Leprechaun Ghost Clowns In Love

Hello. My name is Brian, and I write hard science fiction.

Audience: Hi, Brian.

I fell off the wagon again…

Audience: *Gasp!*

But I’ve been hard SF free since 7:30 this morning.

Audience: *Mumble, mumble*

My mind is clear, and I’m proud to say that I think I can make it through the rest of the meeting without firing up my laptop and pounding out a few passages of my trilogy.

It hasn’t been easy these past few months. With my debut novel on submission, it’s been difficult to concentrate on anything but my craft. Will I  be able to demonstrate to publishers that I can improve? Will I have what it takes to make the edits they require? What if an editor asks me to insert MAGIC into my story?

Audience: *Double Gasp!*

I know. I shouldn’t dwell on such things. But, truth be told, not many successful hard science fiction writers were optimists, now were they?

Audience: *Cold stare*

Not that I, you know, have any interest in going down that road. Not at all. There lies madness, or so we say.

But things work the way they do for a reason, don’t they? Why can’t we use the comprehensibility of the universe to aid our readers in their suspension of disbelief? The stories we tell are so speculative, grounding them in current scientific understanding helps the reader to relate, to own the story, does it not?

Audience: *Double mumble*

Wait, hear me out. It all started when I was in third grade, and my teacher explained that pulsars flash because they spin. I asked if that was because they were light on one side and dark on the other. She thought about it, said that didn’t make sense since they’re basically stars, then told me to stop asking ridiculous questions.

It wasn’t until I was a teenager that I realized I had a science teacher who actually had a disdain for science, a disdain for knowing how things actually worked.

Audience: *Nods in unison*

But what if there are readers out there who like that sort of thing?

Audience: *Triple gasp!*

No, seriously. What if there are readers out there who prefer the speculative stories they read to be, you know, plausible?

Audience: *Lights torches and gathers pitchforks*

Why should those readers be left behind? Why should they have to settle for stories about leprechaun ghost clowns when they would prefer something that can happen in a universe that’s realistically extrapolated from our own? Should we not be serving those readers? Should we not strive to create stories in tenable settings that serve to deepen the significance of the narrative impact on the reader?

Audience: *Charges podium*

I brought cookies.

Audience: *Eats cookies*

Anyway, thanks for helping me with my addiction. And thanks for disabusing me of the specious notion that reasonable attempts at plausibility aren’t for the best writers among us.

Audience: Huh?

Has anyone seen my laptop?

It’s a List! No, Really!

Writers who want to give back to the community have taken to making lists of things to help other writers. Eleven ways to kill a character, twenty one ways to not suck, and so on.

I want to help, too, but I’m still new at this. So I thought I’d start out by making a simple list, and once I’m a better writer, I’ll come back and put some really useful advice in place of what I have now.

But for now, here’s a list of… oh, I don’t know — how about the top ten things that are on my mind right now:

1. “Strengths” is the longest word in the English language I can think of that has only one vowel.
2. I’m not a hat person. Not at all.
3. Cars.
4. Something about cosmology.

Okay, so it’s only four things. It turns out I’m not very good at multitasking. But in my defense, that hat thing takes up a lot of room in my brain.

And, hey, that first one is tangentially related to writing. That makes me a contributing member of the writing community. I win!

Okay, glad that’s over with. Off I go to all YOUR blogs to hone my craft at your expense. Keep it coming. I need all the help I can get.

I Got Nuthin’

So here I sit, trying to think of an idea for my next novel. Have you ever had one of those days where ideas just don’t seem to…

Oh, look. A bird. Right there on the window sill.

Oh, and look. There’s a cat in the bush next to the window. I wonder what’ll happen next?

And across the street, there are some guys hoisting a piano to the twelfth floor of an apartment building. And a woman with a baby carriage is sitting on a bench underneath it, reading a newspaper.

What’s that noise? Oh, look. Huge, black helicopters are rushing toward that… Whoa. Is that a mushroom cloud? I’ve never seen one of those.

And where’s that neck-deep river of blood coming from? Does it have anything to do with those ninjas dropping from those airships?

Ooh, lava! Hey, look! Blood doesn’t just boil, it burns. I didn’t know that. I wonder what–

You know what? Enough of this! I’m closing the blinds. Too many distractions.

(Sigh.)

Ever have one of those days when you just can’t think of anything to write?

Revisions, Shmevisions

If you’re an aspiring novelist, there’s something you should know: your writing sucks.

Okay, that sounded a bit harsh. Let me clarify. What I really mean to say is that there will always be someone in whose eyes your writing sucks.

Always.

But that’s okay. Nobody’s writing is for everybody. Even Shakespeare has his detractors. That someone doesn’t take to your writing doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad – though being bad certainly isn’t precluded, either.

Your task is to determine the extent to which your writing sucks in the eyes of your intended audience. That’s why you need beta readers.

So, yeah, I got some beta readers for my novel and got some feedback. And here’s what I learned: my writing sucks.

The good news is that it’s a process, and I’m mastering it as I go. Though I’m disappointed to learn that my final draft isn’t so final, I embrace the opportunity to see my work through others’ eyes and to make improvements.

And to my beta readers: Thanks. I needed that.