Keeping Up with the Virtual Joneses

I just returned from a week with my family on Lake Coeur d'Alene. So lovely and relaxing! During some conversation, I mentioned Ed Sheeran, and my aunt - who'd never heard of him - asked me how I kept up on discovering new music.

It was an interesting question, and one I had to think about. Finally I said that I see a lot of recommendations on Twitter. Instagram, too. People share Spotify lists or post YouTube videos. She nodded a little at my answer, clearly a bit daunted at the prospect of emulating me there. So, I sent her two Ed Sheeran albums for her birthday.

Coincidentally enough, our topic at the SFF Seven this week is "Keeping up with trends and changes in social media." Not an easy thing to do for any of us.

It's true, in fact, of most technology. As a member of the generation that transitioned in high school and college from typewriters to word processors, I'm keenly aware of how keeping up with advances in computer technology poses greater challenges for me every year. It's a simple factor of aging that learning new tricks gets more difficult, and it seems to be true of tech that it morphs rapidly.

Also, as with slang and other forms of social interaction, social media changes even more rapidly. The youth drive the "in" form of communication - and the older generations struggle to keep up.

The good news is, I firmly believe that keeping up with trends and changes in social media helps to keep us mentally youthful. It's good to learn new things, and communicating with those younger than we are helps to keep us involved in the world. But HOW to do that?

My advice for that is the same as with all social media: pick and choose.

When you hear someone talk about something cool they saw on some social medium, go check it out. Ruthlessly control what you see - pick and choose whose timelines or accounts you follow - and then play with it. Try to resurrect that feeling of youthful exploration.

Make it fun! After all, the second rule of social media is: If it's not fun for you, don't do it.

And it's okay if something that starts out fun stops being fun after a while. I'd really love for XKCD to do a graphic of the social media life cycle. First you find a new-to-you one, you play with it, gain a following, then creepy men send you anonymous messages. Brought to you by the person who thought Instagram was a safe space and is now receiving creepster messages. *sigh*

BUT... that's a minor part of things. Inevitable as death and taxes, it seems.

Another trick is to absolutely engage with younger people and manipulate them into helping your geezer self. It requires having no shame. I recently cornered a young writer in a bar and made him show me how to do Instagram stories. He was awesome about it.

Remember: learning something new is good for our brains! And having fun doing it makes all the difference.

I just Want Strong Characters

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Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is: "Heroes and heroines – how do you write them differently."

This is a topic to which I totally do not relate.

I write people.

Every person is different.

Right off the bat this question of the week doesn’t fly with me by the way because Main Characters (MC’s) don’t have to be shoved into two boxes labelled “Hero” and “Heroine”.

MC’s can be any combination of gender identities. From the website TeenTalk: “There are many different gender identities, including male, female, transgender, gender neutral, non-binary, agender, pangender, genderqueer, two-spirit, third gender, and all, none or a combination of these.”

Personally, I read and relish a wildly diverse range of books. I’d like to mention J Scott Coatsworth’s Liminal Sky scifi series as an excellent example of a reading experience during which I met and cared about and was invested in MC’s with a wide range of gender identities mirroring real life. He told the story seamlessly.

To cite my favorite movie in the entire world, “Aliens”: Ripley/Hicks. Hicks/Ripley. Ripley alone. Those two characters could be any gender identity and the movie works fine. It’s got high stakes, action, adventure, kickass MC’s and a hint of a glimpse of romance (if you’re me and you look hard for it). Just so happens the MC's were M/F in the movie but it's kind of a fun creative exercise to cast it in your head now with a wider range of gender identity choices.

When it comes to writing, my muse and I do gravitate to the male military/female civilian tropes for my MC’s, although sometimes the female character is the primary and other times it’s the male, and in some books they shoulder the load of resolving the problems I present to them pretty equally. That’s who I am, that’s the kind of romance I personally lived and it’s where my subconscious goes when I’m coming up with the plots and the people.

In many of my novels I’ve written strong women who are former military and can kick ass with the best of them. I’ve also written strong women who are singers, dancers, businesswomen, alien empaths, princesses, teachers…”strong” is the key element here for all my MC’s. Strength – of characters, of will, of learned skills and innate talents – can be found in any gender identity.

I start with the situation of the story and think about my MC’s, who I need them to be to survive and surmount the plot I have in mind and that thought process informs their backstory and their reactions to everything in the book, including the romance.

A quick excerpt from The Fated Stars, where Larissa, the tough ex-Special Forces mercenary leaves Samell, the alien empath back at the ship while she couts enemy territory:

Larissa had her first real argument with Samell once she’d landed at the small spaceport serving the planet. “I’m going out alone to reconnoiter the town, check out the fairgrounds, see what’s what with this other Kinterow operation,” Larissa said as the AI put the Valkyrie Queen into ground mode. “No one can get into the ship, but I’ve given you voice access to control the AI if anything happens to me. She can get you back to the Cherram system or she has an emergency contact to call if you prefer to try getting in touch with Sectors authorities with your situation.”

Samell stared at her, his emerald-and-gold eyes sparking with anger. “You are not going alone. Of course I’ll go too. I can use my power on any problem we encounter, or my throwing knives, or even the blaster. But I’ll not let you venture into danger without me.”

Larissa continued donning her weapons and brushed past him on her way to the airlock. “I’m the mercenary here, I know the drill on these remote worlds. I’ll give out a cover story about a phony job for public consumption, check out the bars, do the things I’ve done hundreds of times on legitimate assignments. I’ll be fine, don’t worry. I can take care of myself.”

“I know you can, but you’re only in this situation because of me.” He leaned against the bulkhead, watching her. “I have to do my share.”

“I’m not questioning your courage or your value in the field,” she said patiently. “Me by myself, no problem. You, with your distinctive hair and skin, potential problem. "

VS: Needless to say, she wins the argument and he stays with the ship.

We're All Heroes Here: Guest Post

“Who is the hero of your book?” a prospective buyer asked me at my first real book signing.

I was in a cozy bookshop in the small town of Palmer, Alaska, wearing a warm sweater to protect against the November chill and a big smile as I held up a copy of my first published novel, THE DAY BEFORE. “The hero is Sam Rose, she’s an agent for-“

The buyer shook his head. “Not the heroine. The hero.”

“Protagonist?” I suggested, looking for a polite compromise.

“I don’t really like books with girls. I want to read about heroes.”

Dear Reader, I want to assure you that at this point I stayed professional and did not have to dispose of a corpse on my drive home through the mountains that night. I did recommend a copy of EVEN VILLAINS FALL IN LOVE to him since it is told from the point of view of a male protagonist, but the whole exchange nagged at me. It still does, year and miles removed from Alaska, it bothers me that someone dismissed a truly wonderful protagonist with a sneer and the word Heroine.

English is an odd language.

No, scratch that, English is a demon hobgoblin of a language that likes to ransack other languages and steal words from them. English likes to twist and torment words until they can mean the exact opposite of what they were originally intended to mean, literally!

Hero is sometimes seen as a masculine word only. There are people who want to read it as “the male hero” rather than “the protagonist” and this presents a problem.

It’s exclusionary, forcing the binary idea of male/female and hero/heroine.

It leads to the idea that being a hero means being masculine in a traditionally masculine way.

It leaves me standing there going, “But… I want to be a hero too!”

When we read there’s always some part of us that wants to identify with the protagonist. At some level, we want to see ourself in the story. That’s why we read some books and not others, isn’t it? Because some of them resonate or speak to us while others don’t. It’s why we want diverse fiction.

We want to see ourselves as the hero regardless of which gender we identify with.

This is a big universe, and we’re all heroes in ways big and small. The courage we show when facing challenges, the compassion we have for others, is a result of our choices – not our genders.

Here’s to the heroes!

A few other novels by Liana:

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Liana Brooks is a SF/F and romance authors who loves writing about the little choices we make and big chances we take that change the universe for the better. You can find her online at www.LianaBrooks.com, on Twitter as @LianaBrooks, and read her new stories on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/LianaBrooks. She is currently working on her romantic space opera series, The Fleet of Malik, that starts with BODIES IN MOTION. The second book, CHANGE OF MOMENTUM, will be available this fall.

When Nature Says 'Hold My Beer'

Bear with me. I have a story to tell. This is Perceval. Perceval was rescued by a neighbor who presented the kitten for foster care as a 'he'. Then 'he' went into heat. He became she and (because of the aforementioned heat) developed a raging urinary tract infection. A sterile draw (with a needle and syringe) of urine at the emergency vet revealed a new mystery. Perceval had sperm swimming in her bladder.

Yes. I have male cats. They're shooting blanks. Have been since December of last year.

Thus, the vet proposed the notion that Perceval might just be both 'he' AND 'she'. Jeffe, on Instagram, instantly proposed swapping out Perceval's pronoun to They. Motion seconded, voted upon, and passed. Surgery was undertaken. It was a spay - there was a uterus and nothing more internally. Had Perceval been a true hermaphrodite, there would have been a set of male gonads as well as the female reproductive organs. There weren't. However, the doctor did point out that Perceval's external genitalia are ambiguous. While there's clearly female anatomy, it appears that a pair of testicles also tried to develop. They never fully formed, so the cat didn't have to have a neuter surgery on top of a spay surgery. And the mystery of the sperm in the bladder? We may never know. Subsequent checks of the boy cats confirms they're in the clear.

What does this have to do with writing characters in SFF? Simply this: Nature and life recently proved to me that they are far too ready, willing, and able to shatter our preconceived notions about gender, sex, and identity. So getting hung up on any kind of either/or question about who's what and therefore gets to love whom, when writing seems silly. SF and Fantasy is, to me, about who characters are as individuals - including their identities, preferences, marginalization, and how they cope. This may be privilege speaking, because I'm part of a population that doesn't often have to get to grips with being in mortal peril simply for existing. I suspect that shows in my writing because while I have a trans character, a bisexual main character, PoC as main characters - in my stories, these people are rarely under threat based on being either bi, or a PoC, or trans. Mainly because part of the joy of SF and Fantasy for me is getting to dabble in a world that's much broader than this one - one that encompasses possibilities and embraces them. I'd like to think that makes me idealistic rather than simply naive. Or worse, hurtful.

Honestly. Does anyone really think that when we finally do run into life out there in the stars that they're gonna all be CIShet/clear binary with no richness? No variety? No specialization and adaptation? If yes, do you science at all? Cause yeah, nature doesn't work that way. And so long as I'm writing, neither will I.

Writing boys, girls, and cats

My girl children are older now, but for a long time they would only write stories or draw pictures featuring ... girls. When I asked them why they never wrote or drew boys, they looked horrified. Then about oh half a puberty ago, one of them approached me and asked for tips on writing boy-POV.

At first I was like, eureka! -- they finally get it that our species has more than one gender! But then I thought about it a little more and... you know what? I don't really have any advice for them. Or for anyone.

Because the honest truth is that I write people. Sometimes cats and sometimes robots, true, but almost always people. And I define a person like Mary Shelley did: as an entity who communicates. Somebody who has a story to relate.

Yes, some of those character people have uteruses. Some have penises. Some have prehensile tails, galactic masses, or skin made of bubbles. But all of that is just frosting and glitter, folks. When it comes to writing, the person inside is the thing that matters. That's where all the angst and conflict and growth is at. Uteruses and penises don't essentially angst. They aren't stories.

So, about writing characters differently because of their gender: well, I don't.

Please leave all assumptions at the door and wipe your feet when you come into my universe. Thanks.

Male, Female, Nonbinary: Not All Characters Are The Same

Male, female, and nonbinary characters, how do I write them to show their differences?

Let's back up a step to casting. Once I've chosen the protagonist(s), the next step is assembling their Scooby Gang. Each member represents an archetype (and when you're writing a series where all the characters evolve, remembering the archetype will prevent you from evolving the characters into the same person with a different face). Each archetype is meant to push or pull the protagonist through the story via actions and conversations.

Now it's time to assign gender to those archetypes. Making those choices comes down to the protagonist, their personality, and their history/backstory/all the stuff that happened before the book starts. Take authority figures: who is the protag most likely to respect, and who is the protag most likely to resent? The "why" behind those answers defines gender, age, sexuality, race, religion, etc. The process repeats for each archetype.

With the gang decided, I go through a similar process for the antagonist(s), but this time the plot plays a heavy role in determining what type of Who that will be. 

The first round of casting done, I look at team-composition balance. If the only female in my book is my protag, then I need to make some tweaks. (I also need to give my protag a personality adjustment.) Some stories will have casts that are more dude-centric, some more female, those decisions come down to plot. Since I write series, I do try to alternate. Admittedly, I haven't written a story that is nonbinary centric yet, which is something I should change.

Ah, but the question of the week is "how do you write the genders differently?" It all goes back to the characters' relationship to the protagonist. See, it's not about writing the genders differently, it's about writing the characters so they're unique.

In my IMMORTAL SPY series, I have one character who is a body thief, Drew. Drew is a nonbinary creation by an Under World goddess. In the lands of the living, Drew is genderfluid in a rather literal sense; Drew's gender (and species) changes based on the body they occupy. While Drew changes bodies more than once during a book, there is never any doubt that the entity inside that body is Drew. It's speech patterns, phrasing, impulsive actions, fierce loyalty to the protagonist, and a little too much glee in inappropriate moments. Small details. Personal tells. Individual tics.

Remember: Our genders don't make us who we are, our character does. Same holds true for the characters we create.

Writing MCs of Various Genders

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is: "Heroes and heroines – how do you write them differently."

This is apropos for me, having just returned from the RWA Conference, as the topic of language and how we reference the "hero and heroine" came up. People pointed out that referring to the hero and heroine reflects a cis-het bias. They suggested "main character(s)" (MC) or "protagonists." In Romance stories we could say "love interest(s)" or LI. Even this question implies the binary, that there are heroes and heroines, and that's it.

I'm going to try to make this change.

Otherwise, my answer to the question of how I differentiate when writing various genders is short: I don't.

At least, I really try not to.

Whenever I get asked for advice on writing "strong female characters" - which, I'm not even all that sure what that means, as opposed to writing doormats? - I say to write strong characters, full stop. Gender, etc., should matter FAR less than everything else about a character. When writing females, maybe remember that they have menstrual cycles and have to deal with getting pregnant. Though I'd love to see males written who worry about dealing with getting someone ELSE pregnant.

Otherwise... Yeah. I don't write them differently. Still trying.

What Trends Do I See Coming in #SciFi Romance?

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This week’s theme: where is the SFF genre headed?

Since I write scifi romance, not the bigger world of science fiction and fantasy, I’m going to keep my scope for this post on a smaller scale as well.

I do a weekly New Releases post on my blog where I gather and curate a list of scifi/fantasy/paranormal romance new releases for the week. I have many different sources for identifying these books so every week I’m exposed to the trends in my three favorite genres, based on what I see being released, the reviews, the rankings etc. (Here’s the link to my latest such post if you’d like to see how I present the ones I choose to list.)

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There’s a certain through line of SFR that’s adventure-oriented with a strong romance running through the plot and varying levels of steaminess from almost closed door to pages of inventive sexy times with tails and tentacles and other interesting appendages. I write somewhere in the middle of the range, with your basic human heroes and heroines and two or three lovemaking scenes per book as their relationship deepens. I’m descriptive about the sexy times but not at great length. I did endow my genetically engineered Badari Warriors with some enhancements the ladies enjoy but did not go as far as some authors can capably go in their inventiveness. There’s a lot of action and adventure in these novels, not only mine but those of other authors. I think this kind of ‘bread-and-butter’ SFR will continue to be written and voraciously read.

In no certain order, some other thoughts on this:

I’ve been seeing more and more authors bringing their own past gaming experience to their SFR novels, either as avid game players or as developers or both. I think that trend will continue.

I’ve been seeing more superhero style plots, which is probably inevitable given the immense success of the Marvel Universe movies.

I think the alien abduction theme will continue to be very popular with SFR readers. It’s currently a staple of the genre and the hot seller lists.

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I haven’t seen as much reverse harem (RH) appearing in SFR as I’d expected, given how hot the trend is in paranormal romance, although there is some. I think SFR lags behind PNR on trends, in terms of whatever is trendy in PNR shows up later in the SFR titles. Dragons are one example that comes to mind immediately. Lots of space going dragons, dragon-like and dragon shifter heroes now and not as many in PNR.

PNR RH is definitely going into a ‘bully academy’ direction right now, where the heroine is stuck as school with a lot of bullies (duh) but finds her five true-hearted men, be they shifters or mages or demons – well, you get the idea -  and lives happily ever after eventually. So far I’m not seeing that in SFR but I bet it’s coming. Bullies at the Space Academy any day now…

I’m seeing more diversity in SFR, on the covers, in the novels and in the authors. I hope that trend will continue and grow!

I’m also seeing more LGBTQ SFR but not in a tidal wave…

Currently I’m seeing an emerging trend in the bigger Romancelandia world to have heroines on the autistic spectrum, so I can imagine we might see the same in SFR at some point.

I’ve seen something of a trend for PNR authors to take the ‘category romance’ type plots and apply those to their shifter stories – the bear shifter billionaire’s baby nanny (made that title up as far as I know – only meant as an example). I could imagine that trend translating into SFR and have seen some titles along those lines but not a rush of them as yet.

There also seems to be a huge market in PNR for 'cozies' - stories set in small towns, maybe with a light hearted romcom touch, and I have yet to see much if any in SFR. Something to watch for...

Dark romance and also the omegaverse type plots are appearing more and more. Issues of consent and power are the big hook in dark romance, along with anti-heroes, breaking taboos, etc. In the Omegaverse, typically (but not always) males known as ‘omegas’can become pregnant. Or the book may feature women who are ‘omega’ and sexual prey for every ‘alpha’ out there, and the ‘romance’ can be quite dark and brutal at times. Or you can have a blend of all of it. It’s not my personal thing, although I’ve read some dark romance and some Omegaverse, but I know many readers love it.

I’m seeing some authors who have not written SFR before coming in and attempting to “write to market” in the genre, with varying degrees of success.

And finally, I think Kindle Unlimited, which dominates SFR currently, will continue to be a major player, as long as Amazon continues to offer the subscription service. SFR readers are voracious inagoodway and evidently the subscription model of KU works well for them. Many weeks when I’m doing my new release post, I only have 2 or 3 SFR books I can report as being sold “wide” and all the rest are KU exclusive.

(You can still buy the ebooks outright from Amazon for your kindle of course, if you’re not in the KU subscription program but you can’t find them on other ebook seller sites like Barnes & Noble, Apple Books or Kobo.)

There’s a whole debate to be had among authors about the merits and issues with KU and I have no desire to get into all of that here, but I do think it’s a noteworthy aspect of the scifi romance marketplace, being so heavily committed to KU.

My books are all ‘wide’ and I’ve never been in KU. I have an instinctive aversion to putting all my eggs in one basket and I like the fact my readers can purchase the books on whatever platform they prefer. I understand I might be leaving all kinds of royalties and bonus payments on the table by not being in KU but the joy of being self-published (for all of us) is that we can make our own choices for our own reasons about how we want to define and pursue “success”.

What do you think is going to be the next hot trend in scifi romance?

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