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Joanna Campbell Slan

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How I Write Short Stories, Part 2

March 4, 2015 by Joanna Slan

In Part 1, I chose a theme (getting lucky) and did some research. Now I need a conflict, some sort of friction, because conflict drives action.

Since this is a short story, and not a book, I need to keep it simple. A disagreement. A problem. A minor hassle.

Hmmm.

Okay, what about someone who complains that she is chronically unlucky bumping up against the luckiest woman on earth? These words resonate with me because right now there’s a really stupid commercial on local TV where the announcer says, “I’m the luckiest woman on earth because I got to take a three day cruise to the Bahamas!” Her voice is totally annoying.

How would this work?

My readers love to “watch” Kiki teach a class, because so many of them are crafters, too. So what if I have Miss Lucky and Miss Unlucky in the same class? Certainly that could get troublesome. What if they get into a fight? A quarrel?

What if someone bets Miss Unlucky that she’ll become lucky with the right lucky charm?

Okay, I like that. But it seems a bit too easy. I want to bump it up a bit. How about a lot of lucky charms? What if an entire class contributed lucky charms and loaned them to our Miss Unlucky?

Now that sounds kind of interesting to me. How about you?

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: how I write a short story, my process, serialized short story, writing tips

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