Six hamburgers, fries and cokes—Doug toddles to his car, fast food bags stuffed between his arms. Setting a drink tray on top of his minivan, he catches a beggar’s empty stare across the parking lot. He fumbles for his keys. The beggar shudders to his feet. Finally inside, Doug locks the doors, drops the keys, and starts the minivan.

“Stay calm,” he mutters. “Don’t know why he’s waving. Can’t see him.”

He drives away, watching the sad beggar in the side mirror. The red light comes up quick, and with his jerky stop, coke sloshes his windshield from above.

(100 Word Short Short or Flash Fiction)

I’ve made a careful survey, and I think I can say authoritatively that I’m now the only blogger in the world who’s never mentioned Susan Boyle.

Oops. Scratch that.

Over at Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, there’s this amusing article about the (vain and counterproductive) lengths some writers go to, to get a magazine editor’s attention. It’s a fun read, and there’s much wisdom there. (Tip: Loren Eaton at I Saw Lightning Fall.)

I enjoyed reading this article in particular because there are a number of quotes there from George Scithers and Darrell Schweitzer, who used to be my agents. Before they were my agents, they were my editors at Amazing Stories, which gives me a rare opportunity to feel smug, since I managed to please these discerning connoisseurs of slush, once upon a time.

I’ll tell you how I made my first sale to them, too, at no extra charge. Continue reading Up from slush →

OK. Last night I pretended to know something about movies, and talked about the kind of subtle acting you used to see in good films—particularly the kind of acting that’s done with the eyes. The thing about eye acting (if I can call it that) is that it’s a sort of visual subtext. It’s not like in a script, where the directions say, “Rufus goes to the window and looks out.” The eye acting is something the actor himself adds, and it probably hasn’t been explicitly written out in the script.

So how can I claim that there’s an equivalent in fiction writing? If you can’t write it in a script, you can’t write it in a story either, right?

Well, not exactly. Continue reading When words are eyes, Part 2 →

I watched Once Upon a Time in the West on DVD again yesterday. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m kind of in awe of that film.

I have two options when I watch a film on DVD. I can play it on my computer monitor, which has higher resolution, but the speakers aren’t so great. Or I can watch it on my regular TV, where I run the sound through my stereo. (I haven’t sprung for HDTV yet.) This gives me the choice of good visuals or good sound, but not both at once.

This time I watched it on the computer, paying attention to the shapes and colors and people. And I noticed something I thought I could cobble into a couple posts. Tonight I’ll talk about movies and acting, and tomorrow I’ll stretch the point, in the manner of the Inquisition and the rack, and try to apply the principle to storytelling. Continue reading When words are eyes: Part 1 →