Uncanny Magazine is now open to short story submissions. They are looking for diverse SFF stories of between 750-6000 words from writers of every possible background. Payment is $.08 per word (including audio rights). You can find full details here.
On The Shelves
Breath of Earth by Beth Cato (Harper Voyager, August 2016)
In an alternate 1906, the United States and Japan have forged a powerful confederation— the Unified Pacific—in an attempt to dominate the world. Their first target is a vulnerable China. In San Francisco, headstrong secretary Ingrid Carmichael is assisting a group of powerful geomancer wardens who have no idea of the depth of her own talent—or that she is the only woman to possess such skills.
When assassins kill the wardens, Ingrid and her mentor are protected by her incredible magic. But the pair is far from safe. Without its full force of guardian geomancers, the city is on the brink of a cataclysmic earthquake that will expose the earth’s power to masterminds determined to control the energy for their own dark ends. The danger escalates when Chinese refugees, preparing to fight the encroaching American and Japanese forces, fracture the uneasy alliance between the Pacific allies, transforming San Francisco into a veritable powder keg. And the slightest tremor will set it off. . . .
August 2016 Editor’s Choice Review, Short Story
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, Amal El-Mohtar, and guest editor Gemma Files. The last four months of Editors’ Choices and their editorial reviews are archived on the workshop.
“Nightingale” by Elizabeth Prosper
“Nightingale” caught my eye this month with its inventive worldbuilding and Eastern European flavour, and the alienness it brings to its take on the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale. However—and as the author’s already identified—I feel it’s running into some issues that are unique to how we retell fairytales, and how we make them fresh and new. This month, I’d like to talk about what knowledge we assume readers have when we write fairytale adaptations, and how we balance old and new to give a retelling maximum impact.
There’s a lot of craft already on display in “Nightingale”: a rich, organic-feeling world, a twist of the weird that doesn’t feel at all forced, and a great cadence to the language. It’s a powerful combination, but one that isn’t quite running smoothly yet: it’s easy for lush to slip into baroque sometimes, and there are a few sentences where each image doesn’t lead naturally to the next. For example:
“The Nightingale has returned to the Supari streets she came from, where schools of iridescent fish dart between grim iron effigies of trees (a state-imposed gift of Rumen Tsor’s father) and tender-footed porcupines clamber from window to window, across hacked-up telephone lines used for hanging washing, with messages in lace pinned to their mottled gray spines.”
In that one sentence readers are exposed to multiple visual ideas, each of which can do solid work to set a sense of place, create a contrast between the world of the Supari and that of Rumen Tsor, and establish a sense of wondrous uncanniness. They’re each ideas that are worth including. However, pressed together into one sentence—and run through so quickly—they muddy pretty quickly in my head, and it’s easy to lose my way, both in the sentence and in the portrait of the world it’s building. A bit of breath between each visual, or pruning them down to focus on the few that are most important, might make each image have more individual—and thus more collective—impact.
I’d suggest taking the same approach to the symbolism in the piece. While the internal cultural symbols of the Supari make this world feel very rich—for example, the green and white smoke—the symbolism in “Nightingale” is deployed when it hasn’t quite been set up for readers concretely, and that robs it of the kind of impact it could have. Selecting and strengthening a few choice symbols would give them the potential to stick with readers, and have their meaning—when they’re deployed—make a stronger impression.
Given the density of the new material in “Nightingale”, it’s worth pulling our figurative lens out one layer and discussing the question of balance between new material and the traditional fairytale. There are two attractions, for readers, to a fairytale retelling: the new commentary, flavor, or perspective, and seeing what the author’s done with the original material—the thrill of recognition. Holding those in balance—and making sure they integrate into a single, logical, internally coherent story—is a subtle but important task.
I’m not sure “Nightingale” is, in its present state, quite striking that balance yet. Just as on the sentence level, there is a lot going on in this piece idea-wise, and there isn’t always a clear sense of how each element fits.
My suggestion for the idea level of “Nightingale” is the same as for the sentence level: a sharper emphasis on clarity. There’s a vagueness as to the nature of the Nightingale—one that’s assuming, maybe, a little more familiarity with the fairy tale than many readers have, or just details that haven’t made it onto the page. For example, when the Nightingale’s talked about a person who had a youth and childhood but also someone who was made, it’s a worked-in reference to the original fairytale—but on the plot level, it’s a confusing contradiction. A read-through that focuses just on the plot level, a second that focuses just on the referential, and an revision to bring those two closer in line by making sure each reference works on both might smooth this issue out.
Working a fairytale into a genre story can be a bit of balancing act: The foundation of the original story has to be clear, but not so obvious as to make the new story feel stale. The speculative elements of the original story have to distinguish, just a little, from the speculative elements of the new, genre version. It’s a tricky balance to strike, but with a little polish and structural rethinking, “Nightingale” has the chance to be something lush and unique.
Best of luck with it!
–Leah Bobet
Author of Above (2012) and An Inheritance of Ashes (October 2015)
July 2016 Editor’s Choice Review, Fantasy
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, Amal El-Mohtar, and guest editor Gemma Files. The last four months of Editors’ Choices and their editorial reviews are archived on the workshop.
ORIGIN OF HEART CH 1 PART A by Canace Silvering
I really enjoyed finding a chapter with a core friendship between women, especially seeing the potential there for that friendship to interact with plot in meaningful ways. What I’d like to see more of in this chapter is a shift in narration style to allow the characters and worldbuilding room to grow.
I spend so much time telling my students to be skeptical of listicle-style writing advice – “write what you know,” “show, don’t tell,” etc – that I’m often startled to encounter instances where those uncomplicated instructions apply. Shifting this piece’s narration style from telling to showing would go a long way towards improving it; in addition to helping the reader inhabit Eerika’s head, it could ground and enrich some of the worldbuilding details which presently feel like placeholders.
“Show, don’t tell” is usually tedious advice because it assumes that there can only be one true style of narration: spare, cinematic, seamless camera-work favoured over wordy thought-streams and scene-establishing. This is of course nonsense, and like any writing advice it should be treated as a tool among many in a writer’s toolbox, each better suited to a particular job. Maybe you want to have a wordy observing narrator, like Lemony Snicket in A Series of Unfortunate Events; maybe you want to play an interesting stylistic prose game like in Gormenghast; maybe you’re writing a story in a folkloric mode, with “it is said” and “once upon a time,”; maybe your narrator’s first-person and has a garrulous voice. There’s definitely a place for telling.
But that said, sometimes telling’s a hammer when what you want is a scalpel. Here’s an example of “telling” done poorly:
Susan was worried. She knew that if the bus didn’t arrive soon she’d be late for her interview,
and then she wouldn’t get the job which she needed very badly.
Here’s an example of conveying that same information via “showing”:
Susan stood at the bus stop, shifting her weight from foot to foot, reading and re-reading the timetable. After several minutes she pulled out her phone to call a cab – then sighed, and put the phone back in her pocket. She bit her lip and stared down the empty road without blinking until tears stung the corners of her eyes.
The second paragraph is doing a lot more work to evoke feelings of worry and anxiety in the reader. It invites the reader to empathise with what Susan’s experiencing without directly relating the details of her situation. Most people have experienced being worried, but there are a lot of flavours and textures of worry, so the explicit description is, ironically, vague and unspecific. On the other hand, most people have also experienced waiting for a bus that won’t turn up, and that’s much more likely to evoke the specific feelings of irritation, helplessness, worry, cost/benefit analyses and sunk-cost fallacies you want a reader to experience – much more than just saying “Susan was worried.”
With that in mind, let’s look at the three first paragraphs of your story and how they can be retooled with “showing” in mind.
Death and birth are two things that shouldn’t coincide, but on the day Eerika’s father died, she was elected as Fair Maiden, the one to lead the witches in Anima, the act of creation. She stood in line with seven other females, all wearing red, the color of spilled blood and running life. Today was a day of duality, of cycles.
“I nominate Eerika Born,” a girl called, raising her hand.
Dunstan, head Guardian, eyed the girl, hand clutching his carved staff tighter. His gaze swept past her, onto the other voters in the crowd. Eerika didn’t like it, not one bit. It wasn’t that she wanted power, and she secretly hoped that there would be an uproar of rejection, but she hated that everyone treated Chumani unfairly, as if her opinion didn’t matter just because she wasn’t called into Anicula like everyone else.
Here’s the information we’ve been given:
- Eerika’s father died
- Eerika’s been elected as Fair Maiden
- Fair Maidens lead the witches in Anima
- Anima is the act of creation
- Eerika does not want to be Fair Maiden
- Chumani’s looked down on
- Eerika and Chumani are friends
- They live in a place called Anicula
This is a pretty good balance of information for an opening chapter – but rather a lot of information to receive in the first three paragraphs. Shifting your style to show rather than tell that information would allow it to spread out and be conveyed more slowly and thoroughly through character actions and feelings over the course of the whole.
Here are a few different ways I can see this opening changed:
On the day Eerika’s father died, she stood in line with seven young women waiting to hear who would be elected Fair Maiden, the one to lead the witches in Anima, the act of creation.
OR
On the day Eerika’s father died, she was elected as Fair Maiden.
She didn’t want to be. Her palms sweated as she stood in line with seven other females, all wearing red, the color of spilled blood and running life.
You’d still need to reconcile the tense shift of “she was elected” with then witnessing the process of her being elected immediately afterwards, but there are many possible ways of doing that. Either way, I think beginning with “on the day Eerika’s father died” is much more striking than a musing about life and death that has no immediate emotional bearing on the characters. Perhaps Eerika can muse on that later on; perhaps she can see a pattern to embrace or condemn. But at the opening, we the readers should be grabbed by the fact that our protagonist has lost her father and has to endure an important ritual while grieving, rather than ponder a philosophical statement about death and birth.
(Also, death and birth frequently coincide, and there’s no “birth” in this chapter, unless you’re counting the election, which isn’t an intuitive leap to make – Eerika isn’t “born” Fair Maiden. So it’s even more muddling to begin with that line.)
Where worldbuilding is concerned, I’m left with several questions that Benjamin prompts.
- Why should should the fact that Jia ‘came in speaking tongues’ be unusual if everyone comes through the Veil from different places? Is there a language native to Anicula?
- Why is Benjamin nursing a 17-year-old grudge? How has admitting Chumani into their town affected him?
- If people can’t get through the Veil unless they’re “special,” why does it matter whether or not they were “called”?
Also, while I take your disclaimer about the loose European medievalism of the setting, you do still need to carefully consider what elements of that setting you’re sharing: I was thrown out of the story as soon as Eerika remembered that Jia is from “China,” since that’s a term more in use from the 16th century on, and depending on where in modern-day China Jia is from, she probably wouldn’t have introduced herself as “from China”.
To sum up: what you’ve got here is a good, strong relationship between two key characters, and at present the relationship’s full of promise; grounding these characters in their actions, motivations, and a more carefully curated setting will really help that relationship shine and develop.
—Amal El-Mohtar
July 2016 Editor’s Choice Review, Horror
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, Amal El-Mohtar, and guest editor Gemma Files. The last four months of Editors’ Choices and their editorial reviews are archived on the workshop.
Behold A Pale Rider by Christine Lucas
From its opening paragraphs, “Behold A Pale Rider” presents us with an engaging if not entirely successful attempt to crossbreed fantasy, light science fiction and very light horror tropes, telling the tale of how two witches and a former soldier try to punish the anthropomorphic representation of Death for failing to prevent humanity from unleashing a nanobot-driven zombie apocalypse.
The result is something that reads a bit like Terry Pratchett or Neil Gaiman, full of startling and creatively grotesque imagery yet replete with slightly twee humour that rubs up uncomfortably against the genuine dramatic weight the author sometimes appears to be trying to evoke, creating a thematic dissonance which never really goes away.
On the one hand, we have Persa quoting songs from Mary Poppins while offering Death a cup of tea and calling him “dear,” while on the other, we have those moments where we get a glimpse behind Persa’s eccentric but genteel mask, like so:
Fifty fucking years. The sudden sob almost choked her. No, not now, that the end was almost near.
Starting with humour and going to pathos is a tricky thing for any writer to pull off, but building to it slowly always works better than pulling a sudden hairpin reversal, and this apparent inability to decide on an emotional tone lends the proceedings a satirical air, which in turn makes the story difficult for a reader to commit their entire emotional attention to.
It’s at least as jarring as the occasional slip from first person limited POV into universal third person POV, which happens here—
Di shoved the small parcel into Persa’s face and drew back her hand the second Persa got hold of the parcel. She unfolded the many layers of brown paper to reach the sugary goodness inside, then fixed her eyes on Death.
“One cube of sugar, dear? More?”
One, came the reply, after what seemed like a moment of hesitation. Had he suspected? No. How could he?
He was Death, after all. What—or who—could possibly harm Death?
One way to try and fix this issue would be to go back and rephrase things to make it clear that this is Persa observing Death and speculating about what he might be thinking, rather than us suddenly being able to peep inside Death’s head over Persa’s shoulder. Changing “Had he suspected?” to “Did he suspect?” would also help to both clarify what’s going on and make it more immediate/active. Similarly, I’d probably rewrite the very first part so that Di isn’t shoving the parcel of sugar into Persa’s face but rather her hand, surreptitiously, in such a way as to not alert Death to the fact that Di doesn’t want to touch it any longer than she has to, which means it’s probably a threat.
In terms of simple mechanical fixes, meanwhile, there’s a fair amount of similar repetition, passivity and overstuffing throughout that need to be smoothed away, while many paragraphs could be further clarified by breaking them up into separate sentence clusters that might then reveal places where the action and/or description could be elaborated upon. But there are also much larger issues which need to be clarified, especially in terms of the science fiction dystopia meets Biblical apocalypse back-story—the timeline gets a bit over-complicated, especially when juggling a universal “Panacea code” which hacked human beings’ system to cure all diseases with the development of an anti-Panacea code nanobot virus which killed people and then caused them to rise from the dead.
Here, for example, Death implies the nanobots were the result of a Singularity, ie that they arose “naturally” after machines developed artificial intelligence…
The Singularity had been estimated for after the Apocalypse, by the survivors, not before. The development of the nanobots was …unexpected. A twist of his thin lips, as if his tea had changed to vinegar. It came as no surprise that mankind managed to mess up their greatest achievement.
…but immediately afterwards, Di and Jackson go on to argue that the nanobot virus was released by human hackers, which would seem to cut the artificial intelligence part of the equation out. So the answer might be to basically pick one cause and stick to it.
However, I’d also like to point out that many of these instances only became clear to me on a second reading, because I was too caught up in the ghoulishly whimsical plot and very distinctive voice to entirely register them on my first trip around the narrative block, especially in sections such as these:
Death sprang to his feet, and rose with a burst of darkness over Persa’s couch, his snarl stretched wide over a fleshless, angular face. His human clothes ripped apart, his hoodie now great black wings, his denim writhing wrappings and swirling shroud. A maelstrom of shadows spiraled behind him, its center the gates of Hades and Purgatory and Hel and Sheol and countless realms of torture and despair. Skeletal hands reached out—out of the shadows, out of Persa’s couch and walls and ceiling and floor, tearing apart her house, her furniture, and reality itself.
Persa stood and composed herself. “Now, dear. That’s just rude.”
In conclusion, this is an entertaining and inventive story with a lot of merit, one which I think could be easily made submittable by careful editing and overall clarification of content.
–Gemma Files
Reviewer Honor Roll
The Reviewer Honor Roll is a great way to pay back a reviewer for a really useful review. When you nominate a reviewer, we list the reviewer’s name, the submission/author reviewed, and your explanation of what made the review so useful. The nomination appears in the Honor Roll area of OWW the month after you submit it, and is listed for a month. You can nominate reviewers of your own submissions or reviewers of other submissions, if you have learned from reading the review. Think of it as a structured, public “thank you” that gives credit where credit is due and helps direct other OWWers to useful reviewers and useful review skills.
Visit the Reviewer Honor Roll page for a complete list of nominees and explanatory nominations.
[ June 2016] Honor Roll Nominees
Reviewer:Jessica Gruner
Submission: SUBLIMINAL SHRAPNEL Ch 9 by Boz Flamagin
Submitted by: Boz Flamagin
Reviewer: kit davis
Submission: “Varg of Two Rings” by Gary Lee Webb
Submitted by: Gary Lee Webb
Writing Challenge/Prompt
Mixing old genre tropes can often have fresh new results, and result in amazing stories.
So imagine this scenario. You are the Captain of a brand new starship on her maiden voyage. Your ship is hundreds of light years from Earth when you start hearing odd noises. The head of engineering delivers her team’s findings in person, knowing you won’t believe them any more than she did at first.
There is a very confused troll under the bridge of your new starship. His name is Horatio.
Remember: Challenges are supposed to be fun, but don’t forget to stretch yourself and take risks. If you normally write fantasy, try science fiction. If you’ve never tried writing in first or second person, here’s your chance. The story doesn’t have to be a masterpiece, this is all about trying new things and gaining new skills, and most of all, having fun. Challenge stories can go up at anytime. Put “Challenge” in the title so people can find it.
Challenges can be suggested by anyone and suggestions should be sent to Jaime (news (at) onlinewritingworkshop.com).
Publication News
Kate Ellis has a story published in AE Canadian Science Fiction Review. You can read “All I Ever Wanted You To Do” here.
Gregor Hartman’s story “Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful” appears in the 2016 July/August issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. The July/August issue is available now.
Publication News
Luke Kendall wants us all to know: “The series launch for the first two books in my sci-fi/fantasy series The Leeth Dossier will be held at Gleebooks in Glebe in Sydney, Australia, at 3:30pm Sat 9th July, 2016. I’ll be providing a little food and drink. I published the 1st book, Wild Thing, at the start of this year, and the 2nd, Harsh Lessons, will be published at the start of July.”
Jeremy Tolbert had some great news this month:“Taste the Singularity at the Food Truck Circus” has completed revisions and will appear in Lightspeed Magazine in August. It’s a fun story aimed at a cross section of foodies and SF fans. Additionally, I have sold a new story, “The West Topeka Triangle” to John Joseph Adams for either Lightspeed or Nightmare Magazine. We’ll be working on revisions to that one to see ultimately where it fits best. I believe it is my best work yet, and I think you will love it!”
On The Shelves
Threading the Needle: Book Two of the Ley by Joshua Palmatier (DAW, July 2016)
The Nexus—the hub created by the Prime Wielders to harness the magical power of the ley lines for the city of Erenthrall, the Baronial Plains, and the world beyond—has Shattered, the resultant pulse cascading through the system and leaving Erenthrall decimated, partially encased in a massive distortion. The world has fared no better: auroral storms plague the land, transforming people into creatures beyond nightmare; silver-white lights hover over all of the major cities, the harbinger of distortions that could quicken at any moment; and quakes brought on by the unstable ley network threaten to tear the earth apart. The survivors of this apocalypse have banded together in desperate groups, both in the remains of Erenthall and in small enclaves beyond the city.
Having survived the initial Shattering, Wielder Kara Tremain and ex-Dog Allan Garrett have led their small group of refugees to the Hollow, a safe haven in the hills on the edge of the plains. But the ley system is not healing itself. Their only option is to repair the distortion that engulfs Erenthrall and to fix the damaged ley lines themselves. But as soon as they enter the streets of Erenthrall, they find themselves caught up in the maelstrom of violence, deception, and betrayal that the city has descended into—including the emergence of a mysterious and powerful cult calling themselves the White Cloaks, whose leader is known as Father….