Hello, readers!
Greetings. You’re being treated to a guest post today. That’s right. I’m Belinda Wryte-Genre, Betty’s cousin. Betty’s dealing with a crisis in her garden due to the latest heat wave--which I’m sure aliens are behind, personally. She muttered something about her cauliflowers melting before handing the column over to me. Don’t worry; I’m sure she’ll turn the experience into an exciting plot-point in her novel, Dreams of the Salad Bar.
I know Betty keeps you guys up to date on the latest writing tips, but she tends towards the more general literary fare, right? Me? I’m typing out my hot new sci-fi adventure in three volumes: The Adventures of Tater Crombie, Spud-captain of Outer Space. Remember that title; they’ll be making a blockbuster movie of it someday, with lots of explosions. Anyway, I’ve decided my column will focus a little more on the concerns of us who write speculative fiction. That’s science fiction, also known as sci-fi, fantasy, and horror. These also include such subheadings as magical realism, paranormal romance, weird Westerns, and other many other categories. But why take my word on it when you can peruse some of the links below?
First stop should always be to www.sfwa.org, the website of the Science Fiction Writers of America. Don't worry! They include all the other forms of speculative fiction as well. You can join SFWA if you get a few sales under your belt. Their site provides you with many useful bits of information, including sample contracts, updates on the industry, and markets the savvy writer should be wary of.
For purely horror writers, there’s www.horror.org, a similar site for the Horror Writers of America. If you really want to keep track on what’s happening in the spec fic industry, go to Locus, the official magazine in the field, at www.locusmag.com. You might also like Science Fiction Hub at www.sfhub.ac.uk, where you find archives for many of Britain’s most important sci-fi and fantasy writers.
For keeping the “science” in your sci-fi, I can recommend these helpful websites: http://wired.com, http://www.scientificblogging.com, and http://www.technovelgy.com/
For fantasy writers, there’s www.endicott-studio.com/index.html which provides useful information on fairy-tales and other myths. Horror writers might prefer www.litgothic.com, a useful guide to Gothic literature.
Learning to write speculative fiction can in and of itself be a challenge. To get you started, here are a couple online writing sites: www.onlinewritingworkshops.com and www.critters.org. Here you'll find qualified instructors ready to give you helpful hints as to world-building, innovation, and research, key components of a good piece of speculative fiction. Once you feel you've mastered the basics, you might wish to enroll in a real-world writers’ workshop. The Odyssey Writers Workshop at www.sff.net/odyssey/ and Clarion at www.clarion.uscd.edu are generally considered the best workshops around for writers of the speculative genre, but if you can’t get away for six months at a time you might also try the one-week Viable Paradise workshop at www.sff.net/paradise. They all want a writing sample for their application, so get cracking!
Naturally, once you have a few stories under your belt, you’ll need to find a place to market them. I'm sure Betty’s mentioned the ever-wonderful www.duotrope.com, where you can set your search parameters for speculative fiction, but if you want to narrow your search to speculative markets from the start, I can heartily recommend Ralan, www.ralan.com, a free site for market listings, and Dark Markets, www.darkmarkets.com, which focuses solely on the horror genre. There's also Gila Queen, http://GilaQueen.us, a good site that requires a subscription to access fully.
Finally, some miscellaneous sites. http://sfeditorwatch.com/index.php/Main_Page gives a list of editors who work in genre-specific fields. Two authors who maintain informative blogs are John Scalzi at http://whatever.scalzi.com and Kristine Kathryn Rusch at http://kriswrites.com/category/business. Their columns rarely fail to inspire me, and I often learn about an interesting new book about to hit the shelves as well. For those with discerning British tastes, you may want to look at Neil Gaiman’s online journal, www.journal.neilgaiman.com.
Hope you found some of these links helpful! Hopefully Betty can nurse her garden back to health and return to her duties next month. As for me, I got to run. I’m in the middle of writing a tense scene involving Tater Crombie and a vat of radioactive ketchup.
Belinda Wryte-Genre, signing off.
Belinda
See you, space cowboys!
Belinda Wryte-Genre is a student who splits her time working as a barista at her corner Starbuckets and moonlighting as a painter-for hire. She has seen Star Wars far too many times, and hopes one day to construct a light saber of her very own. She owns far too many cats.
Mixed Up Words of the Month: Affect and Effect
Only one letter separates these two, but their meaning is quite different. To add to the confusion, both can be used either as nouns or verbs, although “affect” is more commonly used as a verb and “effect” more commonly as a noun. Close attention must be paid to avoid mix-ups!
Affect: (verb) To influence or produce a consequence in.
(noun) Observed or expressed emotional response.
Effect: (noun) A result, or that which is produced through agent to carry out.
(verb) To become operative, or carry out.