First paragraphs

Since I’m still struggling with my current draft, I’d like to suggest a couple of links about beginnings. What got me thinking about this was a quote from Gabriel García Márquez on how the first paragraph contains the whole book: One of the most difficult things is the first paragraph. I have spent many months […]

Beginnings

Currently I’m in yet another “final” round of revision on my “Pen” story, and I’ve been having a terrible fight trying to arrive at a beginning that’s good enough to satisfy me. So I’ve been rereading Nancy Kress‘s Beginnings, Middles, and Ends, and listening to discussions of beginnings on Writing Excuses and The Writing Show. […]

Re: Who’s Afraid of Wolf 359?

Set in the same universe of Learning the World, where stars are surrounded by green habitats, “Who’s Afraid of Wolf 359?,” by Ken McLeod starts out looking like a romp across the stars. The narrator sleeps with the wrong woman, and rather than work for the next 257 years to pay off his fine, he […]