Holly Lisle | Karavansara

I never was very hot about flash fiction – while I still like short stories best, I don’t like too short stories. Six thousand words is my ideal length, followed by ten thousand.

According to Wikipedia

Flash fiction is an umbrella term used to describe any fictional work of extreme brevity, including the Six-Word Story, 140-character stories, also known as twitterature, the dribble (50 words), the drabble (100 words), and sudden fiction (750 words). Some commentators have also suggested that some flash fiction possesses a unique literary quality, e.g. the ability to hint at or imply a larger story.

As I said, not my thing.
But it is important to try new things. Continue reading →

I was reviewing my creative process (or the sort of blind blundering I call that) trying to optimize it in order to get more good words on the page*, and I found out a few interesting bits about my modus operandi.
And I thought, why not inflict my newfound knowledge on my blog readers?

When I start a new story, I generally open my copybook (or a txt file) and I start jotting down ideas.
Basic premise and concept, quick sketches of the main characters, a list of places, maybe a very rough logline.

Sometimes it’s like doodling – I sit waiting for my turn at the doctor’s or at the post office, and I just write down stuff.
Maybe I’ll never use those ideas, maybe in a few weeks, or months, or years (provided I can still find the file or the copybook) they’ll come in handy. Continue reading →