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 The FSFS Newsletter is written by FSFS members covering everything Fantasy and Sci-Fi |
The "Fantasy and Science Fiction Society" welcomes you to  Welcome to the May 2017 edition of the Newsletter. Written by members of the "Fantasy and Science Fiction Society" for all of Writing.Com. Contents 1. Introduction 2. What Puts Great in Great Writing? 3. Pros, Rules and Criticism 4. Open Call: Markets for Stories 5. Book Review: The Last Unicorn 6. Advertisements 7. Challenges  Well April was an exciting month. I am pleased to announce the "Fantasy and Science Fiction Society" won the Quill for Best Group. We even have a fancy award to show for it.  The FSFS sponsored the Quill for Best Fantasy, Sci-Fi or Horror. "Paranormal Romance Contest" by Phoenix McKnight  won the Quill. Honourable mentions were award to "The Dragon Ship" by A E Willcox  and "Supernatural Writing Contest - Closed" by Jayne  .You can relive the fun of the Quills at "Invalid Item" including watching some of your favourite WdC Members (and myself) on video. The nominations for the 2017 Quills are now open. If you read a story or poem, or participate in an activity or contest, or recieve a fantastic review, be sure to nominate it for a Quill: "Invalid Item" WdC Live aired shortly after the Quills. Head over to "Invalid Item" to watch. The show lasted 4 hours, so feel free to watch it back in chunks!  I wrote a Steam Punk story a while back. Today I received this review on it. What this author blimprider aka Jack Tyler (quoted by permission.) Wrote me about my story "Invalid Item" . “Characters are the life-blood of fiction. Well-developed ones carry their story, flat, shallow, or weak ones ruin theirs. These, especially young Miss Collins, have all the depth and realism of people you know in your personal life. They do nothing through action or dialogue to yank the reader out of the story. Any character can probably be more polished, but these folks bring everything to the story that it needs, and engage the reader at first sight. Settings have a subtle importance that can make or break a story by the way they support or suppress the narrative. Often they are symbolic of mood or menace. In this case, a young woman far from home, on her own, who is being tested by her father, a hard-edged businessman, finds herself far from civilization, and the settings reinforce her isolation. Whatever comes up, she has to deal with it. It's an excellent choice. I have read guides by big-name authors that suggest that a setting should be so precisely tailored to its story that it couldn't be told anywhere else. I'm not convinced that that particular Holy Grail is attainable, but in general terms, you've made an excellent choice with this one. I often do a lot of pounding on the subject of mechanics, the little hiccups in spelling, grammar, and punctuation that can yank a reader out of a story like the snap at the end of a bungee jump; there are most frequently a lot of them. In fairness, I read a lot of newbies, which I suspect often, means first drafts, and this one has been up for 2½ years, and has obviously been subjected to a painstaking proofreading. It has been most effective, I assure you.” Jack started out with characters first. I truly believe as he does that our characters make or break a story. We have read about how to write a character. About how to use a character sheet I have seen a few of them so big and long that by the time you fill it all out you just wrote your short story five times over in word count. I will admit I do find them rather fun. After all how many opportunities do we get to show off how creative we can be? Some of my best creative fiction is done in my character sheets. Here is the one I use "Invalid Item" Next as Jack points out our settings and scenes add to our story in ways we sometimes forget to tailor to our story plot. Our settings and surroundings make a difference to our characters. To show what I mean picture a high class society woman living in a dump. We all know that will never happen in life. That is why we need to make their setting as accurate to the character we are writing about. We want them to become a person. I want to point out there are many points made about scenes and settings by many different authors. There are many different ways to write them as well. Most are for specific genre. There is still one thing in common it usually fits the characters in the story to show them as being real people. The next point Jack makes is presentation or the nuts and bolts of writing. We correct all spelling, fix our grammar and even tighten up our punctuation. This I am finding is my pet peeve of writing. I hate people being lazy in the display of their hard work. After all they did spend time slaving over a keyboard typing in their pride and joy. Then they transfer it to WDC and call it good. I understand that it takes a little more work to fix it once the transfer mangles it. But you take pride in your work or you wouldn’t have bothered to transfer it. Keep your pride going by correcting it in the static sheet. Sorry it is my soap box trying to make a stand. This brings us to hooks. I never realized the value of using hooks until I read a review done by Hannah the leader of PDG. In her review she got out her fishing pole and went looking for hooks to use for fishing and reeling in the reader. Every good anything written has these elements in it. The title is a hook. The description is a hook designed to reel us into reading the book or story. Next hook is the first sentence / paragraph. Now the rest of the points Jake and I made come into play. I have found a great story always leaves us wanting more. I have found that using cliff hangers at every chapter end as well as heavy action works. Also never forget to use one at the end of a story it does help to get people to continue to read your work looking for that elusive more they want. Last, but not least is always proof read your work. Get reviews on it because a pair of second eyes always finds what you will always miss because you are too close to your baby. I found a very funny and interesting way to find my mistakes on anything written, is by using the advice that was first given to me by my daughter. “Dad, read it out loud.” Not only is it effect in spotting bad punctuation, spelling, and grammar. But imagine the fun and the looks your family give you when you do. You can sure get a lot of material for use on characters when you do. I love annoying my family with my reading. My problem is they are all adults and not little children wanting stories. My friend Jack also pointed out that many of the new writing software today have the text to voice feature and is less family provoking than you would be. Besides how cool to have a Cylon read your writing back to you. "Invalid Item" by A Guest Visitor  Why is it that pro writers get to break the rules? For instance: showing emotion instead of telling it is a cardinal rule. And yet in the book I am reading, the author breaks it frequently. Also there is info dumping; I spotted plenty of situational narration that “info dumps.” Needless to say, these are things that we as the WdC community are told no to do by reviewers. What’s the deal? That is probably what turns people off to some books-the ones that overly break the rules. Furthermore, what about scenes that don’t drive the story-I mean when people just throw any and every occurrence for the sake of occurrences. My brother ran into the Wheel of Time series. He thought it was atrocious, saying the author randomly brings in characters then you don’t ever hear from them again. But he is just one critic among thousands who praise the series. You know that disclaimer at the beginning or end of a review that says “These are my opinions, take them or leave them?” Sometimes you should do just that. My mentality has always been to be at the mercy of reviewers. I will take the star rating especially personally. Not everybody thinks like you or enjoys the same genres. I hope whoever reads this knows that you can be serious about your writing yet not take yourself too seriously.  Here’s some advice I apply to increasing my pile of rejections, while selling a few stories along the way. Finish what you write, rewrite, edit, proof, and send off. Wait, send off? Where do I send that story? Years ago I was in a book store and bought the Writer’s Market, a big thick book that cost a lot (but I felt was a good investment). I put notes on any page with a publisher or magazine market I thought appropriate and started racking up my first rejection letters. Yes, actually printed letters, often xeroed rejections. Best rejection I receive came with a note that was a check list marked off by the editor of a long gone sci fi magazine, which clued me in on what needed work… That was quite helpful. Oh, the good old days. Since the Internet and online submissions, the process is sometimes faster or an incredibly long wait to hear back – if you ever do. At a convention several years ago, I heard a panel of magazine editors talk about the reasons they rejected stories outright, which boiled down to: not being able to open and read the story. There are submission guidelines and the writer hadn’t read that they couldn’t read anything but rtf or doc files, not docx files. So, since the editors couldn’t read the story, it joined the 10% they didn’t have to bother with and immediately rejected. Another editor had a submission guideline that said “Courier” font is evil, so every time they received a story in Courier -- instant rejection. Ignoring the guidelines is not very profession, and you want to leave editors with a good impression, don't you? Submission guidelines are vital to live by, because you want your story to be read and stand or fail by what the editor’s looking for, not because you sent a horror story to a Religious Young Adult market that doesn’t want any horror or other designated inappropriate elements. It is almost always a case of know your market. Helping to know your market can be a simple matter of research or even reading the magazine you want to submit a story to. Knowing which markets are currently open for submissions is also very helpful. So, I check online Ralan.com and sometimes Submission Grinder (also known as the Grinder). I now find myself frequently checking on Facebook, which has a group, Open Call: Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Pulp Markets. I’ve sold two short stories recently based on postings for open calls for submissions. In fact, I’ve sold three stories through announcements there in the last eighteen months. Word of mouth and networking are also great ways to find out about markets for stories. Of course, it doesn’t hurt to build a reputation for writing good stories and have an editor ask you to send something. I had a story rejected in the last couple of months, which was rejected. The editor wrote in his email to me that it was a good story and he wished he could have accepted and would like to invite me to submit to the next anthology he did. Now, that was unexpected praise. I’m much more used to standard rejection letters. Editors can end up receiving a tremendous number of submissions and really do not have time to respond to them all. So, good etiquette is never to reply to rejections. Except… one of my stories was recently rejected by an editor, whose known me from conventions we’ve been at, in her rejection she wrot that she hoped I'd submit another story for consideration since the deadline for submissions was still more than a month away. I happened to have a story that with a little reworking could fit what she was looking for. So, I did a rewrite and sent it off. Voila, this one was a sale. What I like about Ralan.com is that he updates the site regularly for the markets that accept science fiction, fantasy, and horror, among my favorite genres. The markets with links to their guidelines and the names of editors are sorted by those that offer pro rates (6 cents and above per words), semi-pro rates (2 to 5 cents), token (1 cent), exposure, anthology calls, even contests. Submission Grinder has broader genre offerings, but you can sort for fantasy, science fiction, and horror, etc. You can also let Ralan know of a new market or post those on Open Call, giving others a heads up about a market in search of stories. Why share? This is about networking. I can’t stress this enough, we’re not competing with each other – instead we’re striving to write the best stories we can, so an editor can’t say no to publish them, or readers to become fans. It's not easy, but helping each other, supporting each other, that's what we do for each other. Then again, you may not understand this, but this is a business. Making money means we may one day to be able to write the stories we love for a living. I somehow doubt I’ll ever be able to give up my day job -- with the security of having a steady paycheck. Writing doesn't provide that for most of us who write the story that call to us, begging to be written. Accept that rejection comes with the territory and stories can often get better with age. Mine seem to with age and rewriting, lot's of rewriting. I always want to have a couple of short stories being considered for publication, knowing a story may be rejected a lot before I ever find it a home. Those that sell help promote my author brand, introducing me to more readers. Knowing what markets may pay the best and is the best fit is just smart. Working my way down from pro markets to semi-pro, sometimes even a charity anthology, is a strategy that works for me and may for you. So check out those markets for your original stories, or those who may consider one of your reprints (but that’s a different article). Oh, as ever, dare to believe and send off your stories, regardless of the inevitable rejections. Those who keep submitting will sell a story here and there, and dare I say a novel or two... -D.H. Aire Author of Crossroads of Sin and Other Stories and the Highmage’s Plight Series www.dhr2believe.net "Open Call - Markets for Stories" by Highmage - D.H. Aire   Book Name: The Last Unicorn Author: Peter S. Beagle First Published: 1968 Peter S. Beagle was born and raised in New York City. He was a heavy reader from an early age and was encouraged by his parents to pursue his interests in becoming a writer. He was a contributor to his high school literary magazine and his work there caught the interest of the fiction editor of Seventeen Magazine. Beagle entered a poem into this magazine’s Scholastic Writing Awards Contest and took first place. The prize was a college scholarship that sent him to the creative writing program at the University of Pittsburgh. Beagle continued to create, prolifically turning out stories such as A Fine and Private Place and took first place at Seventeen Magazine’s short story contest with a tale called Telephone Call. He graduated with a degree in creative writing, a minor in Spanish language, and retained his passion for writing. After a year abroad, he returned to the States and enrolled in a writing workshop at Stanford University where he met Enid, whom he would later marry. When the workshop ended, he bummed around the Eastern United States until he realized he would rather be with Enid who lived in California. He and a friend began a cross-country motorscooter journey that he would chronicle in his memoir I See By My Outfit. He and Enid moved in together and married. To support himself and his new family, Beagle wrote more short stories and novels, including his popular book The Last Unicorn. The Last Unicorn took Beagle two years to write and he found it a difficult process. The idea came to him during an artistic retreat in Berkshire Hills after Viking Press had rejected one of his novels. The idea for The Last Unicorn intuitively appeared in his mind, it was inspired by all the fantasy tales he had loved during his childhood and by the book The Colt by Dorothy Lathrop. Beagle also stated that a painting by artist Marcial Rodriguez about unicorns fighting bulls added to the mix. The result was an 85 page manuscript that needed much revision and polish. The original story was set in modern times and the unicorn is accompanied by a two-headed demon named Webster and Azazel. This version is published as a limited edition by Suberranean Press and entitled: The Last Unicorn: The Lost Version. In 2005, Beagle published a sequel called Two Hearts which can be found in the anthology The Line Between. Two Hearts won the Hu go and Nebula Awards for best novelette. During the 1970s, Beagle shifted from novels to screenplays and developing an alternate career as a folk singer. He plays guitar and sings in English, Yiddish, French and German. A performance of when he played at The Palms in Davis, CA is available. Between 1973 and 1985 you could find Beagle performing his music at the club L’Oustalou in Santa Cruz, CA almost every weekend. In 1980, his marriage to Enid ended and in 1985, he moved to Seattle, WA for a few years. Today, Beagle is still writing stories and screenplays. He has remarried to Indian author and artist Padma Hejmadi. They reside in Davis, CA. Beagle is a regular on the university circuit where he gives readings, lectures, and concerts. He conducts writing workshops at the University of Washington and at Clarion West. “Great heroes need great sorrows and burdens, or half their greatness goes unnoticed. It is all part of the fairy tale.” ― Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn What is the nature of love and mortality? In The Last Unicorn, we explore this idea by following the story of a unicorn who believes she is the last of her species. She decides to go on a quest to discover what happened to the others. Leaving her magical forest, she is dismayed to learn that humans no longer see her as she is, but instead mistake her for a white horse. She is captured by a wandering gypsy and added to the woman’s traveling menagerie of “mythical” beasts. Only the magician Schmendrick, who is employed by the gypsy woman, sees the unicorn for what she truly is. He frees her and joins her quest. Hints of where the unicorns may be lead to the castle of King Haggard where a monster known as “the red bull” lives. On the way to the castle, the pair is beset by bandits. They come to the attention of the bandit’s wife, Molly who laments that she only finds her unicorn when she is middle-aged and no longer innocent. Still, she joins the pair on their quest to Hagsgate. The trio is then attacked once again, this time by the red bull itself. During the battle, the unicorn is unable to escape, so Schmendrick transforms her into a human to confuse the bull. Thus, the unicorn becomes “Lady Amalthea” and the three ingrate themselves into King Haggar’s court. As they stay in the castle and try to learn what was the fate of the unicorns, Amalthea undergoes a mental transformation. She forgets that she was once a unicorn and instead allows herself to be romanced by King Haggard’s son, Prince Lir. What was the fate of the unicorns? Will Amalthea regain her memory in time to save them? Will Prince Lir become the hero he longs to be and capture the fair lady’s heart? You will have to read this classic fantasy tale to find the answers. My introduction to The Last Unicorn was the animated feature produced by Rankin/Bass in the 1980’s. Peter Beagle wrote the screenplay himself and the animation was done by Topcraft, a forerunner of Studio Ghibli. It is a wonderful film and stands the test of time. Viewing the movie caused me to seek out the book, which is much richer and subtle than the cartoon and it served as my introduction to the work of this author. What stays with me is it is not a standard fairytale, but a story that stands traditional tropes on its head. First, the hero is female. Either as a unicorn or a woman, this is Amalthea’s story and transformation. She does not set off on her journey because of a love interest as many female heroines do, but in the noble pursuit of discovering what happened to her people. Her two sidekicks, Magician Schmendrick and Molly McGure, are both well-rounded characters who are far from the typical companions of a hero. Prince Lir, a name taken from a Celtic sea-god and having Shakespearean overtones, is comical as he attempts to play the hero and full fill his destiny, a fate that is far from what he suspects. In this, he is also atypical, a male that plays a secondary role in the story. Although there is a feminist bent to the tale, it is not overt and I believe that anyone who enjoys stories about fantasy or unicorns would enjoy the story. This is a classic tale that should not be missed, not matter if you are young or young at heart.
The April round of Three Prompts is still open. The deadline is 4 May.
Great signatures created by the brilliant Amanda Willcox
Animated c-Notes created by Amanda Willcox. GPs raised suppport the FSFS
The Magic Words contest challenges you to write a fantastical story using the words in one of two lists. It may be a contest, but you really only compete with yourself as stories are awarded prizes based on how many points they earn regardless of how you compare to other entries.
The FSFS Review Board is open! All WdC members can view the list on the group homepage, "Fantasy and Science Fiction Society" . FSFS Members can view the list from the homepage, Review Board page and the Hub. To post on the board you need to review at least one other item on the list.
If you are not already a member and are interested in fantasy and science fiction writing, please read through the group homepage and apply using the application form. The only pre-requisite is that you have a fantasy or science fiction item in your portfolio. If you want to advertise in the FSFS Newsletter please contact me, Matt Bird MSci (Hons) AMRSC   . Last Month's Result I am pleased to announce that NeedingBeachDuf 🐠⛵🏝️  has won an FSFS merit badge for their comment about what they learned from the Newsletter.This Month's Challenge This month I want you to review any of the people who wrote articles in the Month's Newsletter. They are: The Run-on King PDG Member , brom21 , Highmage - D.H. Aire and Uncommonspirit . I will award an FSFS merit badge to the best review. If there are more than 5 submissions, I will also award a random review with an MB.Thank you to all the members who submitted articles to the Newsletter. If you submitted an article that wasn't included, don't be offended. I can only fit so much in the Newsletter. Please submit it again when I send the call out for articles. Please comment on this Newsletter if you enjoyed it, or if you have any suggestions for future editions. |
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