One of my favorites is the First Pages workshop – come find out where to take your novel!As some of you know, I started a Patreon campaign about a year ago. It’s worked pretty well, although I still need to put together the first year’s worth in ebook form to send to people.
I’m going to stick with it, particularly given that I get new ideas for short stories all the time (and generate a lot in the course of teaching), but I’m thinking about making some changes.
The most important is making it so paid content isn’t just restricted to patrons. I’m going back and forth about this. Right now it feels like a subscription model, but if I go to public content, it seems less so. But what paid patrons would get along with the public posts are sneak peeks at drafts for outside markets, which would be free but accessible only to people supporting the paid stories. The drafts would be early ones, rather than late, and they also wouldn’t be getting paid for, which seems to be the main criteria editors apply to Patreon stories when ruling them out for acceptance. (This is a whole ‘nother long and interesting discussion, I think.)
I recently switched from two stories a month to one and I’m going back to two.
I need to remove the postcard incentive because I keep forgetting to send them, and figure out something else. Suggestions?
Today’s wordcount: 5476
Current Hearts of Tabat wordcount: 112800
Total word count for the week so far (day 2): 11487
Total word count for this retreat: 42856
Worked on Hearts of Tabat, finished “California Ghosts” and “I am Scrooge”
Time spent on SFWA email, discussion boards, other stuff: an hour
Classes that are coming up soon and still have room! All times are Pacific Time.
July 15 (Wednesday), 7-9 PM ““ First Pages Workshop Section 1
July 17 (Friday), 2-4 PM ““ Writing Your Way Into Your Novel, Section 2
July 19 (Sunday), 9:30-11:30 AM ““ First Pages Workshop Section 2
I would happily support the public availability of the stories. So many great works of art that we all share come from the patronage system. True, as we are not a single patron we don’t share in the fame, but I don’t believe anyone who is contributing to your writing wants to keep you to herself.
Hi, Cat. Instead of a physical postcard, a virtual one would be interesting. You could write “thank you, [name]” on a small slip of paper and take a photo of it somewhere in your world, then email it to the recipient.
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
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On Writing: Have an Impact on the Reader
if you're looking to find some of my recent work, I have a novelette, All the Pretty Little Mermaids, in the March 2014 issue of Asimov's. I've also got a non-fiction interview with Bud Webster in Analog.This came up in the advanced workshop – how does one grab a reader and have an impact on them? Because surely this sort of emotional identification that makes a reader experience a story as though it were a blow aimed directly at their heart is crucial to the best storytelling. The student pointed at an interview with Yoon Ha Lee in Clarkeworld magazine where she says:
The whole point of a short story is to assassinate the reader. You don’t have the time or the space to go to war or do large maneuvers, you can’t do chapters of elaborate setup, there’s much less room for character development””a good writer can get more character development in, but that isn’t my particular strength. Anyway, everything in the short story has to drive toward a short sharp point, whatever it is you’re trying to leave the reader with at the end of the story.
I say “assassinate” and it sounds hostile, because it is. I work better when I can think in terms of opponents. The thing is that I don’t want the reader to see the short sharp point clearly from the beginning, but I want it to make sense afterward as the angle of attack. Tactical sense, I guess, in the context of the story’s setup.
Most of the time I write didactically, as if a short story were a proof. There is some object lesson, or ethical question, I want to leave the reader with. “Ghostweight” is a good example of this; it doesn’t pretend not to be didactic. So when I build the character and their strengths and weaknesses and motivations, when I build the setting, the majority of it needs to be in support of that point. With a proof, you want to include all the necessary axioms and arguments, but leave out the extraneous. A short story is very similar. I am not sure my math professors would approve of the use I am making of my college education, but there it is.
To me this is connected to something Michael Swanwick told my Clarion West class: in a short story, pick your antelope out of the herd and chase it whole-heartedly. If you change course midstream because that other antelope is limping or that other one comes with a garnish, you are likely to have no antelope at all.
So you must determine your antelope, by which I mean, you must figure out what’s the emotional core of the story, what’s its heart? What does it say about the state of existence? And once you know that, you can construct a narrative that grabs the reader through devices like sensory engagement, identification with the main character, and other beguilements until you have them trapped, at which point you force them to confront some fact of existence that may be normally unseen or even actively avoided.
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.
I’ve got the okay to announce this, so here you are: I’ve got a story in the upcoming Fathomless Abyss anthology and I’ll be putting out a longer work set there next year. It’s a very cool project, and I’m pleased to be part of it, along with Philip Athans, Jay Lake, J. M. McDermott, Mel Odom, Mike Resnick, and Brad Torgersen. My story’s called “A Querulous Flute of Bone,” and it’s a riff on a favorite O. Henry piece, “The Pimenta Pancakes,” from The Heart of the West.
Here’s the cover for the anthology, which will be available early next month:
3 Responses
I would happily support the public availability of the stories. So many great works of art that we all share come from the patronage system. True, as we are not a single patron we don’t share in the fame, but I don’t believe anyone who is contributing to your writing wants to keep you to herself.
I think it’s worth a try, Cat. It seems like a much more open model to me that – I suspect – has upside for everyone.
Hi, Cat. Instead of a physical postcard, a virtual one would be interesting. You could write “thank you, [name]” on a small slip of paper and take a photo of it somewhere in your world, then email it to the recipient.