It’s Deadline Day!

I thought I best let you know how the three days to deadline writing worked out. (But if you haven’t read my post One Deadline Started it All, the short version is that three days before the Deadlines for Writers deadline, I decided I didn’t like the stories I had written and started from scratch.)

It was a busy three days of writing and editing but I posted a brand new story on time, you can click on the teaser below to read the story. It was a lot of work and there were a few times when I almost considered posting the other story or not posting in July (but I think we all know I never seriously considered not posting, the streak needed to continue, even if it was only now going to be a streak of two).

The hardest part of this month’s challenge was to figure out how to tell a story in 750 words. It really didn’t seem like a story could unfold over so few words. For example, the paragraph above is 67 words, so I essentially get 11 paragraphs like the one above to tell the story. I felt like I was trying to cover too much in my first attempt and so I limited the characters and the plot and chose a story which interpreted Trial as experiment instead of Trial as in court trial and jury deliberations.

On my first attempt at the Trial prompt, The Vote, I had mapped things out by paragraph and had a jury deliberating so I mapped out which jurors would get their own paragraph and which ones would combine to bring out a plot point. But as I wrote it, it just felt like I was pressured to get enough story and deliberation without going over in word count. I decided to publish it on my site just so you can see the different take on the prompt. (*Note – because I bailed on this story, it didn’t get all of the editing I might have done if I was posting it so it’s still a bit rough.)

For most stories my first draft has 300-500 extra words. There are some starts that stop before they are complete because I’m already way over the word count and am no where close to finishing. I’ve taken a look at some Flash Fiction (under 500 words) and I can’t figure out how they do it. There will be a month coming up when I have to because there will be a month when I only get 300 words for my Deadlines for Writers story.