Editor’s Choice

Editor’s Choice Review November 2017, Short Story

Published on by Jaime Moyer

The Editors’ Choices are chosen from the submissions from the previous month that show the most potential or otherwise earn the admiration of our Resident Editors. Submissions in four categories — science fiction chapters, fantasy chapters, horror, and short stories — receive a detailed review, meant to be educational for others as well as the author.This month’s reviews are written by Resident Editors Leah Bobet, Jeanne Cavelos, and Judith Tarr. The last four months of Editors’ Choices and their editorial reviews are archived on the workshop.

OSSUARY by Laura Hewitt

“Ossuary” caught my attention this month with the poetry of its images, its strong and cohesive voice, and the sheer power of Sharon’s emotional predicament, rendered without judgment, spilling off the page. It’s a powerful if unfinished-feeling piece, and this month I’d like to talk about how to craft strong imagery and what narrative satisfaction means.

The author describes “Ossuary” as “pretty larval”, but nonetheless, there’s a lot of beautiful work being done here, notably with Sharon’s narrative voice and the strength of the visual-emotional imagination on display. The sheer vividness of the images she remembers is drop-dead impressive: they’re poetic, recited in almost ritual language, just idiosyncratic enough to be real, and suffused with this incredible yearning. There are a few components which make those images work: a fine eye for detail (sometimes literally), the choice of images that are familiar but not archetypical (good hair!), sensory mixing (a posture that mutters, images that slap against your consciousness like waves) and the strength of emotional association.

The eye for detail is the most obvious part of the mix that makes the story’s imagery work, but how those images are set is also a major factor: the contrast with the simplicity and exasperation of Sharon’s voice provides the kinds of tonal peaks and valleys that make every paragraph feel cohesive, but unique. The dips into stark simplicity—”Here are the things she knows that she wishes her children would stand still long enough to hear:”—make the vivid imagery feel brighter and taller by contrast, and provide a breath to readers between those vivid images.

It’s in that contrast, between the images of Sharon’s past and her now, that I really feel Sharon’s loneliness—not just at being the only person who remembers the old world, but the horrible feeling of being the only adult. That’s a powerful and nuanced emotional place to start a narrator, and she comes across as this beautiful mix of frustration and care, grief and practicality. She’s a gorgeous character, written gorgeously.

As it stands, I think there could be some small adjustments to the mnemonic devices. While I like how they seep into Sharon’s narrative language, here and there—”They drone, they groan, but they intone” shows she’s way too used to constructing rhymes and acronyms to hold not enough information—there might be a few too many of them. The readers don’t know what problems and processes they refer to—they’re largely symbols without referents that show up in the story—and so there’s not quite enough weight to that information to make it meaningful.

The mnemonics that work, at least for me as a reader, are the ones that have some rooting information attached to them: that this is for getting a trapped partner out of a Circle, for example. I’d suggest paring back that sheer quantity of mnemonics and focusing on a few less, which are better and more substantially rooted: I think that’ll communicate the nature of this world more strongly, in this case, than the casual, unexplained-detail approach to worldbuilding.

But the major issue with “Ossuary” is in its sense of conflict and narrative motion. In short, this reads like the beginning of a longer work. The conflict is set up—Sharon is dying, her children don’t quite understand, and with that lack of time, she can only pass down survival, and not the world they’ve lost—but not yet developed, and not yet resolved, so I feel left somewhat hanging. But then what happens, and how does this play out? I’m left asking. This is less a request for a novel than a request for a stronger sense of arc and narrative satisfaction: many issues are raised in “Ossuary”, and if the story clearly and emphatically resolves one, even if it does so very softly, I’ll know as a reader which was important, and which was the core, and derive satisfaction from that.

What the author wants to do with this is a choice only for the author, of course—and the author’s notes indicate this is meant to be a snapshot—but I think there are some potential ways to make this satisfying, whether it’s by following through on those set-up conflicts or bringing the conflicts intended, however quiet they may be, more to the surface.

The choice the author’s note mentions Sharon as facing, about her own death, didn’t come across to me in the text. It’s a potential functional conflict to bring out—one which can maybe bring in a stronger sense of resolution—but it’s barely alluded to in the HALT sentence. It’s not mentioned again, as a question, a problem, or a choice, and Sharon’s whole character is so much about safety and survival, in the times we see her, that it’s hard on that information to imply she’s contemplating suicide. This is the woman who’s decided it’s better to scold her child now than have him suffer later; she’s not about the sparing of short-term pain.

Again, if that’s a conflict the author wishes to go after in a new draft, I’d suggest this is going to need some building out—about two more beats, so the question is evident, the choice is evident, and then Sharon’s choice is evident, even subtly.

Either way, I’d suggest there’s no reason to flinch at building out a little more, whatever direction that takes. The great thing about our craft as writers is that if a new draft doesn’t work the way we wanted, the old draft still exists, and it’s perfectly possible to go back to that old version and take another run at things until they work how we’d like them to. Three drafts, or five: If it gets “Ossuary” to the point where it’s landing just right, that’s work well worth it.

Congratulations on some beautiful prose-work, and best of luck!

–Leah Bobet, author of Above (2012) and An Inheritance of Ashes (2015)

Editor’s Choice Review December 2017, Science Fiction

Published on by Jaime Moyer

The Editors’ Choices are chosen from the submissions from the previous month that show the most potential or otherwise earn the admiration of our Resident Editors. Submissions in four categories — science fiction chapters, fantasy chapters, horror, and short stories — receive a detailed review, meant to be educational for others as well as the author.This month’s reviews are written by Resident Editors Leah Bobet, Jeanne Cavelos, and Judith Tarr. The last four months of Editors’ Choices and their editorial reviews are archived on the workshop.

Immortology Chapters 1-3 Rev by Zed Draeco

This concept hits a sweet spot for me. I just love getting wicked with science, and I am irresistibly fascinated by “Ghost Hunters” and all the rest of the paranormal shows. I realize that Proper Science does not recognize the existence of ghosts and the paranormal, but oh, what fun to watch people try to prove it. Pseudoscience, homemade tech, running dudes, and all.

So for me personally, this is a Yes, Let Me See More. I cannot speak for agents or editors; that’s not my brief. What I can do is point to ways in which the partial might be polished for submission.

The first thing I would note is that the concept is close to that of a podcast from 2016 called “LifeAfter”:  ttps://www.fastcompany.com/3065471/ge-podcast-theater-returns-with-a-new-sci-fi-thriller-lifeafter. It’s probably wise to cite the predecessor and let the agent know how your novel differs from it. If it’s inspired by the podcast, say so. If it’s a case of Great Minds Thinking Alike, that’s notable as well; but it’s good to be aware that there’s something like it out there.

As for the partial itself, I have some thoughts.

Clarity: On a cold read, it’s a little hard to get the picture of where and when this novel is set. I wondered if it was set on a space station, and was the robot real or imaginary or part of an alternate universe the protagonist had slipped into? Why have a robot in one’s room? Does everybody have one? Somewhat later we learn the year and some salient details of what has changed and not changed since the present day, but I might have oriented myself more quickly if this information had appeared earlier.

Worldbuilding and Logistics: Near-future SF is tough to do. Because the world is built so directly from our own, the extrapolation has to be spot on. I would wonder if Facebook is going to last as long as the ms. says it will, considering how short the epochs of online communities are. Would it be more advisable to invent a social network several generations down from Facebook, and if so, would a relatively young person even remember that Facebook existed? Think about MySpace or, really going back into the mists of time, GEnie.

I wonder about the narrator, too. He opens with a peroration on midnight phone calls (would those still be a thing in 2032? Or would they be texts or direct brain downloads or…?), which implies that he gets a lot of them. Is he a Jessica Fletcher-like nexus for sudden deaths? Is his occupation somehow prone to multiple fatalities?

Words and Polish: A submission package has to be as close to perfect as the author can make it. It’s best foot forward all the way—and that means every word should be just the right one. We all try not to use the same old same old words and phrases, but sometimes the effort to say things differently can confuse rather than enthuse.

Some examples that caught my eye as I read:

the glow of its display blinking on where it lay on my nightstand. It took me a minute to figure out which “on” went with which verb, and was the display lying on the nightstand, or was it the whole structure?

I…opted to be the fish that bit the hook and called Arif back. On reading through a couple of times, I unpacked what must be the intended meaning—a reference to a fish taking the lure—but as written, the sentence states that the fish called Arif after biting the hook.

and like some irritating sticky paper at the bottom of my shoe, there was no shaking the call from my head. Figurative language brings life to a story, but it’s a delicate balance between vivid imagery and phrasing that bumps the reader out of the story. Here, the drama of the moment is powerful; trying to ramp it up with a simile of some length actually lessens the drama. Keeping it simple also keeps it strong and keeps the story moving briskly forward.

I stammered out a question. “Are you…sure he’s…dead?” It sounded stupid, but I didn’t realize that until after I’d said it. A bunch of things are going on here. We’re told he stammers, then we’re shown how he does it. One or the other would do the job; it’s not really necessary to give us both—and then to undercut it with an editorial comment on how stupid it sounds. Tighter writing, pulling it all together into a single line, would convey the essential information while also, again, keeping things moving.

Chess’ reaction to Bram’s shocked “Jesus Christ” wanders a bit, too; he takes it for a statement of religious belief, which seems odd and somewhat off topic, as does the extended discussion that follows. The connections need to be clearer and the conversation more organic, flowing more naturally out of the characters and their situation.

I would suggest a thorough copyedit and a word-by-word revision, striving for tightness, focus, clarity. Pare away repetition, keep the figurative language to a minimum, and make sure the meaning of every sentence is clear.

Bram’s voice tends to be discursive, which is an aspect of his character, but he circles around and around the same words and phrases, the phone call, his incredulity, his ongoing expectation or hope that Arif is alive after all. It’s clear how Bram feels; cutting and tightening his expression of those feelings will actually make the story stronger. When you reduce repetition to a minimum, you give yourself more room for story-stuff, and more space to stretch your narrative muscles.

–Judith Tarr

Editor’s Choice Review December 2017, Horror

Published on by Jaime Moyer

The Editors’ Choices are chosen from the submissions from the previous month that show the most potential or otherwise earn the admiration of our Resident Editors. Submissions in four categories — science fiction chapters, fantasy chapters, horror, and short stories — receive a detailed review, meant to be educational for others as well as the author.This month’s reviews are written by Resident Editors Leah Bobet, Jeanne Cavelos, and Judith Tarr. The last four months of Editors’ Choices and their editorial reviews are archived on the workshop.

The Realm of the Comforters by Meg Sefton

The first two chapters of The Realm of the Comforters reveal a compelling premise: that the spirits of children who are murdered help welcome and comfort newly killed children into the afterlife. This is a strong, emotional premise, and it’s interesting to see how these spirits interact and try to overcome their trauma. The chapters have some moments where they express the situation of these characters in a strong way, such as “for the baby that has been loved will go away but the baby who has been killed by her parent’s hand will never be satisfied” and “a separate me, floating up above where I lay down under my daddy.”

The chapters also have some vivid description, such as Rachel’s eyes that look like “veined marbles of the most precious kind,” and the moon “full and complete as a cream pie Mama made on Sundays.”

So I think this novel has a lot of powerful material to build on. I think it’s appropriate for a YA audience because it seems like it will deal with finding one’s place in the world and amongst peers, and those are strong concerns of that age group.

I don’t think the material written here is actually the first two chapters of the novel. I think these are important notes on which to build the novel. There is no actual scene until the second-to-last page, when Gabriella starts to tell her story to the others. Before that point, we have a combination of exposition (background information) and recapitulation (summarized action), which basically means things are being explained to us, but we’re not in the moment with the character experiencing events. Much of the chapters are telling (Gabriella’s opinions and judgments) rather than showing (sensory details), so it’s hard for us to feel like we’re there, going through what Gabriella is going through.

It’s often said that the writer writes a story twice–the first time to herself, and the second time to others. For me, this feels like the author telling the story to herself, figuring out how this fascinating afterlife works, what the characters do in general, and how Gabriella feels about it. That’s a key step in the writing process. But after you explain all that to yourself, it’s time to figure out how you’re going to allow the reader to experience it.

For example, instead of explaining to us how babies in the afterlife behave and what the teen spirits do, you could show us a specific example. Perhaps a scene could start with Gabriella dying, and then she could see Rachel, and then they could hear a baby howl, and Rachel could rush off to help and Gabriella could follow, afraid to be left alone in this strange place. The encounter with the baby could be described moment by moment, and perhaps the scene could end when Gabriella calms the baby and feels like she actually helped someone for the first time.

Each scene should show a change of significance for the main character. She might make a friend or lose a friend. She might be helped or betrayed. She might gain self esteem or lose it. She might gain freedom or lose it. Thus far, the action doesn’t seem to be divided into chunks (scenes) in which something of significance changes. Instead, we seem to be fast-forwarding through lots of events that don’t seem to have any particular impact on her, until perhaps the graveyard scene at the end. Rushing through the events puts us at a distance from them, so we can’t really care and be engaged. I think Rachel is meant to be a close friend to Gabriella, but I don’t feel I know Rachel, and I don’t see their friendship building step by step from an initial uncertain encounter to growing trust to deep loyalty.

The other critical element we need to see in these scenes is the protagonist struggling to achieve a goal. Right now, Gabriella seems to fit in effortlessly and go along with what everyone else is doing. That doesn’t make for a strong protagonist. Does she perhaps feel different from the others at first, and have to work to make friends and fit in? Or does she think they’re great friends at first and later discover she’s not the same as them, she doesn’t really fit in? Does she want to go back and help her mother, and the others won’t let her? Gabriella needs a goal that she struggles to achieve (she can succeed or fail or do a little of both, but she needs to struggle intensely), and as each scene either moves her closer to her goal or takes her farther from it, that will be a change of significance for her.

Changing the text into scenes will require that you find other ways of providing exposition. Instead of having Gabriella simply explaining the world to the reader, you can reveal the world through the events that occur in scenes. The novel’s setup also provides one of the easiest ways to provide exposition: including a stranger to the world. Since Gabriella is new to the afterlife, she doesn’t know anything about it. She’s in exactly the same position as the reader. So the chapters can allow Gabriella and the reader to learn about the world together. Rather than having Gabriella learn about it and then explain it to the reader, the character and reader can experience things together, at the same time, which will make the bond between character and reader much stronger. I would be so much more involved reading about Gabriella following Rachel and finding this baby, and wondering what happened to the baby, and then realizing the baby was killed just as Gabriella realizes it. This can be a very powerful novel.

One final area I’d like to discuss is the style. I found myself often stumbling over sentences and having a difficult time parsing them. One reason is the lack of commas. There are rules about where commas belong, and those commas help cue the reader. They tell the reader how the different words and phrases relate to each other. Without those, I find myself often reading the sentence incorrectly and having to go back, which throws me out of the story. Other sentences contain more than one idea. A sentence should be a single idea. It can be a simple idea (a short sentence) or a complex idea (a long sentence with multiple parts), but it should be only one, unified, focused idea. This sentence, for example, has multiple ideas:

“I think we’re beautiful in our tattered clothing like soft worn shredded silk, our white faces illuminated by the moon, our bedraggled nails having grown out since death, clearing wild strands of hair aside so our view may be unobstructed though the tracking of the baby has less to do with “seeing” as we knew it when we were alive and more to do with a nocturnal sensation and this is why we are enfleshed: We are equipped, more than any other, to detect sources of pain that have been the result of unimaginable darkness, pain issuing from the breasts of babies murdered by the mothers and fathers who didn’t love them.”

The first idea is that Gabriella thinks they’re beautiful. This idea ends with “unobstructed.” The second idea is that they have a special sense that allows them to find the baby. This ends around the colon. The third idea is that this special sense detects the pain of murdered children. Putting all three ideas into one sentence weakens all of the ideas and makes it very difficult to follow.

I see a lot of promise here. Breaking the story into scenes and breaking the sentences into ideas should help this world and these characters to pull readers in and provide them with an emotional, unforgettable experience. I hope my comments are helpful.

—Jeanne Cavelos, editor, writer, director of Odyssey

Editor’s Choice Review November 2017, Science Fiction

Published on by Jaime Moyer

The Editors’ Choices are chosen from the submissions from the previous month that show the most potential or otherwise earn the admiration of our Resident Editors. Submissions in four categories — science fiction chapters, fantasy chapters, horror, and short stories — receive a detailed review, meant to be educational for others as well as the author.This month’s reviews are written by Resident Editors Leah Bobet, Jeanne Cavelos, and Judith Tarr. The last four months of Editors’ Choices and their editorial reviews are archived on the workshop.

Case Race Part 1 by Bobby Harrell

I was pleased to see this story segment, because I’ve been kind of a broken record in Editor’s Choices about “offstaging” or portraying key actions in a story through characters talking about them afterward—and I’ve also been reflecting that every rule or guideline (since writing rules are really the Pirates’ Code) will sooner or later have its exception.

The opening of this story, for me, is one of those exceptions. Normally I would encourage an author to go for immediate experience: write the scene as it happens, for more vivid effect. But here, opening after the fact and revealing the backstory in stages helps build suspense and creates a mystery. What really happened to Label? How will the stranger aspects shape the story as it moves forward?

These are the kinds of questions an author should want the reader to ask, to keep her turning the pages. Breaking a “rule” allows us to ask them, by revealing the backstory in discrete installments while developing the characters and building the world around them. By the time the story moves into present time, we have a sense of where we are and who is traveling with us, and a set of questions that we hope will be answered as the story continues.

Tl;dr: If it serves a distinct narrative purpose, and the story works well when told this way, you can break any “rule” in the book. Pirates’ Code.

I do have some questions and confusions that might be answered in revision. (Because editors, even more than readers, always have questions.)

First, Label’s name. That’s as much a personal quirk as anything else; I’m sensitive to the power of names. Which leads me to read her name as “Label on a bottle,” though I suspect it may be more of a French version, shortened from La Belle and pronounced that way? Because I’m reading it the way I am, I keep bouncing a little bit out of the story, wondering how and why she received the label, and what it means in her world.

I’m not quite clear on what a case is, as well. There are bits and pieces, but I think a little bit of description might be helpful. Show more detail about her getting into her case, perhaps? Let us have a few more visuals?

The same applies to what the race is, how it works, and where it happens. I was confused for quite a while as to whether the race was real or virtual, whether the case was an actual vehicle/body armor or a sophisticated VR device. By the time the segment ended, I was pretty sure it was a real-world race, but I’m still wondering if I was missing something.

The sparseness of description mostly works, but I think a little more here and there will clarify parts of the worldbuilding. For example I wondered how the garage could only be a meter tall—are humans that much smaller in this universe than they are here? I’d have liked just a bit of explanation there.

One more thing caught my attention, and that’s the ethnicity of some characters’ accents. I get the worldbuilding element of populations preserving their dialect, but there’s an art to portraying that dialect that I’m missing here. I really am glad the text didn’t try to go full-on phonetic dialect; that’s so hard to read and so difficult to do without tripping over questions of racism and classism. But the ms. has further to go, I think, in evoking the sound and sense of these characters’ speech. It’s almost there with certain word choices, bits of distinctive vocabulary. It just needs a touch more.

I might suggest studying these dialects, really listening to them. Vocabulary and diction are part of it, but so are sentence constructions, rhythm and flow, the way people put their words together. If the rhythm is right, and if the choice of words and idioms is likewise on point, the reader can get an amazingly clear sense of how the dialect works, even when the text is written in more or less standard English. It’s like a line drawing: catching the handful of elements that convey the sense of the whole.

As to the question in the Author’s Note: I think it’s a solid start. It makes me want to read on, get to know the characters and the world better, and see how the story unfolds.

—Judith Tarr

Editor’s Choice Review November 2017, Fantasy

Published on by Jaime Moyer

The Editors’ Choices are chosen from the submissions from the previous month that show the most potential or otherwise earn the admiration of our Resident Editors. Submissions in four categories — science fiction chapters, fantasy chapters, horror, and short stories — receive a detailed review, meant to be educational for others as well as the author.This month’s reviews are written by Resident Editors Leah Bobet, Jeanne Cavelos, and Judith Tarr. The last four months of Editors’ Choices and their editorial reviews are archived on the workshop.

Chapter One, Thy Gods Awaken, Part One: Witch Queen by Tony Valiulis

I very much appreciate the inclusion of the synopsis with this chapter. It lets me see how the chapter fits into the whole, and how the author envisions that whole. Synopses are Not easy; kudos for attempting it, and extra chocolate for including it.

It’s a good synopsis, too. Says what it needs to, rounds up the main events, introduces the characters and sets up their relationships to one another. Well done.

The chapter is an interesting segue from it, with quite a different overall voice and tone. There’s a lot of emotionally laden language, lots of strong active words and deliberately hard-hitting imagery: Kayla snaps awake, she’s drenched with sweat, she’s stabbed with needles of panic. She’s nauseated, we’re told more than once, and given the reasons for it: nightmares and terrifying visions. Her mouth melts, her lips curl, her heart screams.

I’m a big fan of active writing, but I’m also a fan of Just Enough To Get The Job Done. Writing is a constant balancing act between not conveying quite enough, and stating the case VERY VERY STRONGLY.

Here I think that dialing it back a few notches would retain Kayla’s vivid perception of the world, but allow the narrative to move along more smoothly. If we’re constantly bombarded with powerful images, we become inured to them; then when something really needs to stand out, there’s nowhere to go. All the big! Bold! IMAGERY! is taken.

There’s good stuff here. I like the riff on the ancient and dishonorable mirror-description trope: we’re teased with it, then it becomes a plot driver all on its own, showing us the blond (note spelling; it’s a French word, and there’s no feminine –e when describing a male) dream boy. If Kayla’s narrative up to this is toned down, there’s more room for her to react strongly here.

I’d also note how often Kayla’s thoughts take on a life of their own—in one case, explicitly so. They drift, they float. She jerks and pushes them. They’re personified, as if they exist apart from her.

This can happen when we try to focus tightly on a viewpoint: we filter it. We remind the reader that she’s reading a narrative about a fictional character, and here’s the character, this is where we’re standing, this is our camera angle. Rather than experiencing events directly, the reader is pushed back a step.

Often if we remove that filter, we find that we’ve not only pared down the word count, we’ve brought the story closer to the reader. Kayla is in a state of confusion, that comes across clearly. If her thoughts are jumping all over the place, the reader can follow her; can feel them as she feels them, without needing to be told that she’s our eye on this world.

The same applies to the repeated details: her nausea, her feelings about the villagers, her reactions to the boy, her reflections on what’s about to happen today. A little more subtlety, a lowering of the emotional temperature, a general calming down, can actually be more effective in conveying the strength of her feelings. It’s good old Less Is More.

This might also help with the general comments about portraying a female character. I like very much that so much of this world is female—that there’s so clear an effort to counteract the tendency of many writers to create worlds with a Strong Female Character, but everyone else is default-male. This is good. I applaud.

But because Kayla is so emotionally over the top, she runs into the problem of the Emotional Female. It’s not intentional, I don’t think, but it’s a trope and a tradition, and the strength of her reactions would tend to trigger it.

What I might suggest is an exercise I’ve tried a few times myself: genderbending a few chapters. Write her as male and see if anything changes. Do his reactions come across differently? Does he feel things in a different way? Do you as author feel differently about him? Can you translate this back to the original Kayla?

Women are really just people, but our culture treats them as Other. Writing them as people (i.e. male) can sometimes shake the assumptions loose. It may be worth a try, at least to see if Kayla is coming across as intended.

Best of luck with this ms.! It has lots of potential.

–Judith Tarr

Editors Choice Review November 2017, Horror

Published on by Jaime Moyer

The Editors’ Choices are chosen from the submissions from the previous month that show the most potential or otherwise earn the admiration of our Resident Editors. Submissions in four categories — science fiction chapters, fantasy chapters, horror, and short stories — receive a detailed review, meant to be educational for others as well as the author.This month’s reviews are written by Resident Editors Leah Bobet, Jeanne Cavelos, and Judith Tarr. The last four months of Editors’ Choices and their editorial reviews are archived on the workshop.

There’s Someone In The House by Johann Thorsson

The opening chapter of There’s Someone in the House shows a major reversal, starting out with a husband, Michael Stillwater, eagerly arriving home from a business trip to see his wife, and ending with–I think–the husband, possessed by some entity–killing his wife. The smooth flow and building suspense keep me reading to the end of the chapter.

The chapter also has some nice writing that draws me in. The ends of the first two paragraphs–“It bored him” and “A bit of an enigma, called in for specialized jobs”–provide intriguing hints that Michael is not the standard protagonist. Once he gets home, some of the descriptions help to evoke fear. I particularly like “Her voice was a rush of leaves,” which I can actually hear, and the paragraph in which Michael hears a soft hello, “Deceptively quiet and menacing, heard like you ‘hear’ the words someone mouths from across a crowded room.” That is very evocative.

So the chapter has a lot going for it. I found after reading it, though, that I didn’t have any urge to continue. Pulling readers through and leaving them satisfied can work well for a short story. But a novel chapter, especially a first chapter, needs to leave readers eager to turn the page. I think there are several elements in the chapter that could be revised to help make that happen. Of course, it’s difficult to know exactly what to suggest without knowing where the novel is headed, but I’ll try to cover various possibilities.

One reason I don’t feel a strong need to continue reading is that I’m not attached to Michael, and I’m not terribly upset about his wife’s death. If I really cared about Michael or I really cared about Ellen and couldn’t walk away without a better understanding of her death, then I’d want to keep reading. But I barely know either of them. The first two paragraphs tell me some interesting things about Michael’s work life, but they don’t show Michael. It’s exposition, what is often called “driving to the story,” or in other cases “walking to the story,” “flying to the story,” or “riding to the story.” This means that the story starts with the character on the way to a place, and that place is where the true story will begin. As he travels, the character thinks about his life, filling the reader in on various facts. This is generally not a strong way to open a story or chapter. These paragraphs do get me interested in Michael’s work, but they don’t allow me to get attached to Michael, because I don’t see him in action. And once he arrives home, all of that information seems irrelevant. He becomes what seems to me a much more standard protagonist. He doesn’t act in any way that seems connected to his life as a contract lawyer to the stars. If his profession is going to be important later in the novel–and I suspect it is because it’s included here–then the novel could open with a scene of Michael doing his job, creating suspense over this false celebrity meltdown or some other issue, and making us care about Michael (either in a positive or negative way) by seeing how he operates in this milieu. This could help set up some plot elements that will become important in later chapters and create suspense that will make us want to keep reading after Chapter 1. It can also make us care more about Michael, so when he’s possessed, we’ll be upset. Ellen could even call several times during the meeting, but Michael can’t take the calls, so there can be conflict between the two parts of Michael’s life. Or maybe it appears that Ellen is calling, but when he checks the voicemail, he hears only a weird whisper he can’t understand, and when he calls her back, she says she never called. (And once he gets home, he can be getting calls regarding his job while he’s searching for the intruder. Job’s like Michael’s generally don’t limit themselves to work hours and can easily be all-consuming.)

For me, starting a horror novel with a character being killed feels quite familiar and gives me the sense that the author doesn’t have faith in his ability to get my attention without killing someone. But the writing in this chapter indicates to me that the author could definitely pull me into a novel with a scene in which no one dies. So why not establish Michael and get readers attached to him, and show his relationship with Ellen, so we can care about her too.

Another reason I don’t finish the chapter eager to turn the page is that the plot feels self-contained. It provides the reversal I mentioned above, and then ends with Michael discovering what has happened. I’m thinking that Michael is going to be arrested for his wife’s murder and go to jail for life. That doesn’t leave me a lot of reason to keep reading. I’m not terribly curious about who possessed Michael–I’m imagining it’s some dead, disgruntled celebrity client. But I don’t really care. I’ve read lots of possession stories, so for me, that’s the least interesting aspect of the chapter. I was more interested when there was a mysterious shadowy presence in the house that whispered to them. But if the chapter ended in an unexpected way that shed new light on either the characters or the possession plot, I could be excited to continue. If I had some intriguing suspicion, such that his wife made this happen so she could get revenge on Michael for cheating on her, I would want to keep reading to see if my theory was accurate. Or if Michael had an unusual reaction to events, such as he buried his wife in the backyard, or jumped in the car and headed out of the country, or called an enemy over to the house to frame him for the murder, or the experience gave him an idea how to solve the celebrity problem he was working on earlier, I would be eager to turn the page to follow his character and see how that played out. Or if there was some clue or strange element discovered at the end, such as his wife’s body parts were arranged to spell out a message, or some old (and lost) item of Michael’s was left beside the body, then I would want to keep reading to learn what that meant.

Thinking about plot on a larger scale, if Michael is the protagonist of the novel, the end of the chapter feels like the end of Act 1. I feel that he’ll change his goal in the next chapter (which will start a new act) to figuring out who possessed him and getting revenge on that person. But Act 1 (in a three-act novel) usually involves the first 25% or so of a novel, so things are feeling a bit out of balance. The novel feels like it’s rushing through important Act 1 elements. Having Act 1 build suspense through about a quarter of the way through the novel allows the crisis that ends Act 1 to have more power. The other possibility I see is that Michael is not the protagonist and this chapter is playing the role of a prologue–establishing an evil that will go after the protagonist. I don’t think that’s where this is going, but if it is, that’s an overused structure in horror that I wouldn’t recommend. I think it would still be better to develop Michael over several scenes/chapters so we care more when he’s faced with a possible intruder, possession, and murder.

I enjoyed many elements in this chapter. I hope my comments are helpful.

–Jeanne Cavelos, editor, writer, director of Odyssey

Editor’s Choice Review October 2017, Science Fiction

Published on by Jaime Moyer

The Editors’ Choices are chosen from the submissions from the previous month that show the most potential or otherwise earn the admiration of our Resident Editors. Submissions in four categories — science fiction chapters, fantasy chapters, horror, and short stories — receive a detailed review, meant to be educational for others as well as the author.This month’s reviews are written by Resident Editors Leah Bobet, Jeanne Cavelos, and Judith Tarr. The last four months of Editors’ Choices and their editorial reviews are archived on the workshop.

The Totem by Kevin Zarem

This novel tackles a classic theme: the average guy who finds himself in seriously not-average situations. He doesn’t transform into a cockroach or (in the first chapter at least) zap off into a distant space empire, but his shifts in reality are if anything more disconcerting because they’re so small.

Stephan is very average. He’s of average age, in an average American town (Norman Rockwell version), living an average life. The precipitating event of the novel is one many readers can easily relate to: the death of a beloved pet (a dog of a popular breed, the Golden Retriever). The shift—via knock on the head (a classic that goes all the way back to A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court)—becomes immediately evident when the dog’s fate changes from death to allergies.

Stephan’s world is lovingly constructed and meticulously described. His interactions are hyper-realistic, recording the throat-clearing and the filler dialogue as well as the bits of speech that move the story forward. When the shift comes, it’s quiet; understated. There’s no big blowup and no huge shift in the universe. Things have changed, but Stephan has to take inventory in order to reckon the extent of the change.

A concept this apparently simple is in fact very difficult. The closer a writer comes to the lived experience of his readers, the more exacting they are about the accuracy of the details. The narrative has to be spot on on multiple fronts: plot, pacing, characterization, dialogue, tone and emotion, as well as the setting and construction of the world.

It’s particularly important to regulate the emotional temperature of the chapter. By that I mean the choice of elements that go into the narrative, and the way in which they’re developed, as well as the level of feeling and the sense of payoff. How high are the stakes, and are they too much, too little, or just right?

In a novel like this, the key is deliberately low, and the effects are intentionally subtle. That asks a lot of the writer, because the prose has to be on point. The death of the dog needs just the right amount of pathos, just the right level of grief and loss—and no more, if no less. The characters’ reactions should be just right, and the world they live in has to walk a fine line between deliberate artifice and unintentional caricature.

I would suggest trimming the descriptions and reducing the number of times information is repeated, for clarity and to help the story move forward more smoothly. I would also recommend minimizing the amount of filler in the dialogue—greetings, small talk, people telling each other what they’re doing or about to do. I think you want the sense of a very well blocked out story with highly realistic elements, but I would prune it just a hair.

At the same time I would recommend toning down the emotions. Not so far that they disappear, but aim for a more subtle and nuanced sense of what Stephan and the people around him are feeling. Ask yourself if you’re laying things on a bit thick—particularly in the sequences about the dog. Are they going on too long? Do facts and images repeat themselves? Are the characters overstating the extent of the tragedy? Would it be more effective if it were less strongly stated?

The answer could be no, the story wants to be just a little over the top. But how far over should it go? The rule I like to follow is the one we used to apply in college: doing the bare minimum of work required to get the grades we wanted.

Take for example the reference to Norman Rockwell. It’s clear, but is it too clear? Does it lean too hard on the white-American-Fifties-mythic-normal of the town? Or is that exactly what you want to convey, with its ambiguities as well as its apparent simplicity?

These are the questions to ask throughout, in each scene, and with each character and action or reaction. You’ve set yourself the challenge of telling a fantastical story within the context of the purely American-normal and the consensually real. That makes it even more important to keep track of how you’re creating your effects.

Getting the emotional temperature exactly right takes practice, especially in a narrative with a high degree of difficulty. But it’s worth it, both for the lessons it teaches in craft, and the quality of the result. Or to put it more plainly, better writing, better storytelling, happier readers. Good things all around.

Best of luck, and happy revising!

–Judith Tarr

Editor’s Choice Review October 2017, Horror

Published on by Jaime Moyer

The Editors’ Choices are chosen from the submissions from the previous month that show the most potential or otherwise earn the admiration of our Resident Editors. Submissions in four categories — science fiction chapters, fantasy chapters, horror, and short stories — receive a detailed review, meant to be educational for others as well as the author.This month’s reviews are written by Resident Editors Leah Bobet, Jeanne Cavelos, and Judith Tarr. The last four months of Editors’ Choices and their editorial reviews are archived on the workshop.

Spoons by Robert Tarrant

“Spoons” has a fresh, delightful premise. A ladle gathers spoons from around the world for their ascension, and they attack a few humans who know too much. The story has some great absurdist humor, as when the spoons start spelling out messages to the humans. Their messages made me laugh out loud. The story also provides some vivid and entertaining descriptions of the spoons in action. I enjoyed reading the story quite a bit, but I do think it could be made stronger.

For me, the story seems to be caught between two possibilities rather than fully realizing either one. Stories with prominent, original ideas (like spoons attacking) generally work best in one of two ways. One possibility is to simply focus the story on showing the idea and ending the story. That way, you highlight the story’s main strength. To move “Spoons” in this direction, the plot needs to be simplified. Instead of moving between two settings, it could take place in just one. Instead of having three characters, the story could have just two, or even one. Instead of six scenes, it could have one to three. For example, in a three-scene version, the first scene could show Avery, the main character, at home, trying to eat ice cream and being attacked by the spoon. He might trap the spoon. The second scene could show Avery discovering a bunch of spoons coming out of his drawers to free the imprisoned spoon, and they have a bigger battle. Avery could defeat them and think his problems are over. Then the huge flood of spoons arrive with the ladle. They tell him he knows too much and must be destroyed, and then they kill him, or he flees and gives up his house to them. This structure would focus on showing us the unusual, fun idea. Such stories are often pretty short. A flash piece or something up to 1800 words or so could work well.

The other possibility is to make the story about more than the idea. There are a number of ways to do this, but one common way involves developing the characters more and making readers really care about them. The current characters work to show the idea, but they don’t really make me believe in them or care. That would be fine if the story were shorter and more idea focused, but as it is, I find the story appealing to emotions I don’t have, as when we learn that Martha has been tormented by the spoons (and we should feel compassion for her) and when Harold is killed (and we should feel upset about that). Those moments fall flat for me, and I find myself wishing the story was more like possibility 1, showing me the cool spoon idea and then ending. But if I had gotten to know Harold better, if I had understood why he and his wife suffer this tragic lack of communication, then I could care about them. While I know some facts about Avery, I don’t feel I know him. He seems to become a rather standard protagonist once the action begins. This type of story would require two plot threads: one with Avery struggling toward some goal and one with Avery fighting the spoons. The first plot thread would allow us to get to know Avery more and to get to know any other characters. We would also need more connective elements to further develop the story, such as theme, symbolism, and resonance (all elements of subtext). To develop these, it may be helpful to ask some questions. For example, what makes Avery the best protagonist for this story? What does fighting spoons mean to him? How is his reaction to the spoons going to be more interesting than any other possible character’s reaction? Perhaps we would cut Avery from the story and make Harold the protagonist, so we can narrow our cast to two characters, Harold and his wife. He’s a bitter skeptic whose wife is falling into dementia. The woman he truly loved married someone else, so he married his second choice, Martha. She can’t help him at the hotel anymore and spends all day buying expensive items on the Internet that she doesn’t even remember buying. These meaningless purchases are sending them into bankruptcy. Harold has to search the house every night when he comes home for new items that have been delivered and return them. In this context, Harold’s discovery of a new set of spoons and a big expensive ladle carries more emotional weight. These items–and especially the spoons, the most expensive purchase Martha has made–embody his unhappy relationship. The spoons work both on the surface level of story as an expensive purchase for him to return. And they work on the level of subtext as a symbol of everything that is weighing him down and destroying his life. Then when the spoons come to life and attack him, the event is more emotional and more tied to his character. He must return them (the way he might wish to return his wife), but they won’t let him. The spoons might kill Harold and triumph, which would make the story a tragedy, with Harold overcome by this meaningless chaos of his wife’s purchases. Or perhaps Harold is about to be killed when Martha helps him, destroying the ladle, so they both survive–and Harold is stuck back where he began. Or Martha could help the spoons, and Harold could take the ladle and kill her, ending up a servant of the spoons.

Anyway, that’s just an example of how this second possibility might work. There are many ways to develop the story in that direction.

Either possibility could generate a compelling story. Moving it closer to the first possibility would allow your idea to shine out all the stronger; moving it closer to the second possibility could deepen readers’ engagement and emotions.

But the story has many strengths as it is; I don’t think I’ll soon forget it. I hope my comments are helpful.

–Jeanne Cavelos, editor, writer, director of Odyssey

Editor’s Choice Review October 2017, Fantasy

Published on by Jaime Moyer

The Editors’ Choices are chosen from the submissions from the previous month that show the most potential or otherwise earn the admiration of our Resident Editors. Submissions in four categories — science fiction chapters, fantasy chapters, horror, and short stories — receive a detailed review, meant to be educational for others as well as the author.This month’s reviews are written by Resident Editors Leah Bobet, Jeanne Cavelos, and Judith Tarr. The last four months of Editors’ Choices and their editorial reviews are archived on the workshop.

Beneath The Canyons Chapter 1 by Kyra Halland

It takes a lot of guts to put up an already published series for critique. I salute this author, and applaud the decision. Respect; admiration.

“Six guns and sorcery,” as a subset of Weird West, is one of my favorite genres. I chose this chapter because the author’s note asked good, concise questions, and because what happens in Chapter 1 plays a major role in the reader’s reaction to the rest. If the opening does its job, she’ll keep reading. If not, she’ll move on to the next book in the pile.

That doesn’t mean the story has to start with a literal bang, or that the action has to be breakneck in order to keep the reader reading. The first chapter’s job is to lure the reader in and give her enough information to avoid confusion, but not so much that she can’t process it all. It’s always a balancing act—but because this is the reader’s first encounter with the story and the characters, it has to work a little bit harder to get the job done.

This opening is distinctly exposition-forward. There’s a lot of worldbuilding visible, a lot of backstory, a lot of description and scene-setting. It’s interesting stuff, and it’s clear the author has done her homework.

The down side is that each time the narrative stops for exposition, the story stops as well. There are large quantities of information to process before we’re invested in the plot or the characters. We get a bit of action, stop, have things explained to us, move on a little bit, stop again, get another explanation, and so on.

The pace picks up midway through, as Silas enters the town and observes the interactions of its inhabitants. Eventually he interacts with them himself, and then the story starts to pick up speed.

By that point however, the reader’s impression of Silas is that he’s rather remote and disengaged from the world around him. We know what he sees, and we know what he knows, in considerable detail, but he takes a while to participate in the events he’s recording. He’s an observer but not, initially, a protagonist, i.e., the character who moves the story forward.

What I would suggest, to tighten up the opening and position Silas more in the foreground of the action, would be to apply Turtledove’s Law. For every five hundred details, pick the two or three that best encapsulate the scene. Leave the rest to implication. Pare down the exposition, keep the narrative moving, show just enough background and setting to ground the reader in time and space.

This will ground Silas as well. With less exposition and backstory, his role becomes clearer: we have time to see what he’s doing there, how he’s using his magic and why, and what he has to do to keep from getting in trouble for it. This gives us a sense of his personality, who he is and what drives him. We still catch hints of where he comes from and get a good glimpse of his surroundings, but not so much that we lose track of the story that’s being told right here and now.

It can be really hard to let go of our lovely worldbuilding, but it’s all still there, and the astute reader will pick them up from context. Some of them may emerge later, as they’re relevant. If they don’t, it’s likely the story doesn’t need them. It’s got everything it needs to keep the reader informed, and to keep her turning pages.

–Judith Tarr

Editor’s Choice Reviews October 2017, Short Story

Published on by Jaime Moyer

The Editors’ Choices are chosen from the submissions from the previous month that show the most potential or otherwise earn the admiration of our Resident Editors. Submissions in four categories — science fiction chapters, fantasy chapters, horror, and short stories — receive a detailed review, meant to be educational for others as well as the author.This month’s reviews are written by Resident Editors Leah Bobet, Jeanne Cavelos, and Judith Tarr. The last four months of Editors’ Choices and their editorial reviews are archived on the workshop.

The Advantage Is Decadent And Depraved by Bobby Harrell

I had fun with “The Advantage is Decadent and Depraved”: it’s stuffed full of personality, quickly builds the kind of universe that spills off the page, and puts forward a sharp critique of planetary SF institutions that feels organic without ever stopping the sense of adventure. It does, however, not always keep its pacing steady, and so this month I’d like to talk about ways to efficiently pack that information in without slowing the pace of an adventure story down.

“The Advantage is Decadent and Depraved” leads with some great sensory metaphors—”Old air scrubber fluid, weeks-old body odor and that frying bacon smell of cramped humans floating in a beer can” gives readers an immediate sense of the tongue-in-cheek voice of “The Advantage is Decadent and Depraved”, shows us the core of Eileen through her own personal metaphor set, and tells us what kind of wonder space travel is in this universe: in a word, it’s not. This is a space future built on work and parts that break down, a messed-up pragmatic space future, and a character who’s easily as broken-down, pragmatic, and messed-up. That’s a lot of work and scene-setting to pack into a few tidy lines, and on top of that, they’re fun.

The worldbuilding, overall, in “The Advantage is Decadent and Depraved” really works for me. There’s a great balance being struck between getting in all the technical and biological details that give a science fictional future verisimilitude and not letting them stall out, drown, or overshadow the narrative. The amount of detail about this world that Eileen works in while moving the plot forward gives it a real texture: a future that’s not just unevenly distributed, but actively innovating, quietly diverse, and on the move.

Those details do great work at also being thematic: phrases like “that industrial glue smell people mistake for new” are great little tells for what’s really up with the Advantage, and where this story is going to go. And the little spotlight on Lantham’s bourbon as he tells Eileen that her drug use makes her untrustworthy is a funny, sarcastic, and really effective tell.

The one exception is the section marked by a note regarding a better backstory, or less of one. I’d agree that less is more; the information dump in that section stands out as clumsier than the rest of the work in the piece, and I’m not sure laying recent history out in its entirety sends the story forward. There are good insights in that section, but they’re drowned in the exposition.

There’s more of a mixed gift in Eileen’s narrative voice. While it’s a real core strength, I wonder if there’s some advantage to be gained here by trimming it back somewhat. She lays on the Hunter S. Thompson/Spider Jerusalem gonzo journalist schtick rather thick, both in narrative voice and her dialogue, and as workshop alumnus Rae Carson says, if everything goes up to eleven, eleven is really five. It’s contrasts—in voice, in style, in intensity—that stand out to readers in prose, and I’d suggest trying out a draft that builds in some contrasting levels in Eileen’s voice. Trim out some of the fourth-wall-breaking direct address and some of the jokes that don’t quite land (I’d mention the horn one specifically), and build in some quiet parts, some more transparent narrative, and watch the quirks, character, sardonic asides, and keen observation stand out that much more in comparison.

I’d also suggest some light trims on the sentence level. There are places—notably when Eileen’s going to and attending the meet-and-greet, getting drugs from the doctor in the med bay, explaining the Simulation Chamber, and the hallucination—where she’s functionally saying the same things twice or explaining unnecessarily to the readers, but not in ways that build out character, voice, or atmosphere. There’s a palpable drag in those sequences, and the same level of implication that “The Advantage is Decadent and Depraved” uses when talking about worldbuilding and technical specs will work when talking about people and relationships, too.

That drag echoes on the more structural level of “The Advantage is Decadent and Depraved”: there’s potential for much stronger pacing in the middle of the piece. While the first few scenes of the piece are strong, directed, and goal-oriented, once Eileen goes on her personal tour of the Advantage, the pacing becomes episodic; each discovery or encounter doesn’t quite lead logically or string together with the next to build anything bigger. While the fakeout with the doctor leads somewhere, the interaction with Delta, the Simulation Room, and Eileen’s time with the jet never quite pay off in any fashion, and they’re all basically cancelled, in terms of consequences, by the pirates. Lantham mentions them, but it’s obvious he was going to have it out for Eileen anyway; they’re not quite carrying their weight in the overall piece.

Ultimately, they’re distractions from what Eileen’s suit and Rabbit were already doing—and while it’s easy to believe that this was part of her plan all along, to play a trick on Lantham and the Fleet, it’s a little harder to believe because the readers don’t get enough subtextual clues to that plan to see it click together in hindsight. Playing a trick on characters fits perfectly with her personality, but when the trick’s also on the readers, by omission or otherwise, it feels less organic and less satisfying. I’d suggest building in a trail for Eileen’s plan: one that’s slight and constant enough that it connects when she announces it, and builds reader satisfaction, instead of chipping away at it.

With the exception of a somewhat light landing on the ending—that much story deserves a little more weight in the last beat—”The Advantage is Decadent and Depraved” is doing some fabulous work for an early draft. I’d love to see what it accomplishes after revisions, and best of luck with the piece!

Leah Bobet–author of Above (2012) and An Inheritance of Ashes (2015)