Steven R. Southard's Blog, page 78
September 2, 2012
Novels-in-Verse
If writing prose is getting boring,
If each new tale keeps getting worse,
To send your reader’s thoughts a’soaring,
Just try a novel writ in verse.
Verse novel it is called quite often.
Your muse’s heart you’ll have to soften,
For writing thus will take more time,
To work in meters, feet, and rhyme.
Free verse or Onegin-type stanza,
(Much like the blog you’re reading now.)
Done right, your readers will say “Wow!”
Your novel’s sales, a big bonanza.
Do other authors do it? Yes!
Like Margaret Wild and Karen...
August 26, 2012
Do the Objective Correlative
No, the Objective Correlative isn’t a dance step, so far as I know. It’s a literary term that can be hard to comprehend. Let’s see if I can explain it in words even I can understand.
Imagine you’re an author writing a scene in which a boy encounters a rather scary bear. You want to convey to the reader the emotion felt by the boy when he senses the bear is watching him from somewhere, but he can’t see the animal. You could simply state the boy was scared. That would violate the principle of sh...
August 20, 2012
Writing “Against All Gods”
In a previous blog post I’ve explored how writers take a basic idea and build it into a story. Here I thought I’d show you that process at work in the development of one of my tales.
Recently, Gypsy Shadow Publishing launched my story “Against All Gods.” It’s the latest tale in a series called What Man Hath Wrought.
How did I come to write that story? I’ve long been fascinated with ships, ship design, and the beautiful vessels of the past. Among these is the trireme of Ancient Greece and Rome....
August 12, 2012
Those Maddening Editors!
Good news! You just heard from an editor who will be happy to accept the story you sent…except for the Bad News, which is the acceptance is contingent on your agreeing to some changes in the manuscript. The question is: will you accept the changes or not?
The decision is personal, and different in every case. It depends on how you weigh many factors, including the following. These are not listed in any priority order:
How desperate are you to make the sale? Early in your writing career, the deg...
August 5, 2012
When Authors Speak
When you’ve had a few stories published, you may be asked to speak at a conference. It may be a chance to speak alone about a topic, to speak on a panel, or to read some samples of your writing.
I’ve had that honor twice. In February 2010, I read a portion of my story “Within Victorian Mists” to an audience at the Crossroads Writing Conference in Macon, GA. I was with a group of other steampunk writers (Emilie P. Bush, Kathryn Hinds, Alexander White, Lainey Welsch, Dwayne DeBardelaben, and Aus...
August 3, 2012
Book Review – Something Wicked This Way Comes
Ray Bradbury died June 5th of this year, a day this universe lost a literary giant. I just finished reading Something Wicked This Way Comes for the first time. I have read some other Bradbury works, including Fahrenheit 451, Dandelion Wine, The Illustrated Man, Now and Forever, and The Martian Chronicles. His short story “The Flying Machine,” in part, inspired my story “The Sea-Wagon of Yantai.”
I listened to the Recorded Books version performed by Paul Hecht, ©1962 by Bradbury, renewed 1997,...
July 29, 2012
Who Polishes the Diamond?
You see it in the submissions guidelines for almost every market–“Submit your best material,” or words to that effect. If not stated, it’s implied, since they’ll just reject manuscripts containing too many editorial errors.
I’m speaking here of the traditional method of getting short story fiction published, dealing with editors. However, the answer is the same even for self-published works.
Some writers chafe at the requirement to submit your best material. “Why are they called Editors,” these...
July 22, 2012
Change the Past in 5 Steps
Some time ago I blogged about historical fiction, but today I thought I’d discuss Alternate History fiction, or AH. In this genre, the author supposes some historical event turned out differently and it affected all subsequent history; the story then takes place in that altered world. Other names for this genre are Uchronia, Allohistory, and Counterfactuals.
To find out more about AH definitions and terms, go to this great site. For lists of AH stories to read, go here, where they’re listed no...
July 20, 2012
Book Review – Supervolcano: Eruption
For some time scientists have known Yellowstone National Park is the site of a volcanic caldera, and if it suffered another major eruption, world-wide and centuries-long effects would ensue. What a great potential disaster for an author to write about!
I just read Supervolcano: Eruption by Harry Turtledove, © 2011. I listened to the Recorded Books version narrated by Jim Frangione. I had previously read other books by Turtledove, namely How Few Remain, The Breath of God, and Opening Atlantis....
July 16, 2012
Book Review – Tree Soldier
A relative suggested I read Tree Soldier by J.L Oakley, ©2010, and I did so. Usually I read books on CD, but I read the paperback version of this book. Yes, I read the “dead tree” version, and yes, I see the irony in that, considering the book’s title.
The novel takes place in 1935 in the Pacific Northwest. It is mainly about the character Park Hardesty, who hails from Pennsylvania, but joins the Civilian Conservation Corps, partly to escape the guilt over some events of his past. He falls in...
