DISASTERS REAL AND IMAGINED

Nord Stream gas leak--courtesy Danish Defence.

It’s getting harder every day for science fiction writers to stay ahead of events in the real world. Predicting the future is a tricky business when climate change, swift advances in technology, pandemics, constant war and societal upheaval have become a part of our daily lives.

Right now, for example, our friends in Florida are suffering through a devastating hurricane, the worst to hit the western coast of the state in over a hundred years, while our friends in the western part of the U.S. contend with an epic drought. Both disasters have been exacerbated by climate change, which in turn has been caused by human action over time.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, a different kind of environmental disaster is unfolding, almost certainly caused by direct human action on a much quicker time scale. Four leaks have been discovered in the Russian Nord Stream gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea that carries fuel to Europe. The leaks are spewing natural gas, releasing over half a million metric tons of methane into the ocean. Methane makes up the largest part of natural gas, and though the leaks will likely have minimal effect on local wildlife, the amount of methane released into the atmosphere is equivalent to the annual emissions of two million cars, according to Andrew Baxter, a methane expert at the Environmental Defense Fund.

Experts think the leaks are the result of sabotage of the pipeline, though they have no proof, and as yet can identify no culprit. Certainly Russia would have no motive; Putin and company have every incentive to keep the gas flowing to ensure income to support the war in Ukraine. It’s highly doubtful the Ukrainians would do it, either. They have neither the time nor the resources to mount such a mission. So far, then, it’s a mystery.

But to return to my original point, this story is eerily similar to the plot of a Norwegian science fiction/disaster film I saw a few weeks back on Hulu, titled THE BURNING SEA (2021). In this film, from the creative team behind THE QUAKE (2018) and THE WAVE (2015), and directed by John Andreas Andersen, drilling for oil in the North Sea opens fissures in the seabed, leading to disaster. Oil rigs explode! People are killed and trapped! Oil spreads over the sea, threatening coastlines from Scandinavia to Europe and Britain! The only solution is to set the oil on fire before it fouls the entire North Sea basin.

Since I love a good disaster film, no matter what its country of origin, I enjoyed THE BURNING SEA. The writing was decent, the effects were great, and the acting was more than competent. I thought the plot pretty far-fetched, of course, but now I’m wondering if it really was that far out. Yes, the current Nord Stream disaster is the result of deliberate sabotage, not an uncontrollable cracking of the seabed. And the leaks from the pipeline are of far more manageable natural gas, not oil. Still, you have to think, what if . . .?

On the other hand, we really do have more than enough to worry about. Ian is on the way north as we speak. So, excuse me while I go to batten down the hatches.

Cheers, Donna

*Information for today’s post provided by: “As fourth Nord Stream leak is discovered, here’s what scientists are saying about the environment impact,” by Anviksha Patel, Marketwatch, msn.com, September 29, 2022. https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/as-fourth-nord-stream-leak-is-discovered-here-s-what-scientists-are-saying-about-the-environment-impact/ar-AA12niL1?ocid=BHEA000&cvid=08b7cc2bb5d34df7b088fc480efed81a

 

“Russian Gas Leak Could Be Environmental Disaster,” by Avi Salzman, Barron’s, September 27, 2022. https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/russia-gas-leak-environment-51664314465?mod=article_inline

 

 

 

The vagaries of genre or where does my book fit?

Laurie's recent post about science fiction romance as a genre resonated with me. I sometimes wonder how big the market is for stories like mine. I can't in all conscience adorn my covers with beautiful male chests, although I'll admit I did try it, a long time ago. (See left) I suspect it worked, too, because readers at least read the blurb. But over time, my stories have become less explicit when it comes to sex, and I believe lots of man-titty signals explicit sex. On the flame scale, I wouldn't put my books at more than 2-3. They're not fade to black when the bedroom door closes, but you wouldn't want to use them as a 'how to'.

Science fiction is such a hard genre to define and the merge with fantasy is unavoidable. We write about 'science' that does not exist. It may in the future, but it's impossible now. Artificial gravity, forms of faster-than-light travel, advanced artificial intelligence, lifelike avatars, alien beings - the list goes on. It's not magic. We don't have magic in our SF worlds. But we can have shifters, vampires, strange alien psi powers and the like. Anything, really - as long as we claim a scientific explanation.

Anne McCaffrey's much-loved Pern series is one that has often been poo-pooed by the SF purists. It has dragons and mental telepathy, so it's fantasy. But the dragons are genetically engineered local species, with powers that evolved so the little fire lizards could escape the ravages of thread. Somebody once described the dragons as an ecologically sustainable air force. I like that. As far as I'm concerned, that's SF, not fantasy. As we say in the copyright notice on our books, "any resemblance to any person (or animal) is purely coincidental".

I actually find it harder to fit the romance half of the title. I'd be much more comfortable being in Science Fiction - romance. Genre, you see. It’s all about marketing. Into which pigeonhole does this book fit? I had some fun drawing a diagram to illustrate some of the complexities of genre.

 Some genres are pretty easy. In romance, the romance must be the focus of the plot, and it must have a happy ever after (HEA) ending or a happy for now (HFN) ending. I talked about the rules of romance here. But every genre has ‘shades of grey’ (yeah, yeah). Science fiction ranges between hard SF and soft SF. I discussed that here. On the hard SF – soft SF line, I’d put most space opera sort of in the middle. Star Wars and Star Trek would definitely be down the soft SF end, McDevitt’s books would be down the hard SF end. Romance has its continuum, too, often expressed in degrees of ‘heat’ (ie explicit sex scenes). In ‘sweet’ romance, the scene stops at the bedroom door. In erotic romance, the sex is explicit.

Now we get to science fiction romance, which is a combination of two genres. The SCIENCE romance – ROMANCE science line indicates what is the most important focus of the work. Would we have a story without the romance? Would we have a story without the science? I would suggest that real SFR should be down the science ROMANCE end – I think Avatar is a good example. Without the romance, there is no story. And in Avatar the explicitness of the sex component is most definitely ‘sweet’. Interestingly enough, one of McCaffrey’s early works, Restoree, is listed in science fiction. Yet Restoree is without a doubt science fiction romance, with a ‘sweet’ tag on the sex register. So SFR has been around for a while, mixed in with SF. But there isn't a lot. When I went looking, Linnea Sinclair's books were in romance, not SF.

It’s a pretty complex combination of components.

When I started writing, I knew I’d write SF because that’s what I like. But I wanted to add a bit of emotion to my writing. Most SF either seemed to leave out love and sex (Asimov), or it was so understated that it almost disappeared. An example of the latter is Moon’s Serrano series. SF was pulp fiction, with an expectation that it was fast-paced action-adventure. A response to a query I sent to a publisher around 2008 reinforced that belief. “Well written, but needs more action.” So I added more action. Still no cigar.

Okay, what about science fiction romance? Ah, but most SFR books are in the romance section. This has an advantage in one way, because romance sales are way, way more than SF. But it seems only a small subset of romance readers will read SF. Moreover, the expectation for the romance genre is that the romance is the core of the book. No romance, no story. I can honestly say that not one of my books fits that definition. Of them all, the Iron Admiral duo come closest and even with those two I had to do some serious tweaking for my editor to agree it had earned a romance tag.

We are told that sticking to one genre when writing is a good idea. And it makes sense. With that in mind, I resolved to write SFR, albeit with less emphasis on the romance.

What’s the outcome? Well, if you’re looking for a fast-paced, action-packed read with a complex plot – come on in, sit right down. Would you like to call that pulp fiction? Sure. Will there be some emotional elements, some sex? Sure. Love is a powerful emotion, sex is a fundamental driving force. You’ll find those things in everything I write. Do I do my research? You bet I do. I try to make my science sound, my history correct, my settings convincing. I suppose, when it comes right down to it, I’d prefer to see my books in the science fiction section. Both they, and I, feel more comfortable there - but SF is still not comfortable with soppy emotion. Just as well I don't have to pay a mortgage with my earnings.

FIVE THINGS I GOTTA HAVE IN ANY SFR STORY

Room for all, but you have to have an FTL drive and capable pilot.

Science fiction romance is a big spaceport. We have berths for all kinds of vehicles from space operas set in the wide galaxy to hearth-and-homes set here on Earth, mad scientists to alien slavers, utopias to dystopias, cyborgs to purple people-eaters. There’s no wonder we have such trouble defining who we are, what it is we’re writing and who we hope will read it. (If you are a member of the Science Fiction Romance Brigade and follow the Brigade on Facebook, you know we’ve been rehashing these old questions of definition again lately.)

Writers of paranormal romance have no trouble saying their stories must have an element of the supernatural along with a happy ending for the hero and heroine. Likewise, historical romance writers will gladly tell you one of their novels had better have an historical setting and an HEA. But if you had five SFR writers in a room, you would undoubtedly get 25 different answers to the question of what makes for a good SFR story.

Let me start a no-doubt rousing discussion by offering the five things I MUST have in any science fiction romance story to keep me happily reading.

--A hero and a heroine who are equals. A story may be written from anyone’s point of view—the hero’s, the heroine’s, even someone else’s—but in a romance, the hero and the heroine should find a balance in the story. If the heroine is constantly getting into trouble only to have the hero rescue her, or, conversely, is undertaking all the action only to have the hero hanging out waiting to, ahem, service her, then things are out of balance. From a writer’s perspective that often (but not always) means you have to write from both POVs, which makes things harder, but provides more balance in the story. No matter who tells the story, both partners should have talents, skills and qualities that come to bear on the external problems they face.

--A Happy Ever After or Happy For Now ending. This is my Number One requirement for a successful science fiction romance. And, in fact, I want the whole romantic arc: Boy meets Girl (or Boy or Alien Being, your choice), Boy Gets Girl, Boy Loses Girl, Boy Gets Girl Back, Happy Ever After. Within that larger structure there are other well-defined moments: the meet, the declaration, the black moment, resolution. Romance readers (and I’m one of them) have been trained through years of reading experience to recognize those signposts on the road to true love. If they don’t see them, they grow, first, anxious, then frustrated. Deny them the HEA and you have a riot on your hands. This was supposed to be a romance, wasn’t it? What the . . .!  If, for some reason, you can’t bring yourself to write that happy ending, then please don’t market your story as a romance. It’s a story with romantic elements, or a love story set in the future or a friends-with-benefits-in-space story, but, by definition it is not a romance. Save your book being thrown across the room when a romance reader gets to the end and finds the lovers don’t end up together, as I recently did with an otherwise excellent book marketed as SFR.

--A great central idea or theme. This is the key to the SF part of SFR. To me, memorable science fiction always starts with an idea, something simple, yet so evocative it fires the imagination: terraforming Mars; alternate universes; sentient ships; interstellar slavers vs. an organization of abolitionists. This idea can be tied to a central theme—love as a unifying or healing force, for example—to give it even more narrative power. Without the Big Idea, however, or at least an interesting concept, a “science fiction” story is simply one set in the future, or in space, or with aliens. It’s a “futuristic” novel—not a bad thing, just a different thing, with a different marketing angle.

--Convincing, but judicious, worldbuilding. Nothing is more fun than being immersed in a totally new world of an author’s creation, being swept away by a sense of an “alternate reality.” But a little description goes a long way, especially in SFR. I appreciate knowing that we used an ion drive to get here, but the details of how it works are of no interest to me. Worldbuilding details are like spices in cooking. Not enough and the dish is bland; too much and it’s inedible. The amount of worldbuilding detail has an impact on marketing, too, and relates to the expectations of the reading audience. A futuristic novel would have much less detail (and a less demanding audience); a straight science fiction novel would have a LOT of detail (for a very demanding audience). An SFR novel, for me, would provide a balanced taste of the author’s world.

--And, last but by no means least, a compelling tale. Make it fresh. If it’s complex, find a way to make it easy to follow. Make it surprising and emotional and grip-me-by-the-throat thrilling! I read a lot. I’m not the only one. I will skip the stories whose blurbs promise nothing more than yet another “she was stolen . . . and now she must choose . . . ,” but I hate it when I find myself bored in the middle of a story with a promising premise. Use all your writer’s tricks to keep me reading—pacing, snappy dialogue, varied sentence structure, great characters, an unexpected plot twist and, yes, a sharp turn of phrase. If I keep reading, then others will, too.

Of course, all of these must-haves assumes the author already has the basics of good writing well in hand. Did I say this was easy? No, and it shouldn’t be. Not everyone has what it takes to rise above the sea of competition out there and be truly exceptional. But our genre is no longer in its infancy. It’s time for us to grow beyond baby steps and take bigger strides. We’ve been playing in our own little yard long enough. To do that we need the confidence of knowing who and what we are.

Cheers,

Donna

AUTHENTIC SETTINGS A CHALLENGE IN SFR

Hard to get a "real feel" for a place you can't get to.

One of the huge advantages of writing the kind of “hearth and home” science fiction romance I do is that I can send my hero and heroine to real places here on Earth.  That “grounds” my settings in a way that is impossible to do when I put them on a spaceship or alien planet.  I work hard to give my alien settings substance, but there’s just nothing like actually being there to give a scene authenticity.

I envy the RWA Kiss of Death (romantic suspense) chapter members their field trips at the national conference.  They always visit the coolest places in search of gritty realism for their novels—FBI headquarters, forensic labs, police shooting ranges.  Fellow 2012 Golden Heart® Firebird Heather Ashby, who writes military romance, is a U.S. Navy vet herself and still finds her way onto every ship she can to keep a sense of place.  Some people live in small towns—and write about small towns.  Some people know everything there is to know about New York City, and their novels reflect that intimate knowledge of the streets, back alleys and sky-high buildings of that city.

Those of us who write SFR tend to be science and space geeks from early childhood.  We seek out any opportunity, slim though it may be, to stand close to something, uh, space-y.  Field trips to an observatory, to the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum or, if we’re lucky, to see a launch at Cape Canaveral bring squeals of delight.  But you have to admit, we have greater challenges finding a way to immerse ourselves in setting details for planets that exist only in our minds.

That’s why, in a way, I “cheat” by setting parts of my stories here on Earth.  (That’s true of the first two of my Interstellar Rescue series, at least.  The third book, Fools Rush In, is set entirely in space.)  It helps me as a writer, but I think it also helps the reader relate to the story.  If some of the places are familiar, then a reader new to SFR might have an easier time accepting the introduction of more alien places and ideas.  Of course, my ulterior motive is to hook these new readers and draw them in.  If they like the first two books in my series, then I’m hoping they’ll follow me into the more alien territory of the third book.

Meanwhile, outside forces are working independently to help me out.  Recently I discovered a website devoted to the history and culture of towns and counties along U.S. 219 through the Appalachians of West Virginia and southern Maryland (traveling219.com).  That highway is the back road my hero and heroine Ethan and Asia are forced to take to avoid the black ops kidnappers who are searching for them in Unchained Memory.  Now you can click on the link, and follow the route, learning about the history of the area as you read about places like Marlinton, where my lovers are holed up in a motel, or Elkins, toward the end of the route.

As my characters continue north, they enter the Adirondacks, specifically headed for a place called Big Moose Lake.  Yes, it really exists.  I’ve been there, as part of a road trip I took to follow their route.  I stayed at a bed and breakfast on the lake (in the book, they stay at his family lake house), in an area known for summer vacation homes. 

I had come up with both the route north and the location of the lake house simply by looking at a map.  I knew West Virginia, having family in the area, but the Adirondacks were new to me.  All I had to go on there was a long-ago trip to my husband’s family place in upstate New York.  Luckily I have a good mind for the details of setting and an even better imagination for using them.  When I got to Big Moose, it was as if I’d been there before.  All I can hope now is that my readers feel the same way.

The journey for Ethan and Asia begins in Nashville, Tennessee, where I grew up and still have both friends and roots.  Nashville is the starting place for the hero and heroine in my second novel, Trouble in Mind, too.  It just goes to show that even if we’re writing science fiction romance about aliens and spaceships and faraway planets, we’re still grounded in our own experience.  It helps if we can make that experience as rich and real for our readers as possible.

Cheers, Donna