Sneak Peak at Clarity’s Flash Fiction Goodness
This year marks our ninth annual flash fiction contest at QueerSciFi.com and our eight annual anthology, Clarity.
I thought it would be fun to share a few of the more intriguing story intros to give you a taste of what you’re in for when you read this book!
So enjoy:
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Sci-Fi and Horror/Urban Fantasy Mashup
Mashing up genres into a cohesive story can be a lot of fun for writers, but also an enormous challenge. Not everyone is Ridley Scott, who can take the idea of a haunted house in space and make it work. There is a balance you have to find. When you set out to craft a story like this, you have to keep in mind your end game. Will everyone die a horrible death? Will there be a happily ever after? Will only one person come out on the other end (along with their cat)? Those are some big questions you have to answer for horror/urban fantasy, but that’s not all. You have to factor in the science fiction aspect. Will the story take place in space? Will the characters be on an alien world? Will they be in a space station? Is the story set in the future? What about technology? Will the world be dark and dystopian or something more like our world but set farther in the future? There is a lot to sort through and figure out.
Which, if I’m honest, can be great fun. These are the questions that get me excited when I’m telling a story, because, mostly these are questions I really want answered as a reader (not all at once, but by the time I’m finished reading the story).
When I set out to write Volaria, I wanted to do three things: the story had to be set in the future; I wanted there to be vampires, witches and werewolves, and I wanted the story located partially in a thriving city on the moon (which would involve space travel… another must).
Reflections on Writing Horror
by E.F. Schraeder
Horror is a wonderfully broad genre with a scope that ranges from subtle and quiet scares to all imaginable extremes inflicted on the body, from gritty realism to every imaginable alternate world possibility. For someone starting to write a new horror project that kind of variation could be daunting. How much gore is too much? Are you going to emphasize one element like a monster; do you plan to focus on internal terror or on something happening in the external world? And if you’re sitting at the computer working on a first draft, how do you decide?
BUILD A BETTER WORLD, OR NOT…
By Steven L. Shrewsbury
“What world did you use in your new fantasy novel KILLER OF GIANTS?”
Well, this one.
That’s my usual smarty-pants answer to such a question. I follow it up with saying that in the book it is set in a pre-flood world, an antediluvian realm where many elements are different than our current world or ones glimpsed in ancient history. The world then was dissimilar before the flood story (seen in many cultures), from religious texts or reliefs in many places. “Gods”, demons, and their half-breed offspring freely walked the Earth (this one) alongside many bizarre creatures, be they all from nightmares or a glimpse of reality.
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Today we’re joined by Lee Hunt the author of Knight in Retrograde, the third release in The Dynamicist Trilogy. For info about the trilogy, it is described as, “The Dynamicist Trilogy examines the difficulties of change in a fantasy setting. This challenge manifests itself through a rigorous magic system where thermodynamic cost is accounted for, and an inventor killing god. Most realistically, the challenge of creating a better world is illustrated by the many mistakes and miss-steps of the well-meaning and intelligent characters. The power and importance of memory, love and hope are ever present.”
Q. How would you describe your writing style/genre?
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After I finished writing The Cassidy Chronicles I thought I was finished writing about Aiyana and Kendra.
I started with their wedding, broke it up, got them married, sent them on adventures, put them in peril, and finally ended things with them on top and ready to change the world.
I was ready to start on The Next Book.
It’s not as easy as it sounds; at least, not for me.
First I had to think of a problem.
Fine. Impending famine due to a breakdown in infrastructure.
Yawn. Boring!
Impending famine due to breakdown in infrastructure because the Lunar colonies keep demanding all the rare metals needed to keep the machinery working.
Better…
Blockbuster Made Me Do It
by Paul O’Neill
At the bottom of our sad, gusty high street, my track-suited friends and I wasted afternoons at our local Blockbusters. Long gone now, of course, but they were all the rage back then. You could waste a lot of time in that vivid blue atmosphere. I can still taste all that plastic. Empty cassette cases (they were empty to stop us from knicking them) lined the walls from top to bottom.
A vivid memory stands in my mind of carrying the empty cases of Poltergeist 3, Child’s Play, and Toys. Toys seems to have vanished from the world, but the terrifying jack-in-the-box on its cover still haunts me.
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Title: To Bring Him Home and Other Tales
A plotter or a pantser? Oh, definitely a plotter. Before I can start, I have to know where the story is going to end. This doesn’t have to be very specific at all. For example: at the beach, what beach, and how they got there, to be determined. Or, in the White City. Where the White City is and how they got there and why they went, something I will learn as the story progresses. I also have to be a beginning in which I can feel the flag drop, so to speak. Here, at this place, this point in time, the story moves forward, it begins. I also find myself dropping up time lines of significant events to be sure the continuity works and as a part of world-building. Most of the time I prepare an outline, knowing it will change, but the outline gives me a shape and a structure within which to tell my story.
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