In this blogging thing what kills you is not the wordage. I actually do a lot more words if I’m typing fast and not editing. Words are easy – if often over padded and graced with dashes and ellipses – it’s the ideas that kill you.
Ideas? You say. But Sarah, you said you have more ideas than you can use. Oh, sure, for novels. I’m a natural novelist. Even short stories can stump me when I need an idea a week. (It’s a different quality of ideas, you know?) and ideas for non fiction are yet something completely different.
At this point I’m doing a blog a day for According to Hoyt. It seems to be settling somewhere around social commentary, futurism, societal observation and general curmudgeonliness (the last is natural.) This could change at the drop of a hat, as that particular blog seems to be a reflection of whatever is annoying me/bothering me at the time. The problem is trying to make it something other than a long scold, my being fifty and a mother.
Then there’s a blog a week for Mad Genius Club, sometimes three depending on whose turn it is in the barrel on the weekends. Because it was Amanda’s and my idea to bolster weekends and see how things fly, mostly it falls to me and her. (And it helps with traffic, once more proving the most important thing about a blog is to post every day, even if you post alphabet soup.) Anyway, that tends to be about writing, the writing life, the voices in my head – chalk it up to one to three topics a week.
The theme sort of crosses with PJ Media Lifestyle, where I can certainly do other things – and will do more low carb recipes, once I’m sure I’m over whatever upper respiratory floored me – but my “beat” – my particular expertise – is being a science fiction writer, and I was recently upped from one post a week to three, not counting collaborations with Charlie Martin. (More on Book Plug Friday* below.) So, make that three posts a week more I have to come up with ideas for.
If you’re keeping score at home, that’s between eleven and thirteen ideas for posts a week. Look, guys, there are professional journalists, actually paid for this, who have an easier beat. Most of the daily bloggers I know put up links and maybe a couple of paragraphs.
In addition to this, I must, of course, write three novels this year, edit two others and… you begin to see the issue, right?
No, this is not a letter of resignation. It could be, of course, but the blogs do seem to help with my fiction sales, and until I find a more effective way of publicizing that is pretty much it. As for PJM, it pays me. Not a massive amount, but they pay me. And these days I’d have to be a lunatic to turn down cash money.
Now, as I said the wordage itself is not a big deal. I don’t like waking up every morning with “What in eff am I going to write now?” but that’s at least partly my fault. 10k words in a day is not much, and I should reserve a day a week and just do that. Except… that I lack ideas.
So, first of all this is a plea for help. Are there ideas you’d like me to write about? Writerly ideas? Ideas about why the world is not as golden age science fiction predicted? Some weird social thing you’ve noticed, about the way people dress or talk or whatever that might spark an article? (I don’t mean something that annoys you, just something interesting.) If you have it, I’ll consider it. I’m not proud and getting ideas is the hardest thing.
That’s number one request/idea. If you have it, leave it in comments.
The second request/idea I want to run by you might get me killed by my fellows at MGC mostly because though we’ve sort of considered it I haven’t run it by them first. I haven’t run it by them because I’m sure they’ll have me committed, and it’s much harder for them to do that after I’ve announced it in public. Better beg forgiveness and all that. Mind you, they might still say no, because I think some of them – not all – still hold on to a shred of sanity, thin and tattered though it may be, and are likely to stick their little toes in the sand and say “No, no, save us from the insane woman.”
However, considering this is a bigger piece of insanity for me than for them, I – umph – defy them to prove where I’m pushing them over the edge I’ve not jumped over first.
This idea comes from two things with a little jolt in the middle from one of my fellow bloggers.
As I said, the difficult part of writing a daily blog is the ideas, which is why sometime ago, having gone mildly insane, I started making Fridays at my blog the day for a free chapter in the continuing novel. It has a curious effect. Even when my blog was mostly a writing blog, it crashed my hits – HOWEVER it also gave me more donations than anything else. But even if it hadn’t done that, I’d have continued doing this, because it gives me a day almost off.
When we were debating what to do on weekends, one of the other mad geniuses (you saw the mad in the blog name, right?) said that we should do a chapter a week, with a different author and collaborate. It’s an interesting idea, but having done a novel a chapter at a time, over a year and a half and being faced with a mess of editing such as I’ve never had to do in my life, it made me shudder, just a little.
No matter how carefully you outline, something written over a year or so, even by one person, takes very weird turns. You change, the characters change, your villain becomes… something else… and you then are forced to try to edit all the markers to fit. Now imagine that, with four or five voices. I think we’d have to hire a stunt editor and pay him in gold.
So I thought “no.” Even at the risk of one more topic a week (or two).
But then late last week, I found myself explaining to the guys – what, like your family doesn’t talk about how to make money from writing around the kitchen table? No? Singular that. – what I thought was a winning model for indie.
Not short stories and not short story collections or even anthos. I’m doing those by default, not having had enough time to write new stuff for indie, and know how much they pay – or don’t – it’s not bad, I suppose, but it’s never going to make a living. Anthologies and collections are traditionally poor sellers in America in the 20th/21st century. Most people have lost the habit of reading short. That’s one part of it. The other part of it is that I think short stories are naturally suited for the short, boring intervals of life, more pervasive in the rest of the world and usually relating to public transportation.
We KNOW what makes money in indie – or rather, what makes money once you’re even mildly competent as a story teller. It’s volume. Even with short stories, my income goes up every ten I put up (which is why I absolutely need to free time and attention to putting more up and to putting my backlist novels up too.) It’s also novels, or at least short novels, say 40 to 60k in a series.
If you have ten novels in a series, say, and you’re a decent story teller, you will see your exposure/income grow with each one. Of course, there is some advantage to having a name already, because it gives you a baseline to grow from.
So I was explaining to the guys how I – being a single writer and maxed out on projects – thought I could maximize my income from the writing gig. It only necessitated two things I told them – a willing group of victims and a certain amount of unscrupulousness.
We’ll kick the last one out, which means I won’t be maximizing my income if my fellow MGCers prove to be willing. I’ll only be increasing it, and hopefully theirs too.
The idea is this: create a shared world. Because it will be shared – and because my worlds tend to have kittens – it needs to be something fairly basic, say “Standard fantasy world with half the world shared by another intelligent species, be it mermaids or whatever.” Or “Standard scifi world, but everyone lives in stations and ships, no habitable planets.” Or… you know, like that. Something where each of us can carve his/her niche, still recognizably his/hers, but still part of the shared world and also recognizably so.
Have each other’s main characters be inviolate, but let the others know which characters they can borrow or have for walk-on parts.
Then announce it as “book one of the blah blah series.” “Book two of the blah blah series.” Etc, ad nauseum.
If you manage a strong first hook, then the name of the author on the cover is almost irrelevant. People will want to read Book Two Of The Great Dragon Caper, or whatever, and will be waiting for it.
Now, for it to work properly, we should have about one every six months, which means about 2k words a week – for me that’s doable, other people can beat me up after school behind the bike sheds if so inclined.
Here’s the thing: I’m not going to tell you that I’m ecstatic about the idea of adding that to my fiction work load, but I’ll do it if there’s a chance it will move me – faster – towards the goal of being able to support my family this way.
The other thing for my fellow MGCers to consider before they glue my ears behind my head with superglue, is that someone will have to be first. My idea, of course, is to shove Dave Freer in the back with a sharp stick and push him into it. But I have the sad suspicion it won’t work. He’s stubborn and he’s armed – with coconuts – and he has unerring aim.
So I suspect they’ll all put their little toesies in the mudsies and say “you first.” Which would give any or each of them a good six months to come up with a sixty thousand word story, which they can then excerpt at whatever pace they feel like over six months. Heck, even a fifty thousand word story which grows in editing.
So one of them would have six months, and one would have a year, and one would have a year and a half, though by then it might be a good idea to come up with two stories. And I would be the only one making a fool of myself by improvising on stage (but I’m used to that by now.)
If you guys think this is an idea, feel free to tell us if you’d prefer fantasy or science fiction, and whether pseudo historical or current (or of course future, if it’s sf, duh.)
Remember, it has to be something all of us can do.
This is, of course, supposing I’m still alive this evening, and haven’t been killed by a pile of flung coconuts.
<Exits the blog running, stage left, pursued by a bear.
Mad Genius Club 
96 responses to “In Which the Writer Commits Suicide”
Now the reason for the estate planning post is clear.
No the reason is in today’s title on According to Hoyt. Yesterday i what to do in planning, today is why, this blog is the announcement 🙂
I have only one thing to say — “YOU FIRST!”
I assumed this would happen, unless Dave has gone nuts and decides to volunteer.
That is brilliant. You should do a sci fi fantasy hybrid. I’d check it out.
Make it AU modern, at that; lots of flexibility, and you can play Calvinball with history!
a post on pen names, the pros & cons, and juggling them when you have more than one.
I’d check this out no matter what genre, subgrene, or cross-genre monstrosity it turns out to be. Which is good, because I get the feeling it’ll be whatever the person who goes first wants it to be.
I’d like to see a dissection of popular writers characters, by what they have in common. What I mean is Heinlein had characters people love, so did Tolkein, so did L’Amour. A comparison of what the characters have in common and why they are beloved. Sort of these characteristics make good characters
Why not expand the writing pool? You could invite other authors to join MGC as ‘contributing novelists’ for this project, if not for anything else. That would give them a new outlet and more exposure, and give you a bit more time to relax while they put up a post (or two) every week.
Depending on how this works, that could be a consideration.
As an alternative, I would like you to throw a question out to the readers, Which characters from which authors (any Genre) do you love and why. I might use that for a non fiction book basis 😉
Idea to play with.
A world with several intelligent species. Some are solitary predators. Others are social predators (pack hunters). With some social herbivores (herd animals). Only one of the intelligent species is a tool-maker/user (It is the only one with “hands”). The tool-makers are (like humans) able to eat both plants and meat.
One assumption is that the solitary predators won’t develop true language.
Second assumption is that the social intelligent species will develop true language but they won’t be able to *speak* the languages of the other social intelligent species.
Third assumption is that being unable to speak the language of the “others” will not prevent understanding the language of the “others”. IE the “wolf-like” species won’t be able to speak the languages of the tool-makers (and vis a versa) but will be able to understand their languages.
I used this background to create a society/history where the “wolf-like” species and the tool-makers formed a partnership in their early history.
One reason for their partnership is that the solitary predators attempt to prey on both species.
Since I never put these ideas into print (and likely won’t), feel free to play with the ideas, disagree with the ideas, etc. [Smile]
PS, my tool-makers were not humans nor did the “wolf-like” species look like wolves. “Wolf-like” meant that their behavior/ecological nitch was similar to wolves.
First, I think a shared world would be really interesting, and I tend toward the sci-fi “stations/ships only”, because it seems like an interesting constraint that I haven’t seen a lot of. (So, no moon colonies? No domes? No tunnels?) In fact, you could almost keep it in-system, and still have PLENTY of fertile ground for fiction.
Second, I suppose I’d like to see posts on what we can do as fans to:
i) help our favorite authors
ii) influence the fandom culture in a more positive manner, for various values of “positive”. I mean, we’re part of the fandom culture too, for better or for worse we own some responsibility in how it goes. How do we move it back towards pro-human, pro-future, optimistic, uplifting, edifying, insert your adjective-of-choice-here? I mean, yes, what we buy… what else can we be doing?
This needs more consideration…
Would it be more feasible to have the first book, at any rate, have each writer be a viewpoint character for a single story and do it a chapter at a time? Then subsequent books could be one writer (with guest appearances) and the story connecting back to Hub Book #1. There could be subsequent Hub books where the characters get back together, new characters (writers) get introduced, etc. I’d also start out with the viewpoint characters in the same general place/setting and with some reason to know or interact with each other. Otherwise there are too many degrees of freedom (e.g. herding cats with jet packs and frikking laser eyes)
I don’t know. I’ll ask. If it’s a four pov book it will be a goat gagger. And my concern is Kate is an extreme pantser, Dave is a plotter, I’m…. weird. Amanda is weird in a different way… Coordinating all that would make me tear my hair out.
Thieves in Space?
Angel with a Spaceship?
>>>>>> exits right at high velocity with chartreuse troll hair streaming >>>
An Angel wouldn’t *need* a spaceship. [Very Big Grin]
A certain species in my “not-written” space-opera world don’t need spaceships and could “play” Angels if they were less moral. [Grin]
They also have “interesting” ways of discouraging species who want to worship them. Like rainstorms *inside* buildings used as places of worship of them. [Very Very Big Grin]
I love shared world anthologies, I am currently editing one and getting ready to launch two others. I’ve opened mine up to anyone who wants to contribute, and have been very pleased with the responses and the directions that different authors have taken the basic concept. I think there is a particular energy that comes from multiple authors working within the same world, Wild Cards, Thieves World, and the like.
The money in indie is in short novels in shared worlds, instead of anthologies. TRUST me on this.
Oh, I’ve no doubt. However, I am looking at this as a promotional venture more than a money-making one. I have found authors that I like from reading short story collections, the hope is that promoting a collection of short stories will attract new readers for the individual authors.
Thieves in Hell?
Say, with a bit of work and the right attitude you could become the next J.M.
(Is joke, please not to hurt kindly old uncle Lar. No, not the fish, arghhhh!)
Shark. Headed for you.
but he’s such a nice old chum…
You’re a BAD woman. BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD
Sharknado!!
Haven’t there been at least one or two attempts at shared worlds series? I remember reading some fantasy anthology – fairly standard fantasy world, kind of medievalish, magic works – sometime in the 80’s, short stories all happening in the same world, possibly the same city, different authors, and the protagonists of those different authors might become supporting characters in some other story. And possibly something called ‘Wild Cards’ or something like that which I never read, but saw a review or something in some magazine, more like superheroes or mutants.
I like mixed genres, so how about urban fantasy in near future or something like that? What happens to a werewolf on the moon, and can elves leave the planet (if we assume elves are more some sort of nature spirits rather than just pointy eared and long lived humanoids). Or what if, in some generic fantasy setting world where magic works they won’t get stuck in the medieval period, but manage, in time, to advance technologically, what might that world look like after a few hundred years? What would Jane Austen had done with Conan, if somebody had given her the character and the world and hired her to write a story… 😀
How about some blog posts about mixed genres in general? Are those books on the rare side only because they are harder to fit in some easy marketing category, or do people just not buy them?
“What happens to a werewolf on the moon,”
Ooooh, and what happens to a werewolf on Mars, with two moons? And on an orbital station at Jupiter, and …. My son just scowled at the ridciulousness of the question, but I’m interested 🙂
well, come on down and discuss it with my family. This is the sort of thing we discuss forever. We really need to have a Hun dinner…
Lady I know named Dorothy Heydt wrote a story (which I haven’t read) about a werewolf on the night of the first full moon after the first lunar landing… and moon magic had disappeared. I do *believe* it was published. I know the story because she said that at least one of the places she submitted to didn’t get the punch line because they didn’t recognize the date of the lunar landing.
uh. I THINK I’ve read it.
Found a bibliography listing.
Moonrise. Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine, Issue 1, MZB Enterprises, © 1988.
The Best of MZB’s Fantasy Magazine Vol. I,, Warner Books, © 1994. ISBN 0-044660-140-3
The first manned Moon landing changed Vilkas’s life. Now, while war threatens, he’s waiting for the Mars landing.
Wild Cards was written by a group of local (to me) authors who played a super hero role playing game with George RR Martin in Real Life and it sort of got away from them. I bought the first book for my son (signed by everyone *but* George, IIRC) but I haven’t read it. I’ve heard the authors talk about it, though, at our local con.
I’ll be honest. Part of the reason that I haven’t read it is because I’m not fond of short story collections. Fair or not, I don’t expect much of them.
I used to have ONE use for anthologies — I took them on long plane rides — that way, if I didn’t like a voice, there were others. It was very rare for an entire book to be a dud. While with a novel, if I got to the middle and didn’t like it, I had nothing else to read. (Stephen Donaldson. First book. Leper. Can’t remember series name — book flew out the train window between Germany and France accidentonpurpose. EVEN THOUGH it left me with nothing to read the rest of the way.) BUT now with the kindle, I have dozens of books at my fingertips, and yeah… I know what you mean. I will buy/read those with authors I really like. Other than that, meh.
Stephen Donaldson was a GoH at Bubonicon several years ago. Nicer, more *cheerful* fellow you’d never meet.
Shocking, actually. 😉
(I know exactly which book you’re talking about.)
You’re tougher than I am, I made it through… a chapter or two?
(had to {searchengine} to double-check)
Never finished that one either. I tried. Kept it for years in hopes I might like it better on second try, only then realized I would probably never go for a second try, the first one was depressing enough, and finally sold it to a used books store (well, traded, actually).
As for short stories, there seem to be some types of stories which just work better in that form, at least I like them better as shorts. The big twist in the end is one, that kind of twist which changes everything which came before. Maybe because if it’s done in the end of a novel I may have become too committed to the seeming narrative, and will not then like if I’m told that it was false, while in a short that happens more rarely and I can fully appreciate the twist (if well done).
The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever. Hate those books. Fiery passion style. I found no character engaging enough to sympathize with, and many – including said eponymous leper – entirely repellant.
Yes.
I started with the second book of the second trilogy (the Linden one), because I was in junior high and this was a Famous Fantasy Book by a Famous Author. It basically taught me to skip skip skip huge sections. (Also I learned exactly twenty new vocabulary words, each of which got used about five thousand times). Then I read the first trilogy, basically by skipping, because it mostly stunk. Then the last book of the second trilogy came out, and the end was really good.
I refused to read the third trilogy, as it sounded like crup.
Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever. I actually read several of the books, buying them through the Science Fiction Book Club. That was a function of living out in the country with a 45 minute bike ride to the library (one-way). With my hunger for fiction, I was even glad to see those books hit the mailbox. Nowadays, there’s more stuff out there than I’ll ever be able to read, of the stuff I enjoy.
How to deal with criticism, not so much of the “ur boook suks!” type but the “I like the ideas in here, but the MC doesn’t seem to have a motivation” kind. I.e. potentially useful but also potentially derailing.
I’ll second Pohjalainen’s thought about mixing genres. Because I seem to be mixing two and I’d like to know where I messed up. 🙂
I remember Larry Correia posting a link to a kickstarter project involving a shared universe that may be compatible with your idea. At the very least, they may have some good ideas about the legalities and practicalities of a shared universe. (Maybe I’m just ignorant, and best practices for a shared universe are better established than my impression suggests.)
Answers to genre question:
Yes
Pre-classical historical sci fi
Thinly veiled political screed that caters to my preferences. (Issues here are the very small market, and that not even I am that interested in writing such. I don’t like disguising my political rants, and trying to pretend one is a story is a waste of both story writing and rant/essay writing effort.)
My impression is that the range overlap of Freer, Green, Paulk, Hoyt, and McMahon includes Space Opera, Urban Fantasy, and the only other thing I’m for sure on is non-fiction politics. I’ve also got regencies and westerns on my mind for some reason.
Calculates all that, hmm, Outer Space Political Thriller. Bunch of different polities spread over a bunch of space stations and colonies, with as much cause for conflict as there are people, plus Space Magic, for UF. There would be resource extraction settlements, maybe lightly settled, think oilfields, that should be a workable foundation for western type stories.
Paranormal Firefly! 🙂
What was in my head had some cross contamination with a recent world-building kick of mine, a Gundam Pastiche. So, I wrote ‘Space Magic’ with the accent of the Space Magic in Gundam. Paranormal to my mind is more of an earthy, traditional legends may be real feel.
That said, the space magic in those particular world building efforts of mine had a heavy cinematic martial arts flavor.
In that case some form of Steampunk or Dieselpunk setting would probably work. Perhaps YA done correctly (i.e. Heinlein-style). Too bad you couldn’t use the Ringworld as a setting, plenty of room for everyone! Of course there are O’Neil colonies (maybe as generation ships) and Dyson Spheres (a world where the sun never sets). 😀
I’m only a reader, and I would have leaned towards “hard” science fiction, except . . .
Ienjoyed Glory Road, which isn’t and recently enjoyed Vulcan’s Kittens which isn’t either, in a different way. The key for me is well written, so the right mix of authors is what is important. And it sounds like you have a talented mix.
Idea (1) Dig out old blogs and rerun them. A lot of the new people haven’t read them. That ought to at least help with MGC weekends.
Idea (2) Shared world-wise, the Barflies collaborated on a book on the Bar. Great fun. About six people producing actually prose, the rest cheering from the sidelines and throwing in ideas and research. I’ve got the results–not publishable due to a combination of quality and one major contributor dropping out of sight.
But the Universe was always intended to be open to anyone and everyone. If you want me to resurrect the story, as it stands now, as the basis for a SF universe, no problem.
Two of my other books are “in that universe” but have nothing to do with the original story. Anyone else who wanted could do likewise, publishing it themselves, no pooled money to split up. BUT with a big banner “A Novel in WhateverWeNamedThat Universe.”
I’ll actually second the “rerun old favorites / post an update or response to old posts on where you thought your goals/direction were”
The reason being – a daily blog means anyone interested who comes in a year after starting has 365 blogs and comments to dig through. Two years, 730 posts… (less witchfinder), and this promptly becomes unwieldy. So pulling out older posts means they’re brand new to a chunk of your audience – and those that vaguely remember it, well, it’s a different year, a different community, and a different time we live in now. The commentary in the posts (half the fun on some of the blogs) will be radically different on the second run through.
I’m also terribly fond of the state of the indie / state of the scattered writer posts you do, as it lets me go back later and measure how progress moved (and how the field radically changed) six months later. Makes me measure some of my longer-term goals and think “Ah, so, we were two weeks behind on the release of the second book. Not so bad, not so bad. And book three, well, it suddenly got put further down in favor of taking the nonfiction book, updating the stats, and releasing it… this too, it is normal.”
For a question/idea… how do you go about stripping out the political correctness in your previously published books without altering the characters to the point the fans might miss some of their favorite scenes / people?
Oh, this is SF, with Lunar and Mars bases, space based industry in LEO and L4&L5. A long duration, outer solar system ship is hijacked and repurposed as an interstellar slow ship. One individual representative of a highly carnivorous alien space traveling civ is discovered during the course of the successful hijacking, partially successful rescue, third party rehijacking . . . And of course, Dr. Simeon Von Monkenstein, a genetically engineered chimp discovers FTL . . . while on the slow ship.
The world building was _almost_ as much fun as trying to tie the absurdities into a coherent plot.
Wonder who the hell this Von Monkenstein was….
I think I heard something about one of the writers parodying one of the professionals trying to whip them into shape. But we all know ‘Flies would never do any such thing!
Whatever sort of shared world it is going to be, some limits will be needed, so that the expectations of the readers are met, whoever the author is. For instance, they aren’t offended by explicit sex scenes in one book, when nothing else in the World has been like that!!! Or if sex is ubiquitous, they don’t run into a “boring, they never even kissed” book _unexpectedly_. That, plus tech levels and rules of magic are probably the most important things the various writers need to consider.
Topic suggestion: Extrapolating future technological advances: how do you do it, how do you not screw it up, how much does it actually matter to your readers if you do screw it up?
Second this one.
Also, how do you resolve the tension between “write what you know” and avoiding Mary Sue characters?
If you do this shared universe idea, I vote for the science fiction setting.
Science fiction, in a world where status comes from virtual sims, where illegal stunt doubles are known as “marysues”, and one marysue is *tired* of being supercompentent and seducing heroes and saving the world. She dreams of losing a game of checkers to a three-year-old, getting stood up for a date, and forgetting to put the trash out. Howzat? 😀
Short story material. I’m just not sure how’d you’d fit enough into it to justify a novel. Unless, of course, it was along the lines of Bill the Galactic Hero . . .
1. Very much in favor of a shared Universe fiction. Ref: Big fan of the 1632 series. Still buy titles without even looking at plot synopses, despite a touch of unevenness of quality. Read them all regardless. Yes, I want to write fic for this series, but the short I want to write would take more research than most novels I write, and be about economic theory and Spanish Politics. Not my cuppa. But it would be funny.
2. When it comes to ideas– wow. I’m usually overflowing with random potential ideas, but frankly unless you and David Freer TRY to be boring I’d probably read it… and I’d probably have to restrain myself from FanFic.
Basically, don’t write a multilayer epic about drying wallpaper paste. Then again, I probably still would at least try to read some of it. Because you guys bothered to write it, so the writer in me would be desperate to find out how you kept your interest.
I like the idea of a shared world, in pretty much any genre. It could be fun. Okay, it could be a lot of work for those of you writing it, and a fun for those of us reading it….
Can’t think of any blog post topics off the top of my head, sorry. 😦
I’d love to read more writerly stuff, but most especially your great how-to-put-beans-on-the-table-through-this-writing-stuff sort of thing. It’s been hugely eye-opening and useful for me, so pretty-please keep it up.
As for fantasy-vs-sci fi, why pick? Why not do an old-fashioned Vance-and-Wolfe-and-Clark-Ashton-Smith style science-is-stranger-than-magic universe? That’d give you insane breadth and depth to play in.
If you guys think this is an idea, feel free to tell us if you’d prefer fantasy or science fiction, and whether pseudo historical or current (or of course future, if it’s sf, duh.)
Like I said further up: yes, all of the above. Kitchen Sink universe that’s roughly where we are now— although I’d like to steal the “there are no domes on the moon or anywhere else” idea and have a ton of city-ships, now, too. ^.^
I’d suggest it also be the “I can’t think of something to write about today, here’s more story!” topic.
I’m always interested in fantasy and modern-fantasy/supernatural. Sci-fi I seem to be interested only if it’s “space tourism” (even literally such – there’s a book on my wishlist about a sort of space cruiseliner, I think) or “revolution” or “sci-fantasy”. But the lack of interest in sci-fi in general is possibly because of the shoddy work that’s run across my lap. The idea of supernatural creatures in space interests me. (One of the things I’m curious about is the sort of life the vampires who left earth in the Vampire Hunter D novels live.)
You guys might want to try the game “Microscope” by Ben Robbins. I know you don’t play rpgs (and probably the others don’t either). But the game is specifically about creating a shared world. For full disclosure, I haven’t played it. I’ve just seen a bit of an actual play of Microscope on Youtube. But from my knowledge – you establish things that are “true” (“elves are real and they’re more Keebler than Tolkien”) and things that are “not true” about the world (“no werewolves or werefoxes or wereanythings – not even as a science-gone-wrong or as a magic-enduced state”), going around the table. You define eras of the war – just as titles at first (“The Great Elf-Ninja War”) And then you play out defining moments in the history of that “world”. I think it can be easily modified so you’re doing this by email or an editable document rather than all joining a Skype or G+ hangout.
Something like that (it doesn’t have to be the technique used in Microscope specifically and your “defining moments” could be the short stories themselves) would give you guys all ground rules to use and you can always edit the document later to go, “hey guys, I established that after the Elf-Ninja war, elves took over the roles of ninja and call themselves shinobi. So any elf after X point in history may be a shinobi.”
I mean, obviously you guys were going to collect information in some way, I’m just rambling in hopes of inspiring a way to start that may work better for the group than us throwing ideas at you and you running with the one that works best for the group.
Interested to see how this pans out. :3
EDIT: “You define eras of the world”…. not war. Derp.
A Terry Pratchett-style world lends itself well to this, along the lines of shared dungeon mastering (you take that town and I’ll take this wilderness). You need to agree on races and general geography. Speaking of which: http://io9.com/the-science-behind-discworlds-flat-earth-on-the-back-o-802628932
Ah Ah Ah Ah…. Argh! I’m getting all motivated and thinking… ooooo… gotta work on this story! Gotta work on that story! I want to be one of the cool kids and get in on stuff like this!
But what’s going to happen in four weeks is… school! And then I will have Chem 2, and a 5 credit Mineralogy plus Lab, and Math… (and Editing but that’s for fun and relaxation…)
Actually and more seriously… it’s been a good couple of years since I’ve been able to find the two neurons in my head that I used to use for creating stories. Gosh, I think that Gnome Commandos was at least two years ago… crap… July 2010! Three years ago. That was three years ago. Bleh. Anyhow, I can almost sense where those neurons are hiding so maybe I’ll be able to rouse them out. And who knows, maybe the stress that has them hiding wasn’t actually school?
I’m generally not good at creating worlds. Most of mine are pretty standard and boring while I concentrate on what is happening to the people I like. But I think I’d really like to read stories set on a world that is “Gene-Punk Noir.” (Which is Sarah’s fault because she said to write a first paragraph that included a “pink feather[ed] boa”.)
Sort of a sci-fi dystopia a la Dresden Files where everything is not merely permitted, but is required. Cyber-punk AI’s, ubiquitous robots and androids dreaming of electric sheep, genetic manipulation and mutations of humans which ought not actually work or be viable but for some reason on the surface of this planet, they are. Noir private detective misanthropes working the mean streets. Gleaming silver needle shaped spaceships landing on delicate fins. Suspicion that the world itself (the Dragon) has a plan for the evolution of humans as over generations people revert to type, no matter which direction human geneticists try to make them go, and become lizardish. And humans moving out away from the Port City, though bayous and over deserts where they can live free.
I’m not sure, but I think you might have enough genres for at least three shared worlds.
Ha! In my head, at least, it all hangs together exceptionally well.
(No *magic*… I invoke the Dresden Files only to explain that no genre conventions are excluded. “Well, what sort of vampires do you have?” “ALL of them!”)
“Does your universe have wizards or elves?”
“Erm…”
“Is your magic system pagan or Christian?”
“Well…”
“Yes.”
“If God exists, He gave me the ability to access this power. If God doesn’t exist, I need every advantage I can scrounge in this cruel existence, and it still probably won’t ultimately matter.”
It works in my head also.
The noir detective angle makes me ask myself why so many? The answer I have now is that one can really a really absurd density of such if structural issues involving education, unemployment, and tax law favor such.
So there is a certain class of young men who end up unemployed. (If a wealthy class, they are somewhat living off inherited wealth, if not, there is the dole and tax incentives.) They often get an official government private eye certificate, which, of course, has some strings attached to how it is used. (Sole proprietor, maybe can’t share premises with another certificate holder, maybe has to live on premises…) The governmental incentive to get one of these things, beyond the legal liability issues, is probably some sort of tax incentive. If it is a functional society, there is probably some combination of these guys doing other sorts of work on the side, a strong investment culture, and giving it up when they are more prepared to settle down. If dysfunctional, it is a way of getting on the dole, or worse, off.
OTOH, maybe it just rains a lot in that city so that people wear trench coats. 😉
I kid!
I wasn’t trying to imply that there were herds of misanthrope private eyes (though that might be interesting).
I think I would explain that as a consequence of the fact that everything *grows*. So much so that few of the truly privileged will stay on the planet for long because they risk their children born with mutations (generally cosmetic, but…) so there isn’t much top down control or the regimentation and civilization that goes with it. People don’t make it by being best at fitting in, they make it by being tough. No one is going to refuse to hire a private detective who has sharp edges.
Sure, there’s a Port City government and Ghost-in-the-shell police and regular beat cops, but mostly port cops… but people aren’t dependent on that structure. Anyone can head off into the wilderness and live off-grid, so the city government has fairly low limits to what it can impose. As is, the most important civic issue is cleaning moss off of everything before it eats buildings. So *people* move out over the surface of the planet, but the center of high tech drug manufacturing, robots and all the *shiny* elements of sci-fi conventions remains clustered around the port.
Some enterprising… enterprise… will undoubtedly try to set up other ports, but they’ll have similar issues.
I like what you are saying.
I did have a lot of fun world building my herds of misanthrope private eyes scenarios. I even got partway into building one or a few characters, but the rest would probably have to wait until I figure out more about building mysteries. I’m probably going to steal the bit about everybody wearing raincoats.
Another part of the fun is that if, say, one has a city, perhaps a capital city, legitimately packed full of private eyes, one doesn’t have to do mysteries with them. One of my scenarios also attempts to cram the elements of a regency romance into that same city. So marriages between romance heroines and young hard-boiled types as just part of the cultural landscape.
As far as the science fiction world idea, both Michael Swanwick’s “Vacuum Flowers” and Bruce Sterling’s “Schizmatrix” posit that the Earth is off limits to the human race and humans live in entirely artificial environments. Both writers discuss in some detail the social ramifications of that, in different ways.
Retro-futuristic space opera with magic. So while tech high enough for Space Marines in power armor, you could – theoretically – have starjammers with magic-empowered buccaneers swinging from the ratlines. One the pieces that more contemporary SF seems to have lost is the sense of wonder and “anything could be out there” that you can find in the Lensman books or Shmitz’s “Witches of Karres.” I want space opera where weird stuff happens when you get too far away from the civilized planets/orbits/systems, where Here There really Could Be Dragons.
I’d second that.
“Analysis, science officer?” “It’s… Inconclusive. This shouldn’t exist. “Get Ensign Morgorath up here. Looks like one for the Ship’s Mage.” “Aye, Cap’n.”
> >
“Sir,” Ensign Morgorath muttered soto voce, “I’ve told you, I’m not a mage. I’m an astro-alchemist. Light years apart.” Of course, she could never say such right to the skipper’s face. It was rare enough that a woman of Cortrens Beta left planet, more so when she left her child behind to join the military.
See? It practically writes itself!
Oh, now. You have to write it, you crazy kid.
She’s talking to you, kilteDave.
Just clarifying. 😉
> ** > accordingtohoyt commented: “Oh, now. You have to write it, you crazy > kid.” >
So I gathered. Ok, fine. Retro-futurist Anything-Goes Space Opera added to the Wall. Officially. Now I just need a story to go with the setting.
But I’ve already got one space opera trilogy already! /whine
Yeah, I’m going to have to sit down with Mrs. Dave and hash over this one a bit. And Dave the Elder.
Only one other? Are you sure you’re really Odd?
One other space opera. One clockpunk. One UF series. One set of contemporary fairy tales. One second world fantasy that’s part police procedural, part political thriller, and part apocalyptic literature, and another fantasy that turns the Monomyth on its head. I’ve got my country’s 500th anniversary to plan, my wedding to arrange, my wife to murder and Guilder to frame for it. I’m swamped.
You work too hard!
This, from you? If I had more to show from it, I’d feel like I was accomplishing something. Most days I feel like I’m just spinning my wheels. I still need to get a handle on the publishing and business sides of the house, too. Photo manipulation for cover art, layout design, etc. So much to do.
I feel like I”m spinning my wheels too. And the last month has been a productivity disaster.
Illness will do that. In my case it was moving. Probably the single most stressful experience of my life, not counting boot camp, which is a universe unto itself. And metered. Writing output dropped like a rock, and it’s just now (two months later) picking up to the point where I was before the move.
Well, not bad for a beginner.
(Running off to count. Holy &^%$!!!!!)
Five Space Opera Series. One SF/F cross over series, eight books published so far. Four Fantasy concepts, one in the final stages of publishing prep. Two Cyberpunk universes, two books in one published, one short story in the other, with book pending. Urban fantasies, two universes. Time travel, one.
Fifteen sets of characters howling for my fingers. And trust me, I skipped a whole bunch of “write the idea down so you can forget it” type files.
Well, I am that. My current problem is getting WiPs anywhere near completion. I’ve got one novella almost there, but everything else is in varying states. Le sigh.
Yeah, it always seems like it take forever to _finish_ any given thing. I’m concentrating on the two universes with published works . . . except for the two books I just yanked from my agent that, in theory, just need covers. Har-de-har-har. The agent had them for five years. Want to bet I don’t cringe in horror when I read them?
Hello Everyone,
Ms. Pam, you are Waaaaaay ahead of me. I NEED to finish stuff and set stories loose in the wide wide world and hope they don’t get run over, mauled by a hoverjaber, tossed in a circular file, etc. KilteDave, at least you are working on covers. I haven’t even gotten to that stage yet & may not for a while. About the only time I get to write are when my children con me into sitting at my computer so they can play the Wii. (They need active supervision or they get too close to TV, start arguing over nothing, or otherwise become nuisances.)
On that note, Posts I would like to see posts about breaking into writing. (Forgive me if you have discussed such things recently…I’m awake now, really.) Are freelancing gigs worth pursuing? What about story contests? How about sites like Literotica? Are ‘amateur’ sites such as fanfic blogs, etc. a waste of time for a wannabe pro? I’m asking because most sites/contests/ezines are very specific in what they publish, I figure I have to know who my ‘target audience’ is. I know from perusing just this blog that knowing your audience is critical if you want to be read.
As far as the ‘Shared Universe’ goes, I think any idea such brilliant authors come up with would work. (No, I am not just sucking up for points, honest! ) I personally tend to read a lot of speculative and romance since that’s the genres that my primary supplier of material (my mom) reads. Lately, I reread the Harry Potter series figuring that I could put them down and do life-stuff as needed—wrong! LOL. (But part of that this time was actually noting how my favorite scenes are constructed, word usage, etc.) I also tend to read older things since they are easier to check out at my local library.
I also would love to see older posts! A break for you wonderful bloggers and ‘new’ material to absorb. A win all the way around from where I’m sitting.
Thanks for all that you do Ms. Sarah and Co.!
SheBear