Carol Van Natta's Blog, page 32

This Is Me, Among Big-Name Authors

Me, Quoted in a National Newspaper

I’m sure some readers of this blog are used to publicity and seeing their names in the paper, but I’m not, so I’m feeling pretty good about being quoted in the “Happily Ever After” column of USA Today. I know, that and $5 gets me a nice chai tea latte, but it feels like a little milestone to me, so please indulge my smugness.

 

 Veronica Scott asked the winners of the SFR Galaxy Awards (of which I’m one!) why we like to write science fiction romance, and here’s my answer: 

Science-fiction plus romance offers the best of both worlds — a vision of a futuristic universe where anything can happen, and active characters with heart (and often a laser pistol or two). My muse’s home base is science-fiction and fantasy, but likes to visit romance, space opera, action adventure and mystery. Writing the Central Galactic Concordance series gives me the venue to explore ideas, morals and challenges that are bigger than the scandal or crisis du jour, and what better way than through the universal lens of human relationships?

Read the article, if only to find out who’s doing interesting things in the world of SF romance.

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Write What You Imagine

The old adage, “write what you know,” is a good place to start for some writers. Unfortunately, it’s used by some critics, editors, and even writers themselves as a straight-jacket stricture to mean, “write ONLY what you know.” That is egregious nonsense.

No science fiction would ever have been written, because if it hasn’t happened (yet), then you can’t write about it. Historical fiction is out, too, because the authors weren’t alive then, so Margaret Mitchell shouldn’t have written Gone with the Wind, or Edith Pargeter shouldn’t have written the Brother Cadfael mysteries? Zane Grey, a dentist, so he shouldn’t have written the classic Western, Riders of the Purple Sage? And we can’t even begin to discuss fantasy, because everyone knows there are no hobbits, wizards, or pissed off dragons named Smaug.

The more pernicious side of this stricture comes into play with socially charged topics, such as racism, religion, sexual orientation, or family dynamics. A sister writer in a science fiction romance group recently described how she wrote a post-apocalyptic story about a Haitian man and woman struggle to survive after a global pandemic. She received a firestorm of criticism from her writing critique group that accused her of insensitivity at best and outright racism at worst because she is white and her characters were black. Not because the story had structural problems, or unbelievable characters, or whatever is usually wrong with drafts, but solely because she wasn’t “allowed” to write about black people as main characters who fall in love. Sorry, but I have zero patience for that kind of political correctness run amok.

By the same logic, Anthony Hopkins shouldn’t have been allowed to play Hannibal Lector in Silence of the Lambs because he didn’t have personal experience as a serial killer. The women who write sweet or raunchy M/M romances shouldn’t be allowed to write them because they aren’t homosexual males. I’ve had deeply personal and compelling discussions with African American friends about the subtle and overt bigotry they and their children have experienced, but because I’m white, I can’t write about it? I will accept criticism if my African-American female character is two-dimensional, or too competent (“Lt. Mary Sue”), or too stupid to live (“don’t get in the serial killer’s van!”), but NOT because I’m white. I will accept criticism if my male Chinese main character is unbelievably naive in the face of rising evidence, but NOT because I’ve never been to China. I will accept criticism if my gay male supporting character is too flirty to be a waiter and keep his job, but NOT because I’m female.

Writers are observers, commenters, presenters, and storytellers. We writers have a gift, an inclination, a drive to find the right words, the best perspective, the perfect detail that communicates what we want to say and the tale we want to tell. We need to update that adage. It shouldn’t be “write what you know,” but “write what you imagine.”

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Overload Flux Wins a 2015 SFR Galaxy Award

Just a short post to announce that Overload Flux (A Central Galactic Concordance Novel) has won a 2015 SFR Galaxy Award  for “Best Difficult Courtship: How two very different people make it work.”

Overload Flux shares the spotlight with some great books, so I’m honored to be in such illustrious company.

If you love science fiction romance, plus adventure, science fiction, and space opera, check out the other winners. While you’re at it, you could also check out the new SFR Station website, where you can find lots more science fiction romance, broken down by keyword and category so you can find just the book you’re looking for.

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Writing Fiction: Chapters and Breaks

Chapters and Breaks in Fiction

I don’t know quite how to categorize this post, because it’s partly me as a reader with opinions, and partly me as an author with opinions, too.

Chapter Breaks, Time Jumps, POV Changes, and other Sticky Wickets

Few things throw me out of the story faster than realizing the last paragraph I’ve been reading was supposed to be from another character’s point of view, and no wonder I was confused when the alpha male character had suddenly taken to wearing a bra. Not there’s anything wrong with it if it the guy is a cross-dresser.  ;-}  

Some of the problem is formatting, and ebook file limitations get in the way. Some, however, is carelessness by the author, editor, book designer, and/or publisher. I’ve come to think of chapter breaks in novels (paper or digital) as a kindness to readers. In these days of grouping 8 or 10 or 20 novels into a bundle, chapters are a huge help. Since ebook display software hasn’t yet, in my opinion, found the right balance between making the read smooth and providing information on where you are in the story, the way you can when you’re holding a physical book, chapters offer the reader at least a general idea. Sure, you can use a tool like Calibre to break the bundle up into more manageable sizes, but that’s a pain in the ass when all you want to do is click “Buy!” and start reading.

I also like visual cues that tell me something has changed, usually a time break, but sometimes locations. I definitely like visual cues when changing point of view. Some authors do it with chapters, some with spacing, some with special glyphs. If none of these are possible, please, please let me know who’s head I’m in sooner rather than later. Don’t make me skip down a couple of paragraphs to find out, because it takes me out of the story and into editor mode, which is the last place I want to be just when the story is getting good.

I’m also confused if the POV changes, a.k.a., head-hopping, go so fast it makes your head spin (heh). I recently read a love scene where the POV changed from the man, to the woman, and back again about every two short paragraphs, and I got so lost I had to go back a page and skim through to figure out what was happening. On the other hand, I’m kind of annoyed when authors make me wade back through a lot of events I already know about, just so I can get another person’s thoughts. When handled poorly, it’s like watching a rerun of the TV show you just saw. If handled well, I learn new things that keep me interested, and not just that the person is aroused when the object of his/her desire breathes.

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Pet-peeve note to authors/publishers of ebooks: Please hire a professional book designer when converting your novel to e-reader formats. I can’t tell you the number of books I’ve read where the formatting is just plain bad, or I have to adjust the letter size and line spacing to make it remotely readable, or the book overrides my font preference or ignores my line-spacing preference. That’s like saying Ford saying “you can buy any color of car you want, as long as it’s black.” My standalone, black-and-white e-reader gives me few enough choices as it is — don’t take them away from me.
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How long should a chapter be? I don’t know what they teach in university writing programs, but I think it’s up to the author, and the particular book they’re writing. Rachel Aaron, in her book 2K to 10K (if you’re an author who likes plotting, you owe it to yourself to read her book), mentions that for her, a chapter ends up being about 3,500 words. In my first book, Overload Flux, most of the chapters ended up anywhere from 2,500 to 4,200 words (except for a few special chapters, which were more like 1,000). The SF comedy book I co-wrote (Hooray for Holopticon) generally has much shorter chapters, maybe an average of 2,000 words per chapter. I’d provide others as examples, but I’m not inclined to pull other people’s books apart to do a chapter word count comparison. 

Writing one big manuscript in Word or similar programs doesn’t make it easy to figure out where your chapters should be. Scrivener (bless its little heart) assumes you’re writing in in chunks, be they scenes, chapters, or other divisions, and gives you nice easy page counts for each as you go. It took me some getting used to, but now I’m thoroughly enjoying writing in Scrivener. (The jury is still out on whether it will be as helpful once I have to compile a Word document for sending off to beta readers, my editor, and publishers.)

So, if you’re an author and/or a reader—and I imagine you are or you’d be outside playing instead of reading this blog—what do you think?

 

 

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Hooray for Holopticon: “Retro SF Comedy”

Hooray for Holopticon, my first book, is a “retro science fiction comedy.” My co-author and I bill it that way because it was written when we both had a summer free, with no plans for vacations or weddings or vacation trips or the like. If you read the description, you’ll get a hint that the afor-mentioned free summer was some time ago. It was, to be exact, 25 years ago, before the invention of email and the World Wide Web, before computer viruses were common as houseflies, and when cellphones looked like bricks with antennas and overseas calls were all via transatlantic cable.

We were proud of our novel, and our various friends and family and even some professionals reviewed our manuscript and thought it worthy of sending off to publishers, so we did. Back then, you shipped an envelope or box full of paper on which you printed (one-sided, in Courier 12 pt.) your deathless prose, along with a cover letter and a SASE, and waited. And waited. And waited. And… you get the idea. It was considered bad form to submit to more than one publisher at a time, so once you got a “no thank you” letter or several months had passed with no response at all, you could try the next publisher, then wait some more. Responsive editors said our book was well-plotted and quite funny, but not as funny as the best of Ron Goulart or Harry Harrison, and they declined to publish it. By 1993, we gave up and put our MSS in the virtual file cabinet and moved on.

Fast forward to 2009 and the brave new world of independent publishing, and suddenly, it’s no longer called “vanity press” with the same tone of loathing reserved for something repugnant the cat dragged in. We had always loved our first book, and thought other readers might, too, so we resurrected the files and read it.

It was still wonderfully plotted, and very funny, but… If you read it with the idea that it was written pre-internet, it’s a fine, silly romp with bad computer poetry, carnivorous ducks, and plucky heroes outsmarting the tax authority. But if you don’t know that, there’s a problem. You see, we kinda, sorta predicted the World Wide Web in our book (we called it the “hypernet,”), but to readers today, the futuristic, interconnected social universe that we took such delight in inventing, seems so… blasé. So, short of rewriting the whole thing, we came up with the descriptor of “retro SF comedy.” Oddly enough, that’s not an available keyword category on Amazon. Go figure.

I know why traditional publishers and bookstores want standard keyword categories: they’re easier to explain, and they don’t have to re-invent the marketing wheel, as it were. Fortunately, ebook retailers allow us a little more latitude, so we put our book in more than one category: science fiction, humor, and teen/young adult. The latter is because it has a kind of youthful feel to all that silliness. We have a pretty good track record with the reviews on Amazon, so we must have set our readers’ expectations correctly.

If you want a change of pace and good laugh, Hooray for Holopticon is available from Amazon (ebook and paper), Google Play, Barnes & Noble Nook, Apple iBookstore, Kobo, and Scribd.

“They bite technology on the nose
and come out smelling like a rose.”

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5-Star Review for Overload Flux

Thanks to Lexie Hamilton at her delightfully named “Poisoned Rationality” blog for the nice 5-star review of Overload Flux. It’s a wonderful feeling for an author to know other people like your work and want to read more.

“…I look forward to there being more books in this universe – while things wrap up nicely for Luka and Mairwen, making this a nice stand alone in many ways, the author all but taunts the reader with “More Adventures to Come!” which I for one am waiting for most eagerly.”

 

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Plans for 2015

If you subscribe to my newsletter, you’ll already know some of this, but I thought I’d share my plans for 2015 a more public venue. Also, it’s self-motivational, in that I’d like to keep my promises.

The Central Galactic Concordance Series

Some readers have been kind enough to ask what’s next in the Central Galactic Concordance series. Here are my plans, as of the date of this post; keep in mind that the universe sometimes has other plans.

The next book is called Minder Rising and will be out in spring 2015. It will introduce new characters on a different planet, with new challenges. I’ll post a blurb for it once I’m happier with it. As I’ve mentioned before, writing a good blurbs is difficult. Probably the perfectionist in me.

Nota bene: No, this image isn’t from the cover art, it’s just something to catch the eye. I intend to hire a professional cover artist, because I’m a much better writer than an artist. I won’t say I’d be as bad as the covers published in the delightfully snarky LousyBookCovers.com, with the very-true tagline of  “Just because you CAN design your own cover doesn’t mean you SHOULD.” (Hat-tip to Rachel Leigh Smith of the Science Fiction Romance Brigade for the link.) I’m just saying I want good cover art, and I know my limitations.

Book 3 will be Pico’s Crush, which will involve some of the same characters from Overload Flux. If the author gods are smiling on me, it’ll be out in fall 2015.

I have a bigger plan for galactic domination more books, but I’ll save that for another day.

Conferences and Workshops

I’ll be attending the Northern Colorado Writers Conference in March 2015, since it’s here in my home town, and would be criminal not to go. I’m also signed up to attend the 2015 RomCon Reader Weekend in Denver, where I hope to meet the prolific paranormal/science fiction romance author Eve Langlais and science fiction romance author S.E. Smith. I’m not teaching at either of these; I’ll be attending as a writer who wants to learn (plus catch up with friends and make new ones).

Playwriting

I’m already planning to write at least one short play for the 2015 Fort Collins Fringe Festival. I had a blast doing the first two festivals, and am looking forward to doing it again. If you’re curious as to what a “fringe festival” is, here’s a quote from their website:

“Fringe” is theatre that is off the beaten path; that won’t find its home in an average theatre company season line-up. “Fringe” means exploring new boundaries, new venues, new ways of shaping and sharing a story.

I’d like to produce another short play I wrote called “To Bury Caesar,” about an imaginary confrontation between John Wilkes Booth and his sister, Asia, three days before the assassination of Lincoln, but I have to find the right actors with the right chemistry.

Eventually, I’ll have enough of short plays to publish them in a book. ;-}

 

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Author Resources for 2015

If you’re reading this, you’re probably a reader rather than an author, but some of you wear both hats (hi there, welcome the club), or would like to. Since writing is a business, whether you do it independently as I do, or for a publisher, I thought I’d point you to some author resources for 2015 that you might have missed. I stumbled across them toward the end of my quest to publish the first Central Galactic Concordance novel, and wish I’d seen them sooner.

 I am, in some ways, late to the independent publishing game. Amazon stormed the market with the first Kindle in 2008, and authors who could provide content for them quickly and market them well made a killing. Seven years later, the book marketing world has changed drastically, and the sand is still shifting under everyone’s feet. The advantage of coming in so late, however, is the availability of resources in the form of people who are generously transparent about their adventures, good and bad, in publishing. If you’re wanting to become an independent author, go for it. The paradigm is still changing, and there’s plenty of opportunity, though I doubt there’s one single, golden path to success—not that there ever was.

Author Resources: Marketing

Here are two relatively new podcasts that have good information. I believe both are available on iTunes, if that’s your preference:

The Writing Podcast, hosted by fantasy authors Adam Poe and Lindsay Buroker. It’s actually the reincarnation and reboot of the long-running and excellent Self-Publishing Roundtable (SPRT). Adam and Lindsay joined as co-hosts in the fall, only to have the final SPRT founder leave. Adam and Lindsay decided to continue the endeavor in The Writing Podcast. Their first episode was December 19, and they plan weekly broadcasts with guests from the independent and traditional publishing world.
The Marketing Science Fiction & Fantasy Podcast, also hosted by Lindsay Buroker, this time with science fiction author Joseph Lallo, Jeffrey Poole, and Laura Kirwan. It started in September 2014, and they talk a lot about marketing, but also address other publishing topics.

I’ll also give a shout-out to Lindsay’s blog, under the categories “E-Book Endeavors” and “Pen Name Project.” With 15 novels plus short stories and novellas, she’s got a wealth of experience and has provided some nice, juicy details.

The folks at Romancing the Genre in the U.K. have an interesting post on The Changing Market.

Writing as a Career

Kris Rusch, a demi-god in the indie publishing world, has a long and fascinating, in a slap-upside-the-head way, article on The Things Indie Writers Learned in 2014, to go with its earlier companion piece, What Traditional Publishers Learned in 2014.

Fellow Travelers

Lastly, if you haven’t already found them, check out the Writer’s Café at Kboards.com. It’s sometimes like drinking from the fire hose, but the authors who post there are supportive, and provide very useful details on what worked for them and what didn’t, from marketing, to dealing with Amazon, to finding and editor or a cover artist, to celebrating milestones.

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Feel free to post a comment and share your favorite resources.

 

 

 

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Read More SF Romance

Why You Should Read More Science Fiction Romance in 2015
Five reasons you should read more science fiction romance (SFR) in 2015. For those new to the term, in my book (oh look, humor!), SFR balances plot threads involving futuristic technology and the growth of the emotional relationship between the main characters.*
 

Discover new authors, and new works from existing authors. SFR is a new and growing category, and some new voices are showing up to tease your reading palate. Ruby Lionsdrake, who burst onto the scene in the fall of 2014 with three books in the Mandrake Company space opera series, has more planned for 2015. Nalini Singh’s excellent Psy-Changeling series, has more novels planned for 2015, though I’m not sure how she tops Heart of Obsidian. And I’ll not-so-humbly point out that my novel Overload Flux, is the first in the Central Galactic Concordance series, and there will be more coming in 2015.
Get a breath of fresh air in a cross-genre book. Tired of reading science fiction books where you have to slog through the science, or learn an alien language just to follow the plot? Tired of reading romances where the main characters mostly sit around and pine for one another? SFR offers the best of both worlds — a vision of a futuristic universe where anything can happen, and active characters with heart (and often a laser pistol or two). Want humor, too? Check out the always cheeky Eve Langlais and her Cyborg series.
Support gender equality in science. It’s a fact: SFR is written mostly by women. Yeah, yeah, I hear you, it shouldn’t matter who wrote that fabulous book, but it does. There’s a perceived bias against women authors in science fiction fandom, stemming perhaps from the stereotype that women aren’t as knowledgeable in the sciences. If you think that’s no longer true, I’ll point to the horrendous Mattel blunder in publishing Barbie’s “I Can Be a Computer Engineer,” (read more at Gizmodo: http://gizmodo.com/barbie-f-cks-it-up-again-1660326671) to bolster my argument.  So, buying and reading science fiction written by women does a little bit of social good in breaking down that meme.
Stimulate your curiosity. SFR is based on science, not magic. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good paranormal full of magic, vampires, shifters, fae, and assorted beasties that go bump in the night, but it’s based on myth, not physics or biology. I’m fascinated by the possibilities of the real world, futuristic though it may be, and love it when science fiction makes me want to know more. Could a space elevator really work? (See http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/176625-60000-miles-up-geostationary-space-elevator-could-be-built-by-2035-says-new-study) Why can’t we have solar roadways now? (See http://theweek.com/article/index/262486/solar-roads-are-more-practical-than-they-sound) Is there something better than rocket fuel for liftoff? (See “Hexanitrohexaazaisowurtzitane” in Wikipedia, and extra bonus points if you can figure out how to pronounce it.)
Achieve escape velocity. One of my favorite humor bits goes like this: “What shall I do first? Cook dinner for four, take the cat to the vet, pay the bills, and vacuum the living room… OK, then, reading it is.” Life can be frazzling, annoying, scary, uncomfortable, and all those other things that send your stress levels through the roof. A good book can take you away from all that, and with a good SFR, you can achieve escape velocity and send your imagination soaring among the stars.

NOTE: Cross-posted at RhiReading.com

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*Hat-tip to Heather Massey at Galaxy Express for her more complete definition.

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Overload Flux on Sale

Overload Flux is on Sale!

Just in time for Winter Solstice Day, or other holidays and special occasions you may celebrate in December, Overload Flux (A Central Galactic Concordance Novel)is on sale now through the end of the month for just $0.99 USD. Just a suggestion, but it’d make a great gift or virtual stocking-stuffer. At that price, it’d also be a great way to make that Amazon, Nook, Kobo, or iTunes gift card you got stretch a little further.
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DESCRIPTION: Someone is stealing the vaccine for a galaxy-wide pandemic. Forensic investigator Luka Foxe and security specialist Mairwen Morganthur fight corrupt pharma corporations, murderous mercenaries, sabotage, and deadly space battles, and must trust each other with dark secrets if they hope to survive.
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Hurry — the sale ends 12/31/2014.

Overload Flux on sale!

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