Downsizing Pluto

Downsizing Pluto, now in audio!

/ Shane / 1 Comment

An audio “reprint” of my story “Downsizing Pluto” is now live at the Cast of Wonders podcast. This story previously appeared in Daily Science Fiction. My story is a part of a “tiny wonders” episode that includes 2 other very short (and very excellent) stories. I recommend you listen to the whole thing, but if not, my story is 3rd and starts at about the 16 minute mark.

There is something so amazing about hearing one of my stories in audio. So far I’ve been gifted with amazing narrators. I was giggling the whole time about the professional, serious, news reporter voice of Bob Eccles contrasted with the silliness of the story. I don’t know if I’ll ever get to the point where I stop going, “This awesome voice reading my silly story?”

Cast of Wonders is a “weekly YA fiction podcast featuring a wide range of stories of the fantastic.” As far as I know, it’s the only young adult speculative fiction podcast. As a parent, I think it’s a great idea to have stories that are pre-screened for content to be age appropriate. And I have always specifically thought that this story was a good fit for YA, so I’m glad that they agreed!

Anyway, Cast of Wonders is consistently one of the best produced audio fiction podcasts, and one that I have listened to many times before being published there. If this story piques your interest and you’d like to listen to more, I recommend starting with the “Best of Cast of Wonders” list put together by Diabolical Plots.

When it rains, it pours

/ Shane / Leave a comment

I am pleased to announce the sale of my story “Downsizing Pluto” to Daily Science Fiction.

After 3 1/2 years of writing with no success, here’s a second sale already. Must be something about places with rocket logos.

This story speculates on what might have happened to cause the downfall of poor little planet #9.

Daily Science Fiction isn’t a magazine in a traditional sense. You can sign up on their webpage to receive a story emailed to you every weekday.

Our stories are mostly short short fiction (flash fiction) each Monday through Thursday, hopefully the right length to read on a coffee break, over lunch, or as a bedtime tale. Friday’s weekend stories are longer.

I will let you know when the story is available online (or, if you are a fan of science fiction, you can go ahead and sign up for their emails, and then you will know it is available when it arrives in your inbox). It should be a couple of months or so.

Here’s to more announcements like these!

Flash Fiction

/ Shane / Leave a comment

I never had much use for flash fiction. With the small amount of words you have to work with (usually < 1,000) you can’t really show more than a scene. As such, most of the stories I’ve read are either heavily cliched (to save space) or don’t really tell a story per say, just sort of describe a scene. I never found them very interesting.

So if that’s the case, how did I find myself writing a piece of flash fiction?

Well, I had an idea, and it wasn’t really the sort of idea that could carry an entire story. More like one scene really. You can see where this is going. So now I sort of understand the place of flash fiction because I have several little thoughts or scenes like this that I’ve written down. The only option is to either write them as flash, or hope that some day, some how they can fit into some other story. In some cases, that is pretty unlikely.