From the Editor's Desk
Hi and
welcome once again to Fiction Factor! And, as always,
welcome to our new subscribers.
Happy Thanksgiving!
For those of you not celebrating Thanksgiving (there are
lots of us not in the US), I just want to thank you for
reading and being a part of Fiction Factor. We couldn't
do it without you!
Last month our horror writers received a huge fre*e
Horror market listing from the staff at Fiction Factor
(if you missed your copy, you can get it here: http://horror.fictionfactor.com/horrormarketguide.html). This month we're offering a gift
to the Science Fiction writers among us - the Science
Fiction Market Listing. This listing is filled with only
science fiction markets - both short fiction and novel
length markets! As far as I'm aware, there isn't a larger
collection of purely Science Fiction markets available
anywhere else! (yet...)
Our Thanksgiving gift to you is the entire listing for
fre*e download. Go ahead and grab it with our compliments
here:
http://scifi.fictionfactor.com/scifimarketguide.html
Just wait til you see what you're getting for
Christmas... ;)
During this last month I was thinking about the diversity
of writing members we have on our forum. We have writers
from all walks of life, across all ages and in many
different countries. You see, usually we create and send
Fiction Factor from Adelaide in South Australia and send
it to writers in more than 20 countries around the world.
This month, however, much of this issue was created and
formatted while I was on a holiday in beautiful Byron
Bay, on Australia's East Coast. There's nothing better
than working on one of the most gorgeous beaches in the
world. I'm sure I could get used to that! It might be
coming up to winter for our readers in the northern parts
of the world, but out here summer has arrived hot and
sunny!
The beauty of writing is that you can be anywhere in the
world and still get to do what you love.
Let's get into the writing stuff!
This issue Lucia Zimmitti looks at some common mistakes
writers make and how you can avoid them. Melissa Kelly
takes us through the top eight rules for writing fantasy
and Robert Gibson explores science fiction future
histories.
It's time now to grab a beverage of choice, sit back, and
enjoy this issue of Fiction Factor!
Lee Masterson
Editor-in-Chief
http://www.fictionfactor.com
"A professional writer is an amateur who didn't
quit."
-- Richard Bach
Science Fiction Market Listings
Written solely for science fiction writers, this
comprehensive listing is filled with publications
wanting to pay for your science fiction! This
listing includes short fiction and novel markets.
Find the right market for your sci-fi today.
FRE*E Download!
http://scifi.fictionfactor.com/scifimarketguide.html
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Common Mistakes New Writers Make - And How to Avoid Them
by Lucia Zimmetti
Writing is like any other skill in that you
have to do a lot of it to get better. There isn't any way
around that, but you can identify mistakes common to new
writers and learn to stop making them before they become
habit.
Here are the most common mistakes new writers make:
Trying to sound really, really smart at the expense of
clarity.
Writing for publication is extremely competitive
(some say as competitive as Hollywood). Which means that
writers are often anxious about how others perceive them.
But using archaic, complicated words and convoluted
sentence structures won't make you sound intelligent; it
will make you sound out of touch, or worse -- it will
confuse and frustrate the reader, convincing him/her to
put down your article or book. Say what you mean as
directly, honestly, and clearly as you can.
Saying too much.
This falls under the sage advice to trust your
reader. Don't insult your audience's intelligence by
including every shred of minutiae when it's not needed.
For example, if the crux of a scene is going to be a big
blow-up at the breakfast table between a teen and her
parents, you don't need to show the girl waking up to the
alarm clock, brushing her teeth, getting dressed, putting
on her makeup, stuffing her backpack, etc., before you
get us to the kitchen table. The reader will fill in the
blanks and understand that the girl had things to do
before she headed downstairs.
When details don't contribute to character development or
move the story along, skip them. Also, resist the urge to
"oversay" (bludgeon the readers with
unnecessary repetition because you assume they must have
forgotten things).
Saying too little.
This falls under the sage advice to be specific.
Although readers fill in the blanks all the time (as we
saw in the above example), sometimes new writers assume
that readers can fill in crucial gaps on their own.
Because we often have a vivid, detailed picture of our
subject in our heads as we write, we get wrapped up in
that picture and forget that it needs to be equally vivid
and detailed on the page. If you leave huge gaps that
even the most attentive reader can't possibly leap over
alone, you aren't saying enough.
Be sure there's enough on the page for the readers to
make meaningful connections and draw informed
conclusions. Include relevant, interesting details in
your writing. Make things specific so that your writing
is memorable. Remember: seasoned is always better than
bland.
Abandoning the promise you made the reader at the
beginning of the piece.
If you've written anything that really mattered to you
from start to finish, you know how the act of writing
stimulates new thoughts and therefore you might end up in
an unexpected place when you finish. New writers
sometimes forget that ending up somewhere else means that
you have to change the starting point.
You can
read the rest of this article here: http://www.fictionfactor.com/guests/commonmistakes.html
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Top Eight Rules for Writing Fantasy
by Melissa Kelly
So you
want to write a fantasy novel? You love the work of so
many fantasy writers and you have a partially formed idea
about an elf, a dwarf, and an odd love triangle. Where to
begin? The answer is the first of my eight rules for
writing fantasy. Enjoy!
Begin with the world.
Creating the world where your fantasy novel is set is one
of the most important parts of creating a successful
fantasy novel. And this world must be pretty fleshed out
before you move on to the next step. Why you ask? Because
just as earth has specific rules that cannot be violated
without explanation (for example, the law of gravity),
your world will have laws too. It will also have its own
geography, weather patterns, animals, and races of people
and/or other fantasy creatures. If you jump right in and
begin writing your fantasy novel without any
consideration for these rules, you will find yourself in
a situation where you will need to rewrite carefully to
avoid any contradictions once your world has been fully
created.
Create maps.
These can be very general except in the areas where the
action will be taking place. Maps help lend depth to your
story as you write. Your details will tend to be more
grounded.
Magic
If your world is going to include any form of magic, then
you must create the rules for its use before writing
about it. You must decide its limits, its costs, its
required actions, its possible uses, etc. Only by
creating the rules of magic will its use make sense and
seem believable.
History
If you are going to have different races living in your
world, then you will need to create a history and a
description for the characteristics of these races. You
will also need to know how people of different races
treat each other. If there are prejudices between races
you will need to have an understanding of why these
exist. The detail of your history and descriptions will
be based on how much you will be using a person of that
race in your story.
You can see
the rest of this article here: http://fantasy.fictionfactor.com/articles/fantasyrules.html
(this link
will take you to Fantasy Factor)
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Science Fiction Future
Histories - Criteria for Success
by Robert Gibson
Introduction:
Within the
field of science fiction, a special source of addictive
fascination can be found in the sub-genre "Future
History", a series of interconnected stories set in
a common background that develops over time.
For any
story to be enjoyable, we all know how vital interesting
characters and settings both are. But in a good Future
History there is a unique sense in which the setting also
becomes one of the characters. A splendid juggernaut of
interlinked themes, alive and growing like a real
society, but full of a fictional personality of its own,
such a lattice of tales becomes, for the reader, a source
of wonder not merely as a new world, but -- as a result
of its reliable, organic consistency -- as a new familiarity.
That's the
paradox: the more the inhabitants are "housed"
in comfort, given a universe with customs, laws and rules
which they can take for granted, the more real and
therefore more exciting their world seems to us. Against
this comfortable backdrop the inhabitants do, of course,
have their particular adventures which are exciting for
them as well as for us; but we are additionally
privileged to watch the lines they are tracing in the
greater whole, from the panoramic perspective which is
the special virtue of a Future History.
As a
matter of fact, for the sake of accuracy, rather than the
term "Future History" I would prefer
"four-dimensional story-lattice" or
"4DL", as the events related in the stories
need not be in our future. A series of tales set
on ancient Mars a billion years ago, for instance, would
fit the sub-genre just as well as a series set on Earth
in the next few millennia -- or, for that matter, in the
lost continent of Atlantis thousands of years in the
past. However, in this article I shall stick with current
usage.
My aim is
to try to pin down the criteria which make for a
successful Future History.
I hope, as
I go through my list of points, that the reader will not
jump to the conclusion that I am disparaging various
great masterpieces of science fiction merely because they
do not meet these criteria. Some stupendous works set in
the far future, such as Olaf Stapledon's Last and First
Men and Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun, are largely a
different kind of thing, though they have some
interesting points in common with the kind of
story-lattice which I am discussing.
The
criteria I wish to propose are as follows:
1. Volume and Balance.
2. Open-ended complexity.
3. Time-referencing.
4. Development.
Volume
and Balance:
A
successful Future History should, first of all, contain a
large number of stories. It should be long. Inevitably,
it will not be as long as its fans wish, but I would
suggest, for example, that the one big fault in Asimov's Foundation
series is that it extends over only 3 volumes, comprising
9 tales. The reader is left yearning for more -- which of
course is a huge compliment to the author. (Actually,
there is a bit more. A couple of Asimov's early novels
are set in that same universe, in periods prior to Foundation,
and these help to enlarge the picture; on the other hand
I do not regard the much later accretions to the series,
different in mood and far less taut in style, as worthy
to stand with the original 9.) I have the same complaint
to make of Cordwainer Smith, the genius who bridges the
storytelling traditions of East and West in a way unique
in science fiction, and who was so inconsiderate as to
die at the age of 53, leaving us a mere four volumes or
so of his Instrumentality saga.
You can read the rest of this huge article
here: http://scifi.fictionfactor.com/articles/futurehistories.html
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Writer's Announcements
If you have any writing news or
announcements about your successes with writing, we'd
love to hear about it! Post your publishing announcements
on our forum and we'll get them in the newsletter for
everyone to see!
You can add your Woo-Hoo to our Announcement Forum Board
here:
Writer's
Announcements - http://fictionfactor.1.forumer.com/index.php?showforum=6
This week's news:
Teresa
Reasor of www.teresareasor.com writes: "I had two books come out this summer. Highland
Moonlight was released by The Wild Rose Press. Captive
Hearts was also released by the same publisher.
"
Gene Alvin of www.aelfbooks.com writes: "Just got word that my Short story,
"Anasazi Moon", will be published in
the second edition of The Creative Writer series by
J.D.Vine Publishing"
Congratulations everyone! Keep the great news coming!
~ "Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used
by mankind." -- Rudyard Kipling ~
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of available courses here: http://www.fictionfactor.com/courses.html
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Paying Market Listings
You can find the complete
Market Index here: http://www.fictionfactor.com/markets.html
Happy Market Hunting!
(Disclaimer: Mention of a market/ contest in Fiction
Factor is not necessarily an endorsement. Check all
guidelines in full before submitting)
Polyphony 7
Print anthology, seeking magreal/surreal/literary with a
genre sensibility/hard-to-classify literary stories
(fic). Payment is 4¢/word to a maximum of $400. Word
count: 2,000 -10,000. Opens 1 December 2007. Deadline: 15
January 2008.
Submission Guidelines: http://www.wheatlandpress.com/
Pod Castle
http://podcastle.org/guidelines
PodCastle is looking for fantasy stories. We’re open
to all the sub-genres of fantasy, from magical realism to
urban fantasy to slipstream to high fantasy, and
everything in between. Fantastical or non-real content
should be meaningful to the story. Pays $100 for 2,000 to
6,000 words. Pays $20 for flash fiction up to 1,000
words.
**Prefers REPRINTS only!!**
Submission Guidelines: http://podcastle.org/guidelines
Intergalactic Medicine Show
http://www.intergalacticmedicineshow.com
We are looking for stories of any length in the genres of
science fiction and fantasy. "Science fiction"
includes hard sf, sf adventure, alternate history,
near-future, far-future, psi, alien, and any other kind
of sf you can think of. "Fantasy" includes
heroic fantasy (based on any culture's mythology), fairy
tales, contemporary fantasy, and "horror" in
the sense of supernatural suspense (not gory bloodfests,
thanks).
Pays 6 cents/word up to 7,500 words; 5 cents/word
thereafter.
Submission Guidelines: http://www.intergalacticmedicineshow.com/cgi-bin/mag.cgi?do=content&article=submissions
Omega Room Press
http://www.omegaroom.com
We will consider all genres and literary submissions but
our focus is Sci/Fi and fantasy. Omega Room will only
consider complete and edited manuscripts. There are many
fine editors out there. Check the Editorial Freelancers
Association (http://www.the-efa.org/) if you need help.
We are interested in lengths of 80,000 words to 150,000.
Please submit cover letter (including author's bio), two
to three page synopsis and the first 50 pages to omegaroom@yahoo.com Acceptable formats are anything
that can be opened in Word.
Please read full guidelines and FAQ before submitting.
Submission Guidelines: http://www.omegaroom.com/ORBsubmit.htm
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