I’ve realized it is my senior year of college, and though I’ve
written many personal essays, acedemic papers, and even novel excerpts, I’ve
written very few short stories. Two, I think. So I’m challenging myself to
write a short story.
I didn’t think it’d be too hard. I turned on some music, sat
down, filled up a page or two with ideas… then realized I’d just come up with
more ideas for novels.
Then I thought I’d call my sister and ask her for help (we
always bounce ideas off each other) but, when I reached her voicemail, I
remembered that she doesn’t like to talk on the phone. So I thought about
writing a story about a sister who’s sister won’t talk to her… or better yet,
she can’t talk to her sister, because her sister is dead, or her sister has amnesia,
or got sucked away into a magical land. Wouldn’t it suck to be the sibling who
never got to go to Narnia?
I think it’s safe to say I’m still working on an idea. So I’m
going to keep this post short and to the point:
Do you have a form that you tend to write in (Be it novels,
short stories, flash fiction) or a specific theme you tend to write about (most
of my stories have an element of childhood)? Have you ever tried to write
outside of your comfort zone? If so, how did it go? I’m curious to know how “normal”
of a struggle this is.
I'm not much of a fiction writer, have always stuck to personal essay-type writing. Sometimes, I'll do quick flash fiction, but rarely anything beyond that. At the moment, however, I'm playing with an extended narrative that's different than anything else I've written out, and it's kind of fun. :) Hard. But fun.
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