Entries from March 2008 ↓
March 31st, 2008 — Science Fiction
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Fanfiction.net has gotten rid of *all scene breaks* not using their little line break mechanism. So if you put in scene breaks insid eyour stories, they won’t work. Yuu will need to reupload your stories is the site’s suggestion, but it doesn’t appear to be working.
Apparently, you will need to manually go through every one of your stories, remember where the breaks are, and input them all one by one, even the stories written and posted before fanfiction.net provided the line break mechanism (which was around 2003 or so, I think).
For those folks who have older stories on the site, and did not use the Fanfiction.net form of line break–you should go check your stories.
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March 24th, 2008 — Science Fiction
La-La Land’s third release in the wonderful series of music from Battlestar Galactica is widely looked upon even by non science fiction fans as being one of the better television shows to come along in the last few years. Included on the CD is a real-world song which is the first time for Battlestar in a long time. This latest installment is far grittier than its cutsie predecessor and the music matches the real-life hard edge that we are presented with today. Matching the realistic explorations of the human condition, the debut miniseries music by Richard Gibbs with assistance of Bear McCreary added to the mature work being shown on television.
Bear McCreary’s musical interpretation of today’s Battlestar enhanced and filled out the series, making it the work that it is. We are treated to more of this in the third season sampling “A Distant Sadness” which is from Occupation and features the voice Raya Yarbrough. It possesses a Sheila Chandra groove to it, a cross between Celtic and Indian making it a cool, exotic entry into the music field.
As always, McCreary’s music has a deep baseline which runs through the entire set of music, and there are more militaristic themes in the first and second season than in this one. Season 3 moves towards more Indian and Asian stylings. Purely delightful in its reincarnation of Adama’s theme from earlier episodes, a pure delight to hear and interwoven nicely into the whole set.
Bagpipes are also added along with a beautiful acoustic guitar melody that is both riveting and haunting. Overall, Season 3’s music is melodic, beautiful and enchanting. Perfect for the series, and one of those CDs that you can listen to over and over without growing tired of it.
Acclaimed composer Bear McCreary builds on his impressive Season One accomplishments with this new original soundtrack from the second season of the Sci-Fi Channel’s critically praised, top-rated television series starring Edward James Olmos, Mary McDonnell, James Callis, Tricia Helfer and Katee Sackhoff. Once again, composer McCreary delivers a sensational, emotionally rich score that ingeniously melds orchestra, vocals, percussion and synthesizer in a variety of exciting motifs. Simply put, it’s an amazing compilation that trancends the genre and brings sci-fi television music to new heights! Former Oingo-Boingo member Steve Bartek plays featured guitar on “Black Market”. CD Booklet contains exclusive liner notes from McCreary and executive producer Ronald D. Moore.
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March 23rd, 2008 — Science Fiction Books
Most science fictions writers know that the chance of becoming a multi-millionaire from publishing a book has about as much likelihood of happening as winning the lottery. The success of writers such as Tom Clancy, Orson Scott Card and Robert Heinlein rarely happens.
It’s becoming more and more difficult to realize true monetary success from having a work of science fiction published by a major publishing house. That’s why self-publishing endeavors (such as print-on-demand) have become so appealing to authors.
If a book of science fiction is published through the traditional publishing house, an author can expect an advance in payment based on what the “experts” anticipate the earnings of the book will be. Advances can vary from a few thousand dollars to into the millions of dollars if you’re the caliber of a Orson Scott Card, Robert Heinlein or Arthur C. Clarke.
When the check is issued, it’s the author’s to keep, no matter how many sales of the book may occur. The publisher then subtracts the monetary advance issued to the writer from the royalties the book earns.
Royalties are based on a percentage (usually between 4% and 8%). After the advance is subtracted from future royalties, the author will begin to receive a royalty percentage on every sale of the book.
Most writers are happy if they receive a total of $50,000 on their first book. Depending on how the first book sells, it may be easier to negotiate your next one with a publisher.
If a book of science fiction is published using the POD method, the author will receive profits based on a per sale basis. A larger amount of profits occurs if the sales are generated from the POD service’s web site. The author can also purchase a number of the books from the web site and market them himself.
Another way to profit from publishing fiction is to sell it as an ebook online. The profit received is 100%, but the author must have knowledge about how to generate sales for the book online.
There are several downloadable programs that you can access to learn about the ebook business. Selling books online is becoming an increasingly popular way to self-publish all types of writing.
Research all methods of self-publishing and then decide which would be the best way for you to see your fiction in print. There is no lack of information both online and in informative books that can help you in your venture.
Related Posts from the web:
If you are looking to publish or looking for a literary agent, here’s a book that will help you.
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March 21st, 2008 — Battlestar Galactica
Not only is SciFi Channel delivering new and expanding product lines that are targeted towards gaming and tech sites, but they are also in the process of producing new pilots, debuting the last season of Battlestar Galactica and giving us more of those fabulous Battlestar webisodes where we meet others in the Battlestar Zone.
Exclusive Battlestar Galactica Season 4 Premiere
In an unprecedented move for the season premiere of Battlestar Galactica, hardcore fans will be given a nine-hour jump to watch one of the hottest shows to come down the pike years with a live stream on SciFi.com. Let’s hope they have a load of bandwidth because the fans are clamboring to find out what happens next. The episode is titled He That Believeth in Me, which continues in true Battlestar format. Starbuck returns from the dead claiming to know the way to Earth as the thin, gray line that separates humans from Cylons blurs even further. We know this episode is going to be tense, grim and an edge-of-seat, nail biting thriller, and the fans are ready!
Get Ready For The Webisodes
With the return of Battlestar Galactica comes the popular Season 4 Webisodes, those short visits to the Battlestar universe. SciFi.com and Universal Media Studios are producing ten 2-3 minute serialized chapters that will enhance the actions broadcast on Sci Fi. Stay tuned for info on when they will premiere.
Join The Fight! Cylon or Human
SciFi.com has gone social networking with a social gaming experience for BSG fans. You will have an opportunity to choose your side – Human or Cylon, designate identities and engage the enemy in an attempt to gain points for your online team through successful completion of games and challenges. Users will be able to battle through the weeks and in the end, only one team can win. You will even be able to “pimp” your viper or raider. Commenting, page building and all the other fun stuff of Web 2.0 world will come into play as you’ll be able to form and join groups and build your network of friends. Battlestar Galactica on steroids. What fun!
More links to cool Battlestar places:
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March 19th, 2008 — Science Fiction
Your Fantasy Novel Characters by Barry Sheppard
As much as I would like to tell you that this is your novel and you can do anything you want with it, I’m sorry, if you are looking to be published, you are really writing for an audience.
To create characters for your fantasy novel you must consider your market and create characters that your readers are able to relate to, and care for. This does not mean that you reveal all there is about your characters in the first few lines, your characters a best revealed a little as the plot unfolds, a little intrigue goes a long way. But your characters should be developed before you put your pen to paper.
The most common mistake aspiring fantasy writers make is to ignore character development, or even more common, fall back on some tired old stereotypes. There is no excuse for this I’m afraid. You have all the tools available to you as any writer of any other genre, and then some more you get to make up. It is very important that your characters are complete, and have substance, personality and individual traits, strengths, weaknesses and even fatal flaws.
Stereotyped characters are so predictable, predictable is boring remember your market. Fantasy readers, if they wanted boring they would pick up a biography, or a mathematics text book.
Know that the reader of a fantasy novel is an audience looking for wonderment; they thrive on something new, unusual and different. If your characters are predicable or the character from someone else’s novel with a different name, your novel is not going anywhere I’m afraid. No amount of action or adventure can make up for characters that are long forgotten, or whose names just didn’t matter.
Certainly your novels plots and events may require your characters to have fatal flaws. These flaws are often the elements of your characters that your reader will most easily relate to. Please don’t make them perfect. Nobody likes a perfect smarty pants. If your hero is perfect you might be thinking that your reader would enjoy him because they would like to be him, but you give your reader very little chance of relating to him.
Your fantasy novel characters may be human, or beast, they may be magicians or gods, but they should have a history, a past, relationships, or at least a longing for relationship. By this I don’t mean that your characters must be looking for love, but a relationship with their environment, their peers, and other characters they will interact with in your story. This relationship may not be comfortable and easy, in fact if your character is fully developed, complete with a personality some of his/hers/its relationships will be strained or even outright volatile. This does not have to be written in as part of your story but certainly even among friends undercurrents and tensions may be hinted at.
To create my characters I make a little diary for them. I don’t write this diary into the novel, but this is certainly a great idea to keep your characters IN character as the story unfolds.
My diary begins long before the novel does, it will included little notes about the characters childhood (if they had one) and a whole lot of history. Even when the story is being written the diary continues. In this I include little bits and pieces about the way they feel about the events they encounter and often things that were thought and felt that will not make it to the story being told.
If your characters are not human, which is often the case in a fantasy novel, you will have to learn the art of mianthro perspection, writing from the consciousness of inhuman objects or beasts, or in the least giving them human viewpoints without making them human.
There are many things to consider here, certainly your beast’s food source, but also the length of time your beast lives for, and its basic generic make up. Simply describing what your dragon looks like and giving it a completely human mind set does not give you a dragon, but a fairly odd shaped human.
Never dismiss the value of your secondary characters. Secondary characters are excellent tools to bring your character to life in the events of your story. You secondary characters will often play a role in your novels central plot, but these are also idea from which to base your understory from.
Your secondary characters are not extensions of your novels hero and will each have their own little quirks. Which means you will also have to give them the same attention to development as your main character, still you will not write everything you know about them into the novel, but they must have some substance to be of service to you and your novels plot.
Now let’s look at your villain. It is most important here to avoid the stereotypes of fantasy novels. Do not invest so much energy defining your world and giving birth to your hero and forget that your villain is as much central to your fantasy novels plan also.
Is the line between right and wrong really so obvious. Is good and evil just black and white? I hope not, there would seem to be little point in fantasy if it could not be rich in color. Put the cookie cutter away, you never know who’s cheering for the bad guy.
About the Author
Publishing pro and author/filmmaker Barry Sheppard has written and published many books, with hundreds of reviews in newspapers, TV and radio. He is now concentrating, with his team, on writing articles for others.
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