March 11, 2014

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 151


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

Change of pace for a bit – I’m going to look at elements of EXTREMELY popular SF, F, and H; break them apart and use each element as a jumping off point for a story idea…

Popular Fantasy Story/Series: Harry Potter, et al

F Trope: A “magical” academy


Far below Andre Xavier Xavier, a Bryshwyn of Bryshwyns and Raven Zoe Jefferson, who called herself a Nobody of Nobodys, the evening meditation tone sounded. A cross between a buzzer and an ancient longhorn, the instrument was blown by a family with a tradition as deep as Andre’s. The young man said, pushing his turban back up on top of his head where it promptly released a curl of very pale, very curly hair, “There’s Fendwyri tooting his own horn again.”

Raven shook her head. He turban was always perfectly wound. It was the only thing that could control her wild kinks. She loved it for that. The turbans gave everyone a similar look – even though in the dorms, certain girls made sure to see how long, and straight, and silky black THEIR hair was. She said, “You have nothing to be jealous about.”

 “I’m not jealous!” he exclaimed.

Smirking, Raven headed for the stairwell that would lead them five stories down to the courtyard. “Come on, we need to hurry or we’ll be late.”

“We’ll be late if we take that way,” he said.

Raven spun around and said, “No!”

Ignoring her, Andre lifted both arms and said, “Jheregi SSothimazhu,” the stones around them began to glow red and tremble in their mortar cradles. Andre moved his hands slowly, seeming to grip the air. The temperature around them dropped precipitously until Raven could see her breath. Andre said, “Forginiway thoomITas herogiNOMUL!”

The stones leaped into the air, drawing their ability to form steps from the energy in the once sun-warmed air. Andre grabbed Raven’s hand and leaped to the first step.

Four stories above a stone courtyard, Raven knew better than to fight. Instead, she followed Andre as the stones assembled themselves into a flight of stairs switch-backing at a comfortable angle and leading them downward as they hurried for meditations. “We’ll be on time…”

They were still two meters above ground when the bricks that had been hastily assembling themselves into stairs and glowing in the deepening shadows of the courtyard as they ran down…suddenly turned the color of bricks and fell into a pile directly below them. Andre shouted in surprise, then cried out, “FeshET siMAYlee!” Immediately the air below him gained the ability to roar up and buoyed him the last meter, setting him gently on the ground.

Raven tried the enabling, but couldn’t pronounce the words correctly, and instead fell on to the pile of very ancient – and very hard bricks at a rate determined not by ability  but mathematically by velocity and time, specifically where a= Δv/ Δt. Not that either of them knew that in this world. But not all students in all worlds were equally naïve.

Either way, the sound and the abrupt stop would been identical whether it had been caused solely by ability or solely by gravity…

Names: ♀ Popular African American name, Australian Capital Territory, Common African American last name; ♂ Popular American name, Brazil
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March 9, 2014

POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY: The Last Mayan Aristocrat


I tell my high school students that I know more totally useless information than anyone they’ve ever met. Typically I prove it at some point in the school year by blurting a factoid that no one in their right mind would bother remembering. My saving grace is that I typically come up with the thing at just the right moment – so it makes me appear that I “know everything”.

During one of my “following breadcrumbs” events in which I start researching one thing and end up somewhere totally different, I came across this:

“The classic Maya urban centers of the southern lowlands, among them Palenque, Copán, Tikal, Calakmul and many others, went into decline during the 8th and 9th centuries and were abandoned shortly thereafter. Archaeologically, this decline is indicated by the cessation of monumental inscriptions and the reduction of large-scale architectural construction at the primary urban centers of the classic period.”  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_Maya_collapse)

Checking the history of each city led me to this:

“During the 8th century, B'aakal came under increasing stress, in concert with most other Classic Mayan city-states, and there was no new elite construction in the ceremonial center sometime after 800. An agricultural population continued to live here for a few generations, then the site was abandoned and was slowly grown over by the forest. The district was very sparsely populated when the Spanish first arrived in the 1520s. Occasionally city-state lords were women. Lady Sak Kuk ruled at Palenque for at least three years starting in 612 CE, before she passed her title to her son. However, these female rulers were accorded male attributes. Thus, these women became more masculine as they assumed roles that were typically male roles.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palenque)

The waning of the Imperial Maya seems a fascinating story with explanations ranging from the prosaic to the mystical to the extraterrestrial – “Some 88 different theories or variations of theories [attempt] to explain the Classic Maya Collapse have been identified.”

I’ve started a list of the theories I could find, but my idea here is to spark a story – which is sort of what I like doing anyway…so here it is:

In the city of Palenque, a descendant of Lady Sak Kuk – Mahaway Nakin Yochi, the Daughter Lord, is the last of the nobles. A crumbling city, she sleeps in a well-appointed hut at the top of the pyramid, noting that every day the jungle encroaches a bit more; every day her authority – such as it is – erodes a bit more; every day more homes stand empty as the people move away.

However, from the north has come not only news, but also writing and books. A captured, pale-skinned woman was delivered to the Daughter Lord for sacrifice to the God that he might return prosperity to the city.

Yochi – as she is known to her friends – is a boy’s name, but she doesn’t care. She’s not interested in boys anyway; nor is she interested in girls. She’s interested in learning. The woman who would be sacrificed has taught her much, not the least of which is how to write. The alphabet of the woman is far easier to use than the cumbersome symbols of her people and she has taken to not only speaking the language she calls Spanish, but journaling in it, etching careful words on plates of aluminum while keeping a sort of shorthand Mayan account beneath it – as the gods move her.
Despair is her constant companion and she has begun to plan to withdraw from the city once she has finished relocating her people in appropriate locations.

One day an excited group of peasants approach her through her single remaining priest – a young man named Kish who is also deeply in love with her. They have something interesting they discovered in one of the increasing number of overgrown villages on the outskirts of what was once the grandest city on Earth. Both she and Kish had observed a sky light streak several nights prior to this…

Anyway, this seems like an interesting story and I have some plans for it. But if you want to steal it, go ahead!

Name: “eternal” (♀) “life” (♀) “hope” (♂)
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March 6, 2014

MARTIAN HOLIDAY 52: Aster of Opportunity


On a well-settled Mars, the five major city Council regimes struggle to meld into a stable, working government. Embracing an official Unified Faith In Humanity, the Councils are teetering on the verge of pogrom directed against Christians, Molesters , Jews, Rapists, Buddhists, Murderers, Muslims, Thieves, Hindu, Embezzlers and Artificial Humans – anyone who threatens the official Faith and the consolidating power of the Councils. It makes good sense, right – get rid of religion and Human divisiveness on a societal level will disappear? An instrument of such a pogrom might just be a Roman holiday...To see the rest of the chapters – and I’m sorry, but a number of them got deleted from the blog – go to SCIENCE FICTION: Martian Holiday on the right and scroll to the bottom for the first story. If you’d like to read it from beginning to end (36,000 words as of now), drop me a line and I’ll send you the unedited version.

He nodded, “And I think I’ve gotten myself an irreplaceable new fund-raising coordinator.” He paused, adding, “Depending on how well you pull this one off.”

**
Aster Theilen stared across her father’s dinner table. Abedne Halle-Theilen sighed and said, “The amount of money that goes into the decorations for the Mayor’s fund raiser...”

“Dad, Mayor Etaraxis may not be the best Human on Mars, but he has strong feelings about these kids. He felt the Orphan Fund was something that people should contribute to when it’s really an ugly issue. Humans meddling with the genome of other Humans to create Martians. We were left with a legacy of twisted Humans and we need to do something about it. He said that he thought that the undercity is beginning to look Post-Industrial England.”

“The Mayor of Opportunity reads Dickens?”
“He might do more things than we think he does. He also knows more than I realized he knows.”

“What?”

She shook her head, “Forget it. Change of subject.” She stood up and picked up the plates and plasticware, taking them to the kitchenette. “As to the fund raiser, His Honor has pretty much given me carte blanche to take the whole thing in a new direction…”

“Are you ever going to call him by his first name? You are, after all, his wife.”

Aster stared at him, mouth open.  Finally she said, “I’m not…exactly…his wife...”

“What are you then? I understand that you’re a sort of icon, a sort of Queen of Opportunity, I suppose you could say.”

“My title now is Mayoral Consort.” He nodded and smiled a bit. Inexplicably, she was irritated and snapped, “What’s so funny?”

He held up both hands, as if surrendering. “There’s absolutely nothing funny here, daughter.”

“Then why are you laughing?”

He nodded slowly and reached for his Bible. Aster knew what it was, though it was disguised as a standard computer tablet. Which it was. But Dad kept it separated from the broadband connection, walled by heavily encrypted firewall. Even if an aggressive worm got onto his tablet, it wouldn’t be able to get into his illegal Bible. He held it up and said, “Your story bears a number of touch points with the story of Esther. Without giving you a concise synopsis, suffice it to say that if you read it, you’ll find that she had the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of her entire people, the Jews.”

“Dad!” Aster exclaimed. Mention of specific old Earth religions was specifically prohibited by law. While this was supposed to be sweeping, in practice people – even Artificial Humans like the Mayor’s secretary – could be fined for mentioning them. In practice however, mentioning any other of the old divisive religions other than Christianity or Judaism or Islam would result in mild rebuke. Mention one of the Gang of Three, and fines were typical; jail time likely. But no one had heard him. Aster leaned over and said, “I have to get back to work, Dad. If you think of any way to get people to donate to the Orphan Fund, let me know.”

He accepted the peck on the cheek with a smile and said, “I will, Sweetie.”
She headed out of the apartment, scowling. Why did his advice bother he so much? She wasn’t doing anything wrong – but she wasn’t on a crusade, either. She was so occupied, she didn’t notice someone following her several dozen meters behind her.

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March 4, 2014

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 150


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

Change of pace for a bit – I’m going to look at elements of EXTREMELY popular SF, F, and H; break them apart and use each element as a jumping off point for a story idea…

Popular Science Fiction Story/Series: Dune

SF Trope: Achilles heel…

Logan Andrist stared at the Ojibwe creature and said, “Are you Human?”

The creature laughed then said, “As Human as you are, at least.”
Nkokoyanga Pomodimo scowled and said, “What’s that mean?”

The creature shrugged, “You assume that your current form is Human, when that may not be the case. Comparing you to the Humans of my time, I can see definite changes in phenotype and genotype.”

“How can you see changes in genotype?” Nkokoyanga said. “That’s impossible!”

“I didn’t say I could see your genotypes – I can taste them.”

“What?” both Logan and Nkokoyanga exclaimed.

“I didn’t say I was entirely Human, either. But I’m closer to the original model than either of you.” He paused then added, “We can talk more about it in the comfort of my home if you’d like.”

“What do you mean by ‘home’?” Nkokoyanga asked. “My scanner doesn’t show any kind of energy signature or the appearance of a structure.”

 “There are more ways to build and run something than making it out of concrete and hooking it up to the power grid or a powersat beam.”

“Like how?” Logan asked, curious despite the wild, crazy appearance of the man. Dressed in brown shirt and pants, he wore shoes of a similar material. A medallion at his throat supported a chest piece of four panels of large bead rows in a fan shape. Along the right side, small feathers were individually tied to spray across his chest. His skin was red-brown, his hair was silky black and tied into two thick braids that hung down his chest.

Noting Logan’s stare, he tapped his chest, “I’m sure you’re wondering how someone as – savage – as me could possibly have any idea what you’re talking about. But let me assure,” he looked directly at Nkokoyanga, saying, “I’m the one who is blocking your signal.”

“How can you do that? Nothing can block a direct satellite uplink!”

“There are some things that can.”
“What could possibly keep us from getting our satellite signal?”

He smiled, held up one arm, palm up, then turned in a very slow circle. For the first time, Logan noticed that while they were able to look downhill to the bay, all but a gap of some five meters walled them in.

The Ojibwe man said, “You see it, don’t you, Logan?”

“See what?” Nkokoyanga said, “What?”

Logan said, “I think he’s got us in a bowl of matter – a pit – and under our feet is an antenna positioned in the pit.” This time he pointed, “A berm made of dirt’s been pushed up around this area then there a wall on top of that. Looks to me that it’s made of recast concrete panels in two layers. First and second shielding are layered for shielding the antenna from electromagnetic energy of first and second wavelengths. Looks like a few parallel slats each having a substantially planar first reflective face extending at a first angle from the vertical. The perpendicular distance between the first reflective faces is substantially equal to one-half of the first wavelength. In effect, we’re deaf, dumb and blind."
The Ojibwe man smiled, bowed and said, “It’s all for a very, very good purpose. It will be our pleasure to convince you of our work and then ask you to join us.”

“And if we don’t?” Nkokoyanga challenged. Logan tried to elbow her into submission.

The Ojibwe man raised both eyebrows, saying, “I’m sure you’d like if I said something dramatic like ‘Then we’ll have to kill you’,” he gestured to the foot of the hill far below. “But nothing near so dramatic. We’d take you home.” He paused, “All the way home.”

Logan exclaimed, “I live in St. Louis Vertical Village!”

He nodded, “Then you will have a long way to walk. Best if you started now.”

Names: Names: ♀ Central African Republic, Gbaya; ♂ Minnesota, Minnesota
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March 2, 2014

WRITING ADVICE: Julie Czerneda’s Writing Workshop! #10 Part 2 – Creating Characters via Neuroscience…


 

In 2005, whilst perusing the shelves at the Hennepin County Public Library, I stumbled across CHANGING VISION by Julie Czerneda (say it: chur-nay-dah), an author I'd never heard of, and was intrigued by the aliens on the cover by artist Luis Royo. It didn’t matter that the book was the second in a series, the cover entranced me and so I read. The book was spectacular, I read others, and fell entirely in love with another series of hers called SPECIES IMPERATIVE for its fascinating aliens and superior characterization. A teacher deeply at heart, Julie Czerneda shares ideas and methodology wherever she goes. On her website, http://www.czerneda.com/classroom/classroom.html she shares ideas for writers. I want to share what kind of impact her ideas have had on my own writing.  They are used with the author’s permission.

I need to come back to this because I may have stumbled across a methodology for creating characters.

I need to look at “real people” first. Then I need to do some research into HOW a real Human brain creates an imaginary world. So here’s the FIRST stage…

I was a science teacher for 29 years touching on the entire spectrum of the subject – from astronomy to zoology, I always say – and so was an inveterate reader, keeping up on my “subject”.

Four years ago, I became a school counselor following a five year course of study that involved weekly drives to a somewhat distant college where one of the things we studied was adolescent brain science as well as general neurobiology…at least I studied the neurobiology. That was my area of interest. As a result, I was introduced to the fast-changing world of neuroscience. My wife got her BA in psychology not long after, and last spring, my daughter got her own BA in psychology with an intense interest in biopsychology after working with a professor studying the possibility of using saccade and anti-saccade as a predictor for schizophrenia...

At any rate, it occurred to me recently that perhaps I could learn more about character building by looking at how the BRAIN works.

Seems there’s been quite a bit of study about how the brain reacts when it reads words:

“If someone read a sentence like, ‘the shortstop threw the ball to first base,’ parts of the brain dedicated to vision and movement would light up, Bergen says...when you encounter words describing a particular action, your brain simulates the experience, Bergen says.”

Cool beans! I can totally see that and now that I know this is true, I can apply it to my writing for young adults as well as to the few historical pieces I do.

But how does a brain response like that apply to something like this: “Mac was several paces into the Chamber of the Progenitors before she appreciated that what she thought was the ceiling was a shoulder, that what she thought a floor was a hand…She wrenched her eyes from a vista of hills and valleys cloaked in dark blue skin, mottled with ponds of shining black liquid, and stared at what else lived here. He first impression was of rather silly-looking pufferfish, her mind was fighting for equivalents. Her second was that the creatures looked nothing like fish at all.” (SPECIES IMPERATIVE: SURVIVAL, chapter 21)?

How can I imagine something I’ve never seen – or something I can’t even imagine? It brings to mind the old adage, “The universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it’s stranger than we CAN imagine.” (Arthur Stanley Eddington)

So what does the brain do in such a situation? “A flying pig has meaning to us because our brain is using things we have seen — pigs and birds — to create something we've never seen. And Bergen says we also draw on personal experience when we use language to convey abstract ideas — like truth, or justice, or even the word ‘meaning.’”

In addition, “The brain, it seems, does not make much of a distinction between reading about an experience and encountering it in real life; in each case, the same neurological regions are stimulated. Keith Oatley, an emeritus professor of cognitive psychology at the University of Toronto (and a published novelist), has proposed that reading produces a vivid simulation of reality, one that ‘runs on minds of readers just as computer simulations run on computers.’ Fiction — with its redolent details, imaginative metaphors and attentive descriptions of people and their actions — offers an especially rich replica. Indeed, in one respect novels go beyond simulating reality to give readers an experience unavailable off the page: the opportunity to enter fully into other people’s thoughts and feelings.”

So THIS is why certain characters seem alive.

The question is: What am I sometimes doing wrong? Why does Mackenzie Connor seem real, but Emerald Marcillon elicits nothing but the statement: “I actually found the language you used to be rather dense and information-heavy, which didn't make for particularly easy reading. I would suggest revisiting it with a thought to simplifying it a little for more ease of comprehension.”  This editor didn’t even NOTICE the character.

Why? I need to learn MORE!

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