editing « Storytellers Unplugged

Desperation and Impatience

By Bev Vincent, on May 17th, 2012

Several years ago, I wrote an essay for the HWA handbook On Writing Horror titled “For Love or Money: Six Marketing Myths.” While I called them “marketing” myths, in fact they were really publishing myths.

Recent events which you may already have heard about via the blogosphere inspired me to write this entry. The moral of that story [...]

Working the Craft, or Trying Not to Suck Dead Grizzly Ass

By Gerard Houarner, on March 4th, 2012

My good buddy Tom Piccirilli, whose “noirella” Clowns in the Moonlight ( http://www.amazon.com/Clown-in-the-Moonlight-ebook/dp/B0078B6VK2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1330741769&sr=8-1 ) was just released, recently posted on Facebook: “Worst thing about working through your novel for a second draft? Realizing that all those brilliant lines you wrote actually suck dead grizzly ass.”
Yes. Yes they so sadly do.
Of course, his suck is what [...]

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 [...]

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