TV Series Review: “Incorporated”–Or How I Lost My Soul to Climate Change

June 16, 2024February 12, 2024 / thealiennextdoor / Leave a comment

*Spiga employees submit to security checks when they enter the facility*

Incorporated is a science fiction thriller (on Netflix) that offers a chilling glimpse of a post-climate change dystopia. Created by David and Alex Pastor and produced by Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Ted Humphrey and Jennifer Todd, the show (filmed in Toronto, Canada) opens in 82 °F Milwaukee in November 2074 after environmental degradation, widespread famine and mismanagement have bankrupted governments. We learn later that Milwaukee Airport served as a FEMA climate relocation centre that resembles an impoverished shantytown. In the wake of the governments demise, a tide of multinational corporations has swept in to control 90% of the globe and ratified the 29^th amendment, granting them total sovereignty.

Corporate climber at Spiga, *Ben Larson receives climate news updates as he gets ready for work*

Corporations fight a brutal covert war for market share and dwindling natural resources. Like turkey vultures circling overhead, they position themselves for what’s left after short-sighted government regulations, lack of corporate check and FEMA mismanagement have ‘had their way’ with the planet. The world is now a very different place. There is no Spain or France. Everything south of the Loire is toxic desert; New York City reduced to a punch line in a joke. Reykjavik and Anchorage are sandy beach destinations and Norway is the new France—at least where champagne vineyards are concerned. Asia and Canada are coveted for their less harsh climates.

Those who work for the corporations live in privilege behind the sentried walls of the Green Zones. The rest fend for themselves with scarcity in the contaminated slums of the Red Zones. The numbers aren’t provided in the show’s intro but we can guess that they are similar to Pedro Aguilera’s TV thriller 3% and Blomkamp’s motion picture Elysium—both about living with scarcity, where the few elite enjoy the many privileges—so long as they follow the elite rules.

“Kleptocracy reigns, paranoia rules, and the marketplace determines human worth,” writes Jeff Jensen of Entertainment Weekly about Incorporated. “Only the most obedient, cunning, and technologically adept can flourish. Question authority? You’re fired! And maybe worse.”

*Security at Spiga Biotechs catches Chad, Ben’s boss with illegal tech*

The ‘Elysium’ of Incorporated is an ‘Alice in Wonderland’ mixture of realizable technological advances, gadgetry and thrilling–if not chilling–consequence: like self-driving cars, intelligent wristbands, surrogate pregnancies and remote deliveries, genetic testing of ‘inferiors’, DNA theft and malware sabotage.

The first episode (Vertical Mobility) opens to a corporate ‘traitor’ being dragged into “the quiet room”, rumoured to be a torture chamber run by taciturn head of security Julian Morse (Dennis Haysbert). The scene shifts to the Green zone suburban house of corporate climber Ben Larson (Sean Teale). As he prepares to go to work, the news streams of hurricanes breaching levies; Canada building a wall to stem the tide of illegal American climate refugees–12 million already there; offshore oil rigs in the waters of the former Arctic ice cap; and finally to the “terrorist” bombing of the R&D lab of biochemical giant Spiga, where Ben works. Spiga, we later learn, plays the same games as Monsanto and Nestle to ensure profits at the expense of well-being.

*Building of biochemical giant Spiga Biotechnics stands tall next to the corporation’s motto*

“Over the past forty years,” says a giant image of CEO Elizabeth Krauss (Julia Ormond) to the suits passing security in the giant corporate lobby below, “Spiga Biotech has been at the forefront of the genetic engineering revolution. We design seeds capable of thriving in the increasing harsh environments of our planet. Our pest and drought resistant crops are now sold in over a hundred countries. And our advancements in in-vitro testing have transformed the synth food industry.” She ends with the mantra, “Spiga: committed to feeding our ever-growing world.”

Ben is, of course, not what he pretends he is. The upwardly mobile executive has wed Laura Larson (Allison Miller), a doctor with a courageous heart who also happens to be the daughter of the unscrupulous Kraus. Ben is really Aaron, a former Red Zone techno-hustler who covertly searches for his Red Zone sweetheart, now a sex slave to corporate executives at Arcadia, the ‘men’s club’ of Spiga. If he’s going to spring her, Ben will have to get promoted to the 40^th floor.

“If our [current] political climate has you feeling apocalyptic, Incorporated may or may not be the show for you,” writes Jensen. “It’s a triggering dystopian thriller and wannabe allegory-for-now about… well, apocalyptic climate change.” This show, perhaps more than any other, stirs disquieting thoughts of now—and with it, guilt about what we’re doing or not doing. At the heart of Incorporated is climate change, which is also its main character.

*Laura meets her new patient for facial reconstruction*

“The most impressive performance and character in Incorporated is its deeply imagined world,” writes Jensen. “Throwaway ideas, like a grieving widow who hires Laura to remake a poor immigrant in the image of her dead husband, could seed whole episodes of Black Mirror. James Bond would kill for the arsenal of gadgets Aaron deploys in his soul-staining subversions.” Nuanced minutiae and brilliant minor characters weave a mad tapestry that enrich and intrigue.

And like a Seurat painting, their subtle details change with perspective and build into a subliminal realism you can’t shake: from the food porn in the opening scene to eating rats in climate relocation camps or drinking dirty Red Zone water that costs $5. In Cost Containment we learn that Spiga competitor Inazagi is developing salt-tolerant crops that, like the mangroves, will thrive on irrigated seawater in the deserts left by an exploitive short-sighted America: Iowa, Missouri, Kansas—all the dust storm states. In a later episode, a murdered corporate executive is found by two dowsers on the dried lakebed of Missouri’s Lake Lotawana. We hear about the “oil wars” in Capetown.

“This “makes it hard to not think of the current political and cultural state of things across the globe,” writes Aaron Pruner of Screener TV. The fourth episode (Cost Containment) “opened with a familiar feeling infomercial. Yet, instead of Sally Struthers pleading with the common American to donate money to help feed a starving child in a third-world country, [a Chinese narrator presented] the United States as that third world.” Liz Shannon Miller of IndieWire writes: “watching [that scene] at this exact moment in our history is science fiction that might be a little too real. You can forget about The Walking Dead or The Exorcist: Incorporated may be the scariest show on television. Says Pruner, “The thing that brought us here? Climate change.”

*Julian Morse interrogates Ben about illegal use of Spiga tech*

“It’s what gives us … the refugee camps and ration hacking, the high-class cut-throat world of corporations and the privileged, yet dangerous, culture that comes with it,” adds Pruner. The corporation’s tyrannical demand for allegiance through rumours of loss of privileges, “contract termination”—or worse—resonates through the ranks in what the hacker in the Red Zone calls ‘cattle prod.’

*Red Zone hacker sets Caplan to catch a rat as payment for her creating an illegal hacking device for him*

“You poor suits, always trying to catch up,” says the Red Zone hacker (Sara Botsford) to Roger Caplan (Douglas Nyback), ambitious executive looking to steal his way to the top. “A climber like you gets caught with something like this [a ‘keyhole’, which “allows you to snoop in any system without leaving any footprints”] he’s gonna get spanked. Or worse.” Word is out that Spiga security can be very inventive with cattle prod.

Spiga’s main competitor Inazagi (a take on Izanagi, the male Japanese Shinto god responsible for creation) starts its propaganda machine on the very young to keep its corporate family in line. The third episode (Human Resources) opens with an Izanagi propaganda video for children. TV Fanatic calls it “both cute and chilling. Teaching your children to rat out Mom and Dad is pretty cold, but hey, this is the future, right?” But is it just the future? I’m confident that TV Fanatic wasn’t born yet when the Nazis formed the Hitlerjugend. But I would suggest they look up what Santayana said about history…

In one of the best played and most gratifying narrative threads of the show, a Red Zone techno-hacker (played by Canadian actress Sara Botsford) provides some twisted humour as she easefully negotiates the Spiga machine to put corporate brat Roger Caplan in his place, enlighten us on some history and entertain us all at the same time. After Caplan disdainfully throws money at her to create a skeleton key to bypass the self-destruct protocol of his stolen keyhole, the hacker ops for entertainment instead as payment: she takes him outside her secured warehouse enclave and points to a small rat feeding on the debris in the adjoining alley.

*Caplan chases after the rat as the Red* *hacker looks on, amused*

“You see her?” To Caplan’s quizzing look, she points. “Beady eyes, pair of whiskers, long tail…” He finally gets it; the rat. “I want you to catch it,” the hacker bates him. “All ya gotta do is catch a little animal with the brains the size of a peanut. How hard can that be?”

After Caplan’s first attempt, in which he cuts his head, she croons, “Now that’s entertainment!” And chortles like a witch; but we find ourselves cackling with her. After successfully humiliating Caplan, the hacker forces him to do more. She starts with her own history: “I got here with the first wave of climate refugees, chased up north by the sandstorms. Government rations were never enough. You were probably sucking on your gestator’s tit,” she scoffs at Caplan, “while my brother and I had to scramble for enough protein. Sometimes there was only one source of it. Although it was everywhere, really…” Her gaze drifts down to the dead rat on the floor that Caplan had brought in at great expense to his clothes and pride. She adds, “I’d tell you it tastes like chicken but I don’t really remember what chicken tastes like. Why don’t you tell me whether it tastes like chicken…”

What follows is some deep gratification in witnessing Caplan—self-centered and greedy corporate archetype—get schooled by a “lowly” but sly plebe. A “little old lady” no less! And let’s not forget the wily rat who sent him on that hellish chase in the first place…

*Disgruntled Caplan after his first attempt to catch the rat*

Pruner asks, “Could climate change push us into a collapsed society, informed consistently by the ongoing threat of class warfare? Will we eventually be separated by electric fences and really big walls? Are fear and greed going to be the currencies of our reality? These burning questions should sound far-fetched and silly, but as we watch Incorporated’s tale unfold, it’s hard not to wonder what our own future will bring.” Far-fetched and silly? Is it any more far-fetched and silly than voting in a president who claims that the Chinese invented climate change to make American manufacturing non-competitive?

The best entertainment doesn’t put you to sleep; it wakes you up. The best entertainment doesn’t just offer visceral escape; it engages you on many levels to connect, think and feel. And like all good things—friendship, love, family and home—its core value lies in its subtle yet deep truths. The best entertainment shows you a mirror of yourself. Incorporated is less thriller than satire. It is less science fiction than cautionary tale.

*The real and the unreal worlds of the post-climate change world of Incorporated*

“You look to Incorporated for dystopian fiction that expresses our current anxieties,” says Jensen. “What you get is fitful resonance that makes you realize it might be too soon for any show to meet that challenge.”

Or is it more that we may be too late…

Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.

Climate Change and the Colour of Resilience

June 9, 2024April 27, 2024 / thealiennextdoor / Leave a comment

I’m an ecologist; I study environmental relationships. Something you’d think is easy to learn and very accessible; we’re surrounded by it, after all. We live, work and play in it. While I learned about environmental relationships with my eco-minded parents, I didn’t learn it or experience it in my school growing up. With the exception of some indigenous schools (which teach respect for the spirit of wildness), most of us certainly didn’t learn about environmental relationships in our schools.

*Earthstar sits on moss-covered rotting cedar log as new cedar roots take hold, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)*

Most Canadians live in a city; we don’t really understand what the natural environment is. Many of us have learned to ignore it, stop recognizing it, pocket it away as we go about our busy lives in the city. A park is a bit of greenery. A tree is a decoration that provides shade. Shrubs border a mall.

*Walk through urban forest along the Credit River, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)*

But if we can’t even recognize the natural environment, how can we understand its functional role in the intricate well-being of this entire precious planet and ultimately ourselves?

It is no wonder then that most Canadians—though we may intellectually accept climate change and its effects on this planet (because we’re smarter than some)—likely do not viscerally understand or appreciate why and how it will drastically change our lives. For most of us, climate change—as with Nature—is something that is happening to someone else, somewhere else. From those far away calamities to the quiet struggles no one talks about. We hear and lament over the flooding in Bangladesh or the Maldives. Or the wildfires in northern British Columbia. Or the bomb cyclones of the eastern seaboard.

Meanwhile, the polar bear struggles quietly with disappearing sea ice in the Canadian arctic. The koala copes quietly with the disappearing eucalyptus. Coral reefs quietly disappear in an acidifying ocean. Antarctic penguins silently starve with disappearing krill due to ice retreat. And while jellyfish invade the Mediterranean, UK seas and northeast Atlantic, the humble Bramble Cay melomys slips quietly into extinction—the first mammal casualty of climate change.

*Yellow Creek flows through an urban forest in the heart of Toronto, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)*

So, those of us who are enlightened speak of climate resilience and adaptation. We talk of arming our cities with words like green infrastructure, stormwater management, urban runoff control, flood mitigation. Ecological literacy. But what are these things to us? They are tools, yes. Good tools to combat and adapt to the effects of climate change. But will they create resilience? I think not.

I’m a limnologist and I’ve consulted for years as a scientist and an environmental consultant. I played a role in educating industry, in the use of mitigating tools, in changing the narrative even.

*Trail through urban forest on a foggy winter day in Peterborough, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)*

But I’ve come to realize that resilience comes only from within and through a genuine connection with our environment. Tools, no matter how proficient, are only as good as how they are used based on intention from a deep understanding. It isn’t enough to achieve the HOW of things; we must embrace the WHY of things. And that comes from the heart. We must feel it in our hearts. Or it won’t work. And we quite simply won’t survive.

*Various flowers and trees of Ontario (photos by Nina Munteanu)*

Canadians celebrate our multi-cultural heritage. We pride ourselves in our tolerance and welcoming nature. Our national anthem speaks of our land. Our national symbols embrace nature with the maple, beaver, caribou and loon. Yet who of us knows the habitat of the loon—now at risk, by the way (climate change will impact much of its breeding grounds). Who knows what the boreal forest—which makes up over half of our country—is? How it functions to keep this entire planet healthy, and what that ecosystem needs, in turn, to keep doing it? How to help it from literally burning up?

Ecology isn’t rocket science. Ecology is mostly common sense. Ecology is about relationship and discovery. Ecology is a lifestyle choice, based on respect for all things on this planet and a willingness to understand how all things work together.

*Various mushrooms in Ontario forests (photos by Nina Munteanu)*

Here’s what I’ve learned to keep me caring and remain positive and not become apathetic or fall into despair:

I’ve learned to open myself to discovery. To find Nature, even if it is in the city. To connect with something natural and wild and to find and savour the wonder of it. All that matters will naturally come from that.

Become curious and find something to love.

When you do, you will find yourself. And that is where you will find resilience. What colour is it? It doesn’t need to be green…

Throughout this article I’ve shown you some of my colours…

*Red fox skull emerges on a leaf-strewn icy bank of Jackson Creek, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)*

Here are the steps I taught myself toward healthy resilience (the first two steps are both the hardest and the easiest):

Step 1: Slow down, pay attention. Give yourself the time to relax and look around your local surroundings. Until you slow down to actually look, you will not really take in your surroundings. You need to be in the moment. Only then can you take the time to use all your senses to take in your environment. Try to look at it from a different perspective. Notice the light, the smells and sounds. What is different? What is the same?

Step 2: Lower your guard, open yourself to curiosity. Rely on as many senses as you can (sight, hearing, smell, texture, taste) to sample your environment and show some humility to ask questions. Whenever I go out, particularly in Nature, I make a point of coming home with three gifts, discoveries that make me smile or think and wonder. I’m hardly ever disappointed.

Step 3: Process what you’ve seen and discovered. Do some follow-up research to questions that may arise. Look at consequences. Share with others, discuss. From there it will be easy to ‘take responsibility’ for some section of nature that you really like; perhaps a particular tree in a park or a short path through an urban forest or stretch of urban stream. This can easily lead to good stewardship.

Step 4: Take responsibility for your chosen part of Nature. Get to know it well, how it works, what it needs, what’s right and what’s wrong. Do something about it and share with others.

Step 5: You’re there. You are resilient.

*Barred owl hiding in plain sight in an urban forest near Peterborough, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)*

Vancouver’s Craig H. Bowlsby wins his second Crime Writers of Canada Award of Excellence in two years.

June 6, 2024June 6, 2024 / thealiennextdoor / Leave a comment

My good friend author Craig Bowlsby just won the Crime Writers of Canada Award of Excellence for Best Unpublished Crime Novel manuscript.

Requiem for a Lotus takes place in 1917 Shanghai, where police detective Harmon Fletcher must solve the murder of a Chinese sing-song girl he’d failed to protect. Adding his Canadian prairie hunting experience to modern forensic techniques, Fletcher scours Shanghai’s dangerous jig-saw underworld for answers. But while he brings one killer to justice, another escapes, and Fletcher must sacrifice more than he expected before he’s done.

Here’s the opening to Requiem for a Lotus:

“When a man named Hong Song Lin shot his neighbour five times for blowing roasted pig smoke onto his second floor balcony, it wasn’t a hard case to figure out. There was two angry men, a gun, and a hot Shanghai summer.”

The judges selected Craig’s novel for its excellent writing and storytelling, a tense and compelling plot and pace, and intriguing characters:

“… What enjoyable reading! The author quickly pulls the reader into 1917 Shanghai and pins them there with its smells, sights, customs and politics … A very engaging crime novel.”

“… Loved the historical setting of Shanghai and it kept me fascinated … Inspector Fletcher is a solid and clever character, a somewhat rougher Sherlock Holmes.”

Requiem for a Lotus is the first novel of a trilogy. I’m confident that this exciting crime novel and series will be snapped up by a publisher soon. And when it is, I’ll be buying a copy.

Here’s Craig’s podcast interview with CWC interviewer Erik D’Souza when the manuscript was a finalist before it won top prize:

Last year Craig’s short story “The Girl Who Was Only Three Quarters Dead,” published by Mystery Magazine in April 2022, won the Crime Writers of Canada Award for Best Short Story.

When Art Helps Story

June 2, 2024May 2, 2024 / thealiennextdoor / Leave a comment

No writer works alone. Sure, we may work alone when writing, but all other aspects of getting our writing out to you, the reader, involves a team of other people. Like all good things, writing is a collaborative affair. All professional writers enter a contract with their publisher to work with editors, marketers, and also with cover artists, designers and interior artists. All together create the final artistic expression shared with the reading audience.

I want to focus on the latter here and celebrate how art and design help create more than what the writer alone produces. When my writing career started in earnest in 1995 with my first publication in a professional magazine, I was involved in collaborations with artists, who all improved my work.

Arc of Time was my first short story publication, appearing in Armchair Aesthete in the Summer/Fall issue of 2002. Armchair Aesthete is a small literary magazine in the United States and features funky cover art.

*Magazine cover for Ultra! and interior design for “Arc of Time”*

Arc of Time was then accepted in the premiere issue of Ultra! (Aardwolf Publications) in 2004. That issue contained a fully illustrated and designed interior, which really set off the story—an epistemological exchange of emails linked with narrative. In 2013, MetaStellar Speculative Fiction and Beyond, which provides illustrations for each story it carries, used one of my own photographs to illustrate Arc of Time.

*Feature cover illustration for “Arc of Time” on MetaStellar site*

Virtually Yours first appeared in Hadrosaur Tales in Issue #15 in December 2002. Hadrosaur Tales is a small but vibrant literary magazine out of Las Cruces, New Mexico and featured interesting covers.

*Cover and story illustrations in Nowa Fantastyka for “Virtually Yours”*

Virtually Yours was republished all over the world and is up to its tenth publication this year. Several publications included artwork specifically for the story. Nowa Fantastyka, out of Poland, is a slick magazine that boasts a lot of images, colour interiors and illustrations. My story was introduced with illustrations that enhanced its impact.

*Interior illustrations for “Virtually Yours” in Amazing Stories and MetaStellar, respectively*

Its reprint in Amazing Stories was illustrated evocatively by Duncan Long. In the story’s later reprint in MetaStellar Speculative Fiction and Beyond, Brigitte Werner created a beautiful illustration for the story.

*Nowa Fantastyka cover art and story art* *for “A Butterfly in Peking”*

A Butterfly in Peking first appeared in Issue #17 of Chiaroscuro in 2003. Its reprint in the Polish magazine Nowa Fantastyka in 2005 included interior art that introduced the tone and feel of the story.

*Megan Survival Anthology cover art and story art* *for “Fingal’s Cave”*

Fingal’s Cave was first published in The Megan Survival Anthology (Reality Skimming Press) in December 2016. The publication included art by Jeff Doten specific to each story in the anthology and I found his artwork for Fingal’s Cave wonderfully intriguing.

*Artwork for “The Way of Water” in various publications*

The Way of Water was first published in Future Fiction then in a smart print publication by Mincione Edizioni in Rome, Italy in May 2016. The story was reprinted several times and artwork associated with it included in some of the publications. One is Little Blue Marble, an online magazine that features artwork for each story it runs.

*Cover art of Eagle Magazine and story art for “Natural Selection”*

Natural Selection first came out in my short story collection of the same name in 2013. It was then reprinted in the premiere issue of Eagle Magazine and featured stellar and evocative interior illustrations by Ionuț Bănuță.

*Interior story art for “Natural Selection”*

Out of the Silence first appeared in Issue #85 of subTerrain Magazine in May 2020 and featured diverse and rich interior art and design (not pictured here). Its reprint in A House of Dawn in 2021 received its own artwork, which enhanced the tone and subject of the story.

*Cover art for subTerrain Magazine and story art for “Out of the Silence” in A House of Dawn*

I’d be remiss if I didn’t add the important artwork of artists on the covers of several of my novels and collections. As a reader, I can attest that cover art plays an important role in introducing a book to a potential reader. Whether we pick up a new author’s book to peruse depends upon the image, title and design of the cover. I have been very fortunate with my publishers and their artists.

*Book covers for “Collision with Paradise” and “The Cypol”*

My first published novel (Collision with Paradise) and novella (The Cypol)—both SF erotica—were designed to intrigue and titillate.

Costi Gurgu illustrated and designed the covers of my space detective thriller The Splintered Universe Trilogy for Starfire. The three books and their covers, formed a tryptic that reflected the journey of the lead character—a badass galactic detective—and her evolution.

*Cover art for books of “The Splintered Universe” Trilogy*

Costi Gurgu also designed the cover of my short story collection Natural Selection for Pixl Press in 2013 using an illustration by West Coast artist Anne Moody that showed the fluidity of nature.

*Tikulin-illustrated covers for “Darwin’s Paradox” and “The Last Summoner”*

Tomislav Tikulin illustrated the cover of my novel Darwin’s Paradox for Dragon Moon Press in 2007. The cover image ostensibly represented a work of hard science fiction and attracted much attention from SF fans. Tikulin’s evocative illustration of a knight in a drowning cathedral was then used for the cover of The Last Summoner for Starfire, with attractive typology design by Costi Gurgu. As with all of Tikulin’s work, this mysterious cover attracted the attention of many readers with many questions.

L’Ultima Evocatrice, a novella version of The Last Summoner in Italian was illustrated and designed for Delos Digital Publications in 2021 and draws the reader into the intrigue of the story.

My most recent novel, A Diary in the Age of Water, published by Inanna Publications in 2020, features elegant cover art by Val Fullard and over thirty pieces of interior art work by my own hand.

*Interior art representing the diarist’s sketches in “A Diary in the Age of Water*

I wasn’t sure if the publisher would agree to use my sketches, but she did, to my surprised delight. She agreed with me that the interior illustrations, which represent sketches by the scientist diarist, lend a tangible reality to the story and a further focus of interest.

The excitement never ends for me as a writer … With the newest installation to the Icaria Series imminent, Dragon Moon Press will be re-issuing Darwin’s Paradox and Angel of Chaos, along with the newest addition Gaia’s Revolution along with new covers and interiors. I can’t wait to see what Dragon Moon Press comes up with! …

*Cover art of print publications my work has appeared in up to 2021-end*

The Magic of the Muse: When A Simple Rewrite Reveals Synchronicity

May 26, 2024April 10, 2024 / thealiennextdoor / Leave a comment

It started with a simple tweet of mine on X regarding doing research for one’s writing projects. I’d met Isabella Mori a few years ago, when we both contributed to an ekphrastic anthology of flash fiction, inspired by Group of Seven art. We met again when she submitted a story to an anthology I was editing for Exile Editions. After my tweet on research, Isabella and I traded brief stories about rewrites based on research findings and ‘mistakes’ and the arcane revelations in the creative process that may result. I was intrigued by her recounting and asked her to share it with you; so here it is:

“Synchronicities And The Sea” by Isabella Mori

(Trigger warning: Substance use and suicide)

This is about the magic that comes to pass when we let the Muse guide our work and consent to synchronicity. Here is what happened:

When I go away on vacation, I try to visit the local library, and always make sure to check out the community announcements. On one of those forays, I came across a notice of a project that teamed up visual artists with writers for a short story or poem. I love these types of collaborations and immediately jumped on it. Max was the artist I paired up with, and we hit it off right away. After a few conversations, we settled on the painting below, for which I was going to write a story. As you can see, it had a moody, dark feeling. I drafted this text as a response:

The memory of a map showed her the way as she wandered, blinded by the night, along the shore. Numb with cold, her bare feet dug into the wet sand. She could not see that she left no tracks. There was something in her searching; she felt it in the deep pit of her stomach but there was no image in her mind’s eye of what it was, no tinkling that alerted her, no smell, no taste. A sense of despair drained the blood from her heart and tugged at her from the right, where the forest rushed. Foot-dragging ennui invited her onto a soft-moss carpet to the left, and thoughts of numbers, cars and cash register receipts tried to wrangle her back to where she came from. She was near giving up. But at that precise moment there tracked the light only she of the searching could see—a light bigger more forceful than giants could ever imagine; all-embracing, all-revealing, all-nurturing just like the frothy ocean beneath it, just like the sand with its fierce sparkle, each grain a diamond just like the heart-bud that could not help but open under its rays, under those rays that only she of the searching could see.

However, for reasons we have both forgotten, Max decided to lighten the colours, and the dark mood of the first draft didn’t fit anymore. This is the version we ended up with:

Walk With The Angels

The ocean has known her share of angels over the eons. They come and go but the tide is older. When an angel appears in a cloud of glistening light, beats its wings and brings out the trumpets, little humans fall to their knees and beg for mercy and miracles.

But the water stays still.

Great mother ocean has seen it all.

She waits until the angel grows tired, then she takes the worn-out wings and heavenly body into her arms and carries them into her depths. Brings the apparition to visit kelp, salmon, starfish, barnacles, otters and crabs. Anemones. Killer whales. A visit one by one, under the summer sun, beneath the light of the Hunter’s moon, when the snow falls, with the Easter rains. The angel leaves a bit of themselves here, a bit there, a gift everywhere, until only the tiniest of diamonds are left.

And that’s the sand.

Walk with the angels.

There were a few tweaks before we arrived at this text, the major one being that in a previous version, I referred to ‘angel dust’ for the sand until the editor pointed out that that term refers to a street drug, PCP. In my enthusiasm I had forgotten that.

The change away from ‘angel dust’ was very important. When Max read the new version, they called me, their tone of voice both moved and perturbed.

“When I read this,” they said, “it feels like you channeled what happened with my cousin last year, not far from the place that inspired my painting. She had had problems with drugs all her life, and one day she just walked into the ocean. Her body was found a day later.”

Under those circumstances, we definitely did not want to refer to drugs.

That story stayed with me for months until one day when I was listening to one of my playlists of Latin music. I lived in Paraguay and Chile 1977-1980, and often enjoy the nostalgia of the music I listened to back then. The first song that came on was one of my all-time favourites, Alfonsina Y El Mar – Alfonsina And The Sea. Now I have to confess, I am terrible with lyrics, no matter what language, whether it be my native German, English, or the Spanish I was fluent in for quite a few years. For some reason, I really listened to the song last summer, and then looked up the lyrics. That’s when it hit me – was it possible that the lyrics of that song had subconsciously influenced me to write the second text? Or was it one of those Jungian collective conscious moments?

Alfonsina And The Sea

(Music: Ariel Ramirez. Lyrics: Felix Luna)

In the soft sand
Licked by the sea
Her small footprints
Don’t return.
Just one path
Full of pain and silence
Led to the water,
Deep water,
And one single path of unspoken pain
Led to the foam.

God knows what sorrows accompanied you,
What old suffering shut down your voice
That made you lie down and nestle into the songs
Of the sea snails,
The song that sings in the deep dark of the sea,
The sea snail.

There you go, Alfonsina, with your loneliness,
What new poems did you go find?
An old, old voice of wind and salt
Sways your soul and carries it
And you go there dreaming,
Sleeping, Alfonsina, clothed in the sea

Five little sirens will carry you
Through passages of algae and corals
And glowing sea horses will dance
Around you
And all the creatures of the sea will soon
Play at your side.

Turn down the light a little more,
Nurse, let me sleep in peace.
And when he calls tell him I’m not in,
Tell him Alfonsina won’t come back.
And when he calls don’t ever tell him I’m in,
Tell him I’m gone.

(Used with permission, my translation.)

Alfonsina ended up in the ocean just like Max’s cousin did.

With some research, I found out that the story was about the Argentinian poet Alfonsina Storni who, after a difficult life that included poverty, questions she had about gender identity, and breast cancer, one night wrote a last poem to her son and then let herself fall into the ocean amid torrential rain. (An apocryphal version has her just walk into the ocean, and that’s the one the lyricist chose.) Some of that last poem was incorporated into Alfonsina Y El Mar – the nurse who is asked to lower the light, and told to tell ‘him’ that she won’t come back. Nobody seems to know who ‘he’ is.

The other research that had to happen was to find who the inheritors of Felix Luna’s estate were to obtain permission should I tell the story that you have before you. It turned out to be his daughters. Then I had to sleuth out their contact.

Felix Luna, the lyricist, imagined Alfonsina’s death not only as the terrible tragedy that it was but also as a mystical transformation into a sea creature that nestles into the songs of the sea snails. She finds new poems and sleeps clothed in the sea. She is embraced by sirens and wanders through algae and corals. She dances with sea horses and plays with all the other sea creatures.

I definitely cannot compare myself with a great poet like Felix Luna but notice with humility the similarities of my transformed angel who sinks into the embrace of mother ocean and also visits the more-than-humans of the sea.

I went pregnant with the idea of writing about the experience of Max’s and my collaboration for half a year when in February, I chanced upon a tweet by Nina about research for writing. I met Nina through submitting a story to an anthology she was editing. I told her about needing to tweak the angel story so that it does not talk about angel dust and ended up telling her the outline of what happened. She invited me to write a guest post about this, and here we are.

So many synchronicities. I could have not gone to that library. A different artist could have been paired up with me. Max could have wanted to stay with the original painting. Or they could have chosen a painting that would not have reminded them of their cousin. They could have opted not to share that sad story with me, or they could have been paired up with someone who doesn’t understand suicide as intimately as I do (I look back on a 30+ year career in social services.) I could have heard Alfonsina Y El Mar and still not really listened to the lyrics. There was no guarantee I could have managed to find out from whom to get permission to quote the song. I could not have submitted a story to one of Nina’s anthologies, and could not have followed her on Twitter. Coming across the particular tweet that prompted the publication of this story was like chancing upon a needle in a haystack. All this, and probably more, had to come together for this magical synchronicity to happen.

Thank you, Muse.

(Note: Since this is a sensitive topic, the artist’s name and some of the circumstances of my collaboration with them have been changed. However, the artist has consented to using their images.)

*Boat wharf at sunset in Ladner Marsh, BC (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)*

Isabella Mori writes fiction, poetry and nonfiction, and is the author of three books of and about poetry, including A bagful of haiku – 87 imperfections. Isabella’s work has appeared in publications such as State Of Matter, Kingfisher, Signs Of Life, Presence, and The Group Of Seven Reimagined. Isabella is the founder of Muriel’s Journey Poetry Prize, which celebrates socially engaged poetry. A book about mental health and addiction is planned for publication with Three Ocean Press in 2024. They live on the unceded, traditional and ancestral lands of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh people aka Vancouver, BC.

Movie Review: You Want to Go to “The Island”

May 19, 2024May 22, 2024 / thealiennextdoor / Leave a comment

*Clones Jordan and Lincoln are chased as they seek their sponsors*

From its metaphoric title to its powerful end, Director Michael Bay’s 2005 The Island had me fully engaged. Told in the genuine style of great science fiction commentary by screenwriters Caspian Tredwell-Owen, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (in 2005), The Island reflects the escape-from dystopia films of the 1960s and 70s such as Fahrenheit 451, THX 1138, and Logan’s Run. This elegant story examines a full range of human foibles—consumerist greed, racism, fascism and isolationism—through a premise that is as frightening as it is possible.

*Announcer talks about ‘the Island’ lottery to the world of Lincoln and Jordan*

In the near-future, Lincoln Six Echo (Ewan McGregor) and Jordan Two Delta (Scarlett Johansson) live in an isolated rather sterile community where behaviour is governed by a set of strict rules. This includes the avoidance of too close contact. Everything is the same; residents all wear the same white uniform and carry out simple duties. They’ve been told that the outside world is too contaminated for human life with the exception of one island. Everyone lives for the weekly lottery, where the winner gets to leave the compound to live on the island.

*Jordan and Lincoln discuss the* *day over drinks in the facility’s lounge*

It’s a simple and banal existence. We glimpse a scene of adults reading Dick and Jane out loud. When in the opening scene Lincoln Six Echo finds a shoe missing in his provided wardrobe, this becomes a major focus of his day (when greeted by a colleague with, “How are you doing?” he responds with, “I’m missing a shoe.”)

Lincoln can’t accept this mundane existence. In an interview with Dr. Merrick (Sean Bean), the scientist who runs the compound, Lincoln naively unleashes a tirade of items that frustrate him, like why everyone wears white, who determined tofu Tuesday, and then ends with: “I want to know answers and I wish there was more than just waiting to go to the island.” He also suffers from dreams about a life he doesn’t understand—they are, in fact, memories of his ‘sponsor’, the original man (Tom Lincoln) that he is a clone copy of. When he discovers a moth and follows it, he stumbles into the hidden part of the compound. There he witnesses what really happens to “lottery winners”: they are killed and used for organ harvesting, surrogate motherhood, etc. for each one’s sponsor.

*Lincoln finds a moth that he releases and follows into forbidden territory*

Lincoln is just an insurance policy. An ‘agnate’ according to Dr. Merrick, who describes them as in a “persistent vegetative state that never achieves consciousness” to clients, willing to pay millions of dollars for a second chance at life—and blithely unaware that ‘agnates’ are alive and fully formed with thoughts and feelings like them.

*Doctor Merrick oversees the indoctrination of the clones in the giant lab facility*

When Lincoln learns the truth, and knowing that Jordan just “won” the lottery, he convinces her to escape with him. During their escape through the bowels of the facility, they discover the atrocities of cloning in the giant labs and that the clones are living in a giant silo controlled by massive holograms to simulate the ‘contaminated’ outside.

*Clone lab where newly created clones receive implanted memories and instructions to seek the island*

*Jordan and Lincoln watch the subliminally-fed imagery for clone indoctrination*

Merrick hires Albert Laurent (Djimon Hounsou), a mercenary and former GIGN veteran, to find and dispatch Lincoln and Jordan. And so begins an incredible action-packed chase through the city of Los Angeles, where Lincoln and Jordan have traveled in search of his sponsor.

*Mercenary Albert Laurent takes chase after the* two clones escape the facility

*After escaping the facility, Jordan sees an ad that features her* *sponsor*, now in critical condition after an accident and in need of organ donation

*In an awkward moment, Lincoln meets his sponsor who is not too happy to discover of his existence*

The Island received mixed reviews from critics, with a 40% “Rotten” rating, based on 185 reviews. Variety’s Justin Chang called the film an “exercise in sensory overkill.” Salon’s Stephanie Zacharek lamented that when the film got really interesting, Bay seemed to think he needed “to throw in a car crash or round of gunfire to keep our attention.” If these critics found fault with this elegant action-thriller, I hate to see what they make of 90% of the so-called SF movies out there today. Unlike them, The Island provides a refreshing meaningful face to action-adventure that elegantly and skillfully balances incredible action scenes with characterization and evolution of the two naive characters.

*Jordan dangles precipitously from a huge building sign as the two clones are chased by Laurent*

Roger Ebert suggested that The Island missed the opportunity “to do what the best science fiction does, and use the future as a way to critique the present.” Again, I disagree. The Island does what the best science fiction does well: it examines the nature of our humanity through the choices we make in adversity within a future world and premise that provides great opportunity for abuse.

The theme of this parable is carried evocatively by Steve Jablonsky’s score. Like a swelling tide it sweeps us on a journey to some distant shore. From the melodic strings and yearning chorus, the music builds to a powerful conclusion at the film’s end, when it lifts us to victory, resonating with our divine evolution.

*Laurent stands among the hundreds of freed clones, smiling in triumph*

I was particularly struck by the timing of the strings and chorus with the appearance of Albert Laurent, walking among those he had just liberated. It is a pivotal and powerful moment that escalates into a resonating vibration of liberty and victory as his eyes meet briefly with Lincoln and Jordan, reunited, and he smiles—for the first time. A beautiful smile of inner joy. It is the smile of a man who has “come home” and is finally free.

Laurent’s subplot is particularly compelling and carries one of the principle elements of the film. In some ways, Laurent represents you and me, caught up in our societal ‘duties’, seduced by self-serving entrapments only to awaken to a path of courageous compassion for all of humanity. Laurent’s journey from jaded mercenary to liberating hero begins when he notices Jordan’s skin branding and, recognizing a connection with her plight, helps her free the mass of ‘defective’ lottery winners about to be incinerated. We learn that his father had been killed as a rebel and Laurent was ‘branded’ as less than human. So, there he walks, brilliantly black among the white-clad ‘agnates’ who slide down the hill after emerging from the underground bunker in which they were incarcerated.

This motion picture is ultimately about finding dignity in the face of adversity and ridicule. It is about confronting the bully and gaining victory over one’s own barriers of fear and doubt toward compassion. It is about the power of love and connection with humanity. It is about retribution and finding one’s true path through the knowledge that we are all one.

“I am you; you are me. You are the waves; I am the ocean. Know this and be free, be divine.” Sri Sathya Sai Baba

“Robin’s Last Song” at Climate Imaginarium in New York City’s Governor’s Island

May 16, 2024May 16, 2024 / thealiennextdoor / 1 Comment

My short story Robin’s Last Song was selected by the NYC Climate Writers Collective as part of an exhibition in the Climate Imaginarium on Governors Island in New York. The exhibition, starting May 18, will run throughout the summer of 2024.

Robin’s Last Song

Robin’s Last Song first appeared in the #128 Issue of Apex Magazine in 2021. It tells the story of Robin, a blind elder whose digital app failed to warn the world of the sudden global loss of birds with disastrous ecological consequences. After years of living in self-exile and getting around poorly on sight-enhancing technology, a discovery gives her new hope in rekindling her talents in the field of Soundscape Ecology.

In a recent interview with writer Simon Rose, I described my thoughts in writing Robin’s Last Song:

I wanted to make “Robin’s Last Song” a realizable work of fiction in which science and technology play both instigator of disaster and purveyor of salvation. Our biogenetic technology comes to us as a double-edged sword in the form of gene-editing, proteomics, DNA origami, and CRISPR—just to name a few. These biotechnological innovations promise a cornucopia of enhancements: from increased longevity and health in humans to giant disease-resistant crops. But, for every ‘magic’ in technology, there is often unintended consequence. Unforeseen—or even ignored—casualties and risks. I suppose my ultimate question with this story is: will synthetic biology redesign Nature to suit hubris or serve evolution? Science doesn’t make those decisions. We do.

You can read my interview with Rebecca E. Treasure at Apex Magazine (where Robin’s Last Song first appeared) about the greater implications of the story and my other eco-fiction. You can also read the story on Metastellar Speculative Fiction and Beyond.

Climate Imaginarium

Anyone living in or visiting the NYC area is welcome to the Climate Imaginarium launch on May 18 on Governor’s Island. Check this Eventbrite link for details. The exhibition will continue throughout the summer of 2024 and will include: climate storytelling and poetry by Climate Café, the Sixth Festival, and the Climate Writers Collective; opening exhibition of “What is Environmental Art?” by Forest for Trees; artwork from the Climate Imaginarium community and Climate Writers exhibition; “Eye of Flora” virtual reality exhibition by Synphisica Collective; and more.

Here’s what they say:

Come to Governors Island for the grand opening of our Climate Imaginarium house! The Climate Imaginarium will serve as a community center for climate and culture, with galleries and spaces for exhibitions, performances, film screenings, and events that respond to the climate crisis with solutions and visions for hope and justice. Join us at Building 406A on Colonels Row for a lively celebration of climate art, storytelling, and community.

Exhibitions will be open to the public at noon, and the party will officially start at 2pm. All donations will support programming in our community space.

Creating A Science Fiction Story at Vision 2024

May 12, 2024May 12, 2024 / thealiennextdoor / Leave a comment

I recently participated in Vision 2024, a major school fair of educational workshops and seminars for high school students in Brantford, Ontario. The event was hosted by Sir Wilfred Laurier University in downtown Brantford.

I gave several 1-hour workshops on how to write science fiction. I’d given this workshop four years ago at Vision 2020. My thought this time was to be low-tech: no computers, screens or internet. I went with handouts, paper to write on and physical prompts.

I started the workshop with a brief exploration of what a story is (and is not) then described five key components of writing good story (e.g. premise, plot, theme, character, and setting) and how these worked together in story through the use of archetypes and the “hero’s journey” plot structure. I went over some important aspects of good science fiction, such as original idea or premise (driven by science) and imaginative but grounded world building. The key, I noted, was in how the character dramatized the theme of the story. If the storyteller could connect these two well, they would have a hopping good story. I had the students form into several groups of five or six students, and each table was provided with materials for note-taking and eventual sharing with the entire class. Four choices of some science fiction image was provided for each group to choose and use as premise and world building prompt.

Each group then set out to create the framework for a story using the five story components based on a premise from their chosen image; they then shared what they’d put together. Each group worked on their own story as I went from team to team, coaching them on and reminding them to address the character(s) on a journey who carried the story.

Then it was time for each group to share. Amazing stories emerged from the image prompts chosen. Students demonstrated imaginative, mature and original premises and carried through with thoughtful plot, and relevent theme and character journeys. I was very impressed.

One group had taken a subversive direction on the apocalyptic scenario (a sunken overgrown set of ruins) by adopting a more eco-centric POV and creating an anti-hero and unreliable narrator of the one remaining human. They called it “Turbulence.”

Another group had chosen the image of a knight in a drowned cathedral that graces the cover of my alternative history fantasy (The Last Summoner) and wove a wonderful intrigue of betrayal, deception, and destiny—all cleverly layered and driven through the main character, himself a deceiver.

*Three images used to create story of prejudice*

Another group threw away the restriction of choice and chose all the images presented to them; the group quickly developed wonderfully strange and delightful characters, which they then wove together into a twisted satire of identity, prejudice and self-discovery. In this world, there are cats (who rule) and frogs (of lower class) and other strange beings created through experimentation. The story centres on Frat, a hybrid of a cat and a frog (called crogs)—loathed by both cats and frogs as being neither. Frat navigates the treacherous waters of prejudice by clever disguise—avoiding the eye of the imperious Cat-King who, determines to keep all races pure and separate, is out to exterminate crogs. Frat’s journey (linked to the theme of self-determination against prejudice) is in learning to accept himself and recognize perceived weakness as strength.

The ambitious strategy of this group—In choosing all the images as inspiration (images that on the surface had nothing in common)—worked wonderfully because the group focused on fleshing out characters with issues first and let the story emerge from them.

*Two students of the cat-frog group stand in front of their notes on the white board*

The workshops were very successful thanks to the eager and artistic imagination and collaborative teamwork of the students.

The A to Z of Writing Fiction: X, Y, Z…

May 5, 2024January 23, 2024 / thealiennextdoor / Leave a comment

*Snowy marsh in spring, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)*

In this series of articles, I draw from key excerpts of my textbook on how to write fiction The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now! whose 26 chapters go from A to Z on the key aspects of writing good and meaningful fiction.

X is for Use eXceptional Language … but Don’t Overdo it

What makes some writing stunning and other writing lackluster? Mostly, it’s the language—the words—you use. And, it isn’t just what words you use; it’s how you use them. Here are a few things you need to consider when translating your work into something that sings:

Use active verbs and reduce modifiers: many writers, not just beginners, slide into the pattern of using passive and weak verbs (e.g., were, was, being, etc.). Then they add a modifier to strengthen it. It doesn’t. Actively look for strong, vivid verbs. This is a key to good writing. I can’t emphasize this enough.

Avoid using excessive prose: novice writers often use too many words to describe an event, action or scene. An overabundance of words slows down the story and obscures plot and action.

Use alliteration, metaphor, simile, personification (but don’t overuse): these devices bring lyricism and cadence and powerful imagery to your prose. However, as with anything powerful, you need to use these judiciously. Use them where you wish to convey a strong image and to punctuate your prose.

Be mindful of word-accuracy: more often than you might think, a writer inadvertently misuses a word to convey an idea or emotion.

Read your writing aloud & punctuate your pauses. Reading out loud helps define cadence, tone and pace of your prose and streamlines your writing. When you read aloud, pay attention to where you naturally pause. You may wish to put in a comma, semi-colon or period there.

Size your paragraphs: paragraphs are visual elements that help people read; they break up text on a page in logical places to provide white space for reader ease. This is one of the reasons some passages are harder to read than others; long paragraphs are more tiring to the eye. Find those logical breaks and put them in.

Size your sentences: as with paragraphs, overly long sentences can try a reader’s patience and you may lose them entirely. Too many short choppy sentences can also reduce your prose to a mundane level. Varying your sentence length in a paragraph creates the lyricism and cadence that makes prose enjoyable to read.

Y is for Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

Have you taken the time to consider tense in your story? While most stories are told in the past tense (e.g., Vinnie ran out of the house), I’ve seen many written in the present tense (e.g., Vinnie runs out of the house). You see the latter more in literary and esoteric works, where the immediacy and dream-like quality of present tense is in keeping with the kind of story being told. I write mostly genre fiction (e.g., science fiction, SF thrillers, historical fantasy, etc.) where the story-telling is normally fast-paced. These read better in the past tense. Stories which follow a more reflective tone can be quite powerful in the present tense.

In her series The Dragon Quartet, Marjorie B. Kellogg alternates from past tense to present tense as she hops from one protagonist’s point of view to the other’s. This deliberate shift in tense between sections works very well. The key is that she is consistent.

In the manuscripts that I read for novice writers I often find what I call uncontrolled shifting of tense within a sentence or paragraph. OWL provides these hints:

Use past tense to narrate events and to refer to ideas as historical entities.
Use present tense to state facts, to refer to perpetual or habitual actions, and to discuss your own ideas or those expressed by an author in a particular work; also to describe action in a literary work, movie, or other fictional narrative.
Future action may be expressed in a variety of ways, including the use of will, shall, is going to, are about to, tomorrow and other adverbs of time, and a wide range of contextual cues.

Z is for The Zen of Passionate Writing

Ralph Keyes, author of The Courage to Write, admits that “what makes writing so scary is the perpetual vulnerability of the writer. It’s not the writing as such that provokes our fear so much as other people’s reaction to our writing.” In fact, adds Keyes, “the most common disguise is fear of them, their opinion of us, when it’s actually our own opinion of ourselves that we’re worried about.” Keyes suggests that ultimately “mastering techniques [of style and craft] will do far less to improve writing than finding the will, the nerve, the guts to put on paper what you really want to say.”

Welcome to the threshold of your career as a writer. This is where many aspiring writers stop: in abject fear, not just of failure but of success. The only difference between those that don’t and those that do, is that the former come to terms with their fears, in fact learn to use them as a barometer to what is important. How do you get past the fear of being exposed, past the anticipated disappointment of peers, past the terror of success? The answer is passion. If you are writing about something you are passionate about, you will find the courage to see it through.

This is ultimately what drives a writer to not just write but to publish: the need to share one’s story, over and over again. Some of us only have one story we need to tell (Margaret Mitchell only needed to tell one, Gone With the Wind); others of us have many to tell. Either way, what is key here is that to prevail, persist, and ultimately succeed, a writer must have conviction and believe in his or her writing. You must believe that you have something to say that others want to read. Ask yourself why you are a writer. Your answer might surprise you.

The first step is to acknowledge your passion and own it. Flaunt it, even. Find your conviction, define what matters and explore it to the fullest. You will find that such an acknowledgement will give you the strength and fortitude to persist and persevere, particularly in the face of those fears. Use the fears to guide you into that journey of personal truths. Frederick Busch described it this way: “You go to dark places so that you can get there, steal the trophy and get out.”

Every writer, like her protagonist, is on a Hero’s Journey. Like the Hero of our epic, we too must acknowledge the call, pass the threshold guardian, experience the abyss and face the beast before we can return “home” with our prize.

The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now! (Starfire World Syndicate) May 2009. Nominated for an Aurora Prix Award. Available through Chapters/Indigo, Amazon, The Book Depository, and Barnes & Noble.

The Fiction Writer is a digest of how-to’s in writing fiction and creative non-fiction by masters of the craft from over the last century. Packaged into 26 chapters of well-researched and easy to read instruction, novelist and teacher Nina Munteanu brings in entertaining real-life examples and practical exercises. The Fiction Writer will help you learn the basic, tried and true lessons of a professional writer: 1) how to craft a compelling story; 2) how to give editors and agents what they want’ and 3) how to maintain a winning attitude.

“…Like the good Doctor’s Tardis, The Fiction Writer is larger than it appears… Get Get Published, Write Now! right now.”
David Merchant, Creative Writing Instructor

*Otonabee River glistens under a spring sun, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)*

Click here for more about my other guidebooks on writing.

The A to Z of Writing Fiction: W…

April 28, 2024January 23, 2024 / thealiennextdoor / Leave a comment

In this series of articles, I draw from key excerpts of my textbook on how to write fiction The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now! whose 26 chapters go from A to Z on the key aspects of writing good and meaningful fiction.

W is for Who, Where, When and Why of Doing Research

Research is something many writers dislike and find daunting or even intimidating. In truth, as a writer, you are doing research all the time: when you’re riding the bus or train to work, when you’re traveling on vacation, when you’re having a lively discussion—or better yet an argument— with a friend or colleague. Everything you experience and observe is research. This is what I call non-directed research. It’s also called living. Writers, like all artists, are reporters of life, actively participating and passively observing. A writer is an opportunist, gathering her data through her daily life experiences. Writing fiction draws on this but also on much more…

When writing about a realizable and believable world, whether it takes place in contemporary New York or far future planet Zero, you will need impeccable world building (which includes setting, circumstances, surrounding characters and events) and that will always ultimately require research. you will find very quickly that in order to build a consistent world (even if it’s mostly from your own imagination), you will need to draw upon something real to anchor your imaginary world upon. Whether this reflects a powerful myth or forms an alternative version of a real society, you will still need to apply some rules to follow, so you don’t lose your reader.

With so many useful internet sites and search engines, research has become far easier. But there is also more risk. Finding and confirming information as reliable is an important aspect of doing research. When doing research, particularly on the Internet (but anywhere), you should do several things:

• Use more than one source, particularly for important things; this will give you a wider range of material from which to discern accuracy and reliability.

• Verify your sources and preferably cross reference to measure out objective “truth” versus bias.

• Try to use primary sources (original) vs. secondary or tertiary sources (original cited and open to interpretation); the closer you are to the original source, the closer you are to getting the original story.

• When going to more than one source, try to get a range of different source-types (e.g., conservative newspaper versus blog versus special interest site, etc.) to gain a full range of insight into the issue you’re researching.

Don’t forget that highly valuable and satisfying research can take on the form of interview. You can gain incredible insight into the subject of your research by using a live expert. The advantages he or she has to a book or online database is that they interact with you and may give you something you didn’t even know you needed. Experts include people in your community, your neighbors and friends, professionals in business and in the universities and other educational facilities. Special interest forums and sites can be used to access people to interview.

I keep a journal or scrapbook for every novel I write. This permits me to do several things:

1. Organize relevant research material into one place for easy access (which makes up for my appalling note taking practices).

2. Satisfy my inclination for info dump and expository back-story by providing a place to house it—in my journal, where it belongs, instead of in the story.

By the time I was through with it, the journal I’d kept of my last book—a historical fantasy set in medieval Prussia and modern-day Paris—was its own rich compendium of interesting information, lovingly put together with photos of Paris, drawings and sketches of castles, armour, and long swords, maps of great battles, spreadsheets of timelines and family trees and, of course, commentary on all the great cafés and patisseries in Paris between Rue Princess and Boulevard Saint-Michel.