A Writer's Notebook, Day One-Thousand-One-Hundred-And-Thirteen

I have been getting a much clearer sense about the new fiction project that I've been discussing, and have started to get a real sense of the story and its structure. It has a lot to it, and I am not certain that I can describe it all that well, but I do feel quite close to being able to begin. Ironically, though, I have another bit of writing that is going to have to take priority, as I've got the opportunity, once more, to submit a short play for inclusion in a local new play festival. The deadline is quite soon, so I need to really get busy.  I think I might be able to get a significant amount of progress done by the end of the weekend, but first I need to narrow down just what I want to submit.  I have an idea, but I am not sure how it will develop, and feel I need to give it a push further.  I think that a longer play can, at times, have a more subtle premise, but in a short piece, it has to be bigger.  A long play has time for nuance, can build slowly from a subtle starting point, but a shorter piece has to arrive fully loaded, as it still needs to get the same job done of telling a full story but in a shorter time.  Any complexity has to be there from the start.  Maybe that isn't true, or is not a good way to explain what I am getting at, but it is important to me to be able to make this piece stand out in the right ways, to make it clear that it will grab an audience, will take them on a small journey, and doing that within the requirements means condensing and compressing the elements of the story in one way or another.

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