Well, not yet, exactly, lol...
My wife and I have signed up for Critters.org, a site for authors to critique each others' work. So far my first submission is not due up in the available queue till thew end of the month. Once it's up, it's status is contingent on my having done a minimum number of quality critiques of other writers' works. You need to do about one a week, though you can get away with missing about one a month. So far I'm at about 800% of my quota, not counting the short one that only counts for half credit. =o)
I love this site. Nothing helps the average person learn the way trying to teach will, and a good critique should always be about how to improve a piece, rather than just flaming what's wrong with it. I get to read stories without having to spend money on books and magazine subscriptions I don't really want, and when they aren't so good...well, the price was right. All it cost me was the time and energy to evaluate and make suggestions, which improves *my* craft. Win/win!
I even built a template, and have already started applying it to my own works.
As an amusing observation, it appears to be a loose rule of thumb that you can pick the better stories by looking to see how many critiques have already been done. A good story with flaws gets lots. Stories with very few critiques are either so good no one has any suggestions (rare, but it does happen) or bad enough that no one wants to flame it.
This site rocks. :)
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Friday, September 4, 2009
Bubbler
This is my current working name for my new Nano effort.
The story in my head is still fairly loose and fluid (*chuckle*), but the nominal character is Hydran, an air-breather on a world of people usually able to switch between air and water. His genetic counterpart, a "wheezer", is someone who can't sustain themselves breathing air alone.
Hydra is a very rich world, and an old one by Dominion standards. It was one of the early colonizations recorded, but has practically no land bodies. Colony cities were built both floating and domed on the bottom, and the population thrived on the ocean bounty. It became quickly fashionable to have one's children genetically guided into the ability to hold their breath for longer and longer, and a separate segment began to work toward actually breathing water.
Over the centuries, the latter group has dominated, and the modifications have become so common as to have practically stabilized into both the culture and the genetics of the population, such that members who can't switch back and forth between breathing air and water are considered handicapped. "Bubblers", those limited to air only, are becoming rarer and rarer, though they still account for about 15% of new births. Wheezers are becoming more and more common, up to 10%. Even so, the 3 out of 4 people who can switch back and forth still have to go through considerable discomfort to do so, and more and more are opting for an all aquatic lifestyle, though it limits them to mostly silent forms of communication (you can't speak with your vocal chords full of water). Even those who can breathe air are finding that they are limited to several hours before they begin to experience discomfort from drying of the organs.
Kas, the title character, is the estranged teenage son of a high-ranking bureaucrat who has just been appointed to the Dominion Member Council. Because of his handicap he has been coddled and spoiled, but somewhat isolated from his family, and he feels his father is ashamed of him. His mother died during a bitter divorce when he was very small, and he's spent most of his life avoiding the company of other "bubblers". His oldest friends are synthient mecha and biopuppets, and the few Hydran friends he interacts with are overprivileged miscreants.
He is now heading with his father to the Council Station at the L3 Lagrange point of Calloway Prime, the Dominion's cultural capital. He doesn't want to go, mostly because he'll be very isolated on the ship there. Hydran ships are filled with water, so he'll be confined to special quarters, isolated again and ashamed of his handicap.
The bright side is that once there he'll be on an air-breather station; his father will be the one with special quarters, using a wet suit to keep from drying out as he interacts for long hours with other delegates.
The story in my head is still fairly loose and fluid (*chuckle*), but the nominal character is Hydran, an air-breather on a world of people usually able to switch between air and water. His genetic counterpart, a "wheezer", is someone who can't sustain themselves breathing air alone.
Hydra is a very rich world, and an old one by Dominion standards. It was one of the early colonizations recorded, but has practically no land bodies. Colony cities were built both floating and domed on the bottom, and the population thrived on the ocean bounty. It became quickly fashionable to have one's children genetically guided into the ability to hold their breath for longer and longer, and a separate segment began to work toward actually breathing water.
Over the centuries, the latter group has dominated, and the modifications have become so common as to have practically stabilized into both the culture and the genetics of the population, such that members who can't switch back and forth between breathing air and water are considered handicapped. "Bubblers", those limited to air only, are becoming rarer and rarer, though they still account for about 15% of new births. Wheezers are becoming more and more common, up to 10%. Even so, the 3 out of 4 people who can switch back and forth still have to go through considerable discomfort to do so, and more and more are opting for an all aquatic lifestyle, though it limits them to mostly silent forms of communication (you can't speak with your vocal chords full of water). Even those who can breathe air are finding that they are limited to several hours before they begin to experience discomfort from drying of the organs.
Kas, the title character, is the estranged teenage son of a high-ranking bureaucrat who has just been appointed to the Dominion Member Council. Because of his handicap he has been coddled and spoiled, but somewhat isolated from his family, and he feels his father is ashamed of him. His mother died during a bitter divorce when he was very small, and he's spent most of his life avoiding the company of other "bubblers". His oldest friends are synthient mecha and biopuppets, and the few Hydran friends he interacts with are overprivileged miscreants.
He is now heading with his father to the Council Station at the L3 Lagrange point of Calloway Prime, the Dominion's cultural capital. He doesn't want to go, mostly because he'll be very isolated on the ship there. Hydran ships are filled with water, so he'll be confined to special quarters, isolated again and ashamed of his handicap.
The bright side is that once there he'll be on an air-breather station; his father will be the one with special quarters, using a wet suit to keep from drying out as he interacts for long hours with other delegates.
Drift
Michael has now discovered you can't bet much (in big money terms) at a roulette wheel, and has been directed to the MegaBucks slot machines at the fabricated Ausus casino opened in 2019. He's pulled a $23M jackpot and been escorted to the casino's "guest house", a private club on an estate just outside the city, which has a mini-casino in it. He's juggling damage control, but has become indignant at the apparent corruption that prompted the chief of security to blithely order a guard to shoot him. His hero complex is up, and he's going to break the bank.
This allows me to get back to the roulette scene in the illicit high limit room, which he'll eventually have to flee amid a summoned tempest in the teapot.
The dialogue is improving as well.
This allows me to get back to the roulette scene in the illicit high limit room, which he'll eventually have to flee amid a summoned tempest in the teapot.
The dialogue is improving as well.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Gearing up!
 | The wheel turns! I'm still happily editing my 2008 NaNo achievement, as is my wife, and a proper edit is still going to take months more to finish before it's ready to even begin submitting to agents, but NaNoWriMo 2009 approaches! The new participant badges are already pre-released (they don't officially start till October), and here's mine! | |
We're already planning the new books, and for this one, having a bit more time to think about it, I'm going back to my primary writing ground. Expect to see descriptions and explanations of the Federal Dominion here in the not too distant future. Onward, lol! | ||
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Herding Cats
Herding cats. That's what it's like sometimes, trying to get your characters to follow the trail of breadcrumbs you've laid out for them to wade through the plot to some predetermined ending. Hell, sometimes I'd be happy if I could just predict where they're going.
The initial write of the story had to make 50k words in 30 days, so it's forgivable that it was a little contrived. Now as I refine it and make the story line less contrived, more believable and more interesting to read, the protagonists forget that there are scenes yet to write that must be set up, and they get carelessly rambunctious, and start wandering of on their own.
It's a common enough complaint, but I must say, it's funny to watch, like seeing your children scream at the cold as they jump through the sprinkler and giggle in the summer sun. They don't care; they just do it.
People say that the idea is silly, that the characters do what I make them do, and that is true enough; but the characters behave second to second, each word and action flowing smoothly from the previous scene. Unlike me, they do not know what is supposed to happen, and to drag them toward the end goal by the nose makes the story again very contrived. For them to be natural and believable, I must let them respond naturally. That makes it a little trickier to guide them where I want them to go.
It also makes it much more fun to discover that I've added pages, and in doing so managed to create a situation where the contrived pages begin to fit in smoothly.
My babies are growing up. :)
The initial write of the story had to make 50k words in 30 days, so it's forgivable that it was a little contrived. Now as I refine it and make the story line less contrived, more believable and more interesting to read, the protagonists forget that there are scenes yet to write that must be set up, and they get carelessly rambunctious, and start wandering of on their own.
It's a common enough complaint, but I must say, it's funny to watch, like seeing your children scream at the cold as they jump through the sprinkler and giggle in the summer sun. They don't care; they just do it.
People say that the idea is silly, that the characters do what I make them do, and that is true enough; but the characters behave second to second, each word and action flowing smoothly from the previous scene. Unlike me, they do not know what is supposed to happen, and to drag them toward the end goal by the nose makes the story again very contrived. For them to be natural and believable, I must let them respond naturally. That makes it a little trickier to guide them where I want them to go.
It also makes it much more fun to discover that I've added pages, and in doing so managed to create a situation where the contrived pages begin to fit in smoothly.
My babies are growing up. :)
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