Short Story Projects

After thinking this through, I'm going to go ahead and tell you my three Short Story projects, that I have in mind to help me develop my writing. Each one is dedicated to a different aspect that I feel I personally need to work on.

Also, I would like to apologize for not updating this blog often enough, but I will make more attempts now.

Project 1: Voice

Related to my novel concept that I've written, I wrote a short story about a Necromancer who will appear in the novel. Its sort of his Origin story. It's already been written, and submitted, however, I'm doubtful if it will be accepted. I would be delighted if it was, and I shall post the results here, of course.

Project 2: Conflict/Conflict-Resolution

One of the clear things in my novels, is that sometimes I lack a clearly defined conflict for my stories. I've noticed this in at least two of my works, so I will be writing a simple short story, involving ants. I've taken, recently, to outlining the plot elements of a story, to ease in the writing process. In fact, after this blog post, I will begin working on the outline for this Short Story, in the hopes of writing it this weekend.

Project 3: Theme

My stories are generally very one-dimensional, in that they lack any themes beyond what is given directly to the story. I want to develop this very clearly, and though my writing style (and the voice I've started to define) is clearly different from Mr. Liu's; he was my inspiration to consider this.

Boss Battle 1: Combination

You like that title, don't you? Yes. I will be writing a forth short story, combining all those elements I had developed before. No, I have no clue as to the plot yet; or even the setting. But overarching plots and especially settings are my strong points.

After these are completed, I also plan a few more very specific projects, before I can feel assured that I'll do justice to the Plot/Setting that is mind for my novel.

Project 4: Chara Development

I plan to make one story very character-centric. Maybe centric on a few of them; and I shall focus on developing them as characters. As above, I have no idea what this story will be about.

Project 5: Emotional Attachment

A second story, character-centric. This one will be about providing the reader with company, as opposed to providing them with plot. It will still be fully developed, but I will be focusing on making sub-themes for the characters, that hopefully tie-in to a larger theme.

Final Boss Battle:

A last story, hopefully that I will complete and submit by January 1st, 2011; which will combine the elements which I will struggle to obtain through the next two months. After submitting this, I think I will be ready to begin work on my new novel.

While I would like some commercial success with these six works (and hopefully will at least see one published); I am not set upon it. Even if the works aren't picked up in their independent state, I will consider it a victory just to have written with focus on one topic in each project. Thus, I will go on to begin my novel, come hell or high-water. I have no clue when I'll finish the novel, though it should be much more expedient than my 'grinding' on my first zombie novel, as the plot and major conflict (as well as chapter layout) has already been done.

In truth, I expect to write a few short paragraphs for the novel even while I'm working on these smaller projects, if only to break some of the boredom. However, while I'm writing the novel, I shall continue to turn out shorter stories as I enter periods of writer's block.

Thats really all I had to say. I wrote this as much for me as for you guys. I think I'm very creative, and some of you who've read my RPG settings, know this. I want to translate this into literary ability.

Feel free to subscribe here, or subscribe to my Alien Blog. But from now on, this blog will be devoted to my efforts in writing. Hell or High-Water.