Okay, I’m behind in the challenge. But I am not panicked at all yet. Actually, I sort of expected this. March was just a tough month and I have a hunch April isn’t going to be much better. But then things clear. With luck. And you all might have to put up with a short story every day or every other day some month.
So how come I have fallen behind? Easy. I’ve been writing too much. On other projects. And the challenge has to take a back seat to my other writing. Nature of paying the bills. And I’ve been teaching workshops. And the workshops forced me to get up at 10 in the morning, so since I do challenge stories between 3 and 5 in the morning, guess what got kicked aside for sleep?
And so on. You know, normal life, at least for me. And in the process, I actually managed to write and sell the story that is the start of the Jukebox stories. I’ve been working on that for over thirty years and finally I figured it out. So at some point here I might actually write the origin story. Or the origin novel.
The new challenge story, “Mated From the Morgue: A Romance of Near Death” actually started on April 4th at 3 A.M.. I found the title in the book of titles I have been using at times. The book is called Bizarre Books by Ash and Lake. Mated from the Morgue was originally published in 1889. Not a clue what it was about.
I did about five hundred words and stopped, went to my other computer, found the nifty photo, did the cover, and went to watch news at about 4:30 A.M.
I started working on the story again the same evening at around ten because I was tired of the project I was working on. I finished this story at around midnight. After Kris read it and made some comments about Dee W. Schofield having a very strange way of looking at romance, I went ahead and got the story up on all three electronic sites. Kindle, B&N, and Smashwords.
I waited one day to put the story up here because I wanted to get the announcement of the new workshop out first.
TOTAL HOURS SPENT (Including writing, publishing, and cover and putting it up here and writing this post) just over 5 hours spread over four days from first word to finished and up.
Started April 4th. Published April 6th. Posted here April 7th.
Word Count: About 2,600 words.
Hello, Mr. Smith,
I just wanted to tell you that I really enjoy your website and your helpful advice to writers.
However, this new story #15 has a slight problem. Stephen King himself has already written it, and it’s called Autopsy Room Four. His story is longer and has more backstory in it, and the main character is a dude. And the lady doctor doesn’t need a stethoscope to figure out the patient is alive, all she needs is to grab his… You know.
Anyway, nice work, keep the stories coming
L, oh, trust me, this “idea” as it was has been done a thousand times at least. If I worried about that, I’d never write a word. (grin) I just write my stories my way.
Whoa! Sounds like you must be tired, Dean. So tired you traveled back in time. You posted it here before you started?!?! That dang jukebox. LOL.
BC, LOL! I fixed it. Damned jukebox is right.
The fact that you fall behind a little just makes this all the more valid as an experiment in showing how people with full time jobs can write. Yeah, we all fall “off the wagon” so to speak, but fifteen stories in less than as many weeks is more than most people realize they can do.
Oh, yeah, it’s been done before. Aside from the Stephen King story. I recently saw an excellent Alfred Hitchcock TV show episode (with Joseph Cotton as the unfortunate in the morgue). He was handled by several different people as he was transferred from the accident scene to the morgue. I expected someone would notice his body temp, but no one did. Something else happened that live bodies do but dead ones don’t. (I won’t spoil it for those who haven’t seen it.) It was probably based on a short story or novel. Many of the old AH episodes were.
Dean, I was expecting something a little different considering the cover and Kris’ comment. LOL But it’s a great little romance with a satisfying ending. I enjoyed it.
Lanette
Lanette, making that set-up into a romance is what Kris thought was different. That’s usually a horror story set-up. (grin)
Also, notice folks that romance short stories are difficult and seldom written because of the very nature of a romance. They do collections with five short novels and such, but there is no longer a romance magazine, even though back in the pulp time, there were a hundred. I’m letting my good old Dee W. Schofield play in the old field of short story romance.
Basically a short story romance has the “meet cute” with a problem in the very meeting, then the two solve the problem (to presumably move on with their relationship…the end.) Of course, romance novels are about all the problems after the meet cute that the characters must solve before the “happily ever after” ending. But it is fun playing with the meet cute as a short fiction story.
I was thinking something along the lines of zombie love before I read it. heehee
This is the second time I’ve run into the term “meet cute” lately. I don’t think I’d heard it before. (I’ve written romance shorts/novelettes with that set-up, just didn’t know it was called that.) Short stories and novelettes can work with a more defined HEA if the couple knows each other beforehand–i.e. friends turned lovers, exes reunited, already in a relationship, etc. But the meet cute story is fun, to read as well as to write, and I always assume a happily-every-after in their future.
Lanette
Thanks for sharing your wealth of knowledge. Having discovered your site several weeks ago through Joe Konrath’s Blog, I am in awe of your stamina and time management. One question, please, which may’ve been answered many columns before: do you go through the official copyright process for each of these short stories?
Loretta, you need to buy the “Copyright Handbook” from Nolo Press. That will really help you. But to answer your question, everything is protected the moment the author writes it. Completely. No process to go through at all. It has been automatic since 1987 or so. Your work is protected from the moment you write it in any form to 70 years past your death.
Now, you can go “register” the stories with the government and I tend to do so because I have been ripped off many times over the years and made money most times that has happened. You must register before you can file suit and registering the stories gets you extra stuff if someone does take your work after your register it. Sort of bonus stuff. But these stories are protected from the moment I write them. So why do I register them when they are protected? Because I am putting them right out here and if I have them registered before a theft, it is very easy to make money from the thief. I like the bonus stuff I get. To put it bluntly.
And my attorney tends to get very happy when someone takes something of mine and I have it registered before the infraction. (grin)
Thanks for the quick response, which confirms what I already knew and have been doing. I was just looking for a shortcut with the short stories — haven’t decided whether to publish mine as a collection under one registered copyright or individually under separate registered copyrights.
If your only concern is registration, it’s fine to do them all together as a collection as well. That covers them. And is a few bucks cheaper.
Again, thanks for taking the time to answer my questions.
So much fun. I’m really getting into short fiction again from your posts here. And 99 cent stories for my Kindle are good fun, too. Wish I could make your short story workshop in June–especially now that I’ve started writing them again.
I have a question if you have the time to answer: At what point did you know how this story would end? Did you have the whole plot in mind after you decided what to do with the title, or did it come to you line-by-line?
I’m experimenting with starting short stories from titles or a small initial image so that I can finish and submit more of them rather than sit around waiting for an idea to fully form. So I’m curious how you manage to do it–and seemingly so easily. *grin*