Tag: story

What I Discovered in My Own Bookcase

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 6 Comments

Once my Clarion applications were submitted (maybe a little before), I started hunting books and stories by the instructors for both workshops.  Some of that is covered in my earlier post, Treasures from the Book Cellar.  I bought a collection of John Kessel’s early stuff, Meetings at Infinity, Rudy Rucker’s Software, Kim Stanley Robinson’s first two Mars books, an audiobook of Robert Crais’s The Forgotten Man…  Most of it was used (sorry for not supplying a royalty) so I could still afford to eat those weeks.  Only later did I start sifting through the few short story collections I already own.

John Kessel is everywhere.  I am embarrassed to say I had never paid much attention to his name before writing my application.  He’s in the Year’s Best book I have, he’s in Paragons, he’s in my Best Time Travel Science Fiction of the 20th Century (I think…I don’t remember; I’ll double check when I get home and edit here if I blew it).  I had four or five of his stories just lying around the house.  Still, I’m glad I got his collection.

UPDATE: Yes, Kessel has a story in the time travel book, “The Pure Product”.

I’ve had trouble finding a few authors.  I’m trying to find them on my own instead of hunting them through their websites or Wikipedia entries (though I cheated with Kessel).  I finally stumbled across an Elizabeth Bear story in Strange Horizons’ fiction archives.  I haven’t read it yet, but I’ll get to it this week.  I haven’t found Nalo Hopkinson yet.  I’ll hunt her work more aggressively if I get accepted to CW.

The Clarion (east) crowd has been tougher to find.  I saw the movie based on Holly Black’s and Robert Crais’ work (The Spiderwick Chronicles and Hostage) respectively.  I have verified that my school library has some of Black’s books and I’ll read some if I end up going to San Diego.  (My reading time is getting stretched thin trying to keep up with both!)  Park, Hand, and Lai just don’t seem to cross paths where I am looking.  Again, acceptance to east will get me hunting more aggressively.

I am also trying to keep up with other writers often associated with Clarion.  Knight and Wilhelm are the most obvious pair.  I read Octavia Butler’s Wild Seed a couple years ago, mostly from its recommendation in Orson Scott Card’s How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy.

So my reading is keeping me busy.  I am also working on my females-as-warriors story (tentatively titled “Kree” until I get a better feel for its theme) and checking the web fifty times a day for evidence of Clarion acceptances.  I think it may be time to switch to decaf.

-Oso

My to-do list

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

My first order of business is to keep myself busy so I don’t go mad waiting to hear from the Clarions.  Sure the application deadline is past (or will be in a few hours), but they still need to review last minute applications, compare scores on all the applications, select their top 18-20 as well as an alternate list, then decide when to start contacting people.  I will be shocked if I hear something this week.  That doesn’t mean I’m not holding my breath each time I check my caller ID.

So how do I keep busy?  Writing, of course.  I’m still trying to finish up my second version of “Leech Run” for Baen’s Universe, not that I’m terribly optimistic about it getting picked up.  If it doesn’t (I’m not giving up all hope), I’ll set it aside until the workshop (I am still overly optimistic about that, in spite of myself) since it should be the first of my stories to be analyzed by the masses there.  (It could be “Glow Baby” if I end up in San Diego, but I digress).  Regardless, I don’t expect the rewrite to take more than another day or two.

I decided my next project will be to run with my woman-warrior story, as yet untitled but the file is saved under Kree.doc since Kree is the name of the alien race.  Before I go too far, I need to read The Science of Aliens, which is sitting on my bookshelf.  It will give some hard science credibility to my aliens and my story in general.

This project will probably take a few weeks at least.  I won’t be surprised if I get distracted by another project before I finish, but I’m trying not to do that.  If I get stuck, I’ll try to brush out another story for young readers, something under 2k words, so I can get back to the serious story.  I have a lot of emotion, intrigue, and social commentary planned for this one.  It may be tough, but I bet it comes out good…for me.

Anyway, that’s my to-do list for the next few weeks.  I’ll likely know about a Clarion before the Kree story is done unless I hit an unprecidented rhythm.  *sigh*  Time to get to work.

-Oso

A couple quick odds and ends

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

The neat thing about having a story in the BU slush at Baen’s Bar is the chance to rewrite a story based on the feedback it receives, then just toss it back out there.  I’ve been rewriting “Leech Run” based on some fairly harsh criticism, much more to the point than Critters has ever been.  I am fairly happy with the rewrite except for the one transition paragraph I need to rework to get rid of the lies.  (I didn’t mean to lie, but the story flowed better that way.)  I hope to have the rewrite posted there Monday.

While exploring other writer’s blogs, I discovered a post from someone exclaiming his delight at being selected for the Clarion workshop.  I was a bit dejected seeing as I haven’t heard anything yet and the submission deadline has not quite arrived.  It got me very nervous, twitchy.  Then I reread the post and discovered it was from two years ago.  😐  It felt sheepish.  I hadn’t realized how much I was counting on being accepted.  I may not be and I know it.  I just need to receive my official verdict so I can move on with planning my life…or at least my summer.

That’s all for now.  More soon.

-Oso

The Tough Part

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

I always find it difficult to move on once I finish a story.  I get a big “now what” hanging over me.  Do I go back to an old, incomplete project or press on to a new story.  I refuse to start any new novels until I get one or more finished.  But short stories can be started on a whim.

So what to do?  I have a story, “Thinking Out Loud”, that never sold despite being a very good story.  Looking back, I find that I didn’t really build a protagonist the reader would care about.  It occurred to me to rewrite the story from a different point of view.  It’s a completely different story that way.  I may try toggling back and forth between the old POV and the new one, which turns out to be jumping between an army general and an inmate/test subject.  I think it will be a massive rewrite and am a little overwhelmed by the thought of it.  I keep putting it off.  It might be a good project for Clarion (cross fingers).

As for new projects, I have a few things I’ve brainstormed.  One story about a future society where the females are the warriors.  Lots of ideas as to why the women must fight, who they fight against, and what internal struggles the protag goes through.  I need to develop the characters a bit more, but it’s got steam behind it.  I have another that is basically a superhero-working-for-the-government story that lost all momentum.  I’m not sure I’m ready to pick that one back up.  And of course there’s my young adult SF novel (set on a sub-light colony ship), my military clone novel (probably my strongest idea), my SF comedy novel (hung up on the first major event), my YA fantasy novel (first thing I ever wrote; complete but needs a major rewrite), and my Fultus stories that need to be expanded to novella or novel length.  Whew.  

I may look through my unfinished works and see what grabs me, be it something here or something else.  We’ll see.  I think I agonize more over what to work on than over what to type.  I’ve been in a short story mood with my focus on Clarion, but who knows.  I’ll be sure to post when I make up my mind.  

I think part of my problem with moving on is the pain of waiting to hear the fate of stories in market slush piles.  “Brother Goo” is still in the mail to Cricket.  “Glow Baby” is working its way through editors at Strange Horizons.  “Leech Run” is in the slush at Baen’s Bar, fighting for an opportunity to slip into the Jim Baen’s Universe that way (past critical eyes of readers and editors alike).  I can’t remember ever having three stories in the wind at once.  Chilling.  But I have to keep working.  That’s what a real writer would do.

-Oso

More Titles from WordPress Tags

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

I looked at the updated list of WordPress global tags and noticed some more potential titles.  They amuse me, so here they are.

  • “Sex Sotfware”: That could go a lot of different directions, couldn’t it?  Anything from robots having sex together (for robot procreation…meshing software the way people mesh DNA to make a child).  Or a computer program to help guys score (Will Smith’s Hitch meets Windows).
  • “Fun War”: A party in every landmine.  This could be someone who loves the art of war in a very active sense or could be a war over types of recreation.  A civil war over what is the national pass-time?  Maybe too much.  Or it could be a reality show about war, the producers coming up with more ridiculous goals for the armies.  I’d hate to see that elimination round.  Or (one more) kids enlisted to the army based on video game prowess.  This reeks of The Last Starfighter, maybe even a little Ender’s Game.
  • “Faith Marketing”: They do it now, don’t they?  A story about a cult leader that preys on shopaholics, maybe even home shopping addicts.  Trying to buy your way into heaven is nothing new, but investing n heaven real estate or keeping up with God’s fashion do’s and don’ts or even an ad campaign about heaven.  Not too terribly speculative, but it can go somewhere.  I doubt I’ll write it.
  • “Musings School”: Could make a cute flash piece about a school for random thoughts.  How do you teach people to think?  It could be a dystopian society where thoughts are discouraged, but this underground school tries to get people thinking for themselves, starting small.  What do you think about licorice?  ducks?  your government’s oppression of its people by sanitizing the media and ostracizing independent thinkers?

That’s all for now.  Check the global tags for your own ideas or check out my previous post.  Happy writing.

-Oso

Story for Young Readers

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 3 Comments

In a response to an open plea from a youth-oriented SF magazine’s editor, I wrote a story about a boy and the alien that possessed his brother.  Not the most original of ideas, but it was for kids.  As I wrote, new twists on old ideas came to me and found their way to the page.  Now I have two problems.

First, the story is too long for the market that inspired it.  The market caps at 2000 words and this story is just over 2300.  I could probably cut a few hundred words if I wanted to, but I’m pretty sure it would weaken the story.  After all, it’s not the plot that’s special, it’s the relationship between the brothers (even though one of them is not technically there).

Then there’s the other problem: I think this story is too good to start with this particular market.  This market offers only token payment and will have minimal exposure value.  I like the market and the people who run it, but I am trying to establish myself as a professional.

I may try the story in some non-genre youth-oriented publications, maybe Boys’ Life or Cricket.  I need to look up their guidelines first.  I may also try Black Gate (though I think they may be closed to submissions right now) or some other zines that insist their demographic begins with preteens.  It might prove a futile endeavor, but it would be a shame to sell a story for pennies when it might have been worth something.

I’ll probably drop it in the Critters queue while I wait for responses.  I’m having some trouble with the title: “Brother Goo or Why I Threw My Brother in the Ocean” is what I have right now.  Old school “or” format.  Unfortunately I feel like the first sounds like mucus and the second gives away too much.  I may just try “Brother Goo” and see how it is received.  Look at that, I made a decision right here in the middle of my blog and you were here to witness it.  Momentous.

-Oso

UPDATE: I checked out some of those guidelines.  Boys’ Life has a 1500-word limit.  Cricket‘s is 2000.  I went back through the story and trimmed it down to 1990 (the last cut I made was a full paragraph).  I probably could have left a little more in there.  I’ll reread the cut version in a few days, after it’s filtered out of my memory some, then maybe send it to Cricket.  It could still make the rounds of the standard genre magazines, but Analog won’t be likely to touch it.  I’ll probably stick to semi-pro markets outside the youth-oriented zines.  Time will tell how it all works out.

“Blog Faith” and other stories not yet written

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 1 Comment

I commented on another blog (comments seem to have vanished) about some ideas for stories, particularly story titles.  It is interesting because a coworker recently was telling me that he would love to write and he feels he has the mastery of language to do so, but he has no ideas.  Maybe I’m blessed with an overabundance of ideas (not all good, but ideas galore), and I am constantly finding new inspirations.

One place I found ideas calling to me is the WordPress global tags list (http://en.wordpress.com/tags/)  This is an especially interesting place for me since the list is perpetually changing.  If you read through the tags two or three at a time, story title s are hidden there.  The ideas to accompany them must come from the mind (or soul or whatever), but it’s a kick start.

At this moment, these titles appear consecutively on the page, inspiring stories I will summarize in a line or two.  I have no fear of sharing this tactic or even the stories I think up since even if my story was directly stolen from here, my story and your story would be nothing alike.  So feel free, borrow my thoughts.  (How cool would it be to find your story by one of these titles in a mag?  Almost as cool as finding my own.)  I won’t be likely to write the stories to go with these anyway.  This is purely for my own amusement and hopefully yours.

  1. “Mp3 Kids”: There a re a couple ways to tae this one.  How far a stretch is it for a generation of kids to be addicted to Mp3s so much that all information must be transmitted this way?  Almost like uploading directly to their brains.  Or more creatively, women who can’t have children (or empty-nesters or whoever) start downloading children to their portable devices.  They care for them, teach them, discipline them, a lot like a Sims game or something.  The whole obsession could get out of control.  This is actually a lot like my story “Glow Baby” (currently seeking a market).
  2. “Real Estate Animals”: An Animal Farm-like satire where wild animals sue in court for the property rights for their habitat.  They could get insects involved and tie up some major construction project for decades, each species suing in turn.  Then the corporation files to have the cases consolidated and the animals pack the courtroom with their ilk (or elk).  Wacky hijinks ensue (pun intended).
  3. “Fiction Theology”:  Fairy tale characters (or other characters) gather to discuss their positions on God and religion.  The discussion might do well to focus on a hot topic (gay marriage? abortion?).  This could be done cleverly or very poorly.
  4. “Blog Faith”:  Protagonist searches the internet for signs from God, focusing perhaps on specific blog sites.  He/she might find hidden patterns in the postings (similar to the films A Beautiful Mind and The Number 23) and pursues a life change based on them.  Or maybe it’s all based on one post that is completely misinterpreted.  Can you imagine someone mistaking something here as a holy sign?  Let’s hope it isn’t from my Morally Unusual post.
  5. “Random Personal Thoughts”:  A pretty but naive teenage girl starts picking up thoughts from classmates.  She starts with guys: checking her out, thinking…teenage guy thoughts, maybe trying to look up her skirt.  Then she starts receiving them from girls: jealous thoughts, insecure thoughts.  Each thought might get progressively more personal, first amusing her, then scaring her, finally spurring her to action for someone’s benefit.  Basically and early psychic manifestation.  This might be a good one for me to write considering my daily proximity to teenage minds (rather their bodies are proximal…who knows where their minds are?).

I feel like there were more amusing options the first time I tried it.  Of course you could mix and match words from anywhere on the page to develop your own combination, changing nouns to adjectives and such as needed.  This is basically the same as opening a dictionary to two random words or Damon Kight’s connecting index terms on pages of a SF catalogue (the origin of his story “Stranger Station” according to Creating Short Fiction).  The PARSEC Wrighting Contest uses a prompt similar to this, as I suspect do many others.  (I advertise this one because my 2004 entry, “Chasers” was published in their anthology, Triangulation, even though it did not place in the contest.)  Try your own variation and get writing.

Morally Unusual

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 1 Comment

I was watching some television and was inspired by some characters’ moral options.  Often we, as viewers/readers, see the options as the good option and the bad option.  No, that’s probably too simplistic.  There are very few truly bad characters who do stuff just to be bad.  Similarly, how many people do good things that are completely against self-interest?  Let me rephrase: we see the ethical option and the selfish option.

Not very interesting.  I find myself intrigued by those gray options, the ones that give you a chill up your spine that the characters managed to pull it off.  These are tough to write, tougher to make appear anything other than twist endings.  Ah, but the morally ambiguous option is a beautiful thing when properly executed.

The short story “The Catbird Seat” is decent example.  I really like it because the main character has originally chosen the most selfish (crossing into evil) option imaginable, to kill a coworker (if I remember correctly).  By the way, SPOILER ALERT!!! in case you are planning to read some James Thurber short stories for pleasure.  Anyway, he gets cold feet or lacks opportunity or whatever, instead planting a story in his target’s head so preposterous that she will surely share it and surely be thought insane, again if I recall the story correctly.  It has been a while.

The brings to mind the question, “How do I write that kind of morally gray resolution into my stories?”  I’d actually prefer they be grayer, more in the vein of putting the antagonist in a bad spot and leaving him/her a way to save face by giving the protagonist what he/she wants.  Let the killer go but take away whatever treasure the murder was committed for.  Let the cheater maintain victory as long as the true prize is abdicated.  Give up the girl by spilling the beans on the competitor.  It’s the lose-lose ending or at least the no-winner ending.  It’s best if the protagonist walks away with a sense of satisfaction and the antagonist does not, especially if the protag’s cut seems less valuable than the antag’s.

I think there are three ways to achieve endings like these, surprising third options where win and lose are relative.  One way is to luck into them, write a story that presents a clever option as you go.  These are nice but are hit and miss.  Another, plan the twist ending and build the situation around it.  For instance, start with the idea: “the braggart achieves the ultimate stunt but can’t tell anyone without going to jail” or “crook can escape but only by giving the loot to charity”, then figuring out how one would get in that situation, what type character would suffer/gain most from this, what setting would this seem most poetic, stuff like that.  That’s a lot of hard work and planning and might force the story to have an all-too-convenient feel, but I bet a lot of stories work that way.  Then finally there is the kill-the-obvious method.

The kill-the-obvious method is where you plan the obvious ending to a story, then toss that idea.  Plan another; toss that.  Maybe write out the third ending and toss it.  Toss another.  At some arbitrary point you feel like all the choices are exhausted, so you craft another one.  You might have to backtrack to foreshadow this synthetic option or even to make it plausible, but it can usually be done.

The man drinks the poison.  No, he pours it out.  No, he gets someone else to drink it.  No, he’s immune to it.  Again, no.  So what’s left?  Maybe he keeps it.  Why?  As evidence, to threaten someone, as a souvenir…whatever you want, but the point is, who would think of it first?  Sometimes a morally “unusual” choice is the most interesting.

-Oso

Ouch.

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

I just received an email from Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine (a respected semi-pro magazine in Australia) regarding “Leech Run”. It took them an impressively swift five days to reject it. Most zines don’t even see a submission for a couple weeks. ASIM does good work and has a fairly transparent review process with three rounds of reading. I made it past level one but got axed in level two. American Idol fans, that’s like going home the first night of Hollywood week.

Now I need to find a new market for “Leech Run”. I’m afraid I exhausted some good candidates prior to a major rewrite. I probably could send it back to Fantasy & Science Fiction, but it is considered bad form to send a rewrite to an editor who did not request one. So I may try The Leading Edge or…I don’t know, someone else. There is a bit of a limited market for short space opera. Novels? They seem to fly off the shelves.

Today I attended a teacher inservice about poverty, mostly an emphasis on differences between middle-class and lower-class students (and parents’) perceptions of and responses to things. There were some good insights there that I would love to use in a story, particularly how money is spent. I’m already forgetting a lot of it and don’t have a story or character yet. I guess I’m waiting for another idea that can piggyback with this one to make a story.

I’ve worked the last couple days on a piece for middle-grades kids (not to be confused with middle-class kids…I mean 5th to 8th graders). It needs some serious editing, but I got the first draft onto the screen in record time. Now to hack away 20-30% of the length so I can expose the real story and maybe then add a little back for aesthetics.

Hmm, it’s late and I’m yawning up a storm. I’ll ramble more when I have more to say on more sleep. Thanks for reading.

-Oso