Author Archives: Poseidon's Scribe

Raise the Stakes!

Does the current draft of your story seem uninteresting? Do you have to wake up your Beta readers after they get through the first page? Perhaps the stakes aren’t high enough.

Earlier this week, I attended an excellent Zoom talk by author Amber Royer called ‘Giving Everyone a Stake in the Story.’ That talk inspired this blogpost, but, as usual, I’m putting her presentation into my own words.

No, not even spelled right
Yes, a stake, but not the kind we mean

What, exactly, is a ‘stake?’ As a noun it has two meanings, the first being a stick or post driven into the ground, but we’re interested in the second meaning. One theory suggests that people in medieval Europe would wager on events (jousts or other contests) by placing bets on wooden posts—stakes. Over time, they referred to the bets themselves as ‘stakes.’

A stake, then, is the thing being risked, the thing that could be won or lost depending on an outcome of a future event.

What do the key characters in your story have at stake? If they aren’t taking some risk with a chance to win or lose something, your readers won’t care about them.

To have a stake, the characters must want something. The more important that thing is and the more they want it, the more interesting your characters will be. Stakes are tied up with motivations.

The thing your character wants could be tangible, like a physical object, or a job promotion; or it could be intangible, like love, status, or respect. Maybe it’s not something they want, but something they want to avoid, like humiliation, defeat, loss of self-respect, injury, death, etc.

Once you decide what your characters have at stake, think about how far they’re willing to go to get what they want, or avoid what they don’t want. Would your characters give up money, time, their reputation, their honor, a friendship, their life?

Stakes aren’t just for protagonists. Your antagonist needs a stake, too. Consider thinking about this even before developing your protagonist. What does your ‘bad guy’ want, and how far is she willing to go to get it?

Your story might also include a ‘Stakes Character.” This character personifies and represents what’s at stake for your protagonist. Often both the protagonist and antagonist strive for the Stakes Character, or want what that character has, but they use different means.

For example, in the movie Mary Poppins, George Banks is the protagonist. Mary Poppins is the antagonist, and the children, Jane and Michael, are the Stakes Characters. George thinks his career as a banker is what’s at stake, but really, it’s his role as a father. Mary opposes his focus on his career and works to make him realize being a good father is far more important. Seen in that way, they’re both fighting for the children.

Even your minor characters will have stakes. However, don’t let them steal the show away from the main protagonist/antagonist conflict.

How do you find out what’s at stake for your characters? Ask them. (Well, not out loud if you’re in public—that would seem weird.) Ask tough, deep questions. Think about their answers and let those deep, personal confessions influence how you write about those characters in the story.

Amber Royer credits editor Donald Maas with categorizing stakes as Personal, Public, or Ultimate. Personal stakes are inside, usually unknown to the world. Public stakes are known and often shared. If the protagonist fails, more than that one character would be affected. Ultimate stakes are the really deep ones underlying all other motivations. They’re at the end of the ‘why?’ chain of questions. They’re the ones you’d give your life for. A single character can have one, two, or all three types.

If your story is tedious or dull, or the characters seem flat and lifeless, raise the stakes! Give them something more to win or lose. Make them willing to risk more. If that doesn’t work, ask yourself how you’d write your story if you were more like—

Poseidon’s Scribe

June 13, 2021Permalink

After Your Great Idea – the Difficult Part

Got a great story idea, have you? All that’s left is to type up the words, send them to a publisher, and start spending all that advance money, right?

Not so fast.

First, I suggest you read this wonderful guest blogpost by author Elizabeth Sims, posting on Jane Friedman’s site. Sims gives indispensable advice about how to convert an idea into a story. I’ll give my own spin on her guidance below, but her post explains it in more detail.

She describes four techniques to use. You may use them singly or in combination. Sims says you can take your original story idea and bend it, amp it, drive it, and strip it.

Bend It

Take your idea and shape it into something worth reading. Alter it nearly beyond recognition. Change it in ways that make it more exciting and dramatic. Isaac Asimov read The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon and imagined the decline and fall of a future galactic empire. He bent the idea further by adding an advanced science called ‘psychohistory’ which predicted the fall of the empire, then wrote his Foundation Series.

Amp It

Your story idea includes some characters with goals, motivations, and problems. Okay, now crank up the volume. Make the goals nearly unreachable, the motivations into obsessions, the problems nearly unsolvable. Raise the stakes. Frank Herbert dabbled with growing mushrooms and enjoyed watching the moving sand dunes near Florence, Oregon. From those interests came Dune, a novel of prophesies, magic, royal family destinies, drug-induced mental states, treachery, self-doubts, and impossible odds.

Drive It

Carry your story idea to extreme ends, ultimate possibilities, and previously unexplored realms. Where ‘Amp It’ has you elevating internal character emotions and personalities, ‘Drive It’ is where you supercharge the plot. Disgusted by what he’d read of the communist Soviet Union, George Orwell took that as a starting point and drove it toward the bitter and dismal future of Nineteen Eighty-Four. Stalin became Big Brother. Secret police became ubiquitous spy cameras. Propaganda became the language of Newspeak and the concept of doublethink. Soviet slogans became “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength.”

Strip It

If your idea gets too big and the novel threatens to overwhelm you, cut it down to size. Readers can’t keep track of an entire world, but they can follow a single character. If you portray that character well enough, readers will understand the metaphor—through that one character, you’re representing many. Angered by a newspaper advertisement urging the U.S. Government to unilaterally suspend testing of nuclear weapons, Robert A. Heinlein could have taken Tolstoy’s War and Peace and set it in outer space. Instead, for Starship Troopers, he wrote a stripped-down version, describing an interstellar war from the perspective of a single soldier in the Mobile Infantry.

Now that you have Bend It, Amp It, Drive It, and Strip It in your writer’s toolkit, take another look at your story idea. Just think of the possibilities, all because you read this post by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

June 6, 2021Permalink

Engineers Can’t Write

My college degrees are in engineering and my career was in an engineering field. I’ve never received a degree in writing or literature. Now I write fiction. Is that even allowed?

At one point in my career, I had a boss who’d say, “Engineers can’t write.” He was, of course, referring not only to fiction, but also the sort of nonfiction engineers must write—specifications, instructions, memos, emails, etc. It pleased him that I was an exception, but daily experience with others only proved his rule 99% correct.

Not many engineers write fiction as a spare-time hobby, but I did, and now it’s my sole retirement job. I believe stories written by engineers often suffer from common deficiencies that make their stories unappealing to editors and readers. These deficiencies result from the rigorous thought processes of the engineering mindset. In particular, engineer-writers:

  • emphasize things, particularly human-made things, not people or emotions;
  • focus on actions, not internal motivations; and
  • over-explain, in detail, how gadgets work.

The essence of engineering is problem-solving, and engineer-writers often pen stories in which the protagonist solves a complex problem. The problem tends to involve things, not people. The story often glosses over the protagonist’s emotions and desires. The feelings of other characters, if mentioned at all, involve amazement or admiration for the brilliant main character.

An Engineer’s Guide to Writing Fiction

Perhaps you’re an engineer who wishes to write fiction, but hasn’t been successful yet. Here are some pointers:

  1. Think of ‘success in writing’ as you would any engineering problem. The end objective is to create a manuscript that maximizes the emotional response and enjoyment of end users (readers). These readers may not think like you. The only raw materials at your disposal are words.
  2. Keep in mind what readers care about and what all classic fiction emphasizes—characters. Show your readers what your characters dream about and long for. Show readers your character’s fears, vulnerabilities, feelings, and doubts.
  3. When writing fiction, you’re leaving your neat and logical world of machine parts, where rigid physical laws and mathematical equations govern how materials and subsystems interact, where you work within the laws of nature to benefit people. You’ve entered the infinitely more complex and messier world of human emotion, motivation, and fantastic imaginings.
  4. It’s fine to include machines and vehicles in your tales, but go light on the descriptions. Pick a few key details to mention, just enough to give an impression and let readers imagine the rest. You don’t have to explain how it works; trust readers to go along for the ride. How your characters feel about the machine is more important than the machine itself, so describe it through their thoughts.
  5. You didn’t learn engineering in a day, and writing good fiction is no different, no less complex. You’ll have to learn the craft. Read fiction within and outside your favorite genre. Read books about writing. Go to writers’ conferences. Join a fiction writing critique group.

 Now that I think about it, I believe my former boss was wrong. Engineers, like you, can write. Not only can you write good fiction, you will. Many others have, and since I followed their path, you can follow—

Poseidon’s Scribe

May 30, 2021Permalink

6 Things Story-writers Can Learn from Songwriters

Many songs tell stories. Can our musical counterparts—songwriters—teach a few things to prose fiction writers like us?

Many songs, perhaps most, just convey a mood or a thought. Today I’m only considering ‘story songs’ and I’ll define them as tunes having (1) one character with a problem, (2) a plot where the character struggles to solve the problem, and (3) an ending where, as a result of the character’s actions, the problem is resolved. That’s the definition of a story, too.

Songwriters have a few advantages over story-writers. They can:

  • set the mood of the story with the tune and instruments alone;
  • use melody, rhythm, and the tone of their singing voice to convey emotions and the up-and-down cycling of tension;
  • use pauses to delay a surprise ending until the time is right; and
  • can repeat phrases (say, in a chorus) without the listening audience getting bored by the repetition.

By contrast, story-writers must convey their tale using words alone.

On the other hand, songwriters operate under a couple of constraints not faced by story-writers. They must tell their story in a very short time (typically four to ten minutes), and most often they must do so in poetic rhyme. Due to the brevity of story songs, many of them resemble flash fiction stories, those with 1000 words or less.

From what I’ve gleaned in my research, story songs are more prevalent in country music and folk songs than in other musical genres. Also, certain singers are more drawn to story songs than others. Examples include Harry Chapin (“Taxi,” “Cats in the Cradle,” and “Flowers are Red”) and Johnny Cash (“A Boy Named Sue” and “One Piece at a Time”).  

Story songs tend to be somber, dark, or even tragic in tone and message. There are some humorous ones, such as Meatloaf’s “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” and upbeat ones like “Devil Went Down to Georgia” by The Charlie Daniels Band, but these are exceptions.

Often, like most songs, story songs tend to involve young love, or lost love. Further, they tend to be about ordinary people, poor or middle-class people with troubles.

What can story-writers learn from songwriters?

  1. Set the scene with a few well-chosen words. Don’t start with backstory—you can fill that in later. In “Puff the Magic Dragon” by Peter, Paul and Mary, we’re only told the dragon lived ‘by the sea, and frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honahlee.’
  2. Introduce your main character early, and make that character compelling, someone with whom readers will identify. In Barry Manilow’s “Copacabana,” we are drawn to Lola, not because she’s a showgirl with yellow flowers in her hair, but because she and Tony ‘were young and had each other, who could ask for more?’
  3. Early on, force your character to face a difficult conflict, one that’s serious and will drive the plot. The very first lines of “Coward of the County” by Kenny Rogers are, ‘Everyone considered him the coward of the county,’ setting up an inevitable test of manhood. In “Stan” by Eminem, the narrator establishes early that he’s got an irrational obsession, a hero fixation that is messing up his life.
  4. Choose a few key details to describe things. There’s no need for complete descriptions. “Hotel California” by The Eagles is masterful, giving us mental images such as cool winds, warm smell of colitas, hearing the mission bell, lighting of a candle, etc. The song zeros in to give precise details about a few things, and listeners fill in the gaps.
  5. Resolve the conflict in a way that the character learns something, perhaps something unexpected. In “Margaritaville” by Jimmy Buffett, the song’s chorus keeps changing as the narrator learns who’s really to blame for his troubles. In “Fast Car” by Tracy Chapman, the narrator thought a man with a fast car would drive her to a better life, but in the end tells him to ‘take your fast car and keep on driving.’
  6. Story ideas. Take your favorite song and convert it into a story. Twist it enough so you don’t violate its copyright, but you can channel the same emotions inspired by the song into your story.

About now, one of the songs I mentioned is stuck in your head, right? I better quit, since you’re busy humming a tune and no longer reading words written by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

May 23, 2021Permalink

6 Things You Need to be a Successful Writer

In this post, author Mike Swift claims there are six things a successful writer needs. If you don’t already have these things, can you buy them at the store?

Here are the six things on his list:

  • A desire to be heard;
  • Life experience;
  • A way with words;
  • Perseverance;
  • Luck; and
  • Hard work.

I don’t see much to quibble about on his list. I was tempted to add Time, but if you have a desire to be heard, you’ll find time.

For now, let’s accept his list as accurate. Right now, you’re looking back over the list and checking off the items you have, and your tally is coming up a little short of six. So is mine. Now you’re asking: how do I get the ones I don’t have?

A Desire to be Heard. Perhaps you don’t have this. Or, more accurately, you don’t think you have this. Remember, at some point in your life, you had something important to say and everybody in the room was ignoring you, intent on something else. Think back to that feeling. You do have something to say, and it’s high time the world listened up.

Life Experience. Mike Swift equates this item with ‘having something to write about.’ He wasn’t implying that you have to be old or retired to write. In my view—and, I’m guessing, in his, too—even teenagers have sufficient life experience to write about. I think everyone over the age of thirteen can check this one.

A Way with Words. This might be the biggest stumbling block for most folks who’d like to write someday. They read the classics and think, “I could never write like that.” I suggest looking at it a different way. True, you could never write like [insert favorite author name here], but that author couldn’t ever write like you either. Perhaps you’re not looking for A Way with Words, but Your Way with Words. Moreover, this item pretty much gets checked off with practice. You’ll find your voice the more you write.

Perseverance. So you’re the type who gives up at the first setback. Can you learn perseverance? Yes. First, remember day follows night; that lowdown feeling of failure never lasts forever. Second, recall your Desire to be Heard; that might translate to a goal you can push for. Third, visualize your future self achieving that goal; visualization is a good motivation method. Fourth, realize you don’t have to do it all in one day; take bite-sized steps so you can get back on track and reward yourself for achieving those small tasks. Those things will help you persevere.

Luck. This might seem the one item on the list you can’t control. Luck just happens, right? Maybe. But if we examine the careers of the luckiest authors out there, we’ll likely find they’re also the ones who work hardest and persevere. Maybe we’ll find they’re open to new experiences, fresh ideas. In short, maybe, for them, luck didn’t just happen. They made it happen. Maybe you can, too.

Hard Work. Ooh. The difficult one. Can we skip this? I’m afraid not. However, for a writer, ‘hard work’ is not the same thing as it is for a bomb disposal expert, a brain surgeon, a skyscraper scaffold worker, or a firefighter. Folks in those professions might be willing to swap their job for the ‘hard work’ of a writer. Besides, these six things overlap, so if you have a Desire to be Heard and a little Perseverance, you’ll be willing to work hard.

Maybe you’ve rethought your tally and now can claim you have all six things. Success is in the bag now, right? Well, not so fast. These things aren’t like on/off switches where you either have them or you don’t. Each is a matter of degree. If you’re not a successful writer yet, it could be that you lack one or more of the six things to a sufficient extent.

To achieve success in writing, you need to keep working to improve all six items, not just the ones you’re weak in. In this struggle for self-improvement, you’re not alone. There’s at least one other—

Poseidon’s Scribe

May 16, 2021Permalink

Status of Two Anthos

You writers have been busy! In turn, your writing has been keeping me busy, as a co-editor for two different anthologies at the same time. Here’s a quick update on the two books I’ve been involved with, in good news/bad news format.

First, the bad news. Pole to Pole Publishing is cancelling its planned Re-Enlist anthology. I was co-editing this one along with a wonderful friend, author, and editor, Kelly A. Harmon. The book was to include futuristic/military/dark reprint stories. Unfortunately, we didn’t receive enough suitable stories to fill the anthology.

Many thanks to those who did submit stories. Among them were some great tales.

On the bright side, no one can keep Pole to Pole Publishing down for long. They plan to come up with new calls for submissions for future anthologies soon, and they’ll be announced here. It’s even possible that I’ll get to be involved as a co-editor again.

Now for the good news. The open submissions window for the anthology Extraordinary Visions: Stories Inspired by Jules Verne just closed, and we got a flood of submissions. By a flood, I mean 120, way above what I expected, and they included many wonderful stories. I’m part of the editing team for this book, and we’re busy choosing which stories to take.

I also thank all those who submitted to that anthology. So many good tales, and we’ll have to make some tough decisions. We can’t take them all.

This anthology is being sponsored by the North American Jules Verne Society, and the society’s leadership was pleased to learn of the huge response by writers who took the time to write and send their stories. It demonstrates the lasting impact Jules Verne’s novels continue to have on people today.

If all goes well, that anthology will be published later this year, and I’ll announce that event on this blog.

Although I continue to write my own fiction, I figured it was time to give you a status update from the editing desk of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

May 9, 2021Permalink

Filtering Out Filter Words

Today I’ll add another set of things you should look for as you edit your writing—filter words.

What are filter words? Sometimes called ‘distancing words,’ filter words (or phrases) describe how your point-of-view character perceives and understands the world.

Suppose I wrote this:

Not bad use of senses, but this paragraph tells the reader how Cheryl perceives the world. It reminds the reader who the POV character is.

But what if I’ve already established that earlier? What if the reader knows we’re in Cheryl’s POV and doesn’t need reminding? In that case, the filter words just get in the way. The world’s out there. Plunge your reader into it, right beside Cheryl.

Stronger, bolder writing, it immerses the reader into Cheryl’s world without unnecessary signs stating we’re in Cheryl’s head.

Sure, there are times when filter words are appropriate. Often it’s necessary to inform the reader whose head we’re in, such as the point just after a POV shift. On occasion, the whole point of a given written sensation is to be clear about who’d experiencing it. Sometimes it just fits better to use a filter word. Like most things in writing, this isn’t a hard-and-fast rule.

You can read more about filter words at this post by Suzannah Windsor Freeman, this one by H. Duke, this one by editor Louise Harnby, this one by the staff at Invisible Ink Editing, and in the book The Author’s Checklist by Elizabeth K. Kracht.

For now, please excuse me. I’ve got to go hunt down and delete a bunch of filter words from the rough drafts of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

April 25, 2021Permalink

Wear 6 Writing Hats

When I write, I wear six hats. Well, not at the same time, and not literally. I recommend you do, too. Some of the hats may not fit well, at first, but you’ll come to like them all.

I’m talking about the Six Thinking Hats of Dr. Edward de Bono, popularized by his 1985 book of the same name. Author Mark Gilroy applied the 6 hats idea to writing in this fun and instructive blog post, and I’ll add my own spin on his ideas here.

When you wear any particular one of the colored hats, you’re adopting a specific persona, a mindset that drives your thoughts. They are as follows:

  • Green is for new ideas, creativity, and innovation.
  • Blue is for big picture thinking, management, and organization.
  • Yellow is for positive thinking, optimism, and hope.
  • Black is for negative thinking, pessimism, and skepticism.
  • White is for non-judgmental information-gathering.
  • Red is for feelings, emotions, and instinct.

The theory is that only by wearing each of the hats at different times is a complete, effective solution achieved.

For a writer of fictional stories, here’s a way to think of each hat:

  • Green: story concepts, ideas for characters and settings
  • Blue: outlining, organizing your thoughts, planning your marketing campaign
  • Yellow: perseverance, overcoming disillusionment or loss of interest
  • Black: subsequent drafts, editing, deleting, revising
  • White: story research, brainstorming plot options
  • Red: first draft, character motivation, building tension

To look at this in a different way, let’s consider different stages or activities involved in writing a story, and which hats you’d wear at each stage. I’ve listed several hats at each stage in a specific order. Since writers work alone, or collaborate with one or a few others, I don’t consider it necessary to follow Dr. de Bono’s strict methods, which are intended for business teams.

ActivityHat Sequence
Conceiving idea for storyGreen, Blue, Yellow, Black
Researching for storyWhite, Blue
Outlining storyBlue, Red, Green, White, Yellow, Black
Writing storyRed, Blue, Green, Yellow, Black, White
Self-editing storyBlack, White, Blue
Resolving feedback on story from othersBlack, White, Blue
Marketing story after acceptanceRed, Blue, Yellow, Green

As I mentioned earlier, not all the hats will feel comfortable to you. That is, some mindsets may be difficult for you to think in. Some writers don’t plan well or do outlines, so the blue hat may pinch a bit. Others get partway through writing and lose interest or get depressed about how poor they write, and they’ll dislike the yellow hat’s style.

Whichever hat is difficult for you, that’s the one you need most. That’s the one that will help you become a well-rounded writer.

Here you go—six (figurative) hats, all in great condition. Wear them well. With any luck, you’ll write better and look at least as dapper as—

Poseidon’s Scribe

April 18, 2021Permalink

Writers’ Conferences in the Age of Zoom

Ever been to a writers’ conference, or a genre conference such as SciFi? They’re a lot of fun. But, as with so many things, the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way they’re done, perhaps forever.

Over the past year, Coronavirus restrictions forced conference organizers to get creative. Many chose to hold their conferences in a virtual way, using Zoom, perhaps combined with other software.

I’d been to many conferences before the pandemic, and a few, by Zoom, in the past year. I’ve found there are several disadvantages to virtual conferences, but also some advantages.

Disadvantages

  • Author/Reader Connections. For an author, the main benefit to conventions is the chance to sell more books. For readers, it’s a great chance to meet authors whose books you love, or to meet new authors. Those connections are more difficult to make in virtual conferences, though some cons have set up virtual fan tables and author reading sessions.
  • Glitches. With so much electronic hardware and software and transmitted signals between people, glitches sometimes occur. It’s bad if you’re an attendee, but worse if you’re a presenter.
  • Background. If you’re a panelist/presenter, you’ve got to be aware of your background. Part of your home will be on display, unless you make use of Zoom’s simulated background feature.
  • Meeting People. At normal writers’ conferences, it’s easier to recognize and connect with old friends, or have the chance encounters where you make new friends. Zoom conference coordinators do their best to enable this, but it’s still more difficult.
  • Dealer Room. Normal conferences feature a large dealer room with a market atmosphere, a room filled with books and items for sale, sellers trying to attract buyers, and buyers perusing at their leisure and conversing with sellers. Not impossible with Zoom, but virtual is not the same.
  • Interactions. There’s just something better about face-to-face interactions with people. As a species, we’re both pre-wired for and raised with this means of dealing with others. The virtual connection is good, but not as good.

Advantages

  • Cost. Virtual conferences, in my experience, have less expensive registration prices. Often much less.
  • Distance is Free. You can attend any virtual conference in the world. No flying, no driving, no hotel. You don’t even have to leave home.
  • Ease and Comfort. No need to think much about what to wear. Even if you’re a presenter/panelist, others will only see you from the chest up.
  • Continuous Communication. At a normal conference panel, the moderator calls on attendees one at a time to ask their questions, and attendees wait their turn. In a Zoom conference, attendees can ask questions at any time in the Q&A feature, and type comments in the Chat feature.
  • The After-Panel. At a normal conference, panelists and attendees have to leave the room to make way for the next panel, leaving little time for post-panel chatting. At some virtual conferences, organizers arrange chat sessions on Discord or other software so that people can carry on discussions there.
  • Close-Up View. Rather than seeing from the back of a crowded room, attendees are seeing the author close-up, and getting better views of the covers of the author’s books. Often the author will list recent books in the Chat feature, so all you have to do is copy the title for purchase later.

Once the pandemic is over, I believe conferences will never be the same as they were. I suspect some conferences may continue as fully-virtual cons. Some may go with a sort of hybrid, with some people there in person and others participating by Zoom. Even for in-person cons, I suspect there will be rules about staying away or wearing a mask if you’re feeling sick.

Perhaps at some upcoming writers’ conference, whether virtual or in-person, you’ll meet—

Poseidon’s Scribe

April 11, 2021Permalink

Clean Fiction? What, Did it Wash its Hands?

You’ve been hearing the term ‘Clean Fiction’ and wondering what it means. That questioning mind of yours shall soon be satisfied. Or, perhaps, left even more confused.

Apparently, ‘Clean Fiction’ doesn’t require you to physically wash a book in soapy water. My bad.

The clearest definition of the term is: fiction both young adults and mature adults can enjoy.  

In these pandemic times, with parents spending more time at home with children, sometimes home-schooling them, there’s a hunger for such stories. For that reason, the Story Quest Academy has been championing the cause of clean fiction.

From a writer’s point of view, how do you write a clean story? How does such a story differ from an unclean one?

I recall reading where Robert Heinlein said writing for young adults (called ‘juveniles’ in his day) was the same as writing for adults, you just take out the sex and swearing. The dozen ‘juvenile’ novels he wrote, though dated, remain readable and exciting today.

He warned writers against talking down to teenagers. If you think they aren’t ready for deep themes, long words, mild violence, or literary symbolism, you’re underestimating them.

These days, you could even leave in some mild swear words. Today’s YA audience has heard them.

Author Allison Tebo makes some interesting points about clean fiction in this post. Writing clean fiction, she says, forces you to be a better writer. You can’t fall back on sex or swearing to hold the reader’s interest. The action, dialogue, and word choices in your story must step up to do that.

Moreover, Tebo states that clean fiction is more likely to become classic fiction than typical adult-only fiction is. By appealing to nearly all age groups, a clean story become more universal and welcoming. If it is good enough, it may well become a classic, enjoyed for generations, even centuries.

Like Tebo, I grew up reading and loving clean fiction. Nearly all the science fiction I read was clean. In fact, teenagers were perhaps the main intended audience for that genre.

My own fiction tends toward the clean side. Exceptions include my horror story, published as “Blood in the River” and later, with alterations, as “Moonset.” Ripper’s Ring contains violence teens might find upsetting, though it’s not graphic.

If you go looking for my stories, many appear in anthologies along with tales written by other authors. In general, those stories, too, are clean, with the exception of those in the horror anthology Dead Bait.

I guess you could say I’ve been writing clean fiction before it was a thing. Creating stories so clean you could wash your hands with them, I’m—

Poseidon’s Scribe

April 4, 2021Permalink