Bruce McAllister short fiction has appeared over the years in the SFF&H magazines, “year’s best” volumes and original anthologies; and has won or been short-listed for awards like the National Endowment for the Arts, Hugo, Nebula, Locus and Shirley Jackson. His most recent novel is THE LOCUS finalist fantasy THE VILLAGE SANG TO THE SEA: A MEMOIR OF MAGIC.
How long have you been writing and what got you started?
Thanks for the good questions, Jason. I’ve been writing for over half a century—which means I’ve seen science fiction from the end of the Golden Age through the New Wave through Clarion’s rise as an influence on sf to the digital era and social media and a field committed to diversity and equity, but also to a current linearity and literalness in much science fiction (your publication being an exception, as you know) that probably speaks to our relentless exposure to film, TV and games. My first short story, published at sixteen, happened in the final year of the Golden Age as Isaac Asimov defined it (the story would appear later in the Asimov/Greenberg series THE GREAT SF STORIES) and came after six voracious years of reading magazines like ASTOUNDING, GALAXY and the great sf anthologies. Just before that story I’d lived with my family in a fishing village in Northern Italy (down the road from which our father was stationed with NATO in anti-submarine warfare research), gone to the local school with my younger brother, and was reading so much science fiction that I had long, plot-driven, wonderfully epic science fiction dreams every night. What a drug sf was for me—one without nasty side-effects except a little social isolation—and something I needed in a military family that moved every two or three years, given the introverted kid I was.
What is the best piece of advice you have for new writers?
Writer’s Mantra #1: “I’m good and getting better.” That’s 100% true if you read, keep reading, write and keep writing. Mantra #2: “Butt in chair. Write every day even if you don’t know what you’re doing and it feels like crap and you’re only writing for 10-15 minutes. No exception. The Little Self (the human ego) must sometimes be tricked into stepping out of the way and letting the Creator and Editor withi in us do their business. #3 “I must read what I wish to write. It’s a foreign language I must master. Just because I speak English doesn’t mean I know that language—how to pull the rabbit out of the hat for the reader in fiction, in science fiction, in fantasy. There is no exception. #3: “Nothing is possible until I have a complete very very rough draft off the entire thing, whatever its length. Corollary: All is possible once I have it.”
These are some of the mantras I’ve learned from years of publishing and reading sf and fantasy, years of teaching undergraduate creative writing workshops and MFA workshops, three published novels, four aborted novels (two of which were cannibalized for well-received short stories and one of which became of those three published novels, in a different form), many short stories, a life of contact and friendship with other published writers, and forty years of coaching and consulting for writers of all persuasions and phases in their careers.
Are there any writing resources, such as books or websites, you’d like to recommend?
No, actually. Except to read five or six fiction-craft books simply so you’ve done it, then put them aside. What I’ve learned over these decades of writing and coaching other writers is that the best teachers are those who’ve come before you, their published work, the work you love and whose magic you want to learn to wield yourself. But in my 30’s, tired of hitting-and-missing with short stories, I did sit down with Koontz’s book on fiction craft, Scott Meredith’s (actually by the great Evan Hunter), Lajos Egri’s THE ART OF DRAMATIC WRITING and Syd Field’s SCREENWRITING (the last two were bibles in Hollywood), told myself I couldn’t argue with anything in them (that I needed instead to discover how what they said was true), took notes on all of these books, and distilled the notes into a little manual for myself. From that point on all stories sold.
What tips do you have for finding time to write?
It’s actually pretty simple. A matter of will and faith. Of existential-secular or spiritual decision—a contract between you and yourself. You have to write every day. That’s the contract. Not negotiable. Doesn’t matter what you write; doesn’t matter what fussy Little Self says to you. You do it…and in a couple of months you understand why. But no one can explain why you should do it before you do it. You just have to do it. This is why any writer tells you you must write every day. Ten minutes, fifteen. Little Self (remember, the human ego always prefers “comfortable misery” to what it sees as fear, blindness, lack of control, anxiety, etc.) will try to undermine your commitment with every trick in the book (“What I’m writing sucks,” “I should be doing something else whose meaningfulness is clearer,” “I need to write four hours every day or it’s meaningless,” et endless cetera.)
Do you favor the traditional route or self-publishing?
There are three kinds of publishing today. Big-publisher traditional, little-publisher traditional, and self-. It’s not a hierarchy. Each is right for the right book. If you only knew the cons to big-publisher publishing. And in all three you have to promote your book after publication—all. No more sitting on a mountaintop being the Artist, turning book over to Agent, who sells it, and the Publisher does the promoting.
Are you an outliner or discovery writer? Or somewhere in between?
In between—or both. I have to trick myself into thinking I know where I’m going in order to start writing, and then it goes where it needs to and I help. A “writer’s outline” is often just (and wisely) a slapdash outline, 1, 2, 3—not an detailed outline for a college course. Over-outlining can kill a book by killing one’s interest in doing it.
How do you deal with rejections?
All I ask of the universe is that I understand why, and that turns out to be a difficult thing to ask for. Often it makes little sense when an editor I know well rejects something after all these years. Publication is important to me (I’ve been writing too long for it not to be, I guess), so a story’s publication is probably more important than it should be.
Your goal as a writer should be to find the editor who will publish your first story, not necessarily to get a story published. Weird, I realize; but true. Second prize is a personal note from an editor because that encourages helps you determine which editor is The One, and if it’s a craft feedback, you can make the story better through it. At least half of the stories I’ve sold in my career have been on rewrite requests from editors; without editors I wouldn’t have grown, wouldn’t have had a career.
Do you ever get criticism from family or friends who don’t understand your passion?
A writer learns over time that while family and friends are important for moral support, a writer shouldn’t really ask, if craft feedback is the goal, people who aren’t qualified. Even being a science fiction reader (rather than just any reader or anyone) isn’t qualification enough, you learn. As soon as someone knows you, they are “tainted.” They may be freaked by what you’ve written, or they may like it more than they should; and rarely do they know how to bring to consciousness what’s right and wrong (nor should they—they’re “civilians”).
What are your writing goals for the next twelve months?
Simply to write—whatever, whatever length, and wherever it might appear in paper or digital print. A novel, sure—maybe another “fix-up” like my last little novel (THE VILLAGE SANG TO THE SEA), short stories, and some writing for Hollywood (for projects that may be happening based on my published fiction).
Is there anything you’d like to plug? Feel free to share a link.
Thanks for the chance. LeVar Burton used a short story of mine, the Hugo-nominated “Kin,” to launch his new podcast LEVAR BURTON READS. It’s on Stitcher and is a remarkable production, and is supposedly still the #1 in that podcast. And my little LOCUS-recommended novel about that Italian fishing village (which village was magical even without my making it so), THE VILLAGE SANG TO THE SEA; my sf short story collection (career-spanning, as they say), THE GIRL WHO LOVED ANIMALS; and my “esp in war” novel, DREAM BABY (which Hollywood has nibbled at for thirty years now). And for anyone who happens to be interested, my website: www.mcallistercoaching.com .
