November – Judge Dredd, Twitter Pitches, characters with age

As promised, here are the second day’s events of Octocon 2020, held online. And a free SF book is at the bottom of this post. I wrote these notes while helping to staff the Con. All opinions are those of the speakers.

Sunday, 11 Oct, 2020
Better with age
Gillian Pollack, Marguerite Smith, Cheryl Morgan, Ian McDonald, author of Luna.

MS – Representation is important, either an old character is ignored or a wise old man to guide characters on journey.
G – Authors who successfully wrote older characters into stories were better writers with deeper stories. Not everyone has skills and experience, they want young characters learning as they go.
Ian – We were all young once but we are not yet older than we are. Nobody ever feels their age. We can write younger characters more easily as we have been there. Not including parts of life like older people is narrow writing.
C – It’s our job as writers to learn to write people we haven’t been.

I – Has both heroes and villains, has followed characters from 20s to 40s incl. the people around them. In China, TV, Inheritance Show where something has to be passed on to heirs. Other genres may use this type better. Gandalf – but Miss Marple. Different abilities, not sword wielders. In film Tron 2 the actor played himself as a younger man but could not make his movements as a 30 year old’s.
C – Crime is a genre where the plot has to be about crime, but SF can include crime in a plot.
G – Publishers want to sell to a younger audience. Marketing is easier to YA. Genre labelling, selling labelling.
C - Older people will read about young people but young won’t read about old.
GP – Australia – was a feminist activist for 20 years but not associated with the current movement. Got out to write novels and sees a group of 80% women and 20% men who are behind the scenes campaigners which is why Australia has better health care than the US. Makes for wider stories – not one quest you can win.
GP – Immortality – we can’t hold too much knowledge – a burden.
I – We can’t have immortality – so he thinks we make it seem unpleasant – the fox saying grapes were probably sour anyway if he can’t have them. Ursula K. Le Guin wrote a story about immortals who aged badly.
G - The trap is to ask for immortality but forget ever young.
Q - Do you write older characters differently from the outset?
GP – Yes and no. A woman might change gender at menopause in Celtic mythology. If everyone has a spiritual age they stay that way. We all know older people.
MS - The truly old immortals are hard to create as we have no experience of talking to anyone over 110.
Q from me: Tolkien’s elves were immortal – were they more or less willing to die in combat – would this end wars?
G – Elves were militant, got into battles all the time.
M - Phases of life.
I – Tolkien may not have thought it through.
C – Ents think nothing of sleeping for a year or two.

Military SF and drones
Damien Larkin– Story in which Irish and British soldiers fought together against a common enemy.
Edmond Barret – Alien craft lands off west of Ireland. We now have most advanced tech in the world. What will others do to get it?
Kate Sheehy – War blows away social cobwebs. Panel agreed.
Kate Dodd - WW2 easier to focus on as sides so good vs bad. WW1 more complex.
DL – Indie published, now a trad author after winning a competition. Wants to read book on the family of the SF warriors back home.

Judge Dredd genesis.
Michael Carroll – To begin we just explored Megacity and judge – did not need to know more. Later the creators were worldbuilding how it came about. Started in 1977 but written about 2099. Brought in links to other stories like the ABC Warriors.
James Bacon – Lead characters are judge, jury and executioner, is it right to feel empathy for them?
Panel agreed he is still a person, doing a job.
MC - SF predicts future but the writers are optimists, communicators on culture extrapolated from where we are. You would think we would know better as a race but collectively we are apparently not smart and good.
Maura McHugh – Thoughts, fantasies, not real just safety valve. If someone could read your mind that is dangerous to you. Orwellian thought control literally stops you thinking about crime. Mutants in 2000AD with psychic abilities, if they were not useful to judges they would be kicked out to the Cursed Land.

MC – Judge Dredd is not much known in USA, just the Stallone film. Judges are tools of fascist state, but cops anywhere are effectively enforcing the rules of the state.
Joseph Elliott – Colman – didn’t have to research as he knew much civil rights history.
MMH – Origins is the Bible when writing, also she had to net search a lot for arms, explosives etc. But it’s about humans, set in moments. Startlingly prescient origins.

Damien Larkin on Twitter Pitch events.
Damien Larkin
A short pitch for your book, agents and publishers may give a like, means you can contact them afterwards. Get the genre right, US timezones. Rules. May be all SF. Google “twitter pitches 2021” will get lists. Can be 12 hours but maybe only an author likes – stay off that, retweet instead.
Need a good tagline “Big Red – Irish soldier stuck on Mars. Saying this would be a good place to holiday if it wasn’t for all these pesky natives” – got him attention.
Twitter can be toxic sometimes but it’s great to have a writing community and bounce a draft off them for a comment. In pitch focus more on the story than character – but the agents don’t have hours to spend reading your backstory. Need strong key words to catch attention. Use any audience insights e.g. facebook can let you see some details to tailor ads. Type in "mil SF" to see what age group, gender, other interests, page views.
He suggested agent interested in your tw pitch will click into tw profile and you should have friends and fans review and like your work there. He doesn’t class this as the main way to submit.
Due diligence – predatory firms prey on authors taking off. The pitch organiser is aware but the vulture publishers can like them and are just vanity presses. Want to get the writer signed up to publish then ask for money for marketing etc. They are out in force. 2 out of 3 of his likes were genuine. On one, down at bottom of site the small print said they charge writer €4750 to publish a book.
Q. DL has not found tw helpful for building a fan base. Has made writer friends. If your tw says buy my book that won’t help, as thousands are doing that. He finds reading and reviewing others’ works more helpful as they read his then.
Indie presses pick up on outliers and new trends. Big 5 are slower. He went with an indie and his book is in libraries and he is at events.
Q on tw generally. As a platform he thinks it is toxic. Mob mentality, he has seen publishing deals destroyed. Find other platforms. Do not use tw for a normal approach to editor. Line between free speech and aggression is thin on tw.

Justice wearing a mask: underground of political comics.
James Brophy – we have not the first amendment of US here. Limits on free speech.
Journalist Niall Kitson – create what you want, but you don’t have the right to push it on others.



The Gothic–loving tradition
Kim Newman – There’s an internet story of a woman in an abusive relationship who rented Gaslight and sat watching it with her other half, saying “Oh that would never happen” and he shrank as these people all hit on the same methods of bullying and belittling others.
Mod Ian Moore asked if the wealthy class had gone.

Maura McHugh said no way. Kim Newman agreed with her. Sakura agreed.
Russel Smith - Underlying fears always in society, repression. Last phase of empire going on in various countries. You can write something and ask if it is already satire.
MMH - Landed aristocracy in past, now a technocrat elite and wealth disparity with homeless, huge source of anger. She and Sakura want to see how Covid is entwined with media in next years. MMH - people are haunted, not places, in one interpretation.
Q – what elements of classic gothic are absent now?
MMH - Marriage used to be about wealth and land and that is mostly gone now.
KN – Clergy bashing gone but not entirely absent from society. Conan Doyle, HG Wells, are 3rd or 4th wave gothic. Coronavirus going to spawn a lot of books but nobody is going to want to read about the lockdown for years. But lockdown is ideal conditions for reading long novels.
Sakura – could not settle to write. She is worried that upcoming horror will be too hard to read. Hit too close.
KN – Daniel Defoe’s Journal of the Plague Year was published in 1772.

30 years of Octocon
Michael Carroll, Phillipa and Helen Ryder, Gareth Kavanagh, James Shields.
Told us how early they had attended.
MC – As we grow up we find new tribes and interests but since he joined the ISFA he felt he belonged. Great sense of family incl at Worldcon in Dublin.
HR – Early days – enjoyed a little chaos, too well run is boring. Bar at Royal Marine, started chatting to a guy, didn’t realise it was George R.R. Martin. Amazing number of fans.
PR – The Star Trek fans who came along found we had brand new episodes.
JS – Organising – feeling of never doing this again. A week later he was all for the next year.
GH – Artwork was amazing each year. Video room and its director Dave Lally sadly missed at online cons.
MC – If the committee is enjoying the con something’s gone wrong.
GK – Tell us you have a problem early so we can help sort it out.
PR – Not getting paid, paying memberships, so have fun.
JS – Make sure the treasurer knows what they are doing. Agreed optimistic chair and sober treasurer.
MC – Avoid feeling that we newbies can’t get involved as old hands know what they are doing. Need to encourage new blood as otherwise when committee get burnt out, there is nobody who knows how to take it on. All agreed.
JS – Step back from committee for a year or two, step back in with fresh ideas.

310 members with Discord; 23 countries, 404 unique viewers. 82 at closing ceremony. €1280 raised for Jigsaw, young people’s mental health charity.

To continue with the SF theme, and acknowledge that winter is well and truly here in Ireland, I’m making my wintertime SF story Dining Out With The Ice Giants set in future London free to download. Grab it December 3 – 6. Anyone not in the UK or Ireland should use the Amazon.com link.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00MW8IQXG

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MW8IQXG

Follow my published articles on Medium or my JournoPortfolio page.
https://clareobeara.journoportfolio.com/

Watch my book trailers for my science fiction series:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GadPp...

Visit my website:
www.clareobeara.ie

for news, puzzles, books, reviews and events. We have created a new page for Young Adult readers. This contains plenty of horses and dogs! You can find my podcasts on the News and Events page. I provide a Writers’ Page giving tips about how to be an independent publisher. I am also adding book covers to Pinterest boards after I review the books, so feel free to find me on Pinterest.