I haven't written a thing this week. Not for lack of want, either; I specifically want to write a short story prior to a game I'm running in 2 weeks, but while I can come up with all kinds of chrome, I've the usual problem of: what to actually do.
A short story needs to have some kind of point, or message that it's getting across. Something to demonstrate, perhaps, or something interesting to tell about a character. I keep skirting around ideas, thinking they might be interesting, but every time I hit upon something I think is interesting, it ceases to be a short story, and that's far beyond what I'm trying to accomplish right now. So then I skip past it.
The best thing I've got right now is a bit about a corporate wageslave who witnesses a murder and the resulting police action. The story would be designed primarily to illustrate what one aspect of living in a police state, where a person's rights actually vanish the moment one is suspected of being involved in a crime. And there is certainly some weight to that. In fact, as I write this now it sounds better than when I was thinking about it.
Tomorrow morning I am leaving on vacation. Perhaps the plane time might be a decent time to write. I will have my laptop with me. The last few days have not been conducive to creativity due to a sinus headache that seriously interfered with my ability to think. I'm not completely past its after-effects yet, but with luck I'll be in good enough shape to think about it tomorrow.
I'll report back in a week, and we shall see.
There's nothing really wrong with writing a short story and then turning it into a chapter in a longer story later. You don't technically have to decide what it's going to be before writing.
Er, unless you hate editing/rewriting a lot, then you kind of have to have a pretty complete outline before going in. But there's no harm in starting to write even if the idea is not fully formed.
About the worst that can happen is that you never use the idea at all and you might later consider the time spent writing it to have been "wasted" but that seems unlikely. An hour spent writing is probably still better than an hour spent thinking about writing while looking at a blank page. Probably the second-worst thing that could happen is that the idea comes in handy as part of a larger work but needs to be rewritten completely... some would consider that a "nice problem to have". If you find yourself sitting on 10 half-developed ideas, and only one is suitable for a short story, you still win :)
Post new comment