Care and Feeding of Your Muse during the Holidays by JC Hay

Image: Melpomene, The Muse of Tragedy; Elizabeth Sirani

November is drawing to a close, and writers all over are scribbling like mad to hit their word-counts for NaNoWriMo before the month ends. Likewise, those with a wintery bent turn their thoughts to what can be accomplished in what remains of the year. With holidays for many, and gatherings both sacred and secular, it’s a season of hassles, travels, and travails, and it’s too easy to lose the muse in the rush of confusion and crazy. Here then are some ideas I like to use to keep my muse well cared-for.

1)   Keep a notebook with you – if you’re like me, you’re going to spend the holidays around people who are likely to say or do something ridiculous. While I would never insert my family directly into a story, I do like to jot down inspirations and events that I can re-interpret once I’m back in front of the keyboard. Be prepared to grab ideas from all around you, and think about how your characters might respond in a similar situation. The little notes and jots can be a source for scenes, quirks and future stories; just the sort of building blocks with which the muse likes to play.

2)      Feed your Muse – The muse consumes other media as part of her diet, and in the hustle and bustle, it’s easy to forget to feed her. Read every day, or take in a movie, or engage in some other, non-writing creativity. Graphic novels, audiobooks, theatre and film let you look at story without thinking about the words themselves – it can be a good way to help you find new ways into your story. The point is to let the muse kick back and relax, and feel like she’s having fun without boring her. She’ll be fired up and ready to help you when you sit down at the keyboard. Which brings us to the most obvious thing…

3)      Make time to write – Creativity is a muscle like any other, and if you don’t use it, it starts to atrophy. Set aside 30 minutes or more each day, away from the hubbub and craziness, and just write. If you don’t have a laptop, write longhand (the change in process might even fire your muse up more). If you’re not working on a current WiP, then break out a list of writing prompts and write about one of those. Make the time, and make sure your family and friends respect your writing time (lockable doors and hotel rooms help with that).

That’s the things I try to do to keep the fires of creativity burning in the winter. What are your favorite ways to keep the muse engaged through the long dark months?

About JC Hay

JC Hay writes romantic science fiction and space opera, because the coolest gadgets in the world are useless without someone to share them. In addition to Romance Writers of America, he is also a proud member of the SFR Brigade (for Science Fiction Romance), and the Fantasy, Futuristic, and Paranormal Romance chapter of RWA. His newest space opera, His Lowborn Heart, is coming in December from Lyrical Press. JC Hay is on Twitter, Facebook, and sometimes even http://jchay.com.

Shocking your World to Life by JC Hay

You’ve seen the arguments on-line, so I won’t bother going into the details. Certain entities have accused writers of science fiction romance (SFR) of being light on the science, to the point of leveling the term space opera (as though that were some kind of insult). Despite my pride at being lumped in alongside such luminaries as E.E. “Doc” Smith and George Lucas, I also felt a bit of sting. Could we create better science fiction worlds to contain our heroes and heroines? Could we, in a sense, bring issues out in our fiction, to better illustrate what happens to the human condition when the world changes?

I found a possible answer in an independent but much loved role-playing game from Joshua A.C. Newman – Shock: Social Science Fiction. I realized that a similar method to the one developed by Newman for creating science fiction settings with meaning could be adjusted to world-build better issues and characters into my SFR. Even better, it was generic enough that Fantasy and Paranormal Romance writers could also employ it.

Step 1: Define your “shocks”

Shocks are the “key concepts” that make your setting different from the modern world; Colonies on Mars, Vampires exist, Faster-than-light travel. You don’t have to think about how these pieces work right now. Indeed, your characters might not have any idea how they work, because the shocks are inherent to the world. Like a car, or the Internet, they are omnipresent. Because of this, they are also your “Free Pass” items. You don’t have to explain them, they just work. While there’s no limit, two or three shocks work well, and more than five stretches the reader’s belief. Write your shocks down across the top of a piece of paper, making each shock a column:

Step 2: Choose your “issues”

Here’s the part where we inject meaning into our setting. Come up with two or three issues you want to address (directly or indirectly) in your story. Issues are the hard questions – the things we can’t easily answer that directly impact your characters’ stories. These can be philosophical issues, such as ‘what makes us human?’ or they can be specific social issues from today (just looking at the news for 60 seconds gives us ‘is the Nobility relevant?’, ‘Are stand-your-ground laws moral?’, and ‘Is it acceptable to reveal government secrets?’)  Note that these are always worded as questions, and while you are likely to have an opinion, they shouldn’t be something that is easy to answer. Write your issues down the side of your piece of paper, creating rows that intersect with the columns:

Step 3: Place your characters

The real key to this method takes place here – pick an intersection between an issue and a shock. Your character exists where these two pieces interact. In the sample, I’ve put our hero, Navigator James Wellington, at the intersection of FTL Travel and What makes us human? This already sets up conflicts for him as a character – navigating at faster-than-light means being modified to be more than human, but is the gift worth what it has cost him? Other characters will view him as different from human, either greater or lesser, and his character arc is shaped by that interaction.

 For another example, in the film “Blade Runner” Rick Deckard exists at the intersection between “Human replicants are nearly indistinguishable from humans” (a shock) and “what defines us as human?” (an issue). The arc of Deckard’s story explore both sides of the argument, contrasted between the two (other) replicant characters Roy Batty and Rachael. Think about how the issue and the shock interact, and about your character’s relationship to both. This gives them an underlying connection to the world, and makes the issues meaningful to the story.

Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Paranormal Romance all deal with worlds that are different from the ones our readers inhabit. By tying our characters firmly into the underpinnings of our stories, we can increase the depth of our characters and make the world we’ve created for them more real to our readers. We increase our ability to add meaning, and give our stories the kind of impact that brings readers back again and again.

 

BIO:   JC Hay writes romantic science fiction and space opera, because the coolest gadgets in the world are meaningless unless you have someone with whom to share them. In addition to Romance Writers of America, he is also a proud member of the SFR Brigade, and FF&P. JC is steadfast in his belief that knitting is relaxing, that kilts are always appropriate, and that Deckard is a Replicant. You can find JC Hay on Twitter (http://twitter.com/j_c_hay), Goodreads (http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2915850.J_C_Hay), and on his (currently being re-designed) Web site, http://jchay.com.