Making a Long Story Short . . .
Friday, January 27, 2006
My current writing project began as a short story for a project at Josh's school. They had scheduled an event where family members and students were to create a short narrative—real or fictional—and read it to the other families. The goal behind this exercise was to alleviate some of the fear students might have about expressing themselves through their writing. It seemed like a fine idea to me!
I chose the option of taking a real-life event and adding fictional elements to it. My original plan was to develop a short, 2000-word or so short story with humorous touches and a Twilight Zone-like twist at the end. It started out so well . . .
The writing presentation event was scaled back significantly (re-scheduled from the evening to during the day-making it more of a challenge for working parents like myself to participate) and Josh has now changed schools. The former was probably a good thing because currently the story is nearly 15,000 words long and will probably be close to 20,000 words when it's completed. Once I got started on the general story concept, it kept taking interesting directions and I know better than to tune out my muse when she's on a roll.
I had originally hoped to edit a 2,000-word version out of it for reading at the presentation, but now I don't need to. I still think that sometimes, though, the muse just doesn't know when to shut up!
I chose the option of taking a real-life event and adding fictional elements to it. My original plan was to develop a short, 2000-word or so short story with humorous touches and a Twilight Zone-like twist at the end. It started out so well . . .
The writing presentation event was scaled back significantly (re-scheduled from the evening to during the day-making it more of a challenge for working parents like myself to participate) and Josh has now changed schools. The former was probably a good thing because currently the story is nearly 15,000 words long and will probably be close to 20,000 words when it's completed. Once I got started on the general story concept, it kept taking interesting directions and I know better than to tune out my muse when she's on a roll.
I had originally hoped to edit a 2,000-word version out of it for reading at the presentation, but now I don't need to. I still think that sometimes, though, the muse just doesn't know when to shut up!
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