Summer Cafe Blog Hop: Michelle Browne and Nicolas Wilson's Euphoria/Dysphoria

Hello hello!

I have a special post for you today--as you can see, there's an awesome blog cafe event going on, and I have included some very cool prizes. A necklace featuring the cover of Euphoria/Dysphoria and three ebooks, including Euphoria/Dysphoria, After the Garden, and The Underlighters, are all up for grabs.  You can participate in that below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

But that's not all. Since our feature is the romance in Euphoria/Dysphoria, Nicolas Wilson and I have a very...special...recipe for you this week. Let's just say that in a dystopia, sometimes you have to get a little creative with your meat sources. This one is abundant, local, and tastes great with garlic.

That's right! Tonight, we're cookin' with rat. Of course, you might want to substitute chicken, but that's up to you.

Roasted rat with garlic sauce (from The Food Network) 

Ingredients

1 (5 to 6-pound) roasting rat
Salt
2 heads garlic, cut in 1/2 crosswise
3 stalks lemongrass

3 stalks rosemary 

(optional: oregano, basil)
1/2 large Spanish onion, thickly sliced
4 carrots cut diagonally into 2-inch chunks
2 large gold potatoes, cut into 6 pieces
4 tablespoons butter or lard, melted

Optional: 

rice

vodka

2 cups water

Instructions: 

Salt rat inside and out and leave in ice box for two days. Preheat fire to medium heat (if you have an oven, 425 degree F will do nicely). Salt the rat again and stuff with rosemary and lemongrass, or similar herbs if you can't get those two.

Tie the legs together with kitchen string and tuck the arms together, underneath. Place rat and chopped vegetables in a roasting pan. Scatter onions, carrots, and potatoes around rat. Brush the outside of the rat with lard or butter (if you can get butter).

Roast the rat for 1.5 hours, or until the juices run clear when you cut between the thigh and leg. Remove the rat to a platter, cover with foil, and continue cooking veggies for 15 minutes. When the veggies are cooked, carve the rat and place slices on a platter, surrounded by the veggies. Drizzle some pan juices over the meat and veggies.

This makes a very good leftover stew, if your rat is large enough to last for more than one meal, and can be stretched by serving the whole thing with cassava or cornmeal. It can also be made into a soup to stretch for more meals. If vodka is available, you can also deglaze the roasting pan and make a sauce for further meals when food is scarce. Store the soup or sauce in a clean, airtight container, in a cold place if possible.

That's all for today! Enjoy your roasted rat, and whether you're on an Engineer or Poca floor, or down below in the lower levels...try not to starve to death. 

***

Thanks for dropping by the nest once again. Leave your comments, rebuttals, and vehement agreements below. Don't miss any of the phuquerie--get on the mailing list. Find Michelle on Twitter, Facebook, and on Tumblr, and find her work on Amazon. Check back on the blog to see when one of the irregular posts has careened onto your feed. This is the one and only SciFiMagpie, over and out! 

Starry Nights: A Science Fiction Romance Brigade Midsummer Blog Hop!

Hello hello! 

Today I have a bit of a treat--a snippet from After the Garden, my next work, written specially for the hop!

***

Ember squinted up at the stars, her eyes widening to take in the light. The sky hadn't been so clear in several hundred years. She remembered looking up at them in her last life, how faint they'd been back then. 

Kerrick coughed. "This'll sound strange, but I almost miss them being harder to see," he said quietly. 

Across the fire, Chris and Eva were talking quietly, paying no attention to them. Ember smiled, feeling old for a moment. 

"Me too. We went up there once, you know. Hundreds of years ago now. Shame we never got past the moon, really."

"What do you think happened to the people up there?"

"In the colony? Oh, they died."

He nodded. "I thought so." 

The silence felt heavier for a moment. Ember edged closer to him and poked at the dying embers. A burst of flame from her fingertips reignited them for a moment. Kerrick smiled a little to himself. 

"Well, we're still alive. Not just us. All of us. Humanity," she said, straightening. 

"So? We're alive, but we're barely back on our feet. We've lost hundreds of years."

"It's still not too late," she maintained. "We could go back."

"To the moon?"

"Farther. We could get past it."

Glittering overhead, the stars made no reply. She could see the doubt on his face, but she smiled. 

"Can you see it?" Kerrick avoided her eyes. She knew what that meant, but a stupid, fluttering thing inside her couldn't help fighting it. After all, they were still alive.

"No, not that far into the future. It only works on people I know. But..." she poked the fire again, this time with a branch. "I can't see, but I can hope."

***

Guess what? The Underlighters is part of the giveaway package for the Starry Night contest! 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

***

You can catch more by checking out the following links.

Amazon 

Tumblr

Twitter

*****

Thanks for dropping by the nest once again. Don't miss any of the phuquerie. Find Michelle on Twitter, Facebook, and on Tumblr, and find her work on Amazon. Check back on the blog to see when one of the irregular posts has careened onto your feed. This is the one and only SciFiMagpie, over and out! 

Rule of Cool: Or, Science Plays A Sad Violin

Hello hello!

So, a quick post today. As some of you will know, I'm an editor as well as a sci fi writer, and that means that I fix a lot of errors. But, being a writer, I also make them.

I've been watching Mythbusters a lot lately. Unfortunately, I don't spend my days firing guns, breaking down doors, fending off wild jellyfish, etcetera, so my understanding of how to do these things is impaired. And Hollywood certainly doesn't help. Did you know, for instance, that bullets don't ricochet and produce sparks? Sure, they do ricochet, but--as frequent readers of Cracked.com may also know--they certainly aren't as fatal as advertised, either. In movies, TV, and a lot of books, one shot means you die.

But what about science fiction? We often talk about matter transporters, Faster Than Light (FTL) travel, fast-growth cloning, and other semi-realistic and sometimes purely fictional technologies. (Yes, I know cloning is real, but we haven't cloned any humans and we haven't sorted out that pesky issue of the telomeres yet.) So when it comes to the little details, do we follow the 'Rule of Cool' (doing whatever seems coolest) or do we try our best to create something realistic? There's a few approaches to this, which I'll outline below.

Approach 1: Whatever is The Coolest

This is what it says on the tin. Ricocheting spark-bullets? Diving through suspiciously close asteroid belts? Ignoring side-effects of a drug treatment? Convenient amnesia? Arguably, this is sloppy writing, but it's also within most readers' comfort zones and is often easy to picture. As well, most readers won't be experts, and most who are will recognize the value of entertainment rather than something that's, well, more rigorous in intent. However, some readers are annoyed by this, and too many scientific errors or historical anachronisms will bounce you right out of a story.

Approach 2: Scientific Rigor

Jack McDevitt stands out as an author who follows this; Charles Sheffield, too. It characterizes a lot of Golden-Age sci fi, but not the pulp sci fi (which tends to follow Approach 1). This is more realistic, and that can be nice, but it can also be bogged down by exposition. Sometimes it's also a bit inaccessible. After all, not all of us who write sci fi are teachers or astronomers. It also involves a lot of research. However, 'getting it right' is really satisfying, and readers often compliment it.

Approach 3: Stuck in the Middle With You 

Most sci fi falls into the middle, but there's a skew towards each end. Personally, I think that due to the lack of scientific education, we should be aiming a bit more towards Approach 2, but modifying it. Really, it's okay to have space be silent and sacrifice sparkly bullets and deal with injuries realistically. The thing about Approach 1 is that it arguably makes a story too easy for the characters. Consider Starship Troopers, which is intentionally a satire, and which makes use of Approach 1 very heavily. Consider Alien instead, which was a bit more realistic, and much more difficult for characters to survive.

It's a matter of taste, but consider doing your research very thoroughly before your next story--question the little stuff, too, not just the location of the nearest habitable moon or planet. How would doors work? You don't have to--and shouldn't--explain everything, but a little realism can go a long way.

*****

Thanks for dropping by the nest once again. Don't miss any of the phuquerie. Find Michelle on Twitter, Facebook, and on Tumblr, and find her work on Amazon. Check back on the blog to see when one of the irregular posts has careened onto your feed. This is the one and only SciFiMagpie, over and out! 

Hurt So Good: How To Break Your Heroes

Hello hello!

So, as an editor, a lot of stories cross my desk every month. I'm also a writer, though, and that means that writing a good story isn't just a matter of being a spectator. I mentioned in a recent post  that sexual assault is often used for female characters as a sort of plot device--an easy way to give them a tragic backstory and offer a motive for being both defensive of themselves and prickly. However, that post also outlined the issues with it. On reading it, my partner challenged me, "Okay, so how can most writers craft a good character without using that as a plot device?"

Disclaimer

That's what I'm going to talk about today. Obviously, I've already covered one base, but I really think we can get more creative with ways to give your character that challenge. Before we get going, just a note--I'm going to keep saying "heroes", but all of this applies equally to heroines or nonhumans/non-binary heroes as well! I'm also going to focus a bit on fantasy and sci fi in particular, so keep in mind that you may have to adapt things based on your setting and genre a bit. And obviously, they're not set in stone, but do read them before you run off to break them.

So, why should your character "be programmed with the most tragic backstory ever written"?

Rule 1--They Don't Have To

Shocking, right? You can always give your character a surprisingly healthy history and then just load the tragedy and conflict on as events play out through your story. Never be afraid to hurt your characters on stage! They can't be too precious. Conversely, if you find yourself wanting to smash your heroes' hearts a bit too often, maybe pull back on a a bit. If I had a dollar for every time a manuscript had gone overboard on the tragedy department, I'd have a solid gold computer. Jenny Kirkette doesn't have to be an orphan whose pet beagle died in a horrific transporter accident to be on an uneven footing during the events of the story.

Rule 2--Know the Difference Between Pathos and Bathos

Hyperbole is *not* your friend in a serious manu--unless other characters poke fun at your character's unfortunate circumstances or there's inherent absurdity to the tragedy. It worked for Lemony Snicket, but I wouldn't call tragedy-overload a recommended style. It's hard to use. Pathos is, simply, an appeal to your audience's emotions. Bathos is transitioning from the exalted to the absurd. While Christopher Moore is a master of bathos, and can actually make some moving stories from the contrast, but it's not easy to do. I keep pressing the yellow 'caution' sign to make it light up here, but it's important to know when your backstory is so sad it's gone all the way to being silly. There's a balance point between tragic, heartbreaking, and tragedy overload--at 'tragedy overload', the audience's brains shut down and can't handle any more sadness. They have to giggle to deal with with things. (This is the same part of your brain that thinks Holocaust jokes and other offensive, tragic subjects are funny.) Be aware of that when you're writing.

Rule 3--Mind Your Cliches 

I mentioned sexual assault above. It's one of the gender-bound cliches; however, it's seldom used for male characters. Cliches are actually quite fine to use as long as you spice them up a bit. Consider gender-swapping them, for instance. Losing a mother motivates quite a few sons to seek revenge, but that's fine for a girl, too, instead of losing her father. Brothers and sisters are great targets, and lovers are traditional. Friends are less often used, and that's a shame, because I think we all know that in real life, friends can be as close as family, too. Adopted siblings are a good one. However, do be aware that they are cliches, instead of turning a blind eye. If you're going to have alien bandits capture your human hero's girlfriend and tie her to the space elevator tracks, be aware that it's been done before.

Rule 4--Gender-Swapping Is Your Friend

If you are using a cliche, try to do something different with it. Heck, this goes for less-overused ideas as well. Put a character in a situation that would not necessarily conform to their gender or cultural expectations. If you're in a fantasy or sci fi setting, this is doubly true. Don't limit yourself to Terran norms! If readers can suspend disbelief enough for dragons and magic and interstellar travel that's faster than light, they can handle having a sister rescue her brother, a mother rescuing her child, or a father who's been captured. Remember to think outside the normal box of boy-save-girl or girl-gets-hurt-by-boys-automatically. Your readers will love you for it.

Source. Above: Your main character. 

Rule 5--Go All the Way

If you're going for a cliche, don't be half-hearted. This goes for any sort of tragedy, really. Mind Rule 2, but a lot of readers do like it when authors amp up the sadness. Oh, sure, subtlety is important, but it's okay for something to wreck your character's life. After all, tragedies don't just conveniently come back whenever you need to talk about them. They keep characters up at night. Maybe your hero has flashbacks and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Triggers are a convenient way to add to tension and realism--the smell of whiskey or Martian flowers or the colour octarine might remind your character of that fateful night in a way they can't forget. Addictions are a 'fun' way to add consequences, too. Remember--tragedy doesn't exist in a bubble.

Rule 6--Motivation Does Not Equal Reactions

Is your hero doing what they have to as a result of someone else's tragedy? How do they feel about it? Maybe they're annoyed because it's not really their war and they just want to go home. That ambiguity is great for having your character switch sides or even switch back! Is your hero inclined to forgive the person who hurt them, but feeling forced to go through with their revenge? Honour works both ways. What if the character's heart just isn't in it? Conversely, you can have your character go to some really dark extremes for revenge, even go overboard, but if you do that, make sure other characters (and not just a single, often female, token) criticize their choices. Just because your character has a motivation, doesn't mean it will determine their reaction. People change over time and consider their personal tragedies differently.

Rule 7--Sympathy For the Devil

Maybe your character understands why her commanding officer left her family to be devoured by the ravenous space wolves on the mine orbiting Betelgeuse--because it meant saving thousands of people in the colony ship. Just because your character is driven to revenge, doesn't mean you should hate on your antagonist or villain all the time. That leads to boring antagonists, and lack of conflict. Furthermore, making your villain/antagonist sympathetic will create distress in your main character. Distress is your friend! A strong villain is almost more important than a strong lead. Make sure their motivations make sense.

Rule 8--Why?

Why is your character's backstory important? Does it really add to the story, or is it cleverly-disguised filler? Is it exposition, clogging up the beginning, or is it revealed slowly? If you're stumped, it's okay to be mysterious. Sometimes it's good to discover your character's motivation along with the audience. And for a first draft, well, anything goes. You're going to fix it anyway. You can also map out multiple possibilities for the background if you're not sure about it. Above all else, make sure your character's tragedy adds to the story rather than clogging it up or slowing it down.

So, that's my list of recommendations! Hopefully it's set your plot bunnies to chewing at the lettuce in the garden. If you're feeling doubt over your story's direction, that's okay too. Remember, no-one's going to judge you for rewriting or playing with things.

*****

Thanks for dropping by the nest once again. Don't miss any of the phuquerie. Find Michelle on Twitter, Facebook, and on Tumblr, and find her work on Amazon. Check back on the blog to see when one of the irregular posts has careened onto your feed. This is the one and only SciFiMagpie, over and out!