Speculative Fiction Writers Association
An Online Critique Group with Members from Coast to Coast
Welcome to A Word With Spec Fic Writers. This week, we’re happy to interview Linda Ditchkus, who publishes under the pen name LV Ditchkus. L.V. DITCHKUS is the author of The Sasquatch Series: Book I – Crimes of the Sasquatch, Book II – Mission of the Sasquatch, and Book III …
Writing advice surrounds me. Everyone, it seems, is an expert. One day, all that information on self-publishing, pitching a story, and writing query letters will come in handy, but for now I feel like I’m drowning in unhelpful advice. Sink with me to the bottom of the writing-advice ocean, where …
Welcome to our first installment of A Word with Spec Fic Writers, a series of interviews with Spec Fic Writers’ members. This week, we spotlight Paul Martz, a member of Spec Fic Writers Critique Group since 2018. Paul is a new writer, a retired computer programmer, and a former punk …
Short stories are fun to read because they pack an unexpected emotional punch. However, “short” does not mean easy to write, or a formless type of expression. Quite the contrary, they are written and rewritten numerous times with herculean effort to be efficient, banish loose ends, conclude with a plot …
The Speculative Fiction Writers, a Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers online critique group, has published its first anthology, a collection of ten original stories by its members. Authors represent a variety of sub-genres, including science fiction, fantasy, horror, dystopian, and more. First Encounters: A Speculative Fiction Anthology is currently available at …
Paul Martz’s science fiction short story, The re-creation of Sahmik Ghee, will appear in the 2020 RMFW Anthology, Wild: Uncivilized Tales, available September 11. The story was inspired by the classic poem by Robert W. Service and reflects Paul’s love for both kaiju and dark humor. This will be Paul’s …
Writers are a creative group of people who have invented several satisfying ways to end a story. The Straightforward: The story problem is solved, conflict is resolved and the main character’s journey ends. This is the most common ending, a “happy ending”. The Shocker: Typical of horror, crime and thriller …
What allows an author to convert something familiar, important or truthful into a story that is interesting? Simple answer: a plot. A story is NOT your diary, your years working as a gallbladder surgeon or the truth that advertisements lie. Readers want a plot that pulls them from the beginning …
Material submitted to a critique group is somewhere between a first draft and the final draft and may be an entire short story or just a few scenes from a novel. On one hand, a true first draft is riddled with grammar and spelling problems, best fixed with a grammar …
