Peggy Whitson in the cupola of the International Space Station
I don’t know about you, but it’s been one of my childhood dreams to travel in space. As a big sci-fi fan, I’ve watched a ton of movies, read even more books, wrote a few of them, and spent countless hours wondering what it must be really like to fly in space.
The Washington Post recently posted a wonderful post, 50 astronauts, in their own words. Filled with quotes and anecdotes, it conveys the feeling of actually being in one of the shuttles or the ISS, looking down on Earth.
Also, it’s a great writing resource, especially if you’re into near-future hard science fiction. Add any of these gems into your stories and give your books an extra level of realism.
The bathroom breaks suck. So does getting sweaty.
Sandy Magnus washes her hair aboard the space shuttle Atlantis
As usual, here is your warning that this story has cursing, sex (not graphic), innuendo, and violence. It’s my Rated-R action adventure called Derailing Bedlam. This is the fourth outing (third official) for Cassidy and Lloyd, so feel free to click on one of the two covers to see how it started. Each one is 99 cents!
As I said on Monday, I’m not really sure of what I’m doing. I’m seeing that I do watch a bunch of shows that have ‘Bad Boy’ protagonists. There are a few themes that I’ve seen that enhance their rebellious nature. Might as well share what feeble insights I’ve garnered here:
There has to be some level of charm. It can be intentional charisma like Neal Caffrey from ‘White Collar’ or animal attraction like Angel or Spike from ‘Buffy’. This is what draws people to the character instead of them being the loner, hated outsider that has no business being involved in the action. You need there to be a reason this anti-norm character is permitted to be a part of the story when they aren’t going along with the social program.
Pretty sure you don’t always need to give them a motorcycle, leather jacket, and cigarette. I mean, they’re not always an extra from ‘Grease’. Just so happens that a lot of them are fans of that movie and lifestyle. Probably wouldn’t work in a fantasy setting since I can see fireballs and dragon breath igniting their hair within seconds of their first ‘Bad Boy’ scoff.
You can enhance the anti-norm appearance of your ‘Bad Boy’ by giving him a straight-laced foil. This can be a friend, an enemy, or a respected rival. This person will follow the rules and give lectures on how one should behave. You can also add some judging in, but be careful if you want them to be a protagonist as well. All of this makes it clear how different the ‘Bad Boy’ is because you see the other side of the coin.
If you’re going to reveal why they are ‘Bad Boys’ then make sure it’s a good reason. It can be rebelling against parents, a sense of loneliness, apathy towards their own reputation, and any number of legitimate behavior origins. What doesn’t really work is them simply being this because it’s who they are. It could be true, but it rings a little hollow, especially if the character grew up in the society that they stand apart from. All this requires is one brief explanation too.
There’s no reason that you can’t do a female version. It would be a ‘Bad Girl’, but that has an odd ring to it. Maybe because it’s a phrase you see more in erotica? You also have a different hurdle to overcome because audiences judge ‘Bad Girls’ a lot harsher than ‘Bad Boys’. For some reason, the former doesn’t seem to have that same level of risk and danger. Not saying it doesn’t happen, but they are rarer.
Be careful about slipping into the realm of creepy. Sure, your ‘Bad Boy’ is older and the younger protagonists are interested in him. Yet, he’s hanging around a high school and isn’t a student. Best to either move him to another location or reduce the age to a more believable level. That or you can have them be someone who was left back a grade or two.
Work them as a character before adding the label. Aiming directly for ‘Bad Boy’ can lead to cliches and misfiring. See if you can have it come out naturally. This can be accomplished by designing the world first to see where they can rebel without crossing certain lines. If you aren’t much of a planner then just go with the flow and look for opportunities for the ‘Bad Boy’ to be bad.
Ciao, amici. We’re wrapping up the Story Bible series of posts today. If you missed one or more of the posts, you can find them, in order of post date, by clicking the following links:
Today, we’re discussing how to write the back-of-book blurb.
You’re probably wondering why a blurb, which isn’t needed until you’re ready to publish, is something I include in a story bible, which I create before I start writing even the first book in the series.
Three reasons.
One, your blurb covers only the most important and most marketableparts of your story. Keeping that in mind as you write will enable you to stay focused on what the most crucial parts of your story are.
Two, when you have a series, you want all your blurbs to follow the same format. That’s easiest…
The strangest thing is that I seem to have only done one Teaser Tuesday for Legends of Windemere: Path of the Traitors. I guess I had put the tradition on hold and forgot to bring it back. Looking through it, a reason might be because it was littered with spoilers about the flanking books, but I’m still shocked that I couldn’t find anything. I’m making up for it with a big chunk that involves Trinity, Fizzle, Timoran, and a new character by the name of Quail. Enjoy!
A while back, somebody suggested I write a few posts on the ‘Bad Boy’ concept. I agreed thinking it shouldn’t be too hard. Now, I’m sitting here trying to figure out what I was thinking. Seriously, this feels like it’s outside of my ballpark because ‘Bad Boy’s in my mind don’t really appear outside of romances and dramas. Then again, I’m using a very narrow definition. Let me try to enhance it by some stream of consciousness writing.
The ‘Bad Boy’ is a male character who stands against societal behavior norms in some fashion. It can be the clothes they wear, the food they eat, how they talk, or any number of things that make them an outcast. Yet, they aren’t like your ‘nerd’ and ‘introvert’ outcasts because there’s a sense of ‘coolness’ about them. Some are even rather social, especially if you include charismatic villains such as Loki and Joker. I mean, these two have actual fandoms that root for them to win. Those are extreme, so most of your ‘Bad Boys’ will be your rebel/mysterious stranger types. You really drive them home when someone is trying to change their ways, which is why you see them so often in romances and teen dramas. It’s definitely more attitude-driven than anything else.
I never really got into this concept, but I think I can get an idea of why they have so much appeal to audiences and other characters. Physiologically, there is an adrenaline rush from interacting with a ‘Bad Boy’. They tend to have this aura of danger or risk because of that anti-norm activity/description. It’s naughty to be interested in them since you don’t know what will happen. This feeds a psychological desire to break a rut and shake up your own world. A person can’t stay the same if they interact with this potential catalyst for change. This might be why there are times where it seems the attraction is more to what the ‘Bad Boy’ stands for than who or what they are. It also goes contrary to the attempt to tame him and bring him closer to the norms. This is where the concept tends to lose me, but I don’t think I’m the target audience for these guys.
As an author, I can see how this is a difficult character to work with. You want them to be attractive to the other protagonists and the audience, so having them be bad to the point of asshole is a mistake. Yet, you can’t have them be too nice and approachable since you need that risk factor. Creating an explanation for their behavior helps since a tragic background or a misunderstanding can add a dimension of understanding. The trick is to get to that point without losing the audience. Hit it too soon and you ruin the ‘Bad Boy’ image long before the climax. Too late and he comes off as an antagonist with a desperate attempt by the author to redeem him. So, how can you handle this without falling into either trap?
I really don’t have any clear idea. Perhaps the best thing to do is to write the character as he is in your head and let the cards fall where they may. ‘Bad Boys’ that are designed specifically for that category come off as forced and shallow. The dynamic rebels and anti-social guys tend to be very human. They’re simply different from everyone else and treated as such. Establishing the society at first helps because one reader might see a ‘Bad Boy’ while another sees a regular person and a third sees a villain. You really have to prevent pre-existing beliefs on how humans should act from taking the forefront if you want a widely accepted ‘Bad Boy’. Heck, you need this for any character, but it’s really true for those that go against norms.
What do you think about the ‘Bad Boy’ archetype? Ever try to write? Did you accidentally write one?
After relaunching A Heaven for Toasters, complete with new cover, I promised to publish it here in installments. If you’d rather not wait, I will leave the book at $0.99 for a few more days, then I’ll raise the price back to $2.99.
Note: You can find a link to all published chapters at the end of this post or read more parts on Wattpad.
A Heaven for Toasters
Detective Mika Pensive has a new partner. He’s hot. Smart. Funny. And an android.
Set in the near future, A Heaven for Toasters is more than a sci-fi crime adventure with plenty of romance and wit. It’s the book that will make you look at your toaster in a whole new way.
CHAPTER 3: Exhibitions
Sunday, April 18, 2117, 12:02 p.m.
“A little trick of mine,” a woman’s nasally voice said next to my ear.
There’s no quirky hidden meaning there. I’ve been doing jigsaw puzzles whenever I have time and am too exhausted to write. That’s happened a lot because of my schedule and emotional state. Just can’t force it and getting only 30 minutes late at night with my mind still racing isn’t a good author mindset. So, here are the puzzles I finished since I don’t really have anything else to post about today:
This one is going to be framed and put in my son’s room. Problem is that it’s really hard to find an 18 x 18 frame. Need to make one and that requires time.
The angle is because this puzzle came out very glossy after the glue. So, a direct shot had too much glare. It’s a map of Hyrule from ‘Legend of Zelda’, but not from a specific game. I have another one that’s from Majora’s Mask. Really wish I could find maps from my favorites ‘Ocarina of Time’ and ‘Link to the Past’.
You’re going to see a lot of Star Wars because that’s the most common non-nature/Thomas Kinkade puzzle I can find. This one was kind of a pain because there wasn’t much color variety. I couldn’t sort through for ‘green’ and get a section done, so there was a lot of trial and error.
Same problem as the last one because of the stars and Millennium Falcon. I finished the character section in the bottom left in one night. After that, it was a few weeks of slowly working on it. I will admit that it was a little easier than the last one because I was able to discern sections that I could sort pieces out for.
This is of the Johto region in Pokemon. I didn’t really want this one, but I was at a convention and I had already bought the other 3 that the stall had. Figured there wasn’t a reason not to since I’m just doing this to relax. Unfortunately, I can’t claim to be the one who finished this. During one of my training nights, my dad was getting my son ready for bed and that requires waiting for the little guy to finish his shower. My dad saw I only had 10 pieces left to go and put them in place. Apparently, people didn’t realize I was using the puzzles as a relaxation aide considering all of the chaos. It did fall apart when I was putting paper underneath and preparing it for gluing though.
This is the one I just finished and it got me through the training and proctoring weeks. It was rough because it didn’t have a little poster for me to work off of. The front picture on the box didn’t have the whole thing on there. A picture on the back is all I had and it wasn’t that big or clear. It’s layered pictures with repeated figures, so I needed to see between the front ones to see about the piece I was holding. Glad to have this one done and I’ll be gluing it between writing sessions today.
I have 7 puzzles still on the docket and I’m always looking for more. Got a box with 4 Star Wars puzzles, a classic Legend of Zelda one, and that Majora’s Mask map. Oh, that’s only 6. The 7th is this 1,000 piece one by Thomas Kinkade, which I’m saving for last:
He has a few DC Heroes puzzles that I plan on getting my hands on. My son claimed this for his room though. He was a little upset when he saw the front because Catwoman was missing, but then we saw her on the back.
I grew up in a less than privileged family in Los Angeles, went to UC Berkeley on a basketball scholarship, and then worked my way through Berkeley Law School. After a year at a civil firm, where I was conscripted as a soldier into an endless paper war. It soon became clear to me that I had neither the inclination, nor talent, to be a civil lawyer. The one facet of the practice of law that appealed to me was trial work. I joined the LA Public Defenders Office, the largest criminal defense organization in the country, where the work consisted primarily of jury trials.
There is no more intense trial experience than when another person’s fate is at stake. I found criminal trials exhilarating, extremely stressful and at times heart breaking. But, it seemed I had a knack for it. After a few years I was selected to join…
This is a week of beginnings and endings . . . with no break between them. I finished the school year and am already excited about September. My plan is to put in for Teaching Assistant Level III over the summer, which will get me a step closer to going for teaching certification in September. If I’m lucky, my time in Florida as a sub and the program I finished will get me somewhere. If not then I have to find a college that allows for online courses and add that to my hefty schedule. After thinking about it, I want to get my graduate degree in literacy. That would match up really well with my English Writing Arts undergrad work. Anyway, that’s the long plan. Right now, I have to figure out what to do about the summer.
My camp job began on Thursday, so I was running back and forth for a bit. Finished the training yesterday and my first full day is Monday. Things haven’t gone exactly as I had planned. Some of the equipment I expected isn’t there and the video games gain most of the attention. They got a Super Nes mini and a NES classic mini, which has led to some interesting encounters. Mostly, I’m kind of surprised how much trouble people are having with the old games. Have video games gotten so much easier that things like Super Mario World and Mike Tyson’s Punch Out are insane levels of difficulty? I understood that there would be some problems, but a few attempts left me scratching my head. Almost wondering if I could do a classic game lesson, but most only care about the Nintendo Switch.
I’m left with another challenge because my plan was to do tournaments every week. I saw that the campers were either doing their own or didn’t really show much excitement when they won a game. So, I’m redirecting my energy to coming up with fun gimmicks that I bring up every now and then. We’ll see how it goes since I might get some push back when I attempt to mess with the simple ‘sit and play’ habits. I only have a handful of ideas though because I have to build things from scratch. Some revolve around the Nintendo Switch while others will be using the other room equipment. I have to move between 3 rooms with two next to each other and the other downstairs, so I’m going to be moving around a lot. Going to leave me pretty tired by the end of the day, which means nights will be puzzles and TV.
That means I need to figure out how to finish War of Nytefall: Eradication. As we remember from last weekend, I’m not having any luck getting to this project. 3 chapters to go and I haven’t touched them in a month. I have this weekend to tackle it, but I can already see signs of distractions. Whenever my son isn’t around, some people turn up to consume my time because nobody wants me to be left alone. This actually stresses me out more and I need to go hermit, which isn’t possibly once I get hungry and thirsty. If I can get even 1.5 chapters done then that leaves me the rest to do during the 4 day July 4th break when my son will be with his mother. Maybe I can gain a little luck and pull that one off. I really don’t want this project left unfinished through the summer because it’s hard enough regaining my place after a month. As it stands, I might lose tomorrow morning to reviewing what I already did and figuring out how to do the characters again. I dread the editing run because it could be a mess. If I have to do full rewrites then I might as well junk it all and leave the books alone until I’m on my deathbed. With my level of planning, it doesn’t make any sense for me to screw up the first draft so horribly.
I need to finish the September blog posts as well. This clears more time during the summer when I can rest and collect my energy. I have 5 posts left, but two of them are complicated poems that I want to try. Got a bunch written while I was acting as a backup proctor, which is good. These two require a lot of quiet and concentration. Surprised I was able to write about ‘fictional perverts’ while I was there, but it was analytical with tame pictures of manga characters. I have 3 nights to tackle these 5 if I want to get them done before the 4th. It would be nice to lock it down since I have a dental appointment that morning, so I might lose the holiday to whatever happens there.
Do I have hope that I will get both projects done before the end of the week? I really don’t want to get my hopes up. Every time I do, I get crushed. People don’t like me saying that I’m done being positive and hopeful. I’ve gotten a lot of complaints and platitudes, but I’m being honest. Quite a few people have looked at me this week and admitted that I’ve had a horrible year. The fact that I’m still standing and haven’t crawled into a bottle shows I have some strength. Yet, I’m so tired of focusing on the light only to find that its another fire barreling towards me. All I’m going to do is what I can and expect things to fall apart regardless of my efforts. Oddly enough, this makes me feel better about smiling and pushing forward. Any victories will be pleasant surprises while failures will be fully expected. Not a pretty way to continue on, but it should get me through some of the lingering chaos.
Well, that’s really it. What are the goals?
Pay bills . . . Ouch.
Finally have a full day of summer camp.
Work on September blog posts.
Work on War of Nytefall: Eradication
Dentist
TV and puzzles
Work a bit on the fantasy writing book.
Come up with fun gimmick days for camp
Start ball rolling for TA Level III (This might not be until after the holiday though.)
Peggy Whitson in the cupola of the International Space Station 
Sandy Magnus washes her hair aboard the space shuttle Atlantis 
I grew up in a less than privileged family in Los Angeles, went to UC Berkeley on a basketball scholarship, and then worked my way through Berkeley Law School. After a year at a civil firm, where I was conscripted as a soldier into an endless paper war. It soon became clear to me that I had neither the inclination, nor talent, to be a civil lawyer. The one facet of the practice of law that appealed to me was trial work. I joined the LA Public Defenders Office, the largest criminal defense organization in the country, where the work consisted primarily of jury trials. 
