I don't want to scare anybody

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I don't want to scare anybody, but I might just have a hope of being able to enter the new year's contest.

I have 400 words done, so I need to come up with another 2,100 words to qualify, so I might not make it.

But I figured I would warn you all anyway.

Comments

The Only Way

joannebarbarella's picture

You will scare us is by NOT submitting an entry!

Just a little bit of confidence in yourself, my dear!

Joanne

Look

Don't make us have to come round and chain you to the keyboard.....

__

Estarriol

I used to be normal, but I found the cure....

That’s exciting!

Emma Anne Tate's picture

Your headline, on the other hand . . . that was frightening!

Emma

I dunno ...

With what you write ...
With what I write ...

Folks oughta instead be afraid of >my< entry ...
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Coupla things ...

= Some stories are a cut or polished gem. They are perfect the way they are. Adding anything, removing anything - wrecks the story. (This is how a music ignoramus like me hears Bach ...)

If that happens - submit it, note that it doesn't qualify, but let us enjoy "the sparkle" anyways.

= We can always say more:

Not: "This {thing} is the scariest thing I've ever done."
Kinda "Yawn".

But:

"This {thing} I'm about to do is my most terrifying thing ever. Scarier than designing my bride's engagement ring, and she didn't even want to hear my plans. Scarier than marrying her and getting an "instant" teen stepson with legal problems."

Did I just scare you?
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Include details and stuff that puts us "right there", so "right there" that we're inside your characters' heads.
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Where is the story?
= At at medium-nice restaurant with good food? - Ann-nnd... Action!

Or:

= Aboard fifty kilometer long alien sub-light starship, dropping in for Rest and Repair by our Sun?

"Alien starship" takes a >lot< more world building, than will the restaurant. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendezvous_with_Rama).
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We can recycle real parts of our lives into a story. We just "change the names to protect the guilty", "file off the serial numbers" and change the locale. Then, write it from the inside. We write it is as real or 'real-er' than when it happened.

Exactly this is already part of my story.
=== ===
We have 2 weeks before we can submit, and another six weeks after, before deadline.

We just have to take care to not "second-guess" and "tweak" our good story into a bad story.
===
And don't make my Muse pay a call on your Muse. My Muse once, in real time, turned me into the janitor at Lyric Opera/Chicago. She is one >Scary< Muse ...
=== === ===
PS: I once took an English course, and the teacher required we trade essays with a partner for proofing and critiquing (it was part of our grade). At the end of the course, I asked my (most frequent) partner to come to the teacher's desk with me ("No, no, nothing bad.")

With the teacher listening, I turned to my partner, and said that over the term, I had watched him become a much stronger/better writer. Then I thanked him for letting me watch it happen.

Which is my long-winded way of asking, do you want me as a 'beta reader'?

We can trade stories, if you like. I'm for sure gonna have goofs & typos "thatch speil cheek want ketch" (that spell check won't catch).