201 Words of Space Opera Goodness
“She’s doing what?”
“The Fleet frigate has changed course. She’s on an elliptical acceleration intercept!” her captain practically yelled at her.
Admiral Neiva d’Oaneia couldn’t believe it. She looked at the plot and the intercept arc appeared.
Right for the Deadly Azure.
Right for her.
And the frigate was moving fast. Insanely fast. That type of speed was impossible!
That’s when she noticed the acceleration curve was such that the Azure could not escape. They were in the frigate’s intercept envelope. They were nowhere near the FTL line—they could not FTL for over an hour at their present speed.
Trapped.
“Weapons free! All ships intercept! Emergency deceleration, engage at maximum range!”
The orders were, of course, useless. Such was the acceleration of the frigate that they would soon be measuring it in percentages of light speed. It would be like shooting at the wind on a stormy winter day on the Islands.
She felt warm liquid on her leg. She looked down. She had peed herself. She hadn’t put on ship suit because it didn’t occur to her that they would be engaged in combat in their home system.
The Princess was right after all.
The human captain was insane!
Fleet Staff Meeting Gone Wrong
From STUFF BLOWING UP IN SPACE.
I’m on a roll.
Terrans, as the table assembled before him proved, were a decidedly mixed lot.
XO Lieutenant (Sr. Grd.) Ola (no last name) was a waif of a woman. Small, black haired, pixie-ish. Despite her girlish figure, Tilbrook knew she was an older woman, having joined fleet a decade out of college. She was worldly and cosmopolitan.
The doc was her opposite. Tall, pale-skinned, with flaming, unruly red hair, green eyes and a body she seemed uncomfortable with, as if she woke up one day and saw that she had a wonderful feminine figure.
Actually, considering Winnie’s youth, that may be exactly what happened.
Gunnery Sargent Charles Kim was something else entirely. It was as if someone took the biggest Korean, searched for the biggest Samoan, and bred them to produce a 127.3kg monstrosity of pure muscle. Which proved the old Fleet maxim—space is the great biological equalizer. His job was to blow things up, not bust heads.
Staff Sargent Sergei Koltsov, commanding his six person marine squad, at least looked decidedly normal—average in every way, except for his unarmed combat scores and his deadly effectiveness with just about anything remotely like a weapon. His family came from a long line of County Safety officers, and here he was in Fleet. Everyone called him Sarge, although Tilbrook thought of him as “Mr. Security.”
They had just watched the exchange of between him and the shish brat and now everyone looked contemplative, especially after Ola briefed them on the upcoming coming-of-age party for the shish’s older sister.
He didn’t want contemplative. He wanted options.
“Winnie, could you give me some insight on what possibly could be going on to cause Princess here to act completely irrational? I get that her position is political and she is young. That aside, even a mediocre politician should know better than to assume we’re a bunch of dorks. What’s her problem?”
Winnie actually chuckled. “Permission to speak candidly, sir?”
“Winnie, this is a brainstorm session. I need your brain, not your built-in military courtesies. In this room, I expect candor 24×7. That also means call me James.”
Tilbrook knew Winnie might need a more delicate touch when she blushed scarlet, but Hernández’s clock kept ticking down the minutes. The ship was fast. Time was short.
“Aye, um, yes, um, James. Anyway, it’s pretty obvious what the problem is.”
She paused, looking apprehensive. Tilbrook decided to not cut her off at the knees and give her some time to compose herself and spit it out.
“Anyway, the problem is you,” she said in a rush.
What?
“Me?”
“Yes.”
He sighed. He contacted the shish station by the book. Only when the Princess, for the most part, called him a liar did he depart from protocol. In fact, given the circumstances, Tilbrook was sure a less experienced…
“You’re a hottie, James,” Ola broken in.
“Excuse me?”
“A total hottie, to be exact,” said Winnie, blushing even redder.
“Indeed,” said Guns, “while I myself am a heterosexual, I have heard from the female crewmembers that your backside is very esthetically pleasing.”
“My backside.” Out of all the tracks he thought this conversation might go, this one was completely unexpected.
“That means you have a nice ass,” said Sergei.
“Thank you Sarge, I get that. While now I am inwardly cursing that I demanded informality, I would like to state the obvious that my butt was in no way pointed towards the Princess during the entire conversation. Thus, whatever powers said butt might have, they were not in play here.”
“James? Really? You had no idea you were a hottie?” Winnie was looking at him as if he was nuts.
Suddenly Ola nodded. “Ah, makes sense. Skipper here is from Lupa-12, they do things a bit more formally there. I bet you went to an all-boys school during puberty?”
“Look, while I’m sure you Earthers love making fun of the country boys with your 6.8 billion population, you all know I have an apartment in Paris right? And for a reason.”
“You have browner-than-brown hair that looks like if you grew it out it would curl, your eyes are a vivid, and I mean a vivid sky-blue, and you have the eyelashes any teen girl would envy, and I ought to know,” said Winnie. Now instead of looking completely embarrassed, she looked whimsical.
“Let’s not forget, Winnie, that when he works out in the gym shirtless, you seem to find yourself there,” Ola quipped.
“And I would like to point out, Ola, that you are there too.” Winnie quipped back, only looking slightly annoyed.
Tilbrook sighed, loudly, and looked at Sarge and Gunny for sympathy, or at the very least, to bail him out.
“I give the elected MOILTF no sympathy,” said Guns.
Sarge looked blank.
MOILTF? Male Officer I Would… He sighed again. “Fine. I see how you all are. I like to work out. So what? And my looks, I can assure you, are quite vanilla compared to most of the other men on Lupa-12.”
Ola immediately sat up straight. “Really?”
Winnie gave herself a little shake, as if her brain was in the gym. “Anyway, there a total and very disturbing attraction parity between human females and shish. Everything human females find attractive, shish find attractive. Only, the attraction is much more visceral for the shish because, as we all know, their sex-response is biologically tied to feeding.”
She seemed to enter her lecture mode and turned to him. “So, without knowing what political and family monkey business is going on—put yourself in her place. She’s sexually frustrated, that’s a given. Her sister is going to get laid for an entire week, basically have the best sex a shish could have—short of the symbiotic bonding process or the feeding/mating protocol—while she has to work. Indeed, tradition does not allow her to participate in the family orgy because of her position. Now a human male, aka The Hottie, shows up in the spiffy Fleet uniform with a fantastic tale of pirates in a system no pirates should be in, with a more impossible tale of a new jump point. She loses it. Her body is telling her to get you alone, seduce you, then bite you, and suck your blood if she likes you. Dismember and toss you into the pot if she doesn’t.”
“Oh, come on. She is a thinking person. She’s not some eating machine ruled by instinct,” Tilbrook protested.
Guns shook his head. “Rationality means something completely different to a shish. She’s young. She’s low-boob on the totem pole, and she could be hungry. And you’re a walk’n snack that conveniently can get her off before she fills her tummy with a warm happy meal.”
Tilbrook sighed yet again. “Fine. The age-old human-shish socialization problem. What are our options?”
“There’s another social dynamic in play here, that may give you the answer,” Winnie said, nodding to Guns. “Everyone likes to focus on how shish are hyper-sexual beings. That is a mistake. Shish are, for the most part, biologically superior to all other species in the galaxy. They consider themselves at the top of the food chain, and biologically speaking, they are. The only advantage humans have over them is our culture is superior, and I don’t mean that in a racist way. We are more productive, we produce superior art and technology, and our system of governance, such as it is, provides humans with a cultural flexibility nobody can match.”
Suddenly James got it.
“Ah. Being differential and polite wasn’t enough. I was sending her a very specific signal by assuming I was in charge of the situation.”
“Exactly,” said Winnie. “So now your options are, and keep in mind I’m not a shish expert, merely a well-read layman, is to assume a submissive position, or metaphorically pop her in the jaw and assume control. She’s totally going to bite you for sure on the former, the latter is difficult because she is stronger, not to mention most likely telekinetic, and all that aside, she is way smarter than you.”
Crap.
This Book Sure Looks Like Plant Food to Me!
In the world of semi-automatic firearms, when a pistol or rifle fails to move a round into the chamber properly, causing a malfunction, we call this a “failure to feed.”
Not to be confused with my cat Iris, who, if I fail to feed when her dish is empty, will whack me alongside the head when I pass the kitty condo.
But I digress. Failing to feed has consequences.
I’ve blogged about this topic before, but sometimes, as a writer, I have this instinctual need to read, and if I ignore it, my creativity suffers. But there is always the “time thing.” I have a job, I have kids, a dog and the Wife Unit who loves to play video games with me (how awesome is that? It’s awesome, I tell you). There are so many hours in the day, and I when I get tired, I go to bed.
I never suffer from writer’s block (anymore), but yet again, I’ve caught myself slowing down in my editing and writing.
That is, until I increased my reading. It was fuel to the fire.
I love books. Sometimes, even bad ones are inspirational. I just finished a book, from a much respected author, and the ending was so terrible. So very bad. We’re talking I will probably never buy another one of his books without reading a review again, and I have every single one of his hard covers in my library.
But it had value, to me, as a writer. Creative value. It fed the mechanical side of the narrative, sacrificing the entertainment. Indeed, if I wasn’t a writer, I would have stopped reading right when I saw The Big Lazy Cop-Out.
But this book fed me. It made me think about the mechanics of storytelling and how vital the contract with the reader is. There are many ways I draw inspiration, I will never lack it, but the core of my literary soul is a book in my hands and a good story, and failing that, inspiration to not fail in the same way.
Feed me Seymour!
New Post in Adventures in Writing
Like a stripper needing rent money at the end of the month, you can find me every Wednesday at Adventures in Writing.
Today, I talk about elements of style, horror, and science fiction.
Ding Novel is Done
I finished my work in progress in the wee hours of the morning, The Wælcyries Murders.
What a fun novel!
The novel, according to conventional wisdom, should not be—it’s a sequel to a book I haven’t sold yet, which, according to some, isn’t a good idea.
Like much of the advice written on the Interwebs, a person has to be very careful not only consider the source, but also the context.
One reason it’s not a good idea is that your first book may never sell. Your agent or editor may also suggest changes to the first novel that render the second one invalid. Thus you’ve wasted your time.
Or have you?
I learned so much writing this novel. It took me six months to write. What did I learn in six months?
- I learned that there are tricks and techniques to writing your first novel so the second novel in the series gels and flows with the first
- I leaned about advanced characterization beyond a self-contained novel
- I learned how to write a sequel
- I learned new things about world-building and continuity
- I learned that even well respected writers and industry can over-generalize
Out of all of these points, the most valuable to me is the characterization I learned. What’s my main character’s motive, beyond solving the mystery? How does she grow? Where do the other characters fit?
This is my fourth novel I have written; with the caveat the first novel was a pure writing exercise with no basis in publishing reality. So, it’s more novel number three. I will repeat this to myself until it is true. Heh.
The first book in the series could never sell.
I can guarantee that if I do sell a book, and my publisher asks for a sequel, the process of producing that creative work will be much better. I learn by thinking about things and doing in an iterative process.
Next post I talk about the wok itself and the other things I learned.
Wednesday Over at Adventures in Writing
Every Wednesday you can find me over at Adventures in Writing.
Today I talk about women, books and voice.
Girly Stuff
I like to believe, as a male writer, I write a good female protagonist. In my Investigator Lexus Toulouse sci-fi murder mysteries, Lexus is a three-dimensional character that seems to resonate with my female readers in a way that I don’t quite understand.
Actually, I take that back. Part of the reason I can write a three-dimensional female character is because I have done research pertaining to women in lawn enforcement, and I’ve met female police officers while on duty while doing this research.
Research is vital. It is not enough to look into the heart of a female character and try to bring that to the page. The setting and plot details need a basis in reality. Lee Lofland writes to this in his latest, “Female Police Officers: Are They Really Wimpy, Or Do You Just Write Them That Way?” This article really resonates with me, because Lee often gives great tips around certain themes, themes that appear in his blog over and over again. Essentially, what he tells his blogs readers is to write life as it is, rather than life as you think it is.
Sound familiar? It should. Rachelle said the same thing:
“I get the feeling many people are so saturated with media (books, TV, movies) that they are writing not from life but from their perception of life as shown in media. They’re writing stories I’ve seen and heard a hundred times before.”
Rachelle Gardner, Literary Agent: Fiction Writing: Craft and Story
Back to Lexus (because, this post is all about me, me, me, me), Lexus is a flawed individual. You can make a compelling argument that she is mired in psychosis. She certainly suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, and obsessive-compulsive behavior. She has an addiction-prone personality.
These are flaws.
Lexus is also an emotional creature. She has a deep sympathy for people with problems and a strong intolerance for injustice. She takes injustice personally. She approaches problems with logic, but does not have tight reigns on her empathy. She feels. She feels a lot. As a woman, she has feminine emotions.
This is not a flaw. That is part of her strength. Too often, I read characters where the author went out of her way to make sure I, as a reader, understood the character was not flawed because she had boobs and lacked a penis. Yet the character is still a cliché; essentially she is an immature girl compensating for being female.
There is strength in femininity, just as there is strength in masculinity. I can write the strong female main character because I play on my strengths: observation and research. Sometimes I write the obvious in a way that is appealing to women simply because I’m an outsider and am providing a fresh, outsider voice.
Or something like that. I don’t fully understand it. I’m certainly not blazing new territory. My running theory: women are powerful creatures. As technology progresses and makes physical strength not even worthy of a secondary characteristic, the era of the woman may be upon us.
Undercover Assignment Gone Bad, in the Year 21
This is just too delicious to not share.
In the future, undercover work is rare because crime is so low. Most crimes are solved by private parties, but sometimes the stakeholders hire an official Investigator. As we saw in the previous post, Princess Lexus, an official Investigator with powers granted to her by the Federation Constitution, isn’t suited to undercover work, but does have an advantage on this assignment because, through a series of very unfortunate events from the prior story, she has the body of a seventeen-year-old girl.
Here, we find out that just when the Princess thinks things can’t get any worse, they do. Now would be a good time to place bets on how long she can go without shooting someone.
***
“Well, if I get in, I think we underestimated the amount of money dripping from Rosehill. I think I need a car,” I tell Scott and Gina over dinner.
“I think we need to see your first evaluations before agreeing to that,” says Gina.
“Do you even know how to drive?” asks Scott.
“You two need to fuck off and die,” I glare. “I’ve had a bad day.”
Gina gives me what I’m internally labeling the Patented Evil Gina Grin. Since Bambi & Associates are actually paying her to help with my cover story by pretending to be my guardian, I feel she could cut me some slack.
But no. “How bad could it be?” she snickers.
“Well, for one, I was grilled by stuck-up snots, and then grilled by nerdy snots, followed by a grilling by super-smart perverted snots. I think I deserve a car.”
I continue my gypsy glare, with implied thoughts of old-world curses. “And ice-cream.”
Gina laughs and gets up to get me my richly deserved desert.
Scott points to the kitchen clock. “Priss is going active soon, so don’t forget cover.”
Mmmmmmm, oh yeah, Priss. Suddenly my evening is looking up.
Ding-Beep, Ding-Beep.
We all look at each other, and because I’m wearing contacts, I simply sub-vocalize to my pod, which accesses the newly installed house computer, and I flip to the outside driveway camera.
In a bright red little convertible Toyota, is Beth, hair in a ponytail, big grin on her face.
“Well isn’t she blonde,” says Gina.
“Boooooooobies,” says Scott.
“Hey! She’s nice. You both are to be on your best, stoic, bloodless CEO behavior. Do not embarrass me in front of my new classmates. Keep your questions to a minimum. Scott, don’t leer, and Gina, stop smirking.”
“Oh my God,” says Gina. “You are such a teen daughter.”
“Wow, you’re a natural,” Scott says, nodding.
“Again: Fuck off and die.”
I hate this assignment. Hate, hate, hate.
***
“Beth! How nice of you to drop by,” I say at the door, motioning her inside.
Against my will, my eyes flick to her impressive cleavage, and then drop to what she is holding out at me. Flowers.
Oh, shit. Expensive orchids. I feel grateful, guilty, afraid and happy, all at the same time.
“Oh! Those are so pretty!” I tell her with a bright smile.
“They are for you. Congratulations, if you want in, we would love to have you in the squad.” Her smile is genuine, warm and friendly.
My instincts are to pop her on the jaw, key the door, and run out the back screaming.
Instead, I grab the flowers, throw my arms around her in a hug, and squeal like a girl while jumping up and down.
She giggles and hugs me back.
Scott and Gina are there, looking, amazing enough, like parents.
“Beth, this is Scott and Gina, my guardians.”
“Please to meet you both. Ms. Gina, is this a five acre lot? Your place is awesome.”
“Indeed it is. Did I just hear you offer a position on your squad to Nancy?”
“Yes, you did. We are happy to have her! It’s like way cool!”
“Oh, Honey, that’s wonderful! That’s just what you wanted,” says Gina, giving me a hug.
Awwwww… Okay. This isn’t so bad.
“Can I offer you something to drink, Beth?” asks Scott, playing the part.
“Um, no, actually, I’m on a deadline and I might need to borrow your daughter, if she agrees.”
Oh, this can’t be good.
“What up?” I ask.
“This will all be explained in the school manual and mail I will send you, but Alpha Squad has screwed up. They are unable to furnish a girl for FSMB, so the position fell to Beta, that’s us. Since I’m already in FSMB, if we can furnish another body, we’ll get enough points to go from Beta to Alpha and the academic year hasn’t even officially started yet. It will be a major upset and a big win for us. There are perks involved on being the top dog.”
“FSMB?” I ask. I am confused.
“Oh, sorry—Flying Squirrel Morale Boosters. The football cheerleading squad.”
Oh, hell no.
“Ah,” says Scott before I can open my mouth, “Nancy was just talking over dinner how she always wanted to be a cheerleader.”
Right there, a little part of my brain just died. Scott! Oh. My. Fucking. God.
“I don’t know,” says Gina, “pre-voc is already going to be a big enough transition.” She looks at me. “I don’t want you to get overloaded right out of the gate, Pumpkin.”
Go, Gina!
“Ms. Gina, we’re so academically based, we’re like the worst cheerleading squad in the PNW. We only practice for an hour on Wednesdays, and the only other commitment from that is the actual game on Fridays. And this is only during football season.”
“Oh, well, then, that sounds fine.” She turns to me. “Congratulations, Honey!”
No. No. No. No!
“Nancy, are you okay?” Beth is looking at me with concern.
“Oh, sorry. This is all very sudden, it’s like I’m in a dream and if I blink my eyes, I will wake up!”
Yeah, like a fucking nightmare.
Beth is tugging on my sleeve. “Let’s go, Pumpkin, tomorrow all the team cheerleaders have to wear their uniforms on campus, so we need to have yours fitted and cut now!”
As Beth is dragging me out the door and Scott takes the flowers to put in water, a circular thought fills my head and consumes me like my prior snorf and sex addiction:
I suck.
Undercover at High School, in the Year 21
A future cop’s worst assignment: go undercover. Back to school. High School.
Chapter 28
Prospective students should check-in at the central office, says the words in my contact lenses HUD.
Ugh. Contact lenses. I don’t like them, but then again, I gave up my NI watch so it is time to face the music. My NI watch directly interfaced with my optic nerves, so I did not need to wear contact lenses like a normal person.
But still, the last time I wore contact lenses, I almost died. A perp fried them in an EMP blast and took advantage of my vertigo by trying to gut me with a knife.
I put aside my discomfort. A little sparkling trail appears before me and I follow it. The school is not crowded, as start times are staggered.
Rosehill is a very modern school—there is nothing institutional about it. Graduates come out ready for advanced learning in specialized fields or ready for direct integration into the workforce. As a pre-vocational school, students learn advanced self-teaching and group-teaching techniques. As a premier pre-voc, the rich send their kids here to finish turning them into productive members of society. It is one of the best schools on the West Coast.
And there is the distinct possibility someone in here, a student or a facility member, is a murderer.
***
“You must be Nancy,” says a warm, older gentleman, who reminds me of Papa. He even has a vaguely Asian look.
“I am,” I stick out my hand and smile. “Please to meet you Mr.…”
He has a firm handshake but he doesn’t crush my fingers. “Berkshire. Please, just call me Berk, or Mr. Berk. I am the Chief Principal of Rosehill Analytics and Learning.”
“Very pleased to meet you, Sir.”
He motions me to sit in a chair.
“I must say your home school qualifications were pretty extraordinary, I can see why your guardians would want you to spend a year or two at Rosehill. Shame we didn’t get to you earlier.”
“Actually, they discouraged me from applying.”
He looks surprised. “Uh, they did?”
“Yes. They felt because of my isolation for my prior learning, that a home school co-op with gradual increased social interaction would be more conductive to learning.”
Damn that sounded swanky. Memo to self: dial it down a notch.
“I guess you persuaded them.”
I sigh like a good teenage girl. “Kinda. I’m actually paying for the tuition and expenses myself. Out of my inheritance. They told me up front, success or failure, either way, would be a good lesson for becoming an Adult.”
He smiles. “Well! Your guardians are old school hard-core. I like it. In a way, Mr. Scott and Ms. Gina are correct—this social and learning style is a dramatic departure. Now that you’re here, are you having second thoughts?”
“Oh, no. I am so excited to learn with other people, make new friends and just experience something new, I could just pee myself!”
Well, at least that much is true.
He laughs. Then he looks very serious.
Uh-oh.
“Nancy, do you mind if I ask you a personal question?”
“Only if you don’t mind if I tell you to stuff it if I don’t like it.”
He chuckles. “Oh, you’re feisty!” He looks at me. “You were lonely, weren’t you? I don’t know your whole story, but I can guess home schooled in the ass-end of the Northern Territories was lonely.”
I frown and look down. “Yes, yes I was.”
He nods. “I like you, Nancy. You remind me of my son when he was your age before he got all serious. So let me give you a bit of advice.”
He leans back in his hair. “Rosehill attracts learners and leaders. And the leaders can spot people who have ulterior motives a mile away. You can’t just want to get in here to make friends and have a teen life amongst the wealthy and well-connected. You have to want to learn. You have to want it bad. And if you don’t want it bad enough, then you’ll not get on a squad. As long as your desire to learn and facilitate peer learning is stronger than your desire to be a social butterfly, you’ll get in. But if it’s not, your day is going to suck and perhaps your guardians were right.”
I nod.
Shit.
***
This is my third and last interview for today. I’m fairly certain I’ve blown the prior two, and this is my last shot.
I’m fairly certain because I’ve bugged the rooms, and can hear their discussion.
Squad number one didn’t like me at all. They didn’t like my tattoo, didn’t like that I was home schooled and didn’t like that my guardians were a CEO and an Investigator.
Squad number two was a bit better. However, they didn’t like me because I wasn’t a math whiz. They completely pooh-poohed my areas of expertise, and this hurt because I’m over three times their age and have taken more advanced courses then all three of them put together.
Plus, I used my math to kill the enemy, you little snots. Not good with math, my tattooed ass.
Bah.
Failure here means we have to wave more credits around and I have to form my own squad of student partners. Forming my own squad would suck. I would have to go out and find new students. Not only would time be short for that, I don’t want to integrate myself with new students. I want to find why a murder victim had a current Rosehill squad ring. This is why I’m applying as a transfer.
My instincts tell me I need to stick to the ICDA persona. But man, does it rub some people the wrong way.
I look around the room of rich, beautiful teens and try to hide my nervousness. This six-person squad is down a member. The prior student, a girl, left when her family moved to Argentina. So at least I have that going for me.
I’m dressed in a black and gold silk skirt and matching blouse, with stockings and black boots with heels. At least with my sense of fashion and sculpted, teen looks I fit right in. I’m sitting on a comfortable chair in a study room.
The squad leader is a girl from India, and she is something else. She is tall, almost six feet, and curvy. She looks like she can squish me. Her name is Nikhita, and her mocha skin with her dark brown eyes make for an enticing look. She fills the room with her presence.
The second girl—and I believe she is the Squad Second—is so California Blonde Blue-Eyed Bimbo she actually scares me. It has to be an act. She is also tall and beautiful with breasts I would seriously consider, if they were on me, of having them surgically reduced. Her name is Beth. She looks perfect, minus the boob part.
Then we have the boys.
The first boy introduced himself as Jay. Jay is also tall and looks like a football player, complete with the no neck, blonde guy thing. He has an easy smile and his blue-gray eyes are bright and inquisitive, so I suspect he is far, far, from the quintessential jock. Jay is an alpha boy. Looking at him makes me feel funny.
I bet he is fucking Beth. They would make the beautiful couple, complete with beautiful children.
The next boy, Quinn, is as tall as Jay and dressed impeccably sharp. His brown hair is styled perfectly, and his eyes are green, like mine, although I suspect he is wearing tint. He is also painfully handsome, and while doesn’t have a quick smile as the rest, looks alert. He is the observant sort, and must work out. He seems to have muscles on top of muscles.
The last young man is Lee. Lee is tall and lanky, and gifted with that magical boy long-eyelashes thing, with mousy brown hair and big, big brown eyes. He has a swimmer’s body, and is ruggedly handsome.
Lee also makes me feel funny. The primordial part of my brain wants to nibble on him. He has a warm smile and he is very engaging. Lee is a man’s man, I’m certain.
My gay-dar doesn’t go off, so I’m betting Lee is making some girl very happy right now.
They have just finished with pleasantries, like where I’m from and why Rosehill and blah blah blah. Now begins the grilling.
“How is your day going so far?” asks Beth.
“Well enough, I think. This is a really good school and I hope my nervousness isn’t giving me bad marks in the interviews.”
“You’re doing fine,” says Nikhita. “At least with us, so far. The squads don’t share feedback.”
She has a Bangalore accent. She’s a big city girl. Portland must have been quite the culture shock.
“Ah, is this a competition thing for when you get a superior candidate?”
Nikhita nods. “Yes. I can’t go into it, but certainly, that happens.”
“Cool.” I smile. “I would like nothing better than to have people fighting for me, but I think I’ll force myself to be humble and stuff.”
Lee laughs aloud but quickly tries to look serious.
“So,” says Jay, “you’re wearing a S&W Slim-line 16. Pink.” He says the word ‘pink’ like it is a dirty word. Ha. “What type of training have you had with it?”
“I hold an Instructors Level Four Cert through S&W Training. I am quite accurate with it and can train others in their entire pistol line, which includes basic marksmanship and advanced self-defense.”
“Whoa,” says Beth.
Jay looks impressed. “Could I see your cert?”
“Certainly.” I get out my pod and send him the cert, provided by Bambi. I never qualified through S&W, but if I did, I would probably obtain their highest certificate.
This is going well. Anytime a conversation turns to guns, I have an advantage.
“How would you describe your interest in history?” asks Quinn.
“I’ve given serious consideration to becoming a historian, much to my guardians’ dismay. My emphasis is pre-war and war history, and have tested well in other eras.
“What would you consider is your weak area?” asks Beth.
“For this squad? I have this fear I don’t meet the height requirement.”
Lee again laughs but the others look non-pulsed.
Okay, maybe this is not going so well.
“Academically,” says Beth.
“I’ve haven’t put a big focus on math. Not because I don’t like it, but simply because there are so many hours of the day.”
“Don’t you think your home schooling in the Northern Territories gives you a disadvantage when it comes to peer-based learning?” asks Nikhita.
Oh boy.
“Yes, certainly. Some people are just born to relate to other people, though—I feel in my heart that I’m suited to peer-based learning. A learning squad is everything I have ever dreamed of, and I really want to give as well as receive. I feel I have so much bottled inside, sometimes I could just burst!”
The room is silent.
“Or, maybe, I just like to talk.”
This time I get a smile from Beth.
“Let’s go back to your history assertions,” asks Quinn. “What type of impact did the Collapse have on the formation of the Federation?”
“Which collapse? There were three.”
“There were?” asks Beth.
“Yes. The first collapse was the degradation of civilization via economic Armageddon caused by incompetent centralization, coupled with the spread of a nasty influenza that seemed perversely to prey on healthy adults, and then mutated to attacking children and old people. While this is what is commonly referred to as “the Collapse” with a capital ‘C’, the sneaky fact is those events were predicted and the people who picked up the pieces were well prepared to do so.”
I look around the room. “The second collapse happened soon after the first, so soon that many historians gloss over or miss the significance. Those people now in power were replaced, often violently, in a coups d’état of those who not only predicted the prior collapse, but also the first group would come to power. Those revolutionaries were the forerunners to the Federation, and unfortunately, the beginning of the Union.
“But neither of those events had the most impact of the third collapse.”
Quinn frowns. Oh well.
“The Cyber War was the true collapse. Nobody predicted it, nobody prepared for it, and it destroyed the prior, pre-Federation and pre-Union civilization by erasing everything and destroying networked computers. Afterwards, chaos, true chaos, reigned. Civilization for a short time was a bad blend of steam-punk coupled with feudalism. Only the war with the Union was more malignant, more evil. The only reason the Federation came back on top was we reverted to anarcho-capitalism, and even that was due more to who was the better shot. Free of centralization, the Fed economy prospered with unstoppable growth, which was a good thing, otherwise we humans would be extinct and the child-raping Union would be sitting here having a grand old time with their total lack of free will.”
The room is silent. Again.
I suddenly realize I have totally overstated my undercover persona. The looks I get back are blank and guarded. Crap. Crap. Crap, crap, crap!
Oh man, I suck. Why did they have to ask me about history? That and Investigations always gets me going. Only sex is more fun. I have two fucking masters in history, for fuck sake.
They ask me a few more basic questions, I hand them my card, and leave.
Fuck.
***
Scott picks me up and I motion to him that I’m busy listening.
The card I gave them, while traditional, is also a clever listening device. The paper isn’t paper at all, but a wonderful bug. It’s not nano technology, but nanos certainly manufactured it. It’s a vastly superior form of miniaturization, a technique only known to Investigators and perhaps the Military.
My pod sorts the conversation and pipes a running transcription to my contacts, along with putting the audio in my ear. I rewind it to the point I left the room.
***
Nikhita: Well, at least she wasn’t boring. Let’s go around the room. Lee.
Lee: She’s a Princess groupie! That tattoo, it’s awesome. I so want to talk to her about the Princess.
Beth: Oh my God, Princess groupies. Is there anything more pathetic?
Jay: I can’t believe we found someone who can out groupie the groupie.
Nikhita: Please, let Lee finish.
Lee: She’s very passionate about history and I don’t give a damn if she’s a hick from way-way-way-way up north.
Beth: How many ways is that?
Jay: A lot.
Lee: Quiet. Anyway, I approve. Plus, I want to do her.
Beth: Lee!
Lee: Hey, let’s be honest. She’s unreal. Did you see the muscles ripple under her blouse when she stretched? She’s like hard-soft. Or soft-hard. She’s like a gypsy from a skinsim, all curvy mysterious. And her accent is like melted chocolate butter over a warm pastry.
Beth: Lee! You can’t talk that way with your girlfriend in the room!
Nikhita: Just for that commentary, Lee, I will not be kissing you this evening. Jay?
Jay: Oh hell yes. Fuck, I can finally talk to someone about guns. You guys suck with that and our shooting scores are the worst in the school. Maybe she can teach you wankers something and I can stop banging my head tried to get blood from a bunch of rocks. I’m also impressed with her very broad academic background, her certs, and her passion for when she talks about things that interest her. Plus, I want to do her.
Beth: Jason Manuel! I am sitting right here, you Neanderthal! No kissing for you either!
Nikhita: <sighs>
Nikhita: Beth?
Beth: Well, she certainly is plucky. I like the fact that she is assertive but is mature enough not to get into any squad leadership pissing matches. Unlike you boob-centric penises, I am not terribly impressed with her academics. However, when she talks about subjects she knows, Jay’s right. She gets animated. I think she has a big capacity to teach history, and we need that, especially since Meg moved away and broke Quinn’s heart. Plus, uh, I want to do her.
Jay: Fuck yeah! Can I watch?
Beth: Not a chance in hell, turd-brain. I’m mad at you—remember?
Jay: Oh, so I can’t lust after gypsy girl but you can?
Beth: That’s because I use romance and you just wave your penis around thinking that’s foreplay.
Jay: You know it.
Nikhita: <sighs>
Nikhita: Quinn? You sounded like you had the most reservations.
Quinn: Are you kidding me? She’s fucking brilliant. If we could get out half of what she knows about history, we’re golden.
Lee: Whoa. I thought Quinn was impressed with nothing.
Quinn: Plus, I want to do her. Her lecture actually gave me a boner.
Beth: Oh. Em. Gee.
Quinn: Want to see it?
All: No!
Quinn: Anyway, Nikhita, she’s a fit. She’s quirky and her record clearly indicates she is a dedicated, unconventional learner. My only beef is I had to think seriously about unpleasant topics, because my mind kept going back to wanting to nibble on her tattoos.
Lee: Heh.
Jay: Heh.
Beth: Boys!
Jay: You said you wanted to do her!
Beth: Yes, but I plan to give her flowers, take her to dinner, get her drunk, and then do her.
Nikhita: <sighs>
Nikhita: Okay then. I have reservations along Beth’s thinking. I think her isolation has skewed her motives for applying. To me it seemed she was more interested in the school and the people rather than the true benefits from peer-based instruction. But I can’t deny she knows what she is talking about. We’re down a squad mate, she doesn’t smell and she’s a tad sarcastic, which will make her fit in just fine with you spoiled-brat malcontents.
Lee: And?
Nikhita: And what?
Jay: And?
Nikhita: <sighs>
Beth: And?
Nikhita: Fine. I want to do her.
Quinn: God, I love this squad. Thank you, Jesus.
***
We’re across the river, heading to Gina’s. I nod to Scott, indicating I’m done with my surveillance.
“Well?” Scott asks.
“Let’s see: Lee is going out with Nikhita. Beth is dating Jay. Quinn is single and pinning away after Meg, the squad mate who moved, but I think they all might be swappers. Hard to say.”
Scott reaches over and smacks me on the back of the head.
“Ow!”
“Can you give me a professional rundown of your day? Set the teen girl aside before I puke.” He shudders.
I squirt him the recording and transcript. He puts the car on auto and listens.
“Nancy, I think you are in trouble. You can’t fuck a Child.”
“Major Scott! I am not a pervert! Of course I can’t! That’s just teen banter. Tacking sex on the end of everything makes them feel empowered.”
“Yeah, they want to empower up your pookie.”
“Leave my pookie out of this!”
“Poor Priss. She’s going to be walking funny as you channel their flirting into sex-bot relief.”
“You suck.”
“Ha!”
Conflict in the Year 21: Tokyo
Oh man, the absurd situations I foster on my poor main character.
As a ex-NI soldier and pilot, I was naked on base many a time. There were times where if I had anything touching my skin I would just lose it. It’s a common side effect of neural implants. My sensitivity to touch is higher than a normal person is, and sometimes that’s a disadvantage.
Today, nudity isn’t common, but it isn’t rare either.
So it was with some nervousness Kaoru is escorting me to the front of the hotel lobby where I can summon Thor, because I’m wearing nothing but a pair of spaghetti-strap fuck-me heels. Each step is a sparkly slither of the naked sexy.
And people are staring. Conversations stops, mouths hang open, women pause, men drink me with their eyes. Oh, this was a mistake. I feel self-conscious and stupid that I, of all people, feel self-conscious.
Kaoru is following behind me carrying a locked case containing my purse, PDA, and needler. She is smirking at the reactions to her handiwork.
Thor is suddenly at my side. Never have I been so grateful to see him. “I can take that, Miss Kaoru-san,” he says. She hands the case over, bows at me, and when I return her bow, she grins and leaves.
The lobby is still silent. Thor puts his hand on my arm.
“Look, Lieutenant, I want to be up front this was not my idea. I told them no. I might as well have been speaking to a rock.”
“What?” This doesn’t sound good. No, not good at all!
“Come.”
I plant my heels and almost fall over. “Thor, I am naked, wearing only scandalous heels and an absurd amount of credits in diamonds. Spit it out!”
“There is a crowd of people outside waiting to escort you to the Palace.”
No! Damn it!
I feel faint, on the verge of hyperventilating. I don’t do well with crowds. “Crowd? Can I slip out the back? Can we VTOL over? How many people are we talking about here?”
I detect a wisp of a smile from the normally stoic Thor.
“All of them, I think.”
Crap.
Murder in the Year 21
We emerge from the closet and I notice my PDA on the floor, where I dropped it, is blinking red.
Blinking is bad. I stop and motion for Caz to wait. She looks at the blinking light and frowns.
—Bambi, what up, boss?
—Have you ever been kissed by a wælcyrie?
—What? No! Of course not. Command gave direct, written orders to all NI soldiers to stay away from wælcyries. They separated us, not even the same base. What the hell, you blink me for that?
—Are you sure? Are you 100% sure?
—Yes, I am alive, aren’t I? What’s this about?
—Scott and I are in Portland. This case is—bad. We need you to primary an autopsy with Ivan in about two hours. We’re sending the body up there.
—Ugh. Look, I’ve actually done an autopsy under direction, but it’s really not my…
—Lexus, this is murder. Someone murdered a wælcyrie. And Ivan has been kissed by one. You have to help him. He won’t be able to do it and the client insists we do not subcontract any of this case. Scott and I need to wrap up here.
—Ivan? How did he live through that?
—You can ask him. He isn’t talking to us. Meet him in his lab in two.
—Okay.
—Gotta go.
—Love you.
—Love you, too.
Several things run through my head at once. Who would murder a wælcyrie? Why our east of Seattle agency and not a Portland one? How did Ivan survive the neurological changes of a wælcyrie kiss with his implants?
“Lexus, are you okay? Is there something wrong at work? You look funny…”
I look at Caz and think what I was avoiding thinking about: Bambi.
Bambi’s response to my regen brain damage was to give me more work.
Don’t care what those fucking charts say, Lexus. I believe in you. You’re an Investigator until I say different, she told me.
“Lexus?”
Bambi believes in me with all her heart. What if I let her down?
Don’t fool yourself Lexus, considering what you did last night, what if you let her down again?
“Lexus!”
Why am I looking at the ceiling? Ah cra…
Ideas and the Creative Process of the Hack Writer
Kiersten asks in a recent blog post:
If you write, where do your ideas come from? Do you start with a scene? A character? A premise? Or do you have some ridiculous trigger that demands you spin a story out of it?
That is a good question. A novel thrusts itself into my poor overloaded mind based on two things: a character, and a theme.
This is the heart of my creative process. I need both a main character with a distinctive voice, and I need a unifying idea. When the two meet, it’s magic. My brain will refuse to let go of the two, and, at some point, they merge and I will have the resulting plot and setting. I am now compelled to write the story.
But where do these characters and themes come from?
Mainly, I observe. I am not a shy man, but I am a quiet fixture. Why does that smartly dressed woman at the airport waiting for the same flight as me have a perpetual frown? Why are the neighbors across the street so reclusive? Is the wife sick? If so, will she ever get better? The Sheriff Deputy in the coffee shop–if she were in trouble, big trouble, would she have the will and fortitude, beyond her training, to survive? If she did have this internal strength, but was in the wrong place at the wrong time, would anybody come to help?
Observation can give me characters, and it can give me themes.
For example, why does our society have a culture of blame-the-victim, bordering on the tolerance for the criminal? Where did this corruption come from, and where will it lead? Why do some cultures today feed off each other, becoming stronger, while others clash, causing conflict? Is a society that devalues the lives of children for the sake of control and equality doomed to failure? If so, how will it fail?
Sometimes, I will be thinking these questions and suddenly they will merge into a story. Like this proto-outline:
The Sheriff Deputy in the coffee shop is in trouble. She is a strong person but in the wrong place at the wrong time. She is a righteous woman, but righteousness is not going to save her now (this is the character, maybe the main character, or an important minor one).
Career criminals, released by our society to prey upon the weak once more without mercy, decided they were going to kill a copy one day. Our society tolerates evil men such as this. It has happened before (in the real world), and it will happen again (sadly, this is also a reality). Where did this corruption come from, and where will it lead? (this is a theme).
The righteous and the evil go at it in the coffee shop parking lot. Outgunned and outmaneuvered, the death of the female deputy is a forgone conclusion. How would she get out of this?
She gets help. A woman caught in the crossfire draws her sidearm and joins the gun battle (this is the glimmering of a plot and also a very strong character).
Why did this woman have gun? Well, she has the typical ex-husband who has threatened to kill her. She decided she wasn’t going to use a paper shield and actually defend herself (this is related to the theme, but also further characterization).
Only, she isn’t defending herself. She is defending someone sworn to defend her! She is shot. Several times. Nevertheless, everyone lives, except the evil men.
And this heroic action caused the next American Civil War (this is now the plot).
That’s my writing process. For me, only when I have a firm character, or characters, and a unified idea to generate conflict as a theme, can I get a plot that works for me. At this point, I have a novel. All that is left is my outlining process (which I do in my head) and typing.
You may think a gun battle in a coffee shop parking lot and the next American Civil War is a gigantic, random leap–but it’s not. The theme, as you recall, is “Where did this corruption (tolerance for evil) come from, and where will it lead?” With these characters and this theme, the plot burst out of me like the alien from the chest of poor Kane on the Nostromo.
This is my creative process, how I obtain ideas and turn them into novels. And it works very well for me.
Revisions, Hack Writer Style
In this post, I showed a draft Chapter 1 of a book project, a science fiction murder mystery.
Occasionally, I will revise on-the-fly either to conform to the outline I have running in my head, or because, even if I am clicking along, there is something about the writing that bugs me (and ‘bugs me’ is a technical term).
I kept going back the this chapter, because the writing bugged me. Then I figured it out: the main character, as written, may have garnered sympathy but not a whole lot of empathy. If taken out of context as the opening chapter of a book 2, Lexus is just a junkie looking for an excuse to get high.
There’s the age-old problem. How do you get a reader to emphasize with the main character?
I am not sure of the answer for this novel, yet. I am a naturally empathetic person, I will think about why somebody does something by putting myself in her place. I guess that is what I attempted here. I am not exactly enamored by the first sentence, but it is a grabber of sorts.
The revision:
Chapter 1
My PTSD therapist told me, before he died and broke my heart, that, despite my aggressive desire for justice and a physiological and pathological need for constant sex, I was a caring, nurturing woman.
Then he died and for some reason, I could not cry at his funeral, and I never forgave myself for that.
Until now, because I have been thinking of him, and crying. It is a cloudy night on top of Mt. Si, where my Investigator office is, and I am at the precipice of a sheer drop, a good spot to view the forested towns below.
I miss him terribly. He did not deserve to die from an Uplink flashback, when his neural receptors caused his brain to link to itself. He died before he could Uplink with a real person, which would have prevented his nervous system from a cascading failure. It is a horrible way to die.
It should have been me.
I wish he was here, and I could talk to him. Four Husbands and two Wives, yet I feel alone, a deep sense of sadness, and I am paralyzed with dark, circular thoughts.
It is, of course, my fault. Everyone is the same but I have changed, drastically. I came out of the regen tank to fix my war-wounds for once and all, as a little teen sexpot. Not even a younger version of myself, I look like a little sister, if I had a little sister. Shorter. Lithe and svelte instead of curvy and athletic.
I am a pixie. All I need is wings.
I contemplate jumping off my mountaintop, falling unto the rocks below. Splat. No wings here. Just another broken vet offing herself, a grim post-war statistic: a little chit-mark in the right column instead of the left.
Suicide, while classic, would be dishonorable. I do not fear death but my honor is all I have left. I don’t have my body. I don’t have my wisdom. I don’t have my spouses. I gave my virtue to the Empress. All I have left is my damn honor, my warped sense of personal justice tied up with my duties as an Investigator.
I take a deep breath, and now feel the cold rain on my face as I look down at the rain-soaked forest landscape and realize I am feeling sorry for myself.
Well I have a cure for that. If my spouses won’t tend to my needs, I will seek intimacy elsewhere. I sub-vocalize to my Investigator PDA.
—Arune?
A pause. I sigh. Pause is bad. Arune is my old warship. The only reason he would not respond instantly is if he was out of range.
—Sorry Lexus, I’m on the moon with Tiff and Britt. Back in three days.
—Okay. I love you; call me when you get back.
Arune and Britt, two of my current lovers, while Tiff is a potential lover. Just like that, my list of lovers for the evening snipped short.
I am in desperation territory because the rocks at the bottom of Mt. Si are now calling to me.
—Empress, my love?
A pause. Oh no, please no.
—Lexus, my darling, my Concubine, my Princess. I have taken a trip to the moon. Be back soon.
The moon. What the fuck? Why would the military, and the Empress, go to the moon? Logically, it makes sense, the part about being together. Britt is a Military Police Lieutenant, Arune is a warship, and Tiff is his pilot. So yeah, the four have met before and I am sure they will meet again. But the moon? All that’s on the moon is some launchers and dusty old nano-factories that nobody wants to turn on, and some privately funded research bases.
I mentally shrug. I made the conscious decision to disengage myself from the Military. I don’t need to know, so nobody tells me what is going on. And when it comes down to it, I don’t want to know.
Now I am in trouble. My fellow Investigators, of course, would always tend to me, if I asked. Scott and I have never made love, but the unspoken opportunity is there. But Scott is in Portland on a sudden assignment.
Ivan is downstairs sleeping. He is exhausted from completing four insurance dictated autopsies. He didn’t even leave his office, crashing on the couch. Ivan is not a young man. To wake him up with my need to be touched and kissed would be very selfish.
And that leaves my boss, Bambi. My relationship with her is complicated. On one hand, she is like the daughter I never had, and my best friend in the entire world. On the other, I find her attractive.
Bambi is not into women. I could seduce her, but that would make me the Shit of the Century. I refuse to burn my friendship and my career to satisfy my lustful desires.
Look at me—I am all grown up. A giggle escapes from my lips.
I am at the end of my rope.
Well, when the going gets tough, the tough go on a snorf binge. Snorf will let me turn the insidious compulsion that owns me into a manageable burn.
As long as I don’t die from an overdose.
Rachelle Gardner, Literary Agent: Fiction Writing: Craft and Story
Writer folks, check out this post:
Rachelle Gardner, Literary Agent: Fiction Writing: Craft and Story
She says:
I get the feeling many people are so saturated with media (books, TV, movies) that they are writing not from life but from their perception of life as shown in media. They’re writing stories I’ve seen and heard a hundred times before.
I love this post. I love it very much.
Rachelle is talking about stories with a heart.
Stories that speak to your soul.
Stories that bypass the surface and talk about things the way they are.
Stories that are honest.
That is exactly what I read.
And that’s exactly what I want to write, and I do write.
What an inspirational post!
The Wælcyries Murders
Chapter 1
Four Husbands and two Wives, yet I feel alone, a deep sense of sadness, and I am paralyzed with dark, circular thoughts.
It is, of course, my fault. Everyone is the same but I have changed drastically. I came out of the regen tank to fix my war-wounds for once and all, as a little teen sexpot. Not even a younger version of myself, I look like a little sister, if I had a little sister. Shorter. Lithe and svelte instead of curvy and athletic.
I am a pixie. All I need is wings.
I contemplate jumping off my mountaintop, falling unto the rocks below. Splat. No wings here. Just another broken vet offing herself, a grim post-war statistic: a little chit-mark in the right column instead of the left.
Suicide, while classic, would be dishonorable. I do not fear death but my honor is all I have left. I don’t have my body. I don’t have my wisdom. I don’t have my spouses. I gave my virtue to the Empress. All I have left is my damn honor, my warped sense of justice tied up with my duties as an Investigator.
I take a deep breath, and feel the cold rain on my face as I look down at the rain-soaked forest landscape and realize I am feeling sorry for myself.
Well I have a cure for that. If my spouses won’t tend to my needs, I will seek intimacy elsewhere. I sub-vocalize to my Investigator PDA.
—Arune?
A pause. I sigh. Pause is bad. Arune is my old warship. The only reason he would not respond instantly is if he was out of range.
—Sorry Lexus, I’m on the moon with Tiff and Britt. Back in ten days.
—Okay. I love you; call me when you get back.
Arune and Britt, two of my current lovers, while Tiff is a potential lover. Just like that, my list of lovers for the evening snipped short.
I am in desperation territory because the rocks at the bottom of Mt. Si are now calling to me.
—Empress, my love?
A pause.
—Lexus, my darling, my Concubine, my Princess. I have taken a trip to the moon. Be back soon.
The moon. What the fuck? Why would the military, and the Empress, go to the moon? Logically, it makes sense. Britt is a Military Police Lieutenant, Arune is a warship, and Tiff is his pilot. So yeah, the four have met before and I am sure they will meet again. But the moon? All that’s on the moon is some launchers and dusty old nano-factories that nobody wants to turn on, and some privately funded research bases.
I mentally shrug. I made the conscious decision to disengage myself from the Military. I don’t need to know, so nobody tells me what is going on. And when it comes down to it, I don’t want to know.
Now I am in trouble. My fellow Investigators, of course, would always tend to me, if I asked. Scott and I have never made love, but the unspoken opportunity is there. But Scott is in Portland on a sudden assignment.
Ivan is downstairs sleeping. He is exhausted from completing four insurance dictated autopsies. He didn’t even leave his office, crashing on the couch. Ivan is not a young man. To wake him up with my need to be touched and kissed would be very selfish.
And that leaves my boss, Bambi. My relationship with her is complicated. On one hand, she is like the daughter I never had, and my best friend in the entire world. On the other, I find her attractive.
Bambi is not into women. I could seduce her, but that would make me the Shit of the Century. I refuse to burn my friendship and my career to satisfy my lustful desires.
Look at me—I am all grown up. A giggle escapes from my lips.
I am at the end of my rope.
Well, when the going gets tough, the tough go on a snorf binge. My all-consuming need to be constantly touched, kissed, and possessed by a lover should subside to a manageable burn.
As long as I don’t die from an overdose.
New Post in Adventures in Writing
Every Wednesday you can find me over in Adventures in Writing.
Today I write about Full Monty Analysis While Writing.
Kissing Week, Thursday: Stolen Kisses
Real kisses have power in today’s Western society.
I belong to a rare club:
- I am married for a number of years (15!)
- This is my only marriage
In other words, I am a never-divorced, married man. Believe me when I tell you I am the odd duck at parties. On one hand, I am happy to be in this club. On the other hand, I think it’s sad.
No offense if you are divorced. I’m sure you’re sad too, and I say that with empathy and not sarcasm. I’ve seen it all.
I sometimes get together with my male friends in the same NOT DIVORCED CLUB™ and we talk about the other male species. Sometimes we have to as a defensive mechanism. We have to, or we’ll just go crazy.
One time, we were discussing a particularly nasty divorce, and we got to talking about infidelity. Somehow, we got to talking about degrees of infidelity, the inherent dishonesty of it all. We wound up talking about kissing.
Minor diversion: Do women talk about this kind of stuff?
Anyway, we all agreed that kissing was the crossed line. All the other acts of carnal nature were, at their core, not nearly as intimate as a passionate kiss.
Why is that? I could prattle on and on about it, but my point is, kissing has power. Forget about why people cheat. It seemed to us, divorce, due to infidelity, centered on two related things: the dishonesty of sneaking around, and the intimate aspects of stolen kisses.
Of course, we could be way off the mark. But I don’t think so.
Kissing is an intimate currency. Kissing money. Like real money, it has the potential to cause conflict and settle conflict. A passionate kiss on the wrong lips starts a chain reaction, for good or bad.
As a writer, I am a manipulative bastard. I’ll be spending my kissing money knowledge to press buttons. It might not be this novel, but the next. I am giddy at the thought of kissing tension.
Heh. You might think of this as a dark post. It’s not. Where you might see a depressing look at the state of affairs, I see plot and characterization opportunity!
Okay, that is somewhat dark.
As a fellow reader, you might be thinking, “well duh,” and I rather agree. But just as I think writers boof kissing in a good way, I also feel they boof kissing in a bad way. Writers of the illicit all too often describe the dishonest as carnal intercourse. When, at the core, the dishonesty of it all is the stolen kiss.
Work in Progress
I an in love with Your Little Sister. My poor main character, Lexus. She can’t even get a ride without CONFLICT.
I notice the car has pulled over to the side of the road in the emergency lane. Then it stops.
Thor is sitting there, just staring out the window. But his hands are gripping the wheel, and his knuckles are white.
The hazard lights come on automatically. They blink.
Blink, blink, blink.
“You have a problem with that, Thor? You going to lecture me too, claim that I don’t know what I am doing?”
Blink, blink, blink.
After a pause, he sighs and visibly relaxes. The car moves forward and he zips back into traffic.
“No ma’am.”
“You’re not going to tell me to be careful?”
“No ma’am. Careful is sometimes good, but you and I both know at the very center of your being, there is no careful. Careful is not a core option for you and I.”
I sit and look at the back of his head.
I want to ask him a million questions. But I have spent twenty years respecting his privacy, and he has always respected mine. Indeed, this is the most I have heard him say to me in one sitting beyond social niceties.
I sigh. In the end, I do not want to ask Thor any questions.
Because I am more than sure I do not want to know the answers. Not now.
Maybe not ever.
Here we find Lexus at near the end of the book, on her way to visit the Empress.
After her visit, she will never be the same. She will be forever changed, even more so than she is now. If you compare Lexus, at this snapshot, with Lexus, at the begining of the novel, she is a different person. Most of the difference is good. Some of the difference is so very bad. And now she will start the process of facing her inner demons at long last, even if the process unravels her sanity.
Even if it might kill her.
There are worse things than dying.
There are truths that should go unspoken.
There is resolution to conflict.
Can she catch the killer?
And if she pays the ulitmate price to do so, what happens to her afterwards?
What happens next?
This Post is for my Blog Harem
I am about to finish off Your Little Sister. I would be done by now, but I decided a minor character was too delicious not to weave into the plot for greater conflict.
Your Little Sister stands alone, but I also have book two and book three outlined. This minor character makes a larger appearance starting in book three, in my outline, but when I came to her part in book one, I could not ignore her unique voice.
After all, when the Empress demands more pages, who am I to disagree with the Empress? Certainly not the main character—and that gets her into all sorts of trouble.
NOM!
So Blogging That, Part II
“Grrrrr!”
I glance over at The Wife Unit. She is closing some YA Fantasy novel. Then she glares at me!
“What?”
“You writers! With your cliffhangers! I am annoyed.”
“Ha. Well, are you annoyed that you will never read that author’s books again, or annoyed that you have to wait until the next book comes out?”
“This is the next book! It’s in hardcover.”
“Are you going to buy the next book or not?”
“Yes.”
“Well, the author wins. He wins writing. You are annoyed only in that you don’t have the next book in the series. Ha ha ha!”
“Grrrrr!”
“I am so blogging this.”
“Grrrrr!”
The Most Beautiful Girl in the Room
From my world-building notebook for Your Little Sister. I’ve gotten in a habit of creating back-story for people who don’t make an appearance, but live, in the world.
When world-building, I start with a general idea and just start expounding. As I progress, I shift from exposition to direct storytelling. This type of world building works well for me. In no way is this a short story. More of a definition of a theme than anything else.
***
The Most Beautiful Girl in the Room sits surrounded by boys vying for her attention, at a table by the window. She wears a gun. She has been contemplating getting rid of it all day.
High school in Year 3. Only, no one calls it high school anymore. It’s finishing school. Let’s get it done, school. You need to become an adult school. Pre-vocational training school. It would be a decade before a new cultural name would emerge: prevoc. Very swanky sounding, prevoc. Prevoc is what you did before moving up to advanced training, or research. General education, well, they just called it “General”.
Half the seats in the lunchroom are empty. The prior government built the school in an earlier age, where every child could get a public education. Now school cost money, no taxes are collected to fund education,a child’s family had to fund it 100%. Some parents could not afford it, but the gist of it all was, smaller schools were more attractive. Schools like this one were going out of style in a slow, gradual death spiral of market corrections.
This one catered to military families, so it was still seeped with macro sized learning techniques. It was, after all, only three years since the war ended. Both the mother and father of the most beautiful girl in the room both served. By all accounts, they were outstanding soldiers.
They were, by the same accounts, lousy parents.
The next table over, going clockwise, is the Math Squad. This group keeps their numbers even, three boys, three girls, not in some mathematical formula of balance, but simply because they were all in relationships. Only couples obtain admittance to the Math Squad.
Two of the couples are actually doing it. The first, the founders of the club, engage in desperate sex, as if each night could be their last. As far as they know, it could. Both are war orphans. They are happy they had relatives to take them in and pay for school. These two, well, these two are broken. Perhaps being together will make one productive adult out of them.
The other two, the youngest of the group, actually, are simply fucking like mad weasels because it feels good. In twenty minutes, they will sneak to an unused classroom, and have sex right on the old teacher’s desk. Their hedonistic streak does not end there. After the last period, they go to the girls home for dinner, bringing home stacks of impressive books, pilfered from the empty class room. After dinner, they go to the girl’s room and close the door.
Her parents think she is studying. In actuality, she is engaged in more enthusiastic sex. They do it for hours.
The Math Squad only has a mild social interest in the most beautiful girl in the room. Most of it is either a small attraction, or envy. Sometimes, she has the highest senior math score.
Continuing our clockwise stroll around the immediate tables surrounding the most beautiful girl in the room, we come to another couple, sitting alone. She is very pregnant, this young woman. In three weeks, she will give birth to a baby boy, at a whopping nine pounds, three ounces. The young man sitting at the table is both her husband and the baby’s father. Legally adults, they have pre-paid for all four years of finishing school with the money they inherited from their parents’ estates.
They are the last of their line. Their parents, of course, are dead from the war. This baby matters more than most. He is a new beginning to a bad end. They will have six children in total, and eventually adopt three more.
The pregnant woman thinks the most beautiful girl in the room is quite beautiful, and she is also envious. The most beautiful girl in the room thinks the same of her. The husband carries no thoughts of the most beautiful girl in the room, other than a base attraction when they were swimming together one year.
The next table over is a teacher and three of her students. She teaches pre-war history, and these three students are very fascinated by both her age (old), and her willingness to speak frankly about many subjects, subjects now taboo to their parents. She is a good orator, and likes to talk. It is a good combination, these four. She only eats half her lunch, but by the end of the break, one student will volunteer to mow her lawn, the other to fetch groceries and the third to have the accumulator serviced on her small e-car.
None of these four have any interest in the most beautiful girl in the room. She is, quite simply, a person of no historical interest, nor one interested in history. She might as well be invisible.
Our circle of tables is almost complete. At the last table surrounding the most beautiful girl in the room, sit two boys. Rumor has it they are gay. They are not gay, they are collaborating on a software project, and it is all consuming. This project will turn into one of the very first civilian released overlays for a quantum computer, and finds classification as an AI Level 3. In only three years, they will have accumulated nearly a million Nuevo Credits. They refuse all VC money tossed in their direction, and start a computing empire stretching for hundreds of years.
These two are watching the most beautiful girl in the room. When they go home, they share fantasies about her. Sometimes silly, sometimes nasty. Right now, they are contemplating how they can get her to go to the Spring Formal with one of them.
They are too late, unfortunately. It is a lesson each will remember well. All they had to do was ask, they found out later. The most beautiful girl in the room always said yes, because hardly anyone ever asked her to dance. You could even kiss the most beautiful girl in the room, all one had to do was make a play for her rosy lips. Each would remember this lesson, and socially, they sprouted wings and flew. They never were shy again.
Back to the most beautiful girl in the room’s table. The boys at it are of no consequence. Each is flirtatious, in his own way; most are charming and even mature. But they are competing with her thoughts. She can’t help but think of her gun, and what it would mean to give it up.
Lunch is over. The most beautiful girl in the room leaves, but does not go to class. Today she has been excused post lunch. She sighs, knowing she is the faculty’s disappointment, and heads to the Principal’s Office.
Principal Vernon is expecting her. Inside the small office with him is a short woman dressed in a distinctive, but unrecognizable, uniform. The most beautiful girl in the room sighs again, and sits without asking.
“Sandra, I want you to meet Major Hackett of O&S.”
Sandy raises an eyebrow, and shakes the woman’s hand to be polite. Whatever Vernon is doing, however, she does not want to be a part of, no sir. She frowns, unfastens her holster, and slides it across the desk.
“No,” she says simply.
His eyes flash with anger, actual anger. He pushes the holster back.
“Don’t give me this bullshit, Sandra. It’s your pistol now. You’ve worn it for a month now, it’s yours.”
“Mr. Vernon! Don’t you cuss at me!”
“Ha! See Sandra, you’re an adult. You have been for an entire year. You haven’t Declared because you’re saddled with the apathy from your fucking parents and you’ve been wearing it like some kind of mantle. Hell, I’ve been more of a parent to you for the last four years then either one of those two sloths, and I am here to tell you to knock this shit off. We’re all tired of it.”
Sandy could not believe what she had heard. Vernon never cussed. Until now, she had never even heard him say “darn”. She slumped in her chair. She contemplated crying, but couldn’t muster the tears. Maybe he was right; maybe she wasn’t a girl anymore if being cussed at by the Principal did not make her cry.
“But what would I do?” The words are out of her mouth before she realizes perhaps this is why Major Hackett is here. She looks at the woman.
“If you Declare, I have a job for you. Briefly: you fit a profile for our advanced piloting program; you’ll start right after a month of space acclamation, followed by on the job training and formal instruction, which will last two years. It will be a very intense two years, but Day One you will be an officer with a commission. “
“Piloting?” Sandra was confused. She did not even have a car. She narrowed her eyes. “Profile? Who gave you a profile of me?” She put her jumbled thoughts together and turned to face Vernon. “You had no right to violate my privacy!”
“Right? Right? Adults have rights. You, Sandra, are merely a child.”
Oh well played, sir, well played. She felt as if the Principal had just slapped her across the face. She slumped further in her chair. By rights, she should call her father and have him give the Principal what for.
If he wasn’t drunk.
And fucking the neighbor girl.
Her mother of course, was more useless. Sandy should have been the daughter. Instead, to her mother, she was simply sister to the brother who died when she was merely one month old. Slain by the enemy. In a bad way.
“And what does my profile say?” she asked the Major. It came out bitter.
“It says many things. But the gist is: institutions to you are familiar, you have above average marks, you test well under stress, you are attractive and your nervous system is well suited to implants for the neural interfaces.”
Sandra’s mind whirled. She wanted to ask what being attractive had to do with anything, but this is not what came to the front of her mind. “Would I be anywhere near my parents’ chain of command?”
“Absolutely not. If you say yes, in twenty minutes you will actually outrank your parents.”
A chill went down Sandra’s spine. Oh they had her. They had her now.
She looked at Vernon. He started smiling. She contemplated punching him in the nose. She stood up, and put her pistol back on.
“Do I get a starting bonus?”
The Major actually paused. “Yes. Yes, you do.”
She looked at Vernon again. “I want it to be the same as his finding fee.”
Now the Major flinched. It was small, but noticeable.
“Ah, yes. Yes, I can authorize that.”
The grin threatened to split Vernon’s face.
It took ten minutes to walk to County Safety. They were expecting her (damn them all), and in three more minutes, she was an Adult. Her very first contract was accepting an Officer’s Commission for Orbital and Space. It took eight minutes to receive verification and for the major to swear her in.
The Major was driving her to her parents’ house, no longer her house, in a rental e-car.
“Major, what does being attractive have to do with anything?”
“Good question, Leftenant. You’ve been matched to an AI. Level 1. She was very specific. She said, and I quote, ‘If I’m going to Uplink with a stinky human, make it a woman with some brains and nice, perky boobs’.”
Sandra burst out laughing. The Major gave her a side-glance.
“You are not offended?”
“Are you kidding? That’s funny as hell.” Sandy was still getting used her ‘Uplink to an AI’ future, but it was funny. Everything seemed almost like a dream, and she would wake up only to find her same apathetic life with her same apathetic family.
Major Hackett grinned. “Damn it all if the profile matchup actually worked.”
They pulled up to Sandra’s house. Suddenly she was nervous. But something again was nagging at her brain.
“Ma’am, is this a ship left over from the war?”
“Negative, Leftenant. This is not an orbiter. It is an armed corvette, with a landing shuttle and everything. It can go planet side, but it is built for space duties.”
“Space? Why do we need armed space ships?”
“Well now, you’re smarter than you look, Leftenant,” said Hackett as she got out of the car.
Whoa. All thoughts about a stressful meeting with her parents were now gone.
What’s going on, and what did I get myself into? thought the most beautiful girl in the room.
True Conflict: Bad Choices, Bad Scenarios
This is the second part of a series about failures in end-to-end analysis. Part 1 is here.
In the prior post, we talked about levels of conflict, from the accident to the failure of thinking through all the ramifications of the problem before a character and the consequences of mistakes. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time is interesting. Royally screwing the pooch, now that will generate conflict.
Let me give you, the writer, and example of an intense, and all too-real, end-to-end scenario. Here in Hack Writerville, we deal in reality. And sometimes, reality is a real bitch.
Setup: In this scenario, you are pretending to be me, Anthony, but let’s call you Chuck and give you one child instead of two. At the end of this scenario is a question. It is a yes/no question, and is not an ethics question, but rather a logic question. From a logic standpoint, there is a correct answer, and a wrong answer.
Scenario: You struggle to park your car for a dinner rendezvous with some friends. You are alone and not with your family. You finally find a parking space away from your destination but not far enough where you need to take a bus to get to the front door. It’s a pay lot squished off to the side with plenty of spaces.
You close the door and lock the car, and notice someone is approaching you. You realize, too late, that this is an isolated place to park your car. The person approaching you is a white male, who looks like a tweaker—scabs on face, dirty clothes, etc. Far from feeling sympathy, you feel danger.
Since you, the writer, are pretending to be me, as Chuck, you need to know at this point that Chuck is armed. Chuck carries a sidearm, and, as trained, you move away from your danger by moving to the back of the car.
The tweaker follows you. We are heading down a path of escalation, and in seconds we have gone from a heighten sense of danger to the possibility that this person is up to no good.
“What do you want?” you ask, while you still move. Indeed, Chuck is a bit of clever at this point. As long as you are moving at the same speed as this person of interest, you merely have to circle the car. If they follow you around the car, then, as they say, it’s on.
He doesn’t, but you place your hand on your sidearm anyway.
That’s when you notice the other man walking towards you, grinning. You cannot play round robin with two assailants. He has his hand in his coat, and this second bad guy is pulling something out of it.
“Give me your fucking wallet and keys or we’re going to kill you!”
It’s on.
Do you draw and engage the felons, or do you hand over the wallet and keys? There is a very real possibility that you, as a marksman trained in the art of self-defense, will kill one or both of these men before they lose the will to fight. There is also the distinct possibility that you will be shot. Question: Is keeping your wallet and car keys worth killing two men?
The answer is below the line. Before you go there, however, be warned this scenario is not something I pulled out of my butt to prove a point about self-defense. This is a study in end-to-end analysis. Re-read the entire scenario again, make your choice, and click.
True Conflict: The Hidden World Around Your Characters
I know about conflict. Crisis Management/Disaster Recovery essentially is, from a holistic standpoint, about conflict resolution. People, things, any risky area, you name it—I have managed it (only in my field, however, I am not a military officer).
On the other hand, my qualifications for novel writing advice are not impressive. No publishing credits are under my name, I am un-agented, and really, I have only written two books, one of which I will never show anybody.
This is why I am very careful in giving writing advice here in Hack Writerville. But I can speak about conflict in a literary sense.
Why do people fail? What do people do to cause systems to fail?
In books, just like life, bad things happen to good people. Just like life, and in books, this is a cliché. A good writer can take these circumstances and turn them into a compelling novel, one even I would like to read. As a simple plot device, it works. Just look at the thousands of fiction books using this hook!
If we are talking about a spectacular fail, however, one that hurts people to the core or causes systems to go splat in impressive ways, then look no further to a lack (and it is always a lack) of end-to-end thinking.
Ah ah ah, I bet some of you were thinking “critical thinking”. Critical thinking is a component of the end-to-end analysis, and a lack of it causes conflict, but not on the scale of the end-to-end failure scenario. Let’s go over a literary example of end-to-end thinking.
I read two of Stephen R. Donaldson’s books, after I forgave him for invoking sympathy for a rapist, filled with complex conflict.
The Mirror of Her Dreams has a very interesting character, the King. The King and his Wizard adviser are two childish malcontents. They act foolishly. They pay attention to seemingly inane things and make far-reaching decisions at apparent whims. People think they are crazy and harmless.
But they are far far from crazy. The King, you see, is an end-to-end thinker. At the end of book two, you can see how, in the shadows, he made the correct decisions because he considered all the risks (to his kingdom and subjects), and picked the best courses of action. Indeed, his ability to think many moves ahead, and keep it secret from his enemies, is, in effect, conflict. Conflict about conflict! The two books in the series alone are worth the characterization and portrayal of the King.
On the other side of the coin, is the conflict generated when the main character sees a problem on the horizon (conflict!), yet, because he did not consider all the available data and make decisions based on logic, he fails. He tried and failed. Often, this is a spectacular fail.
How do we know? Because that’s what happens in real life!
Being in the wrong place at the wrong time is conflict. Being in an accident is conflict. Anticipating a looming disaster, either personal or in a more visceral definition, is conflict, just as trying to prevent it is even more conflict. Gibbors me mohr conflicts! Nom!
If we bump it up a notch (BAM!), trying to prevent the disaster, and failing, is sticking the conflict amplifier on eleven. And trying again and succeeding because of the ‘learn from mistakes’ cycle (Motivation! Conflict!), is pure satisfying goodness, both in a novel and in the real world.
Now I know what you are thinking, You’re thinking what I outlined is “life” and what does that have to do with end-to-end thinking, anyway? And this is where I look at you, dear 8.3 readers, over my glasses sitting at the end of my nose, and say:
“Isn’t ‘that’s life’ weasel-speak for ‘I’ve royally screwed the pooch’?
For a failure to consider ramifications end-to-end is symptomatic of living in the dream world. The world that one wants, rather the world as it is. When reality intrudes on wishful thinking, logic, rather than mere gravity, is the ultimate harsh mistress.
And for a all-to-real example of that, tune in to my next blog post!
