Short Fiction

The time is approaching fast. No story is ever complete. A writer will write and rewrite and revise, losing himself in the revisions and re-imaginations of a story, but there must come a time when he must send his story into the harsh publishing world. Like a good parent, the writer has done everything that they know how to do to make the story the best it can be to survive the world outside.

Publishers will not view a story in the same eyes as the writer. Actually, they better not. It is the publisher’s job to pick the best stories out of the mountain of submissions on their desks to make the best magazine or e-zine they can to bring in the readers and the customers to buy their product. They have to look at a story with a jaundice eye and carefully risk their business’s reputation on the stories they select.

I have enjoyed writing “The Last Friend,” and exploring the question of how the emotional dynamic of a person changes when their career crosses with the emotional attachment for someone. Despite my enjoyment, I must never delude myself into thinking that because I liked a story, everyone will. It is the writer’s job to appeal to their audience, to produce a story that can be enjoyed and can sell the magazine or e-zine it is printed in. Our work is art, but we would be fools to forget that there is a business side to it. It is with the reader and the editor in mind that I rework my stories into a draft they would be happy to read.

The time is approaching fast. This weekend I send “The Last Friend” into the world and see if I have really done my job right.

Thank you for reading and please visit www.davidalanlucas.com for more information on what I am writing and other news.

I am putting a delay on any submission of “The Tower.” I have finished reading the rough draft and I can tell it needs to be rewritten. There are usable parts and the general plot will remain the same.

In a blog entry I made in Coffee with David, I made a comment about how I run into some people who think that it is easy to write a book, get published, and live wealthy. Facing a total rewrite would put some hesitation and fear into them—or would act as a much needed glass of ice water thrown in the face. Writing fiction is an art. As an artesian, I never want to feel like I do not need to work at this craft very hard. Imagination and story craft are as the muscles in your arm: if you do not put strain on them, they will not build; if you do not use them, they will atrophy.

In writing, most of the real work of story craft we do is in the rewrite. I wonder what Frank Hubert felt when he rewrote Dune? Personally, I am glad he did. His son released the original story and I read it. It was good, but not anywhere as powerful as the novel we know became. I will be spending next week rewriting “The Tower” to create a more powerful story.

Thank you and please visit www.davidalanlucas.com

Sometimes a cliché becomes a cliché because it is true. Such is the case with writing. You may have heard it said that the real work of writing comes in the rewrite. If you have ever questioned the validity of this cliché, then you have never looked at your work with a jaundice eye.

While I am not a Hemingway fan, I agree with him about the art of writing. He said when he accepted his Nobel prize for literature: “How simple the writing of literature would be if it were only necessary to write in another way what has been well written. It is because we have had such great writers in the past that a writer is driven far out past where he can go, out to where no one can help him.” As I write this entry, I have two new short stories in first draft. One is “The Last Friend” and the other is “The Tower.” It is not hard for me to fall in love with these two stories, as I am the one who told them. When I allow myself to step back and look at them carefully, I know they need improvement and they need to be pushed further toward the edge of where I can stretch myself and my writing to go from being an OK or good story to something that will satisfy the reader and not be forgotten.

It is off to work on the rewrites of “The Last Friend” this week and then put it back in the drawer. In the mean time, I will also be plotting the new fantasy I described in my last entry. I have titled it “Dance of Death.”

For more about my stories, please visit www.davidalanlucas.com

“The Tower” should be finished this week. It is currently at 3,350 words (13 pages) and I plan to have it finished by 6,000 words.

I made an error in my last fiction blog. It is what I get for not looking at my “writing calendar” I incorrectly believed that my next short story after “The Tower” would be a crime drama. Actually my next short story will be a fantasy. The one after that is the crime drama. So many genres to juggle . . . it might get confusing as to what the next project is suppose to be . . . I love it.

I have been thinking about what the fantasy story should be about. There are many subgenres of fantasy. There is High Fantasy, Sword and Sorcery, Modern Fantasy, Steampunk, Heroic Fantasy, Celtic Fantasy, and many others. As I was pondering another story about Elves, Dwarves and Hobbits (or Kenders) abound, I found myself wondering if it was what I really wanted to write. I response to my self-dialogue over what I could and could not write, I found myself on a quest for something else to play with.

I found it in Wuxia. This is fantasy style blended from Chinese philosophy of a hero and of the history of the martial arts. Some examples of this can be Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hero, and (at least in my opinion as a parady) Kung Fu Panda.

The problem with the idea of writing Wuxia is that: 1. I am not Chinese; 2. I have never been to China; and 3. the style of marital arts I personally study started out as a Chinese-Japanese mix but has evolved into so much more. This could be a problem when it comes to writing Wuxia.

I have decided not to write Wuxia, but instead do what I do with other puzzles in my life. I have taken the idea of Wuxia and some other styles and subgenres of fantasy and have tossed it all into a blender. Then I hit the “liquefy” button.

Next week I will start to plot what ever this fantasy story will be. Until then I will let my mental blender twirl, mix, chop, and combine the various ideas together. Maybe I will have a good story come out of it like a delicious smoothie. Then again, I may have something indigestible. We shall see.

Well, I have caught whatever bug is going around my “bill paying job.” I hope that this entry in to the Short Fiction blog makes sense.

I completed the rough draft of the short story “The Last Friend.” After an online discussion with one of my blog readers regarding nothing to do with the actual story, I had an idea. The discussion I had with the reader was a question if I could write a story from the woman’s point of view in first person. The question and discussion made me remember a story that I read by William Faulkner. In his novella “As I Lay Dying” he tells a tale of a family quest to bury the remains of one character. Each chapter is told from a different character’s point of view. With the discussion in mind and the memory of Faulkner’s tale, I decided to write “The Last Friend” following the same path.

If “The Last Friend” was a play, it would be a one act, one scene play. It takes place in an unnamed St. Louis Blues bar. The story is told from the first person point of view between Melody, a raising star in Rhythm and Blues and her boyfriend, AZ. Melody is singing one last time in the bar that gave birth to her coming career before she leaves St. Louis. AZ is there to listen to Melody one last time. He has never told her anything about his work, but this night would be different and he dreads telling her his secret. This night, his job is to bring an end to Melody.

I write this story with each scene told from the first person point of view of either Melody or AZ. I should have this story ready to send to a possible publisher by the end of December.

Meanwhile, I have started work on “Abraxas.” However, “Abraxas” is no longer the title of the story. I have changed it to “The Tower.” As I wrote in an earlier blog, with this story I leave the world of the supernatural and enter the universe of Science Fiction. It is the story of the last ruminant of mankind trying to survive on a hostile world that has to be terraformed if man is to continue to exist in the universe. I plan to have this story rough drafted by this time next week.

After I finish “The Tower,” I shall start work on a new crime drama that will deal with stem cell research and domestic terrorism.

Thank you for reading and please checkout www.davidalanlucas.com for more information.