A Kinder, Gentler Apocalypse (#SFWA Pro)

I grew up in the fifties, when we learned in grade school to “duck and cover” (hide under our desks)  for protection from an atomic bomb blast. Not unsurprisingly I had frequent recurring nightmares about that very thing. In fact, I kind of expected it to happen, which may be why, once I discovered science fiction, I found myself drawn to post-apocalyptic literature. It was almost as if I were studying so I would know how to survive the collapse of civilization.

After I became a professional writer, I wrote a post-apocalyptic trilogy of my own, over a period of thirty years. (See "How I accidentally wrote a 300,000-word Trilogy".) I did a lot of thinking and a lot of research working on the main premise of the series: what would happen to our society if all modern technology suddenly and permanently disappeared? In my series, The Pandora’s Trilogy, this catastrophe is caused by a recombinant-DNA disaster that results in the disappearance of all petroleum and petroleum products. Most of us don’t think about how very dependent we are on fossil fuels for more than motivating our cars. A vast number of manufactured objects--including clothing, cosmetics, household objects, and  electronics, are made wholly or in part of oil or plastic or other petroleum derivatives.

In my trilogy many other terrible events, including widespread genetic mutations (due to the failure of containment systems on biological experiments) and mass extinctions and genetic diseases (due to the recombinant-DNA disaster) also plague the unlucky survivors of the original “Change.” It’s a kind of dark-ages life: primitive… brutish and short. The three main characters of my trilogy each work in different ways to try to make the present better and help create a future that is less desolate. Though many animals we know now are gone, evolved forms of some creatures, including camels, housecats, and elephants, are important actors in the story.

I realized after I had written the second of the three novels that my imagined apocalypse was in fact a kind of wish-fulfillment fantasy. No, I didn’t wish for the collapse of civilization, but I realized that if a disaster such as the one I created should occur, it would permanently eliminate the possibility of nuclear holocaust. The third novel in the series, written 35 years after the first two, even ends on a note of hope for the future. No, things can never be as they once were; but humanity and the remaining animals will be able to live in a recovering ecosystem with enlightened leadership, a reduced human population, and a visceral knowledge of the mistakes that had been made in the past and must never be made again.

The Pandora’s Trilogy is available on Kindle as an e-book “box set,” which offers all three novels and some bonus material. The three novels are available separately, as ebooks and paperbacks, on Amazon. All are free to read on #KU. You'll find links in the right-hand column of this blog.

I also offer links to several free excerpts from Pandora’s Promise, listed under "Pages." “Rushing River’s Story” follows the sentient elephants who inhabit the midwest of this country after the Change. For a taste of the Pandora’s world, read the prequel (“Pandora’s Prequel”). It is the length of a novella, and offers insights into two of the main characters from before the beginning of the first book.

Why I want this book review to be my epitaph. (#SFWAPro)

My main aim in writing this blog is to reach other writers and would-be writers with hints and tips and reassurance I have collected in my many years as a pro writer. Though I do talk here about my own work, most of the time it's with the aim of  demonstrating something I have learned about the craft of writing.

Today, however, I just want to  share  the great news that my new book, Pandora's Promise, recently received a glowing review from Analog Science Fiction and Fact. I can't exaggerate how much this means to me. I've been a science fiction fan since grade school, when I began reading novels from the public library in Flagstaff, AZ, where my family spent a few summers. I also began around that time to read the great sf magazines, including Fantasy and Science Fiction, Galaxy, and Astounding, which later morphed into Analog. The names of the writers and editors of the stories I read were as familiar to me as those of my family and friends. I had always wanted to be a writer, and I couldn't think of anything better, more perfect, than being a writer of science fiction. I can still clearly remember many of those early stories, and the excitement I always felt whenever I started reading a new one.

In the roughly sixty years since grade school, I did become a professional writer and editor. My main success was in the fields of fitness and health, but in the mid 1980's I published my first adult science fiction novel, Pandora's Genes. Though it didn't become a runaway hit, it sold well and received the accolade "Best New Science Fiction" of 1986, awarded by Romance Times, which I had previously never heard of. I loved that novel. It meant everything to me just to have published it and to have finally qualified for one of the main goals in my life: to become a pro member of Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA). I published the sequel the following year, and then my imprint folded. Thirty years later I went back to the world I had created and wrote a third book, completing the trilogy (see How I accidentally wrote a 300,000 word trilogy).

I self-published the resulting book, Pandora's Promise, last year, and received nearly thirty very positive reviews on Amazon. Imagine my delight and surprise when last week I discovered by accident that Analog had published a review of the book in December, by long-time reviewer Don Sakers. Here it is. This review is truly the culmination of what I have worked for all these years as a writer. And I seriously want the last two lines to serve as my epitaph.These lines affirm that my book is good, that I am a good writer, and most importantly that I am a good writer of science fiction. 

Pandora’s Promise

Kathryn Lance

         Genre: Post-apocalyptic, SF Romance

Here’s one that will appeal to those who like post-apocalyptic fiction, and also readers of romances. Pandora’s Promise is the concluding book in the Pandora Trilogy (following Pandora’s Genes, 2011, and Pandora’s Children, 2011).A century ago, a recombinant-DNA disaster wiped out all oil-based technology and caused the fall of civilization. Mutations abounded, and a mutagenic plague has seemingly doomed humanity to extinction.The two previous books followed the adventures of Evvy, a young geneticist on the track of a cure for the plague. Along with her soul mate Zach, a soldier-poet, Evvy moves through a world of nightmares and wonders in search of the final solution that will revitalize humankind.In Pandora’s Promise, the two are separated but both working toward the same goal. They encounter strange politics, odd religions, and a host of intelligent animals (including the Dream Tasters, a delightful society of empathic elephants). The love triangle begun in the earlier books gets settled, and all the loose ends wrap up as Evvy and Zach come together to find the enigmatic Eye. And I’m not going to tell you what happens next.Kathryn Lance paints beautiful word-pictures and has a fantastic sense for emotional truth. This is one trilogy that starts good and gets better with each book; Pandora’s Promise is the best.

How Reviews Can Improve Your Writing

Some writers claim that they never look at reviews. Others, like me, read them obsessively, whether they are professional reviews in a magazine, reader reviews on Amazon or Goodreads, or even feedback from friends and acquaintances on Facebook or in emails.

I don’t know if this is true for all or even most writers, but my writing is very much tied in with my ego. When a book I have written (or helped to write) is praised, I feel validated. When it is panned, I feel personally judged. I can’t NOT take reviews seriously, and I continue to ask for them and to read them. I have come to believe from years of leading writing groups that we can grow as writers by understanding how our work is received by the outside world.

For example, once when I was leading a fiction writing group at NYU, I gave the group a section from a story in progress. I was stunned that four of the six group members thought my main character was a self-centered, immature twit, when I’d pictured him in my mind as a free spirit who marched to a different drummer. I swallowed my anger and hurt, thanked everyone for the feedback, and after the group meeting gave it some thought. I eventually realized that those who didn’t like the character had been right, which brought to mind a maxim from my old friend, the late novelist Richard Brickner: “When three people tell you you’re drunk, lie down.” I ultimately abandoned that project, but I had learned a bit about creating character along the way, and I do believe that no writing is ever wasted, whether it sees print or not.

Those of us writing in the brave new world of indy (independent) self-publishing are fortunate that we have the opportunity to take reader feedback to a new level, and make changes in work that has already been published. My current consuming project is my Pandora’s Trilogy, which consists of two books traditionally published in the 1980’s, and Pandora’s Promise, the third book in the series. The first two were digitized several years ago, while the third was finished and published online a few months ago, with a more recent paperback version now available.

While I was deeply involved with finishing the book I re-read some negative reviews of the first two books, which had otherwise received glowing notices. A few readers had been deeply offended by the behavior of one of the three main characters, and I could see now that his behavior was beyond the pale when seen in the light of a 21st century sensibility. I could not go back and change books that had been published thirty years prior, but what I could and did do was change my originally-conceived ending so that the character was punished in a way that guaranteed he would never achieve the goals that meant the most to him. I considered, and tried writing, some scenes in which he was killed, but none of them worked so well as the solution I had come up with.

The bottom line:

• Keep in mind that it is after all YOUR book
• Appreciate good reviews
• Don’t automatically dismiss bad reviews
• If more than one reader has similar objections to a character or a section of your book, consider revising it even after it’s been published. It’s easy enough and not expensive to make the changes that will make your book the best it can be.

I’d like to end by quoting a new review of Pandora’s Promise by someone I do not know personally He not only enjoyed the book, he GOT the story, and by extension, he GOT me. This is the sort of feedback authors dream of, and that makes all the work worthwhile  

Just finished reading the Pandora books and enjoyed them very much. I enjoyed your take on football with the Pros; very inventive. However, I think the Dream Taster section is absolutely brilliant!! That section deserves some sort of award on its own. Thank you for writing it.

Meet the Author: Kathryn Lance

I really liked this interview by Liza Shaw, whose blog The Reading Head reviews books and their authors. This interview appeared on May 8, 2015  in  Meet the Author.

Today I’m very lucky to interview Kathryn Lance, author of Pandora’s Promise, the third novel in her Pandora’s Trilogy.

Hi, Kathryn, thank you for agreeing to this interview. Tell us a little about yourself and your background?
I’ve been a professional writer since the mid 1970’s, but I’ve retired from fulltime writing to make a living and now just write things I personally care about.

When did you decide to become a writer?
I knew I wanted to be a writer as early as second grade, and that never changed. I didn’t realize till I was much older that you can actually make a living at it.

So, what have you written?
In my 40 year full-time writing career I published more than fifty books, both fiction and nonfiction, some under my own name, others ghosted for other people. I wrote several books on fitness and health, some for doctors. I also wrote dozens of articles on those topics, for various magazines. Before books and magazines, I wrote hundreds of soap opera scripts for four soap operas. For two years in there I worked as an editor and writer for Scholastic Magazines. The first #book in my Pandora’s Trilogy, Pandora’s Genes, won the Best New Science Fiction Award from Romance Times in 1985. Until I heard about the award, I honestly had no idea that in addition to a science fiction adventure I had written a romance!

Where do your ideas come from?
Most of my best ideas come from dreams. Pandora’s Genes started as a mysterious dream that I could not get out of my mind until I sat down and wrote it to find out what happened.

What genre are your fiction books?
Mostly science fiction.

What draws you to this genre?
I have loved science fiction since I was in grade school. It stretches the mind, answering the question “what if?” I have always felt that in many ways science fiction stories are more REAL than mainstream stories.

Do you have an interesting writing style or quirk?
I am rather laissez-fair about my use of commas.

Do you ever get writer’s Block? Do you have any tips on how to get through the dreaded writer’s block?
YES! There have been a few times when I was unable to write fiction. I cured it by forcing myself to write AT LEAST ONE SENTENCE every night before going to bed. The rules were that I could write more than one sentence—as many as I wanted– but I couldn’t go to bed till I’d done that one sentence. Very often I found myself writing several sentences; occasionally even a whole page or two. I actually wrote about half of “Going to See Grassy Ella,” a children’s comic adventure novel, using that method. I’ve recommended it to my writing students, and everyone who tries it finds it very helpful.

Do you have any suggestions to help me become a better writer? If so, what are they?
Practice, practice, practice. Writing is like a muscle--it only gets stronger when you exercise it. If you have trouble writing at all, then use my One Sentence Before Bed method for as long as it takes you to put something together.

If you had to choose, which writer would you consider a mentor?
Bob Cenedella, a wonderful novelist and radio/tv writer, was my actual mentor. I worked for him on a couple of soap operas. The best advice he ever gave me was: “Never write anything you don’t believe. If it seems unbelievable, find a way to make yourself believe it.” This advice has been helpful in everything I’ve written since, from articles to face-lift books, to the Pandora’s Trilogy.

For your own reading, do you prefer e-books or traditional printed books?
I have come to prefer e-books, which I read on the Kindle app on my iPad and iPhone. Mostly the iPhone, actually.

What books have most influenced your life?
The Brothers Karamazov transformed me when I first read it at age sixteen. I ended up majoring in Russian in college, and once visited Russia on a study-tour. I re-read it every few years and find that I get something different—but profound—out of it each time. I am planning to read a highly-touted new translation on the Kindle app very soon.

What do you think makes a good story?
Character and conflict.

What do you like to do when you’re not writing?
I live in Tucson, Arizona, so I love to do outdoors things. I’m a docent at two nature parks and lead tours as well as interpret plants and animals of the desert. I also enjoy bird watching and hiking.

Here I am, on the far right, leading a tour at Tohono Chul Park

What advice would you give to your younger self?
Don’t despair; it’s all good.

What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
Find a really good feedback group or writing class and attend faithfully. Practice. Don’t give up. Or start your own feedback group, but first get and read Writing Without Teachers, by Peter Elbow, which will tell you everything you need to know about creating a really useful feedback group.

3 Ways Kindle Can Help Write a Sequel or a Series

Even though I'm currently an Indie (independent--i.e., self-published) author, and I'm finding it very hard to get attention for my newest book, I love Kindle. For Indie authors, especially those of us who write sequels and/or series, Kindle offers unexpected but tangible help with all parts of the writing process.

1. READING 

As a writer who depends on pixels rather than pencils, I have come to enjoy reading on the screen at least as much as and sometimes more than reading a physical book. Although I don't have a physical Kindle, I have the app on my computer, my tablet, and my phone. The beauty of the app is that it allows you to save the farthest reading point across all devices, so you can start Chapter 12, say, on your computer, and finish it on your iPhone while waiting online at the post office. "I can't read on a screen!" I hear you protest. "Give it a chance!" I reply. You may be amazed at how easy it is, how natural it comes to feel. If you can't sleep, rather than turning on the light and disturbing your partner, simply turn on your tablet and slip into the world of another author's book. Because there are so many free books for Kindle, it's a simple matter to find other works in your own genre, giving you a good idea of what the competition is.

Even if you don't use the Kindle for reading other people's work, you may find as I do that it is an extremely useful tool for crafting your own writing. For example:

2. CONTINUITY FOR SEQUELS AND SERIES

Did you know you can highlight passages in books while you read them in Kindle? I found that out while writing Pandora's Promise, the third book in what turned out to be a trilogy. The first two books were published originally in paperback, then migrated to the web a few years ago. Since the first books came out in the 1980's, not all the details were fresh in my mind. How could I make sure that the new book would correctly follow from the first two, and that someone who has, say, green eyes in the first book does not end up with brown eyes in the third?

Instead of taking notes with a notepad and pencil, which was my original plan, I highlighted while re-reading the books in the Kindle versions. After a little experimentation, I highlighted everything that I thought I might possibly need for the third book. After I’d highlighted most of the first book, I found a post on Indiesunlimited that explained how to find a list of all the highlights for a given book and PRINT THEM OUT.

The printout saved me measurable time. For example, while editing the manuscript for the new book I found I needed to refer to the number of brothers Evvy had. Rather than go back and re-read or skim the first chapters in Pandora's Genes, the first book, I simply went to my list of highlights and found this fragment, referring to Evvy’s mother: “from the looks of the woman a seventh was on the way.” (Five boy children, plus Evvy and an unborn sibling.) Five brothers!

In addition to highlighting, use the search function to find specific names and phrases. Highlighting and search can be done on all Kindle apps, including the desktop, and of course the Kindle device itself.

3. EDITING A WORK IN PROGRESS.

A number of free software programs allow you to turn your manuscript draft into a mobi (Kindle) file and then to put that work-in-progress into your Kindle library. The program I used is called Calibre, and though there's a bit of a learning curve, if you can write a novel you can convert it to a mobi file. Once your work-in-progress is actually on your Kindle or Kindle app, you can easily read it through, seeing it as it will appear in readers' devices, and highlighting or making notes in the places where you want to change things. If questions arise in the process of reading, the search function will usually answer them instantly.

In future posts I intend to write about other software that I've used in specific ways to help write. If you have a favorite program or app, please feel free to share it in the comments.