Just got finished recording a show with Science Fiction & Fantasy Marketing Podcast (Lindsay Buroker and Joe Lallo) about my nonfiction book, The Well-Presented Manuscript.
We talked about short stories, being a “light hybrid” author, trad vs indie quality levels, the role of editors, and the importance of not tripping up your readers unnecessarily. It was a good time.
Steven Saus speaks truth.
There are over a hundred professional and semiprofessional markets for fantasy and science fiction (smaller numbers for other genres). For the development of your craft and your reputation, and just for commercial reasons, it’s always worth submitting to the market first.
Originally shared by Steven Saus
Always try to sell short works before putting them in your own collection
I putz about on Reddit sometimes, and ran across this question in /r/Writing (relevant bit quoted below): [I’ve written some short stories now.] I was wondering whether I should submit somewhere online, or put like 5 shorts together and submit it as a book….
“At heart, I’m writing my stories: the stories I wanted to read as a child, the adventures in space where I don’t have to feel excluded; the fantasies where you can be small and dark-haired and Asian and still be a hero.”
I’m overrepresented in SFF, myself, but I don’t want to keep reading the same story over and over again, either. I want stories that help me understand what it’s like to be someone different from me.
Originally shared by Dave Higgins
Tolkien as European imperialism isn’t news; however, maybe it’s time it was history.
Well, that was fast. Signed the contract this morning, and Digital Fantasy Fiction already has “Something Rich and Strange” up on Amazon.
In an alternate version of the late Victorian era, a young woman finds her voice at the Change Storm, the bizarre, transformative phenomenon her professor father studies.
http://www.amazon.com/Something-Rich-Strange-Digital-Uncommon-ebook/dp/B019M18DSI/
Achievement Unlocked: Sell a story twice.
I just found out that I’ve sold “Something Rich and Strange” a second time, to Digital Fantasy Fiction. They were looking for works that had appeared before, but within very specific guidelines: they couldn’t be available in text form anywhere, for example.
Fortunately, I had this story, which I’d previously sold to The Overcast for their podcast. Also fortunately, I’d been too busy to self-publish it on Amazon.
“There is a common attack on art that thinks it is a defense. It is the argument that art has no impact on our lives, that art is not dangerous, and therefore all art is beyond reproach, and we have no grounds to object to any of it, and any objection is censorship.”
I’ve encountered that view (specifically about SF, from someone who I suspect was some sort of puppy – it was a random encounter on another person’s G+ comment thread, so I can’t be sure). I disagree with it profoundly. Who we represent in media, and how we represent them, matters, because it both reflects and shapes how we, as a society, think about our fellow humans. That’s what I mean when I say that fiction is political.
(via MrsA Wiggins)
Originally shared by Chloe CD
[…]I was trying to articulate that there is a canonical body of literature in which women’s stories are taken away from them, in which all we get are men’s stories. And that these are sometimes not only books that don’t describe the world from a woman’s point of view, but inculcate denigration and degradation of women as cool things to do.
http://lithub.com/men-explain-lolita-to-me
As someone who is currently interrogating pop culture for a podcast and a blog when she can manage to write, I am having all the feels about this essay.
Rewrite request from a new prozine. They want a stronger ending.
I think I have one that’s more in tune with the main character. More heroic, less sensible. It might be just crazy enough to work.
I was working on my Writing Short book yesterday, tinkering with the ideas chapter, and this is more or less what I said there (and what Neil Gaiman says when people ask him).
Ideas are easy. Execution is hard.
Originally shared by John Yeoman
This Simple 3-Step Plan Gives You Plot Ideas Galore
Would you like to be able to find stories everywhere? So you’re never short of plot ideas? Just take a moment and I’ll show you. A moment? Yes. That’s how long you’ll need to gain more story ideas than you can ever handle, free and without effort. How? Enjoy three proven strategies, ready to go, at my new blog post at Writers’ Village:
Do you have an interesting way to get plot ideas? Tell us in a comment at the blog. Every comment there gets a fast helpful reply. Look on this post as a ‘micro workshop’ in story telling. Don’t lurk in the back row. Raise your hand!
#amwriting #CreativeWriting #WritingTips #Writing
Representation is hard.
Originally shared by Mary Fan
10 bizarre ways reading/writing while underrepresented messes with your head
A funny thing happens when you’re from an underrepresented group. Several funny things, actually. Things that dig their way into your skull whether you like it or not. Of course, I can only speak for myself (as an Asian American… specifically, a Chinese A…
I have a supers story cooking on the backburner involving the (rogue) editing of human embryos with Crispr, something that this article addresses.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/15/magazine/the-crispr-quandary.html?smid=go-share