DreamCasters Agenda,
December 2023

12-03-2023

Opening Statement

Welcome to DreamCasters, a DreamForge discussion group devoted to helping our members improve their writing and storytelling through discussion and sharing expertise.

DreamForge News

DreamCaster Dates for 2024

In 2024, all of our tentative meeting dates will be the First Sunday of the month, starting with January 7^th at 1:00 pm ET. This will vary at times with notice given, depending on our personal and work responsibilities,

Agenda online:  https://dreamforgemagazine.com/dreamcasters-agenda-december-2023/

Member Accomplishments

 Amy Wethington

Her story “Thunderbirds, Kraken, and Other Dangers to Dragon Reproduction” was accepted by Androids and Dragons and should come out in their April 2024 issue. It won first place in the Southeastern Writers Association’s Vega Award for Speculative Fiction [June 2023] and received an honorable mention in WOTF volume 40 Q2. This is her first published short story!

Even better, Amy learned her story “Baba Yaga and the Water of Life” is to be published in Issue Six: Ghoulish Grimoires.  Amy said, “My heart is full of happiness to know that two of my short stories will be out in the wild soon.” 

Wulf Moon

HOW TO WRITE A HOWLING GOOD STORY was released November 7th and has been #1 New Release on Kindle in Fiction Writing books for most of the past three weeks. And on Draft2Digital/Smashword’s weekly sales report, it was #4 in the first week of ALL nonfiction sales, not just writing books. The following week, Top 10 of all nonfiction books. It also ranked #1 on Kobo. It’s been doing very well. Thank you to DreamForge for all of your support on the Super Secrets!

Writers of the Future Awards

 Writers of the Future 4th Quarter Winners Announced for Volume 40

Silver Honorable Mentions:

• Daniel M. Cojocaru
• Victoria L. Dixon
• Alex Harford
• R.J.K. Lee
• Devin Miller

Honorable Mentions:

• Lance Adams
• Brandon Case
• Angelique Fawns
• Pete Lead
• Darren Lipman
• Shean Pao
• K.Z. Richards
• Indiana Tilford
• Catherine Weaver
• Amy Wethington
• Jarrod K. Williams

Our Program – The Challenge of “Hospitium”

Program Note: We originally had author Bret Nelson scheduled for December, but a change in his personal schedule came up and he will visit with us sometime in 2024.

To end the current year and start the new one, we’re challenging our members to submit a story to the 2024 edition of Parsec’s Triangulations, which opens for submissions on December 1^st, with submissions closing February 29^th, 2024.

So, in December, January, and February, we will devote time at each meeting to helping members plot their stories and review parts of stories as time permits to help everyone along.

In December our entire meeting will be devoted to brainstorming and talking about how to approach the theme.

The Theme for 21st TRIANGULATIONS anthology is “Hospitium”

“Hospitium is a Greco-Roman concept of hospitality, where both the guest and host have an obligation to treat the other with kindness and respect, regardless of external quarrels. We’re looking for outstanding fantasy, science fiction, weird fiction, and speculative horror from both new and established writers.”

More information can be found at http://parsecink.com/

Our Suggestion – Focus on Character

To us, this seems like the perfect opportunity to pivot a little on our usual structure of external conflict and obstacles and turn toward Character.

We can modify our existing structure to achieve this by emphasizing character development and internal conflicts. Here’s a revised structure that integrates these elements:

Opening and Orientation:

• Character Introduction: Start with a strong focus on the protagonist’s personality, background, and current life situation. This sets the stage for understanding their motivations, flaws, and desires.
• Setting the Scene: Establish the world they inhabit, including the social, emotional, or physical landscapes that will influence their journey.
• Critical Note: Do these things in the action of the story, staying in the moment of the protagonist’s experience. Avoiding exposition is very important here.

Inciting Incident and Narrative Hook:

• Character Response: How does the inciting incident affect the protagonist personally? Focus on their emotional and psychological reaction, rather than just the external action.
• Internal Conflict Emergence: Introduce an internal conflict or dilemma that the protagonist faces, which is either caused or exacerbated by the inciting incident.

Try/Fail Cycle

• Internal Obstacles: Each obstacle should challenge the protagonist’s fears, beliefs, or flaws. These can be external events, but the emphasis should be on how these events force internal growth or struggle. For example: what if your protagonist must violate their personal ethics, or sacrifice their own personal goals in order to be hospitable?
• Character Evolution: With each obstacle, show a progression or regression in the character’s internal state. This could be learning a lesson, facing a fear, or struggling with a moral dilemma.

Climax:

• Character’s Choice: The protagonist must make a significant emotional or moral decision. Highlight how this choice is a culmination of their internal journey and how it represents growth or change.

Denouement:

• Character Resolution: Show how the character has been changed by their journey. This can be a resolution of their internal conflict, an acceptance of a part of themselves, or an acknowledgment of a truth they were avoiding.
• New Equilibrium: Present how their world and relationships have changed as a result of their internal journey.

By focusing on these elements, we can craft stories where the character’s internal journey is as significant, if not more, than the external plot. This approach can lead to more nuanced, emotionally resonant storytelling.

Giveaway This Month!

One lucky attendee chosen at random will receive a free webinar attendance to a webinar I’m planning for January 13^th on Why Your Story Got Rejected Before Page 3.”

Drawing from the analysis of 700 recent submissions to our science fiction magazine, we’ll reveal the crucial early clues that often indicate a story may not align with our editorial standards. Focusing on the initial pages, we’ll discuss issues like weak openings, lack of originality, pacing problems, and poor character development. This session is designed to offer valuable guidance to beginning and intermediate writers, helping them understand what editors look for and how to make their stories stand out right from the start.

In January

In January, we hope to have Greg Clumpner, editor of Triangulation visit us to discuss “Hospitium” and what he will be looking for in submissions.

Story Prompts

Usually we save our story prompts for the meeting, but here are a couple ideas for the “Hospitium” theme of Triangulations in 2024.

Science Fiction— In a future where people live in thousands of space habitats in orbit around the sun, distances between settlements are vast, and the rules of hospitality dictate that visitors must be received graciously and made welcome. The most famous musician of Habitat One receives guests from the Swarm, the largest confederation of solar habitats, and they want his/her help to meet a local genius of which they have become aware, who is the musician’s nemesis, underling, or of an unworthy caste. (Think Amadeus vibes). Explore fame and self-worth in a vast space-borne civilization.

Fantasy— A young woman who has been abused and outcast from her tribe for being able to talk with animals, finds acceptance in a village where hospitality is the rule. She learns of their legend of a visitor who will save them from a great evil, and she thinks they mean her (they do not – it’s just the legendary basis for their hospitality). Impostor syndrome sets in, and she thinks she is unworthy of being taken such good care of. Her only skill is to speak with animals, and she makes friends with a wild cat (Eurasian lynx) that has been raiding the village’s chickens and sheep. She tries to hide her power and to steer the lynx toward sick and troublesome animals. When the lynx warns her of a raiding party, she struggles with revealing the information and how she came upon it, thinking she will be outcast again. But the lynx helps in the battle, and she finds both herself and her powers now fully accepted by the villagers.

Disclaimer: These ideas may or may not be original, convergent ideas are common. DreamForge makes no copyright or monetary claim on these story prompts. Have fun.