I am glad to say that I have finally finished editing for content. I think I’ve caught as many dropped words, extra spaces, misused words, and problems with specialized vocabulary that I reasonably expect to. I have also begun editing for format using the Simplified Guide to Building a Kindle Book. So far it’s been pretty easy to follow. The guide recommends using the Mobipocket Creator rather than the Amazon’s KindleGen software to convert my Word file to eBook format. I haven’t finished the process because I’m still mulling over my ideas for cover art, but I hope to decide by the end of this week. I want to get these books to “press” so I can move onto other projects.
As I was writing this post I happened to think that I never even described my writing genre. My current project is a trilogy in the genre of speculative fiction. For anyone unfamiliar with the term, speculative fiction is a relatively new genre that includes horror, sci-fi, fantasy, and much more. Wikipedia has a whole article (here). A broader definition of the genre makes sense, after all, few novels are limited to a single genre. Horror may include fantasy, and fantasy may include alternate history.
Speculative fiction addresses the question, “what if”. What if Albert Einstein walked into a black hole as a patent clerk and emerged into a different where and when with the finished Theory of Relativity in hand? What if the seed of life on earth did come from a random meteor striking the Earth with just the right bio-molecular ingredients to spawn sentient life? What if my geometry teacher in high school had been attacked by a zombie and in his deathly delusions changed my final grade to a 97 instead of a 37, thus altering my GPA to allow me to enter Harvard instead of Dark Shadows Community College? The great thing about speculative fiction is that anything is possible.
One thing I wonder though ― are the expectations for speculative fiction as high as they are for, say, “real literature”? Is speculative fiction a diversion, while other genres have “meaning”? It’s something I’ve wondered about, but I suspect I already know the answer. Despite that, I’ll keep writing speculative fiction, at least so long as I am dissatisfied with the ordinariness of life as it is.
If you have any comments about this or any of my posts, please feel free to click the comment link and let me know what’s on your mind.
© Copyright 2011 by Kevin Fraleigh.
