Submission 101: Do You Really Have to Read Asimov's to Sell?

Yes.

If you want to publish SF/F/H/whatever you should read the magazines to which you want to sell.

In fact, instead of reading my blog, I think you should take a few minutes and check out Strange Horizons an online science fiction/fantasy magazine.

Of course, no one has the time to read every single issue of every genre magazine they might want to submit a story to. This is where having a writer's group is really helpful. My writers' group has sort of informally divided the work. Certain members read certain print magazines and report on them. A goodly portion of our workshop time we spend gossiping.. er, networking about the various markets – rumors we've heard about who's taking what, what kinds of stories they seem to prefer, who's overstocked, and notes on rejections (i.e. "we seriously considered your work, but, alas, we have three elf cowboy stories in the queue right now.")

If you don't have a writers group, there are places to catch up on this kind of information. Ralan's Webstravaganza and Speculation's Rumor Mill.

But, if you're reading the magazine, you can sometimes spot trends on your own. For a while it seemed you could sell anything involving a cat to Gardner Dozois. This is helpful if you have a cat story handy, not so much if you think that by writing a story about cats you will instantly sell.

Plus, there's the whole karma thing. My feeling has always been if you want science fiction short story markets to pay money to publish you, you need to make sure they stay in business by paying money to read the stories they paid other authors for. Plus, c'mon. Most subscriptions are not only fairly inexpensive, you can also write them off on your taxes.

Karma. Don't mess with it.

Seriously, I had a weird experience once that convinced me that reading short stories actually helped me understand them. Before I'd published my first novel, or really had a pro sale of any kind, I sat down one Thanksgiving weekend when I was stuck up in Grand Rapids, Minnesota visiting the in-laws and read an entire short story collection. Cover to cover. A week or so after that, I wrote a short story that would later become my first professional sale (seven cents a word, no less! Still the best, I think, I've ever been paid). I'm convinced it was a kind like when people go off to language camp to be completely immersed in a particular language in order to break through into fluency.

So go read stuff.

More Mason Humor

What do you call a cranky bee?

....a GRUMBLEbee.

Future Farmers of America

Remember way back when I said I was working on an erotica piece? Well, I sold it. It will be appearing in Periphery -- Erotic Lesbian Futures (tentative title) under my OTHER name, along with such other amazing and talented writers as: Nicola Griffith, Catherine Lundoff, Gwyneth Jones, Marianne de Pierres, Cecilia Tan, and Melissa Scott.

This short story was really hard for me to write. I mean, it was just a pain in the ass (and not in the fun erotica way, either). I think it went through three complete drafts and took me three months to hammer out. What's funny about it is that the sex in it got less and less graphic the more I rewrote it. It went from fairly hot to what they'd call in the romance genre "sweet."

The reason the blog title is what it is because in one of its previous incarnations "istartu" (the name of the short story) had its climatic scene (yes, in the fun erotica way) on a farm. I ended up changing that for the final version because it wasn't terribly important to the plot, and in fact, had simply given me an excuse to meander through the scenery for a while.

Anyway, I'm kind of sad I ended up axing that now, if only because I don't think you see enough African-American lesbian farmers in science fiction.

Seriously, I was thinking about this in terms of what we talked about in class last night (which was overused F&SF cliches). One of the things we left with was the fantasy cliche of a world which appears to only produce adventurers and no one actually does the labor required to sustain a viable economy. I started thinking -- are there are lot of farmers in space? Not really. Okay, Luke Skywalker was a moisture farmer on Tatoonine. But, the farm existed as something to escape. I mean, it had to be literally torpeodoed for him to get his butt off-world and on to the work of becoming another science fiction/fantasy cliche -- the lost heir with the secret powers to defeat the evil empire.

James T. Kirk was from Iowa, but I don't think that should count. (Sorry, JPJ!)

Seems to me the girlfriend in "Vampire Hunter D" lived on a farm in the future (complete with ravenous mutants as a kind of stand-in for the coyote/wolf), but for some reason monsters and farms go hand-in-hand. (I just watched "Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Wererabbit." What a hoot! And also all about monsters and farms -- or at least veg!)

On a whim I checked into Adherents (a great resource for religion in SF) and found a few entries under Amish in Science Fiction. But, there's not a lot.

Of course, Serenity/Firefly had a kind of rancher feel to it, but I think that's one of the reasons a number of SF fans couldn't really grok it. The whole farm/frontier thing rang too much of Westerns, than SF.

I wonder why farms and farmers have not had their day in SF? I mean, I had some fun imagining farming in the future. (I went for the bio-dome myself). Anyway, I think that there's a lot about the current state of farming, particularly in America, that lends itself well to a dark, cyberpunk future. My sense is that family farms are becoming a thing of the past -- and who better to be a villian in a cyberpunk story, but THE CORPORATION??? It's not like farming isn't fraught with conflict and tension.

Maybe I should challenge myself to write an SF story that takes place on a farm of the future.

Hmmmmmm.

*Cricket*, *Cricket*

Sorry I've been so quiet. Actually, I've been cheating on you. I joined one of those Live Journal communities (one called whileaway, which is a feminist fantasy and science fiction literature group) in order to talk more about books – actually, a certain book, and I've already wrote a missive about it here, and I really wanted more than what you gave me.

Well. Now the cat's out. Try not to cry. I still love you.

Anyway, I was talking to my friend April the other night and we both agreed that it's really kind of a shame that you can walk up to almost any science fiction fan and talk about the latest movie or TV show (ah, Battlestar Galactic-crack!) – but there's no place you can go where you're guaranteed to find someone who's read whatever book has been turning you on lately. You can surf the web for reviews, but that's not terribly interactive, you know?

I'm not trying to be some kind of literature snob here, because I'm not. I came into science fiction fandom by way of media. I saw Star Wars sixteen times in the theatre, and still didn't feel done with it. At my local library, some incredibly clever librarian put the Star Wars novelizations and books like Han Solo's Revenge right there in the science fiction section, so that when I finished with those I just randomly picked up one of the other SF books. I believe it was either one of the Nebula collections of short stories or possibly Philip Jose Farmer's Jesus on Mars, (which might explain a lot about my alternate self, wouldn't it?)

The point is, I enjoy talking media as much as the next geek, but I think part of the problem is that there's no way a person can keep up with all the SF&F and related genre books that come out in any given year. There's just too many. So finding six other people who happened to all pick up the same book (and who found time to read it) is pretty tough. And, of course, most books I read for pleasure don't make me really wound up. It's a rare book that gets me hopping – well, anything, mad, happy, torqued. Even books that make me think don't always get under my skin, you know?

Like the book I'm reading right now. It's called A Spectacle of Corruption by David Liss. It's a good book so far (I'm on page 88), but it's not SF or F. It's a mystery (my other genre of choice), and a historical one at that. I don't think it's going to be something I'll want to shout about though, other than the usual: hey, here's a good book.

This is an interesting thought, I suppose. I mean, is the point of writing to make someone think? Obviously, I don't think so. I generally write "beach books." I've always maintained that my whole purpose in writing to tell a "ripping good yarn." So... so what? What's my point? My point is that it's all good, but when a book makes you think it'd be cool if there were a bunch of people waiting in line to talk about it with you, don’t you think?

And Now Back to Vampires

So I took the dumb vampire quiz: "What Type of Vampire Are You? expecting to be annoyed by the answer, but, no, this is totally the kind of vampire I find hot (and thus, would like to be):

Walking Sex Vampire

What type of vampire are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Mercury Retrograde and Other True Tales of Magic

Do you know that saying about the gods of Cthulhu? The more you become aware of them, the more they’re aware of you? I think magic is like that (and astrology, too).

Here's my story. I have this ritual I do every calendar New Year. On New Year's eve, I take a number of dimes (I think it started at five and we've added one every year we've been doing this) and wrap them in a gold colored silk scarf. I place the scarf outside on our doorstep (hidden from the neighbors, of course.) We leave it there overnight. The idea is that the physical act of bringing the money inside the next day represents being receptive to good fortune, particularly in the form of cash, throughout the upcoming year.

Well, this year we forgot about our dimes for a couple of days.

And I have to say there have been a number of things that make me feel like this is exactly what's been happening to us this year in terms of my incidental writing money. Like, so far, it hasn't been anything big, but there are a number of short stories that I have out to market which have made it past various first cuts (or so the editors have informed me), but which seem to have gone into a kind limbo ever since getting the initial good news. Similarly, my agent sold Japanese rights to books I wrote under another name and the IRS and I have been back and forth (with my tax consultants acting as an intermediary) over one silly little form which means the world of difference in how I get taxed on such things. In other words, the money is there, it's just being held up.

Weird, huh?

And, of course, Mercury is retrograde (and has been since March 2).

Don't you just hate it when that happens?

Sure, you do. You just don't know it. Thing is, if I tell you want Mercury in retrograde means, I know you're going to find yourself suddenly aware of its effect on your life. I know, because this is exactly how I got sucked into astrology.

I get these silly little astrology alerts about various retrograding planets, and here’s what Astrology.com says about Mercury: “It's that time again: Mercury turned retrograde on March 2, and will continue its apparent backward journey until the 25th. Better dust off all the standard Mercury-retrograde cautions: Back up computer files and go the extra mile to express yourself clearly. When the Communication Planet is in reverse, it can feel like productivity is in park! But no two retrogrades are the same -- and Mercury's latest move makes this a crucial time to strike new balance."

"Mercury retrograde is always cause for introspection -- even more so as it takes place in Pisces, the imaginative final sign of the zodiac. The Fish swim through deep, dreamy waters, so pay close attention to your subconscious cues for the next few weeks. Reason may be particularly obscured, but as typical modes of communication become tricky, we'll all benefit from indulging those creative sides!”

For me, Mercury in retrograde usually means I should shut the hell up. So I will.

Less Than Serene

SPOILER WARNING

I finally saw "Serenity." I meant to watch it much earlier. In fact, I meant to go to the theatre and help with the box office numbers, but I blew it. We couldn’t find a babysitter for opening weekend, and then... well, at least I bought it. Or rather, my nephew Jonathan bought it for me for Christmas. So, Joss Whedon got my money, just later than I’d intended.

At MarsCON I was on a panel about Firefly/Serenity, and I accidentally heard a few spoilers that made me want to watch the movie to... well, basically, get it over with.

I've been a fan of Firefly since its first episode aired. Up until Saturday night, I would probably have cast myself in the ranks of the browncoats.

I was disappointed in the movie.

My big complaint boils down to this: it wasn't very funny. I'd been warned that that movie was much darker than the series, and I was (and still am) okay with that. I don't mind dark futures, in fact, I prefer them. But one of my favorite things about the series was the way the characters found humor in the darkest of hours. The fact that they said stupid things or made sarcastic/sardonic side comments made them seem more real, and gave the 'verse that much more depth. The worst part was that when Shawn and I viewed the deleted scenes we discovered that many of them were the funny bits. It's like Joss had it, and then purposely torpedoed it. I thought he was smarter than that. In fact, seeing those reminded me of viewing the deleted scenes of "Attack of the Clones" where George Lucas talks about how he'd ditched that stupid character building stuff for more action. It's like neither of them realize that the stupid character building crap is really what we wanted.

Speaking of which, I was also pre-warned about the fact that the movie was not so much an ensemble, as it was about Mal and River. I like Mal. River... I was never a huge fan of the River sub-plot. Secret, living weapon, evil empire, yeah-yeah. I feel like we've been there and done that with so many other science fiction films/TV that it was neither fresh nor interesting to me. What I loved about Firefly was its ensemble cast. That was fresh. Everyone had equal screen time – or nearly so, depending on the episode. The characters-- Jayne, Wash, Book, Kaily, and Zoe-- all played off each other to the point where when Mal talked about his ship as a family, I totally bought that. Not so much in the movie.

In fact, one of Mal's big issues in the film is supposed to be his struggle with his duty to his ship's family and the hard-cold reality of survival in space (especially given he has two fugitives aboard.) Joss made the assumption we'd all remember how cool everyone was from the TV series, and that would ride us through Mal's struggle. It mostly worked for me, because I'm such a big fan, but I think the point would have been hammered home a lot more if the "damn family" had had a few more lines. At least one good sitting around having dinner in the galley scene, even. There was no sense of the usual camaraderie.

Plus, when Wash bites it (in a cheap way, I might add), Zoë’s complete and utter despair makes no sense on the screen. Wash previously had six lines and half of them were "I am a leaf on the wind." (Funny, but over done) Who cares that he's dead? (Well, I did. Deeply. As he was my favorite character from the series.) But, I could totally understand why someone coming in off the street could hardly give a flying rat's ass.

Same with Shepard Book. Also, can I say I can't believe that of all the people on the colony Book stayed alive long enough only to whisper something unintelligible to Mal? Annoying. That's the biggest movie cliché in the 'verse. I would have expected Joss to turn that one on its head, but he didn’t. (Also, some of the blooper reel had better lines, I thought, like that scene, where Mal says that they should put Book's body on their reaver ship out of respect and this and that, and Jayne stop stealing people's shit! <-- because you know that's what he’s doing.)

That's not to say there weren't good moments, and it was good to see everyone again, kinda. (It's the everyone I’m kinda-ing.) I was really glad to see Jayne's stupid hat, for instance. I just wanted more.

I suspect that Joss was afraid to make a two-hour episode. I think he should have embraced the fact that critics were going to say that's what he did no matter what he did, so why not make it the best two-hour episode ever? I suppose there are many out there who would argue that's precisely what he did. I disagree. I think he ruined a perfectly good TV concept by trying to make it too "big screen-y," as one of his characters might say.

"It's Racing Day!"

I've become a HUGE fan of Doug Wieselman.

I know, you're thinking, "Wow, that's so cool, Tate. Uh, Who?"

Dude, Doug Wieselman, the guy who writes the best music for Nick Jr's The Backyardigans. I've been singing "It's racing day, it's racing day. It's racing day, it's racing day. It's not picture-tracing (nervous pacing, puppy chasing, sausage casing, doily lacing, self-effacing) day. Today's the day we race." Over and over.

It makes me smile. Every time.

Unconquered Plot

I don't really think I conquered plot in class last night. I started to, but I don't think I had enough caffeine in my system to do it justice. (I'm not sure I do now, for that matter.)

What do I want to say about plot? Plot is the action of your story. It's the stuff that happens – although not always the wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am, whiz-bang moments, but also the revelations, the emotional high points or lows, and the internal reflections of your main character. (Given, of course, that these other things reveal or reflect on "the story.") Plot answers the question what happens next?

Plot is difficult to teach, because in so many ways plotting is instinctual to storytelling. If people tell you don't have a strong plot, it may be because you haven't come to terms with the story you really want to tell. Strong plotters are often people who have taken some time outside of actual writing to consider the questions of: what's at stake here? Whose story am I telling? What do I want to _say_? What is this story about, really?

I think once you know those things, plot happens fairly organically. Provided, of course, you stay true to the character's motivations. I say this, clearly, being a character-driven plot writer. (I teach my classes about idea-driven stories, but really I don't know that much about them. My friend and fellow writer Kelly McCullough is much more skilled with that sort of story than I will ever be.)

That reminds me of something else entirely...

I've been a paperback reader and writer my whole life, so I've been known to get into arguments with certain writers about plot. I believe everything should be in service to plot. In fact, at one point I joked to Walter Hunt at MarsCON that I have "in service to plot" tattooed over my heart. I don't, but I could, because I believe it that strongly.

Don't waste my time wandering down a dark alley unless the scene tells me something fundamentally important about the character. I'm not a big fan of mood, unless it tells me something about the characters or the situation. Travelogueing your way through some crunchy scenery is vaguely annoying to me, unless, again, it tells me something important about the characters or society your building (as it reflect on the story).

Serve the story! Serve it up HOT!

If a scene has nothing to do with the story, why is there? If it has no purpose, cut it.

Okay. Those are my thoughts for today. Off to find caffeine.

Grammar Geekfest or On Having an Omniscient Aneurysm

First of all, I have to totally disagree with Bob when he suggests that there is no authority on _how_ to write. I'm so sorry, but this is one of my biggest bugaboos. I actually got myself kicked out of a writer's critique group for insisting that a sentence is comprised of a subject and a fucking verb. (Not just any verb, mind you, but a fucking one.)

LISTEN: writing is the act of making order out of chaos. I am the Word, ya dig? Order needs laws. Laws must be obeyed – (mostly.)

Traffic laws exist so that people don't ram into each other at seventy-five miles an hour most of the time (people still do, even when they're obeying the law). I will concede that it is possible that without any laws of any kind the universe might not descend into utter chaos. But why ask for trouble?

Bob, I applaud your efforts in taking on Strunk & White (E.B. White, btw, author of Charlotte's Web and the Stuart Little books), but if someone is setting out on the writing journey for the first time, Strunk & White's Elements of Style makes an excellent road map. I never really understood the concept of passive voice until I read Elements. Plus, their examples are funny, not punitive -- unlike, say, most English grammar textbooks. I found them eminently readable. For this alone, I think they are laudable. They made, for me, at least, relearning basic English grammar tolerable, if not actually sort of amusing.

Granted, I still don't understand how to use commas. And anyone looking at my writing as it appears here (and in my professional work) could rightly quibble about my actual grasp on the English language. Clearly, I love the parenthetical phrase over much. However, I try to – at least in my professional writing – write in a way that is understandable to the vast majority of my readers. In order to do that, I use sentence structures that include a subject and (when writing fiction particularly) an active (fucking!) verb. I use omniscient point of view in the way it is most easily understood, which is with an outside narrator who is acting the part of the god's eye view, who is telling a story with insider knowledge, like you might in a fairy tale or a myth. I use words in their form most recognized by the largest percentage of readers -- which is to say I'd prefer to say "ominous" over "portentous" given that most readers recognize the first over the second, unless the plot or style requires one word over the other.

The goal here for me is to be read and understood. And preferably, I'd like to be read by the largest number of readers. Let's just say millions – hell, go all Dan Brown and say tens of millions.

Tens of millions of people aren't going to "get" me if I go all kung fu stylistic on them. If I decide not to use commas most editors are going to assume I'm stupid, not artistic. If I tell them I think Strunk & White is full of crap and I'm going to write however I want, they're likely to say, "Great, except no one understands a flaming word you've written."

I want to be understood. I think great writing is all _about_ being understood. If I can make you, who is so very different than me, understand who I am and where I'm coming from (or even just what I experienced yesterday), then I've performed the miracle of great writing.

Word!

"Plot, What Plot?" or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Outline

The only stories (including novels) that I have ever been able to finish are the ones where I already know the ending.

I don't have to know, chapter by chapter, what's going to happen, but I do need a sense of where I'm going. Science fiction author Joan Vinge once told me in an interview I did with her that the way she conceptulizes the process of novel writing is with the metaphor of a road trip. For her, novel writing is like knowing that you want to go to California with a bunch of friends. You don't know exactly where you're going (San Diego? Sacramento? Oakland?) or what's going to befall you on the trip (flat tire? in-car romances? too much drinking in Alberquerue that ends with a night in the poky?), but you've got your eyes set on California. Thus, there's plenty of wiggle room for that "magic" a lot of writers talk about where their characters do things the author isn't expecting them to, but you still have a goal, an end, in sight. This is exactly how I write.

I find, in fact, the more I've planned out my "trip," if you will, the tighter I write. I'm not a big fan of that bizarro advice often told to novice novel writers which involves colored index cards and a ridiculous amount of time spent organizing and brainstorming. But lately I've written to proposal, which is basically a synopsis of a book not written yet. A good synopsis is a sketch of the important emotional and action highlights, and knowing what those are going to be before I write saves me a lot of useless meandering down the backroads, if you know what I mean. I think of my synopsis as a kind of map to get me where I'm going faster and more efficiently.

Not everybody writes like me, though.

My bottom line feeling about outlines (and index cards for that matter) is that if you're having trouble writing, see if it helps. If you find the process a hinderance, stop. Anything that keeps you from writing is evil. This extends to index cards.

MarsCON: One Fan's Report

MarsCON was held last weekend at the Holiday Inn Select in Bloomington, Minnesota. This year's theme was "Things That Go Bump In the Night." There were a couple of media guests of honor that I should have known, but didn't, and the literary and artist guests of honor were both friends mine, respectively: Walter Hunt (literary GoH) and Beth Hanson (artist GoH).

I went.

Okay, I'm terribly tempted to leave the post like that, but I should probably say something more.

I had a good time, generally.

I was on a BUNCH of panels, probably the best of which was "Van Helsing's Heirs." I got... really rowdy, and ended up leaping up out of my chair at one juncture to make my point.

I blame Walter Hunt. He gave me drugs.

Okay, so the drug in question was caffiene, but still...

I think the best thing about science fiction conventions for me is that they give me a chance to be, in public, really as nerdy and geeky (and as ethusiastically nerdy and geeky) as I am deep in the bowels of my heart of hearts. I mean, if it were more socially acceptable in other venues I have no doubt that I would leap up out of my chair and scream, "You know what drives me crazy about that vampire myth? Huh? Do ya, punk!?" much more often. But, really, SF conventions are the best place to do that because it's at least moderately acceptable, if not somewhat expected.

I'm really bummed I had to miss Sunday morning because Stone Soup Films was screening their full-length vampire film, "Pray for Daylight." I can't say anything about the film, but the screenwriter and the vampire-actor-dude (both of whom I met), were really cool. If you're curious (and I certainly am), check out their teaser page.

More About Bob and Other Stories of Omniscience

I think we have a fight on our hands.

And, for the record? I can’t BELIEVE it’s about point of view.

I agree with Bob that most of us learn that the omniscient point of view is meant to be a "God's eye" view. I think, however, the mistake is thinking one is actually meant to take on the part of God (or the Goddess), if you will, and not have any opinion about what's being portrayed in the story you are telling. The omniscient narrator is a narrator and a participant in the story, just as a limited third-person narrator would be. This is not just my opinion.

This definition comes from NYU’s class on English reading & writing. Citation: http://www.nyu.edu/classes/op/writing/old_pointofview1.htm

Omniscient Point of View:

"The story is told by the author, using the third person, and his knowledge and prerogatives are unlimited. He can interpret the behavior of his characters; he can comment, if he wishes, on the significance of the story he is telling.

It offers a constant danger that the author may come between the reader and the story, or that the continual shifting of viewpoint from character to character may cause a breakdown in coherence or unity. Used skillfully, it enables the author to achieve simultaneous breadth and depth. Unskillfully used, it can destroy the illusion of reality, which the story attempts to create."

The implication here is very obviously that there is a narrator, a commentator—with a personality (likely the author's)—who is telling the story in omniscient point of view. In fact, as said above, the biggest danger is that the story will suffer from "his" intrusion -- that the narrator will be too present.

Again, I will agree that the solution to this is not to pepper one's prose with "I supposed" or "I consider" or other wishy-washy language. It is imperative that the narrative voice make some kind of stand, posit some kind of opinion. That is what narrative voice does. It should, in point of fact, be the expression of the character's opinions, their feeling, and their general take on the scene or whatever.

A Correction!

A big HUGE apology to Mike Resnick for giving him "undue" credit. The Mike I was thinking of was actually Mike Swanwick

Sorry Mr. Resnick... I guess I just think if it's cool, you must have written it.

Openings... A Can of Worms?

Now if we all agree hooking the reader is important, how do you do it?

A lot of writing instructors will suggest that you start the story in the middle of THE ACTION. You know, "Twang! The arrow barely missed her head," and such like. That method can be effective, and it's a good thing to try particularly if you feel like your story lacks a certain amount of movement or if you've been having trouble with your pacing.

Not every story needs to start with a literal bang, however.

In science fiction and fantasy, you can also start with an eyeball kick, as William Gibson did in his famous opening for Neuromancer: "The sky was the color of a television set tuned to a dead channel."

Juxtapositions work well too. I'm not sure I can find the exact opening, but Mike Resnick's "Scherzo with Tyrannosaurus" would be a good example of how putting to disparate elements together can grab a reader's attention. Turns out it was downstairs. Here's how it goes: "A keyboardist was playing a selection of Scarlatti's harpsichord sonatas, brief pieces one to three minutes long, very complex and refined, while the Hadrosaurus herd streamed by the window."

From the same collection, this alternative from "Mount Olympus" by Ben Bova, "Tomas Rodriguez looked happy as a puppy with an old sock to chew on as he and Fuchida got into their hard suits." What I like about Bova's is that nothing is really happening. It's the turn of phrase that sounds very American South coupled with a term I'm not sure of "hard suits" (space suits? something else?) that catches and holds my attention.

Let's see if there's anything else fun in here (BTW, I'm perusing the SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR’S BEST SCIENCE FICTION, edited by Gardner Dozois). Okay, here's the beginning of Paul J. McAuley's, "How We Lost the Moon, A True Story by Frank W. Allen"--"You probably think you know everything about it." A provocative accusation in second-person (you) which jumps out and bites you, personally. This works for me, especially given the title of the story. Something like that could work for you, too, perhaps.

One thing that writing instructors will also tell you, but which I've actually found fairly useful, is that sometimes it's best to leave the beginning to the end. Which is to say, start the story wherever you need to in order to write it all the way to the end, and then, once all is said and typed, go back and revamp your hook so that it's catchier. Also, depending on how you write, you may not know what a story is about until it's over, and really, the beginning paragraph of a short story (or first chapter of the novel) should lay out the main conflict of the main character. It needs to answer the question: What’s at stake here? Who stands to lose the most?

...And Now, Hooking like a Pro

I love the double entendre of that, don't you? Plus, it serves as a fairly good example of how to write an effective opening line, otherwise known as a "hook."

The idea of a hook that it grabs your reader's attention, draws them in, and (fingers crossed) keeps them rapt until the words THE END. Why is it important to do this? Why not just start at the beginning and go?

The reason is because the competition is enormous.

I was walking through the Washington County Library on my way to class last Wednesday and I was struck by the fact that each one of the books I passed represented a person, and not just any person, but a professional writer just like me. Each one of those people managed to jump through the same hoops I did, and, in so many ways, beat the odds and got their book in print.

For every book on the shelf, I imagine there must be hundreds, if perhaps not thousands, of writers who didn’t… or, more positively, haven't YET.

If you're writing for the short story market, you have the same kind of pressure. Asimov's receives something like a thousand submissions a month. I think they run a dozen or more stories, plus you have to factor in all the bigger names than you (and me) who are also taking up valuable real estate.

So, how do you stand out in a crowd like that?

Like a 'ho, ya gotta have a good come-on.

That's a sickeningly apt metaphor, since the opening is a kind of advertisement, a way of letting people know what kind of story they're getting themselves in for. If your opening is dark and serious, then the reader will expect that what follows is also dark and serious.

First, A Reply

I thought I'd reply to Bob's (and to some extent Megan's) comments on my narrative voice post here since my response is likely to be long, meandering and drawn out and, thus, not terribly suited for the narrow comments page.

Bob asks, "What about voice with gravitas? Why are so many writers terrified of sounding serious?"

I don't know that they are, but you're right that there is a trend in fiction right now toward a chatty, first person narrative voice. I suspect part of that is because the target audience (the slacker generation and younger) tends toward sarcasm and meta-fiction in their life and entertainment. Thus, it's an easy way for a writer to establish a rapport with her audience. Plus, I think a lot of writers enjoy the challenge of working with a potentially unreliable narrator. It's fun to try to figure out how to let your readers know the truth about a situation when your narrator is lying to him/herself about it, you know?

But, I think you can have a serious narrative voice. What I was trying to caution new writers about is being careful of the distinction between serious and flat. You can be plenty serious, but still have that view color the way you look at things. A serious narrator will still "notice" things that are important to him/her as they reflect plot or character. (Example: hero is space captain going for job interview. When he walks in the room the thing he might first notice is the cheap veneer on the table... or some other clue that will forward, in many ways, the plot, as it will dictate how he responds to the scene. This can all be described seriously, but I think it still ought to be a filtered by his personality and situation. A flat narration would simply start listing the dimensions of the room, the table, the color of the walls, etc with no regard to how the character might be reacting to any of it.)

I disagree with Bob about omniscient p.o.v., in that I don't see omniscient as lacking a personality or distinct narrative voice. In fact, the omniscient p.o.v. is merely a character outside of the story who can see into other people's heads. A good example of this is almost any sort of mythological or fairy tale like story, in which the narrator basically directs the story to the moral that he or she is trying to make. Sometimes they're _not_ invisible in the text, they might break out with an imperative sentence like, "Imagine!" or a comment directly to the reader, like, "This was before you were born, and so things were different then." A great modern writer who uses omniscient well is Eleanor Arnason.

Certainly, Bob is right when he says that it is possible that pumping up the voice won't help every writer who has been told that their writing is flat. I agree that it's likely something more holistic. However, I have read at least two manuscripts from students of mine who did everything else right, as far as I could tell, but there was still something that felt missing. I spent months mulling over the problem, and finally decided that what I thought the manuscripts needed was a better sense of voice.

But, voice as a concept is no trendier than the idea that a sentence must include a verb.

How voice is presented has changed dramatically over time, but fiction has always had a voice. Why? Because fiction in its primal form was spoken. Stories have always been told by SOMEONE. This doesn't change because they are written down.

My First Review!

Barb Radmore reviewed Tall, Dark & Dead at Armchair Interviews.

"What's My Motivation?" Creating Character Through Narrative Voice

Creating believable characters is the essence of fiction writing. But how is it actually done?

First of all, I don't think anyone really knows. So much of writing is magic, after all. (I mean that quite seriously, but maybe that's a post for another day.) Even so, it is also a craft. There are tricks of the trade that help flat words on the page blossom into vivid, living imaginary creatures.

One such trick is what is called narrative voice.

I searched desperately for a good definition of what is meant by narrative voice and I didn't come up with much of any use. So, I’ll have to stumble through an explanation of my own. The narrative is comprised of the parts of the story that is not dialogue. That would include all of the description, the internal dialogue (if there is any), the action, and everything (except the bits in quotations). The narrative voice, therefore, is the way – the tone, if you will – in which those parts are written.

Your narrative will be in a point of view (the usual suspects: first or third). It will be in a verb tense of some sort (past or present).

The voice, on the other hand, will convey a certain kind of personality, such as chatty, sarcastic, militaristic, hesitant, or angry. Since your story is being told, in essence, by the main character, the narrative voice (remember: the bits in between) should reflect their personality as much as the character's dialogue and actions. It will be consistent throughout the text, ie. your chick-lit heroine will still be chatty even during the scary scenes or the sad scenes. She'll just be chatty in a scared way or a sad way. Though not necessarily when she's talking (dialogue), but when she's explaining things to us, the readers.

One of the big mistakes beginning writers often make is to underutilize the narrative voice. I don't know why, but a lot of people seem to approach those parts of the story as if they're the boring bits. He walked into the room, yada, yada.

No, no, no. The narrative is where your character LIVES. If your critique group is telling you that your characters feel flat, this may be part of your problem.

The narrative voice is the reader's main window into the mind, the emotional state, and the... well, character of your main character. So he walked into a room. Is it a room he's been in before? Does the room make him feel instantly at ease? Why? What about it? Is it the dried flower arrangement collecting dust in the sunlight that reminds him of his mother's house? Is the room warm? And, how does this reflect the plot (or the theme)? Is this room a place in which he's going to take shelter after having his world-view shaken after discovering his lover is a werewolf? If so, what about this familiar place suddenly feels wrong?

Plus, as I've said many times before I think one of the reasons readers read is to get a sense of what it’s like to be someone else. We want someone else's take on the familiar. So he walked into a room, is there something there I might understand, relate to? Okay, so I've never discovered my lover is a werewolf, but what is it about walking into a room you've been in a million times before after hearing some world-altering news that is universal to the human experience? Or maybe it's not even that close. Maybe it's like the feeling of wrong familiarness that you get once you’ve been overseas and come home, and you look at all the houses in the Midwest with their expansive lawns that you've grown up with all your life, and suddenly they seem far too far apart.

That's part of using narrative voice to its full potential.

The other part is word choice. Part of keeping your narrative voice consistent is remembering to always use the kinds of words your main character would know when describing people, places, and things. For example, a nuclear physicist would describe a garden in a different way than a ten-year old girl.

One of the more difficult parts of writing is remembering to always stay in your main character’s head – to think like they do. One of the reasons I don't like to read much horror, particularly the kinds of horror novels where there’s a serial killer who has p.o.v. chapters, is that I hate getting into the mindset of someone so damaged. And, when a writer does it well, that's exactly what happens. It can be kind freaky, actually. See my nephew's blog (Sunday, January 29) where he talks about reading American Psycho.

The Magical Forests of Schenectady, or Hunting Down and Capturing Fantasy Ideas

The best place I’ve found for hunting down fantasy ideas is a library (or your favorite local, independent used bookstore).

If I look up from my computer I can see books with titles like these – A Dictionary of Angels, Arab Folktales, Tokyo Underworld, Mythical Trickster Figures, American Indian Myths and Legends, Greek Homosexuality, The Complete Prophecies of Nostradamus, and the History of Grave Robbing.

I think the word you’re looking for is: eclectic.

And, actually, this represents one shelf. I’ve got books of much greater range stashed all over the house.

The best reason for becoming a writer is because, when all else fails, you’re often a hit at cocktail parties. Because we’re trolling dark and strange places for ideas, writers know the weirdest stuff – and we know it passionately. When I get on the thread of something, I’ll follow it all over the place. Often my original intent gets lost among all the cool side streets.

So, I think if you’re trying to cultivate the heart of a fantasy writer, you need to develop the passions of a researcher.

Or, as I said in class, it helps if you naturally think too hard about stuff. (God, I’m so articulate!)