9:15pm, 23rd August 2016
It took me an embarassingly long time to work this out: conflict is everything.
Do you know what happened to the first story I wrote once I worked it out? When I first focused on deliberately working it into every paragraph? It won WotF.
If you only ever take one piece of advice from me, take this: you need more conflict.
TAGS: Anatomy of a Golden Pen, wotf32
8:40pm, 2nd August 2016
Happy days! My first ever audio production is available today as PodCastle episode 427, brilliantly narrated by Louise Ratcliffe with a proper Lancashire accent.
If you're here from PodCastle, then firstly--hi! Thank you for remembering to look me up after you finished listening. That's quite something, and it means a lot. The artwork mentioned in the show notes is on the right, by the incredibly talented Adrian Massaro. It honestly gave me shivers the first time I saw it.
Matt Dovey is a writer of short speculative fiction. He is very tall, very British, and probably drinking a cup of tea right now. His surname rhymes with “Dopey”, but any other similarities to the dwarf are purely coincidental. More →
You're not a person, they say, circling. You're one of Them. From the other side.
”Hooded eyes stare with fierce intensity across the scarred oak table as the creature looms out of the shadows. "I had never thought to see another..." he muses.
I nod my glass of claret in Adam's direction. The dregs glint like drops of spilled blood in the candlelight.
”Anatomy of a Golden Pen apology appearance award Dublin2019 fermi paradox free Glasgow2024 harm homebrew interview lessons new story news nonsense podcast politics responsibilities retrospective roundup science science fiction waffle wotf32 writing
Spread like sails and pushed by distant starlight and supernovae, the four objects drift into the system. They are huge beyond understanding, incomprehensible in their composition. All our probes and all our science leave us no wiser.
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