To Theme or Not to Theme

A couple of cool announcements, before moving to today���s wander���

Artemis Awakening made Locus magazine���s list of recommended reading for 2014.�� Needless to say, I���m thrilled!

I now have a mailing list.�� Sign up for announcements of contests and new releases.�� Even if you���re a regular reader of the Wednesday Wanderings, you may find this useful for those weeks when you get busy.�� Don���t worry!�� Your information is not going to be used anywhere else and alerts will be limited. ��Oh! ��You can also sign up on my website home page or on my Facebook page.

Fantastic Anthologies

Award-winning audiobook reader Joe Barrett has been signed on to continue reading the ���Artemis Awakening��� series with June���s release, Artemis Invaded.

As I mentioned in last week���s interview with Darynda Jones, one of my current projects is assembling the short story collection you folks requested last year.�� As I was writing the afterwords that follow each piece, I found myself thinking about theme anthologies and the role they played when I was getting started ��� and continue to play even today.

I���d better clarify that: by theme anthologies, I mean those anthologies for which original works are solicited ��� not reprint anthologies for which an editor collects already printed stories that fit a particular theme.

Theme anthologies have never been given the same respect that the magazines have.�� I once heard a then high-end magazine editor lament, ���I don���t see why writers submit to these!�� I���ll let them write about anything they want.���

Leaving aside that this is hardly true, I���d like to focus in on why I have always found theme anthologies appealing.

While every writer has more story ideas than he or she has time to write, an idea is not necessarily a story.�� To me, an idea is a seed.�� The story is a full-grown tree.�� This is why writers are not thrilled when someone says, ���Hey!�� I���ve a great idea for a story.�� How about I tell it to you, you write it, and we split the money?���

So why, if a writer has all these ideas, would writing for a theme anthology be appealing?�� Wouldn���t that impose an unwanted constraint?

Rather than being constricting, theme anthologies can provide a challenge.�� Whenever I���ve been interested in a theme anthology, I���ve always tried to write a story that will provide a different take on the theme.�� The first thing I do is make a list of all the most common takes on the designated theme.�� Then I try to find a different twist.

The ���Fantastic��� anthology series edited by Martin H. Greenberg with various co-editors, and published by DAW books, provides a good example of these anthology themes.

I���ve had stories in Dragon Fantastic, Fantastic Alice, Cat Fantastic IV, Elf Fantastic, Wizard Fantastic, Spell Fantastic, Assassin Fantastic, Apprentice Fantastic, and Pharaoh Fantastic. There were many other ���Fantastic��� anthologies to which I did not contribute.

Sometimes a theme anthology provides a writer with the opportunity to explore an idea or expand a location.�� ���A Touch of Poison,��� my story in Assassin�� Fantastic, is set in the same world as the Firekeeper stories, but does not feature any of the characters or settings from the novels. ��It did give me a chance to explore Waterland, which Firekeeper heard about, but never reached.

At other times, I���ve used theme anthologies to tell a character���s back story.�� ���Beneath the Eye of the Hawk��� in Pharaoh Fantastic is a prequel to The Buried Pyramid.�� ���Fever Waking��� in Children of Magic tells of the childhood of Ynamynet, a key character in Wolf���s Blood.

One time I received three separate anthology invitations with deadlines close together.�� I really wanted to write for them, but wasn���t sure I could manage all the background material.�� One of these anthologies, Maiden, Matron, Crone, pretty much demanded a story with a central female character.�� It hit me that I could write three stories ��� each fully independent ��� about the same person.�� I wrote ���Seeking Gold��� for Maiden, Matron, Crone, then expanded Andrasta���s story in ���Fire from the Sun��� in Women of War, and ���Comes Forth��� for In the Shadow of Evil.

I���m not the only author to find theme anthologies inspirational.�� Roger Zelazny���s award-winning novella, ���Unicorn Variation��� was written to fit into three different (reprint, in this case) anthologies.�� You don���t have to take my word for it.�� He writes about the story���s genesis in the introduction to the story in his collection Unicorn Variations.�� It���s a fun anecdote ��� and a good story, too.

Readers seem to like theme anthologies.�� I���ve had many tell me they hunted out the ���Fantastic��� anthology series because they would be assured of a degree of variety and creativity, but without the sense of ���potluck��� they got from many of the magazines.�� ����Andre Norton���s Cat Fantastic anthologies went to multiple volumes.�� As I noted above, I have a story in number four.

Oh, and that editor whose lament I quoted earlier in this piece.�� Funny thing.�� Several of his most recent projects have been theme anthologies.�� I guess he finally saw the appeal.