Karen S. Wiesner, Tension and Twists, Part 1 (Writer's Craft Article)

Writer's Craft Article by Karen S. Wiesner

Tension and Twists, Part 1

Based on COHESIVE STORY BUILDING (formerly titled FROM FIRST DRAFT TO FICTION NOVEL {A Writer's Guide to Cohesive Story Building}) by Karen S. Wiesner

This will be the first of three posts focusing on how (and why) to build tension and twists into your fiction.

Tension and suspense can be described as the sensation of uncertainty and anticipation in the reader. Without them, your reader is uninterested and uninvolved in your story—cardinal sins where any work of fiction is concerned. 

Tension is any type of awareness that brings the story to the fever pitch of anticipation. Tension must begin at the start of the story and must be kept intense throughout to prevent your reader from being disappointed or bored. 

While many writers probably don’t see a difference between tension and suspense, in the structure of a story I believe tension is the milder of the two. Tension is anxiety, where suspense is agony. So tension could be considered the positive form of the two, because there’s an element of hope in it. With suspense, there’s danger, and it’s generally because something dreadful is coming. 

Think of the movie While You Were Sleeping. There’s no real danger in this romantic comedy, outside of the fact that the heroine might marry the wrong guy. The film crackles with hopeful tension—the viewer worries because she desperately wants Lucy to end up with Jack, not his good-looking but mimbo brother, Peter. What’s at stake is happily-ever-after for two wonderful people. Viewers feel tension, not suspense. 

The danger in the Aliens movie series is of the global-annihilation sort. Viewers are held in agonizing suspense, knowing that if these creatures escape and multiply, the worst thing imaginable will happen—and the viewer dreads it. What’s at stake is total elimination of the entire human race. No happily-ever-after for anyone. 

Both tension and suspense are tricky to achieve and sustain. In each, you’re bringing your audience to the snapping point, and then and only then giving them what they want—temporarily. The tricky, sticky part is that you’re withholding a resolution that the audience desperately wants. If you keep it out of reach too long, you’ll lose your audience. If you give them too much of what they want too soon, they’ll have no reason to stick around. 

Tension and suspense are absolutely necessary in every story. 

Release and Downtime 

Release as any temporary easement of either plot or romantic/sexual tension. Some of the many forms release can take are a kiss, the resolution of a red herring or a clue that seems to solve part of the mystery, or an answer that leads the character closer to getting what he wants. Release, like tension, is part of the causal chain of events essential to reaching resolution. It has to make sense in that chain and become part of its natural progression. 

Downtime is a form of release, but it’s more intense and, like the climax, it happens only once during the course of a novel, during a time of incredible tension. This is the bleakest portion of the story, when all hope has seemingly been lost. The obstacles standing in the way are too numerous, too monumental, too impossible. The main character takes release from the action to reflect on what’s happened and what could have been, and, by all appearances, he seems to give up the fight. During downtime, the character now has a glimpse of the happily-ever-after he’s convinced has slipped from his fingers. This is a temporary respite from the extreme suspense. Characters—and readers!—need this desperately. If you don’t include it, the reader will get so exhausted from the fast pace, she won’t care how the book ends. She’s too tired to care. 

Following downtime, the black moment, as the climax of downtime, comes. The character has no choice but to act at this point. Remember John McClane in Die Hard 2: Die Harder? He felt he’d expended all viable options to save his wife and stop the terrorists. He’s depressed, brought to his lowest point, and he reflects on all that’s happened and what he’s about to lose (this is the downtime). But then the pilot brings a swift end to all dithering when he takes the chance of blindly landing the plane—at exactly the same time the terrorists are attempting to make their getaway (black moment). At that point, John has absolutely no choice but to find a way to succeed. This provides the momentum for the final showdown. 

Here again, I see a difference between release and downtime. Like tension, release is the milder of the two. Release is temporary relief from anxiety, while downtime is temporary relief from agony. Release could be considered the positive form of the two because there’s an element of hope in it. With downtime, the character believes he’s lost everything, danger’s on its way back, and he’s convinced there’s no stopping it. The ultimate dread is produced, because few people can relax when they know everything they ever wanted is about to go down the toilet. That naturally produces restlessness, recklessness, and intense edginess. 

Release and downtime are also absolutely necessary in every story. But only with a cohesive logic in the build-up of downtime, suspense, and black moment, and with an equally meshed logical resolution, will your reader be left satisfied and smiling upon closing the book. 

This in no way, however, means that you can’t throw a twist in at the end of your story—provided that it fits logically and cohesively with what you’ve already set up in the beginning and middle of the book. 

In Part 2, we'll talk about tips for incorporating twists effectively into your fiction.  

Find out more here about COHESIVE STORY BUILDING here: 

http://www.writers-exchange.com/cohesive-story-building/ 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QJ09DQM 

Leave a comment to describe the most memorable tension you've ever experienced in a book or movie. Why do you think it was so effective? 

Happy writing! 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 140 titles and 16 series. Visit her here:

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

https://www.goodreads.com/karenwiesner

http://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/ 

http://www.writers-exchange.com/blog/ 

https://www.amazon.com/author/karenwiesner 

Hanging from a Cliff

How do you feel about cliffhanger endings in novels? I've just finished reading the second book in a thrilling, very inventive dark fantasy series. (I suspect it will be a trilogy, but that hasn't been announced as far as I know.) While the first novel ended with an intriguing hook for the continuation, this new one concludes with an outright cliffhanger in the final sentence. Now we have to wait a year for the resolution! That sort of thing bugs me a little, because devoted fans will read the next installment regardless, while the author risks annoying readers less deeply invested. On the other hand, in this particular case it's hard to see how the story could have ended without leaving the audience in suspense. I can't go into details, of course, because of spoilers.

A classic example in pulp SF comes from one of Edgar Rice Burroughs' early John Carter adventures, THE GODS OF MARS. On the last page, Princess Dejah Thoris is trapped with a couple of other people in a revolving chamber designed to open only once a year. The villain is preparing to kill her as the hero watches the tableau vanish into the depths of the temple. Fortunately for me, I read that series many decades after its publication, so all I had to do was find the next volume on my grandfather's bookshelves.

I have a vivid memory of my frustration with THE MIRROR OF HER DREAMS, by Stephen R. Donaldson. In fact, after all these years I don't recall much else about it, not even what the cliffhanger ending consisted of. I do remember that by the time the sequel, A MAN RIDES THROUGH, became available, I'd forgotten so much about the first novel that I no longer felt any enthusiasm for returning to the story.

It was a jarring shock when I read BLACKOUT, Connie Willis's time-travel novel about England in World War II, and reached the last page to discover that it just—stopped. I felt like yelling, "Where's the rest of it?" That sharp break wasn't the author's fault, though. She'd written the duology of BLACKOUT and ALL CLEAR as a single work, but it turned out much too long for one volume, so the publisher released it as two books. Happily, they made us wait only a few months for the second half, not a whole year.

Ideally, a series that includes a book with what amounts to an abrupt break in the middle of the story should have its installments released in quick succession over a span of a few months. I realize that's not always feasible with either the author's or the publisher's schedule, though. But I still think the typical traditional publishing gap of a year between books is more apt to discourage than to intrigue a casual reader (as opposed to a devoted fan).

A similar trick that does exasperate me in the extreme is ending a TV season on a cliffhanger, especially if renewal isn't definite, but even if it is. That device strikes me as disrespectful to the established audience and unlikely to attract new viewers. As far as the latter are concerned, how many people will start watching a new season of a long-running series if they're aware they don't have the necessary backstory to understand what's going on? Veteran fans, on the other hand, will tune in to the next season anyway without that kind of irritating manipulation.

As a reader and author, my advice would be that if you're going to end a novel on a cliffhanger, be very careful. One would hope for at least a partial resolution—as the book mentioned at the beginning of this post does in fact offer—so readers won't feel their trust has been abused.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Thinking Taxes

Not all writers are Planners and Plotters. Some are Pantzers and some are Puzzlers. However, as some of us prepare for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), early October is also a good time to prepare for taxes.

Why is that?

If you have an account with a stockbroker such as Charles Schwab or Fidelity (to name two at random), they will have to send you a 1099 Composite. The later in the year you sell stocks, the later in the following year you will have to wait for them to finish their corrections.  Take gains and losses in October if you want to file early in the new year.

Also, if the current Administration gets everything they want, Capital Gains taxes could be assessed at whatever the new rate is retroactively on every trade since September 12th.

If you have any worthless stock that is really unlikely to rise from the ashes, and that you cannot sell any more, you can call your broker and have it taken out of your account. The removal of the stock will not be documented by your broker on your 1099 Composite, so you will have to document its disappearing act (with a before and after set of statements) on your own tax return.  Since you need the "after" month, you don't want to do it in December.

If you are a successful writer on Medicare, or likely to be eligible for Medicare in the next couple of years, know that your total earnings (including capital gains on stocks) could affect how much Medicare claws back from you to pay for your Part B two years after your successful year.  So, you make a lot in 2021, and you pay for it in 2023.

Think about that, because writing is a volatile business.

Don't forget to pay your self-employment taxes.  If that is news to you, an old article by Writers Weekly has a good guide geared to writers.

https://www.writersdigest.com/get-published-sell-my-work/tax-advice-for-writers

Bear in mind, although a writer can deduct a business meal at a convention or book signing, one must be careful not to claim that a delightful celebratory night on the town at a restaurant with writer friends may not qualify as a business dinner.

Also, claiming all the running expenses of a room in your home (home office) tends to arouse suspicion. One can only claim for a room used exclusively for the business purpose, and it is wise to document that. Keep a Writers Log (Captain Kirk-like), every day, marking start time, break time, finish time. It can be ledger form, or a word document.  You can also use your daily log to note when you called your editor or received a call from your editor, and what you promised.... and when you drove to the post office to mail your manuscript. and when you got back.  You can deduct travel time and postage. It would help to buy a splash of gas for further proof  (scan and keep the gas receipt).

Know that gifts to charities that sell fund-raising lottery tickets are not deductible as gifts to charities. You got something of value, namely the theoretical chance of winning a Corvette or whatever.  You thought the lottery ticket purchases were deductible. The charity blurb might have suggested that, but the IRS might not agree, and the IRS is likely to be really scraping the proverbial bottom of the barrel.

However, you can give at least $10,000 to charity and be able to deduct it, as long as you can produce receipts to prove that you gave what you say to a legitimate charity, and received no benefits in return. 

For anyone terribly disappointed that there is nothing about copyright today, Andrew H. Bart and colleagues at Jenner and Block LLP have a really great article about the scope of copyright in the USA

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=8f4998c3-9a4c-4cb0-99dc-39f7831afd1e

All the best,

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™ http://www.spacesnark.com/

Karen Wiesner: The Stories Behind Classic Fairy Tales (Woodcutter's Grim Series), Part 8

 

WOODCUTTER’S GRIM SERIES—

Classic Tales of Horror Retold 

This is the final of eight posts focusing on my Woodcutter's Grim Series and the stories behind classic fairy tales. 

For the ten generations since the evil first came to Woodcutter's Grim, the Guardians have sworn an oath to protect the town from the childhood horrors that lurk in the black woods. Without them, the town would be defenseless…and the terrors would escape to the world at large.  

BRIDGE OF FIRE, Book 10: 

INTO THE SUN, Part 3 

by Karen Wiesner

 

Supernatural Fantasy Romance Novel 

** Loosely based on "The Three Billy Goats Gruff". A shape-shifting goat, William Gruff escaped being bound to the evil pervading Woodcutter's Grim, the sole shelter for supernatural creatures. Years later, he and his pregnant wife, Adaryn Azar, a phoenix, have no choice but to flee there themselves. But just one phoenix can exist in the world. Will the powerful magic Liam wields consume him before he can build the only bridge that can take him and Adaryn into the sun of Eternal Paradise? ** 

While I was outlining Part 2 of BRIDGE OF FIRE: Book 10, I became aware that one of the things that had never felt "connected" between the Woodcutter's Grim Series "Real World" and the "Mirror Darkly World" introduced in HUNTER'S BLUES, Book 9 was that the Protectorate Guardian in the Mirror Darkly World was a Pallaton (Reece). Why would that be? What caused the change/discrepancy between the two worlds? Since that book was already written and published, I had to abide by the decision and create a plausible explanation for the fact. 

I finished all three outlines for the parts of BRIDGE OF FIRE, then moved onto another massive project that took up most of my time. Nevertheless, in the back of my mind, I was thinking about the apparent discrepancy. In the very least, I wanted to answer the question for myself. I had a dim but gradually brightening lightbulb come on during this time: I'd already inserted two Pallatons in A NEW BEGINNING, Part 2 and INTO THE SUN, Part 3 in the characters of Nazarha and her mother. When I went back into the outline to refresh myself just before I started writing Part 1, I had a brilliant spotlight of illumination. I knew how to connect the Mirror Darkly and Real worlds. The explanation finally resolved what suddenly seemed like a major discrepancy (to me anyway) in the series. 

But that wasn't the only question that was bugging me. Even after I'd written the first draft of all three parts of BRIDGE OF FIRE, something else was niggling at me about who Nazarha Pallaton was in relation to the main female character, Adaryn Azar, throughout the three segments. Coming up with the answer to that is when I truly felt like this series was gratifyingly complete and strong in a way it'd never been before (again, only to me--I seriously doubt any of my readers even noticed). 

I feel great nostalgia in coming to a conclusion with Woodcutter's Grim Series--Classic Tales of Horror Retold. When I began it, I was a contemporary romance author who didn't believe I had what it took to write horror or fantasy, my two personal favorite genres. But, with Woodcutter's Grim, I got to develop stories with vampires, werewolves, dragons, phoenixes, various shapeshifters and creatures of lore, and I even mostly made up a monster of my own (the Unspeakable/Polyhedra). I dealt with alternate worlds, the ultimate good and the ultimate evil, a secret organization with roles that are passed on from one generation to the next (the Protectorate), familiar faces I've come to love and look forward to revisiting again and again, all while combining fairy and folk tales, mythology, fables, parables, nursery rhymes and poems into one complex, fantastical world. I hope my readers have loved taking this journey as much as I have and will want to drop by this town all over again with future readings. 

At this time, I'm playing with the idea of a "prequel" trilogy for the Woodcutter's Grim Series to develop the origin of the Unspeakable creature I created for BRIDGE OF FIRE. Only the future will tell if anything comes of my brainstorming. 

Unique creatures of folklore are something that fascinates me immensely. Leave a comment to tell me about your favorites! 

Next week, I plan to post one of what will be many writing craft articles. 

Find out more about this book and Woodcutter's Grim Series here: 

http://www.writers-exchange.com/woodcutters-grim-series/ 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08MLBYBH1 

Karen is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 140 titles and 16 series. Visit her here:

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

https://www.goodreads.com/karenwiesner

http://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/ 

http://www.writers-exchange.com/blog/ 

https://www.amazon.com/author/karenwiesner 

Real People as Characters

I've just finished reading the ten Catherine Le Vendeur novels by Sharan Newman, mysteries set in twelfth-century Europe (mostly in France). Catherine begins as a novice at the Abbey of the Paraclete and a student of Abbess Heloise. At the end of the first book, Catherine leaves the convent, rather than taking final vows, and gets married. Thus she's not only an intelligent young woman but highly educated for a lady of that era. Like any reluctant amateur detective, she frequently stumbles over corpses or gets entangled in events that endanger her family and friends. She applies the logic she learned from her teacher to probe these mysteries. Over the course of her adventures, she crosses paths with many distinguished historical figures in addition to Heloise, Peter Abelard, and their son, Astrolabe. (Yes, that was actually his name.) Significant historical events such as important church councils, with the associated political controversies, provide backdrops to the stories. Judging from Newman's afterwords to the books and her expertise in medieval studies, she clearly took care to place the real people in the series at locations where they're known to have been or could have been in the given year and not to show them doing anything that conflicts with their documented personalities and behavior.

I once read a post on Quora that vehemently objected to including people who actually existed, regardless of which century they lived in, as characters in fiction. That attitude baffled me. I can't think of a valid reason to consider such fiction disrespectful, and a lot of excellent works would never have been written if authors accepted that prohibition as a rule. Several of Sharyn McCrumb's Appalachian "Ballad Novels" tell stories based on real events—for instance, THE BALLAD OF TOM DOOLEY, whose afterword explains that the narrative sticks as close to reality as she could manage. Since it's a novel, though, McCrumb was free to speculate about motives and invent incidents and dialogue. Barbara Hambly does the same in THE EMANCIPATOR'S WIFE, about the later life of Lincoln's widow but with flashbacks to earlier periods. I see no problem with portraying historical persons in fiction if the author does conscientious research, sticks to the recorded facts except when filling in gaps where creative license is appropriate, and doesn't show the subjects behaving in ways incompatible with their known characters.

Writers of alternate history and secret history, of course, have much greater scope for invention. "Secret history" refers to fiction that doesn't change the facts of the past as generally known and accepted but inserts other events, often supernatural, occurring behind the scenes: Vlad the Implaler was a vampire. Lincoln was a vampire slayer. Elizabeth I was a demon hunter. Wizards on both sides shaped the course of World War II. I can enjoy these kinds of novels as long as the depictions of historical figures stick close to their true-life personalities. Otherwise, why bother writing about them at all instead of inventing your own characters?

The closer we get to the present, it seems to me, the more problematic it becomes to use actual people as protagonists. Successful books, however, have been published on plot premises such as H. P. Lovecraft and Robert Howard on a road trip to confront eldritch horrors or C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien fighting the forces of evil. Personally, I might have qualms about making fictional protagonists of people with still-living relatives and friends who remember them.

I do draw the line at the use of live, present-day celebrities as fictional characters, except as walk-on "extras" or as part of the cultural background. (E.g., the protagonist attends a concert by a famous singer or watches a presidential debate.) There's a subgenre of fan fiction, "real people" fanfic, that consists of stories about celebrities such as singers and actors. It even includes, incredibly, slash scenarios between living individuals. While I'm adamantly opposed to censorship and therefore don't advocate making this sort of privacy invasion illegal, one would think it would be precluded by good taste and simple courtesy.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Snag And Be Damned

Each week, I read dozens of USA and international copyright-related columns, including media law, trademark law, technology insights, art law, proceedings of the USPTO, music policy, writing industry forums, and more, and I put together some of what I find most interesting and potentially relevant to writers.

This week, "art" jumped out at me.

As legal bloggers for Herrick Feinstein LLP  explain, there are differences in artists' rights in the USA versus, for instance in Italy.  In some European jurisdictions, an artist receives payment every time a copyrighted work of art is sold and resold. Not so in the USA.  Gabrielle C. Wilson, Howard N. Spiegler,  Lawrence M. Kaye and Yale M. Weitz  write a thorough summary of art law rights in the USA.

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=e90a3a21-32c4-4672-85e4-19c994420cbc

Interestingly, museums usually try to obtain the permission of the artist/copyright owner before copying the artwork into catalogues or into posters and other advertisements. If that is an issue for catalogues and advertisements, is it a stretch to wonder if it could be an issue for cover art for self-published books if author-publishers do not make sure to obtain all the necessary rights and permissions for their cover art?

Another issue to be considered is the incidental or deliberate appearance of "street art" in photographs or advertisements.... or even on items of clothing. Or not!  Street artists have rights, even when they do not own the surface on which they apply their art.

Social-media-law expert legal blogger Robert B. Nussbaum for Saiber LLC's Trending Law Blog discusses a recent reversal of a liberal circuit's decision on whether or not it is copyright infringement to use Facebook's embedding tools to exploit someone else's video (in this case of an emaciated polar bear) in defiance of the copyright owner's clearly posted copyright notice.

https://trendinglawblog.com/2021/10/05/southern-district-of-new-york-rejects-ninth-circuits-copyright-analysis-regarding-embedded-images/

Apparently, just because Facebook or Instagram make it possible for their users to do something (embed copyrighted works without permission) does not mean that Facebook's magic impunity umbrella will protect users from liability.

Also piling on Facebook (my characterizaation), legal bloggers Kyle Petersen and C. Linna Chen  of Loeb and Loeb LLP discuss the interesting case of an attractive (one infers) lady newscaster who found her photograph being used without her permission as part of an advertisement for a Facebook dating app. She sued Facebook and other platforms.  Facebook tried to hide behind Section 230, without success.

https://www.loeb.com/en/insights/publications/2021/09/hepp-v-facebook 

Read all about it. What a terrible precedent it would have been if the lady had lost! Facebook could have been emboldened to snag any attractive face to use in its promotions for any other app or product or service. 

Imagine if you found your face or that of someone you love being used without permission or compensation to sell an activity or product that you do not endorse or approve! Maybe, also, be careful where you get the images that you put on your website and cover art.

Nevertheless, it is probably a better idea to peel away Section 230 protections and give the newly created CASE Act court a chance to work, than to give governments more power.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™ 

http://www.spacesnark.com/  http://www.rowenacherry.com

 

Karen Wiesner: The Stories Behind Classic Fairy Tales (Woodcutter's Grim Series), Part 7

WOODCUTTER’S GRIM SERIES—

Classic Tales of Horror Retold

This is the seventh of eight posts focusing on my Woodcutter's Grim Series and the stories behind classic fairy tales.

For the ten generations since the evil first came to Woodcutter's Grim, the Guardians have sworn an oath to protect the town from the childhood horrors that lurk in the black woods. Without them, the town would be defenseless…and the terrors would escape to the world at large. 

BRIDGE OF FIRE, Book 10:

A NEW BEGINNING, Part 2

by Karen Wiesner

Supernatural Fantasy Romance Novel 

** Loosely based on "The Three Billy Goats Gruff". The son of shape-shifting goats, William Gruff escaped a dire fate when his family is bound to the evil pervading Woodcutter's Grim, the only shelter for supernatural creatures. Adaryn Azar, a legendary phoenix, changes his lonely life. But a happily-ever-after may be impossible when the hunter who's tracked her for centuries finds her again. Dying and resurrecting would mean forfeiting the life growing inside her. Unfathomably, Woodcutter's Grim may be the only safe place left. ** 

As I said back when I was talking about HUNTER'S BLUES, Book 9 (A Mirror Darkly World Novel), that story was a part of the series but in an awkward way. Originally, I called it a "futuristic" novel but that wasn't entirely accurate. Even before I finished BRIDGE OF FIRE, there were of course vague connections in the series between all the other books that came before and HUNTER'S BLUES, though no definite connections that allowed a timeline to be established. BRIDGE OF FIRE'S three-part tale provides the connections that I never realized were needed before it to explain how HUNTER'S BLUES fit into the series. 

I knew as I was outlining all three parts of BRIDGE OF FIRE that Woodcutter's Grim was becoming complete in a way that it never felt like the series would be before. A part of me wanted to leave it open-ended so I could come back into it if I ever wanted to. But I had a major change of heart and made radical life decisions in 2018 that made me realize I really wanted to tie up as many of my series as I possibly could and move on. 

My critique partner, Margaret L. Carter, told me while reading BRIDGE OF FIRE while it was a work in progress that she'd never read a story with a goat shapeshifter in it before. I realize that the St. Bernard shapeshifters were also unusual, though maybe not as unique. BRIDGE OF FIRE also has the last of the ancient fae lineage. Phoenixes, of course, are fairly common in supernatural stories. Phoenixes are associated with Greek mythology, and I confess I've made mine just a little different from all the research I did on them. I wanted Adaryn to be utterly unique. Find out more about the fascinating myth of phoenixes here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_(mythology)#:~:text=The%20origin%20of%20the%20phoenix%20has%20been%20attributed,texts%20may%20have%20been%20influenced%20by%20classical%20folklore. 

Are you as fascinated by phoenixes as I am? Leave a comment to tell me what appeals to you about this immortal creature of folklore! 

Find out more about this book and Woodcutter's Grim Series here: 

http://www.writers-exchange.com/woodcutters-grim-series/ 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08MLBYBH1 

Karen is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 140 titles and 16 series. Visit her here:

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

https://www.goodreads.com/karenwiesner

http://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/ 

http://www.writers-exchange.com/blog/ 

https://www.amazon.com/author/karenwiesner 

Astro the Robot

Amazon has invented a household robot called Astro, described as about the size of a small dog. It's "Alexa on wheels" but a bit more:

Amazon Robot

Astro can roll around the house with its camera, on a 42-inch arm, enabling you to keep an eye on children from another room. Or you can view your home remotely when you're away. You might use this feature to check on a vulnerable family member who lives alone. Like a tablet, it can play videos and access the internet. Like Alexa, it can answer questions. Its screen can be used for video chatting.

It can't navigate stairs, although (like the Roomba) it knows not to fall down them. Unfortunately, it can't pick up things. I suspect that ability will come along sooner or later. It can carry small objects from room to room, though, if a human user loads the objects, and facial recognition allows Astro to deliver its cargo to another person on command. It could be remotely commanded to take medication or a blood pressure cuff to that elderly relative who lives by herself.

Amazon's goal is for Astro to become a common household convenience within ten years. Even if you have $999 to spare, you can't order one right now. The device is being sold only to selected customers by invitation. Amazon's vice president of product says the robot wasn't named after the Jetsons' dog. The first possible origin for the name that occurred to me, however, was the robot Astro Boy, from a classic early anime series.

Considering the way people talk to their pets as if the animals can understand, I can easily imagine an owner carrying on conversations with Astro almost like an intelligently responsive housemate.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Like Fairness?

The Copyright Alliance is well worth joining.  It brings creators together to support one another, so authors try to help out musicians, or photographers, or film makers, and so forth.  From time to time, there is a bill in Congress that they ask copyright enthusiasts to support by topping and tailing a pre-written form letter.

Today, there is the American Music Fairness Act (AMFA) House Resolution 4130.

America is one of the very few countries in the world that allows radio stations to play music without paying the song writers and copyright owners of the music.

Of course, you can paraphrase or personalize the pre-written letter, but it is a convenient starting point.

So, please contact your Representative in Congress and urge their support for the American Music Fairness Act. Click on this link, fill out the brief form, and the Copyright Alliance's campaign will automatically contact your Congressional representatives with an email requesting their support for the bill.

 

The link is:  https://p2a.co/fUuhVCp

Thank you for helping out, if so inclined.

The Washington Area Lawyers for the Arts is hosting a Copyright Basics online event on October 20th. The cost is $20. The speaker is Joshua Kaufman of Venable LLP.

 

Link for more information:  https://waladc.org/events/detail/wala-copyright-basics

One of many topics is  "Basics Of Fair Use"!

All the best,

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™ 

http://www.spacesnark.com/  http://www.rowenacherry.com

EPIC Award winner, Friend of ePublishing for Crazy Tuesday  

Karen Wiesner: The Stories Behind Classic Fairy Tales (Woodcutter's Grim Series), Part 6

WOODCUTTER’S GRIM SERIES—

Classic Tales of Horror Retold

This is the sixth of eight posts focusing on my Woodcutter's Grim Series and the stories behind classic fairy tales.

For the ten generations since the evil first came to Woodcutter's Grim, the Guardians have sworn an oath to protect the town from the childhood horrors that lurk in the black woods. Without them, the town would be defenseless…and the terrors would escape to the world at large. 

 BRIDGE OF FIRE, Book 10:

 OUT OF THE ASHES, Part 1

by Karen Wiesner

  Supernatural Fantasy Romance Novel

 ** Loosely based on "The Three Billy Goats Gruff". The youngest son in a family of shape-shifting goats, William Gruff escaped a dire fate but his life is desperately lonely, engineering fantastical bridges that defy logic. Nothing prepares him for meeting Adaryn Azar.

Adaryn has a secret that keeps her on the run Loosely based on "The Three Billy Goats Gruff".. Just as everything she's ever wanted is about to come true with Liam, her enemy discovers her. But starting over would mean losing the timeless love she's found with Liam… ** 

BRIDGE OF FIRE started with a vivid dream I had of a man awakened in the middle of the night by a knock on the door. The police had come to tell him his wife was dead. He went to ID the body, and he was devastated and unable to function by this event. But, later that night, she came back to him and told him things about herself and her life that he could hardly get himself to believe...and yet he wasn't without his own secrets he'd been keeping from the woman he loved. 

While I didn't immediately see this as an installment of my Woodcutter's Grim Series, I quickly found a way to make it work in in my horror/fantasy world. I'd always wanted to write one based on another of my favorite fairy tales, "The Three Billy Goats Gruff". 

When I first started working on BRIDGE OF FIRE, I assumed it would be one possibly large novel. But, when outlining, I'd barely gotten past the part that merged with my dream (guy thinks his wife is dead, then finds out she has a huge secret--just like he does). They decide to go to Woodcutter's Grim, because it's the only safe place for supernatural beings such as they are. Also, in writing scenes in the viewpoints of both main characters and the heroine's closest family Torin (who has a young daughter), the story was fleshing out fast. 

The outline was huge at that point. I'd realized once the newly forged family entered Woodcutter's Grim, I had another character I wanted to include the POV of to really round out the story. I knew then that I had two novels in this one outline. I stopped, deciding I needed to sort it out before proceeding. I went back to the beginning and ultimately ended the outline for the first part of the story in the most natural place (when their new location would become Woodcutter's Grim). I went through, added scenes for the new POV character, then continued outlining Part 2 of the story again. 

Unfortunately, the same thing happened again long before I finished outlining the second part. The outline was growing bigger and bigger, and I was nowhere near coming to the end. Dividing it into three parts instead of two seemed only logical, and again I was able to find a logical place to divide Part 2 from Part 3 and switch up the POVs I wanted to feature in Part 3. Even after I finished the outlines, I wasn't entirely sure whether the books would end up novellas or novels, but they turned out to be full-length novels. All three parts of BRIDGE OF FIRE will be published within a few days of each other. 

"The Three Billy Goats Gruff" is a Norwegian folktale with a moral about being brave and clever in the face of obstacles that get in your way. I find it hilarious that Wikipedia describes it as having an "eat-me-when-I'm-fatter" plot. Who knew such a thing existed?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Billy_Goats_Gruff 

Have you ever written a story with a deliberate moral in it? Leave a comment to tell me about it! 

Find out more about this book and Woodcutter's Grim Series here: 

http://www.writers-exchange.com/woodcutters-grim-series/ 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08MLBYBH1 

Karen is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 140 titles and 16 series. Visit her here:

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

https://www.goodreads.com/karenwiesner

http://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/ 

http://www.writers-exchange.com/blog/ 

https://www.amazon.com/author/karenwiesner   

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

The October 2021 issue of NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC features a pair of lead articles about "green" power for aircraft and cars, mainly electric. The cover optimistically proclaims, "The Revolution Is Here." The issue abounds with information about the past as well as the future of electric-powered transportation. I was surprised to learn that in 1900 electric cars held over one-third of the market. Gasoline-powered internal combustion automobiles came in third, after steam (!) and electric. Then as now, the main obstacles to widespread acceptance of electric cars were battery weight and range. On the other hand, electric vehicles are quiet and emissions-free, and they have fewer moving parts to maintain. In the early twentieth century, "cheap oil and paved roads" enabled the internal combustion engine to dominate the market by the 1930s. Now auto manufacturers are embracing EVs with fresh enthusiasm, not only the big names such as Tesla, but even Volkswagen. Driving range and charging times are improving as prices decrease to become comparable to the cost of gasoline-fueled cars. Driverless, electric-powered delivery vehicles may eventually become commonplace. Meanwhile, Amazon and FedEx are switching their fleets to EVs.

This NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC's second article on the energy revolution deals with flight. Commercial airliners produce vast quantities of fossil-fuel pollution. France is considering a ban on all domestic flights to destinations that can be reached by train in less than two and a half hours. Implementing that policy, of course, would imply a passenger rail system adequate to efficiently serve the needs of the traveling public. In most of the U.S., a situation like that is an incredible fantasy. Peter Kalmus, a NASA climate scientist, insists on "the hard fact" that "we don't need to fly." What world does he live in? Most vacation travelers crossing the Atlantic or Pacific can't afford the cost of a cruise ship or the extra time off work for the round trip by sea. If you have to get to the opposite coast of the U.S. for an emergency such as a family funeral, you certainly do need to fly; you can't drive that distance in a day or two.

For large aircraft, electric power runs into the problem that a battery of adequate size would weigh as much as the plane itself. One type of clean airplane fuel being contemplated is liquid hydrogen. For small aircraft, however, electric engines can succeed. A California company named Wisk is one of several working on designs for "air taxis," self-flying, vertical-takeoff-and-landing small electric aircraft. In fact, our long-awaited flying car may soon become a reality, although not owned and operated by individual consumers (thank goodness, considering the typical level of driving skill on the roads).

Each proposed solution, naturally, carries problems of its own. But, as Isaac Asimov maintained, the solution to such difficulties isn't to give up on technology but to develop better technology. If you don't subscribe to NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, do try to pick up a copy of the October issue at the library or newsstand, especially if you're a fan and/or writer of near-future SF.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Ripped

This week's theme is either "ripped off" or "ripped from..."

The copyrightalliance.org has a ripped-from-the-headlines (in other words "topical") question and answer page that currently discusses copyright related to tattoos, fair use by political campaigns or music, copyright protection for tweets, emojis, and much more.

https://copyrightalliance.org/education/qa-headlines/

The Electronic Freedom Foundation has an interesting article by Cooper Quintin and Beryl Lipton about a very frightening patent designed to rip off anyone with whom an incarcerated person communicates.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/09/prison-surveillance-catalog-monitoring-online-purchases-inmates-family-and-friends

Is it right that the government could trick a person who might be related to an inmate into revealing their own Amazon purchasing habits and history? 

EFF's Chao Liu writes about a company called Clearview that wants to rip off your face, not literally.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/09/federal-government-just-cant-get-enough-your-face

The greatest concern, perhaps, is that bad Artificial Intelligence can increase the likelihood of false arrest and mistaken identity (not necessarily in that order).  

 

Matthew Guariglia of EFF discusses the "afterlife" problem with biometric surveillance, collection, and data retention, especially by the military.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/09/lessons-history-afghanistan-and-dangerous-afterlives-identifying-data

 

 

Over-reach in data gathering is everywhere. The law firm Hunton Andrews Kurth discusses how New York City wants food delivery services to share their customer data with restaurants.

https://www.huntonprivacyblog.com/2021/09/17/new-york-city-to-require-food-delivery-services-to-share-customer-data-with-restaurants/#page=1

Customers do have the right to deny food delivery services and restaurants this information, but customers must affirmatively opt out.

 

The law firm of Squire Patton Boggs has a Consumer Privacy World blog, which is well worth following. This last week, their legal bloggers Kristin Bryan and Alexis Chandler  gave an update on the massive T-Mobile data breach and resulting litigation.

https://www.consumerprivacyworld.com/2021/09/t-mobile-named-as-a-defendant-in-nearly-30-data-privacy-litigations-in-wake-of-massive-cyberattack-where-are-we-now-a-month-in/#page=1

 

 

For Brodies LLP, Niall McLean has cautionary advice for writers about recycling old news. It is important to know that distressing information that might once have been newsworthy and in the public domain may, after the passage of time, be private and not in the public interest any more. The case is in the UK, but it's good to know.

https://brodies.com/insights/reputation-management/historically-public-presently-private/

 

All the best,

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™ 

http://www.spacesnark.com/  http://www.rowenacherry.com

EPIC Award winner, Friend of ePublishing for Crazy Tuesday