creative writing

Daily Creativity #6 | Flash Contest: Write a Story in Dialogue

Write a story told completely through dialogue. How do you communicate the differences between characters? How can you make sure that the reader knows what is going on? Can you make action part of natural-sounding speech? This Daily Creativity prompt is also our first Weekly Flash Contest! We’d love to read your responses to this prompt, so if you are happy with what you write, submit it here by midnight on Friday April 3, 2020, for a chance to get published on our Blog and in our Saturday Newsletter. If you want some more background on using dialogue to tell a story, take a look at this activity from our Activities pages, and read some of the stories in the archives.

Book-Writing Contest 2020

Get your book published by Stone Soup! Stone Soup is thrilled to announce that we are accepting submissions for a book contest. The winning manuscript will be published by Stone Soup as a standalone book (see the other awards below!). For prose submissions, the minimum length is 20,000 words. For poetry submissions, the minimum length is 40 pages. There is no maximum word or page limit. As always, we have no preference in terms of genre, topic, or form: you can submit a manuscript of poems or short stories, a novel or a memoir. We are simply looking for excellent, innovative, unusual, powerful writing. You have the rest of spring and all of summer to work on your book. We can’t wait to read it! Contest Details Genre:        We are reading in all genres. You can submit a collection of poems, a memoir, a short story collection, a collection of personal narratives, a novel, a graphic novel… you name it! Length:       For prose (fiction or memoir) submissions, the minimum length is 20,000 words. For poetry submissions, the minimum length is 40 pages. There is no maximum word or page limit. Age Limit: For this contest, we will accept manuscripts written by those age 14 or under. Deadline:   Monday August 10, 2020 11:59 p.m. (Pacific Time). Entry fee:  $15.00 Multiple Submissions are accepted but you must submit each as an individual entry and pay the fee each time. Results and Prizes: We will select one winning manuscript to be published in 2021 and distributed by Stone Soup in both print and ebook forms, available for sale on Amazon, in the Stone Soup store, via our distributors, and advertised along with the rest of our books to libraries and other vendors. We will also name a handful of finalists. Publication: We will consider all work submitted as part of the contest for potential publication in the Magazine or as standalone volumes, if our budget allows. Submissions: All entries must be sent to us before the closing date via our Submittable portal, here.

Writing Activity: Using Framing to Add Depth and Power

Emma McKinny’s story “Windsong,” is about going to a performance of Dr. Atomic, an opera by John Adams with libretto by Peter Sellers. Her father is the lead singer. You can use your research skills to  get information on the actual performance and its reviews online, but here we want to focus on one element of the story–the way in which Emma frames her narrative. Framing is the subject of this writing project. The basic history you need to know is that the United States invented and tested the first atomic bomb in Los Alamos, New Mexico during World War II. The bombs dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were developed in Los Alamos. These bombs ended the war with Japan, which surrendered after they were dropped. Thousands upon thousands upon thousands of civilizations were killed by these weapons, whole sections of the two cities that were the victims of these bombs were obliterated. These bombs gave humans god-like powers which J. Robert Oppenheimer, director of the lab, and the Doctor in the opera’s title, Dr. Atomic, understood. He quickly became concerned about the consequences of his invention. You also need to know that Los Alamos is visible from Santa Fe and this is especially true at night when its lights glow from the mountain ridge where it is located. “Windsong” takes place in the Santa Fe Opera House, a fabulous outdoor theater that sits under the distant gaze of Los Alamos, the place where the bomb-making that is the center of the opera’s story took place. The author goes through a huge emotional experience during the Opera performance. Those of you who attend operas, ballet, and traditional theater may have experienced these deep emotional moments. And then there is the clapping. And the lights go back up. And then you have to get up from your seat and make your way home, behaving normally, with this deeply emotional experience still inside you: “turmoil boiling in the pit of” ones stomach, as Emma puts it. To help the reader understand her experience, and express it herself, she gives her feeling and emotion to the wind which blows through the Santa Fe Opera house. She whispers to the wind the same good-luck phrase she had called out to her father in the beginning, thus transferring the art of the opera and the performers to nature. Let the wind howl, like a wolf, adding its voice to the power of theater. The Activity Write a story where an element at the beginning–a framing device–introduces a powerful idea into the story, that you can use to develop your story, and then return to at the end to convey even greater depth of meaning to it. To help you see how this can work, read “Windsong”. In “Windsong,” the phrase “in bocca al lupo,” introduces a series of related ideas about sound and the elements: it relates to the wind, a wolf’s howl, the power of art and performance, all of which carry through the whole story in various ways. When the author of the story comes back to that same phrase at the end, we all have a greater depth of understanding that allows us to read even more into it. When you plan your story, think about your key message and image, and think of a way you can introduce it as a framing device early on. Try to carry your framing device through your story, and then, as in “Windsong”, come back to it explicitly towards the end. By this stage, if you have woven the ideas into your story, your frame–and your story–will have great depth.