O | The Online Writing Workshop for SF, F & H Newsletter, Oct. 2003
W | http://sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com
W | Become a better writer!

| - - CONTENTS - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |

- Workshop News:
       Ask Charlie: envelopes
       Last reminder: first novels by OWWers
       Workshop focus chats
       "Submit or die" challenge
       November writing challenge
       Market information
       Membership payment information
- Editors' Choices for September submissions
- Reviewer Honor Roll
- Publication Announcements
- Workshop Statistics
- Feedback: Tip - assign keystrokes



| - - WORKSHOP NEWS - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |


Sorry this newsletter is two days late.  We were missing one of our
Editor's Choice reviews and didn't want to send out an incomplete
newsletter.

The World Fantasy Convention is coming up in Washington D.C., USA, at
the very end of this month.  There will be quite a few workshoppers
there, so if you're planning to go and want to connect with them, drop
us an email at support@sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com and we'll connect
you.


ASK CHARLIE: ENVELOPES

I received this question at the help desk this month and thought I'd
publish my answer here in case anyone else was wondering the same
thing.

Q: "This is such a minor, unimportant question that I feel silly
asking, but here goes. On envelopes that you send out to potential
markets with your writings, do you hand-write the addresses? It looks
somewhat unprofessional, but it's what I've always done. I can't
imagine it'd make a difference, but maybe printed labels make the
entire package look better, and maybe that can only help. On the other
hand, it may simply look pretentious."

A: I don't expect that it makes any difference. Editors buy stories,
not envelopes.

Understand that my handwriting is not very neat. So on the sending
envelopes I either run them through the printer or use a label,
usually the former. For return envelopes, my practice is to run the
envelope through the printer (not use a label). I also make sure the
magazine's address is in the upper left return address spot (although
I don't include the editor's name).  And I use self-sealing business
size envelopes for replies, so the editors don't have to lick them, as
they get tired of licking when they have hundreds of subs to go
through. It won't help sell the story, but the editor or editorial
assistant will appreciate it. I have all of these things set up as
templates, so it's just as quick and easy for me to do them this way
as to hand-write the information.

I don't think it makes the envelope look pretentious: when you're
sending out stories, it's a business, and it simply appears
professional. Neat, legible handwriting can also appear professional
too.

But the stories are more important than the packaging, unless the
packaging is really negative in some way. So I wouldn't be dogmatic
about my own practices for someone else if another method works better
for them. Just be neat, and remember to appear professional.


LAST REMINDER: FIRST NOVELS BY OWWERS

TAINTED GARDEN by Jeff Stanley:  What if an alien world was alive?
What if it had secrets it wanted to keep from the people who lived
there?  High-concept SF -- more than just another first-contact novel.
(http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=0345459105&view=excer
pt)

STONE MAIDEN by Anne Aquirre:  A deconstructionist look at fantasy,
filled with real, sympathetic characters.
(http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=0345457676&view=excer
pt)

THAGOTH by Michael McClung:  The greater the good there is, the
greater the evil that will rise to oppose it.  But the heroes will
have to conquer internal demons before they can defeat the external
ones.  A fantasy about the human heart at war.
(http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=0345459113&view=excer
pt)

Check out the future of publishing by buying these e-books for just
$2.99, or read the free excerpts online and see what your fellow
workshoppers are doing to attract attention.


WORKSHOP FOCUS CHATS

Mark your calendars for the following upcoming writing chats:

Focus on . . . Eric Bresin!
Wednesday, October 22, 2003 @ 1 PM EDT

Yes, that's right, the schedule is wide open after next week!  If
you've been waiting to schedule your chat, now's the time!  Ditto if
you were a focusee a while back and are ready for another go.  Just
email Pen Hardy. The stories upon which we will focus are posted on
the OWW with the word 'focus' in the title.  All chats are held in the
DROWWZoo chat room on AIM.


"SUBMIT OR DIE" CHALLENGE

It's the challenge that will never end! To encourage each other to
submit work for publication, mailing list members periodically issue a
"Submit or Die" challenge with prizes for the most rejections, the
first pro sale, and so on.  Feel free to join the challenge. Rules and
prizes are posted at: http://www.thermeon.net/checkered/SOD.html


NOVEMBER WRITING CHALLENGE

November's challenge is bad faeries: boggans, kelpies, sluagh, trolls,
pookas, goblins and all the wee beasties that go bump in the night.
This is another challenge where the Internet can be your friend -- try
some Googling, remember to check your sources, and if you find useful
links, share the wealth.  As always, any genre you want, but remember
to push yourself.  Write something you'd never try otherwise, or if
that's too scary, try a different sub-genre -- urban fantasy instead
of high fantasy, space opera instead of hard SF.

Participating in the monthly challenges is an excellent way to stretch
your skills and try things that you usually wouldn't tackle. Pick a
genre you usually don't write in, or a subject that challenges you. Do
something daring; these pieces are for fun, so don't worry about them.
 If it fails, no one ever needs to know about it, but a lot of these
pieces succeed. Challenging yourself, truly trying something that
scares you but speaks to you may pay off in ways you can't expect.
Over 30 challenge stories have gone on to publication.

For more complete information on the monthly writing challenges,
visit: http://www.thermeon.net/checkered/Challenge.html


MARKET INFORMATION

SUPERLUMINAL 1 is a new science fiction anthology, edited by Nigel
Read, that's seeking submissions from Australian writers. Cross-genre
stories (eg SF/whodunnit, SF/romance, SF/satire, SF/horror) will be
considered, so long as the central premise for the story remains SFnal
in some way and there are no fantasy elements in the story. Please do
not submit stories in which the SF elements are merely setting.
Payment is 1 cent per word, plus a copy of the anthology. Submissions
may be made by email.  Complete guidelines can be found at
http://www.users.bigpond.com/saxonblue2003/superluminal1/


MEMBERSHIP PAYMENT INFORMATION

How to pay: In the U.S., you can pay by PayPal or send us a check or
money order. Outside of the U.S., you can pay via PayPal (though
international memberships incur a small set-up fee); pay via Kagi
(www.kagi.com--easier for non-U.S. people); send us a check in U.S.
dollars drawn on a U.S. bank (many banks can do this for you for a
fee); or send us an international money order (available at some banks
and some post offices).  If none of those options work for you, you
can send us U.S. dollars through the mail if you choose, or contact us
about barter if you have interesting goods to barter (not services).

Scholarship fund and gift memberships: you can give a gift membership
for another member; just send us a payment by whatever method you
like, noting who the membership is for and specifying whether the gift
is anonymous or not.  We will acknowledge receipt to you and the
member.  Or you can donate to our scholarship fund, which we use to
fully or partially cover the costs of an initial paying membership for
certain active, review-contributing members whose situations do not
allow them to pay the full membership fee themselves.

Bonus payments: The workshop costs only 94 cents per week, but we know
that many members feel that it's worth much more to them.  So here's
your chance to award us with a bonus on top of your membership fee.
For example, is the workshop worth five dollars a month to you? Award
us a $11 bonus along with your $49 membership fee. 25% of any bonus
payments we receive will go to our support staff, sort of like a tip
for good personal service. The rest will be tucked away to lengthen
the shoestring that is our budget and keep us running!

For more information:
Payments: http://sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com/memberships.shtml
Bonus payments and information about our company:
http://sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com/bonuspayments.shtml
Price comparisons:
http://sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com/memberships_comparison.shtml


| - - EDITORS' CHOICES - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |

The Editors' Choices are chosen from the submissions from the previous
month that show the most potential or otherwise earn the admiration of
our Resident Editors.  Submissions in four categories -- SF, F, horror,
and short stories -- receive a detailed review, meant to be educational
for others as well as the author.

Reviews are written by our Resident Editors, award-winning authors and
instructors like Jeanne Cavelos, James Patrick Kelly, and Kelly Link,
and by experienced science-fiction and fantasy editor Jenni
Smith-Gaynor. The last four months of Editors' Choices and their
editorial reviews are archived on the workshop.  Go to the "Read,
Rate, Review" page and click on "Editors' Choices."

Congratulations to this month's Editors' Choice authors!

Editor's Choice, Fantasy Chapter/Partial Chapter:

GEPPETTO'S LOG, CH. 6 by Mark Alger

The sixth chapter of GEPPETTO'S LOG is an intriguing look into the
Astarte character. She's not entirely evil as most traditional
villainesses are portrayed, but she does have a certain cruel spark.
Although I enjoyed the characterization of Alger's Astarte, there were
some flaws that weaken the story. Fixing them could change the
character, but not the overall tone.

Astarte calls herself a "fertility goddess" and separates her identity
from the "Goody Two-Shoes Aphrodite", who is a "love goddess." I'd
like to see some clarification of these definitions. In most
mythologies, fertility goddesses represented birth, rebirth, growth,
creativity, and life. Astarte has consumed men; she even kills one at
the end of this chapter. She does not give life, but takes it instead.
If Astarte was to be defined as a Warrior Queen (as some Phoenician
experts have defined one aspect of this goddess), her murders would
seem more in tune with a deity bent on some kind of domination. She's
manipulative, powerful, self-centered, and ego-centered.

I'm not convinced that "fertility goddess" equals "Generative Whore"
who has "updated" her act as a "90s kind of grrl." I also suggest
broadening this description to "modern kind of grrl" otherwise the 90s
reference dates this piece. The date doesn't add anything since
there's not a lot of difference in the attitude of sexually active
women from the last three decades. Using the "grrl" spelling also adds
a certain punk aesthetic that seems out of place.

I like the rivalry between Astarte and Aphrodite -- Astarte views the
Greek goddess as a "Goody Two-Shoes." Astarte would be much older than
Aphrodite and more multidimensional, which I think Alger is attempting
to show. Unfortunately, the earlier chapters are not available to
read, so I'm not sure how Astarte was previously shown. Her "bad girl"
image is entertaining and I can certainly see why she's a major
player.

As Astarte gets ready to go clubbing, a lot of attention is paid to
what she's wearing, but there's no mention of her skirt (which we know
she's wearing at the end of the chapter). Incidentally, strappy
sandals are usually thin heeled with a heel between 1 1/2"-2". But a
low wedge-heeled sandal with straps is usually referred to as a
wedge-heeled sandal. Also, slight usually means delicate. A curvy or
voluptuous woman like Astarte is not delicate. Kate Moss or Christina
Aguilera might be described as slight.

Astarte applies cosmetics to "render Her face perfectly." If Astarte
is a goddess, why does she need makeup to make her face perfect? I
suggest adding something to explain why a goddess would need makeup --
maybe her human aspect is slightly flawed, or perhaps she can only
manifest before the world in a less-than-perfect form like this Aspect
she's chosen. In this world, deities seem to be no more than
superhumans with powers and prognosticating talents. If they are to be
more than human, another race altogether with physical flaws, then
this needs to be shown more clearly.

At the end of the chapter, Astarte manipulates a man to pleasure her.
Where are her pantyhose? Might I suggest stockings and a garter or
skip the hose altogether? Alger gives a lot of attention to her
clothes, which can be a powerful tool for a character who is oozing
sex, but loses any impact they might have had by forgetting to follow
through. Is the impact of her outfit trying to convey her modern
sexiness or is it a tool to show how she can manipulate her world?
This needs some work.

Clarify the Troll law and the goddess contract. Right now it's very
convoluted and confusing. "...in order to interact with homo sapiens,
it is necessary that Trolls undergo a kind of brainwashing to permit
them to understand and accept the more distasteful -- to them --
aspects of contract law and obligations." Essentially Alger is saying
that Trolls have to be brainwashed to understand human contracts.
Astarte isn't human, so does this sentence imply that goddesses abide
by _homo sapiens_ laws? But I thought the deities were part of a
"secret society"; a world within a world.

The sex scene seems fitting considering the beginning of the chapter.
But why use the German word "gesunder" (it should be capitalized
because all German nouns are capped) when Astarte is an Eastern
goddess? Does she use all kinds of languages? If she does, sprinkle
them around in this chapter. Is the man German? Is he Indonesian? Does
Astarte instantly understand Indonesian or does everyone speak
English?

Overall, this is an interesting view of Astarte, loaded with details.
There are some great descriptions and tone throughout this chapter --
we really get a glimpse of Astarte's personality. But be careful of
those details and consider how and why the details are being revealed.
Slutty clothes and public oral sex alone don't convince me Astarte is
the character pulling all the strings. She's a powerful goddess
worshipped thousands of years ago by people reveling in hedonistic
behavior. Right now, she seems to be acting like a stereotypical "bad
girl" and I think she's supposed to be much more than that.

--Jenni Smith-Gaynor
Former editor, Del Rey Books


Editor's Choice, SF Chapter/Partial Chapter:

IMPLAC - SECTION 10 by Zvi Zaks

I have not been following Zvi Zaks's IMPLAC, and so some of my
concerns about his world building may not be problems.  Nonetheless,
there is much to admire here.  Some wags have written that all future
science fiction is really about the present.  While I think that's an
overstatement, it is much more often true than not, and here we find
an excellent example.  I particularly enjoyed how Zvi deploys the
time-honored SF technique of talking about our culture by showing how
our descendants will misunderstand us.  More on this in a moment.

But first a few questions.   I had difficulty imagining the ship which
is the setting for half of this chapter.  The first sentence tells us:
"The sub orbital craft, a tapered silvery triangle, lifted straight up
from the Honolulu landing pad and pushed Tommy down into his seat with
only a mild heaviness."

This suggests a vertical rocket-like launch.  But two sentences later
we discover: "He turned his head to watch a stewardess who was walking
slowly down the aisles and checking for the few passengers who had
forgotten to fasten their seatbelts."

Now we seem to be in a plane that remains more or less horizontal in
flight. But when the ship lands several pages later: "The rocket
settled tail first onto the landing pad. Tommy watched as the video
monitor showed a huge crane approach to tilt the rocket back to the
horizontal so the passengers could disembark more easily."

The only way I can make this work is to imagine that the seats all
swivel, which isn't mentioned in the text.  But hey, I'm an English
major, not a rocket scientist.

A worldbuilding concern I had the colonization of Venus.  We learn at
the end of the chapter that the year is 2406.  I suppose it is
possible that our sister planet with a crushingly dense atmosphere and
surface temps ranging up to 750 K could be made habitable in four
hundred years, but the time span seems a bit short to me.  I hope the
chronology of terraforming is covered earlier in the book.

I think Tommy is working well as a character.  Obviously his bout with
cancer has shaken him.  I like the way he uses his sexuality as an
indicator of his recovery.  The line "The disappointment [at a cool
response from the flight attendant] was another sign that he was
recovering from the cancer and its treatment" struck me as spot on.

A bit of plotting that was a tad too rococo for my taste was the way
Tommy gets access to Saul, the director of the museum where the Implac
brains are supposedly stored.   They have an initial encounter thanks
to the many bribes Tommy distributes.  But then Tommy is sent away to
look at the exhibits before he can have the conversation he needs to
have.  When he comes back the next day he is given a page of runaround
by an assistant before he gets to see the director again.  If he had
discovered a key plot point or had a moment of character development
in between these meetings, the delay might have been justified.  Here
it feels like stalling.  Also the end of the chapter feels rather like
Zvi manipulating the characters as opposed to his character pursuing
his own agenda.   Tommy has come to Jerusalem to find the Implac
brains, not to tell Saul Davidson his life story.

For me, the most enjoyable part of this chapter was Tommy's bafflement
at the various religions of our time.  Zvi has to give him something
to do while he's in transit from Honolulu to Jerusalem, so he tries in
vain the flirt with the flight attendant.  But that isn't really
happening, so instead we get a skillfully crafted infodump about our
own history!  I particularly appreciated the suggestion that these
people would only have the foggiest idea of who the Nazis were.  The
real danger to history is not Holocaust deniers but Holocaust
forgetters.

That the origins of the marauding robot Implacs are tied up in the
popular imagination with absolutes of good and evil is a very
promising theme.  When the flight attendant says, "No. That can't be
right. The robots developed their own wickedness. No human could be
that evil. The creatures even turned against their own creators. But
the Power was with us. It was the Power that saved us," this reader
senses that the human society of Zvi's future is about to be whacked
upside the head.

Nice work, Zvi.  Press on!

--James Patrick Kelly
Author of STRANGE BUT NOT A STRANGER and THINK LIKE A DINOSAUR
http://www.jimkelly.net


Editor's Choice, Short Story:

"Appalachian Troll" by Barry Hollander

Here's a great, funny, disturbing story, just in time for Halloween.
It feels a bit like Little Red Riding Hood, only there's a troll
instead of a wolf, and Granny Kellum is maybe even scarier than the
troll who wants to eat her. What makes the story work is voice,
setting/character, and magic based around spitting, smell, and
nursery-style rhymes, that feels like real magic, specifically because
it's constructed around such mundane details.

Look at the first paragraph:  "Granny Kellum saw the troll first, saw
it in the fire one night. When Granny said she'd seen something you
paid attention, so the next morning we crawled into Bobby's old Jeep
and he drove us down the old logging road that comes as close as you
can get to the Trail without walking. Then we walked."

That's a paragraph guaranteed to keep an editor reading. So is this
one:

"I stepped back, but Granny laughed and laughed, until she coughed,
then she kept hacking until she spat a wad of yellow phlegm on the
bridge between them. The troll stared at Granny, at the spot, then he
hacked and spit a black wad on top of her yellow. With the end of her
stick, Granny stirred the mess together and the pair of them squatted,
examining the result, which to me looked like one of those modern
paintings you see in magazines sometimes, the ones with swirls and odd
colors that make no sense at all even when some prissy expert says
they do. The troll and Granny nodded and something passed between
them, some understanding, as if they were listening to the same radio
station and nodding to the same song. Each one knew enough to make
life miserable for the other, that was my guess."

There are also wonderful digressions (the sort that turn out not to be
digressions at all when you look closer), as when the troll complains
that he can't live in the cities because homeless people come and
sleep under his bridges. Granny Kellum replies, "Why don't they just
squeeze in with some of their own people? You always make room for
family." This aside pays off at the end, thematically, when the troll
catches both a hitchhiker, and the narrator's - Janie's - older,
meaner brother, Bobby, and tries to lure Granny and Janie onto his
bridge. You might strike a bargain with a troll over the leftovers of
hikers, but what price are you willing to pay for family?

I'd encourage anyone who wants to write short stories to allow
themselves sufficient digressive play, when writing first drafts.
Writing that rushes from Point A to Point B to Point Ending doesn't
make for a successful short story.

The climax of the story is hair-raising, but things trail off a bit at
the end (no pun intended). I'd love to see one or two more sentences
about Granny Kellum's illness. Does she take to her bed out of pique
that she's been bested by a troll? Did she always love Bobby best? The
other twist, of course, that you could play with, is whether Janie has
had something to do with her grandmother's illness and death. Maybe
Janie is just as scary as all the other characters in the story - like
her grandmother, she has a keen sense of smell, and it seems likely
that she's inherited the same kind of magic. The very last two
sentences of the story have a jokey flavor to them. There's no
resonance, or emotional weight, or even anything to give the reader a
shiver up the spine. You could probably come up with something much
stronger if you ended by focusing on Janie and the talents that she
seems to have inherited from Granny Kellum. What kind of life is she
going to have now? Does she miss Bobby and Granny Kellum?

I'd also make the first description of the troll slightly scarier.
Right now he comes across as a kind of troll-action figure. You can
make him funny-looking and scary at the same time if you use the right
details. I'd also work a bit more on the troll's dialogue about eating
people. It seems as if he's trying to trick Granny Kellum and her
family into believing that he doesn't like to eat people, and yet he's
an old, old troll. Surely he's already acquired a taste for flesh, and
surely Granny Kellum would know that. Maybe you could have the troll
suggest that he's given up eating people. And I think the reason he
wants to eat the Kellums (and Granny Kellum especially) is because he
has a taste for witches/magic. Maybe you could work that in, at the
climax, and have the troll say to Granny, wistfully, as he's eating
Bobby, that Bobby will do, but he's sure that she'd taste even
sweeter.

I'd love to see slightly more of the setting. It seems pretty clear
that this story is set around the Appalachian Trail. I wish that there
was a name for the gorge that the troll now lives under, and there
would probably even be a name for the area around the gorge. You could
do more with local folklore and plant lore. Again, you don't need
much, but it would make the story even stronger.

A few line edits: first of all, there are lots of comma splices
throughout the story. Go through and fix the ones that don't seem
essential for voice, and then insert commas in dialogue when people
address each other:

"Come out troll" should be "Come out, troll" and "Well old woman, do
you know" should be "Well, old woman, do you know," etc. Think about
whether or not it would be more effective for the troll to call Granny
Kellum "Granny" instead of "old woman" -- it seems sneakier, somehow,
and more troll-like.

When Janie says of the troll "at least he'd chosen a pretty place,"
why does she use the masculine pronoun? I'd suggest "at least the
troll had chosen a pretty place" -- or you could have Granny Kellum
say that she can tell from the smell that it's a male troll.

When Janie says "He was well-spoken for a troll," I'd suggest cutting
the last part of that sentence. "He was well-spoken" makes her seem
more surprised. After all, how many trolls has she met? The
description of the troll's teeth is terrific, but again, when Granny
shows off "her own collection of teeth" I'd cut "which ranged in color
from white to various shades of brown." It's sharper if you keep it
short, and the reader can imagine for herself what Granny's teeth look
like.

It doesn't seem very convincing that Bobby turns green at the thought
of eating spiders, when he doesn't flinch at the idea that the troll
eats people, unless Janie tells us that Bobby has a horror of spiders.

When Janie and her family see the hiker "bundled up in rope," it would
be scarier/weirder if it didn't quite seem like ordinary rope. If you
simply add an adjective and make it something like "bundled up in some
kind of sticky rope," then it has more impact.

"The troll came up then, straddled the hiker with a frown on its
face." This is bad sentence construction. "The troll came up then, and
straddled the hiker. It had a frown on its face" is better.

"The hiker, a man in his 20s with blond curly hair, looked at us."
Again, this is bad sentence construction, and you're missing an
opportunity for Janie's eye to linger on the hiker, and make us feel
even worse for him. Better: "The hiker, a man in his 20s, looked at
us. He had blond curly hair." This way, we get a feeling that Janie
might like the way he looks - she's noticing things about him, a piece
at a time, the way we see people when we meet them. You don't need to
pack everything into one sentence.

"People disappeared in these mountains all the time." I would end that
sentence right there. It's stronger, faster, and scarier. You don't
need all the qualifiers that follow.

"The troll hauled the hiker to the end of the bridge, the man's eyes
wide in disbelief." Again, if you break that sentence apart so that
the hiker gets a sentence of his own, it has more impact: "The man's
eyes were wide in disbelief."

"Vomit showed around the edge of the rag and it sprayed out his nose
onto the bridge." It has more impact if you just say "Vomit sprayed
out his nose, onto the bridge."

Slow down the fight between Bobby and the troll just a bit. For action
scenes, keep the sentences mostly short and punchy. For example, "I
pulled out my own knife" is enough. You don't need the rest of the
sentence: "figuring he was my brother and I had to help."

I would also break up the sentence about Granny sniffing at the wind,
as well as this sentence, like so: "When the wind blows the right way,
I think I smell a bit of Bobby. As far as I know, the troll hasn't
bothered any more hikers." And again, think about those very last two
lines. Janie and her story deserve a better ending.

--Kelly Link
Editor of TRAMPOLINE, available from Small Beer Press
http://www.kellylink.net/


Editor's Choice, Horror:

"Growing Pains" by Heidi Anderson

Heidi, you have some very powerful and interesting things to say in
this story.  Often, when I read stories, I feel that the authors are
telling the kinds of story they like reading, which is fine, but that
they have nothing new to add and no new insights to give.  This makes
the reading experience, ultimately, feel rather empty.  But I don't
feel that at all here.  In addition to the powerful ideas, you have a
strong, compelling main character, an involving plot, and a
distinctive, effective style.  For the first five pages of this, I was
mainly very impressed.  The last two pages didn't seem as strong as
the rest, so I'll focus my attention there.

One reason that the end didn't work well was that I guessed more or
less what would happen on p. 3.  You tell me in your second paragraph
on p. 1 that this will be the story of how the character becomes
normal.  On p. 3, at the end of the Friday entry, you tell me what she
considers normal.  So now I know that a monster will come into her
head before the end of the story.  Now, many great stories tell us at
the beginning how they will end, and we still feel a huge amount of
interest and suspense, because we want to find out _how_ the character
will come to that end.  THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE by C. S.
Lewis is one example, and "The Black Cat" by Poe is another.  There
can be many reasons why this works:  great writing, fascinating
characters.  But the most common reason this works is simply that the
ending we're told to expect seems so unlikely or difficult or
compelling.  We simply can't imagine how the character can reach that
point, so we must keep reading to find out.  Here, to be honest, I
never really felt your main character did only good, and had no
monster, so it seemed like it would be pretty easy for her to develop
one.  You only _tell_ me she's good, rather than _showing_ me, so it's
never conveyed in a powerful, convincing way.

The climax also lacks surprise.  I'm anticipating on p. 2 that her
shift supervisor is going to attack her, so there's no shock when
she's finally attacked.  I was waiting for it to happen.  I didn't
know that the attack would cause the monster to arise in her, but as
that happens, it seems kind of a standard reaction, so I'm not
surprised at that either.  I was hoping for something really powerful
and shocking at the climax, because you had built up the suspense well
through your detailed description of her daily life.  The story up to
the climax seemed really original, so I had high expectations.  To me
the climax was more standard than the rest:  girl is attacked by sicko
and gets revenge, and perhaps will go on getting revenge.  That's a
pretty familiar horror ending.  I'm not saying it can't work--writers
take old ideas and make them fresh all the time--but I don't feel it
is working for you yet.  Having the guy cut up in chunks is nice, but
it seems to come out of the blue, and is not resonant enough with your
great ideas to make this climax stand up to the strength of the rest.
Remember that a climax needs to feel both surprising and inevitable.

There are many ways you could go about strengthening the climax.  You
could make it more surprising by having the attack come from a more
unexpected quarter, such as one of her brothers, and more inevitable
by planting more clues along the way.

My suggestion, which you can take or leave, is to change the story in
a more radical way.  I'm much more interested in someone who believes
she can only do right--that if something is right she must do it, and
if it's not right she can't do it.  That's a fascinating idea!  I'd
rather see you really show us that, and explore the implications, than
claiming she's already that and focusing on her change to normalcy.
I'd like to know how she can tell herself that leaving the house when
her mother has taken pills is "right"--does she think her mother
deserves to die if that's what she wants?  Then how does she tell
herself that it was "right" to come home too early, while her mother
is still alive?  For me, seeing the evolution of her beliefs about
what is right, and what actions that forces her to take, would be
really interesting.

Other than that, I'll just make a couple stylistic comments:

--"After dinner I walked to work and put in a six-hour shift making
milkshakes and bagging fries, wishing a fugue state would conveniently
come along so I didn't have to be there in my head as well as
physically."  The end of the sentence is awkward because you don't use
parallel structure.  Parallel structure means putting grammatically
similar elements into similar form:  "...so I didn't have to be there
mentally as well as physically."  (The other possibility would be to
say, "so I didn't have to be there in my head as well as in my body.")

--You sometimes seem to repeat words without realizing it.  It's fine
to repeat words on purpose, for emphasis.  But writers often repeat
words unintentionally, and that can make for some very awkward
passages.  You don't want to be emphasizing words that you don't mean
to emphasize.  An example:  "When I got up my youngest brother was up
watching cartoons.  He hadn't had breakfast so I made him come up to
the table and eat.  I told him what had happened with mum and I
promised him everything would be all right.  He is only a baby and he
gets scared sometimes.  As soon as I knew he was okay I got my other
brother and my sister up and we all had breakfast."  Four uses of the
word up is at least one too many.  You'd do better with just one or
two.

--You are overusing looking/seeing/eye words, particularly on p. 6.
This is a common weakness of developing writers today.  We are fixated
on eyes from TV and the movies, where actors convey a lot in a look.
But in a story, a look is not a subtle expression conveying a range of
emotions; it's just a look.  These tend to be pretty empty words, and
also tend to set up weak sentence structures.  You're usually better
off just describing what the character sees rather than saying she
looked at it.  If your point of view is clear and consistent, then
we'll know your POV character is looking at whatever you describe. For
example,

"I sighed and stepped towards the street but a sharp click made me
pause.  I glanced back at the man and froze, my eyes drawn to the line
of silver that started at the end of his arm.  He had a knife, the
brightest cleanest thing in the alley."

You could write, perhaps,

"I sighed and stepped towards the street, but a sharp click made me
turn.  A line of silver extended from the end of his arm.  He had a
knife, the brightest cleanest thing in the alley."

That's about it.  I hope my comments are helpful, because I think this
story has a lot going for it, and I'd love to see you make it as
strong as it can possibly be.

--Jeanne Cavelos
http://www.odysseyworkshop.org/


| - - REVIEWER HONOR ROLL - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |

The Reviewer Honor Roll area of the workshop recognizes members who
have given useful, insightful reviews.  After all, that's what makes
the workshop go, so we want to give great reviewers a little
well-earned recognition!

If you got a really useful review and would like to add the reviewer
to the Reviewer Honor Roll, just use our online honor-roll nomination
form -- log in and link to it from the bottom of the Reviewer Honor
Roll page at http://sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com/honorroll.shtml.
Your nomination will appear on the first day of the next calendar
month.

The Honor Roll will show all Oct nominations beginning Nov 1.
Here are some advance highlights from the September honor roll:

Reviewer:  Michael Staton
Submission: portals of darkness - chapt. 3 -judgment by jim giammatteo
Submitted by: Jim Giammatteo
Nominator's Comments: Michael took a chapter that had been critted by
about a dozen people already and managed to find 9-10 new points that
were important that no one else had touched on. He was dead-on in
several areas and the suggestions will go into the rewrite. One of the
things i like about Michael's reviews is that he doesn't just say,
this doesn't work, or i don't like this, but he takes the time and
effort to provide an example of why he doesn't think it works and in
most cases, a sample of what he thinks works better. He also found
some inconsistencies that needed fixing. Thanks, Jim.

Reviewer: Juliet Nordeen
Submission: The Moonlit Days - YA October Challenge by Raymond Walshe
Submitted by: Raymond Walshe
Nominator's Comments: Juliet did an excellent job of giving me the mind's
eye view of the reader.  The likes, dislikes, gut reactions, sticking
points, etc.  I could not ask for a more complete review!


Reviewers nominated to the honor roll during September include: kit davis,
John Hoddy, John Tremlett, Tara Devine, Robert Haynes, pam obrien, jenni
mckinney, elizabeth hull, Karen Over, Tony Valiulis, Gill Ainsworth, Sharon
Lee, Holly McDowell, Leah Bobet, Treize Armistedian, Ilona Gordon, Juliet
Nordeen, Juliet Nordeen, Heidi Anderson, Keith Robinson, PJ Thompson,
Kirsten Corby, Debbie Moorhouse, Lizzie Newell, Leah Bobet, Bob Keller,
Juliet Nordeen, Brad Beaulieu, Juliet Nordeen, Andrew Ringlein, Marlissa
Campbell, Melinda Goodin, Linda Dicmanis, Pamela OBrien, Leonid Korogodski,
Rick Dwyer, PJ Thompson, Michael Goodwind, Adrian Peter Firth, Gill
Ainsworth, Michael Elliott, Rachel Swirsky, Kathryn Allen, Eric Bresin,
Michael Goodwind, Helen Mazarakis.

We congratulate them all for their excellent reviews. All nominations
received in September can be still found until November 1 at:
http://sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com/honorroll.shtml


| - - PUBLICATION ANNOUNCEMENTS - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |

We can't announce them if you don't let us know! So drop Charlie a
line at support@sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com whenever you have good
news to share.

Sales and Publications:

Sandie Bergen told the mailing list that her story "The Cairngorm" has
been accepted by _Whispering Spirits_
(http://clik.to/whisperingspirits), an ezine dedicated to ghost
stories, for the October 15th edition.  She wrote: "Though this
particular story was not workshopped on OWW, I still have to thank
everyone who reviewed my other stuff, pointing out my mistakes. . . or
rather, pounding me over the head until I said 'hey, you're right!' I
have learned so much in the last ten months; it's absolutely amazing."

Double the pleasure! Leah Bobet reports two sales this month.  Her
flash piece "Key of Heaven" appears in the current issue of _Aoife's
Kiss_. And her EC runner-up story "Rosewater for His Lips" has been
accepted for the premiere issue of _Arabella Romances_.

"Almost forgot," Hannah Wolf Bowen e-mailed us a few days ago. "Sold my
Editor's Choice, 'My Kingdom,' to _Abyss & Apex_
(http://www.klio.net/abyssandapex/). Glad that one found a home." So
are we!

Little woo hoo! Eric Bresin's flash "It's the End of the World and
It's Your Fault" is in the current issue of Nevermore Magazine
(http://www.nevermoremag.com/).

Stella Evans's short story "Indra's Rice" appears this week in _Strange
Horizons_ (http://www.strangehorizons.com/). Go read it. Really.

Jennifer Michaels and former OWWer Cal Bates co-authored "Vanity,"
which will be available on Halloween in the _Dead in Thirteen Flashes_
anthology (http://www.dreampeople.org/).  She told us about working
with a co-author: "This was my first experience working with another
author on a project. It started with a very rough draft, which I
e-mailed to a friend for comments. He in turn rewrote the story
entirely, using a different twist on the same idea. I'd recommend
trying it at least once, especially if you're having a hard time
making a certain story work. In my case, it took a flat story and made
it sellable."

Derek R. Molata sold "Counting Bubbles" to _Champagne Shivers_
(http://www.samsdotpublishing.com/champagne/cover.html) for their
February 2004 issue.  He sends "thanks to Cynthia Cloughly, Sherry
Iskrzycki, and Gill Ainsworth for their comments."  Derek also sold
four poems to _The Breath E-Zine_
(http://www.thebreath.com/ezine.htm), a Canadian online literary
journal, for their November 2003 issue.

On fire! Ruth Nestvold (http://www.ruthnestvold.com) is having an
amazing year. She just sold her story "King Orfeigh" to _Realms of
Fantasy_.

James Stevens-Arce's screenplay "Sins of the Heart" is a
quarterfinalist in the 2003 Slamdance Screenplay Competition. Pretty
darn cool.

Lisa von Biela was "very happy to report I just received a second
acceptance from _Alien Skin Magazine_ (http://www.alienskinmag.com),
for my story 'The Performance.' It's a short short, workshopped here
first, and it's scheduled to appear in the November 2003 edition!"

_Deep Magic_ (http://www.deep-magic.net/) has accepted Wade White's
story "A Hero By Any Other Name." Congratulations, Wade!


| - - WORKSHOP STATISTICS - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |

Number of members as of 10/20:  671 paying, 102 trial
Number of submissions currently online: 634
Percent of submissions with 3 or more reviews: 74.6%
Percent of submissions with zero reviews: 3.0%

Number of submissions in September: 545
Number of reviews in September: 2395
Ratio of reviews/submissions in September: 4.39
Estimated average word count per review in September: 743.3 (Wow!)

Number of submissions in October to date: 257
Number of reviews in October to date: 1234
Ratio of reviews/submissions in October to date: 4.80
Estimated average word count per review in October to date: 729.7

Total number of under-reviewed submissions: 74 (11.7% of total subs)
Number over 3 days old with 0 reviews: 6
Number over 1 week old with under 2 reviews: 25
Number over 2 weeks old with under 3 reviews: 43



| - - FEEDBACK - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |

TIP: ASSIGN KEYSTROKES

Cat Collins e-mailed us with this tip: "I use a lot of italics in my
work, to denote mindspeak, usually. I discovered the 'assign
keystrokes' function on my computer! Some brilliant person made it
easy to customise the keyboard within a word processing programme. I
have assigned the tags for open italics, close italics, line break,
open bold, and close bold to function keys not actively assigned in my
WP programme (WordPerfect). Now, instead of typing the whole tag, I
just hit the appropriate function key. So I don't forget, I've put
tiny stickers under the keys with the tag they represent. You could
also use this method for those words that contain multi-national
symbols like the accent mark over so many vowels in Fantasy writing!
Assigning a particular word to a key saves you the time of typing the
word, opening your 'symbols' file, and selecting the multi-national
character to insert in the word. I just wish I'd discovered this
before reaching the last chapters of my second novel! Darnit."

Got a helpful tip for your fellow members?  A trick or hint for
submitting or reviewing, for what to put in your author's comments,
for getting good reviews, or for formatting or titling your
submission?  Share it with us and we'll publish it in the next
newsletter.  Just send it to support@sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com and
we'll do the rest.

Until next month -- Just write!

The Online Writing Workshop for Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror
http://sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com
support@sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com

| - - Copyright 2003 Online Writing Workshops, LLC - - - - - - - - -|