K. Marvin Bruce

I’ve lost track of how many stories I’ve written.  Writers write primarily for themselves, but at a certain point it occurs that maybe somebody else would like to read your stuff.  You can get disabused of that notion pretty quickly, but still you’ll write. I subscribe to Duotrope.  It’s a search engine with useful content for potential publishers.  So when I finish a story I let my fingers do the walking to find someone who might like it.  I can’t classify my writing; it’s all over the place. You find a publisher then read what they want.  It’s not exactly like what you do, but maybe close enough?  You give it a try. I’m a monogamous guy.  I never did like dating—those with rejection complexes seldom do.  When I find a publisher, I stay close.  Then, inevitably, they begin sending rejection letters.  The relationship has grown cold.  I have trouble going back to past writers.  I head back to the singles bar c...

I don’t know about you, but the I’ve always been told that publishers don’t want novels that make readers do the work.  We, the writers, must accommodate them, explaining ourselves, “writing to the end user,” and dumbing down intellectual content.  My novels are intelligent, I hope, but accessible, I pray. Clearly this bit of publishing boilerplate doesn’t apply to everyone.  I recently finished reading Empty Space: A Haunting , by M. John Harrison.  I do enjoy ghost stories, and this may have been one, I think.  I’m not really sure what it was. I had to work for this novel. The book had been recommended to me on a list of scary books.  It’s hard to be scared when you can’t figure out what’s going on.  My confusion settled in almost immediately.  Lingo, jargon, and the use of words in ways I didn’t recognize made the action, if any, difficult to discern. The characters were interesting—memorable even.  It was depressi...

Transformation.  It’s an idea older than the mythological Greeks.  It seems that people everywhere have wondered what it would be like to be something else.  It’s also a staple of fantasy literature. I recently read The Lizard Princess by Tod Davies.  It is a heavily symbolic work, and one that makes the reader think.  Nothing can be assumed in this world.  Even death is not what it seems to be. Fantasy novels rely on a willing suspension of belief.  It is difficult to read such stories with a critical eye and enjoy them.  Ironically, I found George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones difficult to get into.  The writing is what I call “power writing”—full of bravado and flash.  A fantasy, it seems to me, should have a certain gentleness to the narrative. I’ve occasionally presented Boeotian Rhapsody, my Medusa novel, to publishers as a fantasy.  It really isn’t.  Magical realism, perhaps.  Fabulism maybe.  W...

Sometimes I fear my imagination might run out.  Throughout my life it has been my experience that good things tend to run out while bad things seem to exist in amazing reserves.  Imagination is a good thing. Part of the problem, admittedly, is the ubiquity of work.  Trudging back and forth to the office each day drains a writer of energy.  At least this writer.  When I’m in the midst of a big project (as one of the six novels I’ve finished) I’m full of ideas, ready to write constantly.  When I finish, I can go months groping about for an idea that works.  Meanwhile I work. I was glad to read Tod Davies’ The Lizard Princess because it takes place in a fantasy land of ideas.  Although I’ve termed some of my stories fantasies, the fact is I don’t really write in this genre.  I think “magical realism” might be the more appropriate way to describe my work, or “fabulism.”  Genres can be constraining. The Lizard Princess makes no...

My writing partner Elizabeth has started a writing club in her local community.  I am really thrilled, since having others to share the enthusiasm for the craft is one of the most fulfilling aspects of life that I can imagine.  Talking with fellow writers has been my panacea and placebo for many years. In a pique over my own lack of progress, I followed up on the many places where I’ve submitted material and have heard nothing in return.  Perhaps a dozen literary magazines regularly reply when you submit something.  The rest will just leave you wondering. As I was crawling over websites looking for any evidence that my submissions might still be alive, it occurred to me that I write for myself.  As another friend once said, we write what we can’t find anybody else writing.  I do it knowing that most of it will never be published. There is a difference between writing for personal fulfillment and writing for publication.   My writing is...

It may be that I didn’t pay attention in school—but my grades seemed to indicate otherwise—but I don’t recall learning about genre.  Of course I recognized science fiction and horror and western and romance.  What about those that fit no category? This used to be called “literary fiction” but those who publish literary fiction don’t like elements of “genre fiction” and won’t generally consider them.  Thus I fear to submit. My story collection, Empty Branches , submitted to Tartarus Books, received the quick Band-Aid treatment. Three days from submission to rejection.  They prefer, I suppose, straight horror.  I write something that defies genre.  It is the kind of thing that lurks in my mind. This followed on the heels of a slow, six-month rejection for a single story that is very much in the Lovecraftian mode.  In times such as this, I remind myself that Lovecraft had great difficulty getting published.  Today Poe would have a hard t...

My young writing partner Elizabeth often used to ask me if she was writing something the right way.  I responded that there is no right way to write.  Sure, there are rules and conventions that help more often than not, but when it comes to writing, you do what comes natural. I can’t know, but I suspect, this is one of the reasons it is so difficult to get published these days.  I do know publishing professionals, and they all say that publishers want works “like” those of a best selling author.  As close to a sure thing as a publisher can get. True creativity, however, blazes trails.  I enjoy fiction that I have a difficult time classifying.  Genres, after all, are guidelines to help us categorize written works.  Sometimes, however, the categories just don’t match the reality. I often write by phrases.  Phrases come to me—often at the worst possible time—that seem to be the basis for a story.  Phrase gets added to phrase, light ...