What Can You Learn From Writing 100 Stories in a 100 Days?
An interview with Bradan, owner of the fantasy fiction publication Kraken Lore, and a recent 100 Story Challenge winner.
It's far cheaper to learn from someone else's mistakes.
In these Experience Applied interviews, I'd like to foster a co-learning space among our growing community of writers.
Developing my own skills as an interviewer, asking the right questions is such a useful skill for user and reader experience design.
Highlight lessons learnt from everyday writers. Massively successful writers are interesting but far removed from our world. I look for actionable insights.
Show the value of prototyping your ideas. We looked at prototyping and why it matters and these interviews will show you the impact of doing it.
Ask any questions for the interviewee in the comments, I'd like this to be a co-learning space and a community.
And if you want to be interviewed, because you have something to share, just reach out to me on Twitter or in the comments. Or finish 100 stories.
Lastly, I use these interviews to add details to my persona for this newsletter, but more on this next week when we dive into Reader Personas in detail.
Bradan, is a storyteller, Trucker, and Dad. I write short stories of many genres with a sweet spot for fantasy and D&D, or so his Medium profile tells us.
He is also the owner of the rising Fantasy publication, Kraken Lore. Take a look at their new branding, there as some really great tentacled details there.
If you write Fantasy fiction check them out, especially since Fantasy Shorts is no more. They’re a growing genre-specific publication.
Bradan's also a member of the Medium Illuminati (with FJCMontenegro and Jann Christoph von der Pütten among others) behind the Medium publication collection Hidden Worlds.
I'm very interested in what these guys get up to, especially with Web Novels Reviews as that's something I'm going to be spending a lot of my own time on.
Bradan, tell us a little more about your writing journey and why you write?
For me fiction was always an escape from the world to ‘live’ in a more amazing one, even for a short while. When I was in high school I aspired to be an author and publish my book. For me that was the ultimate goal.
I never did finish that book but the desire to share my stories never stopped. A lot of them have been lost over the years but today you can find my work on Medium.
What inspired you to take it on the The 100 Story Challenge and actually become one of the Top Writers?
I was hesitant to take on the challenge. I was new to Medium and just getting back into writing again. The 100 Story Challenge seemed like a fun way to get back into the swing of things and gain some recognition on the platform.
When you started you were new(ish) on Medium, did the challenge help you connect with other writers?
The challenge absolutely helped me connect with so many other writers. I’ve made connections that have turned into friends and opportunities.
Ever since I started the challenge my Medium audience has done nothing but steadily grow over the past several months.
I always think finding time to write is a challenge, how did you juggle the challenge and everything else?
I wasn’t able to write every day. With as busy as life gets sometimes I just had to sit and write when I found the opportunity. When the chance arises I would write several days worth of stories in one sitting and created a backlog of stories.
I never wrote for the next day. I wrote for the next week.
Zane: Batching is such a good idea for the challenge and writing in general!
I've applied it myself with Microcosm prompts and in the past with my own serials. It also comes up again and again in Twitter content strategy. The number one tip is often write consistently, and the background method to that is batching and scheduling content.
It makes such a difference to reducing pressure and avoiding the burnout from feeding hungry platform algorithms on a daily basis.
Did it change the way your process felt?
For most of the stories, the process didn't change. Just the idea of when "tomorrow's" story would actually publish. Certain stories ended up being short multi-part series which did require some further planning.
How did you get new ideas every day? Did you use Unsplash Instant or any other prompts or did the muse just tap you on the shoulder every day?
I found inspiration from prompts from a variety of websites and other Medium creators. I also found myself lucky enough to have my own personal muse whispering ideas into my ear quite often.
Zane: Who are these generous writers we can all take a little inspiration from?
Jann Christoph von der Pütten and JF Danskin are all Medium creators that have published amazing writing prompts. A recent favorite is Jann's dystopian prompts.
Part of the spirit of the 100 Story Challenge is to experiment and try new things. Did you experiment or try anything new with any of your stories?
I experimented with different ideas, perspectives, and genres throughout the challenge. I wanted to grow as a writer and to see what would work out well on Medium.
Zane: How did that go? How do you feel this challenge improved your writing?
I feel like I have a broader range of experience to pull from to influence future writing projects and I can tackle them with much more confidence than when I started.
I wish I could say I had a system for choosing what I worked on next but honestly I followed the inspiration. I drive semi truck so I get plenty of time throughout the day to think and brainstorm ideas.
I began messing with dystopian fiction quite a bit and have really been enjoying it!
Did you learn more about your readers and what they like?
Through trial and error I found certain stories to become more popular than others. Some of those stories grew to become an ongoing series that I continue to create to this day!
Because of this I would like to think I know what the readers want but sometimes it’s just a surprise to everyone.
Zane: In two weeks I'll show how we can capture reader comments into our personas to help us narrow down on what exactly our audience likes.
If we read only one of your hundred, which story should it be and why?
If only one story of my hundred was read it would have to be My Cat is Satan Himself.
It was a fun story about how a cat’s zany behavior could be misinterpreted as the actions of the devil. I still can’t help but chuckle thinking back to the story and I was the one that wrote it!
Zane: Sounds great, I’ve got my own (now elderly) cat who I’ve felt was my nemesis the last 16 years. Although the last two since he’s gotten sick he’s picked me as his favourite. So, I’ll definitely give that one a read. 😁
Are there any community stories you’d like to shout out? I’m sure the writer would love to know what struck a chord for you.
Forgotten by the wonderfully talented dystopian fiction writer FJCMontenegro. The amount of emotion and feeling he puts into his stories is amazing.
On top of that he links so many of them together in this beautiful network of stories that it just blows me away every time.
Zane: I’d have to agree wholeheartedly. I really want to read more of his stories.
I actually chatted to him today (Aug 22) on Twitter about his network of stories, it's a very interesting concept and a different way of approaching fiction.
I think I may have to try get him to talk about it here so we can learn more about it.
What's your biggest takeaway from the whole experience and something you’d like to share with new challengers or other aspiring writers?
Pace yourself. It’s not a race to get the most followers or the most stories published. You’re in this for the long haul and don’t need to get burnt out. Take your time, make some friends and just enjoy the writing.
Zane: Such good advice. It’s so easy with this challenge to get carried away and to write longer and longer stories and then burn out before finishing.
And Bradan's Next Project?
FJC and I have a vampire dark fantasy/dystopian fiction coming this Sunday.
It'll follow two story lines of the same character.
One set in his youth and the other set in his far future.
A collab effort between Kraken and the Dystopian Project since each storyline will be posted to its respective pub.
Zane: Now that sounds interesting and different. Follow Bradan on Twitter, I'm sure he'll tease it more and keep you posted when it goes live.
Thank you to Bradan for taking the time to answer my questions, and you dear reader for following along.
If you have any questions for Bradan, please use the comments.
Also if you'd like me to ask different questions in future I'm open to feedback.
Until next week, happy writing!
What about an interview with Paul regarding the 100 challenge?