K. Marvin Bruce

  While I’m awaiting word whether the remainder of The Space between Atoms can be recovered, I’m pondering the correct strategy for publishing.   Like most struggling writers, I follow success when I encounter it.   Right now the biggest struggle for me is whether to focus on fiction or non. You see, under my real name I have had four nonfiction books published.   The problem is they’re academic books, expensive and obscure.   Yes, they may rest in the Library of Congress after I’m gone, but I doubt I’ll be joining Poe on Bradbury’s Mars.   Nevertheless, I know how to get such books published. My true love has always been fiction.   I’ve been writing fiction since at least 1974.   I really only attempted publication in 2009.   Although I’ve earned less than $40 from fiction, I’ve managed to have nearly 30 stories published.   My novels have had no success at all. If I were to follow “success” I would go after nonfiction.   My nonfi...

The search for an agent is entering its fourth month and I often wonder just what classics we’d have to live without if Herman Melville or Charlotte Bronte had received email after email saying “it just doesn’t have that ‘have to have’ feeling.”   We’d be literary beggars. The true irony of this is I know people who work in the publishing industry.   They say that someone with my background should be a no-brainer for an agent.   When I was a young man a friend accused me of writing too much like Melville.   “Nobody writes like that anymore,” he said.   His father-in-law was a writer. Melville was friends with Nathaniel Hawthorne.   Their works are endlessly remade in a more modern idiom.   Electrum may look like gold, but it’s not the same.   Why not search for the real thing? People learn how to do things from watching the masters.   While it may have been the glib Doc Savage and Dark Shadows pulps that led me to reading, I soon...

I get the feeling not many people are truly haunted.   I know I am.   The reason I get this feeling is that my fiction, which clearly reveals evidence of haunting, is always a hard sell.   I can’t give it away, at times. You see, some of us are haunted by life.   I recently read a biography of one of my childhood heroes, Rod Serling.   The biographer said he wasn’t a haunted man, he just played one on TV.   Not that I want anyone else to be haunted, but I felt a little let down by that assessment. Is there something wrong with admitting being haunted?   Like the stigma of mental illness?   Why are people so afraid of those who are haunted?   I’ve always felt drawn to them.   You’d think the internet might be where we could find one another. Yet I had behind a pseudonym.   Why?   I’m afraid.   I’m afraid to lose my “real job” that I don’t enjoy.   Afraid that my family will find out what’s i...

I’ve been spending a lot of time on literary agents’ pages.   One thing has become clear to me: to find an agent you’d better not have a regular job.   Well, unless that job is prominent, of course.   Professors, politicians, sports stars, actors—they can find agents with ease.   The rest of us, not so much. As I’m sitting here soaking in the proletariat pool, I’m contemplating looking for an agent for a story collection.   One of the things I noticed when doing all my agent hunting was that a few of them handle story collections.   Some writers made livings on stories: Edgar Allan Poe, Jorge Luis Borges, and H. P. Lovecraft come to mind. I’ve started reading collections of short stories again.   I really like the way a novel sucks you in and keeps you engaged for hours.   Our fractured lifestyles, however, often mean a collection of stories will get you through a compartmentalized day. As a writer I have written four no...

Several years ago now I wrote a story called “Without Crutches.”   Ah, distinctly I remember, it was before the wonderful journal Glimmer Train closed down.   I was going through one of my phases of actually reading journals before submitting, and I’d read a tale or two in said Train about characters with addictions. Perhaps going back to the almost mythic Edgar Allan Poe, writers have struggled with mind-altering substances.   Those of us who write see the world so differently and crave new experiences in an almost manic way.   Alcohol, drugs, and even religion can lead that way. “Without Crutches” was a story defending writing without using foreign substances.   As the child of an alcoholic, this path looks quite dark to me.   Besides, my imagination has a healthy libido.   Yes, even sex can lead to altered states of consciousness.   Of course, my story found no publishers. I recently read about Stephen King.   Actua...

The best advice writers give aspiring writers is this: read.  Read a lot.  The thing about our species is that we learn by watching what others do.  To write is to read. Thing is, I’m an eclectic reader.  And my writing, like a snowball, grows from contact with other words.  I read literary fiction, I write literary fiction.  I read horror, I write horror.  I read humor, I write humor.  My promiscuous reading leads to the sin of eclectic writing. How do I know it’s a sin?  The editors tell me so.  The great priestly gatekeepers who hold the means of recognition in their genre-stained hands.  Nobody knows what to make of the cross-genre man.  The transgender are fine.  Encouraged even.  But beware the cross-genre man. As I go sinning across the internet, reading a little of this and a little of that, the snowman I’m building starts to look maybe a bit like that of Pig Pen.  Did I mention I read childr...

What makes a story scary?  I suspect that the answer depends on the asker.  You see, I think of my stories as scary.  Whether other people do, I don’t know. When I look for a scary story I’m not looking for gore.  Properly speaking, I’m not looking for fear either.  Mood, creepiness, and the strange are far more appealing.  Frisson at the atmosphere.  Poe, I suspect, isn’t too scary these days.  He knew how to set a mood, though. I recently read Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery.”  I’ve heard a lot about this story and since it is still under copyright I had to find a book that contained it.  It wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be. Don’t take me wrong—I am a fan of Shirley Jackson.  She was able to deliver as The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle show.  “The Lottery,” however, didn’t scare me.  It was interesting, a nice short story, but not fearful. I find my hackles rising...

Ten percent, in the context of the Bible, is a tithe.  The old laws say that you owe God ten percent of your income.  Some religious people today still pay it. I was reading an article recently that featured another ten percent.  This applied to writers.  Although an unscientific survey—including information from Duotrope—this article suggested the acceptance rate of fiction writers is ten percent. That means, and I’m no math guy, that a piece has to be submitted an average of ten times before it is accepted somewhere.  This helps explain, but not assuage, my lack of success when it comes to getting published.  It’s normal. This has been on my mind lately since  Interview with the Gorgon  is getting more than ripe.  I stopped trying to find publishers some five years ago when it was under contract with Vagabondage Press.  They took a long time killing it—with no kill fee—leaving me in ...

My my recent story published, “As Nature Directs,” (it can be read here ) just appeared in The Fable Online .  This was a story inspired by Poe and, as I mentioned to the editors, was primarily about setting the tone. It’s a creepy story that originally had somewhat religious undertones.  The source of the tension is that the protagonist doesn’t know who he really is.  Do any of us know who we really are? Riding a horse, I told my writing partner Elizabeth, always reminds me of Poe.  I have to admit a couple things here: I haven’t ridden a horse since I was in college (I was a summer counselor at horse camp), and the reason I associate horses with Poe is the opening of “The Fall of the House of Usher.”   “The Fall of the House of Usher” is my favorite short story.  It was firmly in mind when I wrote “As Nature Directs.”  There’s nothing inherently supernatural about the tale.  It’s suggested, but not explicit. The wonders ...

There are weeks, as a writer, many weeks in fact, when I don’t submit anything for publication.  I have a backlog of stories, and even of novels, but putting yourself out for possible rejection never comes easily.  On the uplift from an acceptance, my ebullience leads me to submit others. This has been a week of Yes and No.  I was pleased to hear on Wednesday that The Fable Online has accepted my story, “As Nature Directs,” for publication.  The acceptance note kept me happy, even through work. Thursday Liminal Stories turned down my effort entitled “Fire Everlasting.”  The editors said that the writing was good but the fit was not.  That’s something I can understand.  I really should be better about matching content and container.  It’s a growth area. Having editors say the writing is good always provides a boost.  It was one of the readers’ comments on “As Nature Directs” that stayed with me.  The reader noted that the s...

A criticism that I’ve occasionally received concerns pacing.  The short story, which today means up to about 7000 words, is a limited amount of space to establish mood.  My writing partner Elizabeth was reading a Poe short story recently and commented on how long it seemed. We’ve been accustomed, by the internet, to shorten things.  Flash fiction is in.  Say it in 1000 words or less.  What’s the correct pacing for a 300-word story? I’ve been editing a number of my complete, but unpublished, stories lately.  I’m trying to bring the word counts down.  I don’t want to be thought of as a plodding writer.  At the same time, I’m no action writer.  My stories are thoughtful. Some time ago I started reading Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire .  Dark, moody, and sensuous, this is a slow-paced novel.  Focusing on subtleties and emotions, she paints a writerly picture of the inner life of the undead. If I were an editor to...

Those of us who write are quite mad.  In more lucid moments we know it, but most of the time our reality is skewed.  There are any number of examples.  If you write, you know it to be true. I recently read a study of science fiction writer Philip K. Dick.  Dick had drug addiction issues throughout his life, but he also experienced severe abandonment issues as a child.  As an adult he had mystical experiences that sound quite, well, mad. Whitley Strieber, who is still alive, has been subject to fits and mystical experiences throughout his life as well.  Some of his fiction is bizarre, but not as strange as his non-fiction.  The list could go on and on.  Writers see the world differently than others. We write and find that others don’t share our point of view.  We die and, if we’re lucky, then we become famous.  Those who made great statements in their fiction often began, and ended, obscure.  Poe was pilloried in h...

Last week I posted about a list on GQ of books you’ve never heard of, but should read.  Like most curious folks, I looked up one or two on Amazon.  It was then that the power of media struck me. Amazon’s feature “Frequently Bought Together” listed another of GQ’s books next to the one I was searching (Mary McCarthy’s The Groves of Academe , from 1952).  Just coincidence?  I scrolled down. There, in the “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” section, no less that four of the other books on the GQ list showed up.  I’m no Sherlock Holmes, but it was clear that people were going through the GQ list and buying up the books.  I searched for one on BookFinder. By the time I clicked the link, it was gone. I’ve often felt that people who have an institution behind them (even be it GQ) have a built-in way of succeeding as writers. My own mention of Sherlock Holmes compels me to mention The Hound of the Baskervilles .  I recently read this ...

I used to write a lot of poetry.  Over the past few years my writing has mostly been prose, a mix of creative non-fiction and fiction.  Once in a while, however, poetry can be used to say what prose cannot. I found an old notebook that had old material in it.  The old material was embarrassing, and in pencil, so I decided to erase it.  In the process I realized I was creating a palimpsest.  A palimpsest is a document that has been erased so the paper can be reused for a new project. This seemed to cry out for poetry.  Erasing my life so that I could reuse it.  Recycling myself.  I began to write short poems over the older work.  My palimpsest. Maybe I had been bottling it up, because the poetry kept flowing.  It felt like a day of a thousand poems.  The reality was more like a dozen, but that’s a lot of poetry for one time.  Instead of intentionally crafting poems like some writers do (notably Poe was meticulous in...

That little coordinating conjunction always spells trouble.  I used to be a professor, but now I’m an editor.  I read many, many student papers—and now read many books—where the author doesn’t write well.  I write well, but… I ponder this as I have just received a nice rejection letter, this one from Two Dollar Radio.  My writing is good, but not exactly what we’re looking for.  My stack of such letters teeters over my head.  Well, it would if I printed them out.  It is easy to say no over the internet. In a world where good writers have trouble publishing, what does that say about the publishing industry?  I’m reading a novel right now that’s very interesting.  On the literary front it can’t be called great, but it is a good book.  The writing is good, but… In publishing, the choice comes down to fit and money.  You’re supposed to research your potential publisher—as if you’d have any time between working twelve hours ...

I write both short stories and novels.  This is not unusual for a writer because different ideas play themselves out at different lengths.  Indeed, the division is artificial.  Edgar Allan Poe famously opined that a short story should be unified by mood and short enough to read in one sitting. A novel is a long-term commitment.  Or at least an affair that lasts more than a one-night stand.  Your characters have time to get to know one another “on screen” and the tale might get very complicated. It is difficult to come off of a novel into a short story, I find.  Going the other way around isn’t nearly so much of a let-down.  A story, after all, may develop into a novel.  Few novels can exist in the few words allotted to the short story. I’ve been working on my Medusa novel.  I’m about to start sending more letters of inquiry, and I’ve pretty much finished with the current round of polishing.  During my daily writing tim...

My writing partner Elizabeth and I like to talk about characters.  In some of my stories the characters are only vaguely defined.  To me, that is one of the aspects of short stories.  Did Poe know or care where Roderick  Usher went to college?  What kind of tree the raven's nest was in?  Somehow I doubt it. Still, getting a clear idea of character helps a story immensely.  One of the most basic aspects of character is desire.  We all want something.  If a character doesn't want anything no pitfalls will come on the way to her or his goals. The character's world will be dull and meandering. If there is one thing you must know about your characters, it is what do they want? I've read books where the author clearly doesn't know what the character desires.  The story can unfold and interesting, titillating events can transpire.  You can even feel for the losses or injuries the protagonist bears.  But you...

I seldom get sick.  I’ve been told this is one of the boons of middle age—the maladies of childhood pass and it take more to bring you down.  A swift-moving bug, however, recently caught me and kept me awake all night thinking the end had come. Ironically, I associate being sick with writing.  I was  a sickly child.  Skinny and frail I ended up in the hospital with pneumonia and actually missed a large portion of seventh grade because of recurring bouts of illness.  I attempted to write my first novel in such a febrile state. A science-fiction fan, I began scrawling about a ship at sea attached by some weird creature.  My novel didn’t have much of a plot and my skills were, well, juvenile.  A couple more false starts accompanied me through high school, but few people beyond my two closest friends, knew I wrote. Of course, I don’t have to be sick to write.  In this workaday world, however, a brief illness affords an opportun...

I recently read a novel which, because I like only to say kind things of authors, I shall not name.  Suffice it to say that the author had written two successful novels before and I hoped for a mood to match the season in this one.   It was a ghost story, so I thought I was definitely on track.  It was set in a different historical period, but that's fine by me.  Past ghosts are just as troubling as present ghosts.  The story, however, couldn't ever strike a mood.   The setting was in a time of an epidemic.  As well as war.  But the optimism—can I even call it that?—of the narrator seemed not to allow for what Edgar Allan Poe once said was essential for stories: the "single effect."  It was a story scattered all over the place.   Perhaps most jarring to me was the use of language that seemed inappropriate to the time setting of the story.  Phrases that seemed modern, or lighthearted, sprang up in awkward places....