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Get Celestial Writing Advice: 2014 Short Story Contest Winner Celestial Santiago Shares a Story on Writing a Short Story 09.21.2015

It’s the middle of the first month back at school. The 2015 Alpha Textbooks Short Story Contest is well underway. Many students are thinking about how to write a compelling story with the hope of getting published. For young writers, developing a creative, but structured short story that has engaging characters and zero spelling or grammar errors might be easier said than done. That’s why we’re here to help. We spoke to Celestial Santiago, winner of the 2014 Short Story Contest high school category and would like to share her experience with you.

Celestial Santiago entered the contest in grade 12 through her Writer’s Craft teacher. The contest was intended as a minor assignment that exercised students’ creativity in writing, but it also helped Santiago hone her skills as a writer.

Every writer experiences the dreaded writer’s block, and as a young writer Santiago is no stranger to it. She faced that challenge almost immediately, during the story planning stage. Her mind was preoccupied with many different things, so it was hard to create something out of thin-air. Santiago recalls staring at a blank document for hours with little success. She then relied on her teacher’s advice for conquering writer’s block: write about your experience or something else you know.

“At the time, I was in my own jungle of thoughts and emotions about university applications and portfolios,” says Santiago. “So I decided the easiest story to write was something I knew the most about, and that was the feeling of growing up.”

Once Santiago overcame what she describes as the hectic brainstorm, the writing process was less challenging than she anticipated.

Celestial’s story “It Takes One to Know One” takes readers on a journey with a first year university student on her first day. Santiago – in high school at the time of writing the story –draws upon her own experiences of feelings of uncertainty, nervousness, excitement being overwhelmed and that all-too-common experience of not knowing where you are supposed to go on your first day of university, as her narrator makes the transition from high school.

“Everything in the story is related to my personal emotions and concerns about my first day of university,” says Santiago talking about character development. “From trying to fit in a new environment to reminiscing about the old one, [the] character based off [me].”

But writing the story wasn’t a solo ride for Santiago. She found inspiration outside of herself too, with the help of friends and peers. In the original draft, Celestial’s character is unable to belong. She is left alienated and alone. During the revision process, Celestial’s peer pointed out the inaccuracy of the story’s ending in relation to what can happen at university. Inspired by the suggestion, Santiago produced a more hopeful ending – despite the character’s wildest fears and perception of reality, the first day of school turned out not to be so bleak after all.

Echoing a sentiment shared in a previous post, an interview with Canadian author Alex Leslie, Santiago advises that especially during the initial stage of story writing – in a writer’s early years – it’s important for young writers to remember their voice matters, and that it can be a part of the conversation of other and even great works of literature.

To jog her inspiration, Santiago would look at other literature. She recalls her own feelings of doubt and intimidation after reading great pieces. “Prior to an assignment of any sort,” she said, “I always find myself online looking at how other writers write. I would spend hours reading amazing articles or short stories, and then begin to doubt my own abilities and creativity. As a result, I started to alter my own writing to fit another person’s voice.”

Realizing that you can still be original while allowing yourself to be influenced or inspired by other writers was a great learning experience. Santiago encourages students to find inspiration from external resources, but reminds them not to be intimidated when stumbling upon great work. Most importantly she says, “Take the opportunity to show the reader who you are.”

Like Edgar Rice Burro said, “If you write one story, it may be bad; if you write a hundred, you have the odds in your favour.”

7 Steps for Effective Short Story Writing 09.14.2015

School is back in full swing. Forget Snapchat. There’s no better time to break-out the keyboard and write a story. Our Short Story Contest is officially open to all middle school and high school students in Ontario.

Writing fiction can be tough for both established and aspiring writers. Here are seven short story writing steps to help you write your first masterpiece.

1. Start with Brainstorming

It’s always important to brainstorm before bringing a creative writing piece to life. Brainstorming helps you think through different story ideas and narrative threads. It allows you to think about many possible storylines and alternative outcomes. Brainstorming is also a good time to take notes on other story components, such as characters, themes, tropes and symbolism, title, etc.

2. Pick a Good Title

Just as important as the first paragraph of your story, titles can “make or break” a reader’s interest. If you know what you want your story to be titled at the beginning, that’s great! But don’t be afraid to change it after the story is written. Many great stories had different working titles than what they were finally named.

You can take different approaches to deciding on a title. Titles can be symbolic and related to a theme; for example, Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises is a story about Americans in Spain, their complicated relationships and the running of the bulls. Literal and/or ironic titles might sound something like Flannery O’Connor’s short story “Good Country People.” You can also create a descriptive title, such as The Hunger Games.

Decide what kind of title is good for your story once it’s written. If you can’t think of one early on, avoid getting stumped by just moving ahead with writing the story.

3. Think about Structure

Before you begin, think about the structure of your story. Decide if your story will be a first or third person narration. The “first person” tells a story that is happening to him or her. This is when you use the “I” pronoun. The “third person” narrates a story about other people. This is when you refer to all characters by their name or use a “he” or “she” pronoun, even for the main character.

Structure your story with a beginning, middle and end. Here’s what to include in the structure:

• The beginning: introduce your character(s), and introduce the protagonist’s struggle or conflict. Try to evoke emotion from readers – make them laugh, smile or feel sad for your characters. Write the beginning with your story’s end in mind. Start to build a crisis.

• The middle: develop the plot and action. This is where the crisis becomes clear. A crisis can be personal or private, it can also affect a group of people or be public. It can be multiple things. Be selective with what you include in your story; show what’s important, you don’t need to show it all. And always create some form of suspense.

• The end: end the narrative with triumph or tragedy. Does the protagonist rise or fall? Are desires satisfied or is all lost? This is when readers find out the outcome of the main character’s challenge. Delivering a resolution makes the story satisfying for the readers.

4. Write the First Paragraph

Just like other types of writing, you want to hook the readers early. You can do that in short story writing by creating a clear scene (i.e. story setting). What is your story’s setting? Determine a time and place for your story, incorporate that into the narrative in the first paragraph.

Introduce your characters early. Try not to overwhelm your 500-750 word story with too many characters (keep it down to 1-3 characters); after all it is a short story not a novel. Also, keep your story simple, cut to the chase and make sure that one of your characters is a protagonist.

4. Write Characters

The protagonist is your main character. Prior to writing your story, know your character(s) well. Answer questions about your characters, even if you don’t include the answers in the story. Are they shy or extroverted? What do they love? What do they fear? Think about all the things that make up a person’s personality and keep those things in mind when your character says things and makes decisions.

Your characters can be “good” or “bad,” whatever they are, your reader will want want to root for them. Give readers a clear idea of the protagonist’s burning desire; what does he or she want? Every character should have a desire for something. Those desires could be similar, but they are probably different. Every character should also speak differently, at least a little differently. You want each of your characters to have their own voice. So think about the vocabulary and tone of each character.

5. Establish a Narrative Tone

You want to establish your story’s tone early on, too. Is it dark or light? Humorous or serious? Use language that feels right for your story, and avoid using clichés. Instead look for interesting and new ways of saying something.

6. Edit

Edit, edit and edit some more. Every great piece of literature undergoes revisions. Once you are done writing your story, take a break from it for a couple of days. Visit it again with fresh eyes.

When editing, pay attention to sentence structure, word choice (is it using the right words, or are there better ones?) and review all the story elements. Checking spelling goes without saying.

Ask a friend or family member to read the story. Be open to their comments or suggestions. You can always decide not to take their suggestions, but they might have an eye for something you didn’t see.

Conclusion

Like any art, skill, or even sport, great writing comes with practice – and editing. The best thing to do is to try. It’s that easy. Get it out. Find your voice. Don’t dwell on perfection in the early stages. You can always go back and change things once your ideas are on paper or the screen.

When writing characters, tone or narrative-arc, or even in your editing, one rule of thumb is show, don’t tell. How do you plan that?

Now the only thing left to do is sit down and write! We wish you the best of luck in the contest. Happy writing!

Have you read all this, but you can’t seem to get the ideas out? Check out our post about how to tackle writer’s block.

Canadian author Alex Leslie talks about what’s important in writing 09.01.2015

The 2015 Alpha Textbooks Short Story Contest officially launches on September 1, 2015. It’s an opportunity for Ontario teens to share their work with peers, but also to get published in the Claremont Review, an international journal for young writers.

We love youth fiction at Alpha Textbooks, and we’re stoked about receiving all the great entries. If you plan on submitting, we hope to equip you with guidance and encouragement.

We asked Canadian author Alex Leslie about her experience as a young writer. Leslie shared valuable insight and great writing tips that we think will aid and inspire students as they write their stories for the contest. Take a look at her responses below.

Alex Leslie lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. Her first collection of short stories, People Who Disappear (2012, Freehand Books), was a finalist for the 2013 ReLit Award for Short Stories and the Lambda Literary Award for LGBT debut fiction. She is also the author of Things I Heard About You (2014, Nightwood Editions), a poetry collection, shortlisted for the 2014 Robert Kroetsch award for innovative poetry and microfiction chapbook Twenty Objects For The New World. In 2015, she received the Dayne Ogilvie Award from the Writers’ Trust of Canada. A writer of all genres, Leslie is also an editor, a writing workshop facilitator and she previously taught writing fiction at Langara University.

Alpha: When did you first know you wanted to be a writer? When did you start writing?

Leslie: I was a little kid when I first wanted to be a writer. I read a lot as a kid. I started writing in elementary school. At first I wrote shorter stories, stuff like writing about my neighbours and writing about a coin that talked. I wrote a lot in high school too and got into poetry, which I then stopped writing until my mid 20’s. I wrote a lot of journalism in undergrad. I was the features editor of my campus newspaper. I actually recommend doing this if you’re in undergrad because you will be forced to write a lot with short deadlines. In terms of “professional” creative writing, I placed my first short story in a literary journal when I was 22. That journal was Descant. All my stuff had been rejected by journals for a couple years. That first published story was totally random. It was based on an anecdote from a social acquaintance about a family member of hers. Then I continued publishing here and there in journals. When I was 26, I sold my collection of short stories to Freehand Books. That’s how I got started in a nutshell. You need to be persistent and just keep working on your stuff and sending it out.

Do you ever experience writer’s block? If so, what are some tips you would suggest for writer’s block?

Be honest with yourself. You will feel blocked when there is not a clear connection between you and the piece of work. What is the blockage? Are you trying to “sound right”? Is there something else you could be writing right now that would come out easier, faster? What do you actually want to write? You can write anything! Do you actually want to be writing Facebook statuses about how much you dislike your neighbour and speculate about the sources of their horrible personality? Do it! You could take an article from the newspaper and scratch out words and then write a poem with the words that are left over. You could write a short story in the form of an open letter to your ex. I think writer’s block is almost always that we are not writing what is actually real and right beside you in your life. What is closest to you? Also, never worry about structure while you are writing. Write from the ending, or the middle, of the story. John Cage said, “Start anywhere.” Just get it on the page. Record yourself with your iPhone talking to your mom or dad or sibling or friend and transcribe the conversation and see what happens! The more you try things and follow your nose, the more you will learn how to listen to your own instincts and intuition — this is what it’s all about. When something makes you feel good, you should do more of that.

Where did you gather inspiration to write your very first collection of short stories People Who Disappear?

From my life, from the lives of people around me, from the newspaper, from my imagination. Your material can come from anywhere. It comes from being open.

In your bio you mention that you are a cross-genre writer. What is your favourite genre to write in? And why?

I started saying I am a cross-genre writer because I publish poetry and fiction and sometimes I publish experimental work that is somewhere in between. I don’t have a favourite genre. I think some stories need to be poems. I like this flexibility in my writing. If something isn’t working, it’s always OK to stop.

What advice would you give to a young aspiring writer looking to write a short story?

Is there something that you understand in a different way than other people? That other people just don’t get the way you do? Explain it. Is there a story someone has told you that you think would be terrible if it was lost? Write it down. You don’t need something capital-I Important to write about. If you write about something in close detail and make it beautiful with words, that makes it important.