In September of 2007, I started this blog
with a bit of writing advice. A little over a year later, I discovered how
little I knew about writing after hearing children’s writer, Lin Oliver speak
at a convention hosted by the Minnesota Society of Children’s Book Writers and
Illustrators. Since then, I have shared (with their permission) and applied the
writing wisdom of Lin Oliver, Jack McDevitt, Nathan Bransford, Mike Duran,
Kristine Kathryn Rusch, SL Veihl, Bruce Bethke, and Julie Czerneda. Together
they write in genres broad and deep, and have acted as agents, editors,
publishers, columnists, and teachers. Since then, I figured I’ve got enough
publications now that I can share some of the things I did “right” and I’m busy
sharing that with you.
While I don’t write full-time, nor do I make
enough money with my writing to live off of it...neither do all of the
professional writers above...someone pays for and publishes ten percent of what
I write. When I started this blog, that was NOT true, so I may have reached a
point where my own advice is reasonably good. We shall see! Hemingway’s quote
above will now remain unchanged as I work to increase my writing output and
sales! As always, your comments are welcome!
If you’d like to read it, this story is still
“up” at: http://www.stupefyingstoriesshowcase.com/0130826/0130826-40.html
The following is an
abridged version of an essay the editor asked me to write to go with the story:
Worlds are supposed to be long-lasting, apparently eternal
to those who live on them and even in fact whirling around their stars for a
long, long time. This is what I’ve always wanted to do when writing science
fiction: create long-lasting worlds so that I could return to them again and
again.
“Oath” was the first story to grow from a seed planted by
Bruce Bethke and Henry Vogel—though that wasn’t the title then—that eventually
became a convoluted intertwining of multiple ideas, characters, and fictional
events. It’s not the same story I wrote three years ago in response to their Friday Challenge in March of 2010.
From this challenge, I wrote the original story as my entry
to a contest I lost—for very good reasons. “Oath” languished because I’d gotten
another idea based in the same future. I abandoned “Oath”—I can’t even find a
“Notes” file, so the fragment was obviously written on-the-fly—and wrote
“Technopred” (April 2013, AURORA WOLF), a complete story, set in the same
place as “Oath”. One of the comments on “Oath” was that “the setup leading to
that ending needs considerably more work to support [it]...”
I dug deeper and built a more complete foundation. I had to
understand the forces that had created the situation. I made it so that The
Wilds came about as a result of the forced relocation of most of the world’s
population to the Villages and the machines that were sent out to deconstruct
and recycle every village, town and city identified as unneeded. I made the
inhabitants of the Villages oblivious to the Wilds and the lands supporting
them not in active ignorance, but because they no longer think of where their
food comes from.
The background had finally grown big enough to contain
“Oath”. It had spawned not only “Oath” and “Technopred”, but combined with an
entirely different idea produced “Invoking Fire” (PERIHELION, June 2013 which I
wrote about here – http://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2015/08/writing-advice-what-went-right-with_23.html).
All of these led to a novel I’m in the middle of editing called OUT OF THE DEBTOR
STARS; all this spilled out of the world-building that was sparked by Bruce and
Henry’s Friday Challenge in March of 2010. I rewrote the fragment, placing it
in the future history that had grown over the years, changed the title to the
now more-appropriate “Oath,” and sent the short story to Stupefying Stories
with deep sense of coming back home.
Years ago, I made a promise to myself that I would resist
the urge to create disposable worlds where I’d write a single story to make a
point, and then abandon it. “Oath,” seeded by an idea tossed out by Bruce and
Henry and incorporating the DNA of another idea, has become a complex, rich,
and deep world that I have started to feel very comfortable in. I expect there
are many more stories in this place, and for that especially, I thank Bruce and
Henry.
So what did I do right?
First, I rose to meet a challenge that gave parameters vague
enough for me to do something original.
Second, I wrote and submitted a story – which lost the
contest. But because I’d made a promise to myself to avoid disposable worlds...
I, Third, went back into the world and kept building.
Lastly, I persisted in sending the stories out. There are
now three published stories in this place with more both on-the-way and in
submission.
What do you think?
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