Wednesday, January 13, 2010

You Asked for It....??

OK, my friend James (HI JAMES) gave me an idea. No...TWO ideas. So I've started to implement the one, and the other will follow:

1) After my description of a particularly embarrassing evening some years ago, he said "That'd make a pretty good short story....";

2) He said, "I post writing on my blog, whyn't you do that thing?"

So the short story is about done, and you will see it here. Now - when *I* say "short" I may not mean the same thing you do. For one thing, I'm short, and the meaning of it is clear. I'm 4'11". That's short, unless you're eight years old or a Hobbit.

Regarding stories, however -- "short" for me may be "novella" for someone else; therefore, my story may be posted in chunks. We'll see.

Watch this space.

4 comments:

Jamwes said...

That James sounds like a great and smart guy. My advice is to listen to his advice more often.

Speaking of short stories, how short is it? Have you ever looked at the word count article on Wiki? Or the short story article? They are interesting reads.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_count
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_story

The word count article says that short stories are under 7,500 words. That is based on the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. The short story article says "A classic definition of a short story is that one should be able to read it in one sitting" or "word length at anywhere from 7,000 to 9,000 words" or "In contemporary usage, the term short story most often refers to a work of fiction no longer than 20,000 words."

So something tells me that you will fit into one of these categories. If not, then that awesome James guy would totally be amused that he inspired someone to do a "half-NaNo" just by saying a story would make a good short story.

PS: I found it interesting that they said: "Formal English speaking is usually paced between 100 to 120 words per minute. Thus an eight-minute speech has 800 to 960 words." Now I know approximately how long it will take to read a piece out loud, which some people suggest doing during the editing phase.

Jen in FL said...

ooh goody! I can't wait!

Unknown said...

I'm waiting

Anonymous said...

Looking forward to it!