Happy New Year! ... and other things

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Back to work - Hannah's Handout newsletter

Phew! November was harsh. I never thought I would actually finish the National Novel Writing Month as a winner, but there you have it, I surprised myself. It's good to know that I could write a rough draft in a month if I put my mind to it. I admit, my November project lacks everything, from consistency to style, but things like that are fixable. Writing nothing isn't.
I already mentioned the things I learned in my last blog post, but now I'm at the point where I'm actually putting them to good use. Unwilling is at the resolution stage, where Jared and Darwin make up, talk it out and clash with George who fights his own guilt over what happened with Carl. Those dudes have problems! Luckily, I have a vague idea how to fix it and get them back home soon.

I've also gotten to know new people who also fight the good fight. I dabbled in ARC reviewing and stumbled upon a handful of really great stories that I shamelessly gushed over on Goodreads and Amazon and I re-read some of my all-time-favorites. I feel ready.

Ready for my own mailing list. *shudder*

I decided on starting a newsletter while drooling over the book cover for "Unwilling". Yes, you heard right, I got the cover today! Now I'm thinking about the best way to do a cover reveal, because honestly, I'm not the most graceful online personality in the world :D Noticed that, didn't you?
I do want to connect with my fans, but it's not easy. There are too many platforms, too much social media opportunities, and if I go by my own experience, at some point it doesn't matter how great an author is. The sheer noise of too many feeds gets overwhelming and you just want it to stop. I'm not a big fan of e-mails, mostly because I'm being spammed by Goodreads and Twitter, but I'd still prefer a newsletter to having to check multiple sites for new content. After all, I can't bookmark all of them and still know who is who and what is what. Nobody can. And I don't want my fans to become social media managers just so they won't miss my ramblings. A newsletter seems like a good way out of that. One e-mail if something new comes up, at most once a month, you click, you read, you're done. Sounds like a deal to me, so I did it. And here it is:

Hannah's Handout on Tiny Letter!

 

NaNoWriMo: Crawling the last meters

I'm so close to done, I can already see the finish line! My usual loss of motivation started late this year, which is simply astonishing and great and much easier to overcome. I don't quite know how I did it and kept going where I normally crumble like a soufflé, but I've learned so much just by taking part in this NaNo.
I learned that a simple summary of the plot is not enough to help me through all the chapters. For this project, I did three rounds of outlining: A summary, a short description for every chapter, and a bullet-point outline for every single scene. Works like magic! I haven't lost my way once and whenever I got stuck, I could pull up the next scene and keep working there because everything was already laid out and planned.
I also learned how to stick with it on a bad day and be calm about the days I missed. My usual daily wordcount for the days that I write is 2.5k to 3k, which is not that bad I guess, and that made it easy to stay calm on those days where I simply couldn't find the time to write.
The last thing I learned is something that in equal parts worries and fascinates me. When I write, I write slowly and carefully, work each scene and sentence over until it's just right, until I'm happy with it. I learned this through chapter-by-chapter-publishing on Literotica and GayAuthors, where it doesn't really matter how much of the remainder of my story is done as long as the latest installment looks good. This NaNo helped me identify that this is the main reason why it takes years to finish my stories, but I'm really unsure if I should change that or not. It's easy to throw all caution to the wind when working on a story that I myself haven't known for long, like my NaNo-project. Doesn't matter if a chapter sucks, I'm just doing it for the word count and the sake of it. I don't know if and when I'll go over it and fix it up, so no troubles there. But if I apply the same 'just get it out'-mentality to my other works, the ones that I've cared for for years, will they still end up as good as before?

We will see. As soon as this NaNo is done, I'm off to finish those last few scenes for"Unwilling" with this new 'devil may care' attitude. And then edit it, because years of learning have passed since I wrote those first six chapters.

Six more days to go! I can smell my winner's plaque!

Love,
Hannah

Boy Meets Boy Reviews: Shapeshifter

 Wheee!

Shapeshifter got a review from Boy Meets Boy Reviews! I faced my own fears and did it-- my first foray into the world of reviews had me in knots for weeks after I gave it a try. There's nothing more horrible than waiting for something you aren't quite sure will end well, but all in all, I'm glad I jumped over my shadow and tried my luck. Here's the review they wrote for my first published novel, "Shapeshifter":

Boy Meets Boy Reviews: Guest Review: Shapeshifter by Hannah L. Corrie

With NaNoWriMo still riding me hard, it'll take some time until I'll have another book to throw out into the world, but reading this gave me a boost of confidence I dearly needed. I can do this!... I think. :)

Love,
Hannah

NaNo Tidbit

Update: It's going great. So far, I've managed to stop myself from circling back and working scenes over and over instead of writing the rest of it. Qualitywise, it could be better, but that's what NaNo is about, right? Get the story out and then go back and edit, not the other way around. So all is good, for now. Here's a scene I wrote yesterday!

*Scene*
It was the strangest sight to watch creatures so at home with wings, tails and claws acting so much like humans. They all were graceful as they shouted out welcomes and professions of happiness, clapped shoulders and grabbed wrists in greeting like old friends. Which they probably were. Craig joined Eric in his suspicious eying of the goings on, but he left it to the soldier to take care of Jenny. She still hadn’t made a peep, no sign of life besides her shivering form and her breathing. At least she hadn’t dropped dead, which felt like something Craig had barely escaped. The getaway and the flight here had been brutal, especially since his body may have grown thinner and more muscled, but the same didn’t seem to be true for his stamina. Everything hurt and not in that gym-kind of way, but deep down and with waves of muscle exhaustion that made it hard to raise his arms or fold his wings. He wasn’t sure if he’d be able to get back up if he sat down, so he stayed standing.
The group of winged creatures slowly dispersed with but a few staying behind and talking animatedly to Ealdræd and most of them trotting back towards the ruins. More worrisome were the three or four looking at them with the stillness of predators. They almost seemed to be scenting the air, with that stretched out moment of utter silence before the pounce. Craig tried not to shrink back from them, hoping it would keep them from seeing him as pray. Turning a little to the side, he offered them his shoulder and fixed his eyes on Eric, just like he would have done with a dog defending its territory. They exchanged worried glances and Craig took a breath to share his concerns with him, when Eric’s attention turned away and his eyes widened.
They were coming. Maybe not to attack, but Craig had a feeling that the situation still could end badly for them. He turned a little belated, still trying his best not to provoke those creatures, but it didn’t make much of a difference. Three of them, two female and one male, stalked towards them with unreadable faces. They were different shades of rocky gray, with the male almost as pale as common mortar. His eyes were piercing white and twisted horns decorated his head. The females both were darker, with one tinged slightly greenish and the other a solid concrete gray. Their small breasts were ensconced in what looked like flaps of beaten, old leather, but they wore the same loincloth like the males.
Craig only noticed that he was staring when the concrete-colored lady monster stopped inches before him, her wings spread wide as she crowded him towards the ledge behind him. Her grin offered an unsettling view of her cat-like fangs, but any thought of being viewed as food dissipated when she promptly grabbed his waistband and nudged her clawed finger tips against his cock as she pulled him flush against her body. “Hey! Hands off,” Craig hissed and shoved against her shoulders, but he only succeeded in forcing her back and her pulling him with her.
“You are a fledgling, I can smell it on your skin,” she said, her voice a rough, harsh purr full of lascivious interest and something darker. “If you fight me, I will break you and still get what I want. And I enjoy a bit of struggle, so do go ahead. Make me let go.” The challenge was there, thinly veiled and not at the least dampened by her carnivorous grin. Craig so didn’t want to find out if ‘breaking him’ was a metaphor or not. At the same time, he could hardly just let her grope him and not do anything about it at all, so he settled for pushing both arms against her shoulders and holding her at arm’s length as his thoughts raced. What was he supposed to do now?
He needn’t have worried. One moment, the winged lady was trying her best to shove her hand deeper into his pants and almost ripping off his button in the process, and in the next moment, she was gone, sailing through the air with what amounted to an expression of utter surprise and pain, with Ealdræd already swiveling around to stalk after her. His face was a mask of animalistic rage, twisted and distorted and accompanied by his raised, spread wings and his whipping tail. “Mine!” he roared, falling into a sprint as the female hit the ground, tumbled a few feet and jumped back up like a puppet on strings.
They met like sumo wrestlers, all shearing claws, bared teeth and roping muscles as they grappled for the upper hand. Their roars and screams filled the plateau and echoed through the ruins, drawing spectators who popped out of the darkness-filled nooks and crannies like nocturnal mushrooms. Nobody made a move to intervene though. Just as the female managed to shove Ealdræd off-balance, he twisted and rammed his wing-joint into her face, sending her stumbling back with a pained scream and spurting blood from her nose. Craig held his breath, tensing as he waited for the retribution that would have followed in a brawl between humans. It never came. The female hunched down, pressed a hand on her broken nose and groaned, then raised her blood-smeared hand as if to show it to the spectators and turned to walk away without another word. Ealdræd stared after her until she disappeared between the ruins.
“First blood,” Eric whispered with a slightly astonished inflection, then snarled aggressively. Craig turned to find Eric crouching between the other two and his sister, his own teeth bared at the male’s outstretched hand. “Don’t touch her,” Eric warned and the unknown male froze. “Don’t underestimate me, I might be new at this, but I know how to kick your ass!”
This could get ugly, fast. Craig made to step closer to them, to help Eric against the strangers, but he didn’t get far. An arm twisted around his neck, pulled him back and made him stumble. Ealdræd. Craig bucked against his grip, pulled at his arm still holding him around the neck and tried to shake him off. “Wait, I have to help them!”
“No you don’t. That’s not your fight and you have somewhere to be,” Ealdræd said snidely, anger still flickering through his sharp-edged voice. He took Craig into a half-nelson and strode off towards the ruins, taking no notice of how Craig fumbled and stumbled.
Craig snapped. He turned in Ealdræd’s grip and elbowed him into his stomach, hopping away with flapping arms and wings as he popped free of the arm and found himself off balance unexpectedly. The elation didn’t last for long, though. Ealdræd hissed, gasped for air and coughed once, then he straightened and stalked towards Craig, his expression a landscape of thunder. Craig stumbled back from the clear anger in that face and raised his hands to fend off whatever Ealdræd had in mind. “Can we talk about this, please? I just want to—”
He didn’t get any further than that. Them moment Ealdræd was close enough, his fists met Craig’s sternum, stomach and cheek in such a quick succession that Craig didn’t have time to react until his breath was gone and pain filled his body, hunching him over as he gasped and coughed and went down on one knee. “No. You will obey,” Ealdræd snarled, looming over him unkindly. He leaned down, grabbed Craig’s arms and twisted, turning him around and sending him to the ground chest-first, then grabbed both his wrists, using them to pin Craig’s wings to his back and picked him up like so much luggage.
Craig swore and cursed the whole way, gasping through the last remnants of that first, breathtaking punch and not paying much attention to their surroundings. He tried to wrest his arms free, but all he got for his troubles were a set of clawmarks on his chest and a slap to the side of the head that sent his vision spinning and forced him to quiet down. Not that that helped; as soon as he stopped struggling, he was very much aware of what his body thought of being this close to Ealdræd. He was enveloped in his scent, felt the man’s muscles move beneath his dark skin, felt his arms around his body. His cock woke to half-mast, throbbing delightedly against the canvas of his pants, sending soft, hot twinges through his belly, and his heart fluttered excitedly. Or maybe anxiously? It had been years since he had been close to another person, never mind naked or in prolonged physical contact. In fact, Craig couldn’t remember when he’d last had sex with anyone but himself, which was quite a thing. After all, Ealdræd was bodily carrying him off to god knew where, to do god knew what to him. What if he actually wanted to sleep with him? The thought alone made Craig whine nervously. Did he even remember how such a thing was done? Could a person forget things like that?
With his head spinning a mile a minute, it took Craig a few moments to realize they were walking up a rickety, crumbling, concrete staircase and that there was nobody else around anymore. The murmurs and the dry rustling of leathery wings had ceded completely and all that was left was the soft, moaning sigh of wind rushing through broken windows, wall cracks and open doors. They were already up at least one level, but Ealdræd didn’t pause to let Craig take in the view through the dirty, cracked windows. He rushed up the steps, stopped for a moment when he met a solid, age-darkened, wooden door and pushed it open with his shoulder.
Behind the door lay what looked to have been an office or foreman’s workstation in the past. What furniture hadn’t been carried off showed all the signs of age and a few of the ceiling-high paneled windows were broken, but the view was still breathtaking. Even from the door, Craig could see all of the city and most of the surrounding mountains, and since the windows covered two of the four sides of the room, it glittered with moonlight. Someone had obviously occupied this room before them, judging by the heap of blankets on an old, thin, ratty mattress, but Ealdræd still carried him in as if he’d lived here for years.
The door fell shut behind them with a loud bang that rattled the remaining windows and made Craig yelp. Then Ealdræd stepped forward and dropped him onto the blankets. Craig instantly rolled onto his back and crab-walked away until his back met concrete and there was nowhere left to go.
Ealdræd bared his teeth again and slowly advanced on him, each step measured and lurking. “So. Where were we?”

One more week to NaNoWriMo - My project!

Story:

Manastorm (The Quickening, Book 1)

Genre:

Urban Nightmare/Urban Grimdark/Dark Erotica

Checklist:

• Worldbuilding: 65% of a targeted 65%
• Characters: 80% of a targeted 80%
• Story Outline: 100% of 100% (Rough Draft)
• Scene Outlines: 80% of a targeted 80% (Bullet point descriptions)
• Mapping and Timelines: 80% of a targeted 100%

Pretentious Blog - Tutorial: How to make your own fictional city using Google Maps

NaNoWriMo is coming! <Jon Snow Face>

I'm plotting and outlining like the madwoman I am, wooooo! I've always been a sucker for new ideas and ways to do things, so I've been using this opportunity to try out as much new stuff as possible. Since I've always wanted to finally find a way to add a certain realism to my settings, I had a look around for ways to plot a scene setting with real life maps. This is how I stumbled upon the following blog entry: It describes how to use Google Maps to create your own fictional setting/city/landscape and use real life maps to get the dimensions, distances, elevation, waterways, and so on, right.

I've been going wild on my own personal map ever since. Sorry Phoenix, Arizona, but you're mine now. :D

If you'd like to check out the tutorial yourself, just follow the link! Just be reminded that Google Maps has had some redesigns and you'll have to look a bit to find your custom map options.

Here's the Article:

Tutorial: How to make your own fictional city using Google Maps

I don't like Omegaverse. Here's why.

Hello my lovelies!
While I've been busy editing and revising "Unwilling" and "Moonrise", I spent a few evenings reading books from genres people mentioned to me. A good author knows what people are talking about, right? One comment in specific confused me: One reader gave "Unwilling" 1 star, saying that he (or she?) felt betrayed because I hadn't used the term "Alpha" correctly and he/she felt tricked. I had no idea what he/she meant by that, so I went out and bought some books mentioning Alphas or Omegas.
For those of you unfamiliar with words like Omegaverse or Alpha-romance, please visit this link to get a more detailed description!

When I started reading m/m (or boyslove) novels, the m/m genre offered me an escape. With two men in a relationship, authors were able to shake off the standard dynamics between the genders and be free to do whatever the heck they wanted their characters to do. Two "alpha males" (brrrrrgh) could end up in a relationship, as could two nerds, two Joe Blokes could get kinky, a power couple was just as interesting as a houseman/working father couple adopting African orphans. There were no set roles and therefor every opportunity to do something new. And to women readers, it was easy to imagine themselves in this new dynamic and rejoice.
Then along came the Omegaverse genre.

Now, I'm not adverse to kink. I've had enough forays into dub-con and shifter sex myself and I understand the allure of something like predisposed gender roles. It's titillating to watch someone struggle against his genetic programming, even though the reader already knows he will fail and find his place no matter how much he fights it.
After the sixth or seventh Omegaverse novel, something stood out to me though: switch the Omega with a girl and you have het romance.
To me, this is just sad. I switched to m/m because I was bored to death with het romance and the depiction of women in those stories. Fainting, helpless little flowers who bitch and moan and angst away and get dragged around as they scream for help, or break out in tears and run because some dude did something even slightly inconsiderate. Then drama, making up, kissy kissy, the end.

It's sad because there is so much you could do with genetic predisposition. So many opportunities are being overlooked!
Back in 2011 when I started writing "Unwilling", the word "Omegaverse" didn't exist yet. I just wanted to write something a little different from "the usual werewolf flick", to try my hand at the same theme and put a different spin on it. I was excited that so many people liked it, but now that I'm thinking about publishing the story as an e-book, I'm having a hard time deciding on a genre. "Shifters" is almost as prone to prejudice as "Alpha romance", and since you, dear readers, seem to have either learned to skip any and all story that carries even a hint of maybe containing shifters or beings declared as "Alpha", or expect the story to be about archetypical power exchanges, this whole "Omegaverse" hype is making me rather grumpy.

No matter how well an "Omegaverse" themed novel is written, I don't like it. And I, oh, so hate how popular that genre has become, because it pushes aside the kind of werewolf-stories I actually enjoy. In my opinion, the distinction between "Shifters" and "Omegaverse" should be more explicit. One should be about what the name implies, meaning shifters in each and every constellation the human mind can come up with (and with no rebukes for using words like "Alpha" or "Omega"), whereas the other should be only about het-with-an-m/m-spin plots.
Unfortunately, to get there, authors would have to abstain from using each and every category even remotely connected to their theme. Readers draw connections between the chosen genre/category a book they like has been placed in and its contents. They understandably get angry when after ten books from the "Shifters"-category, the eleventh suddenly doesn't have the constellations they liked most. Problem is, that eleventh book gets a one-star-review, no matter how well written and interesting it may be, and it's all because of this habit of mixing categories.

I personally would rejoice in a clearer distinction of what category a book is placed in. What do you think? Do you enjoy Omegaverse? Do you hate it? What about Shifters stories? For both: Why?
Maybe you can help me come up with a solution for my situation :)

Love,
Hannah

Unwilling Ch. 12 is done!

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My favorite quote by Kurt Vonnegut

"Now lend me your ears. Here is Creative Writing 101:

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages."

- Kurt Vonnegut (Source)

Meanwhile in Austria: Animal Protection Act

... or: The total chaos of politics, man!
I'm sorry for going "off-topic" today, but the things that have been going on in Austrian law just make me so, so angry! Please forgive me, but I have to share this.

Smashwords Summer Sale - Shapeshifter

WOOHOOO!
Smashwords started its annual Summer Sale and I'm in!
Get "Shapeshifter" for Free from the 1st to 31st of July, and it's easy too - just use the code SSW75 at checkout and you're done. :)

New Blog Design! Also: New Unwilling Snippet

Hello my dearies!
Let's all pretend that April 2017 didn't suck as bad as it did, why don't we? It's raining almost nonstop around here in Central Europe, which is rather unusual. I mean, a little rain, okay. But it's raining so much that I had to remove all the flower pot trivets because my poor plants got flooded and started to mildew, and even this was only after I tried emptying them daily and finally gave up.
After the harsh frosts in March and April ruined half of my trees and sent me cutting my previously wild garden like a madwoman, I had hoped things would get better, but you know what they say about hope.

Since I can't continue my DIY renovation of my old windows, I decided to renovate- or rather rejuvenate- my blog and threw on a new coat of paint. I've had enough of that hopeful pinkish background! I hope this one didn't get too, well, brown :D
And to make up for my imitation of a snail when it comes to writing "Unwilling", here's a snippet from the next chapter, almost unedited but better than nothing!

Please click on "Continue" to read more!

Hannah's Writing List (April 2017)

Review: Strays by Garrett Leigh

Strays by Garrett Leigh. $5.99 from Smashwords.com
Work, sleep, work, repeat. Nero’s lonely life suits him just fine until his best friend, Cass, asks him to take on a new apprentice—a beautiful young man who’s never set foot in a professional kitchen. Despite his irritation and his lifelong ability to shut the world out, Nero is mesmerised by the vibrant stray, especially when he learns what drove him to seek sanctuary on Nero’s battered couch.


Whew. I found this e-book on page 57 of my Smashwords Affiliate Program list, almost 45 minutes of reading, frowning, clicking and rolling my eyes after joining the program and thinking it would be easy to find something reviewable. Spoiler: It wasn't. But I prevailed, and here we are!

I wasn't in the best of moods when I downloaded the sample file, so this novel passed a harsh bar. I had tried out seven other novel samples before this one, getting more and more impatient with what I had been reading so far, but STRAYS managed to capture me within the first five taps on the screen, enough to have me buy it before reaching the end of the sample. No spoilers ahead, promise!
Stylewise, this book is flawless, as is to be expected from a professionally edited book. It doesn't dawdle on uncessarily drawn out scenes, it doesn't run off with half of the plot left unfinished, and it doesn't get boring. It's an easy read regarding the choice of words, but with a flowery, colorful undertone that somehow entertains without getting too deep. Loads of swearing and verbal roughness, so be warned of that, but it fits the protagonists so well, it wouldn't be the same without it. One heart for style it is!
The two main characters are Lenny and Nero, a waiter and a prison-taught chef, who are forced together by happenstance and still work out, somehow. Both have their quirks, weaknesses and relatable pasts and they probably wouldn't have noticed each other in different circumstances. But as they say, sometimes love doesn't happen at first sight and needs a little bit of forced cohabitation to catch on. Having said that, I got an in-depth-view of their minds and thoughts and the how's and why's of their choices, which is all I ask for when reading a book. One heart for the protagonists! :)
Now for some not so gushing words. The antagonistic forces are twofold- an outside conflict in the shape of a stalker, and an inside conflict due to Nero's fucked up past. Both are interesting, but the stalking aspect gets cut out shortly after the beginning and is sadly kept in the back too much for my taste. It does get resolved, but in a manner I don't much care for, a side note that could have been so much more. The inner conflict is that much more well-drawn and carried through the story beautifully, but I still had a "meh" moment because of the stalker stuff. No heart for the antagonist, sorry!
Since I'm not one for spoilers, I won't give away any plot details. Just know that it's inventive and entertaining and will keep you glued to the book from beginning to end. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book, so one heart for the inventive plot!
And finally, can this book be read on its own? Yes it can. There are other books in this series and I'm looking forward to reading them soon, as the characters are mentioned and outlined in this one, but I had no troubles at all understanding what was going on and how it came together. One heart for standalone!


Final Rating: 💗💗🖤💗💗

Conclusion: Great fun to read, worth every penny, romance you can actually root for. No railroading, no "decal"-characters, and good for your heart.

Wanna buy? Click at the link up top!

New short story: Get them out

Hello dearies!
Last weekend I tried my hand on a short story challenge from Sci-Fi-London. It turned out rather well, albeit devoid of any grabby guys :D I'm still proud of it, so here it is:

Get them out

 Have fun reading!

Love,
Hannah

Re-Share: How to use Active Reading to Become a Better Writer

I'm sharing this because it got my mojo going today! Nothing like chewing through a complete 80k novel and noticing all those little holes you didn't see before - good incentives, great explanations!

How to use Active Reading to Become a Better Writer - ProWritingAid

Cyberpunk and Storyline Work

This was originally posted on my old blog, but since I've dug through my treasure chest full of plot ideas, I thought may be it a good moment to revive it :)

------------------------


This time, I want to say a few words about story outlining, plotting and the works, because last night I spent 4 hours plotting instead of sleeping and now my whole night rhythm is ruined :D

In that space of time, I finished the following parts of a new story:

The theme

As always, erotica with a touch of violence. I had a few stints in non-erotic fiction, but they always end up feeling boring and kinda too serious to be fun. So, gay love, yeah! Much more fun to imagine guys smooching.

The genre

Since I'm still writing the last paragraphs of my paranormal stories, I stuck to a sci-fi and futuristic setting. My brain sometimes decides to act like a muscle, and the same mental movement ("Vampire, Werewolf, violence, Vampire, Werewolf, violence,...") is tiresome. I settled on "Cyberpunk", because I keep coming back to a song by the band 'Archive', namely "Bullets", and there's a great trailer-teaser for an up and coming PC game called "Cyberpunk 2077" featuring that song. I liked the mood, so there you have it, genre found.

The topic

This one was tricky. I didn't want to do another simple romance flick, so I went cross-country through different issues I had pondered in the past. Those thoughts keep popping up whenever I need them, I like my muscle-brain! :D
Sooo. Topic. Since Cyberpunk already has some restrictions, I based everything on a dystopic future and filled it with things I wanted to try out. One of them is a soylent green kind of idea, the other one is polyamory, because I have doubts about the longevity of the concept of marriage in the future. And finally, because I can't stay away, violence and implants.

The storyline

Oh, what I hard time I had with this :D If you've got nothing but this one idea ("I really want to write something in the cyberpunk genre, there's not enough of that around"), it's hard work to make something of it. I started with writing cliff notes for my characters, three protagonists, one main antagonist, one minor antagonist, and gave them names and relations. Not much, just the basics, like what their jobs are, their biggest flaws, their biggest strengths, their special ability, and so on. I juggled them around until their descriptions made sense before even touching the storyline itself, brooded over this for a while and then began a rough draft of what might happen.
It's a good idea to keep in mind that a story needs a conflict of some kind, because that main conflict will help you create everything else. A story always has more than one conflict, and the main one doesn't even have to be obvious, but having it, starting it at the beginning, keeping it going throughout and finally resolving it in the end gives you something to hang on to. I hadn't done this in the past, but I tried it this time and boy, does that work out well!
I decided on multiple conflicts for this storyline, the main one being the plan of my antagonist and the one cinch in it, a document that my main protagonist stole unknowingly. To keep the sub-plot going, I decided to give the shy second protagonist qualms about polyamory and a deep love for the main protagonist, who doesn't do monogamy. I bridged their differences with the third protagonist, who unknowingly helps them find a way to be together. And to throw a stick in, I added a bit of conflicting backgrounds and flaws.
Just by thinking those things through, I was able to write a 3,000 words long storyline with chapters, markers for the important climaxes and resolutions, and a harmonious finale.

And finally, the characters

I'm not sure if I can actually explain how I build them. When I get bored, my conscious nods off and goes to night-night-world, where I imagine situations and daydream. I remember about as much of those daydreams as I do from my nightly ones, but sometimes a feeling, a snapshot or something else from that sticks to my brain long enough to write it down. It's like, ever tried to imagine a real asshole? I sometimes do that, and then start to shuffle through all the different versions I can possibly think of. Then I add some other condition, like 'what would he have to be like for me to like him anyway?', and there my brain goes.
This is how I build my characters. I find out what kind of character I want (Asshole? Loser? Good son/daughter? Filthy rich? Joe Bloke?) and build on it, write down cliffnotes and decide what their biggest flaws and biggest strengths should be. Only after I have that, I try to find a reason as to why they are as they are, what they should be when I'm finished with them, and finally, what they look like and what kinds of habits and mannerisms they have.
And if there is something I can't think of, I simply leave it blank and fill it in once I've started writing. Sometimes, the spur of the moment ideas are the best.


So, this is what I did last night. If I wanted to, I could start writing right now, but then I'd have another unfinished story and another drain on my creative energy, so I'll leave it to simmer :)

Back to work now!

Love,
Hannah

My take on Sci-Fi and realism, and opportunities for authors

As you may or may not know, I'm a late bloomer when it comes to studying. I'm a little over thirty and just started going to university, but it seemed the right thing to do after a decade of working and nothing much to show for it. When I first thought about what I'd like to study, I actually thought "Terraforming!", followed closely by "Exobiology!"
Unfortunately, both are years away from being even broached as a field of science. I could have gone with Astronomy, but I'm just not that much into physics and math, so there is that.
For me, Science Fiction holds unending fascination. It is almost a field of science by itself, albeit a broad one with lots of sharlatans and soothsayers. When humanity started its journey into the stars, those first steps were tentative and rather robust, but they fed the creative minds of two generations with so many possibilities and ideas, we are still benefiting from it and will be for a good ten more years.

Sci-Fi vs. Sci-ence

Let's be honest: Science hasn't got it easy these days. Most of the conventional theories don't allow much wiggling room, and after years and years of studying, some things are just too ingrained into the brains of a young scientist to offer much leeway for new ideas. Which leads us to the biblic saying, "blessed are the poor in spirit,[...]" and all the ideas that sci-fi authors unwittingly contributed to the progress of science. (I'm gonna bleed so much for this, I know. Sorry fellas!)
Don't get me wrong, though! I don't mean to imply that sci-fi authors are stupid. I'm saying that writing sci-fi stories has a superior advantage over scientific theories. If you don't know that something isn't supposed to work the way you're describing it, your mind goes free. Hyperdrive, warp speed, artificial gravity, teleportation, gender switching, implants,... everything is possible if you put your mind to it.
Adding to that, science has finally discovered ways to actually use all that creative energy to their advantage. Concepts for a working hyperdrive and artificial gravity are already in the works, being tested through application of "real" science and proving to maybe, probably, possibly, be made reality at one point.

Realism and good Sci-Fi

Which brings me to the next point of order, namely realism. The headline demands it!
Too much realism is a bad thing when it comes to Sci-Fi. Too little realism is a bad thing, too. If a story contains little to no familiar things, complicated concepts you'd need an engineering diploma for to understand them, a society focused on none of the dictums we value or dream of, it's unreadable to me.
Good Sci-Fi provides us with something to either strive for or beware of, a glimpse into possibilities and possible futures, and a handful of road signs how the author thinks it came to be that way. It also contains hints to the knowledge of the author, provides us with easy to understand concepts of how those new technologies work, and doesn't bother the reader with pages upon pages of tech-babble explaining in minute detail how that specific piece of space-miracle came to be.
The closer a sci-fi story is to reality, the better, because this makes it easy to slip into that mindset where a reader is able to imagine what is going on. Sci-Fi doesn't need to wow with unrecognizable societies, worlds or technology, and it doesn't have to play in the far future, it just needs to offer a new, different view with a good layer of technological advancements.

'scuse me, aren't you an erotica/romance author?

Ah, yes. What do Sci-Fi and Romance (or Erotica for that matter) have in common? My answer would be 'not much', but they do go well together. For me, exploring other genres, especially those that fascinate me on a day-to-day basis, is exciting and captivating. I love reading NASA's newest discoveries, hued photographs of planets, abstract concepts of newly discovered solar systems, all that theoretical stuff that makes my head go into daydreaming mode. Possibilities are always in the back of my head, just waiting for the right moment to attack.
When I was still studying biology, I attended this lecture about parasites and microbes and how a few species are able to mutate their hosts to better suit their needs. This was still on my mind when I sat in another lecture about the chromosomes of plants and how those with three sets of chromosomes are somehow more resistant to outer-space-radiation. Then it got boring and my mind went off on its own, weaving and spinning this idea for a story for the next hour and sending me on my way home slightly confused. All the way home through the rain, I tried to come up with a way to combine parasites, outer space and genetic mutation (both the involuntary and the voluntary kind) into something I might want to write, and when I finally arrived at my house, I sat down and simply went with it. This was my first actual attempt to write Sci-Fi, and within three months, my unhealthy fascination with all things space-y morphed into a 75k sci-fi romance named "Moonrise".
I'm usually a very slow writer, so this is exceptional speed for me. By comparison, "Shapeshifter" has just about as many words and took me four to six years to finish, and I invested a lot more heart and love into that story. This is what an opportunity looks like.

Take this away from my little ramble: If something keeps bugging you, pushing you, demanding your attention and ultimately offering you an idea, go with it. Don't think about it, just grab it and go crazy. It's worth it!

Shapeshifter is published!

I finally got around to finishing my most beloved baby, "Shapeshifter". Phew, what a ride!
Not only is this the first book I ever wrote, it's also my first try at self-publishing. So many firsts, ha! We'll see how it goes, but I'm happy either way. Happy I got myself to the point where I actually clicked "Publish now" and happy because I did what I set out to do in 2009: Have this story on a shelf, no matter what.
I took down the old version of Shapeshifter from my other blog, but left two chapters online and added a link to the Smashwords-Shop where you can buy it. Even if you already know this story, please consider buying it if you liked it. I polished it and fixed some of the older chapters before publishing, so maybe you'll find something new? :)

You can find Shapeshifter here:

Me, now, on Twitter

I bowed to public pressure and got myself a nice little twitter account :) I'm not yet sure what I should post there, but I guess that will come with a little time. At least I hope so.

If you want to add me: https://twitter.com/Hannah_L_Corrie