Month: June 2012

Sneak Peek: Trophy: Rescue by Paul Schofield

Today we have a sneak peek from the second book author Paul Schofield’s science fiction Trophy series: Rescue.

Trophy RescueImagine an Earth restored to perfection under the care of ten women Guardians, who answer only to a governing computer. Imagine a peaceful, colonized Solar System. This is what the New Victorian Empire has accomplished in the 476 years of its existence. Now mankind faces extinction because of a genetic mutation caused by the catastrophic collapse of Earth’s environment in 2065 A.D., the year the Empire began. The Keyhole anomaly, a wormhole in space, offers a solution; time travel to transport genetically sound humans from the past. A powerful underground organization is rapidly building their forces to eliminate the Empire and gain control of the Keyhole and the Solar System. Only the Planetary Control Corps (PCC) under the leadership of Star-Commander Abigail VanDevere and the dynamic team of Lieutenant Janet Rogerton, Pilot Kolanna, Martin, and Panther stand in the rebels’ way. Will the strength and determination of the PCC be enough? Will they have time to succeed?

Trophy: Rescue is available from Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble. Continue reading “Sneak Peek: Trophy: Rescue by Paul Schofield”

Is Truth in Non-Fiction Really Just Perception? by Jen Smith

What is truth? Is truth a fact? I can look at my car and say there are four tires. That is a fact. I can look at my car and say it’s red. That is a fact. Or is it? Another person could look at my car and say that it is burgundy. Is burgundy red? Some would say yes and some would say no. So then, what is the true color of my car?

Truth really is a grey area. Recently I attended a writer’s workshop at Grub Street Boston about breaking the rules in non-fiction and a great discussion formed around this topic. At one point the instructor gave us an example of an author that took the liberty to change the number of heart attacks that happened during a particular time, in a particular state, and also the name of a bar in a journalistic piece. The author’s reasoning was that the number four sounded better than eight and Bucket of Blood, as a bar name, was cooler than the actual name of the bar.

Interestingly there was a student in the class that was fine with the number change but thought changing the name of the bar was outright wrong. I felt the opposite. Changing the name of the bar was fine to me but changing a statistical number was appalling to me. I found our contradicting views fascinating. Neither one of us was right nor wrong, we just had different perspectives based on our experiences with the world. Continue reading “Is Truth in Non-Fiction Really Just Perception? by Jen Smith”

Storytime Story of the Week Poll

Indies Unlimited featured three short stories this week by three different and talented writers. Now is the time for you to choose your favorite.

The winner of course, will get a truckload of self-satisfaction and not much else really. All the same, why not make your voice heard? I guess in this case it would be your mouse.

To review, this week’s entrants are:

Homophones, by Shaun J. McLaughlin

Twenty, by Garrett Hise

Cycle of Abuse, by T.D. McKinnon

Which was your favorite short story this week?

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A Failure to Communicate

"What we've got here is a failure to communicate."

Everyone knows that readers have subject preferences. Not everyone will like a story even if it is very well written. It is not literary failure if someone doesn’t like your story because they don’t like that kind of story. It is failure if a reader normally likes the kind of story you wrote, but doesn’t like yours. They don’t have a beef with the editing or the grammar or the genre or even the idea of the story—they just did not like what you wrote or the way you wrote it.

Where most writing fails, it does so because the original idea of the story the author wished to convey to the reader gets lost in translation.

Remember that writing is one form of communication. There are four parts to communication in writing: Continue reading “A Failure to Communicate”