December, 2018 - Steven R. Southard (Poseidon's Scribe)

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8 Science Fiction Predictions for 2019

You’ve been wondering where the genre of Science Fiction will be going in 2019, haven’t you? I knew it. You’ve landed at the right blog post.

How do I know the future, you ask? Do I have a crystal ball? No. That would be irrational and silly. I have a CRISTAL ball, a Computerized Recursive and Iterative Stabilizing Trend ALgorithm, which I packaged in a spherical shape for optimized computing speed.

Diagnostic checks are complete and the presets are accurate, so I’ll set parameters for 2019 and access the graphical interface. Let me gaze into my CRISTAL ball…

In 2019, you’ll see more science fiction books written by authors from previously underrepresented groups (women, people of color, LGBTQ, etc.) and these books will explore concepts of belonging and isolation, as well as bending our current notions of gender and race.
The superhero theme in movies will peak and begin a gradual decline. It’s been an amazing ride, but I believe the market has saturated and audiences are getting tired.
Very few, if any, best-selling scifi books will feature faster-than-light drive. Most authors have accepted Einstein’s speed of light limit. FTL now seems hokey to readers.
Having already peaked, the steampunk and alternate history genres will continue to wane in books and movies, though they may retain strength in the video gaming world. This genre trend in books is troubling to me, since I enjoy writing steampunk and other alternative history.
We’ll see more Solarpunk, and the Punk Family will grow by a few more. I think there’s a great deal of uncharted territory in the solarpunk genre and a general hunger for it among readers. Most new ‘punks’ added in 2019 will be future-based, rather than alternative histories.
There will be fewer dystopian young adult books, and there will be an upsurge in YA depicting a positive (though not utopian) future. I think dystopias have run their course for the time being, and readers are ready for less bleak outlooks.
Overall, as a genre, science fiction will do well in the visual media of movies, video games, and graphic novels, but not in traditional book form. Plenty of authors enjoy writing scifi, but readers will turn away from this genre in greater numbers. This is another prediction I find personally disappointing.
The trend toward series novels will remain strong. Once modern readers make an emotional investment in a set of characters and their fictional world, they want to know what happens after the first novel, and after the next.

At the end of 2019, I intend to run a blog post confirming the accuracy of my CRISTAL ball. In the meantime, you can tell everyone you’ve glimpsed the future, as predicted by —

Poseidon’s Scribe

December 30, 2018Poseidon's ScribePermalink

What Hath Smashwords Wrought?

Amid all the holiday rush, you meant to buy three of my books as gifts (or for yourself), but somehow forgot. Good news! That same $12 you were going to spend now buys four (4) books, or even more.

Smashwords is holding an End of Year Sale, but they’re letting it run over one day into 2019. All the books in my What Man Hath Wrought series are 25% off.

For $2.99, you can get After the Martians, Ripper’s Ring, Time’s Deformèd Hand, The Cometeers, To Be First/Wheels of Heaven, Rallying Cry/Last Vessel of Atlantis, A Tale More True, Against All Gods, Leonardo’s Lion, or Alexander’s Odyssey.

For just $2.24, you can get The Six Hundred Dollar Man, A Steampunk Carol, Within Victorian Mists, or The Wind-Sphere Ship.

These stories explore the theme of people dealing with new technology, a problem to which we all relate. I put my characters and technologies in historical settings, so these are all alternate history stories or secret histories.

Take advantage of Smashwords’ End of Year Sale, and enjoy some books by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

December 26, 2018Poseidon's ScribePermalink

What the Tech?

Today I’ll introduce a new feature to my blog. I’ll be exploring the way people deal with new technology. It’s a theme in most of my stories, and I’ll be discussing it in some depth in this and future posts. I’ll still offer guidance to beginning fiction writers, but I’ll also pursue this technology topic on occasion.

I’m not concerned so much with any particular technology itself, but rather the relationship between humans and new technology. This relationship can bring about a number of problems, including:

Technical failures during development and testing
Development of a technology without considering its harmful or immoral effects
Unanticipated problems brought about by use of the technology
Lack of acceptance of, or opposition to, the technology by others
The technology’s failure to live up to its hype
The possibility that the technology may change the user in some way
Eventual complacence brought about by success of the technology leading to new failure modes

In many of my stories, I show characters struggling with new technology and encountering several of these problems. Here are some of the most recently published ones.

In “The Unparalleled Attempt to Rescue One Hans Pfaall” in the Quoth the Raven anthology, there are two new technologies. One is the hot air balloon, in which my characters voyage to the Moon in 1835. The other is a mysterious machine they find on the Moon, a device that maintains both the satellite’s atmosphere and the life-link between paired individuals on the Earth and Moon. The balloon causes no problems, but one character’s ignorance and rashness causes disaster when he operates the Moon machine.

In “Target Practice” in the Re-Launch anthology, the technologies are a future underwater prison and one-man submarines. They use the mini-subs in a cruel training exercise that always results in the death of an inmate. The challenge for my protagonist is to exploit weaknesses in the technology and possibly survive the training exercise.

In “The Steam Elephant” in The Gallery of Curiosities, Issue #3, the technology is a mechanical, steam-powered elephant. In 1879, the British owners and occupants of the elephant are confident they will prevail in a war with primitive Zulu ‘savages.’ Perhaps their confidence is misplaced.

In “Instability” in the Dark Luminous Wings anthology, my medieval monk protagonist invents a pair of bat-like wings to achieve human flight. Other monks in the abbey are convinced he’s insane, and his first flight is not problem-free.

In “The Cats of Nerio-3” in the In A Cat’s Eye anthology, I mention several technologies, but the most important is an artificially intelligent computer. The AI believes itself far superior to its human companion, but perhaps it shouldn’t count humans out so soon.

In “After the Martians,” aliens leave their technologies behind after a failed invasion of Earth, and people use them to fight World War I. The Martian tripods and heat rays change the very nature of the war.

In “Ancient Spin” in the Hides the Dark Tower anthology, the technology is a giant stone tower, designed and built in Biblical times. After the tower’s collapse, its inventor considers how to avoid the blame.

In “Ripper’s Ring,” the technology is an ancient ring that can render its wearer invisible. Not only does this change the ring’s finder in negative ways, it complicates the detective’s search for him.

In “A Clouded Affair” in the Avast, Ye Airships! anthology, the two competing technologies are a 19^th Century steam-powered ornithopter and a 20^th Century diesel engine biplane. Which one wins the battle?

You’ll see this topic considered in detail and related to more of my stories in future posts by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

December 23, 2018Poseidon's ScribePermalink

On Beyond Slash

In his 1955 book On Beyond Zebra! Dr. Seuss had child readers imagining several new alphabetical letters occurring after our last one—Z. Today, I’m advocating the addition of some new punctuation and fonts. Since the last punctuation mark on my keyboard is the slash (/), we’ll venture beyond slash. Way beyond.

Let’s face it.There are times when currently available punctuation just won’t do. Moreover, the number of keys on a keyboard no longer limits us. This is the age of multi-use buttons. Software programmers could easily show one or more pop-up keyboards that replace QWERTY with alternate punctuation marks and fonts. If we can have innumerable emojis and emoticons, we can certainly add some fresh punctuation marks.

Many others have proposed new punctuation marks that haven’t caught on yet, but should. You’ll enjoy other blog posts on this topic by Adrienne Crezo, Randy Krum, Keith Houston, and Zachery Brasier. I’ll start my list with marks advocated by others, and finish with two of my own invention.

ElRey Mark

The ElRey Mark is a variant of the exclamation point invented by photographer Ellen Susan. The original intent of the exclamation mark was to denote very strong feelings or loud shouts, like “Stop!” or “Watch out!” However, people now use it even for mild emphasis, as in “Thanks!” Named for ‘The King’ in Spanish, the ElRey Mark’s intent is to express a moderate amount of excitement or optimism. However, given the two dots in the ElRey Mark, I’d propose swapping it with the Exclamation Mark, so that ElRey would denote the stronger emphasis.

We really need the Exclamation Comma and especially the Question Comma. They would permit exclamations and questions within a sentence, rather than having to reword them to occur at the sentence’s end. Invented and patented by Americans Leonard Storch, Haagen Ernst Van and Sigmund Silber in 1992, the symbols didn’t catch on and their patent has lapsed.

Interrobang

An advertising executive named Martin K. Speckter came up with the Interrobang in 1952. It combines the exclamation and question marks for those times when it’s tough to choose between the two, but your editor will only permit one, as in: “What? Now you tell me you don’t know how to land the plane?”

I love the Love Point, invented in 1966 by author Jean-Pierre Marie Herve-Bazin. Yes, authors should be able to express the emotion of love through words alone, but the Love Point would add a charming emphasis to it. Couldn’t the world use a little more love?

Quotation marks are supposed to be for actual quotations, so there’s a need for a way to denote“air quotes” indicating what someone should have said or seems to be saying. Mockquotation Marks would serve that need in a visually obvious way. As near as I can determine, we can thank Mike Trapp of collegehumor.com for these marks.

Doubt Point

I’ve added the Doubt Point to my list, not because I think it’s particularly useful to express doubt through punctuation, but because it looks so Seussian. It was another creation by Jean-Pierre Marie Herve-Bazin.

Here’s another punctuation mark I’d love to see for its appearance alone. Originally called the Hedera when used by the Ancient Greeks and Romans, the French renamed it the Fleuron, the name I prefer. Although they used it to separate paragraphs, I don’t care what we’d use it for; I just like the way it looks.

Now we come to my own inventions. Others have proposed reverse italics for other purposes, but I’d used them to add emphasis to a word or two within an already italicized section. It’s common to do that by putting that word in normal font, but that just doesn’t do it for me. Reverse italics would be a way of nesting emphasized words.

We’ve saddled the apostrophe with double duty for too long, and it’s often misused and confused. The apostrophe’s original use was to substitute for letters we’re not showing. We call those contractions, like don’t for do not. However, we use the same mark for possession. Allow me to introduce the Possesstrophe. It even looks like two arms reaching out to possess the word or phrase beyond the ‘s.’ The Possesstrophe would resolve the need to remember the rule for it’s as a contraction and its as a possessive.

What do you say? Let’s get some of these new marks accepted in standard usage. Go on beyond slash with—

Poseidon’s Scribe

December 16, 2018Poseidon's ScribePermalink

7 Techniques for Writing at Optimum Speed

Sure, fiction writer, you say you want to write faster. What you really want, however, is to write faster without losing quality, without giving up your writing style.

Your aim,therefore, should be to find your optimum writing speed. That speed may be faster than you write now, but it might not be. A wonderful piece by author Nalini Singh inspired this blog post. I encourage you to read her guest post.

I’ve taken Ms.Singh’s five tips, reordered and reworded them, and added two more of my own. My list is in order of helpfulness to me, from least to most. You may benefit from using any or all of these techniques.

Overlap Your WIPs. A WIP is your Work in Progress. By keeping two or more writing projects going at once, you can shift from one to the other as your muse and mood dictate. This doesn’t work as well for those who prefer to focus on one thing until it’s complete.
Limit Session Lengths. When I was nine years old, I didn’t enjoy practicing my cello, and eagerly stopped each day after thirty minutes. My Dad read an article about famed American cellist Leonard Rose, who said he never practiced more than four hours a day. With dry humor, Dad admonished me to limit my sessions to no more than four hours. Even if you have an entire free afternoon to write, there will come a point of diminishing returns. Whether that’s four hours for you, or some other duration,don’t exceed it.
Get Your Blood Pumping. At some point, you may get tired, be unable to think what to write next, or write yourself into a plot hole. At such times, stand up and swing your arms around, walk up and down some stairs, go for a walk outside, or do some calisthenics. Even five minutes of that might be enough. Aside from the health benefit, you’re getting fresh blood to your brain, rebooting your system.
Enjoy Play Time. Take ten minutes or so and devote it to uninhibited free writing. Write about anything except your WIPs. Let your mind romp and play about in the universe, without the pressure of thinking someone might read what you write. This helps you associate writing with fun, and it just might spark an idea for a future story.
Set Writing Goals, in Pencil. Goals are funny things, aren’t they? The minute you set one, you feel a sense of purpose and direction. You feel a call to action; you start to plan and strategize. If you fall behind your schedule, or miss your goal, you feel like you’ve let someone down, even if it’s just yourself. Goals are good prompters;they urge you to complete what you start. But don’t get so focused on your goal that you feel depressed or miserable if you fall short.
Use Chore Time. All of us must do chores, those mundane tasks that don’t require focused thought. These include showering, preparing food, mowing the lawn, cleaning your living space,commuting, etc. Why not use that time to think about the next scene you’re planning to write, or to work through solutions to plot problems? When you’re next able to write, you’ll be ready.
Leave Yourself Wanting More.This variation of the old show business line really works. Stop your writing session at a point where you know what to write next. Try not to stop when you’re stuck for the next word. That way, the next time you sit down to write, that next word, sentence, and paragraph will flow as if you’d never stopped.

These techniques may help you write at your optimum speed. They work for author Nalini Singh, and for—

Poseidon’s Scribe

December 9, 2018Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Top Ten Rookie Writer Mistakes

You have to start somewhere, and everyone’s a rookie in the beginning. However, readers these days have plenty of choices, so there’s no need to wave a red flag advertising you’re a newbie. Avoid the mistakes common to novices and your work will stand out.

Author Anne R. Allen wrote an excellent post about this and I encourage you to read it. What follows is my shorter and rearranged version.

I took Ms. Allen’s ten-item list of common mistakes and reordered them, starting with the errors I make less frequently, and ending with the blunders I still struggle with the most. I also put them in my own words.

10. Imitating Tom Swift. “Said” is a perfectly fine word and your audience will read right over it. Don’t substitute a different word for ‘said’ or add an adverb, as in Tom Swifty jokes. (“I’ll stand back aft,” Tom said sternly. “Let me darken that text in again,” Tom remarked.) In fact, don’t overdo the dialogue tags themselves. Often, you don’t need them. (No offense to Tom Swift. I’m a big fan.)

9. Taking God’s View. First person point-of-view is no longer typical, and can confuse readers. Best to stay in Third person POV, and make it very clear when you’re moving to a different character’s POV.

8. In Our Next Episode… All the chapters of your novel, or the sections of your short story, must contribute in a logical way to the plot of the whole tale, such that it’s an integrated work, not a string of separate, poorly related scenes.

7. Starring in Your Own Story. Give your characters distinctive personalities, quirks, motivations, and styles of speech. None of them should think or talk like you, or like some imagined, perfect version of you.

6. Forgetting Your Language Arts Classes. English isn’t an easy language, but if you want to be a writer, you need to know it well. Spell words correctly; use correct grammar; select words with precision. Build your vocabulary, but don’t overdo the thesaurus.

5. Starting As Others Do. Try to find a way to begin your story that isn’t overused already. In particular, if you start with a character waking up, consider a different beginning.

4. Writing to Brag. Get to the action. Cut your long, lovingly crafted descriptions. Delete, also, the arcane literary references, and don’t begin chapters with fancy quotations.

3. Making it (Too) Real. Cut out unnecessary dialogue that doesn’t further the plot. Delete scenes that transport a character from one place to another with nothing really happening on the trip. Don’t have your character overthink a decision, considering all the pros and cons; skip to the deciding part.

2. Using a Whole Lot of Words When Only a Few Are Necessary to Your Story. Don’t pad your tale with extra words. Don’t insult your readers by repeating yourself. Delete the needless adjectives and adverbs.

And the top rookie writing mistake (at least for me)…

1. Dumping Your Info and Explaining to Bob. It’s so tempting to convey all the backstory early on, so the reader understands how the characters got where they are. Instead, sprinkle in those details bit by bit within action scenes, to keep your plot moving. Also, avoid the unrealistic, over-explanatory dialogue that’s termed As You Know, Bob (AYKB).

Just because it is your first novel, doesn’t mean it has to read like a first novel. Don’t make the mistakes listed by Anne R. Allen, and you’ll stand a better chance of success. Take it from a former rookie who’s made many of those mistakes—

Poseidon’s Scribe

December 2, 2018Poseidon's ScribePermalink