A Moment with Beth Cato

If you could give an aspiring writer any one piece of advice, what would it be and why?

Find your tribe.

Writing is a lonely art, and one that's often discouraging. There are endless revisions, plot dead ends that you can't figure out how to fix, and rejections. Always rejections. Even if you have a supportive family, unless they are writers, they can't completely get it.

Writers understand.

See, when I started out writing, I was so afraid of being judged that I tried to muck through on my own. The result was a torrent of rejections that I couldn't quite process. I was terrified that I was a bad writer. I had to realize it wasn't about being a good writer NOW. It was about the determination to become a better writer, constantly. Every story and poem is different. I have to strive to be better every time.

To do this, I learned to make myself vulnerable. I joined a critique group. The feedback hurt, but I balanced that by providing painful feedback to others. It taught me tact, and that other people had just as many faults and foibles in their writing as I did. That actually surprised me. I had this stupid idea in my head that really good writers didn't have to revise. They wrote. It was good. The end. Instead, I discovered that people I respect immensely could write stories that were riveting yet at the same time deeply flawed. This made me feel better--normal!

Beyond the critique cycle, writers need other writers for information and support. We need to know about the wait times for markets, and which editors are awesome or awful, and which places are open for submissions. Also, we need other writers to commiserate with on those days when five rejections flood in at once, and to cheer us on when we get a long-sought acceptance.

Never underestimate the power of a group hug, even if it's typed over the internet!

Beth Cato's stories can be found in Nature, Flash Fiction Online, Daily Science Fiction, and many other publications. She's originally from Hanford, California, but now resides in Arizona with her husband and son.

Learn more about Beth’s fiction, poetry, and tasty cookie recipes on her website.

A Moment with Lindsey Duncan

If you could give an aspiring writer any one piece of advice, what would it be and why?

The one piece of advice I would give an aspiring writer is to know yourself. Books on craft and fellow writers have a lot of theories about the best way to write whether insisting it is crucial you write first thing in the morning every day, requiring an outline, decrying outlines as stifling to creativity, telling you that humor or elaborate prose or stories about garden gnomes don't sell and it doesn't get any clearer with editors. More than once, I've had a story rejected by one venue where the editor cited a specific element of the story as their reason for rejection and the next place I submitted it, their editor loved the very same element.

To decide which advice to take and which to ignore, you need to know who you are as a writer and how you work. Do you need the discipline of daily sessions? Are you a night-owl and likely to get your best work done after midnight? After years of trying to push through writer’s block, I finally realized that usually, when I block, it’s my subconscious telling me I’m coming up on a plot hole I haven’t worked through yet – so now, rather than trying to force it or giving up, I stop and consciously analyze what’s going on in the work. Part of knowing your process, though, is not taking the easy route. If you know you need breaks to recharge and incubate ideas, take breaks – but don’t let the break itself become a habit.

The same applies to the style of your writing. Do you enjoy vivid descriptions and unusual metaphors, or do you prefer to write streamlined and to the point? As long as you’re not grinding the story to a halt to immortalize a patch of moss or conversely, not giving enough information to picture a scene, it’s almost a guarantee there are readers for whom your prose is just right. Knowing which you are can help you identify problem spots in your fiction. You’ll know to scan for places to cut or hunt for long stretches of barely interrupted dialogue to fix the dreaded talking-head syndrome.

Don’t worry about fads and should-nots. I’m reminded in reading an intro for Robert Asprin’s Myth series that he was told humor didn’t sell. His series took off – long before Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels dominated the public consciousness. Conversely, with the speed of publishing, by the time you latch onto a trend, it’s likely to have passed.

You might need a detailed outline before you begin, or you might need nothing more than a name and a core concept. If you’re the latter type – a pantser, as in “by the seat of your” – go into the process knowing the final draft will probably need more revision and rewriting. I’ve discovered I don’t need any kind of outline for novels, but what I do need is near-exhaustive world and character-building. With the backdrop and cast fully fleshed out, I can write as a pantser and still create a (relatively) smooth plot in the first draft.

Knowing your strengths and weaknesses is invaluable in analyzing critiques or editor comments – deciding what to keep and what to change. While it’s always important to pay serious attention to amassed evidence of a problem – when every reader / editor is saying the same thing – this self-knowledge helps you decide what to do with conflicting opinions or outliers. Otherwise, you’d drive yourself mad trying to edit to everyone’s liking.

Finally, the most unique part of any writer’s work comes from the individual. I’m not saying that you have to bare your soul in print or write solely based in personal experiences – disagreeing with both these concepts is part of my identity as a writer – but rather that no one else has your precise combination of opinions, beliefs, personal style … and a hundred other things, besides. I’ve always agreed with those who flip the old “write what you know” adage on its head and say that the real goal is to “know what you write” – and the most important subject for a writer to know about is themselves.

Lindsey Duncan is a life-long writer and professional Celtic harp performer, with short fiction and poetry in numerous speculative fiction publications. Her contemporary fantasy novel, Flow, is available from Double Dragon Publishing. She feels that music and language are inextricably linked. She lives, performs and teaches harp in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Learn more about Lindsey on her website.

One Writer's Reading

by Helen Jackson

I'm just back from Eastercon, the UK's annual National Science Fiction Convention. It reminded me that there's often no clear line between writer and reader, particularly in speculative fiction. John Scalzi's explanation for this is: "people start writing science fiction ... roughly ten seconds after they set down The Star Beast or Ender’s Game or Snow Crash because they get done with the book and think, holy crap, I want to do that."

What better way to figure out how to start doing that than by reading more books and considering what other writers do?

The second thing I rediscovered at Eastercon: speculative fiction fans are incredibly well read. As a group, we know our stuff. As a writer, I need to remember that readers come to my work familiar with the tropes, precedents and latest developments in the genre.

It's important for me keep up to date. All speculative fiction fans grew up reading the same classic writers (Le Guin and Heinlein were the two I discovered first, gateway drugs into other worlds). But, it's not enough to read the classics and stop there. Society has changed; writing styles have changed; things that were fresh and new half-way through the twentieth century may be tired old clichés now.

My top ways of adding to my "to read" bookshelf are:

* Recommendations. My friends and I swap books incessantly, and I love BookCrossing and Goodreads. I kept a list of suggestions from people I met at Eastercon, including tips from a panel discussing the top books of 2012 chaired by Chris Hill. (See Eastercon newsletter 6 for the panel's recommendations.)

* Proper old-fashioned bookshops. I advise making friends with your local independent bookseller -- I get great personalized recommendations from Mike Calder at Edinburgh's brilliant Transreal Fiction.

* Awards shortlists. Speculative fiction is particularly interesting because some awards are judged by a panel (e.g. the Clarke awards) and some are judged by readers (e.g. the Hugos). The critics and the fans often don't agree.

It's good for me to read what I'm writing -- not just the genre, but the form. My story in Penumbra's May issue is a piece of flash fiction; if I stuck to novels I'd have no grasp of what's possible in a thousand words. Fortunately, speculative flash arrives in my inbox every morning -- free! -- thanks to Daily Science Fiction. For short stories, I read magazines such as Penumbra, Interzone, F&SF and Asimov's, or I read online at Strange Horizons or Clarkesworld.

As a writer, reading is research and inspiration, occasionally a source of extreme envy (some writers are so good it hurts), and -- more than anything -- fun. When I put down a book I've loved I can't help thinking "holy crap, I want to do that."

Helen Jackson likes making stuff up and eating cake. She's lucky enough to live in Edinburgh, her favorite city. Her stories have recently been published in Interzone and Daily Science Fiction, and in the anthology Rocket Science.

Learn more about Helen on her website or find her on Goodreads.

SCI-FI DEAK STYLE

Science That Doesn’t Work In Science Fiction. . . But Has To

by John Deakins

The first word in “Science Fiction” is “Science.” “SF” includes Speculative Fantasy, but Science Fiction is supposed to remain pristine. The Science has to work. Readers expect the paranormal in fantasy, but Science Fiction must stick to the rules of the universe. Certainly, every hard SF story springs from some scientific aspects that have fictionally altered. When we adventure in the Asteroid Belt, both writer and reader are aware no humans have yet reached the Asteroid Belt. That’s why they call it fiction. We’re all in on the inside joke: We all know we’re lying. The object is to make the lies entertaining.

Once we’re committed to the Asteroid Belt, however, writing rules change. The remaining science must be correct; the logic must be consistent. Our flights among the orbiting rocks must obey the Newton’s laws. Our spacecraft can’t be towed by a dragon flapping its wings. A wizard can’t wave his wand and transport us instantly to the next rock. An Elf isn’t going to lead us down tunnels inside magically orbiting mountains. We’re obliged to stick to scientific facts. Our fiction is like an exotic SF game, but we’re only allowed playing pieces that actually function in this universe. We must follow if>>>then logic: If certain current scientific knowledge has been altered, then a story follows thus…

Some of the greatest fun of SF writing is the amount of mayhem we can create from behind our keyboard. We can destroy the world with an asteroid impact, nuclear war, or plague. We can suffocate our astronauts in unforgiving vacuum. We can kill space colonists with unnamed pestilence or human-devouring monsters. We can deliver supernovas, rampaging aliens, and fatal time paradoxes. We can alter history or bring humans to extinction. It’d be a shame to see our reign of terror end just because we’re shackled by science’s rock-hard rules.

The trouble is that scientific laws are hard, cold and unyielding. There is nothing sadder than a beautiful theory killed by an ugly fact. For the Science Fiction writer, that sadness occurs when a beautiful story idea is gored by an ugly scientific principle. For example, Burroughs’ Mars and Venus just aren’t there. We’d like to ride a thoat across the lichen-covered plains or explore the steaming Venusian swamps, but we simply can’t do that in Science Fiction. Alas, the Mars of red princesses is fantasy only.

Science is supposed to be the mainstay of Science Fiction. What happens when Science gets in the way of Science Fiction? Sometimes the story-telling urge is so powerful that it makes us willing to slide around our own dogma. To get that story written, we are (shudder!) willing to commit adultery on science. The result is often an offspring that really needed an abortion.

What are we going to do, then? (Funny you should ask that, since that’s what this blog’s about.) Over the next weeks, we will push Science Fiction into several deep science pits and try to rescue it. Stick around.

John Deakins, B.A., M.S.T. is a four-decade veteran of the science classroom and author of his own fantasy series Barrow.

To read an excerpt from Barrow book one, please click HERE.

Consider Iain

by B. Morris Allen

Penumbra asked me to write a blog post on the same day I heard that Iain Banks had only a few months to live. So, in honor of Mr. Banks, I've taken him as the seed for this post.

I've been reading Banks (mostly Iain M. Banks, but I expect both of him are leaving us) since Consider Phlebas, back in the 80s. Happily, a lot of others have too, and he prospered.

Banks is good at a lot of things, but he's an expert at space opera. It's true that Banks' Culture and Smith's Lensmen are parsecs apart, but they both deal with grand themes, vast distances, and big decisions. Both succeed by personalizing those larger than life issues, and bringing them down to a human (or alien) scale.

That's what speculative fiction is all about. Sometimes (Asimov's The Gods Themselves) it's nominally about exploring some new dimension of science. Sometimes (Le Guin's The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas or Tepper's The Gate to Women's Country) it's doing the same with social constructs. But even when it's just Tumithak wandering the corridors, or Durzo Blint training a new apprentice, it's all about people. How do they react to the kind of situations that only speculative fiction can put them in? What do they do, and when they do it, what kind of people do they become?

Of course, not all speculative fiction is quite so contemplative, and I originally came to science fiction and fantasy for Barsoom-type adventure, as I suspect many do. If you'd talked to me about people and character all those years ago, I would have waved it off. Sure, yes, all fiction is really about people. Blah, blah, blah. It wasn't until I read Arthur C. Clarke's Imperial Earth that I realized SF heroes did not have to be John Carter hero types, no mean swordsman on any number of worlds. But even John Carter had Dejah Thoris to bring out a meaningful human side. But I want excitement and imagination too. Speculative fiction's strength is that it takes regular people (plus some steel-thewed heroes and beautiful geniuses), and puts them in situations that make you think.

The good thing about writing speculative fiction is that you can start from either end. In my case, I sometimes have what I think is a neat idea. For example, my novella The Speed of Winter started from the chance conjugation of an idea (what would it be like to be the last child on an arkship gone wrong?) and a line from the UN Human Development Report for Mongolia ("the speed of winter"). I took the scenario that suggested, and imagined what people would do (and what it would do to people). The answer I came up with was grim (that's artistic license at work, not innate pessimism). Just as often, though, I start with characters and see where they take me. I know a little about them when we start, and I get to know them better as we go. As authors have been saying since they first told stories, sometimes the characters surprise me. That's true even when I writing about myself (in my one semi-autobiographical story, "Spring and the Arachnodactylist").

I don't know Iain Banks, and clearly now I never will. But I know his books. He's a master of the technical, both hardware and sociocultural. But his strength is that he never neglects his characters; I know them too. They're complex and finicky, and sometimes they surprise me. Here's hoping they keep doing that in re-read after re-read for many decades to come.

B. Morris Allen grew up in a house full of books that traveled the world, and was initially a fan of Gogol and Dickens. Then, one cool night, he saw the light of Barsoom...

B. Morris has been a biochemist, an activist, and a lawyer. He pauses from time to time on the Oregon coast to recharge, but now he's back on the move, and the books are multiplying like mad. When he can, he works on his own contributions to speculative fiction.

What’s in a Name?

by Rie Sheridan Rose

“Tyrone, Tyrone…wherefore art thou, Tyrone?”

Doesn’t have the same ring, does it? Of course, in the 1560’s in England, Tyrone wouldn’t have been a very likely name any way, but suppose Shakespeare had gone with something more recognizable to his audience—like William, or Henry, or Robert. These names still wouldn’t have conveyed the sense of place and status that naming his hero “Romeo” presented.

When creating your characters, their names are going to be the easiest, most convenient way for the reader to remember them. This is your chance to give your audience a cheat code, as it were, to have an instant recognition of who that person is and their place in the story.

Therefore, it is vital that you make sure your choice conveys the information you want to make sure is given. While it may be fine to give the characters in a short story the first name that comes to mind—after all, the reader won’t be spending too much time with them—when it comes to a longer work, like a novel or series, there needs to be something about that name that will help the reader remember who it belongs to.

For example, in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, Jo (short for Josephine) is the tomboy. Her name is mannish by her own choice. She is a writer, who wants to succeed in a world where her sex is a limitation, and she does what she can to negate it by the nickname. Meg (short for Margaret) is practical, conforming, not a risk-taker. Her name reflects the practical, sensible side of her nature. Beth (short for Elizabeth) is the dreamy, musical child with a heart two sizes too big and a desire to help those in need. Her name reflects the softness of her character. Amy is the baby, the pretty one, the snob. She wants to be a painter, so she is also artistic, and her name is the most reflective of this, sounding almost exotic compared to the other girls.

Perhaps Louisa May didn’t put this much analysis into her name choices—but I wouldn’t bet on that.

In fact, when naming the characters for my new Steampunk series debuting in July, I downright stole Jo(sephine) as the name for my heroine because she shares characteristics with Jo March. The same reasoning went into her best friend Winifred, who goes by Fred because she wants to fit into a man’s world as a scientist.

There are certain other aspects to bear in mind when choosing a name that fits your character:

1) What is their location? Country of origin? (The characters in Romeo and Juliet were Italian, despite their English playwright, and needed Italian names.)

2) What is their profession? Many last names reflect the profession of the bearer or his ancestor.

3) What is their genre? Names like Stan and Pete may not adequately reflect your fantasy setting. Perhaps Bertram or Florescue are more appropriate.

4) Are they pronounceable? If you want to name your character Eeonathor, for example, provide an alternative, like Ravenwing, that he goes by so that the reader won’t just skip over it in their head…

These are some basic things to bear in mind as you write. Remember, however, that nothing about our profession is carved in stone. If they don’t work for you, feel free to ignore them. But you might find that “A rose by any other name” doesn’t smell as sweet.

Rie Sheridan Rose has pursued the dream of being a professional writer for the last ten years. She has had five novels, three short story collections, five poetry collections, and several stand-alone pieces published by over a dozen small presses in that decade.

Learn more about Rie Sheridan Rose on her website and blog. Stay connected with Facebook and Twitter.

A Moment with Brian Griggs

If you could go back and redo any one thing in your life, what would it be?

Trust me: time travel is tricky. Go too far in any one direction and you could end up with a Tyrannosaur and a Terminator at a tea party. While the potential for awesomeness is great, it will more times than not end in a loss of life and/or fine china. So even though there are words of mine that I wish were unsaid, fights not picked, one-pound cheeseburgers left uneaten, I realize that we are all part of a bigger story and the best character change can only come through conflict.

Professionally, there are works and submissions that I have sent off too quickly that I wish I could do over. I have revised and revised and yet forgotten to read the thing aloud - a task that I have made years of students do - before sending it off as a finished product. Physician, heal thyself! My own impatience has been my worst nemesis as I watch those ships of opportunity set sail with me still on the shore. And yet these lessons, too, are an integral part of character growth.

In my experience I have found that there are always more opportunities; I need to keep my eyes open no matter how many times failure tempts me to tuck in my head and curl up in a ball. Opportunity will show up again, but probably wearing different clothes.

This is true except in the case of old people.

I have missed a big chunk of the story by not talking with my grandparents when I had the chance. I was always too busy with basketball or band or anything that didn't involve sitting around listening to an old person talk about their life. Now that they're gone, those are opportunities that will never show up again.

When my last grandparent died, I remember driving up to my parents' house after the funeral and hallucinating that my grandma's van was parked in its usual spot for family gatherings. The van had been at her house the last time that she was alive. Had she driven it over after her funeral? I had one more chance to listen to her, to hear about what she had learned in eight decades of life, to tell her that I love her. But the van wasn't there and neither was my chance.

So, what do I do now? Could I redo those missed opportunities with my grandparents? Much like time-traveling Tyrannosaurs, messing with the fabric of life and death itself comes with its own inherent complications. Instead, I grieve and in that grief I am shaped as a character. I grieve and then I tell stories, stories to my daughters about the grandparents who took me camping or taught me how to repair furniture or would generously cook me fifteen pancakes every summer morning despite how crazy that is. As you read about Wendell, Custodian of the Galaxy, in the March issue of Penumbra, know that he is partly inspired by stories of my lovable grandparents - and, you know, a giant intergalactic war with killer robots, but let's not get bogged down with technicalities.

At 6' 9" Brian Griggs is unofficially the world's tallest librarian (the claim was submitted to Guinness in November and is currently being processed). He has also taught English at both the junior high and high school levels.

Brian would love to chat with you about intergalactic wars with killer robots and can be reached on Twitter or on his website.

Lost In the Age of Technology

by Kristin Saunders

The luxuries of the twenty-first century are not to be laughed at. In one day it is possible to talk with someone for hours half-way across the world, cook a meal in minutes when it used to take hours, and travel a hundred miles in relative ease. We have created such glorious things for ourselves. The futures we can imagine are just as grand. It would be possible to travel from New York to Tokyo in a few hours by vacuum-sealed bullet train or even farther via instantaneous teleportation. It is easy to see sterile work environments that gleam without the aid of a dirty mop, and machines tending our every need. It is so easy to imagine the next step, and the step beyond that. Every convenience easily imagined, then the device eventually engineered.

Stop. Think.

Is this the luxury you really want? I only ask because your microwave meal is currently lacking the flavor of the prepared food your mother made. That bullet train may get you where you are going, but you may miss the journey and the experiences a trip halfway around the world would give you now, or even one-hundred years ago when you would have had to cross the ocean by boat.

Face Time may try to replace face-to-face conversation, but you miss out on the small ticks like a person’s twitch or their general body language. Never mind glitch wireless or the overall warmth of a person’s actual presence. Nothing can replace that feeling of being in the moment with someone.

Technology has its place in our lives. It does afford us time, but it can also waste it both in quantity (Internet) and quality (traveling to the grocery store by bike versus driving a mile down the road.) If we really thought about every piece of technology we used, I’m certain many of us would go without some portion of it. I know given the chance I’d go without my cell phone and keep it to house service, because outside a car breakdown, I just don’t need or want that much connectivity in my life.

Recently, I’ve even taken yoga to tear myself away from the Internet and the television. The most relaxing moment being an instructed ujjayi breath or “yoga breath.” They are simple to do, draw a breath deep down into the core of your belly. While holding it, allow your mind to focus on your body. Exhale through your mouth and let the thoughts of the world fall away and exit with each breath.” This type of breathing requires focusing all your attention onto yourself. It is a meditative exercise and can bring a person to really respect the body they are using.

Technology is not an entirely bad thing, but I do think it comes with its demons. And expecting that we will have more technology in the near future I think it’s time we started asking questions like, “When was the last time I experienced the living world outside my door?” It may sound silly, but in an age where technology is carried with us in every moment of our lives it could be very easy to lose your sense of self. Something that should be precious. The future is waiting at our doorstep and I’m hoping we find a way to separate ourselves and know ourselves outside of the technologies and luxuries we create.

Kristen Saunders is an intern Penumbra EMag. She loves to write science fiction in her free time and recently started her own blog The Musings of a Growing Writer.