Key Areas to Expend Your Editing energy
Lesson 12 - The craft of the redraft, what to do when something's wrong (but you don't know what), and what to do with your stories when they're done
This is the final lesson of Jo Gatford's 'Smash Your Flash' for The Forever Workshop and she couldn’t have done a better job.
If you’d like to say something nice about Jo and give us some feedback so we can make The Forever Workshop as kick as much ass as possible, take this
Hello again, dearest flashers.
We’re here at Lesson #12, the final instalment of Smash your Flash, and it’s time to bring everything together.
Because even with all the theory in the world, writing great flash fiction comes down to guts.
Having the guts to experiment, break the ‘rules’, and try new ways of telling stories.
Trusting your guts to take your writing to weird and wonderful places.
And learning to recognize that feeling in your guts when things are going the right (or wrong) way.
This course has very much been about the exploration of ideas — getting the first draft down on the page, whichever way works. No pressure. Just play. And I very much encourage you to keep on doing that! Ideas are everywhere, after all, so keep gathering your dragon hoard of shiny story starters.
But to develop those ideas into something more tangible, we need to utilise all the techniques we’ve covered in these workshops and more. We need to figure out which structure, which style, and which approach is right for each and every flash.
And that comes down to redrafting, refining, editing, polishing and — most of all — persevering with your stories.
Which is exactly what we’re going to focus on today, so you can finish up those drafts, send them out into the world and find ‘em a home!