Holiday Writing

Holidays are a great setting for writing.  Whether it's a crazy family drama; a revelation; or a charming sweet story of reunion or gathering, the holidays are a time when we act differently from our everyday routines.  And of course it's the non-routine occurrences in life that make for the best stories.  The unusual, unexpected, improbable.


Thanksgiving is a great start for a short story.  It's all about sitting down to a meal.  One dinner, one day.  Write down what you're doing for this Thanksgiving.  Before it starts or before it gets too far along, write down as a quick list who you're spending it with, what their relationships are to each other, what you'll be eating, where you'll be spending it.  Now how about writing down who isn't there, who you might have expected but aren't coming, and what they're doing instead.  Write down your quick expectation of how dinner will go.


Now write a story about how it didn't go, how it could have been very different.  Was there a topic that was avoided?  Was there a fight that could have broke out?  Or you know, maybe one did.


Remember it's one meal, one day, one get-together.  So keep it to a short story length.  See how it goes.


Happy Turkey.

Constrained Writing Exercise #2

On my last blog, we did a very successful writing exercise of short-short-SHORT stories.  Here's the first part.  We'll keep it EASY this time around.  But beware something more in-depth will follow later.


For now, if you've tried writing a short-short story, less than 1,000 words, try this ultra-short... write a short-short story that is exactly 100 words long.  It's a super short form, but you should be able to tell a simple narrative story.  It's great for a quick conversation with a conflict and a resolution.  Think about the scene.  Is it a story that takes place at one stop light, one elevator ride, one phone call?


Try it.  If you enjoy it and want to share your results, email your story to me at SMHIOF@aol.com, and if I love it, I'll post it here for other readers to comment on.

Constrained Writing Exercise #1

One of my favorite forms of writing play is constrained writing.  One of the most famous is writing without using the letter E.  There's actually a famous novel written entirely under that constraint, originally published in French, which uses even more E's, then translated, if you can believe that, into English.  Astounding.

Anyway, there are many forms of constrained writing exercise.  Basically, take any random rule and write under its limitations.  It forces unique word choice, sentence structure, form, use of poetic rewording.  Here's a quick exercise for you.  Write a complete entire sentence in which every word starts with the same letter.  This is a great one for teaching you not to rely on prepositions, the's, pronouns, and well, it just makes you think about picking just-the-right word.  Here's one I did...

Aphrodite arched and aimed an arrow at an amorously anguished Amazon.

Now it's your turn.

Short-Short Stories -- A Great Form

Inspiration can come from anywhere.  An important part of being a writer is to constantly get yourself writing.  That's why short little exercises are important.  The greatest musician practices scales and chords.  The best singer still warms up.  You never know when the smallest little writing exercise will inspire you to write something more significant.


That's why I love short short stories.  Write a complete story arc in two or three pages.  That's less than 1,000 words.  Entire classes are taught using just the short-short as a writing exercise.  It's a perfect form if you have a writing group or writing partners, because you can come together weekly or monthly and have a piece that can be read and discussed completely at each meeting.

Inspire Create Write

Welcome to my new site, dedicated to the art of writing. My own, of course. But this is also intended to be a place where writers can join in, create, find inspiration, and connect to others who are scribblers, writers, authors.