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writers

Flash Fiction Contest – Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words

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Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words

Our friends at STRW are running a flash fiction contest this month – it’s a great way to sharpen your flash skills for our forthcoming QSF contest in April. The details: Last week, we told you that November was National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo as its called and gave you all the links to the contest and the details.  It goes on every November each year. Its for you or anyone who actually had the thought “hey, I wonder if I could write a story”. Write…50,000 words. In one month. Chart your progress. Meet tons of people on line just … Read more

For Writers: Hiding in Plain Site

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Platform 9 3/4 ticket

FOR WRITERS Today’s writer topic comes from QSFer Justine Bonczek: I find it interesting when writers create huge hidden worlds that exist within plain site of existing worlds. While Harry Potter is not sci fi, it’s still a great example of a functioning society that invests a huge amount of time, money and effort into staying hidden from the larger world. I find this concept to be fairly prevalent in queer fiction as well, and I’m curious if there are some parallels of being queer and also “hiding in plain site.” My question is, what is the draw to creating … Read more

FOR WRITERS: Combining Art and Magic

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FOR WRITERS Today’s writer topic comes from QSFer Kari Trenten: “Art, too. How art affects our ideas, imagination, and how we connect it to magic intrigues me.” It’s an interesting topic. :) Have you ever been inspired to write a story based on a piece of art? Has art ever inspired magic in one of your stories? How does art fit into your writing process, if at all? Join the chat

FOR WRITERS: Writing Good Lesbian Characters

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Lesbian Couple - 123rf

FOR WRITERS Today’s writer topic comes from QSFer Denise Dechene: “Not really a question but LGBTQI+ encompasses a wide range of sexual identities. Reading gives us some of them but what about a day or days identifying them and explaining and discussing ways to incorporate them into books?” OK, so lets kick this off. We’ll devote a day each over the next few months talking about writing different types of characters across the LGBTIQA spectrum. Given that each of us is human, there’s no one “right” way to write a lesbian character. But maybe we can tackle this from a … Read more

For Writers: Four Skill Sets

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pencils-in-jar-0001

FOR WRITERS Today’s writer topic comes from QSFer John Allenson: I took a course from Karl Schroeder where he spoke of 4 basic skill sets that are needed to complete novels: Idea Generator, World-Building, Plot-Creation, and Getting-the-worlds-down. People tend to do one or two of those automatically but struggle with the others. What is your basic skill set? Do you come up with plot bunnies easily? Do you like creating elaborate worlds? Do you know who does what and when but have trouble with why? Do you write 10,000 words on your lunch but have trouble coming up with good … Read more

For Writers: There’s History in My Worldbuilding

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Worldbuilding

FOR WRITERS Today’s writer topic comes from QSFer Kari Trenten: “History and how it interacts with world building also interests me.” Yes, no man is an island, and very few worlds are built without at least a little history. Think of Guy Gavriel Kay, who builds fantasy worlds heavily dependent on existing (often European) countries and history. So how much history goes into your own worldbuilding, and where do you get it? Join the chat

For Writers: Alien Politics

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Boris alien

FOR WRITERS Today’s writer topic comes from QSFer Justine Bonczek: How do ya’ll create/translate politics – a very human framework for organizing society – into alien/magical societies? Do you take what exists in human history and tweak it, or do you start from the ground up to create something new? Curious minds want to know! Join the chat

For Writers: Class & Masculinity

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masculinity

FOR WRITERS Today’s writer topic comes from QSFer NAME: Right now there seems to be a blanket application of “Alpha” and other associated Greek-soup characters toward men in writing. However, in historic and, for me, black fiction, class has a distinct impression on how masculinity is defined, expressed and navigated. Is it important to you to convey the range of masculinity outside of the expected packaging for the genre you’re writing in, or is the packaging more important. Clothing, is one area where this sticks out a lot. Join the chat

Asta’s Annotations: The Path to LGBT Fiction

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Today I thought it might be interesting to discuss how we all came to LGBT fiction, whether as readers or writers.   For me, it all started with the film Van Helsing in 2004. Meeting fellow fans through the LiveJournal account I had at the time led me to discover fan fiction, and slash in particular. One of my earliest serious attempts at writing was a fan fiction with a Dracula/Van Helsing back story. I’ve written the occasional piece since—Rimmer/Lister (Red Dwarf), Hannibal/Will (Hannibal), Ragnar/Athelstan (Vikings), Sherlock/John (Sherlock), Steve/Loki (Avengers) etc.—and I still read a story or two when a … Read more

For Writers: Real Diversity

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diversity hands

FOR WRITERS Today’s writer topic comes from QSFer Lex Chase: With the call for diversity in fiction, what about lead characters who are not alpha male badasses? What about an effeminate hero? Or the handsome heroine? Or other character types that never strike us as typically “strong jawed and can obviously save the day?” Join the chat