Tag: fiction

A Summer of Short Stories!

I went on hiatus from posting to the blog back in March. Now, summer’s at an end here in the Witch City, so it’s time to get back to blogging with a summer recap. For the past few months, my focus has been on short stories, both reading and writing them!

When Opportunity Knocks

This past February, I sat in on a Boskone panel discussion titled “Tough Love for New Writers.” Among other participants, award-winning editor Neil Clarke of Clarkesworld Magazine sat on the panel. Following the lively and informative discussion of the short story market, I ended up chatting with Mr. Clarke. What was involved in becoming a slush reader for your magazine, I asked? Shoot me an email, and I’ll give you the application link, he replied. I did, and he did, and I applied. To my great surprise, he offered me a spot as a reader!

And so, since early April, I’ve been reading slush submissions at Clarkesworld Magazine. The experience changed pretty much everything I’ve been doing between then and now.

A Crash Course in SFFH Short Fiction

Not that I don’t have any experience reading genre fiction. In fact, SFFH is pretty much all I read. It’s just that it had been almost 20 years since I’d read many SFFH short stories. Some A. S. Byatt, collection by Jeffrey Ford, the 2017 Year’s Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy. But that was about it. As such, I waded into reading slush last April feeling horrifically ignorant of the current market.

Eager to correct my deficit, I grabbed a subscription to Clarkesworld and started reading every short story that made the final cut. What better way to fine-tune my reading eye than to see what stories were being chosen each month for publication? It helped, but I wanted more.

And then the SFWA announced it was raising their pro-rates from $0.06/word to $0.08. Twitter exploded with debates, discussions, and pleas for financial support either through subscriptions or Patreon contributions. Editors from several of the top genre fiction magazines shared their thoughts, insights, frustrations, and hopes about the state of the industry, the pros and cons of the newly set pro rate, and the desperate need for more authentic financial support from readers. It became clear that my goals to self-educate aligned with industry goals to fund the new pay raise.

Required Reading for the New Slush Monkey

Here’s the list of short story magazines to which I now have a monthly subscription (in no particular order). I can confidently testify that each is a source of excellent fiction, and I urge every writer of short stories, both new writers and established writers, to invest in yourself as well as in the industry by grabbing subscriptions of your own. (Many of these magazines make the stories they publish available to read for free on their websites, but I wanted to be more than a freeloading parasite.)

Clarkesworld Magazine

Beneath Ceaseless Skies

Asimov’s Science Fiction

Nightmare Magazine

Lightspeed Magazine

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction

Uncanny Magazine

If that seems like a lot, it is. As for cost, those seven subscriptions tally up to about $30.00/month, a more than affordable expense now that I’ve stopped drinking diet coke every day. Skipping my daily stop at the vending machine seems a reasonable sacrifice to get access to tons of great fiction every month! And my money is supporting a better industry than, you know, the Berkshire Hathaway corporate beast.

Bonus! Nearly all of those magazines have weekly podcasts, too. My commute has never been so enjoyable!

Renewed Interest in Writing Short Stories

Of course, reading so many excellent SFFH short stories each month (as well as reading submissions for Clarkesworld) has rekindled my interest in writing short stories of my own. How could it have not done? When the school year ended, and summer began, I started writing and submitting my own work.

The thing about short fiction is this: in my opinion, it’s hard to do well. Not that writing a book isn’t also difficult. It’s just difficult in a different way. Long-form fiction has the luxury of room on the page for tangents and extra adjectives and perhaps even a few adverbs. Novelists can get away with stuff that writers of short fiction can’t. The writing in short stories has to be tight, crisp, clear, sharp.

Have you ever tried to sharpen a knife with a ceramic rod, gotten the blade to the point of being kind of sharp, and thought with a shrug, “Eh, that’s good enough?” Well, if you apply that analogy to writing short stories, kind of sharp isn’t going to make the cut. Authors of short fiction need to wield that ceramic rod with enough skill to get that blade obsidian sharp. And that’s no easy feat.

I spent the summer practicing my knife sharpening skills. Anyone who knows me won’t be surprised by that. Overwriting is my authorial Achilles heel. My fictional blade isn’t sharp, but it’s getting better. Reading outstanding short stories day in and day out helps. Writing and revising short stories day in and day out helps, too.

Next Steps?

I plan to keep reading slush and, for now, keep writing and submitting short stories. I’ve set aside my latest novel revisions. If all goes well, I will be able to take a wickedly sharp blade to the manuscript when I return to it later this winter.

Tell me, writers, what strategies do you use to keep your skills knife sharp?

Thanks for stopping by, and as always, happy writing to you.

September 14, 2019
Revision: Structuring (and re-structuring) Chapters

After three days of revision work, I’ve finally nailed down the right structure for a critical chapter in my current work in progress. It took a tremendous amount of learning-on-the-job-style thinking to get it to where it needed to be, but I’m feeling pretty good about what I’ve produced. Figure I’d capture some of my hindsight reflections here, because I think I learned a few important lessons.

Writing versus Revising

Step one is the first draft, always. Whether we’re talking poetry, flash fiction, short fiction, novellas, novels, there’s the moment when first there was nothing, and then there was something.

Wouldn’t it be incredible if we could get it right on the first try? Yeah, but we don’t. Nobody gets it right on the first draft. Revisions are unavoidable.

A few of the greats can get close to perfect on their first try. If you’ve read Stephen King’s memoir/craft book ON WRITING, you’ll remember that he only does a single pass on his first drafts to tidy them up. His revisions basically amount to copyedits. If you put yourself on the same skill level as Mr. King, I applaud you and am definitely curious to read some of your work. I, however, and I suspect the same is true for 99.9% of all writers, fall far short of that level of perfection on our first drafts.

Most of our first attempts need a lot of work before they’re doing what they need to do. You might be the type of writer who never looks back at what you’ve written until you type the words The End. Or, perhaps you pause to revise as you go. Regardless, everyone will have a first draft to deal with, and it will inevitably take multiple revision passes to get it right. The key is to see revision as an opportunity, not an ordeal. And, it helps to remember that this pass doesn’t have to be the last revision you do on your WIP.

First Draft

The chapter I just wrote is critical to the entire arc of my novel. It needs to pack a huge emotional punch. Readers should literally gasp as a metaplot is revealed. This is where readers get to see the engine under the hood of this beast, find out what’s really driving the characters to do all the awful things they’re doing to each other. The $h!t gets real, so to speak. My main character needs to be left winded and dizzy with the force of her revelation, and my readers need to as well.

But, I wasn’t thinking about any of that when I wrote the first draft of the chapter. I just new my main character needed to find out this big secret, and so that’s what I did. There are some craft elements that do share space in my brain as I’m writing through a first draft of a scene or chapter. For a peek at some of the things I am constantly considering, check out my post on Neuroscience that Hooks Readers. For the most part, though, it’s a pretty instinct-driven process.

It took an entire night’s sleep for me to realize there was a tremendous amount of bloat that needed to go. Too many “who cares” details and backstory slowing everything down. The chapter needed to be focused with laser beam intensity on revealing something new. On top of that, I’d left out important details that, if not added in, would create logic holes. Nothing dumps a reader out of a scene faster than a big “wait a minute” moment of skepticism.

First Revision

So yesterday, I went back to what I’d written, and I read through it with a few essential questions and reminders in my mind. What details were distracting my readers? What details needed to be added to keep readers as tightly connected to what was happening as possible? If something wasn’t helping to set the mood, contribute to foreshadowing, or build tension, it had to go.

It took me three solid hours to revise my first draft of chapter X and fix all the issues I’d identified. Three well-spent hours, if I do say so myself. I ended up with something much stronger than it had been.

That said, it took yet another night’s sleep to realize that I had an even bigger problem on my hands. I’d written a revelation chapter, and the revelation was huge. HUGE. It needed an appropriate build-up of tension and stress preceding it to have the TKO impact I was going for.

Unfortunately, I’d used only the first half of the chapter to generate tension, because I’d dropped the reveal in the middle of the narrative. The rest was all character reaction, or denouement. Whoops! That structure works for some chapters, but not for this one. This chapter needs to jack the tension and up the stakes right to the last possible moment. It needs to build readers’ anxiety and anticipation as much as possible.

Second Revision

This morning, I rewrote the second half of the chapter. I added more moments of interiority to help my readers see and feel the growing horror in my characters’ minds. I drew more attention to the meta-stakes, and I dropped the reveal where it would do the most emotional damage!

Yes!

Now I’m ready to move forward with this manuscript. I need to tweak the chapter that follows this one to make it a more effective reflection chapter. Emotionally charged, of course, but quiet in terms of plot. Readers will have a chance to catch their breath and process what they just found out. And, with the metaplot revealed and the stakes re-established, the characters have passed a point of no return. Now that the truth has been revealed, there can be no going back for anyone.

Isn’t writing fun?!

Craft Book Recommendations!

If you’re interested in craft books that discuss narrative structure intelligently and in a way that is directly useful, I have a couple of recommendations.

The first is MAKE A SCENE by Jordan E. Rosenfeld. I own this book. It is annotated cover to cover.

The second book I think all writers should own is REVISING FICTION by David Madden. It is (in my opinion) the best book in existence concerning revision work. A must-have reference. Sadly, it is out of print, so you’ll need to do a bit of searching to find a copy.

Well, that’s enough blogging for one day. Time to get back to revising. Thanks for stopping by, and happy writing to you.

How much thought do you give to the structure of your chapters as you either write or revise the first draft? Any tips or tricks to share with the rest of us? Feel free to share in the comments!

March 10, 2019
Book Review: The Martian by Andy Weir
Andy Weir’s The Martian was the hottest science fiction book to hit the shelves in 2014. There was a resurgence of interest in the novel when the film came out. I finally got around to reading it this summer. I’d heard many a great thing about it.

The Description from Goodreads

Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars.

Now, he’s sure he’ll be the first person to die there.

After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive—and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive.

Chances are, though, he won’t have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old “human error” are much more likely to kill him first.

But Mark isn’t ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills — and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit — he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?

My Opinion of The Martian? Meh.

Disclosure: I did not finish this book.

I got halfway through The Martian, almost to the page, and it wasn’t grabbing me. The main character, the crew, the folks back on earth–I didn’t feel invested in any of them. So, I evaluated reasons why and moved on.

Reading half the book gave me enough of a picture for this review, I think.

Andy Weir’s writing is solid from a nuts and bolts perspective. Nothing wrong with his craft, per say. Had I read to the end, it’s possible my opinion might have changed. Maybe The Martian morphed into something spectacular five pages away from where I stopped. Lots of folks love this book. Love with a big fat capitol “L”.

As an individual reader (n=1 for the scientists), I reached a point where I thought to myself, “Eh, I kind of don’t care anymore.”

And that’s telling.

Where the Book Failed Me:

1) Lack of Tension

There are two things everyone seems to gush about with this book: the “voice” and the science, and there was plenty of both, but neither were enough to keep me going.

By the halfway point of The Martian, I was looking around going, “So, I have a clear picture of the problem, but has anyone scene the story? It should have showed up by now. Should we call somebody?”

I mean, yes, there was an inciting incident and (I guess) some rising action, but here’s the thing. Rising action is not always synonymous with rising tension. Their relationship is closely correlative but not causal.

Tension is what attacks our brains. Tension hooks us into a story and makes us want to know what happens next. In The Martian, the MC–Mark Watney–faces one problem after another after another as he fights to survive on Mars. And yet I wasn’t chewing my fingernails worrying about the consequences.

I think I first heard of the storytelling concept of “Yes-but, No-and” from Mary Robinette Kowal during a discussion on the podcast Writing Excuses. The idea goes like this.
1. A character faces an obstacle to achieving their goals. I’ll apply it to this book. Mark Watney’s goal is surviving long enough to get rescued. The challenge is… there were a bazillion to choose from in this book.
2. Does the character overcome the challenge? If Andy Weir’s goal was to build tension, then…
3. If the answer is yes, it should take the form of Yes-but now Mark’s created another, bigger problem. Note bigger in that description, not different.
4. If the answer is no, it should take the form of No-and now Mark’s chances of surviving are less than before.
Andy Weir throws challenge after challenge at his main character, but he does so in a consistent “Yes-and” pattern. See the difference? Yes-and manifests like this: Mark Watney faces a problem that will kill him. He solves it. A different problem pops up that also might kill him. He solves it. Repeat. They aren’t building off one another, amplifying in magnitude. For all the science in The Martian, the story was (for me) kind of boring.

Quick aside: even for me–a science-loving, science-teaching, science geek–there was just too much science. IMO: It would have been a stronger story had Andy Weir cut out about half the step-by-step scientific explanations and replaced them with moments of emotional vulnerability on the part of the characters.

2) Emotional Disconnect with the MC

I love me some action, but you’ve gotta connect me to the character on an emotional level, and do so as quickly as possible, if you want to hook me into the story. Weir didn’t do that.

Weir chose to deliver the main character, Mark Watney, through a filter. In the form of log entries. When you read the book (and remember, I only read half of it, so this might not be true of the entire novel), you’re not seeing Mark, not even hearing him speak, certainly not hearing his thoughts. You’re reading what the character wrote in NASA log entries. Sort of like a semi-personal, but semi-official journal. For me, that threw up a hazmat-suit kind of barrier between me and the guy on the other side of the fictitious keyboard.

Now, this might be where people want to jump in and say, “Yes, but you’re wrong because the character is so snarky, and he swears a lot, and he makes jokes and stuff.”

Okay… but, did you ever find yourself tapping into Mark Watney’s panic? The absolutely agonizing, muscle-seizing, grays-your-vision-around-the-edges pain of his initial injury? The heart-exploding relief at getting back to the HAB after the first time he drove out of sight of it. Of the hollowing crush of loneliness he was caught by? Rage? Frustration? True, Hulk-smash frustration?

Yeah, he swore a lot and wrote flippant comments and cracked an Aquaman joke. Maybe a strong “voice” isn’t enough. It’s got to be welded to emotional interiority of the character. What few emotions we saw were… flat. I didn’t believe them.

Andy Weir was using a literary device. I get that. The emotional distance I felt might have been intentional. Maybe we don’t see much interiority because Mark Watney thought everything he wrote down was eventually going to be read and analyzed. He was holding back his deepest inner self. Wouldn’t blame him. Makes perfect sense.

I guess I’m not the type of reader who enjoys staying somewhat removed of characters’ emotions. There are literally hundreds of thousands of people who adored this book. Cheers to them, I say. For me, it missed the mark.

Biggest Takeaway?

Do not, fellow writers, trouble your minds with the worry, “What if this story I’m writing is no good?” Easier said than done, I know. This is, perhaps, the biggest darkest deepest shadow looming over all writers. But, I just read a book loved dearly by a LOT of people and I didn’t love it. You’re never going to please everyone, no matter how great a book you write.

Maybe there could have been a different strategy for writing The Martian that would have pulled me in more effectively. Not really for me to say, I suppose.

Let me reiterate, however, this was a DNF book for me, so… take my thoughts with a big grain of salt.

Curious about my other book reviews?

Click here to read my review of Mackenzie Lee’s YA historical romance, The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue.

In the meantime, thanks for stopping by. As always, happy writing (and reading) to you.
August 7, 2018
My Interview for Arthur McCabe’s Website!

My Very First “Writer” Interview!!

Over on the website Interviews from the Void, I had the honor of chatting with Arthur McCabe about a whole bunch of interesting writing stuff. It’s a sign of how inept I am at professional marketing and blogging that I only just thought today of mentioning this on my own site.

In any case, Arthur and I talked about the neuroscience of engaging fiction, how evolving communication technologies are or aren’t changing readers brains, and how I use neuroscience both when I write for and teach science to teens. The questions were thoughtful and I revealed a lot about myself, I think, in the interview.

If you’re interested, check it out.

Interviews from the Void: Episode 24 – Katherine Karch

August 5, 2018
My ReaderCon 2018 Experience (Part 2)

This year’s ReaderCon event was so huge and so fabulous that I couldn’t fit it all into one post, so here’s the rest of my incredible experience. Click here to read about the first two days of fun.

Recap of Saturday’s Fun:

I kicked off Saturday with a delightful Kaffeeklatsch hosted by Victoria Janssen, a skilled writer of erotic fiction. If that strikes you as an odd choice on my part, given that my focus is on writing YA and MG stories, check my part 1 post for the explanation. It was a great conversation that ran the gamut of topics from industry trends to work-life balance. During this Klatsch, I met Sam Schreiber, whom I re-met later the same day. More on that in a bit.

I rushed from Victoria’s kaffeeklatsch to Susan Jane Bigelow’s workshop.

World Building Governments

Maybe they didn’t expect many people to attend it? They put her in one of the smaller Salons in the hotel room. Big mistake. By the time I arrived at 9:04, every seat was filled, and folks were beginning to sit on the floor, myself included. No way was I going to miss Susan’s workshop.

I’m fascinated by government systems as portrayed in fiction. And, since my current project is all about the upheaval of an existing government system, I thought it would be good to sharpen my world building tools.
Also, I saw Susan for the first time at Boskone in February. She participated in a panel called “Governmental Structures in SFF” that was outstanding. I wrote a summary of the discussion here.

I don’t know if Susan was inspired to create this workshop from the Boskone panel discussion or not, but she gave an epic workshop. She made all of her slideshow available on her website, too. Check it out.

Topics discussed:

What governments do.
What forms governments can take.
How governments go bad.
Current government structures with examples from the US, Iran, and Italy.
Historical government structures with examples from medieval Europe and China.
Questions an author should ask/answer when creating a fantasy or science fiction government.

Great, right? Yeah, it was.

After we gave her a standing ovation, I rushed off for my noon kaffeeklatsch with Navah Wolfe, which I wrote about previously. She gushed over Catherynne Valente’s new novel Space Opera.

Serendipitously, I was working my way through The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy of 2017 Collection, edited by John Joseph Adams and Charles Yu. I had picked it up during my final residency for my MFA in creative writing program at Lesley University at the end of June. Catherynne has a story in the collection called The Future is Blue. I hadn’t yet read it when this Klatsch happened, but I’ve read it since then, and Odin it was so good! Space Opera is now on my TBR list.

The rest of my Saturday at ReaderCon was a whirlwind of panel discussions, followed by an awkward encounter at the hotel bar with a man who unintentionally offended me multiple times as he tried to chat me up while I ate dinner. Thank Thor, Sam Schreiber turned up and gave me a reason to extricate myself from a bad conversation for a much, MUCH better one. Sam is a member of the Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Group, and he helps produce the podcast Kaleidocast.

I just listened to the first episode of season two, by the way. The story, “Playing Nice with God’s Bowling Ball” by N. K. Jemisin, was quite enjoyable, and the woman who narrated the story, Tatiana Grey, did an excellent job.

Shameless plug, Sam (if you happen to read this), I would love to narrate a story for you fine folks.

I discovered the existence of the Boston Speculative Fiction Writers Group pretty much accidentally while at ReaderCon. Had Sam not mentioned it in passing during our conversation at the hotel bar, I might never have stumbled upon its existence. This was after I used him to extricate myself from a very uncomfortable conversation with some Rando who was making me very nervous.

Quick tangent…

The hotel restaurant was packed on Saturday night, so I asked to be seated at the bar for dinner since there were actual seats available there. They put me next to an older gentleman who was also eating dinner at the bar. I ordered my food, got my food, ate my food, and then decided that it might be fun to try my hand at “Barconning,” so I ordered a beer and sat, hoping to see someone I had already spoken to earlier so I could say hello and try to have a conversation with him or her.

Long story short, that was when the man sitting beside me, who was not part of the convention, proceeded to tell me that he’d like to beat the $h!7 out a fellow standing at a nearby table for laughing too loud.

Reg flags up, warning bells ringing, iceberg dead ahead. Course correction needed five minutes ago.

Then, he asked what the convention was about and I told him.

The man with the violent tendencies and hair trigger then said, “I always wanted to write a book because I’m a pretty good writer, and I bought this house once to renovate it but when I went inside of it, it had this feeling like it was possessed, like not just haunted, you know, but possessed by evil, like that Amityville house, you know what I mean, with the walls just and voices screaming at me to just, just get out, get out, get out like it was pure evil. That would make a pretty good book, right?”

The side of this boat has been torn off, folks. Evacuate if you can.

That’s when I saw the guy from Victoria Janssen’s kaffeeklatsch. What was his name? Loki, why am I so terrible with names? Sam! His name is Sam! Okay, be cool. Keep the fear and desperation out of your voice.

“Oh, hi there! You’re Sam, right? You were in Victoria’s Kaffeeklatsch with me.”

Sam’s smile was as glorious a sight as a life raft to a drowning victim.

I jumped ship and did so without a shred of guilt.

End of Tangent

On Sam’s suggestion, I skipped the Comedy Show happening at 9 PM in the ballroom and instead scoped out the Boston Speculative Fiction Writers Group, where I had a great conversation with author Elaine Isaak. [I later learned that the party was hosted not by the writing group but by the related Speculative Boston Readers Series Group. Not entirely the same thing.]

Elaine Isaak, at Arisia in 2013

She’s a member of BSFG, and I’d seen her on a few panels at Boskone. It was great to see her again and talk to her in a smaller, more informal setting. She told me about another organization, Broad Universe, and invited me to check it out. I did, and I’ll be joining the latter group while wishing the former group was open to new members.

At around 10:30 PM, I finally made it up to the eighth floor, where the ReaderCon Suite resided. All weekend long, folks had been mentioning the ConSuite up on the eighth floor. I had envisioned it as a secret VIP room for the chosen few where high powered con-goers sat around schmoozing with one another high above the lowly commoners (like me). A ridiculous notion, I know, but I’m still new to the world of book and writing conventions. Cut me some slack.

Sam Schreiber was the one who got me to swallow my misguided fears and get into the elevator. Turns out, it really was just a place to hang out, eat free food, drink free beverages, and chat with entirely ordinary people! I had a long conversation with a book dealer who woke me up to the existence of CanLit (Canadian Literature). We also discussed Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung, and Plato. Peter, from Ontario, it was a pleasure debating the philosophy of myth and religion with you, sir.

I called it a night at 12:30 AM, an obnoxiously late hour for me.

Sunday:

Second Name Drop

See?! It’s me and Chip!

Ready for this?! I ate breakfast with Samuel Delany. Can you freaking believe it?

Despite getting to bed at a ridiculously late hour (for me), I got down to the restaurant at 7:30 AM for breakfast. Just in time for the rush, apparently. The guy standing in line ahead of me shifted, and I noticed he was wearing a ReaderCon badge (on a lanyard, so I had to stare at his belly to read his name and hope he didn’t notice and take offense).

Samuel Delany? Oh Sugar Honey Iced Tea, I must talk to this man. I must open my mouth and stammer out a hello to this giant in the sci-fi literature world. Be cool. Be cool. Just say hello. That’s all you have to do.

“Hi, are you Sam Delany?”

What a nice guy. Just as open and friendly as Ken Schneyer had been on Friday. After a few minutes of talking about the convention and the panels, the waitress said she was ready to seat him. He turned and asked if I would like to share a table with him because he was all by himself–his spouse, Dennis, had elected to sleep late. Gee, um, let me think. Okay!

So I got to spend Sunday morning chatting with Samuel Delany about his career, his process, his love of genre fiction, his love of ReaderCon, and other random stuff over eggs and bacon and oatmeal. He even let me snap a selfie of the two of us together, because who would believe me that I’d had breakfast with him unless I obtained photographic evidence?

After breakfast, Sam and I walked together to his and my first panel of the day:

Curses, World Building Through Explitives

It was, of course, a highly entertaining and thought-provoking hour. In hindsight, I wish Catherynne Valente and Scott Lynch had been on the panel, as they both make lovely use of expletives as world building tools in their writing. Still, Francesca Forrest, Sarah Smith, Vinnie Tesla, Yves Meynard, and Sam had the audience laughing and scribbling notes like crazy.

They talked about the fine art of inventing curse words. Vinnie brought up the standard technique of blending “high” and “low” into a contrasting and therefore ironic and insulting combination (“holy shit,” for example). Sam mad the excellent point that the preferred pejoratives a culture uses tell a lot about systems of power and dominance in a fictional world. A culture that tosses around “bitch,” “slut,” and “cunt” is probably patriarchal. Curses that invoke a world’s religion(s) or god(s) will always be blasphemous, and Yves Meynard brought up the use of swears that denigrate certain professions or geographies as excellent and quick ways to tell readers who the underclass are in a world.

Bloody great stuff, am I right?

Then, it was off to the next discussion:

Crime and Punishment Panel

The panelists were Josh Jasper, Scott Lynch, Tamara Vardomskaya, and Chris Gerwel.

The discussion kicked off by identifying familiar “criminal” archetypes in fantasy and science fiction. Rogues, thieves, burglars, tricksters are the big four.

The nature or purpose of incarceration both in life and in fiction generated lots of questions and comments from the audience. Is the primary purpose of imprisonment to punish the individual or to send a message to the broader populace? Or is it a tool to rehabilitate, and if so, who decides what constitutes “rehabilitated?”

The discussion was fascinating and unsettling all at the same time.

Final Panel of My ReaderCon Experience: How Horror Stories End

This was the panel I’d been most looking forward to all weekend.

Horror is my favorite genre. It lives and breathes deep in my psyche. In the second grade, I filled a notebook with short stories, all of them involving bloody deaths and vicious murders and witches eating babies for breakfast. All accompanied by my own gory illustrations in bright Crayola colors. It’s a wonder I didn’t end up meeting regularly with the school psychiatrist.

Anyway, I love horror stories, so this was my panel for ReaderCon. It was hosted by Nicholas Kaufmann, Jess Nevins, Elsa Sjunneson-Henry, Ellen Datlow, and Jack Langen.

Nick opened things up by asking the question: Can a horror story have a happy ending?

Short answer, no. Not really.

Characters can survive. They can even defeat the enemy and save the day, but it still isn’t a happy ending because said characters have been forever changed (probably damaged) by their ordeal.

The discussion then shifted to the concept of definitive versus ambiguous endings in horror novels. Ellen Datlow professed that ambiguous endings get tiresome. She likes a story that ties up all the loose ends. [Correction: Ellen did not actually say that. That was my (mis)interpretation. Rather, she said that reading too many stories with ambiguous endings gets tiresome, and there seem to be many of them, so the stories with definitive endings are a welcome break from that. That’s not a direct quote either, but I think I’m correctly capturing the spirit of her words.] Other panelists tried to come up with concrete examples of horror stories that do that. The Haunting of Hill House was mentioned as a horror story with a concrete ending. I suppose it is for the characters, but (and I applaud Yves for pointing this out) it still contains a level of ambiguity because Hill House survives. It continues to exist, so the potential for future horrors remains. I thought of Stephen King’s first novel, Carrie. The ending is definitive for the characters, but King tacked on a “letter” at the end of the book that left the door of ambiguity open.

Panelists and audience members alike tossed out example after example, each with an ending that seemed to contain both definitive and ambiguous notes. Given that the human psyche wants neat endings, wants things wrapped up and resolved, wants problems solved. Ambiguity is inherently horrifying to us.

In my opinion, the only successful use of a genuinely definitive ending in a horror story would involve the heroes losing and the villains winning. I’m thinking of a recent superhero film that shall not be directly named, to half-heartedly dodge spoiling it for folks who haven’t yet seen it. Pretty unambiguous but definitely horrifying.

It was a great panel!

And Then I Went Home

By the end of “How Horror Stories End,” I was well and truly done. Fatigue slammed into me like a wrecking ball loosed from its chain. I might have actually staggered. I checked out of my room, quickly and without difficulty, caught the shuttle to the Redline, the Redline to North Station. So as not to miss my stop should I fall asleep, I set an alarm on my watch. Thank Thor for a bit of foresight, because I did indeed tumble into the land of Nod shortly after the train started moving. An hour later, I was home. It took me a week to recover from four days of high-octane interactions and very little sleep, but it was worth it!

So, that was my adventure at ReaderCon 2018. It took two ridiculously long posts to cover all the fun, I know, but I gotta say, I had an incredible time. If you’re a fan of science fiction and fantasy stories, you have to get to ReaderCon. You won’t be disappointed.

Except, maybe, by the lack of towel hooks.

Thanks for dropping by and as always, happy writing to you.

July 24, 2018
Writing That Hooks Readers – Neuroscience Hack #1
The final requirement for my Masters in Creative Writing program at Lesley University is to teach a graduate student seminar, and I’ve chosen a topic that merges my two great passions in life: biology and writing. More specifically, neuroscience and literature. I’m going to drop a little science on my fellow writers next week by teaching them three inescapable brain hacks they can employ to suck readers into their stories.

It occurred to me that these neuroscience hacks would make some cool blog posts. Today’s neuroscience hack is subtle but incredibly useful.

Brain Hack #1: The human brain evolved to monitor the immediate environment for signs of change.

It’s true! From an evolutionary standpoint, the brain is an organ with a singular purpose. To keep us alive. An essential part of “not dying” is noticing any kind of change to the current situation.

Change grabs our attention as we assess whether it is positive or negative. The brain then forms a “survival goal” based on the conclusion and takes steps to achieve that goal. It could be as simple as putting on a sweater when the temperature drops. Or eating food when blood glucose levels fall. Or running for cover when a strange shadow shifts position in the tall grasses of the African savannah.

Changes such as a hulking figure with a knife stepping from a shadowy alley come with potentially extreme consequences. Experiencing that situation firsthand could mean death. Thankfully, our brains developed workarounds that let us gain knowledge and experience safely.

We have the somewhat unique ability to learn by watching others deal with problems.

Forget it, babe. You’re hooked!

Whether the observed individual lives or dies, we gain knowledge that might keep us alive should we encounter a similar problem.

When we read fictional stories, we get to practice identifying changes and assessing their potential positives or negatives.

In 2007, researchers found that when people read stories, there is a significant increase in brain activity during narrative moments containing changes in characters, scene locations, or changes in characters’ goals.

Changes that Really Light Brains Up:
- Words that suggest the passage of time, such as later, soon, shortly, or immediately.
- Descriptions of spacial changes, such as characters moving from one room to another, or even moving from one side of a room to another.
- Descriptions of characters changing their interaction with objects (picking up or putting down objects, or opening or closing things like doors or windows).
- Showing characters starting a new, goal-oriented action with a clear intent. For example, initiating a conversation, preparing to jump over a puddle, or thrusting a sword during a fight.
Consider the following excerpt from Cressida Cowell’s middle grade novel How to Train Your Dragon:

The Dragon had crawled down into the depths of the ocean and gone into a Sleep Coma. Dragons can stay in this suspended state for eternity, half-dead, half-alive, buried under fathom after fathom of icy-cold seawater. Not a muscle of this particular Dragon had moved for six or seven centuries.

But the previous week, a Killer Whale who had chased some seals unexpectedly deep was surprised to notice a slight movement in the upper eyelid of the dragon’s right eye. An ancestral memory stirred in the whale’s brain and he swam away from there as fast as his fins could carry him. And, a week later, the sea around the Dragon Mountain—which had previously been teeming with crabs and lobsters and shoals and shoals of fish—was a great, underwater desert. Not a mollusk stirred, not a scallop shimmied.

Admit it, that’s some engaging writing. One of the reasons why it pulls you in so fast is because it contains so much change. Your brain locks onto the text as it tries to figure out whether those changes are good or bad. Cowell employs another interesting neuroscience hack in this excerpt, too, but that’s a topic for another post.

Regardless of the quality of the actual story being told (Twilight? The Da Vince Code? Fifty Shades of Gray?), certain tricks can grab readers by the brain and engage them. Change is one of them. Take a look at your writing and see if adding a few elements of change livens things up a bit.

Have you ever gotten so into a book you were reading that you lost track of time and literally forgot about the real world? What was the book, and what was it that sucked you in so effectively?

Thanks for stopping by, and as always, happy writing to you!
June 21, 2018
ReaderCon29, Here I Come!

As John Arnold said in Jurassic Park right before everything went south, “Hold onto your butts.”

I just booked my hotel room for ReaderCon29. Who’s excited? Meeeee!

ReaderCon29 will be the second writing conference I’ve ever attended, and my very first conference–Boskone–was fun but underutilized. I spent most of my time star-struck, tongue glued to the roof of my mouth, unable to approach authors and talk to them. So many missed opportunities. You can read all about my (mis)adventures at Boskone here.

For example, while I managed to get a copy of Ghost Talkers signed by Mary Robinette Kowal, I could not bring myself to join the circle of fans surrounding her at the art show and tell her how much I enjoyed her writing (not to mention her commentary and sass on the writing podcast “Writing Excuses.”)

Then there was Marshall Ryan Maresca and E. J. Stevens, both of whom (if they noticed me) probably got utterly skeeved out by the weird blonde woman stalking them from a distance all weekend long. Sorry about that, by the way, if either of them by some slim chance ever read this post. Didn’t mean to be a creeper. I just got so fetching shy! It wasn’t just you two. I couldn’t talk to anyone!

Not this time, I am telling myself without much confidence. This time, I will have done it once before. I won’t be a complete newb. I will be able to approach and interact with other people at the conference because I will remember that it is a writing conference. Everyone in attendance will have a love of books and writing in common with me. I will smile, just like last time, but then I will make my feet move, and I will approach people, and I will say “hello” and other normal things. I will not go mute and resort to hiding behind giant plants in lobbies and watching authors from great distances.

Jeffrey Ford is going to be there, though, so I might. The man is an incredible writer. Have you read his short story collection, A Natural History of Hell? Sooooo good!

Anyway, ReaderCon has been on my radar since last summer, when my Fantasy & Science Fiction professor, Mark Edwards, suggested I attend. He described it as the most prominent annual writing convention in Massachusetts. A “not to be missed” event.

I missed it.

But, I vowed to get there this summer. Registered way back in February, even. I mean, I have no excuses to miss it a second time. The cost to attend is incredibly affordable, and it takes place in Quincy, Massachusetts. That’s an hour and a half from where I live, for Thor’s sake. This morning, I went all in on the experience and ponied up the funds to secure a hotel room. Now getting to and from each day won’t be an issue.

I am ready to rock this conference. Okay, not really. I definitely need some pointers, guidance, encouragement, etc.

Here’s my plea:

If you’re also going to ReaderCon, help me overcome the paralytic shyness that grabbed me by the throat at Boskone55 and say hello. Connect with me over on Twitter and Instagram, so that by the time July rolls around, I will (at least in a theoretical, social media sort of way) already know a few folks. How awesome would that be?!

If you’re a seasoned writing conference attendee, what tips do you have for me that will help me make the most of ReaderCon29?

As always, thanks for stopping by, and happy writing to you.

June 11, 2018
Great YA Fiction: The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue

The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I bought this brilliant piece of YA fiction on a whim, and I’m so glad I did. 4.5 stars!!

Mackenzi Lee might now just be near the top of my favorite writers. This excellent piece of YA fiction is filled with wonderful characters you can get behind, hauntingly beautiful language, all topped off with social themes that YA readers are hungry to explore.

Lee told the story in first person present tense, a particularly difficult POV and tense combination to do well. I’ve read many a story written in this POV that felt far too whiny and self-absorbed. Considering how self-absorbed Lee’s main character-Monty-is, I’m amazed that this book didn’t feel that way. Lee found the perfect balance between interior monologue and external action, and she contextualized Monty’s moments of angst perfectly.

She did a great job of capturing the diction of the time period in which the story takes place, as well as the language used by highborn families. I can imagine some might fall prey to overwriting or writing that felt like it was trying too hard. Not so here. Lee’s descriptions are lyrical and develop the setting as much as the characters.

For example:

“Versailles is a delirious fantasy of a place. We cross through a card room and into the mirrored hall where the king receives his court, every surface not covered with a looking-glass gilded in gold or frescoed in jewel tones. Wax drips in hot, sticky threads from the chandeliers. The light is pyrite, with snowflakes of color refracted through the crystals splattering the walls. The party spills into the gardens, the air hot and hazy with pollen rising from the flowers in golden bursts when they’re brushed. Hedges line the walks, carved into a menagerie of shapes, roses bursting between them. The stars are stifled by the furious light from the palace, and the candelabra lining the stairs are reflected like glittering coins against the bright silk everyone is wearing.”

Through the misadventures of Monty, Percy, and Felicity, Lee crafted a brilliant piece of YA fiction that explored abuse, sexuality, race, and gender. It could have become didactic, but it didn’t. It was wonderful. The main character was, on the surface, an unlikeable fellow. Narcissistic, emotionally stunted, an alcoholic, whiny, and frankly rather useless. All that said, however, Lee made me like him. She made me root for him. I’ve encountered so many whiny, self-absorbed protagonists in YA fiction that just made me roll my eyes and move on to reading something else. Not so with Monty. Every cringe-worthy moment only made me love him more.

The world Lee painted and the events of the tale, even the fantastical elements, seemed authentic and real. No doubt, that’s due to the vast amount of research that Lee did in preparation for writing the book. There is a delightful bonus at the end of the novel in which she discusses some of that research.

I have but one minor gripe. The “I must be misreading the overtly sexual/romantic signals” thing dragged on between two characters to the point of feeling unrealistic. Especially, after said two characters made out at the opera at the beginning of the book. They were all over each other, and then the MC spent most of the rest of the book telling himself that the other person couldn’t possibly have romantic feelings for him. I think Lee was trying to generate teen angst, but it didn’t ring true to me. That was a small issue, however. Not enough to spoil the book.

I 100% recommend this novel, and I cannot wait to read its sequel: The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy, which tracks the continuing adventures of Monty’s headstrong, medicine-minded sister, Felicity.

Have you read any novels by Mackenzi Lee? What do you like most about her writing? Which of hers is your favorite book?

View all my reviews

March 29, 2018
Book Review: Thunderhead by Neal Schusterman

Thunderhead by Neal Shusterman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

How did I not already write a review for this fantastic sequel to Scythe?! Well, here we go:

I would argue that Thunderhead was an even better book than the first book in this series, and that’s a rare thing to find in the world of trilogies. Fast paced, high-stakes, multiple plot threads and character arcs, and an ending that left me reeling and wanting more!

A hard copy of Thunderhead is selling on Amazon for $15.00 right now. Not bad. If you’re not into buying from Amazon, it’s available through ten other sellers. Check out the Goodreads page for a listing.

I digress.

Thunderhead picks up several months after the point where Scythe ends. There are many elements of this book that Schusterman did fantastically well. I’ll start with the thing I found most impressive: his handling of a difficult POV. The chapters tend to jump from character to character, so it’s easy to think that the book is written in limited serial third person, but it isn’t. It’s actually written using an omniscient POV, with the POV emphasis placed on a different character in each chapter. He did a brilliant job with this.

The characters really started to come into their own in this book. That’s something else Schusterman does well. Not that the characterizations were lacking in Scythe. It’s just that in this book, both Citra (now more Scythe Anastasia) and Rowan Damisch are developed in a more multifaceted manner. Also, the new character, Grayson, was a welcome addition to the cast. His story exposed readers to a whole other aspect of the world previously unexplored. Speaking of previously unexplored, several supporting characters from Scythe get a lot of time on the page.

I must admit, I’m struggling to get into the main villain of this series.

SPOILER TO FOLLOW!!

Stop reading here if you don’t want any of the plot elements revealed before you go and read this excellent book.

Goddard is brought back as the main villain, despite having been decapitated at the end of the last book. This felt like a cheap trick to me. Like something you might expect of a cheesy daytime soap opera. I have to wonder if that was Schusterman’s plan from the outset. Or, did he think of it later and architect an explanation to let it work. It feels like the latter, because he failed to drop any hints at the end of Scythe that maybe Goddard and some of his crew weren’t quite as deceased as everyone thought. Had he dropped that hint, I would have willingly gone along with this storyline. As it stands, it felt too forced.

The Thunderhead becomes an active character in this book (hence the title). All I have to say about this benevolent overseer is this: ripe for a psychotic break. We shall see.

I can’t remember the last time an ending to a book left me so breathless and excited. I highly recommend Thunderhead, and I can’t wait for the next book in the series. There is a major plot development that has yet to be explored. What shall Rowan and Scythe Faraday find when they visit the Land of Nod?

View all my reviews over on Goodreads.

March 18, 2018
Rapid Fire Book Tag

I saw this book tag on K.L.M. Moore’s site and thought it was pretty cool, so here goes:

1. Ebook or physical books?

Physical book. I do own a Kindle paper white, and I have quite a few ebooks loaded onto it, but my brain does a much better job processing, synthesizing, and remembering information when I read from a physical book than a digital screen.

2. Paperback or hardback?

Day-to-day reading would be paperback. However, if I love a book, like really love a book, I’ll seek out and purchase a hardcover edition. For example, I own not one but three copies of the Hobbit and LOTR, and one of my sets is a gorgeous illustrated hardcover edition. Same with Cressida Cowell’s How to Train Your Dragon series. My children and I have all read that series multiple times over.

3. Online or in-store book shopping?

There is something magical about a bookstore for me. I get a little giddy when I enter one, so I prefer in-store shopping. More specifically, I try to get my books through a small, local, independent bookseller.

4. Trilogies or series?

Hmmm… this is a tough one. I do love a good series, but not because it’s a series. The characters must be awesome and the world has to be awesome. I think I might actually prefer stand alone books the most.

5. Heroes or villains?

Villains, all the way. No question. Antiheroes, too. Not that a hero can’t be great. (I love you, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III).

6. A book you want everyone to read?

A Darker Shade of Magic by Victoria Schwab. Just go read it. You’ll understand why.

7. Recommend an underrated book?

Wonderbook by Jeff VanderMeer. One of the most amazing craft books I’ve encountered. Even if your preferred genres aren’t fantasy or science fiction, this book is worth a look-see.

8. The last book you finished?

The Last Star by Rick Yancey. This is a bit of a fib. I’m aiming to finish it up tonight. I’ve got about 30 pages left to go.

9. The last book you bought?

In print: The Scar (Bas-Lag) by China Miéville. Audiobook: How to Train Your Dragon, Book 11 (David Tennant narrates these books. Enough said.)

10. Weirdest thing you’ve ever used as a bookmark?

A parking ticket.

11. Used books: yes or no?

Gods, yes! I live for the Salem book swap!!

12. Three favourite genres?

Young Adult (though I struggle with calling it a full-on genre), Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror.

13. Borrow or buy?

Both! My house isn’t large enough to hold all the books I’d love to own. I’m a true-blue bibliophile. My dream home contains a library that would rival Alexandria’s. But, given space constraints, I’m a regular patron of my local library.

14. Characters or plot?

Honestly, both. I’ll admit that I enjoyed Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code despite the paper-thin characters. I also liked Matthew Pearl’s The Dante Club.  That said, if I had to pick one over the other, it would be characters. I fell in love with Stephen King’s work for his characters, not his plots. I’ll stick with fascinating characters through a mediocre plot. To stay with mediocre characters, the plot has to be highly entertaining, and that doesn’t happen all that often for me.

15. Long or short books?

Short. I’m a very slow reader.

16. Long or short chapters?

I honestly don’t think I have a preference, as long as the chapter lengths are working for the story I’m reading.

17. Name the first 3 books you think of.

This question should have come earlier in this list. I’ve biased my response by listing all those others above.

18. Books that made you laugh or cry?

Bridge to Terabithia was the first book that made me sob. I cry every time Gandalf falls to the Balrog. I laugh my way through The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy every time I read it.

19. Our world or fictional worlds?

I’m not yet convinced there’s a difference. Currently, however, fictional worlds.

20. Audiobooks; yes or no?

Is this even a question? Yes!

21. Do you ever judge a book by it’s cover?

All the time. Sorry.

22. Book to movie or TV adaptations?

With a few notable exceptions, please, no.

23. Movie/TV show you preferred to its book?

*snorts derisively* Yeah, right.

24. Series or stand-alones?

Stand-alones, though that doesn’t mean I don’t read series, too.

Well, now you know a bit more about me. Your turn!

November 9, 2017