First of all, a standard disclaimer:

There is no wrong way to write a draft, especially a first draft. However the words need to get from your mind to the page, that’s how they have to do it. The time to worry about everything else comes later in the process.

When you’re concentrating on getting the words down, pretty much anything goes. There’s no pressing need to worry about what exactly those words are until it’s time for the final polish. At that point however, it pays to understand your own process, whether you draft in quick sketches and fill in later, or put in all the things and then pare and prune until the outlines of the story are perfectly clear.

Here I think there’s a tendency toward the latter process, but also a desire to be totally clear on the level of words and sentences, to spell out in detail exactly what’s going on and why. As I read, I got a sense that the author wants very much for me to understand what each word and sentence means. There’s a bit of playfulness, too, and an occasional fillip of metaphor or lovingly crafted simile.

The chapter has a nice straightforward story line. Even without reading the earlier chapters or the summary the author has provided, I can mostly tell who’s who. I don’t wonder about what’s happening at any given point, and at the end I can see where the plot is going.

That same impulse toward clarity extends to the prose. Words and actions and concepts are modified and modified again with additional details. For example:

• Catey nodded in reply…
• Gianna only nodded gloomily in reply.
• Catey dictated a reply to her that wetted the house mistress’s eyes as she wrote it onto a parchment with an ink quill.
• Everyone was puzzled but they didn’t argue with the inspector, and followed Mistress Gianna as she led them to a room upstairs.

While it’s a laudable thing to try for minimal ambiguity in one’s prose, past a certain point the prose risks becoming redundant. The same general ideas repeat, sometimes in multiple forms, as if the author doesn’t quite trust the reader to get what she’s trying to say.

In the first two examples, Catey and Giana are responding affirmatively to comments made by other characters. We don’t need to be told in so many words that they’re responding (or replying—this word is an author favorite). Just the nod is enough. It tells the reader all she needs to know.

In the third example, we have an interesting combination of too much and not quite enough. “Dictated” implies that Catey is speaking and Gianna is writing the words down. The detail of the parchment establishes a bit of worldbuilding—we’re in a society that uses cured animal skin rather than paper, and the presence of a quill reinforces the sense of a preindustrial past. But ink seems redundant. I think most fantasy readers would know that when a person writes with a quill, the person is using ink. No need to specify; the author can trust the reader to pick up the implication.

There’s another layer here, too. Is it essential to the plot in this particular instance for the reader to know what writing materials Gianna is using? Does it move the story forward at this exact point? Can we get all the information we need, right here and now, if we’re simply told Gianna is writing what Catey dictates?

At the same time, the rest of the sentence made me stop and squint and try to figure out exactly what the author is trying to do. “Wetted” isn’t quite the word for Gianna’s emotional (and physical) reaction. I feel as if I need a different term, and maybe more than one word, in order to get a proper sense of what’s happening to her.

The final example combines concise writing in the first half and redundancy in the second. What we most need to know is that she leads everybody upstairs. It’s not essential to the story, right at this point, to know into what kind of space she leads them. “She led them upstairs” gets the job done and lets us keep our focus on what’s happening downstairs.

In writing, clarity and focus are not necessarily the same thing. A writer can keep adding details to clarify what she’s talking about, but focused writing zeroes in on a much smaller number of essential details. These are the details that can’t be left out, that the reader must have in order to understand what’s happening. Everything else is gravy–nice to have, enhances the flavor, but a little goes a long way.

Choosing just the right word helps, too. Sometimes we want to shake things up, try a different way of saying what we’re trying to say, enjoy a bit of figurative language. That can work well, but as always, we have to be sure the word really means what we want it to mean. We also have to make sure that when we pause to develop an image, that development serves a purpose. The image has a reason to be there: it advances the story, develops the character, enhances the setting.

It’s all about telling the story in the clearest and strongest and most effective way possible. Vivid and believable characters, well-crafted dialogue, fully realized world and setting, all begin with the choice of words. Both the words we do use, and the ones that, as we prune and polish, we choose to leave out.

I call that “Narrative Economy.” Every word has a role to play, and each one earns its keep.

–Judith Tarr

I like the bones of this. It’s got slam-bang space ­action, gengineered monkeys, and a great last line. It really does echo the Heinlein “juveniles,” in a potentially great way.

Three things jump out at me in this draft. I believe they’re all fixable, though one might need some changes in the worldbuilding.

1. There-Was-Itis

This is the last thing to worry about in revision, when the big-ticket items have been dealt with and it’s time to get down to the sentence level, but it’s the first thing a reader notices. So I’m putting it here. It’s especially important in a short story, where every word has to count.

The prose is full of passive constructions and extra words, especially forms of the verb “to be.” Here’s the first sentence:

The explosion in the ship’s air plant was a dead giveaway that something was seriously wrong.

The story literally opens with a bang, but the sentence is passive, and though it’s short by word count, it feels leisurely and low on tension. We’re missing a viewpoint. Who’s telling the story? How do they know there’s an explosion? Where are they, and what are they experiencing—physically and emotionally?

A shift to active voice and an actual, physical point of view would help the reader get straight into the story and sympathizing with the protagonist from the first word. Likewise, as the story goes on, count the number of “was” constructions, and especially “there was.” Can you replace every one of them with an active construction?

I am by no means allergic to the verb “to be,” and I believe this verb, and the passive voice in general, has a definite place in a well-crafted narrative. But a little goes a long way. Especially in action scenes, the more active the prose itself is, the more effective the action tends to be.

That’s why I’m suggesting a full-on carpet-bombing of “there was” constructions here. Get rid of it all, then see how it reads. You can always put a few back in where it’s most effective, or where the pacing needs a breather.

2. Infodumpage

Science fiction has had a long love affair with exposition. Golden Age SF especially adores its big chunks of worldbuilding, just as cozy mysteries love to gather all the suspects in the library for a final explication of the sleuth’s investigation. This story has a Golden-Age feel, and a high percentage of pauses in the narrative while we learn about this particular world.

The problem is that this is a short story, which means there’s much less available space for background details than there would be in a longer piece. If this were the first chapter of a novel, or even a novella, the chunks of exposition would have more room to expand, but at this length, they crowd out other key elements of story: characterization, physical and emotional setting, action and plot movement.

I would suggest pulling out all the expository chunks and choosing from each the one or two (or at most three) absolutely essential details—details without which the story can’t go forward, or the characterization can’t work, or the setting doesn’t make sense. Be ruthless. As with passive verbs, you can always put a few (a very few) back in if they absolutely can’t be missed.

Then, once you’ve done triage on the details, think about how many of them can transform from exposition into action—from tell into show. I love the monkeys. Can you show them doing their thing, give a detail or two of Carmen interacting with them, bring us in close and let us see how they work and why? You may actually find that the word count drops, even while the story’s effectiveness rises. That’s the key to really strong short fiction: making every word count.

3. The Gender Thing

Big props to this story for going there with a female protagonist. That’s both timely and Heinleinian, and it has great potential for making this story work on both levels.

I do, however, have questions about the draft as written.

In 1957, an all-male spaceforce was default. The idea that a female could play with the boys was quite radical, and the narrative might indeed focus on the girly aspects: hair, makeup, and all like that. And she would very probably sit down and keep quiet and assume a subordinate role, above and beyond actual factors of rank or seniority. Because that’s how women had to roll.

It is, however, 2017. Women have been going into space for several decades now, and the US astronaut program is aiming for gender parity. Military forces worldwide are on that same trajectory—not just in the US.

My question therefore is, if your future has taken women’s roles back to 1957, why? What happened? How did an apparently American-based culture regress to this extent—and what has now happened to change that, so that Carmen is allowed to serve as sole female in an all-male crew?

It’s not so much that you need more infodumps, as that there needs to be an underlying sense of how we get from where we are now to where Carmen is. The reason for that, in terms of the story, is that in a world that strongly dominated by males, a woman cannot simply decide she wants to go into space. The barriers to her doing so will be all but insurmountable, and she will have to fight every step of the way to even get near a ship, let alone be allowed to serve as crew on one.

Research the history of women in NASA (start with Hidden Figures—book and film), but also in the Navy and submarine corps, and the history of women in combat. This will give you some context. It will also give you some insight into Carmen’s state of mind and the state of mind of her fellow crewmen.

Or, you might take another direction and open up the world to greater gender parity, so that the ship has a mixed crew and Carmen’s relatively casual decision to go into space makes sense. Then she’s subordinate because she’s the new kid on board. Not because of her gender.

I suspect the latter may be less complicated in terms of rethinking and revision, because the story right now is about the overall crisis with the pirates and the personal crisis with Carmen and her uncle. If you get into gender politics, you’ll change the story from the bottom up, especially if the pirates have gender parity (or a facsimile thereof) and the space force is Patriarchy Central.

I definitely think this aspect of the story needs some rethinking. It sounds from your comments that Carmen is insisting you tell her story. But which story it is, and how she tells it, is up to you (and, of course, Carmen).

Best of luck to you, Carmen, and the space pirates.

–Judith Tarr

“Burning Season” caught my eye this month with its fascinating linguistic worldbuilding: a city where cultural purge is the norm, which isn’t even sure if it believes its own myths anymore—and one we see through a protagonist who has been a collaborator, and has very little to believe in as well.  It’s a story that’s doing some adept, fascinating work, but also feels like it has yet to fully inhabit its concept. So this month, I’d like to discuss why finding the right size for a story matters, and what it means, on a pure craft level, to commit to the stories we’re telling.

“Burning Season” already stands apart just by nature of its subject matter: sociolinguistic speculative elements are a lot more common in science fiction than in fantasy, and while the idea of an ever-colonized city isn’t a new one in fantasy, focusing a story on the ground-level experience of the people who live there—the writing and rewriting of culture and customs that would mean for them, and how it shapes them—is, just by existing, an excellently interesting piece of trope pushback.

As is casting Saman as a collaborator—one who isn’t faking being casual about their relationship with Kiroga or their attitude to politics.  As well as subverting the idea of the vulnerability-free, passionate hero, Saman’s hesitation and flaws and going along to get along are a highly effective way to make Rashid feel real as a colonized city.  Saman’s own internal colonization resonates well with the constant presence of violence in the streets, and combines with the deft use of a few other details—how Saman and the other characters handle that sense of language, code-switching and cross-communicating across a whole spectrum of social language taboos; the history people don’t actually want to talk about; and the way characters are believeably non-fluent in a language—to bring Rashid off the page and make it feel real.  The small touches of ambiguous futures throughout the piece—Borlena’s perhaps-daughter, where Liral is now—and the drumbeat repetition of I don’t know the story combine with that trope pushback to tell readers this isn’t the usual fare.

Though it’s got my attention with what it’s not, I think “Burning Season” could come out much more strongly on the page with what it is.  The author’s mentioned being unsure if this can work as a short piece or needs to be expanded, and I’d argue there’s an intersection of both needs here—as a short piece, it would be more effective trimmed shorter to make sure it delivers a clear and effective narrative, but in terms of plot, “Burning Season” ends just as the story is getting started.

Either way, I’d suggest trimming the piece down as a first move.  Making sure it has the same amount of words as story helps eliminate the feeling of drag that shows up throughout the piece, and will help make that expand-prose-or-contract-plot decision from much firmer ground.

That tightening to get the gaps and air bubbles out is a lens that can be applied in a few ways; the sentence level is the most obvious.  For example, the very first sentence is a good candidate for a quick tightening.  Consider the difference between the current opening line:

“It started with something foolish, as most things like to be known as tragedies usually do.”

–and a tighter, leaner version:

“It started with something foolish, as most tragedies do.”

What’s been taken out is mostly qualifying, hesitation, and hedging. “Most” and “usually” qualify the same Not All Tragedies idea in the same way; there’s no reason to say the things that might maybe be known as tragedies where one word will do—yes, tragedies, that’s what we’re talking about here.

This isn’t a flinch that’s consistent throughout “Burning Season”; the second paragraph, “It was burning season in Rashid. Again,” is a beautifully authoritative sentence, and sets a huge amount of tone and reader expectation in seven little words.  The description of Slaughterhouse is absolutely evocative.  The single gunshot is left on the page like a stain and its aftermath allowed to bloom in a way that has real impact.  Just as I’d suggest finding those moments that are hesitating, repeating themselves, hedging, and clearing them up, I’d suggest finding the moments of clear, confident, evocative prose and making sure they have the space to shine.

On a more macro level, I’d suggest looking at every interaction and scene and seeing how it’s either building the argument or taking the narrative forward—and trimming if it’s not working to a goal.  For example, I’d suggest shortening the opening interaction with Borlena.  As an establishing shot, the initial paragraphs do the trick quite nicely of telling us what the omniloquists are and do; what the conversation with Borlena seems to underline most, right now, is a roguish, Bogartesque, I-stick-my-neck-out-for-nobody protagonist.  That’s an archetype that’s worn enough around the edges that it’s sticking out harshly against the rather innovative worldbuilding: it feels as if it’s gotten less quality thought than the world itself.

As a side note, there are a few other aspects of “Burning Season” that could perhaps use more evidence on the page of careful thought.  The explanation of the city layout is the most notable example, which—forgive me—reminds me a bit of a game of SimCity (industrial zone right up next to residential zone!), and created some disconnect from the story for this reader: With the wonderful linguistic layering of Rashid telling me this is not what conquest looks like and Saman’s messy history telling me this is not what living through war looks like, having a very basic approach to what city planning looks like grates against the sense of realism that the story’s already established.  Every other aspect of this piece has embraced complexity; when a craft element doesn’t, “Burning Season” falls down for me as a reader.

Which brings me back to the author’s question: To refine as a workable short story, or to expand “Burning Season” into something larger?

Ultimately, I think that decision lies in the answer to a simple question—one that works best when asked after refining a piece into its most effective shape.  What is “Burning Season” meant to get across, and in short story format, is it getting that across as well as it could?

While stories evolve on the page—and that’s a good thing!—we start off a piece with something we want to communicate.  Writing is, always, at its heart, communication.  When considering whether to expand or contract a piece, the most useful way of reframing that question is to ask which toolset—short story, novella, or more—will get that crucial something across to readers in the most effective way.

Ultimately, everything we work with is a tool; what we—and our work—have to say for ourselves is what makes our stories come alive.  So I’d advise asking what “Burning Season” has to say with its complexity and ambiguity—without flinching, without shorthands, being utterly itself—and picking the form that will make it the clearest version of itself.

Best of luck!

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