Betty Adams's Blog, page 135

Cherry City Comic Con

Spring has firmly come to the Pacific Northwest and for the city of Salem, OR that means that Cherry City Comic Con is right around the corner. Every fandom from Star Trek to Farscape will be represented in the booths and "Dying Embers" Betty Adams will be there as well. 

Writing Emotional Stories

When I first started writing I assumed that I would be a comedy writer. After all I loved to make people laugh. My first several stories were upbeat, cheerful, and amusing. They received decent reviews on the websites that I posted them on and a reasonable amount of traffic. They I began to post a tragedy, My readership skyrocketed and the story's engagement in likes and comments surged, The takeaway was that people like having an author rip out their hearts and dance on its bleeding grave. That is how I got into writing "Dying Embers" 
#MakeABookEmotional

I Feel Old When I Write the Elderly

First rule of writing.
Write what you know. 
This is such a standard truism that those four words on their own come with multiple connotations and denotations. But what about when an author needs to write what is not known? For an author to write a character of the same age or younger is not much of a stretch. But how does an author write someone who is significantly older? 
Reading, research, and observation. 
There are numerous memoirs, autobiographies,, and  scientific descriptions of what life is like for the elderly. Given that a large percentage of any given population is elderly and ageing research becomes hanging out with the senior members of your community and asking questions. This also leads to observation.  Just by watching and listening you can learn things about people that they might not think to tell you.
#IFeelOldWhen young authors pick my brain for stories of the "good old days'. 

A Wedding in the Spring

Certain bloggers didn't really have anything to post today because they had to work three jobs and go to a wedding.
Aren't those flowers pretty? 

Rule of Thumb

Spiders make for excellent story fodder. From their near magical silk production powers to the fact that they are simply universally terrifying a spider just give a story a certain panache. 

What's a Human's Superpower

In the various sub-genres of science fiction there is a tendency to world building. Not just a single world but an entire universe, sometimes multiple universes. Aliens are part and parcel of this. When it comes to writing aliens novel authors have the advantage over screenwriters in that we are not constrained by special effects budgets. This leads to some amazing creatures in sci-fi books. With a different body postulated different senses follow. It is a natural urge to start with a base of the five (or six) base senses of humanity and add things on from there. But what if one of those senses was as exotic to an alien species as telepathy? Say what if light based vision was counted as an esoteric superpower? Especially written from the perspective of the aliens that would make for some interesting stories, 

"Wait a moment," T'Chlll flattened his fur as he tried to process what the human had said. "You possess the ability to map out waveforms with specialized organs. With this ability you can make astounding scientific observations, take out opposing warriors by propelling rocks at them from a distance, and can judge the mood of fellows from across the room...and you sometimes walk into you crewmembers because you just ignore this sense?"
The human in front of him shifted uneasily on her bean bag and took a deep breath.
"Well yes, I just didn't see G'Rrrrwll." Smith repeated. 
T'Chlll rubbed his head on his primary hands and suppressed a sigh. This new species was decidedly confusing. 

Wednesday Wisdom

#WednesdayWisdom just make like all these wise and sturdy creatures and go to the beach. Sun, sand, pouring rain...Pacific Northwest you know.
Fun trivia.
How many different species can you spot in this picture? 

Be as Happy as this Bee for Spring

This little insect is getting out here and enjoying life, spring, the sun, and the flowers. That is a good example to follow. This is this author's excuse for not writing for the past week. That and being sort of ill. 

Are Pets Intergalactic?

Many clever people argue that the ability to domesticate animals is the basis for cities and therefore building civilization and leading to a technological revolution. The dog allows for security from attack. The ox lends its power to construction. The horse lends its legs to speed and communication. So it is logical to assume that if humanity were to meet a race among the stars that they will have domesticated animals and if they are social enough to generate cities they will have formed emotional attachments to these animals. Ergo pets. 
As an science fiction author it is fun to speculate what forms these pets might take. 

From the Headlines - Red Alert on a Spaceship

Photograph: AP The headlines are being kind to Science Fiction writers today. A deep space spacecraft, tasked with the mission of finding planets has mysteriously gone into panic mode. The controllers scramble to find an explanation and a solution. 
What has caused this emergency?
Is it a technical failure? 
Terrestrial sabotage?
Or is one of the greatest questions of our time about to be answered? 
A thousand keyboards suddenly hum to life. 
#Kepler