One-sentence Story December 17, 2018 While I'm not certain how big an effect serendipity has in real life, I believe it has a big effect in literary life. Recently, I've twice run into the idea that a writer should be able to encapsulate their work in a single sentence--the first time in an article about screen writing, the second in a book about speech writing. (If you aren't reading about the writing of genres other than your own, you should be.) And taking the hint from the universe, I began to consider if this would have any benefit in both fiction and nonfiction writing. I haven't yet tried the idea with nonfiction writing, so that discussion will have to wait until another time. However, just the other day I began a new short story and felt a little lost as to which of several possible directions it was going to take. You see, a character had done something unexpected and so I'd had to throw out my original idea for the plot. How to re-plot a story that's already begun? I decided to try writing a one-sentence description. I can't say that it gave me everything I needed to immediately pick up and carry on with the story. However, it did allow me to automatically reject several possibilities I'd been considering. A couple of minutes of brainstorming on the remaining ideas, though, and I had a new plot that seems to be working out well. I also haven't tried this technique on a still-unwritten piece, and so can't say how a one-sentence description might help or hurt the writing of it. But it might be something worth trying when getting ready to start a story. I think if nothing else, it might help focus your mind on where you want the story to go (and ultimately end up). Stats for the year: Here are my writing stats for 2018. Fifty-four submissions (roughly one a week) with two pro sales, two other placements (one poem and one translation), and one submission still waiting to hear back from the editor for a final yes/no. That works out to roughly a 10% acceptance rate. Can't give you the number of words written due to editing and such (and a master's thesis), but it felt like I was much more productive in 2018 than I have been in a long time. Here's wishing everyone a good year (writing and otherwise) in 2019. (c) 2018 by Andrew Gudgel email: contact [at] andrewgudgel.com