Tag: Monday Sparks Writing Prompts

Outline a Short Story from One Picture

Writing tips for short stories

Pictures often are worth a thousand words. It’s even better when they inspire a thousand words. Or ten thousand. I wanted to find a photo that would inspire you to write an outline for short story from this one picture. Since short stories are 1,000 to 10,000 words, you can write a complete story in one setting with one character.

One way to outline a story is sketch the beginning, middle, and end. Here’s what leaped into my head when I found this picture.

  • Beginning: 14-year-old Theresa is sitting in her family’s junkyard on a Saturday morning, hurt and mad at the wold. She’s trying to sketch but can’t forget how the girls in her class made fun of her clothes earlier in the week. Then she got a bad grade on an art assignment. She’s embarrassed her mom and grandpa make a living from the junkyard. She’s angry her family can’t afford real art supplies. She might do better in art class if she knew how to use quality products.
  • Middle: A regular customer shows up in a truck, pulling a trailer. She’s an artist. She buys junk and says she turns it into art, but Theresa doesn’t believe that’s possible. The artist tells Theres’a mother and grandfather that she’s on her way to an arts and craft festival and stopped by to show them her art because she’d never done that before. In her trailer, she’s transporting tall sculptures made from the junk she bought at the yard.
  • Ending: Theresa admires the work, remembering where her family acquired some of the pieces. The artist leaves. Theresa sets aside her sketch book and goes poking around the yard.

Now it’s your turn. What outline for a short story can you write from this picture?

Here are more writing prompts for short stories.

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Do You Like to Read Short Stories?

Writing short stories

Short stories have lost favor with readers over the decades. Now they seem to prefer novels or flash fiction, but nothing in between. Do you like to read short stories? I love them, both to read and to write, although lately, my novel writing has taken all of my time, and I’ve had to turn down opportunities to write short stories.

This month I’ll be focusing on short stories here at JPC Allen Writes with posts about writing and reading them. If you do like to read short stories, tell me why. If you don’t, why not?

Here are reviews of short story collections I like.

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Inspiration for Villains in my Rae Riley Mysteries

Writing ideas for villains

Where do I get the inspiration for villains in my Rae Riley Mysteries? Well, my ideas come from a lot of places, but mostly from … me.

Once I establish the basic personality of my villain, I have to see if it’s believable for this character to commit the crime I’ve planned for the mystery. And the way to determine that is to climb into their skin.

G. K. Chesterton puts it so well in the his short story “The Secret of Father Brown”. Father Brown is one of my favorite detectives, an amateur sleuth featured in a series of short stories published between 1910 and 1936. In “The Secret of Father Brown”, the priest has gained a reputation for solving crimes and a visitor wants to know why he’s so successful. Father Brown says:

“I had planned out each of the crimes very carefully … I had thought out exactly how a thing like that could be done, and in what style or state of mind a man could really do it. And when I was quite sure that I felt exactly like the murderer myself, of course I knew who he was.”

I can’t say I like thinking like my villains. Because I know somewhere in the history, there’s been someone so miserably cold, calculating, or selfish, and that is so sad. Selfishness is what evil comes down to in the end. Someone wants what he wants at someone else’s expense. But there are different degrees that people allow themselves to go to in order to achieve their selfish desires. And I have to think and feel like each character to see if he or she is selfish enough to commit the crime.

I hope the exercise creates believable villains. Not mustache-twirling, cackling ones. But ones who, sadly, can exist in real life.

Who are believable villains from fiction?

Here are more ideas for writing mysteries.

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Another Deleted Scene from A Riddle in the Lonesome October

Christian cozy mystery by JPC Allen

You know how you have to do some things for family you’d rather not? Like attending your third graduation ceremony in a single May because your cousin’s oldest is graduating? That’s how I felt about this deleted scene from A Riddle in the Lonesome October.

Family is a critical part of my Rae Riley Mysteries series. To make my amateur sleuth Rae and her relatives seem realistic to readers, I include facts or scenes that occur in the experience of real families. October is a hard moth for Rae’s family. Her father Mal lost his father Reuel and his wife Em in that month. Both of them died young and unexpectedly. Since Rae’s family lives in the county where both of them are buried, it makes sense for the family to visit the cemetery in memorial in the month they died. So I wrote this scene:

****

A sheet of seamless gray clouds sealed off the sun. When I pulled into the parking lot, a lot more cars filled in spots than I was expecting. Was there a meeting at the church?

Getting out of the cab, I knocked our church off the list of places to hunt for the treasure, despite its connection to the Armstrongs. It sat on a ridge, not in “the Valley of the Shadow”. 

The wind slapped my cheeks with moist air as I hiked down the slope. All of my immediate family, except for Hank, were stationed by the two graves. A horde of other relatives mingled with them–Aunt Lily, Claire and her son and two daughters, Jesse, assorted other grandkids of Aunt Lily. Grandpa Reuel’s brother, Uncle Cal, stood between Aunt Lily and his latest wife. Three of his kids had come with him as well a couple of grand–

I stopped on the slope halfway down from the parking lot.

Where was Walter?

Dad looked up to me. Shoving on a small smile, I put some energy in my step as joined my family. 

My brothers sat small pots of mums on their mom’s grave, and then Jeanine, Dad, and Carrie did the same for their father’s. Aunt Lily and Uncle Cal each had bouquets of fall flowers. Gram stood back, touching and twisting the beaded bracelets on her wrists, which I’d finally realized a few months ago, after seeing enough family photographs, were made from the beaded headband Grandpa Reuel almost always wore as an adult.

No one said a word.

The damp breeze brushed by us, sighing in the maple trees lining the edge of the cemetery.

Dad crouched beside his wife’s grave and pulled a few microscopic weeds. No graves were as well decorated or maintained as the ones for our family. The areas around the headstones for Emery, Grandpa Reuel, Gram’s parents, and Great-Grandma Jean–Walter’s first, third, and fifth wife–were immaculate.

Rusty stepped back by Gram, his hands jammed in the pockets of his sweat jacket.

She rubbed his back. “Your mom is so proud of you three boys.”

“And she can see us, right?” Micah put his arm along Dad’s shoulder.

“I think so,” said Gram. “I think the people who loved us don’t forget us when they go to Heaven. I don’t think Heaven would be perfect for everyone if they couldn’t know what their loved ones back here were doing.”

Lifting my head, I pushed back a few strands of hair. “I’ve wondered about that. It’s a nice theory.”

Leaves murmured in the wind and the bright red berries on the honeysuckle bushes rattled.

Jeanine and Carrie sniffed. Amber put her arms around her mom and rested her head on Jeanine’s shoulder. Coral was as blank as ever. Micah draped himself over Dad’s back as he remained squatted by the grave. Rusty took a shaky breath as Gram put an arm around Aunt Lily’s shoulders and linked her other arm with Uncle Cal’s.

Rubbing his temple, Aaron tilted his head to one side. “I don’t think, Gram, you can make an experiment to prove your theory.”

Carrie busted out with a laugh, and it traveled through the family.

Standing with Micah on his back, Dad said, “We’d better get home. Who’s staying for supper?” 

The conversation lasted awhile as relatives sorted out who wanted to stay, who thought they were inconveniencing Gram, and who knew they weren’t.

Once we started back up to the parking lot, Dad put his arm around me while supporting Micah. He squeezed my shoulders. “How’s my girl?”

Squashing my depression, I hugged him around his waist. “Always better when I’m with family.” Since we were ahead of the train of relatives, I whispered, “Why isn’t Walter here?”

“He always disappears before the anniversary of Dad’s death. He probably left right after he talked to you yesterday. He’ll be back tomorrow or the day after.”

“You don’t know where he is?” Getting a better grip on Dad’s shirt, Micah leaned further over his shoulder.

“No. He never says where he goes. Jeanine, Carrie, and I always offer to spend the day with him, but he always turns us down.” He sighed. “I wish he wouldn’t.”

“Maybe he’s so sad that he doesn’t want to be with people.”

“He’d be less sad if he was with family.”

“That’s the truth.” I gave Dad another squeeze.

*****

I think the scene works well by itself, but it didn’t really fit the rest of the novel. And I had to include characters who have nothing to do with the story, but since they are siblings or nieces or nephews of Reuel, it would be weird if they weren’t present.

So I axed the scene. But since Reuel and Em’s deaths play a role in the novel, I had to come up with a reason for the family to skip the graveside memorial. In the opening chapters, Rae’s uncle Hank suffers a life-threatening riding accident. So I used that traumatic event to my advantage.

*****

I sat still. “Are we going to the cemetery tomorrow?”

He [Mal] shook his head. “Jeanine said her nerves aren’t up to visiting the graves. I’m not sure Carrie’s up for it either.” He huffed a sigh. “I’m not all that certain about myself.”

… Dad said, “We’ll wait until—well, maybe until Hank can come with us.”

I nodded. “It wouldn’t seem right to have a family event without him.”

His swift glance showed he agreed.

*****

So I was able to cut a scene that didn’t aid the overall storytelling but still got across what a close family Rae belongs to.

What do you think of the scene? Should I have tried to keep it or was deleting it a good choice?

Here are prompts for inspiring scenes.

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Deleted Scene from A Riddle in the Lonesome October

A Riddle in the Lonesome October by JPC Allen

Since Mondays are devoted to inspiration on JPC Allen Writes, I wanted to share some a delated scene from A Riddle in the Lonesome October and why it ended up being deleted. At the beginning of the novel, Rae’s uncle Hank has a riding accident and the family find him pinned under his horse in a creek. After they rescue Hank, Rae’s dad Mal holds the injured horse’s head out of water while they wait for the vet and the paramedics.

Here’s the scene:

The paramedics lifted the stretcher and carried it to the trail. Uncle Hank’s leg was wrapped in splints of some kind, and an oxygen mask was strapped to his face. He lay still. Absolutely still. That wasn’t normal for anybody, but it was even more awful for someone who got a such a high out of life like Uncle Hank.

My knees wanted to give up again.

“I’m fine, Jeanine. Go.” Wincing, Gram got to her feet. “Rae, can you stay with your dad until that nice Kincaid boy gets back?”

Dad said over his shoulder, “Ma, Rae needs to stay with the boys.” He stuttered each word.

Jeanine, Coral, and Mr. Norris disappeared down the trail with the stretcher.

I swung my flashlight around the pool. “Where is Chris?”

“He took the horses back to Jeanine’s place.” Gram’s sentence was little more than a grunt, and she leaned more heavily on the branch.

Had she thrown out her back leveraging Knight? 

I said, “Are you sure you want to take Coral to the hospital? I could.”

“Yes.” Pressing her lips thin, she looked to Dad. “I just hate to leave you, Mal, alone here when you’re…”

“Dad.” I stepped to the edge of the pool. “Let me hold Knight. I warmed up. It won’t be–“

“No.” He wagged his head. “Go back to the boys.”

The wind had picked up, making the branches creak, although the thick ring of trees around the trail and pool gave us a lot of protection from it.

The stallion hadn’t moved much since I’d come back with the wagon, but when we paused talking, his labored breathing was easy to hear. Laying on a side for so long, even without a badly broken leg, was dangerous for a horse.

“Gram, go ahead.” I rolled up my sweatpants and took off my tennis shoes, socks, coat, and sweatshirt. Tucking two towels and a knit hat under one arm, I stepped into the pool. Even knowing how cold the water was couldn’t prevent me from gasping.

“Rae, what are you doing?” Dad twisted as best he could to look at me.

I didn’t answer until I reached him. “Maybe this will warm you a little until Chris gets here.” I draped the towels around his shoulder and slipped the hat over his head. 

“Thanks, kiddo.” He tried to grin with bluish lips.

I kissed his cheek. It was cold like a window pane in winter. I bit my lip. I didn’t want to leave him either. But I couldn’t ditch my brothers.

“I’ll bring Doc Volmer.” I waded to the bank and climbed out. 

Then grabbing the wagon handle, I raced back to the house for the twenty-seventh time that day. Or night. How late was it? It felt like we’d been living beside the pool for a week.

I slowed down to pass Gram and then ran on.

*****

The reason I deleted it was because readers didn’t need all this detail. The scene was slowing the pace of the story, and not adding much in character development or plotting. So I cut it and jumped ahead in time. I end Chapter 5 with Rae guiding the paramedics and a deputy Chris, who is her friend, to the pool of water where her uncle fell.

We followed the creek through the drizzle. As soon as I saw a speck of light ahead, I shrugged off his coat. “Follow the creek to the light. I’m going back to help Amber and the boys get towels and clothes.”

“Don’t forget to dry yourself.” Chris peered at the pinprick of light along the creek. “You can keep my jacket.”

“I shook my head. “I’ll be dry in ten minutes. You’ll be out in the weather longer.”

“Reluctantly, he took the jacket from me, and reluctantly, I turned away from him and ran back along the trail.”

Then Chapter 6 begins:

“You should call Aunt Carrie for the latest details on Uncle Hank, Walter,” I told my great-grandfather, more than an hour later, on the landline.

I leave out Rae coming back to the pool with dry clothes and towels for the family members who stayed with Hank. Writers are told all the time to “show, don’t tell”, but in this instance, I have Rae tell her great-grandfather in a phone call what happened in the time I skipped, informing readers of what’s going without bogging down the pace with scenes that aren’t needed.

In most novels, you have to slip in a few “tells” rather than “shows” to keep the story moving.

Writers, are there times it’s better to tell not show? Readers, when did you read a passage that was a tell but it was done well? Here are more tips on writing scenes.

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