I wrote a very long, very detailed post on how to incorporate humor into your writing.
You can’t teach someone to be funny. However, most people are already funny; funnier than they believe themselves to be. Some of that can be harnessed and translated onto the page. Check out this essay, which is posted as a guest-blog post at Dark Cargo.
1 Comment | 
Craft of Writing | Tagged: humor, jokes, short story, writing | 
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Posted by Alex Shvartsman
I enjoy every aspect of creating a new story, but one.
I like the brainstorm part, where an idea settles in, usually over the course of multiple days, before I ever type the first word.
The first draft is especially cool. Often the story runs amok and I discover things about the characters and the world of the story that I never originally intended. This is where, when I’m lucky, I write my best lines.
Revisions are cool, too. I go over the feedback from my crit partners and beta readers to nip and tuck at the story and give it the best possible face lift. Sometimes merely the act of letting the story sit for a few days and approaching it with a fresh eye will allow me to identify weak spots in the writing and fix them.
I enjoy sending the stories out on submission, and the thrill of making it past the slush readers and of an occasional sale. Rejections are OK, too. They’re part of the game.
Editorial revisions and copy-edits are fun; a competent editor will always make the story better and make me look smarter in the process.
And, of course, there’s nothing like the feeling you get when a story is published and I get to share something I created with thousands (hundreds? tens?) of readers out there.
There’s only one part of the process I really hate: the time spent waiting on feedback after the story has been polished enough to show to friends and critique partners, but before they get the chance to respond.
At this stage I call them “Schrodinger stories” because I don’t yet know if the story is alive or stillborn. It’s very difficult for any writer to evaluate the quality of their own work. Some of the pieces I think turned out brilliant get their heads bashed in during this round of feedback. There are clear problems, gaping holes in the plot, or trouble conveying what I want to convey to the reader. Such stories may need lots more work, or even to end up in the “Come back to this one day later. Much later” pile. On the other hand, there are stories I don’t have as much confidence in that sometimes come back with better reviews than I expected. Arguably my two strongest flash fiction stories published to date are “Spidersong” and “Nuclear Family” — both were written in one sitting, and both were stories I felt somewhat skeptical about upon finishing them.
The smart thing to do would be to move on to the next project, but I find it difficult to do so until I finalize the current work-in-progress and get it out on submission. So I usually find other things to do — editing, critiquing, and writing blog posts, to while away the time.
Can you guess what stage my latest story is in, presently? 
1 Comment | Craft of Writing | Tagged: critique, fantasy, science fiction, submission, writing | Permalink
Posted by Alex Shvartsman
Back in the spring, a bunch of writers on Twitter challenged each other to write the longest (and, of course, most interesting) flash stories consisting of only one sentence. This blog post explains the back story, features my own entry, and links to the stories posted by all of the other participants who chose to post their stories publicly.
Matthew Bennardo liked the idea so much, he decided to produce and publish an anthology of one sentence stories. For the next two weeks Matthew is accepting submissions, with guidelines outlined on his blog. Check it out!
2 Comments | Craft of Writing, Publishing | Tagged: flash fiction, matthew bennardo, one sentence story, submission opportunities, writing | Permalink
Posted by Alex Shvartsman
Michael Haynes has recently released a non-fiction eBook “Write Every Day: Hints & Tips Towards a Daily Writing Routine.” He blogs regularly about writing-related topics at michaelhaynes.info and writeeveryday.info
To “leave it all on the field” in sports means to have not held anything back, to have given your all. I thought of this concept last night watching — of all things — Saturday Night Live audition videos. Here I saw Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, John Belushi… All of them leaving it all on their chosen field. The camera was on just them but you could occasionally hear commentary (and very occasionally, laughter) from those who were watching the auditions. All of these people were skilled performers to have reached that point, but you could see on their faces just how important this moment was to them. It was absolutely fascinating.
From there, my mind jumped to my own closest experience to these auditions: in-person tryouts for the televised quiz program Jeopardy. Twice I’ve made it past the online test and been invited to travel to near(ish) cities for those in-person events. Several dozen other qualifiers were there each time and we all went through written tests, mock games, and mock interviews. You go through all this and then you’re thanked for your time and told that you might (or might not) get the call to fly out to Los Angeles to (maybe) be on the show sometime in the next eighteen months.
My first time I sort of winged it and suspect I did so-so, but not well enough to make it on. I didn’t make it to the program with my second try, either, but when I left the room from that tryout I felt on top of the world. Why? Because I knew I’d left it all on the field. I’d read up more on the tryout process before my second experience and had learned that you’re being judged every second that you’re in the room, even if it’s not obvious. So I made a point to be “on” at all times, even when the people evaluating us were supposedly away from the room looking at our paper tests. I’m not a naturally outgoing person and would normally just sit quietly unless someone engaged me, but I made a point to chat up other contenders throughout that period. Even now, though my eighteen months are over, I feel happy with how I performed that day.
When writing for publication, if you want to reach the top levels, you’re unlikely to meet with success doing things halfway. You have to leave it all on the field or, in our case, the page.
But what does that mean? To me, it means that when I go to send a story out for the first time, that I want to feel like the story is as good as I, right now, can make it.
To me, it doesn’t mean going through endless revisions, but it does mean taking a critical look at your own story and not just saying “Eh, it’s good enough.” Professional-level editors are rarely going to buy “good enough.” Readers of these publications aren’t likely to rush out to read your other works because they thought that one was “good enough.”
No one is going to have every story they write be brilliant. And as we grow as writers, stories that once represented our best effort no longer will. But when we’re writing something new, we should always be looking to leave it all on the page.
2 Comments | Craft of Writing | Tagged: guest post, michael haynes, writing | Permalink
Posted by Alex Shvartsman
In the coming months I’ll be editing an anthology of humorous SF/F stories.
I’m not going to go into a lot of detail yet. I’ll write a much longer post on the subject when I’m ready to make an official announcement. For now, suffice is to say that it will pay professional rates ($0.05 per word) and will be released as both an e-book and a physical book. And if it’s very successful, it might become an annual thing.
What I need right now is the name. I want something really catchy and easy to identify as speculative humor. And, of course, it can’t be a title that was used by somebody else previously. If you have any good ideas, please post them in the comments (or e-mail me directly through the contact form). If I end up using your title there’s a signed physical copy of the anthology in it for you
I will also be looking for all sorts of other help, down the line. Slush readers, illustrators, someone to create a promotional YouTube video, etc. Feel free to reach out if you want to get involved. And, of course, if you write light/humorous speculative fiction, you may want to start getting those submissions ready!
10 Comments | Publishing | Tagged: anthology, fantasy, humor, science fiction, writing | Permalink
Posted by Alex Shvartsman
You never know what’s going to happen when you hang out with a bunch of crazy writers.
I’m chilling on Twitter last Friday evening while I’m beta-reading a SF story by Anatoly Belilovsky. The story is excellent, but at one point has a run-on sentence that is, literally, 90 words long (I checked in MS Word). So I send the following Tweet to Anatoly:
@loldoc Dude there is a 90-word sentence in your story. I had to go find a snack in the middle so that I could get through it!
And then I write in the comment field of his document: “This is an enormous run on were-sentence that makes me want to go out and find stakes, and garlic, and whatever else kills were-run-on sentences. ” Followed by a few suggestions about breaking this sentence into three. Anatoly likes my were-sentence comment and Tweets it, and then a discussion begins about long sentences with more and more of our writerly friends chiming in.
I point out that a famous Russian author Victor Pelevin wrote a one-sentence short story that went on for several pages. Anatoly replies that Gogol is known for some page-long sentences, and Jake Kerr chimes in that so is Henry James.
And then this happens:
@AShvartsman @jakedfw @loldoc This would seem to be a good challenge to take up. Shall we all try to write a one-sentence story?
Challenge accepted, Mr. Liu, challenge accepted.
Before we know it, half a dozen authors want in on this. I hesitate about posting our perfectly good (if short) stories publicly on our blogs, and Matthew Bennardo offers to pay $5 to see each story. He is forced to hastily withdraw this offer as the number of participants snowballs. By the end of the evening we have a Twitter hashtag #1ss (One Sentence Story) and an impressive array of authors (all the way from people who write award-nominated stories like Ken and Jake and to people who read award-nominated stories like me) who all agree to write the longest, most interesting one sentence story they can, no later than Wednesday night.
The following is my one sentence story:
ONE THOUSAND AND FIRST
…this will be the last story I ever tell you, my sultan, and so I humbly beseech you to listen and to delight in it, and to keep your promise of allowing me to finish this very last sentence, uninterrupted, even as the sun is already rising from beyond the Eastern dunes and the executioner sharpens his scimitar; I have told you a thousand stories — tales of flying carpets and bottled jinn, bold sailors and treacherous viziers, magic and wonder and all manner of things beyond the mundane – but this last story is about an ordinary young woman, a woman who caught the eye of her sultan and who managed to survive their wedding night, and a thousand nights afterward, using no weapon and no magic but her imagination alone; the sultan was mesmerized by her wondrous fables at first, always eager for another, but as the years went by she found it more and more difficult to keep his attention until, finally, he had had enough and wanted to hear no more stories – but being a kind and generous ruler he graciously consented to allow the girl to finish speaking before the guards would take her away (everyone knows that the sultan’s word is his bond) and the poor girl swallowed her tears, drew in a big breath and began her tale thus:
this will be the last story I ever tell you, my sultan, and so I humbly beseech you…
The above story is 243 words, which is a tiny sliver compared to some of the epic sentences composed by others. However, *my* story is an a loop. Which means it is, in fact, infinite words long. That totally means I win, right? Right?
You can read some of the other entries and decide for yourself. Damien Walters Grintalis and Ken Liu both opted to keep their entries off the Internets because they’re awesome writers who can sell their grocery lists to magazines. And if they can sell their grocery lists then surely they can also sell their one sentence stories. Some of the other authors opted to post theirs publicly and I’m going to link all the ones I know about below (and will update the links as more stories are posted, so watch this space!):
“The Bloodline Is Only as Strong as Its Last Generation” by Jake Kerr
“A Vos Souhaits” by M. Bennardo
“Good Thing I Did Not Tell Them About the Dirty Knife” by Anatoly Belilovsky (Anatoly wrote several entries, check his blog!)
Untitled by Sylvia Spruck Wrigley
“The Ghost and the Machine” by Suzanne Palmer
“Tommy Hopper and The Future” by Spencer Ellsworth
“And Yes” by S. R. Mastrantone
“Object of My Affection” by Sylvia Spruck Wrigley
“Dear Kyle” by Brenda Stokes Barron
“Great-Uncle’s Visit” by Michael Haynes
If you wish to play along, post a link to your one-sentence story in the comments or follow us on Twitter under the hashtag #1ss.
6 Comments | Craft of Writing | Tagged: #1ss, anatoly belilovsky, contest, free fiction, jake kerr, ken liu, one sentence stories, writing | Permalink
Posted by Alex Shvartsman
This week’s issue (May 17) of the venerable Nature Magazine includes my SF story “Ravages of Time.”
This is a flash fiction story about love, relationships, and faster than light travel. It was initially written for a Codex Writers 5-week long flash fiction contest. Nature was the first place I sent it and I was very happy to have them accept.
Not only is my writing now printed in one of the most relevant scientific journals in the world, but they also make it available to be read online for free. What’s more, they create original artwork for each published story, and the image designed for “Ravages” doesn’t disappoint:
Click here to read “Ravages of Time” online.
1 Comment | Acceptances & Publications | Tagged: Nature Magazine, science fiction, writing | Permalink
Posted by Alex Shvartsman
Today I’m pleased to feature a guest blog post by Beth Cato, the author of “Red Dust and Dancing Horses,” a SF tale featured in the current issue of Stupefying Stories. Beth writes about perseverance and not giving up on the stories you believe in, and I wholeheartedly agree.
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By Beth Cato
There’s something I’ve learned during the past few years. If you want to succeed as a writer, it’s not all about talent. It’s not about developing a thick skin. Rejections make you cry? Scream? Those are valid reactions sometimes. But what enables you to succeed is sheer stubbornness. You send the story out again.
Case in point: my story “Red Dust and Dancing Horses.”
From the time I wrote the rough draft, I knew this story was special. It hit me on a personal level. The tale is a horse story set on Mars, where horses can’t exist. It’s about a young Martian girl who has to accept that her deepest desire–to know horses–will likely never come true.
I was completely horse obsessed from the time I could walk and talk. I adored Rainbow Brite from age 3, but my biggest love was her horse, Starlite. I collected Breyer horses from age 4 (I wasn’t into My Little Ponies as much because they weren’t realistic enough). I read every horse book in the children’s section of the library, and if a new book came in the librarians told me. I knew the difference between a Shire and a Paso Fino, a forelock and a fetlock. My parents owned two acres of property, and I knew exactly where we could build a stable and corral. I took riding lessons. I knew exactly what my dream horse would look like and how his mane swayed in the breeze.
And at age 11, I finally had to accept that I would never have a horse.
I was mature enough to realize we were too poor. Money was tight. My riding lessons stopped as we couldn’t even afford the $10 for my riding lessons every two weeks. How could we afford a horse, or hay, or tack?
The dream died, but my love for horses didn’t.
That was the emotion I put into the story, only using a grittier Martian backdrop instead of a central Californian one. I posted the story on OWW. I revised heavily. I started sending it out to magazines. And this story I loved passionately was soundly rejected by almost every pro science fiction market.
Really, I could see why. It’s a horse story, on Mars. People don’t usually pair horses and sci fi, much less horses from old westerns. But it still hurt. This was a story that I felt was not only one of the best things I had written, but it was also a story I loved.
But I loved it so much, I kept gritting my teeth and sending it out again. It had some close calls. It won an honorable mention in Writers of the Future for the 4th quarter of 2011. But it still didn’t have a home, so I sent it out yet again.
You know what? It has a home now, an amazing one. This is what the editor of Stupefying Stories, Bruce Bethke, said in the forward for this March issue:
I’m about out of space now, but would be remiss if I did not call special attention… especially to my personal favorite in this entire collection, “Red Dust and Dancing Horses” by Beth Cato. If this story doesn’t wind up on several Best of 2012 lists and on the short list for at least one major award, I will be disappointed.
While querying agents, the big mantra is, ‘It only takes one yes.’ That’s true for short stories, too. “Red Dust and Dancing Horses” finally found its YES, and whatever happens from here, I’m happy, because the story finally found some other folks who love it just as much as I do.
The dream lives on.
“Red Dust and Dancing Horses” can be found in Stupefying Stories 1.5, on Amazon or Barnes & Noble.
2 Comments | Craft of Writing | Tagged: beth cato, guest post, Rejection, stupefying stories, Submissions, writing | Permalink
Posted by Alex Shvartsman
This story was written for one of the Shock Totem contests. Every few months the horror/dark fiction magazine sponsors a contest where a prompt is provided and each author submits their story anonymously, to be judged by fellow entrants. I enjoy the process and try to participate whenever I can, and it often results in pretty good stories. “Spidersong” — my first SFWA sale — was another ST contest story. For “The Traveling Fair” the prompt was to write a story under 1000 words featuring a giant monster and fireworks.
Click here to read The Traveling Fair at Every Day Fiction, and don’t forget to rate it!
Leave a Comment » | Acceptances & Publications | Tagged: every day fiction, fantasy, fiction, publication, writing | Permalink
Posted by Alex Shvartsman
I’ve always been a night owl. From an early age I found myself to be at my most productive and creative in the evening hours. When I started writing, I fell into a routine where I got most of my new words output done at night, after my wife and son went to sleep and the house became quiet and distraction-free. Some nights I would be too tired to write–exhausted by the day job or various chores that needed doing. Writing being a hobby rather than a career for me, I accepted this loss of productivity and tried my best to make up for it on other evenings, when I had a bit more energy to spare.
Then my wife switched jobs.
She started at the new place two weeks ago. Her new office is very far away, and it takes her nearly two hours to commute there. This means that she has to leave the house very early, before our son’s day care opens. So now I have to get up early every morning, get Josh ready and drive him to day care. No more sleeping in till 9-10am. And those late-night writing sessions? Forget about it. By midnight my brain feels like a squeezed out sponge.
So, driven by necessity, I fell into new routine. After dropping my son off at day care I get a bit of breakfast and have several uninterrupted, quiet hours in which to write. (I don’t have to be at work till noon). The difference has been night and day–pun very much intended. I am able to attack whatever story idea I’m working on while rested, fresh, and properly caffeinated. Words are flowing more easily and quality of the output appears to have improved (says the guy who’s notoriously bad at evaluating his own writing).
In the last two weeks I wrote three complete stories from scratch. And although they’re relatively short, none of them are mere flash length, either. There’s a magical realism story I’m especially proud of called “Things We Left Behind” (2500 words) that draws heavily on my personal experiences of uprooting and moving from the Soviet Union to the United States. A 1350 word space opera-ish “The Miracle on Tau Prime” is about the Vatican miracle investigators. In space. And yesterday I wrote a 1500 word SF story “Seven Conversations in Locked Rooms,” completing the first draft in one sitting. One sitting! Normally I struggle to write 500 new words of fiction per day.
I’m liking this new productivity. Well, scratch that. I’m still a night owl at heart. I hate getting up early and going to bed on old people’s time. What I do like are the results.
Could something as simple as a routine change ultimately take me to the next level in terms of both quality and quantity on my writing? Only time will tell. But it’s certainly an intriguing possibility.
2 Comments | Craft of Writing | Tagged: fantasy, fiction, productivity, science fiction, short story, writing | Permalink
Posted by Alex Shvartsman
