(date: 2024-05-10 15:45:53)
date: 2024-05-10, from: Interesting, a blog on writing
What makes something special?
https://inneresting.substack.com/p/200-aaaaaaand-why-should-i-care
@Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky (date: 2024-05-10, from: Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky)
It’s an incredibly beautiful, sold out, limited edition of Coraline. And it’s being raffled for good causes.
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https://bsky.app/profile/neilhimself.neilgaiman.com/post/3ks5vi3o25c2t
@Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky (date: 2024-05-10, from: Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky)
I just watched an autocorrect change my “These are SO good” to the perhaps slightly different “These are no good.”
It’s all going to end not with a bang but with a wimple.
https://bsky.app/profile/neilhimself.neilgaiman.com/post/3ks5vbuvovc2k
@Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky (date: 2024-05-10, from: Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky)
Which reminds me. I had a family member whose executor was their lawyer. By the time they died the lawyer was suffering from dementia, which meant that sorting out the estate was arduous, long and unnecessarily complex. (I learned as the years passed that there is no easy way to remove an executor.)
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https://bsky.app/profile/neilhimself.neilgaiman.com/post/3ks5tiphyvs2q
date: 2024-05-10, from: Final Draft blog
“One of the main things I’ve learned from Shonda [Rhimes] is to focus on what you really want to see, yourself, in a season. Not necessarily what should happen. I remember on Scandal, in the writers room, we would craft what we thought were these perfectly structured stories. And Shonda would come in and pitch something that was really wild, kind of out there and maybe didn’t fit perfectly into the structure,” says Jess Brownell, showrunner for Bridgerton Season 3. “Ultimately, when the show aired, that would always be the thing that Twitter would light up about. So it’s taught me to work from that place first. Don’t just worry about, ‘Okay, what are the beats that make sense to get from A to B?,’ but ‘What’s juicy? What do you want to see?’”
https://blog.finaldraft.com/write-on-bridgerton-showrunner-jess-brownell
date: 2024-05-10, from: Locus Magazine
Praiseworthy by Alexis Wright (Giramondo) is the winner of the AUD$50,000 2024 Stella Prize.
Named for Stella Maria Sarah “Miles” Franklin, the prize celebrates literature by Australian women and non-binary writers.
For more information, including the complete shortlist and longlist, see the official Stella Prize site.
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});https://locusmag.com/2024/05/2024-stella-prize/
date: 2024-05-10, from: Locus Magazine
“Philia, Eros, Storge, Agápe, Pragma” by R.S.A. Garcia (Clarkesworld 1/21) won the 2023 Media Award, presented by The Machine Intelligence Foundation for Rights and Ethics (MIFRE).
The Award seeks to “identify and illuminate fictional creations that demonstrate societies where humans and conscious machines live, cooperate and thrive together.” Works in any medium from any time are eligible.
For more information, visit the MIFRE website.
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});https://locusmag.com/2024/05/garcia-wins-mifre-media-award/
date: 2024-05-10, from: Locus Magazine
Wednesday’s Child by Yiyun Li (Farrar, Straus, Giroux) and Same Bed, Different Dreams by Ed Park (Random House) were finalists for the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in the Fiction category.
The award is given for “distinguished fiction published in book form during the year by an American author, preferably dealing with American life.”
For more, see the Pulitzer website.
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});https://locusmag.com/2024/05/2024-pulitzer-prizes/
date: 2024-05-10, from: Locus Magazine
Norwescon 46 was held March 28-31, 2024 at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Seattle Airport in SeaTac WA; the theme was ‘‘Into the Wylde.’’ Guests of honor were Jim Butcher (writer), Charles Vess (artist), Dr. Raychelle Burks (science), and Kate Alice Marshall (special guest of honor). Clarkesworld was the spotlight publisher, represented by Neil Clarke. The weekend included hundreds of hours of programming with dozens of panels and readings, plus …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/05/norwescon-46/
date: 2024-05-10, from: Locus Magazine
Analog 1-2/24
The January/February issue of Analog kicks off with “Kagari” by Ron Collins, which follows the young heir to a kingdom of birdlike beings. He is in love with a commoner, and not overly enamored of the strict rules governing his society, but he is given a human named Kagari as a pet who helps him see he might work within the system to effect change. “ …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/05/a-c-wise-reviews-short-fiction-analog-2/
@Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky (date: 2024-05-10, from: Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky)
This sobering thread….
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https://bsky.app/profile/neilhimself.neilgaiman.com/post/3ks4yjmme4c26
date: 2024-05-09, from: Locus Magazine
The Locus Science Fiction Foundation has announced the top ten finalists in each category of the 2024 Locus Awards. These results are from the February 1 to April 15 voting, done by readers on an open public ballot. Congratulations to all of the finalists!
The Locus Awards winners will be announced June 22, 2024, during the in-person Locus Awards Ceremony, held in the historic Nile Hall at Preservation Park in …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/05/2024-locus-awards-top-ten-finalists/
@Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky (date: 2024-05-09, from: Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky)
From 2006, my blog about Wills, with a sample will for creative people. Take it to your lawyer to start the Will conversation.
https://journal.neilgaiman.com/2006/10/important-and-pass-it-on.html?m=1
https://bsky.app/profile/neilhimself.neilgaiman.com/post/3ks3mk7t5ad2w
@Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky (date: 2024-05-09, from: Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky)
Excellent idea.
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https://bsky.app/profile/neilhimself.neilgaiman.com/post/3ks3mb7di5m2b
date: 2024-05-09, from: Locus Magazine
Beautyland, Marie-Helene Bertino (Farrar, Straus, Giroux 978-0-37410-928-8, $28.00, 336pp, hc) January 2024. Cover by Abby Kagan.
Marie-Helene Bertino’s Beautyland is one of the most unique novels I’ve read in a while. A wonderful mix of science fiction and literary fiction, this story is full of humor but also packs a treasure trove of witty observations about the human condition and a sharp dissection of life in small-town America through …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/05/gabino-iglesias-reviews-beautyland-by-marie-helene-bertino/
date: 2024-05-08, from: Interesting, a blog on writing
Describing shots on the page, and writing characters speaking to the camera.
https://inneresting.substack.com/p/eyes-on-the-camera
date: 2024-05-08, from: Locus Magazine
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) has announced that writer Sarah Gailey will be toastmaster at the 59th Annual Nebula Awards, to be presented June 8, 2024 in Pasadena CA.
SFWA President Jeffe Kennedy said, “I’m delighted that Sarah will be our Toastmaster this year. With their wit and deep ties to the genre community, Sarah will bring grace and resonance to the ceremony.”
Sarah Gailey is a …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/05/gailey-named-nebula-awards-toastmaster/
date: 2024-05-08, from: Locus Magazine
A Magical Girl Retires, Park Seolyeon (HarperVia 978-0-06337-326-6, $21.99, 176pp, hc) April 2024. Cover art by Kim Sanho.
A Magical Girl Retires is award-winning Korean writer Park Seolyeon’s first novel to be translated into English. It’s a weird, delightful little book, simultaneously grim and breezy, and the translation (by Anton Hur) communicates a fluid, straightforward and self-deprecatingly humorous first-person narration. This breezy grit is further illuminated by Kim Sanho’s …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/05/liz-bourke-reviews-a-magical-girl-retires-by-park-seolyeon/
date: 2024-05-08, from: Locus Magazine
The Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction has announced a date change for the third annual Sturgeon Symposium, now to be held October 24-25, 2024 at the University of Kansas in Lawrence KS. (The previously announced dates were October 17-18.)
The theme of this year’s symposium is “Stars in Our Pockets: Celebrating Samuel R. Delany.” The Symposium will feature Noël Sturgeon’s presentation of the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/05/2024-sturgeon-symposium-updates/
date: 2024-05-08, from: Literature & a Latte blog
<p>When someone asks for your feedback on a piece of writing, whether it is a short story or a novel, remember that the writer requesting feedback has spent a lot of time laboring over their words, and respect the fact that they are choosing you for your opinion.</p>When you seek feedback for a piece of writing, it’s important that the feedback you receive is helpful. Telling your beta reader what sort of feedback you expect can ensure that the feedback is pertinent. Here’s how to give and receive feedback on your novel or short story.
The importance of feedback
While part of the writing journey is discovering the story that is within the writer, it’s only when stories resonate with readers that a piece of writing is successful. While you may not intentionally write to please others, the goal of telling a story is to engage the people who read it. The best way to know if your story or novel works is to find out what readers think.
There are many ways to find beta readers, people who read your work to give feedback before you send it out to an agent, editor, or publication. You may ask friends, family members, fellow authors, or you may seek out beta readers in other ways.
As a writer, you may be asked to give feedback on the work of other writers, especially if you are in a writing group where people exchange feedback, or you work with a critique partner. When different people read your manuscript, they may see things that you don’t notice, because you’ve been seeing them for so long. It’s always useful to get opinions on your writing, even if you may not agree with the feedback.
How to request feedback
When you request feedback for a novel or story, you shouldn’t just send it to someone without giving some guidelines. Here are some elements you might wish the feedback to address:
<p>Is the work enjoyable, and did the reader feel the urge to keep reading? Did they want to turn the pages and get to the end?</p>
<p>Are the characters believable, and are the main characters’ motivations clear?</p>
<p>Do the settings feel real?</p>
<p>Is anything over-described?</p>
<p>Does the dialog feel authentic?</p>
<p>Is the plot believable and does the resolution make sense?</p>
<p>Are sentences, paragraphs, or chapters too long or too short? Does the prose flow, or does it feel choppy?</p>Also, ask your reader to mention any specific points that stand out that you haven’t covered.
It’s best to ask your reader not to say anything about typos unless they interfere with the story. You will have to do several editing passes of your manuscript, and you should be able to find these yourself. You may even want to use an online grammar checker, chapter by chapter, to spot this sort of mistake. It’s not a good idea for your beta reader to get bogged down in minor details. What’s more important is hearing what they think about the story, the characters, the flow, the pacing, and all the elements that make a story or novel flow.
Remember to not take any feedback personally. Your reader may praise some things and criticize others, and their criticism is about the work, not about you as a writer. Feedback is a valuable tool for learning more about your writing, so use it wisely.
How to give useful feedback
When someone asks you to give feedback on their work, they may not have enough experience to know what to ask for. The most useful type of feedback is that described above, but the type of feedback they need may depend on whether you’re reading a work by a new writer or someone who has published already.
The first thing to do when giving feedback is to start by saying what you like about the manuscript. Highlight what works well in the piece, whether it’s plot, character, dialogue, description, or anything else. Remember that you’re giving feedback to a person who may be sensitive about the months or years they spent writing, and it’s important to reassure them that their work is valid. Think about how you would like to receive feedback and apply that to the feedback you give to others.
Make sure your feedback is balanced; for every critical point, include a positive point. Don’t shy away from criticizing elements that stand out, but do this in a constructive way. Offer suggestions for points that seem weak, but don’t rewrite entire paragraphs to show how you would have written something.
It’s important that you understand the writer’s intent, and that you are aware of how their work fits in a specific genre. For example, a friend may ask you to read a novel that is not a genre that you generally read. In this case, you may not be able to give appropriate feedback on genre-specific conventions.
When giving feedback, it’s useful to ask questions if you don’t understand something, such as a character’s motivation or a plot point. This may be more useful than criticism, as the writer, in thinking about the question, may discover something they need to improve on their own.
Giving and receiving feedback for creative writing can be sensitive, because writers are often personally attached to their work. Doing this with care and sensitivity can help writers improve their work and move ahead toward publication.
<p>Kirk McElhearn is a <a href="https://kirkville.com" target="_blank">writer</a>, <a href="https://kirkville.com/podcasts/" target="_blank">podcaster</a>, and <a href="https://kirkville.com/kirks-photos-2/" target="_blank">photographer</a>. He is the author of <a href="https://www.literatureandlatte.com/store" target="_blank">Take Control of Scrivener</a>, and host of the podcast <a href="https://podcast.scrivenerapp.com" target="_blank">Write Now with Scrivener</a>.</p>
https://www.literatureandlatte.com/blog/how-to-give-and-receive-feedback-on-creative-writing
date: 2024-05-07, from: Locus Magazine
Adler, Sarah: Happy Medium (Penguin Random House/Berkley 9780593547816, $18, 416pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, 04/30/2024)
Paranormal romance novel. A con woman posing as a spirit medium is hired to investigate odd phenomena on a skeptical farmer’s goat farm, and finds a very real ghost.
Al-Essa, Bothayna & (Translator), Sawad Hussain: The Book Censor’s Library (Restless Books 9781632063342, $17.99, 272pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, 04/30/2024)
Satirical dystopian SF novel …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/05/new-books-30-april-2024/
date: 2024-05-07, from: Final Draft blog
Screenwriting can raise many questions or doubts about whether something is working. While asking your friends to check out your screenplay can be helpful in some ways, having a professional give you feedback can help you create a great, sellable script.
https://blog.finaldraft.com/5-screenwriting-insights-from-a-professional-script-reader
date: 2024-05-07, from: Locus Magazine
Did you catch last week’s New Books YouTube? Find out about the new books hitting shelves each week!
https://locusmag.com/2024/05/new-books-video-for-april-30/
date: 2024-05-07, from: Locus Magazine
Author Travis Heerman, 54, died April 26, 2024 in Colorado. He suffered severe head trauma in a motorcycle accident in December 2023, and finally succumbed to his injuries.
Heerman was born October 22, 1969. He was a graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop, with more than 30 stories published in magazines and anthologies. He was the author of the Ronin Trilogy: Heart of the Ronin (2009), Sword of the Ronin …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/05/travis-heerman-1969-2024/
date: 2024-05-07, from: Locus Magazine
Fan John Trimble, 87, died April 19, 2024. He was the husband of Bjo Trimble and very active in Los Angeles fandom.
Trimble was born November 17, 1936, and married Bjo in 1960. They had three daughters, Kathryn Arwen, Lora, and Jenn. He was a member and officer of the Los Angeles Science Fiction Society and many other fan organizations, and was a founder of the Trans Oceanic Fan Fund. …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/05/john-trimble-1936-2024/
date: 2024-05-07, from: Locus Magazine
The six-title shortlist has been announced for the 2024 Women’s Prize for Fiction, and includes V.V. Ganeshananthan’s Brotherless Night (Random House).
“The Women’s Prize Trust’s mission is to change the world through books by women, opening up pathways into reading and writing for the storytellers and booklovers of tomorrow.”
The winner will be announced on June 13, 2024, and will receive £30,000 and a bronze “Bessie” trophy. The 2024 judges
https://locusmag.com/2024/05/2024-womens-prize-shortlist/
date: 2024-05-07, from: Locus Magazine
Brother Alive by Zain Khalid (Grove Atlantic) and We Are a Haunting by Tyriek White (Astra House) are among the honorees of the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35, “a selection of five fiction writers under the age of 35 whose debut work promises to leave a lasting impression on the literary landscape.”
Each winner will receive $1,000 and will be honored at a ceremony. Selectors for this year were …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/05/2024-national-book-5-under-35/
date: 2024-05-07, from: Locus Magazine
Table for One, Yun Ko-Eun (Columbia University Press 978-0-23119-202-6, $20.00, 280pp, hc) April 2024.
Yun Ko-eun (the pen name for Ko Eun-ju) will be unfamiliar to most English-language readers unless they’ve read her one translated novel, The Disaster Tourist. In South Korea, though, she’s the multiple award-winning author of several novels and short story collections and the host of the EBS Radio show Book Cafe. Thankfully, we now …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/05/ian-mond-reviews-table-for-one-by-yun-ko-eun/
date: 2024-05-07, from: Locus Magazine
Akers, Tim: The Eccentrics (Baen 9781982193393, $18, 304pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, 05/07/2024)
Dark fantasy/sword & sorcery novel, the third in the Knight Watch series. Led by the eighth incarnation of Nikola Tesla, the Society of Eccentric Geniuses protects the Mundane world from the horrors of the Gestalt, a timeline of the future that never was.
Almada, Selva: Not a River (Graywolf Press 9781644452851, $16, 104pp, formats: trade paperback, …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/05/new-books-7-may-2024/
date: 2024-05-07, from: John August blog
Why are things so rough in Hollywood right now? John and Craig look at the industry’s current contraction, its historical analogues, and offer suggestions for what might fix it. We also follow up on streaming ad breaks and New York accents, before answering listener questions on being paralyzed, whether it’s by your second draft or […] The post It’s Brutal Out Here first appeared on John August.
https://johnaugust.com/2024/its-brutal-out-here
date: 2024-05-07, from: Final Draft blog
Picture this: somehow, through the ups and downs of showbiz, after many scripts written and not produced, you’ve managed to get staffed on your very first TV show. Congrats! The writers’ room is where TV is born, and while landing a TV writing gig is no easy feat, your writing and perseverance have proven successful. But now what?
https://blog.finaldraft.com/writers-room-etiquette-for-screenwriters
@Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky (date: 2024-05-07, from: Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky)
Look!!
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https://bsky.app/profile/neilhimself.neilgaiman.com/post/3krvtgfm2ek24
@Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky (date: 2024-05-07, from: Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky)
It’s interesting seeing the comics press going “Why isn’t there more talk of Miracleman: The Silver Age”? Meanwhile, we get the kind of review that those of us who made comics in the dawn times dreamed of as a kind of grail.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/07/books/review/neil-gaiman-miracleman-silver-age.html?unlocked_article_code=1.qE0.H9Yk.y2ojoS5b8ec4 Gift Link
https://bsky.app/profile/neilhimself.neilgaiman.com/post/3krvlb7xaxs24
date: 2024-05-07, updated: 2024-05-07, from: NarraScope, Celebrating Narrative Games
Time for an update!
First, our heartfelt thanks to everybody who has donated money to support NarraScope. We know that it’s been a bumpy ride. For a while there we weren’t sure whether we had enough to run the event at all.
We are happy to say that question is …
https://narrascope.org/2024/05/narrascope-2024-schedule.html
@Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky (date: 2024-05-06, from: Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky)
This is lovely.
https://mancunion.com/2024/05/06/my-formative-film-stardust/
https://bsky.app/profile/neilhimself.neilgaiman.com/post/3krtmzcy4522h
date: 2024-05-06, from: Locus Magazine
Stephen King’s next book, You Like It Darker: Stories (Scribner), due May 21, ranks this morning on the three Amazon lists compiled here.
Title Debut / #wks on any list NYT 05.05 LAT 05.05 USAT 04.28 PW 05.06 Amz (05.06) UK: Amz UK (05.06) Canada: Amz.ca (05.06)
Items on list -x- number of lists surveyed
10×3 10×2 150 15×3 100 100 100
Hardcovers
Aster, Nightbane 11.20.23 / 24 8 -1 …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/05/weekly-bestsellers-6-may-2024/
date: 2024-05-06, from: Final Draft blog
In a world filled with countless screenplay competitions, how do you know which ones can have the biggest impact on your writing career? For writer Jason Kaleko, Final Draft’s Big Break Screenwriting Contest was the competition that leveled up his career in Hollywood.
https://blog.finaldraft.com/how-writer-jason-kaleko-got-his-foot-in-the-door-with-big-break
@Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky (date: 2024-05-06, from: Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky)
It’s definitely odd.
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@Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky (date: 2024-05-06, from: Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky)
When I wrote the scenes in Hell in Sandman I would put on Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music and play it while I wrote. Now there’s a tribute album on the way:
https://www.stereogum.com/2257817/new-ambient-tribute-to-lou-reeds-metal-machine-music-features-lou-barlow-cory-hanson-w-cullen-hart-mark-robinson/news/
https://bsky.app/profile/neilhimself.neilgaiman.com/post/3krtgnib3ic2p
date: 2024-05-06, from: Locus Magazine
The Book of Doors, Gareth Brown (William Morrow 979-0-063-35957-4, $30.00, 416pp, hc) February 2024.
Gareth Brown’s debut, The Book of Doors, manages to incorporate some time-travel surprises, (and not the ones readers might expect), into an exciting novel of suspense. Told from multiple points of view, readers initially meet Cassie, a clerk in a New York City bookstore, when she discovers a regular customer has quietly died while …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/05/colleen-mondor-reviews-the-book-of-doors-by-gareth-brown/
date: 2024-05-06, from: Locus Magazine
No one was more surprised than I was when the American Dialect Society named ‘‘enshittification’’ – my dirty little coinage to describe how everything on the internet is (suddenly, simultaneously) getting (much) worse – to be its Word of the Year. But though the news was a surprise, it was a very pleasant one.
My early writings on enshittification focused on its symptoms, the way platforms decay. The progression of …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/05/cory-doctorow-no-one-is-the-enshittifier-of-their-own-story/
date: 2024-05-06, from: Author’s Union blog
By Dave Hansen Have you ever used a photograph to illustrate a historical event in your writing? Or quoted, say from a letter, to point out some fact that the author conveyed in their writing? According to the 10th Circuit, these aren’t the kinds of uses that fair use supports. On Thursday, Authors Alliance joined […]
@Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky (date: 2024-05-06, from: Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky)
This thread.
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@Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky (date: 2024-05-06, from: Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky)
Also World Central Kitchen is feeding a lot of people in Brazil who lost everything in the flooding:
https://wck.org/relief/brazil-floods
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https://bsky.app/profile/neilhimself.neilgaiman.com/post/3krtb2kypjc2y
date: 2024-05-05, from: Locus Magazine
The New York Times reports that Meta (the parent company for Facebook, Instagram, and Meta AI, among other concerns) considered purchasing Simon & Schuster last year in order to train their Large Language Model on the company’s books:
Lawyers and engineers last year discussed buying the publishing house Simon & Schuster to procure long works, according to recordings of internal meetings obtained by The Times. They also conferred on gathering …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/05/ai-news-2/
date: 2024-05-05, from: Locus Magazine
Machine Vendetta, Alastair Reynolds (Orbit US 978-0316462846, $19.99, 416pp, tp) January 2024.
Synchronicity strikes again with a pair of novels – both parts of long-running future-history series – that show what can be done with a particular set of science-fictional motifs and devices, especially when the series format offers room to stretch out.
Alastair Reynolds’s Machine Vendetta is the third entry in a subseries of his vast Revelation Space …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/05/russell-letson-reviews-machine-vendetta-by-alastair-reynolds/
@Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky (date: 2024-05-05, from: Neil Gaiman @ BlueSky)
If enough people watch it.
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