Following on from this weekend’s World Cup football drama, which took everyone out of their comfort zones, I’m sharing some story writing prompts here from the novella-in-flash.com blog – different ways to get your story characters out of their comfort zones… without having to use a footballer as your protagonist!
If you’re a fiction writer and ever feeling stuck for ideas, I’ve pulled together a diverse list of options here for people to refer to.
And although these monthly writing prompts are drawn from a website devoted to the novella-in-flash, I invite readers here to harness these prompts flexibly for all kinds of writing – not just fiction, but also poetry or creative non-fiction inspired by your own personal experiences.
Subscribe at the end of the weblink to receive these writing prompts in your email in-box (and get access to some soon-to-be announced deals on mentoring…!)
(online, via Zoom, Saturday 29th July, 15.00-17.30 UK time)
A quick announcement that I’m offering a new workshop in a couple of weeks’ time: it’s aimed at writers, artists, musicians, freelancers, facilitators – and creative practitioners of all kinds: ‘Managing the Inner Critic.’
Through creative exercises, reflection, and discussion, we’ll talk about the unique qualities of the internal voice of self-judgement, and give you some practical tools for taming any negativity or resistance that subtly inhibit your creativity.
It can be useful at any time of life and at any stage of your your creative journey, but particularly if you see the words “Inner Critic” and feel a moment of recognition about an internal voice of judgement that sometimes inhibits or blocks your creativity.
Although the session is about knowing more about your “Inner Critic”, the workshop will be supportive, constructive, welcoming, and kind-hearted. I’ve taught this workshop for students at Sheffield Hallam University and for industry professionals at Bath Spa University’s Studio.
It’ll be drawing upon my teaching experience, my training as a creativity coach, and my own 20-year practice as a creative person. The workshop will nudge you towards a positive mindset and you’ll come away with some very practical, supportive tools and tips that will have long-lasting effects for your creativity!
It’s on Saturday 29th July, online, via Zoom, so can be accessed from anywhere. An “afternoon” slot (15.00-17.30 UK time), so it’s accessible in the morning for those of you based in North America. More details at the link below. I hope you’ll join me!
I guess this is the moment when I have to wheel out the creaky old joke about the buses arriving all at once?
I rewrote my planned blogpost this week, because my craft guide Unlocking the Novella-in-Flash: from Blank Page to Finished Manuscript (2022), first on Wednesday and then on Saturday received recognition in an international book competition – the International Book Awards 2023 and the National Indie Excellence Awards 2023, where in each case it has been announced as a Finalist in the Writing/Publishing category.
I’ll admit there’s a strange giddiness for me in this week’s double news – and also in having now been pipped at the winning post four times with this book – effectively four consecutive runner-up (or joint runner-up) prizes. Oh so close!
It’s the only book, however, in the Writing/Publishing category that has featured as a Winner or Finalist in all four book awards for independent publishing so far this year – the National Indie Excellence Awards, Next Generation Indie Book Awards, Reader Views Literary Awards, and International Book Awards. I still can’t quite believe that’s happened! But apparently so – I check the listings a day or so later and they are still on-screen, not mirages glimpsed by a dehydrated desert nomad. And I’m taking comfort in consistency… hopefully prospective readers of the book can find reassurance there too…
And this is a good moment to repeat something I’ve mentioned before: this craft guide simply wouldn’t exist at all without a TON of help from all sorts of writers who made suggestions and gave crucial support in the process of finishing it. They’re thanked by name in the back of the book, in a two-page acknowledgements list! This book wasn’t a solo effort.
Similarly, thanks are also due to all the writers who have bought the book so far, and those who have tweeted about it or posted a review online. (Please keep tweeting and writing the reviews! – this signposts new readers in the direction of a book that otherwise from its title might seem quite “specialist” in its subject matter. It’s my hope that this craft guide crosses over to readers who write all kinds of stories, not just novellas-in-flash.)
Huge credit is also due to the publisher, Ad Hoc Fiction, for designing the hard copy so beautifully. And to artist Lucie Arnoux for the brilliant cover images.
Here are the two new badges that Ad Hoc Fiction and I are allowed now to feature next to the book:
So… two metaphorical buses in one week. I’ve spent a fair time waiting for buses in my writing life. And been thrown off a few for not having the right ticket! So I hope you’ll permit me to hop on these two buses simultaneously. If there’s one thing all writers know for sure, it’s that the writing journey itself is full of ups and downs. So today for a while I will be celebrating, knowing that the ever-changing view itself is the real reward.
I hope you might be tempted to find out more about the book here!
And here’s a poem about life’s balancing act, by one of my favourite poets…
Night and Morning by R.S. Thomas
One night of tempest I arose and went Along the Menai shore on dreaming bent; The wind was strong, and savage swung the tide, And the waves blustered on Caernafon side.
But on the morrow, when I passed that way, On Menai shore the hush of heaven lay; The wind was gentle and the sea a flower And the sun slumbered on Caernafon tower.
Unlocking the Novella-in-Flash: from Blank Page to Finished Manuscript (Ad Hoc Fiction, 2022)
Reviews:
“I know good teaching, and folks, this is it.” (Kendall Johnson at MacQueen’s Quinterly, read the full review here)
“[T]his brilliant guide… detailed, informative…I have never been so excited to start a workbook!” (Jonathan Cardew at Bending Genres, read the full review here)
“[V]ery much the printed equivalent of taking a focused MA on the topic of the novella.” (Judy Darley at the SkyLightRain blog, read the full review here)
“My copy is plastered in yellow stickies and I will be continually returning and delving into different sections of this craft guide again and again… think of it as a guide to writing good fiction and developing any narrative form.” (Tracy Fells at The Literary Pig blog, read the full reviewhere)
“[J]am-packed full of knowledge…this book finds that sweet spot where most writers would feel empowered…[A]ll-encompassing, motivational and in-depth.. worth its weight in gold…” (Matt Kendrick, read the full review here)
“If you’re a fiction writer you should read this book.” (Sharon Pruchnik, read the full Goodreads review here)
“This book is a classic…a five-star resource that will help thousands of writers produce the best possible version of their creative work” (Lily Andrews, 5-star review at Reader Views, read the full review here)
“There is magic in what Loveday says in his craft book.” (John Brantingham at The Journal of Radical Wonder, read the full review here)
I hadn’t expected to have further news to share about my craft guide Unlocking the Novella-in-Flash: from Blank Page to Finished Manuscript (2022), so soon after my most recent blogpost. However, I’m thrilled to say that this book has now received recognition in a second international book competition – this time the Next Generation Indie Book Awards 2023, where it has been announced as a Finalist. As with the Reader Views Awards, the Next Generation Indie Book Awards are a competition for English-language books published by independent presses, open to publications from anywhere in the world.
My craft guide contains ideas about best practice for all kinds of story development, and my intention has always been for it to help a broad range of fiction writers, alongside flash fiction specialists. The main workbook is full of exercises to help you understand your characters and settings more fully, figure out the key turning points or the structure for your narrative, and much, much more besides. You can read some of the reviews for the book below. And I hope you might be tempted to buy the book here!
“I know good teaching, and folks, this is it.” (Kendall Johnson at MacQueen’s Quinterly, read the full review here)
“[T]his brilliant guide… detailed, informative…I have never been so excited to start a workbook!” (Jonathan Cardew at Bending Genres, read the full review here)
“[V]ery much the printed equivalent of taking a focused MA on the topic of the novella.” (Judy Darley at the SkyLightRain blog, read the full review here)
“My copy is plastered in yellow stickies and I will be continually returning and delving into different sections of this craft guide again and again… think of it as a guide to writing good fiction and developing any narrative form.” (Tracy Fells at The Literary Pig blog, read the full reviewhere)
“[J]am-packed full of knowledge…this book finds that sweet spot where most writers would feel empowered…[A]ll-encompassing, motivational and in-depth.. worth its weight in gold…” (Matt Kendrick, read the full review here)
“There is magic in what Loveday says in his craft book.” (John Brantingham at The Journal of Radical Wonder, read the full review here)
“If you’re a fiction writer you should read this book.” (Sharon Pruchnik, read the full Goodreads review here)
“This book is a classic…a five-star resource that will help thousands of writers produce the best possible version of their creative work” (Lily Andrews, 5-star review at Reader Views, read the full review here)
I’m pleased to announce that my craft guide Unlocking the Novella-in-Flash: from Blank Page to Finished Manuscript, published in 2022 by Ad Hoc Fiction, has been announced as a Winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2023 – gaining the Silver Award for Writing/Publishing. This is an international competition for books published by independent presses, with thousands of entrants each year from all over the globe. In the meantime, reviews have been appearing for the book, and you can read some of them here: Reviews and Endorsements.This craft guide is officially about the novella-in-flash, but – as I hope you will see from the reviews – it contains material about best practice for all kinds of story development, and my intention has always been for it to help a broad range of fiction writers, alongside flash fiction specialists. I hope you will be curious to take a look at the book here!
I don’t think I’ve read many reviews like this one by John Brantingham before. I love how he blends memoir, nature writing, philosophy, literary criticism and art criticism seamlessly into a single piece of writing – and an exquisite one, at that. That blend seems quite radical to me, for this kind of short online essay.
I’m quietly beaming inside that Brantingham mentions two recent publications (a book and a chapbook/pamphlet) of mine during his reflections, alongside the paintings of Linda Winter.
Winter’s artwork is gorgeous – for me it captures something really fragile and beautiful about the relationship between natural and the built landscapes, as seen in the images within the article.
Such an honour to be included as part of this exploration. Thank you, John Brantingham!
My new short-short story collection, Do What the Boss Says: Stories of Family and Childhood, is now available to order from Bamboo Dart Press at this link.
Do What the Boss Says: Stories of Family and Childhood is a 40-page collection of 18 short-short stories exploring the adult-child dynamic. The stories draw from a combination of imagination, observation, and personal experience, putting the characters into situations that make use of fable and folk tale motifs, or exposing them to pressures in order to evoke the intense emotions of childhood. I wanted to try to capture what it’s really like to be a daughter or son in a world designed by imperfect adults.
A young Irish girl substitutes a cardboard cut-out for her presence within her own family; a daughter nervously visits her father who has now become a stranger; a naive, grieving schoolboy is tricked by a more streetwise young man; a child tries to impress her village by breaking the world record for stepping in and out of a doorway. This collection offers you a kaleidoscopic view of the pressures, conflicts and joys of childhood and family life: from surreal fables to memoir, to idiosyncratic realism, to supernatural tales about strange encounters.
Do What the Boss Says: Stories of Family and Childhood (Bamboo Dart Press, 2022)
Advance Praise for Do What the Boss Says: Stories of Family and Childhood:
“Such a perfect balance between free-wheeling imagination and absolute control of tone and character, shot through with sublime tragi-comic timing. A joy.” —Luke Kennard, author of Notes on the Sonnets
“Michael Loveday seamlessly straddles the line between reality and the absurd. The stories in his latest book are a juxtaposition of love and lunacy, a boundary where the logical meets the illogical, a balance of hope and dread as all the mothers and fathers and daughters and sons and all their doppelgangers stand banging, banging on the door, waiting to be let in.” —Nancy Stohlman, author of After the Rapture and Going Short: An Invitation to Flash Fiction
“Step through the magic mirror to discover a version of family, but not quite as you know it. From the parents’ regular pillaging of pieces of their daughter’s silver heart to a child’s doomed quest for striped paint, a series of potent metaphors sheds light on a network of relationships and expectations. Expect some darkly hilarious but surprisingly intimate and moving moments in this delicious cornucopia of freshly minted tales and fables.” —Jacqueline Saphra, author of All My Mad Mothers and One Hundred Lockdown Sonnets
For the last couple of years I’ve been writing a book I hadn’t originally planned to write. A publisher suggested the idea to me, I mulled it over and thought, OK yes, let’s give it a go…
Unlocking the Novella-in-Flash (Ad Hoc Fiction, 2022), by Michael Loveday
It’s a flexible, step-by-step guide to creating your own novella composed of flash fictions, or very short stories. It’s the first ever full roadmap published, in fact! Whether you’ve written a novella-in-flash before, or are a beginner newly experimenting, the idea is that this craft guide will support you to produce a high-quality manuscript of linked narratives.
I’m really proud of this book. It was a labour of love during the pandemic and I wrote it primarily out of solidarity for the writing community and all those people who, like me, have longed for some support while grappling with their novella-in-flash manuscript. I’m especially grateful to the many many fellow writers who helped me put the book together by reading individual chapters (or the entire first draft, in the case of two beta readers), and two people in particular – John Mackay and Johanna Robinson – who helped me with copy editing and proofreading what ended up as a 200-page book. I’m grateful to Jude Higgins at Ad Hoc for suggesting the idea in the first place. And lastly, I’m grateful to the writers and writing teachers who generously took time to read the finished book and offer an endorsement – you can read excerpts from these below.
Advance praise for Unlocking the Novella-in-Flash: from Blank Page to Finished Manuscript:
“This is it, writers. This is all you need if you’re even thinking of writing a novella-in-flash. Michael Loveday has written the destined-to-become-a-classic bible on the form. Part craft book, part workbook, part collected resources, Unlocking the Novella-in-Flash is packed with insights, inspiration, examples, and prompts to get you started and assist you every step of the way. A gifted teacher, Loveday anticipates the pitfalls and steers you around them. He provides tangible examples to back up his lessons. He makes the often daunting task of starting a book feel not just doable, but fun.” ~Kathy Fish, author of Wild Life: Collected Works
“An extraordinarily useful resource… Highly recommended for all writers, all teachers of creative writing, and anyone interested in new forms of expression.” ~David Gaffney, author of Out of the Dark and Sawn-Off Tales
“A beautifully written and practical guide for novella-in-flash writers. Michael Loveday effortlessly unlocks the secrets of this ever-evolving form of storytelling that is coming of age in our time.” ~Bambo Soyinka, Professor of Story, Bath Spa University
“Michael Loveday is our foremost champion of the cutting-edge literary form of the novella-in-flash, and in this practical, hands-on guide he takes both the new flash fiction writer, and the seasoned pro, through the process of turning discrete moments of inspiration into a cohesive, coherent whole, while never losing sight of the joy of creativity that should underpin all writing. If you’re a poet wanting to try to write something more substantial, or a prose fiction writer looking to branch out, this book will give you the inspiration and encouragement you need to start experimenting.” ~Rishi Dastidar, author of Saffron Jack and editor of The Craft: A Guide to Making Poetry Happen in the 21st Century
“Unlocking the Novella-in-Flash is a handbook, guidebook, reference book, map and compass for anyone thinking of embarking upon writing a novella-in-flash – and indeed those who’ve already written and published one… I guarantee that this book will become a staple in the reading diet of every flash fiction writer.” ~Johanna Robinson, author of Homing
“Writers have been waiting for this book and we didn’t know it… Unlocking the Novella-in-Flash is destined to join the canon of invaluable books on writing.” ~Pamela Painter, author of Fabrications: New and Selected Stories, and co-author of What If? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers
Available to pre-order now from the Ad Hoc Fiction website. All pre-orders before 17th May save £3.75 on the cover price.
The final activity in the “Slouch to 5k” series is a chance to identify some goals for the weeks ahead. In the blogpost I share a simple device for maintaining momentum now that Slouch to 5k is over – a structure of “minimum” vs. “wow!” More at the link below…
NB “Slouch to 5k” aims to help writers who have stalled with their writing projects during lockdown. You don’t have to have completed previous weeks’ activities to enjoy this one.
A chance to immerse yourself deep into your writing project this week in “Slouch to 5k” by deliberately scheduling time away from work, caring responsibilities, domestic chores and social media. More at the link below…
NB “Slouch to 5k” aims to help writers who have stalled with their writing projects during lockdown. You don’t have to have completed previous weeks’ activities to enjoy this one.
