Loading ...Tesseracts 15 Multi-Author Online Book Launch and $50 Amazon Give Away
BBB: Tesseracts Fifteen: A Case of Quite Curious Tales, edited by Julie Czerneda and Susan MacGregor, is the only volume in the long running Tesseracts series that is themed specifically for young adults and the young at heart. These stories are filled with “wonder and astonishment,” say the editors. They are “stories that engage the imagination, inspire dreams, and leave hope in their wake. They will become the classics for a new generation of readers, to be remembered, fondly, for years to come.”
This anthology joins a 25+ year Canadian literary legacy that features the writing and editing of more than 250 of Canada’s best known authors.
Tesseracts Fifteen: A Case of Quite Curious Tales features works by:
E. L. Chen, Amanda Sun, Erika Holt, Francine Lewis, Jennifer Greylyn, Nicole Luiken, Katrina Nicholson, Cat McDonald, Leslie Brown, Kevin Cockle, Mike Rimar, Elise Moser, Shen Braun, J. J. Steinfeld, Michele Ann Jenkins, Claude Lalumière, Virginia Modugno, Helen Marshall, Ed Greenwood, Robert Runté, Rebecca M. Senese, Kurt Kirchmeier, Claire Eamer, Michelle Barker, Lynne M. MacLean, Tony Pi, K. Boorman.
For more information about the book please visit:
http://www.edgewebsite.com/books/tess15/t15-catalog.html
BBB: Welcome editor Julie Czerneda, and the visiting authors of Tesseracts Fifteen: A Case of Quite Curious Tales to this live interview event!
Everyone from Tesseracts 15: Thanks Rachel!
BBB: What is the name of your story in Tesseracts 15, and what is it about (without spoilers, of course!)
Amanda Sun: My story is called “Fragile Things” and it is a story of a disillusioned farm boy who must come to terms with the unicorn born on his farm, and the public life he is thrust into because of it. It is also a love story between that troubled boy and a frail, chronically ill girl from the other side of the social gap that looms between them.
Cat McDonald: My story, “The Road Of Good Intentions” is about a young man who’s tormented by supernatural nightmares, and about his best friend who ventures into this hellscape of chains, a place made entirely out of human hatred, to save him.
Claire Eamer: “Ice Pirates”. I wanted to try writing a pirate story that takes place in arctic seas, partly because I had been reading descriptions of arctic voyages by 19th century scientists. I was also reading about female pirates. Both of those bits of reading crept into my story, along with an element of mostly-northern magic.
Claude Lalumière: “The Weirdo Adventures of Steve Rand”. A teenager who has a fraught relationship with his mother experiences immersive visions of being a superhero called the Weirdo.
Elise Moser: Darwin’s Vampire. It’s about a woman who is bitten by a vampire, and how it changes her perspective.
Helen Marshall: My poem “The Oak Girl” comes out of my experience of reading Charles de Lint’s Newford short stories when I was a teenager. I loved the Bohemian feeling of the workld he evoked–artists, musicians, poets all struggling with the magic of creation, of making something out of nothing. The poem takes as its central idea that old saw about woodworkers who can supposedly feel the shape of the spirit of the wood and only use the knife to carve away the excess, the things that aren’t part of that spirit. This poem asks: what if that spirit were real?
Jennifer Greylyn: “Saving the Dead, or The Diary of an Undertaker’s Apprentice” It’s set in the early 20th century, just after one of the most famous disasters ever to take place at sea. It’s told through the eyes of a young man with an unusual ability who is part of a family business chosen to bring as many of the victims of the disaster home to their families as possible.
Kate Boorman: The Memory Junkies. It’s a story about a group of high school non-friends who are banded together to plan a very specific terrorist act: they want to blow up a new ‘health and wellness’ facility that allows people to relive their happiest memories.
Katrina Nicholson: My story in Tesseracts 15 is called “A+ Brain.” It’s about a teenage boy who decides to get a brain transplant instead of working harder to get into college.
Kevin Cockle: Story/log-line: “The Bridge Builder”; Real-life elves able to hide in plain sight at comic-con.
Leslie Brown: My story is called “The Windup Heiress” and it is a futuristic retelling of the old fairy story The Goose Girl. Aliantha is on her way to an arranged marriage when her hired companion takes her place and forces Aliantha’s co-operation. Aliantha, mute and resentful, must use all her skills to regain her rightful place. But does she really want it?
Lynn M. MacLean: “The Illumination of Cypher Space” is about a street kid named Cypher who discovers she can change the world through a magical talent with graffiti. While desperately fleeing her murderous captor and dodging street gangs, she meets another gifted street kid who wants to join forces. Cypher must learn who to trust and how to manage her new ability. And she must do so before the night’s end.
Michele Ann Jenkins: “Take My Waking Slow” is the story of a young woman code-napped from virtual-reality program she’s grown up in.
Michelle Barker: “You Always Knew,” a poem about Death, who owns a roller coaster.
Mike Rimar: My story is, “My Name is Tommy”. It’s about a kid with special needs aboard a generation ship.
Nicole Luiken: “Feral”. It’s a werewolf story. Chloe has grown up in the Pack, but is worried she might be a Dud because she has yet to have her first Change. Then she meets a feral werewolf with the opposite problem…
Robert Runte: “Split Decision”. The story came to me when I was listening to my 13 year old daughter try to tell me about her day school , and she was talking so fast, and going off on so many tangents, and what she said was so self-referential, I had to keep interrupting to get her to explain what she was talking about. So I wondered, what if she were trying to tell someone who didn’t know her something important, or what if something really unusual had happened so that they really couldn’t follow what she was talking about. So its the story of her trying to explain to someone in authority about her part in the lockdown at school earlier that day.
Shen Braun: The name of my Tesseracts 15 story is “Costumes.” In it we encounter a rather eccentric high school teacher that loves Halloween a little too much, although perhaps with good reason.
Tony Pi: “The Tremor Road”: A stilt-walking wizard must discover the truth behind a strange, linear earthquake.
Virginia Modugno: My story is “Every You, Every Me”. It’s about a girl who goes to school one day and makes a shocking, Twilight Zone-like discovery.
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BBB: What is the most “curious” or unusual thing that has happened to you?
The authors personal “Curious Tales” that were sent, will be posted throughout the day in the chat area below by EDGE host Janice Shoults. That way you can hit reply and comment to them directly.
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BBB: In this event today, we are interviewing “live”, by asking questions for both our authors and readers to answer as they drop online. None of the authors know what these questions are, and will simply pick one or more of the questions to answer below. We asked each of the authors to provide questions for authors or readers to answer. Here is what they said.
To authors and readers alike, please feel free to pick any question and answer it below. Just make sure you put an @symbol in front of the name. If you are responding to a question or comment below, in the comments section, please make sure to hit the “reply” button so that the guest will be notified of your response…so here are the questions!
Amanda Sun: For the other authors, I’d love to ask whether this was your first foray into YA, and if so, how did you find it different than writing for adults? There is so much going on in YA right now that I’m excited about and I’m thrilled that Tesseracts gave these authors the chance to explore the genre.
For readers: which YA stories have moved you in your lives? I hope you will find the same sparks of delight in Tesseracts Fifteen!
Cat McDonald: I suppose I’d like to ask everyone what their definition of “young adult” work is, and if it’s changed at all from Tesseracts 15. I know mine has, considering my story made it in!
Claire Eamer: I’m amazed by the diversity of settings, styles, ideas, and stories in the book. I just keep wanting to ask the other writers, How on earth did you think of that??? I know it’s not a sensible question, but really! Whatever you call it — science fiction, fantasy, speculative fiction, magic realism — this kind of writing opens up so many possibilities in the mind.
Claire Eamer: For readers, I guess I’d like to ask them what attracts them to stories that feel free to drift away from reality or, at least, current reality?
Claude Lalumière: Do you enjoy reading and/or writing superhero fiction?
Elise Moser: I want to know how your fantastic ideas are related to your view of the world as we live in it.
Helen Marshall: Who would win in a fight between a giant robot and a giant scorpion? If you could invent any secret name for yourself, what would it be and why?
Jennifer Greylyn: I can’t think of a good question. I just want to say I’m very happy to be part of Tesseracts 15 and I hope all my fellow authors as well as the readers taking part in the Bitten by Books event have fun!
Kate Boorman:
Authors: Do you write from an outline? Do you write scene by scene from start to finish or do you write the scenes you are feeling inspired to write and piece it together later?
Readers: what entices you to pick up a book? Where do most of your recommendations come from? Have you seen my ‘visitor’ (see Kate’s own “Curious Tale” posted down below at 1pm today)
Katrina Nicholson: Which would you rather have: a helicopter or an airship?
Kevin Cockle:
Question for authors: What elements separate YA speculative fiction from genre in general…or is it simply that the protagonist is not an adult?
Question for readers: What expectations did you bring to the T15 text? When you saw “YA”, did you automatically desire certain images and situations?
Leslie Brown: How do you feel a young adult story differs from an adult story?
Lynn M. MacLean: What question do you have for the other authors/readers?
1. How is writing for a YA audience different for you than writing for adults?
2. What attracts you to writing speculative fiction?
3. What fantasy/sci fi/horror did you like to read when you were a kid?
Michele Ann Jenkins:
1. Where do you find your inspiration?
2. How do you know when it’s time to give up on a story?
3. What makes great speculative fiction and is it something different than what makes, say, a great Western or Romance?
Michelle Barker: Where do you get your ideas from?
Mike Rimar: Is this your first YA story, and do you think you will continue?
Nicole Luiken: What is the first sentence of your story?
Robert Runte: I’m always interested in two questions: (1) who are they reading — who are their influences— and (2) do they think of what they are writing as distinctly Canadian in any way? I don’t think anyone sets out to purposefully write something “Canadian”, but looking back at their own work, do they see characteristics that line up with typical Canadian themes, approaches to narrative, characterization and so on?
Shen Braun: I am a little curious about swearing. When I was growing up, we had really foul mouths. Sometimes when I read YA, I really notice the lack of curse words, yet you can’t exactly drop nasty language into every sentence, if at all. As authors, how do you deal with that issue? As readers, is it an issue that you notice?
Tony Pi: For authors: – what is the most exciting thing you’ve done in the course of researching a story? Was there an ‘a-ha’ moment when everything seemed to fall into place?
Virginia Modugno: What author or artist’s work has inspired your story, if any?
BBB: Thanks everyone for your answers, and for joining us today!
Everyone from Tesseracts 15: Thanks again Rachel and the team at Bitten by Books!
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Please Note: Authors will be dropping in on and off throughout the day to answer your post. Some authors have scheduled, some have not. See more later in post entitled author’s scheduled times. Thanks.
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Directions for both Authors and Guests to Play
1. Select one of the questions above.
2. Answer in the comments section below.
3. If you are answering someone’s question below, please answer it directly under the question.
4. Post a question below as well, for someone else to answer.
Guests will receive 25 entries into the $50 Amazon gift card draw for the first question asked/answered. Additional questions/Answers are worth 5 entries each!
How to gain bonus entries in the draw for the $50 Amazon gift card…
1. Join the “EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing” Facebook page (10 extra draw slips) http://www.facebook.com/EDGEfbpage.
2. Buy a copy (or more) of “Tesseracts Fifteen: A Case of Quite Curious Tales“. Send proof of purchase to events@hadespublications.com. For every e-copy that you purchase you will have 50 extra chances in the draw. For every trade paperback copy you will receive 100 extra chances! Wahoo!
3. Help get the word out. Tweet http://www.bittenbybooks.com/?p=48868, blog, facebook, phone a friend and get them to come to the interview. Let us know by posting it below. We believe you. You will have another 10 draw slips entered.
4. Tally your own points 1 extra draw slip.
The draw will be made tomorrow, November 8th, 2011 at Noon central at the end of the event, and will be posted on the site, as to who the winner is. The gift card will be sent out tomorrow. The prize has been donated by EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing. http://www.edgewebsite.com
Welcome everyone to the online launch event for “Tesseracts Fifteen: A Case of Quite Curious Tales”.
Authors will be dropping by on and off to answer your questions, throughout the day. Editor Julie Czerneda will be joining us from 7-8 CST, 8-9 EST, this evening. Thanks so much for celebrating the launch with us. We look forward to seeing your questions, and your answers!
Hi everyone, I’d like to answer Amanda Sun’s question. This was my first story published in a YA context, although that’s not really the answer. The real answer is, I have never set out to write a YA story, but I have always written about teenagers and children, and I have often read YA books. When Tess 15 was announced, I just knew my story “Darwin’s Vampire” would fit — something about the tone. And since then I’ve realized that my second novel, which I’m writing now, is actually YA. Reading got me through as a kid and as a teenager, so I’m very happy to write with teen readers in mind.
Elise, What excites you most about being in this anthology?
Hi Janice, I am most excited about being in a YA anthology, I guess. I have worked in bookstores and as a publishers’ sales rep, and I understand the usefulness — the necessity, even — of identifying or self-identifying genres. But I also like blurring those edges, because they can be barriers to writers and readers. That’s why, although much of my work is “literary fiction” I have always written fantasy also. And so I was delighted to cross another dividing line. Plus I like the idea of speaking to teenagers about sexual politics in a sly and amusing way that might nudge them to think in a new way.
It’s funny when you “realize” what your story is actually about… I agree your story definitely has a YA “tone”. What it not as strong in earlier drafts?
Hi Michele! No, earlier drafts were a similar tone, it was more a matter of making the storytelling clear and dynamic.
Like Elise, I never really set out to write for YA, but many of my stories involve younger protagonists. I don’t really change how I write, though, YA or not YA. I don’t ever think “YA” — as a kid, I would never have picked up a book that was seemed intentionally marketed to children or teens. I think YA is a category to please parents more than young readers themselves. I just wanted to read books, the books I wanted, not the books that were “supposed” to be for me. Also, I don’t think it’s the writer’s job to think about categories, genre, or audiences. That said, this is the second time I’ve written something expressly for a YA antho, both times for a Julie-coedited antho. Both times, I just hoped what I came up with would be suitable for what the editors intended for their target audience.
@Claude “as a kid, I would never have picked up a book that was seemed intentionally marketed to children or teens. I think YA is a category to please parents more than young readers themselves. I just wanted to read books, the books I wanted, not the books that were “supposed” to be for me.”
I have to agree with you. I remember my stepfather catching me reading The Handmaid’s Tale when I was 15 and taking it away because it was “smutty”. I finally read it this September after all of these years and realized how wrong he was. It was very sex oriented but it wasn’t smutty.
I continue to be drawn to books that provoke the same amount of debate and speculation no matter where they’re shelved. I hope my children will find books as emotionally stimulating and thought provoking as the ones my parents banned from me.
That may have been what YA used to be about, but modern YA is all about what the kids are into, what they relate to, rather than what we think their parents want them to see or learn. It’s full of real stuff like sex, drugs, hazing, swearing, etc. etc. Lots of the teens who come to my library do real adult stuff as well, but their favorites are all YA.
@Claire Eamer
I think the main appeal for me with fiction stories is especially those different from reality is the escapism. These stories open my mind to so many possibilities and some unique worlds come off very believable. It also stretches my imagination and makes me think outside the box.
@Claude Lalumiere
I can see how an author doesn’t always know what genre they’re writing in until the story takes on life and can be seen. Or perhaps, they intended one genre but their story turned out in another. That’s a good thing to hear because authors are letting their story naturally form.
Yeah, I think that genre should not be a concern, save perhaps when writing for a specific market that wants a specific genre. Genres are fun to think of, but they’re arbitrary. Their marketing or critical tools and toys. Any story can usually be slotted in several genres, depending on how you look at it.
Authors drop by times.
Most authors will be dropping in and out occasionally throughout the day to answer your questions. However some have specifically scheduled times (these are listed in the author’s timezones)
Just post your questions, and authors will answer you under your post.
Cat McDonald – 6pm MST onward.
Kate Boorman- 1:30- 2:45 MST
Katrina Nicholson – 9pm – midnight AST.
Leslie Brown- 7-10 EST
Michele Ann Jenkins- 12-3 EST, 9pm onward
Mike Rimar – 7-9pm EST
Nicole Luiken – Early afternoon MST
Shen Braun – 1-3 CST
Editor Julie Czerneda
Excuse me…hit the button too soon…
Editor Julie Czerneda 7-8 CST, 8-9 EST
@ Robert Runte: Just finished “Moneyball” and starting on Yergin’s “The Commanding Heights” (global economy stuff) after finishing McCammon’s “Usher’s Fall”. I like to mix up the hard-core genre with non-fiction. As for influences, I’d say Ellroy for language; Whedon and Tarantino for sensibility; Robert E. Howard for childhood inspiration; Roald Dahl for plotting; George RR Martin for relentless attention to character; Elmore Leonard for structure. Tons more of course, but off the top of my head, I’d cite these. As for Canadiana – I’d guess that my stuff tends to be informed by notions of deconstruction that might place it within some typically canadian-seeming category of discourse. The lack of strong intention; questioning of stable identity (and therefore meaning); ambiguity – I suppose traits like that could be used to support an academic argument for canadian content. In more straightforward terms, I’m always using canadian settings or details for authenticity’s sake (more than for the sake of establishing a deliberately canadian voice).
You’ve appeared in a variety of Edge anthologies, Kevin. Is there anything about your approach to writing (deconstuctionist or otherwise) that allows you to write stories in so many different marketing categories (Sherlock Holmes, vampire, and now young adult)? Were your appearances in Gaslight, Evolve, and this Tesseracts all first attempts at writing for particular audiences?
Hi Ivan: If anything, the first thing I try to do is repress any academic impulse I might have, because I assume it’ll be a sale-killer. I force myself to think in terms of character, and try not to mess around with meta-fiction or any cute structural ideas until I think I’ve told a story that everyone can enjoy on a more common-sense level. Then, as far as selling to different sub-genres, I’d say I’ve been able to do that because I deliberately try to. I knew I was probably under-qualified to write a YA story, but I submitted one to T-15 anyway. Same thing with Sherlock Holmes (although there, you could say I probably cheated, as my story doesn’t map onto a true Sherlock template). Evolve (vampires) I was a little more comfortable, but that was still the first time that I was self-consciously writing as a “horror” author. But bottom line is, I’d send a western in if I could get one finished by the deadline.
I’m going to touch on a couple of questions at the same time, as there seems to be a theme about YA and Speculative Fiction.
I just re-read one of my favourite sci-fi books of all time — Catspaw by Jules D Vinge. I was curious to find out more about the author and went poking around on Wikipedia. I was actually surprised to find out the the book had won and award for YA Sci-Fi — it had never occurred to me that it was a YA book, despite the main character’s age (he’s around 18 at the start of the series).
So that got me thinking about other YA Sci-fi classics that appeal to adults, such as “Ender’s Game.” It’s pretty easy to say that these make great YA exactly because they are *not* “childish” — there is swearing and there are dangerous, complex situations. But I think the flip side is that being targeted for young adults actually helps make them great SF. Having a young main character gives a great reason to explain and explore a new world, it gives the reader an “in”.
I’d be curious to hear what other people think are the strengths and weaknesses of the YA / speculative fiction genre…
@ Michele Ann Jenkins: Wow…funny to think of “Ender’s Game” as YA…but I guess it really could be! As for the second part of your post (assessing strengths/weaknesses of YA) – I actually don’t feel qualified to comment. After I submitted my T-15 longshot, I thought I better actually READ some YA in a technical way to see how it worked. Picked up “The Hunger Games” and enjoyed it…then worried that my protagonist was too young; that I’d failed to provide the reader with actual romance…on and on. Still don’t feel like I have real good grasp on the publishing category – though I’m actively trying to learn.
I agree, Kevin, I love Ender’s Game but don’t really think of it as YA either, though I often see it on library lists of YA and even sometimes middle grade fiction. It’s kind of confusing, because Ender is between six and nine in the book but he acts like a jaded retired cop, so I guess if you take the average between the two you can end up with “teen.”
My friend Monique Polak, who has published a lot of YA fiction (but not spec fic), gave me a great definition of what makes something YA. She says, if it’s about coming to terms with it, it’s adult lit. If it’s about getting through it, it’s YA. I love that because it helps me resist the idea that any book with a teen protagonist is automatically YA, which implies that adults can’t be interested in teen characters. I think the strength of YA spec fic as a genre is that it potentially allows the writer to stretch the limits of what a teenager can be and do beyond the really restrictive way our society thinks about kids/teens now. I mean, if someone were to invent Alexander the Great as a fictional character today, it would be considered fantasy.
I love the “coming to grips” vs “getting through it” dichotomy! I’m totally going to keep that in mind. It also makes me feel better about how I keep wanting to come back to YA when, somewhere in the back of my head, I feel like I should try and work on “grown-up stuff”. I guess I’m just more interested in getting through it than coming to grips…
That probably says something about me as a person too
wow that’s one of the best ways to differentiate YA from adult fiction that I’ve ever heard. I’m doing my Master’s right now in creative writing, taking YA fiction with Maggie de Vries and this is a topic that has come up a lot in our discussions. Thank you for that. I’m going to pass it on.
Hey, I went to McGill with Maggie! Please say hi for me!
A few questions and comments about what is YA etc. My take? As a writer, I don’t care (really). I write what I want and it’s fine with me to have someone else tell me what it is (thought I guarantee that will change as time passes). As a reader, I get annoyed when the books I’d like to read are in the other section of the library or store than the one I expect, but I toddle over there without much worry. As someone who’s worked with librarians/educators? Oh, the YA label means one very important thing. This is a book to shove into those willing or unwilling hands. It’s going to engage readers. It’s going to take them somewhere. It’s going to leave them with their imaginations and emotions afire. If there’s any way to keep such a book in the YA section, librarians will do it. Try to stop them. As an editor of TESS? It came down to “I know it, when I see it.” I’m not overly concerned about the age of a protagonist or the darkness of a story. I do look for a journey or a change or a movement in a life. And the ending? It better make the reader want to imagine more, or sit down to write. YA. Yummy.
One strength I can see is that youth is the ultimate taboo. When they’re children or in early adolescence, people want to read about characters who are a little older than they are. When they’re adults, people want to read about characters that they’re told are too young for them to identify with. YA has a wide readership, particularly among people who aren’t supposed to be reading it.
@Ivan As an adult reader who enjoys a lot of YA reading I must admit some of it is getting to live vicariously. There are lots of simple things my upbringing took away from me that others take for granted so sometimes diving into a YA story lets me “have” it without actually having to go back and live through the horror that is puberty again. lol
So if you could go back to being a teenager with the knowledge you have now, or the knowledge of what you would regret missing, what would you like to do the second time around?
Great query Ivan and for the sake of privacy my answer is gonna be odd…
In my case if I could go back knowing what I do now I would have asked my father to take custody of me. He was a drunk at the time and not suitable for living with but I’d have had my extended family to protect me and support my desire to go to art school. It’s a scary thought really but my mother and stepfather’s decisions and religious awakening in many ways kept me from making better life choices in my young adulthood.
On the otherhand I am also a believer in taking all experiences and using them to be a better person or help others to grow and not make the same mistakes.
I just wish teenaged me had been given a little more self esteem so she’d have followed her dreams more.
@Michele Ann Jenkins
The strength in YA fiction is that change and idenity-shaping is embraced. People make decisions, face consequences, makes mistakes and that is all how they grow. No one is perfect and as a young adult that couldn’t be more true. People can read it and identify with it as a current teen or as an adult.
Ironically some of the weaknesses could be from people who have been there and done it. They may not want to deal with the turmoils of being a young adult and want to face situations as an adult making adult/experienced decisions. They might not have as much patience or can’t relate to a character because of the age differences.
To answer the question posed by Claire, Michele and Michelle regarding inspiration/ideas, I’d say most of my modern stories begin by playing “What if?” What if dragons existed. What if I found a book that could talk. What if those thick hedges on the house down the block hide more than a bad lawn. What if the bogeyman were real. For my Tesseracts 15 story, the specific question was: What if my high school English teacher was that weird for a perfectly good reason? Sometimes the answers lead to dead ends, but sometimes they lead to pretty interesting places (at least to me).
“What if” is a huge creative motivator for me too!
Me too! What if…you woke up one morning and found your finger stuck in your lover’s back, and not only couldn’t pull it out, but kept getting sucked further in… To mention the idea behind a fantasy story I wrote more than a few years ago.
I love the ‘what if’ question. I think that is what got me going on my poem in Tess 15, “You Always Knew.” What if Death were a person? What might he do in real life? Anyone who’s been on that rickety roller coaster in Vancouver’s Playland will have no trouble picturing Death running it, with a little smile on his face.
Sometimes I use a book of writing exercises called, “What if…?”
There is actually a series of 3 books called What If?. I actually have had the first two for more than 10 years. lol
I used to use them as conversation starters with friends when we were bored. I was probably a very uncool person back then… oh wait… still am.
Hi Janice! Great to see you again!
Welcome to all of the authors. This anthology sounds great. I hadn’t even made it through the descriptions before I knew I was going to have to buy it. I love YA fantasy and this sounds like an exceptional collection of diversity. I’ll start going through the questions and posing some of my own… be around off and on as best I can.
@Amanda Sun “which YA stories have moved you in your lives?”
I suppose for me that depends a bit on the definition of “moved”. When it comes to YA I don’t often like to have a huge emotional response unless it’s positive. But once in a while one gets me. The book See What I See by Gloria Whelan was extremely moving for me. To quote my review: “I found myself crying, so moved by what Kate went through with her dad that I had to finish it in a day just so I could distance myself from it.”
But then there’s also the sort of YA where you get very attached to a character who meets an untimely or violent demise. The Harry Potter series, I’m looking at you…
@Amanda Okie so reading the description for your contribution to the anthology has my inner 6-yr-old doing a happy dance. Unicorns just don’t get enough fiction-face-time these days IMO. The most recently unicorn read I can think I had was the Zombies vs. Unicorns anthology which had some great ones. What made you decide to write about a unicorn in your story versus some other mythological beasty?
Hi Rhianna,
Glad to see another unicorn fan! It’s true, liking unicorns has become a bit of a dirty secret these days. But unicorns were one of my first loves in YA Fantasy, and I was so glad to revisit them in “Fragile Things”. I’d always wanted to write about a feasible unicorn, one that didn’t fit the cliches–for one thing, he’s got an antler, not a horn–and show that the hope and naivety they represent still have a place in fiction.
In my story, I think the unicorn helps Alex measure where he is in his life, and where he is headed. It’s that contrast of innocence at the same time that he’s learning life isn’t always fair, chances aren’t always equal, and that we must decide what to do with that knowledge in order to move forward.
Very much looking forward to your take on them.
Alright everyone I have to skip off and pretend do be a housewife for a while.
Boooo! But that gives the others some time to come ask questions and answer them and so forth. Going to post my points or I will forget to do them. I shall return later. TTFN!
+25 First Question
+90 For 18 Additional Questions
+50 Tesseracts 15 Ebook purchase
+10 Tweets & Blog Post (http://twitter.com/#!/RhiReading/status/133610100018515968, http://twitter.com/#!/RhiReading/status/133582130734309376, http://rhireading.blogspot.com/2011/11/16-days-of-tesseracts-virtual-festival.html)
+1 Tally
Total = 176
If RSVP points are included (?):
+25 RSVP
Total = 201
@Cat McDonald “I suppose I’d like to ask everyone what their definition of “young adult” work is”
It seems to me that most publishers have a strong sense of what their definition is. I recently learned the difference between Young Adult and New Adult. But really… I consider YA to be fiction where the protagonist and their adventure relate to what children growing into adults (teens essentially) are experiencing. That said I know more adults who read YA than children. lol
I feel the same way. It was kind of a surprise to me that I made it into the anthology, because I felt I’d “technically” met the guidelines*. But I spoke to Susan about it, and she told me that she can’t stand Young Adult stories that talk down to their readers, and the more I thought about it, the more I agreed with her.
*(No seriously there’s some pretty violent imagery I had forgotten about. Oops.)
As a parent of tweens I occasionally worry that certain types of violence might be problematic (ie. rape) and disturb my children. But on the same hand I don’t like writers dumbing down reality either.
I read a contemporary YA novel about a girl and her mother illegally immigrating to Texas from Mexico earlier this year and part of me was glad that the reality of what often happens to women in this situation did not happen but I also felt it watered reality down. It’s a tough call for a writer.
@ Claire Eamer: “I guess I’d like to ask them what attracts them to stories that feel free to drift away from reality or, at least, current reality?”
It’s as simple as saying “escape” and yet as difficult as saying “challenging boundaries”. I gravitate toward speculative fiction because sometimes the world lets me imagine a better place and others allow me to feel like mine is better which can make it easier to cope. I love having my conceptions of what is possible expanded. I become a little oyster with a grain of sand working it from a tiny little speck of matter into something bigger, more complex. I honestly don’t get people who say they don’t like speculative (ie. scifi, dystopian, etc.) fiction. How can anyone NOT like it? It baffles me.
@Claire You story (based on the description) looks like it has something I love to see and can’t say is found often—girl pirates! What kind of research about women pirates did you need to do or did you feel that would limit your storytelling and spin it your own way?
Hi Rhianna,
Sorry for being slow to reply. I’ve been travelling all day. I didn’t actually do much research on women pirates, partly because the first one I read about was so nasty. Really seriously nasty! But she gave me an idea about how to approach a story that had been percolating in my head for a while. I’m being a bit cryptic about it because it’s awfully easy to spoil the surprise(s) in this one.
That’s okay Claire, I’m just glad you found the time to answer even if it’s vague.
I guess I’ll know more when I have time to read T15.
@Claude Lalumière “Do you enjoy reading and/or writing superhero fiction?”
I LOVE superhero fiction. I love the mythologies, the pseudo-sciences, the villains, the costumes, the gadgets and powers… don’t get me geeking. lol
Superhero fiction whether in film or comic form has always appealed to me. I love that seen in Kill Bill Vol. 2 when Bill is talking about Superman’s Clark Kent persona. It’s brilliant. I’ve not had time to read it yet but I bought Ex-Heroes by Peter Clines for my husband and I. He loved it and has started the sequel Ex-Patriots.
Great question Claude!
@Claude since you’re the author with the superhero tale I have to ask just for fun… who is your all-time-favorite superhero and why? And in contrast… favorite supervillain?
That’s easy
superhero: Captain Marvel (the original one — the one who yells “Shazam!”)
Honourable mentions: Batman, Zot, Doctor Strange, Nexus
supervillain: Doctor Doom
Honourable mentions: Darkseid, the Joker
And then there are characters who fall in the hazy zone between hero and villain, anti-heroes
favourite: Catwoman
honourable mentions: Namor, Black Adam
Hi Claude (re: comic book villains). I LOVED Miller’s Bullseye in Daredevil. And Sebastian Shaw/White Queen in the Hellfire club (X-men)…I so wanted to be in that club.
@Kate Boorman “what entices you to pick up a book? Where do most of your recommendations come from?”
Is it awful to admit an eye-catching cover is often what instigates me to pick a book up? I wish it weren’t true but I’m human and a visual creature whether I want to be or not. :S
As a reviewer/blogger I don’t get a lot of recommendations outside of that sphere. I’m often one of the early people to be aware of new books months before they even have blurbs or covers, etc. In a way it’s exciting because all I have to go on is a genre and a title or series name so I get to guess what it’ll be about and then later see if I was right. Plus it’s enjoyable having some influence on helping others discover something new that I’ve enjoyed.
I don’t always judge a book by its cover, but I do judge it by its opening paragraphs. If it doesn’t grab me right away, I’m inclined to put it down. Also I read somewhere about the Page 47 rule. Open a book to page 47 and read. The story should be well on its way by then. If it isn’t, forget it.
I can’t say I’ve never bought a book because I liked the cover art but I definitely check the blurb for appeal before I purchase.
In contrast I’ve been approached by a lot of self-published authors and it’s interesting seeing the quality of story versus the coverart.
Ultimately it’s all very subjective but in discussions with publishing house folks it’s been interesting learning why they choose to do the artwork the way they do. One told me that eye-catching was more important than actually having say… the model have the right hair color as the protagonist. Apparently this is the allure of the man-titty covers on the romance shelves. LOL
Hi Rhianna: When Ace or Ballantine or whomever started reprinting “Conan” stories with the Frank Frazetta covers? I bought those books on Pavlovian response alone. Did not even check the TOC to see if I’d already read some of them; did not read the back of the book. The covers were enough.
@Kevin Cockle “What expectations did you bring to the T15 text? When you saw “YA”, did you automatically desire certain images and situations?”
I definitely switched my mindset from ‘entertaining’ to ‘fun’. As an adult I can read YA with a certain ‘been there, done that’ mentality that lets me enjoy it with a grain of past-experiences-salt. That said I’m looking to see teens being challenged and growing through their weird experiences.
@Kevin
Your story premise sounds most promising! What made you choose elves to be hiding in plain sight versus say aliens or vampires or some otherworldly beings?
Hi Rhianna: Well, when I finally went to a comic-con a couple of years ago, I saw somebody walking around in a pretty convincing elf get-up (along with storm troopers and other assorted monsters/heroes etc) – so it was a natural germ of an idea to have (ie: that if supernatural creatures wanted to stretch their legs in public, a comic con might be a good place to go). When T15 guidelines dropped, this comic-con idea was virtually the only concept I had that could be readily adapted to a younger audience, so then it became a matter of building the story out from there. The final product is pretty far removed from my one-line summation, but that elves-hiding-in-plain-sight WAS the initial premise for what followed.
When you went did you go in costume?
Hi Rhianna: Not only did I not go in costume to the comic-con, I did not KNOW that people often DO go in costume. I’m pretty old to be going to a comic con for the first time, and went more as a curious spectator than any kind of motivated participant. It’s great energy to draw from though – the kind of thing that makes you feel like writing when you get home.
Yeah, I’ve never been and probably won’t ever be able to go but there’s something so appealing about being immersed in geekery with my fellow geeks. I think that’s one of the reasons the internet thrives with social media. People want to be connected to those who share their loves and interests.
20 years ago we couldn’t really have an event like this without considerably more chaos and expense. Even still a con seems like the ultimate party.
Do you plan to go again in the future?
@Michele Ann Jenkins “What makes great speculative fiction and is it something different than what makes, say, a great Western or Romance?”
As a reviewer I can say hands-down it is the world building. If you don’t get that part right, develop it well enough for the characters and plot to move through it, it just won’t work. The one thing I find I comment on first in reviews of this genre is whether the world building was solid or needed work. An example of one that did a poor job is Lauren Oliver’s Delirium. So many readers loved the story but I had a hard time even finishing it because the world building had HUGE gaping holes. To quote one of my reviews (again):
“I had a hard time believing that America and Portland (etc.) were so completely isolated. Many things like cell phones and internet didn’t seem really workable with the world building and kept making me pick apart the world when I should have been absorbing and enjoying the story itself.”
The world has to be able to exist without the reader asking simple questions that poke holes in the whole thing.
@Michele Ann Really cool concept for your story! Would you consider it to be a dystopian or perhaps a cyberpunk story?
And just for fun… if you had to become a character in a video game (that currently exists) who would you want to be (ie. Princess Zelda) and why?
I wanna be a Raving Rabbid
@Rhianna I’d never actually though to categorize my story as “cyberpunk” — it’s definitely “cyber” (Boy has that term not aged well! It sounds so very early-90s…). Wikipedia defines “cyberpunk” as “high tech and low life”, so I don’t think I was gritty enough to qualify
Maybe you could call it “post-post-Apocalyptic”. I’m really fascinated by terraforming and the idea that the moment before everything comes back together can be as great a backdrop for a story as the moment when things start to fall apart….
The original idea for the story was inspired by the suggestion solution to the “Fermi Paradox” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_Paradox) proposed by Geoffrey Miller (http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/why_we_havent_met_any_aliens/). Some interesting reading, to say the least!
Oh, and about the video game question: I haven’t played anything since Mario Brothers! I would totally disappear into virtually reality if given half a chance (as it is I loose whole days to Wikipedia and TVtropes, which is bad enough). There’s no Xbox or wii or anything like it in our house…
Lucky for me, I’m one of those people who enjoys her work — every day I get a new programming puzzle to solve and, on the best days, it seems like a game to me!
The idea of true virtual reality scares me. I’m honestly glad we don’t have it. lol Not that I don’t enjoy the concept in fiction of course.
@Shen Braun: “I am a little curious about swearing. When I was growing up, we had really foul mouths. Sometimes when I read YA, I really notice the lack of curse words, yet you can’t exactly drop nasty language into every sentence, if at all. As authors, how do you deal with that issue? As readers, is it an issue that you notice?”
LOL excellent question! Oh the things I remember my peers saying that turned my ears red… I wasn’t above giving my parents the finger when they left the room or dropping a few expletives with friends but I was a preacher’s daughter and tried not to go too far lest I end up in trouble.
As a reader I honestly find the lack of expletives to be unrealistic sometimes. Kids curse, they just do it differently. Sometimes they overdo it… it’s like learning to wear makeup… sometimes you put on way too much. I think if a writer keeps it realistic to the character(s), timeframe/history, world, etc. it’s just another part of language.
As a parent and reviewer I sometimes will note in a review of books intended for younger teens if I think the cursing is particularly crude or excessive. As the parent of my particular children though I could care less. I’m lucky if I can get them to read so why would I moan over a few F-bombs as long as they’re reading? lol
I do personally dislike seeing teen female characters calling each other bitch over and over (in the friendly way) but that’s just my personal peeve.
@Shen As your story’s title is Costumes and I love an excuse to dress-up in them I must ask if you’ve had a favorite costume of your own or that you wish you could have?
@Leslie Brown Just for a little clarification… your tale is steampunk?
Also, what made you decide to write about arranged marriage for a YA anthology? It seems to be popping up more and more frequently in the genre so I’m quite curious why it appealed to you as a storyteller.
I’m sorry, Rhianna, I missed this question earlier. No, my story is purely futuristic with technology that fits the era. The arranged marriage pops up because it was in the original fairy tale and I wanted to try to fit as much as I could from the original Goose Girl into the SF version. I made the reasoning for the marriage a bit silly but the whole story is pretty much tongue in cheek.
I’m actually a huge fairy-tale reteling fan but for the life of me I can’t recall what the Goose Girl is about so I’m going to have to go look it up.
If you have time to answer… are there any other fairy-tales or fables you’d enjoy putting a new spin on?
@Nicole Luiken I love werewolf fiction but it is very hot in YA right now. Did you face any challenges in trying to be original in writing werewolves?
Also, in writing YA about werewolves do you think the parallel between the changes of puberty and shapeshifting is why it appeals so well—whether they are aware of it directly or not—and is more relatable than other supernatural creatures to the targeted audience?
It’s always a challenge to be original. I knew I didn’t want to follow the whole bitten/Changed model, so I decided to go with a more hereditary werewolf–a gene instead of a virus–which gives rise to Chloe’s fear of being a “Dud” who’s unable to Change forms.
I hadn’t thought of the puberty parallel, but it makes sense. A werewolf character has to fight his feral instincts to run wild, the same way a teen has to deal with hormonal urges.
@Robert Runte Since your story is inspired by your own child I’m curious what she thought of it… I’ve got an almost-13-year-old myself and I completely get that feeling of bafflement at how they can go on and on but feel like they’re speaking a foreign language. lol
Her major complaint was that since no one in the story mentions her name, no one will know it is her. Though any of her friends would recognize her instantly. We’re organizing a podcast of the story, with her narrating it. That should help!
LMAO that is such a teenager response!
You have to have to have to let me know when this goes up! I’m excited about it already!
@All the Tesseracts Authors:
If you could travel back in time and give your teen self one book that wasn’t available to you at the time (ie. wasn’t yet published) which would it be and why?
Do you think the current teen audience has it better or worse than your generation at that age did?
If you could give any piece of advice to teenagers who hope to be writers one day what would it be?
Hi Rhianna: (re: teen self/book) Tough one. Probably wouldn’t be a fiction book. I’d probably give myself a copy of “Griftopia” by Matt Taibbi because learning that stuff then would’ve saved me a lot of time, and given me a valuable perspective that I was completely lacking then. Do teens have it better now (with regards to available content)? I think if you expand genre to include video games, then yes: oh my God, do they have it better now. There were some phenomenal YA books being written back then (someone mentioned Wrinkle in Time, among others) so I don’t that’s been improved upon. But the teen imagination is probably being approached (targeted?) in a wider variety of ways these days. If you’re a teen, you probably think that’s good; maybe their parents would disagree. Advice? I’d give ‘em the ol’ “If I can do it, you can do it” speech. I HAVE given that speech. Seriously, when I was a teen, there was no indication that I would one day be a published author. Did not have a burning urge to tell stories; had some verbal reasoning skill, but no exceptional ability to structure or dramatize fiction. So, if a teen wanted to write, I’d just say give it a shot (not, you know, as a CAREER – I’m just saying don’t let rejections discourage you).
Can I give myself my own book? Because I’m mostly writing for myself…My inner child loves my writing, and I REALLY get my sense of humor…and the truth is, I started writing my first novel in Grade 9. I could save myself an awful lot of time if I could hand myself the finished manuscript 40 years earlier! But to take your question seriously, I would love to hand myself pretty much any of the books from my daughters bookcase (except, NOT Twilight!) most of which was written after I grew up. There is a lot of really literate stuff out there now. But probably I’d give myself Airborne by Kenneth Oppel. That was pretty amazing. Or Tribes by Arthur Slade, for my older teen self.
Robert: that’s brilliant! I would totally give my younger self a copy of either one of my books. But should I give him/me OBJECTS OF WORSHIP or THE DOOR TO LOST PAGES. So hard to decide!
I think I’d give my teenage self half of the paranormal section of my bookcase! There’s a lot in there that I’ve used to help scared or anxious teenagers, and maybe if I’d read my own palm back then, I’d feel better about my future!
First I would give myself Tess 15, then smack myself on the back of the head and say “Write, damn you!” Then I would give myself the first Harry Potter and say, “Copy it word for word. Trust me.”
That’s funny!!
…and that was the answer I was waiting for someone to give.
teehee!
Thanks everyone who is answering this one. I thought it would provoke some interesting answers and get everyone thinking.
About the time travel – I wouldn’t. I’d probably breathe the wrong way and come back to find my apartment crawling with velociraptors or something.
I think teen audiences definitely have it better than I did. When I was young, books mostly jumped from “for 12 year olds” to “strictly for grown ups.” Today publishers are practically throwing books at teens trying to get them to read more.
I’ve been telling all my nanowrimo young writers in our libray group the same thing: write stuff. Don’t just think it and say you could be a writer. Put your money were your mouth is!
To answer Kate’s questions: “Do you write from an outline? Do you write scene by scene from start to finish or do you write the scenes you are feeling inspired to write and piece it together later?”
I write scene-by-scene, from start to finish, without an outline. Occasionally, as I near the end, I might do a bullet-point list of beats I need to hit before the conclusion, but I never write a formal outline. A big part of the pleasure for me is discovering the story as it unfolds. I may start with some ideas as to where it might all be heading, but the story often veers off in unexpected directions.
Lynn M. MacLean asks: What fantasy/sci fi/horror did you like to read when you were a kid?
I went through the shelves alphabetically and was drawn to those authors with huge backlists. So the first authors I read extensively were Poul Anderson, Piers Anthony, and Marion Zimmer Bradley, but the first writer to blow my mind and put me on the path of becoming the writer I am today was Philip José Farmer.
@Helen: I’d really WANT the giant scorpion to win but I think the giant robot would take it.
@Katrina: an airship. For the party-hosting potential of course!
HAH! I was thinking the same thing. Obviously you’d want the giant Ray Harryhausen scorpion to come through, but let’s face it – the nuke-bot’s gonna win every time. When you think about it, even the average, every-day Predator drone would have a field day with giant scorpions.
I dunno Kate… all the stories I’ve been reading lately that have airships seem to have everything BUT partying going on. lol I think I’ll have to crash your party (no pun intended).
I wouldn’t count out the scorpion! All that desert sand is hell on robots I bet…
Ooh, parties! I hadn’t thought about that. Obviously all the drunk people would have to be on bungee cords, though, or the ground around your airship would look like a modern art exhibit come morning.
Nicole Luiken asks a question that’s close to my heart:
“What is the first sentence of your story?”
For me opening sentences are very important, and I’m delighted to have come up with a story that allowed me to open with this exuberant, kinetic sentence:
Surrounded by five Hellscorpions, the Weirdo draws his ropegun and laughs maniacally while the disembodied voice of Madman Mastermind issues yet another death threat.
That opening sentence sucked me right in when I read it. Well-written!
@Lynn M MacLean (re: genre reading as a kid)…I’d say Tolkien was pretty big for me when I was young, but for whatever reason, I may have been more captivated by Robert E. Howard’s pulpy “Conan” stories. Had a bit of an Orson Scott Card interest for a while. Stephen King. X-men (Claremont/Byrne – not so much later on). Leiber’s Fafhrd and Gray Mouser (no idea on the spelling there) stories. And then didn’t really start enjoying fantasy again until George RR Martin’s “Song of Ice and Fire” series.
@Amanda Sun – A Wrinkle in Time and the Chronicles of Narnia moved me. +25 entries
@Cat McDonald – my definition is a book aimed at a Young Adult reader, in topic, character ages, and appropriateness of content. +5 entries
@Claire Eamer: For readers, I guess I’d like to ask them what attracts them to stories that feel free to drift away from reality or, at least, current reality? What I find attractive is the creativity it involves and how it engages my mind. +5 entries
Helen Marshall: Who would win in a fight between a giant robot and a giant scorpion? I think the scorpion would win – they are NASTY! +5 entries
@Kate Boorman – Readers: what entices you to pick up a book? The cover, the description of the story, some humor, something exciting going on is what entices me. +5 entries
@Kate Boorman – Where do most of your recommendations come from? I get recommendations from amazon.com when I look at a book I’ve read or a group of them and amazon suggests similar ones. Also from manybook websites I now visit. +5 entries
@Kate Boorman – Have you seen my ‘visitor’? No, I haven’t. +5 entries
@Katrina Nicholson: Which would you rather have: a helicopter or an airship? A helicopter. +5 entries
@Leslie Brown: How do you feel a young adult story differs from an adult story? I think it is centered around young adult characters and addresses themes of interest to young adults. +5 entries
@Lynn M. MacLean: What fantasy/sci fi/horror did you like to read when you were a kid? I liked sci-fi / fantasy – The Hobbit, A Wrinkle in Time, the Chronicles of Narnia. +5 entries
@Robert Runte – I am reading John Grisham, Stephanie Plum and the Sookie Stackhouse novels. +5 entries
@Shen Braun – I prefer not to see foul language in Young Adult novels – except perhaps an occasional mild curse word. +5 entries
RSVP +25 entries
“Liked” EDGE Science Fiction & Fantasy Publishing Facebook page +10 entries
Tally my own points +1 entry
Total = 116 entries
Robin D
USA
Oh Robin, Wrinkle in Time and Chronicles of Narnia! Me too! When I read those as a kid, I didn’t think they were fantasy, I just thought they were about other realms of possibility.
Both Robert and Virginia ask about influences.
“The Weirdo Adventures of Steve Rand” is an intentional creative misreading of the work of cartoonist Steve Ditko, whose craft and imagination I admire but whose plots and characters are often marred by jarring and heavy-handed intrusions of his Randite politics.
I can also see echoes of Philip José Farmer in there. Maybe a bit of Steve Gerber as well.
Shen Braun: I am a little curious about swearing. When I was growing up, we had really foul mouths. Sometimes when I read YA, I really notice the lack of curse words, yet you can’t exactly drop nasty language into every sentence, if at all. As authors, how do you deal with that issue? As readers, is it an issue that you notice?
It has been my experience that, while kids in the real world swear like teamsters on a picketline, the publishing world, and the readers themselves prefer something less colorful. Most YA publishers state a no swearing policy right in the guidelines. For one, it keeps the word count down. Plus we know a lot of kids swear as do a lot of adults. No need to write it down, but if you must, keep it sparse for effect, or, work on a tame variation. For example, in one of my stories my character said Frick instead of, well, you know.
Mike
Several of the questions relate to YA, so I’ll give a general comment: I haven’t consciously set out to write YA, I just write whatever I happen to be writing, and some of it seems suitable for a YA audience, and some of it doesn’t. I have an 8 year old and a 14 year old, so some of my writing comes from story time for them, and those I would expect other kids to enjoy. Other stories come from my life, so may have content not suitable for kids, like the story I am currently writing about the death of my mother. Adult themes. But the quality of my writing is much the same whatever I’m writing. If I were consciously focusing on a YA market I might control the vocabulary a bit more stringently, but even there, I expect good YA to stretch a young readers vocabulary (along with their minds), not cater to a general dumbing down of expectations.
I think good YA should be completely readable and enjoyable by adults. Take the Tove Jansson Moomins series as a random example. That suff is as compelling for adults as for kids. Or the work of Shannon Hale. Or Terry Pratchett’s children’s novels: any Pratchett fan not read those with the same enjoyment?
It drives me insane when manuscripts come across my desk form a YA author and I complain about lapses in logic or sloppy writing and the author responds, “oh well, it’s just for kids They won’t notice it’s bad”. No, no, no! Not on my watch, you don’t! Needless to say, those are the YA authors who remain unpublished. The ones I work with who have gone on to get published put as much care and work and substance into their stories as anyone.
So I’m not convinced YA is a genre, exactly. I accept that it is a marketing category, a recommendation that ‘if you are in this grade you may enjoy this book’…but when I see my daughter merrily switching back and forth between “The Help” one day, and “Vampirates” the next, I’m not sure its a distinct audience in the sense that a writer has to tailor a book to that audience. I think that’s a myth. I think good literature is good literature, and that YA audiences deserve literature, not just Zach and Cody.
@Kate Boorman, I have never written an outline. Normally I write from beginning to end. Of course then I have to go back and tweak, and sometimes more than tweak. Sometimes I have an idea of what the whole arc will be, other times it grows under my fingers as I write.
Just a quick note to thank all of you for participating in this online adventure. Everyone at EDGE has totally enjoyed working on Tesseracts Fifteen. It is our first YA project and it will act as a test of “the waters” for future YA books and anthologies that we might publish. It’s important to get the word out about this book and also the amazing Canadian authors published throughout the Tesseracts series — and indeed all Canadian authors.
I expect the discussions here will be passionate and hope you invite as many as possible to participate. I have.
Hi Brian! I hope “the waters” are inviting and Edge jumps in!
Thanks for dropping by Brian! Very cool having the man behind the curtain make an appearance. That’s one thing that scares me about the big pubs… you don’t get the feeling they really love what they’re doing.
Shen asks about swearing. I thought my story called for a bit of it. Not too much, but just enough to convey the right mood. I told the editors I’d consider changing the wording if they thought some of the language inappropriate for their book but otherwise liked the story. They didn’t change a word.
Katrina Nicholson: Which would you rather have: a helicopter or an airship?
While I might have more control with a helicopter, I can say from playing computer simulator games that I would likely die trying to fly one. An airship seems more user friendly, (read: idiot proof) and a gentler ride. Although blasting Ride of the Valkryies probably doesn’t have the same effect coming from a giant blimp.
Okay, I just pictured that, and now I HAVE to get the airship.
This visitor’s answer is for @Shen Braun’s question on swearing. For the most part, I see swearing being directly related to an individual’s character. With my son, we’re always asking him to tone down his language (17). With our daughter (12), she refuses to have anything to do with swears. However, there are days wherein she places either made up words or words that fit with the emotion at the time (for example, a simple statement like “ANGRY” is used). So yeah, she might not even pick up a book if she views it as too vulgar. Me personally, I prefer it when writers remain true to the character, thus if the character would naturally swear, then swearing should be there, regardless of target audience.
@Shen Braun: Here’s a new question: What inspiration or anecdote became the creative context behind “Costumes”?
I had an English teacher in high school who was quirky beyond belief. (One of the things he would claim to do is run shouting down the streets if he ever managed to answer Final Jeopardy correctly when none of the contestants did.) He was very passionate about his subject matter, definitely in touch with his “inner child” and was absolutely the basic foundation for Mr. Billings in “Costumes.” Then there was a layer of wish fulfilment. Tolkien was a huge influence on my early years, and I always yearned to be tall, striking and magical like an elf (though I would definitely have been classified more on the “Dwarven” side of things, to my youthful chagrin).
This question if for Nicole Luiken, what was your inspiration for this story and will you write more short fiction?
The girl with latent werewolf abilities and the feral/wild boy story has been hanging around in my head for ages. I think it was originally a dream fragment that I played around with one morning when I was too lazy to get up.
Will I write more short fiction? I’m not sure. I am definitely more of a novelist than a short story writer. There’s a much greater chance that Chloe and Marcus’s story will get turned into a novel someday soon.
The reason I decided to write Feral was because of peer pressure! Several other writers I knew planned to submit a story and since it was a YA anthology and I’m a YA writer I felt that I should enter too.
Sometimes peer pressure can be a good thing.
@Luiken: First sentence of your story:
“So Mr. Shakey came over the intercom saying it was 2:30 and would all the teachers therefore stop whatever they were doing and please water the plants?” It’s supposed to be a non sequitur though, so a bit unfair out of context.
Yours made me blink and wonder why the teachers should drop everything to water plants.
Feral’s is: Half-hidden in the trees, a werewolf paced her.
I like the simplicity of your first sentence and how in so few words the reader immediately knows (if they didn’t from the title, etc.) they’re reading something supernatural.
Amanda Sun: For the other authors, I’d love to ask whether this was your first foray into YA, and if so, how did you find it different than writing for adults? There is so much going on in YA right now that I’m excited about and I’m thrilled that Tesseracts gave these authors the chance to explore the genre.
Yes, this is my first YA, and because of it I am trying a YA novel. While I tried to not hold back on the themes and scenes in the story, I did make some of them less intense than originally written. And in some cases, I just cut them right out–but as much for general editing as fitting any YA criteria. If that makes any sense.
@Peter V.
I had an English teacher in high school who was quirky beyond belief. (One of the things he would claim to do is run shouting down the streets if he ever managed to answer Final Jeopardy correctly when none of the contestants did.) He was very passionate about his subject matter, definitely in touch with his “inner child” and was absolutely the basic foundation for Mr. Billings in “Costumes.” Then there was a layer of wish fulfilment. Tolkien was a huge influence on my early years, and I always yearned to be tall, striking and magical like an elf (though I would definitely have been classified more on the “Dwarven” side of things, to my youthful chagrin).
Writing science fiction / fantasy helps with swears. I use made up words for swears in my SF because it still gets meaning and emotion across without limiting the readership in anyway, and because swears do change over time. One has to be careful not to over do it, of course, as too many neologisms become their own kind of distraction/turn off.
Yes, in the fantasy novel I’m working on right now people say “Vez’s Malice” and “Loma’s Mercy” a lot, referring to Vez, God of Malice, and Loma, Goddess of Mercy.
@Amanda Sun
This was my first story specifically targeted at YA. However, I know that a lot of what I write would have appealed to a youthful me. Whether editors agree that those stories would then be placed in a YA market is another question. I know I was reading things my parents definitely wouldn’t have approved of as a kid—Stephen King in grade 6, my mom’s Danielle Steele novels when we were on vacation, pretty much anything I could get my hands on—so I think kids can handle a lot more mature subject matter than they are usually allowed.
Hi Shen,
Definitely agree! I find myself reading a lot of “dark” YA these days, and glad to see these topics are no longer quarantined to older reading. I think it’s a fantastic genre to explore in, because the emotions are close to the surface and sometimes more raw than they would be in adult fiction.
Maybe that is some of the appeal for me with YA… so much is the stuff I loved as a teen but wasn’t finding on the shelves suited for my age. On the same hand that may be because my generation is now publishing and well all grew up wanting the books they’re writing.
It’s like those Monster High dolls… I buy them as “collectibles” for my 2 year old but I really want to take them out and play with them. lol My Christmas list would have been nothing but them and candy when I was 7.
Hopefully my toddler will love them here in a few years when she’s old enough for them or I’m going to have to stop pretending the collection is for her. 
Nicole Luiken: What is the first sentence of your story?
“Commander Paul won’t ever let me be the Plymouth Rock’s captain,” I said.
When you’re writing do you like to set aside time to sit down and intentionally write or do you prefer to wait until ideas pop into your mind and then quickly run and write them down?
Hello Peace,
For me, I try to write the same time every day. I find I’m most creative in the afternoon, so that’s my time to write. As a writer, I’m supposed to keep a notebook handy to jot down all those ideas that pop into my head, but I always lose the pencil.
Like I have time to write! Mostly I write in the cracks between doing something else, or to deadline. Having time to write would be awesome. I do moan and complain enough about not having time to write, that once a year or so my wife sends me away for a week long retreat, and then everything that has been pent up for previous 8 months comes pouring out — or not, because it is not always smooth sailing. So inspiration and writing are often so long separated that its some time hard to see the connection….
I suppose for me it depends. I never really feel like there’s a “rush”; I figure, if an idea’s strong enough for me to write well about, it’ll stick with me. Of course, that said, I’ve forgotten more great story ideas than I’ve ever written so oops!
I tend to ruminate on an idea, just kind of float around with it for a couple days, poke at it, see if it catches my eye, and then eventually make myself sit down and write it. (The exception to this is NaNoWriMo, because it’s a pretty good way to force myself to do the actual work involved)
(No seriously I’m super-lazy)
I have small kids and so I have very specific time periods I can write. I would much rather write when I’m inspired but since that’s impossible, I split the difference: I write the scenes I’m inspired by in my designated ‘writing time’.
Both, I think. I write every morning – less on weekends since the kids are home from school. But ideas don’t have schedules and I’m always afraid if I don’t write them down when I get them, they will fade away. Even the good ones.
Especially the good ones! There’s no frustration like remembering you had an idea you loved, but being unable to recall its substance.
Yes, most frustrating thing ever! Almost as bad: waking in the middle of the night with what you think is a brilliant idea, scribbling it down, then reading it in the morning and saying, “Ugh. What was that??”
Peace: I definitely PREFER to wait for ideas to pop into my mind – those stories just seem to write themselves, and usually seem to have a better chance of selling. But when nothing’s popping, eventually I’ll pressure myself into sitting down every morning and writing for an hour or two. Sadly, I just don’t have a high enough frequency-of-inspiration to rely on that method alone.
If I have an idea I have learned to quickly write it down before it gets lost in the mists of time. I have about five planned books in my writing queue at the moment so new ideas often have to wait awhile before I can get to them.
My “planned” time to write is whenever my three-year-old will let me (DVDs, Lego, with her Dad, asleep… I MISS nap-time) Before I had kids I wrote from 8-11 pm.
@peace.alaina
I start with a germ of an idea and then I like to lay it out mentally before sitting down at the computer. Often the best time for this is while walking the ancient and slow dog or just before falling asleep. Once I have an outline, I find the tedious (for me) task of writing it all down goes much faster.
@peace.alaina
The freedom to write when the mood strikes would mean I’d rarely get anything down. Life keeps a person busy, so I have a very rigid “get your butt in that chair and type” mentality. More often than not, even if the words don’t start easily, things get flowing more smoothly as I go. Suddenly, I find I am in the mood.
For sure Shen, if I did not have a “get your butt in that chair and write” mode that I slip into, I would never get any writing, whether it is promotional or otherwise done…
As a reviewer I completely understand that mode Janice. Sometimes I like a book but can’t quite make myself write the review unless there’s something nagging at me like a release date or the need to chat it over with someone else who’s read it.
Even non-author-writers need that to kick in sometimes.
Michelle Barker: Where do you get your ideas from?
I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you. AHAHA!
Okay. Ideas can come from anywhere, listening to a news broadcast, or reading another story. But I’ve found some of my best ideas come from researching other stories.
Claude Lalumière: Do you enjoy reading and/or writing superhero fiction?
I find superhero stories a lot like Tom Cruise movies. You want to hate them, but afterwards you have to admit it wasn’t that bad.
Best. Analogy. Ever.
Thanks for making me laugh so hard I might need Depends Mike. Real nice!
For those of you who would like to see pictures of the authors, and later, the editor Julie Czerneda who you are speaking with, a new slide show has just been posted on the EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing’s Tesseracts Fifteen Catalogue page…
http://www.edgewebsite.com/books/tess15/t15-catalog.html
Answering all the questions! All of them!*
*(Most of them)
@Claire Eamer
I got my story’s setting from shameless editorializing. I thought, “You know, Cat, the real demons lie in the bonds of hate between people. That’s what hell really is; something we create when we hate each other. Oh wow, you’re so profound, Cat. This is why I love you so much. We should go out for coffee.”
And then I just took that self-aggrandizing monologue and made it super-literal! It’s actually not a terribly flattering thing, when you think about it, but people seem to dig the story that came out of it, so cool.
@Elise Moser
Oops I answered yours too. In my case, the fantasy landscape I put together really was just me literalizing a philosophy.
@Helen Marshall
I’ve got to say the scorpion. I’ve got a dear friend who always says “Bugs are nature’s robots!”, and while a scorpion’s not a bug, I think the theory still stands. That means they are both robots, but one of them is also a scorpion.
Also, you can’t use the word “secret” in your question and expect me to answer in public!
@Jennifer Greylyn
It’s not a question, but I’m also happy to be here! (Also, everyone, Jennifer’s story is really great. Loved the intensity of it.)
@Kate Boorman
Never. No outlines. If I make an outline, I ignore it nine times out of ten anyway! I’m the kind of slacker who just sits down and mashes keys until a story comes out, and then worries about whether or not it makes sense later!
@Katrina Nicholson
A helicopter. Also I would get it a really awesome sound system and blare the Jurassic Park theme at all hours. Da-da, da-DA! Dada-DA-dadada-da!
@Michele Ann Jenkins
1. Usually somewhere completely ridiculous, like self-indulgent philosophizing or seeing paper pasted to the ground by rain. I can’t really predict it.
2. When I get bored!
3. I think what makes really great speculative fiction is the author’s ability to look at the world and say “All right, I can do whatever I want. Let’s make the most of this!”
@Nicole Luiken
“Lee was too young to know why they called it the Road of Good Intentions, and quite nearly too human to walk it.”
It’s not a particularly exotic first sentence, I gotta say.
@Robert Runte
1. Right now, I’m reading mostly books on paranormal studies and theories. It’s been a lot of non-fiction for me! Also a big old thing called “The Tragic History of the Sea”
I’d say Bram Stoker is a major influence of mine, because Dracula’s been my favorite novel since I was nine!
2. Funny you should ask. I took a course on Canadian lit, and it really got me thinking about the ways my writing is decidedly Canadian. I’ve got a preoccupation with hostile lanscapes and language barriers, which our professor said was a hallmark of the genre. I don’t set out to “write something Canadian”, but I do believe that a writer leaves their personality on their work, and that their home country is part of who they are.
@Shen Braun
I love swearing and was actually really surprised that I hadn’t written any into The Road of Good Intentions. I think it was an accident.
@Tony Pi
Right now, I’m reading a lot of studies about parapsychology and I’m finding it absolutely thrilling! I guess “reading reports of RSPK studies conducted in labs” isn’t really high-octane but research is really one of my favorite things.
@Robert Runte again
I forgot! I’m also reading Tesseracts 5! It’s a hell of a thing, it really is. Some of the stories are so intense I have to take like a whole day’s break! <3 It's great.
Thanks! I’m still pretty proud of that collection.
As well you ought to be!
Actually, I ordered it the day I got back from When Words Collide. I guess I wanted to see the history of the series in action.
Cat you wrote: “Funny you should ask. I took a course on Canadian lit, and it really got me thinking about the ways my writing is decidedly Canadian. I’ve got a preoccupation with hostile landscapes and language barriers, which our professor said was a hallmark of the genre.”
Huh. I didn’t know this! My WIP (a YA alternate-history-gothic-thriller-on-the prairies-with-kissing– yes, that’s a legit genre, look for it) has both of those elements and I was setting out to write something that would interest a Cnd. publisher specifically. Very interesting!
i would pick up any book that is prairesque (it is a word, i just made it up) feel with kissing in it…please let us know when to expect this.
Helen Marshall: Who would win in a fight between a giant robot and a giant scorpion? If you could invent any secret name for yourself, what would it be and why?
No brainer. Rock smashes scissors, robot squishes scorpion. As for my secret name, why that would be . . . ah, almost got me to say it.
@ Shen Braun who wrote: “I am a little curious about swearing. When I was growing up, we had really foul mouths. Sometimes when I read YA, I really notice the lack of curse words, yet you can’t exactly drop nasty language into every sentence, if at all. As authors, how do you deal with that issue?”
I think readers who enjoy a broad range of YA know that anything goes: swearing, violence, taboo etc. If it serves the story, it should be there. Readers know a YA voice when they read it, swearing or no swearing.
My answer touches on q’s from Cat, Lynn, Leslie and Amanda who are wondering about definitions of YA and/or why we might choose to write YA.
For me, writing YA is an opportunity to explore ideas that are specific to an extremely exciting phase of life. Young adults are full of intent and desire and potential but they don’t yet have complete agency over their lives (for a variety of reasons). It’s a total goldmine for compelling situations and interesting characters.
That is a really brilliant and profound answer Kate.
I’ve often said the only part of being a teenager I’d like to have again is that sort of fearlessness we have with our “whole life” ahead of us… it can lead to dumb choices to be sure but it’s about finally being packed and ready for the adventure.
@AmandaSun I have eight published YA novels–so definitely not my first foray! i agree that there’s a lot of exciting stuff going on in YA right now.
@ShenBraun I tend to use go-arounds like “He cursed” instead of spelling out the swearword.
Readers and Authors: What YA spec fic are you reading right now? (or, what have you read recently?)
Hi Kate: I’ve been going through Robert McCammon’s old catalogue. I think (don’t know for sure though) he’s actually refused to allow any reprints of his early stuff, so anytime I see one of the old 80s paperbacks in a second hand store, I grab it. Just finished “Usher’s Passing” last week and found it very satisfying. Before that, it was Martin’s “Dance with Dragons” which is the only book I can ever remember buying in hardcover, the first day it became available in stores. A great, great fantasy read, but: heaviest. Book. Ever.
I recently finished reading “Raised by Wolves” (thanks for the recommendation!) Up next is Eona by Alison Goodman. I really enjoyed the first book, Eon, and how the characters problems kept getting worse and worse.
Oh cool Nicole- hope you liked Raised by Wolves!
@Kevin- just met Robert at the SiWC! What a great guy, and such an accomplished author. He had an incredibly inspiring keynote address.
I think the last YA spec fic I read was Ashes by Ilsa Bick. Zombie-pocalypse!
@Kate: Yeah – McCammon’s kind of growing into a hero of mine. Seems like he’s a little overlooked/underappreciated, although I’m not really in a position to judge. Always get a kick out of his stuff though.
I ended up not liking Raised by Wolves myself but have both Eon and Eona on my wishlist.
Have your read Nightshade yet? I need to get the 2nd book, Wolfsbane, bought but I swear this year has been THE year of books I HAVETOHAVE. Anyway, I really enjoyed the characters and the way their pack works.
I haven’t read Nightshade. Who’s it by?
Andrea Cremer
It’s a trilogy (at last check anyway that was the plan) but only Nightshade and Wolfsbane are out. I think Bloodrose’s release date is January…? Hmmm… gonna look it up… ahh, January 3rd.
Not reading any YA right now. Did read The Hunger Games over the summer.
I lie: I read Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor and LOVED. IT.
There is such good YA out there– please share your recs!
I’m not reading any right this moment but I have Tamora Pierce’s Mastiff on my Christmas list. I’ll pick up anything by Garth Nix and Kristin Cashore. I tend to steer away from the YA books that focus on “getting that girl/boy to notice me” (cough*Twilight*cough) and stick more to fantasy/adventure.
I enjoyed Kristin Cashore’s “Graceling” and “Fire”, too. I also recently read book two in Cinda William Chima’s excellent fantasy series “The Exiled Queen”. For paranormal YA I strongly recommend “The Demon’s Lexicon” by Sarah Rees Brennan.
Has anyone read the Iron Fey series by Julie Kagawa? Book one is on hold for me at the library right now.
Totally second the Sarah Rees Brennan rec Nicole.
Julie Kagawa- I read the Iron King (1st in that series)- it kinda reminded me of Labyrinth!
Love, love, love the Iron Fey series! It’s inspired somewhat by Labrynth, a film I loved as a child. I haven’t read the latest one that came out what… a weekish ago. Not enough hours in a day.
If you enjoy Dystopian themes I really enjoyed Wither by Lauren DeStefano.
If you’re more into the supernatural P.T. Michelle’s Brightest Kind of Darkness was also reallllly good, especially since she self published it. Jordan Dane’s In the Arms of Stone Angels made me sleep with a nightlight it was so spooky. As far as more of a fantasy goes Entwined by Heather Dixon was a delicious fairytale retelling.
I’m currently working on Dearly, Departed by Lia Habel which is a Neo-Victorian futuristic setting with zombies. It’s quite good so far.
I read The Hunger Games over the summer and loved it. Right now I’m reading Airborn, by Kenneth Oppel – wonderful stuff. Read an excellent YA book (not spec fic) called The Lit Report, by Sarah Harvey.
@RobertRunte (2) Is your writing distinctly Canadian?
I would say some stories are more than others. Frost (a YA paranormal about a hockey player being influenced by a supernatural representation of cold set in Nunavut) definitely. Dreamfire has a background of forest fires in addition to the paranormal dream element. But I’m less sure of Violet Eyes (genetically modified teens find out their living in a Historical Immersion Project)
We asked our authors what was the most unusual or “curious” thing that has happened to them personally. I will be posting their answers under this stream throughout the day…comment by hitting reply under their story.
Kate Boorman’s personal “Curious Tale”
When I was young(er), I had a job promoting a post-secondary institution which involved long road trips and new hotel rooms every night. The job also involved a ton of public speaking, which was stressful for me; I didn’t sleep or eat well when I was on the road. Several weeks into my job I picked up a ‘visitor’ who would come to my room while I was sleeping. I would wake, but be unable to open my eyes or move/speak–I could only sense and hear this presence moving around the room. Finally, it would sit on the bed right beside me; I remember feeling the depression in the mattress when it sat. The first couple of times it happened I was absolutely convinced someone had broken into my hotel room and that I wasn’t fully waking because I was paralyzed with fear. It would eventually leave, and I would wake and check my room (and, y’know– breathe into a paper bag). After several weeks of this visitor I was advised by a colleague–who was interested in the paranormal–to ‘ask’ what this thing wanted and also ask to be left alone. I did just that– and while I didn’t receive an answer, I did receive a reprieve. It left me in some small Northern Alberta community and I haven’t seen it since.
A flight of fancy created by my sleep-deprived, over-stressed mind? Or….. ?
This sounds like a more intense version of my own curious tale (which I assume Janice will post later) Good news, there is a scientific explanation for being “hag-ridden” called sleep paralysis.
Read Claude’s comments about sleep paralysis below as well.
That is indeed sleep paralysis. It’s astonishing how it almost always follows the same script, with basically only the nature of the menacing visitor changing in different people’s experiences.
(re: Kate Boorman’s weird occurance) Wow! Normally I’d say “cool” – but having seen Paranormal Activity 3, I’d say that Kate dodged a bullet!
*shivers* That is seriously creepy! But I do think sleep deprivation can cause some weird stuff based on personal experience.
Okay, okay. Show of hands, how many people suddenly have a story brewing concerning sleep paralysis or paranormal visitors. AYE!
Amanda Sun’s personal “Curious Tale”
“Probably one of the most surreal moments happened to me at a train station in Kyoto. I was sitting with my host sister at the end of a long row of empty seats, and an elderly woman sat at the other end. While we waited for the train, the woman stood up, moved a couple seats closer, and sat again. She came progressively closer in this way until she was right beside me, and then leaned over and began braiding my hair while chatting to my host sister about me. I suppose with long blond hair I’d been a bit of a spectacle in the Japanese station!” – Amanda Sun, Tesseracts Fifteen author
WOW. This is absolutely hilarious. Probably not for you at the time. I imagine it was very surreal.
I don’t know how I would respond to that. I suppose just let it happen? I’ve been trying to imagine the internal monologue of that woman to build up the courage to come over to braid your hair.
How long of a time-span did all this happen in?
It was a surreal moment for sure! haha. Including the conversation with the lady, it happened over about half an hour. The approach was about five minutes. It is interesting to think what she must have been thinking at the time!
She ended up being lovely but at the time my Japanese wasn’t up to par so I had no idea for the most part what she was discussing with my host sister! (Later I learned she was asking how long I’d been in Japan, where I was from, etc.)
Clearly I wasn’t too traumatized, though. I have two YA novels coming out over the next two years and they both take place in Japan.
This is shockingly awesome! The more I think about it, I think I might have paid money to watch this unfold. And yes. I know I’m weird!
At least it was an old woman right? lol
“I guess I’m the kind of person who thinks everything’s unusual! Did you know that plants get most of their substance not from earth, but from air? They use the carbon in the carbon dioxide they take in! To me, things like that are just completely wonderful. I meet a lot of unusual people when I’m working as a fortune-teller, too; I met a bona-fide shaman once! He carried a staff and everything, but he was probably a little younger than me. He gave me a crystal necklace I still wear all the time.” – Cat McDonald
@Cat: See…that’s just not fair. You’re a fortune teller hob-nobbing with shamans? My weirdest day ever doesn’t even compare to you just going to the farmer’s market! Actually, now that you mention it…I DID have a weird fortune-telling experience that I forgot about (so it wasn’t the story I related to Janice for this purpose). Somehow, a woman had gotten hold of my name and invited me to her house for a reading. Okay: weird enough…but I go, and the place is this HUGE mcmansion – not what I was expecting at all – so that’s weird-bit 2. Her thing was reading polished stones – I select some, and she takes it from there – and it’s all eerily, eerily accurate (though I didn’t realize it until years later). Just kind of a baffling set of circumstances – well outside my normal routine.
Well, my average day at the farmer’s market is me whining about needing a coffee and coveting tomatoes, if that’s any comfort!
But, that visit to the mcmansion sounds like a lot of fun! When I was a little girl, I used to play with polished stones, assigning them meanings and tossing them down onto a paper as a sort of experiment. Since I was a kid at the time, I had no idea what I’d proved when they came down right! But it’s a really fantastic method that, unlike a lot of others, requires the diviner to assign their own meetings. Maybe your fortune-teller was an individualist who saw the same quality in you!
Meanings. Assign meanings.
Hi Cat: No idea – that was 20-25 years ago. When you think about it – how many horror stories have started out with just that exact “lure him to the mansion” idea. What was I thinking? You know (thinking about these divination techniques) I had a personal experience a few months ago with this stuff. It was just after the GOP had refused to lift the debt ceiling in the US, and I knew my bonds were in trouble, but I also knew that timing-the-market is a fool’s errand (at least for me it is!) I was kind of getting anxious about it all, so one night, I decided to sleep on the get out/stay in decision, wake up and roll dice (ie: 2 ten-sided die) first thing – and see what the oracle said. Result: BOTH dice came up “5″ – exactly mirroring the kind of anxious ambivalence I was experiencing. Weird.
What is the most “unusual” thing that has ever happened to you?
Claude Lalumière: Sleep paralysis.
Claude, can you tell us more about this?
Sleep paralysis is basically hallucinating being attacked by a nightmare while lying paralysed in bed. Every culture has a different name for it, and it’s estimated that 60% of people experience this at some point. The waking nightmare depending on cultural and personal expectations. It’s been hypothesized, for example, that UFO abduction stories are modern versions of folkloric sleep paralysis episodes, as they follow basically the same plot, but with aliens replacing demons and the like.
Here’s a comics story I did with artist Rupert Bottenberg, on the subject of sleep paralysis: http://lostmyths.net/?p=530
Is that the same thing as night terrors? My daughter used to have awful ones. She’d scream and scream at something that wasn’t there, even though she seemed to be asleep, and anything we did to try and help only made it worse, as if we were the ones attacking her.
Scary stuff! I’ve had some awful nightmares in my time but nothing like that.
I believe they must be related, but they’re not quite the same thing. One the same spectrum, though.
I unfortunately know what sleep paralysis feels like. It has got to be the most unsettling sensation I’ve ever felt.
I used to have this all the time! It’s terrifying. Especially if you don’t know what it is. (I think I was in my 20s before I came across an article describing it).
I even get the one where you have an intense feeling of another presence in the room — apparently it’s a particular part of your brain firing off. I’m sure it’s where a lot of our myths of spirits, devils and other otherworldly visitors come from. Err, or it’s a bug in the Matrix.
“Terrible question to answer! I guess…. being folded up in a raft in the middle of serious rapids on a northern river. My family (husband, son, sister, brother-in-law, niece) decided to raft a wild bit of the Tatshenshini River in northern British Columbia. It’s a day trip through some pretty wild water, and we had all done it before with a commercial outfit from Whitehorse, where we all lived at the time.
Unfortunately, my brother-in-law’s raft was a little ancient. We didn’t realize until we were committed to the river that the raft was leaking air slowly from its seams. It was in no danger of sinking before we could find a bank, land, and pump it up — but we didn’t take Twin Holes into account. Twin Holes is a rapid at a bend in the river, and it involves a large rock wall and two substantial whirlpools. The raft made it through the first hole, but its soft, air-depleted sides were no match for the second hole. The entire raft folded in half. I could see it coming and grabbed with both hands. The raft flipped me upside down — on top of my 11-year-old son (he still complains about that at age 25!). We slipped out of the hole, the raft flopped open, and I climbed off my son and let him up.
We both looked around and realized we were the only ones left in the raft, along with a lot of water. All the rest of the party had held on enough that they were clinging to the lines along the side of the raft — but in the water. Between buckets and buckets of water in the raft, and four people being dragged through the water along its sides, it was almost impossible to manoeuvre. We managed to get niece and sister aboard, niece with damaged ankle, and brother-in-law let go and swam for shore to go for help. As we plummeted downriver, the last we saw of him was a soaking figure clinging to a rock in the middle of the stream. We couldn’t get husband aboard because he was too big and the deflating raft had too little freeboard, so we paddled like crazy and managed to catch an eddy and ground the raft on a rocky beach. We dragged husband ashore and left him to choke up river water while we hauled the raft farther up the beach and built a fire to warm everyone up.
Since we weren’t completely foolish, we had set off down the river about 30 minutes ahead of the commercial trip, just in case of trouble. We were just getting people warmed up (and worrying about missing brother-in-law) when a kayaker from the commercial crew pulled up. They had spotted brother-in-law half-way up a cliff, climbing out of the river valley to hike for help. He had climbed back down and was coming down behind us in a commercial raft.
So the day ended fairly quietly after that. Total damage: one banged up ankle, husband feeling horrible because of swallowing and breathing way too much river water, and everyone very leery of brother-in-law’s boats for years to come!” – Claire Eamer,Tesseracts 15 author
I bet if it hadn’t been for the near-constant disasters, no one would even have remembered the trip! Disaster + time = great story
What is the most “unusual” thing that has ever happened to you?
“I was having an MRI and feeling very closed in, when a stream of cool air passed over my face. Immediately I thought, Oh good, there is a way out of this cave. A minute later I knew that had been my lizard brain talking.” – Elise Moser, Tesseracts 15 Author
So, Helen Marshall, what is the most unusual or curious thing that has happened to you?
“When I was eighteen, my parents revealed to me a long-kept family secret: our family’s last name had once been Shufflebottom (from “Sheffield” and “bootham”) but our great grandmother wouldn’t marry into the family until it was changed to “Marshall.” Yes, if it were not for my plucky ancestor, I would now bear the hobbit name, Helen Shufflebottom.” – Helen Marshall, Tesseracts Fifteen author
LOL! That’s quite a jump, Shufflebottom to Marshall! Where’d she get the name??
I give your great grandmother a big old kudos for putting her foot down! Because that is some ultimatum.
My mum has an awful maiden name like that. The Scottish version is came from was rather… menacing sounding but strong… now it contains a fart term. *facepalm* Funny how names evolve eh?
I dunno Shufflebottom is kind of cute… in a hobbity-way just like you said.
What is the most “unusual” thing that has ever happened to you?
“I was almost eaten by geese once when I was little.” – Katrina Nicholson, Tesseracts Fifteen author
@Katrina: Could you please tell us more of the story?
Okay, I’m about three, it’s autumn, and my grandmother had taken me to the pond to feed the ducks. I’m ripping up pieces of stale bread and tossing them to the ducks, when these big white geese (sorry, not Canada Geese!) are all like “HONK! Give us some bread, bi***!” and I’m all like: “No! This bread is for the ducks, you meanies!!” and they were all like: “HONK! Get out of our way, stupid ducks!!! That’s our bread!” and I was like: “No!” and I held the bread over my head so they couldn’t get at it, because everyone knows that you forfeit your share of stale bread when you bully defenseless ducks. But they were taller than me so they just shoved the ducks out of the way and swarmed me, snapping at the bread while I yelled at them. My grandmother had to lift me onto her shoulders and save me.
@Katrina…HAH! I see that every summer down by the river…parents standing nearby, smiling and enjoying the scene as their barely-walking kid stumbles amidst a bunch of Canada geese, not knowing how close they are to dialing 911.
“When I was a teenager, I had a dream that my grandparents’ house got robbed. They used to live in a bungalow across the street from the family business, and I still have a vivid memory of standing in the parking lot between and watching the police interrogate them, with my sisters. Flashing lights and everything. It all just seemed so real, and for years I believed that it had really happened.” – Virginia Modugno, Tesseracts Fifteen author
That’s reminiscent of a Hitchcock movie. I had something similar happen to me a couple of summers ago; I was biking underneath a bridge along the Bow and heard a repetitive whooshing sound, then a loud BONK! as something hard hit my helmet. A flying goose had tried to beak me in the head, but probably got a harder impact than it had expected.
“Most unusual thing ever to happen to me: First time I ever had to have my eyeball injected with cortisone was definitely surreal. Doctor’s holding my eye open with his FINGERS, putting a needle in while I’m awake, and quietly telling me “not to move” in reassuring doctor-speak while he completes the procedure. Did not anticipate that happening when I went into the office that afternoon.”- Kevin Cockle, Tesseracts 15 author
Oh god, needles in eyeballs! That’s straight out of every nightmare I ever had since I mistakenly visited the ROM’s “eye surgery” exhibit when I was seven.
After dozing off watching A Clockwork Orange last night I come and read this… agh! No metal near me peepers thanks! Gaaah!
Hi Rhianna: I know! And what made it unusual was the complete lack of preparation/anticipation. I just remember thinking: “Wait…what? You’re going to do what now? This isn’t actually happening is it?” Surreal.
I’m not bothered by needles but if someone wanted to put one in my eye there’s no way I could be calm about it. Maybe it’s a natural protective instinct thing but seriously? Ugh! Sometimes with modern medical practices I wonder how anyone thought to try the things they do that brought them to being an everyday treatment/test/etc.
“I lived in an apartment in my fourth year at University that was haunted by a cat-sized blob of nothingness. I spent eight months positioning myself so that I would not look down the hallway where it lurked and therefore be able to deny that we had a ghost.” – Leslie Brown, Tesseracts Fifteen author
Wow! That’s creepy. Did it move around or do things? What did it look like? Maybe you’d rather not remember ^_^
At first I thought it was a reflection of traffic passing by in the corner of my glasses. Then we had some friends over and the guy sitting beside me on the sofa asked if we had a cat. Then I knew it was something else. As I said, I tried to sit on the other end of the sofa so I wouldn’t look down the hallway too often. Then, one night, I was standing in the hallway talking to my roommate in her bedroom. The blob was beside me, then it vanished and reappeared a foot away from its original position then it pulled that stunt one more time. I bolted into my roomie’s room and threw my arms around her in terror. She asked “What is it?” and I remembered that she didn’t want to hear about the ghost so I squeaked “Nothing” and let her go!
“When my youngest child was born, we set up a mobile above his crib. It had been given to our first baby by my late mother. It was one of those that you wind up, then they turn and a pretty tune plays. My mother had died about two years before the birth of my youngest. Well, every now and then, when the baby was asleep, the tune would tinkle out. Sometimes I was in the room, sometimes in another part of the house. Although I am pretty skeptical of these things, it was both spooky and deeply comforting, like my Mom was watching over my baby. However, a little sleuthing on my part determined that it only happened when heavy trucks went by, shaking the house and the old mobile with its loose mechanism ever so slightly. We changed to a different mobile because it freaked out my older child. Problem solved.” – Lynn M. MacLean, Tesseracts Fifteen author
Maybe your mom was haunting the heavy trucks?
What is the most “unusual” thing that has ever happened to you?
“I had a weird dream that I turned into a story that was published in an anthology.” – Michele Ann Jenkins
That would be Michele Ann Jenkins, Tesseracts Fifteen Author
“Most unusual thing that ever happened to me: one morning a baby owl appeared on my porch with a dead songbird in its mouth, which it left for me (nice). The next day I was going to a writer’s conference where I hoped to pitch my novel to several editors. I came down with a tragic case of laryngitis. My voice was GONE. I had to whisper my pitch to everyone. How’s that for a Homeric bird sign?” – Michelle Barker, Tesseracts Fifteen author
LOL, that owl had a crush on you. He was trying to give you a present!
One of my best friends is Native American and she says that owls are a sign of death coming so… perhaps in your case it was the death of your voice?
That’s kind of cute it left you a present though. I have a cat that brings me his favorite white fuzzy mouse every night and lays it on the floor by my side of the bed while I sleep. Thank goodness he’s an indoor cat. I can’t imagine stepping on a real one all deadified by my slippers.
“Unusual. So many weird things happen to me, the unusual is pretty much usual.” – Mike Rimar, Tesseracts Fifteen author.
@Mike Rimar: Such as? Please tell us more…
All right. I tried to bail on the question, but you’re not going to let me off the hook. Let’s see. My first daughter was stubborn in the WOMB and my wife had to be induced, but it didn’t take the first time and we had to go back for a second attempt. Turns out had the first attempt worked, she likely would have been born on the same day that my mother died some six years earlier.
When I was an idiot teen I used to sit on the bow of my friends motorboat because his motor wasn’t powerful enough to get up a waterskier on a single ski. Well, long story short, I was stupid and went over the edge. I opened my eyes and saw the churn of propeller bubbles about two feet from my face.
That makes a boating accident, numerous automobile accidents and a train mishap. Needless to say, I am concerned about flying.
“Uh, unusual in what way? My first book was published when I was sixteen, does that count?
The spookiest thing that ever happened to me is being “hag-ridden”. (The scientific name for the phenomena is sleep paralysis.) Sometimes I will “wake up” but be unable to move. I expend tremendous effort trying to open my eyes–and can’t. I try to crawl out of bed, think that I’ve done it, then realize no, I’m still stuck in bed. The first time it happened was terrifying.” – Nicole Luiken, Tesseracts Fifteen author.
@Nicole: Does it still happen to you? What do you do?
What is the most “curious” or unusual thing that has ever happened to you?
“My now wife agreeing to go out with me.That was pretty unusual. My life before her and the kids was pretty much any episode of Big Bang theory. My wife is convinced that that series was based on my friends.” Robert Runte, Tesseracts Fifteen author
*high fives Robert*
Bazinga!
I do believe the saying “the geek shall inherit the Earth”.
“Unusual thing… that’s always a tough one. One of them would be the time I helped a vet perform a C-section on a cow. I had absolutely no veterinary training, and fainted part way through. (Both mother and calf pulled through, by the way.)”- Shen Braun, Tesseracts Fifteen author.
What is the most “unusual” thing that has ever happened to you?
“The most unusual thing that has ever happened to me is actually two
separate events that have a connection with each other. I had the
opportunity to meet two people who claimed to be amnesiac: one was in
Montreal, the other in Toronto. I was so fascinated by the cases that
I wrote my own short story about a supposed amnesiac, called
“Come-From-Aways” and published in On Spec.” – Tony Pi, Tesseracts Fifteen author
Virginia Modugno’s Most Curious Personal Tale… says:
November 7, 2011 at 6:08 pm
“When I was a teenager, I had a dream that my grandparents’ house got robbed. They used to live in a bungalow across the street from the family business, and I still have a vivid memory of standing in the parking lot between and watching the police interrogate them, with my sisters. Flashing lights and everything. It all just seemed so real, and for years I believed that it had really happened.” – Virginia Modugno, Tesseracts Fifteen author
@Robert Runte: I’m always interested in two questions: (1) who are they reading — who are their influences— and (2) do they think of what they are writing as distinctly Canadian in any way? I don’t think anyone sets out to purposefully write something “Canadian”, but looking back at their own work, do they see characteristics that line up with typical Canadian themes, approaches to narrative, characterization and so on?
I’m reading R.R. Martin’s Feast of Crows, Robert Leckies Helmet for my Pillow, and Halo, First Strike which I read when I’m waiting to pick up my wife from work.
Oh, yeah. I’m sure there is some kind of Canadian flavour to any story written by Canadians. It’s in our DNeh.
LOL, Mike. I’ve got to use that some time.
I got ambushed by my own Canadianisms when I ran a novel chapter by some online American writer friends. They were totally baffled when I described a truck smashing into a hydro pole. Was the pole made of water? they wanted to know. Guess I’ll have to change that to utility pole.
I guess we are two peoples separated by a common language. Just tell them you’re gonna go about in a boat. Americans love that.
*giggles* Okay how bad is it that it took me ’til now to figure out the joke of DNeh? *facepalm*
And here we used to pick on my aunty who’s from BC about it.
Maybe it’s because I’m in Montana and we have Canadian folks here all the time but I’ve been trying to figure out what the big difference between styles would be. Are we Americans really that different in our writing?
There are some great questions – and answers – here! A question I have for the authors: did any of you find you wanted to grow these stories into full novels? In many cases there seems to be so much more waiting to be told! *hint hint*
I get asked that question often, but I like to leave things for readers to imagine. Being told the full story is never as satisfying as being teased to imagine it yourself.
Hi Dana: Nope – no plans to expand “The Bridge Builder” into a novel. I wrote it specifically for T15 guidelines, and one thing that often gets me a rejection is “this story seems like it’s part of a larger work” – so I specifically guard against that if I can.
Hi Dana! Yes, my short story existed in my head as a novel first. And it still may become one. Thanks for asking!
I have considered writing more stories in the ‘Plymouth Rock’ universe. With a whole generation ship filled with people, there has to be at least one or two more stories.
No. For me the process of story-writing and the process of novel-writing are different. It has happened a couple of times that people said, oh, I want more, you should turn this into a novel. (A few people said about my novel that they wanted a sequel.)I don’t know whether to take this as evidence of a flaw in the story (it didn’t satisfy the reader’s sense of a story fully told) or as a compliment (it was so good they just couldn’t get enough). Although i tend toward the former.
Claire Eamer: For readers, I guess I’d like to ask them what attracts them to stories that feel free to drift away from reality or, at least, current reality?
It’s nice to read about something that’s not our current reality.
+1 answer question
+25 revp’d
+1 tally
27
Where in Canada are you from?
Oh boy. Born in Vancouver, lived for 10 years in Quebec, moved back to Penticton a few years ago and love it here.
Definitely a beautiful place, Penticton is!
I’m from Ontario, just east of Toronto.
I was born in Nova Scotia, but then moved to the St. Lawrence river valley when I was a little girl, and then again to the Edmonton area, where I live now. The move made me a really angry kid, and I think that, when I’m writing, I kind of tap into just how bleak I thought wide-open places were when I was little.
Hi, it’s Elaine! I wasn’t able to commit to this (who’d've thought that taking care of a baby would be so time-consuming) but I thought I’d drop in and say hi. Some pretty thought-provoking questions and answers here and I wish I had more time to participate. In brief:
“A Safety of Crowds” explores celebrity and anonymity in the digital age through the interconnected lives of two young women.
@Amanda: This is my first YA publication, but I didn’t set out to write a YA story. (Shh! Don’t tell anyone!) I was almost finished “A Safety of Crowds” when the call for submissions came out. The protagonists are not tweens or teens, but I figured submission was worth a shot as I riffed on pop and digital culture that resonates with young people today.
@Claude I like stories that deconstruct or play with superhero conventions eg The Watchmen. Myself, I have an autistic superhero story I’ve been fiddling with on and off.
And the offspring just woke up fussing so that’s it from me for now…
It is fantastic that you were able to drop by for a moment! Thanks!
Hello to the authors and editor of Tesseacts! *waves*
I can see why these stories would engage the imagination -they all sound so different and interesting. Many of these story lines are unlike what I come across in the paranormal genre. It’s a bonus these are from Canadian authors.
@Amanda Surr
YA books is what really introduced me to the paranormal genre and I believe that was before there was even a young adult genre. All I know is that I was always an avid reader and I wasn’t picky, I read everything I could get my hands now, most notably: Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Sweet Valley, Fear Street. I devoured series and in betwen many standalone books. There was no internet or reading blogs or reading communities or online bookstores for quick shopping. I relied on what was available and from the libraries. I can’t say one specific genre or book moved but that a bit of everything help shape my reading preferences. I read from all genres and enjoy them all.
@Amanda Surr
Your story in Tesseracts 15 “Fragile Things” involves a unicorn which I found unique and don’t often encounter in stories. Why did you choose a unicorn of all paranormal creatures to be in your story?
I think unicorns get a bad rap these days because they’re seen as such a fantasy cliche. I’ve always been interested in the stories of “mythical” creatures being discovered as real (for example, okapis), and I wondered what sort of ramifications it would cause for a family to deal with that sudden public interest.
I think, too, that unicorns are considered such a sign of hope and innocence, that they could exist as a great counter-balance to the protagonists struggle, and I wanted to see how they could fit into a grittier world without the photoshopped sparkles and rainbows.
@Cat McDonald
My definition of YA is stories that deal with young adults and issues that are very common to them. Anything from self-esteem, bullying, drugs, first love and peer pressure which helps shape their identities. I think there’s a story for everyone out there.
How about rebellion or “sticking it to the man?” Does this happen in any of the Tess 15 stories? Do any of you see it as an important part of YA fiction, or is it less common now than in some past decades you can think of?
Hi Ivan: If Hunger Games is any indication, “Sticking it to The Man” is still very much alive and well as a broad theme for YA. In T15, I don’t know how many stories would commit to that in any overt way – but a lot of the viewpoint characters could be considered counter-cultural, or outsider types, so the presence of The Man is bespoken to some extent. My character – for instance – comes from economic hardship and needs subsidized schooling…he’s not sticking it to The Man really, but he’s obviously reacting to these circumstances in some ways. Without The Man in the unspoken background, I’m not sure the same pressures would be at work on the kid.
I think in My Name is Tommy, there very much is a theme of “sticking it to the man” although I never thought of it that way until now. I think a lot of YA has that theme because most teens feel oppressed by the big bad adults, and kids like to read about kids getting the better of their betters.
Oh, I’m in a clever mood
Ivan, Kate Boorman’s story, “The Memory Junkies” has that element as a strong component. I won’t spoil it for you, but one thing I particularly like about this story is how the characters face the consequences of action — or inaction. It’s quite powerful.
@Cat McDonald
My question for you is how to you get into the mindset of darkness and hatred? Your story sounds richly dark and I imagine when you’re having a great day, it’s not easy to turn it off and get dark. Music, food or?
Ah! That’s a tricky one! Actually, people tell me I’m a pretty cheerful person, and usually I’m just a total joker. But, I don’t know that any conversion takes place. If someone talks to me while I’m writing, even something like The Road of Good Intentions, I’m still my usual chipper self.
But, at the same time, I think part of being a joker is being cynical, and I think that’s the cynicism that might lead to a lot of my writing. So, I guess to answer your question, it’s less like two different modes and more like two different angles to what’s essentially the same attitude? Maybe? Ah, it’s not something I’ve thought a lot about!
I can relate with you Cat! When it comes to reading I tend to gravitate towards darker reads but in real life I’m annoyingly cheerful and optimistic. I like the seeing things from a different angle though rather than a mode.
-) (+30) – Hiya folks!
Q1) Picking out Kate Boorman’s – how I pick up a book. Well, I have the genres that I have a tendency of gravitating towards… but in the end, it’s all about what that back cover blurb says it’s about. Whether it’s something I read a lot of or not, if something sounds interesting to me, I’ll try it!
Q2) and to pick out one more – Lynn Maclean’s – when I was a kid, I did more real science versus science fiction, but once I discovered Star Trek (and later Star Wars) novels, did a lot of those.
-) other stuff –
(+25) RSVPed for this one
(+10) Twitter, OV_099
-) total should be = 1 + above = 66
Lois M., USA
@Amanda Sun:Which YA stories have moved you in your lives?
I love Tamora Pierce. And I’m a HUGE fan of Charles de Lint. I also really like Hilari Bell. There a slew of YA authors that always impact me. But the one thing that is universal, is that YA authors don’t pander down because it’s labeled YA.
Also a little note, Charles deLint as Samuel Key, wrote the only book, to this day, that has ever given me a nightmare. And considering some of the books that I’ve read, that’s saying something! I know that had nothing to do with the question, but after I brought up deLint, I just thought I’d share!
@Claire Eamer: For readers, I guess I’d like to ask them what attracts them to stories that feel free to drift away from reality or, at least, current reality?
-I guess it’s just that. It’s the fact that it’s everything that my reality is not. It’s pure escapism from things that are the “norm” in everyday life.
@Helen Marshall: Who would win in a fight between a giant robot and a giant scorpion?
Ooh, Hard one! Well it depends on what kind of giant robot are we talking about here. Is it uber flexible and quick? Or is it slower because it’s larger? Hmm, I still think I’m going to go with the giant scorpion. As you can see I think about the important things in life!
@Kate Boorman:What entices you to pick up a book?
This might sound weird, but I can easily get a feel for a book. I suppose it’s a mixture of the cover and the blurb. But also there’s that indescribable thing that you feel when you pass by a book.
Where do most of your recommendations come from?
-Good Grief! Everywhere! I can’t finish one book before 3 more get added to my TBR list. And frankly I blame a lot of the people on this site! There are so many times when you see “You have to read this!”. I also go by author associations and recommendations too.
Have you seen my ‘visitor’?
-To be honest, I really hope not!
@Katrina Nicholson: Which would you rather have: a helicopter or an airship?
Ooh! Gotta go with the airship.
@Leslie Brown: How do you feel a young adult story differs from an adult story?
-I think it’s the level of graphic detail that gets described. For an adult story, I think it’s more descriptive graphically and physically. But with YA I think the description has more to do with emotion of what they are facing as a teenager.
Questions for any of the authors:
-I’m curious, did any of you know each other before this project?
-What are some of your rituals or weird quirks that you do while writing?
Thanks!
Rae M. USA
RSVP’d +25
Questions +60
Bought Tesseracts 15 e-book +50
Tally Points +1
Total = 136
Hi Rae: (Re: knowing other authors) – I certainly knew OF many of the other authors; I recognized the names. I’ve subsequently had the opportunity to meet a lot of folks involved with the project. (Re: quirky rituals while writing) Gee…none that I’m aware of. I procrastinate – I mean, I’ll make tea that I don’t even really want, that kind of thing. But I don’t think there’s any real ceremonial stuff going on.
Hi Rae!
I met Nicole once before Tesseracts at a crit group meeting (we’re both from Edmonton)- but none of the other authors.
Ritual for writing: cup of tea with milk.
Ritual for writing? Need to should loudly and repeatedly: “Will you kids SHUT UP! I’m writing!” Confuses neighbours quite a bit when kids are away…. Okay, only kidding. Real ritual is I have to reread everything I wrote in previous session (probably reediting as I go) before starting first line of today’s session
I’ve met Julie Czerneda at Ad Astra, a Toronto Con and through her newsgroup. Tony Pi is in my critique group The Stopwatch Gang. And I’ve actually sat on a panel once with Claude Lalumière, but I doubt he remember me. Not sure about anyone else.
@Claude Lalumière
I definitely like reading about superhero fiction. Actually just yesterday I finished an indie book about a teenage superhero. It really made me smile and think back to all the superhero cartoon shows I watched growing up.
In answer to two questions, I’d have to imagine myself as a superhero in order to choose between a helicopter and an airship. Neither one would be very appealing to me, because they wouldn’t be safe to use unless I could fly, regenerate lost limbs, and/or be fireproof. The X-Men’s plane also seems to create almost as many problems for them as it solves.
@Claude Lalumière
The character in your book has visions of being a superhero named Weirdo, as some television shows came to mind, I was wondering did any shows inspire your story idea? What are some superheroes shows you enjoyed growing up?
The Weirdo was a composite of several Steve Ditko characters: Spider-Man, the Blue Beetle, the Question, the Creeper, and Shade, the Changing Man.
@Helen Marshall
I would be cheering on the giant scorpian because it’s a living thing but I think the giant robot would win. It has steel and thus has strength. What a unique question!
@Katrina Nicholson
I’m not a big fan of heights and while I like flying in planes because I don’t do them often I wouldn’t want to live in the air. Between a helicopter and an airship, I choose the latter. It seems bigger and slightly cozier.
@Kate Boorman
While a cover is what catches my attention first, the blurb is what will hook me in and make me want to read it. From books already in my TBR pile I choose a book according to my mood since I read from so many genres, unless it’s a library book due back soon.
@Kevin Cockle
When I first thought of YA I though “predictable paranormal” which isn’t so bad. I don’t mind a predictable story as long as the story is good. With Tesseracts 15, I saw the cover first before I saw the title and blurb and knew it was YA. Seeing the cover I was thinking of myths and legends.
Hi Na: That’s interesting. See, me – not being all that conversant with YA – I wouldn’t have automatically made the association with paranormal content. And that’s handy to know, when you’re trying to write for a specific audience!
It’s always great finding new authors an in this case, not just one but a whole bunch. I hope I can return but here’s my current tally:
+25 RSVP
+10 Liked FB page (Fiery Na)
+25 First Answer
+55 Q&As
+10 I tweeted (FieryNa)
+1 Tally
Total = 126
@Helen Marshall:” If you could invent any secret name for yourself, what would it be and why?” I have a secret identity, actually: by day, I am mild mannered professor Robert Runte; but at night I become SuperCillious! (You know, the critic superhero)
@Katrina: Airship, BUT: it’s gotta be one of those that has an entire galleon strapped underneath it – none of this gondola stuff. I went to Three Musketeers for the express purpose of seeing that airship CGI. THAT’S the airship I want (disclaimer: please don’t take that as Kevin Cockle’s recommendation to see the movie. I am not responsible if you choose to go; do not send your ticket stubs to me, asking for a refund). And to cheat at this, maybe I could have the Shield Helicarrier which is essentially a combination of both things?
LOL, so you want an airship that runs on an imaginary, as-yet undiscovered gas that doesn’t explode when exposed to flamethrowers yet can lift entire pirate ships with one little balloon? That’d be nice.
You can have the hellicarrier, but only if I can borrow it.
@Elise Moser:” I want to know how your fantastic ideas are related to your view of the world as we live in it.” My story in Tess was straight from real life — I just threw in a minor SF element and asked myself how my daughter (and her friends and teachers) would react, and the story practically wrote itself. In my novel, its the same thing…I take my characters, who are mostly composites of various people I know, and throw them into an SF setting and watch how they react. They may be fighting the Alien Yelts, but mostly they’re dealing with each other. When I cant think what comes next, I write them into a corner, and then watch how they work their way out of it. My most interesting friend, Line Noise, is the spy in the book, but he really is like that — last time I checked he has been written into six other books (he knows a lot of authors and, well, you meet a guy like that, he;s going to show up in one or more of your books.)
I love your idea of writing the characters into a corner when stuck. I will have to try that.
Hi Everyone! Thanks Janice and Bitten By Books for this fabulous venue. Wow.
I’m not actually here yet, but thought I’d post a couple of questions ahead of time.
@ Authors (Love you guys.) Those who didn’t know me beforehand – I’ve always wanted to know this. Did you look at any of my earlier anthologies first to see what sort of editorial taste I might have? Why or why not?
@ Readers (Love you too!) How often do you seek out a particular author, having read and really enjoyed a story by them in an anthology? We always hope that’s the case. I’d like to know.
Back at 8PM EST. Ta! Julie
Hi Julie. Thanks again for accepting my story.
No, I didn’t even consider that angle. I read the call for authors and submitted according to the guidelines set out.
I’m the same, when it comes to submitting to a market. But I feel inadequate when I talk to other writers who do all manner of homework. I worry most about the guidelines, though I’ve muffed that a time or two. The best was when I diligently wrote an SF story and sent it in, only to have the editor gently point out it had to be fantasy. Interesting exercise ensued, to rework the fundamental story. It came out even better, but the point is, guidelines rule. The editor? Hopes.
Hi Julie: oh, I could definitely stand to be more professional when it comes to understanding the markets, work ethic, networking and so on. I’m more focussed on process and technique now, but I can see that the next step will involve more of these formal elements.
Hi Julie: (re: market research) – Nope didn’t check anything out, but that’s because I never do. I just go by the guidelines – after that, I figure I’m going to write what I’m going to write, and editors will either buy it, or they won’t. If I read a bunch of stuff and didn’t think I could write that way, it might prevent me from taking the time to do the project – and that’s counter-productive, since you can always send a story out until it hits, so it’s always better to write it regardless.
As a reader, sure: I’ll buy on author-recognition.
Sorry, Julie, I didn’t research your tastes but found that you guys were very clear in your guidelines about what you wanted to see. I must confess I had submitted my story to a previous Tesseracts and was rejected. I had faith in my child, however, and thought you were a much better fit. You said some very kind things in your acceptance letter and had me doing the happy dance!
Hi Julie,
It didn’t actually occur to me to research previous anthologies (but that is a really good idea). I wrote the story I wanted to tell, made sure I was within the guidelines, and submitted– fingers crossed. Thank you!
Hi Julie, I knew you by reputation and through our previous anthology that Claude was in. I didn’t know how the dynamic between you and Susan would work, so I would have tried submitting even if I wasn’t sure you’d like my story. As it happened, I love Tess 15 so I guess we are on a similar taste wavelength.
I didn’t look at your previous anthologies to try to determine your tastes because you didn’t ask for that in your guidelines (some editors specifically say to read previous editions or issues to see what they’re looking for). I’ve tried researching a few magazines that give such instructions, but I usually find that the published stories bear very little resemblance to mine, and it’s discouraging to do the work of profiling an editor only to find that your tastes don’t match. Also, when I have written things that happened to match one of the editor’s favorite subjects, styles, etc., it’s tended to be by accident, and with people to whom I thought I bore no resemblance whatsoever. Ironically, the editor can suspect such a close match when it occurs, assume the writer was aiming for the editor’s happy button, and subject a story to higher standards, get a second opinion, etc., to compensate for potential bias.
I went to a convention panel once that was billed as a way to learn what an editor’s tastes were, but it consisted of the editor and writers who’d appeared in the magazine saying that there was no specific kind of story the editor published, that the magazine had more than enough good contributors, and that everyone there should subscribe. I was left with the impression that the publication was operating like a vanity press, except that people who “paid” to be published by buying the magazine weren’t getting anything in return.
I think it’s dishonest to hint at particular tastes and then not specify what they are. It gives me the impression that the editor isn’t serious about receiving a specific kind of story, but is merely trying to drive sales by implying that it’s possible to learn the editor’s preferences. I have had success with publications that aren’t very specific, but they say things like “send us something we haven’t seen before” or “send us something you think no one will publish.”
There are skills useful to a writer that can be learned from profiling. There’s a sense of challenge and enjoyment that can come from paying close attention to people, guessing what they want, and giving it to them. However, I find that “reading” people, anticipating their needs, and delivering what they want are skills more useful when I’m marketing a story than when I’m writing it, and I don’t tend to get much writing done when I’m devoting my efforts to thinking and talking in a highly socially interactive way. I tend to write what I think I have to write, and worry about whether I can sell it later, so I usually aim for a “market” that I want to exist, whether it actually exists or not.
Hi Julie. Gee, I guess it would have been a good idea to research the anthologies you’d done before, but it never occurred to me. I just went through my stack of poems and tried to decide what might fit. I don’t ever write poetry specifically for teens, nor do I write poems that are spec fic on purpose. They just turn out that way
I did know you before, but I have to join the chorus and say that all I looked at was the guidelines. Then I wrote a story that I’d been thinking about for some time and that worked with the guidelines. About half an hour after submitting it, I decided it sucked and I should spare you and Susan the pain of reading it by withdrawing the story — and that’s as close as I came to trying to second-guess the editors. Fortunately, I talked myself out of withdrawing the story. Whew!
@Julie Just finally saw your question hidden in the middle of everything.
“@ Readers (Love you too!) How often do you seek out a particular author, having read and really enjoyed a story by them in an anthology?”
I read anthologies a lot, usually devote a month each year to them for my blog but didn’t have time this year. I don’t always love the stories but have found some of my favorite authors through sampling their style in anthology contributions. Meljean Brook is a great example of that experience. I didn’t even like the short story of hers I had read but I liked how she wrote and she’s since become one of my faves.
Hey, by the way: Good coverage of Tess 15 stories here, but someone ought to say something about that cover: It’s awesome! Most SF covers and most Canadian lit covers basically suck, so imagine my surprise when I saw the cover for this anthology and loved it. I had no hesitation showing it to my colleagues who all thought it was pretty interesting, provocative. Hats off to the artist, and to Edge for choosing that piece.
The kudos go to our publisher Brian Hades, for finding, selecting and tweaking the cover to make it such a good fit. I love the image…it is quite wonderful. Thanks Robert for bringing it up!
I agree. I love the cover. There are some pretty trashy ones around. This one is fabulous. It’s my first time in a fiction book, so it’s wonderful to have one that looks so great.
I agree. I love the cover. There are some pretty trashy ones around. This one is fabulous. It’s my first time in a fiction book, so it’s wonderful to have one that looks so great.
Oh yeah, the T15 cover – and a lot of Edge covers actually – is fantastic. It’s surprisingly significant to me, I find – being associated with a classy-looking product.
Yes! Yes! Excellent cover, although my daughter finds it creepy for some reason. Teens, what you going to do?
The cover was fun. We noodled about something steampunk, something to appeal to both sexes etc. In August (yes, before the stories were due) Brian showed us the Oriental terracotta piece, available from Michael O and we both liked it. There’s not a great deal of time, and the art was clearly evocative and interesting. I did run it by some YA readers to be sure and rec’d great responses. We did want that steampunk flavour though, so Brian had Michael go back to the art and add the gears you see. I crossed my fingers, hoping for a steampunk story or one that readers might say … that’s on the cover! Not necessary, but I like it when that’s doable. (Why the cover so soon? To get it into catalogues etc.)
When I first saw it I wondered as to the genre(s) of the tales within but now that I know more about them I think it’s pretty fitting. It’s lovely and doesn’t overly scream steampunk or fantasy.
Nthing this. Oh, that cover! When I saw it at When Words Collide, I gasped in awe. I did! There were witnesses.
Hi all,
Day job is over for now, Woo hoo! Glad to join. I did stop and peek at the comments over the course of the afternoon, and there’s so much interesting stuff, I’m not sure where to jump in at. So, I’ll start with a few answers:
@Amanda Sun: Yes, this is my first leap into YA. Cypher was a character who didn’t fit in with the plot of a novel I’m working on, she was just too young, in years at least, so since she wouldn’t go away, she got her own story.
@Shen Braun: The swearing thing was a tough one for me with this character and story. I used to work with street kids, and not just their language, but their entire lives were not “PG 13″ (even though most of them were younger than Cypher is in the story). Still, even though they were adults too soon in some ways, they were still kids in other ways, and not ready for a totally adult lense. They deserve to see themselves in YA fiction. My challenge was to keep enough integrity to their experience while fitting in the Tess-15 requirements. My fear is they read the story and go, “She’s full of ****, both her and Cypher.” So, we’ll see….
@Janice. Where am I from? I grew up in Winnipeg, lived in Edmonton for 5 years, Yellowknife for 3 years, Saskatoon for 4 years, and then in Ottawa ever since (since 1989).
@Helen Marshall: If you could invent a secret name for yourself, what would it be and why? It’s a secret.
@Claude Lalumière: Sleep paralysis…pretty frightening. Have you ever used that in a story?
“Sleep paralysis…pretty frightening. Have you ever used that in a story?”
There’s the link I gave, which is a link to my story “Manit and the Nightmares”; also sleep paralysis plays a central role in chapter 4 of my book THE DOOR TO LOST PAGES http://chizinepub.com/books/lost_pages.php
Thanks, Claude. There are so many comments, I must have missed the link. I look forward to reading them.
Here’s the link to the Manit story again.
http://lostmyths.net/?p=530
As a writer, I’m curious how many submissions you had for the book. Was it hard to choose? Also, I had the pleasure of reading Leslie Brown’s The Windup Heiress in my critique group and I really loved it. If the rest of the stories are as wonderful as Leslie’s, this book is going to be great. I just ordered a copy, btw.
We received around 450 submissions to the book. Susan and I read every one. Okay, we didn’t read the two 150 000 word novels, but I think we can be forgiven. It wasn’t overly difficult to make the first cut of about half. Checking my notes, we each wittled to a short list of around 75. After that? Oh, yes. Hard it was. We could have published three anthologies, easily.
Thanks, Carole, love yah! BTW, Carole is an amazing writer herself so a compliment from her is worth its weight in gold. Also, she now knows what a hydro pole is.
Ooh! I wish I’d thought of that question and wow that is a lot of submissions… *jaw drop*
@ Julie Czerneda (Tess 15 editor) Those who didn’t know me beforehand – I’ve always wanted to know this. Did you look at any of my earlier anthologies first to see what sort of editorial taste I might have? Why or why not?”
No. Because I wrote the story I wrote, and it would either fit your needs or not, but it was the story I had available, and it could only be written that way…so all I could do is mail it off and hope it was the right market. Also, knew & familiar with tastes of your coeditor, so that made it an ‘approachable’ market for me. But again, couldn’t really have done anything if I thought otherwise. Just happy it fit.
[Have read most of your books though, and have seen your anthologies (before handing them off to colleagues who could promote them better to the schools) but really didn’t think of any of that when writing /submitting my story. Really, just did not occur to me.
@Julie Czerneda (Tess 15 editor): No. I was familiar with, and loved, the Tesseracts series as a reader, and that was the draw for me. I had read a bit of your stuff before, and enjoyed it,so although I didn’t look up your edited work, I figured it would be in safe hands.
@Kate Boorman:
Do you write from an outline? Do you write scene by scene from start to finish or do you write the scenes you are feeling inspired to write and piece it together later?
I do outline, but mostly to keep track of where I want to go with the story. Sometimes I leave a story for days and when I return, I forget what I was doing. I write fairly linear. No jumping around then trying to make the pieces fit for me. Another reason to outline. But I don’t get too in depth with it and will deviate whenever I feel the need.
I don’t write from an outline with a short story, but I do with a novel. The stories are short enough that I can keep track of the complications and details, and just go with the unfolding of the story. But with anything longer, I would be lost without an outline.
@Kevin: Coming up with YA poetry is hard because I find poetry doesn’t necessarily fit into genres (much less marketing categories–who can market poetry?!?). But I suppose the central themes that drive YA literature can just as easily drive poetry–questions about what it means to grow up, how to manage the transition from one stage of life to another. But “young adults” are obviously savvy readers on their own, and they certainly don’t lack intense emotions about sexuality, power, love, and hurt. You can’t play down to them. Hell, I would bet the majority of poetry written today is written by teens. I suspect they’ve got the drop on us in this area…
I suspect you are right about that. Hats off to the poets! I’ve recently been trying to write some, and let’s just say, it’s a struggle. G.d. life transitions.
The poetry was tricky. Firstly, I’m in awe of poets. Then there were the poets who shall remain nameless who sent in multiple awesome poems from which we could only pick one. (We wanted diversity, so no more than one story/poem per author) Last, but not least? We didn’t get as many poetry submissions as I’d hoped. And I agree with you, Helen. I’m sure everyone has a notebook stashed away from their teen years with poems in it. I’m not telling where mine is
It surprises me that you didn’t get more! Do you think it might be because there are fewer poets who identify themselves who would identify themselves as writing speculative poetry (whatever that is)? Poetry, in many ways, seems to be a marginalized area of writing, and speculative poetry can be like writing in the ghetto’s ghetto. But it’s certainly fun, and I’ve read the work of some tremendous poets worth giving a plug here–Carolyn and David Clink, Sandra Kasturi, Colleen Anderson, Bruce Boston and others!
Sounds like a great collection. Definitely need to add to my tbr pile
Claude Lalumière asked Do you enjoy reading and/or writing superhero fiction?
I love reading superhero fiction – there is so much and it’s so varied. I admit that I’m a Superman girl at heart because he saved people because he could. But their stories are always fun.
Mare S, USA
RSVP’d +25
question +25
liked on facebook as Mare Sperry +10
tally points +1
Total = 61
@Robert Runte: I find the question of Canadian speculative fiction a really interesting one. I tend to write very British I think — in part because my major inspirations while growing up were British stories such as C. S. Lewis, E. Nesbit, all those authors who wrote about children sent off to live in country during the war where they had many adventures. The other reason is because, as a medieval book historian, I take many trips to England for research. The majority of my work over the last two years has really come out of my experience traveling and so I find that my work has distinctly less of a Canadian feel. I can’t write Toronto at all, even though I live here, and I love the city. I can’t feel it’s mythic resonance, if you know what I mean. Not yet. Some day, I hope.
It’s interesting what you say about moving away from the place before you write about it. That fits for me, too, but since I’ve lived all over Canada, and only Canada, that’s what I tend to write about (although I have travelled elsewhere). I also seem to be very influenced by the outdoor context, so weather, geography, all tie in together, in some pathetically unconscious Pathetic Fallacy. My reading group say that they look for the weather report when I write. What’s more Canadian than that?
One thing you might find interesting … ::pulls up file:: … once we reached our 75 or so imminently publishable great stories, we began to sort those by tone, protagonist, genre, originality etc. Only a couple of stories were “must haves” and no, I won’t tell you. Editorial perogative. But of the rest, we wanted to build an ensemble that would throw as much variety at our readers as possible. More than that, to have something for everyone. There are, as always, stories that as readers, I wouldn’t pick, or Susan. But as editors, those were stories that had a readership waiting. Any questions about that process, btw?
About a billion! How does the current market play into that Julie? Are you looking ahead re: trends?
Kate asked if I look ahead, wrt trends. It’s more a look around and try to avoid. For example, we had our share of werewolf/vampire stories submitted.I wouldn’t have touched one, no matter how great, because there’s so much of it out there. But TESS 15 is all about providing variety and introducing readers to all manner of spec fic. So we did buy a couple — but I think they’re extraordinary and different. Bonus! When selling an anthology theme, I look for questions or topics I think haven’t been dealt with, more than trying to predict what’s going to be hot.
@Julie: What was the balance of submissions like between science fiction, fantasy and horror? Do you find YA tends to run towards one of those genres more than the other?
Regarding the genre spread? It wasn’t bad. I was really concerned we wouldn’t get enough SF, which is particularly important to me, and have too much horror, which isn’t (sorry). I tried to quickly find the breakdown, but it’ll take too long. If memory serves, it was around 30% SF, 15 % horror, 40% urban fantasy and 15 % other forms of fantasy. I was happy with the SF, we had some terrific horror, so that wasn’t too bad, but I wound up disappointed to see so little variety in the fantasy submitted. I was so sure we’d be able to offer a bit of everything, but it didn’t happen. One problem, I think, was that people didn’t let themselves take magic and other worlds seriously. Several otherwise wonderful settings or characters were turned into humour, when they could have been deep and memorable and haunting. Oh well. The book has many great stories. I just missed that bit. Oh, and we never did get a steampunk we could agree on. Wouldn’t you know?
Oh man, I would’ve loved to see some steampunk!
With regards to humorizing settings, I don’t know about other authors, but I find it’s easier to make people laugh – especially when I’ve only got a short length to work with – than it is to move them.
Hey everybody!
I’m new to the party so bear with me while I get caught up… there’s a lot of text on this page! Woot!
I guess I’ll copy off of the other authors and answer some of the initial questions to start off:
@AmandaSun: This isn’t my first foray into YA, most of what I write is either YA or MG, mostly because they allow you to be so much more immediate and personal than grown up sci-fi.
@Claire Eamer: My story – about a transplanted brain that talked to its owner – comes from the fact that I sort of feel like my brain is a separate entity sometimes, mulling over ideas and stories while I’m doing boring things like work or sleep.
@Claude Lalumiere: I’ve never thought about writing superhero fiction much, neither do I read it unless it’s really quirky, but I just love superhero movies. X-Men First Class is my favorite!
@Elise Moser: I guess my story is related to how I think that you don’t really get anything for free in life. You gotta work for it.
@Helen Marshall: Oooh, tough one. If the giant robot was a giant robot scorpion, it would totally beat the regular scorpion. If I had a secret name it would be Boutros Boutros Svengali Rainforest III
@Kate Boorman: A lot of the other writers I know are split on this issue, but I personally write from outlines. Not detailed ones, I generally only know the important points (inciting incident, turning points, climax, etc) and then surprise myself with the details as I write, which is always end-to-beginning, with no skipping around
@Katrina Nicholson: Seriously? That’s what you want to ask?? Oh self…
@Kevin Cockle and @ Leslie Brown: I think that in sci-fi, there’s a much bigger line between YA and adult than in other genres, because while adult stuff tends to be really broad, with lots of perspective characters and inter-species politics and stuff, in YA the focus is narrowed down to just one or two younger people who are dealing with issues we can all relate to (i.e. family, rejection, love, acceptance) even if the setting is hundreds of years in the future
@ Lynn M. MacLean: 2. I love spec fic because I get to play with ideas that I can’t build in real life. 3. I read my aunt and mom’s books: Ben Bova, Isaac Asimov, plus the Star Wars expanded universe books
@ Michele Ann Jenkins: 1. My brain gives it to me… I don’t know where she gets it. 2. When it starts to bore me. 3. To me, the best speculative fiction walks the razor edge between familiarity and invention
@ Nicole Luiken: I don’t remember! I suck.
@ Robert Runte: 1. I’m reading pretty much everything that comes through my desk at the library – Kelley Armstrong, Suzanne Collins, Rick Riordan… mostly new stuff aimed at kids and teens 2. I think anything I write is automatically Canadian because I am, it doesn’t have to be set here
@Shen Braun: I know a lot of teens, and they all swear. Even the young ones, who are like 12. I don’t think a story necessarily has to have a lot of profanity in it to be cool – some situations just don’t warrant it – but they definitely notice when an author chickens out and has their teen say things like “darn” or “rats.”
@Tony Pi: I had been looking for a setting for my YA historical/sci-fi fighter pilot novel for a while when I attended a climate change lecture by Gwynne Dyer and when he started talking about possible political fallout from climate change, it was like a gear turned in my brain and all of the story I had so far just fell onto that playing field. It was awesome.
@Virginia Modugno: Usually I’m inspired by something, but this time the story just kind of fell out of my brain without warning.
Would a genetically altered giant scorpion beat a giant robot scorpion? Could happen.
@Helen: Do you have any examples of your teenage angst poetry?
That I would share? Hmmmm… I’m not sure the world needs more bad poetry in it. I will say that I started my poetry career writing forms of medieval verse, which resulted in a honed sense of structure and metre but also an awful lot of writing about Viking sheep raids based on the somewhat inebriated exploits of my friends. Seriously.
Here’s a very, very small sample of what was a several-page-long epic….
Come Mere-Dwellers to catch chronicled
the strange account of our sheep raiding.
Such was the morn, the sun’s delight,
that we, sword-men, weapons gleaming,
sought some pursuit to spend the day.
Heroes’ leisure was longed for then.
Mead and feasting soon meant nothing.
Names were not forged for feeding girths,
nor scops’ praises summoned for sloth.
I would need much beer to reveal the rest. And whether we got the sheep or not.
What if all the authors chipped in a bottle? What then?
Done and done!
Where do we send the money? I suppose we wait until we get our poem first.
I really haven’t thought of YA as a genre that I would have an interest in. My neophyte experience had me only reading Twilight but through a friend I have discovered that there is way more to YA than vampires. What inspired you/provoked you to write YA? Forgive me if this has been asked but I just joined and there are a lot of posts here to go through:).
I’ve read a lot of what I think is YA over the years, between just enjoying it myself and reading stuff my kids were reading,but I never expected to write it. I usually write adult. But I had this teen character who refused to go away,dealing with growing up fast, so… (What is YA, anyway? It’s such a broad age range now, between 12 and 22, I don’t know where the boundaries are. Does 53 fit in there?)
I’m in agreement with some of the authors’ earlier posts where they said they didn’t really set out to write YA, it just happened that way. Sometimes YA can be defined as adult fiction with a young protagonist. There’s a wealth of truly great YA out there and I would direct you back to the classics that I grew up with such as Andre Norton, Robert Heinlein and Ursula LeGuin (Wizard of Earthsea rocks). Once you find a style you like reading, try going to Amazon for the “if you liked reading this, you might like…” or similar internet sites.
I never set out to write YA at all! I was worried when I was told that it would be the theme for the anthology, but then I read the guidelines and realized that, since my story wasn’t over-the-top gory, there was (surprisingly, for me) no swearing, and no sex, it technically fit!
It wasn’t until I had a long chat with editor Susan MacGregor on our way to When Words Collide that I realized how YA it was. I thought of a line from a song I love, “But, you know, our friends are precious to us, more than to adults!” (It’s a shoddy translation, but it gets the gist across), and realized that at the end of the day, what young adult wouldn’t go to hell and back for their friends? Then I guess I started seeing YA totally differently.
Kimmers was asking why write/choose YA to do. Although this was aimed at the authors in here, it’s appropriate for me to answer too, since TESS Fifteen is YA because, well, I said I’d only edit one of these if it’s YA and Brian was wonderfully agreeable. Part of my reasoning was that I want to see a Tesseracts in classrooms and libraries, where new readers can find our beloved genres. Another is that I felt we’ve a large number of YA writers in Canada who were looking for a stupendous book to be in, and the Tesseracts series has that solid feel to it. And ::grins:: having done YA SF anthologies several times, I wanted to challenge authors who didn’t think they could/would write for this readership. I’m happy to say, as always, they accepted and did us all proud.
Well, I did my part to get it into classrooms — I handed a copy to Leah Fowler the day I got back from When Words Collide, as she was writing the chapter on Canadian SF that week for the textbook she is coauthoring on Canadian YA literature for high school English teachers across Canada. She says she liked Tess15, so I am hoping she mentions it inher textbook — in which case every English teacher that graduates from any teacher education program in Canada will at least have heard of it. That couldn’t be a bad thing!
Excellent. Robert you are a great ambassador!
I’m a bit of a black sheep in that I always deliberately set out to write YA. I also deliberately read it! I think YA can offer a look at the human experience from a very unique moment in time. Good YA is so much more than a story with a certain-aged protag- but of course you know this, Kimmers- having seen past the sparkly vampires.
Great answers. So, ok, 53 is Young Adult.
I’m with Kate – I do YA on purpose becuase I (mostly) like it better than adult fiction. I dunno if that makes me immature, or what, but the narrower focus in terms of characters and the extra depth you get with the characters in YA really works for me.
Yes, I really enjoyed this experience of writing YA. I will be sure to do more for some of the reasons you mention. A convert!
I wrote my first novel when I was thirteen so it was natural for me to write YA characters. Perhaps because of that, I still find YA to be my natural “voice”. I have to work harder on my adult fiction.
Hi Kimmers (Re: provocation to write YA). Well – it was Tesseracts – and I always like to send something to Tesseracts if I can. When it turned out to be YA-themed, that was a little daunting, but it’s not like I’ve established a “brand” yet for myself – maybe I CAN be a YA author. Who knows? That was my attitude: it’s simply too soon for me to be zeroing in on one market. So I deliberately wrote what I hoped would count as YA, kept expectations low, and was delighted to get in.
A quick reminder to everyone that this event is the launch event for our 16 Days of Tesseracts celebration, running between now and November 22. Details and locations of various events can be found on
http://www.facebook.com/EDGEfbpage
One of the things we will be doing is running mini-interviews with our Tesseracts Fifteen authors on our Totally Tesseracts blog. So, to the authors, editors, and readers – please name one question that you would like us to ask. When I am sending out the interview questions, I will reach into a hat and see what comes up as the bonus question – so make them interesting! Looking forward to seeing your answers!
I like to offer a round of applause to Janice. Thanks for all of your hard work. I know it’s only begun and you have wonderful and ambitious plans for the coming days. Authors? You’re getting bestseller treatment — enjoy it, treasure it, and be ever so grateful, as I am, to have Janice and Brian behind Tesseracts Fifteen.
Good Reading!
Good Night.
Thanks Julie! That means a lot. Thanks everyone for being here.
Janice
Yes, many thanks to Janice for all this. And to Brian and Julie and Susan,too.
Seconded: thanks Janice!
Yeah, big thank you to Janice. I’m still very early on in my career (i.e. a nobody!) so this is a big opportunity for me! I really appreciate it.
It’s like I always say! Janice is where the party is!
I’m here another 10 minutes or so folks, so please fire away. In the interim, I’d go for the Scorpion, assuming it’s female, mated, and has just left a massive egg sack inside the robot. And as for the helicopter vs airship? I’m a glider kinda gal. Love superheroes. I’m sure I have a secret name around here somewhere.
Do you picture any more YA Anthologies in your future, Julie?
More YA anthologies in my future? A solid … maybe. I’ve a wish list of anthology themes of my own someplace. Right now the majority are hard SF, but who knows. I do have other YA anthologies already in print. For me, TESS 15 was a chance to pull in all manner of genres, with YA (and Canada) the only common thread. That was great fun, and the book’s amazing, but I do prefer tossing out a notion and seeing what a variety of authors will do with it.
Well, thanks so much for the opportunity, Julie. And I’ve really enjoyed reading all the stories. It’s been a wonderful book to be involved with.
Hi everyone!! I want to start off by saying that I think the stories sound great and I bought it. Looking forward to starting it soon!!
@Amanda Sun:For readers: which YA stories have moved you in your lives? I hope you will find the same sparks of delight in Tesseracts Fifteen!
I don’t know if this is “technically” YA, but I loved reading about Valdemar in the books by Mercedes Lackey. They opened the world of magic and what could be to me, and I often go back and re-read these books.
@Claire Eamer: For readers, I guess I’d like to ask them what attracts them to stories that feel free to drift away from reality or, at least, current reality?
I need that book to drift away from reality, I want to escape from life for a while when I read, regular life is enough for me, I want magic and make believe the rest of the time.
@Helen Marshall: Who would win in a fight between a giant robot and a giant scorpion? If you could invent any secret name for yourself, what would it be and why?
I’m def betting on the giant robot, he’ll be crushing that scorpion!!
@Kate Boorman:Readers: what entices you to pick up a book? Where do most of your recommendations come from?
I find new readers from sites like this one, they turn me on to new books all the time. I need some magic in the book, I like vampires, werewolves, shifters, once in a while I need romance…
@Katrina Nicholson: Which would you rather have: a helicopter or an airship?
Airship all the way!! Much cooler and “now”!!
Well I must go for now, congrats to all and very cool!!
One last question for the writers…What are your thoughts on audiobooks? Anybody listen to them here?
Joani S from USA
rsvp’d
bought the book
questions asked/answered
tally points=131
Hi Joani: (re: audibooks) I have listened to them in the past (lots of BBC stuff; some Shakespeare) – think they’re great. I do notice that I don’t retain the information as well when I’m listening (as opposed to reading). It’s a little harder for me to follow an audiobook.
I never listen to audiobooks – I tried for a while but I found my mind drifting away and I couldn’t remember what happened. I’m not really engaged unless I’m reading it myself.
I’ve tried audio books occasionally. Like others, I don’t seem to retain the story as well as when I read it myself. Usually it’s because I’m doing something else while listening!
But I do know some people who love them and swear by them!
Thanks for stopping by Joani S!
Hi there: regarding the question on audiobooks. I LOVE them. I listen to them all the time, because I spend a lot of time in the car and it allows me to believe I’m not wasting my time. I listen to everything on audiobook, from poetry, to YA fiction, to adult fiction and non-fiction. If you can find good recordings, an audiobook can absolutely bring a story to life. The only danger while driving is that sometimes I’m actually tempted to close my eyes if the writing is particularly lovely. This is not recommended.
Regarding audio books:
I like them. I listen to them at bedtime when my eyes are too tired to read, after being in front of a screen all day at work, and then sometimes writing in the evenings. I think they are going to become even more important in the next few years as baby boomers develop vision problems. I have an aunt, a life long heavy reader, who is virtually blind now and audio books are a blessing to her. As technology advances, they’ll get even better.
Hello everyone! Sorry to be late. I’ll stay as long as I can (which may not be long).
My story in Tesseracts 15 is called “Hide” about a girl who finally makes it into the neighbourhood hide and seek game only to discover there’s something to really hide from!
I’ll try to answer the questions:
@AmandaSun: This was my first real YA story. I hadn’t really planned it that way but the character and story demanded to be told in this fashion and I’m quite happy with the result!
@Claire Eamer: For this story, I started with the setting of a housing construction site. I remember playing around one in my neighbourhood and it always seemed a little spooky. Great setting for a horror story!
@Helen Marshall: I think the giant robot and giant scorpion would team up for total world domination. As for my secret name, I could tell you but then I’d have to kill you.
@Kate Boorman: I’m a total pantster! Usually I have an idea of where the story is going but at times it will just decide to go its own way. I just hang on for the ride!
@Leslie Brown: I’ve actually found some YA stories to be more intense than adult stories and there isn’t such a fear to have an unhappy ending. Robert Cormier, my favorite YA author, is a master of that.
@ Michele Ann Jenkins: 1. Ideas just appear like bubbles from nowhere. They pop into my head. 2. When I really get stuck and can’t figure out where it’s going. 3. I think terrific speculative fiction can push us to think a little differently and sometimes with the goshwow factor.
@ Nicole Luiken: “Billy skidded to a stop beside her.” (And yes, I had to look that up!)
I tried to get most questions. Sorry if I missed one!
Yay! Hi Rebecca!
Thanks for coming over!
Janice
@Amanda Sun: Trixie Beldon books was the first series that I remember now. It
showed me how to be a detective. How to set traps both physical and verbal.
@Claire Eamer: I want to get away from my blah and painful life and relax and read about an excitng ass kicking herione. Pure escapeism.
@Helen Marshall: Who would win in a fight between a giant robot and a giant scorpion? If you could invent any secret name for yourself, what would it be and why?
I will say the scorpion will win. Why because my scorpion will sting with magic and it will send the robot into a fire demision where it will melt and that will be the end to him.
My secret name Tacrevlis and that is in code. I can not give you the code however!
@Kevin Cockel: What expectations did you bring to the T15 text? When you saw “YA”, did you automatically desire certain images and situations
@Kate Boorman:Readers: what entices you to pick up a book? Where do most of your recommendations come from? Have you seen my ‘visitor’ (see Kate’s own “Curious Tale” posted down below at 1pm today
I read the back and if it reatlly excites me I buy it. Now that I’ve found
this spot I find alot of my reading here.
@Katrina Nicholson: Which would you rather have: a helicopter or an airship?
Airship! It would be bigger, have a crack crew, great weapons and fly like a
bat out of hell!
@Kevin Cockel: What expectations did you bring to the T15 text? When you saw “YA”, did you automatically desire certain images and situations?
I just thought it would be great escapeism.
When I see YA I always wonder if I’m too old to be reading this book. Now a
days the kids know more about sex, drugs,rock’in’roll and violence than their parents do.
@Leslie Brown: How do you feel a young adult story differs from an adult story?
The main characters are younger, but they are really just really serching for the same thing that grownups are.
@Shen Braun: Swearing is one thing I truely love to do and so do alot of my friends, so it is a gulity pleasure. The lack of fowl words in a book does tick me off but if it is a quality story I’ll just put the words in as I read it!
My question is how does the culture that you’ve grewup influence your writing?
I tweeted at Http://twitter.com/#!/purplepoodle55/status/133750517963825153
Answerd question and other questions.,
Bought book
Lisa D. USATotal points= 121
Rebecca, you said this is your first “real” YA? Were there other “fake” or aborted attempts prior to “Hide”?
I have some vague memories of writing stories with younger protagonists a long time ago. I’m not even sure they were finished, hence my comment about my first “real” YA story! Pauline definitely wanted her story told.
Yeah, don’t worry about that. I had to look my first sentence up too.
Nicole, I’m not the best at converting time zones so I don’t know if you’ll be around again before this is over, but I’d love to know if you have any plans to expand “Feral” into a novel. I liked it a lot.
Glad you enjoyed it! Yes, I do have plans to turn Feral into a novel. Marcus still has a long road ahead of him, and I love Chloe’s character. I’m a novelist at heart. That 6000-word story limit was VERY hard for me. I’d start writing a scene then have to stop, go back and begin at a different spot or meld two scenes together…
World premiere of the schedule for the Sixteen Days of Tesseracts event. (This is even the first time the authors have seen this list!)
November 7
Bitten by Books Multi author booklaunch
November 8
Bitten by Books Multi author booklaunch day two (until noon central)
Draw for the $50 Amazon Gift Certificate
Tesseracts 15 E – book give away – it is BBB fan Rhianna’s birthday tomorrow, and to celebrate it, she is giving away an electronic version of Tesseracts 15. To be eligible, just visit her blog tomorrow, and pick up your Tesseracts Trivia question, go to http://www.edgewebsite.com to pick up the answer, and then report back to me at events@hadespublications.com She will be announcing the winner tomorrow night. http://rhireading.blogspot.com
November 9
Tesseracts 15 Josh Vogt’s Review of Tesseracts Fifteen on Speculative Fiction Examiner
November 10
Totally Tesseracts Blog interviews
Tesseracts Fifteen Authors Claude Lalumière, Amanda Sun and Nicole Luiken
November 11
Totally Tesseracts Blog interviews
Tesseracts Fifteen Authors interviews Katrina Nicholson, Cat McDonald and Leslie Brown.
November 12
Totally Tesseracts Blog interviews –
Tesseracts Fifteen Authors Kevin Cockle, Mike Rimar and Elise Moser
November 13
Michel Plested interview with T15 Editor Susan MacGregor on Get Published.
November 14
Totally Tesseracts Blog interviews-
Tesseracts Fifteen Authors Shen Braun, Michele Ann Jenkins and E.L.Chen
November 15
Totally Tesseracts Blog interviews –
Tesseracts Fifteen Authors Virginia Modugno, Helen Marshall, and Robert Runte
November 16
Totally Tesseracts Blog interviews-
Tesseracts Fifteen Authors Rebecca M. Senese, Claire Eamer, and Michelle Barker
November 17
Totally Tesseracts Blog –
Tesseracts Fifteen Author interviews Lynn M. MacLean, Tony Pi and K. Boorman
November 18
Tesseracts Launch at SF Contario (Toronto) 9:00 pm
November 19
Totally Tesseracts Blog –
Tesseracts Fifteen Author interviews Erika Holt, Francine Lewis, and Jennifer Greylyn (tentative: watch EDGE Facebook page for confirmation)
November 20
Tesseracts Reading at Pure Speculation (Edmonton) 11:15 am
November 21
Totally Tesseracts Blog interviews-
Tesseracts Fifteen Authors JJ. Steinfeld, Ed Greenwood, Kurt Kirchmeier (tentative: watch EDGE Facebook page for confirmation)
November 22
Tesseracts 15 Editor interview with Josh Vogt on Speculative Fiction Examiner
This is an evolving list, more goodies may appear on it so watch for further details on the EDGE Facebook page.http://www.facebook.com/EDGEfbpage
This is a question for the authors. I really enjoyed a number of the short stories, but would love to read more. Do these stories ever morph into a novel? Do some of you write both and what are some differences in the writting process for you?
I’ve had prose stories morph into screenplays and vice versa, but never a short story into a novel. I always have a sense of the “length” of the idea before I set out to write it so I know where it fits into the word count spectrum. I do write both, and the process is the same. Notebook for jotted facts, ideas, notes, research, etc. Vague bullet point outline. Force self to sit down and actually write it via threats and/or bullying.
I don’t typically do it, because I think my process for short stories is usually very different. That said, though, I have recently sat down with an old short story I started to turn it into a novel, so they can’t be that far removed!
This one, I’ve actually considered, because my main character’s best friend didn’t get any lines, and he’s a pretty fun fellow. If I did write a novel in this world, it would probably have a lot more to do with Marcel and his huge family.
I do have a few short stories that feel like they want to be longer, like more happens or could happen to the characters after the end. I haven’t gotten around to fleshing them out into novels yet. In terms of the process, Katrina mentioned above, it is similar but I do enjoy writing novels a little more because I get to spend more time with the characters, I get to really throw some challenges at them and figure out how they cope or prevail.
My particular story in the anthology couldn’t really be expanded — that particular style is good for that many pages, not more — a whole novel in that style would get pretty tedious pretty fast! But I expect to do more stories featuring the adventures of my daughters (if for no other reason than that the younger daughter will feel slighted if I don’t do one for her now.)
I usually have the opposite problem. All my short stories turn into novels as I write them. I have a lot of trouble keeping stories to magazine length. I find novels my natural form, they have the elbow room I need to develop my themes and ideas. But of course, the trick is to find the time to actually write an entire novel.
I have already thought about how to tell that story as a novel. It might happen — after the three or four other novels queued up in my brain, waiting to be written.
Well, I’m out. I need sleep and my computer is dumping my internet connection every twelve seconds (I think it needs sleep too!) It was nice chatting with you all, and I look forward to the Totally Tesseracts interviews later in the week.
I have to head off. It’s after 11pm for me and 5am comes early! Cheers all!
Kate Boorman
How much of your story was really meant to relate your family and friends?
Hi Clarence!
None of it, actually. It was just a ‘what if’ rolling about in my brain. The idea of getting addicted to memories is something I’ve long thought would be a possibility for ME, personally. And the story was me pondering the fall-out, in a YA-way. Thanks for asking!
When you write YA, do you feel like you’re writing for a younger version of yourself? If so, is the goal to entertain, educate, maybe just smack upside the head or all of the above?
Guess what I’m wondering is – I’ve heard it said that SF is an early warning system about the future. Do you think you’re trying to give a warning you wish you got? Like you’re actually speaking to yourself from the future.
Like, I wish someone had of told me that, if you like a girl, hiding it might not be the most effective strategy.
Yeah Ryan, I’m with you. 85 year old self, if you are reading this: PLEASE get in the time machine and come back and save me from the variety of stupid mistakes I am about to make.
But I suppose my story is more a ‘let’s think about what we wish for’ tale, rather than describing a warning I wish I’d received.
Great question!
I wrote a story in Tesseracts 13 about a woman who is about to die of old age and then begins to rejuvenate. It was a story written for everyone’s younger version.
In the afterword to Tesseracts 1, Judith Merrill says that she prepared to write the section by asking people what made SF popular, and eventually got the answer that “It’s the only place where you can do any useful thinking that there might not be a future.”
A lot of SF is about disasters and tends to have a high body count. As individuals, our futures are limited. My character in my Tesseracts 13 acted this out by showing people a good time and killing them when she was finished. Allegorically, this was a description of how SF tends to work. However, preparing for nothing but a disastrous future, or acting out the expected demise of an individual on a grand scale, can either create a self-fulfilling prophecy or leave someone ill-prepared if the disaster fails to materialize. The character in my story made killing her art, and thought she had no other way of continuing to exist except by being remembered for killing people. Then she started becoming young again and realized that all the work she’d done to be remembered had been in vain, because people for whom aging and death were no longer inevitable would undergo a shift in the way they judged the value of art.
The story, then, was partly a warning to people’s possible future younger selves, the ones I see many people failing to create in their imaginations.
It’s hard to know how an alternate version of one’s past would have played out under different circumstances, but I’ve looked back on several things I once wanted badly but didn’t get, years after the fact, and decided that in hindsight I was probably better off without them.
Sleep paralysis has come up a few times above. For those curious about it, I would recommend reading Transcultural Psychiatry, vol. 42, no. 1, a special issue on Sleep Paralysis
http://tps.sagepub.com/content/42/1
The range of articles is impressive, and every piece in the issue is thought-provoking and informative.
Since you have Ed Greenwood in the book, and Kevin mentioned rolling dice, I wondered if roleplaying games have influenced any of the writers or stories in the anthology.
Oh, in a big way. I’ve been playing tabletop RPGs since about junior high, and they’ve always been a huge source of fun. A lot of times I’ll come up with a story setting that I think would be better off as a game setting, or vise versa.
Very much. Like many fantasy writers I played D&D when I was younger and nothing gets he imagination going better. Online games such as Warcraft have a similar effect, but not as much since alot of the imagining part is already done for you graphically. Also, it is hard to plot a story that requires you to gather 10 chunks of ore to craft a +1 to strength breastplate.
LOL too true Mike!
I miss MMORPG gaming but it was a matter of cost versus play time versus my reading schedule. Books win!
I’ve often mused that RPGs (in all forms) are a great way to keep grown-ups fresh in the mind… keep the creative juices we live on as kids moving.
Well my lovely neighbors to the North it’s getting late and somewhere in all the reading I took a break to hit the gym so I’m slipping into a sleep coma here. Best be off for the night!
It was lovely to meet you all and hear about your stories and writing processes, weird experiences and thoughts on the YA genre. Looking forward to flipping on my Kindle and devouring some of them soon.
G’night all!
Thanks Rhianna,
And thank you for doing the flash give away on you blog tomorrow of Tesseracts 15!
Janice
You’re very welcome! Author chats are always filled with interesting stuff, I’m too much of a nerd for the written word not to be eating this all up. hehe
Hi
* @claireeamer What attracts me to a stories that drift for reality is that they do drift from what we believe is reality.and that it makes us think in different and new ways.
* ? Do you believe that people learn to think more open by reading Fantasy??
I Believe that it does that if you can fill for a alien or werewolf then maybe you can fill for people in your own world that are from different country’s.+25
* I RSVPed to be here today with the Tesseracts 15 Authors +25
* I Tweeted about this and here is the link https://twitter.com/#!/sasluvbooks/status/133807742400999424 +10
* I Tallyed my Points +1=61?
* Stacey S USA
sasluvbooks(at)yahoo.com
MARY P
AUSTRALIA
Michele Ann Jenkins: How do you know when it’s time to give up on a story?
As a reader, by the end of the first page I know. I may persevere. I may not.
Hi,
@Shen Brown- As readers, is it [cursing in fiction] an issue that you notice?
I do notice it, maybe because I don’t use swear words very often, so a character who curses always alerts me that something serious happened in the story, unless that character swears constantly, then it’s just annoying.
Do you have a setting that you’ve always wanted to use for a story but haven’t thought of a tale to tell about it yet?
Thanks!
Dovile P., Lithuania
___
+25 RSVPed for this event
+25 for the questions
+1 tally
Total: 51
I’ve pondered writing a story that features a futures market in the science fiction sense, where people who were heading toward a certain set of life experiences could sell them to other people before they happened.
It occurs to me that I missed some protocol. While I was online last night during my scheduled time, I forgot to actually announce I was there. Sorry about that. It’s my first time doing this. Hopefully not my last. But, just for the record, I was here.
Mike
I fell asleep with the kids last night, but I’m back on for the next few hours.
It’s fun catching up with the posts from overnight!
_New Question
For Authors: Do you ever imaging your story as a movie as you are writing it? Is this helpful or distracting?
For Readers: If there’s a movie version of a book coming out (like Hunger Games), do you always try to read the book first? Does seeing a movie ever make you go back and read the book?
It’s always a toss-up. Lately I’ve taken to watching the movies first.With the ones where I have read it before watching the movie, I end up screaming WHY?! OH WHY?! in my head.
SO now I wait to enjoy the book after.That way I won’t get annoyed when something doesn’t turn out as expected. In this case ignorance is bliss. For some I’ll read them after and for others sometimes I might not watch the movie. And this is coming from someone who loves movies!
I’ll often play the story out in my head in the planning stages but don’t seem to do it while actually typing. As for books before movies, a lot of books are out long before they are optioned for or appear as movies ie. Hunger Games, Harry Potter, which means I’ll have read them anyway. It does spoil the endings for book-generated movies so you just have to enjoy the way the director has visualized things (or complain bitterly).
Hi, I’m back. Lunch break.
So, no, I don’t really imagine the story as a movie per se, but a lot of the story becomes very visual for me when I’m really into the writing. I love that feeling of immersion, just like when I’m reading a really good book or story.
I always try and read the book first if it looks like one I’d enjoy, because sometimes they leave things out that don’t make sense if you haven’t read the book, especially iconic things like Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter. If it’s a movie I’m just passing the time with or hanging with friends and wouldn’t be keen on the type of book, I don’t worry about reading it, before or after.
“For Readers: If there’s a movie version of a book coming out (like Hunger Games), do you always try to read the book first? Does seeing a movie ever make you go back and read the book?”
If it’s something that catches my interest and I haven’t done so yet I do try to. I’m considerably more lenient on movies than most people though and “get’ why some things get changed for the film format. My husband and I go rounds about it sometimes lol. But then once in a while I love a book and find out they’re making a movie and it’s soooo poorly adapted it makes me sad… Beastly I’m looking at you and that mockery of a film version.
I’m dreading the Hunger Games movie actually. The first thing they messed up IMHO was casting a 22-year-old as the 16-year-old character. Ugh. But maybe I’ll be wrong and it’ll be great.
With the Harry Potter series I have gone back and reread some after seeing the films but I don’t reread books often, not enough time with all the new things that come out. lol
Great question!
Hi Michele: as an author, I don’t tend to imagine movies for my stories – at least not short stories. If anything, I probably imagine the story as a poem, and just build it out as prose.
As a reader, I don’t make a conscious decision to read before I see the movie. Normally, I HAVE read the book (or graphic novel) first – but recently (for instance) – I saw “Moneyball”, thought it was great, and bought the book from there.
Authors: Have any of you taken another look at your T15 stories and thought about writing a sequel?
Definitely. Almost every story I’ve ever written feels like it could be part of a series. For “Costumes” I’d like to see what happens to our protagonist after a couple of decades of trying to emulate Mr. Billings.
The characters hang on in my head for sure. With this story, I could see a sequel, since Cypher has just entered a whole new world at the ending. Who knows what that would turn out to be.
For Readers: Do sequels to short stories appeal to you?
I’ve actually read a few series where the author started it out with a short story in an anthology and with one exception I normally haven’t liked them.
That said I think it depends on the character(s) in the short story.
Hi Catherine: (re: sequel to story). I haven’t thought of it – although I suppose there are some natural offshoots. But basically, I just wanted a fairly tight story for T15 that wouldn’t feel as though it were an excerpt of a larger piece.
Lisa R smalltown, USA
Question for any of the authors-
If you had to describe your short story on twitter (using only 140 characters) what would you say?
+25 RSVP #23
+25 question
+10 Joined the “EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing” Facebook- Lisa Ann Richards
+10 http://twitter.com/#!/alterlisa/status/133945800047869952
+1 total= 71
Hi Lisa: (Twitter summary) “Real-life elves hide in plain sight at comic-con”. That’s a misleading over-simplification of course, but it gets the idea across.
Both of us like to hide in plain sight, apparently.
Hi Shen: naturally, I’ll claim that was one of the subtle themes of the story all along! “We all like to hide in plain sight, don’t we?” Perfect.
“Costumes.” A high-school girl discovers that a costume can sometimes be used to hide a secret in plain sight.
Lisa R smalltown, USA
I keep hearing this referred to as “speculative fiction” or the “What if?” scenarios imagined by dreamers. Isn’t ALL fiction “what if”?
+5 =76
Yes, I think you are right about that. I always have trouble with boundaries for fiction types. Often they seem so artificial.
True enough but I still run into people who will not read SF or fantasy because “it’s not real”. What they are really objecting to is the speculative elements that do not agree with how they view the world and they are discomforted by them. On the opposite side of things, I get annoyed by writers of speculative tv shows who think that the basic tenants of logic and continuity do not apply because it’s all made up.
Speculative fiction is exciting, for me, because the ‘what if’ doesn’t have the same boundaries as the every day– we get to bend rules and create new boundaries; we ‘what if’ ourselves into fantastical worlds and incredible situations. Vive le spec fic!
Hey all! Popping in real fast to let everyone know I’m giving away a copy of Tesseracts 15 today on my blog. It’s a flash giveaway and ends at Midnight MST so hurry and enter if you haven’t bought it already.
Thanks Rhianna- so great!
I’m not sure I’ll be back on, but I wanted to say this has been great fun. I also want to apologize if I missed any question directed at me, and hope everyone involved had a good time. Thanks for this everyone!
Perhaps should have left it at the 100th post for good luck, but I wanted to say: thanks so much to Bitten By Books for hosting us, thanks again Janice, thanks Julie and Susan, and Brian. Great to ‘meet’ you Tess 15 authors! What a fun and informative event!
“For readers, I guess I’d like to ask them what attracts them to stories that feel free to drift away from reality or, at least, current reality?”
– That’s exactly it! When I read, I want to feel as far away from reality as possible, so the more far-fetched, the better
Question: What 3 words best describes your book?
I RSVP’d. +25.
Asked and answered a question. +25.
Going to tally. +1.
Total= 51.
Follow on Facebook (Missy Brooks.) +10.
Chelsea B. USA.