Holly Lisle's Blog, page 86
February 18, 2014
Started into The Longview, and the HTWAS Expansion
I got 2058 words on the first story in Tales from the Longview, a planned 60,000-70,000 word series of 6 or 7 10,000-word stories set in my Settled Space universe, which is also the home of my Cadence Drake novels.
This was my original concept for the series:
After the development of the origami drive, Sleeper ships became useless…for a while. But old technologies can find their place in the future—with the right mission, and with an owner who can take the long view.
It’s a bit thin, but the Sentence for the first story is stronger:
A criminal sentenced to the Death Circus for daring to love discovers a second chance at life within his death.
So here’s going to be my process:
I’m going to write each of the six or seven stories first. I’m also going to self-pub each story separately, and then going to do an anthology of them when I’m done.
After I complete one story, I’ll put together the How To Write A Series Expansion module for that story. Then I’ll publish the story. Then write the next story. Then do the next module.
Students of the course will receive the multiple story drafts (I think of them as “dailies”) as part of their course.
After I have each module together, but before I’ll take it live, I’ll send out one last call to the folks on the How To Write A Series Expansion list, (which will also include lesson reminders and links), and will make sure that you get the best price on the course available.
If you’re interested, in the How To Write A Series Expansion, sign up here:
How To Write A Series Expansion Updates
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February 17, 2014
I do a self-publishing interview: Podcast—Simon Whistler, Interviewer
Simon Whistler and I discuss self-publishing, commercial publishing, ethical self-promotion, and a LOT of other information on getting your writing career up and running.
Simon has a great site and a long list of other interviews, a free course on building your own author website quickly, and much more:
http://rockingselfpublishing.com/episode-34-traditional-publishing-self-pub-holly-lisle/
January 30, 2014
Down to the last bits on Create A World Clinic
Yesterday I fixed all the typos and formatting errors my beta testers found.
Today I’m doing usability fixes: rebuilding worksheets that left my beta testers lost or confused, moving things around in the Geek-Deep Worldbuilding section to make it easier to understand how the included videos and worksheets connect to the whole Geek-Deep worldbuilding process…stuff like that.
Will take a few days to do this, and I will no doubt introduce a few mistakes that will NOT be caught, because I’m not doing another round of beta-ing.
I’m going live after I finish this.
Which means:
Formatting for PDF, Kindle, ePub, Print
Cover art
Production
Course and worksheet uploading and page setup
Early-Bird private purchase page link goes out
Take the course live on my site
Link to the HTTS Boot Camp Member World Clinic coupon goes out
It’s not too late to get in on the HTTS Boot Camp World Clinic Members-Only Discount.
If you don’t already have a free membership, create one here: https://howtothinksideways.com/create-your-free-general-membership-account/
Make SURE you’re on the Boot Camp mailing list: http://howtothinksideways.com/classrooms/htts-boot-camp-member-updates/ Most of the time you’ll be added to the list when you join, and will need to confirm that you want to receive the updates, but many legacy members do not receive the updates, and sometimes the sign-up widget glitches.
Take the course live on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and MAYBE Kobo if they have stopped unilaterally discounting and hard-setting my prices. If they’re still being cute with their goddamned penny discount (which causes me problems with my pricing on Amazon, B&N, AND my own site, I’ll just skip Kobo).
Believe it or not, even with this long list of things yet to do, I’m actually almost done. So if you’re already on the World Clinic Early-Bird or HTTS Bootcamp Update lists, next week is when you need to start watching for [World-Clinic-LIVE] notices.
January 21, 2014
[WORLD CLINIC] A Beta Test for ALL Writers: Free First Chapter
Sometimes show is better than tell. Okay, USUALLY show is better than tell.
So for those of you wondering if worldbuilding works with or is necessary for YOUR genre and YOUR work, here’s Chapter 1 of Holly Lisle’s Create A World Clinic. THE WHOLE CHAPTER.
CHAPTER 1
World #1: The Dot World
Build Your First Complete World In Five Minutes
I’m going to hold off on the introduction for a few minutes, in favor of trying something different.
I’m going to walk you through building your first world right now. So grab a pen and a piece of paper. A napkin will do just fine if it’s all that’s available, or lined paper from a notebook, or the back of a page of the stack of email printouts sitting on your desk. Or that memo from your boss…
Whatever. If it’ll hold ink and you’ll be able to read what you’ve written once you’re done, it’ll do.
You’re going to build a small world, but big enough to give you what you need for a story. And by the time we’re done with this first exercise, you’ll already have a start for your story, too.
Here’s how this works. I’m going to do my version of the exercise as I write this section, so my answers won’t be canned or polished, and you’re going to do your version of the exercise. I’ll give you the answer I get for each step, along with some variants so you can see some of the possibilities—but this will work much better for you if you don’t see my answers first. So I’ll start on a fresh page after I give you each question you need to answer, and before you go to the next page, write down your answer.
Ready?
Let’s build a world.
The Exercise
With your pen and paper at the ready, I want to you imagine that you are standing in a dark room. It’s small, and it has a ceiling, a floor, and four walls, but you can’t see them yet, because it’s absolutely dark. Don’t worry. The light will go on in a second.
But before it does, the room has one other thing in it, not including you. When the light goes on you’re going to see it…but odds are pretty good that a word or an image just popped into your head suggesting what the thing in the room with you is—so if it did, USE that.
It doesn’t matter how silly you think it is. It doesn’t matter if you can’t imagine how that word or image could matter. Or how you could get a story from it.
All that matters is that this time, you use the very first answer you get.
Okay. Now the light goes on, and you see the thing in the room with you.
Your Turn
Write down what it is.
My Answer
My answer is: The paint on the wall.
What this means is that my Muse, also known as my subconscious mind, or right brain, has decided to be a smartass. Don’t know if you have a good working relationship with your Muse yet or not, but my relationship with mine is…interesting.
And because sooner or later, most folks who rely on creativity to put food on the table develop equally interesting relationships with their Muses, I’m going to detour for just a second here. This matters, and I guess this is as good a place as any to discuss the bare bones of it.
Your left brain is your editor, the driver of your body when everything is calm and no tigers have just started growling behind you, your internal grown-up. Your right brain is a perpetual kid, one who believes everything it sees and hears, one who loves to play, one who balks when commanded to work. (It’s also the part of you that will get your feet running and have you up in the top of a tree before you can think about it if those tigers do start growling—so it has many uses.) But if you want to build a career as a writer, you have to learn how to deal with both halves of your mind. And telling your right brain—your Muse—that the idea it just gave you is stupid is a real fine way to make sure that part of your mind goes off in a corner and doesn’t give you any more ideas for a good long time. (This is how writer’s block is born, incidentally.)
Your You/left brain/conscious mind is smart and articulate and organized, but it is not creative. So if you tick off your Muse and give it an excuse to shut down and quit playing your game, you are going to have a bad writing day. Or week. Or year.
Having been dealing with my particularly cantankerous Muse/right brain/subconscious mind while having to be creative on deadline for the last twenty-five years, I have learned the importance of using the ideas it gives me, no matter how weird or unworkable they seem initially, and then working to make sense of them.
EVEN, and this is important, when I suspect the idea was intended to make things difficult for me.
The paint on the wall. Ha. Ha. Very funny. My muse could have told me, window with bars on it, or ancient door, or even dead body, and I would have had an easy time of this. But it didn’t, so now you get to see what to do when your Muse decides to get cute. And because it’s good practice, no matter what answer your Muse gave you, you’re going follow the same steps I do this time.
I have to dig deeper. I need to ask a follow up question, and I need to ask it in a certain way. It cannot be a question that can be answered with a yes, no, or maybe, as with the question, “Is there anything unusual about the paint on the wall?”
My subconscious mind just rolls its metaphorical eyes at that one and says, “Maybe.”
This is not helpful, but your subconscious mind won’t do things just to be helpful. It likes to play, and the only person it has to play with is you.
So you have to learn to ask questions that can only be answered in a useful fashion.
This is my follow-up question:
“What is unusual about the paint on the wall?”
Your Turn
Before I write down the answer to that (though my Muse just told me the answer, and it is, in fact, pretty interesting), you need to ask a follow-up question.
Here are some variants that will work:
Why does this___________ in the room matter?
How did this ____________ get here?
What is unusual about this __________?
Who (or what) is this, and how did he/she/or it get here?
When did this ___________ appear, and under what circumstances?
Where did this ___________ come from? (Or where does this ___________ go?)
Why is this ____________here?
Just answer one of the questions above (or one of your own devising related to your specific situation), but answer it at whatever length you need to give yourself the information that will allow you to understand what you’re dealing with, and answer any follow-up questions you need to ask to those questions. Don’t turn to the next page until you’re sure you got the full answer.
What I Got
So here’s my question again: “What is unusual about the paint on the wall?”
And because of the way I work with my right brain, I’m going write out the answers I just got in the form of a conversation. Yes, I do know this is bizarre, and you are not the first person to raise an eyebrow and suggest that I might want to seek care, counseling, or perhaps a nice padded room.
I do this because it works, because it lets me develop good story ideas quickly, and because I actually hold these conversations inside my head, though my right brain answers in images (and other sensory data) more often than it answers in words.
I just don’t usually do this in public.
Onward.
Holly: What is so unusual about the paint on the wall?
Muse: It’s black, and it’s high gloss.
Holly: Okay…why does that matter?
Muse: Because it hides the blood.
H: (thinking carefully to avoid potential booby traps) What about Luminol, which makes blood on surfaces show up?
M: Not an issue here.
H: Why is it not an issue?
M: Because Luminol doesn’t exist yet.
H: So I’m in the past?
M: (No answer. My Muse does not answer stupid questions, and that was one.)
H: (trying again) Well, the black paint suggests intent to me—that the room is going to be seen by people, that the person who painted it needs to have them not know about the blood, and that the room serves two purposes—people go into it voluntarily, but maybe people die there, too. So who owns the room?
M: An artist. (I get a flurry of images here, so what follows is the flow what runs through my mind.) Blood on the walls, part of the process, passion and imbuing each painting with a different soul, love and murder at the same time, blood in the paint, a lot of dead women, a lot of live men who buy the paintings in this room, the room where they’re hung, and the artist working on painting after painting in quick succession, and then not working at all until all but the most perfect paintings, which he keeps for himself, are sold.
And at that point, I have the jump-off point for a story.
If I need to, I can build more details into the room before I start writing, or I can ask more questions about the artist, or the women, or the buyers.
But I can write the whole story in one room, in a handful of scenes, and I already have the critical key to this world.
Glossy black paint.
This is what worldbuilding is, and this is why you do it.
Worldbuilding has nothing to do with putting a map in the front of your novel.
It has everything to do with:
Getting good questions that help you come up with story ideas.
Getting good answers that help you tell your story.
Finding the fixes for broken projects—you know, all those 30-page novel starts you did that never went anywhere, and you don’t know why…
But mostly, worldbuilding is what brings your story to life for your readers.
And…
When You’re Finished…
Let folks know what sort of world YOU got. I invite you to post your exercise below.
January 20, 2014
[World Clinic] A Question for Prospective Worldbuilders
If you’ve been following along on the live beta testing on CREATE A WORLD CLINIC, I’d like to know if you’re getting a clear picture of what you’ll be able to do with the book, or if you need to know something different.
What questions do you still have that haven’t yet been answered.
Please ask them here, and I’ll figure out a format that get you some answers.
January 10, 2014
Opening for 2 Create A World Clinic beta testers–VERY limited time to respond
I had two folks on my very short beta tester list pass on this project, so I have two spaces for new beta testers.
Tell me why you want to be a beta tester on this project, what sort of writing you do, and what you can bring to the beta test.
I’ll pick the first two folks who convince me they’d be great testers.
World Clinic Beta Tester Live Updates
I want folks interested in the course to be able to get an objective idea of what Create A World Clinic will let them do, and how they’ll be able to use it for THEIR needs before they lay out money for it.
So beta tester comments as they’re working through this course will be public.
Beta Testers: Create a new reply when you complete each section test, and include:
One sentence about what you thought you’d get from the section
One sentence about what you actually got
And one sentence on how you’ll be able to use what you learned in your work
You can add more if you want, but three sentences will be enough if you’re pressed for time.
January 8, 2014
The draft of Create A World Clinic is DONE!
The finished draft (book plus worksheets) comes to 66,491 words.
I’m printing out the draft now to give to my editor, and tomorrow will be contacting the folks on my beta tester list to see who will be able to do the necessary worldbuilding orgy on my schedule.
Meanwhile, I’ll be putting together the various videos, downloadables, and other things that will be included in the book purchase, or in the World Clinic Expansion upgrade.
And doing cover art.
And setting up the classroom, forum, and downloads.
But right this second, I’m dancing in my chair. Done, done, done.
I DO NOT YET HAVE A DATE, EVEN AN ESTIMATED ONE, for when the book will go live. It will be soonish.
However, now is the time to make sure your free HTTS membership is working.
I’m offering a Members ONLY One-Day Only 20% off discount on the course:
ebook
worksheets
short (under 5 minute) demo videos
The short demos (the same in all three versions) are:
Set Demo
Core Point Demo
Pass-Through Demo
Secondary Point Demo
Disposable Point Demo
White Space Demo
Point Name Demo
General Question Generator Demo
Character Generator Demo
Plot Generator Demo
Conflict Generator Demo
the class upgrade:
ebook
worksheets
short (under 5 minute) demo videos,
PLUS forum discussion groups
and the Expansion:
ebook
worksheets
short demo videos
forums
full-size maps
long (half-hour-ish discussion-demonstration videos)
The videos for the Expansion are:
Building A Dot World In Real Time
Building A Line World In Real Time
Building A Tube of Toothpaste World In Real Time
Building A Container Universe In Real Time
Building A Knowable Universe In Real Time
Building An Infinite Universe In Real Time
The Classic Geographic Map as a Fictional Tool
The Timeline Map as a Fictional Tool
The Genealogy Map as a Fictional Tool
The Live-In Map: The Advantages of 3-D
Because of the amount of work that is going into the videos, the price on the expansion will go up after the initial release.
To get the discount, you’ll need to already have a working free account at http://howtothinksideways.com/
And you’ll need to be signed up for the HTTS Boot Camp Newsletter. http://howtothinksideways.com/shop/create-a-world-clinic/
The discount coupon will ONLY be offered through the newsletter, and you’ll need to be logged into your account to make sure purchasing the course does not break any other courses you have.
So please take the time now to make sure your account is working. If it isn’t, create a support ticket here:
http://novelwritingschool.com/support/
January 6, 2014
The Ten Normal Human Genders and the Seven Variants: An Exercise in Geek-Deep Worldbuilding
Human Gender Sliders
Back in 1991-1992, when I was building Arhel and writing Fire in the Mist, I worked out in detail the thirteen Hoos sexual preferences, and mentioned them as half a line in the Glossary at the back of the book.
Over the years, I received a lot of mail/email asking me about those thirteen sexual orientations.
Problem is, during a move, I lost all my Arhel worldbuilding, including my ton of notes on the Hoos and their ways of looking at sex.
Thing is, “What WERE the 13 Hoos sexual orientations?” still remains an interesting question—I think anything related to how and why people have sex is an interesting question—and because I was working on the Create A World Clinic, I decided to see if I could, using my World Clinic techniques, lay out my set of worldbuilding rules and then working through them, replicate what I’d done before…or at least come up with a solid replacement.
It worked out well. I roughed out the basics of what I’d built before.
However—because I’m better at this now—when I was done, I’d ended up with more than orientations. I’d come out with the expected three sexual phenotypes (a phenotype is the physical expression of any genetic combination for a specific trait): male, female, and hermaphrodite.
I am, by the way, aware that the term intersex has become preferred to hermaphrodisim in general usage when referring to humans. However, intersex refers to human individuals with any form of ambiguous genitalia or genital mosaicism.
Because I need a biological term that refers specifically to an individual with to two sets of working sexual organs, one male and one female, I am dropping back to the specific term hermaphrodite, used to refer to species without differentiated sexes, to refer to individuals capable of viable reproduction with any human sexual phenotype as a third, though rare, biological norm, and one with extreme biological survival value to any generalist species.
Beyond my three phenotypes, I also ended up with ten normal and biologically necessary human genders to go with them.
And I also ended up with seven variations to describe sexual engagement and self-identification. In my Hoos backgrounding, I’d mixed sexual engagement and self-identification in with orientations. Back then, I was still ambivalent about whether gender identification and phenotype attraction were hard-wired or learned, so I used the vague, squishy term “orientations”.
I now think gender identification and phenotype attraction are hard-wired, and that sexual learning is what takes place when people with socially difficult wiring learn how to keep the difficult parts contained to avoid risk of ostracism or death. So I’ve gone with the stronger term “genders” to make my meaning clear.
For Prospective Worldbuilders
The first part of this exercise shows me setting up the logic—the WHY.
The second part shows me playing with the results—the HOW. If you’re looking for a lesson in worldbuilding, you need to read both parts, and you need to read them in order.
Here are the rules I set out:
1) Sex is life.
This is as simple, true, and inarguable as any worldbuilding rule can be. Without sex, complex species which rely on DNA recombination to create the necessary mutations for long-term survival die out in one generation.
2) The end goal of both the species and the individual is to survive.
All species, no matter how simple or how complex, reproduce themselves.
Specialist species—those species adapted to specific limited environment—can survive unchanged as long as they have access to unchanged environments (the alligator and shark are nice examples of species that have not needed to change.) Swamps and oceans are pretty much what they ever were.
Tough sons-a-bitches—species that can tough out any environmental disaster because they can live on next to nothing, breed thousands or tens of thousands of offspring at a time, and can withstand any environment without modification. The cockroach is a fine example of a tough son-of-a-bitch species. These species remain unchanged for eons because there are zillions of them, and no matter what hits, a few of them will survive in a crack in the rocks somewhere and come out and make more when the dust settles.
Generalist species—those species that are NOT tough, but that have to survive in the same variable and uncertain environments as tough sons-a-bitches. These species need steady mutations to provide offspring that can adapt to changing conditions.
3) Humans are a generalist species.
We are not tough. We have tender skins; poor hearing, eyesight, and sense of smell; we have only one built-in weapon (our terrific brains), we are neither swift of foot nor sharp of tooth. Nevertheless, because we have terrific brains, we have adapted to, or CAN adapt to, any environment this planet throws at us—and have proven we can adapt to environments off-planet. Better yet, we can improve our environments to meet our preferences and comfort.
Generalist species have to try all possible options in making new people all the time in order to have some version of ourselves ready to go when the shit goes down…no matter what kind of shit it might be.
The alternative is extinction. The objective of a species is to prevent its own extinction. The objective of the individual is to survive, and if possible, to keep the genes that keep him or her alive in circulation.
Generalist species—those species that have to survive in variable and uncertain environments—need steady mutations to provide offspring that can adapt to changing conditions.
Hybrid vigor occurs when members of the same species with differing genetic mutations interbreed, allowing the best mutations from different groups to spread into a wider circle. Generalist species need better mutations, so crossbreeding between recognizable race and other groups is beneficial to the species as a whole.
4) To be considered a normal human gender, the variation must do no harm to the species or the individual.
This qualification rules out rape, pedophilia, incest, and bestiality as normal variations, moving them into the realm of biological aberrations and/or experience-induced deviance.
Rape (any nonconsensual sex) and pedophilia (any sex with pre-pubescent individuals) both do physical and psychological damage to the individual and can cause physical trauma that removes the victim from the genetic pool (even if not causing death).
Incest can cause the same damages as rape or pedophilia and also in cases where pregnancy occurs, can double lethal mutations into genetic lineages and introduce them into the larger gene pool over time.
Bestiality creates opportunities for persistent and potentially lethal zoonotic (animal-to-human) diseases to get a firm foothold in human populations.
5) Sliders work better than on-off switches if you want helpful mutations.
If the only two answers you can ever get to any question are YES and NO, you have no room for upgrades, sidegrades, or ways of improving or saving a species WTSGD (when the shit goes down).
But if the only two answers you can ever get are YES or NO, you have a specialist species, not a generalist species.
Here’s an example of a basic survival rule:
Fruit of the thurka tree is food.
And here’s the question that rule generates:
MUST the species in question eat the fruit of the thurka tree to survive?
If the species has a YES/NO switch for thurka fruit, then as long as the thurka tree survives, the animal can survive—but if thurka trees die out, then the species, unable to survive without the thurka tree, will die out, too.
If the species has a slider for thurka fruit, the answer will vary by individual—some individuals may be genetically wired to require the the fruit of the thurka tree to survive, while others others are genetically wired to be able to eat foods other than the thurka tree, and in some cases, individuals of the same species adapted for ranges that only border thurka tree growing zones may not even find the thurka fruit particularly digestible.
The human example for this would be:
Folks who can easily eat extra-species milk products: cheeses, drinks and baked goods made from the milk of cows, sheep, goats, yaks, horses, etc., without suffering any physical harm from doing so;
Folks who can marginally eat extra-species milk products, though these are not an optimal food for them, causing in them clogging of arteries, elevated cholesterol, unhealthy weight gain, and so on;
Folks who cannot eat extra-species milk products: they are lactose-intolerant and suffer severe repercussions for eating products made from the milk of cows, sheep, goats, yaks, horses, or whatever happens to be available.
Here’s an example of a basic reproductive rule:
Members of the species mate for life.
And here are the questions that rule generates:
If one member of the pair bond dies, can the other member take a new mate?
If this rule and question are on YES/NO switches, when the answer is NO, the species loses an enormous number of possible beneficial mutations by wasting the reproductive viability of young widows/widowers. (I’m using the human term here, but we could be talking about Canada geese or any other species with a one-and-done mating switch as our example).
If this rule is on a slider, as it is with humans, then reproductively viable widows/widowers can find new mates with which to reproduce, keeping their genes in the gene pool.
If most of the members of one gender are wiped out, can the survivors take multiple mates?
When the answer to this question is on a YES/NO switch, then any disease or catastrophe that targets the members of one gender exclusively (war, disease, or other “when the shit goes down” scenarios) could cause the extinction of the species, even if there were enough survivors of the targeted to allow for harem rallying.
If the answer is on a slider, then some members of the species will not reproduce, and their lines will die out. But with harem rallying—where few viable males gather groups of many viable females together and reproduce with them, the species can gain ground and replenish itself, including bringing back through useful mutation variants of the species that pair bond for life.
Once I had my rules in place, I had to figure out the questions for phenotype.
Phenotype (as I noted earlier) is the physical expression of a genetic combination for a specific trait. Here’s a simple example: If your genotype for eye color is “recessive/recessive,” your phenotype will be “blue eyes.”
How does humanity maximize beneficial mutations?
How do the expressions of our generalist species’ need for diverse helpful mutations (upgrades) present itself in the human sex drive?
BUT ANYWAY…
Let’s move on to humans, who are generalists as a species, and whose genotype and phenotype therefore operate to survive beyond WTSGD (“when the shit goes down”, hereafter exclusively abbreviated as WTSGD).
Back to rule one. Sex is life.
To make sure a species which reproduces by choice, rather than by having a cyclical mating season, DOES reproduce, sex needs to be two things:
Obsessively compelling.
And fun.
To make sure people will keep reproducing offspring that can themselves reproduce under all possible environmental changes, it needs to be a third thing as well:
Variable.
And those variations need to be innate, not learned—meaning that individual people need to be born with their sexual sliders set to different variations (which can be overridden by choice) just to make sure the species keeps all its survival options open.
So with all of that in mind, here are the ten normal human genders I came up with, along with seven non-hardwired variations.
I posit my ten normal variations as phenotypical expressions of genotypical hard-wiring.
Meaning that people are born with their basic sexual desires set, so that when puberty kicks off the full-blown sex drive, individuals are pre-set to desire the gender or genders they desire, and would desire the gender or genders they do with or without societal pressures.
I posit that desires are pre-set.
I posit that genders exist independent of phenotype.
I note that acting on gender is a matter of choice, and that the ability to do so has very high survival value.
GENDER ONE: Asexual—No sexual interest or activity.
It might seem odd to have non-reproduction be the first variable, but the human generalist genotype operates on sliders, not switches. Therefore, the first normal biological answer to reproduction is NO. No way, no how, not interested, leave me alone.
(We could start at YES, but where humanity is concerned, YES is not the opposite of NO, and you and I have to walk through a lot of variations to get there.)
GENDER TWO: Monosexual—Sex with or sexual interest in only the self.
This is a second normal, essentially non-reproductive, answer on the sliding scale. This variant in bi-functionally hermaphroditic individuals, who have working male and female reproductive sex organs, would result in cloning—in anyone else, it is sexual interest without offspring. But the drives that would allow for reproduction by individuals alone exists in the genotype AND phenotype as an option, if a rare one. In the case of WTSGD, monosex with could preserve the species long enough for individuals to meet each other and engage in sex other individuals that would allow for the return of DNA recombination.
GENDER THREE: Unisexual A—Sex with or sexual interest in only one person of one’s own gender.
Basic phenotype bonding: male/male, female/female, or hermaphrodite/hermaphrodite, but with just that pair bond only, ever. Again, Unisexual A and its most closely related variant Polysexual A appear as non-reproductive options for any but reproductive-capable hermaphrodites, but are necessary wiring variations in a generalist species. Neither is Unisexual A an exclusively human option.
If the pair bond is consummated, the Unisexual A individual will not search for an alternative if his/her mate is lost.
GENDER FOUR: Unisexual B—Sex with or sexual interest in only with one person of one other gender.
Basic male/female, male/hermaphrodite, female/hermaphrodite pairing, but with just that pair bond only, ever. If the pair bond is consummated, the Unisexual B individual will not search for an alternative if his/her mate is lost.
GENDER FIVE: Polysexual A—Sex with or sexual interest in more than one person of one’s own gender.
Male/male, female/female, hermaphrodite/hermaphrodite. This covers both serial and simultaneous pairings. This is the last of the simple genders.
Polysexual A individuals may attempt to replace lost mates.
GENDER SIX: Polysexual B—Sex with or sexual interest in more than one person of one preferred other gender.
Mostly male/female, and covering both serial and simultaneous pairings; however, is the first of the complex genders, since the individual’s preferred gender could be one of the Unis, either of the other two Polys, or one of the three Pans.
This will not work out well for Unis or Poly As, but it is a broadly effective reproductive strategy for both male and female Poly Bs.
Polysexual B individuals may attempt to replace lost mates.
GENDER SEVEN: Polysexual C—Sex with or sexual interest in multiple partners of multiple other genders.
The Venn diagram of potential partners for an individual Poly C is messy beyond belief, because along with the possibility of, for example, one woman wanting both one other woman and one other man, she could also one woman alone AND more than one woman together, one man alone and more than one man together, only multiple women at the same time, only multiple hermaphrodites at the same time, only multiple men at the same time, both men and women at the same time, both men and hermaphrodites at the same time, only single serial relationships, but with either men, or hermaphrodites, or women…
Polysexual C individuals can choose from Unis of either gender, Polys of all three genders, and Pans of all three genders.
While a Uni/Poly C relationship would be devastating for the Uni, and a Poly A/Poly C relationship would be deeply unwelcome for a Poly A, they happen a lot.
Poly Cs are wired to look for variety across the board (a reproductive strategy that makes a lot of sense biologically). Those who do are unlikely to interact only with other Poly Cs simply because there are so many other alternatives, and chance brings folks together who may be both deeply compelled to pursue each other while being wildly incompatible.
GENDER EIGHT: Pansexual A—Sex with or sexual interest in ALL genders.
This is YES, version one.
ALL possibilities may be equally enchanting, from pursuing and trying to “convert” asexuals to desiring all variants of multiple partnerings, serially or simultaneously or both.
Pansexual A is as interested and drawn toward appealing individuals who have no interest in his/her gender as he/she is to those who do.
Any individual Pansexual A may prefer serial pairings to simultaneous separate relationships or group encounters, but Pansexual A is equally attracted to all both sexual phenotypes (male and female) and to all genders.
GENDER NINE: Pansexual B—Sex with or sexual interest in ALL genders, but with the added compelling drive to act in other or all phenotype roles.
All things true for Pansexual As are true for Pansexual Bs. Additionally, however, while Pansexual Bs may or may not have the necessary phenotype of two working sets of sex organs, but they do have the desire to act in both male and female roles. This wiring is reproductively irrelevant in non-hermaphrodites, but does make possible the slider that would allow Pansexual B hermaphrodites to rebreed a nearly extinct WTSGD.
For generalists, all potential variables MUST be in place and in production “Before the shit goes down,” because not even punctuated evolution, a.k.a. punctuated equilibrium can save a species from extinction if the basic mutations and the mechanisms for creating more are not in place beforehand.
GENDER TEN: Pansexual C—Sex with or sexual interest in ALL genders, but with the added compelling drive to act in only phenotype roles other than ones own.
All things true for Pansexual As are true for Pansexual Cs. However, the Pansexual C individual ONLY wants to act out the phenotypical role for the gender or genders to which he/she does not belong.
This gender seems to me like a cruel trick on any of the three sexual phenotypes, but because I posited both A and B, I have to posit C as a normal variation. Under the rules for Generalist Survival, all possible variations will be tried, and all variations that do not cause harm either to the species or individuals will be normal.
The Seven Variations
These are short and don’t require much explanation. They are variations because they are ADD-ONS to the ten genders, coexisting with them but completely separate.
Variations of Self-Identification
Homopsychogenous: Individual identifies himself/herself mentally as a member of his or her own sexual phenotype.
Heteropsychogenous: Individual identifies himself/herself mentally as a member of a sexual phenotype not his or her own.
Ambipsychogenous: Individual identifies himself/herself mentally as a member of both male and female sexual phenotypes.
Ochipsychogenous: Individual dose not identify mentally as a member of any sexual phenotype.
Variations of Sexual Engagement
Genosexual: Engages in sexual acts solely as a means of reproduction.
Simposexual: Engages in sexual acts exclusively as a means of personal satisfaction. (Personal satisfaction can—but does not necessarily—include concern for the satisfaction of any partner or partners, since making sure partners are satisfied is in itself a form of personal satisfaction.
Ambisexual: Engages in sexual acts both as a means of reproduction and as a means of satisfaction.
Finally, the outcome of the exercise.
First, I liked the details I obtained by working through this worldbuilding exercise enough that I’ll be using it in my Settled Space universe. It fits nicely with a lot of the genetic and nanoviral engineering I’ve set up in the Cadence Drake novels. It also adds depth and logic to social worldbuilding I’ve done for both my Cadence Drake novels and upcoming Longview stories.
Second, I think what I came up with is a valid representation of real-world human sexuality. I may be missing some variants, I may have overlooked some options…but I think I’m on the right track here.
This is an example of Geek-Deep Worldbuilding, which takes up only about the last 25% of Create A World Clinic.
While the first three quarters of this particular book are designed help anyone who writes ANY sort of fiction, the last part will be of deepest interest to SF and fantasy writers…though I used this particular example to demonstrate how the process can give you material applicable to stories set in the here and now as well.
Create A World Clinic will be available from this link when it goes live.
Questions and comments are welcome below.
