Adventures in SciFi Publishing

I was just finishing off the second draft of a 10,000 word story. The draft was mostly to get rid of some embarrassingly bad prose that I knew was in there. I was expecting to do a rewrite after I had had it back from friends, but realised that I was settling for a good story when what I need is a great story!

I’ve found a new favourite podcast. Adventures In Sci-Fi Publishing has some great discussions and interviews. On the February 11th episode was an interview with Ferrett Steinmetz. Although Ferrett calls himself a “beginning writer”, he’s good enough to be up for the John W. Campbell Award for best new writer, and is currently a slush reader for Apex Magazine.

Good vs. Great

Nobody gives a crap about good stories. They want great stories

Ferrett Steinmetz

Ferrett reads a lot of stories. He also reads a lot of good stories. That’s the first thing to note – there are a lot of good stories out there. Another good story is not going to stand out. As Ferrett notes, you will get to the end of a good story, but you won’t remember it.

You want to write a story that people are going to be thinking about three days later

Ferrett Steinmetz

I also got the impression that a good story is written by a capable writer, but that it’s not the writing as such that’s the problem. There is a lot of talk about good stories having worthwhile prose and dialogue. But that’s not enough.

Thankfully, he does get specific about the difference between good and great, but before we get to that, I’d like to clear something up.

Why didn’t I know my story was only good?

I agree, it does seem silly that I should need a shove from a podcast to know that my story wasn’t up to scratch. But I do think it’s an easy trap to fall into.

Like so much in life, I think it came down to a subconscious decision I made.

I was concentrating on getting the story done. In enforcing this mindset, I had somehow made the decision that I was going to do a certain amount of work on this story, and that would be it, at least for a while, so I could go onto the next one.

What I hadn’t realised was that making the story great lay outside these perimeters. Hearing the podcast allowed me to take a different view – one where I was looking down at the story from above, rather than looking out of the story from within.

What distinguishes a great story?

Anyway, back to the main event. We have already seen that a story can be good, but it’s not necessarily the writing that makes it great. There’s some discussion about the central idea being the distinguishing factor, but even that won’t satisfy Mr. Steinmetz:

… a lot of it is not only just having that idea, but finding away to focus it, so it’s really interesting…

Ferrett Steinmetz

So it seems an idea can be good but not great, as well. Fair enough. So what is it about an idea that can be great and really elevates your story? Ferrett Steinmetz calls it specificity.

[...] if I tell you, there’s this guy and [...] he’s gonna be stuck in a haunted house for a while, that’s not really gonna stick with you. But suddenly you take, here’s a recovering alcoholic, he’s previously abused his family, he’s got a son who has problems and his wife’s passive aggressive, and they’re gonna go to the overlook mansion where they’re gonna be snowed in [...] that specificity brings you to [...] the Shining.

Ferrett Steinmetz

When put like that, it’s easy to see how specific details create a situation that’s unique to your story and that is far more interesting to explore.

There are many more points raised in this podcast episode so I encourage you all to go and listen. Even if you’re not interested in Sci-Fi specifically, their discussions are broadly about writing anyway and you are sure to get something from them. For example, this particular episode also features a discussion on how many drafts you should do (also of particular interest to me at the moment).

How I’m making my story great

So, back to me.

My story was good(ish). Its themes were well-realised, but what it really lacked was heart – an “emotional centre” as Ferrett calls it.

Here we go again! Image courtesy of Sharon Drummond.

My central character was an observer only, pretty much. No one reading the story would truly care what happened to him, because even though he witnesses what takes place he didn’t have much to say or do about it. He was bland.

Also, the antagonist in the story does things that are not altogether explained and the reader can be left wondering what exactly his motivations were (in a bad, confusing way rather than a good, thought-provoking way).

The answer? Specificity!

So I wrote out a series of questions about these characters that I would have to answer. The theme of these questions was basically, “why the hell should we care”? Which itself boiled down to, “why does this character care?” What is it that ties them painfully to the events and themes in the story, what drives them to do the things that they do?

Free-writing the answers to these questions gave me a rough backstory that I could draw upon. Now I’m ready to hack away at it again.

Incidentally, freewriting is a great way of world-building. I am constantly surprised at what I can come up with by giving myself a few prompts and then just bashing away at the keyboard. I am now adding this method to the prep I do before writing a story. I addition to this freewriting, character/world-building exercise, I will also ask myself the following questions:

Is this a great story idea?

• If I were to read it, would I give a crap?
• Is the idea specific?
• What is the emotional centre of the story?
• Have I picked the right moment for the story to take place? What are two other moments where it could take place, and are they better?

This is a list I will likely add to over time, and it’s worth pointing out that I may not have all the answers before I start writing. So much that is new comes out of the process of actually writing the thing, and I don’t want to bog myself down in prep, just get myself to think a little more deeply before I begin.

More important, is what my answers might be at the end of a draft. So, I will ask myself the same set of questions at the end of a story, too, and see what’s changed.

That’s it for this week. I hope you get a chance to listen to the podcast (I mayself am going to slowly make my way thruogh the previous episodes as well). If you’ve listened to it already (or even if you haven’t), I’d love to know your thoughts on this topic, so comment away! There’s a few useful links below.

Useful Links

• Adventures in Sci-Fi Publishing
• The episode in question
• As Below, So Above by Ferrett Steinmetz
• Ferrett Steinmetz’s blog (not all about writing)

Although a few Twitter story tellers have come and gone there are still some around. @arjunbasu is one such tweep and one all should follow.

If ever there were proof that a very small story can be a successful one then he is it.  He will often twitter more than one story in a day.

Despite the limit each one feels complete. Often, they describe a domestic situation unfolding, and the conclusion forms a witty punch line.

It’s an excellent demonstration of clarity through precision. 140 characters forces merciless cutting. Only the kernel of the story remains.

And that’s all the tips I can give (being inexperienced myself) – pick a situation, then cut cut cut. Finally, juggle words and punctuation.

I think the beginning middle and end bits take care of themselves – they naturally appear from the way we build sentences. Here’s an example

This was what he’d been waiting for, a chance to be heard! He opened his mouth to speak, but practice had rendered him completely voiceless.

And this isn’t the only creative writing going on on Twitter (it could be argued that all Tweets fall into that category, but I won’t here).

Some impersonate dead celebrities like @cdarwin who uses the writing of Charles Darwin to Tweet his Beagle trip as if it were happening now.

Poems are a favourite too. @thebookwright announced on @thecreativepenn‘s podcast that he will be tweeting his poem 100 Years Of Ermintrude.

Haikus are a great medium if you LOVE strict rules. The combination of 140 characters plus the required syllable count are a real challenge.

I’m sure my readers and followers have come across some excellent writing on Twitter, so please share Tweeps you follow in the comments bit.

Leave your comments, stories or other Twitter writing, plus your Twitter handle at http://www.getmewriting.com/short-stories/twitter-stories

• Podcasts
• RSS aggregators
• Twitter

Now admittedly, these will take some setting up initially – there is some searching involved. However, once set up, the information comes to you. I subscribe to several science and skeptical podcasts using iTunes, and update my iPod every weekend. I now have a bank of information to absorb over the week during my walks to and from train stations to get to work. If something catches your ear, many podcasts have an associated website where they keep show notes. These normally take the form of a series of links to further research on the topic in questions.

Blogs (as you know ), are another great source of information. But wouldn’t it be great if you could access all the blogs you are interested in in one place? No problem! Every blog has an RSS feed. I forget what that stands for (tsk), but it’s basically a stripped down, information only feed of all the entries in the blog. This lets you subscribe to the feed using an RSS aggregator of some kind. This is  where you gather all your feeds into one place. A lot of the time you can order them into categories or give them tags so that you can find them more easily. Now you have access to all of them at once, and it’s easy to see what new posts have been submitted to each of these blogs while you’ve been away from your computer. It all comes to you. There are loads of RSS aggregators (or RSS readers as they are also called) out there, and chances are you’ve got one already. You can subscribe straight through the Firefox web browser for example, and the new posts will be put into a handy dropdown in your toolbar. Apple Mail also has a way of showing the blogs you’ve subscribed to in the left-hand column, beneath all of your email folders. There are loads of free ones too. Personally I use Google Reader, as it’s a web app, so is available on every computer with an internet connection (plus my iPod Touch, and even my Nintendo Wii), and it is easy to arrange feeds into categories.

To subscribe to a feed, just look for this symbol, either on the site itself, or in your browsers address bar. Depending on the reader you are using, this alone will subscribe you, or you may need to copy and paste the URL into your reader.

Twitter is perhaps not the most obvious choice, but I am loving Twitter for exactly this purpose at the moment. Twitter is a kind of microblogging service. You sign up, and get to write 140 characters about something and post it. This goes out to anyone who happens to be looking at everything coming out of Twitter, or are looking at Twitterers (‘Tweeters’? Actually, I think ‘Tweeps’ is the popular term at the moment. That may change tomorrow),  in their local area, plus it goes out to anyone following you. Following is the thing that makes Twitter powerful. There’s a whole load of people out there who are interested in the same things as you, and they’re providing links, talking about events, and responding to questions all the time. All you have to do is ‘listen’.

All this does sound like a bit of work, but it’s not nearly as much as it looks. For Twitter, start by searching for celebrities that you’re interested in, or friends that you know are on there. Don’t know who to follow, then take a look at my Twitter profile for ideas. Other than that, the whole thing kind of snowballs and feeds off itself. You only need to find two good blogs or podcasts that you like and it’s not long before you are referred to a couple more from within those posts or episodes. Believe me, you will soon have what feels like a little community of like-minded people feeding you information. And don’t forget, podcasters often have blogs and visa versa, and many of them are on Twitter too. And many of them know each other. It’s this fact that means your collection grows, but it’s brought into sharp focus when you see the conversations between the people you are following on Twitter. It’s interesting to watch in itself.

Practice

One other reason why inspiration doesn’t come easily any more might simply be that I am out of practice. It sounds odd to say you can ‘practice’ at being inspired, but as long as there are activities you can do towards something (see above), you should be able to become better at it. In theory, this means that the more you look for inspiration, the more used to this activity your brain becomes and the more automatic it becomes. The big upside of this is that even if we don’t feel inspired very often now, the more we graze on our interests, the more we will be inspired and the easier it will come.