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Cat Rambo

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Class Notes From Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction

View of a Japanese Garden
Images speak differently than words. They speak in color and shapes, smells and movements that our writing can only hope to approximate.
We’re coming up on the end of the Writing Fantasy & Science Fiction class I teach at Bellevue College. Tonight’s the next to last session. In earlier sessions we’ve talked about the writing process, story parts and mechanics, delivering information, characters, description, and worldbuilding. A number of past blog posts have come out of those classes: 5 Things to Do in Your First 3 Paragraphs, Active Verbs, Foreshadowing and Establishing Conflict, Plotting and Re-plotting Stories, Three Strategies for Snaring the Senses, Three Things that End a Story Well, Using Random Tools Like Stumbleupon For Rewriting, and Why Titles Matter.

Here’s what we’re covering in this session and the next:

Tonight (Rewriting, Revising, and Polishing)

  • The difference between rewriting, revising, and polishing
  • Rewriting – ways to do it
  • Revising – things to look for
  • Polishing
  • Working at the sentence level
  • Placement of sentences
  • Breaking up paragraphs
  • Titles
  • Quoting song lyrics
  • Collaboration

Next Week (Publishing & Career Stuff)

  • Markets: researching them, submitting to them, querying them, foreign markets, reprints, audio.
  • Submissions: how to, tracking them, etiquette, types (flash to novel)
  • Agents: researching and querying them
  • Conventions: why go, what to do to make the most of them, top cons
  • Workshops: why do (or not), how to make the most of them, top ones
  • Blogging & websites: why, BRIEF discussion of mechanics
  • Publications to follow
  • Networking
  • SFWA and other professional organizations
  • Writing groups
  • Resources
  • Keeping yourself motivated

So here’s my question. I’ll be glancing back at this list when thinking about future blog posts and drawing from it as well as from what I’m experiencing in my own writing. What would -you- like to see?

3 Responses

  1. What would I have given for a class like this in college. I had to spend the following decade learning all this stuff on my own. There’s just so much! I feel like I’m still learning the basics in some of these areas.

    What would I like to see?
    -Agents: Are They Really Necessary? Why or Why Not?
    -Networking: The Best Free Avenues to Network and Advertise One’s Writing (I suppose Facebook and Twitter are a given, but there must be others that don’t sap all one’s writing time)

    Anyway, thanks!

    Reply

  2. Networking fits in well because I teach my blogging class, which talks about a lot of that, the next two Saturdays.

    Agents – I can say some stuff, and I’ve got one, sure, but I’ve yet to sell a book through her, so I may not be the best qualified to talk about that, heh. I’ll see what I can do. 😉

    Reply

  3. That class sounds amazing! Lucky students 🙂

    I’d definitely love to hear your thoughts on networking and querying, as well as working at the sentence level and ways to revise/rewrite.

    Reply

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"(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

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Taken while in St. Petersburg, Florida
The merry but busy month of May is past, huzzah! Rio Hondo was awesome, and had such amazing participants (there are some pics frm it up on Facebook, if you have an account on there).

I’m reworking what I have of THE EASTER BUNNY MUST DIE! based on feedback from the workshop, and currently on track to have it done by the end of the summer. I’m participating in the Clarion West Write-a-thon this summer and will be working on that, as well as finishing up a passel of stories I promised to do, including a novella set in the Fathomless Abyss shared world.

I’m reading with K.C. Ball at the University Bookstore in Seattle this Monday, June 11, at 7 pm.

I’m also looking forward to Clarion West and the great reading series that will accompany it, as well as the chance to meet a fine new crop of students. Con-wise, I’ll be at ArmadilloCon, GearCon, and then rounding out the summer with WorldCon.

Love the Easter Bunny and want to find out what happens next? Support Cat on Patreon in order to have a say in what she writes next, as well as getting other snippets, insights into process, recipes, photos of Taco Cat, chances to ask Cat (or Taco) questions, discounts on and news of new classes, and more? Support her on Patreon.

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signs of life
Photo owned by zoetnet (cc)

The crescent moon is a fingernail mark pressed into the darkening sky. An anxious star tugs at it, trying to pull it up farther. Hands swim below the surface of the water. Birds cradled in the wickerwork of leafless branches eye the restless fluttering of the fingers.

Someone calls, but no one answers. Shadows sweep along the banks of the lake, pulled and stretched into awkward shapes by passing headlights. No one answers.

Someone walks and feels the dry stiff grass lace itself around their ankles, tracing lines of frost. The hands continue to crawl and the moon creeps up the sky.

No one answers.

Tin dancing mice revolve in the warmth of the kitchen. One watches the light of the moon as it moves down the blue stripes of the wallpaper. It marks the time with one ticking paw. The mice click and whir, dancing frantically, trying to forget that their clothes are only painted on.

The salt and pepper shakers, shaped like ears of corn, sit sullenly. Upstairs, sleepers move restlessly, their dreams escaping, leaking into the feather comforters.

The moonlight reaches the fifth bar of delphinium.

There is still no answer. Someone longs for the heated air of the kitchen, but instead sits on a bench and watches the movements of the hands. Fingers break the corrugated surface of the water and return to counting the pebbles in the silt below.

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The moonlight reaches the twelfth bar,and the mice spin slowly, regretfully, back into their boxes. The comforters are stained crimson and ebony with the dregs of dreams.

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