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• Sci Fi Master Class
  by Limelight

  Keeper of Dreams / / By Orson Scott Card / / Excerpted from the forward in Keeper of Dreams / ...

  Keeper of Dreams / / By Orson Scott Card / / Excerpted from the forward in Keeper of Dreams / / What’s the inducement for an established writer to return to the short / story market? While it’s true that short stories require less typing / than novels, they don’t take much less in the way of development. That / is, to get any story ready to be written, to bring it to ripeness, takes / about as much time and effort no matter how long the finished work / turns out to be. / / So why would I devote any time to writing short stories, for a few / hundred or, sometimes, a few thousand dollars, when I can get many times / more if I turn that idea into a book? / / Believe me, that’s not a rhetorical question. Sometimes, when I’m late / on a book deadline which will actually pay the bills, and I stop to / write a short story that I promised to an anthology editor, my wife looks / at me and says (only more nicely), ‘What were you thinking?’ / / Good question. / / How does a serious novelist end up with more than 200,000 words of / short stories, novelettes, and novellas? / / One answer is: I get invited to take part in some really cool / anthologies. Robert Silverberg tells me about a series of big-name-only science / fiction and fantasy anthologies he’s editing, and invites me to / contribute a story to the sci-fi volume. Sure, I say - are you kidding? He’s / not just a friend, he’s a legend in the field, and it’s going to be a / great book. / / Or a total stranger says, We’re doing an anthology of stories about the / Vietnam War, and I say, I didn’t fight in that war, and I didn’t fight / against it, I don’t see what I could contribute … but then my mind / starts ticking over the problem and I realize there is a story for / somebody like me to write and so I write it. / / Or they’re putting together a book for the World Fantasy Convention / just at the time that I’m developing this cool concept of the source of / all the stories of the Flood, and so instead of waiting till I’m ready to / write the novel, I write a very long story that gets it down on paper. / It’s a trial run. I’m still going to write the novel … someday. / / Or I go to another country and see a plaza that is so fascinating I / have to set a story there, and just at that moment I’m reading a / fascinating book about elephants, and those two things come together and I have / to write the story. / / Or Christmas is coming, and on a lark I decide to whip out a whimsical / little Christmas story. / / So it comes to four things driving this novelist, at least, to write / short stories: / / 1. The irresistible anthology. / 2. Stories for a particular occasion. / 3. The big idea that has to get down on paper so I might as well try it / out as a short story first and see if it’s good enough to grow into a / book. / 4. The jewel of an idea that is fully formed and simply has to exist as / a short story, even if it doesn’t make me any money. / / I appreciate your being willing to look at my shorter pieces, and I / hope you find them worth the time you devote to them. / / But I hope you’ll also remember that there are new writers out there, / trying to be part of the conversation. Look for magazines - online or / in print - and anthologies and collections. Give them a try. I can / promise you that now and then - more often than you might suppose— / you’ll find something and somebody wonderful. / / Because if sci-fi is to survive as a genre, it won’t be because readers / stick to books with familiar names on the cover. I grew up in the era / when the great triumvirate of Heinlein, Asimov, and Clarke ruled the / field. But they aren’t producing much any more. If there is no new / generation to take their place, then the genre becomes a part of literary / history, no longer able to produce great new work. And if a new generation / is to take flight, it will fledge in the nest of short fiction. / / Orson Scott Cards’ Keeper of Dreams / (0-7653-0497-X; $27.95 / $30.95 CAN) was released by Tor in April. The / author’s website is hatrack.com