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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 May edition of the Newsletter. Written by members of the "Fantasy and Science Fiction Society" for all of Writing.Com. Contents 1. Introduction 2. Introducing Culture 3. Donald Trump as a Politician: A Glimpse 4. Book Review: The Princess Bride 5. A Lesson in Character from Superman 6. Advertisements 7. Vote  April has come and gone, but it sure left a mark! Over four and a half hours of Writing.Com Live! was filmed this month in two unique and fun shows. A big shout out to A E Willcox  , Dragon is hiding  , J. M. Kraynak  , Andy~hating university and Walkinbird 3 Jan 1892 who were my guests.The games from the latest show are still available to play if you want a chance to win a merit badge. I had previously said the closing date would be Monday 2 May, but seeing as very few people have took up the offer, I will be extending the deadline to Monday 9 May. You can view all the games here: "Invalid Item" The month of May is very exciting in the FSFS. I am hosting the second Daily Flash Fiction Challenge for the group. If you are an FSFS member, head over to "May Flash Challenge" to check it out. You don't have to participate every day, but there are big prizes if you do. "Thrice Prompted" is being judged this month. If you are interested in judging, please let me know. I now have proof that my prompts in Three Prompts are inspirational  Aus   was inspired to write a short story based on this prompt from August 2015: Invalid Photo #1041091 He didn't enter the contest, however. He soon found that the story he was writing needed a longer form. So, he wrote a novella based on the prompt and had it published! You can find the Three Prompts inspired published book on Amazon. It is Jack Gregson & the Forgotten Portal by Peter Wilson:  A culture is similar to a character. A world is similar to a multitude of characters within one great cast thanks to each of the cultures within the world. Each playing off each other. The comparison also works with the way they can hinder a story if they fall flat. Yet they also can enhance a story if they are built beautifully. Setting can be a part of what transports the reader into a story. Each culture should have a strength and a weakness. There are many ways to build a culture, yet it can be difficult to introduce the culture. On one hand, it is never good to pour out details through an info dump. At the same time it can be difficult to start with action and leave out so much to confuse your reader in the process. The maps in your story and the way you introduce the culture can be two separate things. Even if they are for the same project. One thing to keep in mind when introducing a culture is how little the readers know compared to the author. While the writer may know every single detail about their culture, the readers know almost nothing about the world. The “show, don’t tell” rule works into this subject and can be an important factor for your culture. Especially with using action to describe it. The five senses are often important to transporting the reader into another place. The exact purpose for world building. It can be even better if the authors hints at emotions. Treating emotions as if they are a sixth sense. Also keep the descriptions relevant to the plot. Flowery descriptions that linger in a story for the description only can be harmful. This is one thing a literary agent might use against your work. Conflict is the lifeblood of fiction, and the thing that keeps a reader into a story. Halting conflict to produce a description that makes someone see every fine detail can be harmful to a story. Cultures are a part of what makes a story come to life. Maybe like characters with how they can transport us into the story. Creating a culture is often easy. Getting a culture on the page in the desired fashion can often hold its own challenges.  Everyone should have a basic understanding of the current political situation and not be ignorant of what the nation is becoming and what our leaders are doing. They are determining our freedoms and livelihoods. You have heard that we must be assertive as citizens of the United States. Sadly, most people are lost in pleasures and entertainment. Even those who keep tabs on the political arena do it to be entertained. We are in the process of the presidential elections and I can think of no better starting point then the republican candidate Donald Trump. He is an outspoken, charismatic candidate, not afraid to speak his mind. I did a quick search on the net and watched a few short CNN broadcasts that I combined with some facts on Wikipedia. On April, 17th, he said he wants to bring some “Showbiz” to the Cleveland GOP Convention that will happen roughly three months from now beginning on July 18th to the 21st. Do you think, by this statement, that he will turn the convention into a circus to entertain using obtuse hijinks to dazzle his way into the GOP choice? Trump is brave in his campaign. But like all politicians he contradicts himself. At one point he praised both Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton then sometime later bashed them when he started campaigning. Trump is worth 4.5 billion dollars so he can do all the public hoopla with little or no need for funding. In another statement, he came right out and said the delegate system is “100% crooked.” Pretty bold isn’t he? According to Wikipedia, there are four accusatory names that he was labeled with by most of his opponents. They are, in a nutshell, easy to grasp. 1: Populist-siding with the most common, pervading ideas. 2: Nativist-favoring the home born citizens of a nation and opposing the wellbeing and rights of immigrants. 3: Protectionist-this involves money, trade, and the economy. It deals with countries and aims to make an equal competition between domestic trade with tariffs and restrictive quotas. Restrictive quotas are limits on products that can be sold. 4: Authoritarian-(I don’t think this one needs explaining.) If Trump is to be president, I am curios [sic] to witness the grave changes that will happen to this nation and the world. Trump knows how to rally. He is blunt and decisive, but will his straight forward manner be risky when dealing with other nations? It appears he will be the next president just from the national news reports. He has 49% of the republican vote and I believe he will defeat Clinton by a heavy overhand. (who is now undergoing scrutiny for using her personal email system to process federal information). Keep an eye on national news even if it is a little boring or trite to you. Knowledge is indeed power.  Book Name: The Princess Bride Author: William Goldman First Published: 1973 William Goldman was born in Chicago. He gained a bachelor of arts from Oberlin College in 1952 and then enlisted in the army. Since he knew how to type (keyboard) he was sent to work in the Pentagon where he worked as a clerk until he was honorably discharged. He continued his education at Columbia University and earned a master of arts. While he was in the army and at University, he honed his craft by writing short stories in the evenings, having caught the writing bug during a creative writing class at school. Few of them published, but he did not give up on his dream of being a writer. Although he later gained fame as a screenwriter, during his early years he was interested in writing poetry, short stories, and novels. In 1956, Goldman began writing his first novel, Temple of Gold. It sold well enough to launch his career. He published five novels and three plays before he began to entertain the idea of writing screenplays. Movie adaptations of books such as Flowers for Algernon (later renamed Charly) were followed by hits such as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, No Way to Treat a Lady, The Right Stuff, Misery, and All The President’s Men. Goldman met Rob Reiner when adapting Stephen King’s novel Misery. Later they would collaborate again when Reiner directed the film version of Goldman’s book The Princess Bride. Goldman himself wrote the adaptation for the movie and created a cult classic that featured many of the top Hollywood actors of the day. William Goldman is no stranger to the Motion Picture Academy. He has won two Oscars, one for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and for All The President’s Men. He also has won two Edgar awards for best motion picture screenplay. In 1985, he earned the Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement from the Writers Guild of America. “She loves you,” the Prince cried. “She loves you still and you love her, so think of that–think of this too: in all this world, you might have been happy, genuinely happy. Not one couple in a century has that chance, not really, no matter what the storybooks say, but you could have had it, and so, I would think, no one will ever suffer a loss as great as you.” ― William Goldman, The Princess Bride The Princess Bride is presented as if it were an abridgment of a classic adventure story by S. Morgenstern, an author from the imaginary country of Florin. Goldman claims a history with the story of The Princess Bride. He first heard the tale from his own father, an immigrant from Florin, who read the story to him as a ten-year-old child when he had pneumonia. As an adult, Goldman went back to the original classic and discovered that his father had skipped over many “boring” parts of the novel in order to intrigue his small son. Now a writer himself, Goldman decides to edit the original (and fictional) S. Morgenstern book into the more adventurous story he remembers and to allow himself to make editorial comments during the story. The story takes place in Florin, a renaissance-like land featuring a lovely maiden named Buttercup. Her chief amusement is verbally abusing the family’s farmhand, a youth named Westley. She never calls him by name, only “farm boy” and his response to her demands is always “as you wish”. It doesn’t occur to Buttercup until much later that when Westley says “as you wish”, he actually is saying “I love you.” The two confess their love for one another and Westley leaves the farm to seek his fortune at sea in order for the pair to marry. It is not long before Buttercup learns that Westley’s ship is boarded by the Dread Pirate Roberts, who is known for killing every man in the ships he attacks. She assumes that her true love has been killed and goes into mourning. Meanwhile, Prince Humperdinck learns that he must marry upon the death of his father. He learns of Buttercup’s renown beauty and decides that she is the one that he will marry. He proposes to her, although he is a stranger to her, and Buttercup agrees to the match, although she makes it clear that she does not love the prince and likely never will. The story cuts away to a trio of villains, the Sicilian genius Vizzini, the Spaniard Sword-master Inigo Montoya, and the giant Turk wrestler Fezzik. The group kidnaps Buttercup before her wedding to the prince and takes her across the sea in an effort to start a war between Florin and a neighboring kingdom, Guilder. The are pursued by a masked man in black and Prince Humperdinck in separate parties. Vizzini and his group find their way across the sea and dock at the Cliffs of Insanity. The mastermind orders the Spaniard to kill the man in black and whisks Buttercup away with the help of the Turkish giant. Inigo is a man seeking revenge. He wishes to kill the six-fingered man who had murdered his father. He became a master swordsman in order to reach this goal. When the man in black reaches him, he arranges for a fair fight, allowing the man to rest before the duel. Inigo is confident that he can kill the man in black easily, but as the duel commences, we learn that the masked man is his equal. In the end, the man in black is triumphant, but he leaves Ingio alive. The man in black defeats the giant and then finds Vizzini. The two have a battle of wits and in the end, the man in black is victorious and Vizzini dies of his own treachery. The man in black takes Buttercup and flees ahead of Prince Humperdinck’s party which is still in pursuit of the princess bride. As the pair travel, the man in black taunts Buttercup, telling her that she must have felt nothing when her sweetheart had died. The girl is angered by him and shoves the man in black into a gorge. She yells at him, “You can die too, for all I care!” It is then that she hears the man call out, “As you wish.” In shock, she realizes that the masked man in black is none other than her true love, Westley the farm boy. Both explain their time apart to each other and they make up. Despite navigating through a fire swamp, dealing with snow sand, and battling rodents of unusual size, the pair is captured by Prince Humperdinck and his friend, the six-fingered Count Tyrone Rugen. Buttercup bargains with the prince to spare Westley’s life and returns with the prince back to Florin and her fate of being his bride. The adventure is not over. Westley must deal with a double cross, make friends of enemies, and ultimately fight once more for the woman he loves. Inigo Montoya returns and confronts the six-fingered man who killed his father, and a host of strange and wonderful characters are yet to come and enjoy. I did not read The Princess Bride until I had seen the Rob Reiner film by the same name in 1987. The film has become a beloved cult classic and remains popular today. Far from a simple fantasy tale, the story is filled with tongue-in-cheek wit and serves as a satire to the fairytales that we all cut our teeth on. The author claims that the book is an abridgment of an older book by “S. Morgenstern” which was a satire on the excesses of European royalty, but the book is completely of Goldman’s own invention. He based the tales on stories that he told to his daughters as they grew up. One daughter requested a story about “princesses” and the other about “brides”. Goldman made up the interconnected scenes on the fly and gave all the characters ridiculous names. The two countries, Florin and Guilder are both named after European coins. In an anthology The Best of All Words (1980), edited by Spider Robinson, Goldman published a scene from the novel, Duel Scene (From the Princess Bride). Among writers, this scene is often used as the gold standard of how to write a fight scene and is cited as one of the best in literature. It is not so much that it is gory, it is that it displays conflict, emotion, and a clear story arc. If you enjoy fantasy or fairy tales, you should fall in love with The Princess Bride. If you are a writer, check out the fight scene from the book. I think you will find it as informative as I did. This is a wonderous tale from a master-class author and it should not be missed.  I can’t think of a better character to explore than my favorite, Superman, particularly with Batman v Superman currently in theaters. Everyone knows that Superman (who first appeared in Action Comics #1 in 1938) was created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. That year they were paid a “kill fee” of $130, signing over all their rights to the character and story they had been developing for five years. This was a significant sum back then for two young men from immigrant families. Knowing the genesis of Superman, helps us understand why people embraced this character then and why Superman endures. The following historical information about the creation of Superman comes from Arie Kaplan’s From Krakow to Krypton: Jews and Comic Books. Superman’s creators, Siegel and Shuster, came from Jewish immigrant families. Jews in that day were seen as weak, a minority that faced persecution. In the United States the comic book industry, like the movie industry, offered opportunity. So, Siegel and Shuster tried to break into the industry, envisioning an immigrant (an illegal one, as it turns out) who epitomized their aspirations – a superman, who falls in love with an American girl, just like they hoped to. They gave Superman a Kryptonian name, Kal-El, which in Hebrew means Voice of the Lord. (That’s both a statement and an inside Jewish joke that’s been a point of pride to many a Jewish kid reading or watching Superman.) Creating Superman, who fights for truth and justice was more than a story for them. Superman was written at the beginning of World War II, at a time when the Third Reich’s genocide policies against Jews, gypsies, trade unionists and anyone who they labeled as a threat, were being enforced. They wrote during the cusp of the beginning of World War II, where anyone (such as Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, even trade unionists) the Third Reich chose to claim as a threat to making their nation great was targeted. Thus, a superhero who fights for truth and justice, was more than a mere story for Siegel and Shuster. Siegel and Shuster, like other comic writers and artists of the day made Nazis the villains at a time when the American public was often enamored of the rhetoric. They and many other Jews in the Gold Age of the comics helped change that perception through their stories of Superman and other heroes, preparing Americans for seeing Nazi Germany’s evil. Even though Superman was written during a turbulent and horrible time in history, he still endures. So, why do I love Superman? Why do I think so many others do, too? Perhaps we secretly wish we were Superman. Not necessarily that we want to be a hero, but that we know we have a secret identity – one that we know is the real us. Maybe we know deep down we have a gift, a power, which when we talk about characters is called “agency.” This may not be a superpower like the ability to fly faster than a speeding bullet, but still the power to make the world a better place in our own way (through what each of us does to help others). Perhaps, it is something else. From the perspective of an author who writes speculative fiction, thinking about the character of Superman’s appeal, he’s not invulnerable. At key times he depends on Lois Lane or an average person like Jimmy Olsen to save him from exposure to Kryponite. He also has human frailties. He’s suffered personal loss. He’s lost his adoptive father, Jonathan Kent, and his biological parents – even his home world, making him the ultimate orphan, a classic aspect of those on the “hero’s journey.” Better yet, Superman has great duds. I really like the red cape. Okay, I’m not a fan of Clark Kent's glasses, which I guess are intended to make him look smart. Superman's costume is red, yellow, and blue, which might have been better as red, white, and blue, except for the fact it likely would not have looked quite as good in the comics… But I digress, the costume itself makes Superman bigger than life, suggesting the Man of Steel is a knight in armor in the modern day. What I mean by that is more apparent in Man of Steel. In that film the costume literally is Kryptonian body armor. There’s also resonance in him being a knight, as an aspect of his character. He’s a defender of the weak, not unlike the ideal knight or samurai. That’s always inspired me – just as seeing Superman fly on the movie screen does. That’s a take away for me as someone who creates characters. I believe that in order to create a memorable character there should be something inspiring about them. Like the rags to riches tales of Cinderella, who appears in a variety of cultures in their folktales, Superman is a small town boy, who becomes the ultimate prince – someone who could almost be any of us with such hopes and dreams. Another way to look at such resonance is to think of Superman as mythological. He’s godlike powers and emotional human frailties. Think of Hercules, a demi-god, who has amazing strength and fights the good fight on behalf of humanity against evils, human or monstrous. Tapping on the resonance of such old tales makes Superman’s stories feel truer somehow, more epic. That makes for strong story-telling, which comes from creating a wonderful protagonist. So, Superman is my ideal memorable character and an excellent example of what goes into creating a, well, superb character. And if such insights helps you or I make a memorable character or two along the way, thank you Siegel and Shuster. "A Lesson in Character from Superman" by Highmage - D.H. Aire 
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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 Scifaiku: A Poet's Journey won Best Submission for "April 2016" (I decided the tie-breaker). Uncommonspirit 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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