Posting One Writings

How to Write a Good Story in 800 Words or Less “http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=50351”
Posted, Oct. 6, 2003
Updated, May. 26, 2000 (interesting the update date is earlier than the post date!)
By Roy Peter Clark (Senior Scholar, Poynter Institute)

With the article title in mind the irony that this story was in gross excess of 800 words did not go unnoticed. Setting that annoyance aside, I found the focus on ART (Approximate Reading Time) very helpful. Often writers (preachers too) want to give the entire encyclopedia of information on a particular subject when the reader has a much smaller appetite. It is true to most readers, apparently many writers and preachers do not carry over their experiences as readers in to their speaking/writing, that there is a saturation limit. In academia long readings are often (not always) a necessity, but even there the informational benefit typically diminishes propotionally wih the length of the reading

I appreciated the following excerpt: "or some real fun, enjoy Jerome Stern's edition of "Micro Fiction." Among the shortest stories is this 53-word nugget by Amy Hempel: She swallowed Gore Vidal. Then she swallowed Donald Trump. She took a blue capsule and a gold spansule — a B-complex and an E — and put them on the tablecloth a few inches apart. She pointed the one at the other. 'Martha Stewart," she said, 'meet Oprah Winfrey.' She swallowed them both without water."

His reference to Shakespeare and the five W's and H was concise and helpful, "In his sonnet lead, Shakespeare includes the basic elements of news telling, usually referred to as the Five W's and H. We know the Who: a pair of unlucky lovers; the What: they took their lives; the Where: in fair Verona; the When: right now; the Why: an ancient feud. Of course, the How is about to be experienced: the "two hours' traffic of our stage," the narrative of the play."

Focus, Focus, Focus! Take a normal writing assignment and turn it into something special, glorious, unnatural, inspiring!