DISCUSSION: Oneshot Competition Chat Thread (Summer 2019)

[canisaries]

I only have a possibility for one betareader. To get their help, I need to finish well in time so that I can still get feedback and also hope their plans don't change. So I might end up going without any as well.

Introduced another character to the story and it seems to be picking up. Hope her and the protagonist's dialogue don't inflate the wordcount too much, though. It's still hard to estimate how many words the rest of the story will take.

 

[Cresselia92]

I don’t have beta reader, either, so I’ll have to mostly rely on my instincts for this and aim for some “wow factor” or something.

Right now I’m just writing down whatever is crossing my mind, and I will later work on polishes and beef once I’m satisfied with the general plot.

 

[hanecco]

Really shouldn't have renamed this account while entering a competition lmao. Sorry, mods! Only just saw that this thread exists.

So far, I haven't written anything concrete yet, and it's a relief to know that many others haven't either. I've tried "trial writing" a few of the ideas I've had, but so far none of them have stuck. They've all focused around an undelivered message ruining a war in some kind of historical time period, though.

The plot is less clear. I think I'll have to do a little more research on the time period to figure out exactly what's going to happen, and then something will pop into my head. Hopefully.

 

[Felly]

I also don't have a beta reader. I've never really actually used one, tbh. I've been considering starting, but I think I'm just so used to sticking with doing it myself that I'm hesitant to change things up? I dunno. I might still consider it, but I want to at least finish writing the ideas I've already gotten written down before I really pass something off to someone else to review and give suggestions.

 

[Beth Pavell]

Well, it's finally happened. This scene was perhaps a bit too cinematic in my imagination, which is usually a recipe for a hard slog doing the description. Kinda got one eye on the time here. Last thing I want is to get bogged down here, so if I can crack this problem tomorrow before work I shouldn't be completely de-railed over the weekend.

So far my sister has been telling me to leave scenes alone, which I suppose is still useful beta advice

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

I hope everyone's making good progress! We're about to start our second week of writing (for those that didn't get a head start during sign-up, that is) and you should probably have a reasonable amount written by now. I have just under 1500 words myself, and it looks like I'm going to blow past the minimum word count before I'm done.

Has anyone run into any particular challenges with the theme or the task of writing a short story? Who here writes any number of short stories under their own steam, usually?

I find that short stories are delightfully easy to come up with concepts for and dive into, but I struggle to make anything of particularl consequence both happen and then be resolved neatly inside a reasonable wordcount, whilst doing everything else I like to do in a fic. I guess I need to learn to "murder my darlings" and cut down on unnecessary wordcount! I do write short stories on my own sometimes, but not much has come of them so far. This one is fun to write and may lead to more stories of a similar flavour if I'm lucky.

I'm wishing everyone well. I hope to see plenty of completed entries coming in when time's up!

 

[Beth Pavell]

Probably because, by necessity, I haven't done much more than a basic plan, I find myself getting through ideas in fewer words than I would normally. I don't normally go in for one-shots at all (They say short story writing is the real test of the writer's art).

At the moment I'm at about 2200 words - I'm damned if I'll sleep tonight without coming up with at least 100 more, since I effectively didn't write at all yesterday

 

[canisaries]

I passed 5k a bit ago myself. Over halfway there, at least I hope so. Required daily wordcount has dropped to 165, but I'm still gonna keep up my 200+ pace to have enough time, and it's been working out pretty well anyway. Regardless of length when finishing, I think I'm gonna cut some stuff from the beginning.

 

[zoroarctic]

Haven’t done much, unfortunately. I had planned on knocking out a good chunk of it this weekend, but, to quote Sister Hazel, life got in the way.

 

[kintsugi]

inspiration strikes; binge-writing continues. 4499 words down and I'm going to have to edit a ton of those out since that was supposed to be just the intro

 

[Misfit Angel]

I'm sitting at just under 600 at the moment. I haven't really sat down and given it a good go yet.

In my main writing, I definitely struggle to complete a story line in a single chapter very often. Hopefully I don't run into that problem here, because I won't have any opportunity to "fix" that with this idea I'm running with.

 

[Felly]

I started mine a week ago and haven't touched it since. I'm sitting at about 960 words though, so I feel like I've made a pretty solid start considering I've been struggling with writing for a little while. I'll probably work on it some more tonight, but my overall goal is to finish by the end of the month at least so I can have some time to go back over it and review everything myself before we can start posting it. My biggest concern is feeling like I'm rushing things; I feel like that's something I've always struggled with in short stories, especially where I'm constrained to a certain word count range, so I'm hoping by taking my time more on this one and leaving room to go back through to fill in any gaps, it'll help resolve some of that issue too.

 

[Beth Pavell]

Had a good run yesterday, which I'm determined to keep going. Keeping one eye on the time I want to get through this scene as quickly as possible, so really within the next few days. It's a nuisance I'm on the late shift tonight, since I'll probably be too tired to write when I get back ... I'm considering taking a notebook to work so I can write for 20 minutes or so in my break

 

[LightningTopaz]

I'm sitting on nearly 500 words at the moment, which is a fourth of the way to the minimum. My focus is on the forgotten message, so I don't want to get too bogged down in what distracts Brock from sending the message.

 

[hanecco]

I managed to figure out the plot, and it's quite well suited to a short story, which is great! However, it's also the kind of thing where I just want to just tell the reader the plot instead of go about describing things in detail. I've tried writing the intro a few times and wasn't satisfied with any of the approaches I took; I'm probably going to look at other bits of writing to see if I get any inspiration for how to tell it.

 

[Felly]

I'm sitting at about a little over 2000 words right now. I got through the plot points I'd already written down the other day, but as I finished, I'd already found some spots that were looking a little empty, so I did some more research and made new notes. Once I fill in the gaps I already know exist, I'm going to go back through and see if I can touch up some more spots and fill in any other holes before I really start cracking down on the editing process.

 

[Beth Pavell]

Well, today's not been very productive. I've managed to polish up about half the words I wrote on break yesterday, but it just seems so ... anodyne, compared to what I had in mind. Not really much option but to simply push on and get the scene done - I've hit walls like this before and if I don't then I guarantee it'll eat up about a week's worth of writing time

 

[UselessBytes]

Sitting at just under 2k as of right now, but I've got a thee hour stint of nothing between my last class and my local today, so I can probably manage to bump that up.

 

[Felly]

I wrapped up the basic premise of my story last night. Gonna give it a few days, maybe work on the other story I'd started before I started this one, and then go back with a fresh set of eyes to read through it and fill in any other gaps I need to fill in.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Hope everyone's still making good progress! I've slowed almost to a halt this week due to various things I've had going on, but I'm confident I can make up for it in the coming week. Remember, you have two weeks left. That's still plenty of time so long as you make a little progress pretty often.

For those of you who're nearing completion, you should start thinking about your editing process. Pro tip from this cat: you should try and cut out a significant portion of your wordcount in order to keep succinct and throw out anything superfluous. I sometimes cut out more than a third of my wordcount if it's particularly bloated! Has anyone else got any advice to share?

Once again, good luck to everyone~