Steven R. Southard's Blog, page 22

The Ray Bradbury Challenge

“Write a short story every week. It’s not possible to write 52 bad short stories in a row.” – Ray Bradbury

Bradbury said that in 2001 at The Sixth Annual Writer’s Symposium by the Sea, sponsored by Point Loma Nazarene University. Let’s call it the Ray Bradbury Challenge. (The first part, I mean, not the challenge to see how many bad short stories you can write in a row.)

Would you take that challenge? Could you write one short story every week for a year?

The challenge is part of the...

Author Interview—Scott Edelman

Today I have the honor of interviewing author, editor, and podcaster, Scott Edelman. He recently interviewed me on his unique podcast, Eating the Fantastic and we’re delighted he could visit our modest skyscraper at Poseidon’s Scribe Enterprises for an interview.

Scott Edelman has published over 100 short stories in magazines such as Analog, The Twilight Zone, Postscripts, Absolute Magnitude, Science Fiction Review and Fantasy Book, and in anthologies such as You, Human, The Solaris Book o...

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Oh, the Things You’ll Write!

It’s hard to think of a hobby, pastime, or activity more versatile, more location-independent, than writing. You can write almost anywhere. I’ve come up with a poem about that. Sincere apologies, Dr. Seuss:

You can write stuff on a train. You can write stuff on a plane.

You can write stuff in your house. Write beside your dozing spouse.

Write by soft electric light. Write quite late into the night.

You can write until the dawn. You can write out on the lawn.

You can write whil...

6 Tricks to Keep You Writing

Some time ago, you thought of a great idea for a story and started writing. Today, you can’t bring yourself to work on it any more. You’re not feeling the urge. You lost enthusiasm.

As you look back over it, you realize your writing sucks. You can’t bear to go on with it. You’ve come to believe it’s a waste of time.

You’re wondering what happened. How could you have been so fired up about the idea of the story, and so disgusted with the reality of it? Where did all that fervor, that pa...

12 Purposes of Food in Stories

Real-life humans (you and me, for example) eat food to convert it to energy and use that to grow and move. Fictional characters get along just fine without food. Why, then, do we often read entire scenes showing characters eating?

On the other hand, many novels and short stories don’t mention food at all. Fictional years and decades may pass without a character consuming even one morsel or drinking one drop. Yet the character doesn’t die of starvation. What’s with that?

Readers assume ...

Eating the Fantastic, with Scott Edelman

Earlier this month, I had the honor of being interviewed by author Scott Edelman (Wikipedia page here).

The author, about to talk with his mouth full for 1.5 hours

We’d met a few years ago at Balticon, the Baltimore Science Fiction convention, and served on a couple of discussion panels together. For several years now, he’s been interviewing scifi authors for a podcast series he calls ‘Eating the Fantastic.’

While attending cons, Scott enjoyed eating meals with other authors and discussi...

Break Any Rule but This One

Are you one of those who’d like to write a story—a novel, even—but the task seems too difficult? You recall unpleasant memories of Language Arts classes, learning all the complex rules of English. You’re afraid you’ll break a rule.

I’ll simplify things for you. There’s only one rule.

There exist, however, a vast number of guidelines. These cover spelling, grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, plot, pacing, character development, story formatting, manuscript submitting, and more. A ...

Where to Get Your Best Story Prompts

What inspires you to write your stories? A picture, a song, an idea, a TV show, a movie, an article you read, an event in your life or someone else’s?

Perhaps you’ve drawn inspiration from varied sources. You may be wondering which of these sources resulted in your best stories. If you knew that answer, you could dip your mental bucket into that well more often. There’s a way to find out.

First, look over your collection of stories. Rate them in order from best to worst. Now list the s...

Born Too Late to Write Something New

You’d like to write a fictional story, but don’t know what to write about. As you cast around for ideas, you realize everything’s been written by someone else before you. There’s nothing new under the sun.

The French writer Alfred de Musset expressed your precise feeling in his poem “Rolla,” when he wrote, “I came too late into a world too old.”

Author Robert Glancy said “All the stories in the world have already been told.”

Another author, Anna Quindlen, put it this way: “Once you’ve r...