editing « Storytellers Unplugged

Patchwork Dreaming

By Gerard Houarner, on February 4th, 2012

Or…”interrupted by a person on business from Porlock” — sustaining the vision of the story you want to tell as life’s storms rage around you.

Trust me, it’ll make sense.

Quite some time ago in a LOCUS interview, Jay Lake talked about the challenges of containing the story he’s working on in his mind, or living in [...]

The Same River Twice: On Rewriting Your Past

By Brian Hodge, on January 9th, 2012

[What do you get when you cross a Storytellers Unplugged deadline with an exhausted writer who’s just finished a near-30,000-word novella that ran several thousand words more than expected? Today we get a redux: the very first column I did here, in June 2006, and which I recently tapped as supplemental material for a multipart [...]

The art of (re)writing

By Alma Alexander, on November 30th, 2011

(…yes, I’m in the middle of it. Why do you ask?)

Here’s the thing. First drafts are supposed to be awful. HTat’s what they are FOR. You simply give yourself the permission necessary to WRITE BADLY if you have to, for the purpose of getting the bones of the story down on the page. There will [...]

Answering questions from an aspiring writer

By Bev Vincent, on October 17th, 2011

I recently agreed to be interviewed by a college undergrad for one of her classes. Their assignment was to interview someone working in a career that interested them. Since that interview won’t see the light of day outside of the student’s class, I thought I would post it here in lieu of my usual blatherings.

What [...]

Words count

By Bev Vincent, on September 17th, 2011

If you’ve ever read an author’s blog for any length of time, or followed his or her Facebook feed, you will no doubt be familiar with the tradition of posting sporadic or daily word counts. It is, perhaps, the only metric that writers have available to measure our productivity.

My favorite anecdote comes via Stephen King [...]

Reading Slush

By Bev Vincent, on May 17th, 2011

I’ve never been in the position of having to read through a slush pile to pick out publication worthy short stories. However, as one of the judges of a short fiction contest, I feel like I’ve been through a similar experience. The contest had on the order of 150 submissions. In the first round, we [...]

The Delete Key: The Published Writer’s Best Friend

By Brian Hodge, on March 9th, 2011

“In my next incarnation I’m coming back as a sprinter. How ‘bout you?”

In On Writing, Stephen King mentions an early rejection that was one of the best lessons he ever got. It wasn’t an encouraging letter. It barely qualifies as a note. It was just a formula that some kind editor thought might make [...]

Ch-ch-ch-changes

By Bev Vincent, on October 17th, 2010

An old dog contemplates trying out a new trick: using a new program for working on a [...]

How far would you go for a critique?

By Bev Vincent, on September 17th, 2010

Lessons learned in the past concerning critique groups, and a new journey with another [...]

News From the Front part 3

By Gerard Houarner, on August 4th, 2010

Another Space and Time reading period has passed and it’s time to throw out a few notes for anyone who might care at least as much about the writing as about getting published. And, if you really only do care about being published, there’s some advice for you here, too.

Mentioning credits in a cover letter [...]

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