Write the story that's in your Heart

Ever since Chris Gerwel's post about why Science Fiction Romance is a niche before its time, there's been a lot of reaction to the topic. Heather Massey posted her response at The Galaxy Express, Misa Buckley and Greta van der Rol both posted about whether the science in sfr needs to be accurate (or as accurate as possible based on current knowledge and theories). Donna Frelick posted about the need to make the romance believable. Rinelle Grey posted about perhaps diluting the SF elements to make it more accessible to the non-SF loving audience.

And you know what? I started to get a bit frustrated. Okay, first up I make no secret of the fact that I fell into the genre by mistake, or perhaps even blindly. I'd never thought of myself as a romance writer (still tentative on that right now) but as a writer of scifi, even if I do keep my tech light and focus on character driven stories. I wrote and marketed Keir as straight scifi, and it took several people hammering me over the head with "this is a ROMANCE" before I finally opened my eyes to the fact my two MCs had pulled a fast one on me by getting all smoochy. And hey presto - as soon as I sold it as a science fiction romance, I got a contract. So. I AM a science fiction romance author despite my occasional identity crisis over it. The romance is important, and while I don't think it has to be the whole of the story, it should be an important enough part that removing it will drastically alter the story (see Donna's post here).

Second, yes, the science is important. I have to confess I keep my tech light because I don't want some science geek trashing my work if I make an error, but also because a) while I like technology I don't always want every detail in a story, pulling me out and slowing it down, as a reader AND a writer, and b) the characters don't necessarily need to know how a spaceship or AI works in order to use it, much like the average person couldn't tell you how a car or a smartphone works. We just accept the technology we use without having a clue how much of it actually performs the magic. That's not to say I don't read heavy tech scifi - two of my current favourite scifi authors write a lot of tech into their work, and I'm working on increasing mine. It comes down to this - if you don't mind some science nerd ranting at you for breaking Newton's Third Law of Motion, go ahead and write (see Misa Buckley's post here). Otherwise research it. Just because something is theoretically impossible now doesn't mean you can't have it in YOUR universe. Not when scientists are actually working on invisibility cloaks, teleport devices and FTL drives that really WERE total science fiction a few years back. Even things rated as impossible now could be explained away if you can find a logical reason (alien intervention, discovery of a new element etc). Just remember that a lot of things we see on the movies aren't always based on scientific fact (see Greta van der Rol's post for that here.)

Thirdly, if you cut or dilute the SF and/or romance elements, is it still SFR? TBH, I think the SF elements of mine are light enough already by choice, not to make myself more marketable. I have had readers who say 'I don't usually read science fiction but...' so perhaps this works.  But it was never a deliberate intention. Not a marketing ploy or a game plan. Question is, should we really make such major changes to the genre itself to attract readers, because if we do, surely it's no longer the same genre? And I like writing scifi romance. I'd love to attract more to the genre, but if we change it significantly to attract readers, then we're no longer gaining fans to sfr. We may even be creating yet another subgenre.

To give you an example of some of the problems we face marketing scifi romance, I'd like to direct you to the comments on this post here. I was asked to take part in the A to Z challenge by submitting a post about Keir for the letter K. I've pulled out some of the comments particularly.

"One for the ladies." (well, I've had guys read and rate it too, but that again is a generalisation over the gender for romance readers)

"I’ve never really been into scifi and I think it’s just because I never tried it. I do need to branch out from my typical urban fantasy or contemporary genre that I tend to read and write. From what you post, it seems interesting and a good read. I can be a romance fan but it’s got to be more than strictly romance or else I may lose interest." (so, how do we persuade them to give scifi a chance?)
 
"I’m a scifi fan, for sure, and I enjoy scifi books with love stories, but I’m not sure I’ve ever bought a scifi romance novel." (so, a different issue - likes the scifi, but doesn't seem to know the subgenre existed)

These comments might seem disheartening, but in amongst them I found some hope for our genre. Like these -

"Sounds like a good ‘un – I’ve not actually heard of this book, so must give it a read. I have found for me that there has been a natural progression from reading urban fantasy to sci-fi books. Perhaps it has something to do with the amount of world building needed to pull it off?" (a natural progression?! Excellent! So how do we encourage that progression?)

"I haven’t read too many Sci-Fis but have been known to indulge in a romance every now and then. Could be something to check out!" (so a romance reader who might be persuaded to try sfr)

"Neither a hard core sci-fi nor lovey dovey kind of romance fan. But the combo??" (not sure if that means they're interested or not, but it seems the idea of the merger might attract them more than it being one or the other)

"My brain cannot process the phrase “sci-fi romance” and I really can’t figure out why. I like paranormal romances because they’re usually pretty action heavy and you’d think sci-fi ones would be, too. So why the mental block? No idea. Maybe I should give it a try just to challenge my preconceived notions." (this seems the key comment to me. A paranormal romance fan who struggles with the idea of scifi romance, but can't figure out why. To me, this is the most frustrating.)
 
It seems to me to sum up one point in particular. It's getting readers to TRY scifi romance. But the secret lies in how do we do that? Could we all find a paranormal or urban fantasy romance that matches our scifi romance titles, as Heather Massey did with a fan of The Host by recommending Ghost Planet? Can we draw the fans from one to the other without them baulking at the whole idea of 'scifi'? The idea kind of reminds me of Sharon's concept in Ghost Planet. Can we pair up a paranormal fan to a similar SF?Maybe we could find a group of PNR fans/readers/bloggers/book club members willing to read a few sfr titles, and share them if they enjoyed them. Maybe we just need more vampires in space like Nina Croft's recent Break Out? Maybe we need a new slogan - Give Skiffy Rommers A Go!

I really don't know. I don't read a lot of paranormal or urban fantasy, so the chances of me finding something comparable to Keir for example are small. And even then, I have doubts. Heather posted about how The Host hasn't had the impact that the Twilight films did, despite being written by the same author. I found myself thinking of the huge fanbase for Harry Potter, and yet the Percy Jackson film (which, to me, comes across as a similar kind of theme/story) hasn't taken off in quite the same way. So maybe even drawing parallels between popular PNR titles and SFR ones won't cut it. I really don't know.

For me, at the end of the day there's only one rule I really believe in when it comes to writing, and one that I will never break.

WRITE THE STORY THAT'S IN YOUR HEART.

It's the only thing I can be sure of. I'd love to be popular - I'd even love to be making a living out of this, maybe a career. But I can't make myself something I'm not. I can work on improving my writing, expanding my fan base and backlist. I can work on my marketing and find new ways to promote. But none of that will mean anything if I don't write what I love, and love what I write.

So how can we draw in more readers and expand our appeal? Keep writing. Keep writing excellent stories whether they be tech light or heavy duty science, romantic elements to hot erotica, from popular tropes to breaking all the rules. The more titles we have out there and in a variety of flavours, the better the chance we have of a few people picking them up and passing them on, even the ones who don't normally read SF. That's my thought anyway.

There are days I struggle with what and how I write, whether I'm doing the 'right' things. But what I do know is this. My name is Pippa Jay, and I'm an author of science fiction with a romantic soul.

Pippa's Journal

What's happened -
I'm delighted to announce that Terms & Conditions Apply came 2nd in the Gulf Coast RWA Chapter Silken Sands Self-Published Star Award in the short story category. This is the first win for my sfr short, so I'm chuffed! My second short story submission - Flaming Angel - went off to Champagne for their in-house anthology call, and I'm trying to finish a third for the Sword and Laser anthology, which Liana posted about on the Brigade's main blog. The deadline for that is May 15th. In the meantime I'm waiting to hear about my submission of Tethered.

What's coming -
The tour for Gethyon's release in June is now official, and you can find details here. I'll be posting about the SFR Brigade's 2nd annual blog hop very shortly, scheduled for the end of June as well - 21st-25th. In the meantime, I have Diane Dooley sharing her favourite covers on my blog tomorrow, and I'm still looking for more participants for this for May onwards please! All I need is your five fave covers and why you like them, plus a cover of your own, bio and links.

Events
Right now there's a vote going on over at the SFR Brigade's main blog on backgrounds and banners for the revamp. Go vote!

Ping Pong
Dear co-bloggers - sorry for my absence!

Laurie - loved the post on what makes a hero, and on the unpronounceable names. Time and time again I've heard that complaint about scifi stories (although I've seen it for fantasy and paranormal books too, so scifi writers aren't the only sinners). Anyone who's read Tolkien will have been trying to twist their tongues around a lot of the elven names.

Donna - your post on the trouble with tech made me chuckle. Right now I'm blogging via my phone due to the untimely death of my computer - what fun! Turns out it might just be down to clogged vents. And great work on keeping those film reviews coming.

Sharon - still thinking of you!

What Makes a Great Hero?

I recently finished the second book in Michael R. Hick's IN HER NAME series, CONFEDERATION, and as expected, I loved it. It was better than the first and it did deliver on the promise it made in the first few pages. But over the course of reading the story, it transformed into something more than just a good read. I became deeply and sympathetically connected to the hero, Reza Gard.

I even tweeted that I hadn't found such a compelling hero since Sgt. Terry Myell, who is the hero of one of my favorite SFR novels of all time, Sandra McDonald's THE OUTBACK STARS and sequels THE STARS DOWN UNDER and THE STARS BLUE YONDER.

But these heroes are two very different people.

Sgt. Terry Myell is just your everyday working soldier who gets caught in extraordinary circumstances. He's not a superhuman, he's just your rank and file G.I. Joe. He's not even sure he wants to continue in the military. Falsely accused of rape, bullied by several of his peers, and looked upon with suspicion by his superiors, his career has become a living hell. And his growing feelings for his new commanding officer -- a huge taboo -- only takes his life from bad to worse.

But when Terry becomes caught up in the deadly conspiracy that haunts the woman he loves -- facing the same fate that destroyed her last vessel along with most of its crew -- he proves he is anything but an ordinary soldier.

Reza Gard is a very different hero. Kidnapped by an alien culture that is systematically wiping out the human race, he's been transformed into something that may be more than human. He is, in fact, the only human being that has ever survived at the hands of the deadly Kreelan and his sudden appearance in a remote human outpost is something no one--including Reza--can explain. To those in power, this presents a dilemma. Reza Gard is either an unique opportunity who should be protected or a dangerous enigma who must be destroyed.

At the heart of Reza's dilemma is a profound contradiction--in his heart he will always love and serve the Kreelan Empire, but he refuses to take part in killing his own kind--and this contradiction has banished him forever from the home--and the one--he loves.

In time, Reza builds a new life as part of human society and returns to what he has been trained to be--a formidable warrior. He enlists as a Marine. Eventually promoted to captain, he gains both a loyal group of friends and the contempt of a deadly enemy who believe the only safe Reza is a dead Reza.

But being the product of two civilizations who are on a collision course ultimately will require him to make an impossible choice.

So these two extraordinary characters got me pondering....what makes up a great hero? Why did these two stand out in my mind moreso than the heroes of other stories I've read? What did they have in common that hooked me? What was it at the very core of their characters that spoke to me? This is what I came up with.

A Great Hero Must...

Have Honor
Neither of the referenced heroes are perfect. Terry is a down-on-his-luck grunt who is sometimes a little too accepting of his fate. Reza can be stubborn and uncooperative to a fault. Yet at the heart of each of these men is a strong sense of honor and duty, a loyalty to certain principles that define their lives. I think this applies to any hero, no matter his vocation. Even thieves and pirates live by a code of honor.

Go Above and Beyond (But Never Walk with a Swagger)
A great hero always rises to a challenge but he doesn't see it as an act of heroism. He simply does what needs to be done, no matter the personal cost. He never boasts about what a great job he did, and never gets cocky about how well he performed his duty.

Endure Torture
A great hero must be tempered by personal loss and trial by fire. He must maintain. He must survive. He must overcome disappointment, despair and hopelessness and dig deep for courage even when he's left twisting in the wind. He may be tempted to give up or give in, he may even spend a few moments standing on that proverbial narrow ledge. But he will not jump.

Have Something He Desperately Wants But Can't Have
A hero must strive. He must always stretch for that golden ring that he knows is just out of his reach, and endlessly stagger through the burning sands toward the cool oasis only to have it disappear before his eyes. How he deals with his inner and/or out struggle is what defines his true quality and makes him worth cheering for.

Not everyone is going to agree with my list of qualities and that's totally okay. Characters are not one size fits all. Different heroes appeal--or don't appeal--to those mystical elements that strike a chord in each of us.

So now it's your turn. Tell me what makes a compelling hero in your universe? Who is your favorite hero (or heroes) in fiction?

CRASHING THE PARTY: WOMEN IN SF AND FANTASY MONTH!

In this week’s post, I shamelessly crash the party started by Kristen over at her blog Fantasy Café  (www.fantasybookcafe.com) and encourage you all to join her in declaring April Women in Science Fiction and Fantasy Month.  A post on Heather Massey’s The Galaxy Express blog (www.thegalaxyexpress.net) led me to the Fantasy Café, where I discovered a wealth of fascinating stuff, including guest blogs from authors Elisabeth Bear, Carol Berg and, hold on to your space helmets, Lois McMaster Bujold!!    Breathe, space cadets, just breathe!

You also have a chance to add to the Big, Giant List of Fantasy and Sci Fi Books by Women being compiled on the blog site.  We can make sure some SFR titles get on that list!

My own post will be correspondingly short today so you can check out the goodies on Kristen’s site.  (I know when I’m outclassed!)  I do have a few personal notes to add, though.

If I had to tally the greatest female Science Fiction and Fantasy authors of all time, Ursula K. LeGuin would top my list.  Her Rocannon’s World (1966), was one of the first (maybe the first) science fiction novels I ever read. I completed the Hainish trilogy with The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) for a class in college and The Dispossessed (1974) the year after I graduated.  My husband and I used a passage from the latter novel in our wedding vows.  (The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed won back-to-back Hugo and Nebula Awards in 1970 and 1975.  That’s right—both awards in the same year for the same book, two books in a row.)

After the Great Split between fantasy and science fiction in the mid-to-late-Seventies, when the kind of humanistic SF LeGuin wrote was pushed to the fringes of the genre and she turned to fantasy and children’s literature, I stopped reading.  But she certainly didn’t stop writing and has won many awards, in both SF and fantasy, since then.

The late Sixties and early Seventies, the time of the so-called New Wave of SF, could be said to be the Golden Age of women in SF.  Most of the women on my list come from that time—Zenna Henderson (The People), Marion Zimmer Bradley (the Darkover series of SF fantasy), Kate Wilhelm (Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang), James Tiptree, Jr. (“The Girl Who was Plugged In”, “Houston, Houston, Do You Read?”) and, of course, Anne McCaffery.  Octavia Butler comes from a much later era (the late 1990’s to early 21st Century), but she writes in a similar vein, focusing on the people in her stories and how they adapt to survive in their strange, future world.

It remains to be seen which of the many promising women writing today will stand the test of time to be added to the list. Lois McMaster Bujold without question.  Susan Grant and Linnea Sinclair, certainly, as pioneers in the subgenre of SFR.  Nalini Singh, Alexis Morgan, Angela Knight, Gena Showalter and others for Earth-based futuristics.  Zoe Archer and Meljean Brook as the frontrunners for romantic steampunk.  But there are so many, and only time can sort out the great from the merely good.

So, join the fun.  Who are your nominees for Greatest Women SF&F Writers of All Time?  Who do you think will be on that list in ten years?  And head on over to the Fantasy Café to add your faves to the Big Giant List of Fantasy and Sci Fi Books by Women.

Cheers, Donna

THE MOVIES LOSE THEIR BIGGEST FAN AS EBERT PASSES

Roger Ebert had my dream job.  Sit in a darkened movie theater all day long, well fortified with popcorn and soda.  Watch the magic on the flickering screen.  Go home and write about it.  Most importantly, get paid.

After more than forty-five years at it, Ebert was so good at this supposedly easy job that he had become an icon, one of the last of a generation of film critics that grew up in newspapers and magazines and really knew movies—their history, their relationship to American culture, their soaring triumphs and their crashing stupidities.  Ebert’s opinions had continued to wield influence despite the loss of his voice (and his ability to eat or drink) after cancer and complications from various surgeries took part of his neck and jaw in 2006.  But a resurgence of the cancer in recent weeks finally silenced the amiable critic.  Roger Ebert died Thursday at the age of 70.

Ebert had snagged this cushy gig as a mere youngster back in 1967, still in graduate school at the University of Chicago.  He started at the Chicago Sun-Times as a part-timer in 1966 and got the movie reviewing job a year later.  His good-natured rivalry with the reviewer at the other Chicago newspaper, Gene Siskel at the Tribune, led to a television show at the local PBS affiliate, SNEAK PREVIEWS (nationally broadcast on PBS by 1978).  The bickering critics often disagreed over films, but when they both gave a movie the “thumbs up”, you could be sure it was worth seeing.

When Siskel died in 1999, Ebert (who was a Gemini) continued his twin-reviewers formula with fellow Sun-Times writer Richard Roeper on AT THE MOVIES (in several incarnations).  Roeper has also been a frequent contributor on Ebert’s website rogerebert.com.

Starting at the very beginning of his career with a book on the history of his alma mater, the University of Illinois, Ebert was a prolific author on a variety of subjects (rice cooking?) right up until 2011, when he published his memoirs in Life Itself: a Memoir.  In 1975, he was the first journalist ever to win a Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

Ebert may have been “without question the nation’s most prominent and influential film critic", as Neil Steinberg of the Chicago Sun-Times put it, but that’s not why most of his readers followed him.  It is certainly not why I clicked on his website to decide between GANGSTER SQUAD or BROKEN CITY on any given day or whether SNITCH was worth my time at all.  I loved Roger Ebert because he loved movies, not just films.  He always said beneath it all he was "just a fan."  

Ebert wasn’t a snob.  Some things he hated (teen slasher movies, for example, and I’m with him on that one).  His favorite films were of the old classic school—LA DOLCE VITA, CITIZEN KANE.  But he was an equal-opportunity reviewer.  He watched everything and gave everything a chance.  He could surprise you by liking something snootier critics wouldn’t deign to review.  Maybe he came by that broader outlook in his youth, when he spent time writing for science fiction fanzines.  

I think the real secret to his success was that he always took the movie’s audience into consideration. His reviews were relative, not absolute.  You can’t really compare 400 BLOWS with COWBOYS AND ALIENS.  They are apples and oranges, each tasty in its own way.  You can have good oranges and sour ones.  Nice, tart pippins and rotten, nasty mushballs.  But not fair to try and sell an orange to someone who likes apples.

He explained it this way, “When you ask a friend if HELLBOY is any good, you're not asking if it's any good compared to MYSTIC RIVER, you're asking if it's any good compared to THE PUNISHER. And my answer would be, on a scale of one to four, if SUPERMAN is four, then HELLBOY is three and THE PUNISHER is two. In the same way, if AMERICAN BEAUTY gets four stars, then THE UNITED STATES OF LELAND clocks in at about two.” 

I’ll miss Roger Ebert for another reason.  In this age of ubiquitous "expertise", he knew what he was talking about.  He was a true expert in his subject.  Today, anyone can offer up an opinion on a movie.  (I oughta know—I do it often enough!) Teenagers whose movie memories extend to maybe 2005 are encouraged to review whatever they just saw on the screen on Twitter and Facebook, in blogs and on Amazon.  Most of them have no context for what they see—no history, little knowledge outside the narrow genres or subgenres they like.  Some of them have so little respect for the medium they have to be scolded to turn off their phones in the theater and refuse to believe watching a pirated movie is stealing. Forgive me if I choose to discount their opinions, as loud and numerous as they are.

There are still a few old-school film critics out there.  I suppose as long as newspapers and magazines continue to survive (which may not be long), these lonely folk will continue to sit in the dark and watch the flickering screen, then go home to write about the magic they’ve seen.  And get paid. 

Though none will do it with as much wit, grace and warmth as Roger Ebert.

And in other movie news . . .

T-Rex in 3D?  Oooh, aaaah ...EEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!

This weekend marks the return to theaters of Stephen Spielberg’s phenomenal JURASSIC PARK, this time in 3D!  Of all the films to be re-envisioned in 3D, this is one that may actually be worth the hype—and the price.  If you can tolerate the technology physically, I highly recommend making an afternoon of this film, which has never been the same on the small screen.  Who doesn’t love those wide shots of the Hawaiian coast?  The peaceful herds of dinosaurs grazing?  Sam Neill?  The plausible science (being played out as we speak!  I mean, didn’t any real scientists watch this movie????).  

As Jeff Goldblum’s Dr. Ian Malcolm says, “Oh, yeah.  ‘Oooh, ahhh’, that’s how it always starts.  Then later there’s the running and screaming.”  Which, if anyone’s still asking, is my favorite line of his.

Information for this article provided by Wikipedia and "Beloved critic Ebert dies at 70," by Caryn Rousseau, Associated Press, April 5, 2013.

Cheers

Donna