Post by @johnhowesauthor@mastodonapp.uk

@johnhowesauthor@mastodonapp.uk 6 hours ago

2. I could do with some help choosing my next project. My options are:

(a) A collection of up to 14 short stories. Mostly SciFi/Specfic. Although I tend to think authors like these more than readers.

(b) A portal fantasy where a female SAS soldier is transported to an alternate medieval fantasy world and forced to confront her real-life past. It includes a sapphic romance.

(c) SciFi where humans are forced to leave Earth for a new world, but it happens over hundreds of years. The first to leave are the last to arrive on a new planet. They find a frightening new reality where humans have tried to sustain capitalism without a lower class to prey on.

Thoughts? 🤔

I think I'm edging towards (b) 🙂

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#specfic #speculativefiction #author #writer #writingcommunity #writerscoffeeclub

Charlie Stross

@cstross@wandering.shop 4 hours ago

@johnhowesauthor Short story collections don't sell as well as novels. And of the two novels you propose, one is SF (outsold by fantasy by a wide margin) and the other could plausibly be pitched either as Romantasy (hot *right now*) or something more innovative but harder to market.

Charlie Stross

@cstross@wandering.shop 3 hours ago

@johnhowesauthor NB: Your SAS-woman in portal world fantasy sounds quite close to "The Calamitous Bob" (now completed at ten volumes, could—I think—be the next breakout isekai series after "Dungeon Crawler Carl".

John Howes

@johnhowesauthor@mastodonapp.uk 2 hours ago

@cstross Thankfully I have no interest in writing 10 volumes. That would take me 20 years to write 🤣.

Charlie Stross

@cstross@wandering.shop 1 hour ago

@johnhowesauthor Slacker 🤪