slush pile tips

We've started working on the notable November 2015 issue of Electric Spec, namely, going through the slush pile. Sadly, we can't critique all (or any) of the stories submitted to the 'zine. But, from time to time, I give some advice here on the blog. These tips are gleaned directly from reading our slush. I would tell the respective author this if he/she were standing in front of me.

• Be careful not to use too many adjectives. A single sentence probably shouldn't have four or more adjectives. Every sentence probably should not have adjectives. Instead of adjectives, use specific nouns, use strong verbs, use distinctive similes and metaphors.
• Something should happen in your story. There are markets which publish stories in which nothing happens. This is not one of those markets. How can you tell if something has happened? Something should be different at the end of the story. It can be subtle but it has to be discernible.
• You must have speculative elements. Metaphorical gods, monsters, etc. likely are not sufficient. Literal gods, monsters, etc. likely would be sufficient. Of course, your literal gods/monsters/etc. could also be metaphorical gods/monsters/etc. :)
• Proofread your piece. If I see a lot of grammar and spelling mistakes on the first page it's a turn off. I may stop reading. This may be unfair to the author. :( But, as an editor I don't want to deal with a piece that needs extra work.

That's it for tips for now.

Please do not query us asking about your story. We get hundreds of stories and extra queries just bogs down the whole process.

That being said, please do keep sending us your stories! We love authors!

Le Guin interview

Ursula K. Le Guin is one of the preeminent speculative fiction authors. Her novels include The Left Hand of Darkness, The Dispossessed, A Wizard of Earthsea and many other award winners. Her work deals with themes such as gender and sexual identity, race, culture, environmentalism, anarchism and others.

About science fiction she says, "...science fiction ...contemplates possible futures."

Last week there was a very interesting interview of Le Guin over at salon.com: Ursula K. Le Guin on myths, Modernism and why "I'm a little bit suspicious of the MFA program". Highlights include:

• Regarding publishing: the rules of the game are all changing, and the game itself is kind of a different game... no one knows where it'g going.
• Regarding writing: ...there is a good way to write, and a not-so-good way to write. This hasn't changed.
• Regarding critique groups: ...People who meet and read ... and critique...It's simply very nourishing and very useful.

She's a fascinating author. Check out the whole article!

Phew!

What a whirlwind weekend! We published the latest and greatest issue of Electric Spec on September 10. We hope you are still enjoying the issue. What's your favorite story? Ghostalker? The Metal of a Man? A Dose of Aconite? Tried and True? Peacekeeper? I really enjoyed them all. Please check them out if you haven't already and tell your friends!

Another milestone this weekend was the annual Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers (RMFW) conference. All the Electric Spec editors and associate editors are members of RMFW and participate in conference. For example, Editor Betsy presented "Learning to Love the Step-Children of Writing" which was about taglines, queries and synopses. I presented "Scintillating Science for your Science Fiction." (Psst, here's the link to all the handouts: rmfw.org/conference/2015-handouts.)
If you're a writer, you should seriously consider attending the conference next year.

One of our most popular Electric Spec blog posts resulted from last year's conference when Editor Betsy and I taught a 'How to Write a Short Story' workshop. The post was called Short Story Cheat Sheet. Check it out.

We're accepting submissions for the November 2015 issue of Electric Spec. Get those stories in!

Phew! That's it for now. I think I need to go rest some more...

Yay live!

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

Thank you, authors!
Thank you, Ms. Carriger!
Thank you, associate editors Nikki and Devlin!
Thank you, tech support folks in Ireland!
Thank you, cover artist P. Emerson Williams!

Most of all: thank you, readers!

new issue brag-athon

I've talked a bit here about the spectacular September 10 2015 issue of Electric Spec. Now I get to tell you about the rest of it!

As you might expect, we have some fabulous fantasy. We present to you "Ghostalker" by T.L. Huchu, in which the voice and world-building are excellent as the protagonist has to deal with ghost-related issues...
"A Dose of Aconite" by Lindsey Duncan shows us the emotional trials and tribulations of a werewolf hunter. Interestingly, both of these might be considered urban fantasy.

As you might also expect, we have some scintillating science fiction. In the SF arena we have a unique character, who used to work in well, an ...arena, and has a unique problem. This is Travis Heermann's story "The Metal of a Man."
"Tried and True" by Daniel Brock is a harrowing tale also involving technology and personal evolution.

Be sure to check out the entire issue on September 10! You'll be glad you did. :)

author Dave

Last time I talked about the exciting Carriger interview coming up in the spectacular September 10, 2015 issue of Electric Spec. And before that we heard from author Jamie Killen about her neat story "Peacekeeper."

Another treat we have coming up is an Editor's Corner story by author and editor David E. Hughes, "Rex's Last Ride." This is an unusual one featuring demonic creatures and a motorcycle gang... I won't spoil it for you. I will recommend you check it out.

We've featured several stories from author Dave over the years. Many of them have been humorous. We had "The Dog that Broke the Camel's Back" which was a very humorous ghost story (no thanks to me!). In "My Kingdom for a Gislestorchen" a humorous SF tale puts a new spin on organ donation.

Many of them have been less humorous. Recently, we featured the haunting fantasy "Forgetting".There was also The First Priest of Maat an unusual fantasy inspired by Egyptian mythology (okay, this did have some humorous elements). Another unusual one was "The Devotion Egg" featuring religion and an egg (as you might have guessed). Dave also contributed the fantasy "Give ... Grieve." -- definitely not humorous.

Readers may know in real life Dave is actually a lawyer and much of his longer fiction features lawyers. In the fantasy "The Art of Persuasion" we see what really could go wrong with lawyering. Hmm. Dave has had a lot of successes in the courtroom...

Be sure to check out the new issue September 10!

Carriger interview

Last week we told you about one of the exciting stories we're featuring in the spectacular September 10, 2015 issue of Electric Spec. Another exciting element of the next issue is an interview with the Queen of Steampunk, Gail Carriger!

Carriger says Steampunk is a re–imagining of either the past or the future where steam technology never died, and electricity never dominated, and a Victorian aesthetic overshadows all. Think Jules Verne and hot air balloons flying to the moon.

Her next release, in November 2015, will be Manners & Mutiny of the Finishing School series. If you haven't read Sophronia's exploits yet, I highly recommend you do so posthaste!

Be sure to check out our interview where Carriger talks of hedonism, aether currents, canoodling and more!

from author Killen

The super September 10, 2015 issue of Electric Spec is in the works! We're proud to share several excellent stories with you. One of these stories is "Peacekeeper" by Jamie Killen. It's a SF story set in a very intriguing culture where 'nats' and 'synths' are pitted against each other...

About the story, Killen says:

This story started out as my way of playing around with noir/crime drama tropes: the hardboiled detective, the hooker with the heart of gold, the corrupt public official. Of course, being me, I had to end up with a story in which these tropes took the form of cyborgs in outer space.

The second major piece of this story was my realization that very few stories about conflict between humans and robots/cyborgs/cylons/etc stop short of full-blown apocalypse. Instead of the conflict escalating to victory for one side or the other or ongoing total war a la The Matrix or Terminator, I wanted to explore a world in which a human-cyborg conflict resulted in a fragile but workable peace.

The end result is a story in which the main conflict stems from the tricky details and competing interests that come with that peace.

Very interesting! Thanks, Jamie!

September 10 2015

We, The Editors, had our production meeting recently. The most important result of which is we are pushing the publication of the next issue from August 31 to September 10, 2015. A confluence of events made the earlier date impossible. (If I could just get my damn time machine to work properly...) Apologies, if this causes any inconveniences.

If you submitted a story by the July 15 deadline, you should have already received an email. If you furthermore had a story in hold-for-voting, you should be getting another email very soon.

As usual, it was very difficult to get the attention of the wait-person. Ha! Kidding! (No, I'm not.) No, as usual, it was very difficult to decide amongst the many excellent stories. All the stories in hold-for-voting were publishable. If you had a story there, pat yourself on the back. Nice job!
If you've submitted a story to us: Thank you very much! We appreciate it!

One deciding factor this time seemed to be length. We accept flash fiction, but it's tough to write a complete story in a flash length. We had a couple flash pieces as finalists but in the end, they weren't emotionally satisfying enough. At the other extreme, we had a loooong story that we enjoyed but it was ~7000 words and no one was willing to edit it. We may revisit our word length limits in the future.
Bottom line for writers: avoid the shortest and longest lengths.

As usual, genre was an issue. We had one story we decided was not, in fact, speculative fiction, so it had to go. The upcoming issue has to have a variety of genres, so the stories we ended up with reflect that. I will blog more about the upcoming stories in the coming weeks. We may even hear directly from some authors...

Some genres we don't get much and would like to see more of:

• Steampunk. Make sure there's a complete story to go with your neat world. Also, the steampunk aesthetic should be integral to the story.
• Macabre horror. Basically, non-gory horror.
• Epic or high fantasy. Yes, this is swords and sorcery, and possibly creatures such as elves, fairies, etc. Essentially, this is good versus evil in an imaginary (or "secondary") world.

Stay tuned for more info about the scintillating September issue!

Delany

Long time blog readers are expecting to read a production meeting post right now.
Due to a scheduling issue we're meeting a little later than usual this time, so I'll post something about it next week. In the meantime...

The New Yorker had a very interesting article last week: Samuel Delany and the Past and Future of Science Fiction. Peter Bebergal says From the beginning, Delany, in his fiction, has pushed across the traditional boundaries of science fiction, embraced the other, and questioned received ideas about sex and intimacy. Hurray for him! I think SF is the perfect place to push and explore boundaries of all kinds. Check out the article.

In recent years (with the exception of a few pathetic baby canines) I think our society has caught up with the ideas and ideals Delany brought forth for our consideration. Authors like Delany contributed significantly to this change. Literature, even genre literature, has the ability to change the world.
As for troublesome puppy-types, Delany says, "It has nothing to do with science fiction. It has to do with the rest of society where science fiction exists."

What do you think? Do you agree? Disagree?

As Grand Master James E. Gunn said in our January 2007 issue of Electric Spec, "Let's save the world through SF!"

the value of editing

We, The Editors, are busy working behind the scenes on the next issue of Electric Spec.

With all the recent brouhaha surrounding Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee I can't help thinking about the value of editing. Of course, Ms. Lee's novel To Kill a Mockingbird is a classic. Until recently, I didn't know Lee's editor Therese "Tay" von Hohoff Torrey played such an important part in its development. You can read about several places including The New York Times: "The Invisible Hand Behind Harper Lee's 'To Kill a Mockingbird'".

Editors clearly can play a very important role.

Here, at Electric Spec, we do edit our fiction--although we're not in Hohoff's league. Usually, this editing consists of cutting words that aren't needed. Sometimes, we suggest or ask for alternate titles. We have even occasionally polished a diamond in the rough into a beautiful gem.

Once in a while an author refuses to make any changes. When this happens we agree to go our separate ways.

Hurray for all those unrecognized, unlauded editors throughout history! We salute you!

write your passion

We've closed submissions for the August 2015 issue of Electric Spec. Of course, you can continue to submit for the next issue (November 2015). Thus, we are very hard at work behind the scenes getting the August issue ready to go.

So, in the meantime a few words... Writers are told to write what they know. I don't totally agree with this advice. I think it's better to write what you love. Write what you're passionate about. One of the things I'm passionate about is: the universe!
This week we saw some amazing new images of pluto. I can't help sharing one of them with you. Here's Pluto with it's moon Charon:
Awesome!
What are you passionate about? Send us a story!

effective protagonist

The story submission deadline for the awesome August 31,2015 issue of Electric Spec is July 15, 2015! Tomorrow!

I've been reading a lot of fiction this summer. In my opinion the protagonist is the most important thing in any story. Yes, that includes speculative fiction stories. There are some different ways to achieve an effective protagonist...

Probably my favorite type of protagonist is a flawed but heroic protagonist. This is someone who tries to do the right thing but has some significant personal issue(s) that will make this difficult. This type of protagonist is very common in YA fiction and is very easy to empathize with. Often they also have a unique characteristic, like a supernatural ability, or extra gumption or brains or something similar. In modern fiction, there's a sliding scale of flawed heroism that goes all the way to the anti-hero. An anti-hero would be mostly (all?) flaws--but still opposing the villain.
Please note there's an important point here. In most cases, an empathetic protagonist should have at least one good quality. (Yes, fighting evil could be that quality.) An effective author tool to make readers empathize with a protag is to show other characters caring about said protag. Or, you could have said protag experience something bad, like bullying. Or, you could have said protag caring for babies or puppies. :)

In the olden days all protagonists were straight-up heroes. They are basically perfect and always fight evil and win. You shouldn't use this type of protagonist because it's too old-fashioned. Modern folks can't identify with perfection.
I read a novel recently in which the protagonist basically had no flaws or problems. I did not enjoy that novel!

Of course, the polar opposite of a hero is the villain. They work to oppose the hero. Again, there's a sliding scale here. He/she could be an old-fashioned all-bad villain all the way to a partially good-villain. What makes a villain? That can be hard to decipher in this day and age. I'm going to say villains pursue evil while heroes pursue good.

There is an interesting modern phenomena in which stories and novels are written in which the actor has no, or very few, redeeming qualities. Basically, the author has made the villain into the protagonist. The fiction of Gillian Flynn might be an example of this. And you can't argue with success! Therefore, one way to create an effective protagonist is to actually create a villain. Who knew? :)

Good luck with your protagonists!

cliches

Don't forget the deadline for the awesome August issue is July 15, 2015!

I've been reading a lot of stories from our slush pile lately. I've also been reading entries for a certain unspecified writing contest. I'm pretty sick of some things...

• Please do not start with a dream.
• Please, please do not have your story start with the protagonist waking up.
• Please do not start with someone driving somewhere in a car.
• Please, please do not tell me about your protagonist's hair style--especially not multiple times in the first 5 pages. I don't care how messy it is. I don't care if it's long or in a pony-tail or whatever. Hair style does not elucidate character.
• Please, please, please do not tell what color hair your protagonist has--especially by running his/her fingers through it! No real person thinks about hair color while they run their fingers through it. Go ahead, try it: run your fingers through your hair. Did you think "my red hair" or "my brown hair" or "my blond hair"? I bet you didn't.
• Please do not have your protagonist look at him/herself in a mirror as a mechanism to describe him/her for the reader.
• Try not to use common idioms. "Avoid it like the plague" if possible. Because if not, your story may be "dead as a doornail" "at the end of the day." Creating unique idioms is actually a great way to create character and build your world.

Yes, I'm a little grumpy. Sorry. But avoiding cliches can only help make your writing as awesome as it should be.
(You probably shouldn't use "awesome.")
Good luck!

Locus

Wow! Time flies. The deadline for the awesome August 2015 issue of Electric Spec is coming right up: July 15, 2015. Get those stories in!
I do apologize, we've been pretty behind on slush this time.

In terms tips, from last week, slush pile tips, still seem pretty relevant. I also recommend you proofread your piece in terms of spelling and grammar. We generally don't toss a story for bad spelling or grammar unless it's really bad. But if we're on the fence about a story, better to be safe than sorry.

Did you know there's a very famous magazine about speculative fiction? For many years the p-zine Locus was the industry standard. In recent years the e-zine Locus has been gaining in prestige. This past weekend they announced their annual speculative fiction award winners:

• Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie, for best science fiction novel
• The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison, for best fantasy novel
• "Yesterday's Kin" by Nancy Kress, for best novella
• "Tough Times All Over" by Joe Abercrombie, for best novelette
• "The Truth About Owls" by Amal El-Mohtar, for best short story.

The full list of winners is here.

Congratulations to all the winners!

slush pile tips

Here at Electric Spec we do something a little different. We never close to submissions. For a particular issue we just look at submissions from within a certain time frame. Thus, our next issue is out August 31, 2015, so we'll be accepting submissions for that issue through July 15, 2015. A quirk of this process is we don't look at the new slush pile for about six weeks while we work on the upcoming issue.
Bottom line: we have a backlog of slush right now and we know it. We're addressing it.
I've been doing my part to wade through the slush pile and consequently I have some tips...

• Do submit your story in *rtf format as requested.
• Do remember to attach the file.
• Don't use any weird formatting such as unusual colors, symbols, strike-outs, etc.
• Regarding your cover letter:
  • Don't tell us you have no sales.
  • If you did sell to Electric Spec, mention it!
  • Don't ask for critique.
  • Don't send a follow-up email asking if we got your story. We get hundreds of stories and having to answer queries about your query just bogs down the process.
• In your story, do show us stuff--rather than just telling.
• If your story is super-long it's going to be less desirable (we have to edit it!)
• Do write a story with speculative elements.
• Your story shouldn't be about "business as usual." Something unusual should happen.

I'll have more tips in the coming weeks.
Thank you for submitting!

novel openings

I've been thinking a lot about novel openings lately. It shouldn't surprise you that a good novel opening is a lot like a good short story opening. One of our most popular blog posts ever was our short story cheat sheet, and it has a lot of great tips for short stories. I was inspired to write this after Editor Betsy and I taught a workshop on writing short stories.

Focusing more specifically on speculative fiction novels, however...

• You really need to have a character within the first couple of pages, ideally on the first page. This is because the reader identifies with the characters. If there's no character, who do they identify with? Keep in mind fiction is unique in that the reader gets to become another person via this identification. This initial character should be the protagonist, but it doesn't have to be.
• In chapter one your character needs to have a problem or some other unique situation. This is the first appearance of 'plot' and it needs to at least hint at the major conflict of the novel. Also this should be related to the protagonist's character arc.
• On page one you should give the reader some idea of setting in terms of time and space. I do not recommend a long description or a big info dump--just give us a sentence here and there. As an aside, paragraphs of info dump are old-fashioned; don't do it.
• Your novel opening should be consistent with your genre. You read a lot in your genre, right? If you don't know what your genre is: figure it out ASAP.
• You should know your novel's theme or big idea and chapter one should be consistent with it. Your theme is the take-away from your novel. Similar plots can have very different themes. For example, if your novel's plot is the zombie apocalypse ... What's the theme? The theme basically guides you in how you tell the story. Perhaps your protagonist moves heaven and earth to save his daughter, in which case the theme is 'family is everything.' Or, perhaps, the protagonist cures the zombies via medical expertise, in which case the theme is 'science can save us.' You get the idea.

Good luck with your novel openings!

Editorial tricks

As we put together the last issue of Electric Spec I couldn't help noticing I've picked up some editorial tricks, to make a story pop, over the last decade. I thought I'd pass some of them along to you...

Tricks to make your story stand out from the crowd:

• Have minimal spelling and grammar mistakes. (Okay, I admit this isn't strictly a trick.) No one will read your story if they're distracted by errors. Use your software's spelling and grammar checker. Use your significant other. Use your persnickety retired-school-teacher aunt.
• Create a unique title for your story. Your title is essentially the commercial for your story. When readers see it in a table of contents they should think "I need to read that!" After you finish your story, stop, pause, think. What is the essence of your story? Your title should reflect that. You might even have a great phrase already in your story you could use.
• Put your power words at the end of your sentences. This gives the sentence more oomph! Related to this, put your dialogue tags in the middle of the sentences. Here's an example:
  • "I can't believe he's dead," the angel said.
  • versus "It can't believe it," the angel said. "He's dead."
  The second version is more dramatic, isn't it?
• Make use of white space on the page. Putting more white space around a sentence makes it stand out more. In other words, start a new paragraph--even if you don't have to--to emphasize something. This can be especially effective at the end of the story.

Good luck!

Thanks!

As you know, the marvelous May 2015 issue of Electric Spec is out. Huzzah!

Thank you potential authors for submitting your stories. We appreciate you! Thank you authors K.C. Griffin, Jessica Kelly, Malcolm Laughton, Jim Breyfogle and George Schaade. We appreciate you!

Thank you to our associate editors Chris Devlin and Nikki Baird. You rock! Thank you to our columnist Marty Mapes. You rock! Thanks, also, to our cover artist Ron Sanders for his piece "Ache." Nice job!

Thank you tech guys at Hardlight Multimedia in Ireland. Huzzah for you!

Most of all, thank you readers! We wouldn't exist without you. :)

It's alive!

Check out the brand new issue of Electric Spec!