Guest Post: Liberty Hall, Writing a Story in 90 Minutes

Today we have a special guest post from Lee Hallison about Liberty Hall, a writer's community where prompts are given and members write a story in under 90 minutes! If you're ever in need of your weekly (or monthly) W1S1 story idea, Liberty Hall is a great place to check out.

Without further ado, here's Lee:

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Imagine Writing A Story in 90 Minutes!

Is it possible to create interesting characters and a plot arc in only 90 minutes? It takes practice, but can be done. Since August 2010, I have participated in flash challenges every weekend at Liberty Hall, a SFF-writer's website. I can now draft a story in 90 minutes –a great help in meeting my W1S1 goals.

How does it work? For each challenge, two prompts go up. Writers have all weekend to trigger them – but once they do, a timer starts. Using one or both of the prompts, each writer must submit a story within 90 minutes. On Monday, the stories are posted, critiqued by participants, and aspects of each story are voted on. No names – unless you'd like to 'fess up afterward (there's an optional guessing frenzy).

Every year, writers are successful with the stories they start at Liberty Hall. Mary Robinette Kowal's Evil Robot Monkey (a Hugo nominee) began as a Liberty Hall flash. Hugo, Sturgeon and Locus award nominee (and recent Nebula winner) Aliette deBodard had many Liberty Hall stories published, as did Nebula nominee Tom Crosshill. Regulars Damon Shaw, Michael Haynes, C.L. Holland, Pamela Wallace and yours truly have polished up quite a few flash challenges for ultimate publication. W1S1's Stephen Ramey has also been spotted at Liberty Hall.

• Prompts can be photos, lines from songs or random phrases. A recent challenge offered either the phrase "finding the missing piece" or a photograph of a hand holding an oil lantern. Vintage photographs, fantastical designs, or poetry excerpts about important human themes often trigger clever or emotionally meaningful flashes.
• Critiquing first drafts is fast and simple: did the writer manage a full story arc, and/or did the writer intrigue you with an idea or a character, or is there something to polish? People often critique their own story too, both for the discipline and to mask their story.

Writing flash under time pressure has taught me to not freeze up when looking at a blank screen – I can write something. I've learned how to spin off from prompts that don't immediately trigger a story, and doing the flash challenge week after week has significantly sped up my writing. Seeing other people's first drafts has given me both an appreciation for those people who can draft well, and an understanding that it is OK to have a first draft that, well, basically sucks. Receiving and giving crits when you know everyone only had 90 minutes (90 minutes!!) is relatively painless. If you don't enjoy speculative fiction, there is a sister site for literary efforts – but we do see lit stories at LH, and no one minds.

The group also does occasional short story challenges (over a 2 week period) where the critting is more in depth, and polish challenges, for stories almost ready for publication.

But the flash challenges are unique and fun, and give you great practice in creating story arcs. The site's owner, Mike Munsil (who hosts for free), asks that new members have a sponsor. If you're interested, please email libertyhallwriters AT gmail DOT com and let them know you are a participant at Write1Sub1, and someone will arrange a sponsor for you. Once you begin flashing with us, you will find it well worth your time.

Week #20 Check-In

2013 week #20 is in the bag.

How's it been for you? Did you get the writing and submitting done Quicker Than the Eye could see, or did you feel like you were Driving Blind all week? Here's your chance to tell everybody about it, whether you're a weekly or monthly (or anything in between) W1S1 participant.

If you've managed to write a story or poem and submit it, comment today and let everyone cheer! If something you've written as part of W1S1, whether this year or in previous years, has been accepted, let us know so your name can be added to the Write1Sub1 Hall of Champions. And if stuff has gotten in the way of your writing or you're starting to feel like a rejection magnet, let us know, so we can commiserate. We're all in this together.

And don't forget to let us know when your W1S1 creations are published so they can be mentioned in the weekly Satummary. Be sure to note if they're paid publications ($) so they can be added to the Published Work$ page. Publications qualify for this page as long as they were written during any year's W1S1 participation, whether they pay pro rates or help you pay for morning coffee.

Successes and failures, triumphs and disasters, brilliant ideas and insane dreams: we want to read all about them.

Interview with Anna & Dave, Editors of PodCastle

Today's interview is with editors Anna Schwind and Dave Thompson, editors of PodCastle. PodCastle is a wonderful fantasy fiction podcast and a pro-paying market accepting both reprint and original submissions. Check out their full submission guidelines.

From their website:

PodCastle is the world’s first fantasy audio magazine. Each week we bring you short stories across the spectrum of fantasy from leading authors and new discoveries. Like our sister podcasts, Escape Pod and Pseudopod, PodCastle is entirely free to listen and share.

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W1S1: What attracts you to the fantasy genre in general and PodCastle's offerings in specific?

Dave: Fantasy, more than most genres, seems to have very broad boundaries. One of the things we try to do at PodCastle is make it so you don't know what kind of story you're going to get week after week. It could be something very contemporary and literary - like Kelly Link's The Hortlak, which is about convenience clerks servicing zombies, at a border that may or may not be death - or something like Tim Pratt's Little Gods, which is a beautiful story about grief and mourning - or something like Lavie Tidhar's Buried Eyes, which is a very twisted Guns and Sorcery western. Hopefully, the one thing the stories all have in common is that they're fantastic, in more than one sense of the word.

Anna: I think we tend to be drawn to stories about experiences not like our own, and settings not our own, and people not like us that nonetheless resonate on some level. I'm a tourist reader, and the fantasy genre tends toward depictions and characters and story arcs that are very satisfying jaunts to other places, such as Cat Valente's "Urchins While Swimming" (Episode 198) or E. Lily Yu's "Tiger in the BSE" (Episode 243).

W1S1: Are there things in a submission you look for specifically for a podcast that you might not look for in a print publication?

Dave: Well, we like to find things we haven't seen before. It's great to run a bit of S&S or Urban Fantasy or something that's like comfort food for us fantasy fans, but when we find something that's in a setting we haven't seen before, or a structure we haven't seen, it's appealing. We recently ran a story by Cat Rambo and Ben Burgis that was set in the time of the Mariel Boatlift in Florida and Cuba in the 80s, and that felt like a very fresh setting. We're still looking for Cold War stories. We just bought a story that I think will be a bit challenging for some of our audience because of its very unique structure. And when I first started reading it, I didn't think it could work well in audio. But a couple paragraphs in, I could already hear the voice of it in my head, and we knew it would work despite that.

Anna: There are definitely things that do not work in audio. We're sad when someone sends us an otherwise great story that there's no way to do in audio. Stories with visual puns are hard to pull off, for example, and we see a number of those. But best are stories that surprise us, that we think might not work in audio, but if we're creative enough, or get the right narrator to read it, end up working out beautifully.

W1S1: How would you describe the submissions for PodCastle? Are there trends that seem to be the major causes of rejection?

Dave: We like the worldbuilding to be thought out and explored. Not always explained, but if it feels like the world the story is in will fall over if we poke it, that's a deal breaker. Settings we've seen a million times - a story set in a generic European fantasyland can get a strike against it very fast. Lack of sensory detail is a pet peeve.

Anna: People sometimes forget that we're mostly a reprint market. Sending us something that's not extraordinary yet good will be rejected if it's an original but that same story might be bought as a reprint. It's a little headscratching for us, because we assume authors want to be paid, and if they get their story printed somewhere else first, they'll be paid twice for their efforts! If the story is great, something that really speaks to us and we really love, it makes no difference whatsoever...we do run a handful of originals every year as well as a handful of stories that we solicit (as opposed to being subbed to us). But there's fifty two slots in a year and not every one of those is a story that completely blew us away and an author's chances are much better if their story has been bought before.

W1S1: What do you like best about editing for PodCastle?

Dave: Finding the right voice for a story is definitely my favorite part. Reading a story, and trying to figure out which of our awesome narrators is perfect for it. And then, knowing that I can listen to that story over and over again.

Anna: I do poorly on "like best" questions generally, but a couple of things I enjoy about editing PodCastle are working as a partner with Dave and when people tell us that they have difficulty reading stories in text but are able to enjoy them in audio - either because they lack time to read, or have a disability, or are too young yet to be independent readers. Being able to bring stories to people who would not otherwise have access to them is really rewarding for me.

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A huge thanks to Dave and Anna for joining us! For those of us looking for fantasy audio markets, PodCastle should be at the top of our list.

Week #19 Check-In

Week #19 of 2013 is behind us.

How's it been for you? Did you Sing the Body Electric, or was it more like A Memory of Murder? Here's your chance to tell everybody about it, whether you're a weekly or monthly (or anything in between) W1S1 participant.

If you've managed to write a story or poem and submit it, comment today and let everyone cheer! If something you've written as part of W1S1, whether this year or in previous years, has been accepted, let us know so your name can be added to the Write1Sub1 Hall of Champions. And if stuff has gotten in the way of your writing or you're starting to feel like a rejection magnet, let us know, so we can commiserate. We're all in this together.

And don't forget to let us know when your W1S1 creations are published so they can be mentioned in the weekly Satummary. Be sure to note if they're paid publications ($) so they can be added to the Published Work$ page. Publications qualify for this page as long as they were written during any year's W1S1 participation, whether they pay pro rates or help you pay for morning coffee.

Successes and failures, triumphs and disasters, brilliant ideas and insane dreams: we want to read all about them.

Satummary #18

This week in W1S1:

Alex Shvartsman's "Explaining Cthulu to Grandma" was published Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show..


Beth Cato's story "Clementine, Who Swims with Mermaids" was the featured story at Penumbra.

Folly Blaine's prize-winning micro "Before the Fireworks" was published at Flash Fiction Chronicles.

Michelle Ann King's flash "Destiny Fell in Love" appeared at Every Day Fiction.

Milo James Fowler's fifth installment of his serial novel, The Backtracker was published at JukePop Serials.

Congratulations fellow W1S1 peeps. Please take some time to read our members' stories, and be sure to comment where that is possible (if you like the story, of course). Our weekly check-in post will appear here tomorrow.