Tag Archives: Instability

What’s in a Title?

Last week I wrote about the opening lines in a story. But before you read the opening, you read the title. Do you struggle to come up with appropriate, catchy titles for your stories? Read on…

Some writers have no problem with titles. In fact, there are authors who think up a clever title, and write a story to suit it.

On the other hand, some start with a ‘working title,’ intending to come up with a real title later. When that time arrives, they get stuck, unable to create a suitable title. Writing the 5000-word story was no problem, but coming up with just 1-10 words is maddening.

Author Stephen Pressfield offers some great advice in this blogpost. He says to let the theme of your story suggest the title, and he gives some great examples.

In her post on titles, author Lynne Lumsden Green goes a bit further. She says a title should (1) be memorable, (2) encompass the theme of the story, and (3) not give too much away.

I agree, though I don’t think you should agonize over your title. I’d spend more time on the story’s opening and closing lines. Even so, I often brainstorm about 20-30 titles before hitting on the right one.

Be aware, when choosing your title, even words like ‘the’ can be important. That word denotes one particular thing. To take an example from my stories, “Moonset” (from the Re-Terrify anthology) evokes a periodic event that happens daily. “The Moonset” suggests one particular setting of the moon. The one-word version was more appropriate for my story.

Here are some explanations for the titles of my stories:

“Broken Flute Cave” is also the setting of the story, a cavern so-named because a modern discoverer found what looked like broken flutes inside. My story is the origin story, or pourquoi story of the last Native American flute player to occupy that cave.

“Reconnaissance Mission” (in the Not Far From Roswell anthology) has a double meaning in this story. The tale follows Army Sergeant Major Edgar Allan Poe as he participates in a recon mission to Nuevo México. There he finds his is not the only team conducting such a mission.

“The Unparalleled Attempt to Rescue One Hans Pfaall” (in the Quoth the Raven anthology) is a sequel to Edgar Allan Poe’s story “The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall.” I could hardly have titled it any other way.  

“Instability” (in the Dark Luminous Wings anthology) is another title with double meanings. A medieval monk builds wings and tries to fly, but can’t control his flight. Moreover, some of the other monks question his sanity.

“Time’s Deformèd Hand” is a phrase from the Shakespeare play “The Comedy of Errors.” My story—in the clockpunk genre—has many references to time, clocks, and calendars, and errors associated with time measurement. The grave accent mark (`) means to pronounce that usually-silent ‘e’ as you would in ‘ranted.’

“Last Vessel of Atlantis” (combined in one volume with “Rallying Cry”) evokes the wonder of that legendary lost continent. The word ‘vessel’ has two meanings in the story—a ship and a container of liquids. In fact, the first published version of that story was titled “The Vessel.”

“The Six Hundred Dollar Man” references the 1970s TV show “The Six Million Dollar Man” but mine is a steampunk version taking place in the American Wild West.

The next time you’re stressing about how to title a story, you’ll remember the profound and timeless advice of the one who titles himself—

Poseidon’s Scribe

March 28, 2021Permalink

Twistery History

When writing fiction, do you set your tales in historical times? If so, you must resolve the inevitable conflict between The Facts and The Story. In other words, you’ll have to twist some history.

Author Colin Falconer expresses the problem well in a post titled “How to Mix Historical Fact and Fiction.” He says real life is chaotic. It doesn’t obey the rules of fiction. It’s filled with aspects that interfere with a good story.

Here’s a table that contrasts historical fact and historical fiction:

Historical Fact Historical Fiction
Chaotic, messy Planned, ordered
Mostly boring Mostly interesting or exciting
Has real people, with infinite complexities Has a protagonist, antagonist, and supporting characters
Events occur as they will, often by chance or coincidence Events occur in a believable order, in a way that supports the plot
How people lived is as interesting to us as what people did What characters do is more important than details of how they live
Historian’s aim is to get the facts right Fiction writer’s aim is to entertain and engage the reader

I should also mention an important distinction between historical fiction and alternate history. Colin Falconer writes historical fiction, where he takes a set of historical events and fictionalizes them. I write alternate history, set in another universe whose history matched ours until some Point of Divergence (PoD), after which things proceeded quite differently.

Even in alternate history, though, readers want to know the author took the trouble to study history and get some details right. If the story takes place in the past, readers expect the author to transport them there, and not jar them with anachronisms like the clock striking three in the second act of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. (I know, I know—Shakespeare might well have deliberately used a not-yet-invented clock as a dramatic and metaphorical device.)

Here’s how I twisted history in my most recently published alternate history tales:

In “Ripper’s Ring,” set in 1888, the PoD occurs the moment a troubled mortuary worker comes across the legendary Ring of Gyges, the invisibility ring mentioned by Plato. Other than that, I tried to remain true to the facts about Jack the Ripper. I did invent a fictional Scotland Yard detective, but the rest of history didn’t get much twisting.

Regarding my story, “Ancient Spin, (in the Hides the Dark Tower anthology) I hesitate to categorize it as alternate history, since it’s about the Biblical Tower of Babel. Still, I gave my characters Babylonian names and tried to depict the mood and scene after the collapse of a large ziggurat in that time period.

“After the Martians” takes place during our World War I, but the PoD happened sixteen years earlier, in 1901, when the Martians of H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds invaded. Since the combatants in my story use Martian technology, that changes the very nature of the war, so my story doesn’t bear much resemblance to the actual conflict. Even so, my photographer character uses an actual camera from that period, and the old woman treats the soldier’s injuries using techniques of that time.

My story “Instability” (in the Dark Luminous Wings anthology) derives from a legend about a medieval monk in a British monastery around 1000 A.D. I tried hard to get details right about life in a Benedictine monastery including daily schedules and the layout of the abbey. I used one of the actual abbots of Malmesbury Abbey as a character. Aside from the improbable legend itself, I didn’t do much twisting of history in this one.

“The Steam Elephant” (in The Gallery of Curiosities, Issue #3) takes place during the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879. The PoD is my assumption that the events and characters of Jules Verne’s novel The Steam House were true. Again, I strove to keep details of the Battle of Isandlwana accurate, including the names of British commanders and the Zulu king. However, since my story occurs twenty-two years after the setting of Verne’s novel, I stretched things by assuming his characters remained nearly unchanged despite the passage of years.

As you write your historical fiction, try to strike a good balance between getting facts right and telling an interesting story. If you have to twist some history to do that, well, you’re in good company along with—

Poseidon’s Scribe

April 14, 2019Permalink

Biomimetic Technology

How is Velcro like a burr plant? How is the Eastgate Centre in Harare, Zimbabwe like a termite mound? How is a tire tread like a tree frog?

These are all examples of engineers solving problems by looking to nature, a process known as biomimetics. After all, animals and plants have evolved over millions of years, and have developed solutions to many problems. Why shouldn’t we learn from them?

Burdock Plant, the inspiration for Velcro

After a hunting trip, Swiss engineer Georges de Mestral observed burrs from the burdock plant sticking to his pant legs. He wondered how the plants did that, and from his investigation came ‘hook and loop fasteners’ or Velcro. 

Eastgate Centre in Harare, Zimbabwe with cross-section of chimney


Architect Mick Pearce sought a way to cost-effectively cool and heat a building in Zimbabwe, with its widely varying daily temperature cycles. He examined the flues and vents within termite mounds, and used the termites’ passive technique to save 90% of the cooling costs in his design for the Eastgate Centre.

Tree Frog Toe Pad inspiring tire tread

Automotive designers wanted tires that adhered to wet roads. They noted how tree frogs stick to smooth wet leaves, and even to wet glass because their toe pads squeeze water away through fine grooves. Tire treads have a similar design, channeling rainwater away for better adhesion to the road surface.

Characters in several of my stories use biomimicry, too.

In “The Steam Elephant,” (The Gallery of Curiosities, Issue #3) my sequel to Jules Verne’s two-part novel, The Steam House, the engineer known as Banks constructed a mechanical elephant around a traction steam engine. Verne likely chose an elephant to allow room for the boiler, and as a form that did not require railroad tracks.

My story, “A Clouded Affair,” in the anthology Avast, Ye Airships! includes a working, steam-powered ornithopter. These aircraft imitate birds by flapping their wings. Although useful in bird-sized machines, they never proved as practical as fixed or rotating wings in full scale. Even so, prior to the invention of the airplane, some designers tried to mimic birds in this way.

Along similar lines, my story “Instability” in the anthology Dark Luminous Wings is about a monk trying to fly by imitating flying creatures. Based on legend, my tale has Brother Eilmer of Malmesbury Abbey constructing a pair of wings similar to those of jackdaws. He soon finds this impossible to build in practice, so chooses to model his wings on those of bats instead.

Are you trying to solve a problem? If so, perhaps nature has already solved it for you. Look to plants and animals for inspiration. After all, biomimetics worked for—

                                                Poseidon’s Scribe

February 3, 2019Permalink

Medieval SciFi

Can Science Fiction trace its origins back further than Jules Verne? Further than Edgar Allan Poe? Further than Mary Shelley? Could you have read SciFi books if you lived in the Middle Ages?

Medieval scholars Carl Kears and James Paz think so. They wrote a fascinating article in The Conversation called “Science fiction was around in medieval times – here’s what it looked like.” They also co-wrote the book Medieval Science Fiction.

Their article cites some fascinating medieval examples of what we’ve come to know as science fiction. Moreover, some of these examples may be familiar to readers of stories by (ahem) me.

They reference “…the story of Eilmer the 11th-century monk, who constructed a pair of wings and flew from the top of Malmesbury Abbey.” My readers know all about Brother Eilmer from my fictionalized account of this legend in “Instability” which appears in the anthology Dark Luminous Wings.

The article’s authors also cite “…medieval romances that feature Alexander the Great…exploring the depths of the ocean in his proto-submarine.” Once again, readers will recall my story “Alexander’s Odyssey” in which the sea-god Poseidon becomes angry with Alexander for invading his realm.

Wait, some of you are thinking, Alexander the Great didn’t live in medieval times! True, but his ancient Greek contemporaries never mentioned his descent in a diving bell. Arabic writers in the Middle Ages became fascinated with Alexander and fantasized all sorts of stories about him. Among those was the submarine tale.

Here are some other examples of books one might classify as Medieval Science Fiction:

• Roman de Troie, written by Benoît de Sainte-Maure in the 12th Century. It features automata.
• Theologus Autodidactus, written by Ibn al-Nafis in the late 13th Century. In it, the main character is spontaneously generated, rather than born. He predicts the future, uses his reason and senses to deduce the religion of Islam, and explains bodily resurrection using cloning.
• One Thousand and One Nights, compiled between the 9th and 14th Centuries. It mentions immortality, interplanetary travel, underwater breathing capability, and humanoid robots.
• The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, written by Sir John Mandeville in the 14th Century. It includes automata, alternate human species, and diamonds that reproduce sexually.
• “The House of Fame” a poem written by Geoffrey Chaucer in the late 14th Century. In it, a house is constructed such that all sound flows into it. The occupants can hear all noises from everywhere.

You might think I’m stretching things to call a story “Science Fiction” if it dates from a time before the development of Science. If SciFi is concerned with potential future technological or scientific advances, then an author couldn’t possibly write in that genre before Galileo came up with the scientific method in the early 17th Century. Right?

Well, maybe, but the genre of science fiction is quite broad, and considering the modern stories that get pigeonholed there, it seems unfair not to include the examples I’ve given above and those cited by Kears and Paz.

Living in the 21st Century, most of us regard Science Fiction as a modern genre, no more than two centuries old. If we could converse with some well-read folks from the 5th through 15th Centuries, they might disagree. Of course, if you do have such a conversation somehow, please tell—

Poseidon’s Scribe

September 16, 2018Permalink

Instability

What’s that trumpet fanfare I’m hearing? Oh, that’s right. My story “Instability” will appear in the anthology Dark Luminous Wings. It’s another Pole to Pole Publishing anthology, edited by the incomparable Kelly A. Harmon and Vonnie Winslow Crist.

Kelly and Vonnie wanted stories involving wings, so I did some research and brainstorming. As usual, I generated plenty of ideas and had to down-select to one that would result in a compelling story of the right length.

From Wikipedia.org

In my research I’d come across the account of Brother Eilmer of Malmesbury Abbey. A Benedictine monk who lived around 1000 AD, Eilmer is supposed to have flown from the abbey’s tower using a set of wings he made. These were Daedalus-and-Icarus style wings that he flapped with his arms. He didn’t really “fly,” but more likely glided in an uncontrolled manner. The account says he crash-landed, broke both legs, and was lame the rest of his life.

Medieval monks weren’t generally known for their technological creativity and spirit of adventure. Imagine Brother Eilmer engaged in a life of worship, hard work, singing, praying, and copying. He reads the Greek account of Daedalus and Icarus, and decides he could construct wings and fly as they did. Imagine him standing atop the tower, trying to overcome his fear so he can leap off. Think how he must have felt at first, actually flying, before losing control.

In my fictionalized account, throw in a fellow monk of the lying, scheming and snitching variety as well as an Abbott who can’t decide if Eilmer is insane or possessed, and you’ve got my story, “Instability.”

When Dark Luminous Wings comes out in print, I’ll tell you how to get your copy so you can read my story, along with all the others. I found Eilmer such a fascinating character, I may write more tales about him. Maybe he’ll get his own series. A book of stories about a medieval scribe, scribbled by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

June 25, 2017Permalink