Writers on blogging: separating our blogs from the herd

Years ago a writing mentor told me, if you’re going to write, you must be on social media. Technophobe that I am, I supposed that must mean a website it would take a professional to set up. And tend. And continually expose my ignorance to, and on. And although I actually built a dot.com site from a web template, it was so tough to update I nearly stopped writing.

Then I discovered blogging. Free (often) and easy. Little did I know there was so much still to learn. That’s why I still jump at any chance to hear more experienced bloggers tell their stories, as Kathryn McClatchy and Rainer Bantau did at the Writers Guild of Texas. 

There are, Rainer intoned solemnly, quoting a business-oriented blogger, 164 million blogs in the world, most of which get fewer than 5,000 visitors a month. And although I could plead that I’m not blogging for sales leads, it’s nice to think I reach a group of like-minded people. How can we find each other among 164,000,000 others?

“There are multiple reasons to blog now. You can blog because it fills a lack in your souls, or you can do it for a living.”

How about rumors that blogging is so dead? Consider, she said, that the same rumors abound about the death of books on paper.

“Anybody here bought a paper book recently?” she asked. Hands went up. “So, not dead.”

So, how to stand out among those 163,999,999 other blogs?

“Follow your passion,” was Kathryn’s advice. “The audience will follow if you are passionate about your subject. . . “You have a unique perspective,” she says. “There’s a hole in the internet that nobody’s talking about. Pick something unique to you.”

Kathryn differentiates between niche blogs and personal blogs. Niche blogs are the prime domain of writers for nonfiction to establish themselves as experts in their field. Personal blogs are common to many fiction writers, allowing the blogger to write about whatever takes her fancy  -- although there’s no rule that says we can’t combine the two.

Rainer’s Devotional Guy blog title speaks for itself, and also allows him to address subjects such as homelessness and human trafficking that he’s passionate about. Thriller writer Kathryn prefers to blog about crime, but she doesn’t exclude posts about literary events and writers she follows.

As with any job, hobby, or (gulp!) social media activity, blogging takes time. (Kathryn estimated that she spends 1-3 hours writing each post – and that’s not counting the research time.) While decrying any “hard and fast rules” about how often to blog, or how long blog posts should be, the duo noted that “being consistent is more important than frequency.” A blogger must consider how much time he/she can afford to spend writing quality posts, and budget time accordingly.  Better a quality post once a week than daily scatter-shots.

image: Pixabay

Rainer also urged bloggers to remember that the internet is a visual medium, and recommended some sites for copyright-free images. (I take a lot of my own photos, and am a longtime fan of Wikimedia Commons, but jumped at the gorgeous photos on Pixabay and the search options available through Creative Commons.

Other resources for bloggers include: ProBlogger, Web Design Relief, social media gurus Guy Kawasaki and Michael Hyatt; and writers who teach blogging, Joanna Penn and Susan Maccarelli.

(I’m also going to modestly suggest my own blog post at this site on the subject of blogging: Wordcraft:Blogging – easy as a message in a bottle.)

Learn, enjoy, and never stop writing!

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And on the subject of writing: the short story contest for Dallas-based science fiction/fantasy convention FenCon has been extended to August 15. Cash prizes, publication chances, and judges feedback. See the site for details.

Tall tales told briefly: a short story writer’s guide

I confess: after publishing nearly two dozen short stories, I’d given up. Writing workshops were starting to tell me my tales didn’t fit into the few-thousand-word format of a short story. Flash fiction, micro fiction? Forget about it!

Ann Fields

Then at a recent meeting of the Dallas Mystery Writers, I heard short story writer Ann Fields speak on the few (but basic) principles, and thought, maybe I’ll find the courage to try the short form again. I’ll think of it as a summer wardrobe for my writing. Fewer pieces, no layering, just the basics.

Not that Fields saw the light immediately in her own writing career. She started by writing long – four romance novels and one novella published under the pen name Anna Larence. Her short fiction has been published in the anthologies Lyrical Darkness, Voices from the Block (volumes I and II): A Legacy of African-American Literature.

“I loved the long form, but I had a day job and found it hard to keep my focus. So, I took a detour through short form and fell in love with that form of writing,” she told her mystery-writing audience.

Writers often ask how many words it takes to make a novel. How few does it take to make a short story? Like your summer wardrobe, there’s brief, briefer and briefest. Remember, like the length of your skirt hem, the following word counts are suggestions. When writing for publication, check your publisher’s website for specific guidelines.

That said, Fields’ definitions for short fiction categories range from micro fiction (up to 100 words, or less than a page), flash fiction (up to 300 words, or up to a single page), short stories (up to 10,000 words, or 35 pages or less), and novellas (up to 30,000 words, or 130 pages or less).

(I’ll add a note: in my experience, many ezines and anthologies prefer “short stories” on the shorter side, often in the 3,000 to 5,000-word range.)

That said, short form fiction still needs to be fiction. It must be a complete story with a definable beginning, middle and end. It needs well-developed characters, strong story conflict, internal (character) conflict, a provocative setting and an intriguing story question. It will also contain such basic elements as dialogue, action, description, narration (exposition) and internal monologue (introspection).

Fields notes that, because of their brief length, not all short stories will contain all of the basic elements. Still, it seems like a lot to cover while still staying under 10,000 words, maybe under 100.

Her suggestion is, rather than fixating on word-counts, simply to write the story in your heart in the way that seems natural to you – and it. “How did the story come to you?” The most important factors in determining the form (and length) of any story, she said, are the author’s intent, intuition, and writing sense.

“I credit (my intuition) to reading a lot of short stories and getting familiar with the feel and the rhythm of them.” For those not sure where to start reading short stories, she suggests the annual Best American Short Stories anthologies. “I spend way too much money at Lucky Dog Books and Half Price Books for those story anthologies.”

Other resources for finding short stories include Hemingway/PEN Award winners, New American Fiction, and  Flannery O’Connor Award winners. Favorite writers include those as diverse as J. California Cooper, O. Henry, Eudora Welty, Edgar Allan Poe, Stephen Crane and Joan Silber. (However, she urges caution when using older writers as guides. Poe’s classic, The Fall of the House of Usher, spends its first page and a half on a description of setting, something “he would not be able to get away with in modern times!”)

That said, short stories focus more strongly on a single character than do longer forms of fiction. More than a single character is acceptable, but the viewpoint of one individual must be paramount. They also have a single theme, a unified feel, and are tightly written. And only one plot. No subplots allowed! Think about whether your story can be read in a single sitting. And have fun. There’s room for experimentation and atypical styles in the short fiction format.

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Need more motivation to write short? Consider this short story writing contest that offers cash and publication credits. The Dallas Area Writers Group’s 2017 Short Story Contest (closes August 15). See the site for details. 

Wordcraft -- Writing contests fast and furious

Writing contests aren’t what I expected to blog about today. But while going through my notebooks and inbox, I found a slew of contests with looming deadlines. Readers, you won’t get rich or famous from winning any of these, but they look like great fun and they cost little, sometimes nothing. Besides, I found what has to be the most dramatic picture ever of a writer at work for illustration. Click on the image from wikimedia commons for a look at the whole painting by Ilya Repin.

January 15 -- That’s right, the day after tomorrow. DFW Writers’ Conference “celebrating the classics” query contest. Choose a classic novel (for this purpose, at least twenty-five years old and still in print), write a query letter for it, and email your entry by midnight, January 15 to editor@dfwcon.org/.

No entry fee or membership required. Finalists will get to submit a query letter for their own work for critiques by Donald Maass of the Donald Maass Literary Agency. If you need help finding examples of classics, try the Adventure classics preview at this site (although not all of my examples meet the age and other criteria of the conference). For examples of what to include in a query letter, see 
http://dfwcon.org/2013/11/25/celebrating-the-classics-query-contest/.

January 15 -- Houston Writers Guild “Judge a Book by Its Cover” contest. This is for romances (in several sub-genres) published in 2013. Fee is $15. Winner gets a full-page ad in the April 2014 Romance Writers Report.

Also from HWG, 2014 manuscript contest for unpublished manuscripts in several genres, including literary fiction and memoir. Fee is $20 for first entry from guild members, $30 for nonmembers. Additional fees for multiple manuscript submissions. Deadline is March 1, 2014. Cash prize and meeting with editor for first place winner in each genre.

And finally from HWG, the Guild is taking submissions for science fiction stories of not more than 8,000 words for an anthology. Top entry receives $50. For information about contests and the anthology, see http://houstonwritersguild.org/.

February 1 -- The First Line magazine lists the opening sentences for all of its 2014 quarterly editions. The first: “Carlos discovered (fill in the blank) under a pile of shoes in the back of his grandmother’s closet.” Due date is February 1 for the spring edition. No fee to enter. For more information, see 
www.thefirstline.com/.

February 21 -- Writers’ League of Texas manuscript contest offers writers in nine different literary categories chances for professional feedback and publication. Fee is $55 for League members, $65 for nonmembers. Entries accepted via www.writersleague.org/.

Also from the Writers’ League, entries for the Texas Book Awards (formerly knows as the Violet Crown Awards) are open through April 25. Entry fee is $45 per title for WLT members, $55 per title for nonmember authors, $65 per title from agents and publishers. For online entry form and information, see www.writersleague.org/112/Book-Awards-Contest/.

February 28 -- The Red Line lists two themes for its remaining editions of 2014, Bodies (February 28) and Escape (April 30). No fee for entry, 50 pound prize for the best in each category. For more information, see Duotrope's Digest or
http://overtheredline.com/.

Finally (for now) Carve magazine editor Matthew Limpede asked me to mention its creative writing workshops in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, offered through the Creative Arts Center of Dallas. Readers made Limpede's discussion, “An editor’s take on short stories” (May 13, 2013) one of this blog’s most popular posts. And yes, Carve will open its annual Raymond Carver short story contest April 1, running through May 15. For information about the magazine, classes and contests, see
http://carvezine.com/.

There will be more posts later about upcoming summer and fall writing contests. Feel free to let me know about anything else I’ve missed.