Two Blue Moons, by Betsy James

Molecules and Metaphor:

Betsy James
On Writing and Teaching Speculative Fiction

On Sneaking Up On Your Imagination:
Writing Submittable SF

  1. Begin with an idea that urges you. Or even a prompt: a “thought experiment.”
    Daydream. Scribble a few notes about anything that pops up for you. Doodle or draw. Relax. Mess around a little.
  2. Read/watch/listen to related material.
    You may notice that, although it may circle around a concept, a good SF thought experiment is deliberately broad, even scattershot. We imagine best when we’re a hair off-center, off our own guard, setting things next to each other that don’t usually go together. There’s gold in odd gestalts.
  3. Relax, mess around on paper or computer. Then mess around some more.
    Fiddle with words and thoughts until a bit of story pokes its nose up. Once it shows itself you can play with it, see where it might want to go.
  4. Tinker onward until you have a juicy, crappy rough draft.
    All rough drafts are crappy. No exceptions. Neil Gaiman’s rough drafts are crappy. N. K. Jemisin’s rough drafts are crappy. Ursula Le Guin’s rough drafts were crappy. “Crappy” simply means “not finished.”
  5. Once you’ve got a rich mess, you can start to shape it and clean it up.
    De-crap it to the best of your ability, adding and subtracting. New insights will rise; images and themes will begin to resonate. But remember the raconteur’s rule: less is more. Read it aloud. Trim it down.
  6. When it feels solid, make it look respectable with final formatting.
    But wait—if you do final formatting too soon, you’ll think it’s finished. It isn’t. Read it again. Read it aloud again. Yes, all 500 pages.
  7. Do a final, fine-toothed edit and visual spell-check.
    “But I thought the editor would…” They won’t. Truth: Nobody cares about your writing the way you do. And you don’t want to make a fool of yourself by writing “dead” where you mean “dear,” “ass” where you mean “ask,” and (as I just did) “snot” where you mean “notes.”

P.S. Spell check doesn’t think “de-crap” is a word.
How weird is that?

Betsy James is the author of 17 books. Her latest novel, Roadsouls, was finalist for the 2017 World Fantasy Award. She lives in Albuquerque, NM, where she teaches, paints, and hikes in the wilderness. Find out more at www.betsyjames.com