Tag Archives: fantasy

Writing prompt: “The rider approached from the distance”

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Time: 5 minutes. Click here to go to my list of prompts.

“The rider approached from the distance”

The rider approached from the distance. At first, Ganya assumed he rode a horse. As the figure grew nearer, he realized the steed was mechanical. Its haunches glistened in the last afternoon light, but in the way of polished aluminum. The creature was utterly detailed in its creation, but stylized. The jointed were open, showing the workings of the gears. The mane and tail were composed of some strange fiber that floated voluminously. He guessed the fibers held static charge, creating this illusion of weightlessness and wonder from, for a human, a truly horrendous bad hair day.

Ganya had seen a few mechanical dogs, toys of the extremely idle rich, but never a horse. There was a certain implication of perfection in the fact that the beast was ridden. A person of such means would never ride something less that transcendently safe. Somehow, that more than the size of the creature, struck Ganya in awe. The mech dogs sometimes failed. This thing must be a marvel of engineering beyond his dreams. What he wouldn’t give to take it apart and look inside.

The rider dismounted and drew back his cloak. No, her cloak. The rider was a small, severe, but remarkable looking woman. In Ganya’s part of the world, women didn’t ride, nor did they possess wealth. Seeing the rider was female filled him with resentment. Surely he deserved this marvelous steed more than she. And perhaps with a little cunning, the shining beast would be his.

 

 

Writing prompt: “The secret to space poppies is harvesting the right part”

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Time: 7 minutes. Click here to go to my list of prompts.

“The secret to space poppies is harvesting the right part”

The secret to space poppies is harvesting the right part. I should know. When teaching on Seti Beta goes to recess in the early summer, I switch to my more lucrative career, harvesting. The seeds contain powerful opiates, conveying all their medicinal and jovial attributes. The petals and the stem each have their own pitfalls. The petals have some quantity of opiates, but also contain some oxidized compounds which, in my opinion, lead to the having of a bad time. Unscrupulous vendors will include the petals in their product, knowing that the vast majority of customers don’t know the difference. I like to think that a more pleasant high leads to customer loyalty. The stem contains potent poisons. Homicidal vendors include them.

They aren’t really related to poppies, nor do they look like them. They’re actually enormous lizard plants. But they yield an opiate, and they have plant parts. Part of the trade is keeping the lizards happy. When they’re unhappy, they bite, and they can accumulate more oxidized compounds. I have three flesh fingers on my left hand, although at least I had plenty of painkiller on hand. Some say that the industry is in danger, with the rise of bioengineering and targeted therapies. This is why I support the rise of pleasure purchases. They are the future.

(This prompt is a bit scattered. I barely had the time to finish it during a lull in teaching in a crowded noisy room. But I really think it’s worthwhile to sit down and write on command. We must learn to accept that not all words we write are golden, but if we do write, there will be more golden words than if we don’t. As Wayne Gretzky said, we miss 100% of the shots we don’t take. And perhaps, one evening when we think we’re brain-dead, we will write something that we love in the morning.)

Writing prompt: “What if the creatures in your decor emerged?”

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Time: 5 minutes. Click here to go to my list of prompts.

“What if the creatures and peoples in your photos and paintings emerged from them?”

The man riding the communism literacy poster started to look unnervingly three-dimensional. What ABV is this beer, Edna thought to herself. Indeed, all the photos and paintings of beings had taken an on an odd sheen. Then the figures from the images emerged and stood in her living room. Some were fairly benign, like the Mucha women,  posing serenely, showing off biscuits with a bare breast or two.

Others were more problematic. The rider of literacy, 8 inches high but full of nationalistic zest, waved his torch menacingly and kept shouting tovarich* at her. Out the window she heard the cries of her neighbors and the wail of sirens. She glared again at the beer before running into the next room to seek her russian-english dictionary. Based on the sirens, this might be a situation she’d have to handle herself. She congratulated herself for removing that photo of the shadow vessel from Babylon 5. She wondered if it would count as a creature, but even miniature, such a thing would be a problem.

tovarich: comrade, in Russian.

The Submission Grinder for writers

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Last year I wrote about Duotrope, a website with market information for writers. You can get info on market statistics, and track your own submissions. It went behind a pay wall at the beginning of the year. I was recently mulling whether I should pay their $50 annual subscription fee, or whether I could find something else. One of the things I liked best about Duotrope was their extensive, user-sourced info on rate of response, rate of personal response, time for response, and so forth. Could they possibly offer as much as they had pre-paywall, since they must now have fewer users? Is there an alternative?

I think Submission Grinder is that worthwhile, free alternative. They have great submission statistics, with histograms of when submissions are accepted and rejected as a function of days since submission. Like Duotrope, you can sort by pay, response time, genre, and all that good stuff. It doesn’t have Duotrope’s submission theme calendar (that was a great feature, as I find those themes impossible to keep track of). It also lacks the editorial interviews that Duotrope has, but reading the submission guidelines and reading a market’s website often give similar insights. I put my info into it yesterday, and it was very straightforward.

Before I found Submission Grinder, I found some nice market listings too. It’s as easy as a google search; for example, the search “science fiction markets” turns up great websites in the first handful of results. Here are some great resources for science fiction and fantasy short story writers:

  • Ralan.com– lists markets on different pages by pay. Each market has a helpful blurb with their word requirements, genres, pay, and average response times. They keep up to date on when markets are open or closed or have become defunct.
  • SFWA qualifying market list– the cream of the crop, those markets that pay at the SFWA (science fiction and fantasy writers of America) professional rate. Each listing includes a link to the market’s submission guidelines as well. These are very exclusive markets, and some accept only a handful a year.
  • Flash Fiction Chronicles– a listing of markets under 1500 words, broken into several categories, by length (such as less than 300 words). Some are pay, most are not, and there’s something for every genre. It’s a lot like Ralan’s for flash fiction.

Sites and sources I don’t recommend:

  • Critters black hole– this site is intended to track market acceptance rates and time to response, similar to Duotrope. However, the info is unacceptably out of date. You are as likely to find a dead market from the 90s as an active one. Critters.org is an excellent critique site, but skip this feature.
  • Writer’s Digest Science Fiction Markets- I wondered if I should buy this, recently. When I did the research, it sounds like it has some errors. It’s only $6, but you can do better with the sites I list.
  • Quintamid– A great looking site, but alas, out of date too. I thought this would be a good resource, but I got a helpful tip in the comments about it.

Happy writing! And go join Submission Grinder–the more information it has, the better for all!

Book review: Dealing with Dragons (Patricia Wrede 1990)

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There are no spoilers in this review beyond the first couple chapters.

Rating: 5/5

Dealing with Dragons is a humorous young adult fantasy book, the first in a four book series. I first read it when I was in middle school, and I just recently reread it. I enjoyed it greatly when I was younger and it was a fun little excursion now. I wanted to read something light that wouldn’t distract me too much from my own writing projects. This book was perfect for that.

The main character of the story is Cimorene, a smart and unconventional princess who is tired of the dullness of her life of embroidery and batting her eyelashes. To avoid a marriage to a dull prince, she leaves home to go live with dragons. In this universe, dragons keep princesses as helpers as a status symbol, and this is why princes are always saving princesses from dragons. Cimorene’s dragon sees the advantage to a sharper princess who can actually be a useful helper. Along the way, Cimorene learns about dragons, wizards, witches, and many magical things.

Many of the people Cimorene encounters are hung up on doing things the way they are expected to, often without any real additional reason. The story uses sly humorous references to familiar fairytales, such as sleeping beauty and St. George the dragon slayer, to explain why these various characters feel their obligations. Cimorene often succeeds because she thinks about the best course of action, she doesn’t just do what is expected.

For that reason, I think it would be a good book for kids, like it was for me. Kids get too hung up on how people will think of them, and not always with bad reason. Other kids can be eager to harshly deliver this message. In adulthood, what makes you different is usually valuable. Adults have to help kids resist the pressure to always conform. It’s also a good book for adults because it is a lovely and swift read. The whole book is only 212 pages long, and those are fast-moving pages. It would not be hard to finish this book in an evening.