Examining the Story Starters for My Science Fiction Romance Novels

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is our most frequent story starter -- idea, milieu, character, theme, what-if, trope, editor request, etc.

As usual, I don’t think I can break this down into a neat answer. Right off the bat let’s eliminate writing to market (what’s currently hot in other words), which I never do, or writing something in response to an editorial or agent request. I don’t have either of those individuals. (Yes, I hire freelance editors to do  edits on my books but it’s not the same as an editor at a traditional publishing house telling an author what they’d like to see written for a contracted book.)

My mantra is pretty much “I write what I write and I write what I like to read.” Fortunately for me, there are quite a few wonderful readers out there who seem to also enjoy the way my Muse works in crafting stories! Thank you, readers!

Now that we’ve cleared up those issues, back to the topic of what inspires me to write any given novel.

Looking over my backlist in order to write this post, apparently the majority (not all) are situation-driven. My first ever published science fiction novel with romantic elements, WRECK OF THE NEBULA DREAM, is basically “Titanic in space…” as one reviewer said, inspired by the events of the Titanic’s sinking, but set in the far future, on an interstellar luxury liner. So I had the basic story idea and then I worked to identify who the hero would be (a Special Forces soldier) and why he was on the ship at all. The same for the heroine (a businesswoman) and all the other characters.

STAR CRUISE: OUTBREAK - what if there was an epidemic on an interstellar cruise ship? STAR  CRUISE: MAROONED  - what if a group of passengers went down to a planet for a day and were suddenly abandoned?  The Alien Empath series, like DANGER IN THE STARS – what if alien empathic priestesses from a less advanced planet were kidnapped by the interstellar crime syndicate and forced to commit crimes? TRAPPED ON TLANQUE – what if an Ancient Observer was left behind by her people thousands of years ago, and still sleeps in stasis?

In each case, the situation leads naturally to who the characters need to be and what kinds of things will happen over the course of the novel.

My award winning science fiction romance series Badari Warriors (Sectors New Allies) started as a situation – genetically engineered soldiers held captive by the alien scientists who created them and now joined by an entire colony of humans, kidnapped by the same scientists for experiments. The books within the series are now driven by the main character for each book and what adventure that person will have, as well as the overarching series arc I have going on.

One standalone novel, MISSION TO MAHJUNDAR was sparked in part by two photographs.  Here’s what I said in a post explaining why I wrote that book: “First, in college one of my best friends was an amazing woman named Cheryl, who had been blind since birth. I’d never known anyone who was blind, prior to meeting her, and Cheryl was awe inspiring, amazing in her refusal to accept any limits. She taught me many things, particularly how to use the other senses when one sense is denied. I always wanted to honor Cheryl by imbuing a character with her spirit and determination. …one day I saw a photo of a windswept, abandoned temple, standing alone on a plateau, somewhere in the Middle East. The image remained with me and I pondered – as one does – what adventure would bring people to this remote location and what would happen to them there. What would they be seeking? Would they find whatever they needed? This became the temple of the Mahjundan Ten Gods, where Shalira must go on her wedding journey, to seek a key to her mother’s long-closed tomb. ..Third, and this was the key thing that put all the other elements together in my mind and set off the plot, I happened across a perfume ad in a magazine. The illustration was very dark in tone, with a woman in a purple-and-gold hooded cloak holding a beautiful crystal bottle that glowed golden. The light from the bottle illuminated her face. And I thought, that’s it! That’s Shalira inside the tomb. Then I needed to know who would be there with her…and my Sectors Special Forces soldier, Mike Varone, told me he would be, of course!”

Sometimes my novels are inspired by the character. Looking over the list of 35 or so books, that seems to happen mostly when I want to write a sequel. As with HOSTAGE TO THE STARS, the sequel I wrote for Johnny, a secondary character in MISSION TO MAHJUNDAR where it was already established he was a Special Forces operator.  Here’s what I said in my “why I wrote” post: “Johnny had more story to tell… the good friend and loyal team mate, but I kept wondering what he would do after the adventure ended, he really was out of the military service and back on his home planet. Turns out he was restless, unable to settle down and plagued by flashbacks. I’m very fond of Johnny and I hated leaving him at loose ends like that.  He needed something to draw him out of ordinary life and provide him a new focus. A way to transition into the new chapter of his life, if you will… So I thought what if Johnny was put in a situation where he had to return to active duty for reasons (no spoilers here), to accompany a hostage rescue team, and then there were complications? So the team goes in, locates the woman they were sent to extract, and only then learns of another woman prisoner from the Sectors. The team leader refuses to go after this second person and Johnny – of course – sets off to find and rescue her by himself.

The situation was much the same for Khevan and Twilka, two survivors of the WRECK OF THE NEBULA DREAM, which readers had been asking about since WRECK first appeared.  My notes: “Once I had my cup of tea ready, removed the cat from the table and concentrated on just Khevan and Twilka, it hit me like a lightning bolt that I wasn’t interested in telling the story I had in mind. OK, that’s a bad thing LOL. So I tried to turn the entire concept inside out in my head. I asked myself what happened to the real Titanic survivors who were Twilka’s equivalents – rich, society people who didn’t lose loved ones on the ship. They pretty much went on with their lives. As I said to myself, you don’t normally have two Titanic-level events in one lifetime. (Unless you were ship’s crew but that’s a different story.) So what would Twilka have done with her life, if she and Khevan weren’t together? And of course, WHY wouldn’t she and Khevan have stayed together? That’s the key question - was it only their wildly different life styles and places in Sectors society? Or?”

A few of my stories are created based on the need for an alien pet. Four years ago, my friend author Pauline B Jones and I started the Pets In Space® annual anthology of all new SFR, with the goals of supporting a worthy charity, Hero-Dogs, Inc., and hopefully garnering new readers in the process. PISA4 releases on October 8^th by the way and can be pre-ordered here. 

So each year I’ve had to ponder what alien pet I want to write about and then what the storyline will be. So far all the stories occur on my Nebula Zephyr star cruise liner.  Here are my comments on why I wrote last year’s story, STAR CRUISE: MYSTERY DANCER: “I started with the concept of the pet because that drives my plot for these PISA adventures. For some reason I kept seeing a mental picture of a Siamese cat, but with a third eye. But I’ve done a cat and a catlike alien before, for PISA1, although Midorri, the alien pet there actually is kind of a cross between a red panda and a tribble who acts like a cat. So I wanted something very different and I started thinking about what if the cat wasn’t actually a real animal at all? I ended up making F’rrh a ‘jenfellini’, which is something like a genie, living in a beautiful lacquered box. Visualize the gorgeous painted boxes that come from Russia.

Then, the tenuous link to Russia reminded me of the whole tragic story of the last Tsar and his family, and how they were murdered but for years rumors persisted one of the children might have survived. Various individuals claimed to be ‘Anastasia’ or another of the siblings, and of course there have been movies and plays written with that theme. I always flash back to the version with Yul Brynner (such an intense actor) and Ingrid Bergman because that movie was one of my mother’s favorites and also left the answer to the question of “Is she or is she not Anastasia?” somewhat open at the end. My daughters loved the animated fantasy version of the tale, with the voices of Meg Ryan and John Cusack, when they were growing up.

So I had the heroine – a possible princess on the run – but how could she fit into the Nebula Zephyr? Since the hero would be one of the former Special Forces soldiers who make up the ship’s security force, I had to be able to make the two interact and fall in love in a situation fraught with danger and suspicion.

I’ve wanted to do a story about the Comettes dance troupe which performs aboard the cruise liners since I wrote my very first published scifi romance, Wreck of the Nebula Dream (a sister ship of sorts to the one I write about nowadays). Dancing is a skill a maybe princess might have at a high level, right? So let her be a new member of the dancers….throw in a fabulous jewel and we have the story!”

So there we have it, a closer look at what kicks off a story in my mind and how the various threads come together to create a plot!

The Origin of Story

Story starts in darkness, in the cracks of the self. In nightmares and in dreams. Story starts in everything I believe I hate. It starts in all the self-loathing that drifts through the gray matter spiraling up and flashing like fireflies signaling for mates. It coalesces into noxious fruit I can pluck and examine. Until I learned better, I used to consume that terrible fruit and feed the monsters living inside. Somewhere along the path, and this probably saved my life, I learned to hold the nastiness in my hand and instead ask, "How is this useful?"

The answer is that it's useful in creating characters and plots and conflicts. You'd think I'd be writing horror based on this, but I'm not all snakes, spiders, and blood dripping down the walls. There's the other side of the coin - the deeply, (maybe naively) optimistic part, wanting to believe the best of everyone and everything at all times. That's where the romance and the HEAs come from. The dead bodies and violence are courtesy of the shadow version of me that loves nothing more than to stab happy me in the back with grotesque nightmares and manipulative old awful thought patterns. You know those memes about "Oh, you're trying to sleep? Here let me replay the past 20 years of everything you've done wrong, ever." That's the shadow's favorite weapon.

Grab that weapon, though, turn it over in your hand and ask how it applies to the book you're writing right now - where does my character feel like this - and the blade dulls. It doesn't hurt as much when your shadow tries to stab you with it again. Since I'm doing my best to pretend this is all totally normal and not that I might out to be trussed up in a fancy white jacket, I want to hope this resonates with readers. I hope that my characters and stories and conflicts feel true. Even if the beings experiencing them are darting around the galaxy.

Speaking of which. Guess who got a cover for Enemy Games, Chronicles of the Empire Book Two? This is the first look. Isn't it pretty?? Can I just shout out how much I adore my cover artist, Debbie Taylor?

The release date for this book is October 16, 2019. If you've read this book, I did some rewrites that altered a few scenes. It doesn't change the trajectory of the plot in any way. But there are changes. If that sort of thing matters to you.

Where the Stories Start

It's really hard for me to pin down where, exactly, I start a story from, but I definitely think it starts with the world.  I'm a big believer in starting with the world as a whole, and develop it until it shares its stories with you. 

For example, the world that the Maradaine books are set in, I had been building and growing that world for years.  Years.  And I had a real problem finding the story for a while, in no small part due to wanting to craft a story that matched the scope of the world I had made.  Which?  Mistake.

Here's a thing I've learned: stories work better if they are in a setting where you can tell there is a richer tapestry being woven all around it.  That doesn't mean you have to do crazy, masochistic worldbuilds for every book (but you CAN), but... you want to give the sense that the world around your story also has so many other stories.

I'm not going to name names or point fingers, but there are plenty of stories-- big, notable stories-- where it's very clear that the world was crafted around that particular story.  Which is fine!  Nothing wrong with it.  But then you'll see attempts to tell more stories in that world, and it's clear the scaffolding was not built to support that.

So that's my method: first build the sandbox, and THEN start to play. 

Though with the next book I'm writing, The Velocity of Revolution, I'm pushing myself out of the comfort zone a bit by not quite doing that.  Quite.  It'll be a different process.  But I'm excited for it.

All right, back to the mines.

Stories are freaking EVERYWHERE

What’s the seed of a story, for me? I mean, everything.

A song.

A yearning.

A thou-shalt-not.

An image I can’t get out of my mind. (Wanted and Wired’s earliest moment was Heron pulling up to the curb to whisk Mari to safety after she did a Very Bad Thing. I didn’t know what she’d done or why he wasn’t upset about it or even who those people were, only that it was raining and the world was ruined and they had each other’s backs.)

A book that almost accomplished its purpose but ultimately failed and frustrated me enough to try and do the story better.

A movie or TV show. (The scene from the Farscape episode “A Dog with Two Bones” inspired almost everything I wrote for, like, months. Years?)

Impotent fury. (I wrote Perfect Gravity in 2016. Of course it was about a powerful woman bringing down a corrupt government and taking over the world.)

Science. (On Saturn the rain is made of diamonds. Tell me that doesn’t make you want to write something.)

A might-have-been. (I’m currently obsessed with pre-colonial Africa, and not just because Black Panther made me cry.)

A news or human-interest story. (There was a Daily Beast article about a Paris apartment that had been locked up and untouched for seventy years. It was just crammed with stories waiting to be told.)

A nuance of psychology. (How is it that someone who has been abused has learned to move forward and take control of her life when the people who were never harmed are still holding life-destroying grudges on her behalf?)

Point of all that is a story can start from anything, and the suckers are literally everywhere. I can't put my finger on just one source. I mean, I dare you to stop ideas from jumping right out at you in traffic, in the shower, in a look, in a lyric, in some stranger's voice, in a broken earring wedged in your seat at the theater or a strange storm-wet stray on your doorstep when you never even knew you needed a cat. We only need to notice these magic seeds, and then, if we take our charge seriously, to nurture them into stories.

Story Starter: Conflict

My most frequent story starter...is a vague concept of a conflict. A broad view that's mushy and loosely defined. It often is rooted in emotion; be it restlessness, resentment, retribution, or reconciliation. There's usually some sort of injustice at the core (in today's real world, how can you escape it, right?).

From there it moves to character. Who is feeling these things? Who is most impacted by the situation? Who is in a position to affect change? Who stands to lose the most? Gain the most? Be damned either way, but die if nothing changes?

Then Why has to be answered.
Then Why Now.
Then How.
Then With Whom.
Then Despite Whom.
Then Where.
Then What Magic.

Then...then I have a concept that kicks off an outline around a conflict that builds a complex plot for complicated characters.

When To Take the Market into Consideration

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is our most frequent story starter -- idea, milieu, character, theme, what-if, trope, editor request, etc.

It's an interesting question because when people ask me in interviews where I start with a story, I always say a particular character or sometimes a specific image. But in reading this week's suggestion, I realized that I've changed on this somewhat. It's not that the ideas themselves don't start for me with characters in a particular situation or image - that's absolutely true - but I also have a LOT of ideas, all dutifully listed in my notes. So, as far as a story starter is concerned, I've realized that it is largely affected by the "editor request" category.

By that I mean, what editors are looking for, what my agent thinks she can sell, what my non-compete agreements allow, or - for self-publishing - what I think readers are most likely to pay me for!

In short, what "prompts" me to start a story these days is a business decision. For traditional publishing, my agent (Sarah Younger at Nancy Yost Literary Agency) and I discuss what steps might best advance my career. We talk about goals, publishing houses, possible advance money. We also have to navigate agreements with my current publishers not to compete with the books I'm doing with them. I really love that she brings this business perspective to the table, because I am trying to making a living with my art.

This is something I discuss with authors when I'm advising them on making decisions about an agent. (I seem to be doing a lot that lately.) One key criterion in choosing an agent is do you want someone who will advise you on your next project this way, taking market considerations into account, or would you rather write your next story without input and give it to them when it's ready?

Both methods are valid, and different artistic temperaments work better with each, or somewhere in between. And agents fall out on the same spectrum.

Also, with my self-publishing career, I could make a choice based on my heart - what story do I really want to get out there? - and I've done that. But when I have an eye on paying the mortgage for the next year, I have to be practical and think about what I can write that I'll love, but that my readers will love, too.

A very long time ago, when I was an aspiring writer with a few publications but not much more, a pro writer friend advised me to enjoy that time. He said being able to write whatever I wanted without practical considerations was a freedom I wouldn't have once I became established.

It was good advice, because that's largely true. As a newbie author when you're still casting about for your voice and what story will work, there IS a tremendous freedom in that, a kind that's worth savoring.

At this point, however, I find that applying practical considerations isn't at all stifling, the way he implied. Instead it helps me filter out all the many wonderful ideas. AND it helps pay the bills.

Win, all around.

****
Speaking of win!

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is our most frequent story starter -- idea, milieu, character, theme, what-if, trope, editor request, etc.

It's an interesting question because when people ask me in interviews where I start with a story, I always say a particular character or sometimes a specific image. But in reading this week's suggestion, I realized that I've changed on this somewhat. It's not that the ideas themselves don't start for me with characters in a particular situation or image - that's absolutely true - but I also have a LOT of ideas, all dutifully listed in my notes. So, as far as a story starter is concerned, I've realized that it is largely affected by the "editor request" category.

By that I mean, what editors are looking for, what my agent thinks she can sell, what my non-compete agreements allow, or - for self-publishing - what I think readers are most likely to pay me for!

In short, what "prompts" me to start a story these days is a business decision. For traditional publishing, my agent (Sarah Younger at Nancy Yost Literary Agency) and I discuss what steps might best advance my career. We talk about goals, publishing houses, possible advance money. We also have to navigate agreements with my current publishers not to compete with the books I'm doing with them. I really love that she brings this business perspective to the table, because I am trying to making a living with my art.

This is something I discuss with authors when I'm advising them on making decisions about an agent. (I seem to be doing a lot that lately.) One key criterion in choosing an agent is do you want someone who will advise you on your next project this way, taking market considerations into account, or would you rather write your next story without input and give it to them when it's ready?

Both methods are valid, and different artistic temperaments work better with each, or somewhere in between. And agents fall out on the same spectrum.

Also, with my self-publishing career, I could make a choice based on my heart - what story do I really want to get out there? - and I've done that. But when I have an eye on paying the mortgage for the next year, I have to be practical and think about what I can write that I'll love, but that my readers will love, too.

A very long time ago, when I was an aspiring writer with a few publications but not much more, a pro writer friend advised me to enjoy that time. He said being able to write whatever I wanted without practical considerations was a freedom I wouldn't have once I became established.

It was good advice, because that's largely true. As a newbie author when you're still casting about for your voice and what story will work, there IS a tremendous freedom in that, a kind that's worth savoring.

At this point, however, I find that applying practical considerations isn't at all stifling, the way he implied. Instead it helps me filter out all the many wonderful ideas. AND it helps pay the bills.

Win, all around.

* * *

Speaking of win!

I'm participating in the Romance for RAICES fundraiser! You can win a critique from me and genre analysis - which means I'll help you figure out the right agent for you, if that's what you're looking for. Such a great cause!

 

House with a Library at the Heart

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There’s a line in my author bio about growing up in a house with a library at the heart, and that’s actually not hyperbole. When I was about 7, we moved from an apartment in Syracuse, NY to a house out in what was then a dairy farming and game preserve countryside and when we moved in, my parents had one room turned into an actual library. I remember the local handyman commenting he’d never been asked to build bookshelves before and how much he enjoyed the assignment. The shelves went floor to ceiling, all the way around the room, and then there was a chair, a side table and a lamp. 

I think probably the room was supposed to be the dining room, but we always ate in the big country kitchen anyway, so the library worked. I remember how cool it was to walk in there – my Dad had all his engineering and science textbooks from his undergrad work at Rutgers, plus shelves and shelves of science fiction, philosophy, Louis L’Amour westerns, thrillers, etc. It was a real library!

My Dad was a voracious and extremely fast reader. I inherited that from him, as well as my love for SF.

My mother was a reader of the classics and poetry (neither of which I inherited any love for). She liked to read and re-read, annotate, ponder, make diary entries about specific passages, correspond with her sisters and other friends about the books…she also tended toward really thick Russian novels like The Brothers Karamazov. She did read the occasional historical novel, like The Robe and I grabbed those when she was done. 

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We had the obligatory-at-the-time Encyclopedia (not sure which one we owned) as well as my grandfather’s really old encyclopedia from the 1930’s. I loved that one because it had so many entries about ancient Romans and other facts which the more modern one ignored completely. We had Reader’s Digest Condensed Books, which I loved but which frustrated me every time because they were condensed and I always wondered what I was missing. And we had Time-Life books about the ancient world, which I drooled over because my interests have always been science fiction and ancient Egypt.

Books were the thing at my house. I never had to spend my own money on books. (Our topic this week is what was the first book we ever bought with our own money.) My parents believed in the value of reading widely and they kept a flow of books coming for me. My father used to spend one night a week after work in Syracuse with my paternal grandfather and they’d always go to this huge used bookstore after dinner and pick books for me. I read so many series, like Tom Corbett Space Cadet and Trixie Belden, my Dad always knew what to get me and in those days there was no Amazon or eBay to order backlists from so if he got me volume 7 and volume 23, I didn’t care – I was thrilled. He’d come home with a bagful of books for himself and for me, and I’d be in heaven. 

I actually got to set foot in this book paradise twice as I was growing up and I still remember the joy I felt digging through all the shelves. In my memory it was a huge place – who knows how big it really was, but to a little girl set loose to find all the books she wanted in an hour, it was paradise.

Now what I did spend my allowance on was comic books. My mother despised comic books, deeming them trashy and immoral (not sure why – it all went over my head at that young age) and I remember an argument between my parents every week when we drove into town to go shopping, because I had my allowance in my plastic purse and I fully intended to buy all the new issues of as many of my favorite comics as I could afford, at the drugstore. Dad was the ultimate authority in our household so I knew I’d be allowed to splurge, but Mother was Not Amused. Every week. I was stubborn. I guess their compromise was they wouldn’t pay for comics, but if I was willing to use up my allowance, okay then.

I was really into DC superheroes, Tarzan (but mostly because I loved the B feature, which was ‘Brothers of the Spear,”) Magnus Robot Hunter, and a few others that were SF or Fantasy. One year I talked them into giving me a subscription to Justice League and I remember being so happy every month when the comic showed up in the mail! I felt very adult getting ‘my’ new issue directly, not off the revolving stand at the drugstore. Of course they wouldn't let me subscribe to more than one so I was still buying others every week and when the year was over I didn't get to resubscribe either.

So there you have it!

(We won’t talk about how much of my budget disappears into Amazon’s coffers for books and ebooks nowadays…I don’t seem to buy comic books – or manga or graphic novels – any more!)

Scholastic Book Fair Fear

My parents lived in terror, you guys. They knew that at least once a year, my elementary school was going to do a Scholastic Book Fair. They knew that when that happened, I was going to come home with a catalog of books with every single book (that wasn't about sports) marked as a must have.

In no way was my allowance going to cover more than two books.

Yet my parents, on an NCO's paltry salary, so valued books and reading that they'd solemnly take my allowance money, tell me I could pick a maximum of 10 and then they'd write out the check while I spent the rest of the night agonizing over how to finalize my order. I don't know if this kind of subsidized book buying qualifies as "My First Book Buy" but hey, I did throw cash into the pot. But yes. I was self-servingly not at all curious about why the dollar amount I had for book buying didn't match the dollar amount written on the check. Adults were so inscrutable when I was 8. I'm pretty sure that's the year I got A Pony Called Lightning. It was the book that got me started on rollicking, fast-paced adventure stories.

I have to say that looking back, the Scholastic catalog from the early 70s was short on SF and Fantasy. Horse books were the best I could do. SF was still a young-ish genre at that point and fighting hard for legitimacy. I do recall picking up some post-apocalyptic dystopian kinds of stories in later years - precursors, I think to today's YA books.

Do you know, I think I still have this book packed in a trunk. It has this exact cover, in fact. I wonder if the read still holds up to my childhood memories. <Wanders off in search of the book and a cup of tea.>