Tips for getting rid of excess words? Well, there are those who will tell you to go through the text looking for (and deleting) any excess words and sentences. Effective but very boring.
Much more fun is simply to delete every tenth (or whatever) and rely on the miracle of the brain to make sure that your reader doesn’t even you’ve done that.
Done, dusted, and sent off.
According to Scrivener it’s 3000 words. According to Word it’s 3005. I’m hoping that’s the ### bits, otherwise I’m in deep doo-doo.
Erm… know.
Nope. My brain doesn’t work that way.
I see what you’ve done there.
And finally even I made it. It’s been a delightful experience. Kind of.
That’s the Novel-in-a-Day experience we’ve all come to… love?!
Aren’t we all some kind sado-masochistic aficionados?
Seven hours to go! (part 1 of 3)
@AB17 @AmberV @Calkate @Catrad @ClaireWoodier @Clinken @FleetAdmiralO
Seven hours to go! (part 2 of 3)
@GraceK @Luiciferis @maximumsparrow @MsRestless @OolonColoophid @oof_itsalice @pete340
Seven hours to go! (part 3 of 3)
@Rimfrost @scrapsandsass @Shadowspawn @SheilaWrote @Shift @ViktorSirin @ZarahElouisRo
Just tweaking! I’ll be there…
Regretfully, I won’t be submitting anything this time around. Please carry on without me!
What’s the current count Lord Fender of Pigs? @pigfender
So looking forward to reading this latest edition.
Just wondering whether folk would like to share how they created their story: where their ideas sprung from and all that. The story behind the story. Am I selling this right?
Perhaps it’s just me, but I enjoy hearing how folk piece things together. Tis all grist to the mill at the end of the day before the sun goes down at the speed of light without a care in the world…
My entry was inspired by my own experiences in charity shops or flea markets which I often visit with my oldest child because we love them. Not just because you can often get good stuff for next to nothing, but also because of all the shamelessly ugly and tasteless junk that’s on display. We also like to think up bits of backstory, like when a lot of good books or music is put up for sale all at once, we figure ‘somebody with good taste must have died’, or speculate about the smoking habits of the previous owners of a particularly vile smelling piece of furniture.
Now, there’s always lots of kids toys and dolls too. It’s not hard to believe that dolls are haunted even if they’re brand new, but when they’re piled up and they are worn or off in other ways, they look pretty disturbing to me. Combine this with the backstory - it was once maybe the favourite doll and only trusted friend of a sick or abused child who is no longer amongst us -and that’s enough for a little shiver.
So basically I took that as a premise, and worked from there. I wrote it in 3 sittings and spent a few hours on edits, mainly rewriting the ending a couple of times so that there were no loose ends and still a little nugget of terror in there. I wrote it directly in English, but because English isn’t my first language I used a little external help to fix some of the technical stuff like grammar, spelling and Americanisms after I was done with the creative part, because I wanted the story to be firmly set in the UK. Fortunately only minor adjustments were necessary and 98+% of the original prose is left untouched, which was satisfying and a relief. It’s the first story I have ever written or shared, so that’s quite exciting. I really enjoyed writing it and hope to be back for more!
The story is called ‘Lisa-bloody-Lovely’ and I hope you will enjoy it with the other entries around Halloween
A decision that will haunt you. <rimshot>
This sounds fantastic – can’t wait to read it it – and it’s just the sort of backstory I was trying to suggest in my post. Because, as storytellers, there’s what we put out there, and everyone reads, and then there’s the tale of how we got there, which is, more often than not, hidden; and which, if my experience is anything to go by, just as, if not more, gripping.
Let me guess … You like ‘On Writing’ more than most other Stephen King novels? (For context, my copy is in tatters).
35 stories submitted (one of them by me!) for a grand total of 71,700 words.
Oh, and one more stat: 4 hours to go!
oooo boi. It’s getting close. Let’s see if I can pull this off
I’ll stay right here with you until the deadline! 