My novelette, An Illicit Mercy, is part of a new promotion in November, the Sci-Fi & Fantasy Giveaway.
Check out over 90 novels, short stories, and excerpts, available for free.
My latest short story An Unexpected Grace appears in Boundary Shock Quarterly 24: Science Fiction Holidays.
Still coming to terms with her decisions during a recent assignment, Corporal Siwela takes a leave-of-absence. Perhaps a holiday visit to her home community will help get her head straight. But the trip doesn’t go as planned. Marooned and wounded in the Martian outback, running out of air, Siwela won’t survive without aid. This wasn’t how she planned to spend Christmas.
Club Codex is reading and discussing the Otherwise Award-winning novel “Sorrowland” by Rivers Solomon through November 25. Please join us!
by Brian Scott Pauls
In September, I increased the expected word count of Probability Amplitudes. This is the title of my upcoming sf short story collection. I'd expected the published manuscript would contain about 40,000 words. Then I learned the average length for a Kindle science fiction anthology is 400-500 pages. This requires a published word count of 120,000, the revised target I set in September. But I’ve since realized I need an even higher target.
As I mentioned in my previous post on this topic, I want to produce the highest quality work possible. This requires professional editing. And an editor might tell me to make extensive cuts, even entire stories!
I’ve budgeted 25% of the final draft for cuts. My publication target remains 120,000 words, so the final draft must have a word count of 160,000. This adds 40,000 words to the target I established in September.
To get a visual depiction of my progress, I’ve created the following chart:
The percentages above represent the following word counts:
New Material Required: 75,072 words
First Draft: 7309 words
Final Draft: 77,619 words
TOTAL: 160,000
I’m encouraged to learn I already have over half the material in the "First Draft" and "Final Draft" stages. "Final Draft" means the first draft is complete, and I need to finish the final draft. It doesn’t mean the final draft is already done.
I plan to update this chart for future posts about Probability Amplitudes. Thanks for following along!
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A larger pool of stories for "Probability Amplitudes"