can without a backward glance. There's no "but..", if you miss the mark the entry is gone. With hundreds of entries, the more the judge can eliminate before even setting eyes on the writing, the easier it is for them.
So best of luck, and Write On!
This month's question: Do you have any resource suggestions for contest listings? Send in your answer below!  Editors love feedback!
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Prompt for March 2016: Write a story that explains your character's particular views on faith. Is he or she an atheist? Agnostic? Theist? Deist? Christian, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, Hindu, etc.? Whatever your character's faith may be, show and/or tell us about a formative experience that led to those beliefs.
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The most basic rule for our contest is that you must use third person limited for your story's narrative mode--first person and omniscient narrators are banished!
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Excerpt: Gregory Allen was a large burly man with gray thinning hair. He walked down the aisle with his hands clasped behind his back and his head bowed. He'd never before felt such crushing grief. He hoped he could get through this without falling apart. At the front of the church, he stood between the two coffins. He touched them and sucked back the sob he felt forming in his throat. Then he wiped his tears with his handkerchief and stepped up to the podium. He paused to look at the portrait, his friends on their wedding day. I can't do this, he thought.
Excerpt: We seven new men will haunt this night, ghostly raiders come to despoil and retreat. We wait eagerly for the suns to die, plunged into the heart of the land in a welter of red. We await the dark of night by the border stone to try our metal in the tain. Finally, Spark has set leaving just a small brightness below the warm glow of Sol na Nua and the colors of the world are at their most intense, fairly dripping with vibrant life.
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Excerpt: Teens all want to be someone they're not. That's a given, right? Ugly ones want to be good looking, fat ones want to be thin, dumb ones want to be smart, and the ones with pimples want a whole new face. It's always something. Most of the time, though, it makes sense. What I wanted didn't make sense, I guess, to most people. Just to me.
I wanted to be Jewish.
| | The Swift (13+)
The steam-powered superhero pursues his arch-enemy, Professor Delirium Tremens.
#1879638 by CeruleanSon  |
Excerpt: Slowly, the Swift picked himself up from the gravel-coated tar-paper roof where he had been forced down. He glanced quickly around for immediate danger, and seeing none, checked himself for injury. His tough gloves were scuffed but undamaged; on his right knee, just above his black Wellington boot, the thick material of his slate-gray jodhpurs was torn, but the joint itself had escaped harm. Next, he checked the slender, aluminum struts of his wings. The fact that he had folded them before impact had saved them from being snapped in the tumble, but one of the three fingers of the left wing was bent out of alignment. He gripped the incredibly expensive metal on either side of the kink and, straining, was able to straighten it to an approximation of its former position. The slick material of the membranes, at least, was untorn.
Excerpt: The air was bitter that January morning. I sat comfortably by the fire of the Franklin stove as I drank my tea. It had been imported from Britain, so there was a bit of a salty taste. I didn’t mind though. It was lucky of me to be married to a British tax collector. At that time not many women such as myself had the privilege to enjoy the beverage. It was too costly.
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This month's question: Do you have any resource suggestions for contest listings? Send in your answer below! Editors love feedback!
Last month's question: Have you ever gotten permission to use copyrighted work in your story?
Alexandra  responded: I wrote a text book and wanted to quote two lines from a book on the subject from a major publisher. I wrote and asked for permission to use the material and permission was freely and courteously given.
Quick-Quill  answered: I have not. I used parts from Gilbran's THE PROPHET and my publisher made me take it out. She wouldn't even look to see If I needed permission!
Vaughan Jones - ONE Scribe asked: Thank you, I find this very interesting. I have written a song and its lyrics, a tribute to Pink Floyd. The lyrics are filled with the titles of their songs, snippets of lyrics from their songs, and names of their albums. I play and sing it at gigs and concerts and I would love to publish it as a poem; in fact I already have it constructed as a poem. How should I proceed?
vada commented: Great information, Leger. I have never gotten permission to use copyrighted work. I try to stick with just titles of songs, but have some very old lyrics in one Mss. That one is 'under the bed', so to speak, so shouldn't be a problem, but if I ever decided to bring it to light, I would need to check for copyright. Hadn't thought of that. Thanks for the tip.
Cynaemon replied: No, I have not ever gotten permission to use copyrighted material. I don't usually use songs or poems in my work, other than what I have written myself. However, if I do, I make sure that I put the copyright info in a footnote. Since most of my writing is for myself, and not being published I think this acceptable. If I was going to publish a work, I would get the proper permission to use it. I also do a lot of artwork, and often use pictures I find in magazines as backgrounds. In those instances, I always make sure the viewer knows it is copyrighted material, and I site the author, and/or photographer, and the source, if I know it, or else I site it as ephemera from unknown sources, and not my own work. Whenever I put any of my work, art, poetry, short stories, etc., online, I sign my name and pout my copyright (Cynaemon Press) on it. I am very conscious of using copyrighted material, and very picky about people using my work and not giving me credit for it. I looked up one of my poems recently, and was surprised to find that someone had used it on their site with a background that they had made or gotten from other sources. I emailed the person, but never heard anything back from them. However, they did site me as the author of the piece. I think this is something of which we all need to be aware.
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Short Stories: March 09, 2016 Issue [#7528]
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