The British Fantasy Society is holding its annual convention, Fantasycon 2009, in Nottingham, UK, over the weekend 18-20 September. Fantasycon was first staged in the mid-1970s in Birmingham and has run more-or-less continuously since.
The 2009 convention is delighted to announce that the Guests of Honour are Jasper Fforde, Brian Clemens and Gail Z Martin. The Master of Ceremonies is Ian Watson. The convention’s highlights include guest interviews, panel discussion and the British Fantasy Awards Banquet.
Since Jasper Fforde’s first novel - The Eyre Affair - was published in 2001 he has consistently blurred genres, producing a wonderful series of reality-bending, funny, complex, literate and very silly books. His Tuesday Next series follows the adventures of the eponymous heroine and Literary Detective as she solves crimes against fiction in an alternative Republic of England. The Nursery Crime series, starring DCI Jack Spratt, have addressed both the murder of Humpty Dumpty (The Big Over Easy, 2005) and porridge-smuggling by bears (The Fourth Bear, 2006). A new series begins with his latest novel Shades of Grey.
Brian Clemens was born in Surrey in 1931. He is best known as the creative force behind The Avengers, for many of us epitomised by the image of Diana Rigg starring as Mrs Emma Peel. After service in the Army he worked in an advertising agency, during which he wrote a script which attracted the attention of the BBC. And from small beginnings... He later wrote the pilot episode of The Avengers, first shown in 1961. Besides writing for this, he scripted TV shows such as Adam Adamant Lives, The Persuaders, The Professionals and Thriller.
Gail Martin is the author of the Chronicles of the Necromancer series: The Summoner, The Blood King, Dark Haven and Dark Lady’s Chosen (coming in 2010). She discovered her passion for science fiction, fantasy and ghost stories in elementary school. The very first story she ever wrote — at age five — was about a vampire. Her favourite TV shows as a pre-schooler were Dark Shadows and Lost in Space. At age 14, she decided to become a writer, and launched a fanzine when she was in college.
Ian Watson was born in 1943 and graduated from Balliol College, Oxford, in 1963; he spent time working abroad before becoming a full-time writer in the 1970s. His work includes The Embedding, his first novel and which won the John W Campbell Memorial Award. His other books include: The Power, The Fire Worm, Whores of Babylon, Miracle Visitors, God's World and The Gardens of Delight.
For information and booking details, visit the Fantasycon website and blog: http://www.fantasycon.org.uk/ and http://fantasycon-2009.blogspot.com/
Showing posts with label fantasy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fantasy. Show all posts
Wednesday, 4 March 2009
Monday, 23 February 2009
Ellen Datlow's Writing Tips
I contacted Ellen yesterday, and she gave permission for the following article to be reprinted on this blog.
WRITING TIPS BY ELLEN DATLOW
Are you writing for yourself or an audience? If you're lucky and good, you can do both at the same time. How accessible must you be? How accessible do you want to be? There are fine writers in and outside the sf/fantasy, and horrors field who are respected and read by editors and other writers but who don't sell very well.
This matters more in novel form than in short fiction. A writer can afford to be more experimental in short fiction because each story in a magazine or anthology does not sell the entire magazine or book. Each novel published needs to make money for the publishing house. You can and indeed must be literate in everything you write, but this does not mean you must be "literary."
When submitting fiction to an editor, send it in as finished and polished as you can. A story can only be read a first time once. In other words, impact counts. Editors are more likely to buy a story that hits them strongly on the first read. Whether a story is meant to be read more than once or not, the first read is the most important.
If you're having trouble with dialogue, I highly recommend reading the work of Elmore Leonard. You can pick up almost any of his books, turn a page at random, and find terrific, effective dialogue. People speak in idiom. Most people do not speak with perfect grammar or sentence structure. If you are using formal dialogue intentionally—for example, to show that a character speaks English as a second language—it's allowable. Leonard's dialogue runs fast and furious. It's not appropriate for every kind of story, but you can still learn from him.
The first line and paragraph of a story count. To see examples of effective first lines, check out William Gibson's stories in his collection BURNING CHROME. You don't have to start off with a bang, but something has to hold the reader—an image, a character, a hint of an event to come. This is known as the "hook." Practical advice on submitting a story:
WRITING TIPS BY ELLEN DATLOW
Are you writing for yourself or an audience? If you're lucky and good, you can do both at the same time. How accessible must you be? How accessible do you want to be? There are fine writers in and outside the sf/fantasy, and horrors field who are respected and read by editors and other writers but who don't sell very well.
This matters more in novel form than in short fiction. A writer can afford to be more experimental in short fiction because each story in a magazine or anthology does not sell the entire magazine or book. Each novel published needs to make money for the publishing house. You can and indeed must be literate in everything you write, but this does not mean you must be "literary."
When submitting fiction to an editor, send it in as finished and polished as you can. A story can only be read a first time once. In other words, impact counts. Editors are more likely to buy a story that hits them strongly on the first read. Whether a story is meant to be read more than once or not, the first read is the most important.
If you're having trouble with dialogue, I highly recommend reading the work of Elmore Leonard. You can pick up almost any of his books, turn a page at random, and find terrific, effective dialogue. People speak in idiom. Most people do not speak with perfect grammar or sentence structure. If you are using formal dialogue intentionally—for example, to show that a character speaks English as a second language—it's allowable. Leonard's dialogue runs fast and furious. It's not appropriate for every kind of story, but you can still learn from him.
The first line and paragraph of a story count. To see examples of effective first lines, check out William Gibson's stories in his collection BURNING CHROME. You don't have to start off with a bang, but something has to hold the reader—an image, a character, a hint of an event to come. This is known as the "hook." Practical advice on submitting a story:
- Always double space
- Paper clip your submissions
- Do not put tape on every corner of your submission envelope as it makes it exceedingly annoying and difficult for whomever is opening the envelopes to do so.
- Underline to show italics—do not italicize in a manuscript as it makes it difficult for the editor and copy editor to read.
- Use a standard, easy-to-read 12 pt font
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