I won the One Minute Writing of the Day!

I just got a new comment on my Miniature One Minute Writing post below, and C. Beth (who runs the One Minute Writer Blog), tells me I won the One Minute Writing of the day! Woohoo! Thanks so much C. Beth! :)

Here's my winning post for you again, as it appears on the One Minute Writer Blogspot:

Thanks so much C. Beth! :)

Space Opera - Script Ideas!

ScriptFrenzy is coming up next month, I’d love to write something sci-fi for it. I’ve previously enjoyed writing a comic book script for ScriptFrenzy, I’d love to try writing either a Movie or TV Series script. I’m not really sure yet whether a movie or TV series would be best suited to my sci-fi story idea. I think I need to develop my ideas more first!

Space Opera
Human Hybrid, a female Captain, takes her crew of mixed aliens to find the lost human homeworld, Earth.
Mixed Alien crew land on Earth, where Captain soon discovers her homeworld is under threat from an alien race wishing to enslave the human race, and steal Earth’s resources (gas, oil, coal mining, etc).
Their spaceship is trashed leaving them stranded on earth, and unable to request help from “intergalactic high court or whatever it will be called”. They now have to fight any attempt at alien invasion from the ground level, with their knowledge of the advanced technology used, and thwart enemies plans.
Enemies Plans:

• Unleash a virus
• Shapeshifter aliens attacking people
• Inciting Wars - bombings & attacks imitating those of previous terrorist organisations and other countries. Leaving false evidence, etc.
• EMP - Electro Magnetic Pulse, and/or Power Cuts - bring the planet into the dark ages - they would be lost without their technology, feeling powerless, and revert to a primitive nation that would probably thieve from and attack one another.
• Nuclear Bomb - wipe out areas of the country, and let the governments guess whose done it, and take their revenge on an innocent country. Causing Nuclear War.

These are just a few of my ideas to begin with! Please feel free to add any of your own suggestions below!

One Minute Writing!

I've made a new resolution - to write every single day, at least for one minute, before I do any surfing of the web. If I'm strict with myself, I will always produce some writing every single day, and it will grow - I have to kick-start my writing somehow!

Today I went along to the One Minute Writer blog to find some inspiration to write, I found today's writing prompt to be "Miniature" - asking what I wish could be miniaturised. Here's my answer:

If I could miniaturise anything in the world? It would be me! If only for a day. I think it would be cool to wander through the giant streets, finding what people have dropped. Shiny coins, giant lollipop sticks, and if I’m really lucky? A chocolate sweet! I’d weave through the giant grasses and weeds, chasing bumblebees!

Hello, it's been a while...

I haven't posted in a while, nor have I written for a while, so it's definitely time to start doing both again! I think I may try the One Minute Writer for inspiration and trying out different writing prompts to get me going again, as well as giving me much needed practice. I also fancy trying to write scenes from movies in prose - as I will know the scene well, and depicting that in writing should hopefully give me good scene writing practice - I'll just have to remember to include smells and feelings to add an extra dimension to the writing that of course you don't get when watching a movie!

I've also started a new reading challenge now, to try and help me read more of my novels (I have stacks and stacks of them at the moment), and also it is good to read different authors and styles of writing to give you different ideas for your own writing. I'm currently reading Moonshine by Rob Thurman, having recently finished reading his first book, Nightlife. Really liking these urban fantasy books!

How To Write A Short Story

I found a great article on WikiHow, explaining How To Write A Short Story. I really like it, and thought I would post the main steps on here. Click through to the article for more details!

1. Read plenty of short stories
2. Gather ideas for your story - learn how to brainstorm
3. Choose an idea and start with the basics of a short story
4. Know your characters
5. Limit the breadth of your story - days or even minutes
6. Decide who will tell the story
7. Start writing
8. Come out swinging
9. Keep writing
10. Let the story "write itself"
11. Revise and edit
12. Get some second opinions
13. Incorporate whatever edits, revisions and suggestions are valid

Tips

• Do research - i.e. if it's set in the 1950's
• Use music to help connect you to emotions and events you want to convey

Guardian Short Story Competition

Are you a budding writer? Do you have a story tucked away that you've never had the nerve to show anyone?

Every year, in August, the Guardian's Weekend magazine publishes a selection of original fictions by the some of the best authors writing today. Last August's fiction special featured Annie Proulx, Julian Barnes, Alice Sebold and Tessa Hadley, among others, and this summer we'll be unveiling another line up of stellar names. But this year, yours could be among them: for the first time, we're inviting readers to submit their stories to our annual summer fiction issue.

We've asked authors William Boyd and Julie Myerson to judge your submissions, and they will be looking for the most original, gripping and well-crafted pieces of writing. Their favourite story will be published in the magazine; the five runners-up will have their stories published on guardian.co.uk/books.

All you need to do is send us a story of no more than 2,000 words by 10 July. It can be on any theme, but it must be previously unpublished and we can only accept one story per entrant.

If you've got a story languishing in a drawer, or you've always wanted to try your hand at writing, but never had the reason – or the discipline – to get started, now's your chance.

Send your story by 10 July to Short Stories, Guardian Weekend, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU orshort.story@guardian.co.uk. Please include a phone number.


See full article in the Guardian for full terms and conditions.

Still Planning...

Just in case you'd all wondered where I'd got to, I'm still busy planning out ideas for my new story involving little people. I'm now thinking of leaving out the Supernatural elements of the story, and have the only science fiction element of it being that they get shrunk in a top secret shrinking machine built by the government. I have heard that when creating a fictional story, if it's science fiction, then it's best to use only unbelievable thing, make sure everything else in the story conforms to the rules and technology of the world we live in now. That way it becomes more believable by the audience, and they won't just think the whole thing is completely made up. I hope that works anyway!

The basic idea is that the government is working on a top secret project where they intend to shrink human soldiers down to 5 inches tall, and have them work covertly in enemy territory. They would make excellent spies, and would be well trained to get the job done. Brings a whole new idea of warfare if you imagine miniature armies fighting each other. Tiny Soldiers could assassinate a Prime Minister, they could easily infiltrate government buildings and individual homes being so small.


My story will mainly focus on a small group of civilians, who either accidentally get shrunk, or the government uses them as test subjects, and then they escape. I just need to think of a reason why the government would use these people as test subjects, would they be people the government wanted to disappear? Or would they volunteer to be test subjects, assuming it's some medical testing, and not knowing exactly what it is until it's too late? Perhaps they desperately need the money? Especially given the economic climate!

Any help and advice would be gratefully received! :)