/lit/ - Literature

>>10314710
I don't know about 'many respects', but Robert Howard knew how to write action, fighting and violence better. It's the part of his writing that still holds up well.

The 'triangle' of Weird Fiction writers, Clark Ashton Smith, Lovecraft and Howard, are interestingly different. Combined they would form the perfect genre writer.

>>10314442
I reply to older messages all the time.

I came across a list of rules for writers of short fantasy and SF stories by Mr Bisson. There are sixty in all, mostly common sense, but here are several of the most interesting for the benefit of the aspiring writers in here. My observations in brackets:

3. The SF reader is a gamer who brings a problem-solving intelligence to the story. This is the SF writer's one great advantage. Use it. (what is the mindset of the fantasy reader?)

8. One world only. Dreams are out of place in a short story. (the relation of dreams and dream-like states is a long literary tradition)

16. Genre is a matrix of expectations. They are yours to grant, deny or delay, but you must know what they are. Don't be writing SF if you haven't read it. (agreed - Brandon Sanderson also says the same things in his youtube lectures.)

20. The main character should be a little stupid. This flatters the reader. (the 'watson' - but it's easy to imagine how an intelligent and able protagonist can also be interesting.)

37. No wizards or dragons. They will make your short story seem like a part of a longer, less interesting piece. (this would seem to deny the reader the climax or central spectacle that many readers would enjoy - and I've encountered monsters and fantastical elements in the short fiction of Vance, Lovecraft, CAS, Leiber.)

40. Fights are only interesting in real life. They are boring in stories. (REH and Leiber would have disagreed.)

44. Sex is out of place in a short story, unless it has already happened or will happen after the story is over. (sort of agree - have only seen robert silverberg do this successfully)

46. Try to put something interesting on every page. This is Gene Wolfe' s rule.

47. Telling can be better than showing. It all depends on who's doing the telling. (this one's always up for debate - mix and match I say)

50. Go easy on character descriptions. Nobody cares what your characters look like. They only need to be able to tell them apart. (if I wrote short fiction I would probably fall afoul of this)

54. Withhold as much information as possible for as long as possible. When the reader knows everything, the story is over. (short fiction as a blue-balling tease. It feels like novels are often written with this same idea)

57. Read your story aloud. It must run under a half an hour. This is about 4000 words. Anything longer than this and people start to fidget.