Over the last fifteen to twenty years, I’ve been profoundly influenced by Lovecraft, Ramsey Campbell, Clive Barker, Stephen King, Peter Straub, T.E.D. Klein and Michael Shea on the horror side. Martin Cruz Smith and William Goldman and Cormac McCarthy continue to fascinate me, as well. To this day, I keep Ghost Story , Dark Gods, and Blood Meridian at hand. I dissect them at paragraph level, sentence level, and I’m still unpacking what I discover.
How much revision do you typically do for a short story, and when do you know a story is finished?
Revision constitutes most of my writing effort; it’s an obsession. I’ve written and sold fourteen stories over a seven year span, which doubtless says something about how much time I invest in a given project. Generally speaking, getting a story from the initial concept to final draft is a battle. The novella “The Imago Sequence” came in at roughly 20k. To get the 20k I wrote approximately sixty thousand words, and that’s typical of my experience. I tend to write non-sequentially and revise sentence by sentence as I go. It’s a fairly tortuous process, and certainly inefficient compared to the methodology of many pros. Fortunately, I’m in a position to eschew maximum efficiency in favor of indulging an aesthetic ideal.
In my case, the creative process is significantly external; it’s analogous to adjusting a radio dial to apprehend whatever frequency carries the transmission, the particular narrative that I’ve latched onto. Once begun, a great percentage of time involves sifting through the static, searching for that original signal among a hundred other ghost broadcasts. As for when it’s done, I’ll keep adjusting and tweaking details until the story is pried from my fingers by an editor, until it’s published and safely out of my reach.
How has having a collection published changed your impressions of your own fiction?
Having lived for so long among these stories, I can’t say my impressions are dramatically altered. However, I can say a few things regarding the impressions I’d hoped to convey.
A few years into marriage, my mother had an epiphany and became a devout Christian. My father remained an equally devout agnostic. There developed, as one might expect, a whale of a schism in our household. I reconciled my personal issues of faith ages ago, but my parents’ fierce and highly intelligent arguments spurred a line of inquiry that I yet turn over in my mind. Over time, Lovecraft, Machen, Blackwood, Dunsany, and the like, inspired me to synthesize their varying interpretations of the nature of the universe and of reality with worldwide creation mythology of all kinds. The horrors encountered in The Imago Sequence draw as much upon the more fearsome depictions of a Christian God, Buddhist hells, and Moabite deities as they do Lovecraft’s ineffable Old Ones. I don’t shrink from the Lovecraftian label. Nonetheless, my interpretation of the Lovecraftian mythos merely serves as a convenient mode to explore the idea that the universe represents the macroscopic version of a microscopic cellular structure. I find brane theory of particular interest. I’ve undertaken the task of naturalizing cosmic horror, rendering it and the extra dimensional organic rather than strictly supernatural insomuch as “supernatural” equates the magical or metaphysical.
While putting together The Imago Sequence, I envisioned a mosaic of loosely related, yet thematically reinforcing, stories that would explore humankind’s insignificance when contrasted with the immensity of the cosmos. I chose as protagonists a gallery of hard-nosed men, eminently capable men, to confront unimaginable forces. A fondness for the conventions of noir aside, I chose spies and gunfighters, enforcers and soldiers because few things are more dreadful, more horrifying, than watching a supremely confident individual succumb to circumstances beyond their control, beyond their very comprehension. Indeed, the loss of control, the disintegration of competence, of self, is a thematic cornerstone. It has always been my intention to provoke disquiet, if not fear, to raise questions, to entertain. To what degree I’ve been successful is an open question.
Ultimately, the only impression that counts is that of the audience. I’ve had my say and it’s time to move on to the next story, the next collection.
What are some of the important qualities of the fiction you most love?
I could make a list of qualities that compel me to pick up a book and turn pages, but it comes down to poetry in all its glorious manifestations. I didn’t really begin to find my way as a writer until I learned to appreciate poetry. I’m a fan of Charles Simic, Wallace Stevens, Sylvia Plath, Dylan Thomas, to name a handful. For exactly one year of my life I attempted a poem a day, and when I wasn’t writing poetry I devoured it, did my level best to absorb it by osmosis.
Noir is famous for this affiliation, but all of my favorite writing sings with poetry. Much of my admiration for Michael Shea, for example, stems from his lyricism, his ability to wield language in a manner that engages and enthralls — sometimes reckless and coarse, other times utterly mellifluous, but always layered, always multifaceted and as ornamental as it is functional. He’s not satisfied to employ language as a necessity. Shea demonstrates that it’s insufficient for prose to function as a utilitarian device when it can so readily transform literature, imbue narrative with a force capable of transcending the medium, of devastating the audience with a gesture.
What are you currently working on?
I’m in the midst of completing several stories for anthology invitations. I’ve two novellas in the works. Recently, I pitched a novel proposal to my agent. He was amenable, so after I clear the decks I’ll get cracking on that.
About the Author
Jeff VanderMeer is an award-winning writer with books published in over 20 countries. He has collaborated on short films with rock groups like The Church, has had his fiction adapted for promotional purposes by Playstation Europe (by filmmaker Joel Veitch), and writes for the Amazon book blog, io9, New York Times Book Review and The Washington Post, among others.
Jeff's novel Finch and writing book, Booklife, are forthcoming this fall.
Chicken Little and the Death of Short Fiction
Neil Clarke
Every few months, leagues of Chicken Littles run to the rooftop to proclaim the impending death of short fiction. Fueled by annually declining subscription numbers for the “big three” genre magazines or the announcement of the closure of another, these reactions have some grounding, but fail to take the big picture into consideration.
Let’s start with the “big three” since they are the most popular target in this saga. For those not in the know, we’re talking about Analog, Asimov’s and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (F&SF), the three magazines you’re most likely to find at a newsstand or bookstore. Asimov’s, at thirty-one years, is the baby of the bunch and they all are, as a whole, the old guard, time-tested survivors of an age where genre magazine readerships were considerably higher. Today the concern is over their more recent declines and whether or not those numbers can sustain continued publication. From my position as an outsider, it certainly appears that there is reason to be concerned.
The Littles would have you believe that the recent problems with the subscription numbers are tied to the health of short fiction as a whole. After all, just look at the number of failed markets listed at Ralan.com. (Ralan.com is one of the best sites to check for information about genre short fiction markets.) While they choose to look at that information as the second sign of the coming apocalypse, I simply see it as a reflection of new market realities.
Changes in technology have made it increasingly easy for the average person to launch a magazine and as a result, there has been a boom in the number of new markets over the last few years. Decreased risk in launching magazines has led to some “interesting” endeavors and many have failed. This should not be a cause for alarm. What we are seeing is a move from a few well-planned entries into the market to more of a shotgun approach representing a variety of different business models and philosophies. This is particularly true with the online markets, where a “standard” or best model has yet to prove itself. I have no doubt t
hat for some time the failure rate will continue to be stunning. That said, some attempts will hit the target and the market will be better for it. This is evolution at work.
As someone who publishes an online magazine, I’ll admit to having a bias, but I don’t think that anyone would argue with me when I say that online publications have made significant gains in the last decade. You’ll find a lot more established authors published in online venues, the best paying markets are online, and judging from conversations with other online publishers, our readership, while smaller than our print cousins, is growing. Here are some other interesting facts:
A significant number of print publishers have launched online publications: Baen (Baen’s Universe), Subterranean (Subterranean), Prime (Fantasy Magazine), Tor (not yet, but they say really soon now), and Wyrm (Clarkesworld).
Well-known authors Orson Scott Card and Rudy Rucker have launched their own publications. (Intergalactic Medicine Show and Flurb, respectively)
The magazine with the 2nd largest readership/listenership is EscapePod. It boasts a download rate of over 18k per issue. (#1 is Analog)
Online magazines do not have the distribution issues print magazines have. Issues are instantly available around the world and accessible by more people than they would have been in print.
It should also be noted within the context of this discussion that there is a greater variety of short fiction markets now than ever and not at the expense of print magazines. We have a wealth of excellent small press print zines (like Electric Velocipede, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Shimmer, and Sybil’s Garage) and many good online magazines (like Lone Star Stories, Abyss & Apex, Strange Horizons, Farrago’s Wainscot, in addition those already mentioned). No, the market is certainly not hurting for good fiction, places to read it, or enthusiastic fans to enjoy them.
If it isn’t the market causing the “big three’s” woes, then what is it? I think it is safe to say that we can hold the publications themselves somewhat responsible. In the last twenty years, we’ve seen the rise of a new generation of readers that have had a very different entertainment experience than their parents. The market has been changed by these people. Have magazines been keeping pace, standing still, or falling behind? Let’s take a look at Weird Tales.
This magazine was much farther down the spiral than the “big three” is at present. They were bleeding subscribers at a near-fatal rate when the publisher woke up and realized that they had to do something. Weird Tales, like many others, had remained relatively unchanged during the last two decades, and the market had moved on. They had become a time capsule, a magazine for your father’s generation.
Over the last year, Weird Tales has virtually reinvented itself. They overhauled their design, reorganized and replaced staff, embraced the internet, and targeted their marketing. Initial reports indicate that their efforts are paying off. Their subscriptions are up significantly and they’ve been attracting positive attention from circles that might not have considered paying much attention to a genre magazine. It’s a very promising start and an excellent example of how to embrace change.
Obviously, any insinuation here is an oversimplification of the problems the “big three” face. Things are always more complicated than they appear from the outside. A good solution for one, may only be a first step for another. All we can do is hope that each is being proactive in dealing with their problems. In the end, however, each publication has the responsibility to deal with its own problems. We shouldn’t be so quick to blame the market if something bad happens.
So, this has been my turn on the rooftop. It’s up to you to decide if I’m just another one of the crazies screaming or someone who made a few good points. As a huge fan of short fiction, it’s distressing to see so many beloved magazines come and go, but I refuse to go to that dark place. I look to the new guard to move us forward and the old guard to rise to the occasion, but I don’t expect this to happen without casualties. It’s time to judge the health of the market by the successes, not the failures. We’re supposed to learn from failures, not make them the standard by which we judge things.
What do you think?
About the Author
Neil Clarke is the publisher of Clarkesworld Magazine and owner of Wyrm Publishing. He currently lives in NJ with his wife and two children.
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