Tag Archives: Writing

Goodbye 2016

Today is New Year’s Day and we can officially place 2016 into the pages of history. For some 2016 was a terrible year and I can share their horror of what unfolded on the public stages, but personally 2016 was for myself a year of gradual change.

I made no new fiction sales during the year. My agent continues to shop my military SF novel so on first inspection it would appear that the year has not been very kind for my writing, but I do not feel that is very representative of my experiences.

Yes, the lack of sales is disheartening, but I have also gotten some very nice comments from top editors. While the particular stories were not to their tastes they praised the prose and asked my agent to send more.

In 2016 I also completed two novels, both were experiments outside of my writing comfort zone. One, an SF noir I think worked very well and now rests in the hands of my capable agent, the other my first attempt at an SF YA adventure failed, but the idea is not dead and who truly succeeds at a first attempt?

I believe that I have in gaming terms ‘leveled up’ this year and start 2017 as a stronger and more skilled writer.

My personal life continues to improve. I love my wife and our marriage is strong, my day-job is interesting, worthwhile, and compensates well. I work with good people who I enjoy interacting with everyday. 2016 also saw my first opportunity to attend San Diego’s local horror film festival Horrible Imagings. I loved it more than I had expected and look forward to the next festival later this year.

2016 was not without its troubles. I watched friends struggle with adversity and right there at its close I became aware of the need for a dramatic lifestyle change of my own. My G.P. has informed me that my cholesterol numbers are beginning to climb and I had a choice, radical alteration to my diet or medication. I detest the idea of taking ever more maintenance prescriptions and so the diet is a changing. Fruits and veggies are the order of the day, whole grains, and never again the beloved fried foods.

So the year had it’s bumps and its benefits, overall I am not unpleased with how the year has turned out.

2017 holds promise. I have entered the Writers of the Future Contest after an absence of several quarters, though the tale submitted it another experimental one and we shall see if it strikes a chord with the judges. My novel continues to be considered for traditional publication, and after a little short story work that won’t take more than 2 or 3 weeks I return to the comfort of military SF for another novel.

May your future hold much promise and joyful challenges.

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Research Can be Surprising

One of the ways to avoid doing the actual work of writing it is do research. Of course your story needs research but it is also an easy out, after all there is always another article to read, another book to check out, another paper to scan. I am no more immune to this than any other writer.

For y next SF military novel I am doing research into PTSD. The question I have is if the bio-chemical and neurotransmitter links of PTSD can be undone and restored by physical treatment what does that do to issues such as survivor’s guilt?

While doing the research I followed some breadcrumbs down a rabbit hole of information and ended up reading about children and PTSD. Not at all germane to my novel as none of the characters are children and certainly not the character for whom I needed these answers, but the research turned surprising in a personal matter.

My father died when I was ten years old and it was quite a blow emotionally. Reading the symptoms and expressions of PTSD in children I was struck just how much of it lined up with my memories if myself during the years following his passing.

Now this was the early 70’s, hardly a time when people would have considered such a diagnosis for a boy, but the tremors of familiarity resonate strongly for me. Today, there are now symptoms of expressions and I am quite satisfied with life.

Writing can be a profession that transforms the writer and not just their readers. I have already had an adjustment t some political thought as a results of fiction heads I have crawled into for their POV and now I have a new take on my own childhood.

 

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A Day Off

Lately I have been working 50-54 hours weeks at my day job as the Medicare application flood in during the Annual Enrollment Period. This week my body informed me that it no longer approved of the extra money I was making and allowed the Psoriatic Arthritis to flare up.

Now, this is not disabling and many people, some close friends, suffer far worse health issues, but the outbreaks, the joint pain, and the lack of sleep do take their toll. This was a result of physical stress and in order to de-stress I took today off.

Surprisingly I slept for 9 hours, which means I really and truly needed it. I operate, happily, on 6 1/2 hours each night and even n the weekends rarely go beyond 7.

This morning has been a lazy morning of burritos, British WWII documentaries, and thinking about my current SF short story.

It had been stuck for an ending but now I have it. I knew the story, and that pointed to the character change, what I did not have was the plot that got me there. Now I think I have that plot. When I awoke this morning I even was struck by an experiment style to pull off the ending. It’s wacky and may not work but I will attempt it. You should write outside your comfort zone.

 

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Well, This Was Kind of Cool

Recently I posted an essay where I broke down the classic film Alien into a five-act structure. Now I am sure that Dan O’Bannon likely thought in three acts, but acts of artificial anyway. The common audience member isn’t looking at the story as it unfolds and trying to work out a structure, ideally they are swept away by the characters and events, forgetting that it is even fiction. However as a writer I am always taking plots apart to see how they work or did not work. (I think you can learn a lot from a failed story if you can work out why it failed.) So the essay was just me sharing my thoughts on act structures and using Alien as an example to illustrate my ideas.

Now, I am also a member of the local chapter of the Horror Writers Association. We have productive meetings each month and I have met some rather cool people there. One of the members has asked that I give a presentation on using an act structure in novel writing. I’m excited by the prospect. I already use both three and five act structure when I plot out a novel and sometimes ever for short stories. Putting it down in a formal presentation would be helpful to me and hopefully helpful to whoever is present when I give it.

Time to get proficient at PowerPoint

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An Analysis of ‘Alien’ Using the Five Act Structure

I am the sort of writer who plots his projects out ahead of time and when I do that plotting I like to have a structure for the story. Most of the time I use a three-Act system of Establishment, Conflict, Resolution, but lately I have been experimenting with five acts. One way to digest and understand an act structure, particularly if you intend to use it for your own work, is to look at something already in existence and see how the structure fits on that. This is not to say that the screenplay writers for Alien used a 5 act system, they most likely used a 3 act method, but nearly any story can be broken down by either method.

ACT I Establishment

In the first act of a 5 act story not only are characters and conflicts established in the first act, but themes and the nature of the world is laid out for the audience/reader. In Alien I would suggest that the first act goes from the film start, naturally, and concludes with the decision to land on the planet/moon about Zeta-2 Reticuli. Quite a bit is covered in this passage. We learn our heroes are working class people, not space explorers as in other films of the genre, we learn that they don’t get along, and that they are deeply concerned with money. The ‘Company’ unnamed in the original, is a source of threat and power that exists in almost omnipotent state off screen.

ACT II Complications

Here things go wrong and the characters are tested with a series of setbacks. The setbacks are dangerous and threatening to the order of the world, but not yet irreversible.

The Landing goes badly, damaging the ship. The trip to the source of the signal that they have been forced to investigate – at this point the nature of ‘force’ appears to be solely the threat of money being withheld, is difficult and the first translation hint that the signal is not a distress call but a warning. Cain is ridden by the creature and interpersonal tensions flare. While attempts to remove the creature from Cain fail, the ship is repaired and the crew leaves the planet for home.

ACT III Crisis

In Act three, classically called the Climax though today we tend to use that for resolution, there is a fundamental change that is irreversible, MacBeth has Banquo murder for example. There is a clear turning point in the plot that takes place in Act 3 from which the character become trapped in their choices and must face the consequences that their fates hold.

Cain appears to recovery from the alien parasite but shortly dies in a horrific manner. Now the crew find themselves trapped on a ship with a deadly creature and increasingly dangerous attempts to deal with it result in further loss of life.

ACT IV Resolution

With a 3 act structure it is usual to think of resolution as the ending, how everything turned out in the end, but with a five act structure this also includes the final reveals and plot twists that lead to the Hero’s victory or failure in their plot. Act 4 for Alien is Ripley’s act, it is where she is revealed to be the actual hero of the story and takes charge to deal with the creature. Act 4 also reveals Ash to be the turncoat and company man working against their interests. With all the important elements in place and revealed the hero, Ripley, drive to the solution, here destroying the ship with the creature aboard.

ACT V Denouement

In my opinion Act V for Alien is everything on the shuttle after Ripley launches from the ship. It is the final confrontation between the hero and villain, this case a monster, but nothing new is added. All the elements, including the plan to ‘blow it out the airlock’ have already been established and are in place. The final obstacle is faced and the hero either overcomes and grows from the experience or fails due to their tragic flaw, Of course in Alien Ripley overcomes and earns her ‘happy ending.’

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Loscon 43 Day 1

Things went fairly well for me on Friday. Now my day-job requires that I work ‘Black Friday’ as this is also the time of the year when Medicare complete applications arrive in a flood. However I was able to shift my work schedule so I started early and completed by shift at 3:00, then my sweetie-wife and I drove quickly from San Diego to Los Angeles and I arrived just twenty minute before my first scheduled panel.

The panel discussed Science, Fiction, and Politics. Despite the explosive potential the room remained civil and instead on rancor we had plenty of reasoned statements. I sat next to Harry Turtledove and managed to not make a fool of myself.

The evening was hanging out with friends, Ice Scream social, dinner with my sweetie-wife, and open room parties. I even managed to squeeze in about 40 minutes of editing on a new short story. All in all the day was good and ended well.

Now I head into day two and this time I have thee panels or workshops that I will be participating in.

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LosCon Next Weekend

Next weekend is Thanksgiving Weekend here in the United States and for me that mean the Los Angeles Area Science Fiction Convention, otherwise known as LosCon. I think I may have attended every LosCon from 1997 until now. It is one of my favorite conventions.

My very first turn at being on a panel and not simply in the audience was at a Loscon when I was drafted for an on the spot Firefly panel. (That was a blast.)

Now for the last several years I have been a panelist for local San Diego Conventions Condor and Conjecture. This year I will be on several panels for Loscon as well.

I do not yet have the rooms, date, or times for these panels but here is where you can find me at LosCon

 

Redshirts and Bodycount

Description: Star Trek, with its many generations and recent reboot, gives us the opportunity to consider the way stakes and violence have been portrayed in media from the 60s until today. Is it possible to have high stakes without violence? Is the threat of death always necessary? How does an exceptionally nonviolent movie like Star Trek IV hold up today? Is sanitized violence in fact more offensive than ‘honest’ violence? And is there actually any reason to strive for nonviolence, if the audience is enjoying it?

 

Science, Fiction, and Politics: Shaping Reality

Description: Come join our panel of people working in science and science fiction for a discussion of how science, and science fiction affects politics – and vice versa.

 

The Politics and Socioeconomics of Space Exploration

Description: How do politics, economics, culture, and space exploration affect each other?

 

Roddenberry’s Forgotten Dreams

Description: From the TOS episode “Assignment: Earth” until Star Trek: The Motion Picture Gene Roddenberry attempted to launch a number of SF television programs that never progressed beyond an aired pilot. Join us as our panel discusses the shows that might have been

 

In addition to the panel discussions I will also be leading a critiquing session either Friday or Saturday evening.

 

Rogue Read & Critique

Description: Bring 1200-1500 words of a work in progress. In a supportive environment we’ll listen and give feedback.

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Wish Me Luck

This weekend, instead of working half a day on Saturday, I will host the lunch for the local beta readers. (To those of you dispersed across the country I wish you could be here and you have my deepest thanks.)

The Beta Reader Lunch is a tradition of mine going back to the first novel I completed as an adult. (We shall not speak of the novel written in high school.) It’s my way of giving a little back to the people who endured the rough first draft of my novel.

The outcome of these feedback sessions has been highly variable. Sometimes massive restructuring and rewriting happens. Like splitting one book into two or dropping three chapters of meetings. Sometimes there are very small changes, just a point of clarification here and there. And sometimes a book does not survive the beta read process. After the feedback I declare the manuscript dead and file it away as an experiment that failed.

What will be the outcome Saturday? I haven’t a clue. One of the books that died during a luncheon was one that as I wrote I adored ad thought it was one of my best. That’s the point of the beta readers, an observation with some distance, the writer is too damned close.

This is also why all the readers, those at the lunch and those who can only submit responses to my surveys are so vital to the process.

If you did a test read of Phaeton’s Phoenix; thank you.

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Missed Opportunities in Marvel’s Doctor Strange

First off since I am writing about missteps in the latest MCU film clearly there will be mild spoilers about the story and how it unfolds. I will try avoid any if the major wow moments of the movie but I will be discussing the villain, his motivations, and ways that might have been handled by the writers. So, if you want to go into the film unspoiled skip this post.

 

Still here? Okay let’s get into it.

 

1-mads-jpg-crop-promo-xlarge2Mads Mikkelsen plays the film’s central villain, Kaecilius a man obsessed with avoiding death. For Kaecilius even the heat death of the universe is too soon, unlike Voldemort Kawcilius truly wants to live forever. Given the macguffins of the movie and such this is a perfectly adequate motivation, in fact the missed elements that I keep thinking about all revolve around this powerful motivation.

We are introduced to Kaecilius in a rather standard scene where he and his band of zealots murder a librarian to gain access to the spells that they believe can give them a shot of truly infinite life. The murder itself is typical bad guy behavior and right there is a missed illumination of Kaecilius’ character. They didn’t have to kill him, They overpowered him easily enough that they could have taken what they wanted without murder and Kaecilus could have left with a vague pronouncement that the librarian would die soon enough. At this point we the audience would interpret that as a villain’s threat about the coming nastiness, but later once Kaecilius’ real motivation were unveiled his words would become about character and not plot.

Second missed chance: Kawcilius’ zealots. His has a few followers, all expecting the same eternal life, and we are never given a chance to see who they are as characters. They end up being just nameless thugs for the heroes to overcome. Even a few lines of dialog would have gone a long way to revealing that these are sad desperate people propelled by their utter fear of dying. We could have that these were dangerous men and women who still were objects of pity.

Third Missed shot: Strange kills one of the Zealots and we get no reaction from Kawcilius. This was a man he was leading to eternal life. This was a man who trusted him to avoid this exact fate. This was someone who trusted him and now the up-start has killed him. I would have loved to have seen a scene where the villain of the piece lectures/berates the hero for his killing; for the villain to remind Strange of his oath to do no harm. Then we could have Mordo later try to convince Strange that he did the right thing and that would have set up a stronger conflict between Strange and Mordo and helped establish Mordo eventual fall.

I think these small changes would have opened up a deeper more character driven view of Kaecilius. But all this is more in the vein of ‘go write your own story, Bob’ than a just critique.

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Don’t Do Mix-and-Match Mythologies

1995 gave us the film The Prophecy, a rather forgettable horror film about the war of the angels coming to Earth as angels battle and search for the most evil soul born to humanity. The film had few redeeming qualities, and both of those were name Christopher Walken and the angel Gabriel and Viggo Mortensen as Lucifer. In the climax of the film the heroes turn to a Native American shaman to save the day.

This really bugs me.

I have nothing against anyone’s religious beliefs. Personally I hold that all religions look whacky from the outside. If yo want to craft a story around a religion and its mythos, go ahead. I love The Exorcist but I am in no stretch of the imagination either Catholic or Christian, doesn’t mean I can’t accept the ‘world-building’ for the lack of a better term to allow myself to submerge into the story. To me it is no different than accepting the ‘truth’ of the Force while you watch a Star Wars movie.

What bothers me is when you do a grab bag of mythologies, or ignore the clear implications of what you are putting down on paper or up on the screen.

If the Christian world-myth is true to the point where angels are moving amongst us calling humanity ‘talking monkey’ and are jealous of God particular love for us then that means the other religions are wrong, mere myth and superstition. Bringing in other magic to save the day is simply dodging the real story consequences of the choice you made in setting up the world.

Let me give you another example: Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

In the pilot episode Gliles, as exposition man, explained that ‘contrary to myth this world did not start out a paradise.’ The bible and its creation myth are false. Demons were here naturally from the start. Okay I can buy that, but why do crosses repel vampires?

Oh I see you in the back waving your hand in the air all ready to quote ‘Fright Night’ that is it about the faith of the person holding the cross. In the story Willow Rosenberg is at best an atheistic Jew and later she becomes a pagan, but hey that cross works just fine. Oh it’s the faith of the vampire now? You mean the faith of the demon that know the truth of creation, or the person corpse the demon is possessing? So a vampire sired from an Hindu would flee from a cross or not?

The fact is that vampire lore, coming from the Victorians, have them repelled by crosses and so did Joss, but the Victorians took Christianity as a given and Joss rejected it in his world-building.

I say if you are going to accept the cross’s action then you need to put on your grown up writer clothes and accept the rest of it as well. The same is true for whatever real-world myth or religion that forms the factual basis for your fiction. You need to know it and own it, but please do not treat the world’s religions as a buffet.

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