How I did it: Been reading and writing all my life, finally in my 20s, I decided to do something concrete. I think what helped was a correspondence course in short story writing that I took through the London School of Journalism. That fine-tuned my approach to writing. Also I was in advertising where the art of precis writing comes into much use. And in college I took some writing classes and literature classes. I wrote regularly, journalling too, and as far as the short stories went, EDITING them was the most important thing not to neglect. Also paying attention to a few simple rules like sticking to one character's perspective, respecting the readers intelligence (which usually means more editing cos the first draft is just a pouring out of oneself very often!)

Lessons & tips: READ. Especially short stories - the good ones. You can get collections of them and they are worth reading and studying. Take a course in writing short stories if you can. Work on your grammar and your vocabulary. WRITE. It doesn't have to be all stories, even journalling is writing.
OBSERVE. Watch other people, don't spy on them but notice them, try to imagine their motivations and reasons for their behaviours, their moods, their shoes, whatever. Try to get a feel for what people feel. The stories come out of this.
RESEARCH the magazines you are going to send your stories to and send appropriate pieces. Also take the time to find out how to send in articles, how long they should be in terms of words, style, etc. It helps to be professional. You can get this info off the net or else from the Writer's Yearbook.

Resources: Typing class. London School of Journalism correpondence course in short story writing and feature writing. Writing by hand - makes you think before you write and is harder to edit, so you are more aware of the value and inconvenience of your words, than with a computer where you can click and edit and backspace and copy!

Jan 24, 2009, 09:15AM PST | 1 comment