I read Publisher’s Weekly every week as part of my job. There’s always a little graph showing the ups and downs of book sales. Sometimes there is good news and overall sales are up. Sometimes sales are down. But almost every week there’s one figure that constantly declines, and it’s been doing so for years….
Category: Blog
Plotting Whiplash
I remember reading Stephen R. Donaldson’s Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever as a teen and feeling frustrated. At the time, I didn’t have the experience to define the source of that frustration, but later in life I was able to put my finger on it. I was reading good-sized books about epic fantasy adventures,…
No Greenhorns Allowed
My wife and I are getting ready to move, so recently I went through all my stuff. We’ve taken a sh*t-ton of stuff to Goodwill. Lots of the jettisoned crap wouldn’t even be worthy of a kiss-off, “Namaste” blessing from Marie Kondo. But I’m not tossing my stack of agent and editor rejections. Why? I…
I did it my way (and you should do it yours)
Decades ago, a slick-covered magazine catering to the libidinous interests of some folks published a short story of mine—my first published work—for which I received 75 dollars. That publisher, as well as a couple more, said yes to additional short story submissions and, certainly proud of those achievements, I cut out the cover pages for…
Short Story Craft, Part 3: Setting
In preparation for the 2020 RMFW anthology, I’m doing a series of blog posts on short story craft. While plot and character are the two most important elements of your story, setting comes in a close third. In my opinion, setting is the fastest way to elevate a good story to a great one. A…