Overdone Dystopia While we’re dealing with speculative and science fiction, I’m going to deal with overdone dystopia in SF literature. Just as the evening news focuses on catastrophe, so does SF literature focus on a future that’s gone to fiery regions in a wicker contraption. In fact dystopia has become so common in SF that it’s simply an accepted scenario. We’re all going to wear gas masks. It’s always going to rain. Crime rules. Conscience…

Less is More Sex/love scenes We either see sex scenes that belong in an issue of Hustler, explicit in detail and street language, or love scenes reminiscent of saccharine romances. It’s rare to find a debut manuscript that handles erotica of any kind with a deft hand and subtle impact. Here, at Five Rivers, we usually opt for the mantra: less is more, and that applies as much or more to scenes of sexuality. Every…

Research I’m afraid I’m a tyrant about good research. I received one fantasy story that had a fellow stop into an inn, and there roasting on the fire was a whole cow. Now, unless that inn was more like an enormous Best Western capable of serving 1000 very generous meals, that’s completely out of scale. There’s a minimum of a thousand pounds of meat being turned by some hapless and burly minion, assisted by another…

Purple Prose I’m guilty of this, I have to admit. I love words. I love language. Sometimes I get so carried away with descriptors I forget about advancing the plot, and sharpening prose to a keen edge. So, when I go back to a piece some weeks or months after writing the first draft, I set aside my love affair with the story and words, and become the clinician. There is one rule: Use one…

Point of view and environmental detail Too often I receive a manuscript without a strong and consistent point of view. Writers, particularly novices, tend to shilly-shally about with point of view, narrating their story from a cool and distant omniscient perspective so that the reader falls into Tina Toughie’s thoughts, and then Excellent Elizabeth’s. And worse, the author then goes on to describe the weather some fifty kilometres distant. My comment to the author at…