Author: Erica Drayton Writes

and made me want to be a published author

I’d seen these lists floating around Substack Notes and I almost decided to go ahead and leave my own list there but changed my mind. I wanted to share this with all of you as these books really are the reason why I want so badly to be a published author but not just any published author, one of mystery, and you’ll see why. So, without further ado, here is my list (in no particular order):

THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD BY AGATHA CHRISTIE (1926)

Agatha Christie is known as the Queen of Crime and if you’ve ever read any of her books you’d know this to be true. This book in particular features a twist ending that I won’t spoil here. I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with this book and that’s why, of all the many other books I could’ve listed I chose this one intentionally. I love the concept and hate the delivery, mostly because of just how damn clever it is all the way around. Agatha Christie opened doors for women in mystery in ways no one has since. She is even better than the men in this genre and no one can argue otherwise. And what makes her unique is the fact that her storytelling withstands the test of time. Her work is relevant and popular today and it will be hundreds of years from now. She’s just that damn good. YAS QUEEN!

If I can write even one-tenth as good as she does with my own mystery writing endeavors (of which I have a few…) then I’ll count myself in good company and damn lucky.

LAMB: THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO BIFF, CHRIST’S CHILDHOOD PAL BY CHRISTOPHER MOORE (2002)

I am no comedian, but this was the book I picked up after I finished the Harry Potter series. I needed something I could read and not be terribly disappointed with and I had read something somewhere that suggested reading a comedy. I remember the day I did a google search and came across this gem. I laughed till I cried from cover to cover.

Now, I am a deeply religious person. If my life hadn’t taken such a tragic turn when my mother died I might very well have been a priest in the Episcopal church today. But life has a way of zigging when you’re just trying to zag. Even knowing that I want to say, if you are religious too, strap on in cause this one is amazing. It does an amazing job of just towing the line between being not quite that offensive to over the top hysterical. Some might take offense and if you think you might, don’t read it.

I chose this as a life changing book because of the profound effect it had on me after I read the last Harry Potter book which I stupidly thought had a PROFOUND effect on me. Yes, that series is one of the greatest of all time but I was proven just how wrong I was when I read this book and it made me question the very art of storytelling. Up until this point I hadn’t really read much comedic books. And to be honest, I still haven’t. I will only read Christopher Moore. Well, I take that back. I have read Terry Pratchett. But he’s the teacher whereas Christopher Moore is the student and I look forward to what comes next every time with his books.

THE BOOK THIEF BY MARKUS ZUSAK (2013)

Another tear jerker but for completely different reasons. There is something about Holocaust books that don’t seem like that is what they’re going to be on the surface but then you read it and your mind is absolutely blown. My mind with this book was absolutely blown. It’s one of those that was made into a movie but the movie could never in a million years do it proper justice. It just can’t. This is a book that you just have to read it.

I think what struck me most was the narrator of this book. I want to say but I wonder if it will be a spoiler? Then again, I just said it’s a WWII book so how spoiled can what I want to say be…damn it, okay…I’m going to say it! The book is narrated by “Death.” Man, I still get chills just thinking about it.

This is not a quick read by any means, although I remember I got through it in under a week just because I couldn’t put it down. I chose this book for one other reason besides how amazing it was and how it touched my soul and tore me apart inside. But it was one of the few where I decided I had to read more by this author because if this was that damn good then he must have others, right? Wrong. This book was a stark reminder to myself that just because you find someone who wrote that one good book doesn’t necessarily mean everything they write is going to be as amazing. :cough cough: Stephen King :cough cough:

I hope to one day write one great book that someone says after reading it, “wow, that was amazing.” But I’m not going to drive myself crazy expecting a winner-winner chicken dinner every time.

A IS FOR ALIBI BY SUE GRAFTON (1982)

This first book in the series, and the series itself holds a key memory for me. That memory involves my grandmother. One birthday I didn’t think I was getting anything. After years and years of getting spoiled by my grandparent’s with presents this was a blow for me. The reason I didn’t think I was getting anything was because that particular year I was going away to college and my grandmother, who never really had any money of her own, managed to pay for my housing to be held aside for me when I got there. It was $200 dollars. I’ll never forget that she paid for that out of her own allowance she got from her husband (my grandfather). But she wanted me to have something for my birthday. I still remember sitting at the dining room table and she’s sitting next to me after I blew out the candles for my birthday cake. She points her chin to a bad in the corner of the room. I grab it and it’s freaking HEAVY! I hoist it over to the table between us and she tells me these are for me. It’s A through N of the Sue Grafton series! Her copies. All first editions that she had purchased when they came out over the years. I have so many memories about this series. Starting with how I got them to my grandmother losing the jacket for N (which I refuse to buy and replace to this day), and my mom “borrowing” A when she went the hospital and losing it there (still a crushing blow that I never forgave her for when I had to replace it).

I even met Sue Grafton at a book signing when U is for Undertow came out. Had I known she would’ve signed all A through U that day I would’ve hauled all 100lbs of them on the train with me that day. I remember I said to her I would do just that at her next book signing. She said she wouldn’t do another until Z. And well…you know the rest. As her daughter aptly put it shortly after her mother passed away, “The alphabet ends with Y.”

When I think of a book and a series that had such a lasting effect on my life I can think of none more deeply embedded in different parts of my life than this series. Hands down.

ELOISE BY KAY THOMPSON (1955) & MADELINE BY LUDWIG BEMELMANS (1939)

These books take me back to my childhood. In fact, I still have my original of each book from when I was young, although I purchased new ones for my son to have. These were the entryway for my imagination. A sense of wonder and great storytelling. I wanted to write stories after reading Eloise and Madeline. I also wanted to be just as curious about the world as Eloise and a know-it-all savior like Madeline.

It would be later in life that I would read Kay Thompson’s autobiography about why she came up with Eloise. And how shocked I was to discover I had seen Kay Thompson before! I love musicals and she is in Funny Face, starring Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn.

Kay Thompson and Fred Astaire

Kay Thompson and Audrey Hepburn

My next installment next week I’m going to share five musicals that shaped my life in the most profound way as I turn this into a series that, when put together, will hopefully give you a better insight into me and where my inspirations for writing comes from.

*Okay, I know I listed 6 but I just had to! Sue me!

A step-by-step guide through my process

On May 1st, 2023 I made the decision to write one 100 word story every single day. As of today I have written one-hundred 100 word stories! These aren’t my first. Prior to doing this I already had a back log of 75+ 100 word stories from previous years. I honestly wasn’t sure how long I could keep this up but now that I have been able to do this for 100 days in a row, I wanted to look back on them and talk a little bit about how I came to do this every day and end with what the next 100 days will look like.

WHERE TO BEGIN?

Something I find that always helps me is to have a theme or something that can get my brain thinking about a story. The entire month of May I was winging it for every story and that was really difficult. I knew right away I needed something to help me make coming up with a story easier to manage.

No sooner was I scrambling for assistance when it was nearing June that I received the deck of tarot cards I had been waiting on for two years! They were really so helpful and I will be leaning on them in the future.

So, if you’re anything like me, sometimes it can be difficult to just come up with something on the spot. Especially when you add in the pressure of making that story just 100 words in length. The last thing you want to do is spend forever trying to come up with something off the top of your head.

My advice is to find something you like or enjoy that has a variety of them to cover multiple days or an unlimited number of days. Some examples could be plants from nature, colors, one room locations, television shows, the 50 states, etc. You can take any of those or more examples to fill in an entire calendar and then use those to write a story.

DON’T TAKE FOREVER

Seriously! It’s just 100 words. And while you might think it’s really tough to get it all in there. It isn’t. The beauty of 100 words is that it’s not meant to be “finished” in the same way we think of finished today. The point is to leave the reader wanting more or at least being so inspired by your story that they want to continue it themselves in their mind. It takes less than one minute to read so it shouldn’t take you one hour to write.

On average, I spend less than 30 minutes writing my 100 word stories. That’s if I have no place to start. When I have a theme, that time is cut in half! Knowing my next move always helps get my creative juices flowing.

BE FLEXIBLE & PIVOT

If the theme you started out with isn’t working how you thought it would, there’s no shame in changing it up. The point is to write a story and whatever you need to do to get that story written is what matters. For example, for July I wanted to use songs as my theme. It took me about a week into doing it to realize that my idea was much too broad and I was left with way too many songs I wanted to use but no real direction at all. The idea was sound but my execution just wasn’t up to my personal standards. I didn’t want to abandon the idea completely! So I adjusted and came up with a plan B that worked out better than I had expected.

Instead of just saying my theme would be songs, I went a bit deeper and made it songs from musical movies. But that wasn’t enough. I wanted to tie them all together some how so I decided to make every story take place in the same nightclub where the narrator was the same throughout and there would be recurring characters. This is not the usual way to go about writing 100 word stories but the very nature of them is that they don’t follow any sort of normal rules. They are intended to be different and unique and whatever you need them to be to tell a story.

START WITH 50…

I know what you must be thinking, 50 words is way harder than 100 so what on Earth am I talking about? Okay, so the way I am able to write a story in 100 words is by writing the first 50 words with ease. When you think about telling a story, even a long one, the first 50 words are actually the easiest. You’re getting your feet wet. Laying the ground work. Driving the plane down the runway. You haven’t taken off yet.

When I’m writing my 100 word stories I start writing and when I see myself nearing 50 words I’ll stop myself. Sometimes I’m a few words over or under. The point is to get to as close to 50 as I can.

Why do I stop? Well, it’s at this point that I actually start to edit my story. Sure, I could write 100+ words and edit down from there. But I find when I do that I will have way more than 100 words and find it much harder to shave off entire sentences to get down to 100. It’s much easier to chip away words than a full on sentence!

Also, stopping at 50 helps me to “wrap it up” in the next 50. When I say I don’t like to go too far over 100 words in my first rough draft, I mean it. I’ve gotten so good at this that I typically will be “finished” with a story under 103 words. So, in the end, my editing is just to remove those 3 words.

EDIT WITH PRECISION

When writing such short stories it helps to be able to see an entire sentence and know which word or words can be cut without losing the meaning you’re trying to convey. This is a skill that can only be learned from practice and doing it over and over again. Don’t beat yourself up about it if you can’t do it right away.

I’ve written close to 200 of these and I feel like I still have much to learn with how to best edit such a short-short story.

The best way I know to do my editing is to read and reread and re-reread the story. Each passthrough I’m removing a word(s) and reading it again to make sure it still hits like I want.

HOW DO YOU KNOW WHEN IT’S DONE?

This is a tough one to answer but this is my “rule of thumb” approach when it comes to not spending more time that I feel is necessary on a story. I realize that one story can be told and retold a bunch of different ways and if I allow myself the time I could easily rewrite the story a dozen ways and get 100 words and a different story each time. But that isn’t the assignment. Although, now that I think about it, I wonder if that would make for an interesting experiment to try out in the future?

I know when it’s done when I reach 100 words. Simple as that.

All I will allow myself to do once I see my word count meter hit 100 is to reread the story ONE LAST TIME. If I see one word I want to swap for a better word then I will do it that one time. Otherwise, the moment I see I’m at 100 words, I read it, make sure there are no obvious typos in the words, copy, paste, done.

Trust me, you don’t want to spend more than 30 minutes writing a 100 word story. By that time you’ll drive yourself crazy!

THE NEXT 100 WORDS

I did so much and learned so much from writing these stories that I think for my next 100 and honestly, going into 2024, I want to involve all of you way more. I know my readers are comprised of writers (whether professionally or for enjoyment) and I want to do more to collaborate and connect with this little community of 100 word story readers and writers. Maybe I’ve found a way to do just that.

Also in July I actually did start collaborating weekly with fellow writers to jointly write a 100 word story. In those cases I write 50 words and then another person writes 50 words that will make an unexpected and new 100 word story. So far it’s been amazing and I don’t want that to stop. So, if you’re reading this and you’d like to collaborate with me to write a 100 word story, reply to this email or leave a comment and let’s connect!

August will continue my journey with the Literary Tarot deck as well as writing stories using Substack Publication Names as inspiration. This is how I’m trying to incentivize more people to complete their fiction Substacks to make them better.

September will be another month of tarot but October has me most excited. I’ll share much more details on September 1st and the last week of September will be a teaser to lead up to October but it will forever change the look of 100 word stories, that’s for sure.

Will you join me on my next 100 days? Let me know in the comments.