On Writing: Creating Emotional Impact Through Characters

Last week in the Writing F&SF Stories class, we talked about dialogue. This is one of the basic tools for a writer.

The key points were:

1. You are creating a Platonic ideal of speech. If you wrote the way people actually speak in day to day experience, it would be full of uhs, excess words (particularly conjuctions), and abrupt shifts in grammar. Such a conglomeration of words would prove off-putting on the page.
2. People’s language reflects so much about them, both external and internal. Their education, their biases, their social class, their gender, their obsessions, the metaphors of their inner landscape…the list goes on and on.
3. Eavesdropping is an imperative for writers. Be shameless in your listening and faithful in your notations — but in your writing use it freely, altering and editing it in order to achieve point #1..
4. Punctuate it correctly. Writers who don’t know the ins and outs of punctuation rusk putting most editors off. Perhaps you are one of those who argue that creating marvelous things with language requires using it in new and interesting and sometimes ungrammatical ways. To which, I would say that sure, do that, but do it in a way that people will understand. Convince the editor that (one) you know what you’re doing with the punctuation by being both consistent and comprehensible and (two) that you’re using it for (good) purpose and we’ll follow you. But to do this you MUST know what rules you’re violating, so no matter what, you’re going to have to buckle down and learn the basics of punctuation.

Enjoy this writing advice and want more content like it? Check out the classes Cat gives via the Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers, which offers both on-demand and live online writing classes for fantasy and science fiction writers from Cat and other authors, including Ann Leckie, Seanan McGuire, Fran Wilde and other talents! All classes include three free slots.

Prefer to opt for weekly interaction, advice, opportunities to ask questions, and access to the Chez Rambo Discord community and critique group? Check out Cat’s Patreon. Or sample her writing here.

One of the questions that often comes up in the Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction class is: are there markets that should be eliminated due to factors outside of pay, reply time, exposure, and the other usual suspects?

This is something that one needs to think about, and my rule is simply this: would you feel pleased and proud to have your work appear there?

There are some markets that sometimes people might want to exclude. Let’s take a (very) recent example, the Weird Tales kerfuffle. To recap, Marvin Kaye announced that the magazine would be serializing a novel, SAVE THE PEARLS, and his announcement made it seem as though part of the reason for printing it was that the book has been unfairly ganged up on by “Amazon readers.” I put that phrase in quotation marks because it’s actually been pretty consistently slammed for its racism by numerous bloggers. Here’s one of the reactions that sums up a lot of the objections.

The Internet, as is its way, spoke its mind on the subject. But beyond the slew of comments, there’s evidence that people are doing more than commenting. The withdrawal rate for the magazine as listed on Duotrope, is currently 25.86%, as in a quarter of the submitters have subsequently withdrawn their submissions. Compare that with Lightspeed’s withdrawal rate of 0.13% or Clarkesworld’s rate of 0.29% and you see that something’s going on.

Since then, the publisher has announced that they will not be serializing the book. That’s awesome, although it seems as though that announcement may be not entirely accurate.

But I view not sending something to a magazine because you object to its policies as not quite so important as this: don’t send to a magazine if you would not be proud to appear there. It’s about you, not the magazine.

Other markets that often come up in discussion include anything associated with Orson Scott Card or the Writers of the Future contest. Again, you need to think about it, not go with a kneejerk reaction. I have friends who submit to either or both of those, and that’s swell. They’ve thought about it, and reached a different conclusion than I might have.

As a feminist, I might have the same struggle with submitting to Playboy or Hustler (if they were taking unsolicited fiction, which they’re not.) As a writer, it’s your choice. Are you making a statement the magazine will listen to? Probably not. They’ve got literally hundreds of submissions coming in each month. You’re not going to affect them. The only thing you need to worry about is your own conscience and whatever decision you make is the right one if it works for you.

But also remember – the editor is not the magazine. I’ve submitted to a market I found problematic because I respected and liked the editor there. I entered WotF when I was still eligible because it was a heck of a sale and seemed like a decent career boost (alas, I never won, so I can’t tell you whether or not it was). My list of markets I won’t submit to is fairly small, and it’s been known to change. But I research and then listen to what my heart tells me. That’s what you need to do.

Enjoy this insight into submitting stories to markets and want more content like it? Check out the classes Cat gives via the Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers, which offers both on-demand and live online writing classes for fantasy and science fiction writers from Cat and other authors, including Ann Leckie, Seanan McGuire, Fran Wilde and other talents! All classes include three free slots.

Prefer to opt for weekly interaction, advice, opportunities to ask questions, and access to the Chez Rambo Discord community and critique group? Check out Cat’s Patreon. Or sample her writing here.