Making first contact - the cheat's way

This week I'm re-writing Genehunter.  In it I have a human crew making first contact with an indigenous species of big cats, the U-Vai.This raised the question of how to keep the story moving when the two species know nothing about each other and can't speak each other's languages.

I've resorted to a couple of tricks to get around this problem.  First, I have a viewpoint in the head of one of the aliens, Yull.  Getting into his head means I can tell the reader about the cats' society, culture, and concerns without having to worry about the language barrier.  The big cats do have a language, and they speak proper words.  (I'm not sure whether that modification to their vocal chords would mean the couldn't roar, but I want them to roar, so they do that too.)  being in Yull's head allows me to tell the reader relevant history long before my human characters discover it.

Second, I've cheated by letting the two species have universal translators.  They both have tech, so I've figured that they might be able to find a way to exchange binary files.  It's unlikely that they'd receive the complete databases I've miraculously had my characters doing, but this is fiction, and I have to do what's needed to keep the story moving.

In reality, even if the two species had such help, making a first contact would be a cautious, long drawn out process. But I want to send the two species on a journey together, to figure out what's happening at the other end of the continent.  So  I need them to be able to communicate and agree to travel together on this adventure,

I've made Yull a young leader, but wise in ways some of the older members of his tribe are not.  That means he's more open-minded, a dreamer, more able to cope with the culture shock of meeting people who came to his world through the 'deep black'.  And his son Villjo has a youngster's lack of fear, and makes friends with Aris, my human heroine, easily.

I've tried not to make the contact too unrealistic. It does involve Aris spending long hours with the language teaching programme actually learning the language.  But in the end the demands of the story must prevail.  And now they're ready to set out on their big adventure,

Wendy Metcalfe is the author of Panthera : Death Spiral and Panthera : Death Plain and the short story collection Otherlives.  Find out more at www.wendymetcalfe.com

Talking cats - ignoring an editor's advice

When I was gathering together submission guidelines for science fiction magazines earlier this year I came across one editor's list of what he didn't want to see in stories.  Apart from showing that person's jaded and cynical view of the stories he received, it also contained the line: no stories about talking cats.

I have no idea why this should be a no-no.  True, if you're going to replace talking fluffy bunnies with fluffy cute kittens it's likely your story won't have the edge it needs.  But what about if those cats are pony-sized lion-cats with arms and hands as well as four legs?  What if they have language, culture, religion, their own technology?  Ŵhat if they're a fully-rounded, intelligent, alien species that just happens to have evolved from a big cat species rather than an ape one?  I think that's a wholly different story.

This is what I am doing with Genehunter.  The point of creating the alien Ur-Vai was to give me a chance to comment on humans and their beliefs and culture.  For example, do we ever wonder about the feat of balance we perform every day just walking down the street?  From the viewpoint of a four-legged cat, bipedal locomotion should be hard.  After all, humans have no tails to help them balance.

My talking cats are real people.  Their pelt and mane colours differ, as do the shades of their eyes.  They're individuals,  Yull, my viewpoint cat, has eyes of different colours.  The Ur-Vai show the complexity and diversity of form that evolution would produce. And they have different political and personal opinions, as any highly-intelligent race would.  There are cats friendly to my human characters, cats hostile to them, and there are traitors to their own people.

So I'll leave that jaded and cynical editor's advice about no talking cats behind me.  Every trope can be done successfully if we find a fresh angle on it, tell a great story, and give our talking cats real problems and challenges.

Wendy Metcalfe is the author of Panthera : Death Spiral and Panthera : Death Song and the short story collection Otherlives.  Find out more about her at www.wendymetcalfe.com

Putting my head above the parapet

Over the last couple of weeks I've received several savage reviews of stories of mine, stories I love and really believe in.  This is the downside of putting our heads above the parapet and showing our work to the world. VWhen someone tells you that they cannot believe in the premise of your novel at all, this is a grievous wound.  It goes straight to the heart.  And sometimes we get do shot by critiquers.  Badly shot.  And the words wound us and go straight to the heart.

But sometimes there's more than just a comment on our work going on in these critiques.  In one of those savage reviews, I sensed jealousy, and perhaps even a sense of competition from the critiquer.  This was another writer who had not had her novel published yet.  It's coming out later this year, published by a small press I've never heard of.  And that makes me wonder how good she is as a writer.  I didn't get to critique her work in return, so I can't judge.  But I wonder.

If I were a beginner writer that level of savage criticism might well stop me writing for ever.  But I'm not,  I've been writing for forty years, and spent almost as long putting my head above the parapet.  I've taught creative writing for over a decade, and I'm now Chairwoman of Havant and District Writers' Circle.  And in all my workshops and in the Circle I set rules for feedback.  I ask people to say what they like about a piece first, then move on to what they didn't like about it.

There is always something good about a piece of writing.  I've never yet come across writing without one spark of something good to it.  And yet that was the critique I received.  Nothing was good, she didn't believe in my premise, my characters were stupid...  The critique was the most disrespectful I've ever received, and I can't help thinking of this critiquer as a jaded, cynical 'I've seen it all before' woman.  How joyless her life must be if she criticises everything in that manner.

There's only one way to heal from such a wound.  Remind yourself that this is one person's opinion, and that not everybody will agree with that view.  If we want to grow and learn as writers we have to put our heads above the parapet, but we also have to gain the wisdom to sort the wheat from the chaff.  I'll heal from my current wounds, continue putting my head above the parapet, and keep on learning and risking new wounds.

Wendy Metcalfe is the author of Panthera: Death Spiral and Panthera : Death Song and the short story collection Otherlives.  Find out more about her on www.wendymetcalfe.com

Science fiction conventions - a sense of community

I spent the Easter weekend at Dysprosium, the annual UK Eastercon science fiction convention. As at Loncon 3 last year, I was struck by how much of a sense of community there is between SF fans.

I went to the con alone, and within ten minutes of sitting down with my sandwich at the bar I was chatting  to a woman who'd also come alone.  We discussed our favourite SF and books, and went to the opening ceremony together.

I'd booked onto several writing workshops over the weekend, and spent a lot of the time in the company of other women writers, chatting about our work and the genre in general.  This is so different from my everyday life, where I'm surrounded by crime writers and women's contemporary writers, many of whom I have absolutely nothing in common with. 

I had a very lively dinner  discussion with another writer in which we compared our favourite SF books. It's such a joy to mention a book you read in the1980s and find that someone else has read it too, and understands why that book is so important to you.

There is a sense of cameraderie at cons, and a level of respect for other attendees that I don't see in my everyday life.  When I'm out in my favourite cafe I'm frequently annoyed by insensitive people who have no respect for others.  Yet, in the midst of hundreds of people, a very busy restaurant and hotel, I wasn't annoyed by anyone's behaviour once.

So, I've booked for Nine Worlds Geekfest in London in August this year, where I hope to meet another great set of people who share my passions.  I'm looking forward to it.

Wendy Metcalfe is the author of Panthera : Death Spiral and Panthera : Death Song, and the short story collection Otherlives.  Find out more about her at. www.wendymetcalfe.com

Gender issues in SF - going backwards?

This week saw me reading about the Strange Horizons 2014 count of gender representation in the reviewing of SF stories.  (Niall Harrison, 30th March 2015).  See Strange Horizons for the full data.

The first figure I noticed was the number of US books received by Locus for review : 58% by male authors, only 39.9% from female authors.  So even before we get into the murky area of equality of reviews women are at a disadvantage.  The UK figures are even worse : 68.7% of books submitted by men, only 31.3% by women.  Julie Crisp suggests that's because women don't submit as much, but I'm not convinced that's the problem,  I regularly submit, and am regularly rejected.

What we don't have is any analysis of the types of subject matter magazines and publishers favour.  We know that in contemporary women's fiction the importance of women's books is downplayed.  Hard-hitting books written by women dealing with abuse, prostitution, dysfunctional families, are being given pink and fluffy covers and classified as chick-lit.  That same subject matter in a book written by a man is considered a serious literary contribution.  I am beginning to suspect a similar bias is at work in the acceptance of SF short stories for publication.  Certainly I've not read any real feminist stories recently, anything that radically challenged patriarchal culture.

So here's my challenge to the number-counters.  I want an analysis of the types of story subjects that  get published.  Is there a pattern of magazines rejecting stories with strong feminist elements?  I suspect so, but I can't prove it.  Trying to do such an analysis would be far harder than just counting numbers, but would be extremely rewarding.  This is the VIDA count, version 2.0.

I've read far too many published stories by women that don't see the universe from a feminist point of view.  So many that seem to think the same restrictive forms of relationship will endure into the future.  There have been massive changes In our own culture as women have gained legal equality, and started to earn their own money.  We have choices we didn't have a century ago. In a century's time relationships will be radically different again, and I want to see that reflected in the SF I read.  Is anyone up for that challenge?

Wendy Metcalfe is the author of Panthera : Death Spiral and Panthera : Death Song and the short story collection Otherlives.  Find out more about her at www.wendymetcalfe.com