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 The FSFS Newsletter is written by FSFS members covering everything Fantasy and Sci-Fi |
The "Fantasy and Science Fiction Society" welcomes you to  Welcome to the February edition of the Newsletter! Featuring articles written by members of "Fantasy and Science Fiction Society" for all of WdC. Contents 1. Introduction 2. Fantasy Writing - Romance 3. Be My Valentine 4. What's in a heart? 5. Desire 6. Book Review: A Princess of Mars 7. Advertisements 8. Vote  So the new year is well and truly here to stay! January went by in a blur and the rest of the year is calling. Many of us entered the WdC official Dear Me contest. However, it appears up to a third of entrants had to be disqialified for not following the rules of submission. It is vital to read and reread all the rules of a contest before submitting so not be DQ's and wast all the effort you put in to your entry. See Jeff's "Note: PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT After checking th..." for more information. Of course the biggest thing to happen this month was "Invalid Item" . A E Willcox   was a brilliant contestant. Visit the page to view the full show on demand.February is the month of love so be sure to check out all the romantic activities going on this month. Why not send a review to spread the love this month. If you do include it in the comments below and I'll credit it based on quality.  “The course of true love never did run smooth;” - from A Midsummer Nights Dream ~ William Shakespeare. One of the prime factors which determine whether a thing is a living organism (plant, animal, fungus, bacteria, or virus) is whether it undergoes some form of biological reproduction. Higher order organisms such as some birds and mammals, for example, often have some kind of instinctual courting ritual or foreplay before the reproductive act takes place. Therefore, when it comes to the characters of your fantasy story – human or otherwise - romance, love, lust and sex in all its forms is, or should be, an essential part of who or what they are. Both sex and love are huge motivators for people and can make for compelling stories. Whether you are aiming to write a romantic fantasy story or a fantasy story with a romance as a sub-plot, you need to plan out how your character's relationship begins and develops – what conflicts they have and what obstructions might threaten, or even do come between them. Some people will argue that there is such a thing as love at first sight1, but I will argue that instant attraction, as far as humans are concerned, is more a mix of infatuation and lust rather than the full-blown, deep emotion of love which really does take time to develop. In order to keep romance fresh and different, love scenes need to grow out of the characters themselves. Every time the characters get together, whether they indulge in sex or not, this should reflect where they are in their relationship. Each love scene should not only mark the progress of the relationship but advance it. The characters are sharing a deeply personal interaction, exposing themselves to each other emotionally as well as physically. It should change how they relate to each other. While I understand no two relationships are exactly the same, there are some generalizations one can make about them. In the first scene, maybe they’re unsure, or cautious, or are just trying to explore the other character's boundaries – or maybe they just go a bit bonkers from pent-up sexual tension. In the next scene, maybe they have had an argument before going to bed together and that anger simmers between them so that the love scene becomes another expression for the conflict. The relationship tension should build until the last scene when we see how they make love now that they’re really in love and committed to one another. It is worth remembering here too that sweet, caring actions on the part of the characters will do more than rhetorical declarations of love to show the reader that these people really will live happily ever after. If you really want to get your readers involved in the romance, then you need to take the time to show them the development of the relationship from the first meeting of total strangers all the way to an ending of full commitment. Desmond Morris, a behavioural scientist studying why couples divorce or stay together, first described the twelve steps of intimacy2 as a way to explain the progression from two strangers meeting to committed couple. According to Morris, the steps don't have to be taken in order, but stronger relationships are more likely when they are and when couples give themselves time to bond before progressing to the next level. Morris's research shows that women, specifically, resent being rushed (i.e., having a man grope his way into the "grabby boob" phase before the hand holding phase.) Time to bond can take anywhere between five minutes and five years, depending on the circumstances and depending on the couple. Interestingly, the couples in his study, who took the time to repeat and revisit all twelve steps in order, reinforced the progression, and tended to enjoy longer relationships. It isn't a good idea to slavishly work each scene to the twelve steps in such a way as to confine your characters to some preordained, artificial progression. You want the readers to enjoy two real characters swept up in the dance of love, rather than puppets manipulated by the author. It is a good idea to remember that small things happen on the way to the big things. Even if your characters copulate in the first scene, chances are good (especially if they just met) that they don't just discard clothes and go at it like rabbits. Realistically the characters will follow most of the steps instinctively and naturally on their own. Your job as a writer is to show this to the reader. The first nine steps can be done in public or in private, but the latter three are most often done in private. As mentioned earlier, these can be done quickly, just a few moments each, or they can span years. It's up to your characters. 1. Eye to Body: Sometimes it's just a glance. Sometimes the glance turns to a stare. Sometimes the gaze starts at the top/toes and takes its time roaming the length of the body. Sometimes the first look leads to an exchange of phone numbers, and other times it leads to a dismissal until next they meet in different circumstances. 2. Eye to Eye: If there is no dismissal, then they've seen each other and, like it or not, they're intrigued. No matter how many people are in the room, for a second it's just the two of them, locked together by the magic of eye contact. Eye contact can be heady flirting, in and of itself. 3. Voice to Voice: In this stage, the couple begins to talk to each other. The conversation can be one sided, or it can be a dialogue. For strangers, the first conversation is often a get-to-know-you phase, touching on topics ranging from names, jobs, likes and dislikes, habits, opinions pastimes, etc. Don't forget to show the reader what the characters do and don't admit, and how their responses--or lack thereof--affect the POV character. 4. Hand to Hand: This stage is holding hands. This is when the relationship begins to deepen from simple friendship. Either way, hand to hand is their first taste of physical contact, and their first act of trust (or mistrust, if one party refuses the other). Up until this point, either person could change their mind and walk away without causing confusion or hurt feelings in the other. Once the body contact line has been crossed, however, bonding has begun, if only at a small level. Hand to hand contact can blossom into hand holding, an indication of a deepening relationship. Regardless of the intent or level of the body contact, don't forget to show the reader the POV Character's physical and emotional reaction. 5. Arm to Shoulder: Arm/hand to shoulder can be anything from a friendly hug to ballroom type dancing. Although either sort of embrace can be non-committal, depending on the cues given and received through body language and physical contact, disengagement at this point can cause hurt feelings. While hand-holding allows space between bodies, hugs or arms around shoulders require closeness. The closer two people are, the more intimate the contact can feel. Hand/arm to shoulder is non-casual physical contact so don't forget to show the reader whether the body contact works out as planned and how the POV Character reacts to it. 6. Arm to Waist: Physical contact has now become a sexual embrace. One character is physically drawing the other closer. With this kind of proximity, they can enjoy softer words, each other's scents, intimate dialogue, and the feel of body against body. This stage indicates growing familiarity, increased comfort, and escalating emotional response. Show your reader all of this through body language, conversation, physical response, and internal dialogue. 7. Mouth to Mouth: Often, this step combines many previous steps into one. Whether this is the first kiss or the hundredth and first, fireworks are going off all over the place and it's your job as the writer to show the explosion to the reader in such a way as to make the reader feel the emotion right along with the POV character. 8. Hand to Head: This, even more than kissing, is an act of physical intimacy and a symbol of deepening trust. Protecting the head is instinctual. Allowing another free reign is indicative of submission to desire. Although it can make both acts more powerful, this step does not have to precede sex nor take place during kissing. 9. Hand to Body: This is often the moment when both characters cross the line between kissing and pre-sexual foreplay. Typically, the body part(s) being touched are not normally exposed in public, indicating a great deal of intimacy. 10. Mouth to Breast: Undeniably sexual in nature, the act of licking, nibbling and/or suckling indicates sexual desire, deepened trust, and a high level of emotion. This step typically includes partial to full nudity, as well as some combination of the previous steps. Don't forget to show the reader what the POV character is seeing, thinking, and feeling. 11. Hand to Genitals: Indicative of high levels of trust, this step is a huge act of bonding. How do your characters react? Do they stop before either reaches satisfaction? Do one or both experience an orgasm? Or do they move on to: 12. Sexual Intercourse: This stage represents the highest level of bonding and the pinnacle of trust. Both parties expect to gain and give pleasure. Intense physical sensation floods the senses and bonding is at an all-time high. As always, show the reader this. What is the POV character thinking, feeling, saying and doing? How does the other person look, smell, taste, feel, sound? And most importantly... what happens afterwards? In order to write a good romance in your fantasy story you need to make sure your character relationships are consistent with the characters, even while they are growing and perhaps being changed by their challenging experiences within the story, or by the developing romance itself. Also, to make the romance, or the sexual dealings properly compelling, your characters' relationship should not exist just to serve the plot. Of course there can be plot reasons which put characters together, but this should not be the only reason for the existence of their relationship. I think the best romantic relationships on the page are the ones I can believe would, or could exist in real life, especially if their course does not run smoothly.  (1)This may be true of a mother with her newborn baby, or maybe two non-human characters pairing up. (2)Intimate Behaviour: A Zoologist's Classic Study of Human Intimacy ~ Desmond Morris "Fantasy Writing - Romance" by A E Willcox Who was Valentine and why do we have a day named after him? As an amateur historian (majoring in Roman history) I couldn’t pass this one up. This is not an easy question to answer because there is quite a bit of conflicting history to select from. Depending on which book you read, you may find one author who writes that there were two men named Valentine whose lives and stories are combined to make one great story or legend, while yet other authors may indicate there was one to three or more men named Valentine from which Valentine’s Day is named. That there was a Valentine, or Valentinus, history corroborates. Here is the one I like the best and I believe that it is most associated with our modern beliefs in Valentine’s Day: It is said that Valentinus was a priest who secretly married couples in defiance of Emperor Claudius II edict against marriage. He was imprisoned and beheaded for refusing to worship the Roman pagan gods. The most popular story goes like this: In ancient Rome, February 14 was a holiday to honor the Goddess Juno. The following day, February 15 began the Feast of Lupercalia. On the eve of the Festival of Lupercalia, the names of Roman Girls were written on slips of paper and placed into jars. Each young man drew a name from the jar and the girl whose name he drew became his partner for the duration of the festival. This practice often led to engagement and marriage. The Emperor Claudius the Cruel was having difficulty getting soldiers to join his legions and he thought the main reason was they did not want to leave their families. He therefore proclaimed engagement and marriage to be outlawed. Claudius had already made it punishable by death for anyone to associate with the Christians who refused to worship the state gods. Valentinus (a Christian) defied the Emperor's law and continued to marry young couples, but when Claudius discovered this, he had Valeninus arrested. The jailer had heard of Valentinus' great medical and spiritual healing so he brought his young blind daughter and her sister Julia to the prison to meet with Valentinus. Valentinus and the jailer's elder daughter became very close friends and it is said he converted her to Christianity. On the eve of his death, Valentinus wrote a letter to Julia and signed it, "From your Valentine.” The next day, on February 14, 269, he was clubbed to death (not beheaded) near a gate that was later named Porta Valintini in his memory. When the jailer arrived home with the letter, his little girl opened it and found a yellow flower inside. She, blind from birth, could suddenly see the brilliant colors of the flower. God had restored her eyes to her. Valentine's note to Julia, the miracle of her sister's restored eyesight, and the obvious platonic love they shared, started the custom of exchanging love letters on February 14. In 496, Pope Gelasius set aside February 14 to honor Saint Valentine, who became the patron saint of lovers. Valentine was buried at what is now called the Church of Praxedes in Rome and it was said that Julia herself planted a pink-blossomed almond tree near his grave. The date, February 14, has since been marked by sending poems, giving gifts - such as flowers and candy - and small social gatherings. During the fourteenth century a variation of the Feast of Lupercalia was started, wherein a sweetheart was chosen for the day by lottery. Messages sent between these randomly chosen pairs became the forerunners of our modern Valentine's Day cards. In Germany where it was wider spread, specially designed cards, called Freundschaftkarten (friendship cards) were given out by almost everyone. The pink almond blossom, red heart, greeting cards, and message, "Be my Valentine," has endured over the centuries. Some Christian clergy today do not believe that Valentine's Day should be observed due to its Roman pagan origins. However, many of them have discovered, as did Emperor Claudius the Cruel, politically correct or not - love cannot be beaten. "Be My Valentine" by Oldwarrior   What's in a heart? I know not. One never thinks, About one's heart. It is there, Pumping life. It is there, Feeling the pain. It doesn't tell Right from left. It aches when Love goes wrong. I don't need it. I'll give it away. I'll dump it In the ocean. Tomorrow I'll start Life without a heart. "Invalid Item" by A Guest Visitor  How I yearn - How I long for you to gaze at me And see my desire for you within my eyes. Oh how I want to feel the warmth Of your hand upon my cheek, And your breath upon my ear, For our lips to meet in mutual need: A shared reverence. Then as passions waken, a requisite, Yearning to join in a primal dance of love. Oh, come now to me my beloved. Come now to me! "Desire" by A E Willcox  Book Name: A Princess of Mars Author: Edgar Rice Burroughs First Published: 1912 Original Title: Under the Moons of Mars In 1911, thirty-five year old Edgar Rice Burroughs suffered a dilemma. His business ventures had failed miserably and he needed more income to support his wife and two children. Being a fan of serial novels, he often told himself that he could write a better story than what he saw published in those pages. As he worked at his brother’s stationery company, he penned a novel on the company pads during his off-hours, telling no one but his wife about it. In the end, he was too embarrassed by the tale to put his name on the manuscript. The All-Story magazine bought his first story as a six-part serial in 1912 and named it Under the Moons of Mars. Due to the typesetter believing that the author’s pen name “Normal Bean” was a typo, the author was listed as “Norman Bean”. The humble serial would become the inspiration of a new sub-genre in science fantasy, the planetary romance. Stories by Burroughs became popular with the public quickly and by 1914 two of his serials were re-printed as novels. His Tarzan of the Apes series was novelized first, followed by his first serial, renamed A Princess of Mars. The Barsoom series featuring John Carter of Mars was born. The novels have since not been out of print for the last 100 years. A Princess of Mars is the fictional travelogue of Captain John Carter, a Confederate soldier who prospects for gold in the American Southwest after the civil war. After an attack by Apaches, he is mysteriously transported to the planet Mars. There on Barsoom, as the planet is known to the natives, he shows great physical prowess as the lighter gravity of the red planet allows him to leap about to the amazement of the four-armed and tusked men known as Thrak. His skills in battle become renown to all Barsoomians as he gradually battles his way to the top of their society. Driving John Carter to fight is his love for the beautiful princess, Dejah Thoris. The captain spends much of the novel in pursuit of and in rescuing the princess as she is captured by various lustful villains. ### I first discovered A Princess of Mars during my early teens at the public library. It was a well-worn, earmarked copy with a four-armed green giant battling a smaller, sword wielding man on the cover. Despite the novel having been written at least half a century before I was born, I was pulled in by the myriad of battling cultures, the intriguing scientific imaginings, and the emergence of love and friendship overcoming the hatred that drove all these different colored people of Mars. John Carter is a charming narrator in this tale filled with anti-gravity cars, majestic city-states, giant riding thoats, and barbarians of many races. A southern gentleman of the old school, I found his way of offering the hand of friendship to the Barsoomians, a pleasant contrast to the way men are often portrayed in present day. He did not shirk from the violence around him and had the fighting skills to hold his own, yet through it all there was a sense of knowing that things did not need to be this way. His spreading of the concept of peace to the Barsoomians put me to mind of how people must have felt during the First World War, which started the same year that this novel became popular, when their world had gone insane with unheard of violence and war on a scale previously unknown, similar to the fighting that was protrayed on Barsoom. The voice of reason in John Carter was a counterpoint to those feelings that the First World War must have created and struck a chord with readers of his day. I found the feisty, far from helpless, Dejah Thoris to be intriguing. Women from that era of writing normally did not have such spunk and did not look at the hero with equality as she did. While she does spend much of the novel being captured by powerful villains, she shows herself to be a woman of principle, every bit as much a creature to duty and honor as the hero. I can understand why Dejah Thoris has captured the hearts of so many generations of young men. I hope you’ll consider reading A Princess of Mars and the rest of the Barsoom series by Edgar Rice Burroughs. You can find the ebook version for free at Project Gutenberg, or check it out at your local library.
The February round of Three Prompts is open! Check out the three lovely prompts this month! If you're interested in being a judge for Three Prompts please let me know.
Magic Words has reopened for February. Use the words in one or both of the lists in a fantastical short story.
A brnad-new cNote shop with a fantastical theme. Profits go to the FSFS!
An FSFS-only forum to discuss writing mechanics!
The FSFS Review Board is open! All WdC members can view the list on the group homepage, "Fantasy and Science Fiction Society" . FSFS Members can view the list from the homepage, Review Board page and the Hub. To post on the board you need to review at least one other item on the list.
If you are not already a member and are interested in fantasy and science fiction writing, please read through the group homepage and apply using the application form. The only pre-requisite is that you have a fantasy or science fiction item in your portfolio. If you want to advertise in the FSFS Newsletter please contact me, Matt Bird MSci (Hons) AMRSC  .Vote I am pleased to announce that "What's a Book without a Cover" by Highmage - D.H. Aire  won Best Submission for "January 2016" . Highmage - D.H. Aire has won an FSFS merit-badge! Use the poll below to vote for your favourite submission from this month.Thank you to all the members who submitted articles to the Newsletter. If you submitted an article that wasn't included, don't be offended. I can only fit so much in the Newsletter. Please submit it again when I send the call out for articles. Please comment on this Newsletter if you enjoyed it, or if you have any suggestions for future editions. |
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