writing

My votes for the Hugo Short Story Award

/ Sue Burke / 3 Comments

This year’s Hugo Awards will be presented at the Seattle Worldcon on Saturday evening, August 16. The short story category, as usual, has some overlap with this year’s Nebula Awards, and if you read no other short fiction, I recommend reading the nominated stories. You’ll come away with an excellent panorama of where the field is today.

Here are my votes, and I based them on the storytelling risks and successes. You may very reasonably have different criteria and choices.

6. “Marginalia” by Mary Robinette Kowal (Uncanny Magazine, Issue 56) — The story is based on drawings of knights fighting snails in medieval manuscript margins, which is a charming inspiration: What if knights really fought snails? A struggling family joins with their lord in a fight to the death. The story wraps up too neatly for me, so it comes in sixth, but other Hugo voters loved it.

5. “Five Views of the Planet Tartarus” by Rachael K. Jones (Lightspeed Magazine, January 2024: Issue 164) — This is flash fiction about the horrors faced by those found guilty of treason, with an ennobling, subversive twist. I especially like that very short fiction has found its way onto the ballot.

4. “Stitched to Skin Like Family Is” by Nghi Vo (Uncanny Magazine, Issue 57) — The magic contained in clothing leads a sister to her brother, then gives her power. Carefully and competently told, and Nghi Vo’s love of old (vintage?) clothes and their histories shines through.

3. “Three Faces of a Beheading” by Arkady Martine (Uncanny Magazine, Issue 58) — A convoluted story about complicity in a genocide told through multiple points of view in a multi-player RPG and mass storytelling. I admire the experimental style, even if it was confusing.

2. “We Will Teach You How to Read | We Will Teach You How to Read” by Caroline M. Yoachim (Lightspeed Magazine, May 2024: Issue 168) — A message is sent apparently to humans from a very different, brief-lived species: a simple message that holds entire lives. This is another experimental format, and it left me with a lot to think about.

1. “Why Don’t We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole” by Isabel J. Kim (Clarkesworld, February 2024) — I nominated this for the strength of the storytelling voice, and after reading all the finalists I still like it best: “… tell me there is a better solution than putting one single kid in the hole, and letting that one single kid have a miserable life, in return for the good lives of all of our children?” The story has already won the Nebula, Locus, and BSFA awards, and I think it’s a strong contender for the Hugo. It’s an update on the classic Ursula K. Le Guin story, which also won awards when it was published in 1974. A half-century later, even though our exact circumstances have changed, we still have to make tough moral choices.

A Few Varieties and Secrets of Drafts and Outlines

/ Sue Burke / Leave a comment

Fiction writers have an ongoing debate about whether or not to plot: that is, whether to use an outline. But outlines and drafts come in many varieties, which complicates the debate. Here’s everything I know about outlines and drafts condensed into handy bullet points (itself a kind of outline), which I hope will be helpful to you.

Why outline?

• Ideas for novels are too big to hold in your head all at once; you need some sort of notes.

• You might be able to write faster using an outline.

• Outlines can let you write less anxiously because you know what will happen next.

• Outlines are a “big picture” tool to help you revise/re-envision your story for subsequent drafts.

• Leonardo da Vinci used outlines when he painted; this is a respectable artistic tool.

Why avoid outlines?

• Your brain simply doesn’t work that way; you can do just fine without one.

• You lack experience using this tool, so it’s hard to figure out and feels uncomfortable.

A few kinds of outlines

• Three-act structure

• Save the Cat formula

• Romance novel formula

• Scrivener or other software

• 3 x 5 cards or Post-It Notes

• Pictures/scrapbook/artwork/poems

• Spreadsheets/charts/maps

• Hero’s Journey

• Heroine’s Journey

• Fool’s Journey

• Beat Sheets

• Snowflake method

• East Asian four-act kishōtenketsu

• Detailed scene-by-scene

• General chapter-by-chapter

• Character driven

• Theme or narrative focused

• Crisis or paradox centered

• A series of questions

• A series of causes and effects

• Continuous re-evaluation

• Joyous amalgam of all these

Some secrets to using an outline as a writing tool

• You can make an outline at any time: before, during, or after any draft or part of a draft.

• Your outline can be a simple list of beats, plot twists, or key scenes.

• The plot outline is not the manuscript outline, which might not be chronological or logical.

• There is no Platonic ideal story; a story can take different forks in the road along the way.

• You can begin plotting from the end, middle, or beginning of the story.

• Any single step or couple of steps of a standard plot outline can be a short story.

Kinds of drafts

• Zero draft, a wildly experimental initial draft that doesn’t “count” as a first draft.

• Dialog-only draft, with the rest to be filled in during subsequent drafts.

• Disconnected scenes, to be connected in a later draft.

• Fast drafting, writing as quickly as possible without looking back, NaNoWriMo-style.

• Writing each scene as a short story.

• Messy, ugly, crappy early drafts; only the final draft needs to be beautiful.

Exercise: a tiny outline

Summarize your story in three three-word sentences. Such as, for a romance: 1. Girl meets boy. 2. Girl loses boy. 3. Girl wins boy. Or for Hamlet: 1. Hamlet has doubts. 2. Doubts are resolved. 3. Hamlet gets revenge. Does your story have a beginning, middle, and end?

(This post is available as a one-page PDF here.)

My vote for the Nebula Award for Short Story

/ Sue Burke / Leave a comment

Each year, the members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association choose the winners of the Nebula Awards in seven categories, including short story (fewer than 7500 words). As a member, I can vote for the one I consider most deserving. Voting is closed, and the awards will be presented on June 7.

All these short stories are high quality and worthy of nomination, so your choice may very reasonably differ from mine:

“The Witch Trap” by Jennifer Hudak (Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet 9/24) — An old charm against witches inspires a reconsideration of the way that the fear of witches creates witches. Reconsideration, the story makes clear, might not be a bad thing.

“Five Views of the Planet Tartarus” by Rachael K. Jones (Lightspeed 1/24) — Flash fiction about horrors faced by those found guilty of treason, with an ennobling, subversive twist.

“Evan: A Remainder” by Jordan Kurella (Reactor 1/31/24) — A man who recently transitioned slowly comes to terms with his new identity. This involves coughing up a new skeleton (this is not a spoiler). Although it is tender, beautiful, and heartfelt, I think it’s literary fiction because the “magic” is wholly symbolic, not science fiction or fantasy — you may reasonably disagree, of course. While the lines between genres are always permeable and debatable, I think the Nebulas ought to stick to actual SFF. Literary writing has its own awards.

“The V*mpire” by PH Lee (Reactor 10/23/24) — A vulnerable adolescent on Tumbler gets bullied into letting monsters into his home. This story may be more metaphor than actual fantasy, but it’s brilliantly written, and the toxic manipulation involved is heartbreaking to witness.

“We Will Teach You How to Read | We Will Teach You How to Read” by Caroline M. Yoachim (Lightspeed 5/24) — A message is sent apparently to humans from a very different, brief-lived species: a simple message that holds entire lives. The story is told in a successfully experimental format, and it left me with a lot to think about.

My vote: “Why Don’t We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole” by Isabel J. Kim (Clarkesworld 2/24) — I nominated this for the strength of the storytelling voice, and after reading all the finalists I still like it best: “… tell me there is a better solution than putting one single kid in the hole, and letting that one single kid have a miserable life, in return for the good lives of all of our children?” Moral certainty is so messy, but at least the kid in the hole can be ethically sourced.

My Goodreads review of ‘Speculative Whiteness: Science Fiction and the Alt-Right’

/ Sue Burke / 1 Comment
Speculative Whiteness: Science Fiction and the Alt-Right

Speculative Whiteness: Science Fiction and the Alt-Right by Jordan S. Carroll
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read this short book before it became a finalist for a Hugo Award for Best Related Work, and it’s a timely choice that deserves the attention the nomination brings.

The author, Jordon S. Carroll, discusses the ways that alt-right/fascist/White nationalists have long used popular culture to promote their ideas, including science fiction, fantasy kingdoms, and superheroes. Alt-right readers, he says, are willing to convince themselves that the future in science fiction is a blueprint for their hopes. This explains their objections to Lt. Uhuru in Star Trek. Black people don’t belong in their future.

Speculative Whiteness shows how these ideas really belong to the past, and how alt-right expectations are self-contradictory in any case. The book includes copious footnotes and ends on a hopeful note: “the alt-right promises a bold new future in space but it never achieves escape velocity from white supremacy’s perpetual present.”

However, the book was published in October 2024, and a lot has happened since then. The alt-right won the US presidential election and many other political offices, and our present seems to be slouching toward a future that only the alt-right wanted.

Here are some articles that extend the focus of the book into the present:

Interview with Jordan S. Carroll – Exploration Log 7: Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations
https://sciencefictionruminations.com…

China Miéville says we shouldn’t blame science fiction for its bad readers – TechCrunch
https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/30/aut…

We’re sorry we created the Torment Nexus – Charlie Stross’s Diary
https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog…

How Trump and Musk Are Ruining Sci-Fi – Daniel W. Drezner on Substack
https://danieldrezner.substack.com/p/…

The big idea: will sci-fi end up destroying the world? – The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/books/202…

View all my reviews

Stories and Matters of Size

/ Sue Burke / 1 Comment

You might have an idea for writing a work of fiction, but is it flash fiction, a short story, a novel, or an epic trilogy? It can be frustrating to begin what you hope will be a short story, but soon it’s grown too long, and you don’t have time for a novel right now. Or, you might start a novel and run out of steam because there isn’t enough of an idea to fill all those pages.

Here are a few ways to help you evaluate your idea before you start.

• How many scenes can you imagine? A novel might have 80 scenes of 1,000 words each, and a short story just a few scenes.

• How many plot points can you imagine for a three-act outline, Hero’s Journey, or other novel plotting tool? A shorter piece may have only one or two pieces of the plot.

• Can you imagine the story as a picture? The artist El Greco will help illustrate this concept.

A simple picture can be a short-short story. Boy Lighting a Candle, by El Greco, 1571.

This story might be:

“The little glowing fairy was fragile and needed help to stay alive.”

Add a few more characters, and you have a longer short story. An Allegory with a Boy Lighting a Candle in the Company of an Ape and a Fool, by El Greco, 1577.

This story might be:

“The little glowing fairy was fragile, but it attracted too much attention, and the boy didn’t think he could keep it safe.”

With more characters and more conflict, you might have a novel. The Miracle of Christ Healing the Blind, by El Greco, ca. 1570.

This story might be:

“The protagonist’s unusual but successful medical techniques often got him into trouble, and eventually he faced a death sentence.”

A big canvas with a lot happening could well be a trilogy. Burial of the Count of Orgaz, by El Greco, 1586. The painting is 15 feet / 4.5 meters tall.

This story might be:

“The Count’s death unleashed an epic conflict between men and God.”

(Notice the lack of women at the Count’s funeral. That could become an important plot point in the story.)

Exercise

Think of an idea you’ve been playing around with. Try to imagine it as a work of art. Would it fit nicely on a postage stamp? It might be flash fiction. Would it fill a wall-sized mural? You might have an epic. The goal is to avoid unpleasant surprises when you finally start to write. If you need an idea, here are a few:

• A medical team must decide if it can ethically flee a deadly situation.

• A technology company begins to operate in increasingly illegal activities, but the change is so slow and the money is so good that one of the engineers, who becomes deeply troubled, can’t afford to quit.

• A family living in a haunted house refuses to believe in ghosts.

• Two individuals initiate a series of gift exchanges, and the gifts tell more about the givers than they realize.

• Friends witness the breakup of a family from different perspectives and have different opinions.