Benefits of Fiction Blogging

Yesterday I received a telephone call announcing that I have won the Humanities Washington Emerging Writer Award. My short story, "Angela" was selected from among 60 entries. First prize is $500, plus I will read "Angela" at the annual gala fundraiser on Oct 27. Other speakers will include Mary Guterson (author of We Are All Fine Here), Karen Fisher (author of A Sudden Country) and local writing luminary Dr. Charles Johnson, who was the final judge in the contest. Humanities Washington is a public foundation that provides cultural programs to the state of Washington. (www.humanities.org/awards/ewa.php)

Here's a bit more backstory... The Emerging Writer Award contestants were given a theme to work with. It was called "Night Watch." Sound familiar? As soon as I heard about it I created this blog of the same name because the words brought back memories of a summer evening in Virginia in 1998 when my wife gave birth to our second child. She did most of the labor at home, assisted by a doula, while I made lots of herbal tea and tried not to think of all the things that can go wrong in childbirthing. We went for walks in the humid night air to keep the labor progressing. It was an experience worth writing about even without the writing contest. I figured I would serialize the story first and then massage it into a short story. However, I very quickly ran so far past the 2000-word limit that I almost gave up on the idea of submitting it as a contest entry. But not quite.

I wrote "Angela" by taking the first ten episodes of Night Watch and condensing them into a frightfully compact space. That was after first receiving extremely valuable and thorough critiques from my writing group, the Speculative Fiction Writer's Cooperative at Eagle Harbor Bookstore. (You guys did a great job!) Charles Johnson had glowing things to say about "Angela," which is nice because he is a 1998 MacArthur Fellow (otherwise known as the "genius" grant) and received the National Book Award for his novel Middle Passage in 1990.

It turns out that some of my family members are not impressed by the significance of this victory. After I announced the award, my daughter asked, "Did they pull your name out of a hat?"

But the real point I want to make here is that I truly believe serializing a story leads to better characters. Why? My hunch is that, with serialization, you get to know your characters gradually, in a natural manner, just as you would get to know a new person that you've met. And as you take your time getting to know them, they come alive slowly, but convincingly, on the page.

I have been giving talks on this subject and I'm thinking of starting a workshop. If you are interested in learning more, please post a comment to this blog.

Thanks for reading.

Bill