Posts made in September, 2012

• Does Sex Matter?

  Sex and Feelings; It's in every genre. How are the elements of Romance used in Science Fiction and Fantasy?

  Sex. Many feel it simply has no place in fantasy, and when they find it there, it’s just like the old Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup commercial – hey! You got sex in my story! – but without the happy resolution. It all depends on the story being told. A person can write a rip-roaring tale of heroes caught in romantic adventures without having to find a way to describe bodies bumping. Others may differ.

  Does sex matter? Sex is part of most of our lives, and certainly not an unimportant one. Our government sees fit to legislate where it can and cannot occur, and what percentage of nipple can appear on our television screens. It’s codified, controlled, and explosively popular: sex propelled Fifty Shades of Grey to the bestseller list and earns the pornography industry $14 billion a year. I would say yes. Sex matters.

  There are many ways to talk about sex in books. One is the craft of the actual scenes which I suspect would be boring to read about. Another is the purpose of sex in the book – what it is meant to convey. Yet another is the societal overtones of that sex, from unconscious Puritanism and sexism to post-colonial biases.

  So where does one begin to unravel sex in our literature? Certainly the temptation is to leave it be. Art is not exactly meant to make sense of our lives – only ask questions or find beauty in it. The great mystery of sex – what it means to each of us and to the characters and world of a book – is only one of a great many riddles in any good story. And yet there persists the worry that something harmful could be there, something twisted, that begs to be opened and put into the sunlight. (more…)

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• Yay Sex!

  Sex and Feelings; It's in every genre. How are the elements of Romance used in Science Fiction and Fantasy?
  

  Katy Stauber

  Judging from the number of people that have asked me to please write some Battlestar Galactica slash fic, I’d say we need more good sex in ssfy.  The operative word there is good.  Sex-positive sex.  Happy enthusiastic mutually-orgasmic sex between two consenting characters that have been smoldering at each other in an very intelligent, witty way for over a hundred pages (but not more than two hundred, that’s just cruel to the reader).

  

  Yes, I know they did it in BSG, but about 2 seasons after I stopped caring.

  The fact that there is so much fan fic and slash fic is a prime indication that people want to hear more sexually explicit content, so much so that if you don’t write it into the book, the fans will make up their own stories out of shear frustration.

  Yes, I’m throwing around the word slash like I had any idea what that meant last week.  There is apparently a whole world of fan fiction, 90% of which is erotic in nature.  Slash fiction is a subset of the erotic fan fiction that features graphic homoeroticism between characters of popular sffy movies, books and television shows.  (Think Spock and Captain Kirk or Buffy and Willow getting it on.) How did I find out about slash?  I went to Bedpost Confessions, this monthly raunchy poetry slam thing featuring “salacious stories and enticing entertainments” in most hipstery part of Austin.  There I heard two lovely ladies in matching Star Trek minis explain slash fic, complete with a very naughty Powerpoint presentation.  Learn something new every day.  That’s my motto. (more…)

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• Different Strokes

  Uncategorized

  What purpose does sex serve in genre fiction?

  Hmmm. In this instance, I don’t think there’s any reason to separate genre fiction from the rest of the literary crowd. The question should just be, ‘What purpose does sex serve in fiction?’ And as far as I can see, sex is like any other human thing you can write about. It’s purpose is to serve the author’s intent.

  If you’re writing pornography, it serves to titillate. If you’re writing comedy, you can make people laugh with it. If you’re writing to horrify you can make it repelling and foul. If you’re focusing on characters, you can make it reveal hidden character flaws and the emotions between people, whether happy, sad, tortured or awkward. Sex in castles or sex in space ships, sex between vampires or sex in VR, no matter how outré or abstract you make the trappings, is still going to be sex, and is still going to be freighted with the same emotional and cultural weight – or lack thereof – as it is in contemporary fiction. (more…)

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• One of These Things Is Just Like The Other

  Uncategorized

  This week’s topic is “Sex in genre fiction”…and I’ve been staring at the computer screen for ages now, trying to think of anything useful I can say.  See, as a reader, I don’t care how much sex is in a book.  I’ve read and enjoyed everything from books without even a single kiss to books featuring characters with the libidos of hormone-crazed bunnies.  It’s like everything else in writing – if it makes sense for the characters and style of story, then it works.

  Okay, wait.  I do have one thing to say. I’m not a fan of repetitive, drawn-out sex scenes that appear to exist purely to titillate the reader.  To me, sex scenes are no different than any other kind of scene: they need to pull their weight by either advancing plot or deepening character development.  And hey, what better way to learn about a character than seeing how they act and think in moments of intimacy?  But I want to learn something new every time, not see the same thing over and over again.  I gave up on Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake novels for this reason – seemed to me that as the series went on,  the sex scenes took over the books until the pacing and plot completely bogged down, without giving us any deeper insight into Anita or the other characters. (more…)

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• Tuned to the Nike Channel

  Lessons Learned
  

  G.J. Koch...is NOT procrastinating...she swears...

  I don’t buy into the idea of writer’s block. I do, however, buy into the idea that outside and internal influences can and will affect anyone and everyone, including writers. Probably especially writers. Writers seem to live to be distracted. Oh, not ME of course — hey, is that a hummingbird outside my window? Where’s my camera? — but others tell me they get distracted all the time.

  Among the many things that can cause “writer’s block” are work and family challenges, boredom with life or whatever it is you’re working on or both, feeling overstressed or overtired, and false pressure to make every word on the page shine.

  So, what do you do when you feel frozen and the words won’t come?

  There are a lot of techniques I use. I switch up the music I’m listening to until I find the right band or song to rev me again. I watch a movie or TV show I love and analyze what they’re doing in the various scenes. I break down and walk my dogs. (Hey, exercise and happy dogs are a guaranteed outcome on this one.) I switch off from the project I’m working on, even if it’s on deadline, and work on something else for a while, until I feel like the words are flowing again.

  But sometimes, none of that works.

  So, what then? Especially when a deadline looms, truly, what THEN? (more…)

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• To Be Finished, Rather than Perfect

  Creativity

  I rarely have a problem coming up with ideas. In fact, my problem is too many ideas. Every news story and history book has me sitting there saying, “what if …” Right now I’ve got beehive mountains, steamboats, a detailed image of a sociopath, and a fifteenth-century Florence -style government in my head. Don’t even ask.

  Even as a Game Master for our table-top roleplaying crew, I come up with dozens of side plots, distracting the players from the Real Villain and doing the opposite of railroading the plot. In a game, all of those can serve as herrings and I don’t have to make them matter; in writing, I have to find a way to bring it all together.

  The result: a sick feeling that makes me not even want to sit in front of the computer. Deleting whole storylines, writing half of a chapter and then realizing it’s not going to contribute anything, eliminating whole characters from the tapestry of the story – that’s all part of writing, and especially for me.  Add to that I’m somewhat of a perfectionist when I know that I cannot make a book perfect.

  So what I will address is: How do I find a way to sit in front of the computer and straighten out my tangled mess? (more…)

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• Learning To Juggle

  Creativity

  Last night, I was sitting around with The Spouse watching Romantics Anonymous, an adorably uncomfortable French flick.

  

  Mr. Savidge Reads (and juggles)

  After it was done, we were talking about  the movie and tried to work up the enthusiasm to design a chicken coop for these hypothetical chickens we want to keep in the backyard.  And that’s when it hit me – the ending for this novella about clones I’ve been working on  was wrong. I’d been avoiding finishing it for two weeks because… I don’t know why.  I just couldn’t write the ending.  Last night I realized that I didn’t want to write it because I had it all wrong.  I know now how to write it to have a much more satisfying conclusion than the one I originally envisioned.  After I get done with this post, I’m going to pound that sucker out on my lunch break.  Victory is mine!

  Sometimes, you are stalled for a reason.  Maybe with lots of practice and years of experience, stalls are less frequent and less frustrating, but I’ve been at this for a few years now and stalls still happen, I just freak out about them less.  Personally, I think that if you can’t find the words to tell this story right now, that’s the universe giving you a sign.  So you should take the time to make sure the story is good and not just finished.  So here’s a list of stuff I do when the muse has left the building.

  Be your hero. Look, who are we fooling?  We don’t write crazy stories because we love hanging around in our pajamas all day describing other people having fantastically cool lives (Although that is pretty boss.).  We write because we want to be bloody awesome superheroes, cape and boots and all.  So pick one of the bleeding edge spiffy things you want your characters to do and do it.  I learned to sail this summer.   It was awesome.  Build a ray gun.  Shoot a shotgun.  Crash a debutante ball.  Solve a crime.  It will give you greater insight into your characters and explaining something from a point of experience always adds depth to a book.  (more…)

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• Blockbusting

  Creativity

  Grrr.

  What I really need is some inspiration for this post…

  *closes eyes, clenches jaw, rubs temples, murmurs mantra*

  Anything? No? Nothing? Oh well then, here goes anyway.

  So, what do I do when I hit a brick wall with an idea or a scene and I can’t go forward? How do I find inspiration? Well, I’ll tell you what doesn’t work, no matter how many times I’ve tried it – going on the internet and surfing aimlessly. I might tell myself that I’m subconsciously working on the problem while I’m looking at cat videos or reading an I09 post about Victorian Avengers cos-play, but all I’m really doing is avoiding the problem. What actually works, at least for me, is making the idea concrete, which I do in a couple different ways… (more…)

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• Need Inspiration? Expand Your Horizons

  Creativity
  

  The Tainted City on the shelf at B&N

  Before getting to this week’s actual topic, I’m sorry, I must squee: look what I saw in my local Barnes & Noble yesterday!  That’s right, The Tainted City, sitting pretty on the new release shelf (2 weeks in advance of the official release date, no less!).  This might be my 2nd novel, but damn, that first glimpse of the book in an actual store is just as incredible a moment as it was with my first.  (Seeing the book pop up “in stock” on Amazon just doesn’t give the same visceral thrill. It’s too abstract – doesn’t feel real, somehow.  Not like seeing your book right there in the flesh (so to speak!).)

  And better yet, I read the first review of the book from someone who was a fan of The Whitefire Crossing - and the reviewer loved The Tainted City, said it surpassed all their expectations.  Oh gosh, if I could’ve, I would’ve leaped through my computer and given the reviewer a hug (maybe even sobbing incoherently in the bargain, with a mix of relief and delight!).  Perhaps there are authors out there who never worry over the idea of readers being disappointed by their second novel.  I was not one of them. I mean, yes, *I* love The Tainted City…but would anyone else?  Now I’ve got an answer, and it’s one that puts an ear-to-ear grin on my face.  (Granted, maybe other reviewers will feel differently.  But that’s okay – so long as there’s one person who liked both Whitefire and Tainted City, that’s all I need to feel good.  No, better than good. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.)

  Okay, shutting up now about Tainted City, I promise.  On to what I’m supposed to be talking about: Finding Inspiration When Your Well Is Dry.  (more…)

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• Anthologies, My Lack of

  Uncategorized

  So here’s the thing. Today I’m supposed to write about anthologies, but that will be difficult. Before I was published, short stories were not long enough for me. I liked to sink my teeth into a book and have an immersive experience. The longer the better, I thought. After being published, dealing with deadlines, copy edits, and proofs – always a new deadline on the horizon – short stories started to sound a lot more appealing. I found Alice Munro’s Too Much Happiness in my mother’s house and found each story just the right length. Not so long that I was distracted from writing, and not so brief that I felt dissatisfied.

  Short stories are a marvel. There can’t be anything there that does not belong. A streamlined plot and quick character development and worldbuilding turn each one into a perfectly constructed bite. Unfortunately years of door-stopper book procurement have left me lacking the shorter pieces SF-wise, except for two anthologies. More on this later. (more…)

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