IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 427

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc.) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them.

Horror Trope: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NewYearHasCome

Current Event: https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/20/health/fda-approves-first-ever-vaccine-ebola-virus/index.html

Mamadou Zakuani scowled at the health worker. Finally he said, “The people here think that the vaccine with turn them into zombies.”

The woman from the UN World Health Organization laughed out loud, but had the grace to clap her hand over her mouth, muttering, “Sorry. It’s just…”

Harper Smith, standing beside Mamadou, said, “I think you should go back to the plane.”

“I don’t think…” she began, anger flashing across her face.

“I think it is necessary,” said Mamadou. “You will only make the people more resentful of your invasion by mocking them.”

“I’m not mocking them!” she exclaimed. Behind her, one of the other health workers reached out and squeezed her arm. The other woman leaned forward and whispered into the first one’s ear. She jerked her arm free, spun, and marched back to the airstrip where the plane waited.

The second woman held out her hand, “I’m Louise Martin. I think my colleague means well – though I don’t know her that well. We met a couple weeks ago when we responded to Congo contacted us for the vaccine.”

Mamadou nodded, extending his hand. “No trouble. Will you follow us? We’ve et up the vaccination station in the town hall.”

Louise stared at him, “There’s no Level 4 facility here?”

Harper shook her head, “Didn’t anyone tell you? We’re pretty much in the middle of nowhere. The advantage is that we only have two confirmed Ebola cases in a village ten kilometers from here.”

“Where’s the nearest Level 4?”

“Gabon,” Mamadou said.

“Where’s that?”

“West Africa; just below Cameroun.”

Louise didn’t betray anything on her face, but Harper could tell in her eyes. She said, “Do you want the vaccination now?”

“Please,” said Louise. “How effective is it?”

“We used Ervebo as an investigational vaccine under an expanded access program to help mitigate this outbreak starting at the end of 2018.” She shrugged. “We’ve been here a year and neither one of us has come down with any symptoms. We’re the ‘on-the-ground’ proof of the virus.”

“How many others?”

Mamadou glanced at Harper, who opened her mouth to reply. Louise held up her hand, “What did that mean?”

Harper caught her lower lip in her teeth, sighed, then said, “Some of the responses to the new vaccine have been…unusual.”

Louise stepped back. “‘Unusual’ how?”

Mamadou said, “There’s some evidence that the vaccine has a profound effect on the immune system. It doesn’t just give immunity to Ebola. At least not apparently.”

Something flew over their heads, close to the ground, but high enough not to really affect any of them. Louise looked up, then at them, “Maybe you should just tell me what you found.”

Names: ♀ Wisconsin; ♂ Congo       

Image: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2-arXKTiwzTybeiZ-IjR8P9j_aP2vqKXJulRCqqk_e42EoyXriDrQffp-dV_b96wQqLf5Y-M9XYpYkS4Lpz0PJvQcjGfHXS3M8QSPWCq9l9UURqlah0AR2TAlNeS4yX_NR2arOLIZVuY/s1600/2212_1025142570.jpg

WRITING ADVICE – Lisa Cron #14: Everything In the Story Is “NEED-To-Know”

In 2008, I discovered how little I knew about writing after hearing children’s writer, Lin Oliver speak at a convention hosted by the Minnesota Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. To learn more – and to satisfy my natural tendency to “teach stuff”, I started a series of essays taking the wisdom of published writers and then applying each “nugget of wisdom” to my own writing. During the six years that followed, I used the advice of a number of published writers (with their permission) and then applied the writing wisdom of Lin Oliver, Jack McDevitt, Nathan Bransford, Mike Duran, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, SL Veihl, Bruce Bethke, and Julie Czerneda to an analysis of my own writing. Together these people write in genres broad and deep, and have acted as agents, editors, publishers, columnists, and teachers. Today I add to that list, Lisa Cron who has worked as a literary agent, TV producer, and story consultant for Warner Brothers, the William Morris Agency, and others. She is a frequent speaker at writers’ conferences, and a story coach for writers, educators, and journalists. Again, with permission, I am using her article, “A Reader’s Manifesto: 15 Hardwired Expectations Every Reader Has for Every Story” (2/16/18 http://blog.creativelive.com/essential-storytelling-techniques/)

14. The reader expects that everything in the story is there strictly on a need-to-know basis.

“As readers we assume that everything the writer tells us is integral to the story, and without it, the story won’t make sense. After all, if we didn’t need to know it, why would the writer waste her time telling us?

“The problem is that when writers tell us things we don’t need to know, we assign them a story meaning anyway, and we’re inherently going to be wrong. It’s like throwing rocks into an otherwise well-oiled machine. Once they get caught in the gears, it’s not long before everything comes to a grinding halt.

“Ask yourself: Is everything in my story integral to it? Have I thrown in things that sound nice, but do not affect the story itself? Hint: this is where the lure of beautiful writing can creep in. It sounds so lovely, do I really have to delete it? Yep!

OUCH!

This is my struggle with the story I’m working on now – that I was working on for my last WRITING ADVICE post on December 8…

I don’t usually struggle so much with writing a story. The problem here is that among other things, it’s a “sort of” continuation of another story; a “triptych” that focuses on the growth of the main character as he faces life without his wife, without his job of 30 years, and acting as a “representative Human”. There’s so much going on in the story that at first, while I know kinda-sorta where I wanted to go, there wasn’t any clear direction.

I wrote until I almost reached the end…and then didn’t know how to end it all and until yesterday, the story just stopped rather then ending. By chance, I got a newsletter I subscribe to, called Working Writer (for a free subscription, go here! http://www.workingwriter1.com/).

I read the first article of the January/February 2020 issue, and came across this quote from Edgar Allen Poe and an observation by the newsletter’s editor and the article’s author, Maggie Frisch: “‘Nothing is more clear than that every plot . . . must be elaborated to its dénouement before anything be attempted with the pen.’ He had his ending in mind before he began, and kept it in mind constantly to give the story a feeling of moving towards the inevitable.”

More than “the ending”, the French word “dénouement” carries even more meaning. The French origin of the word is oddly opposite of what you’d expect: “from French, literally: an untying, from dénouer to untie, from Old French desnoer, from des- de- + noer to tie, knot, from Latin nōdāre, from nōdus a knot; see node”.

Possibly in other words, the ending of the story should untie all of the strands that led up to that ending so that the reader can nod and say, “Ah! I had it figured out a long time ago!”

The less complicated definition is that the ending of a story should be “the final resolution of the intricacies of a plot, as of a drama or novel; the place in the plot at which this occurs; the outcome or resolution of a doubtful series of occurrences.”

Because I hadn’t ended “Hermit”, I had gotten lost in the details of the story – I didn’t have a map to show me how to get to where I wanted to be…because I didn’t know where I was going. I had everything else – readable in one sitting, reaction, tone, theme, climax, and setting…

So, I figured out the ending yesterday and now I’m going through the story and pruning it – I’m trying to figure out what’s important and what’s not. What’s “need-to-know” and what is me indulging myself in world building? Cron says it this way: “…when writers tell us things we don’t need to know, we assign them a story meaning anyway, and we’re inherently going to be wrong.”

Readers don’t read in order to reinforce the idea that they’re stupid – which is something I think many “literary” writers mistake for being “profound”. What I write had better be integral to the structure of the story. More than that, what I write should be essential to the ending of the story. There was so much “junk” in “Hermit”, that I couldn’t see a way to end the story – there were so many threads to it that when I tried to untie it all, I got a total mess. Worse than tennis shoe laces knotted and wet and muddy; my fingernails gnawed down to the quick; and an injured back, that’s how my story had grown, unwieldy and impossible to follow.

Now that I know where I’m going, I can look at where I started and backtrack. I’ll let you know if I was successful.

Image: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/51ddbf8fe4b0bf85e2f4edd2/t/592c2f0b414fb5ddd3a1259d/1496067864402/BookImage.jpg?format=300w

IDEA ON CHRISTMAS EVE TUESDAY 426

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc.) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them. Regarding Fantasy, this insight was startling: “I see the fantasy genre as an ever-shifting metaphor for life in this world, an innocuous medium that allows the author to examine difficult, even controversial, subjects with impunity. Honor, religion, politics, nobility, integrity, greed—we’ve an endless list of ideals to be dissected and explored. And maybe learned from.” – Melissa McPhail.

Fantasy Trope: Historical Fantasy (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HistoricalFantasy)

Current Event: http://www.mlive.com/entertainment/bay-city/index.ssf/2015/12/the_spirit_of_christmas_was_al.html

Filip Dybdahl sighed then said, “All of the magic has gone out of the world.” He was working a potion to lay down gold circuitry on an enchanted matrix for a board to be packed off into space. The telescope the University was working on for the United Nations would help astrologers make more accurate horoscopes for each of the signatory countries. Non-signatories would just have to take their chances with fate. 

Shrugging, Maja Wiig said, “Our ancestors didn’t help keep the saints alive, you know. They could have been Catholic, but chose to be Protestants instead. Killing off all the saints, as it were.”

Filip grunted. “If there was one bit of magic I could call back,” he began.

“Don’t!” Maja exclaimed.

“What’s wrong?”

“Don’t you know anything about the intersection of the real and the fantastic?”

He straightened up, thumbs going into the small of his back, shaking his head. “I had the same fundamental courses you did before I sat for my Masters in Alchemy. What are you talking about?”

“You remember when you took that elective class in Classical Egyptian Incantations?”

“Duh. Professor McGuillicudy said if I wanted to get my bachelor’s I had to take her class.”

“Yeah? Well I took a physics class instead.”

His eyes widened. “You took Planar Mathematic Spells for Physicists?”

She shrugged again. “Calculus was always fun for me. Conjuring gravity anomalies was a great way to meet boys with brains.”

“So you learned about this what, ‘intersection of the real and the fantastic’? What’s that supposed to mean?”

She scowled at him and said, “You sound pretty hostile. I don’t know if I want to tell you about it. Especially if you’re standing there ready to bite my head off. Whatever happened to your Scandinavian coolness?”

“It heated up when we got here. The Massachusetts Institute of Thaumaturgy isn’t exactly a place where I can lay back on my frozen butt and bask in the glories of my previous accomplishments! I’ve had to fight against these Gud forbannet Amerikanere for everything I’ve gotten.” He swung a flat-handed chop at her. “You have, too!”

She surrendered with both hands up and a laugh, “You’re the one who wanted to bring back the magic of Christmas!”

He opened his mouth to continue his attack, then closed it. He closed his eyes, then put dug one thumb into each temple, adding, “I’m tired. Not myself.” He looked up at her and for a moment, his gaze was bleak. “And I miss home. It’s Christmas…”

Names: ♀ Norway; ♂ Norway

Image: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtmJgIjOe90fygENjffPtkhX7r-rr_M_B6aBR5r-hioc5no4FBAN5O60n13iBU0-ZHcsQa9EXD2FYB1kLEqvUoogcTR-gdTCLSIlEw28vrIKKHPmQprCEyJuJUsXhnGZqIvnOCt0ub54k/s1600/joel_xmas-past1.jpg

THE NICK OF TIME...The Physics of Santa (A Story that Circulates Every Christmas!)

Just one night is not much time to deliver presents to around two billion children all over the world.

That time can be extended to up to 48 hours by taking advantage of the Earth’s time zones – starting by delivering presents in the (saint) nick of time at the International Date Line and travelling west.

With a total global population of seven billion, then assuming an average family size of four people, he’d have to deliver to around 10 000 homes every second in order to get the job done within those 48 hours.

By way of comparison, the US Postal Service delivers around 170 billion items of mail every year – equivalent to a little over 5000 per second over the course of 12 months, and that’s with a workforce of more than 600 000 employees and ownership of the largest vehicle fleet in the world.

Santa’s delivery outfit consists only of himself and a handful of reindeer. As has been pointed out before – notably by Spy Magazine – to deliver all his presents in time he’d have to travel at such a high speed that Rudolph and co would burn up due to friction, just like small meteors entering the atmosphere. Maybe that explains the red nose.

But could he get the job done using either of the two great theories of 20th-century physics: relativity and quantum mechanics?

Relativity
In his special theory of relativity, Albert Einstein showed that time runs at different rates for observers who are moving relative to one another (and passes more slowly for excited children waiting for presents).

This wouldn’t be much good though, as the sleigh-pulling reindeer would still be going so fast they’d combust – if they could even stay in orbit.

But gravitational fields also bend time – clocks run slower the closer they are to a source of mass. Could the Earth’s gravity help?

Probably not. If orbiting on the edge of space, then even doubling the amount of available present-delivery time would require the planet to be 1000 times more massive than the Sun – and if the Earth were this heavy at its current size it would collapse as a black hole.

But if there are no natural configurations of spacetime that might help, Santa could in theory still create a custom one.

In 1994, a physicist then based at Cardiff University, Miguel Alcubierre, discovered that there is a solution of general relativity roughly analogous to Star Trek’s warp drive. By artificially contracting the section of spacetime in front of the sleigh and expanding that behind, Santa and his reindeer can travel at an arbitrarily large speed relative to the Earth while still remaining stationary within their own ‘bubble’ of space.

The trouble is this would require an enormous amount of energy to accomplish – several billion times that in the entire observable universe.

Quantum mechanics
Quantum mechanics also allows for things to be transported great distances in little time, and could avoid the need for Santa to take to the skies at all.

Because their position isn’t a definite point but a wave spread out over space, particles can sometimes “tunnel” through barriers that, according to classical mechanics, they shouldn’t be able to pass.

Again, assuming Santa actually knows how to accomplish this (he does, after all, know when you are sleeping; he knows when you’re awake; he knows if you’ve been bad or good…), it would take a huge amount of energy to realize.

This is not to say that he doesn’t have such tremendous amounts of energy at his disposal, but it may not be the most efficient solution to his present-delivery problem.

Von Neumann probes
Maybe the problem of present-delivery could adapt a suggestion originally made when considering space exploration.

Physicist John von Neumann proposed that a spacecraft could be sent to another star system and programmed to make replicas of itself using raw materials found there. These in turn would travel to further solar systems, exponentially increasing the volume of space that can be covered.

A similar strategy could be used to send a delivery-sleigh to each continent, replicating itself to send one to each country, to each state, territory or county, and so on.

But, other than the odd bit of space junk, there are few natural resources available to convert, and to do so would be time-consuming anyway. Santa would have to be able to readily transmute elements from one form to another and then assemble them into the correct toys and gifts – perhaps by using nanotechnology.

Whichever means are used to deliver presents to billions of homes during the festive season, it’s clear that Father Christmas is way more technologically advanced than us.

Or he could just put gifts in the post.

Or, we could reflect on the true meaning of Christmas:

Source: http://www.physics.org/article-questions.asp?id=93

Today is the Saturday after the last week before WINTER BREAK. The following depiction is true in almost every way...OK, fine. It's not exactly right.

 There should be snow on the ground.

See you tomorrow!

POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAYS: Using OUR Science Fiction Stuff To Sell Car Brakes!

NOT using the panel discussions of the most recent World Science Fiction Convention in Dublin, Ireland in August 2019 (to which I be unable to go (until I retire from education)), I would jump off, jump on, rail against, and shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the pdf copy of the Program Guide. But not today. This explanation is reserved for when I dash “off topic”, sometimes reviewing movies, sometimes reviewing books, and other times taking up the spirit of a blog an old friend of mine used to keep called THE RANTING ROOM…

“I hate science fiction!”

“That scifi stuff is stupid!”

“You couldn’t pay me to watch one of those crazy scific flicks. They’re all totally unbelievable!”

Those of us who read it, hear it all the time. Yet, science fiction ideas have wormed their way into real life in countless ways. For example, while lots of people own vehicles made by the seventh largest automobile manufacturer on Earth, most of them wouldn’t even be able to tell you that the company made a commercial that was as strictly science fictional as say, “Kate & Leopold” or “The Lake House” or “Midnight in Paris” or “The Family Man” – all of which deal with altering one timeline in favor of another.

“Kate & Leopold” is arguably NOT one of these because she appears in a picture taken by her ex-boyfriend while he was in the past at a ball where the dude who invented the elevator was about to marry the wrong woman…but she was there because her ex was followed by her future husband (from the past)…Captain Kathryn Janeway, of the starship VOYAGER often said, “ Since my first day on the job as a Starfleet captain I swore I'd never let myself get caught in one of these godforsaken paradoxes - the future is the past, the past is the future, it all gives me a headache.” (“Future’s End”, ST:VOY, Season 3)

In “The Lake House”, the main character alters the timeline in order that a man in the past whom she falls in love with isn’t hit by a car and killed. “Midnight in Paris” doesn’t have quite as dire ramifications, but the main character breaks up with his money-grubbing, hyper-controlling fiancé who isn’t interested in him writing what he wants to write, but demands that he writes what makes boatloads of money. He falls instead for a French woman who loves – the FARTHER past of the “city that never sleeps”. Finally, he meets his true love – a woman who loves Paris best when it rains. Lastly, “The Family Man” chooses TO marry a woman and have a family, rather than have boatloads of money and a carefree – if lonely – life.

OK – back to the, uh, future (to coin a phrase…) In the Honda commercial you can view by following the link below, a car company has chosen to use the science fiction trope of “alternate time line” (for more on this, see the link below) to advertise the wisdom of buying a car (and hoping everyone else in the world will buy your car because it has this really fabulous technology that causes your car to brake when it is in danger of colliding with an object – in this case a man.

Honda is by no means the first company to introduce the technology to the consumer. Actively developed for use on consumer cars since 1997, most “high-end” cars now have such technology as a standard feature with the majority of the largest auto manufacturers now pretty much on the bandwagon.

As I’ve seen them, the commercials so far have been pretty standard, urging buyers to get the technology because it will save you from smashing into stuff. Honda’s “Safety for everyone” goes way, way beyond that. The commercial is sixty seconds long and features a young man’s wife and infant son, sister, co-worker, nephew, boss, and his MOM! All of them sing his praises and are at peace with how wonderful he is (for 25 seconds). Then he waves to the camera, confident he’s on an important mission. With the “whoosh!” of a car moving fast, we’re in an alternate timeline. We see his wife weeping, his son wailing, his sister contemplating her own mortality, his co-worker looking up to heaven with tears streaming down his face, his nephew suddenly behind a fence unsure of his future, and his mom hunched over a table sobbing. Then suddenly, we’re at the moment where in that alternate timeline, his hand and “Whoa!” were obviously ineffectual in fending off his death. We are at the point at which the timeline of this young man skewed into the alternate reality. (Tough to understand? Doc Brown explains it perfectly in Back To The Future: Part II – you can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfmdW3hiu8w))

My point? Science fiction has become mainstream, which mean SF doesn’t exist anymore except for a few “spacey” issues. Cloning is mainstream. Landing on the Moon is either mainstream or a conspiracy theory. Communication and weather satellites are boring.

And the SF idea of alternate timelines is being used to sell automatic braking systems for car manufacturers. What are science fiction writers “inventing” now? As far as I can tell, nothing.

We’re projecting the past into the future – the TV series THE EXPANSE, while people zip around in space, is little more than a rehash of 20^th Century Cold War dramas like “Get Smart”, “MASH”, the original “James Bond” movies, and any number of other films and TV shows…with spacey stuff. The same way, STAR TREK was initially pitched as “Wagon Train to the Stars” and while it didn’t stay there, at least managed to inject some out-of-reach technology to their scripts (if only as cost-saving measures) in particular, the transporter and matter-anti-matter power generation. Even so, the original series was pretty much a rehash of the Cold War as well, with the Klingons playing the role of the Soviet Union.

Is there any show that’s taking us in totally new directions? Anyone doing anything more than recycling old ideas or touting their political philosophies as the sole antidote to “today’s” political situations?

Meanwhile, a science fiction idea is being used to advertise a new way to stop your car…

Resource: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsM6XoqWRFs

Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collision_avoidance_system, https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AlternateTimeline

Image: https://global.honda/content/dam/site/global/about/cq_img/sustainability/safety/bnrL_safety.jpg

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 425

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc.) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them.

SF Trope: Interstellar Travel

Current Event: http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20110015936.pdf

Giovanna Mukhomorov shook her head slowly as she stared through the meteoroid [meteor = “celestial (brighter among the stars) phenomenon”; oid = “still seen”; ite = “a piece of”]-scarred window of the International Space Station. “When the old NASA announced this in 2014, my mom said she cried.”

Artyom Pai-Teles snorted, staring out the same window. “My fathers both shook their heads and said, ‘American hubris’.”

Gio didn’t bother looking at him as she said, “Thirty years later, the same might be said of them when they first planned your genstruction.”

“Hey! I was a successful...”

“How many times did they have to try, AP?”

He could do nothing but grunt. They’d been best friends up here since the day they’d arrived in space. Two years ago. Sometimes he thought it was too bad she was straight gay.

He sighed and she added, “It’s never gonna happen, AP.”

He said, “A man can dream about stroking those massive engines, can’t he?”

She slugged him, forgetting to hold herself down and floated away and into the main stream of older men and women, prime-age men and women, young adult men and women, and a smattering of boys and girls. Most of them politely excused themselves, bouncing like oddly-shaped ping pong balls as they moved hurriedly around Gio.

One of them did not. A young adult grabbed a bar near her feet and said, “You need to stay out of my way, kid.”

Flicking her toes, she came within a millimeter of his rather big nose. He flinched but didn’t move. Impressed despite herself, she said, “Titus, you’re ninety-one days older than me. You were one grade behind me. Even if you do the simplest math you’re most capable of, you still come out behind and I still don’t like you.” She pulled herself up and shoved herself toward the assembly area. “Come on Artyom. We have a galaxy to explore.”

He followed her, taking her hand, but she didn’t see the look on Titus Polamalu’s face. He did. He not only didn’t like the look, somewhere deep down inside of him, he found himself terrified of the mind of the man who watched his best friend.

Names: ♀ Brazil, Russia; ♂ Russia, Brazil, ♂ Hawaii, Hawaii

Image:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/01/Ariane5_VA221_liftoff2.jpg/220px-Ariane5_VA221_liftoff2.jpg

WRITING ADVICE – Lisa Cron #13: The Harder They Try To “Fix Things”, The Worse It Gets!

In 2008, I discovered how little I knew about writing after hearing children’s writer, Lin Oliver speak at a convention hosted by the Minnesota Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. To learn more – and to satisfy my natural tendency to “teach stuff”, I started a series of essays taking the wisdom of published writers and then applying each “nugget of wisdom” to my own writing. During the six years that followed, I used the advice of a number of published writers (with their permission) and then applied the writing wisdom of Lin Oliver, Jack McDevitt, Nathan Bransford, Mike Duran, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, SL Veihl, Bruce Bethke, and Julie Czerneda to an analysis of my own writing. Together these people write in genres broad and deep, and have acted as agents, editors, publishers, columnists, and teachers. Today I add to that list, Lisa Cron who has worked as a literary agent, TV producer, and story consultant for Warner Brothers, the William Morris Agency, and others. She is a frequent speaker at writers’ conferences, and a story coach for writers, educators, and journalists. Again, with permission, I am using her article, “A Reader’s Manifesto: 15 Hardwired Expectations Every Reader Has for Every Story” (2/16/18 http://blog.creativelive.com/essential-storytelling-techniques/)...

13. The reader expects that as the protagonist tries to solve the plot problem, she will only make things worse, until she has no choice but to face her misbelief.

“We expect that the protagonist will have two mutually exclusive goals: first, to resolve the plot problem; second, to remain true to her misbelief while doing so. The irony is that the thing she thinks is helping her – her misbelief – is actually what’s keeping her from getting what she wants. This reveals the most fundamental, and potent, source of conflict in any story: your protagonist’s internal struggle – what she wants vs. the misbelief that keeps her from getting it.”

OK – I’m going to analyze a set of three stories I’m working on now. “Panhandlers” is in submission; “Hermit” is nearly done; and “Immigrants” will be the final story in what I have named, in an act of extreme creativity, TRIPTYCH…

At any rate, let me think out loud about the protagonist, Carlos Bander. In the first story, Carlos, the first child of a family of migrant field workers (who in fact, lived down the road from where I grew up) to benefit from their bold move to buy a house and settle in our 100% white, middle-class, suburban neighborhood. I can’t imagine the courage that took or the pressure they were placed under to leave, nevertheless, in reality, that eldest son became a celebrity chef. The main point there was for their children to get an education beyond what they received.

The main plot problem of all three stories is he’s been “kidnapped” into service to the Unity of Sentients. Why? Because a measure of civilization is the willingness of the species (as a whole) to embrace sacrifice as a sometimes necessary response to challenge. Also, because in a multi-species union inevitably, conflict will occur. When evaluating new members for the Unity, agents investigate how a species deals with conflict. Carlos is one such Human.

Wars don’t automatically eliminate a people from membership in the Unity. It’s HOW war is fought that might eliminate them. Also, the Sentients or their culture must have something of value to trade and a desire to ask for what they need.

In this future (as in reality), Humans have a vast knowledge of domestication of a wide variety of species as well as medical skills that have little precedence in the Unity civilization.

Neural, cell, and organ regeneration is virtually ubiquitous in all other Sentients; in fact, it’s considered a necessity for intelligence to develop. Earth life is nearly unique in that while complex life forms can regenerate cells and sometimes other major organs, in most mammals regeneration is limited and selective. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regeneration_(biology)). As a result, Humans developed transplant technologies virtually unknown in the Unity.

As for domestication, Humans have domesticated 39 different animal species; 12 insects; and over 100 plants. We use many others, but these are the most significant. In the Unity, there have been very few species with a high domesticability factor on the home worlds of most members of the Unity. Certainly, there have been nowhere near as many such species on a single world. Unity experience with domestication is limited at best.

At any rate, Carlos knows his family history and his goal is to help as many people as possible. His misbelief is that he has been called to work with young people as a counselor and a social worker. It’s become his self-image. Others in the Unity have evaluated him (and thousands of others, of course), as possible candidates for Contact in Human society and ones who might receive training to help the Unity with its next step: integration of Humans into Unity culture. So far, they liked what they saw. So, they put Carlos to the test.

In “Panhandler”, Carlos is fired from his job, tossed out of his home, and must survive on the street. But, for some reason he is unaware of, his test has accelerated and he must choose saving the life of an alien being on Earth, or saving his own life.

In “Hermit”, Carlos, now linked with two aliens who see him as “their project”, has to face his prejudices and his loneliness (his wife died before “Panhandler”). He also has to think on his feet and while the story will end fairly well, it will also exacerbate his loneliness.

In “Immigrants”, I hope to delve into the current Human drama playing across multiple cultures on the planet. While we in the US seem tunnel-focused on pursuing our own self-righteous efforts to lead the planet in our inclusiveness, we ignore other cultures whose resistance to immigration is worse than ours. The ten WORST: https://haskewlaw.com/the-top-ten-toughest-immigration-laws-world-wide/; the ten BEST: https://www.immigroup.com/news/top-10-immigration-friendly-countries.

So – generosity, isolationism, and immigration. Issues that the Unity is looking at in Humans and areas that Carlos doesn’t understand the reactions he has in himself. He’s internally conflicted and externally conflicted as well. He gets into trouble when he doesn’t make what he thinks is the “right choice”. (He’s also secretly a Christian!)

However, I just realized that I may have been a bit too easy on Carlos in “Hermit”. Excuse me while I go give him a worse time!

Image: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/51ddbf8fe4b0bf85e2f4edd2/t/592c2f0b414fb5ddd3a1259d/1496067864402/BookImage.jpg?format=300w

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 424

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc.) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them.

H Trope: Hitchhiking ghost

Current Event: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BewareOfHitchhikingGhosts

Fatima Ozturk peered out through the tiny port of the Space Station Courage repair pod – the SSCRP affectionately known as a “Scrapper”. She said, “What are we supposed to be looking for?”

Her lab partner, Durante Ghandour shrugged, “The query marker path on the screen says we’re supposed to look for a malfunctioning satellite positioning dish.”

“How are we supposed to know if it’s malfunctioning?” Fatima muttered. She shot a look over to Durante. He wasn’t exactly her first choice of partner, but he WAS supposed to be some sort of history genius.

Durante leaned forward and tapped the display screen. “It says that it will be obvious.”

She nodded. “Bent then, most likely.”

“I’m just thinking it might be obvious to you, you’re the mechanical genius. Besides, I’m not sure I’m excited about being here.”

“How can you not be excited? We’ve been running 3D sims ever since we started Class 14! I am SO ready to be in space!” She shook her head. She hadn’t taken him for an agoraphobe.

“Not that I didn’t want to be out here – it’s just the timing…”

Piloting the pod forward, Fatima growled when the computer made a course correction she was just about to make. “It may look like I’m doing the job, but Station is still flying this toolbox.” She concentrated on keeping them oriented toward the body of the station while scanning the com dishes that came up on the screen. She tried to get a visual inspection as well as the two windows swept around. “What about the timing?” she asked as they flew to the next com dish cluster.

“Nothing. You’ll think I’m lunar.”

“I already know you’re lunar, so tell me already.”

Durante bristled, “What do you mean you know I’m lunar?”

She shrugged – a tough move in the heavy EVA suits they had to wear. They wouldn’t graduate to thinkskins until they turned eighteen and could sign all the paperwork saying they were responsible for themselves. “Forget it. What about the history of being here?” She figured that might deflect him.

She was right as he said, “This place we’re in right now? This is where Laika and Vladislav Volkov died. Practically the same place.”

“Who?”

He sighed then said, “The Soviet space dog? First living creature in space? She died around this point when the launch of Sputnik 2 overheated. They lied for about sixty years, then let the truth out. Then, three Soviet cosmonauts died in June of 1971 when their ship pulled away from a really primitive space station and a valve got stuck open and leaked all their air out.” He gestured out the window, “I expect their…” He lurched forward, banging his helmet against the thick quartz, whispering, “Yaa ilaahee!”

Names: ♀ Turkey; ♂ Italy, Egypt

Image: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2-arXKTiwzTybeiZ-IjR8P9j_aP2vqKXJulRCqqk_e42EoyXriDrQffp-dV_b96wQqLf5Y-M9XYpYkS4Lpz0PJvQcjGfHXS3M8QSPWCq9l9UURqlah0AR2TAlNeS4yX_NR2arOLIZVuY/s1600/2212_1025142570.jpg

Elements of Cron and Korea #12: Character, Character, Character? It’s All, About. How...They React!

I may  have mentioned that one of my goals is to increase my writing output, increase my publication rate, and increase the relevance of my writing. In my WRITING ADVICE column, I had started using an article my sister sent me by Lisa Cron. She has worked as a literary agent, TV producer, and story consultant for Warner Brothers, the William Morris Agency, and others. She is a frequent speaker at writers’ conferences, and a story coach for writers, educators, and journalists. I am going to fuse the advice from her book WIRED FOR STORY with my recent trip to South Korea. Why? I made a discovery there. You’ll hear more about it in the future as I work to integrate what I’m learning from the book, the startling things I found in South Korea, and try and alter how I write in order to create characters that people will care about, characters that will speak the Truth, and characters that will clearly illustrate what I’m writing about.

“Remember when Luke has to drop the bomb into the small vent on the Death Star? The story writer faces a similar challenge of penetrating the brain of the reader. This book gives the blueprints.” – David Eagleman

In considering my next move with the Korean Solar Expansion series, I’m going to look at these two elements:

“Cheomsongmae is an ancient astronomical observatory that not only survived the southern advance of North Korea during the war, but is now a place Koreans visit. It has existed since roughly since 640 AD – about 1400 years.”

Add that to the first, most important point that I extracted from Cron’s WIRED FOR STORY: “Story is how a character reacts; to the plot which is what happens.”

I’m going to add another element to this as well. From this essay https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2019/10/elements-of-cron-and-korea-where-do-i.html, I’m going to extract this: “He grew up in South Korea, going to schools there until his family moved back to the US. He enlisted in the Air Force, became a pilot after going to college and getting his first degree in aerospace engineering.”

In addition to something like this happening to my grandchildren, I also have a former student who graduated from high school (not spectacularly, but he did graduate), who worked at Target. A fine job, but not exactly what he wanted. That was the problem though. He didn’t know WHAT he wanted. A little over a year ago, I ran into him at his work and he was excited – uncharacteristically so. He thought he knew what he wanted in life and he asked to come and see me at school. We met and he told me he wanted to enlist in the Air Force and become a mechanic. That was great, but being who I am, we talked a bit more and I suggested he look higher – maybe even to space.

The thing is, he’d never thought of that.

I remember when the desire of many kids was to “be an astronaut”. I haven’t really heard that sentiment in recent years. In fact, since the American Human space program essentially died with the moth-balling of the Space Shuttle fleet (which needed to happen, by the way. They were old. The first tested in 1977, the last landing in 2011 – so thirty-four years they flew the same design with only minor modifications.

Eight years later, and Americans still have not gone into space on anything but the Russian Soyuz spacecraft (though supplies have been delivered by the US (Cygnus), Russia (Progress), the European Space Agency (ATV), SpaceX (Falcon), and Japan (Kounotori).  

So, where does story come in here? What would happen if an amateur built a space craft? This was an “everyday occurrence” in the stories of Robert A. Heinlein; most notably ROCKET SHIP GALILEO. Amazon.com has several books delineating the creation of amateur rockets and pushing the boundaries higher and higher. One article linked below notes that government agencies actually need to monitor amateur launches.

While nothing like Rocket Ship GALILEO has happened, the operative word here would be “YET”. Some years ago, I tried a story in which NASA spread out its satellite and supply launches by creating a mobile launch platform. This is NOT a crazy idea. The military has the capability of moving missile launch systems and does so on a regular basis. The launcher is surrounded by support vehicles like a mobile “mission control”, tracking radar, and power generators. While the missiles are small, there doesn’t seem to me to be any barrier to ramping up the size. Also, with the development of SpaceX’s soft-landing system, completed successfully in 2015, seems to indicate that while I doubt we’d want to try and land rockets in suburban neighborhoods, it’s technically feasible.

So, the basis of my story? A fresh technical college graduate (yes, he understands theory, but no, he can’t calculate orbits in his head at the drop of a hat and then explain the physics of rocket launches…) with certifications in several areas pertinent to space travel; he has ideas and plans but hasn’t had any kind of experience in space.

Like Tom Godwin’s “Cold Equations” (ASTOUNDING Science Fiction, August 1954. Read a reprint here in LIGHTSPEED, http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-cold-equations/), what if he stowed away? In recent years, there have been profound criticism leveled at this story. James Davis Nicoll wrote at Tor.com, “But of course, the point of the story, as determined by the author and his editor, John W. Campbell, Jr., is to underline a moral: the universe doesn’t care about human feelings. Natural law dictates that hard men must make hard choices. What the story actually says is that lousy procedures kill. Just another instance of humans looking for justifications to be beastly to each other.” (https://www.tor.com/2019/04/29/on-needless-cruelty-in-sf-tom-godwins-the-cold-equations/)

So, given a smart enough person (I’d write the main character as female (using my granddaughter as a template), but I don’t want to appropriate the gender narrative…but I COULD have my writer/daughter read it and comment! Hmmm…), they could get into such a ship and stowaway into space, take notes (probably dictating via cellphone – would a standard cellphone work in space?), return, and then go on to build an amateur spacecraft; possibly launching it from a balloon…or some such…let me see…where’s my clipboard? Excuse me while I start a story outline, working title, “The Manipulated Equations”…

Resource: https://www.creativelive.com/blog/essential-storytelling-techniques/, https://newatlas.com/homebuilt-single-person-spacecraft-tested/18816/, https://realdoctorstu.com/2011/01/14/how-to-build-a-spaceship-the-best-and-worst-amateur-astronauts/, https://www.dailydot.com/parsec/brief-history-amateur-space-flight/

Image: https://www.ducksters.com/science/chemistry/chromium.gif

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 423

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc.) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them. Regarding Fantasy, this insight was startling: “I see the fantasy genre as an ever-shifting metaphor for life in this world, an innocuous medium that allows the author to examine difficult, even controversial, subjects with impunity. Honor, religion, politics, nobility, integrity, greed—we’ve an endless list of ideals to be dissected and explored. And maybe learned from.” – Melissa McPhail.

F Trope: magic to summon someTHING

Current Event: http://www.spellsofmagic.com/coven_spells.html?coven=6&slist=54

Ruby Yilmaz and Liam Kaya sat side-by-side, skimming through websites. Liam muttered in Phasa Thai.

“English, Liam. English! While we’re here, we’re supposed to be practicing our English,” whispered Ruby. English was her birth language even though her parents had emigrated from Thailand to Australia before she was born and they spoke Phasa Thai at home. “It’s the language of physics!”

Liam grunted and said, “If you want my opinion, then the English isn’t going to be the language of physics much longer – that’ll be either Mandarin Chinese or Hindi.”

Ruby grinned and continued to scan the articles they had to read for the Intro to Physics in the 21^st Century class they were taking together this semester. She sighed. What she’d RATHER be reading was articles on ancient magic.

“Look at this,” said Liam.

Ruby leaned over. While she was glad the lettering was English, she rolled her eyes at the site name, “Conjuring Made Easy”. She whispered, “You’re supposed to be reading the articles updating the CERN discoveries!”

“Hey! How do we know magic is supernatural? What if it’s manipulating the laws of physics as we don’t understand them?”

Ruby rolled her eyes and went back to reading. Let Liam waste his time. SHE wanted to move to some rich country someday – like China – and get a real job as a physicist! She wanted to be in on the Chinese dream of establishing a colony on the water world orbiting Alpha Centauri A – what the Chinese called Nán Mén Èr – and what they’d begun hollowing out an asteroid to reach.

“If magic is bogus, then why don’t we print this spell and go over to my place?”

Ruby rolled her eyes again. It wasn’t that Liam wasn’t good looking – it was just that he was quite certain that she found him attractive. The fact was that she had her eye on a certain very tall, very blonde, very, very shy Swedish young man in their physics class...

Liam said abruptly, “I know you’ve got it in for Elias, but I just want to see if this magic stuff actually works.”

Ruby opened her mouth to deny her attraction to the Swede’s light-skinned, elven looks, then closed it, considered, and said, “All right. BUT…” Liam’s look of delight froze on his face. She continued, “There’s no messing around and we get back to work after you’re done summoning whatever it is you plan on summoning.”

“I’m thinking I’m going to conjure up something that understands the laws of physics AND can explain them to me.”

She laughed and, gathering up her books, followed him out of the library. By the time they reached the dorm, however, it was threatening rain. “I’d better get going to my room…”

“That would be dumb! You live two kilometers from here. You’re sure to get caught out in the rain if you leave now – and you don’t have any tunnels you can duck into. Just stay the night. My roommate won’t be back. He’s busy sleeping with his latest boyfriend down the hall.”

Ruby made a face then said, “I’ll come up, but I’m not guaranteeing I’ll stay. If it’s not raining, I’m going home.”

Liam nodded and once they were firmly settled into his room and he’d pulled up the website again, he said, “All right. This summoning spell doesn’t seem to be too hard to pull off.”

“No blood of a virgin required?”

He snorted, “I’m NOT pricking my finger to bleed for a magic spell again. We’ll have to ask the guy next door.”

Ruby gasped, smacked him and laughed, saying, “Well THERE’S a silver lining to these rain clouds!”

Liam was silent, then muttered something that sounded almost like Phasa Thai. Lighting flashed and thunder rumbled to shake the window pane of the dorm room. Ruby scowled, focusing her attention on a particularly complex abstract regarding proof of the Higgs boson they’d discovered at CERN.

She was hunched over her computer when Liam screamed…

Names: ♀ England, Turkey; ♂ England, Hopi

Image: http://www.skyscrapernews.com/images/pics/6255CaernarfonCastle_pic1.jpg

Slice of PIE: Teen Humor Combatting the Grim Plans of Adults…

Using the Program Guide of the World Science Fiction Convention in Dublin, Ireland in August 2019 (to which I will be unable to go (until I retire from education)), I will jump off, jump on, rail against, and shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the pdf copy of the Program Guide. The link is provided below where this appeared on page…

You Have To Laugh: Humour in Young Adult Speculative Fiction

What with all the struggles of growing up, finding love, saving the world, and overthrowing dystopias, YA literature has a lot of serious business to take care of. But laughter is an outlet too. Is there room for laughter in YA? What kinds of humour do you find in the genre, how are they used, and is there a generation gap when it comes to what’s funny anyway?

Gail Carriger: YA and A author; well-known.

Ellen Klages: YA, A, historical fiction, SF, F author; well-known.

Sarah Rees Brennan: author; well known.

So – lots of experience here; lots of fun, I’m sure. I’ve never read any of these writers, but I DID order WHITE SANDS, RED MENACE by Ellen Klages from my local library.

However, what I do see is that all of them take speculative fiction aimed at young adult readers seriously.

I do, too. Several published stories target young adults – “Skipping School”, “Biking Mars”, “Prince of Blood and Spit”, “Invoking Fire”, “I Need More Space!”, “Fairy Bones”, “Peanut Butter and Jellyfish”, “Penguin Whisperer”, “Mystery on Space Station COURAGE”, and “Test”. But none of them are specifically humorous.

Not that I can’t make teenagers laugh. I do often as both a teacher and a counselor. But the stories above, while there may be funny moments, don’t actually wield humor as a weapon to break through the armor most young adults build around themselves to protect their growing hearts.

And, yes, I DO believe that.

I’ve got several UNpublished stories that lean more heavily on humor than others – “Alien Swimmer From Otter Space”, “An End To Faerie”, and “Not Quite Blue Boy”.

And while many, many, MANY speculative fiction writers who attempt to writer science fiction lean heavily on slaughtering teens for sport (THE HUNGER GAMES, THE WHITE MOUNTAINS trilogy, the MOON CRASH quartet, and many others), some OLDER science fiction found humor a different lens through which to view the future – not that the SITUATIONS were funny, but the characters have a “snarky”, hopeful outlook rather than resigning themselves to either revolution or destruction.

Heinlein’s HAVE SPACESUIT, WILL TRAVEL is one such. THE EVER EXPANDING UNIVERSE series by Martin Leicht and Isla Neal are newcomers to writers who deal with hard teen problems with humor without resorting to mass slaughter or using teens to solve the world’s problems. READY PLAYER ONE by Eric Cline is another novel that, while it has its dark moments, has a streak of rough humor running through it.

While SF is difficult to write, and given the current “adult view” of adolescents, there’s very little to recommend them to the general reading public, and when teachers and reviewers hold up examples like the dystopian novels I listed above, teens take them in (reading ones do, anyway) and absorb the image adults have of them. (I’ve ranted on this before and most other writers shrugged and said I was making too much of a big deal about it…but everyone who commented was…um…an adult. You can read the rant here: http://www.sfwa.org/2012/07/guest-post-when-did-science-fiction-and-apocalypse-become-interchangeable/).

What young people need is tools to deal with any future they discover. Right now, those futures seems to mostly involve them giving up. What you don’t find is teens rising to meet challenges on other worlds, meeting other intelligences, and forging alliances – nope, that’s for “adult professionals”. It’s also true that middle and high school young people are frequently victims, I have seen countless students rise to meet profound challenges.

I rarely see that resiliency reflected in the SF produced “for them”. In fantast, I see the same thing – HARRY POTTER for instance. The Hogwarts students were the victims of two adults who secretly and overtly manipulated them to reach their own goals. While some adults stood up for the young people, they were mostly swept aside by the more “important” adults. In the prequel movies FANTASTIC BEASTS, the same thing happens to Credence Barebone…

At any rate, my idea for a collection of published and unpublished short stories called MOVING OUT: Tales of Teens Who Left Earth Behind To Explore the Universe! As I noted above? Several of those stories showing those young people making FUN of the universe and the adults who seek to control them. As always, there might be one or two adults who actually CARE about young people, but as always, they remain few and far between and have to watch out for the “important adults” who are watching to see who tries to thwart their desires.

Program Book: https://dublin2019.com/whats-on/programming/programme-schedule/

Image: https://rlv.zcache.com/im_not_weird_im_limited_edition_quote_teen_humor_postcard-re5cab0336e204fc2a984140ac0143556_vgbaq_8byvr_540.jpg