5 Minute Freewrite Cheat

I've discovered a new addiction, I mean passion: the five-minute freewrite #Freewrite. These are posted every day by @mariannewest.

The five-minute freewrite is exactly what I need to help me develop my storytelling muscles/technique. I am not a literary writer, I have no qualms about this. To sell enough stories to make money, Indie authors must continually hook in their readers. Every chapter, every story, every novel must end with a cliffhangers big reveals. As a self-published Indie author, I am a writer of pulp fiction; a writer of Penny Dreadfuls.

Netflix are the modern masters of the Penny Dreadful. Watch their ‘Netflix Own’ series and you quickly realize the episode plots are all devised with one aim in mind: to keep you binge-watching the series.

The idea of the 5 Minute Freewrite, is to spend five minutes writing non-stop to see what you produce, freeing the brain from the shackles of the dreaded editor and making writer’s block a thing of the past. A most noble aim.

In my case, the editor appears to have greater control than ever. Using the writing prompt, I knock stories around in my head for a few hours, while going about my daily business. When I find an intriguing idea, I jot it down. Later, I spent five minutes on creating a story structure, then five minutes writing the story, and a further five minutes editing the story. Is this cheating? It could be.

I am using a simplified story arc for these five minute writes:
Stasis
Quest
Complication
Action/Choice
Climax
Twist/Reveal

With this simple structure I can construct a five-minute entertaining and intriguing story that will hopefully delight.

Using this five-plus-five-plus-five-minute technique I can hopefully write good rounded stories, which is my main aim. I'm not expecting to win any freewrite prizes, as I’m not entirely sure I’m entering into the spirit of the five-minute freewrite in its entirety, but it is what I need at the moment to grow as a storyteller.

It matters not a jot to me whether I win any prizes, because the buzz of creating stories, and the satisfaction of seeing them presented to readers, is a daily prize in its own right, and that is sufficient for me.

There is an added advantage to getting involved with the ‘5 Minute Freewrite’ community: five minute stories are, by definition, very short. They are quick to read, and therefore, easy to provide meaningful comments. This is a quick, and productive, way to pick up curration points, to help beat the dreaded bandwidth problem.

The first, 500 word, draft of this post, was also created in five minutes, but note I did not say ‘written’ in five minutes. More about speed techniques in another post.

Image by GIPHY.com