cmckit: Hello, Dr. Schmidt, this is Chris McKitterick and Jim Gunn's summer SF Writer's Workshop. There are about 15 of us here in a comfortable room in the Kansas Union called the Governer's Room. Good day!
stanleyschmidt44: Hi! Glad to "be" "here."
cmckit: How are things going at Analog? In particular, does the slush pile need more mass? <g>
stanleyschmidt44: Quite well, from my point of view. I've been getting so many good stories I can buy _very_ selectively. In fact, I have to. Accounting won't write any more checks till I use up some inventory.
cmckit: Ah! About how many story submissions do you get a month?
stanleyschmidt44: It varies through the year, but typically on the order of four or five hundred.
cmckit: What characteristics make a story stand out in your slush pile? In general, but also specifically for Analog?
stanleyschmidt44: Either or both of two things, and I'd always rather see both: storytelling that grabs my attention and won't let go, and new ideas or new ways of looking at old ones.
cmckit: How would you define the "Analog story"?
stanleyschmidt44: I'd like to think that it can't be done, because Analog stories cover a much wider range than people often assume they do. But there are a few things they tend to have in common. ([to be continued)
stanleyschmidt44: They should always be entertaining (in a very broad sense), and thought-provoking. And they tend to have an underlying assumption that the universe can be understood and problems solved. "Giving up" stories don't do much for me,
stanleyschmidt44: or our readers. (The text limit seems to have shrunk since last year. I'll adjust.)
cmckit: What would you like to print but can't? That is, what you don't think will interest your readers but you still like?
stanleyschmidt44: There are lots of things that some of our readers like but don't want in Analog, such as "Unknown"-style fantasy. They count on Analog for certain qualities they can't count on finding elsewhere.
cmckit: RE: your previous comment, it sounds as if you believe SF readers are inherently optimists - humanity will not only survive but prevail.
stanleyschmidt44: Not necessarily. Humanity can do some awfully stupid things. What our readers tend to believe is that problems _can_ be solved. It's up to us to see that they are. Success is not assured.
cmckit: How do you find out what your readers want? What is the profile of your typical reader? How many people actually respond to the AnLab or voting?
stanleyschmidt44: Single-digit percentages vote in the AnLab, which is a fair sample but I'd like even better. I also see lots of letters, comments on our Raders' Forum on our website, and conversations at conventions. Our readers are quite vocal.
cmckit: What kinds of new SF cliches do you see too much of and don't want to see any more? What kinds of stories (not necessarily cliched) are you seeing too many of?
stanleyschmidt44: They're also a bit cantakerous and contrary, and enjoy turning ideas on their heads just as much as I do.
cmckit: SF readers cantakerous? Say it ain't so!
stanleyschmidt44: Sorry, we're getting ahead of ourselves. I published an article listing 26 of those ideas; it's in our book on "Writing SF and Fantasy." Most are still valid.
stanleyschmidt44: And I always see too many stories about the latest scientific fad, by people who don't understand it.
cmckit: What do you like about writing editorials? They're pretty popular with the readers.
stanleyschmidt44: They're fun - I've always liked looking at ideas from angles that force people to change their views of them. And there are usually things that I think need to be said and aren't being said enough elsewhere.
cmckit: Interesting - sounds like a good source for story ideas to send you. By the wayy, what ideas out on the scientific horizon are most interesting to you?
stanleyschmidt44: Well, yes, that's another purpose of editorials: to provoke authors into writing stories. The interesting new ideas are all over, in such areas as genetic engineering and the additional solar systems we've started discovering...
stanleyschmidt44: ...and some ideas aren't quite new, but won't go away. Analog was one of the first places to start exploring nanotechnology; some readers say they're tired of it, but...
cmckit: Are you getting a lot (too much) political fiction lately?
cmckit: sorry, please go on!
stanleyschmidt44: ...ignoring it would be like ignoring electricity in 1900.
stanleyschmidt44: OK, now: political. We're getting quite a bit, but I think that's inevitable and healthy. A lot of political stuff has been going on that needs all the scrutiny it can get.
cmckit: Can you think offhand of any story you wish you would have published (or author you didn't get)? That is, do you feel you "missed out" on someone or some story?
cmckit: Jim Gunn mentions that Fred Pohl rejected the first "Star Wars" novelization.
stanleyschmidt44: Not offhand. There've undoubtedly been some things that appeared elsewhere that I would have been glad to have, but I don't have an example in mind.
cmckit: How do you decide the mix of short-shorts, shorts, novelettes, novellas, and novels?
stanleyschmidt44: It's partly a jigsaw puzzle. Ideally I'd like to have some of everything in each issue, though sometimes trade-offs are necessary. E.g., I need an occasional issue with no serial to accommodate long novellas.
cmckit: Do you get more of any one length?
stanleyschmidt44: That varies, too. Sometimes I'm swamped with shorts and wishing for long stories, sometimes the other way around. But if I say so in print, the situation will soon be reversed!
cmckit: !
cmckit: Who did you read when you were growing up?
stanleyschmidt44: I vividly remember the day my father hooked me on SF, by handing me 2 stories by Weinbaum and one by Padgett (Kuttner and Moore). Once I got into it, I liked Asimov, Heinlein, Poul Anderson, and Fredric Brown, to name just a few.
cmckit: Good choices! Who are the the new <these guys> today?
stanleyschmidt44: Apologies in advance to the deserving many I'll leave out, but among the newest I'm very impressed by Rajnar Vajra, Ken Wharton, and Richard A. Lovett. Others who've been around a bit longer include...
stanleyschmidt44: Stephen L. Burns, Jerry Oltion, Amy Bechtel, Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff...and many others in between.
cmckit: Would you consider doing a best of Analog anthology? There's a comment about how after stories are published, they're gone. We're discussing about how anthologies of the 50's and 60's contained great stuff.
stanleyschmidt44: We've done such anthologies in the past, and I'd love to do more - especially a big 75th-anniversary retrospective. But they're a hard sell with publishers. They all say anthologies don't sell well enough.
cmckit: That's too bad. What are you ideas for attracting new SF readers to Analog and to SF in general?
stanleyschmidt44: I wish I had a lot more of those! Our website (analogsf.com) helps some, and we're hoping to run an Analog/Asimov's cruise in the Caribbean next spring. One of the most promising things I've seen...
cmckit: Wow, a cruise! So they'll sit around in their cabins all day long reading...<g>
stanleyschmidt44: ...is the new Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame that just opened in Seattle. It's impressive and should entice some movie-watchers to try reading.
cmckit: Let's hope.
stanleyschmidt44: Well, some of them might. But we hope to entice them out for things like workshops and arguments with cantankerous writers and editors, too.
cmckit: Cover letters: what do you like to see, or even get one at all?
stanleyschmidt44: In general, a cover letter isn't _necessary_ unless there's something I need to know about the story that isn't obvious in the story itself. But I often do enjoy getting to know writers through their letters. On the oter hand...
stanleyschmidt44: ...it's quite possible to shoot yourself in the foot with a self-defeating cover letter.
cmckit: There's some discussion about mid-list authors right now, difficulty publishing hardcore SF in novels now. Any comments about that, perhaps how short SF can be different?
stanleyschmidt44: There's certainly a problem with midlist book SF, but I think it has more to do with "midlist" than "hard SF." Publishers are very profit-oriented and show little interest in publishing anybody except recent bestsellers or...
stanleyschmidt44: ...newcomers who they hope will become bestsellers. If they don't, in fairly short order, they'll have problems. One big advantage of short SF is that I can take more chances with individual stories - so I really don't much care...
stanleyschmidt44: ...who wrote them.
cmckit: Wouldn't you say that hard SF requires more of the reader than typical bestsellers do?
stanleyschmidt44: Definitely! It also gives more back, for those who who are able to take it and enjoy it. (I think that's related to the fact that the best story ideas are seldom the easiest to write.)
cmckit: What is the percentage, do you think, of the stories you see that are not professional in appearance or immediately turn you off?
stanleyschmidt44: Much smaller than it used to be. As my brother says, computers make it too easy to make bad writing look good. The kind of story that used to come in in purple ink on yellow legal pad is now likely to be neatly laser-printed.
cmckit: What do you think of the state of SF today?
stanleyschmidt44: I appreciate its great diversity, but at the same time regret that the term "science fiction" has come to mean so little. A story that makes no attempt to use science plausibly, whatever its other virtues, is not science fiction.
cmckit: We're discussing how literary genre fiction uses much of the SF tropes and language. Would you rather see hard SF stories or more mainstream-ish ones? Ones you know will be popular with readers? Or a mix?
stanleyschmidt44: This format doesn't give me nearly enough room to answer this! I'd like all my SF to be "hard," but I seem to use the term very differently from a lot of people. All I mean by it is that science is integral to the story, and...
stanleyschmidt44: ...a reasonable effort has been made to keep it plausible. "Flowers for Algernon" qualifies beautifully; "Star Wars" doesn't. What I'd really like to see is for writers to routinely be...
stanleyschmidt44: ...just as careful with their science as with their fiction - and vice versa.
cmckit: Who do you think are the most under-rated SF writers today?
stanleyschmidt44: I don't really like terms like "underrated," since ultimately literary judgments are very largely matters of personal taste. But one who I think is long overdue for a book contract is Rajnar Vajra, who's been doing some _very_ ...
stanleyschmidt44: ...original, imaginative work for us.
cmckit: A follow up on the cover letter question: How can writers shoot themselves in the foot?
stanleyschmidt44: I remember one letter patiently explaining that I might find the story over my head, and I should not hesitate to look up the hard words. Another assured me that if I had any guts at all, which the author was sure I did not...
stanleyschmidt44: ...I would definitely publish his story. In general, any story in which the author tells me in glowing terms how wonderful his own story is, is highly suspect.
cmckit: Wow, okay, those seem pretty clearly foot-shooters. What advice would you give to beginning writers?
stanleyschmidt44: Read as much as you can - both fiction and non, in a wide range of subjects - but don't imitate. Grab the reader's attention on the first page; it may be your last chance. Do your research and check your work...
stanleyschmidt44: ...if you're not _sure_ something is right, look it up! (Sometimes you may even have to do a calculation. If you don't, some reader will.)
cmckit: Especially SF readers, and more especially Analog readers!
stanleyschmidt44: Yep!
cmckit: Speaking of hard and not SF, what do you think of Dune?
stanleyschmidt44: Very impressive job of worldbuilding.
cmckit: Ah, well, keeping distance from that one, eh?
cmckit: What do you think about the editorial shift at Asimov's?
stanleyschmidt44: Not really. I think it _is_ an impressive job of world-building, but I haven't read it recently enough to want to comment in detail. As for the shift at Asimov's, I hope it works out well for all. It's too early to say more
cmckit: Are you working on any of your own fiction right now?
stanleyschmidt44: Yes, I have one novel proposal out looking for a home and another taking shape - the first part of which may become (with slight adjustments) an independent novelette.
cmckit: Is that going to appear in Analog first?
stanleyschmidt44: Conceivable, but not too likely. I don't think any writer is a really good judge of his or her own work, so I never publish my own fiction without submitting it elsewhere first. Sometimes somebody else buys it; sometimes...
stanleyschmidt44: ...they say, "It's not right for me, but it is right for you. Go ahead and publish it!" I've only done that 2 or 3 times in 25 years.
cmckit: What SF movies have you seen lately that are good SF?
stanleyschmidt44: That's always a hard one - I see so few! There may have been one, but I've had such poor luck with "science fiction" movies that I seldom go to them unless somebody I trust tells me "This one's different."...
stanleyschmidt44: ...That may have happened in the last year, but I don't remember it offhand.
cmckit: Are you going to be at WorldCon this year? We have some readers and authors here who would love to meet you.
stanleyschmidt44: Yes, I'll be there, and I suspect I'd like to meet them, too. Incidentally, in case anybody there will be in the neighborhood, I'll also be at Armadillocon, in Austin (TX) next month.
cmckit: One last question: What would you say is your favorite SF book and non-SF book?
stanleyschmidt44: I can never really narrow things like that down to just one, but if forced, I'll just name a couple of recent ones. I was very impressed by Robert J. Sawyer's _Hominids_ (and its two sequels); and I'm just now finishing...
stanleyschmidt44: ...Jared Diamond's _Guns, Germs, and Steel_. It may well be the best history book I've ever read, and it's giving me lots of ideas for the new novel I'm trying to hatch.
cmckit: Interesting stuff!
stanleyschmidt44: Yes - the kind of nonfiction book that I as a fiction writer have to read with a notepad in hand.
cmckit: Thanks so much for your patience, time, and insights! Sounds like a couple of these folks will look you up at Armadillocon, and a few others will be at WorldCon. Many thanks from all of us! Hope to chat again next year!
stanleyschmidt44: My pleasure. "See" you in a year (and some of you sooner)!
- end transmission -
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