Comments for Alpha SF/F/H Workshop for Young Writers

Comment on Where to Submit Your Stories by Beth

Beth — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 01:47:09 +0000

Hi, Sarah! Nice roundup of approaches. I think my personal approach to submitting is closest to Cassie’s.

Thanks for the link to our series.

Cheers,
Beth

Comment on Submitting Stories for Publication as a Young Adult by Elena Gleason » 30 Days of Writing: 19, 20, 21

Elena Gleason » 30 Days of Writing: 19, 20, 21 — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 04:40:09 +0000

[...] the never-ending meme, allow me to direct you to a post I wrote for the Alpha blog last week: “Submitting Stories for Publication as a Young Adult”. Most of the advice in the article applies to all writers just starting to think about sending [...]

Comment on Submitting Stories for Publication as a Young Adult by David A. Bedford

David A. Bedford — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 21:12:24 +0000

Very wise advice. I would just say that even people with genius must do a lot of writing before submitting. No genius ever amounted to much without community. If you don’t believe me, read Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.

Please drop by my blog and leave a comment. Thanks!

Comment on For Science! by Catherine Krahe

Catherine Krahe — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 20:45:59 +0000

Bookrec: Falling Free, by Bujold. It has science, Science!, jargon, and engineers.

Also, keep up on science because it lets you know what’s possible. I cannot find it due to laziness, but there is video of ATP synthase working. One single enzyme, my particular favorite, and we have video of it turning around and around*.

*okay, slighty more complicated than that, but the principle stands.

Comment on Beginnings by Amy Treadwell

Amy Treadwell — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 18:37:50 +0000

Rachel, this was a great overview. I especially agree with trimming your first scene/paragraph/page. I almost always have to do that.
About Cassie’s point about writing that pulls you in by its competence: Ender’s Game is a good example of how this can be captivating. What pulled me in was the tight, intimate 3rd person pov. (Granted, the first scene is also troubling and central to the plot, but the pov is what hooked me.)
I think the same thing can be done with ‘atmosphere’ but you want to be extra careful with giving too much description at the expense of action if you choose this strategy. Some subgenres are more open to hooks via atmosphere. Humor is one. Another is gothic mystery. It can also work well for period pieces, such as steam punk, historical fiction, and alternate history.

Comment on Beginnings by Catherine Krahe

Catherine Krahe — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 16:15:08 +0000

I’m not always in favor of the Alpha hook exercise; like the Bulwer-Lyttons and Lyttle Lyttons, it favors jokes and punchlines more than a real beginning.

I hate the, “I have a point, I promise!” explosion-then-flashback. It especially doesn’t work with short stories– seriously, you have four thousand words and you don’t trust yourself to hold the reader’s interest through the first thirty-five hundred? Not all interest is explosions. Entire books have been written without explosions, and they hold readers like crazy.

Hold your readers with good prose, clear ideas, and general competence. I’ve read books where, in the first paragraph, I felt something in my mind relax and say, “She knows what she’s doing.” It didn’t matter what was happening on the page; I was finishing that book because the author had won my trust with basic sentence-level competence.

So much of a good beginning is, “don’t screw up.” It’s easier to point out bad beginnings and how they fail than to dissect a good one. I think that the Red Line of Death is a better indication of a beginning’s quality than the Alpha hook thing for that same reason.

Comment on Beginnings by Elena Gleason

Elena Gleason — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 14:09:39 +0000

Personally, I like stories that don’t bother to ease you into things–I much prefer being dumped into the middle of the conflict. I need something startling, bizarre, or action-packed in the first paragraph. I’m tough to hook though. I was a bit of a holdout when we did the hook exercise at Alpha, often one of the last to raise my hand.

Comment on Finding Good Critiques by Elena Gleason » 30 Days of Writing: Day 16

Elena Gleason » 30 Days of Writing: Day 16 — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 03:53:10 +0000

[...] Before I launch into the next question, I just realized that I forgot to mention that last week I wrote an article for the Alpha SF/F/H Workshop blog on finding good critiques. If you’re a new and/or young writer, definitely check it out, along with all the other marvelous and helpful posts from Alpha alumni and instructors. My post is here. [...]

Comment on The Four P’s of Exposition by Elena Gleason

Elena Gleason — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 03:22:41 +0000

Great post, Sarah!

I’m horrible at writing exposition, so I avoid writing bad exposition by writing it extremely minimally. I try to slide in little details with the action. (“I don’t know, Bob,” Alice said, nervously running her fingers over the smooth leaves of her hands. “I never considered leaving Mars…”) If I find myself writing more than a few sentences of exposition in a row, I often stop myself to consider whether I couldn’t offer the information in a different way. I only write straight paragraphs of exposition if there really isn’t another choice.

Comment on Finding Good Critiques by The Four P’s of Exposition – Alpha SF/F/H Workshop for Young Writers

The Four P’s of Exposition – Alpha SF/F/H Workshop for Young Writers — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 11:13:01 +0000

[...] Catherine Krahe on Finding Good Critiques [...]