Steven R. Southard's Blog, page 66
October 26, 2014
Emotional Roller-coaster
As you and the story you’re writing go through time together, do you find yourself on the same type of emotional roller-coaster as with a personal relationship? Do you feel elated by positive events and dejected by negative ones? I’ve been through the process enough to detect a repeatable pattern. Maybe it will be the same for you.
Let’s follow through as I experience the highs and lows of writing a story and getting it published. This is my relationship with a single story, so the line will o...
October 19, 2014
Your Writing Voice
We call it laryngitis when you lose your voice, but what if you never found it in the first place? To be clear, I’m not writing about a medical condition of the larynx, but rather about your writing voice.
Definition
What is a writing voice? I liken it to your vocal voice in that it is distinctively yours, an individual indicator like your fingerprints, your retina patterns, and your signature. It’s a marker that can be used to identify you.
In other words, a few paragraphs could be taken at ran...
October 12, 2014
Writing for the Very Young
As someone who’s read books to his children and (more recently) his grandchildren, I’ll offer my thoughts about books for the very young. Here I’m considering books for children who haven’t begun to speak yet.
I believe the writer and reader of such books share a profound duty, one they shouldn’t take lightly. They work together to create an experience, from a first and indelible impression to a repeated pattern that becomes an ingrained habit. Their shared purpose has several facets:
To entert...
October 5, 2014
9 Things the World Loses With E-Books
Most weeks I blog about writing, but this time the topic is more about reading, specifically the technology of reading.
As you can tell from my fiction, I write quite a bit about people coping with new technology. I’m fascinated by the process of one technology supplanting another. The process forms a repeating pattern, whether you’re discussing the transition from sailing ships to steamships, from horse to car, or from dirigibles to airplanes.
When society is in the midst of such a technology...
September 28, 2014
Fiction Elements by Genre
In earlier posts I’ve blogged about the various elements of fiction (Character, Plot, Setting, Theme, and Style). I’ve also blogged a bit about the various genres of fiction. Here I thought I’d explore how the various genres emphasize certain elements and de-emphasize others.
For the chart, I used the genres listed in the Wikipedia “List of Genres” entry. As the entry itself points out, people will never agree on this list. Even more contentious will be my rankings in the chart for how much ea...
September 21, 2014
How I Inspired an Expedition
According to news accounts here, here, and here, divers will use a special diving suit (called the Exosuit) to explore off the coast of Antikythera Island near Greece. The site is a debris field left by a Roman merchant ship estimated to have sunk around 60 B.C. in 200 feet of water.
They’ll be looking for more pieces of “the world’s oldest computer.” It’s a geared calculating machine, discovered by divers in 1900. No one credited the ancient Greeks with much knowledge of gear technology, unti...
September 14, 2014
12 Reasons to Change Your Name
As a writer of fiction, you might choose to be published under a name other than your real one for a variety of reasons. The use of pen names, (or nom de plumes, literary doubles, or pseudonyms, if you prefer) is not uncommon. Although I’ve blogged about one reason for pen names before, I figured I’d provide a more comprehensive list of reasons today.
• The first three on my list have to do with Branding.
1. To separate your books into different genres or types or styles. For each name, readers...
September 7, 2014
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Writers
In 1989, author Stephen Covey came out with his best-selling book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I’m a sucker for self-improvement books and found Covey’s book inspiring and practical. At the risk of insulting the late Stephen Covey, I’ll dare to suggest seven habits of highly effective fiction writers.
Covey presented his seven habits in a logical order, with a nice, organic structure. His phrased his habits—aimed at helping people live better lives—as brief directives, but too...
August 31, 2014
First to Land on a Comet?
This week the European Space Agency (ESA) announced they will choose from among five sites onComet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko for theRosetta spacecraft’s robot laboratoryPhilae to land, as reported here, here, and here. 
They claim this will be the first time a human-built spacecraft has landed on a comet.
I beg to differ.
I’m aware of an alternate universe very close to our own, a universe in which an actual manned—not robotic—landing has already occurred.
In 1897.
It’s all documented in my story,...
August 24, 2014
Interview with a Cometeer
Today I’m interviewing the protagonist, Commander Hanno Knighthead, from my story, “The Cometeers,” scheduled for release by Gypsy Shadow Publishing in early September.
Poseidon’s Scribe: Greetings, Commander Knighthead, and welcome to our blog—er, newspaper. I’m Poseidon’s—I mean, I’m Steven Southard, the Editor in Chief.
Commander Knighthead: Thank you, Mr. Southard. I’m pleased to be here.
S.S.: Can you tell our readers about your upcoming mission?
CDR K.: Well, I think most people already kno...
