Writing Short

My article about writing short fiction is up on http://www.everydayfiction.com/flashfictionblog/

Rules for Time Travellers

Makes sense to me. But then, I'm a doctor, not a physicist.

From Discover...

With the new Star Trek out, it’s long past time (as it were) that we laid out the rules for would-be fictional time-travelers. (Spoiler: Spock travels to the past and gets a sex change and becomes Kirk’s... lover.*) Not that we expect these rules to be obeyed; the dramatic demands of a work of fiction will always trump the desire to get things scientifically accurate, and Star Trek all by itself has foisted half a dozen mutually-inconsistent theories of time travel on us. But time travel isn’t magic; it may or may not be allowed by the laws of physics — we don’t know them well enough to be sure — but we do know enough to say that if time travel were possible, certain rules would have to be obeyed. And sometimes it’s more interesting to play by the rules. So if you wanted to create a fictional world involving travel through time, here are 10+1 rules by which you should try to play.

You can read the rest here:

Writing Short

Gay Degani over at Flash Fiction Chronicles has been kind enough to ask me to write a few words about writing flash fiction. Always happy to blather on a bit!

As always, the story is the thing. The best flash carries with it all the things that make any other story work, a beginning, middle and end, a protagonist who changes or makes their surrounding change in a meaningful way, strong dialog, vivid description, and some sort of payoff for the reader. It can be difficult to shoe-horn all of these elements into such a small word-count, but good flash fiction stories generally do.

You'll be able to read the rest in acouple of days here.

Longridge Writers

I have the great honor of being the guest writer and smart-aleck at the Longridge Writers site. You can get a small taste of how obnoxiuos I am at conventions by checking he Q&A's at the Post a Note Section, here.
Please drop by, as there is a ton of stuff to be learned there. There are some great writers coming out of that program, and with Mary Rosenblum as a teacher you just can't go wrong.
I'll be there through the end of the week. Try your waitress, and be sure and tip the veal.