Ok, I feel bad posting in here, without ever having done so before, to ask for some help, rather than doing my best to help. Anyway. I need to write a short story by the 29th at the latest, and the panic in my head is killing any creative flow. Would someone be willing to work with me a little bit, bouncing some ideas around, and then reading a draft? If you don't want to, that's totally cool, but I thought I would ask. Since this thread seems to do shorter stories, and my story has to be 15 pages, I'd feel bad posting it here, but if anyone actually did want to read it when it was done, I suppose I could link to it elsewhere, or something of that sort. Anyway, help? My aim name is Alibelle30, and my email address is ElizabethDianna@yahoo.com.

What's the genre, ali? If no one else offers, give me a holler, profile addy should be good.

That's the thing, Connie, my professor would really prefer it not be "genre fiction," which she doesn't appreciate. She just wants "fiction." But since I'm just much happier working within a genre, I might just have to ignore her preference a little bit. Thank you so much though.

What is the difference between genre fiction and fiction? Is "fiction" that Oprah style stuff that deals with angst and relationships and people being content with the lives they have etc. etc.? Mmm, maybe I should stop, just in case you like that stuff.

Short stories, mmm ... vignette type things, where someone who doesn't need a lot of introduction falls into something or observes something that makes an impression. Kid losing a balloon at the fair, and an adult nearby remembers themselves at a fair, losing the balloon and remembering their feelings of lose. Put in some metaphors about how things we love slip away.

Or something. Stories like that make me twitchy, cause I read/write for escape and excitement. Remembering personal pain doesn't make for an evening's entertainment.

You got it exactly on the nose perfectly right, Connie. And I read for the same reason you do. So I'm thinking that if she really has such an issue with genre, that's simply too bad, because I can't write just straight up my-boyfriend-left-me-and-I'm-angry fiction. It's boring for me. So I'm thinking of doing a crazy fairy tale mish mash type of thing. But I'm not sure where to go with it, exactly.

I was talking to a friend who wrote science fiction, and she complained that she could think of no original idea. I said that the last people who had original ideas were the Greeks, and even then they may have been stealing from the Sea Peoples and the cavemen. The basic themes are always the same, it's the trappings and treatments that change. Vampire/human slash is just another facet of two people falling in love/lust despite differences. Xander/Spike could just as easily be Romeo and Juliet--without the icky suicides. I suppose someone thought of stories dealing with the impact of an efficient horse-drawn carriage on society, what with easy transportation and people mingling. Not much different than Star Trek.

Yeah, there's maybe 50 plots, if that many. But I'm indecisive, and I can't pick one.

Thanks, though, just talking about this is helping.

I can maunder on for ages on the persistence of plots through literature. Glad it's helping, though.

Xander/Spike could just as easily be Romeo and Juliet--without the icky suicides.

I'm sorry, I went to a snuff place.

Ali, I'm your girl, if there's anything I can do. rebecca_lizard@worldcrossing.com, anything you got yet, or mmerlizard on AIM.

[edited months later to change email address. if you, reader, were wondering]

... The phone just rang and kicked me offline, Alibelle. This other computer with the second phone line doesn't have AIM. I'll be back on as soon as my mother hangs up-- a few minutes, I think?