Being Unintentionally Offensive is Bad Writing

Carrie Cuinn put up a blog post today reviewing the last three months' of flash fictions from Nature Magazine's Futures feature. My story "An Alien Named Tim" was one of the stories reviewed. Carrie gave it a rating of 3 out of 5, saying it was "funny" and that she "Would have rated it higher except for the space hookers."

[Edited 7/9/13 to add] Carrie wrote to me on twitter saying: "By quoting only part of that sentence, you put the focus on 'women' instead of 'aliens', when it was the alien part I objected to. Either you didn't understand what I was saying, or misrepresented it--but the issues wasn't women, or even hookers in space. It was the specific trope of 'alien space hookers'/the racism of classic examples; your 'look I've learned' statement ignores that." I had not intended to misrepresent and apologize for doing so. The full sentence from the review was:

"Would have rated it higher except for the space hookers; suggesting one catches diseases from sex with alien women is based on the classic SF method of hiding racism by attaching negative stereotypes to 'aliens' instead."

The reference in question came near the beginning of the story in what was essentially a throwaway joke as the reference isn't in any way relevant to the rest of the action.

"We weren't armed; the trade routes had been peaceful for decades. The biggest risk to cargo haulers was catching something from one of the alien women at the waystations. A raygun wasn't much good against that sort of trouble."

I'm a bit embarrassed to say that my initial reaction was "But I didn't saaaaaaay they were hookers!" Which, if I'd been foolish enough to actually say that should've earned me a "not impressed" look and a "Really?" 'Cause... Yeah... That was pretty clearly the inference I was going for there. Fortunately, I didn't stop at that first reaction, and I also didn't linger around "But I didn't mean for it to be offensive" either.

Sunday Links: July 29, 2012 Edition

July is almost over, can you believe it? Tomorrow I'll post my month-end goal status and also write up my planned goals for August. It's been basically a year to the day since I returned to writing last summer and I'm very pleased with how the past year has gone writing-wise. I'm excited to see where the next 12 months take me.

If you missed it earlier this week my mystery story "Present Company" ran on Every Day Fiction on July 24th.

Also, as a reminder, there's still over a month until the August 31st deadline for submissions for Unidentified Funny Objects.

Below are this week's writing-related links that I wanted to share with my readers. Also, if you're so inclined, Kasia James has a guest post up today on my Write Every Day blog where she talks about, well, about NOT writing every day.

Sunday Links: June 24, 2012 Edition

First off, a quick update on "Write Every Day." It's been submitted to Amazon and is available for purchase on their .co.uk site and other European sites. However, it's not yet available on Amazon.com for some reason; I've got an email in to Amazon's support site and I'll let everyone know as soon as it's available on Amazon.com.

I've decided to discontinue adding the #storyeachnight and #poemeachnight information to this Sunday Links post. With adding #poemeachnight it has become a big chunk of text and the most recent week or so of everyone's #storyeachnight and #poemeachnight tweets should usually be available to review on Twitter.

So, for now, let's head to the links:

Finishing What You Start

An easy bad habit to fall into as a writer is not finishing what you start. On the whole, I do decently at staying out of that particular trap. But at the moment, I'm feeling like I've let a few too many unfinished things pile up. I've got a half-dozen or so stories that I've finished drafts of but never gotten to a point that I was happy enough with to kick out the door. I've got a novelette that I received beta reader feedback on that I really need to get working on the next draft of since one of the people who will be reading my next draft of it is working with a small time window. I've got two beginnings to stories that I wrote over Memorial Day weekend when I was too brain-fried to do anything other than work from a blank page. And I've got an idea I love and am dying to work on where all I have are a few notes in an email.

That's a whole lot of things that need attention. The only way I'm going to be able to get through them, though, is to chip away at the stack a bit at a time. Even with having a revising-party day in the near future, there's no way I can tackle all of those things at once.

When I've got a whole pile of stuff to deal with like this, in any area of my life, the best thing I can do is prioritize the items inside it.

Sunday Links and the Week in #storyeachnight: May 13, 2012 Edition

Has it really been a week since last Sunday? I guess it has. Things are hectic as ever around here, but I've been able to keep moving forward on various writing projects, so I'm feeling good about things.

A quick note: I've lagged behind on getting organized around doing a Dissecting the Short Story post for May. If I get a list of choices together in the next couple of days, then I'll still do one this month. Otherwise, I'll defer it to June.

In addition to my writing, I've been reading at least one story each day recently and tweeting about them under the hashtag #storyeachnight. I've noticed that several more people have joined into the #storyeachnight tweeting recently, which is cool to see. Here are this week's entries from my reading:

5/6 - "Out of the Storm" by William Hope Hodgson from 100 HAIR-RAISING LITTLE HORROR STORIES. Atmospheric story, told via telegraph, of nightmares out at sea.
5/7 - "Notes From The Apocalypse" by Stephen Graham Jones from WEIRD TALES 359. I don't say this often, but that was an interesting zombie story.
5/8 - "City League" from the 5/6-12 F&SF. Starts out a bit slow but it builds to a horrifying scenario. I'm glad that I kept with it. All sorts of themes of baseball, fathers and sons, memory & reality. The stuff that pushes my buttons. (* Despite the slow start, this was my favorite of the week.)
5/9 - "We Make Tea" by Meryl Ferguson from SHIMMER 14. A tea plantation's robots carry on in a post-apocalyptic world.
5/10 - "Liberty's Daughter" by Naomi Kritzer from the 5/6-12 F&SF. Engaging MC and interesting world-building. I had a bit of trouble buying the MC's job & her dad's role was a bit too mysterious for me but neither was a deal breaker. (As a fellow writer noted to me on Twitter, it felt somewhat like the first chapter/portion of a novel rather than a self-contained story. I would mostly agree with that. Still, we both enjoyed it.)
5/11 - "Asylum" by Albert E. Cowdrey from the 5-6/12 F&SF. A New Orleans ghost story, I basically enjoyed this. Two secondary characters were one of my favorite parts, though I wonder if they overshadowed the main character a bit at time.

5/12 - "Wrong World" by Steve J Myers from DAILY SCIENCE FICTION.

Now, on to this week's writing-related links:

Sunday Links & the Week in #storyeachnight: May 6th, 2012 Edition

What an exciting writing week it's been! I've blogged about all this already (and the links are below) but I've got to say that it's a really good week when it includes a publication of a very well-received story, two short story sales, my first time trading guest posts with another writer, and my first-ever review.

I've been reading at least one story each day recently and tweeting about them under the hashtag #storyeachnight. Here are this week's entries:

4/29 - "Possible Monsters" by Will McIntosh from the 6/12 ASIMOV'S. A didn't-quite-make-it ball player gets a jolt when he comes back home & finds out an alien had taken up residence. Maybe a bit long on prelims but very good. Great ending.
4/30 - "Bad Moon Risen" by Eric Del Carlo from SHIMMER #14. A well-done werewolf short story with a small town under siege.
5/1 - "Through Bleached Bone" from by Cate Gardner from GOLDFISH GRIMM'S SPICY FICTION SUSHI Issue 3.
5/2 - "Duck Hunt" by Joe R. Lansdale from 100 HAIR-RAISING LITTLE HORROR STORIES. Didn't go where I was expecting, though I can't say that where it did go left me that impressed. I really enjoyed the imagery of her story, especially the Ghost Beast and the cityscape setting.
5/3 - "Repairmen" by Tim Sullivan from the 3/4-12 F&SF. Didn't really do a lot for me but I could imagine it making a decent one-act play or short film. Almost all dialogue in one room.
5/4 - "The Shadowcrafter" by Ken Liu from NINE Issue #1. I enjoyed this historical fantasy.

5/5 - "Tomorrow's Dictator" by Rahul Kanakia from the 5/12 APEX. Life in a world with personality adjustment.

Now, on to this week's writing-related links:

Sunday Links & The Week in #storyeachnight: March 11, 2012 Edition

First off, a quick update relating to Dissecting the Short Story. As some of you may know from comments I've made on Twitter or other places, things have been incredibly crazy in my life recently. In the span of two weeks my father was injured in an accident which has drastically (and, thankfully, presumably temporarily) restricted his ability to get around and my mother-in-law had a stroke. Between taking on extra tasks to help family members and a lot of driving (750 miles in one 36 hour period) I've been both short on time and energy to do anything writing related. My writing time has been spent almost totally on things that either have a deadline or where I have time-based commitments (such as my Seinfeld/Daily Writing Chain and blog schedule).

How this relates to Dissecting the Short Story is that some of the benchmarks in my original timeline (as discussed in Monday's post about the future of the feature) are likely to slip a bit, though hopefully not by too awfully much.

So, with that out of the way, let's move on to the usual Sunday business of my #storyeachnight recap for the week and links to blog posts, etc. which I read in the last week and found worth sharing. First, the week's nightly short stories:

3/4 - "The Stars Are Falling" by Joe Lansdale from THE YEAR'S BEST DARK FANTASY AND HORROR 2011. A man returns to his wife, son, & East Texas home after experiencing the horrors of World War I but everything is different.
3/5 - "Accident Report" by Ed McBain from LEARNING TO KILL. Seemed very much a predecessor to the 87th Precinct stories
3/6 - "Something Real" by Rick Wilber from the 4-5/12 ASIMOV'S. A story of alternate timelines, WWII and Moe Berg.
3/7 - "Hurt Me" by M.L.N. Hanover from YEAR'S BEST DARK FANTASY & HORROR 2011. An interesting ghost story, nicely atmospheric, with a resolution I didn't expect.
3/8 - "Chinese Puzzle" by Ed McBain from LEARNING TO KILL. Another pre-87th Precinct procedural, this one 1st person.
3/9 - Ironically when I couldn't sleep I read "Insomnia" by A. G. Carpenter from DAILY SCIENCE FICTION. I mostly liked "Insomnia" (the story) though the ending left me a bit underwhelmed. Good voice & main character.
3/10 - "Electrica" by Sean McMullen in the Mar/Apr 2012 F&SF. Wow! If you have this mag, make time to read it! "Electrica" had some steampunk elements & setting (though not tone) put me in mind of the Flashman novels. I thoroughly enjoyed "Electrica." Didn't want to put it down. McMullen apparently is working on a novel in this universe. (* My favorite this week, though many weeks "The Stars Are Falling" or "Hurt Me" could have been my favorite. An especially good batch of stories this week.)

And now, here are this week's links:

Pet Peeves: Continuity and Logic Errors

Somewhere along the line, most writers are going to be trying to convince someone (or lots of someones) to buy their story. It may be an editor, it may be readers if you go the self-publishing route. There's lots of things you don't want to do to people you're trying to get to buy your story. Making them feel bored is obviously a big no-no. Repeated typographical or grammatical errors are another one.

Something that's subtler, but a real pet peeve of mine, are errors in continuity, facts, or logic.

Sunday Links: January 1, 2012 Edition

Well, another end-of-year holiday season has come and gone. And I've survived. Huzzah!

We had a gaggle of teenagers over here last night for New Year's Eve. They were all well-behaved, but typically energetic. It made for an interesting several hours. As always, it's a little funny watching them and thinking "Gosh, I was like that not that long ago." Well, sort of not that long ago...  :)

Before I get to this week's links, I wanted to point you all to my newest publication "Credit Where Credit Is Due." This is the story that was chosen as part of Kazka Press' December "Who the hell is Santa?" flash fiction prompt contest. I hope that you enjoy the story!

Without any further ado (or shilling), here are this week's links...

When Something Goes Wrong

Recently, I was taking a final pass through one of my short stories before sending it to a crit partner. As I was reading it, I was struck with a sickening feeling. There was a huge -- no, an enormous -- plot hole in the story. One that dealt with the central problem of the story and basically would have left the reader saying to themselves "Uh, hey, why are they going about it this way instead of just fixing the problem the easy way."

This, I must say, is not a happy feeling. For several moments, I was convinced that there was no way to salvage the story, and I was feeling rather stunned. In fact, I was pretty close to completely setting the story aside, putting it into the "nice idea" pile, and finding something else to send to my crit partner for his review. Fortunately, I got past that initial panic reaction and thought some more. Maybe there was a way to recover the story?

Sunday Links

I hope everyone is having a good Sunday!  Here are a few writing-related articles which I've read in the last few days which I found interesting.


Changing Scale: Looking at Your Story from Different Angles by Janice Hardy (The Other Side of the Story) - Janice takes here architectural background here and relates it to writing. She talks about how changing your perspective -- going from looking at the "big picture" of your story to some details or vice-versa -- can help provide new ideas for your writing.


Forty-Five More Flaws That Expose Your Lack of Writing Experience, Part 3 (Plot to Punctuation) - A list with detailed examples of nine "gotchas" that novice (and -- as the author notes in the case of George Lucas -- experienced) authors can trip themselves up on.  Part three of five.

Why a Messy First Draft is a Good Thing by Julie Musil - I can see myself coming back to this one several times during NaNoWriMo.  "A messy first draft means you've finished a book."  Good words to remember!

What Self-Publishers Can Learn from Restaurant Impossible by Joel Friedlander (The Book Designer) - Since I've been thinking a lot recently about how publishing has changed and is changing, this article was interesting for me to read, and I liked his use of a TV show to draw parallels between writing and another business.