I received word from Mr. Alfar yesterday, a day that was ominously rather windy.
But let me just take this opportunity to outline the philosophy behind my attempts at Speculative Fiction. I would like to attempt works in something author Joe Haldeman once called 'refractive mimesis' which is just a fancy name for stories that look like theyre happening here in our world... but arent. In Mr. Haldeman's words in his intro to Kim Stanley Robinson's Venice Drowned, he said, "...it's that creepy kind of double-vision writing where an imagined world, similar to our ours but different in some dramatic particular, to such an extent that the world ceases to be simply background for the story; in a curious way, it becomes the story." Rather lofty, one might think, but I would rather think of it as a philosophy out of my own personal laziness. I just dont have enough energy to create my own universe from scratch. In the story I submitted to Mr. Alfar's anthology, I chose to use real people from our world, but skewed them a bit. I thought it would save me time from describing them to the readers, since I was going for a 3000-word story and I wouldnt want to use up some of the 3000 to describe people. So Randy Jackson isnt a record producer in my world; he's a world famous illusionist (based on James Randi, better known as The Amazing Randi), Ravi Shankar and Farrokh Bulsara (better known as Freddy Mercury) are Nobel Prize winning physicists, etc. I used the same refractive technique on my little KFC story posted in this blog some time ago and I enjoyed writing that a lot.
I believe Im getting the hang of this and would like to churn out more, inshallah. A lot of local publications have shown interest in new stories and because monetary considerations are utmost in my agenda, I should think that I have to come up with stuff that people would want to read, but more importantly, stuff people would want to buy.
By the way, the final list of stories accepted by Mr. Alfar are posted in his blog. Way to go!
Dear J,
I regret to inform you that I'm passing on your story for the anthology.
It was engaging but ultimately I had to make some hard choices.
Thanks for your interest and I hope to read more from you in the future(more hard work, it’s true J )
It was expected, of course. If Dean Alfar had accepted it, I would have had serious doubts about the quality of the submissions, but Mr. Alfar has high standards and my little story just didnt have the legs. I sent it to some people to review and comment on (as well as to weed out the numerous typos, hehe) to salvage the thing. DKNY was kind enough to go over it as well as an officemate. (Grifter! Get off your ass and send me your comments!)Best,
Dean
But let me just take this opportunity to outline the philosophy behind my attempts at Speculative Fiction. I would like to attempt works in something author Joe Haldeman once called 'refractive mimesis' which is just a fancy name for stories that look like theyre happening here in our world... but arent. In Mr. Haldeman's words in his intro to Kim Stanley Robinson's Venice Drowned, he said, "...it's that creepy kind of double-vision writing where an imagined world, similar to our ours but different in some dramatic particular, to such an extent that the world ceases to be simply background for the story; in a curious way, it becomes the story." Rather lofty, one might think, but I would rather think of it as a philosophy out of my own personal laziness. I just dont have enough energy to create my own universe from scratch. In the story I submitted to Mr. Alfar's anthology, I chose to use real people from our world, but skewed them a bit. I thought it would save me time from describing them to the readers, since I was going for a 3000-word story and I wouldnt want to use up some of the 3000 to describe people. So Randy Jackson isnt a record producer in my world; he's a world famous illusionist (based on James Randi, better known as The Amazing Randi), Ravi Shankar and Farrokh Bulsara (better known as Freddy Mercury) are Nobel Prize winning physicists, etc. I used the same refractive technique on my little KFC story posted in this blog some time ago and I enjoyed writing that a lot.
I believe Im getting the hang of this and would like to churn out more, inshallah. A lot of local publications have shown interest in new stories and because monetary considerations are utmost in my agenda, I should think that I have to come up with stuff that people would want to read, but more importantly, stuff people would want to buy.
By the way, the final list of stories accepted by Mr. Alfar are posted in his blog. Way to go!
1 comment:
and directed by Alan Smithee. I could be Alan Smithee.
You can pitch this to Neil Gaiman or Warren Ellis - it is their kind of shit.
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