Ahh, I've been dealing with exhaustion lately and lost all awareness of what day it is, so forgive me for posting this a bit late...
I went to WonderCon this past weekend, which is basically a smaller version of San Diego Comic-Con put on by the same people. As such, there weren't as many author/reading/writing panels (that I noticed), and I was mostly there to hang out with friends since it was 10 miles from my apartment. I did, however, attend the Science in Science Fiction panel, which was an interesting discussion of what sort of common SF tropes are actually possible (or likely to someday be possible) within the laws of science. I was pleasantly surprised there was a brief discussion of genetic memory, since it occurs within my current WIP, and unsurprised to hear that it isn't possible with human DNA, since... you know, I did research before starting. However, it happens with aliens in my book, so who's to say what's possible with them? (OK, it seems pretty unlikely to me, too, but we have no idea what the genetic structure for an alien species would be, so I'm going to go with it.)
My first few books were total BS science, basically to the point of being fantasy, and I'm OK with that. I think if a writer is going to go that route, they need to commit to it for the story. But the more I write, the more I'm drawn to explaining the science in my SF stories. Some of it is still highly improbable, but I like to do as much research as I can and use existing science to at least make it seem somewhat believable. Of course, despite my interest in science, I chose not to get a degree in it in college, and thus lack any formal training and probably the ability to understand anything too difficult right away, but that's where being an almost-librarian comes in handy! I get to research lots of things, and it's one of the funner parts of writing. It just might not please the very hard SF fans who want everything to be super-realistic.
And it's pretty nice that I can go to a "fun" con as opposed to strictly a writing one and still learn things that apply to the career I'd like to have.
Where do you stand on the spectrum? Do you want your science accurate, or are you OK with hand-waving if it's done well? I suppose this could apply to many genres. How much explanation do you want for magic in your fantasy stories? Any similar parallels in other genres?
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
On alien landscapes and originality
Despite my longstanding love for science fiction, my current WIP is the first I've set on an alien world. Don't get me wrong; a lot of my stories have been set on made-up worlds, but they've always been earth-like fantasies, not meant to be something substantially different from what exists or has existed. This current story, though, is set mostly on an alien planet that is meant to exist within our universe, and it's gotten me thinking about how Earth-centric my descriptions have been and the difficulty inherent in imagining and describing something entirely alien.
Even knowing that my planet is supposed to be one of the Earth-like ones NASA is currently looking for (to the point that humans have little trouble surviving on it), I'm finding myself challenged to come up with descriptions for the landscape, flora, and fauna that aren't just Earth things with a twist. This happens in lots of other literature, too. Planets have features like mountains and deserts and oceans that probably aren't that unusual across the universe, but they also have forests filled with plants. They have animals, but even when those animals aren't just rabbits with blue fur and four eyes (i.e. even when the author has worked to create something unique in appearance), they often have many of the features common to life across earth: eyes, legs, fur, scales, perhaps in different numbers than are common here, or arranged in different configurations. Why should an alien planet have plants? Did that same type of life come into existence in two entirely connected places? Why should alien animals have any of the same features as Earth animals, rather than their own mechanisms for movement, sight, and so on?
Alright, some authors have gotten around that last one, by removing a creature's eyes but giving it the ability to "see" somehow in infrared, use echolocation (which also happens in Earth animals), etc. But the point is that most descriptions of alien places and life forms take things we are familiar with on Earth and twist them to look new and different, rather than actually being different at the core.
I don't know if this is necessarily lazy, though. While some scientists speculate that alien life might be unrecognizable to us because it will function so differently, there are a number of theories, scientific and not, that alien life might not be as different as expected. (I'm going to be a lazy library worker and not track down my sources right now, since I'm just recollecting these ideas from various books and documentaries at the moment and making no real scientific declarations.) Fibonacci sequences are everywhere. Similar structures (eyes, wings, etc.) are repeated over and over on Earth, arising independently in different locations, simply because they work so well, so it's not impossible they could do so on an alien planet. With any sort of creationist worldview, it's no big deal to say that the same types of creatures were created in multiple places. Panspermia is the theory that something spread the seeds of life across the universe, meaning that all life would have a common base, and thus similar outcomes would not be impossible to consider. Alien life might not be that different, especially on a planet that's similar to Earth.
Of course, humans are creatures that like to classify and draw comparisons. If they see something that looks like a plant, they'll probably call it a plant, at least colloquially, even if it gets its energy through a process other than photosynthesis or lacks some other characteristic we use to define a plant. We do things like this now when we're lazy; look at how many people call mushrooms and seaweed plants, though they're fungi and algae, or on a smaller scale, look how many people call tomatoes a vegetable or a strawberry a berry. When faced with something even stranger, it is within human nature to try to bring it into our realm of understanding by comparing it to things with which we are familiar.
In the end, as with so many things, it comes down to how lazy the author is. If all the author's alien creatures are three-legged rabbits with blue fur, that might just be a lazy way to make something look different. However, if that blue fur allows the creature to hide more easily in the shade, or matches the flora of the planet and provides camouflage, or is used to attract mates, that's better. If it has three legs because it evolved from a creature that had a tail, which gradually morphed into a structure to allow it to move on land, that's good. Of course, then one has to weigh how much of that information is important to the story. Much of it might not be. What will hint that the author has put some thought into the creatures is some sort of consistency among them. If that rabbity thing is the only creature that has three limbs on the whole planet, and everything else has five or seven or eight, it doesn't hint at any sort of connection between them. We see repeated structures on Earth. Most animals seem to have four limbs, and most insects seem to have six, and so on. On an alien planet, it's likely the plants and animals (or plant- and animal-like things) will have their own sets of repeated structures. Without them, the biology is going to seem haphazard and thrown together, not thought-out and related, and I'm coming to think that will reflect more poorly on the story than basing everything off Earth creatures with a twist or two.
What are your thoughts?
Even knowing that my planet is supposed to be one of the Earth-like ones NASA is currently looking for (to the point that humans have little trouble surviving on it), I'm finding myself challenged to come up with descriptions for the landscape, flora, and fauna that aren't just Earth things with a twist. This happens in lots of other literature, too. Planets have features like mountains and deserts and oceans that probably aren't that unusual across the universe, but they also have forests filled with plants. They have animals, but even when those animals aren't just rabbits with blue fur and four eyes (i.e. even when the author has worked to create something unique in appearance), they often have many of the features common to life across earth: eyes, legs, fur, scales, perhaps in different numbers than are common here, or arranged in different configurations. Why should an alien planet have plants? Did that same type of life come into existence in two entirely connected places? Why should alien animals have any of the same features as Earth animals, rather than their own mechanisms for movement, sight, and so on?
Alright, some authors have gotten around that last one, by removing a creature's eyes but giving it the ability to "see" somehow in infrared, use echolocation (which also happens in Earth animals), etc. But the point is that most descriptions of alien places and life forms take things we are familiar with on Earth and twist them to look new and different, rather than actually being different at the core.
I don't know if this is necessarily lazy, though. While some scientists speculate that alien life might be unrecognizable to us because it will function so differently, there are a number of theories, scientific and not, that alien life might not be as different as expected. (I'm going to be a lazy library worker and not track down my sources right now, since I'm just recollecting these ideas from various books and documentaries at the moment and making no real scientific declarations.) Fibonacci sequences are everywhere. Similar structures (eyes, wings, etc.) are repeated over and over on Earth, arising independently in different locations, simply because they work so well, so it's not impossible they could do so on an alien planet. With any sort of creationist worldview, it's no big deal to say that the same types of creatures were created in multiple places. Panspermia is the theory that something spread the seeds of life across the universe, meaning that all life would have a common base, and thus similar outcomes would not be impossible to consider. Alien life might not be that different, especially on a planet that's similar to Earth.
Of course, humans are creatures that like to classify and draw comparisons. If they see something that looks like a plant, they'll probably call it a plant, at least colloquially, even if it gets its energy through a process other than photosynthesis or lacks some other characteristic we use to define a plant. We do things like this now when we're lazy; look at how many people call mushrooms and seaweed plants, though they're fungi and algae, or on a smaller scale, look how many people call tomatoes a vegetable or a strawberry a berry. When faced with something even stranger, it is within human nature to try to bring it into our realm of understanding by comparing it to things with which we are familiar.
In the end, as with so many things, it comes down to how lazy the author is. If all the author's alien creatures are three-legged rabbits with blue fur, that might just be a lazy way to make something look different. However, if that blue fur allows the creature to hide more easily in the shade, or matches the flora of the planet and provides camouflage, or is used to attract mates, that's better. If it has three legs because it evolved from a creature that had a tail, which gradually morphed into a structure to allow it to move on land, that's good. Of course, then one has to weigh how much of that information is important to the story. Much of it might not be. What will hint that the author has put some thought into the creatures is some sort of consistency among them. If that rabbity thing is the only creature that has three limbs on the whole planet, and everything else has five or seven or eight, it doesn't hint at any sort of connection between them. We see repeated structures on Earth. Most animals seem to have four limbs, and most insects seem to have six, and so on. On an alien planet, it's likely the plants and animals (or plant- and animal-like things) will have their own sets of repeated structures. Without them, the biology is going to seem haphazard and thrown together, not thought-out and related, and I'm coming to think that will reflect more poorly on the story than basing everything off Earth creatures with a twist or two.
What are your thoughts?
Monday, March 12, 2012
Another meme--the Lucky 7!
I was tagged by Guilie for the Lucky 7 meme, which I hope will be a lot of fun, because I haven't looked at my passage yet! Back to normal blogging tomorrow, I'm sure.
So what do I need to do?
1 -- Go to page 77 of my WIP
2 -- Go to line 7
3 -- Copy the next 7 lines, AS ARE (no cheating, no tweaking, no polishing for any reason at all) and paste them into a blog post (thus here we are) to share with the world
4 -- Tag 7 other authors (mwaahahahaaaa!)
Definitely jumping into the fire, as they say, with this one. Seven totally unedited lines, to share with total strangers? Ack!
And without further ado, seven lines from my tentatively titled The Haunted Blue Sky, which involves a team from Earth journeying to a distant planet for the first time to make "second contact" with the aliens there. The main character was bred in an incubator along the way and has regained consciousness before the rest of the crew.
I can see a few errors already; "awakened" means more along the lines of coming into existence than just waking up, and I should have used "awoke" or "wakened". (There's a good post about this at Daily Writing Tips, although it covers only a few basic tenses and I've got some weird sort of future perfect going on here.) Any suggestions about which verb sounds better? I'm leaning toward "awoke" at the moment.
P.S. This section is the latter part of a paragraph, and the last sentence of the main paragraph does connect better with the rest of it than is evidenced here. And yeah, that line needs some cleaning up, too.
Actually, since this is fun, I'll cheat a little. Quick calculations tell me this would probably be the right passage if the first storyline were distributed as it will be later, although I'm wondering if that's right because this still seems too early in the main storyline:
I TAG EVERYBODY. This is kind of fun, though nerve-wracking if you don't cheat. These memes always seem to target the weakest passages, but that's a good thing in that illuminates more problems!
So what do I need to do?
1 -- Go to page 77 of my WIP
2 -- Go to line 7
3 -- Copy the next 7 lines, AS ARE (no cheating, no tweaking, no polishing for any reason at all) and paste them into a blog post (thus here we are) to share with the world
4 -- Tag 7 other authors (mwaahahahaaaa!)
Definitely jumping into the fire, as they say, with this one. Seven totally unedited lines, to share with total strangers? Ack!
And without further ado, seven lines from my tentatively titled The Haunted Blue Sky, which involves a team from Earth journeying to a distant planet for the first time to make "second contact" with the aliens there. The main character was bred in an incubator along the way and has regained consciousness before the rest of the crew.
Seven lines of exposition, which is kind of rare, as this manuscript is very dialogue-heavy. This also won't be page 77 in the next draft, since as I've mentioned before, this novel has a dual storyline. Right now, everything from the first (minor) storyline is still crunched together at the beginning of the draft, but it'll be distributed differently later and that will mess with the page numbers a lot. This will be much closer to the beginning, obviously, once everything is rearranged.As she stepped out onto the planet, she marveled at the solidity of her body. How heavy they would all feel when they awakened! Their muscles wouldn't be used to this higher gravity, unlike hers, which were born in space and bred for this. How strange it would be for them to compare this new landscape to Earth! The last time she'd been there, she'd been an embryo, incapable of dreaming. They'd be glad she had taken care of this, allowing them to complete their mission all the sooner.Reve.
I can see a few errors already; "awakened" means more along the lines of coming into existence than just waking up, and I should have used "awoke" or "wakened". (There's a good post about this at Daily Writing Tips, although it covers only a few basic tenses and I've got some weird sort of future perfect going on here.) Any suggestions about which verb sounds better? I'm leaning toward "awoke" at the moment.
P.S. This section is the latter part of a paragraph, and the last sentence of the main paragraph does connect better with the rest of it than is evidenced here. And yeah, that line needs some cleaning up, too.
Actually, since this is fun, I'll cheat a little. Quick calculations tell me this would probably be the right passage if the first storyline were distributed as it will be later, although I'm wondering if that's right because this still seems too early in the main storyline:
"Really?" said O'Donnell. "I see the similarities."Francesca shrugged, then returned to her examination of their surroundings, leaving Reve with an open mouth that hadn't gotten to say the words it had prepared. Reve's shoulders dropped as she watched the woman's retreating back."It's a pretty different landscape," O'Donnell said. "It's a lot to take in at once. It'll be your turn, when we head back to Earth.""It's so strange," Reve said. "I remember--well, Torrrchek remembers--her so well."
I TAG EVERYBODY. This is kind of fun, though nerve-wracking if you don't cheat. These memes always seem to target the weakest passages, but that's a good thing in that illuminates more problems!
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Tag! Oh, I'm it!
I was tagged by Rebecca Kiel, so I'm delaying the post I would have written for this fun little FAQ.
1. What is the one book you couldn’t live without?
I always overthink these questions. Given I want to be a novelist, am I supposed to think in terms of fiction? If it's any book, should I name my religious text? I'll go with the fiction for now, but that's still a hard one (especially since I'm sure I could live; I just might not like it as much). I'd probably pick SPIN by Robert Charles Wilson because it inspires me so with its universe-shaking (almost literally!) scientific concepts balanced against intimate story-telling and pretty language.
2. What can you see out your window at the moment?
There is a large tree outside; its bare branches arc up and the needles only start at the level of my window. Beneath it are the stairs leading down from the plaza between the library where I work and the study center. (At lunch at work now, if you couldn't guess.)
3. What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever eaten?
Kangaroo.
4. What fictional character would you most like to marry?
Oh, goodness. My first instinct tells me to say Kyle Reese (from Terminator), but I wonder if it'd be a bit exasperating fleeing from sentient robots all the time. Of course, if I were married to him, that might prevent the birth of John Connor, which would make the situation all the worse. If we're going to go the literary route, I'm a bit cliché in being partial toward Mr. Darcy.
5. If ever a fictional villain was going to win, who would you want it to be?
In terms of literature, right now I'm voting for the Others/White Walkers in George R.R. Martin's ASOIAF series. They might do a better job keeping people in line! I also sorted of wanted to see Odin + co. pull ahead in AMERICAN GODS. Non-literature, I'm with the Xenomorphs (of the Alien movies) and Darth Revan all the way.
6. How many types of cheese can you name off the top of your head?
Nine or ten, and then I lost count. It took some straining, though.
7. If you didn’t want to be a writer, what would you want to be?
I'm content enough with my future librarianship; otherwise I'd be some sort of scholar (which would still require a lot of writing, wouldn't it?). I aimed for religious studies and linguistics in undergrad, and I'm happy with that choice, although lately I'm wondering if I should have stuck it out with the science route. My original intention was to be a marine biologist, then I got pulled toward the humanities. However, my love of astronomy has grown so much over the years, even though in college I had trouble truly grasping some concepts related to physics. I think I do better with that subject now, so probably an astronomer/astrophysicist.
8. Can you play a musical instrument?
No.
9. Do you own a Kindle or a Nook or any sort of e-reader?
A Kindle! I quite like it. I resent holding large physical books now.
10. If you do, how many books do you have on it?
Probably about 100-200 right now. I have a huge print backlog on my shelves so I tried not to go too crazy with the Kindle purchases yet, and much of what I do have on there came as freebies.
11. You just got published. In a glowing review, someone calls you “the next [insert famous author name here]”. Which famous author has to watch their back now you’re on the scene?
I'd like to be somewhere between Robert Charles Wilson and Mary Doria Russell, with a bit more adventure thrown in there, so a comparison to either of those two would be great. I also wouldn't mind having one of my books compared to ENDER'S GAME, but Orson Scott Card is quite a controversial figure these days so I fear being misinterpreted if I hope for a comparison to him.
Now to pass the game on:
Kris Atkins
Obsession Literary Magazine
And really, anyone who wants to do it! I kinda hate tagging people.
1. What is the one book you couldn’t live without?
I always overthink these questions. Given I want to be a novelist, am I supposed to think in terms of fiction? If it's any book, should I name my religious text? I'll go with the fiction for now, but that's still a hard one (especially since I'm sure I could live; I just might not like it as much). I'd probably pick SPIN by Robert Charles Wilson because it inspires me so with its universe-shaking (almost literally!) scientific concepts balanced against intimate story-telling and pretty language.
2. What can you see out your window at the moment?
There is a large tree outside; its bare branches arc up and the needles only start at the level of my window. Beneath it are the stairs leading down from the plaza between the library where I work and the study center. (At lunch at work now, if you couldn't guess.)
3. What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever eaten?
Kangaroo.
4. What fictional character would you most like to marry?
Oh, goodness. My first instinct tells me to say Kyle Reese (from Terminator), but I wonder if it'd be a bit exasperating fleeing from sentient robots all the time. Of course, if I were married to him, that might prevent the birth of John Connor, which would make the situation all the worse. If we're going to go the literary route, I'm a bit cliché in being partial toward Mr. Darcy.
5. If ever a fictional villain was going to win, who would you want it to be?
In terms of literature, right now I'm voting for the Others/White Walkers in George R.R. Martin's ASOIAF series. They might do a better job keeping people in line! I also sorted of wanted to see Odin + co. pull ahead in AMERICAN GODS. Non-literature, I'm with the Xenomorphs (of the Alien movies) and Darth Revan all the way.
6. How many types of cheese can you name off the top of your head?
Nine or ten, and then I lost count. It took some straining, though.
7. If you didn’t want to be a writer, what would you want to be?
I'm content enough with my future librarianship; otherwise I'd be some sort of scholar (which would still require a lot of writing, wouldn't it?). I aimed for religious studies and linguistics in undergrad, and I'm happy with that choice, although lately I'm wondering if I should have stuck it out with the science route. My original intention was to be a marine biologist, then I got pulled toward the humanities. However, my love of astronomy has grown so much over the years, even though in college I had trouble truly grasping some concepts related to physics. I think I do better with that subject now, so probably an astronomer/astrophysicist.
8. Can you play a musical instrument?
No.
9. Do you own a Kindle or a Nook or any sort of e-reader?
A Kindle! I quite like it. I resent holding large physical books now.
10. If you do, how many books do you have on it?
Probably about 100-200 right now. I have a huge print backlog on my shelves so I tried not to go too crazy with the Kindle purchases yet, and much of what I do have on there came as freebies.
11. You just got published. In a glowing review, someone calls you “the next [insert famous author name here]”. Which famous author has to watch their back now you’re on the scene?
I'd like to be somewhere between Robert Charles Wilson and Mary Doria Russell, with a bit more adventure thrown in there, so a comparison to either of those two would be great. I also wouldn't mind having one of my books compared to ENDER'S GAME, but Orson Scott Card is quite a controversial figure these days so I fear being misinterpreted if I hope for a comparison to him.
Now to pass the game on:
Kris Atkins
Obsession Literary Magazine
And really, anyone who wants to do it! I kinda hate tagging people.
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