This Dated Essay of the Month isn’t dated at all. In fact, I have been thinking about the proper use of detail as I prepare for a workshop that we’re doing (for professionals) with Sheila Williams of Asimov’s in mid-September. Writers often forget about detail. They get lazy, they do it wrong, or they’ve never learned it in the first place. I wrote this essay when I was still going to a weekly workshop in Eugene. I was also editing F&SF at the time. (Note the sentence that begins, “I see a thousand openings….” That’s not hyperbole. That’s truth. I actually had a dream last night that I was reading slush again. Only when I woke up, I called it a nightmare.) I … Read entire article »