The Healixir Trans-Galactic Lounge by Michelle Tang

The “man walks into a bar” setup deepens in grim, gorgeous, necessary ways when an escalating genocidal standoff back home forces diasporic Vi’hun care workers into a set of hard choices—and eventually a hard-won freedom. “The Healixir Trans-Galactic Lounge” caught my eye this month by ably and guttingly creating a universe steeped in sacrifice and care and tackling the questions of who deserves to receive them, who’s forced to provide them, what it means to choose, solidarity, and self-worth. This month, I’d like to talk about how we balance the technicals of story to talk about urgent, painful, impactful material in ways that are both honest and effective as narrative.

The brilliance of “The Healixir Trans-Galactic Lounge” is how much history, current conflict, and systemic struggle is folded into its universe in a way that honours those experiences, but stays deeply accessible to readers who are outside them—while completely functioning as a science fantasy story.

It’s quite clear what this piece is pointing at in its rich universe stuffed with service industry jobs: medical care that’s dressed up like a bar, hostessing, massage therapists, the choice between freedom and a family, other people’s borrowed words and body language, and a workplace that’s constantly configuring to look like someone else’s paradise, never Minta’s. Farmer Zonne’s exploitative biological controls, endless wars, and repeatedly reanimated soldiers carry shades of WWII Japanese comfort women and colonialist regimes in a way that’s recognizable enough to not need explanation—so I can just feel their impact as a reader.

However, “The Healixir Trans-Galactic Lounge” packs those questions into its fundamental worldbuilding without ever sabotaging its own ability to be a cohesive, internally consistent, affecting fictional world. The point where a lot of stories handling the question of harm can crack a little is when real-world facts and motives overwhelm the fabric of the story itself; there’s unfortunately a significant balancing act required, craft-wise, when we draw on serious—and live—topics like the dynamics of oppression and hope. Succeeding at that balance—where a piece works as a fictional story and works as an expression on real-world dynamics—is a difficult and huge achievement.

There are two major choices the author has made here that let “The Healixir Trans-Galactic Lounge” shine this way: first, by making all the pressures and choices Minta and her co-workers face absolutely structural—but pressures its characters consider. Bits of worldbuilding like the Vi’hun’s precarious position as healers whose vital work can’t ostensibly be turned on each other and care work exhaustion built into the yellow flash on Jaela’s skin cover the simple analogies structurally, and then there’s the question of what Minta does about them. They’re part of the fabric of Minta’s world (showing, not telling) but Minta consistently thinks about them, considers how they impact her choices now and later, discusses them with Jaela—telling, not showing. There’s a balance of techniques here, and they’re working together to develop the situation in a way that’s organic and complete.

The second choice is simpler technically but much more profound: the way the story itself isn’t using Minta as a tool to make a point. It centres, instead, her complex wants, pains, and desires as she moves through a situation and shows readers her own—and Jaela and Katia’s—agency, impacts, and desires. By letting its characters be complicated and whole, “The Healixir Trans-Galactic Lounge” fights back structurally against flattening and objectification—and makes its point in the resonance between how it’s chosen to tell the story and what the story’s about: “How many of us had died trying to save people who had used us as tools?”

As this is a middle draft, I’ve got (appropriately!) mostly small suggestions for how to strengthen the piece; the structural work’s definitely already done.

There are some little points of technical friction that could be addressed. I’d suggest attention to some early exposition—I think there’s probably a more subtle or organic way to unfold the starting rules of how Vi’hun healing works than Blippo the regular—and a little more ease into the transition between Minta’s decision to resist and the aftermath of Katia’s attempt on the farm, which as it stands feels somewhat abrupt. The emotional tone changes very rapidly, and as a reader I felt a bit of whiplash.

I’d also suggest that, given how the symbolism of “The Healixir Trans-Galactic Lounge” works, there could be a little more thought around how the Sun Yams needing iron-based blood to germinate works on the symbolic level. It’s the least accessible idea in the piece for me: what does it say that the Vi’hun, who are healers, can only eat via others’ pain, conflict, and suffering? There’s something potentially complex in there that could perhaps use another beat.

Finally, my biggest suggestion would be to consider a new title for this piece—and it’s purely a question of being deliberate on the question of genre telegraphing. Titles are the first space where we, as writers, have the ability to help guide readers’ expectations about what to look for in our stories. Before they even read the first sentences, we’re telling our readers which parts of what they’re about to read are important, should be focused on, should be remembered.

The title as it stands evokes a certain space of the genre (for me, and I’d recommend that the author absolutely get second opinions on this, too): a subgenre of 1970s and 1980s space opera that’s light, a little goofy, and more concerned with adventure than depth. I’d suggest putting some thought into which aspect of this piece is the most important—what the author wants readers considering as important when they come into the read—and what kind of title could work to get them on the right track. In short: which title really shows who this story is.

But: “The Healixir Trans-Galactic Lounge” is a thoroughly beautiful piece: handling complex griefs and hopes that have no easy answers with an emotional honesty and sheer guts that shine through every line. With a few technical revisions and some polish, I’m fully confident it’ll have no trouble finding an audience and a home.

Thanks for the read, and best of luck!

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

Maggie And The Weretrees, Prologue and Chapter 1 by Elizabeth Underwood

I love the title of this submission. It has a sprightliness to it that I find appealing, and the idea of weretrees is intriguing. Most shapeshifter novels give us animal forms. Humans who shift into trees is an unusual variation.

This opening chapter sketches enough of the story to give me a sense of what it’s about and how it will develop. The structure of the world comes through: the existence of supernatural creatures and, of course, shifters, who apparently live in the human community without needing to hide what they are. There are still limits to human belief, but the different species for the most part knowingly coexist.

As for the chapter itself, first let me emphasize that there is no wrong way to write an early draft. Every author’s process is different. However the words get on the page, what matters is that they do.

Revision is where the author’s individual process adapts itself to the wider world. At this stage, for this particular chapter, I have a few suggestions.

The author’s note mentions visuals and descriptions. I would have liked the physical description and some of the background of Nikhila at the beginning of the chapter rather than the end. Who she is, where she comes from, that she’s quite young and small for a dragon, that her wings have been damaged and that her office is has room enough to fly—all these things could be sketched in a few lines soon after we meet her. That would let us see as well as hear her, and help us understand what Maggie and Oliver are seeing and hearing as they interact with her.

In this draft, there’s quite a bit of what I call “floating heads:” dialogue with little or no framing, just the words spoken. A little more stage business, more action and reaction, tone, expression, would fill out the conversations and give us, again, a clearer sense of who the characters are and what their personalities are like. How do their voices sound? What are characteristic gestures and expressions?

There’s a tendency to break up the speeches with chunks of exposition and backstory. These interpolations are useful to the author in the draft, as notes and synopsis, but the reader gets bumped out of the story, and often out of the conversation. We then have to go back and reread in order to follow the discussion.

Nikhila’s history, Maggie’s background, the details of the world and the characters, are interesting in themselves, but some questions to ask each time are:

Is this directly relevant to what’s happening right here and now?

Does it move the story forward, or does the story stop for the explanation or the exposition?

Is there a smoother or more seamless way to convey the information here?

Should it show up earlier, or can it be filled in later in the narrative?

In short: Where is the most effective place for these details to appear?

Once Oliver has met with Nikhila and Maggie, the action slows down. Maggie loses focus and purpose, and so as a result does the story. The narrative turns to synopsis and backstory, rather than to characters moving the story forward, interacting with each other in new and informative ways, and showing us more of who they are.

When Maggie calls the artifacts dealers, give us one or two examples that sum up the rest. Let us see and hear the interactions. She might fiddle with the tarot cards during one of these conversations, then after she’s hung up, draw the Death card. That would tighten and focus the scene and concentrate on the most relevant details: the lack of information, the significant card.

I would save the details about Eion for the scene in which Maggie goes to see him. Let their relationship and its background emerge there, as she and Eion interact. All we need to know in this chapter is that she and Eion have history, and that’s one of the reasons why Nikhila delegates the job to her.

Likewise, Nikhila’s history and her relationship with the Cast looks as if it will play a part in the larger story, but is it relevant here? Do we need it at that point in order to understand what is going on? Or can we wait for a later chapter, and keep our focus on Maggie and the weretrees?

As for the question of viewpoint, I don’t think we need Oliver’s point of view in this chapter. We get it in the prologue, which is where, as the author’s note observes, he’s the one suffering the pain. In the first chapter of the narrative proper, framing and grounding the dialogue will give us a clearer picture of how Oliver feels, without needing to shift viewpoint. We’ll see and hear it as Maggie does, bolstered by what we know of what happened that night in the grove. Maggie may not pick up everything that’s going on, but we will, because we’ve spent that time in Oliver’s head.

–Judith Tarr

A Fresh Start by Bryan Andrews

Doll Parts by Andrea Horlick

While voice is always an important component of fiction, it becomes more prominent and more important when a story is told in first person point of view.  First person often creates the feeling that the narrator is speaking to us, telling us her story.  The voice of that narrator needs to feel distinctive, consistent, and authentic for the story to have power.  One of the strongest aspects of “Doll Parts” is the narrative voice.  The educated but informal diction, ironic tone, and conversational syntax work well to create the illusion that a person is speaking to us and to give us a sense of the first-person narrator’s personality.

The story also provides us with an interesting mystery that the narrator, an employee in a hospital’s Epilepsy Monitoring Unit, and her friend Drew try to solve:  who is staging doll murders, and is that person a danger to others?  The first and third scenes have nice scene endings, creating anticipation that propels me into the next scene.

I think the plot is the weakest element of the story, so I’ll spend most of this critique talking about that, and just mention a few other areas at the end.

The plot, for me, doesn’t provide strong escalation or a sense of intensifying conflict or rising stakes.  The opening situation, with the doll, is unusual and compelling.  But the doll murders that follow feel less unusual and less threatening.  The fact that the other employees don’t really seem to care reduces the stakes.  If they were upset, suspected this was a joke of Drew and the narrator’s, and reported them to HR or the administration, that could endanger their jobs and raise the stakes.  As is, the narrator and Drew only talk about the doll murders among themselves; they aren’t really doing anything that matters.  That makes it seem unmotivated when the doll “killer” starts to threaten them.  Why would he?  If the narrator and Drew were suspected of creating the doll tableaus and in danger of losing their jobs, and this led them to desperately investigate, perhaps breaking into the lockers of their colleagues or planting their own hidden cameras in various locations and capturing activity, then the “killer” would have more motivation to threaten them and perhaps to kill them.

Because I don’t really believe the doll killer would threaten them, and I don’t believe he’d hurt them, I don’t feel any strong emotion when the narrator discovers the dolls in the refrigerator.  Blood must be in plentiful supply in a hospital, so the fact that there’s blood in the refrigerator doesn’t make me think the killer has hurt anyone, and blood, in itself, doesn’t bother me.  So at that point my reactions to the story diverge strongly from the narrator’s.  Instead of feeling panic and fear as she does, I’m just mildly curious about who the doll killer is.  That means the ending of the story doesn’t work for me, because I don’t believe the doll killer would kill Drew (and the joke about blondes is the kind of metafictional horror joke that was done in the movie Scream and feels kind of old and out of place here, in a story that seems to be trying to be more than a joke story).

The plot is also not providing an effective mystery.  The only characters in the story are the narrator, Drew, and Brady, so as I work to solve the mystery, those are the only suspects I have.  When I learn that only the narrator and Drew ever see the doll murders, I form the theory that Drew is the killer, since it can’t be the narrator and Brady is barely mentioned.  It seems odd to me that the narrator never suspects Drew, and this is another way in which I emotionally separate from the narrator.  The narrator’s attempts to solve the mystery never seem serious.  She doesn’t seem to struggle very much, doesn’t seem very resourceful, and easily gives up.

When the mystery doesn’t seem to be progressing and the conflict doesn’t intensify, I start to think something else must be going on.  In the scene where the narrator looks in the minifridge, I form the theory that Drew is a figment of the narrator’s imagination.   They are increasingly referred to as “we” and seem to have only one pager, so I think you’re providing me clues that this is the case (and that Drew is the doll killer).

My suggestion would be to create a stronger rising threat to the narrator, to provide more motivation to the doll killer to be threatening, and to provide several suspects, so we can work along with the narrator to try to discover the guilty party.  Perhaps the narrator starts to create alternate tableaus with the dolls that upset the doll killer.  For example, when the first doll has her head cut off, perhaps the narrator attaches the head of a plush cat in its place.  If Barbie and Ken are slaughtered, perhaps the narrator rearranges them in a sexual situation.  This could show the narrator not taking the situation seriously at first and could reflect her ironic attitude.  This might motivate the doll killer to make his tableaus more personally threatening to the narrator.  For example, leaving one in her locker and another in her desk, and using dolls of the type she perhaps had as a child or action figures that reflect movies she has seen recently.  Bringing Brady more into the story, so he can be a suspect, would be good.  Also, having the narrator begin to suspect Drew would make this stronger.  That would allow more conflict between them.  Right now, Drew isn’t doing much besides offering the narrator someone to talk to and being a victim at the end.  Their disagreement about whether to go to the authorities or not fizzles because the narrator goes along with Drew.  There might also be a family member of a patient who is angry at how the patient was treated.

When making decisions about any plot revisions, it would be helpful to think about the dominant theme of the story.   What is the meaning behind the story?  I don’t think it’s the last sentence of the story.  I don’t think the story has a dominant theme yet, because all the elements aren’t working together to convey one.  Is it that not taking threats seriously can lead to disaster?  Is it that you need to reach out for help when you have the chance?  Is it that you don’t really know those you’re closest to?

The plot can also be strengthened by making sure each scene shows a change in a value of significance to the narrator.  For example, if the narrator cares about keeping her job, and in a scene she goes from having job security to losing job security, that would be a change to a value of significance to her.  Scenes 2, 4, and 6 currently don’t have a change to a value of significance, which means the situation is basically the same at the end of the scene as it was at the beginning, and the scene isn’t yet earning its place in the story.  Scene 4 end with “That Batman had to have been hung by an adult, an employee. And you really can’t pass that off as just excess creativity.”  This is the type of scene known as a “sequel,” in which the character reacts to what happened in the previous scene.  That’s fine, but the reaction should lead to some change.  In this case, the reaction is leading to a realization–that the doll killer is an adult–but it doesn’t create any clear change in a value of significance.  If the narrator came to some decision as a result of this realization, such as that she can narrow down the perpetrator more and discover who he is, then that would be a change in a value of significance.  She would go from not having a plan to uncover the doll killer to having a plan.

I’ll briefly mention two other areas.  I’d love to feel I’m delving more deeply into the characters of the narrator and Drew as the story continues.  Right now, my sense of them remains pretty superficial, and pretty much the same, throughout the story.  Also, some sentences are missing necessary commas, which causes me to misread them, which is distracting.

The narrative voice is a great strength of the story, though, and keeps me engaged and reading until the end.  I hope my comments are helpful.

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

The Horn, The Boat Of Heaven by Andrea Horlick

“The Horn, The Boat of Heaven” caught my attention this month with its playful, casual voice and its outsider’s view—one step removed—on a more standard genre story. It’s a fresh, fun way to tackle a staple plotline and make it much more human and lived-in. However, the ending falls into an abrupt punchline, and didn’t leave me feeling satisfied. So this month, I’d like to dive deeper into the idea of setup and payoff, or what the punchline ending does—and what we can do with it.

New angles on staple stories are always fun, and “The Horn, The Boat of Heaven” deepens that concept by making its protagonists people who SFF frequently treats as side characters: set dressing, not that smart, not important. The opening paragraphs—Joe’s quick refutation of being underestimated because of his job and Cyn’s casual rattling off of “pareidolia”—demonstrates fast that they’re whole, they’re paying attention, and they matter.

It’s also apparent quickly that Joe and Cyn do love each other, even though they’re radically different people. They share absolutely no hobbies, Cyn’s disinterested in half the things he does, and there’s a surprising lot of tiptoeing and nudging each other into different reactions—of managing each other like wartime allies—but what keeps me from recoiling from the dynamic they’re living is the little clues in the other direction. The details Cyn notices about Joe speak a lot about long familiarity; the ways they both persistently take care of each other or make room for each other’s reactions and needs make their relationship credible to me as a reader. They’re both paying great attention to each other’s happiness in a way that’s oddly tender and makes me think yes, this woman would take that risk to keep her relationship working.

Those details also say a lot about both Cyn and Joe without saying it: that he restlessly picks up and drops hobby after hobby, that they have year-old leftovers in the fridge, that they drink too much, that they’re both stuck. Cyn’s pragmatism about little things (just eating the toast) keeps her from reading entirely as cynical—just someone with a really powerful bullshit detector. Those pieces of characterization and context are inserted very neatly into a plot that steadily moves forward without getting stuck, which makes the author’s concerns about length and pacing valid, I think, but less of a worry than they could be. Every scene’s progressing reasonably toward the conclusion, and I don’t feel as a reader that there are places “The Horn, The Boat of Heaven” stalls. That complex, unselfconscious characterization is this story’s central strength, and makes what is a fairly simple, directional plot feel immersive and relevant.

Where I run into trouble as a reader with “The Horn, The Boat of Heaven” is in the very last lines, as Cyn takes on the aspect of Inanna anyways—just a little late. The author’s notes ask if the story telegraphs its ending effectively, and while in retrospect the line back through events is pretty clear—I’d say it’s a working to set up that she’s actually transforming—it still reads as the kind of ending that falls into a punchline or a stereotypical Twilight Zone twist. For me, it doesn’t quite satisfy what’s been built up before it: the story deflates from a light but complex look at two people grappling with the supernatural into a gotcha or a joke.

As writers we’re generally advised to avoid punchline endings, but what I’d love to focus on is why: what the last lines are achieving or not achieving; why this ending goes or doesn’t with the story that came before it and how we can possibly reconcile the gaps between them.

A story is, on a certain level, an emotional transaction we have with readers: people come into it hoping to learn something, experience something, or most of all feel something. The action of an ending is very tightly tied to that question of what readers are in a story for, and what we’ve told them is most likely coming in how we’ve posed the question, set it up, and structured the story.

When stripped down to the basics, a punchline/surprise ending can be thought of as the author saying to readers: You thought it was this thing, but it isn’t. It’s fundamentally a destabilizing emotion, where the appeal is in going back to find the clues we missed—and “The Horn, the Boat of Heaven” is good at providing those clues!—but the trouble is, I think, in the fact that genre-wise, structure-wise, this piece hasn’t signaled to readers that it’s supposed to be a puzzle or mystery and that clues are something readers should look for.

Consider: If a story starts with a dead body in a locked room, readers know how to interact with that and what approach to bring to reading it—look for clues and details. But “The Horn, The Boat of Heaven” starts with a mystery that’s downplayed as even being a mystery, focusing instead on the relationship between two complicated and really absorbing characters—so readers, having been told by that spotlight to think about the relationship, will be looking for a conclusion that’s about that relationship, that lives in the characterization.

I think in order to make the story and ending work with each other, the primary task will be figuring out exactly what “The Horn, The Boat of Heaven” actually wants to say for itself. What does it want to leave readers with? What emotion does it want to generate, and how is it setting up that reaction? Is it intended to be a puzzle to solve (in which case, clues that this is a mystery earlier will help readers get on the right track) or a more heartfelt relationship piece (in which case, what’s a more satisfying resolution that works in that space?)

Overall, I think once this piece is considered in terms of cause and effect, what’s being asked and answered, what’s being promised and delivered, it’ll click wonderfully. It’s cleanly written, just fun and just serious enough, and overall very kind—and almost ready to go.

Best of luck!

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