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Fantasy Magazine is running a wonderful holiday subscription special. Here are the details:

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This is a first for us, but we're now offering an online holiday special for Fantasy Magazine, both for US and overseas subscriptions, which boils down to ten dollars and thirty dollars, respectively, for four issues.

US: wildsidepress.3dcartstores.com/Fa...tml

Overseas: wildsidepress.3dcartstores.com/Fa...tml

Please spread the good word or gift a subscription to friends and family; or try out a magazine that we all feel very strongly about, and that we hope that readers will agree, once they've gotten alook at and feel of Fantasy.

Happy Holidays,
Paul Tremblay and Sean Wallace, co-editors Prime Books

Happy Friday 13th

Remember, today is 'buy a horror X' day. So go buy a horror book, movie or whatever. Do something spooky for the fun of it.

Writing updates

I'm starting a new project tonight. I just put the finishing touches on a couple of works I've already promised to an editor. As soon as I have an official acceptence, I'll announce the publication. Looks like a great company to work with. Kind of like a publishing co-op.

The new project is story 1 of 5 I want to write in prep for my novel. I want to see if the Shoegazing genre will work in a story format. I haven't completely figured out how that will translate, but that's what the short stories are for. My goal is to do something really different. I want to focus on doing a new type of description and doing a couple of new things with characterization. These are things I've seen done before, but not often in the fantasy genre. In fact, I might not be writing in the genre anymore. I'll have to see what the novel looks like when I'm done with it, but it might need to just go to the mainstream as literary.

Just Right

"Since each story presents its own technical problems, obviously one can't generalize about them on a two-times-two-equals-four basis. Finding the right form for your story is simply to realize the most natural way of telling the story. The test of whether or not a writer has divined the natural shape of his story is just this: After reading it, can you imagine it differently, or does it silence your imagination and seem to you absolute and final? As an orange is final. As an orange is something nature has made just right." -- Truman Capote

Craft - The Dramatic Dip

There's a particular dramatic flow I'm looking for in everything I read now. I call it the dip. You see, a good scene is structured like a roller coaster. This of course is pretty common knowledge to most dramatists. So I'm not claiming to have found some great truth here, I'm just stating it for completeness mostly--and the terrible mixed metaphor I'll use to try to illustrate my point.

I've often said that conflict is pushed far too hard on new writers. Perhaps there's a good reason for this, like they tend to dwell too much on back story, but for the most part new writers' work tends to lack a sense overall tension, because you must go down before you can go up. If you want rising tension, you must lower it. If the only direction you ever go dramatically is up, then the work never has a complete feel. It's this feeling of completeness that you want to evoke in the reader. This feeling of completeness is achieved by exploring the fullness of the scene.

Switching similes here, but in other ways a scene is like a painting. It is composed of neutral tones, highlights and shadows. These are explored through forward motion. If you focus too much on one, the scene will either seem dull and lifeless, far too subtle to understand what's happening, or will be so filled with action the reader will be left breathless and unable to understand what's going on.

Sticking with the painting simile a bit longer (and mixing in the roller coaster), the three portions have their dramatic counter parts. The sense descriptions count as the neutral tones. These are the base colors that define the reality of the scene for the reader. These are the things that are seen, smelled, heard (except dialogue), and felt. Action and dialogue are your highlights. Inside the highlights is where you build your conflict. This is the dramatic portion of the story that moves it forward and up or down. Pacing plays an important role here. Fast, choppy sentences will give your reader a sense of urgency. Languid pacing here can build tension, much like a roller coaster climbing slowly up the highest hill. Back story, characterization through back story and indirect dialogue or descriptions are your shadows. These are the places you build connection. Understand, like a good painter, you can mix these and blend them into each other. In fact, that's the portion I want to focus on. Those dramatic moments that happen between driving action and description, between heated dialogue and back story; these are what I call the dramatic dip. They are those moments when the coaster is just coming off a long plunge and is about to move up another hill. That moment when your stomach feels that switch in momentum.

One thing that has bothered me about the way some writers handle the dip, is that it really isn't even a dip at all. It's more like a complete stop and switch in direction. This is jarring to the reader and could probably be used for dramatic effect, but generally it comes off as amateurish. The dip is dramatically a very difficult thing to handle, because it is more than just a smooth transition. It’s a smooth transition with dramatic meaning. Many writers will avoid the dip entirely, which is why you'll often see the scene that just continuously climbs and hints at a dip at scene's ending. Personally, I think that's a cheat.

Writing goals for the next six months

These are the things I'm shooting for:

Write and revise 2 short stories a month
First Draft a novelette in November
Have a total of 15 stories in circulation (off to market) by April
Start on the Novel in April

I think all of this is doable.

Yeah

Yeah, tribe is back to looking usable again. Okay, I think I'll probably starting hanging out here again.

This could be fun!

Auction for Clarion West funds

Hey y'all,

I have my auction up and going for Clarion West. There are a few things that might appeal to some of my friends here:

Signed Neil Gaiman sandman graphic novel
16mm Bell and Howell movie camera
Wireless mic
Nightmare Before Christmas original 1993 collectors toys-still in package
and many more

Everything is priced starting at a dollar with no reserves. Shipping is minimal.

search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZ...ellsQQhtZ-1

Clarion Fundraiser with donation benefits

For every donation, no matter the dollar amount, I will send the donator a copy of my short story _Reconstruct_. It is my most polished short story in inventory and has yet to find a publisher, but you can be one of the first to read it. If you can't donate anything, link to this post from your blog or journal and I'll send you a copy. Just be sure to let me know you've linked.

For every donation over $24.00 I will pledge to send you signed copies of my first three published short works to appear in print.

For every donation over $49.00 I will pledge to send you signed copies of my first seven published short works to appear in print.

For every donation over $99.00 I will give you special access to view my Clarion works in progress, a signed collection of my Clarion stories in a print-on-demand format that will include my revision notes and copies of my first ten published short works to appear in print.

For every donation over $249.00 dollars I will make you a lifetime subscriber. This means that I will send you a signed copy of every work of fiction I have put in print, plus the Clarion story access and Clarion collection book with revision notes.

If none of these options appeals to you, I'm putting together a statistics tracking program that I'll host on my website. This program will run on a donationware license. This means that you can basically use it for free. If you like it, please donate whatever you feel the program is worth. I'll launch this application Monday the 22nd.

I also plan to host an auction. I have a list of various science fiction short story collections, a few related toys and other things I'll try to auction off for additional funding. I'll launch the auction just as soon as possible.

My goal is to raise $5000.00 total. Through donations and my own savings I have a total so far of 1987.00.

My donation button is on my homepage here: www.shawnscarber.com


Thank you,

Shawn Scarber

Raising funds for Clarion West

Okay, folks, as most of you know I've been accepted to Clarion West. I'm willing to make this a public post now because pretty much everything in my life has lined up to make this possible. I have a lot of people to thank for that.

However, I'm not completely in the clear yet. I was aware of how expensive this little trip was going to be before I applied. Luckily, my local workshop was able to come up with funding in exchange for me providing a valuable service to them--this has helped the financial burden enormously, but isn't enough to cover all the expenses.

So to that end, I'm soliciting ideas. Personally, I hate begging. It just doesn't go well with my strange combination of individualistic egoism and aristocratic characteristics. I might be poor, but I'll be damned before I let anyone know it. Okay, so I'll be dammed then, because now I'm going to let everyone know it. I'm poor. I need help.

However, I'd like to give something back in exchange for what I'm being given. First, it's important to understand that any investment you make in me now will be paid back in great stories. I'm still young; I take reasonably good care of myself, and plan to write for many, many years. And if you don't like my writing, well going to Clarion will sure help me improve.

So here's what I'm thinking. I've posted a poll here that basically covers some of my ideas for raising money. I'd like to get feedback from y'all (that's Texan for you guys) and see what seems most appealing. If you have other ideas, I'd love to see them. Anything short of massive self-humiliation is a possible candidate for consideration.

Here's what I'm planning to do for the following:

Beg, beg, beg and beg more! - Pretty much self-explanatory. I plan to go to all the forums, groups, and lists I haunt or have ever haunted and beg for money. I have a paypal donation link on my website and on the userinfo section of my livejournal page. I plan on linking that sucker everywhere.

Auction half your Scifi library and toys (many first editions) - I've managed to collect a few short story collections that are worth a few dollars. I also have some toys, like original Nightmare Before Christmas bendy dolls and some of the original Star Craft action figures. Basically, I would auction these things on Ebay (or some other auction site) and hope to get the most I can for them. If anyone is interested, I'm inventorying the stuff this week and can provide a list of goodies. One of my favorites I'm putting on the auction is my Dune first edition book club edition. It's not worth as much as an actual first edition, but it's a nifty addition to your library if you’re a collector.

Serialize your novella, Ogfull's Daughter for donations - I've seen this work for people with a bigger name, but I figured it might work okay for me if enough people spread the word. My plan is to divide it up into small scenes and post a portion of the story every day for two weeks. If you make a large enough donation, say around 20 bucks, I'll email the latest version to you as each comes out.

Write a nifty statistics tracking thingy writers can use online that will output cool HTML code that they can post on their site --make it free, but accept donations (I promise, I'll donate) - This one would require a little more work on my part, but I wouldn't mind if people thought it would be useful. I'll write an online application you can log onto. You can enter your project information and use it to track your statistics. It would basically spit out an HTML report that you could post to your blog or LJ. I don't think it would take me too long to write. Hopefully, making it donationware will work--I don't have much experience with donationware as a fundraising tool, so someone with more experience might be able to clue me in on whether it's worth it or not.

Well, I think that pretty much covers it.

Please write your poll ideas--or the ideas that appeal to you in the comments sections.


And if you want to just donate something (any little amount is appreciated, even if it's just a dollar) you can use this link here:

www.shawnscarber.com

I have a paypal button on the site.