What's in the SF Guide?

This time I thought I would tell you a little more about how "The Complete Guide to Writing SF" is laid out. The book is broken down into 5 sections: Defining, Building, Crafting, Specializing, and Publishing & Beyond.

Defining: In this section we go over the history of SF, what is SF and the multitude of subgenres within it. While some of this may be well known to an ardent SF fan, it is important to know what is SF and where it came from if you hope to be a successful writer within the genre. A refresher doesn't hurt anyone, and if there enough else in the book to interest you if this isn't new.

Building: In this section, we go over the building blocks to creating SF with chapters on such topics as aliens, technology, space travel and world building, as well as avoiding clichés.

Crafting: If you have been reading the book up to this point you should have a firm grasp on SF and be ready to write and/or improve your current stories. Here you will learn about such topics as plot, characters, setting and revisions.

Specializing: In this section you will learn about other types of SF writing that may interest you such as writing humor, fan fiction, comic books and writing for children.

Publishing and Beyond: This section is intended for those writers that have written and perhaps even published your first stories. It moves form the basics of initial manuscript submission to finding an agent, promoting your soon to be published books and the general life of a writer.

While no single book could possibly cover every topic (which is why there is a volume 2 in the works), this guide should have areas that interest both the amateur and intermediate writer, as well as any established professional looking to write SF for the first time.

Next time, I will start going through the chapters and what to expect from them.