Swords Against Boredom

Traipse through the literary blogosphere, and you’ll no doubt stub your toe now and then on literary pronouncements and commandments:

• Thou shalt not open your story with a weather scene …

• Thou shalt not commit puns …
• Thou shalt not write a story that trades on action and suspense at the expense of illustrating the human condition …
• Thou shalt not spend so much time exposing the raw nerve ends of the human condition that your story becomes boring …

Stuff like that. My advice? Read it, mull it over … and then ignore most of it. Write your stories the way you want to write them, for whatever reasons made you want to write them. Then try to get them out there to an appreciative audience. Read more »

So, you want to be a writer?

While learning how to tell stories, you might try bolstering your patience, too.

February 2007 marks a couple of milestones for me:

• “Otrossius and the Thirteen Assassins” has been awaiting a decision at Black Gate for a year now.

• “Ratings Wars” has been awaiting a decision at Baen’s Universe for more than a year now.

Both stories passed muster with initial readers, and both were sent along to the decision makers. That’s a wonderful thing, and so I maintain hopes for both works. When slush editors typically are buried with manuscripts, and read all of them with an eye toward looking for reasons to say no as quickly as possible, getting that far along in the process tells me I’m doing at least a few things right.

Both markets pay well and are seen by a lot of people, so both are worth a wait. A sale to either one of these magazines would have me giddy for months.

But, being aware that the universe is patently unfair and fully believing that if a Big Bang happened once it could happen again at any moment and erase All Reality As We Know It, I can’t help mentally screaming: “HUUUUUUURRRRRRRY UUUUPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP AALLLLLLREEEEEEADDDDDY!!!!!” Read more »

Those of you who like to discuss action-oriented fantasy stories might want to wander over to the Black Gate forum. There, editors John O’Neill and Howard Andrew Jones hang out to discuss the current issue — for which there is a preview here — and fantasy fiction topics in general. Readers can post and discuss things among themselves, too.

It’s a fun place to hang out, and getting a bigger crowd of late.

– Steve

I’m writing this an an addendum to a previous post, in which I begged for publishers to offer more science fiction and fantasy short stories driven by solid plots and well-defined characters. That post, Literary? Not So Much … , was written after reading a handful of fresh new short stories that either had A) no plots, B) a hint of a plot, somewhere way off beyond the bounds of the actual text or C) boring, ill-defined characters and only the barest semblance of a plot.

Some blog discussion ensued — always a good thing — and blog reader Paul Jessup took me to task for citing Ursula K. Le Guin as a writer with good plots. He described her work as experimental, which it is — and plotless, which it isn’t. He described some of her work as all talk, no plot.

I stand by my assertion, and now that a fresh reading of Le Guin’s “The Dispossessed” provides me fresh fodder, I’m back to elucidate a bit further. I am not here to pick on Paul, but to try to explain what I mean when I say “plot.” Read more »

One of the chiefest pleasures associated with writing and publishing fiction is getting to know other people who write fiction, too, or appreciate it as you do.

Today’s mail brought me the fruit of one such association:

“Rebel Force,” a book in “The Executioner” series, was written by Nathan Meyer. Nathan and I have shared several good arguments, several good chess games and a love for sword-and-sorcery. He and I have been online friends since both being published in “Flashing Swords” ezine and belonging to the same critique group. The last time he sent me a book, he was trying to win a debate. This time, it was a show of friendship. Read more »

Part of my Valentine’s Day gift this year was a six-pack of Samuel Adams Brewery selections. The Honey Porter and Brown Ale I’ve encountered before, and I look forward to drinking them.

The pack also included a Black Lager, a beer I had not tried before. I have to say I really liked it — it has an earthy richness missing in a lot of lagers, and the taste is thoroughly German. This one would be a perfectly fine way to wash down a really good burger or steak.

And the Black Lager gives me a reason to forgive the good people at Samuel Adams Brewery for the godawful Cranberry Lambic.

– Steve

Reading a short mystery by Stephen Wasylyk in an old Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine has me thinking about dialogue. Writing dialogue is not easy; it’s a bit like playing jazz.

Wasylyk’s story, which I rather enjoyed, was “The Rescue of Omar Ganski.” It features a pair of likeable elderly guys who decide to play detective after a friend is accused of murder. They rumble through the mystery, bungling all the way, and yet their actions lead to the truth. It’s a fun read, and not at all a bad way to spend a few minutes.

The dialogue almost kicked me out of Wasylyk’s story, though. Why?

It was too clean.

Read more »