Steven R. Southard's Blog, page 26

Metrics of Fiction-Writing Success

Every writer wants to know the secret to publishing success. How can you get your first story published? How can you make more money from your writing?

What if somebody did a statistical analysis comparing successful writers to unsuccessful ones to find out what one group has and the other one lacks?

Someone did.

Written Word Media performed that analysis a few years ago, and their founder and Chief Operating Officer, Ferol Vernon, blogged about the results.

They polled a large ...

Writing and the 1st Amendment

Today is Constitution Day in the U.S., the 234th anniversary of the signing of the Constitution. Since that document includes a 1st Amendment, and since that amendment is important to writers, I thought I’d mark this anniversary.

The text is straightforward: “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech…” Sounds simple, but over the centuries, lawyers and scholars have debated every word of that amendment, including ‘the.’

In theory, the 1st Amendment frees fiction writer...

Negentropy and Writing

Do you recall one of your physics teachers mentioning the concept of entropy? Today I’d like to discuss its opposite, negentropy, and how that applies to writing.

Entropy depresses me. I dislike the idea that energy changes into less and less useful forms, that order becomes chaos, and that the universe eventually runs down and stops.

Negentropy seems more fun. While we all wait for the universe to wind down, we can take tiny chunks of it and turn chaos into order within those chunks.

I...

National Read a Book Day

Tomorrow, September 6th, is National Read a Book Day. Sort of snuck up on you, didn’t it? It coincides with Labor Day this year. Don’t worry, I’ll let you know how to celebrate it.

If you’re curious about the origins of National Read a Book Day, join the club. Nobody seems to know who created it, or when. If you know those details, don’t tell me. I prefer they remain a mystery.

In honor of this fine holiday, I’ve put together an official history of books. Well, let’s call it an abridge...

The Three Laws of Robotics are Bunk

At the outset, I’ll state this—I love Isaac Asimov’s robot stories. As a fictional plot device, his Three Laws of Robotics (TLR) are wonderful. When I call them bunk, I mean as an actual basis for limiting artificial intelligence.

Those who know TLR can skip the next few paragraphs. As a young writer, Isaac Asimov grew dismayed with the robot stories he read, all take-offs on the Frankenstein theme of man-creates-monster, monster-destroys-man idea. He believed robot developers would build in ...

Fiction Writing, an Olympic Sport?

It’s been enjoyable watching the Tokyo Summer Olympics the past few weeks, but they failed to include my favorite sport—fiction writing.

Time to change that. After all, the Olympics logo looks like the letter ‘w,’ and writing begins with ‘w.’ It’s a natural.

If we work together, start a movement, and create enough buzz, we can get the sport of fiction writing approved as an Olympic sport. Here’s how:

The process for getting the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to recognize a sp...

Depicting Monarchies in Fiction

Do you love stories involving queens and kings, thrones and castles, nobles and knights? Would you like to live under such a government?

Really?

An interesting Twitter thread inspired this blogpost. Author Ada Palmer responded to a tweet by Author Nnedi Okorafor. Okorafor stated how much she detested monarchies, and Palmer commented that fiction authors should be circumspect in their descriptions of monarchic governments, and show their disadvantages, not just their grandeur.

Often,...

On the Hunt for Weak Verbs

The English language cries out for more verbs.

Verbs strengthen sentences and energize them with action. Nouns, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions and the rest just sit there, doing nothing, until the verb wakes them up and sets them into motion.

Yet, for all their importance, verbs constitute only about one seventh of all English words. We need more of them.

I know, I know. Writers, especially advertisers, are creating more verbs all the time. They’re ‘verbing’ nouns as fast as they...

8 Valuable Tips for Writer Elevator Pitches

You’ve just met someone new. Once they find out you’re a fiction writer, they might ask, “What do you write?” You have thirty seconds to answer. Go.

These interactions can happen anywhere—at a writers’ conference, at the store, at a bus stop, at a party, and, yes, even in an elevator. Every interaction is a chance to entice a new reader. Or a chance to flub it.

Let’s not flub this. Here are my tips for creating and delivering a masterful elevator pitch.

Plan the pitch. Visualize the...

Maslow’s Hierarchy of (Fictional Character) Needs

You may have heard of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, but have you thought about how that hierarchy might apply to the characters in your stories?

An excellent post by author K.M. Weiland inspired me to write about this topic. I encourage you to read her post, too.

As a refresher, Abraham Maslow published a paper in 1934 titled “A theory of Human Motivation.” In it, he postulated that people are motivated in stages by various categories of needs. Moreover, he thought the more basic needs must...