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!

I FIRST sent this story out 2018 -- about five years ago. It got lost in the Data Crash of December 2023. I'd have to rewrite it from scratch...which I may do someday...Based on what I wrote below, how do YOU think I could fix it?

ANALOG Tag Line: We always think 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 – Lisa Cron: WIRED FOR STORY Encore #2: : The Solution To Two PLOT Problems In Order To Meet Reader Expectations In My Work In Progress…

Since 2008, I have taken 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.

I will say that Lisa Cron who has worked as a literary agent, TV producer, and story consultant for Warner Brothers, the William Morris Agency, and others has had the most profound effect on my writing. After reading her book, WIRED FOR STORY, I was overwhelmed by the information, so I distilled it down to 23 of the most important points she made. I ran this series in 2019 and 2020. It’s so important that I’m running it again. I expect I’ll be learning as much as you…

2. The reader expects the story to revolve around one, single plot problem that grows, escalates and complicates, which the protagonist has no choice but to deal with…The plot problem is constructed to force the protagonist to confront, struggle with, and hopefully overcome a long standing internal problem…Can my plot problem grow, escalate and complicate from the first page to the last? If so, can it force my protagonist to struggle internally, spurring her to make a much needed internal change in order to resolve it?

I just got Lisa Cron’s book from the library, WIRED FOR STORY, and from the introduction, I’ve already learned something! Using clear references from brain research, she makes the point that “Story is what enabled us to imagine what might happen in the future, and so prepare us for it – a feat no other species can lay claim to, opposable thumbs or not.”

Whew! I expect that this will be a book I’ll buy soon so I can write in it. I will also make sure the kids in the Writing To Get Published classes know about it.

Back to the point at hand. I’ll be analyzing my work in progress through the lens of this expectation, which is currently called “Road Veterinarian”. I’m not going to go into plot detail mainly because the point above is concerned with character motivation.

Dr. Scramble – who I WANTED to call Dr. Scrabble, but the word is a trademark and I don’t want to get into trouble – is an urban veterinarian and researcher. He works with people who don’t have big budgets but need big budget things done with animals. But until this moment, I didn’t realize that Dr. Scramble – whose real name is Javier Quinn Xiong Zamar (Spanish (place name); Gaelic/Irish (descendant of Conn = wisdom, reason, intelligence); Chinese (cultural hero); Arabic (= secret)) – had NO motivation for doing what he’s doing.

But he’s got this job where he could make loads of money if he moved to the suburbs (which are being subsumed into the monolithic Vertical Villages, which are growing because the population of Earth has reached ten billion and the surface has to be returned to its wild and/or cultivated state. A loose world-wide confederation f independent states (NOT the United Nations any more) and seated in New Zealand (I think) has declared that Humans on Earth need to move to one of 20,000 Vertical Villages. He lives in the growing shadow of the Minneapolis Saint Paul Vertical Village (from a future I’ve created that culminates with Humans joining a Unity of Sentients whose foundation is interconnected debt…)

But who the heck IS he???

Until I started reading Cron’s book, I didn’t think it was important. His presence served my purposes…but now, apparently, I can’t really write the story until I know what his motivation is. So, you’ll now witness the creation of a character so that he will WORK in the story I’m writing!

Outward motivation: he’s a veterinarian, but WHY? He grew up in Minnesota, so that’s established. Northern Minnesota. In his time, roughly 60-80 years from now, the decay of the iron industry is complete and that part of the state has become a haven for the elderly – those who were born in the early years of the 21st Century. They’re characterized as Generation Z (born between 1995 and 2010): the complete integration of social media into their personal lives; AVATAR and HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL; the Disney channel, the submersion into porn; the rapid Islamization and sexual fluidity of Western society; their learning takes place online, but they have a terrible time separating fact from fiction; they believe that they will be in debt to others for the rest of their lives; as far as their pets go, they depend on veterinarians (one MORE debt) but see their parents more involved with PETS than they are with kids (whom they may treat as pets), they prefer non-traditional venues for their pet services, they are VERY eclectic in their ownership…

So Javier grew up as a child/pet and resented it. OTOH, his parents hated taking their pets to a “veterinarian” rather than the trendier Pet Hospital or (even worse), Animal Hospital, Pet Health Center, Veterinary Center, Partners in Veterinary Health Care, Animal Wellness Center, Advanced Veterinary Care…etc… He showed an aptitude for science, biology in particular, and they cultivated it, giving him more and more care of their iguana, pot-bellied pig, Hyacinthine Macaw, mouse house, Emerald Tree Boa, and turquoise Discus 400 gallon tank and four 40 gallon breeding tanks – with the intent of breeding a true Emerald Discus (they like green). Both of them are licensed, practicing pharmacists in a Box Store with a bent toward holistic remedies. Both of them were opioid addicts when they were YA and so he cannot EVER have painkillers. He is an only child as well (though mom had six miscarriages between 14 and 36 when she carried him to term and dad had two other kids outside of marriage and has no idea where they ended up; they married each other at 41 (dad) and 43 (mom) and he was born a year later without any kind of intervention). As they lost interest in taking care of their pets, that fell more and more to him. Then they were killed in a car accident (one of the newest, safest auto-autos) when he was 13 and all of the animals were sold off. He remained for the rest of his life with an older couple who were friends of his parents and who had two old dogs and a cat; until he graduated when he was 18 and went to college to be a vet because the dogs and cat were his only real companions…

So – his motivation to become a vet was to make sure he had someone around him at all times. Someone he could trust, someone who would take care of him. He narrowly escaped a drug addiction after starting to use a chemical called pegfilgrastim, originally used to stimulates to production of white blood cells after cancer chemotherapy, but with the conquering of 86% of cancers, there was an overabundance of it that made its way to the drug cartels. It became important after a mutation in the AIDS virus created a strain that could survive in saliva and mucus and was viable when passed by sneezing, called “pneumAIDS”. More virulent than the original AIDS virus, it was suspected that it was a Russian, Chinese, or North Korean bioweapon. The street name for pegfilgrastim became Boost, Stimwhite, SWBC (or Sweet Becky), and Peg or Phil (it became a trend to genderize the drug based on sex).

He lost friends to it and became more or less a loner, dependent on his animals. He preferred the anonymity of the city and had no trouble running his business from there as if it wasn’t actual animal treatment, he could consult anywhere in the world.

His motivation: don’t let anyone get close to you; help and trust animals (but don’t be stupid about it!); live and let live.

“Road Veterinarian” draws on his skills; he also has to interact with a very big woman, whom, he comes to suspect, is the product of some sort of genetic engineering or gene grafting…she looks like an attractive Bigfoot. The external story will be the two of them – she’ll be named Theodora Ujin Thatcher (Theodora: Empress of Byzantine Empire; wife of Ghengis Khan; first female PM of the UK) – who is very protective of her own heart – working together to save America from war with Canada…

They will each let the other get a little closer to them (they’ll also be sarcastic and there WILL be humor…)

So, there you go. Development of character in order to satisfy Reader Expectation #2!

NOTE: This story appeared in the September/October 2019 issue of ANALOG Science Fiction and Fact
Image: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/51ddbf8fe4b0bf85e2f4edd2/t/592c2f0b414fb5ddd3a1259d/1496067864402/BookImage.jpg?format=300w

WRITING ADVICE – Lisa Cron: WIRED FOR STORY Encore #1 - Start With A Specific POINT

Since 2008, I have taken 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.

I will say that Lisa Cron who has worked as a literary agent, TV producer, and story consultant for Warner Brothers, the William Morris Agency, and others has had the most profound effect on my writing. After reading her book, WIRED FOR STORY, I was overwhelmed by the information, so I distilled it down to 23 of the most important points she made. I ran this series in 2019 and 2020. It’s so important that I’m running it again. I expect I’ll be learning as much as you…

Action Plan : Start With A Specific POINT
As a reader, I’ll expect that the story will start making a very specific point – in the first sentence. Without actually thinking about it, I should wonder what I’m going to learn from it that will help me make it through the night. As the writer, I need to know what my point is before I begin writing. What am I saying about human nature? What inside intel am I giving my reader about how to best navigate this mortal coil?

So I’m going to look at a story I’ve been struggling with for some months now, the title is currently, “Lovely To Behold”.

It began as a response to an invitation given by Julie Czerneda for a collection of original stories that took place in one of the universes she’s created. It was supposed to be fun, exciting, and fill in small holes in the history she’d created.

I wrote a story, sent it off, and it was returned with regrets. Disappointed, I figured I could rewrite it for a universe that I’d created.

I’ve written eleven stories that take place in the skies of a puffy Jupiter-like planet called River. I have maps, societies, alien life forms – though in this universe, there are NO intelligent aliens. Humans have fractured into two societies. The Confluence of Humanity has given totally free reign for genetic manipulation of Humans in order to create them to fit environments and worlds.

The Empire of Man allows limited genetic engineering and bases legal Humanity and inclusion in Human society, on the percentage of deviation from Pure Human DNA – if you are 65% unaltered Human DNA, then you are Human…if you are less, then you are not. Both the Confluence and the Empire have colonized the skies of this giant world, and while there are always conflicts, they co-exist in relative peace.

I’ve written eleven stories in this universe, several through the eyes of a man who is a genetic descendant of Henrietta Lacks, an African American woman whose cancer cells are the source of the HeLa cell line, the first immortalized cell line and one of the most important cell lines in medical research. They were harvested both illegally and without her or her family’s knowledge. He is an eminently cloned body and an important source of DNA for a line of special investigators, soldiers, spies, and covert operatives. Three have been published.

The most recent story begins like this: “Even though the Ferris, YAN TIANJIN was supposed to have an all-night arrival and departure depot, at four-thirty am, its lights were still dim.”

If you notice, not only do I NOT make a very specific point, in the first sentence, there is no evidence in this story of a point so far, I haven’t offered anything that will help someone make it through the night. In fact, there’s no story here at all…I have failed this first test.

I have struggled to find out what my point is, though I thought I knew before I started writing. What am I saying about human nature? What inside intel am I giving my reader about how to best navigate this mortal coil?

Thus far, none.

So let me try again.

My point, succinctly: “How much can you lie about yourself and still remain your…self?”

Iggie wants to be a re-educator (those who need or want to change from one occupation to another – including from childhood to adulthood) has ID that will get him out of the two-bit parts store he owns in an out-of-the way, Confluence-controlled cloud Band in the skies of River. With it, he’ll be able to just squeak into a high-stakes university. But in this story, he’s doubting that he has the brain-power to pass the entrance assessment, so he’s trying to buy an illegal nootropic (“smart drugs and cognitive enhancers; drugs, supplements, and other substances that improve cognitive function, particularly executive functions, memory, creativity, or motivation, in healthy individuals.”)

His best friend, whose DNA has been profoundly manipulated, is also a young man who looks like a giant bratwurst with six limbs and has a wicked sense of humor, is opposed to everything false. He thinks Iggie should start low and climb high – going to a Confluan college, then becoming the best student he can be and forcing his way into an Imperial University.

But that first thing doesn’t even get mentioned until later; and even then, not clearly.

Have a succeeded by anyone else’s definition?

How about Charlie Jane Anders at io9? In her article, “How to write a killer first sentence for your science fiction story”, she says to start your story one of six ways: scene, conflict, mystery, narration (first or third person), a quote, or a puzzle.

I started with a scene – OK. Why is the story flat and uninteresting?

Conflict? I could move this scene to the beginning:

“You gonna buy something or just stand there drooling on the floor, AJ?” a voice said in Iggie’s ear.

Twisting away from the source and covering the side of his face, Iggie pinched his nostrils and said, “Shut up, Skunk.”

I’d have to do a lot of backtracking, but I COULD do it. Or I could just take off from that point and charge ahead, filling in backstory as I went.

William Gibson wrote: “The first line must convince me that it somehow embodies the entire unwritten text…Once that first line succeeds in selling me on the worthiness of some totality that in no way, at that point, actually exists, I can continue.” (https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/10/william-gibson-by-heart/382027/)

Angie Smibert at League of Extraordinary Writers writes, “That line shows the reader a peek at what your story is going to be about. It’s your chance to set the tone, voice, theme, setting, etc. Is it going to be high fantasy or poetic cyberpunk? Is it set in a world unlike ours? Is it ironic or whimsical? Think of that first line as your opening ‘we’re not in Kansas anymore’ salvo.” (http://leaguewriters.blogspot.com/2011/11/top-10-opening-lines-in-science-fiction.html)

So how about these as new opening lines? (Vote if you’d like!)

One) Simple solution: start with the SECOND sentence:

“He’d started out spying on the airlock, but perched on a cross-brace, Igaluk Abumayaleh-Jawai nodded off. He smiled, dreaming about university in the warm Band of the Nile.”

Two) Technically, this is four sentences, but seems short enough:

“Head down, he realized he’d walked halfway around the Docking Ring before noticing he was at the down-ramp to the Supermarket Level. His target, an information merchant’s shop wasn’t much farther and he started walking faster. His earphone chirped. Tapping it, he said, ‘What?’”

Three) Deeper into the current story (which, after reading portions of it again, I can clearly see is a MESS…):

“OK. Don’t. You don’t need any fancy nootropic to increase your retention of facts and speed up your neural processing to knit an information web,” said the Human-sized sausage with six limbs and six eyestalks.

Four) Even deeper into the story as it stands:

“You’re jealous because I’m Human and you’re not!”

“What?” Even though Agnew’s nose was tiny, he snorted and said, “Last I looked you’re only sixty point three-eight-four percent Pure Human DNA. In Imperial Belts and Bands, you’re no more Human than me.”

Five) I could keep doing this all day, but oddly, doing this exercise has helped clarify a few things. Last entry:

“I have a report here,” she tapped the external memory plaque on the side of her head, “That says you were seen in front of PHLECKSIZ PHACTS earlier today.” She stopped, looking at him.

It doesn’t mean anything just sitting there, but it’s an important point in the entire story…

Let me know what you think about the first sentences above. I would appreciate it if you’d just each one according to the following criteria:

1) Which one makes a specific point? (Cron)
2) Which one makes you wonder what you’re going to learn from it that will help you make it through the night? (Cron)

3) Which one makes you wonder what inside intel about how to best navigate this mortal coil? (Cron)
4) I started my story with a scene, but should I have started it with a conflict, mystery, narration (first or third person), a quote, or a puzzle? (Anders)
5) Did any of those sentences convince you that it somehow embodies the entire story to follow? (Gibson)

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