Uncounted and Mistral [Webcomic nudge]

When I created the Crash world in 1995-96, I originally created a heroine named Sonia. Sonia appears in Salvaged, but she doesn't get her own book until roughly 2 books after that story takes place.   When I revised the story in 2001-2002ish, I realized I needed an antagonist. I created a self-serving Corpsman named John Mistral. …

How do you convey genre in sci-fi?

I learned a lot from Jeff Gerke's The First 50 pages. But I've got a quibble, and one I'd love to discuss with my fellow writers. Help your reader out. Just trot out a half-goblin in chainmail armor and a shield if this is a fantasy.  Have someone make an arrest if this is a police …

How to Write Strong Female Characters

  This post is actually based on a request from Google + in response to my "Strong Female Characters in Sci Fi" post earlier this year. Eric said he wasn't sure how to write female characters.  Off the cuff, I gave him these tips: One trick, just swap genders after you write the role.  The role …

Female Sci-fi Authors v. Myths About Girls, Math and Science

I've been doing a lot of seriously depressing reading about how many women have chosen male pen-names or gender-neutral pen-names over the history of the genre.  The most famous and current of these is J.K. Rowling, who was advised by publishers that little boys wouldn't want to read a book written by "Jo Rowling". That …

Using the Power of Stereotypes for Good

Like I said on Sunday, I'm working on the final edits of Salvaged. One of the things that a Beta reader pointed out about my story was that with the shift from an earlier draft where I switched point-of view characters in the third person, to the current version's single first-person perspective, we lose some of the …

Archetypes of Salvaged

I want to talk about the archetypes in the chart above, because I totally geeked out this weekend and figured out which of my Salvaged  characters fit where.  It was fun, because I hadn't put it in those terms before, and some of the characters landed in interesting places. Places where you might not expect them …

Othering in Sci-Fi and Life Imitating Art

I just finished reading a paper about children's horror by a film historian friend.   Hers was a basic analysis of how the genre functions when the target audience is children. It's a fascinating paper, and when the book is published (of which it will be one chapter), I'd be happy to pass the title …

Sci-Fi Trends – What’s The Next Big Thing?

One of the things that agents, authors and film-makers have to do when they are assessing books and films is to determine not what's popular now, but what will be popular in the future.  If you're looking for someone to gaze into a crystal ball and tell you what they think, then people trying to …

The Novel Vortex

At work the other day, I left my desk to get a cup of tea. It was an ordinary cup of tea on and ordinary day. I sometimes like to sip a cup after lunch to stave off that energy slump. It was 12:56 PM EST, and I had four minutes before I had to …

“Catch!” Story collaborating Hot Potato game with Artipeeps

At the beginning of the summer, my Twitter friend Nicky at Artipeeps asked whether I'd like to participate in a collaboration. I said yes. The "Hot Potato" project is simple. Each writer gets "passed" a story in turn to add 500 words to the flow. I was the fourth "potato" pass, and I received the …