Tag Archives: words

Make Every Word Count (blog post 7 of series)

Posted on by vgemmell
Unsplash Image by Sixteen Miles Out

Today’s post focuses on Flash Fiction, and how it might help you develop your writing. I started experimenting with Flash Fiction when I got serious about sending work out to publications. Tackling 100 or 200 word stories felt less daunting in terms of potentially being able to complete something during busy periods of my life. When tackling big projects like writing a novel, there are so many moments where it can be tempting to abandon the project; especially at the ‘sticky middle’ where it can feel like the whole story might never take shape, or even at the start if you can’t quite translate the ideas in your head onto the page and your characters aren’t revealing themselves in the way you’d hoped they might.

With Flash Fiction there’s no space to let your brain slow you down with doubt, as you just need to run with your idea and let the words take shape, with the challenge of still attempting to capture a meaningful ‘moment in time’ that tells some kind of story.

When I was a teenager I loved experimenting with poetry, and for me flash fiction became an extension of that creativity, as I tend to use a lot more imagery in my shorter work. In fact one of the first pieces of work I ever got published was labelled ‘Prose Poetry’, a cross-between poetry and flash fiction. Thanks go to Amy Burns for publishing Performance in her literary journal Spilling Ink (sadly the journal is no longer). Before I started to submit Performance, it won first place in a competition, which gave me the confidence to start sending it out. It was actually accepted for the Herald Saturday story section, but when a year went by without it ever appearing in print I realised the editor had forgotten about me. I was delighted when it then found a home with Spilling Ink. This was my first taste of the rollercoaster of sending work out! You can read Performance in the short story section of my website.

There have been times where I’ve cut longer stories to fit Flash Fiction entry rules, and that in itself can be a really helpful exercise. It starts to highlight unnecessary ‘filler’ words you might use a lot, and can give you more confidence in conveying a meaning or scene without over-explaining it to your reader. It teaches you in real-time how to make every word count.

 I mentioned in an earlier post that learning how to make every word count can help if you are writing pacey, fast-moving novels. If you’re writing a mystery or thriller, or tackling an unsettling topic, you want to keep your reader feeling a bit on edge, and not get bogged down in long over-written passages of narrative which have no purpose. 

If you fancy giving the form a try, check out The Flash Flood Journal It’s a great place to submit flash fiction and join in with a community of writers whose work is posted throughout National Flash Fiction Day. This year National Flash Fiction Day falls on 14 June so that gives you plenty of time to work on a piece (or two). You can read some of my flash fiction which featured in the journal over the years here

I’ll leave you with some tips I shared when I delivered a flash fiction writing workshop at a local writers group.

Top Tips

  • Make every word count – you don’t have much space for backstory and a lot of summarising and don’t get bogged down by unnecessary detail
  • Very important to ‘show’ not tell when working with limited words – show how your character is feeling by their actions and dialogue
  • Get into the action quickly – create intrigue to draw your reader in
  • Create emotion – what mood do you want to create? What do you want your reader to feel? (fear, sadness, hope, humour, romance)
  • Figure out what is at the heart of your story – what message do you want to get across? What are you trying to convey? Getting to the heart of your story helps you make every word count
  • Be creative with strong imagery and symbolism – this can draw the reader in and help you build the mood/setting
  • Still tell a story – have characters (not too many), a setting, something happening and then some kind of resolution
  • Write around a single moment in your protagonist’s day/life – often location will take on a bigger meaning, or perhaps an object
  • Often end with a surprise or impact – if you go for a twist try to avoid a cliché
  • Read some flash fiction to give you an idea of the structure

5 things I know for sure

Posted on by vgemmell
Pixabay image by pencilparker

Today’s title is my writing prompt and I’m answering in relation to writing (and reflecting on what this November challenge has taught me)

  1. Living a ‘creative life’ (mentioned in great books such as Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic and Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way) doesn’t mean creating life-changing masterpieces ~ It can be as simple as ensuring I stay connected to my creative brain in small ways: posting an unusual photo on Instagram, writing down a thought or opinion (in a notebook or in my notes on my phone), or writing short blog posts like this
  2. Even on days when I’m feeling like my head is foggy from ‘work brain’ I can still get decent words down on a page if I make myself sit down and write
  3. Writing a couple of terrible drafts is often enough to pave the way for a proper spark of inspiration that will then lead onto a much better piece of work
  4. Not sticking to one type of writing or project helps ‘creating’ become fun again
  5. I am much happier and life is more interesting if I’m producing something, anything, that involves getting words on a page

November Creative Challenge

Posted on by vgemmell

Last month I mentioned taking part in the #writetoctober23 challenge over on Instagram which was a great way of making time to do short posts about my writing life and keeping my head focused on creative things. I didn’t take part some of the days when I was on my abroad honeymoon, but managed to keep up with the challenge for most of the month.

Since this ended I’ve missed having this fun creative focus, as often I’m so bogged down during the week with work brain I often find myself not having the headspace to work on longer novel projects. Then I get frustrated with myself because I’m not devoting any time during my week to anything creative at all.

Lots of people take part in NaNoWrimo (National Novel Writing Month) every November, where they commit to writing a certain amount of words per day, usually with the aim to accumulate 50,000 words of a novel by the end of the month.

I thought it would be fun to set myself the challenge of writing a blog post a day (hopefully!) throughout November instead, with no word count goal imposed; the goal is just to get some words down every day. (Obviously a bit late to the party as we’re 5 days in to November, but I will make up for lost time).

So I went searching online for themes and prompts to inspire me and came across this great post here on the See Jane Write by Javacia site which contains a whole year’s worth of blog prompts. I also flicked through my helpful little book of creative prompts, The Pocket Muse by Moncia Wood and found there was actually an overlap in some of the themes.

I made a selection of ones I found most interesting, and I’ve listed them below so that anyone reading this can maybe join in or find your own inspiration from this. Even although I have made myself this list below there is probably going to be some variation on it (for one, I probably won’t do them in order as I feel some will be quicker posts than others, so this may be my deciding factor for which one I land on for a particular day).

I am also going to give myself permission to use the ‘prompt’ loosely as I know it may spark off alternative ideas.

I’ve listed 30 prompts and obviously we don’t have 30 days left in November – so this allows for space to skip past any I feel stuck with. I might duplicate some posts (interviews, cities I love) so again if you are using the prompts, don’t feel confined by them.

I plan to put the prompt I’ve selected for the day on my Instagram account so you can follow me over there for reminders: @victoriagemmellauthor

PROMPTS:

  1. Why do you Blog?
  2. Write about an outfit you associate with an important memory
  3. Use an image as a prompt
  4. Write about a City you love (I might use this prompt more than once)
  5. Write a 6 word memoir
  6. Take a negative comment and flip it into an essay or post
  7. Write a love letter to your body
  8. Write a letter to your younger self
  9. What do you love most about writing
  10. Write about a time you had to speak to a large crowd
  11. Write a 6 word story
  12. What songs would be included in a soundtrack of your life?
  13. What is the opposite of cake?
  14. Interview people who inspire you (I plan to make this a recurring post, interviewing writers/creatives)
  15. Write about a milestone birthday (or birthdays)
  16. Write a commencement address for girls graduating high school/college
  17. Look out a window. What do you see?
  18. Write an essay/poem with the title ‘This is what I say, but this is what I mean’
  19. Write a 6 word poem
  20. Take a notebook to a gallery or museum and write about something you see there
  21. Write a post about an hour that changed your life
  22. Write a thank you note to your readers
  23. A high point or low point (or both) of your day/week/month/year
  24. Imagine the day living as someone else (I’m going to use prompts alongside this from an exercise I did in the Artists Way)
  25. Write about the best trip you’ve ever taken
  26. Share your goals and how you plan to achieve them
  27. Write about the 5 things you know for sure
  28. Write a post celebrating winter
  29. Explain what self-care means to you
  30. Write a poem, essay or story inspired by the Emily Dickinson quote, “I dwell in possibility”

You’ll see number 1 is Why do you blog? I started seriously blogging on the blogger platform back in 2010. I flew out to Vancouver to visit my friend Jane who was living there and during this trip I realised I wanted to properly document my experience (as I was spending some days exploring the city alone when my friend was at work). I also wanted a platform where I could experiment with creative posts. I remember when I was staring at an Alice in Wonderland themed shop-front (photo below) on Commercial Drive I came up with the name of my blog ‘Through the Looking Glass’ and I started writing posts as soon as I returned home.

I stayed on blogger until 2017, which overlapped with the creation of this website here on WordPress (which I created during the launch of my first YA book). I switched to soley using this blog platform since I found it hard to maintain two separate sites, and this one has my writing domain name so I use it on contact cards/promotional materials.

I feel on this blog I’ve not been quite as creative and experimental as I used to be on Blogger so I guess this opens the door to try something new and return to the core of what I wanted to achieve through my blogging; to keep my creativity flowing, sparking off a more creative life in general and keeping the fun in the day-to-day when developing work. And also maybe daring to be a bit more personal in my posts again, not being so super-conscious of my audience and expressing opinions or writing about things I feel passionate about.

I was also much better at connecting with other bloggers through the Blogger platform and used to enjoy reading about other writers’ journeys, so if anyone decides to do a similar creative challenge for November leave your blog link/social media handle in my comments and I will give you a follow!

Events, Books & Writing

Posted on by vgemmell

Hello! I’m sitting typing this listening to the wind and rain outside, happy to be indoors drinking Early Grey Tea. I had a last burst of sunshine in Italy last month, and since returning home I think Scotland has dramatically descended into Autumn (Winter…) Cue dark mornings, dark nights, and potentially a lot of atmosphere for writing dark fiction.

A couple of very EXCITING THINGS are on the horizon book-wise for me, which I will talk about more in the next few weeks.

In the meantime, I am happily working away on my third teen thriller/mystery, and I have signed up to do two events during Book Week Scotland in November. The first event will be at Strathearn Community Campus, on Wednesday 21st November at 7pm. I will be talking to the audience about REBELS in fiction, as well as discussing the power words and imagination have to give young people a voice. The librarian put together a fabulous poster for my event; see below. This is a FREE event but tickets should be booked in advance through Strathearn Community Library, or the Eventbrite page here 

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On Thursday 22nd November at 2pm I will be visiting West College Scotland, Clydebank Campus, to talk to students during their Literacy Week, about the inspiration behind my ideas, what literacy means to me, and how I became a writer. I’m really looking forward to both events! I’m also going to be taking part in a big Book Fair in Dundee at the start of December. I will post more about that nearer the time.

Over the past month or two I have spent some time travelling through to Edinburgh, meeting up with writer friends at the Book Festival, before heading to the wonderful Teen Title Party at Edinburgh Central library, at the end of August. It’s always a pleasure to be in the company of Kirkland Ciccone, who delighted the audience at the Teen Title party by flinging free copies of his wonderful new YA book, Glowglass, into the crowd. Here’s some pics from the party below. (And a shameless #shelfie pic of me posing by my books in the Edinburgh Book Festival bookshop).

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Yesterday I took a jaunt to the Portobello Book Festival, where I listened to my writer Mum, Rosemary Gemmell (link to her website here), talking about the art of writing short stories. My Mum was joined by other writers, Elle Turner and Jane Tulloch, and chaired by Lynsey May. I really enjoyed the walk along the beach front at Portobello before the event.

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It was really interesting to hear their different approaches to writing, and the benefits of writing shorter fiction. I agreed with much of what they said; that writing shorter fiction allows you to experiment creatively, with different styles and themes. I love writing short stories, as well as longer fiction. Flash fiction in particular is a great way to learn the importance of making every word count and definitely encourages me to push myself creatively.  Even although I write teen novels, my short stories are much more contemporary adult themes, and I enjoy switching between the two.

I think one of the most fun parts of being a writer is getting to meet other writers and listen to them talk about their work, and the feeling that we are all a part of one big community.