Welcome to my newsletter!

One year, I determined to write a short story every month.

I didn't promise to write a publishable short story, just a short story. Some people do this once a week, some every two weeks, and some every day.

I challenged myself to write a short story once a month. With everything else I was working on, I would write one short story.

How I set that up and met the challenge is another story. I'll tell you bits of it as we go along, but I now challenge you to write a short story over the next 12 weeks.

Maybe more than one.

In each newsletter, I will talk about how I accomplished some of that adventure. You can read along or write along and add my tips and knowledge to your own efforts.

Either way, for the next 12 weeks, this is all about writing short stories.

Let's see how many you can accomplish or how much you can accomplish: one short story or 12 shorter stories.

Time will tell.

Today, I'll start with where to begin.

Over the past nine weeks, I've talked about

• The power of stories and characters over the audience. (Issue 170)
• How to deal with writer's block.
• What inspires you?
• How to tell the hard tales.
• When is an idea stupid?
• Mapping out plots
• The power of an opening scene.
• Can I drink in a local bar and a foreign country affect your writing?
• And how does your why affect your writing?

All that has been leading up to this challenge. Over the next 12 weeks, you'll either write one short story or 12 shorter stories. Either is acceptable so long as you finish.

So, to start, where do you start? Where do you get your ideas or inspirations?

Perhaps from…

• personal experience,
• other people's experiences,
• things that you've heard,
• things that you've read,
• or totally out of some momentary burst of imagination.

Do you start with a plot, or do you start with a character or even a situation?

Your first challenge for those writing one short story is to develop five different ideas for a story.

Don't judge them; have them. Then, step away from them for a short period and then look at them.

Pick the one or two that inspire you the most, and make notes as to what you could do with either of those story ideas.

For those of you who are writing one story per week, your task is to develop five ideas. Pick one. Write a tale of 100 to 300 words.

It can even be a scene if it has a beginning, a middle, and an actual conclusion.

If you're wondering if anybody can tell a story in 100 to 300 words, yes, you can. It's called microfiction.

And you can get even more granular if you think of Ernest Hemingway's six-word story, which reads, "For sale, baby shoes. Never worn."

So get cracking.

Best,

Alex Simmons

PS. Write me if you have any questions.

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