Good quality underwear is absolutely essential to a speculative Romance writer. I am not talking about erotica, nor about everyone's grandmother's admonition to wear clean underwear for fear of being knocked down by an omnibus.
The best Fantasy underwear ever, in my opinion, was Frodo's mithril undershirt. We readers knew he had it, but by the time he needed it, we'd forgotten that he'd got it on. It allowed everyone to think that he'd been killed by the most dreadful, invincible weapon, and after we were emotionally wrung out over the loss, it allowed us to believe that he'd survived.
It could have supernatural qualities, and did, but because the Elves made it, and they were made plausible, and because it was underwear and therefore out of sight and out of mind, I found it plausible.
Magic underwear could be the modern and futuristic deus ex machina.
Certainly, Electra-Djerroldina's futuristic "chastity belt" was inspired by mithril (Knight's Fork). It allowed me to retain all the restrictions that my alien romance plot required, yet did not oblige my heroine to clank or rust. In the interests of coming clean with my characters' underwear, Djetth in Insufficient Mating Material sported trunk briefs very similar to what a seven foot tall basketball player might endorse. Tarrant-Arragon wore something half way between a loin cloth and a kilt.
In a waiting room the other day, I indulged in highly risky behavior and read a magazine. It might have been "People". Carrie Fisher gave a revealing interview, and disclosed her feelings when Star Wars wardrobing showed her the brown bikini she had to wear as Jabba The Hut's slave.
I remember what I felt when I saw it. I was not convinced. Why would a nudist like Jabba make his slave girl wear a bikini? What would a futuristic, tyrant Heff do? Of course, we couldn't have Princess Leia looking like she worked for Hooters. I understand the political problem. I think I might have draped her in veils...
Where are we going with underwear in sfr? It is going to change, I assume. Look how much underwear has evolved and changed in the last couple of hundred years. I cannot imagine thongs lasting into the future. Can you? They're neither comfortable nor functional, are they? And there's not a lot of room for magic.
If our bodies become more perfectly sculpted, will we need underwear? If we try to save more energy, will we wear more thermal underwear and look more like the heroes and heroines of Seven Brides For Seven Brothers?
By the way, will we wash less often? I saw in Discovery Magazine that unwashed, greasy hair absorbs harmful ozone. Making an environmentally responsible choice to wash less often also reduces water usage, and reduces the quantities of soapy reside and other chemicals going down the drain and ultimately out to sea.
Maybe we'll use more disposable tear-off strips. "Always" for his and for her gussets. What are you seeing your heroes and heroines of the future in?
Rowena Cherry
SPACE SNARK™ http://www.spacesnark.com/
Showing posts with label speculative romance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label speculative romance. Show all posts
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Sunday, August 31, 2008
A puzzler
"Are you a plotter or a pantser?"
If you are a published author, how many times have you been asked that? If you are a reader, do you care whether or not an author is methodical and well organized? If you are a writer who is seeking publication, do you try to change your ways if you see a pattern and all your favorite authors are proud plotters? (Or proud pantsers?)
Or... is the question really code for something else? Does the interviewer really want to know if you write plot-driven, or character-driven stories?
According (I think) to Orson Scott Card, there are four types of stories: event (or plot) focused; character centered; idea based; or about milieu.
No one has ever asked if I write Idea, or Milieu. Among speculative fiction writers, I'd think some of us (but not me) might be more interested in an idea, or in world-building. In my opinion, Lord of the Rings (the book, not the movie) was a Milieu story.
I've digressed from the confines of being "plotter" or "pantser".
This year --I've been honored with a few interview requests-- I've seen a third option both asked, and discussed on writers' loops: that of puzzler.
Given that I'm asked the question, I like to give a thoughtful, unique, and interesting answer. Maybe I don't always succeed, but a monosyllabic response must miss the point of doing an interview, mustn't it?
Until yesterday, I often compared my own writing approach to solving a jigsaw puzzle in which the corners and outline were always in place first, but some of the pieces (including outside pieces) were identical in color and shape on at least two sides so I might not notice they started out in the wrong place until the work was almost completed.
Yesterday I attempted a chess analogy. It actually doesn't work as well as a jigsaw puzzle, unless I think of my editor --or someone else-- as an opponent in the process, which of course, I don't.
I write chess-titled Romances. I have done since 1993. It's ironic that other authors have chess covers, isn't it?
I write character-driven stories, usually centered on the hero. Plot... or a series of thrilling events... isn't my primary interest.
Comparing the beginning of a work to having a chess board before me is interesting (to me). Of course, my editor would never tolerate a cast of thirty-two: 16 good-guys and 16 baddies.
Well, I don't need the sidling Bishops, and I don't need a full complement of pawns on either side, either. Moreover, I can cut down on the Rooks (or castles) and if I think of them as the spaceships and palaces (or milieu, not characters), I'm almost down to a manageable cast.
You might (or might not!) be interested to know why I didn't have time to send Christmas cards last year. My editor needed me to write out a "Castle", an entire spaceship on which a climactic scene took place, and also two "Knights" from Knight's Fork.
She was right, of course.
Each character has its strengths, powers, and limitations. They can only move as far, and in the directions dictated by who/what they are, and what is in their way.
There are rules. Every move has consequences. There's a time limit. There are space constraints. Pawns can be transformed into more powerful pieces.
My fanciful little chess analogy ought to fail on account of the color contrast. In politics, not everyone acts as his party expects. However, I collect chess sets. I have a Cretan set, where Black is Gold and White is Silver. Once the men (chessmen) are rubbed a few times, it's hard to tell which side they're on.
With that happy thought, I'll wish you a safe and happy Labor Day.
Rowena
By the way, I heard this week that Insufficient Mating Material won the 2008 Hollywood Book Festival's Romance category.
If you are a published author, how many times have you been asked that? If you are a reader, do you care whether or not an author is methodical and well organized? If you are a writer who is seeking publication, do you try to change your ways if you see a pattern and all your favorite authors are proud plotters? (Or proud pantsers?)
Or... is the question really code for something else? Does the interviewer really want to know if you write plot-driven, or character-driven stories?
According (I think) to Orson Scott Card, there are four types of stories: event (or plot) focused; character centered; idea based; or about milieu.
No one has ever asked if I write Idea, or Milieu. Among speculative fiction writers, I'd think some of us (but not me) might be more interested in an idea, or in world-building. In my opinion, Lord of the Rings (the book, not the movie) was a Milieu story.
I've digressed from the confines of being "plotter" or "pantser".
This year --I've been honored with a few interview requests-- I've seen a third option both asked, and discussed on writers' loops: that of puzzler.
Given that I'm asked the question, I like to give a thoughtful, unique, and interesting answer. Maybe I don't always succeed, but a monosyllabic response must miss the point of doing an interview, mustn't it?
Until yesterday, I often compared my own writing approach to solving a jigsaw puzzle in which the corners and outline were always in place first, but some of the pieces (including outside pieces) were identical in color and shape on at least two sides so I might not notice they started out in the wrong place until the work was almost completed.
Yesterday I attempted a chess analogy. It actually doesn't work as well as a jigsaw puzzle, unless I think of my editor --or someone else-- as an opponent in the process, which of course, I don't.
I write chess-titled Romances. I have done since 1993. It's ironic that other authors have chess covers, isn't it?
I write character-driven stories, usually centered on the hero. Plot... or a series of thrilling events... isn't my primary interest.
Comparing the beginning of a work to having a chess board before me is interesting (to me). Of course, my editor would never tolerate a cast of thirty-two: 16 good-guys and 16 baddies.
Well, I don't need the sidling Bishops, and I don't need a full complement of pawns on either side, either. Moreover, I can cut down on the Rooks (or castles) and if I think of them as the spaceships and palaces (or milieu, not characters), I'm almost down to a manageable cast.
You might (or might not!) be interested to know why I didn't have time to send Christmas cards last year. My editor needed me to write out a "Castle", an entire spaceship on which a climactic scene took place, and also two "Knights" from Knight's Fork.
She was right, of course.
Each character has its strengths, powers, and limitations. They can only move as far, and in the directions dictated by who/what they are, and what is in their way.
There are rules. Every move has consequences. There's a time limit. There are space constraints. Pawns can be transformed into more powerful pieces.
My fanciful little chess analogy ought to fail on account of the color contrast. In politics, not everyone acts as his party expects. However, I collect chess sets. I have a Cretan set, where Black is Gold and White is Silver. Once the men (chessmen) are rubbed a few times, it's hard to tell which side they're on.
With that happy thought, I'll wish you a safe and happy Labor Day.
Rowena
By the way, I heard this week that Insufficient Mating Material won the 2008 Hollywood Book Festival's Romance category.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Plot, character, or something else?
Have you heard it said that all speculative romances, science fiction romances, or alien romances are either plot driven or character driven? Sometimes, I think there is, or should be, a third category: "sex-driven"!
However, if "sex-driven" were to be officially as important as plot and character, I'd also want to include action-driven, idea-driven, world- driven... and life (and literature) would get complicated. Some will say "action" is "plot".
I always start with the character in every sense of the word "character". Personality, morals, virtues, flaws. Everything that happens to my hero --and to my heroine-- happens because of a decision they made, because of who they are and "where they come from".
Does that mean that a character-driven book is like a snowball? Or a comet? Mine don't move that fast, and there are a lot of layers of accumulated dirt rolled up in it, if that is the case, not to mention the other debris, grit, and star road-kill.
Research is like the shark's fin in the surf. You don't need to see the body of it to know whether or not it's there. I love Research, and I do way too much of it, and I have trouble burying it, and sometimes it reveals insuperable difficulties. If my heroine is trapped with an immensely attractive and eligible hunk on a desert island, she might want to look and smell good. This could be a challenge.
Here's a glimpse into my mind.
Take unsightly body hair. It's a Romance. It's a Fantasy. (It's Insufficient Mating Material!) Does she have to have that problem? Can it be ignored? Yes.... but... well, that depends. Let's look into this, because it could be a rich source of comedy or conflict.
What do people do? There's threading. It's a bit like using tweezers, but done with fast moving twisted thread. Hence the name. I could thread my legs, but not my armpits. We can rule out solvents, creams, bleaches, chemical reactions. What is wax made of? Could one raid a wild beehive for the beeswax? Would it work? Would it be worth trying? Would mud do just as well? I think I heard that the Egyptians used mud. I also read somewhere that they used crocodile dung as a contraceptive sponge. (No! Not in a Romance, pause to roll on the floor at the thought of my editor's face.)
OK. Off to some beach to try the proverbial "razor" shell for myself. Maybe it would have been quicker, less painful, and altogether less scabby if I've visited snopes.
Are there people whom nature blessed with naturally smooth legs? Yes. OK. We will gloss over what is going on in her armpits, and bless her legs. Next...?
Broken jaws are quite a challenge. I talked to a lot of nay sayers who said I couldn't possibly write a Romantic hero with a broken jaw because of all the problems, and what it would do to his appearance (short term) and the dire problem if he were to break it a second time.
Cool. The hero has a strong motivation not to be a gentleman if the heroine has a penchant for slapping faces at the drop of a slur.
Wicked. The heroine is expecting a long haired, tanned, muscular, gorgeous hunk to swagger up the aisle on her royal shotgun wedding day. How will she react when some bald, starved, pale, weedy guy limps towards her? He looks like he's been starved and torturing into marrying her!
So, she refuses to marry him. Duh! That doesn't make them any less embarrassing and inconvenient. Royal "face" has been lost all round. So they have to be marooned somewhere until they go with the flow. Shall we give them all the mod cons? I think not. No buried cache of smugglers' rum. No fully loaded airplane full of supplies. Life is not a picnic!
Shoot them down in the sea. Wet her one and only dress. Make it shrink so she can't get out of it without help. Have it rain to keep her dress wet. Do like Mythbusters and the story of the shrinking jeans. Get in a cold bath in a tight dress, and discover the difficulties of undressing afterwards.
And then, there's the "Survivorman" stuff of day-to-day living... (If you have very good eyes, you can see that Survivorman, Les Stroud gave me the cover quote on Insufficient Mating Material). And that's not all by a long shot.
I haven't begun (in this particular blog) to get serious about the twin paradox, collapsing wormholes, unstable systems, scram jets, and governmental red tape.
Research can snowball, and I haven't even scratched the surface.
Rowena Cherry
Insufficient Mating Material
However, if "sex-driven" were to be officially as important as plot and character, I'd also want to include action-driven, idea-driven, world- driven... and life (and literature) would get complicated. Some will say "action" is "plot".
I always start with the character in every sense of the word "character". Personality, morals, virtues, flaws. Everything that happens to my hero --and to my heroine-- happens because of a decision they made, because of who they are and "where they come from".
Does that mean that a character-driven book is like a snowball? Or a comet? Mine don't move that fast, and there are a lot of layers of accumulated dirt rolled up in it, if that is the case, not to mention the other debris, grit, and star road-kill.
Research is like the shark's fin in the surf. You don't need to see the body of it to know whether or not it's there. I love Research, and I do way too much of it, and I have trouble burying it, and sometimes it reveals insuperable difficulties. If my heroine is trapped with an immensely attractive and eligible hunk on a desert island, she might want to look and smell good. This could be a challenge.
Here's a glimpse into my mind.
Take unsightly body hair. It's a Romance. It's a Fantasy. (It's Insufficient Mating Material!) Does she have to have that problem? Can it be ignored? Yes.... but... well, that depends. Let's look into this, because it could be a rich source of comedy or conflict.
What do people do? There's threading. It's a bit like using tweezers, but done with fast moving twisted thread. Hence the name. I could thread my legs, but not my armpits. We can rule out solvents, creams, bleaches, chemical reactions. What is wax made of? Could one raid a wild beehive for the beeswax? Would it work? Would it be worth trying? Would mud do just as well? I think I heard that the Egyptians used mud. I also read somewhere that they used crocodile dung as a contraceptive sponge. (No! Not in a Romance, pause to roll on the floor at the thought of my editor's face.)
OK. Off to some beach to try the proverbial "razor" shell for myself. Maybe it would have been quicker, less painful, and altogether less scabby if I've visited snopes.
Are there people whom nature blessed with naturally smooth legs? Yes. OK. We will gloss over what is going on in her armpits, and bless her legs. Next...?
Broken jaws are quite a challenge. I talked to a lot of nay sayers who said I couldn't possibly write a Romantic hero with a broken jaw because of all the problems, and what it would do to his appearance (short term) and the dire problem if he were to break it a second time.
Cool. The hero has a strong motivation not to be a gentleman if the heroine has a penchant for slapping faces at the drop of a slur.
Wicked. The heroine is expecting a long haired, tanned, muscular, gorgeous hunk to swagger up the aisle on her royal shotgun wedding day. How will she react when some bald, starved, pale, weedy guy limps towards her? He looks like he's been starved and torturing into marrying her!
So, she refuses to marry him. Duh! That doesn't make them any less embarrassing and inconvenient. Royal "face" has been lost all round. So they have to be marooned somewhere until they go with the flow. Shall we give them all the mod cons? I think not. No buried cache of smugglers' rum. No fully loaded airplane full of supplies. Life is not a picnic!
Shoot them down in the sea. Wet her one and only dress. Make it shrink so she can't get out of it without help. Have it rain to keep her dress wet. Do like Mythbusters and the story of the shrinking jeans. Get in a cold bath in a tight dress, and discover the difficulties of undressing afterwards.
And then, there's the "Survivorman" stuff of day-to-day living... (If you have very good eyes, you can see that Survivorman, Les Stroud gave me the cover quote on Insufficient Mating Material). And that's not all by a long shot.
I haven't begun (in this particular blog) to get serious about the twin paradox, collapsing wormholes, unstable systems, scram jets, and governmental red tape.
Research can snowball, and I haven't even scratched the surface.
Rowena Cherry
Insufficient Mating Material
Saturday, February 17, 2007
Insufficient Mating Material--Hidden Image contest
There's an image hidden on the covers (either the front, back or spine) of Insufficient Mating Material. Find it, enter at www.rowenacherry.com/hiddenimage/ or by writing to
Rowena Cherry
PO Box 554
Bloomfield Hills
MI 48303-0554
One entrant will win $500-worth of books!
No purchase necessary.
Void where prohibited.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
It's all about the Horny Berries
"What's it about?" the potential Reader asks at a book-signing.
I panic. I know I'm not good at this. More often than not, I say too much, and bore people. On the four hour drive down to Cincinnati for this signing, I've rehearsed over and over, with the loving help of my biggest critic. My thoughts spin like a tickertape parade.
Do I say, "Horny Berries"?
Do I say, "Remember that Harrison Ford movie where he was a hard drinking pilot who crash landed with --I think it was Ann Heche, playing a Vogue editor-- on an uninhabited island, and they had to survive. Only it's different, because in my book, the hero and heroine are politically embarrassing alien royalty, and someone is trying to kill them--"
"Someone tried to kill Harrison Ford," my critic snarled.
"Those were pirates. It's not the same as assassins sent to find them. Anyway, I didn't see that film until after I'd written Insufficient Mating Material."
"Who cares?" My critic shrugs. "What's different?"
"My book has this 'Face Off' element. The hero has had his face changed. He's the same guy that the heroine fancies herself in love with, but he can't tell her, and she doesn't know. Since she thinks she's in love with someone else, it's the worst thing in the world for her... to be marooned with a horny stranger."
My critic grunts.
"Oh, I'm soooo lame!" I wail.
Critic laughs.
"And, they don't have a plane-load of supplies to live off. After they are shot down, their plane sinks..."
"You shouldn't call it a plane if it's science fiction," critic objects.
"Their two-seater spaceship sinks in eight feet..."
"Shouldn't you use alien words for measuring?" he interrupts again.
"How polite is that, when I only have a couple of seconds to get my message across? The couple has to survive with what they are wearing and what they can find, like my book's survival consultant Survivorman..."
"Good! You should talk more about Survivorman."
"I don't want to give the impression that the book is about him. It's futuristic romantic fiction. It's not even quite "Alien Survivorman with Sex." It's true that Les and I both use entertainment to communicate some vital --and accurate-- wilderness survival advice, and Les read my book, and gave me some extra tips, and set me straight on a detail or two that I got wrong... And he gave me the cover quote. Anyway, when I show people my poster, it's the horny-berries that they ask about."
Critic snorts. "Are there horny berries in the book?"
(He hasn't read it.)
"No, but..."
"Can you say HORNY in a bookstore?"
"There are horny toads. They're respectable. Horny doesn't just mean 'in the mood to be sexually active' but it does suggest to the reader that this is a book with sexually graphic language. Berries are an important food source, but if they are alien berries, you have to find out if they are edible or poisonous. You start by smearing a little juice on your wrist... anyway, my hero does all that, to the heroine, and at first she thinks he's building up to kinky sex.
"Of course, when she realizes that he's using her as a food-testing guinea pig, she is furious. And very depressed. And, she is a fashionista, a bit like Paris Hilton only crossed with the most scandalous female member of any European royal family you can think of. She doesn't like having to wear a plain white, man's T-shirt. So the hero uses berries' juice to tie-die her T-shirt... while she's wearing it."
Meanwhile, while I try to remember my best pitch, my potential Reader is reading the blurb on the back cover. The keywords there are "shot down", "failing to mate", "guitar glue", "psychic sleuths", "disguises", "a killer", a "damning tattoo" on the hero's "tool of seduction", and there is Survivorman's quote.
There's no mention of Horny Berries. I came up with horny berries when making the Insufficient Mating Material book promotion video. One has about eight frames (excluding frames for titles and credits) to tell a story, and between three and five words per frame. I should probably throw out something new.
But, it's too late. While I've been tongue-tied, my potential reader has moved on. Next time, I'll do the 'Carpe Scrotum' thing.
"It's about horny-berries," I'll say in my best BBC English voice.
Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry
(Speaking!!! and signing Sunday February 11th, 2pm to 4pm at the Barnes and Noble on Telegraph and Maple, in Bloomfield Hills)
Monday, February 05, 2007
Whose World Is This Anyway?
I just found out that along with RITA winning author Robin D "HeartMate" Owens, I’ll be teaching a world building workshop at RWA National in Dallas this summer. The title of the workshop is above and I hope, based on how I’ve constructed the blurb, to bring in more than just SFF writers. Not that I don’t love SFF writers. I do. But I think SFF writers are more attuned to world building than those that write in other genres and…as those who attend the workshop will find out—world building isn’t solely an SFF disease.
Good world building should be as integral part of your story as good dialogue and good characterization. This is true if you write chick lit, cozies, westerns or space opera or any other genre. If your characters exist and interact in a setting, then the setting is important.
It’s even more important you learn how to use that setting to improve your characterization and dialogue.
Just as we are affected by our environment, our social system, our culture, our religious upbringing, so are your characters. This kind of influence doesn’t stop at the outer orbit of Moabar. It’s equally important in Michigan.
Let’s say you write romantic suspense. Your male protagonist is a cop from Newark, NJ—a pretty tough place with a large ethnic population. Let’s say for reasons you—writer—invent, that NJ cop finds himself in Pensacola, Florida. Or some tiny town in Idaho. Trust me, it would be as if he had been beamed to Moabar or some other place on the outer reaches of the universe. Even though he’s in the same country, there will be language differences: accent and slang will differ. What was soda in Newark will be pop in Idaho.
Let’s take another slant: you’re writing a chick lit set in Palm Beach, Florida. You throw in a few palm trees, half a dozen BMWs, a couple of Rolls Royces. That’ll do it, right?
Wrong. For one thing, Palm Beach is a lot more than that.
For another, your reader might be from Small Town, Idaho and to him or her, Palm Beach is the same as Moabar or the outer reaches of the universe.
You, writer, have to make Palm Beach or Pensacola as real and vibrant and memorable as you would Port Rumor or Marker Station. You have to write those locales through fresh eyes—your readers’ eyes and your characters’ eyes.
Because I am a science fiction author and am more attuned to world building, I see many contemporary (or non-speculative fiction) novels that fall flat in the area of world building. I see many lost chances where the writer could give the reader a much deeper insight into a character by utilizing world building—and they don’t.
Your character is a product of his/her environment and affected by his/her environment. Never forget that.
Let’s go back to that contemporary romantic suspense where our tough guy cop from Newark, NJ finds himself in Small Town, Idaho. The cop is probably a helluva lot more crude than the Idaho farmers are used to (not saying farmers can’t get raucous—they’re just different than a Newark beat cop). He’d be used to interacting with people more abruptly with probably more personal space. The farmer’s daughter—a nice church-going gal—who runs the local Ma and Pa restaurant, is used to hugging her customers and inquiring about every aspect of their personal life. She’s more easy-going and trusting because of the world she grew up in. If you plop that cop down into that setting and DON’T make him uncomfortable and a fish out of water, than you have no understanding of how environment affects characters.
And you need to.
If you’re getting comments from crit partners or notes in rejection letters from agents and editors to the tune that your characters are flat, take a look at whether or not you’ve included good world building in your story—and in your characters’ lives. Pensacola isn’t a cookie-cutter beach/military town and Palm Beach isn’t a cookie-cutter rich town. Cookie-cutter towns make for boring reading. Flat world building.
And we all know the world isn’t flat. So don’t let your world—or your world building—fall off that edge into the abyss. For every major setting in your story, know that locales climate, religions, educational level, economic level, politics, social strata and mixture of cultures (if any). And then look at your characters and contrast each one’s world building elements—personal religion, education, economic level, etc.—with where you’ve placed them and see how that impinges on their place and progress in the story.
Whose world is this? It’s one you’ve created. Use it fully.
~Linnea
www.linneasinclair.com
Good world building should be as integral part of your story as good dialogue and good characterization. This is true if you write chick lit, cozies, westerns or space opera or any other genre. If your characters exist and interact in a setting, then the setting is important.
It’s even more important you learn how to use that setting to improve your characterization and dialogue.
Just as we are affected by our environment, our social system, our culture, our religious upbringing, so are your characters. This kind of influence doesn’t stop at the outer orbit of Moabar. It’s equally important in Michigan.
Let’s say you write romantic suspense. Your male protagonist is a cop from Newark, NJ—a pretty tough place with a large ethnic population. Let’s say for reasons you—writer—invent, that NJ cop finds himself in Pensacola, Florida. Or some tiny town in Idaho. Trust me, it would be as if he had been beamed to Moabar or some other place on the outer reaches of the universe. Even though he’s in the same country, there will be language differences: accent and slang will differ. What was soda in Newark will be pop in Idaho.
Let’s take another slant: you’re writing a chick lit set in Palm Beach, Florida. You throw in a few palm trees, half a dozen BMWs, a couple of Rolls Royces. That’ll do it, right?
Wrong. For one thing, Palm Beach is a lot more than that.
For another, your reader might be from Small Town, Idaho and to him or her, Palm Beach is the same as Moabar or the outer reaches of the universe.
You, writer, have to make Palm Beach or Pensacola as real and vibrant and memorable as you would Port Rumor or Marker Station. You have to write those locales through fresh eyes—your readers’ eyes and your characters’ eyes.
Because I am a science fiction author and am more attuned to world building, I see many contemporary (or non-speculative fiction) novels that fall flat in the area of world building. I see many lost chances where the writer could give the reader a much deeper insight into a character by utilizing world building—and they don’t.
Your character is a product of his/her environment and affected by his/her environment. Never forget that.
Let’s go back to that contemporary romantic suspense where our tough guy cop from Newark, NJ finds himself in Small Town, Idaho. The cop is probably a helluva lot more crude than the Idaho farmers are used to (not saying farmers can’t get raucous—they’re just different than a Newark beat cop). He’d be used to interacting with people more abruptly with probably more personal space. The farmer’s daughter—a nice church-going gal—who runs the local Ma and Pa restaurant, is used to hugging her customers and inquiring about every aspect of their personal life. She’s more easy-going and trusting because of the world she grew up in. If you plop that cop down into that setting and DON’T make him uncomfortable and a fish out of water, than you have no understanding of how environment affects characters.
And you need to.
If you’re getting comments from crit partners or notes in rejection letters from agents and editors to the tune that your characters are flat, take a look at whether or not you’ve included good world building in your story—and in your characters’ lives. Pensacola isn’t a cookie-cutter beach/military town and Palm Beach isn’t a cookie-cutter rich town. Cookie-cutter towns make for boring reading. Flat world building.
And we all know the world isn’t flat. So don’t let your world—or your world building—fall off that edge into the abyss. For every major setting in your story, know that locales climate, religions, educational level, economic level, politics, social strata and mixture of cultures (if any). And then look at your characters and contrast each one’s world building elements—personal religion, education, economic level, etc.—with where you’ve placed them and see how that impinges on their place and progress in the story.
Whose world is this? It’s one you’ve created. Use it fully.
~Linnea
www.linneasinclair.com
Saturday, February 03, 2007
Insufficient Mating Material
I apologize for our silence since Thursday.
Blogger forced us to change to new accounts, and I --at least-- have had some difficulty with the technology.
Normal service will resume as soon as possible.
Meantime, please watch my book promo!
Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Speculative and Romantic
I was toying with the idea of building on Linnea's and Jacqueline's previous posts about genre, with particular emphasis on comedy in science fiction romance, because some people seem to think I'm funny.
And, if comedy could be one of the selling points for my new novel INSUFFICIENT MATING MATERIAL which comes to bookstores everywhere on Tuesday (January 30th) then I ought to take advantage.
However... the iguana-with-an-erection story is topical, and it's good to be topical, even if one is an author of futuristic romances.
I just cannot leave a good double penis story alone. (I was sorely tempted to omit a noun from that last sentence for the sake of sensationalism.)
Did you see the Reuters article about the iguana named Mozart who has sported an erection for almost a week? Concerned vets have decided to put a stop to the unruly erection by amputating.
"The good news for Mozart and his mates is that
male iguanas have two penises.
Mozart, sitting on the shoulders of his keeper as camera crews
focused on his red, swollen erection, seemed unperturbed..."
Is red and swollen a problem?
I confess my ignorance. I have no idea what color a healthy, happy iguana's penis ought to be.
I really hope the vets aren't being hasty.
Who is this erection bothering most? Reportedly, the male iguana doesn't seem concerned.
As for what use I can make of news like this... well, here's how one speculative romance writer speculates.
I ask myself:
What do I know about double penises?
I know that Barbara Karmazin wrote a wonderful book, The Huntress, and the hero had one.
I've seen partially-insertable sex toys with an appendage apparently designed for simultaneous external stimulation.
I know that one fabulous theory about dragons is that they squirted fire by having two nozzles at the front of their mouths --like doubling up a snake's snorkel-- that sprayed different liquids. The liquids became combustible when combined.
I know that there are super glues, drain cleaners, and other household products --I think there is a beauty product, too-- that comes in a double barrelled container, so the substances only combine when squirted onto or into whatever they are designed to be squirted onto or into.
Now I start speculating:
I wonder why an iguana has two penises.
One to use and one to rest?
A spare?
One for fun and one to get the job done?
Do they work like the cannons in Star Wars? Like pistons? One recoils while the other fires?
What if the iguana has super-glue semen? (In that there's different stuff in each barrel, and it's only effective if both barrels are discharged.)
And finally, after I've amused myself sufficiently, I ask myself:
Will my editor buy a LoveSpell Romance hero with this level of complicated, high-tech equipment.
As Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry used to say, "A man has to know his limitations."
So does a writer.
Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry
PS. In conjunction with the launch of INSUFFICIENT MATING MATERIAL, I am running a HIDDEN IMAGE contest from January 31st until February 28th 2007.
One entrant will win a $500 bookstore buying-spree. Details, entry form, rules can be found at www.rowenacherry.com/hiddenimage/
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Time Wasting, The Twin Paradox (and SFWA and MySpace)
I need to start with this humble caveat:
I got a B grade in Biology Ordinary Level examinations --which was a pretty good grade in my day--, but the chemistry teacher competed with the music teacher to dump me (ie. both encouraged me to elect to study with the other).
The chemistry teacher lost out, in that I elected to inflict my youthful self upon her class for another year. She had what might now be described as a "snarky" streak, and I enjoyed her barbed wit, even when it was directed at me, more than I enjoyed sitting in the front row of the music class watching the music mistress's bare toes jerk in time with Beethoven's Fifth.
As you may infer, I've been a "Manwatcher" most of my life.
I write futuristic romance with a strongish bias towards character (over events, ideas, milieu). I've got my own under-the-stairs research library with fabulous resources such as The Physics of Star Trek, The Science of Star Wars, NASA handbooks about mining on the Moon, about a dozen Writers' Digest reference books on aliens, classes of stars, and worldbuilding...
In Insufficient Mating Material (out January 30th 2007) there's plenty of biology --after all, a significant portion of the story takes place on a deserted island-- and only a few NASA-inspired tidbits.
Shameful though it is to admit, I have a hard time with some aspects of science, like relativity. It doesn't help that "what is known" changes from time to time. Occasionally scientific theorists are discredited... or reinstated. It's not easy for layperson to keep up!
Actually, I occasionally have trouble with the deeper meaning of putting clocks forward and back, and the small examples of time travel in our everyday lives.
Last week, I did a bit of TimeWasting.
I googled NASA and Ask An Astronaut, to see what I could find out. What a wealth of fascinating insights, including definitive proof that projectile-firing weapons are not currently smiled upon in spaceships! (Great news for those who find sabers cool!)
My Search skills may be lacking. I had difficulty honing my search and only reading facts of immediate relevance to an alien hero revisiting Earth, who needs to know if his childhood friends will still be "the same age" as he is. I should have gone straight for The Twin Paradox (only I didn't know what it was called) or Einstein's Theory of Relativity.
That could be a useful tip, if anyone else at the moment is contemplating their own fictional heroes and heroines leaving Earth at light speed or faster, and coming home again after some time has elapsed.
I happen to be a member of SFWA -- www.sfwa.org -- and I should have asked a question on their message boards first. In fact, I asked on the MySpace Bulletin boards.
"...as the traveler approaches the speed of light, according to Einstein's theory of relativity, time would begin to slow until stopping soon after reaching the speed of light."
Helpful links that were suggested to me:
http://www.npl.co.uk/publications/metromnia/issue18/#article2
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/22mar_telomeres.htm
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/einstein/hotsciencetwin/
where you'll find a "game" to plug in the velocities and so on to find
out how much a traveler would age compared to his/her twin on earth.
After all this research, I may end up giving my hero a Swiss bank account!
Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry
I got a B grade in Biology Ordinary Level examinations --which was a pretty good grade in my day--, but the chemistry teacher competed with the music teacher to dump me (ie. both encouraged me to elect to study with the other).
The chemistry teacher lost out, in that I elected to inflict my youthful self upon her class for another year. She had what might now be described as a "snarky" streak, and I enjoyed her barbed wit, even when it was directed at me, more than I enjoyed sitting in the front row of the music class watching the music mistress's bare toes jerk in time with Beethoven's Fifth.
As you may infer, I've been a "Manwatcher" most of my life.
I write futuristic romance with a strongish bias towards character (over events, ideas, milieu). I've got my own under-the-stairs research library with fabulous resources such as The Physics of Star Trek, The Science of Star Wars, NASA handbooks about mining on the Moon, about a dozen Writers' Digest reference books on aliens, classes of stars, and worldbuilding...
In Insufficient Mating Material (out January 30th 2007) there's plenty of biology --after all, a significant portion of the story takes place on a deserted island-- and only a few NASA-inspired tidbits.
Shameful though it is to admit, I have a hard time with some aspects of science, like relativity. It doesn't help that "what is known" changes from time to time. Occasionally scientific theorists are discredited... or reinstated. It's not easy for layperson to keep up!
Actually, I occasionally have trouble with the deeper meaning of putting clocks forward and back, and the small examples of time travel in our everyday lives.
Last week, I did a bit of TimeWasting.
I googled NASA and Ask An Astronaut, to see what I could find out. What a wealth of fascinating insights, including definitive proof that projectile-firing weapons are not currently smiled upon in spaceships! (Great news for those who find sabers cool!)
My Search skills may be lacking. I had difficulty honing my search and only reading facts of immediate relevance to an alien hero revisiting Earth, who needs to know if his childhood friends will still be "the same age" as he is. I should have gone straight for The Twin Paradox (only I didn't know what it was called) or Einstein's Theory of Relativity.
That could be a useful tip, if anyone else at the moment is contemplating their own fictional heroes and heroines leaving Earth at light speed or faster, and coming home again after some time has elapsed.
I happen to be a member of SFWA -- www.sfwa.org -- and I should have asked a question on their message boards first. In fact, I asked on the MySpace Bulletin boards.
"...as the traveler approaches the speed of light, according to Einstein's theory of relativity, time would begin to slow until stopping soon after reaching the speed of light."
Helpful links that were suggested to me:
http://www.npl.co.uk/publications/metromnia/issue18/#article2
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/22mar_telomeres.htm
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/einstein/hotsciencetwin/
where you'll find a "game" to plug in the velocities and so on to find
out how much a traveler would age compared to his/her twin on earth.
After all this research, I may end up giving my hero a Swiss bank account!
Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry
Sunday, January 07, 2007
Grandmothers and Insufficient Mating Material
It wouldn't be true to say that I cannot imagine a world without grandmothers.
I can. However, a world without grandmothers doesn't interest me, and it has been done before.
How dysfunctional were the "futuristic" societies of the sort of fiction we studied as "The Moderns" in the 1960's? I remember a rather bleak world view, when infants were incubated outside their mothers' wombs, and brought up in institutions, and segregated according to where on a Greek alphabetical scale their were judged to be in intelligence, physical ability, and career potential.
A bit like ants, really!
I like grandmothers, and family trees, and primogeniture because I think those are great ingredients for a good story, even if it is set in an alien world. When building a new world, I heartily recommend spending the time to draw up a family tree at least going back as far as the great-grandparents.
(But, don't publish dates!)
As it happens, my alien Empire is a little bit dysfunctional... and I can account for that if I wish, by claiming it is because all the protagonists' grandmothers seem to be exiles or fugitives or else they were not emotionally cut out to be our ideal of motherly when motherhood or grandmotherhood was thrust upon them.
When FORCED MATE came out, some readers were uncomfortable with Grandmama Helispeta's formal --ever so formal!-- speech. She never used contractions or abbreviations, and she always addressed other people, even her grandchildren, by their proper given names.
One of my grandmothers used to have a kind way of calling a halt to my childish dramatic, poetic, or vocal performances.
"I think that you have delighted us sufficiently..." she would say.
Another grandmother used similar phraseology to announce that we had eaten enough of her expensive Sunday roast.
"We have had an adequate sufficiency..."
That probably influenced my "Voice" when I attempted to bring Grandmama Helispeta to life. MATING NET was the story of the biggest mistake of her youthful life. It was a short story. One day, maybe there'll be another chapter. Her role is much expanded in Insufficient Mating Material, as she considers it her duty to interfere in her grandson's life.
Have a good week.
Rowena Cherry
I can. However, a world without grandmothers doesn't interest me, and it has been done before.
How dysfunctional were the "futuristic" societies of the sort of fiction we studied as "The Moderns" in the 1960's? I remember a rather bleak world view, when infants were incubated outside their mothers' wombs, and brought up in institutions, and segregated according to where on a Greek alphabetical scale their were judged to be in intelligence, physical ability, and career potential.
A bit like ants, really!
I like grandmothers, and family trees, and primogeniture because I think those are great ingredients for a good story, even if it is set in an alien world. When building a new world, I heartily recommend spending the time to draw up a family tree at least going back as far as the great-grandparents.
(But, don't publish dates!)
As it happens, my alien Empire is a little bit dysfunctional... and I can account for that if I wish, by claiming it is because all the protagonists' grandmothers seem to be exiles or fugitives or else they were not emotionally cut out to be our ideal of motherly when motherhood or grandmotherhood was thrust upon them.
When FORCED MATE came out, some readers were uncomfortable with Grandmama Helispeta's formal --ever so formal!-- speech. She never used contractions or abbreviations, and she always addressed other people, even her grandchildren, by their proper given names.
One of my grandmothers used to have a kind way of calling a halt to my childish dramatic, poetic, or vocal performances.
"I think that you have delighted us sufficiently..." she would say.
Another grandmother used similar phraseology to announce that we had eaten enough of her expensive Sunday roast.
"We have had an adequate sufficiency..."
That probably influenced my "Voice" when I attempted to bring Grandmama Helispeta to life. MATING NET was the story of the biggest mistake of her youthful life. It was a short story. One day, maybe there'll be another chapter. Her role is much expanded in Insufficient Mating Material, as she considers it her duty to interfere in her grandson's life.
Have a good week.
Rowena Cherry
Sunday, December 31, 2006
New Year's Eve - Time... ticking away
Timing-wise, I really lucked out this year, if having (alien romance) blogging rights to Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve counts as luck. My wrist watch also stopped for Christmas, which is an inconvenience.
When I was a virgin (there's superstition for you), I used to stop watches regularly. I had to wear them pinned to my breast, like a matron (in the medical sense). Now, it's probably a matter of battery life!
Happy New Year!
I don't consider myself an astronomical heavyweight, intellectually speaking.
My natural, romantic bent is to consider Pink Floyd rather than Cepheid Variables,
a man's reaction to the passing of his life (Time) rather than the fact that a light year is a measure of distance (nearly six trillion miles). The coolness and romance of the idea of The Dark Side of the Moon rather than the possibility of habitable worlds (moons) in tidal lock around a Gas Giant.
Not so long ago, I was seated at a dinner party next to a member of the Pink Floyd, and --naturally-- I asked about the thinking behind The Dark Side of the Moon, which is why I feel free to mention coolness and romance.
Time is rather interesting as part of world building. How would a civilization tell time if they spent generations aboard a space ark? What method would remain relevant? I chose the female reproductive cycle when writing Forced Mate... No doubt it had something to do with my inconvenient effect on wearable timepieces when I was younger.
Looking back, I'm immensely amused by the spoilsports who all said that we all celebrated Y2K on the wrong date (wrong year). I must have spent at least twelve hours watching televised celebrations from around the world: rock stars and sopranos atop magnificent buildings, paper lanterns rising into the sky like miniature hot air balloons, ballet on beaches, fireworks along major rivers...
Obvious as it is to say, tonight, different nations --and different states-- will mark the arrival of 2007 at different times. I'm especially aware of this for a really silly reason. Not because my mother lives in England and will be celebrating five or six hours earlier than I will, but because my publisher's forums are on Central time and I'm on Eastern, and I'm determined to log in at midnight, and help break an attendance record. (forums@dorchesterpub.com, midnight Central).
Greenwich Mean Time is very useful, but we don't all set our clocks by that. Not everyone follows the same calendar. Take the Chinese New Year.
Suppose there were an Antichthon
Would that world measure time in the same way that we do? Would Antichthon have a moon? How likely is that?
Too complicated for me, this morning, is the idea that someone leaving Earth, traveling into outer space, and returning years later would experience the passage of time differently, and may return as a time traveller (not the same age as the friends and colleagues who remained on Earth). It is an issue I must look into before I get much further with my next book, though.
The Sparrow was interesting on time. I know Star Trek measured time in Star Dates, but I don't know how that was calculated. I never noticed time being measured in Star Wars...
Any astronomers want to help me?
Happy New Year.
Rowena Cherry
When I was a virgin (there's superstition for you), I used to stop watches regularly. I had to wear them pinned to my breast, like a matron (in the medical sense). Now, it's probably a matter of battery life!
Happy New Year!
I don't consider myself an astronomical heavyweight, intellectually speaking.
My natural, romantic bent is to consider Pink Floyd rather than Cepheid Variables,
a man's reaction to the passing of his life (Time) rather than the fact that a light year is a measure of distance (nearly six trillion miles). The coolness and romance of the idea of The Dark Side of the Moon rather than the possibility of habitable worlds (moons) in tidal lock around a Gas Giant.
Not so long ago, I was seated at a dinner party next to a member of the Pink Floyd, and --naturally-- I asked about the thinking behind The Dark Side of the Moon, which is why I feel free to mention coolness and romance.
Time is rather interesting as part of world building. How would a civilization tell time if they spent generations aboard a space ark? What method would remain relevant? I chose the female reproductive cycle when writing Forced Mate... No doubt it had something to do with my inconvenient effect on wearable timepieces when I was younger.
Looking back, I'm immensely amused by the spoilsports who all said that we all celebrated Y2K on the wrong date (wrong year). I must have spent at least twelve hours watching televised celebrations from around the world: rock stars and sopranos atop magnificent buildings, paper lanterns rising into the sky like miniature hot air balloons, ballet on beaches, fireworks along major rivers...
Obvious as it is to say, tonight, different nations --and different states-- will mark the arrival of 2007 at different times. I'm especially aware of this for a really silly reason. Not because my mother lives in England and will be celebrating five or six hours earlier than I will, but because my publisher's forums are on Central time and I'm on Eastern, and I'm determined to log in at midnight, and help break an attendance record. (forums@dorchesterpub.com, midnight Central).
Greenwich Mean Time is very useful, but we don't all set our clocks by that. Not everyone follows the same calendar. Take the Chinese New Year.
Suppose there were an Antichthon
Would that world measure time in the same way that we do? Would Antichthon have a moon? How likely is that?
Too complicated for me, this morning, is the idea that someone leaving Earth, traveling into outer space, and returning years later would experience the passage of time differently, and may return as a time traveller (not the same age as the friends and colleagues who remained on Earth). It is an issue I must look into before I get much further with my next book, though.
The Sparrow was interesting on time. I know Star Trek measured time in Star Dates, but I don't know how that was calculated. I never noticed time being measured in Star Wars...
Any astronomers want to help me?
Happy New Year.
Rowena Cherry
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