Gone

My computer took a nosedive today so I won't be blogging for a while.

"Graveyard Shift" by William P. McGivern

I've been picking through some short story anthologies this month and finding an amazing group of authors that I've never read before. This week's find was a short novel by William P. McGivern called "Graveyard Shift". I found the story in the 1979 spring-summer edition Hitchcock's Anthology.

The story is about a newspaper reporter who's following a tip about a mayoral candidate. The tip is a set-up that goes terribly wrong for everybody involved, including our reporter. McGivern gives us the bad guys up front but the twists the story takes are so unexpected that you just have to keep reading to find out what's going to happen. Excellent story and a great example of how to plant "red herrings" that turn a story on its head.

There was no bio for McGivern so I did a search and found that he not only wrote novels and shorts but he wrote movies like "The Big Heat" for which he won an Edgar, "Rouge Cop", and "Brannigan". He also wrote TV scripts for shows like Kojak, Banyon and Adam 12. I'll be on the look out for more of this author's work.

Markets

I love scrolling through Ralan.com, there's always something new to find. And if your dark stories wander into the horror genre here's a few markets you can take a look at.

For the non-fictions writers there's Dark Scribe Press they're working on an anthology about slasher films you can find them at this url http://darkscribepress.com/pages.php?page_id=17

While clicking around their site, I found that they also publish a zine called Dark Scribe Magazine. They are looking for reviews, interviews and articles. The url here is http://www.darkscribemagazine.com/

And for our short story writers there's Flashes in the Dark at http://flashesinthedark.com/ The word limit is 1000 and make sure you check out their guidelines because there's a lot they don't want in their stories like child abuse, animal abuse...well, you get the idea.

And there's another new zine debuting in July called Shock Totem. Their first issue is all set but they're taking submissions for the second one. you can find them at http://www.shocktotem.com/

Just an added note here on Shock Totem. When I checked to see if the url was working, I found that it didn't. Going back to Ralan, I clicked on the link there and it doesn't work there now either. Could just be a glitch, time will tell.

RIP John Updike

Just read this news on Yahoo and thought, "Oh my God, another giant is gone." I can't say that I'm a big fan of Updike as I've tried and failed to complete a single one of his books. His flowery prose and ten dollars words always stopped me in my tracks, but you've got to admire a writer who's left behind such a tremendous the body of work.

The Invisible Writer

I ran across a writing tip today that made me want to shout at the tipster, "Are you nuts?" Needless to say, I refrained from a confrontation but I'd still like to discuss this just a bit.

Here's the tip: "I have my students locate what they believe is the best line. It makes them aware that not every line has to be golden and a writer certainly doesn't want to lose a reader in self-indulgent prose. However, there should be one line that absolutely pops the piece. This is the line to let readers know 'I'm a writer to be reckoned with.' "

I've always believed that every word - every sentence - every paragraph needs to be vital to the story, needs to keep it moving and the reader engrossed. Writing one line that pops does not a good story make. But even this isn't what upset me. It was the part about the writer letting the reader know that he's to be "reckoned with".

I've always been taught that the writer should be invisible. If you can tell when the writer is writing, he's doing something wrong. When I finish a short story or a book I want to be able to say, "Wow! What a great story!" And if a writer can make me do this, I'll look for more of their work to read. For me, its about the story, if I'm stopping to admire the writing the story is lost.

What about you? Do you read for the story or to admire the writer who's telling the story? Or is it a little of both?

"A Good Man is Hard to Find"

In the last twenty years the colleges have been emphasizing creative writing to such an extent that you almost feel that any idiot with a nickel's worth of talent can emerge from a writing class able to write a competent story. In fact, so many people can now write competent stories that the short story as a medium is in danger of dying of competence. We want competence, but competence by itself is deadly. What is needed is the vision to go with it, and you do not get this from a writing class. -- Flannery O'Connor

I ran across this quote today on John Baker's blog. The odd thing is that O'Connor passed away in 1964 and yet, her words are even more on target today than when she first wrote it. Coincidentally, I read one of her short stories this week which shows what vision can do for a story.

The story was "A Good Man is Hard to Find". The premise was taking the wrong road and O'Connor turned that premise on it's head because every character in the story took the wrong road that day. She took an ordinary family trip and turned it into a tragedy so totally unexpected and yet you knew that yes, it could happen.

I loved O'Connor's voice and look forward to finding more of her work. One thing that did give me a chuckle though was reading her bio at the back of the anthology which said that "her works are filled with "tender" violence and grim Gothic humor." Oh, the humor was certainly there in the everyday thoughts and actions of the family but the violence, while off page, was not of the tender variety.

On a side note, there's a new story up at Beat to a Pulp, and here's the BSP, it's by me. I hope you enjoy my little side trip into the regions of Sci-fi.

Always Learning

Did you ever read a story and want to sit down with the author and ask her why she did certain things in the story? I know that with the Internet, authors are more accessible but how would you approach an author you admire to ask such questions? Would she think you actually wanted to learn her process or would she think that you were just trying to tear her work apart? After all, she's been published at a level you might never reach.

I just finished a short story by an author who I really admire. I've read all her books and always look forward to the next one. So I was thrilled when I came across a short story written by her. As I read the story I wondered why she chose to write using another author's VERY famous character.

While the use of this character was a bit jarring, the story was engrossing and well plotted. Right up until the end when I felt like she was rushing so she could get the story out the door. I wondered why she told instead of showing us what could have been an action packed ending. Was she limited by a word count or did she just get tired of writing the short story, maybe afraid of taking it over the top? I so wanted to start pounding the keyboard and filling in the the parts she'd just skimmed over.

Even though I'll never ask her these questions, she did teach me an important writing lesson. She showed me how important it is to fill in the blanks so the reader can actually see what's going on instead of just reading about it after the fact. This is something that I do in my own writing, telling instead of showing.

Reading this story also brought home the lesson that you can learn just as much from poor writing as from great writing. The trick is making sure you incorporate the lessons learned into your own writing. I don't think a writer is ever done learning and if you run across one who believes they know everything about writing, it might be better to take their advice with a grain of salt.

And a quote today from Truman Capote:
"Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shadows, just as painting does, or music."