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Tag Archives: Holly Lisle

Want to Write Flash Fiction?

17 Friday May 2013

Posted by Oren Litwin in Better Fantasy, NaNoWriMo, Self-Promotion, Writing

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Tags

Amazon, ebooks, Flash fiction, Holly Lisle, NaNoWriMo, national novel writing month, new book, writing

I’ve been quite busy over the last few weeks with my new book, The Best Congress Money Can Buy. Setting up the paperback edition and ordering copies has been exciting, as has been trying to publicize the thing. (I briefly got up to #3 on Amazon in the category of Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Political, which is pretty sweet!) And right now I’ve got other ideas for stories swimming through my brain that I’m trying desperately to fight off, at least until I clear out some of my other projects… But I just came across something I had to tell people about.

As I’ve mentioned briefly before, I’ve benefited greatly from writing classes I purchased from the excellent teacher Holly Lisle (whose name will likely be familiar to anyone who frequents the NaNoWriMo forums). Well, she recently rolled out a new freebie class for people who register for her site and opt into the mailing list. It’s titled “How To Write Flash Fiction That Doesn’t Suck,” and so far it is teaching me exactly what it says in the title.

I’d never really thought about doing flash fiction myself; I didn’t understand it, I didn’t know how to structure it or what the point was in writing it. Now that I’ve read Holly’s very first lesson in the three-session course, I’m a lot more interested. Not only does the form have possibilities that I never considered before, but writing lots of flash fiction is an excellent way to drill in the fundamentals of a good story: strong character, driving conflict, compelling needs and vivid description. I can’t wait for the next installment to come out!

This isn’t the only course of Holly’s that I am taking, not by a long shot. But I paid good money for the others, and this one is free—and it’s a brilliant summary of all of her techniques in a few short lessons. When I read the first lesson, I knew I had to spread the word. It’s just that good!

So if you want to learn how to write better stories, click on this link, register for her site, and then make sure to opt into the email list. (I think the opt-in button has a big picture of a dog wearing a hat, but don’t quote me.) It’s all free—but don’t be surprised if you end up taking some of the bigger classes. Lord knows I have!

Why You Should Save Your Early Drafts

21 Sunday Apr 2013

Posted by Oren Litwin in Writing

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Tags

editing, Holly Lisle, new fiction, politics, representative democracy, short story, writing, Writing drafts

I’ve been stuck on one short story in the collection I’m writing for quite a while now. Previously, the story had been a day-in-the-life of a character in a new version of representative democracy that I’m exploring, where instead of having a single Congressman you can transfer your vote to anyone you like, who will be your representative—or you can vote on your own behalf on new legislation, or represent others; but it was boring because there was no conflict. I therefore junked the first idea and tried attacking it from a different angle, that of actively lobbying for a particular bill.

Unfortunately, the second version turned out to be a complete mess. Beating my head against it for weeks trying to fix the structure gave little joy. Finally, frustrated, I decided I’d take another look at the first draft and see if it could be salvaged. Lo and behold, now that I had the benefit of lots of time away from the draft (and having in the meanwhile taken some of the courses offered by Holly Lisle, an excellent writing teacher), very quickly I figured out where the latent conflicts were in the story and how to draw them out into the open.

The lesson here is that you should never, ever, ever throw away old drafts. Duplicate them and then hack them to ribbons if you are editing, but preserve and cherish the originals. They may get you out of a bind someday.

(And yes, this is another way of saying that my collection will be published Real Soon Now™. If you are interested, do subscribe to this blog and you’ll be among the first to know when the book goes live.)

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