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Editing and Reading Observations… Part 8…
The Problems I Talked About in the First Parts… Are still the majority of why I pass on a story, or why a story does not hold me as a reader. No depth, information flow, wrong character and so on. But the last couple of days I found and remembered a couple of other things. Now, understand, there are no real rules in writing. If you are a skilled enough storyteller, you can make just about anything work for readers. But the key part of that is “skilled storyteller.” So really skilled writers can make these two problems work. Writing in Second Person… You know, the writer got so arty,…
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Last Day of Lifetime Sale…
All Lifetime Subscriptions Half Off… One More Day!!! Only lifetime subscriptions. Not any of the bundles or anything else. Just the five lifetime subscriptions. Use the code: LIFETIMESALE At half price, they are very good deals, especially the Lifetime Everything. And if you have another lifetime subscription, I can take a little more off that Everything price. Write me for details. February Regular Workshops Are Posted… See the list to the right. They start next Tuesday. Also the Writing Safe Mystery Stories special workshop second session has started today. FIFTY YEARS OF LEARNING… This year marks 50 years since I sold my first two short stories (and started selling a…
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Editing and Reading Observations… Part 7…
Buying Stories Can Really Slow An Editor Down… Here is what happens when I find a story I want to buy. First off, the writer makes me read all the way to the end and I like the story and it fits Pulphouse. Great! Always fun and exciting for me. But then I can’t just go back to reading. Why? Because I would be comparing the new story to the great last one I just read, and that would not be fair to the next writer in line. I really, really work to give every writer who sends in a story the exact same chance. Just the same as I…
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Sale and Classes
All Lifetime Subscriptions Half Off… Just through the end of January. Only a few more days. Only lifetime subscriptions. Not any of the bundles or anything else. Just the five lifetime subscriptions. Use the code: LIFETIMESALE At half price, they are very good deals, especially the Lifetime Everything. And if you have another lifetime subscription, I can take a little more off that Everything price. Write me for details. Fun New Class… This year marks 50 years since I sold my first two short stories (and started selling a lot of poetry as well.) Over those 50 years, I was stunningly lucky to have some amazing mentors (who also became…
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Editing and Reading Observations… Part 6…
Kris and I Have Fun Brainstorming… These days it is usually over lunch, working out stuff we need to talk about in a workshop. (We never talk about our own writing… just never… she has no idea what I am working on and I have no idea what she is working on… You all should protect your own writing in the same way.) But we do talk a lot about publishing and teaching, all the time actually. Tonight I was sitting here at my business computer, getting ready to work on a publishing product when Kris walked by and mentioned the series of Editing and Observations I have been doing.…
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Editing and Reading Observations… Part 5…
Kris Gave Me This One… And I noticed it right off the last few nights of reading after she mentioned it. This one is a little more advanced than just needing to add depth or pacing or information flow. This one is “Why should the reader care?” Be honest with yourself. You have read or started to read a book or story and just shrugged. and put the book down. And the best sign of this problem is that the reader can’t remember anything that happened in the story just shortly before. The reader just doesn’t care. The writing might be fine, good depth fine pacing and so on. But…
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Introduction to A Class About Learning…
A FIFTY YEAR PERSPECTIVE OF LEARNING… As I said last night, this year marks 50 years since I sold my first two short stories (and started selling a lot of poetry as well.) Over those 50 years, I was stunningly lucky to have some amazing mentors (who also became friends.) Jack Williamson, Damon Knight, Kate Wilhelm, Algis Budrys, Harlan Ellison, Frederick Pohl, Julius Schwartz, and others. As I said, stunningly lucky. So I figured that since I am still around after 50 years of selling fiction and they all told me a lot of great stuff, I am going to do a nine-week class talking about and telling stories about…
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Lifetime Sale and New Class
All Lifetime Subscriptions Half Off… Just through the end of January. Only lifetime subscriptions. Not any of the bundles or anything else. Just the five lifetime subscriptions, because I got a few questions about them. Use the code: LIFETIMESALE At half price, they are very good deals, especially the Lifetime Everything. And if you have another lifetime subscription, I can take a little more off that Everything price. Write me for details. Fun New Class… This year marks 50 years since I sold my first two short stories (and started selling a lot of poetry as well.) Over those 50 years, I was stunningly lucky to have some amazing mentors…
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Editing and Reading Observations… Part 4…
Back Reading Stories Again… A lot of the same things I already mentioned. No real depth (setting) gets me to stop reading fairly quickly. Going on and on and on without ever getting to a story (walking to a story) makes me read more than I want to, but I never get to the story or the ending. So I saw more of the same stuff I saw in the first three posts on this topic. But tonight (from a couple of stories) I got something new for this reading. Stories started with great depth, great character voice, and both had fun ideas that could work for Pulphouse. I was…
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Last Day of Hearts Collide Kickstarter…
100 Strange Romance Short Stories… Half from Kris, half from Dean. These are all genres, but all have the underlying theme of romance in one form or another. All are strange, as is typical of Dean and Kris’s writing. ENDS TUESDAY AT 7PM… Plus you can get previous year’s anthologies or all 420 stories if you want. Plus a ton of other reading and two very special workshops for writers. HEARTS COLLIDE Make 100 Kickstarter. Check it out. SPECIAL WORKSHOPS ONLY AVAILABLE IN THIS KICKSTARTER FOR A FEW MORE HOURS!! For the writers who love to write stories and learn the craft of writing, we are offering some very, very…