My Kind of Romance

Fairytale, by Celestria

I recently read a book; Firebird, by Kathy Tyers. Yup, you know, the one I keep ranting about. It was a science fiction romance. The reason I can't get it out of my head is because I recently classified by own novel as a science fiction mystery romance. So I'm here to explain the difference between a romance and a Romance.

A Romance is character driven. You can have character driven fiction without having Romance, but you cannot have Romance without it being character driven. It works like this.

In the beginning there was the Romance.
Then there were the characters, who affected the Romance. 
Then there was the plot, which affected the characters, which affected the Romance. 
Then there was the technology which affected the plot, which affected the characters, which affected the Romance. 


The Justice Project is character driven, but it's also a mystery. So it looks more like this.

In the beginning there was the mystery.
Then there was the technology, which affected the mystery.
Then there were the characters, which affected the technology, which affected the mystery.
Then there was the romance, which affected the characters, which affected the technology, which affected the mystery.

Romance is a loving relationship between a man and a woman as it occurs in the plot. It's usually a plot device, used to toss the characters into conflict and confusion. Romance can serve any purpose, from splitting friends apart to reuniting estranged families. It's an extremely useful tool.

Romance, on the other hand, is the plot.  Symptoms that your book is a Romance may include long internal monologues on the part of the involved characters, usually related to how they feel. Angst is bound to be present in some form. Even if the world is at stake all your characters can think about is each other. Even if they hate each other all the characters can think about is each other. Even if there's a billion more interesting things going on elsewhere all they can think about is each other. Even if the reader is bored to tears... all they can read about is internal monologuing about each other.

I do not write Romance. I use some form of romance in almost every book I've written. I never sit down to voluntarily read a Romance, but somehow I keep tripping across them. It doesn't help that my mom and my sisters really enjoy them. However, I have nothing against romance, either in real life or as a plot device! I have described myself as a fairytale writer, and I'll stick to that assertion until the day I die. And we all know that fairytales are just love stories.

My faithful heart is my only charm,
But my good broadsword is keen.
And love for the princess nerves my arm
With the strength of ten, I ween.
Come weal, come woe, no knight can fall
Who goes at love's bequest...
~ from The Rescue of Princess Winsome

My Kind of Science Fiction

Or "Why I watch TV shows."

I watch a lot of TV shows on Netflix. I argue that reading is better than movies, that Television is the biggest time waster ever, and that I have better things to do besides play computer games, and yet I go through a new show about every month. Today I am here to defend this practice to the world.

I don't just watch TV shows, I watch scifi TV shows. Star Trek, Stargate, Firefly, Dollhouse, Doctor Who, and Sherlock, to name just a few. My favorite movies are scifi: I, Robot, Tron, Tron: Legacy, Antitrust, etc. I have never seen the Lord of the Rings movies. My fantasy TV picks are limited to Robin Hood and Once Upon A Time. I enjoy very few fantasy films.

I am a writer of both fantasy and science fiction. So how come I prefer to partake of fantasy in written form, but science fiction visually? The first question needs to wait for a future post, the second question is coming up now.

 The grand masters of fantasy are Tolkien and Lewis, but also Rowling and Paolini, and dozens of demi-master, and writers of smaller fame but equal quality. The acknowledged grand masters of science fiction are Isaac Asimov and Robert A. Heinlein. I, Robot and 2001: A Space Odyssey are possibly the most well known works of science fiction, with the possible exception of the works of Jules Verne. These writers are fifty years out of date. No one has risen to challenge them. No author has achieved their status, or equaled their work. How hard can it be to trump science fiction so old that we laugh at their future predictions? And yet, when you think of science fiction, what comes to mind? Star Wars. Star Trek. Stargate.

Oh, there's Ender's Game, perhaps, or the works of Jerri Prunelli, but they're still small players compared to the grand scale of the fantasy genre. Face it, in written fiction the science fiction genre nearly doesn't exist. When you do read a science fiction novel you can't expect a fun adventure story of life on a space ship. Science fiction writers wrestle with deep questions like atheism, and life after death. Many science fiction is more fantastical then the highest of high fantasy. Many of them read like a doctorate thesis disguised in a plot.

If an aspiring SF writer wants to learn about things like warp drive, hyperspace, spacial distortions, and other fictional science, where is she to go? To novels like "Revelation Space" where the plot centers around the idea that stars are sentient? To "A Pebble in the Sky" that simply tries to prove that environmentalists are right about radiation from the sun? What if you don't care about the politics of today in relation to what you're writing? What if you want character driven stories with SF elements?

Television doesn't have an agenda. Television can only be profound for a few moments, because then the episode is over and the characters go on. Television has the chance to put a lot of truth into just a few minutes, because they're on a time schedule. Sometimes they skip the meaningful content altogether and just get back to shooting aliens.

From "Firefly" I learned how realistic science fiction can be.
From "Dollhouse" I learned how quickly technology can change.
From "Star Trek" I learned how alien characters can affect the plot.
From "Stargate" I learned a whole lot about physics, and the lack thereof.
From "Star Wars" I learned that a fantasy plot can become scifi with just a few twists.
From "Antitrust" I learned that science fiction doesn't have to be futuristic.
From "Tron" I learned how extraordinary ordinary modern technology can be.
From "Doctor Who" I learned that there's an explanation for everything.

From the written world of science fiction I learned that for a good writer, the sky is the limit. 

My Kind of Horror

Horror is a genre often discussed among my Christian writer friends. They say: can horror be Christian? Is it edifying? Should we read it? What makes it horror rather than thriller? I do not participate in such topics. I stand on the other side of the room with a look in my eyes that says: "Stay away from me, you freaks."

I, obviously, don't like horror. As an example of this, the following conversation occurred recently:

Friend: Do you not like scary stuff?
Me: No. Hate it.

What I realized, upon reflection, is that this is a complete untruth. I love scary stuff. How many times have I been told "the ending was horrible!" or "don't you ever write anything happy?"

What is more "scary"? A creepy monster crawling out of a graveyard or the prospect of a loved one dying? Which is more horrifying; a ghost appearing in your bedroom or a paper you're forced to sign, agreeing to allow experiments to be conducted on your mind?

I write horror, of the most chilling kind. You won't find the unbelievable hair raising elements commonly associated with the genre, but what you will find won't be so easily forgotten. What you'll find is not the dark ravings of a lunatic but the cold calculations of a perfectly sane mind.

“You hate me,” she said finally. “Because of what I am. What I could do.”
“No,” he said swiftly. “Never. Don’t say that. It’s not your fault.”
“I’m not human,” she protested. “I’m just a… a thing.”
Dorus swore. “You’re far more than a thing,” he said brokenly. “What they did to you was an atrocity, an outrage, but it doesn’t change who you really are.”

That is my kind of horror; the brutal reality of what is, or could be. The perversion and wrong-doing that can be imagined by the human race. Ethical and moral dilemmas of the sort you hope never to have to face. Which would you rather face; a mad man wielding a blood stained sword or the betrayal of the person you trusted most in the world?

If we must die, let it be at the hands of strangers, for a friend can make us suffer so much more!

And what can be more truly horrifying than the prospect of Eternity... alone?