Boldly Reading

07
Aug
2013

Self-Promotion

Self-Promotion

Yes, self-promotion matters!

This is in response to the Boldly Reading blog prompt #5.

Sell yourself. Sell your story.

The prompts to date have been of a more reflective nature. Asking you to pose questions of yourselves. Not an easy thing to do. However, I think this next prompt is a little harder to do. I want you to sell yourself. Sell your story. Sell your character.

This is a little opportunity to give yourself a little love. This is a chance to advertise a story of yours you have a soft great big proud spot for. To talk our arms off about a character or characters of yours that you positively gush over. Perhaps maybe you’ve a story that’s been missed over or a character not quite got by the readership. Well, here’s your opportunity to tell us about them in your words. Don’t worry about it being egotistical (cos I’m telling you to do it – so there’s no vanity of vanities going on). Don’t suggest another person’s story/character to write about (cos that will be a prompt down the line). Just write about a story/series/character of yours you want to shine a light on.

Love, Sex, Forever and the Afterworld

For Star Trek fan fiction, a truly irresistible scenario is ENT’s E2 episode.

Lorian self-promotion

Lorian

In this canon story line, the NX-01shoots back in time to 2037, and the ship turns generational. In canon, Hoshi marries and has two children, Toru and Yoshiko. Phlox marries MACO Corporal Amanda Cole and they have nine children. Jonathan weds an Ikaaran woman named Esilia. Tripp and T’Pol wed and have a son, Lorian. Travis marries MACO J. McKenzie (I name her Julie). And Malcolm dies without offspring.

That’s Star Trek: Enterprise canon.

My Spin (and Self-Promotion)

Fairly recently, I wrote a series which encompasses this time period. I wanted to add an extra layer to it all. So there are actually two kick backs in time. One is, in some ways, happier than the other. But they both have their purposes.

Lili is of course present, as is Jay Hayes, who is not in the episode but naturally had to have been there. One group of secondary characters who make appearances are the characters from The Light, such as Karin Bernstein, Andy Miller, Josh Rosen, Ethan Shapiro and Azar Hamidi. Azar is given a love interest, Maryam Haroun, and a rival, the canon character R. Azar, who I have named Ramih.

Other secondary characters in the mix are Chip Masterson, Deb Haddon, Brian Delacroix, Craig Willets, Jenny Crossman, Aidan MacKenzie, Quartermaster Sekar Khan, MACO Frank Todd, David Constantine, José Torres, Chef Will Slocum, canon MACO Daniel Chang, Sandra Sloane, Shelby Pike, Gary Hodgkins, Tristan Curtis, semi-canon character Patti Socorro, Diana Jones, Meredith Porter, Rex Ryan and several others, enough to populate a ship with nearly ninety regular crew members. Time traveler Richard Daniels even makes a few appearances, as does Jay’s old girlfriend, Susan Cheshire.

Four Books

There are four books in total. The first of these is Reflections Down a Corridor. The crew begins to come to grips with the fact that they are never, ever going home again. People, tentatively, begin to explore each other. And the ship starts to commit to surviving in the Delphic Expanse. They obtain two planets, Amity and Paradise, and begin to hunt procul. But watch out for the malostrea! And, in addition to Xindi, the Enterprise also has to deal with a species from my own fiction, the Imvari.

The second book covers more of the many hookups and relationships, both positive and negative, that such a scenario generates. It also contains some rather disturbing scenes. It’s called Entanglements and is the shortest of the four pieces.

Three and Four

The third book, The Three of Us, continues the first kick back in time, as the uneven ratio between men and women begins to be better resolved. The Ikaarans are brought onto the ship. I have expanded their culture and physiology beyond the scraps from canon. There is one main triad that is the three people of the title. But, there are other groups of three that the reader should be looking for. And this is also where Lili’s dreaming starts to get interesting. Her subconscious fears are allayed by dreams of the not yet born Doug Beckett. Even more disturbing scenes pepper this story, and a reference in Multiverse II should be a bit clearer here.

The fourth and final book, Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, brings the first kick back in time to 2154, as the second kick back occurs. And it then slips in more final pieces of the puzzle as the second kick back (as in canon) meets the people of the prime timeline. And, after Jay’s canon death, his will is read, and bequests are given. Because the beginning of Everybody Knows is quite rough on the characters, Lili is again comforted subconsciously. But this time her comforter is Malcolm’s counterpart, the as-yet unborn Ian Reed, a character seen in the story Throwing Rocks at Looking Glass Houses. As in The Three of Us, disturbing sequences are placed within the story line, and readers of Multiverse II will recognize one character.

Why It’s Part of My Self-Promotion

It’s not just because it’s a labor of love, dense with characters and plot. I also like the message of it, the overall arcs, too. Depression gallops among the crew. People do bad things. And they also do very good ones, and I like to think that the characters are believable. I visit the below decks world over and over again, and not just from Lili’s perspective. Time passes, and when you’re not exploring, that time  sometimes passes in odd ways. People say things about each other (or write them in log entries) that are cruel, or are kind, or are incomprehensible. Behavior is not always justified or understood. And that’s what real life is like.

More Self-Promotion

I have seen other fan fiction about this time period, and it is often extremely ‘shippy. I will admit that Entanglements in particular is pretty relationship-centric. But in some ways it has to be. Time is ticking and people have got to line up their ducks. And they do so in strange ways, some of which are more romantic than others. And they sometimes have Buyer’s Remorse as well.

I also wanted to give it some action outside of bedrooms. There are a few battles, and some nasty crimes, which have consequences and aftershocks. Not everyone comes off well. Sometimes silly things happen, too. Through it all, I present the message, that real love is forever, and it crosses every plane we can think of, and a lot that we haven’t. It’s hopefully loud and clear but not too heavy-handed.

I put a great deal of work into working out the plotting and giving the characters their due. It’s a bit of a cast of thousands or at least dozens. Personalities don’t always shine through as well as maybe they should. But I like to think that most of the characters are knowable, even if they aren’t sympathetic.

Upshot

There is a time commitment in reading this series, to be sure. But I hope that the reader feels rewarded at the end. And I hope that others will take a chance on it. I hope they’ll follow my self-promotion.

Posted by jespah in Boldly Reading, Fan fiction, Meta, 3 comments
05
Aug
2013

Scenes, Settings and World Building

World Building for Fan fiction

Does world building matter in fan fiction?

The fourth Boldly Reading blog prompt for Star Trek fanfiction asked the following questions –

For your fourth blog prompt I am going to ask you to consider the setting. I’ve written a post touching on this before where I find that settings/locations often shape a story. So tell me, how do you choose your settings – be it planet, ship, ship class, heck Trek era even? How does the setting shape your story? What world building lengths do you seek as a writer / as a reader? Do you like descriptions and to paint the scene or do you leave it to the imagination of the reader. However you choose to interpret this prompt, have at it.

A Sense of Place

The location of a story is, easily, just as vital as its characters. After all, the characters interact with it as much as they interact with each other. Do they duck their heads as they walk? Are they breathless because the locations are far-flung? Is it cold in there?

Sensory Perception

When we go to various places, we experience them in manners that are not purely visual. Hence I’d like to talk about five rather dissimilar story scenes in the context of the five senses.

Vision

Eriecho‘s life is a jumble of various visuals.

Compass | World Building

Compass

In Release, she goes from Canamar Prison to a transport and then, eventually, to a Martian Sanctuary. Putting together the look and feel of Canamar involved describing elliptical things, such as a reference to hanging up laundry, or her adoptive mother H’Shema’s fondness for the color green.

The sanctuary has its own visuals, like the temporary-style buildings that look like quonset huts, to the benches and rough-hewn tables at the community dinner (a reference back to the eating area when I attended a small summer camp in Maine in the 1970s).

The people are also indirectly described, including Colonel Shaw referring to a female Vulcan who looks like a runner and a guy with great teeth (her adoptive father, Saddik). The reader should get a sense of place and people, but not a perfect one. There’s still a little mystery. The characters still get a little privacy.

Sound

Shrapnel | World Building

Shrapnel

In the Multiverse II storyline, the best use of sound is in a collaborative post with Templar Sora, called Spin.

Templar Sora’s character, Seymour Sonia, is injured, badly, the bones of his left arm shattered by an exploded grenade. He is pulled out of the war zone by the head of Resistance Cell #4, one Rita Spinelli.

Rita is tough and angry and more than a little damaged. But she needs good soldiers and, even with wounds, Sonia is probably a better bet than most others. She brings him to a small, rough cabin. And begins to remove the shrapnel from his arm.

Every now and then, as the two characters talk, the sounds clink or thunk punctuate their statements. The reader does not have to be told what’s going on, or at least not that much. Instead, the reader can almost hear it.

I write plenty of musical fiction, where character actions reflect song lyrics, but I believe that Spin gets across the sounds of an unfamiliar scene better than just about anything.

Smell

For Daranaeans, scent is so much more of an indicator of feminine attractiveness than anything else. So much so that the females are divided into three castes, and it’s based on smell rather than visuals.

Barking up the Muse Tree | jespah | Janet Gershen-Siegel | Cria | World Building

Cria, a tween secondary female Daranaean

In Take Back the Night, the legendary beauty, Dratha, is described by the panting popular press as having an extraordinary aroma. They are far less concerned about what she says than about the air about her. This is in line with the overall sexism of the Emergence series – women are second-class citizens.

What’s their planet like? I like to think that it’s got a great deal of what we would call natural beauty. Part of that would be to promote Daranaean health (and the lower caste females practice some forms of folk medicine in The Cure is Worse Than the Disease and Flight of the Bluebird, so hedges and whatnot are necessary), but also for Daranaean comfort. I cannot see this world as having any sort of pollution – Daranaeans would notice.

Taste

Chicken soup | World Building

Chicken soup

For Penicillin, the premise was, to me, irresistible. Major Hayes is sick, and he doesn’t want anyone to know. Lili, of course, figures it out when she hears him coughing. And so she vows to make him something that will help him feel a little better, and keep quiet about his minor illness, but extracts a return promise from him. He’s got to smile more.

The story ends with a spread of chicken soup (and vegetarian vegetable soup for the vegan characters) with all sorts of trimmings. Hayes is last in the chow line and thanks her for her thoughtfulness and discretion. I revisit this scene at the end of Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, when Hayes wills her his lucky nickel, in payment for his outstanding chicken soup debt.

Touch

Touch can be thrilling, and it can also be awkward. For Treve and Pamela Hudson, in  Complications, it’s both.

Touch | World Building

Touch

For their first time making love (which may very well be the first time that any human and Calafan ever had sex), Treve and Pamela become, well, there’s no good way to say this.

Stuck.

Without becoming pornographic, the reader gets inklings of this, as Pamela talks about normally getting up afterwards for various reasons, and Treve letting her know that it’s just not going to happen in this case. At least, not anytime soon.

The reader, again, does not need to have a perfectly clear picture painted in order to have an idea of what is going on.

Upshot

Where it all happens is as vital as when, and what happens, and who it happens to. Before even starting a fiction, the world building is one of the first things I think of. If I can’t work world building out to my satisfaction, I’ve found, that can often hamper my creative efforts considerably.

Location matters.

Posted by jespah in Boldly Reading, Fan fiction, Meta, 2 comments
03
Aug
2013

IDIC and Crossovers

IDIC and Crossovers

Crossovers and IDIC mean what to you?

This was Templar Sora’s great blog prompt. He asked two questions.

  1. What kind of crossing over do we do as writers?
  2. What kind of crossing over do we want to see?

My Own Crossovers

I’ve done the crossover dance many times. A lot of it is in the context of interphases.

A Single Step

So for A Single Step, a story about first contact with the Caitians, I pulled together elements from TAS, the Star Trek: First Contact film and even a smidgen of ENT. An elderly Zefram Cochrane and his wife entertain the first Caitian that any humans ever meet.

Another Piece of the Action

For this collaboration with thebluesman, we crossed together a bit of ENT (the Daniels character) with TOS. Kirk and company meet the Iotians again, in Another Piece of the Action.

Concord

Concord pulled together ENT and the Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan film. Work on the Genesis Project sends Malcolm Reed back to 1775.

Day of the Dead

Day of the Dead cobbled together ENT with Wesley Crusher’s warp bubble experiment on TNG. Tripp Tucker ends up in 1945 Upper Bavaria.

Fortune

Lili and Q argue and eventually help each other in Fortune, a riff on VOY’s The Q and the Grey.

It’s a Small Universe After All

So for a weekly writing prompt about bringing together characters that would not normally be

Kaitaama IDIC and crossovers

Kaitaama

seen together, It’s a Small Universe After All.It is the story of ENT character Kaitaama being held hostage with TOS’s James T. Kirk.

More, More, More!

Daniels shows Jonathan Archer scenes from TOS’s The Cage, TOS’s The Corbomite Maneuver, and an unnamed TNG episode with Q in More, More, More!

Multiverse II

This enormous Round Robin story, Multiverse II, is a crossover by definition. Canon and original characters mix genres and eras.

These Are the Destinations

This work in progress will cross between ENT and a very specific TOS episode, and a little bit with the Kelvin timeline as well.

Crossovers I’d Like to See

So I’m not sure. I think one kind of crossover that I don’t want to see is anything relying too heavily on deus ex machina.  That generally means anything with supernatural elements like vampires, or comic books. I don’t mind characters making contact with spiritual-type elements. Lili does a lot of this, particularly in Everybody Knows This is Nowhere. But it’s in the context of conversations. And nothing really out there happens, like characters rising from the dead, for example.

But flat-out characters being bitten by radioactive spiders and suddenly getting superpowers? I just don’t want to see it. I don’t want to have to cross stories that are pretty close to being realistic with those that are so far away from realism as all that. Maybe I’m just not adventurous enough.

Because I enjoy history very much, I think what I would really like to see is more of a stylistic crossover than an actual character and scene mashup. So has anyone ever written Star Trek in the style of Ernest Hemingway, or Miguel de Cervantes?

Now that’s what I’d like to see.

Posted by jespah in Boldly Reading, Fan fiction, Meta, 6 comments
01
Aug
2013

Reviews, a Love/Hate Affair

Reviews

Reviews matter.

In the continuing saga of looking at Boldly Reading blog prompts, we have the second such prompt about Star Trek fan fiction (and, really, about any other kind of writing, for that matter) – what do you like to see in a review of your work? what do you comment upon yourself in a review? has a received view changed your opinion on a story you wrote or were writing? and finally, has a review sold or warned you off another author’s story?

The Good

Everybody loves good reviews. They make us feel warm, happy and special. They pull us up when we’re feeling low. Good vibes all around.

thumbs up! reviews

thumbs up!

But really short good reviews (e. g. I loved it!) are nice but they are dissatisfying. It’s like a half a sip of really good coffee. Hence, whether I read a review or I write one, I feel that a good review should have a little more depth than that. Why is the story so beloved?

Some ideas

  • Are the original characters believable and multidimensional? Do you, the reader, understand who they are, their motivations and back stories? The answer does not necessarily have to be yes to all of these questions, by the way, but what is it about the original characters that grabs you?
  • Are the canon characters well portrayed? If they step out of character, is that explained in a satisfying manner? Can you, the reader, hear the canon character’s voice in your head, saying these words? Can you see the canon character performing these actions?
  • What’s the driver of the events? Is it a new ship or person? A conflict? A discovery? A problem that needs solving? A mystery? Was the situation believably introduced, showcased and wrapped up?
  • Where is (are) the climax(es) in the story? What is it leading to? Is it the logical release of the build-up that has occurred throughout the story?
  • How have the characters or the situation changed by the end of the story? If the story was a reset, does the resetting to the beginning make sense?

The Bad

Sometimes, a story does not completely work, but there are redeemable elements of it. When that happens, I think it’s time for suggestions. And again, a short review is not too much help. Authors need to learn (and be nice about this!) how to improve their works. It is possible to help someone become better, and writers should take the suggestions in the spirit in which they should be given.

sideways reviews

sideways

  • I thought ___ was a bit of a hand wave. If you were rewriting the story today, how would you correct that and add more drama to that element?
  • ___ is incorrect, per (cite research). Are you looking to write an alternate reality?
  • I loved your characters but I thought the situation didn’t quite suit them. Do you have other stories with these characters?
  • I thought the situation was compelling, but I’m unsure about the placement of the characters in it. Do you have stories with similar situations, but different characters?

The Ugly

Sometimes, it’s just … oh God. You feel like sowing the ground around someone’s computer with salt. What to do?

thumbs down :( reviews

thumbs down 🙁

One option is to simply not review at all. After all, even in a review hunt challenge, you could forego the points and just bow out of reviewing. But that does not help the author get better. Can they get better? It’s a definite maybe. There are people who take suggestions to heart. And there are others who might accept the suggestions later. Then again, there are also people who think that everything they write is so wonderful that you must be the problem.

Some ideas

  • Try to find something positive to say, anything! Did they get a canon character’s voice right at all? Was the situation unique? Were there any memorable lines?
  • Once again, constructive criticism is the way to go. Be specific and detailed, but also be kind. E. g. a review that says, In canon, Scotty is not an Eskimo, and I’m just not so sure I’m buying him as one. I think that’s specific, and it does not trash the author or attack them personally. Hey, someone else might be convinced, but you, the reader, are not.
  • Are they new to writing? Maybe comment on the maturation process in writing. This is not to say that you insult people by suggesting that no one under the age of 40 can write, or that you need a decade’s worth of experience to be any good. Rather, you can suggest that continued writing, over time, often changes and hones one’s style.
  • Out and out plagiarism should not be rewarded, of course.

Personal Thoughts on Reviews

So as for me, I look at the number of reviews I get, and the number of reads. For short stories with no reviews and a high read count, that raises a red flag with me. But for longer stories with no reviews, it’s less of a flag, as there are plenty of longer stories that people just don’t stay with. It’s not necessarily due to the quality of the writing. Sometimes that’s just due to readers’ personal schedules.

And I can’t say that I love criticism, but I am a writer and I expect it and I understand it. People have told me that something looked like a hand wave, or that they couldn’t stick with something. I think that’s fine, and that tells me where to improve, and tighten things up. But I do have an ego and, like everyone else, it can sometimes be bruised.

So I ask, if you hate it, and you still choose to provide reviews, I do hope you won’t just trash me. And I vow to you that I will do the same.

Posted by jespah in Boldly Reading, Fan fiction, Meta, 4 comments
31
Jul
2013

What Do I Like to Read?

What do I like to read?

As a part of The Twelve Trials of Triskelion, the program is coming to an end, but we on Ad Astra are looking to keep it up. As a result, we’re looking to expand blogging. And now there’s a new book club, called Boldly Reading, with its own blog!

So – the first prompt is – what do you like to read? what fanfic story type/era/character and heck even name an author here you gush over do you like to read?

And so I’m thinking.

Challenges

While I love the Star Trek Enterprise and The Original Series eras, that doesn’t necessarily define what I read. More often, I go looking for a good story, and then whether it fits into my own personal era preference doesn’t truly factor into it. Good stories are good stories.

I also have great respect for people who put themselves out there for the challenges, in particular, the monthly challenges. For newer authors in particular, it has got to be daunting. It presents the old what if they don’t like me? fear that I suspect all authors have inside us.

Once I’ve read a challenger (even if they don’t win, and even if I didn’t love their story), I try to look at more of their works. Sometimes people are just off, and one story didn’t hit its marks but that doesn’t mean that others won’t. But if I have disappointment enough times, I’m done. That is, unless it’s for a monthly challenge. And I can’t honestly say exactly when that moment occurs, but I know it when I see it. Then I’ll read all of the entries because I don’t think I can vote in good conscience without reading all of that month’s entries.

But that doesn’t mean I’m going to love the author who has disappointed me. Unfairly or not, that person now has more of a hurdle to climb over in order to get my love. But it’s not an impossible hurdle.

Characterizations

For authors not involved in monthly challenges, I am looking for good characters. I love action sequences, but the truth is, they’re hard to write. Sometimes what you’re thinking of just does not translate well to pixels. But characters can. Someone who is not a Mary Sue. And someone who doesn’t just get a description in some huge data dump. It’s as if the author were picking the character out from a police lineup. Someone who I can hate or love or be repulsed by or laugh with or at or want to hug or kick. Someone who stays with me.

Give it up for Templar Sora!

One author whose works I have loved pretty much from the beginning has been Templar Sora.

Star Trek Online read

Star Trek Online (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Two of his characters I have particularly enjoyed are Jessica St. Peter and Seymour Sonia. Jess is an unlikely leader. She’s a person thrust into the role when everyone around her falls down on the job. Or they are too scared or damaged or inexperienced to step in. And, as a young leader, she deals with something that a lot of young leaders in fan fiction never seem to have to deal with – insubordination by people who think she should not have her place.

Enter Seymour Sonia, the consummate jerk. Everything from hitting on Jess (before she gets a command) to openly being hostile to her, he’s a fun character to despise. The beauty of this character is his passive-aggressive nature. I have found that often jerk characters are written as utterly one-dimensional, as authors might feel they have to stack their decks. After all, who could possibly hate a Starfleeter?

Try me.

Upshot

I love a lot of what I’m reading. But to really hit the stratosphere, give me a character where all I want to do when I see him in a scene is yell, “Bite me!”

Posted by jespah in Boldly Reading, Fan fiction, Meta, 4 comments