Flash Fiction: Short but not easy
- betsy dornbusch: writes mostly epic fantasy, used to buy flash
- anna yeatts: flash fiction online owner/publisher, also writes flash
- caroline m yoachim: just launched collection with fairwood press
- flash: definition varies greatly; over 1,500 wordsis definitely not flash; something you could read in five minutes
- yeatts: want a full complete story in a coffee break; still want a complete story arc, pared down to the essence
- vonallmen: looking for the pop of “oh, wow” in just a five minute read
- wowell: couldn’t write GoT in flash
- yoachim: now i want to write that
- wowell: customer service call for death ray works really well in flash format; sci-fi comments thread works really well as flash
- dornbusch: don’t do vignettes about the sun, they don’t get bought
- yoachim: great focusing on small piece; focused emotion, etc; great for putting hints of the larger world in the story, rest up to reader’s imagination
- favorite stories?
- yeatts: grobnak ama
- running of the robots
- first story from daily science fiction: story with three substories, and the meta-story, all in 1,000 words
- strain of sentient corn writing to monsanto
- if you were a dinosaur, my love
- six names for the end
- what skills are important?
- dornbusch: editing; revision; the shorter the length, the more powerful
- dornbusch: likes humor in flash, but not the punchline
- wowell: need to recognize how many plots and subplots you can fit into each story length
- vonallmen: ability to focus on tone
- send mothership zeta your cat stories (joke)
- yoachim: so much needs to happen in the first paragraph: need to tell reader what they’re in for, little about their world, the action, tone, everything
- dornbusch: try telling story where reader knows the secret, usually it’s better than hiding the secret from the reader
- wowell: if you like twists, do it at the beginning, not the end; starting with the twist will get me reading
- yoachim: remember can play with your title, do a lot of setup there
- current markets?
- flash fiction online; daily science fiction
- unsung stories (uk)
- fantasy and science fiction takes some flash
- mothership zeta
- vestal review
- lots of calls for flash, but don’t give it for free
- yoachim: targets markets that specialize in flash fiction
- uncanny magazine does flash
- fireside fiction does flash and shorts
- nature runs flash fiction
- flash one of the few markets where second person won’t overstay its welcome
The Art of Worldbuilding
- amanda downum: necromancer chronicles
- luc peterson: runs civic innovation office
- peter tieryas: fiction where japanese won world war ii?
- downum: need fresh ideas, sense of wonder, in showing this new world
- bear: burroughs first to do world-building in science fiction
- downum: likes to start with character and scene, let world unfold from there; likes characters to pick up and interact with objects in the world, rather than just moving on a sound stage
- patel: starts with what a society values most, and what they fear most; what do they invest in, what do they build walls and defenses against
- bear: receives a vision; might take years to stitch visions together into a story
- what do you need to know? How many doctorates?
- bear: english major, don’t know anything
- downum: ditto
- patel: need to know what touches your characters; need to have lots of prior work done to know what this is before writing
- downum: has someone ask her questions, to reveal those things she hasn’t thought of, those pieces she hasn’t built out herself; really good if someone that doesn’t read genre, they come at it from a completely different angle
- tieryas: even things (research) that don’t show up in the book can be valuable
- bear: history of asia a target-rich environment for mining world-building ideas
- how do you put limits on the research?
- downum: hard, but do a little at first to get started; when come across detail to fix later, mark in brackets and keep going; do more research afterward to fill in details, etc
- patel: timebox your research time so you push yourself back into writing; can be iterative, don’t have to answer all questions at beginning, questions that come up during writing can give you chance to do focused dive into research again
- patel: shorter work is, less research you’ll have to do, but you may have to do very detailed research into a single focused topic
- downum: likes first person for short form, but at novel length it’s like being stuck in an elevator for a very long time, so prefers third person multiple perspective
- patel: look for opportunities for drama and conflict in all worldbuilding; how would your characters tell their history? How would their enemies tell it?
How to Handle Rejection
- gail carringer
- wallace: stopped counting at 1,000
- worst rejections: ones that are really really close to acceptance
- wallace: never count on money until the check clears
- carringer: rejection is evidence that you’re trying, that you’re sending stuff out
- best rejection?
- carringer: rejection was so nice, went back with later work, has been her agent for ten years
- carringer: don’t fall in love too much with a particular book, be willing go move on and write more and try something else
- reader reviews are not for you, they’re for other readers
- carringer: would tell younger self to try different genres and styles earlier
- carringer: never ever ever respond to a rejection
- wallace: btw, anything you post online, anywhere, is a response, and is a bad idea
- carringer: some agents/editors will be full up with authors in your genre, and so will reject you because they don’t want to take on any more
- remember that they’re rejecting the product, not you
