How I'm Sort of Becoming a Writer: Breaking the Rules

Hello, everyone! I'm back, and today I'm starting a new series of blog posts called "How I'm Sort of Becoming a Writer." After taking a couple of fiction writing workshops and dipping my toes in the sea of writing for a public audience, I still feel like I'm learning how to write a sentence more than three people will like. (Bet you didn't think that's how that sentence would end.) Still, I feel like I'm learning more with each workshop, and I thought I would share what I'm learning.

So, this past workshop we worked on flash fiction. At least, that is what my professor calls it. After reading so much fanfiction these past few weeks (not to mention my on-again off-again love affair with it for the past decade), I would call it a drabble. It's a piece of fiction that under a thousand worlds, usually about two hundred to seven hundred words, that tells an entire story. We looked at a few flash fictions in class. There was everything from instructional to narrative stories. The trouble with them is completing the story without getting wordy.

I feel like it is a bit easier to write flash fanfiction because you have the benefit of your audience knowing the characters before reading a word of your story. However the difficulty, I found it enjoyable writing a piece of flash fiction for my class.

The idea for my story came to me while I was folding my laundry. I found a lone sock in the midst of all my nice folded laundry and paired socks. It bothered me, probably more than it should have, and then the story came to me. I wrote about a person who was obsessive compulsive and how they went about their morning.

When I was writing it, I tried to stay in the mindset of my narrator. There was a lot of fragments and it jumped from one point to another, but I feel as if that was necessary to stay true to the character. This, of course, breaks some of the "rules" of writing. But, from what I learn in class and from my own trial and error, it's okay to break the rules as long as you know what those rules are.

I liked breaking the rules. I felt like I was letting out a breath that I'd been holding since I had started my so-called writing career. I finally got to do what I wanted to do, and I think that some of the people in my workshop actually enjoyed reading it. More importantly I think that people understood what I was going for.

Well, that's it for this segment of "How I'm Sort of Becoming a Writer." Expect more of these posts as workshops go on. And heads up! There's a new Subscribe Box that's off to the right. I'm hoping that this one will work better than the one down at the bottom, but try both just in case! You can add me to your circles by clicking the Google+ button off to the right. You can stay up to date about the blog and ridiculousness about my life by following me on twitter @KK_Donna_Blog. You can also follow the tumblr dedicated to this blog, and you can find it at this link. That's it for this post! Read on, lovelies! I'll see y'all next post.