12-04-2022

Opening Statement

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

Happy Holidays!

This month we have an informal get together to discuss writing, hear about your writing plans for the new year, introduce DreamCasters to new members, and talk about how we can structure our meetings to better help you achieve your goals in 2023.

We also have a couple nice giveaways – 2 copies of Writing Fantasy & Science Fiction: How to Create Our-of-This World Novels and Short Stories, by Orson Scott Card.

DreamForge News –  5 min

Stephanie Troeth, Michael Zahniser, and Indiana Tilford all have stories in the next issue of DreamForge, coming out in December. That’s a DreamCaster first to have such a strong showing.

Wulf Moon’s “Sharnathium” is out in the November 2022 issue of Galaxy’s Edge Magazine.

DreamForge’s Copy Editor Lloyd Penney has moved on to be the Editor-in-Chief of Amazing Stories Magazine. https://amazingstories.com/2022/11/amazing-stories-has-a-new-editior-in-chief/  Amazing is accepting Flash Fiction of up to 1500 words with a deadline of January 2^nd, and paying $0.08/word.

David Hankins has the first short story he ever wrote, “Hell’s Bureaucracy, out now in Alex Shvartsman’s beautiful hardback edition of Unidentified Funny Objects 9.

David also I just sold his first reprint, and it’s coming to audio! “A Properly Spiced Gingerbread”, which first appeared in DreamForge Magazine, will be coming to the 4LPH4NUM3R1C Podcast by Zoetic Press!

 Catherine Weaver has an interview on HorrorTree, by fellow DreamCaster Angelique Fawns. The article is “Catherine Weaver: Weaving tales of magic for young and old alike.” https://horrortree.com/catherine-weaver-weaving-tales-of-magic-for-young-and-old-alike/

Writers of the Future Congratulations!

(DreamForge DreamCasters, First Line Readers, and Contributors)

• Silver Honorable Mentions:
• Brandon Case
• Victoria Dixon
• Martin Greening
• Christopher Henckel

Honorable Mentions:

• Alicia Cay
• Crystal Crawford
• Henry Gasko
• R.J.K. Lee
• Darren Lipman
• Candice R. Lisle
• Jan Nerenberg
• Scott M. Sands
• Catherine Weaver
• Amy Wethington
• P.S.C. Willis

DreamCaster Discussions – 45 minutes

What Are You Working on for 2023?

Are You Setting any Writing Goals for the New Year?  And how can DreamCasters help you get there?

We all know real life will get in the way, but you can never find what works for you without giving various goals and goal setting methods a try.

I’ll go first. I have two main writing goals:

I want to start work on a Novel about a Future City where intelligent Elephants live, and while they believe mankind has long since disappeared from Earth, they are in for a terrible surprise. Working Title: Cradle of Memory.

Second, I want to do at least one YouTube presentation each month, including interviews and topics for discussion.

How about You? And how can we use these meetings to help?

Eavesdropping Your Dialog

One common problem we see in story submissions is spoiled dialog. The first paragraph opens with intrigue, the setting is revealed with deft strokes, and engaging prose pulls us right along until… the characters start to talk.

Let’s take a look at how authors often spoil their dialog and consider eavesdropping as a metaphor for crafting inter-character communications that work.

Have you ever overheard two people having a personal conversation, at work or at home, and you wonder what they’re talking about? Perhaps it’s a phone call where you only hear one side of the conversation, and you can’t help but try to piece it together.

Eavesdropping is compelling because you don’t have all the context. You have minimal clues as to what is going on, and the problem-solving part of your brain is struggling to put it all together, build context clues, and game out the meaning of the bits and pieces you actually hear.

Give Aways! – 5 minutes

Chosen at random from today’s ZOOM participants, we have a couple great give aways for the winners. 2 copies of Writing Fantasy & Science Fiction: How to Create Our-of-This World Novels and Short Stories, by Orson Scott Card.

Combining two Writer’s Digest classics, Orson Scott Card’s How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy and The Writer’s Complete Fantasy Reference, along with two new selections from award-winning science fiction and fantasy authors Philip Athans and Jay Lake, this new book provides the best of all worlds.

Story Prompts –  5 minutes

We’ll give out a couple story prompts that might be interesting to explore.

Meeting Ends.  Thank You All!

In January

In January, John Goodwin, the President of Galaxy Press (publishers of the Writers of the Future Anthologies) will be our guest and will talk with you about what you’d like to know about the WoTF contest. So let us know, and we’ll organize the meeting accordingly.

You can enter your questions and items of interest in the Google Doc at this link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1o36t5POjLjeEUJupYgvHr8cQEbrk5DDZ1EoRexHJEA8/edit