Apex Magazine is back from hiatus! One of my favorite short fiction magazines for years, Apex has consistently had fantastic stories, as shown by the many (many) awardsthey've won or been nominated for over the years.

I'm reading through their first new issue now. I'll post a full review later, but I can already tell they've retained the high bar for quality they've always had. The very first story, out of the gate, left me devastated, in a good way: just profoundly moving.

So when they announced they were doing a 15-minute online writing workshop with author Tim Waggoner, I leaped to sign up.

Sure, I had some skepticism. Most of the past workshops I've been to have been at least an hour, and even that felt short. How much could we cover in just fifteen minutes?

It turns out you can cover basically everything you need to cover, to dissect why a piece of short fiction isn't working.

I sent in the first six pages of a horror story I have that I like, that I've edited multiple times, but that also keeps getting rejected. I assumed it was a problem with the story, but I was having trouble seeing it.

Tim had no such problems. In just fifteen minutes over voice chat, he went right to the heart of the problem with my story: the motivation for my protagonist is too impersonal. Then he broke down some issues with my style -- too many short paragraphs, too much exposition up front -- that I realized are habits I need to break, because other readers have mentioned them before for other pieces (different readers saw different issues. Tim saw them all).

I wasn't all criticism, though. He also gave me techniques to use to prevent making these same mistakes again. Such as keeping a separate document open for exposition, writing it there and only there during the first draft, and then coming back and pulling from that doc while editing, inserting only what the reader has to know, and then only when they need to know it. Or combining the first few pages into a single paragraph, then breaking it up during a read-through, to end up with more natural-feeling paragraphs.

He was spot on, in everything he said. I already started re-drafting the story based on his feedback. Not only that, but I'm also editing a second story with his feedback in mind; when re-reading it after the workshop, several of those same problems leaped out at me.

Many thanks to Apex Magazine for organizing the workshop, and to Tim Waggoner for running it! I learned a lot in a short amount of time, and I'm very grateful.

It's here! The new issue of Galaxy's Edge is out, and along with stories by Joe Halderman and Robert J Sawyer, it has my very first short story sale: "Wishr"!

It's been a long road for this story. I wrote the first draft in September of 2016 (!). Since then it's been through five major revisions, and multiple edits on top of that.

Several of those were prompted by early rejections. I'd submit it, get a rejection, revise the story, get beta reader feedback, and send it back out. Over and over and over again.

A slow process, but a necessary one. I'm proud of the story that's resulted, and very proud to be a part of Galaxy's Edge magazine, which was edited by Mike Resnick until his passing early this year.

Many thanks and congratulations to both the editor, Lezli Robyn, and the publisher, Shahid Mahmud, for keeping the magazine going, and his legacy alive.

So check out the new issue, and let me know what you think of the story!

News

And to a professional, SFWA-qualifying market, no less!

More details as they shake out, but I’m over-the-moon pumped. The story’s one I’ve been working on for three years (!), revising, polishing, and submitting.

Many thanks to my friends that suffered through reading all those drafts, and offered me the feedback I needed to make the story shine!

Reviews

Persian Fire, by Tom Holland

And it illuminated aspects of ancient Persia and Greece that I didn’t appreciate before. Like how Sparta trumpeted equality for everyone except for those living in the cities they conquered (who were turned into slaves, one and all). Or how democratic Athens regularly held an ostracism, so they could kick out a citizen who was getting too powerful (or causing too much resentment among other citizens). Or that the King of Persia considered all his subjects his slaves, and yet left them to worship their own gods, and mostly govern themselves, so long as they paid tribute.

I wish it’d gone more into a subject it teases in the Preface: How would Greece have fared if Xerxes had conquered it? Given that the Persian Kings were considering letting the Ionians (subjects of the empire) govern themselves democratically, how much of Western history would have been different?

Holland does go into detail about the Persian empire (origins, revolutions, etc), which is a great corrective to the usual Greek-sided way of telling this story. But he leaves one of his most tantalizing questions unexplored, which is a tragedy.

Paper Girls, Vol 1, by Brian K Vaughn, Cliff Chiang, Matt Wilson, and Jared K Fletcher

And now I have yet another Image Comic (like Monstress, and Saga, and Wicked + Divine, and…) that I’ll pick up every chance I get.

Without spoiling anything, I’ll just say that it’s set in 1988, it follows four pre-teens on their paper route one early morning, and that things rapidly get…weird. Like, time-travel and possible aliens and dinosaurs weird.

It’s fantastically well-done. Its creative team is firing on all cylinders: the story is strong, the drawing clear and easy-to-follow, the colors manage to invoke both the 80s (to me, anyway) and the various locations (early morning outside, dark basement, etc) and the lettering conveys everything from a radio’s static to a drunken warble.

Which reminds me, I need to go pick up Vol 2 :)

Henry Herz was kind enough to take on hosting duties this month, giving us more insight into both the children’s book markets and indie (adult) publishing.

My notes from the meeting are below. Thanks again to Mysterious Galaxy for the space, and to Henry for hosting a lively and informative meeting!

Notes:

• san diego writers and editors guild: around 40 yrs, offers manuscript review service, meets fourth monday each month, next meeting will be from sd zoo publishing house, also has a marketing support group
• upcoming events:
• • charlotte huck children's book festival (all the way up to ya): march 9-10, university of redlands
• • henry teaching class about writing picture books, san diego writers ink, march 10 and 17
• • wondercon in anaheim end of march
• • april 13th: san diego writers festival, downtown library
• • san diego writing workshop: may 11th
• • nebula conference in LA later this year
• • san diego comic fest is next weekend

• tips for being more efficient in using your limited writing time?
• • david morel (writer of rambo) got up at 4:30 every morning and wrote for two hours before work
• • henry uses spreadsheet to track writing pieces and where he's submitted them to (or queried, etc)
• • using google calendar to set deadlines and reminders
• • managed flitter: lets you schedule social media posts ahead of time
• • 4thewords.com: gamified rpg that you play by writing (250 words in 15 min to fight a monster, for example)
• • another trick: when stopping for the day, stop mid-paragraph so it's easier to get back into it the next day

• scbwi (society of childrens book writers and illustrators) has ad-hoc critique groups that form at their monthly meetings

• indie author found personal appearances took a lot of time but yielded fewer sales than putting same time in to online marketing (10s of books vs 1,000s of books)
• indie author uses service to do all the formatting for him, makes it easier but he spends $4,000-$5,000 per book to publish it
• how do you find an editor?
• • san diego professional editors network
• • reedsy: website with professional editors that have struck out on their own

• agents don't usually expect exclusivity when querying, check their guidelines, but usually can send out queries to as many agents as you want at a time
• if you don't hear anything after three months, ping them, if still don't hear back, assume it's dead
• another short story marketplace site: "entropy: where to submit"; will show contests, etc coming up for the month
• childrens books: advice is to avoid inanimate objects as characters, because they're harder for children to empathize with
• authors guild: join, if you get a contract but no agent you can hire lawyers through them to review it for you
• henry's editing process: edits on own, then sends out to four different critique groups for feedback, multiple iterations with each one, polish off the rough edges

Another solid Coffeehouse. Scott Sigler returned for hosting duties, and he ran a tight ship, taking us from topic to topic while still giving everyone a chance to speak up.

Last hour or so of the Coffeehouse was just rapid-fire “what are your current issues?” questions for Scott, which he handled with honesty and poise.

Got some really good advice out of this one. Here are my notes:

invizium.com: writer trying to break into book trailers

J Dianne Dotson: BOOK OUT MAY 29th; worldwide distribution via ingram spark; book trailer is up; signing at Mysterious Galaxy in june

art vs business: are we artists or business people?

• think in terms of ratings: numbers that are too small for big pubs are great for smaller ones
• don't chase trends
• if you do what you like, consistently, you can find your audience

check twitter, #mswl, manuscript wish list, agents and editors tweet what they’re looking for

when is it ok to promote? don’t be afraid to ask, but be polite

polite persistence is the cornerstone of becoming a published author with a publishing house

how to follow up with editor or agent you meet in person? wait a week, email them, say how you met and what you talked about, short pitch, then wait a month and email again, repeat till you hear back

editing aids? dianne really likes the hemingway app, can just put your text in there and it’ll catch sentences that are too long, stuff like that, and it’s free; best to do scene by scene, look for trends you didn’t know were there

self pubbing is now the minor leagues; if you sell 5,000 or 10,000 copies, your next query letter is much much stronger

don’t wait; if you’ve written a book and no one wants to pick it up, self-publish it and move on to the next book

for your website, social media: pick your writing name, and grab that domain now, use it everywhere

also: grab every free email account with that handle, so no one else can

scott recommends the book “save the cat”, it’s about screenwriting, but has a few chapters about pitching that applies just as well to books

don’t shut down social media as political statement; just go fallow; online real estate is just as valuable as physical real estate

beta-readers: can be good for picking up basic reader questions (plot holes, likable characters, etc), but beware when they start commenting on your style

suggestion: test out beta readers with one chapter, before sending them the whole book

you all have your own writing style, you just have to get better at it

aln: local writer’s meetup group; totally free, they pick a subject out of a hat, 30 min writing, then critique

scott’s advice: if you’re in a slump, go write some fan fiction, get the brain turning and then come back

one writer recommends: rachel arron: 2k to 10k, she rereads that book whenever she gets into a slump, good advice on structure, etc

aon timeline syncs with scrivener now; can use it as timeline app and push to scrivener

scott color-codes the index cards for scenes in scrivener by pov character, lets him easily see who needs a scene

other writer: pantser, she writes an outline after the fact, uses it to guide her second draft

if you put up trailers on youtube, watch their viewing stats to see where people fall off watching to learn what to do better on the next one

try to keep trailer to 30 seconds, minute at the most

Essential. Maas describes the elements of a “breakout” novel, showing how to make any plot or story more compelling. He pulls examples from recent (well, recent to the year 2000, which is when the book was written) novels to illustrate each of his points, and even has exercises in each chapter you can do for your own novel.

I’m already mixing in his approach as I prepare for NaNoWriMo. It’s given me another set of questions to ask about my characters, plot, and setting, to help me push them to a higher level.

Three things I learned about writing:

• People have been talking about the death of the mid-list since the 1970s. Don't let it phase you.
• Escalating stakes doesn't mean making the one danger greater. It means adding more, different, dangers for the protagonist.
• Characters need to be larger-than-life. Find the extraordinary in ordinary people, and bring that to life.

Another great meeting! Peter Clines graciously agreed to serve as host, prior to his signing at Mysterious Galaxy (you can order his new book here)

We tried out a slightly different format this time, formally splitting the time between writing craft questions (first half) and publishing/sales questions (second half).

Many thanks to Mysterious Galaxy for the venue, and to Peter Clines for running the show!

My notes:

• Absence of sci-fi thrillers currently, editors starting to mention it
• Character delineation: how to do it? How much is enough? Too much?
• Clines: doesn’t like recommending writing books, because writing is so personal and unique from person to person
• Protagonists need to be: likeable, relateable, and believable
• 3 easy ways to express character: what they say, what they do, and how others react to them
• Indy: when intro side character, will give reader info that the main character doesn’t have, to increase tension
• Plot is what happens outside, story is what happens inside, the character. Every book needs both, the plot to move things along, the story to move us
• Save the Cat: at start of story, main character needs to do something small and simple that lets audience know they’re the person to root for
• Things need to go wrong. We all say the wrong thing sometimes, or have plans go awry, and how we react to that shows a lot of character
• Techniques: one person wrote poems about each of his characters before the book, another wrote backstory for the door her character couldn’t touch, another person puts together portable “murder” boards for her books
• Potato-chip chapters: point is to make each chapter either small enough or end on tasty beat enough to make reader want to go to the next one
• Q: have book that is on the edge of ya and adult, how to market it? Have two versions...
  • A: write it the way you want, submit it the way you want, let editor push for the other if they want it, let them worry about marketing it properly once it’s published
• Q: how to design a book cover?
  • A: hire a book designer, don’t try to do it yourself, if you’re going indy
• Q: do you really sell books on twitter?
  • A: yes, because people tweet that they just bought the book; though took four years of building audience before the book was published
• Social media: different posts for different sites, since the audiences are different between them
• Facebook ads: basically not worth it; check the veritas youtube channel for a good breakdown of how the ads actually perform
• Q: are they going to ask me about how many followers i have on facebook?
  • A: if you have a lot, that’s great, but they care more about how good the book is than anything else
• If you hear about a cool gimmick for your query letter, don’t do it; by the time you’ve heard about it, the gimmick’s played out
• Q: Querying for comics?
  • A: get an artist on board, have the first issue done, and the rest of the arc outlined
• Q: What about hiring an editor?
  • A: nice if you can afford it, may be a good learning experience at first, but not essential to selling a book (just get it in the best shape you can before sending it out)
• A lot of hired editors will start out with just fifty pages, critique that, see if you two want to work together, then continue on with story edits, then finally a copyediting pass

Non-anglophone authors you should know

• dr schaff-stump: japan and russia
• kastersmidt: born in texas, living in brazil
• dr lyau: specialty is french sci-fi
• takacs: hungarian, lots of hungarian sf has not been translated yet
• schwartzmann: reads russian, ukrainian and polish; has done translation work
• schwartzmann: russian writers: bulgakhov (magical realism, 1920s and 1930s)
• takacs: strugatsky brothers; stanislaw lem, especially the cyberiad; rana ras;
• lyau: france produced second-most varied scifi tradition; planet of the apes; their golden age was the thirty years following jules verne's heyday; maurice renard; french new wave post-1968; robita; de nizorres
• kastersmidt: hector hermann oesterheld (argentinian, was killed by junta for publishing comic)
• schaff-stump: has handout with japanese names; since japanese novels are often turned into manga and anime, can often find those in translation even if the book hasn't been
• schwartzmann: for chinese scifi, start with three-body problem, first volume had to adhere to communist standards, second was a little looser, third volume he completely jumps out of the box; tor is releasing "invisible planets" collection of chinese short stories translated by ken liu
• takacs: yerg dragoman (the white king; bone fire); adam bodor (the sinister district)
• fantastic planet: was based on french novel called "humans by the dozen"
• lyau: start with the pulp novels to brush up on your french
• kastersmidt: if you haven't read borges, do so; camilla fernandes (brazilian); also check out the apex book of world science fiction, runs to four volumes, collects stories from new authors from around the world
• schaff-stump: hex (from dutch author) was rewritten for us edition, not available in strict translation
• tiptree award is going out of its way to bring non-english scifi to anglophone attention (check past award winners)
• takasc: african sf: afro-sf anthology series; african speculative fiction society website will soon go live
• first emeriati science fiction publishing house is opening its doors
• omenana: african sf in english (online)
• german scifi: andres eschbach, the carpet makers (?)
• ukrainian literature: vita nostra, available in english, by sergey and marina ____, basically the magicians

Promoting Yourself as an Introvert

• tamara jones: writing since seven yrs old
• doesn't leave the house much
• lives in small town iowa
• has four novels, first won compton cook award
• had to suddenly start speaking to a lot of strangers and big crowds
• hard to relax
• introverts are like onions, have awesome core, but many many layers of protection on top of it that prevent people from getting to know your core
• on panels, need to let hair down, but you can hide behind the table for safety
• editor liked just first 66 pages of first book she bought, had to rewrite everything else, which completely changed her plans for the second book; so: don't write the next books in a series until you sell and finish the first one
• some people don't want to let you talk on a panel, but don't get aggressive, that doesn't come off well
• readings are the worst
• but: get your ass out of the chair, gives you better diction, more control; move around, even though there's no where to hide; it's performance art: talk about self, talk about book, read short pages (two pages), then talk about it, then two more pages, then talk about it (make it different works or passages for variety)
• find whatever it is that gives you feeling of safety (small sweater, lucky socks, etc) and wear that to the reading to help you feel safe and able to be yourself
• has had three stalkers already, so no one knows where she lives (deliberately)
• tries to avoid the parties; but when you're starting out you have to go because editors and agents will be there; grab a drink, wander around and listen, take a drink if you get nervous
• what do you do when drained? Find a capsule of solitude somewhere: a quiet corner, maybe even the restroom stall, close your eyes and be alone for 15 min
• editors love to talk about their work; her typical question is "what's the best thing about your job?"
• need one sentence description of each of your books
• also need one sentence description of yourself "i slaughter people on paper for money"
• thinks introverts should not moderate, have to insert self and take control, which introverts are not good at
• don't overprepare for panels; whatever you prep for will probably be thrown out the window as soon as the panel starts
• at end of the day, selling self, if you do that people will want to buy your books

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

Enjoying urban fantasy

• diana rowland: white trash zombie
• melissa f olson: tor.com novellas
• what do you like about uf?
  • city as character
  • looking at things just a little differently
  • what if your gross terrible neighbor was a real monster?
  • a way to crack open the puzzle of the weird world we're in and understand it better
  • it's a way to be sneaky: can talk about deep things in a fun way, with people that don't notice
  • perception: history has been edited down from multiple conflicting perspectives; urban fantasy lets you deal with these different perspectives for more immediate events
  • no real bad guy: bad guy is someone pursuing their goals in a fanatical sense, still think they're the good guys
  • people are always writing urban fantasy from their primary experience; in feudal days it was fears from lord of the manor, today it's shopping malls and steelworks (instead of fairy rings)
  • changeling stories are ufo kidnapping stories, just told in a different time
  • uf is the intersection of contemporary fiction and fantasy fiction
  • danger: to cover over real experience with a fantasy gloss; example: the magical homeless people of the 80s)
  • can use unreliable narrators to try to avoid the problems with covering over messy experience
• why first person?
  • immediacy
  • tight perspective
  • noir influence: almost all first person, huge influence on urban fantasy and its style
• adrian mcinty: leicht's favorite irish noir writer
• rowland: j d robb's books

Finance for writers

• put 40% away for federal govt, 10% for state, pay quarterly income taxes estimate, will usually get something back at the end of the year
• most first books don't make back their $5,000 advance
• don't quit your day job, even after signing tge first contract
• some contracts don't last past 2 or 3 books
• not a steady income
• be careful with your money; lots of authors aren't good with their money
• get good agent: writers tend to not read contracts, approach it very emotionally; good agent will catch things and get you the best deal possible
• okay to lose money on your craft at first, but have a budget and be aware of it
• spend money on your craft (take classes, do workshops) and your network (attending cons, etc)
• but: if you're at cons, write down what you want to accomplish before you go
• if you self-publish, spend money on quality: an editor and a cover designer; everything else you can half-ass, but not those
• keep all receipts for your craft in a shoebox, use them (plus your spreadsheet) to fill out your schedule c for your taxes
• if you don't make a profit every seven years, the irs considers it a hobby, not a business
• average income for writers is $5,000
• don't quit your day job until you have 2 years' worth of living expenses saved up
• rule one: write, finish, send it out
• one benefit of incorporating is the ability to defer income from one year to the next (should you score the $70,000 advance)
• 78% success rate for publishing projects on kickstarter if they get 25 backers; difference between people that are prepared and know what they're doing and those who don't
• bud: turns profit every 5 years; how? Doesn't report all his expenses that year
• lots of ways to use kickstarter: events, book tours, playgrounds inspired by literature, self-pubbing books, magazines; can get really creative
• margot: think of marketing as sharing these stories you're passionate about with others and inviting them in, not "selling yourself"

Idiot's Guide to Publishing

• all scifi community on genie network at the time
• doctorow hadn't written a novel yet, so got karl involved
• patrick: liked it because it was very practical
• rejectomancy: shouldn't read too much into rejections; form rejection could be from someone that loved it but didn't have time, personal could be from someone that doesn't like the story but likes you personally
• schroeder: never sold any short stories to the magazines, has only ever sold stories to anthologies
• at the time, discussion over ebooks concerned fact that they never go out of print, so publishers argue that they don't have to revert the rights to the author
• would not try to write today, because has no idea how to get into the field now

Nifty Narrative Tricks

• bear: what character is like matters less than how you handle the character
• kowal: people want the familiar in the strange; familiar makes you feel smart, the strange is compelling; when have character engaged in activity or emotion that readers find familiar, then when i engage them in something weird they already have a hook
• kelly: characterize people by what they own. before walking them on stage, go into their room, or their car: what's there? is it messy? neat? what's hanging on the walls? bonus: gives you things to use later in the plot
• walton: writers get some things for free, and some things they have to learn; easy to teach the things you learned, but almost impossible to teach the things you got for free; she got interesting characters for free, so...story is contract with reader, try to get what story is right up front so reader doesn't feel betrayed
• bear: beginning writers make mistake of writing passive characters
• bear: give the character something to love; instantly makes them more engaging
• gould: best way to intro tech is to show it when it breaks down; very engaging to intro character when frustrated
• kowal: frustration will show what character wants, what they love, and give you a measure of their competence
• kowal: figure out what character wants, and smartest way for them to get it, and then you block off that way (and keep blocking off ways)
• walton: __ starts with character really having to go to the bathroom while giving speech on history; is pure exposition but you don't care because you sympathize with having to use the restroom
• walton: farmer in the sky (heinlein) has similar trick, with tons of worldbuilding done in describing a father and son making dinner
• term: incluing
• kelly: how can you tell beginning from middle from end? beginning -> middle: character goes through one way door, and can't get back to the start; middle -> end: character goes through another one-way door, and story has to end one way or another
• kowal: stakes are something particular to the character; we're all going to die, so death is not great stakes; "you're going to lose your right foot" is more personal
• kowal: focus indicates thought; what you're looking at is what you're thinking about; rhythm and breath: same action at different speed gives you different emotion; how long you linger on something shows how important it is to the character
• walton: pacing very different between genres; same story told at different pacing can change the genre of the book
• kelly: look at the story; if you see a section of solid text or solid dialog, that's probably a pacing problem
• common mistakes?
  • bear: starting with bloodbath, before you care about the characters
  • kelly: end of story is not the climax, you need a moment for the character to come to grips with what the climax means for them
  • gould: leave some things for the reader to figure out from context
  • kowal: starting with way too much backstory; solve by getting deeper into point of view
  • walton: too fuzzy, character not in focus; can fix by switching to first person, forces you to focus on personal experience
• walton: often rushes endings, has to go back in and fix pacing after draft finished
• kowal: best trick: dumping exposition into a sex scene
• kelly: world-building will happen almost without trying; less you can do of it, the better

Evolution of Epic Fantasy

• tessa grafton: the united states of asgard
• sarah beth durst: queen of blood
• epic fantasy: need close in shots, and medium shots, and landscape shots, all mixed in
• leicht: research into irish time of troubles taught her everything involved in world-building: how economics is tied to politics is tied to religion is tied to class is tied to language
• kate elliott: crown of stars
• leicht: viking skeletons found in bogs: no one checked if they were male or female; many of them (warriors) are female
• elliott: archeologists finding statues mostly female, labeled one male statue as priest-king and all female as just "fertility", then were mystified as to why they kept finding female statues

Writing fight scenes

• perspective of character that has been in a fight versus one that never has is completely different. People who experience regular combat (bouncer) have different frame of mind and see things differently
• also person not in fight can see things that those in the fight can't
• can use training sequence to describe the moves in great detail, and then keep it brief when the actual fight happens
• daily exercises or training routine can serve a similar purpose
• fight's aftermath: talk to emts and paramedics about the kinds and causes of trauma they've seen
• think of fight musically, with rhythm of blows and building to resolution in a limited amount of time
• don't forget: characters that have been in a fight are going to carry injuries with them for rest of book
• remember that fight is happening because of conflict, two or more characters that want different things, and they'll be thinking about their goals during the fight

50 years of star trek

• people knock the new movies, but even old movies were often about finding someone to fight instead of exploring; classic series had fights, but central theme was exploration and making friends
• jar jar abrams
• star trek at its best when its about discovery and making friends
• what would you want in new series? snodgrass and gerrold: shut down holodeck (or find out it causes cancer)
• no media? snodgrass: they tried, wrote episode where they showed wesley's cabin, with pinups on wall, and they were not allowed to show it
• snodgrass: in original series, their time in rec room created sense that they liked each other and hung out together; she created the poker game in next generation because she felt that was missing
• snodgrass: please ditch the bodysuits from TNG, they limited who they could cast in each role because they were not forgiving; much prefer the uniforms from the first few movies
• star trek: new voyages: fanmade series that gerrold did an episode for
• star trek: continues: finn fancy necromancy author really loves it
• could we do non starship star trek? Gerrold: yes, if about star trek academy, or federation council, etc
• house of picards

As you know, bob

• hiding the infodump: article in april 2015 analog
• tamora pierce: works in genre where extra exposition gets cut mercilessly
• "teenagers pay my bills, i don't explode them" pierce
• exposition can get too detailed because in first draft writers are figuring out what's happening as they write it. It's fine, so long as they take it out later
• know as much about your background as possible, tell as little about it as you can get away with
• know your audience: some them can really get into detailed exposition, while others will skip it
• don't load it in as a block, slip it in as part of the action, because it's fatal
• tnh: expository chunks can happen because authors with clout can be late, and rather than push book release out, editors will edit book less than they normally would because they ran out of time
• tnh: don't tell people things before they want to know it; rowling is a great example of how to do it right: she intros sorting hat as just talking hat, only later introduces other properties when they're needed
• conflict can also be a driving force of exposition
• or: new guy comes in, has to have everything explained to them
• pierce: usually starts with character at cusp of new phase of life, transition drives exposition, will drip exposition into story as it goes, have characters act it out rather than infodump
• tnh: technical master of exposition of our time is joss whedon; watch first few minutes of serenity, within ten minutes you know everything you need to know about the universe
• pierce: early stephen king, elizabeth bear
• jodi shapiro: new books, well done exposition and context
• reader can infer a lot from context, can trust them more than you think
• when chapter has ended, preferably with a hook, it's clear that something new is coming, you can get away with slipping a little omniscient viewpoint exposition in there
• tnh: get a 14-yr-old beta reader. Their brains are fully developed but they don't have any tact
• tactic: when people are angry, they'll state obvious things ("look! Water *is* wet!")
• tnh: every time you explain something to the audience, you give them a chance to argue with you; great example is time machine: don't explain how it works, because they don't, tell me how it smells, how much cargo it can carry, how much time it needs to recharge between trips

How to write a mystery

• clues can be great, but if characters aren't three-d, will feel hollow
• misdirection: all clues have to be there, but distract reader at same time
• mystery great tool for other genres, can reveal aspects of world for spec fic using mystery tools
• why is it important that characters solve this?
• would this mystery have happened in any other world? What does this crime reveal about the greater society and the people that live in it?
• harris: beat, beat, beat; explication, explication, boom! Follow the rhythm of the book
• try/fail cycle: characters try something, fail, try something else, fail, etc
• harris: have to provide false suspects, but not so many that you wonder why the victim didn't get killed earlier
• harris: when you have something that you think is too mean to do to your characters, you should do it!
• small mystery and large mystery: can add texture to the book; small mystery small stakes, answer can be humorous; can also tie the two mysteries together, link the two mysteries
• thematic echo: guinea pig squealing in the night out of fear; person had murdered another because they thought (wrongly) that they were being threatened
• turn tropes on their head to try to get something new (no more detectives with tortured pasts)
• harris: people love to talk about what they do. Undertakers? Don't nobody ask them what they do.
• amateur detective: has to have compelling reason to get involved and not leave it to the police
• randall garreth; darcy series
• the last policeman
• nora roberts' detective novels set in the future
• do you read mysteries? Yes, all the time; new j d robb; anne bishops's written in blood series; expanse series by james a corey; mike connolly; steven hunter; stewart mcbride; ben aaronovich rivers of london series

Crafting and Editing the Short Story

• how involved are you in the process?
• datlow: will buy imperfect stories, but will dig in and ask for changes, work with author to make it better; harder with new writers that may not take editing well
• clarke: take everything from slush, always open to submissions, often working with new authors more; will work with author if they believe in the story
• uncanny: usually buy more fully-cooked stories; there are enough submissions that they just don't take the story if they don't think it's ready
• swartzmann: often buy ready stories, but will sometimes pluck out a rough diamond and polish it, which makes him very very happy
• williams: will work more with authors she hasn't seen before; still rare though
• what stops you from reading?
• datlow: bad writing
• swartzmann: pacing
• uncanny: has to care about the characters
• clarke: zombies...really anything that indicates they haven't read the market guidelines
• datlow: have to want to spend time with the character; don't make them boring
• what about problem endings?
• datlow: usually means 3/4 of the way through they took a wrong turn
• clarke: very frustrating for good story to have bad ending
• uncanny: the sigh of having given up on a story
• williams: wait to send stories out; your subconscious can come up with things to improve it if you give it a chance
• uncanny: problem she often sees is the tendency to describe everything instead of only the things relevant to plot and characters
• datlow: not supposed to do talking head stories, but can use descriptions of events around them to prevent it from being boring
• clarke: seek out slush reading opportunities; good way to see what's out there and what mistakes people make
• williams: buys 6 stories a month; receives around 1,000 submissions a month
• swartzmann: in humor, don't try too hard, and make sure reader can enjoy story even if they don't find it funny
• uncanny: take chances, don't reproduce what you see out there
• datlow: humor a harder sell for her because she usually doesn't find it funny
• uncanny: many stories are bittersweet, so will look for whimsy to lighten the mood

Mind of villains

• psychopaths are born not made
• reactive attachment disorder comes from environment, inconsistent caregiving before age of 2
• not good or bad caregiving, just inconsistent
• passed around from caregiver to caregiver, start to view people as providers of services, not worthwhile as individuals
• pdf from doj on problems with criminal justice in the united states
• most psychopaths choose to follow the rules of society for their own benefit
• if you have a psychopath as your villain, you need something to kick them out of their natural rule-following
• don't know what fear is or what love is
• but can have long-term relationships or get married, just don't feel love
• 10% of murders in US are committed by children (under 18)
• kids released at 21 have no higher incidence of crime as adults than anyone else
• children kill for different reasons than adults; when take them out of that environment, they stop (take them out of abuse, teach them anger control, etc)
• in court cases, often someone sitting in the back crying; usually the mother; "why are they picking on my child?"
• hitler attached to his dog, attached to his cousin; would he have had anyone killed if he'd gotten into art school?
• there's a way to raise a psychopath: reward good behavior immediately and punish bad behavior immediately; give them the praise that they crave
• BTK killer was church leader, good husband, good father
• tend to see people that do evil as "really" evil: he was a good father but really he was a serial killer. It's not but really, it's *and*.
• most people that do evil are people, with good and bad that they do
• bones is a great example (in early seasons) of a successful psychopath
• psychopaths are normal: 1 out of 100 people is one
• psychopaths can empathize with other people
• if you call psychopaths on their bs, they'll try to spin it with them as victims or play it off as an accident
• psychopathy and high intelligence are not correlated, but intelligence and being in prison is: prison population of us is more intelligent than general pop (though with lower education level)

Uneven. The publication stories from the first half of the book are very depressing, and made me think going indie would be the best way to get my novels published. Stories in the second half pick up a bit, but still have the air of persistence in the face of repeated abuse.

Three things I learned:

• One author's book was published 6 years after receiving an initial rejection, but only after the editor that rejected it died (!) and the person going through his office found the manuscript and liked it.
• Many authors at one point took a break from writing -- for 5, 8, 10 years -- and eventually came back to it, then stuck with it long enough to be published.
• Even after you sell your book to an editor, that book might not be published. The editor might get fired, or the publisher could close shop, or they could get bought out, and then your book is "orphaned" until you can get the rights back to it.

Surprising, strange, and very well done. Manages to weave alien contact, game development, and anarchist politics into a story so good and smoothly written that I finished all 300+ pages in just two days.

Can’t believe I didn’t hear about this one until just a few months ago.

Learned several things about writing from this book, including:

• Little touches can go a long way to building both humor and character. For example, the narrator of the book is Jewish, so whenever a character says 'God', it's written out as "G-d"
• Using blog posts as the main form of narrative lets you cut out a lot of scene-setting description, get to the meat of each scene faster.
• Be careful mixing blog posts, real life narrative, and other written forms in one novel. If they all adopt the same casual, conversational tone (as this book does), they start to bleed together, and you lose the advantage of keeping them separate.

Background:

terribleminds.com/ramble/20…

whatever.scalzi.com/2015/04/0…

grrm.livejournal.com/420090.ht…

I think if these tactics had been used to ensure that only women got nominated for the Hugos this year, or that only PoC did, the Sad Puppies wouldn’t see that as right or fair.

I also think that they had – still have, I guess – a chance to act on their feelings of rejection in a positive way, by starting their own convention. No one could fault them if they started a Con that promoted the authors they prefer, nor would anyone be this mad if they’d launched their own awards at that Con.

If you like my short story, Chase, consider grabbing an ebook copy. You’ll be buying it direct from me (via Payhip), so no DRM!

Absurdistan: a fat, paranoid slob has a series of misadventures. Wasn't that a book called A Confederacy of Dunces?

Stone of Tears: man enslaved by a society of magic-wielding b*tches. Isn't that the Wheel of Time series?

Any books you've read lately that give you a weird sense of deja vu?

I subscribed to the new Tor.com newsletter this year, drawn by the offer of free ebooks (without DRM!) delivered every week. I haven’t had a chance to read all the books they’ve sent, but it’s been nice getting books in my favorite format (Mobipocket) without having to worry about DRM getting in my way.

I really looked forward to the unveiling of the new Tor.com site, thinking that the free ebooks were a sign that Tor had finally caught up with the 21st century and was going to offer DRM-free ebooks for sale.

The site launched yesterday, and it’s a big disappointment. There’s no ebooks for sale, no celebration of the (science fiction!) publishing industry joining the modern world.

It’s got blogs. Blogs written by editors and publishers, people that usually already have blogs elsewhere. Oh, and you can leave comments, and join the “discussion”.

WTF? Where’s the value in that? I already get my science fiction book-scene news from blogs written by authors and publishers. Why would I go to Tor.com to read the same stuff from fewer perspectives?

I feel a little like I’ve just been through a bait-and-switch. That’s why I’m not linking to the site; there’s no reason to go there.

…or rather, your donations!

Strange Horizons is a weekly speculative fiction e-zine that’s completely free to readers but still pays their artists and writers. Each year they hold a donation drive to help cover their costs. The current drive ends June 30th, and they only need $3,000 more to reach their goal.

If you’re a Strange Horizons reader, head on over and donate. If you’ve never read Strange Horizons before, check out their stuff, and then go donate.

Give if you can! They’re a great magazine publishing good writing.

John Scalzi’s put up a couple of recent posts about the business of writing.  The man knows what he’s talking about: he made over $160K from his wordsmithing skills last year.

If you haven’t read his books, you should; they’re straight-up science fiction with good characters facing tough choices, and he has a very easy to read prose style.  Start with Old Man’s War and work your way forward from there.

In the meantime, head over to his blog and listen to his advice on making it (financially) as a writer.   They’re long posts, but they’re well worth your time.

A friend recently wrote to me about encountering her first instance of racism directed against her, because she isn’t Jewish.

I started to reply with: “I’m surprised you’d find such prejudice alive and well in a Blue State, in the 21st century,” but stopped myself. How could I write those words? They’re a trite response that only someone who has never experienced discrimination, never been made to feel different and excluded, could write.

The truth is that prejudice is alive and well in the U.S. Until I worked at the Goddard Space Flight Center, I never realized how pervasive stereotypes really are, and how double-edged they can be. If a black person is passed over for a promotion, was it because they weren’t the best, or because they’re black? If that same person had been promoted, the question would still have come up: were they promoted just because they’re black? That’s a weight I would go crazy trying to bear; it’s hard enough trying to succeed in any field without having to wonder if your success is real, or being suppressed, or not.

I always thought discrimination would be something I’d experience from the outside, until I started telling people I was an atheist. I’ve had several people try to convince me I was not an atheist, because I’m too nice to not believe in God! One woman I told didn’t even know what an atheist was.

Now, I’ve not been spit on, or cursed, or denied a job because of my non-religion. But I have felt completely out of place, especially when people assume I’m a devout Christian just because I’m a white male. I feel a little like an unwilling spy, moving among people that would probably not even look at me if they knew my religious beliefs. I can still catch a taxi, but every time I do I wonder about those that can’t, just because their difference is easier to see.

Despite my “liberal” education, my own prejudices run parallel and opposite to the bias I encounter. Fundamentalists make me distinctly uncomfortable, and it’s normally hard for me to have a serious conversation with them without getting angry. If I ran a business, I wouldn’t really want them as customers. If I were choosing babysitters, I’d cross the devout off my list. The fact that the President of the United States thinks God talks to him scares the ever-lovin' sh*t out of me. It’s something I struggle with: to acknowledge their right to believe as they wish while I fight against every consequence of their beliefs.

What are your prejudices? When you call technical support, do you feel better if a man answers your call? If you’re white and enter a mall where most of the customers are black, do you stay as long to shop? If you’re an atheist, would you vote for a fundamentalist Christian?

The new Signs & Portents roleplaying magazine is up, and the first of my Conan articles is in it! I’m a published writer!