Monthly Archives: July 2012

Monday Market – Where Thy Dark Eye Glances: Queering Edgar Allan Poe – October 31, 2012 (HT: @silviamg)

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Steve Berman is reading for ‘Where Thy Dark Eye Glances’:

The canon of Edgar Allan Poe, one of the foremost writers of dark and atmospheric fiction and poetry, offers readers haunted shores teeming with various erudite men brooding in the waning light over their feelings for unobtainable women. Yet, whether the tales or verses are grotesque or sinister, Poe’s narrators are Outsiders, dealing with emotions that so many queer individuals feel: isolation and abandonment as well as loneliness and lost love.

[...]Think both Gothic and gay. Obviously, dependent on the time period, the term homosexual might not be apt. Sexual identity is partly labeling, partly sexual experience, and partly attraction. But do not think of this as a romance or erotica anthology; first and foremost, these are stories that should be at home in Weird Tales as much as Strange Horizons.

This anthology sounds really cool, and as a bonus it pays professional rates of 5c per word, for poetry or fiction (1,500 – 12,000 words). Get writing, everyone, you have until the end of October!

Full details here: http://mroctober.livejournal.com/410167.html

Writing a Novel in Scrivener (via @cstross)

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I’m unfortunately ill and busy at work (Brisbane flu cases up 50%), which has combined into an unpleasant malaise meaning I skipped a post yesterday. But that’s the past, right? Let’s pretend that never happened.

Here is a good link for your edification. It’s Charles Stross talking about writing a novel using Scrivener.

People generally love Scrivener. Although I own a copy and use it for structuring short fiction, I don’t particularly love it. It’s basically a bag of tools and notebooks, and you can do anything you want. I prefer some more structure and less options, but that’s just a personal preference. I tried to structure all my characters for a novel manuscript in a meaningful way (I’m a programmer, so I love meta data), but Scrivener just didn’t do it the way I wanted. Yes, I’m sure there’s a secret way that approximates my needs, but in general, Scrivener chooses to give you the tools to manage stuff however you like.

Also, it’s a terrible Word Processor (note: it’s not a Word Processor, so that’s hardly Scrivener’s fault). I always paste the entire contents into Word when I’ve finished and do my final formatting.

Stross’s article introduces the product thus:

Some of you probably know about Scrivener, the writer’s tool from Literature and Latte. (If you don’t, the short explanation is that it isn’t a word processor, it’s an integrated development environment for books. It’s cross-platform (although initially developed for Mac OS X —versions for Windows and Linux are available, and it’s being ported to iOS and Android), modestly priced, and has more features than you can wave a bundle of sticks at, mostly oriented around managing, tagging, editing, and reorganizing collections of information including rich text files.)

His review of his own novel writing experience is thorough, listing pros and cons as it relates to his workflow, and worth reading if you are in the market for writing software or even if you already own Scrivener.

Link here: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2012/07/writing-a-novel-in-scrivener-e.html

Make Your Fight Scenes 20% Cooler (via @susanjmorris)

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It’s time for another useful article by the ever entertaining Susan J Morris:

[F]ight scenes are deceptive! The feverish, frenzied pace of such scenes make it easy to miss the technical wizardry authors employ to keep their fight scenes fierce. And in the absence of understanding, it’s easy to fall back on blow-by-blow descriptions, backed by the literary equivalent of the shaky cam. But this will only ever approximate the flash and bang of your favorite fight scenes. (And it will make some of us dizzy and nauseated.) Besides, I know you want a fight scene that’s at least 20% cooler.

Susan identifies the following four areas and goes into detail in the original article on how to make these work for your scene:

  • Write Clearly
  • Use the Environment
  • Express the Hero’s Motivations
  • Play with Pacing

If you want to dive into more detail you should check out ‘Write the Fight Right‘, an eBook by Alan Baxter:

When I read a good book or story and then come across a fight scene written by an author who clearly knows nothing of fighting, it can really spoil an otherwise excellent experience. Most writers tend to regurgitate what they’ve seen on TV and in movies, converting that to text, which makes for a slow, unrealistic scene. We have the great advantage in prose that we can get into our characters’ heads, we can describe how things feel, smell and taste as well as the emotional content that film can never convey. We can also describe a far more realistic fight, with the kind of techniques and in-fighting that doesn’t show up on film, but is actually the real essence of a fight.

Do read Susan’s article if you find yourself struggling with action scenes. Original here: http://www.omnivoracious.com/2012/07/make-your-fight-scenes-20-cooler.html

Monday Market – Beneath Ceaseless Skies Magazine (via @bcsmagazine)

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Beneath Ceaseless Skies is a beautiful magazine that publishes literary adventure fantasy:

[S]tories with a secondary-world setting and some traditional or classic fantasy feel, but written with a literary approach.

And:

We are NOT interested in urban fantasy or other types of stories set in the “real world,” even if they contain fantasy elements.

Finally:

We prefer stories that are as original as possible, particularly in the setting. We are unlikely to enjoy stories featuring elements we have seen repeatedly, such as elves or barbarian swordsmen or an opening scene in a fantasy tavern, unless they present that element in a unique new way.

Beneath Ceaseless Skies pays professional rates at $0.05 per word for stories up to 10,000 words, so definitely worth looking into if you write this style of fantasy. Obviously you’re going to be up against some serious competition, so only your best, please!

The submissions page can be found here: http://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/submissions/

Why Agents Reject Query Letters (via @LynnetteLabelle HT: @jaustenwannabe)

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Lynette Labelle writes a list of seventeen reasons why an agent might reject your query letter. Obviously there is some overlap here between reasons your story is being rejected, but writing a query is a marketing skill in and of itself (a bit like writing a synopsis).

You should flick through them yourself, but I’ve picked a few that I found entertaining or important enough to highlight. Seriously, who thinks addressing the query to the agent’s pet is a good idea?

An attempt at being funny. Addressing the query to the agent’s dog, cat, child, or anything other than the agent herself isn’t funny or cute. It’s unprofessional. Don’t do it.

Comedy isn’t easy, and most jokes have probably been done a million times. Resist the urge!

Jealousy or entitlement. This is when a writer complains that every member in her critique group has an agent or is published but her. Or she states in her query letter that she expects to receive an advance as big as a New York best seller and if the agent can’t get that for her, she’ll go somewhere else.

Entitlement is simply ugly. You are trying to convince the agent to work with you, so threatening them is counterproductive.

Multiple recipients. This is when you have the names of all the agents you’re contacting in the “to” section of your email. Agents know you’re sending queries to other agents, but they don’t like to be reminded of this.

Comes down to professionalism again…

Do check out both articles in case there’s something in there you recognise in your own failed queries. And as always, RtFG*

Part 1 here: http://lynnettelabelle.com/blog/why-agents-reject-query-letters-part-1/

Part 2 here: http://lynnettelabelle.com/blog/why-agents-reject-query-letters-part-2/

NB: An entertaining look at the world of queries is the Slushpile Hell tumblr. I’ve noticed a lot of the problems Lynnette lists.

*Read the [Friendly] Guidelines

Do Libraries Equate to Piracy (via @seanroney)

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Short one here. I tend to equate piracy to market correction and don’t consider it a concern for the vast majority of writers, who are mostly just happy someone is reading their work. In my opinion, therefore, spending sanity, money and time fighting it is a waste of resources better spent on more writing and marketing.

Sean Roney plays a little bit of a Devil’s advocate with his thought experiment in response to this post by Rachelle Gardner. He defends piracy, showing an example where library patrons are worse than your classical digital pirate:

Library patrons sometimes love to share. Actually, having worked at a library, I’ll note that while a small percentage are those super-fans who love books, a great deal are just there for a free read or a project. Those patrons are like the worst type of pirates, in that they just want something free, and nothing else, without ever sharing.

Don’t jump to conclusions just yet: have a read to see what’s going on here.

Read it here: http://woxo.blogspot.com.au/2011/11/library-equals-piracy.html

PS: while you’re there, check out the great cover art Sean is putting on his books

Reasons Why We Reviewers Won’t Read Your Self-Published Book (via @gavreads HT: @sydneywriters)

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Over at Gav Reads, we get a list of reasons a reviewer might not review your self-published book, prefaced with:

We are still coming to terms with writers not only being able to self-publish but being able to get those words easily to anyone with an Internet connection and reading device or a postal service.

[...]

One thing that just isn’t happening for self-published authors on a large scale is breaking into the various circles of critics and reviewers, of which I’m one.

I’ll quickly list the headings, but each point is elaborated upon in the original post:

  1. We don’t know who you are
  2. We don’t know how you’ll react
  3. We’ll feel guilty when we don’t read it
  4. We know you’re not going to generate hits
  5. We don’t read cute bunny love stories set in Ancient Rome (or whatever genre you’ve written in)
  6. We know it’s going to be rubbish

Obviously these are sweeping statements, but it’s worthwhile to have a look at the rationale behind them. Especially the last one:

Not only have you compiled your opus without being consciously aware that what you’ve written needs to be redrafted or thrown away as it’s obvious that you’ve not yet mastered the craft of storytelling to an engaging degree. But you’ve got an ego that makes you think that someone else will not see your flaws.

Unfair? I’m not surprised that the majority of unvetted work is produced like this. It takes a lot of painful experience to get to a professional level in your writing, and it’s trivial to skip that and go straight into publishing your work these days. It’s also trivial to spam as many reviewers as possible with your work, regardless of suitability (refer to point 5 in that list above).

However, this produces a lot of prejudice towards self-publishing at large. ‘Jay’ wonders in the comments of the article:

On a more serious note, this trending view – that to self-pub means you were probably rejected by a major publishing house, is a little disturbing. What if you’ve rejected a major publishing house? Does your work automatically shift from ‘publishable’ to ‘suckable’?

Original here: http://gavreads.co.uk/2012/05/thoughts-reasons-why-we-reviewers-wont-read-your-self-published-book/

Monday Market – Ancient New Anthology – Until Filled (via @deepwoodpub)

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Ancient New is an interesting anthology published by Deepwood Publishing:

With this anthology we’re looking for stories that are a strange collection of ancient and new technology. Perhaps chemistry is highly advanced and rockets are commonplace, but electricity was never invented. Perhaps steam engines exist, but are used to replace horses in chariot battles between archers. The story should have one or two aspects of technology that are wildly more advanced than the rest of the society, and thus affect it in strange ways. We highly prefer stories without magic.

They want stories from 5,000-15,000 words, with some room for individual concession for longer pieces, and paying $0.01 per word.

I checked with the twitter account when I couldn’t find a deadline date, and was quickly informed they are open until filled. This anthology is nearly full, so get cracking!

You can find submission guidelines for both Ancient New and their other anthology, Splintered Lands, here: http://deepwoodpublishing.com/submission-guidelines/

“Alot Was Been Heard” Automated eBook art project floods the Kindle store

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This is a nice alternative to all the plagiarism-filled junk eBooks flooded onto the Kindle store:

A pair of artist-coders have unleashed a small army of bots designed to flood the Kindle e-book store with texts comprised entirely of YouTube comments. According to the artists, even they have no idea how many books their autonomous bots are posting to the store.

Christopher Mims over at Technology Review interviewed the creators of such timeless classics as ‘Alot Was Been Heard’ and ‘Sparta My Have’:

“The KINDLE’VOKE machinary is based on three major parts. (1) The “Sucker” a clever suction apparatus to gather comments from Youtube. (2) the “Ghost Writer’s Table”: the book compiler that handles generation of books content, book covers, authors at the same time. (3) The “Amazon Kindle Scatter Bots” that make the brand new digital literature available for all of us.

This is really original (and possibly annoying), and it’s worth having a look at the kind of publishing chaos/market subversion our new digital world allows.

I suppose an alternative reading is that this is a kind of public graffiti, smearing digital feces over a shop front, but let’s be a little upbeat about it for now, right?

Original here: http://www.technologyreview.com/view/428175/ebooks-made-of-youtube-comments-invade-amazon/