WRITING ADVICE: Can This Story Be SAVED? #33 “A Quantum Echo At Taconite Harbor” (Submitted 4 Times Since 2020; 1 Revision (3/2023))

In September of 2007, I started this blog with a bit of writing advice. A little over a year later, I discovered how little I knew about writing after hearing children’s writer, Lin Oliver. In April of 2014, I figured I’d gotten enough publications that I could share some of the things I did “right”. I’ll keep that up, but I’m running out of pro-published stories. I don’t write full-time, nor do I make enough money with my writing to live off of it, but someone pays for and publishes ten percent of what I write. Hemingway’s quote above will remain unchanged as I work to increase my writing output and sales, but I’m adding this new series of posts because I want to carefully look at what I’ve done WRONG and see if I can fix it. As always, your comments are welcome!

In September of 2007, I started this blog with a bit of writing advice. A little over a year later, I discovered how little I knew about writing after hearing children’s writer, Lin Oliver. In April of 2014, I figured I’d gotten enough publications that I could share some of the things I did “right”. I’ll keep that up, but I’m running out of pro-published stories. I don’t write full-time, nor do I make enough money with my writing to live off of it, but someone pays for and publishes ten percent of what I write. Hemingway’s quote above will remain unchanged as I work to increase my writing output and sales, but I’m adding this new series of posts because I want to carefully look at what I’ve done WRONG and see if I can fix it. As always, your comments are welcome!

ANALOG Tag Line:

There are Quantum Ghosts, then there are ghost ghosts…"Weird physics" happened in northern Minnesota a long time ago. What if there were echoes of the past in the iron-rich soil of the Iron Range and Gitchigumi?

Elevator Pitch (What Did I Think I Was Trying To Say?)

A recluse and her AI salvage boat discover echoes of the past in quantum ghost images of a girl shooting baskets in a long abandoned town on Ojibwe Gichigami 

Opening Line:

“It was a good thing Mary Croft didn’t believe in ghosts.

She and Henry, the AI half of their team, were the only certified AI-Human magnetic dredge operator on the North Shore of Lake Superior at the moment.”

Onward:

“They worked for Great Lakes Recovery: Dredge & Dock, Inc, and this tour, the company had trusted them with a publicity stunt. They’d transferred Henry into the cabin of a two-hundred-and-fifty-year-old, completely refurbished ore tugboat named EDNA G. Built just after the end of the Industrial Revolution, the last steam-powered boat was retired in the late 20^th Century. Crewed by Mary and Henry, it was paraded up and down the shoreline of three of the Great Lakes, celebrating the company’s commitment to the continued recovery of the planet, and the amelioration of the climate changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution. It was a corporate bonus that her family could trace back to the Deep South and included freed slaves, military genius, and a prominent member of the team that successfully midwifed the birth of the first true Artificial Intelligence.”

OK – so THIS IS HORRIBLE! I went from an intriguing first sentence…into a dull, boring, partly unnecessary monologue! What was I thinking? Granted that I needed background. The reader needs to know where the story’s taking place, but this is what is called an “infodump”.

What if I started the story a little bit earlier? She can maybe be talking to her mom…(which she actually is avoiding until the end)…I could probably shorten the story even more, making it more marketable if she talked to her in the first place…I don’t know. I need to see how that works. It might shorten the story as well as integrate the action better; rather than having her mom make a 350 mile trip from Minneapolis up to the North Shore.

What Was I Trying To Say?

There are things we can’t understand when it comes to quantum mechanics, how it works, and what we can expect are gradually coming into focus, but for most of us – especially those of us who have SOME science background with physics, it’s almost as scary as “ghosts”. And I discovered today, that quantum mechanics has its OWN ghosts: “In the terminology of quantum field theory, a ghost, ghost field, ghost particle, or gauge ghost is an unphysical state in a gauge theory. Ghosts are necessary to keep gauge invariance in theories where the local fields exceed a number of physical degrees of freedom”. That would have been IDEAL to use in the story – as long as I can translate enough of it for me to get the gist of what a “quantum ghost” is…

The Rest of the Story:

Here’s another terrible mistake: “Mary had enjoyed the steady thrum of the ancient engine and the absence of conversation as they cut across Lake Superior to the North Shore.” Using past tense, I’ve (probably earlier even) tossed the reader out of the story. Reading it today, after a long separation from it, this phrase certainly threw me out of the story. How much farther will it throw someone who has no investment in it?

The rest of the story concerns a little reconciliation between Mary and her mom; and the possibility of reconciliation between Mary and an old friend of hers; all of which give it a “Human side”, which doesn’t really provide anything more for the story itself.

In February of 2021, I got this rejection from the editor at F&SF, Sheree Renée Thomas: “I appreciated the mining details in this futuristic tale, but I found it tough to follow your worldbuilding in the exposition, as well as Mary Croft's character development (specifically, what was she and what was she doing, what was her actual relationship to the AI since the intro says they worked together for a decade but the robot introduces himself to her later), and so I'm going to pass on it for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. But I wish you best of luck finding the right home for it, and I hope you'll keep us in mind in the future for your other new stories.”

End Analysis:

I allowed the story to wander and not “tell the story”. While details are fine – see Sheree Thomas above – inane detail is NOT. It didn’t add to the story and (from what I read). Didn’t contribute to the forward momentum of the tale. EVERY WORD HAS TO PULL THE STORY AND THE READER FORWARD! This did – in places – but not enough to sell it. I need to change it so it invites the reader in to experience the world of the story.

I’ve got to be more focused – now that I’ve done a bit of research on quantum “ghosts”, the story makes more sense. I don’t have to do lots of “sciencey stuff” IN the story (my target is ASIMOV’S or ANALOG or F&SF. I hit all of them up before, but the story’s new and different. Maybe they’ll take it this time!

Can This Story Be Saved?

Oh, FOLKS! This plays into another story I’m writing right now…

 With the advent of the AI flap launched by concerns about ChatGPT, this is all everyone in the tech and education world is talking about right now. For some reason, I also never bothered to see if there was such a thing as a quantum ghost particle…

If I can integrate these subjects into the existing story, maybe I can resub this one and stand a better chance of saving it. It’s also helped that I read a semi-recent 30^th Anniversary collection of the best stories from 1977 to 2006. I confess it was enlightening in ways…I’m not sure I LIKE entirely. But enough of the stories stood out to me as exceptional (and I REALLY disliked some of them and my opinion was that they were there for name-draw only…), it was overall a really good read. I can see why most of the stories were award winners. I learned, and once I do a revision, I think I’ll take a submit the story again. So, YES. It can be saved!

Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_(physics)#:~:text=In%20the%20terminology%20of%20quantum,of%20physical%20degrees%20of%20freedom. , https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-65139406 (3/31/23; 10:24 am) ChatGPT banned in Italy over privacy concerns -- 2 hours ago, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/in-a-first-physicists-glimpse-a-quantum-ghost/ ; https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/in-a-first-physicists-glimpse-a-quantum-ghost/

Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_(physics)#:~:text=In%20the%20terminology%20of%20quantum,of%20physical%20degrees%20of%20freedom. , https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-65139406
(3/31/23; 10:24 am) ChatGPT banned in Italy over privacy concerns -- 2 hours ago
Image: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/9f/22/3b/9f223b1e57a36e14db3eb13715fbe3f9.jpg

WRITING ADVICE: Can This Story Be SAVED? #32 “DRIVING [GENDER FLUID, RELATIONALLY EXPEDIENT] DAYZEE” (Submitted 4 Times Since Sept 2020, Never Revised)

In September of 2007, I started this blog with a bit of writing advice. A little over a year later, I discovered how little I knew about writing after hearing children’s writer, Lin Oliver. In April of 2014, I figured I’d gotten enough publications that I could share some of the things I did “right”. I’ll keep that up, but I’m running out of pro-published stories. I don’t write full-time, nor do I make enough money with my writing to live off of it, but someone pays for and publishes ten percent of what I write. Hemingway’s quote above will remain unchanged as I work to increase my writing output and sales, but I’m adding this new series of posts because I want to carefully look at what I’ve done WRONG and see if I can fix it. As always, your comments are welcome!

ANALOG Tag Line:
What if Humans aren’t as “primitive” as aliens THINK we are; and what if aliens aren’t as ADVANCED as we expect them to be? [After re-reading it and reading about the movie that sparked it, “Driving Miss Daisy”, the theme would be “Can aliens and Humans communicate without words – and maybe if they DID try to communicate without word, their message would come across more clearly.”]

Elevator Pitch (What Did I Think I Was Trying To Say?)
Someday, Humans will come into contact with aliens. We seem to think it will be totally random and one-sided – aliens abducting Humans for experimentation – or entirely between equals; like Zefram Cochrane meeting the Vulcans. What if it’s messy and only barely standardized; yet still interstellar?

Opening Line:
The beat officer scowled as the Tesla Ten Luxury Limousine Conversion seemed to float silently past his unmarked squad car, turning down the street his daughter and granddaughter lived on.”

Onward:
Someone at the end of Carlos Bander’s block has kidnapped an alien intelligence who somehow crash-landed in the marsh at the edge of the park. The Kifush alien, going by the name of Miz Dayzee is there to find out where it went before one of the primitive Humans murders it and causes an interstellar incident.

Through endless talking, they figure out who; Carlos approaches him; he surrenders the alien. The end.

What Was I Trying To Say?
Humans may have a skill at domestication, which a particularly violent intelligence might be interested in learning. This story was sparked by the movie, “Driving Miss Daisy”, winner of numerous awards for films made in 1989. Of that inspiration, virtually nothing overt remained…though there are hints of it I can see after rereading the story and reading the synopsis of the movie.

The Rest of the Story:
Carlos, killed when Chek runs him over is resurrected and saves the life of the granddaughter of the man who’s holding the Shabe hostage – is pressed into service in order to fix things up. This is supposed to be the first of an entire series about Carlos; and I have a Triptych planned for him as well (two of the stories are already written)…

End Analysis:
I’m on page 10 and nothing has really happened – except Carlos go run over and (presumably) almost died. Otherwise, there’s NO ACTION AT ALL. It’s been “sparkling repartee” and that’s it. That and a turkey dinner will nourish your imagination.

The red ball, which is actually part of the common language of the Unity is extremely distracting. I would have to figure a way to incorporate it into the written English transcript.

Also, there was no driving, except by Chek Yeltsin…

The thing is that, I think I may have heard the voice of this story. I wrote it a year or so ago, I was trying to be “trendy”. While there’s nothing wrong with that, the title promised WAY more than it delivered. In fact, there was nothing in the story that had ANYTHING to do with “Miss” Dayzee. It was cutesy in the extreme with absolutely no meat on its bones whatsoever – and might as well have been called, “Some Stuff Happens After a Man In the Neighborhood Captures an Injured Alien and Nobody Cares”…

Can This Story Be Saved?
As is? Absolutely not, mostly because absolutely nothing happens that isn’t predictable and actually boring.

HOWEVER: Of “Driving Miss Daisy”, “Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times called it ‘a film of great love and patience’ and wrote, ‘It is an immensely subtle film, in which hardly any of the most important information is carried in the dialogue and in which body language, tone of voice or the look in an eye can be the most important thing in a scene. After so many movies in which shallow and violent people deny their humanity and ours, what a lesson to see a film that looks into the heart.’”

What if I reimagined this using Carlos as a bitter widower, his anger with no target, who finds an alien he recognizes as one that’s bent on using Earth. Can he get even with its people – or does he have a basic decency that makes him step back and learn to communicate with it; begin to understand it, and discover that it has a real fear of Humanity because we possess the ability to alter them for all time, making them powerless to stop anyone from taking them over? Who will be responsible? Who will save the day – if the day can be saved at all? Can anything be done to change Carlos – and to change the aliens?

Image: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/9f/22/3b/9f223b1e57a36e14db3eb13715fbe3f9.jpg

WRITING ADVICE: “The Daily Use of Gravity Modification in Rebuilding Liberian Schools”, OR “God Bless You Gravity Modification”…NEITHER of Which Saw Publication of This Story I LOVE

In September of 2007, I started this blog with a bit of writing advice. A little over a year later, I discovered how little I knew about writing after hearing children’s writer, In April of 2014, I figured I’d gotten enough publications that I could share some of the things I did “right”. I’ll keep that up, but I’m running out of pro-published stories. I don’t write full-time, nor do I make enough money with my writing to live off of it, but someone pays for and publishes ten percent of what I write. As I work to increase my writing output and sales, I’m taking another look at “old ideas” to see if I can figure out where I went wrong. As always, your comments are welcome!

SORRY THIS IS LATE! I was Up North this week and wi-fi was very spotty, so I got of habit of working ahead. THIS is the result!

ANALOG Tag Line: We always thinks about how paradigm changes will affect “society”, but what about how will it affect the “little people”?

Elevator Pitch (What Did I Think I Was Trying To Say?)
For the first time ever, I drew on my missionary experiences from my eight months in Nigeria, Cameroun, and Liberia. I wanted to imagine what the introduction of gravity modification would do in a situation of rebuilding after war – war that the “big countries” had never paid much attention to. I was modeling the story on John Brunner’s ANALOG March 1973 short story, “Who Steals My Purse?” In THAT one, repurposed ICBMs are used to drop small TVs on Vietnam along with tools, seeds, and other developmental material that the people could use to raise their quality of living (and presumably grow to love Americans and overthrow the communist regime…)

Opening Line:
“Gordon Oyeyemi Daboh huffed, shaking his head.”

Onward:
“He said, ‘Building five new schools here in God Bless You isn’t impossible. We have clay, concrete, straw, lumber, paint, and bamboo.’ He flicked his hand at the meager supplies piled near the edge of the burned-out clearing. The faint concrete outline of the original elementary school was visible through a layer of fine ash. A pile of debris loomed on the edge of the gravel boulevard, waiting for removal or reuse. ‘But we don’t have time, and we have few volunteers. We have limited building supplies! Your, your,” he karate chopped the air in front of the young woman standing before him. Her eyes widened and she stepped back, ‘handwavium is as useless to us as our three buckets of glow-in-the-dark paint!’”

What Was I Trying To Say?
I wanted to communicate that technology, even when it’s incremental, can be used to dramatically change the lives of normal people for the better. (It contains the obligatory warning against the military machine…the fact is that my son, my father, two of my nephews, and some of my best friends have served and DO currently serve in all of the branches of the military. I STILL stand by my statement.)

The Rest of the Story:
Gordon and Comfort butt heads almost immediately. The shoestring operation of rebuilding the schools (the original title was “The Everyday Use of Gravity Modification in Rebuilding Liberian Schools”) is fraught and gets worse when a squad of wandering mercenaries get wind of Comfort’s gmod device. Expecting to easily find it, they have no idea it’s woven into strips of hook and loop (for a fascinating AND HUMOROUS (I REALLY appreciate the humor!) take on hook and loop and its registered trademark, watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRi8LptvFZY) that are easily applied to pallets. There are accidents – and then a kidnapping of the village Elder and his daughters – and Gordon has to use the soldiering skills he swore off of to rescue them and get back on track…)

End Analysis:
OK, so writing the synopsis up above, I just realized what my problem is…Lisa Cron’s rules from her book WIRED FOR STORY clearly spell out the mistakes I made:

2) Grab the reader, something is at stake from the first page.
5) Plot (what happens) makes characters confront internal and external issues to confront their inner demons.
9) Start: character’s worldview is knocked down.
11) Character is action and anything they do makes things worse.
17) Challenges start small and end huge.
19) Character becomes one by doing something heroic.

First line has no grab; Gordon’s inner demon is NOT clear (“I REFUSE to ever be a soldier again!”), external circumstances don’t slam into internal issues (He wants to be JUST a teacher! He didn’t even want to be a principal!); his worldview stays pretty much the same – it should start with him thinking he’s escaped notice and that quitting Lagos’ special operations unit of cloning soldiers after meeting his has set him free; he can’t do everything right from the moment he leaves to rescue the Elder and his daughters, he has to screw up.

As well, the title is probably off-putting to SF readers and editors; not only is it WAY too long, my second attempt is trying too hard to “be a witness”. Even Jesus couched his messages to a skeptical public in stories in the form of parables. They were not always clear, but after discussion, they became more so.

When I first wrote it, I didn’t know about Lisa Cron’s advice. Now that I DO, I can rewrite the story with the “rules” (she didn’t call them rules, I did…) in mind; which of course, answers the question below:

Can This Story Be Saved?
Simple answer – “Yes.”

Complex Answer: Some things have to change though – not only in Story According to Cron. I’ve learned some things since I wrote this story. Perhaps the hardest is that I need to say what I have to say and say it CLEARLY and QUICKLY. Even the longest one, The Prodigal Son is only 500 or so words; the shortest is only three! (“Physician, heal thyself.”) My biggest problem lately has been keeping my stories short. I tend now to write in the vicinity of 9000 words and that’s just TOO LONG. I have to pull my punches…or more precisely, I need to conserve my energy and FOCUS my punches.

I ran across this interesting observation regarding parables:

“First: The meaning of most parables (both the short sayings-parables and the longer story-parables) is not so obvious, or at least it shouldn't be. If we assume we know what Jesus is talking about, we are probably missing the main point; if we are too familiar with the story (having heard it so often before), we might not think carefully enough about its real meaning.

“Second: most parables contain some element that is strange or unusual. They should cause you to say, "Wait a minute! That's not how farmers do their work! That's not what kings usually do! That's not what normally happens in nature!" The strange element should cause you to think.

“Third: Parables do not define things precisely, but rather use comparisons to describe some aspect of how God acts or interacts with human beings. Yet to say ‘A is like B’ does not mean that ‘A is identical to B in all respects’ (that also happens to be bad math. Jesus would NOT use bad math – besides being the Son of God, HE WAS A CARPENTER!); so we should be careful not to misinterpret or misapply the parables.

“Fourth: Most parables are open-ended. Rather than reaching a conclusion, they challenge us to keep on thinking! Rather than having us ‘stop thinking’, they invite us to ‘stop and think’.”

My next move? Stop and think...and I need to do this with a couple of OTHER stories I got wordy on...

Resource: https://catholic-resources.org/Bible/Parables.htm
Image: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/9f/22/3b/9f223b1e57a36e14db3eb13715fbe3f9.jpg

WRITING ADVICE: Can This Story Be SAVED? #31 “Extreme Contact” (Submitted 14Times Since 2013, Revised 0 times)

In September of 2007, I started this blog with a bit of writing advice. A little over a year later, I discovered how little I knew about writing after hearing children’s writer, In April of 2014, I figured I’d gotten enough publications that I could share some of the things I did “right”. I’ll keep that up, but I’m running out of pro-published stories. I don’t write full-time, nor do I make enough money with my writing to live off of it, but someone pays for and publishes ten percent of what I write. Hemingway’s quote above will remain unchanged as I work to increase my writing output and sales, but I’m adding this new series of posts because I want to carefully look at what I’ve done WRONG and see if I can fix it. As always, your comments are welcome!

ANALOG Tag Line:
Extreme climates evolve extreme aliens – who need extreme measures to make a successful First Contact.

Elevator Pitch (What Did I Think I Was Trying To Say?):
Sacrifice is necessary to get what you want.

Opening Line:
“After watching the live, streaming reports of the Heinlein Dome disaster on the Moon, Zahar Qasoori was certain that dying to save someone’s life would be less painful than living as the bastard son of a rich interplanetary business man and playboy.”

Onward:
A couple of kids – who were captured as they were about to die – are used as a First Contact team with a bizarre society of intelligent beings descended from an Hallucigenian-like predecessor. Human adults in wheelchairs were insulting to the Ho*fart* and the Contact nearly caused Humanity to be FINED instead of gaining credit in the Unity toward the purchase of mathematical techniques leading to equations leading to a Human theory of faster-than-light space travel.

What Was I Trying To Say?
I was trying to counter the meme that seems to have swallowed the idea that sacrifice is sometimes required to advance either our personal goals – or the goals of society at large. That’s why the main character, Zahar, willingly gives his life in pursuit of a greater goal: to make sure First Contact with a weird alien intelligence is successful.

I believe that we’ve pushed such an absurd idea aside in favor of…well, lots of things: personal aggrandizement, the sense that we DESERVE to have whatever we want, that other people should give it to us, and that we deserve it NOW. [Personally, I believe that’s why Hillary Clinton has (as they say in several of the Jane Austen movies) “disappeared from all good society”. She felt she deserved the presidency (as do her followers, who continue to tell me that “Trump is not my president!”…though, I’ll point out that I refused to vote for either one of them. BOTH were bad choices for America. I was, at one time, very interested in Bernie Sanders.]

The attitude I get more often than I like in my line of work, is this profound sense of entitlement; that the person “deserves”…well, to get whatever we want; good grades without working for it, be it education, advancement, wealth, position, or authority.

The Rest of the Story:
The main character sacrifices his life in the end to save the life of his First Contact partners – an older man who is really wheelchair bound – and another teen like himself. Together, the survivors can negotiate with the Ho*fart*, but only because the aliens are impressed by the sacrifice .

End Analysis:
On rereading the story, I found that the thing was more a vignette with all kinds of details describing the world and the Ho*fart*, both of which were cool, but the story itself was extremely weak, being more or less a thinly veiled excuse for me to show the place off.

That’s a Novice Mistake if ever I saw one. Oops.

Can This Story Be Saved?

The first question to ask is if it is, indeed, a story.

I’ve long believed that it is, until I just reread it and discovered that it’s not. So now what do I do? I may have to abandon THIS story, though I think the concept is fine. It’s just that I go totally lost in the world itself. If I can sideline some of the world building wonder and focus on character (which is a weakness of mine), I might be able to shave it down to only 4000 words if I cut out all the coolness. However, the complexity of the aliens and their world are integral to the actual story. Perhaps I could study Dr. Robert L. Forward’s world-building wonder DRAGON’S EGG or even Hal Clement’s short story, “Under” (ANALOG 2000) and MISSION OF GRAVITY (ASTOUNDING SF April, May, June, July 1953) to get a better idea of what to do with this place…

So, the answer is a definite, “maybe”…

Image: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/9f/22/3b/9f223b1e57a36e14db3eb13715fbe3f9.jpg

WRITING ADVICE: Can This Story Be SAVED? #30 “Out of the Wounded Hills” (aka “May They Rest”) (Submitted 6 Times Since Sept 2019, Revised once)

In September of 2007, I started this blog with a bit of writing advice. A little over a year later, I discovered how little I knew about writing after hearing children’s writer, Lin Oliver. In April of 2014, I figured I’d gotten enough publications that I could share some of the things I did “right”. I’ll keep that up, but I’m running out of pro-published stories. I don’t write full-time, nor do I make enough money with my writing to live off of it, but someone pays for and publishes ten percent of what I write. Hemingway’s quote above will remain unchanged as I work to increase my writing output and sales, but I’m adding this new series of posts because I want to carefully look at what I’ve done WRONG and see if I can fix it. As always, your comments are welcome!

ANALOG Tag Line:
Can a dying man make peace with his enemies and himself by doing “one good thing”?

Elevator Pitch (What Did I Think I Was Trying To Say?):
The Civil War was America’s darkest moment, split into Union and Confederacy – but still, weirdly, America. War like this plays out repeatedly in the history of every nation on Earth from the dawn of recorded history. It will probably play out like this in space. How does the last WheetAh-Human Conflict veteran make peace with himself and the aliens who slaughtered everything he ever loved? Who if he finds a WheetAh who had LESS honor than he did? What if he raises a memorial to their name?

Opening Line:
“‘I should have died here with the rest of my family,’ said Timviifei Jones.”

Onward:
Stepping down from the hovering gravity modified flyer disk, he collapsed, unconscious and barely breathing.

By the time paramedics got there from a nearby Human town, he was awake. He pushed them away. One smiled, nodded, and said, “You seem fine to me, sir. Have a good day.”

“I’m not fine,” he muttered, lifting his hand to flip off the paramedics. One of them saw and cheerily waved as they flew off. Turning on the WheetAh waiting nearby, curling and uncurling her tentacles of manipulation he shouted, “You! Weed! What’s your name?”

She looked like every other WheetAh in the galaxy – a needleless, dwarf Saguaro cactus with stumpy legs and arms. She whistled and spoke from the top of her body, “Ifhofei, Mafhur Pimviifei…”

“Timviifei!” he spat on the ground. “My name is Master Timothy Jones! No Human and no WheetAh can say my idiotic name right!” His parents had christened him with a mixed Human-WheetAh name. As charter members of the Weldon Colony’s ten thousand zoologic Humans and six hundred botanic WheetAh, they’d poured every effort into creating a place where the innate enemies from the animal and plant kingdoms could evolve into a graceful peace. Shaking his fist at the memorial, Timmy shouted, “They should have known better!”

What Was I Trying To Say?
My son and I drove between Minnesota and North Carolina and back again several times since he and his family had returned from South Korea to settle near Fort Bragg/Fayetteville.

Every time, we found some historical place to stop and learn. This time, a “blue sign” on the highway pointed to a Civil War cemetery off the main road. We went to have a look. What we found out that not only was it off the road, it had a single marker and was basically a clearing in the woods near a stream. A memorial erected earlier that summer gave the story.

While South Carolina was the first Southern state to secede from the Union in December of 1860, North Carolina was second to last in May of 1861. No one denies the bitterness of a war fought between families on their own soil. Some two million Americans died, many of disease and starvation.

Even so, it seemed unfair to the dead (yeah, I know, stupid), that the remains of over a hundred soldiers were marked with a single, small stone: ..\..\..\Downloads\CSA Headstone North Carolina.jpg My son is a soldier himself, staff sergeant, not an officer – as were most of the Union and Confederate soldiers. I wanted to convey some of the sadness of people caught up in a war when they had no real idea of why they were killing each other.

Fraught with baggage…

The Rest of the Story:
The main character has returned to the “Weldon War Memorial, Human Cemetery & Apology. It lay still, cool, Earth green, and vast, the final resting place for ten thousand, four hundred, and eighty-two Weldon colonial pastoralists, slaughtered by WheetAh special forces looking for traitors of their own kind. By some obscure WheetAh custom and law, it was a place designed to bury, remember, and apologize for an atrocity, from the WheetAh to Humans.”

He discovers the remains of another WheetAh who was overlooked because they had overlain a Human; obviously trying to protect them. The characters knows because he was there. His bitterness and anger have consumed him and he’s going to die soon. He’s frail and feels some obscure notion to return and yell at anyone on Weldon who would remember. But the caretaker is the only one still around. They were at the massacre; they remember. They even remember HIM. When he relents and stubbornly finds the place where he was discovered and “adopted by a WheetAh family”. He then builds the WheetAh’s memorial crystal and mounts it on a berm so that it catches sunrise light.

He dies shortly thereafter…

End Analysis:
The STORY is good, but the Civil War is a bad metaphor to use. Duh. Perhaps use either Vietnam or someone else’s civil war – Les Miserable was after the French Revolution…but that was right against poor??? Maybe. I need to find a contemporary “civil war” maybe to use as the metaphor (though, the fact is that, I don’t even mention the Civil War. Maybe THAT’S not the problem…maybe

…the viewpoint character is wrong. There’s already a WheetAh character there; what would the story look like from THEIR point of view?

Can This Story Be Saved?
It’s a solid piece. Maybe I need to study some more “message” stories to see how they get their point across without having people say, “Oh, this is just the Civil War in disguise! Be gone!” So, yeah. I’m three years older, wiser, and more published now. Maybe it’s time.

I’ll keep you posted.

Image: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/9f/22/3b/9f223b1e57a36e14db3eb13715fbe3f9.jpg

WRITING ADVICE: Can This Story Be SAVED? #29: “Breaking Into Space Station COURAGE” (Submitted 3 Times Since May 2018, Revised 1 time)

In September of 2007, I started this blog with a bit of writing advice. A little over a year later, I discovered how little I knew about writing after hearing children’s writer, Lin Oliver. In April of 2014, I figured I’d gotten enough publications that I could share some of the things I did “right”. I’ll keep that up, but I’m running out of pro-published stories. I don’t write full-time, nor do I make enough money with my writing to live off of it, but someone pays for and publishes ten percent of what I write. Hemingway’s quote above will remain unchanged as I work to increase my writing output and sales, but I’m adding this new series of posts because I want to carefully look at what I’ve done WRONG and see if I can fix it. As always, your comments are welcome!

ANALOG Tag Line:
When a practice emergency becomes a REAL emergency, two girls must figure out how to work together to save their lives.

Elevator Pitch (What Did I Think I Was Trying To Say?)
Two thirteen-year-old girls are ready to take the test that will allow them to work under supervision outside of Space Station COURAGE. Can they overcome their dislike of each other to save their lives?

Opening Line:
Her stomach floated outside the airlock of SPACE STATION COURAGE.

Onward:
It was still inside her body. Candace Mooney had read what to expect in microgravity. She refused to get space sick in front of the other thirteen-year-old floating across from her. She said, “We need to calculate the orbital insertion trajectory so we can…”

“That’s like trying to program a computer before you turn it on,” said Mayra Mendez-Ybarra. “We need to build the satellite before we calculate anything.” She turned around slowly with a jet from her finger. Parts of a satellite floated near her, tied with elastic bands.

What Was I Trying To Say?
Honestly? I was trying to break into a market that has been closed to me since I made a stink about getting paid. The magazine is high in its field and has a pay-on-publication policy. Many writers are as happy as I was to accept that because getting published in it carries a great deal of weight. They had a brief period of financial crisis, and I after my story was published, I sent emails several times asking for payment. Then I did an end run around the current editor to the editor that that had published me. She must have said SOMETHING, because I was paid very shortly thereafter. BUT, I have not sold anything to them since then…

Or, the story was total crap.

The Rest of the Story:
The girls work together to get back into the space station safely, doing a bit of engineering and taking advantage of one them having an eidetic memory…um…conveniently…

End Analysis:
Possibly a bit too much coincidence in this story – it’s less about them figuring things out, like in “Mystery on Space Station COURAGE” than it is about remembering stuff at the perfect moment…

I thought I learned a long time ago that in kid’s stories, it has to be about the kid’s actions. Coincidence in a short short (actually it’s flash fiction, technically) is OK, but only sort of off stage. This was too blatant and really not about them working together – not at its core.

Can This Story Be Saved?
Absolutely, I might even submit the story under my daughter’s name just to see what happens, though I’d have to create a new Submittable account and I don’t know if it would be worth the effort…but maybe!

Image: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/9f/22/3b/9f223b1e57a36e14db3eb13715fbe3f9.jpg

WRITING ADVICE: Can This Story Be SAVED? #27 “Not Quite Blue Boy” (Submitted 3 Times Since August 2019, Revised 0)

In September of 2007, I started this blog with a bit of writing advice. A little over a year later, I discovered how little I knew about writing after hearing children’s writer, In April of 2014, I figured I’d gotten enough publications that I could share some of the things I did “right”. I’ll keep that up, but I’m running out of pro-published stories. I don’t write full-time, nor do I make enough money with my writing to live off of it, but someone pays for and publishes ten percent of what I write. Hemingway’s quote above will remain unchanged as I work to increase my writing output and sales, but I’m adding this new series of posts because I want to carefully look at what I’ve done WRONG and see if I can fix it. As always, your comments are welcome!

ANALOG Tag Line:

What do you do if you find out you’re not normal, but not the Next Step in Evolution, either?

Elevator Pitch (What Did I Think I Was Trying To Say?)

Seventeen-year-old Martian teen, Kalbin is about to graduate from high school and choose his training. He’d overcome the handicap of having a rare blood disease that kept his body from utilizing oxygen. What he finds out on the eve of his graduation makes matters worse after a friend asks him if he’s one of the quasi-slave Artificial Humans. He’s not. Only parts of his DNA are artificial; the rest are Human…

Opening Line:

“Kalbin Chang sprinted along the edge of Burroughs Dome’s biggest park. ‘If he thinks he’s gonna…’”

Onward:

From behind the Oldest Tree On Mars, a figure dressed in black charged him, screaming curses. Kalbin tried to drop the ninja assassin with a football block tackle modified to sweep the legs, but the bigger boy easily knocked him over. Flat on his back, Kalbin stared up at the Dome.

Jerking the mask from his face so his curly black hair sprang from his head, his best friend Waqas Tahtamouni laughed. “You’ve been ninja assassinated!” He offered Kalbin a hand up.

Kalbin, smaller by ten kilos, took it, saying, “What are you doing?” He glanced at his hand, “You got my heart rate going so fast I think I might have an attack!”

Waqas’ eyes bugged, his gloat changing to contrition. “Awh la! I didn’t mean to! Are you hǎo?”

What Was I Trying To Say?

Not entirely sure, though my character IS a metaphor. He represents a biracial teen – one foot in one world; one in another completely different one. He also discovers his father lied to him. Why? To keep him safe; to blunt the suspicions people will have about him because he’s a half-breed. Discrimination is illegal in fact; but not always “in mind.”

The Rest of the Story:

Kalbin’s friend begins to ask questions about Kalbin’s origins that he’s not ready to answer. His friend then just flat-out asks him if he’s an Artificial Human; a subclass on Mars that means the same as “inferior” and “slave”.

When they finish graduation rehearsal, Kalbin confronts his father who tells him that he’s an experiment. He refuses to tell Kalbin WHY and the teen ends up ditching his father, his friends, and the sham that his “graduation” has become. He heads into the depths of Burroughs, the oldest colony on Mars.

End Analysis:

I’ve learned something lately: in order to tell a story, it has to mean something. That’s obvious. What I learned in conjunction with that is that the story has to be both a mystery and be layered in metaphor. This is a layered story for certain; but I think I have TOO MANY layers for it to be effective. It’s also too short for the subject. I was writing it for a specific market, so I didn’t have enough words to really delve into it.

Can This Story Be Saved?

I think so – but I have to rethink the symbolism and metaphor here. While I wrote this using Lisa Cron’s methodology, I’ve come lately to believe that a story has to do more than entertain.

Of COURSE it has to be entertaining first and foremost. Even the Bible is entertaining – sex, murder, slavery, execution, subjugation, demonic possession, war, betrayal and so much more; the Book is impossible to put down. (If only they’d get rid of those nasty “judgement” and “commandment” thingies…)

But I now think that metaphor has to be in service of the story if it’s going to not only speak to a reader today; it’s got to be so deep that it will speak to readers tomorrow. In fact, it has to be so deep that it can speak something NEW to the same reader weeks, months, years, and centuries later.

A tall order for a few thousand words. But, then doesn’t that same Bible say, “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12)

If I’m just entertaining, then the sword isn’t sharp enough. If I’m just preaching, then the sword isn’t sharp enough, either. In either case, it’s at least half dull.

Image: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/9f/22/3b/9f223b1e57a36e14db3eb13715fbe3f9.jpg

WRITING ADVICE: Can This Story Be SAVED? #25 “Lovely To Behold” (Submitted 4 Times Since 2017, Revised So Many Times It’s Become A HUGE Muddle!)

In September of 2007, I started this blog with a bit of writing advice. A little over a year later, I discovered how little I knew about writing after hearing children’s writer, In April of 2014, I figured I’d gotten enough publications that I could share some of the things I did “right”. I’ll keep that up, but I’m running out of pro-published stories. I don’t write full-time, nor do I make enough money with my writing to live off of it, but someone pays for and publishes ten percent of what I write. Hemingway’s quote above will remain unchanged as I work to increase my writing output and sales, but I’m adding this new series of posts because I want to carefully look at what I’ve done WRONG and see if I can fix it. As always, your comments are welcome!

ANALOG Tag Line:

First Contact is usually something you expect, but when it sneaks up behind you, the only person who can deal with it is the person who is RIGHT THERE…no matter how inexperienced they are.

Elevator Pitch (What Did I Think I Was Trying To Say?)

[I originally wrote this story that Julie Czerneda put a call out for after giving permission to write in the world she’d created. The Trade Pact universe held PLEXIS SUPERMARKET, a freewheeling, capitalistic market that was buried in an asteroid traveling through space. On Plexis, anything could happen…] Truth be told, I’m absolutely certain I had no idea what I wanted to say…it was just supposed to be fun playing there!

Opening Line:

[I wrote two versions of this story, one took place on Plexis. When the story didn’t pass muster, I repurposed it to fit my River universe.]

PLEXIS:

“I find it highly suspect that a new information merchant should set up shop and that a Sakissishee starship should dock at Plexis Supermarket in the same week,” said Inspector Krrsen.

RIVER:

“I am dying here.”

Onward:

PLEXIS:

He looked up at the two young beings standing at rigid attention before him. Constables Human Russell Terk and Tolian P’tr wit’Whix did not look well. He managed to keep a smirk from his eyes. “What do you think, Constable wit’Whix?”

The usually groomed plumage of the avioid being was clumped unattractively. He said,

“We have just returned from the restaurant stakeout, Inspector, Sir.”

“I understand, your partner attempted to pass you off as an entrée?”

The Human’s face and ears darkened to an attractive red as he said, “We felt it was the only way for us to get into the hideout, Inspector!”

“It was your idea,” ‘Whix clicked his beak in irritation. The feathers at his neck fluttered as he said, “I wish to transfer off of Plexis.”

Krrsen nodded, rumbling with a Turrned giggle. The two youngsters had no idea he was struggling not to laugh out loud. He let their wide-eyed terror at the sound stew a moment then fixed them with a hard gaze from large, fist-sized, warm brown eyes, and said, “I’ll take your request under consideration, constable ‘Whix. Until then, the two of you will take the Education Market beat.”

RIVER:

No matter how hard I try, I will never understand math, if I don’t math, I don’t go to university, and if I don’t go to university, I’ll never get out of here and I’ll die,” Iggie whispered into his headphone. “I need help.”

“You won’t die. I can help you…” Agnew said.

“I need real help, Sausage-Butt. I have to change my brain,” he spoke slowly, like Agnew was an idiot. Agnew was his brother and pretty much his only friend, he was also an employee, technically his property, and a giant pain-in-the-ass.

Keeping with the last, Agnew said, “Don’t. Do. Nootropics.”

“I’ve decided on an electronic memory stimulator. That’s all I need to pass the stupid test.”

Agnew made a noise garbled by the earphone as he said, “How long can you lie about yourself until you start to believe it, Ignoramus?” He hung up.

What Was I Trying To Say?

In the PLEXIS story, I was having fun exploring some characters I really liked who didn’t get a lot of story time. As for a message? Hmmm. If pressed, I’d say that it was a mystery about how we always try to find an easy way to get what we want. In this story, it was about a shop that supplied illegal enhancements to allow for a pilot’s implant to be placed. It was usually an expensive, lengthy procedure. This supplier also found out that there was an unforeseen consequence when meddling with a novel alien people.

For RIVER, I have no aliens, just genetically modified Humans. The modifications run the gamut from simple to bizarre. Here, as above, I have a character who’s trying to cheat the system to get into a top-rank college (does this story sound familiar? https://boston.cbslocal.com/2020/04/02/lori-loughlin-college-admissions-scam-dismiss-charges/?fbclid=IwAR3A6oAab7lm6oBRurd-PLBRr9i_whExRoFLuok-0OmYO4N0-COOURCdei4 At the time it WASN’T!) His best friend urges him to just do the work and don’t do drugs.

The Rest of the Story:

PLEXIS: Using unorthodox methods, the main characters trace novel DNA to a new alien species. They discover that it is unlike anything they’d ever encountered – two genders; one mammalian, one reptilian; each carried half the DNA needed to procreate, but they also carried two halves of one brain that would become part of an adult. Alien antagonists interfere, causing one of the genders to become sexually mature. This creates a biologically mature individual who had only “half of a brain” without the balanced DNA a normal union would create. The “cops” of the story kill it and they meet the being the union of two halves SHOULD produce, a being named Lovely To Behold.

RIVER: Similar to the story above, but the “alien” is simply Human who was so profoundly manipulated, it’s effectively another species. The brain-joining and the rest also happen. The main character is remanded into the care of one of the Completed Humans and promises to teach him how to use his real brain and quit trying to cheat.

End Analysis:

Both end the same way, but the RIVER story is more personal…except that instead of making it about my own personal struggles, it’s so nebulous as conclude without having any effect on the reader. Even me…in rewriting the story, “May They Rest”, I suddenly found its heart and ended up tearing up a couple of times because the story had become personal.

This one got so muddled in both iterations that it was meaningless. I hate meaningless stories.

Can This Story Be Saved?

PLEXIS was written for a particular anthology that has since been published.

RIVER…I think the biggest problem is that the story has virtually no focus. I wrote both before I read Lisa Cron’s book WIRED FOR STORY, so it’s more in keeping with my writing skills before I started to work at changing them.

That being said, I like the characters and the story, but it’s so rambling and jargon heavy, I can’t seem to get my ideas across. Again, I can’t even tell you CLEARLY what I was trying to say. “Don’t do drugs!” is certainly one of the messages, but that’s so prosaic as to be meaningless. What DO I want to say? Until I figure it out, the story can’t be saved. Once I do? That’s a different story!

Image: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/9f/22/3b/9f223b1e57a36e14db3eb13715fbe3f9.jpg

WRITING ADVICE: Can This Story Be SAVED? #23, “God Bless You Gravity Modification” (Submitted 10 Times Since 2006, Revised Once)

In September of 2007, I started this blog with a bit of writing advice. A little over a year later, I discovered how little I knew about writing after hearing children’s writer, In April of 2014, I figured I’d gotten enough publications that I could share some of the things I did “right”. I’ll keep that up, but I’m running out of pro-published stories. I don’t write full-time, nor do I make enough money with my writing to live off of it, but someone pays for and publishes ten percent of what I write. Hemingway’s quote above will remain unchanged as I work to increase my writing output and sales, but I’m adding this new series of posts because I want to carefully look at what I’ve done WRONG and see if I can fix it. As always, your comments are welcome!

ANALOG Tag Line: We always thinks about how paradigm changes will affect “society”, but what about how will it affect the “little people”?

Elevator Pitch (What Did I Think I Was Trying To Say?)

For the first time ever, I drew on my missionary experiences from my eight months in Nigeria, Cameroun, and Liberia. I wanted to imagine what the introduction of gravity modification would do in a situation of rebuilding after war – war that the “big countries” had never paid much attention to. I was modeling the story on John Brunner’s ANALOG March 1973 short story, “Who Steals My Purse?” In THAT one, repurposed ICBMs are used to drop small TVs on Vietnam along with tools, seeds, and other developmental material that the people could use to raise their quality of living (and presumably grow to love Americans and overthrow the communist regime…)

Opening Line:

“Gordon Oyeyemi Daboh huffed, shaking his head.”

Onward:

“He said, ‘Building five new schools here in God Bless You isn’t impossible. We have clay, concrete, straw, lumber, paint, and bamboo.’ He flicked his hand at the meager supplies piled near the edge of the burned-out clearing. The faint concrete outline of the original elementary school was visible through a layer of fine ash. A pile of debris loomed on the edge of the gravel boulevard, waiting for removal or reuse. ‘But we don’t have time, and we have few volunteers. We have limited building supplies! Your, your,” he karate chopped the air in front of the young woman standing before him. Her eyes widened and she stepped back, ‘handwavium is as useless to us as our three buckets of glow-in-the-dark paint!’”

What Was I Trying To Say?

I wanted to communicate that technology, even when it’s incremental, can be used to dramatically change the lives of normal people for the better. (It contains the obligatory warning against the military machine…the fact is that my son, my father, two of my nephews, and some of my best friends have served and DO currently serve in all of the branches of the military. I STILL stand by my statement.)

The Rest of the Story:

Gordon and Comfort butt heads almost immediately. The shoestring operation of rebuilding the schools (the original title was “The Everyday Use of Gravity Modification in Rebuilding Liberian Schools”) is fraught and gets worse when a squad of wandering mercenaries get wind of Comfort’s gmod device. Expecting to easily find it, they have no idea it’s woven into strips of hook and loop (for a fascinating AND HUMOROUS (I REALLY appreciate the humor!) take on hook and loop and its registered trademark, watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRi8LptvFZY) that are easily applied to pallets. There are accidents – and then a kidnapping of the village Elder and his daughters – and Gordon has to use the soldiering skills he swore off of to rescue them and get back on track…)

End Analysis:

OK, so writing the synopsis up above, I just realized what my problem is…Lisa Cron’s rules from her book WIRED FOR STORY clearly spell out the mistakes I made:

2) Grab the reader, something is at stake from the first page.

5) Plot (what happens) makes characters confront internal and external issues to confront their inner demons.

9) Start: character’s worldview is knocked down.

11) Character is action and anything they do makes things worse.

17) Challenges start small and end huge.

19) Character becomes one by doing something heroic.

First line has no grab; Gordon’s inner demon is NOT clear (“I REFUSE to ever be a soldier again!”), external circumstances don’t slam into internal issues (He wants to be JUST a teacher! He didn’t even want to be a principal!); his worldview stays pretty much the same – it should start with him thinking he’s escaped notice and that quitting Lagos’ special operations unit of cloning soldiers after meeting his has set him free; he can’t do everything right from the moment he leaves to rescue the Elder and his daughters, he has to screw up.

OK – I get it. I didn’t know about Cron’s advice when I wrote this one. Now that I DO, I can rewrite the story with the “rules” (she didn’t call them rules, I did…) in mind; which of course, answers the question below:

Can This Story Be Saved?

Simple answer – “Yes.”

BUT…if anyone would like a copy of the current work, and if you would read it AND maybe help me figure out a new name for it AND if you promise to be brutally honest with me…I would be in your debt.

Later.

Image: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/9f/22/3b/9f223b1e57a36e14db3eb13715fbe3f9.jpg

WRITING ADVICE: Can This Story Be SAVED? #22 “And After Soft Rains, Daisies” (Submitted 9 Times Since April 2017, Revised 1 time)

In September of 2007, I started this blog with a bit of writing advice. A little over a year later, I discovered how little I knew about writing after hearing children’s writer, In April of 2014, I figured I’d gotten enough publications that I could share some of the things I did “right”. I’ll keep that up, but I’m running out of pro-published stories. I don’t write full-time, nor do I make enough money with my writing to live off of it, but someone pays for and publishes ten percent of what I write. Hemingway’s quote above will remain unchanged as I work to increase my writing output and sales, but I’m adding this new series of posts because I want to carefully look at what I’ve done WRONG and see if I can fix it. As always, your comments are welcome!

This story started out as a paid job.

A company called SciFutures works with hundreds of companies who are looking at the future. This one wanted to know what the future of home computers (up to and including artificial intelligence) might be. We already have computer-integrated homes, they wanted to see how far things might go. I got the job and started thinking…

On an apparent tangent, my father is in a Memory Care facility because he suffers from Alzheimer’s.

On another tangent, Ray Bradbury’s dark and insightful look at the very same idea held me spellbound when I was a teenager, coming out of reading Heinlein, Christopher, and Nourse. “There Will Come Soft Rains” was published first in the “normal” magazine, COLLIERS (May 6, 1950), later that year collected into THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES.

Back to the thought stream: I wondered what a home AI could do for families who have an Alzheimer’s parent. The way I expressed it was a simple scenario in which an AI interacted with my dad as if it were my mom, who’d passed away a year earlier. Never an expert at self-care when it came to feeding, cleaning, and doing laundry, the disease only exacerbated those issues and introduced new ones. The home AI was installed along with a self-contained “dad apartment” and he was “locked up” by his kids. [ASIDE: This is probably my first mistake, though I’d intended for it to look like he was in a memory care unit, that’s not what happened.]

But the job only called for a vignette – how could I turn that into a real story?

ANALOG Tag Line:

Could a self-contained AI given an entire environment to manipulate, care completely for an Alzheimer’s patient?

Elevator Pitch (What Did I Think I Was Trying To Say?)

Because of the exorbitant fees “age-in-place” facilities charge, the industry has become one that limns the issue of haves/have nots. Can AI coupled with current technology bring that cost down?

Opening Line:

“You really think this will be what I’ve been looking for?” Dayvon said. [ASIDE: Should have been, “You really think this is going to make me feel less guilty than putting him in a home that will bankrupt us in two years?” But is that too critical of the current dark reality?]

Onward:

Sherrell made a soft noise. Five screens were connected to Dayvon’s dad’s basement apartment. The office wall showed five views, including the bathroom. Dad was still sleeping.

His ancient full bed shared space with a micro kitchen and a breakfast bar with a fridge, sink, table and chair; a couch in front of a wall-sized TV that currently shimmered charcoal gray with sparkles of light; entryway with closet; and the bathroom.

“Pat”, the Artificial Intelligence who cared for him, brought lamps up over a bank of plants to match a sunrise outside their house. He had no real windows. In the pots, daffodils were green stalks beside tulips now faded, and daisies unfurled on slender stalks, not quite open. The AI, said softly, “Time to get up Chuck.”

What Was I Trying To Say?

In essence: we need to figure out how to care for the growing number of Alzheimer patients not only here, but world-wide.

(This LA Progressive article from 2012 and is mostly a rant against the Right, but it does raise the issues that poverty and Alzheimer’s raise…though it has no answer for those issues… https://www.laprogressive.com/poverty-and-alzheimers/); GOOGLE-ing “Poverty and Alzheimer’s” just gets me more hand-wringing articles interspersed with advertising for expensive “Memory Care” living. (Don’t get me wrong, the people who work for these NYSE companies actually care – it’s the CEOs and shareholders who saw a chance to make bank playing off of people’s fear of dying without memories and families stressed to the breaking point and incapable of doing anything but finding the best care for Mom and Dad even if it bankrupts them…Why does this sound like the Housing Bubble crisis?)

The Rest of the Story:

Plague intervenes, the world’s population is wiped out, but Dad survives because he lives in a sealed environment and the AI pretends to be the son and his wife, as well as brief forays into impersonating my mom.

As infrastructure breaks down outside and Dad’s Alzheimer’s grows worse, the AI debates how to end it all. Finally, a year later, the external power dies and the solar panels are covered with dust – nothing had been built that could survive long with no maintenance. Yet Dad still lives. Does the AI overdose him? Does it starve him? Does it shut down and just let him live as long as he can? Does it “release him into the wild”?

I actually don’t end the story…

End Analysis:

It’s depressing, out and out. On the other hand, why is it any more depressing than the original? “There Will Come Soft Rains” was published at the very height of the Cold War when the US and the USSR were constantly rattling their sabers. There’s a scene that imprinted itself on my young mind: “The entire west face of the house was black, save for five places. Here the silhouette in paint of a man mowing a lawn. Here, as in a

photograph, a woman bent to pick flowers. Still farther over, their images burned on wood in one titanic instant, a small boy, hands flung into the air; higher up, the image of a thrown ball, and opposite him a girl, hands raised to catch a ball which never came down.” (http://www.btboces.org/Downloads/7_There%20Will%20Come%20Soft%20Rains%20by%20Ray%20Bradbury.pdf)

Bradbury’s story ends up with the house burning down, unable to fend for itself any more. Why was this published in a magazine “everyone” read? I think it was because it was impersonal. While nuclear devastation was a fear, the ultimate victory of Americans over Russians was an ideal held with religious fervor.

Not so with Alzheimer’s. I fear it with a visceral terror. I know there are plenty of others who do as well; possibly even the CEOs of all those for profit corporations they preside over…who preside over the draining of billions of dollars of personal savings…

Can This Story Be Saved?

Like I said, it’s personal. I can make some tweaks, but in the long run, most of us don’t want to think about Alzheimer’s if we don’t have to. I tried all the top markets with this one: ANALOG, CLARKESWORLD, F&SF, COMPELLING, ASIMOV’s, ESCAPE POD, and APEX. I might just post it on the blog…or I might try a rewrite.

Anyone have a thought?

Image: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/9f/22/3b/9f223b1e57a36e14db3eb13715fbe3f9.jpg

WRITING ADVICE: Can This Story Be SAVED? #21 FERRETS UNDERGROUND (Submitted 8 Times Since April 2002)

In September of 2007, I started this blog with a bit of writing advice. A little over a year later, I discovered how little I knew about writing after hearing children’s writer, In April of 2014, I figured I’d gotten enough publications that I could share some of the things I did “right”. I’ll keep that up, but I’m running out of pro-published stories. I don’t write full-time, nor do I make enough money with my writing to live off of it, but someone pays for and publishes ten percent of what I write. Hemingway’s quote above will remain unchanged as I work to increase my writing output and sales, but I’m adding this new series of posts because I want to carefully look at what I’ve done WRONG and see if I can fix it. As always, your comments are welcome!

ANALOG Tag Line:

What if black-footed ferrets and prairie dogs mirrored the WWII horror of the Nazis and the Jews…and a ferret discovered that a prairie dog village was about to get gassed?

Elevator Pitch (What Did I Think I Was Trying To Say?)

FERRETS UNDERGROUND is to the Holocaust as CATWINGS is to the flight from poverty to prosperity and WATERSHIP DOWN is to the ideals of Home, power, and the nature of leadership.

Opening Line:

In the hour before mothers wake up and the prairie dog guardians have just gone to bed, Prairieheart the black-footed ferret and her brother, Rockfoot escaped their nest.

Onward:

“Come on, we have to make it to the Haunted Warrens before the sun comes up!” Prairieheart squeaked, as they ran from the home burrow. Tiny black feet gripping short prairie grass, she cried, “We’re free!”

“I’m right behind you and if you don’t watch out, I’ll pass you up!” Rockfoot barked, racing his sister.

Overhead was the starry North Dakota sky. Far away to the east, sunrise stained the edge of the Great Plains sky red.

“There!” Prairieheart said, running toward the pile of dirt a prairie dog had made around its burrow hole.

“What if there’s a coyote…” Rockfoot said. But his sister was down the burrow before he finished. He was right behind her.

He held on to the curving walls with his sharp claws as the burrow dropped straight down. He landed in a heap on top of Prairieheart.

She hissed, “Stop playing! It’s time to get serious!”

Rockfoot scrambled off her. “I’m not playing!” His eyes got used to the dark fast. The prairie dog tunnel led deep underground. “Are there any badgers down there?”

What Was I Trying To Say?

I was trying to create a tool for elementary school teachers to introduce the issues of the Holocaust to their classrooms.

I’d found that Ursula K. LeGuin did the same with her children’s books in the CATWINGS series. The message there had to do with children born into poverty escaping – not through someone else’s benevolent action or by the action of a benevolent government acting on the behalf of its incompetent citizens and for “their own good”. They escaped because not only were they special, their mother released them to use their gifts – wings; the chose to move, however reluctantly. I know a student and his mother and sister who left Ferguson, MO after being IN the riots of August 2014 sparked by the murder of Michael Brown by a white police officer. They chose to leave.

I wanted to say with FERRETS UNDERGROUND that even when our appetites drive us, we can make cognizant, clear choices to not act the way we want to. Most of us have it within ourselves to make positive choices; to act on our consciences. It doesn’t matter how old we are – Malala Yousafzai received the Nobel Peace Prize when she was seventeen – you can act on your conscience to create change.

The Rest of the Story:

The ferret Prairieheart takes a message from the King of the Prairie Dogs that they must all leave because the Humans are about to destroy the entire village – prairie dogs, ferrets, badgers, Red-tailed Hawks and all.

When she does, the Humans step up their attack on the prairie dog village, bent on total annihilation. The plan is for the ferrets of the Fesnyng (a group of ferrets, https://www.herbweb.org/animals-collective-nouns.html) to drive the prairie dogs out and to a safer village farther north, a place called Long Snow Lands.

But the Humans accidentally set off the dynamite early and the leaders of the ferrets – including Prairieheart’s mother, die. It’s up to her and the Kind of the Prairie Dogs to chase and lead the rest to safety. Along the way, a badger tries to eat them, and a young Human tries to shoot them. But they survive and a free once they go over the river.

End Analysis:

I was ambitious, but I don’t think I overstepped myself. I still think FERRETS UNDERGROUND is good, but it needs a hard revision…I might add that it's also biologically and environmentally accurate and while Black-footed Ferrets are still considered "globally endangered", they have in fact, been reintroduced into the wild, where were considered extinct twenty-some years ago.

Can This Story Be Saved?

To that end, I think that “yes, this story can be saved”. But I have lots of other projects to do and while I’d LIKE to do this one, I can’t see it happening soon. Another aspect of this is that I kept getting slapped down by disinterested agents, I never really had a chance to send it to an EDITOR, so I’m not sure if it was really “road-tested”.

If anyone out there is interested, I’d be happy to send the draft to you and would value your comments!

Image: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/9f/22/3b/9f223b1e57a36e14db3eb13715fbe3f9.jpg