'Victoria Chase' shortlists in the Aeon Award 2013

My fantasy-steampunk hybrid short story, 'Victoria Chase', was shortlisted in the First Round of the Aeon Award (an international speculative fiction award run from Ireland by Albedo One magazine) in 2013. It's been a long wait to see if it would be chosen as one of the final 6, from a list of 32 stories over the four rounds of the competition. It wasn't, but it was still encouraging to get this far (for a third time)!

An excerpt from 'Victoria Chase', and a link to the full shortlist and other details of the Aeon Award, can be found at my blog here.

What Makes a Good Story

Australian writer, Ian McHugh, has some great tips on how to turn a good idea into a great story:

"Having a notion that the world is round is an idea. A story is like the ship you build to prove that idea. Like a ship, a story needs something to push it along, a method for navigating and steering it and a watertight structure to prevent it from sinking without trace into the dark and airless depths of crushing despair below. Like a ship, a story is a cohesive, complex, mechanical whole, the purpose of which is to deliver your idea to its destination (your readers). And like a ship, if any parts of the machine are poorly designed or constructed, your story will end up becalmed in the middle of nowhere, go off in the wrong direction or sink without trace into the dark and airless depths of etcetera."

Click on the text above to see Ian's entire post, outlining the brainstorming and writing process of his fabulous short story, "Cold, Cold War", which was published in June 2013 and is currently available online at Beneath Ceaseless Skies.