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 :)

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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