Rocket Scientist

I’m going to take a break from short stories (sort of) because I read a post on Bookish’ blog wherein someone wrote a book transforming the classic Pride and Prejudice to an alternate book:  Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. 

OK.  Zombies aren’t my thing and I’m very fond of the original.  However, bookish quoted a portion of the new book including a swashbuckling Mr. Darcy (and a courteously puking Mr. Bingley) and that got me to thinking.  Even if this particular incarnation doesn’t appeal, wouldn’t it be fun to play with taking a bit of classic and give it a different twist, either environment or condition?

Now I could tell you some possibilities, but here, I’ll show you.  Like “The Cask of Amontillado”…

“He is an ignoramus,” interrupted my friend, as he stepped unsteadily forward, while I followed immediately at his heels. At a small cozy room, and realizing he had reached the extremity of the corridor, and finding his progress arrested by the wall, stood stupidly bewildered. A moment more and I had fettered him to the couch. In its surface were two iron staples. From one of these depended a short chain, from the other a padlock. Throwing the links about his waist, it was but the work of a few seconds to secure it. He was too much astounded to resist. Withdrawing the key I stepped back from the recess.

“Pass your hand,” I said, “over the table; you will find a catalog for tupperware. Indeed, it is the very latest lineup. I implore you again, would you not care to give me a ride so I can leave my damn house? No? Then I must positively tell you all about our new spring colors.  And let’s not forget our new core decor items!”

“I thought we were having coffee!” ejaculated my friend, not yet recovered from his astonishment.

“Too bad,” I replied; “You could have sprung for Starbucks.”

Or, perhaps, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”

They had now reached the road which turns off to Sleepy Hollow; but D8N40, who’s programming was clearly in need of an overhall, instead of keeping to the road, made an opposite turn and plunged headlong down hill to the left, it’s hovering capability malfunctioning so that the ride was unreasonably rough. This road leads through a delapidated ghetto shaded by disintegrating skyscrapers for about a four blocks, where it crosses the laserbridge which formed the boundary to the standard monitored city, where help was readily available.

As yet the the robotic steeds errors prompted full speed so that it gave him advantage in the chase; but just as he had got halfway through the ghetto the antigrav unit gave way and he felt the unit stutter and fail beneath him. He tried to fumble a backup program into place and run a diagnostic, but the unit whined back into power before he had a chance to do anything, but it was only half power and stuttered across the ground on one side, jolting him terrifically.  Now he could hear them, his pursuers, greedy for his technology, despite the malfunctions. For a moment the terror of his boss intruded as this was his transportation unit; but this was no time for petty fears; the aliens were hard on his heels, and (unskilled rider that he was) he had much ado to maintain his seat, sometimes slipping on one side, sometimes on another, and sometimes jerked backwards with a violence that he verily feared would rend him on the back lip.

A glow in the distance now cheered him with the hopes that the laserbridge was at hand. The wavering reflection of a blue glow in the bosom of the brook told him that he was not mistaken. He saw the gleam of the bridge dimly glowing under the broken street lights ahead. He recollected the place where other travelers had disappeared. “If I can but reach that bridge,” thought Ichabod, “I am safe.” Just then he heard the, black chittering, the panting and blowing close behind him; he even fancied that he felt their hot breath. Another clumsy fumbling at the control panel and he got the unit to lurch forward slightly faster; he thundered over the surface made of naught but light; he gained the opposite side; and now Ichabod cast a look behind to see if his pursuers should vanish, according to rule, unable to follow him across the beam of light. Just then he saw the aliens cluster at the laser’s edge and, as one, spit some vile concoction over the small river. Ichabod endeavored to dodge the horrible missile, but too late. It encountered his cranium with a tremendous crash; he was tumbled headlong into the plascrete, and transportation unit, the aliens and their greedy followers passed by like a whirlwind.

 So, you try.  I would stick to books or stories in the public domain, but, hey, knock yourself out.

Or, if you don’t want to go to that much trouble, hey, I’ll just field your ideas of new ways to transform old classics.  After all, it’s supposed to be fun.

For those of you that jumped the gun with my last post to jump from exploring the moon into making a colony: .  Smarties!  And I bet you’ll have no problem guessing whether I’m all for it or not.  That’s right, I am.

Hava noted that making a colony on the moon, a real long-term self-sustaining facility, is no easy matter, despite what we’ve read in books or seen in movies.  She ain’t lying.  Making a self-sustaining colony on the moon is a complete pain in the whatsit.  Everything we need (air, water, food) will either have to be brought from here and 100% recycled or made from unpromising natural ingredients.  Power will need to be generated but, more than that, propulsion will have to be devised in order to make coming and going viable for the long run.  (Some of you might note that these same technologies and capabilities could be damn useful right hear on the planet, too.)

Do I see it likely within my lifetime?  Honestly, no.  Bits and pieces of what you’d need for a long term commitment, maybe, but not all of it.  But we don’t have to succeed soon to make pursuing  the goal of a self-sustaining colony worthwhile today.

Why?

Because I do believe that human exploration is more important that climbing Mount Everest because it’s there.  I don’t know what’s in our future, on this planet, and I know that getting to where we have other options if something cataclysmic would happen is going to be a long and painful road.  I don’t know if we’ll ever need it, but I’d much rather have the option and not need it than find out we need it in thirty years, but the path to escape is fifty years long.  But it’s more than that.

I believe that, if we are ever to do real exploring outside our solar system, we’d better know our way around space, we’d better know how to live on little or nothing and how to make the most of whatever natural resources we can find because we aren’t going to just stumble (conveniently) across dilithium crystals nor can we count on friendly (or touchy) natives to supply our wants.  And I think that should be our goal.  Our planet is precious and beautiful and wonderfully nurturing; I love the Earth.  But I dream of exploring elsewhere, finding more places, more people, more systems than I can imagine today.  I want that, if not for my children, for my children’s children.

The moon, as it was as an exploration test bed, is a perfect place to learn how to survive on very inhospitable land, how to use the resources we have to the fullest, how to grow food and create a living ecosystem out of very very little.  All within easy reach of earth, in case of setbacks, but under some of the harshest terms.  There is no welcome on the moon.  To stake a permanent claim, we’re going to have to be brilliant and creative and resourceful, just as we’re going to need to do to travel beyond our sun’s influence.  And, if we can beat her, we will not only have perfected any number of necessary steps that will set the foundation for future exploration, we’ll have proved that it’s possible, that man need not be fettered to this planet for all eternity.

Every day we wait or refuse to set our feet upon that path, success retreats at least one more day away.

Not that I’m opinionated or nothin’.

For those of you who have been intimidated by reminiscences about poetry, fear not, I am now moving into short stories.  Short stories had many of their own lessons to teach me.  And, ’cause it’s writing workshop Wednesday, I’m going to tell you about one of them today.

 See, you’re not constrained by cadence and sound like you are in a poem and that gives you a great deal more freedom and flexibility.  But you are still constrained by length.  A short story can do many things:  cause surprise, set a scene, breathe life into a character… and, ideally, tell a story.  But it has to do so in a limited number of words.  

There are lots of skills in short story writing and, when compared to novel writing, calls for completely different approaches.  They usually do not have the same tone or pacing.  But many of the skills you build for a short story can be useful in a novel, like the poetry skill, in judicious quantities, adding power or magic at the moment you need it.

So, today, the skill we’re looking for is setting the scene with brevity.  In this case, the limit I’m imposing is a single sentence (not run-on) to bring a setting to life in a way a reader can identify with.  I’m not saying describing every leaf in a huge treehouse or each shade of color in a kaleidoscope wallpaper, but providing the right details to let the reader fill in the rest.   

Here are some examples:

It seemed he’d entered a hall of mirrors, except it was just an endless white hall with innumerable doors, identical, stretched out to infinity.

 The light was soft as the surf at her feet, warm, red, tinting the white sand pink and adding a violet lustre to the blue ocean under the cloudless crimson sky.

 It was an oasis, emerald, jade and sapphire, a jewel nestled unexpectedly in the endless gold of lifeless sand.

The air was so heavy and humid, it was like a being underwater and Terrence felt as though he were drowning in the heavy scents of the rain forest:  jasmine, orchids, ferns, mold, fungus and, under it all, the scents of decay as he plodded through the thick green undergrowth under the endless twilight under the dense canopy.

Now, it’s your turn.

 Oh, and don’t forget to vote on the poll.

One aspect of character building I didn’t mention before, but that’s important, is appearance.  One reason I don’t is that I don’t give it the kind of emphasis many writers do.  In fact, my physical descriptions of people are few and far between.  Why?

Beauty, of course, depends on the eye that beholds it.  And, more than that, there are so many kinds of beauty inside and out.  If you’re going to pick a beauty for your character, start with the inside.  The outside will take care of itself, believe me.

Well, it’s thieving Thursday and I have many choices.  However, I kinda have to go with a comment I made with regards to (a) something I never ever do in a book and (b) one of my all time biggest pet peeves in writing, which I’ll get to in a moment.

See, my friend, flitting on fiction , like so many of us, was commenting on reading Twilight , where she didn’t get the appeal.  I actually got the appeal, even though, on second read through, I got the flaws, too.  But she also noted that having someone able to read your thoughts and who came in to watch you sleep was creepy.  OK, putting it that way, it IS creepy in a Santa Claus kind of way, especially since our hero in Twilight is the one just saying “no.”  (And, no, no more spoilers).

I noted that there’s a fine line, actually, between romance and creepy and we see it all the time.  If he’s hopelessly in love with you and follows you on dates, dreaming about you from afar, it’s pretty easy to call it “creepy”.  If he follows you around to make sure you’re alright but also because he’s jealous of other guys even though he is your guy, that can be creepy or romantic depending on who’s doing the judging.  We can’t flirt with other fellows to get our guys jealous and not think it’s at least a little romantic.  And, let’s face it, that’s pretty common.

Jealousy, in small amounts, is sweet and romantic.  Big doses and it become creepy/dangerous/onerous.  Unfortunately, that distinction is often lost in books and other media, where things are portrayed black and white and where what is good and what is bad is more a matter of who’s doing it rather than what they’re doing.  Which brings me back to my pet peeve.

Rape.

See, I have two rules in writing.  One is, every longish work has to have at least one cat.

The other is rapists are always bad guys and die by the end of the book.  Always.  Those that target children don’t die pleasantly.

Why so vehement?  Two reasons.  Rape is one of those crimes that, in my opinion, never has an excuse.  I’m not talking about two sweaty teenagers where one (or both) is technically underage; in fact, it’s frustration to me that so many things get dumped into the same “term” - it cheapens it.  I’m talking situations where someone uses a woman’s (or a child or another man’s) body against her/his will.  I’m a relatively non-violent person (which, given I’ve written a book in the sword and sorcery genre, may be surprising), but I believe there is such a thing as justifiable homicide and justification for certain types of violence.  I just can’t think of a justifiable reason for rape.

As a woman with an ultra-feminist father, I haven’t faced it personally, but my father gave me just about every bit of rape literature he could find.  In his opinion, rape was the worst of the worst and he wanted me to be able to protect myself, which may be why I haven’t faced it personally.  But, if I have a well-ingrained prejudice, it’s against rapists.

The other reason?  I’m am appalled, disgusted, nauseated and dismayed at the tendency of women who write fiction for women to glorify and excuse away rape as romantic.  What kind of message do we send to impressionable young minds when we tell them that someone who can’t help himself and forces himself on you is a romantic hero, perfect to spend the rest of your life with?  And we wonder why date rape is so prevalent especially among our youth.

You want to be romantic, build a character who respects women, who is looking for a partner, someone who can challenge his mind not just inflame his body.  Inflaming one’s body is fine, too, but you can’t build a healthy romance on sex alone.  Protecting a woman from his overt desires, isn’t that really more romantic than overpowering her reservations through force?  So, sure, I could see Edward as creepy, but he never hurts her.  And that’s a pretty powerful message to send to girls who could use it.

And, yeah, I’m not objective

Also, if you haven’t read flit’s short story, Leaving , you should.  Seriously.

And vote.  There’s hardly any action going this week.  Don’t make me sick that baby on you!

One thing about that characteristic=character tendency that I discussed yesterday is that it can be utilized for good effect in fiction.  Which I’ll get to in a moment.

However, one thing that can be very effective is playing with the perceptions of one character with regards to another.  In books, you have characters doing what I’m telling people here not to do, judge people by a single characteristic, by what they are rather than who they are.  If you allow the reader to use their own judgment, you can provide a contrast between who the character is and who the other character(s) perceive him or her to be.  Aside from being useful in character development, it also can add to character interaction and plot development.  It also can be pivotal to another of Stephanie’s rules of great characters.  (The last rule , if you missed it, is that people who are nice to some people while treating others poorly are not nice people).

A great character isn’t static.  They must grow.

And that’s how I see it.

So, yesterday, I talked about expecting way more from celebrities than we ever had a right to as well as judging them on actions and characteristics that have nothing to do with whatever made them famous.  You might have wondered what that had to do with science or science fiction or writing or whatever.

Well, I’m getting to that.  See, the other side of that coin and tendency has a great deal to do with how people judge a person and why that’s different from how they judge a character.  See, in real life, people can be and often are as shallow in judging face to face people as they are in determining the actual worth of a celebrity.

Want the love of your life? Look for a cute butt.  Want someone to be a true friend?  Pick a popular kid.  Want to find an honest car salesman?  Pick the one that tells you what you want to hear.  WTF???  When it comes to thinking things through on what’s really important in another person, sometimes we are clueless.

Sadly, some people take that limited ability to judge the character of people with them as they read books or watch movies.  Handsome face, perky breasts: perfect mate!  They confuse rich with worthy, cultured with classy, show with substance.  They confuse poor with abused and pretty with innocent.  They confuse religious with virtuous and crusty with misunderstood.

But, as a writer, you don’t have to (or a discerning reader/watcher), you don’t have to.  Demand more!  For a start, there are some dos and don’ts this little character writer/reader follows.  That doesn’t mean that your list will be the same, but it’s mine.  And, since I’m like that, I’m going to be touching on this for the next few blogs, skipping my normal weekend specialties (probably).  To me, character is important and good characters are priceless.  And here’s the first one, courtesy of Dave Barry.

“A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person” - Dave Barry

That’s right.  People who treat some people well and others like dirt aren’t nice people.  They can be effective characters, but their roles as protagonists should be limited.  They aren’t nice people.  If you want to make one of these not nice people a protagonist, you should, in my opinion, either make ‘em grow up to realize the errors of their ways or you should rethink it.  Now, you can be a protagonist treating all people poorly (albeit, a difficult one) or treating all people well - or perhaps “fairly” is a better term.  But, if you choose to treat some people with respect and others without, there’s no really good way for you to be the good guy.  In my opinion.

Does that mean your protagonist can’t kick butt?  No defending oneself from bodily harm or rescuing others from misuse isn’t “treating someone like dirt” - that’s more like justice.  But it’s also a reaction to what someone has done, what they have shown themselves to be.  That’s entirely different than treating a woman like a possession or a servant like a piece of furniture.  That’s entirely different from treating a minority like a criminal or a someone poor like a leper.  Or even treating someone fat as a loser or someone ugly as a fool.  When we treat people based on a label instead of as a person, we are doing a bad thing.

It’s OK to learn better over time.  Not so much to let it be.  And that’s how I see it.

By all means, feel free to disagree.  Don’t worry, more of my opinions on character development will be coming.

So, guess what?  I did it.  I finished writing my second novel last night.  Actually, saying I “finished writing” my second novel is undoubtedly inaccurate.  I’m sure I’ll be polishing and rewriting on it plenty.  I know of some tweaks I already need to make to the last six chapters (forgot to include something) but it’s the kind of tweak I can do in an evening, I think.

The big deal is that the story is in place.  The characters all did what I wanted where I wanted it and I’ve left it in a place where the book is a finished stand alone piece but where it isn’t hard to picture something else happening to the characters I’ve taken the trouble to create.  In another book.

And I did it.

Lee helped too, but I’m the one that puts it all together and edits it.  Mostly I read it out loud to him and he tells me why something won’t work or what stinks.  Which is useful, but I do the actual crafting.  I’m very pleased with this.  I like my main characters, like how they’re portrayed.  I’ve got some fantasy elements, some science fiction elements and some sociological elements.  Of course, having just birthed the thing, I’m not even slightly objective about it.  So, I need to let it sit for at least a couple of weeks - though a month would be better.  And I should let a few select people read it, the kind of people who would tell me when something smells to high heaven or let me know what made them laugh.  I should listen, weigh their advice and do another rework using it and, THEN, read it out loud again to Lee.

But rework takes me days, even for a big rewrite.  Writing it, taking the notion and making it come to life, that’s the challenge and this one I was driven to write.  It’s even the length I want (a least at the moment).

Want to know something freaky?  I have man-sized insects in my book and part of my book pivots around fooling them into thinking someone who isn’t the Queen, you know, is.  I’m not even a biologist or an entomologist, but I thought the idea was worth pursuing.  Then, having just finished the book, I read this news story about what?  That’s right, butterfly pupae that fool ants into taking care of them like they were ant larvae.  Not just that, taking care of them like they were Queen larvae to the point where they’ll sacrifice the regular ant larvae to preserve the butterfly larvae.  What’s more, they did an experiment where they put the butterfly pupae, worker ants and four Queen ants in a chamber (which is not how it is in a regular hive).  The Queens attacked the pupae, but the worker ants defended the pupae and even went so far as to attack their own queens.  Hey, are you shrugging?  Well, that’s because you haven’t read my book because, if you’d read my book, you’d think that was a freaking incredible coincidence.  Just sayin’.

And, in keeping with my notion of promoting Black History Month, I’m bringing you word of one of the few African American novelists in the field of science fiction: Octavia E Butler (which is, by the way, a cool name).  Born in 1947, she was a shy, introspective daydreamer who happened to be dyslexic, but she was also fond of science fiction and speculative fiction like the magazines Amazing, Fantasy and Science Fiction, and Galaxy.  When she was twelve, she saw a bad science fiction movie called Devil Girl from Mars and though, ‘Heck, I can do better than that.’  Now that’s an author after my own heart because I’ve done the same damn thing.

She’s written many short stories and several series of novels (common the fantasy and science fiction) including Lilith’s Brood, the Parable Series and the Patternist series. Kindred, a novel with time travel back to the world of slavery, is the most popular of all her books to date.

Ms. Butler has won both the Hugo (twice) and Nebula (twice) awards and is the first science fiction author to receive the MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Grant in 1995.  Unfortunately, Ms. Butler died in 2006 at the age of 58.  Check out Wikipedia for more information about this remarkable novelist.

Author’s update and note:  My bad!  I completely forgot this was Thieving Thursday and I should have had something on one of my own comments.  Apparently, finishing a novel trumps regular features so you’ll have to wait until next week.  Also, get a load of the poll shenanigans.  It looks like there’s a poll cheating battle going on.  Who will win?  Really, it’s anyone’s guess!

Update #2:  Actually, that butterfly looks mighty mothlike.  I bet this actually does qualify given the plethora of butterfly/moth comments I made on JD’s I Do Things blog .  Whew!

So, it’s thieving Thursday again and thank heavens for the Secret of Newton who gave me many opportunities to make stealable comments.  In the end, though, I had to go with one of those unusual quirks that people don’t talk about that often.  Animal magnetism.

Not that that’s science, just speculation.

Remember last week when I mentioned that, as a general rule, I had to be inspired to write , unlike many, that sitting down and forcing myself to write pages when I was dry was a big mistake?  Well (as I mentioned), there is a little exception to that and I call them bridge chapters.  See, my egotistical (megalomaniacal, actually) subconscious does all the clever stuff writing.  Often, early in the book, I have several clever and pivotal chapters either already written (though they’ll have to be adapted as the book progresses and are sometimes changed radically) or in my head.  Not an outline, just a general idea of pitstops I want to make along the way (along with an occasional ending).

(Don’t forget, vote well and vote often.  We’re neck and neck at the moment!)

I haven’t talked much about writing recently, largely because I’ve been doing a good bit of it, revising, actually, which is essential but nowhere near as fun as writing.  Meanwhile, like any other bibliophile, I’ve read a few books and it got me thinking about characterization.

I’ve said before (and I meant it) that characters are what draws me to a book and makes it rereadable.  The genre, setting, style and even plot play complete second fiddle to this ability to make characters come to life.  I also mentioned, using my beloved WALL-E as an example, that what brings an animated character to life on screen are the little mannerisms, the bits of easily overlooked humanity that breathe life into something lifeless.

This is no less true on paper.  And I thought I’d give you some examples.  I’m not going to even set these up because I think there’s a wealth of information available about these characters just from a few lines set deeply into a book.  See if you agree with me. 

The first is from a favorite of mine by Georgette Heyer, called These Old Shades.  I’m a huge Heyer fan and have collected many of her wonderful romances in hardback.  The fact that she died in 1974 and they are still reprinting her lighthearted sex-free romances (in hardback) should tell you something of their staying power and could even argue for their intelligence.  It didn’t hurt that they were also largely humorous.  I would also like to mention also my disgust with the covers on many of these historical works.  There were five covers to choose from on amazon.com and this was the only one that remotely seemed connected to the story.  Not one other one was of the right time period (two set in Regency times, one colonial and one - what?  Georgette Heyer was meticulous in her setting of the time) or reflected a scene (or character) from the book.

    “Nothing at all alarming, I assure you.  Dry your tears.”
Léon hunted through his various pockets.
“I–I have lost my handkerchief,” he apologized.
“Yes, you are very young, are you not?” commented his Grace.  “I suppose I must give you mine.”
Léon took the fine lace handkerchief which the Duke held out, wiped his eyes, blew his nose, and gave it back again.  The Duke received it gingerly, and eyed the crumpled ball through his quizzing glass.
“Thank you,” he said.  “You are nothing if not thorough.  I think you had better keep it now.”
Léon pocketed it cheerfully.
“Yes, Monseigneur,” he said.  “Now I am happy again.”

Would it surprise you to know that Léon, here the Grace’s page, was really a girl pretending to be a boy (once a common element of these types of romances but no longer in favor)?  And that she’s a love interest much younger than the Duke?  And mercurial of temper?  We have also learned about his Grace’s dry humor and imperious manner as well as his soft spot for a certain page…

Then there is Plan B by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, this excerpt is not only from the middle of the book, but a book fourth (or sixth) in a series of 5-9 (depending on your point of view).  I cannot recommend the Liaden series too highly.

    As he came even with the situation board, jin’Bardi abruptly spun.  “I want my knife back.”
Nelirikk stopped.  “If the captain pleases,” he coached, “may I have my weapon.”
Miri stopped, feeling the weight of the thing in her hand, and something tickling on the edge of her mind.  The balance was good…
“You want this?” she snapped.
“Yes,” jin’Bardi snapped back and that quick the knife reversed itself and she threw.
The knife tumbled in the air, traveling fast, much too fast for jin’Bardi to have time to move.  The blade passed so close to his cheek it seemed to glide over the skin, then buried itself deep in the situation board, a lock of his hair pinned tight.
“Say ‘thank you, Captain,’” Nelirikk directed into the absolute stillness that followed the knife’s thunk, “‘for returning my weapon.’”
jin’Bardi licked his lips.  “Thank you, Captain,” he said faintly, “for returning my weapon.”

Nelirikk is the bone of contention, untrusted because he’s a recruit from “the enemy,” yet in a very short scene we have not only added immeasurably to Captain Miri’s kick-ass factor, we have justified her defense of Nelirikk, contrasted the lack of discipline between Nelirikk and jin’Bardi and, quite possibly, laughed in the bargain.  It should surprise no one that humor is a fine way to make a character seem real.

And now, from my latest nearly completed novel, Beast Within:

        She stood, moving something around in her cheek, and came forward, embracing his muzzle against her full breast.  Tears slipped down her brown cheek and stained small spots on her borrowed shirt.  “You would give up your family for me?”
I would give up my family for doing what is right.  My fondness for you is just a bonus.  Almost, Xander laughed.
She smiled, tears glistening, before she stepped back, spitting a green-black paste onto her fingertips.  “Here, taste this.”
Xander stared at the paste for maybe 30 seconds, than back into her face.  You’re not serious.
“Trust me.”

I know I’m dabbling here, in the company of masters, but it was important to me that the reaction seem natural, that the trust, however deep, not make someone into something they’re not.  Xander, though mature, is a teenage boy (who can transform into a dragon).  I wanted him to seem real.  Did I manage it?

Update:  I don’t know how to convince my post editor to put in indents on my paragraphs.  I welcome any insight

My sister, shakespearemom , wrote a blog today about expectations.  Largely, I think, she was pointing out that writers can’t please everyone and that, in the end, pleasing oneself is most important.  After all, who will read your stuff as many times as you will?  Actually, she was quite eloquent and I recommend anyone with even the vaguest interest to check it out.

However, as an example, she made a point that people could read books or watch movies and expect something only to be disappointed, not because what they found was bad but because it was different than they’re expectations.  Well, shameless thief that I am (and, as I’m about to explain, this is true in more ways than one), I thought that was a great idea for a blog.  Because much of my writing has stemmed from reading something, seeing a particular end coming and being disappointed.

As a writer, there is nothing I hate more than potential wasted.  Like the Elric series by Michael Moorcock in my opinion, where we have a stunning image, the albino elf-king, who needs his magic to stay alive and depends on his evil black sword.  I mean, this could have been so cool.  Instead, he betrays his own nation for no discernable reason and then roams the world destroying nations and bands of unarmed ruffians (which, by the way, takes the same number of pages and the same amount of effort - which I hated).  He is generally not close to someone, but, if he becomes so, you can bet he’ll betray him or her at some point and move on.  Oooookay.  Not my kind of guy.  True, I’ve never put an albino in any of my books (and don’t see it happening any time soon) nor do I have anything with that plot.  However, when I wrote my sword and sorcery book, easy fights are quick and painless and real battles take the appropriate number of pages.  And I don’t do anti-heroes.

When I was in high school, this disappointment was a big thing for me.  I’d watch Conan the Barbarian and then get all disappointed because he didn’t throw himself on the funeral pyre or something when she died (yeah, I thought that was romantic, then) so I’d rewrite the story (then in long epic poetry) to suit myself, of course fixing all the other things I didn’t like along the way until even I didn’t recognize it.  Why?  Well, because it wasn’t the same story, of course.  The story I expected was apparently resident in my subconscious and the other story triggered it with it’s “wrongness”.  Ditto with say Labyrinth (perhaps you’ve noticed by now the trend of less than stellar stories - I don’t have to fix the good ones, you know).  I defy you to find the story of a fairy tale age princess pining for challenge, called to answer it, doing so, being rescued by the elf-king, saved from goblins, thinking she won, then leaving the elf-king to pine away for lack of love, only to find her way back.  I mean, aside from her saying, “I don’t need you,” there was nothing the same.  Good stuff if you like long epic poetry.  No one does, of course.

I still get inspired with stuff, though the caliber has generally improved.  I still like to fix things I didn’t like or take the idea of a character to what I think is it’s natural conclusion.  And I think most writers do the same, find something they like or wanted to like and ask themselves how to capture what works but make it theirs.  But you can’t give me even the most benign thing and have it come out anything like the original.  Which, going back to my sister’s blog, means that, if you have any expectations of what you think ought to happen in my stuff, well, they’re wasted on me.

I think funny.

So, moving on from a heavy topic to one that’s a bit lighter, what do you think about the possibility of psychic power?  From polls, people tend to believe in it in the abstract, but disbelieve in the specific.  I can relate to that.  I’ve only met a handful of people I thought had any psychic power and it was quite limited.  Most, though, were in my own family, which may make me hesitant to accept it elsewhere.  I’ve seen it in my husband’s family and in a few friends.  What I’ve never seen is a psychic I considered genuine who was trying to make money at it.  All the real ones I know are “amateurs”.

I know what some of you are likely thinking (though I’m not a telepath).  She claims to be a scientist.  Well, why does being a scientist preclude believing in the possibility of psychic power?  In fact, I’m at a loss how a scientist could presume to say it’s impossible.

Now, bear in mind, scientific evidence of psychic power is practically nonexistent and/or readily debunked.  Many have tried to get some solid evidence and been unable to pull it off.  But absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.  Is it that it doesn’t exist or that it doesn’t work on command?  Is it that we don’t really have it or that it defies our attempts to measure it?

Because of the lack of evidence, of course, I can’t put “psychic abilities” into the pot of “science” nor do I intend to.  I’m perfectly comfortable believing in the possibility and feeling comfortable with my own experiences in that field.  Nor do I have a conflict between my own experiences and science.  No one has to agree with me.  I, er, know what I know.

Here’s an example.  I’m empathic.  I have a good sense of what people are feeling (even when they’re not in touch with it themselves) and it affects me. [My husband does not think I’m good at reading him.  Jury’s out in my opinion]  I can shield myself, but I rarely do and I never shield myself from my family - which, as they are very moody, is not all joy.  One of the side effects is that it’s very difficult to lie to me (at least if you didn’t want me to know you were lying).  There are, of course, people who are opaque to me that can get me into trouble (my ex comes to mind), but it’s the exception and not the rule.  One of the other side effects is that, if anyone in the family is hungry, I am starving and try to feed everyone.  This can happen to me while I’m at work.  On more than one occasion I’ve called my husband and told him, “For Heaven’s sake, eat something why don’t you!”  It also makes it almost impossible for me to let a baby cry.

Another weird talent I have (not sure if it counts as psychic) is an ability to read things and have things that aren’t right leap right off the page.  Conclusions that aren’t supported leap out at me, exaggerations, half-truths, misinformation just jump off the page and entice me to pursue even if it’s not my area of expertise.  Believe me, when one of those hit me, I become an expert and fast.  Many times, I find problems no one thought to look for.  To date, I’ve never been wrong to pursue one of those things that hit me.  Sometimes the data is there, but wasn’t included.  And sometimes, it just wasn’t there.

You don’t have to buy all that, of course.  By all means, believe or disbelieve as you will. Then again, feel free to tell me what you think and/or what your experiences are.  I’m curious how many feel the same and feel differently.

Warning: Don’t eat while reading this blog.

Have you ever noticed how books are seriously leery about describing anything remotely biological, even when biology is a key element?

It must have been great in those old Regency romances to be trapped in a cellar for hours on end and, when rescued by the tall, rich and cynical hero, the heroine emerges, free of sweat, having had no need to sully any corner of the cellar with, um, biological wastes.  At worst, she’s a bit dusty.

I’m not saying we need to focus on urination or evacuation of the bowels.  But there are times when one is trapped in a cell or lost in an enclosed space, it can become an issue.  For me, it’s more distracting wondering what the character did to address the issue than it is to just make mention of it.

Here’s another one that is rarely touched on in fiction: menstruation.  Whoops, should have warned you men.  That’s right.  Girls trapped on a desert island with randy males are either going to figure out something to help them out once a month, or they’ll be making little ones.  That’s reality.  Again, fiction doesn’t have to dwell on this, necessarily, but a mention can make the characters and the situation seem more real.

And failing to mention it can make it a distraction.  For instance, in the Twilight series I’ve mentioned in several past blogs, we have vampires, particularly one vampire, that is driven nearly mad with the smell of our heroine and a whole family that goes nuts at the scent of blood when she gets a cut.  She is nearly as sensitive herself to blood, the smell sending her into nausea and fainting during science blood-typing (though, throughout the rest of the book series, she doesn’t appear to be bothered even during serious bloodletting.  Hmm.  See what I mean about being distracting).  One thing that’s never addressed is how she manages during certain times of the month when she is making any amount of blood (of a particularly pungent variety).  I mean, if a drop of blood on one’s fingers does her in, how does she not end up in the hospital when she deals with her own biology?  And since females change odor during menstruation, how did Edward manage it.  It was an interesting and natural part of life and the opportunity was really wasted.

And, now that we’re on the subject of biological processes in fiction, why is it almost everyone has no hesitation to bring out vomiting.  I mean, if I’m going to pick a biological process I’d like to know less about, that’s about topping the list.  Yet authors, whose characters go on for years with pee or pooping will vomit frequently and in exceptional detail.

Now, am I innocent of all these transgressions?  No, but it is something I think about here and again.  I’m not going to dwell on any of this in fiction, either.  But I will make an effort not to ignore it either.

I’ve been distracted because reading/watching Twilight gave me an epiphany on my own writing and I’ve been busting a move on my own novel as well as *sigh* going back to work (a week off is like heroin to me).  But, I was pleasantly diverted today interacting with the always charming JD from the hilarious blog “I Do Things .”  Not just because it’s always pleasant to talk to JD (though it is), but because she sparked my brain again.

Since I’m getting up at 6 am, anything that sparks my brain is a good thing.  I’m not a morning person.

First, she was noting that I was one of those people who used the left side of my brain, all that science and logic and stuff, but was still creative.  JD is sweet.  I’ve always felt somewhat shortchanged in the creativity department.  My sister, who is not only brilliant intellectually, but sings, draw, paints, writes, acts in plays, plays the piano, etc, etc.  Well, believe me when I tell you, our creative gifts are not equal, so I was gratified and yet felt a little guilty at being described that way.

But then we touched on the subject of humor.  I love humor.  I love to laugh and my favorite books, bar none, are those that make me laugh out loud, time and time again. I’m in awe of those people, like JD, that delve into their own brains for humor day after day and provide it with apparent ease.

I like to think I have funny moments, too, but my humor tends to be on the sarcastic/mean side and generally expressed (in real life) as sarcasm and in fiction as characters I find funny.  Here’s an example of my fiction humor:

               Things may turn out for the best.
Tander snorted disgustedly.  “The whole things smells very much like unicorn dung and I don’t like it.  I’m here, on the heights of obviously impassable mountains in the depths of a skin-scouring blizzard, saddled with cats that I never asked for, searching for a woman who could be violated and/or dead at any moment, who didn’t even have enough respect for me to tell me what was wrong with her.  I’m crawling along a ledge little more than a foot’s width wide wearing so many layers of cloth that I could probably withstand the fall if I slipped—though it is certainly not helping my agility.  I have a temperamental, and dangerous, woman in front of me and a friendly, and therefore similarly dangerous, unicorn behind me.  There are any number of deadly people in the entourage who will kill me for entertainment if I’m leading them the wrong way, including a friendly assassin who thinks I should be skewered for considering using magic to help him.   Tell me some good news.”
Serenity made an effort.  You are a powerful sorcerer.
“Things have got to get better soon,” grumbled Tander.

But I have to sort of channel funny people.  And I give full points to those who can be funny without a meanness to the humor, like JD.  Check out JD’s blog and find out why I check it every day.

Now, I’m going back to writing.  Feel free to be amused among yourselves.

I’ve been given a lot of food for thought with the books I’ve just read, some very pertinent to my own writing.  Not to change my characters or the story itself, but in how to present them more effectively.

Since I know my own characters, I suspect it might be one of my failings that my introductions sometimes leave something to be desired.

And, of course, I still am missing a title.

But I also noted something and it reminded me of something I don’t want to do, one of those no-nos peculiar to science fiction and fantasy.  Let’s face, a book with shapeshifters (like mine) or vampires is going to have some scientific holes.  It might have sound science in other portions, but there will be some things that are likely, um, don’t make sense from science as we know it.

So, to all those aspiring speculative writers out there, if you’re dealing with something that doesn’t make sense from a science standpoint, don’t take the trouble to fake pseudo-scientific nonsense in the middle of the book.  It serves no purpose.  It’s tempting, I know.  I actually struggled a bit to explain how my shapeshifters’ mass changes radically.  It doesn’t work.  So, I’m going to not explain it, perhaps pointedly.  And explain in detail the many real scientific details that surround that wee little anomaly.

But, at least for me, nothing wrenches me out of a story like scientific nonsense especially if it’s not necessary.  For instance, in Breaking Dawn, the last of the Twilight series, the doctor vampire notes that vampires have 25 pairs of chromosomes and the werewolves have 24, as opposed to the 23 pairs of a normal human.  OK, tell me how being infected with vampire venom (the way vampires are made) causes you to grow 4 new chromosomes?  Mutate existing chromosomes, sure, but grow new ones?  Ditto for the spirit connection - people combine with wolves (dogs have 78 chromosomes) and we end up with one other chromosome pair, according to the good doctor.  Somehow, combining these shapeshifters with regular people (who only have 23 pairs) produces more with 24 pairs (instead of the reality: 23 pairs and unmatched chromosome or, more likely, a nonviable offspring).  Or that one with 23 pairs combining with one with 25 pairs results in a child with 24 pairs.

Um, no.  And it’s embarrassingly silly to say so.  If you have two unattached chromosomes from unmatched pairs, it doesn’t make an extra pair and it undermines a medical practitioner to say so with a straight face.  Describing these as mutated genes would have been much more believable and saved someone with a modicum of knowledge, readily gleaned from high school biology, from being wrenched from the story.

Now, science isn’t the only way to do so.  When one reads a historical novel or even a novel that touches on historical facts, reading where the author has thrown in something gratuitously (as is often done) that happens to be wrong can wrench a knowledgeable reader from the story, which is why I can’t read Tom Clancy.

Did I mention that my shapeshifters can’t breed among themselves?  They have a dominant gene that, like a manx cat, will kill the fetus if there are two of those genes.  But it doesn’t help my mass anomaly.

For those of us that grew up on Star Trek, combining sex and science fiction is par for the course.  Sick, you say? (Well, maybe not my friends).  Um, no, it’s natural.  Several reasons come to mind.

First of all, sex is a natural thing, especially for passionate characters.  And why wouldn’t one want passionate characters?  I don’t mean erotica, though I don’t discount it either.  I mean people (of any race/species/even artificial individuals) that care about what they’re doing and how they’re growing are passionate.  All that emotion is a fertile environment (if you’ll excuse the pun) for sex.

Secondly, sexual relations are an excellent barometer for general attitudes.  Just as the way people regard interracial marriage is a good barometer for racism, how people regard different, nontraditional, or interspecies sexual relations can say a great deal about how people really regard people who are different.  Since many speculative fiction stories highlight issues in today’s culture, this is a great way to bring it to light.

But part of it is just regular people’s natural curiosity, from wondering (and you know they wonder now) about sex in zero g, to speculating about aliens and sex.  It’s only a little stretch to wonder how far different two humanoids would have to be to still have enjoyable sex or how different they would have to be before being truly weirded out.  Or what kind of sexual rituals and notions one could really explore.

Let’s face it, imagination-wise, we’ve come along way since Kirk made it with a green chick.

(This topic brought to you from the mind of my husband who coughed it up when I requested a topic.  Quel surprise.)

And now, on a different note, I want to talk about something completely different: WALL-E.

Yes, I saw it in the theatres, but I loved it.  Loved it. So, Lee got it for me for my birthday.

Oh, not for the science.  Let’s face it, the level of garbage and filth on the planet surface was excessive.  And the notion that a luxury liner could go off and survive with sufficient supplies for centuries when it was only supposed to be less than ten years, is completely unreasonable.

It doesn’t matter.  There are only a few movie companies that can make robots absolutely endearing.  Pixar is clearly one of them.  WALL-E is so endearing, so charming, so absolutely convincing as an individual (much more so than most of the “people”), I’d follow him anywhere he led.  The expressions and body language were completely believable and readable.  The sound engineers did a masterful job bringing WALL-E to empathetic life.  Heck, they made a cockroach completely loveable.

So, what does this have to do with science?  Well, computer generated movies are big science, big technology.  But to do this, to bring WALL-E and EVE and all the rest to vibrant life, they needed something else: an exceptional understanding of how people act, sound, react, think, even dream, all to convey on screen so that the viewer falls a little bit in love with WALL-E.

That ability, to take something clearly not human, something completely new and foreign, and make it something familiar, endearing, approachable.  Well, there’s a goal for any writer of speculative fiction.  The bar’s pretty high, but I know what I’m shooting for now.

So, a world-conquering scientist is somewhat unprecedented and they seem ill-suited to do so later.  Mindless violence doesn’t make a great deal of sense, but could a “mad scientist” do terrible things and, if so, under what circumstances?

The answer is, of course, yes, a scientist can do terrible things.  They are not superhuman or without flaw.  They are generally prone to the same failings as the rest of the world and have had more than their fair share of a few of them.  Dr. .Mengele is a case in point, a “researcher” using his science as an excuse to fulfill psychopathic tendencies.  I hesitate to call him a researcher turned madman but suspect, rather that he was a madman who happened to be a scientist in an environment where he was encouraged to indulge his most depraved tastes.  But, however I slice it, he was a villain and a scientist.

What else?

Well, scientists could be and have been coerced or bribed to do contribute to terrible technology.  Coercion could be direct and overwhelming compulsion - like direct threats of harm to self or family - or it could be just a tenuous threat where the scientist believes that he would put himself at risk if he refused to cooperate.  Bribery can, of course, be monetary, but it can also be a dream or research held out as an incentive to get a scientist to do something else.  An example of this sort of thing (probably aspects of both bribery and coercion) is von Braun, a man dedicated to the notion of space travel (which he helped to bring to fruition in the US), but also responsible for devastating rocket weaponry in support of Nazi Germany.

Or a scientist could work toward a dream or a cause he or she really believed in, and, in doing so, contribute to something horrible.  For example: the Manhattan Project.  Whether nuclear weapons were justified in World War II or not, most, if not all, of those that developed them believed that the development was necessary if only to ensure the US had the weapon before Germany and/or Japan.  Interestingly enough, those same scientists were among the most vocal in their disapproval of the use of nuclear weapons.  Even today, scientists may have the highest percentage of anti-nuclear weapon folks outside of Japan, but that’s a genie that we’ve never managed to put back in its bottle.

It is not impossible, of course, that a scientist would become enamored with a cause (the cause could even be a good one) and do something heinous.  Additionally, a scientist could create something that could be readily misused in a terrible way.  It’s happened.  Although scientists are generally taught to think critically, many are experts in one field and - forgive me - idiots in other fields, but not necessarily cognizant of that deficiency.  Many scientists are prone to egoism and that could readily be manipulated.  Many are gullible at least outside their area of expertise.  Let’s face it, they have weaknesses

But, in none of these situations do we find a stand-alone scientist destroying the world.  A psychopath can cause damage, but he’s unlikely to have the kind of influence to do horrible things outside a small sphere of influence.  Or science and scientists can be used by someone unscrupulous or even someone principled to do horrible things.  But the scientist is unlikely to be calling the shots or be directly responsible for the result of his labors.

Science is a field with built in ethics, where scientists deliberately criticize each other in order to ensure what we say makes sense and fits the data, that it’s good.  Science is a field where critical thinking goes hand in hand with success, which all but negates many thoughtless kinds of violence or mayhem.  It promotes education, the antithesis of those that like to control people.  We know we’re fallible, hence our own checks and balances and, generally, no one scientist does it all alone, limiting the influence of a bad apple.  We’re arrogant and sometimes slow to adapt to change.  We are intransigent when we feel we’re right.  But then, we have the data.

Most of us aren’t in it for the money (haha! like someone goes into science for glory or money - or, if they do - that they were thinking clearly).  Most of us want to make the world better with what we do.  We’re not omniscient and we’re not without flaw, but we try, as a whole, to contribute with a minimal profit motive.

That mad scientist out to destroy the world, well, I don’t see it.

And that means, however prevalent you might find him (or her) in comics books and other speculative fiction, you are quite unlikely to find it in any of mine.  If I were you, I’d avoid it, too.  I’d also remember that we’re not out to scare you, in our white coats; we’re just doing the best we can.

So, if history doesn’t provide an example of the quintessential, nay almost cliché, “mad scientist,” why is this such a prevalent character?  Well, just because it hasn’t happened in the past, who’s to say it couldn’t?

I won’t say it *couldn’t*, but I won’t say it’s likely.  Here’s why.

The number one reason people want to rule the world is to control people and, through them, resources, power, wealth.  The most effective way of controlling people is to (a) limit their education, (b) limit/control the information that reaches them and, if possible, (c) manipulate emotions (which can be helped by (a) and (b)).  You can control people with force, but force requires a large number of people using, well, force.  How do you get these henchmen?  Money or you control them through methods a-c.

The problem with methods a-c is that they are the antithesis of what a scientist is.  Scientists, real scientists, want an educated public, one that understands what the mean when they say something.  People who are clueless about science, rather than embracing scientific conclusions, are suspicious and eager to discount those things they can’t understand.  In other words, an ignorant public would work against a scientist as well as being against everything he stands for.

But what about the money aspect a la Lex Luthor, for example?  There are scientists/engineers that got rich creating something useful or helpful, or designing software or videogames.  But, while there are handful of these, it is much more likely for technical expertise to be hired by more business oriented folks where the technical expertise gets perks and the business folks get ridiculously rich.  Most of those programmers and the like that did get rich, sold off their assets for a bundle and then tried to figure out ways to spend their money.  Methods tried generally tend toward foolish waste and/or philanthropy, as opposed to trying to leverage more money or they reinvest that money into something they believe in, like green technologies or space.  Bill Gates can program, but he is more a businessman than a software person, and, in either case, a scientist he is not.  Actually, if you want to get rich, engineering/software is the way to go.  Scientists that have made money hand over fist are all but unheard of unless they made their money in something besides, uh, science.

So, if a scientist is not going to control the world, what if he just wants to destroy it?  Well, that’s not impossible.  But really, when has anyone really tried to destroy the world just ‘cause?  When terrible things have been done, it has either been done with the idea of furthering an agenda (no matter how insane that agenda might be) or it has been thoughtlessly destructive like Timothy McVeigh.  I can’t think of a motive for a scientist to be thoughtlessly destructive.

But the other…perhaps that’s more food for thought.  And I’ll be thinking about it for part 3.