Title:
How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy
Author:
Orson Scott Card
Publisher:
Writer's Digest Books, 1990
ISBN
0-89879-416-1

I try to write stories. I've put some of my work here on my site. But writing is hard work, and breaking into the field can seem like a daunting task, best left to the Hemingways and Mark Twains of the world. So what do you do when you think that your stories are better than anything else you've been reading?

Card's little book - and little it is at 140 pages, including the index - is one of the best of its kind that I've come across. Many books like this treat the subject like an academic field, where doing things "correctly" earns you a good grade, while trying something new might get you an "F". Card asks you to think about how you are telling the story. He explains that there are various ways to go about it, and what key concepts belong with each method. And he warns of some of the things that editors and publishers don't like. After a few chapters I understood a little more of what I was trying to do, and of what editors and publishers - and ultimately readers - might be looking for.

But after explaining a lot of stuff about the craft of writing, Card ventures into an area that few if any books of this type seem to bother with: selling your story. Card, as a published author, and a particularly successful one at that, explains the field, helping direct new writers to publishers who will buy stories from new writers. Card's brief treatment of this subject covers more material than one might expect, including such topics as when and why to get an agent, and what publishers to try when selling a highly experimental story.

Card's book generates a level of confidence and enthusiasm that made me want to jump up and get right to writing my next story! And, more importantly, sending it in, finally.