Tim Powers: Ask Me Anything

@timpowers Do you have any advice on finding the right balance between creating fiction and using realistic research to back it up? I think the first story I wrote was too real and my second was too made up.

Tim, thanks for your part of the workshop. I've taken it twice hoping to let the information seep into my thinking.

Would you accept an invitation to visit the space station, and while there write a story.

@timpowers

Thank you!!

Tim,

Any writing resources you find particularly valuable? (Not necessarily craft books--anything from solid research sources to useful computer programs could qualify.)

Much thanks,

Liz

Would having previously self published affect the chances of getting newer works traditionally published? 

Posted by: @wulfmoon

Thanks for being here, Tim! Can you share a few thoughts on the benefits this Contest brings to aspiring writers? Many have launched successful careers through it, more so than any other contest. Why do you feel that's the case?

And here's a question for me. What's the craziest place you've visited while doing research, and the weirdest experience you had there?

Thanks, Tim! My best to Serena!

Hi, Wulf -- the contest has lots of benefits! For one thing, it's for newcomers, so you're not in competition with Neil Gaiman or somebody; and you get all sorts of advice in the workshop from me and Dave Farland and Scott Card, plus heaps more advice after hours in the bar from the judges who attend the event; and Author Services doesn't just drop you afterward -- they arrange interviews and signings, and explain how to handle those things. It's a real launch of a career. And -- the craziest place we ever visited for research might be the ruins of the Houdini mansion off Laurel Canyon in Hollywood -- we had to climb through a fence, climb over ruins and masses of fallen palm fronds, and evade crazy homeless people.

@timpowers Thank you for your advice. I will learn when to hit delete on Grammarly’s suggestions.

Great answers Tim. Thank you.

Another fun question for you.  ...What's your favorite historical time/setting. What is its appeal to you as a writer?

Thanks for your response!

What’s the best piece of writing advice you ever got? What’s the worst? 

Posted by: @johngoodwin

Tim, You have been a judge for Writers of the Future for many years. What have you observed is its contribution to SF&F? And, what sets the Writers of the Future anthology apart from other SF&F anthologies?

Thanks!

Hi, John -- Short stories are always where new ideas and new writers show up in our field, and the Writers of the Future anthology is designed exclusively for new writers -- so it's no surprise that a whole lot of the now-established SF/F writers started from the contest and the anthology.  Basically it's the fact that the contest is only open to new (i.e. fresh viewpoint) writers, and that the "editors" are a whole lot of established professional writers, that makes the anthology uniquely important. It's all new, in every sense.

Posted by: @timpowers

Posted by: @ccrawford

Tim, if you had one top piece of advice to give aspiring writers, what would it be? 

You've heard it before, but -- read ceaselessly, and not just fiction, and not just current stuff; and write ceaselessly, and get what you write to editors.  (Also, re-read books that affect you! It's on the second or third re-read that you see past the scenery and catch on to how the writer got the effects.)

-- and one more thing: read books, don't just listen to them on audio! You need to see how writers break up paragraphs.

@timpowers

Thank you for that- I like the bit about knowing what each character would do anything to get.   

I have problems with noise. I have made my son's old bedroom into my quiet place to write. 

Do you have a place set aside where you write or can you just sit and rattle it out anywhere? 

Posted by: @penmark

Hi, Tim! Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions today. It's been very helpful so far.

I would be interested to hear some of your thoughts on figurative language. I think it can really make a story come to life if done well, but I struggle to incorporate it into my own writing because I worry it will veer into purple prose or that the metaphor/hyperbole/etc. is unoriginal. How do you come up with powerful uses for figurative language, and how do you know when it doesn't fit in the story even if it's good?

I agree that it really makes a story come to life -- metaphor, analogy. I think of Raymond Chandler, Theodore Sturgeon, Ray Bradbury. What I do is indulge myself in it in the first draft, then after a cooling-out period re-read it -- and when a comparison strikes me as so striking that it calls attention to itself, away from the story, I cut it. Regretfully sometimes, but you do want it all to be flowing in the same direction, not sticking out in a way that's memorable by itself!

Thanks so much for doing this, Tim. A few more questions.

1. How do you make a good first impression at conferences and such (when you get to meet with agents or editors, etc)?

2. Same question, but backwards. What, uh, makes a bad first impression (things to avoid)?

Thanks for telling our members about the benefits of the Contest, Tim.

Writing takes tremendous focus, and a novel takes a solid block of time to complete. How do you keep the world away in order to finish your novel? Phones ringing, friends that want to get together, meals to be cooked, shopping and daily appointments to be done, plus for most of us, the job that pays the bills. How do you protect your writing time?

@timpowers Thank you! I'll keep that in mind.

Posted by: @craydimensional

@timpowers Do you have any advice on finding the right balance between creating fiction and using realistic research to back it up? I think the first story I wrote was too real and my second was too made up.

Well for one thing I generally don't have a story in mind when I begin to do research. I let the research suggest what locales, situations, characters, and problems would be good, and then I more-or-less connect the dots. And I do think that if you're writing SF/F, it's extra important to make everything tangible, real, sensory, moored-in-reality, since you're going to be making some demands on the reader's credulity.  So -- mesh your impossible stuff firmly in realistic stuff (even if the realistic stuff is a colony on a Jupiter moon or a Middle Earth-type imaginary world). Crank both realism and impossible up to the max, basically!

Tim: Thank you so much for your generous gift of time and for sharing your knowledge so freely. Cheers, Jan

Posted by: @storysinger

Tim, thanks for your part of the workshop. I've taken it twice hoping to let the information seep into my thinking.

Would you accept an invitation to visit the space station, and while there write a story.

I would accept the invitation, though I'd dread actually going! And I think I'd be too nervous the whole time I was aboard to think about writing a story -- I'd probably just be figuring out how to swallow in zero gravity. Afterward I'd write a story!

Thanks Tim. I really appreciate your time and advice.

Tim,

Just wanted to say a big thanks for your time here today. I appreciate your efforts with the online Workshop, too--you're section on suspense and known risk for main characters was really helpful.

As have been the many wonderful comments you've shared today.

Thank you!

Thanks so much, Tim! This was fabulous.

Thank you @timpowers for your time today. 

Posted by: @disgruntledpeony

Tim,

Any writing resources you find particularly valuable? (Not necessarily craft books--anything from solid research sources to useful computer programs could qualify.)

Much thanks,

Liz

Yes -- Asimov wrote about 400 essays about different sciences, which have been collected into books, and I find them understandable and useful. (I often use physics effects translated into fantasy, which I think makes for a more plausible and unusual sort of magical effect.) Any book called "Day to Day Life in [X]" is useful. Books on religion, sailing, guns/swords, liquor, often provide bits that link up in unobvious ways to suggest stories. General wide input, really, and synthesis, while always looking for clues to build stories on! And I use Youtube and Google Maps all the time. As for computer programs -- I just use Microsoft Word.

Thank you for the great answers to our Forum members' questions, Tim! See you and Serena in October at the WotF workshop!

Thanks for taking the time to talk to us today @timpowers! As a new writer, I really appreciate the hints and tips from someone who's been in this business for a while.  

-David

Yes, thank you, Tim!

Posted by: @pdblake

Would having previously self published affect the chances of getting newer works traditionally published? 

No, not at all. A new work is a whole fresh thing, and if anything the fact that you had a self-published book previously could only mean that you've already got some readers. There's lots of things writers can worry about validly, but this isn't one of them!

Posted by: @lost_bard

Thanks for taking the time to talk to us today @timpowers! As a new writer, I really appreciate the hints and tips from someone who's been in this business for a while.  

-David

Thanks, David! It's all my own conclusions and opinions, but -- I think they're mostly valid!