Book Spotlght: Defying Mars by Cidney Swanson (Saving Mars Series, Book 2)

Greetings and salutations, Beardies!

Last summer, I had the honor of being a first reader of our friend Cidney Swanson’s Saving Mars. It was one of my favorite books of the year, and the reviewers over at Kirkus agreed with me, naming it one of the best books of 2012. In early December, Cidney asked me to be a first reader again, this time for the second book in the series, Defying Mars. I immediately said, "Yes!" Though I loved the book, I wanted to wait until I had time to do it justice before featuring it in a Book Spotlight, and that, unfortunately, took months. This post has been a long time coming, so let’s get to it!

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Book Spotlight: Enemy Mine by Barry Longyear & David Gerrold

***I selected this post to be featured on Book Review Blogs.***
***Please visit the site and vote for my blog!***

Guten Tag, Beardies!

My name is Kelsey J. Mills and I come to you all the way from Canada. I am The Bearded Scribe's youngest Guest Scribe—a Science Fiction reader and writer, a sucker for aliens or robots, and a lover of social commentary. I’m so honoured to be here on The Bearded Scribe, and I hope that I manage to entertain you.

The book—technically novella—I will be spotlighting today is Enemy Mine by Barry B. Longyear and David Gerrold. Please note that this is not the original version—the copy that I have was based on the screen play written by Edward Khmara, which was based on the story written by Barry B. Longyear. Also note that I have not yet seen the movie for which the aforementioned screenplay was written.

New Guest Scribe: Kelsey J. Mills

Good Morning, Beardies,

As many of you who follow the blog on Twitter already know, it is no secret that I have been seeking new talent to add to my already wonderful and dedicated team of reviewers. Because of their dedication and support, and perhaps without them even realizing it, I have found yet another talented writer to join The Bearded Scribe Team.

Writing What You Love

Hello Beardies, 

When I did an Author Spotlight on Cidney Swanson--complete with an interview--back in June, I thought I'd take a chance and ask her if she would be willing to do a guest post on the blog from time to time.  I was thrilled and honored when she agreed!

Much to my surprise, I opened my inbox the other evening to find an email from Cidney, who was curious as to what type of guest post I would like her to write for The Bearded Scribe.  After a couple of emails back and forth, I received an email from her saying that she had already completed and scheduled a post.  And I must say, it's a doozie of a guest post!  I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I did!

Book Spotlight: Wild Cards I, Expanded Edition by George R. R. Martin (et al)

Welcome back, Beardies!

After being out of print for a decade, the first volume of George RR Martin’s Wild Cards series is back—expanded with new, original material.

Calling All Fantasy Fans and Writers!

Hello Readers :)

This post goes out to all of you... as a small plea for assistance if you will.

I am wanting to spread the word about my blog, and have been trying my best at reaching out across the world wide web--through various forums (fantasy and writing related) and other sources.  I am not having as great of luck as I was hoping.

I am posting to ask for your help.  Please share my blog with any of your colleagues, co-workers, family members, Facebook & Twitter (or other social network sites) friends.

The quickest and most simple way of sharing would be through Facebook, which can be done by simply posting on your own wall for all your friends to see.

You can use the quick blurb below, if you would like, to copy and paste into the "Text" field:

Calling All Fans and Writers of Speculative Fiction: {Fantasy, Science-Fiction, Urban Fantasy, Paranormal, and Horror}
Check out this new blog, The Bearded Scribe, which features book information (releases, signings, author spotlight, reviews), movie information (releases, awards, actor spotlights, reviews), as well as FREE writing tips and techniques for all!
You can also Follow The Bearded Scribe's on Facebook or Twitter!

Thank you for your support and for your help!

Clarion West Writing Workshop

Hello Again Everyone :)

While researching yesterday's post about George R. R. Martin's Game of Thrones, I stumbled across a workshop I had not heard of before, and although the application deadline has passed as of midnight of March 1st, I thought I would share it with you all anyway.

The Clarion West Writing Workshop is an intensive, six-week workshop held annually in Seattle, Washington. The workshop is intended for writers who are pursuing professional writing careers in the genres of Fantasy & Science Fiction.

This year's workshop will be held June 17th through July 27th, and will feature instructors such as:

Hiromi Goto

Gavin Grant

Kelly Link

George R. R. Martin

Chuck Palahniuk

Mary Rosenblum

& 

Connnie Willis

Some more information about the background of Clarion West, cited directly from the workshop's website:

Short fiction is the workshop's focus, with emphasis on science fiction, fantasy, and horror. You should come prepared to write several new stories during the course of the workshop, to experiment and take artistic risks, and to give and receive constructive criticism.

Each week the workshop is taught by a different instructor, each a highly regarded author or editor offering their unique perspective on the field. Class size is limited to 18 students. Instructors work closely with students, critiquing stories, leading class discussions on technique and other professional concerns, and holding individual or small group conferences. Drawing on Seattle's vibrant SF community, the workshop also presents informal sessions with acclaimed area authors.

You will come away from the workshop with essential tools for improving your writing: good writing habits, the ability to analyze and critique others' stories and to evaluate critiques of your own work, and a set of friendships and professional contacts that can last a lifetime.

The names of the instructors for the 2013 Workshop will be posted on July 26th, 2012, and the workshop will begin accepting applications for the 2013 season starting in December 2012.

Meanwhile, for those who missed this year's deadline, Clarion West offers a One-Day Workshop series continues on April 15th with Nicola Griffith, and May 6th with Cat Rambo.  All classes still take place in Seattle's University District and are limited to twelve (12) students, which are accepted on a first-come, first-served basis.  Enrollment cost of $125 is non-refundable, and for those who are full-time students, there is a $15 rebate at workshop session.

For more information on any of Clarion West's workshops, please visit their website HERE.  Also, feel free to contact me with any questions regarding the workshops.

Until next time,

World Building Series: Introduction and Fundamentals

Greetings Readers!

While writing on my current project, Valkyrie, the other day, an idea for a post started to formulate in my mind.

World Building.  

Fantasy and speculative fiction or not, every book (and movie/screenplay) has it.  Even non-fiction has a bit of world building involved.  An author must know the limits and facts about the world in which he/she is writing before he/she can construct a believable, fully-formed story.  If an author's facts have inconsistencies or flaws, he/she can discredit his/her knowledge of the craft, and by doing so, quickly lose readership.  Simply put: if you don't know the world in which your story takes place, how are you supposed to describe it to your readers in its fullest capacity?

I have been pondering at how to go about writing on such an extensive topic--or even how to begin doing so, for that matter.  After much deliberation, I decided that breaking it down into several posts would be the most practical option, not only for my personal choice to put constraints on post lengths, but also to get more detailed and concise, content-related posts for you, my readers.

This first post will focus on the initial steps to world building, intertwined with my own anecdotes of trial & error with my own writing, and will also introduce the next post in this specific series.

Before I ever knew what world building was, I was unknowingly creating my own worlds.  After reading books like The Egypt Game, The Bridge to Terabithia, The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings, I became obsessed with creating worlds of my very own.  I sketched maps galore, created languages (minor undertakings back then), secret codices with which I could write notes to my friends, and planned out entire cities in which to create my stories.

Of course, those worlds failed me; more correctly, I failed them because I didn't know enough about my creations.  Sometimes I would sketch pages and pages of maps with great detail, but I neglected to populate it with creatures and characters that were believable for the setting.  Sometimes, vice versa.  Other times, I forgot to ask myself important questions whose answers would have provided me with a connection between the different aspects of my worlds.  I constantly wrote myself into corners--or worse, circles.  My writing was all jumbled--mismatched additions, not all too dissimilar from the Winchester House--without any coherence whatsoever.  I neglected to make the full blueprint before building the house; but fortunately, with training and practice, I realized the errors and remedied them.

The Winchester House - Santa Clara Valley, California

Most ideas for stories usually develop long before a writer even thinks about world building. Unfortunately, I feel that this leads to weaker stories in the end.  I am saying this from experience because the first few starts at my now-finished manuscript were torturous.  My characters and my world felt disconnected and, to be honest, a bit contrived. In my opinion, it is much easier to build believable characters inside of a defined world than to a build a foreign world around a cluster of characters.

Asking yourself fundamental questions will help guide you in creating the blueprint; and creating a basic blueprint for your world before you go any further will save you a lot of headache.

The first set of questions we will discuss have to do with Earth settings and their variations/possibilities:

1. If this story takes place on Earth, does it occur in the Past?
2. Present?
3. Future?
4. Some alternate version/history of Earth? [for instance, an Earth that has been decimated by a nuclear war or asteroid? A post WWII Earth in which Hitler had won?]

Each answer should and will produce more questions for you to consider, and each answer will also narrow down the genre/category of your manuscript.  Let's take our two examples from above, starting first with a post-asteroid collision.

5. When, where, and how did the collision happen?
6. How did it change the landscape/structure/rotation/orbit/population/technology of the Earth?
7. Were there any alien life forms or microbes on the asteroid?  Or maybe some advanced technology?
8. If yes, how did that change the landscape, environment, or population?  Did it change the genetic makeup of humans/animals/plants? On the negative side, did it bring disease or famine?  On the positive side, did the asteroid's introduction create a superior human/animal/plant?

As you can see, each answer spawns a whole set of additional questions, which then defines the conflicts and plots.  Placing characters within this constructed world is now a breeze.

The questions for our second example might look a little like this...

5. How had Hitler and the Axis forces defeated the Allied?
6. Did Hitler continue his mass genocide?  And if so, how has this affected the population of Earth? Did Hitler succeed in creating an Aryan race? Does everyone speak German?
7. How long after the defeat does the story take place?  Within Hitler's lifetime? Twenty years later?
8. Are there secret Allied forces still hiding out from the Nazi Regime? Are they physically hiding out (in, say, underground caves) or pretending to blend in with society while maintaining their Allied lifestyles in secret?  Are there plans to overthrow the government?

Literally dozens of scenarios with an exponential amount of questions can arise from the first 4 questions above, and that is only dealing with Earth or Alternate Earth settings and plots.  The second part of this post will deal with all other settings.

1.  If the story does not take place on Earth [or any variation], is the setting a known one (i.e., Mars, the Moon, or the Andromeda Galaxy) or some distant or unknown planet/moon/galaxy?  Is it even part of our known universe?
2.  If unknown setting, how was the setting formed?  Evolutionary (like the Big Bang Theory)?  Or Mythologically (created by omnipotent beings)?  Or a combination of the two?
3. How does the setting differ from Earth?  How is it similar?  Landscape/flora/fauna differences and similarities? Does it still have earthly forces (like gravity)?  Does it have unearthly forces, i.e., majick (more on this later)?
4. Is it populated by more than one race/species?  Are they humanoid?  Are all of them intelligent?
5. Are there areas with concentrations of certain races, or do all the races live together?
5. If there is majick, where is it derived from (sun, moon, water, earth, air, blood, artifacts, etc)?  Are all the races majickal?  Only a few?  One?
6. Are the majickal races exalted or suppressed?  Is a majickal race the ruling race?  Does it view the other races as unequal because of its lack of majick?  Or vice versa?

The questions are endless, and so are the answers.  And each answer lends itself to a different aspect of your world--from character races, history, politics (power struggles, classes), mythology (creation myths, deity current involvement and interaction), languages (spoken, written, ancient), majick (source, limitations, how it's produced and used), et cetera.

The list is infinite, and I know I barely touched the surface when it comes to introducing World Building, which kind of brings me to introducing the topic of the next series in this post:  Overdoing it!

I welcome any questions or comments and would be happy to respond to them.

Stay Tuned for the next post in this series,

P.S. If you are here visiting the page and reading this post and are not yet a member, please click the links to the left to sign-up. It's quick and simple.

The Wind Through the Keyhole

As a fellow Maine-iac (a born one), I thought it would be appropriate to post a blurb about Stephen King's upcoming novel The Wind Through the Keyhole, set to release in stores on April 24th.  The Dark Tower, Book 7 in the homonymous series, was originally the last in the set, but King dazzles us with yet another great volume.

Introduction

Welcome Everyone!

My name is Joshua Allen Mercier, and I am the Bearded Scribe!  I am a 30-year-old, aspiring Fantasy Writer... and although I am not yet published, I am hoping to change that soon.  I just finished my first manuscript this past September. Titled The Son of Drynntorm, it is the first of an intense set of (at least) five books, in various stages of planning and writing, that introduces a multi-generational blood feud for control of the Garnet Throne of Aesiranyn.  The highly-fantastical world in which it takes place includes map sketches, two languages (with glossaries and guides), and several different races of majickal beings that are both creative and fresh. Since September, I have been working on Book Two of the series, as well as submerging myself in a new, Urban Fantasy project.  I have submitted my Query Letters and Manuscript to prospective Agents.  *Fingers Crossed*  Here's hoping!