O | The Online Writing Workshop for SF, F & H Newsletter, January 2004
W | http://sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com
W | Become a better writer!
| - - CONTENTS - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
- Workshop News:
New feature: "your lists"
Strange Horizons seeks reviews editor
Pictures!
Anthology update
Odyssey workshop 2004
Workshop focus chats
February writing challenge
Membership payment information
- Editors' Choices for September submissions
- Reviewer Honor Roll
- Publication Announcements
- Workshop Statistics
- Feedback: List Uses
| - - WORKSHOP NEWS - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
NEW FEATURE: "YOUR LISTS"
By popular request, we've created a new feature for the workshop.
"Your Lists" allows you to create lists on the OWW site to manage your
workshop participation. Use a list to keep track of your favorite
writers or of the submissions you plan to review. Create a list for
the members of your reviewing group so you can have easy access to
their directory listings. Collect reviews you want to read and learn
from.
You can create as many lists as you want, name them, and put them in
the order you want on the Your Lists page. As an added fixture, if a
submission or a review you've listed is removed from the workshop, it
will still be shown in your list so you can keep track of it even if
it's taken down.
Just click on the checkmarks on various pages to add them to your
lists. You can get to your lists from all over the place: via the
button on the left-hand side of the workshop window, the link at the
bottom of the page, or the confirmation page you'll see whenever you
add an item.
Try it out! Experiment! We want feedback on the ways you use this
feature, and we'll include the best ideas in the next newsletter. Send
your comments, suggestions, and observations to
support@sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com -- we'll award a prize for the
most innovative use!
STRANGE HORIZONS SEEKS REVIEWS EDITOR
The _Strange Horizons_ (http://www.strangehorizons.com) Reviews
Department is looking for somebody to handle receiving review copies
from publishers and mailing them out to reviewers. This person would
not be doing any editing, but would still contribute greatly to the
department's work, and would get the side benefit of having literally
dozens of new books passing through their hands -- nobody's going to
complain if you read some of them before mailing them out again!
Primary qualifications are: a stable mailing address at which to
receive books; access to a post office and shipping supplies; good
organizational skills; and enthusiasm and dedication in spending a few
hours each week on SH work, and dealing with workload spikes every
three to four months when copies need to get sent out following a Call
For Reviewers. Familiarity with the Yahoo Groups database system is a
plus, but can easily be picked up on the job. Shipping expenses would
be covered by Strange Horizons, as long as you can remember to keep
your receipts. If you're interested, contact
reviews@strangehorizons.com
PICTURES!
Jim Stevens-Arce has finally posted his pictures from the OWW
get-togethers at Worldcon in Toronto last fall. You can find them at:
http://stevens-arce.com/SFPix.html
Jim writes: "I'm missing some names of people in the first picture and
may have others incorrectly identified, so if you can provide any help
getting the names right, please drop me a line."
ANTHOLOGY UPDATE
Workshop member Rabe Phillips dropped us a note to say that he's
finished the final table of contents for his chapbook anthology
project DARKER THAN TIN, BRIGHTER THAN SIN. "It should be out in the
first week of February," according to Rabe. "It's going to feature
new fiction from workshop members Mikal Trimm ('Innocents') and Pam
McNew ('Sad Weeping Angel') as well as new fiction and poems from six
other contributors."
"The price of the anthology will be either $8.00 or $8.50, depending
on final production costs," he added. "I'm shooting for a $2 donation
to the Scholarship Fund for each copy sold." When we know ordering
information, we'll include it in the newsletter. In the meantime, you
can look at this Web site for updates:
http://www.rabephillips.net/chapbook/chapbook.html
ODYSSEY WRITING WORKSHOP 2004
Odyssey is a highly respected creative writing workshop for science
fiction, fantasy, and horror authors. It was founded nine years ago
to provide up-and-coming genre writers the guidance and support
necessary to become professionals, and it has quickly become one of
the premier genre workshops in the country. Forty percent of
Odyssey's graduates have gone on to be published, a staggering
statistic for a creative writing workshop.
Odyssey's director is none other than our horror reviewer: editor,
author, and teacher Jeanne Cavelos. Odyssey's special
writer-in-residence for 2004 is George R. R. Martin, with guest
lecturers like award-winning authors Catherine Asaro, Ellen Kushner,
Delia Sherman, and Barry B. Longyear, bestseller Bob Mayer, and
award-winning editor/writer Gardner Dozois.
Those interested in receiving further information and an application
should visit the Odyssey Web site at http://www.odysseyworkshop.org, or
send a self-addressed stamped envelope to Odyssey, 20 Levesque Lane,
Box G, Mont Vernon, NH 03057. The Web site includes information about
expenses and scholarships.
WORKSHOP FOCUS CHATS
Mark your calendars for the following upcoming writing chats:
Focus on . . . Ilona Gordon!
Wednesday, January 21, 2004 @ 1:15 pm EST
Focus on . . . Jaime Voss!
Wednesday, January 28, 2004
Focus on . . . Leah Bobet!
Wednesday, February 4, 2004
Focus on . . . Katherine Miller!
Wednesday, February 11, 2004
Focus on . . . Pen Hardy!
Wednesday, February 18, 2004
Schedule your focus today! February 25th and beyond are open dates.
The focus stories are posted on the OWW with the word 'focus' in the
title. All chats are held in the DROWWZoo chat room on AIM. For more
information, e-mail Pen Hardy or IM her at PKHardy.
FEBRUARY WRITING CHALLENGE
Celia Marsh, the Challenge Dictator, says it's time to face the music.
And she doesn't mean karaoke. As with all the themed challenges,
remember to push yourself. Write something you'd never try otherwise,
or if that's too scary, try a different sub-genre -- urban fantasy
instead of high fantasy, space opera instead of hard SF.
Participating in the monthly challenges is an excellent way to stretch
your skills and try things that you usually wouldn't tackle. These
pieces are for fun, so don't worry about them -- if it fails, no one
ever needs to know about it. But a lot of these pieces succeed! Over
30 challenge stories have gone on to publication. Challenging
yourself, truly trying something that scares you but speaks to you,
may pay off in ways you can't expect.
For more complete information on the monthly writing challenges,
visit: http://www.thermeon.net/checkered/Challenge.html
MEMBERSHIP PAYMENT INFORMATION
How to pay: In the U.S., you can pay by PayPal or send us a check or
money order. Outside of the U.S., you can pay via PayPal (though
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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 94 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 five dollars a month to you? Award
us a $11 bonus along with your $49 membership fee. 25% of any bonus
payments we receive will go to our support staff, sort of like a tip
for good personal service. The rest will be tucked away to lengthen
the shoestring that is our budget and keep us running!
For more information:
Payments: http://sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com/memberships.shtml
Bonus payments and information about our company:
http://sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com/bonuspayments.shtml
Price comparisons:
http://sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com/memberships_comparison.shtml
| - - 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 Jeanne Cavelos, James Patrick Kelly, and Kelly Link,
and by experienced science-fiction and fantasy editor Jenni
Smith-Gaynor. 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."
Congratulations to this month's Editors' Choice authors!
Editor's Choice, Fantasy Chapter/Partial Chapter:
FOREST, PART 10 by Jaime Voss
Jaime Voss's FOREST, PART 10 is a great example of how a writer can
present a large amount of information in a concise way. The
characterization is subtle and the dramatic tension rises when a piece
of information casually revealed has tragic undertones. Despite
missing the first nine parts of this story, the nature of the conflict
was clear to me. The antagonist has a wonderfully devious voice.
Nur is a lord with much power in the Church of Darius. They appear to
believe magic users are evil and have been hunting children with
magical abilities. Nur waits for his man to bring a report on the
hunt. He's one of those deliciously intimidating antagonists who reek
of power. He does not like the smug son of a nobleman who tells his
superior, "I would advise against letting this man into your presence
in his current condition, Your Grace. He's filthy and smells like he's
been sleeping in stables for a fortnight. If it pleases your Lordship,
I can have one of the guards take him to the barracks for the night."
The boy presumes a familiarity with Nur and is put in his place with a
mere gaze -- a great little scene revealing much about the character.
Nur does not suffer fools lightly, he does not hold spoiled noble
children with high regard, and he has the power to quell any toadying
thoughts with a look.
We discover in a few sentences that the man who "smells" is Conner,
Nur's cousin. He has come to report to his master that their enemy has
still managed to save many children, his prey. Conner seems to believe
his mission is just and holy. He does not question his master about
the hunt, but he is not happy with Gavin, a mage who uses his
abilities to track down the magically gifted children.
The conflict between Conner and Nur could be stronger, especially with
Nur's concluding thought hoping not to have to kill his cousin. This
ending is a nice way to conclude this scene but the dramatic tones
don't exactly match the civility of the previous conversation. Neither
Conner nor Nur are fanatics about their hatred of the Kiernan -- the
magically gifted -- so their disagreement seems somewhat deflated of
high tension. We can understand why Conner is uncomfortable with the
mage because his Church believes magic users are "an abomination." But
the reason Nur gives for using Gavin isn't clear. The real conflict is
over the killing of children, which could be lengthened to make the
drama more forceful.
"One of the girls might make it to the border alive. He doesn't share
her with the rest of the men. I don't hold out much hope for the other
three." These brief sentences tell a great many details in a
wonderfully concise way. There's often no need to go on and on with
exposition or dialog to convey a sense of horror or villainy. The
pictures this paints in the imagination are terrible, and Voss does a
nice job of revealing only the essentials even though this is partway
through the story.
Part 10 of FOREST is brief, but has some nice details which reveal a
bit about the story's unfolding conflict and the main antagonist.
These subtle details help show the reader a portrait of character
without the need for lengthy exposition. Clarifying the conflict
between Nur and Conner will help raise the scene's tension and give it
more "oomph". A man in power thinking of earthly pleasures while
contemplating murder of a family member is a truly chilling
conclusion. With a few more added details, the conclusion will have
even greater impact.
--Jenni Smith-Gaynor
Former editor, Del Rey Books
Editor's Choice, SF Chapter/Partial Chapter:
LIGHTNING CHICKEN--Ch. 1, MADNUS by Lonnie Stanley
I found a lot to like in the opening chapter of LIGHTNING CHICKEN by
Lonnie Stanley, although what I perceived as a wobbly tone knocked me
off balance several times. If I seem hard on this chapter in what
follows, please understand that I was totally engaged with it as I
read and found it to be one of the most promising chapters I've read
since joining the OWW.
Lonnie pursues a risky style which produces any number of brilliant
turns of phrase but which also clunks every so often. Here's a really
fine passage: "He leaned his fishing pole against the deck rail and
pulled a ham sandwich and soda out of a cooler that ten days ago would
have held beer. He wiped his hands on his blue jeans even though they
weren't dirty. He hadn't handled any fish -- only the minnow, which
had appeared near death. He gave them another wipe. The air on the
river smelled like fish in trouble, like the inside of the minnow
bucket, where half the inhabitants, left Friday by Rodney, were
floating on their sides."
And here's another: "What it sounded like was a champagne cork the
size of a man. The champagne bottle had apparently been opened at some
point towards the bay, in the direction of the nuclear power plant,
its cooling tower churning a motionless white funnel into an otherwise
blue sky. In front of the funnel, no more than a three-iron downriver,
was a fellow dangling from a parachute, his chin resting on his chest
like an old man sleeping in a chair. He was limp, lifeless, and
dropping towards the river."
Writing this vivid is just a pleasure to encounter and welcomes the
reader into the world of the novel, which is precisely what a first
chapter must do.
But sometimes Lonnie pushes this style too hard, which leads to
paragraphs like this: "Larry's gut reacted with a hollow certainty
that he was about to be screwed again. He scanned the clear sky for
the airplane, for whomever to blame, but there was no plane. The
parachutist plunged below treetop level and splashed down like a log
on a chain. Larry's heartbeat started throbbing in the stitches above
his eye."
The first sentence locates a mental state in a digestive organ, and,
while "a log on a chain" is a very specific image, it leaves me
scratching my head, and somehow Larry's heartbeat has jumped from his
body into surgical stitches. I get what that last sentence was after
and it's close to working, but as they say, close only counts in
horseshoes. I'd like Lonnie to give some of his metaphors and
similes closer scrutiny. He might also want to consider lowering the
saturation point of his prose: there is such a thing as too vivid.
Larry is a great character. Let me say that again. Larry rocks! I
like everything about him, how he copes with his guilt, the way he
prays, how he steals Madnus's backpack, how he walks to the car not
knowing whether he was going give up the backpack, his obsession with
getting a better lawyer. He is both as shallow and as deep as a real
person. Lonnie shows a sure-handed understanding that the best way to
make people come alive on the page is to show their all-too-human
flaws. Although Madnus is pretty much opaque at this point in the
book, he is not the stereotypical time-traveler. This makes him seem
fresh.
The football discussion between Madnus and Larry, while rather arcane
for non-fans, works very well indeed for me both as a showcase of
their styles of interaction and a measure of how similar and how
different the future will be in twenty-odd years. However, I do think
they need to do a little more physical interaction with the setting
here: at times this scene reads more like a play than a novel. In my
own writing, I find this is an artifact of early draft. When I am
really into a character, as Lonnie is here with Larry, I just let him
run his mouth and am not that concerned with where he is. But maybe
some description of the furniture, that poster on the wall, or how the
coffee stain got on the rug would help ground this scene. Never
forget that you can tell a lot about a character by considering the
environment he makes for himself.
Although Lonnie has yet to tip his hand as to the novel's theory of
time travel, I absolutely love what I see so far. The notion that time
travelers would arrive in the sky of the past to keep from
materializing in a wall or under a mountain and then parachute to
earth is just plain inspired. I may have to steal this one after a
decent interval passes, Lonnie!
And I was thrilled with the way Nick Madnus off-handedly gives up his
big secret. "Nick pulled a chair out from the kitchen table and sat.
'Porter, you're not going to believe this,' he said. He looked at his
watch, 'but thirty-five minutes ago I was in the Colorado mountains.
It was two-thirty in the morning. It was April 16th of the year twenty
twenty.' He sipped his scotch. 'Do you believe me so far?'"
This suggests that Madnus is either a liar, or that he's obtuse, or
that the past is immutable and nothing he can do will change it, or
that he somehow knows that Larry will never get the chance to reveal
that the Cleveland Browns will someday move to Baltimore, or that the
past exists in multiple streams and that altering this one will not
affect Nick's stream -- any of which is just fine with me.
Let me finish by addressing the issue of tone. At times this reads
like comedy; certainly the title LIGHTNING CHICKEN suggests farce. In
fact, I doubt that the current title serves this narrative well, but
maybe Lonnie can convince me in succeeding chapters. The breezy style
also suggests that this wants to be a lighter piece. But at the
center of this opening chapter is an accident that has killed five
high school kids, current and former students of Larry's. Larry bears
some responsibility for these deaths and is working through his guilt
as the novel opens. These deaths demand more attention than they are
given here and I suspect that the time travel plot will somehow
revisit them in subsequent chapters. If so, good.
But I felt a little uneasy to be contemplating fishing bobbers and
obscure football teams in the shadow of this tragedy. Connie Willis
has managed to combine comedy and tragedy in her time travel novels
and Raymond Chandler married a vivid, wisecracking style to some
emotionally horrific tales, so it can be done. But it's hard. Man,
is it hard.
Still and all, this opening chapter left me eager for more. Well done
and press on, Lonnie!
--James Patrick Kelly
Author of STRANGE BUT NOT A STRANGER and THINK LIKE A DINOSAUR
http://www.jimkelly.net
Editor's Choice, Short Story:
"Two Moments of Invention" by Matthew Frederick Davis Hemming
This is a well-written and inventively vicious story, with a
protagonist, Slimfast Metamucil (Slim for short), who seems modeled on
some of the anti-heroes of Alfred Bester or Roald Dahl. The voice is
engaging and off-putting in equal parts, the satire mostly hits its
mark, and the action is fraught with mayhem, murder, and deceit. I
don't have many line-edits or suggestions for improvement, although
there are parts that work better than others, and I'm curious how this
story would work in third person rather than first.
The heart of this story is in the division between the
emigration-barred, product-gigolo Slim and the Martian, Sadira Hayfa
Zulieka, characters who might have fallen straight out of a screwball,
watch-the-con, classic movie like "The Lady Eve" or "Trouble in
Paradise." Everything in this storyline rings true. The impulse
towards desire and the impulse towards murder are beautifully set up
and mixed up. Everything -- character, dialogue, motivation,
back-story -- comes together well, as it does in this passage:
"She describes a random, directionless chain of passionate reactions
to mundane circumstances, a rampage of freedom the likes of which I
can barely imagine. She marries an aging university professor, and
then leaves him for an adolescent sculptor; she marries a lesbian ant
colony engineer, and then leaves her for an ill-tempered,
neodil-addicted journalist. It seems unreal to me that there should be
a world where a person can make mistake after mistake...."
The other strength of the story is in its details and
name-brand-dropping and flourishes: Commercial Islamic Futurism, the
HyperChristian clubbers, "the warmed, soft plastic hands of rescue
robots," the Bester-like, rollicking hobo jingle--
"Hallelujah I'm a bum,
Hallelujah bum again,
Hallelujah give us a hand-out,
To revive us again."
The first and last sentences of the story are killer:
"There are a hundred billion things for sale, and everybody is selling
them."
"Mars on Earth! I will be the hobo king."
On the other hand, sentences like this one, even when intentionally
over-the-top, may be working a bit too hard: "The curiosity she
awakens in me is far preferable to mulling over the wet guilt of
invention reeking in the corner of my mind."
Perhaps the story takes slightly too long to get rolling. What if you
broke up the introductory section and stuck the bits in between other
sections? The sooner we get to the girl sunning herself in the cold,
the better. The interlude with the novice hobo feels clumsier and more
cliched than it needs to be, and the transition to flashback is
awkward. It would be nice to make the wet-behind-the-ears novice a bit
more complex before Slim buys him breakfast. After all, I get the
feeling that everybody in this book is dangerous, and that Slim is
more sympathetic to people who turn out to have teeth.
Lastly, I found myself curious whether you had tried writing
this story in third person, or even varying first and third and first
person plural, depending on what needed to be done in each section. It
might be possible to do even more with Slim as a character if we had
slightly more distance, at least in some of the sections.
Good luck with this! You should certainly be submitting your stories
to magazines, by the way. Don't be discouraged if some of them come
back. _Third Alternative_ might be a good fit, if the usual magazines
are slow to bite.
--Kelly Link
Editor of TRAMPOLINE, available from Small Beer Press
http://www.kellylink.net/
Editor's Choice, Horror:
"The Boogeyman's Barrel" by Robert Haynes
I really like the idea of the boogeyman being in a barrel; that's
creepy and different. You did a good job of conveying Futter's
character and making him a unique, vivid personality. I also like the
cat's nine lives being taken in trade, and I like how you ended the
story with the narrator becoming the boogeyman. You have all the
ingredients of a fresh story that's both scary and very moving. But
right now, I don't think you've structured the plot in a way that
makes the most of these ingredients.
Much of the power of fiction comes from elements being set up early in
a story, then paying off later in the story. If the set-up comes too
late (for example, if the author reveals, right before the climactic
karate battle between the good guy and the bad guy that the good guy
spent five years of his youth learning from a karate master and is a
black belt), then it's not convincing and doesn't work. The reader
feels the author manipulating events. And if the information is
simply told, rather than shown, that makes it unconvincing (for
example, the author might tell us the main character loves his
girlfriend before she's killed, but never shows this). The
information might even be shown, but in an unconvincing way. These
issues come into play to various degrees in your story.
For the narrator's confrontation with the boogeyman to be scary, you
need to set up earlier that the boogeyman is scary and dangerous. For
example, you tell us the kids are all afraid of the boogeyman, but you
never really show me any kids being afraid of him, and I never feel
the narrator is afraid, so the story is much less scary than it might
be. If you showed me an incident where the narrator and others felt
real fear (such as the scene where they hear noises and discover the
first dead cat, instead of just summarizing it in a detached way),
that would help establish that the boogeyman is scary.
In addition to showing this rather than telling it, you also need to
move it to the beginning of the story. Right now, you only tell me
about the first dead cat after Futter is missing, which is too late to
set up the danger the boogeyman presents.
The danger of the boogeyman is also unclear because the uncle's
stories seem so horrific and the basis for them is not established
until the end of the story. Since I never actually meet the uncle
until near the end but only hear of him through exposition, I never
know what to make of him. I don't know if I'm supposed to think he's
telling the truth (there's nothing about how he learned about the
boogeyman, so I keep questioning that), or if I'm supposed to think
he's a sicko who enjoys frightening kids (in which case I'd be glad
when he died of cancer).
The uncle's statements near the end are unbelievable -- he went into
far more detail with the kids than someone just casually passing along
a story he'd heard. In order to set up your ending, where the
narrator becomes the boogeyman, we have to have at least some sense
that the boogeyman may be real. This means the narrator must believe
that the uncle saw something at some point in his life, whether the
uncle admits it at the end or not. This means we need to see the
uncle near the beginning, see him telling the kids something about the
boogeyman, get the narrator's reaction to this, and make our own
judgment about it. This is all about showing versus telling, which
I've discussed in previous critiques and so won't go into here. But
you have to show it!
So I would suggest opening with the kids hearing weird noises from the
barrel, one kid going down to discover the cat (probably the kid that
owns the missing cat), and the narrator being too afraid to go. Then
they fetch the uncle to get the cat, and the uncle tells them about
the boogeyman. This can set up all the elements I've just discussed.
The idea that the boogeyman will get you if you turn and try to run
also needs to be established up front. Introducing it when the
narrator is considering running is too late.
You also need to set up the narrator's love for his cat and for his
uncle/father. You tell me the narrator loves the cat, but the main
evidence you offer is that the cat beats up three dogs. To me, this
isn't evidence of love. While Futter is a good character and you show
me his personality, I never see closeness between the narrator and the
cat. You need to cut the dog fight -- which could be summarized in
one sentence if you want to keep it -- and show a bonding moment
between the two of them instead. This could easily occur when the kids
hear the weird sound from the barrel at the beginning.
Again, set this up as early in the story as possible. Futter could be
drawn by the weird noise to where the narrator and his friends are
listening. The narrator could think about how smart and tough his cat
is -- he'd never be dumb enough to go near that barrel. And you could
show some cat/owner interaction to establish their bond. Having this
in an actual scene is much stronger than listing facts and incidents
about the cat like a lawyer giving evidence, which is basically how
you try to prove their love now. This is a common pitfall of first
person -- authors tend to let their first-person narrators run off at
the mouth and tell the story rather than show it -- and you fall into
it a number of times.
Including the uncle in the opening scene would help to establish the
love between him and the narrator, which is critical if the uncle's
death by cancer is to have any impact (I assume it's the uncle who
dies, though you shift between calling him father and uncle. You need
to stick with one term throughout).
Another element that requires a better set-up is the issue of dreams.
If you want the narrator to ask the boogeyman to stay out of his
dreams, then you need to establish that the boogeyman is in his dreams
at the beginning. My suggestion would be to just cut this, because by
adding another demand to the narrator's list, you lessen the power of
his regaining his cat.
One last piece you need to set up is the ending. Having the narrator
climb into the barrel is cool, but there's nothing earlier in the
story that helps make this believable. I don't know why he does it
and I don't believe he would do it. I think he needs to be a much
more screwed-up and despairing character, at least by that point, to
make this choice. He probably also needs to feel some stronger
threat/pull from the boogeyman during their confrontation over Futter
to make the ending work. Remember that the ending needs to feel
surprising and inevitable. Right now, it feels surprising, but not
inevitable.
On a totally different topic, I think you do your story a disservice
by revealing "The boogeyman stared back" so early in the story. You
don't need a cheap hook like this. I'm already interested and I'd
rather find out what happens when you get there. By telling me ahead
of time, you take all the power out of the moment where it actually
happens in the story. It feels anticlimactic. At that point where
the narrator finally looks into the barrel, I think this sentence
still does your story a disservice. You are telling rather than
showing, and I feel horribly cheated at not getting a better visual of
the boogeyman.
And one last point, because this is something that drives me insane
when I see it -- "all right" is two words. It's not "alright."
I hope these comments help. As I said above, I think you have a lot
of great ingredients here. You're a skilled writer. It's just a
matter of putting information in the right place and giving the
important elements the space and attention they require.
--Jeanne Cavelos
http://www.odysseyworkshop.org/
| - - 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!
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 Jan. nominations beginning February 1.
Here are some advance highlights from the December honor roll:
Reviewer: Aaron Brown
Submission: The Recovery of the Honor and Sword of Zonderleeholm,
Part 1 of 2 - REVISION AFTER CRITS by Maria Tatham
Submitted by: Maria Tatham
Nominator's Comments: Aaron gave honest reviews, both before and after
my revisions. He rightly noted I wrecked some things. In short
forms, a writer can really overdo editing and rewriting until the
story is truly suffering and losing.
Reviewer: Beth Bernobich
Submission: Goners (take 1 of 2) by William Freedman
Submitted by: William Freedman
Nominator's Comments: This was the fourth review I had received for
this submission. I figured that everything had pretty much been said
already. Not so. Beth Bernobich zeroed in on some plot and
characterization weaknesses that others either didn't see or just let
slide. I've got a drawing board to get back to, and I'm just glad
Beth sent me back to it before a submissions editor got the chance to
simply drop it in the bin.
Reviewers nominated to the honor roll during December include: Andrew
Ahn, Treize Armestidian, Elizabeth Bear, David H. Burton, Sam Butler,
Quentin Crowe, Mike Farrell, cathy freeze, Rhonda S. Garcia, Robert
Haynes, Jim Hills, Anne Hope, elizabeth hull, Susan Jett, Donna
Johnson (2), Robyn Logelin, Roger McCook (2), William Monahan (2), Ian
Morrison, Lizzie Newell (2), Pamela OBrien, Randy Olsen, Chelsea Polk,
John Sanfelippo, Gene Spears, Peter Sprenkle, PJ Thompson, Ian
Tregillis, Larry West, Zvi Zaks (2).
We congratulate them all for their excellent reviews. All nominations
received in December can be still found until February 1 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.
Sales and Publications:
John Joseph Adams's article "Sub-Genre Spotlight: Post-Apocalyptic
Science Fiction" will be going up on Wednesday, Jan. 21, at _The
Internet Review of Science Fiction_ (http://www.irosf.com).
Sandie Bergen's story "Breakfast" has been selected Feature Story for
the January 31st edition of _Flash Me_ (http://flash.to/flashme).
Sandie tells us that "there's a $25 payment that goes along with that
honour. Not much I know, but hey, it's my first cash sale! Woo...Hoo!"
Eric Joel Bresin's poem "Wet Blood Dreams" will appear in the March
issue of _Scared Naked Magazine_.
Former member Jennifer DeGuzman's poem "Carnival" is currently up at
_Strange Horizons_ (http://www.strangerhorizons.com).
Wendy Delmater is keeping us on the edge of our seats waiting for some
official word....
Stella Evans reports two sales: "Louisa, Johnny & the North Shore
Huldre" to _Strange Horizons_ (http://www.strangerhorizons.com) and
"Chart" to _Fortean Bureau_ (http://www.forteanbureau.com).
Now you can find out how it ends: Charles Coleman Finlay's story
"Pervert," which he was unable to finish during his reading at
Worldcon, appears in the March issue of _The Magazine of Fantasy and
Science Fiction_. His story "After the Gaud Chrysalis" will also be
reprinted in IN LANDS THAT NEVER WERE, an anthology of heroic
adventure stories forthcoming in fall 2004.
Cool beans! Nora Fleischer's short-short "Coo" will appear on a Story
House coffee label (http://www.storyhouse.com). She says that "this
is the one where the narrator claims her father was a pigeon. I want
to thank Elizabeth Porco, Gary Peterson, Stella Evans, and Jennifer
Michaels for their helpful comments, especially in trimming its
length. And I know I originally heard about the market from Amber van
Dyk."
Kyri Freeman sold her short story "The Elf Knight and Lady Isabelle"
to CLOAKED IN SHADOW: DARK TALES OF ELVES. She sends her "thanks to
Hannah Bowen for recommending the market!"
Pam McNew's short story "Sad, Weeping Angels" will appear in the
_Darker Than Tin, Brighter Than Sin_ chapbook. Sales of this
independently produced anthology will benefit the OWW Scholarship
Fund. She will also have six of "Forty Beers" published in a special
issue of _Fortean Bureau_ (http://www.forteanbureau.com) in the near
future.
Darrell Newton reports three sales! "A Spark of Life" has been
published in the January 2004 issue of _Deep Magic_
(http://www.deep-magic.net) with "Cohesion Lost" tentatively set for
publication in the same zine in March. "A Taste of Earth" has been
reprinted in DEEPER MAGIC: THE FIRST COLLECTION
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1586490028/amberlinbooks/ref%3Dnosim
/102-8392157-4536164). He extends his "Thanks to all who helped
critique these stories."
Ruth Nestvold just sold her story "Rainmakers" to _Asimov's_. She
writes: "Many thanks to my reviewers Deb Cawley, Elizabeth Bear, (who
wanted me to turn it into a novel, but I didn't ) Wade White, Mike
Nelson, and David Low. You guys rock. This was the first time out for
this story. :-)"
Former member Dick Schatz sold his story "Hollywood Endings" to an
anthology titled THE LITE SIDE. He says the workshop was helpful and
sends "Thanks to all the members there for the helpful feedback."
James Stevens-Arce's story "Smart Bomb" is now up at _Fortean Bureau_
(http://www.forteanbureau.com/). Check it out!
Maria Ott Tatham's story "Me, George and the Dragon" has been accepted
by _Deep Magic_ (http://www.deep-magic.net). Maria admits "this
particular story wasn't workshopped. However, the workshop has
helped me tremendously. Some writers may be able to work alone. Most
learn that they need help."
Jeremy Yoder's "Always Greener on the Other Side" has been sold to the
FANTASTICAL VISIONS III trade-paperback anthology. We hope he'll send
us more information when it comes out. He acknowledges "a very special
thanks to Louise McMillan, Lizzie Newell, Leah Bobet, Zvi Zaks, and
Jim Nelson for their input on my story back then. It wouldn't have
happened without them."
| - - WORKSHOP STATISTICS - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
Number of members as of 1/20: 699 paying, 85 trial
Number of submissions currently online: 616
Percent of submissions with 3 or more reviews: 79.0%
Percent of submissions with zero reviews: 3.2%
Average reviews per submission (all submissions): 5.17
Number of submissions in December: 444
Number of reviews in December: 2232
Ratio of reviews/submissions in December: 5.03
Estimated average word count per review in December: 663.6
Number of submissions in January to date: 340
Number of reviews in January to date: 1652
Ratio of reviews/submissions in January to date: 4.86
Estimated average word count per review in January to date: 695.6
Total number of under-reviewed submissions: 29 (4.7% of total subs)
Number over 3 days old with 0 reviews: 2
Number over 1 week old with under 2 reviews: 12
Number over 2 weeks old with under 3 reviews: 15
| - - FEEDBACK - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
Please share any fun or especially useful ideas you have for using our
new Your Lists feature. We're sure it will be used in ways we haven't
thought of while designing it--so let us know! We'll pass the best
ideas along in next month's newsletter. Submit your creative list
uses to support@sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com by February 15th.
TIPS
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 2004 Online Writing Workshops - - - - - - - - - - - |
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