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#thriller

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#PennedPossibilities 685 — What genre is your current WIP?

Reluctant Moon

Feminist Science Fiction Fantasy. FSFF.

  • Feminist because the story is gender fiction at its core.
  • Science Fiction because it is about how technology and science affects people. Additionally, it follows the rules of this genre.
  • Fantasy because I posit a new force of nature that is measurable and mathematically describable—which requires humans to manipulate, and is thus finicky. There's a liberal interpretation of Clarke's Law lawyers might appreciate, but the story does not generally follow the rules of the genre.

Pick one? SF

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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2025.05.29 — Tell us about an epiphany that changed your writing.

Of those (edited) definitions below, of those that are remotely applicable, definition number 4 is most suited. Since I'm no longer religious and I stopped thinking I saw ghosts a few decades ago, 1, 3, and 5 have only occurred in a dream state; besides, I don't remember them. 😋

As I began writing again 2015 after the burnout in 2001, I chose to write in 1st person, mainly because nobody remained who could tell me I shouldn't and also that writing 3rd person close POV and staying in POV is very hard. As I cranked out short stories, novellas, and a few novels in that mode—always practicing, I told myself—I realized I had been wrong to rely on conventional genre wisdom presented me by my agent and much seconded by publishers. I'm not saying I know that my 1st person will sell, but rather that I write fluidly and more powerfully in 1st than I did in third. Quicker, too. As the definition states, "an illuminating realization or discovery," that resulted "in a personal feeling of elation, awe, or wonder." It changed my writing.

As for definition 2. I had one of these in the last week, not that it changed my writing, but my attitude toward the story. I can see it as being done at some point. After writing about 40K of backstory about one MC, I wrote another 40K of intertwined ramblings for the other MC. It's a detour from the forefront main moonshot story, which I visualized as a novella not a novel. Then, suddenly, the second MC reflected upon all she'd endured. It was an epiphany to her as much as to me. She had glimpsed the main antagonist's motives (and I wasn't sure of them myself). It terrified her. Then she realized it also made her special. No spoilers here, but it justifies the 80K of backstories inside the main story and makes the ending more justifiable. I had experienced "a sudden insight or intuitive understanding."

Epiphany /ĭ-pĭf′ə-nē/
Noun

  1. A revelatory manifestation of a divine being.
  2. A sudden insight or intuitive understanding:
  3. A manifestation or appearance of a divine or superhuman being.
  4. An illuminating realization or discovery, often resulting in a personal feeling of elation, awe, or wonder.
  5. A divine manifestation.

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

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#PennedPossibilities 684 — How does your antagonist / villain deal with grief?

She cries.

Tears as bitter as they are salty.

When she loses a friend or a child, whether it is through old age, sickness, injury, or she needs to kill them (and she takes no pleasure in that), it's the same: a hole opens inside where the sound of their voice is behind her unexpectedly or she thinks to greet what's just a shadow of memory, not really there—and that's dark and sad. The saving grace of human memory is it being short-lived, the forgetting details in fifty or a hundred years, that what is old becomes new again, the falling in love, the having of children who laugh and cry, the having to leave them behind or the seeing them grow and have children of their own, then knowing, yes, they're growing old and, no, she is not.

Everyone else dies. She's always 24.

She cries.

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Aylin Tezel – „Unbroken“ (2021)

Manchmal taucht eine Serie auf, die so intensiv, so anders, so kompromisslos daherkommt, dass wir glauben: Das könnte ein Wendepunkt sein. Und dann… bleibt es still. „Unbroken“, erschienen bereits 2021, war so ein Fall. Eine sechsteilige Miniserie, die auf ZDFneo kurz aufflammte, für Staunen sorgte – und bis heute keine echte Nachfolgerin im Programm gefunden hat. Sie blieb ein Solitär, der seitdem einsam in der Mediathek leuchtet. (ZDFneo)

NexxtPressMediathekperlen | Aylin Tezel - „Unbroken“ (2021)Manchmal taucht eine Serie auf, die so intensiv, so anders, so kompromisslos daherkommt, dass wir glauben: Das könnte ein Wendepunkt sein. Und dann… bleibt es still. „Unbroken“…

#PennedPossibilities 682 — MC POV: Tell us about one of your bad habits.

[Devil-girl:] I like fighting, or rather learned to like it and ignore the pain, but I need permission to fight someone. You see, I don't like to hurt people, but if they give me permission, all bets are off (or on, if you're talking about my prizefighter days.] Mind you, attacking me or someone else gives me the permission to kill fight you.

Bad habits? Uh-huh. Shoot. [Coughs, then says sheepishly,] I prefer to fight people who are better than me. Few enough of those, mind you. A challenging opponent makes me very happy. I might even do a little dance. I won't learn anything, otherwise, and that's important! Beat me and I'll likely ask you to be my teacher. If I beat you and I see the potential you might one day challenge me, I'll teach you.

Friends tell me I may one day get myself killed.

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

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#WordWeavers 2025.05.28 — Would your story still work in a vastly different location? Why or why not?

Reluctant Moon: The story is nominally about a moonshot and the lives of the two astronauts (friends and then lovers). In a sense it is an allegory for 1960s America with the prejudice, racism, and sexism; it even has a JFK character (if you squint). It would not work because my world allows me to scramble gender roles throughly and allows the story to be appropriately racy.

Mars Needed Women: Takes place on Mars. It must because the E.M. in EM Mars Colonization Corp is the basis for the satire of the times we are living in and changing that would lose impact and the story's raison d' être.

The Reluctance Series stories featuring the devil-girl are conceptual rewrites, as in the basic plot and character-building is somewhat preserved, but the universe is totally changed to create SF stories the earlier "location" could not support.

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Oliver Masucci – „Herrhausen – Der Herr des Geldes“ (2024)

Bei den sogenannten „TV-Events“ der öffentlich-rechtlichen Fernsehveranstalter bin ich eigentlich grundsätzlich vorsichtig. Zu oft haben sie sich in der Vergangenheit an ihren Großproduktionen übernommen. In diesem Jahr wurde ich dagegen von der ARD überrascht. Und das liegt zuvorderst am wirklich grandiosen Oliver Masucci. (ARD, Wh)

NexxtPressMediathekperlen | Oliver Masucci - „Herrhausen - Der Herr des Geldes“ (2024)Bei den sogenannten „TV-Events“ der öffentlich-rechtlichen Fernsehveranstalter bin ich eigentlich grundsätzlich vorsichtig. Zu oft haben sie sich in der Vergangenheit an ihren Großproduktionen…

Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman – „Gattaca“ (1997)

Die Dystopie ist ein klassisches Motiv des Science-Fiction-Genres. In diesem Gen-Technik-Thriller wird die Konsequenz der Wissenschaft zu einem Alptraum, den Individuen durch subversive Anarchie unterwandern und letztlich ad absurdum widerlegen. Ein episches Debüt von Andrew Niccol (Buch & Regie), das bis heute nichts von seiner Bedeutung verloren hat. (ZDF, Wh)

#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2025.05.26 — In your work, how much of an active character is your setting?

To any extent that a setting is an active character, it is as an antagonist. Mars is toxic and dust must be dealt with when entering and leaving. Gangsters when transporting "product" across town have to deal with buses and subways and bridges. When wanting privacy for a triste, the pair must deal with Death Valley type heat as well as their own sweat, and (because they are nocturnal) sunshine.

This isn't to say my settings don't have character. They are what the MC will either notice when they look (like shining a flashlight into a black room to illuminate important bits) or remember (exclusively what they like or annoys them) as it becomes a venue within which MCs and SCs interact. Take the following setup (the entire description of the setting):

... [It was] a dance studio. Two walls of French doors. Two walls of mirrors. A barre with a brass top. Golden oak wood floor. A black tin ceiling with an embossed red fleur de lis pattern. A tiny kitchen and a smaller loo. She threw open all twelve windows; breezes billowed the thin drapes. ...Draperies flapped like a sail as they played noisily. Pepper trees spiced the air.

The following happens:

  • The MC feels the cold mirror against her back.
  • Bits of broken door are strewn across the floor.
  • SCs climb down trees.
  • The antagonist (an angel) flies out one window and in another.
  • The antagonist checks the loo for an attic door, then opens the oven.
  • The antagonist checks the mirrors to see if any push in to hide a door.
  • The MC rolls the unconscious antagonist out a window, hidden from outside observers by the drapes.

If my settings are anything else, they're background characters.

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

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#WordWeavers 2025.05.25 — Do you prefer writing wealthy, middle class, or indigent characters?

Seems I like all three, especially if you define poor also as by choice, as an ascetic, or where wealth is irrelevant. Both the devil-girl and Rainy Day have been all three. Otherwise, middle or lower class. Wintereyes from Inklings finds wealth irrelevant living and hunting with the pack, and when forced to attend university, others pay for it since she was against doing it in the first place.

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#WordWeavers 2025.05.24 — Would your antagonist participate in spring cleaning?

She's about as unstuck up as anyone. She would, but her current job as world ruler keeps her very busy, as does teaching her students. In the past, for instance as a single mom, she did. As an ascetic, what's to clean? As the daughter in a former patriarchal society, all she was supposed to do is clean and cook—though she did more, including ultimately destroying that civilization.

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#PennedPossibilities 681 — Let’s talk about your current WIP. Although it of course depends on your genre, do you have an antagonist or an evil villain?

Okay, the prompt provided guidelines, let's do this by the numbers.

Rainy Days

Antagonist: ✔️

Primary Role: Opposes the protagonist's goals and creates conflict. ✔️

Motivation: Can be driven by various factors, including greed, ambition, revenge, or simply a disagreement with the protagonist. ❌

Nope. She's looking to train someone to become better than she is, someone who can prevent humanity from going extinct. That she doesn't come out and say this, except when she's an MC, doesn't matter. She's also very nice. Sexy; she gets the men she wants. And she likes tea parties!

Moral Standing: They may not be inherently evil, but their actions oppose the protagonist. ✔️and ❌

Her students often oppose their teacher, or want to be left the heck alone! She just smiles and lets them learn their lessons however they choose. Also, evil is relative. Sometimes to save people, other people must die, some deserving and some simply unfortunate to be nearby.

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#PennedPossibilities 680 — MC POV: Tell us how you feel about death. Do you fear it? CW: Fictional character talking about death and violence,

[Devil-girl:] Funny question, but you are paying for my professional services as a troubleshooter, so I'm game: As far as I am concerned, I've already died—

No, I won't say more than I had run away and was old enough to pass as an adult—and he noticed. I died as far as I'm concerned. That I even woke after the attack was pure chance (or miscalculation on the part of my attacker) being dragged through the mud to be disposed of. He was bigger than me, more massive, had a longer reach, and I suspect experience.

I had had a sense of invulnerability.

Shattered.

In the moment, it wasn't about fearing death. It was instinct to stay alive that allowed me to plan, to resist with what I had: Mud, gravity, a thunderstorm, rain, and night. I obviously escaped. I may have killed him; I saw him on fire, but I didn't check. At that moment I learned I could fight, that I need not ever be made chattel again, and… I liked it. A lot.

As a bodyguard, and later revealed as a personage someone decided to assassinate, I died twice more. Both times I saved people, the last time my lover and the assassin, but not myself. Through more chance than skill, I got revived both times. Obviously. I have a limp that shows up when I'm tired. I can show you scars.

I don't think I am capable of fearing death anymore. Doesn't mean I lack survival instinct, or that I don't panic, or do things to put myself in unnecessary danger. Not stupid.

However, I understand death. (For the record, I was a goth girl way before I ran away.) That first time, and the subsequent times, I realized something. I was there, and present. I saw my first attacker before he sucker-punched me out. I was there, then nothing.

Disconnect.

Then present again.

One time it will be a disconnect. I won't even know, or care by that measure. It's not substantially different than falling asleep and not dreaming:

Bedtime, then morning.

Obviously, what's to fear? I fear more not being able to save people who might depend on me not to die.

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#PennedPossibilities 679 — What was your SC’s childhood like? How has their upbringing affected them as they’ve aged?

She wasn't the type to listen and didn't agree with her parents that she should study and aim for college. Her parents were kind and strict, but when she told them essentially that she wanted to become what they saw as a menial laborer, they grounded her, got her tutors, and left her no choice but to rebel.

Later in life, blackmailed and working for the mob, she understood she'd been stupid and could recognize it in others, or simply empathize. Be there. Listen. Say the right thing that might make a difference. It's what led her to think she could be friends with the devil girl, who was far smarter than the rest, and in her quietness more dangerous. But her reflection on her childhood made the difference; when it counted, the devil girl took her along when she broke free from the mob.

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