If you are a serious SF or Fantasy (or other speculative or historical fiction) writer and are going to go to one con, go to this one and pay for as many workshops as you can get into. Great material. I have all too many notes for rewriting and fixing Cerelian Gold, especially the center, and once I change the center, the end will probably change as well. Tips i found particularly applicable here were:
Give the characters hope and the illusion of nearing at least their first, lower level goal before dashing it and making them realize they have to deal with a bigger a problem than they hoped.
As you approach the climax, give the characters a big setback so the climb to success (or ultimate failure) is even bigger than it was before.
Add more problems as you go (complications) as well as solutions to the problems that were there from the start.
Lots of work to do.
Also, along the way I realized one of the reasons I was having trouble with my Something New: I have yet to create a character I actually like. I haven't had that problem when I've put the story further away from semi-contemporary life so I'm thinking of creating a character in space, maybe even an alien, or way back in the past, then turning them into a more contemporary human and plopping them back into the world of Something New, with an outsiders view even if they aren't actually an outsider: a lot of people, including but not limited to loners, geeks, and rebels have a tendency to at least feel like outsiders, and they are characters most of us can relate to, even like, so I can start there and see if that doesn't work a little better.
Showing posts with label Something New. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Something New. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Another scene, tech as an afterthought
i started this, thinking to try a short story on an apathy/stagnation theme and it took a different turn as I wrote...
She toyed with the coffee cup, gave the handle a push, and watched it spin. the highly polished alloys, designed to minimize friction and reduce spills wnt rough and round, the soft inwardly curving lip catching the liquid and cycling it back into the cup. She finally grabbed it, watched the coffee slosh itself inward, and took a sip, the cup’ lip adjusting o the light pressure of her lips to allow her to drink the tepid coffee safely. She sighed, bored and wondering what a really hot drink tasted like.
“Another conference freeby?” he asked as he set his own trey down. He grabbed the bttle as if flipped and uprighted it with a practiced flip. He’d gotten it two years ago, an easy-clean, seal-fit replacement for the recyclables -- from the consumables conference, made before they decided that a slightly easier to break version would keep them in business longer.
“just the cafeteria stuff. Thought you’d have recognized their logo by now. Don’t you eat here regularly?”
“Nothing at the salad bar has logos. Besides, that company owns plenty besides cafeterias. Just thought they might have invented it.”
“Probably did. Safety first and all that. Another year and the city will control the last free driving lanes left.”
“So you can sit back and relex, enjoy the commute. Doesn’t mean you can’t go anywhere you want.”
“No, just means I can’t take the route i want, the speed I want, the passing lanes I want... It’ll add twenty minutes to every commute, what do you bet?”
“No takers. They’ll want to make the buses look faster.”
She toyed with the coffee cup, gave the handle a push, and watched it spin. the highly polished alloys, designed to minimize friction and reduce spills wnt rough and round, the soft inwardly curving lip catching the liquid and cycling it back into the cup. She finally grabbed it, watched the coffee slosh itself inward, and took a sip, the cup’ lip adjusting o the light pressure of her lips to allow her to drink the tepid coffee safely. She sighed, bored and wondering what a really hot drink tasted like.
“Another conference freeby?” he asked as he set his own trey down. He grabbed the bttle as if flipped and uprighted it with a practiced flip. He’d gotten it two years ago, an easy-clean, seal-fit replacement for the recyclables -- from the consumables conference, made before they decided that a slightly easier to break version would keep them in business longer.
“just the cafeteria stuff. Thought you’d have recognized their logo by now. Don’t you eat here regularly?”
“Nothing at the salad bar has logos. Besides, that company owns plenty besides cafeterias. Just thought they might have invented it.”
“Probably did. Safety first and all that. Another year and the city will control the last free driving lanes left.”
“So you can sit back and relex, enjoy the commute. Doesn’t mean you can’t go anywhere you want.”
“No, just means I can’t take the route i want, the speed I want, the passing lanes I want... It’ll add twenty minutes to every commute, what do you bet?”
“No takers. They’ll want to make the buses look faster.”
Monday, August 2, 2010
Hope for the future in our fiction
Agent hunting left me depressed even without any new reject letters, not least its subtle messages about the state of Science Fiction which was not encouraging. So for my new story, something not toooo far into the future, maybe on earth, since that is what they are looking for, but it must be hopeful, even uplifting, which means at least a bit of trajedy along the way as well as cheerful. But what do we hope for?
Things I worry about but have hopes for include:
A shift toward caring about our environment as if it were the natural thing to do as well as the right thing to do. There is a tendency to think that the right thing must be the hard thing, and sometimes it is hard to start, but usually only because it is a change. Many companies going green have discovered that the results were both better and cheaper, and who can beat that? So one of our characters works at a recycled production plant (no point in recycling if no one's going to do anything with the gathered stuff). Is is possible to have a shortage of supplies from recycling, due to minimizing packaging and waste, and the regular habit of reuse as long as possible? That might be a fun problem to address :->
To take my own advice, though, it shouldn't be the main story line. I was once told that children's stories that taught values through some adventure or another, were very good at teaching children to pack their tooth brush and brush their teeth, because the characters always did so when they started their adventure or went to bed, just as a matter of course. So the recled production plant should be the setting, not the story.
Other things I have hopes for are space travel (though I have drafted a blog on that and wonder where we are going in that regard, whether it still serves the same purpose that it did before, and whether it has slid, for the next generation or two, into the impossible dream category). Still, it's there, and one or more of my characters can be aware of it, maybe with background on the state of the Mars project if the near future, or some similar project in the further future, to provide a sense of time. When is the next Haley's commet or some other space event due?
Medicine always progresses, many cancers have become avoidable or treatable, though not all, and the next bit worry seems to be new, less categorized things like autism (I still suspect it's a result of all those comms signals filling our lives from every direction, though some say not, or some other environmental effect that wasn't around in the past). Less invasive medicine would be nice, and better consideration of mixing medicines without all our medical information being stored in too many databases... How much information can be on a card and not give it to the computers using the data...
Well, that's a few pieces of the world to think about as we build some scenes and put some characters in it. More to come.
Things I worry about but have hopes for include:
A shift toward caring about our environment as if it were the natural thing to do as well as the right thing to do. There is a tendency to think that the right thing must be the hard thing, and sometimes it is hard to start, but usually only because it is a change. Many companies going green have discovered that the results were both better and cheaper, and who can beat that? So one of our characters works at a recycled production plant (no point in recycling if no one's going to do anything with the gathered stuff). Is is possible to have a shortage of supplies from recycling, due to minimizing packaging and waste, and the regular habit of reuse as long as possible? That might be a fun problem to address :->
To take my own advice, though, it shouldn't be the main story line. I was once told that children's stories that taught values through some adventure or another, were very good at teaching children to pack their tooth brush and brush their teeth, because the characters always did so when they started their adventure or went to bed, just as a matter of course. So the recled production plant should be the setting, not the story.
Other things I have hopes for are space travel (though I have drafted a blog on that and wonder where we are going in that regard, whether it still serves the same purpose that it did before, and whether it has slid, for the next generation or two, into the impossible dream category). Still, it's there, and one or more of my characters can be aware of it, maybe with background on the state of the Mars project if the near future, or some similar project in the further future, to provide a sense of time. When is the next Haley's commet or some other space event due?
Medicine always progresses, many cancers have become avoidable or treatable, though not all, and the next bit worry seems to be new, less categorized things like autism (I still suspect it's a result of all those comms signals filling our lives from every direction, though some say not, or some other environmental effect that wasn't around in the past). Less invasive medicine would be nice, and better consideration of mixing medicines without all our medical information being stored in too many databases... How much information can be on a card and not give it to the computers using the data...
Well, that's a few pieces of the world to think about as we build some scenes and put some characters in it. More to come.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Scratches and other verbal doodles
“What is ‘scratch’ anyway?”
“Nothing. Or at least, only what you can get from fround so hard you can barely scratch the surface. I suppose it means starting fra farm on land that hasn’t the first seed planted, the first row hoed,”
“Hard row to hoe?”
“Exactly. so starting from scratch is starting literally from the ground up, though these days i suppose it’s from the ground down, since everything allowed up is already up as high as it can go.”
“Hardly that. just where it’s easy, where all the infrastructure, people, equipment are all in easy reach. The places not claimed for nature and ecosystem preservation but not city, no one bothers. Requires thought and planning.”
“Can’t have that can we?”
They both laughed.
#
What about us though? City life is okay. All the conveniences if also all the noise and chaos. Half the people aren’t outside long enough to notice if it’s smoggy sky overhead or sun replacement tunnel lighting. Still have to push the sun baths on some people, for the vitamins, but I like it out here, and so do the dogs.”
---------
This scene started as just speculation about the phrase used in the previous one, but as they tend to do, took on a life of its own, prodding character attitudes and potential settings and plot bits as well as reflecting my view of some related topics.
“Nothing. Or at least, only what you can get from fround so hard you can barely scratch the surface. I suppose it means starting fra farm on land that hasn’t the first seed planted, the first row hoed,”
“Hard row to hoe?”
“Exactly. so starting from scratch is starting literally from the ground up, though these days i suppose it’s from the ground down, since everything allowed up is already up as high as it can go.”
“Hardly that. just where it’s easy, where all the infrastructure, people, equipment are all in easy reach. The places not claimed for nature and ecosystem preservation but not city, no one bothers. Requires thought and planning.”
“Can’t have that can we?”
They both laughed.
#
What about us though? City life is okay. All the conveniences if also all the noise and chaos. Half the people aren’t outside long enough to notice if it’s smoggy sky overhead or sun replacement tunnel lighting. Still have to push the sun baths on some people, for the vitamins, but I like it out here, and so do the dogs.”
---------
This scene started as just speculation about the phrase used in the previous one, but as they tend to do, took on a life of its own, prodding character attitudes and potential settings and plot bits as well as reflecting my view of some related topics.
Friday, July 16, 2010
thoughts on a scene
i finally came up with a true scene for the tale. I have no idea where it will take me but I think it offers several directions and hints at some past events that I havne't yet thought through. My first reactions (I wrote it in pen) when i took it as far as i could at the time that it was very contemporary and could easily be a scene in a contemporary book, but if I recall, that's fairly common for my SF drafts, and it helps ensure real characters that readers can relate to, even if the story goes elsewhere before it's really written.
I have no idea where the names came from. Probably something I've heard on t.v. lately, which adds to the contemporary feel.
"Sary, where are ou going?"
"For a walk, do you mind?"
"It wasn't an accusation."
"Wasn't it? Just becasue you've exprssed affection doesn't mean i't your concern how I epend my time."
"i just woory when I don't know where you are."
"Worry implies a right to know. You don't have that right unless I choose to give it to you. Worry about keeping me happy when we're together. The rest of my time is my buinesss. Unless you don't trust me?"
His eyes went down' and he bit his lip, knowing enough not to admit that, at least. Nor, however, did he deny it an she was in no mood to be tolerant.
"Is that it, jealous already?"
"No. Of course not. I don't worry about you having an affair. i know-"
"You obviously know nothing, Jack," she said, knowing he hated to be called that. "An affair? An affair is what established couples do outside the lines. You and me don't have any lines to be outside."
"But you said-"
"I said I appreciated your interest and would be willing to date. That's all I said and that's all I meant. That was concession enough when we work together on some project at least once a week and often more besides seeing each other outside of work. if you can't deal with-"
"I'mnot a child, Sary. I just care about you. Our date-"
"Will be the last if you push me again, Jack. I'm not so old-fashioned I intend to let even a husband run my life, much less a boy friend." She turned away from him before he could object and the dogs growled at him when he moved as if he might block her path. In her mind, she'd made a great concession to refer to him, still, as a boyfriend. She wasn't going to waste the pleasant weather arguing with him when he should instead simply have apologised for going too far/presuming too much, and let it drop.
--notes--
Why is she so testy or is he being possessive/stalker-like? What other trust issues might be going on here? Is good weather rare where they are at? Why? What kind of work do they do together? Setting? visual elements of the characters? Sensory input?
Title idea: Start from Scratch
What would be starting? What might Scratch represent?
I have no idea where the names came from. Probably something I've heard on t.v. lately, which adds to the contemporary feel.
"Sary, where are ou going?"
"For a walk, do you mind?"
"It wasn't an accusation."
"Wasn't it? Just becasue you've exprssed affection doesn't mean i't your concern how I epend my time."
"i just woory when I don't know where you are."
"Worry implies a right to know. You don't have that right unless I choose to give it to you. Worry about keeping me happy when we're together. The rest of my time is my buinesss. Unless you don't trust me?"
His eyes went down' and he bit his lip, knowing enough not to admit that, at least. Nor, however, did he deny it an she was in no mood to be tolerant.
"Is that it, jealous already?"
"No. Of course not. I don't worry about you having an affair. i know-"
"You obviously know nothing, Jack," she said, knowing he hated to be called that. "An affair? An affair is what established couples do outside the lines. You and me don't have any lines to be outside."
"But you said-"
"I said I appreciated your interest and would be willing to date. That's all I said and that's all I meant. That was concession enough when we work together on some project at least once a week and often more besides seeing each other outside of work. if you can't deal with-"
"I'mnot a child, Sary. I just care about you. Our date-"
"Will be the last if you push me again, Jack. I'm not so old-fashioned I intend to let even a husband run my life, much less a boy friend." She turned away from him before he could object and the dogs growled at him when he moved as if he might block her path. In her mind, she'd made a great concession to refer to him, still, as a boyfriend. She wasn't going to waste the pleasant weather arguing with him when he should instead simply have apologised for going too far/presuming too much, and let it drop.
--notes--
Why is she so testy or is he being possessive/stalker-like? What other trust issues might be going on here? Is good weather rare where they are at? Why? What kind of work do they do together? Setting? visual elements of the characters? Sensory input?
Title idea: Start from Scratch
What would be starting? What might Scratch represent?
Friday, July 9, 2010
traitors and other subplots
A few too many distractions to have made much progress on the new tale, but here's a few more thoughts in that direction. The mind thing is more of SF than Fantasy, but we can still use some of the examples from fantasy of what makes a great, popular, saleable story. Really, it's not just limited to fantasy either:
Interesting side characters as well as protagonist
A classic story line often helps: girl meets boy, one saves the other, not necessarily appreciated, understanding develops, romance develops, then other stuff. Well, as a side story anyway. How about the core story though: good versus evil. Evil should have representative bodies doing dastardly deeds, preferably at least representatives on site, face-to-face, which is why traitors in the midst is a common sub=plot, to give a visible baddie. I didn't do that in Cerel Gold, but maybe I could try that here. Note to self: need scenes with the traitor playing good guy, and others hinting that he (or she) may be something other than it appears. It will be more subtle and mysterious if there are other side characters hiding things (ala mystery suspects).
The traitor needs to be working for someone, something related to the mind control ability or telepathy or related skills.
I'll see if I can keep it on Earth. otherwise I'll get tempted to place it on one of my already existing planets, and that has too many in-built rules already established. the goal here is to start from scratch. The future, but not so far in the future as space travel, then? (At our current rate, that could still be a long long long way in the future, alas, but I won't go that far. Some of the world should be identifiable unless I go for post apocalypse or some such other theme, and those are a breed unto themselves. But far enough in the future that country boundaries don't mean the same thing, that technology has changed again and impacted the biology/ecology, like some suspect of autism's increasing occurances.
Well, that's enough for tonight. If any of my fellow writers are insprited to write a scene, please share. What I've provided so far is still fuel for a million different books and stories and comparability encourages readers.
Interesting side characters as well as protagonist
A classic story line often helps: girl meets boy, one saves the other, not necessarily appreciated, understanding develops, romance develops, then other stuff. Well, as a side story anyway. How about the core story though: good versus evil. Evil should have representative bodies doing dastardly deeds, preferably at least representatives on site, face-to-face, which is why traitors in the midst is a common sub=plot, to give a visible baddie. I didn't do that in Cerel Gold, but maybe I could try that here. Note to self: need scenes with the traitor playing good guy, and others hinting that he (or she) may be something other than it appears. It will be more subtle and mysterious if there are other side characters hiding things (ala mystery suspects).
The traitor needs to be working for someone, something related to the mind control ability or telepathy or related skills.
I'll see if I can keep it on Earth. otherwise I'll get tempted to place it on one of my already existing planets, and that has too many in-built rules already established. the goal here is to start from scratch. The future, but not so far in the future as space travel, then? (At our current rate, that could still be a long long long way in the future, alas, but I won't go that far. Some of the world should be identifiable unless I go for post apocalypse or some such other theme, and those are a breed unto themselves. But far enough in the future that country boundaries don't mean the same thing, that technology has changed again and impacted the biology/ecology, like some suspect of autism's increasing occurances.
Well, that's enough for tonight. If any of my fellow writers are insprited to write a scene, please share. What I've provided so far is still fuel for a million different books and stories and comparability encourages readers.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Lets Try Something New
It's been awhile since I did something really new, rather than working on the progress of something I started a long while back, or a modification on the theme. So i thought I would try to come up with a new thing and let the readers follow along.
Often I just think of a scene and go from there. No good scene has come to mind, though, off hand, so I'll play with another approach like I have done for short story competitions and classes: a bit of a plan to get the mind going.
Some framework:
--SF
--mature
--how about an evolved human,,, (or genetically distorted, maybe by environmental conditions, something ala autism? a very different look at the world?)
--a woman with a pair of dogs or doggettes, maybe well-trained, mind-based obedience, part of the other worldly view?. A look made them lay down, another and they went to their sides, one half on the other to that one's annoyance. "Oh, alfight, shift." and that one moved our from under the bitch.
Often I just think of a scene and go from there. No good scene has come to mind, though, off hand, so I'll play with another approach like I have done for short story competitions and classes: a bit of a plan to get the mind going.
Some framework:
--SF
--mature
--how about an evolved human,,, (or genetically distorted, maybe by environmental conditions, something ala autism? a very different look at the world?)
--a woman with a pair of dogs or doggettes, maybe well-trained, mind-based obedience, part of the other worldly view?. A look made them lay down, another and they went to their sides, one half on the other to that one's annoyance. "Oh, alfight, shift." and that one moved our from under the bitch.
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