Posts by Authors

• Action and Fight Scenes

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  When I begged for a topic online (I’m shit for coming up with topics) someone mentioned action and fight scenes. I’m down with that. I love writing some action and fight scenes! And it’s not even on my own day! Woot!!

  First a bit on my philosophy in employing action and fighting as a device:

  • Action and fight scenes are primarily OBSTACLES. They often aren’t even indicative of the major conflict but are there to stand in the way of the protagonist getting what s/he wants.
  • Thy often are FORESHADOWING. In a book I just finished, there is a fight scene between my antagonist and protagonist early on. That foreshadows their conflict and what is to come. It does a bunch of other things, too, actually: makes the antagonist and protagonist curious about each other and gives them a reason to resent each other. It builds tension between them. They don’t know each other and sparing puts them in conflict, even vaguely friendly conflict, right off. This doesn’t work with every character, but with my particular characters, this fight was the best way to launch their relationship.
  • Fight scenes need lots of other things happening to work as the CLIMAX. I think it’s fine to use action and fight scenes as climactic scenes, but it’s worth noting that at the end of the climax, most of the other issues had better be resolved.
  • It’s boring when your fighter is SO GOOD s/he can’t be beat. It’s not a crime for your hero to run away in the middle of the book.
  • Real fights are quick and deadly and messy, especially close fights, like with a knife, especially if your fighter is good. If a fight goes on longer than a page or two, I’d better have a damn good reason.

  Keep the fighter’s skill commiserate with their practice. Even Neo had to download the apps.

  As far as actual blocking of scenes, don’t write every blow. First, you’re probably not competent enough to describe every blow, all the feints, defensive maneuvers, shifting of weight, balance, forms, etc. (I’ve certainly never fought with a sword though I’ve seen lots of fights in the SCA and on film). But mostly, writing every blow is as boring as writing about each button when someone gets dressed. Like in sex scenes (also action scenes, btw) too much specific action kills the tension.

  That said, the specific blows and actions you do employ had better count and they had better be right. Well-placed detail lends credence and guides the reader, so get up and move. Block scenes out with someone. Use Barbies or  kids or whatever. Make sure your choreography is physically possible. Fights involve a lot of physics, especially a sword fight. If someone is outreached, they have to work out ways to work around it. If the opponent is taller or heavier, how does your protagonist defeat him or her? Everyone makes mistakes; is your fighter good enough to spot them? Or will s/he miss opportunities?

  It’s also a  good idea to get some help from a professional. I have two reference people who know fighting: one who is a swordsman and another who is a fight expert. They are my go-to when it’s time to write action and fighting. You’ll see me ask the hive mind from time to time, especially when it comes to weapons. I take it for granted that I don’t know. And if I do know, then I’m probably re-purposing an old scene without realizing it.

  I treat action scenes as learning opportunities.

  (Really, that’s how I treat all of writing.)

  (Which sounds totally pretentious, y’all. My apologies.)

  Action is…active. It’s heavy breathing, adrenalin, and roaring blood; grunts and cries; sore muscles; fear and its close cousin hate; blood and sweat. Fighting is messy and loud. Hurt and dying people scream and beg. If you cut someone’s throat from the front, there’s no escaping the blood. You’re going to taste it. When someone dies their bowels and bladder void.  The scent of too much blood and bowels makes us physically ill. Action stinks. It tastes bad. It makes even hardened warriors throw up. And if they do, or if they don’t, what does it mean to your character? I think action scenes work best when they concentrate on CHARACTER. I approach fights and action scenes with MOOD, which is driven and shown by SENSATION and REACTION, which is intrinsically linked to your character. It’s a neat little circle there…

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• Writing, er, Characters

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  Since Michael wrote about being a guy writing female characters last week, I thought I’d tackle being a woman writing male characters this week. Cuz I write a lot of them. Except, as you’ll see, the post became more about not writing female characters…

  I write lots of male characters. It gets awkward sometimes. I mean, I’m a female fantasy writer in 2013, right? Hell,  I’m supposed to see misogyny around every corner, and I’m supposed to metaphorically pump my Woman Power Fist within my fiction. Ha ha, I jest…kind of…not.  Sigh.

  Sometimes the pressure on writers, particularly female writers, in spec fic is intense. There’ve never been enough well-written female characters in fantasy, and I’m a female so I’d better damn well have some Strong Female Characters. While I’m a story-focused rather than issue-focused writer, such discussions are one of the things I love about our genre. It makes me think. (Scary. Dangerous. And worthwhile, I hope.)

  Because of the heavily male-populated book I’m working on now, my habit of writing male characters is something I’ve spent a lot of time mulling over recently. Why so many dudes? Is it because I’m accustomed to worlds, fantasy and real, where males have all the power? Do I somehow believe in some god(s)-given inequality between the sexes? Am I somehow wrong, as a woman, to not consider sexism/feminism a passionate issue? Am I gleefully naive,  blind to misogyny?

  Um, no.

  I finally worked out that for me it’s foremost a personal/personality thing. I have brothers. I have lots of male friends. I have a husband I adore. When I’m at a party, I tend to gravitate to the men rather than the women. I like hanging out with the guys. It’s not a new thing; my friends in high school were all male, probably because when I was in high school, back in the Dark Ages, more guys than girls were geeks. I fit in with them better. So when I gravitate toward writing male characters in my fiction I’m just doing the same thing I do in real life.

  And it’s not like I don’t have female characters in my books. Strong ones, actually… I don’t tend to think of male or female characters as bringing their particular gender-related experiences to the table or spend much time concentrating on gender at all.  I just “see” characters–more often than not they’re male–and I build stories and worlds around them.

  But still, the question of quantity nags. I wonder if my female characters are small enough in number to be called “token.”

  Out of curiosity, I did a quick count on my EXILE character list: out of twenty-eight named characters, ten are female. I don’t consider that too off since one of the cultures, about a third of the named characters, is blatantly sexist.

  But then, one of my unsold books have only four named female characters, and while they’re strong, they certainly are outnumbered. Why can’t my collection of “soldiers” in that story include women? Well…it could. But it’s simply not the world I built. I think it would feel forced. And frankly, while the book is about a great many things, it’s not about gender equality. All books cannot be all things to all people.

  Honestly, to date, the men do highly outnumber the women in my fiction, like it does in a lot of fiction. I can’t speak for othher writers, but for my experience, I think it might be because I feel outnumbered by men. Though humanity is divided fairly evenly, our culture, our world, our government, our genre is so male dominated it feels strange and contrived to even up the odds. And that, to me, is the real reason to write more strong female characters. It’s certainly something I’ll be thinking about in future as I people my books.

  Because really, I’d rather talk plain old genderless “Writing Strong Characters.”

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• The end of the Trifecta: Politics

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  Draken is better at politics than he thinks.

  Around the time of my first reading of Narnia, I heard something that always stuck with me: The President isn’t allowed to keep any of the gifts he’s given during his Presidency. It didn’t really make sense; at the tender age of eight I didn’t realize politics is so rife with bribery. But then the Witch gave Edward the magicked Turkish Delight, only to call in that favor later. It all clicked.

  Politics is not my favorite topic. (I like to say I can’t have a political discussion without pissing off everyone in the room…pretty much, yeah. I hates them all, Precious.) To me, politicians are not special. They simply have a keen ability to read people and use their guilt like a honed knife. By that definition, I’d guess Tyrion is one of the master politicians in fantasy today.  Half the people around him don’t get his jokes, and they’re timed so well the other half can’t do anything but fume. He knows how to make friends and destroy them before they become too dangerous. Most importantly, he always finds a way to make his personal desires coincide with what’s best for Westeros. (For the record, he’s got my vote for Winning It All.)

  As I write I tend to think less about politics and more about character motivation, though I think my stories do lean toward political plot lines. I find politics so suspicious that I don’t know if I could force a character to use politics for Good. Draken might come close, but like Tyrion, he generally has his personal goal first in his mind. (He’s not half as clever, though.) Draken considers the goodness that comes out of his political maneuverings accidental. He’s so riddled with guilt he could never see how his own gain might benefit others. And other more political characters definitely use his guilt against him, which resembles real life to an uncomfortable degree.

  Who’s your favorite political character?

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• On Religion in SFF

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  In Exile, Draken isn't on very good terms with The Seven Eyes, the gods in his world.

  We’re supposed to write about religion in the genre of SFF, meaning the use of religion as a device in books, but I’m going to take my post in another direction.

  There is an accepted prejudice in the SFF community and it’s against religion.

  Now I might be a wee sensitive, being that I am Christian. No disclaimers today, except to mention that I might not be your run-of-the-mill Christian. One of my favorite “church ladies” used to say she loved to imagine me sitting in a low-rent bar drinking whiskey and discussing Christ…Imagine?? Ha! I can’t tell you how often that’s actually happened to me with like-minded folks. He’s an odd bird and an endlessly fascinating character, to this writer’s mind.

  As a Christian and a social liberal, I never really feel the need to get all preachy. But for my purposes here, I’ll mention Christ sets a high standard for behavior which a lot of folks, believers or not, could learn from.

  I’m not wanting to call out anyone in particular. But I’ve heard statements about Christianity and Christians online, at conventions, and gatherings of writers and readers that would be offensive if it referred to any other group of people (including, oddly enough, people of other faiths). These range from calling the faithful idiots, yes–I’ve heard someone say that in person at a professional event–to blaming all war on religion. Just as many faithful are intelligent, thinking people,  religion can also be a convenient vehicle for hatred. But clearly, if there were no religion, people would find some other damn reason to kill each other. Take The Game of Thrones as a literary example.  Religion doesn’t much come into play as a motivator in GRRM’s sprawling stories and yet the hatred and killing certainly feels true to life.

  Now. It’s not like anti-Christians don’t have a leg to stand on with their criticisms. Trust me. I know. I have studied the Crusades at length and also many of the horrors Christians—true believers—have caused in His name, so I don’t need a lecture about the damage religion can cause. Don’t even get me started on the recent crimes of the Church. (Or the recent crimes of Wall Street, the government, or big business. I don’t have that kind of time.)

  My point? Prejudice goes both ways. I put forth that degrading Christians as a whole (or any group with a vocal, ugly few)  is just as bad, as prejudiced, as degrading any other social group. Most people in the industry would never accept a blatantly offensive comment about homosexuals, for example, but religion seems fair game.

  Some folks might say, Well, Bets, the difference is that Christianity is a choice… but not for this Christian, and trust me, I’ve tried. The only real choice is our behavior. Other people behaving badly and/or personal bitterness don’t excuse rudeness and hatred. We’re each in charge of ourselves. It’s time someone (and it might as well be me) stood up and called bullshit. SFF folks pride ourselves on acceptance of all people, of tolerance and mutual respect, as well as facing humanity’s struggles with acceptance in our stories. But that acceptance apparently only extends so far. It’s entirely fair to take on religion’s corruption, but do so with the same respect you’d show any other group where one of these is not like the others.

  I think we can do better as a genre, as an industry, as professionals, as people.

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• SEX

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  Now that I have your attention…

  This month we’re going to launch into a trilogy of topics unsuitable for discussion at table but perfect for the internet: sex, drugs and rock’n’roll, religion, and politics.  Since it’s going to be Valentine’s Day, it seems the perfect week to talk sex, eh?

  I’ve written some sex in my day, with three erotica books and a couple of short stories under my, er, belt. I even blended erotica with science fiction in one book. I’ve written enough sex that it feels weird now to skip over sex scenes in my fiction and I tend to check the eReader to see if I missed a page when a sex scene is shuffled by.(minor spoiler) Even when editing EXILE I realized with some suprise, having written the book before I launched into writing erotica, that the sex scene is closed door.

  I can’t imagine anyone asking me why I skipped over detailing and choreographing sex between my characters. But I had more than one reader of my “space operotica” ask me when I was going to write “real” science fiction–meaning without sex, I suppose.  I wondered at that. Could it really be considered real and honest if the sex is skipped over? It’s certainly not the whole story, and the love story is significant to the plot of that book. Sex in  SF isn’t unheard of, just often glossed over. (I haven’t read it yet, but apparently Zachary Jernigan’s book has graphic sex in it. Maybe if we’re lucky he’ll post an excerpt…)

  My point being in all this, I don’t think there’s enough sex in fiction–at least when a love story is involved as a plot or subplot.

  Including any scene that furthers the plot is essential, and it’s tough to imagine sex not furthering a plot a little. But I think there’s long been a double standard when it comes to detailing sex in fiction, especially in SF/F. A reader would no more expect a story to skip right over a battle scene or any other character-developing scene. So why skip the sex? Well, it’s intimate and makes the reader uncomfortable, right? And, you know. It’s, like, sex.  Best to pretend it’s not happening. But I want intimacy and I expect some discomfort from my fiction. I want inside the characters’ heads and hearts. That’s why I read. Sex is a great way to show that—it’s visceral, physical, and personal. It’s a great way to show characters at their most vulnerable… especially when they’re with someone they love.

  I guess at the end of the day a writer has to decide whether the sex is important enough to take up room in the story, just like any other scene. If it’s only important to know that the character had sex…if that’s enough, then sure. Close the door on the scene. I’m all for brevity. But if there’s an opportunity to learn something about the characters or further the plot during the act, then I want all the gory, glorious detail.

  What do you think? Is there enough/too much/not enough sex in SF/F?

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• Reviews

  Balance

  

  First up: EXILE IS RELEASED! It’s in book stores and available from

  wherever you like to order online.  And since this is about reviews,

  if you read it, I’d love it if you left me one around the

  internet somewhere.

  

  Whew! On to the topic at hand. Reviews.

  Disclaimer 1: I don’t write reviews. Amazon won’t let me since I’m an author, after all that sock puppet nonsense,  plus I’m too busy writing other stuff.

  Disclaimer 2: I hardly ever read reviews for books I want, either. I’ve given it up.

  Disclaimer 3:  I hate my reactions to reviews.

  I like them too much when they’re good. I pretty much  lurve my stuff. I want everybody else to lurve it too!

  Bad reviews of my stuff messes with my writing mojo. I wish it weren’t so, but writers are mostly neurotic. I’m sure I’m hardly alone in that. I am lucky because I haven’t had a lot of bad reviews; but then I haven’t had a lot of reviews at all yet. But I pretty much  lurve my stuff. I want everybody else to lurve it too!

  Stellar reviews of other people’s stuff makes me jealous. Oh so green, and not the urpy shade. Here I am in the back row:  Like me! Like me! Pleeeease like me!

  Hey, that’s my friend you’re talking about. The SF/F community is itsy bitsy. I know a lot of writers.  Most of them are really good, hardworking people. Many of them I count among my friends. So I get the same visceral, unhappy reaction when I read a bad review of a friend’s work as I would if someone badmouthed them.

  The following peeves have more to do with reviews in general, and really they’re a collection of why I no longer read reviews of others’ work. Downloading free samples is sufficient for me.

  Reviews attacking the writer. Like I said before (it bears repeating), there is a person behind every book. I hate when people flip off folks on the internet highway and drive off.

  Posting under an alias. When I first started on the internet late last century, anonymous was all the rage. But no longer. Be you. Be proud. Be nice. Even when you don’t like something you don’t have to be a jerk about it.

  The vendetta review. There’s just something disturbing about taking the time and trouble to run around to several sites posting the same negative review.

  Reviewing books you haven’t finished. This might be considered fair among reviewers, but I think if you’re going to the trouble to talk about a book, you should go to the trouble of reading the whole thing. Not all reviews claim to have not finished the book and sometimes it’s clear the reviewer didn’t.

  Mentioning other books by other authors. Stay on topic.

  Criticizing authors for things not under their control. Obviously this applies to traditionally published writers. Here’s a list of things the publisher generally controls, not the author:

  • Cover
  • Format – including font size, number of pages, chapter and scene break glyphs
  • Copy-editing
  • Release dates
  • Cost — wholesale is determined by the publisher and distributor, retail is determined by the retailer.
  • How long a book remains on shelves is generally up to the retailer, and readers.

  Spoilers. Even with an alert, spoilers annoy the hell out of me. I think it’s fine to talk about plot in general terms but leave the details to the people who want to still read the book. I think it comes off as kind of nasty, actually, because it’s like “here, I’ll tell you the whole story so you don’t have to buy it!”

  Attacking politics, religion, or character based on what you read in a novel. It’s fiction, people.  You can’t judge what a writer likes according to their fiction, and it’s not fair to judge a plot point in a novel based on your own prejudices or dislikes. At least, people should know when personal prejudice/likes/dislikes are affecting their judgment of books.

  Disliking or Liking something to ride the coattails of the work or writer. There are plenty of hipster reviewers out there: the folks who hate what everyone else loves. Ditto sycophants, especially with famous writers.

  Clicking stars without stating your case in so many words. I admit, I’ve been guilty of this in the past. But I’ve quit since I realize that this really is of no help to readers who do like to read reviews.

  Any others I should have included? Like I said, reviews aren’t really my forte. But like them or not, they are a part of the literary landscape and have been for a long time. Other readers and writers rely on them, too, so it’s important to be thoughtful about them.

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• Uncategorized

  Betsy here: I guess we’ve got no scheduled posts for this week so it’s free-for-all here at the Night Bazaar!! Woot! Next week we’ll emerge from the mayhem with a scheduled topic.

  Just got a new review for EXILE from examiner.com:

  

  Exile does an excellent job of fashioning a kingdom on the brink of implosion, as political, military, and personal factors place increasing pressure on the fragile peace that is already undermined by double agents and malignant magic. It also provides a unique conglomeration of magic, which is practiced mostly either by the enigmatic Moonlings or a race known as the Mance, who are in turns alluring and disturbing in their methods and manners.

  ~

  This post from Jim Hines speaks to our discussion on harassment at Cons. Publishing is a small world. People are watching. Behave yourselves.

  ~

  Along similar lines, lots of folks  are talking about this month’s SFWA Bulletin cover. I think it’s rockin’ cool art.

  

  Hell, she must be a good fighter. She killed that dude and look! not a scratch on her. And we’d know, wouldn’t we?

  What are your thoughts of a scantily clad, buxom swordswoman on the cover of our professional organization’s magazine? It’s okay to be torn, I guess. After all, SF/F has that tradition of scantily clad swordswomen.

  But then,  SF/F has that wee tradition of harassing scantily clad cosplayers at cons too. Does this kind of portrayal contribute to that culture?

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• Racefail 2013–Not.

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  This week we’re writing about Racefail 2013 and I have plenty to say about it from my own experience, so I’m going to leave commenting on multi-racial characters and worlds in the rest of recent Fantasy and Science Fiction to my better-informed colleagues.

  This is as good a place as any to just come out and say it: I never really thought of Draken as black when I wrote him. So when I saw John Stanko’s conception of him I said to myself, “Well, would you look at that. Draken is black.”

  When I write, I don’t see scenes play like a movie in my head, nor do I pick out  famous actors who fit my character’s look. I’m a firm believer that imagining how they look, beyond what is needed to serve the story, is best left to the reader. So I really didn’t think much about his looks, black, white, or whatever. Nice ideal, huh? It’s like I live in writer Utopia or something.

  Okay, confession time: if you hadn’t guessed by now, the thing about me being surprised that Draken is black is a wee lie. Jeremy Lassen and John consulted me on his appearance. Plus, yeah, I knew Draken has dark skin and locked braids. It says so right in the book. I was so relieved they talked to me about the cover because I have had to email a cover artist in the past with the gentle comment: “She’s not blonde and blue-eyed and quite so, um … pale.”  In that case the artist simply removed all people from the cover, which was cool, since I wasn’t into people kissing in the sky above the desolate landscape setting of my space opera anyway.

  SoI was all: Yay! Draken looks like Draken! And it was all cool…until I got this shrill fear that readers might think  I meant Something by his skin color or his dreadlocks or that the book was some sort of lo-brow Pontification On Prejudice or a Statement on the abundance of white characters peopling Euro-worlds in fantasy… Whoa! Back up the truck!

  Not that my fear is entirely unfounded. Writers have been eviscerated over race in their stories. And here I am, a short white woman writing a big, dark-skinned, bad-ass man. The question is bound to come up at some point…Why is he black? (To which I would like to snottily answer, “Why is he big? Why is he a man? Why does he have blue eyes? Why is he bowman rather than a swordsman?”)

  Except I realized I didn’t know. I had to ask myself why. I went back to the beginning and examined my development of Draken, which had nothing to do with skin color and everything to do with character.

  Draken is mixed-race because he doesn’t belong anywhere. He is always torn between his new country and his old one, between the different cultures in Akrasia, between cruelty and kindness, between what he knows and what he’s learning, even between the gods and mankind. Draken doesn’t have the luxury of indulging in prejudice. He is always teetering on the cliff between survival and death and his only rope is woven of lies. He doesn’t have the option of turning down help from anyone, even from people he really doesn’t much like or trust. He’s no Bilbo Baggins, who eventually gets to return home to the Shire. Draken has no true home and never will. So with all that, I needed a device, something simple and poignant that would keep him from ever belonging anywhere. His mixed heritage in a bigoted world became that device.

  Okay. Good enough. No statement on society intended. Move along. Nothing to see here.

  Except, a friend happened to mention to me that I write quite a few characters of color. (I’m seriously cringing. Of color? What is the proper PC term? Oh right, PC is so 2010…it’s tough to keep up.) But she was right. And once again I had to ask myself why. And again, I went back to the beginning of character-development, only not Draken’s this time but mine.

  The first boy I ever had a crush on was beautiful, black curls and coffee-hued skin and brown eyes deep and dark enough to melt a first-grader’s soul. And when I showed my class picture to my Granddaddy (God rest his soul) he asked me, “What? You like that n*****?”

  The boy abruptly and very distinctly did not look so beautiful to me anymore.

  That has always stuck with me, how we are not actually colorblind as children, but color-aware. That boy’s skin color, his curls, his physical difference from me, was the source of his beauty – until someone told me different.

  When I showed my new cover to my teenaged son and his friends, they said not a word about Draken’s skin tone. They said he was bad-ass and they especially liked the knife and why is that brand on his hand… which means, hopefully I’ve done fairly well at insulating my kids from prejudice because it is most definitely learned and sure as hell won’t be taught them by me.

  Right then. Moving on. Whew. No earth-shattering Statement here.

  Except, I grew up in Kansas City and Chicago and went to Kansas University—a big college with all sorts of people. I was one of two white people in my office in my first real job out of college. I taught in court-ordered desegregated school districts in Kansas. I had lots of friends, acquaintances, and students of all races, creeds, opinions, education levels, and lifestyles. Where I live now? Not so much. (coughcoughStepfordcough)

  I miss them—not people of color, but people of differences.

  In stories, unfortunately, race and color and prejudice are still simple character devices most people can readily identify with. So hell, maybe my bi-racial character is a Statement. And if it is, what am I saying when I created a world where prejudice thrives, where various races show open disdain for each other, where mixed-race people are considered heresy against the very gods? What does it say about me as a writer? I guess it says I’m writing what I know, and I’m writing what disappoints me most about our real world: our persistent, destructive habit of loathing the differences between us.

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• Sexual Harassment within the Genre World

  Conventions and Conferences
  

  Ugh. Sexism, misogyny, and harassment in the SF/F world. This is a biiig topic. I thought about it a lot and wondered whether I should go the “pretty females don’t count as real geeks” route, or maybe take the “SF glass ceiling” tack, or maybe even tackle the “you don’t love what I love so you don’t count…” jerkwadery. But really, I think one of the biggest, and scariest places someone can get harassed is in person, sexually, at a con. And it’s gonna happen, it has happened, more to girls than guys. There she is, a pretty cosplayer or attractive artist or whatever, enjoying the hell out of the event and then some asshole won’t let go of the notion of “claiming” her with even the strongest of nonverbal or verbal hints.

  It can be a bad problem. I’ve certainly witnessed inappropriateness of all degrees. Attendees at SF Cons often dress up, and lets face it, the majority of SF/F/Comic female characters carry a good deal of sex appeal alongside their weapons. If a woman is into such a character and can carry it off, more power to her. It’s part of the fun of cons. People go there dressed up and to get looked at. But people don’t go to Cons to get harassed, ever.

  Let’s break into a two-part definition of harassment: Action and Intent. Action is touching, pressuring (non-verbal with personal space and verbal with inappropriate hints that could make someone uncomfortable), and propositioning.  Intent is what you mean to gain from said harassment, whether it’s to make her feel objectified or simply less, to feel a surge of power over her, or if it’s to get her into bed, or even if it’s just to gain some repute from being seen in that person’s presence. (For the novices out there: all the above is wrong.)

  I admit it can look like we’re all treading a fine line at cons, even among professionals. As a writer I view myself as an entertainer. When a convention invites me to speak, I feel an obligation to be “on,” to entertain. Because I write for the public, I’m appearing as a public figure (albeit, not a very well-known one). We’d all be lying to ourselves if we denied that sometimes, not always, being a public figure in the entertainment industry involves a degree of sex appeal. I liken my job to that of actor or rock star. When women actors, for instance, walk the red carpet, they generally wear slinky dresses, yeah? Many women singers radiate sexuality from the stage, from their voices to their dancing. (A lot of guy singers do too, obviously.) If she chooses to include sexual attraction in their performance, then she’s chosen to make it part of her job as an entertainer.

  Look, sex sells, and at cons I’m selling myself and my books. I might be dressed sexy for whatever reason–maybe for general public attention, maybe to get my husband’s attention, maybe because it’s part of my persona, maybe cuz I think whatever character I’m dressed up is bad-ass–but clothes or lack thereof on my part simply does not equal “I want you to try your best to get into bed with me.” Like, ever. Any guy (or really, girl, too) who thinks it does is the worst kind of selfish.

  I go to cons to be talked to, to be looked at, to be noticed. If someone approaches me in the bar, or in the corridor, or wants to take my picture after a panel, I consider it part of my job. All of that happens every day when I’m cons. I also accept someone might find me attractive (in all my 45-year-old, mother-of-two, happily-married glory; snort) and charming, just the way I accept plenty of people won’t find me attractive and charming. I also accept that people will approach me. That’s what I’m there for. But I don’t accept that if I’m there to entertain, to be looked at and talked to, that if I have on a slinky top for whatever reason, that it gives anyone the right to touch, pressure, or proposition me with intent. Here’s the deal; you wouldn’t walk up to an actress, even if she had a slinky dress on, and put your hands all over her, right? Would that be appropriate? You wouldn’t walk up to some girl in a bikini at the pool and put your hands on her or proposition her or chase her socially, despite her lack of clothes. (In case you’re wondering, if you do you’re a tool.)

  me at red rocksme at red rocksIt’s my belief that sexual attraction is a part of how human beings relate to each other. There’s often enough hormones floating around cons to fuel a perfume factory. But there’s a difference between Friendly Flirting and Flirting-With-Intent, and women can tell the difference. Society has trained us to it almost since birth. A little harmless flirting served in the form of friendly compliments—well, hell, that’s cool. (A safe topic of conversation with a writer is always books, btw.)  But guys should keep their own intent and action in mind at all times. Trust me, the woman you’re talking to is.

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• SF/F: Ghetto or Gangnam?

  Creativity

  Or

  Are We The Popular Kids Yet?

  Betsy Dornbusch

  (whose book Exile launches in eBook tomorrow! Woot!)

  When I was a kid I saw Star Wars IV seventeen times in the theater. I got a lot of street cred in the 4^th grade from that, though it had less to do with the actual movie and more to do with overindulgence. Overindulgence to the immature has long meant social acceptance.

  But really, I didn’t think of Star Wars as geeky, or myself as geeky. The only mainstream-acknowledge SF book I’d read to that point was L’Engle’s A Wrinkle In Time (which I still don’t love to this day). Of course most kids’ books were and are fantasy, maybe even some of the earliest widespread urban fantasy even though most of it took place in the country: like EB White’s trifecta: Charlotte’s Web, Stuart Little, The Trumpet of the Swan. My favorite show as a kid was Fantasy Island; despite the title I didn’t think of it as fantasy. Star Trek was just okay to me. I didn’t think of The Narnia Chronicles as fantasy until well after adulthood. Actually I disregarded it when I finished the series. The whole “religious trick” at the end put me off it for several years—yeah, a little slow on the Christian symbolism uptake as a kid. Napoleon Dynamite’s “liger” still makes me laugh; I’ve got reams of drawings of mixed-up animals in my basement. But all I knew was people thought I was a pretty good artist. Later, as an adult and teacher, I chalked up fantasy in kids’ books as based on the fairy tales kids have loved through the ages. It was something you were supposed to give up for thrillers and mysteries and romances as you grew up. Well, hell, I read all those, too.

  Clearly, though, I wasn’t mainstream. I was teased and bullied for much of my school years. But I never associated my likes with other kids’ seeming hatred of me. After all, I had no friends in middle school. Who would I even tell that I was watching Tom Baker’s Dr. Who religiously, read LOTR over and over, still listened to my Star Wars double album soundtrack, or that I was writing my first novel? I’m pretty sure the teasing was from the wandering gaze behind my big-frame glasses and the braces. Don’t even get me started on the pony-tails and claw bangs.

  But, as so often is the case: Beer to the rescue! Fast forward to my late teens and twenties. At some point I let those interests go, not out of social concerns but because I was socially busy. I’d come into my own. Despite dabbling for a few years in the SCA, (which I still miss and still wish I had time for) I wasn’t a geek anymore.  I bleached my hair and learned how to act in social situations. I even married a guy who was, like, normal. I had two adorable kids.

  And then, I started writing again. I think my personal geek-cred comes from my enjoying what I want and fucking-off the rest, which is what being a geek has been all along. I like fantasy, some SF, not so much films or gaming, though I’ve done some obsessive online RPGing in my day. Do I look like a geek on the outside? Probably not. Fuck that, too.

  Besides, there’s a lot of talk about F/SF hitting the mainstream. Maybe, if recent movies and GRR Martin are any indication. But SF/F/comic elements in film aren’t new. How many Superman movies have there been, anyway? I wouldn’t know, I’m not a comic fan.

  Despite mainstream “acceptance” of my geek likes, I often have less a sense of fitting in than ever, not really in geekdom, nor in my neighborhood, a charming place with fantastic schools I like to call Stepford. I write some erotica (try talking about that on the SF panel circuit or at PTA), I write violent male characters (should I have used a pseudonym? Should I have put my picture on the back jacket flap? Maybe I should let my hair go back to brown and wear glasses again…) and I’m about to launch into more space opera (hyperdrive, anyone?) I wonder if there are regions where Exile won’t sell well because it’s got a dark-skinned guy on the cover and a white chick on the back flap. I certainly am aware that my unsold future religious dystopian thriller with gay protagonists won’t go over well in certain quarters. Thing is, I’m mostly beyond caring what people think, and maybe that’s the point, right?

  Am I mainstream? Is SF/F mainstream? Hell, look at my FB feed. SF/F is my mainstream. I don’t care what’s in your feed. But I do get the vague sense that I’m not the only one who doesn’t care what other people like (until we can bond over it). SF/F at large no longer cares either. In that sense, I think geekdom has grown since the turn of the century.

  Oh, and I still haven’t seen the gangnam video. I’ve got violent SF/F novels to write, a stack of books to read, and Tard Vader Cat  memes to share.

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