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Discussion

Good Aliens

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Today’s discussion topic sent in by QSF’er Michael Barnette​: Aliens as “the bad guys from space” like those in many movies of late. Should the aliens always be the bad guys or can they be written – no matter how different they are from humans – as “good guys”? It’s interesting to see how aliens go in cycles of good and bad in SF and SF movies especially, from the invasion paranoia stories like Invasion of the Body Snatchers to the ultra-cute alien in distress like ET. But when a culture and intellect is so different from out own as … Read more

Writing Electronically

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Pencils

Yes, I’m back, after a five-day hiatus to move to our new digs with Mark, my hubby. Angel did a bang-up job with the discussion topics these last five days, and so she’s graciously agreed to continue the tradition with a new Angel Discussion every Friday. WooHoo! Meanwhile, back at the ranch, today’s topic comes from QSFer Anastasia Vitsky: “How has the use of electronic methods for writing changed the trends in sci fi?” I’d expand this to include cloud technology and the ability to write on the fly with your smart phone or tablet. I’m updating a story that … Read more

You Can’t Judge…Hey, Wait a Minute…

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The old saw about judging a book by its cover isn’t meant in a literal sense, and yet it’s true. We often do judge books by their covers. A cheesy, sloppy, or visually uninformative cover has the potential for turning readers away. A visually uninteresting one can make a book invisible amid a crowd of more eye-catching offerings. Lesbian and gay pulp fiction share a checkered past with genre fiction in that the covers were at one time universally cheesy and sometimes laughable. We’ve come a long way, both in SFF/Paranormal covers and in LGBT covers both romance and not, … Read more

Generational Tech

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Some of us are old enough to remember a time before computers. Some of us are even old enough to recall a time before dishwashers were the norm. What I’m getting at here is how technology becomes a part of the fabric of life and how we react to it when it’s not. My mother resisted getting a dryer for the house for a long time. Why would we need such a thing? We had a laundry line. Now it’s normal for everyone to have them, either in the domicile or the apartment’s laundry room or at the laundromat. They’re … Read more

The Big Sleep

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It’s said that humans are the only organism on the planet who are aware of their own deaths. That’s a bit tough to verify, since we can’t ask cetaceans and cephalopods, elephants and other primates if they’re aware that someday they’re going to die. We do know that humans are aware, though, and for writers, it’s always lurking in the backs of our creation processes. When we write LGBT fiction and especially romance based fiction, a lot of us shy away from the subject because many of us grew up during the literary period where the LGBT character always died … Read more

Tropes We Love

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The word trope often sends unpleasant shivers down the backs of speculative fiction fans. We think of overused themes, tired plots, and situations that have been beaten to death with an Andromedan shock club and then beaten some more. But really, a trope is simply a recurring theme or device when we talk about stories, so all themes when we break them down into their component parts are tropes. Science Fiction and Fantasy are full of them and fans will be able to yell out dozens of examples if you name one. We even have our favorites if we stop … Read more

License to Explore

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Soylent Green

Today’s topic comes from QSFer Anastasia Vitsky: “I love the challenge of creating a world that is like but unlike the one I live in, and in some ways writing a “”fake”” world lets me be more brutally honest about the world I do live in. Right now, through the lens of this made-up world, I’m exploring topics I would never dare touch in a realistic contemporary romance, such as child slavery and child prostitution. And yet, I’m still writing a romance. What does sci fi allow you to do as a writer that you couldn’t do in realistic fiction?” … Read more

How Environments Shape Society

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Cold Gay

Today’s topic comes from QSFer and Admin Angel Martinez: “How environment shapes your societies (atmosphere, ecosystem, etc)”. So let me elaborate a little. Is British Society a bit more polite than many others because of the colder climes (hey, that works for Canada too)? Do societies in warmer climes with more resources have the freedom to be more open, generally? Does the fight for resources bring out the worst in cultures, fostering discrimination? Would a new world where every birth counts to raise the population work against the expression of homosexuality? And how can we use these forces to write … Read more

Writing Dialects and Accents

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accents and dialects

Today’s topic comes from QSFer Kelly Jensen: I listen to a lot of audio books, and in one series in particular, the narrator does all the accents, which vary from regional to international. It really makes the book, which is why I pay extra to listen to this series, and others, on audio. As a reader, accents and dialects can be more difficult to decipher, however. Sometimes it’s simply a matter of word choice and speech pattern, and this works. That character’s voice acquires a recognisable cadence that stays with you throughout the book and/or series. As a writer, that’s … Read more

Privacy in Telepathic Societies

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Telepathy

Today’s topic comes from QSFer Kethric Wilcox: The issue of privacy in telepathic societies, do you prefer the open invasion style of Star Trek’s Betazoid style telepaths or the regimented only with a contract and permission style of Babylon 5’s PsiCorps style or is their a happy middle ground between the two? Oooh, I like this one. My husband Mark and I aren’t telepathic, but we are together 99% of the time (by virtue of working together at home on our own business). And as such, there’s not a lot of privacy, but it works for us. But imagine if … Read more