It's been a while since I decided to add something
different to my blog rotation. Today I’ll start looking at “advice” for writing
short stories – not from me, but from other short story writers. In speculative
fiction, “short” has very carefully delineated categories: “The Science Fiction
and Fantasy Writers of America specifies word lengths for each category of its
Nebula award categories by word count; Novel 40,000 words or over; Novella 17,500
to 39,999 words; Novelette 7,500 to 17,499 words; Short story under 7,500 words.”
I’m going to use advice from people who, in addition to
writing novels, have also spent plenty of time “interning” with short stories. The
advice will be in the form of one or several quotes off of which I’ll jump and
connect it with my own writing experience. While I don’t write full-time,
nor do I make enough money with my writing to live off of it...neither do most 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!
Without further ado, let’s start with Isaac Asimov…
Obviously, I never met Asimov, though another science teacher presented
me with a condolence muffin when he passed away. The friend wasn’t a writer, nor
did he even read science fiction, but he knew the importance of Asimov’s work.
In his career, Asimov wrote so much MORE than science fiction: “…wrote
or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000 letters and postcards…hundreds
of short stories…the Lucky Starr series of juvenile science-fiction novels…mysteries
and fantasy…popular science books…[books on] chemistry, astronomy, mathematics,
history, biblical exegesis, and literary criticism.”
He wrote, “Since February 1941, I have never written a piece of fiction
that has not, in one way or another, seen print.”
A search of the www gave me NO clear number of how many short stories
he wrote, noting only “hundreds…” So, I went to the wiki site that listed his
SS bibliography (see link below) and counted them. While I’m pretty sure I missed
some, my final number of everything listed there brought me to 403. That’s in
addition to 500 books…and, as a headline noted, “Isaac Asimov published more
than 500 books in his lifetime but never suffered from writer's block.”
While he didn’t ever write a writing book, Leibowitz was able to pull
the following from Asimov’s writings. Once I wrote these down, I was surprised
by how MUCH of this advice I followed.
a) Work on multiple projects at the same time
b) Write whenever you have time – even if you don’t have much of it.
c) Just. Start. Writing.
d) Keep writing – even when you’re not.
e) Enjoy your writing.
f) Cultivate a clear and colloquial style.
g) Never stop learning.
h) Learn from other people’s writing.
As far as “Work on multiple projects at a time” – I’m editing and plan
on finishing a novel, MARTIAN HOLIDAY and finally have it laid out so that I can
work with it. I’ll be editing and submitting one of the most serious stories I’ve
ever written, “The Murder of Automotive Technician #47369”; I’ve finished a “Christian”
science fiction story that illuminates my new awareness of both the privilege
of my race and gender, and the call my faith has for me to give it all up, in
fact to be very much prepared to GIVE MY LIFE (not just in an intellectual way,
but physically; as in DIE for what I believe. Very few people I know have that
kind of commitment to their faith in Christ, even though our example in the
Bible is filled with physical sacrifice, from Jesus onward in history) which
needs and edit before I send it out with trembling hands; I intend to rewrite a
novel, OUT OF THE DEBTOR STARS in which the main character is an Ojibwe-white
man. My guide for this will be THE ASSASSINATION OF HOLE IN THE DAY, a book of
Ojibwe poetry, and Writing the Other (Conversation Pieces)
(Volume 8) by Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward, in which they say, “…one of the
students [at a writing workshop] expressed the opinion that it is a mistake to
write about people of ethnic backgrounds different from your own because you
might get it wrong—horribly, offensively wrong—and so it is better not even to
try. This opinion, commonplace among published as well as aspiring writers,
struck Nisi as taking the easy way out and spurred her to write an essay
addressing the problem of how to write about characters marked by racial and
ethnic differences. In the course of writing the essay, however, she realized
that similar problems arise when writers try to create characters whose gender,
sexual orientation, and age differ significantly from their own.”
I’m in the middle of writing a short story for kids with the tentative
title, “Into the Underground with Straw Shoes and Torches!” about the discovery
of the Manjanggul Lava Tube on Jeju Island in South Korea. I was there and
there’s a major story that has had very little exposure to people not on the
island. Again, I want to tell the story from a child’s point of view; a girl’s
point of view; a Korean’s point of view;
and the point of view of a Korean girl’s view in 1946…
The potential there for a severe strike-out is HUGE, but I won’t be
able to see if I can do it unless I try. I managed to do a reasonable job with
several stories I’ve had published there, but the current climate of publishing
for both speculative fiction and children’s fiction is to NOT support Shawl and
Ward’s concern, in fact, it appears to me that the publishers and writers in
these groups would rather first point a finger and cry out, “cultural
appropriation by a bofwhig!”
We’ll see. I’m planning on referencing Shawl and Ward in my cover
letters and see if that makes any difference! At least I know that I have some
things in common with Asimov – hopefully not what he’s currently being panned
for (sexism, orientationism, religionism, nuclear powerism)…
Last of all, I will continue to take deeply to heart the most important
point listed above: “Never stop learning.”
References: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov_short_stories_bibliography,
https://www.inc.com/glenn-leibowitz/advice-for-beating-writers-block-from-an-award-winning-author-of-500-books.html,
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