I am occasionally in a place where I read work by new writers. Sometimes this is at cons or conferences. Sometimes it’s in the sample of work that’s free online or a fragment from a self-published work. Sometimes I just roll over in my bed and there it is, a manuscript by a new writer, haunting me like a vengeful incubus.

I would very much like to yell at you.

Now, listen, before I begin the part where I scream myself hoarse about the things you’re doing wrong, I want you to understand that we’ve all been there. We’ve all done it poorly. Doing it poorly is the first step to, well, not doing it poorly. I have written my fair share of HOT PUKE, and it’s just one of those things you have to purge from your system.

(Though here we also enter into another caveat: HOT PUKE is not actually a delicacy. You do that shit over in the corner, barfing it up in the potted plant so nobody sees until morning. You don’t yak up today’s lunch in the middle of the living room and then do jazz-hands over it: “Ta-da! The Aristocrats!” What I’m trying to say is, your rookie efforts are not automatically worth putting out into the world, especially if those efforts cost readers money to access them. The mere existence of a story is not justification for its publication. Don’t make people give you cash for your inferior efforts. Get it right before you ask money to reward you for getting it wrong.)

Here, then, are some things I have noticed in drafts by new or untested writers, and these are I think standard errors — and they’re ones also that tested authors sometimes stumble into, so peruse this list, see if you have stropped up against any of these sins like a randy tomcat, and then fix your business. Get it? Got it? Good?

Let the yelling commence.

Telegraphing Every Goddamn Thing

It is compelling, I know, to figure out every single thing that is happening all the time always in your story. Characters smile and laugh. Okay. They fidget. Fine. They drink a cup of tea with their pinky out. Sure, why not? But if you’re writing out every hiccup, burp, fart, wince, flinch, sip, and gobble, you got problems. A character turns on a lamp? Super, you don’t need to describe how they turn it on. I don’t need to see John Q. Dicknoggin unzipping his fly before he pisses, and frankly, I may not need to see that he pisses unless it’s telling us something about his character. See, the problem is, when you telegraph all these movements — when you describe in detail every minute micro-expression and irritable bowel movement, you fill up the page with a laundry list of Incredibly Uninteresting Nonsense. Which leads me to —

Not Everything Is Interesting

At a rough guess, I’d say 90% of All Things Ever are uninteresting. Dull as drawing with white crayons on white paper. Things are boring. Life is boring. Details are mostly boring.

Storytelling, though, is the opposite of that. We tell stories because they are interesting. We offer narrative because narrative is a bone-breaker: it snaps the femur of the status quo. It is in fact the sharp, gunshot-loud fracture-break of the expected story is what perks our attention. Guy goes to work, works, comes home, has dinner, goes to bed? Not interesting. Guy goes to work, has the same troubles with his boss, endures the standard problems of the day (“where are my goddamn staples?”), goes home, eats an unsatisfying dinner, goes to bed and sleeps restlessly until the next day of the same thing? Still not interesting. Guy goes to work and gets fired? Okay, maybe, depending on if he does something unexpected with it. Guy goes to work and gets fired out of a cannon into a warehouse full of ninjas? I’M LISTENING.

Description is the same way. You don’t need to tell me what everything looks like because I already know, and most things aren’t that interesting. Leaves on a tree are leaves on a tree. For the impact of story, how many points each leaf has or how they move in the wind is not compelling. This isn’t a video game where you get points for painting every aspect of the environment with total authenticity. Skip it. Tell us the stuff that is unexpected. The things that shatter our notions: if one leaf has blood on it? Then we need to know that. We want to know that.

Cut the boring stuff.

Write the interesting stuff.

Trim, tighten, slice, dice. Pare it all down. Render. Render!

Which leads me to…

Going On Tooooooo Loooooooooong

Whatever it is you’re writing, it’s too long. Cut it by a third or more. Do it now. I don’t care if you think you should do it, just do it. Try it. You can go back to it if you don’t like it. Consider it an intellectual challenge — can you utterly obliterate 33% of your story? Can you do it mercilessly and yet still tell the story you want to tell? I bet you jolly well fucking can.

Get To The Fucking Story, Already

The story begins on page one.

Repeat: the story begins on page one.

It doesn’t begin on page ten. It doesn’t start in chapter five.

It starts on page one.

Get to the point. Get to the story. Intro characters and their problem and the stakes to those problems as immediately as you are able. You think you’re doing some clever shit by denying this? You think you need to invest us in your luscious prose and the rich loamy soil of the worldbuilding and the deep nature of these characters — ha ha ha, no. We’re here for a reason. We’re here for a story. If by the end of the first page there isn’t the sign of a story starting up? Then we’re pulling the ripcord and ejecting. We’ll parachute out of your airless atmosphere and land on the ground where things are actually happening.

Dialogue Works A Certain Way

Writing has rules.

Storytelling has fewer rules, and certainly more flexible ones.

But actual writing has legit rules.

It’s not math, not exactly — but things do add up a certain way and we are beholden to either apply the rules to our work or break the rules to create a specific effect.

You don’t just break the rules because it’s fun, or worse, because you don’t know them. That latter is where a lot of new writers fall. They simply don’t know that things work a certain way, and when you write in contravention to These Certain Ways, we can all smell it. It’s stinky. Your prose gains the vinegar stink of flopsweat as you gallumph about on the stage of the page, not knowing how to actually do this thing you promised us that you can do.

Dialogue, for instance, is one of those things that has rules. And for some reason, it’s one of the most common things I see get utterly fucked. The basic gist of dialogue is:

“Comment,” Dave said.

Right? Quotes, with a comment in the middle, the whole thing broken out with a comma tucked inside the quotes, and then a very simple dialogue tag.

“Comment.” Dave said.

That’s wrong. You need the comma.

“Comment”, Dave said.

That is also wrong. That comma wants to be warm and safe inside the quotes. Where bad writing will never hurt it ever again.

You can, of course, get fancier.

“I’m starting this sentence,” Dave said, “and now I’m going to finish it.”

Or:

“I want to start a new sentence,” Dave said. “Sentences are really cool.”

Note the difference between those two methods. The period versus the comma. The two complete sentences versus the dialogue tag interrupting a continuing sentence.

You cannot mix and match this.

“I want to say some more stuff,” Dave said. “so please let me say stuff.”

No! No. No. Stop that right now.

Sometimes you don’t even need the dialogue tag if you feel like orchestrating action in the appropriate arrangement around the quotes:

Dave adjusted his crotch. “My crotch is itchy ever since I let it become infected with ants.”

We don’t need to know that Dave said that because it’s pretty fucking clear Dave said it.

Certainly you can use other dialogue tag verbs other than said, but usually, you shouldn’t. Dave exclaimed, protested, shouted, screamed, shrieked, ejaculated, harrumphed, blathered, babbled, gabbled. Use those sparingly. And make sure they’re actual dialogue verbs. Don’t say:

“I don’t know which testicle is my favorite,” Dave shrugged.

Shrugging isn’t the proper verb there. You feel like because it’s a communicative verb it counts.

Spoiler alert: it doesn’t. You can’t shrug a word. Communicative gestures are not the same thing as proper dialogue verbs. No matter how hard you want them to be.

Once you get going with two characters, you can eschew dialogue tags entirely.

“I punched a fucking cat,” Dave said.

Eduardo winced. “You shouldn’t punch cats. That’s not nice.”

“I will fucking punch a cat when I fucking want to punch a cat. I’ll even fuck a cat.”

“Oh, Dave. You’re so funny!”

Also, watch your adverbs.

Adverbs get a bad rap in fiction, which is silly because adverbs are everywhere. In fact, the word ‘everywhere’ in that sentence? It’s an adverb! Holy shit!

Adverbs, though, become a problem when staple-gunned to all your dialogue tags. “I am made of bees,” Shirene said indubitably. “I like cake,” Roger exclaimed excitedly. “Porn is amazing,” Darrell ejaculated orgasmically. When you say those aloud, they sound terrible. Childish. They also do a very good job at telling and a very bad job at showing. If Roger in his love for cake tells us about how much he likes cake while grabbing us and shaking his violently, we can get a pretty good sense he’s pretty jacked up about some motherfucking cake. Even better, he doesn’t need to tell us. He just needs to stick a shiv between our ribs and steal our cake and then eat it greedily over our bleeding, mewling body. After that, we will possess little doubt how greatly he approves of the cake-eating experience.

Let Them Talk And Then Shut Them Up

You need to let your characters talk.

Dialogue is grease that slicks the wheels of your story.

And eventually it gets tiresome. You love the characters and you think they should be allowed to go on and on all day long because you think they’re just aces. They’re not. Shut them up. Keep the dialogue trim and vital. Concise and powerful. Let them have their say in the way they need to say it — in the way that best exemplifies who those characters are and what they want — and then close their mouths. Move onto the next thing. Let’s hear from someone else or something else.

I Don’t Know Who Your Characters Are Or What They Want

Each character needs to be a shining beam — each distinct from the next. Bright and demonstrative of its own color. Not archetypes, not stereotypes, but complex and easily distinguished people. And I want a reason to care about them. Right out of the gate, I want this. I need to know what they want, why they want it, and what they’re willing to do to get it. I need, in very short terms, their quest. Whether desired or a burden, I gotta know why they’re here on the page in front of me. That’s not true only of the protagonist, but of all the characters.

Who are they?

If you can’t tell me quickly, they become noise instead of operating as signal.

Too Many Characters Bumping Into Each Other

It’s very hard to manage a lot of characters.

I do it in some books and the way that I do it is by introducing them piecemeal — not in one big dump like I’m emptying a bag of apples onto the counter (where they promptly all roll away from me), but one or two at a time. Let them have a little oxygen. Let them have their time in the light so we can see the above task performed: they can use that stage time to tell us who they are, what they want, why they want it, what they’ll do to get it, and so on and so forth.

But jumping in with too many characters is a soup with all the ingredients.

It’s just a mushy, flavor-bombed mess.

It’s a thing I see in the work of new writers.

And it rarely works well unless you’ve developed the skill of working your characters the way a conductor commands all the musicians and instruments in a symphony.

Every Character Sounds The Same

Builds off what I was saying earlier about every character being her own shining beacon, separate from one another. And I think it’s pretty clear: if each character sounds like a replicant of the next, you’ve got a problem. It’s not just about vocal patterns. It’s about what they’re saying in addition to how they’re saying it. It’s about their ideas and vision and desires. Look at it this way: it’s not just your prose that makes you your author. It’s not just your style. It’s what you write. It’s the themes you express. Characters operate the same way. They have different viewpoints and needs. They have their own ways of expressing those viewpoints and needs, too. Get on that. Otherwise, they’re all just clones with different names and faces.

Trying To Show Off

Stop doing stunt moves. You can do that later. Right now, assume that you have a single goal: clarity. Clarity is key. It is king. If I do not know what is going on, then I’m out. If I am in any way confused about what’s happening on the page? I’ll fuck right off and watch TV or check Twitter or fondle myself. Do yourself a favor and aim to just tell the story. Get out of the way. Be clear. Be forthright. Be confident and assertive and show us what’s happening without compromise and without burying it under a lot of mud.

You don’t get points for being deliberately ambiguous.

* * *

The journey to become a successful writer is long, fraught with peril, and filled with difficult questions: How do I write dialogue? How do I build suspense? What should I know about query letters? How do I start? Where are my pants?

The best way to answer these questions is to ditch your uncertainty and transform yourself into a Kick-Ass Writer. This new book from award-winning author Chuck Wendig combines the best of his eye-opening writing instruction — previously available in e-book form only — with all-new insights into writing and publishing. It’s an explosive broadside of gritty advice that will destroy your fears, clear the path, and help you find your voice, your story, and your audience.

Amazon

B&N

Indiebound

Writer’s Digest

First up: ZER0ES.

I want to say thanks to you guys for checking out the book and spreading the word. I’ve received scads and buckets and facefuls of messages over email and social media of you folks checking the book out and really digging it, and that makes the dead bird inside my chest that passes for a heart twitch and gabble. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I am a writer because I write, but I am a professional and published author only because you guys are there to read what I write, and that is basically the best thing ever. I get to keep doing what I do. This website continues to exist because of you. Seriously: you rock. *boogies*

In case you missed it, the book has gotten a little more press:

Jason Heller at NPR said of the book:

“Wendig makes it look breezy, but there’s a deeper layer of story at work. While Zer0es is unabashedly a whip-crack thriller — the plot eventually goes global, to the point where devastating blackouts in New York and Iran’s nuclear program come into play — some finer points of morality and philosophy pulse beneath the surface. What is the nature of privacy and individuality in a world increasingly reliant on networking? With borders often rendered meaningless by hackers, what means are justifiable in the name of national security? How can a civilization uphold any ideals at all with terms like “white torture” poisoning the discourse? Zer0es probes the many facets of these issues, but it comes down squarely on the side of the (messy, flawed, unpredictable) individual. …Not that Wendig spends too much time pondering the big questions. He’s mostly here to entertain — and in its smart, timely, electrifying way, that’s exactly what Zer0es does.”

Cory Doctorow of BoingBoing said:

“Chuck Wendig’s new technothriller Zeroes is a hacker misfit tale in the lineage of War Games and Sneakers, true to the spirit (and often, the minutae) of security work, and exciting as hell to boot… The third act is an endless lunatic drum-solo of action-adventure played on an array of crashing symbols and high-hats. Wendig clearly had a lot of fun thinking up ways of topping himself when it came to new ways that an all-pervasive technological adversary could make life horrifying for a plucky band of adventurers.”

GeekDad said:

“I fully expect this book to get the big screen treatment soon. But you know the book is always better than the movie, so don’t bother waiting… get to reading now and enjoy the ride.”

Author E.C. Myers said:

“Chuck Wendig’s new novel, Zer0es, is more cyber and more thrilling than most cyber thrillers I’ve read. From the very first page, it’s evident that Wendig is either secretly a world-class hacker in his own right, or he’s done so much research that he has become not only comfortable, but fluent in the technical and paranoia-fueled online world that hackers inhabit. Either way, he’s definitely on the NSA’s watchlist — but this book should be on their reading list as well, as Zer0es is an entertaining and timely addition to the subgenre.”

So, great reviews, very happy. Woo.

As always, if you’ve read and liked the book, books like this thrive because of word-of-mouth — and your word-of-mouth has greater reach these days thanks to the internet. Our circle of trust is far bigger than when it was just us and our five friends, so if you did dig the book, telling people about it and leaving a review somewhere makes for an ace way to get the word out.

(Also, some folks have asked me about the audio version — no news there, yet, but it’ll happen.)

The Libba Bray Lair of Dreams Launch Event

I was scheduled to be the emcee and interviewer and COHORT to Libba Bray on-stage today for her LAIR OF DREAMS launch event in Brooklyn, but it is not to be — to my great consternation, in fact, because I was really fucking looking forward to going to this. But B-Dub got sick, and now I’m getting sick, and I don’t want to be the Outbreak Monkey at her very nice launch event. (Plus my voice is going. I sound croaky and monstrous.) As such, she has assured me that the event will go on without me, as really I was just going to be a sexy lamp anyway.

YOU SHOULD STILL GO.

It’s tonight, the Bell House. Details here.

Also, hot damn, why haven’t you picked up a copy of LAIR OF DREAMS yet? Go do that! THE DIVINERS was eye-bugging in how amazing it was, so you need to get on that stick, stat. (Actually, at that link the Diviners is only $2.99 for your Kindle right now, if you’re one of them E-LUCK-TRON reader-types.)

The Light Your Fuse Creativity Retreat

On 9/12, I’ll be here in Bethlehem, PA, giving a talk about that dread, misunderstood beast:

MOTIVATION.

It’s a full-day of workshops, though, geared around writing and creativity.

You should totally check it out.

I won’t have books for sale there, but do bring some: I’ll sign!

Daniel Jose Older

Did a ZER0ES event last week with one Mister Daniel Jose Older, and I’m reading Shadowshaper right now, and you need to read it because holy shit is it good. If you want an example of a writer who knows how to leave out all the boring parts, Older is your huckleberry. Also, the guy’s great on stage and if you ever get to go to an event he’s at — or, better yet, be on stage with him — it is to your benefit.

Should You Use Naughty Language And Ideas In Your YA?

I feel like I failed to blog about this when it happened, but this summer’s been a damn whirlwind, folks. Point is — I PODCASTED with one mister Scott Sigler and one empress Delilah S. Dawson about whether or not YA authors should, like, censor themselves in their books and in their social media, and you can check out that podcastery right here.

Space Battles: Aftershave

PSST.

My little self-published (ha ha ha not) book, STAR WARS: AFTERMATH lands next week. Friday. FORCE Friday, as it were. And you can buy signed copies from B&N.

So, yesterday I wrote a thing about the Hugos and the Sad/Rabid Puppies horseshit, and that got linked around a bit as this blog fortunately sometimes does.

One person linked to it on Facebook, a reader of mine who is a woman, and she tagged me directly, which is all good. And then an exchange happened — well, an “exchange” is a very polite way to refer to this abusive intrusion by some ambulatory pubic fire.

Now, I’m not saying this exchange is an example specifically of the Sad and Rabid Puppies — he seems to be a supporter of it, and I’ve seen this kind of thing before from some of those supporters, nominees, and also from the connected joy-buzzer parade of Gamer.Gate.

What I will say, though, is that this is a pretty good example of what women get online. Women and also persons of color, too — it’s thick with heinous fuckery.

What follows is a part of that exchange. It went on for a while with me and him after this snippet. Nothing productive came out of it, really, and it ended up being not worth the time arguing (though it is worth noting that he was a thousand times more polite to me and tried to excuse his behavior to her because she told him to fuck off — which, by the way, came well after he started with the misogynistic slut-shamey rape-culturey bullshit).

The woman consented to me publishing this snippet, though I’ve removed her name and image (and his, too — regardless of how much as I’d like to run him over the public cheese grater I don’t think that does anybody much good). What follows is, I dunno if it’s triggery, but it sure is shitty.

The red square is the human turd-bucket, though that will become quite clear.

I don’t have much call to action here, really — women already know this stuff goes on, and it’s not like I’m sharing something new. But men are sometimes surprised at this, and so it seems important to highlight once in a while that the Internet can get venomous really fast. While it’s not our job to ride in like SAVIOR MENFOLK to thwart the internet’s many ogres, at the same time, it’s important to be be aware of this stuff and support the good people online. Help make safe spaces here. Moderate the septic shitflingers out of existence. Report abuse. And also ask our social media providers to offer better ways to report and signal abuse online. It’s up to us to curate a better social media feed for everyone, and demand better.

Let me say this up front: if you’re a writer of any age or experience level, you need to be looking at your writing process. Always. Yesterday, today, tomorrow. You gaze into it to see if there’s anything you do to change it. Anything you can do to understand it better. You’re looking for bolts to tighten, widgets to wax, hedgehogs to tickle. Anything to fully weaponize your writing process.

You don’t do this to become some kind of CRASS FICTION FACTORY. This isn’t (necessarily) about becoming faster. It’s about getting better. Why wouldn’t you want to tell better stories? Why wouldn’t you want to refine your process and make the thing that you do easier, more fun, and more awesome? WHY DON’T YOU LIKE AWESOME THINGS.

*clears throat*

Anyway.

My process is this, roughly:

At 6AM, I get up. Like a vampire rising from death into monstrous revivification.

I make myself some coffee. Pourover, because there’s something meditative about it. And the coffee is fucking amazing — I don’t just drink coffee for the kick. I drink it because it’s delicious.

I also drink it black as a mirror at night.

I put the coffee in a carafe — this one, actually — to keep it warm all day.

THEN I GO TO THE SHED.

I get quick shit out of the way — any outstanding ASAP emails or tweets or silly stuff like that. Sam Sykes may be tweeting at me from the end of his day and the start of mine.

And then by 7AM, I get my ass to work.

I write in Microsoft Word. I’ve tried Scrivener, because people love it. It’s not my thing (though I am pleased if it is yours). Learning curve is too steep, it’s ugly as bad wallpaper, and I’m comfortable with a draft in Word going all the way through to the Track Changes stages of editing.

One small ritual ritual I have is, I have to make sure the font is right on the story.

Just a thing I gotta do. Probably the only “quirky” ritual component.

(That and the “bathing in goat’s blood” at 11:11AM every day.)

Eventually my son will be awake, and when he is, I am summoned by text message and then I head inside to do the whole breakfast thing, where he eats whatever it is that he wants to eat — pancakes or eggs or maybe he just wants to gnaw on the table like a nibbly bunny.

Then I walk with the dog every day and some days, run.

Then it’s back to the keyboard.

I write until I’m finished for the day, which is — nngh? Bare minimum, 2000 words in the day, but ideally I go above 3000. Like, for me, 2k is a barely passing grade. A D+ or something.

I write roughly 1000 words an hour. The first 1000 words is a bit sluggish, but the second 1000 words is where I usually move at a brisker, more limber pace.

I generally write for an hour, then take 15 minutes off to, y’know, fuck off in and around the Internet. I get on Twitter and TWEET THINGS. I get on Facebook and BOOK FACES. The usual.

I’m done writing new content by early afternoon, usually.

Then it’s onto lunch and whatever administrative or extraneous stuff needs a-doing. Outlines, emails, spreadsheets, finances, remembering where I put my pants.

I tend to do blog posts on weekends, though sometimes throughout the week too if there’s something that chafes my pee-hole enough that I have no choice but to write about it ASAFP.

Again, everything gets written right into MS Word.

And everything gets edited there, too.

First drafts get a look ideally from my agent, and then an another edit/polish (again: perfect world) before it gets catapulted into my editor’s eyeballs.

I track my day’s writing with a spreadsheet. I know if I’m over or under my daily goals. And I also know where I’m at according to my overall writing plan.

I tend to write a new novel ever one to four months. That’s first draft. Edits take longer.

And I think that’s it. That’s the process.

But now, I turn the question around to you. What is your process? How do you do it? How much time per day? Do you write every day? Whatever you feel like telling us about your writing process, I’m all ears. Like I said, I’m always a process monkey and it’s interesting to hear how everyone does it — no writer has the same writing process as the next. Some are similar; others are wildly different. Hell, just the quest to discover one’s writing process (similar to the quest to discover one’s voice) can be epic. Where are you at in this quest?

First and foremost, let’s just get this out of the way:

Congrats to the winners of last night’s Hugo Awards, including the Not The Hugo Award, the John W. Campbell award for new writer. Well done, all of you. Including up and coming sci-fi superstar, Noah Ward, who I’m sure is drunk somewhere right now, joy-barfing off a balcony.

And, also, to the Sad and Rabid Puppies, those charm school rejects who thought they could wrest control of the awards away from some mysterious vile cabal of PC CHORF SMOF SJWS, one likes to hope that last night was a demonstration of your noses being rubbed in the mess you made. I know, I know, “it’s about ethics in award nominating.”

*eyeroll so hard, neck snaps and head tumbles off of shoulders into dirt*

Listen, I’m not a big believer that awards are some kind of glorious, unshakable metric for the health or the merit of a genre or the books and authors inside it — I think, like most, I think it’s a good way to celebrate fandom and the industry and those people who have left footprints across the genre both big and small. It’s not the end-all be-all of anything, but they matter in their own way. And this year any hope of that happening was squirted out onto a rancid pee-pad thanks to those aforementioned charm school rejects.

All along, if the so-called “puppies” had just done a blog post like, “HEY WE THINK LOTS OF COOL FOLKS NEVER GET NOMINATED, SO LET’S GET TALK ABOUT THOSE FOLKS AND DON’T FORGET THAT YOU CAN NOMINATE ‘EM,” and then they did a big-ass reading list and not a slate, one expects the response would’ve been a vigorous shrug. But that’s not what they did. They came out of the gate swinging with a proper slate, a slate championing its diversity while actually working to undo the diversity of years past. (And fellas, a little pro-tip here: when your version of diversity includes those who are against diversity as a principle, you done fucked up. Making sure to include bigots and homophobes and other social malefactors is a pretty good way to show your true intentions. At the very least, it exposes you for the shitbirds you are.) They’ve been called on their bullshit time and time again throughout this awards season, called to the mat and challenged on every point, and not once did I see a successful or substantive rebuttal to those challenges. (I did, of course, see about 3,291 blog posts done in support of the Sad and Rabid Puppies, to which I might suggest that those writers actually remember that they’re probably supposed to be writing stories and not some never-ending screed-ifesto about SFF fandom.)

And of course, the Puppies locked arms with the worst amongst us: those human canker sores known as Gamer-Gate. (Next year, I hear the Puppies slate will be decided by Donald Trump’s skull merkin, worked like a puppet by the ghost of a drunk, racist Ayn Rand.)

Last night’s awards were a strong rebuttal against the SP/RP slate, because they didn’t get a single one of their nominations through to the actual stage and statue itself. In fact, in several categories, voters opted to fling the award out of the airlock and into the void of space rather than give it to undeserving nominees — or, at the very least, those nominees who were poisoned by their inclusion on the slate in the first place. (And here again, time to offer kudos to folks like Annie Bellet, Matthew David Surridge, and Marko Kloos for washing that stink off them. Because believe you me, that’s some stink, I admire them for wanting to freshen up.)

The Puppies continued to put forth this idea that they were finally reclaiming the Hugo Awards from some narrow slice of SFF readership — some toxic, politically-minded cult of secret governors who have throttled the award with their AGENDAS and IDEAS and I GUESS LOVE FOR THEIR FELLOW MAN, those monsters. And our righteous saviors seemed keen on breaking the back of that cult and finally, finally, the awards would be properly returned to the hands of real fans who appreciate that SFF should, I dunno, just be about white guys on rocketships and dragons having uncomplicated white guy adventures without any of that intellectual or social or political mess intruding upon the genre.

Except, that’s not how this works.

That’s not how any of this works.

As it turns out, when you attempt to identify the narrow slice and rip the votes away from them and into the hands of a wider audience of thousands, you actually learn that the wider audience of fans still don’t want the Puppies mucking up the award with their poo-caked paws. You learn that the fans will ride over the hills like an army, and they’ll lock arms and form a line that shan’t be crossed. The awards were positioned this year as finally being for the fans, and the fans showed up. And they thwacked the Puppies on the nose with rolled-up newspaper.

In other words?

You learn that the narrow slice may have not been so narrow, after all.

Also, as it turns out, the genre is often, maybe even always, political. Even when it’s not expressly so, fiction isn’t about some rote operational telling of stories. Science-fiction and fantasy, when operating well, serve as a bellwether for the world in which we live. It’s always been that way. Through history, we examine both the small books and films and comics and also the really popular ones to see what ideas and fears and yes even politics have seeped out of the public consciousness and conscience and into the stories that the public loves and shares. (Plus, a-doy, the Puppies were always a political slate. They forever claimed to want to extricate the genre from politics, which was the dumbest fake-out I’ve ever seen. It wasn’t even an act of artful misdirection. “I’m not stealing your hamburger,” they say, locking eyes with you as one big clumsy hand slides across the table noisily and indelicately steals your hamburger. When challenged on this, the thief offers the blistering rebuttal of, “…Nuh-uh.”)

The rebuke probably won’t stop the Puppies next year. But hopefully the same fans this year will come out for the nominating part, and not just the WHO GETS THE STATUE part, because that’ll be key to carrying this message through to the following season. At the very least, maybe it’ll spare us some drama, which overtook the award this go-round and, frankly, denied lots of folks a chance to get up on the stage (at Tobias Buckell’s place you can see who would’ve been on the menu had the Puppies not been a factor — that being a genuine fucking tragedy.) Hopefully the Puppies realize that they are marginal, and like Gamer-Gate aren’t puppies at all, but are rather a pack of sad dinosaurs shaking their tiny arms at the meteor above and these new wily mammals slinking around their clumsy, stompy feet. In a perfect world, next year we won’t hear their bleats and squawks of rage at a world that is changing. And in ten years, their existence will be a memory — fuel for our stories just as dinosaurs are fuel for the gas tanks in our automobiles.

I’m happy the awards experienced the push-back against the shitbirds.

I’m excited that fans and readers are maybe making a real representative push.

I’m sad that lots of folks near the ballot never got on it.

And I’m bothered that all this had to happen in the first place.

Just the same: fuck the Puppies.

The genre will keep on keeping on.

No matter what happens:

Go buy books.

Share the love of those books.

Talk about them. Give them to others. Get on social media and crow about them.

Don’t be afraid of ideas and politics and people who aren’t like you.

Embrace it. Come into the pool. The water’s warm. The drinks are cold.

The stories are amazing.

Read on.

Some folks have correctly noted that on some weekends, comment moderation slows to a crawl, and I’ll take the heat for that one. Let me tell you why that is and what’s going on here —

BEES.

Okay, not really bees.

First, comments by new users or by folks putting in links generally are left to moderation. That helps keep this website from becoming a septic shitbucket in terms of the comments section.

Second, I’ve been traveling a lot — once every week or two weeks, it seems — in support of ZER0ES. Which means I’m not actually in front of my computer, which leaves moderation of this website to my phone or iPad, which can be spotty at best.

Third, to prevent breaches of the site (or attempted breaches), my web provider makes it so that one cannot log on to this site unless from a trusted source. Traveling, therefore, means I have to add an exception to that list of trusted sources in order to even log on, which sometimes doesn’t happen in time to actually get comments moderated.

So, apologies for delays in moderating comments, folks!

It should ease up once the summer is over and my travel schedule lessens.

Thanks!