The Writing Challenges - Having At It

[The Procrastinator]

I thought it might be interesting to have a thread for discussing the mechanics of those lovely 75-word writing challenges - in other words, how everyone goes about it - I'm sure there are as many approaches as there are participants, or more.

I start with the concept, or theme - chew on it for a bit and decide the angle I want to explore - then start thinking about how I can paint the scene using as few words as possible. How I can illustrate what I want to say using as few scenes as possible - what is absolutely necessary - what would be nice but isn't needed. I think about the who - who am I using to try and illustrate my theme? What are they doing and why is it relevant? And the tricky bit - attempting to encapsulate the thing so it stands as a story by itself - but remains a little open, because I like ambiguity and shades of grey.

When I write the damn thing I've been stewing for a few days so the actual writing doesn't take long. But again, when I write, I try to use as few words as possible, which means choosing carefully - I like nuance and layers, but at the same time I like to try and "ground" the reader, so he or she feels like they're there. That's what I aim for, not necessarily what I achieve.

I do it like this because I'm a pottery decorator by day, engraving freehand in damp clay with not much room for error - think before you act, have your concept clear, then commit yourself and do it. Its interesting doing this with words instead of lines!

How do others go about it?

 

[The Judge]

For me, it's much like how I approach any piece of writing -- I usually have a picture and/or a phrase which pops into my head. For my first one, I came across some photos of the Lescaux cave paintings and the words "sympathetic magic" sprang into my mind (I had to check afterwards they actually had meaning in the context). Last month I was passing a travel agents and saw the archetypal picture of desert island paradise -- palm tree, beach, blue seas -- and I had an image of fingers curling into the soft sand. This time I had a mental image of a famous painting and the sentence "Defying a god is perilous" came out of nowhere.

Once I've got the image/phrase I play around with it in my head for a bit, and then scribble words down. I just write it as it needs to be written, without worrying about word use or word count at that point. Then I edit and worry at it, and read it through about 50 times in quick succession -- out loud and otherwise -- and leave it alone, and then come back to it, and then get the other half's opinion (which I usually ignore unless he agrees with me...).

I had real trouble the first time to get under 75 words, and it involved a lot of pruning. The second time was easier, and although I edited a bit, it was more for balance and symmetry rather than to get the words down. This time I struggled to get up even to 60 words, and although I kept wanting to add more to make it clearer for those who don't know the myth (eg the other half...), it would have ruined the poetic feel I was after, and probably the hidden message -- though since everyone is getting it so quickly, it obviously wasn't hidden enough.

In other words, I'm the direct opposite to you, Procrastinator, in that the message/theme is the last thing I worry about (if I worry at all). I think you must be a much more intellectual writer than I am. It is interesting to see how different people approach it though -- thanks for the thread.

And I'm intrigued by the pottery decoration. Your own designs on your own pots?

 

[Chel]

This topic is interesting! I'm going by the idea that one's daytime occupation might influence how one writes these wonderful stories (of course, this is assuming one's "real life" work in some way reflects one's personality). I can certainly buy that!

With three 75-word stories written, this is how I've done it so far.
First I mull over the theme, itching to get an idea, any idea, usually over coffee before going to work. I try to keep in mind the things I was taught ages ago about storytelling; a story needs a beginning and an end, and something happening that connects the two. (That was the jist of it, I'm sure there's someone here who knows a direct quote of this rule.)


For the April challenge, Visit to Another World, I considered first the shortest possible way of telling the whole story of a person's life, and came up with the engravings on a tombstone. They usually (in our world!) have a beginning, a date of birth and an end, the date of death. They can give us important details about the life of whoever the deceased is (name, titles, family).

Then I had to decide whose story I wanted to tell, and picked the character Amilia de Tremontaine, a conniving young noblewoman I played in a roleplaying game. This RPG is the idea behind my current Astelor-story as well, so Amilia is always stirring somewhere in my mind. In my 75-word story Epitaph, I explored what could have happened - the metaphysics of the RPG would have allowed for a glimpse into the future while Amilia was lost in the mysterious maze created to trap the Gods.

Then of course I realised that the text on a tombstone, while telling the whole story of a life lived, didn't say much about a visit to another world unless there actually was another world, so I added the last sentences.


For the May challenge, Escape, I wanted to capture a sense of urgency, adrenaline pumping, fear, fast decisions. I started at the end, with the reality escape of RPGs again, then struggled with the setting and the details - especially the means of the actual escape. While By Chance is the story that took me the longest to write and rewrite and edit out of my three stories so far, it's the one I have the least to say about.


I could explain my story for June (Transformation), but it's better that I don't. The only thing I'll say about it right now is that it also stems from the same RPG in which Amilia resides. Long Live... describes another of the stories told in that game. I chose to focus on the fastest transformation I know of, even if I struggled for a few days to actually come up with any idea at all. When I got the idea, though, writing it down didn't take long at all - but that's because I know that story and only had to change a few minor details.


Now, to go back to what I said before: I used to work in Customer Service, and now I work with 7-8 year old children. In both lines of work, you usually only get one chance to explain things. Customers and children alike need for you to get to the point and not confuse them with ambiguos hints. You need to keep it simple and straightforward.

This sentiment shines trough in my votes on the polls as well. Stories I don't understand the second time I read trough just won't get my vote. (The same goes for the books I read, by the way, if I don't understand what's going on, I won't read it.) I also look for a story with a beginning and an end, and something that ties them together. If I have to struggle to find one of those elements, I get disappointed and move on to the next story.

I realise this may not be completely on topic, but it's Saturday, it's summer, and the parts of my brain that aren't still sleeping are looking forward to the strawberry sparkling wine I intend to enjoy tonight.

 

[The Judge]

This sentiment shines trough in my votes on the polls as well. Stories I don't understand the second time I read trough just won't get my vote. (The same goes for the books I read, by the way, if I don't understand what's going on, I won't read it.)

That's interesting. I'm the other way. I like things with hidden depths, which challenge me to read again -- if only by challenging assumptions and my first ideas of what it is going to be (which is why I love twist endings).

No connection with former day job and way of crafting a story here, though. Precise, deliberate, non-ambiguous, goal-specific writing has given way to imagery and word-play.

 

[Chel]

That's interesting. I'm the other way. I like things with hidden depths, which challenge me to read again -- if only by challenging assumptions and my first ideas of what it is going to be (which is why I love twist endings).

Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy those things too - just not to the extent that I don't even know what I'm reading and why.

A story without any hidden depths at all would probably be all black and white, the good guys complete saints and the bad guys demons, with nothing in between. That would be boring. But creating confusion for the sake of creating confusion isn't my cup of tea.

 

[Mouse]

Wow. Ok, all I do is ponder the theme for a couple of minutes. Then start writing. Then I post. Then I regret posting. And then I worry for a bit that everybody will hate what I've written. And that's pretty much it. So far I've not gone much over 75 words in all three stories, so I've not had to prune much. I think my first story was two words over, same with the second and this third one was under 75 words.

This time though, I did want to spend more time on it. I wanted to write a few and pick out which one I thought was best. I wanted to try to do something clever and with depth. But... I dunno. I can't manage that! Sometimes you can over-think things too much, right?

 

[HareBrain]

Mouse, I'm pretty much the same. The idea comes to me whilst doing the washing up or something, I'll mull over the general idea, then type it up. It usually comes in either a few words under or over, so I tweak for a few minutes, come back to it in an hour, a few more tweaks, and post.

Any depth or cleverness is purely accidental, or belongs to the subconscious that generated the idea in the first place, but if I spot irony or whatever, I can try to bring it out. But they're just bits of fluff really, and as I said in the other thread, I'm in awe of people who can create serious pieces of work within such tight constraints.

 

[nixie]

Well I glanced out window at garden and as usual grass needs cutting, and thought wouldn't it be good if I could wake up in morning and it all be done.

 

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

I use the same mechanics with this as I do all my story writing-I come up with something in five minutes and have at it. It's hit and miss-and usually miss-but spontaneity is fun, is it not?

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

The first one I wrote and the one I rejected last month I simply started writing, went too long (as I knew I would) and pruned until I had 75 words.

As I found that method unsatisfactory, I decided I needed a strategy for writing these things. So for the second story that month (the one I submitted) I sat down and wrote one short line for each of the things I wanted to say or have happen in the story. Then I counted to see if it was in the vicinity of 75 words. It was five or six words under, so I knew it could be told in that requisite number of words. I just needed to find the right ones. For all the revising I did on it, it never once went over 75 words.

This month, for the story I submitted and the one I rejected, I used much the same strategy, but in both cases the first drafts went far over (interesting to think that I now consider something about 86 words long as rambling and bloated) so I had to do quite a bit of cutting.

 

[Precise Calibre]

I too have found that method to be unsatisfactory, Teresa. I think this month in particular got me, since I feel I could have gone on much longer in my piece.

I think I'll change my method to conceptualizing, free-writing and grab-bagging - AKA: I'm going to think of the subject, write a bunch of rubbish and then pick at them until I have something I like.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Well, last month I had to work my way UP to 75 words, because I wanted it to use all the possible space, and this month I had to work my way DOWN to 75 words.

I don't recall exactly how I got the thought to do the palindrome thing, but once I did, it only took about half an hour. I just started with "escape" as the last word because it was going to circle around and around and then kick you out to "escape" at the end, then I started backtracking from there and writing from both ends so that it was comprehensible (relatively) in both directions. Then I just had to work it so that it met in the middle at 37 words doubled. That sounds utterly ridiculous when I say it.

This month I was noodling around for inspiration when my friend's tragedy occurred, and I started thinking about organ donation (which they actually didn't even have as an option) and how one life transforms into all the ones that it saves, and I started the first few lines in my head as I was driving. When I started writing, I had one version pretty well down and then started another, different approach with the breath theme, but there was one line in the first that I just couldn't lose, so I kind of worked the second one up into the first one until I had the best of both with the theme threading through.

I really think this is the best thing I have ever written, and I do like some of my old stories--but this is totally different, so it would be an unfair comparison.

Even though I've written differently each time, I do tend to just plow it right out as soon as I have an idea, tweak it around and call it done. I've always edited as I go, so things don't need much after they hit the paper.

It's obvious that this competition is making us all bring our best to the table--everyone gets better each month!

 

[The Procrastinator]

And I'm intrigued by the pottery decoration. Your own designs on your own pots?

My own designs, although some are merely footsteps in a path thousands of years long - occasionally my own pots but not usually - it's teamwork. Specialist potter, specialist decorator/designer, specialist glazer (colourist).

I realise not everyone's day jobs would impact on their writing style - one of the reasons I thought it might be interesting to have this thread though. I haven't written longer pieces for yonks, but writing is typically a very slow process for me - yes, pretty intellectual - probably because I'm such a visual person that words can seem "alien". The closest analogy I can think of is handedness - one way is natural, flowing - the other can perform the task but every action needs to be concentrated on!

(At least that's how it is with me but I'm a lefty with ambidextrous moments, depending on what I'm doing)

 

[digs]

I'm a bit like Mouse and HareBrain. I'll have a good 5 minute sesh of thinking or just let it sit in my mind while I go about doing other things. With this story it kind of felt like my brain just regurgitated some random fantasy concepts and I took one and twisted it a bit. With my first story, I think the first half of the first sentence hit me first - and the themes grew from that.

With my most recent entry I was much more careful and deliberate than with my first. I wrote what I wanted to write and then trimmed that extensively. I tried not to rush myself. When I wrote my first, I wasn't incredibly happy about how I'd concluded it. I sat there staring at it thinking, 'Well, at least I have ages to edit it.' Then I posted it immediately. Yep. I'm a genius.

P.S. Another thing I did with my second story was to get a blank white pad of paper (drool), write 'Transformations' neatly up the top, and underline it. Whenever I see clean, empty paper the first thing I want to do is scrawl all over it - and that's what I did. Most of those scribbles were nonsensical and some were random words that I'd picked out of a phone conversation with my sister, written together, and drawn giant squares around. But some of them were ideas!

 

[J Riff]

To describe, to delineate in seventy-five words or less - exactly how one may come to write a particular seventy-five word story that tells a tale worth telling, is a mystery that none but the elder ghosts of the mages and scribes may know...
There is danger, great danger, in the spontaneous assemblage of said verbiage, for at moment the well may run dry, the thematic brilliance crumble, the- oh sorry, out of words.(75)

FWIW this month my story is about an entire race of microscopic creatures that live in your yard - and what happens in the story happens every time you block them from sunlight- genocide, except for the lucky few tower-leapers.

 

[Mouse]

I sat there staring at it thinking, 'Well, at least I have ages to edit it.' Then I posted it immediately. Yep. I'm a genius.

That's me exactly. I've done that with all three! Especially this third one, I wrote it into the quick reply box, stared at it for a while... then just went and posted it. D'oh!

I know a few people have said that they think they're getting better each month, but I think I'm getting worse. Next month I swear I'm going to do it differently.

 

[chopper]

J Riff, if we ever come to put together an anthology of these little tales, I think you may have installed yourself as lead to write the foreword...

Meanwhile, back on the ranch: Wikipedia is my friend. On all three so far I've used the subject as a base for research - New Worlds wenat automatically to terraforming, Escape somehow led to escape velocity, and Transformation to ascension - and then browsed the internet until something fitted together. After that the idea bakes at Gas Mark 7 for a few days until I can write it. And then comes the editing stage. No, strike that. I'm too impatient to edit.

 

[Culhwch]

Funny thing. The morning after the first challenge was posted, I woke up in a tangle of sheets with the story - get this - carved into my chest. No word of a lie. Backwards, so I could only read it in a mirror. The second story - well, that gets even weirder...

In reality, the first one came to me fairly quickly. I started it in the Quick Reply box, wrote most of it there, cut and pasted it into Word for the wordcount, realised how ridiculously few words seventy-five actually is, and cut and cut and cut some little more.

The second one wasn't as quick, but was still fairly swift in coming. The idea actually comes from one of my works in progress, ever so slightly tweaked. It's basically a scene I'm nowhere near writing, but it's always been there, waiting to be written. I wrote it in my head in bed one night, almost in full, and when it was still there the next morning I got up and typed it out. Spent a little time worrying at it, getting the words right, cutting one, adding one, cutting two, adding two.

The third has been more difficult. I wrote one at work the other day, but after a few readings liked it less and less. I had another idea along the same theme as chopper, but I never actually got around to writing that one. Inspiration struck when Teresa mentioned carrying a story over numerous competitions in the discussion thread. I had the seed, and I just had to spend half a day growing it. It finally came together tonight after another session of cutting one, adding one, cutting two, adding two. I'll post it soon. Just want to make sure of it...

 

[chrispenycate]

Anyone who'd met me would know I was incapable of writing a bonsai story; so I have to look for the smallest idea I can find, write it out, then prune off anything not essential for survival. In my first story my shy little juvenile dragon entering the musty, disapproving spaces of the country public library, lost her glittering scales and probably, in the minds of most readers, gained scabbed knees and tousled hair, but the concept lived on.

I then go to my "Seventy-five words.doc" document, to see if any of the texts I've done as training exercises fit; they haven't so far, and even if one was right, I'm not certain I'd use it; written to order, as against trials gives different results.

So now I'm looking for a tiny little idea; anything more would have to be trimmed down, anyway, or fail the Mouse test (Not, I may add, with any intention of gleaning a vote. I'm not dumbing down my stories for anyone here; I trust people here to follow, but it's silly writing clever for the sake of seeming clever)

I've no fear of clichés. I have total confidence that my peculiar viewpoint will file off the serial numbers, and leave them mine; that is the up side of not being capable of copying anyone else's writing style. There are numerous down sides. Then I write out the story, long hand, in pencil, on a pad, and manually count each paragraph. Please don't inform me my computer could do this in a brace of shakes; I am aware of this, but it doesn't seem to focus the burning glass of my intellect the same way.

Now it's somewhere round two hundred words, and merely needs bits amputating. If it's gone over two thousand, I'll blog it. What comes out of the operation generally has very little similarity with the original idea, but is at least partly interesting in its own right, I hope.

 

[Boneman]

I like to stew an idea for quite a while, day-dreaming the words, before trying to write it in 75 words - invariably it's about 80-90, so I have to cut and prune. I find this a really useful exercise, and it has carried over into my 'real' eek writing. I write in it word and then paste, takes too long to do it as a 'reply'. I think Mouse and the others are more in touch with their creative centres, it takes me days to finally decide how to do it...

I had the idea for the April challenge quite quickly, and I'm sure it was triggered by a Star Trek episode (which I can't remember), but it had to do with Picard outwitting a God... May's challenge flummoxed me, and I chose the theme! This month's idea came to me when I was reading Mouse, Leisha and TDZ's entry, no particular idea why (except the sex aspect!)- and the Judge compounded it for me, so there it was.