Think

This post, by Timmi Duchamp, originally appeared on the Ambling Along the Aqueduct blog on 11/30/12.

A couple of days ago, Jonathan McCalmont posted Annoyed with the History of Science Fiction to his blog. "Annoyed" notifies us, from the top, that it’s to be read as a rant rather than a sampling of his thoughts on the subject of the history of science fiction. Fair enough. The title also– unintentionally, perhaps– conflates some hypostasized notion of all the existing histories of science fiction distilled into a single "history" with what non-academics usually mean by the word "history" (viz., the past, which inevitably becomes singularly dicey when treated as a conceptual entity). By "history," McCalmont, I believe, means the former. Rants can be interesting and useful, though, and "Annoyed" is both.

It seems a piece by Gary Westfahl provoked McCalmont by making the sort of generalization that seems always to be with us in the sf/f sphere: "the works of Robert A. Heinlein are still occupying a considerable amount of shelf space, and the evidence of his broad impact on the genre is undeniable." McCalmont explains his annoyance thus: "The reason I am singling out Westfahl’s essay is that it illustrates the field’s lamentable tendency to allow these types of broad historical claims to go completely unchallenged and unsupported." So far so good. But when he says 

I believe that the historical approach to science fiction lacks the critical apparatus required to support the sweeping claims made by people who use this approach. Far from being a rigorous analysis of historical fact, the historical approach to genre writing is all too often little more than a hotbed of empty phrases, unexamined assumptions and received wisdom.

Here, I have a bit of trouble with McCalmont’s own generalization. Yes, I see what he calls "the historical approach" used by some academics and many non-academics in the field all the time, but unlike McCalmont, I assume they’re doing so because they’ve chosen to ignore the variety of attempts quite a few smart academic critics have lately made (and continue to make) to grapple with the ungainly, difficult-to-grasp subject without falling into pitfalls Samuel R. Delany has often and effectively excoriated (and which McCalmont duly alludes to). A science fiction work’s closeness to the culture and politics of its time means that any history necessarily has to take shifts in culture and politics (and scientific practice as well as science!) into account. There are scholars in the field attempting to do that– taking a variety of approaches that try their damnedest to eschew generalizations like the one McCalmont cites about Heinlein’s influence.

Now let me get on to the interesting and useful parts of McCalmont’s post. He takes John Berger’s excellent Ways of Seeing and David Bordwell’s On the History of Film Style as examples of approaches to an aesthetic field’s history (art history and film history, respectively) that is illuminating rather than stultifying. Bordwell, McCalmont tells us, pays special attention to the impact certain film techniques (particularly "deep focus," "long take" and "dynamic editing") had on film-making and how we watch films. I think McCalmont gets to something important when he writes:

Read the rest of the post on Ambling Along the Aqueduct.

[Publetariat Editor’s Note: strong language]

You’ve heard it before, I’m sure – you have to keep swimming. That’s true for the actual act of writing in the first place. No matter how hard it is, you just keep going. To quote the erstwhile Chuck Wendig, “I will finish the shit I start.” And then, to explain why, we’ll quote the incomparable Angela Slatter: “You can edit shit, but you can’t edit nothing.”

Notice how shit features in both those quotes? Subconscious, I’m sure, but it helps to make the point. Nothing is shiny first time around. In writing, you really can polish a turd, if you keep at it, make the necessary changes, listen to critique and so on. But you have to have a turd to start with, and that means working hard, writing, writing, writing, essentially, keep pushing until you’ve squeezed one out. And then start polishing.

But I think it’s time we moved away from the crappy analogies. Sorry, it seems I can’t help myself.

Let’s assume you did get the thing finished, be it novel or short story or whatever. Then you started polishing. You edited, tweaked and buffed till it was perfect. Then you sent it out to your critiquing friends and beta readers, and those bastards pointed out all the imperfections. So you listened, because you’re smart like that. And you polished again and again. Eventually, it really was about as good as you could make it. So you submitted it to your favourite market.

And it got rejected.

“Fuck ‘em!” you cry, and send it somewhere else. Their loss if they can’t recognise your genius, right?

Yes, to a degree. Because no matter how good a story is, it might not be right for that publisher’s catalogue, that editor’s taste, that publication’s readership and so on. You have to have a good story – that, above and beyond everything else, is a pre-requisite – but you also have to find the right home. And that’s as much luck and determination as it is smart planning and skill. Of course, if you send your werewolf story to a soft porn magazine it’s not going to sell. Are you laughing? Cos that happened to me.

To be fair, it wasn’t really my fault. When I was moving to Australia permanently, I asked an Australian friend what magazines out here might be good for fiction. I thought I’d start submitting, see if I could get a bit of Aussie publication going before I got here permanently. He said to me, “Picture Magazine publishes fiction, give them a go.” And he sent me the submission address. Old-school post back in those days. Of course, he was winding me up, but I didn’t know that Picture Magazine was a soft-core porn publication. I sent them a story about a werewolf detective. I got a letter back. It said, “This is a beaut yarn, mate, but really not the sort of thing we publish. Thanks anyway.” That’s because the fiction they usually publish is a reader’s-wives/confessions-of-a-randy-plumber type of thing. I didn’t know this before I submitted or when I got the rejection.

When I got to Australia I looked into it. I laughed. Then I went and kicked my mate in the nards for being such a douchebag. Then we both laughed about it. True story. Anyway, write good shit and know your market, is the core of what I’m saying here.

After that, it becomes all about determination. I write this post now because I was recently reminded of the importance of determination by a friend of mine. Ian McHugh is a bloody brilliant short fiction writer. He’s sold stories to such pro markets as Clarkesworld, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Asimov’s and many more. He’s a Writers Of The Future winner and his first collection is coming from Ticonderoga Publications in 2014. Yes, he is one accomplished bastard.

Why am I citing Ian as an example of determination? Well, even with a record like his, he still gets a lot of rejection. He recently made a pro sale with a story that has taken a long time to find a home. How long? I’ll let Ian explain:

This was actually the 19th time I’d submitted this particular story, so it’s my new record holder for number-of-rejections-before-selling. Previous best was 14. My general rule has been to trunk a story after 15 rejections. I broke it for this one because I got some lightning-to-the-brain feedback with the 14th rejection and rewrote the ending.

That means that not only was it rejection 14 times before he had a sudden realisation about how to improve the story, but it was subsequently rejected another four times withthe new ending before it found its home.

As Ian said, “Take whatever lessons you will from my Obsessive Compulsive Bloody-Mindedness Disorder (OCBMD).”

The lesson I take from it? Trust in yourself and keep looking for a home. My personal record of rejections before a sale is the same as Ian’s previous best: 14. What really surprised me was the people on our email list expressing amazement at Ian’s tenacity, saying things like, “I couldn’t handle that much rejection” or “I give up after two or three rejections.”

What!?

Let me share some of my own numbers. My recent short fiction sales are all stories that didn’t find a home right away. In fact, my stories hardly ever do. Only a handful of things I’ve written have sold to the first place I sent them, and those are usually things written for a specific themed anthology, or stories written by request/commission. Of the 3 recent stories that I wrote simply because they were in my brain-juice, and then tried to sell, I got 11 rejections, 2 rejections and 6 rejections before they sold to the 12th, 3rd and 7th market respectively. That’s actually a fair cross-section of submission numbers. (And I was bloody happy with the one that sold on the third attempt!)

So, don’t give up on writing something – finish that motherfucker. Then, when it’s finished and polished to its highest possible sheen, start submitting and do not give up. Stay open to the possibility of change, like Ian’s sudden inspiration. I recently did that and changed a story’s structure entirely after something like 10 or 11 rejections, but it’s still essentially the same story and it’s still out there looking for a home.

Finish it, polish it, submit it, repeat.

Off you go.

Caveat: It gets to a point when you have to admit that your story might not be a polished gem at all, but actually just a stinking turd. Sometimes you do have to trunk a story. Ian’s method is give up after 15 rejections. Mine is probably about the same. But when I give up, I never really give up. I rewrite the story, use the ideas in a different way, make it into something else and then send it out there again. Never. Give. Up. 

This is a reprint from Alan Baxter‘s The Word.

This post, by Charlie Jane Anders, originally appeared on io9.

Short fiction is the "garage band" of science fiction, claims Tor Books editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden, so it’s time to step on that fuzzbox and thrash as hard as you can without knocking over your mom’s weed-trimmer. Actually, I think Nielsen Hayden was referring to the fact that you can try more crazy experiments in short SF than in novels, because of the shorter time commitment of both writer and reader. But how can you become a super-master of the challenging form of short fiction? Here are a few suggestions.

[Publetariat Editor’s Note: strong language after the jump] 

I wouldn’t claim to be an expert on short fiction writing, but I have written over a hundred of the little fuckers, a large proportion of which have been science fiction-y. Here are a bunch of do’s and don’ts, that I discovered the hardest way possible.

World-building should be quick and merciless. In a novel, you can spend ten pages explaining how the 29th Galactic Congress established a Peacekeeping Force to regulate the use of interstitial jumpgates, and this Peacekeeping Force evolved over the course of a century to include A.I.s in its command structure, etc. etc. In a short story, you really need to hang your scenery as fast as possible. My friend and mentor d.g.k. goldberg always cited the Heinlein line: "The door dilated," which tells you a lot about the surroundings in three words. Little oblique references to stuff your characters take for granted can go a long way.

Make us believe there’s a world beyond your characters’ surroundings. Even though you can’t spend tons of time on world-building, you have to include enough little touches to make us believe there’s stuff we’re not seeing. It’s like the difference between the fake house-fronts in a cowboy movie and actual houses. We should glimpse little bits of your universe, that don’t necessarily relate to your characters’ obsessions.

Fuck your characters up. A little. Just like with worldbuilding, you can’t necessarily devote pages to your characters’ childhoods and what kind of underwear they wear under their boiler suits. Unless your story is really a character study with a bit of a science fiction plot. I used to have a worksheet that included spaces to fill in in info about each character’s favorite music, hatiest color, etc. etc. Never filled those out. If I’d tried to force myself to come up with a favorite color for every character, I would have given up writing. But do try to spend a bit of time giving all of your characters some baggage, just enough to make them interesting. Most science fiction readers are interested in characters who solve problems and think positively, but that doesn’t mean they can’t have some damage. 

Read the rest of the post, which includes 5 more tips for writing short fiction, on io9.

This post, by Peg Brantley, originally appeared on the Crime Fiction Collective blog and is reprinted here in its entirety with that site’s permission.

If you draw a line in the sand—over which you affirm you will not cross—where do you redraw it when a wave washes it away? Or when a jogger comes along and tramples it? Do you draw it in the same place or move it somewhere out of the way?

Integrity only means something when you stand strong. It’s mist in the wind if you adjust your values because they become inconvenient. Keeping your integrity might mean you have to lose a few quick sales, or build your career a little slower than you’d like.

Here’s what I’ve seen with many authors recently—traditional or indie:

A lot has been made lately about phony or paid reviews. Most of us were righteously indignant, and deservedly so. Some people unfortunately, simply wish they’d thought of it first. But that’s only one piece of the game.

What about biographies? Is your biography dead-on, or have you played with reality a bit? I’ve heard it referred to as "permissive puffery" which to me is just another way of moving that line in the sand. Did you really make your living as a journalist or is the truth that your local hometown paper published two letters you wrote to the editor? Or that you were a star for your school newspaper?

How about calling yourself an award winning author because you came in second place in some obscure writing contest? (I have a framed certificate on my wall. Does that count?) I remember when I won that award, a friend told me I could now refer to myself as an award winning author. I think she meant it tongue-in-cheek, but it did make me wonder.

Then there’s calling yourself a bestselling author because your book hit the top 100 of a free list, narrowed down by three or four categories? Are you serious? The NYT’s Bestseller list has a few ethical issues of its own—don’t compound it by adding yours.

Or review trading—explicit or implied. This was kind of a new one for me. No one actually came out and said "I’ll give you a great review if you give me a great review", but the timing of their review and suddenly receiving their book made it hard not to hear those words. And when I wasn’t crazy about their book? I sort of felt like I should somehow move to have their review taken down. It felt fake and sleazy.

To be perfectly honest, I asked a few readers who had given my first book a positive review to take a look at The Missings early in order to give it a nice bump at its launch. But I also spread that request out to others who may or may not have ever read my first book. One of my first 5-star reviews is from such a reader. Dishonest? Unethical? Lacking in integrity? I don’t think those were any different than publishers sending out ARCs to try and get that same bump.

Writers, what about you? Have you seen things that made you shake your head? Were you ever tempted?

Readers, especially readers… have you begun to see through some of this stuff? Does it make you doubt everything?

Peg Brantley was never a journalist or a screenwriter or a sought after speaker. Although Amazon might say she has some bestselling books, she’s still trying to reach that mark. Yes, she did receive second place in a writing contest once and even an honorable mention in another… but award winning? Net yet. RED TIDE rose as high as number two one time when she happened to look at the list. That was a kick. It didn’t last.

This post, by Marie Brennan, originally appeared on Science Fiction & Fantasy Novelists on 4/16/09.

But Marie — aren’t you a woman?

Yes, I am.

Do you really mean to imply that you write female characters in some different, specific way?

No, I don’t. Thank you, Imaginary Questioner, for leading me to the exact point I want to make.

Some years ago, a writer-friend asked me what I thought of his female characters. I told him that honestly, I hadn’t given them much specific thought. But now that I did, it seemed to me that he wrote them first as people, second as whatever kind of people they were (a soldier, a noblewoman, etc), and third as women. And that as far as I was concerned, that was the right way to do it.

That’s how I write characters, be they male, female, or (in the case of one story I’m wrestling with) mystical bilateral hermaphrodites. Female characters aren’t “marked” in my head, but neither are male ones; when I sit down to include a male character in a story, I don’t ask myself “okay, what are things guys do? They belch, they fart, they scratch themselves, they drink lots of beer –” A) That way lies stereotyping and B) I know plenty of women who do those things, too. When Deven gets drunk with his buddies and suffers through a hangover early in Midnight Never Come, he doesn’t do that because I was trying to write Guys, he does it because I was trying to write young Elizabethan gentlemen who had gone to war together welcoming a newcomer into their ranks. Their gender was not their foremost defining characteristic.

Of course, if you follow the path I outlined above, you run the risk of a result aptly described in The History Boys (though they’re discussing Michelangelo’s nudes): “These aren’t women, they’re men with tits. And the tits look like they’ve been put on with an ice-cream scoop.” Except I question the “of course”-ness of that danger; I have a hard time thinking of any stories I’ve read or watched where the women seem like men with a female paint job on top. The reason for that may lie in last month’s post; I’m more likely to process those characters as women who happen to exhibit characteristics usually associated with masculinity, rather than as somehow Not Real Women.

Read the rest of the post on Science Fiction & Fantasy Novelists.