AboutSamantha Prust Expertise I have a BA in English and an MFA in creative writing. I have worked in various publishing companies and for various literary magazines. I work as an editorial and production assistant for a book publishing company. I also have my own publishing consulting business.
Experience I grew up on the Sisseton/Wahpeton Sioux Tribe Indian Reservation in Sisseton, South Dakota. After high school I attended college at Minnesota State University in Fargo/Moorhead. After receiving my B.A. in English, I stayed in Fargo/Moorhead for two years, working as a proofreader, a librarian assistant, a cocktail waitress, and in customer service. I then moved to Colorado to attend Colorado State University, where I worked as Associate Editor for The Colorado Review while pursuing my Master's degree. After I graduated, I was able to stay in Colorado when I got a job as an editor and writer for Cottonwood Press, a small publisher specializing in supplemental books for teachers of English and language arts.
Thank you for your time. I apologize ahead of time if my question is too broad.
For the past few years, I've been writing screenplays. Recently, I tried my hand at short stories. However, when I posted my stories, people said the stories were good, but the writing style wasn't. They said my style was very script-oriented. They said it had a jarring effect. One gentleman said my writing read like a list.
I'm wondering if there's any advice you can give me about writing prose. I've been reading short stories online (mostly amateur), and I'm struggling with the basic sentence structure of prose. A lot of it seems to ramble, is crammed with "filler", and abuses the comma.
Thank you for any help or advice you can give me.
Answer Hi Steven,
I can understand why your prose might be jarring if you've been writing screenplays. I think I would have a hard time writing screenplays after writing short stories all my life. My first piece of advice is to stop reading amateur writing. Maybe you could read an author with a minimalist style, such as Ernest Hemingway or Raymond Carver. Those examples include classic and contemporary. Kurt Vonnegut has a collection of short stories called Welcome to the Monkey House, which I highly recommend. There are many other examples. I would look for minimalist writers. They will be closer to a screenplay style. My second piece of advice is to read poetry. It will free you up and get you to think about how writers play with language. I hope this helps.
