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explore-positive-representations-of-islam-in-scifi

Before heading out with my family to the protest of the Muslim Ban happening in our city today, I want to give you this. Stories are also a form of resistance. This can be especially true of science fiction and fantasy, where we speculate about other possible futures and other possible pasts. A few people asked me for this, so I made it for you: a one-page flyer Islam in SciFi Starter Kit. Use it. Share it. Print it. Email it. Included is a reading list of science fiction and fantasy either by Muslim authors or about Muslim characters who are not the media stereotype. There are links to free ebooks. A Mosque Among the Stars is an anthology of stories from 12 authors, permanently free in PDF format. And the first three stories in my Ansible series about 25th-century Muslim interstellar explorers–I’ve made those free until February 8, 2017 on the kindle, in hopes that might help too. They’re yours; explore them.

Many of the world’s great scientists, mathematicians, scholars, doctors, and poets are Muslim. And arguably, the world’s first science fiction may have been Zakariya al-Qazwini’s 13th-century Awaj bin Anfaq, in which an explorer visits the earth from a distant planet. Much of modern astronomy has roots in Islamic cultures, and much contemporary astronomy research is conducted in Muslim-majority nations. With 1.6 billion Muslims on the planet, it is no stretch to think that they may have an enormous role to play in the future of science and technology and in our science fiction. (And, though I didn’t include it on the flyer because it is the one story everyone knows, Frank Herbert’s Dune, one of the monuments of twentieth-century American science fiction, imagined descendants of one Muslim culture playing a very large role in an interplanetary future.)

If you want to go deeper than what a one-page flyer and list and “starter kit” can provide, check out the Islam in Science Fiction website, which includes book lists and reviews, essays and interviews with Islamic artists and writers and with non-Muslim scifi writers who write stories with Muslim characters.

One of my friends who asked for this said that such a reading list was instrumental when they were first discovering that almost everything they knew about Islam was categorically false. I hope you find these stories open a door for you, too. It’s a big world and a big universe out there, and the people we meet in it are seldom who we expect, and seldom who we’ve been taught.

Stant Litore

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explore-positive-representations-of-islam-in-scifi

I am tired — so tired. Some of it is schedule, some of it is fighting the good fight, some of it is just plain weariness from a very intense few months. But this weekend, I’m going to be at a convention teaching emerging writers how to make their characters unstoppable and unforgettable. I will be sharing that with a room full of people whose hearts are on fire with creativity and who are just starting their journey. And I am probably going to learn more, and gain more, from their energy and excitement than they’ll learn from my knowledge. And you know what? That is going to be awesome. That outweighs fatigue. Seeing people take up the torch and run, and helping them to run faster and farther: that outweighs fatigue every single time.

Stant Litore

Some days, the fear and hate with which we treat each other makes me want to crawl into a corner and say, “I give up.” But then, I see my beautiful children playing, or laughing, or sleeping. I think of their empathy and compassion and creativity. And I tell myself: They are the future. And I will have hope that the children of the future will be kinder and wiser than we. And hope is a very powerful thing.

I think of the courage and perseverance of a young man who spent Christmas with my family and who is applying for college this week, who was orphaned as a baby and fled through five countries in search of a safe home. I think of the power of his dreams. And you know what? My daughter’s laughter and that young man’s dreams that survived so much darkness and pain — those things are louder than any fear in the world. And always will be.

I think of my youngest daughter painting with her toes, making the most gorgeous art during the years when her blindness was worse. I remember her giggling at nurses days after we were cautioned that she had an uncertain future. I remember the way many suburban moms shunned her the first time we took her trick-or-treating, but I also remember the first time she stood, when we were told she never would. Her determination is stronger and worthier of my attention than any hate in the world. And always will be. Hate may burn a village or a thousand, yet it is the most brittle thing there is.

Now, I’ve recent heard a few out-of-state folk who have a bit of a stereotype about my adopted state Colorado (I’ve lived here 15 years), who think we’re all either mountain men or potsmoking hippies. Well, just to set the record straight, I’ll tell you what Colorado is: badass. When you fly in to see us, you will be greeted first outside the airport by a demonic horse with glowing red laser eyes so evil that it crushed and murdered its own creator; just think of what it might do to YOU. You will be welcomed to town by people whose idea of after-work relaxation is jogging up the side of a fourteener (we have 52 of these). When we go to live concerts, we have the bands play under the open stars. We think whiteout winter driving conditions just mean that maybe you shift down a bit on your way into work. Our international airport was built on a burial ground and one of the concourses plays indigenous music 24/7 to keep the dead peaceful. We have more microbreweries per capita than any other state in the US (which is why we also made it illegal in our state to ride a horse while under the influence), and we invented the cheeseburger, the license plate on your car, and the Chipotle burrito. We can be downright scary if you mess with us: we have the world’s highest-elevation alligator colony, 500 ghost towns, a haunted mountain hotel, and NORAD; for 60 years, we’ve tracked Santa’s flight from the North Pole and stood ready to shoot him out of the sky if he tries anything funny in our airspace. We have the only city in America with four recipients of the Medal of Honor. We kicked off both the New Age movement and Focus on the Family; we have one town where it is illegal to fire a catapult at a residence or place of business, and another town where it is illegal to lend your neighbor a vacuum cleaner. We don’t know our own minds and we don’t need to, we just like the mountains.

“When you see another’s face — the face of a child, or of someone hungry or hurt, someone pleading for your love — their eyes look back. You look at them. They look at you. Only the dead don’t look back.”

It is 1160 BC. For years, the prophet Devora has blamed other tribes for the hunger of the dead and the gruesome death of her mother. But this day will bring her both tidings of a swarm of the dead greater than any she has ever known and a supplicant who will shatter every hard shell she has formed around her heart: Hurriya, who has carried her infant across the length of ancient Israel in search of a miraculous cure. Hurriya, a refugee from the tribes Devora has hated. Hurriya, who is receiving terrifying visions of the future—like Devora’s own.

In the nights to come, all strangers in the land must stand together if they are to survive.

Strangers in the Land is back on the kindle, and better than ever — get your copy here. This Silver Edition will be in paperback in the next couple of weeks, in time for the holidays.

“To say I loved this book would be an understatement. I could not put it down.” – The Seattle Post-Intelligencer

“Beyond the rich historical background and the desperate fight for survival, Strangers in the Land is a story about otherness, what it means to be a ‘stranger’ … Far from being ‘just another zombie book’, it is a remarkably clear look at what it means to impose a system of inequality among a culture.” – Examiner.com

“Stant rebuilds the zombie mythology from the ground up.” – Rob Kroese, author of Mercury Falls and Schrodinger’s Gat

Dear writers and storytellers,

Here, as promised, is the fifth of five excerpts from my popular book Write Characters Your Readers Won’t Forget. I am offering one excerpt free each day this week on my blog. Each includes practical tips and exercises for digging more deeply into the inner lives of your characters — helping you to make your characters and their stories unforgettable. I offer the fifth of the five excerpts below.

And now, on to your free tip for the day:

DISCOVER YOUR CHARACTER’S FAMILY

by Stant Litore

Who is your character’s family? How do they look at their parents? What do they think of the ways they are like (or unlike) their parents? The nature of your character’s relationship (or lack thereof) with his or her parents can be a driving force in your character’s life.

So can the absence of parents.

Example: Dinosaur Cowgirl

In Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files series, the Chicago wizard Harry Dresden is an orphan, and his yearning for a family drives a lot of his choices. For example, in the novel Ghost Story, Harry runs some big risks—almost to the point of losing sight of his mission—in order to help a young gang member who is an orphan. Harry can see that the youth is a “good kid” in a bad place, and because of his own history as an orphan, he can’t simply walk away.

In Skin Game, there is a touching scene where Harry watches the Carpenter children rampage playfully through his best friend’s house. An older child carries a younger child on his shoulders while holding his hands up against his chest like tiny arms and making growly T-Rex noises; another child flees while the girl being carried yells gleefully, “No one can escape dinosaur cowgirl!” Watching their antics, Harry gets almost tearful. These children have security and affection that he never had.

What lies simmering in the heart of your character, when they think about their family? Were they an only child? Were they an older, younger, middle child? Where are their siblings now? All of these questions can yield vital clues to who your character is and the choices your character might make in the story.

EXERCISE 21

It’s time to interview your character about the things we’ve discussed in this chapter. For this exercise, write down a list of questions – e.g., What were your character’s parents like? What is her scariest childhood memory? What is one time she was really furious with her best friend? If she could have one thing more than anything else in all the world, what would that be? What does she do before going to bed each night?

Give the list to a friend and invite them to add questions of their own. (That part is important.) Then roleplay your character and have your friend conduct the interview, asking questions of your character. Try to get as “in character” as possible. If you can, dress up as your character (even if it seems silly to do so). At the least, step out of the room as you, take a few deep breaths, and step back into the room as your character, before beginning the interview. If you are nervous about the exercise, just remember that you are a writer. Playing pretend is what you do. Getting inside a character’s head is what you do.

Record the interview, and play it back afterward. Maybe discuss it with your friend. Perhaps try doing this with two or three friends at different times. The key is to be surprised by new questions and to see how your character responds.

If you have a friend who is an actor,  a theater major, or similar, have your friend read a scene and then ask your friend to roleplay your character. This time, you ask the questions.

Always take time to reflect after an interview. What questions surprised you, and what answers? Are there new opportunities and ideas for exploring who your character is, and how they interact with others?

Read more in Write Characters Your Readers Won’t Forget!

Stant Litore

Dear writers and storytellers,

Here, as promised, is the fourth of five excerpts from my popular book Write Characters Your Readers Won’t Forget. I am offering one excerpt free each day this week on my blog. Each includes practical tips and exercises for digging more deeply into the inner lives of your characters — helping you to make your characters and their stories unforgettable. I offer the fourth of the five excerpts below.

And now, on to your free tip for the day:

DISCOVER YOUR CHARACTER’S FRIENDS

by Stant Litore

You can tell a lot about someone not just by who their friends are, but by why they are friends. If your protagonist has a confidant, what key moment originally established their bond?

There is a great example of this in the Nick Cage and Tea Leoni movie The Family Man. Nick Cage’s character has a long-time buddy that he goes out to have beers with, goes bowling with, a “one of the guys,” working-class character. At first, watching the movie, you assume the relationship between these two men – both of them dads and husbands in a small suburb – is relatively superficial. After all, you don’t see them talking about their feelings on the screen; they joke around; they are just buddies.

But then comes a brief, pivotal scene in which a neighbor’s wife is flirting with Nick Cage’s character, and he flirts back and gets her phone number. He then brags about it lightly to his friend. His friend doesn’t give him the high-five response he clearly expects; instead, his friend suddenly turns serious. “I can’t believe I’m hearing this,” he says. And he starts to get angry. “Do you remember what you told me when I was thinking of cheating? You said, ‘Don’t give up the best thing in your life just because you’re a little unsure who you are.’”

That is such a powerful line of dialogue! And it only takes a moment on the screen to deliver it. So much backstory is contained in that one line! Suddenly, the way we look at these two characters and their friendship is entirely different. They aren’t “just buddies.” Nick Cage’s character stood by his friend and was there for him, challenging him at a really critical moment in the past, and now his friend is returning their favor. Their friendship may not be something they talk about often, but it is ocean-deep and has a floor of solid rock.

Ask yourself: What was the pivotal moment in the past that shaped your character’s bonds with a friend, and importantly, how can you reveal that moment at a key point that surprises the reader and moves your plot forward?

EXERCISE 20

Write three brief scenes; in each, your character attempts to a second person about the friendship he or she has with an old friend. This is an opportunity to see if you can uncover fresh perspectives on the friendship. In the three scenes, the second person who is listening is:

1. A child on a playground.
2. The friend. At the friend’s deathbed.
3. Your character’s ex-lover.

Read more in Write Characters Your Readers Won’t Forget — and watch this blog for tomorrow’s tip!

Stant Litore

Dear writers and storytellers,

Here, as promised, is the third of five excerpts from my popular book Write Characters Your Readers Won’t Forget. I am offering one excerpt free each day this week on my blog. Each includes practical tips and exercises for digging more deeply into the inner lives of your characters — helping you to make your characters and their stories unforgettable. I offer the third of the five excerpts below.

And now, on to your free tip for the day:

DISCOVER YOUR CHARACTER’S DEEPEST WOUND, FEAR, AND DESIRE

by Stant Litore

We are driven by our desires, our fears, and the core wounds of our lives. These supply the goals we want to achieve, the barriers we strive to overcome, and the inner obstacles that slow us from leaping over those barriers.

So it is critical to ask these questions about your characters:

1. When was your character most loved?
2. When was your character hurt?
3. What choices did your character make at that time?
4. How did your character feel about those choices?
5. How has your character repeated those choices, perhaps in smaller ways, ever since? How is your character driven by those past choices?
6. What triggers memories of that past? What triggers might others trip over unknowingly?

Example: Rachel’s Bracelets

There is a clever scene in Sharon Shinn’s novel Archangel that illustrates how triggers of past memory can be used in a way that builds emotional tension, throws wrinkles into the plot, and sets up a key moment on the character arc. In the story, Rachel and Gabriel are preparing for an arranged marriage. Gabriel has great wealth and power but essentially a good heart; Rachel, until recently, was a slave. The reader knows this, but may not fully appreciate the emotional impact that history has had on Rachel until this scene.

Gabriel throws a banquet in Rachel’s honor and invites every dignitary he can think of. He wants very badly to show her that he means to treasure her. During the banquet, he presents her with an expensive gift: two heavy, solid-gold, jeweled bracelets. Rachel looks down at them and freezes. Her entire body goes cold and rigid. She starts to shake. Very quietly, she says, “I will never wear these,” and then flees the room.

Gabriel and the other guests are left shocked by her departure.

Of course what has happened is that the bracelets have reminded Rachel of manacles. We learn this when Gabriel pursues her to her quarters and tries to comfort her; Rachel lowers her sleeves (until this point in the story, she has kept her wrists carefully covered) to reveal the bruises her slavery has left around her wrists. The revelation is powerful and poignant and even shocking, and it opens a key moment on the character arc: How will Gabriel react? And how will Rachel then respond? It is an opportunity to move their relationship forward.

For Rachel, the gift of golden bracelets was the trigger for her deepest wound and her most terrible fears. What might trigger your characters’ most significant past experiences and feelings (whether terrifying or joyous)? What is a touch, a smell, a sound, that is meaningful and historical to your character?

The trigger can be something quite small and subtle. For example, a mentor of mine many years ago told me how her eyes would mist over every time she heard the sound of someone jingling car keys in their hand. Her father had died when she was young, and she missed him so much. When she was small and her father would come home from work, he would jingle his car keys as he climbed the stairs. Whenever she hears that sound, her loss and her love for her father rise to the top of her heart.

What triggers your characters’ feelings from the past? 

EXERCISE 18

Write three brief scenes, each making use of one of the following as a “trigger” for feelings welling up from your character’s past:

1. A red cord tied around a bunch of bananas at the grocery store.
2. Children humming.
3. The scent of bacon.

In all three cases, write a scene of conflict between characters. Use the trigger to pivot the scene from one mood to another or to abruptly change the course of the conflict. Write all three to be poignant, not amusing.

EXERCISE 19

Repeat Exercise 18. This time, write for humor.

Read more in Write Characters Your Readers Won’t Forget — and watch this blog for tomorrow’s tip!

Stant Litore

Dear writers and storytellers,

Here, as promised, is the second of five excerpts from my popular book Write Characters Your Readers Won’t Forget. I am offering one excerpt free each day this week on my blog. Each includes practical tips and exercises for digging more deeply into the inner lives of your characters — helping you to make your characters and their stories unforgettable. I offer the second of the five excerpts below.

And now, on to your free tip for the day:

DISCOVER YOUR CHARACTER’S INTIMACIES

by Stant Litore

What are your character’s intimacies—things your character knows that she shares with very few people? In compelling stories, characters have secrets, intimate knowledge about themselves that they conceal from themselves or from other people, just as we do in our own lives.

Showing these on the page not only reveals what your character is most shy about or values highest; they also provide you with ingredients for key scenes. The scenes in which a character chooses to reveal (or not to reveal) intimate knowledge are often rich with possibilities for tension, emotional conflict, and catharsis.

Example: Penelope’s Tree-Bed

At the end of The Odyssey, when Odysseus has slain the suitors and stands ready to reclaim his house, there is a tender scene in which he and Penelope look across the room at each other. This is not Hollywood; he and his wife, separated for twenty years, do not rush across the room, leap into each other’s arms, and swing around in a circle to swelling, orchestral music. He has been gone twenty years. Penelope needs to know if this man is still her husband. She needs to know that in two ways – is this man actually Odysseus? And is he still her Odysseus, the man she once knew?

So Penelope tests him. She suggests that he sweep her off her feet and take her to their bed, and drops a few details about the bed. The bed she describes doesn’t actually exist. Odysseus, perhaps with a look of wonder and beseeching in his face, answers by describing the bed that does exist. “What are you talking about?” he asks. “I carved our marriage bed, with my own hands, from the trunk of a great olive tree that stands in our bedroom, rising out of the floor and up and right through the roof. I carved the bed in an alcove, right in the living wood; I carried you to it on our wedding night.”

This is something only the two of them know, a memory and an intimacy that only they share. By the fact that Odysseus knows of it, and by the tenderness in his voice as he speaks of it, Penelope knows that he is still her Odysseus. Then the tears and the embraces come.

 Example: The Heel of the Loaf

Here is a story an editor shared with me, some years ago. An elderly couple are having dinner, and are fighting heatedly. The argument gets louder and louder; they fight like this many nights and go to bed bitter with each other. As they fight, the husband is serving food onto his plate and his wife’s. At one point, he slices the loaf of bread on the table and puts the heel of the loaf on his wife’s plate.

“And that’s another thing!” she yells. “Why do I always get the heel of the loaf? What am I, a servant?”

He doesn’t reply, and she falls silent when she sees the shock on his face.

There is a pause.

When the husband breaks the silence, his voice is soft and filled with wonder, concern, and a little hurt. “That’s my favorite piece.”

Two intimacies are shared at this moment, without being stated directly. He never knew that she feels devalued when he gives her the heel of the loaf, and she never knew that all these years, he has been giving her the first cut of the bread, giving up his favorite piece so she could enjoy it. The entire scene turns on this small gesture, this brief revelation, because it reveals to each character so much about how the other feels. After this moment, they can’t fight any more; the scene will probably have a happier ending than the reader initially expected!

Read more in Write Characters Your Readers Won’t Forget — and watch this blog for tomorrow’s tip!

Stant Litore

Hello fellow writers and storytellers,

NaNoWriMo is done, and some of you now have chapters upon chapters of manuscript, and you now face the hard work of revision and deepening of your story. Where to start?

To help, I’d like to offer five excerpts from my popular book Write Characters Your Readers Won’t Forget, one each day this week on my blog. Each daily blog will offer practical tips and exercises for digging more deeply into the inner lives of your characters — helping you to make your characters and their stories unforgettable. I offer the first of the five excerpts below.

Here is your free tip for the day:

DISCOVER YOUR CHARACTER’S UNIQUE HABITS

by Stant Litore

What are your character’s unique habits, and what do they reveal about your character’s traits and life choices?

Example: A Prayer Before Bed

In the film Shadowlands (dramatizing scenes in the life of C.S. Lewis, the author of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe) there is a touching scene in which Jack Lewis brings his wife, Joy, home. She is dying slowly of cancer, and they married while in the hospital. After tucking his ailing wife gently into bed, Lewis, a long-time bachelor (he is about fifty), is unsure what to do. “Just do what you do every night,” Joy tells him.

Lewis shambles about the room, walking through his routine, narrating it: “Well, let me see, first…I come in through the door…and I walk over here…” He looks puzzled as he hangs up his coat and hat; he has never had another person in the room during his night-time routine. At last, he kneels beside the bed, folds his hands, and bows his head in prayer. “And then…then I pray,” he says.

Joy laughs, delighted: “Like a little kid!” Her eyes shine with amusement and love. “You’re just like a little kid!”

Look how much that character’s habits reveal about him! Not only that, but the habits are shown to the reader at a key scene where the writer has opportunity to reveal things not only about C.S. Lewis but also about Joy, and about their relationship. It would be a mistake (in most cases) to open a chapter with a lengthy description of the character’s habits. Find an opportunity to reveal them where the revealing has impact on the plot or on relationships that are key to your story – as in the case of Shadowlands, where one character is sharing his habits with another for the first time.

EXERCISE 16

Make a sketch of your protagonist’s morning routine and consider its implications. What is the first thing your character does, each day? Does your character hit the Snooze button on the alarm eighteen times before rolling (literally) out of the bed, with a groan? Does your character leap to her feet and begin doing aerobics in front of the mirror? What kind of alarm clock does your character own? Does it beep and screech? Does it play music? What station? (In Jim Butcher’s The Dresden Files, Harry Dresden never punches Snooze because he has a Mickey Mouse alarm clock, and he tells the reader that the couldn’t live with someone who would punch Mickey Mouse. That is a revealing detail!) If your character lives with a spouse who is not a morning person, what does she do first in the morning? Rise and tiptoe softly out of the bedroom, gently, not wanting to wake him? Does she kiss his shoulder or his hair before tiptoeing out? Is there a morning when, angry, she breaks from routine, goes to the kitchen and slam cabinet doors and slam the skillet down on the stove, and generally makes as much noise as possible? Is there a morning when she decides to wake him in a more intimate way?

EXERCISE 17

Make a sketch of your protagonist’s evening routine and consider its implications. What is the last thing your character does, before bed? Does he cover his head with a pillow? Does she sing softly to herself or say mantras, hoping to ward off nightmares? Does she clutch a teddy bear close, almost childlike, feeling in the moment before bed each night a terrible loneliness? Does he drink himself to sleep? Does he masturbate? Does he brush his teeth, fastidiously, for exactly two minutes, and then put his brush carefully in its holder and tidy the sink before approaching his carefully made bed? Does he read one chapter each night from a novel before flicking off the light? Does he leave all the lights on? Does he leave just one light on, maybe in the hall? Does he, each night, check the bedside drawer to make sure his gun is ready?

Our habits define us; they structure our lives and they reveal about us more than we think.

Read more in Write Characters Your Readers Won’t Forget — and watch this blog for tomorrow’s tip!

Stant Litore

I asked my characters what they’re thankful for this season…

Devora (upper left): “I’m still breathing.” (points at one of the people reading my blog) “He’s still breathing.” (points at another) “Her, too.” (points at another) “And he’s breathing.” (squints, then lifts her blade Mishpat warily) “I think.”

Father Polycarp (2nd from the left): “That you are listening to me. And that when I fall, there will be someone to keep walking. There is a very long way to walk.”

Support Grey Havens YA this season by ordering Stant Litore’s The Zombie Bible: Silver Edition Digital Box Set (on sale this season on Kindle and Nook). Through Dec 31, 50% of royalties go to GHYA.

Hi everyone! As you know, I’ve been deeply involved for years in the Grey Havens Group, and am a huge admirer of their youth branch, Grey Havens YA (GHYA), which gives teens in northern Colorado a home to come discuss books, imagination, and philosophy. It is an amazing group, and something I would have given a lot to have when I was a teen living in the country. Whenever I see them gathered for an event, I am so moved by their camaraderie, their deep love of sharing stories and of creating art, their passion for reading, and by the self-confidence these teens have built together.

GHYA is a shoestring-budget operation, and I want to help by giving them 50% of my royalties for The Zombie Bible: Silver Edition Digital Box Set to GHYA through December 31, 2015. Please help me by sharing the word and, of course, by buying the books! If I can get GHYA just $250, that supplies their book budget for the spring. If I can get them $500-$1000, they’ll be able to increase their membership, or perhaps get equipment to replace the truly archaic and at-the-brink-of-breaking computers and projectors they currently work with.

You can read testimonials from Grey Havens YA members and families here. And you can get the ebooks on Kindle or Nook (or give them another as a holiday gift). Tweet and share this post to let your friends know!

May your holidays and holy days be merry this season —

Stant Litore
zombiebible@gmail.com