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Author Spotlight: William McCaskey

Erin Penn

Amazon Cover

William McCaskey is a new science fiction author releasing his first book through Falstaff. Yes, another book I edited. (I developmentally edited a lot of books in the last year, and they have finally finished making their way through the pipeline.)

Each book is a challenge, and this one more than most because Mr. McCaskey came with such a clear vision and his military experience bleeds through on every page … just adjusted for lasers and spaceships. I hope he doesn’t have experience with those, or if he does, I am grateful that he didn’t share that information with me because that would really be one of the “If I tell you, I will need to kill you” moments.

I’m not sure where he is going with the rest of the series. I never ask, because I want to be surprised too. And I know I will be surprised with him. Some of the bits are really out there, like wood paneling on the spaceships. But that is his unique vision, and I ain’t going to step all over his voice.

If you like special forces ground ops in a military sci-fi setting, you will enjoy this book. Dragon Two-Zero. (In case you were wondering, there are no dragons. This one is pure science fiction.)

Mr. McCaskey can be followed on twitter here: https://twitter.com/thewmmccaskey (9/20/2023 update: Twitter is now X, and is locking itself behind a paywall. I do not know if the author is still on the adjusted platform.)

Flash: I Am Prophecy – Part 3

Erin Penn

She had emerged by herself and no one knew. Nineteen minutes and counting. Reaching out a hand, she touched her mirror image. Twenty-two minutes since dawn.

 

The screams normally would have activated the sensor, but her recent growth spurt inflicted violent cramps and she often woke screaming. After the fourth false alarm, her father had signed off on temporarily removing her emergency room monitor rather than pay fines. He had grown a foot in a six-month period as a teenager, and her body had already added three inches in height since the class term began in addition to her micro-boobs inflating to something she was having trouble hiding in the school uniform.

 

Wait, she had been so confused she had forgot. Too many pasts, too many futures, she had forgotten her present.

 

Throwing aside her sleeping robe, Vixen activated the uniform program. Some classmates only ran the shaver once a week, letting their fuzz give hints of individuality. Blond, brunette, white. But Vixen had always tried to blend with the crowd.

 

Standing in the center of the room, Vixen waited as the preparer removed any hair from overnight and spray painted her body with today’s skin color. Dark skin, milk chocolate brown, she sighed in relief. The flush red and dark blue lines branching with every blood vessel and vein submerged under the artificial dye. … Tomorrow, no … tomorrow’s tomorrow will be white, nearly no change for her and her friend Osantos, extra pigment for people like Marty who would have virtually no color added today. Her reprieve was temporary, but enough for now.

 

While sorting through the infinite of near-time, trying to discover a path to stay undiscovered, Vixen nearly missed the closet opening with her day’s clothes laid out. On top of the white blouse and tailored plaid slacks was a binder. She hated that binder, but the Emperor’s Boarding School took uniform to a level unknown anywhere at anytime in the history of man. – Her face relaxed into a small smile, her first since waking, as she verified this bit of unverifiable common knowledge. – Blending, being invisible in the crowd of children, was even more important than normal so she willingly plucked the stretchy fabric from the pile.

 

The binder did not snap in place after being wrapped around her rib cage.

 

“Maker bless mom’s genes.” Vixen threw the clothing back into the closet in disgust, laughing a little as mundane habit pushed back survival fear. She hit the button for a remeasure, the third one that month. Stepping completely within the closet, Vixen did the “tailor tape dance” as the kids in school nicknamed it.

 

Put your arms up, put them down, bend over, stretch arms to the side, stand up, lunge forward. An extra five minutes to throw her morning schedule off. An extra five minutes of life. But being late activated monitors, checks, which she no longer could afford. The path she needed to stay on required her recover a minute somewhere, otherwise the school would run a full diagnostic when she reported.

 

Today, she just wanted to live through today.

 

New clothes were released, the binder replaced with a brassiere and the shirt cut to accommodate her increasingly generous shape. No more hiding her gender.

 

Throwing on her clothes, she grabbed the blessed half-helm and snapped it in place over her newly non-human eyes and still human ears before rushing out for family breakfast.

 

(words 572; first published 4/10/14; republished new format 10/13/19)

Editing Rant: Homeschool Plotting

Erin Penn

Photo by Tong Nguyen van on Unsplash

Several of my sisters homeschool their children and one with several in her brood texted me about a writing issue she was having. Below is the whole exchange, spelling and grammar errors corrected for clarity.

 

“How do you tell your authors that they need a plot? (or at least a conflict/dilemma and resolution)”

“Since we (Falstaff books where I edit) are action adventure genres, conflict is fairly integral.

Age of the offender?

Mostly I focus on beginning middle end. What is the BME of the character development, and what is the BME of the action development? You aren’t saying something is missing so much as asking for them to define it for you and they then know where to beef it up. By asking for both, you hide where you think the problem is and make them find it. I do this with newer authors when they ask me to quickly look at their stuff. Those under contract would not have gotten the contract if they are missing plot.”

“K is 12. For language arts she was to write a story. I thought the conflict was going to be the last part of her outline, but it wasn’t. She wants it to be a different part, but does not want to make the protagonist work for the solution, nor to express distress beforehand, nor satisfaction with the resolution.”

“So the question is where is the change, or why is there no change? Mom went grocery shopping and brought back food, is a change in the house. She didn’t bring back food is a different story and also interesting.

Sounds like you also want to see both a climax and a resolution. The solution and the reactions to the solution. That one I do need to talk to authors about. The emotional need of the reader to be released from a story …. otherwise known as why people hate cliffhangers.

A question to ask her, maybe, is why is the main character interesting? How is the reader identifying with her? Do you want to show thinking, feeling, action, or reaction to have the reader know her? What character have you read or watched recently that drew you in? Why? What did they do or feel? Were they satisfied with the story resolution? How do you know?

Just realized she is still mostly a concrete thinker. Asking her to think like a reader or the character is likely at the edge of her abstract thinking. A good learning experience, but an additional layer to the lesson.”

 

Yes, I am that wordy texting on my phone. Sister didn’t get back to me about how things turned out with K and her plots. I remember the fights I had with creative writing at that age. Abstract thinking, figuring out how the reader sees the words is tough. And I have seen adult writers not wanting to make a protagonist work for a solution. Torturing your characters – these parts of you being put on paper – is tough, especially when they look up from the page with distress. Be interesting to see where K is after a couple more years of brain rewiring from concrete to abstract.