Bell Bridge Books

Today only STRANDED is $1.99 on Amazon Kindle!

ONE OF THE GREAT THINGS

BY ANTHONY FRANCIS

One of the great things about being a writer is working with other writers—well, really, working with other people in the writing field: beta readers, writers, and especially editors. For example, my editor, Debra Dixon, invited me to contribute a story to STRANDED, a science fiction anthology about young people making their own way in space, and though I didn’t know it at the time, Debra was setting me up to work indirectly with writer Anne Bishop.

Years ago, Anne wrote a story, “A Strand in the Web,” about a young woman taking responsibility for herself and the environment in the far future. Unfortunately, the story didn’t reach as many people as Anne wanted, and ultimately Debra gave it a new home, seeking other writers to write other stories on the same theme. James Alan Gardner’s “A Host of Leeches” strands a young girl off a planet, facing her with difficult choices among warring factions. My own “Stranded” trashes the plans of a young centauress trying to claim a planet, forcing her to aid a shipload of children who’ve crashlanded on the world she wanted for herself. Three stories, but with one theme; so even though James and I wrote our stories independently, through Debra, we got to work with Anne.

Debra is more than Anne’s editor; she’s also been Anne’s “beta reader,” one of those treasured people in an author’s inner circle who reads a story before it’s done. The community of beta readers I’m a part of read stories not with an editor’s eye, or a critical eye, but with a reader’s eye. Editors have to think about theme, and length, and marketability—all valid concerns, but beyond the scope of the story in the author’s hands. Critics have to think about how to explain a story, or whether to recommend it, and criticism itself is its own art form, with its own audience; also valid concerns, but —also valid concerns, but again not the concerns of the author. The author ultimately is not trying to please an editor, or a critic, but the reader—and so, when you find readers who are like the readers you want and who are also willing to read your stories before they go to the editor, hang onto them.

One of my longest term beta readers is Gordon Shippey, who has been reading my stories since, well, since before I ever got anything published. He’s read everything I’ve ever written in the universe of “Stranded,” and knows it almost as well as I do; he’s also someone who reads almost all of the same science fiction that I do, who reads the same philosophy that I do, and who even studied at the same artificial intelligence department that I did. So when he read an early version of “Stranded,” he understood not only the civilization my protagonist Serendipity came from, but the thought process by which I’d created it—and pointed out that a truly advanced civilization’s morals should be as advanced as its technology, a key insight that helped me bring clarity to “Stranded’s” central conflict.

Many more beta readers in the Write to the End group also read the story, helping me beat “Stranded” into shape before I gave it to Debra: I never give an editor a story that’s less than what I think is my best effort—something else that I learned during my time in Georgia Tech’s artificial intelligence program. But even after I was happy, my beta readers were happy, and my editor was happy, that wasn’t the end of the road for “Stranded.” After the writer, and the beta readers, and the editor, there’s still the staff of the publisher.

At Bell Bridge Books, for example, Deb Smith manages the publishing end to make sure our books do well, and Danielle helps coordinate events with all the writers—such as inviting me to write this blog post, which gave me the chance to talk about the relationships that writers have with all of you—the readers.

Because that’s one of the great things about being a writer: getting to work with a great publisher who helps your book reach as many readers as possible.

So, thank you, Bell Bridge: and for the rest of you, I hope you enjoy STRANDED.

Anthony Francis is the author of The Skindancer Series.  Sometimes tattoo magic is the strongest magic of them all.