IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 252

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. ? z Z

H Trope: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BarredFromTheAfterlife

Current Event: “…theorize that the nuclear war destroyed the afterlife…”, “…some people...have studied and manipulated The Dark to such an extent that they've become functionally immortal…”

Functional immortality: “Research suggests that lobsters may not slow down, weaken, or lose fertility with age, and that older lobsters may be more fertile than younger lobsters. This longevity may be due to telomerase, an enzyme that repairs long repetitive sections of DNA sequences at the ends of chromosomes, referred to as telomeres. Telomerase is expressed by most vertebrates during embryonic stages but is generally absent from adult stages of life. However, unlike vertebrates, lobsters express telomerase as adults through most tissue, which has been suggested to be related to their longevity. Despite internet memes, lobsters are not immortal. Lobsters grow by molting which needs a lot of energy and the larger the shell the more energy, eventually the lobster dies from exhaustion during a molt. Older lobsters are known to stop molting which means the shell will become damaged, infected, or fall apart and they die.”

Juana de Forlán shook herself hard, took a deep breath and said, “I can feel the synthetic lobster juice in me…”

Shaking his head, Koegathe Melamu, “You can’t possibly feel a hundred milliliters of a transparent liquid  in your...”

“I know that!” Juana exclaimed. She shook her arms, “My head knows it, but my body says otherwise.” She took a deep breath, shuddering. “I feel like I’m getting younger by the moment.”

“It’s not an elixir of youth! If it worked the way we thought it should, the telomerase will let your cells keep dividing – more or less forever. But it’s not going to make you younger.”

She held out both of her hands, palms up, and said, “Might as well. I’m gonna live forever!”

Koegathe shook his head, saying, “Maybe – but we have no idea what the long-term effects of living forever as a lobster might be.” They both laughed, but after a few minutes, Koegathe reigned his mirth in when he noticed the pitch of his voice had been climbing. He took a deep breath then said, “Maybe that wasn’t as funny as it sounded.”

She shrugged, suddenly feeling light-headed.

"What's wrong?" Koegathe said, stepping toward her.

"I think I'm going to..." It seemed like the world around her rushed into a single dot of focused, bright light. Everything else was dark around her. The point of light remained steady for some time -- she wasn't sure how long because her *-sense of time was abruptly gone. Then the light moved toward her. She might have been moving toward the light. It didn't make any difference. It might have taken time. It might have happened instantaneously, she had no idea.

Once the light grew around her, she found herself standing on solid ground of pearly white. In a throne of the same pearly substance, there sat a being. She knew that it was Death. There was certainly some kind of harvest implement laying on the ground beside the throne, though it looked more like a silver weed whacker. Death didn't wear a robe, it -- he? -- wore solid work clothes, more or less like a technician in a computer manufacturing plant, though he didn't have a mask or gloves. He did have protective goggles pushed up on his head. Black, well-trimmed, wavy hair made it look like he was wearing a cap. The name badge clipped to his collar read, "Greaper".

"Cute," Juana said. "You're the Grim Reaper?" She rolled her eyes as only  a young woman who grew up in the booming first two decades of the 21st Century could.

He lifted a leg to drape it over the arm of the throne and said, "You've presented me with a problem I've never faced before, young lady."

"What?"

"You're dying -- but you are functionally immortal -- and I have no idea what to do with you."

Names: ♀ Uruguay; ♂ Botswana

Image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/Telomere_caps.gif

WRITING ADVICE: What Went RIGHT With HEIRS OF THE SHATTERED SPHERES (MuseItUp Publishing) Guy Stewart #35 – Part 1

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 speak at a convention hosted by the Minnesota Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. Since then, I have shared (with their permission) and applied the writing wisdom of Lin Oliver, Jack McDevitt, Nathan Bransford, Mike Duran, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, SL Veihl, Bruce Bethke, and Julie Czerneda. Together they write in genres broad and deep, and have acted as agents, editors, publishers, columnists, and teachers. Since then, I figured I’ve got enough publications now that I can share some of the things I did “right” and I’m busy sharing that with you.

While I don’t write full-time, nor do I make enough money with my writing to live off of it...neither do all of the professional writers above...someone pays for and publishes ten percent of what I write. When I started this blog, that was NOT true, so I may have reached a point where my own advice is reasonably good. We shall see! Hemingway’s quote above will now remain unchanged as I work to increase my writing output and sales! As always, your comments are welcome!

HEIRS has got to be the single greatest exercise in writing persistence  in my long and varied writing career (see “Writing and Air Quotes” for a discussion of my writing career: http://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2016/02/writing-advice-31-writing-and-air-quotes.html).

As my kids and wife will attest, I started HEIRS fifteen years ago in response to the wave of dystopian science fiction aimed at young adults. Of COURSE there has always been dSF – I was really and truly hooked on science fiction by the grim future in John Christopher’s THE WHITE MOUNTAINS books. Lois Lowry’s THE GIVER and Margaret Atwood’s THE HANDMAID’S TALE leaped back into popularity again.

But the current deluge brought us the “book-to-movie” best sellers like THE HUNGER GAMES and MAZE RUNNER following on the heels of what I think of as “teen carnage” novels where, like the Harry Potter series after GOBLET OF FIRE, teens slaughtering and being slaughtered became de rigueur for YA fiction.

So I started to look at a DIFFERENT future. Even so, I was compelled to give my novel a title that would draw in YA readers expecting carnage in their reading. HEIRS’ original title was simply “Emerald of Earth”. I wrote the novel and it took place in a future where Humans were going to explore the Solar System thoroughly and methodically. Using a hollowed out asteroid as a base, they would spend a year at each planet, probing, landing on, collecting samples, data, and answering questions without having to worry about shipping tiny amounts of material “home” to be analyzed by experts. The experts were right there.

But clearly the title was boring and would have had a hard time finding advocacy among the more exciting titles (except THE GIVER; that was hardly self-explanatory, nor was THE HANDMAID’S TALE or even Butler’s  1979 masterpiece, KINDRED). Flashy titles had replaced subtle, so I had to do the same. I came up with EARTH ATTACKED!

Ugh.

Then I tried LEGACY OF THE WOUNDED WORLDS…

Worser and worser!

Finally I resorted to something I’d never done: I sat down with a thesaurus and the “Legacy” title and found synonyms for all of the words and wrote them on slips of paper. Then I went to a table and began to rearrange them, speaking them out loud countless times until I found one title that held up under the stress of repetition.

HEIRS OF THE SHATTERED SPHERES.

I decided to keep Emerald’s story separate from the others, but hers needed to be part of a larger story. I wouldn’t have her defeating Inamma in one fell swoop. She needed to fight for her existence, so I made Inamma smarter than it had been before and more subtle.

Even more though, I needed Emerald to have “kid problems”. She needed to deal with issues every kid on Earth needed to deal with. So I gave her friend problems. She wanted them but couldn’t seem to keep them. But what began as a nebulous “I can’t get friends”, needed a firmer foundation.

As a guidance counselor, I’d started working closely with several autistic students and had come to understand them just a tiny bit. The ones I dealt with were brilliant – but challenged by the world they lived in. I realized that my growing understanding of these young people might be an aspect of Emerald that I hadn’t really developed.

Once I started to understand Emerald, other things fell into place – things like answering the question, “What do teenagers DO on a spacecraft committed to a twelve year mission?” Next time, I’ll look at the development of “school for teens in space”…

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

LOVE IN A TIME OF ALIEN INVASION -- CHAPTER 41

 

On Earth, there are three Triads intending to integrate not only the three peoples and stop the war that threatens to break loose and slaughter Humans and devastate their world; but to stop the war that consumes Kiiote economy and Yown’Hoo moral fiber. The Braiders accidentally created a resonance wave that will destroy the Milky Way and the only way to stop it is for the Yown’Hoo-Kiiote-Human Triads to build a physical wall. The merger of Human-Kiiote-Yown’Hoo into a van der Walls Society may produce the Membrane to stop the wave.

The young experimental Triads are made up of the smallest primate tribe of Humans – Oscar and Kashayla; the smallest canine pack of Kiiote – six, pack leaders Qap and Xurf; and the smallest camelid herd of Yown’Hoo – a prime eleven, Dao-hi the Herd mother. On nursery farms and ranches away from the TC cities, Humans have tended young Yown’Hoo and Kiiote in secret for decades, allowing the two warring people to reproduce and grow far from their home worlds.

“We had nearly fallen into stagnation when we encountered the Kiiote.”

“And we into internecine war when we encountered the Yown’Hoo.”

 “Yown’Hoo and Kiiote have been defending themselves for a thousand revolutions of our Sun.”

 “Together, we might do something none of us alone might have done…a destiny that included Yown’Hoo, Kiiote, and Human.” (2/19/2015)

Lieutenant Commander Patrick Bakhsh (ret), whom I’d started calling Retired; stepped through the portal, a white plastic robot flung over his shoulder, and said, “What are you all looking at?”

Even the Herd Mother backed up, the Herd behind her pulling in tight and backing up against the wall.

The Kiiote rearranged their skeletons in that weird, squishy way so that Pack of six was ready to fight with claws, teeth, and nearly-telepathic minds.

For whatever strange reason, I stepped closer to ‘Shayla where she lay unconscious in my Great Uncle Tim’s arms.

GU Time said, “How did you do that?”

Retired slid the robot to the floor, pushing it to one side. “I came well-equipped to protect the Triad.” He looked my great uncle up and down, glancing at the dead immature Yown’Hoo where it lay in front of  the Herd Mother. “Which is more than I can say for you.”

GU Tim glanced over his shoulder, saying, “Nothing I could do about it.” He turned back to Retired and said, “I’d have been prepared if you’d given me warning.”

“We didn’t have time to do anything. The Triad refuge is a hole in the ground – but we don’t know who did it.”

“Ten guesses,” said GU Tim.

Retired shook his head. “Not enough.” He pursed his lips. “We need to stay still for a while and let the pursuit cool off.”

GU Tim snorted, “That’ll never happen. Your Triad here is hot stuff right now.”

Retired scowled. “How do you mean?”

GU Tim shook his head and held out his hand. Suddenly a 3D image appeared above his hand. It was a Human newscast. To paraphrase, they wanted all nineteen…suddenly eighteen…of us. Dead or alive. Preferably alive so we could be tried for crimes against Humanity. He lifted his other hand and we were watching a Kiiote vis. It was like a Human broadcast only in that there was an image. To me it didn’t seem to move except for the lips and there were lots of farting sounds. I couldn’t smell anything, but the Pack was suddenly twitching, yipping, farting in return, and the youngest pups fell down, rolled belly up, and squirmed until their elders nipped their feet, at which point, they played dead. In the Pack if one of the Leaders didn’t release them from the trance, they’d really die.

GU Tim closed his hand and opened it again. The scene on it was hovering in the air, looking down on a huge field of waving golden grace. An immense Herd galloped into view, groups streaming away from the main part of the Herd, the lines curling in on themselves, others groups interacting in ways I’d never been able to make any sense out of.

I knew it got to Dao-hi because she reared and pawed at the air uncontrollably and the rest of the Herd ran around her – in the close confines of the house.

 After everyone settled down, Retired said, “You’ve all been repudiated by your governments as some sort of rogue freaks.”

“Freaks! We’re not freaks,” I managed, looking at ‘Shayla. She was one of the best looking girls I’d ever laid eyes on – in fact, one of the best looking Humans I’d ever seen; and I’d seen LOTS of people in my short life.

Dao-hi, was a strong leader and she’d calmed enough to say, “Not just ‘freaks’, Human friend. We have been declared anathema. Not only have we been banned from the Home World, but we have been banned from congress with any Herd but our own. We will never know anything as glorious as the image you just witnessed.” The Herd pressed close together and Dao-hi did something I’d never heard her do. She rumbled.

The Pack was on the floor, Qap and Xurf were grooming each other, passing licks to the rest as one or the other subordinates squirmed closer. Xurf looked at me, growled then said, “Our entire line has been cut from the breeding records. We are as good as Wilds.”

Great Uncle Tim sighed and said, “Your friend here has been recalled by his Human military commander – his General, I think we’d say.”

Retired shrugged, “I’ve ignored ‘cease and desist’ orders before. I’ve been decorated twice after ignoring the order.”

“Not one of those times, I think.” GU looked us over, adding, “I think there are going to be lots of people looking for you – Human, Yown’Hoo, and Kiiote. I say we move out right now. You may not have another time when you’re not surrounded by hostiles.”

Image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Rhll_wire_rope.jpg

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 251

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.

 F Trope: elves, gnomes and Halflings

Current Event: http://www.icenews.is/index.php/2011/07/02/icelandic-town-hopes-angry-elves-have-been-soothed-by-songs/

So…a guy – call him Geir Laxness – is born in Iceland and grows up. He’s got no mom and lives alone with dad, who is an anthropologist.

They’ve travelled a bit, so he’s seen a lot, but he’s always been shy. He reads lots of fantasy and likes LORD OF THE RINGS a lot and can even read the Icelandic translation (which his few friends think is weird). One of his heroes is “Snorri Sturluson, a descendant of Egil’s Saga’s hero, but this remains uncertain. The standard modern edition of Icelandic sagas is known as Íslenzk Fornrit.” His online name is “Snorri”.

He skypes other friends all the time and has contacts all over the world. Him and his dad are at a conference in Minneapolis, MN. It’s his first time in the US interior and he manages to get away from Dad and go to a fantasy and science fiction bookstore called “Uncle Hugo’s”.

It’s across the street from a REALLY intriguing International Marketplace and he figures he’ll pop over there and see what’s up…

That’s when he witnesses a murder: a group of white kids, tattooed with Celtic runes Geir understands, and heads shaved, on skateboards, attack and kill a black man and an Hispanic woman. They disappear back down a staircase to a bike trail below.

Geir tries to help, but doesn’t know to call 911 in the US, so he does what he can. As she dies, the woman presses a folded sheet of paper into his hand and says, "Our deaths have been unplanned. The gnomes are moving in force. You are from our world, please…"

Names: ♀ Iceland

Image: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/ce/9a/1f/ce9a1f6ea617581fefbcec6d9e10d2ab.jpg

Slice of PIE: A Writer’s Faith Walk

I am “on retreat” this weekend because I needed it.

“On retreat” in this case, is a Christian phrase meant to suggest a retreat from the usual battles of the world in order to gather your strength before flinging yourself back into the fray (synonyms include: fight, argument, quarrel, fracas, dispute, disagreement, affray, skirmish).

For me, none of this involves my wife or kids. It does involve lots of other things.

The main one is that I have been in an internal spiritual skirmish with myself. I am a Christian (“duh!”, right?), but for some time now, my walk with God has been seriously lame. I mean that in both ways, too. Lame as in “that is SO lame!” and lame as in a physical handicap.

Because my walk has been lame, everyday stresses (both positive and negative!) – student testing, applications for summer school and for college, family members who are too close to a psychologically unstable military dictator, being overweight, a writing “career”, my education relicensure, and an upcoming wedding I will perform – have been enormously exacerbated by my parents’ continuing decline and the necessity of my deep involvement in that, as well as continuing issues with my wife’s breast cancer treatments.

Even the “triage counselor” at the school I work at thought me getting away for a retreat was a good thing. When I mentioned I’d been snapping at people, she said, “No, not that. It’s just that your eyes look flustered.”

The theme of this retreat has been “For we walk/live by faith, not by sight.” Second Corinthians 5:7. The verse is strangely tucked into a narrative that’s discussing whether or not we’d prefer to be dead and with God or alive and NOT with God. There is also discussion as to whether the Greek word should be translated into “walk” or “live”.

The Bible study leader has chosen the life of Abram-Abraham as the vehicle for this weekend, so we’ve been delving into his life as it is recorded in Genesis.

A couple of points and how they intersect with my writing.

The first point is that I prefer the “walk” translation over the “live” translation. As a writer, I am hyper aware of the meaning and implication of words. In this case, I find that “walk” is a more active verb than is “live”. My recent experiences with my parents have given me new appreciation of this. Both are victims of the life-sucking condition we tremblingly name “Alzheimer’s” – to universal dismay and sympathy. My parents live in a retirement community, but within that community, my mother lives in her chair. While she is absolutely and completely alive, her active and vibrant past has disappeared from her. She lives, so passively now that it is painful for me to see her.

While on this retreat, I went on a two mile walk through mud, over waterlogged fields, and along woodchip trails. I reveled in the quiet, and while it was cloudy and unseasonably cold, soaked in the peace as if it were brilliant sunshine.

“For we WALK by faith, not by sight.”

I may have been living by faith (though rather pathetically), but after this weekend, I may once again walk (by faith).

Secondly, while I have certainly been writing, submitting, and planning; in my perception, I’ve been laboring entirely on my own. God really had no part in my creative process, and to be frank, I didn’t see why he’d care about my trivial SF stories or about a career as insignificant as mine when he was clearly in charge of careers of men and women like Gene Wolfe, Connie Willis, Brad Torgerson, Kathy Tyers, and Orson Scott Card.

It’s clear that God intervened in the lives of men like Abraham; but I had forgotten that God’s word is meant for all of us. Even insignificant counselor/science fiction writers like me.

It’s good to remember this; it’s good to begin an active walk with God…

Image:  http://40.media.tumblr.com/06a8615ed9250b9537cc33f979eda283/

tumblr_njc2of8xSg1s91yx0o1_500.jpg

MARTIAN HOLIDAY 80: 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 (50,000 words as of now), drop me a line and I’ll send you the unedited version. ? z Z

FardusAH, assistant to Mayor-for-Life of Burroughs Dome, Etaraxis Ginunga-Gap leaned back in her chair, studying the Mayoral Consort, Aster Theilen for some time before finally saying, “Depending on the outcome of your party, I may have some questions about your God.”

“If you do, I will be happy to answer them.” She bowed slightly. “I’ll see you later.”

As Aster strode from the office, FardusAH touched her mauve lips with a navy blue finger, nails done in complimentary yellow. She said softly, “You most certainly will, your Honor. You most certainly will.” She turned to her screen and got back to work.

Aster stopped outside he office. Most people – certainly vo’Maddux’s agents, as well as the few “watchers” FardusAH employed – would expect her to hurry to the Mayor’s Pylon to begin planning; possibly to start picking colors and start the guest list. In the months since Etaraxis chose her as his main consort, she’d learned more about the elite of the Dome than she really cared to know. She pursed her lips, then went to edge of the ramp that spiraled from the uppermost levels, deep into the planet. Above, a lens shield that both collected and concentrated sunlight. The physical dome overlay that, stretching a kilometer in either direction from the Core, all the way to the Rim. The wealthiest Opportunians lived in the upper level of the Core and around the edge – what was called by some, the HOD. In that part of the Dome, people actually owned their own homes – owned a piece of Mars. Only the wealthiest, most deeply connected families lived there. That didn’t necessarily include the First Humans on Mars. He father was one of them, poor by HOD standards, but owning, nevertheless, a growing portion Mount Olympus.

He had friends as well. Some of them were not happy with how Mars had turned out. She sniffed. If her father had ever wanted to start an insurrection, he’d have plenty of tinder. The First Humans were scattered among the Domes – but some lived in the High Desert of Mars. Some were pariah to the common humanity that lived their lives out hardly noticing that they were aliens on an ancient world.

She sighed. He father knew them all; loved many of them. They would know where to find lots of orphans. But she had another kind of orphan she wanted to bring into the  Orphan’s Ball. She wanted Artificial Human children to be part of the celebration. They were different, but not less Human. She knew that her viewpoints would have gotten her killed just to speak them in some of the Domes. Even so, as the Mayoral Consort, she could actually effect change on Mars. The cast off Artificial Humans – they called themselves inti – were part of the future of the planet. To exclude them would not only incite rebellion, it wasn’t, as her father said, “Part of God’s plan.”

While she’d never been the fanatic her father was, she loved the Triune God and wanted to serve Him. This was her chance. She was in a place to do some good and she had allies. Undermining the status quo had never been her dream, but if she ever wanted to see a Mars unified and equitable, someone had to start something somewhere. She had to be transparent – using the shunt, in this environment, surveillance was a given. Mars had a society that an ancient science fiction writer had predicted with uncanny accuracy – a transparent society. Security and probably vo’Maddux herself, were happily spying on her even as she stood here. She resisted the temptation to wave and came back to the problem with the Orphan’s Ball. It regularly excluded the people who have less power and low status – the people that orphans ended up becoming. All of Martian society needed to be responsible for lifting them up and helping them meet the people they need to meet in order to grow up empowered.

She smiled bleakly at FardusAH’s response: “But they aren’t even Human! Some of the little freaks look like furless kangaroos!” She’d had the grace to blush black when she realized what she’d said. But FardusAH, with her network of assistants to all of the other Mayors of Mars, would be her most powerful ally.

In vo’Maddux’s mind, the Mayoral Consort should head to the Pylon and start her party plans. Instead, she headed down to her Dad’s. Her father was very familiar with the proletariat, the person-on-the-street; those who had been called “blue-collar” workers back on Earth in the middle of its Twentieth Century. Those were the men and women who listened to her dad; who attended his secret Christian churches – and who quite literally kept Opportunity Dome from falling apart. She needed to let him know that what she planned wasn’t “a stunt” by the Mayor’s Office.

She needed to form a new union of Martians, is what she needed to do.

Image: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/pv5BzHM3TJ8/hqdefault.jpg

IDEAS ON TUESDAY 250

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

SF Trope: genetic memories

Current Event: http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2013/jan/23/digital-files-stored-and-retrieved-using-dna-memory

Iker Dương flexed his bicep.

Leonie Gonzalez shook her head and rolled back over on her stomach.

“What? I thought you said you wanted to see a trick?” Iker said.

Without looking at him, she pulled up the latest Kathy Reichs Temperance Brennan book on her Kindenookpad – or knop – and got back to her reading.

“What are you mad at?”

Leonie said, “Listen Iker, I like you and all, but if you want us to be anything more than buddies, you’re going to have to actually talk to me.”

Iker sat down. The sappy sad look on his face almost made Leonie give in and feel sorry for him. Instead, she rolled over with her back to him.

He arched over her, planting his hands firmly on the ground then flipped his feet over, landing lightly. She almost grabbed him then, too. But they were almost done with their college freshman year, she wanted to get into medical school – she was aiming to be the first forensic anthropologist on Mars because now that the population there had topped three million and they’d celebrated their Diamond Jubilee, there were going to be old MURDERS…

He flexed his bicep again and said, “I’m trying to show you something.”

She sighed.

“Not my muscle! I’m showing you what we’re doing in the lab!”

“Trying to create muscles from nothing?”

“Hey!” He pouted and she relented a bit. “I’m sorry, but the Mexicans and the Vietnamese are not known for producing Olympic weightlifting champions...”

“It’s not my muscle, it’s what’s in my muscle!”

“String beans?” She winced an instant after speaking the words but couldn’t say, “Iker, wait!” fast enough to stop him from sprint away. She also couldn’t quite stop the thought that he had a rather cute backside as well and even though he was sorta on the skinny side…”Iker, wait!” He kept going. She stopped, pondered for an instant, then put her ancestry to work and sprinted, catching him in ten long strides, grabbing his arm. She thought for an instant that the bicep wasn’t as wimpy as she’d imagined. “I’m sorry, Iker – but you’re just such a tempting target. What...”

“DNA – I have a data package in my bicep. I’ve been carrying it for the past week and we’re going to take it out tomorrow to see if…”

From the shadows of the science building, a voice said, “I don’t think you should be talking about this, folks.”

Names: ♀ Swiss German, Argentinian; ♂ Mexican, Vietnamese

Image: https://pixabay.com/static/uploads/photo/2013/07/13/12/21/biceps-159681_960_720.png

POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAYS: How Do Writers Get Us To Slip Into An Alternate Reality? (Part 1)

Using the panel discussions of the most recent World Science Fiction Convention in Spokane, August 2015, I will jump off, jump on, rail against, and shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the pdf copy of the Program Guide. This is event #3678. The link is provided below…

Narrative Structure and Expectation

How do we enter stories? By what techniques do narratives pull us in? How do the expectations we have influence how we respond? I’ll break down some narrative techniques used in openings, and then go on to discuss how openings that match expectations can encourage us to keep reading while expectations that aren’t fulfilled can sometimes cause us to stop reading. How big a part does familiarity play in how well we can understand and adjust to a story? Finally, how do the things that we think we know but may be wrong about (as in history) make it easier or harder to be drawn into a book if our beliefs aren’t met? Kate Elliott

Author of plenty of books – though they all appear to be fantasy, which most of you know isn’t one of my favorite genres (I HAVE read the requisite classics by Lewis, Tolkien, LeGuin, Brooks, Card, Donaldson, Stroud, Clarke, Bull, Wynne Jones, and Nix)  – it’s clear that Elliot must have a clear grasp of writing technique. In fact, looking at the questions above, I can’t imagine that she would have been able to cover more than ONE of them in the time apparently allotted for the session.

In another fact, I don’t know if you could ever definitively answer these…

As I’m approaching the end of the Sasquan Program Book, I think I’ll stretch it out a bit and jump off from each one of the questions posed by the programmers and look at what it means to me and possibly how I would answer it.

So: How do we enter stories?

First and foremost, my initial response is “voluntarily”.

That being baldly stated, I suddenly realized that this isn’t entirely true. Take Susanna Clarke’s master work JONATHAN STRANGE AND MR. NORRELL for example. I’d never have read it on my own. Working at Barnes & Noble, I’d seen it numerous, sold a few copies – and was totally unimpressed by the bland cover and sheer weight of the thing. Clearly, it would be no fast read and would require an investment of time I rarely gave to ANY book, let alone a fantasy novel by an author I’d never hear of.

My daughter gave it to me to read because she’d fallen in love with it.

So I read it and quite involuntarily, I entered the story. The same thing happened when I picked up Stephen R. Donaldson’s first book, LORD FOUL’S BANE. Of course, the impetus there was to avoid studying for finals at Moorhead State University…

At any rate, both books drew me into their worlds and I read them to the end with complete satisfaction.

Be that as it may, HOW did I enter these stories?

How about “by reading the first sentence”?

“She came out of the store just in time to see her young son playing on the sidewalk directly in the path of the gray, gaunt man who strode down the center of the walk like a mechanical derelict.” – Chapter 1, LORD FOUL’S BANE

“It is January and I am arriving at an English country house in Yorkshire./Some years ago there was in the city of York a society of magicians.” Preface/Chapter 1, JONATHAN STRANGE AND MR. NORRELL

The first must have drawn me into the story by itself (though the impetus of my avoidance reaction to undergraduate finals was hard at work!) – the second, because I love my daughter and wanted to please her, I allowed myself to be drawn into the story.

But HOW?

The more I think about it, the more I think it’s more complicated than having an intriguing first sentence. Intent and external forces also have something to do with a reader’s response to a book. Even so, the first sentence of Donaldson’s book has some key points. The first is normalcy overlain by strangeness.

Actually, the dual sentences of Clarke’s books do the same thing: normalcy overlain by strangeness.

Let’s see if this works with my favorite science fiction books.

“The last gleaming sliver of Komarr’s true-sun melted out of sight beyond the low hills on the western horizon.” Chapter 1, KOMARR

“Streaker is limping like a dog on three legs./Fins had been making wisecracks about humans for thousands of years.” Prologue/Chapter 1, STARTIDE RISING

Strangely enough, it does.

In fact, STARTLINGLY comparable…

Takeaway:

1. Intent and external forces affect whether or not you enter a story.
2. Juxtaposition of “normal” and “strange” in the first sentence(s) work to usher us into stories.

Whew. THAT was unexpected. Your thoughts?

Program Book: http://sasquan.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/ConGuide.toupload.pdf

Image: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/OnWqxg34rC4/hqdefault.jpg