Martin L. Shoemaker: His program for writing

Martin L. Shoemaker: His program for writing By Angelique Fawns   Martin L. Shoemaker has more than 30 years of experience in programming, writing, and teaching. He’s a popular mentor in the speculative fiction world, and has stories in Analog, Galaxy’s Edge, Writers of the Future Volume 31, and Clarkesworld. I met Shoemaker when I took his Fyrecon short story masterclass, “Tools Not Rules.” He is a prolific creator and has some great advice for writers looking to learn story structure. Last year, he released a book called Making Story Models: Tools for Visualizing Your Story, and he has a salient bit of advice that stuck out for me. “There is no One True Path. There’s no rule of writing that someone hasn’t successfully broken, save for one: You must write.” Shoemaker was kind enough to take time out of his busy schedule to chat with us. AF: Of all the tools in your writing toolbox, what do you find most useful? MLS: It’s a tie between dictation and pantsing, because I do them both simultaneously and they’re intertwined in my mind. Dictation allows me to write faster and also to write in time I would otherwise lose: driving and exercising. On top of that, it tends to produce more natural dialogue. Pantsing (or discovery writing, if you prefer) means I’m never at a loss for something to dictate. I don’t need a plan forward, I just need to know what happened and what my characters want. I think about where they are and what they do and what happens and what goes wrong, and story falls out of my mouth.   AF: Do you have any advice for writers hoping to make the transition from short form to long? MLS: A short story is generally about one crucial event,...
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