Capclave 2019 - Interpreting the Present and Writing Novellas

On Day 2 of Capclave, the Washington DC Sci Fi and Fantasy convention, I went to a number of panels and to the Mass Author Signing that evening. There were quite a few sessions that sounded interesting that I circled on the program as one of those I wanted to go to, if I could. Of those I’d hoped to attend, I ended up missing “100 Years of Fred Pohl: Gateway and Beyond” and the interview with the con’s guest of honor, Robert Sawyer.

The first session I attended was “Science Fiction That Interprets the Present.” The panelists were authors: Michael Swanwick, Bud Sparhawk, Michelle D. Sonnier, and James Morrow, who served as the moderator.

What struck me about this panel was the idea that authors write about the time in which they live, interpreting the future while commenting on their own times. That is no more evident, Michelle Sonnier shared that with George Orwell’s 1984, which another panelist pointed out was written in 1948 (a sort of anagram of the year he was writing it) and is definitely a cautionary tale of what was happening at that moment around Orwell’s life. Michelle commented (I’m paraphrasing), “Look at the impact of that book. Whether people have read it or not, phrases from it describe, and provide the language we use today, including the chilling meaning of ‘Big Brother.’ 1984’s a cautionary tale that still resonates with the here and now.”

James Morrow shared a Ray Bradbury quote, “The reason I write these science fiction stories is to prevent those futures.”

Bud Sparrowhawk commented that he’d sold a story to Analog about what changes in technology he had expected to see in the future, which by the time to story appeared in Analog were already here. Michael Stanwick mentioned an author who was publishing a sci fi story where their character was still using a key to open the hotel room door in the future and realized when he went to a convention and was given the first keycard he had ever seen that he had to hastily rewrite that. So, the take away is there are times when technology can move faster than what even a sci fi author expects.

Michelle also shared that Margaret Atwood has now published a sequel to Handmaid’s Tale, which was an outgrowth of her concerns in the 1970s and 80s. She shared that Margaret Atwood felt compelled to only write the sequel now, decades later, when the kind of concerns she’d felt then, she felt around us again now.

What is clear from the discussion is that science fiction really does interpret the present. 

I next went to the panel, “What Editors are Really Looking For,” with editor panelists: Mike McPhail, co-owner and publisher of E-Spec Books and editor of the Defending the Future Series; Scott H. Andrews, editor of Beneath Ceaseless Skies; Sarena Ulibarri, is editor of World Weaver Press; Morris Allen, editor of Metamorphosis, and Alex Shvartsman, editor of the anthology series Unidentified Funny Objects and now an online international science fiction ezine.

Beyond the standard read the guidelines and submit stories that are formatted as required, the editors talked about what makes them buy a story. Alex Shvartzman shared that he gets a lot of stories written by Russian authors, for example, that are set in Chicago, featuring a character named John. He’s far more interested in having a story where the character’s name might be Ivan and where an author writes about someplace the author actually is familiar with. For example, a story set St. Petersburg, or in Argentina, or a place more exotic they may have lived in for a period of time. Writing about Chicago and making up details without knowing anything about the setting really does not help sell a story.

Scott H. Andrews shared that Beneath Ceaseless Skies is only looking for fantasy stories set on “secondary worlds” (not Earth) and that if the writing stirs his emotions, that the author is clearly emotionally invested in the story, that’s when he’ll buy it.

Morris Allen says he’s not looking for Vampire and werewolf stories. Sarena Ulibarri chimed up, “Send those to me.”

Sarena and Scott shared that they will work on fixing problems with stories that have good prose, suggesting changes if they can identify the issues they see. They as editors are not looking to change the author’s voice, may even want to keep unusual syntax, particularly from authors whose first language is not English. They are only looking to make the story the best it can be.

Difficult to work with authors don’t get blacklisted for being difficult about making changes, but Mike McPhail shared that editors due talk to each other. Scott H. Andrews shared he’s not looking for authors to make the exact changes he’s asking for, he’s pointing out the problem he’s seeing. How the author answers that problem is what he’s more interested in. But if he can’t verbalize what the problems with a story may be, he passes on the story.

That was a good session.

I next went to the “Are Novellas Just Very Short Novels?” panel. This session intrigued me since I’ve been working on a novella and I normally either write short stories or novels. Among the panelists were: Day Al-Mohamed, Meriah Lysistrata Crawford, A.C. Wise, and Carolyn Ives Gilman, who moderated and who writes novellas by preference.

So before it came into being in vogue to write thick books so readers know they are getting their monies worth, books were much shorter. Also Pulp fiction and serialized stories were much more common in the novella length range of 20 to 50 thousand words. Today, though, stories at the bottom or top of that range may be difficult to sell.

The panelists began to look at novellas a different way. To sell a short story authors must meet the publisher’s criteria on length. Meriah Lysistrata Crawford shared that she’d a story of 7,500 word for a call for stories of 7,000 words. It was challenging and painful cutting those words. The editor literally could not except longer stories for their project. A novella length piece offers the opportunity for better pacing, more character development, exposition and description. Then again, there are stories in a novella length that are begging to be a novel, or should be cut significantly and actually be short stories. This was a point Day Al-Mohamed helped make.

But there are more and more opportunities to sell novellas these days and publishing a novella could help keep authors in readers’ minds while they wait for their next book to come out.

A couple more articles from my time at Capclave to come…

By the way, my book Triple Dare just came out exclusively on Kindle and as part of my promoting the release, the paperback edition of the first book in the series, Dare 2 Believe, has just come out in a second printing. The second printing of that book for Kindle as well as book two of the series, Double Dare, both came out over the summer. The Double Dare paperback second printing will be coming out in a couple of months.

Dare to Believe,

D.H.