There was much buzz at the World Fantasy Convention a few years ago about a book containing, shall we say, an unfortunate turn of phrase. I haven’t read the book in question so I don’t know if this was a lapse or par for the course, but surely there’s nothing worse than a passage written with serious intent turning out to be unintentionally hilarious?
Well, yeah. There is. Continue reading
Yesterday’s email brought an offer to reprint a story of mine in an anthology that will also include several of my writing heroes. I’ll give details when I’m free to do so, but right now that’s not the point. The thing is, reprint offers and especially sharing a Table of Contents with other writers I enjoy and respect are a couple of my favorite things. My very first professional sale had me sharing a ToC with Roger Zelazny, and how cool was that? Then there was this most recent touch of something fine.
Which got me thinking, or more precisely, remembering. I’ve worked with and without writer’s groups, mostly without. One thing you sometimes get from a writer’s group that you don’t get as often working strictly alone is a little dash of perspective. In an earlier version of the Writer’s Group With No Name we had a member who was working on a romance novel. We’d read parts of it and thought it promising, but the story wasn’t coming quickly or easily for her. In the meantime, most of the other members of the group were working on short fiction, and a few of us were selling. At times the meetings would turn into gripe sessions about slow markets, slower payments, incomprehensible editorial decisions, the usual. All true and the bane of writers for practically ever, but our romance writer, working hard but still with nothing in shape to show an editor, was not impressed with the bitching.
She: “I can’t imagine what that’s like.” Continue reading
Well, sort of. I can fool myself sometimes that this isn’t what I’m doing when I’m reading an unsold story of mine. Re-reading a story is an activity that at least resembles useful work, and I proceed on the theory that I’m doing a light edit. Yeah, that’s the ticket. A light edit. Making improvements. But the fact of the matter is that I’m simply re-reading a story. Specifically, one of mine. A story that hasn’t found a home yet.
I know writers who have great difficulty re-reading their own work. I understand that. After fifteen or so passes to get everything right, it’s natural that the bloom would be just a tad off the rose by then. Yet even time and perspective don’t seem to change their attitude. I’m a little different there, and it seems more than a bit egotistical, but the only time a re-read of one of my own stories causes psychic pain is when I, to be blunt, screwed up. A failed story is painful to read, always. A failed story that you simply do not know how to fix is even worse. Sometimes I eventually sort out what to do, sometimes not, but the process hurts, whatever the outcome.
This one is different. Continue reading
The current story is now “Keeping Lalande Station,” which first appeared in Future Orbits #2, in 2001.
Series short story characters have a long history in sf/f. And you’ll note that I do say series characters rather than just “series” as such. Almost all story cycles are built on one or two recurring characters, not a recurring setting. Yes, there are exceptions (HPL, anyone?). There always are. But they needn’t concern us here. In general, the character is the key. Sometimes more than one, but always at least one: The Traveler in Black. Cugel the Clever. Lord D’Arcy. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser. Readers like them for lots of reasons. Familiarity, the chance to plunge once more into another world and visit there. Sometimes they just wonder what the characters have been up to, the way you want to touch base with an old friend. Or maybe there’s a consistent tone and worldview within that the reader finds appealing. As I said, lots of reasons. Continue reading
Richard Parks 