{"id":2394,"date":"2007-01-20T15:18:00","date_gmt":"2007-01-20T23:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=2394"},"modified":"2007-01-20T15:18:00","modified_gmt":"2007-01-20T23:18:00","slug":"2394","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=2394","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Jeff VanderMeer on some of the negative trends<\/a> he’s noticed in reading for Best American Fantasy<\/i>:<\/p>\n

At the level of concept or idea, far too many published stories seem very proud of having been able to come up with a semi-unique fantastical idea. Period. A kind of brimming with self-congratulatory ardor. “Look at this cool, shiny thing I thought up!” And the story ends with the “look at my originality” when that is often the starting point of a story and all else has been preamble. Nascent is not adult. It is as child is to parent. Often, this coincides with a flattening of characterization, in that the fruition of the idea lies in the fleshing out of the characters as well. I also think this failure is tied to ego.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is something I’ve definitely noticed in some of the submissions to Kaleidotrope<\/i><\/strong><\/a>. (Actually, I’ve noticed all of the story weaknesses VanderMeer points out.) Sometimes I’ll read a story and think, “Wow, this was a really<\/i> cool idea. I wish it had been in a better story.”<\/p>\n

Hopefully VanderMeer wasn’t spotting too many of those trends in Kaleidotrope<\/strong><\/i> — that is, assuming he’s even received and read the copy I sent him for consideration. I do think editing stories for the zine has helped make me a better writer, or at least made me more cognizant of what doesn’t work and, hopefully, why<\/i> it doesn’t work. I also hope it’s made me a better editor, and better able to spot good and talented work.<\/p>\n

Although it’s surprisingly easy to spot terrible<\/i> work…<\/p>\n

Link via Shaken & Stirred<\/a>.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jeff VanderMeer on some of the negative trends he’s noticed in reading for Best American Fantasy: At the level of concept or idea, far too many published stories seem very proud of having been able to come up with a semi-unique fantastical idea. Period. A kind of brimming with self-congratulatory ardor. “Look at this cool, … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[238],"class_list":["post-2394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2394"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2394\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}