Folks, just as characters go a journey, so do you as a writer. I could argue this statement for just about any craft. Heck, I could argue this for life. But for our purposes, if you are passionate about storytelling, then you have probably experienced something like the “Wordsmith’s Journey” below. Unless you decide to quit. Don’t quit! If you didn’t have to go through it, then I suppose you can have a proverbial gold star. And yes, I’m jealous. But also, I’m happy for you. The internet has made it possible for many people to share their insights and methods with you. So, go forth and sift through all of the rules and then go break them all. Have fun with it. Don’t give up. Or give up. Then come back. Or not. Whatever. Ahhh whiplash! Just remember, no journey is alike, yet so alike… none of us are ever truly alone in the pain of transforming our writing chops when we are pursuing the craft of fiction. So, in light of Dan Harmon’s Plot Circle ...because why not? It’s been on my mind. So thus, I present a story where you are the hero, fair writer. May you emerge from the fires tempered and renewed. The Wordsmith's Journeyby: G.E. ZhaoYou are a budding fiction writer. Ideas and worlds are floating in the periphery of your imagination waiting to burst out. They are but ghosts in your mind, happily haunting you to the point of insanity until you finally sit down and jot them out. You realize there’s something there in those worlds, you just know it.
But, alas! That isn’t enough. Imaginations and worlds are meant to be shared. You want to share them. They are you and just as much as you are them. But, alas again! They stink like someone has let your dirty socks stew with fish in a vat of bile. And you are called to cleanse the stench from ink and paper. So, off you go on the adventure of craft. You search high and low for the hammer to shape your words. And, oh shit! You realize you need a forge too. Then you manage to find a community to hold your hand through the burns you get when you light up the fires that stoke your imagination. At times, you duel viciously with those around you. How dare they? Those words are you. At times, you wish to throw away your hammer. You feel rejected and are blinded by being too close to the fire while you resist the tempering process. But temper you must. These trials hurt to be sure, but eventually, your skin thickens and adapts to the heat. Your need to share outweighs the pain. You have found a rhythm that is still you, yet this time it is sharper. You have figured out how to fold metals into your words and worlds by paying the humble price of pride and an open heart. With this knowledge, your word forge is now new and shiny. Yet, you know it can still be more. So, indeed you forge on, brave Wordsmith. You give back to the community who held your hand because, without them, you wouldn’t have experienced the transformation.
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by: Jan M. Strasser It is a journey when you start writing a science fiction story. You want to make it engaging, but it can be difficult to stay up with science enough to make the story cutting edge yet plausibly project into the future. First, you need to know enough about your subject to discuss intelligently and convincingly, and know when you have enough. Second, you need to understand that nothing is absolute or all known. Third, you need to balance the knowledge with the story. Currently I am working on a tale of a city-state floating on the ocean, called a Seastead. I go slightly forward in time to tell a story of a fully functioning one. I searched on the internet for information on current and projected seasteads. This led to legal obstacles of living in the open ocean; how other countries react to the precursors of seasteads like cruise ships and oil platforms. That led to the rules of the World Trade Association, the prejudice against independent sovereignty and finally rules for lithium transport, a product coveted in today’s world. Each of these searches was taken to answer questions as I developed my plot. Recently, I was offered a chance to join on online seminar on writing about seasteads and was sent a book on the subject. I was very jazzed about really digging in now that I had data from the people actually involved in starting one. The first thing I noticed in the book was the over the top idea that this is a utopia just waiting to happen. If the world would just see the wisdom, all the world’s problems could be solved. People’s opinions are one thing, but when dealing with science nothing is all known or perfect. Everyone knows this, but we continue to see proclamations of finished inquiries or perfection. Science is a bitch and most people have little patience for it, as the steps can be infuriatingly slow. Think of the archaeologist slowly brushing away the ages of dirt and dust off an artifact or bone. You have to go so slow and be so careful to preserve what you are uncovering that you could just scream, or delight in the process. The formal ideas of the scientific method and the null hypothesis are what has allowed us to advance so rapidly in recent history. One of the main ideas - meticulous recording how you set up the experiment and record your results so that someone else can do their own and get the same results - is annoyingly called Reproducibility. Once you do that enough you can START to state what is happening. The null hypothesis pushes you to test the opposite of what you think is happening as diligently as you would if you were testing what you do believe is happening, and see if you can prove that opposing idea. In other words, try to get your own bias out of the process. Did you know that professors used to sit on a dais with a butcher dissecting a corpse on a stage below the lecturer? The professor reading out of a tome, the bible of anatomy, and telling the butcher what to get and where to get it. If the body didn’t have it like the book that meant the body was defective, a mutant, not the book. The experts “knew” what was true and would sit in their chairs spouting it. Needless to say there was much error because nobody actually looked beyond the first foray that was recorded in the book. This we call the arm chair philosophers. Leonardo da Vinci had the gall to dig up bodies and meticulously draw them. The science of anatomy progressed in leaps and bounds when he did that, but it took awhile for anyone to actually look at what he found, after all who does such a thing? Social pressure, the “everyone knows” idea stifles inquiry and discovery. The next problem in research is when do you stop, how much do you put in? You should know your subject. What are seasteads, how do they work? How many have been built or how many are around in your story? However, you don’t need to include a thesis, you use the info to tell the story. The story progresses with this info in the background. You have to put in some details to be clear, but you need to make it natural and flow out of your setting and the actions of your characters. What obstacles you have to overcome to build the seastead? How you deal with countries around you especially ones that may be suspicious of what you are doing or ones that may want to have what you have created? Through these journeys you show the reader what a seastead is, why it is fun or at least interesting and how the characters ride through the story on them.
The idea that the science of anything is “settled” is ridiculous especially in theories; that is why it is a theory. Laws describe what is, not why. The law of gravity has been shown to hold when objects are not moving fast, but breaks down when they move with speeds comparable to the speed of light. You have to be ready for that as more data comes in. To me that’s the joy of science, but nevertheless, humans don’t know everything and have paid dear prices when we arrogantly think we do. So, how do you incorporate this into writing? As I stated before; if someone says everything is solved or will be solved, everything will be great if you do or believe something, watch out! The systems involved on the earth are very complex involving more parts than we are capable of knowing. As our computers progress, more and more of these parts can be included in the picture of how the earth runs and we will solve more and more problems, but we are not omniscient and must always be humble enough to understand that. When do you know you have enough? You won’t until you get the story out on the page, then reread it especially out loud and see how the balance is between facts and story. Put on your reader hat and be critical. Are you getting bored with too much info or are you confused because you don’t understand what is happening or how it happened? To sum up, do research to understand what the science is in the story. Put in enough to justify but not too much to bore. The story must be a mystery in how the conflict will be resolved. Put in enough to justify how it comes out with the understanding other outcomes could have happened. Second, don’t write that you have all the answers, that it “must” be this way. Your character can say it but the narrator must get across that she knows that is not true. Third, be hyper aware of the background and story arc. Science fiction is one genre where you can indulge more in the technical but still tell a compelling story. You must be the judge, at least until you send it out for critique, of how much is acceptable or desired. by: Karen Funk BlocherThe other day, the Fantasy Writers Support Group on Facebook had a post (which I can’t find again) that complained about Microsoft’s spelling, punctuation and grammar checkers, while ignoring a more egregious problem later in the sentence. I don’t remember the alleged problem in the dialogue itself, which as I recall was actually fine. But the sentence ended something like this:
“This is merely example dialogue,” Fred frowned. The following have the same problem. Do you know what it is? “I do this all the time,” Cathy smiled. “People are weird,” he chortled. “Aren’t you done with these examples yet?” she glared and crossed her arms. The words at the end of each of these sentences are speech tags, but very bad ones. The purpose of a speech tag is to identify which character is speaking, if it’s not already clear from context. If characters are very distinctive in their way of speaking and the sorts of things they’re likely to say, speech tags can and should be kept to a minimum. Sometimes they’re needed, though. The simplest form, [he/she/character name] said, is generally considered the best, because the reader picks up the vital info and moves on, not really even noticing the speech tag. Other verbs can be used, though, as needed. Maybe she yelled, screamed, moaned, whimpered, or just asked, argued, objected or pointed out. But compare these verbs with the ones in the examples above. You can use words to ask or argue or object. You can also yell words, murmur or whisper them. You can even moan or whimper them. But you’d be hard pressed to laugh out words, and you certainly can’t frown them. Maybe she said it with a smile. Maybe he said it happily. But if you resort to those -ly adverbs, you’re venturing into an area that’s frowned upon in modern writing. It reminds people of what are called Tom Swifties, named for a character from a Stratemeyer Syndicate series of kids books from the early to mid-20th Century: “I love hot dogs!” Tom said frankly. “Glazed donuts are the best!” Gloria said sweetly. Children’s books from that era (especially Stratemeyer’s Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Bobbsey Twins and yes, Tom Swift) are full of these, usually without the wordplay. They also report that characters expostulated, chortled, laughed, exclaimed and so on. Some of these speech tags were technically correct (you can certainly exclaim words), some not. All are very much out of favor now. Still, you often do want to get more information into your dialogue. But how? My advice is to add some “business” for the character to do, but keep it out of the speech tag itself: “It wouldn’t be the first time,” Del said. He set down his fork. “Enough of this. Let’s get going.” You can even use business to get in those non-verbal actions, and dispense with the speech tag entirely: Cindy’s voice quavered. “Don’t you understand? I can’t do that. I just can’t!” Bill laughed. “Get used to it.” (Notice that this example suggests Bill’s callous attitude, especially if he’s responding to Cindy above. We don’t have to say outright that he’s being cruel or unsympathetic to Cindy.) Good dialog, or a good bit of business, can often convey the emotion, with no need to report the laughter or tears, sadness, surprise or other reaction directly. The cliche is “Her eyes widened,” which I personally hate but resort to occasionally. My advice is to try to “see” what is going on at that moment in your scene. Is someone playing with his food? Absent-mindedly stroking the cat? Pounding the table? Downing the mead in one gulp? Then report on that. But for Nancy Drew’s sake, don’t let your characters frown their words. More on this: https://selfpublishingadvice.org/speech-tags-writing/ https://ali-stegert.com/2014/10/25/no-said-is-not-dead/ by: Luis Silva and G.E. ZhaoThe good writers touch life often. The mediocre ones run a quick hand over her. The bad ones rape her and leave her for the flies.” ― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 As writers, we can all agree that words matter. We spend hours, days, and even years on word-smithing our novels or short pieces. Our words often reflect not only the stories within us but often who we are--even when we can’t see it for ourselves. So when someone holds up a mirror to challenge that identity, it can be scary and painful. Great storytelling has the ability to leave the reader changed or newly opened to ideas, maybe even excited or filled with questions. Writing is often a solitary act, but the end result is community oriented and always has an audience, our readers.** As the title implies, we need to consider our readers by writing the others in our stories, respectfully. So, how do we do that? Well, respect begins by listening to other voices without judgment. **Shout out to all of the solitary journal writers, we still love you. Keep doing your thing! ResearchThere is no avoiding it, do your research. Talk to the people who you wish to represent a role in your story. Constantly ask yourself if you are doing so faithfully. If your main character is from a group that you personally do not represent, ask yourself what is your motivation for doing so? While we are not suggesting that your story doesn’t have legs to stand on, just be aware of the #ownvoices, a call for diversity among writers and publishers. But perhaps the most important question to ask yourself is: should you be writing an MC that is from a group that you do not represent? And lastly, whatever you stand to gain from it, would it be considered appropriation? (For those who need a definition, appropriation is defined as taking aspects from a culture and using them without respect or knowledge as to its intricacies.) Unconscious Bias Ask a variety of people to be your beta readers, especially if they represent the characters in your story. A diversity of readers will help you discover if you have unwittingly written in an unconscious bias and/or harmful stereotypes. Also, when working with beta readers, a quick tip to avoid any hiccups with offensive story concepts is to ask yourself, “Would I be comfortable showing this character / story / idea to a person of the group that it represents?” If you have any hesitation whatsoever, odds are that it is offensive. Nowadays there are publishers employing sensitivity readers to help with this, but because of power dynamics, it isn’t without controversy either. The truth is that if you are a breathing human being, you have unconscious bias. The trick is finding ways to uncover them so that you may address them appropriately. But since they are unconscious, the uncovering process often involves someone else holding up a mirror (or data in some cases) for you to see what you couldn’t before. Awareness of Gender Neutral and Nonbinary PronounsSocial constructs have been revolutionizing and evolving language since the beginning of language. Words matter, so the fluidity and the ability to add to, in particular, English is a blessing. But in the case of they as a singular pronoun, there is nothing new about it. Not only does the use of they as a singular pronoun give writers the tool to conceal gender, but it also gives voice to non-binary people (#ownvoices). Unsure of how to use nonbinary pronouns correctly? Have no fear! Check out The University of Minnesota’s Center of Writing for help. RepresentationJust remember that representation can and is highly individualized for a person in any group of people for the simple reason that every human being is unique. This why stereotypes can be so painful. So, during research just make sure to account for this variable and how you represent characters. What to do with a whoops Okay, you’ve done your due diligence. You’ve tried your best, but you still pissed someone off. What to do? First of all, apologize without arguing. But even more importantly, if something you wrote hurts someone, don’t do it again. Take the time to dig deep inside yourself and unpack what happened, and then do better.
Happy writings! P.S. Please don’t hesitate to let us know in a comment if there's a resource that should be on our list below! Thanks for reading. ___________________________________________ Our Research and Other Resources for this Article: https://www.buzzfeed.com/danieljoseolder/fundamentals-of-writing-the-other https://dept.writing.wisc.edu/blog/writing-the-body-writing-centers-and-pronouns/ http://writing.umn.edu/sws/quickhelp/grammar/nonbinary.html https://www.rainbowromancewriters.com/node/971 http://writingtheother.com/ https://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/writing-from-other-cultural-perspectives-encourages-empathy-and-understanding **Anything by Nisi Shawl --- her co-authored book with Cynthia Ward: https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Other-Conversation-Pieces-8/dp/193350000X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1548857263&sr=8-3&keywords=nisi+shawl http://writingcenters.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/IWCA_Singular_They.pdf https://public.oed.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-singular-they/ http://writingwithcolor.tumblr.com/post/96830966357/writing-with-color-description-guide-words-for https://bookriot.com/2015/05/04/tips-writing-character-color/ http://nkjemisin.com/2009/04/ways-to-describe-characters-of-color/ http://nkjemisin.com/2010/01/why-i-think-racefail-was-the-bestest-thing-evar-for-sff/ https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-singular-they-has-been-around-for-centuries_us_58e3c631e4b0f4a923b25cb6 http://www.english.illinois.edu/-people-/faculty/debaron/essays/epicene.htm https://slate.com/human-interest/2012/04/hen-swedens-new-gender-neutral-pronoun-causes-controversy.html https://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/questions-and-quandaries/problem-sensitivity-readers-isnt-think https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/apr/27/vetting-for-stereotypes-meet-publishings-sensitivity-readers https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/international/new-york-rights-fair/article/77128-nyrf-2018-money-status-will-drive-more-diversity.html Blog post by Jan M Strasser
My journey started in sixth grade. I had just finished reading Treasure Island for a book report. I wanted something fun, full of action, but this was ponderously slow and heavy. I plowed through the report then escaped outside to the garage, I needed air. I think it was in winter, so the yard would have been too cold for me. This worked fine because the garage also contained my father's stash of scifi books. It was something I am sure my dad felt was only for him. My mother certainly didn't appreciate the genre. I remember one time she caught me watching I Dream of Jeannie and told me "You know this is not real." A response I have gotten to this day, with not much distinction between the three genres of scifi, fantasy, and horror. Yes, I know it is not real, but you must believe (at least to some extent) to read or write any story it must be logically laid out and not violate any rules you have set up. In Scifi you can test out some ideas of different mores, even poke fun at existing ones, to see how it feels without reality stepping in, at least not as much as in the 'real world.' My dad took well to my new-found interest. He made notes on what I wanted and ran around the used book stores in the search. First of all, I wanted action; no more background, lineage or whatever got in the way of the story. The first book he found for me was Deathworld by Harry Harrison. Wow, did it move! You travel to a planet where everything wants to kill you. The characters go through a series of buildings where the lethality of the environment increases until they reach the last building which approximates the outside. Included in the equipment you get is a specially outfitted gun. Wiggle your fingers to get the gun into your hand for instant use. For a young woman, this was new, powerful and exciting. Now, while I loved this, I wanted something I could relate to even more. I asked for a book that had girls as the heroes. Dad came up with The Witches of Karres by James H. Schmitz and Eric Flint. A story about a bachelor Captain of a small space vessel that finds three girls who are witches. He raises them as his own. The Captain is a gentle man who respects others, even children, and lets them be who they are. This respect allows the girls a good dose of freedom from which many unexpected situations arise. Yes, now we were on the right track for me. Next, Dad brought in two pieces by two iconic science fiction writers. The Door Into Summer by Robert Heinlein. This is a story where a man is looking for that which brings him the most happiness. He goes through into the future with cryogenics (freezing your body so you don't age for the years you are frozen.) Those who mean the most to him are his cat, Petronius the Arbiter or Pete for short, and Little Ricky, the only one in his life that understood how to treat cats and 'got him.' He gets his fantasy life by taking the cat in the cryogenic sleep and arranges to join Ricky when she grows up. At the time I felt this was very romantic, and while he waited to marry her when she was full-grown, I realize now it smacks a bit of pedophilia. However, the first time I read the story I adored it. To this day I enjoy how the hero only seems to be affected by the things he holds most dear, almost ignoring the bad behavior of those around him that aren't true friends. The other iconic piece was Dragonsdawn by Anne McCaffrey describing a girl in a colony on another planet. Menolly gets injured by a fishing accident and purposely is not allowed the course of treatment to let her fully recuperate. Her hand won't extend enough and she can't play an instrument. Her parents do not condone this radical idea to sing with the harper in her village and then join the harper academy thus not joining her parents in fishing. She runs away and hides in a cave when 'threadfall' occurs (nasty threads that periodically fall from the sky and devour living tissue). While she waits out the fall, she finds and impresses dragon eggs. These are small creatures, the size of birds, that are telepathic and can travel 'between' instantaneously from one place to another. This impression of such a large clutch of eggs is the most ever accomplished. The feat gets her noticed and reveals how her parents treated her. She achieves her dream of leaving the village, though not as she first intended. A very good story for an adolescent. Wonderful! As much as I loved my father supplying me with books, I began to search on my own. I found myself standing in front of the bookcases in used book stores, devouring all Heinlein and McCaffrey, then exploring out from there. The attraction was the low prices and the variety from current faves to those from the past. An added benefit of used book stores was an opportunity to see what fellow scifi writers liked the most. New book stores just didn't have as much inventory or variety in the genre. This has changed, but the used book stores still rate highest for me. If you think that's unusual, a girl going for scifi instead of fantasy, let me say this, I do like mermaids, fairies, and magic. The allure of outer space where others live in different ways, have survived the rigors of evolution, and made the leap to travel among the stars encompasses for me all the joys of fantasy. If you add in the addition of the plausible expansion of current science here on Earth, you might be able to see why this makes Scifi very exciting for me. I would stand in front of those books looking at so many ideas, settings, and characters. I loved it! However, it was a bit surreal because I was usually the only female standing with very polite, adolescent boys. l know the demographics of scifi readers is diverse, even way back when I started, but my experience was that I was alone. It amused me and I didn't mind, but there would be no heavy conversations over coffee. Hence, I started writing. I must admit if my stories are not in our world of reality it made it easier to accept. That premise allowed me to develop as a writer and get the courage up to 'kill' a character. When I started writing everything was sunshine and happiness. It reminded me of a Barbie movie I had for my young daughter. There was no 'bad' guy in the thing. I pushed back on the idea that it was a problem to write that way because I really enjoyed my stories. However, when you bear down and look at what you have written, you eventually realize that it is empty, especially if it goes on for a whole movie or book. I started with short stories. One, because I wasn't sure I could figure out enough for a full novel and two because I have back issues and can't sit that long. I went along happily writing for quite a while. I finally got to the point where I was expanding an idea and really enjoying it. I joined my first critique group because it filled one goal I had; a group dedicated to writing willing to beta read for me (for those of you who don't know beta reading means someone who reads before you send it out into the world). Unfortunately, they were not scifi writers, though one said she used to write it (should have known better what that meant.) In one piece I was happy with my characters; a lieutenant commander in the Australian navy, a sailor, and a crazy, drunken nut who was chumming (putting raw meat in the ocean to attract sharks) then shooting them with a rifle. They were all in a zodiac (the inflatable little boats that ferry the seaman around outside of their ship). The zodiac is rocking and goes over, dumping the three men into the ocean with the stirred up sharks in a feeding frenzy. I killed the sailor and the drunken idiot. The other sailors under the command of the lieutenant left to chase the other ones chumming. I had to make their leaving plausible. Well, the critique group didn't think I should kill anybody. How frustrating, I had finally worked up the courage and felt good about it. Reluctantly, I took the killing out but it never had the punch after that. I decided to leave the group (for many similar writing reasons) and put the death by sharks back in. Ironically, it was this critique group who had pointed out that the ship would never leave their leader if they knew he was still alive. I now am in this wonderful meetup group, The Tucson SF and Fantasy Writers. It encourages writing in the three genres, Scifi, Fantasy and Horror in the form of books, short stories, scripts, and comics. I would also go for serials but haven't yet been blessed with one. The founding writers of the scifi genre (in the late 40's) started with serials in the pulp magazines. Along with their short stories, they evolved the genre into novels. I, too, plan to evolve. Due to this fantastic meetup group, I have published one short story, one essay and three submissions in an anthology. I have been inspired to write all sorts of things and am on my way to a novel. A wonderful journey! Blog post by Karen Funk BlocherIn the waning days of the Cretaceous era, specifically the summer of 1977, 20-year-old me attended the Clarion SF Writers’ Workshop. I learned a lot, but I also got so discouraged that I didn’t write fiction again for several years. I got a husband out of it though, so there’s that. Despite the years of discouragement with a stalled-out novel, I did pick up a number of solid principles that have served me well in the decades since then. I’d like to highlight one of them here. “What’s the conflict?” This question was frequently asked at Clarion when stories were workshopped, and it’s fundamental. If there’s no difficulty, no obstacle, no disagreement, and no decision to be made, then there is no conflict and therefore no story. This is something to look at in every story you write. Does your story have such a conflict? If the answer is no, you probably should make changes, and here’s why. You may have a great idea for a story, some brilliant “what if” to show your readers against a compelling backdrop of Tucson and environs or another world entirely. But if that “what if” creates no problems for your characters, if nothing gets in the way of their goals, then your reader isn’t going to care much about the story or its characters. Conflict is often heightened by characters in disagreement. This is where it pays to pay attention to the dynamic between your characters, especially in dialogue. TV producer Kenneth Johnston of Alien Nation fame once said that the best conflict is between two people who are both right. Think of George and Matt in Alien Nation, or Spock and Bones in Star Trek, and you’ll get the general idea. Now look at your characters. Are they in lockstep in their assessment of the situation and how to handle it? Or, worse still, do they feel no pressure to change anything? Two people having a dialogue in which they agree with each other is not conflict, and often comes off as an “expository lump” (another Clarion catchphrase)..
Many years ago, writer David Gerrold wrote that all Star Trek episodes hinge on the fact that “Kirk has a decision to make.” Does your protagonist have a decision to make? Is it an easy decision, or something that really matters and is difficult to achieve? The more your protagonist has to struggle, the more invested readers are likely to be in their success or failure. Let’s take a moment here to acknowledge the role of the protagonist in making the story work. This character’s function is to elicit the reader’s sympathy as they strive to overcome one or more obstacles. English teachers everywhere classify such conflicts (at least, they used to) as Man vs. Man, Man vs. Nature, Man vs. Society, and Man vs. Himself. (Also seen: Man vs. Machine, Man vs, Fate, Man vs. God or the Supernatural, and, of course, Man. vs. Alien.) You can add Coyote vs. Roadrunner and any other variations you can think of. The point is the protagonist must have some sort of antagonist or obstacle, and work to overcome it. To do so, they must have both motivation (a desire to make a change) and agency (the ability to make a change). If there’s nothing the character can do to make things better, there’s no reason to care what they do. Giving your protagonist a conflict to resolve is usually the basis or your plot or narrative structure. MC (Main Character) finds their life is thrown out of equilibrium because of Conflict X. Perhaps MC thinks there’s an easy fix and tries it, only to learn that the situation is more complex than initially thought, and that they have made things worse. So MC researches the problem and tries a different strategy, perhaps more than once, until a resolution is achieved. Or, as one of the writers in residence at Clarion 1977 used to say, “Get your characters up a tree, throw rocks at them, get them down from the tree.” If nothing changes between the beginning of the story and the end of it, chances are there’s no story. In a novel, you have room for lots of complications and additional conflicts, but in a short story, you don’t have much room to pull all this off. Chances are, therefore, that your conflict is going to be small and achievable with very few steps along the way. But it has to be there, or there’s no story. You know what else leads to no story? Not writing. So write! And don’t stop, even if the advice you get is confusing or discouraging. Remember, you, too, have a decision to make, every time you have an opportunity to drag a string of glittering words from your brain. Choose wisely, and go for it! Read. We’ve all heard it said a million times, but what is often most repeated and true is the thing most easily neglected. When I meet a struggling writer the first thing I ask is “What have you read lately?” The typical answer? “I don’t really have time to read.” Ah, well, there it is. You don’t read, you say? Then you don’t have time to write. If you are not reading, you are not prepared to write. It’s that simple. Reading is to a writer what exercise is to an athlete. Without a steady diet of reading we lose our core as writers. We get lazy, and flabby, and our abilities erode. It’s not just that reading is important, it’s essential and it needs to be your first love. Think back to your childhood. Did you imagine you would become a writer before you learned how to read? No, of course not. It was your love of reading that led you down the path in the first place. What was your experience as a reader, and why and when did you learn to read? Can you remember the first book you read? It was a child’s book, no doubt. What about your first novel? In recent years I revisited my childhood in a therapy session and in doing so I rediscovered my foundation as a writer. Every writer has their own story. This is mine. I’m three years old and we’ve moved into a home on the Tulalip Reservation. The year is 1970. My father’s friend from work moved into the house across from us and we are over visiting. They have a daughter named “E”. She’s six months old. She crawls to me and latches onto my leg. She won’t let go. Usually I don’t let other children near me, but this girl is special. I don’t mind the contact at all. We form a connection, a bond that will shape the rest of my life in ways that still astound me. From that moment and throughout the rest of my early childhood, we are an inseparable pair, E and I, I and E, E and me.
I’m five years old. It’s the summer of 1972. E brings me her favorite book and wants me to read it to her. I’m five years old. I don’t know how to read. E’s mother explains this little fact. E’s disappointment rankles me, it shames me. I should know how to read, right? I’m the older brother, the one she looks up to, and I can’t read to her. I decide that I will learn how to read that book to her, so I ask my parents to teach me to read. They give it a shot, but my parents are twenty somethings and they figure that school will take care of this issue. I’m about to start kindergarten, after all. The problem is, in 1972 in Marysville, WA, kindergarten is where you learn your ABC’s, not where you learn to read. Salvation comes in the form of my illiterate maternal grandfather. You see, my grandfather was an abused and neglected child. His father was a drunk and worse. My grandfather grew up in a shack with a dirt floor. His little sister died because they had no medical care. He never went to school. He never learned to read. My great grandmother escaped from this horror of a marriage and took my grandfather to a logging camp. As soon as he hit his teenage years he chopped wood and learned to drive heavy equipment. As an adult he made a living as a heavy equipment operator. He helped build the North Cascades Highway. Early in the morning they would lower his cat over the mountainside from a crane and swing him back and forth while he dug away a nook on the side of the mountain to fit himself into, and once this was accomplished they set him on that shelf and he spent every drop of sunlight digging out a road that day. When the winter snow came, he went to work at the lumber mill. Despite all this work, my grandfather remained illiterate. He could not read. He could not write. He didn’t like this fact at all, so as he got older he decided to teach himself to read. He was too proud to take a class, but he would order the newspaper and stare at it for hours. He asked questions on the sly, and slowly but surely he developed the reading skill of an elementary school child. This might sound unfortunate, but for a five year old boy who wanted to learn to read, my grandfather was just what the doctor ordered. He had the patience that my parents did not have, and he knew what it was like to struggle with new concepts and words that made no sense. He was the perfect teacher for a five year old boy. He had never been able to teach his own son to read because my uncle died at the age of thirteen, before my grandfather could sound out his first sentence. When I was able to finally read a book to my grandfather, it brought him a sort of delight I never understood until later in life. He died just two years later, only weeks after my seventh birthday, so I was never able to communicate my gratitude. I’m five years old and addicted to reading. I’m devouring all my children’s books. My first books are literally small, a collection of tiny books in a tiny case called “The Nutshell Library” by Maurice Sendak. First is a boy named Pierre who doesn’t care, ironic for a boy whose chief fault is being so concerned about everything that he suffers from anxiety. Next is Chicken Soup with Rice. I’m reading once, reading twice, reading Chicken Soup with Rice. Next was The Real Mother Goose, and of course I’m reading E’s bear book to her every chance I get. She’s happy. I’m happy. I can’t stop reading. It’s naptime at kindergarten. They give us milk and put us down for afternoon nap, but I don’t want any part of it. I want to read my book. Mrs. Cook teaches us the ABC’s, but I’m already reading. There’s a boy named Rodney, who wears a suit and tie to kindergarten. He’s sensitive and nosey. He notices that I’m not napping, so he calls the teacher over and tattles. She tells me to nap. I tell her that I’d rather quietly read. Rodney, the poor, sensitive kid, takes it to heart that I can read and he can’t. He begins to cry. My teacher calls my parents in and explains that kindergarten won’t do me any good. Best to just let him stay home and skip to first grade. E is ecstatic when she finds out that I can stay home and play with her instead of going to school. The reservation is not a great place for a child. The poverty and alcoholism create a special kind of misery for adults, and the children suffer consequences as a result. I’m not going to go into what happened to those two children, the boy I was, the girl that E was, because that’s a book of its own, and one that doesn’t have a happy ending. So let’s skip a year ahead. We moved away to a place my brother and I still call “The Floody House”, and we call it that because it flooded. Again, a story for another day. During this time my teenage uncle noted my love of reading, so he took it upon himself to read to me. I’m six years old, sitting on the top of my grandparent’s stairs, listening to my grandfather lecture my uncle about the book he’s reading me. “The boy is too young for that stuff! You’re going to scare him!” My uncle insists that I’ll be fine with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I’m enthralled, of course. I don’t want him to stop, because I have to find out what happens next. Moreover, I’m incredibly curious about Turkish Delight. What is Turkish Delight? I ask my uncle. He doesn’t know. My parents don’t know. My grandparents don’t know. My great aunt tells me “It’s Applets and Cotlets.” I don’t believe her because I eat them all the time and they aren’t that special. They’re just apple and apricot jellies smothered in powdered sugar, which isn’t anything amazing and mysterious like “Turkish Delight”. Years later, I revisit the question as an adult and realize that my great aunt was essentially correct. I’m seven years old and I decide I’ve had enough of children’s books. I want to read an adult book. My father laughs, but when I continue to inquire he hands me a battered old copy of Treasure Island which I gobble up in a matter of days. The next novel I tackle is Captain Blood and as I devour it I wonder who it was that made this book. Rafeal Sabatini is his name. He’s my first “favorite author”. Over the next few years I will read The Sea Hawk, The Black Swan, and many others. They’re easy to read, clearly written, and perfect for a young reader, though none of them really left a mark. Last of the Mohicans did, and I read all the others in the series. The Pathfinder, the Deerslayer, and so on. Natty Bumppo, aka, “Hawkeye”, is my kind of hero, but when I hit eight years old I read The Hobbit and my life is forever changed. Tracking through the deep forests and shooting deer and Frenchmen with Chingachgook, Unca, and Hawkeye is one thing, but a world full of goblins and elves is quite another. I’m utterly enthralled and I want to stay in this fairy world forever. It seems better than my own, even if it’s far more dangerous. After all, I’d rather live in a terror filled fantasy land than cope with my actual life. My father’s depression and drunkenness, my parent’s impending divorce, well, it’s just all too dreary. Fire breathing dragons, on the other hand? Yes, scary, but there’s a magic arrow for that problem. I’m nine years old, and I crack open Fellowship of the Ring. It makes no sense to me. Where is Bilbo? Where are the Dwarves? What is so dark and mysterious about this silly magic ring? I finish the book, and I’m completely confused, yet obsessed. I read it again, and again. Then I finish the trilogy, and read it again. I’m in trouble at school because I bring the books with me everywhere and read them during class. I can’t stop reading them. It’s all I want to do. The Lord of the Rings consumes the next three to five years of my life. Even though I read other books, I never stop reading them. I can’t. I buy everything related to JRR Tolkien. I know who he is. He’s the man I want to be. I’m going to be a writer. I’m going to create what he created. It’s my destiny. I’m a writer because I loved reading. Before you write, you must read… forever. JM Prescott Tonight, our writing group had its biggest turnout yet. I think the count was 22, with the last two arriving right after two others left. It’s an exciting time for the Tucson SF and Fantasy Writers Meetup (I keep wanting to suggest the term “Collective” in place of Meetup, but then I forget). We have momentum now: one anthology printed and in our hands, and a second one still accepting submissions. We have a chance to meet the local sf, fantasy and comics community at Tucson Comic-Con and TusCon 45 over the next couple of weeks. We’re enthusiastic about the group’s creative efforts, collectively and individually. There’s a lot to be enthusiastic about. Several members have multiple books out, others are on the verge, and all of us have writing ambitions and are willing to work to fulfill them. And that first anthology! I almost cried when I held a copy of it for the first time. I have a contract for my first fantasy trilogy, Heirs of Mâvarin, but those books aren’t out yet, and may not be available for several months. Beyond Tucson: Adventures in the Multiverse is here now. Thousands of my words, and many thousands more by my friends, are reproduced on paper between two covers. Yeah, it’s self-published, but it’s real. I can hold it in my hands, turn the pages, and get sucked into someone’s story. We have a book! We will very shortly have an ebook as well. Now what? Now we want people to know about our book. We want them to buy it, read it, enjoy it. So now we have a new Facebook page to go with our Facebook group, and a book trailer, and a part of a table at Tucson Comic-Con. You can find a link to our Facebook feed on the sidebar of this blog. It isn’t all plugs for the book, either. Novelist Joni Parker is posting links to a variety of useful articles of interest to writers. None of this will accomplish very much, though, if nobody finds it. So if you’re reading these words, I’d like your help. Please Like our Facebook page if you’re on Facebook, and our video on my YouTube channel. And if you check out the book trailer and it looks like something you’d enjoy reading, we hope you’ll take the next step and buy a copy. And unless you’re one of our authors or their relatives, please consider reviewing Beyond Tucson: Adventures in the Multiverse on Amazon or Goodreads. Thanks! You’ll be helping 14 Tucson authors take a step forward in their careers, and making the second anthology possible.
Speaking of the second anthology, I’d like to reiterate that there’s still time to submit your story, poem or picture. Beyond Tucson: Peak Experiences has a unifying theme of the mountains around Tucson. The story can take place in the past, present or future, or an alternate reality version of Southern Arizona. It can be science fiction, fantasy, horror, or fairy tale, and feature the Rincons, Tucson Mountains, Santa Catalinas, Santa Ritas, or even the Tortolitas or Sierritas. If you’re a Tucson-based writer, why not try your hand at your own “Peak Experience?” We look forward to seeing what you come up with. You can reach us via our Meetup page. I always wanted to write a book but thought it would be in the area of my study: trauma therapy. I have written articles, handouts, and questionnaires. But no, my first true book is about a dog. Not just any dog, a corgi.
Now some of you will squeal when I mention it is about a corgi and many of you will say (hopefully quietly) why a corgi? What is it about corgi butts – their momos (rear end) and their fluff that makes some people squeal? That’s okay. Not everyone is a corgi aficionado. But I am. I got my first corgi in 2013. And not just any corgi but a one-eyed, snaggle tooth, no-holds-barred, feisty as all get out corgi. For those of you who do not know corgis, they are the queens and kings of feisty, independent, in-your-face dogs. And Little Bit inspired me to write. She taught me that corgis speak with exclamation points at the end of every word. She taught me to cherish the wild where fairies may roam. Yeah, I said fairies. How does a person who grew up in a science-y, academic kind of home with a PhD in Nutrition believe in fairies? I will let you in on a secret. I’m not sure I believe in fairies but I have to try for her sake. She is that important to me. Or was, she passed away before I could finish her book. So, I must trudge on in her honor and glory. Thank you, Little Bit, for all your growls, barks, nips and kisses – you make me want to be a more creative and artistic person. Lynne Smiley Want to become an award-winning author? I did. That was one of my dreams when I first started writing. It came right before becoming a best-selling author, although I’m not anywhere near that. My editor/publisher entered my first (or second) book in a Readers’ Choice award in which readers choose their favorite titles. In other words, a popularity contest. Needless to say, I didn’t win. I didn’t have a huge fan base or have a lot of friends that would vote. That discouraged me from entering any more contests except one through the Writers’ League of Texas (I’m still a member.) The great thing about this contest was I got feedback on my writing. It was eye-opening. I had no idea most of my sentences started with the word, ‘she.’ Obviously, my writing needed a lot more work. I found an editor online and she made me feel like I was pretty good, just needed a few tweaks. Then I found another editor who told me what I really needed to know. My writing needed a lot of work. I went to a lot of classes and I wrote a lot. Everyday. My writing improved and I’ve continued to work with the same editor. Sometimes, it’s painful, but my wounds healed and I got better. A few years ago, I was scrolling through Facebook and saw an ad for the Book Excellence Award. It wasn’t a popularity contest and had a panel of judges, so I figured what-the-heck and entered my book, “Spell Breaker.” When I finished the novel, I had been excited about how well it had turned out. It had a solid plot, lots of action, and characters that I loved. I self-edited it and read it out loud to myself before I sent it to my editor. She made a number of corrections and comments and I revised my manuscript. I printed it out and read it out loud again before I went for a second round with the editor. More corrections, sometimes things she didn’t see before and more comments. More self-editing, printing and reading out loud. I even printed it out using a two-column landscape format so it looked like a book. I read it again, out loud. My book was ready to be published until I sent it to a beta reader. She blasted the manuscript for having too many exclamation points and made all kinds of other comments. I was shocked. How did she know more than my editor? Turns out some of her comments were legit, so I went back to the drawing board. I signed up for more classes on writing and editing. While I could see some of what the beta reader had found, I didn’t agree with all of it. I revised my manuscript again and went through the correction cycle with my editor, two more times. Finally, I told my editor/publisher that it was ready to go and she published the book. The print version looked so good that when the contest wanted a copy of my book, I sent in a print copy, even though an eBook was acceptable. I filled out the entry form and followed the directions. Every contest has its own rules. Some want a synopsis, some don’t. I even found one that wants a chapter-by-chapter synopsis. And I paid the fee. Yes, all of these contests charge money. They pay for judges. The contest will state how much and how to pay. The cheapest one I’ve found so far was 50 bucks with a discount. The most expensive was 99 dollars with feedback. Also, since I sent in a print copy, I had to pay for postage. I used the media rate, which is cheaper, but it takes a week to get there.
Then I waited. I didn’t win the top prize but I was notified by email that I was one of two finalists. I immediately sent an email back to find out how many books were in the YA fantasy category. They assured me there were more than three books but wouldn’t tell me how many. Thus far, I’ve been a finalist for the Book Excellence Awards for three years with three different books, a finalist for the International Book Awards, and the winner of the John E. Weaver Excellent Reads Award. True, none of them were the Pulitzer Prize but that’s okay. I’ve read some Pulitzer Prize winning novels and couldn’t finish them. These awards haven’t resulted in any financial gain for me. At least not yet. All I got was some recognition and publicity. What it has given me is confidence in my ability to write and keeps me motivated, even if no one is buying my books. |
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