One Thing I Learned From Joyce Carol Oates

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Captains of industry are almost never mentioned in Locus and, similarly, I did not expect ever to make even the briefest appearance on Forbes.com.  Yet, skipping over the programming, John Farrell wrote an article on the Huckster Room at Readercon and, more specifically, how charming it is to be surrounded by vast numbers of books both contemporary and vintage which one is permitted to buy.  In which appeared not only my name but my photograph (above, with David Hartwell).

The observant will note three things about the photo.  First, that (being an old hand at this) when asked to pose for a shot, I leapt to it.  Second, that I stood slightly behind David in order to not block his extraordinary shirt (it being safe to say that the viewers were going to want to ogle as much of it as possible), and third, that when the camera appeared, I took off my name tag and slipped it into my pocket.

This last, I learned from observing Joyce Carol Oates.  We were at a literary event and even chatted briefly -- about our mutual friend Ellen Datlow, of course.  It was a glancing encounter but just before the photo op, I noticed her take off her name tag and slip it into her purse.  That seemed sensible to me, so I took off mine and slid it into a pocket of my tux.

This may not have been responsible for the fact that when the roomful of writers was rounded up and arranged in rows on the staircase, Ms. Oates and I got to sit in chairs front and center, with the others arrayed behind us.  But it certainly didn't hurt.

And it makes for a cleaner photo, dunnit?

You can read the article here.


Above:  Detail from John Farrell's photograph.

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And Only She Escaped To Tell The Tale...

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I spent the weekend at Readercon, where the Shirley Jackson Awards (for horror and dark fantasy) are presented.  I was in the bar Sunday -- not drinking! I swear! I was memorializing Lucius! -- when my pal Greer Gilman emerged from the awards ceremony with a freshly minted lucite trophy for Best Novella for her quite wonderful Small Beer chapbook Cry Murder! In a Small Voice.

(For those of you who haven't read it, Cry Murder! In a Small Voice is a murder mystery with Ben Jonson in the role of detective, told in his distinctive prose style.  Oxfordians are urged not to rush out with the rest of us to buy it, as it will only make them grumpy.

Greer was so elated that she let me help her hold the award for the above photo by illustrious bookman and litterateur Henry Wessells.  That's me in an appropriately obscured position, basking in her reflected glory.

And why wasn't I there to applaud Greer's accomplishment?  Well... I might have been, except that just before the ceremony, I was talking with Paul Park about the engraved stones that are given to all the nominees and he said, "You know, I picture the winner walking up to accept the award and all the nominees, who have just lost, looking down at their hands and realizing that they're holding something just the right size for throwing..."

Come to think, I don't actually know that any of the other winners survived the ceremony.

The other winners (living or dead, as the case may be) were:

 American Elsewhere, by Robert Jackson Bennett (Orbit) – Best Novel

Burning Girls, Veronica Schanoes (Tor.com) – Best Novella

“57 Reasons for the Slate Quarry Suicides”, Sam J. Miller (Nightmare December 2013) – Best Short Fiction

Before and Afterlives, Christopher Barzak (Lethe Press) & North American Lake Monsters, Nathan Ballingrud (Small Beer) – tied for Best Collection

Grimscribe’s Puppets, Joseph S. Pulver, Sr., ed. (Miskatonic River Press) – Best Edited Anthology

My sincere congratulations to them all.  

Greer has a second novelette chapbook, also starring Ben Jonson, which is apparently not officially out until September, titled Exit, Pursued by a Bear.  Somehow, I managed to buy a copy, since autographed by the award-winning author herself.  You can read about it here.

Or you can read about the first chapbook (both are strikingly handsome) here.

Or you can just go to Small Beer Press and wander about happily here.  I have faith in your ability to resist buying lots and lots of books that would make you far happier than the money ever could.


And, because I promised . . .

Friday, I pointed out three of the lessons that new and gonnabe writers can learn from the opening paragraph of Neil Gaiman's contributions to the Rogues anthology, and promised on Monday (today) to point out a fourth and even more important one.

So here it is:

Go back to the opening paragraph again.  Notice the utter clarity of it.  There is no ambiguity about what's going on.  This fact is not unrelated to Neil's popularity.

For extra credit, spend the rest of your life trying to achieve perfect clarity in your own prose.


Above:  Yours Truly and Greer Gilman.  Photo by Henry Wessells.

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Opening the Marquis de Carabas's Coat

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I dropped by Gardner Dozois' house the other day and  received my contributor's copy of Rogues (other contributors will have to wait upon the mail) and I am here to report that it is one solid piece of goods.  Most anthologies, all you have to do is write an extremely good story to be mentioned in the reviews.  Here, alas, that's not enough.  The competition is fierce.

Which is, of course, from the reader's perspective, good.

The first story I chose, via random processes, to read was Neil Gaiman's "How the Marquis Got His Coat Back."  Which I enjoyed, of course.  But, since the opening paragraph was particularly apt for my purposes, I thought I'd present it here and then point out some of what gonnabe writers might learn from it.

First, the paragraph:

It was beautiful.  It was remarkable.  It was unique.  It was the reason that the Marquis de Carabas was chained to a pole in the middle of a circular room, far, far underground, while the water level rose slowly higher and higher.  It had thirty pockets, seven of which were obvious, nineteen of which were hidden, and four of which were more or less impossible to find -- even, on occasion, for the Marquis himself.

Three obvious things to notice here:

First, the protagonist is introduced right away, and his characterization follows close on the heels of that introduction.

Second, the action starts immediately.  Which is to say the story starts immediately. No background info, no scene setting... These things come later, after you're involved in the plot.  Neil. Because purpose of a story's opening is to not to establish mood or provide information to help you understand in depth what will start happening in a few pages, but to get you reading.  

Third, fi you pay attention to those first three sentences, you'll see that Neil worked hard to make them engaging.  There is a superstition among gonnabe writers that the established names can write weak stories and sell them on the basis of their names.  Well... If anyone has a big enough name to do this, it's Neil Gaiman.  Yet here he is, working hard to make the story work.  Go thou and do likewise.

There is a fourth observation to be made.  But first, you must earn it.  Here's how:

Buy the book or get it from the library.  Read the story through for pleasure.  Don't analyze!  Just read it.  A writer's ability to experience a story as his or her readers do is her or his greatest asset.  Then read the story through slowly and carefully.  Observe the workings of it, the foreshadowings, the information planted so later events will make sense, and so on.  Then read it through analytically one more time.

Put the story aside for a week.

Then -- and this is the final step -- read the story through yet one more time, uncritically and in a rush, to appreciate how all the things you've learned about its workings combine into the experience of reading a story.

Got that?  Good.  Now repeat that process with every story you e encounter this month.

It won't make you a better person.  But it will make you a better writer.


And the fourth observation . . .

I'll give you the fourth observation on Monday.  Those who have done the exercise will benefit from it.  Those who have not, almost certainly won't.  Because writing is no business for the lazy.


And as always . . .

I'm on the road again.  If you happen to be at Readercon, maybe I'll see you there.

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Six Untitled Tales Written in Mark Twain's Library...

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I just received my virtual contributor's copy of The New York Review of Science Fiction today and saw that it contains my piece, "Six Untitled Tales Written in Mark Twain's Library."  Which contains six complete flash fictions written... well, you get the idea.

Here's how it begins:

I do not know why the curators of the Mark Twain House in Hartford, Connecticut, decided to allow writers to ply their craft in the great man’s library one Sunday morning in late March before the regular tours began. But when a friend alerted me to the opportunity, I immediately snagged it out of the air. Which is how I came to find myself sitting on a folding chair before a small wooden table along with twelve other writers, similarly disposed, quietly tapping away.

Samuel Clemens did not actually write in the library—that chore he performed in the billiard room—and I certainly was under no delusion that by some act of sympathetic magic I would absorb any special mana from his furniture and deco- rations. But it did make for a diverting two hours.
At the outset I could not help imagining the ghost of Samuel Clemens materializing behind me and leaning down to murmur, “Interesting. Do you also gather in groups to masturbate?” But...

To read more, of course, you'll have to have a subscription, or else a friend with one.  I just wanted to let you know what you were missing.

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Listen To This!

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I'm in audio again!  My story "The She-Wolf's Hidden Grin" (no points for finding the Gene Wolfe reference hidden in the title) has been picked up for Allan Kaster's audio anthology, The Year's Top Ten Tales of Science Fiction 6.  It is, as I've said before, a gender-switched take on Gene Wolfe's novella, The Fifth Head of Cerberus. 

Gonnabe writers can learn a lot by reading or listening to my story and then looking up the original -- and reading it over and over again.  It really is one of the most brilliant science fiction novellas ever written.

The other stories in this more than nine and a half hours long anthology are:

Zero for Conduct, by Greg Egan

Exit, Interrupted, by C. W. Johnson

Pathways by Nancy Kress

Entangled, by Ian R. MacLeod

The Irish Astronaut, by Val Nolan

Among Us, by Robert Reed

A Map of Mercury, by Alastair Reynolds

 Martian Blood, by Allen M. Steele

The Best We Can, by Carrie Vaughn

Which you've got to admit is a pretty tasty lineup.


And this weekend . . .

As always, I'll be on the road again.  I'm going to be at Readercon in Burlington, MA.  I'm not on any of the programming, but I'll definitely be there.  If you are too, feel free to stop me and say hi.

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The National Science Fiction Light Bulb Joke

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I forget which convention it was -- maybe Boskone? -- where I was the toastmaster or emcee or such for the banquet and began by saying, "Please rise for the national science fiction light bulb joke."  But it went over well, and though I doubt you'll laugh at it here -- blogs are a terrible context for jokes -- if you've got a good delivery, you ought to be able to use it to wring a chuckle out of the unsuspecting.

Here's how it goes:

"How many science fiction characters does it take to change a light bulb?"
"I don't know.  How many?"
"Two.  One to change the bulb and the other to say, 'As you know, Fred, the light bulb was invented by Thomas Edison and operates under the principle of...'"

This joke was invented by the late Sarah Purdom, wife of science fiction writer Tom Purdom.  I've known a lot of clever people, but this is the only formal joke whose creator I've ever known.  Prior to hearing it for the first time, I always wondered where jokes came from.  Now I know.

They're made up by elegant, witty women.

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She-Wolves and Dragonstairs

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I long ago arrived at that happy state where I don't bother keeping track of what stories I have coming up in the year's best anthologies.  I usually have at least one, so that's good enough for me.

It also means that when such a volume arrives in the mail, it comes as a pleasant surprise.

Pleasant and surprising in yesterday's mailbox was The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirty-First Annual Collection, edited by Gardner Dozois and containing my story, "The She-Wof's Hidden Grin."


This story was written for Shadows of the New Sun, a festschrift (great word, innit?) honoring Gene Wolfe.  For it, I took the opening paragraphs of his very great "The Fifth Head of Cerberus" and reversed everything.  I turned evening to morning, summer to winter, the north wing of the house into the south wing . . . and, most significantly, the two brothers to two sisters.  Then I wrote a story that I imagined in some alternate reality the great female writer, Jean Wolfe might have.

It would be pompous of me to expand on all that I learned about writing in my close study of the original story and arrogant to expand on all I learned about Gene's story.  Suffice it to say, Wolfe's work is thronged with hidden virtues.  I learned much from it, and had I had the time to write a novella-length work, I would have learned even more.

But because I should say something about my story, I'll give you the following short paragraph from it:

That was the summer when Susanna conceived a passion for theater.  She went to see Riders to the Sea and Madame Butterfly and Anthony and Cleopatra and The Women and Mrs. Warren’s Profession and Lysistrata and Hedda Gabler and The Rover and I forget what else.  She even got a small part in The Children’s Hour.  I attended one rehearsal, was not made to feel welcome, and never showed up again.

I'll bet most readers breezed right past that without giving a thought to what those particular plays had in common.  But writers almost never craft such lists without purpose.  It's one way of keeping ourselves amused in what can be at times a long and dreary task.


And since the book is already open . . .

One of Gardner Dozois' many innovations over the year is his honorable mentions list of stories he found particularly worthy over the previous year but could not include in his  volume.  This was born, I'm sure, from the long handwritten list he keeps on a lined yellow legal pad.

Not to sound immodest, but I usually have a couple of stories listed there.  (Seriously, I'm not braggingt; I have nowhere near the number that Robert Reed has listed every year; and this year Ken Liu has nine stories listed, Nancy Kress has eight, and Lavie Tidhar has eleven.)

This year, however, I'm particularly pleased that one of my two listed stories is Tumbling, which was published as a small, cunningly cut-and-folded booklet by Dragonstairs Press. in an edition of 50 signed and numbered copies.

The founder, publisher, editor, and sole proprietor of Dragonstairs is Marianne Porter.  Who commissioned the story from me.  And who is my one true love and my wife to boot.

You can visit the Dragonstairs Press website here.

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