Steven R. Southard's Blog, page 40
February 17, 2019
6 Ways Your Brain Kills Your Stories
How is it that your brain can think of wonderful stories, and then actively thwart your efforts to write them down? Let’s discuss some ways this happens, and what you can do about them.
In this post, I’m building on a previous (and inspiring) post by Courtney Seiter. Her article dealt with writing in general, but mine focuses on fiction writing.
When I think of an idea for a story, I jot down the idea in a file so I can write the story later. Over the years, the file has grown to over 160 i...
February 10, 2019
Your Editing List
You finished that first draft of your story. Whew! What’s next? Most likely, you’ll need to work on second and subsequent drafts, like a sculptor smoothing and texturing a statue. How do you do that?
In a previous post, I recommended you create a personal editing list. It should contain things you want to check in each story as part of your editing process.
Why is it a personal editing list? Every writer has different strengths and weaknesses. Your editing list should focus on your known w...
February 3, 2019
Biomimetic Technology
How is Velcro like a burr plant? How is the Eastgate Centre in Harare, Zimbabwe like a termite mound? How is a tire tread like a tree frog?
These are all examples of engineers solving problems by looking to nature, a process known as biomimetics. After all, animals and plants have evolved over millions of years, and have developed solutions to many problems. Why shouldn’t we learn from them?
Burdock Plant, the inspiration for Velcro After a hunting trip, Swiss engineer Georges de Mestral obs...
January 27, 2019
Writing Inside the Box
The problem with life is there are too many constraints. There are too many limits, too little money, too few resources, and never enough time. And that’s the good news.
Good news? Lest you think me crazy, I’ll explain.
A wonderful blog post by James Clear inspired this post, and I encourage you to read Clear’s article, too.
If Theodore Geisel (Dr. Seuss) could constrain himself to write a children’s book using only fifty different words and come up with Green Eggs and Ham, then constraints...
January 20, 2019
To Fight the Unbeatable Foe
Pole to Pole Publishing just released a new anthology, Re-Terrify: Horrifying Stories of Monsters and More, and it contains a story of mine, “Moonset.” In that tale, my protagonist must “fight an unbeatable foe,” as in the song “The Impossible Dream (the Quest)” from the musical Man of La Mancha.
For Re-Terrify, the publisher wanted reprints, previously published stories that had appeared elsewhere. I’d written a horror story called “Blood in the River” that had appeared in Dead Bait, publi...
January 13, 2019
6 Reasons Your Story Stinks
That story idea was so good, wasn’t it? While it remained an idea, it radiated beams of perfection across your mind. It screamed “Classic!”
Then you wrote it down. Now it doesn’t look so good. In fact, it stinks.
How could the same story that seemed so ideal when it sat upon a pedestal within your bran, end up so pathetic when you wrote it down?
Here are some reasons for that large ideal/real gap, and what to do about it:
You only completed a first draft. There’s no reason to expect your f...January 6, 2019
Retreading Worn Trails: Path Dependence in Technology
A few weeks ago, I mentioned I’d be discussing technology topics in this blog from time to time, along with the accustomed advice for beginning writers. Today I’ll delve into path dependence in technology.
I’ve long found it fascinating how people deal with new technology. Occasionally, developers of a new invention will copy the appearance of an older one. They don’t do this to ease adaptation for the user, but rather to reduce the risk of failure. By starting with something proven, with av...
December 30, 2018
8 Science Fiction Predictions for 2019
You’ve been wondering where the genre of Science Fiction will be going in 2019, haven’t you? I knew it. You’ve landed at the right blog post.
Author with CRISTAL Ball How do I know the future, you ask? Do I have a crystal ball? No. That would be irrational and silly. I have a CRISTAL ball, a Computerized Recursive and Iterative Stabilizing Trend ALgorithm, which I packaged in a spherical shape for optimized computing speed.
Diagnostic checks are complete and the presets are accurate, so I’l...
December 26, 2018
What Hath Smashwords Wrought?
Amid all the holiday rush, you meant to buy three of my books as gifts (or for yourself), but somehow forgot. Good news! That same $12 you were going to spend now buys four (4) books, or even more.
Smashwords is holding an End of Year Sale, but they’re letting it run over one day into 2019. All the books in my What Man Hath Wrought series are 25% off.
For $2.99, you can get After the Martians, Ripper’s Ring, Time’s Deformèd Hand, The Cometeers, To Be First/Wheels of Heaven, Rallying Cry/...
December 23, 2018
What the Tech?
Today I’ll introduce a new feature to my blog. I’ll be exploring the way people deal with new technology. It’s a theme in most of my stories, and I’ll be discussing it in some depth in this and future posts. I’ll still offer guidance to beginning fiction writers, but I’ll also pursue this technology topic on occasion.
I’m not concerned so much with any particular technology itself, but rather the relationship between humans and new technology. This relationship can bring about a number of pro...
