post-production meeting update

I think I can fight through my hangover to tell you what happened last night at the production meeting. At least eight different kinds of beer were imbibed, fattening food was scarfed down. There was cussing, fisticuffs, thumb-wrestling and sword play. Okay, not exactly all that stuff happened. :)
We did have a special guest, our movie expert, Marty Mapes, and discussed many things movie in the initial part of the meeting. Thanks for all your neat columns over the years, Marty!

Which brings me to the stories... We had difficult decisions to make because all the stories were very good. We appreciate submissions. Thanks! This time we had a large variety of speculative fiction to choose from including slam-bang action stories, meta-fiction, and more literary stories. We had science fiction, fantasy, and horror, and combinations thereof.

One significant factor in our decisions included issue balance; we need to include SF, fantasy, and horror in each issue. (Tip: I'd have to say in general we get less horror submissions than other genres. However, please don't send us a story about man killing his girlfriend/wife/female stranger--we see that a lot!)

Another consideration at our 'zine is originality. Several of the stories we picked had elements that we hadn't seen before.

Finally, an excellent story is more likely to get picked than a very good story. Some things for authors to consider include: Did you connect the dots to explain to the reader why the protagonist is acting in his/her particular way? If you have a unique fascinating world, do you explain to the reader why it is the way it is? At the other extreme do you have too much backstory? Note: backstory rarely works in dialogue. Does your protagonist act, drive the events of the story? Make sure, too, significant events occur.
If I was going to give one overall tip for short-story authors it's: is your story as short as it can possibly be? In other words, most stories are too long. You just want to include the crucial bits. :)

Thus, we have selected our stories for the May 31 issue. The authors of the hold-for-voting stories we didn't have room for just received an email from me. We're in the process of sending the authors of selected stories contracts. After we receive signed contracts, we, the editors, will edit the stories. Then,we send or link copies for the authors to approve before we go live. We're also busy picking cover art. I'm working on a fabulous new interview (more on that later). One of the editors is working on something for Editors Corner. We're working on the Letter from the Editor. And, finally, we have the technical aspects of creating the electronic issue, uploading content, etc., to complete.

Phew! If that sounds like a lot of work, it kind of is. But it's worth it. We love speculative fiction and we want to encourage authors.

Send us your stories for the August 2012 issue!:)
And check back here on May 31, 2012 to read the new issue!

check in tomorrow

Psst. I'll tell you a secret: we're having our production meeting tonight. It's already shaping up to be an interesting meeting... In pursuit of treating all the stories in hold-for-voting fairly, each editor assigns each story a numerical value. Then we combine these to give each story an overall numerical ranking. So far it looks like the editors are not in agreement at all. We'll see what happens. That's the beauty of the numerical system--it averages out our personal biases and makes disagreements easier to deal with.

Therefore, check in here tomorrow and I'll post about what happens at the meeting. See you then!

Endings

We, the Editors, are studying the hold-for-voting stories for the new May 31, 2012 ElectricSpec Issue. There are a lot of good stories there. (Thanks for submitting if you did so!) One major key to a good short story is the ending. And, apparently, it can be difficult to write an excellent ending.

A story ending has to do a lot of things. A good story ending is both a surprise and totally obvious. It's a surprise in that the reader cannot predict it, but it's obvious in that it fits in perfectly with what has gone before. Often, a good ending makes readers rethink the entire story; it causes a kind of paradigm shift. A good ending needs to address both the external plot arc and the internal character arc. (I've got a tip related to this: can you summarize your external plot arc in one sentence? How about your internal arc? If not, your story may be a bit muddled.)
Most importantly, an ending needs to give the reader emotional satisfaction and/or closure.

If all that sounds like a tall order, it is.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: writing is difficult.

Anyone have any tips for writing good endings? In my own work, I've gotten to a place where I don't start writing the story until I know what the ending will be. What do you do?

Good luck with your endings!

second person

I tried to read a book recently which was written with a second-person narrative. Wikipedia says,
The second-person narrative is a narrative mode in which the protagonist or another main character is referred to by employment of second-person personal pronouns and other kinds of addressing forms, for example the English second-person pronoun "you".

I say, it was super-annoying. Every time I read "you" it took me out of the story. I kept thinking, "Who you? Me? But I'm not a futuristic detective investigating a kinky murder and missing my hair-do appointment. Why did this author use second person?" Suffice to say, I couldn't stick it out and didn't finish the book.
Caveat Scriptor! As a writer, you should think carefully before you try using second person. Is it really what your story needs? If so, go for it! :)

Of course, there have been successful fictions written in second person. Oh, the Places You'll Go! by Dr. Seuss (1990) comes to mind.

I must admit, I do like second person for blog entries. :)

How about you? Have you read or written any good second person?

Common problems with first chapters--and first pages

Horror author Alexandra Sokoloff has a great blog about the craft of writing. One of her recent entries really caught my eye because what she says about first chapters is also true about the first page or so of short stories. Here's her top 6 list. Go to her blog for elaboration:

1. Inexperienced writers almost inevitably START THEIR STORIES IN THE WRONG PLACE.

2. NEVER MIND THE FUCKING BACKSTORY!!!!!

3. IDENTIFY THE SENSATION AND EXPERIENCE YOU WANT TO EVOKE IN YOUR READER – AND THEN MAKE SURE YOU’RE EVOKING IT.

4. USE ALL SIX SENSES.

5. SHOW, DON’T TELL.

6. DETAIL THE INTERNAL DRIVES OF YOUR CHARACTER AND SET THE GENRE.

a matter of taste

First, we have an official Electric Spec news announcement: We will be closing to submissions on April 15 for our May 31, 2012 issue. Thus, if you want to be considered for the next issue: tick tock. :)
Of course, if you miss the deadline you will be considered for the following issue August 31, 2012. Good luck!

As far as unofficial announcements go, this means we will have our next production meeting in the beginning of May, so authors will hear by the end of April if they made it into hold-for-voting. Then, authors will hear in the beginning of May if they made it into the issue. Again, good luck.

This, of course, means we are hip-, no, neck-deep in submissions and wading through them. (Thanks for submitting if you did so.) I just wanted to remind authors that when we choose a story for hold-for-voting or the final issue it is a matter of taste. If we don't pick a story, that doesn't mean some other editor won't. Writing is a tough business. Hang in there!

Something that recently brought this subjectivity home to me was I recommended a new novel to one of my fellow editors. I loved it. He couldn't finish it. Apparently, our tastes differ; go figure.

Stay tuned for more exciting information about the upcoming issue in the next few weeks.

Critique 101

We've said multiple times here on the blog that we can't critique submitted work. We'd like to, but time constraints just don't allow it. Thus, we highly recommend critique groups.

Let's say you've found a critique group. How, exactly, do you critique the work of other writers? I have some suggestions...

• Generally, it's better to address comments to "the author" rather than "you". In other words separate the author from the work's characters, narrators, etc.
  
• Always be specific rather than vague. "I liked this." is less helpful than "The main character here was sympathetic and funny." To help with specificity, focus on writerly concepts such as dialogue, characterization, descriptions, similes, metaphors, plotting, word choice, etc.
  
• Begin with positive comments before getting into constructive criticism. This is psychology 101: if you're negative right off the bat, fellow writers will raise barriers and become defensive.
  
• Note any confusion or problems you have with the piece, and, if possible, give specific suggestions for improvement.
  
• Tell the writer what made you curious, what questions were raised, what you want to know in the future. (But don't expect to get answers right away--authors need to stay quiet during critique.)
  
• Comment on the words on the page in front of you. Do not comment on what you think it means, or what you think the author meant, or what your personal opinions are on the subject.
  
• Feel free to suggest a craft book or novel that you think would help the writer.
  
• Write your comments on spelling, grammar, etc. on the document. You don't need to go over them verbally during critique group unless the writer has a particular pattern.
  
• Try not to verbally repeat points that others have made. Feel free to mark on the manuscript if you agree or disagree with comments of other critiquers.
  
• Generally, you don't want to comment on what is written; rather, focus on how it's written. All fiction involves some kind of suspension of disbelief.
  
• If you are unfamiliar with the genre in question, feel free to say so and refrain from comment.
  
• End on a positive note. It is a brave act to submit your work for critique.
  
• Your suggestion here.

Good luck!

Tales from the slush pile

We've been diligently wading through the slush pile. Thank you for sending us your stories! We appreciate it! :) But I do have a little advice... First and foremost: Please read at least one issue of Electric Spec. We do have a certain style, if you will. We do not publish stories with no dialogue. We do not publish stories in which nothing happens. I'm sure there is a market for such stories, but Electric Spec is not it.

That being said, writing an awesome story is very difficult. IMHO, here are some things a story should have to approach awesome:

• No major grammar or spelling issues.
  
• Dialogue tags can only be said/says or asked/asks. I'm not kidding.
  
• You must have a protagonist with some kind of external problem who acts to remedy said problem. He/she/it does not have to be successful, but they have to ACT. Note: this is the external plot.
  
• Your protagonist must also have some kind of internal emotional motivation that you convey to the reader. The events of the story should change this in some way (although a lack of change can work--as long as it's deliberate.) This is the character arc. Note: the internal character arc and the external plot need to be inter-woven. Note, too, the author's job is to manipulate the readers' emotions. Your primary tool here are the emotions of the characters.
  
• Your opening (this means the first 250 words) should address your story problem. In other words, your opening is your set up.
  
• Your opening (this means the first 250 words) should speak to your ending. Generally, this will be an echo of the same theme, or the theme's opposite. As an example, if your opening shows the reader thousands of clones, the ending should show how the protagonist is just one of many (defeat) OR he is special, one-in-a-million (victory).
  
• You should be able to summarize the story's big idea or theme in one simple sentence. I'll come back to this below.
  
• You should consider utilizing a symbol in your story to make it richer and illuminate the theme. If I was going to give this list a symbol, it would be some kind of light. :)
  
• You should use similes and metaphors in your descriptions.
  
• Your suggestion here?

A story I learned a lot from is Connie Willis' "The Last of the Winnebagos." (That's another tip: study awesome stories.) This story takes place in a dystopian future where a virus has killed off all dogs and the Humane Society has extensive police powers. Ostensively, the story is about a Winnebago hitting a jackal on the highway, a photojournalist trying to get some pictures and the Humane Society investigating the jackal's death. But what it's really about is the journalist sacrificing someTHING he loves dearly to save another human.

So, as you prepare to send us your story, how does it stack up to the list?

Naked Backstory

I FINALLY had the opportunity to watch HBO's "A Game of Thrones." I thought they did a great job adapting one of my favorite novels into a TV series. I always find it interesting to see how screenwriters transform a story from page to screen. One part of the "A Game of Thrones" screenplay I thought was fascinating was a series of scenes that were not in the book. They were, in essence, big info-dumps with backstory or world building. As we know from the writing world, info dumps are BORING. To solve this problem, the writers added something important to each of these scenes: sex. Yes, every one of these scenes had some pretty graphic sex going on during the info dump. My conclusion? These screen writers were smart. I doubt the TV audience got bored during the info dump scenes (I know I didn't!). Unfortunately, I don't think the technique would translate well back over to novels.

Slipstream?

Fiction genres can be slippery. Supposedly there's a new genre called slipstream. According to wikipedia, "Slipstream is a kind of fantastic or non-realistic fiction that crosses conventional genre boundaries between science fiction/fantasy and mainstream literary fiction."

Slipstream has actually been around since at least 1989 when Bruce Sterling first discussed it: "Slipstream" in CATSCAN 5. He said, ...this is a kind of writing which simply makes you feel very strange; the way that living in the late twentieth century makes you feel, if you are a person of a certain sensibility. We could call this kind of fiction Novels of Postmodern Sensibility, but that looks pretty bad on a category rack, and requires an acronym besides; so for the sake of convenience and argument, we will call these books "slipstream." And "Slipstream" is a parody of "mainstream," and nobody calls mainstream "mainstream" except for us skiffy trolls. Read the article, it's interesting.

The reason I bring this up is "The Wall Street Journal" discussed slipstream in a book review from the end of last year: "The Future of Science Fiction" by Tom Shippey. I'm all for TWSJ discussing science fiction in any context. :) According to Shippey, "literary authors have started "slipstreaming"—to borrow Bruce Sterling's term—writing books with sci-fi scenarios." and he gives various examples including works by Iain Banks, Cormac McCarthy, Margaret Atwood. Shippey makes some good points:What slipstreamers seem to like in sci-fi is the scenarios, usually utopian or dystopian. Yet what's missing in Ms. Atwood's own speculative fictions is what sci-fi fans really like: explanation and analysis. Sci-fi futures need to show not just when and what but also how.

IMHO, trying to differentiate between "slipstream" and "Sci-fi" or whatever else you want to call it, is pretty much splitting hairs. Authors can call their work what they want. And if it helps them sell books, all the better.

What do you think?

In media res

I just finished a long novel so I've been catching up on my short story reading. And wow, these shorts are all starting with a bang. In fancy literary jargon we call this in media res, which is Latin for "into the middle of things." I'd go so far as to say, all the first lines are bang! pow! dramatic. I'd heard literary conventions were shifting to take into account our decreasing attention span and these stories definitely bear that out. So, artists of the short story: take note.

An interesting related issue is: how soon in a novel does the author have to hit the reader over the head with excitement? Should it be the first line? The first paragraph? Or do we have at least until the end of the first chapter? Of course, this does vary by genre. (Literary novels never have to have anything exciting happen. :) Ha. I kid the literary authors.) A few years ago, I would have said we had until the end of the first chapter. But now, with the increased pressure to sell books I'm thinking a bang! pow! first novel line is not a bad idea.

What do you think?

Basking in the Afterglow

Ah. Isn't it great? The Electric Spec staff, artist, and authors are no doubt basking in the afterglow of a job well done. I'm talking, of course, about our recent February 29,2012 Electric Spec Issue! It's chock-full of stories and features and all kinds of good stuff. (Check it out if you haven't already!) I've been hearing a lot of positive feedback, including some questions about how the heck we get from our production meeting to publication so quickly. The short answer is: divide and conquer. We divide up all the publication tasks amongst the staff. Personally, after I edit the stories I've been assigned, I pull in the authors and get them to proofread the final version. Invariably the new format puts the story in a new light and they find things. That touches upon another invaluable tool in our arsenal: our content management system (CMS). A previous author set us up with a crackerjack CMS that makes publication almost a breeze. So, thanks, again, to everyone who helped out.

What's your favorite story in the issue?

In the meantime, I'm sorry to say, we've started in on the slush for the May 31, 2012 issue.

I guess there's no rest for the wicked...

We're Live!

Check out the new issue of Electric Spec! We're live! W00t!

Thank you, everyone who helped out! We appreciate you! :)

New Issue Tomorrow!

Things are very exciting around here at Electric Spec. We have a new issue going live tomorrow, February 29, 2012! W00t!
You already heard a little about Betsy's contribution earlier this week. So how about a little more about our 5 fabulous short stories?

In "Seasonal Fruit" by Kathryn Board, a botched "date" turns into an adventure involving a goddess, a stomach pump,and some super-enhanced sex appeal. Colum Paget's "Love in a Time of Bio-Mal" is a cyber-punk tale that bring a whole to meaning to the word "love." For those looking for something on the more humorous side, we present "The Pageant, a Battle Maiden's Cunning Stunt" by Krista Wallace, which shows just how far a woman will go to look good while gutting the enemy. "Stiltskin" by Samantha Boyette is a tale that explores just how far a father will go to preserve his family in a bleak future, and Simon Kewin's "Slieau Whallian" explores a similar theme: are we willing to allow an injustice go unchallenged to preserve or own skin?

j.a.kazimer's interview is especially intriguing. Come read her answers to questions such as:
Fairy tales were really the first stories, what's so enduring about them? Do you think the persecuted heroine with its emphasis on marriage and the female heroine being saved by the male hero still apply in today's society? The premise of CURSES! A F***ed Up Fairy Tale, namely, a villain cursed to behave like a hero is brilliant. Similarly, killer blue-birds are an amazing idea. How did you come up with these? CURSES! deals with several hot-button issues including homosexuality, and obesity/body-image. As a writer, how do you avoid being constrained by societal expectations? Regarding profanity in book titles, some people might say the proliferation of profanity in our culture signals the beginning of the end, the decline of our society. What do you think it means?

Check the new issue out tomorrow! It rocks!

And thank you to everyone who contributed!

Interview with Betsy Dornbusch

One exciting piece in our upcoming issue of Electric Spec is an excerpt from the new urban fantasy novel Sentinel: Archive of Fire by our own Betsy Dornbusch. Not only is she a fab editor of spec fiction, but also an accomplished author in her own right. To learn more about this author and her exciting new book, we have an interview right here:

Tell us a little bit about your new novel.

The official back flap copy:

Twins Aidan and Kaelin didn’t realize until they got to university that most guys don’t learn five ways to kill a man by the age of fourteen. Still, since their estranged father descends from the demon Asmodai, it's probably worth knowing how to defend themselves. But as years pass and threat never materializes, the twins suppose their mom is just paranoid - until she disappears. Their father tells them Asmodai has taken possession of their mother in order to infiltrate Sentinel, a treacherous coalition of demidemon rebels determined to protect humankind from the demon legions. The twins form a grudging alliance with Sentinel to rescue her, but when Asmodai murders their father to incite war, Sentinel starts to implode and Aidan and Kaelin must battle an enemy who wears their mother’s face.

Also, it's angsty, action-packed, torturous and filled with back-stabbing, especially from the good guys. Just what you would expect from a pack of demons.

What inspired you to write about demons?

I didn’t know they were demons at first. I was writing urban fantasy a decade ago, before the genre really got off the ground; I just didn’t have the skills to write it properly and get it out there until recently. As for demons: I like dark anti-heroes. I like characters having conflicting urges to do good and to also be very bad. Kaelin in particular is tortured with that. It’s my feeling we live in an era when most people give into their urges to be very bad, and it’s even revered (exhibit A: reality television). The alternative seems to be goody-goody folks. I was looking for something different. My demons have very strong urges to be bad, they all are very flawed, and yet compelling reasons to do the right thing.

Without giving too much away, can you tell us about one of your favorite scenes?

Each twin had odd dark moments and they don’t land in the regular part of the book: For Aidan it’s a torture scene that’s not very late in the book but forces him to realize he might die in this war. It still makes me cringe. For Kaelin it’s when he realizes he is destined to soldier for Sentinel. He has a knock-down drag-out with his dad.

Tell us about the process you used for creating this book.

Process is a generous word for how I wrote it. I wrote the entire series in full (badly and nearly a million words of it) starting a decade ago. After several rejections, getting a few other books under my belt, as well as short stories and editing and participating in the critique group, I rewrote it significantly on the advice of a couple of agents. It ended up 20k words lighter, got read by a ton of agents who didn’t end up picking it up, and then Whiskey Creek bought it in three days.

What are your plans for promoting your novel?

Fortunately I have a publicist who’s determined to get it into as many bookstores as possible, as well as readings and such. I’ll be making tons of appearances and doing signings, hopefully in combination with other writers. I’ll be at a bunch of regional cons and also at WorldCon in Chicago in August. Look me up. I’m also all over online, primarily at http://betsydornbusch.com , here at Electric Spec, and on Twitter, Google+, and Facebook under my own name.

I understand that this is the first book in a series. Any idea when the next one will come out?

There are four books planned. The second, Archive of Earth, is in revisions right now and unfortunately still requires a lot of work. I’m hopeful for next year. Not nearly soon enough for me! But I am writing two series and contemplating starting a third, so I’m kinda busy…

How has your experience writing and editing short stories impacted your novel writing?

If I have to say one thing short stories taught me it’s “get to the damn point.” Early and often is my motto for writing: get to the conflict early and often.

Do you have any tips for new authors who are trying to get their books published?

Well, obviously it’s a brave new world out there and opportunities abound for writers. However, I think a lot of the old rules still apply, primarily that only a few people get “famous” for writing or even sell enough to live on. So my advice:

1. Stay open. One of my top earners this year was a short story I wrote under contract for an existing world. I also didn’t sell my first book until I stepped outside my preferred genre.

2. Network. Online, in person, with your colleagues, and in professional organizations. Get out there, get your name out there, make contacts. The old adage that writing deals are done at the bar is still true. Socialize with your tribe and good things will come of it. Writers no longer have the luxury of sitting at their desks hiding.

3. My feeling is that it’s never been more apparent that publishing is an entertainment business. You’re the entertainer. Act like it!

4. My own mistakes aside, the days of writing one book a year are drawing to a close. Most successful writers are juggling several releases a year and backlist is how you start to earn. For new writers, it’s essential to keep writing, keep moving forward, rather than rehashing/revising the same story over and over. In other words, don’t do as I do! Don’t sit on your book for five years, revising and fussing, before writing anything new and fresh. Sure. A lot of writers have to prove to themselves they can finish the book. But few hardly any ever type “the end”. Just by finishing a draft, you’ve proved it. But sometimes true learning and moving forward in your craft takes writing a whole new book.

5. Ditto with making the mistake of thinking you should only self-publish, or only write in one genre, or only go with small publishers or waiting for the Big 6 or agent/no agent... The decisions are overwhelming. Again, most of the successful writers I know have done it all, from self-publishing to little pubs to big ones. Also don’t misunderstand the value of free. Free is good for promotion purposes, in small doses. But don’t give away your work unless you mean your writing to be a charity!

new issue coming

I've mentioned we have a new issue coming February 28, 2012. Well, I'm wrong; I've been over-ruled. My colleagues want to give you a leap day treat. So, on February 29, 2012 get ready for a great new issue of Electric Spec.

We have a diverse mix of excellent stories by Kathryn Board, Colum Paget, Krista Wallace, Samantha Boyette, and Simon Kewin. We'll be doing an intriguing in-depth interview of j.a. kazimer, author of CURSES! A F***ed Up Fairy Tale. And, as a special treat editor Betsy Dornbusch shares the first two chapters of her new novel Seninel: Archive of Fire.

I can't wait! See you then. :)

Nebula nominees

Taking a little time out from our issue prep, the Nebula Award nominees were announced today. In the short story category we have:

• "Her Husband's Hands," Adam-Troy Castro (Lightspeed Magazine, October 2011)
  
• "Mama, We are Zhenya, Your Son," Tom Crosshill (Lightspeed Magazine, April 2011)
  
• "Movement," Nancy Fulda (Asimov's Science Fiction, March 2011)
  
• "Shipbirth," Aliette de Bodard (Asimov's Science Fiction, February 2011)
  
• "The Axiom of Choice," David W. Goldman (New Haven Review, Winter 2011)
  
• "The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees," E. Lily Yu (Clarkesworld Magazine,April 2011)
  
• "The Paper Menagerie," Ken Liu (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, March/April 2011)

Congratulations to all the nominees!
Read more at SFWA.

Stay tuned for more information this week about our fabulous new Electric Spec issue coming February 29, 2012!

taking stories from good to great

We Electric Spec Editors have been frantically working on the next issue. Right now, this primarily means editing stories. As I edit, I'm reminded of something a poet and awesome writing teacher, Timons Esaias, taught me: all writers should create a watch list. By which he means, all writers have certain bad habits they need to be aware of and root out. Another way he puts this is: look out for bobble-heads. Thus, one possible bad habit is to have characters constantly nodding their heads, i.e. be bobble-heads.

I wouldn't worry about this in your first drafts, you might become paralyzed. But when you revise, be honest about your writing. Critique partners are excellent at pointing out your bobble-head-isms. :) One of my personal bobble-head-isms is "look". Everyone looks here, they look there, they look at each other, etc. You get the picture. So, during my revision process, I actually search on "look". I cheat and replace some of them with "peer" or "glance" or other synonyms but some of them I do actually get rid of. Another one of mine is "grin". Everyone's grinning. One of my writer friends loves "that": here's a "that", there's a "that", everywhere's a "that", "that". You get the idea.

As editors, we do try to get rid of these issues. But wouldn't it be great if you got rid of them before you sent your stories out? (And I'm not saying this because I'm lazy. Or, at least that's not the only reason. She grins. :) )

Stay tuned for our new issue at the end of the month!

Hughes Interview

Hi guys. If you're interested in David's take on editing Electric Spec, check it out at Write 1 Sub 1: Publisher Interview: Electric Spec. Go, Dave! :)

Writing on Reading: Ender's Game

We interrupt our work on the new issue to discuss a novel, Ender's Game (1985) by Orson Scott Card. I recently reread this to see if it's as good as I remember. It is. I may be biased in favor of speculative fiction but I think this is one of the best books ever published.

Very briefly, the story is: in the far future humans encounter an alien insect-like race and they go to war. On Earth, children are bred to be soldiers and officers in the war. One such child is Andrew "Ender" Wiggin and he is chosen to go to Command School. At Command School he undergoes extensive game-like training programs and ends up playing a significant role in the war while still a child.

Perhaps this sounds a bit mundane.
Why, then, is this book so amazing? The author does an excellent job plotting; there are some fabulous plot twists, particularly at the end of the book. The author also does an excellent job characterizing Ender, the smart misfit. Card really puts the reader inside Ender's head. We're right there as he's bullied, has to fight for his life, wins and loses games, etc. This is the very essence of fiction: making the reader understand what it's like to be someone else. Moreover, for many bullied or misfit kids it was comforting to know they weren't alone in their experiences.

This novel also deals with bigger questions. The kids behave the way kids really behave rather than how adults wished they behaved; this was eye-opening for some adult readers. It also makes one think about the whole concept of war and genocide. Is war ever justified? Is genocide? What if your whole world was at risk? Perhaps most significantly it addresses the issue of good and evil within each of us. The very best fiction addresses such big picture ideas.

As a geek, I also enjoyed the shout-outs to other works. In particular, the anonymous military leaders who discuss their plans at the beginning of the chapters is very reminiscent of the Second Foundationers in Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy. Alluding to previous works of fiction makes a novel richer.

The take-home messages are:

• When reading, think about what you're reading. What works? What doesn't work?
  
• When writing, think about what you're writing. What works? What doesn't work? How can you write really effective characterizations to put the reader in your character's head? Can you add fabulous plot twists? How can you address big picture ideas in your fiction? How can you allude to other fiction?

Good luck with your writing!

our process

There seems to be a little confusion about our production process so I thought I'd remind you how we do things, in perhaps too much detail. :)

1. You send us your fabulous stories.
   
2. Our distribution editor randomly assigns stories to an editor.
   
3. Said editor reads this "slush" and decides to reject or to hold for voting and sends you an email with this decision.
   
4. When the submission period ends all the editors read and study all the hold for voting stories and rank them numerically.
   
5. Our statistics editor combines these numerics from each editor into an overall story ranking for the issue.
   
6. At the production meeting--in between drinking and eating and cussing and arm-wrestling--we discuss the stories and the overall issue ranking to decide on the stories we will publish. At the production meeting we do have to consider issue balance; we can't have 5 horror stories, for example. Additionally, we discuss and decide on the columns and art work and all other aspects of the issue. We also assign each to-be-published story to an editor.
   
7. After the production meeting we email all the authors with the good or bad news. The acceptances also get a contract to sign and some other info. We ask them for a bio and paypal account info.
   
8. After we get the contracts back from the authors we start editing the stories. After the editor edits the story we email the author with the changes and they agree or disagree, this may lead to a discussion. I think one time an author and an editor could not come to an agreement so we parted company, to our mutual satisfaction.
   
9. The editors add each of the stories and columns to the webpage using our content management system. I like to ask the authors to check their stories after they've been posted, but before we go live (I'm not sure the other editors do this). We double-check everything.
   
10. We go live!
    
11. We celebrate and enjoy the issue. :)

It just so happens we do have a production meeting this week.

I noticed one of the stories in our hold-for-voting file has a problematic cover letter, namely, the author tells us what the story is. The problem is this: what the author says does not necessarily agree with my perception of the story. I'm not sure what will happen to this story at the meeting. :( Time will tell.

Generally, a simple cover letter is better. It should include the author's name and contact info, the story title, genre, and word count. It may include past publishing credentials. After that, you're starting to get into dangerous territory...

I'm getting excited about our next issue: February 28, 2012, how about you?

Stay tuned for more info!

maximum impact

I recently had a short story critiqued in a writers' workshop. This was a good experience because it reminded me of some things I needed to be reminded of, namely, a short story should be as dramatic as possible. I'm a bit embarrassed to say my rough draft could have grabbed the reader more. It could have had a bigger impact.

In revisions I found maximum impact came from knowing my protagonist and making sure all aspects of my story were interconnected.

• Every other character in the piece should have had a strong connection to the protagonist. For example, it's not enough to put a child in danger, the child should be related to the protagonist, if possible.
  
• The setting should be important to the protagonist. It's not enough to put the protagonist in the setting. The setting should be crucial to the protagonist--this is the place he or she has to be.
  
• External plot complications need to be unique to the protagonist. Think about the protag. Determine what's the worst possible thing that could happen to him/her--and then make it happen.
  
• External plot needs to be linked to internal character arc. In our example, perhaps the protag him/herself was in peril as a child, so he/she cannot abide kids in peril. Would your protag sacrifice him/herself for said child? Ooh, now that's dramatic.

What do you think? Do you have any tips for achieving maximum impact in fiction?

Good luck with your writing!

writers cheat sheet

I had the opportunity to critique some less experienced writers in workshop recently. Writers who have not partaken in many workshops tend to do many of the same not-recommended things. If you would like to appear to be an experienced workshopper, here's my cheat sheet for writers:

• Dialogue Tags:
  
  • Know how to punctuate these, e.g. "You rock," Joe said.
    
  • Only use "said" or "asked" in your dialogue tags. I'm not kidding.
    
  • Only use one dialogue tag per paragraph.
    
  • It's better to use beats instead of dialogue tags, e.g. "You rock." Joe picked up his pick.
    (Beats are small physical actions.)
  
  
• Characters' Physical Description:
  
  • Characters shouldn't think or talk about the color of their skin, hair, eyes, etc. when in their own point of view.
    
  • Generally, do not describe the height, weight, girth, color, of characters--unless you write romance, or maybe fantasy.
    
  • Describe characters via qualities that are important by showing these qualities to the reader.
  
  
• Don't use Distancing words, like "thought", "perceived", "realized"--anything that's a synonym for "thought". These put an extra layer between the character and the reader and you don't need it. Similarly, words of perception like "saw", "heard", "felt" also put distance between the character and the reader.
  
• Don't use extra words like "that", "well", "just", etc. These are rarely needed or effective.
  
• Don't use adverbs.
  
• Know your genre. Of course Electric Spec writers know they write horror, science fiction, and/or fantasy--so you're ahead of the game. Kudos!
  

We are starting the production process for our February 28, 2012 issue so stay tuned for more information.

Keep submitting (for our May 2012 issue)! Thanks!

Submit

No doubt some of you marvelous writers out there are wondering 'Why should I submit to Electric Spec when I can just e-publish my work myself?' Well, I'll tell you:

• For one thing, Electric Spec is a great little ezine with a very good reputation and plenty of hits (yes, we're talking many thousands). Authors in our issues don't have to worry about self-promotion; promotion is all taken care of.
• Readers love free stories. Readers will read and enjoy your stories, and that can lead to name recognition the next time you submit a story or novel somewhere. And you can post the story link on your homepage, email it to your parents, etc. :)
  
• We do significant editing. For almost all our stories, we edit. This usually consists of cleaning up minor spelling and grammar issues and shortening the work. For whatever reason, authors rarely start the story when it starts--if you get my meaning. Often stories also include extraneous bits which we get rid of. One of us editors even has the nickname The Slasher--it's not me.
  
• Insert-your-reason-here. I'm sure there are some other good reasons to submit to Electric Spec. Feel free to mention them in the comments. :)

I know it's hard to believe, but the submission deadline for the first issue of 2012, February 28, is fast approaching. Said deadline will be midnight January 15, 2012. So, get your stories in if you want to be considered for the next issue.

Good luck and thanks for submitting!

plot twists

Here's another insight I've gleaned from slush: in short speculative fiction, twists are good. Here at Electric Spec we seem to publish stories with plot twists somewhat frequently. For example, "The Little Voice" by Neil James Hudson in our most recent issue has a nice twist near the end. (Check it out if you haven't already.) The reason this works, however, is the author set up the plot twist from the beginning. When the twist is revealed it makes the reader re-evaluate all the events of the story, see them in another light. Ah. Our perceptions shift. Things become clearer. Ideally, the author does this without lying to the reader.

Perhaps the most famous (to this crowd!) example of a plot twist would be from Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back when Darth Vader tells Luke: "I am your father." However, I maintain this wasn't done in the ideal manner; the creator lied to the audience, i.e. prior to this scene, Obi-Wan and Luke's aunt and uncle have all told Luke his father is dead.

Why are twists good? Plot twists are good because we all (including editors!) want to read something fresh. We're tired of the same old, same old. As the fabulous Robert Silverberg said, ...the basis of all the successful and lasting narrative of the past five thousand years ...[is] A sympathetic and engaging character (or an unsympathetic one who is engaging nevertheless), faced with some immensely difficult problem that it is necessary for him to solve, makes a series of attempts to overcome that problem, frequently encountering challenging sub-problems and undergoing considerable hardship and anguish, and eventually, at the darkest moment of all, calls on some insight that was not accessible to him at the beginning of the story and either succeeds in his efforts or fails in a dramatically interesting and revelatory way, thereby arriving at new knowledge of some significant kind.

Bring on the twists!

Interview

Chiseled in Rock is re-running an interview with me today.  It's mostly about editing.

I hope everyone is enjoying the holidays!

more slush notes

At the risk of being discouraging, I've got some more notes from the slush pile to pass along...

• Be careful with physical descriptions. The current modern style in short speculative fiction is NOT to give readers the physical hair, eye, skin color, height, weight, etc. of your characters. When I read "Joe was six feet, two inches tall, with red hair and blue eyes." this sets off an alarm bell. Among other things, I'm worried that the writer doesn't read short speculative fiction. It's difficult to be a good writer if you're not a reader. The point with description is: the author needs to convey only the important things about the character.
  
• Be as specific as possible. A lot of descriptive words can be very vague; try to avoid them. For example, "He was handsome." tells this editor virtually nothing. What I think is handsome will be different from what you think is handsome. Let the reader and editor know specifically what the character thinks is handsome. :)
  
• Be careful with subject matter. I'm going to go out on a (teeny-tiny) limb and say: vampires and werewolves are a tough sell. You have a much better chance at being bought by coming up with something fresh.
  
• Be careful with your cover letter. I've been reading some cover letters that set off alarms:
  
  • Don't tell the editor how great, awesome, fabulous your story is.
    
  • Don't explain what happens in your story. If I can't tell from the words on the page in the story you are in trouble anyway.
  
  
  Cover letters should include your name, pen name if applicable, contact information, past publications, other professional information.
  
• Know your genre and watch out for flying snowmen. Current SFWA President John Scalzi has a fun post over at AMC filmcritic.com: The Flying Snowman in Science Fiction Films like "Star Trek". Scalzi discusses implausible elements or events in science fiction or fantasy works that throw you out of the story. Authors: don't do this.
  

Despite my comments, thank you for sending in your stories. We appreciate it! Good luck!

lessons from slush

We are starting to get through the stories you all have been kind enough to submit for our consideration for the next issue. (Thanks, by the way!) My recent readings have prompted me to pass along some advice...

• Make sure your story makes sense. All of us writers have trouble sometimes putting our visions on the page. It's crucial that you have a critique group or a beta reader or someone you can ask: "Okay, what happened in this story?" If they can't answer you, you have a problem.
  
• Consider writing more than 1000 words. It is extremely difficult to write a compelling story in less than 1000 words. Remember a protagonist has to have a problem, attempt to fix it, and the reader should care what happens.
  
• Avoid greetings and goodbyes. Generally, "Hi." and "Goodbye." and similar bog a story down. In reality, of course, we do say these things, but this is an example of how fiction is better than reality: there shouldn't be any mundane stuff. Everything needs to serve the story.
  
• Write a good opening. Generally, excellent stories have some intriguing narrative to start off. Out of curiousity, I took a look at some of our stories in the current Electric Spec issue:
  
  • I knew I could never bring up Kylie properly.
    
  • A foot-high pile of bills on a table wasn't the largest amount of money I'd seen in one place.
    
  • Tommy is a little on the boring side.
    
  • If I've learned one thing in the two years I've been trapped in here, it's this.
  
  As a reader, I'm intrigued and want to learn more. Don't you? (Of course, you all have already read all these stories, right? :) )
  

Please keep sending us your stories, and, good luck!

genre accessibility?

Over at Locus Online, there's been an interesting Roundtable on Genre Accessibility, which asks if contemporary science fiction has the capacity to cross over to a mass audience. I disagree with the implicit premise here which seems to be contemporary speculative fiction is not appealing to a mass audience. Have these people been to a bookstore, the movies, or turned on the TV lately? Have they ever heard of Harry Potter or the Twilight series or the Hunger Games trilogy? Or George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire or Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse/True Blood series? I could go on and on. Of course, some of you might argue my examples are more fantasy than SF, and this is mostly true, but I could also name SF recent hits, like Cormack McCarthy's The Road. As I said, it's an interesting article; check it out.

Some speculative fiction that is very accessible can be found in our recent issue of Electric Spec. For example,

• "The Little Voice" by Neil James Hudson
  
• "925 Grand" by Sam Kepfield
  
• "The Forms of Tommy Johnson" by Sharon Dodge
  
• "Her Pale Smile" by Simon Kewin
  
• "Please Reply" by Steven Young.

Check them out, too! :)

New Issue!

Six stories, an interview and a movie column. Enjoy!

New Science

I found this map of the future explorations of science fascinating. The Institute for the Future just had their conference and created a map from their discussions:

The map focuses on six big stories of science that will play out over the next decade: Decrypting the Brain, Hacking Space, Massively Multiplayer Data, Sea the Future, Strange Matter, and Engineered Evolution. Those stories are emerging from a new ecology of science shifting toward openness, collaboration, reuse, and increased citizen engagement in scientific research.

From this I envision all science turning into a giant wiki, even more than it is now. We can power and fund more study than ever before, harnessing the Internet and the Information Era. (Though I would argue we're entering a new era quickly: The Exchange Era.)

And of course for writers, the ideas based in these new scientific explorations are boundless. Have fun with them!

New Issue Tomorrow!

It's down to the wire... A brand-new exciting issue of Electric Spec is coming November 30, 2011!
We have five fabulous stories from authors Neil James Hudson, Sam Kepfield, Sharon Dodge, Simon Kewin, and Steven Young.
We have an intriguing interview with up-and-coming novelist Rob Ziegler.
And our film critic takes a look at the work of Pedro Almodovar.
Of course, we also have a piece of excellent cover art, this time by Cathy Miller Burgoyne.
Be sure to read the new issue tomorrow!

Interestingly, two of our authors are 'repeat offenders.' To tide you over until tomorrow, check out Sam Kepfield's earlier story with us "Salvage Sputnik" and/or Simon Kewin's "Remembrance Day".

carol berg interview

One of our favorite authors, Carol Berg, has a new interview over at sffworld.com: Interview with Carol Berg. Go check it out to learn more about why she writes fantasy, enjoys torturing men, er, male characters, and more. :)

Of course, back in 2007, our own David E. Hughes did an excellent interview of Ms. Berg: Interview with Multiple-Award-Winning Author Carol Berg. Amongst lots of other neat information, Berg gives advice for up-and-coming writers:

1. Read, read, read, Read good writing. Read across genres.
   
2. Write, write, write. Revise, then write more. Find serious fellow readers/writers with whom to exchange critiques. Learn to give critique and learn to take it.
   
3. Learn the craft of writing. Learn grammar, learn the cliches of your chosen genre and how to avoid them (this is particularly important for fantasy writers where cliches are rampant thanks to the heavy influence of Tolkien imitators and D&D-like role-playing games!). Learn about maid-and-butler dialog, said-bookisms, and using your opening to make a contract with the reader, always remembering that craft does not diminish art.

Thanks, Carol! (And Dave!)

Coming November 30, 2011 a New Issue of Electric Spec! Yes, folks, it's true; it's just a little over a week away...

why write?

We owe you guys a post, so here goes. Behind the scenes, we continue to labor on the upcoming excellent November 30, 2011 Issue of Electric Spec. Mostly we're editing stories right now. Everything's coming along well. We are excited to share the issue with you at the end of the month.

But somewhere in there I got to wondering, why do people write stories? George Orwell in his famous essay "Why I Write" gave multiple reasons:

1. Sheer egoism.
   
2. Aesthetic enthusiasm.
   
3. Historical impulse.
   
4. Political purpose.

Obviously, we're not all Orwell. :)
I've often heard authors say "I write because I can't not write." Being a writer is really the only vocation one can toil at for years with little or no financial compensation. I guess that makes it an avocation! Why do I write? I'm still pondering that one...

How about you? Why do you write?

Electric Spec update

Greetings, dear readers! We, the Editors, successfully completed our production meeting for the fabulous new November 30 2011 Electric Spec Issue. There was lots of food and drink (beer!) consumed and imbibed. Spirited discussions ensued...but no one got bloody. Huzzah! One of us even had a chocolate volcano (okay, it was me). The point is, we did select five very good stories for our next issue. I believe all authors have been emailed one way or the other. Thanks for submitting; we appreciate it.
We discussed cover art and the upcoming movie column and an interview column. Everything's coming along nicely. Please check it out November 30 2011.

What's left to do? We have to edit the stories and columns and input the content into our content management system. And, of course, get the final go-ahead from authors.

We also need to start working on slush for our next issue.

As an aside, for any writers out there, we didn't have a lot of straight fantasy in submissions this time. We had some horror/fantasy, but no epic or high fantasy and not much urban fantasy. Recall epic/high fantasy is fantasy set in a so-called secondary (imaginary!) world. In contrast, urban fantasy tends to be set in the primary or real world with some magical or other paranormal elements thrown in. Some people call this type of primary world fantasy "low fantasy."

Anyway, we do like to have a variety of speculative fiction so consider sending us some fantasy for our next issue. :) Thanks!

post thursday

Hi, folks. This is just a quick post to tell you we'll post on Thursday Nov 10 with some more behind the scenes Electric Spec info.

Good luck to everyone participating in NaNoWriMo! Hang in there. :)

behind the scenes report

Greetings, ElectricSpec writers and readers! We trust you survived Halloween okay, and hope those slammed by that freaky snow storm on the east coast are keeping warm. Here at Electric Spec we are between snow storms and working on the upcoming November 30, 2011 issue. We have gotten through the pre-October 16 slush--so you should have heard from us if you submitted a story before then. We've scheduled our production meeting, aka the beer-swilling arm-wrestling, knock-down drag-out, driven to fisticuffs debate over which stories to pick. We're working on cover art and columns and all the other behind-the-scenes stuff we have to do.

We will make our decisions about stories by the end of next week, so hold-for-voting folks should hear from us by then. Everything is looking really good at this point. Phew! I think that about covers everything regarding behind the scenes reportage. Be sure to check out the fabulous new issue on November 30, 2011!

Oh, and good luck to the NaNoWriMo folks!

Thanks for reading. :)

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

cons rock

The November 30,2011 issue of Electric Spec is coming along nicely. We're close to getting through slush for the issue and are working on art and articles; the production meeting is set.

Two of us Electric Spec editors just spent the weekend at MileHi Con, the annual Denver Science Fiction/Fantasy con. We had a blast! For example, Editor Betsy was on a panel about "Exploding Writing Myths" and one of my panels was "A Dazzling Dozen Short Stories." It was great to meet or re-meet authors and fans and hear about new stories, novels and ideas. We did some work on the upcoming 'zine issue while there, for example, Editor Betsy secured an interview with an up-and-coming author with NightShade Books. (Stay tuned for more info!)

I encourage you to go to local or national conferences in your genre. They are always a fun; it must be something about spending time with your "tribe." FYI, if you're going to World Fantasy in San Diego at the end of this month, among all the other neat authors and industry professionals keep an eye out for Editor Betsy (check the bar). :)

How about you? What's your favorite con? Any fun con stories to share?

We hope to see you next October at MileHiCon! :)

scene and sequel

We editors are hard at work finishing up the slush for our upcoming November issue of Electric Spec. Everyone who submitted before October 16 will hear back from us by the beginning of November. Thanks for submitting! And I hope you all will come back and read and enjoy the excellent new issue. :)

So...slush.

I've seen some stories which...how shall I say it? Don't have much story to them. That can work, but that's not what we publish in general. In our stories, some kind of protagonist has some kind of problem and he/she/it/they act to solve it. They don't have to succeed, but they have to do something.

Authors struggling with how to put such stories together may be confused about 'scene and sequel' and 'showing and telling'. A scene is a cause, it's an action, while a sequel is an effect, a reaction. A scene could be considered real-time dramatic action and dialogue, while a sequel is often emotional reaction, thought, and/or decision. I admit, there's a lot of jargon associated with writing, so it doesn't really matter what you call it. The point is in a scene there's action, there's showing, and in a sequel, there's often telling. A good story that we would publish, generally will have both.

So, look at your story: Does it have action? Does it have dialogue? Does it have showing? Does it have telling?

If not, perhaps you need to work on it some more. Or submit elsewhere. :)

Good luck!

time rolls on

Wow. It's getting to be production time for a new issue of Electric Spec. This means we will be closing to submissions for the November 30, 2011 issue on midnight October 15 (U.S.A. Mountain time). I'll tell you a secret: we editors have not been keeping up with the slush as well as we should since the last issue. (Apologies!) I guess time got away from us. Never fear, however, we will address the slush forthwith and get the new issue out in a timely fashion.

Speaking of time passing... it's the end of an era. We lost a visionary last week. I guess I don't have any wise words about this...



Thanks for reading.

ambulance chasing

As writers it can be tempting to incorporate the neatest hottest trend or idea into our fiction.

This might be zombies or vampires or werewolves or werewolf-vampires or zombie-werewolf-vampires, or you get the idea. (Actually, some of those sound pretty fun.) Or, in the SF arena, this might be faster-than-light or potentially habitable planet discoveries.

As an editor, I'm here to say: caveat scriptor. The latest discoveries or trends can quickly be outdated. Instead, write a story from your heart. Write something you're passionate about. Notice I didn't say write what you know. It's passion on the page that makes readers (and editors!) excited about a story.

Keep sending us your stories! We appreciate your submissions!

story premise

An author should be able to state the premise of every story he/she submits. By premise I mean the hypothesis or argument or assertion or insert-your-term here of the story. You should be able to summarize your story's essence in one sentence. For example, right now I'm working on a story which has the premise: a man has to travel to another planet to learn the true nature of love.

If you can't do this for your story then your story is not finished.

Now, I'll be honest with you. In my example that wasn't the exact idea I started with. My process (and everyone has a unique process) is I *think* I know the beginning, middle, and end of my story before I start writing and so I write the first draft. I read what the result says. Usually it says something somewhat different from what I thought it was going to say. I have to decide on the story premise. I revise, including cutting all the stuff that doesn't support the premise. Sometimes I have to add a bit. The point is to create a coherent story.
Your method will differ from this. But... you must ask yourself:

What is your story premise?

faster than light?

I can't resist a another little science tidbit. The scientific world has been in an uproar lately because it appears a European experiment called OPERA has measured a neutrino travelling faster than the speed of light (186,282 miles per second)! The OPERA experiment observes a neutrino beam shot through the earth from CERN to Italy’s INFN Gran Sasso Laboratory 730 km away. See, for example, CERN's press release.

If true, this would be huge. HUGE. HUGE. Why, you ask? It was none other than Albert Einstein who hypothesized the speed of light is the fastest any particle can go. Since then (1905) numerous experiments have seemed to support Einstein. If Einstein's wrong some of the more speculative consequences include traveling to the stars, time travel, and the end of causality. See what I mean? HUGE.

I suspect, however, OPERA will be proved wrong.

funny writing

Now that the excitement of the August 31 ElectricSpec Issue is abating, we editors are valiantly going through the slush pile. I came across a piece that was trying to be funny, I think. Sadly, it didn't quite work. Humor is tricky. I've blogged about it before, but the point is: humor is based on surprise. It's tricky because suprise is based on one's background and expectations--and these are different for everyone.

I did hear a joke at conference which will illustrate my point:

What's brown and sticky?

A stick.

This works because we don't think of a stick as gooey, but of course, it is stick-like. Our brain has to readjust because we end up somewhere we weren't expecting. :) The surprise is key. For example, What's white and frosty? Frost. isn't as funny because it's not as surprising.

Humor is very subjective. For example, our Editor's Corner story "The Dog that Broke the Camel's Back" was humorous to some, and annoying to some. Although, hopefully more the former than the latter.

So, I guess my point is, we enjoy humor here at ElectricSpec. Give it a try, but be careful. Good luck!

potentially habitable planet?

Okay. I can't resist passing this article along from io9.com: Potentially habitable "Super-Earth" is among 50 newly discovered exoplanets. "HD 85512 b is a rocky planet about 3.6 times the mass of Earth, located right at the edge of its star's habitable zone. That means it's capable of supporting life... and the early results suggest it's a very real possibility."

Read more about the La Silla Observatory here.

conference exhaustion

We trust you have been reading and enjoying the new issue of Electric Spec (now that we resolved the technical issues)!

We, the editors, all attended the fabulous annual Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers conference in Denver this past weekend. As editors, we hosted some events including the intensive short story workshop on Friday afternoon and "Literature and Liquor" in the bar Friday night. For your information, the story we picked to read and discuss was: Streetwise by Phil Emery. Check it out! :)

If you participated in either of these events: Thank you! If you came up to us and said "Hi!" or that you liked the ezine: Thank you!

As writers, we participated in some other events (I talked about my events here). Personally, I'm still exhausted! Phew. I guess my point is even though writers' conferences can be exhausting, they are very valuable. They are great opportunities to learn about writing, marketing, or whatever else you need to learn at this time (I know this evolves). They are great opportunities to network and connect with other writers and even editors and agents. They fire up your writing engine!

So, if you're a writer, I hope you take the time to go to writers' conferences. Possibly, consider going to the RMFW conference next September. And if you're a fan of speculative fiction, don't even get me started on the awesomeness of conferences like WorldCon or Comic-Con or World Fantasy.
Hope to see you at a con!

we're okay

I think we're okay. The site is back up.
Thanks for your patience! :)

bear with us

Greetings, readers! I hope you're having an easier time of things lately than we are. As you probably noticed, we're still having technical difficulties. Bummer! Obviously, the timing is very bad as we just published the fabulous new issue. Please bear with us as we get this sorted out. We will sort it as fast as humanly possible.

Interesting Electric Spec trivia: our website is hosted in the U.K. Why? This is kind of a long (and top-secret?) story. The short version is: a Famous Author who used to be a software guru set up our system when he still had a day job. That's all I can say. Sorry. If I tell you more, I'd have to kill you--and I don't want to do that!

In other news, our email still works. Please keep submitting stories for our next fabulous issue!

New Issue Out!

As promised, the new issue of Electric Spec is out! Thank you very much to everyone who contributed! We appreciate you!

New Issue Tomorrow!

The editors are thrilled to present a brand new issue of ElectricSpec tomorrow August 31, 2011! For your reading pleasure we have 6 excellent short speculative fiction stories:

• T. Lucas Earle's "Monkey Talk"
  
• "Justice Like a Mighty River" by Alter S. Reiss
  
• "Tooth and Claw" by Erin and Rina Gonzales
  
• Rich Matrunick's "Stranded (with Pork Chop)"
  
• "The Coincidence Factory" by Fredrick Obermeyer
  
• and in Editor's Corner: David E. Hughes' "Give . . . Grieve"

We also have an exciting interview of Urban Fantasy Author Nicole Peeler and dramatic cover art by Karl Eschenbach.

Check it out tomorrow!

New Issue Coming

We are just about a week away from the exciting new issue! W00t! Things are pretty hectic here behind the scenes at ElectricSpec. The editors are finishing up editting the stories and starting to post them--after getting approval from the authors, of course! We're drafting our fabulous Message From the Editors, and if you don't think some fist fights or arm wrestling breaks out over that...you'd be right. :) We even had a fun failure of the content management system we had to deal with. Don't ask me what the heck was going on there.

So, what do you have to look forward to in our fabulous August 31, 2011 isse? You get some great cover art, you get five--count 'em five--shockingly good speculative fiction stories. As a bonus you get a flash piece in Editor's Corner. We also have an awesome new interview with up-and-coming Urban Fantasy author Nicole Peeler, in which she talks about the latest and future books in her Jane True series, sexual teasing, how a Ph.D. in English Literature helps one write Urban Fantasy, her "super bolshy" personality and much more.

Check it out August 31, 2011!

story first sentences

As you gentle readers may or may not have guessed, all of us Electric Spec editors are also speculative fiction writers. One of the things I've been studying lately is what distinguishes a great story from a good story? Of course, sometimes it takes the lens of history to tell what's great. I hypothesize, however, that one significant factor is a good first sentence. Let's look at some historical examples:

• In "Nine Lives" Ursula K. Le Guin begins with She was alive inside, but dead outside, her face a black and dun net of wrinkles, tumors, cracks.
  
• In "Light of Other Days" Bob Shaw begins with Leaving the village behind, we followed the heady sweeps of the road up into a land of slow glass.
  
• Arthur C. Clarke begins "The Star" with It is three thousand light-years to the Vatican.
  
• Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore begin "Mimsy Were the Borogroves" with There's no use trying to describe either Unthahorsten or his surroundings, because for one thing, a good many million years had passed since 1942 Anno Domini, and, for an other, Unthahorsten wasn't on Earth, technically speaking.
  
• In "The Life and Times of Multivac" Isaac Asimov begins with The whole world was interested.
  
• In "The Singing Diamond" Robert L. Forward begins with My asteroid was singing.
  
• In "The Xi Effect" Philip Latham begins with For a week the team of Stoddard and Arnold had met with nothing but trouble in their solar infra-red exploration program.

If I had to summarize my reaction to these sentences, they would probably be "What the heck is going on here?" (rated-G version)
But the point is, I'm hooked. This is something to aspire to.

However, through the lens of history, many of these stories had awesome ideas and maybe less effective emotional impacts. For example, "Nine Lives" explores the idea: what if you were a clone, used to being surrounded by versions of yourself and that ended? Who or what would you be then? Could you even survive? Le Guin doesn't put us inside the head of the most affected character, however.

I think today's readers want both a big idea and a big emotional impact. What do you think? You'll have to read our upcoming August 31 issue of ElectricSpec and see if you think we pull it off. :)

story logic

We had an unusual event at our production meeting last week, namely we didn't end up publishing a story that we all liked a lot. The world was neat, the protagonist was active and empathetic, there was a cool plot twist and the ending was satisfying. So why didn't we publish it? One of us asked the question: "But what was the protagonist's original plan? Why did he do what he did?" And none of us could answer the question. As far as we could tell, the protagonist's original plan would never work. Upon close inspection, the story didn't work; it fell apart. :( Bummer.

So, what's a poor author to do to avoid such situations? I think you have to try to back up and get some distance from your stories when they're done. Of course, critique groups and/or beta readers can help here. Ask the tough questions, including, "Does this make sense?" If not, figure out how to make it make sense! Make sure your story has some kind of logic. Good luck!

Production Meeting Week

Wow, hi. Been awhile for me over here at this blog. I'm just emerging from what is fondly becoming known around my house as the "Busy Summer From Hell" replete with book releases and deadlines. But I haven't forgotten you, or Electric Spec!

I just read some slush recently and I noted a few things.

Quite a few present tense stories. One I even saved for voting. Wanna know why? I didn't realize it was present tense until about a third of the way in, cuz I was so into the story. Compelling character, writing, and plot. It had it all. I recently just had a review of my own present tense story that said the very same thing!

Another thing I've noticed lately about stories I've chosen to get a second reading; they leave a lot of room for me, the reader. Details are provided, but not every detail. Just enough for me to sketch a picture in my mind. I get to be the one to pick the paint colors. No paint-by-number stories pass by this editor for voting.

They also tend to rest at the intersection of Trope Avenue and Twist Road. Meaning, taking trope like known character types and putting them in a new situation or place. Or regular old Anytown, USA town council run by, I dunno, a  Garuda who just immigrated from India. In other words, give me something I don't expect. But don't stray so far I can't figure it out without your spending 1000 words to explain it to me, either.

All the stories were, well, stories. There were characters doing stuff. Cool stuff, mostly, against big odds. With stakes and stuff.

Anyway, we're deciding this week and it's gonna be a tough one. Might require an extra beer or six to work it all out. :)

Writing on Reading: Robinson's Science in the Capital

I just finished the final book in Kim Stanley Robinson's so-called Science in the Capital series: Forty Signs of Rain (2004), Fifty Degrees Below (2005), and Sixty Days and Counting (2007). Most of this work occurs in Washington D.C. at the N.S.F headquarters and features scientists. With its long lyrical descriptions of things ranging from nature to buddism to climate change, this series is quintessential Robinson. These books also have a strong message.

Yes, climate change is here and it has dire and long-ranging consequences for the survival of the human rance. The series strongly advocates humanity brush off their inactivity, inertia and complacency and DO. I, personally, did enjoy the extremely long descriptions of climate change effects, consequences, feedbacks, and mitigation strategies (which are all plausible). I enjoyed the extensive discussions of Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson and their work. I also enjoyed the extensive explorations of Buddism.

However, I can see how this would not be to everyone's taste. In my opinion, the plot is meandering at best, and the characters are essentially the same: "the scientist". Therefore, I highly recommend it to folks who'd like to learn more about climate change, Buddism, Thoreau, Emerson, etc., but not necessarily to those who like a dramatic story.

One Sentence to Hook an Agent?

Peter Brown Hoffmeister has a post today saying you have to hook an agent or magazine editor with the first sentence . . . of you cover letter. Yup, he says that, because of the numbers involved, most agents don't even get to the beautifully crafted first sentence of your manuscript.

But fear not! Unless you say something really stupid* in your cover letter to us Electric Spec editors, we promise we'll read the first sentence of your story before making a decision. In fact, I'll go so far as to say we almost always read the entire first paragraph. Sadly, if you have not hooked us at least by the first page, we're unlikely to read the rest. Based on the numbers, we just don't have time to read the entire story if it does not look promising.

*one example would be, "I'll let you publish my story so long as you agree to publish as is, without any editing"

Writing on Reading: A Dance with Dragons

My five year wait for the next book in George RR Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series is finally over. The question I ask now: was it worth the wait?

IMHO, the first and third books in the series are some of the finest fantasy books ever written. The second book is right up there, but the forth (A Feast for Crows) was a bit disappointing. Why? It concentrated on new characters who I didn't care about as much and the plot moved too slowly. A Dance with Dragons suffers from some of the same problems as the fourth book. A few new characters are introduced, and portions of the plot move pretty slowly. However, it does develop the journeys of some of the characters that we've known from the beginning, which is really nice to see, and, eventually, some major plot developments occur.

A have one other criticism of Dance: its too dark. You'll rarely hear that from me when talking about fantasy. I'd rather have me some dark stuff than trope fairy tale unicorns and rainbows . But, at the end of Dance I felt beaten down. How depraved can a world and everyone in that world be? Is there any hope that Westeros will survive? Do I even want it too survive? Please, George, I'm begging you! Give me some ray of hope!

So, bottom line, it is worth the read, especially if you're already a fan of the series, but don't go in expecting to be blown away like you might have been with the earlier books. And lets hope we don't have to wait another five years for the next one!

rookie mistakes

Maybe rookie mistakes is too harsh? How about rookie room-for-improvements? :)
Generally, the slush at ElectricSpec is very good. However, we editors can tell when we get a story from someone new to writing. There are a number of common room-for-improvements we see:

• Possibly the most obvious is using non-said or non-asked dialogue tags. Don't ask me why only "said" and "asked" are allowed in dialogue tags, but that's the way it is. (If anyone knows, please share.)
  
• Another common issue is all telling and no showing. I know like a hundred years ago this was the fashion, but when was the last time you read something published that did this? Telling is summarizing a story and we still do this in our everyday lives. But the current fashion in fiction is to write immediate, have the reader experience the story as it happens (a bit weird when you consider the another current fashion is past tense.)
  
• Finally, a common room-for-improvement we see is nothing happens, usually because the protagonist doesn't act. As an editor, this one is particularly disappointing. You get all excited about the big idea or the world-building and the problem set-up and then ...nothing. Often this is linked to a mild or missing conflict: who or what is stopping the protagonist? Generally speaking in stories we publish the protagonist has to do something to try to solve the problem. The protagonist doesn't have to succeed, but they have to try.

So, double-check your stories. You don't have any of these issues, do you?

A Plug for Indie Bookstores

A great article in the Charlotte Observer this week about my cousin Sally's book store. Authors--note the section about how indie books stores are the key to creating bestsellers.

Writers Search Engine

Many of you may already know about this, but I recently discovered something neat:
Writer's Knowledge Base, The Search Engine for Writers. The Writer's Knowledge Base (WKB) is a searchable collection of articles that are highly relevant to writers. The articles are diverse and cover such topics as the craft of writing, getting published, promotion, etc. Notice the search engine only covers topics related to writing. If you do a search you won't accidentally get anything weird--like porn. (Why do so many innocent searches lead to porn?)

A little backstory...Elizabeth Craig supplies the links for the WKB. Elizabeth is a published author who monitors over 1500 websites for great articles on writing and then posts the links on Twitter. The WKB then archives the links for us writers to access to our heart's desire.

Does anyone else know of any neat writers websites? Please share!

Congrats Mr. Sawyer!

This may be a bit outside our usual discussions, but I was excited to hear from SFScope that Robert J. Sawyer's WWW trilogy was recently optioned for television! As faithful readers know, he gave an awesome interview in our last issue primarily about his WWW trilogy. Read more about the deal.
Congratulations, Mr. Sawyer!

to grimace or not to grimace?

FYI: The submission deadline for the August 2011 issue is July 15.

One of the best teachers I've ever had has a thing about grimaces. He says you should never use the word grimace in your writing because it doesn't mean anything. I would say a grimace is a frown caused by disgust. I looked it up in various dictionaries and they say a grimace is a facial expression, often ugly or contorted, that indicates disapproval, pain, etc. or a sharp facial contortion expressing pain, contempt, or disgust., etc. So, regarding grimaces, I guess: Caveat scriptor.

However, I think this points to a larger issue: the evolution of the english language. There's no question our language has evolved and is evolving over time. How much of this should we use in our writing? For example, in my work I would use "five finger discount", but not "index finger discount". Most people know the former but only a certain subset of folks know the latter (although we could probably figure it out!). Certainly, there are genre considerations here. YA should use a lot of slang. Techno- or geek-thrillers should also use a lot of jargon.

But, IMHO, we can go too far. 2MI can be 2M2H. IKR?

I think we should avoid text-messaging "words" in fiction.

What do you think?

B4N. :)

revision: unique dialogue

We all know dialogue is an important part of fiction. As such, it's worth taking a look at when doing revisions. First things first: dialogue tags should ONLY use said or asked. Don't get creative. In fact, the prevailing wisdom is it's better not to use dialogue tags; use body language, facial expressions, or other information to let the reader know who's talking. However, don't make your characters "bobble-heads". This is an expression from one of my writing professors and indicates too much head nodding or similar actions. Watch out for this. :) A tip: many published works put the dialogue tag or action between two sentences of dialogue rather than at the beginning or end.

Another important point is every character should have unique dialogue. If I'm honest, many of my characters talk like I do in my first drafts. So, when I revise, I have to get rid of this. Ideally, each character's dialogue is so unique you wouldn't even need a dialogue tag. In a long work, I keep a cheat-sheet of slang or special unique words for each character. For example, one character might use a lot of single-syllable words, another might not use contractions. Good luck with your dialogue!

How about you? How do you deal with dialogue?

revision: a watch list

I got some good advice about revision recently: create a watch list. What is a watch list in this context, you ask? Well, I'll tell you. :) A watch list is where an author examines his/her work and makes a note of their own common mistakes or repeats, writes them down, and then corrects them during the revision process. For example, my characters seem to smile or grin several times a page. Logically I know it's a bad idea to repeat actions on the same page, but when I go back and look: there they are. During revision, then, I need to get rid of most of those. As another example, I have a critique partner who always uses waive instead of wave. (Of course, spell-check doesn't catch this!)

How about you? Do you have anything you need to watch out for?

Do you have any revision tips?

education and writing

In Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell, he says in the introduction that the "Big Lie" is Writing can't be taught. I agree with Bell that writing can be taught. And yet...

As you read this I am at Residency for my MFA program in Writing Popular Fiction. There's no question the faculty and mentors in my program give the students a lot of good information about writing. We also have sessions where we critique others work and have our work critiqued in turn. Therefore, there's also no question some of the students have learned a lot and some of the students' writing have vastly improved.

I tell you a secret though: I am not one of those students. I think this is because I've been working very hard for over a decade to be a better writer. I read lots of non-fiction writing books. I analyze lots of novels, trying to figure out what works and what doesn't. A huge turning point for me was joining a local writers group: Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers. I've been going to their free (with membership) classes and workshops for years. I have a great critique group that helps me a lot. I've also been going to the annual conference for years, first attending workshops, and now teaching them. Thus, I've learned more working independently and with my local writers group than I've learned in my MFA program. So, I have mixed feelings about formal writing programs at colleges and universities. I'm not sure they're effective for everyone.

What do you think? What's the best way to learn to be a better writer?

formatting

I recently had an odd experience. I submitted a short story to a speculative fiction magazine and the editor wrote back and told me my formatting was all messed up. I opened up my copy of the file; it looked fine. I couldn't quite figure out what the editor meant. Of course, by the time the editor received the file it had been reformatted according to their rules and emailed. So I'm guessing somewhere in there something went awry. (Gee, go figure.)

I was quite embarrassed and a little angry that the editor took me to task for sending in a file with the 'wrong format.' :( I do admit it was my responsibility as the author to ensure the format was okay. But... I thought the editor went a little overboard. What do you think? Is the 'wrong format' an rejectionable offense?

Here at ElectricSpec I've read some stories that had some odd formatting. I, personally, have not rejected anything because of formatting. Maybe I'm too lenient? :) I have no immediate plans to change my ways. Curious about our desired ElectricSpec format? Check out: Fiction Submission Guidelines.

art vs. entertainment

I hope you're still enjoying the new issue of ElectricSpec!

We editors have started going through the slush for the next issue, and I must admit I've seen some odd things. This brought up the whole art versus entertainment dichotomy for me. Certainly short stories should be art, but ... they need to be entertaining as well, IMHO. (The other editors may weigh in if they disagree.) Perhaps it is a market thing? Perhaps our market is not the most experimental?

Anyway, if you want to publish a story in our 'zine, ignore short story conventions at your peril. For example, most short stories utilize simple past verb tense. Sure, you could use simple present, present perfect, past perfect, future, or future perfect, but will they convey the story to the reader in the most entertaining way? Generally, you don't want your "art" to interfere with your story. As another example, most short stories have a protagonist. Is it really a story if there's no protagonist? I'm a bit skeptical. For a final example, most short stories have a plot, i.e. something happens. Again, if nothing happens, is it really a story? Some things to ponder...

Can anyone think of any other good short story conventions?