Why I Write Sci-Fi Thrillers

I could say it's because I read Ender's Game in sixth grade. Even though I didn't want to because the cover made it look like a boy book. Even though I procrastinated and left it to the Very. Last. Minute. I read it in two days, and then I read the whole series. And the companion series. 

I loved those books so much I made everyone in my entire family read them. I turned into that person that went to family functions and thrust mass market paperbacks into relatives' hands and talked about nothing else.  I argued with my sister and a few of my cousins for years (yes literally) about which one of us could name our children Ender and Bean. (We were determined no matter whether the kids were boys or girls).

Or I could say it's because the first time I saw an episode of Battlestar Galactica, I became addicted and had to watch the entire series. Right then. I called into work sick, two days in a row!, because I was sitting in front of the television absorbed in that world.

I could say I was inspired to read more about science from watching Fringe. If Walter Bishop had been my science teacher in high school, he might have done experiments on me, but I definitely would have gotten better grades. Telekinesis, Teleportation, Pyrokinetics, Parallel Universes--it's all just so interesting.


I could even say it's because a year and a half ago, I picked up a thriller from an airport bookstore called The Breach and could literally not put it down until I got to the end.

But those would just be half-truths.

Just about everything I've ever written has been born out of some heartbreak. Dramatic fights. Terrible breakups. They all inspired characters who had to face insurmountable physical and emotional odds. Characters who had to somehow save the world and turn star-crossed love into something that didn't end in tragedy.

That against all odds triumph is why I ended up writing thrillers. (The science fiction part just seemed to insert itself naturally no matter what I tried to do.)

It's my revenge on heartbreak.

It's also why I fell so hard for Bean and Petra, Starbuck and Lee Adama, Oliva and Peter, and Travis and Paige.

 

Liz Norris briefly taught high school English and history before trading the San Diego beaches and sunshine for Manhattan's recent snowpocalyptic winter. She harbors dangerous addictions to guacamole, red velvet cupcakes, sushi, and Argo Tea, fortunately not all together. UNRAVELING is her first novel.

Why I Write About the End of the World

I've always loved speculative fiction. For long time, my favorite flavor was fantasy.

Camelot. Hogwarts. Middle Earth. The Seven Kingdoms. Show me a world where people live and die for love, honor, a ring, or a throne, and I'm there. I really did go there. For more years than I care to admit, my own writing took me to places that were just a little too close to those listed above.

This continued until, one fine rainy day in February of 2009, a very smart and honest person brought to my attention that my manuscript wasn't distinctive enough to sell in the current marketplace. I scrapped years of work that day. For a few months afterward, I beat my head against the wall because I wasn't writing and I really wanted to write. But I was determined to work on ideas that sprang from my mind and heart. Eventually, I settled down and did a lot of thinking and scribbling and starting at walls. I analyzed the specific aspects that I enjoy in stories and came up with a list. I love the heroic journey, not just within the fantasy genre. Setting is big for me. Romance is a plus. And gritty is good. I also discovered that the books that resonate with me most ask that What if question that's at the root of great science fiction. It all started pointing in one direction...

In order for me to blend my most valued elements into something I could call my own, I had to end the world and start it again. It was my way of wiping off all the fictional thumbprints of past stories--loved stories--and starting fresh. Now, you wise writers know that's impossible, right? What's the saying? There are no new stories? Yes, I agree. Every story holds echoes of other great stories, or characters, or places. My point is only that by looking at a new world, one born from a cataclysmic event, I gave myself permission to write something that came as much from me as possible. It was my way of breaking free.

I'd like to share one other reason I write post-apocalyptic fiction. People tend to think of these stories as dismal and hopeless. No one thinks "Party!" when the word Apocalypse comes up. If you do, I'm free December 21, 2012. Send me an e-vite. Kidding. I digress. My point is that I personally find post-apocalyptic works uplifting. They're often about perseverance, reinvention, and triumph. I like those things. And that's why I write about THE END.

Why I write speculative fiction

If you look at the navigation bar below our header, you’ll see we’ve divided our debut novels into four categories: Dystopian, Post Apocalyptic, Thriller and Romance.  LEVEL TWO is a dystopian afterlife thriller with a fair amount of romance, so I wasn’t quite sure where to categorize it, though after consultation with my editor, I’ve decided to keep it under dystopian.

However, it’s fair to say that my novel isn’t much like other dystopians that have come before it.  But what it does have in common with its predecessors is the spirit of speculative fiction, the “what if” question that drives us to think outside the box. (The way I understand it, speculative fiction is a broad term for the more fantastical fiction genres and includes works that fall outside the more narrowly defined science fiction canon -such as alternate history, superhero fiction, fantasy, dystopians, etc.)  

What I find so fascinating about speculative fiction – and why I wanted to write it - is that strives to be cutting-edge and experimental, often breaking with traditional methods of storytelling and playing with conventions like narrative structure, voice, etc.

When I was plotting LEVEL TWO, it rapidly became clear that to tell Felicia’s story adequately, I’d need three alternating timelines – one in the “present” dystopian afterlife world with an action thriller vibe (cliffhanger chapter endings) and two in the “past” that would read more like contemporary realistic fiction (with a twist, of course).   A challenge, but the result was well worth it.  I hope you think so too! 

Why I Write Action Thrillers

My love of action and badassery started at a young age. The Long Kiss Goodnight stands out as being one of the first movies I watched and instantly fell for. Not because of the music, or the character development, but because of the guns.

I loved how strong Davis’s character was. I loved that she took action in order to get what she wanted. A few years later, I watched my first  Jason Bourne movie and it solidified my love of the thriller genre. But it took me a long time to translate that love into a book. I can’t write something as kickass as the Bourne movie! I moaned. I’m no good at plotting! I wailed. I can’t write a fight scene to save my life! I sobbed.

But eventually I sat down and just wrote. I liked watching action thrillers, so it made sense to enjoy writing one, inner critic be damned. I wanted to write about girls carrying guns and boys who could think their way out of any situation. I wanted to write a fight scene where the hero used a lamp as a weapon.

Before I knew it, I had a book. Something I was proud of, that entertained me, regardless of how many times I read the pages.

I write action thrillers because the genre is badass, because I like a character who can punch, kick, and think her way out of anything. J

Why I Write Sci-Fi: SuperHero Edition!

So, the characters in my book Glitch have have super-powers. I freely admit, I've been influenced by the super heroes, especially X-Men. I mean, could there be a better metaphor for being an awkward out-cast-y teenager than having secret mutant powers?? There's persecution, personal empowerment, muscular dudes and busty chicks in spandex!

Ahem. So yeah. I love me some super-hero awesomeness. My introduction to super-heroes were the tv shows of my childhood and teen years-- Batman, X-men, Smallville, etc. Fear not, there's no spandex involved in Glitch, but there might be some telekinesis, shape-shifting, and x-ray vision ;)

In my grad school lit classes (especially one amazing children's lit class), we talked about the "Sea of Stories". The Sea of Stories is just a convenient catch-all name for all those tales we keep telling and recycling over the millennia. Shakespeare did it, J.K. Rowling did it, even Homer! We tell stories like the ones we've read and loved. It is my opinion that there is nothing new under the sun--no one is telling a particular story FOR THE FIRST TIME.

Instead, we keep telling ourselves the same stories over and over, from the mythic Greek gods to Superman (who have a lot in common, by the way) to create meaningful stories for each generation. I think this is our job as writers, and why new books are constantly needed -- we are telling the old stories but making them new for this day and age. We're bringing new life and shapes to stories, allowing a new generation to feel that magic expansion inside their chests at reading a truly great story that resonates with ever part of their being.

So I declare: we need stories! Storytelling provides a way to give shape and structure to our actual lives. We need stories for our mental health, for our souls, for the child in all of us who wants to believe in a super-hero coming to the rescue of the weak and enforcing justice for all the many unfairnesses in the world!

*steps off impassioned soapbox* So, question to readers: if you could have a super-power, what would it be?

Me: I'd go for super strength. And maybe the ability to fly ;)

Why do I write dystopian SF/F

Why do I write dystopian Sci-Fi/Fantasy? I could say something profound pretentious like “It is the duty of the artist to reflect the times he/she lives in”. STORMDANCER is a book about the depletion of a magic environment beneath the heel of a pervasive, combustion-driven technology, and one girl’s struggle against that technology. But whenever I mention the word "environment", my blog hits go allllllll the way down to the dank, B.O soaked depths of the internets and flop about like a pilot whale during the annual Faroe cull.

So. Let’s avoid that topic like scary mothers at a Twilight screening, shall we?

I write Sci-Fi/Fantasy basically because I’m a nerd. All the nerdgasmic things I love about feudal Japan are in my book; samurai and ninja and all that good stuff, wrapped up in clanking suits of smoking power-armor beneath an exhaust-fume sky. I think being a nerd is something you’re born with, some genetic agent lurking patient as spiders inside your head, until it’s confronted with something too awesome to ignore. For me, it was this guy I met when I was 8 years old:

Let’s be honest: Skywalker was a chump. Yeah, he got the lightsaber. The “You don’t need to give me a parking ticket” mindtricks. And yeah, ok, there was that business with the Death Star and pwning the Emperor of the galaxy. SO WHAT.

Han Solo was bad ass. Where did Obi Wan and his whiny blonde bitch padawan find Solo in the first flick? “Oh, y’know, kicking back with my seven foot powerhouse sidekick in the middle of this wretched hive of scum and villainy, murdering debt collectors. Sup.”

He had a fast car (well, ship, anyways). A sense of humor. The self-assurance that comes with knowing you are the baddest badass in the room. AND he got the girl. But not just any girl. A 100% bona fide PRINCESS.

So what do we take away from this? That I wrote a book about the destructive effects of combustion-driven technology on a feudal Japanese society because I wanted to be Han Solo, apparently. Which is completely wrong.

But yeah. Skywalker? WHAT A TOSSER.

Why I write science fiction thrillers

I would have to say most of my influences for what I write are video games and animes.  There’s almost one playing all. the. time. at my house.  If The Husband and/or The Son aren’t playing video games, they’re watching animes. Since I’m usually taking care of The Daughter or reading/writing while they’re doing all that and I only get half or, most of time, only a quarter of the picture, my mind tends to fill in the blanks and a story is born.

I have to say though that the inspiration behind RENEGADE was a mix of a bunch of different things.  My fascination for all things ocean related.  My love for the 1990’s science fiction television show SeaQuest and my son’s favorite video game BioShock.  You’ll see a common thread, I’m sure.  They all involve the ocean!

I’ve always been fascinated with living in a colony on the ocean floor. In fact, I used to tell my mom when I was rich and famous marine biologist (ha!) living on the ocean floor, I’d buy my parents a house right next to mine.

When SeaQuest came on I was just becoming a teenager and I was like, "wow that’s not that far in the future. I could totally see all that happening!"

I started writing stories about people living in sea colonies, read as much as I could about Atlantis, even started taking more science and math classes in the hopes of learning the science behind the sea colonies,  but it was my perfect vision and a perfect society is boring. 

It wasn’t until years later that I was reading a news article about people’s obsession about being perfect, while listening to my son play Bioshock that it hit me.  A perfect society is only boring if it really IS perfect.  Not if it’s only the ILLUSION of being perfect. 

So, I was able to write a story incorporating almost all of my favorite things.  If only I could find a way to incorporate a horse in there somewhere.  :D

Too bad horses are messy and Mother doesn’t like messy things…

Why I Write Sci-Fi

The next couple weeks, we're talking about what books/dvd/tv series influenced us to be the writers we are and why we write in the sci-fi genre! Personally, I write sci-fi with a little bit of comic book super-hero epic story-lines. Reflecting on it, I'd say this was my first big influence:

That's right folks, Terminator! And yeah, showing my age spots a bit here, but I was actually a kid DURING the 80's, and I watched this movie over and over!!! The cheesy sci-fi lasers seemed like awesome special effects at the time. The shocking post-apocalyptic future, the time travel, the twists of destiny where Reece turns out to be John Conner's father, I ate it up. It seeped into my subconscious. When the Internet boomed in the 90's, I worried about Sky-Net becoming a reality.

In other words, I've always been ripe to write dystopias--to wonder and tell myself stories about what things in the world that seem like wonderful advances today could turn twisted and sideways into oppressive regimes tomorrow.

So yeah, in my debut, Glitch, I explore the questions/societal fears about the integration of humans and machines. Maybe it starts as medical advances--memory chips in Alzheimer's patients brains to help them with memory, computer chip implants to help the deaf, GPS tracking chips to keep track of the ill or elderly--but what could it become? If power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely (as the saying goes), how might such initial "technological advances" be used as a means of control? And how could super-heroes fight the aforementioned regime?

Dun, dun, Duuuuuuun! As for other influences... yeah, lots of kissing books. You'll see plenty of my romance genre influences when Glitch debuts too ;)