Simple Stories

Well, I’m back.

Today, I’d like to talk about something that most people don’t seem to think about as something worthwhile.

Simple stories.

Stories that are short, straightforward, innocent. Simple.

Many of us place excessive emphasis on complex plots and twists that are “unexpected”. Nowadays, if we can guess the ending, then it’s suddenly described as “cliché” and “predictable” which is automatically frowned upon.

However… what is wrong with a story you know?

One of my favorite stories to tell is a story I’ve told a dozen times (for the record, it’s about how my sister and her husband first interacted before they liked each other). Every time, however, it makes me smile, makes me feel emotion. That’s what story is supposed to do, isn’t it?

Is the story I’m telling predictable? Fairly. If you heard the first half, you could guess the second half pretty easily. Does that make the story any less interesting?

No.

Heck, I told that story for what must be the fiftieth time as part of my speech at their wedding. A good half of the people there (and we’re talking a big wedding reception… my sister knows too many people) already knew the story.

I told it anyway.

They all smiled and laughed and felt emotion because of it.

So let’s talk about simple stories.

The Importance of Simplicity

What does simplicity allow you to do? After all, simplicity seems rather limiting. A story that goes from point a to point b without much happening in between sounds kind of boring, doesn’t it? That sounds like a story your Aunt Matilda might tell you at Thanksgiving that you didn’t really want to hear but have to anyway because it’s impolite to just walk away mid-conversation.

However, simplicity can also have great power. Believe it or not, simplicity grants the reader more imaginative power. When the story is simple, there’s more dead-space for the reader to fill with their own ideas. Even if the story has very little storyline and character arc, the reader is more than willing to put their own ideas into it.

Co-creation.

Simple stories can also be the most poignant. For most of us, our lives aren’t overly complicated. Even if we claim they are, they really… aren’t. Things are less complicated from the outside looking in; most complications only feel complicated due to a lack of perspective and distance. Therefore, simple stories resonate with the stories of our lives. They build on our experiences and sting us with something simultaneously sweet and sour.

This small power is still power-full. The poignancy of simple stories is like the strength of an ant. It may not seem like much from afar, but up close it’s astounding.

Sweet, Sweet Themes

What sort of themes do we find in most literature nowadays?

Darkness.

Evil.

Wrong.

Defeat.

Hopelessness.

A lot of themes today reflect the way we feel about the real world. We feel hopeless. We feel defeated. We see evil and darkness and wrongness all around us. It comes from so many places, and we want to feel empathy from elsewhere. We want to feel like we’re not alone in seeing these things. So we write them. We read them.

This is important. It’s so, so important. If stories don’t tackle the themes of reality, they lose their power to reach readers with any true and lasting impact. However, if darkness is the only theme we write, it’s the only thing we’ll ever see.

Simple stories free us from those themes. Can you write a dark, foreboding simple story? Sure. I have. Those are important, too. But you know what you can do with a simple story?

You can make people smile the whole time.

There is no need for extreme variance in emotion when the story is short and simple. One emotion is fine. When I tell the story of my sister and her husband meeting, what am I wanting to elicit from my listeners? Joy. That’s it.

When I tell the story of Agram Awakens what emotions am I wanting to stir up? I can list a good dozen off the top of my head from just the first act.

There it is.

The power of a simple story: joy can’t usually carry a story. When a story is complex, innocently singular emotions aren’t enough to carry all of that weight on their shoulders. Simple stories can be carried like that.

Simple stories give room for innocence.

Writing Simple Stories

Don’t be afraid of simple stories. Don’t be afraid to write a cliché. Any cliché can be well-written enough that readers don’t care.

Don’t be afraid of innocence. It’s okay to have a story that tells of good, positive themes.

Don’t be afraid of shortness. It’s okay to write novellas and short stories. Not everything has to be a novel. Not everything should be.

Don’t be afraid of the darkness in our world. Write your simple story. Fight that darkness. Fight it with everything you have and light your little spark. Fight.

Win.

Updates and Introductions

It’s been a while since I’ve shared about my own writing, so I thought today I’d take the time to share what I’ve been writing lately, and what I plan to write in the near future.

Recently, life has been letting up on my average load. As I write this, I’m prepping for finals, which means stress is rather high but homework and busywork are at an all-time low for the semester. I’ve been writing more (which has helped immensely with stress) and concerning myself less with repetitive math and more with creative writing.

While I’ve pulled back a bit from this place, I’ve also invest myself more into caring about it. Posting less means I’m spending more time investing in each post. I’m thoroughly enjoying each one, which I feel is much healthier for both myself and you guys.

It also means that my writing time has focused more on my projects and less on blog posts, which means my overall word count has a higher percentage focused into novels, short stories, and so forth.

An Update: The Winner

Early last month, I entered a short story into the Purple Martin Writing Contest at my college. This story, Broken Snapshots was written for an online contest sometime last year, and I posted it on this blog a few months ago. I ended up winning the online contest, which was more for bragging rights than anything else.

This story, for those who haven’t read it, is told from the view of a camera, and details its days photographing a variety of people

I entered the story at the encouragement of my girlfriend, not really expecting to win anything. After all, many more-talented people than I enter this contest and it’s judged by the English department faculty. My little story wasn’t going to win.

Or I guess it was.

I ended up placing first in the fiction category, which I’m both surprised and pleased by. I was actually doing physics homework in the library when they announced it at this poetry reading thing that was also taking place in the library so there was this awkward quiet followed by me shuffling over from my table full of physics numbers to acknowledge that I did a thing.

That was fun.

At some point, I’ll make a page like I did for Eyes, and post the story there.

An Update: The Schedule

I’ve got a lot of things planned when it comes to writing, and my plan usually changes before I can complete anything on my list. Timing, creative blocks, and desires to write other things all distract and redirect my attention.

However, here’s the basic layout of what I hope to accomplish with my writing before the next school year starts:

First, I’m planning on editing Agram Awakens and entering it into a contest (this will happy from June til August on and off).

Secondly, I’d like to start developing the worlds, characters, and plots for The Biography of a Very Bad Man, The Confessions of a Grelgin Priest, and a few other minor stories as well as continuing to map out the sequels to Agram Awakens.

Speaking of which, the third thing I’d like to continue to work on this summer is the sequel to Agram Awakens, which I’ve been slowly working on for about two months now. This project has been wrapped in a shroud of mystery and only like seven people know it’s actually happening right now.

Today, however, I’m actually going to let it out into the fresh air for a few breaths before I pull it back under its shroud.

Introducing: Slaves to Prophecy

I mean I feel like I would normally draw this out in some dramatic way, but the heading kind of spoils it and I’m feeling rather lazy today, so I’ll just say it: I’m writing book two of my series following Agram Awakens (which really needs a freaking title already so I can stop calling it that goodness) and it’s under the working title Slaves to Prophecy. It’s currently sitting in chapter seven at a cozy 17,300 words, out of a projected ninety-three chapters and 230,000 words. For reference, Agram Awakens is sixty-one chapters and just over 202,000 words. They’ll be approximately the same length, but this one has shorter chapters.

So.

What is this about, exactly?

I’ve talked quite a bit about Agram Awakens, but I haven’t spent a ton of time actually describing it. This is due to the fact that I’m real bad and synopsis and no synopsis I write actually does a good job of summarizing the book in a way that doesn’t sound lame.

The logline for the whole series is this: “six people set off the end of the world and have to try to fix it”. Which sounds awfully cliché so I’m working to refine it. Not to mention the fact that this isn’t really about the end of the world so much as the people who have to deal with the fact that it is, in fact, ending. Therefore, I have two synopses: one for the plot, and one for what actually happens. I’ll provide them both:

“It’s been decades since the Eglive overran Agram, plunging the world into chaos. Centuries. Even now, after they’ve been pushed back, they plague any traveler attempting to traverse Agram. The Raids into Agram are futile, despite their continuation.

The ancient religions spoke of a time when Agram would go dormant.

They spoke of the Eglive.

They spoke of the loss of power.

They spoke of a time of peace.

They spoke of the Truil Goic coming back.

For the sake of the world, let all men pray they do not.

For the sake of the world, let the Holders never come forth.

Agram Awakens.”

I mean that’s pretty exciting I guess. Now for the part that makes me excited about these books:

“Agram Awakens is about six people struggling with their own personal stories when their lives collide with something much bigger than all of them, something which requires them to sacrifice their own personal gain for the sake of those around them. 

Agram Awakens is about a man fighting a religious war, a woman kidnapped for political power, a fisherman stranded on a island, a boy fleeing from his gang-boss to and seeing the world, a merchant trying to provide for his family, and a slave who flees from those she has killed. 

Agram Awakens is personal gain, greed, and self-righteousness bowing out to compassion, justice, and the frail promise of a collectively better world through unconditional sacrifice.”

That is, in short, what the whole series is about as well. The first book is the springboard, and the rest are a following up on these stories as they play out in the greater narrative.

Slaves to Prophecy is the second book (out of ten, possibly more, possibly less) and, if I actually had a synopsis, could be described as something like this:

“Taynan [the boy] and Bea [the kidnapped woman] watch as their world crumbles. She is meant to end the world, he’s nothing more than a boy with control over nothing. Not even himself. They find their way together, hoping for a cure to her fate.

Gaream [the soldier] leads his men against a foe they cannot defeat: a foe he woke. All of Agram is awake, now, and he is the one to blame.

Deyu [the slave girl] soars through the heavens to a place she doesn’t expect, meets a man she finds she trusts, and discovers peace.

Deng-el [the merchant] struggles to survive the Vanc as nightmares and myths turn his life to ruins.

All around them, the world seems to crumble, crumble, crumble.

The Truil Goic have arrived.”

I… actually think I like that. Interesting. I came up with that on the spot, but I think I’ll keep it for now.

Cool.

Anyway.

Both Slaves to Prophecy and Agram Awakens I've written in Scrivener (see images for my basic layout), Aeon Timeline, Scapple, Word, OneNote, and a few other programs as well (keeping all of this stuff straight takes too much work, but I guess it's worth it in the end).

I use Scrivener for all my rough drafts. This is the first chapter of StP

I use Aeon Timeline to keep track of where people are, and when.

I've just started using Scapple for brainstorming, and it's amazing.

That’s what I’m up to. I’m writing Slaves to Prophecy until near the end of May, when I’ll start editing Agram Awakens for that contest. And, of course, I’m going to keep blogging.

What about you? What’s your writing look like, of late? And if not writing, what about your Art?

All Dried Up: Short Story Inspiration

Here’s the deal: I’ve been busy of late.

Very busy.

19.5 credits of an engineering course load do that to a person. Therefore, I haven’t had much time for writing. It’s a big reason why I’m pulling back from this blog a bit, and only writing posts I mean.

When I’m busy, I don’t have time to write anything. Novels, blog posts, anything. It’s been a dry spell for about two months.

Sure, I’ve written a few things, but I’ve certainly not written enough for the creative part of me to be content. I’ve been filling it with theatre-related art and creativity, but the part of me that desires to write and tell stories has been slowly shriveling up.

I’ve got a prune for a writer’s heart, right now.

Everyone has these times. Everyone has a phase in their life where their creative spark turns into a prune. It’s not something to panic about or worry over, but it is something you have to overcome.

Today, I’d like to offer a potential solution, a simple and easy way to water that prune and let it flesh back out into a full emotive spark: the short story.

Building Muscle

When you’re not feeling creative, it’s hard to dig into a full-blown novel. It’s hard to be… well… creative.

So when you’re feeling prune-ish, don’t expect yourself to be able to handle one of the most difficult tasks of the mind right off the instance. Creativity is a muscle. It’s only as strong as the application you give it and the consistency with which you use it. When you’ve had a long break from working out, you don’t go and lift the heaviest weights you can: you start out smaller, lighter, easier.

Then you work your way back up to where you were before, and then continue to lift heavier and heavier weights.

So it is with creativity.

While writing short stories can’t be said to be easy, it is easier. It takes less effort to come up with a storyline and characters for a short story than it is to come up with, fall into, and keep with characters, plots, and themes for an entire novel.

In short, writing short stories builds confidence and awakens your creative muscles.

Creating Art

Novels take a long time to write. It takes most writers months or even years to finish a rough draft manuscript (especially when the plot is complicated and when the book itself is going to be long). That’s a long time for the final payoff. Delayed gratification is good, yes, but when you’re a prune it’s hard to be patient.

Short stories, on the other hand, can be written in a day or two. You can write flash fiction in two minutes. These shorter time spans allow you to create art and prove to yourself that art is worth creating.

Short stories create immediate results, which can inspire more creativity for the long-run.

Moving Onward

Of course, it’s hard to stay writing short stories for very long. I’ve never been able to write more than two short stories before being drawn in by some other longer project. And that’s okay.

Short stories aren’t meant to be dwelt on. If you end up publishing or sharing your short story, people aren’t going to devote hours to reading it. They’ll spend time reading it, then move on.

They’re not an investment. They’re a brief moment of escape into a world of “what-ifs”. They’re a chance to really pursue what it means to be a writer. Through these short stories, you don’t have to be a prune anymore.

Take a drink. Write a story.

Fill yourself with creative inspiration and exercise your creative muscles.

Then move forward.