The Bradbury Challenge

Two writers attempt to write a short story every week for a year to see how it changes their writing and lives.

Flash Fiction versus Traditional and Dialects – The Bradbury Challenge Ep 4

This week Gerald, Crissy and Maya discuss how we decide if a story should be tradition length short story or flash fiction. We also talk about living well, using observation to find ideas, and our writing strengths and weaknesses. Crissy struggled with time management this week. Maya’s biggest challenge was energy. Gerald’s challenge was getting distracted by grammar checkers and ending up writing a blog post about choosing a grammar checker. Maya gives her tips to using a grammar checker as a learning tool and we had an in-depth discussion about the technical aspects of writing and dialects.

Books Mentioned in the Episode:

Good Omens

Trainspotting

Their Eyes Were Watching God

True History of the Kelly Gang

Wuthering Heights

This Weeks Writing Prompt:

Write a story using the following words

  • Attic
  • Insult
  • Abrasive
  • knife
  • Surprise
  • Sparkling
  • Cockroach
  • Evade

Drilling Down The Story – The Bradbury Challenge Ep 3

This week Crissy talks about getting sick and writing her story the night before. She also explores writing a controversial story with the intent to share. Gerald is enjoying his larger project of adding two short stories toward his goal. One of his stories touches on dementia in an interesting way and we discussed writing about varied states of consciousness. Maya ponders writing literary fiction under a deadline and how her mind gestates ideas.

Podcasts mentioned:

The Minimalists

This Week’s Writing Prompt:

Imagine that it is a lovely sunny day. You are taking a walk through a lovely field and woods with your dog, like you always do, on a lovely path. Suddenly, your dog darts off through the underbrush barking. You are calling and your dog isn’t coming back. You go chasing after them and the undergrowth is scratching your legs and the dog frantically barks. Then suddenly the barking stops. When you catch up, you find your dog staring at an old door just standing in the middle of the woods.

Finishing and Finding Ideas – The Bradbury Challenge Ep 2

Crissy, Maya and Gerald warm up and get their feet wet. In this episode, they discuss the joy of finishing, and writing good sentences and how they get ideas.

Links Mentioned in this episode:

The Art of Styling Sentences by Ann Longknife Phd and K.D. Sullivan

Writing Excuses

Crissy Moss’s Website

Gerald’s blog

This Weeks Writing Prompt:

Our prompt comes from Poets & Writers

In Lauren Groff’s novel Fates and Furies (Riverhead Books, 2015) a marriage is detailed first through the husband’s perspective, then the wife’s. His memories are fond, but hers, not so much. Take on that old adage about two sides to every story and pick a supporting character from a novel, film, or short piece, and rewrite a story from his or her point of view. Experiment with how a scene or plot can be completely transformed just by a change of perspective.

Introducing The Bradbury Challenge Ep 1

Welcome to our newest podcast, The Bradbury Challenge. This podcast chronicles our journey of writing a short story every week for 2016. This challenge was inspired by advice Ray Bradbury gave to aspiring writers. The first part of his advice is to read a short story, an essay and a poem everyday. The second part of his advice is to write at least one short story per week for at least a year, because it isn’t possible to write 52 bad short stories.

In this episode we meet our three hosts; Maya Goode, Crissy Moss and Gerald Hornsby. We discuss our writing lives, what we expect, and how we plan to complete the Bradbury Challenge.

Links mentioned in this week’s episode:

Holy Lisle free course: How to Write Flash Fiction That Doesn’t Suck

Great blog post on a schedule for The Bradbury Challenge

This Weeks Writing Prompt:

In one of my favorite films, We Are What We Are, the family has a dark and troubling secret. Your prompt, should you accept, is to write about a family with a secret.