Hello and welcome. Here you can learn a little about Write Club and decide if you have an interest in participating. If not, but you still want to write for this prompt, you are welcome to do so! Simply share your short story on Hive, in your community of choice, and share your link in the comments to this post at www.peakd.com/@jayna.
You can find the writing prompt and information about how to join in this post.
What Is Write Club?
We are a small group of serious fiction writers who are committed to writing and polishing stories for publication in mainstream publishing outlets. We write on a cadence — one story each month — and do peer reviews and revisions to prepare our work for submission to the publisher of our choice.
Our writers have a range of fiction writing experience, from workshoppers to MFAs and published writers, who are mastering the craft of fiction writing and want the accountability of a group and deadlines to keep us on track.
Our Monthly Schedule
It goes like this:
- We issue a writing prompt at the beginning of the month.
- In 10 days we write the first draft. Then we read one another’s work and provide feedback.
- In another 10 days, we refine our stories. Then we review again.
- By the end of the month, we complete a third draft.
The final draft is then hopefully ready for submission to a publication of our choice before the next month’s challenge begins. Naturally, it’s not always that easy. Many stories need more work, even after three drafts.
But we’re writing! And that commitment to goals, deadlines and the editing process gets us from wishful thinking to completed stories.
Is Write Club a Fit for You?
Maybe you are actively writing and editing your work, but you have those lazy moments when you would really like a nudge to keep moving, and could benefit from working with a writing community and having deadlines.
Or maybe you dabble in short story writing, and you always intend to really knuckle down, complete and polish your stories, and submit them for publication. That notion of getting your work written and polished and ready to submit to publications might be out there somewhere on the horizon.
We are here to nudge you forward.
Invitation to Short Story Writers
If you are a fiction writer who wants to get serious and get your work ready for publication in fiction magazines, you are welcome to check us out. You are also welcome to use this process to improve your writing quality overall, and get stories ready to post on Steem, Hive, Medium, Narrative or other self-publishing venue.
Here are two options:
- Check out Write Club and see if it’s for you.
- Or, use this month’s writing prompt on your own.
You can find more information about how to join Write Club in this article on Medium, along with a link to our Discord channel where we converse and manage all of our deadlines and reviews.
This month’s writing prompt
That brings us, at last, to the prompt! For the month of May 2020, Write Club members must write a story that involves failure and redemption. Yes, this is broad, but you get to make it what you choose.
To get going, here are some ponderings:
- Think of people in your life who have fallen – perhaps they fell under the spell of drugs or alcohol, or the lure of a relationship that turned out to be a terrible mistake. Or perhaps they have made a terrible business decision that affects everything – job, relationships, home. Would one of these make a good story? Yes, you are going to have to switch up the details in case they ever read it.
- What about you? Have you had a terribly rough spot in life due to a failed relationship, a fight, a terrible job or a jerk of a boss? What if you fictionalize it? Think about how to bring that story to life in an interesting way that resolves well.
- Or just imagine the worst possible scenario in which a character makes terrible decision – has an affair, or example, when his spouse is a perfectly wonderful person whom he loves dearly. Once he throws it all away, how can he find his way back to being okay again – with or without the love of his life?
One tip is not to get started right away. Start thinking about your story’s conflict, who is experiencing it, and how they might seek to overcome what they are facing. The more your conscious and sub-conscious brain are working on who your MC is and what scenario has brought us to the time and place of the telling of this story, the sooner your story will take shape.
You could write out some loglines – one-sentence story plots – and then choose the one that resonates the most with you.
Have fun!