My Article, "4 Epic Takeaways from Myths, Fairytales, and Folktales to Apply to Your Writing," Published Today! 🎉

Splendid news: I’ve had a craft article published today at Women on Writing. The topic is a very fanciful and fun one: “4 Epic Takeaways from Myths, Fairytales, and Folktales to Apply to Your Writing.”

Ta-da!

“4 Epic Takeaways from Myths, Fairytales, and Folktales to Apply to Your Writing”

by Melanie Faith

Stories based on myths, fairytales, and folktales have interested readers and have seen a remarkable resurgence in popular fiction and bestselling novels in recent years.  Authors like Sarah J. Maas of A Court of Thorns and Roses series fame and Madeline Miller’s Circe are household names.

First, let’s explore some exciting reasons why writers and readers alike find these stories compelling and inspiring.

·         They reignite our childhood imaginations. Most writers and readers fondly remember their favorite mythic characters. We grew up on their adventures, and it felt like we grew up with them, too.  Whether it was Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, The Frog Prince, or other Brothers Grimm fairy-tale protagonists or Hans Christian Andersen’s Thumbelina, The Little Match Girl, The Emperor’s New Clothes, The Ugly Duckling, The Wild Swans, or The Snow Queen, these stories populated library shelves and bookshelves in our rooms that take us back to our earliest days of being read to and reading on our own.

·         They connect us with timeless stories of human emotion. All of those bedtime stories influenced us as creative thinkers and helped us to learn empathy. I remember a Little Golden Book copy of Hansel and Gretel my dad used to read to us for bedtime stories that I begged to hear over and over, even though it also completely freaked me out with its tender, lost brother-and-sister duo, the gingerbread-house-residing scary witch, and that terrifying oven. I also remember well the beautiful, far-less-frightening treasury of children’s folktales with Rapunzel’s long, long tresses descending and dangling from a fortress tower.

·         They represent our heritages. Myths, fairytales, and folktales are popular throughout the world and in every culture. They feel embedded in our DNA almost. They transmit the values and customs appreciated within a culture. Whether these stories are translated into many languages or remain in their language of origin, they often share commonalities in theme, tone, and plot. Human nature explored with drama and humor and warnings and hope against all odds. These stories can sometimes offer well-paced and satisfying closure we seldom get in everyday life.  

·         They give us other worlds to retreat to and to savor in the midst of turbulence and turmoil. They are epic recreations of stress and struggle with protagonists with whom we can identify. They also give us deeper insight into our own times and our place within them. These are some of the many reasons why stories based on Greek and Roman myths as well as entirely new world-building settings continue to flourish.

 

What can we take from fairytales to apply to our own writing? Try these four tips:

·         Every protagonist needs a sufficiently powerful antagonist to contend with. If the antagonist doesn’t unleash enough consequences and trouble, the protagonist won’t need to rise to the occasion to protest and triumph. Make sure your antagonists cause enough conflict in your narrative. This is one of the most common reasons for ho-hum fiction that gets rejected. What is your protagonist’s worst fear? That should inform your antagonist’s next moves.

·         When the chips are down, they are never completely defeated. Make sure the larger implications of the conflict are explored in vivid detail so that your readers can imagine the anxious situation and feel it as they read. Embed a small foreshadowed detail to maintain the hope that eventually will prevail.  

·         Setting is significant. Nothing should happen in a vacuum. Where and when a story takes place are vital elements to good storytelling. Add visual images, references to music and art and books and important popular culture of the time, and landscape or architectural details to flesh out scenes, especially near the beginning of a longer work to create vibrant context. Research settings and eras with an eye towards intriguing tidbits to share in your tale. Readers really want to feel like they, too, are stepping into and roaming around the protagonist’s authentic world.   

·         Protagonists don’t need to say a lot at once to have a big impact. Actions and reactions are just as important, if not more so, than dialogue. Definitely write conversations into your tale, but keep dialogue as direct, pertinent, quickly paced, and resonant as possible. Protagonists don’t have time for long-paragraph speeches and explanations before springing into action. The clock is tick-tick-ticking! Show their determination and concern with their actions, rather than their pronouncements.  

 

The next time you open your draft-in-progress, consider applying these tips to create more vital, vibrant prose. Also, join us for my new upcoming course with further tips about crafting your own riveting protagonists and worlds that will keep readers returning again and again.

Want to learn more? Writing the Mythic: Penning Prose Exploring Myths, Fairytales, and/or Folktales starts on Friday, April 18th. I’d love to have you join us. 😊

Beautiful illustrations courtesy of Women on Writing.

In Conversation: Flash Fiction ✍️

I recently had the joy of meeting fellow fictionist and flash writer Jason Brick for a delightful conversation we shared via messages about this art form we love.

Read on for a few excerpts of our lively conversation about flash fiction—including the coolest place Jason’s newsletter has gone and Jason’s bio. Then, check out his newsletter and submit your flash fiction.

Also, my In a Flash craft book from Vine Leaves Press is the perfect holiday gift for yourself and your writer friends for the upcoming holidays!  Buy In a Flash! Writing & Publishing Dynamic Flash Prose  by Melanie at: Vine Leaves Press website

or at: Amazon

Or, for signed copies, Melanie’s Etsy page

Without further ado, the discussion about flash fiction:

Q: What drew you to flash fiction?

Jason: It’s the variety. For the reader and the writer, you’re not committing to a long narrative, so you get to play with genres, styles, crossovers, characters, languages, tropes you otherwise wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pencil.

Melanie: Flash is super flexible—it combines the narrative and action elements of fiction with attention to poetic language. It’s also compact and helps writers learn compression (which I always need!), integrating language like dynamic verbs and precise imagery, which I find exciting.

 

Q: What makes flash special or stand out from other literary genres?

Jason: Sort of what I mentioned above. It’s super-short, so there’s more room for variety and creativity than with other lengths of fiction.

Melanie: It combines the best elements of fiction and poetry and yet brings its own special qualities to the table, including a variety of formats and styles.

 

Q: Tell us about your book in a sentence or two, as if it were a birthday present you were describing.

Jason: Flash in a Flash is just the coolest gift, because I get to open it twice a week! It’s a literary newsletter that puts a super short story - under 1,000 words - in my mailbox every Monday and Thursday! All kinds of genres. All kinds of styles.

And it gets better! I’m a writer, and they’re seeking submissions. So with a little luck I can have my own micro-stories get out into the world. They’re a paying market, too!

Melanie: Very cool. Always great to learn about writing markets, especially those which pay.  My book, In a Flash, sizzles the pen and sparks a thunderstorm of dazzly new ideas that have never crossed your mind before and will continue to deliver awesome exercises and fabulous flash examples that you can return to again and again, at any season of your writing life ahead. You’ll want to keep it handy and gift a friend interested in the genre. 😊

 

Q: What’s the coolest or wackiest place(s) your book has been read OR where would you like your book to be read? 

Jason: The easy answer is that many people tell me, because of the short time commitment, they keep and read their copy in the bathroom. Besides that, I compiled the first volume in the series while living in Malaysia, so I read several of the submissions while on a boat in a river in Borneo.

Melanie: Wow! Malaysia and a boat in Borneo—so awesome! My favorite place readers have told me my book has traveled is in a gift bag to encourage a friend who has hit writer’s block or who isn’t familiar yet with the joys of flash. Writers are incredibly supportive and kind friends, and I love hearing that my book resonated with a reader so much that they want to gift it to a friend.

 

Q: Does your book contain exercises for writers? If so, what’s your favorite one that you’d like to share now?

Jason: Not exactly, but anybody can submit…and there is no better writing exercise that finishing a story and submitting it.

Melanie: I love what you say about finishing a story and submitting it. Very encouraging! My book contains a bunch of exercises that writers can use on days when they’re not sure what to write and how to even begin. I love hearing that someone used my exercises to draft a story, submit it for publication, and subsequently received an acceptance letter.

 

Q: What’s your favorite flash story? Or a flash story that you remember reading and being excited about exploring more in your own writing?

Jason: As of this writing, my favorite remains “The Apocalypse According to Dogs” from my first anthology. It just tickles me.

Melanie: I look forward to checking out that story you mention. The first flash I remember reading and thinking about how amazing it was and wanting to explore more in my own writing was the one often attributed to Hemingway: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”  That just hits me in the gut. As a poet as well, the imagery just says it all. That so very much emotions could be contained in six short words is super inspiring and challenging. Every time I read it, I both get the chills AND want to write something that eloquent and that compact.

Bio:
Jason Brick is the skipper at Flash in a Flash, a biweekly newsletter delivering fiction to mailboxes all over the world. When not writing and editing, he travels, cooks, practices martial arts, and spoils his wife and two sons. He lives in Oregon. 

Connect with Jason:

https://www.facebook.com/brickcommajason 

Contact Jason: brickcommajason@gmail.com

Jason’s books and projects

 

"Four Tips for Mixing Music into Your Fiction" 🎶🎹

Super excited that my craft article was published in Women on Writing’s newsletter today. Read on to learn some tips for integrating music into your prose as well as a prompt to give a whirl. 😊🎼

“Four Tips for Mixing Music into Your Fiction”

By: Melanie Faith

 

Music plays in so many milestone moments in our lives: from proms and graduations to weddings, anniversaries or divorces, first dates or last dates, funerals, reunions, and many other ceremonies. Music (or variations of it) may even be playing in an elevator near you on the way to the job interview you’re hoping to ace or to a doctor’s appointment you don’t want.

 

We don’t need to wait until milestone moments to savor sound, however, as songs suffuse everyday life as well. I listen to music numerous times a day, from a streaming speaker, from my laptop, on the radio in the car or in the kitchen, on TV or episodes of shows online, even on records, tapes, or CDs in my players now and again.  The importance of music doesn’t end with youth, but keeps giving back throughout our lives.

 

Music is often an important facet in fiction, too. Let’s delve into some wonderful ways that we writers can weave music into our plots, characters, and more!

 

Layer references to the same or similar song(s) or artist(s) within the same work. The context can be different for each listener/character. Your protagonist might listen to Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” as a high-school student in 1991 when it was released and have one experience while your protagonist’s twenty-something daughter might listen to the same song in 2024 and have entirely different reflections as she remembers that her dad always played the song while making breakfast during her preschool years.  Music is reminiscent of the era it was made, but it’s also timeless. Music can connect one generation to another, or divide one generation or listener from another.

 

Braid musical and nonmusical events within the same story to shed light on both elements of the story. If your protagonist is a second-chair violinist in the community orchestra, you might include not only the conflicts involved with her determination to move up to first chair this year, but also another element of her private life (from her day job and coworkers to her relationship with her love or her friends or her frenemies) to develop her character both on the stage as she practices and performs as well as offstage in her personal life.  Another idea: even characters who aren’t musicians or singers frequently jam when at a party or alone in a room or a car when a favorite song comes on. What song will get your protagonist’s toes tapping (or busting out the lyrics into a pencil or hairbrush or karaoke microphone, as the case may be)?  

 

Consider a melodic medley. Shake it up with intention. Many listeners enjoy several genres of music. Musical allusions can denote mood and tone as well as conflict within the plot or within your protagonist or antagonist. References to particular album titles or songs may even be used to foreshadow events later in the tale or become titles for chapters. 

 

Use poetic and precise language. Just as songs have rhythm and lyricism, you can pay particular attention to diction choices to develop music descriptions.  Onomatopoeia/sound effects might mimic the high-pitched tweet-tweet of a piccolo or flute, the mournful twang of a mandolin or guitar string, or the zingy ping of a hi-hat cymbal.  Consider using words with softer sounds, such as sibilant /s/ and quiet /m/ and /n/, for descriptions of acoustic performances and words with stronger, louder sounds, like the staccato and punchy /t/, /d/, /b/, /k/, and /z/ for summer rock concerts or heavy metal.

 

Whether your protagonist is a musician, a fan of a particular singer or band, or not, you can use these tips to integrate music—whether center stage, backstage, or as background—into scenes and character development to deepen your writing. You can even weave more than one of the tips within the same scene or chapter. Rock on!

 

Try this exercise:

Take a scene you’ve written recently with your protagonist during a time of strong emotion, such as doubt or great joy. Jot a list of three or four songs that mirror the emotional intensity the character is experiencing. Pick one to drop into the scene in a sentence or two to make it the soundtrack of the scene. What resonance does this reference add to the character, setting, or plot? Add extra dialogue or narration around this reference if the muse so moves you.   

 

 Want to learn more? I’d love to have you in my February class. Clickety-click to learn more and sign up! 🎸

 

50 Give or Take, #2 Published and Ready for Readers! 📚🥳

It’s here! Check out this fabulous collection of micro stories to inspire your pen: clicky.

Such a treat to have work in this volume along with talented authors from across the globe. It’s the perfect addition to your bookshelf, classroom, syllabus, holiday gift list, and more!

Shout-out and many thanks to Jessica Bell and Elaina Battista-Parsons for this amazing, page-turning volume of stories.

My Food-Themed Microfiction, "Sunday Dinner," Published Today! 🍋

Super excited that my flash story, “Sunday Dinner,” was featured today at 50 Give or Take. Story No. 582! Woot! Subscribe (it’s free and fun) to give it a read and to get wonderful microfiction delivered to your inbox each day for reading and writing inspiration.

I also enjoyed writing a new one-sentence bio to keep it fresh and accompany my story: “Melanie Faith is a night-owl writer and editor who often moves through the daytime world with her camera and heart-shaped, leopard-print sunglasses.” 😎

Have some 50-word stories or wanna write one? Submissions currently open (details below):

Fifty Give or Take

To microfiction in its storytelling power! #smallbutmighty

Photo courtesy of Marina Grynykha on Unsplash.

📝My Article Published Today: "Fabulous Flash: Diving Headfirst into the Pool of Uncertainty"

Super excited to announce that my article, Fabulous Flash: Diving Headfirst into the Pool of Uncertainty,” was published today at Women on Writing. I end the article with a fun prompt to take for a spin. 🌹

Clickety-click on the article title above to read more, and check out the many inspiring writing workshops in an array of genres available from talented published writers via the WOW classroom page .

My online class flash fiction workshop is accepting students between now and the July 1st start date. To learn more, check out: In a Flash Workshop. Flash is one of my favorite genres, and I’d love to work with you and your writing friends.

Copies of the text we’ll use, also written by yours truly, are available at Amazon and (for signed copies) at my Etsy page. Write on!

Upcoming Writing Class: Flash Writing! 📝

Super excited to offer my Flash Writing class this summer! Mark your calendars now, and I’d love to have you and a friend join me for this online workshop, starting Friday, July 1, 2022.

Sign-ups are now open.

More info: Featured Online Flash Writing Workshop: In a Flash!

I’ll be using the book I wrote on this topic, which is also available and handy-dandy for all writers, whether you’re in the market for a class or for a prompt-filled read to get those words flowing.

In a Flash book

In a Flash e-book

Signed Copies

A Marvelous Microfiction Anthology 🤗📕

Thrilled to have my work included in this anthology of rad 50-word stories among so many awesome flash fictionists.

The book will officially drop in November by Vine Leaves Press @vine_leaves_press , with pre-ordering now at Amazon.

But this book for your writing, for your favorite writer, and/or for your fiction class or workshop--they'll love it and find inspiration for their own flashes.

50 word stories cover 9-24-21.jpg