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About ogresan

Richard Parks' stories have have appeared in Asimov's SF, Realms of Fantasy, Fantasy Magazine, Weird Tales, and numerous anthologies, including several Year's Bests. His first story collection, THE OGRE'S WIFE, was a finalist for the World Fantasy Award. He is the author of the Yamada Monogatari series from Prime Books.

PSA or Blatant Commercialism — Why Can’t it Be Both?

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3rd Story CollectionThis is an excerpt from thePublisher’s Weekly review of ON THE BANKS OF THE RIVER OF HEAVEN–“Gods, mortals, and entities somewhere in between provide provocative reflections on human nature in this breezy collection of 14 fantasy stories… The title story is a delightful folktale meditation on the mysteries of love and friendship. Parks (Hereafter, and After) relates these tales in a lyrical style that is sympathetic without being sentimental, straddling the boundary between the realistic and the romantic.”

Never mind all that. The unique thing about this particular collection, my most recent, is that it was my first regular hardcover. The trends and realities of current publishing also dictate that it will be my last. Any other books/stories appearing in hardcover, like the Yamada novel from PS Publishing in the UK, will be strictly limited editions and, to be blunt, a bit pricey. There were only so many of this regular hc printed, and when they’re gone, that is IT. No more. It’s trade paper and ebook from here on out. That’s not a sad thing, it’s just the way things are, but if you’re one of those readers who just like a book in hardcover, now wouldn’t be a bad time to pick it up. End of PSA. Or commercial. Whatever this is.

Available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Prime Books.

The Road to Hell is Really Paved With Killer Opening Lines

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I’ve been thinking about first lines. Yes, you want to hook the reader, or at least have them think that oh, maybe this story won’t be a complete waste of my precious time. Yet there’s a fine line there between hooking the reader and false advertising, which is the same thing as cheating. And we’ve already been over the subject of cheating the reader, and all you really have to remember is this–don’t. Not ever. So I approach the subject of “first lines” with a mixture of fascination and unease. I’m kind of with Damon Knight on the whole notion, which I paraphrase: “The problem with starting a story with a really killer first line is that writers often spend the entire balance of the piece trying to justify it.” With the implication being that they’re doing this “rather than telling the darn story.” I think there’s truth in that. Yes, you want a good opening hook, but that hook is usually set in the first paragraph, not the first line. Even an impatient reader will trust you that far, if no farther. What you want is a first line that will lead the reader to the the second line, which leads them to the third and, well, you get the idea. A first line is important, but you don’t necessarily need it to grab the reader by the scruff if you can lead them by the hand. It is, as we’ve talked about before, a matter of trust. The first line has to convince the reader to trust you enough to read farther. The first line has to carry the implication, the hint, that you know what you’re doing. You may not believe you do, and that’s fine, nay even realistic. You’re trying to convince the reader. Continue reading →

Zen and the Art of Beating Your Head Against the Wall – Once More, With Rejections

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I want to talk about rejections for a minute. Yes, no one likes them, but as the Corleones would say, “It’s nothing personal. Just business.” For the most part that’s actually true, though this being the small and feud-oriented family field that it is, it’s not always true, but close enough for the sake of this discussion.

The idea that it’s “not personal” flies in the face of the idea of the “personal” rejection, the one step up from the universally hated “form” rejection. A personal rejection is often interpreted to mean that you’re making progress. Often true, especially when you’re just starting out. Say you’ve gotten ten form rejects in a row from the same editor, but the eleventh gets a “try again” scribble(okay, these days maybe it’s a personal note tacked onto the end of a form macro, but the point stands), and the fourteenth gets an actual note explaining why the editor isn’t buying this one, but also (as before) try again. As Mike Resnick often says, the key word in “personal rejection” is not “personal,” and he’s right. “No” is still not a “yes.” Even so, personal rejections, while considerably short of a sale, are often rightly seen as encouraging signs.

Yet what I’m going to talk about is an exception to that rule. A case where the quite understandable response to a personal rejection would be to never, ever, bother to send that editor another story or novel so long as you both shall live. I’m not talking about the unprofessional, insulting rejection; so long as you’re dealing with people who conduct themselves professionally, those are rare, and why would you deal with anyone else? No, what I’m talking about is far more common type of personal rejection. I’ve gotten a few, and they never fail to send me into a funk of annoyance and regret.

It’s simply this: a rejection that shows beyond question that the aspects of your work that make it unique to you, plays to your strengths and interests, and that may even make your work worth doing to you, to go through the agony and sweat to get the story down in the first place, are the very aspects that the editor finds objectionable. In short, the editor clearly doesn’t “get” you. But there’s a catch to it, and one rejection like that doesn’t tell the story. You have to subject yourself to multiple instances of the same sort of cluelessness before you’re justified in writing off the market completely.

I can hear it now–“I do? What do you think I am, some kind of masochist?” Continue reading →

Apropos of Not Much

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This is the jacket copy from my first novel, The Long Look. Why? Because I always liked it. And just because.

“Everything you know about evil magicians is wrong.

Tymon the Black is the latest in a long succession of magicians to suffer under a curse called “The Long Look.” He gets glimpses of future horrors, horrors that will almost certainly come to pass unless he acts. When one such glimpse prods him to arrange for the murder of a headstrong young prince, he sets a cascading chain of events in motion that could lead to a future even more terrible than the one he tried to prevent.

Now all he has to do is hang on to a friend, train an apprentice, prevent a prince obsessed with revenge from destroying himself and his entire kingdom, help a princess come to terms with guilt and grief, make sure a wedding happens, make sure a war doesn’t, and send a creature of ultimate darkness back to the void from whence it came.

All in a day’s work for the world’s most evil wizard? Not quite. There’s also a goddess to contend with, and there’s nothing like attracting the interest of a goddess to upset the balance of any evil scheme. No matter. No one ever said that the life of a fiend was an easy one.

THE LONG LOOK is a fantasy novel with a unique blend of action, introspection, speculation and humor that should keep any reader both involved and confused, but don’t worry. It all makes sense. Eventually.”

Proof, If Any Was Needed, That I Just Can’t Leave Well Enough Alone

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Those who have been following this blog know that I’m a beginning guitar player. Very beginning, and a slow learner (ask me how long I’d been writing before I was selling regularly, if you want proof). But that aside, I’m also still working out what sort of guitar I want to play. Do I, will I have a preference? Les Paul? Stratocaster? Both? Something else entirely? Right now I’m in the experimental phase. My first guitar was and is an Epiphone Les Paul Special II, which I still think was a smart choice for a beginner’s electric guitar. The controls are relatively simple and it sounds great except when it doesn’t, and when it doesn’t I know it’s me and not the guitar. No excuses.

Yet I admit I’m Stratocaster curious (Let’s face it—like the Les Paul, the Fender strat is iconic), so when this pawn shop special showed up on an online auction, I bid low. And won, somewhat to my own surprise. That’s the first photo. It’s an entry-level Squier Affinity Stratocaster, made in 1999 in Taiwan (Squier is to Fender as Epiphone is to Gibson, sort of). The resolution of that photo is such that you really can’t tell, but believe me, that guitar was pretty beat up. Playable, but just barely. One of the tone controls was out, all switches were “scratchy” from accumulated dust and crud and three of the machine heads (tuning pegs) were shot. You could tune it, but it wouldn’t stay tuned for very long or sound very good even when it was tuned.

So what went through my mind? Aside from “WTF was I thinking?” I mean. Sure, I hadn’t paid much for it (to put it mildly), so the smart thing would have been to cut my losses. Riight. I went straight to “I can fix this!” but wasn’t content to stop there, oh no. I proceeded right along to– “I can make it better!” The tone controls weren’t really a problem; I found a broken solder joint on a capacitor that would have been an easy fix. I used to make up serial cables for our old mini-computer system, so I’m not afraid of a little soldering. But the pickguard was flimsy white plastic, the pickups (what feeds the sound from the strings to the amp, if you didn’t know) were low-end and cheap even when they were new. So if its immediate problems were corrected, the guitar still just wasn’t good enough. But it could be. Continue reading →