Short Story Workshop for One: A Workbook for Stronger Fiction

By Sherry D. Ramsey

Is your story the best it can be?

 

You've made it through that first short story draft…but you know it needs more work to turn that draft into a saleable manuscript. What you really need is a workshop experience, but time, money or other considerations won't allow for that right now. The Short Story Workshop for One is the answer!

 

Four in-depth lessons will guide you through your story, identifying problem areas and helping you craft a more professional manuscript. The Workshop For One method breaks down the process of editing your story into manageable chunks, allowing you to focus your attention on one crucial element of the story at a time. By guiding you to ask pertinent questions and evaluate the various facets of your story and your writing, redrafting as necessary, the lessons steer you toward a stronger, cleaner, more sophisticated draft.

 

The chapters are structured to allow you to focus on one element of your story at a time, keeping you motivated without becoming overwhelmed. Writing a first draft can be easy. Editing it into a great finished product takes special effort. By using the writing plan outlined in this course, however, you can improve the writing in every story. Your first draft is your raw material. Get the guidance you need to turn that raw material into a finely polished piece.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sherry D. Ramsey
• Release date: May 26, 2023
• ISBN: 9780993897382

Sherry D. Ramsey

Sherry D. Ramsey is a speculative fiction writer, editor, publisher, creativity addict and self-confessed internet geek. When she's not writing, she makes jewelry, gardens, hones her creative procrastination skills on social media, and consumes far more coffee and chocolate than is likely good for her.Her debut novel, One's Aspect to the Sun, was published by Tyche Books in late 2013 and was awarded the Book Publishers of Alberta "Book of the Year" Award for Speculative Fiction. The sequel, Dark Beneath the Moon, is due out from Tyche in 2015. Her other books include To Unimagined Shores—Collected Stories. With her partners at Third Person Press (http://www.thirdpersonpress.com), she has co-edited five anthologies of regional short fiction to date. Her short fiction and poetry have appeared in numerous publications and anthologies in North America and beyond. Every November she disappears into the strange realm of National Novel Writing Month and emerges gasping at the end, clutching something resembling a novel.A member of the Writer’s Federation of Nova Scotia Writer’s Council, Sherry is also a past Vice-President and Secretary-Treasurer of SF Canada, Canada's national association for Speculative Fiction Professionals.You can visit Sherry online www.sherrydramsey.com, find her on Facebook, and follow her on Twitter @sdramsey.

Book preview

First published as a serial email course in 2008

Copyright © 2008-2017 by Sherry D. Ramsey

Cover © 2017 by Sherry D. Ramsey

All rights reserved.

No part of this ebook or ebook course materials may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

This ebook and the ebook course materials are provided to you for your own personal use, including making a backup copy for yourself. The contents herein may not be given away or sold, packaged with other courses, added to websites, forwarded, shared, or in any other way reproduced without express written permission of the copyright holder named above.

This book contains advice and instructional material intended to assist you in your writing journey. Using this book does not guarantee that you will sell your short story! The author has done all she can; the rest is up to you!

Sherry D. Ramsey

Email: [e-mail]

Web: sherrydramsey.com

Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada

Short Story Workshop for One: A Workbook for Stronger Fiction

Ebook ISBN: 978-0-9938973-8-2

Don’t miss this ebook’s companion, The Two-Week Short Story: A Guide to a Fast First Draft

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Introduction

Many writers tout the benefits of workshopping a manuscript: letting other writers read it, critique it, suggest changes and improvements, and basically work with you to renovate and rebuild your story. Writer's groups meet in person and online to share the workshopping experience. And there's no doubt that most workshop participants come away from the experience, if not with a better manuscript, at least with a better idea of what they need to do to fix it.

But what if there aren't any writing groups in your area, and for reasons of your own, you don't want to workshop your writing online? Do you have any other choices?

Welcome to the Short Story Workshop for One! Over the course of these lessons you'll learn how to sit down with one of your own stories, ferret out its faults, make sure it has