Aliette de Bodard is one of those authors whose talent will destroy any sense of self you have, which means you really have no choice but to jump in and be taken away by the power of her prose. She wanted to come by and talk about the nature of character inside fiction — and how the world is seen through their lens, and how the character is seen by the reader.

* * *

In a modern genre book, the protagonist is an important notion: working out who they are (and who the antagonist are) are a major part of most writing advice books I’ve read (and I’ve read a lot of them: in addition to the ones I got out of the library, I own an entire bookshelf of the stuff ranging from Le Guin’s Steering the Boat to more technical stuff like Nancy Kress’s Beginnings, Middles and Ends). The protagonist is the driving strength of the plot (or of a plot strand): they might be reacting to the antagonist’s ploys in the beginning, but by the end, they’re clearly in charge and they’re clearly steering things.

With The House of Shattered Wings, I ended up doing something a little different.

I didn’t exactly set out to do it. The novel is set within a Paris devastated by a major spell-war, where magical factions, the Great Houses, now fight over the ruins. Magic in this universe is powered by Fallen angels — they tumble from the Heavens, bloodied and amnesiac, and make their way through the world as best as they can –more often than not, they join a House and become indispensable to it.

My idea was to explore this universe via three characters in the same House: one would be the head of the House, one would be a little further down the scale, with interest in magic but little in politics, and one would be a newcomer, a newly born Fallen angel who would be the perfect vessel to explore this universe, since she’d be discovering it at the same time as the reader. She’d also be headstrong and impulsive, and pushing forward a lot of the plot with her decisions.

Except that. Hum. It turns out that I really can’t write amnesiac characters. Not when the amnesia is total, and the character had no prior life to speak of, at least none that they will remember, or that will affect their interactions with others. I need something to cling to, something to help me get into the character; and it turns out that with me, that something is character history. I made several attempts at writing the character, but they all fell flat.

I still liked the idea, though. Really, really liked it and couldn’t quite let go of it — except that it clearly wasn’t working.

Until I had the proverbial light-bulb going off in my head–what I needed wasn’t so much an ingénue; as an outsider: someone to whom the system wasn’t natural or inbred, but odd and repellent at the same time. This is how I ended up with my third point-of-view character: Philippe, a Vietnamese ex-Immortal dragged away from his home, conscripted to fight in the spell-war, and now stranded in Paris and doing his best to survive in a world that was fundamentally and irretrievably hostile to him (and not entirely happy about the situation, to say the least!).

The other character, though — Isabelle, my naive Fallen angel — is still here. The book opens with her Fall over Paris, and she’s the one thread that connects every plot line. She remains, in many ways, the protagonist: the one who initiates things and drags people, willing or unwilling, behind her. She’s the heart of the book, but you only ever see her through other people’s eyes.

It was a very interesting thing to do, actually — because it enabled me to do another thing I’ve always wanted to try, which was to show the different facets of a character. We all act differently with different people (think, for instance, how different a king would be to a peasant vs the same king to his mother. Or how loving and kind the Dark Lord can be with his family, vs the face he actually presents to the people he’s conquered).

In this case, since the reader is never in Isabelle’s head, you can only ever guess at what she’s thinking. You build an aggregate picture from everyone around her, and they all have a slightly different perception of her: hopelessly naive, headstrong beyond prudence, generous to a fault; a weapon to be used against other Houses, a gifted student in magic and alchemy; a friend and fellow outsider within the House. She’s one of the prime plot movers, but she’s always at a remove–weaving in and out of the narration, always at the centre but never fully encompassed.

It’s a mostly classic trick; in this case, it makes her more alluring and more compelling, I think, than she would have been as an amnesiac. And her counterpart, Philippe, ends up doing a lot of the heavy lifting I’d foreseen for getting exposition across, except he’s mostly doing it by pointing out both how the system works and how inherently unfair it is to people like him — resentment and anger making for great emotions around which to anchor the plot (and the character).

The other thing I found interesting with doing this was getting the narration away from the character who would have been the natural “Chosen One” — the one slowly learning about their powers and having unique abilities. In this particular case, with Philippe, I wanted to explore what it meant to be away from this classical narrative centre: Philippe doesn’t have any nascent powers (if anything, his are waning); he doesn’t receive any particular favours or help or signs, but simply tries to stay alive as best as he can (and his best bet would actually be away from the maelstrom that is Isabelle!). It was a lot of working against the expected narrative in my head, but I think it makes for something slightly different, and a point of view that is both unexpected and fresh.

So the whole “amnesiac character” didn’t quite work out like I originally envisioned, but I think the book is much, much stronger for it!

* * *

Aliette de Bodard lives and works in Paris, where she has a day job as a System Engineer. In her spare time, she writes speculative fiction: her short fiction has garnered her two Nebula Awards, a Locus Award and a British Science Fiction Association Award. She blogs, reviews fiction and writes recipes for Franco-Vietnamese food at http://www.aliettedebodard.com.

Her newest is The House of Shattered Wings:

Multi-award winning author Aliette de Bodard, brings her story of the War in Heaven to Paris, igniting the City of Light in a fantasy of divine power and deep conspiracy…

In the late twentieth century, the streets of Paris are lined with haunted ruins, the aftermath of a Great War between arcane powers. The Grand Magasins have been reduced to piles of debris, Notre-Dame is a burnt-out shell, and the Seine has turned black with ashes and rubble and the remnants of the spells that tore the city apart. But those that survived still retain their irrepressible appetite for novelty and distraction, and The Great Houses still vie for dominion over France’s once grand capital.

Once the most powerful and formidable, House Silverspires now lies in disarray. Its magic is ailing; its founder, Morningstar, has been missing for decades; and now something from the shadows stalks its people inside their very own walls.

Within the House, three very different people must come together: a naive but powerful Fallen angel; an alchemist with a self-destructive addiction; and a resentful young man wielding spells of unknown origin. They may be Silverspires’ salvation — or the architects of its last, irreversible fall. And if Silverspires falls, so may the city itself.

Aliette de Bodard: Website | Twitter

House of Shattered Wings: Indiebound | Amazon | B&N

Fran Wilde said she wanted to answer all the publishing questions ever in the universe, and I said, hey, sure. I could use the vacation. So here she is, with all the answers to all* the publishing questions you have ever had. Also, her debut novel Updraft is out today, which you need to go get with your sticky book-desiring hands. Oh. Oh! I’ll also be at Doylestown Bookshop with her tomorrow night, talking with her about that very book. Come say hi!

* two publishing questions

* * *

When Chuck offered me the keys to his blog, I decided to do what you’d normally do with someone’s finest vehicle: fill it with bees and infographics.

But What Bees. And Which Infographics.

I turned to some pressing questions that plagued me throughout my first pass through publishing’s gut, and picked two.

(There are more where these came from, but Chuck needs to send me more ink cartridges and a gallon or two of coffee.)

As for the bees, I’ll let that question linger.

Question 1: HOW THE HELL DOES A BOOK GET THAT FANCY TITLE

Darling pendraggers, this is a difficult one to get detailed answers on… especially any answers that agree, so I’ll give you my own story. Updraft? Not originally titled Updraft.

Titles in descending chronological order included*:
Bone Arrow, Glass Tooth
Bone Arrow
The Mouth of the Sky
Bob Gets Eaten On Page Two
Titles! How Do They Work??
Title TK
Title Goes Here
Someday There Will Be A Title
[cursing]
[redacted]
Skybound
Updraft (WOOOO!)

(*possibly the first time this list has ever been revealed.)

There are a lot of titles – REAMS of titles – that aren’t listed here, but you get the idea. There were also a lot of terrible puns. Reasons titles get changed? Well, I drew you a map. Some reasons come at you like boulders or meteors (I drew those too), some are more like umbrellas – marketing, for instance, can tell you that your multisyllabic unpronounceable literary title makes their teeth itch, and that’s good feedback for those planning on actually selling books.

Now, some people sell their soul or practice various levels of title-god appeasement that could get them arrested in states including West Virginia and Pennsylvania (which is why I had to do it the hard way, because Hi Pennsyltucky, don’t think I didn’t consider it) – but most have an experience similar to the one pictured… possibly without the Buffy re-watch and the wizard.

And when you have the right title, and you say it aloud, it rings like a bell. And that’s what Updraft sounds like to me. I’m darn pleased with it, and I hope you will be too.

(For more on titles, see Elizabeth Bear’s “How To Title Your Science Fiction or Fantasy Novel or Series: A Tutorial in Three Parts.”

So, now that’s out of the way, the next most pressing question is:

Question 2: WHY THE @#@! DO BOOKS COME OUT ON TUESDAYS?

Don’t worry, I’ve done research on this one. Here are three major theories:

Have other questions you want to see turned into terrible infographics?

Let us know in the comments.

But what about the bees? The other ones that you wanted to fill the blog with? Oh.

Chuck will find them, eventually.

My thanks to Chuck and the terribleminds readers for giving me a place to draw terrible things!

* * *

Fran Wilde’s short stories have appeared at Tor.com, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Uncanny Magazine, and in Asimovs’ and Nature. Fran also interviews authors about food in fiction at Cooking the Books, and blogs for GeekMom and SFSignal.

Her first novel, Updraft, debuts from Tor Books today.

Fran Wilde: Website | Twitter

Updraft: Indiebound | Doylestown Bookshop | Amazon | B&N

this owl is judging you

This past week I put up a post about some mistakes I see in the stories of new(er) writers, and it’s one of those posts that went further and wider than I expected — and for the most part, the response was pretty positive. But there’s this other effect that happens, and sometimes this effect is revealed in emails or I see it in social media, and the effect is this:

I have discouraged you.

My nonsense has stitched into your soul quilt a BLACK SQUARE OF DOUBT.

That saddens me for a number of reasons.

So, first, let me get out of the way a disclaimer — one I think regular readers here recognize, but one that perhaps those who are new to the terribleminds experience (which sounds like a really weird laser light show) do not know:

I’m full of shit.

Just bubbly with it.

And all kinds of shit, too. Horseshit, bullshit, monkey shit, and all of it gets hosed down with a gurgling spray of hogwash and then slathered over with a gluey coating of PURE SHENANIGANS.

Nothing I say here is true.

It is nearly always my opinion. Okay, sometimes I’m talking about things that are writing “rules,” but even there, the rules can flex or even snap satisfyingly in the hands of a savvy craftsman. In fiction, everything is permitted — all magic is manifest if you’re a wizard of proper talent. Exceptions often make for the finest fiction. (They also, contrarily, comprise the bulk of the worst mistakes. Risk big, and you win huge or lose like a motherfucker, I guess.)

My opinion should be weighed in the hand and brought to the nose like any other opinion. How does it feel? How does it smell? If it feels and smells like a big ol’ pile of bloggerrhea to you, then you need to drop it on the sidewalk, wipe your hands on the nearest businessman, and run.

And now, with that disclaimer out of the way —

Listen, if my posts cause you doubt and discouragement, you’re in some trouble.

I try very hard to mix it up here — when I post about writing, I aim to keep a saucy blend of craft advice, publishing talk, storytelling neepery, inspirational tickles, motivational taint-kicks, and so on. Sometimes it’s so-called tough love, and sometimes it’s a big slobbery sobbing hug. We’re all in this together and that means we all need pep talks. But we’re also all friends, or so I like to think (which is why I am standing in your shrubs right now watching you read this), and that also means sometimes we need to speak truth about the things we’re doing poorly.

Ultimately, what I’m trying to say is, we can all do better.

That’s not just you. That’s me, too. I own that. Every book for me is an opportunity to improve my craft, up my game, and understand something new about the art, the life, the business. I pray to the ashen reliquary of Sweet Saint Fuck that I never become complacent — that I never become one of those authors who refuses to be edited or who thinks their prose-piles don’t stink.

Doubt is an insidious thing. I’ve commented on it many a time. Once you let that demon under your skin, he lives there like a parasite — except instead of leeching your blood, he starts siphoning your confidence. Just as you start to feel good, the worm turns and feeds anew.

And I recognize that posts like mine can contribute to that.

It’s why I suggest that authors are best when they ignore that doubt. Like, I know that’s way easier said than done, but what I mean is: just say fuck it. The doubt is there, and the doubt is a liar demon shitty-pants asshole, so you speak aloud: YOU HAVE NO POWER OVER ME. And then you keep on keeping on. You write. You rewrite. Write. Rewrite. That’s how you beat doubt. By doing. By doing and iterating endlessly to spite your own fear and shame and uncertainty. Because that’s how you gain confidence, really. And instinct. You do a thing enough times, you start to get a sense of it. You start to see its edges, feel its margins. You know the shape. To go with a metaphor I like to use, writing a novel is like running through a dark house — and the more you do it, the more you start to figure out where the furniture is. You learn how not to bump your knees and shins and knock over lamps. In fact, let’s go with the lamp metaphor, too — you start turning on lamps as you go. Click. Click. Click. Let there be light. And doubt cannot abide the light, so it shrinks into the darkness of rooms where you have not yet been.

And by the way, when I say doubt, I don’t mean the normal feelings of uncertainty you get that suggest your work isn’t perfect. Of course it isn’t perfect. What are you, some kind of Word Angel? Disgorging shining gems of prose from your sanctified maw? No, no, I know my writing isn’t perfect, and I know it’ll never be perfect, but I know I can fix it and I get as many chances as I want or need to fix the damn thing to my liking. That’s not doubt. That’s a comfortable, confident awareness of imperfection. That’s a happy understanding that my work sometimes will need a scalpel, sometimes it’ll need a truckload of Juggalos with chainsaws, sometimes it’ll need orbital lasers. I get it. I’m all good with that. You should be, too.

The kind of doubt I’m talking about is that aforementioned demon doubt.

(Note: I consider this separate from depression. For that, read: “The Writer And Depression.”)

Here’s where I get, though, a little mean — or at least uncomfortable — again.

Let me reiterate:

If my posts cause you doubt and discouragement, you’re in some trouble.

Here’s why you’re in trouble:

First, because I’m just trying to help. If general criticisms of unspecified work have you experiencing the shivering shits that you’re not good enough — enough to paralyze you where you sit, fingers poised over the keyboard and never again to dance on those keys — that’s trouble.

Second, because you’re going to get rejected. Rejections will come from agents, editors, and readers in the form of reviews. And those rejections? They’ll be specific to your book. Not my “painting with shotguns” approach to criticism. But they will be very explicitly pointing their critical laser at the exact thing you wrote. And it’ll hurt. It always hurts. I’ve had a dozen-plus books out and… yep, still burns. Even when it’s a rejection you can discard for XYZ reason, you still feel stung by it. And then eventually the sting wears off and you get back to work.

Third, because this is art. Art is made through agitation. Not necessarily unkind agitation, to be clear, and maybe sometimes I drift too far into the realms of unkindness, and if you feel that way, my apologies. (Er, I’m probably gonna keep doing it, though? So, I guess I’m not that sorry? Is that what sorry not sorry means? I GUESS IT DOES.) This shit isn’t easy. It’s not supposed to be easy. You’re not supposed to just write a book and then be like YAY I DID IT SO GOOD YAY and then launch it off into the ocean. That boat has holes in it. That vessel shall sink unceremoniously to the bottom of the drink. Your work needs to be tested. Gone over. Rent asunder and put back together again. As authors and artists, we’re supposed to chew it up, spit it out. We have to let other people kick the tires, rub it on their gums, give it a little slap-and-tickle.

You gotta learn to take criticism.

Sometimes that means taking criticism to heart.

Sometimes that means taking criticism and flinging it over your shoulder.

But it doesn’t mean giving into doubt.

That’s what the demon wants.

And fuck that demon.

You can do this.

No matter what I say.

You won’t do it perfectly.

But you can always make it right.

So go write. And rewrite. And write again.

That’s how you exorcize the demon.

* * *

ZER0ES.

An Anonymous-style rabble rouser, an Arab spring hactivist, a black-hat hacker, an old-school cipherpunk, and an online troll are each offered a choice: go to prison or help protect the United States, putting their brains and skills to work for the government for one year.

But being a white-hat doesn’t always mean you work for the good guys. The would-be cyberspies discover that behind the scenes lurks a sinister NSA program, an artificial intelligence code-named Typhon, that has origins and an evolution both dangerous and disturbing. And if it’s not brought down, will soon be uncontrollable.

Out now Harper Voyager.

Doylestown Bookshop| WORD| Joseph-Beth Booksellers| Murder by the Book

Powells | Indiebound | Amazon| B&N| iBooks| Google Play| Books-a-Million

(I know, I’m doing a lot of news-bit posts lately. I apologize! But we’re hitting a rather tumultous time of releases here — ZER0ES just landed. STAR WARS: AFTERMATH hits next week. BLACKBIRDS hits middle of September in gloriously shiny hardcover. It’s a busy time but it’ll quiet down again as fall rumbles on.)

Let us begin.

• Hey, look. It’s me over at The Mary Sue, interviewed about ZER0ES. My thoughts on the book, why I wrote it, and why hackers are awesome and artificial intelligence is scary.

• (Actually, The Mary Sue also has a few nice things to say about the book, including: “Chuck Wendig’s Zer0es is one hell of a novel that resonates particularly strongly in our day and age. It centers around a motley crew of hackers who find themselves bound together in a fight against a rogue AI that threatens their very lives. It’s exciting, and what’s more: it’s realistic. It’s that kind of near-future realism and these parallels that really make the book for me.”)

• Laura Roberts did a very nice review of the book here, but I cannot help but share a particular sentiment of hers now, one she both bolded and italicized: “Go read this fucking book now!”

• Kirkus did an article — 40 Years Of Hacker Sci-Fi In 7 Notable Works. It has the expected crowd of luminaries there — Stephenson, Gibson, Doctorow, and yet, somehow, this exclusive club must’ve had a bouncer go on break because I snuck into that list with ZER0ES. (This is where I repeat, as a mantra, I’M NOT WORTHY I’M NOT WORTHY.)

• As always, thank you for checking out the book. And here, one of those irritating (but sincere!) pleas: if you’ve read the book, please leave a review somewhere. Amazon reviews in particular have value — they determine what kinds of promotions Amazon and other marketing companies run. Publishers look at them. The industry in general monitors Amazon reviews because it suggests an engaged audience and fanbase.

• MOCKINGBIRD (Miriam Black book 2) remains $1.99 until Monday for your Kindle.

• B&N did a review of BLACKBIRDS this week. A choice snippet: “The book moves with the same hellzapoppin’ pace that has become Wendig’s trademark… Blackbirds unspools with the frenzy of a bag of mad cats, an unpredictably energetic thriller with a supernatural hook. It clocks in at under 300 pages, and he uses that compact canvas wisely. The themes are pitch black, the violence is quick and constant, and Miriam is charismatic enough to hold the chaos together.” The book is also a September pick at B&N alongside folks like Fran Wilde, Seanan McGuire, Ilana Myer, Zen Cho, Bradley Beaulieu, and more.

• Did I mention that AFTERMATH releases next week? *wibbles*

• Did I mention I’ll be at DragonCon next week? *wobbles*

• I may be headed to Charlotte, NC in November to do an event at Queens University.

• I may be headed to Brazil (!) in December to support the Brazilian release of AFTERMATH and the release there of BLACKBIRDS — it’ll be at ComicCon in, I believe, Sao Paulo? I’ve never been to Brazil, so happy to take advice from folks who have been there.

• And if you’re here in PA, I may see you at Doylestown Bookshop next week, where I’ll be emceeing and hanging out with the aforementioned Fran Wilde, whose Updraft releases soon. The event is on Wednesday and should be awesome because it’s a hella great store.

Go to the comment section of last week’s challenge.

Therein, folks created characters in whatever way they felt passed creative muster.

Your job this week is to reach in there and pluck out a character that intrigues you, and drop that character into a new piece of fiction of your own devising. You have 2000 words to accomplish this, to give you a bit of extra oxygen.

Please credit the original character creator in your post!

Post your story at your blog.

Link back here, yadda yadda.

Due on one week, by Friday, September 4th, noon EST.

A sin-eater plies the tools of her dangerous trade; a jealous husband takes his rival on a hunting trip; a student torments one of his teachers; a cheap grafter is selling artifacts form hell; something is haunting the departure lounge of an airport . . .

The Best Horror of the Year showcases the previous year’s best offerings in short fiction horror. This edition includes award-winning and critically acclaimed authors Laird Barron, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Nathan Ballingrud, Genevieve Valentine, and more.

For over three decades, award-winning editor and anthologist Ellen Datlow has had her finger on the pulse of the latest and most terrifying in horror writing. Night Shade Books is proud to present the seventh volume in this annual series, a new collection of stories to keep you up at night.

1: Choosing the Best

For me the “best,” is usually a combination of the several elements that I feel create the perfect storm of a story. In addition to memorable characters and delicious prose: an unusual setting, voice, I especially look for stories that work on multiple levels.

I’ll be reading the stories that impress me at least twice, often more than that. As I read during the year, I note which stories I really, really like. Then, toward the end of my reading period I’ll reread those stories. When I do a rough count of the stories I’ve marked, I initially have about twice the wordage I can actually use. So, the next step in the process is to eliminate, which means I might end up reading one story up to at least four times in order to make my final decision. The stories that stick with me, that don’t bore me, that still make an impression on me after four readings, are very special.

2: How the Dominos Fall

When crafting a Table of Contents, trying to figure out the order of the stories to come, I need to remain Big Picture; I’ve already chosen the trees, now it’s time to pull back and look at the forest.

I’ll start with an accessible story that isn’t too long. Accessibility in a story means, for me, that it invites the reader in and that it’s not too dense or complicated in structure. Last, I’ll usually end with one of what I consider the strongest stories. In between, I try to vary length, voice, point of view, and setting. For “difficult” stories (in structure or complexity) I’ll likely put them just before or after the mid-point so that the reader will have already been drawn in to the book. Of course, an editor really has absolutely no control over the order in which a reader will read an anthology. So although all planning might be futile in the end, it’ still part of the editorial process for every anthology.

3: Break The Gates Down!

One of the biggest boons not only in horror, but in the industry in general is an increasing number of writers who don’t tie themselves to one genre. This is a welcome throwback to earlier times when horror wasn’t as strict a classification as it became during its supposed heyday in the 80s/90s. Richard Matheson and Ray Bradbury wrote what they wanted and were published in men’s slick magazines, in F&SF, in mainstream magazines. And no one, as far as I’m aware of, criticized them for it.

What I’ve seen over the period of time I’ve been working in the field of sf/f/h is that there are writers who now do the same. Karen Joy Fowler, Kelly Link, Jeffrey Ford, Elizabeth Hand, Dan Chaon, Pat Cadigan, as well as newer writers like Robert Shearman, Helen Marshall, Alyssa Wong, Priya Sharma, and Usman T. Malik all write sf/f/h. The classifications matter less than the work itself. I love this, and feel it’s a positive situation for short story writers and short story markets. Unfortunately, it’s always been considered a problem with regard to novels because of marketing issues. Only big names can get away with writing in all genres in and still make a living. But regardless, when it comes to anthologies, embrace the story itself, and don’t worry about genre.

4: History and Its Importance

My “Summary of the Year in Horror,” at the beginning of each new volume of Best Horror of the Year began with the original Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror series, co-edited by Terri Windling and myself, modeled on Gardner Dozois’s The Year’s Best Science Fiction, which was published at the short-lived Bluejay Books.

Way back then, I included news connected to the publishing industry, but over the years, because of the internet, it seemed less and less important to include that information. So I stopped.

During the late 80s and early 90s however, there was a burgeoning of graphic novels that were doing things that earlier comic series simply were not — 1988 saw the publication of the Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean collaboration, Violent Cases, Batman: The Killing Joke, by Alan Moore, Brian Bolland, and John Higgins, the anthology Taboo published by Stephen R. Bissette and Nancy O’Connor, packaged by Bissette and John Totleben, and Stray Toasters, by Bill Sienkiewicz. I became very interested in what was going on artistically in the comic industry and so I covered the publishers and works I enjoyed for several years, before it got too much for me.

Writing the summary is a year-long process, as I make notes whenever I finish something. I read very few novels, relying on word of mouth or reviews for those that might pique my interest. So my knowledge of contemporary horror novels is pretty slim. But because I check out magazines from all genres (if I don’t personally skim everything–like the heavily sf or mystery magazines–I have a reader who does so, and passes the darker material in them on to me), I have a pretty good idea of who the new, most promising writers are. Reading short fiction all year round gives me the opportunity to recommend works I think my readers will find interesting–those readers who want more than just the “best,” stories.  I don’t hide my enthusiasm for what I love but over the years I’ve toned down the negative coverage and focus on what I enjoyed the most.

A few years ago I began to break down the make-up of the Table of Contents by word-length, where stories were originally published, geographic habitat of the writers, and their gender. Also, since the very beginning of the Best Horror of the Year, I’ve noted the number of writers appearing in the series for the first time. This is for my own awareness and for that of my readers. And it’s a counter to the incredibly ignorant view by some people that the same writers always get into Bests of the Year (not only mine). Overall, I’ve learned not only is it helpful to summarize the year simply so I can keep track of everything, but to help educate readers and raise awareness of new horror in every form: stories, magazines, anthologies, novels, trends, and more.

5: The Editor’s Wish

With every annual anthology, I never forget to wish: I hope I get it done. I hope I get it done. I hope I get it done! (Just kidding).

In my opinion, short horror fiction is in a new golden age and I hope to continually read far too many stories to fit into my Best of the Year anthology. And even when it seems like there’s so much to do, I never forget it’s one of the best jobs in the world.

Ellen Datlow: Twitter

Best Horror Of The Year, Volume 7: Amazon | B&N