Monthly Archives: May 2022

Eating the Fantastic, with Scott Edelman

Earlier this month, I had the honor of being interviewed by author Scott Edelman (Wikipedia page here).

The author, about to talk with his mouth full for 1.5 hours

We’d met a few years ago at Balticon, the Baltimore Science Fiction convention, and served on a couple of discussion panels together. For several years now, he’s been interviewing scifi authors for a podcast series he calls ‘Eating the Fantastic.’

While attending cons, Scott enjoyed eating meals with other authors and discussing science fiction. He soon realized he didn’t need to wait for cons to do that, so started his unique podcast series and has interviewed over 170 authors so far.

We met at the Bonnie Blue Southern Market and Bakery in Winchester, Virginia on May 3rd. A nice day, so we ate outside at one of their patio tables. After conducting so many of these interviews, Scott knew just how to make me feel at ease, and I forgot about the microphone and just answered his questions the best I could.

Most authors enjoy talking about their writing, and I’m no different. Ask any author that, and you’ll see. Before you do, though, clear your schedule for the next few hours.

My conversation with Scott ranged over many topics, and I struggled for answers at times, but overall, he’s a wonderful interviewer. My breakfast at Bonnie Blue tasted delicious. The restaurant staff provided professional and friendly service.

As you listen to the podcast, you’ll hear my views on:

  • the pandemic’s effect on writing;
  • SciFi conventions, including my experiences as panelist and moderator;
  • how I started writing;
  • my early influences, including Verne, Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke, and Bradbury;
  • my own writing career and writing style;
  • my short stories;
  • Alternate History, and the research necessary to write in that subgenre;
  • the Snowflake Method* of writing;
  • writing for themed anthologies;
  • responding to editors who request story changes;
  • co-editing 20,000 Leagues Remembered
  • the depiction of submarines in books and movies; and
  • my current Work in Progress, and beyond.

* During the interview, I mispronounced Dr. Randy Ingermanson’s last name. My apologies to him. He’s the inventor of the Snowflake Method for writing novels. I use an abbreviated form of that method to write short stories.

Many thanks to Scott Edelman. Being interviewed by him for ‘Eating the Fantastic’ was a distinct honor for—

Poseidon’s Scribe

May 29, 2022Permalink

Break Any Rule but This One

Are you one of those who’d like to write a story—a novel, even—but the task seems too difficult? You recall unpleasant memories of Language Arts classes, learning all the complex rules of English. You’re afraid you’ll break a rule.

I’ll simplify things for you. There’s only one rule.

There exist, however, a vast number of guidelines. These cover spelling, grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, plot, pacing, character development, story formatting, manuscript submitting, and more. A lot to keep track of.

Or not.

For every guideline you name, at least one famous author ignored it:

  • Don’t use double negatives. Jane Austen didn’t not use them.
  • Don’t use run-on sentences. Both Charles Dickens and Marcel Proust thought otherwise, going on and on with long sentences on many occasions, long past the point of necessity.
  • Don’t begin sentences with conjunctions. But William Faulkner did.
  • Always set off dialogue with quotation marks. Cormac McCarthy and José Saramago said no thanks.
  • Use periods and commas where required. James Joyce and Gertrude Stein both famous writers got along okay without them
  • Use proper punctuation. Samuel Beckett never did and Junot Díaz never does

How come you had to learn all those guidelines, but famous authors get to violate them? For one thing, guidelines help when you’re learning to write. Also, the guidelines make your writing more understandable to readers. They’re getting what they expect, what they find easy to read.

It’s okay to violate a guideline, but you shouldn’t break the One Rule.

What’s the One Rule?

Here it is: Tell a good story.

That’s it. Or rather, that’s the simplest expression of the One Rule.

What is a ‘good story?’ From a writer’s perspective, I’d say a good story comes from deep within. The writer cares about the story and feels a strong need to tell it.

If the writer does that job well enough, then a good story (1) draws a reader in, (2) keeps a reader reading, (3) leaves a reader changed, and (4) lingers in the reader’s mind long after reading it.

If you write a good story, it doesn’t matter how many guidelines you violate.

Let’s say you’re in the middle of writing a story. Words are flowing, straight from your heart. You’re in the zone.

You stop. Some inner editor, some memory of a Language Arts teacher, or some recollection of an authoritative website’s advice, berates you for breaking a rule. Looking back over your manuscript in horror, you realize it’s true. You’re a language criminal. The linguistic police will apprehend you and send you to writer jail.

Before the law can close in, you hide the evidence. You change the story, bringing it into compliance with the rules. From somewhere inside, a rebel voice protests, “now you’re making the story worse.”

As you look over what you’ve edited, it’s clear. The voice is right. The story is worse. Not what it was meant to be. As if the story itself wants you to break a rule. Your story demands it.

What to do? Well, many things that seem like hard and fast rules are really just guidelines. If obeying them would worsen your story, ignore them.

That last part—that ‘if’—is key. Violate a guideline only after consideration, not out of ignorance.

Just don’t break the One Rule. Tell a good story. In the pursuit of that goal, you may violate any other guideline, with the full permission of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

May 22, 2022Permalink

Where to Get Your Best Story Prompts

What inspires you to write your stories? A picture, a song, an idea, a TV show, a movie, an article you read, an event in your life or someone else’s?

Perhaps you’ve drawn inspiration from varied sources. You may be wondering which of these sources resulted in your best stories. If you knew that answer, you could dip your mental bucket into that well more often. There’s a way to find out.

First, look over your collection of stories. Rate them in order from best to worst. Now list the source that inspired each story beside the appropriate title in your list. Does a single source dominate the top of your list? That should be your go-to source for inspiration.

I surveyed my 31 published short stories. Here is the breakdown of the inspiration sources: anthologies—10, historical research—10, critique group discussion—4, movies—2, book—1, TV show—1, song lyrics—1, family—1, and SF convention—1.

After rating my stories from best to worst using the pair-wise comparison method (a painful task, since I love them all), I found 6 of the top 10 owe their genesis to calls for submission to anthologies. That is, an anthology publisher put out a call for submission, the subject intrigued me, and I wrote a story. Of my 10 worst stories, no single prompt dominated that list.

I’d be tempted to conclude that anthologies spark my best stories, and, if so, I’d be advised to continue to look for those possibilities.

However, I’m trying to grow as a writer. Neither my current work in progress nor any of my recently written, unpublished stories found inspiration from anthologies.

If you try this exercise, perhaps the results will turn out differently for you and prove more useful to your writing. For me, I’ve decided to remain open to all sources of inspiration. When my muse nags me about an idea, I’ll listen to her and write that story, no matter what prompted it.

Who knows what source will inspire your next story? It could be anything. The world is full of ideas, plenty enough for you, and for—

Poseidon’s Scribe

May 15, 2022Permalink

Born Too Late to Write Something New

You’d like to write a fictional story, but don’t know what to write about. As you cast around for ideas, you realize everything’s been written by someone else before you. There’s nothing new under the sun.

The French writer Alfred de Musset expressed your precise feeling in his poem “Rolla,” when he wrote, “I came too late into a world too old.”

Author Robert Glancy said “All the stories in the world have already been told.”

Another author, Anna Quindlen, put it this way: “Once you’ve read Anna Karenina, Bleak House, The Sound and the Fury, To Kill a Mockingbird and A Wrinkle in Time, you understand that there is really no reason to ever write another novel.”

Library shelves and bookstores teem with books you could have written, but didn’t. Now it’s too late. All plots used. All characters portrayed. All settings explored. All stories written.

Obvious conclusion—you might as well give up. You can’t write anything new, anything original. The infinite number of monkeys clattering on infinite typewriters now rest their arms. Having typed everything, they’re done.

If it’s true for you, it’s true for everyone. Not only have the monkeys finished, all human writers must also be done. The last novels, the last short stories, novellas, and flash fiction pieces must even now be rolling off the printing presses. This year, 2022, must mark the end of fiction. All writers must retire. All publishers must shift to reprinting old stuff.

Any day now, we’ll hear the news about the death of new fiction. It had a good run. We remember it like it was yesterday. Rest in Peace.

Any day now…

Wait a minute. I’m not sensing a slowing of writer output yet. Publishers somehow keep cranking out new titles. Writers somehow keep submitting fresh manuscripts.

Don’t they know it’s over? Haven’t they read the obituary? What’s going on? If everything’s been written already, why are writers still writing? Why are publishers still publishing?

Looking back, we see no error in our logic, no flaw in our reasoning. And yet.

Upon further examination, we missed the end of the Glancy and Quindlen quotes. Robert Glancy went on to say, “…but our stories have not been told from every angle.” Anna Quindlen continued in her speech, “…except that each writer brings to the table, if she will let herself, something that no one else in the history of time has ever had.”

Maybe there’s hope for you after all. Maybe all plots, characters, and settings have been exhausted…but not in every combination. Not from every perspective. Not using every mood, tone, or style. Not with every apt metaphor, every well-worded simile. Not with your experiences and passions woven in.

Call the monkeys back to their typewriters. They have more work to do. Much more.

Come to think of it, forget about the monkeys. They’re not the ones with stories to write. You are. An infinite number of stories remain. They’re out there. Your muse whispers them to you and you must obey.

De Musset had it backward. You didn’t come too late into a world too old. You came just in time for the world to read your story.

Your story may well resemble, in certain aspects, others that came before. But since it’s yours, that gives it freshness and originality. Something new under the sun after all.

So write it. Let the world read it. Back to the keyboard you go. And so, also, goes—

Poseidon’s Scribe

May 8, 2022Permalink