I love writing fiction. I don't even know why but I do. Perhaps it's because I don't ever plan things out, instead I let the story do the telling. And so far, the stories have been telling crappy things, judging by the tens of rejections I've received from every publication I've ever submitted to. That's just fine though because since the story tells itself to me, it's not really a weakness of mine but the story's–I tell myself pathetically to keep from spiraling down a deep well of despair every time I get a rejection email, the kind that always includes the wickedly demoralizing line, "Best of luck placing your story elsewhere."
To be honest though, I guess I don't really know how to write fiction. I entered a contest not too long ago and somebody had this to say about my piece, "It seems like you have a plot device with no plot." That hurt. But he was right, yet I had no idea he was right until he told me–didn't even recognize that my own story had one character who never did anything and another who recited a sob story from her past. Neither of them did anything meaningful over the course of my lengthy, spineless plot, and so it rightly sucked.
I wish I could say that the man's comment vaulted me into a wealth of meaningful, publishable stories, but it hasn't. I'm still getting rejected.
But recently I've written some stories that I quite like (stories that have yet to be rejected, actually. There's something to be said about the period between submission and rejection. It's a time of unbridled hope, the kind that can only compare to applying for a job. Similarly to applying for a job–a time when I hope that all the other applicants will trip and fall in their interview or sneeze snot rockets on the employer's desk–when I submit stories I hope all the other writers I'm competing with make disgraceful mistakes in their material, like misspell a word or, worse yet, commit a comma splice).
But as I was saying, recently I've written some things I quite like. Here are some sentences that I feel comfortable enough to share (sharing a whole work of fiction–that's putting yourself out there).
“Urg,” said Vigurg, the decorated one, after their pleasant and brief chat. ‘Urg’ on Lairflame is a cordial way of asking if someone is hungry and would like to eat hand-rolled turtle brain.
To be honest though, I guess I don't really know how to write fiction. I entered a contest not too long ago and somebody had this to say about my piece, "It seems like you have a plot device with no plot." That hurt. But he was right, yet I had no idea he was right until he told me–didn't even recognize that my own story had one character who never did anything and another who recited a sob story from her past. Neither of them did anything meaningful over the course of my lengthy, spineless plot, and so it rightly sucked.
I wish I could say that the man's comment vaulted me into a wealth of meaningful, publishable stories, but it hasn't. I'm still getting rejected.
But recently I've written some stories that I quite like (stories that have yet to be rejected, actually. There's something to be said about the period between submission and rejection. It's a time of unbridled hope, the kind that can only compare to applying for a job. Similarly to applying for a job–a time when I hope that all the other applicants will trip and fall in their interview or sneeze snot rockets on the employer's desk–when I submit stories I hope all the other writers I'm competing with make disgraceful mistakes in their material, like misspell a word or, worse yet, commit a comma splice).
But as I was saying, recently I've written some things I quite like. Here are some sentences that I feel comfortable enough to share (sharing a whole work of fiction–that's putting yourself out there).
“Urg,” said Vigurg, the decorated one, after their pleasant and brief chat. ‘Urg’ on Lairflame is a cordial way of asking if someone is hungry and would like to eat hand-rolled turtle brain.
“I don’t want to know,” Vigurg said. “But then again I think we must find out, for we have to kill them.”
“It would appear,” began Gungho, “that we must assemble a space-traveling fleet.”
The generals then assembled a space-traveling fleet, said goodbye to their Lairflamian loved ones, and...
(Blah blah blah, the joke was in the repetition. Did you like it?)
“It would appear,” began Gungho, “that we must assemble a space-traveling fleet.”
The generals then assembled a space-traveling fleet, said goodbye to their Lairflamian loved ones, and...
(Blah blah blah, the joke was in the repetition. Did you like it?)
Gungho started to cry. Vigurg grabbed a soft handkerchief, which he had lifted the day before from one of Gungho’s impaled soldiers, and handed it to Gungho so he could wipe his eyes.
The wind howls as if it’s running from something. The branch that had been tapping at my window is now pounding. It’s begging me to let it inside, but my room is no more sanctuary than a culvert is in a hurricane.
(Clearly, I hope, this last one was from a different story than the other ones.)
(Clearly, I hope, this last one was from a different story than the other ones.)
Okay, that was plenty hard to share those snippets from my stories. You may think I'm kidding, but I'm not. It's the most intimate thing I think I can do, share my tales that come from the inner God-knows-where of my mind, my perception of the world, my mood and outlook on the particular day that I write something. I often think when I write, What if people don't agree with that thought, that comparison, the order of those words? But I know that's inevitable, that people won't agree, but I have to write what I agree with or nothing meaningful would ever get down on the page, or at least I think that's how it works.
Like I said earlier, I don't really know how to write fiction, and a part of me is rather afraid of the possibility that I'll never figure out how to write it. But I think, I hope, it will always be enough just to write it for the sake of writing it, to see where a story takes me.
All that being said, I'm considering publishing some of my (less crappy) fiction. With none of it getting accepted anywhere, somebody has to read all that shit I'm writing. Maybe you, loyal reader, would enjoy it.
Like I said earlier, I don't really know how to write fiction, and a part of me is rather afraid of the possibility that I'll never figure out how to write it. But I think, I hope, it will always be enough just to write it for the sake of writing it, to see where a story takes me.
All that being said, I'm considering publishing some of my (less crappy) fiction. With none of it getting accepted anywhere, somebody has to read all that shit I'm writing. Maybe you, loyal reader, would enjoy it.