tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74150053895298669492024-02-22T11:37:36.559-06:00Sancta Futura has moved<big>Find me now at SanctaFutura.com</big>Lisa Nicholas, Ph. D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17350994312307258539noreply@blogger.comBlogger24125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7415005389529866949.post-43306662259447509492916-10-07T10:22:00.000-05:002016-10-07T10:23:43.189-05:00Sancta Futura has moved<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
This blog has been moved to a shiny new self-hosted site:<span style="background-color: white;"><b> <a href="http://sanctafutura.com/">Please follow me there.</a></b></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-0s7NQ6YRRwrtoIHO1P2_XJxd0yk2sivmCp0Go5Rn67JD97bxgKM1ZhoK8dB33lffsOOgJDa0MchEvdk4zCwnnLaIPNXndmIyDZcKz4_uKbt3CjcZGMKoQIYPPcZ1OOlksO0a30ixPiI/s1600/reptile_by_kwayne64-d35paci1%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-0s7NQ6YRRwrtoIHO1P2_XJxd0yk2sivmCp0Go5Rn67JD97bxgKM1ZhoK8dB33lffsOOgJDa0MchEvdk4zCwnnLaIPNXndmIyDZcKz4_uKbt3CjcZGMKoQIYPPcZ1OOlksO0a30ixPiI/s1600/reptile_by_kwayne64-d35paci1%255B1%255D.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sorry, no intelligent reptilian species will be allowed in my imaginary universe. <br />
(Reptile by kwayne64 on deviantart.com)</td></tr>
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The original content (everything you find here) has migrated to the new site, and new material is being added. (I'm leaving this site here simply so that followers can still find it and old links will still work.) And I'm adding lots of new material -- all the secrets of <a href="http://sanctafutura.com/building-the-sancta-futura-universe/">what goes into imagining a future world such as my Sancta Futura universe</a>, as well as discussions of the works by other writers, and anything else that occurs to me in the realm of speculative fiction.</div>
Lisa Nicholas, Ph. D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17350994312307258539noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7415005389529866949.post-14344296581593587872014-06-17T14:37:00.000-05:002014-11-07T10:28:57.015-06:00Cast Into the Deep Sea of Stars, my work-in-progress<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPZTRNRN5aLlGrvQBruVb84iP3iewlVFwbRJ98q_nnzRaxYWvA6uSbdcCHaK9AxG4m1UwGdWE2sG3kUr4wggWeTYGNZHzu7hoWaXsS2GOXgaLwEueAl7YZ5TQ37LfNYxU20J94QbeQDO4/s1600/BETA+Vortex+cover+blue+and+green+SMALL.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="© 2014 Lisa A. Nicholas" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPZTRNRN5aLlGrvQBruVb84iP3iewlVFwbRJ98q_nnzRaxYWvA6uSbdcCHaK9AxG4m1UwGdWE2sG3kUr4wggWeTYGNZHzu7hoWaXsS2GOXgaLwEueAl7YZ5TQ37LfNYxU20J94QbeQDO4/s1600/BETA+Vortex+cover+blue+and+green+SMALL.png" height="320" title="BETA draft cover Cast Into the Deep" width="212" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A DIY cover mock-up <br />I created for my beta readers</td></tr>
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I've taken a long holiday from blogging while I labored over draft 3 of my science fiction novel, <b><i>Cast into the Deep Sea of Stars</i></b>, which I'll be publishing under the pen name Kit Pascoe. I've sent the draft out to beta readers, played around with cover concepts (the accompanying illustration is my own, which will NOT be the cover of the published work). And I've been reading other writers' work for inspiration, so I'll have some things to discuss with you as soon as I get a chance. (I'm working on the second half of my review of the <a href="http://scificatholic.blogspot.com/2013/10/kindle-sample-review-of-john-scalzis.html" target="_blank">Kindle sample for John Scalzi's <i>Old Man's War</i></a>.)</div>
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Today I thought I would show you my first serious attempt to come up with a back cover blurb for the book. For guidance, I used <a href="http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2013/4-easy-steps-to-an-irresistable-book-blurb/" target="_blank">"4 Easy Steps To An Irresistible Book Blurb,"</a> which I found over on the <a href="http://www.digitalbookworld.com/" target="_blank">Digital Book World</a> site. It's the best, most straightforward advice on blurbing that I have found. This article suggests the four-part format: Situation, Problem, Hopeful Possibility, and Mood.</div>
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When you look at my blurb, you'll see that I haven't yet come up with the fourth part, which describes the "mood" of the story. I'll have to give "mood" some more thought before I decide what (if anything) to say about that. I think the blurb works pretty well without it, but I would love to get your thoughts, so please leave comments.</div>
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Here's draft 1, both a single-sentence blurb, and a back cover blurb. Would either of these make you want to take a look at the book? Tell me why or why not.</div>
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One sentence teaser</span></h4>
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When her first job on a planetary survey vessel goes belly up, Kate Malone finds her life and love threatened as she is swept into a vortex of events beyond her ken or control.</blockquote>
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<span style="color: cyan;"> Back cover blurb</span></h4>
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Kate Malone is beginning to wonder if she made a mistake in leaving her home on Old Earth to join a three-year planetary survey mission on the other side of the galaxy. Her boss, the senior biologist on the team, seems to delight in tormenting her, and her fellow junior officers love to sneer at “the little princess from the museum planet.” The only good thing that has happened to her since she joined the <i>R J Boscovich </i>was meeting Perry Auslander, a fellow misfit who quickly becomes her constant companion and adoring admirer.<br />
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But just when she thinks her budding relationship with Perry might make the whole experience worthwhile, their growing bond is put to a severe test when the mission is cancelled, and personal tragedy throws her life into turmoil. Abandoned on a remote space station, cut off from everything and everyone she has ever known or loved, pursued by mysterious, malevolent strangers, Kate must grapple with a harsh truth: she can never go home again. <br />
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Rocked by stunning revelations about her loved ones and her own life, Kate must cast herself into the deep sea of her troubles and trust providence to steer her toward allies who can help her regain control of her life and chart a course for the future. Only in this way can she weather the storms of circumstance and destiny that threaten to overwhelm her. </blockquote>
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What do you think? What tweaks would make you want to pick up this book and start reading? Let me know in the comment box! </div>
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Lisa Nicholas, Ph. D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17350994312307258539noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7415005389529866949.post-59257312773778828322013-10-08T10:11:00.000-05:002013-10-08T10:11:24.074-05:00Kindle Sample Review of John Scalzi's Old Man's War: Form & Function<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2vKPvvbgK2bzGwQBZnWBBMLT5OqxN_MWkTO6lqXVlF9E45JNIiTBIhtB-jKNyZ7lgPBvT8UAsqDCcjarcQymRPtKyhZB2iydnz8EtsKDDk_G92-XYrW6QpYqYtFX9auBGS7b39xKd2ls/s1600/Scalzi+Old+Man+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="cover: Old Man's War by John Scalzi" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2vKPvvbgK2bzGwQBZnWBBMLT5OqxN_MWkTO6lqXVlF9E45JNIiTBIhtB-jKNyZ7lgPBvT8UAsqDCcjarcQymRPtKyhZB2iydnz8EtsKDDk_G92-XYrW6QpYqYtFX9auBGS7b39xKd2ls/s320/Scalzi+Old+Man+cover.jpg" title="" width="198" /></a></div>
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Today I’m going to review the free Kindle sample of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0765315246/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0765315246&linkCode=as2&tag=letsle04-20">John Scalzi's <i>Old Man's War</i></a><img alt="" border="0" class="gslsjubtldahauudgcos gytyxngxurcagnhejzkw" height="1" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=letsle04-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0765315246" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /><i>
</i>. Why review just the sample, rather than the whole book? <a href="http://scificatholic.blogspot.com/2013/10/new-feature-kindle-sample-reviews.html" target="_blank">Read my previous post for a full explanation</a>, but the short answer is “so many books, so little time & money.” First I’ll cover the formal aspects of the sample, then the story I’m sampling. I’ll actually do this in two separate posts, because I’m going to carry on at length about formal considerations in this inaugural sample review. Also, because I have a real beef with the form of the sample, while its content is an entirely different matter. (In future, I’ll have less to say about form than content.)</div>
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I am no great fan of the Modernist school of architecture which decreed that <i><b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">“form follows function,”</span></b></i> but I will agree that this principle should apply to Kimble e-book samples. And let’s be clear: the function of the sample is <i><b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">to convince the reader to read the whole book</span></b></i>. Therefore, every thing included in the sample should somehow contribute to that end.</div>
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The first thing included in a Kindle sample (although, oddly, not the first thing you see when you open the sample) is the book’s cover, followed by the title page and “front matter.” In fact, however, the sample usually opens at some point after the front matter, so frequently readers never look at the cover in their sample – they’ve probably already seen it on Amazon’s web site. <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i><b>An attractive cover often is the first thing that draws a reader to a book. </b></i></span>But in a Kindle sample, readers may never see the cover unless they are viewing their library on a Kindle Fire, which (I believe – correct me if I’m wrong) displays color thumbnails of the book cover in the library view. I’ve got an old-fashioned Kindle keyboard, so I never see the cover unless I deliberately select “Go To| Cover” from the device’s menu.</div>
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Of course, I did that for this review and, when I did, I got a surprise: the cover shown on the Amazon site does not appear in this sample. Instead, I get what is essentially a title page with a grey border around it – just the title, author’s name, and publisher logo. But it’s not the title page, it’s the “cover” page. If I go to the next page of the sample, I get a page containing only the words “Old Man’s War.” But that’s not the title page either, because if I go to the next page I find the title, author’s name, and another version of the publisher’s logo. So, <i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><b>basically, there are three title pages in a row</b></span></i>, rather than a cover & title page. This may be a holdover from print publishing – I’m guess the second page, with just the book’s title, is a kind of electronic “flyleaf.” But in an e-book <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><b><i>it’s just bad form</i></b></span> – there is no reason for this useless repetition, and we’ve now wasted three pages of the sample on what could have been conveyed on one. So far, I am not impressed.</div>
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Book covers</h3>
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Before I go on, let me just say a few words about book covers. The ideal <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i><b>book cover should suggest two things: the content</b></i></span> of the book (in the case of a novel, the kind of story being told) <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i><b>and the flavor </b></i></span>of the book. For works of fiction, this is a tricky consideration, and for science fiction novels that take place largely in outer space, even dicier. Far too many scifi novels, in my opinion, rely on artwork (either original artwork or digitally manipulated photographs) that depicts the depths of space (starfield) superimposed with space craft and/or a large stellar or planetary body. BORING. After you’ve seen a few, they all look alike. And, of course, for a Kindle thumbnail, it’s even harder to make the cover eye-catching or memorable. </div>
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As I’ve already noted, this Kindle sample doesn’t even bother to reproduce the cover art and, in particular this case, that’s no great loss. As you can see from the color thumbnail I’ve posted here, <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i><b>the cover of this book is pretty generic</b></i></span>: deep space punctuated by a planet, with spacecraft diving toward the planet. The only thing that stands out is the typography of the title and author. Completely lost in the thumbnail (and therefore, in my opinion, entirely extraneous) is the micro-type of the a too-long blurb of praise from Publisher’s Weekly. So I’m not exactly boohooing that the Kindle sample doesn’t bother to include this busy image (which would look rather bland in the black & white of my Kindle 3). Still, why not include it (or a simpler version of it), instead of the boring title-page-with border that stands in for the original artwork? </div>
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Front matter</h3>
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Once I have waded through all the title pages, I get to the copyright page, which also includes a notice that even though the book is provided free of DRM (Digital Rights Management) software, nonetheless you must not make copies for your friends or strangers. This information – which essentially means “Even though we’ve made it easier for you to pirate this book, it still would be illicit for you to do so” – is <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i><b>important in a published book, but not in a free sample, which no one is ever going to pirate.</b></i></span> (I'm dubious that this language actually dissuades anyone from making illegal copies, anyway.) It could have been moved to the end of the e-book so that it wouldn’t take up yet another precious page of the sample. Actually, this wouldn’t have bothered me if it weren’t for the fact that there were three friggin’ title pages! By the time I’ve gotten to the copyright page, I’m at the four percent mark in the sample.</div>
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And then I get to the dedication page – <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i><b>another page that could have been moved</b></i></span> to the end of the book. “Regan Avery, first reader extraordinaire,” as well as “Kristine and Athena” probably never would have noticed, or cared, that their mention got shoved to the end of the e-book, as I imagine (and hope) that Scalzi gave them each a personally inscribed print version. Anyway, I could have done without it. We’re now at 6% of the sample. But the book is about to begin! I can hardly wait!</div>
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But wait I must, because the next page is the table of contents. Now, as I said in my earlier post, including the table of contents in the sample can be very helpful if it somehow serves to <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i><b>give the reader a feel for the book as a whole</b></i></span> (which is, after all, the whole point of the sample). This is truest of non-fiction books, however, because most works of fiction do not provide chapter or section titles. And, alas, that is the case with this novel: we get “Part I, Chapter One, Chapter Two, etc.” Useless. Even more useless when you consider that the hyperlinks in TOCs of Kindle samples link to chapters that aren’t there – when you click on them, they just take you to the end of the sample. A short trip in this case, because we’re already at 14% of the sample and have not yet read a single word of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0765315246/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0765315246&linkCode=as2&tag=letsle04-20">John Scalzi's <i>Old Man's War</i></a><img alt="" border="0" class="gslsjubtldahauudgcos gytyxngxurcagnhejzkw" height="1" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=letsle04-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0765315246" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /><i>.<br />
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</i>I hurriedly push the “next page” button and see – a nearly blank page, containing only the unhelpful words “Part I.” (By the way, this is the page to which the sample originally opened, and the page to which the reader will be taken when selecting “Go To | Beginning” from the Kindle menu.) The good news is that on the following page <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i><b>(23% mark), we finally get to read words John Scalzi has written</b></i></span>. </div>
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Now, I assure you that in future Kindle sample reviews I will not plod this slowly through the formal considerations, but I hope you publishers and self-publishers get my point: <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i><b>e-books need to be organized differently</b></i></span> than print books, particularly when a free sample is serving as the electronic equivalent of a reader browsing a book in a bookstore (cover art, blurbs, etc.). At least <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0765315246/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0765315246&linkCode=as2&tag=letsle04-20"><i>Old Man's War</i></a><img alt="" border="0" class="gslsjubtldahauudgcos gytyxngxurcagnhejzkw" height="1" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=letsle04-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0765315246" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /><i> </i>doesn’t include the added irritation of several pages of gushing reviews and comments that, frankly, most readers don’t want to wade through even in print books.<br />
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But, all in all, <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i><b>I give the sample a C- on formal considerations</b></i></span>. The best I can say is that nothing was misspelled or misaligned. But I’m still bummed that of a 33 page sample, there are now only 25 pages left for me to taste Scalzi’s story. I’ll get to that next time.</div>
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Lisa Nicholas, Ph. D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17350994312307258539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7415005389529866949.post-62184706829280297862013-10-07T13:03:00.000-05:002013-10-07T13:03:52.667-05:00New Feature: Kindle Sample Reviews<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A self-portrait of my juggling act:<br />
writing, revising, marketing,<br />
taking little breaks for R&R.</td></tr>
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For a long time now, I’ve been contemplating a new blogging venture – which may be a bad idea, given that I have <a href="http://dfwcwg.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">several </a><a href="http://acatholicreader.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">blogs </a><a href="http://catholicreadingproject.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">I’ve been neglecting</a> lately. The irregularity with which I have posted to this blog in recent months testifies to the difficulty of trying to have my brain do too many disparate things at once. The part of my brain that is quite happy when writing a novel has to be squashed down while I’m composing blog posts, which requires more rational planning than creative writing. And then there’s <i><b>all the other stuff authors have to be able to do these days</b></i> – think about book cover design, marketing, finding a way to get paid until the next book comes out so that you can eat, keep gas in the car and the phone bill paid, etc.<br />
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So I’ve been trying to let the creative part maintain the upper hand, partly by feeding it with good fiction in written or video form. (I’ve found that watching stories is much easier, but also much less rewarding, than reading them.) The problem is that <i><b>my book budget these days is $0</b></i>, while I can find episodes of all my favorite TV series (and many others) free on the internet, so you can guess which I find more time for. And although there are plenty of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/?_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&field-keywords=free%20kindle%20books&linkCode=ur2&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Afree%20kindle%20books&tag=letsle04-20&url=search-alias%3Daps" target="_blank">books available free for Kindle</a><img alt="" border="0" class="wqsumpwgmjddsbahvfrw" height="1" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=letsle04-20&l=ur2&o=1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /> (my book-reading medium of choice), most of them are pretty bad – derivative, poorly crafted, unedited, trite, or implausible (all the things I’m hoping my current work-in-progress will avoid). Fortunately, all Kindle books have a free sample that can be downloaded (or read online), so that you can get a good taste of the book before downloading or paying for the whole magilla.<br />
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The problem with that is that Kindle authors (unless they are self-publishers) don’t have much choice about what part of their book gets included in the Kindle sample – it’s going to be <b>t<i>he first 10% of the total page count</i></b>, which includes the cover, title page, all the front matter and table of contents, as well as whatever comes after that – acknowledgements, foreword, introduction, and finally, if there is any room left, the beginning of the actual book itself. So the sample may or may not include enough of the book for prospective purchasers to get a feel for whether they want to spent time and money on the entire book.<br />
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So, for some time, I’ve contemplated writing Kindle sample reviews – <i><b>reviews based solely on the form and contents of the free sample of the e-book</b>. </i>These reviews will critique the sample essentially as a marketing tool:<br />
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<li>How well does the sample <i><b>entice the reader </b></i>to go ahead and purchase the book? </li>
<li>Is it cleanly and competently formatted, providing a <i><b>distraction-free reading experience</b></i>? </li>
<li>If the <i><b>Table of Contents </b></i>is included in the sample, does it provide chapter titles that create an outline of the book’s contents, or does it simply list Chapter 1, Chapter 2, etc.? </li>
<li>Does the sample contain <i><b>enough of the book </b></i>for the reader to get a feel for what they would be getting into, or does it contain mostly extraneous front-matter? </li>
<li>Is the <i><b>text well-written and engaging</b></i>, so that the reader is genuinely disappointed when s/he reaches the end? </li>
<li>If it’s a novel, have we met <i><b>interesting characters in an interesting situation</b></i>, so that we want to continue on their journey with them by buying and reading the rest of the story? </li>
<li>If the book is non-fiction, does the sample give us reason to believe that the whole book would provide <i><b>information, insights, and ideas</b> </i>that we can’t easily find elsewhere for free? </li>
</ul>
Recently, as part of my marketing research for <b>my futuristic work-in-progress, <i>Cast Into the Deep Sea of Stars</i></b>, I’ve downloaded a lot of Kindle samples of books listed in categories in which I might eventually place my own novel – things like <b>“<a href="http://www.amazon.com/b/?_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&linkCode=ur2&node=6809436011&pf_rd_i=668010011&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_p=1568092502&pf_rd_r=1DPRHXPP82092F858KHP&pf_rd_s=left-1&pf_rd_t=101&tag=letsle04-20" target="_blank">Science Fiction | Colonization</a><img alt="" border="0" class="wqsumpwgmjddsbahvfrw" height="1" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=letsle04-20&l=ur2&o=1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />”</b> or <b>“<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Adventure-Science-Fiction-eBooks-Kindle/b/?_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&linkCode=ur2&node=158592011&pf_rd_i=668010011&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_p=1568092502&pf_rd_r=1DPRHXPP82092F858KHP&pf_rd_s=left-1&pf_rd_t=101&tag=letsle04-20" target="_blank">Science Fiction | Adventure</a><img alt="" border="0" class="wqsumpwgmjddsbahvfrw" height="1" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=letsle04-20&l=ur2&o=1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />.”</b> In other words, books with which I may eventually be competing for readers’ attention. As I read the samples, I’ll review them here, which will help me think about what these competing novels have to offer, and also help my readers (and myself) find books either to avoid or to add to our “must read” lists.<br />
<br />
Tomorrow, I’ll post the first of these: Kindle sample review of John Scalzi’s <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000SEIK2S/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B000SEIK2S&linkCode=as2&tag=letsle04-20">Old Man's War</a><img alt="" border="0" class="wqsumpwgmjddsbahvfrw" height="1" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=letsle04-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B000SEIK2S" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />
</i>, published by Tor Books.<br />
<br />
<b>N. B. </b>The online presence of Tor Books includes <a href="http://tor.com/">Tor.com</a>, is a great web site for scifi fans. They’ve got f<a href="http://www.tor.com/stories" target="_blank">ree original stories, book excerpts</a>, and and <a href="http://www.tor.com/" target="_blank">a great blog with fun discussions</a> of your favorite scifi and fantasy stories, movies, and TV shows. Check it out.<br />
<br />
P. S. If you'd like to <i><b>help a starving writer out</b></i>, at no additional cost to yourself, <i><b>click any of the embedded links </b></i>to Amazon on this blog (book titles, etc.) and any purchase you make on the Amazon web site during that visit will <i><b>earn me a small affiliate fee </b></i>-- at no cost to you! </div>
Lisa Nicholas, Ph. D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17350994312307258539noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7415005389529866949.post-20772024233768899322013-08-20T11:47:00.001-05:002013-08-21T00:05:27.317-05:00Catholics in Space! A view by Cyril Jones-Kellett<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhnMP-EiPqzcEWKoTQDFcM6El87h4eSLRmmoy6oOFK2aBj7mmrnC0-87SyojMBhbmJfM65V0XhQMcXRn3GkejSN6LM2mgThjp9Z5X1kHG2l2NZbqBYOFo7wY43XGA9DCv9em-God_5W5k/s1600/Ad+Limina+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Cyril Jones-Kellett's Ad Limina: A novella of Catholics in space" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhnMP-EiPqzcEWKoTQDFcM6El87h4eSLRmmoy6oOFK2aBj7mmrnC0-87SyojMBhbmJfM65V0XhQMcXRn3GkejSN6LM2mgThjp9Z5X1kHG2l2NZbqBYOFo7wY43XGA9DCv9em-God_5W5k/s320/Ad+Limina+cover.jpg" title="" width="239" /></a></div>
A couple of months ago, I took a pause from writing my own Catholic science fiction novel, <i>Cast Into the Deep Sea of Stars</i>, and spent some time searching online (as I do from time to time) for anything that called itself a “<a href="http://scificatholic.blogspot.com/2012/12/catholic-science-fiction-what-on-earth.html" target="_blank">Catholic science fiction novel.</a>” I’ve done this before, but I thought I might find something I had missed and this time, by golly, I did just that. I found <span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><b><span style="color: #ffe599;">Cyril Jones-Kellett’s</span> </b></span><i><b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0615781500/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0615781500&linkCode=as2&tag=letsle04-20">Ad Limina: a novella of Catholics in space (Servant of Eternity, Volume 1)</a></b><img alt="" border="0" class="lkxwjikaeedpsezhhsok snegmstinmqmhjbdbzuo" height="1" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=letsle04-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0615781500" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /></i>, published just this past March (2013). How could I not snap it up?<br />
<br />
Although it is called a novella, that’s not because <i>Ad Limina</i> is particularly short – there was a time not so long ago when 220 pages would have been considered a goodish length for a novel, and this book certainly manages to cover quite a bit of ground.<b><span style="color: #9fc5e8;"> <span style="color: #ffe599;">It moves fairly lightly through potentially heavy subjects.</span></span> </b>In this case, I think that is a good thing, and serves the author’s purpose well, that purpose being to take the reader through a series of views of the likely future (should certain present-day trends continue unchecked) through the next century or two, in order to see their likely consequences. Jones-Kellett manages to do this in a remarkably light-handed way, without making light of his subjects.<br />
<br />
The book tells the story of Mark Gastelum, the first native-born bishop of Mars, as he makes his first trip to Earth to make his compulsory <i>ad limina</i> visit to the Pope. The bishop has put off the visit for years – he has a rather parochial view of things. Doesn’t he have plenty to accomplish in his diocese? Why should he have to spend years of his life travelling to Rome, just for a brief interview with the Pope? Aren’t there better uses of his time? When the word finally comes from the Holy See that he may procrastinate no longer, he accedes and books passage for Earth. One can imagine Bishop Gastelum as<b> <span style="color: #ffe599;">the twenty-second (or perhaps twenty-third) century equivalent of a Midwestern American bishop of the mid-nineteenth century</span></b><span style="color: #ffe599;">: </span>Rome is very distant, travel is slow and difficult, and the goings-on of the Pope and his curia seem to have little to do with the very real and constant challenges of managing a frontier diocese. But what is a bishop to do? When Rome commands, one must obey.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqR-E7odUJ0FP5JR_OFzMFhyphenhyphen9JyUESggIVWQ1wGGiOyb5JmsrpP8z-ze9yko36x1Hzzt5NMo0qFCCz1FMZNk-usaonei4jInfdK4GtzXJbgLZ1TTSfNsKT_XBOI-R44wFYygbsaUpCuBM/s1600/christian+neofascist+symbol.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Celtic cross, reappropriated as a symbol of Christian neo-fascism" border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqR-E7odUJ0FP5JR_OFzMFhyphenhyphen9JyUESggIVWQ1wGGiOyb5JmsrpP8z-ze9yko36x1Hzzt5NMo0qFCCz1FMZNk-usaonei4jInfdK4GtzXJbgLZ1TTSfNsKT_XBOI-R44wFYygbsaUpCuBM/s200/christian+neofascist+symbol.jpg" title="" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our protagonist gets <br />
kidnapped by Christian<br />
neo-fascists.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
As is so often the case, the journey justifies the trip. The bishop (and the reader who tags along with him) learns a lot about the wider world that puts his own situation into context. In fact, just travelling across Mars to reach the town from which he will take flight, is <span style="color: #ffe599;"><b>a learning experience for the bishop</b></span>, who has never visited many of the settlements of his home planet, at least not those that lie outside the geographical limits of his diocese. Before he has even left Mars, Gastelum has already taken the longest trip of his life. He is forced to depart from a distant city, because the main space port, which is more conveniently located, serves only officially sanctioned and registered liners, which don’t serve those <span style="color: #ffe599;"><b>on the no fly list: “Mormons, Fascists, Catholics, Jehovah’s Witnesses, nationalists, neo-moralists, Australians, and so on.”</b></span><br />
<br />
This is the first intimation that the religious marginalization that is going on in our own day will be taken to a logical conclusion in this futuristic tale. At every step of his journey (which I won’t detail here, lest I spoil the fun of reading it for yourself), our mild-mannered, wide-eyed young bishop gets <span style="color: #ffe599;"><b>a liberal education in the real circumstances of the world of his own day</b>.</span> Let it suffice to say that the bishop’s perfunctory <i>ad limina</i> visit winds up taking him on <b><span style="color: #ffe599;">a grand adventure</span> </b>that gallops through almost every part of the settled solar system of his day. The adventure allows the story to touch on a variety of topics, including <i>inter alia</i> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-fascism" target="_blank">neo-fascism</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism" target="_blank">transhumanism</a>, and recreational drugs, while the protagonist’s relatively naive view allows the novelist to show us the logical outcomes of various present-day currents without a lot of sermonizing, a feat he achieves very deftly.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY2Shr13Z7q30w0U1yLz3VCtP7_urC3VVFPUW0D_iCu_veGc8UpC24LxQZIYWddw_N1lGscxenWMpVfb8_X3SD56JtPHraWS1tW2-KDAFOXkXdoHGaIjsdYEsZ6fZ-_riR7Q-rUYE7JUc/s1600/transhumanist+body.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY2Shr13Z7q30w0U1yLz3VCtP7_urC3VVFPUW0D_iCu_veGc8UpC24LxQZIYWddw_N1lGscxenWMpVfb8_X3SD56JtPHraWS1tW2-KDAFOXkXdoHGaIjsdYEsZ6fZ-_riR7Q-rUYE7JUc/s320/transhumanist+body.jpg" width="217" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">What does it mean <br />
to be human? Ad Limina <br />
explores the question.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The lightness of the treatment, however, belies the seriousness of the purpose. While the story is, on the face of it, a grand adventure, another way to read it is (and details in the story suggest that this is how the author hopes we will read it) as <span style="color: #ffe599;"><b>a spiritual trial</b></span>, from which the soul in question emerges purified and hardened against the wiles of the Enemy. Bishop Mark Gastelum’s spiritual journey takes him into the wilderness where <span style="color: #ffe599;"><b>he is tempted in many ways</b></span>; at the end, having endured these temptations without succumbing, he is spiritually mature and ready to take on greater challenges. (<a href="http://acatholicreader.blogspot.com/2013/08/review-ad-limina-by-cyril-jones-kellett.html" target="_blank">Read more on the Christian aspects of this novel here on my reading blog</a>.)<br />
<br />
Creating a <a href="http://scificatholic.blogspot.com/search/label/Christian%20science%20fiction" target="_blank">Catholic science fiction</a> novel is <span style="color: #ffe599;"><b>a tricky thing</b></span>. It would be all too easy to produce a literary <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimera_%28mythology%29" target="_blank">chimera </a>– a repulsive mash-up that satisfies neither Catholics nor seasoned readers of science fiction. As a Catholic novel, <span style="color: #ffe599;"><b><i>Ad Limina</i> succeeds very well</b></span>, and there is certainly plenty here to satisfy an avid reader of science fiction. The various forms of space travel and the different ways is which alien environments have been adapted for human habitation are well-described (without going into too much tedious technical detail), and these descriptions are well-integrated into the story. (There are few things I detest more in science fiction than excessive, obtrusive, or extraneous discursions into scientific minutia; there's none of that here.) <br />
<br />
More importantly, these details <i>serve the story</i>, which should not surprise us, given that one of the points of the narrative is to show us how current-day phenomena are likely to play out over time, the most obvious being <span style="color: #ffe599;"><b>the modern world’s love affair with scientific and technological innovation</b>.</span><br />
<br />
To my mind, science fiction really “does its job” when it casts its view into the future in order to give us a better perspective on the present, and I believe Cyril Jones-Kellett’s <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0615781500/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0615781500&linkCode=as2&tag=letsle04-20">Ad Limina: a novella of Catholics in space (servant of eternity) (Volume 1)</a><img alt="" border="0" class="lkxwjikaeedpsezhhsok snegmstinmqmhjbdbzuo" height="1" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=letsle04-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0615781500" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />
</i> does just that. I certainly recommend it to <span style="color: #ffe599;"><b>any reader who finds the phrase “Catholic science fiction” either delightful or intriguing.</b> </span>And I'm happy to be able to tell you that this is apparently the first of a series, so if you like this one, there is <a href="http://catholicsinspace.com/" target="_blank">more to look forward to</a>.</div>
Lisa Nicholas, Ph. D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17350994312307258539noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7415005389529866949.post-65788302517670904682013-08-01T16:07:00.000-05:002013-08-01T16:08:30.039-05:00What kind of science fiction do you enjoy?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTy2nnMswEwkeMpVlx91uaBkfyOSHUcVLCzs8lJyqxQ5qEDnsMoTjZ03rJJcaZYIW-tobJjEzzkG2Z_f9Twu4fhro0Y0s0WmHsO3JjcoUwE8cb8YTIZD-wh1ZfiRtxy_SyA4kt96F6JCI/s1600/tunnel+in+the+sky.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Tunnel in the Sky, by Robert Heinlein" border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTy2nnMswEwkeMpVlx91uaBkfyOSHUcVLCzs8lJyqxQ5qEDnsMoTjZ03rJJcaZYIW-tobJjEzzkG2Z_f9Twu4fhro0Y0s0WmHsO3JjcoUwE8cb8YTIZD-wh1ZfiRtxy_SyA4kt96F6JCI/s200/tunnel+in+the+sky.JPG" title="" width="121" /></a></div>
I wrote a few months ago about how <a href="http://scificatholic.blogspot.com/2012/12/an-unconventional-heroine.html" target="_blank">my protagonist doesn’t fit most of the stereotypes for science fiction heroines</a>. Now it appears that the entire novel may prove to be a horse of a different color amongst all the other (thousands of) science fiction titles being published these days. Recently when I did some quick & dirty internet research to see what kind of science fiction is selling that I might actually want to read, I found that the answer is “not much.”<br />
<br />
So what kind of science fiction do I enjoy? I'm not so sure any more. I do know, however, what kind I have enjoyed in the past.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgplyqOekDNFsA4FpOLt7guVuJjfDBSMrQTXa0NMaQlqEk0JAa965sTJZ_ib4EwalSCnjO2tE5ONNCzlKMiBOF32aBdoJA6i-9t57eVHXGsWAoRFRAI1NGm9eKkuxvT4ktJgt2ezRNObec/s1600/sprockets.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Sprockets, A Little Robot, by Alexander Key" border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgplyqOekDNFsA4FpOLt7guVuJjfDBSMrQTXa0NMaQlqEk0JAa965sTJZ_ib4EwalSCnjO2tE5ONNCzlKMiBOF32aBdoJA6i-9t57eVHXGsWAoRFRAI1NGm9eKkuxvT4ktJgt2ezRNObec/s200/sprockets.jpg" title="" width="131" /></a></div>
When I was a little kid, I very much enjoyed the science fiction <i>oeuvre </i>of <b>Louis Slobodkin</b>. Nobody could have been happier than I was when <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0689717415/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0689717415&linkCode=as2&tag=letsle04-20">The Space Ship Under the Apple Tree</a><img alt="" border="0" class="qolcguwnqkiesehqwqpz mrxhxtvvxrbizitdqbuv dghsnspkjvbzrrasccif" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=letsle04-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0689717415" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />
</i> landed in my lap; of course, I myself was even happier when it returned. I don’t recall now if I discovered the spaceship before or after I fell in love with <a href="https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/alexander-key-2/sprockets-a-little-robot/"><i>Sprockets, A Little Robot</i></a> (<b>Alexander Key</b>, author of many great books for kids). I loved, loved, loved Sprockets. I wanted to be Sprockets. Then I could ride in a spaceship to meet Marvin the Martian, nemesis of Bugs Bunny – I felt sure I could win him away from the Dark Side.<br />
<br />
So, for me, science fiction meant, first of all, space (“outer space,” as we used to call it). Sometime while still pretty young, I fell in love with two very different science fiction writers (this was before science fiction relied heavily on “science” – it was rocket ships and aliens, all the way). These two were <b>Robert Heinlein </b>and <b>Zenna Henderson</b>. As I said, very different.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheQtu0FA0S9H78IYsaT13PmcX5_9V3JrtWxV9ewBCanV-Ytpgw0N9qoQ6hNjtcoaRvwFJHLod-wmvx5Niw0gCOmcIP4KsiWkMBNZN6UUb8IPXIStKWcSKOeN0YylU7BE7joXOsNAl7Ay8/s1600/spacesuit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheQtu0FA0S9H78IYsaT13PmcX5_9V3JrtWxV9ewBCanV-Ytpgw0N9qoQ6hNjtcoaRvwFJHLod-wmvx5Niw0gCOmcIP4KsiWkMBNZN6UUb8IPXIStKWcSKOeN0YylU7BE7joXOsNAl7Ay8/s200/spacesuit.jpg" width="163" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Spunky youngsters <br />
in spacesuits. Perfect!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Heinlein, for me, combined two of my pet fantasies: <b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0739433857/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0739433857&linkCode=as2&tag=letsle04-20">outer space/space ships and spunky young people</a> (SYP)</b><img border="0" class="dghsnspkjvbzrrasccif" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=letsle04-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0739433857" />. I was not a spunky young person, but I desperately longed to be one. Heinlein’s SYP always seemed to be having great adventures, getting into tight scrapes on the far side of the galaxy and figuring their way out – sometimes they even saved entire crews of space ships, or even entire worlds. (That has been another of my perennial fantasies: saving the world.) I loved books like <i>Space Cadet</i> and <i>Have Space Suit, Will Travel</i>, but I soon moved on to things like <i>Starship Troopers, Farnham’s Freehold</i>, and <i>Tunnel in the Sky</i> (I read that one at least half a dozen times). Heinlein started to lose me when he hit about age 50, which seems to be the age when men who are going to get weird and creepy go ahead and do so. That was about the time he began to indulge himself in what were, apparently, his own private fantasies – nudism, incest, polyamory, that sort of thing. You know, the Stranger in a Strange–Land Lazarus Long period. After that, he lost me entirely.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie_9qt-96Y0iwb5pvq7V1qsstRuHpVGLSB7rgYrdAJTr7XPGBKlfEDqcM6ODeDOMe50LilS2jOCi9pxZ9AATXvQvWsbTH3NRHjl0FKrCDcosZ7LsR8o-LAaNrXKlXIDnVyd1NrZoKugmI/s1600/people-no-different-flesh.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="The People, No Different Flesh, by Zenna Henderson" border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie_9qt-96Y0iwb5pvq7V1qsstRuHpVGLSB7rgYrdAJTr7XPGBKlfEDqcM6ODeDOMe50LilS2jOCi9pxZ9AATXvQvWsbTH3NRHjl0FKrCDcosZ7LsR8o-LAaNrXKlXIDnVyd1NrZoKugmI/s200/people-no-different-flesh.jpg" title="" width="116" /></a></div>
<b>Zenna Henderson</b> was the other side of the coin – <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0915368587/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0915368587&linkCode=as2&tag=letsle04-20">her stories of "the People" </a><img alt="" border="0" class="qolcguwnqkiesehqwqpz mrxhxtvvxrbizitdqbuv dghsnspkjvbzrrasccif" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=letsle04-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0915368587" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />
had me entirely transfixed. You wouldn’t even have known they were science fiction if you didn’t pick up on the clues that “the People” were a race of <b>aliens, survivors of a crash on Earth, where they were trying to blend in</b> – not always so easy to do, since they had abilities that mid-twentieth century Earthlings would have called either magical or psychic. But the People just wanted to get along and fit in – something that I longed for, too. I didn’t have their interesting background, though. I was very, very sad when I realized that I had read all of the stories Zenna Henderson had published and, since she was deceased, there would be no more.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV_s8Jd8qsvKwoxDJKjrt4kJAjlCi2ZrupRpxP-1nqA-DMmlM8Diqh9BmpKuQgRjQewJaQu9Ir57PLd1Seo1x2u-tT6VRlfOSXrJphpiWmKZlQJePPh2fTmmSOCyPmF_cWfIY8xTB2448/s1600/Alas+Babylon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank" border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV_s8Jd8qsvKwoxDJKjrt4kJAjlCi2ZrupRpxP-1nqA-DMmlM8Diqh9BmpKuQgRjQewJaQu9Ir57PLd1Seo1x2u-tT6VRlfOSXrJphpiWmKZlQJePPh2fTmmSOCyPmF_cWfIY8xTB2448/s200/Alas+Babylon.jpg" title="" width="123" /></a>Another branch of science fiction that interested me when I was a kid (from the age of about 12 or so) was <b>apocalyptic novels</b>. Not “apocalyptic” in the Biblical sense but in the Cold War sense. My entire youth was spent under the radioactive cloud of the Cold War and the imminent possibility of total global destruction. I was fascinated with stories that imagined what it would be like <b>“after The Bomb,”</b> particularly those that explored how the remnants of humanity would regroup and reinvent civilization. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060741872/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0060741872&linkCode=as2&tag=letsle04-20"><b>Pat Frank</b>’s <i>Alas, Babylon</i></a><img alt="" border="0" class="qolcguwnqkiesehqwqpz mrxhxtvvxrbizitdqbuv dghsnspkjvbzrrasccif" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=letsle04-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0060741872" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />
was probably my all-time favorite in this genre, although I later discovered <b>Nevil Shute</b>’s melancholy <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307473996/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0307473996&linkCode=as2&tag=letsle04-20">On the Beach</a></i>
, and loved it in a different way. (I never read <b>Walter Miller</b>’s<i> Canticle for Liebowitz </i>until about the time the Cold War was officially over.)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[I’m deliberately leaving out of this list, by the way, one of my all-time favorite writers, <b>Ray Bradbury</b>. This is because Bradbury cannot be shoved into a science fiction pigeonhole, or any other kind. But I love his work in whatever genre people try to stick it – his books are like prose poems, too fine to be compared with most of the other works I’m listing here. D<i>andelion Wine</i>, <i>The Martian Chronicles</i>, <i>Fahrenheit 451</i>, all wonderful, defying classification.]</blockquote>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2N3jHc_QdLE1i7HvKFrbDgyUQ7shWKnuSvlqUQg7NdUWQ-afBq7RhRUW0bK_1xDOxksWVzKSnhMVmT42LDOKnqfG1wWji_DK_CH0bzMUzvxJ5grM6L2eWizjlReVBDpQJssvaAZiyy4g/s1600/this+perfect+day.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="This Perfect Day by Ira Levin" border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2N3jHc_QdLE1i7HvKFrbDgyUQ7shWKnuSvlqUQg7NdUWQ-afBq7RhRUW0bK_1xDOxksWVzKSnhMVmT42LDOKnqfG1wWji_DK_CH0bzMUzvxJ5grM6L2eWizjlReVBDpQJssvaAZiyy4g/s200/this+perfect+day.jpg" title="" width="118" /></a></div>
Closely associated (in my mind, anyway) were <b>dystopian</b> novels, such as <b>George Orwell</b>’s <i>1984 </i>and <b>Aldous Huxley</b>’s <i>Brave New World</i>, which I first read when I was thirteen. Another one in this genre which I remember well (although it was not nearly as literarily respectable) was <b>Ira Levin</b>’s <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/160598129X/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=160598129X&linkCode=as2&tag=letsle04-20">This Perfect Day: A Novel</a></i><img alt="" border="0" class="qolcguwnqkiesehqwqpz mrxhxtvvxrbizitdqbuv dghsnspkjvbzrrasccif" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=letsle04-20&l=as2&o=1&a=160598129X" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />. <b>Robert Silverberg</b>’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005DI93IO/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B005DI93IO&linkCode=as2&tag=letsle04-20">The World Inside</a><img alt="" border="0" class="qolcguwnqkiesehqwqpz mrxhxtvvxrbizitdqbuv dghsnspkjvbzrrasccif" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=letsle04-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B005DI93IO" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />
depressed me so badly that I didn’t read another thing he wrote for a long time. Ironically, I think, in some ways, that book influenced the “future history” that provides the backstory for the novel I’m currently working on, <i>Cast Into the Deep Sea of Stars</i>.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmJjXAwCYOOXZRqv4lIHgPINKMefMe3CoINXu4ajf4XySzOg6Sx02yOtREUTPk0ExeURU9PooBe1Tem-4Nw8E9zBJZSzLm8N_YSa2ATVJsbCHsyWhEvxy7-sN1IkV2HWe-2R_8USByTBE/s1600/Time+and+Again.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmJjXAwCYOOXZRqv4lIHgPINKMefMe3CoINXu4ajf4XySzOg6Sx02yOtREUTPk0ExeURU9PooBe1Tem-4Nw8E9zBJZSzLm8N_YSa2ATVJsbCHsyWhEvxy7-sN1IkV2HWe-2R_8USByTBE/s200/Time+and+Again.jpg" width="129" /></a>I’ll add just two more kinds of science fiction to this list of kinds I’ve enjoyed: <b>time travel </b>and <b>parables</b>. My all-time favorite time travel stories are <b>Poul Anderson</b>’s tales of the <b>Time Patrol</b><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">,</span></span> although <b>Jack Finney</b>’s <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0684801051/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0684801051&linkCode=as2&tag=letsle04-20">Time and Again</a></i><img alt="" border="0" class="qolcguwnqkiesehqwqpz mrxhxtvvxrbizitdqbuv dghsnspkjvbzrrasccif" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=letsle04-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0684801051" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />
made a huge impression on me when it first came out. By parables, I mean stories that, on the face of it, are science fiction but, in reality, they are thinly-disguised parables that examine some quirk of human nature. <b>Cifford D. Simak </b>wrote a lot of this sort of stuff. <b>C. S. Lewis</b>’s wonderful space trilogy also falls under this rubric.<br />
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<br />
Now, if you look back over this list of science fiction that I loved in my childhood and youth (which is far from covering all the kinds of vaguely “science fiction” stuff I’ve read and loved), you may notice <b>what is glaringly absent. </b>Anything with a lot of <b>hard-core science</b><span style="background-color: white;"> </span>(sorry, Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov). Anything with lots of <b>non-humanoid aliens. </b>Anything heavily <b>militaristic </b>(wars in space). In other words, most of the stuff that makes up the general genre of science fiction these days.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-jeAvOB84j1LyaMbMZRgGxDg0GGCIO_zkRmA4DaJKxjuwkGU5WmLfkyFAvvPm8gC_Wh10flCuBvwcD7nUD_QTczpUAV3eBo_YPWNSsUCNt-cs76DrWqdZm6dGgdLW9K1kw2J31PZxf_Y/s1600/all+flesh+is+grass.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="All Flesh is Grass, by Clifford D. Simak" border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-jeAvOB84j1LyaMbMZRgGxDg0GGCIO_zkRmA4DaJKxjuwkGU5WmLfkyFAvvPm8gC_Wh10flCuBvwcD7nUD_QTczpUAV3eBo_YPWNSsUCNt-cs76DrWqdZm6dGgdLW9K1kw2J31PZxf_Y/s200/all+flesh+is+grass.jpg" title="" width="120" /></a></div>
Yes, there is plenty of dystopian scifi these days, but little of it interests me, mostly because the great bulk of it is merely dark, and often heavily ideological, lacking in real or constructive imagination. Yes, there are quite a few post-apocalyptic novels, but they are hardly to be distinguished from the dystopian ones – except the ones that are merely zombie stories in disguise. The “sciencey” science fiction is so sciencey that you need at least a master’s degree in quantum physics to wade through it. Bleh.<br />
<br />
All of this is to say, I guess, that I’m working on a story that is the sort of thing I would like to read myself – <b>not super sciencey, not super dark, no space battles, not even any space aliens.</b> I’m calling it “character-driven futuristic adventure.” Maybe contemporary readers will think it’s a throw-back to the ‘50s or ‘60s or maybe (if they’re young enough) they think it’s something fresh and different. We’ll see. <br />
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I’m about halfway through the first round of revision (filling in plot holes, beefing up subplots, deepening characterization) and hope to send it out to some beta readers in a few weeks. If you’re reading this, why not leave a comment saying what kind of science fiction you enjoy, and why?</div>
Lisa Nicholas, Ph. D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17350994312307258539noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7415005389529866949.post-25911310475613448672013-06-03T16:29:00.000-05:002013-08-01T15:57:17.972-05:00Sancta Futura, the Novel Series<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I thought I would post something about the novel I have in hand, and those planned to follow. Theoretically, at least, <b>the Sancta Futura series</b> will comprise a minimum of nine installments, broken into sets of three (no, I don’t want to call them “trilogies,” however popular that designation may be). Each set will cover a separate portion of my protagonists’ contributions to the development of an experimental community on a remote planet (whose existence will be carefully concealed from the rest of the settled galaxy).<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxXwGfoaglTK_pL3HT0D5af9DplJtxqcbKoyR4HMkfjrxIUEfin2sxhJk94XI8HAh7GxnPtzbN5IeAn0VF4tYvEiRP4uv2bmI0iZ6r_et6PvVflCpRWAWfOL8gDi-xPiyJwfitDvrHuGE/s1600/logans_run_1976.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Michael York and Jennie Agutter in Logan's Run" border="0" height="252" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxXwGfoaglTK_pL3HT0D5af9DplJtxqcbKoyR4HMkfjrxIUEfin2sxhJk94XI8HAh7GxnPtzbN5IeAn0VF4tYvEiRP4uv2bmI0iZ6r_et6PvVflCpRWAWfOL8gDi-xPiyJwfitDvrHuGE/s320/logans_run_1976.jpg" title="" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Love is always challenging -- <br />
even more so in the future!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The first three books will be about beginnings, corresponding to the settlement of the planet and founding of the new community, and will follow my protagonist(s) through their decision to join the settlement group (first book, <i>Cast Into the Deep Sea of Stars</i>), the group’s first steps toward becoming a real community while still in transit to the new world (second book, <i>At Sea Among the Stars</i>), and the first days of the settlement (third book, <i>Island in the Sea of Stars</i>). These stories will be follow each other closely, without any lengthy narrative gaps. Thematically, the novels will follow a twin track, showing the growth in the relationship between my two protagonists (who get married in the first book) and the relationship amongst the settlers, who gradually become a united community.</div>
<br />The second three novels in the series will pick up a few years after the end of the third novel. The settlement is still pretty young, but no longer new – already their numbers have increased by a number of children who have been born. Their understanding of their purpose will be expanded, as they send ambassadors back to Earth and gain a clearer understanding of what is really going on in the rest of the galaxy. We can call this the adolescence of the community, when childish security begins to give way to the equivalent to the hormonal upsets of puberty and first steps toward taking on adult responsibility. Lead characters’ marriages may also start feeling some strain amidst the other changes.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRPvDO7mI-XSVaiJo5nBvoB9H-gsHpkmrF9_s5JN-i6w-o353iCDRwN-c1VB8C3utuc2GzbjyQpzt7sabXWjHAyZ1fR0FfySTU7AS3AJTTRjJrO5FxuerFzBgr2iH1U01Cm3XfRAA5Unk/s1600/uktv_red_dwarf.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Red Dwarf lead characters" border="0" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRPvDO7mI-XSVaiJo5nBvoB9H-gsHpkmrF9_s5JN-i6w-o353iCDRwN-c1VB8C3utuc2GzbjyQpzt7sabXWjHAyZ1fR0FfySTU7AS3AJTTRjJrO5FxuerFzBgr2iH1U01Cm3XfRAA5Unk/s320/uktv_red_dwarf.jpg" title="" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It takes more than being stuck on the same ship<br />
to make a team out of a bunch of strangers.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The third three <span style="font-family: inherit;">will show the mature community finally beginning to fulfill its purpose, which is both to be a refuge for the outcast, and a model from which other worlds can learn. By this point, the settlement is now seeing its children taking on adult responsibilities, even as new settlers come, as refugees from other worlds. In these, we will see a number of apparently disparate threads that have run through the earlier books now tied together. What had been mysterious will now be illuminated. We will see the central characters </span>in their full maturity<span style="font-family: inherit;">, wise where they had been dubious and hesitant, and perhaps also tired when they had been full of enthusiasm and energy – but still prepared for new challenges that arise. <br /><br />I’m writing all this out at least partly to give the series some form in my own thoughts, to give myself </span>something to shoot for. <span style="font-family: inherit;">I’ve got a head full of stories about these characters, and I’m sure new stories will occur to me as I go along, but since time is finite, I may not get them all written. The first three books, however, are pretty clear in my head. <br /><br />I’m two-thirds through the </span>first round of revision <span style="font-family: inherit;">on the first book, <i>Cast Into the Deep Sea of Stars</i>. Since I decided very late in the game to end the first book at the point where my leads join the settlement group, that has required a re-evaluation of the narrative arc. So a few things got shifted a bit. Also in this revision, I’m working a lot on defining the characters more clearly and giving due emphasis to important subplots. All of this has requires about 40 new scenes to be written, and about half of the previously written scenes to be recast. <br /><br />A lot of work, but well worth it. When this revision is finished, I’ll give it out to some beta readers to see if there are any plot or character problems I’ve overlooked. Then I’ll turn my attention to </span>the finer points of craft <span style="font-family: inherit;">and work my way down toward </span>niggling details<span style="font-family: inherit;">. I’m really having fun with the revision, because I can see how much better the story is getting to be. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I’ll talk more about my revision process and how it is transforming the novel in my next post. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>
</div>
Lisa Nicholas, Ph. D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17350994312307258539noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7415005389529866949.post-57593715317560477712013-05-04T00:12:00.000-05:002013-05-04T20:24:25.394-05:00And the Winner is ... Me!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDufpFiW6VBOe2GAaYbtQ6n0AdL9m7g7v01SU3QPQMtc9v7mb7uUX_HjCiIIA1Scznc-dP4ZWARISkwzkDByTkocOlZ054oFVuraj0qIb7XUe8w-OfnRpVP_9GXfZwV6Qj8cI0pQfrvDI/s1600/Camp-NaNoWriMo-2013-Winner-Campfire-Vertical-Banner.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Camp NaNoWriMo winner 2013 badge" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDufpFiW6VBOe2GAaYbtQ6n0AdL9m7g7v01SU3QPQMtc9v7mb7uUX_HjCiIIA1Scznc-dP4ZWARISkwzkDByTkocOlZ054oFVuraj0qIb7XUe8w-OfnRpVP_9GXfZwV6Qj8cI0pQfrvDI/s320/Camp-NaNoWriMo-2013-Winner-Campfire-Vertical-Banner.png" title="" width="160"></a></div>
This week has been an exciting one. First, as I mentioned in my last post, I far exceeded my Camp NaNoWriMo goal for the month (30,000 words), having written 44,576 words of the first draft of <i>Cast Into the Deep Sea of Stars</i> in April, bringing my total so far to more than 100,000 words. And then the second exciting thing happened: I woke up one morning with the realization that the first novel of my <i>Sancta Futura</i> series really needed to be two novels.<br>
<br>
So I've been getting used the fact that I've finished my draft of Cast Out. It's exhilarating! and I owe it all to my clever, subconscious mind, which worked out that I really had two plot arcs squashed together end-on-end. Like the mother of conjoined twins, it took me awhile to convince myself that separating them really would be best for everyone involved. Now, I'll admit that this idea probably occurred to me first because I was nervous about producing what looked like it was going to be a 175,000 word behemoth, and also because I just wanted to be done with the draft (having set a deadline of May 23, my birthday). But once I started rethinking the plot arc of the first book (which ends with chapter 12, the one I just wrote), it became clear that the first book is all about my protagonist figuring out that, hard as it was for her to give up so much of her past, the loss really made possible -- maybe even necessary -- a much more exciting future.<br>
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Not only that, but it meant that in the second book (which I've already got pretty well plotted out) I will be able to focus on developing twin story lines in which personal difficulties will parallel difficulties in the planetary settlement group she and her new husband have just joined. And having more time to work on interpersonal dynamics among a cast of characters that will mushroom in book two means that I'll also be able to give attention to an emerging situation that will dominate book three.<br>
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</div><a href="http://scificatholic.blogspot.com/2013/05/and-winner-is-me.html#more">Read more »</a>Lisa Nicholas, Ph. D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17350994312307258539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7415005389529866949.post-12323669350183871652013-04-30T00:29:00.000-05:002013-05-04T20:10:30.649-05:00Camp NaNoWriMo Victory!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZGxhP9j-8MJ5uz6dcyM6DZy7rSb5n4Iuq3x-gVGnWrGXia1L0g1URiKtzGXUynsiD_VBQ8hFPnFEBj9Ha-QLhrFRf7XpPjVlnkl-PPNvjtfjZhbauBVSSaruZtIrR6sogzBAeREEMWdM/s1600/nanowrimo+winner+x.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="My Camp NaNoWriMo victory" border="0" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZGxhP9j-8MJ5uz6dcyM6DZy7rSb5n4Iuq3x-gVGnWrGXia1L0g1URiKtzGXUynsiD_VBQ8hFPnFEBj9Ha-QLhrFRf7XpPjVlnkl-PPNvjtfjZhbauBVSSaruZtIrR6sogzBAeREEMWdM/s400/nanowrimo+winner+x.jpg" title="" width="400" /></a></div>
Wow! Camp has been great. As you can see, I've won the archery award. What's better than a perfect bulls-eye? Whatever it is, I made it -- my goal was to write another 30,000 words on the first draft of Cast Into the Deep Sea of Stars, and I've already written nearly 45,000 words, with another day to go. Even more exciting, I just have a few thousand more to go to be done with the draft!<br />
<br />
A few days ago, just as I was reaching 100K words, I had a sudden realization -- what I thought would be a single novel (the first in a series) really needs to be two separate novels (the first and second of the series). Not only was I at 100K words when I was less than 2/3 of the way through the storyline but, once I began to think about splitting it into two books, I could see that this will really clarify the narrative and character arcs in both novels. In the first book, the story hinges on the tension between the growing romance between my lead and her beau and the danger she finds herself in. This gets resolved when the young lovers get married just as they also find a way out of danger.<br />
<br />
In the second book (working title: <i>At Sea Among the Stars</i>), my newlyweds have just joined fifty other young couples in a super-secret planetary settlement project. As they journey toward their new home, there will be lots of new complications as they try to mold the group of settlers into a team, deal with tensions in their new marriage, and struggle to survive a deadly stealth attack. In a secondary plot, there will be more human drama as the young priest acting as chaplain and ship's doctor to the group finds he's getting a little too attached to Stella, who is having some identity problems of her own (Pinocchio, call home).<br />
<br />
But all that will have to wait awhile, because book one will need some careful revision before I move on to book two. Stay tuned!</div>
Lisa Nicholas, Ph. D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17350994312307258539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7415005389529866949.post-3045928300345537832013-04-11T22:22:00.000-05:002013-05-04T19:57:50.041-05:00Camp is Great Fun! Wish You Were Here<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgghTJPMjL-aopfTIzTK3vBTejcTK7-SLOjb6tP52fOorIkE_ob_889wyIbsKEZd2zxVtTzVIkaeIZgFH0YkqNU8W5QKyWrR2yUBvdVvXK4w1VOD2zEFqmY4eJKIKPadip_GEVpJl7eIyo/s1600/postcard+from+camp.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Postcard from Camp NaNoWriMo" border="0" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgghTJPMjL-aopfTIzTK3vBTejcTK7-SLOjb6tP52fOorIkE_ob_889wyIbsKEZd2zxVtTzVIkaeIZgFH0YkqNU8W5QKyWrR2yUBvdVvXK4w1VOD2zEFqmY4eJKIKPadip_GEVpJl7eIyo/s320/postcard+from+camp.png" title="" width="320"></a></div>
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Nearly halfway through <a href="http://campnanowrimo.org/about" target="_blank">Camp NaNoWriMo</a>, I'm having lots of fun participating in classic camp activities. For instance, I've been tying knots (in the lives of my two leads), pulling pranks (writing entire scenes and then making them disappear), making new friends (literally -- I've created fifteen new characters, one of whom will probably not even appear in the finished novel), bouncing on the camp cots (no, wait, that was my protagonist), and picking ants out of my food (they have discovered me on the patio).</div>
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</div></div><a href="http://scificatholic.blogspot.com/2013/04/camp-is-great-fun-wish-you-were-here.html#more">Read more »</a>Lisa Nicholas, Ph. D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17350994312307258539noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7415005389529866949.post-12380612938863423812013-04-01T13:50:00.000-05:002013-04-01T15:25:32.492-05:00Off to Camp Nanowrimo<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjJFuztm2ZOrIJ-SkegaMU480rZGsgMhlAWzb229LTscwLjJaqU7KuDAChXyz5rRdy_lr72IfWjko1MNCtItQ8RKgkrxq8iJ_NpdyNbJvaIxTGfakTj-58g_dTm4HX9NWCFt5V0Kmzxpw/s1600/camp_nano_promo_13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Camp NaNoWriMo 2013" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjJFuztm2ZOrIJ-SkegaMU480rZGsgMhlAWzb229LTscwLjJaqU7KuDAChXyz5rRdy_lr72IfWjko1MNCtItQ8RKgkrxq8iJ_NpdyNbJvaIxTGfakTj-58g_dTm4HX9NWCFt5V0Kmzxpw/s1600/camp_nano_promo_13.jpg" title="" /></a></div>
I haven't posted here lately because I've been hard at work on the novel -- I'm over half way on the first draft (about 69K words), and I'm off to <a href="http://www.campnanowrimo.org/" target="_blank">Camp NaNoWriMo</a> this month, so I'm hoping that will help me near the finish line. The camp website is acting up at the moment, so I'm having trouble listing my novel there. But the camp has already helped me come up with a new blurb:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Kate Malone had joined the planetary survey ship, <i>R J Boscovich</i>, hoping to gain some life experience far from her home on Old Earth, but she got more than she bargained for. Love, loss, and death threats cast her into the deep sea of stars and propel her into a quest for a new life on a new world.</blockquote>
Fortunately, April in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Ray_Hubbard" target="_blank">my part of North Texas</a> is beautiful -- grass is growing, trees are leafing out, birds are singing, the sky and the lake are both a beautiful clear blue. It's a great time to be camping! I "camp" on my patio all day, with my laptop and a cool drink. It's not a bad, gig, folks, and I get a lot of writing done. <br />
<br />
Today, I've got to get my protagonist out of danger and into the loving arms of her companion-in-peril, who is about to discover he is not who he thought he was. Lots of complications in store ...</div>
Lisa Nicholas, Ph. D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17350994312307258539noreply@blogger.com4Lake Ray Hubbard, TX, USA32.863691720888554 -96.54003024101257332.862858220888555 -96.541290741012574 32.864525220888552 -96.538769741012572tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7415005389529866949.post-761618758782260662013-03-08T22:42:00.000-06:002013-05-04T19:55:52.496-05:00A Toast is in Order!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXqIPck9x2cCUvwoSRORsykwcwZsHEzQ16OZWLD_fZS_iWRi0tDBeJwqnzX4WQkenv_3BRvDclT_tjL80GiLFP7GHUM-4M8WYFe1XSvM-SKGdfbPLvNHijd9y_vv3ZZzWh3YtaA2gVu6o/s1600/Ardbeg-Galileo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Galileo wine" border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXqIPck9x2cCUvwoSRORsykwcwZsHEzQ16OZWLD_fZS_iWRi0tDBeJwqnzX4WQkenv_3BRvDclT_tjL80GiLFP7GHUM-4M8WYFe1XSvM-SKGdfbPLvNHijd9y_vv3ZZzWh3YtaA2gVu6o/s200/Ardbeg-Galileo.jpg" title="" width="200"></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Perhaps a toast is in order?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
What is the ritual sailors have for when they cross the equator? (I hope it doesn't involved getting a tattoo.) I feel like I should be doing something to celebrate the fact that my progress on the first draft of my novel has reached a significant milestone. The plot of my novel falls into three parts and I've recently completed the first part and moved on to the second.<br>
<br>
The first part of the story takes place on a planetary survey vessel called the <a href="http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/jmac/sj/scientists/boscovich.htm" target="_blank"><i>R. J. Boscovich</i></a>, where my lead and her fella are falling in love just about the time that they learn the five year mission has been abruptly cancelled and they're about to be dumped on a space station at the back of beyond. Yikes! Fortunately, they decide to stick together and are planning a jaunt back to her home on Old Earth (yes, it's time for him to meet her parents), so when the <i>Boscovich </i>leaves them on station G16 (quaintly known as Swagman's Rest), they decide to take their time, have some fun, and weigh their options before choosing a route home.<br>
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</div><a href="http://scificatholic.blogspot.com/2013/03/a-toast-is-in-order.html#more">Read more »</a>Lisa Nicholas, Ph. D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17350994312307258539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7415005389529866949.post-56186279245168345102013-02-09T18:06:00.000-06:002013-05-04T20:02:41.562-05:00Just for fun -- the Thrilling Tales Pulp-o-mizer and Word Clouds<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuM-SYUNcfI2CvnpL1sS53jIPjVoAM7uQvcGZDeI0dr_DUyIiOmbjiG5DQm_oTjfHIGw5BUA6BL9vbQE4dvteTYHKi08BkhUOPVFwJCHWY8DzhhAcBFvgh0NYIiju-c1_B9_QLm1pxVi3M/s1600/Pulp-O-Mizer_Cover_Image.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Pulp-o-mizer cover image for my Catholic science fiction work in progress, Cast Into the Deep Sea of Stars" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuM-SYUNcfI2CvnpL1sS53jIPjVoAM7uQvcGZDeI0dr_DUyIiOmbjiG5DQm_oTjfHIGw5BUA6BL9vbQE4dvteTYHKi08BkhUOPVFwJCHWY8DzhhAcBFvgh0NYIiju-c1_B9_QLm1pxVi3M/s320/Pulp-O-Mizer_Cover_Image.jpg" title="" width="209"></a></div>
Taking a break from writing and editing my sci-fi novel, I discovered the wonderful <a href="http://thrilling-tales.webomator.com/derange-o-lab/pulp-o-mizer/pulp-o-mizer.html" target="_blank">Pulp-o-mizer over on the Thrilling Tales</a>
website. The whole website is pretty marvelous, at least to those of us
who enjoy retro takes on pulp science fiction. You can try your hand,
too, at creating silly covers using this gadget.<br>
<br>
<br>
I recently found one other fun way to mix pleasure with writing tasks, when I tried out a number of <a href="http://www.wordle.net/" target="_blank">word </a><a href="http://www.tagxedo.com/" target="_blank">cloud </a><a href="http://tagul.com/" target="_blank">generators</a>,
plugging in whole chapters of my work-in-progress. I found it an
interesting way to see which terms get high use -- some surprising
results there! Why were there so many body parts prominently displayed
(eyes, hands, arms, heads, lips) in the word cloud for chapter three?
Below is one I did for the prologue (hardly any body parts at all, but
plenty of house parts!), using <a href="http://www.tagxedo.com/" target="_blank">Tagxedo</a>.<br>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaJBB1GEXaObUjTgTi1qcA0zDn6jqR29nDnQjhlIV4838q6NyXwWaoUKsRGgib9XaqGi-C_OqrsClCGU2NWbF7laDZrMdNs7_a4rTlTc0RKLV0Dl2cKe3VMMtHDWBHSUXfwHge2gjjNSU/s1600/Prologue+tagxedo+cloud.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaJBB1GEXaObUjTgTi1qcA0zDn6jqR29nDnQjhlIV4838q6NyXwWaoUKsRGgib9XaqGi-C_OqrsClCGU2NWbF7laDZrMdNs7_a4rTlTc0RKLV0Dl2cKe3VMMtHDWBHSUXfwHge2gjjNSU/s1600/Prologue+tagxedo+cloud.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="395" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaJBB1GEXaObUjTgTi1qcA0zDn6jqR29nDnQjhlIV4838q6NyXwWaoUKsRGgib9XaqGi-C_OqrsClCGU2NWbF7laDZrMdNs7_a4rTlTc0RKLV0Dl2cKe3VMMtHDWBHSUXfwHge2gjjNSU/s400/Prologue+tagxedo+cloud.jpg" width="400"></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tagxedo version</td></tr>
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Next is another, also of the Prologue, done with <a href="http://www.wordle.net/" target="_blank">Wordle</a>. I like how the Tagxedo one captures the fire that is prominently featured in this beginning section of the novel, while the Wordle one suggests the blackened chaos that is the aftermath of the fire -- sort of looks like a pile of blackened rubble, doesn't it?<br>
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</div><a href="http://scificatholic.blogspot.com/2013/02/just-for-fun-thrilling-tales-pulp-o.html#more">Read more »</a>Lisa Nicholas, Ph. D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17350994312307258539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7415005389529866949.post-43166283275914068952013-01-31T21:19:00.000-06:002013-01-31T21:19:29.183-06:00Those crazy characters of mine -- what will they think up next?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOquVt3fz_EEs3CR4VOEWF8xZ7jnpzI9__2zFGDk_3yw4OKcPihK4lMkndbKxiLVFWxyuPn-SizJs6hWdZJ-mv97CEiqMkX3l8c6gX1IyhjcrMzoMGuxxg-clWyCsAhGBli8k0X5MgOBA/s1600/science-fiction-world.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="well-planned science fiction world" border="0" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOquVt3fz_EEs3CR4VOEWF8xZ7jnpzI9__2zFGDk_3yw4OKcPihK4lMkndbKxiLVFWxyuPn-SizJs6hWdZJ-mv97CEiqMkX3l8c6gX1IyhjcrMzoMGuxxg-clWyCsAhGBli8k0X5MgOBA/s320/science-fiction-world.jpg" title="" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Having a well-planned world before you write<br />
is important for a science fiction writer.</td></tr>
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I got about halfway through the extended outline of my novel -- which is not really an outline so much as a bare, running narrative of the story's action (although I plotted it first in an ordinary outline, of the sort we were all taught in high school) -- before I said, "Time to start the real writing!" So I began to write, whole chapters at a time (each chapter running around six thousand word so far, or about <a href="http://www.fionaraven.com/Images/Estimates%20for%20Page%20Count.pdf" target="_blank">15-18 pages</a> as it would be in an average-sized trade paperback). Right now, I have about 18,000 words written, most of that has been lightly revised at least one, just to add in some depth to the POV and to bring out the nuances of the relationship between my two lead characters.<br />
<br />
One of the things that fascinates me is how I'm getting to know the characters as I write. I've heard writers say that the characters take over, and I've always thought that was just <a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--HyW1aNFjbk/UO2XjVZHmzI/AAAAAAAADY8/mARqs4KM8MM/s1600/PantserPlotter.jpg" target="_blank">pantser nonsense</a>, but I'm beginning to wonder. <br />
<br />
When I sat down to do some serious writing on this first draft, I had things <a href="http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/art/snowflake.php" target="_blank">pretty well planned out</a>: an outline including every major scene (in the first half of the story, anyway), and a pretty detailed "extended outline" or narrative summary. I knew where the major game changers will occur and how they will affect my major characters. I had written detailed character sketches of all the major characters and a couple of the significant minor characters. I had even thought out a good deal of the "future history" that will explain how things get to be the way they are in my version of the twenty-ninth century, when my story occurs (not that most of that will be explicitly mentioned or directly alluded to in the novel). So basically, I just needed to sit down and bang out a draft of the first half of the novel, then do the detailed plotting on the second half , and bang out the rest of the draft, then think about revising. I figured, writing a little bit each day, I could have a complete draft by the time of <a href="http://www.datesinhistory.com/may23.php" target="_blank">my birthday</a>, near the end of May. <a href="http://youtu.be/dePMU8R131s" target="_blank">Happy birthday</a> to me.<br />
<br />
Looks like I may be celebrating my birthday early this year -- mostly because I am writing 5,000 words a day, not 500 or 1,200. Why? Am I obsessed? No, I'm just really enjoying the process, partly because I'm finding out unexpected things about my characters, and new characters keep walking into the scenes. <br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTstlMlcLWTWa-Pg6T6ZBN_LrYevnnHW1DW220R7IBqrZ7cUHQlkhiQ_85XaW_dpxmSedIZyBY5XUcyaBM5nENCPLQfse4elC1VmeSlxB7ZcwBlOcdhYTj7vF1DpHN7WZdxZgXnWAxuNI/s1600/aussie+space+school.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="South Australian Space School" border="0" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTstlMlcLWTWa-Pg6T6ZBN_LrYevnnHW1DW220R7IBqrZ7cUHQlkhiQ_85XaW_dpxmSedIZyBY5XUcyaBM5nENCPLQfse4elC1VmeSlxB7ZcwBlOcdhYTj7vF1DpHN7WZdxZgXnWAxuNI/s320/aussie+space+school.jpg" title="" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">These Aussies haven't made it to space yet, <br />but it's not for lack of trying!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
My female lead, K, turns out to be half-Australian (maybe because I spent several weeks watching eight seasons of back-to-back episodes of an Australian TV series called <a href="http://mcleodsdaughters.ninemsn.com/" target="_blank">McLeod's Daughters</a>; or maybe because I am using Aussie Simon Haynes's excellent and totally free yWriter to write my novel) and she has a snappier wit than I had expected. She also has a cousin Jack who is a xenophobic Old Terran (native of Earth), who calls anyone not born on earth ETs (yep, <a href="http://www.stilltrippinout.com/images/Extraterrestrial_Highway_copy.jpg" target="_blank">extra-terrestrial</a>s). <br />
<br />
J, the male lead, loves life on a spaceship because it feels like home and reminds him of his childhood (good thing, since he has hired on to a 5-year deep space mission). K, on the other hand, on the same 5-year mission, discovers too late that hurtling through the galaxy, dozens of light years from her beloved home on Earth, trapped with a bunch of strangers in a starship, <a href="http://www.wired.com/geekdad/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/dontpanic_1024.jpg" target="_blank">gives her the moody blues and the heeby-jeebies </a>(lucky for her she has met J, who lifts her spirits and takes her mind off the vast vacuum of space). And then, one day while K and J are having a quiet lunch in the mess hall, some jerk named Skip Amir horns in and starts hassling K, and J jumps up, ready to deck the guy and ...<br />
<br />
Well, I can't give it all away. Besides, it may be different tomorrow. The point is, surprising stuff is happening -- surprising to me, I mean. I hope some day readers will find the story as much fun as I am having writing it.<br />
<br />
Maybe that stuff about "the characters taking over" isn't entirely pantser nonsense. </div>
Lisa Nicholas, Ph. D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17350994312307258539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7415005389529866949.post-75230519058591266162013-01-12T19:02:00.001-06:002013-02-24T16:03:19.657-06:00Plotting a course through my novel<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I've been doing a lot of background work on my scifi novel (new working title: <i>Cast Into the Deep Sea of Stars</i>). I've been dealing with three major tasks, more or less simultaneously: <br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>learning about how to write a novel (I've read thousands, studied hundreds, taught dozens, but never written one);</li>
<li>world-building, i.e., developing conceptually the future world in which my story will take place; and</li>
<li>planning/plotting my story, incorporating the ideas I've been gaining from my reading on novelistic technique.</li>
</ul>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOt7qgmQsiOYtXtLHsBCZeklHcesbyhXw5IZ77whkLFYqoprm8e6VOA29D5L2YV-ndmLG7dN96UlGRTPrvh9gtRbaJcRBSwCWOC-qqCfQyL7MEhhqgWENUu4GqancEn29GJKmhYLQV3vA/s1600/no+pantsing+zone.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="no-pantsing zone" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOt7qgmQsiOYtXtLHsBCZeklHcesbyhXw5IZ77whkLFYqoprm8e6VOA29D5L2YV-ndmLG7dN96UlGRTPrvh9gtRbaJcRBSwCWOC-qqCfQyL7MEhhqgWENUu4GqancEn29GJKmhYLQV3vA/s320/no+pantsing+zone.jpg" title="" width="209" /></a>I know a lot of first-time novelists, impatient to get their story on paper, just jump into writing with both feet (or hands) -- those are the "pantsers," or seat-of-the-pants writers. They are probably the ones who gave rise to the commonplace idea that a writer's first novel will be unpublishable, and should be looked on as a learning experience. Well, I'm too old to waste years on unworkable drafts, and I've learned the value of learning the theory first and then re-learning it through practice, and that's what I'm trying to do.<br />
<br />
Although I haven't written a novel before, I have successfully written one scholarly tome, my doctoral dissertation. Believe me, there are no (sucessful) "pantsers" in the world of writing academic theses or dissertations. For one thing, such an approach wouldn't be allowed -- the degree candidate's work is monitored, and must be approved, by qualified scholars who, theoretically at least, won't let sub-par work pass muster. In this way, at least, the process of writing a dissertation is kinder than that of writing a novel, because there is someone standing by to shoot down bad ideas before you've wasted a year or more writing them down. (I once tried to "pants" a master's thesis and found out that was a big mistake, which is why I say there are no <i><b>*successful*</b></i> pantsers in the academic realm.)<br />
<br />
As different as a dissertation is from a novel, the process of writing the dissertation was one that taught me a lot about writing, particularly about writing a lengthy, complex work such as a novel. Since I was faced with such a daunting task -- I had never written anything longer than 30 pages, and the dissertation was bound to be about 10 times that long, and much more complex -- I spent a lot of time on preparation before actually beginning the writing. Sometimes I suspected that my lengthy prep was really just avoidance of the actual writing, but that wasn't really true. The prep helped me write a good, solid, well-written and well-thought out opus, when I finally got down to it. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi90MBICq09mvxbP69QqO4QAbfnK98S0i_dvUp_-HIuLXwBFnpC3psikZtVwtDcnJOK7Hsst9eH1yVNt1UbDFh0Qr6LeKnVVNchFAjhaIs-_BRbMXlmabLbbPw4J3lGb7WUBomPcqQYDI4/s1600/wheregoing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi90MBICq09mvxbP69QqO4QAbfnK98S0i_dvUp_-HIuLXwBFnpC3psikZtVwtDcnJOK7Hsst9eH1yVNt1UbDFh0Qr6LeKnVVNchFAjhaIs-_BRbMXlmabLbbPw4J3lGb7WUBomPcqQYDI4/s200/wheregoing.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
By the time I got to the writing, I had done lots of research, mentally gone over my argument and plan of attack, thought through all the implications of my thesis, etc. I had also lined up all the tools I would need in the writing: a good bibliography/note program, chock full of my research, a page template with the page set-up and paragraph styles that would mean my finished draft would already be in the format required by my graduate school, even a daily routine that helped keep me on task. When it came time to write, I simply created an outline of what I planned to say, made each major point a chapter, and then sat down and wrote. <br />
<br />
Each morning, I would edit what I had written the day before, and at the end of each chapter, I'd edit again to make sure each paragraph was unified and coherent, each section of the chapter was internally coherent and fit well in the overall scheme of the chapter as a whole, etc. When I sent each chapter off to my First Reader for her scrutiny (someone I had chosen, in part, because I knew she'd be really picky and not sign off on sloppy work), it would come back with virtually no suggestions for improvement, except noting the occasional comma fault. In the end, she said it was the best-written dissertation she'd read.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs_t6LuMFQzJab4Ilvx1yrxUVIow0-vICD_t7yO4FU0R3uRGc7beAaOm_loLwPd-4O-RmuwyAlb4BsKoWtKOi4Ouues19gr_CnnkS-Tr0VJRJlwIAYsiwamVY8ObBAvcMkmqDS27UdTvQ/s1600/success-compass.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="197" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs_t6LuMFQzJab4Ilvx1yrxUVIow0-vICD_t7yO4FU0R3uRGc7beAaOm_loLwPd-4O-RmuwyAlb4BsKoWtKOi4Ouues19gr_CnnkS-Tr0VJRJlwIAYsiwamVY8ObBAvcMkmqDS27UdTvQ/s200/success-compass.jpg" width="200" /></a>I don't know if any editor will say something similar about my novel when I've finished it (yeah, don't I wish!), but I do know that taking time for preparation will help me avoid the writing of multiple bad drafts that often precede any good drafts written by many pantsers and others who start writing without a clear idea of where they're going or how they're going to get there. I'm sure that for almost any new novelist (and some writers who've already written several novels), it takes time to get to a good draft, and I don't suppose I'll be an exception to that rule. It's just that I'm going to be spending that time constructively, preparing to write and planning my course, rather than spending it writing "discovery drafts" in which I try to figure out what story I'm trying to tell and how I'm going to tell it.<br />
<br />
But the good news is that things are rockin' along. I'll keep you posted.</div>
Lisa Nicholas, Ph. D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17350994312307258539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7415005389529866949.post-48009112033769636312012-12-30T18:09:00.000-06:002013-08-20T10:49:02.199-05:00Catholic Science Fiction -- what on earth is that?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieLMj9JhW2R7f2G7S7XxrqK3K8IYEbwhW3a4bJh19tVSnjQ5fu-soIgQm_BnQlwJqXqSxfGnzs2GYGLGIvSdFVExwxO9feoR_rh9EBG8agppGOWvO9fdESvay_pym04jKgWE9aJBeyRSE/s1600/priest-dog-alien_1626451i.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="detail from Franco Brambilla's "Aliens and Priest" http://francobrambilla.com/artwork/335264_Aliens_And_Priest.html" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieLMj9JhW2R7f2G7S7XxrqK3K8IYEbwhW3a4bJh19tVSnjQ5fu-soIgQm_BnQlwJqXqSxfGnzs2GYGLGIvSdFVExwxO9feoR_rh9EBG8agppGOWvO9fdESvay_pym04jKgWE9aJBeyRSE/s320/priest-dog-alien_1626451i.jpg" title="" width="275" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Detail from Franco Brambilla's "Aliens and Priest"</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I see it's been a while since I posted anything on this blog, but that's because I've been busy working on my novel. I've also done a little poking around to identify other Catholic writers who are writing science fiction these days, as well as those who have done so in the past. If you know of such a writer, please leave his or her name in the comments at the end of this post.<br />
<br />
Too often when we talk about "Catholic writers," we mean not only "writers who are Catholic" but more specifically "who write about Catholic stuff" or "Catholics who write for Catholic readers." These definitions strike me as too narrow. A number of years ago, I bought a book from Ignatius Press called <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=X29LAAAAMAAJ&q=the+catholic+writer&dq=the+catholic+writer&hl=en&ei=VehFTIXQJMT_lgfT3umoBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAA"><i>The Catholic Writer</i></a>, containing a variety of papers from an academic literary conference sponsored by the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wethersfield_Institute">Wethersfield Institute</a>.
After I got it home, I flipped through to look for a discussion of one
of my favorite Catholic writers, Flannery O'Connor -- but there was
none! In the introduction to the volume, the editor explained that they
only included writers who wrote on Catholic subjects -- i.e., stories
about Catholics doing Catholic stuff (presumably attending Mass, praying
the rosary, burying statues of St Joseph upside down in their front
yards to help sell a house). I thought this was an insane definition of
the term "Catholic writer,'' particularly as it necessarily excluded
writers like O'Connor, whose stories are positively incandescent with
the light of her Catholic faith. (You can read <a href="http://acatholicreader.blogspot.com/2012/12/grace-and-purification-in-flannery.html" target="_blank">a recent post on O'Connor on my other blog, <i>A Catholic Reader</i></a>.)<br />
<br />
Such writers are usually "preaching to the choir," writing for other
Catholics. I'm interested in Catholic writers in a broader sense --
i.e., writers whose imaginations have been informed by their Catholic
faith, who see the world from a Catholic perspective and then write
about it. They need not incorporate any specifically Catholic elements,
or may do so only incidentally, but the tale they tell is nontheless shaped
by a Catholic sensibility. I like the definition of "Catholic writers" embraced by the folks over <a href="http://catholicfiction.net/?p=4329" target="_blank">on CatholicFiction.net</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Catholic fiction has a Catholic perspective. It doesn’t merely contain
the trappings of Catholicism—that is, cultural Catholicism (e.g.,
kneeling, genuflecting, praying, the presence of clergy in the story, a
character who prays the Rosary or who goes to Mass regularly). Instead,
Catholic fiction contains Catholic meaning: small instances of a
protagonist’s faith, or doubt, sprinkled throughout the story,
culminating in a Catholic theme that somehow presents a Catholic message
or truth that we (and maybe the protagonist) can discover or realize
more fully or in a new way.</blockquote>
In <a href="http://catholicfiction.net/?p=1" target="_blank">an essay on the subject of Catholic fiction </a>written by a friend and erstwhile colleague of mine at the University of Dallas, Dr. Bernadette Waterman-Ward suggests that what distinguishes Catholic fiction from other kinds is a sense of mystery, in the theological sense meaning that there is more to the world than meets the eye, metaphysical depths that attest to the abiding presence of God in His creation. This view, of course, runs directly contrary to what might be called the dogmatically scientific view, which proclaims that the only realities are those which empirical science can verify (a circular argument which necessarily denies any kind of metaphysical reality). So it might seem paradoxical to talk about something called "Catholic science fiction."<br />
<br />
Of course, in science fiction, even the science is largely fiction -- scifi writers don't necessarily write about actual science, but about fictional science, which sometimes has been plausibly extrapolated from actual, known ("real") science, and sometimes is simply made up. If scifi writers were restricted to using only proven science, the whole field of "science fiction" would never have come into being. H. G. Wells would be known for <i>Tono Bungay</i>, rather than <i>War of the Worlds</i> or <i>The Time Machine</i>. The best science fiction is, like most really good fiction, about the human condition, not about science, although a lot of it considers the effect, for good or ill, that scientific and technological developments will have on the human condition. Some of it also looks at how present problems -- sociological, political, or other -- will play out, how they will affect the future.<br />
<br />
There is, in fact, a growing body of Catholic (and, more broadly, Christian) science fiction being published, but a lot of it is not very good, either because it is too preachy, intended only for other Christians, or because, with the ease and advent of electronic publishing, writers are rushing to get their work published <a href="http://acatholicreader.blogspot.com/2012/12/dear-self-published-novelists-please.html" target="_blank">without paying adequate attention to the craft of writing</a> (or both). This is a shame, because there is already an unfortunate tendency in the contemporary world to disparage all things Christian, and we should not give any more reason for people to think that Christians are somehow stupider or more dull-witted that the population at large. Catholic writers, of whatever genre, who believe they have something valuable to contribute to popular literature, particularly those who want to tell stories illumined by their faith, should respect their God-given talents enough to develop them carefully and to produce the best work possible.<br />
<br />
For anyone puzzled about what I mean by fiction informed by a Catholic sensibility without necessarily being about Catholics or "Catholic stuff," an example would be Dean Koontz's Odd Thomas novels, which I've recently begun reading. I'd never read Koontz before, as I'd always identified him as a horror writer and I'm not really interested in horror fiction. However, after watching <a href="http://youtu.be/GyVAddoJByU" target="_blank">an interview of him on Raymond Arroyo's <i>World Over </i>show</a>, I decided to give him a go. If you're familiar with Koontz's work but not his Catholic background, try watching the video.<br />
<br />
I'd be interested in learning of any writers, particularly but not necessarily writers of science fiction, who do a good job of combining a Catholic sensibility with good writing. If you know of any, please leave a comment below.</div>
Lisa Nicholas, Ph. D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17350994312307258539noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7415005389529866949.post-23760099550340350022012-12-14T20:15:00.001-06:002013-01-29T17:00:09.724-06:00An unconventional heroine<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA8MRq-nzJEx1sEWucYJVK_jnhyhjLJQ6UzGnOkSqxU0qJyM9DGLfOsVClXuRwG9a92ueI4IZ3gvRV5WgTQ75R3Pkqje3zaQngRJTPYxog4zjAaIAIvMN3mlUceRLK9nmxfirG4rwB1IU/s1600/xena.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Lucy Lawless as Xena, warrior princess" border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA8MRq-nzJEx1sEWucYJVK_jnhyhjLJQ6UzGnOkSqxU0qJyM9DGLfOsVClXuRwG9a92ueI4IZ3gvRV5WgTQ75R3Pkqje3zaQngRJTPYxog4zjAaIAIvMN3mlUceRLK9nmxfirG4rwB1IU/s200/xena.jpg" title="" width="158" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">NOT my protagonist!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="Noindent">
Having finished going through <a href="http://scificatholic.blogspot.com/2012/11/quick-and-simple-plot-guides.html">Bell’sbook on plot and structure</a>, I’ve begun to think more about character and incident and
how they relate to structure and theme. The protagonist of the novel I'm working on, Kate, is not typical for female protagonists of science fiction novels -- a young woman who is
strong minded but not really interested in taking charge of things, nor will she be
forced into an obvious leadership role in the action. She doesn't feel compelled to jump into a fray, although she will quietly, but firmly, give advice when she feels it's needed.</div>
<div class="Noindent">
<br /></div>
<div class="Noindent">
In the beginning, at least, the reader's interest will be engaged through sympathy for Kate and her situation, although later on her admirable strengths will begin to emerge. I imagine some of these know-it-all
book mavens might look at my story and tell me either to demote my protagonist to a
secondary character or make her more of a feminist amazon, neither of which I
intend to do. So I’ve been thinking about what will justify her being the lead
character in my story – what quality does she have that will make her a
compelling character to my readers?</div>
<div class="Noindent">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFO95ufauvEGin7f6qcGyuVingYXsO3yOyKmMGbEnDXDVkPqoEgb5E4bcU8rArLbKWrTgwJPRwTgSDMd8BXLkudBPWcFOZxcv4kk6LL0wcrTz_g-Qr0ZI5r5OYhVklc6T1q_ClyZXM_88/s1600/ripley.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Ripley from Alien movie" border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFO95ufauvEGin7f6qcGyuVingYXsO3yOyKmMGbEnDXDVkPqoEgb5E4bcU8rArLbKWrTgwJPRwTgSDMd8BXLkudBPWcFOZxcv4kk6LL0wcrTz_g-Qr0ZI5r5OYhVklc6T1q_ClyZXM_88/s200/ripley.jpg" title="" width="191" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nope, NOT my protagonist!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="Noindent">
When I was thinking about the structure of this story, and the extent to which it resembles some of the great story patterns that tend to recur in literature, I found that it has some things in common with ancient epics, the <i>Odyssey </i>and
the <i>Aeneid</i>. All three are tales of heroes who embark on a long and perilous voyage home. In the case of Odysseus, he is making his way home after being away at war for many years, while Aeneas is being sent by the gods to found a new home for his people in a strange land. </div>
<div class="Noindent">
<br /></div>
<div class="Noindent">
In both the <i>Odyssey </i>and the <i>Aeneid</i>, the hero is helped by some gods and hindered by others. Although much of the hero's conflict is man-made, a good deal of it is created by the gods, who use the mortals as their pawns in their own squabbles. Similarly, in my story there are also two groups of powerful
forces that parallel the gods of ancient epics, their existence and machinations little suspected by the main players: one group covertly and
benignly directs the course of our heroine and her companions, while the other, opposing the efforts of the first,
even more stealthily attempts to discover that course and wreck the expedition.</div>
<div class="Noindent">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGo24Hd92DnY9u6aRxZeuKT1OmXYGVF4LhZaSQQt5qJUGanx4ODdNt_x6reIMl3ksa1YdWuIYkAqJC6hszdQU94f-9uU-FUTqStjn3JoiybrrQsaD5KnfF0eZvH6fAfGIm33LrKl6YuAk/s1600/not+my+heroine.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="scifi image from 1950 Galaxy magazine" border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGo24Hd92DnY9u6aRxZeuKT1OmXYGVF4LhZaSQQt5qJUGanx4ODdNt_x6reIMl3ksa1YdWuIYkAqJC6hszdQU94f-9uU-FUTqStjn3JoiybrrQsaD5KnfF0eZvH6fAfGIm33LrKl6YuAk/s200/not+my+heroine.png" title="" width="176" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">NOT my protagonist -- but <br />
I like her coiffure!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="Noindent">
Kate is my equivalent of an epic hero, although that won’t be apparent in this first
novel – as the series progresses, her heroic qualities and the epic dimensions
of the tale will become more evident. Like Aeneas, Kate is voyaging to a new homeland in a far off
place, which will not simply be a new home for her and her companions but an
important foundation for a new future society. Like those of Odysseus, her
heroic virtues will prove to be prudential wisdom, fortitude, and humility perfected
through suffering. But that is the long view; in this first novel, she will be
(figuratively) at sea most of the time, feeling her way through situations in
which she often feels rudderless and tempest-tossed. She won’t be alone,
though, and these bewildering situations will test her relationship with her
husband and companions. The dynamic of her development will be more like that of any other modern protagonist than it will resemble the heroic model -- epic heroes are born, but modern protagonists must undergo long testing and inescapable trials before they discover their inner strengths.</div>
<div class="Noindent">
<br /></div>
<div class="Noindent">
I'll have more to say on the conceptual model of my novel, as I develop it. Meanwhile, I invite readers to leave comments on their favorite literary protagonists and what makes them compelling and sympathetic to readers.</div>
</div>
Lisa Nicholas, Ph. D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17350994312307258539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7415005389529866949.post-53520819751737992412012-11-29T14:33:00.000-06:002012-11-29T14:33:47.393-06:00Dreaming of a weirder world<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGAIlcD20gniIQmLg6fsIqpTeymXdZdjb4gGDeRNJ7iyGgEMp8Sj6ETFKcAowc4t7wlNSSGfUqnFXnywkj8LJ79mllkcAgFlXYMNP19WvOBwh0T93lJBiwqTiI1PmfyBjdQhYg2kmbAqg/s1600/Athena+art.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="http://www.etsy.com/listing/103849905/sticker-of-the-goddess-athena-for-your" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGAIlcD20gniIQmLg6fsIqpTeymXdZdjb4gGDeRNJ7iyGgEMp8Sj6ETFKcAowc4t7wlNSSGfUqnFXnywkj8LJ79mllkcAgFlXYMNP19WvOBwh0T93lJBiwqTiI1PmfyBjdQhYg2kmbAqg/s320/Athena+art.jpg" title="" width="249" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Athena is miffed, having been dissed in my dream.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I've been reading a fair amount of advice on writing lately, and one of the suggestions for coming up with story ideas was to keep a dream journal. I wonder how useful an idea that really is. Most people's dreams are usually an incoherent mess, more impressionistic than narrative, but I often have dreams with strong, clear story lines. They are so cinematic that sometimes some of the "characters" are even played by well-known actors. For instance, I remember one dream in which I was fighting the gods of Olympus (I think this was last spring, when I was teaching ancient epic poetry). In my dream, the Olympian deities were warring with each other -- as is their wont -- and Athena (played by Melina Kanakaredes) had paid me to spy for her. She paid me with a large check (physically huge, like the ones you see sweepstakes winners getting on TV), but I could tell right away the check was phony and would bounce if I tried to cash it, so I yelled at her for being a lying cheapskate, no better than her pet mortal, Odysseus. She swelled up the size of a giant redwood and tried to intimidate me, flashing some impressive lightning like the kind her old man, Zeus, is famous for, and thundering, "Don't you know who I am, mortal? I am the great goddess, Athena! You can't speak that way to me!" (More crashing lighthing, with howling wind.) I jeered back, "You may be big and scary, but you're a ham actor -- and miscast, to boot!" She looked pretty put-out at that, so I awoke on that triumphant note.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv0qeHhwEhnTrdONvNtj-jwJsoHspcjUK5pFXXBdM0_-FCpFfEGGjweLndO5jum7UVDswsuDrMojv5SUZd3njxTil759zBUosfelVyzj1UY01E64nhyLVbQWBzDfxfJbzUQTp2rmqOa7I/s1600/bright+frog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="brightly colored frogs" border="0" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv0qeHhwEhnTrdONvNtj-jwJsoHspcjUK5pFXXBdM0_-FCpFfEGGjweLndO5jum7UVDswsuDrMojv5SUZd3njxTil759zBUosfelVyzj1UY01E64nhyLVbQWBzDfxfJbzUQTp2rmqOa7I/s320/bright+frog.jpg" title="" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The cutest little dream-enemies ever!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
It's possible I could concoct some kind of other-worldly thriller out of one of my dreams, which are often thrillers or mysteries, in which I am, alone or as part of a secret organization, trying to save the world from the forces of evil. (Thanks, Dr. Jung, no analysis needed.) I dreamt a beaut of a dream last night (or, rather, this morning) that was no doubt influenced to some extent by Dean Koontz's Brother Odd (which I am currently reading), with a dash of classic Star Trek's "The Trouble with Tribbles" thrown in. I was riding a bike around a city, and kept noticing (and barely missing running over) lots of brightly colored small frogs (yellow, red, blue, green) in places where you wouldn't expect to see such things. I began to sense that lots of small creatures -- frogs, moles, mice, piranhas -- were converging on the city to seek vengeance on the human population for scorning and misusing them as if they were insignificant. I went home to a large building where I lived -- a building that was a couple of stories high, took up an entire large city block, and was an entire self-contained community in itself (like a large space ship), having private sleeping quarters, communal lounges, dining halls, bathrooms, and shops full of clothing. I warned my fellow residents that we were about to experience a sneak attack by thousands of small creatures, furry and not, and I instructed the computer that controlled the building's systems to close all possible ways of ingress or egress. Meanwhile, my fellow residents and I went around trying to find the little critters wherever they might be -- shaking them out of the sleeves of coats and jackets that hung on hangers, spooking them where they were huddled at the backs of toilet stalls in the restrooms. It was looking as if we had managed to smoke them out before too many had got into the building when my cat Petunia (She Who Must Be Obeyed) began yelling for her breakfast and I had to get up and greet the day.<br />
<br />
I have a feeling, though, that I won't be creating any breakout novels based on my dreams. The novel I'm currently working on is based on a story I've been making up in my head for many years but one which, curiously, has never invaded my dreams. However, if I write the whole series I have imagined, it will turn out to have one thing in common with the themes of my dreams, in that the central characters will discover that they have become, almost unwittingly, members of a secret organization that is, in a way, trying to save the world from the forces of evil. But I don't want to spoil it for you, so that's all I'm going to say.<br />
<br />
Sweet dreams, y'all.<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Lisa Nicholas, Ph. D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17350994312307258539noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7415005389529866949.post-79454740513017394392012-11-27T14:01:00.000-06:002012-12-27T01:15:19.244-06:00Christian Science Fiction, free from Amazon<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio1d5BuqlpVZJWopysb-v4BU-Sx6JNx0OsLh51BGNGbRxebngWfcjUk6JcNIlXsMw2DuNSLT1aMmnxs-R7Wn1V1VSV_7iTzeE0M70I4X1zrQRYPb3CEIyDvjYk13K_mLikUSWI42kbqgE/s1600/Johnny+Lazarus+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Johnny Came Come cover art" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio1d5BuqlpVZJWopysb-v4BU-Sx6JNx0OsLh51BGNGbRxebngWfcjUk6JcNIlXsMw2DuNSLT1aMmnxs-R7Wn1V1VSV_7iTzeE0M70I4X1zrQRYPb3CEIyDvjYk13K_mLikUSWI42kbqgE/s1600/Johnny+Lazarus+cover.jpg" title="" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of the Christian scifi novels<br />
currently free on Amazon</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
In my quest to seek out and sample Christian science fiction currently available, I found all these <a href="http://amzn.to/Tjjs5n" target="_blank">Kindle freebies on Amazon</a>. One of them I had already read (not realizing it had Christian themes until late in the novel, by which time I had already quit reading). If you're interested in these free books, but don't have a Kindle reader, be advised that you can also read them in Amazon's Kindle Cloud Reader (via your web browser) or in one of the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=sv_kstore_1?ie=UTF8&docId=1000493771" target="_blank">free Kindle apps for computers, smart phones, tablets</a>, etc.<br />
<br />
I've "purchased" a number of these freebies, and will review them here if and when I get around to reading them. (Right now, I'm reading Dean Koontz's <i>Brother Odd</i>, in those few spare minutes when I'm not writing, planning to write, or learning how to market what I write.) My informal research so far on Christian science fiction suggests that Protestant (particularly Evangelical) Christian writers are more likely to write fantasy "scifi" or earthbound tales about angels and aliens, while Catholic writers are more likely to create science fiction in the stricter sense of having science or technology prominent in the story (time travel, space travel, etc.). At any rate, I look forward to sampling these free Christian science fiction novels.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho5yi9jnrN_FAkAuu5UVAx6onXFu9h8d_vCVI8ih9veo_75MpNGgEtM2PC3P0HNjU0ZbkAaIzwxT4ZPeUwAk_vVdSAz_A_rRqPGILdsQJYhgfMle5f2GoWKTF5pjGeG_okLmv0qPTHPUs/s1600/DE+cover+for+review+new.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Naturally Healthy Living with Diatomaceous Earth, L. A. Nicholas" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho5yi9jnrN_FAkAuu5UVAx6onXFu9h8d_vCVI8ih9veo_75MpNGgEtM2PC3P0HNjU0ZbkAaIzwxT4ZPeUwAk_vVdSAz_A_rRqPGILdsQJYhgfMle5f2GoWKTF5pjGeG_okLmv0qPTHPUs/s320/DE+cover+for+review+new.png" title="" width="195" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">New cover, print edition coming!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: right;">
</div>
Someday my own scifi novel will be there among them (not necessarily free), but I've got some work to do first. I will not be making the mistake some enthusiastic writers make, of publishing before the work has been properly edited. (Word of advice: when purchasing online, always read the free sample first! Many ebooks are self-published, often by not-yet-ready-for-prime-time writers. Even a free book should be well-written.)<br />
<br />
I do have a few things already published on Kindle, however: my other <a href="http://www.amazon.com/A-Catholic-Reader/dp/B009MF2TXK/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1354045558&sr=1-1&keywords=A+Catholic+Reader+blog" target="_blank">two </a><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Catholic-Reading-Project-Online/dp/B00A2DE5VA/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1354045663&sr=1-1&keywords=Catholic+Reading+Project+blog" target="_blank">blogs </a>and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Naturally-Healthy-Diatomaceous-Smarter-ebook/dp/B00A8D0CN4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1353999187&sr=8-1&keywords=naturally+healthy+living+with+diatomaceous+earth" target="_blank">an ebooklet on the uses and benefits of diatomaceous earth</a>. You can find out more of that <a href="http://acatholicreader.blogspot.com/2012/11/my-new-e-booklet-please-read-free.html" target="_blank">here on my Catholic Reader blog</a>.</div>
Lisa Nicholas, Ph. D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17350994312307258539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7415005389529866949.post-72363117873355517912012-11-21T22:23:00.000-06:002012-11-21T22:23:48.223-06:00Imagining a post-technological future<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBGWH83JrwHE56lD7dFm69w1mQYYti_xz0OHEWD1nUssTFi26pCH5KPFJ0R9qDdYpjzO9Cz9o8Xv9GZaHsfr43GxurBfMwYiFKiJwVGI5CBTsJ2y5c-q1jv9ya2ZIXis58bZhkq5Tbbeg/s1600/American-Gothic-Goes-To-Space--70401.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="American Gothic in space" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBGWH83JrwHE56lD7dFm69w1mQYYti_xz0OHEWD1nUssTFi26pCH5KPFJ0R9qDdYpjzO9Cz9o8Xv9GZaHsfr43GxurBfMwYiFKiJwVGI5CBTsJ2y5c-q1jv9ya2ZIXis58bZhkq5Tbbeg/s1600/American-Gothic-Goes-To-Space--70401.jpg" title="" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Will there ever be "farmers in the sky"?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The sci-fi novel I am working on takes place several centuries in the future, at a time when people have finally gotten a bit bored with scientific and technological advances, when so many earth-like planets have been discovered and settled that deep-space exploration has also begun to pall on the popular imagination. Much scientific research and technological innovation has been relegated to super-smart artificial intelligences (their work monitored by humans), although people who actually want to do that stuff can certainly do so. Finally, people can just get back to figuring out what makes life worth living, and use or ignore advanced technology as they wish.<br />
<br />
Another part of the "sci-fi" premise is the idea that, several centuries from now, but at least a couple of centuries before my story takes place, physics will undergo another huge revolution that makes Einstein's insights seem as primitive as Aristotle's natural philosophy seems to us today. Basically, this will be the final step in scientific understanding -- one might call it the End of Science, as it will reveal certain truths about the structure of the universe that are far beyond the human capacity to comprehend, much less make use of. Finally, science reaches a point where it is merely true, not at all useful! The physicist, at last, becomes the pure contemplative (which is where the ancient Greek philosophers were headed, more than 2,000 years ago).<br />
<br />
This leaves me free to write a "science fiction" story that is actually about people and human concerns. I want to be able to tell a story without having to pretend to be a scientist, so these premises serve me well. I can "invent" future capabilities of science without having to go into a lot detail or explanation. As it happens, my characters are going to be building a rather low-tech world for themselves, even though they have a huge vessel, loaded with all sorts of marvelous capabilities and guided by a super-smart but also humane artificial intelligence, in permanent orbit around their new home.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiP1xtL7Ob7cdzF_d80pWQJPnJEopFHhFFGeQ85j4sdMuVuRtAX7On1LE2xKbxaU7DYhKNc3tRuy1sBIacAcZuIRf-0exsQvGqa454YxFzNWY1RIQAb9-HEKOiOsmOR6JTmvHDhk14krc/s1600/spaceship+in+orbit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="spaceship orbiting planet" border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiP1xtL7Ob7cdzF_d80pWQJPnJEopFHhFFGeQ85j4sdMuVuRtAX7On1LE2xKbxaU7DYhKNc3tRuy1sBIacAcZuIRf-0exsQvGqa454YxFzNWY1RIQAb9-HEKOiOsmOR6JTmvHDhk14krc/s320/spaceship+in+orbit.jpg" title="" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fun to imagine, but will it ever happen? And does it matter?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
By the way, all this is pure fiction -- by which I mean that I don't believe it myself. I don't believe that we'll discover dozens, maybe hundreds of earth-like planets scattered around our galaxy or that we humans will ever reach even one such planet. I do suspect that someday our scientists will reach a point where they just won't be able to go any further -- in fact, I think that we may almost be there. But, guess what? It doesn't really matter. Science will not solve our problems; if you pay attention, you'll see that for every problem that science "solves" it creates at least one new problem, which then needs a further solution. Even when a physical good is achieved, it often opens up a new moral evil.<br />
<br />
Which brings me back to why I like science fiction (I actually prefer the broader term "speculative fiction"): it allows us to create an entirely imaginary world in which to examine entirely real problems of the human condition. So the book(s) I want to write will be "true" in the sense of presenting human realities, even though the imaginary world in which they play out will probably never be approached in "real" history.<br />
<br />
For those of you who look forward to discovering and exploring planets where human colonists may someday try to build new homes in the real (i.e., nonfiction) universe, check out the <a href="http://www.tauzero.aero/index.html" target="_blank">Tau Zero Foundation</a>, made up of researchers, writers, and others who are working toward someday developing means interstellar travel and exploration. News of developments and research by Tau Zero members is reported on the <a href="http://www.centauri-dreams.org/" target="_blank">Centauri Dreams</a> blog.</div>
Lisa Nicholas, Ph. D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17350994312307258539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7415005389529866949.post-43342670185382527362012-11-19T21:51:00.000-06:002013-04-12T01:37:21.884-05:00Quick and simple plot guides<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I've been learning from the experts how to plot a novel, using resources that were free to me (or almost). Besides reading chapters out of books I didn't want to buy at Half Price Books, I've been using the following:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidfE4m5cjESZTWDbGooCc5q7k-GyrDptjkcKicldozGJwj7xSOQHt2Gxf3q71eiEv4AXcVhLzSdbGxlGh0g22JA4qmLP2oZKVpBtfzON-2lxpoY930r2sDZobJWWpVDvXcAcOEf3rgC_Q/s1600/Plot+and+structure.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Plot & Structure, James Scott Bell" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidfE4m5cjESZTWDbGooCc5q7k-GyrDptjkcKicldozGJwj7xSOQHt2Gxf3q71eiEv4AXcVhLzSdbGxlGh0g22JA4qmLP2oZKVpBtfzON-2lxpoY930r2sDZobJWWpVDvXcAcOEf3rgC_Q/s1600/Plot+and+structure.jpg" title="" /></a></div>
James Scott Bell's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/158297294X/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=158297294X&linkCode=as2&tag=letsle04-20"><i>Plot & Structure: (Techniques And Exercises For Crafting A Plot That Grips Readers From Start To Finish)</i></a><img alt="" border="0" class="tllawojtouwkigrdwcjh hhdyusihmperhkwouszq" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=letsle04-20&l=as2&o=1&a=158297294X" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /> This is published by Writers Digest, in their Write Great Fiction series. I was able to borrow the Kindle version free, thanks to my Amazon Prime membership, but when I found a like-new paperback copy at Half Price, I nearly bought it again. I certainly would recommend it to anyone who has trouble moving from concept to story, or whose stories seem to wander around aimlessly. Bell does not present a rigid template (as some writers do), but he discusses the different parts of the story and what they need to do (beginnings, middles, and endings each have a chapter), and he gives you strategies for getting them to do that. He also gives you exercises at the end of each chapter, which I have not used but I guess many might find them helpful (I imagine they make the book more usable in classroom settings, too.)<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkrmlmDEWdQqkEJry66REDVWxIohVprbXIjpoKbzrO6TRe_lVrOS6INEQ7CIbKmTj1MCewlOWpjpOfd36bXgtKm0zaTp_QR8Co9jiqHJIjCgxmFhttzDH00L2qDyuMjMpjeqQYhSoK01U/s1600/Plotting+simplified.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Plotting Simplified, Eddie Jones" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkrmlmDEWdQqkEJry66REDVWxIohVprbXIjpoKbzrO6TRe_lVrOS6INEQ7CIbKmTj1MCewlOWpjpOfd36bXgtKm0zaTp_QR8Co9jiqHJIjCgxmFhttzDH00L2qDyuMjMpjeqQYhSoK01U/s320/Plotting+simplified.jpg" title="" width="208" /></a></div>
Feeling a bit sad that I would have to return Bell's book at some point, I serendipitously purchased, for the bargain price of 99 cents, the Kindle version of Eddie Jones's <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1938499026/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1938499026&linkCode=as2&tag=letsle04-20">Plotting Simplified: Story Structure Tips For The Break-Out Novelist</a></i><img alt="" border="0" class="tllawojtouwkigrdwcjh hhdyusihmperhkwouszq" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=letsle04-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1938499026" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />, which, although it is just a 24-page booklet, seems to do a good job of synthesizing several good books on plotting, including Bells' <i>Plot & Structure</i>, and Donald Maas's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/158297182X/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=158297182X&linkCode=as2&tag=letsle04-20">Writing the Breakout Novel</a> (which I've perused in the bookstore). This little book was written as supporting material for a plotting class taught at writers' conferences, but it also makes a good summary of plotting concerns and techniques for cheapskates like me. I'll use it after I've returned the Bell book and need some reminding.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6H4VBn2uiJBQJe1lPE7cI1X4WUXUUTW1gl-myttTSzo_T65eHyPXgfaf9ewQKCb9KnzJEUUjOhLrNXp-HYzV5J6OX0fXPN8rv-nyJgj1KdMxiUa5mwz_5KIV6L_3nd0yo-lCwB9GOs-0/s1600/Snowflake-Pro-Software.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Snowflake Pro novel-writing software" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6H4VBn2uiJBQJe1lPE7cI1X4WUXUUTW1gl-myttTSzo_T65eHyPXgfaf9ewQKCb9KnzJEUUjOhLrNXp-HYzV5J6OX0fXPN8rv-nyJgj1KdMxiUa5mwz_5KIV6L_3nd0yo-lCwB9GOs-0/s1600/Snowflake-Pro-Software.gif" title="" /></a></div>
My third helper is Randy Ingermanson's <a href="http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/art/snowflake.php" target="_blank">How to Write a Novel: The Snowflake Method</a>, available free on his web site, <a href="http://advancedfictionwriting.com/">AdvancedFictionWriting.com</a>. This method takes you from a single sentence summary of your plot to a fully elaborated plan, including character sketches, which can guide your writing. He also sells some software that takes you through the Snowflake method (and will even generate a book proposal from your notes). Ingermanson suggests that his Snowflake Pro software might be helpful for writers who already have a first draft but who need help putting it into working order.<br />
<br />
With these three helpers, I feel confident in planning and write the first draft of my sci-fi novel. Some writers might feel itchy thinking about front-loading the writing process with all this planning, but I'm a contemplation-then-action kind of person. I know it will make it much easier for me to sit down at the keyboard and just crank through to the end. Will I have the first draft done by the end of NaNoWriMo? No. But once I've got the plan finished, I'm going to try to write the first draft in a month's time, even though that month won't fall within the confines of November. So it'll still be "my NaNoWriMo novel," (and that is as close as I've gotten to an actual working title). </div>
Lisa Nicholas, Ph. D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17350994312307258539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7415005389529866949.post-62902010519098799862012-11-11T23:33:00.000-06:002012-12-27T01:24:08.363-06:00To plot or not to plot? There's really no question.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
NaNoWriMo is one-third gone, and I'm just now starting to write -- unexpected domestic situations threw me off my stride, and the Catholic Reading Project took up most of my writing time. However, better to start late than not to start at all. I'll still try to get 50,000 words written on my novel within 30 days, although maybe not by the end of November.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc9zxsak6KKi3YAVoEPbpw5F3wWiPbTQ54bHg7Vw9F0QOyRLbeeMJCIQpM5MQwV29BZw3NS9V2U4qypNeD1VyY46tbwVPplWikP2CH1-JACpx6pWkbR8L82Z_p8RcNQVXeswbqsmPJfIw/s1600/waiting+for+muse.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="waiting for the Muse; writing without plot" border="0" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc9zxsak6KKi3YAVoEPbpw5F3wWiPbTQ54bHg7Vw9F0QOyRLbeeMJCIQpM5MQwV29BZw3NS9V2U4qypNeD1VyY46tbwVPplWikP2CH1-JACpx6pWkbR8L82Z_p8RcNQVXeswbqsmPJfIw/s320/waiting+for+muse.jpg" title="" width="320" /></a></div>
Right now I'm working on a rough outline of the plot. Even though I've been creating this story in my mind for more than thirty years, since I was not consciously constructing a novel, just a kind of ongoing adventure, I probably have the makings of a series of novels -- half a dozen, at least, spanning 40-50 years in the lives of my main characters -- so I really need to carve out the chunk that will make up just the first book. That means not just deciding how far the first story will go (that was pretty easy to decide), but how to shape it in such a way that it will have its own internal dynamic and novelistic shape. That shouldn't take too long, but today I've been studying up on how to plot a novel so that I can get the plot into rough form before starting to pound the keyboard to get started on the 50,000 first draft.<br />
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It's surprising how many aspiring writers think there is something inauthentic about planning the shape of a novel before you write it; apparently there are two camps, plotters and SOTP (seat of the pants) writers, a.k.a. "pantsers." Many years ago, when I first started trying to write short stories and novels, I was a "pantser," and I've learned that it is sheer madness to just "wait for the Muse" or to expect a story to tell itself. I've spent more than thirty years studying literature since then, and I know that while a story's structure may be invisible to the reader (and may even have emerged unconsciously from the writer's mind), every story that "works" has a discernible structure that paces the action in a satisfying way, and every major development needs to be psychologically necessary and satisfying. What Aristotle said of tragedies 2,300 years ago is still true of modern novels: the best ones need a beginning, a middle, and an end that are causally related, a unified, rather than episodic, plot: i.e., actions are realistically motivated, one thing causes another, all the details contribute to moving the plot forward and bringing it to a satisfying conclusion. It is MUCH easier to produce such a tale if you put a little planning into it ahead of time.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQCOa01kAI3rtxNLrM6Rnpz-dxr1KGmp_-KTGLRg77ZJ_PCJthln-uqcOuveF5HhPEtjGKT0T8vtQ9MSQMopBFhquTvI1Pl1psYfRw9KSuaEtT3MfyIo4FAxRyypH5LXgu9xEyvgZ8unY/s1600/snoopys-not-the-end.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Snoopy typing "not the end"; how not to end a novel" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQCOa01kAI3rtxNLrM6Rnpz-dxr1KGmp_-KTGLRg77ZJ_PCJthln-uqcOuveF5HhPEtjGKT0T8vtQ9MSQMopBFhquTvI1Pl1psYfRw9KSuaEtT3MfyIo4FAxRyypH5LXgu9xEyvgZ8unY/s1600/snoopys-not-the-end.png" title="" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Why Snoopy never became a great novelist.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Too many hastily written novels lack many of these features. Even in a novel series, each individual novel needs to have a self-contained plot -- a conflict that gets resolved, a protagonist who overcomes a foe, achieves a goal, reaches some satisfying new stage of growth or development -- even though further novels will may be picking the protagonist up where the previous book left off. There are many amateurish series that fail to do this: the installments are not really self-contained stories, but mere episodes in a larger story and taken by themselves they leave the reader unsatisfied. They are, in fact, simply fragments of a lengthy serial novel, designed to keep readers buying successive fragments in hopes of eventually getting to a real resolution. (I rant about this a bit <a href="http://acatholicreader.blogspot.com/2012/12/dear-self-published-novelists-please.html" target="_blank">over on my Catholic Reader blog</a>.) The effect of such works is to suggest that the writer is crass and sloppy, someone who just wants to string the reader along for as long as possible and keep the money flowing in.<br />
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For centuries -- nay, millennia -- writers understood that a good story to be well told needed a carefully devised structure. This was true of the great epic poets -- neither Homer nor Dante would have dreamt of just sitting down to write without an intricate and careful plan to guide him. Even today, movie scriptwriters know that a film script has to follow a particular kind of story arc in order to satisfy the unconscious needs of viewers; they can't simply intersperse dialogue and action scenes. Really successful novelists, those with contracts to produce a couple of new titles each year, could never fulfill their contractual obligations if they just sat down at their keyboards and waited for inspiration to strike -- they know they need a carefully structure outline, and they schedule their time so that a certain amount of progress gets made each day. Plot outlines are especially important, of course, for really prolific authors who use ghostwriters. The author creates the characters and the plot outline, and then trusts the ghost to follow the plan. (By the way, this is an honorable practice that goes back at least 900 years -- Chretien de Troyes, the twelfth-century equivalent of today's best-selling authors of blockbusters, used ghostwriters to complete at least two of his five Arthurian romances.)<br />
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So I've been checking out some of the <a href="http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/nanowrimo-online-editor" target="_blank">free NaNoWriMo resources </a>to help with plotting, as well as <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/?_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&h=9f6bd52c86f9b5597e2725099b4b02fc4f0fde89&keywords=how%20to%20plot%20a%20novel&linkCode=ur2&qid=1352690662&rh=n%3A158279011%2Ck%3Ahow%20to%20plot%20a%20novel&scn=158279011&tag=letsle04-20" target="_blank">Kindle books</a><img alt="" border="0" class="hgmjsntkelaxemwvacph lnoshcvvbmlxgrkptwof" height="1" src="https://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=letsle04-20&l=ur2&o=1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /> on the subject available from Amazon, so that I can have a viable plot outline before I begin writing my NaNoWriMo novel. I'll let you know which ones I find helpful, and why.<br />
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Lisa Nicholas, Ph. D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17350994312307258539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7415005389529866949.post-72182753377438120622012-11-01T23:14:00.000-05:002012-11-01T23:14:42.659-05:00NaNoWriMo: In like a lamb, with free stuff<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Oh, yeah, I also took a nap.</td></tr>
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The first day of National Novel Writing Month has been slow, with respect to actually writing even a single word of my planned novel. I'm always one for a long, slow wind-up before the pitch, but since I've been working on the story for my novel for more than thirty years (in my head, not on paper) one more day of not-writing makes for a very slow wind-up indeed.<br />
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I did, however, do plenty of thinking about how to begin, and even <a href="http://www.spacejock.com/yWriter5_Ebooks.html" target="_blank">downloaded some free software</a> that is supposed to help me plan the novel, flesh out the characters, build a good story arc. There is, surprisingly, LOTS of story-writing software out there (no, it won't actually write the novel for you) and I suppose it's possible to waste all sorts of time installing the program, reading through tutorials, setting up the interface, and various other sorts of not-writing time-wasting. I've been so busy with other things today, that I didn't even get a chance to engage in that sort of procrastinatory busy work. I downloaded the software. Period. And wrote a short <a href="http://catholicreadingproject.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-grandaddy-of-catholic-social.html" target="_blank">post for my Catholic Social Teaching site</a>. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVUdUGywmfk4r0CGhEug3CyC880S2mPNbq38EomMNyiX-o1P1TzDBu8VTKpMWpdyGv0TIPZL8YWP3ePoVw6UzXvGJpcIeakzW3hPc-vrN5e3SoUXDNbmqO4hTNEUmdxxYgUrwCr8RR6dA/s1600/Hal01_sjs_120w.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Hal Spacejock by Simon Haynes" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVUdUGywmfk4r0CGhEug3CyC880S2mPNbq38EomMNyiX-o1P1TzDBu8VTKpMWpdyGv0TIPZL8YWP3ePoVw6UzXvGJpcIeakzW3hPc-vrN5e3SoUXDNbmqO4hTNEUmdxxYgUrwCr8RR6dA/s1600/Hal01_sjs_120w.jpg" title="" /></a></div>
The program I downloaded is one I had before (it got wiped out when I had to reformat the hard drive after a Trojan virus infection). It's called simply <a href="http://www.spacejock.com/yWriter5.html" target="_blank">yWriter</a> and was created by Simon Haynes, who is himself a NaNoWriMo writer as well as a software programmer. He developed yWriter to help with his own writing, and now gives it away free, along with plenty of other software. I'll let the author describe what his brainchild is:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>yWriter is a word processor</b> which breaks your novel into chapters and scenes, helping you <b>keep track of your work</b> while leaving your mind free to create. It will <i>not</i>
write your novel for you, suggest plot ideas or perform creative tasks
of any kind. yWriter was designed by an author, not a salesman!</blockquote>
[Yay for that. Too much software of this sort is just a gimmick to get you to buy into a whole "novel-writing system."] Haynes goes on to say:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
If you're just embarking on your first novel a program like <b>yWriter</b>
may seem like overkill. I mean, all you have to do is type everything
into a word processor! Sure, but wait until you hit 20,000 words, with
missing scenes and chapters, notes all over your desk, characters and
locations and plot points you've just added and which need to be
referenced earlier ... it becomes a real struggle. Now imagine that same
novel at 40,000 or 80,000 words! No wonder most first-time writers give
up. </blockquote>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6tkG3fHIC-56bjIbhvsw0sxxmZuS1M_zCMkI1c9u9rMudAS-V-ScHLmd_0IWZW6BTg1GWCWjv44LxsU3SxFCn_DPYrIADVo4kkXytxMghslORtlfck0vk4E5QGWpWzL9p8-gzZ79RjV8/s1600/HalJunior01_120.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Hal Junior The Secret Signal by Simon Haynes" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6tkG3fHIC-56bjIbhvsw0sxxmZuS1M_zCMkI1c9u9rMudAS-V-ScHLmd_0IWZW6BTg1GWCWjv44LxsU3SxFCn_DPYrIADVo4kkXytxMghslORtlfck0vk4E5QGWpWzL9p8-gzZ79RjV8/s1600/HalJunior01_120.jpg" title="" /></a></div>
Simon Haynes knows whereof he speaks, as he is not just a programmer but an experienced novelist, with a whole string of Hal Spacejock novels (humorous sci-fi) and Hal Junior tales (for kids), as well as a number of short stories he has published for Kindle. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/?_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&linkCode=ur2&page=3&qid=1351828009&rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_82%3AB001JOS9U4&sort=daterank&tag=letsle04-20" target="_blank">Check 'em out here </a><img alt="" border="0" class="pehowfothohumgrxemut" height="1" src="https://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=letsle04-20&l=ur2&o=1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />on his Amazon author page. By the way, you can <a href="http://www.spacejock.com.au/Hal1Download.html" target="_blank">download the first Hal Spacejock novel free</a>. If you like funny novels and like sci-fi, you should get a kick out of Hal Spacejock.<br />
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If you'd like to try writing a novel, try downloading yWriter and then read some of the <a href="http://www.spacejock.com.au/Articles.html" target="_blank">articles about writing</a> on Simon Haynes's web site, which cover everything from plotting to publishing to promoting your novel. And if you do, don't forget to thank Simon for all this great free stuff!</div>
Lisa Nicholas, Ph. D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17350994312307258539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7415005389529866949.post-82245583348219418842012-10-31T20:54:00.000-05:002012-10-31T20:54:00.732-05:00Taking on the NaNoWriMo Challenge<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZDVhbmLw5WwfMCaG4N5SWL3ArqXGcqiqHTgk_Zk1jb0BUsmhzXK6OIP5TH5XoZ_bJe3svyt0wJ-z6zOOQlwWMykIo_n6Q_RYvZ-CJkcp6ETnD75tp2ILM0M7FBo_8d8Tjms1CnGO27UM/s1600/Participant-180x180-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="NaNoWriMo participant 2012" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZDVhbmLw5WwfMCaG4N5SWL3ArqXGcqiqHTgk_Zk1jb0BUsmhzXK6OIP5TH5XoZ_bJe3svyt0wJ-z6zOOQlwWMykIo_n6Q_RYvZ-CJkcp6ETnD75tp2ILM0M7FBo_8d8Tjms1CnGO27UM/s1600/Participant-180x180-2.jpg" title="" /></a></div>
I've decided to take on the NaNoWriMo challenge this years. For anyone who has no idea what this means, NaNoWriMo refers to "National Novel Writing Month" -- for the last several years, novelist wannabes around the country (and even across the planet) have taken up the challenge to complete a 50,000 word novel in just one month, November. <a href="http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/publishedwrimos" target="_blank">A number of now-published (several of them quite successful) novelists</a> got at least one of their novels started this way. The idea is that it makes all those people who say "I'm going to write a novel someday" put themselves to the test. The time pressure of producing a 50,000 word draft in just 30 days is supposed help them stay motivated. Participants can also register on the <a href="http://www.nanowrimo.org/" target="_blank">official NaNoWriMo web site</a>, to be held to some accountability, to get encouragement from fellow participants, to use the web site's word counter to check their progress, and to claim their kudos if they make it to 50,000 words by the end of the month.<br />
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Now, I don't suppose even the most gifted or experienced writer would have a polished novel by the end of November, but that's not really the idea. The idea is to write through brain blocks and keep the juices flowing so that you'll have a complete "zero draft" by the end of the month, something which can then be expanded and edited (50K words is rather short for a novel) into something publishable. Of course, those who wish can publish the thing as-is; <a href="http://www.smashwords.com/about/nanowrimo" target="_blank">Smashwords is happily encouraging this</a>, although they realistically suggest that such a work be given away free. And for those who don't quite grasp the concept of eschewing procrastination and doing some unbridled writing, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/?_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&field-keywords=nanowrimo&linkCode=ur2&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Ananowrimo&tag=letsle04-20&url=search-alias%3Daps" target="_blank">Amazon lists lots of books to coach the timid through NaNoWriMo</a><img alt="" border="0" class="irxkewefyhhxrcybzrtx" height="1" src="https://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=letsle04-20&l=ur2&o=1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />.<br />
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Even for a short draft, cranking out 50K verborum in a single month is a lot of writing -- almost 1,700 words per day, if you write every day. Not too big a deal if you have absolutely nothing else to do with your working hours, perhaps, but how many of us are in that situation? Anyway, I'm going to give it a go. So, what am I going to write? Well, I want to something that might actually get read, so I need to pick a fairly popular genre; these days, readers like to know that a new author has more in the pipeline (one-offs don't satisfy voracious readers), so it needs to be something that can be first of a series. But it also has to be something that I want to write, which narrows the field considerably. And I have to decide by tomorrow (the whole NaNoWriMo business just occurred to me yesterday).<br />
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As it happens, I have a story in mind -- something that I've been making up in my head for more than 30 years, although I had never seriously thought about turning it into novels. Still, this strikes me as the opportune moment to get started on what is potentially a long string of connected novels. I won't reveal just yet what it all about, but the working title is "A Green and Pleasant Land Among the Stars." I'll let you know how it goes.<br />
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Lisa Nicholas, Ph. D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17350994312307258539noreply@blogger.com0