I need to write a short story, fast
June 6, 2022 8:59 AM Subscribe
I have to submit a short story for a workshop in three weeks, and I have nothing. Please help.
I just received word that I've been accepted to a fiction writers' workshop I applied to a while ago–-I did not expect to get in, so I didn't bother preparing anything to workshop, it was more of a what-the-heck kind of thing. I'm thrilled, but now I have to write something in three weeks (this after two years of not being able to write much of anything) while also juggling a cross-country move that needs to happen by the end of the month. I do have a story I wrote a while ago that I could submit (not what I applied with; that has been published so I can't workshop it), but I hate it, just thinking about it depresses me.
I guess I'm looking for a combination of time-management and overcoming-writers'-block advice. Should I focus on trying to get the not-great story in better shape and submit that, or try to start a new project I don't hate?
I just received word that I've been accepted to a fiction writers' workshop I applied to a while ago–-I did not expect to get in, so I didn't bother preparing anything to workshop, it was more of a what-the-heck kind of thing. I'm thrilled, but now I have to write something in three weeks (this after two years of not being able to write much of anything) while also juggling a cross-country move that needs to happen by the end of the month. I do have a story I wrote a while ago that I could submit (not what I applied with; that has been published so I can't workshop it), but I hate it, just thinking about it depresses me.
I guess I'm looking for a combination of time-management and overcoming-writers'-block advice. Should I focus on trying to get the not-great story in better shape and submit that, or try to start a new project I don't hate?
while also juggling a cross-country move that needs to happen by the end of the month
That lack of available time strikes me as a pretty solid excuse to yourself for submitting the story you already have as is and then using the workshop process itself to (a) improve it and/or (b) come to see it through the lens of those aspects of it that other people like and/or (c) knock a few sharp corners off the crippling perfectionism that's ultimately responsible for every case of any kind of creator's block and/or (d) impress all the other participants with your insouciant courage to such an extent that a few of them can get past their own writers' blocks as well.
I don't think there's a single thing wrong with turning up to one of these things with a work and opening with "I hate this, and here's why".
Seriously, just wrap it and ship it and forget about it until after the move is done and dusted. Moving is quite stressful enough already without loading extra layers of time pressure over the top.
posted by flabdablet at 9:30 AM on June 6, 2022 [7 favorites]
That lack of available time strikes me as a pretty solid excuse to yourself for submitting the story you already have as is and then using the workshop process itself to (a) improve it and/or (b) come to see it through the lens of those aspects of it that other people like and/or (c) knock a few sharp corners off the crippling perfectionism that's ultimately responsible for every case of any kind of creator's block and/or (d) impress all the other participants with your insouciant courage to such an extent that a few of them can get past their own writers' blocks as well.
I don't think there's a single thing wrong with turning up to one of these things with a work and opening with "I hate this, and here's why".
Seriously, just wrap it and ship it and forget about it until after the move is done and dusted. Moving is quite stressful enough already without loading extra layers of time pressure over the top.
posted by flabdablet at 9:30 AM on June 6, 2022 [7 favorites]
Personally I'd start a new project you don't hate. Surely there are prompts in the back of your mind, stuff that has occurred to you, that if you sat down right now you'd have notes on, a beginning sentence?
For me this would be better, easier and more likely to yield something energetic than trying to breathe life into something that has sucked it out of me before.
posted by fingersandtoes at 9:31 AM on June 6, 2022 [4 favorites]
For me this would be better, easier and more likely to yield something energetic than trying to breathe life into something that has sucked it out of me before.
posted by fingersandtoes at 9:31 AM on June 6, 2022 [4 favorites]
Best answer: My hunch is that workshopping a rough draft of a story you're excited about is going to be more fun than workshopping a polished draft of a story you currently hate, and that a version of you having fun is more likely to take advantage of networking opportunities.
I guess it depends on your goals for the workshop. If your priority is to leave with a publishable piece, polishing the existing draft makes the time-frame more realistic. But if you see equal value in the process of workshopping per se, and forming connections with other writers that might extend beyond the workshop, the way you provide and incorporate feedback etc. is going to much more relevant than the level of polish on the draft you bring in.
posted by sohalt at 9:33 AM on June 6, 2022 [8 favorites]
I guess it depends on your goals for the workshop. If your priority is to leave with a publishable piece, polishing the existing draft makes the time-frame more realistic. But if you see equal value in the process of workshopping per se, and forming connections with other writers that might extend beyond the workshop, the way you provide and incorporate feedback etc. is going to much more relevant than the level of polish on the draft you bring in.
posted by sohalt at 9:33 AM on June 6, 2022 [8 favorites]
I mean, putting the story you hate through a workshop could help you fix it so you don't hate it. But if you actively hate it...call that story your "plan B". This will take some of the pressure off you while you've understandably got a lot going on. And that paradoxically could help.
What I mean is: I have a hunch some of your writers' block is coming from trying to force yourself to write something - you're telling yourself to write something, but all you can think about is how you can't think of anything and you're stuck in this hellish sort of performance anxiety issue. So instead - just decide now that "Okay, if I come up with something, great, if not I'll just bring the Ugly Story I Hate." And that will free up your brain to work on everything else you've got going on - and may also free it up enough to suddenly come up with a new idea 2 days beforet the workshop.
Because it's a workshop. It doesn't have to be perfect and polished. If by some miracle you come up with something 2 days before the workshop that excites you more, then go with that, and if you don't, hey you've still got this other things in your back pocket so yay.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:34 AM on June 6, 2022 [2 favorites]
What I mean is: I have a hunch some of your writers' block is coming from trying to force yourself to write something - you're telling yourself to write something, but all you can think about is how you can't think of anything and you're stuck in this hellish sort of performance anxiety issue. So instead - just decide now that "Okay, if I come up with something, great, if not I'll just bring the Ugly Story I Hate." And that will free up your brain to work on everything else you've got going on - and may also free it up enough to suddenly come up with a new idea 2 days beforet the workshop.
Because it's a workshop. It doesn't have to be perfect and polished. If by some miracle you come up with something 2 days before the workshop that excites you more, then go with that, and if you don't, hey you've still got this other things in your back pocket so yay.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:34 AM on June 6, 2022 [2 favorites]
Best answer: Former creative writing grad student with terrible writers block and ADHD, so I get it. My suggestion is to keep the story you've written already around in case you can't finish something you like, and then just start writing. Since you've already got that other story, nothing you do over the next three weeks can leave you totally screwed. You have a special dispensation to draft an exciting and unusual story and then have this workshop help you out with it. I'd take the next two weeks to start drafting a new story, then if you have absolutely nothing at that point a week is plenty of time to whip an existing story into workshop shape.
The only thing that's ever helped me with writers block is forcing myself to get the words out even if I think they're terrible. Sometimes they are! But it turns out that when I didn't have writers block I was also writing a bunch of words, sometimes bad, I just didn't let myself get discouraged by that because I knew the good ones were mixed in there too. Sit down in front of your laptop or notebook and just write 500 words. Once you've written 500 words you can either be done with it or keep going, but 500 is the minimum. The "trick" is that 500 words don't take very long to write—I'm 233 words into this comment—but it's enough to roll you into story mode, where you think about what would happen next and start making connections between parts of your story that aren't there on purpose.
What to write about? Here's a flowchart if you would like that decision taken partially out of your hands:
1. Any story idea that has popped into your head since the last time you were writing regularly. Even if it seems like they weren't actually fully formed—the thing you need to remind yourself of, on your way out of writers block, is that a lot of the best thematic connections and plot turns etc. all happen while you are writing and you notice that two ideas rhyme with each other. You don't have to worry too much about making your story coherent because your weird brain is composing it and you're going to be hung up on certain things, have particular interests, etc.
2. Any story you wrote as a much younger person that you felt you didn't do justice to. My first three or four undergrad stories were terrible, but in hindsight they were some of the freshest ideas I had—I had 19 years of thinking about myself to put into them plus I had the innate self-interest of all 19-year-olds. I just didn't know how to write yet. Think about your juvenilia and see if there's anything worth resurrecting from scratch.
3. Copy a structure or an idea you love from your favorite writers. Your brain is weird! Always remember that. As a result of your weird brain, even if you love a beloved novel read by literally everybody—like The Great Gatsby or Pride & Prejudice or whatever—you love it for reasons that are ultimately tied back to your weird brain. You would not be able to write a straight copy of The Great Gatsby even if you tried, because your love for it is unique and gnarled and dependent in places, no doubt, on effects that F. Scott Fitzgerald had no intention of putting in there. Sometimes you love a book or a story in part because you have literally misread it. I once wrote a short story based on what I thought was a very cool, weird trick ending Haruki Murakami put into a story. It turns out there was just a strange page break in the paperback edition I had, and it continued on after that, but by the time I turned the page I had already gotten this other possible "shape" of a story stuck in my head.
Any time I have written a story that I assume people will recognize as an obvious copy of Story X, I've found myself startled when literally nobody else (despite having read the same authors I read) picks up on it. Eventually I concluded that the reason is that it's actually very difficult to copy a story, because your own weird preoccupations and stylistic crutches are always getting in the way. So starting with a structure that is ostensibly your attempt to copy what you think is happening in a story you love is a great way to end up writing something new and unique to you. That's 700 words!
posted by Polycarp at 9:57 AM on June 6, 2022 [9 favorites]
The only thing that's ever helped me with writers block is forcing myself to get the words out even if I think they're terrible. Sometimes they are! But it turns out that when I didn't have writers block I was also writing a bunch of words, sometimes bad, I just didn't let myself get discouraged by that because I knew the good ones were mixed in there too. Sit down in front of your laptop or notebook and just write 500 words. Once you've written 500 words you can either be done with it or keep going, but 500 is the minimum. The "trick" is that 500 words don't take very long to write—I'm 233 words into this comment—but it's enough to roll you into story mode, where you think about what would happen next and start making connections between parts of your story that aren't there on purpose.
What to write about? Here's a flowchart if you would like that decision taken partially out of your hands:
1. Any story idea that has popped into your head since the last time you were writing regularly. Even if it seems like they weren't actually fully formed—the thing you need to remind yourself of, on your way out of writers block, is that a lot of the best thematic connections and plot turns etc. all happen while you are writing and you notice that two ideas rhyme with each other. You don't have to worry too much about making your story coherent because your weird brain is composing it and you're going to be hung up on certain things, have particular interests, etc.
2. Any story you wrote as a much younger person that you felt you didn't do justice to. My first three or four undergrad stories were terrible, but in hindsight they were some of the freshest ideas I had—I had 19 years of thinking about myself to put into them plus I had the innate self-interest of all 19-year-olds. I just didn't know how to write yet. Think about your juvenilia and see if there's anything worth resurrecting from scratch.
3. Copy a structure or an idea you love from your favorite writers. Your brain is weird! Always remember that. As a result of your weird brain, even if you love a beloved novel read by literally everybody—like The Great Gatsby or Pride & Prejudice or whatever—you love it for reasons that are ultimately tied back to your weird brain. You would not be able to write a straight copy of The Great Gatsby even if you tried, because your love for it is unique and gnarled and dependent in places, no doubt, on effects that F. Scott Fitzgerald had no intention of putting in there. Sometimes you love a book or a story in part because you have literally misread it. I once wrote a short story based on what I thought was a very cool, weird trick ending Haruki Murakami put into a story. It turns out there was just a strange page break in the paperback edition I had, and it continued on after that, but by the time I turned the page I had already gotten this other possible "shape" of a story stuck in my head.
Any time I have written a story that I assume people will recognize as an obvious copy of Story X, I've found myself startled when literally nobody else (despite having read the same authors I read) picks up on it. Eventually I concluded that the reason is that it's actually very difficult to copy a story, because your own weird preoccupations and stylistic crutches are always getting in the way. So starting with a structure that is ostensibly your attempt to copy what you think is happening in a story you love is a great way to end up writing something new and unique to you. That's 700 words!
posted by Polycarp at 9:57 AM on June 6, 2022 [9 favorites]
Write a story about having to do a cross country move
posted by olopua at 10:00 AM on June 6, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by olopua at 10:00 AM on June 6, 2022 [2 favorites]
I want to know why you hate the one story so much.
I don't. I already know.
I feel like every story I ever wrote for workshop was entirely about how difficult it is to write a story for workshop. There's one where I costumed that problem with the parallel problem of having to move in Pittsburgh and the person's file cabinet (really my file cabinet) full of their (my) horrible bullshit story attempts flies out of the back of the Ryder truck and bounces across a few lanes of highway before dropping into one of the three rivers. I don't know if that actually happened in the story or if the character only imagined it, but it definitely did not happen in real life, so I still have the file cabinet in question and it's still full of the things. I hate them all and I hope a comet hits the earth before I have to deal with them.
posted by Don Pepino at 10:40 AM on June 6, 2022
I don't. I already know.
I feel like every story I ever wrote for workshop was entirely about how difficult it is to write a story for workshop. There's one where I costumed that problem with the parallel problem of having to move in Pittsburgh and the person's file cabinet (really my file cabinet) full of their (my) horrible bullshit story attempts flies out of the back of the Ryder truck and bounces across a few lanes of highway before dropping into one of the three rivers. I don't know if that actually happened in the story or if the character only imagined it, but it definitely did not happen in real life, so I still have the file cabinet in question and it's still full of the things. I hate them all and I hope a comet hits the earth before I have to deal with them.
posted by Don Pepino at 10:40 AM on June 6, 2022
Oh. That didn't really answer the question. So write something entirely self-indulgent that fulfills a wish, is my advice. It's much easier than trying to be good or profound. Then if you hate the result less than you hate the story you already have, you can submit the new thing.
posted by Don Pepino at 10:48 AM on June 6, 2022
posted by Don Pepino at 10:48 AM on June 6, 2022
Short story can get away with violating a lot of conventions that longer forms of fiction must to conform toward. So personally, I would just start with randomly brainstorm scenes:
* flying like a superhero
* duck behind cover amidst flying bullets
Or just google (tm) "free writing prompts".
Write down 10-20 ones that sounds interesting.
Then for each, write a sentence or a paragraph about it. What did you think of when you first saw it?
Pick one that you have the most to say about. If you get get a beginning, middle, and end, you have a short story, or at least the beginnings of one.
posted by kschang at 11:35 AM on June 6, 2022
* flying like a superhero
* duck behind cover amidst flying bullets
Or just google (tm) "free writing prompts".
Write down 10-20 ones that sounds interesting.
Then for each, write a sentence or a paragraph about it. What did you think of when you first saw it?
Pick one that you have the most to say about. If you get get a beginning, middle, and end, you have a short story, or at least the beginnings of one.
posted by kschang at 11:35 AM on June 6, 2022
I have better luck with story ideas if I think of characters or settings rather than plots. For example, if you start off by remembering a co-worker, an old friend, someone’s roommate, you start to think of their unique character traits, which can then be tweaked to create someone a little different. For setting, I sometimes remember a place I can imagine vividly and then just stand in that place as a narrator and see what I would guess is happening there.
posted by xo at 2:49 PM on June 6, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by xo at 2:49 PM on June 6, 2022 [2 favorites]
There are so many stories in the headlines these days: war, sedition, mass shootings, political courage and political cowardice. I'd take a story I was familiar with and set it tangent to some part of the big picture, like the way some authors will use a storm, e.g. hurricane, as background to the emotional storm among the characters.
posted by SemiSalt at 4:43 AM on June 7, 2022
posted by SemiSalt at 4:43 AM on June 7, 2022
Here's what I used to do when starting a story. Make up a character* and put them into a bunch of quick little scenarios: a car accident, a stone in their shoe, a shopping trip, meeting an old friend, etc. Something interesting will happen in some of those. Expand on them. Combine them. I bet you'll end up with something that's workshop-able.
(*It doesn't matter who the character is. I often started with just me. The scenarios will mold them into someone more interesting.)
posted by booth at 10:08 AM on June 7, 2022
(*It doesn't matter who the character is. I often started with just me. The scenarios will mold them into someone more interesting.)
posted by booth at 10:08 AM on June 7, 2022
Best answer: Spend the next three or four days reading short stories. Either pick an author you like and immerse yourself in their work until you start to intuitively see patterns in their structural approach, or get an anthology out of the library. I'm a huge fan of the Sudden Fiction anthologies edited by Robert Shappard but maybe short-short fiction is too short for your needs?
Anyway, spend a while really focusing on how short fiction is made before worrying about what to do next. As somebody says upthread, you already have a worst case scenario backup story to submit if necessary, so focus on generating new work by doing some in-depth study of story structures. It'll make the experience of generating new work feel less unfamiliar and intimidating than just staring intimidatedly at a blank page.
posted by knucklebones at 1:21 PM on June 7, 2022 [1 favorite]
Anyway, spend a while really focusing on how short fiction is made before worrying about what to do next. As somebody says upthread, you already have a worst case scenario backup story to submit if necessary, so focus on generating new work by doing some in-depth study of story structures. It'll make the experience of generating new work feel less unfamiliar and intimidating than just staring intimidatedly at a blank page.
posted by knucklebones at 1:21 PM on June 7, 2022 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by rhythm and booze at 9:30 AM on June 6, 2022 [9 favorites]