Elizabeth Burton - author, editor and Zircon judge!
INTERVIEWER: Joyce Ellen Armond

Ladies and Gentlmen ? meet Elizabeth Burton. As you?ll read, her fingers are smudging all the pages of the writing and publishing business. She?s the editor of Zumaya Publications. She?s the author of Dreams of Darkness, Shadow of the Scorpion and The Loremaster?s Guild, all set in the universe of Karlathia. And she?s the final judge of this year?s Zircon Speculative Romance Short Story contest.


You?ve created an entire world for your Karlathia series, so it?s safe to assume you have an enthusiasm for world-building. Do you have any tips for effective world-building in shorter stories?

I?m really the last person to ask about writing short fiction because I?m terrible at it. I?ve written exactly five short stories in my life and one of those ended up being the outline of a novel. However, I?ll try.

It helps that short stories in particular aren?t meant to do a full job of world-building; the emphasis is on the protagonist and the story. With short fiction, you have to rely more on ?shorthand.? By that I mean the ability of your readers to envision your scene based on their previous experience. For example, I started ?Simple Sarah and Slippery Sam,? the short story that was a finalist in the ?99 Writers of the Future, like this:

It was the era when everybody liked Ike, England?s queen was somebody?s mom, and preachers and parents were beginning to issue dire warnings of what evils awaited teenagers foolish enough to sell their souls for rock ?n? roll. In our little town, the young people still preferred Frank Sinatra and Patti Page and traveling by the carload to the next town on Friday nights for burgers and a movie. It was a time when the height of etiquette was minding your own business and assuming others would extend you the same courtesy.

The moment you read that you know when you are, and even people who aren?t old enough to have actually experienced the 50s have acquired enough sense of the period through popular culture that they can settle into the story. You also understand from that paragraph that you?re in a small town, and again, almost everyone either knows or thinks he knows what it?s like to live in a small town.

In ?Peanut Butter & Magic,? which was published at SFCrowsnest, I set the scene after the protagonist is abducted this way:

Turning back to the child, he draped the quilt around her and picked her up. She fought him, but by the time he started up the stairs in the west tower she had surrendered.

?What is your name, little one??

?Lilybelle.?

?It is a beautiful name. Just right for a princess.?

?I?m not a princess,? she protested. ?Princesses only live in castles and I live in a house.?

?But you are in a castle, so perhaps you have become a princess.?

She gave him a look that questioned his intelligence.

?I don?t live here. I was kidnapped here. And I want to go home.?

?West tower? immediately says ?castle? to anyone who regularly reads fantasy, which is then confirmed in the dialogue. Until this moment, you just knew you were in a house. So, the reader can paint the picture she needs to follow the action.

The first erotic fiction I did for eXtasy Books was set in Karlathia. When you have a race that uses sexual magic, and members of that race who have the ability to ?collect? sexual energy and use it to work magic?both esoteric and erotic?you have a natural basis for a story.

But I couldn?t count on someone who would read ?The Loremaster? having read Dreams of Darkness, so I needed to get the basics established quickly and without fuss. So:

She glanced at him as she passed before vanishing through the draperies that covered the doorway, and he caught her flash of attraction?and curiosity. He was used to that. Although he and other Drevnya now mingled freely with the other races of Karlathia, the old stories of their sexual talents and their eagerness to display them had never been laid to their proper rest. The first, of course, was true. Except for the rare outlaw, however, the second was not.

Where most beginning writers err is in trying to micromanage the reader?and that goes for novels as well as shorter works. You have to trust the reader to have some imagination, and then give them just enough tools to work with that they can build on what you give them.

You?ve also written an erotic speculative romance set in the Karlathian world. What elements make a scene erotic, as opposed to just explicit?

As several people have said, God?and the Devil?is in the details. Some readers don?t care. I do. We have five senses and we use them all in the act of love. If those are missing from a scene I don?t consider it erotic.

Far too many writers currently engaged in writing erotic fiction get hung up on touch and smell. You hear tons about how soft her skin is and how her perfume or his cologne turns the other on. But making love is hot, sweaty work, and there are other scents involved?and sounds and tastes.

I also don?t think it?s necessary that every sensual encounter end up with people putting tab A into slot B. Sex is more than intercourse, and the purpose of erotic fiction is to sexually arouse the reader. If every time he and she get together they end up making the beast with two backs, it takes an awfully strong story line to take the work beyond the level of a XXX movie. Foreplay is important.

You have a varied relationship with fiction as a reader, a writer and an editor. Depending on what role you?re playing, how is the experience of reading different?

Don?t forget ?reviewer.? I still do an occasional review when I can find the time.

The experience of reading isn?t really different. What has changed is that I have no patience for mediocre writing and bad editing anymore, not when I?m reading for my own pleasure. I will still see things that I itch to fix, but if the book is good enough I can overlook them and immerse myself in it. I am more critical, but I think that goes with the territory. Discussing the pros and cons of a book is part of the reading experience. A writer/editor can, perhaps, appreciate technique a bit more than the average reader?or be put off by the lack thereof.

For example, I used to regularly attend an SF/F reading group. Some years back we read China Mieville?s Perdido Street Station. This is a superbly written piece of creative writing, and I could appreciate it on that basis. But I didn?t like the book. Rather, I didn?t enjoy the book. It was too dark, too depressing, too mired in ugliness for me to enjoy it, even though I was glad I?d read it.

In another interview, you said that you specifically sought out a small-press publisher for your Karlathia novels, because they are cross-genre. What do you consider the advantages of the small press over established NYC conglomerates to be, for cross-genre authors?

Over the years, I?ve discovered that there really is no such thing as ?cross-genre,? at least not in the best writing. Every good book has elements of mystery and suspense and romance and fantasy. The thing about Dreams of Darkness was that, at the time, the traditional SF/F publishers weren?t as open to novels with strong sexual/romantic elements as they have since become. Yet the book isn?t a traditional romance, so the romance houses weren?t interested because there was no established market for what my friend Steve Lazarowitz insists is a ?dark romance? rather than a fantasy.

Getting a book published is about finding the right publisher for what you?re offering. I couldn?t, so I opted to go to ebook publishing first. Later, when I first started working for Zumaya, the publisher I was with was clearly going under so I pulled it and switched.

As long as a writer goes into working with a small press with a clear understanding of the limitations they?ll have to deal with, the experience can be very rewarding. Small presses, by their nature, are more ?user friendly.? You aren?t one of a mob of other writers dealing with one cog in a huge publishing machine. Everybody knows everybody, and the best small presses are willing to listen to your ideas about cover art and marketing and the many other aspects of producing a successful book.

That said, though, it?s important that a writer considering a contract with a small press learn as much as they can about how that company operates?what the company?s expectations are of them and what they can expect from the company. In that exciting first moment of hearing ?I?d like to publish your book,? too many people don?t take the time to read the contract carefully, ask questions, discuss things. This is a business arrangement, however friendly, and joining it means you need to treat it like one.

I found a blog entry of yours stating that small press publishing is still a cooperative effort between writer and publisher. Care to expand more on that theme?

I think I pretty much covered this earlier, but let me see if I can add anything.

Zumaya is in a unique situation because we are not only committed to using print-on-demand but have chosen not to deal with the book distribution industry as it presently exists. Anyone who signs with us has to understand up front that we will not be doing anything to get their books into Barnes & Noble or Borders, except as needed for a signing, and that we have no desire to do business with Ingram or Baker & Taylor. Not now, at least.

We will do and are doing as much as we can to promote the company and its authors. We do so, however, based on what we have observed and learned about what works best for US. Marketing and promotion, despite what some of the mavens would have you believe, is not one size fits all. Especially when you have as much competition as the average novelist does.

By the same token, we expect the writer to do his/her share of the work. And understand that it?s not going to be a one-time thing. The writers whose books sell are the writers who are constantly promoting and looking for ways to promote?the more original the better. They have to do this in the face of rejection, over and over, without losing sight of the goal. That goal is NOT to ?get into bookstores? but to get their books into the hands of the readers who want them.

What are your favorite stories in any medium?

How much time do we have?

It would take me forever to list all the great books that have inspired me, entertained me, informed me and, in some cases, made me green with envy. Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz. Green Eggs and Ham and To Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, by Dr. Seuss. Mark Twain?s Letters from the Earth and Jane Austen. Dean Koontz when he?s not getting in his own way and Stephen King?s The Stand and Dolores Claiborne. Tanith Lee?s The Silver Metal Lover, one of the most fabulous sensual romances ever?I have the sequel in my EB-1150 library. Elizabeth Moon?s Remnant Population and The Speed of Dark, most of Robin Hobb, and Jasper Fforde?s delightful visits with Thursday Next.

Seriously, we?d probably be better off listing what I don?t like.

If you were In Charge of Speculative Romance Everywhere, in what direction would you lead us, as both readers and authors?

I see SFR becoming more mature, branching out from the formula romances with the SF frosting to more complex stories where the romance and the science (or fantasy) combine in a more realistic way. I know that sounds odd?realism in SF/Fantasy?but the more real it is the more power it has to stimulate the mind and the heart and the imagination. I?m also happy to see ?dark romance? making a comeback. HEA is lovely, but so often in traditional romance the ?torment? seems only skin deep. Does anyone really believe that Jane and her Rochester?s life was all flowers and candy even after they finally were together? Life just isn?t that easy, and in my mind literature has a responsibility to show both the dark and the bright side of it.


Visit Elizabeth at www.elizabethburton.net

Visit Zumaya Publications at www.zumayapublications.com