My Writing Journey: Helpful Short Story Tips

Standup Comedy & Medium have really Helped me Write, and maybe these tips can help you too!

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Making Money?

Even though I’ve barely made any money on Medium yet and am confused every time someone writes about how they are making over 1K a month, I still have gotten a lot out of having an account. I started writing again, am having a story published in September that I get paid for, and I started to write humorous short stories about my life. My goal is to submit it as a manuscript and get it published. Like any creative endeavor, writing is competitive, but really, nothing can be as competitive or toxic as the standup comedy scene.

Being successful in Standup Comedy ~ My friends in comedy who are the most successful in the way that I want to be have been able to somehow fund their one-man or woman show, take it to Edinburgh (which is hella expensive), and then go on tour with it. That seems to be the way to go. In the meantime, I have a new show starting in the fall at The QED, another one that is also monthly at Tootles and French, and now, my boyfriend opened a live stage, and I have been invited to do comedy shows at his music recording studio sometimes and actually have people come and watch.

Writing Short Stories Correlates with Comedy

But going back to writing, I’m really excited about the stories I’ve been working on. I realized that standup comedy and writing jokes in a short form have prepared me for writing humorous short stories.

Reading other work that is like what you want to write

My sister, who just won a short story contest that is a big deal, I forgot the name of it, told me I should read David Sedaris. I went over to her place and looked through her library of books and found 3 or 4 by him and have just been reading them slowly. Really reading them. Looking at punctuation, grammar, flow and how he sneaks humor in when you aren’t expecting it. He’s not afraid to make himself look bad, which, when you realize this for your own writing, opens up a lot of funny doors.

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Posting 1st and 2nd Drafts on Medium

I’ve been talking about experiences that I have holed up inside for a while and am finally letting them breathe aka sharing them with the world. The last couple of months on Medium, I would post 1st or 2nd drafts and then go back and edit them after they had already been published. I then learned that a lot of publications don’t take stories that have already been published, and they count Medium, so I stopped doing that and would just use the drafts section to type and then move it to a Google Word document and type more there. The format for typing in Medium is just way more inviting to me than the typical blank, white word document.

When I write about the past, I get transported back to that point in time. It’s like going on an actual time machine, and it amazes me how much I can remember.

It makes me emotional and I can’t believe what I endured. I’ve been letting my sister read my work, and she said if anyone else was writing these stories, they would be trauma, but because I’m a comedian, they are funny. It’s like I’m bringing this other perspective to a traumatic situation.

Long walks have really helped me write while I also get exercise.

Thinking about the subject while going on a long walk will also get the gears moving, and I will remember even more. It’s quite a trip. I will have to take breaks, hug my boyfriend, and remember I’m in a loving relationship in the present because a lot of the things I have been writing about involve me being in shitty-ships with men or fantasizing about a guy who doesn’t want to be with me. It’s sad but funny and worth sharing.

Freeform Writing

First, I have ideas and will write those down in my notebook. The next day, I will free-form write about one of the stories. It usually starts with what is going on around me at the moment, and then I will go back in time and tell the story.

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Make an Outline of the Events that Happen

I first tell a story in outline format. going through the important points in order. After that is done, I will go back through each moment and see where I can pepper in details and jokes.

Editing

I usually do multiple rounds of edits. Editing is most of the process. Give it a breather for a couple of days, and then edit what’s not working. I will save past drafts, which is helpful if there is a part I’m not sure I like but may want to add back in later.

Standup comedy works much the same way with editing. But instead of writing them down, I save them being performed on video. That way, I can see a joke evolve. I save my long-form jokes in different stages of editing by getting a recording of myself performing them, posting it on YouTube, and watching them again.

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This article was published on July 24th, 2024 in Deep. Sweet. Valuable. publication.