Some panel ideas, which any convention organizer is welcome to grab.
(Writing) Making the Transition from Short Story to Novel
What are the pitfalls and what should the writer know before starting? Is it easier to do it in reverse and go from novel to short story? What’s similar and what’s different? Does it help to think of chapters as mini-stories?
(This seems to me to be harder than anyone acknowledges it to be, and I know there’s several basics I wish I’d known before I’d begun blindly floundering in the much deeper waters of a novel. I’m also pretty sure this is not a new idea for a panel, but I haven’t seen it at recent cons I’ve been at.)
(Editing or Publishing) The Architecture of the Country of the Blind
Reading blind, so you see just the story and not the name of the author with its info about gender, is something many editors and publishers agree is a good idea. What are the practical aspects of setting up such a system? What do you do if editors or slush readers recognize the story? Is it true you can tell gender by how someone writes? What about the fact that such a system removes the “name recognition” that some widely published authors hold?
(Let’s just start with the assumption it’s a good idea for once. For the love of Pete. Thx.)
(Writing) What the F*** is Flash Fiction?
Some people say flash fiction has a minimum length, such as 1000, 500, even 250 words, while others say Hemingway’s famous “For sale: baby shoes. Never worn.” is a complete story. Who’s right? Where does prose poetry fit? Why are flash magazines so popular and what are the ones doing interesting things in the field? Who are the flash authors to watch out for?
(Flash seems like such a great place for new writers to start. They can get stuff out there and in circulation while the magazines constantly need new stuff. At the same time, there’s some great writing happening in this area. I’m teaching a flash fiction workshop called Sudden Fiction this Saturday at Bellevue College, so obviously I’ve got strong opinions about some things mentioned above.)
In my writing F&SF class, we always spend a good bit of time on the flash markets and how to write flash. Because we do a lot of in class writing exercises, students end up with a number of possible stories and we talk about how to polish them up and send them out. In fact, the most recent 10 Flash has a story by both myself and one of my former students, who writes as Folly Blaine! 🙂
Thanks for the mention, Cat! I can’t tell you enough how glad I am to have had the opportunity take your class. I know you’re speaking about panels, but if you offered a class or one-day workshop called “Making the Transition from Short Story to Novel” I would sign up.
Great list, Cat! Here are a few of my fveoritas: Ted Chiang, Jeffrey Ford, Barry Lopez, Aimee Bender, Maureen McHugh, and Jay Lake. You’re also on my list. I’m not sure Ted Chiang is someone to study. I’m not certain mortals can recreate what he does. I’m also not sure I would want to write a Ted Chiang style story because they do seem to be a signature. However, his works are a joy to read and feel like a discovery every time. Every story is like a sky scrapper. A beautiful work of art and engineering. Right now, I just want to make a bird-feeder or a dog house. Jeffrey Ford’s works definitely fit in that world between speculative and literary. They aren’t always structurally satisfying, but the characters always seem to have a natural reality to them. Also a good one to read for prose. I think Ford was one of the first writers I discovered that made me realize fantasy was more than just D&D fan fiction. After reading him I started taking fantasy seriously as a genre.Barry Lopez’s works are probably lesser known. He has a few works that are more magical realism than speculative, but still a joy to read. This one is definitely more on the literary side though. Aimee Bender is just amazing. Also more literary, but the way her stories flow and feel so natural makes them a fun read. She also has a real compassion for her characters, something I’d like to capture in my own works.Maureen McHugh is in my opinion the go-to writer for character. Her stories are almost always all character–they have a plot, but they almost don’t need it. She captures voice like no one I’ve ever read. I would also consider her a bit more literary, but her stories tend to be in speculative anthologies and magazines. Jay Lake is just awesome. This guy has more world building skills in the tip of his pinky finger than most people will ever develop over a lifetime. And these skills come out in the prose and characters. I love his shorter works and have just started appreciating his novels. Jay is both a heroic figure on the page as an author and in real life. I’m certain you’ve read most of these, but thought I would throw them out there as part of the conversation.
These are all great ideas. Con organizers, take note! And if anyone is implementing #2, reading submissions without the author’s name attached, I’d lover to hear how that is going.
I’d attend all three of these. I am now a short fiction writer, and novels frankly terrify me. It seems like a black box the way I hear it explained – words go in, novel comes out, ta dah! And the second idea is something I would love to hear people’s opinions about (though I think it is a great idea, personally, I don’t know a thing about the business).
Yeah, novels are different. And yet the same. It’s very weird and a little frustrating to be realizing something that I should have had engrained already on what is essentially the 11th draft of this book. ARGH.
All three of these would grab my interest, the short story to novel one would take top billing, architecture in the country of the blind is a topic I hadn’t considered before, and while I’ve only sold flash so far, I’m always up for discussing it.
Want access to a lively community of writers and readers, free writing classes, co-working sessions, special speakers, weekly writing games, random pictures and MORE for as little as $2? Check out Cat’s Patreon campaign.
Want to get some new fiction? Support my Patreon campaign.
"(On the writing F&SF workshop) Wanted to crow and say thanks: the first story I wrote after taking your class was my very first sale. Coincidence? nah….thanks so much."
~K. Richardson
You may also like...
Catching Up, Plus Nebulas Report and Sundry Advice for New Nebula-Goers
At the Nebula banquet, with Nick Offerman. Photo by Bud Sparhawk.Okay, holy cow, the Nebulas were a blast but also a giddy whirl. Here’s some highlights. (Sundry advice piece #1: It’s good to do these, not just because it makes you remember some of the things you should be following through on, but because it lets you acknowledge some folks and maybe build some ties.)
Starting the Nebula Weekend Off, or Friday Begins on Wednesday
Wednesday I flew in and lucked out: Kate Baker, SFWA’s awesome Operations Director, and I arrived around the same time, so we shared a taxi in. That was an experience in and of itself — the driver driving on the shoulder of the road, more than once, while Tagore songs blasted us and we shouted conversation over the roar of the wind through the window I couldn’t roll up. We arrived at the Palmer House unscathed.
Thursday I spent the day in the SFWA board meeting. We have board meetings face to face twice a year as well as the ongoing session on the discussion boards and assorted video calls. The board meetings are a nice chance to talk out stuff quickly, so we covered a wide range of things. I have a certain impatience with meetings engrained from years in academia and the corporate world, but Kate Baker had arranged to have enough coffee and food there to sustain us, and there are definitely worse people to be stuck in a room all day with. 😉
Alinea and the Meal of a Lifetime
If you are not interested in food, I suggest skipping ahead to the next section.
That evening I went off to Alinea, along with Scott Edelman (the party organizer), Ellen Datlow, Barry Goldblatt, Sam Miller Jr. and Sheila Williams. I have never had a meal as beautifully composed and choreographed. Here are some pics. The overall meal was fourteen courses and took four hours, which passed with amazing speed.
Here are the pictures:
This was the first course. The inside of the dish has a clam essence in it; they gave you a metal straw to slurp it up with. It tasted like the sea.
It bubbled! Steelhead roe (English pea, olive oil, chamomile)
Several kinds of eggplant.
Graffiti (Spring through the concrete). The orange is carrot extract (?), which was applied there at the table. The gray slabs are a black truffle mousse cracker, if I am remembering correctly.
Tastes of Thailand. Leftmost is crab. The rightmost is a frozen Singapore sling. The middle is a tamarind caramel.
Monkfish jaw.
Gooseneck barnacles.
Tororo kombu (smoked foie gras, ice fish cracker). The metal mesh was not edible.
They sliced open the display that had been flaming on the table for a good 10-15 minutes, extracted savory bits of meat, and served them to us on blackened logs.
This was set on fire shortly thereafter.
Hot Yukon Gold potato capped with slice of black truffle suspended above paraffin bowl of cold potato soup. You pull out the pin and the potato drops into the soup, which you immediately slurp down so as to get both temperatures at once.
Rabbit (morel, ramp, mastic). Everything above the glass was edible.
Black truffle explosion. The waiter advised us to keep our mouths firmly closed when biting into the ravioli. It was excellent advice.
Dark chocolate ice cream, served in a dish made of ice.
Ellen and Sheila with the green apple taffy balloons, filled with helium. You kissed the balloon and sucked in sharply; everyone did get squeaky voices.
Final course, stage one. Covering the table and decorating it with assorted creams and liquids.
Mysterious white lumps placed atop the table.
Surprise! The lumps are coconut ice cream. The sweet revelry begins.
My first panel was SFWA Through the Years, along with past and current SFWA presidents Greg Bear, Michael Capobianco, Russell Davis, and Steven Gould. Mainly I just shut up and listened; the more of SFWA’s convoluted history I know, the better. 😉
At 2:30 PM I was on the Diversifying Your Income Stream, along with Eric Flint (who I had never met before but am a longtime fan of), Mary Anne Mohanraj, and Steven Gould. I mainly talked about Patreon and teaching; Eric and Steven also talked about e-publishing one’s backlist, selling film and game rights, and writing nonfiction. I was sorry to miss the What SFWA Can Do For You panel that was going on at the same time with Kate Baker, Lee Martindale, Sarah Pinsker, and Bud Sparhawk — any chance someone taped it?
One of our special Nebula guests, Chris Kluwe!Chris Kluwe, one of our special guests, arrived in time to hang with Wayne at the reception while I wandered around a bit. The reception was up on the mezzanine, which wrapped around a large open space, If you headed down the hallways, there were lots of tables with local F&SF and/or writing organizations, and I tried to stop by all of them. That was handy, since I’ll be back in the area in October, and I talked to Tina Jens of Gumbo Fiction Salon about coming to read next time I’m in the area. Here’s Catherine Lundoff’s recounting of our encounter.
After that we headed off to the mass autographing. I had Matthew Johnson on one side and Bruce Holmes on the other, and also got a chance to chat with some folks here and there. WordFire Press had sent along some copies of Beasts of Tabat (Newer writers, this is one way a press shows they believe not just in your book but your career with them, and it is deeply appreciated) so there were some books to sign, along with a number of copies of the SFWA Cookbook.
Speaking of which, it was a big hit! It made a nice way to collect autographs, particularly with Larry Niven, our new grandmaster, having provided his instructions for running a coffee bar at a convention. We’ve sold a number of copies (Connie Willis bought 5!), and may end up doing another print run past our original 1000 copies. All proceeds go to benefit SFWA’s Legal Fund. You can still order it online. (Contributors, I am mailing you in the next couple of days about your copies, which should go out at the end of the month.) Fran Wilde remains the rockingest co-editor a woman could wish for.
Saturday morning I got early to met with Beth Gwinn to take a photo, which we staged on an odd and leathery green sofa in one of the Palmer House antechambers. Afterwards I went to the SFWA business meeting. I had to laugh – several of us arrived a half hour early just to make sure everything was set up, which we hadn’t coordinated. Despite a slight delay with the food, we got started on time, and it felt like a good meeting, which people were interested in and enthusiastic about the organization’s direction.
Right after that Steven Gould and I headed up to meet with Todd Vandemark, our videographer, to be interviewed. Todd did a number of interviews throughout the course of the weekend; you’ll be able to find them on our Youtube channel, where we’ll be releasing one every few weeks.
Banquet Highlights
Man, this was a giddy blur. I thought it was a great job overall. Next year’s banquet space is a bit larger and even swanker, so that will be fun. That said, here are some moments that stand out.
The opening video by Kate Baker, showing faces of so many friends, was a great way to start, and got everyone fired up. It was a beautiful job, and though it glitched briefly, the unexpected pause froze on Stanley Schmidt’s face, which surely was one of the most appropriate possible places.
Seeing how glittery everyone was. Everyone cleans up pretty darn nicely, and Aliette de Bodard, Scott Edelman, Nancy Kress, Jack McDevitt, Valerie Schoen, Alyssa Wong were all rocking the house with their outfits. I’d been setting aside particularly glittery thrift store finds for the past year and all three dresses were a hit, but I saved the best for the banquet, and was pleased with the results, plus it was beautiful with the beaded jewelry that Sarah Hendrix made.
Seeing student and friend Usman Malik on the ballot for his excellent story, although everyone was a tremendous pleasure. Ursula Vernon’s acceptance made me a little weepy
Our toastmaster Nick Offerman introducing me as “And now, a small domestic animal who shoots down helicopters with a bow and arrow…. Cat Rambo!” as well as when he told Steven Silver, “You’ve come at the right time. They just took away your salad and brought your steak.”
Watching actual teens present the Norton Award (the panel where teens talked about their reading was also a big hit, according to an attendee I talked to).
Being able to present the Solstice Award to Joanna Russ, accepted by Mary Anne Mohanraj. Russ is one of the reasons I write speculative fiction, but she’s also shaped my worldview. This made me happy.
The 2015 SFWA Volunteer Appreciation certificate, created by Heather McDougal.Sunday morning I got up early to have breakfast with Rachel Swirsky, but things got derailed, as is the nature of conventions. (Another lesson for new con-goers: it is essential to go with the flow.) After that I headed down to the volunteer breakfast, which for me was one of the most important parts of the weekend. Heather McDougal made some very cool certificates of appreciation (volunteers who weren’t there, we’ll be sending them out next month). Two volunteers we particularly wanted to remember were Eugie Foster and Peggy Rae Sapienza, both of whom passed in the last year and were terrific members of the community. Matthew Foster accepted Eugie’s award as well as one of the commemorative coins as a special thank you.
My first panel was SFWA’s Next Fifty Years “” A forum of SFWA members discuss the next fifty years for sf writing, including new technologies and publishing methods, and how they will affect the future of publishing and SFWA, with Steven Gould and Bud Sparhawk. We talked some about what we hoped to see down the line, about things like preserving institutional memory better and implementing project management software to track our efforts.
My last panel was on mentoring with Daryl Gregory and Steve Gould, who we’d drafted in Jack McDevitt’s place. There was a single audience member, Mary Mascari, so we moved to adjourn to the bar, where Chuck Gannon, Nancy Kress, Jack Skillingstead, and Bud Sparhawk joined us to add their advice. The rest of Sunday evening was decompressing a bit, and drinking enough wine to be ready to go upstairs and take a long-anticipated hot bath with my bookbag treasures. One very cool thing in the bags were the lovely trading cards created by publisher Walter Day.
Over the course of the weekend I got good time to talk with a lot of SFWA staff and volunteers, including Kate Baker, Michael Capobianco, Neil Clarke, Russell Davis, Cynthia Felice, Jim Fiscus, Matthew Foster, Jim Johnson, Derek Kunsken, Terra LeMay, Sarah Pinsker, Steven Silver, Bud Sparhawk, Rachel Swirsky, Jeremy Tolbert
Monday morning Steven H. Silver led Kate Baker, Michael Capobianco, Jaym Gates, and myself out for a tasty breakfast at Lou Mitchell’s, complete with beignets and prunes.
I headed out early on Monday morning and my last goodbye of the con was to Larry Niven, who was sitting waiting for someone to bring his luggage down. I conveyed my good wishes and it was a really nice way to end a fabulous weekend.
I don’t think I can possibly come close to mentioning everyone I talked to, but I remember some conversations with particular fondness, including words with John Joseph Adams, Astrid and Greg Bear, Catherine Brennan, Amanda Bridges, James Brown, Karl Dandenell, Sherri Davis, Beth Dawkins, Aliette de Bodard, Phyllis Eisenstein, Eric Flint, Esther Friesner, Megan Gillis, Gay and Joe Haldeman, Randy Kaempen, William Lawhorn, Ann Leckie, Catherine Lundoff, Carmen Machado, Jack McDevitt, Laura Mixon, Francesca Myman, Lettie Prell, Arley Sorg (thank you for the wine!), Caitlin, Lynne, and Michael Thomas, Liza Groen Trombi, Ursula and Kevin Vernon, LaShawn Wanak, Jacob and Rina Weisman, Connie Willis, and Christie Yant. To the people I have (inevitably) missed, my apologies and assurance that it is not due to a lack of regard, but simply my sieve-like memory.
Last piece of advice: Michael Stackpole told me this once, and it is so good to remember. For writers, these are working weekends. Don’t treat it like a vacation, but take a little time to rest the day after.
Now I’m finishing up a write-up for the SFWA Forum about all our volunteer efforts. With the Nebula Awards Weekend is over, there will be some new projects coming down the pike and VP-elect M.C.A. Hogarth and I have already been talking and getting our plans aligned. First off, though, I’m going to spend a little time with my godkids at the end of the month, then in July/August, I’m housesitting for a friend and finishing up Hearts of Tabat (with a brief break midway for Gencon!),
Notes from the Internet Presence for Writers Panel
This is from the panel on Internet Presence for Writers from Norwescon a few weeks ago. Participants were K.G Anderson, K. Tempest Bradford (moderator), Chimedum Ohaegbu, and myself.
Panel description: We’ve all heard the warnings, “Be careful what you put online; it’s forever!” Is this really a concern? We’re encouraged to have a heavy online presence, but sometimes it can feel like walking on eggshells. Hear pros share how they balance their fanbase and personal sharing, where it’s gone right and gone wrong.
One of the keys is to be findable on the Internet. You should have a website, and that website should have a means of contacting you. You would be surprised how many writer websites do not have the writer’s name on the front page.
Along the same lines, that website should look professional rather than amateurish. If you must have squid, Karen observed, make them professional looking squid.
Curate your presence and don’t be random about it. You want to think about your online presence. Look at your social media and the last 20-25 things you’ve posted. How many are positive? How many are negative? How many are informative? That’s the presence you’re projecting online. People are drawn to people who care about people.
Have a newsletter. Raven Oak’s was held up as an example.
Facebook groups are more useful than Facebook pages. (note from Cat: I’m been hearing this for a while and it did lead me to start up a group, which so far has been livelier and more active than anywhere else for me on Facebook.)
Post proportionately and consistently.
Don’t let social media overwhelm your energy. You must have something to promote or all of this is pointless.
Use Twitter tools like Buffer or Hootsuite to keep things manageable by scheduling posts. Twitter lists are also useful. Cat keeps a private list marked “interactives,” which is people who frequently interact or repost her stuff, which is the first place she pulls from when scheduling posts. Another is a public list, Women in Fantasy and Science Fiction. To see what lists you are on, go to your Lists page and click on “Member of”.
This is from the panel on Internet Presence for Writers from Norwescon a few weeks ago. Participants were K.G Anderson, K. Tempest Bradford (moderator), Chimedum Ohaegbu, and myself.
10 Responses
You’d certainly have my butt in the audience for the flash panel.
In my writing F&SF class, we always spend a good bit of time on the flash markets and how to write flash. Because we do a lot of in class writing exercises, students end up with a number of possible stories and we talk about how to polish them up and send them out. In fact, the most recent 10 Flash has a story by both myself and one of my former students, who writes as Folly Blaine! 🙂
Thanks for the mention, Cat! I can’t tell you enough how glad I am to have had the opportunity take your class. I know you’re speaking about panels, but if you offered a class or one-day workshop called “Making the Transition from Short Story to Novel” I would sign up.
Great list, Cat! Here are a few of my fveoritas: Ted Chiang, Jeffrey Ford, Barry Lopez, Aimee Bender, Maureen McHugh, and Jay Lake. You’re also on my list. I’m not sure Ted Chiang is someone to study. I’m not certain mortals can recreate what he does. I’m also not sure I would want to write a Ted Chiang style story because they do seem to be a signature. However, his works are a joy to read and feel like a discovery every time. Every story is like a sky scrapper. A beautiful work of art and engineering. Right now, I just want to make a bird-feeder or a dog house. Jeffrey Ford’s works definitely fit in that world between speculative and literary. They aren’t always structurally satisfying, but the characters always seem to have a natural reality to them. Also a good one to read for prose. I think Ford was one of the first writers I discovered that made me realize fantasy was more than just D&D fan fiction. After reading him I started taking fantasy seriously as a genre.Barry Lopez’s works are probably lesser known. He has a few works that are more magical realism than speculative, but still a joy to read. This one is definitely more on the literary side though. Aimee Bender is just amazing. Also more literary, but the way her stories flow and feel so natural makes them a fun read. She also has a real compassion for her characters, something I’d like to capture in my own works.Maureen McHugh is in my opinion the go-to writer for character. Her stories are almost always all character–they have a plot, but they almost don’t need it. She captures voice like no one I’ve ever read. I would also consider her a bit more literary, but her stories tend to be in speculative anthologies and magazines. Jay Lake is just awesome. This guy has more world building skills in the tip of his pinky finger than most people will ever develop over a lifetime. And these skills come out in the prose and characters. I love his shorter works and have just started appreciating his novels. Jay is both a heroic figure on the page as an author and in real life. I’m certain you’ve read most of these, but thought I would throw them out there as part of the conversation.
These are all great ideas. Con organizers, take note! And if anyone is implementing #2, reading submissions without the author’s name attached, I’d lover to hear how that is going.
Thanks, Rebecca! I’ll keep you posted if I find out anything. 😉
Er, I meant I’d “love” to hear . . .
I’d attend all three of these. I am now a short fiction writer, and novels frankly terrify me. It seems like a black box the way I hear it explained – words go in, novel comes out, ta dah! And the second idea is something I would love to hear people’s opinions about (though I think it is a great idea, personally, I don’t know a thing about the business).
Yeah, novels are different. And yet the same. It’s very weird and a little frustrating to be realizing something that I should have had engrained already on what is essentially the 11th draft of this book. ARGH.
All three of these would grab my interest, the short story to novel one would take top billing, architecture in the country of the blind is a topic I hadn’t considered before, and while I’ve only sold flash so far, I’m always up for discussing it.