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These exercises were written by IWW members and administrators to provide structured practice opportunities for its members. You are welcome to use them for practice as well. Please mention that you found them at the Internet Writers Workshop.
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Exercise: In 400 words or less, create a scene in which a character embarks on a journey. Your piece might be a character sketch, a flash piece, memoir, poem, or a start on something longer.
There are all sorts of theories and ideas about what constitutes a good opening line. It’s tricky thing, and tough to talk about because I don’t think conceptually while I work on a first draft — I just write. To get scientific about it is a little like trying to catch moonbeams in a jar. But there’s one thing I’m sure about. An opening line should invite the reader to begin the story. It should say: Listen. Come in here. You want to know about this.
--Stephen King
More Writing Quotes
See more writing quotes here.
These exercises were written by IWW members and administrators to provide structured practice opportunities for its members. You are welcome to use them for practice as well. Please mention that you found them at the Internet Writers Workshop.
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Exercise: In 400 words or less, write a story in which a character remains silent during a conversation or discussion. Show how internal tension builds as the character says not a word.
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There are times when silence seems to be the best policy. Sometimes a person finds it preferable to keep quiet or to remain noncommittal.
For example, a person might become uncomfortable being with someone
who makes racist remarks. Or perhaps a family member feels like an outcast when near and dear get into a political discussion.
Since your main character won't be uttering words, you’ll need to show internal tension through other means. Find ways to show the range of emotions that are being experienced as the discussion continues.
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In your critique, tell the author if you were able to relate to the character. Could you feel the emotional tension? How was it shown?
Did this scene resonate with your own experiences, and were you drawn into the drama? If not, tell the author where something pulled you out
of the scene.
Some more writing prompts for you to try.
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Copyright, 1904, by
EDITOR PUBLISHING COMPANY
THE OUTING PRESS
DEPOSIT, N. Y.
PREFACE
The material in the following pages is a series of suggestive talks rather than a scholarly discourse. I leave to others the discussion of polish, atmosphere, and artistic handling; I take for my theme the writing of a short story that will sell.
There are many writers throughout the country, with good educations, with clear brains, and with the ambition to see their work in print, who are failing merely because they are not familiar with the technique of the short story. It is to these that I would appeal.
In the following pages, therefore, I have aimed above all else to be practical. I have written in the first person, without even the shield of the editorial “we.” I have addressed my reader directly, in a desire to impress upon his mind the fundamental requisites of a salable short story. In a word, I have endeavored to point out, more or less systematically, every step by which an idea may be converted into a short story, fit to appear between the covers of a reputable magazine.
L. W. Q.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface |
3 |
| 7 |
| I | 11 |
| II | 21 |
| III | 31 |
| IV | 41 |
| V | 51 |
| VI | 59 |
| VII | 69 |
Excepted from How to Write a Short Story by Leslie Quirk
Irank the ability to sell a story nearly as high as the ability to write one. Unless you can dispose of your manuscript, after you have spent hours over it, your work counts for nothing. I have seen a great many young writers, some of pronounced ability, who have given up the literary profession because they were unable to sell their work. For this reason, I say that the selling is well nigh as important as the writing.
To place a story to good advantage, you must know the market through and through. It is not enough to know that the leading ten-cent magazines use love stories. You must know wherein those found in McClure's differ from those in Munsey's, in Everybody's, in The Cosmopolitan, in every other magazine that has a personality. You must know the shades of difference that separate The Youth’s Companion and St. Nicholas; Harper’s, and The Smart Set; The Woman’s Home Companion and The Ladies’ Home Journal. When you begin to detect the points in which the editorial needs and whims differ, you are in a position to become acquainted with the literary market.
If you write stories, it is your business to make a systematic and thorough study of magazines that use short fiction. You must learn to note whether action, complications, character drawing, style, humor, or any one of a dozen other qualities is responsible for the acceptance and publication of every story you read. If you find stories that lack plot altogether, you must discover what feature takes its place. It is only in this way that you can become fully acquainted with the magazines.
Too many young writers consider the ease with which a story may be written, rather than its adaptability for any magazine. A great number of students in high schools and colleges write fiction which is praised by classmates and teachers, and which may really be good from an artistic standpoint, but which is entirely out of line with the needs of any magazine. I have seen stories that were offered to such publications as The Youth’s Companion and St. Nicholas, in which the boys played pranks that would shock the good mothers and fathers of proper children. These stories were about boys, however, and for this reason their writers imagined them fitted for the publications to which they were sent. They had absolutely no chance of acceptance, and a study of the magazines would have shown the folly of submitting such manuscripts.
Not only must you know the market but you must know your own work. You must be able to distinguish between a story adapted to Harper’s and The Century, and one that is fit only for the newspapers and syndicates. You must judge your own work honestly and without prejudice.
A story fresh from your brain will sound better than one that has been laid aside for a day or two. You will be able to pass upon its merits more impartially if you put it away until your enthusiasm cools. You will also find that it is good practice to read your stories aloud to some other person before you submit them to any magazine. The defects and crude portions will become discernible in a way they never would otherwise, particularly if your hearer is capable of criticising.
A good critic is of inestimable value. I would rather have an unbiased, honest opinion of my story, from some one who was capable of judging it, than all the praise in the world. As a matter of fact, the friends who laud your work usually do not appreciate either the defects or the merits. An unprejudiced criticism of your story will benefit you more than anything else in this matter of choosing a market.
The question of timeliness is one that should be studied. A story that fits the season has a much better chance of acceptance than one which may be used at any time and is of equal literary value. Readers expect a Christmas story in the December magazine, an Independence Day story in the July number, and seasonable fiction at all times. A great many writers overlook this fact altogether. Christmas stories are usually weak in plot; they have been done with a regularity that has exhausted all ideas. A fairly original Yule-tide story, offered during the summer months, or a good Fourth of July tale, submitted during the first quarter of the year, stands a very good chance of acceptance. If you will remember that stories should be submitted from three to six months before the issue of the magazine in which they should appear, you will be stealing a march on less experienced and less observing writers.
In considering the type of character of stories, a second side of the question of timeliness also plays a part. Like clothes, stories follow the fashions. Yesterday dialect stories were the style; the day before romantic fiction; the day before that, bald realism. To-day the stories that border on history claim recognition. To-morrow the style may change. By keeping a close watch on what is in vogue, you can more easily please the editor.
Some one has said that there is a place for every story, good, bad or indifferent, that is written. To a great extent, this statement is true. At the top stand the best magazines; at the bottom, the little pamphlet publications that do not pay for contributions. Between these extremes lie hundreds of magazines, papers, syndicates, etc., that purchase stories. Just below the best magazines are the literary weeklies. The religious papers and magazines brighten their pages with fiction. The juvenile publications pay excellent prices. The household and domestic journals run serials and short stories. Even the class publications give space to fiction. Hundreds of newspapers throughout the country offer good markets. The several syndicates purchase liberally and pay well. For no class of work is the market as wide as for the short story. You will meet rebuffs in placing your work, lots of them. You will grow discouraged, no doubt, before you dispose of your manuscript. But if you have not the bull-dog tenacity to stick to it, to meet each returning manuscript with a smile, and to go on hoping and believing in yourself, you have no business in the literary profession. Nor should rejections discourage you. “The story, or the article, or the poem,” says Albert Bigelow Paine, “may come back again and again. The author may rewrite it over and over; but if he perseveres, and the offering is genuine, it will find its place and welcome at last. I have had stories and poems returned to me as many as fifteen times, only to place them at last in a better market than I had hoped for in the beginning. The author who gives up after one rejection, or two, or ten, is unworthy of the name.”
The End
Excepted from How to Write a Short Story by Leslie Quirk
When you have expended your best energies on your story, and by careful revision have brought it to the highest degree of excellence of which you are capable, it is ready to be dressed up in a fetching manner for the editorial eye. You must now recopy it in such a way that no mark of your workmanship in recasting and reconstructing will show. Fine clothes do not make an acceptance, any more than they make a gentleman, but they command respect in both cases.
First of all, your manuscript should be neatly and correctly typewritten. I don't care how legibly you may write, you can't compare with the printed letters of the machine. Moreover, you are stringing a thousand-word story over great pads of paper, when you might print it on four thin sheets. An editor's time is economized as much as possible, and he will run through three typewritten stories sooner than plod through one penscript. He knows, furthermore, that the careful, experienced writer will send him type copy, and that the chances are ten to one that the script is full of blunders and errors common to the beginner, who has never studied the subject of writing. Penscripts are signs of inexperience. Editors appreciate this fact, and the sooner young writers do, the better will be their chances of success in literature.
In typewriting a manuscript, it should be doubly spaced. This is done for two reasons. First, it is much easier on the eyes if the lines are not close together. Munsey is said to get three thousand manuscripts each month. Of course, these are handled by a great many readers for the company, but at the same time one man has to read a large number of them. The strain on the eyes will be readily apparent, and the thoughtfulness of the writer who seeks to make easier the task by double spacing his work will be appreciated. Again, if a manuscript can be made acceptable by changing it somewhat, the space between the lines gives plenty of room for correction. Nothing that will serve to lessen the work of an editor should be left undone.
Now that the story is typewritten, the name and address should be added in the upper, left-hand corner. It is much better to do this with the machine than with a pen, as most people write their names so hurriedly that it is almost impossible to decipher them. It seems to me that there is no reason for a signature on the manuscript, though some disagree on this point. At all events, it is imperative that the name and address, in some form, be on the first page.
The number of words should now be estimated and placed in the upper right-hand corner. This estimate need not be exact; indeed it is foolish to say the manuscript contains 3,449 words, or any other precise number. It should, however, be fairly accurate. Count the number of words in the average line, the number of lines on a page, and the number of pages. No allowance should be made for short lines. In this way, it is easy to get the approximate length of the story. The editor will appreciate this courtesy, as it enables him to tell at a glance the amount of space the story would occupy in his magazine.
The top of the first page of your manuscript will now appear something like this:
| J. D. Banner, | 3,500 words. |
| Blank City, N. Y. THE REVOLT OF UNCLE JOHN. | |
Just beneath the title of the story should be placed the name of the author as he wishes it to appear in print. If he is writing under a nom-de-plume, an affectation countenanced neither by good sense nor good business ability, it should be placed here.
A soiled manuscript tells its own story of previous rejections, and invites others. "You are not taking an unfair advantage of an editor," says Albert Bigelow Paine, "when you renovate your much-traveled manuscript, or recopy it on clean paper. You are taking an unfair advantage of your manuscript when you do not do it, and you are insulting the editor, who does not care where your story or article or poem has been, so long as it is presented to him invitingly."
The paper on which the story is copied should be of good texture, light in weight, but not transparent. A size about 8½ by 11, folded twice, has a great many advantages. Never fasten the sheets of your manuscript together in any way. They should be loose, to be shuffled as the editor finds need. Two sizes of envelopes should be purchased, one to fit within the other without folding. A stamped, self addressed envelope should accompany every manuscript.
If the name and address of the writer are on the first page, no explanatory note is necessary. As a matter of courtesy, however, a very brief one may be sent. It should be somewhat along the following lines:
Editor, Blank Magazine,
New York City.
Dear Sir:The enclosed manuscript is submitted with the hope that it may be found available for publication in The Blank Magazine, at your usual rates.
Never display your lack of common sense by any of the petty little tricks common to the writers who believe their manuscripts are not read. If an editor finds the sheets of your story lightly gummed together, he will not take the trouble to separate them. Neither will he sort out pages not properly numbered. He cannot afford to waste time on writers who stoop to such detestable actions. He knows they will never be able to please him with their work.
Your manuscript will be read if it is worth while and properly prepared. If your first page is dull, your second may never be read. But if you have good material, served up in such a way that the reading is more of a pleasure than a task, your manuscript will be considered on its merits, whether it is signed by Rudyard Kipling or by John Brown.
I have had the pleasure of reading manuscripts by such writers as Jack London, Albert Bigelow Paine, Charles Battell Loomis, and a great many of the best authors of the day; and I say unhesitatingly that their copy, without exception, was the neatest and most correct that ever came under my eye. These men have won their positions in current literature by pure merit, and their example in the preparation of copy is worth following.
Excepted from How to Write a Short Story by Leslie Quirk
