Updates:

Short Stories:

I have not put in as much work on my short stories as I originally planned. My focus has been on my novel and getting caught back up on my writing posts. But I do plan to continue to work on them, and hopefully send a few out to literary magazines soon. Though I would like to add a note that I sent one of my horror short stories to a few beta readers to get some feedback. If you have any literary magazines you’ve submitted to, what’s your experience been like? What are some tools you used?

Serial Fiction:

It’s come time to crack open Please Subscribe for a read through before I start on the next draft. The plan is to read through and make notes, much like I did with the first quarter of Scroll of Stone. Then I’ll reverse outline and rebuild the story as needed. I look forward to sharing this story with you and will give you plenty of notice before I post it anywhere. I’ll most likely try Kindle Vella for this project, but let me know if there are better ways to do a serial fiction story.

Novels:

I’m continuing to pound away at my keyboard as I work through the next quarter of the Scroll of Stone. I’ve continued my 4 POV pattern and feel like the characters’ voices are slowly coming to life with each chapter I add. The current plan is to add five chapters for each character, but I’ve already updated my outline of how the story has developed as I write it. So I’ll see how many I get to before I actually reach the midpoint. The current word count is sitting at 65,159, and my goal for May was to do 800 words a day. I definitely missed some days, but I’m trying to build up to a healthy word count.

What to Expect:

This month, I’ll review a sequel, Project Vortex by Michael Ciccarelli-Walsh. Learn more about this storyline that takes us back to the roots of the superhero stories we love. You’ll also see more writing tips posts including: Intro to the Craft of Characters and Aspects of Character: Personality. So we’ll be closing out the setting portion of craft and start wading into the deep end where the characters rule your worlds. I’ve created a few character posts before. These posts will offer new and optimized character development aspects.

What you Learned Last Month:

May had an extra week, so you got an extra post and we have a lot to combine and condense. Here we go.

You started out the month with a brief article in the newsletter talking about reviewing your story. The post covered mannerisms/gestures, societal norms, and setting details. The details you add, discover, or refine in the three areas can take your story from bland to grand. (Okay, a little corny, but you have to have fun every once in a while.) After the last four writing tip posts, you’ve learned about the different setting details and how to use them in your story. You’ll learn more about the mannerisms/gestures as we step into character craft next week!

Then we covered two more types of setting, Psychological and Historical. There you saw the overlap across many setting details, but remember to focus on the purpose of each to differentiate them in your writing. The more setting details you can add to a story that is more than just setting details, the better your story will be. Look at every detail and as you trim that 10% from your first draft, look at what setting details add more than just surface level information.

The Book Review for this month was Behind Blue Eyes by Anna Mocikat. I hope you enjoyed the review and checked it out. If you’re a cyberpunk fan, or have wanted to try out a cyberpunk novel, Behind Blue Eyes is a great novel to start with. And if you’re a writer, observe how Anna used her characters to question different parts of society, and what it might mean to notice you don’t quite fit in anymore. Check out the review here.

Thank you for reading and always supporting Myers Fiction in each post! Keep learning, keep writing, and stay fresh, my nugs!

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