{"id":17443,"date":"2009-09-05T14:23:08","date_gmt":"2009-09-05T18:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/?p=17443"},"modified":"2015-01-06T14:41:12","modified_gmt":"2015-01-06T19:41:12","slug":"help-me-edit-my-science-fiction-short-story-collection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/2009\/09\/05\/help-me-edit-my-science-fiction-short-story-collection\/","title":{"rendered":"Help me edit my science fiction short story collection"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m organizing a collection of my science fiction short stories to be published by the Fantastic Books imprint of Wilder Publication (that is, Warren Lapine), and would like your help as I try to decide the order of the stories. (Well, the help of those of you who&#8217;ve actually <i>read<\/i> any of my stories, that is.)<\/p>\n<p>The best theory I&#8217;ve heard for assembling collections  and anthologies has been that the two strongest stories should go at the beginning and end of the book&#8212;the opening story to reel the reader in, and the closing one to let the reader leave on a high note. <\/p>\n<p>The book, to be titled <i>What We Still Talk About<\/i>, will contain the following 95,000 words of stories, which aren&#8217;t arranged here in any thematic order, but just in reverse chronological order:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><b>&#8220;Glitch&#8221;<\/b> <i>The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction Volume Three (Solaris)<\/i><br \/>\n<b>&#8220;A Very Private Tour of a Very Public Museum&#8221;<\/b> <i>PostScripts (PS Publishing)<\/i><br \/>\n<b>&#8220;What We Still Talk About&#8221;<\/b> <i>Forbidden Planets  (DAW Books)<\/i><br \/>\n<b>&#8220;My Life is Good&#8221;<\/b> <i>Crossroads: Tales of the Southern Literary Fantastic (Tor)<\/i><br \/>\n<b>&#8220;Together Forever at the End of the World&#8221;<\/b> <i>Men Writing Science Fiction as Women  (DAW Books)<\/i><br \/>\n<b>&#8220;Choosing Time&#8221;<\/b> <i>Angel Body and other Magic for the Soul (Back Brain Recluse)<\/i><br \/>\n<b>&#8220;Eros and Agape Among the Asteroids&#8221;<\/b> <i>Once Upon A Galaxy  (DAW Books)<\/i><br \/>\n<b>&#8220;The Only Thing That Mattered&#8221;<\/b> <i>Absolute Magnitude<\/i><br \/>\n<b>&#8220;Mom, the Martians, and Me&#8221;<\/b> <i>Mars Probes  (DAW Books)<\/i><br \/>\n<b>&#8220;True Love in the Day After Tomorrow&#8221;<\/b> <i>Treachery and Treason (Penguin Roc)<\/i><br \/>\n<b>&#8220;The Last Man on the Moon&#8221;<\/b> <i>Moon Shots (DAW Books)<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>If you&#8217;ve read my fiction, or heard me read any of it aloud at a convention, please let me know which ones you think would best act as bookends to the collection.  I know which ones <i>I&#8217;d<\/i> choose, but you know how it is with writers&#8212;we&#8217;re not always the best judges of our own material.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m organizing a collection of my science fiction short stories to be published by the Fantastic Books imprint of Wilder Publication (that is, Warren Lapine), and would like your help as I try to decide the order of the stories. (Well, the help of those of you who&#8217;ve actually read any of my stories, that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[29],"class_list":["post-17443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-my-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17443"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17444,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17443\/revisions\/17444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}