Review: Ender’s Game (Movie vs. Book)

written by David Steffen

Recently I went to see the Ender’s Game movie, based on the 1985 novel by Orson Scott Card (who I interviewed here some time ago). They take place in a future decades after an invasion of insect-like aliens attacked Earth and nearly wiped out the human race. The last invasion was only repelled by the last-ditch effort of a master strategist which turned the tide of the war. Earth needs a new leader, a new master strategist, to lead this war effort, but no ideal candidate has stepped forward. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and the orbital Battle School plucks the most promising children to train them in strategy, to see who will come out to be the best of the best and become the new master strategist that Earth needs. Ender is a third child, a rare on this planet with reproductive legislation that limits parents to two children to limit population growth–his parents were allowed to have a third because their first two children were very promising candidates but his older brother Peter was often uncontrollably violent and his older sister Valentine too empathetic to allow them to be viable candidates. Can Ender become the master strategist that Earth is hoping for? Will he be capable of doing what needs to be done to save humanity? Will his training break him?

I read the book for the first time about five years ago, so it wasn’t very fresh when I went to see the movie. After seeing the movie, I re-read the book to refresh it in my mind before writing the review. I’ll give an overview and general impression of each of them in a non-spoiler way, but will follow that up with a spoiler section where I compare/contrast them in more detail without concern for ruining major plot points.

 

The Book

In the book, Ender is recruited at the tender age of six years old, and the main events of the book take until he is about eleven. So by the end he has spent about half of his life in military training. The book follows relationships that he develops with the other students, starting off on a bad note when the head administrator of the school sets out to isolate him from the others on the launch. Most of the school (and thus most of the book) is based around the game which can be most concisely described as zero-gravity laser tag with teams of forty facing off against each other.

The reason that I thought the book was so phenomenal is that it convinced me very thoroughly that Ender is a strategic genius. He is set playing the game that others have been playing for years and years, passing down the most common strategies to their successors for decades, and in relatively little time Ender can see through all of these routine maneuvers and see the flaws in them, see ways to exploit them. For a book based around combat strategy, Card couldn’t get by on just telling us how great Ender is at strategy. He has to convince me of that through Ender’s actions, and Card succeeds at this with flying colors. That is what makes this book so great. There were moments when I first read the book that some of these moments just made my jaw drop at the unexpectedness of a new strategy–something which totally makes sense in retrospect, but which I never would’ve thought of. Even on the re-read, these moments hadn’t lost their luster. And the ending of the book was especially effective, and still gives me chills when I think of it.

In some ways, Ender’s Game has left a mark on the way that I think about everything, and how I interact with people, much in the same way that the concepts of Game Theory have affected me. The thing about the Game Theory kind of mindset that most people don’t realize is that it applies to everything. It’s all about trying to predict outcomes and choose ways to behave and act in situations with other people involved, trying to understand their motivations and what those motivations will push people to do. I’ve used this kind of mindset in recent discussions with Human Resources at my company to point out that certain policies might encourage undesirable behavior and to suggest alterations to policies that might do better. I didn’t always think of things in such terms, but I think that reading Ender’s Game did a lot to make me think in that way which has been very useful.

 

 

The Movie

And then there’s the movie. It’s been a long time in the coming, even though Card had opportunities to make it into a film in the 80s and 90s, because Card insisted on a certain level of creative control. And good for him in sticking to his guns on that. This was the story that put him on the map, and I’ve seen way too many film adaptations that just mangled the original so badly that they didn’t only not do justice to the original, they were an insult to the original.

The film wasn’t bad. The core of the book is there, though there are many significant changes. The casting was good all around, the dialog writing portrayed well the parts that they reflected in the book. The special effects served the movie well.

But the movie is a pale shadow of the book.

I think the reason for that is that it’s just so compressed, both in the time available for the film to convey its story, and in the actual timeline of the story. I don’t know exactly the timeline of the movie, but I’d guess that Ender went to battle school when he was maybe… eleven years old? And he hasn’t aged noticeably by the end, so I’d guess it ended within a year. As opposed to the book where Ender spent literally half his life at Battle school, including those years where he went from a naive child to basically being a man. The ending really depends on this school being his whole life, and the timeline of the movie just doesn’t work with that, so the ending didn’t work like it should have even though it was pretty similar.

And the plot of movie had to compress so much to fit in the allotted time that there was no point at which I was convinced that Ender was a master strategist. A couple of the big strategies of the book are in the movie, but in some cases they are given to him by other characters for free, in other cases they just come to mind without the extreme stress that the book clearly made as a necessary step to being able to push to such strategies. Sure, he was sharp for a grade-schooler, but the book’s Ender Wiggin wasn’t just smart for a grade schooler, he could out-strategize anyone else who was available for the job, which is why he’s their hope to save humanity. The movie just doesn’t convince me of that and so, for me, it fails.

The one thing that I thought the movie improved on was cutting out a subplot that involved Ender’s brother and sister back on Earth–I felt like that was a waste of space.

 

The Ending (Herein Be Spoilers)

Okay, now that we’re being the cloak of a spoiler warning shield, let’s talk about the ending.

The ending is one of the things that really makes the book worthwhile. For most of the book, he’s in battle school with all the other kids, much of that time being spent in the battle room. As he’s learning to combat other strategies, he’s also constantly revising his personal relationships with the other children as he rises in the ranks to commander. By the time he leaves Battle School he’s proven that he is the beset of anyone there, at a younger age than most, even though the school at the end is intentionally weighing the game situations against him. Finally they graduate him and send him to Command School where he starts running complex simulations where he has control of a fleet of ships facing off against alien ships as he is in command of commanders who each control a subset of the fleet. These simulations are grueling, always against overwhelming odds, often several times a day, and are meant to be a simulation of what the attack on the aliens actually will be like.

By the time he gets to the end of the simulations, some of his commanders have broken beneath him and had to be retired, he has worn himself to exhaustion, and when he reaches the enemy’s planet he decides he wants to win spectacularly but in a way in which those judging him will never possibly consider him as a leader–by destroying their homeworld. And he does this, only to discover that this wasn’t a simulation after all. While directing what he thought was a simulation, he has destroyed an intelligent species. Those who have been training him chose this strategy because they knew that the only one who could beat the enemy would be one who could empathize with them to the point of thinking like them, but that person would not be able to destroy them if they thought the situation were actually real.

Holy crap, what an ending. But it depends a great deal on the timeline. The compressed timeline of the movie just makes this not work. If Ender resorts to genocide as easily as he does in the movie, even in a simulation, it’s hard to cut him any slack. There’s no mention in the movie that he’s trying to fail their test on purpose so they won’t choose him like he did in the book, and even if they did the compressed timeline of the movie likewise would make that very hard to justify. And I never got the impression that he and those beneath him had been pushed to the breaking point, either. Ender just reaches the planet and decides without warning “Oh, hey, I can blow up the planet. Therefore I will.” The end.

 

Conclusion

The movie is not a waste of time. At its core, it has much the same story, but the book is better on almost every level. If you see the movie first, you’ll be robbing yourself of the opportunity to see it play out the way it should in the book.

My advice: Read the book. Think about seeing the movie AFTER you read the book.

 

 

 

Daily Science Fiction: August 2013 Review

It’s almost Christmas and I’m still looking at summer stories. Time to get my rear in gear. Fortunately, August had some jewels to help me deal with the frigid weather.

 

An apology is like giving up a little piece of yourself, so says the author of Apology Accepted by Kathryn Felice Board (debut 8/1 and reviewed by Dustin Adams). Within the story, apologies cure on a physical, as well as emotional, level but come at the cost of the giver.

But what if the giver is a therapist, and people’s pain too unbearable for her to deny them a piece of herself, an apology from her to them? Would she eventually run out? If so, what kind of person would remain?

I thoroughly enjoyed this thought-provoking, emotional story. I imagine I’ll recollect it often in the days to come.

Recommended.

 

Inspired by a true story, For Sale by Owner by Kate Heartfield (debut 8/2 and reviewed by Dustin Adams) tells the tale of a man, Ron, who watches out his window, toward a cliff, for would-be jumpers. In a simple fashion, Ron invites them to his nearby home for “a cup of tea and a chat.” He has saved most, and lost many, but he himself endures stubbornly, seeking the day when his replacement comes along.

The mark of an extraordinary tale is one that makes all of life’s distractions disappear and loses the reader in the telling. This is one such story. This is why we read stories. This is why fiction exists, to enlighten the human condition, and to share it with others. This story, and the true story that inspired it, are both worth reading.

 

What could have been “another zombie story” turned out to be quite the opposite. In Zombie Widows by Natalie Graham (debut 8/5 and reviewed by Dustin Adams) we have a woman, recently widowed, who desperately misses her husband. Because zombies are created from any remaining DNA, a house must be purged of everything that once belonged to the deceased loved one, which makes for a sad tale indeed.

 

An abandoned pet waits vigilantly for his family to return in Sparg by Brian Trent (debut 8/6 and reviewed by Frank D). Sparg is making breakfast. He has observed his owners carefully during their morning ritual. The batter is difficult to stir, and bowl large to hold with his tentacles, but he so desperately seeks their approval and happiness. He is doing his best for them. Now if they were only here†¦

“Sparg” is the tale of loneness. He is a squid-like pet living in a low gravity environment. Clever, loyal, and eager to please, he wonders what he could have done to make them leave so suddenly as they did. The dominant member of the human family , Deepvoice , mentioned something about a war as they rushed out the door.

“Sparg” is a unique tale told from the perspective of a very bright pet. Although I was never sure of his species (squid sounds right), it is clear that he is capable of far more than any ordinary human companion. You can feel the loneliness of the abandoned family member and can sympathize with him while he attempts to right any wrong he believes he has done.

From “Old Yeller” to “Lady and the Tramp”, I have experienced many pet tales before. This one was out of this world.

Recommended.

 

A man foresees his future in Memories of Forgetting by Kenneth S Kao (debut 8/7 and reviewed by Frank D). Memories of a life yet to be unravel for a young man when he is approached by his future wife. The memories surface only when she is near and fade as soon as she leaves.

Intriguing tale. Not bad.

 

A new apprentice discovers innovative and improvement has little chance against the ingrained and familiar. The Traveling Raven Problem by Ian Watson (debut 8/8 and reviewed by Frank D) follows Igar on his first day as an indentured servant for a carrier raven service. The Corvomaester has little use for his new helper’s questions and suggestions. The service has run on the same routine for three millennia. Clearly it isn’t broke, so there is nothing that needs fixed.

“The Traveling Raven” is a tale of entrenchment. Igar’s boss is uneducated and is comfortable with his position as Corvomaester. It is clear ‘new’ ideas fall way outside his comfort zone. The story is filled with back-and-forth dialog. The Corvomaester speaks a guttural dialect , very difficult to understand. Although I found the lesson of this tale intriguing, piecing together the speech of these characters was a chore.

 

Just Like Clockwork by K.G. Jewell (debut 8/9 and reviewed by Frank D). Hemiz is the zookeeper of a clockwork zoo. His animals are all mechanical works of dials, springs, and gears , except for the only Galactic Tech piece, the Shurilian lion. The lion is supposed to be indisputably accurate, so when its roar is slightly off in the zoo’s show, the perfectionist zookeeper won’t rest until he finds out why.

“Just Like Clockwork” is a sci-fi physics mystery. Earthquakes have plagued the technologically isolated planet of Krinnia ever since the Shurilian built their space elevator. The Shurilians have said their elevator has nothing to do with the quakes, and its lion is in tune with the planets rotation and cannot possibly be malfunctioning. Hemiz is sure all his clockwork animals are functioning as designed, and finds it unlikely his zoo animals couldn’t all be off at the same time. He has a theory, a theory that could prove dire for his world.

This story has a resolution I found cunning but the premise of two owners of a novelty attraction solving it I found difficult to believe. The villain of this piece was cut from the same cloth as a James Bond antagonist, foolishly revealing their plans for no good reason other to gloat.

 

A patient doesn’t know if he’s coming or going in Hiking in My Head by Gareth D Jones (debut 8/12 and reviewed by Frank D). The protagonist is in a mental hospital, but doesn’t know why. He sees people in his head, yet cannot remember who they are or who he is. The doctor says he is cured but his brain doesn’t know it yet.

“Hiking” is a story based on a theory I’ve never heard of before, where some dreams are influenced by outside events are memories run in reverse. An odd tale I had to read twice to partially understand it.

 

Explorers find the edge of the world and discover what lies below. In Nova Verba, Mundus Novus by Ken Liu (debut 8/13 and reviewed by Frank D) the crew of the Sesquipedilian brave the Atlantean Ocean, and with the aid of an aerostat, float over its side. The world is as he Hindu’s describe it , a flat disc resting on the back of an elephant, who stands on a stack of turtles. The lower they descend, the simpler they become. What changes are in store for this brave crew?

“Nova” is a lighthearted, yet clever, work of flash from one of the brightest writers of our time.

 

A curse afflicts a bride in Seaweed by Mari Ness (debut 8/14 and reviewed by Frank D). The woman in this tale awakes in a blanket of seaweed every morning. Despite the best efforts of many in the kingdom, nothing can be done to halt this curse. She (and her husband) know from whence this curse came, and she is determined that her husband takes responsibility for his part.

This is an odd tale and I’m not quite sure if I got the point of it.

 

A depressed and lonely girl finds solace and companionship In Dreams by Jeremy Erman (debut 8/15 and reviewed by Frank D). The protagonist dreams of a place with purple skies every night. It is a place for people like herself, withdrawn and shunned. She meets a boy, establishes a relationship. Like romances in real life, the dream and their feelings for each other fade, but she does not leave the surreal place empty handed.

This brief tale has a twist that many readers may have missed. So subtle.

 

A man hired to find the meaning of life for the dying searches for the meaning of living in The Black Bough by Conor Powers-Smith (debut 8/16 and reviewed by Frank D). Louis Gibbs is a dreamer. He absorbs the complete memories of his clients , every second of their life , and reflects upon it to give them the answers that always eluded them. Louis has the memories of sixteen people in his head when he absorbed his latest client’s memories. Henry is a widower afflicted with a terminal disease. Before Louis can finish mulling over Henry’s past, Henry dies. It has happened before, but while contemplating his client’s memories, sadness overtakes him with the knowledge of what Henry children will think of their fathers passing.

“Black Bough” is a tale of reflection. The middle-aged Louis has little trouble separating the memories of clients twice his age from his own. He managed to perform his job with a detached distance surgeons need to do to be effective. Henry’s long but common life becomes a tipping point for Louis on the heels of tragic news , his leukemia has returned.

This protagonist in Powers-Smith’s tale is a man who is suddenly struck with issues when he was absent of them before. His news has left Philosophy major emotively empty. Searching for his own meaning in life would be incomplete. His business, with its abundance of memory files, can offer so much more.

I contemplated why Louis would choose the course of actions which led to the finale of this piece. Without spoiling the ending for you (if I haven’t already), I can only assume he wasn’t really searching for an answer. Rather, he just became overwhelmed with a reality he couldn’t handle. Intriguing story but I’m unsure of its meaning.

 

An unassuming sidekick receives his just rewards in Recognition by Bill Glover (debut 8/19 and reviewed by Frank D). The protagonist is a loyal assistant to a superhero, the Checked Avenger. He has an inconspicuous nature for a power – others fail to notice him when he is present. Despite his unpretentious gift, he has never failed to miss the superhero award banquet. It is quite unexpected when his boss receives an award, but what happens next surprises the protagonist most of all.

Liked the moral of this tale but I do wonder, considering his power, how did the protagonist manage to get invited to the banquet in the first place?

 

A mailman falls for an extrinsic, yet reclusive, mysterious woman in The Matchmaker by Sara Puls (debut 8/20 and reviewed by Frank D). Don has hand delivered packages to Ruthetta for thirty years. Always marked fragile, Ruthetta has hinted to Don that they are filled with fairy tale characters. Don has always been drawn to the bubbly but alone woman, but never had the courage to tell her how he felt. As the frequency begins to slow to a trickle, then not at all, Don worries that he has waited too long to express himself.

“The Matchmaker” is a two tiered love story. Ruthetta cares for fairy tale creatures, doing her best to find them someone that will care for them. Don worries that poor Ruthetta never bothered to think of herself. Sweet little story.

 

A ghostly alien wonders about the strange orbs that circle the stars in An Impossible Matter by Sylvia Anna Hiven (debut 8/21 and reviewed by Frank D). Thorn is drawn to the 3rd orb an alluring blue and green ball of matter circling a star. The Grand Patri tells his inquisitive underling that nothing of importance can exist on such things.

“An Impossible Matter” is a short tale told from a unique perspective. A new story from a well-worn idea.

 

A family visits Granny in Tomorrow is Winter by Callie Snow (debut 8/22 and reviewed by Frank D). In this dystopian future, the protagonist is a little girl accompanying her parents to a retirement home. The first day of winter is coming. The day is a holiday, of a sort, but is celebrated as if the cold that marks the season rarely happens anymore.

“Tomorrow is Winter” has a storyline that is half metaphor. The story is told from a growing child who sees the hypocrisy of the celebration. Her town is covered in a dome to protect it from the pollution outside, making observing any changes of seasons irrelevant. An intriguing angle to this tale is Isabella’s (protagonist) corrective protocols to monitor her behavior. She is equipped with some sort of Pavlov-ian device that shocks her for her social faux paus. I would have liked to know more of this subplot. “Tomorrow” had some intriguing aspects but their details were elusive. A deeper story would have been preferable.

 

A heartless girl contemplates her cold demeanor in A Change of Heart by Rachel Halpern (debut 8/23 and reviewed by Frank D). Clara is an unusual child. She is well aware that she lacks the emotional peaks and valleys she sees in others. She has learned to mimic feelings, mindful of responsive cues to simulate face expressions and appropriate verbal responses to emotive situations. Faking it hasn’t left Clara satisfied, and she is wondering if the empty space in her chest may have something to do with her wooden condition.

“A Change of Heart” is a Tin Man tale. Clara’s parents fill in the pieces for her when they show her a wooden box and explain of the unusual procedure Dr. Annin preformed that saved her life at a young age. Her heart was dying, so the doctor removed it and stored it in the box, where it still beats. As long as it remains in the box, Clara is safe and immortal, but Clara knows that a life without a beating heart is not a life at all.

I have mixed emotions about “A Change of Heart”. Although the story is a solid one, I felt it was longer than it needed to be. The narrative seemed to drag, as if the author had trouble telling an emotional tale through the eyes of a protagonist who lack emotions. The result was too much backhanded explanations, a simile or two too many, and long stretches of internal contemplations. I felt the tale could have been stronger as a short-short, or maybe, as a work of flash. Nevertheless, the concept was an interesting one. I can see why the editors decided to publish.

 

Friendship is the theme of A Crown of Woven Nails by Caroline M. Yoachim (debut 8/26 and reviewed by Frank D). The protagonist is a little girl who makes friends with a shape shifting alien. The Splitters came to Earth to help rebuild civilization after an atomic war. Gratitude evolves into suspicion as fear compels humanity to imprison the Splitters. The little girl remembers her friend, Cobalt, and tries to rekindle their friendship years later after the aliens are free, but people change, as do the aliens who change shape at will.

“A Crown” revolves around the memory of gift the protagonist receives from Cobalt when they were adolescents, a crown Cobalt transforms from discarded nails. The story is much like any story could tell from their own experiences , a memory of a long ago friend from an innocent time. Although the shape-shifting aliens gave it a new flavor, the story’s theme I found less than remarkable.

 

An unwanted guest has a habit of crashing weddings in Three Weddings and an Objection by M. M. Domaille (debut 8/27 and reviewed by Frank D). An off world ice fishing community celebration is interrupted by a defense probe, ruining a blessed couples special day. The guests all flee before the murderous probe mistakes them for a rebel assembly. Two more weddings are attempted but the probe still appears each time. Will love conquer all?

This tale set in an isolated setting has a usual angle to it. There is a slight twist to the story, and a slight appeal to the tale.

 

Psychic abilities ruin a love affair in Love is Orange, Love is Red by Eric James Stone (debut 8/28 and reviewed by Frank D). A sickness afflicts a couple that grants them the ability to sense the emotions of each other. Disappoint is the result when they discover their feelings don’t run at equal depths.

Mr. Stone explores the consequences of knowing exactly how another feels about you. The protagonist attempts to explain his mundane emotional state for his lover with an analogy of viewing colors differently. Intriguing tale but this passion driven story is told from an emotional distance. It loses its luster in the processes, giving it a clinical feel to it.

 

Flip Side by Chip Houser (debut 8/29 and reviewed by James Hanzelka)

The woman sat beside the road in her tattered dress. She argued with herself about the past. Was the accident her fault? Was she driving too fast? Or was it Tommy’s for not watching where he was going? She throws her empty bottle in frustration. The old man eases his way across the street, dodging the crumbling asphalt and broken glass. Standing next to her he pulls out a bottle and holds it out to her. “Whiskey?” she asks. “Something better,” he replies. She drains the bottle, choking on the sickly sweet liquid. “You’ve poisoned me!” she cries. “No I’ve set you free,” he replies. “It will be better this time.”

“Flip Side” is a story about what could have been and what you would give to set the past right. The author deftly unfolds the tragedy that stunted this woman’s life, and shows us that there are worse things than death. He then offers us hope that someone out there will give us a second chance. Someone that will give us back the chance to make the right choice. I liked how well he did this and still found the room to paint such a vivid picture of the participants. This one is worth the read.

 

I’ll Never Find Another You by C J Paget (debut 8/30 and reviewed by James Hanzelka)

He first sees her at the party. She’s dressed like a genie. There’s something familiar about her, but he can’t quite place it. He works his way over to her and they exchange banter, agreeing to flee the boredom of the party. She retrieves her coat from the Jag and follows him to his Audi. “Nice car,” he says. “It’s stolen,” she replies. As they drive she asks about finance, and quantum mechanics. At his place he opens the gate and watches her face, the disappointment is obvious. “Not what you expected?” he asks. She shakes her head like it doesn’t belong there. “Now what’s this all about he asks?” “Quantum Mechanics,” she replies.

This story meanders along the trail of alternate universes and what-could-have-beens, ending in the only way it could. The author takes their time laying out the premise, which doesn’t help in my mind. Once you get to the end you’ll find you don’t care much for either of the two characters that populate the story. It has some interesting premises, but the inherent flaws in the characters are just too much to get past. I found myself hoping for the end to come, and it didn’t come fast enough.

 

Sound Check

A few reviews ago, I suggested the editors take a look into the audio market to help get their vast library out there. They responded to me by offering me the audio editor’s job. After sending several unanswered queries to the largest audio publishers out there, I can confidently confirm that I suck as an audio editor. I am clearly out of league but do firmly believe that an audio version of Not Just Rockets and Robots would be a hit. So†¦.

I am asking for help, advice, a shovel to help me dig out of this hole that I am in, to get Daily SF on its rightful place in the audio section of literature. Anyone got anything for me?

snapperFrank Dutkiewicz needs no introduction.

The Inside Scoop on Anthologies with Mike Resnick

interview by Carl Slaughter

In the 1990s, Mike Resnick launched more careers with his anthologies than Asimov’s, Analog, and F&SF combined. He’s at it again with Stellar Guild. He gives Diabolical Plots the inside story on the nature and process of anthologies.

CARL SLAUGHTER: Which is a better/faster way to build a resume as a speculative fiction writer, anthologies or magazines?

MIKE RESNICK: The digest magazines. Then the print anthologies. Then the e-zines. But mass market novels are the quickest way of all.

 

CS: Which pays better?

MR: Depends on the market. Jim Baen’s Universe was paying a quarter a word when I was co-editing it with Eric Flint. Most of the print zines pay 7 to 9 cents, most of the SFWA-accepted e-zines pay 5 or 6 cents, though a few pay double that. The average anthology, at least the ones I’m acquainted with over the past half-dozen years, pay from 7 to 10 cents a word. Even when I was editing them twenty+ years ago, we never paid less than 6 cents. Which is to say, in sum, that it’s a crap shoot.

 

CS: Which involves surrendering fewer rights?

MR: Any legit magazine will buy first serial rights, and keep the option of buying it again for an anthology of stories from the magazine. Usually they want a six-month worldwide exclusive. Most anthologies will buy first serial rights, plus a worldwide non-exclusive (which means they can sell the anthology to other countries, giving you a pro rata split; but you can market the solo story anywhere you want.) That’s standard, but of course not all contracts are standard.

 

CS: From conception to publication, what’s the timeframe for a typical anthology?

MR: From conception, I assume you mean from the day the editor signs a contract with the publisher. If it’s an original anthology, figure twelve to sixteen months; if it’s reprint, maybe seven to twelve months.

 

CS: What’s the average number of stories per anthology?

MR: Varies wildly. Twenty is a nice safe average number.

 

CS: What’s the average word count per story?

MR: 5000 to 6500 usually. Which isn’t to say that flash fiction and novellas are totally absent from all anthologies.

 

CS: How well do anthologies sell?

MR: Not very. Most sales are made in the contracts, not the execution. And if a publisher is shelling out well under $10,000 for an anthology — and 95% of the anthologies go for four figures — then the only way he can get hurt is to spend $50,000 promoting it, or printing 300,000 copies, or hiring the equivalent of Frank Frazetta for the cover art…so he handles it like a $7,000 book…and lo and behold, it sells like a $7,000 book.

 

CS: Does every major speculative fiction publisher have an anthology division or are most anthology editors freelancers?

MR: Almost all anthologies are freelance edited.

 

CS: Where does a freelance anthology editor get capital for their next project?

MR: You talk to “Names” that will make the book marketable, and when you get enough commitments, you take your anthology idea to the various publishing houses until someone likes it enough to sign a contract and pay you an advance. I should add that almost all advances are half on signing and half on delivery…and since you budget about 90% of the advance for stories, the editor is often a few thousand dollars out-of-pocket until he delivers. (And mass market publishing is historically a month or two late on the signature advance, and two to four months late on the delivery/acceptance payment.)

 

CS: Are most anthologies open to submission or by invitation only?

MR: Most are invitation only. For sound economic reasons. If I sell an anthology for $8,000, I’ll budget it at $7,000…and someone always has diarrhea of the keyboard, so it’ll cost me about $7,300…which means I’ll make about $700. Now, if I’m dealing with journeyman writers whose work I like well enough to invite them, I can usually do the editing in a few days…but if I open it to submissions, I’m going to get about 600 stories, maybe 500 all-but-unreadable, and it’ll take me a month to wade my way through them…and if I’m only earning $700 a month, I’m in the wrong business.

 

CS: For the ones that are invitation only, how does an aspiring writer get on the editor’s radar?

MR: He keeps his eyes and ears open, he networks, he talks to pros, to other beginners, he attends conventions. I know it seems like “invite only” means “no beginners wanted”…but I bought more first stories for my anthologies in the 1990s than Asimov’s, Analog and F&SF combined.

 

CS: For the ones that accept submissions, how do they spread the word? Post on Codex, WOTF, Hatrack, and Critters; advertise in the SFWA newsletter; if it’s a horror anthology, advertise in the Horror Writers Association newsletter; if the subgenre is vampire or zombie, do they notify the Vampire Writers Association or Zombie Writers Association (I’m joking, are there such associations?)?

MR: You can whisper, very softly, that you accept submissions, and you’ll be whelmed over with hundreds of them within a couple of weeks.

 

CS: Novel editors put stories through extensive revision. What about anthology editors. Do they request multiple rewrites? Do they do the rewrites themselves?

MR: If it’s a theme anthology, and 90% of them are, that means it’s a story that wouldn’t have been written if I hadn’t commissioned it…and that means I have a moral obligation to the writer. I will return any story for revisions if it needs them…and on those occasions that the author simply can’t give me what I want — and it’s only happened three times in over fortyanthologies, I’ll pay him a kill fee, since as I say he’d never have taken the time to write a story on that particular theme if I hadn’t assigned it.

 

CS: What percentage of stories in a typical anthology are by new writers?

MR: I can’t speak for any other editors. I’d say about 20-25% in my anthologies are by new or newer writers, or to be more blunt, by names we can’t put on the cover because they have absolutely no following or value at present. This, I should add, is not a permanent condition. 10 of the writers I have bought from made the Campbell ballot after I bought their stories.

 

CS: How often do we see anthologies with all new writers? Is it too much of a risk for publishers? Aren’t readers keen to check out new writers?

MR: My guess is: Never. I did one for SFWA, published by DAW, called NEW VOICES IN SCIENCE FICTION, a few years back, and it contained only writers who’d broken into print in the past five years…but even so it contained some bestsellers, a bunch of Campbell winners and nominees, etc.

 

CS: Who are/were the heavy hitters in the anthology industry and what is their greatest contribution?

MR: Anytime between 1980 and 2005 I’d have said there was Marty Greenberg and then there was Everyone Else. With Marty gone, no one has begun to dominate the field the way he did. John Joseph Adams is putting out some nice anthologies; so is the team of George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois. And there’s something new afoot — the Kickstarter project. The best so far have come from Bryan Schmidt, Marty Halpern, Alex Shvartsman, and a few others…but it’s very early days in that field.

 

Carl_eagleCarl Slaughter is a man of the world. For the last decade, he has traveled the globe as an ESL teacher in 17 countries on 3 continents, collecting souvenir paintings from China, Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, and Egypt, as well as dresses from Egypt, and masks from Kenya, along the way. He spends a ridiculous amount of time and an alarming amount of money in bookstores. He has a large ESL book review website, an exhaustive FAQ about teaching English in China, and a collection of 75 English language newspapers from 15 countries.

His training is in journalism, and he has an essay on culture printed in the Korea Times and Beijing Review. He has two science fiction novels in the works and is deep into research for an environmental short story project.

Carl currently teaches in China where electricity is an inconsistent commodity.

Review: Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

written by David Steffen

“Breq is both more than she seems and less than she was. ” This line is from the back-cover blurb of Ancillary Justice, the debut novel by Ann Leckie published by Orbit Books. Breq is a fragment of the ship AI known collectively as Justice of Toren, whose mind once occupied many bodies simultaneously: the body of the ship itself and thousands of ancillaries. Ancillaries are “corpse soldiers”, human bodies whose minds have been overwritten to function as appendages of a ship AI. At the point where the story begins, there is only Breq. All the rest of her is gone. She has chosen a mission, a dangerous mission against astronomical odds.

The genre is probably most easily described as a space opera SF. Galaxy-spanning empires, fights, drama, action. But I don’t mean that as a criticism. This book is everything that space opera should be: exciting, emotional, action-packed, and well-paced. The story hits the ground running–there’s no infodump to ground you in the politics or technology of the universe. Action is happening on page one, and reading the story is as much a puzzle to figure out the significance of different political factions, the limits of the available technology, as the story is happening around. With such a grand background, it would be easy to lose the individuals in the midst of it or to use one-dimensional characters from central casting, but the story is full of strong characters, including Breq herself, which give the very human, emotional components that a story needs to be really engaging.

In some ways Breq is superhuman–a very efficient killer when she wants to be, with flawless aim and a computer-like ability to calculate complex math. In other ways she struggles where an ordinary human would not–interpreting facial expressions, trying to tell male and female genders apart. It’s just taken for granted that she is extremely capable, but the book places her against such tough odds and difficult situations that even then her success is not inevitable. But it also manages to pull off the conclusion in a convincing manner so that it doesn’t seem a contrived success. A tough balance to strike but it is done well.

All that’s well and good, but what really makes this book stand out in my mind from other space operas is the interesting format of the point of view of Justice of Toren. The first scenes take place once Breq is all that’s left of Justice of Toren, and although she thinks and acts differently than a typical human, she is more-or-less very human-like, so the POV is not particularly novel. But scenes from that time period are interspersed with flashback scenes from Justice of Toren in all her legion of bodies. She is a single entity, despite all the bodies, receiving sensory input and exerting control over all of them simultaneously, and each body is basically an appendage of the whole, though the bodies are capable of functioning in isolation (as the continued existence of Breq shows you). Writing such a complicated point of view was a risk that could’ve easily made the book unreadable for anyone but the writer (who of course knows how it’s all supposed to fit together). Quite frankly, this is a point of view that shouldn’t work. In the hands of a lesser writer, it would be a garbled mess from which you wouldn’t be able to extract a narrative. Ann Leckie took a risk with this, and she made it look easy. If you’re interested in reading, if you’re interested in writing, even if you have no interest in space opera, you should try out the first few chapters of this book to see how she did it.

I’ll admit, there are parts of the book where I felt like I was falling a little behind, particularly having to do with the relation between some political/social factions. I think that I could sort these out with a second read-through. I don’t think these were the faults of the writing, but of me being a bit slow on the uptake, and even with that I was able to understand the central plotline perfectly well.

And, even better, this is slated to be the first book in a trilogy. The first book stands well enough on its own as a complete story that you don’t need to go further, but I’ll be looking forward to reading the next two books–it’s always hard to outdo the novelty of the first in a series, but I look forward to seeing what Leckie can do for a followup.

I’ve heard some buzz about Ancillary Justice in relation to Hugo and Nebula nominations. I will certainly be nominating it for the Hugo, and voting for it if it is one of the finalists. I would love to see this book get all the recognition it deserves. Please read this book and tell everyone you know about it.

Lou Anders Interview

interview by Carl Slaughter

LouBlueShirtLou Anders is the Hugo Award winning editorial director of the SF&F imprint Pyr Books, a Chesley Award winning art director, and the editor of nine anthologies. He has also been nominated for six additional Hugo Awards, five additional Chesley Awards, as well as the PKD, Locus, Shirley Jackson, and three World Fantasy Awards. His first novel, Frostborn, book one in a three-book middle grade fantasy adventure series called Thrones and Bones, will be published in August 2014 by Random House’s Crown Books for Young Readers.

 

ABOUT YOU

CARL SLAUGHTER: You’ve done stage, scriptwriting, magazine, journalism, ebook. How did each of these fields prepare you to be editorial director of a speculative fiction book imprint?

LOU ANDERS: In one form or another, I’ve been working in the science fiction and fantasy genre since the early 90s. If we carve off my (perhaps dubious) stage work, then I’ve been a professional in science fiction and fantasy entertainment since 1995, and I was in the ebook space in 2000 before there was such a thing! I think the diversity of my professional experience gives me well-rounded perspective on media, while keeping the focus on genre.

 

ABOUT YOU AND PYR:

CVG 2013 GoH Badge - Lou AndersCS: There were several speculative fiction imprints at the time Pyr was launched. Tor, Del Rey, Ace, DAW, Baen, Why another imprint? What void have you been filling? How is Pyr distinct from other imprints?

LA: My parent company, Prometheus Books, wanted to get into fiction and chose science fiction as an appropriate niche for a company founded on principles of humanism and science. When we were starting out, we very quickly dismissed the idea of specializing in a particular subgenre in favor of trying to provide high quality science fiction and fantasy in what Asimov’s once described as genre being “pitched down the middle of the field” but written at a higher level of prose quality. About three years into our run, we began to hear from the chain buyers and distributors that we had the “most consistent quality” of any publisher as well as the consistently best looking covers. So, I’d say that we are trying to be SFF “dialed to eleven.” One fan once told us that while they don’t always like every Pyr title, they know that every Pyr book will be an engrossing read, well executed.

 

CS: Pyr was launched in 2005. You were nominated for a Hugo for best editor in 2007 and have been nominated every year since. How did you come on so strong so early and how did you maintain that momentum?

LA: There were a lot of factors that came together at the right time around our debut. We’re very fortunate to have connected with the readership so strongly, and I’m grateful for all those nominations. All we can do is continue to do our best and be glad that people appreciate that.

 

CS: Imagine you’re assigned to write a three paragraph entry about Pyr for the next encyclopedia of speculative fiction. What do you say? Give us a peekat those three paragraphs.

LA: I can’t answer this. It’s up to the field to define who we are. We can only offer the best we can. How the readership responds to that offer isn’t up to us. So far they’ve liked what we do and we’ll work to ensure that continues as best we can.

 

CS: You’ve also been nominated several times for anthology editor. Give us a thumbnail sketch of your vision for anthologies, past, present, and future.

LA: Well, I don’t know if I’m going to do any more anthologies in the future. I’ve turned my attention to my own fiction, and given the copious amounts of free time I don’t have, any and all snatches of personal time I have that is not claimed by my family goes into my own creations. But when I did anthologies, my goal was to never simply present reprint collections of themed stories, but to ask questions of where I thought the genre was, where it was going next, and where it should be. Each of my nine anthologies are attempts to engage the dialogue of speculative fiction in a moment, whether that was my frustrations with the limits of post-cyberpunk fiction in Live Without a Net, or my desire to explore the intersection of sword and sorcery values with modern, “realistic” fantasy in Swords & Dark Magic (co-edited with Jonathan Strahan). Every anthology is a question put to the field and hopefully a collection of answers.

 

CS: You’ve won the Chesley Award for Best Art Direcotr. I confess,I’m not an art person. I confess further that most sci fi / fantasy art strikes me as, well, bizarre. Explain the why and how of cover art for the decidedly non-arts people.

LA: Well that makes me sad to hear. Our field is unique in that it has over a century of cooperation between visual artists and wordsmiths. It’s one of the most exciting and distinctive things about the SFF field. But you have to understand that a cover’s first function is to attract the attention of the one guy at Barnes and Noble who buys all genre books for the entire chain. Beyond that, it’s to get the distribution sales force excited about a book. Then it’s to catch the casual browser’s attention, to close that deal in the nanosecond you have when someone glances at a title before his or her eye slides on to the next one. Think of covers like flowers, signaling with their colors to the right insects they need for pollination. You have to match the right flower to the right bug , the right book to the right reader.

 

ABOUT PYR

CS: What percentage of fantasy versus science fiction versus, shall we say, works which defy category, have you published? How much hard science, space opera, alternate history, steam punk, horror, etc. How many serials, how many anthologies, how many reprints?

LA: We publish a great deal of epic fantasy and sword and sorcery fiction, a great deal of steampunk, some space opera and military science fiction. We don’t publish horror and very little of what you’d call slipstream. Our Vampire Empire trilogy may defy categorization as you say , being an alternate history, pulp fiction, paranormal romance, steampunk, vampire epic , but that’s not the same thing as the more literary “new wave fabulism” that I think you mean. I should point out that these days we publish a LOT more fantasy than science fiction, though when we do SF, we do it well (ahem, Ian McDonald). We also have some very hard hitting work coming out from Joel Shepherd.

 

CS: Is there a market niche you’re struggling to meet? Is there one with a glut of manuscripts?

LA: We are trying to publish the best stories we can and serve a wide variety of readers. That being said, the urban fantasy genre is certainly glutted and probably in retraction.

 

CS: Which subgenres are you drawn to and which subgenres do you avoid?

LA: I have a sweet spot for sword and sorcery, and for the modern fantasy epic.

 

CS: With fantasy, do you prefer original characters or classic creatures – dragon, vampire, werewolf, witch, ghost, mermaid.

LA: This depends entirely on execution. There’s been a backlash against classic fantasy characters like elves and dwarves for a while now. In the wake of George RR Martin’s success we’ve seen a lot of “humans only” fantasy. I think we’re actually due to come back from this.

 

CS: Vampires are all the rage. Sexy kickass heroines have been in vogue for some time. Alien invasion and alien encounter are staples. Do you go with the flow or do you resist the flow?

LA: Read Mark Hodder’s A Red Sun Also Rises and tell me what you think.

 

CS: Hypothetical question: You have 2 manuscripts on your desk, one sci fi, one fantasy, both by the same author, and you can publish only one. Which one, or does it just all depend? If the latter, depends on what?

LA: I publish the one that has me jumping out of my chair in excitement. Period. If I can’t get excited about it, how can I get you excited about it? That being said, you never have two manuscripts from the same author.

 

CS: Who do you have doing hard science, how do they approach hard science, and how is that approach distinguished from what else is on the market?

LA: Hard science fiction is very much a niche interest right now. When I publish hard science fiction, I lean away from transparent prose in favor of the literary end of that spectrum. I’d say all our hard SF is “literary award caliber.” I think our awards track record bears this out!

 

ABOUT ASPIRING WRITERS

CS: True or false: Every editor is eager to find new authors. It’s virtually impossible to sell a first novel manuscript without working your way up the short story magazine food chain til you’ve been published in SFWA markets a few times. A novel by a veteran sell better and are first novel sales sluggish, or is that also conventional wisdom? A big name author can sell you on a story with strictly the premise, but a rookie has to submit a full fledged outline.

LA: You have a number of false assumptions here. Plenty of first time novelists have never written/sold short stories. The two forms are very different and a lot of people find they excel at one and not the other. I myself am in that camp. I’ve only written a handful of short stories, none appearing in pro markets, and I’ve just sold a children’s book to Random House. And Pyr has published a lot of debut and new authors. Also, a novel by a veteran author may be constrained by his/her previous sales record, whereas a new author is an unknown quality, and that can be attractive. That being said, a “rookie” has to submit a full fledged NOVEL, not outline. No unproven writer can sell anything but a complete, polished manuscript. And most of my established authors are still giving me very, very detailed outlines if not whole manuscripts. (Ian McDonald’s outlines can run to around 60 pages.) Mike Resnick did sell me his Weird West quartet of steampunk Doc Holiday novels on a premise, but in that case it was because I called him up and said “Mike, how would you like to write Weird Western?”

 

CS: Hypothetical question: You have 2 manuscripts on your desk, one by an established author, one by an unestablished author, and you can publish only one. Which one, or does it just all depend? If the latter, depends on what?

LA: You seem to be implying that I’ve got this checklist of criteria or quota that I’m looking at when I select a manuscript. Need suburban werewolf space opera. Must fill niche. I publish the manuscript that has me jumping out of my chair. The one that has me gasping for breath. The one that has my heart racing. I publish the books I love. If a book is “interesting” but I can put it down, I pass. There is a great line in the film Ronin in which Robert De Niro says, “If there’s any doubt, there’s no doubt.” That’s my mandate when acquiring novels.

 

CS: Advice to an aspiring writer who is already working on a novel?

LA: Is this your first novel? Expect to write several more before you produce one of professional quality. Don’t be discouraged. Write a novel. Finish it. Write another. Writing is like any other profession. It takes long hours of hard work and practice to get good at it. I’m a big believer in Malcolm Gladwell’s
10,000 hours rule, the notion that 10,000 hours is the average time it takes to master a pursuit. I wouldn’t let a brain surgeon operate on me if he told me
he’d never been to med school but was “pretty sure he could perform a good operation.” So why would someone believe they could pound on a keyboard for the
very first time and produce a masterpiece? Write, write, write. That being said, it’s not my job to help aspiring writers. It’s my job to select the best
manuscripts I can possibly find for my publisher from the pool of those who have already mastered the craft. I’m serving the reader, not the writer. The
competition is fierce. There are much better ways to make a living. If anything can discourage you, you should listen to it and quit. If you can’t quit, you
might make it.

 

CS: Advice to an aspiring writer who is considering writing a novel?

LA: You have along road ahead of you. Get started. Or don’t.

 

Carl_eagleCarl Slaughter is a man of the world. For the last decade, he has traveled the globe as an ESL teacher in 17 countries on 3 continents, collecting souvenir paintings from China, Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, and Egypt, as well as dresses from Egypt, and masks from Kenya, along the way. He spends a ridiculous amount of time and an alarming amount of money in bookstores. He has a large ESL book review website, an exhaustive FAQ about teaching English in China, and a collection of 75 English language newspapers from 15 countries.

His training is in journalism, and he has an essay on culture printed in the Korea Times and Beijing Review. He has two science fiction novels in the works and is deep into research for an environmental short story project.

Carl currently teaches in China where electricity is an inconsistent commodity.

 

Podcast Spotlight: Decoder Ring Theater

written by David Steffen

In my constant quest to find new sources of short audio fiction, I’ve listened to quite a few episodes of Decoder Ring Theater who describe themselves as the “home of all-new audio adventures in the tradition of the classic programs of Radio’s Golden Age. Here you will find full-length, full-cast tales of mystery and adventure to fire your imagination”. Their two main recurring features are The Red Panda and Black Jack Justice, but every summer they have different features that aren’t in those two main series.

Normally I would do a Best Of list, but the format of this show made the usual format a little bit awkward. Namely, that the vast majority of their shows are within two continuities, and so there aren’t a lot of distinct stories to pick out from the rest. So I decided I would just do a spotlight and talk briefly about the things I liked and things I didn’t like about the show.

What’s to like?

The folks at Decoder Ring Theater have succeeded in their mission statement of giving a feel of the Golden Age of radio. The voice actors are great, each one with a variety of voices, some of them over the top but always in the right way. The voice acting is the best part of the show.

Some of the segments of the show are great. The ones I liked the best were the humor series. My favorites were:

Before they launched The Red Panda Adventures, they ran six episodes of Red Panda. These episodes take place during WWII, following Red Panda, an agent of the Canadian government in the war. The people on all sides of the conflict are cartoonish, over the top. The Canadian Prime Minister, for instance, has been hit by an enemy weapon that turns him into simpleminded and the one who’s really running the war effort is the Prime Minister’s dog. Despite the wartime setting, I never really felt the stakes, but the humor made it well worth it.

Another great comedy series they ran was Slick Bracer, PI, a parody of classical noir tales. Slick isn’t shy about breaking the fourth wall at any point, talking to the audience, pointing out his own cliches. The mysteries didn’t get my mind racing by any means, but there were a lot of laugh out loud moments

They’ve run quite a few good one-off short stories that are well worth listening to, definitely worth digging through their backlog of summer stories.

What’s not to like?

The folks at Decoder Ring Theater have succeeded in their mission statement of giving a feel of the Golden Age of radio. But, well, Golden Age radio wasn’t without its flaws. The over-the-top acting and writing works well for comedy, but I find it hard to take seriously when it’s trying to be dramatic. The macho attitudes of the lead male characters and the generally short shrift most of the female characters get got on my nerves. I mean, yes both of the main shows have a female main character but at least in the episodes I listened to they’re both securely in the role of sidekick.

The two main series of the show are The Red Panda Adventures and Black Jack Justice. The Red Panda Adventures follows the Red Panda, who is kind of the same Red Panda as the one in the Red Panda series that I liked, but basically from a different continuity. This one takes place in 1930s Toronto where he is a masked (not-super) crime fighting hero accompanied by his sidekick the Flying Squirrel. Between the crimes and the mysteries that they pursure, most of the time is spent with her in her cover identity as his limo driver making advances on him at every opportunity to which he always responds with the phrase “Kit Baxter, behave.” I wanted to punch him right in the teeth and slap her upside the head every time I heard that phrase. It seemed to meant to be cute and endearing how he never quite rejected her straight out but never quite acknowledge her come-ons either. But she needs to get some self-respect and find a different employer rather than wasting her life chasing that un-super schmuck, and he needs to stop being such a jerk. I never felt the writing really respected her as a person, and turned me off. If the stories had been great, maybe I’d get over it, but I guess I don’t go for classical unpowered heroes nor the mystery stories they sometimes get into.

Black Jack Justice is their other main series with Jack Justice and Trixie Dixon girl detective (their words not mine). I at least didn’t want to hit either of them, and she wasn’t fawning after his every word like the Flying Squirrel was in the other series. But that’s about the best praise I can give it.

One of the side series was very hard to listen to: Deck Gibson. The title character is an earthling who survived a space wreck and was taken in by an alien civilization for whom he has worked ever since. This series is like a object lesson in most of the bad writing tropes you’ll ever come across. Especially “As you know, Bob” dialog. Deck has constant contact over radio with a maybe-AI (they never totally make it clear what she is) who provides the recipient for most of his dialog in the story. At times she seems able to use the sensors in his suit to tell what’s going on around him, and at other times he can. They take turns explaining to each other what they are seeing on his sensors as if only one of them can somehow use them at a time. Really it’s just a bad writing technique to get the information to the listener, but there are better ways to pull that off in an audio drama–at the very least if it were consistent about which way the information flowed it would do a lot to increase its credibility.

Overall

I’ve given up on the Red Panda Adventures and Black Jack Justice main series. Which is most of what they publish most of the year. I’ll check back in the summers to try out their summer showcase series since they have had some really fun ones there. I think this’ll be my last post about them, since the summer showcase stories only come out at a rate of six per year, that’s not enough to do regular Best Of lists.

If you like Golden Age radio, warts and all, tune in and give it a try. If you don’t, you still might want to check out the showcase series. Try the two main series while you’re at it too, just don’t feel like you have stick with them forever if you don’t care for them.

Jeanne Cavelos and the Odyssey Workshop

interview by Carl Slaughter

student_interaction1 Jeanne Cavelos is a writer, editor, scientist, and teacher. Her love of science fiction led her to earn her MFA in creative writing. She moved into a career in publishing, becoming a senior editor at Bantam Doubleday Dell, where she created and launched the Abyss imprint of innovative horror and the Cutting Edge imprint of noir literary fiction. She also ran the science fiction/fantasy publishing program. In addition, she edited a wide range of fiction and nonfiction. In her eight years in New York publishing, she edited numerous award-winning and best-selling authors and gained a reputation for discovering and nurturing new writers. Jeanne won the World Fantasy Award for her editing.

Jeanne has had seven books published by major publishers. Her last novel to hit the stores was Invoking Darkness, the third volume in her best-selling trilogy The Passing of the Techno-Mages (Del Rey), set in the Babylon 5 universe. The Sci-Fi Channel called the trilogy “A revelation for Babylon 5 fans. . . . Not ‘television episodic’ in look and feel. They are truly novels in their own right.” Her book The Science of Star Wars (St. Martin’s) was chosen by the New York Public Library for its recommended reading list, and CNN said, “Cavelos manages to make some of the most mind-boggling notions of contemporary science understandable, interesting and even entertaining.” The Science of The X-Files (Berkley) was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award. Publishers Weekly called it “Crisp, conversational, and intelligent.”

Jeanne has published short fiction and nonfiction in many magazines and anthologies. The Many Faces of Van Helsing, an anthology edited by Jeanne, was released by Berkley in 2004 and was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award. The editors at Barnes and Noble called it “brilliant. . . . Arguably the strongest collection of supernatural stories to be released in years.”

Jeanne created and serves as primary instructor at the Odyssey Writing Workshop. She is also an English lecturer at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, where she teaches writing and literature.

She talks to Diabolical Plots‘s Carl Slaughter about getting into the trenches with writers.

More information about her and the workshop:
www.jeannecavelos.com.
www.odysseyworkshop.org.

Cavelos Sawher
(Pictured here with author Robert J Sawyer.)

 

CARL SLAUGHTER: WHY ASPIRING WRITERS?

JEANNE CAVELOS: As a writer critiquing other writers while getting my MFA in creative writing, and then at Bantam Doubleday Dell, working my way up from editorial assistant to senior editor, I found that I loved working with writers, helping them to make their work the best it could be. Identifying the strengths and weaknesses in a piece, and coming up with possible ways to address those weaknesses, is a lot like
solving a puzzle. For me, this is extremely satisfying. And when the light bulb goes off for the writer, and he revises the piece with this new understanding and radically improves the work–I am so happy for his success. I love helping writers to improve. So when I left publishing to make more time for my own writing, I wanted to continue to be able to work with writers. That’s why I started Odyssey.

 

CARL: WHY A WORKSHOP?

JEANNE: A writer usually can’t make dramatic improvements to his work by writing on his own. You can improve, but progress tends to be slow. To make dramatic improvements, you generally needs three things: first, a greater understanding of the elements of fiction and the tools and techniques that allow you to manipulate them in a powerful way; second, practice using these techniques; and third, feedback to reveal whether you are successful in using the techniques.

The Odyssey Writing Workshop focuses on providing these three things. We spend about 2 1/2 hours each day in lecture and discussion, so over the six weeks, we cover all the elements of fiction, pitfalls to avoid, and techniques that can create powerful, memorable stories. Daily writing exercises, as well as writing your own stories, help you put these concepts and techniques into practice. Then the workshop provides feedback on how you are doing.

Often writers, working alone, will read books on writing, but that knowledge won’t be incorporated into their work. There is great power to devoting oneself solely to one’s writing for six weeks, hearing lectures on writing, writing, reading the work of others and providing feedback. Doing all of these at once helps to incorporate the concepts and techniques into one’s writing process.

 

CARL: WHY ON SITE INSTEAD OF ONLINE?

JEANNE: Odyssey does offer online classes each winter. They are focused on specific writing topics and aimed at writers of a particular skill level.
We hold live class sessions via Web conferencing software, to create the most immediate, interactive experience possible. Writers have found these very helpful.

But they aren’t the same as being in the “Odyssey bubble,” as the class of 2013 called it, an intense, private place filled with writers and
focused on writing, where the outside world does not intrude. Just getting away from “real” life is a huge help in putting all one’s energy toward improving one’s writing.

 

CARL: WHAT DID YOU LEARN FROM YOUR MFA IN CREATIVE WRITING THAT HELPS YOU AS A CRITIQUER?

JEANNE: I became much more aware of style and learned the different ways to manipulate words and sentences to create different effects. That was extremely valuable. Many genre writers don’t have style very high on their list of things to think about, so I try to make them more aware of their style, of the choices they’re making, and then offer them some other possibilities that may be more effective. For example, many developing writers use a similar sentence length throughout, when instead they should be manipulating sentence length to better support the action and emotion of each moment.

 

CARL: WHAT DID YOU LEARN AS AN EDITOR THAT HELPS YOU AS A CRITIQUER?

JEANNE: I learned a great deal as an editor. Reading submissions reveals many common weaknesses of developing writers, so I am very aware of them and can point them out in a critique, as well as warn writers away from them in advance. For example, starting with a character sitting and thinking about his life, or standing and thinking about his life, or driving and thinking about his life, indicates the writer has started in the wrong place and doesn’t understand the requirements of an opening, or how exposition (background information) should be incorporated into a work. Working with writers on manuscripts that we were going to publish taught me how much better a good piece can become with revision.

 

CARL: WHAT ARE THE MOST COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS WRITERS HAVE AND HOW TO YOU ADDRESS THOSE MISCONCEPTIONS?

JEANNE: Writers at different levels of development have different misconceptions. Many of those who attend the Odyssey workshop arrive thinking that they know almost everything about how to write and the techniques to use. They are mainly looking for feedback on how well they are incorporating that knowledge into their work. From what they’ve told me, within a few days, they realize that there is a huge amount they didn’t know. Then they get very excited and start soaking up as much as they can.

 

CARL: WHAT ARE THE MOST COMMON WEAKNESSES WRITERS HAVE AND HOW DO YOU HELP THEM OVERCOME THOSE WEAKNESSES?

JEANNE: The most common is lack of a strong plot. This usually arises because a writer starts a story with no idea where it’s going, writes a draft, and then declares the story done. There’s nothing wrong with starting without knowing where you’re going. But if you start without knowing the end, chances are the story will lack unity, focus, a strong character arc, and a strong plot. So once you know the end, then you probably need to toss out everything else and figure out what the beginning and middle ought to be, to lead to that end. Most writers, on hearing this, become more open to planning ahead and trying to discover the ending before beginning the draft. I explore different techniques with writers to try to find the right one for them.

Another common problem is writers who don’t want to let anything bad happen to their protagonists. By discussing other stories that they enjoy, and the bad things that happen to those protagonists, I try to help them see the necessity of suffering. Something important needs to be at stake for the protagonist. He needs to struggle and be challenged by the events, and if he is lucky enough to have a happy ending, he needs to pay a price for it. Many writers have weak or flat characters in their stories. The characters have a couple of superficial characteristics, and that’s it. The main character lacks a feeling of depth, of hidden dimensions, of reality. There are some great techniques writers can use to add depth to a major character. One simple method is to use the Johari Window on your character.

Often the protagonist is a stand-in for the author, and since most authors spend a lot of time sitting around, thinking, and writing, their stand-ins tend to be passive. Many writers just need to learn that the protagonist needs to have a goal that he is struggling to achieve. Even if the goal is sitting on the couch, there must be obstacles and other forces he must struggle against to stay on that couch.

 

CARL: HOW MUCH EMPHASIS DO YOU PLACE ON A WRITTEN CRITIQUE VERSUS NOTES ON THE MANUSCRIPT VERSUS ONE ON ONE SESSIONS?

JEANNE: All of these are important components for learning and improving. One-on-one meetings are invaluable, because they allow us to discuss larger issues that haven’t come up in critique, to address questions, to chart progress and remaining challenges, and to discuss how changes to the student’s writing process have worked and explore new changes to make. It’s also important for me to connect personally with each writer, to understand his needs and do what I can to help him.

 

CARL: HOW MUCH EMPHASIS DO YOU PLACE ON PRODUCTIVITY VERSUS QUALITY, HOW MUCH ON REVISION, HOW MUCH ON CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT, PLOT STRUCTURE, STYLE/VOICE, ETC?

JEANNE: Students at the workshop need to submit six pieces of fiction over the six weeks (and two before the workshop begins). This requires a greater level of productivity than most students have achieved. But they rise to the occasion and produce some amazing work. I think it’s very important to be writing each evening, after hearing the information in the lectures that morning. This helps the concepts to be incorporated into the student’s writing process. Writing multiple pieces allows the students to try and try again to incorporate a particular technique or make progress with a certain element. And that’s exactly what they need to do. Quality sometimes suffers as students become exhausted–you will never work harder in your life than you work at Odyssey–but sometimes the greatest breakthroughs occur at a 3 AM writing session.

I strongly encourage revision, since in my experience most writers don’t revise nearly enough. Students can submit revisions of pieces they previously had critiqued. I encourage them to submit a revision to a different audience. For example, if they had the initial version critiqued by the entire class, they could have the revision critiqued privately by a guest lecturer, or vice versa.

As for character development, plot structure, style/voice, all of the elements of fiction are important to a powerful, unified story. I would say I stress plot and character a bit more than the rest, since they are the building blocks, and if they’re not working, it’s hard to have a successful story.

 

CARL: DO YOU RECOMMEND AN OUTLINE AND CHARACTER PROFILES FOR EVERY STORY, ESPECIALLY NOVELS?

JEANNE: Every writer is different, so I would have different answers for different writers. But unless you are a genius at instinctive plotting, it would be unwise to write a novel without some sort of outline, even if the outline has just four lines, specifying the beginning of the novel and the end of each of your three acts. Still, some writers are unable or unwilling to work with an outline, and that’s okay; it just means they need to be willing to do *lots* of revision. A useful tool in these cases is to outline as you go. Write a scene and then add a line describing what happened in it to your outline. Then you will have an outline when you finish your draft, and you can examine it and see how to strengthen your plot.

I find character profiles overrated. They are helpful for some writers, but in most cases, writers create elaborate profiles and then they start writing and the character behaves in an entirely different way. I think you need a basic, core sense of who the character is, what he wants, and why he wants it, before you start writing. Beyond that, I think the most helpful thing for many writers is to note different traits or facts about the character as they are writing the story.

 

CARL: DO YOU EVER REWRITE A PASSAGE FOR A WORKSHOP STUDENT? IF SO, IS THIS STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE OR LAST RESORT?

JEANNE: I will rewrite a sentence, but not a passage. Rewriting a passage would feel like telling the author what the story should be. That’s not my job. My job is to try to figure out what the author wants the story to be, and then offer feedback and suggestions to help him make that story as strong as possible.

 

CARL: WHY ALLOW OTHER WORKSHOP PARTICIPANTS TO CRITIQUE STORIES? IS SOMEONE QUALIFIED TO CRITIQUE IF THEY HAVE NO EDITING EXPERIENCE, DON’T HAVE A DEGREE IN CREATIVE WRITING, AREN’T FULL TIME, CAREER WRITERS?

JEANNE: Most Odyssey students these days have critiqued a fair amount before arriving at Odyssey. But whether they have or not, it is a key skill they need to develop to improve their own writing. Many authors think that critiquing someone else’s work is a favor they do for the other writer, so that the other writer will critique their work. Nothing could be further from the truth. Critiquing someone else’s work helps you to develop your critical writer’s eye. It helps you to analyze a story and figure out what is working and what isn’t working. It allows you to come up with possible solutions to improve the weaknesses. Once you do this for long enough, you can begin to apply this critical writer’s eye to your own work, seeing the strengths and weaknesses as if it’s a piece written by someone else, and coming up with solutions to solve your problems.

Critiquing is also a great help in that it forces students to apply the theories and concepts discussed in class to actual stories. For example, when they realize that a story isn’t holding their attention and that they don’t care what happens, they are forced to step back and try to understand why. Then they see that the protagonist isn’t struggling to achieve a goal, and they realize–in a way much more powerful than me just telling them this in class–how important it is for the protagonist to have a goal and to be struggling toward it.

Going back to your question, I don’t think people need any particular qualification to critique. They need to know and follow the guidelines of the particular workshop. And the more they know about writing, the more specific and helpful their critiques will probably be. But most anyone off the street can read a story and say whether he likes it or not, and that’s valid criticism. It’s not terribly helpful, in that it provides no specific direction for the author to take to improve the story, but it is honest.

 

CARL: IS SHOW INHERENTLY BETTER THAN TELL, IS ACTIVITY INHERENTLY BETTER THAN DIALOG, ARE ACTIVITY AND DIALOG INHERENTLY BETTER THAN NARRATIVE, ARE FIRST, SECOND, OR THIRD PERSON INHERENTLY BETTER THAN THE OTHER TWO, DO YOU HAVE TO OPEN WITH THE MOST DRAMATIC SCENE AND THEN REWIND, DO YOU HAVE TO LIST THE CONTENTS OF A ROOM OR DESCRIBE A CHARACTER’S PHYSIQUE OR CLOTHING, DOES THE STORY HAVE TO ORGANIZED LIKE A 3 ACT PLAY, ARE DREAM SEQUENCES AND INFO DUMPS INHERENTLY WEAK TOOLS, ETC?

JEANNE: Wow–that’s a lot to cover. You’re listing a bunch of writing principles that some people assert, so let me talk about principles in general. There are many principles by which stories work. A protagonist should struggle to achieve a goal. A protagonist should have an internal conflict and an external conflict, and the internal conflict should be resolved before the external conflict. The story should lead to a permanent change in the protagonist. And so on. Many successful stories follow these principles. But there are also many successful stories that break one or more of these principles. So saying that you must do something, or that one thing is better than something else, is needlessly restrictive. Sometimes to serve the story, you need to break one of these principles. You can do whatever you can get away with. What is most important is that you know the principles and mindfully make the choice to break one of them, because it is necessary for the good of the story. Breaking a principle usually means you take away some pleasure that the reader expects to have when reading a story. That means you need to offer the reader a pleasure of equal or greater value to make up for the one you’re taking away.

So if a story is entirely dialogue, for example, and you are taking away the pleasure we would normally have of feeling like we’re in a particular place and experiencing vivid sensory impressions of it and of the characters, then you must offer us something else in exchange, such as incredibly tense dialogue and layered characters, and dialogue that perhaps evokes sensory impressions, so we have something to picture as we’re reading.

As for what the specific principles are that writers should usually follow, I disagree with many of those in the question. Showing is important and should usually be used much more than telling, but each has its place and purpose, and you need to use each when it serves the story. Similarly, action, dialogue, and narrative all have their purpose and should be used where necessary to serve the story. Each POV has its strengths and weaknesses (and first person is horribly overused by developing writers), but you need to choose the best POV for the story. The most dramatic scene should almost always be the climax, not the opening. Starting with the most dramatic scene and then rewinding tells me that the rest of the story is probably boring. Descriptions need to be used when they serve the story. Three-act structure is great for many stories, but not for all of them. Dream sequences and infodumps are usually not good ideas and I discourage them, though some writers can make them work.

 

CARL: HERE’S ONE I HEAR A LOT: THOU SHALT NOT CHANGE THE POV IN THE MIDDLE OF A SCENE. IS IT REALLY CONFUSING TO THE READER TO CHANGE THE POV IN THE MIDDLE OF A SCENE?

JEANNE: Yes, it usually is. If you have established at the beginning that you are writing in an omniscient viewpoint and dipping into the heads of different characters, then it’s fine to continue to do so throughout the story. The problem is that it’s difficult to do this gracefully. You need to establish the voice of your omniscient narrator, establish the location of the POV “camera,” and then move the camera so smoothly and effortlessly that the reader doesn’t notice what you’re doing. You would approach the character, move into the character’s head, spend however long you want there, then slowly move out, move toward another character, and so on. C. S. Lewis generally does this well in THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE. But you’ll find many more examples of it being done poorly, which leads to the reader being confused or not feeling settled in the scene.

 

CARL: ANY NEW PROJECTS OR SERVICES AT ODYSSEY? ANYTHING ON THE HORIZON?

JEANNE: We’re working on a couple of things that I can’t talk about yet, but I hope will offer some great help to writers. Right now, in addition to our summer workshop, we offer winter online classes (which will be announced in October with application deadlines in December), a critique service so you can get professional feedback on your manuscripts, and many free resources, including monthly podcasts, blog posts, writing and publishing tips, a newsletter, and more. You can access all of these through our website.

We also were able to provide three scholarships to Odyssey workshop students this past summer, due to the generosity of an Odyssey graduate, and it looks like we’ll be offering those scholarships for future workshops.

 

CARL: WHAT DO YOU RECOMMEND FOR WRITERS WHO CAN’T AFFORD A WORKSHOP, CAN’T GET LEAVE FROM WORK, CAN’T TRAVEL, ETC?

For many people, attending a six-week in-person workshop is just not possible. I used to get many emails from writers in the situations you mention, asking Odyssey to offer them something to help them improve their work. That’s why we started the critique service in 2006 and the online classes in 2010.

 

Carl_eagleCarl Slaughter is a man of the world. For the last decade, he has traveled the globe as an ESL teacher in 17 countries on 3 continents, collecting souvenir paintings from China, Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, and Egypt, as well as dresses from Egypt, and masks from Kenya, along the way. He spends a ridiculous amount of time and an alarming amount of money in bookstores. He has a large ESL book review website, an exhaustive FAQ about teaching English in China, and a collection of 75 English language newspapers from 15 countries.

His training is in journalism, and he has an essay on culture printed in the Korea Times and Beijing Review. He has two science fiction novels in the works and is deep into research for an environmental short story project.

Carl currently teaches in China where electricity is an inconsistent commodity.

Trevor Quachri Interview

interview by Carl Slaughter

Trevor Quachri photoTrevor Quachri recently took over from longstanding Analog editor Stanley Schmidt. Science fiction writers want to know what changes, if any, to expect. They also want to know how, exactly, to sell their stories and how to avoid getting their stories rejected.

 

CARL SLAUGHTER: Will you read every submitted story or assign slush readers?

TREVOR QUACHRI: Every submitted story is pretty absolute, but the overwhelming amount of time, yeah, I’m going to be the only person reading the slush. Stanley Schmidt read all the submissions himself, and that’s something I want to continue, as much as I’m able. I know that’s the opposite of how most other magazines do it, but it’s tough for me to really feel like the magazine reflects my vision or tastes if I’m not actually looking at the majority of stories that come in. That said, I also know that right out of the gate I’m nowhere near as fast as someone with thirty-four years of experience under their belt, so if I’m not quite to where I can do it all yet, I’m also not above accepting a little help for a bit.

 

CS: How far into a story do you go before you decide not to continue reading? How far into a story do you go before you decide to read it til the end?

TQ: It depends on the story. There are three major questions I’m constantly asking myself as I work , 1) “Is this readable? 2) Where’s the science? 3) Does the science hold up?” — and how far I make it depends on the answers I’m coming up with. If it’s not readable, I don’t get far at all. If it’s readable, but I can’t find the science, I’ll make it further in. If it’s well written and the science is there, then I’ll read the whole thing. Length is also a big factor. For obvious reasons, I’m much more likely to give a 5,000 word short story the benefit of the doubt than I am to make myself stick with a 22,000 word novella that’s still not working for me at the half-way point.

 

CS: Science fiction is about the exploration of science, but it’s also about the implications of science. How much emphasis do you place on the technical aspects of a story and how much emphasis on the human element?

TQ: Good science fiction has both elements working in concert, hand-in-hand, building off one another. If your story would still work if you largely excised one aspect or the other, you’re either writing bad science fiction or good lit-fic. So a story where one is emphasized to the exclusion of the other is going to be a tough sell for me.

 

CS: How much of a chance does a new writer have with Analog and how much of an edge does an established writer have?

TQ: The primary advantage an established writer has is that I’m probably going to read them slightly sooner. Otherwise, that’s about it. Much of an established writer’s “edge” is just a matter of them behaving professionally, having a sense of what I’m looking for, and being persistent. Any newcomer can handle that.

 

CS: Do you automatically publish stories submitted by Analog regulars like Brad Torgerson and Carl Frederick? How often do you reject a story by an author familiar to Analog readers?

TQ: This is probably a better question for the authors, but the short answer to the first part is “Heck no.” They have to earn their spot, just like everyone else. Even the Analog regulars who have sold to me have racked up their share of rejections from me, too. Part of an editor’s job is to say, “This isn’t good enough; I think you can do better,” and it doesn’t do anyone any favors to spare them from that.

 

CS: How many stories per year are by unpublished writers? How many by writers new to Analog readers?

TQ: Well, I haven’t actually put out a year’s worth of issues yet, so it’s tough to say exactly. I’d guess anywhere from a quarter to a third are from unpublished (or mostly unpublished) writers. Established writers who haven’t previously appeared in Analog are the smallest group, after regulars and new writers, in that order. They probably only make up ten percent or so. That’s not a conscious decision on my part; I think most people who are already selling regularly just don’t branch out all that much.

 

CS: Will winning Writers of the Future or some other prestigious award get an author a foot in the door with Analog?

TQ: The way I do things right now, I really only look at the cover letter (where most people list their bona fides) after I’ve actually read the story. So I already have a pretty solid sense of whether or not the story works by the time I even see an awards list. If all the accolades seem inconsistent with what I thought, I may go back and give the story another quick once-over to see if I missed something, so awards can act like a little bit of a safety net, but that’s about it.

 

CS: What subgenres and premises are you especially interested in and which definitely don’t excite you?

TQ: Editors hate being specific about this kind of thing, because it means we’ll see a million bad stories about the subject that we said interested us, and all the good ones with premises that haven’t historically appealed to us (but conceivably still could) will go elsewhere. Broadly, I’d love to see more stories that push the boundaries of what people think of when they hear “hard science fiction.” Hard SF has a very specific image, both among people who love it and people who hate it, but I think that image can be reductive. So anything that challenges that image is the kind of thing that will get my attention. Atypical characters and settings and under-represented disciplines like neurochemistry or immunology or paleontology or metallurgy (or, or, or†¦) are all good ways to do that. I joked in a recent editorial that the season two episode of Breaking Bad where Walt and Jesse get stuck in the desert and they use SCIENCE! to save themselves is the best hard SF I’d seen on TV in years. I wasn’t entirely serious, but it’s also not entirely off base, either. Yes, it’s lacking the imaginative elements that are vital to our genre, but the science is both relevant to the story and accurate, and those are really the most important rules of hard SF, as I see it. Beyond that? Surprise me.

 

CS: How much weight do you give to strong writing and how much to strong science?

TQ: This is another answer that really depends on the story in question. Optimally, it has both to a sufficient degree that I don’t have to weigh them against each other. I’m definitely more capable of polishing the writing of a story with a strong scientific foundation than I am trying to completely overhaul a well-written story with an entirely different scientific rationale. Details can be corrected, but if the whole story is predicated on something that we know just won’t work, there’s only so much to be done. I’ve often compared science fiction (hard SF in particular) to other specialized genres like kung fu movies. If you get a well-acted, well-choreographed movie like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, that’s great. But even questionably translated kung fu movies are successful in what they set out to do if they deliver great fight scenes. Without those, you’re just watching a Chinese soap opera. Hard SF has a similar relationship to science. That’s more of a broad philosophy than a rule, though: we also published Dune, which isn’t exactly the epitome of hard SF. I believe there should always be room for something like that at Analog.

 

CS: What can aspiring writers do to improve their chances of getting out of the slushpile?

TQ: Probably the single most common problem I see with otherwise good stories is that they’re too often the wrong length for what they’re trying to accomplish. Either they’re too short to properly develop the elements that are supposed to have gravitas, or they’re too long, full of padding that isn’t easily snipped, bloating a story that could otherwise have been elegant. Get in, tell your story or deliver your idea, and get out. From a more practical standpoint, while I do need some long stories, I need proportionately more short stories, and your odds are better if you’re closer to that end of the spectrum. I can definitely afford to be more adventurous with a 3,500-word story than I can with 17,500 words. So start out small. Less seriously? Stop automatically giving children names like “Timmy” or “Jimmy” or “Billy,” like they just stepped out of an episode of Lassie. That signifies “The Future!” to a reader about as much as character names out of Lovecraft (“Wilbur” or “Barnabas” or “Danforth” or “Randolph”) would have to a reader in 1975.

 

Carl_eagleCarl Slaughter is a man of the world. For the last decade, he has traveled the globe as an ESL teacher in 17 countries on 3 continents, collecting souvenir paintings from China, Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, and Egypt, as well as dresses from Egypt, and masks from Kenya, along the way. He spends a ridiculous amount of time and an alarming amount of money in bookstores. He has a large ESL book review website, an exhaustive FAQ about teaching English in China, and a collection of 75 English language newspapers from 15 countries.

His training is in journalism, and he has an essay on culture printed in the Korea Times and Beijing Review. He has two science fiction novels in the works and is deep into research for an environmental short story project.

Carl currently teaches in China where electricity is an inconsistent commodity.

The Submissions Grinder Proto-Newsletter

written by David Steffen and Anthony Sullivan

This is a copy of the newsletter sent out to users of The (Submission) Grinder who have opted in for the newsletter as of Monday, November 10, 2013. We have included it here to let people who might be interested in hearing about the upcoming newsletter feature, but who are not users or who have not opted in.

 

Hello Grinder Users!

“What’s this in my inbox?” you might be asking yourself right now. Well, if you’re getting this email, your address is registered to a user of the (Submission) Grinder and in your profile you have opted in to the Grinder’s newsletter. If you don’t want to receive any more emails from us, all you have to do is uncheck the “Newsletter” box in your profile settings. If you believe you have received this email in error, let us know.
So, this is our first newsletter. More of a proto-newsletter, I suppose you could call it, to give you an idea what we have in mind for these newsletters and to give you an opportunity to give us some feedback about what kind of content you would like to see in these newsletters. This will probably be a weekly-ish newsletter once we have it off and running, though it might be a while before that happens–this is an early audience check.
So, here’s a list of subsections that we have in mind for Grinder Newsletter.
1. Greeting–A brief hello from us folks running the Grinder, might include a wish for happy holiday (for instance), a link to this week’s Diabolical Plots article, a link to newly published stories by the folks behind the Grinder. This will generally be quite brief, but is mostly a place to say “Hello” to all you fine users.
2. Grinder feature updates–When we have a shiny new feature we want to share with you, we’ll mention it here so that you can give it a try.
3. Market Updates Based on Custom Genre and Pay Interests–This is the core of the newsletter: market updates delivered right to your inbox, pointing out new market listings and market listings which have opened, temporarily closed, or permanently closed in the time since the last newsletter. But even better, this section of your newsletter will be tailored to your personal market interests of genre and minimum pay rate. If you want to get only updates about pro-paying fantasy/science fiction/horror markets, that’s what you will get. If you want to get only updates about any General genre markets, that’s what you will get.
4. A list of upcoming submission and theme deadlines
5. List of fundraising Calls–There will be a section of publishing related fundraising calls, be they Kickstarter, Indiegogo, or any other medium. A lot of anthologies, magazines, etc, do this kind of fundraiser from time to time, so it is our hope that we can help raise the visibility of their efforts. We will post the ones that we come across on our own, but we will also happily take suggestions (once the newsletter is running, that is)
For instance:
Escape Artists Fundraiser: Escape Artists, the audio production company that brings you the fiction podcasts Pseudopod, Podcastle, and Escape Pod, is running short on money to an extent that they won’t be able to continue much longer at the current funding. Follow this link to find a post with a brief summary, a link to the full metacast, and links to different donation options. There are also donation incentives (extra stories) if you chip in before the end of November.
6. List of recently accepted (and recently published) authors–A list of names of the authors who have logged acceptances since the last newsletter and who have selected to opt for the Brag feature. In the future this will also include those who’ve been recently published.

FEEDBACK

So, what do you think? Does the newsletter, as described, sound like a useful feature of the (Submission) Grinder? Are there other shiny ideas that you’d like to suggest to us? Just reply to this email or use the Grinder’s Contact Form to tell us what you think. I will also post this to Diabolical Plots so that other people who may not have signed up for the newsletter yet can see what we’re offering–feel free to comment on that post as well (or, again, use the Grinder’s contact form)
Thanks so much for using the Grinder.
best wishes to you and yours,
David Steffen and Anthony Sullivan, Grindmasters