O | The Online Writing Workshop for SF, F & H Newsletter, May 2006
W | http://sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com
W | Become a better writer!
| - - CONTENTS - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
- Workshop News:
Crit marathon winners
Beyond competent and accomplished: a call to action from
Resident Editor Kelly Link
Submit or die!
June writing challenge
Hall of Fame and publication announcements
Membership payment information
- Editors' Choices for April 2006 submissions
- Reviewer Honor Roll
- Publication Announcements
- Workshop Statistics
- Tips & Feedback
| - - WORKSHOP NEWS - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
CRIT MARATHON WINNERS
We'll let Jodi, the Crit Marathon organizer, tell you the news in her
own words:
We have a winner! Or, rather, three winners! We were sneaky and didn't
tell you about two other drawing prizes. Books! First, everybody say
thank you to Anonymous for the gift certificate, and to Small Beer
Press for two copies of STORYTELLER: WRITING LESSONS AND MORE FROM 27
YEARS OF THE CLARION WRITERS' WORKSHOP, by Kate Wilhelm. (And you can
and should go find more information about the book here:
http://www.lcrw.net/wilhelm/index.htm Go now! Go!)
*waits for chorus of thank yous from the workshop*
So, after fitting Kat, Deb, Melissa, Rae, Bonny, Patty, Sandra, and
David R. into Charlie's Indiana Jones hat, and adding some ferrets
for fun, we pulled out a few people.
First! For the gift certificate: Rae Carson!
Second! For a copy of Kate Wilhelm's book: Kat Allen!
Third! For a copy of Kate Wilhelm's book: Patty Jansen!
Everyone say yay! All totaled, the marathon made 598 crits in only 21
days, AND kept the under reviewed list to the lowest it's been in
forEVER. Most days there was nothing left on it! So everyone turn to
the critter next to you...and give them a big hug! You all did a great
job, and the marathon would not have been nearly as cool without every
one of you participating. You guys rock! And for goodness sakes, get
out of Charlie's hat so he can wear it--he has adventuring to do!
BEYOND COMPETENT AND ACCOMPLISHED: A CALL TO ACTION FOR WORKSHOPPERS
In the past we've offered a few OWW Editorial Focus pieces
(http://sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com/editorialfocus/index.shtml) on
the craft of writing, contributed by our Resident Editors. This month
we've got another piece, this one from longtime Resident Editor,
publisher, author, and Nebula Award-winner Kelly Link. Go to the
FEEDBACK section at the end of the newsletter to read her thoughts on
taking risks to get published--or read it in our Tips and Advice area:
http://sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com/tips/link.shtml
SUBMIT OR DIE!
The inimitable E!, barbarienne of the mailing list, has declared June
"Submit or Die!" month. Here's her most recent announcement.
Submit or Die! is a challenge to the OWW community to actually send
work out to magazines. Some people are old hands at this, and send out
their work regularly, but others of us need a push. Whether caused by
fear, laziness, or simple inertia, the condition of nonsubmittingness
is a Very Bad Thing for writers who have any dreams of being
published. Submitting work is a big hurdle (right after "finish
something").
Here's how it works:
1. Every piece you send out from June 1 through June 30 is eligible.
You notify me offlist of the title of the piece and what market you
sent it to. I'll try to do a weekly wrap-up and post to the ML.
2. Awards in the form of Grandiose Titles and possibly other goodies
if I can scare some up will be given in the following categories:
a. most submissions sent
b. most rejections received by August 31 [1]
c. fastest acceptance by a pro- or semipro-paying market (at least 3 cents/word) [2]
d. Special Award: first sale to a SFWA-qualifying market by someone
who has no previous SFWA-qualifying sales. If I get only one bonus
item for prizes, this is the person it'll go to (if anyone qualifies),
so aim high with your subs! [3]
JJA has been alerted, so go ahead and swamp F&SF. ;-)
E-subs do count. Keep those emails with the date/time stamps.
If anyone has questions and needs clarification, please ask on the
mailing list. Suggestions will be considered, but since I am
organizing this, I am the SOD! Dictator, and my decisions will be
final.
[1] no prize for most acceptances, because, hey, an acceptance is a
prize already!
[2] I'm setting a pay minimum because it isn't very hard to get
accepted by a 4theluv market.
[3] Oh, quit cher bitchin' alla you who already have SFWA quals. You
don't need encouragement to sub your stories.
JUNE WRITING CHALLENGE
Jodi, OWW Challenge Dictator, Unicorn Warlord, and general menace, is
putting an end to the writing challenges... so to speak. In her own
words:
Hey guys! I know you're all getting ready for Submit Or Die!, but you
still have to write. And as Challenge Dictator, I dictate that you all
write right now!
You may remodel the following lines, but the basic idea must stay the
same, and they must be the end. Must! (Or dooooom! And no cabana boys
for you!) You should build the rest of the story from this:
"I had a choice: behind door A was everything I never wanted, behind
door B was the end of my world. I sat down, heavily. Maybe I could
take a moment to think about it."
(Thanks to Her Grace for the idea of beginning with an end, and to Kat
for supplying the end.)
Remember: These are supposed to be fun, but don't forget to stretch
yourself. If you normally write fantasy, try SF. If you've never tried
space opera, here's your chance. It doesn't have to be great. It's all
about trying new things. There's no word limit, no time limit, no
nothin'. Just have fun. :)
Please don't post your challenge pieces to the workshop until June
first. Include "June Challenge" in your title so you can show off how
fancy you are to all your friends.
For more details on the challenges, check the OWW Writer Space at
http://sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=Challenges
Or the original Challenge homepage at:
http://www.thermeon.net/checkered/Challenge.html
HALL OF FAME AND PUBLICATION ANNOUNCEMENTS
If you want to see your publications and awards listed in the
newsletter and in the workshop's Hall of Fame for everyone to admire,
you need to send the facts to Charlie at
support@sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com (make it part of your
celebration ritual!). You can cc: him when you let the mailing list
know, too. Share the good news--don't make us hunt it down!
MEMBERSHIP PAYMENT INFORMATION
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Bonus payments: The workshop costs only 94 cents per week, but we know
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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:
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| - - 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 Jeanne Cavelos, Karin Lowachee, 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:
PRAYERS TO BROKEN STONE, 1 & 2 by Amanda (w) Downum
Amanda Downum's first chapter of PRAYERS TO BROKEN STONE caught my
attention. Her use of description and characterization painted a
nicely detailed image of tone and mood. I especially liked how Holly's
anger towards her previous masters turns very quickly to sadness at
their deaths. It's not a subtle change, but it's one that gives her
human dimensions. Even Caliban, the ghoul sent with a mission for
Holly, feels great pain at the deaths of his family.
From this first chapter, we find Holly Ketenjian in Paris awaiting a
former colleague, Caliban. Caliban is a ghoul who can navigate between
the living world and beyond. I liked the lines describing him and what
he can do: "He wears shadows like a second skin," "Shadow-lithe and
shadow-silent he runs...," and "His touch is gentle, but she feels the
snarl reverberating through his hollow chest." Holly was once a
courtesan, or whore, who used her specialties for manipulation. She
seduced a man named Adrian and then broke his heart, setting him free
from the group. And now Caliban comes asking her to find the man she
fell in love with at the Anubites' insistence. Caliban and Holly
return to the group's temple and find everyone murdered -- some by
forces from beyond, and some by ordinary gunshots. A mystery is
established.
In the second chapter, a woman named Cate Scavella vacations in Greece
after the death of her father to clear her head and to find some
direction. Her father had searched for doors to other places, was
obsessed to the point of practically abandoning his family, and had
died of a heart attack. Cate had believed him as a girl, but when he
could not prove to her his suspicions, could not corroborate his
stories with fact or experience, Cate had stopped believing.
I think she vacations in Greece not only to get away from her mother's
demands, but also to find out once and for all if any of her father's
beliefs were true. She seems to have the gift, because when she
approaches a door at an ancient temple site, she experiences something
unexplainable. And a man helps her after a near-faint; it is Adrian.
The second chapter doesn't feel as tight as the first -- it's unclear
what Cate thinks she's going to accomplish in Greece. Perhaps she
doesn't know, but one moment she feels dread at the sight of the
ancient temple door and the next she's curious enough to follow the
man who helped her, who saw what she thinks she's seen. It's a little
too easy for Cate, who once believed in her father's wild tales and
then soothed her disappointments with earth sciences and the study of
the past. There seems to be rush to establish Cate's character here
that isn't apparent in the first chapter; I preferred the unfolding of
Holly's character more. Perhaps Cate's experience at the door is too
abrupt -- the establishing situation of her trying to prove her father
right or wrong doesn't wholly show why she feels drawn to the door.
It's both foreboding and obvious without the grounding I think might
make this chapter click.
I enjoyed these two chapters and think they make solid openings. The
combination of intriguing plot, characters with more yet to show, and
mood establishes a clarity not always found in opening chapters. Keep
up the quality work.
--Jenni Smith-Gaynor
Former editor, Del Rey Books
Editor's Choice, SF Chapter/Partial Chapter:
THE TREE OF LIFE, Prologue and Chapters 1 & 2 by Craig McColl
These chapters are just fantastic from top to bottom. Beginning with a
letter can be chancy. It can seem too contrived even in the structure
of a novel. But the pitfalls were avoided by having an immediate hook
about her father and the vibrancy of her voice. The mystery is
presented right off the bat: why would her mother strangle her father
in a hostage situation? One can guess, but I suspect the answer is far
from easy.
The author also took a chance with jumping around in time. This
didn't hinder the narrative at all, which it could have, because the
characters and their situations are too diverse and interesting by
themselves to be muddled together. Again, the building of clues
throughout each part slowly gives the reader pieces to the puzzle,
which is essential for a crime novel. You never want to say too much,
but by the same token, saying too little might frustrate the reader.
Having characters with very separate personalities, filtered through a
third person narrative, makes the demarcation of events cleaner and
easier to handle in a mystery novel. This is even more important in a
science fiction mystery novel where odd concepts are being introduced,
adding to the possible confusion. All of these elements were deftly
executed.
Goldberg's section could have been confusing but this was avoided by
balancing the more technical descriptions of the Helix and Goldberg's
voice/personality. Dry "science fictiony" concepts can always be
better conveyed if the main character somehow infuses the facts with
an interesting point-of-view; it then becomes less encyclopedic as the
reader connects to the character who is interested in the science.
The language is poetic without being off-putting, as we view
Goldberg's creation through his eyes. It's clear that he has a
reverance and pride about his work, so it's a surprise when his
character is slowly revealed to be facing death in a number of ways:
through cancer and then by his own hand. This is the skill of the
writer, and more so a mystery writer: how and when to reveal pertinent
information to keep the reader turning pages. Goldberg's character as
well as his project -- which serves as the bedrock or tipping off
point of the plot for the rest of the novel -- are intertwined,
cohesive, and though only depicted in this short section, are
memorable, which is what the writer would want as the threads from
these first couple parts are expanded upon later. The very last couple
lines of Goldberg's section are beautiful:
In the final stages of its division, the cell swelled, and then
thinned in the middle as the cytoskeleton drew the membrane into a
narrow waist. First it looked like an hourglass on its side, and
then the symbol for infinity.
This is writing on multiple levels. Instead of just saying who
Goldberg is and what his work is, the writer here has drawn a metaphor
of the Helix that impacts both Goldberg's vision of himself and the
concept of cloning -- the continuation on forever, in theory, of an
individual and an idea. When lines resonate the concepts, ideas, or
characters of the novel, it elevates it from a straightforward (and
usually more bland) narrative to something layered and interesting
that the reader can really sink their teeth into.
Chapter 2 begins with yet another new character, but it seems early on
that he will become the main protagonist. He immediately grabs our
attention because 1) he's windsurfing (this is an unusual occupation
in science fiction, so it's really great to see ... just because it's
in the future doesn't mean longstanding human sports will go out the
window) and what's more, 2) he's a cop! Right away we have a character
that is not the typical hard-drinking, hard smoking,
cynical-about-the-world police detective. He seems grounded, smart,
and interacts with his colleagues in a realistic manner through a good
SF tech, lest we forget we're in a future fiction novel. These touches
of science fiction elements are important to flesh out your future and
add character to your world, even if it's a near future world.
The language throughout these first couple chapters are entrancing and
ring true:
Remember this. He tries to grab the moment in memory. This. No,
no. . . This. For a fleeting instant he seems to grasp the
quicksilver essence of his soul, like a flash in the corner of his
vision. He finds that he can almost doubt, as Descartes once
pretended to doubt, whether he has a body at all. I think. For the
moment, that is enough to nail down the happy sea-sprayed essence
that is him. He might be a creature of pure spirit, scudding over
dreamt waves, or a vortex of information swept along by some
mathematical breeze. A fiction, even. For now, the details are
unimportant. He is alive, and that's enough.
What a wonderful paragraph to describe to the reader what kind of man
this is. Paragraphs like this paint pictures of the character with
careful, assured brush strokes, rather than monochromatic numbered
daubs. Language and concept go hand in hand, so from line to line it
doesn't merely stand as a way to deliver necessary information, but a
way to illustrate it.
The only authorial choice I question is the use of the present tense.
As this section with Dan seems to be in the past compared to the
letter, I'm not sure beyond a stylistic reason why it ought to be in
present tense. It doesn't seem to flesh out anything in particular, or
make a point about the character's state of mind that couldn't work
just as well in the past tense. However, if there are no more jumps in
time forward (other than the letter), then perhaps the author was
using this tense to separate it from Goldberg's section (which is in
Dan's past). These are just things I question, and obviously being
unable to read the rest of the book as a whole. I would caution to be
careful about flipping back and forth too readily in past and present
tense usage. I say this as someone who's well aware that I use this
method in my own books, but it's always with clear indication of when
and why.
Lastly, another layer that was well executed was the Biblical one --
from the title to Goldberg's insinuation that he was picking up where
God left off, and tying in infinity to immortality. The book seems to
be a philosophical as well as a scientific and character study, and to
attempt this, much less execute it well, might indeed capture an
editor's eye.
--Karin Lowachee
Author of BURNDIVE and CAGEBIRD
http://www.karinlowachee.com
Editor's Choice, Short Story: "Rainbow Serpent Expressway" by Matt Doyle and
"The Page Turner" by Marianne Lee
(Don't miss Kelly Link's thoughts on risk-taking in your writing in
the FEEDBACK section at the end of this newsletter.)
"Rainbow Serpent Expressway" by Matt Doyle is a great deal of fun. A
narrator named Bram Stoker hitches a ride in Australia with an
aboriginal truckdriver, Dolly. There is a short trip to the dreamtime
which turns out to be a short cut to Brisbane. Dolly is the heart of
the story. It comes to life as soon as Bram Stoker climbs into her
truck. She's just finished her BA, she keeps a bobble-headed Elvis on
her dashboard as a sort of magic portal, and she's got a wicked sense
of humor. As it stands, this story is somewhat slight -- the problem
is easily resolved without the narrator having anything to do with it
-- and yet a great deal of fun. It strikes me that Dolly is a lot
bigger than the story around her. So why not make the story, and the
narrator, more lively as well? We don't know much about Bram Stoker,
other than that his mother liked DRACULA. We don't know how old he is.
We don't know why he's left his home -- he may have fairly serious
reasons, or he may just want a change of scenery. He may be escaping
something -- he certainly doesn't seem to be running towards
something. He doesn't seem to like to talk about himself. And yet,
here's the kicker -- we find out at the end that he's telling this
story to someone (he confesses that he doesn't know why he wants to
tell it, and he doesn't expect that we'll believe it, either.) When
you have a story being told in a bar, or a club, or at a party, you
have to think about who the story is being told to, and why. Sometimes
the easiest way to build a more interesting or complicated narrative
is to have three or more characters tell related stories to each other
-- by the end of the story round, the way that we see the characters
should have shifted in some significant way. Something larger should
have been revealed. In this case, it's probably the Dreamtime that
ought to come into focus. But we ought to see that Bram Stoker has
lost or gained some extra strangeness because of his passage through
it. You don't get off that easy when you touch the bobble-headed Elvis.
On the sentence level, there is some nice writing here. But there're
also some pretty clunky sentences: "If I was not going to get this
ride it would mean more walking..." and "With her opinion thus
revealed, I found her instantly more likable, not that she was very
unlikable in the first place."
As for "The Page Turner" by Marianne Lee, the story is, on the whole,
not badly written, but there are passages which are really gorgeous.
It's the descriptions of musicians talking and playing, and a lovely,
complicated ending, that really sold me. This is the story of Milo
Short, who has a marked sensitivity to music and a personal
relationship with the Muses, but not the hands that a great performer
requires. He does, however, have a student with the hands but not the
sensitivity.
Here's what isn't working yet. I don't understand Milo's relationship
with his lover, Janie. There seems to be a tension that hasn't been
explored deeply enough. With relationship to the quarrel that Janie
has with Milo, I don't really understand what it is that Milo does for
a living. She wants him to teach, but isn't he already a teacher? He
has a student, Carrie Wright, and he hangs out in the university music
department. If Milo is also a student, I'm afraid that this wasn't
clear to me. Now that I think of it, it also isn't clear how old Milo
is -- I assumed he was in his 40s, at least, but perhaps I am supposed
to be reading him younger.
Milo Short has a personal relationship with the Muses. He can see them
sitting beside other musicians, and he can talk to them. I'm torn
about this very basic level of the story because, frankly, Milo
doesn't seem so very interesting that I'm willing to believe that the
Muses have picked him for something. I'd much rather that you never
called the Muses by their names, or called them Muses, or tried to
make them look like beautiful Teutonic women, etc. If Milo is going to
have a personal relationship with something numinous and strange, then
make his tormentors/advisors something numinous and strange and less
like models out of a Victoria's Secret television special. Which is
more or less how I pictured them -- the one Muse who seems at all
Muse-like is Urania. Both scenes in which she figures prominently are
gripping and uncanny and powerful. As for Milo, perhaps he should be
seeing other things as well, not just minor goddesses -- perhaps his
mother saw things, also.
The Muses want something for Milo, but they won't say what, and
neither will the story. What I think that Milo is supposed to embrace
is composition. Several times, characters in the story comment on
Milo's talents for original work, but Milo himself seems to have no
thought for it. I suppose this could work, as a very subtle hint, but
at the moment Milo just seems rather dense. Why does he want, so
badly, to be a performer, but never, ever thinks of being a composer?
(Besides the fact that the story needs for him not to think of it.)
When he gives up his musical sensitivity to Carrie, it seemed oddly
like an act of hubris to me. It wasn't clear to me that Carrie wanted
such a gift; she doesn't really seem to love music, and she does seem
very fragile. Perhaps this could be a nice touch of ambiguity, but
you'll need to do more with it.
A few smaller suggestions. Give Carrie Wright's mother some dialogue
and some interactions with Milo. You can't just tell us that someone
is a controlling stage mother so terrible that the Muses have sworn to
avoid her daughter's company, and then not show us how she's terrible.
You have a real opportunity here to do something interesting with a
character, only you'll have to be careful that Janie becomes a bit
more three-dimensional as well.
On the sentence level, there are scenes in which the writing is tight
and the images are unexpected, and then there a lot of places where
the writing could be tightened up considerably. Look at the first
paragraph:
"Milo Short entered the back door of the university music department
at six p.m. and stepped quietly as he traveled its scuffed tile
floors. The air smelled of a mixture of pine cleaner, rosin, and stale
spit, and outside the music theory classroom a fluorescent fixture
flickered on and off with arrythmic clicks and electric zps. He
glanced up at it with an irritated frown."
Now look at how we can tighten it:
"Milo Short entered the back door of the university music department
at six p.m. The air smelled of pine cleaner, rosin, and stale spit,
and outside the music theory classroom a fluorescent fixture flickered
on and off with arrythmic clicks and electric zaps."
I know that you were attempting to set up an echo with "scuffed tile
floors" when Milo comes back at the end of the story, but why? It's
not an interesting enough payoff. Go through the whole story, and hone
it. Also keep in mind that we're in Milo's POV. There are a lot of
descriptions and words used which are meant to make us see Milo --
"shuffled," "awkwardly," he speaks "in a hushed voice" -- but we're in
his POV. We shouldn't be focused on this level of descriptions of
Milo.
Good luck with this. I'd love to see the story work because the
descriptions of musicians -- Carrie's hands "like fans," etc, are so
very good. But you need to make Milo's character and gifts and
circumstances the heart of the story. If he gives up something for a
student whom he hardly knows, it's important to know if he's a
generous man, or if this is place where he learns to be generous at an
overwhelming cost. If he hasn't thought out the consequences -- what
will he do now, and where will he work -- then the reader, at least,
should be able to see them. This is a story about ambition, and I'd
like to see it tackled even more ambitiously. This shouldn't be an
easy story, or story in which the Muses are taken lightly. In the same
way that you've managed to sketch, very deftly, a group of musicians
with their instruments, you now need to sketch in Milo and his world.
--Kelly Link
Editor of TRAMPOLINE and co-editor of YEAR'S BEST FANTASY & HORROR
http://www.kellylink.net/
Editor's Choice, Horror:
"He Visits" by Free Falconer
This ghost story is interesting because the main character, a ghost,
is unable to affect events in the real world. The ghost can only
watch as her murderer breaks into her house and attacks her daughter.
Whenever I thought the ghost was going to find the power to do
something, I groaned, because that is such a cliche, but then the
ghost failed, and I was happy. Writing a story in which the
protagonist is powerless is a big challenge, since a basic writing
rule is that your main character must have the power to change events.
Of course, every writing rule can be broken, if you are skilled
enough to get away with it.
While I think, Free, that you make a good attempt at getting away with
it, I don't think the story quite works yet, for several reasons. One
is that the sex of the first-person narrator/ghost is unclear until
the end of the story. I assumed it was a man, which at least 50% of
your audience will probably do, so it was very jarring and distracting
to discover the ghost is a woman -- the mother of the girl being
attacked, not the father -- in the fourth paragraph from the end.
This information turns out to be critical to the whole story, to the
climactic answer to the question, "Why was I murdered and why is my
daughter being attacked?" When you are presenting the reader with
that big revelation, you don't want the reader distracted by the fact
that the ghost is a woman. So that needs to be established very early
in the story. Maybe the ghost can think about how her husband left
her, or can look at some possession that gives us a clear cue, such as
her knitting basket or fur coat or bustier.
Another element that is not quite working is the main character. I
don't have a clear sense of her personality and her goal. She's
concerned about unread emails, unwashed dishes, whether she cheated,
stole, or hurt anyone, and where her daughter is, and she's upset
about being killed, and all of these things seem to carry about equal
weight in her mind. For the ending -- when she is finally free to
follow the white light because she realizes she didn't trigger her
murder by doing something wrong -- to work, we need to feel her
obsessing over what she might have done wrong for the entire story.
As is, this issue has only one paragraph dedicated to it prior to the
climax. And that paragraph is mainly telling, not showing. We need
to feel this awful, oppressive concern that she has done something
horrible. This horrible act led to her murder, and has now led to her
being trapped in this ghostly existence and kept from heaven. I think
that you haven't quite moved beyond your initial impulse in writing
this, as a plot exercise, and figured out who the people are in this
story and what your themes are. What is this story truly about? How
does it reflect your experience in life and with people? Do you know
people who walk on eggshells, who are so afraid of doing something
wrong, of saying the wrong thing, that they never do anything? For
your ending to work, I think your main character needs to be something
like this (and if this doesn't resonate with you, then I'd suggest
both the character and the ending need to be changed to better match
up with each other). If the main character is indeed like this, then
how would that affect her daughter? Having a mother who is afraid to
do anything, afraid to make a mistake--could she possibly have been a
good, loving mother?
While the compact structure and short length of your story are good,
you can bring out all these dynamics and characteristics in small
details that won't add much to your length, if you pick them
carefully. In many cases, I think it would be a matter of replacing
one detail with another that's more revealing and appropriate.
Instead of drifting through the house thinking of random things, like
unwashed dishes and unread emails, she can notice things that, in her
mind, reveal her shortcomings, mistakes, and failures -- all the
countless things she's done wrong in her life that have culminated in
whatever she did to cause her murder.
Because the ghost never acts, the whole story hinges on her
realization that she is blameless in her murder. So this needs to be
a very strong moment, and we need to clearly understand what it means
to her character and feel the huge shock of the character. Right now,
the fact that she feels she's responsible in some way for being killed
is not stressed and is not convincing. Instead, what is stressed is
that she loves her daughter. So for her to happily rush to the white
light at the end, abandoning her daughter, who has just killed someone
and been traumatized, doesn't work. The daughter is also revealed to
be very innocent/foolish. She apparently gave information to a
stranger on the Internet, allowing him to track her down and attack
her. This should make her mother even more reluctant to leave. So
these various elements are not working together.
The daughter's character also doesn't quite seem to fit the plot. The
plot reveals that she is innocent/foolish. But she's acting like
Wonder Woman, beating up this attacker as if she's spent years
learning to fight. These two things don't fit together well. You
could create a character which encompasses these contradictory traits,
but she would be complex, and this is a short and simple story, so I
think you want to minimize any contradictions in the characters. If
you keep the Internet stalker part of the plot, then I think the
mother needs to realize how innocent and unprepared her daughter is
for the world, or how many secrets she kept -- not that she's "hard"
and a great fighter.
If you can get all your elements to work with the ending, giving it
the power it needs, then I think this can be a strong and emotional
story. I really like some of your writing, including the description
of the hair on the daughter's forehead and the thoughts dancing "like
fish in her eyes," and you are developing a nice rhythm in your fight
scenes. I hope this is helpful.
--Jeanne Cavelos
Editor of THE MANY FACES OF VAN HELSING
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, 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 May nominations beginning June 1.
Meanwhile, here are two advance highlights from this month:
Reviewer: Barbara Gordon
Submission: Rider: A Novel, Ch. 18 by Kyri Freeman
Submitted by: Kyri Freeman
Nominator's Comments: This kind of clear summary of what the reviewer
sees is helpful because it communicates to the writer how the story's
structure is (or isn't, but happily is in this case) coming across.
The review was well-written (clear, understandable, balanced) and
touched upon all facets of the chapter. The review worked well as a
late chapter review because it focused on what was actually in the
chapter rather than speculating about previous events not seen by the
reviewer.
Reviewer: Mike Farrell
Submission: Choices by Deb Atwood
Submitted by: Deb Atwood
Nominator's Comments: Mike got what I was trying to say with the
story, including the reason I left the vampiric details so nebulous,
and came back with great suggestions on how to make it work. Thanks!!
Reviewers nominated to the honor roll during April include: Kathryn
Allen, Nancy Beck, Greg Byrne, Chris Coen, Susan Elizabeth Curnow,
Shad Fagerland (2), Michael Goodwind, Patty Jansen, Ranke Lidyek (2),
F.R.R. Mallory, Sharon Lee McGraw, Lawrence Payne (2), Rachel Swirsky,
Stelios Touchtidis, Don Traverso, Walter Williams, Dorothy Winsor, Tom
Woolery, Zvi Zaks
We congratulate them all for their excellent reviews. All nominations
received in April can be still found through May 31 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.
OWW Staff Accomplishments:
Resident Editor Kelly Link won not one but TWO Nebula Awards earlier
this month! The winners were her novella "Magic for Beginners" and her
novelette "The Faery Handbag." Wow!
OWW Member Sales and Publications:
Treize Aramistedian's story "The Sound of One-Hundred Bullets" was one
of three to win the J. Edward Meeker Prize for best fiction in the
freshman class at Yale. Treize writes, "It wasn't workshopped, but
everything that made that story good I learned from the wonderful
people at the OWW."
Hannah Bowen sold her short story "Leap," aka the bridgejumper story,
to _Say...?_
Aliette de Bodard sold her short story "Citadel of Cobras" to _The
Sword Review_. She says, "The OWW really has given me a boost
sales-wise. My thanks to you, Charlie, and the awesome team behind the
forum. For once I do have the crits file... As always, I am deeply
indebted to Linda Steele and Rochita Loenen-Ruiz for their thoughtful
crits of the story. My heartfelt thanks also to Mark Ward and Karen
Kobylarz."
We've heard that Amanda Downum sold "Snake Charmer" to _Realms of
Fantasy_. She blogged that "This was a They Fight Crime story, too.
He's a notorious voodoo assassin on the hunt for the last specimen of
a great and near-mythical creature. She's a mentally unstable
red-headed snake charmer with an evil twin sister. They fight crime!"
Chalk another one up to the Challenges.
Rose Fox sold her short story "Everlasting" to _Alleys and Doorways_.
Anna Kashina had two pieces of good news: "My flash story 'Dance
Lesson' was just accepted by _Flashquake_! I wanted to thank this
list, and OWW, for giving me the idea to even submit my flash fiction,
which I used to write merely for my own enjoyment and bury deep within
my hard drive afterwards. I am very excited. I also had my
workshopped story 'Priestess of the Dance' make the quarterfinals at
the Writers of the Future contest. Even though quarterfinal stories
don't get published, I am excited anyway. Thanks to all of you guys
for your support!"
Heidi Kneale has been selected to the children's books panel for this
year's Aurealis Awards.
Rochita Chie Loenen-Ruiz's flash fiction story "Mistress Vogel" is now
up on Byzarium (http://www.byzarium.com). She says, "I love this
painter and I'm so pleased this piece made it through their flash
fiction contest."
Jennifer Michaels' flash fiction story "The Scout" is in the
FLASHSHOT: YEAR TWO anthology. Jennifer explains, "For those of you
who don't know _Flashshot: Daily Genre Flash Fiction_
(http://www.gwthomas.org/flashshotindex.htm), it's a neat little
market that e-mails one flash story a day to its subscribers. Every
year they then reprint all the stories in an anthology. I've been
published in various online markets, and in one PDF anthology, but
this is my first story in print!"
Michael Nelson has his first woohoo! He told the mailing list: "I
submitted the rules to a game for Mike Resnick's new novel from Pyr,
STARSHIP: MUTINY, and it won second place. It'll be printed in the
Appendix as 'Toprench: The Second Best Game in the Galaxy.'"
John Schoffstall sold his short story "Bullet Dance" to _Asimov's_.
| - - WORKSHOP STATISTICS - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
Number of members as of 5/20: 624 paying, 54 trial
Number of submissions currently online: 438
Percent of submissions with 3 or more reviews: 77.85%
Percent of submissions with zero reviews: 3.42%
Average reviews per submission (all submissions): 5.38
Estimated average review word count (all submissions): 712.84
Number of submissions in April: 408
Number of reviews in April: 2010
Ratio of reviews/submissions in April: 4.93
Estimated average word count per review in April: 759.11
Number of submissions in May to 5/20: 170
Number of reviews in May to 5/20: 715
Ratio of reviews/submissions in May to 5/20: 4.21
Estimated average word count per review in May to 5/20: 813.46
Total number of under-reviewed submissions: 40 (9.8%)
Number over 3 days old with 0 reviews: 5
Number over 1 week old with under 2 reviews: 17
Number over 2 weeks old with under 3 reviews: 18
| - - FEEDBACK - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
BEYOND COMPETENT AND ACCOMPLISHED: A CALL TO ACTION FOR WORKSHOPPERS
In the past few months, it seems to me that there is a great deal of
competent work being posted to the Online Writing Workshop. This month
there was a handful of stories that could have been Editor's Choices,
and all of them are probably good enough, with minor revisions, to
sell to some of the second- or third-tier markets. Some of you will
sell -- or already have sold -- your work to _Asimov's_ or _F&SF_.
This is one of the largest workshops that I've ever been a part of,
and it works. I read the comments on stories, and, like any workshop,
there is good advice and bad advice and just plain weird advice being
given. Part of becoming a better writer is not only learning what to
take away from good advice, but what to take away (or figure out)
about bad advice or off-the-wall advice. The only kind of critique
that I worry about, in the long run, is the tendency of a workshop to
sand off all the interesting edges from a writer. Workshops frequently
reward writers of competent prose who can tell stories that are
smaller in scope and easy to understand. A group of writers will find
it easier to agree about certain kinds of stories -- the kind that
ought to sell to magazines, because we've all read exactly that kind
of story in magazines -- than about more ambitious stories. The more
ambitious or individual a story is, the argument goes, the fewer
readers that story will find. So play it safe: tone down the
interesting stuff.
The problem with this kind of advice is that there are a lot of
writers out there who can pull off an accomplished and enjoyable
story. (Like I said, I could have selected a whole handful of pretty
good stories this month.) So even though some of you are writing
stories that are good enough to be published, you're competing for
magazine space with writers who already have readers, and
relationships with editors. Your competent stories may not actually be
good enough to sell to the magazines that you would most like to be
in. So what do you do? You can make a career (and a name for yourself)
out of selling work to second- and third-tier magazines. But again,
there are a lot of pretty good writers out there. Even at a zine like
_Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet_, we have a backlog of two issues'
worth of short stories. We have more good work than we can publish. So
what can you do?
What I would like to see workshop members doing, now, is beginning to submit
more ambitious work. The only thing you have to offer an editor, and
readers, is you. Your voice. Stories and characters and narrative twists
that only you are strange enough to want to write. Take risks. Some of you
are in critique circles that have been going for quite some time. You know
each other well enough to have built trust. And it takes trust to show a
workshop the kind of ambitious work I'd like to see. Take chances. Write
stories whose characters and the endings surprise even you. After you've
written them, go back over them and make them even more surprising. And
don't think by "ambitious" I mean that the prose style has to be eccentric
(although it certainly can be). And read widely -- not just the new stuff,
and each other's work, but older work, too. I've been reading through the
collection PLATINUM POHL, and there are fantastic and alarming and wonderful
short stories in there. Are there some inside you?
--Kelly Link
Writer, publisher, and Nebula Award winner
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 2006 Online Writing Workshops - - - - - - - - - - - |
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