February 10, 2014

Short Stories in a Nutshell

On Friday at LTUE, I'm giving a presentation on writing short fiction. I'm not going to have a computer at LTUE (well, probably not), so I thought I'd put this up in advance. 

EXAMPLES: 

NOVEL-LIKE (traditionally plotted, common POV): 
Nanny’s Day” by Leah Cypess
The Judge’s Right Hand” by J.S. Bangs
Rejiggering the Thingamajig” by Eric James Stone
X Marks the Spot” by Kat Otis

UNIQUE POV/VOICE:
Movement” by Nancy Fulda
“Un Opera Nello Spazio: A Space Opera” by Oliver Buckram (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction Sept/Oct 2013)
The Wanderers” by Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam
They’re Made Out of Meat” by Terry Bisson
How to Love a Necromancer” by Jess Hyslop

DIFFERENT PLOT STRUCTURE/ENDING:
Buy You a Mocking Bird” by Eric James Stone
Neighbours” by Rob Butler
Dark Swans” by Terra LeMay
The Last Seed” by Ken Liu
“What We Ourselves Are Not” by Leah Cypess (Asimov's September 2013)

RESOURCES:
Critters.org: an online critiquing workshop
The Leading Edge: local SF/F magazine where you can volunteer to read slush and learn more about how magazines operate -- invaluable opportunity if you live in Provo
The Submission Grinder: a searching tool to find short story markets
SFWA Markets: a list of markets that count towards SFWA membership

*Lamely, Blogger explodes when I try to add the authors' names as labels, due to the length. Sigh. I apologize that there aren't author tags on this post.
 

2 comments:

  1. I wonder, would you want to come talk about writing YA or short stories on an Authors Advisory call? I'm wanting to start those back up again now that Life has calmed down a bit.

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  2. I'd be happy to talk about either. I'm glad to hear things are calming down for you.

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