Posts Tagged with writing

Guns and Romances now available

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Guns&Romances LRI announced landing a story in the Guns and Romances anthology some time ago, but now I’m thrilled to say the book is now available.

Edited by Nerine Dorman and Carrie Clevenger, the concept for the book was that each story had to feature “two characters interacting, flavoured with guns and music.” My story, “Caged,” has a same-sex romance, a werewolf, running commentary on the top five heavy metal drummers of all time, and at least two firearms being used in accordance with Anton Chekhov’s maxim. Oh, and a snowmobile chase.

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‘Black Smoke and Water Lilies’ in Chinese Fantasy Stories

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INSlogo2015-PNGIt’s official: my short story, “Black Smoke and Water Lilies,” is in the new edition of Insignia Volume 2: Chinese Fantasy Stories, edited by Kelly Matsuura.

If you’re not familiar with the Insignia series of anthologies, each one groups stories set or inspired by a different region in Asia. Volume 1 features Japanese fantasy stories and the upcoming Volume 3 features stories of Southeast Asia (submissions for that one are still open, by the way; the deadline is August 31).

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Accessing the Future: exploring in many senses

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Accessin the Future image 2

When it comes to future tech, variations on a phrase in a roleplaying game sourcebook always stuck with me: “POOF: YOU’RE HEALED.”

That was the description for the top-level, beyond super-science medical technology of the far future. (For weaponry of that advanced era, it was “POOF: YOU’RE DEAD”; for transportation it was “POOF: YOU’RE THERE.” You get the idea. Also, possibly, I played far too much G.U.R.P.S. if its metaphors remain fixed in my head.)

One thing unquestioned, of course, and not within the scope of RPG rules, is the question: “for whom?”

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Guest post on writing conflict at The Fictorians

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I was invited by Mary Pletsch (with whom I have the honour of sharing a table of contents with in Kneeling in the Silver Light and Wrestling With Gods) to write a guest post at The Fictorians, on the subject of writing conflict in fiction.

Here’s a little bit of what I had to say:

Don’t say what you mean: writing conflict through dialogue

There are a lot of ways to express conflict through dialogue in a scene, but it can be very effective – and a lot of fun – if it isn’t done openly.

People (and characters) hate conflict. They usually do everything they can to avoid it, unless they’re devoid of empathy. But readers… they love conflict. It makes for great dialogue, exciting scenes, and a plot that keeps moving.

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On writing, envy, rejection and persistence

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There is a mental trap writers seem to be prone to, if conversations I have on Twitter are any indication. (And I realize they may not be.) That is, that other writers are doing better than you somehow, and that this matters.

I’ve felt it! If you write, I suspect you have, too.

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Writing  the way forward: speculative fiction and inclusion

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There are a lot of ways to look at storytelling, but one of the crucial ways to look at it, in my view, is by who it includes. I think this is true of any genre, but since I write speculative fiction, that’s how I’m going to consider it here.

Some very talented writers have addressed this already. If you haven’t read what they have had to say, I’d highly recommend you read:

Daniel José Older: 12 Fundamentals of Writing “The Other”

N.K. Jemisin on Why I Think RaceFail Was The Bestest Thing Evar for SFF and more recently Your groundbreaking is not my groundbreaking

Malinda Lo: On Self-Rejection and Writing From a Marginalized Perspective

Derek Newman-Stille on SFF fandom, ableism and homophobia and transphobia: My Cane is Not a Costume, and an interview with Kathryn Allan on disability in science fiction

These are just a few of the people writing on these issues.

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