Hi Everyone, I've been looking into short story writing and I found a number of sites on the internet that give you a theme and see how well you can do with it using 500 to 1000 words or less. I have a story that I wrote for one of these sites and backed out when I got a case of nerves. I was wondering if I posted it here, would anyone look at it and tell me what they think and maybe we could get something going along the Very Short Story theme in the Forums, purely as an exercise to get our creative juices flowing. Would anyone be interested? I'd love some feedback on this.

Yes. (short answers for a short story) It's what this forum is about. Also, could you share the sites with the themes? We can always use help kick-starting the juice thing. g'snix

Below are some links that I've looked through just recently and some of them seem really good. I hope they help g'snix.

http://www.writersdigest.com/contests/short_story.asp
http://www.writersdigest.com/contests/
http://www.firstwriter.com/competitions/
http://collectedstories.com/files/storyteller/contests.html

and here is a link to a forum for anyone suffering writers block. I thought it might be helpful.
http://www.writersblock.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=stories_con

I hope something in these helps someone. I'm actually in the middle of a creative streak but as usual, afraid that none of my stuff is what people want to hear but I shall keep attempting and hope something comes out of it. At least I can say that I've tried :o)
Regards
Shemia

It's a very good idea. Post away!

Ok, I actually took the short story off for a little while to fix a few things so here it is if anyone would like to read it. I would appreciate any comments either way as I'm sure that any critique will only help my writing style. I hope you enjoy reading it.

THE KILLER OF HOPE

He peered nervously through the underbrush, nose twitching with the intention of releasing a monumental sneeze if he didnt do something about it and soon. Damned cold, he muttered and attempted to stifle the sneeze by burying his nose in his coat jacket. It stifled the sneeze a little but left a large wad of mucous hanging precariously from the ends of his left sleeve. He was repulsed by the effect it had in the moonlight and proceeded to rid himself of it by slowly rubbing his arm up and down the tree, behind which he was attempting to hide.

He once again raised the binoculars to his line of sight and adjusted the focus allowing him to look closely at the woman who was washing her hands at the sink. From the position he now held, all he could see of her was from the waist up. But that was enough; he just needed to be able to keep her in sight. According to the latest note theyd received down at headquarters, this serial attacker was taunting them, daring them to get even closer by leaving little clues in each of the notes provided to them every 7 days, regular as clockwork. So far theyd discovered 4 male bodies, all with the same grisly modus operandi and small notes containing snippets of information at each discovery.

Yesterday theyd put all the snippets together and finally worked out when and where the psycho intended to strike next. This is why he was here, in the freezing cold, with his binoculars trained on the woman in the centre of the window. Here, at the back of the house, where the woods met the perfectly clipped yard of the property, he stood with frosting breath and his heart tapping crazily with anticipation. He just knew hed get a well earned promotion if he caught this guy. Out here in the cold with just his binoculars for company, he could almost physically feel the prescence of the killer and it seemed to come from his very bones.

He looked up again from his musings and discovered that the woman had moved from her position in the window. Crap, he muttered and whilst trying to decide whether he should move closer, a loud scream tore through the stillness, from inside the house, which thus decided things for him. He took off at a run and went charging toward the the door at the back of the house.

Barrelling through, he met the end of the speargun full force impaling himself on it. Bleeding and dazed, he slid to the floor and was conscious long enough to hear the womans hideous laughter. As he looked up, the woman from the window was smiling at him holding tightly to the end of the speargun. I told you that youd never outsmart me but do you listen? No! she grinned horribly, attempting to push the spear head in even further, You men are all the same. With that he died, and the smiling killer sauntered off effortlessly to find her next victim.

shemia, a cool shocking short. I like it.
However, there are some issues. I think the story is too short. A low word count is no virtue by itself, especially not in the horror genre.

Firstly, I think this is potentially a very suspenceful story. But it is so short, it is over before the tension has a chance to build up. This also weakens the shocking ending, because the reader hardly has the time to relate to the pitiable protagonist.

Secondly, I detect a disproportional amount of exposition here. After a very catchy and graphic first paragraph you feed the reader with two paragraphs of information, culminating with the sentence: "This is why he was here. ...". This is what I read between the lines: "So now you know. Lets go on with the story." Please try to weave the necessary background information into your story and try to maintain the pace of your wonderful first paragrapgh. Then I think you are on to something great.

Thirdly, in a very short story, there is always the danger of writing "on the nose" the unfortunate tendency of telling instead of showing. Again, your first paragrapgh is great (though you could omit the "Damned cold", he muttererd." We already feel the cold. No need for a monologue here). I think the climax of your story could be improved, by not just telling us what happens. Instead, it would be better to write what the poor guy feels and let the reader deduce, what has actually happend. You need a few more lines to pull that of. Also, the I-told-you-so speech of the killer is on the nose. Be more subtle, so the reader feels smart by realizing the horrible truth.

Please, dont be too curt!

Finaly, I think there is a problem in the story itself that you should work around somehow. Because so far all dead bodies had been male, I had a hard time considering the woman a potential victim of the serial killer. If you want to shock us with an alledged victim turned villain, you have to get rid of that contradiction.

I hope this was helpful.

Message edited on: 08/30/2004 06:05

By the way, I just remembered a great example of how to deal with exposition. Do you remember the first Terminator movie? The Michael Biehn character tells the Linda Hamilton character what a terminator is, where it comes from and why it is persuing them. This is an awful lot of information to get across. But is it a boring scene of two people talking? No! Biehn is yelling at Hamilton while driving recklessly and ducking bullets. The audience dont even realize they are being fed information, because it is disguised so well in a full-blown action sequence. Weaving the information into the action does the trick.
shemia, you have no car chase in your story, but maybe you can come up with a way to tell the background story without interrupting your narrative.

Message edited on: 08/30/2004 06:27

Firstly, thank you Gurami for your very insightful thoughts. It gave me ideas that I had not thought of pursuing. Your first paragraph though said it was too short.

The idea was to fit as much information into a 500-1000 word short short story and I followed what was on the other web sites as to how the other authors delivered their message in a short space of time.

(Please read my point in entry 3 above about links to short short story websites and perhaps you could come up with one of your own. I would love to see your effort, with your ideas I feel it would be very good)

It was only meant to be a short straight to the point piece of prose to see what you could do with a minimal word count. Although the rest of your narrative was actually quite helpful so that when I'm ready to deliver something of length, I will definitely consider some of your points as they were well worth following up. Your comments were most appreciated.
Regards
shemia