science fiction

Predicting the Yukon of the Future: a new radio series

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I’m excited to announce that there will be a new 5-part radio series beginning sometime in November, either next Monday, 17th, or the following Monday, lasting 5 days in a row, exploring life in the Yukon in 2058. In honour of CBC North’s 50th Anniversary, we take you flash-forward into a very positive look at the future.

Recently I read a column at Fantasy Magazine’s website entitled, Why We Need Scientist Heroes Again, and the author made a good case for thinking positive:

“Show of hands – who wants to retire to their grandchildren’s sub-prime one-room hovel in the decayed urban warzone that was once America?

Or perhaps roam the sweltering wasteland looking for gasoline while the mutants hunt you down?

Yeah, thought so.

Then let’s inspire some smart folks to get scientifical and create smart solutions to our stupid problems.”

So, in that spirit, I pitched Yukon 2058 to CBC North and they liked it. And I think things will get more and more interesting in the north over the next 50 years. Not every positive accomplishment will have positive consequences all the way round. And that too is a power science fiction has–to warn us. If everything turns out just hunky-dory we never have to change what we’re doing. But in the spirit of thinking positive– of actually dealing with climate change (cause it will happen), I hope you enjoy Yukon 2058, my own personal vision of the Yukon of the future. If you like some of the things, don’t wait 50 years to start them, or to think up things on your own. Create the place you want to live in, the place you want your kids to live in, the place you want to retire in. The world is going to turn its collective global head north very soon–let people know what you would like to see in fifty years.

Also, there’s a science fiction anthology in the works looking at optimistic near future science fiction, called Shine. Check out the website and submit your stories. I’ll write another post about Shine too.

How to talk about Plot Shapes, or Don’t tell Creative writers they aren’t creative

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Well, you live and learn as a teacher. One thing I will never do again: give my high school writing students a handout on plot shapes. My goal was to tell them that if they needed to have some help in shaping a plot, that they could look to these “shapes” —forms that would give them patterns that might help them complete a plot.

Of course, I prefaced this with saying that some people believed there “are only 20 plots” and that everything boils down to these forms in some way or another.

Wake Up Call: These are teenagers. Do they want to be told that there are only 20 plots!?? NO. Do they set about trying to prove you wrong? Yes. And that’s fine. It was their ire at being told they could only have 20 choices that saved them.

At first, they looked pretty crestfallen–how could I stand there and tell them “there’s nothing new under the sun”?

I had a math and science teacher who told me that once. I hated that. I hated that he might be right. You hear it in church sometimes–I think it’s in Ecclesiastes somewhere–that there is nothing new under the sun–but we are creative people. CREATIVE writers. We do create something new. What I am writing now has never, never been written before.

I think books like 20 Master Plots are good for a person who’s ready to read about how to master certain forms in the same way that people who sing learn the 20 or so songs in one book together—to work their muscles. Or the way that autoshop kids learn to rebuild a few classic cars–at least ONE Mustang!  But the book is not for everyone.  I find it helpful —when I know which shape I’m writing— to know what reader expectations are for that shape.  But it can be diminishing…

I did much better job when I talked about Motifs–and they all loved stealing motifs from the Folklore and Fairy Tale index–they created the coolest plots using plot skeletons. And if you talk about plot skeletons, this will work. Masterplots are really plot skeletons too. DO NOT tell them that any person (sorry Ronald Tobias) ever said there were only 20.

If I had it to do again, I might offer the 20 as plot skeletons–and ask them to create a story using one plot skeleton or two. But, at all costs, no one should bust the creative impulse or dampen it by suggesting that someone else’s plot fits neatly into one of 20 formulas.

Seeing that storm clouds had entered the French library, where we meet every Wednesday for fun and writing, I instead challenged them to break the formulas with their own version of the plots–how do you subvert a Rescue plot (#17) or a Sacrifice plot (#15)? How do you masterfully up-end the Adventure plot? Then I had their hearts back into it!

Don’t do this to adults either. Just don’t. It makes you look hoity-toity, like you know what they can possibly do, and limits creativity.

Yep, I’m writing a Quest plot (plot#1) but you ain’t seen nothing like this quest! hehe.

Jet Man Flies over English Channel

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Well, all those people whining about not having their jetpack yet, start writing those letters to Santa. Looks like a nifty pack–and I can see some nice competitions coming out of this if these are ever mass produced. Imagine a big city like Vancouver with folks flying across the city. Okay, that’s in the future, but at least it’s imaginable now…

Yves Rossy Crosses the English Channel

World Building, Renewed Interest, 9 Novelists to write 9 Novels

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If you were thinking about signing up for a class in
Science Fiction /Fantasy writing this fall, do it next
week.

The class was officially canceled on Tuesday, as it had only five members, but will be re-instated next week on Wednesday because of renewed interest. We now have nine people–and room for many, many more. If you are a fantasy writer or a science fiction writer in town and want to be a part of a novel-writing push, this is your chance.

Sign up with Krista Mroz at Parks and Recreation (phone  633-8505) and join us for pushing out that novel. We’re now online too at Cold Fantasy, a google Group of the writers in the class. With nine other people churning out a novel–and they have day jobs–you can do it too!

World Building: Novel writing for SciFi/Fantasy Writers begins soon

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The novel writing course for Fantasy and Science Fiction writers will begin on Tuesday, Sept 23. Come join us this year to learn to write novels. If you are part way working on one, join us anyway. (If you have a draft completed of your novel, you might want to wait till January to start with us in the Workshop phase. )

World Building will cover plot structure and character arc for the novel and then join up with NaNoWriMo in November to push out a first draft. It will be fun and exciting to do this with 15 people. Come join us on Tuesday nights! Registration is now open through the City of Whitehorse, so you can sign up today!

Come build a world, spin a plot, go on a journey.

[In conjunction with this class, the City of Whitehorse will be offering a lunchtime lecture series, free and open to the public, called We All Began With Fantasy, talking about the first great epics of many cultures and their fantasy elements. More details soon…]

Rocketfuel: Sci-fi/Fantasy Writing for teens starting at FH Collins

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Through the City of Whitehorse, with the cooperation of FH Collins Secondary School, we’re about to start a new afterschool program, RocketFuel Relaunched, for high school students who want to write Science Fiction and Fantasy stories. We’ll be meeting after school in FH Collins beginning September 17th, 3:30-5:00pm. The program is 13 weeks long, or about the length of the semester, from Sept 17 to Dec. 10th. Sign up through the City of Whitehorse’s Leisure Guide. Come with your imagination, pen, notebook, willingness to write a lot and encourage each other. Snacks will be provided. Participants are there to write and learn, and will be expected to work hard on their own writing. Be warned: Don’t come if you don’t enjoy the writing! But if you are already writing—come join everyone else who’s writing the same things! We have a great core group started, and we’re looking to add many more writers to our group.

Spread the word! If you know of teens who would be interested in this program, tell them to sign up with the City. We’ll have posters up in the schools soon. But we’d like to let everyone know it’s coming!

Contact Mia Lee through mia.lee@whitehorse.ca

Dream Jobs and Just Doing It: Star Trek Series

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For the new Star Trek the Movie, see my posts: Star Trek: Movie Review and

New Star Trek Movie Trailer and the Power of Myth.

___________________

Okay. I’m not gonna be a self-help guru here, but I will tell you what happened to me.

I think my number one thing I’ve always wanted to do was to write for Star Trek. Or for some TV sci-fi series. I think I liked the idea of developing characters through adventures together, and writing with a team of people. And seeing that each episode became something that added to a whole. Maybe, too, I was disappointed by the squandered potential of Enterprise. I felt like Season One was underdeveloped; no one died at all and this was our first time into space…. The characters had potential but they were never utilized and the plots were dull. When the season finale came up, and the new season premiere completed it, I was sure that the problem was the writers–or the writers had been hemmed in by too many rules, I don’t know….

So, today I was complaining about how little time I have to write and that I’m working too much, and I told a colleague about my silly dream of writing for Star Trek, and she said, pulling out a notebook and a pen: Okay, let’s write for Star Trek.

The next two hours were a blast! We created a whole cast of new characters drawn from the Star Trek universe, and some from my own brain, and then created a series—what we do in season one, season two , season three. I had high hopes for the series—hehe. I learned that without a series going on, of course, selling a new series would be very difficult, and two, that Pocket Books really wants books with major characters who have appeared on the show–not your own. Who knows if one can write “similar” Federation type settings for books that are not Star Trek, but obviously borrowing the universe-structure. If anyone knows if publishers can’t stand ST-like books, let me know….but I may write this up as a novel pitch.

I have nothing to lose for trying. And that’s kind of what today proved to me. Laurie, my colleague, proved to me by pulling out the notebook and pen that sitting around and complaining does little good, and that it’s better when you just do it. If you want to write for Star Trek, do it. Create what you want. Perhaps with some positive energy, I can a) sell a TV series! or b) sell a book. Who knows? But I do know I’m several steps closer than I was. And I loved brainstorming with Laurie. It picked up my mood, and made me feel as if I were closer to my goals.

So, maybe don’t look at all the obstacles–just do it. You might as well have fun–and who knows–the product might be salable outside the frame you thought you wanted to work within. It was fun creating, and maybe that’s the whole point.

(I’ve just, of course, shown my complete geekness to the world….but multiple character arcs, episodic TV and science fiction are fun. Maybe I should just go ahead and create the Television Station that will run my show! Hey, Laurie—get out that notebook!)


Rocket Fuel is Relaunching

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The City of Whitehorse is launching a new time and space for Rocket Fuel, the science fiction and fantasy writing group for teens, this year. Watch for times and place here, and in the leisure guide. We’re hoping to have it after school at a Whitehorse school, once a week. We’ll be exploring more ways to write science fiction and fantasy and doing exercises that build writing skills. I think there’s gonna be food too! So, food, science fiction, and other people who like science fiction–all right after school. How can this be a bad thing? No more will you have to give up Saturdays or evenings! I’ll add the blurb from the Leisure Guide when we have all the places and times set!

Tell your friends–we’d love to have 10-16 people, or more. So, if you know anyone who wants to write their own science fiction and fantasy stories and read and comment on other people’s work— invite them. We’d love to have enthusiastic learners and writers!

Wall-E makes the New York Times Opinions Page

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I love it when Science Fiction is taken seriously. I just saw Wall-E, the Pixar film, and it is truly wonderful. Frank Rich wrote a great column about how much more this film is saying than either candidate running for President. Check out his column–and check out the film.

Wall-E for President

Wall-E, like most Pixar films, is written well–playing on two tracks simultaneously: one for kids, one for adults. Wall-E and Eve could be a silent film–but it’s also the same comedy that fuels other Pixar short films, where there is usually no dialogue, and also has E.T. and the droids of Star Wars to thank for their non-verbal comedy.

The film does have great characters–again, I am shocked by how well minor characters are portrayed. Full arcs for the Captain of this floating Cruise Ship; for the two cruise passengers; for the cleaning robot; for AutoPilot. The heroes are well drawn too–ultimately sacrificing what they wanted for each other. When I got to that moment–call me a writing geek–but I smiled because it was just thing to complete these main character arcs–that sacrifice, especially in a love story. It had an O. Henry moment for a minute.

But in this age where all we can do is stare down a variety of Tunnels to Apocalypse, science fiction is telling the tales we are listening to. We’re either looking at a life changed by climate change, mass consumerism, lack of exercise…etc. Wall-E serves as a cautionary tale slipped in through the side door of a romantic comedy. When you get to the line “We have to get off our butts and do something” you know that the film has nudged you just a little. But it’s okay because the story is so compelling. It’s not a story written to tell a message; it’s a story that happens to have a message.

That’s a profound difference.

When Writers Come Together

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Perhaps it was my nostalgia for Clarion, or maybe it was the weekend I had in Calgary that all the science fiction writers had their weekend of writing.  All I know is that for two and a half hours, our group wrote.  We set up in the library and worked on our laptops and I was happy.

It’s funny, the communal aspects of writing.  Why was I so excited to do this?  Why was it so much fun to be in a room writing with others?  Why is it so hard sometimes doing this alone?

Because I’m a social creature perhaps.  Being by myself is very very difficult—professions that make me have to be away from people are hard on me socially.  But I loved having them in the room, so I could do both at once.  I’m suggesting we do these on a regular basis–so once a month right now, but maybe more later….

Anyway, it was good to do.  I worked on a short story, though it took a turn I’ve decided to abandon–too dark for me.  I got the willies just writing about it and it overpowered my story….

Still, the exercise is good–and I plan on doing this when I offer my novel writing course in the fall.