WRITING EXERCISES: PATRICIA ANN MCNAIR offers a strategy to bring structure to short stories: ‘When a student says they don’t have anything to write about, or when I get stumped myself, I know that it is not content we yearn for, it is structure…’
Author MARY O’DONNELL guides us through an excision of the exclamation mark in fiction: ‘So, how to perform what I call an Exclamectomy? For most of us, it’s actually a question of becoming more aware of the sound of things, and of the voice in which a phrase is uttered…’
WRITING EXERCISE: ‘On a fundamental level, the plot of any story can be reduced to: a character who wants something they can’t have. Where it gets really interesting is when that ‘something’ is totally out of bounds. Flirting with someone else’s lover. Saying ‘Macbeth’ in a theatre. Opening Pandora’s Box. Reading a banned book. Speaking Voldemort’s name. Riding your big sister’s bike…’ JO GATFORD, from Writers’ HQ, offers a creative exercise in the taboo…
WRITING EXERCISE: SHAUN LEVIN, creator of the Writing Maps guides for writers, looks at movement in short stories and how to check you’re getting enough: ‘Kafka manages, in a 181-word story, to include an account of: 1) what is happening, 2) questions regarding what might actually be happening, and 3) a mention of what had been happening before all that is happening started…’
‘The journey to the end of a story can be littered with plot holes, hold-ups, plans that need constant revision and, worst of all, a complete blockade. Enthusiasm will only get you so far…’ LYNDA NASH shares some valuable strategies to help overcome the dreaded writer’s block.
LYNDA NASH guides us through a selection of exercises to battle those writing demons: ‘It’s difficult to write when your inner critic is telling you that your ideas are stupid, that you couldn’t string a decent sentence together to save your life, and that if you were a ‘proper writer’ you wouldn’t get blocked in the first place…’
LYNDA NASH teaches us some useful tips on submitting to short story competitions, advice learnt the hard way: ‘So why did my precious literary effort fail to make an impression? Did it fit the competition criteria? No. Did it open with a bang? Again, no. Did it have a less-than-self-indulgent plot? No, it didn’t…’
‘There’s a stage in front of me. There’s a microphone on the stage. There are lights that make your eyes go funny and a room full of people….’ HOLLY DAWSON shares the tips she found most useful when facing the dreaded public short story reading.
WRITING EXERCISE: Writer and tutor EMMA STRONG suggests a way in which Twitter might revolutionise your writing day: ‘Does it provide us with a forum to share and discuss work, to give and receive feedback, or is Twitter just a narcissistic time-waster, best ignored?’
In this feature, Thresholds’ Editorial Assistant DAVID FRANKEL shares the writing exercise that has been most useful to him, when writing short fiction: ‘It came to me from one great writing tutor via another…’
