How Do You Write a Short Story?
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 13 ต.ค. 2024
- In which I talk about how I craft a story. Grab a cup of tea and join me! Click 'Show More' for links. xx
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Read the story online here: www.jen-campbel...
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THE BEGINNING OF THE WORLD IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT
Book details: tinyurl.com/ln...
Paperback: tinyurl.com/ya...
Signed copies: www.jen-campbel...
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Would you like to take a writing workshop with me? www.jen-campbel...
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MY BOOKS:
THE BEGINNING OF THE WORLD IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT
Hardback: tinyurl.com/gm...
Paperback: tinyurl.com/ya...
Signed copies: www.jen-campbel...
FRANKLIN’S FLYING BOOKSHOP: tinyurl.com/mmf...
Signed copies: www.jen-campbel...
FRANKLIN AND LUNA GO TO THE MOON tinyurl.com/yb...
Signed copies www.jen-campbel...
THE BOOKSHOP BOOK: tinyurl.com/zxo...
Signed copies: www.jen-campbel...
THE HUNGRY GHOST FESTIVAL: tinyurl.com/d9c...
Signed copies: www.jen-campbel...
WEIRD THINGS CUSTOMERS SAY IN BOOKSHOPS: tinyurl.com/z6q...
Signed copies: www.jen-campbel...
MORE WEIRD THINGS CUSTOMERS SAY IN BOOKSHOPS: tinyurl.com/zrt...
Signed Copies: www.jen-campbel...
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WHO I AM
Hello, my name's Jen. I'm an award-winning poet and short story writer. My debut short story collection 'The Beginning of the World in the Middle of the Night' is published by Two Roads, and my children's books, 'Franklin's Flying Bookshop’ and ‘Franklin and Luna Go To The Moon’ are published by Thames and Hudson. I'm also the author of the Sunday Times bestselling 'Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops' series, 'The Bookshop Book' and 'The Hungry Ghost Festival.'
I run writing workshops, give talks at universities & book festivals on a variety of topics, judge literary prizes, and take on freelance writing and editing. If you would like to speak with me about the possibility of working together, please get in touch via email: jenvcampbell@gmail.com x
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Where to find me:
Website: www.jen-campbel...
Writing Workshops: www.jen-campbel...
Twitter: / jenvcampbell
Instagram: / jenvcampbell
Events: www.jen-campbel...
Podcast: www.jen-campbel...
Facebook: tinyurl.com/3o3...
Goodreads: tinyurl.com/hs8...
Email: jenvcampbell@gmail.com
(Since starting TH-cam, some of you have been asking what's wrong with my hands. This should answer any questions :) tinyurl.com/z3k...)
NB This is not a sponsored video, and unless otherwise stated all books were bought by me. - บันเทิง
I hope you enjoy this video, folks! Let's have a chat in the comments. :) xx
The amount of thought and research that went into this story are absolutely astounding. I love when the story is not only a beautiful composition in itself but a closer look at word choice, phrasing, final plot, etc. also reveal even more secrets and nods/references to other literary works. It makes the story so much more fun to read and re-read and is truelly one of the things that really made fall in love with literature in general.
Reading stories like these, who first might seem a little odd and confusing but actually offer layer after layer of ideas and motives make one feel like some kind of explorer on their very own journey of finding a hidden treasure buried beneath these words , never knowing what hidden places that might actually lead them and what they might encounter on their way there.
Thank you xxxx
Never ever ever apologize! You have such a beautiful mind in the way you write, Jen, it's so inspiring. I'm an instant fan of your work now. lol. And you teach?! Never stop writing, please.
This was absolutely stunning, it completely blew me away. I am genuinely awestruck at the way you've so delicately and intricately strung together all of these symbols and images. I especially loved the allusions to fairytales. Just, so amazing this was utterly wonderful!! I HAVE to buy a copy of your book!!!!
Thanks for every thing
Fascinating to get a glimpse at the creation process of a writer. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for watching! x
I am only watching this now in 2022, I have just received your short stories book and am looking into your old videos. So lever,lovely imagery.I love your channel and wished I had found it before. However I am enjoying cat catching up on past videos.
Dear Jen. This video made me cry, and the one in which you analyze your poem made me want to write a poem, too
Thank you so, so much
I bought your collection the other day and read it in one night! It was such a lovely read, exactly the kind of short stories I enjoy reading. I think my favorite stories were animals (I believe that's what I was called, the first one) and coincidentally, plum pie, zombie green, yellow bee, purple monster.
I loved this! So many levels of meaning in just one story. Thank you for sharing, Jen!
I am studying English Literature, starting my third out of six years! This has given me so many ideas for how to approach analysing the texts that I will be given! Thank you for sharing your process xx
This makes me happy, thanks Kazia. All the best with your studies. xx
Love this video, it's a true privilege to get to hear the author's thoughts behind their artwork, thanks for sharing. This is more of an analysis than about the writing process though, I would love to hear more about the process behind the writing. How did you get to make these decisions, did you plan it before hand or did you let writing lead the way? I love these stories and it would be amazing to have some more videos about creative writing!
I understand why you would say this feels more like an analysis, but that is my writing process, that's how I make creative decisions. I run courses on short story writing and poetry if that's something you're interested in, and you can find out more about those here: www.jen-campbell.co.uk/writing-workshops
This story is one of my favorites from your collection, so getting to hear you talk about the process and thought behind it was fascinating. 💜🌼
If you liked doing this maybe you could do another video on some of your other stories? :)
Thank you; I’m glad you like it ☺️ I love talking about this stuff and I may do more videos in the future but not at the moment; I’d most like readers to explore these themes themselves, so don’t want to discuss too much of the book on here xx
I really liked your explanations of your thinking process, brilliant!! Maybe you could do videos on all stories and sell them together with your books in a special edition like you do it with signed books :) also would love to hear you narrating your stories!!!
And your link between the hex triplets and the process of translation of mRNA into protein (which itself involves species specific coding) is brilliant!!!!
This was one of my favorite stories from the collection! Love getting your thoughts behind it.
I absolutely LOVED your story. This video was extremely interesting. I'm really keen on picking up your book for an attentive, close read. Thank you for taking the time to make this video. It's lovely to see an artistic writer talk about her work. More power to you, Jen!
Thank you xx
I'm always fascinated by what goes into creating a piece of art/media so this video was definitely not too long for me! Also Plum Pie. Zombie Green. Yellow Bee. Purple Monster was one of my faves from the collection I would happily read a whole novel about the characters. I also spent way too long trying to figure out what sort of plant would be part of me.
I gave a little squeak when I heard the story you'd chosen to focus on. It is my favourite in the collection (although I love them all) and hearing you read/discuss it while I drink tea is a lovely way to set up my day ^_^ x
This is all so pure genius. So well-thought out and creative!
I love this! When reading the short stories this one was the one I really really wanted to know more about and hearing about your process while making it is fascinating. Thank you!
Ah, thank you - and glad I accidentally picked the one you most wanted to know about :) x
i love these types of videos from u!! i'm also always so awestruck that you believe in ur stories if that makes sense? like i rlly struggle to convince myself that my ideas/plots/etc aren't just already in the world, and as such it would be pointless for me to try and produce something!!! i rlly love this story & i especially loved the one u read for the women's prize!! : )
This was amazing Jen! This was the first book I read this year and loved it. I eagerly awaited your full length novel!
Thanks, Krissy. Novels are certainly tricky beasts. x
That was amazing! I learnt heaps about what goes into your writing! I could listen to that over and over again!
Glad you enjoyed it, thanks Jo! x
I have to say it kind of blows my mind about how much is going on in that one piece!
That was my favourite story from the collection. It made me cry so much at the end.
Thanks for telling us all about this particular story. It's my favourite in the collection :-)
Jen I loved this video. I reread after watching this and got much more out of the story. I bought the collection as a hardback and have enjoyed it but this really raised my thought process. Thank you
Thanks, Rebecca x
This was incredibly helpful and interesting, thank you for sharing. The story was beautiful and I appreciate how well thought out it was. I especially enjoyed the use of colour numbers, cannot wait to get the book and see the rest!
Forgot to say in the video, another reason I used the colour codes is as a nod to hacking, as they break into their laboratory. xx
This is so generous of you to share, honeybee. I loved it and learnt so much xxxx
* mwah * xxx
Ah this was so interesting to listen to, I love hearing about other people’s creative processes, I think it’s really interesting and inspiring.
I didn’t pick up on some of the references you were mentioned here, but the idea of a camp & “cutting” made me think of Northern Lights, and the green glow & swallowing really reminded me of James and the Giant Peach!
P.S read this collection recently and absolutely devoured it, I thought it was so inspired & weird & I loved it xx
I really loved this video, Jen! I agree with you when you say that once a book or a story is written and it's out there it belongs to the readers and it is for them to interpret the way they hear it and see it but also inevitably, I always wonder why the author put this here or was that random, what's the story behind it, etc. I think this is because I writing too and I wonder not only from the perspective of a reader but also as a writer. I'm currently reading your book, story by story, out loud to my husband and after reading Plum Pie. Zombie Green. Yellow Bee. Purple Monster. today I remembered you did this video and came to watch it. This and Jacob are currently my favoirite stories and this video made me love it even more! Thank you for the incredible gift of wrtiting this collection and hope I could get it signed along with some of your other books when we come to see you at Ryedale Book Festival in Septemeber! x
Thank you so much for this video! It was really exciting and helpful. I got a lot of clarity for my writing too.
I love this video & I love this story! It was great to hear ‘behind the scenes’ of what was on your mind when writing it.
Hi Jen. Firstly, thank you for sharing this video of how you craft stories from ideas. So fascinating. Also, this video is so inspiring for any wannabe-writer. Thanks :) x
Thanks, Cat; good luck with your writing. x
So very interesting and inspiring! Thank you very much.
As it happens, I read this story this morning after you shared it on your insta stories and the Kerouac reference amused me as well ;)
Lovely video, very insightful for aspiring authors like myself! But your content is always lovely :)
Thank you. Have a lovely weekend x
Well done Jen looking forward to the next
Thank you, Paul x
I love this sooo much. I dont plan on writting i just like to listen. But, my reading skills arent that good and just by reading i would of missed probably almost all of that. Honestly, id listen to just explanations of stories just like this. I feel like understanding what im reading goes from another language like that hexa hmtl color code i dont get to completely understandable and relatable.
That was so interesting! It's fascinating to see what happens "behind the curtains", thank you for sharing your thought process while writing this short story :)
:) xx
This was really interesting as I have just started writing short stories for the first time
Loved it Jen! It brought to mind August Frost by Monique Roffey. Gorgeous stuff: now I’m going to watch your vid on how you wrote it!
I haven't heard of that; I'll give it a Google. x
Jen Campbell I think you’ll enjoy it. It was part of my Open University fiction writing module! x
Ah, this was so fascinating to watch! Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts with us! I thorougly enjoyed not only this video but also the story behind it! It drew me in completely and some sentences were so beautifully crafted that I read them over and over again. I found this story particularly interesting considering the new scientific research on using plants (parsley, orchids etc.) to grow human tissue and therefore generating novel forms of biomedical implants.
BTW, I thought you had called her Madame Honey because she was basically stealing the children's essence, "sucking them dry" in a way, hiding behind a cloying exterior. And her leaving at the end of summer reminded me of bees absconding their hive in autumn, when there's no nectar left for them to take :)
Thanks again for this lovely insight into your writing process!
I love that reading, Theresa! x
Really interesting, thank you!
Amazing analysis to think about! Can I ask if there was any reason you picked those four colours at the end? Do they have a significance? They seem very whimsical and I wondered if that fed into the pride Lilly had in being different x
You just blew my mind when you said that snow white was a reference to eve omg how did I miss that 😂
That video was amazing, thank you so much Jen for doing it. I'm an illustrator who's trying to write as well, and my challenges are numerous. I'm writing in English which is not my first language, but also, since I'm disabled (rare condition), bi-pansexual and identify as nonbinary demi-girl, from Spanish-Jewish descent, I'd like my story to be very inclusive in a natural, not "in your face" way... And to top it up, I'm trying to write my first draft as a serialised story that I can upload on my TH-cam channel with illustrations, so it has to be entertaining all the way in every episode. It might be a bit too ambitious for a first "book", but I like doing this so much! The insight you gave on how you write and all the intricate references was very enlightening, I'm sure it'll help me. I think (correct me if I'm wrong) that you like to be in control, to make you creations as perfect as can be, and it really inspires me.
I actually caught the “on the road “ reference...I was amused, and then thought I’d probably read too much into it 💗
Haha, intertextuality all day every day, thank you please x
This is fascinating. Thanks so much :)
Your brain is not a mess. Your quite prophetic with some of your imagery . The scientists who taking cuttings dont see the children as human rather as things things to be controled things to be bred. And I dont like where my train of thought is going. Your really quite good at this you know. Deconstucting a story teasing us with refrences and tibits. Making us think and opening up our minds.
Reminded me of Swamp Thing or the Green Giant.
Brilliant!!!!!!!
Madam Honey also reminded me a little of Miss Honey from Annie
I’ve never seen Annie but I’m always interested in what other people can bring to a text/their interpretation due to other media they’ve consumed ☺️
I've been writing the same book since I was 14. I'm 25 now. My question is: is it wise to change from 1st narrative to third narrative throughout the book?
There's no generic answer to that - it completely depends on the book in question, how/why it's done etc. Can't answer that for you without reading it, sorry!
Jen Campbell that's no problem. Thank you for responding though. I love your channel and have learnt so much along the way. Great video too! :)
I've never read anything like it :O