If the finished product is burdened with heavy lumps of exposition, those annoying scattered blocks will slow down the story  – and the reader’s interest.

Many people saying “You know, I don’t like science-fiction” are often more afraid of those lumps, than they would be  of a gripping story with warm-hearted characters affected by  loyalty conflicts.

Even for fantasy world-builders, the internal logic of the magic-or-supernatural workings requires a fair amount of thinking. And, as magical as the world is, the story must be well grounded in reality. How many fantasy novels, for instance, demonstrate a total lack of knowledge about equine biology and maintenance? One of my friends, who raises horses and loves fantasy, is appalled by what she reads.

And some SF or fantasy authors, too proud of their word-building, dump large exposition blocks on the unsuspecting reader! “I suffered for my art, and so must you!“

Research is like an iceberg.

There is the emerged part, the novel that you enjoy. But whatever the number of pages, there is a larger, hidden part underwater.

Not enough research under it and your story collapses under the contradictions, impossibilities, logical errors and paper-thin characters.

But when the universes and societies are lovingly built, the strong foundation even allows other writers to participate in it! Two examples: The Darkover series by Marion Zimmer Bradley and the Honor Harrington series by David Weber have spawned many paper children.

According to the readers’ ages or familiarity with the concepts, the submerged part of the iceberg is around 90%. For a simpler story, you may choose to tone down the emerged part. A story aimed at children will be a smaller icebeerg. A vast work, like the Martian trilogy of Kim S. Robinson will be a huge iceberg!

Hal Clement, in my view,  left more of his research over the waterline… But that was the good ol-days of science-fiction writing! I found Needle, aimed at young adults, captivating, even when the concept of “teen” and “young adult” did not exist at the time!

In my latest SF novel, La spirale de Lar Jubal, aimed at YA, I set aside about 99%  of my painstaking research and physics calculations for the space station, to concentrate on the visual  and dynamic aspects, and on the character’s conflicts.

Nevertheless, I put some visual information at the beginning of the novel.

In my upcoming SF novel, aimed at the “Oh, I don’t like science fiction” crowd,  there are very few numbers, but more active descriptions of stunning settings and actions. The planet and science aspects are explained only by their impact on the characters’ lives.

And I must manage, of course, the sense of wonder…as this Winds of Tammerlan novel cover suggests.

Another time, I will explain why science-fiction is like chocolate…

This page was finished in greytones with Gimp 2.6 and my trusty Wacom Intuos tablet. The perfectionnist, I even put in a late perspective correction in the last panel!

Read the  rest of this installment in Destination Nexuz3!

For years, I have been watching the stores, lost in a sea of cheap ​​A4 size scanners…  I am now testing my new Brother MFC-J6510 inkjet. What a pleasure to be able to scan my work, currently draft in A3 (11 × 17 inches) format! With our old Scanjet doing only legal size, I had to scan separately sections of my work, then rebuild the page, a hassle.

The colors are slightly accentuated, because in real life, these very faint pencil traces will disappear under the ink stroke. I do like using the little blue and green crayons .*

I scanned this pencilled page at 200 dpi because it takes a lot of memory! However, I can keep a memory of my drafts. All artists know that sometimes, an unfortunate stroke can mar the picture. Or, in my case, an accidental penstroke during a public event … Fortunately, the computer correction comes in handy!

Below is the first draft, drawn with GIMP 2.6 with my Intuos 4 tablet. With dialogues added in a separate layer. It may be noted that I have made ​​changes in the two boxes in the center, which became two elongated cells, suggesting the passage of time.

Some dialogues have been modified. I am a perfectionnist, but I do follow my instinct, and I felt that my backgrounds were not enough visible. And the inside floor plans of this house had not even been planned before I drew the exterior!

The house of page 5:

Which was done between the first and second draft.

It would be an interesting issue to discuss, as how we are influenced in our creation by the material available . As the autobiographical strip at the end of this post illustrates…

I remember the bad ball pens and cheap white sheets I used for my first comics in 1975. Looking at this  disaster of coagulated ink blotches, Jacques Hurtubise suggested to me to use India ink on larger sheets.**

A advice that I have carefully followed thereafter, leading to a series of unfortunate events with a variety of technical pens, and jars of ink. I have experimented doing comics on a variety of medias, and I’m now addicted to mechanical pencils… and my graphic tablet!

* I use 0.7 mm leads, because I was always breaking the non photo blue 0.5 mm leads. Those color are fragile! However, the pencils sold with the colored mines were poorly designed and the mines broke in several parts inside. So I used an run-of-the-mill 0.7mm Steadler, that preserves the leads inside.

** I met Jacque Hurtubise at a Comic festival at the University of Montréal in 1975.

You are all fathers and mothers.

You engrave your valuables and appreciate the ability to track your stolen jewels. You acknowledge the importance of driving lessons and of drunk driving control. When you renew your car plates licenses, you do not feel treated like a criminal.

When your personal physician warns you that you consume too much fat, you listen to his advice. You do not put his science(1)  in question because you would rather eat a bag of chips. When a dangerous toy threatens the health of our children, you act upon it.

Unless the toy is a gun, from a simple rifle to semi-automatic assault sniper weapons. Then, you suddenly cross your arms.

Against all the facts and the experience of criminologists and police, you mention a “feeling of freedom,” or a “feeling of being treated like a criminal.” Just like the census long-form and the renforcement of imprisonment, against science, reason and verifiable facts, you oppose a “feeling”.

This “feeling” has been built from scratch by the propaganda of the arms dealers. Helped by powerful American associations, they aim to protect the billions of dollars in annual market sales of weapons, holsters, and ammunition in Canada. They use the same worn-out buzzwords, a mix of freedom and paranoia, hatred of others, by flattering the “vigilante” part of us.(2)

If at least your government proposed an alternative… but no. No limit to the number of weapons, as easy to get as chocolate tablet, acquired by an unchecked individual. Not even a mandatory engraving on guns. No GPS chips on them. Maybe you are expecting a superhero?

I do not write to make you change your mind, nor prevent you from making this act of autodafe by burning the registry.

It is clear that you have seen the Light and that reason alone will not make you, at the very least, keep semi-automatic assault weapons on the register . Weapons such as those used for the massacre at my engineering school carried on in December 1989. Several similar acts of revenge have been carried out by a few “law-abiding citizens” frustrated, depressed or confused…

Lost in its religious delirium of the battle of Good against Evil, your government will make life easier for the criminals stealing weapons from legitimate owners, or buying weapons and ammunition for resale into traffic. (Ooops! Excuse me, someone stole my gun!) In addition, it will force (I mean: compell) otherwise very nice people to arm themselves for defense … and some might shoot before asking questions.

Combined with your hardened prison sentences and your cuts of social support, destroying the registry will raise the criminal activity, small-time criminals against which you bring out the big cannons.

This “small-time” crime rise  concerns discouraged indigent people, lacking a  future. Their outbursts of violence or self-destruction will delight the fans of trivia, sustaining our expensive legal system. Weapons as easy to buy as a box of chocolates, overflowing prisons, busy hospitals treating the victims of trauma will complement this flourishing economy.

As for serious crime, the organized greed deeply embedded in our institutions and finance? Your silence speaks volumes.

So now, you have come full circle, erasing my hundreds of volunteer hours to limit the social damage (plus the work of thousands of law abiding citizens, all freedom lovers as you are) done since the December 6, 1989 rampage, my own September 11.

But maybe you crave, without acknowledging it, the excitement of a city rife with crime. As long as it stay away from you.
***

(1) it would be interesting to settle your science limit. Where do science stops and ideology begins?

(2) And they feed the confusion about interdiction and control. There are hunters in my family, and none feel threatened when they register either their gun or their car license.

(The story of the market, told by itself)

1

Trade was my father
private property my mother
I am their blind offspring

my invisible hand
weaves the net
where the strong struggles
where the weak sinks
I am my own law
above all laws
the harsh and lush jungle
where offer and demand
copulate in total freedom

I am the market

In my veins flow
gold and silver
myrrh and incense
a river of desire flooding
the Stock Exchanges
I crown ephemeral kings
crashing on the morrow

TSX 300
Standard&Poor’s  500
New-York Montréal
London Tokyo Toronto

I relish the panic
shaking the floor
under the sheep
running for their Freedom 55
all selling at the same time
then jumping off the cliff

Black Tuesday
Ash Wednesday
Techno bubble collapse

I am the funnel
of frantic day trade
the competition black hole
the goodwill abyss
the glue binding
always bigger mergers
blessed by the Minister
catalysts of a wealth
more and more concentrated

capitalism is dead
long live monopolism!

2

I remember
the merchant fleets
sailing to new worlds
intrepid soldiers sparing no foe
northern spruces cut for timber
tropical forests burned to the ground
tribes decimated by small pox
fur trade  slave trafficking

anemic African colonies
drained to the last drop

today
vampire derricks are sucking up
Earth’s rich dark blood
spilling it over the oceans
so many Exxon Valdez capsizing
on the beaches
where goo-covered gulls
totter on soiled sands

still I hunger

tomorrow I will bite
into the tender flesh
of the planet
eating my way
to its liquid iron-nickel core

that I will drink
with a long straw

3

I am the joyful dance
of the sales not to miss
Halloween Christmas
Boxing Day Easter
Mother’s Day Father’s Day
summer sales
back-to-school sales
giant warehouses selling adjusted fares
look at the price wars

my grocery manager is now
a humble cashier at Mega Mart

I am the peddler
of staggering mortgages rates
accordion indexes
volatile currencies
lost homes
ordered bankruptcy
consumers chained
to their credit cards
it’s like the Titanic

the rich in their safe boats
the poor drowning in their debts

I am the supplier
of private prisons
filled to the brim
with bodies fallen
between the cracks
of a social net
cast without conviction
by tamed governments
following a hard right diet
their deficit girdled
by savvy promoters

safe behind their gated communities
watched over by their praetorian guard

I am the call-girl
catering to the cartels
of organized cupidity
sitting on the pyramid’s summit
not seeing the children
at the pyramid’s foot
running from the death squads

I speak trough the mouth
of your machine guns

I am the market
of import-export
made in China
self-made men
who never smell
the decrepit shops
delocalized in Asia
close to the slums

where workers and rats
compete for scraps

I am the Free Trade
built on slavery
and inherited servitudes
of the cane workers
tax-free zones
maquiladoras eating
fifteen-year old
peasant girls worn out
by fifteen-hour days
like their shoes
then consumed
and forgotten

like the eight hundred roses
crushed in Ciudad Juarez

I am the market
of civil wars
in my Name
democracies fall
I freed you
proclaims the Titan
setting up a Tyrant
please taste the freedom
of buying my goods
at the price I ordered

otherwise
(suspension points)

I am the race
for the nuclear mushroom
to put fear into thy neighbor
and steal his place
on the checkerboard
I am the race to arms
filling bags of munitions
to better kill your fellow citizens
I am the race
for outer space

quick, quick, let’s find
a virgin world to bleed dry

4

I am the market
of good conscience
of charity well ordered
beginning at home
wealthy foundations
dainty patrons
aristocrats and oil kings
nabobs and starlets
all shining glittering
in those charity balls
listen to those fiscal escapees
singing hand over their heart

we are the world
we are the people

while their right hand
doles out drops of manna
to the poor
their left hand
scatters their savings
speculates on their rents
hides a treasure in the Bahamas
destroys their unions
negotiates with sub-contractors
in order to keep

a steady reserve of indigents
in dire need of their charity

I am the market
of preachers
selling eternity with a rebate
under a red and white striped tent
condemning flesh sins
forgiving venial sins
against hard currency
of born-again Christians
who forgot the Christ
but not the cash
praise the Lord !

all the faithful will ascend
to the fiscal paradise

I am the media’s Big Brother
putting fear in you
with scandal sheets
incendiary headlines
stirring hatred
towards the Other
the shabby
the scruffy
the dirty
the downtrodden
with their proffered hand
but what is the police doing
lock your door at night
and don’t forget

to give generously
to charities

I am the Leviathan
of agrobusiness
patenting Nature
cloning and copying
in the name of freedom
forcing its genetically
marvelous seeds

on workers’ families
doused with pesticides

5

I am blind
still I can hear

the shop hand whimpering
under the foreman’s weight
children soldiers trashing in their sleep
dreaming of their dead parents
muffled cries of the carpet-girl
nursing her bleeding fingers
shouts of the protesters
defying the tear gas
dry laugh of the machine guns
the last breath of the labor defender
murdered in my name still
as disappeared

Chico Mendes
Iqbal Masih
Digna Ochoa y Plácido
and countless others

I am the theater
of opposing wills
from quarrel to clash
see my hand becoming more visible
see the wool shorn from your backs
that you buy later at a dear price
see the dirty clothes on the shop girl
and the spider web linking her
to your signature dress

I am the mirror of your desires
the infinite sum of
your small gestures
your decisions
your demonstrations
your Porto Allegres

your imagination unhinged
to build something new
I hear billions of voices
murmuring

otro mundo es posible

6

I am the market
with my eyes opened
I see
looming over the horizon
a strange New Deal

countries celebrating
their fair prosperity
neighbors buying selling giving
helping around
taming abuses
green houses
healing nature
the Earth at peace
all fears vanquished

callousness running away
dignity coming home

*

how strange
I never knew
I had a soul

and eight billion bodies

7

We are the market
present and future man-woman-kind
creative force

a galaxy of exponential freedoms
mixed fragrances
of spices and fruits
gossamer fabrics fluttering
in the winds of change
fireworks without pain

children of the global village
laughing running jumping singing
under their elder’s eyes
holding passionate debates
in a hundred dialects

*

We are the market

and from now on
we walk together

****

(cc) Michèle Laframboise 2011

A first version in French of this poem has been read aloud at the Théâtre Nouvelle-Scène of Ottawa, on September 30th 2010.

This version has been rewritten for the day of Occupy Wall Street, happening on the same day as the Toronto Spec Fic Colloquium, on October 15th 2011.

The robot is on the left.

Even our mayor Hazel visited! The writers were supposed to be outside, but the harsh winds forced the organizers to set our tables inside.

Local bookshops like Image Collections were present, too. We can see Todd, the manager (long hair) at the table. Next to his was the Celtic Shaman table.

On to the 24-24 at the Image Collections comic shop of Streetsville!

In the evening, I packed my boxes and went to the Image Collections shop, to partake of the 24-24 challenge under way since midday! I got there around 18h.

The artists at 20h Saturday, eating pizza and pondering their stories. Todd always feeds us well! The challenge is to produce 24 comic pages in 24 hours, and is done everywhere in the world on that week-end.

A 18h20, I sat at the table, « for a few minutes  of doodling», telling myself that if I got too tired (after my full day at the Mississauga library), my husband could drive me home from the shop.

I eventually found a story corresponding to the « Species Change » theme, set in my own Science-fiction universe. At ten o’clock, I was confident enough to tell my husband: I stay here for the night!

Then, I worked all night, one page every 50 minutes, with my blue pencils. Had some trouble with the 0.7 mm blue mechanical pencil, always breaking, so I switched for a more classic pencil.

The artists at seven the next morning. Tiffany have given herself totally to the challenge… note the superb coloured pages she managed to produce!

Of course, as I was late, this was a 24-18 rather than a 24-24 for me. So I opted out of a fully completed comic, as I did last year. I manage the full night with only two coffees (meaning, a brisk walk to the Tim Horton at 4 am) and one chocolate milk carton.

Todd did play some awful or bizarre music to keep us awake!

Here is one page pencilled in my trusty bleu pencil. In the notebook under it, some rough break-ins and sketches. I am still working my personal manga style.

I made the thumbnails and draw some lay outs of my story, then worked hard to realize a good pencilling of 22 pages, detailed enough to make the inking part easier. I kept an eye to the overall balance, so that the panels flow smoothly. Todd took pictures of all our pages at the end.

The triumph : Sunday Artist, Paul and Carolyn (Tiff had to leave earlier).  Paul is a pure amator who never did a comic before. Carolyn is an accomplished artist who had fun scenarizing her first comic. This is the fun of the 24-24 challenge!

Tiff has a strong talent, and you may glimpse part of her work in last year 24-24. To see my first impressions of the  24-24  in 2009, go here!

Here is the banner, a composite from two different pictures, one being the header of this blog! Eventually I will put on a fresher picture.

Enrolling herself as a navigator on the Jules-Verne Alliance Space Ship, young  Armelle, a shy brittle-boned Martian Belle, discovers life onboard the Jules-Verne, an old cruiser, its irascible and alcoholic commander , and its colored (and quite pissed off) crew mates. Then, there is this mission…

The graphic style will be slightly less realistic than the image suggests, a bit more on the manga style.

This is an excerpt from my graphic novel Maîtresse des vents published in the issue no 7 of the magazine science fiction and fantasy Nexuz3 (edited by Gérard Lévèque) that just came out. Nexuz3 is available in various bookstores in Quebec.

There aren’t so many SF&F comic fanzines published in French, so this one should get a fair notice in the field.  All the other participant artists are quite talented : their works are well worth your support!

The page you see needed less working of the grey tones, because I did not daddle too long to ink my blacks and whites.  I took several frames off, making the panels “breathe” easier over the page.  The “degraded” filling tool in my Gimp 2.6 software proved useful to give a sense of depth. The ocean in the first page is another  example.

In the second panel, I decided against putting a grey filling in the kite… the speed lines and shadows were enough. I am beginning to get the hang on manga dynamics, but a long way from a mangaka’s nimble hand…

You would be surprised to learn that I used only one layer through the whole process. Managing the layers in Gimp has proved unduly complicated. I rather use the “darken only” option of the paintbrush to lay my greys without erasing the blacks, and the special selection tools for the degraded colors effects.

The more observing among you will remark that I clipped off some of the rock outcropping in the last panel (with the two characters sitting on it). I also moved the kite a bit along.

Wind Mistress  (a working title, I’m not sure how the English version will be titled. “Kite Mistress” sounds good, too), takes place in my space-faring civilization of super-gardeners, several years before the Quest of Chaaas cycle.  And, yes, I will have it completed and translated before the next TCAF, promise!

With all that work, I have missed the Fan Expo 2011 in Toronto. At least, I carry on other works, like my Otaku Ladies webcomic.

Since the Clarion overlapped the end of the Whittaker contest, I worked harder and produced more new texts… and some SF poetry! I did modestly on the Whittaker final tally (310 points) but was gratified by the production boost.

Here is my  short fiction writing during the 6-weeks Clarion (counting two weeks of family vacation!) Feel free to visit my Write-a-Thon Writer page here to send a small contribution for the Clarion Foundation.

- The Robe (SF)

- Wrinkles (fantastic)

- A Short Stay at the Caracalla’s Resort (Dark SF)

- The Patroness (fantastic)

And for my current works in progress:

- about 10 000 words on the last novel in the Chaaas series

- near 5000 words on my next SF YA novel (52 000 words) to be published next February

- Writing on two short-fiction pieces in progress.

- Editing on the synopses on two other short novels

- Plus… 6 brand-new pages of a new SF graphic novel! (Extract here) I’m normally faster on the draw, but my free time is limited!

Perfectly ripe! Nature is as generous as last year, and we have to invite neighbors to gather the fruits!

Ze mighty raspberry patch!

(Yes you may have some, provided you come here!)

An unexpected guest! Last year and the  year before, I thought those sticks sprouting from my peonies were weeds (and you know how I deal with weeds...)

The wisteria is no more, but we have some unusual four-legged visitors!!

Never letting his or her guard down. Always on the ready. Cottontails lead difficult lives in this urban environment, what with the cars (Mississauga is the dream city for car dealers) and the wide streets and arteries. They come out veeery early in the morning.

This one was spotted on another street, during my 5h00 early-morning run. Note that the winter spotted fur is shedding, revealing the lighter brown fur. Fortunately, our two huntresses are safely inside the house.

Our two fierce huntresses, Maggie and Minnie, taking a break. (Picture taken on another day.)

And, last but not least, the ultimate proof that summer in upon us… a fiery day-lily (hemerocalle)!

Yes you can!

(…use it as a background picture.)