Category Archives: Genre

June 18, 2010 · 7:59 am

Yay for Terry Pratchett!

This is such a great Terry Pratchett cover.

I’ve always thought if I ever became really rich and famous from my writing, I’d like to set up a competition for new writers to help them break in. And this is what Terry Pratchett has done.

The Terry Pratchett Prize!

Sir Terry Pratchett and Transworld Publishers are proud to launch a new award for aspiring debut novelists, The Terry Pratchett Anywhere But Here, Anywhen But Now Prize. Transworld will offer the winning author a publishing contract with a £20,000 advance.
The award will be judged by Sir Terry Pratchett, Tony Robinson, Michael Rowley from Waterstone’s and two senior members of the editorial team at Transworld Publishers.

The deadline for submissions is 31 December 2010. For further details about the award, and full terms and conditions, please click on the link below

See the Terry Pratchett web site for full details.

I had the good fortune to share breakfast with Terry back in 1999 at the Melbourne World Con.  I’m a big fan of his books. My favourite character is Vimes, although I am very fond of Susan and Granny Weatherwax.

Whenever I run a writing fantasy workshop for teenagers, there will be some boy sitting up the back, making wisecracks. I’ll say to him, ‘I bet you read Terry Pratchett. He’s brilliant.’ And the kid’s eyes will light up – a grown-up who gets Terry Pratchett!

So I have a soft spot for Terry. How can you not like a guy who says:

‘I’ll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there’s evidence of any thinking going on inside it.’

For more Terry Pratchett quotes visit this site.

So here’s raising a cyber glass of bubbly to you, Terry. I sold my first book after entering a writing competition. (I didn’t win or place, or get an honourable mention). What I did get was annoyed enough to send the book off to a publisher. LOL.

Have you ever entered a writing competition?

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Filed under Competitions, Genre, Nourish the Writer, Publishing Industry, Workshop/s

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June 17, 2010 · 11:36 am

The Power of Fantasy

I spent way too long today writing an article on fantasy, why it is popular with both the writers who choose to write in this genre, and with the readers, who keep buying those trilogies.

I should have been working on the the first draft of the book I have to put into ROR for critiquing. We plan to have a ROR the week before World Con and I’m really looking forward to the feedback.  But first I have to get my book finished (at least the story arc completed, if not polished) and then I have to read everyone else’s books and write reports on them. I’m 360 pages into the new book, but I need to go right through it from the beginning to tie all the loose ends together, then sail past page 360 and give resolution to the story.

So I should not have spent my only day off work writing an article on the fantasy genre. I agonised over what to cover and what to leave out. I had to make it accessible for those who did not read fantasy, while giving it an Australian slant. I emailed writer friends for quotes on why they wrote fantasy and what they thought readers got from fantasy books. And I sourced lots of links for readers to click through. I could not find a definitive list of Australian fantasy writers, categorised by fiction length and sub genre.

I’d like to thank everyone who indulged me and answered my emails. And I’d like to say, if I haven’t mentioned your favourite author it was not because I don’t appreciate them, rather it was due to lack of space. The genre is far too big to cover in one article. The article is here at the Australian Literature Review.

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Filed under Australian Writers, Fantasy books, Genre, The Writing Fraternity

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June 15, 2010 · 8:39 pm

Firefly, why weren’t there more episodes?

I’m currently preparing a lecture on dialogue and I began to trawl the Firefly series for examples.

It made me realise I could use this series for examples of excellent world building.

And characterisation.

Dramatic tension.

Subtle subtext in dialogue and character interaction.

Lighting and shooting. Music (that scene where they bring the young man’s dead body home).

Planting of clues that contribute towards a larger story arc in self contained episodes.

In fact the whole series is just so darn good, I don’t know why it was cancelled. What’s your favourite scene from Firefly?

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Filed under Characterisation, creativity, Genre, Movies & TV Shows, Story Arc, Writing craft

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June 11, 2010 · 6:45 am

More Cross Pollination

Having offered to do a bookplate for Tansy, I had to offer to do a book plate for Trent.

Death most Definite’  is the first of Trent Jamieson’s three books to be published by Orbit in the Death Works series.  Like Tansy’s series, I feel particularly proud of book one because we critiqued the manuscript at the last ROR. Meanwhile, Trent’s editor was taking it to an acquisitions meeting to see if Orbit would buy it. Everytime Trent’s mobile rang we thought it might be his editor reporting in. So you can imagine how exciting that was.

Trent’s series is also urban fantasy but very different from Tansy’s. Set in a Brisbane and south East Queensland, much like the one we know, only Death is a business and, what with corporate take overs and mergers, it can be dangerous. Steve is just a lowly employee, whose job it is to help the recently departed through to the after life, when he gets involved in a take over.

I have to admire the way Trent handles drama, death and danger with his trademark certain dry  humour. Seems like everyone is writing DUF ( Dark Urban Fantasy). It’s accessible. It’s fun.

I can recommend both Trent and Tansy’s books. What have you read in this genre recently that you’d recommend?

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Filed under Genre, Promoting Friend's Books, Publishing Industry, The Writing Fraternity

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May 30, 2010 · 11:10 am

For those who like their fantasy dark …


I’m currently teaching college students who are too young to have watched Buffy first time around. They don’t get any of my Buffy jokes. It is very sad.

For lovers of Dark Urban Fantasy a group of authors have gotten together to set up a blogspot here. Over the month of June they are giving away approximately 70 books. So it is worth dropping by.

I notice that Melissa Marr’s name is on that list. I’m a big fan of her writing since I discovered her first book Wicked Lovely.

Have you come across any books lately that swept you away from the real world and into another one that looked a lot like ours but there was a dark side?

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May 4, 2010 · 10:56 am

Steampunk

My friend Richard Harland is riding a wave of success with his YA steampunk, Worldshaker.

There is something very alluring about steampunk.

Long before I’d ever heard of the term, I was a fan of books from this era. I read Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer to my children. Dickens was a staple of my own childhood and Sir Author Connan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes was one of my comfort reads. Another of my favourites is the satirist, Saki. I read his Sredni Vashtar in my early twenties and never forgot it.

Jules Verne, HG Wells, Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker were all writing steampunk back before the term was coined. For movies which set out deliberately to mine this genre, think Wild Wild West, The League of Extraordinary gentlemen, the Prestige and Sherlock Holmes.

For a list of contemporary writers who have dabbled in this genre look here. I think Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast could be added to this list. His setting and characters were very steampunk.

Here’s an article on ‘The Victoria Steam Exposition … a celebration of a growing subculture called steampunk — which unites Victorian era esthetics and futuristic inventions with modern literature and fashion.’

There is even a steampunk magazine, for those of us who can’t get enough of the genre.

So what is the allure of steampunk?

For those of you interested in writing steampunk, Richard has done a post about it here.

I could not resist this steampunk dalek!

Has steampunk caught you unawares? Have you been reading it, without realising that it was a subgenre, like me?

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