Thank you, thank you, thank you! The postcards have all been spoken for, and will be making their appearances at cons and bookstores and book groups around the USA. We had one kind offer from Bury St Edmunds, which was very tempting, but I’m thinking the postage may be beyond us at the moment.
So, K. Tempest Bradford is writing today in IO9 in answer to an article in The Guardian defending “mega fantasy novels,” with the statement that you need the room to do proper worldbuilding. That worldbuilding cannot be done inside the borders of a short story. Which is. . .somewhat fantastic of itself. Part of Tempest’s response is a list of Really Good Short Stories that build worlds, too, with links (including “Eleutherios” by Lee and Miller). There’s a buncha yummy reading on this list that y’all really ought to check out. Here’s the link to Tempest’s article — and many thanks to Deborah Fisburn for pointing it out to me on Facebook.
There’s a discussion building on Facebook regarding the original article and the suppositions of the author thereof (here’s the link, though I’m not sure it will work for anyone who isn’t on Facebook). I’m reproducing my part of the conversation below, but not the comments of other people, because I don’t have their permission.
Sharon Lee Wow. Now I’ve seen/heard TWO professional authors, one an award-winning short story writer say: (1) There’s no room for characterization in short fiction and (2) There’s no room for worldbuilding in short fiction.
Clearly there’s room for both and a pony, too, if the author is so minded.
Perhaps they’re doing it wrong?
Sharon Lee Well, there’s this Magic Thing in fiction called The Telling Detail. Which allows authors to do characterization/world-building even in Very Tiny Spaces by picking one (or two, but we really don’t want to be wasteful) detail of the character/world that clues the reader into the fact that they’re not in Kansas anymore, and/or what this person is *like*.
It is, yes, very much about knowing what to leave out, and We Here in the Liaden Universe, as in Archers Beach, and in the Barrens use it a lot. *We* learned it from Georgette Heyer, being self-taught writers, but *surely* they must teach this stuff in Creative Writing Classes.
And, now?
I’ll be over here keying in the changes I red-penned yesterday. We need to take a break in the early afternoon so I can get a (long, LONG overdue) haircut, and do the podcast interview that was cancelled last week.
Then back with the manuscript for another round of editing.
Everybody stay dry.
