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Other Cool Blogs: Magical Words – Lasagna Backstory

Photo 11155296 / Lasagna © Karin Hildebrand Lau | Dreamstime.com

Writing Backstory
Faith Hunter is a regular attender at ConCarolinas and one of the founders of magical words. On 7/23/2008, she shared this extremely good metaphor for how to write backstory into a manuscript (hint – not through an info dump!):

I love this explanation as much as I love my mother’s lasagna. Since I can eat mom’s lasagna as leftovers for over two weeks, I think you extrapolate how much I love this example.

Every story has worldbuilding – even contemporary romances. The characters came from somewhere; the locations existed before the characters arrived. We are only see the story through a narrow window of the narrative, not knowing who else is on the street. Some of this past may need to be shared with the readers – but (1) it’s a lot less that most authors think is needed and (2) it is boring as school history when dumped on a reader all at once.

The author is challenged to release this greater world information through a variety of means – flashbacks, dialog, or even part of the action. Getting it layered in with the other good stuff makes everything better.

Related articles
7/14/2020 – Editing Rant: As You Know Bob
11/26/2019 – Writing Exercise: Flashback
3/3/2016 – Infodump

Book Review: Onliest

Amazon Cover

Onliest by J. Daniel Batt

BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON

She’s all alone aboard a spaceship bound for a new life. Or is she?

Aboard the interstellar ship Olorun, now drifting awry and silent, a girl named Syn has awoken. Alone on a ship littered with the decaying bodies of the dead crew, Syn has scraped together a thin life with only a cranky AI bot named Blip and a fiercely loyal tiger named Eku for companionship.

Unbeknownst to Syn, she is not the only one to have awoken aboard Olorun. Trapped in a much darker, and less well-provisioned part of the ship, tormented over the years as they’ve struggled just to exist, others have now discovered Syn’s idyllic world and will do anything to make her home theirs.

 

MY REVIEW

A science fiction novel with a young protagonist but not “YA” (young adult).

Syn was born/decanted alone, raised by a machine named Blip, on an empty colony ship crossing the vastness of space. Signs of the colonists deaths, both violent and quiet, can be seen throughout the silent, unchanging grounds. Then one day something changes – a bot, just like Blip, enters their world – dead … but newly dead. Where did it come from? Chasing down the origin makes Syn question everything, including herself.

This well structured science fiction keeps moving, creating both realism and mythology of a failed colony ship traveling between the stars. It is beautiful and layered. Characters develop and the ending satisfies.

Flash: Transport to Equity Part 1 – Eleven

Photo by Joel Filipe on Unsplash

“They’re at it again.” My brother said through a downturned grimace and a glance at Jordan cradled against my shoulder. He slipped into our room, leaving the door partly open – it couldn’t be fully closed thanks to lowest bidder government contracts on the platform. Front door seals fine, as required for all space habitats, but the doors within the units, not-so-much.

Wiping the baby’s mouth after he finally released a hearty burp, I responded with a raised eyebrow and a half-shrug. “When aren’t they?”

Holland tucked his tablet away before whispering in my ear. “This one feels different.”  He lifted Jordan out of my arms and grabbed the burping cloth. With a quick meeting of eyebrows and a light touch to the three-month-old’s mouth, he asked if dad had feed him at all today.

I nodded to the single empty bottle, answering the question. Yesterday, there had been one empty and two filled ones on the box we had between our bunkbeds and the crib. With only one, that meant our stay-at-home dad had actually done some his official job as caretaker and managed a couple feedings today.

Now my brother and I don’t actually talk much. We are twins and have our own twin-speak. Facial expressions, body placement, long stares. The words just leap between us without talking. Strange, I know, for fraternal twins, but we developed it out of self-preservation before we even started talking. For him to actually speak, in hearing range of our parents, about our parents, indicated how shook he was.

I’m better at reading our parents, so I go to the door and watch.

In the background, I feel Holland rocking Jordan, talking to him with our twin-speak, keeping the kid quiet so he wouldn’t have our scars. Internal, not external. Our parents don’t abuse us, just yell and scream a lot.

At eleven, we are learning in our Ed civics courses that scars and abuse comes in all shades, but Holland and I agree we aren’t ready to report our parents because if we do, they’ll separate us. All of us. Jordan, Holland, and me, Georgia. Flung from one end of the solar system to the other getting therapy and new life assignment tracks. Never to cross paths or connect each other again. And that isn’t going to happen. Not ever. It’s the three of us against the world, starting with our parents.

They are arguing about rent. Mother’s job as an asteroid mineral assessor puts her toward the top of the food chain. Earth is mined out and needs everything it can get from its solar system colonies. Plus the pressure value to release humanity to the stars also needs a ton of substance. Between those two source demands, the asteroid belt had been getting a workout for decades. Mother and dad met while working on the same team. Dad is only so-so at finding things, but Mother was the second best in the solar system hence all our family’s special privileges.

The Population Center okay’ed them for unlimited children in the hopes her skill could be passed down. Both Holland and I have half our Ed track devoted to a life assignment as mineral assessors, and we are already showing “promise”. Based on what Holland and I can read off our evaluators, our “promise” has them crossing their fingers and toes that when our mental flip-flops to abstract thinkers happens during our teenage years, nothing will break in our heads. They have our life planned out for us.

Mother hated being pregnant and was thrilled to have twins for the first one, figuring she met her quota of replacement and then the extra the Population Center wanted. Dad wanted more, especially since you can’t be a primary stay-at-home caregiver once a minor reaches twelve, so he turned off the family’s contraceptives without telling mother last year.

That was a huge blowup. Holland and I didn’t speak a word at home until Mother’s morning sickness ended.

Dad wants better quarters; he always wants better and more. He thought with the baby we would upgrade to four rooms. With a three-room quarters, we rub elbows with other people who can have more than one child. All the gifted. The desired. The wanted. With a four-room quarters, we would be in the middle of the higher administrative crowd. Management. Dad is the child of management and wants that level of respect and power again. He also doesn’t want to work for it.

Our Ed civic courses has a lot to say about social responsibility. Having only one child until the population is under control. About not wasting resources. And working for the betterment of everyone.

Dad wants to be the everyone that everyone else is working the betterment for.

Mother is lying about not having the money to get better quarters. Since I feel the breath of a baby sleeping, I wave Holland to come over. My older brother, by nineteen minutes, puts the baby into his crib and joins me.

I motion with a sidetwist of my hand, Mother’s lying.

The two of them hate each other. A lot. But they hardly every lie to each other. They can’t keep their stories straight when they are screaming at each other, so they don’t bother with falsehoods.

But mother is lying.

“They didn’t give us a raise this quarter.”

“They didn’t give you a raise for the last four quarters!” We don’t have anything to throw in the family room, otherwise dad would have tossed something. “And yet they gave Kesha and Merick raises.”

Dad kept up with everyone from his old unit. He networks hard, even now, in the hopes of making management when he is required to return back to work.

“Because their unit found some gold needed for the breathing modules.” Mother bit her lip.

Truth. One of her biggest tells. She bites her lips while trying to think of a way to present something in a better light.

“But I did get a raise. The cost-of-living. And that extra bonus for the pregnancy.”

She’s hiding something about that extra bonus. She pressed her hand against her stomach.

Holland points out she pressed her hand against her stomach starting with the cost-of-living increase.

I agree, both of these things are being hidden on some level. Is she hiding extra income from dad? Like Holland and I do with the odds-jobs we do around the station. “Possible.” Holland nods strongly.

“Which barely paid for the twins extra Ed classes.” Dad got us into some beginning management courses; ones where we taste every job on the station, from the air scrubber rebuilding to the food vats. I go in two hours early for my internships and Holland stays two hours late; that way dad is only left with Jordan for six hours.

I still haven’t figured out how my brother and I survived our infancy; maybe dad and mother were less crazy back then?

Dad’s arms swing wide. He isn’t hearing anything right now. “Nothing for me. For us, I mean. We need you to get more bonuses.”

He switched on the charm.

For him, it is a full-on switch. Holland and I are trying to master that technique having seen several of the management instructors use it too. Only theirs is warmer, more continuous. But somehow lesser. Dad’s is a bright, room-filling, monstrosity. Behind me, I feel Jordan stir – be still – Holland and I motion and think toward the baby until he settles.

Dad grabs mother’s hands and she lets him. She always gives in when he smiles instead of yells. Everyone does. He just can’t control his temper and keep the charm up long enough to be successful at management.

“You can do it. You are the best.”

Mother licks her lips instead of biting. A grown-up seduction thing where they are going to go to their room or one of her lying tells?

“I can’t, Manny.”

Not a lie. Not exactly.

“Of course, you can. Do your magic, get Withrow to help, he is the best with the scopes.”

“You don’t understand Manny, there isn’t anything left to find.”

“What?” Dad strung the question out.

“I mean there still is, but there isn’t much left. Green sector, where Kesha is assigned, is maybe a decade out from the rest of the belt.” Mother shrugged her pulling-herself-together-and-being-determined-shrug. “We need to switch to the Oort’s to get any new big wind-falls.”

“I am not moving to that cold, light-forsaken nightmare. None of the stations there have more than five dozen people.”

“I’m not really interested either. It is a temporary solution.” Oh, mother is making eye contact, hard, sustained eye contact. This is what Holland was feeling that was different. Mother has a plan. “I’ve been looking around there, after hours, just to see. Aside from the planets and dwarfs, I’m not finding much. Maybe four decades at the rate humanity is chewing through stuff.”

“That should be fine. You and the other assessors will have plenty of time to find more stuff.”

“You are not listening Manny. There isn’t anything left to find. It’s all trash. Dross. A missed rock here and there, maybe. Our lifetime, what is already in the production line will keep things going, but not for our children.”

Wait, is that mother caring about us? Considering us? Holland and I stare at each other for a moment before returning to watching our parents. We had agreed that mother is giving all sorts of parental vibes, her standing between us and the monsters of the world.

No one besides her and dad is allowed to harm us.

“What are you saying?”

“If we want to protect our children, give them any future whatsoever, and especially our children’s children, we are going to have to immigrate, and immigrate really, really far, because Earth is going to implode in sooner than later and take anything within reach down with it.”

Dad shook his head. He is looking for a lie in her eyes and is not finding one.

There isn’t one to find. Mother is as truthful as she ever gets.

“No. That isn’t going to happen.” His deep voice rumbles firmly, trying to make his own truth.

“Manny, it is. I turned in my first ever report today that my sector is cleared. Completely cleared. As time goes by, more of these reports will accumulate. Withrow gives management about five years before they start to collate the metadata into the doomsday document.” Mother pulled her hands out of dad’s. “He applied to immigrate two years ago, about the time we stopped getting all those bonuses you liked so much. He is leaving next month.”

Dad shook his head, no-no. He is trying to deny it, twist it. Somehow make it palatable.

Holland and I join hands. For a second our eyes met. We agree. He has to believe. Our attention, all of it, return to our parents.

“Yes, and if I could I would be on a ship beside him.”

“I knew you had an affair with him.” Dad grabbed at the thought and tried pushing anger to it.

Don’t you dare go there dad, listen to mother.

“No, Manny. Me and Withrow? Please.”

Dad chuckled, acknowledging that impossibility, his anger dissolving despite his determination to find some way to fight the truth.

“But as an assessor team, he and I could name our planet and our price. Problem is no one would take me with a divorce. They don’t allow immigration for people who can’t maintain a stable relationship.”

So that is why mother has stayed with dad. I knew dad needed mother’s skill to stay anywhere near the status he wanted, but mother? She has planned to immigrate for a long time.

“Good thing you have me then.” Dad smirked.

Oops, mother gave dad power. He is going to use it before he thinks things through.

Holland squeeze my hand. Yes, I squeeze back, we need to break them up. Now. Dinner time?

Together we move to ask for food, saying we completed our Ed work. We hadn’t, of course, but we normally did it when trading off Jordan’s nighttime feedings.

(first published 3/6/2022; words 2034)

Other Cool Blogs: Self-Publishing Formula 3/29/2019

Public Domain – scanned from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Date of publication: 1892; Publisher: G. Newnes )

 

One of the considerations when publishing is the format to deliver the story. Are you aiming for a stand-alone novel, a series of short stories scattered over various anthologies, or a high fantasy series the likes of which will rival Robert Jordan? If working in the visual medium, you would be considering a movie, commercial, or TV series.

The story and the delivery format interact. For some stories, the format is obvious. While other times the format is required by contract, and it shapes how the idea becomes fully realized. Publishing is a business, and the formats available to an author may impact the ideas chosen for writing to bring food to the table.

Multiple book deals tend to be preferred at this point in time, by author, publisher, and reader. Everyone knows what they are getting into. The question then becomes – Series or Serial?

Aren’t they the same thing? I hear some of you ask. Well, a serial is nearly always a series, but a series isn’t always a serial.

I found this cool blog/vlog post which breaks it down: Series vs. Serial: What’s the Difference (appears on Mark Dawson’s Self-Publishing Formula, 3/29/2019, written by Tom Ashford) – last viewed 3/9/2022: https://selfpublishingformula.com/series-vs-serial-whats-the-difference/#:~:text=Put%20simply%3A%20a%20series%20is,correct%20order%20so%20as%20to

In other words, The Simpsons is a series, but not a serial. Bart and Lisa don’t grow up, Homer stays the same. In one episode, the whole town might burn to the ground, but everything resets in the next episode. Similarly Sherlock Holmes short stories, released via magazines and newspapers. Individual stories were serialized, requiring readers to pick up the newspaper several days in a row. But the overall world remained the same between narratives.

Most romance series have through-plots, but most can be read as stand-alone stories. Meaning they are much more like a series (similar characters and world) than a serial (hard and fixed timeline). On the other hand, most High Fantasies are very much serials, following in the footsteps of their granddaddy, The Lord of the Rings. Science Fiction groups of narratives are mixed – some of them following the footsteps of their newspaper tradition of serials in releases, but series between narratives, The Adventures of Flash Gordon, for example. While other science fiction mixes with High Fantasy, following wide-ranging multi-planet narratives, like Dune.

Recently Amazon started Vella (https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/): “Serial stories to read one short episode at a time”. It would be interesting to join this experiment.

Writing Exercise: Rocking Your World Foundation

I ranted earlier this month about a shifter story where the shifter didn’t shift. Ending tagline was “Don’t do shifting sands. Rock your world foundation.”

Today’s writing exercise explores how different types of paranormals may adjust a scene. Break out of the boringly normal cycle where the generic “paranormal” plays out, where a vampire could be replaced by a mermaid without affecting the plot.

WRITING EXERCISE: Create a short scene with one paranormal character among normals. Any type of paranormal (vampire, witch, gargoyle, brownie, etc) in any type of scene (getting on a bus, checking out at a cashier, ordering a meal, moving to a new school, etc.). Aim for about 500 words.

PART TWO: Now rewrite the scene, but change the paranormal to a different type of paranormal. Vampire for genie, zombie for dwarf, good witch for dark necromancer, demon for shifter.

REVIEW: Once done, review the two scenes. What changes did you need to make for the different types of paranormal. Did the night scene need to become day? Did concentrating of the sounds of living from the hungry zombie become concentrating of the scenes for the shifter nose? Were quick demon tempers switched to fairy flitting and teasing? Add a comment below of what you discovered in Rocking Your World Foundation. If you want, include a link to the two flash scenes you created.

***

My attempt – Review

I started from this month’s flash of Prepping a Meal (1/9/2022) and switched the vampire for a zombie (the flash is below). The biggest changes were related to the social status normally associated with the vampires and zombies. Both of the climate-conscious monsters (because if you live a long time, keeping the human food-stock healthy is important) had electric cars, but the vampire has a Lotus Evija (costing more than $2 million) while the zombie has a used Toyota Prius (costing him much less). While both monsters used cash payments, the vampire splurged for wine, appetizer, and a dessert where the zombie struggled to pay for pizza for the woman he was escorting. Clothing differed with the zombie’s clothes deteriorating and the vampire’s tailored-made.

Another change involved the mystique surrounding the monsters. Vampires have a shiver sexy-terror, while zombies are associated with end-of-the-world depressive gut-terror. The vampire remained polite and cosmopolitan. The zombie threatened some and his conversation was simpler. Mild flirting occurred with one but not the other.

Final change was what was driving the women to be escorted as meals to the monsters, oops, I guess that should read “for meals with the monsters”? Nah. You know what is gonna happen in the next scene of these stories, right? Both women have a history of dead-end jobs, are on the heavier side of weight, and love their pizza. But for the scene to work, I had to change the motivation.

The action-arc of the scene remained the same: arrival, ordering, eating, and leaving to the next location. In neither case did the undead do undead things, but by the end of each flash you know exactly what is about to happen. As these are just quick (about) 500 word flashes, readers can be expected to fill in the genre troupes and does so. (The rant about shiftless-shifters involved a full-length novel, which should be long enough to do all-the-things.)

Could I change out another paranormal monster for the vampire or zombie in the stories? Not without other major twists in the plot and character. The motivation for both the monster and the meal-woman would need to change even more. Could a shifter work here? No. A random monster could not just switch out with either of these men.

Remember “Don’t do shifting sands. Rock your world foundation.”

***

Flash Title: Prepping a Meal (Zombie Version)

“Are you sure?” I ask a final time as the battered electric Prius buzzed into a parking space, waving my hand at the neon lights of the chosen restaurant. “Italian?”

My zombie date. Well, more like warden, smirks. “Your bio said you could eat pizza every day. We thought you might like it for tonight.”

Making my way to the paper-covered door proclaiming the daily specials, I feel Jacob’s dark eyes blackened further as they focus on my ass in my overtight jeans. I forcefully suppress the shiver rolling through my belly and along my spine, refusing to consider if it is fear or anticipation.

I’ve been hoping for years to accomplish what will happen tonight and only recently had the energy to carry through with a workable plan. Thank you Doc Woods for those happy pills, I think toward the northern part of the city where Health and Human Services has its clinics.

“I wasn’t lying.” I say once we were inside the pizzeria, my eyes darting to the other patrons. “This will be great.”

“No talking to others,” he said growled, his eyes roaming from my eyes to my t-shirt, also several sizes too small. I’ve packed on some pounds doing the Netflix and chill thing after work this year, only my version of the chill part being a pint of ice cream most nights huddled in my bedroom behind locked doors with the earphone on.

“Of course.” I wasn’t looking to escape. It took me forever to find this situation, and I didn’t want to lose this opportunity.

A waitress waves us toward a small table with a red and white checkerboard vinyl table. I glance over the paper placemat menu, while Jacob orders me a soda when the waitress returns to drop a bread basket with oils in front of us. She raises an eyebrow at his shoddy appearance but doesn’t say anything. Though he was the youngest of the zombies I met tonight, he still lacks the freshness of the living. He had to have been buried in his best suit like most people, but sometime since then he changed out to a worn t-shirt and jeans. They hung much looser on him than mine did on me.

“Can you stuff a large in that chubby stomach of yours?”

I reach down to pop the top button of my jeans. I’m going to ache, but it’s not like I’m worried about nightmares in my sleep tonight because I climbed into bed stuffed to the gills. “Sure. I didn’t get chubby by dieting.”

“Good, good.” He takes out the bills his group had shoved at him.

I watch him struggle to count them and put them in some sort of order. Jacob’s fine motor control was lacking and I’m fairly sure the poor math skill existed before his change. Exasperated, I grab the paper and get the money in order. I had done it enough in my dead-end jobs all my life.

Once my soda arrives, I place my order for a large supreme pizza, plus a dessert. I’m going to go out with chocolate on my lips. And there would still be enough to cover taxes and a decent, but not great tip. He doesn’t argue. In fact, he just sits with the unmoving weirdness of the dead while I sip my soda and break apart the bread sticks. I mix the oil and vinegar just right and savor the warm bread. Closing my eyes, I let the yeasty bread, sour vinegar, and rich oil transport me to somewhere else. Someplace without pain and yelling and loneliness. The food is gone before I reach that place, like always. So close and always so far.

When the pizza, smelling of grease, and melted cheese, and hot pepperoni, and tangy tomato, hits the table, my eyes focused on it and I inhale deeply.

“Does it smell good?”

For a moment, I had forgotten about my escort. I look up to find his eyes gazing at the pizza with longing. Not the bottomless hungry like when he looked at me but a melancholy wistfulness.

“Yes, like a piece of heaven.”

“Tell me about it.”

So I do. From the first napalm bite of too hot cheese, to the last slice cool and congealed. In between we talk. He tells me of his memories, what it is like to be owned by a necromancer, but skirts around why we are here together tonight. Somehow he keeps focused on me-me, instead of body-me, and that is nice.

As suicides go, I think this one is a keeper.

Eventually the only thing left is a few chocolate crumbs from my brownie and the full refill on my drink.

“Are you ready?” he holds up a small cloth packet as I stack the money on the receipt.

I nod, pushing the red plastic glass at him. He dumps the potion in and I stir it a couple times before sucking it down quickly. Doesn’t taste bad. Actually the more I drink, the more I want to drink.

By the time I’m done chugging, I have a head rush. I let Jacob help me stagger out of the restaurant and back to the car. Last chance to run, I think as I collapse on the passenger side smiling. No need to run ever again.

(words 881, first published 1/25/22)

Series – No Regrets, All Dead

  1. Prepping a Meal (Zombie Version) – Link to 1/25/2022
  2. You Have Mail – Link to 2/6/2022
  3. Naked Truth – Link to 2/20/2022