Micromanagement II: 4 MORE Benefits of Writing Tiny
Almost exactly one year ago I published an article called Micromanagement: 4 Benefits of Writing Tiny. I had just started writing microfiction, and I found a number of tangible benefits from doing so. To quickly recap, those benefits are: better self-editing, a chance to try new genres and styles, great story seed generator, and easy to share. If you’d like to read more about my thoughts on those points, just click the link in the first sentence. Okay, so now a year and some three hundred micros later, I’ve had time to further reflect and recognize other benefits of squeezing a story into a 50-word Tweet. Let’s have a look at four more reasons to write tiny.
- New Markets. Believe it or not, there are (many) places to submit your tiny tales. I’ve published two microfictions at such markets in the past year, and I have a third pending. If you expand a bit into drabbles (exactly 100-word stories) and other short forms, there are even MORE markets. Getting published in these markets is pretty great too because most of them share your easily digestible story far and wide, which can bring folks to your blog, get you Twitter followers, and generally get more folks reading your work. It’s certainly worked that way for me.
- Warm Up. Often the very first thing I write everyday is my #vss365 Twitter story. It’s challenging enough to get the ol’ creative juices flowing and get me nice and warmed up for the day’s writing. It’s like a good long stretch, really, useful on it’s own and as a complement to writing other things.
- Distraction/Validation. Really important at the moment. I’m finding microfiction to be a welcome distraction. It’s a moment I can focus without all the stress, doubt, and worry that comes along with writing longer works, like my novel. Sometimes it’s even cathartic, and I might spin out a microfiction as a way of exorcising the demons to some extent. (I’ve been writing A LOT of post apocalyptic stuff). Additionally, when I complete and post a micro, I get a nice little boost of confidence. Yeah, it’s a small thing, but I wrote it, finished it, and shared it. That’s not a bad way to begin your day.
- Community. I mentioned this in the first article, but it wasn’t one of the main points. After a year-plus of writing Twitter microfiction I can definitely say one of my favorite things has been the discovery of a vast community of talented authors who also write tiny. The talent level is pretty staggering, really, and I’ve ended up following a lot of these folks on Twitter, visiting their blogs/websites, and reading their other works. In other words, microfiction is a great way to tap into a wonderful and supportive group of writers.
So there you go, four more reasons you should be writing microfiction. If you’d like to take a gander at my own micro-efforts, follow me on Twitter @Aeryn_Rudel.
Any reasons to write tiny I missed here or in the other article? Tell me about it in the comments.
2 Comments on “Micromanagement II: 4 MORE Benefits of Writing Tiny”
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You updated pretty quickly! I remembered to check the vss365 prompt today and I actually came up with something. The first time in a couple of weeks, I think. Thanks for the reminder.
Excellent. I’ll go check it out. 🙂