down the writer's path

Publishing News: Narrative Magazine expands in growth and content

Narrative Magazine, an online favorite of mine, is having one heck of a year. The readership has doubled, the magazine remains free, the contributors continue to be paid, the annual contest grows, and big things are afoot. The magazine now includes poetry, and Michael Wiegers, the executive editor of Cooper Canyon Press, has agreed to be the poetry editor. Narrative's new issue is the first to publish poetry by novelist David Guterson. You'll find Guterson's poetry along with short stories, an excerpt from Ron Hansen's novel Exiles, a profile of Ann Beattie, essays, a memoir set in mid-twentieth century New York, a coming-of-age tale by Nathanial Hawthorne, and the usual assortment of book reviews. Why free? Narrative is a nonprofit organization with a mission to use the Internet to bring readers and storytellers together online, and by the results it's easy to see they are doing a bang up job.

That's not all. In their Editor's Note, Carol Edgarian and Tom Jenk report that Narrative is now the publisher of StoryQuarterly.

This past March, Narrative had the good fortune to become the publisher of StoryQuarterly, a little magazine that’s been around as a hard-copy annual for the past thirty-two years and that last summer made its inaugural foray into the online world. SQ, as it’s called by its familiars, has been shepherded in recent years by the indefatigable, gracious, and spirited efforts of publisher and editor Marie Hayes, whose care and attention to writers is legend within the world of small magazines and in the teaching and writing community. Marie has sustained SQ as a place hospitable to all writers who care about good work and especially to writers who are starting out. As SQ moves forward with Narrative, Marie will continue to provide a guiding hand, and SQ, which has long had the welcome mat out for new writers, will open its door even wider: in the past, submissions were accepted from November through January, but beginning this summer, SQ will accept submissions year-round. A notice will go out letting you know when the new SQ submission system is online, and SQ’s editors will look forward to reading your work.

Some of our readers have asked about the editorial crossover between SQ and Narrative, and we’d like to answer several central questions now. Each magazine will maintain its own identity. A submission to one magazine will not be a submission to both. Each magazine will have its own separate submission system. There will be some overlap in staff and services, such as art and technology, and for the sake of combined strength and for the support of each magazine, there will be collaboration on projects, such as events and story collections, but each magazine will have its own character and pursue its own vision. Other questions will be addressed in a Frequently Asked Questions section to be posted in SQ and updated in Narrative this summer. An updated SQ Submission Guidelines page will be posted in the next SQ, which will go live in July, just in time for summer reading!

For those of you who hate to read online and prefer to have actual hardbound copy in your hands when reading, starting with the September issue Narrative and StoryQuarterly will be offered in print-on-demand format. The magazine also has plans for something called Narrative Backstage which sounds like it will be a lot of fun for those who support the magazine by way of donations. There will be previews of unpublished works, audio files, video footage of authors, and exclusive stories. Sounds like they've hit on a great way to thank their financial angels.

If you enjoy good writing, give Narrative Magazine and StoryQuarterly a try. There's pretty much something for everyone.

What makes a good novel?

Writers want to learn how to write a good novel but perhaps they should focus on what makes up a good read. It's a subtle shift in perception--a change in point of view--but one that offers some insight into the various techniques needed to craft an artful work of fiction.

A good read for me is one where the author raises questions and engages me in conversation. This stimulation of a reader's thoughts is considered by Jane Smiley in 13 Ways to Look at a Novel as she discusses the necessity for technical innovation. Simply put, a novel should cause the reader to take a new look at his own ideas and perceptions.

"Great seminal novelists may or may not be more rawly original than their contemporaries; what they do is manage to wed originality of technique with depth of insight or breadth of knowledge or charm or some other quality that demonstrates the value of that technical innovation and makes it memorable to future novelists." --Jane Smiley, 13 Ways to Look at a Novel

But where does a novelist go to hone his technique? Essentially within. For Smiley, an author's technique not only grows out of his temperment, his intentions, and his ideas, but it also grows out of his circumstances.

What does your temperment, your intentions, your ideas, even your circumstances add to the mix when you write?

How does this play out in your novel?

How the tale is told: viewpoint

Slipping in and out of point of view is not an uncommon problem for new and advanced fiction writers. In fact, point of view can often become a point of contention among writers. There are those who are strict and maintain a writer should remain within one point of view for an entire chapter, others allow shifts from scene to scene. Should the story be told from one person's viewpoint from the beginning or does the story demand multi-viewpoints? Which is better? Some might even consider point of view a plague upon writers. One thing most writers agree upon, despite evidence from bestselling writers to the contrary, you don't write from the point of view of the dog or the horse.

First words, tone, and Alice Hoffman's Turtle Moon

As much as first words have an important part to play in an opening parlay with the reader, so also does tone. The swift, rapid-fire play of dialogue or the quiet, slightly sarcastic, wry wording of a paragraph can help establish the mood of what is to come. When Alice Hoffman began the tale of, she also began the first creative steps in worldbuilding.

"The last major crime in the town of Verity was in 1958, when one of the Platts shot his brother in an argument over a Chevy Nomad they had bought together on time. Usually it's so quiet you can hear the strangler figs dropping their fruit on the hoods of parked cars, leaving behind pulp and tiny black seeds. Since Verity is the most humid spot in Eastern Florida, local people know enough to drink iced coffee in the morning. The air all around the town limits is so thick that sometimes a soul cannot rise and instead attaches itself to a stranger, landing right between the shoulder blades with a thud that carries no more weight than a hummingbird.

Charles Verity, who founded the town, after killing off as many native people as he could, is said to have found this out the hard way...."

Hoffman quickly establishes the tone, the setting, the genre, and the style, all the while adding a few drops of foreshadowing. The first paragraph reeks of atmosphere. Each word is carefully chosen and the result is the promise of a hot, sultry, even southern-style of a novel. She also establishes voice. The reader is carried along by the clear cadence of the phrasing, easing the reader more deeply into the world opening up before him.

The Chick Lit Challenge

Before you get too excited, know we are not talking chewing gum here. Nope, it's the latest hot trend in women's fiction that inspires today's post. Chick lit imprints have been popping up across the literary landscape and female readers have been grabbing the books as fast as their spines hit the shelves. As I mentioned over at Blog Trek, it would appear some folks have a few qualms about this latest phenomena women's fiction. Take a look at Anjula Razdan's article in the March/April issue of Utne:

The Chick Lit Challenge (Promo) Anjula Razdan

"But a lot of people are still worried about the influence of the popular genre of fiction known as 'chick lit.' You know, those ubiquitous novels with pastel-colored dust jackets bearing whimsically retro images of cocktail glasses, trendy purses, and spiky heels. With titles like Running in Heels: A Novel, Shopaholic Ties the Knot, and Thirty Nothing, chick lit relays breezy tales of spunky professional urban women worrying about their bosses, their weight, their boyfriends, and their Jimmy Choo shoes. The genre is wildly successful -- and that, oddly enough, is the problem."

I'm sure the writers, as well as the readers, will be pleased to know that the books have been identified as the latest in popular trash. I guess the question is: Can a New Millenium woman have her trash and retain her feminist membership card, too?

Read 'em and weep...?

Calling writers afflicted with mystery book-lover addiction

If you love those hard-boiled heroes and cozy cat mysteries, then the Southwest Chapter of Mystery Writers of America may have just the right conference. The Hard-boiled Heroes and Cozy Cats 2004 Conference is aimed toward helping you write in any mystery sub-genre and will be held on Saturday, June 19, 2004 from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm at the Galleria Holiday Inn on the Katy Freeway in Houston, Texas. The day's events include a luncheon and a contest. Mystery celebs include Erica Spindler, Bill Crider, Charlene Harris, and Jay Brandon. (Be sure and click on Brandon's name to see his hot photo on his website.) Literary agent and novelist Evan Marshall and Linda Landrigan, editor of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, will also be on hand. The cost is $80member/$85nonmember through June 16, then $90 at the door. The local chapter is full of good people who love writing mysteries and enjoy getting together with other writers.

The only problem with this conference is that it falls on the same day as the SCBWI-Houston conference mentioned yesterday . . . decisions, decisions, decisions.