Steven R. Southard's Blog, page 75

How to Assemble a Planet

Oh, did you really think you could surf to this blog entry and learn how to design and construct an entire planet? Well, okay, you were right. So long as you’re expecting a how-to about fictional planets.

Authors call this ‘world-building’ and they sometimes use the term ‘world’ in a different sense than the term ‘planet.’ In fiction, the world is not just the physical planet, but its inhabitants, their culture, and their environment too.

In most fiction, it’s not necessary to build a world, si...

Being Poseidon’s Scribe

Many fans have noticed the headline of my website: “Poseidon’s Scribe—Advice for beginning scribblers, straight from Olympus.” Questions have been pouring in about that, and it’s time I answered them.

Are you really Poseidon’s Scribe? Yes. It’s not the sort of thing you’d make up, or dare to impersonate.

I thought Poseidon was a myth. Does he really exist? Oh, yes. God of the Sea, Earth-Shaker, Tamer of Horses. He exists, all right. And he gets rather upset when some mortals think him a myth, s...

Details,Details…

When I said I’d blog about choosing details wisely in writing fiction, I meant it; I just didn’t say how soon I’d get around to it! Writers often have to describe scenes, characters, or objects in their stories. Which details do they choose to mention, and why?

First let’s examine some of the things writers try to accomplish in their descriptions:

First and foremost, create an image in the reader’s mind
Convey the mood and theme of the story
Show the attitude, personality, and mood of the point-o...

Donkey and Elephant Stories

Is it wise for a fiction writer to inject personal political beliefs into his or her stories? Or is the question moot; is all fiction in some sense political? Let us roam with elephants and donkeys.

Arguably, both politics and good fiction are about ideas. The ideas explored by politics surround questions like: How shall people be governed? What is the role of government? What is the nature of power? Can we arrange governing systems for maximum benefit to all?

Fiction also deals with ideas, tho...

It’s Written All Over Your Face

It’s important for a fiction writer to learn how to describe human facial expressions. A person’s face is the most communicative body area, and often it reveals a character’s feelings. Amazing, isn’t it, how many things we can make our faces do! There may be as many facial aspects as there are possible mental states.

Small wonder there are so many English verbs devoted to describing a person’s mien: blanch, blush, grimace, grin, smirk, etc. It surprised me to find the Wikipedia article on Faci...

Thanks to My Fans

I just wanted to thank all of you who voted for my stories in the Critters Workshop Predators & Editors Readers Poll. The results for 2012 are in, and my story “The Six Hundred Dollar Man” came in 2nd out of 8 steampunk short stories. My story “Against All Gods” was tied for 4th in a list of 38 romance short stories. I feel so much gratitude for the amazing fans of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

Promoting Your Short Story with a Video

Should you use videos to promote your short stories? Do they help sales?

Back a year ago when I came up with this idea for a blog post topic, I figured I would have made a few short story promotional videos by this time. That didn’t happen, but lack of experience has never prevented me from having opinions. (In fact sometimes I have more to say about things I know less about!)

Some writers have developed videos to encourage sales of their short stories, though the practice is more common for no...

You Might Be a Writer If…

Do you have what it takes to be a writer? If you did, would you know you did? Sometimes it’s difficult to tell. To make it easy for you, I’ve developed a handy test along the lines of Jeff Foxworthy’s ‘Redneck Test.’ See how many of these apply to you.

You might be a writer if:

You’ve ever jotted down a plot idea by interrupting a shower.
You celebrate the birthdays of William Strunk and E.B. White.
You’ve day-dreamed an entire talk-show interview about your best-selling novel.
You have a favorite...

Write like Leonardo da Vinci?

True, Leonardo da Vinci was an anatomist, architect, botanist, cartographer, engineer, geologist, inventor, mathematician, musician, painter, scientist, and sculptor. Arguably he was the greatest genius of all time. But…he never wrote fiction.

Still, it may be possible to adapt da Vinci’s methods to the task of writing great fiction. “But wait, Mr. Poseidon’s Scribe,” (I hear you objecting), “Leonardo was a genius. I wasn’t born a genius.”

It’s been argued before that genius is some combination...

Giving and Receiving…Critiques

‘Tis the season for giving and receiving, so I thought I’d discuss critiques of fiction manuscripts. Last time I did so, I said I’d let you know how to give and receive critiques. My experience is based solely on twenty years of being in small, amateur, face-to-face critique groups; not writing workshops, classes, or online critique groups; so the following advice is tuned to that sort of critique.

First of all, to give the critique, keep the following points in mind:

Read the submitted manuscr...