Category Archives: Short Stories

What’s in a Title?

Last week I wrote about the opening lines in a story. But before you read the opening, you read the title. Do you struggle to come up with appropriate, catchy titles for your stories? Read on…

Some writers have no problem with titles. In fact, there are authors who think up a clever title, and write a story to suit it.

On the other hand, some start with a ‘working title,’ intending to come up with a real title later. When that time arrives, they get stuck, unable to create a suitable title. Writing the 5000-word story was no problem, but coming up with just 1-10 words is maddening.

Author Stephen Pressfield offers some great advice in this blogpost. He says to let the theme of your story suggest the title, and he gives some great examples.

In her post on titles, author Lynne Lumsden Green goes a bit further. She says a title should (1) be memorable, (2) encompass the theme of the story, and (3) not give too much away.

I agree, though I don’t think you should agonize over your title. I’d spend more time on the story’s opening and closing lines. Even so, I often brainstorm about 20-30 titles before hitting on the right one.

Be aware, when choosing your title, even words like ‘the’ can be important. That word denotes one particular thing. To take an example from my stories, “Moonset” (from the Re-Terrify anthology) evokes a periodic event that happens daily. “The Moonset” suggests one particular setting of the moon. The one-word version was more appropriate for my story.

Here are some explanations for the titles of my stories:

“Broken Flute Cave” is also the setting of the story, a cavern so-named because a modern discoverer found what looked like broken flutes inside. My story is the origin story, or pourquoi story of the last Native American flute player to occupy that cave.

“Reconnaissance Mission” (in the Not Far From Roswell anthology) has a double meaning in this story. The tale follows Army Sergeant Major Edgar Allan Poe as he participates in a recon mission to Nuevo México. There he finds his is not the only team conducting such a mission.

“The Unparalleled Attempt to Rescue One Hans Pfaall” (in the Quoth the Raven anthology) is a sequel to Edgar Allan Poe’s story “The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall.” I could hardly have titled it any other way.  

“Instability” (in the Dark Luminous Wings anthology) is another title with double meanings. A medieval monk builds wings and tries to fly, but can’t control his flight. Moreover, some of the other monks question his sanity.

“Time’s Deformèd Hand” is a phrase from the Shakespeare play “The Comedy of Errors.” My story—in the clockpunk genre—has many references to time, clocks, and calendars, and errors associated with time measurement. The grave accent mark (`) means to pronounce that usually-silent ‘e’ as you would in ‘ranted.’

“Last Vessel of Atlantis” (combined in one volume with “Rallying Cry”) evokes the wonder of that legendary lost continent. The word ‘vessel’ has two meanings in the story—a ship and a container of liquids. In fact, the first published version of that story was titled “The Vessel.”

“The Six Hundred Dollar Man” references the 1970s TV show “The Six Million Dollar Man” but mine is a steampunk version taking place in the American Wild West.

The next time you’re stressing about how to title a story, you’ll remember the profound and timeless advice of the one who titles himself—

Poseidon’s Scribe

March 28, 2021Permalink

7 Ways to Start Your Science Fiction Short Story

Oh, those choosy readers! So pressed for time, so easily distracted. If you don’t begin your SF short story in an imaginative, attention-grabbing way, they won’t read further. Let’s find out how to hook them.

Author Charlie Jane Anders wrote a great post citing seven killer openings for SF short stories, with classic examples for each one. I highly recommend her post.

Here, in brief, is my take on her list, with examples from my stories:

1. Set the Scene. Put us ‘there’ right away. Immerse us in the strangeness of your setting. Most SF stories begin this way. Use when setting is important, but get to the plot’s action soon after.

Personal Example, from “The Sea-Wagon of Yantai:”

2. Introduce Conflict. Hit us with the problem first. What is your character dealing with? Fill in other details later. Good way to hook readers, but a bit chancy if your bomb’s a dud, or if the rest of the story doesn’t live up to its start.

Personal Example, from “A Tale More True:”

3. Mystify. Intrigue and confuse us. Cast us in without knowing our bearings yet. A risky way to start, but when it works, it works well.

Personal Example, from “The Cats of Nerio-3:”

4. Gather ‘Round, Children. Have a talkative narrator speak to the reader in third person, often addressing the reader as ‘you.’ Often used in humor stories, but you need to keep that narration intriguing, and sustain it.

Personal (though approximate) Example, from “Reconnaissance Mission:”

5. There I was. Have the talkative narrator, the main character, self-identifying as “I,” speak to the reader in first person. Often these stories start in a reflective, essay-like tone. Helps readers identify with the main character right away, but you need to get to the plot action and the scene-setting soon after.

No Personal Examples

6. Start With a Quote. This can be a quote from another document, or (more often) a character speaking. Good way to introduce a character’s personality right away, but if done wrong, this beginning can come off as juvenile.

Personal Example, from “The Unparalleled Attempt to Rescue One Hans Pfaall:”

7. Open With a Puzzle. Combine 2. and 3. above to introduce a conflict while also mystifying. This is the most difficult of the seven methods. Great when it works, but awful when it doesn’t.

Personal Example, from “Moonset:”

You should work hard on the opening lines of your short stories. Try several, or all, of the examples above until you hit on one you feel is right. Attempt, in a sentence or two, to (1) grab the reader, (2) introduce the main character, (3) present or suggest the conflict, (4) set the mood or tone of the story, and (5) perhaps give a hint of the ending for circular closure.

Now go out and grab your readers, using the methods of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

March 21, 2021Permalink

Happy Birthday, Jules Verne!

He’s looking good, for a 193-year-old.

That’s the thing about great writers of the past, they still speak to us. In a sense, they live forever.

Would you expect there’d be an active fan club devoted to you, in a foreign country, 116 years after your death? In Verne’s case, there are several. The one I’m most familiar with is the North American Jules Verne Society.

A couple of months ago, I mentioned the NAJVS is sponsoring an anthology of short fiction, the first of those it’s ever done. The working title for the anthology is Extraordinary Visions: Stories Inspired by Jules Verne. I’m fortunate enough to be part of the editing team.

That call for submissions is still active and NAJVS will be accepting stories (and artwork) until April 30. For more details, click here.

So far, we’ve received some good story submissions. However, we could use more stories based on the full range of Verne’s oeuvre. To start creative fluids coursing through your veins, allow me to mention that Jules Verne wrote about:

  • A 35-day balloon trip over Africa (Five Weeks in a Balloon)
  • A voyage to the North Pole with a mutiny, an ice palace, and a volcano (The Adventures of Captain Hatteras)
  • A hike many miles underground, encountering a subterranean ocean and prehistoric animals (Journey to the Center of the Earth)
  • A journey to the Moon aboard a projectile launched from a cannon (From the Earth to the Moon)
  • A globe-girdling quest for a lost father, knowing only his geographic latitude (In Search of the Castaways)
  • A trek across Russia by courier who can’t see where he’s going (Michael Strogoff)
  • A comet slicing off a chunk of the Earth, with people and animals still on it (Off on a Comet)
  • A family living underground for a decade (The Child of the Cavern)
  • Two men using their halves of an inheritance to establish rival utopian cities (The Begum’s Fortune)
  • A steam-powered mechanical elephant marching across India (The Steam House)
  • A ship-sized helicopter operated by a mad scientist (Robur the Conqueror)
  • An attempt to alter the Earth’s axis (The Purchase of the North Pole)
  • A mysterious Count in a Transylvanian castle, that might have inspired Bram Stoker’s Dracula (The Carpathian Castle)
  • A man-made, propeller-driven island (Propeller Island)
  • A vehicle that operates on land, on and beneath the water, and in the air (Master of the World)
  • A plan to flood the Sahara Desert to create an inland sea in North Africa (Invasion of the Sea)
  • A description of Paris nearly 100 years in Verne’s future. (Paris in the Twentieth Century)

Oh, yeah. Verne also wrote a book about a submarine (Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea). In fact, the above list is way, way incomplete.

Still, something on that list should nudge a neuron in your noggin, move your muse to murmuring, and cause you to commence clacking on your keyboard.

Today, his birthday, is a fine day to channel your inner Verne. Allow him to inspire you to write a great story, or create a cover image. Send it in. Eagerly waiting to read your tale or view your art is a group of NAJVS editors, who happen to include—

Poseidon’s Scribe

February 8, 2021Permalink

What a Party!

Three days after the party and I’m still recovering. No, not really. It was a Facebook party to celebrate the launch of the anthology 20,000 Leagues Remembered. No music, no dancing, relatively few drinks.

We held it last Thursday night, the first Facebook party I ever attended, and I was one of the two hosts. We had 32 attendees, including both co-editors (Kelly A. Harmon and me), and 7 of our 16 authors.

Much credit goes to those authors, who kept things interesting by posting fun facts about themselves and their stories. I heard feedback from one attendee who said the author bios were the best part of the party.

We gave away prizes, some randomly based on numbers of comments and shares, and some based on correctly answering trivia questions. Prize winners got to choose from among Pole to Pole Publishing’s collection of anthologies.

Prior to the party, I’d been thinking about the wide variety of settings for the anthology’s stories, and made a map of all of them. I posted the map during the party and people seemed to like it. One party-goer said all anthologies should make similar maps!

One of my daughters is particularly talented with 3D printing and has printed models from my various stories before, pictured here, here, here, here, and here. Recently, she made a near-replica of the submarine pictured on our anthology’s cover. I’m to blame for the poor paint job, but still. Kinda cool.

If you missed the party, you can still enjoy the retrospective here.

Grand Prize Still Up for Grabs!

Also, a grand prize is still available! Here’s how you can earn it, simply by posting book reviews during the month of August 2020. Post your reviews of 20,000 Leagues Remembered and any other anthology from the Pole to Pole Publishing archives on Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes & Noble, your blog, and any other online public forum. Email Pole to Pole Publishing at submissions(‘at’ symbol)poletopolepublishing.com with the URLs of your reviews. Each posted review at each public site earns you 1 point, but reviews of 20,000 Leagues Remembered earn 2 points each. (The co-editors of that anthology reserve the right to judge what constitutes a legitimate review.)

If you post the most reviews during the month of August, you’ll win…wait for it…3 (yes, three) books of your choice from Pole to Pole Publishing, in either ebook or paperback format.

I’d like to win that prize myself, but, <heavy sigh> one of the few people in the world who isn’t eligible for it is—

Poseidon’s Scribe

August 9, 2020Permalink

It’s Not Too Late

You still have time to submit a short story to the upcoming anthology, 20,000 Leagues Remembered. This book will be a sesquicentennial tribute to Jules Verne’s novel.

Cover Image for 20,000 Leagues Remembered

I’m co-editing this anthology along with Kelly A. Harmon of Pole to Pole Publishing. We’re received and accepted a number of fine stories already.

However, we still have room for two or three more. For us to accept your submission, your story:

•           must pay tribute in some way to Jules Verne’s novel;

•           may be set in any time or place;

•           may use characters from Verne’s novel or you can make up your own;

•           need not be written in Verne’s style;

•           need not be ‘dark’ (as stories in other Pole to Pole Publishing anthologies have been);

•           must capture, in your own way, the sense of wonder and adventure for which Jules Verne is famous;

•           demonstrate a significant and obvious connection with Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea; and

•           must not disparage either the novel or its author.

Come on. You’re sitting at home anyway. You might as well type up a story and send it here.

Your story might well be the next one accepted by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

April 6, 2020Permalink

Prompts for Your Next Story

Got some story ideas for you!

As you know, I’m co-editing an upcoming anthology called 20,000 Leagues Remembered, a collection intended to commemorate the sesquicentennial of the publication of Jules Verne’s classic submarine novel. My co-editor, Kelly A. Harmon, and I are are still accepting submissions. Click here for details. This image is what we intend to use for the cover.

We’ve received a good number of submissions, and have accepted several. There’s still room for more, though. I’ll be providing a list of prompts that might help you write a story for this anthology. Feel free to use one, or your own variation of it.

Before I do that, I’ll state the rules for the anthology. Your story:

  • must pay tribute in some way to Jules Verne’s novel;
  • may be set in any time or place;
  • may use characters from Verne’s novel or you can make up your own;
  • need not be written in Verne’s style;
  • need not be ‘dark’ (as stories in other Pole to Pole Publishing anthologies have been);
  • must capture, in your own way, the sense of wonder and adventure for which Jules Verne is famous;
  • demonstrate a significant and obvious connection with Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea; and
  • must not disparage either the novel or its author.

Some of the prompts below may describe stories we’ve already accepted. That’s okay; write your story your way. Here are those promised prompts:

  • What if Captain Nemo had a time machine?
  • What was Captain Nemo’s (Prince Dakkar’s) origin story?
  • What adventures did Nemo have aboard the Nautilus before the events of Verne’s novel?
  • Did the Nautilus survive the volcanic eruption on Lincoln Island? What if it were salvaged today?
  • Did any of the Nautilus crewmen have an unusual talent, or a story worth telling?
  • What if a Nemo-like character were captain of an airship, a spaceship, a mole-machine?
  • What if a theme park (not starting with ‘D’) featured Twenty Thousand Leagues-inspired tour submarines, but one of the subs broke free of the designated ride?
  • What if Jules Verne rode a submarine before writing the novel?
  • What if a high-tech submarine manned by mysterious pirates began endangering sea travel today, how would the world’s navies react?
  • What’s the story of Captain Nemo’s wife? His children?
  • What if, in reaction to Nemo’s attacks, one or more of the world’s navies built a squadron of submarines designed to hunt down and destroy the Nautilus?
  • Did Captain Nemo have a pet? Tell its story.

Admit it. Some of those did get your creative fluids pumping around, didn’t they? Now all you have to do is write your story and submit it here. The hard part’s already been done for you by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

March 2, 2020Permalink

Cover Image Revealed

My co-editor, Kelly A. Harmon, and I have chosen the cover image for our upcoming anthology, 20,000 Leagues Remembered. The book will pay tribute to Jules Verne’s classic novel 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea on the June 2020 sesquicentennial of its publication.

Here is that image, with the Nautilus being menaced by a tentacled monster.

Cover image for 20,000 Leagues Remembered

Pole to Pole Publishing is still open for short story submissions to the anthology. Click here for details, and to submit your best work. Although the closing date is April 30, please note we are accepting stories as we go, so the anthology may well fill up before that date. Submit early!

We’ve received some wonderful stories so far. Still, there’s no one more anxious to read your story than—

Poseidon’s Scribe

February 3, 2020Permalink

Anthology Submission Call—Twenty Thousand Leagues Remembered

On June 20, 1870, Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea was published, giving the world a new type of vessel, and a new type of pirate.

The novel’s original cover

150 years later, on June 20, 2020, Pole to Pole Publishing will launch Twenty Thousand Leagues Remembered, a sesquicentennial tribute to Verne’s masterwork. The kind folks at Pole to Pole have asked me to co-edit this anthology along with Kelly A. Harmon, and I’m honored to do so. Here’s the submission call.

But we’ll need stories, people! What’s your take on this novel? What story can you write?

You’ve got a few months until we open the antho to receive submissions, but Pole to Pole accepts stories as they go, and they’ve always filled their previous anthologies before the closing deadline.

Watch this space for more news about this upcoming anthology. For now, all the details are here.

In the meantime, let your imagination voyage as freely as Captain Nemo did within the Nautilus. Write your story. Eagerly waiting to read your submissions, I’m the co-editor—

                                                            Poseidon’s Scribe

September 22, 2019Permalink

Celebrating Short Story Month

It’s Short Story Month, also known as May. Why they didn’t pick February—the shortest month—I’ll never know.

What is a short story? According to Wikipedia, it is a prose tale you can read in one sitting, one that evokes a single effect or mood. That ‘single effect’ idea can be difficult to understand. Edgar Allan Poe called it ‘unity of effect.”

Think of the effect as the emotional response induced in the reader by the story. The intent of a short story is to produce a single such effect, and every paragraph, sentence, and word of the story must support that goal.

There’s something ancient and primal about the short story form. It hearkens back to stories our tribal ancestors told around the fire at night. Those storytellers had to hold the attention of tired listeners as they fought fatigue, so had to keep them focused and interested.

There’s something new and trendy about the short story form. It’s well suited to our fast-paced age of commuting, smart phones, and hectic schedules. Given our brief snatches of time available for reading, it’s easier to enjoy and appreciate a short story than to maintain focus on a novel read a piece at a time.

I know what you’re thinking: Thanks for all that background, Poseidon’s Scribe, but how do I celebrate Short Story Month? Sadly, this occasion hasn’t captured the public’s imagination yet. There are no relevant songs to sing, or particular food items to prepare and eat. It’s not a traditional gift-giving month. No short story parades appear on the schedule.

However, don’t despair. I’ve come up with six ways you can celebrate:

  • Read. Well, this one’s obvious. You can celebrate by reading one or more short stories. You can re-read a past favorite or find a new one. I could crassly suggest you read one of mine, but I’ll resist the temptation.
  • Analyze. Select your favorite short story and re-read it, but this time, jot down what you like about it, your favorite parts, and maybe some notes about the overall structure and plot. You’ll likely learn new things and come away with a deeper appreciation for the story.
  • Write. Even if you haven’t written a story since your school days, you might find it fun to write your own short story. You have a story to tell, and short stories are, by definition, short. You can do this.
  • Submit. As long as you took the time to write one, you might as well submit it for publication. You can use The Submission Grinder to search for potential markets. Pick one, follow its submission guidelines, and submit your story.
  • Promote. We’re in the age of social media, so tell the whole world how you’re celebrating this month. Whether you love a short story by another author, or had your own short story published, tell everyone about it on Facebook, or on Twitter using @shortstorymonth, or on some other platform.
  • Party! Invite some like-minded friends over to your place. Decorate using themes from your favorite short story, and serve appropriate food based on that story. The highlight of the party will be when someone does a dramatic reading (or acting) of the story.

And you thought another Short Story Month would pass you by without notice. Not so. Now you know six ways to celebrate it. Lucky for you, this is just the sort of helpful service provided free by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

May 19, 2019Permalink

What Hath Smashwords Wrought?

Amid all the holiday rush, you meant to buy three of my books as gifts (or for yourself), but somehow forgot. Good news! That same $12 you were going to spend now buys four (4) books, or even more.  

Smashwords is holding an End of Year Sale, but they’re letting it run over one day into 2019. All the books in my What Man Hath Wrought series are 25% off.  

For $2.99, you can get After the Martians, Ripper’s Ring, Time’s Deformèd Hand, The Cometeers, To Be First/Wheels of Heaven, Rallying Cry/Last Vessel of Atlantis, A Tale More True, Against All Gods, Leonardo’s Lion, or Alexander’s Odyssey.

For just $2.24, you can get The Six Hundred Dollar Man, A Steampunk Carol, Within Victorian Mists, or The Wind-Sphere Ship.

These stories explore the theme of people dealing with new technology, a problem to which we all relate. I put my characters and technologies in historical settings, so these are all alternate history stories or secret histories.

Take advantage of Smashwords’ End of Year Sale, and enjoy some books by—

                                                            Poseidon’s Scribe

December 26, 2018Permalink