Trust is a Universal Need by Cathryn Cade

Hi, I'm Cathryn Cade. I write sci fi and contemporary paranormal romance. This means my heroines encounter some pretty weird and wonderful situations, beings and villains.

However, it does not mean they escape the same needs as heroines in every sub-genre of romance. We women want a strong hero to watch our back while we battle the malign forces of the universe, whether a boss, a teenager or a slimy, multi-jawed alien who wants to feed us to her young. 

We want the emotional and financial security of a home in which to make a family—whatever that looks like—a cabin in the woods, a beach house or a rickety space station. We want a rockin', sexy courtship on the way there, in which our hero proves that not only does he have our back, he also has our front; enough that he'll continue to desire us through child-bearing, broken household appliances and the stress of dual careers. We want a man we can trust.

These are the themes of contemporary romance. We get that, because we live it.

Add the wonderful weirdness of sci fi/paranormal and the game changes … or does it?

I think Jayne Ann Krentz/Jayne Castle put it best when she said romance is universally about  ' … flawed, emotionally vulnerable heroes and heroines who … must find a way to deal with their natural conflicts so that a new family can be founded and civilization will be saved. These values survive and endure because they are core survival values for our species, affirmed anew for each generation in (romance).'

Yeah, Jayne! Tell it. 'Cause now we're to the fun part.

In sci fi/paranormal it's a given that our plucky heroine is going to have to wade through some pretty horrendous trials, BUT (and it’s a big one) she also gets to marshal some awesome powers and allies to help her! Juxtaposed with the universal trials of romance, this can lead to some amazing and sometimes downright funny situations.

Castle's famed dust bunnies ride around on her futuristic heroines' shoulders, cute little balls of fluff until their mistresses are threatened. Like they say, 'by the time you see the teeth, it's too late'. Wish we all had one of those. Who can you trust if not a beloved pet?

However, Castle's heroines still have to deal with heroes. Trust a sexy alpha ghost hunter to settle down to hearth and home? Yikes.

Trust is a universal issue for women, magnified by paranormal issues. Hard enough to trust a big strong human male to play nice during that first intimate encounter.

Vampires, shifters, aliens and super-heroes, the men of sci fi/paranormal have the daunting habit of revealing a little something extra when they take off their clothing. When he suddenly bares extra long fangs, claws or some mind-bending super-power and growls that he'd like to penetrate our heroine with those too? Holy heck!

In my Hawaiian Heroes series, the Ho'omalu family has been tasked by the goddess Pele herself with protecting her islands from those who would bring harm. To do this, she's gifted them with powers stemming from the islands, the sea and sky.

Burning up the Rain, Hawaiian Heroes Bk 4

Her powers could save her island…or bring their love crashing down.

Despite her successful career, Lalei Kai-Ho’omalu has always considered herself mere decoration in a dynamic Hawaiian family, with none of their powerful gifts. Destined for life as a useless, upper-crust Honolulu wife. Then Lalei acts on her sizzling attraction to a guest at her cousin’s island wedding, making him a bold offer he can’t refuse. A no-strings, no-holds-barred affair on Nawea Bay with the sexy Hawaiian beauty is just the break California Realtor Jack Nord needs from his fast-paced career—and an inner darkness he’d like to forget. Just for a while.

Their very public liaison is the shocking declaration of independence Lalei intended—with unintended consequences. Stirred to anger by developers set on carving her family’s unspoiled ancestral lands into a resort, Lalei discovers she has the supernatural power to stop them. But when Jack learns his lover can bring down the rain and throw bolts of lightning, whose side will he take? The money-making machine? Or the woman born to protect her island home?

http://www.cathryncade.com
http://www.facebook.com/cathryncade.author

Getting Away From it All by Rebecca Zanetti

Art is not in the ...eye of the beholder. It's in the soul of the artist.   --Seth Goden

So, my local RWA chapter took off for a weekend writer’s retreat up at Schweitzer mountain, a local ski resort, this past weekend.  To sum it up:  it was awesome!

This is a picture of the view from our condo.  The lake far down below was stunning, and the rain clouds created quite the opportunity to write.  I think that as writers, we need to venture out once in a while.  Not to just get away from people, laundry, and day jobs, but to something new.  A new environment where we can just take a deep breath and let the ideas arrive.

I always wondered about those folks pounding away on a keyboard in my local Starbucks.  Didn’t they have an office at home?  Or a kitchen table?  Now that I’ve been writing for a few years, I get it.  Sometimes you need to be surrounded by different sights, sounds, and smells to stay creative.  Especially when you’re under a couple of deadlines, and that laundry is starting to look like fun in comparison.

I think it’s also good to be surrounded by other writers for a time.  They understand.  No matter how supportive your spouse, friends, or family  are…they don’t quite understand how a detailed rejection can be good, or what a big deal it really is to hit one of those bestseller lists once you’re published.  Sure, they’re happy for you.  But they don’t really know how hard it is to get there.  Other writers get it.

So, if you’re having trouble getting ideas on paper at your kitchen table, maybe grab that laptop and head out into the world.  If you can’t take a weekend at a retreat, go to Starbucks, your local library, or somewhere with a view.  Even if you have to sit in your car while it rains to see that view.  Maybe you’ll be inspired.  J

Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.
--George Bernard Shaw

Book 2-- Maverick Montana series, UNDER THE COVERS, releases May 27^th

 

Opposites don’t attract. They ignite.

 

The small Montana town near the Kooskia reserve seemed like the perfect place for Juliet Montgomery to hide from her not-so-law-abiding family. But when her peace is shattered by a break-in and threatening phone calls, it’s clear someone back in New York knows where she is. It’s time to plan her getaway, and fast—but first, she needs to tie up a few loose ends and find out exactly what the town’s sexy cowboy sheriff is hiding.

Sheriff Quinn Lodge has enough demons of his own to know when someone’s hiding something, and he's determined to uncover what’s beneath Juliet’s uptight, city-girl exterior—preferably one piece of clothing at a time. But when their chemistry goes from fizzy to full-on explosive, things start getting complicated.

How can Juliet stay beneath the covers with Quinn, when doing so means blowing her cover?

Bio:  USA Today Bestselling Author Rebecca Zanetti has worked as an art curator, Senate aide, lawyer, college professor, and a hearing examiner - only to culminate it all in stories about Alpha males and the women who claim them. She currently has series going with three publishers:  a contemporary cowboy series with Entangled, a dark paranormal series with Kensington, and a romantic-suspense with a paranormal twist series with Grand Central.  Please visit Rebecca at: http://www.rebeccazanetti.com/

Worldbuilding to Visually Reflect Story Theme and Character Values by Jamie Leigh Hansen

Worldbuilding will never have just one way to do it. There are many things to consider and master in creating a world for your novel and series. Recently, I was part of a worldbuilding workshop with 5 other published IECRWA authors. At each of 3 tables, 2 authors gave an important aspect of worldbuilding to consider. My contribution was the link between visual aspects of the world, the story’s theme and the character’s values.

Outside of a movie, or some kind of visual media, how often is that considered. Most likely each time we try to make a book trailer or envision what we’d want our book cover to look like. But those are snippets or one single visual. And a single setting is not the entire world.

"The world of the novel is composed of much more than description of landscape and rooms. It is milieu, period, fashion, ideas, human outlook, historical moment, spiritual mood and more. It is capturing not only place but people in an environment; not only history but humans changing in their era. Description is the least of it. Bringing people alive in a place and time that are alive is the essence of it. [It's] capturing a snapshot of place, moment, character or all three with clarity so vivid that it freezes indelibly in the reader's mind." — Donald Maass, Writing the Breakout Novel

Futuristisc, Fantasy and Paranormal writers have a contract with the reader to fulfill. A promise different from most other genres or subgenres because our stories vow that we will provide a fascinating glimpse of a living, breathing world and not just an intriguing or detailed setting. But how do we provide that beyond the bare bones of here’s the planet, the mountains and lakes, the clothes and the flora and fauna – boom, you’re now in Middle Earth. Love it.

"It is the combination of setting details and the emotions that are attached to them that, together, make a place a living thing." — Donald Maass, The Fire In Fiction

Examining three popular movies and how they link theme and character values with their milieu in a visually stunning way that actually made me want to pay movie ticket prices to see on a bigger screen than my 50” TV helped me see the link.

Story Theme:

The Hunger Games - What would you do to survive? The contrasts of rich/poor, abundance/starvation, volunteering/being forced, realism/fabrication fills each location with danger and challenges both natural - bugs, fire, predators - and man-made - the audiences, clothing, fences. The stage. The train. The forest. Even the mere fact that the hunger games exist shows the sacrifice and toil someone will undertake to survive and what challenges they will face in doing so. The entire movie has these tests set up visually, but they were in the novel first. Visually depicted in a way to grab the reader’s imagination. The story showed a map of society divided by fences, classes and levels of both compassion and desperation.

Lord of the Rings – There are many themes to choose from in this novel and the truth of weakness, strength and power is one. From the tiny, peaceful Shire full of lush greenery, growth and smiles to the large world of man to the ethereal, separate world of elves, we see that the strength of a sword (or axe) arm, the sharpness of a man's wit, the age-old wisdom of a long lived people are no more important than the child-like innocence, heart and spirit of a joy-filled Hobbit. Each land in Middle Earth represents its people in a stunningly visual way. The hope and greed of humans is portrayed with tall, molding statues and ambitious buildings that are crumbling. The intelligence and knowledge revered by magi in their packed libraries filled with scrolls and artifacts. The aloof beauty of Rivendale nestled within nature, fitting as if created to be there. The dark, evil land of Mordor with volcanoes, lava and the abominations - orcs.

Harry Potter - Good vs. evil, magic vs. conformity. The muggle world is shown in shades of gray, the colors bland and unnoticeable. It’s the same, house to house, car to car. Voldemort exits in darkness, wearing black and rarely seen in the light. Hogwarts, the Weasley house, Sirius Black's - the magical world is full of vivacious, vibrant colors, normal things with extraordinary twists. Cars that fly, Willows trees that whomp you, staircases that change direction. The nature is lush and overblown, to strangled into neat little boxes. It is good to be different in Harry Potter's world.

You may have noticed that in examining theme, you actually see much of the second component: Character’s values. Who they are as a society and as a race is also described. In a well-built world, this isn’t done by accident.

"The world of the story: a complex and detailed web in which each element has story meaning and is in some way a physical expression of the character web and especially of the hero." — John Truby, The Anatomy of Story

"Creating a unique world for the story - and organically connecting it to the characters-is as essential to great storytelling as character, plot, theme, and dialogue." — John Truby, The Anatomy of Story

Character Values:

The Hunger Games - Kindness, compassion, honesty vs. superficiality, greed and entitlement - Katniss is continually placed in situations where her values must be tested. The world isn't just locations, but situations. People are starving. Kids risk their lives for "entertainment". People are restricted from providing for themselves - hunting - and told to be grateful for what is given to them at the whim of others – but Katniss hunts to feed others. Katniss volunteers to be a tribute to save her sister. Katniss has to learn to play the game just to get a healing cream for Peeta by kissing him and promoting their "romance". Even the food exemplifies the differences in values between sickeningly sweet confections versus the necessary nutrients in bread and meat, the wholesome versus the superficial. A tribute saves Katniss from danger and she remains loyal to that tribute, even to the point of providing the tribute a "burial", a common courtesy that is against the rules.

Lord of the Rings - Humility, kindness, joy, peace, loyalty and perseverance, forgiveness, friendship. All these qualities a hobbit possesses, and they are tested in every situation, even as those around the hobbits fail. They cannot overcome their human greed and weaknesses, their Dwarven anger and belligerance, their unbending Elven judgment, in order to destroy the ring on their own. It is a few of each who fight, but it is the hobbits who shake up the entire adventure, creating a joyful chaos that strangely keeps everyone focused on what is truly important.

Harry Potter - Courage, loyalty, faith, overcoming impossible odds. All the traits Harry possesses are attributed to the house of Gryffindor. Their "team" is rooted for in Quidditch. Their house wins the house cup. The battle of good vs. evil is a competition and good always wins by being, well, good. Honorable. By doing the right thing and overcoming temptations, fears and anything evil or wrong.

Apply these ideas to your own story and see how you can broaden and enrich your world.

Your story:

   1.  What are your story's themes?

 

   2.  Who is your character as a person? What are their values?

 

   3.  What are the locations in your novel?

 

   4.  How can the locations in your novel best to visually, actively test your character's strengths, weaknesses and values? Is there a challenge to overcome, a mountain to climb a fear to defeat?

 

   5.  What part of your world visibly reflects your story's theme? Lord of the Rings has a map and the story is a journey across and through every part of it. Hunger Games has a symbol: a bow and arrow – old breathtaking, strange and beautiful.

 

   6. How do your characters feel in their setting: stifled, cloistered, abandoned, wild, free? How are their values visually reflected in that setting?

 

   7. What changes: time, people, perspective? Is there an item in the world that is tangible and shows growth, death or a different change as the story progresses?

 

   8.  What does your character think about the world they are in: the era, the perspectives, the technology, the ideology, the religions?

 

   9. When choosing details of your world, choose the ones that give your character's unique perspective or details that are surprising. Even in an everyday, normal city, what stands out? My two series are set in and around Spokane, Washington. What stand out? A gorgeous cathedral you can see from miles in any direction. An architecturally brilliant high school that is a hundred years old and celebrates the fact. Bring even an everyday setting to life.

 

    10. Link a value and a theme, then compare and contrast their opposites. Like Lord of the Rings, the hobbits' value of friendship. Compare and contrast friendship at the pub in the Shire and friendship standing over the fires of Mt. Doom.

Resources:

·         The Fire In Fiction  by Donald Maass

·         Writing The Breakout Novel by Donald Maass

·         The Anatomy of Story by John Truby

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­________________________________________________________________________________

Jamie Leigh Hansen is a multi-published, paranormal romance author best known for dramatic, heartfelt stories with intense emotion and engaging, unforgettable characters.

Her newest work, Murder Tales, is a series of urban fantasy short stories set in Metalline Falls, WA that features Mary, the only human ever saved and raised by the Murder, vampires and werewolves who work together to police the rogues of their world. Currently available are The Murder King's Woman and The Murder King's Summons, with more planned.

Jamie is also currently involved with BabelFAmily, co-writing The Legacy of Marie Schlau with other writers around the world. They hope the International Literary Project to Fight Friedreich's Ataxia will raise funds for FA research.

She loves to hear from friends and fans at JLH@JamieLeighHansen.com. Updates on her projects and links to social media can be found on her website at www.JamieLeighHansen.com.

 

On the Road to Writer Hell by Kerry Schafer

Last week I attended the Romantic Times Convention in Kansas City. I had a lot of fun, of course, but I also learned some valuable lessons. For example, writer creativity is not limited to books.

 

Writers are also good at parties and costumes, and like to socialize over drinks. And if the bar should happen to be too loud or too small, some industrious furniture relocation can create an entity called The Alternabar, a perfect place for hanging out late into the night.

 

I also learned that I am on the road to writer hell.

 

This little lesson was enjoined upon me by a panel called, appropriately, The Research Notebook From Hell – Keeping Your Series Organized. The panelists - Yasmine Galenorn, Lynda Hillburn, Shawntelle Madison, and Michelle M. Pillow – are all successful series writers who know of what they speak.

 

Truth is, I have heard about The Bible before. I have even made a few feeble attempts to collect information in one place and take a few notes, only to lose interest and wander off to do more interesting things, like write. The Bible didn't seem all that important until the middle of Book Two of my trilogy. Surely I was capable of remembering what I needed about character and plot, thought I. But the memory is a sneaky and treacherous thing, particularly once you've revised a book a few times, and what I had left out and put in began to blur. I was plagued by forgotten details about minor characters, slippery bits of world building, and the basic layout of building or towns, and was driven back to my previous manuscript and Word's "Find" command over and over again.

 

Technically, I'm not even writing a series. I'm only two books into a planned trilogy. But what if? What if my publisher came to me and said, "We want more! We want four or six or ten books set in the world of the Between."

 

What then?

 

This is what happened to Michelle Pillow, author of both theDragon Lords and the Lords of the Var series. She had only planned to write a couple of fantasy books, so a Bible didn't seem important. But then the Dragon Lords books took off and she realized that she was in trouble.

 

What do you do if you're already deep into a series and you haven't created your Bible as you go along? According to Michelle, you carve out time and you sit down and make yourself do it. "It's your punishment for being a bad writer," she says.

 

Everybody approaches the Bible a bit differently, but the general types of information include:

 

· Main Characters – appearance, personality traits, favorite expressions, etc.

· Secondary Characters – appearance, personality traits, favorite expressions, etc.

· Bestiary – keep track of descriptions and when or where creatures appear

· Subplots – particularly if you have subplots running through the entire series

· Main overall plot arc

· Magic systems

· Places – shops, businesses, streets

· Groups, organizations

 

It's important to update as you go along, making notes at the end of every chapter. And when a book is done, make sure everything is up to date, including a short summary of what happened. Yasmine Galenorn likes to write up a short history of each character's experience during the course of the book as well.

 

Depending on your personal preference and comfort zone, the Bible can be physical or electronic, or both. Use a binder with pockets and plastic sleeves and paper, or a computer program such as Scrivener, which lends itself to the process. Everybody on the panel strongly recommended some sort of back up system so you don't run the risk of losing all your hard work.

 

And as for me and my own sins – will I repent and convert to the series Bible? I'd like to say yes, but I know me. The ability to rationalize is strong, and it's so much easier to tell myself there is only one more book to go and no need for serious organization.

 

But then, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

BIO

Kerry Schafer is a transplanted Canadian who currently lives in Eastern Washington with her family and an assortment of pets. A mental health counselor by day, she squeezes in writing wherever she can find the time. She writes urban fantasy and is the author of Between.

Don't You Love the SOUND of the Paranormal?

by Terry Spear

Well, maybe not like ghostly sounds or banshee screeches…but your words turned into voice.

We all have voice, but what if you turned your book into a real voice, one that you can hear?

I am the proud producer of a couple of audiobooks. Some of my Highland books were turned into audio, which was lots of fun. I love Scottish dialogue. But I wasn’t involved in the process.

This time, I was. With The Dark Fae. And Kiss of the Vampire. Two young adult books. Two different projects and ways of going about it.

With The Dark Fae, I found a narrator on ACX. This is owned by Amazon. It was different from Voices, in that once I approved the book, I was ready to sell it. I just need to pay the narrator. I didn’t have to. I could have paid just through royalties, 50/50, but I wanted to pay an hourly rate. And then it was done.

But if you don’t want to or can’t afford to invest, then the 50/50 royalty is a good way to go. You have to decide who to distribute it through also. If you want only Amazon to distribute it, then you receive a higher % and they also make it available on Itunes. If you want to make it available to other outlets, you couldn’t do it if you check Amazon only, so if you’re looking for other outlets, it’s better to check the block for that.

For The Dark Fae, the check is in the mail, literally, and once the narrator receives it, I can have ACX distribute it.

With covers, you can’t use the original cover you would use on your books. Audiobook covers need to be square.

Terry's book covers shown here are for demonstration only

So I played around with that until I could create a whole new cover, same look, but square. Of course, I tried the easy way out first, thinking to squish and squash it into the right size. But it would have looked awful. So I had to start from scratch. They won’t allow you to use borders either. All in all, you want the best look, so that’s important!

Now, with the other project, Kiss of the Vampire, I went through Voices. Once you have a book narrated there, you have to upload it to someone else to distribute it for sale. If you agree to pay a set price, you have to put that money in escrow right up front. Then when you have finished reviewing the files and agree to them, you can approve it and release the money right then and there.

I didn’t care for having to set up the escrow, but in the end, it was easier than having to pay the narrator through ACX since my narrator didn’t want to receive payment through Paypal because she’d lose some of her payment that way.

Why even create an audiobook? There are lots of audiobook readers. I love to listen to audiobooks! Especially on trips. It gives your book another outlet. Ebook. Print book. Audiobook.

Will you sell a lot? You never know. It’s just like with any title. We never know which will do well. You have the added advantage/disadvantage of adding voice—a narrator’s—to the mix. Some will love the narrator’s voice. But if the majority don’t care for the audiobook version, it can hurt audiobook sales.

I remember a friend saying she was buying the author’s book and wouldn’t listen to the audiobook because of the way the story was written and she felt she wouldn’t get as much out of it by listening to it. So it doesn’t mean that an audiobook will hurt book sales. In another case, I tried to get into a book and just could not. So by accident, I picked up the audiobook version and didn’t have anything else to listen to on the way back and forth to work and so I kept listening to it until I reached the end. Good book—to my surprise!

Why keep the option open to be able to distribute on your own? You can make cds of your works. Offer them as gifts. Offer them for reviews. Get creative

What is the next project? Second book in the fae series. And since I’ve already worked with my narrator, we’ve already agreed to terms and she’s delighted to start a new project.

And that means more audiobooks in the future.

So, ever listen to audiobooks? Do you produce them for your own work? Or have you thought of giving it a shot?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bestselling and award-winning author Terry Spear has written a couple of dozen paranormal romance novels and two medieval Highland historical romances. Her first werewolf romance, Heart of the Wolf, was named a 2008 Publishers Weekly’s Best Book of the Year, and her subsequent titles have garnered high praise and hit the USA Today bestseller list. A retired officer of the U.S. Army Reserves, Terry lives in Crawford, Texas, where she is working on her next werewolf romance and continuing her new series about shapeshifting jaguars. For more information, please visit www.terryspear.com, or follow her on Twitter, @TerrySpear. She is also on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/terry.spear .

World Building for Earth Day: Bottom up World Building

Our relationship to Earth

determines what we eat, what we wear, how we live, even the shape of our bodies, in short everything about us. As writers we can focus on portraying human relationships and hope the setting will take care of itself, big mistake. To maintain plausibility every component of the story should have consistency with the world of the story.  I used a bottom up approach to world building, working from the needs of the plot to the architecture of the imagined world. 

1.      Seed idea.
Ever story grows out of a seed idea, something which is so wonderful that it must be shared. My stories grew out of a dream of a woman fleeing by moonlight, a child in her arms.

2.      What plot works best?
Most stories use a combination of basic plots. The writer simply matches seed idea to appropriate plot combination.
Tragedy -- Things go from bad to worse.
Comedy -- An absurd problem is solved in an absurd manner.
Romance -- Individuals fall in love and attempt to overcome differences.
Mystery -- The cause of a crime or other event is uncovered.
Epiphany -- Significance is found in ordinary life.
Disaster -- An attempt is made to avert or overcome an unfortunate event.
Adventure -- A visit to a strange place.
Agency/Hero's Journey -- Someone discovers something which could save society.

 

Awake after the dream, I decided that the king has been assassinated, and the royal nanny is escaping with the infant heir. They hide out until the heir comes back as an adult to claim the throne. This fits the pattern of the long-lost heir plot, a variation of the hero's journey. This pattern is used for stories ranging from Oedipus Rex to Harry Potter.

3.      What sort of society is necessary for the plot?
The long-lost-heir plot often features patrilineal kingship and rule by divine right. God favors the legitimate first-born son and gives him the right of absolute rule.

I have deep-seated dislike of divine right, so I wanted another way of proving kingship. I decided a hereditary queen would nominate and marry the king. Such a society would be matrilineal, inheritance passing from mother to daughter. Given this, I know the royal child of my story is a girl. As an adult, she faces the challenge of selecting the next king. This setup as has the makings of a nice romance.

4.      What environmental forces are necessary for the society?
Society develops and adapts in response to the basic human needs for shelter, air, water, food, and access to mates. Knowing the resulting society, the writer can backwards engineer climate and terrain.  It helps to think of shortage. I learned this from Frank Herbert's Dorsadi Experiment which has a world with a shortage of toxin-free food and water.

I settled on a lack of shelter as the driving need on Fenria, my imaginary planet. On Fenria, fierce tides and weather lead to a high death rate at sea. In response, the society has a taboo against women fishing and operating boats. As a result, females live longer and society invests in women's education at the expense of male education. On Fenrian, men are expendable. Fenrian doctors, lawyers, teachers, and engineers are female. Voila! A matriarchal society.
 
5.      What kind of cosmology will produce the shortage?
Cosmology can be thought of as the rules for how a universe functions, or as rules for a magical system.  For a story to have conflict, nothing in the world should be for free. Without cost there's no conflict, no social development, and no story. Cosmology should have built in costs.

Every long-lost-heir must prove his identity. Oedipus Rex has damaged feet and Harry Potter has his scar. Standard devices for proving royal identity include special marks, scars, magical talismans, or feats demonstrating the favor of the gods. My distaste for divine right eliminates most of these. I settled on technological solution, a neurological implant which opens doors in the palace, but which also can be infected with an electronic virus.  Thus, my story fits within a scientific cosmology.

I prefer scientific cosmology because the scientific laws of thermodynamics already have costs. I can still have my hereditary queen without any additional work of developing a complete magical system. 
 
6.      What genre best fits the story?
Where to shelve a book depends mostly on the publishing market. I believe most stories straddle genres, containing plot elements from multiple genres or combining a plot favored by one genre with a cosmology favored by another.

My story has science and technology integral to the plot making it science fiction, but it also focuses on a romantic relationship. This combination makes the story SFR, science-fiction romance. It's up to me to decide if I will pitch the story as science fiction or as romance.

I feel that leaving the decision of genre for the end gives the writer the greatest range for creativity and freedom while still producing consistency within a story. I believe that all stories, even realistic stories, can benefit from bottom-up world building. Thinking about the world necessary for the plot can help determine where to set the story and what details of setting should be included or excluded.

Lizzie Newell lives in Alaska and writes science fiction set in a maritime world. She has written a half dozen novels and hopes to publish them soon. She expects her novella, Sappho's Agency, to be available first.  Her novel, Princess Politkofsky, which she mentions in this article, is about a princess who returns to her planet to save it from an electronic virus and then falls in love.

More information on Lizzie Newell's writing can be found at http://www.lizzienewell.com. She has founded Northern Speculative Fiction, a website http://www.northernspecfic.org/ and Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/pages/Northern-Speculative-Fiction/ dedicated to speculative fiction writers living in Alaska and Yukon.

 

The accompanying

photos are of models

and drawings made

by Lizzie Newell as

part of her

world building.

 

 

FF&P Romance writers Spring On-Line Workshops

The Fantasy, Futuristic and Paranormal
Chapter of the RWA Presents the line up of great workshops for Spring 2013!
Click here to see the full line up!
http://romance-ffp.com/page/workshops

Web Design--presented by Catherine Chant May 6-17, 2013

At the end of this workshop you will have a better understanding of what goes into making your author website more appealing and inviting to a visitor and thus more effective for promoting you and your work. This two-week workshop will cover the golden ratio of layout design, web fonts and web-safe colors, using white space, user interface considerations and website organization, web graphics for the artistically challenged, and the importance of testing websites with multiple operating systems and browser applications.

Beyond Google --presented by Ally Broadfield May 6-June 2, 2013

Workshop Description: There's nothing more frustrating than wasting your precious writing time on a futile web search. Whether you are looking for a specific piece of information or need to research an entire time period or subject, this class will help you conduct the best search for your information needs. You will learn how to utilize multiple online search resources, including search engines, web directories, and databases. You will also learn how to refine search terms, narrow or broaden your search, how to use Boolean logic, and many other tips and techniques to make your research more efficient and successful. (Click link for full course description)

Romantic Suspense seeks Paranormal -- presented by Leslie Wainger May 6-June 2, 2013

Writing romantic suspense should be easy, right? Take some romance, add some suspense, and voila! Except...not really. To stand out in this crowded genre you need to plot every step as carefully as your killer plots his next murder, and your couple's relationship has to be as romantic as Prince William's wedding to Kate Middleton. This course will start with the basics and go deep, preparing you to write a romantic suspense novel that makes readers stay up nights reading.

Storytelling through the anxiety curve -- presented by Sally J Walker

Humans exist in varying states of anxiety allowing for survival. This writing workshop of lecture and writing exercises will teach you how to identify stress and coping mechanisms in fictional characters that will create a marketable short story or novel. From envisioning those dynamic, vivid characters to screwing up a “normal day,” your creativity will be challenged through brief exercises and class discussions.

Vampires down the silk road and beyond -- presented by Elis Flynn & Jacquie Rogers

Stories about vampires can be found virtually all over the world, in many places and ways you may not expect. The names may change and even some of what vamps can do, but whatever you call them, the legends about vampires have long been a part of human history. Let's look at those myths around the world following the Silk Road, that series of routes that was integral to traders long before the Christian era began. (Click link for full course description)

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