Storytelling Mentorship Group 4

I have written before about how I write and I know that’s not really going to help you unless you can figure out how YOU write.

I can tell you to find your routine, but that’s not always possible.

I can say that writing what you know is the key, but how do people write fantastic epic stories if they stick to writing what they know?

The only thing that works for everyone (in my opinion) is to read and then to write every single day – at every opportunity, with whatever medium comes to hand (pen and paper, computer).

It doesn’t matter WHAT you write, it only matters that you do.

If I try to dissect my writing, it may help… (of course, it may not, but you’ll get a new story out of it).

I prefer horror. It’s the genre that I come back to. It’s the topic that fascinates me most and I enjoy reading it as well as creating stories in the genre. Yes, I fully admit my memoir stories Fact or Fiction series, I’m surprised I turned out as well as I did… series, Ash’s story and now Zack’s story don’t have anything supernatural or otherworldly about them, but I’m testing myself with those.

If any of you recall my 2 sentence horror stories, you’ll know that I do like to test myself from time to time – perverse though it may sound, I don’t like to think I’m a one-trick pony.

Jack of all trades, master of none springs to mind here, but as I’m never likely to win a Pulitzer Prize or the Mann-Booker Prize, I guess I could be happy with just writing – if I do make it to JK Rowling status, please feel free to remind me of this statement.

When I write, I’ve usually got a seed of an idea to plant and nurture and help to grow.

This morning, for example, I opened my laptop and saw an article from Creepy Catalog on FB

*Source

And a story started to edge its way into my imagination… the question:

What if? occurred to me.

Then other questions began to ask themselves...

What if that happened and I saw/experienced it?

How would it happen?

How would I tell the story?

What would it feel like?

Imagine…

The trick to all this is to write down EVERYTHING but the skill is to weave it rather than take all the facts and dump them in a box and expect your audience to sort through it for themselves.

You are the storyteller, that’s YOUR job!

You need to set the scene, tell the relevant facts the audience (your readers) need to know – and NO MORE THAN THAT!

Build your story, pull the reader in and let them experience it alongside you. Don’t tell them you’re scared, SHOW them and show them why.

You can go back and amend your story before you post it. Read it, love the story, caress and change the story where it doesn’t work.

You’re a sculptor and the blank paper is the clay with which you will build your masterpiece.

If the nose is in the wrong place, move it. The cheekbones are misaligned? – alter them!

If you think of a relevant fact (or fiction) that you missed, don’t just dog it on at the end as an ‘Oh yeah, and this too’ event, slip it into the correct place in your editing.

That’s why I write in a word doc to start with, because the urge to click POST is just too great when I’ve finished writing.

When you’ve finished telling your story, your work is NOT finished – not by a long chalk.

If there are parts of your story that suspend disbelief too much, are just too unbelieveable for the story – for example, if you write something that would jar the reader right out of the story because it doesn’t fit –

I looked at the mirror and I saw Ghostrider’s face…

Really? A comic-book hero came to call on you? Your audience will pull away from the story and it’s difficult to get them back once they’re withdrawn.

Even if you don’t believe you need a professional editor, that’s fine… but use your own editing skills to the best of your ability and read, re-read and re-read again.

If you can’t bear to read the story more than once because it bores you, how can you expect your readers to be excited about it? They’ll be bored too!

Read it out loud – read it to someone else – read it out loud to yourself, record your voice, listen to your story. If it doesn’t work, don’t just shrug your shoulders and think “oh, well,” CHANGE what doesn’t work!

Your next project for the Mentorship Group is to tell me something about where you live. No, not your town, not your street, think closer.

Tell me something about where you sleep – you can’t get more personal than that.

I don’t mind if it’s fact, fiction or a mixture, tell me as much detail about your bed, bedroom, sleeping quarters as you possibly can.

Tell me how you feel about the room, your bed, your bedcovers, your pillows.

Give me detail, make me think I’m there, seeing what you see, thinking what you think.

Draw your readers in. Take your time, make it interesting, not a list of what’s on your dressing table, textures, smells, thoughts.

Tell me… US