It’s been a few months since I set up the page for people to vote on the short stories they wanted me to write. I have already written two, the first ones people voted for, Fringes and Lion’s Claw.
I sent them to one of my proofreader, my brother in law, but haven’t heard back from him yet. Then again, my sister had a little baby girl last month so they’re a bit busy. I’m going to try to find another proofreader/beta reader for the stories next week to hopefully get these new stories up and running here.
I’ve checked the polls and you’ve picked Crows and The Beast for the next stories I should write and I’m psyched. Both of those stories started out in my head as premises for novels, but since then and as I work on my main Urban Fantasy series—currently editing Book 2 before I send it to proofreaders and start work on the already outlined Book 3—I’ve kinda let them gather dust and cobwebs in my mental attic. So TMA Short Stories will let me explore these worlds in my head without having to commit to a full novel to do so. I do hope you enjoy them, but if you don’t like the setting or they don’t feel good enough, I can only hope you’ll tell me about it.
When it comes to criticism, I’ll take mine honest with a side of brutal and sprinkles of merciless. It’s how I would review your material.
But that’s not all. Following those two stories we have The Song coming in third, a really cool story I partly wrote last year and one I’m dying to return to, particularly because the cyberpunk noir setting of it is one I’m going to use for another novel series, one I’m going to start as soon as book 3 of the Urban Fantasy series is finished.
And starting next week, I’m returning to the Writing category of the site, with a few new writing guides, the first one on “In Medias Res,” and why I think it’s a bad idea most of the time. For those that don’t understand the term, it’s those stories that don’t start at the beginning but around the middle of the story and then, in flashback form, fill out the rest of the details. You see this crap a lot on TV these days, those opening scenes where the characters are in a Mexican standoff before it cuts to “24 Hours Earlier.” I really hate it.
With the success of my pieces on Intimate and action Scenes and Strong Emotions such as fear, I’m going back focus on new types of scenes and even genres. I’ve already touched on romance and why I suck at it, but I think I’ll go for Sci-Fi and the things I think are important when you write a Science-Fiction story. I’ll also do one on Investigations or analytical scenes, as well as descriptions. Descriptions and exposition are important things you have to know how to handle right. And I’ll do my best not to make a fool of myself when I explain my views on the subject.
Lastly, and with this I’ll go to let you enjoy the rest of your day—and I go play World of Warcraft: Legion—I have a new handful of stories floating in my head looking for release, so expect new premises to pop up in he coming weeks, for new fun stories and I hope interesting settings.
Until then!