O | The Online Writing Workshop for SF, F & H Newsletter, February 2003
W | http://sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com
W | Become a better writer!
| - - CONTENTS - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
- Workshop News:
OWW romance workshop open
Language construction focus group
March writing challenge
Odyssey summer writing workshop
Membership payment information
- Editors' Choices for January submissions
- Reviewer Honor Roll
- Publication Announcements
- Workshop Statistics
- Feedback: thank you!
- Tip: 5 Prerequisites for Successful Workshopping by Jeanne Cavelos
| - - WORKSHOP NEWS - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
Wow! January was the workshop's busiest month since the Del Rey
sponsorship ended. It's a good sign -- along with recent sales and
publications -- that the workshop community is strong and growing.
We've got some new features and special focus groups planned for this
year to keep that momentum going throughout 2003. Watch the newsletter
for announcements.
OWW ROMANCE WORKSHOP OPEN
OWW's new workshop for romance writers is open and free of charge for
the next few months. Please tell anyone who might be interested.
You can visit it at http://romance.onlinewritingworkshop.com
LANGUAGE CONSTRUCTION FOCUS GROUP
The focus group on constructing languages for fiction, moderated by
workshop member and linguistics scholar Meredith L. Patterson, will
start any day now. If you're interested in participating, please go
to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/oww-sff-focus/ and sign up.
Focus groups are short duration (one- or two-week) e-mail discussions
on specific topics. There are reading assignments and sometimes
exercises. The level of traffic can be very high, but only for a short
period of time. Many members have found our focus groups valuable in
improving their writing and reviewing skills.
We're still planning a plotting/pacing focus group for the near
future, so if you're interested please watch for further
announcements.
MARCH WRITING CHALLENGE
Celia Marsh tells us about the mailing list's March Writing Challenge...
The Moon
Countless myths, fairy tales, and folklore involve the moon--read up on
them and look for things that speak to you. You have all sorts of
metaphorical elements: Lunacy, werewolves, cheese, periods, drunk
college boys, the man in the moon, the rabbit in the moon, jumping
cows. Or just go outside and look up. Set the story in the moon. Go
crazy. Have fun. Do both.
Participating in the monthly challenges is an excellent way to stretch
your skills. Pick a genre you usually don't write in, or a subject
that challenges you. Do something daring; these pieces are for fun,
so don't worry about them. Challenge pieces have a remarkable sale
rate -- there are a couple more in this month's "sales and
publications" -- proof, possibly, that challenging yourself, truly
trying something that scares you but speaks to you, may pay off in
ways you can't expect.
Please don't post any pieces prior to March 1st. When you post it (at
12:01 3/1/03), put the words "Moon Challenge" in the title. If you
can't stand waiting till March 1st, that's just too bad. Walk around
the block or crit past challenge pieces in an effort to distract
yourself.
For more information on the writing challenges, visit:
http://www.thermeon.net/checkered/Challenge.html
ODYSSEY SUMMER WRITING WORKSHOP ANNOUNCES 2003 SESSION
Odyssey, the highly respected creative writing workshop for science
fiction, fantasy, and horror authors, will host Gene Wolfe as a
special writer-in-residence at its summer 2003 session. This will be
Wolfe's first teaching engagement in seven years, a rare opportunity
for students. Featured 2003 guest lecturers are three-time Lambda
Literary Award winner Melissa Scott, best-selling author Roland J.
Green, award-winning teacher and author Bruce Holland Rogers, American
Book Award nominee John Crowley, and literary agent Lori Perkins.
The six-week workshop, held on the campus of Southern New Hampshire
University from June 16-July 25, combines an intensive learning and
writing experience with in-depth feedback on students' manuscripts.
Students must apply by April 15. Further info:
http://www.odysseyworkshop.org
MEMBERSHIP PAYMENT INFORMATION
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fully or partially cover the costs of an initial paying membership for
certain active, review-contributing members whose situations do not
allow them to pay the full membership fee themselves.
Bonus payments: The workshop costs only 77 cents per week, but we know
that many members feel that it's worth much more to them. So here's
your chance to award us with a bonus on top of your membership fee.
For example, is the workshop worth a dollar a week to you? Award us a
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For more information:
Payments: http://sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com/memberships.shtml
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About our company: http://sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com/bonuspayments.shtml
Price comparisons:
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| - - EDITORS' CHOICES - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
The Editors' Choices are chosen from the submissions from the previous
month that show the most potential or otherwise earn the admiration of
our Resident Editors. Submissions in four categories -- SF, F, horror,
and short stories -- receive a detailed review, meant to be educational
for others as well as the author.
Reviews are written by our Resident Editors, award-winning authors and
instructors Kelly Link, Nalo Hopkinson, and Jeanne Cavelos, or
occasionally other writing pros. Close contenders for the EC may be
listed here as runners-up but usually won't get a review.
The last four months of Editors' Choices and their editorial reviews
are archived on the workshop. Go to the "Read, Rate, Review" page and
click on "Editors' Choices" in the Submission Selector.
Congratulations to this month's Editors' Choice authors!
Runners-up, Fantasy Chapter/Partial Chapter:
BRIDGE OF BLOOD & IRON, PARTS ONE AND TWO by Elizabeth Bear
THE GOLD MEDALLION by Randy Simpson
Editor's Choice, Fantasy Chapter/Partial Chapter:
POSTCARDS FROM THE DARKSIDE, PART 10 by Siobhan Carroll
Ms. Carroll, torn between this title and LAST TRAIN TO INNSMOUTH, asks
for thoughts and/or suggestions. I'm not sure either one is right;
the former seems too flippant, reminiscent of Carrie Fisher's novel,
POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE, while the latter suggests some unholy
collaboration between the Monkees and H.P. Lovecraft. The use of
Innsmouth bothered me a little; if the name has been chosen simply as
an homage, I think it carries too many strong Lovecraftian
associations which readers are apt to transfer to Carroll's Innsmouth
whether they belong there or not.
Aside from the title, this is an accomplished and, for the most part,
publishable piece of writing. Carroll handles action and suspense
well, and her characters are generally distinct and believable. There
are some wonderful phrases and images. "The man driving the car --
the polite one who killed people for a living" is one of my favorites.
And in the paragraph beginning "Lily let the smile..." the extended
simile of the wolf chained to a stake is exceptional.
The physicality of the POV characters and the way their differences
from the human impact their psychology is well done. The descriptions
of the werewolf's sensations throughout the opening section are
excellent (although more could be made of his sense of smell). The
same goes for Lily, who, despite appearances, turns out to be an even
stranger being than the werewolf.
The characters are also developed well. For example: "But home was a
burnt-out den, his mother skinned in the doorway." Nice! Suddenly
our sympathies are engaged on behalf of a werewolf. One of things I
like most about this piece is that there are no clear-cut heroes;
there are only gradations of bad, with each character a hero in his or
her own mind but evincing little loyalty to any of the others -- with
the exception of the assassin, who I assume is the Death Worshipper
named Thursday identified in the plot synopsis, of whom more later.
There are some problems that can be fixed and some opportunities to do
more.
In the opening section, it could be made clearer that it's night and
the minimal illumination comes from the lights of the station.
Similarly, we could use a fuller description of the other man on the
platform; when we learn that he's wearing a hood, this comes as a
shock because it's the sort of thing that the werewolf would have
noticed much earlier.
In the paragraph beginning "The train is late," the line "A white hand
reached up to clutch his throat" threw me on first reading: I thought
the white hand was reaching to clutch the werewolf's throat. Always
make sure that pronouns have clear references.
Some of the logic was not clear to me either. In the fight on the
platform, the werewolf thinks "Not human, not human, not human..."
But he already knows that his adversary is not human: "This one's not
from the town, he realized. He's a Darksider, like me." So it seemed
strange that he would be attacking under the assumption that his
adversary was human and be so surprised to find he was not. Perhaps
this is because he's not yet a full-fledged assassin; if so, I wish
that were made clearer. After the fight, when the werewolf runs, I
didn't understand why his attacker didn't follow him, especially since
he does just that a few pages later.
Structurally, I wondered why the section featuring Lily carried a
subtitle ("Lily") while the section featuring the werewolf had none.
Occasionally the author drops out of her chosen POV. For example,
early in the Lily section, we find the following line: "The tall man
(who wasn't a man, really, but something that had been too strong to
die when it should have) said nothing." Who is delivering the
information in the parenthetical to readers? It isn't Lily, nor does
it seem to be those helpful voices in her blood. And why is this
information given to us here when other potentially helpful bits of
information before and after are not supplied to us? It feels like a
slip.
Thursday (although he's not named as such in this chapter) is an
interesting character, perhaps the most sympathetic of the bunch. He
seems the most human somehow; there's a Sam Spade quality to him. But
he spends entirely too much time looking at the ground, and in general
he struck me as too passive.
The dialogue is crisp and sharp in a Buffyish way. "And what does
this antichrist do?" "She reads a book." But I would suggest taking
some of this snappy dialogue a beat or two further. A line like "She
reads a book" cries out for a comeback.
I enjoyed the chance to read this and look forward to seeing more!
--Paul Witcover, author of WAKING BEAUTY
http://www.sff.net/people/stilskin/
Editor's Choice, SF Chapter/Partial Chapter:
THE SWORD CHAPTER ONE by Elizabeth Hull
This is an "out of the frying pan and into the fire" type of opening
chapter, perfect for the sort of space opera THE SWORD appears to be.
Arthur and his military unit of "Terran Outcasts" and "Submariners"
escape enemy fire only to find a possibly worse threat in their
sanctuary. In between, the author establishes Arthur's leadership and
the bond of brotherhood that holds these men together, and hints at
Arthur's destiny.
One of the things that appealed to me most in this chapter was the
sentence level writing. The first few sentences of the chapter hooked
me at once with their vividness and precise word choice:
"Rain like shafts of ice slashed down at Arthur. It sent chill runnels
over his fighting men, where they huddled in a gully. Forked lightning
crackled around them, charging the air with a stink of destruction. He
eased higher, shielding his eyes and choked back a string of foul
oaths as he saw the running lights of a Nestine sky ship hovering in
the distance."
At this point, I don't know who Arthur is, and I'm not emotionally
involved with him or his fighting men. But the shafts of ice slashing
down, the chill runnels, the huddled men, and crackling lightning
induce me to trust the writer so that I keep on reading.
The other thing that appealed to me was the author's use of telling
details, particularly the way they were smoothed into the story
without interrupting the pacing. The Nestine ship above is one
example; the author doesn't stop right there to explain who the
Nestines are but continues to deliver information about them while the
story moves. Here's another excellent example:
"Water found its way between his neck and the collar of his tunic,
making a cold pocket of wetness. His flesh moved in automatic response
to pry open gill flaps under his ears. Arthur felt shock slow him.
That should not happen. Membranes that activated in the presence of
salt water could not .... Unless?"
The author introduces the detail and then uses it to develop
information about the character and his enemy without interrupting the
flow of the story. Good stuff!
These hard-to-master skills outweighed my reservations about the
chapter, but there are still some significant problems the author
needs to address to make this a publishable work.
The names in the chapter -- Arthur, Kai, Emrys, Avalon -- all point to
some kind of Camelot-themed structure. I also realize that this seems
to be a sequel to an earlier novel, which can be a good thing when it
comes time to try and sell the work. So I'm guessing that the
characters are all vivid in the author's head, with Arthurian
parallels. However, reference to myth or continuation of a previous
work does not relieve the author of responsibility for establishing
vivid characters anew for the first-time reader. While Arthur comes
across clearly, with physical sensations and gill flaps and strategic
analysis, the other characters appear mostly as a series of names.
Many of the details that are given them belong to a group: "He watched
Kai's mouth turn up into the slow trademark smile of Brethren."
This problem is most obvious in the third scene, when they play the
word game that establishes their brotherhood for the reader. Only
Haystack's hair is used to give any of the characters a distinct
physical presence. The rest have voices and gestures that are
interchangeable. After hooking me with the action, this is the spot
where you have to make me care about what happens to these people;
instead, I felt my attention drifting and caught myself skimming
through the end of the chapter on both the first and second reading.
Not a good thing. Find ways to make the characters distinct without
interrupting the flow of the story, the same way you introduce the
plot elements. Make us recognize and connect to them as individuals.
I have similar concerns about the logic of the plot action. Despite
the energy of the first scene, at the end I have no idea why Arthur
and his men are there. The Nestines appear to be attacking other
people trapped in some rocks; as soon as Arthur figures out the
details about the ear rings and salt water, they dive into the river
and escape. As a reader, I wanted more of a clue to their purpose out
there in their first place. I also wanted consequences -- as far as I
can tell, if Arthur and his men had not been there at all, the exact
same ending would have resulted: Nestine ships fry a bunch of
strangers.
You might consider introducing dialogue and individual characters
earlier. When Arthur thinks "as for his Submariners, unused to
electrical storms, he could only imagine the calming mantras they used
to hold position," it would be a good time to show us his Submariners
and show one of them using a calming mantra, or two of them reacting
slightly differently, based on their personalities.
The transition to the second scene, "three days later," felt much too
easy for me also, although the author does a good job of portraying
their exhaustion. When Arthur thinks of Avalon and his mother, as your
average reader I wanted more context. Here's the reason why these men
are out fighting! Though it's clear to the author what these
references mean, as readers we need those vivid details to bring them
alive and make us care.
The third scene was the least effective of the three scenes for me
because it didn't establish the individual characters enough or let me
glimpse enough of Arthur's backstory or theirs to care about what
happens. The word game was intended to add depth, but it only adds
one layer and one layer is a surface. They need more distinct physical
presences, more individual voices, more sense of their separate
histories and purposes. The more important the character -- Kai,
Haystack -- the more important this is. You don't need to dump the
info all at once; a sentence here and there, blended into the rest of
the story, would develop the characters very quickly without breaking
up the flow.
On a minor level, I would watch out for pet phrases--something many
authors are prone to. In the fifth paragraph of the first scene, we
have a "scream of pain," "howls," and "slow agony." In the third
paragraph from the end of the chapter, we have "a scream of pain,"
"his agony," and "howls." It doesn't feel like parallel structure,
just overuse of melodrama. The repetition, with our lack of emotional
connection to the sufferer in the first scene and Haystack's quick
recover in the last, quickly deadens the effectiveness of this
language. Focus on making us connect to the characters before you make
them suffer.
I spent so much attention on the problems because I think the author
has already acquired much more difficult skills. I hope these comments
can help bring the rest of this chapter up to the same level.
--Charles Coleman Finlay
Workshop Administrator and author of cover stories "The Political
Officer" and "A Democracy of Trolls" (_The Magazine of Fantasy and
Science Fiction__, 2002)
http://home.earthlink.net/~ccfinlay/
Editor's Choice, SF/F Short Story:
"Todos Santos" by Terri Trimble
This is a beautifully told story. Its strong point is its vivid,
immediate sense of place, and the dreamlike mingling of the narrator's
somewhat messy, sordid, aimless current life with something richer,
stranger, and darker. The author is to be commended for her attention
to detail, and her strong, clear writing style. However, while the
ending feels emotionally right, I'm not exactly sure what has
happened, or what it means. The result is that while this story reads
easily and has an evocative mood, setting, and sense of literal
otherworldliness, it doesn't cohere in some fairly important ways.
Part of the problem may be that I'm not familiar enough with Mexican
history, but I don't think so. Mexico comes through clearly enough.
What doesn't come through is the narrator's own history. I don't
normally suggest experimenting with viewpoint, or tense, but there may
be something both too easy and also too limiting about the use of
first-person present tense. We know that the narrator and Josh are on
the run from something, we don't know what, and that something isn't
as important as the narrator's own background. Stepping back from her
point of view may let you, and your readers, get a better look at her.
Both Josh and Luisa, and even the mysterious professor figure, are
easier to get a handle on. (By the way, the tourist/professor falls
away at the end -- it would be better if they see him at the cemetery,
even if he ends up playing no larger role in the story.)
The following paragraph raises a lot of questions: "I'll call my
parents, they'll wire me money. I'll go home and beg forgiveness and
be re-admitted to the family, ensconced in the pink bedroom my mother
hasn't changed since I left home. I'll tell them I've changed and
we'll pretend to believe it. The ritual is safe and familiar." How old
is the narrator? Is she a teenager? If not, what does she do? If her
only options are her parents or Josh, she's either remarkably young,
or remarkably passive, and used to being taken care of by others. But
even if she is very young, and I don't think she is (her voice is much
more mature -- she sounds much more like a woman in her mid-twenties)
she is remarkably without friends or resources. Whatever it is that
Josh and his confederate Mike did, there is no indication that it
interrupted her life -- she already seems to have been adrift in some
fundamental way. This, of course, is an important part of the story,
and yet we don't know the narrator well enough to assign causes, or
feel particularly strongly about her loss of herself.
As for Luisa, her history seems straight out of a made-for-TV
melodrama, or a fever dream, until the end, in the alley, which is a
compelling, shocking scene. You might want to tone down the narrator's
earlier dreams/visions, such as the funeral of Luisa's lover, or at
least add some slightly more telling details -- the wedding ring of
his wife seems particularly over-the-top.
As for Josh's trouble with the law, I'm very much in favor of
thwarting some expectations. It makes me very happy that Josh comes
back when neither the reader nor the narrator expect him to return. I
think I like the fact that we never learn what, exactly, Josh and Mike
have been up to. I don't even mind that we never find out if the
professor is up to no good (although I think he should, as I've said,
make one final and ominous appearance, and possibly scare Josh out of
the cemetery.) But I would like all these withheld pieces of story a
lot more if other parts of the story -- if the narrator herself --
were in plainer view.
There are a few unnecessarily clunky sentences like this one: "For
Josh it's different: he battles a national psyche antithetical to his
own."
Occasionally the narrator seems whinier, and more neurotic than you
may intend: "My eyes are playing tricks on me, or maybe I'm delirious,
already, from lack of food." She ate a hamburger at lunchtime. If you
want her to be hungry and in dire straits, then have her run out of
money faster.
But I'm hesitant to make too many suggestions -- this is a very
delicately balanced story, and a pleasure to read, even when the
various elements don't add up. We may not have much of a readerly
grasp on the narrator, but the accumulation of details and encounters
-- the old woman by the grave, the children selling gum, the tourist
in the museum, Luisa's death -- is _almost_ enough to satisfy.
--Kelly Link
Short story collection STRANGER THINGS HAPPEN available from Small
Beer Press
http://www.kellylink.net/
Editor's Choice, Horror
STILL LIFE, CHAPTER 1 by Alisha Karabinus
I sense that, like an iceberg, the setting has much more to it than
we've seen so far, and that's a very intriguing element of the story
that makes me want to read more. I don't know what a "reality bender"
is, but I sure want to find out. I'm also very interested in the
relationship between Claudia and Lisanne.
But other elements of the story are not being developed as strongly as
they need to be. The biggest weakness I see here is the plot. As
I've discussed in previous critiques, in each scene of a story
something of significance must change for the main character of the
scene. In the terminology of Robert McKee, who has a great book on
writing called STORY, a major value should shift to its opposite. For
example, the character might start the scene in captivity and end in
freedom, or start the scene loving someone and end the scene hating
that person.
This chapter has six scenes. In the third scene, Claudia blows her
cover, so we get a sense she's moved from safety to danger. In the
fifth scene, Claudia agrees to let Lisanne move in, which is another
significant change, from isolation to companionship. So two out of
the six scenes have the significant changes needed.
However, in the first two scenes, nothing of significance changes.
Yes, the plot is moving ahead -- Claudia sees Seyr, then meets him --
but this isn't enough. Without the sort of shifts I'm discussing, the
story feels like a board game where the author is moving little pieces
around. The events carry no weight. The fourth and sixth scenes also
lack significant change. You're just introducing Seyr's activity and
life, and that's not enough. According to the McKee theory, these
scenes need to be heavily revised or cut.
A related plot problem is that the two changes you do have are weakly
motivated. Let me go into some detail so that it's clear how I'm
reading the story.
First, Claudia blows her cover for no particular reason. She seems to
be on her guard around Seyr, so I don't know why she'd suddenly let
down her guard or become stupid, which is what seems to happen.
Similarly, Claudia's decision to allow Lisanne to move in seems weakly
motivated. She seems to have realized she needs companionship because
she threw a glass against the wall. But throwing a glass against the
wall doesn't seem like any big deal for Claudia; I get the feeling she
probably does this every day. The motivation for the glass-throwing
was the slip with Seyr. Since this didn't seem to arise out of any
unique circumstance, the glass-throwing doesn't seem unique either.
It just seems like she's the type of person to make slips and throw
glasses. The only other factor involved is the appearance of the
ghost of Temple. Again, this seems to be something that happens
fairly often. So the question of why Claudia would finally accept a
roommate on this day is not sufficiently answered. You show us the
change, but we don't really believe it. If you want us to believe
that someone who has lived alone for a long time is finally going to
change that, you need to show us a really strong motivation. You need
to show that something is different now than it's been in the past.
Right now, you seem to be throwing in these changes like
afterthoughts, rather than structuring your scenes around them, which
is what you should be doing.
What this means is that your plot needs to be much more densely
structured. You can't have a scene just to introduce characters, give
background, or set up situations. Each scene must have sufficient
weight and consequence, and be an absolutely integral part of a
unified whole. Right now, I feel like the story is still struggling
to get started.
That's the biggest challenge I think you need to face in a revision.
Some other issues...
--The conclusion of this detailed review by Jeanne Cavelos
(http://www.odysseyworkshop.org/) can be found in the Editors' Choice area
of the workshop!
| - - REVIEWER HONOR ROLL - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
The Reviewer Honor Roll area of the workshop recognizes members who
have given useful, insightful reviews. After all, that's what makes
the workshop go, so we want to give great reviewers a little
well-earned recognition! (Some months we also award a prize to a
special reviewer.)
This month's reviewer prize winner is Stella Evans, for the Honor Roll
nomination below. Stella snatches up our last copy of THE LADY OF THE
SORROWS, Book 2 of _The Bitterbynde_ trilogy, by workshop alum Cecilia
Dart-Thornton (http://www.dartthornton.com), which she can read before Book
3 comes out in a few months. Here's why we were impressed:
Reviewer: Stella Evans
Submission: "Sundown Quit" by Mark Ford
Submitted by: Mark Ford
Nominator's Comments: Stella gave an excellent initial review. She pointed
out that grammar was a problem. She told me about "workshopisms" and got me
to understand that I didn't need to change or explain everything just
because someone pointed it out in a review. She gave praise when I needed
it, and pointed out the (I feel) biggest weakness in the piece that I had
not yet seen - it was predictable. Beyond that, she read the newsgroups. She
noticed that I had posted a thread there about my grammar problems, and she
updated her review giving me more detail on my grammar issues. All without
my asking. I'm not sure what more you could ask for from a review, or a
reviewer. Thank you, Stella :)
If you got a really useful review and would like to add the reviewer
to the Reviewer Honor Roll, just use our online honor-roll nomination
form -- log in and link to it from the bottom of the Reviewer Honor Roll
page at http://sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com/honorroll.shtml. Your
nomination will appear on the first day of the next calendar month.
The Honor Roll will show all February nominations beginning March 1.
Some more advance highlights from the February honor roll:
Reviewer: Susan Hopewell
Submission: THE BECOMING, Ch. 2 by Bob Keller
Submitted by: Bob Keller
Nominator's Comments: Fantastic review: very in-depth, detailed, nailed a lot
(and there were a LOT) of my problems in her review. I get the sense of a
seasoned pro reading and reviewing my work. These are the kinds of reviews
I'm here for.
Reviewer: Jeff Stanley
Submission: rider on a narrow way, Ch. 11 by Kyri Freeman
Submitted by: Kyri Freeman
Nominator's Comments: I would like to nominate Jeff, not for this review
alone, but for some kind of Lifetime Faithful Reviewer Award. While others
have faded away, he has stuck with my work, not only critting on the
workshop but offering vital insights through e-mail. If I ever get published
I will owe him a whole stack of signed copies.
All nominations received in January can be still found through
February 28 at: http://sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com/honorroll.shtml
| - - PUBLICATION ANNOUNCEMENTS - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
We can't announce them if you don't let us know! So drop Charlie a
line at support@sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com whenever you have good
news to share.
The editors at _Deep Magic_ (http://www.deepmagic.amberlin.com/) let
us know that their February 2003 issue is comprised almost exclusively
of works by OWW members. The issue contains Steve Westcott's story
"Birth of a Hero," his article "Do I Write Funny?" and an interview
with him. It also contains the short story "Magic Chicken" by M
Thomas as well as Brendan Taylor's short story "LotR Bachelor Auction"
and his article "Ringing True."
Gary Peterson sent us a "woohoo!" because he finished writing his
first novel. We're hoping he writes us back when he sells it!
Sales and Publications:
It's not too late to catch Leah Bobet's first print fiction
publication. "With the Help of Your Good Hands" is in the current
issue of Canada's premiere SF magazine, _On Spec_ (order it at
http://www.onspec.ca/). She also sold poem "The Penultimate Pendragon"
to _Aoife's Kiss_, with thanks to workshop members Elizabeth Bear and
John Borneman for their supremely helpful comments.
C. Scavella Burrell sold "The Book of Things Which Must Not Be
Remembered" to _Strange Horizons_ (http://www.strangehorizons.com).
It's her first pro sale, but, we suspect, far from her last.
We heard a rumor that Wendy Delmater sold something to one of her
regular markets. Well, actually, we heard it from Wendy, so it's
probably not a rumor. But she's been too busy to e-mail us the
details, so check back for them next month.
Publication-announcement regular Stella Evans had her story
"Opalescence" accepted for publication in the upcoming anthology IN
THE OUTPOSTS OF BEYOND. She tells us: "I found the market on Ralan;
I'd had a vague idea about opals, space opera, and a retired space
pirate kicking around in my head. This seemed like the perfect
market, so once I got the piece on paper (and revised and edited six
or seven times), I sent it off. I'd like to thank Larry West,
Elizabeth Bear, and Jennie Golo for their help smoothing out grammar,
finding plot and action-sequence holes, and helping me streamline the
conflict."
Mark Fewell sold his first story to a webzine. He wrote: "This was a
goal I set for myself this year -- though I've sold plenty of fiction
to print magazines, I've never been able to sell to an online market."
"Sam's Son's Hair" appears in the February 2003 issue of pro-rate zine
_The Palace of Reason_
(http://www.palaceofreason.com/Fiction/sams_sons_hair.html).
Charles Coleman Finlay's novella "The Political Officer" (_F&SF_,
April 2002) is a finalist for the Nebula Award. When asked about
this, he said: "Wow!"
Matt Horgan sold "Servant of the Servants of God" to the _Fortean
Bureau_ (http://www.forteanbureau.com). Matt says: "I originally
wrote this for the epistolary-story challenge in August. Rather than
single out any one particular reviewer, I'd like to thank them all as
I learned something from each of them: Ruth Nestvold, Pam McNew,
Elizabeth Bear, Lizzie Newell, Susan Boulton, Gary Peterson, Jeremy
Tolbert and M Thomas."
Debra Kemp dropped us a note from Cloud 9: She recently signed a
contract for her first novel with AmberQuill Press
(http://amberquill.com/index2.html) and THE HOUSE OF PENDRAGON I: THE
FIREBRAND will be published sometime later this year. She tells us:
"It only took seven years and 207 rejections to make the right
connection!" If that weren't enough, "The Awakening," an excerpt from
her second novel, earned first place in the 2002 Bardsong Press Celtic
Voices contest (http://bardsongpress.com/index.htm). And, because
every cake needs icing, she notes that "A Passing Fair Lady," another
of her Arthurian stories, placed 10th in the Preditors and Editors
readers poll.
Darrell Newton sold short story "A Taste of Earth" to _Deep Magic_
(http://www.deepmagic.amberlin.com/). He told us: "Thanks for the
site. It's really helped." You're welcome!
Meredith L. Patterson and her mutual-fund writing-income account
danced around the kitchen together for her first sale of '03: "Render
Unto Caesar" was bought by the _Fortean Bureau_
(http://www.forteanbureau.com) for their March issue. Her story
description: "It's about an annual reunion of a family in which
sainthood and premature hair loss jointly skip generations." How can
you not go read it now? Where "now" equals "March 1st," that is.
Sarah Prineas's story "The Savage Infant" was workshopped in August
for the epistolary challenge. She just sold it to the new pro print
magazine _Paradox_, where it will appear in issue #3. Sarah says:
"Thanks to reviewers Brad Beaulieu (returns all reviews, great
reviewer), Lizzie Newell, Ruth Nestvold, Larry West (whose keen eye
caught a historical error), Cath Emery, the maaahvelous John Borneman
(whose review was amazingly thorough and helpful), Jon Paradise, Randy
Simpson, Kyri Freeman, and Elizabeth Bear. You guys rule!"
James Stevens-Arce (http://www.stevens-arce.com/) has followed up his
novel SOULSAVER with a short story called "Souls" sold to the original
crime anthology FEDORA 2, due out sometime this year.
Amber Van Dyk sold short story "Sour Metal" to _Alchemy_. According to
Amber, how the sale happened is a story in itself: "Weird thing -- the
editor read my blog, liked the story idea I'd posted, and asked if I'd
send it to him when I wrote it. So, not being a dummy, I did. And he
bought it."
Lisa von Biela's story "Gift Horse" can be found currently at
_Horrorfind_ (http://www.horrorfind.com/). She writes: "Many thanks to
all who contributed their comments!"
Steve Westcott's novel RELUCTANT HEROES, which old-time workshoppers
may recall (if this old-time workshopper recalls correctly) as
"Bruvvers in Arms," was released on January 31st. The launch took
place at W H Smith in Douglas, on the Isle of Man, where more than
sixty copies were sold over four days. W H Smith, the biggest book
chain in the UK, is taking the title on nationally in all 550 stores.
For more about the book, see:
http://www.pegasuspublishers.com/Westcott%20Steve.html. Steve also
has a story, an article, and an interview online this month at _Deep
Magic_ webzine (http://www.deepmagic.amberlin.com/).
| - - WORKSHOP STATISTICS - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
Number of members as of 2/20: 706 paying, 153 trial
Number of submissions currently online: 776
Percent of submissions with 3 or more reviews: 69.3%
Percent of submissions with zero reviews: 2.8%
Number of submissions in January: 658
Number of reviews in January: 2984
Ratio of reviews/submissions in January: 4.53
Estimated average word count per review in January: 557.3
Number of submissions in February to date: 416
Number of reviews in February to date: 1682
Ratio of reviews/submissions in February to date: 4.04
Estimated average word count per review in February to date: 544.2
| - - FEEDBACK - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
THANKS!
We appreciate the detailed and thoughtful responses so many of you
gave to last month's survey question about the five-point ratings
scale and the publishability question (both part of the review form).
We now have a much better idea of why so many of you don't use them,
which will help us decide how to make better use of those features in
the future.
WORKSHOP TIP:
The Top Five Prerequisites for Successful Workshopping by Jeanne
Cavelos
Workshops can be invaluable resources for gaining insight into your
writing and improving your stories. They can also be petty,
excruciating, and destructive. To make your workshopping a positive
force in your writing, you require five critical ingredients.
1. The Right Attitude -- Writers: Many writers, when they submit
their stories to a group of critiquers, think to themselves, "Please
say it's perfect. I really think it's perfect. Please say it's
perfect." This is absolutely the wrong attitude. First of all, any
critique group worth its salt isn't going to tell you your story is
perfect, so you're setting yourself up for a painful fall. Second,
you should not be in a workshop so that people can tell you how
brilliant you are (that's what your mother is for). You should be
submitting your story to learn how readers experience it, and
particularly, to learn what isn't working, so that you can fix it.
What you should be saying to yourself is something like this: "I've
made the story as good as I can on my own. Now I need your help. I
want you to tell me all the weaknesses you can find and leave nothing
out. I'm willing to do as much work on it as necessary."
2. The Right Attitude -- Critiquers: Many writers look at critiquing
the work of others as a time-consuming chore. They know they have to
critique other manuscripts in order to have their own critiqued, but
they rush through that work as quickly as they can, believing it
unrelated to their own writing. Nothing could be further from the
truth. Critiquing the work of others helps you develop the "editor"
part of your brain, the part that can look at a story with some
detachment, analyze its strengths and weaknesses, and discover where
the author went wrong and how to put things right. The more stories
you critique, the larger and the more perceptive this editor lobe of
your brain becomes. Ultimately, you find you are able to apply this
mindset to your own work. You can look at a story of your own with
detachment, as a reader would, and see its strengths and weaknesses.
This is the hardest thing for an author to do, and an extremely
valuable skill to have. I know that my years as a book editor at
Bantam Doubleday Dell made me a much stronger writer.
3. Critiquers You Respect: For the feedback you receive to have any
positive effect, you have to respect the opinion of those offering the
feedback. It's hard enough to accept that your story has flaws; if
you start doubting the validity of the critiques, you'll just end up
dismissing all their points as stupid and inaccurate. When I started
out writing, I found it much easier to believe that the world was too
stupid for my stories than to believe that my stories were muddled.
How do you gain respect for your critiquers? When you critique a
story, read the other critiques of that same story. If you find the
other people raising perceptive points, then your confidence about the
group will grow. After years and years of critiquing, I've come to
the conclusion that nearly every point raised by every critiquer is
valid and should be given attention. Perhaps the critiquer didn't
articulate it in the clearest way, but as the response of a reader,
it's invaluable.
4. Constructive Critiques: Warning -- constructive doesn't mean
"nice." My belief is that every comment you make in a critique must be
both truthful and helpful. That means you don't say you liked a story
if you didn't like it -- every word has to be 100% honest, which isn't
always easy. Also, everything has to be helpful. You may think a
story was really bad, but saying "This story sucked" is not at all
helpful. The author doesn't read that and then think, "Oh, okay, of
course. Now I know exactly what to do to improve this story. I'll
just remove the suckiness." Feedback has to be precise and detailed:
"The characters were flat. The plot had no suspense. The sentences
were awkwardly written, with the subject always coming first." This
may be hard for the author to hear, but it is what you, as a
critiquer, owe to the author: a truthful and helpful critique. And
it gives the author specific elements to focus on in a revision.
5. Critiques That Respect the Story: Some critiquers will end up
essentially telling an author this: "I don't like the story you
wrote. Why don't you write this other story instead?" They'll start
throwing around all sorts of suggestions for changes -- instead of a
headless horseman, why not a vampire? Instead of a haunted outhouse,
why not a haunted car? There's nothing wrong with suggesting ways to
strengthen weaknesses in a story. But as a critiquer, you need to try
to figure out what the author was attempting to achieve with the story
and then offer insights for how he or she might better achieve it.
Throwing out the author's intention, or ignoring it, and replacing it
with your own, doesn't help the author improve his story.
These five elements are key to successful workshopping, whether in
person or online. Learn them, live them, love them. With them, you
can gain great insights and make incredible improvements in your
writing.
Jeanne Cavelos, a former senior editor at Bantam Doubleday Dell and
winner of the World Fantasy Award, is the Director of Odyssey, a
six-week workshop for writers of horror, fantasy, and science fiction
held each summer at Southern New Hampshire University.
More on Jeanne: http://sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com/residenteditors.shtml
More on Odyssey: http://www.odysseyworkshop.org/
TIPS APPRECIATED
Got a helpful tip for your fellow members? A trick or hint for
submitting or reviewing, for what to put in your author's comments,
for getting good reviews, or for formatting or titling your
submission? Share it with us and we'll publish it in the next
newsletter. Just send it to support@sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com and
we'll do the rest.
Until next month -- Just write!
The Online Writing Workshop for Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror
http://sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com
support@sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com
| - - Copyright 2003 Online Writing Workshops, LLC - - - - - - - - -|
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