August 2024 Summary
Jennifer Brozek
Hello everyone, Glitter Minion here.
August started off with a punch for Jenn with Gen Con, where she participated in panels, gave workshops and, by all accounts, had a great time! No downtime for this author as she returned home (sans luggage), and began work on Shadowrun: Imre Grey.
Can’t wait for Imre Grey? Good news—Jenn has a story in the latest anthology: Shadowrun: Magic, Machines, and Mayhem! It’s up for preorder now, releasing on September 20.
It’s a big Shadowrun month, with the announcement that Jenn will be editing the new in-world magazine, Augment! If you’ve always wanted to try your hand at writing a Shadowrun story, now’s your chance: Jenn has an open call. Check out the guidelines!
As always, authors live off of reviews, recommendations, and book purchases (of all titles, not just Shadowrun!), so please show your love however works best for you. You can also treat Jenn to a cup of coffee (as she is made of caffeine).
What's up from Jennifer:
Website news: My new author website is up and running. I couldn’t be happier. What do you think? Sign up for the new MailerLite newsletter is live. I mirror this newsletter there. Sign up today and get free fiction! (Note: This Googlegroup will go away as of Feb 2025.)
My life, right now, is email and writing. More of the former than the latter, but that will change in the month of September. I hope. Spinning up a new magazine is difficult in the best of circumstances. In the meantime, I hope you check out the new Shadowrun anthology!
Publishing Tip of the Month:
Today’s publishing tip is around editing and getting into the nuance of the Point of View character(s). As an editor, one of the things I pick up on is when a story head hops unintentionally or incorrectly. Once upon a time, Universal POV was popular. The point of view jumped from character to character within chapters and even scenes to the point that you frequently knew what everyone was thinking at a given time. That style of prose has fallen out of favor. At least for now.
The most popular POV style now is either first person (close) or third person (close). The difference between “close” or not is whether or not you are inside the Point of View character’s head, hearing their thoughts or having the narrator giving you inferences of what they are feeling. First person is told in the “I” point of view and the camera is within the character’s senses. Third person is told from the outside of the character, but the camera sits on the character’s shoulder.
The difficulty with both first and third person is that the story is only told from that character’s point of view. The reader shouldn’t know any more about the story than the character does. You can get around some of the problem with having multiple third person POVs, though these different POVs should be in their own separate sections or chapters.
When editing a novel told in first or third person, you need to be careful that you don’t head hop from the main POV to a secondary POV responding to something the main character has done. It is an easy mistake to make. For example:
John said, “Nuke ‘em from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure.”
Susan rolled her eyes and thought that was the stupidest thing she’d heard in a long time.
John is the main POV character. There is no way for him to know what Susan thought unless HE inferred it.
Rewritten into the single POV, this becomes:
John said, “Nuke ‘em from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure.”
Susan rolled her eyes. From the way she crossed her arms, he could tell the scientist thought he was being stupid.
It is a nuanced bit of editing, but it will make your story stronger. When you edit, make sure that your writing in the point of view you intend it to be.
As always, all writer advice is just opinion based on the experience of the author.
Conventions/Classes
Conventions/Events
2024
Gen Con (August) - Writers Symposium, Workshops, Panels
Can-Con (November) - Editor GoH
Written in the Northwest Bookfair (November) - Spotlight Media Tie-in Author
Classes
Jennifer and the Cat Rambo Academy for Wayward Writer Classes.
You can find all the information from this one link. Spots and scholarships are available.
http://www.kittywumpus.net/blog/faculty-jennifer-brozek/
No classes are scheduled for the rest of 2024 outside of conventions.
Bubble & Squeek
Shadowrun: Magic, Machines, and Mayhem, edited by John Helfers and myself, is now available for preorder. It’s my 24th edited anthology!
I was interviewed by Gerald Ford from The Corner of Story and Game podcast. He had excellent questions—listen to the interview on YouTube or on Spotify.
Cat Rambo and I were interviewed by Tea Time with Miss Liz, a fun podcast.
Blog Post: Ten Things that May or May Not Have Happened at Gen Con 2024
New story alert! Coming in March 25, 2025, I’ll have a story (co-written with Samatha Chalker, Jack’s daughter) in Permutations: A Well World Anthology, edited by David Boop.
Cat Rambo and I were also interviewed by Panida Wayrojpitak about The Reinvented Detective anthology. This was a very fun interview with some excellent questions.
Do you love Shadowrun? Would you like to write for it? We have an open call for original fiction for our official in-world Shadowrun magazine! “Augment your life with Augment Magazine!” Submission guidelines here.
Shout out: The Zombies Needs Brains Kickstarter for the Skull X Bones anthology, which will contain one of my stories, is live! Support it and get a Mythos pirate story from me!
Shout out: Not only is Trendane a magnificent person and a talented voice actor...Shadowrun: Elfin Black is waiting to be produced by him. If you can help out, that would be kind.
Recent Releases
Shadowrun: Magic, Machines, and Mayhem
IT'S A WILD, WILD, WILD SIXTH WORLD…
There are a million stories in the dark, gritty world of Shadowrun, and this all-new volume brings sixteen of the best together for an in-depth look at this dark future of megacorps and the street warriors fighting against them.
Featuring established authors as well as brand-new voices, each tale is a vicious slice of life in the Sixth World. An injured street samurai whose call to DocWagon turns into the opportunity of a lifetime…if he can just live to collect it. A street-smart runner team confronts their most dangerous mission yet—hiding out in an isolated rural town. A corporate executive squares off against a ruthless vice-president in their own megacorp in a razor-sharp battle of wits and words. This collection also features stories about top runners such as Winterhawk, and a brand-new story featuring Wolf and Raven.
From the highest floors of a megacorp's global headquarters to the darkest streets of the dirtiest sprawl, every story here delivers that unique mix of magic, machines, and mayhem Shadowrun fans demand.
WHEN HOME BECOMES A PRISON...
Fixer BlotterBabe has been around longer than most people realize. Long enough to have built herself a secure home in a protected park reserve. She greased all the right wheels, paid off all the right people, forged all the correct documents, hid all the tracks of her passing, created the perfect security systems inside and out. She planned for every contingency—except one.
The need to escape from her own home.
After realizing her sanctuary has been discovered, BlotterBabe brought just the right people to the right place to help her flee from her gilded cage with everything she holds dear—but she is too late. Now she has to escape the underground complex she spent decades building.
The enemies are inside the perimeter. They have control of the security systems. Spinrad Global will stop at nothing to keep her a prisoner in her gilded cage.
BlotterBabe and her friends must risk everything for her freedom—including their lives.
99 Fleeting Fantasies Anthology
EVEN A DREAM CAN BE CAUGHT IN PROSE…
There’s nothing better than a moment of whimsy and a dash of the fantastical to get the mind wandering. 99 Fleeting Fantasies is a flash fiction anthology readers can tiptoe through for a bit of wonder or while away an afternoon as they meander from old-time tales to far-flung fables to serious snippets of legend and lore that come from all over the world, including Australia, Canada, England, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, and the United States. Featuring stories from the imaginative minds of Cat Rambo, Charles Stross, Crystal Frasier, Jody Lynn Nye, Jonathan Maberry, Premee Mohamed, Seanan McGuire, Wole Talabi, and many more!
FOUR SECRET AUDITIONS…
Fixer BlotterBabe must have exactly the right actors for a production that requires very specialized talent. The actors must not only be skilled, they need to have the right attitude and an ability to adapt to extraordinary circumstances.
A Kiss to Die For: Kintsugi and Sartorial choose love over duty, but their respective families will do everything in their considerable power to stop them from being together.
See How She Runs: Terrapin witnesses a murder and is handed a package destined for some important and lethal people. Now she is running for her life.
Unrepairable: Landon and Liana love vexing megacorps for fun and profit with their Matrix show. Unfortunately, the megacorps always play dirty, and will do whatever’s required to shut them down for good.
The Kilimanjaro Run: Charlotte, Neema, and Elijah embark on an unexpected adventure that turns into a nightmare when they discover nothing is what it seems. They are left with no choice at all when choosing between the abhorrent and the right thing to do.
FOR THE MOST DANGEROUS RUN OF ALL…
Having auditioned thousands, BlotterBabe is out of time. It’s come down to these few teenagers. Either they will save the day or lose it all…
Written by the Glitter Minion.
Edited and approved by Jennifer.
Thank you for reading.