During ConCarolinas 2013, I added a panel where David B. Coe promised provided a series of writing challenges to help those in attendance develop tone, dialog, and voice skills. This is the second of three postings related to the challenges.
2) Write a scene between two people that does not use “said” or “asked” or any other direct attribution of dialog, but instead relies on gesture, mannerism, or just the established order of who is speaking. Make sure it’s always clear who has said what.
“I’m not sure about this.” Tom looked over his shoulder at Rose.
The blond pursed her lips, her eyes invisible behind mirrored sunglasses. “I promise you, it’s just a prank. A jokester like Baker will love it.”
“He does like his jokes.” Finally getting the lock to release, Tom pushed the dorm room door open. No one had noticed them in the hall yet. The campus was empty for Spring Break, but a few stragglers like themselves could come by at any time. The couple hurried into the room and closed the door behind them.
Tom looked around surprised. Evan’s room was empty. Not empty as in bed stripped and closets safeguarding a couple bent hangers empty, but nothing. No bed, no closet, no desk, no window. Still, light filled the room. A seemingly endless room. “What the hell?”
“Sorry about this sweetie.”
A needle buried itself into Tom’s meaty shoulder. He tried to turn, but Rose was too quick. Cool liquid burned into his system and he felt onto the non-floor.
“Why?” Escaped his lips as the world fuzzed.
“Two may enter where one can leave.” Satisfied her dupe was in la-la land, the coed known as Rose Davison tapped a button on her glasses activating features GoogleGlass would love to reverse engineer and got to work. “Now, my dear Baker, where did you hide the keys? I only want a joy ride. I promise to return everything in good order. Maybe.” (words 243)
Flash name: Bigger on the Inside
(First published 6/12/2013; published in new blog format 4/25/2017)
Or FanFic as most of the writing community calls it, is often sneered at by established writers who conveniently forget the origins of their writing development. Yes, some of the early work between age three and fifteen had originality, but much of it sprung from books read, television watched, and movies experienced. I know I had lots of stories dance in my head based on the Wizard of Oz, and even more from the Marvelous land of Oz which introduced Ozma of Oz. As a teen, Star Trek, the Next Generation, was my go-to for inserting myself into a narrative.
Why FanFic? Because worldbuilding is hard, and these worlds have been created. A reader falls in love with them, and what else is one going to do when the author stopped writing stories for the world. I love inserting myself into these wonderful layered worlds to live a little longer after the book is done and the show is over.
Side-note: Self-Inserts are great for expanding on writing skills initially, but they are not ones to share on FanFic writing forums in general. FixFic (correcting an error in the story, at least in the writer’s opinion, or making a better ending), Shipping (two characters who are not together in a relationship in the story but are for the FanFic), and Crossover (two or more fan universe mashup) are more widely accepted than Self-Inserts. This goes back to the developing writing skills (a writer knows who they are and therefore doesn’t need to work as hard for character development) and the point of FanFic (spending more time in the universe and its characters). Feel free to write Self-Inserts but keep those to close to the chest. Other expansions in all their glorious subgenres can be shared on the appropriate FanFic sites.
FanFic has been around for a long, long time. How many versions of Camelot exist? People loved the mythos for over a thousand years and have been adding to it all the time. Every movie made from a book or existing story is a FanFic by the director.
Now the question is: do establish writers attempt FanFic? All the time. Some of it even is contracted such as getting a novel published in the Doctor Who, Star Wars, or Star Trek universes. Also joint sandboxes are everywhere for playtime like Eric Flint’s Ring of Fire Series and John Hartness, Monster Hunter Universe. People make a living translating screenplays to novels.
The takeaway I want you, dear writers, to have is: FanFic skills are valuable. They can make money writing screenplays or novelizing them. They let you explore worldbuilding in an existing world: what pieces are needed to create world robust enough to hold up to expansion and how can a world be layered enough for other people to want to live there.
WRITING EXERCISE: Write a FanFic flash – more than 100 words but don’t kill yourself. What made this world robust enough to support your FanFic? What made you want to expand the mythos?
READING/VIEWING EXERCISE: What is the most recent story you daydreamed about in a FanFic sort of way? Why?
***
In Men-in-Black 2, Agent J needs Agent K’s skills, so Will Smith’s character pulls Tommy Lee Jones’ character back into the business and restores his memory. At the end of the first movie, Agent K became Kevin Brown again and is reunited with his love, and they marry. The second movie has him willingly accepting being back to monitoring aliens because he wasn’t able to cut it in the real world and the woman who had waited decades for him, divorced his psychotic ass.
Dang, I loved that scene in the original film. It added so much to his character, to the world. Things flow out and in from 45-second scene.
And the screenwriters of the sequel WRECKED IT!
My FixFic starts in the same place as the sequel. Kevin Brown (Agent K without memories) working in the post office, the love of his life no longer in the picture.
Title: Men-In-Black (FanFic)
After being deneuralized, Agent K walks away and keeps walking. Focused, determined. Much more his old self than the pale imitation Agent J had found at the post office. Agent J prances after his old mentor, asking questions about memory without a single reaction until he offers Kay a ride to wherever he is going when they pass a black sedan. Kay freezes, turns around, and demands, “Keys.”
“Still working on one word answers, huh?” Jay pats his pockets and pulls out the keys.
Kay grabs them and walks around the vehicle to the driver side, getting in. Protesting, Jay quickly climbs in and buckles up, closing the door as Kay pulls away from the curb. “Be careful, Zed upgraded the cars in the last four years. Do you even know how to drive? Did the deneuralizer fry you? Come on man, talk to me.”
Already on the highway and going way over the speed limit while weaving in and out, Kay looks over at Jay with disdain.
After one quick drift between cars, Jay screeches, “Watch the road. We can talk later. In the meantime, let me tell you why Zed had you recalled…”
At headquarters Agent Kay walks right by the guard in the vent room, Jay nearly running to keep up. But being Jay, he looks over at the guard and winks as they get on the elevator. “Heck yeah,” he nods at the guard who stood, looking flabbergasted. “Kay is back in business.”
The elevator door closes but doesn’t move.
Jay looks up, talking to the ceiling. “It’s okay. Agent Kay is being brought in just like Zed asked–“
“Override Candy-Delta-<shrill-click-click>-Hamburger.” Kay interrupts and the elevator moves down.
Striding through the terminal, Jay continues to jabber and run after his silent, steadily moving partner. Around them, a ripple of beings stop and stare. Most continue on their business, but moving slowly, their heads and eye stalks swiveling to follow the two agents.
Kay takes no notice. Stopping only when reaching the crow’s nest, where Zed is standing, opening his arms. “Welcome back, my frie–“
A right hook stops the Men-in-Black leader, lifts him off his feet for a second, and drops him to the floor. He looks up at the returning agent, who is rubbing his knuckles.
“You could have saved her.” The accusation grinds out of Kay’s soul.
Zed nods, rubbing his chin. “You know the rules.” He moved to stand up. “I leaked the information as quickly as I could when I found out, but too many changes, too many jumps in technology.” He shook his head; Zed’s pompous starchiness left him sagging against his desk. His eyes watered. “I wasn’t fast enough.” Zed dropped his eyes before Kay’s dead stare.
“Two months. We had only two months.”
“At least you had that much.” Zed whispered back.
(words 475; first published 2/28/2017)
(And back to the regularly scheduled movie already in progress.)
Same end situation – Kevin working in a dead-end job, not fitting in. Same loss of love. But we got to keep the emotional payoff of the first movie, and Kay comes back as not so much as helpless in the real world but broken.
This is the FicFix I want for the movie. Men-in-black is a wonderful mythos covering multiple comics, movies, and urban legends. I think this would make it better.
Christopher Stasheff’s writing is playful and twisted. From his Starship Troupers, about actors taking plays to humanity’s far-flung children (and you thought theaters got stifling with those big personalities – imagine being stuck on a spaceship!) to Saint Vidicon of Cathode who helps techies overcome Murphy’s Law, each tale will make you laugh and think.
All of his worlds are ones I would like to live in, especially his Warlock of Gramarye series. With a dozen stories in this world, I can live in it for a long, long time. And I also get to live in part of it outside of the books.
While he was never in the SCA, and he wrote “The Warlock in Spite of Himself” (where a cultural ambassador in a spacesuit lands on a planet to help integrate it back into humanity, and discovers this lost planet has magic) before he ran into Medieval and Renessaince group, he then met us costume-weirdos at conventions and realized his Fiction and our Dream overlapped. He wrote our future history and acknowledged it in Escape Velocity, mentioning the SCA directly.
It took me an absurdly long time to realize Gramarye only has lords, barons, and kings. And he wrote that part before he met the non-profit.
Image courtesy of imagerymajestic at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
One of the cool things about living in North Carolina is Baen Books headquarters is here, not New York. Yes, that Baen Books with David Weber, Margaret Ball, Eric Flint, Sharon Lee, etc. So a writing convention in these parts will have at least one Baen representative, maybe even the big lady herself, Toni Weisskopf. At one of the conventions I attended Ms. Weisskopf told us about a thing. Baen Books offers teachers’ guides FOR FREE to some of its young adult (YA) oriented materials – guides good for the classroom or homeschooling.
I know last month’s geeking science was on “The Sell”, and make no mistake Baen Books is not doing this exclusively out of their hearts. The teachers’ guides are free, the books themselves – sometimes – are not. On the other hand this particular sell dovetails well into their core business while also having beneficial results. The teachers’ guides not only support reading (and every publisher supports reading), but also encourages students to use the science fiction as a jumping point to learn history and science. Where someone might go “who care how prize money was awarded by England during the wars?”, reading about the prize money collected by the Manticore Navy in Basilisk Station by David Weber raises an interest – then the rabbit hole shows a student what money meant (economics), how money was divided (math), which wars had the most money given (history) and a dozen other interests. By the way, Basilisk Station is a free book just like the teachers’ guide.
Is this “The Sell” or a publishing company giving back to their customers? The creation of the teachers’ guides did cost money – proofing, adding to the website, etc. Having met Ms. Weisskopf and Mr. Weber and the other authors participating in this program, I know its a bunch of people geeking out about how to get people involved in education by using the carrot instead of the stick. These are people who pour over research to get the covers right – did that uniform in 1637 have four or five pockets? Information and words are their life!
And they want to pass on that passion.
The Young Adult list at Baen Books ( http://www.baen.com/bookdata/ya ) contains a vetted list by Ms. Weisskopf. The ones with little books beside them contain teachers’ guides. Over twenty are available.
Following the events of The Last Colony, John Scalzi tells the story of the fight to maintain the unity of the human race.
The people of Earth now know that the human Colonial Union has kept them ignorant of the dangerous universe around them. For generations the CU had defended humanity against hostile aliens, deliberately keeping Earth an ignorant backwater and a source of military recruits. Now the CU’s secrets are known to all. Other alien races have come on the scene and formed a new alliance―an alliance against the Colonial Union. And they’ve invited the people of Earth to join them. For a shaken and betrayed Earth, the choice isn’t obvious or easy.
Against such possibilities, managing the survival of the Colonial Union won’t be easy, either. It will take diplomatic finesse, political cunning…and a brilliant “B Team,” centered on the resourceful Lieutenant Harry Wilson, that can be deployed to deal with the unpredictable and unexpected things the universe throws at you when you’re struggling to preserve the unity of the human race.
Being published online from January to April 2013 as a three-month digital serial, The Human Division will appear as a full-length novel of the Old Man’s War universe, plus―for the first time in print―the first tale of Lieutenant Harry Wilson, and a coda that wasn’t part of the digital serialization.
Old Man’s War Series #1 Old Man’s War #2 The Ghost Brigades #3 The Last Colony #4 Zoe’s Tale #5 The Human Division #6 The End of All Things Short fiction: “After the Coup”
MY REVIEW
Mr. Scalzi attempted a new format of releasing 13 episodes as mini-ebooks; similar to the old method of serializing a story in newspapers or magazines (everything that is old is new again). A format option popular with self-published authors. After the episodes were all released, his publisher put together the whole thing in book format, adding two extras.
I did not read this during the episodic releases, and discovered the hard-copy book did not work very well as a straight read-thru. The characters’ lives had ebbs and swells that needed a break every three or four episodes. After getting about half-way through the book, I needed to set it aside for a week. Since my work was asking for 60 to 80-hour weeks during the time I was reading this book, it actually functioned well. Every Saturday I would set aside time to read three more episodes.
The writing is typical, brilliant Scalizi – a combination of humor and observations that are just too much fun. He continues to create a new character voice for each book. I love that his characters are unique – Zoe’s Tale had a teenage girl voice; The Human Division had a combination – each episode had a different POV (point of view) of diplomatic approaches. As such the diplomatic-POV did not have the pure snark factor of his first book of the universe (Old Man’s War).
I should note the uniqueness of the universe is beginning to wane simply because of familiarity of the World – now in book five – but the universe hasn’t reached comfortable glove status. So, in places, this book felt … awkward… like a teenager – no longer a cute, shiny baby to ooh&aah over, but not fully mature like a George R. Dickson Dorsai! universe story.
This story is essential to the ongoing Old Man’s War Universe. It clearly sets up the conspiracy for the next story.
Worth the read, just do it in chunks for maximum enjoyment – the way it was originally published on the Internet.
