Blurred Line

I've read through the bulk of stories that have come in so far at Fusion Fragment and I just wanted to mention the main reason behind my rejections. Actually, this issue was behind a lot of the rejections for Goodbye, Darwin, too, so if you're a writer, you might want to listen up.

A significant number of the stories I've received are perfectly serviceable, solid pieces. But that's all they are. It seems as if the writers have come up with an idea, a character and then written the story with a "let's get in, write the damn thing, and get the hell out" kind of mentality. What this produces, ultimately, is sterility. And I'm reading a lot of sterile stories.

Let me put together an analogy here. Remember in grade school, when you had to do presentations on stuff? I had to do them all the time. Anyhow, you'd get marks on the academic side of things and you'd also get marks on your presentation skills. Now, in an SF story, your characters, plot and ideas are your academic marks. If you don't have those...well, then you don't have a thing. The kid who gets up in front of the class and makes something up that's way off base, or stammers out a whole lot of nothing until the teachers tells him to sit down...yeah, that's you. But most kids, they have all that stuff. Most of the people who have submitted stories to me so far, they're getting full academic marks. But when it comes time for the presentation, they're reading information off a bland piece of bristol board in a monotone voice. There's no life, no spark. Everything's related matter-of-factly. All the sentences sound the same.

So, how to punch it up? Well, if you're writing a short story, I'm a big fan of switching to first-person. Benjamin put up an interesting post on writing in the first-person yesterday, in response to somewhat who asked if it was detrimental to do so. Well, a lot of people dislike first-person, but I don't count myself among them. For short stories, I actually prefer it. Why? Well, you've got about 5000 words to tell a whole story, which doesn't leave much room for characterization. I like to use first-person because it allows me to rely on voice, which is a terrific way of both letting your reader identify with your character and also for injecting a little flair into your story.

If you're opposed to the first-person, make sure you're thinking about your sentence structure. Sure, it might sound boring, but if all your sentences sound the same, well, then you sound boring, which is exponentially worse. You might also want to aim for some interesting settings. Some people rail on against stories with a lot of description, but you know what's prevailing in the stories I've received? No description of setting, or very cursory and obvious ones. Don't be afraid of a paragraph of description every now and again - it's not going to alienate your reader unless you go overboard on the frequency of descriptions, or you have purple prose issues.

So, those are the tips from the editor for the day. Questions? Comments?


Profile Editor. Writer. 9-5er. Lord of the Dance. Blurredline.com Apodis Publishing Fusion Fragment cterrill(at)blurredline.com Buy Goodbye, Darwin Amazon.com Amazon.ca Chapters.ca Barnes&Noble.com Read it free in PDF Format Buy Blurred Line Amazon.com Amazon.ca Chapters.ca Barnes&Noble.com Read it free in PDF Format The Short Stuff "Learning Magic From Mint" - published May 2007 in Atomjack "Between Eternities" - published October 2005 at Speculative.ca "Smoke and Mirrors" - published June 2005 in Byzarium Submissions Log Total Subs: 25 Acceptances: 3 Rejections: 17 Withdrawals: 3 Subs Out: 2 Quality Blogs Scalzi's Whatever Dave's Blogography Bookslut The Struggling Writer SF Signal the0phrastus Paperback Writer Scribe's Writing Desk Nathan Bransford Lyons Literary LLC The World in the Satin Bag Book In The Oven The Word Perhaps We Learned Something... Words, etc. Archives March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 December 2006 January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007 June 2007 July 2007 August 2007 September 2007 October 2007 November 2007 November 2008 December 2008 January 2009 February 2009 March 2009 Et Cetera Cavan @ Last.fm Cavan @ LibraryThing Feeds Atom Feed RSS Feed	Tuesday, December 12, 2006 - A Little Personality? I've read through the bulk of stories that have come in so far at Fusion Fragment and I just wanted to mention the main reason behind my rejections. Actually, this issue was behind a lot of the rejections for Goodbye, Darwin, too, so if you're a writer, you might want to listen up. A significant number of the stories I've received are perfectly serviceable, solid pieces. But that's all they are. It seems as if the writers have come up with an idea, a character and then written the story with a "let's get in, write the damn thing, and get the hell out" kind of mentality. What this produces, ultimately, is sterility. And I'm reading a lot of sterile stories. Let me put together an analogy here. Remember in grade school, when you had to do presentations on stuff? I had to do them all the time. Anyhow, you'd get marks on the academic side of things and you'd also get marks on your presentation skills. Now, in an SF story, your characters, plot and ideas are your academic marks. If you don't have those...well, then you don't have a thing. The kid who gets up in front of the class and makes something up that's way off base, or stammers out a whole lot of nothing until the teachers tells him to sit down...yeah, that's you. But most kids, they have all that stuff. Most of the people who have submitted stories to me so far, they're getting full academic marks. But when it comes time for the presentation, they're reading information off a bland piece of bristol board in a monotone voice. There's no life, no spark. Everything's related matter-of-factly. All the sentences sound the same. So, how to punch it up? Well, if you're writing a short story, I'm a big fan of switching to first-person. Benjamin put up an interesting post on writing in the first-person yesterday, in response to somewhat who asked if it was detrimental to do so. Well, a lot of people dislike first-person, but I don't count myself among them. For short stories, I actually prefer it. Why? Well, you've got about 5000 words to tell a whole story, which doesn't leave much room for characterization. I like to use first-person because it allows me to rely on voice, which is a terrific way of both letting your reader identify with your character and also for injecting a little flair into your story. If you're opposed to the first-person, make sure you're thinking about your sentence structure. Sure, it might sound boring, but if all your sentences sound the same, well, then you sound boring, which is exponentially worse. You might also want to aim for some interesting settings. Some people rail on against stories with a lot of description, but you know what's prevailing in the stories I've received? No description of setting, or very cursory and obvious ones. Don't be afraid of a paragraph of description every now and again - it's not going to alienate your reader unless you go overboard on the frequency of descriptions, or you have purple prose issues. So, those are the tips from the editor for the day. Questions? Comments? Cavan blogged at 6:10 PM \| 5 comments	Progress Zilch! 0/0 Listening A.J. Croce - "Maybe I'm Amazed" My Music Reading Bright Lights, Big City - Jay McInerney My Library Watching Black Book: B Sweet and Lowdown: C Breakfast on Pluto: B Wishlist Bridge of Sighs - Richard Russo Rachael Yamagata - Elephants...Teeth Sinking Into Heart