Posts published in “Technique”

[twenty twenty-four post one six one]: one more thing

Published June 10, 2024 by centaur

So one thing here to remind myself to blog about it in more details - I attended a panel at the Nebulas on "Moving Beyond Milford" which was very useful. Milford, for those not steeped in writerly inside baseball, refers to the Milford Writer's Workshop, or, more generally, a critiquing model in which a group gets together, shares stories to read in advance, and everyone critiques each other.

The key element of Milford is that each person in the group gets their turn to critique - say, four minutes - during which nobody else can speak - not the other authors, not other group members, with the exception of a facilitator who can keep things on track. And most people seem to agree that the gag rule is critical to Milford in that it helps authors to learn to take criticism - and shuts up "that guy" so he doesn't dominate the critique.

But it can cause people to pile on, or for criticism to be repetitive, or even misplaced. So people were recommending different approaches - online, threaded critique, or structured critique where you had to start off with what resonated with you in the story before critiquing it, or encouraging facilitated discussion so everyone doesn't pile on with dittos.

I had "office hours" at the Nebulas, during which I advised other authors on problems - not because I'm some super experienced author or anything, but simply because I'm an editor and publisher, which means authors who are arguably equally or more experienced than me thought they might benefit from talking to an editor and publisher about specific problems. Which we did, with a couple of people.

And, when I did, I took the advice of the "Moving Beyond Milford" panel: I reformulated my critique into a five-point breakdown:

What did I think the story was about? Reiterating what the story is about ensured that I "got" what the author was trying to do, in an attempt to head off at the pass any misunderstandings.
What did I like about the story? Identifying what resonated with you about the story helps the author understand what's working about the story which they probably shouldn't change.
What areas of improvement did I see? This is something that can crush newbie authors - or experienced authors hit with impostor's syndrome - so it's important to formulate this in terms of suggestions.
What features or turns of phrase stuck with me? These might be small things, but I think highlighting key sentences, elements of description, or ideas are important to remind authors they can be effective.
What areas could potentially use copyediting? If there are typos, grammatical errors, or other opportunities for low-level textual improvement, highlight them here.

But even though that's what I used when I analyzed the story, that's not how I presented the above material to the author in our meetings. What I did instead was use the following script (after the meet-and-greet):

Here's what I think I read. I started off by briefly reiterating what I thought the story was about, so the author knew I had read their piece (and we could clear up any misconceptions).
What do you want help with? I then asked the author to explain what areas they needed help in. If anything about that wasn't clear, I asked them to explain in their own words the problem.
Let's brainstorm solutions to your problem. Before digging into my notes, we discussed their problem in greater depth and used story structure ideas to start looking for solutions.
Let's discuss where my notes intersect with your concerns. Then, we dug into where my notes intersected their problems, focusing on the parts where they needed help.
Once we have ideas about a solution, then share the other notes. Where the other notes were still relevant, I shared them, trying to build suggestions about how to make the story stronger.

Overall, I wanted to not dive in with how I thought the story could be better, but to improve the author's experience working with the story first, then focus on how my thoughts about the story could help them.

I think this is a better approach than tackling the story proper as an entity divorced from its author. Once a story is done, we can talk about the text as an entity independent of its author, but BEFORE the story is done, it's a work in process being worked on by a real human being, asking for help.

When critiquing, put helping the author first, and worry about your personal pet peeves some other time.

-the Centaur

Pictured: Some writing advice from me, from back in the day, while blog image uploading is down.

[twenty twenty-four day one three one]: celebration!

Published May 10, 2024 by centaur

Yay! The Neurodiversiverse Kickstarter funded, with two and a half days to go! And it has been amazing, after a month of slow but steady growth, that the Kickstarter continues to now rapidly fund even as we're trying to publicize it! A shoutout to Cat Rambo, who graciously let us do that guest blogpost! Let me shout back, with the story card we came up with for Cat's story, "Scary Monsters, Super Creeps"!

Now that we've met our funding goal, we've announced our stretch goals, which include cool things like bookmarks and postcards and, if we really stretch, an audiobook of the anthology.

But we've also been posting about our process, talking about how we selected our stories for the anthology and how we organized them into our current table of contents - which required setting up a Kanban board in Airtable to help us organize it quickly, efficiently, and, most of all, understandably.

Airtable is a system that looks a lot like a spreadsheet, except it's actually a database under the hood, enabling you to build different views of the same data; a Kanban board is one such view, with rows turned into "cards" organized into "stacks" by a given field - and as you move cards about in the stacks, the field changes with it. This helps visualize the flow of, well, many things - including stories in the editing pipeline, or stories in the table of contents; I'm even using it for tracking the writing of new stories. But for now, the most important thing is that it enabled us to put together this:

We're proud of the table of contents - but also, pleased with the process that got us there, and hope other people find it as useful as we did.

So please, go check those posts out, and maybe even help spread the word so we reach our stretch goals!

-the Centaur

[twenty twenty-four day fifty-eight]: the seven-part story test

Published February 27, 2024 by centaur

So I’ve developed a new tool for story analysis that my co-editor on The Neurodiversiverse, Liza Olmsted, called “your seven-part story test,” and it fits in one long sentence: “Who wants what, why can’t they get it, what do they do about it, how does it turn out, why does that matter to them, and what does that mean for the reader?”

This six-part test is an adaptation of Dwight Swain’s story question “Who wants what and why can’t they get it?” as well as Vorwald and Wolff’s pithier but less useful “What happens?”_, called the Major Dramatic Question (MDQ) in their book “How to Tell a Story.”

Now, V&Q unpack their MDQ into the broader questions “What does my character want? What action do they take to get it? What keeps them from getting it? Who succeeds or fails?”. Like many writing coaches who have their own language for similar ideas, I think both Swain and V&W are tackling the “Major Dramatic Question”, just from different angles - but “how it turns out” is a key question not encapsulated in Swain’s version, and I think it helps us understand what is going on - or should be going on - in a story.

Ultimately, I think a story is an engaging and surprising case, in the case-based reasoning (CBR) sense. For those not familiar with CBR, it’s a reasoning technique back from the days of symbolic artificial intelligence (AI), pioneered by Janet Kolodner, the leader of the AI lab where I was trained (and my original thesis advisor). A case, in the traditional sense, is a labeled experience, which is marked by what problem is being solved, what solution was applied, how it turned out, what lesson it taught, and how we might remember it.

Well, in the age of content-addressable memories and vector databases, we worry less about labeling cases so we can remember them, as the content itself can help us find relevant cases. However, it remains important to analyze our experiences so we can better understand what happened, what we did, how it turned out, and what lessons that taught (or should have taught) us. And the last two are related, but different: what happened are the bare facts, but the same bare facts can have different meanings to different people that experience them - or to different observers, watching from the outside.

Think of a woman in an abusive marriage. What she wants is a peaceful life; why she can’t get it is a husband who’s a Navy SEAL with PTSD. Let’s say what she does about it is try to kill him, and how it turns out is that she gets away with it. But what does that matter to her, and what does that mean for us (the writer, the editor, the publisher, and the author)?

Well, that same outcome could matter in different ways. Perhaps our heroine gets to build a new happy life away from a man who abused her - or perhaps our heroine is now living a life of regret, with a child that resents her and feelings of guilt about killing a man who couldn’t cope with his wartime trauma and needed her help. Because the truth of it is, no-one should have to put up with domestic violence - but a small percentage of people who struggle with PTSD end up acting out, and need help to deal with their trauma.

There’s no right answer here - a skilled author could present a spectrum of situations in which most of us would say either “get them help” or “girl, get out”. But if the author shows our heroine murdering their husband and getting away with it, the story is implicitly endorsing murder as a solution for domestic problems. Conversely, if the author shows the heroine forgiving violence in an attempt to get the husband help, the story is implicitly endorsing women enduring domestic abuse. Not only is there no right answer here, there’s no good answer here - which might lead you as an author to question the whole setup.

That’s why it’s really important to step back and think about what you as an author are endorsing in your story - and whether you’re comfortable with that message. Despite what some writing teachers will tell you, you’re not the god of your story: you’re playing in a playground of your own making, but the materials from which that playground is fashioned - people, places, events, actions, reactions, and emotions - are all drawn from the very real world in which we live, and stories by their nature communicate messages about that real world to those who read them, even if the events in the story are purely fictional.

(This principle of authorial endorsement extends to the editor, publisher, and even the reader as well. There were many good stories submitted to The Neurodiversiverse that we chose to reject because of their implicit message - for example, we wanted our anthology to be empowering, so we didn’t select some powerful stories in which the character’s neurodiversity helped them communicate with aliens, but didn’t help the horrible situation that they were in; these stories might be a great choice for a horror anthology, however).

But the point can get lost if you start asking a lot of unconnected questions about your story. That’s why I like the idea of the unified MDQ, and I like the expression of that in Dwight Swain’s three-part question “Who wants what, and why can’t they get it?” But that three-part version is not enough, and expanding that question into a single phrase that incorporates the important elements of action, outcome, impact and meaning turns it into my seven-part test: “Who wants what, why can’t they get it, what do they do about it, how does it turn out, why does that matter to them, and what does that mean for the reader?”

The rewards for thinking through these questions are great. Thinking about how the story turns out matters to the protagonist creates options for tweaking the ending (or the material leading up to it) for greater resonance; and thinking about what meaning the story delivers for the reader creates opportunities to weave that message through the whole story. The seven-part story test can help us create stronger, more impactful, and more meaningful stories that make more sense and feel more satisfying.

So, to unpack the seven-part test further:

Who? Who is the protagonist of your story?
Wants what? What’s their goal, and why are they motivated to seek it?
Why can’t they get it? What’s the conflict in the story? Is it derived from a classical antagonist, or is the conflict based on internal or environmental factors?
What do they do about it? What action does the character take (or fail to take, as Hamlet fails to take action for much of his story)? Ultimately, most good stories are about what people do when facing conflict, so they should not be wholly passive - they should have some agency which affects how the story turns out.
How does it turn out? With the exception of vignettes that are all atmosphere, we want to know the outcome of the protagonists’ action. Did they succeed? Did they fail? Are we left with a situation that’s definitively not resolved (as in the ambiguous endings of Inception, Cast/Away, The Sopranos, or John Carpenter’s The Thing)? Any of these are acceptable endings (though a definitive lack of resolution is the hardest trick to pull off) but you as the author need to pick one.
Why does that matter to them? The ending of Cast/Away is a great example, in that our uncertainty about what the main character does next is actually symbolic of the main character’s situation. It matters to the main character that they are in a state of indecision, because that indecision represents what they lacked when cast away on that island: freedom of choice.
What does that mean for the reader? Regardless of what you choose to the previous questions, you should think through the implications of what that means for the reader, and whether that’s the image you want to present for your story. While you aren’t the god of your story, you are the playwright and stage director, and if the message of your story isn’t what you want, you can just change it.

Overall, I’ve already got a lot of good mileage out of these questions in the new series of stories that I’m writing (which I’m variously calling “The Porsche Xenobiology Stories” or “Tales of Failaka” depending on which planet I’m writing on this week). By asking these questions, I’ve been able to reformulate my endings to focus not just on the outcomes of the character’s actions, but how it matters to them, which makes the endings more satisfying; and also to focus on what it means, which has enabled me to make the stories more cohesive, as well as inspiring ideas for new stories.

“Who wants what, why can’t they get it, what do they do about it, how does it turn out, why does it matter to them, and what does that mean for the reader?” It’s a short, seven-part story test, easily compressible into a sentence that can be used to interrogate your story, and it’s been very useful for me; I hope it is useful for you too.

-the Centaur

Pictured: Loki, and in the background, the reading "pile" for a writing book that I'm working on called "The Rules Disease." Yes, it has filled most of a bookshelf by this point - there's a lot of writing on writing.

[twenty twenty-four day thirty]: the questions i now ask

Published January 30, 2024 by centaur

As a writer, it's important to have humility - no matter how enthusiastic you are about your work, there's no guarantee that it will land the way that you want it to with your readers. So I share my stories with "beta readers" who are, presumably, the kind of people who like to read what I want to write, and I use comments from beta readers to help me edit my stories before submitting them to editors or publishers.

I used to ask almost no questions of the beta readers BEFORE they read it, as I neither wanted to prejudice them about the story nor wanted to draw their attention to features that they might not have noticed. But, over time, I have started adding questions - perhaps in part because my research in social robot navigation exposed me to better ways to ask questions of people, and perhaps just through my own experience.

I settled on the following questions that I ask beta readers:

Is this the kind of story you like to read?
What did you like about it?
How could it be improved?
Would you like to read more stories in the same universe?
Is there anything that could be clarified to make it stand better alone?
Are there any questions that it raised that you'd love to see answered in another story?

The first three I think are generic to all stories, and are the ones that I started with:

First, if your story isn't the kind of story that your reader wants to read, their comments might not be about your story per se, but may actually be a subconscious critique of its genre, which can be actively misleading if you try to apply them to a story in that genre. I found this out the hard way when I gave The Clockwork Time Machine to someone who didn't like steampunk - many of their comments were just dissing the entire genre, and were useless for figuring out how to improve my particular story.
Second, it's important to know what people like about a story, so that you don't accidentally break those things in your edits. If one person dislikes something, but two others like it, you might be better off leaving that alone or gently tweaking it rather than just taking it out.
Third, no matter how big your ego is, you cannot see all the things that might be wrong with your story. (Unless you've won the Nobel Prize in literature or are a New York Times bestselling author, in which case, I especially mean you, because you've probably become uneditable). Fresh eyes can help you see what's wrong and where you could make it better.

But these questions weren't enough for someone who writes series fiction: my stories refer to a lot of background information, and set up ideas for other stories, yet should stand alone as individual stories:

Do you have a good vehicle? Have you set up a framework for telling stories that people are interested in? This goes beyond whether an individual story is satisfying, and to whether the setting and storytelling method itself are interesting.
Does your story stand alone? Are you pulling in backstory which is not adequately explained? This is information that should either be taken out, or woven into the story so it is load-bearing.
Does your story pull people in? Even if the story stands alone, you want it to either hint at questions to be answered in other stories or to answer questions from previous stories.

So far, these questions have worked well for me and my science fiction serial stories. Your mileage may vary, but I think that if you avoid asking anything specific about your story, and focus on the general functions that your story should fulfill, then you can get a lot of profit by asking beta readers ahead of the read.

-the Centaur

Pictured: A gryphon made of books in a store window in Asheville.

Just because you love it doesn’t mean it works

Published November 4, 2023 by centaur

So the turkeys are out again! Love to see these fellas in the yard. But they're not the only big ungainly birds out there. I've been reading a lot of writing books recently, and some of them have really great advice. True, in each good book there is, usually, at least one stinker.

But most of the good ones build on the two related ideas that "whatever works, works," so you can adapt their advice to your own needs - HOWEVER, "some things usually work better than others," so if you are having trouble, here are some tools you can try.

One thing I draw from this is a refutation of the idea that if an artist achieves their artistic vision then there's nothing wrong with that piece of art. Phooey. It may be great for them that they achieved their vision - heaven knows, I so rarely do that - but what they envision itself may be flawed.

Dwight Swain, who wrote Techniques of the Selling Writer, talks about this in audio courses built on his book. As a novelist, he claims you often don't know how good an idea is until you get a chapter or three into the story, and that if you find your idea doesn't work (or that you don't care about your protagonist), quit.

There's no shame in this. But if you've got the time, talent or treasure, you can sometimes push a bad idea to its logical conclusion without ever questioning the foundation. For example, hiring Samuel Jackson, but directing him to act woodenly as if he's in an old Republic serial (I'm looking at you, George Lucas).

What you focus on as your artistic vision is itself a matter of choice, and achieving your artistic vision does not mean that you'll end up with something that is aesthetically effective. Hey, as always, you're free to do you, but that doesn't mean that the rest of us are going to get what you've got.

-the Centaur

[eighty-four] minus one-oh-five: so far, so good, morning edition

Published July 8, 2023 by centaur

So far, so good, on the new strategy of starting off with the projects, rather than the maintenance: I've tweeted, checked in with LinkedIn, worked on some non-fiction books, am blogging, and am about to switch gears to writing my Camp Nano entry, SPIRAL NEEDLE.

I'd felt like I was falling into a bit of a slump after getting through the big Embodied AI and Social Navigation deadlines (more on that later) and I gave this new strategy a try after chatting with my buddy, popular science author Jim Davies (author of Riveted, Imagination, and Being the Person Your Dog Thinks You Are).

Jim taked to me about how prioritizing book-writing was critical for his process. I don't really have to do that for fiction - or, more properly, I have structured my entire life around ensuring I have time set aside for fiction writing, so at this point it is practically free - but non-fiction books are new to me.

But one of his other suggestions baffled me, not because it didn't make sense, but because it made too much sense - except I was already doing it, and it wasn't working. Jim pointed out that most people go through periods of vigilance, slump, and recovery during their day, and that as a morning person he reserved book writing, which required critical thinking, for his early vigilant time. Errands like bill-paying worked well for him in the slump, and he felt most creative in the recovery period in the evening.

Okay, great, I thought, I can use this. Already I can see shifting the order I do things in my day - as a night owl, I start my day off in the slump, recover from that, and then get increasingly and increasingly vigilant the further and further I go into the night. (If I have a project due and no obligations the next day, this can go on for hours and hours before exhaustion starts to outpace execution and productivity finally drops).

So maybe switch errands to earlier in the day, I thought, and productivity in the afternoon. But wait a minute: I'm already using my late nights for my most creative time. Why isn't this working.

What I realized is that I have an irregular schedule. In THEORY my late-night time is my most productive time, but in PRACTICE on some nights I get an hour, on some nights I get two (or five) and on some nights I am already so wiped that I really don't get much done at all.

But I do almost always get something done in the morning, even if it takes me time to get rolling. And for me, catching up on papers or writing notes or catching up on my blog is a mostly mechanical activity: it's not that creative thought isn't required, but it isn't to the level of, say, a novel or a scientific paper, where a hard-won sentence may be the result of a half an hour's search tracking down a key reference or fact, or, worse, an hour's worth of brainstorming alone or meeting with others to decide WHAT to write.

So: I can't count on myself to do a creative "chore" - something that has to be done regularly, like blogging or social media, or something that has to be done incrementally over a long period of time, like collating references or thoughts for a non-fiction book - by putting it in my evening creative block. The evening creative block is too irregular, and needs to be reserved for novels and art anyway.

The fix: blog (et al) in the morning.

Let's see how it goes.

-the Centaur

Pictured: tomato and lettuce sandwiches for breakfast, with the leftovers of the tomato as a side dish. At the breakfast table is Christopher Bishop's Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning, also available as a PDF, the latest of a long series of "difficult breakfast table books" which I laboriously read through, a page at a time - sometimes, one page over several days, until I "get" it - to increase my understanding of the world. Past breakfast table books have included Machine Vision, A New Kind of Science, and Probability Theory: the Logic of Science, the first is out of date now, but the latter two are perennial and highly recommended.

[seventy-eight] minus eighty-two: tl;dr: get to the point

Published June 9, 2023 by centaur

tl;dr: get to the point in the first line in your emails, and also in the subject.

"TL;DR" is an acronym meaning "Too Long; Didn't Read" which is used to introduce a quick summary of a longer document - as I did in the first line of this email.

Often when writing an email we are working out our own thoughts of what should be communicated or should happen - which means that the important point usually comes at the end.

But people don't often read to the end. So it's important, when you get to the end of your email, to port the most important point up to the top (which I typically do with the TL;DR tag).

And, even better, if you can put it in the subject line, do that too.

Your email is more likely to work that way.

-the Centaur

Pictured: our wedding dragon lamp, sitting on a side table with our wedding DVD, which is sort of a coincidence; and a very cool light bulb.

Discussed: a topic I swear I've written about in this blog, but I cannot find via searching past posts.

[twelve] plus eight, OR: don’t skip a day, or you’ll be sorry

Published January 20, 2023 by centaur

Yeah. The microblogging will continue until the posting rate reaches 1/day.

I feel that one problem I have with "daily blogging" is that quick posts are no problem. But if I have a longer idea - but can't finish it in time - I then forget to do a shorter post to make up for it.

And missing a post itself is a problem. What I find when trying to build a regular practice (daily blogging, taking karate twice a week, whatever) is that if you skip one time, even for a "really good reason", then mysteriously the next two or three times you'll HAVE to skip for "unavoidable" reasons.

In this, case in point, I started writing a longer article on debugging software. There was more to it than I expected - I had wanted to make an off-the-cuff comment, and found my thoughts rapidly expanding - and then the next day I was flying, and the next day catching up on work, and the next day owed my part of the annual report to the church board, and so on. And then its DAYS later and boom no posts. I think at this point I am 8 behind in numbered posts, though there were a few un-numbered ones which I would count, except, if I don't, it makes the problem harder, which helps build the discipline I'm trying to build.

SO! Let's get back on that horse then. Update metadata, hit publish.

-the Centaur

Pictured: my evening work ritual, 2-3 times a week when I'm not having dinner with my wife, is to go to some place to eat (preferably one with a bar or high top tables, so I can stretch out my bum knee), crack open a book, and read a chunk of a chapter while having a nice meal. Most of my books get read this way.

Dragon Con 2022

Published September 2, 2022 by centaur

Well, it's that time of year again ... 65,000 of my closest friends have gotten together in five hotels and two convention halls in Atlanta to celebrate all things science fiction!

My schedule is below. I worked right up to the start of the con, so am just now posting this two days later, but for the benefit of the time travelers in my audience, I'll include the first two panels:

Thursday
- 8:30pm - Start Now, Research! - Hyatt Embassy EF
  How much research is enough? How much is too much? When do you stop doing research and start writing?
Friday
- 7:00pm - The People Who Live in Your Book - Hyatt Embassy EF
  Characters rise off the page and become people--if they're well-crafted. Discover ways to make this happen in your fiction.
Saturday
- 10:00pm - Stories Needed: Get Yourself Invited into an Anthology - Hyatt Embassy EF
  There's an anthology being published that might just work for a story you have in mind. Or, when you hear about an anthology and KNOW you have a story for it, what do you do? Get some professional help from our pros.
Monday
- 10:00am - Writing About Star Trek - Hilton Galleria 2-3
  There are thousands of worlds within Star Trek, and thousands of topics to talk about. Where do we start? Join a panel of published writers to discuss what's worth discussing in Trek books, articles and more
- 1:00pm - Where Do You Get Your Ideas? - Hyatt Embassy EF
  This is a question that every writer gets asked by everyone they know. What is the answer to that question?
- 2:30pm - Predicting the Future - Hyatt Embassy EF
  Where in the world is fiction headed? Do the old tropes still work? What's fresh and new for the future?

At each panel, I'll be giving away signed copies of the writing inspiration book Your Writing Matters by my friend Keiko O'Leary. This is the latest release from Thinking Ink Press, and we're very proud of it! No matter where you are on your writing journey, I think this book can probably help you, so come on by!

See y'all tomorrow!

-the Centaur

Viiictory, Thirty-Two Times

Published April 30, 2022 by centaur

Well, after a long hard month and many ups and downs, I have successfully completed Camp Nanowrimo, one of the three yearly National Novel Writing Month challenges to write 50,000 words of a novel in a month - and this is my 32nd time claiming viiictory!

This was one of the more challenging Nanos for me, as April is our quarterly planning month, and on top of that we decided to switch managers within our team and to switch to semester planning in our org. So that led to a dip in the beginning, where it was hard for me to get my groove.

The blood on the deck continued almost to the end of Camp Nano. This month's project was my third go at JEREMIAH WILLSTONE AND THE FLYING GARDENS OF VENUS, and I found it particularly difficult to get momentum as the story is more complicated than normal, with a new protagonist Puck taking center stage in addition to Jeremiah. You can see the dip compared to past Nanos:

I felt like I was struggling and stumbling with the story, writing and rewriting scenes, trying out different alternates (I count these as words written; editing can come later). However, as I rolled into the end of the month, these struggles started to pay off, as I understood better what was up with Puck, why so many weird things happened around her, and what role they played in the story.

Over the years of doing Nano, I've reached this particular point of the enterprise many times - a point which I sometimes call "going off the rails". This is the point where the story seems to gel, and I think it happens when I go from exploring the logical consequences of a set of characters in a situation - which is where I start almost all of my writing - to creatively injecting things into the story that could not be predicted from its beginnings. These still need to be grounded in the plot and consistent with the characters, but there's a difference between the things you typically expect to happen in a scenario and truly creative innovations which cannot be predicted from the setting alone - what the Mythcreants writing team calls Novelty in their ANTS framework (Attachment, Novelty, Tension and Satisfaction).

Over almost 20 years, I've had this creative spark, this "going off the rails" many, many times, and stories always seem better for it. I have tackled 16 Nanowrimos so far out of 34 monthly challenges (also counting Camp Nano and Script Frenzy) and have successfully completed it 32 times.

Each time for me, it's facing those middling slumps, facing the places where I've fallen out of love with my own story, that ultimately kickstart my creativity into high gear and make me fall in love with my work again.

That happened this time, even though I wanted to give up. I know Nano doesn't work for everyone, so your mileage may vary, but for me, as I've often found in other arenas of my life, you sometimes have to work just a little bit harder than you want to to reach an outcome which is far better than you have any right to expect. That was true with Cinnamon, originally a side character in the first Dakota Frost about whom I have now drafted three novels, and it is turning out to be true here with Puck as well, the Girl Who Could Wish, now turning into a truly interesting twist.

Oh, an excerpt. Let me see if I have some rough draftiness lying around here ...

“It’s an ecosystem,” Puck murmured. “There’s a whole ecosystem in the floatbergs—”
One of the jellyfloats wandered under one of the falls, and screamed, terrifyingly human-like, as it steamed and melted—and then Puck realized what the liquid was: sulfuric acid. This was an upper-atmosphere floatberg, its engineered bacteria designed to harvest sulfuric acid from the air—and as the floatberg disintegrated, the collected sulfuric acid which had not been processed was now spilling out in uncontrolled streams, destroying whatever had inhabited this cavern.
“I’m sorry,” Puck said to her little audience. “I … I think it’s too late.”
One of the bigger parakeys, with a crest, hopped up on her knee.
“Is that a vest?” she said, touching a bit of what looked like cloth. “You … you can’t be intelligent creatures, now can you? How could you start a whole civilization up here? Floatbergs only go back a few hundred years, and they don’t last for more than months, maybe weeks—”
The parakey chieftain, if that’s what it was, cheeped at her.
Puck drew a breath.
“I wish this cave could be saved,” she said carefully. The crowd of parakeys cheeped and beeped, and the chieftain pawed at her and cheeped even louder, like a little screech, and she relented. “Alright, a proper, non-conditional wish this time. I wish this cave would be—”
The bottom dropped out from beneath them.

Poor Puck! She can't seem to cut a break. But at least I know who and what she is now, and how she's related to Jeremiah, and can therefore move forward with this story with confidence.

Prevail, Victoriana!

-the Centaur

Hannibal Lecter Judges Me When I Cook (A Milford Essay)

Published March 2, 2021 by centaur

So, I have a new essay up at the Milford SF Writer's blog: "Hannibal Lecter Judges Me When I Cook"! This essay explores the writing techniques Thomas Harris uses to make Lecter a convincing character:

So, let’s set the stage: I’m a writer, learning to be vegan … and a fan of Thomas Harris’s Hannibal series about an erudite cannibal. Hannibal itself is one of my favorite books: while the world Harris creates is dark and depressing, that world feels compellingly real to me — which leaves me in the unenviable position of having a mental model of Dr. Hannibal Lecter, as played by Sir Anthony Hopkins, leaning over my shoulder and judging me while I’m cooking. Now, don’t get me wrong – he’s not judging me for my plant-based cooking (I’m not a vegan, but I am married to one, and I’m trying). He’s judging me based on my poor technique, my unrefined tastes, and my willingness to prepare quick meals when I’ve got work to do. But as a writer, I’m fascinated with how Harris created a world so realistic that I’ve built up a mental model of a nonexistent person.

For the rest, please check it out at the Milford blog. Milford is a great writing conference and I recommend it to everyone: I describe more of Milford and my experiences here:

Are you interested in the Milford SF Writer’s Conference? A year ago, I definitely was! I was in the middle of the Taos Toolbox Writer’s Workshop and couldn’t get enough of its “Milford-Style Critique” – a collaborative process in which a dozen or so writers critique each other’s stories in a circle of peers. For each story, every attendee offers 2-3 minutes of commentary (timed) to which the writer listens (quietly), at which point they may respond, followed by open discussion.

Please go check them out! And be nice to people, or one of them might eat you. -the Centaur

GROW, Every Day

Published September 14, 2019 by centaur

GROW, Every Day

So I read a lot and write a lot and occasionally edit what I write and even more rarely, something gets sent to an editor and turned into a publication. But this seems slow, for always there are more thoughts that I have in my head than I seem to have time to put onto a page and share. Also I seem to get stuck in ruts. Actually I like ruts - I’m in one now, eating near my house and bank and pet food store at a restaurant with really good iced tea - but only ruts that are good for getting things done, like ruts in a well-trodden road. When ruts leave you spinning your wheels in the mud, it’s time for a change. This can be as simple as engaging the locking hubs on your stuck all-wheel drive truck to get out of the mud, but you have to know that those locks are there to engage them. (True story). So in order to grow, you need to learn. But if you learn, and you don’t tell anyone, then when you die, what you learn is gone. Fortunately, at the dawn of history humans learned how to speak to the dead, if only the dead are first willing to share, through their stories. I don’t recommend waiting until you’re dead to tell your story. (Most people find that disturbing). Instead, it’s better to organize your thoughts - to reflect on what happened, what you’ve learned, and to package it the lesson with its context so it’s easy to share, like knowledge in a little case. But I don’t do that all that well. I read for entertainment, and I occasionally write things down, but I rarely reflect, and I even more rarely share. But in my attempt to grow, I’ve read some things that made me think, and it made me want to find a way to make me share. I like to LEARN, of course, usually some technical material related to writing or my job, and I’m now consciously reading books to GROW, like Art Matters by Neil Gaiman or It’s Not How Good You Are but How Good You Want To Be by Paul Arden. But I don’t take time to ORGANIZE those thoughts, nor do I seem to take time to SHARE them. That made me think. I already take time to LEARN and GROW. I’ve already decided I need to take more time to ORGANIZE my thoughts, to be a better scientist. Can I also take some time to SHARE? Maybe I can put all those together into, like, an acronym! And that acronym will help me do it! Okay, then, let’s go: LEARN-GROW-ORGANIZE-SHARE. LGOS! Well. That’s a terrible acronym. Alright, alright, if first you don’t succeed, go home and rethink your life. Or something like that, like rethink your acronym. LEARN and GROW need to come before ORGANIZE and SHARE, but G is a better thing to start a word with, as GL or GR is a more common start than LG. And I’m doing it to GROW. So perhaps it could be GROW LEARN, or GROW READ, naturally followed by ORGANIZE. That gets us GRO, which followed by S for SHARE is one letter short of GROSS; but what if instead we got to the point, and said what we have to do: WRITE. So, here’s what I recommend to you (well, actually, to me): take some time every day to

GROW yourself by
READing to learn,
ORGANIZing your thoughts, and share them by
WRITING

GROW-READ-ORGANIZE-WRITE: GROW. Why, that’s nicely recursive: GROW to GROW! Since it is recursive, let me try this GROW thing out with this very GROW thought. There. How did it go? -Anthony

How to be a Better Writer

Published July 5, 2019 by centaur

How to be a Better Writer

A notebook in a bookstore coffeehouse, with coffe.

About four years ago, one of my colleagues at work found out I was a writer and asked, "So, tell me Anthony, how can I be a better writer?" I don't claim any special wisdom in this department, but I do claim two things: first, that I have opinions about the matter, and second, that I wrote a long email to my friend about it, an email which I thought I'd posted on my blog. Unfortunately, after an extensive search, I wasn't able to find the post. Now, I could attempt to clean this email up prior to posting it here, but I'm afraid that if I do that, I'll just end up going several years without posting it. SO! Here's that email, largely unedited, on "How to be a better writer!" Sorry it took so long to respond to your question about how to be a better writer - I thought I wrote an article on this on my blog, or perhaps in an email to a friend, but if so, I couldn't find it. Then I tried to write a long response, but that turned into something book length. So let me give you the short version.

First, just write! That's the best thing anyone can do to become a better writer. Ten thousand hours of practice can build mastery in almost any skill, so the first thing you can do to help yourself is to write regularly - preferably, about whatever comes to mind, so you're not trying to practice when you're on the spot.
Try morning pages. The best tool I know to help people get into the habit of writing is to write morning pages - writing, each day, ideally when you get up, three pages in a notebook. Write bla bla bla if you have to - you'll get bored of it quickly, and will write what comes to mind.
Take a creativity course. The book The Artist's Way is one of the most famous of these, and it's what inspires me to suggest morning pages. Actually, I've never finished this course - I always get so energized just trying it that I get sucked off into my own projects. Try one that works for you.
Read more than you write. You can't consciously choose the words that come out as you write them; they come from your subconscious. So it's important to feed your subconscious with a lot of interesting material to help you generate a lot of interesting material of your own.
Read great writing of the type you want to create. What you enjoy reading most might not be the writing you want to emulate most, so hunt down the great writers of the type of writing you're aiming for, read them, and try to figure out what you like about them - and what makes them tick.
Read great books on writing. The first two I always recommend to people are Ayn Rand's (yes, that Ayn Rand) The Art of Fiction and The Art of Nonfiction. More than any book I've ever read, the Art of Fiction boils down what makes good fiction writing. John Gardner's On Being a Novelist is another great, but there are so many of these it's hard to pick one.
Read great books on style. The two I recommend to people the most are The Elements of Style by Strunk and White and Building Great Sentences by Brooks Landon. Strunk and White is the classic, and Building Great Sentences is its antidote. If you have to pick one, pick Building Great Sentences - hands down.
Do writing exercises. There are many, many of these - The Artist's Way has some, at Barnes and Noble you can find dozens of books like 500 Writing Prompts or Creativity Bootcamp that have others; the important thing is to try different writing styles on.
Try timed challenges. Write to the End (writetotheend.com) tries 20 minute writing challenges; Shut Up and Write ( meetup.com/shutupandwritesfo ) tries (I think) an hour; National Novel Writing Month (nanowrimo.org) tries 50,000 words in a month. These cure you of the notion you need to wait for your muse.
Join a writing group. Not a critique group - those are dangerous until you get more confidence in and acceptance of your own writing (and a thicker skin). I already mentioned Write to the End and Shut Up and Write, but there are many more (even some at Google, such as the Creative Writing Lunch).
Take on writing projects. Write novels, write stories, write essays, write memoirs, write documentation, write songs, write plays, write poetry, write haiku, write impenetrable postmodern explorations of what it means for something to be writing - but take on a writing project that has a beginning, middle, and end ...
Finish what you write! This is so important I wanted to write this earlier, but the problem is, it depends on what you're writing for. If you just want to improve your skill, reading Strunk and White might do it - but if you want your writing to go further, you need to finish what you write.
Don't edit while you write! Some people do this very well, but most people have two modes: producing text, and refining text. Unless you're very confident in your ability to not rework the first paragraph of something forever, make sure you first finish, then edit. But before you do that ...
Let your manuscripts cool off. It's hard to have perspective right after you've finished something. At least sleep on it, if you have time; ideally, come back to a story after a week or two and see if what you wrote before still makes sense to you and does what you wanted it to. In the meantime ...
Work on something else. Start something new. Creating a new work has an almost magical way of solving problems you have in the work you have cooling on the back burner. Your skills improve, you're not invested in your old ideas, and you come back with a fresh start.
Revise your work! Give your manuscript at least a once over. I guarantee, it's not perfect. The books Self Editing for Fiction Writers or The Elements of Editing can help you with this task. It's worth working on something a bit until you can't see anything obviously wrong to it.
Share your work with a friendly audience. You're not ready for a critique group yet; they're often way too harsh. What you want are three friendly reviewers: a coach to help with your skills, a critic to help find flaws, and a cheerleader to praise goodness - and if the cheerleader complains, listen very closely to them.
Revise your work again before sending it out. Listen to your friendly critics. Revise your work. Make it the best it can be. Then you're ready to send it out - to a critique group if you have to and if you have one, but ideally, to where you want the work received or published.
Keep your work circulating until sold. This may not apply to bloggers, writers of memoirs, and internal communications, but if you've got something you want to send to an external audience, send it to as many places as you can. Some great books went to dozens of publishers before getting accepted.
Don't argue with your critics. Whether it's a friend, a critique group, or an editor, they're not critiquing you to hurt your feelings. Listen carefully, and perhaps if there's some small misconception, feel free to clear it up, but ask yourself - why wasn't your story so clear that they got it the first time?
Solve the problems your critics raise, but don't feel compelled to use their solutions. Humans are great at confabulating fake reasons for the feelings they have. Don't feel the need to use every suggestion your critics raise - but if two or more have problems at the same spot, listen closely.
Learn from your genre. Whether it's writing a thesis, writing documentation, or writing science fiction stories, there are documents out there on the pitfalls of the genre and the techniques from success, from How to Complete and Survive a Doctoral Dissertation to the Evil Overlord List.
Learn from the style guide. If you're aimed at a particular market, whether it's a science fiction magazine accepting William Shunn's document format, or a book publisher who wants the Chicago Manual of Style, or it's the American Psychological Association, read the style book. With a grain of salt, of course.
Learn from publication. Once something is published, take a look at the published work. I can guarantee you, you'll find something about it you'd do differently now, whether it's a typo or a new way to phrase things. Think carefully about this difference and what it can teach you.
Find a great critique group. By this point, you've been exposed to enough information to have your own opinions and to make up your own mind - and that's the right time to engage a whole bunch of other opinionated, thoughtful people to get their ideas of how to improve your work.
Find a great workshop. These are harder to get into, but put you in touch with great writers of your particular genre or style and can really take you to the next level, if that's what you want.
Find a great program - or embark on a great project. If you really want to be a writer, some people suggest a MFA program or other longer-term, intensive course. I simply prefer to take on little projects like 21 book urban fantasy series; these force you to learn some of the same things. :-D

Well, that's about it for the short version. As I said ... the long version's probably a book. :-) I hope this helps! Please feel free to ask me more questions!

And there you have it. I hope that's not a repeat!

-the Centaur

Back to Dragon Con!

Published August 31, 2018 by centaur

Hail, fellow adventurers! If you want to experience our world the way Jeremiah Willstone and her friends first experienced it, there’s no better way than to come to Dragon Con in Atlanta! I’ve been going to Dragon Con longer than almost any con - certainly longer than any still-running con - and after enough time here they put me on panels! And here they are:

Practical Time Travel for the Storyteller
Sat 05:30 pm / Athens - Sheraton
Panelists: Darin M. Bush, Michael J. Martinez, S.M. Stirling, Anthony Francis, Jack Campbell
This panel discusses the real science behind time travel, as well as how these scientific theories can place both challenging and rewarding demands on the stories we tell. Time dilation, the grandfather paradox, and more will be explained as we discuss the stories that reference these theories.
Partners: Collaborating on Your Novel
Sun 11:30 am / Embassy CD - Hyatt
Panelists: Nancy Knight, Janny Wurts, Anthony Francis, Clay and Susan Griffith, Gordon Andrews, Ilona Andrews
When writers collaborate, the results can be great--or horrible. How do you insure that your collaboration turns out well?
Plotting or Plodding?
Sun 02:30 pm / Embassy CD - Hyatt
Panelists: Janny Wurts, Anthony Francis, Lee Martindale, Richard Kadrey, Laura Anne Gilman, Melissa F Olson
It's the story, stupid! Everybody loves a great story. This panel discusses how to create that unforgettable story roiling within you.
Magic Practitioners in Urban Fantasy: Witches and Warlocks
Mon 10:00 am / Chastain 1-2 - Westin
Panelists: Jeanne P Adams, David B. Coe, Linda Robertson, Kevin O. McLaughlin, Anthony Francis, Melissa F Olson
Witches and warlocks in the genre range from being an accepted part of their communities to the most feared. Our panel of authors will discuss the characteristics of those in their works.
Write a Damn Good Book
Mon 11:30 am / Embassy CD - Hyatt
Panelists: Bill Fawcett, Peter David, E.K. Johnston, Diana Peterfreund, Anthony Francis
Writers worry about all sorts of things, but the first thing to worry about is writing a great book. Here's how.

Other fun things at the con are the Parade, the Masquerade, performances by the Atlanta Radio Theater Company, and, of course, The Cruxshadows. So come on down and hang out with 80,000 fans of fantasy and science fiction! Some of them may become your new best friends.

-The Centaur

Guest Post on Speculative Chic!

Published December 18, 2017 by centaur

What makes you hang on the edge of your seat? I call that a favorite, and I talk about some of my current faves over at the Speculative Chic blog! [embed]http://speculativechic.com/2017/12/18/my-favorite-things-with-anthony-francis/[/embed] Go check it out!

How to Get Published, in Ninety Words

Published November 24, 2017 by centaur

Hoisted from Facebook:

Q. How should I start looking into getting published? A. The most important thing is writing. The next most important thing is finishing. The next next most important thing is researching markets and sending things out. If you are doing all that, there are two other great force multipliers: not waiting to start your next piece while the previous ones are out, and networking - going where other authors are: cons, writing conferences, writing workshops. If you are doing all that, get yourself an agent - it is the next big multiplier.

And that's it, in 95 words! Paraphrasing Robert Heinlein, to get published, you've got to write, you've got to finish what you write, you've got to send out what you write until it gets sold. But if you really want to get published, you can't wait on that first piece to succeed; you need to go ahead and start the next one. And you can't rely on your own ability to find opportunities and markets; you've got to find other writers and editors to help you find the right home for your work. And if you're doing all that, you're on the path to having interesting enough work to attract an agent, so you might as well start looking. -the Centaur

The Way to Succeed at Nano is to Put Nano First

Published November 24, 2017 by centaur

Hey gang, now that I've succeeded at National Novel Writing Month nineteen times, I thought I'd take a little time out to tell you that my secret to National Novel Writing Month success is to put Nano first.

Now, that seems obvious - almost, like, too obvious to be advice - but I want to put it into perspective by first asking you a few questions.

Do you care about finishing what you write? If you don't, don't worry about the above advice. Write what you want, how you want it, when you want it. Again, this seems obvious, but I want to make sure you understand whether this advice applies to you. I started to write "Do you care about writing success?" but then I realized everyone has their own definition of writing success, whether they realize it or not. A beloved friend, Jan, just died, and I will never again hear her read her stories at our local writing group - and you're never likely to read them, as she was more into having fun writing than she ever was about getting her stories published. She was a success at writing without ever needing publication, or even necessarily to to finish everything she wrote. We'll miss you, Jan, but we'll never worry about whether you were having fun: that was obvious.
Do you care about completing Nanowrimo? Again, I almost wrote "Do you care about succeeding at Nano" as I did in the title of this essay, but every word is a victory in National Novel Writing Month. It doesn't really matter whether you wrote one word or a hundred thousand if Nano helped you write it. But, again, if you don't care whether you hit that magic 50K, then don't worry about the advice in this article.
Do you care more about finishing Nanowrimo than doing the comfortable things that you've always done? This is the most important part. Some people need to wait for their muse. Some need to plan ahead. Some need to do other things that seem so important to them. Maybe they are. But given my writing style, those things don't seem so important to me, and given my obsessive-compulsive personality, I'm not going to take on a challenge unless I intend to finish it. But maybe that's not you: you need your outline or your muse or your whatever in your life to make writing possible. That's OK! I know great writers like that. They don't generally take on Nanowrimo, that's all, as Nanowrimo doesn't work for them.

If you think it will work for you - if you want to finish what you write, and you want to take on the Nanowrimo challenge to write 50,000 words and you want to finish it, and you are willing to do things differently in order to make that success happen - then here's the secret: Put completing National Novel Writing Month first. Well, okay, yes, you gotta breathe, and you gotta eat, and don't get fired - however. There are a lot of things that creative people do, and if you want to succeed at National Novel Writing Month, you may need to change them. For example:

Turn off your Internet. Frequently when writing, I hit a speedbump, go look something up, and dig into Wikipedia or TV Tropes or (no joke) find myself reading the city planning documents of a harbor community in Newfoundland to carefully craft some details that will only appear in a paragraph or two of a whole novel. That's my process, and it's produced a number of well-received novels of which I'm proud. During National Novel Writing Month, however, I frequently turn off the Internet on my laptop until I've gotten my magic 1,666 words per day.
Put off your Blogging. I like to blog, but it seems I don't do a lot of it. The reason for this is that I've started doing Nano-like challenges three times per year - Camp Nano in April and July, plus Nano in November - and the rest of the time I focus on finishing manuscripts, editing them, or publishing other people's manuscripts. I have dozens upon dozens of notes for blogposts written on scraps, stored in Scrivener files, even half-finished in Ecto; but during Nano, I put Nano first.
Research after you Write. So many times this month, a pile like the below was on my table, awaiting my perusal, only to be put back into the bookbag or tote bag after I finish my writing. There's a problem in deep learning I'm trying to crack, and some mathematics I need to know to do it, and research for the Cinnamon Frost puzzle books; but I know from experience I can take my whole lunch break or even afternoon diving into mathematics or programming or research. During Nano, I put the writing first. That forces me to go out into space in the story, even if sometimes I need reference when I edit the text.

Take Time off to Write. I am always an antisocial loner, having to force myself to go to lunch with my coworkers (rarely) or to dinner with my friends (equally rarely) or my writing peeps (less rarely, since I can excuse it to my brain as writing related). This isn't because I don't like the people that I like, but because I want to finish my books before I die. (I have a lot of books planned). During Nano, I'm even more jealous of my schedule, taking lunch breaks to write, sometimes bailing on group writing sessions to be alone, and, the big one, taking off Thanksgiving week to write. This year, for Night of Writing Dangerously, I got a hotel room, holed up in San Francisco after the Night, and wrote like mad. I almost finished BOT NET during this writing jag, and ended up finishing six days early because I took this time.
Reject your Comforting Illusions. This last one is the most dangerous advice which may not work for you or even apply to you, and it can be the hardest, but it is this: put getting the 1,666 words a day ahead of your imagination that you need to wait for your muse, or plot your story, or be in the mood, or anything else. Write crap if you have to. It counts (1 word). Write bla bla bla if you have to. It counts (3 words). 1,662 words to go. Feel that this isn't working for you? Write "Nanowrimo isn't working for me!" (5 words) or, even better, "National Novel Writing Month is not working for me!" (9 words). Feel this is a cheat and a sham? Write that down! (I guarantee explaining your feelings will get you more than 9 words). Even better, write down what's wrong with your story and why you can't write any further and what you wish you were writing. That explanation in text will count as words ... and, more importantly, will probably start turning into text. Put another way, feel free to work out your frustrations and even to outline in your manuscript. It will become true words on the next pass ... and will put you ever closer to the end of your story. Once you have a path from beginning to end, believe me, you can revise it into a story that you will truly love.

So, that's it: if you want to succeed at Nano, put Nano first. Turn off your Internet, tune back your blogging, put off your research, and take time off to write. Most importantly, throw off your comforting illusions, feel free to outline or even to vent in your manuscript, knowing that each word you write isn't just getting you closer to success at Nanowrimo, it's getting you closer to having a beginning-to-end path through your story ... which you can then revise into a finished product. And that's how I succeed at Nano. Try it. It could work for you too. -the Centaur

My Daily Dragon Interview in Two Words: “Just Write!”

Published September 6, 2017 by centaur

My Daily Dragon Interview in Two Words: “Just Write!”

So at Dragon Con I had a reading this year. Yeah, looks like this is the last year I get to bring all my books - too many, to heavy! I read the two flash fiction pieces in Jagged Fragments, "If Looks Could Kill" and "The Secret of the T-Rex's Arms", as well as reading the first chapter of Jeremiah Willstone and the Clockwork Time Machine, a bit of my and Jim Davies' essay on the psychology of Star Trek's artificial intelligences, and even a bit of my very first published story, "Sibling Rivalry". I also gave the presentation I was supposed to give at the SAM Talks before I realized I was double booked; that was "Risk Getting Worse".

But that wasn't recorded, so, oh dang, you'll have to either go to my Amazon page to get my books, or wait until we get "Risk Getting Worse" recorded. But my interview with Nancy Northcott for the Daily Dragon, "Robots, Computers, and Magic", however, IS online, so I can share it with you all. Even more so, I want to share what I think is the most important part of my interview:

DD: Do you have any one bit of advice for aspiring writers? AF: Write. Just write. Don’t worry about perfection, or getting published, or even about pleasing anyone else: just write. Write to the end of what you start, and only then worry about what to do with it. In fact, don’t even worry about finishing everything—don’t be afraid to try anything. Artists know they need to fill a sketchbook before sitting down to create a masterwork, but writers sometimes get trapped trying to polish their first inspiration into a final product. Don’t get trapped on the first hill! Whip out your notebook and write. Write morning pages. Write diary at the end of the day. Write a thousand starts to stories, and if one takes flight, run with it with all the abandon you have in you. Accept all writing, especially your own. Just write. Write.

That's it. To read more, check out the interview here, or see all my Daily Dragon mentions at Dragon Con here, or check out my interviewer Nancy Northcott's site here. Onward! -the Centaur

Applied Plotonium at Clockwork Alchemy

Published May 24, 2017 by centaur

Boosting the signal ... I'll be joining my friend David Colby's panel APPLIED PLOTONIUM at 10am on Sunday at Clockwork Alchemy:

Applied Plotonium Monterey - Sunday 10:00 AM
Applied Plotonium is a discussion and series of examples of worlds that are, in general, 100% scientifically accurate save for a SINGLE element of applied plotonium - a single element or feature that is downright fantastical. Eagerly explores extrapolation ending in exposition!

Presenter: David Colby
Moderator: Roger Que Panelists: Anthony Francis, Michael Tierney

David Colby is the author of the hard science fiction young adult novel DEBRIS DREAMS (think "The Hunger Games meets Gravity") and proposed the panel to explore his love of making the science in science fiction not suck.

In addition to David and me, we've also shanghaied, er, convinced two of our mutual friends to join in: writer and chemist Michael Tierney from the Treehouse Writers will join as a panelist, and the writer and computer scientist Roger Que from Write to the End will serve as our moderator. Drop in - you'll enjoy yourself! -the Centaur