Editor’s Choice

Editors’ Choice Award July 2023, 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 Moon Talker by Martin Grace

The concept of this novel is both classic and thoroughly timely. Science fiction since its beginning has been telling stories of a ruined Earth and a last desperate diaspora. The fact that we’re at a tipping point on climate—if we haven’t already gone over the cliff—makes it all the more relevant.

I really like the title. It’s intriguing and evocative. It invites the reader to speculate as to what it means, and how the story will unfold.

I have a couple of observations about the chapter as it’s written. The first is structural. There’s a lot of action here, a lot of story-movement, and the final paragraphs blow everything up spectacularly.

And yet, much of the chapter consists of Harper’s ruminations on the past, descriptions of the other characters, exposition about how they all got to this point. She’s woolgathering while the world collapses—and in fact she’s called out on it.

That calling-out is what I call “Author Id speaking.” That’s the author recognizing that the narrative isn’t quite doing what it needs to do. Instead of focusing on the immediate action, it’s stepped outside and is wandering around the edges.

One thing that might help is rethinking Harper’s character. Not so much who she is or what her role is on the ship, but how she appears in the story. If she’s more directly involved in the action, if she’s concentrating on what’s happening in the here and now, there’s still potential for filling in the background, but it stays in the background rather than taking over the narrative. Action first, backstory second—and if the backstory can be directly related to what’s happening, so much the better.

Think about what we absolutely need to know right here, right now. What the mission is. Why it’s happening. What the stakes are—especially the fact that the planet is about to fall apart. Keep Harper focused on her job and the jobs of the people around her, as they impinge on hers.

A major part of this is the emotional aspect. There’s quite a bit of powerful emotion here, but the draft tends to back away from it. The prose for the most part is flat, expository; it’s full of passive constructions. We’re told about feelings but we don’t quite get below the surface, where the feelings actually live.

More active prose, more sense of what’s going on in Harper’s mind and body, will help. Think through how she feels; what she feels and why. Get into her head. How would you feel if you had been through what she’s been through?

Even if she’s dissociating so she can do her job—that’s one way to deal. Make it clear that’s what she’s doing. Show how she balances grief and fear, desperation, and the need to be calm, strong, efficient. How tightly does she need to hold on? How many layers of feeling can she be coping with, while the top layer focuses on the mission?

Hard SF, which is what this seems to gravitate toward, doesn’t devote a lot of time to feelings, but I think going deeper into Harper’s emotions will make the story stronger. It might be worthwhile too to think about her voice, the way in which she tells her story. The style and cadence of the draft has an old-fashioned feel, somewhere between Golden Age science fiction and an almost Steampunk sensibility, with a hefty dose of techno-speak.

Does the style fit the character? Would it work better if she were a different age or gender? Could she be older? Younger? Male? Nonbinary? What qualifies her, specifically, to be the narrator of this story? In short—why this character, and why this narrative style? Is it just the right one? Or could it be different? What is the best way to tell the story, and who is the best person to tell it?

Best of luck, and happy revising!

— Judith Tarr

Editors Choice Award July 2023, 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.

Eloi, Eloi, Chapter 1 by James Cooper

This chapter is a pretty definite early draft. The prose loses control of itself here and there, and sometimes I had to stop and go, “Huh?” while I tried to parse the meaning of a phrase. But that’s fixable in revision, with a good line edit and some careful copyediting.

At the same time, there are some stunning bits of imagery. Those show me where the revision can go, and what potential it has. The idea of Satan’s poetry, and a world filled with it. The moonlight moving as if it’s sentient—as if it has volition. The angels’ movement, more math than magic. The way the dream fades, like some great symphony falling into silence.

Structurally I think the chapter could use a little rethinking. The individual memories are poignant, and they’re important to Jacob’s life and character. But the way they’re set up is a bit slow, with the rhythm of exposition rather than active narration. It takes a while to get to the event that actually begins the story, the encounter with Death followed by what appears to be Jacob’s first dream.

Two things stand out to me in the narrative: Satan’s poetry and I do not dream. Is there a way to lead with the latter as well as the former? Is there some connection between them—whether it’s real or in Jacob’s head?

Perhaps a less linear timeline would help with the story’s movement. Start in the church, bring in memories of his mother’s funeral and the life experiences that brought him back here. Could he have seen Death at the funeral, too, or thought he did? Might he feel as if time is slipping off its straight track, and he’s caught in between memory and reality? And that’s what he’s been told dream logic is like?

There’s also the fact that according to science, dreams are essential. If we can’t get that level of sleep, we might as well not be sleeping at all. Actual lack of dreaming (as opposed to just not remembering dreams) can have serious mental health consequences.

Which I’m sure you know, and probably will address later in the story, but it might be relevant here. He may wonder about his own sanity, and interpret the dream as a hallucination brought on by longterm sleep deprivation. Or, and again this may be addressed later, there’s something going on with his immortal soul; it has something to do with Satan. His non-dreaming is a sign that he’s not the otherwise normal guy he thinks he is.

In short, I think the Satan’s poetry theme could be made a little clearer, while the narrative itself uses the church and the Mass as a frame for Jacob’s backstory. Let us dive straight into the present day, with quick flashbacks to fill us in. That will help with the pacing at the beginning, but also give us the information we need to understand where Jacob is coming from.

There’s lots of good story-potential here, and some powerful ideas and images. I’m looking forward to seeing how it evolves from draft to final.

— Judith Tarr

Editor’s Choice Award July 2023, 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.

The Light Reveals by J. Rokusson

The second volume of a series is always a challenge, especially at the beginning. On the one hand, readers of the first volume will know who everybody is; they’ll welcome some reminders about what happened in the previous volume, especially if it’s been a while since they read it, but they won’t need a whole lot of summing-up. On the other hand, new readers will want some clarification as to characters and backstory, an on-ramp as it were, to ground them in the world and story, and set them up for what’s coming next.

The author’s note says the “intended reader” is the former—it’s expected that anyone who reads this novel has read volume one. I’m going to be just a little bit blunt and say that’s kind of a copout. It’s the writer’s job, and challenge, to make the opening clear enough and welcoming enough for the new reader as well as the established one.

Yes, we want to be as elegant and economical as possible. We don’t want to front-load the opening with summary and backstory. We do want to establish where we’re coming from, and open the door into the next installment of the saga.

This chapter does a pretty good job of getting the cold reader into the world and the story. Its solo character comes into the aftermath of the last volume’s denouement. There’s a mystery to solve and an investigation to be made. The summing-up of prior events is concise but fairly clear. It’s not hard to figure out what happened, and there are indications that we’ll find out more as we read further.

One thing I would suggest is a shift in how the speeches to the columns are presented. Part of it is that the prose will need a close line edit in the final stages of revision—words don’t always mean what they want to mean, and the figurative language gets tangled up in itself here and there. What if, rather than stressing how Settunonai is talking to stone columns, we actually go deeper into his head, and see them as real people? Let him slip away from reality into a more definite and committed hallucination.

He might even slip back and forth, now seeing the pitted stone, now seeing a living face. That way, we’ll get a clearer sense of the nature and extent of his madness, but we’ll also get the bits of worldbuilding and backstory that we need at this point in the saga.

Another thing I’d have liked to know, as a cold reader, is that Settunonai has wings. That came as a bit of a surprise. Could we see that earlier, along with a general sense of what he looks like? It doesn’t need to be a full-on Standard Reflection In Mirror Scene™, but as he moves and climbs and speaks, we could pick up a detail or two or three about his physical presence, wings included. If it’s done well, readers of volume one will get a quick reminder of who and what he is, and new readers will get a quick visual to take with them into the rest of the story.

It’s all about the details. Picking just the right ones, in just the right amount. That way, every reader will get what they need to know, as they need to know it, and the story will move along nicely and come through clearly.

— Judith Tarr

Editor’s Choice Award July 5, 2023, 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.

Save It For A Rainy Day by Jim McDougall Version 2 (formerly an Endless Rain)

“Save it For a Rainy Day” caught my attention this month with the way it’s braiding workplace life into an incipient, less-than-defined disaster. However, it’s a journey that doesn’t quite yet have a destination, so this month, I’d like to talk about making sure our pacing and visuals fit the stories we’re telling—and how to diagnose which story we’re telling.

“Save it For a Rainy Day” takes a not-always-usual approach to a science fiction story in its choice of protagonist: Ryley’s somewhat tedious, lonely supply management job—one that makes me feel the ghost of Amazon warehouses—is interrupted by the slow, persistent leak. It’s got callbacks to Alien, except with characters almost more bored with their shiftwork, and it’s a great perspective to tell this story from. I appreciate that Cyro isn’t exactly dedicated to his job and has a particular tone for deescalating bad behaviour, and that all three don’t exactly like each other, but have well-worn ways of working together. The dynamics between them bring texture and personality to this artificial world.

Likewise, that ever-present leaking adds structure to “Save it For a Rainy Day”: as the tension ramps up, more and more water moves into the space of the story. It’s a subtle but powerful effect, and well done.

I think there’s room for some improvements in the next draft, and first and foremost, I’d suggest tightening and cutting this piece so it’s terse, clean, and polished. There’s a lot of hedging in the dialogue—notably in the lunchroom scene and the trek down to the tubeway—that doesn’t entirely get the story forward, and since “Save it For a Rainy Day” has characters racing against those leaks, it’s a good fit to keep the story moving: it makes the pacing tell the same story as the ideas are, instead of pulling against those ideas.

On the plot level, some cuts would streamline the action of the story. Ryley has his mother’s Pathfinder, and that’s their second way into the tunnels, but since Torgas dies before their expedition launches, it’s not strictly necessary: they could have somehow fished out his and used it. Likewise, Ryley’s passing out and wondering if he’s died—and Cyro’s amnesia—don’t seem to change their actions or situation in the slightest. I’d like to suggest that they either do add something we can’t find elsewhere in the piece, or that you consider cutting them out to keep the momentum going.

I think there’s also work you can do with that pacing to show who takes the crisis seriously: if Torgas’s dialogue is more meandering, less tight than the others’, that can speak to his outlook and character.

Likewise, I’d love to see work on the visual description in “Save it For a Rainy Day”. There are some great visual moments here: the dissolved textures on the lunchroom photo, the dying expression on Torgas’s face. But since Sphere is a contained, somewhat sterile environment—and the parts of it Ryley accesses aren’t the most exciting—I’d love to get some sensory detail and worldbuilding into the short passages where he’s outside, and some visual sense of its few characters. I think there’s a chance to do some worldbuilding when he crosses Median Street to his apartment, and give readers a sense of what the rest of this habitat is like—especially because you’ve already introduced a live question about whether Sphere is artificial or just Earth. Giving us a little information about what Sphere is like helps readers feed that question and make it meaningful. Likewise, giving us a bit of visual sense of Torgas and Cyro will help readers understand something of their personalities, and what pressures they work under.

Ultimately, I think all of these thoughts hinge on a question about what readers should take away from “Save it For a Rainy Day”. Ryley finds out that Sphere is a submarine, and he’s the only one of the work crew left. And then—what does he do with that information, or how do you want readers to feel about that reveal? The secret’s revealed inside the story, but how do you want that information to touch the readers, who live outside it?

I think the answer to that question will define where “Save it For a Rainy Day” should go next. Thinking about readers and what you want them to take away from a piece can help shape the conversation you’re having: on pacing, on characterization, on visuals, and on every other piece of craft.

Thanks for the read, and best of luck!

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

Editor’s Choice Award June 2023, 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.

Time Is Unkind by Bobby Harrell

I definitely get the fun part of this story. It’s fast, action-packed, and the plot is full of twists and turns. The characters have a distinct tendency toward the weird. And the last couple of lines are lovely.

The prose could use a close line edit and some thinking through of the characters’ feelings. In this draft, in spite of the rapid plotting and the high-stakes action, the emotional affect is rather flat.

Part of that has to do with the sentence structure. Lots of clauses strung together by and or as. Lots of words ending in –ing, sentences that start strong but dribble off into participial clauses. A tendency toward passive verbs, lots of was-constructions.

The overall action follows a similar pattern. Thing happens, thing happens, thing happens. Elements of the plot hum along in the same rhythm and at the same frequency, line after line. Where they might pause, where we might look for a dip, however brief, into the character’s feelings, they move on instead, to the next thing-that-happens.

The stakes objectively can be quite high, but the prose flattens them out. We need more highs and more lows; more friction as the plot moves forward. It doesn’t need a lot of extra wordage, just a little more development, a touch more rounding out of actions and their consequences. Open up the action just a bit and let the characters take a moment to process.

One thing that contributes to this—and I say it as a devout believer in the doctrine of There Is Nothing Wrong With “Said”—is the use of said in framing dialogue. It’s particularly notable when a character is asking a question. The neutral word there would be asked. Or the character might do something, offer some action or expression or form of stage business, in place of said. Something that varies the rhythm and changes the tone of the narrative.

The prose in general has a habit of echoing itself. Once a word or phrase occurs, it shows up again within a few phrases or sentences, usually two or three times, and sometimes more. The word hand is a particular favorite. Paring down the echoes and tightening the phrasing will open up space for more variety in rhythm and tone, as well as more depth in character and motivation. Then each word will earn its keep, and the story and its characters will be that much stronger.

The story itself is strong and the characters have plenty of potential. They just need a good coat of polish. Best of luck, and happy revising!

— Judith Tarr

Editors Choice Award June 2023, 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.

Hold The Anchovies Part 1 by Ethan Sabatella

This submission seems to be aiming for a parody of Lovecraftian horror. The pizza-delivery guy ending up at the wrong address, just in time to save the damsel in distress, has potential. The clash between ancient, eldritch monsters and modern, mundane humanity hits a sweet spot for humor: it’s literally a fish out of water story.

Both humor and horror rely heavily on the power of the prose. Voice and style need to be spot on. The author has to be completely in control of their craft.

The choice of a pizza delivery guy as a protagonist sets up certain expectations in the reader. He’s a minimum-wage worker in a low-end job. The stereotype would be a late adolescent or early twentysomething, not well educated, not a lot of ambition, just trying to scrape through. That can work if done well, and it leaves plenty of scope for stoner humor. Look at, for example, the pizza guy in Stranger Things. He’s brilliant in his way.

Angel could go in that direction, but his narration needs some work. His voice, the way in which he tells the story, has a tendency toward standard prose style. He talks like a book.

This can work if it comes across as intentional, if we get the sense that he’s trying to tell his story as if it were set in the early twentieth century, when prose narrators wrote in long sentences and used lots of multisyllabic words. Think about what kind of person in 2023 would refer to a house as an abode. Maybe he’s a budding horror writer working to make ends meet. Maybe he’s a grad student studying Lovecraft, making a point of imitating the master. Maybe he’s a gamer, or a librarian moonlighting for extra cash, or a high-school student with high-goth ambitions. Something that supports the style of the story, that counters our expectations of the way a pizza-delivery guy would talk. If he’s self-aware, if he knows what he’s doing and makes a point of it, that sharpens the parody.

If the story does want to be told in this style, I have some suggestions that might make the prose more effective.

First, note how many participles there are, how many words end in -ing. These verb forms work best in small doses. When they become a habit, they drag the prose down. The action moves more slowly and the emotional affect flattens. This is especially true when they open a sentence. They become a substitute for crisp, forceful action. They wibble and dribble instead of thrusting us straight into what’s happening.

They can lead the writer into a trap, too, when they start to dangle, as here:

Feeling for the knob, my heart pounded even harder once my fingers curled around the cold, smooth brass.

The way the sentence is written, it’s his heart that’s feeling for the knob. Try turning the sentence around, dividing up the actions, and going for active constructions. Short, sharp, punchy. He feels for the knob. His heart pounds. His fingers curl around the cold metal.

A similar thing happens with the use of “as” and “and” to connect pairs or groups of actions. Here’s an example of both close together:

Another roar split through the house and we piled into the car; I took the driver’s seat, the woman took shotgun as I shifted into drive.

When clauses are strung together with weak or neutral conjunctions, they flatten each other out. The action here is rapid, the tension high, but the roar and the piling are set up with what amounts to an equal sign. Big powerful terrifying sound fizzles to the emotional level of two people jumping into a car. Break up the clauses, make each a sentence, and that keeps the roar at full volume (though I’m not sure what “split through” wants to mean—does the house break in half?) and moves the action forward with the characters making their getaway.

The rest of the sentence is less unbalanced, but there’s Angel and the woman taking their places, then dribbling off into the action of the gearshift. Break that one up, too. The shift into drive becomes the rapid, furious action it needs to be, and off we go on the chase through the city.

Punching up the prose will help quite a bit with the overall emotional temperature of the story. More tension, more suspense; more escalating fear and eldritch horror. More contrast between the monstrous and the mundane, the creature from the darkest depths and the pizza guy who just happens to be in the wrong place at the right time.

Clarifying who Angel is should make him a more memorable character, and maybe more humorous as well. Hallie might come across as more badass, less a damsel in distress than a woman who just happened to get caught in a situation she couldn’t get of. Their dialogue could be snappier, their exchanges sharper; they might strike sparks off each other, in the way of the old screwball comedies. Even if they end up playing it straight, a little more friction, a little more contrast between their personalities and their views of the world, would give the story a bit more oomph, and make the horror just a little more horrible.

One last note: a particular attempt at humor might not work as well as it would have in a different era. Fat jokes have done the way of ethnic jokes. Angel’s boss is a nightmare and so is his restaurant, but I don’t think his BMI needs to be a factor.

Best of luck with the story!

— Judith Tarr

Editor’s Choice Award June 2023, 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.

 

Vilhelm – Monastery Child Part 1 by Michael Ko

I like the concept of this submission. Animals with human-level intelligence and apparently opposable thumbs have appeared in fantasy and science fiction before, but this version does a nice job of depicting them on their own terms. They’re not patronized or infantilized, and they retain key aspects of their original species.

I am curious as to how and why they have human Christian names with a German flavor; this may be explained later. There’s an air of the fairy tale about it, a hint of the Grimm Brothers. It will be interesting to see how that develops through the longer narrative.

The prose has somewhat of the same effect, partly through constructions that seem not to originate in English—notably the insertion of now and then in a manner almost like Greek particles, in contexts that don’t, in standard English usage, really require them. There are long run-on phrases as well, such as

The fragrance of the oiled muttons coated in buttery garlic seasoned with salt and pepper had become so strong that I grasped at the air as though reaching for rolls preparing to stuff the meat into the bread.

The plural of “mutton” is “mutton,” though that may be a typo (but meats appears later in a similar context). I’m not sure oiled means what it wants to mean here. Did the cooks oil the meat and then baste it in butter and garlic? Or did they sear it in oil and then add the other ingredients? My mouth is watering at the thought, but I’m not sure I get what’s going on.

The rest of the sentence would be hard to read aloud—the reader has to take a couple of breaths to get through it. Breaking it up into a couple of sentences will help the prose, and the reader, breathe more efficiently.

Or here:

Do you take for granted the roof over your head, the meals you eat, and the time we took to take care of you to insult the founder of your very home?

The meaning is a little hard to parse here. The insult seems to belong to another sentence. As with the previous example, dividing the sentence in two would help make its meaning clearer.

The imagery throughout is vivid, with lots of sensory detail. Once the prose is polished and the meaning clarified, both the characters and the story will come through even more strongly.

In the meantime, I have a couple of more general suggestions. First, although there are bits of stage business around the blocks of dialogue, the interchanges mostly seem to hang in space. A little more framing, a line here and a line there of tone, expression, body language, how the speaker feels, would help to anchor the conversations more firmly in the story.

Second, first-person narrative is tricky. It’s amazing how it seems to be the most intimate and direct form, but it can actually separate the reader from the direct experience of the story. The narrator’s “I,” rather than becoming the reader’s point of view, sets them apart from it.

One way this can happen is through the rhetorical question. It’s common in third-person narration for the viewpoint character to present thoughts and reflections as “What do I do? Is this true? Am I making the right decision?” This is called an internal monologue. If it goes on for a while, it may be called “murbling”—circling around and around a series of thoughts and ideas without moving the story forward.

Vilhelm murbles a fair amount in the opening of the chapter. He reflects, he remembers, he asks rhetorical questions. It takes a while for the chapter to get going. The question I would ask is, Does he need to ask himself questions? Is there a way to convey the concepts more directly and actively? Could we move in closer to how he feels, live in his body, experiencing his emotions, rather than skimming the surface of his thoughts?

That doesn’t mean all the exposition and the reflections have to go. Not at all. He is a reflective person; he talks to himself quite a bit. That’s part of who he is. But the chapter might move more quickly, especially at the beginning, with some paring and pruning of the internal monologue.

Overall this is a good start, with some good things going on. I like the characters so far, and the setting is nicely established. Best of luck with the rest of the novel, and happy revising!

— Judith Tarr

 

Editor’s Choice Award May 2023, 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.

The Shade Behind My Head Chapter 1 by Shlomik Silbiger

This chapter hits hard. I think I would label it horror or (very) dark fantasy. It checks a lot of those boxes. Dystopian setting, physical and emotional violence, tormented characters, dark themes. It’s unlikely we’ll get a happy ending. The question rather is how much damage Ven will take, and how much she’ll do, before the end.

When it’s time for revision, I’d recommend a close line edit, paying particular attention to the meanings of words and the construction of phrases. Keep an eye on the verb tenses, too, especially the past perfect. Horror or dark fantasy relies on the choice of words, the style, the tone, as much as on the structure and movement of the plot.

The chapter makes a good start in that direction, pending the line edit. The setting comes through clearly, with vivid visuals and strong sensory details. Bathmaster Ballan is appropriately horrible. She seems to relish her job, and she has a distinct edge of sadism. Dr. Ashenford is subtler, but that works, too: she’s more educated, with smoother manners. She comes across as just as cruel underneath, and even more powerful in Ven’s universe.

By the time Lily manifests, we’re ready for things to get really dark. It seems she’s been sabotaging Ven’s attempts to escape, and she’s about to do it again. But because we’re at the start of the story, I’m expecting something different to happen this time. Something will change—probably something even worse than what’s happened to Ven so far.

I notice that all the characters onstage are female. It’s a little subversive—so often in fiction, males tend to outnumber females; if there’s a female main character, she may be the only one. Just out of curiosity, will the rest of the story also feature a female cast? Will this be a world of women, carrying out a fundamentally cruel patriarchal agenda, in which Ven’s only viable options are to be a wife or a prostitute?

It’s good that I’m asking these questions. It means the chapter is doing its job. It’s making me wonder what comes next. I want to know more about Lily. I want to find out whether Ven makes it to the board, and if so, whether she can suppress Lily long enough to get out. Of if she can’t, what happens after that.

That’s what an introductory chapter needs to do. There’s plenty of time later to polish the prose. For now, just keep going. Let us see where it takes us.

— Judith Tarr

Editor’s Choice Award May 2023, 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.

Freets, Part 3 of Chapter 1 by Tracey V. Brown

Description can serve many purposes, but three of the most important are to convey significant sensory details so readers can experience what’s happening; to reflect the point of view character (what that character notices, cares about, and how the character thinks about the world); and to create an atmosphere, an emotional tone, that enhances the story.  I’m very intrigued by the opening of this novel, with Lennie wanting to publicize her bookshop by faking a Blair Witch-type story, and I’m excited by my expectation that some real horror will occur.  The characters, with their agenda of creating something phony, seem like they could add a fresh perspective on the situation, and the setting, an isolated village inaccessible by car, seems very promising.

This section has a fair amount of description, and I think it could do more to build interest and make the excerpt more rewarding.  I think most of the description is currently focused on the first purpose I listed—to convey significant sensory details so readers can experience what’s happening.  I don’t get much of a sense of the description reflecting the POV character or creating an atmosphere that enhances the story.  It may be that I’m missing some things since I haven’t read part 2 of Chapter 1; I’m just reacting to what’s in this section.  For example, the main description of the isolated town is this:  “a few Victorian cottages meandered in grey or off-white stonework.”  I get an image from this, but I don’t feel Lennie’s character.  One thing that should usually affect the viewpoint character’s description of things is her goal.  If she wants to create a Blair Witch-type story set in this place, is she disappointed that the village is so ordinary?  Is she thinking how, at night, with some shaky cam, those houses could look scary?  How does the village compare to her expectations?  I think they’ve come a long way; does it live up to what she expected?  Is it different from what she expected?  Was she hoping for some dead trees, a church with a big cross, a strange statue in the town square, or a pub with a lot of dead animal heads on the wall?  Establishing her expectations and then contrasting those with the reality would bring more emotion into the scene, whether it’s disappointment, excitement, uncertainty, or whatever.  It would also allow us to feel her struggling to achieve her goal.  If the place seems mundane and disappointing, how is she thinking about spooking it up?  Does she want to use a fish-eye lens on the tea room employees?  I’m not sure why she isn’t talking to them about being in her movie, getting them to sign waivers.  The descriptions of the tea room, the people in it, and their actions seem pretty much divorced from her goal.  She thinks about her “vagabonding days,” which don’t seem related to her goal, and about “corny Westerns.”  She’s self-conscious about her disheveled state and remembers her father’s disapproval.  She thinks about her boyfriend looking smart and the woman’s “handsome” face.  These things seem disconnected to me, not conveying a focused impression of Lennie and what’s important to her at this moment.  The main conclusion I draw from these is that Lennie is preoccupied with appearance.

I also don’t feel much atmosphere arising from the description.  The cottages “meandering” feels relaxed to me.  The tea room gives me mixed impressions. At first it seems dilapidated.  The lampshade seems fancy.  The people in the tea room seem strange, yet not in any specific, focused way.  There’s the patchwork dress girl, the handsome woman and a man, and the woman in a wheelchair.  They seem unwelcoming at first, but that sense fades.  Lennie doesn’t seem concerned about their desire for her to leave; she settles down and doesn’t seem to be planning to leave soon.  If they persisted in being unwelcoming, for example standing over them while they drank their water, and Lennie reacted to that by feeling uncomfortable, or angry, or determined, that could create a stronger atmosphere.  Or if they were all incessantly chipper, or all felt threatening, or gave some common impression that worked with the physical setting, those details could all generate a strong atmosphere.  They might even all seem normal, along with the tea room, which could be frustrating to Lennie, who is hoping for something that will work in her movie.

Because this section has a lot of description, and the description doesn’t seem to be doing all it might, it feels like the story is focused on setting up elements that will later become significant (that Bill is going to return [from the dead?], that Martin was afraid), but is not conveying enough of significance now.  That makes me feel like this section is a placeholder, and you haven’t quite figured out all you can do here.  Novel scenes often have this problem; placeholder scenes—in which you know you need something there, but you’re not quite sure what you need–can be good to look for and deal with in revision, once you’ve reached the end and have a better sense of the big picture.

Similarly, I think the description of the video footage could more strongly reflect Lennie’s point of view and create an atmosphere.

The excerpt leaves me interested in why the tea room people are reacting to Nadine in this way, what Martin saw, whether Bill is going to return from the dead—and, of course, what happened to the vanished schoolmaster.  All that makes me want to keep reading.  I hope my comments are helpful.  Wishing you success with the novel!

Jeanne Cavelos, editor, author, director of The Odyssey Writing Workshops Charitable Trust

Editor’s Choice Award May 2023, 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.

Unfathomable Descent, Chapter One, Going Home by Elizabeth King

There are interesting things going on in this submission. I like the juxtaposition of the sterile environment of the base and the rich greenery of Adna’s home planet. It comes right up at the beginning and sets the tone for the rest of the chapter, and presumably the larger work.

I have a couple of questions about the structure of the chapter. While it’s clear that Adna has made the decision to go home rather than stay in the C.D., it’s less clear why she’s made that choice, or why it’s so difficult. It might help to have a line or so of clarification at the beginning, establishing who and what she is, and what she’s going back to. There could be a little more about her feelings for Kerry, the stress she’s feeling, how she’s had to choose between her duty to her planet and her love for her friend.

Some of that comes through later in the chapter, but I think it would be more effective if it appears earlier. Let us see right at the start what the dream means and why Adna is dreaming it. Layer in her feelings for Kerry. Weave the two concepts together, and show how they’ve come into conflict. Then when we actually meet her friend, we’ll have a better sense of what it means that Adna is leaving.

I’d like a better sense of the timeline, too. We’re told they’ve been together for years, but what we get up front and most clearly is that they’ve been at the base for less than a year. I don’t quite get the feeling of the larger canvas; it’s more focused on the shorter term.

Since this is a final or near-final draft, I would suggest a close line edit and polish. There’s a fair amount of repetitive phrasing that might be pruned and tightened: solid-state screen, for example, or her best friend.

In the latter case, maybe we can get a glimpse of their closeness, see how their friendship works. What is a best friend, in Adna’s world? How important is it as a concept? What makes Kerry her best friend, out of all the people she’s come into contact with? And how does the best friend rank in her world, compared to family? Is it a concept her world knows, or is it something she learned after she left it?

If we know right up front how conflicted Adna is, and why she has to make the choice she does, it’s less essential to label Kerry best friend. We’ll know from context that she’s the most important person here—and that it is not easy at all for Adna to leave her. Then we’ll feel Kerry’s shock and betrayal more acutely, and understand it better.

I don’t think any of this needs blocks of exposition. It’s more a matter of choosing the right words and phrases. Give us a line or a phrase that conveys the concept and helps to build the world.

Some exposition might be saved for later, too, or left to implication: such as Oso’s accent and origins. Is it an essential detail? Do we need to know it at that particular point? Is it directly relevant to what’s happening?

Overall I think it’s a good start. We’ve got the basic conflict. The setting comes through for me, especially by contrast with Adna’s dream. It just needs some pruning  and polish, and some clarification especially at the beginning.

Best of luck, and happy revising!

–Judith Tarr