These days, I write whenever I want to – or when I’m not busy exploring the world with my wife or kids or grandkids. I write and read constantly. Then I discovered that I was writing longer and longer pieces. My new focus is to write shorter; and to write HUMOR. On purpose. Maybe I can still irritate people while being funny. It works pretty well for John Scalzi! We’ll see what happens. I’ve also started to ponder the question above: HOW DO I KNOW what I'm saying – be it in essays, curriculum, fiction, or the odds and ends things I do?
I’ve spent the past few days reflecting on recent rejections; 32 times since May of 2023 – though there have been 3 acceptances since then as well. Two of the acceptances were in the works for a long time – EMERALD OF EARTH, and a short story, “What Fraction Makes Man”. One was a surprise, “Feedback” (which recently ALMOST made it into the 2024 (so-far) MOST read stories at STUPEFYING STORIES!) If you’d like to read it, follow the link: https://stupefyingstories.blogspot.com/2024/03/feedback-by-guy-stewart.html
So, what exactly am I looking for? What do I think is important and how does it come out in my writing?
So, let me poke around one of my best-received stories: “Fairybones”. It was published years ago on the podcast website, CAST OF WONDERS. The editor liked it SO much, she put in a nomination for a Nebula award and it was one of the “Best of the Year” (2015) by DIABOLICAL PLOTS editor, David Steffen. You can listen to it or read it here: https://www.castofwonders.org/2015/11/episode-181-fairy-bones-by-guy-stewart/
The theme WAS unusual – it had a “typical” disconnected teen boy and his grandmother. I’m a retired teacher and spent 10 years substitute teaching 6th-12th graders in science; ten years teaching 8th Grade Earth Science; another 10 years teaching 9th Grade Physical Science; and ten years as a School Counselor following the graduating class of 2018 from 9th grade through graduation (and other classes as needed). My judgement of “typical” was gathered over 40 years of experience with adolescents, half of them boy-men; half of them girl-women.
She was a retired community college professor who’d had no intention of giving up her research just because she retired. She’d discovered…creatures…in the marshland near where she lived now. Her grandson’s parents were off somewhere and she volunteered to watch over him.
The first thing someone mentioned was that “old people” in science fiction intended for young people were unusual. Old people who didn’t want to “impart their wisdom to the Next Generation” were even rarer. Clementine Dresden, retired community college teacher has kept up her research. She’s divorced, had two children, who have complicated, Late-21st Century relationships and travel to “futuristic” destinations…but have little use for a sulky teenaged boy with the improbable name Dexter bar-Jonah Dresden-Xiong-Johnson-Niabuto.
He shows up on her “doorstep” and will be staying for a while. Ultimately, she involves him with her research into the reason that the usual “…mouse, rabbit, squirrel, or vole skeletons in owl pellets had started to vanish...”
To stave off deadly boredom, he agrees to help her with her owl pellet survey. She not only discovers that her grandson is smart, he discovers that his grandmother is smart as well.
There’s humor in the story. Science. Fiction. An unexpected relationship grows beyond its previous boundaries. And the weird thing is that Clementine is ME…the me I’d be if my wife left me (not a reality, we've been 37 years together as of yesterday). I put ME into the story.
The setting is also near and dear to me – it’s at the end of the street. I even used the real name of the park reserve in the story. I KNOW there are Great Horned Owls at the reserve – I hear the pair calling to each other roughly every-other late autumn. Oh, I tossed in the hint of conspiracy there to keep the story moving.
I even play with the expectations most of my peers have of teenagers. See, I’ve always liked them. I LOVE being mentally challenged (I KNOW how that sounds, but that’s NOT what I meant!). Clementine does, too (though she’s out of practice): “She’d never suspected her grandson, or anyone between the ages of fourteen and eighty-three, of having a flexible mind or the ability to do more than act predictably given their current cultural parameters. She certainly didn’t. The evidence was giving her a headache.”
I’m NOT going to tell you the end of the story, you can find out if you follow the link above. The exercise was for ME to figure out what I write about.
So far: science; the PRACTICALLY unbelievable; even friendship; oddball characters; and ‘“I’m not stupid, Grandma. After all, I am your grandson.”
“He smiled so brilliantly and with such conceit that she knew he was teasing. She patted her Afro and said, “That’s true. I will deny neither observation.” Again, their gazes caught and they both burst out laughing.” And lastly, I just realized family.
In my most recent story, these are AGAIN themes. That one was rejected once, but I just rewrote it pretty much entirely. The thing is that, now that I’m actively learning what my themes are…maybe I can actually start structuring stories to clarify the theme as well as strengthen the theme to a point where the characters come alive and the story’s heart starts to beat…
Links: https://swirlandspark.com/2014/12/03/what-are-you-trying-to-say/
Image: https://handmadewriting.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/picture1.png
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