(Part 2) Best products from r/scifiwriting

So, I have figured out a way to write stories that works for me. But my method isn't the only way, and it's certainly not canon. You should regard what I say as suggestion rather than edict.

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Your #1 priority in the first 200-250 words of your story should be making your reader empathize with your main character, Teleka. You need to establish this emotional bond before you can get on with anything.

To this goal, you want to get a little more inside Teleka's head and concentrate less on everything else. Right now, you're mostly using her POV like a camera, reporting objectively on what it sees. Instead, you want to use her POV like a documentarian or journalist, subjectively layering her personal opinions over everything she sees.

Your reader should know how she feels about everything she talks about. Grilled steaks, yea or nay, dragon's breath, yea or nay, etc. Having the entire crew in the mess hall at once, does this make her feel just a little apprehensive? Probably. I mean, if we're being real, she's probably a mess of emotions at this point. You want to communicate exactly that to your reader.

Step 1 in establishing the bond is, you want to prove to your reader Teleka is a real, live person just like you or me. You do this by showing she has the small idiosyncrasies we all have, little anxieties and annoyances. You want to get to a place where your reader says subconsciously, hey, I know exactly how she feels.

Step 2 is that immediately after you establish this bond, you need to load her up with problems. To start, some kind of problem big enough that it requires her immediate attention.

That's it. From this point forward, your reader will be reading your story from Teleka's viewpoint. Your reader will have to keep reading to make sure Teleka's going to be okay.

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There is some pretty strong frontloading, infodumping at the start. There's a writer's instinct that wants to inform the reader of all the information they are going to require to enjoy the story. This is a misplaced instinct and should be killed. Making your reader informed is reasonable if you're writing a report, but when it comes to fiction, it's fine to leave your reader in the dark. Some of the best stories in the world are the result of withheld information. Starving your reader of essential info can create a sense of mystery.

At the beginning of your story, you want to introduce your MC, throw her into some kind of a pickle, and have more problems, even bigger, waiting in the wings. All the rest of the stuff can come later.

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Over the next few pages you introduce the squad. There's way too much information here. It's practically like you're reading off their D&D character sheets complete with hit points. It's obvious what you're doing, and it's not holding the reader's interest.

I think you've got a choice here. You can strip the 'round the table' way down, to where you're only describing each character with a few quick brushstrokes. Or you can choose 2-3 characters to describe, and save the rest for later.

Or actually, since this is just a short story, you can cut characters...

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Right now the opening of the story is too calm and relaxed. It's static. You need to inject some form of narrative tension into the proceedings. Something that will make your reader sit up and take notice.

One idea could be to light a fuse of some kind. Right now your opening sentence:

>Teleka had never seen anything quite like it.

Doesn't grab your reader or pop, or really do anything. You could replace it with something similar to:

>Teleka knew she had 30 minutes to get off the ship.

or

>Teleka knew one of her crew had to be a spy.

or

>Teleka looked down at the test strip she was holding white-knuckled. She was pregnant.

Granted, all of these openings would require some extensive re-writing. But my point is it starts the story by pulling the rug out. So things are already dynamic and in motion from the start.

You need to hook your reader's interest. Never take that interest for granted; it's a fickle resource. If you don't hook your reader, you risk them putting your book back on the shelf.

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The dialogue in general doesn't feel realistic or genuine. I think there are a couple things that might help.

The first is that at present you are primarily using dialogue to convey verbal information. You should also be using it to convey character. Dialogue is arguably better at the latter than the former.

Readers love dialogue. Dialogue allows you to showcase the personalities of your characters. And it helps bust up the large, indigestible paragraphs of infodump.

Every dialogue is a form of competition, even among the best of friends. Your speakers are competing for limited resource of talk time, power, and often physical tangibles.

A speaker doesn't stop speaking to allow another person to talk. In a dialogue, people interrupt each other to talk. That's part of the natural patterns of speech.

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And the second thing that might help is understanding the patterns of dialogue. Most people instinctively think dialogue happens like this:

A speaks.
B speaks.
A speaks.
B speaks.

But the real rhythm of dialogue is closer to this:

A speaks.
B responds. B speaks.
A responds. A speaks.
B responds.

The responses can be non-verbal, verbal, even virtual the room suddenly grew cold. The responses are just as important as what's being said.

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If you've never read a book on writing dialogue, I recommend you have a look at James Scott Bell's How to Write Dazzling Dialogue. He has an easygoing style, and I've picked up a lot from his books.

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Best of fortune! 🚀🐲

Title: THE BECOMER

GENRE: Sci-fi / Speculative Fiction

Description: 5 Star Readers' Favorite® Book Review:
"In The Becomer by David Michael Miller, we meet X, of indeterminate sex. X is you, X is me, in fact, X is, or can be, everyone. In this science fiction fantasy world, Miller examines where today’s technology could be leading us. Forget gene manipulation; in The Becomer, X is able to absorb not just your genes, but your memories, your thoughts and your dreams. X can become you, just by giving you a hug. It’s more than that, though, as once X has absorbed the essence that is you, it stays with him/her/it forever. When he hugs the next person, that person’s essence transfers also to him until, ultimately, X will become everyone. The possibilities created by this new technology seem endless and, eventually, the individual will cease to exist.

This is a short story, but in just these few pages of The Becomer, Miller questions everything we’ve ever known about individuality and consciousness. We meet X as an infant and follow his life through until he becomes the multiplicity of personalities that he will end up having. The author cleverly changes his style through the narrative as we progress through X’s life from infant, to boy, to teenager and finally to man/woman or it. The language and sentence structure early on is simple, almost childlike and grows in complexity as X himself grows in complexity. A fascinating technique employed by the author. Miller effectively challenges everything we may think we know about identity, self-awareness, interconnection, and isolation. This is a stunning short story/novella that makes the reader really sit up, take notice, and ask questions about the perception of reality and life. Brilliant, if a little short."

https://www.amazon.com/Becomer-David-Michael-Miller-ebook/dp/B072Z6CN9B

Greetings! Acquiring editor and freelance editor here. Thought I'd give you some info on what I know to be the TRADITIONAL PUBLISHING ROUTE.

Agents are the way to go for traditional publishing. Get a good query letter, a nice synopsis, and a polished manuscript. If you have a good hook and a clean manuscript, then you're in the green.

Check out your favorite authors (the ones that have similar work to your own) and find their agents. See about their agencies as possible places to send queries.


If you're looking for editors (which you should only do once you've done a good deal of revising yourself), a great place to try is your favorite authors again! Check out their publishers and find out if they use in-house or freelance editors. See if you can get in contact with them. Of course, this is going to cost some cash money as this level of editor runs $30-60/hour, if not more.

On the opposite end, college students can make for adequate proofreaders for much less money. However, they won't be the best help when it comes to actual revisions.

When it comes down to it, you need a professional for professional work. There are some editors here on the writing subreddits with varying degrees of skill and expertise. I've done work for fellow redditors at relatively low prices (relatively is the key phrase, as even a 50% discount is putting you at $15/hour) with some good success. If you want more info, send me a PM and I can give you the lowdown on hiring a freelance editor (preferably a local editor so you can go shake their hand).

Even self publications need good editors, though. I spoke briefly with the author of Avagadro Corp. who spoke to the difference in the sales of his first two self-published novels. His first went through low quality editors and he got a lot of flak for it. The second time through, he paid a pro and got great results! William Hertling: He's even got a book on how to maximize the chance of your self publication to hit critical mass.

This is good. You have good pacing and ambiance, and I would certainly read on to find out who the human is and how (s)he got there.


A few typos and grammatical. suggestions:
“She almost tripped on the various shrapnel that” I suggest you use just “shrapnel” as in “She almost tripped on the shrapnel that”
“Backside.” Suggest “back side”
“She asked with in her grainy voice” suggest “in her grainy voice”
“The translator,’ sejji...” Capital S
“We’re so far from it’s home solar-system” should be “Its home solar system”
“one of their best traits right?” Suggest a comma before “right”
“their crew member’s well-being” suggest plural— “crew members’ well-being”
“concentrate in connecting” suggest “on connecting”
“A smile grew on sejji’s face,” Capital S
“You needed the translator.’ Xnee clarified “ suggest “need the translator” in present tense.
“A white light loaded onto its surface as a brief sting of the device caused Sejji to grimace.” I find this description a bit hard to picture. I suggest changing the word “loaded” for either “flashed” or “appeared on”, and specify where on her body Sejji felt a sting.
“Xnee scratched at her hair” suggest “head”

Best of luck with it.
If you want to return the favour, have a look at my short science fiction story collection. Even if you don’t purchase, I would appreciate a review on the first story, which you can read for free with “look inside.”
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B076DPR55J
Best,
Maeve

There wasn't a February one, was there? Well, since my book was published on Feb. 29th, I'll go ahead and celebrate it, like Leap Day babies do, as March 1st.

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Dreambound, Vol. 3: Lost in the Dark

Science Fiction / Fantasy (yes, both)

316 pages (paperback), 306ish ebook

With both feet forward, and a hopeful heart the most sought-out player in all of Mardéon plunges into the belly of the beast. Spurred on by the promise of safety from the Game Masters of Dreambound, Jesse and his guild make for Sonésa. In this land ruled by ever-feuding houses and suffocating shadow, what doesn't kill you is merely saving you for later. And what saves you for later has devious plans for you and your friends. Jesse finds himself caught in a silent war, fought with words rather than blades, run by those who would stop at nothing to see their ends met. And if that includes tearing an already fragile guild apart...

So what will it be? In this conclusion to the Elven arc of the Dreambound series, who shall be saved? Those who fight at your side, or those who cannot fight at all? Those you want to save, or those who need to be saved? Your friends, or your only hope in this world for salvation? Where do loyalties lie?

Amazon
Goodreads

Haven't done one of these in a while, so I'll be more general as opposed to line edits (as I'm out of practice on those). What you'll get is my opinion of the piece itself in a more broad way, which is probably more useful anyway. It's not intended to be mean or harsh, but honest. I approach these in the way I approach my own fiction, and also fiction I buy off the shelf.

To start, it might seem like a nitpick, but I absolutely hate the protagonists name. It's also said that you want to generally avoid tropes, and being super blatant about the 'teenager trying to escape the small town' thing might get you side-eyed in a not so good way. It's horribly overdone these days. Anyway, that's just initial impressions. Lets dig into the actual writing.

> America Boggs gripped sticky, tattered pleather while the school bus climbed a muddy mountain road. She was the remote route’s only high school student, so her bright green eyes and curly blond hair towered over the surrounding mob of spastic little kids. Sitting alone, she listened to faint music through a pair of duct taped headphones.

Okay, I lied. I'm going to show you a minor edit. It'll mostly include word removal and small editions to keep the structure from being unsound.

> America gripped the tattered seat as the school bus climbed the muddy mountain road. As the remote route’s only high school student, she towered over the mob of spastic middle schoolers. Sitting alone, she listened to faint music through a pair of duct taped headphones.

Like I said, a minor edit. There's a lot of unnecessary detail the distracts from America and her situation. The self-description is also a bit jarring as she would know these things about herself. Describing a character like this should only be included if they're important to the story itself. Does it matter that she's a blonde with green eyes? Is that unique? If so, does she get funny looks? If not, don't bother. People forget these details and largely substitute what they imagine the character looks like. We also tend to only notice our flaws as they more directly impact us, unless someone is a super hot narcissist. Moving on.

> They passed sagging mobile homes roofed in blue tarps. The neighborhood’s displays of poverty provided America with constant reminders that a future beyond the Appalachians might be impossible. She dreaded a hardscrabble life in the dilapidated village and resented the rugged landscape for turning civilization into a dream.

'They' is vague in a strange way. You could say the bus passed, or the sagged mobile homes passed, but 'they passed' directly into 'sagging mobile' feels very passive. In the second sentence, the 'neighborhood's' agency (displaying, providing, etc), reads odd. I'd put the reader more firmly in America's head. I like the use of 'hardscrabble', but it highlights an issue for me. Namely, none of this feels like science fiction yet. That may be by design, but already the introduction is very slow, lacking action, emotion, or firm setting and placement. So far, it reads as very easy to put down.

> Avoiding such depressing thoughts, she signaled her antique cellphone to crank its feeble volume. The phone’s original memory only held twenty songs before her homemade upgrades, but she found and repaired it herself. Plus, her dad paid the bill if she did extra chores.

She's not avoiding the thoughts, really. She was previously reveling in them. She's turning from them, or dismissing them, but not avoiding. If she was avoiding them she wouldn't have really thought about it to begin with.

The detail of the phone: how is she 'signaling' to it? Also, the volume is feeble and it could only hold twenty songs? How familiar are you with technology? Is this set in the early 90s because phones could hold hundreds of songs relatively quickly. I'm having a hard time figuring out the time frame we're in.

> America’s sixth sense for electronics, including her body’s ability to broadcast radio waves, provided many temptations for mischief as modern technology trickled into the isolated region. Usually, she listened to her dad and hid her strange powers.
> “If anybody finds out,” he explained, “they’ll get scared and call the cops. The cops’ll tell the Feds and the Feds’ll dissect ya.”

Wooooaaah okay wait. Super-powers? Note: A sixth-sense isn't typically technomancy, but that's not really the issue here. Why am I being TOLD she has super-powers several paragraphs in? I should be shown this, and shown it much earlier. Also, if she can generate radio-waves, can she also receive them? How does it work? Why can she do it? This detail needs to hit hard and fast in some way beyond her just imagining a conversation she had with her father.

> A boy drowned out America’s favorite song by bracing his blaring video game against the backrest beside her ear. She felt its vulnerable wireless port pulsing an open invitation and pulled out her phone, sending brief bursts of silent, coded radio frequencies to control a customized hacking app. The program’s powerful algorithms discovered his pitiful password in seconds.

Watch the alliteration, because I'm seeing it a lot. Also, this reads as both weirdly specific and weirdly non-specific and, while this may not be the case, it FEELS as a reader like you have a layman's understanding of the technology involved. It uses buzzwords in a way that make it like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkDD03yeLnU

> Her tiny screen scrolled the game’s operating system until she found and spiked its battery temperature readings. Pocketing her phone, she held tight as the bus crested a ridge and lurched to an abrupt stop. The boy, pummeling his blank screen instead of holding on, bounced his face off her backrest.

'Screen scrolled' <- alliteration again. 'Pocketing her phone' is a dangling participle. You tend to want to avoid those as they confuse (especially in this case) the subject and the sequence of events. Also, the wording of the last sentence seems to imply the boy purposely bangs his head on the seat in front of himself.

> Rain peppered the metal roof like buckshot. America hoisted her bulging backpack, nodded at the driver and leapt through the exit. She trudged up her slick, washed out driveway, wishing for a different life.

Good first sentence. Very active and strong wording. Your prose needs more of this. 'Bulging Backpack'. If she's so remote, why are there so many kids and no other high schoolers? Are the young ones required to live outside city limits? I thought she was on her WAY to school because of the presence of more kids, just that she was the only one from that direction. Her returning home surrounded by children seems odd.

The last sentence kind of highlights a new problem... Why is her life so bad? She's maybe lonely, but has super-powers, seems like her dad (implied) is weird but kind of okay. I'm not really 'feeling' it with this. It just seems like an extended introduction to the character - the kind of thing really strong writers can get through in a paragraph.

I'll stop there, as I think the first page / chapter pretty much says everything that needs to be said, and if it's not exactly satisfying most people will stop there (or earlier).

It's not a bad effort. My critiques tend to be hard because an editor / agent, who is going to look at this wondering if they should spend money on it, will be a thousand times harder. I'd suggest taking some time looking into in medias res and learning how to apply it, because if you DO have a unique and compelling science-fiction story to tell, it's hiding behind this early chapter with only a brief clue as to what I can expect from your story.

The first part of a story is a promise, and this doesn't promise much I can latch onto.

Here's a recommendation: https://www.amazon.com/Traitor-Baru-Cormorant-Seth-Dickinson/dp/0765380730/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1505314872&sr=1-1&keywords=seth+dickinson

This book is a good example of an author using punchy prose, quick pacing, and strong characterization to make the 'young girl not entirely pleased with her life' trope into something striking and compelling. I highly recommend reading it, spending a little time depressed over how well its written, and then using that as inspiration to keep writing. You're in for a long, tough road from here. Good luck.

Here's something I've been wondering about.

Can some of those posters who typed "No it wouldn't work because it's not on a subject familiar to teenagers" please explain why they feel familiarity with a small part of the premise is important? Sorry if that sounds rude but to be honest, I really can't understand why "It has to be familiar to teenagers (beyond the sense of it being about teenage issues in general, ie in the sense of subject if you know what I'm saying) is an important factor for judging if something is YA or not.

Here's an example of what I mean. This probably isn't a good analogy but I hope what I say is clear.

Say you have a book set in Australia (I live here and I'm an Aussie) about an Italian-Australian girl who discovers her father is an admirer of Mussolini and believes Italian fascism was a great thing and should be implemented over here and the story is how she deals with the fact that her father is a fascist and the judgements she faces when this news gets out.

Maybe my friends are a different group than most young adults, but I think most people I know would be more familiar with Fidel and Che (if vaguely) than with Mussolini beyond knowing that he was a fascist and the leader of Italy from the Great Depression to WWII and that his regime were allies of the Nazis. He also had a number of sympathisers outside of Italy, as did Franco and Hitler.

I probably know a bit more than the average person my age about Mussolini, although it's not that much: for example, one of the things he did while in power was to go to Southern Italy and help out in the fields for a day (make it look like he was sympathising with the rural workers) then return to his Ducal Palace.

Anyhow, the point of this example is to ask this: If a book focusing on teenage issues told from the perspective of Che Guevara's clone is called adult fiction because it has

>a plot involving historical events

then a book about a girl whose father is literally a fascist and follower of Mussolini would also count as adult fiction for the same reason. Because anything serious involving a historical figure has to involve the events they were involved in in some way as well. It's pretty much unavoidable, even in books like [this one which has twin brothers who are Hitler clones as protagonists] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Goodness-Gene-Sonia-Levitin/dp/0525473971)

July was good.

I published two novels this month and they are totally unrelated.
First one (and my debut novel) is titled "Janitors of the Late Space Age" (207 pages). It is a science fiction novel inspired by a video game actually - the Space Engineers. In the end I kinda like how it panned out: a bit slow to start but hopefully it conveys that lonely feeling of traveling through space and roaming over uninhabited planets. So far the reviews are good!

Link: [Amazon kindle and paperback] (https://www.amazon.com/Janitors-Late-Space-Age-Engineers-ebook/dp/B072RJKXNX/)

The second novel - I am really excited about that one - is titled "Four Zero Four" (207 pages). It's a raw story. I've included snippets of real-world news (American elections influenced by hackers and memes, crowdfunded useless inventions and similar) and it fitted PERFECTLY with the cyberpunk theme. Four Zero Four is something that was only recently published, and I want to properly launch it in about two weeks - please feel free to grab it and review it by then.

Link: Amazon kindle and paperback

“Jinkie Jenkins: Interstellar Sex Reporter!” is now on sale at Amazon. Most of the changes I have made to the manuscript are minor, except for one thing: I deleted all references to the word "slut" and replaced it with the term “sylph.” I agree with those of you who pointed out that the term “slut” just has too much baggage for ordinary readers to work with. I've included a preamble that explains what I mean by “sylph.”

I want to thank you all for visiting the thread and commenting.

And I'd like to ask you to do one other thing. If you read my book, I'd like you to go to this link on Amazon and review it. You don't have to buy the book to review it, and you don't have to write a long review. I want you to review it like you bought it, paid your hard-earned money for it, and don't know the author at all. Praise it or curse it, but the main thing is, give other readers an honest feel for what the book is like.

Thanks for your time and I hope you feel it was well spent.

As long as you put your desire and hope in the act of writing itself, as opposed to the desire of wanting to have written something, you will do well.

I would suggest a few pieces of light reading, a few pieces of heavy reading, and some listening for you too.

Light reading:

Stephen King's "On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft" This book is not meant as a book of lessons so much as the formula that assembled one writer. It's short, it's heartfelt, and it has some wisdom in it.

The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White. - This is a short book, it gives a good starter set of rules that we accept for communicating with one another in the English language.

Heavy Reading:

Hero with a Thousand Faces, by Joseph Campbell. - This is a short book but it is very thick with information and esoteric names from all cultures. Why is that? Because it deals with, very succinctly, the fundamental core of nearly all human storytelling, Campbell's "Monomyth" premise can inform you all the way from the Epic of Gilgamesh to Star Wars a New Hope

Writing Excuses This is a Podcast about writing by Brandon Sanderson, of "Mistborn," "Way of Kings," and "Wheel of Time" fame, Howard Taylor, the writer and artist of Schlock Mercenary, a webcomic that hasn't missed a day for a long while, Mary Robinette Kowol, a Puppeteer and Author of "Shades of Milk and Honey" and Dan Wells, from the "I am not a Serial Killer" series It has been going on for more than a decade, and nearly every episode is a wonderful bit of knowledge.

Title: The Eternium Complex

Genre: Anthology/ Scifi space epic

Size: 43 pages

Description: The complex holds within it the collection of stories that shaped the very fabric of reality. From the pages of a guidebook detailing the history of everything, to the heroics of those who keep peace and order in the wake of great chaos. This is the first in many books to come. The complex is always rising.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074LYQ6QG

I really hope people will read and enjoy my work. I'm looking to better my craft so any feedback or support I can get is greatly appreciated.