Author: Ted Atchley

Categories
Fantasy-Sci-Fi

Breaking out of the political world building rut

Fantasy and science fiction stories can push the bounds of what is possible in amazing ways. We design intricate magic systems and imagine future technologies with limitless potential. Yet, with the economic and political systems in our worlds, we seem to settle for well-trodden ground. Our hero must save the kingdom or overthrow the evil empire. The heroine faces down the forces of the amoral mega-corporation. 

What other systems could we design? Like many areas of world-building, we draw inspiration from our real-world experiences and history. We’re going to look at the government and economic systems. These can apply to an array of organizational structures like kingdoms, federations, confederation and more. We will only scratch the service of these models. We strongly recommend more in-depth research into whatever system you wish to use for the inspiration of your world.

Autocracy

The most well-known and popular form of government in speculative stories is an autocracy. This is the rule by one individual. The supreme leader’s word is law. All economic and military power is under their control. They rule with unquestioned authority. Sometimes, the people think the ruler is divine.

The organization structure takes and title scales with the population. A chief’s chiefdom refers to a small tribe. A monarchy is an autocracy over an entire Kingdom while an emperor will rule many kingdoms. The ruler of the historical Holy Roman Empire was called potentate.

Oligarchy

Moving away from the rule of one, we have a rule by the few. This is a council of a handful of members. Three was a popular historical number. They awarded council membership for family ties, religious affiliation, military prestige, personal achievements, or other attributes. The council sets the agenda, debates topics and decides was “best” for the people. Much of ancient Greece (Corinth, Sparta, Thebes, etc.) had an oligarchy. The notable exception was the Athenians.

Ironically, many other forms of government will drift toward oligarchy. Political power concentrates in a small group, even in forms of government where larger numbers of people can claim power, through political parties or coalitions. 

Republic 

Power moves from the one (autocracy) to the few (oligarchy) and finally to the many in the Republic. Selected individuals who represent the people governed a republic. They collectively agree to and then rule by the power of a set of laws. Medieval Iceland had a parliament called the Althing. In pre-Columbian Mexico, the Tlaxcala Nahua state had a representative assembly that even included representation from the commoner class. For the western mind, the most famous republic from history is Rome. 

One form this took on historically was the Merchant Republic. The richest merchants claimed the ruling seats. They focused more on economic advancement. Military might serves to either protect existing trade routes or open new ones. Tariffs and customs replaced more “aggressive negotiations” in diplomatic matters. Historically, Renaissance Italy provides the best examples of the merchant republic with powerful city-states like Venice, Genoa, Pisa, and Florence. The popular science fiction rule by a mega-corporation is a rift on a merchant republic.

Theocracy

Where the traders hold sway over a Merchant Republic, it is the people of faith who rule in a theocracy. The deity has ultimate authority, but uses a human representative (historically, almost always male). This person must have a direct connection and speak for the deity. Alternatively, you could design a world where the deity speaks directly and see what kind of plot that leads to. The Israelites had Moses. The Arabs had Muhammad. Joseph Smith ruled the State of Deseret. Vatican City is a theocracy under the rule of the Pope. The Islamic Republic of Iran is another theocracy under the rule of the Ayatollah.

Fascism

Now we move into more modern forms of government. With fascism, we see the nationalistic pride of the country with authoritative power. This form of government developed in the aftermath of the First World War and a world-wide Great Depression. The name fascism comes from the historical Fascist Party from Italy, but fascism rose to power in Imperial Japan, Mussolini’s Italy, Franco’s Spain, and Nazi Germany through a combination of cunning, violence, or even free elections.

Fascism is an autocratic, totalitarian form of government. They intertwine military leadership with the political leadership. Unlike older autocracies, fascism controls the population through propaganda or even repression of opposing views.

Democracy

The direct opposite end of the spectrum from autocracy is democracy. This form of government provides the greatest decentralization of power. “For the people, by the people” is the mantra, though who exactly makes up ‘the people’ has been an issue in many democracies over history. This is one of those dramatic points you can use in your setting as you decide who may vote.

In a true democracy, those with the right to vote would vote directly on each issue. This quickly became impractical. The closest example we have today are various state and local referendums. Most democracies quickly moved to a republic form of government, but there’s nothing stopping you from designing your world to have a pure democratic government and seeing what story opportunities that creates.

Communism

Communism had its roots as more of an economic system than government, but individuals seized upon in the early 20th century. The intention was a government ruled by those who performed the actual labor. The core philosophy was “give according to ability and receive according to need”. It is deeply against all forms of religion, believing faith was as a tool to keep the worker class suppressed. It was one of the first forms of government to aspire to go beyond the boundaries of a single nation, and be a true world-wide form of government.

Like democracy, communism in its purest form proved difficult to implement. The most notable historical example is the Soviet Union. But even it switched over to more of an oligarchy long before its eventual collapse in the late 20th century.

Its up to you!

Perhaps your story world will have a nation that achieves a pure form of either democracy or communism. What would it change in your story? What if antagonist political force was a fascist or theocratic government? Use these historical examples to launch your imagination beyond the kingdoms, empires, and mega-corporations we see repeatedly in the genre.

F. Ted Atchley is a freelance writer and professional computer programmer with a passion for reading and writing speculative fiction. Whether it’s words or code, he’s always writing. His latest short story, The Preponderance of the Evidence, is available through Havok Publishing.

He writes the monthly Science Fiction and fantasy column for AlmostAnAuthor.com. In addition, he is a staff writer for BlizzardWatch.com, a premier fan site for the games produced by Blizzard Entertainment.

He lives in beautiful Charleston, SC with his wife and children. When not writing, you’ll find him spending time with his family, and cheering on his beloved Carolina Panthers.

You can find more about Ted at his website: https://tedatchley.com/

Categories
Fantasy-Sci-Fi

Technology and Magic in your Science-fiction and Fantasy novels

An important part of what makes your story fit into the Science Fiction and/or Fantasy genres is an element of the fantastical. This comes in either advanced technology for Science Fiction or a magic system for Fantasy.

For this discussion, we are going to treat the exotic magic of fantasy as simply a flavor of the advanced technology of science fiction. As Arthur C. Clarke famously said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” They are one concept, but one that it is critical to speculative fiction.

Systems need rules

Readers need to understand your magic and technology and must believe it’s at least plausible within the world you have created. If they don’t, they can’t suspend disbelief enough to enjoy the story. Real-world systems have limitations, and your magic and technology should have them as well to give them a real-world feel. Here are some examples from popular culture: The Ghostbusters can’t cross the streams. The Delorean has to get to 88mph to achieve time travel. A wizard must be able to enunciate the words of the spell properly for it to work. The ritual must have the ancient artifacts to the open the gate to another realm. No one can defeat an Agent inside the Matrix.

These limitations can become the engine for tension and drama in your story. The heroes must find the sacred artifacts before the villain so he can’t open the portal to bring in his other dimensional army. The villain gags the wizard so he can’t cast. Now, how will he win? The engine breaks and the car can’t up to 88mph. How will Marty time travel home?

This also opens up great opportunities for your story when your villains or heroes have to break the rules. Spoiler alerts for a thirty-plus year old movie, but to win in the end, the Ghostbusters must cross the streams. No one can take on an Agent and win… until Neo does.

Your rules need to be integral to your story and not a simple plot device. Let’s say your character has a superpower gadget that needs to be recharged. Needing to be recharged can be a good rule and open up story angles for you. What if the hero doesn’t have enough power to defeat the bad guy. Should the hero use this powerful attack that will drain half his energy? What if the villain takes control of the charger? But you have to be careful. If you’re not consistent with how much power the gadget can hold or how much power each element of the suit takes each time, it will push your story past plausible in your reader’s mind and you’ll lose that all important suspension of disbelief.

Making it part of your world

One of the major challenges is explaining your magic or technology to your reader without resorting to long passages of expositions or telling through dialog. This is a crutch wherein the author slips an important piece of information into dialog so the reader will know it, but it’s a piece of information the other character already knows. If you can start the dialog with “As you know…” it’s telling through dialog. This should be avoided.

Your characters wouldn’t feel a need to explain their technology anymore than you feel a need to explain your mobile phone to your best friend. It’s simply part of your world. One way authors have solved this is by having characters brought in as students or neophytes who require training and therefore explanations. Even in this case, though, avoid pages of exposition and keep the story moving forward.

Think about how your magic or technology would affect the culture of your world. “Necessity is the mother of invention” but a magic spell that can solve the problem removes the necessity. Why spend years developing a telegraph if a wizard can cast a communication spell.. Why work on a steam-powered engines if a spell or artifact can teleport someone across a great distance in seconds? Why spend countless hours perfecting a light bulb if a Bard can sing a spell of illumination.

The real world gives both you and your reader a baseline for expectations. Science Fiction writers tend to be future focused, but looking at history is instructive. Over the twentieth century, we went from newspapers, to radio, to TV, to the Internet. Each advanced increased the speed at which information flowed and how many people any one person could communicate with. Vietnam was unlike any other war because, for the first time, the general populace could see it. People who heard the famous Kennedy/Nixon debates on the radio came away more impressed with Nixon, but those who watched it on those early TVs thought Kennedy would be the better leader. Whatever incredible technology or magic you create should have seismic effects on your culture as well.

This is also true as it relates to the speed at which technology develops. We’ve gone from the first powered flight to space travel in under a century, but we still haven’t successfully taken humans beyond our moon. Your story must explain whatever technological leaps exist in your world and give a plausible timeline.

How much to explain

Fantasy explains less than Science Fiction. It’s magic, right? But without defined rules, it can become wish fulfillment and whatever the writer needs for the story at that specific moment. Without rules, you can write yourself into a corner. Invariably, your readers will ask, ‘why didn’t they just do X’, and they will lose that all important suspension of disbelief.

Magic and technology is another of those goldilocks tightropes writers must walk. Reading widely in the genre is a great way to see examples both of the tightrope being walked with skill and also watching some authors flail right off.

F. Ted Atchley is a freelance writer and professional computer programmer with a passion for reading and writing speculative fiction. Whether it’s words or code, he’s always writing. His latest short story, The Preponderance of the Evidence, will be published by Havok Publishing on December 20th.

He writes the monthly Science Fiction and fantasy column for AlmostAnAuthor.com. In addition, he is a staff writer for BlizzardWatch.com, a premier fan site for the games produced by Blizzard Entertainment.

He lives in beautiful Charleston, SC with his wife and children. When not writing, you’ll find him spending time with his family, and cheering on his beloved Carolina Panthers.

You can find more about Ted at his website: https://tedatchley.com/

Categories
Fantasy-Sci-Fi

Understanding your Elemental and Aesthetic Genre

What do you write? It’s a question every writer gets from time to time. Should you answer with your aesthetic genre or your elemental genre? What’s the difference? Today, we’ll dive into these two concepts.

The aesthetic genre defines how your story looks and sets up key exceptions in your reader’s mind. The elemental genre describes the key elements that make up the story. Deciding on your aesthetic genre is choosing the shelf (virtual or physical) where your book will live one day alongside others of a similar aesthetic.

Superhero is an aesthetic genre. In this genre, you’ll have characters with super powers in costumes. That’s the look, the aesthetic. If you say your book is a superhero genre, but your characters don’t have powers, readers will be (rightfully) upset. They might feel you deceived them, which can lead to poor reviews.

Within the superhero aesthetic genre, there are two major elemental genres, or plots. Plot One is a young person discovering their powers. Plot Two is several empowered people learning to work together as a cohesive team. These are the classic stories of the genre. The challenge is to do them in a fresh and creative way.

One of my favorite authors in the superhero genre is Jason Joyner. His Rise of the Anointed series follows these two elemental plots. Launch, the first book of the series is a Plot One story with his characters discovering their powers. Fractures, book two of the Rise of the Anointed series, is a Plot Two story where the four characters who discovered their powers in Launch learn to work together as a team.

Early in a series, it’s better to stick to the accepted elemental plots of your aesthetic genre just as Joyner has done. Marvel also followed this exact plan when they introduced the Marvel Cinematic Universe. All of their Phase 1 movies (The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Thor, and Captain America: The First Avenger) are super hero elemental Plot One—a person discovering their powers. It’s only at the culmination of Phase 1 with 2012’s The Avengers that we get elemental Plot Two—several empowered people learning to work together.

Readers are accepting of various elemental genres within an established aesthetic genre. Sticking with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Captain America: The Winter Soldier is an elemental spy thriller. The dark conspiracies and thrilling action would work just as well in James Bond or Mission Impossible. Spoiler Alert: you even get a Mission Impossible style character unmasking at the climax. It’s just that Natasha Romanov, Steve Rodgers, and Bucky Barnes have super powers.

Avengers Endgame is a classic elemental heist plot. It has all the elements of the heist down to the whiteboard presentation—though the Avengers’ ‘whiteboard’ is far more high tech. All the team members play have their various jobs and roles just like in an Oceans 11 type story, but the characters are wearing superhero outfits and have superpowers. Endgame combines that aesthetic with the elements of the heist story.

While people will dabble in various elemental genres, they don’t enjoy reading outside of their aesthetic genre. The publisher, whether traditional or independent, must clearly convey what the aesthetic genre is. The foremost place to accomplish is the cover design, and in the blurb. Failing to do this well can lead to disappointed readers and poor reviews.

It’s also advisable to stick to one elemental genre early on. This is a lesson I had to learn the hard way. The current manuscript I’m shopping is a science fiction portal fantasy thriller. My story has thriller elements and portal fantasy elements set in a science fiction aesthetic. This has created challenges as I attempt to market the book to agents and publishing houses.

Having a clear vision of your aesthetic and elemental genre early on will help you communicate what your story is about to future readers, agents, and publishers. What is your aesthetic and elemental genre? Why did you decide on those choices? Let me know in the comments.

Ted Atchley is a freelance writer and professional computer programmer. Whether it’s words or code, he’s always writing. Ted’s love for speculative fiction started early on with Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, and the Star Wars movies. This led to reading Marvel comics and eventually losing himself in Asimov’s Apprentice Adept series and the world of Krynn (Dragonlance Chronicles). 

He lives in beautiful Charleston, SC with his wife and children. When not writing, you’ll find him spending time with his family, and cheering on his beloved Carolina Panthers. He’s currently querying his science fiction portal fantasy thriller novel. 

Ted has a quarterly newsletter which you can join here. You’ll get the latest on his writing and publishing as well as links about writing, Star Wars, and/or Marvel.

Categories
Fantasy-Sci-Fi

structure your novel with harmon’s story circle

In the early 2000s, Blake Snyder released Save the Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need. This work on story structure became often cited and highly influential. While originally written for scripts and screenwriting, many authors saw value in adopting it’s three-act structure concepts for their novels.  

Hollywood continues to innovate. In recent years, a different take on story structure has gained popularity. Dan Harmon, the co-creator of Rick and Morty, developed a structure called Story Circle. Michael Waldron, showrunner on the Disney+ Loki series, adopted it. He had previously worked with Harmon on Rick and Morty.

Proving we all stand on the shoulders of giants, Harmon created his Story Circle based upon the monomyth theory of Joseph Campbell, also known as The Hero’s Journey. Like Snyder’s three-act structure in Save the Cat!, the Story Circle helps an author structure their story to give the audience a satisfying and entertaining experience. 

The Story Circle is composed of eight steps. 

  • Step 1-You. 
    • A character is in a comfortable situation
  • Step 2-Need
    • However, they seek something
  • Step 3-Go
    • They venture into an unfamiliar place or situation. 
  • Step 4-Search
    • They get used to or adapt to their new situation
  • Step 5-Find
    • They get what they’re looking for
  • Step 6-Take
    • They pay a high price for it
  • Step 7-Return
    • They go back to their familiar situation
  • Step 8-Change
    • They have changed

You want a circle like this for each main character, and for your antagonist. You’ll also want to do one for each episode or book in the series, but also a larger one with these steps as the characters progress over the entire series. 

This is an oversimplification of the process. Let’s look at an examples to flesh this out. 

Step 1-You

Introduce your main character and their world before the events of the story begin. In order to appreciate the change at the end of the story, we must firmly establish where the character started and who they were.

Loki Episode 1–We introduce Loki after his escape from the Battle of New York.

Step 2-Need

Some event takes place that presents a problem or question to our main character. Step one, You, answers who the story is about. Step two, Need, answer what the story is about.

Loki Episode 1–Loki wants to escape so he can be special. He needs the Tesseract back.

Go

This is the step where the character leaves their normal world and enters the unknown. The Need has to drive your character into action. If there’s a Need, and your character doesn’t Go, you might as well roll the credits. The story is over. While your character must have agency, it’s up to you as the author to set up the circumstances in such a way that the character can’t refuse to go.

Loki Episode 1–TVA needs his help. Loki steals a time device and escapes.

Search

This doesn’t have to be a literal, physical search (though with Loki it is). This is where the author starts throwing obstacles and complications at our character. The character must learn and change from each challenge they overcome.

Loki Episode 1–Loki is unhelpful. He searches the TVA for the Tesseract.

Find

Congratulations! Your character has searched and grown and found the thing that started him on the journey. Roll credits. Or not. Your character’s journey up to this point has shown them what they needed at the start is no longer what they need. Plot and character development will dovetail.

Loki Episode 1–Loki finds the Tesseract. It’s being used as a paperweight.

Take

“The bill comes due,” as Mordo said at the end of Dr. Strange. The character must pay a price for their victory. She loses something important to her in finding what she thought she needed. This could run the gamut from a simple setback to the death of a major character, depending on the genre and the type of story you want to tell.

Loki Episode 1–Loki takes the Tesseract. He realizes it won’t get him out of the TVA. Its magic doesn’t work. His magic doesn’t work. He’s not special.

Return

The character returns to their normal life with their prize, and lessons learned. They are no longer the person they were when they left on their journey.

Loki Episode 1–Loki returns to the interrogation room.

Change

Change must happen to the character, but the author can show change to the circumstances in the world as well because of the character’s actions. The changes don’t always have to be positive. Perhaps the character changed for the better, but the world changed for the worse and you’ve set up the sequel. 

Loki Episode 1–Now Loki is broken and ready to help the TVA. Notice that he’s helpful is on the polar opposite point of the circle from his being unhelpful.

The beauty of the Story Circle is it can apply to many stories, whether they be romance, mystery, thriller, or comedies. As a cycle, the story circle is wonderful for serial content like TV shows, movies franchises and book series. It’s a more refined Hero’s Journey. A more cathartic journey of true evolution that is more character driven than plot driven. 

You don’t have to choose between the Story Circle and the three-act structure. You can use them both to better understand your story, whether you meticulously plotted out every detail or discovered it organically as you wrote the first draft. The important thing is to arrive at a great story. Use any and all tools and techniques at your disposal.

Ted Atchley is a freelance writer and professional computer programmer. Whether it’s words or code, he’s always writing. Ted’s love for speculative fiction started early on with Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, and the Star Wars movies. This led to reading Marvel comics and eventually losing himself in Asimov’s Apprentice Adept and the world of Krynn (Dragonlance Chronicles). 

After blogging on his own for several years, Blizzard Watch (blizzardwatch.com) hired Ted to be a regular columnist in 2016. When the site dropped many of its columns two years later, they retained Ted as a staff writer. 

He lives in beautiful Charleston, SC with his wife and children. When not writing, you’ll find him spending time with his family, and cheering on his beloved Carolina Panthers. He’s currently revising his work-in-progress portal fantasy novel before preparing to query. 

Ted has a quarterly newsletter which you can join here. You’ll get the latest on his writing and publishing as well as links about writing, Star Wars, and/or Marvel.

Categories
Fantasy-Sci-Fi

the eight types of time travel

Time travel is a stable in science fiction. Countless books, comics, movies, and TV shows have used it as their main plot device. Even more have incorporated it into a key moment of the story. Over the years, eight major types of time travel logic emerged. Recently, YouTubers Eric Voss and Héctor Navarro examined all eight types, and looked at which one gets it most correct in term of the real world science behind science fiction.

Type 1 Anything goes

Definition: Characters travel back and forth within their historical timeline.

This approach frees you to have fun and not get lost in the minutiae of how time travel works. Usually, there’s a magical Maguffin that to quote the great Dr. Ememett Brown, “makes time travel possible”. Writers have used a car, a phone booth, and a hot tub, among other options. This approach leads to inconsistent limits on the logic of the time travel, but this doesn’t mean the story is poorly plotted, won’t be enjoyable or won’t be an enormous hit. This approach is more science fantasy than science fiction with no basis in real-world science.

Examples: Back to the Future, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Hot Tube Time Machine, Frequency, Austin Powers, Men In Black 3, Deadpool 2, The Simpsons, Galaxy Quest, Star Trek TOS, Doctor Who, 11/22/63 by Stephen King.

Type 2 Branch Reality

Definition: Changes to the past don’t rewrite history. They split the timeline into an alternate branch timeline. This action does not change or erase the original timeline.

As authors got more familiar with the science behind time travel in theoretical physics, this type, based upon the many worlds theory in quantum mechanics, emerged. When the character travels back into the past and changes events, they create a new reality. Their original reality is unchanged. Branches themselves can branch leading to a multiverse of possibilities.

Examples: The Disney Plus series, Loki, used this extensively. See also: Back to the Future Part II, Avenger’s Endgame, the DC Comics multiverse, the Marvel Comics multiverse, Rick and Morty, Star Trek (2009), A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle.

Type 3 Time Dilation

Definition: Characters traveling off-world experience time moving more slowly than elsewhere in the universe, allowing them to move forward in time (but not backward).

This type is the based upon our scientific understanding of how time slows down as you approach the speed of the light. This is a forward-only type of time travel. There’s no going backwards.

Examples: Planet of the Apes, Ender’s Game, Flight of the Navigator, Interstellar, Buck Rodgers.

Type 4 This Always Happened

Definition: All of time is fixed on a predestined loop in which the very act of time travel itself sets the events of the story into motion.

This one can confuse and delves closer to the realm of theology than science. It feels gimmicky, and has become something of a trope making it hard to pull this off in a satisfying way for your audience. This type also invites the audience to question if your protagonist ever had free will or agency in the story.

Examples: Terminator, Terminator 2, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Game of Thrones-Season 6, Twelve Monkeys, Interstellar, Kate and Leopold, The Butterfly Effect, Predestination, Ricky and Morty-Season 5, Looper.

Type 5 Seeing the Future

Definition: After seeing a vision of their fate, characters choose to change their destiny or embrace their lot.

We’re stretching to call this time travel, but it provides your story with built-in conflict and stakes. Will the hero choose to walk the path knowing how it will end, or will they choose a different path?

Examples: Oedipus Rex, A Christmas Carol, Minority Report, Arrival, Next (Nicolas Cage), Rick and Morty-Season Four. Star Trek:Discovery-Season 2, Avenger’s EndGame with Dr. Strange and the Mind Stone.

Type 6 Time Loop / Groundhog Day

Definition: Characters relive the same day over and over, resetting back to a respawn point once they die or become incapacitated.

This type gained popularity after the movie, Groundhog Day, became a tremendous hit. Most of the other examples take the Groundhog Day idea and put a slight twist on it. Like Type 4 “This Always Happened”, the popularity of this type can make it harder to pull off in a fresh and innovative way.

Examples: Obviously, Groundhog Day with Bill Murray. Edge of Tomorrow, Doctor Strange in the ending battle with Dormammu, Russian Dolls (Netflix), Palm Springs, Star Trek TNG.

Type 7 Unstuck Mind

Definition: Characters consciousness transport through time within his body to his life at different ages.

Nostalgia for the past and dreaming of the future are core parts of the human experience. This type runs more metaphorically than scientific.

Examples: Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut, X-Men: Days of Future Past, Desmond in the series Lost.

Type 8 Unstuck Body

Definition: A character’s body or object becomes physically detached from the flow of time within the surrounding universe, becoming inverted or younger. Only certain objects or bodies are unstuck from time. Also called Inverted Entropy.

This one will blow your mind if you think about it for too long. Like Type 2 “Branch Reality”, this one comes from the realm of quantum mechanics and theoretical physics. Scientists and mathematicians have all the formulas worked out to make this de-aging a reality, but currently lack the technology to control all the variables in the ways needed. It would like scientists working out than an object could break the speed of the sound in 1890. It would look inconceivable, given the technology of the day, but I wouldn’t put limits on human ingenuity.

Examples: Dr. Strange (the Hong Kong battle). Tenet, briefly in Endgame with Scott Lang and Bruce, Primer.

If you’re writing a time travel story, you’ll need to decide which one of these types you want to deploy. They all have their advantages and disadvantages. In many ways, its similar to designing your magic system, especially if you go with a Type 1 time travel story. The most important thing remains to have relatable characters and to tell a great story while being internally consistent with the rules and logic of your story world.

Ted Atchley is a freelance writer and professional computer programmer. Whether it’s words or code, he’s always writing. Ted’s love for speculative fiction started early on with Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, and the Star Wars movies. This led to reading Marvel comics and eventually losing himself in Asimov’s Apprentice Adept and the world of Krynn (Dragonlance Chronicles). 

After blogging on his own for several years, Blizzard Watch (blizzardwatch.com) hired Ted to be a regular columnist in 2016. When the site dropped many of its columns two years later, they retained Ted as a staff writer. 

He lives in beautiful Charleston, SC with his wife and children. When not writing, you’ll find him spending time with his family, and cheering on his beloved Carolina Panthers. He’s currently revising his work-in-progress portal fantasy novel before preparing to query. 

Ted has a quarterly newsletter which you can join here. You’ll get the latest on his writing and publishing as well as links about writing, Star Wars, and/or Marvel.

Categories
Fantasy-Sci-Fi

You Need to Attend a Scifi/Fantasy Writers Conference

Writer’s conferences are, once again, gearing up to welcome attendees. These annual conventions (in-person, online or a hybrid of both) are where writers gather to meet and learn from industry professionals, successful best-selling authors, literary agents, editors, and each other. Conferences host lectures, panels, and workshops geared to help writers at every stage of their writing journey. You will socialize, improve your craft and perhaps even start a career altering relationship.

There are three major reasons you should go to a writers’ conference: learn, make friends, and pitch.

Learn from the best teachers

The faculty at a writer’s conference comprises best-selling authors, top literary agents, and world class editors. These generous people provide firsthand knowledge gained from years of experience in the publishing business. Besides the large group lectures and panels, many conferences offer you the opportunity to get one-on-one time with these professional (usually for an additional fee). You can get feedback on your own writing or ask the burning questions you’ve always wanted to.

Make some new friends

Friendships start with a shared experience, or a shared passion. At a writer’s conference, you’ll find people who both have shared your experience of writing a novel and share your passion to get published. Every person, from the greenest newbie to the most hardened veteran, spent serious money and took days away from friends and family to be there.

Writer’s conferences know many of their attendees are introverts, and this concept might make them a little nervous. They will often have places and events setup to help introverts break the ice and get conversions started. As a bonus, your fellow introverts will understand in a way few of your other friends do when you need a few minutes of solitude to recharge.

Pitch your novel to agents and publishers

Most writer’s conferences host events where you can pitch your novel to an agent, editor, or publisher. You’ll know your pitch didn’t get lost in an email inbox with thousands of others never to be read. You gave it to them one on one. The agent will hear your passion for the project, and you’ll be able to answer their questions on the spot. You’ll receive invaluable feedback on your project as you watch their facial expressions and body language.

Now that you know why you should attend a writer’s conference, let’s look at a couple of writer’s conferences specifically geared to writers of science fiction and fantasy novels.

SFWA Nebula Conference

Home to nearly 2000 authors, artists, and allied professionals, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America is one of the oldest and largest conferences for speculative writers. This year’s conference was held the first week of June and was online only. At the conference, the SFWA announces the winners of The Nebula Awards for the best novel, novella, novelette, script, and short story. Dates and locations for the 2022 conference are yet to be announced.

World Con

The World Science Fiction Convention aka “Worldcon” is a five-day international conference attended by thousands of writers, artists, fans, editors, publishers, academics and dealers of the science fiction and fantasy community. You’ll see a celebration of Science Fiction and Fantasy in all its forms: books, film, TV, art, comics, anime and manga, and gaming. This conference announces the winners of the prestigious Hugo awards. This year’s conference will be held December 15 through December 19, 2021 in Washington, DC.

Realm Makers

Realm Makers is a niche conference for creatives who love Science Fiction and Fantasy and profess a Christian worldview. It’s a place for you to learn, share your talents, & meet with people like yourself. This conference hosts the Realm Awards to recognize the best speculative fiction written by Christian authors. This year’s conference will be held July 15-17, 2021 in St. Louis, Missouri.

Writer’s conferences provide a range of benefits to attendees and should be something every aspiring author plans into their yearly schedule.

Ted Atchley is a freelance writer and professional computer programmer. Whether it’s words or code, he’s always writing. Ted’s love for speculative fiction started early on with Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, and the Star Wars movies. This led to reading Marvel comics and eventually losing himself in Asimov’s Apprentice Adept and the world of Krynn (Dragonlance Chronicles). 

After blogging on his own for several years, Blizzard Watch (blizzardwatch.com) hired Ted to be a regular columnist in 2016. When the site dropped many of its columns two years later, they retained Ted as a staff writer. 

He lives in beautiful Charleston, SC with his wife and children. When not writing, you’ll find him spending time with his family, and cheering on his beloved Carolina Panthers. He’s currently revising his work-in-progress portal fantasy novel before preparing to query. 

Ted has a quarterly newsletter which you can join here. You’ll get the latest on his writing and publishing as well as links about writing, Star Wars, and/or Marvel.

Categories
Fantasy-Sci-Fi

advances in rocket propulsion to inspire your science fiction

There’s an important difference between Science Fiction and Scient Fantasy. Scient Fiction is based on real world science, even if that science is theoretical. Science Fantasy looks and reads like Science Fiction, but it’s not based on real world science. Science Fiction spends more time explaining how the technology in their created world works, while Science Fantasy treats it as akin to a magic system. The classic delineation is Star Trek is Science Fiction, while Star Wars is Science Fantasy.

Known and mundane

Chemical rockets have been powering human spaceflight for decades. Every rocket used this type of propulsion. Whether the fuel is liquid or solid, it’s burned with an oxidizer to create rapidly expanding gas. The design of the rocket gives the gas only the rocket’s nozzle as an outlet and thanks to Newton’s Third Law of Motion, all the force going out causes a reactive force pushing the rocket to the stratosphere and beyond.

SpaceX, one of the leading innovators in space travel, has begun tests on The Raptor, a full flow staged combustion (FFSC) engine. It’s still a chemical reaction, but it’s more fuel efficient and generates more power.

Are you telling me that this sucker is NUCLEAR?

Nuclear fission reactions recall visions of mushroom clouds and destruction, but much like how we can use fire or electricity for both destructive and constructive purposes, this potent reaction is being tested as a possible propulsion source. It works like a chemical rocket. Gases are heated and given the nozzle as their only escape.

The problem with fission engines is size. The current fission reactors are too large for a space faring vehicle, but research and experimentation continue. The other issues is launch failure. It’s one thing when a chemical rocket explodes, but a nuclear rocket could spread radioactive material over a large area. That is not ideal.

It’s electric

There are few sounds more iconic than the Twin Ion Engines of a Sienar Fleet Systems T.I.E fighter. This technology is getting some real application. The drives ionize particles and fire them out a thruster. They are fuel efficient and can even be solar powered. Real-world applications include Esa’s SMART-1 mission to the Moon and Bepi-Colombo mission headed to Mercury.

The major issue with ion drives is speed. They are too slow for any manned mission, but NASA is working on more powerful versions for a proposed moon mission.

Solar sails

Versions have of Solar sails have appeared in popular Science Fiction and Science Fantasy. The real-world versions rely on catching photons emitted by the Sun. They propel the sail through space. There is an inverse relationship between distance from the Sun and speed. The Japanese IKAROS spacecraft and the Planetary Society Lightsail-2 project have both employed this technology. Unfortunately for solar sail enthusiasts, these engines make the ion engines look fast.

Scientist continue to push the boundaries of our technology, chasing the dreams birth in them by writers of great science fiction. The writers inspire the scientist to reach new heights and the discovers the scientist make inspire greater and more fantastical stories from the writers. It’s a beautiful, symbiotic relationship.

Ted Atchley is a freelance writer and professional computer programmer. Whether it’s words or code, he’s always writing. Ted’s love for speculative fiction started early on with Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, and the Star Wars movies. This led to reading Marvel comics and eventually losing himself in Asimov’s Apprentice Adept and the world of Krynn (Dragonlance Chronicles). 

After blogging on his own for several years, Blizzard Watch (blizzardwatch.com) hired Ted to be a regular columnist in 2016. When the site dropped many of its columns two years later, they retained Ted as a staff writer. 

He lives in beautiful Charleston, SC with his wife and children. When not writing, you’ll find him spending time with his family, and cheering on his beloved Carolina Panthers. He’s currently revising his work-in-progress portal fantasy novel before preparing to query. 

Ted has a montly newsletter which you can join here. It’s a roundup of links about writing, Star Wars, and/or Marvel with brief commentary from him.

  • Twitter: @tedatchley3
  • Twitter: @honorshammer (gaming / Blizzard Watch)
Categories
Fantasy-Sci-Fi

Should You Base Your Novel on Your RPG Camapaign?

Many fantasy writers got their introduction to the genre not through books but through Table Top Role Playing Games (TTRPG), or more recently, through computer Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPG). It is not uncommon to see a new fantasy author’s first attempt at writing being a translation of their TTRPG campaign or an adaptation of their MMORPG experience. This has generally not been seen as a great idea, but a new genre is turning that advice on its head.

Why you don’t want to turn your TTRPG or MMORPG into a novel

TTRPG campaigns, while fun to play, often lack the narrative structure novels need. A TTRPG isn’t designed with a three-act novel structure in mind. That’s not the intent. Unless the author relentlessly edits the campaign, this can lead to muddled middles, and wandering plots.

Sometimes experienced TTRPG players create amazing characters, but even well designed TTRPG characters and MMORPG characters can lack for well defined wounds and inner arcs. The main character in an MMORPG is not driving the story the way a great protagonist will. The story is happening to them, and they are along for the ride. This can also be true to a lesser degree in TTRPG characters.

Enter LitRPG, Isekai and GameLit

My current work in progress is a Portal Fantasy and in doing research into comparable novels, I discovered a relatively new subgenre of Portal Fantasy. You’ll see the terms LitRPG, Isekai and GameLit all used to describe it. Many of the available works are translations of books originally written in Russian, Japanese, and Korean where the genre was born.

The main idea is the entire book happens inside the virtual reality of the game. It’s a mashup of Matrix, World of Warcraft , and Jumanji, with a dash of Ender’s Game. The idea of going inside a WoW-style MMO as a major plot element is hardly a new idea. You’ll see this trope in Daemon by Daniel Suarez, Halting State by Charles Stross, Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, and Reamde by Neal Stephenson.

The key element in LitRPG books that differs from those novels is the game play mechanics are explicit both for the reader and the characters. In LitRPG, you’ll see actual lines like this in the prose:

Damage taken. Hit Points reduced by 5: 11 (weapon damage + strength) – 6 (armor). Total: 35 of 40.

Buff gained: Strength +1, Energy loss reduced by 50%. Duration – 12 hours.

You’ve been hit by Messenger Gnoll! Damage sustained: 16 points. Life 44/60

LitRPG/GameLit/Isekai is a sub-genre of the sub-genre of Portal Fantasy. It features a protagonist from one reality transported to the game world by some means. In the game world, they have some sort of progress – usually tied to the concept of experience points. They receive gear from defeating their enemies and may or may not join up with others to overcome obstacles. GameLit books tend to be lighter on the actual game mechanics part than other LitRPG novels.

Why do LitRPG novels work?

Reading one of these books can feel like a guilty pleasure, and they can be surprisingly addictive. Similar to how mystery readers love to solve the crime along with the detective, many authors and readers of LitRPG enjoy having the characters strategize within the constrains of the game rules.

The protagonists in this genre can be bland and nondescript, but that’s part of their appeal. It makes it easier for reader to see themselves as the protagonist. Your previous place in life whether as a lovable loser or a Type A overachiever no longer matters. Now, only your knowledge of the game and its mechanics is important.

These MMO-in-book-form allow the reader to experience an RPG in a way they may no longer be able to. As MMO and TTRPG players mature, they may no longer have the large blocks of time needed to devote to these games. Through LitRPG, you can level fast, find hidden secrets, talk to illusive NPC characters, and defeat the most difficult encounters. All on your own time table.

Most of us have given up on finding the Ring of Power, or lifting Mjöllnir, or getting a letter from Hogwarts. But video games are a real part of our world. Long after we’ve abandoned the games in favor of work and family responsibilities, we can still be the hero of a virtual world as we follow along with the protagonist of our LitRPG. But, if you’re going to write one of these, remember readers also want empathetic characters, stimulating plots and intense drama. Those aspects of LitRPG/GameLit, like with any books, are the still most important.

Ted Atchley is a freelance writer and professional computer programmer. Whether it’s words or code, he’s always writing. Ted’s love for speculative fiction started early on with Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, and the Star Wars movies. This led to reading Marvel comics and eventually losing himself in Asimov’s Apprentice Adept and the world of Krynn (Dragonlance Chronicles). 

After blogging on his own for several years, Blizzard Watch (blizzardwatch.com) hired Ted to be a regular columnist in 2016. When the site dropped many of its columns two years later, they retained Ted as a staff writer. 

He lives in beautiful Charleston, SC with his wife and children. When not writing, you’ll find him spending time with his family, and cheering on his beloved Carolina Panthers. He’s currently revising his work-in-progress portal fantasy novel before preparing to query. 

Ted as a bi-montly newsletter which you can join here. It’s a roundup of links about writing, Star Wars, Marvel, and/or the Panthers with brief commentary from him. Think of it as a kind of ICYMI (In Case You Missed It). Eventually, you’ll see info about my his books, and even receive free short stories.

  • Twitter: @tedatchley3
  • Twitter: @honorshammer (gaming / Blizzard Watch)
Categories
Fantasy-Sci-Fi

Four Popular Options for Map-Making Software

World building is a critical part of any speculative fiction work. As we create new worlds, one of the best ways to make them real to us and eventually to our readers is with maps. Maps help us in every stage of writing, from where our characters need to go, to the obstacles they face. Is there a giant mountain range between them and your Mordor? Is there a lake or ocean they must cross before they can scale the Cliffs of Insanity?

Let’s look at four popular options for map-making software. These run the gamut of functionality, price, and ease of use.

Campaign Cartographer 3

Campaign Cartographer 3 website

Like many things in the world of software, there’s a proportional relationship between how powerful a software is and its learning curve. Campaign Cartographer 3 (CC3) has a wide variety of options, but a steep learning curve to go along with it. Budget several hours to go through YouTube video and do some practice on minor projects. Once you master it, you can make some beautiful maps.

The site isn’t easy to navigate and tries to steer you into far more expensive bundles, rather than the $30 price tag for just the software. If you need to create several maps, and can dedicate the time to learn it, CC3 is a superb choice.

Wonderdraft

Wonderdraft website

On the other end of the spectrum, you have something like Wonderdraft. Wonderdraft is a fantastic software. Its intuitive interface makes it simple to pick up and start producing right away. You don’t have to sit there and draw every single little building in your world. There are a ton of exceptional assets to use. It even has a distance ruler. For those of you who love to start with a hand-drawn map, with Wonderdraft’s overlay feature, you could sketch out your map on paper, upload a picture, and trace everything in the software.

Wonderdraft has an active subreddit called r/wonderdraft where users share their creations. You can get inspiration for your own worlds or get help from the community.

 Inkarnate

Inkarnate website

Inkarnate is another user-friendly option. The developer has been making steady improvements, adding new assets which only increase its value and functionality. The sticky wicket with Inkarnate is the monetization model.

Inkarnate uses a subscription model. If you don’t purchase the subscription, you do not have the copyright to the maps you create. But if you produce a map while you have their subscription, you don’t lose the rights if you subsequently drop the subscription. You’ll have to weigh the subscription cost versus a purchase of one of the other options, but I do like how Inkarnate gives you the ability to try before you buy.

 Ortelius

Ortelius website

Ortelius is a powerful map making tool with some significant drawbacks. It is only available on the Mac platform. In addition, it is expensive, but will produce a high-resolution map.

Fantasy Maps Facebook Private Group

Facebook group

If you’d like more discussion of the various map-making tools, this is a fantastic private Facebook group. Besides great discussions, you’ll be able to look at maps other creators have made, and even find people who will make a map for you.

 I have no affiliation with any of these programs, and there are no affiliate links used in this article.

What mapping software are you using for your current work in progress novel? Do you use one of these or something else entirely?

Ted Atchley is a freelance writer and professional computer programmer. Whether it’s words or code, he’s always writing. Ted’s love for speculative fiction started early on with Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, and the Star Wars movies. This led to reading Marvel comics and eventually losing himself in Asimov’s Apprentice Adept and the world of Krynn (Dragonlance Chronicles). 

After blogging on his own for several years, Blizzard Watch (blizzardwatch.com) hired Ted to be a regular columnist in 2016. When the site dropped many of its columns two years later, they retained Ted as a staff writer. 

He lives in beautiful Charleston, SC with his wife and children. When not writing, you’ll find him spending time with his family, and cheering on his beloved Carolina Panthers. He’s currently revising his work-in-progress portal fantasy novel before preparing to query. 

Ted as a bi-montly newsletter which you can join here. It’s a roundup of links about writing, Star Wars, Marvel, and/or the Panthers with brief commentary from him. Think of it as a kind of ICYMI (In Case You Missed It). Eventually, you’ll see info about my his books, and even receive free short stories.

  • Twitter: @tedatchley3
  • Twitter: @honorshammer (gaming / Blizzard Watch)
Categories
Fantasy-Sci-Fi

A proven process for dealing with Rejection

 The long-awaited email from the agent arrives. With a trembling hand, you open it. Polite greeting, generic praise and wham, there it is. Rejection. You drop your head to the desk.

Now what? A bevy of emotions will roil through you. You need a process to work through your emotions and make some tough decisions. Let me show my process for dealing with rejection. I’ve unfortunately gotten too much practice lately.

Stages of Grief

Now is not the time to be making decisions. That comes later. Right now, deal with the stages of grief. Rejection causes emotions like grief, and you’ll go through the same stages. You’ll start with the visceral denial. Oh god, no. Please, not again. This was going to be the one! That will give way to anger. You’ll be mad at the agent, the publishing house, your beta readers, your critique partners, random people on the Internet, and Bob from Accounting. Do not send any emails or Tweets, or make any posts on Facebook, Instagram, or whatever social media site you are on.

Next, you’ll bargain. You’ll parse every word in the email. You’ll ask your writer friends what it means. While you’re doing that, start mentally preparing for the toughest hurdle yet. The feelings of depression. That little voice that says: I’m never going to get published. I’ll never be good enough. Why am I wasting my life away at this? I should quit.

Let me say it again. Now is not the time to be making decisions. Take a break. Read a book, play a game, discover the secret to time travel. Do anything but think about your book. Those feelings will pass, you’ll reach acceptance, and you’ll remember that…

It’s all a part of the game

Every writer gets rejected. Every famous writer has a story about getting rejected dozens of times. It’s just part of the gig. We know this on an intellectual level, but somewhere along the way, we let ourselves think that we’ve hit our quota and the next query is going to be ‘the one’. In the words of Wesley from The Princess Bride, “Get used to disappointment”.

Okay, so you’ve processed through the emotions. You’ve given yourself some space and time to recover. Now, you can start making decisions, and you’ll start with the most important question of all.

Do you continue the journey or quit?

If you want to be a writer, but don’t enjoy writing and querying and marketing and publication, it’s okay to give it up. The journey from writer to author is all about the process, and there are a myriad of careers that pay off faster, and make much better money. Go back and remind yourself why you wanted to be a writer in the first place. Is that reason still enough for you to press on

To answer the question, Ask it

Andy Stanley wrote a fantastic book on how to make decisions called Ask It: The Question That Will Revolutionize How You Make Decisions. Mr. Stanley outlines a process that boils down any decision to framing it in this manner: “based on my past experience, my current life situation and my future hopes and dreams, what is the wise thing to do?”

Walk through those steps. Think about your past experiences. What has led you to this moment? What have you learned along the way? Think about your current life situation. Do you have kids now that didn’t when you started, or have the kids gone off to college? Finally, think about your future hopes and dreams. Where do you want to be in a year, five years, ten? What’s the next best step to get there?

More questions if you decide to press on

If you decide you want to continue to pursue your publication dreams, there are more questions you should ask yourself. These are inspired by a blog post from Sarah Rexford, former columnist in this very space.

Questions:

  • Am I continuing to educate myself about writing, querying, marketing, and publishing?
  • Am I looking for small wins like writing blog posts, or short stories?
  • Am I working on my brand?
  • Am I growing? How does my writing compare to a month ago? A year ago? Five years ago? 
  • Am I writing? The old axiom is still true. Writers write.

Rejection is an avoidable career marker. It means you’re putting your stuff out there. Take the time to process through your emotions and carefully decide on your next move.

Ted Atchley is a freelance writer and professional computer programmer. Whether it’s words or code, he’s always writing. Ted’s love for speculative fiction started early on with Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, and the Star Wars movies. This led to reading Marvel comics and eventually losing himself in Asimov’s Apprentice Adept and the world of Krynn (Dragonlance Chronicles). 

After blogging on his own for several years, Blizzard Watch (blizzardwatch.com) hired Ted to be a regular columnist in 2016. When the site dropped many of its columns two years later, they retained Ted as a staff writer. 

He lives in beautiful Charleston, SC with his wife and children. When not writing, you’ll find him spending time with his family, and cheering on his beloved Carolina Panthers. He’s currently revising his work-in-progress portal fantasy novel before preparing to query. 

Ted as a bi-montly newsletter which you can join here. It’s a roundup of links about writing, Star Wars, Marvel, and/or the Panthers with brief commentary from him. Think of it as a kind of ICYMI (In Case You Missed It). Eventually, you’ll see info about my his books, and even receive free short stories.

  • Twitter: @tedatchley3
  • Twitter: @honorshammer (gaming / Blizzard Watch)
Categories
Fantasy-Sci-Fi

Navigating the Social Media minefield as a Speculative Fiction author

It’s a complicated time to be an author trying to build your platform on social media. It’s a weird time to be a human, much less one that spends large chunks of their days creating imaginary realms for their readers to enjoy.  The various online spaces feel like they’re filled with people weighing your every word to determine if you fit into their box, or some other. Those who they find agreeable are loved, accepted, and promoted. Those they deem to exist in the other box are ignored, ridiculed, and discouraged. We need to build a platform to connect with readers, but the these days it feels like trying to clear a minefield in a TIE fighter.

The disagreements don’t even have to be about deep political viewpoints. Something as simple as a sports team allegiance can lose you followers. Some of the worst online battles happen between different parts of the same fandom particularly in the speculative fiction space. Whether its SciFi versus Fantasy, or Original Trilogy versus Sequel Trilogy, the intensity of the rhetoric would make even the politicians blush.

I’m an ambitious writer. I want my stories to have a wide appeal. I don’t want to post anything that might alienate someone from giving my books a chance. So how do we navigate these treacherous minefiled?

I’ve found the key is discernment and empathy. Empathy is your superpower as a writer. Designing a great antagonist is the hidden key to unlocking this superpower.

“Fiction gives us empathy: it puts us in the mind of other people, gives us the gifts of seeing the world through their eyes. Fiction is a lie that tells us true things, over and over.” Hugo, Nebula, and Bram Stoker award-winning author Neil Gaiman.

Develop empathy with people by making them great antagonists

Antagonists are critical to your story. They need to be every bit as fleshed out, multi-dimension and real as your protagonist. They need to have complex personalities, and deep motives. Sometimes what drives your antagonist is a good good quality taken too far. It morphs into something darker. Someone with a strong work ethic becomes a workaholic. Love turns to jealousy. High self esteem becomes conceitedness.

Ask the same sort of questions about the people you struggle to have empathy for that you ask of your antagonist. Who are they? What life experiences have shaped them into the person they are today? What are they listening to, or reading that is forming their core belief system.

You don’t have to agree with their positions or their actions. They may be wrong, completely wrong, but you can still have empathy and show them kindness.

Is this a hill to die on?

One of the defining phrases of my twenty-five-year marriage has been ‘a hill to die on’. This is a military phrase which refers to capturing or holding the high ground, usually a hill. As Obi-wan showed us, holding the high ground gives you a military advantage. But not all hills have equal strategic value. Some hills are the key to victory and must be held no matter the price. Others aren’t worth the cost in men, or ammunition. It’s not a ‘hill to die on’.

Here’s a lifehack for you. If you don’t argue with people, they assume you agree with them. This isn’t to say you must agree with anyone. We all have deeply held beliefs and convictions. But what’s required is for you to do a cost-benefit analysis.

A biting quip or a brilliant reply to an argument may feel good in the moment, but you probably haven’t changed anyone’s mind, and you might have lost a future reader. No matter how clever or persuasive our arguments, we are unlikely to change anyone’s mind in a quick, online interaction. Real change only happens in the context of deep relationships. You may have instead earned yourself a long time enemy.

As hard as it is to do, simply not replying is often the best answer. I recently had a tweet get far more engagement than I thought it would. Many responses were supportive, but some of them were not kind. There was an emotional sting that will now form into a callous to develop that thick skin so critical to success as a modern writer. Rather than get into an argument, I simply ignored them.

Best social media advice still holds true

The core advice, communicated to me by writing coach Janeen Ippolito still stands. Have one social media platform that you are consistently posting to and interacting with people. I’m better at Twitter than IG so that’s where I do most of my interactions. Be at least findable on every other major social media platform, if only to funnel traffic back to the ones you find most comfortable with using.

I hope as we move into the new year, there’s less of trying to make every issue a binary choice, and forcing people into one of two boxes, mostly so we can dismiss or denigrate those people not in our box.

Ted Atchley is a freelance writer and professional computer programmer. Whether it’s words or code, he’s always writing. Ted’s love for speculative fiction started early on with Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, and the Star Wars movies. This led to reading Marvel comics and eventually losing himself in Asimov’s Apprentice Adept and the world of Krynn (Dragonlance Chronicles). 

After blogging on his own for several years, Blizzard Watch (blizzardwatch.com) hired Ted to be a regular columnist in 2016. When the site dropped many of its columns two years later, they retained Ted as a staff writer. 

He lives in beautiful Charleston, SC with his wife and children. When not writing, you’ll find him spending time with his family, and cheering on his beloved Carolina Panthers. He’s currently revising his work-in-progress portal fantasy novel before preparing to query. 

  • Twitter: @tedatchley3
  • Twitter: @honorshammer (gaming / Blizzard Watch)
Categories
Fantasy-Sci-Fi

MILITARY UNITS AND RANKS FOR YOUR SPECULATIVE FICTION NOVEL (Part 2)

Happy New Year, awesome authors! As writers of speculative fiction, military forces are a staple in many of our stories. Basing these on a real-world equivalent force can bring greater realism to our writing and help the reader suspend their disbelief of the more fantastical elements. Last month, we delved into unit and officer rank break downs, and looked at the commanding officers in a military force. This month, we’ll dive into the real boots on the ground: the enlisted men who carry out the General’s plans and strategies.

Enlisted Ranks

The highest-ranking enlisted soldier in any military force is the Sergeant-Major. You’ll find these soldiers in the leadership of every Battalion, Brigade, Regiment and Division. These are the people charged with planning the actual operations of the enlisted men in their unit. The role of the Commanding Officer is to decide what needs to be done and communicate that vision to his men. It’s the Sergeant-Major who has to make it happen despite whatever obstacles might stand in the way.

Below the Sergeant-Major are the senior field soldiers. The name assigned to the rank represents its unique specialty. For a cavalry or infantry force, the name of the rank is a Master Sergeant. For your heavy artillery units, the name of the position is the Gunnery Sergeant. If you have a medieval or fantasy setting where archers are a major part of the military force, the senior field officer goes by Bowyer Sergeant. These three ranks are equal in the chain of command hierarchy.

Each of these positions also has a colloquial name. The colloquial term for a Master Sergeant is “Top”. Gunnery Sergeants are “Gunney” and your Bowyer Sergeant is “Strings”. Last month, we discussed the ‘Light Colonel’ alternative name for Lieutenant Colonel. This is only used as a conversational way to refer to the Colonel, but they are never addressed this way. The same applies to the alternative names for Sergeants.

The next rank down is your Senior Sergeant, also referred to as a Staff Sergeant. This is the first rank an enlisted man can achieve where management and coordination are the primary concerns. These men rose through the ranks as Sergeants where they excelled at showing the men how to get things done and kicking them in the rear when needed. The Senior Sergeant must now delegate those tasks. The opportunity here is for the classic trope where an employee or solider is great at their job so we promote them to management. But management is a dissimilar skill set from whatever their job previously was. Being good at the former doesn’t always translate to being good at the latter.

Under the Staff Sergeants are the Sergeants. This is the rank where soldiers prove themselves through years of service accomplishing their assigned missions. Sergeants have the primary responsibility for the training of the soldiers under his command. He acts as a surrogate father figure. Though typically around 24 years old, to the fresh 18- to 19-year-old Privates, the Sergeant is as old as dirt. His word is taken as absolute truth. If the Privates paid him no heed, the wrath of the gods falls on their miserable heads. In peacetime, a Sergeant can expect to remain at this rank for eight to twelve years before receiving a promotion. In wartime, that timeframe is reduced, sometimes drastically.

Below the Sergeants are the Corporals who are essentially Sergeants in training. This is the first enlisted rank with the responsibility to lead other soldiers, the Privates and Lance Corporals. Sergeants and Lieutenants evaluate the Corporal before handing them a squad of 13 other soldiers to keep alive.

Lance Corporals are your most experienced enlisted soldiers who have not yet been given command over other soldiers.  

The Private First Class rank shows the soldier is no longer a fresh faced recruit and might actually be useful for something.

Privates are the lowest rank in the military force. The recruit earns this rank after completing their Boot Camp, or whatever name you give the initial combat training in your story world. The higher ranked soldiers continue to use many unflattering names for the Privates.

Differences between officers and enlisted men

In most militaries, the lowest ranking Officer is in a higher position in the chain of command and “outranks” the highest ranking Enlisted person. Despite that, there’s a certain amount of professional respect and courtesy between the ranks. A Lieutenant learns quickly to listen to an experienced Sergeant Major. If there is any disagreement, the chain of command is strictly observed. Its importance simply cannot be overstated.

In many medieval and fantasy settings, the officers come from the nobility. One requirement of being nobility is raising and leading of units from your population composed of locals, peasants, farmers, and indentured servants from your lands. In those cases, the rank of the officer frequently derived either from their societal rank, or from the size of the force they could muster. You can see different levels of this, as well.

Use this information as a launching point

Don’t look at this series as a strict model you must emulate in your stories. That’s not the intent. Rather think in terms of what roles you need depending on the size and purpose of your military forces. Get creative with the names or titles you use to describe them. I enjoy looking at historical sources, or other resources. For my WiP, Divine Choice, I used the names of the levels in the old Dungeons and Dragons games I played as a kid for the inspiration for my ranks.

This is an opportunity to reinforce your world building. The ranks need to sound like they belong in your world. You don’t want to create a fantasy world based on ancient Greece and then have your ranks named things like Lieutenant Commander.

Let your creativity and world building shine through, and make your military forces a seamless part of your world.

Ted Atchley is a freelance writer and professional computer programmer. Whether it’s words or code, he’s always writing. Ted’s love for speculative fiction started early on with Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, and the Star Wars movies. This led to reading Marvel comics and eventually losing himself in Asimov’s Apprentice Adept and the world of Krynn (Dragonlance Chronicles). 

After blogging on his own for several years, Blizzard Watch (blizzardwatch.com) hired Ted to be a regular columnist in 2016. When the site dropped many of its columns two years later, they retained Ted as a staff writer. 

He lives in beautiful Charleston, SC with his wife and children. When not writing, you’ll find him spending time with his family, and cheering on his beloved Carolina Panthers. He’s currently revising his work-in-progress portal fantasy novel before preparing to query. 

  • Twitter: @tedatchley3
  • Twitter: @honorshammer (gaming / Blizzard Watch)
Categories
Fantasy-Sci-Fi

Military Units and Ranks for Your Speculative Fiction Novel

As writers of speculative fiction, military forces are a stable in many of our stories. Basing these on a real-world equivalent force can bring greater realism to our writing and help the reader suspend their disbelief of the more fantastical elements. Let’s examine the ranks and numbers of a modern military force structure which you can use as a jumping off point to build realistic forces of your own.

The numbers you’ll see are the optimal numbers, but keep in mind we rarely see these in reality. Units are in constant flux as soldiers transfer into or out of the unit. Some soldiers will invariably be sick, or wounded — even in peacetime — as training accidents will occur. Even in the military, people take vacations, are on TDY (temporary duty), or even spending time at home.

Unit and rank breakdowns

I’m using the US Army at the end of the second World War (~1945) for the unit numbers, but this will apply to most of the US forces of the last hundred years. Authors can make their own choices to change these as needed to fit your science fiction or fantasy setting. Because of space constraints, we’ll only examine land forces. Naval ranks for a more science-fiction/space opera-based storyline may be a topic for future discussion.

We’ll work our way from smallest to largest. As an author, you want to spend the most time with small groups of soldiers. Big, climatic battles are great, but ultimately our stories are about our characters, and how they interact with the surrounding people. This is most easily seen in a smaller group setting. Always set up your story so that even in the titanic battle, it’s the action of your character or characters that sways the day. They should always be at the focal point. Your MC must take the one hill that controls the battlefield or make the perilous flight down the trench to hit the thermal exhaust port.

The smallest grouping is the Strike Team or Fire Team. This is six or seven individuals with various roles and skills. A Corporal or Lance Corporal leads a Strike Team. Two Strike Teams form a Squad. A Squad will have twelve or thirteen members and is led by a Sergeant.

Four Squads come together to form a Platoon. Fifty fighting men and women (and aliens depending on your world) acting in (we hope) unison. At this level, we refer to Commanding Officer (CO) and Executive Officer (XO). The XO is the second in command. He takes over should something happen to the CO. For a Platoon, the CO is a Lieutenant, and the XO is a Senior Sergeant.

Three Platoons form a Company. You’re up to 150 soldiers. CO is a Captain; XO is a Lieutenant. I never spell that right on the first attempt. Four Companies make up a Battalion. Here the CO is a Lieutenant Colonel (abbreviation Lt Colonel) or a Major. The XO is a Major or Captain.

Three Battalions form a Regiment led by a Colonel as CO and a Lieutenant Colonel as XO. A Regiment is almost 2,000 warriors strong. Three Regiments form a Brigade commanded by a Brigadier General. At this size, the commander needs more than one assistant. Brigades have an Officer Planning Staff, but this staff is not in the Chain of Command.

Finally, two Brigades make up a Division led by a Major General and his staff. (The famous 82nd Airborne is a Division.) It’s 10,800 warriors led by 642 Officers. 11,442 men, women, elves, dwarves and whatever other races inhabit your worlds.

Officers and Gentlemen

As you examine these ranks, don’t think you are required to use each one in your forces. Instead, think more of the roles you need for your characters and story depending on the size of purpose of your military forces. These will allow you to give realistic ranks to your characters. You can also get creative and come up with your own rank names, as I did in my current WiP, and eliminate ones you don’t need.

The highest ranking officer in a military force is the General. It doesn’t matter how many stars. Below him is the Lieutenant General. This character should have experience in multiple types of engagements. The Major General is a senior strategic official. Their experience is better used for developing an overall strategy rather than implementing tactics on the battlefield. Below them are the Brigadier General, Colonel, Lieutenant Colonel and Major. A Colonel might be in command of a Regiment, or a member of a General’s Planning Staff.

Lieutenant colonels are also referred to and addressed in correspondence as ‘colonel’. This gives rise to alternative terms. For Colonels, you’ll hear full colonel, bird colonel, or full bird colonel. A Lieutenant Colonel is called a Light Colonel. This is only used as a colloquial way to refer to the colonel, but they are never addressed this way.

The Captain is the first officer rank where your character must have shown true leadership ability. You’ll see Captains used as a Company Commander, or ‘detached’ as the Commanding Officer of many ‘special assignments’.

The first rank where the officer is given responsibility for the men in his command is Lieutenant (or First Lieutenant). A smart Lieutenant will rely on the experience of his Enlisted Executive Officer — a Sergeant Major or Senior Sergeant. The Senior Sergeant will show the Lieutenant him how to get the job done.

Second Lieutenant is an honorary grade for an Officer in Training. You’ve heard of low man on the totem pole. Second Lieutenant is the dirt into which the totem pole is placed.

Going Medieval

For more medieval or fantasy settings, you’ll see ranks like Knight-General for the Commander-in-Chief of an Order of Knighthood. The senior field Commander of an Orders’ forces is the Knight-Commander. Knight-Captain is the highest rank an independent Knight can attain without declaring oath to a liege.

The Holy Quest is a key accomplishment for any knight and a fantastic event to center your story around. Prior to taking the Quest, your character is a Knight. After they have completed their quest, they become a Knight-Lieutenant.

In the next part of this series, we’ll look at the real boots on the ground: Enlisted men and woman who get the job done and the ripe opportunities for conflict that arise between the enlisted men and officers.

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Ted Atchley is a freelance writer and professional computer programmer. Whether it’s words or code, he’s always writing. Ted’s love for speculative fiction started early on with Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, and the Star Wars movies. This led to reading Marvel comics and eventually losing himself in Asimov’s Apprentice Adept and the world of Krynn (Dragonlance Chronicles). 

After blogging on his own for several years, Blizzard Watch (blizzardwatch.com) hired Ted to be a regular columnist in 2016. When the site dropped many of its columns two years later, they retained Ted as a staff writer. 

He lives in beautiful Charleston, SC with his wife and children. When not writing, you’ll find him spending time with his family, and cheering on his beloved Carolina Panthers. He’s currently revising his work-in-progress portal fantasy novel before preparing to query. 

  • Twitter: @tedatchley3
  • Twitter: @honorshammer (gaming / Blizzard Watch)
Categories
Fantasy-Sci-Fi

Writing bigger speculative fiction stories

In his 2017 best seller, You’re Gonna Need a Bigger Story, Houston Howard admonishes writers to create larger stories which he coins Super Stories. Your goal as a writer is not just to create a great story, or a great book (or movie script). Your goal is to create Intellectual Property (IP). Stories so big they launch entire universes, or even multiverses of characters, narratives, and experiences across all kinds of media. As the name implies, it’s a big job. Let’s look at how we can accomplish this.

It’s all starts with your characters

While intricate plots can carry books, to launch an IP you need a cast of characters readers can fall in love with. Super Stories require extraordinary characters. They must have some quality that makes them likable right away, but also have an arc that can span multiple stories. You have to go crank up everything you know about creating characters to a new level. You have to know them better than you know people in your ‘real life’, but still have wonderful things to discover about them.

And you need more than one. Each must be unique in their own way, with their own lessons to learn and obstacles to overcome. Every orbital character possesses the potential to be the principal character of another story or series. Sometimes their arcs may cross each other and even bring your characters into conflict with each other. This can be a good thing as fans will want to see who comes out on top.

No character in your story should be a cardboard cutout from central casting. The simplest guard could wind up rising to a general. One of the great training lessons for creating characters was my time running various tabletop role-playing games. My players took singular pleasure in walking up to any random passerby and grilling them on their life story. It prepared me to make sure each character, no matter how minor, was the hero of their own story.

And your unique story world

In science fiction, the ship often becomes a character in its own right. In a similar way, your story’s world, and universe needs to be a character. You need to flesh out its history and geography. Ninety percent of what you come up with won’t make it into the first book, but you’ll need it for book five, or maybe even book seventeen. It allows you to plant little offhand references reference to places or historical events that can become a hook and a thread to explore in a future story.

You can’t “pants” your way to an IP

This is going to require planning and some level of outlining. I know some of you just ordered shields up and red alert, but hear me out. If writing stories with a “by the seat of your pants” discovery method has been successful for you, keep doing that. What requires planning and outlining is the IP. Have a long-range plan of the general, big picture idea of the kinds of stories you want to add to your IP.  You should have a more detailed short-range plan of the stories themselves.

This allows you to…

Foreshadow across books

Rowling mastered foreshadowing in her Harry Potter series. (Please note there are spoilers for the Harry Potter series to follow, but I think we’ve past the statute of limitations at this point). From book one, Harry’s adopted family, the Dursleys, are moody and mean to Harry. When we discover much later that Harry is the last of Voldermort’s horcruxes, and the effect a horcrux has on the people around it, you see the Dursleys’ treatment of Harry in a whole new way. Another example is the complicated relationship between Harry and Snape. Early on, Snape appears as a villain and an antagonist. His mission is life is to humiliate and thwart Harry.  He even puts a curse on Harry. Later, you learn he was truly an ally, seeking to aid and protect Harry.

You can check out this post for more examples of this. Maybe J.K. got lucky and fell into these, but more likely, she carefully planned each one. You can, and should look do this in your series as well. Fans love to discover these kinds of things.

In addition to foreshadowing, it allows you to…

Cross-pollinate across your stories

Have a character or multiple characters from your earlier novels appear as characters in your other novels. Alternatively, place a character into your novel you intend for a major character or orbital character role in a future novel. While the most famous examples from the world of film is the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), A.C. Williams does this in her novel, Ronnie Akkard and The Brotherhood of Blades. Barb and Jim Taylor, the main characters from her earlier book, Meg Mitchell and The Secret of the Journal, play a minor role in aiding the protagonist.

But each book must standalone

A major advantage of Super Stories is they give future fans multiple points of entry into your world. Discovering any of your books leads inexorably to the others, and with characters they are already familiar with. It lowers the trepidation of exploring your other works.

For this to work, each book must standalone as an outstanding work on its own. While it’s referential to your other stories, write with the assumption that every book is the first book in your world this reader has experienced. The connections and references are Easter eggs to delight your most dedicated fans. They should never be key to understanding the story or any character’s motivation.

This is true to the greatest degree in your debut novel. If that one doesn’t do well, it threatens the entire IP. Like a great first chapter, your debut novel must deliver an outstanding experience on its own, while also launching your readers into your world.

Ted Atchley is a freelance writer and professional computer programmer. Whether it’s words or code, he’s always writing. Ted’s love for speculative fiction started early on with Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, and the Star Wars movies. This led to reading Marvel comics and eventually losing himself in Asimov’s Apprentice Adept and the world of Krynn (Dragonlance Chronicles). 

After blogging on his own for several years, Blizzard Watch (blizzardwatch.com) hired Ted to be a regular columnist in 2016. When the site dropped many of its columns two years later, they retained Ted as a staff writer. 

He lives in beautiful Charleston, SC with his wife and children. When not writing, you’ll find him spending time with his family, and cheering on his beloved Carolina Panthers. He’s currently revising his work-in-progress portal fantasy novel before preparing to query. 

  • Twitter: @tedatchley3
  • Twitter: @honorshammer (gaming / Blizzard Watch)

Categories
Fantasy-Sci-Fi

How to Defeat the Dream-Stealers

I hadn’t been careful enough, and the creature had my scent. Fight or flight, but there’s nowhere to run. With my dream exposed, I came face to face with the very real beast known as the dream stealer.

All writers face dream stealers in their lives, but the scent of the speculative fiction writer draws them more powerfully than any other. They might look like your mom, or your dad. They could be your husband, or wife. Maybe they wear a face of a good friend. But if you aren’t ready to fight, they will kill your dream, and you’ll push away from your manuscript, never to return.

Why do they attack,?

Sun Tzu famously said, “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.” Dream Stealers, like any good antagonist, are the hero of their own story, gallantly trying to save you from yourself. They have your best interests at heart.

They know, from their own painful experiences, how much it hurts when a dream is left unfulfilled. They will rescue you from heartbreak and ruin before it’s too late. It’s not just you they want to save, but also themselves. It’s hard to watch someone you care about walk through a painful experience. Better to steer them off the path before they get hurt.

They want you to take the path more traveled. The safer path. They are the voice of the future. There will be time to pursue your dream of publication later, they say. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. After college. After you get married. After the kids are gone. To the last syllable of recorded time.

How can you fight them? How do you hold on to your dream of being a published author when they tempt you to take the easier path?

Know your odds, know your definition of success, know your season, and know your why.

Know your odds

The Dream Stealer will quote the odds to you. Whether you opt for traditional publishing or go the route of Independent publishing, the odds are stacked against you. Many will enter, few will win. For every publishing contract awarded, or agent signed, they reject hundreds of other writers. Knowing the odds before the Dream Stealer throws them at you neutralizes their power. This isn’t a once and done battle, it’s one you have to fight repeatedly. Look your Dream Stealer in the eyes, channel your best Harrison Ford, and say, “Never tell me odds.”

Know your definition of success

Dream Stealers take a narrow view of success when they talk of the odds. It’s not enough to have finished a manuscript, or even gotten an agent. No, their only criteria is if you become a Best Seller. They never look at the smaller accomplishments. You must celebrate the small wins: the finished draft, the compliment from your critique partner, a contest victory. Those are the oxygen your dream needs to stay alive.

A struggle with a deep, philosophical issue gave birth to my current work-in-progress manuscript. If the story helps even one other person navigate those waters, the book will have been a resounding success.

You are not a failure just because you didn’t achieve someone else’s definition of success.

Know your season

My kids tire of me saying ‘a time and a place’, but it’s true. There’s a time and a place for everything. It’s important to understand your current season of life. Pursuing a career as a professional writer takes a serious commitment of time, passion and resources. Not every season lends itself to making that commitment. Perhaps today you’re in a growing season which will provide a fertile ground of emotions and conflict to fuel your future novels. Don’t let anyone define the timetable for you.

Know your why

Like our characters, we need deep motivations to maintain our quest for publication over the long haul. You need to connect your dream to something bigger than yourself. From my experience, fantasizing about a huge advance check won’t do it. There are easier ways to make money.

Whatever your reason is, write it down and read it every time it’s time to write. That why will motivate you to put the butt in the chair when you’re tired, or aren’t feeling it. Your why will get you to grind out words that won’t come.

Gird yourself for battle

The moment you pursued the dream of being a published writer, you put a target on your back. Your scent wafts in the breeze and every Dream Stealer in your life picks it up. They mean well and they sincerely have your best interest at heart. But they give voice to the fears and doubts every writer harbors in their heart. We have to be careful to choose the voices we listen to. Those will be the ones that influence us.

“Life’s full of lots of dream-stealers always telling you you need to do something more sensible. I think it doesn’t matter what your dream is, just fight the dream-stealers and hold on to it.”

Bear Grylls.

Ted Atchley is a freelance writer and professional computer programmer. Whether it’s words or code, he’s always writing.  
Ted’s love for speculative fiction started early on with Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, and the Star Wars movies. This led to reading Marvel comics and eventually losing himself in Asimov’s Apprentice Adept and the world of Krynn (Dragonlance Chronicles). 
After blogging on his own for several years, Blizzard Watch (blizzardwatch.com) hired Ted to be a regular columnist in 2016. When the site dropped many of its columns two years later, they retained Ted as a staff writer. 
He lives in beautiful Charleston, SC with his wife and children. When not writing, you’ll find him spending time with his family, and cheering on his beloved Carolina Panthers.
He’s currently revising his work-in-progress portal fantasy novel before preparing to query. 

  • Twitter: @tedatchley3,
  • Twitter: @honorshammer (gaming / Blizzard Watch)