NZ SpecFic Month
Hi there guys and dolls
To celebrate all things Speculative Fiction, we are joining in the Speculative Fiction Month of September which sees the launch of SpecFicNZ and SpecFicNZ Blogging week
We have three challenges up for you in September, the first is the Fantasy Madness from 1st September to 10th September in which you have free reign to create something in the fantasitical nature. You are only limited by your own imagination.
Our second feature is Chapter One Rewrite. We are currently working on finding a NZ book that we can do this with, so once we have that, we will post it.
Our next feature is the Urban Legend. Everyone has heard of them, the creepy thing that happened to the guy next door that has you checking over your shoulder everytime you walk past his house... that will round off our month.
So get your thinking caps on and get signed up for one or all three of these challenges.
Hi Karen,
Speculative Fiction - it is hard to find a good definition of exactly what it includes, but I know somewhere I read fantasy as well as science fiction.
I had a fantasy story that I built out of a piece of old English folklore a long time ago. Somewhere in my travels around the world I have lost the details - they had been worked out in a old green note book. Somewhere between the UK, the USA, a marriage to a kiwi girl and finally a wholesale shift to the north of Auckland, I have lost that notebook. I still remember the story quite clearly, but I was trying to turn it into something longer, with a whole family saga attached. I had dates and names and family trees in that note book.
The thing that bugs me is that the story had a completeness, a flow and a harmony in no more than a page. Turn it into something longer - or at least try to - and all the magic of the simple folk tale is lost. Should I stick to page, or make it something longer? Perhaps I'll start with the page and then decide if I want to continue.
I might just work on my single page for the Spec Fic month.
Cheers
Marcus
SpecFicNZ have a pretty good definition on their website...
SPECULATIVE FICTION is an inclusive, umbrella term meant to span the breadth of fantastic literature, encompassing writing ranging from hard science fiction, to epic fantasy, to paranormal fiction, to horror, to folk and fairy tales, to slipstream, to magical realism, to modern myth-making — and more. The term eliminates the need for the separation between the “what if” genres because they are, in essence, different forms of one thing. It allows for the blend and cross-over of genres that is becoming increasingly popular among the current generation of writers and readers of non-realistic fiction.
Thanks Kerryn,
Not sure why I struggled to find that on the website. Probably a bad case of domestic blindness. Happily the definition works really well for my story "modern myth-making" is just where I am.
Cheers
Fantastic! I love that by definition speculative fiction is so inclusive.