Forgot to get a post up linking to this (very) short story I wrote back in 2017. It's for the Story Seed Vault, a collection of tweet-sized sci-fi inspired by science news stories. When I heard about the site, an article I had read not long before immediate popped to mind and the story soon followed.
The story was untitled, but for convenience I'll call it Beet Burgers.
Showing posts with label sci fi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sci fi. Show all posts
Sunday, December 23, 2018
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Spring in a flash...or not...
So, it's been a slow couple months on the writing front. After a brief flurry of activity in getting my well-aged short story polished and out for consideration (still waiting to hear back), I did manage to crank out my first real effort at a piece of flash fiction...as a hard sci-fi no less. For a change of pace, I started with a title and figured out a plot to go with it. The idea is decent, but I just couldn't keep it under a thousand words. It stands at around 1200 and really needs to be expanded to give the protagonist a better arc. Ultimately, it'll probably end up somewhere around 2000 words, but much better for it.
Might be a while before I try flash again. Either it's just not that easy to write, or I'm simply not wired that way. Heck, I still find novel length material easier to write than "ordinary" short fiction.
My short term goal is to fix up that non-flash story and then maybe knock out one or two other shorts I have in mind before getting back to the novel side of the to-do list.
In the meantime, I'll throw out another bit of the collaboration story. I think this is where it really starts to expand the scope of weirdness.
Might be a while before I try flash again. Either it's just not that easy to write, or I'm simply not wired that way. Heck, I still find novel length material easier to write than "ordinary" short fiction.
My short term goal is to fix up that non-flash story and then maybe knock out one or two other shorts I have in mind before getting back to the novel side of the to-do list.
In the meantime, I'll throw out another bit of the collaboration story. I think this is where it really starts to expand the scope of weirdness.
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Formative Inspiration
I was thinking the other day about what books had the greatest formative influence on my writing. These aren’t necessarily my favorite books (okay, most are still right up there), but more the ones that left a lasting impression during my most impressionable years. They established tastes in genre, characters, and scope. Here are a few of the heavy hitters and the reasoning behind each:
Dragonlance Chronicles (Margaret Weis and +Tracy Hickman) - First read in my late grade school years, this was my real introduction to fantasy after dabbling in D&D with my friends for a couple years (the red boxed set). It read like the most epic, coherent game imaginable, with the rules practically establishing the framework for the story. What I really stuck with me from the story, however, was how the death of major characters raised the stakes for everyone else. If the authors could kill Flint and Sturm, who else might die before the dust finally settled?
Hitchhiker’s “Trilogy” (Douglas Adams) - Don’t think much needs to be said about this one. In a sense, it influenced me away from ever trying to write anything humorous, as I would inevitably hold it up to this standard and immediately toss my drivel. Can’t overstate how much I loved these books, though, and how they allowed me to take everything in life a little less seriously...as it should be.
Riftwar Saga (Raymond Feist) - Read this series while in junior high and it immediately became my favorite series of books, necessitating a couple of re-reads. I loved the development of Pug, struggling between highs and lows as a magician’s apprentice. The series managed to balance some pretty epic power creep between Pug and Tomas by shifting focus to Arutha and Jimmy later in the series. The series instilled in me the importance of epic action set pieces and great ensemble character development.
Snow Crash (+Neal Stephenson) - I read this one in high school, after re-shelving it a few times while on the job at the public library. One paragraph in, I was thinking to myself “whoa.” By the end of the first chapter, I adored it, but feared the rest of the book couldn’t possibly live up to the beginning. As I finished the book, I flipped back to page one and started again - the first and only time I’ve ever done that. There are so many things about this book that are difficult to pull off, and yet Stephenson managed it brilliantly - satire, mythology, action, and cool. If there was one aspect of the book I would call out as a takeaway, it would be “internal consistency.” The book was unlike anything I’d previously read, but its own universe was so brilliantly realized that I never once felt like I was slipping out of the story.
While putting together this list, I tried to think of any little known work I could call out. Alas, there wasn’t much that came to mind, or at least to which I could recall the title. There was one book involving kids trapped in a three dimensional maze like lab rats who had to engage in arbitrary rituals to get food. Another I can distinctly recall the title, yet nothing of the plot - Surfing Samurai Robots. Maybe that is just a lesson in the importance of finding the right title?
Anyone else out there have some good formative reads to share?
Dragonlance Chronicles (Margaret Weis and +Tracy Hickman) - First read in my late grade school years, this was my real introduction to fantasy after dabbling in D&D with my friends for a couple years (the red boxed set). It read like the most epic, coherent game imaginable, with the rules practically establishing the framework for the story. What I really stuck with me from the story, however, was how the death of major characters raised the stakes for everyone else. If the authors could kill Flint and Sturm, who else might die before the dust finally settled?
Hitchhiker’s “Trilogy” (Douglas Adams) - Don’t think much needs to be said about this one. In a sense, it influenced me away from ever trying to write anything humorous, as I would inevitably hold it up to this standard and immediately toss my drivel. Can’t overstate how much I loved these books, though, and how they allowed me to take everything in life a little less seriously...as it should be.
Riftwar Saga (Raymond Feist) - Read this series while in junior high and it immediately became my favorite series of books, necessitating a couple of re-reads. I loved the development of Pug, struggling between highs and lows as a magician’s apprentice. The series managed to balance some pretty epic power creep between Pug and Tomas by shifting focus to Arutha and Jimmy later in the series. The series instilled in me the importance of epic action set pieces and great ensemble character development.
Snow Crash (+Neal Stephenson) - I read this one in high school, after re-shelving it a few times while on the job at the public library. One paragraph in, I was thinking to myself “whoa.” By the end of the first chapter, I adored it, but feared the rest of the book couldn’t possibly live up to the beginning. As I finished the book, I flipped back to page one and started again - the first and only time I’ve ever done that. There are so many things about this book that are difficult to pull off, and yet Stephenson managed it brilliantly - satire, mythology, action, and cool. If there was one aspect of the book I would call out as a takeaway, it would be “internal consistency.” The book was unlike anything I’d previously read, but its own universe was so brilliantly realized that I never once felt like I was slipping out of the story.
While putting together this list, I tried to think of any little known work I could call out. Alas, there wasn’t much that came to mind, or at least to which I could recall the title. There was one book involving kids trapped in a three dimensional maze like lab rats who had to engage in arbitrary rituals to get food. Another I can distinctly recall the title, yet nothing of the plot - Surfing Samurai Robots. Maybe that is just a lesson in the importance of finding the right title?
Anyone else out there have some good formative reads to share?
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Industry Insider Screenwriting Contest
So, on top of my dabbling in writing fiction, I've also considered writing screenplays. Movies, in particular, as I'm not sure I'm necessarily cut out for the format of a television series. I took a couple wild cracks at movie scripts during the Script Frenzy "contests" - usually achieving the intended page count goal but not finishing with anything resembling a complete script. Each attempt was fun and educational, though, and I still have that nagging desire to see one through to the finish.
Which brings me to another contest - this one much more legitimately deserving of that term - that I've had my eye on for a year or so now, the Industry Insider Screenwriting Contest. This one is targeted primarily at new, aspiring writers, and has a low barrier to entry - you only have to submit the first 15 pages of a script for a logline provided by someone well established in the industry. Ten finalists then work with one of the Writers Store's staff over the course of a couple months, getting valuable feedback with each new set of pages added to the script until finished and then a winner is chosen. Really does sound pretty ideal for a first timer.
Well, with each new round of the contest, I've sat down a brainstormed a few different sketches for the logline. Some had a bit of potential, but none sucked me in and demanded to be written. And, thusly, I have yet to try to enter the contest.
A new round of the contest just began and I'm in the process of working up some ideas. The logline was provided by Edward Saxon (Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia, and others) - "After a storm destroys her small farm, killing her mother and father, an adolescent girl is sent off on a journey of survival."
Not bad. It provides quite a bit of structure, while remaining wide open. I immediately discarded the first couple thoughts that came to mind, most surrounding tornadoes in the mid-west (something with which I grew up) and the recent hurricane disasters, figuring it was best to head in an unexpected direction. I now have three very rough ideas, two are hard sci fi and one is magic fantasy, and in most all variants of these the "small farm" has nothing to do with produce. There are lots of different kinds of farms and I wanted to use an unexpected interpretation.
Now the tricky bit - fleshing these out to see if I can get one to suck me in and demand to be written...
Which brings me to another contest - this one much more legitimately deserving of that term - that I've had my eye on for a year or so now, the Industry Insider Screenwriting Contest. This one is targeted primarily at new, aspiring writers, and has a low barrier to entry - you only have to submit the first 15 pages of a script for a logline provided by someone well established in the industry. Ten finalists then work with one of the Writers Store's staff over the course of a couple months, getting valuable feedback with each new set of pages added to the script until finished and then a winner is chosen. Really does sound pretty ideal for a first timer.
Well, with each new round of the contest, I've sat down a brainstormed a few different sketches for the logline. Some had a bit of potential, but none sucked me in and demanded to be written. And, thusly, I have yet to try to enter the contest.
A new round of the contest just began and I'm in the process of working up some ideas. The logline was provided by Edward Saxon (Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia, and others) - "After a storm destroys her small farm, killing her mother and father, an adolescent girl is sent off on a journey of survival."
Not bad. It provides quite a bit of structure, while remaining wide open. I immediately discarded the first couple thoughts that came to mind, most surrounding tornadoes in the mid-west (something with which I grew up) and the recent hurricane disasters, figuring it was best to head in an unexpected direction. I now have three very rough ideas, two are hard sci fi and one is magic fantasy, and in most all variants of these the "small farm" has nothing to do with produce. There are lots of different kinds of farms and I wanted to use an unexpected interpretation.
Now the tricky bit - fleshing these out to see if I can get one to suck me in and demand to be written...
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