Blog post idea suggested by Steven Doyle She shrugged, modestly, and we marveled at a list of random things. “An old man with a toothache, daughter and son argue about lemons, sisters lost in a department store.” It was a warm day toward the end of the semester. The classroom Read more
Blog post topic suggested by Shelli Snyder A fun way to make your science fiction future world feel aged-into is to include skills your characters have that they can’t use anymore. Maureen McHugh once confessed to me that she was a wizard at hand-focusing microscopes. With an elegant twirl of Read more
I want to write socially conscious science fiction. To quote television writer and producer Rod Serling, “The writer’s role is to be a menacer of the public’s conscience, he must have a position, a point of view. He must see the arts as a vehicle of social criticism, and he Read more
That endings should be “surprising yet inevitable” has been often quoted writing advice (some attribute it to Flannery O’Connor, but I cannot verify that.) My friend and fellow science fiction writer Charles Oberndorf – a more accessible source – said to me in workshop once, “the ending of a literary story Read more
I was feeling mildly bitter about how I wasn’t able to advance my writing career before I turned 39. You know the situation: I meet a brilliant new writer; I find out they’re 25; I hate myself, and by extension, I hate capitalism and the decade I spent struggling just Read more
Remember seeing the Matrix for the first time? How incredibly annoyed you were at the hackneyed plot? No? Just me? Ahem. Yeah, I was the only person in my friend group to leave the movie saying, “That was sooo lame. It’s a plot from a thousand old stories and twilight Read more
“You bring this theme up, but you don’t do anything with it,” was a critique that drove me mad as a younger writer. What did they mean I didn’t “do” anything with it? I had a theme! I had characters mention it, regularly, and even discuss it! With nuance! Wasn’t Read more