point of view – Page 26 – J. Scott Coatsworth

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POINT OF VIEW: Spicing Your Story Up With Slang

September 17, 2018 by scott

Hey all, Today’s column will be short but sweet, as I am in the throes of preparing to go to the Dreamspinner retreat in Orlando Thursday (*waves at all my author friends*). So I thought I’d talk a little more about my new holiday story “Melt.” It’s set in Antarctica, and I found a cool site that includes some Antartcic slang. Whether you’re writing a future world or something in the next city over, including some local idioms and slang can add additional layers to your storytelling. Here are a few from CoolAntarctica.com: Antarctic 10 – A person of the opposite … Read more

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Point of View: This Has All Happened Before

September 3, 2018 by scott

Hey all, I was wandering down memory lane earlier this week when I remembered something that I wanted to share with y’all. One of the things Mark and I do is to build directories and communities – Queer Sci Fi, QueeRomance Ink, and a number of others that bring together various parts of the LGBTIQA community. For today’s column, I thought I’d take you back a couple decades, to the beginning of the world wide web, when America Online ruled the Earth. Yes, there was actually a time when the web didn’t exist. It was a strange era, when you … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: How Would a Civilization Evolve If…

August 27, 2018 by scott

Last week I shared insights from a great author panel at WorldCon76 in San Jose. This week I thought I’d share another. The full title of this one was “How Would a Civilization Evolve If…: How Human and Nonhuman Concepts of ‘Universe’ Is [sic] Shaped By Their Environment.” It was a fascinating chat between an astronomer, a biologist, and a — for lack of a better term – historian/philosopher. It reminded me of nothing so much as those classic sci fi tales where aliens arrive on earth and a team of varied scientific disciplines (and one guy out of left … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Writing Epic Fantasy

August 20, 2018 by scott

Hey all, Mark and I just spent a few says at WorldCon 76 in San Jose, and one of the best panels we attended was the one on how to write epic fantasy. It was a two author chat between Kate Elliott, a veteran author with thirty years of publications under her belt, and Rebecca Roanhorse, a hot new “own voices” author who infuses her Anasazi and black heritage into her work. I thought I’d share a few of the insights from the panel here. 🙂 Background Kate started out by saying that epics happen in every culture – they … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Writing Different

August 13, 2018 by scott

Hey all, As I continue to write, I like to find new ways to challenge myself as a writer. Yeah, I’m a glutton for punishment. 😛 Often this means working on my writing skills themselves. I love to watch really good films and TV shows and dissect how they put their stories together, and then apply that to my own work. It’s a great source of writing lessons and helps me keep advancing my skills. Sometimes it manifests in my characters themselves. In the last couple years, I have written a number of characters very different from myself that I’d … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Suck A Little Happy Juice

August 6, 2018 by scott

Hey all, It’s an amazing time in my writerly life. I’m starting to get some local press for “The River City Chronicles” (ok, so I begged and pleaded, but hey, whatever it takes, right?) – and I will do my first official bookstore reading and signing on October 4th at Time Tested Books in midtown Sacramento. (hint hint hint) You can sign up to go here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1180415018767294/ If you are in the Sacramento area, please sign up. I need to show the bookstore I have local support, so they will ask me back again. 🙂 At the same time, I … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: What’s Next?

July 30, 2018 by scott

Hey all, As I work to finish the final book in the Liminal Sky series, I’ve been giving some thought to the question in today’s title – what’s next for me as a writer? I’ve done far more than I ever thought possible in this whole writing and publishing thing: Sold more than 20 stories (shorts, novellas and novels). Written not one but two series, to critical acclaim (and am wrapping up the last book now) Had a few certified Amazon bestsellers (albeit in smaller categories) Published my own works In the four years since I published my first short … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Amazon Bestsellers and The Long Game

July 23, 2018 by scott

Hey all, This last month, I’ve hit the top of the Amazon charts not once, not twice, but three times. My friends and family have taken notice, and many have contacted me to express their congratulations. It’s an awesome thing to claim the title of Amazon Bestselling Author. But if you scratch the surface, it’s not quite as glamorous as it seems. Amazon books have thousands of categories. There are really big ones, like the overall Romance category, or other general genre ones like Paranormal, Fantasy, and Sci Fi. There are smaller ones, like Gay Romance. Then there are the … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: When Life Intervenes

July 2, 2018 by scott

Hey all, I try to keep this column generally light hearted, sharing news about my writing and tips for my fellow writers. And I am writing – I am plowing through the first part of The Shifting Current this week. But sometimes life picks you up and shakes you hard. So I’m gonna get a little real today. When I heard the news last week that Justice Kennedy had chosen this moment to retire from the US Supreme Court, it was like a physical gut punch. I look back at the steps that got us here – Senator McConnell’s huge … Read more

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POV: Have Fun Raiding the Castle!

June 18, 2018 by scott

Hey all, This is one of the parts of writing that I love the most. I sent off “Ithani” to the publisher a week and a half ago, and now I am getting ready to start off on a brand new quest – writing the final book in the Liminal Sky trilogy. 🙂 Here’s what I can tell you. The new book, tentatively titled “The Shifting Current,” takes place about twenty years after the close of “The Rising Tide,” which comes out on October 30th. Many folks who knew Old Earth are now older or gone, and the world is … Read more