Writing Advice

Short Stories, or "How do you tell your muse to shut up?"

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Seriously! I have a few ideas I'm kicking around that would make neat stories, but as you've seen with Becoming Robin when the creative juices start flowing they Do. Not. Stop.

I've had authors here tell me they wish they could write novel-length works, but I have the exact opposite problem, in that I can't sit down and write a short story. I'm a sucker for detail and drawn-out plots, extensive narration and dialogue.

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How annoying would this be? (Next story idea)

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Because I find myself absolutely incapable of not rambling, I've included a short version, and a long version ;-)

Short version:
Would it be terribly jarring as a follow-up piece, to have the perspective of a story "jump" from one character to another, say, per chapter?

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Squid in the mouth

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This usually lives at the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America site, at: http://www.sfwa.org/2009/06/turkey-city-lexicon-a-primer-for..., but it's also used by a friend of mine who teaches a MFA in writing. I'm not much of a one for science fiction, but these are pretty good rules for writing anything. Don't feel bad if you've broken several - as far as I can tell Martin Amis has broken at least two of the rules here, and I know I'm a sinner in at least as many ways - I'm definitely guilty of "squid in the mouth" and "pushbutton words".

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Not enough conflict?

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When I started reading TG stories on the web many years ago every story I read was interesting since I had never read stories with TG protagonists before. Finally someone I could identify with who was dealing with things that mattered to me.

After a decade or so this identification is still important so I still read TG stories but now the story has to provide something beyond the mere basics - the tropes of TG fiction such as self-discovery, the process of acquiring the clothes and paraphernalia, the salon experience, the shopping trip, the talk with the parents, the visit to the shrink... You know the list.

I now believe that in order to please long-time readers such as myself there are three main ways to make a TG story interesting.

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