Mining Your Dear Diary Project for Short Story Ideas
June 3rd 2010 12:54
There are a thousand and one things you can do after having written a Dear Diary Project. One of these is to examine your Dear Diary project closely, looking for ideas that can be turned into short stories.
For example, you might have discovered a crucial fact about your character but not have explored it fully. Now is the time to take that crucial fact and ask who, what, where, when, why, and how. You might discover an abusive relationship in their past, a friend's death, or even a beautiful moment that kept them going when times were dark. Explore those things and follow them to their natural conclusions; you might just find a great story arc.
Another thing you could do is take one of the events during your Dear Diary project-like a Christmas party at their workplace-and write a short story about it from somebody else's point of view. You could even go so far as to turn that into its own character exploration exercise.
Your Dear Diary project quite likely took on a life of its own and created its own thirty day story arc. If it has, then try condensing your Dear Diary into a short story. Tinker with it. Change the point of view if you must-but follow the story arc as closely as you can.
Odds are that your Dear Diary project will never be directly marketable (although there are ways to make it work, and I'll get into those tomorrow), but if you can create a short story or three using what you've learned in the last month, there's a chance you'll still make a few dollars off of this month's efforts.
Does anything from your Dear Diary project jump out at you as a chance for a short story?
For example, you might have discovered a crucial fact about your character but not have explored it fully. Now is the time to take that crucial fact and ask who, what, where, when, why, and how. You might discover an abusive relationship in their past, a friend's death, or even a beautiful moment that kept them going when times were dark. Explore those things and follow them to their natural conclusions; you might just find a great story arc.
Another thing you could do is take one of the events during your Dear Diary project-like a Christmas party at their workplace-and write a short story about it from somebody else's point of view. You could even go so far as to turn that into its own character exploration exercise.
Your Dear Diary project quite likely took on a life of its own and created its own thirty day story arc. If it has, then try condensing your Dear Diary into a short story. Tinker with it. Change the point of view if you must-but follow the story arc as closely as you can.
Odds are that your Dear Diary project will never be directly marketable (although there are ways to make it work, and I'll get into those tomorrow), but if you can create a short story or three using what you've learned in the last month, there's a chance you'll still make a few dollars off of this month's efforts.
Does anything from your Dear Diary project jump out at you as a chance for a short story?
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Comment by RedParrot
Off to visit your blog.
Cheers!
RP
Comment by Dianna G
I Wish This Was 42
Fictional Worlds
A final product is not expected today nor tomorrow; a good short story takes time to grow.
~Dianna