I have a story, "Gran's Prophesy," coming out in a few days in the anthology, An Honest Lie. The publisher has set up a Web site. If you visit it and leave a comment after my excerpt, I get one vote. In a couple days, if you buy the book through that portal, I get five hundred votes. The author with the most votes gets a publishing contract, so please help me out. Vote here and buy a copy of the book when it goes live later this week.
Another common error young writers make is telling a story, rather than showing a story. This is probably because many of the short stories they have been exposed to are fairy tales, which have a distant point of view and summary-like narration. They start with phrases like "There once was..." and use direct characterization, like "She was the kindest girl in all the land." When we write, we need to show our stories, using vivid verbs, specific details, and deep point of view. Here's an example of a passage that is told. The action is summarized and the reader feels as if the action is happening far away: It was June of 1943. Eric's older brother had gone away to become a fighter pilot. Eric wanted to be a pilot too, so he got in the family's crop dusting plane and started it up. He flew it out of the barn and crashed it into the old oak tree in the yard. He hit his head. The doctor had to come. His brother came back, injured from the war. The two healed...
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