Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America

Archive for March, 2011

Guest Post: Networking with Purpose and Sincerity

Monday, March 21st, 2011

by Cat Rambo

It’s natural for writers to want to spread word of our work. We all realize that, short of hiring a publicist, we’re our own best champions. But if we go too far, or are too single-minded in that pursuit, we can come off as boorish and arrogant.

To do it successfully, keep some things in mind.

Push the good stuff.

In an ideal world, everything you have appearing is amazing and wonderful, but if your experience is closer to mine, some stories are stronger than others. Pick the best, and when you’re mentioning that you’re eligible for something, point to those and not to an exhaustive list of everything published that year. Presumably you’ve got a bibliography available somewhere on your website (here’s mine, for example), and if anyone wants to see everything you produced, they can check that out.
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Tags: cat rambo, networking, self-promotion
Posted in Advice for New Writers, Information Center, Networking and Self-Promotion, SFWA Blog, The Business of Writing, Tips for Beginners | 3 Comments »

Quick Updates for 2011-03-21

Monday, March 21st, 2011

• Remember: The Nebula ballot closes in 10 days on 3/30 at 11:59pm PDT http://is.gd/5Wg1iB Read stories here: http://is.gd/fk3B2e #
• Night Shade Books is conducting an eBook Giveaway for SFWA member @StinaLeicht's "Of Blood and Honey." http://bit.ly/hZljsA #
• A new One Minute Weird Tales by David R Hughes, with video, audio, and tentacles by SFWA member Gregory Norman Bossert http://t.co/GgsIENH #

Tags: twitter
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Another Book Giveaway: The Garden of the Stone

Sunday, March 20th, 2011

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware

I'm running another book giveaway this month, this time for my recently re-published fantasy novel, The Garden of the Stone (the sequel to The Arm of the Stone, both books now available in trade paperback and ebook format).

Here's the blurb:

At the heart of the Fortress lay the Garden.

At the heart of the Garden lay the Stone.

It was a living entity of power beyond understanding--not even by the men who had used its energies to control the unGifted masses, ever since the wrenching cataclysm that shattered the union of Hand and Mind and split the world centuries ago. Then came Bron, his arrival long foretold as the one destined to restore the balance between Hand and Mind. But Bron had other plans. He stole the Stone...and vanished.

Now Bron's daughter Cariad, a skilled empath and assassin, must follow the footsteps of a father she's never known, into the depths of the same Fortress. Waiting there is Jolyon, her father's greatest enemy, a man whose thirst for domination is matched only by his taste for blood...and who possesses the power to satisfy both appetites. Cariad must learn the secret of Jolyon's strength before it is too late. For just as her father's arrival was prophesied, so too is his return. And this time Jolyon is ready--for Bron to die.

I'm giving away 3 signed copies in a random drawing. To enter, send me an email at victoria [at] victoriastrauss.com, with "March Contest" in the subject line. Please include your mailing address. Your information won't be shared, and you will not be added to any lists.

The giveaway runs from now through March 31. Good luck!

Tags: Writer Beware
Posted in Press Book | Comments Off

Key Conditions for Suspense:
Part 14 – Put Your Plot Together with the Story Cycle

Saturday, March 19th, 2011

by John D. Brown

The following is part of a continuing series. If you wish to start at the beginning, head to It’s All About The Reader.

It’s good to know you need to make the problem hard to solve, but how do you use all the obstacles to develop the plot? How do you layer them in? How do you start and move forward?

You follow the story cycle, which is simply a model of how we humans go about solving problems, and apply the techniques we’ve been talking about in ways that make sense to you and spark your interest. You can move forwards or backwards around the cycle, whatever is most productive to you at the time.

I’ve inserted a diagram of the cycle below and will explain each element in the next three posts. Please note that this is built on the wonderful discussions of scene and sequel found in Dwight Swain’s Techniques of the Selling Writer and Jack Bickham’s Writing and Selling Your Novel and Scene & Structure. I’ve added my own insights, but if you want an expanded discussion of this topic, you might want to read what they have to say there.
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Tags: John D. Brown
Posted in Advice for New Writers, Information Center, SFWA Blog, The Craft of Writing, Tips for Beginners, Writing Technique | 2 Comments »

Quick Updates for 2011-03-18

Friday, March 18th, 2011

Member News

• Welcome to SFWA’s newest Associate member Richard Johnson with a sale to Writers of the Future, volume 27.
• Welcome to SFWA’s newest Active member Linda Poitevin, author of SINS OF THE ANGELS: The Grigori Legacy (ACE 9/11).
• Welcome to SFWA’s newest Active member Peter David author of Fable: The Balverine Order (ACE/2010).
• Congratulations to SFWA member Seanan McGuire whose book LATE ECLIPSES is on the NY Times extended bestseller list.
• SFWA member Edward Willett has been named writer-in-residence at the Regina Public Library for Sept. 1, 2011 – May 31, 2012.
• Congratulations to SFWA members John Joseph Adams and Christie Yant for their engagement. Happy collaboration!

Resources

• SFWA member Ferrett Steinmetz has a post at Shimmer called “Confessions of a Slush Reader.”

Tags: Christie Yant, edward willett, John Joseph Adams, Linda Poitevin, Peter David, Richard Johnson, Seanan Mcguire, twitter
Posted in News, SFWA Blog | Comments Off

Quick Updates for 2011-03-17

Thursday, March 17th, 2011

• SFWA member @ferretthimself has a post at Shimmer called "Confessions of a Slush Reader": http://bit.ly/grHm7n #

Tags: twitter
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Guest Post: An Infinite Supply of Writing Prompts

Wednesday, March 16th, 2011

by Luc Reid

It occurred to me today that there’s a ready-made tool out there for generating writing prompts, whether for fiction or nonfiction, tailored specifically to the interests and tastes of the writer. It goes like this:

Click this link (or the “Random article” link on the Wikipedia site) to bring up a random article on Wikipedia.

You don’t have to read the article per se: just look through it for any link that interests you, or might interest you, or might lead to a link that interests you. If you find a writing idea in the course of doing this, you’re done. If not, follow the link and repeat.

As simple as this process is, it has some nifty advantages:

• It offers almost a limitless number of possible writing prompt subjects
• Since it runs on what attracts your attention, it’s specifically tailored to your tastes and interests
• If you keep a particular project in mind while doing this, you can generate ideas for that project–which could be a godsend if, for instance, you’re stuck
• It also offers information and pictures that may relate to your writing topic
• It’s free
• It’s available anywhere you have access to the Internet
• It won’t work the same way for any two writers
• It can be surprisingly educational
• You don’t have to pay attention to anything that isn’t interesting to you

I’m usually a bit reluctant about using writing prompts that are offered to a group because of the danger of similarity in stories and because a given prompt may or may not interest me personally. The Wikipedia Prompt Trails approach appeals to me because it offers individually-tailored prompts instead, avoiding both problems.

For example, I clicked the link and got Graeme Lee (a New Zealand politician).

From that short and not particularly fascinating article I followed the link for Leo Shultz (another New Zealand politician), whose name I liked, probably because it reminded me of cartoonist Charles Schulz.

That led me to Hauraki (a New Zealand electoral division), and from there to Coromandel (the new name for Hauraki), both because the names sounded interesting. That led me in turn to the Ngatea (a small town in New Zealand), again because of interest in the name, which turned out to be in the Waikato Region, where I clicked on the link for Invasion of Waikato (part of the wars between the Colonial Government of New Zealand and the native Māori people), because invasions tend to be interesting and the novel I’m writing deals with one.

That brought me to the article on General Sir Duncan Alexander Cameron, who led some of the invading Colonial forces. I found my writing idea on that page, where I read that “One historian at least believes that Cameron deliberately allowed the besieged and surrounded Māori at Orakau to escape. This of course did not please the New Zealand public, who wanted the Māori to be punished …” A general letting a defeated native enemy force escape piques my interest, and offers a frame on which to hang a story (or, if I were inclined, a subject to research for an article or essay).

Total time to get this story idea: about 180 seconds.

Care to share your own Wikipedia Prompt trail?

•••

Luc Reid is a Writers of the Future winner whose fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Brain Harvest, Abyss & Apex, Strange Horizons, Clarkesworld, and elsewhere. He writes a column called “Brain Hacks for Writers” for Futurismic, is member of the flash fiction group The Daily Cabal, and founded the Codex online writers group, whose members garnered eight Nebula nominations this year. (None were for Luc himself, but he’s still darn proud of his fellow Codexians.) His books are Talk the Talk: The Slang of 65 American Subcultures (with an electronic edition expected out this month) and Bam! 172 Hellaciously Quick Stories. He blogs about writing and the psychology of habits at lucreid.com, where this post originally appeared, and can be found on Twitter @lucreid.

Tags: Luc Reid
Posted in SFWA Blog, The Craft of Writing, Writing Technique | 5 Comments »

Quick Updates for 2011-03-16

Wednesday, March 16th, 2011

• @ShellyRaeClift A list: http://www.sfwa.org/2009/06/links-to-writers-workshops/ Posts about writers workshops: http://is.gd/DFVEOm #

Tags: twitter
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Tidbits

Tuesday, March 15th, 2011

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware

The tragedy in Japan makes things like coming up with new blog posts seem pretty trivial. Nevertheless, here are a few items of publishing news that have intrigued me over the past week or so.

Whoops, they did it again

Another traditional publisher has contracted with Author Solutions Inc. to run a self-publishing division. Berrett-Kohler, an independent nonfiction publisher, announced the launch of Open Book Editions, which it describes as a service for "aspiring authors who can't be sustainably published through our traditional publication program."

Unlike other ASI/publisher collaborations, Open Book Editions doesn't seem to have a dedicated website, but rather a page on the iUniverse website. Its packages are pricey, compared to some of the other collaborations--there are no options under $1,600. Copy editing is mandatory, and requires an additional fee. And as usual, there's the snake oil: "Open Book Edition titles will be reviewed on a regular basis by Berrett-Koehler to determine if any publications warrant consideration as a core BK publication."

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Tags: Writer Beware
Posted in SFWA Blog, Writer Beware | Comments Off

Quick Updates for 2011-03-15

Tuesday, March 15th, 2011

• SFWA member @daviddlevine will appear on the radio show "Dialogue: Between the Lines" on 3/17 at 10am PST. Tune in at http://bit.ly/dUBGVQ #

Tags: twitter
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