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Successful writing requires The Write Focus. Hosted by M.A. Lee with occasional forays from Remi Black and Edie Roones, we focus on productivity / tools / craft / process for fiction and nonfiction, entertainment and academic writing.
Episodes
Wednesday May 25, 2022
Wednesday May 25, 2022
Having trouble with short narratives? Short stories? Narrative poems? Anecdotes in your blogs and essays/articles?
I had trouble. Free admission. I would launch into a story that I hoped would be 8,000 to 10,000 words only for the word count to top 20,000 or more. I was rather proud of myself when a planned short story ran less than 15,000 words.
My narrative poems ran longer than 5 or 6 stanzas. Think “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” length. For the blog I wrote, my example stories ran more than 15 to 20 sentences.
Too long. What’s that acronym? TL;DR. “Didn’t read.” Oops.
What was I doing wrong? Surely there’s a secret to short narratives? Guess what? There is! In this episode, I’ll share what I found.
Timings
- 1:45 Opening
- 3:28 Paul Simon’s “America”
- 4:17 Avoiding the School-Taught Plot Pyramid
- 5:15 Erle Stanley Gardner
- 6:28 Lester Dent
- 7:10 LDent’s Plot Formula
- 8:32 The Basics
- 12:00 Closing / Next Week
- 13:00 Inspiration / Raymond Carver
Resource Links
Lester Dent’s Plot Formula / printable pdf / https://mgherron.com/2015/01/lester-dents-pulp-paper-master-fiction-plot-formula/
Paul Simon’s “America” https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/paulsimon/america.html
Video of above America - Lyrics - Simon & Garfunkel - YouTube
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