You won’t see this sort of thing on this site often, so when you do, you’ll know it’s a good cause! Strange Horizons is a free, online magazine publishing speculative fiction of all stripes. It’s free to read and is one of a dwindling number of short fiction markets for spec fic. They’re not-for-profit and rely on donations to keep things going. And they’ve been around for 8 years! That’s more than a lifetime for online venues.

Strange Horizons is wrapping up the 2008 fundraising campaign. They’ve extended it for a few days because they’re only a few hundred bucks shy of their goal amount: $6000.

So if you can spare $2 or $5 or more to help keep this great magazine churning out creative electrons, please check out their 2008 Fundraising Drive!

You may have noticed the blog’s been on hiatus for awhile. Finishing up Soul Cavern and the other requisites for graduating from SHU pretty well kicked my tail! Add to it that we bought a house at the end of April and moved in around mid-May. But, I’m happy to say, I’m back in the saddle! I managed to get everything done and everyone I needed to pass me passed me, so I did, in fact, receive my Master of Arts degree in Writing Popular Fiction! Woot!

More importantly, however, my manuscript is very close to being submit-able. I have a few revisions I’d like to make, but then I’m shoving it out of the nest to make its own way in the world!

As always, when I’m at residency, I learned a TON, and I’ll be posting some of that soon in What I’ve Learned. I also did my own teaching module on how to write action scenes, which will eventually end up here in some form. I met several very cool author-types whom I’ll be hyping as we move along, as well. And watch for expansions in the Links list on the left side of the page! I’ve got so much to put in there, you’re going to be amazed! We’ll also be getting back on path with the Steps in the Journey feature very soon.

I’m planning on a bit of a revamp on the website, but that’s back-burner, end of the list, whenever I get to it type stuff. I’ve got a few pages to add and I swear to whatever that I’m going to get a proper Contact Me page up!

So here we are! Ready to get started again?

Inspired by a comment by Fiendish!

She swung her eyes around to where he stood in the doorway.

My first questions when I read a sentence like this: Are they tied to a string? Is she using them like nunchucks? Doesn’t that hurt?

Her face fell as he broke the news to her.

Again: Ouch! She should have latches installed or something.

Here’s one I just read in a novel by a best-selling author:

His eyes slid over her face.

Ewwww. Just, ewww.

My first mentor at SHU had this thing about passive verbs and floating body parts (FBP), so I learned pretty early on to get rid "was" and "were" as well as FBPs.

So what’s a FBP? It’s any time in the story where an action is attributed to a body part rather than a character. The quotes above are pretty good (and common) examples.

In the first, she swung her gaze around, not her eyes. Accuracy in description is important. Many readers won’t catch it, but the more literal-minded will. And you don’t want to ever lose readers if you can help it.

The second example is a little different. Saying someone’s face fell is a somewhat common expression, but when writing, there are much more effective ways of getting the idea across. What things happen which create the "falling" of a face? Perhaps the jaw goes slack, or the brows furrow or come together over the nose. If you describe the changes in the face that create the crestfallen look, not only will your reader get the idea, but your writing will be that much stronger for the description. Your character will seem more alive.

The third example is similar to the first, only grosser. Blech.

"But," you say, "my favorite author, Mr X, does that all the time!"

Well-published authors, best-selling authors, and authors who have made a niche for themselves aren’t always considered as critically as new authors. If an author already has numbers (sales) on his side, it means he already has a fan base which will buy his books regardless of some minor issues.

Unfortunately, those of us who are just breaking into the business, or attempting to, are held to a higher standard. We have editors to impress in order to get our foot (feet?) in the door. We’re competing against hundreds, often thousands, of other hopeful writers, so anything we can improve in our writing can only increase our chances of catching the editor’s eye. Tight and accurate descriptions help.

I know when I started writing, my characters’ body parts were doing all kinds of things! Once I started recognizing FBPs and began to shift the action from the body part to the character,  my characters became more realistic and my scenes, especially action scenes, came across as more focused and immediate.

Have a look at some of your stories. Do you have issues with floating body parts?

I love the play on words of the title!

I heard from my first mentor for SHU, Leslie, who is my second reader for my thesis/manuscript (don’t ask, the first mentor/second reader, second mentor/first reader thing is confusing). She passed my manuscript! So that’s one down and one to go!

I’m a bit more concerned about my current(second) mentor/first reader though. Not that Leslie is easy, by any means, but she’s not in my genre, so she couldn’t be very critical in that regard. Leslie’s awesome for all the technical stuff though: passive verbs, adverbs, floating body parts. She catches all that stuff! On the final ms pass, she did nail me on lay/lie and further/farther as well as a few other things. I guess I should have paid closer attention to my Elements of Style, huh? It wasn’t bad enough to fail the ms though, so yay!

Anyway, as I was saying, I’m more concerned about my second mentor’s pass through of the ms. Mike’s a horror writer, a tenured professor and an extremely astute reader. He’s always pushing me. He’s fantastic! But, because he’s more familiar with the genres I write in, he can be a lot more critical. Add to that his position as an English prof, I am sometimes overwhelmed. He’s used to analyzing writing. I haven’t analyzed much since I was an undergrad… not in terms of literary criticism and analysis. And let me assure you that my undergrad years were quite a long time ago!

I’m still optimistic, though. I have no idea whether he will pass or fail the ms–don’t mistake me on that. But I’m keeping my chin up and hoping for the best.

If he doesn’t pass the ms, he’ll give me the reasons why and I’ll have an opportunity to fix the problems. Then he’ll re-evaluate. So it’s not as though this is the last chance.

Now, I’m working on my critical essay, which is a ten page paper on where my novel falls into the larger genre. And I have to develop a lesson plan for my teaching module. I still think I’m going to do action scenes. I have an interesting idea for a class activity, but I’ll need more than that. But I’ve got time.

Oh, and add to all this, I’m buying a house next Thursday. My life is a bit hectic these days!

Okay, I think things are going to tone down for awhile now. My manuscript is in. Now I wait for word on whether I need to change things or whether it passes as is.

In the meantime, though, expect some new posts this week! Woot!

I finally finished the revision of Soul Cavern last night! I’m going to make another pass through tonight, just for polish, then tomorrow it goes out to my two readers at SHU. Now I have 2 more things to do before May 10: I have a 10 page genre essay to write and a teaching module to plan.

I’ve got 2 blog entries I’m going to work on this week. First is an update on the Amazon POD thing. I’ve got some more news on that. And the second, which is already partially written, is a post on markets, specifically anthologies.

I’ll be out of town this weekend, so things will still be a little quiet around here, but next week we should be back to our regular non-schedule! I’ve also got an interview scheduled with Amy Jo over at Cobblestone Press, so watch for that soon too!

Yay! The revision is done!