Category Archives: Craft & Skills

A few months ago I watched the Chinese New Year episode of Fresh Off the Boat. In the episode the Huang family was looking for a new year celebration to since they couldn’t make it back to DC to celebrate with the rest of the family. They found one organized by the Orlando Chinese American Society. Unfortunately the society was comprised of non-Asians who didn’t have a clue as to what Chinese New Year was about or how it was celebrated.

Yeah…that is not a traditional dragon dance.

However, that is the traditional reaction to well-meaning displays of “Asian culture”.

I’m not trying to shame the organizers of such events, or authors of Asian flavored stories. Five points to their house for trying. But they’re not going to win their house the cup because they made a big mistake. They mistook the stereotype(s) for the truth.

There’s one thing that a lot of non-Asians don’t understand: most Asians are not Fu Manchu, Kung Fu master, dragon lady, tiger moms. We don’t talk like Christmas Eve or Charlie Chan, and we definitely are NOT Long Duk Dong. Geisha are not prostitutes, and just because we’re not white doesn’t mean that we were born in the land of our ethnicity — and just because we were born elsewhere doesn’t mean it was so we could claim citizenship.

Yes, that may come across a little harsh but it’s hard to be calm and collected when it’s 2016 and people still think that 200 year old misconceptions are the truth. When I played Christmas Eve in Avenue Q I was given the direction to play that character (which was already a soul-killing stereotype) as a tiger mom because “I knew what that was.” They implied that I knew because my mom was a tiger mom; because all Asian moms are tiger moms. Well guess what? I don’t know what that’s like. My mom is not a tiger mom. Heck, my entire family is sans tigris. Even when my mom wears tiger print she is not a tiger mom.

I didn’t get mad at the director for that because they weren’t trying to offend me — believe me, I’ve experienced that enough to recognize it. They simply didn’t care enough to learn if what they thought Asians were like was the truth or a stereotype. And that’s the biggest secret about writing about any ethnicity that isn’t your own. You have to care enough to do the research.

So how do you get it right? First, you can’t assume that we’re all the same. There are 48 countries and over 2,000 languages in Asia. Some of those countries, like China, have so many regional identities and dialects that there isn’t one standard Chinese identity. Then there are mixed race individuals, like myself, whose cultural identity is a blend of their country of birth and their country of heritage. Skin tones can also vary with the region. So if you’re writing an Asian character, I recommend that you not only pick a country for them to hail from but also pick a specific region or city. Keep in mind that the more remote the place the harder it will be to do the next step.

Research. The best research for this is to interview someone of that ethnicity, from that region. We’re not hard to find. Call or email Asian associations or community centers. If you’re feeling particularly brave you could go to an Asian market or a restaurant that serves the cuisine of the country you chose and ask the staff if there’s anyone from ______ place that you could interview for your book. I do recommend that if you’re at a restaurant that you eat a meal there. Not only is it polite but you might be able to interview a staff member while you dine.

If you are able to interview them on the spot make sure you get their contact info so you can ask them any questions that might pop up later AND so you can have them read the manuscript to make sure you were accurate. This part is key because there’s not only a difference in custom but of mindset. An action that seems perfectly reasonable here might be horrifying to that culture and vice versa.

You can also read autobiographies of people of that ethnicity, from that region. Biographies, histories, and websites work too but make sure they’re from a reputable source. If it was written by a non-native and they’re citing non-native sources, don’t trust it.

It’s our responsibility, I’d even go as far as to say it’s our moral obligation as writers to create characters that are authentic because readers assume that we know what we’re writing about. If we don’t care enough to get it right then we offend readers of that ethnicity — thus losing them as readers — AND we mislead and misinform the readers who aren’t familiar with that ethnicity. Also, by misrepresenting that group we’re ultimately contributing to the cultural oppression of that group — even though we don’t mean to.

You can find out more about Kim May here.

On Writing Crime Scenes

June 10, 2016

fictorians

Craft & Skills Crime Marta Sprout World-building 1 Comment

Guest post by Marta Sprout.

Developing crime scenes that are both intriguing and realistic is a delicate balance. Popular TV shows are notorious for depicting scenes that are dramatic, but anyone in law enforcement would call criminally stupid.

Certainly you know that DNA results don’t come back in an hour or that you can’t snap a picture of a fingerprint, and one minute later have a match and a photo of the perp. NCIS’s Abby Sciuto knows more than a fleet of forensic experts rolled into one. Horatio Caine in CSI: Miami drives a Hummer, which would make a real CSI snort her iced tea. Not only do they not make that kind of dough, they are civilians, who do not carry guns or arrest people.

Here are a few insights I learned from an active crime scene investigator on how to get it right.

Real homicide scenes are messier, smellier, and nastier than anything shown on TV. Decomp is an odor no one ever forgets. Victims often loose more than blood. (I’ll let you use your imagination on that one.) One mistake often seen on TV is that they don’t consider the amount of blood loss that would be normal for each type of injury. They might have a knife wound to the belly and show buckets of blood spatter. Not realistic. Or Hollywood might have a character with a scalp wound and show little or no blood. Scalp wounds bleed profusely.

By the way, spatter is the correct term, not splatter.

The trick for writers is to view every element of the scene from the investigator’s perspective. It helps to draw out your crime scenes in detail so that they are vividly clear in your mind. Then, when you sit down to write, you’ll have all the evidence and elements of the surroundings, which will captivate your readers. It also saves you from discovering ten chapters too late that you had a key piece of evidence in a spot that doesn’t make sense.

So, how does a crime scene investigation work? A patrol officer is normally the first person at the scene. His or her mission is to “show up, call it in, and don’t touch.” Securing the scene is the first vital step. As a writer, this is a great opportunity for conflict. Imagine the possibilities. What if the victim is a superstar? A horde of fans might show up, including thrill-seekers looking to grab evidence that they can sell as murdermobilia online. Now your officers really have their hands full.

Next your lead detective arrives. Mistakes aren’t limited to the TV scripts. Every police department has had someone who did something stupid, even though they knew better.

Let’s imagine a scenario where we have a patrol officer responding to a call about gunfire in the apartment next door to the caller. On scene, the officer finds a deceased male on the bed, calls it in, and guards the door. Perfect, until the detective shows up. He goes straight to the body, checks for an ID, and wanders through the room, searching for clues.

What’s wrong with that? Enough to give a CSI nightmares!

He didn’t wait for CSI, who would’ve set down access tarps that would allow for visual inspection of the body without disrupting trace evidence.
He didn’t see a casing on the carpet and kicked it out of place. Remember: you only get one shot at a crime scene. Once something is moved, you can’t go back. Location is just as important as the piece of evidence itself. In our scenario (taken from a real scene) the victim had been shot by an intruder standing by the closet, but because the detective kicked the casing, that vital bit of evidence’s value is now greatly diminished. That could throw-off the court case, but for writers it’s an opportunity. What if your detective is the killer? His footprints are expected to be at the scene and he can “accidentally” disrupt evidence to protect himself.
When touching the victim, he could have left trace evidence from his own body and clothing behind and he would’ve left fingerprints on the wallet. Gloves, booties, and Tyvek suits are used to prevent scene contamination.
Everyone rushes in to view the victim, but many seasoned investigators don’t because it’s too easy to be distracted by the body and miss important details. The investigator I know starts at the outer perimeter and ends at the body. In one case, she found a critical bit of evidence along the side of a house. The victim was in the kitchen.
Before anything is touched the entire scene is videotaped, photographed, measured, sketched, and documented in detail.

Investigators are real pros at preserving evidence and knowing which items will give them the most information. Did you know that they almost never test pubic hair? They collect it, but in reality hair that falls out usually doesn’t have the root ball needed for DNA testing.

Have you seen TV detectives using a pen to pick up a pistol by the barrel? Wouldn’t happen, folks. Not only is it an exceptionally dangerous method of holding a firearm, you risk disrupting evidence.

Now to the victim. In most cases, the medical examiner takes charge of the body. Once it’s back in the ME’s autopsy room, the full examination begins.

By the way, dental records are only good for confirming a victim’s ID. Think about it. How are you going to find the dentist, who has the records, if you aren’t fairly sure of the victim’s identity? I saw a show where they used a database to ID a victim through dental records. Nope. I promise that the dental x-rays from your last cleaning didn’t automatically go into a national database.

Research is a lot of work. Why not just make it up as you go along? Two reasons: you want your writing to be credible throughout; and you don’t want to reinforce the “CSI effect” and teach jurors at trial to have unrealistic expectations of seeing a Hollywood style show, where everything is tied up neatly. Real crimes and evidence are rarely so tidy.

I hope you find this helpful. For more information, http://www.crime-scene-investigator.net is a great resource. I went through the Citizen Police Academy and have a hands-on approach to research. If you’re interested in doing the same, check with your local police department for this program.

Best of luck with your writing. Maybe next time we can talk about Killers, Cops, and Fire Power.

MARTA SPROUT is an award-winning author. The Saturday Evening Post published her short story, The Latte Alliance, in their anthology “Best Short Stories of 2014 from The Great American Fiction Contest.” Her essays and articles have been published in newspapers and major magazines such as Antiques Magazine. Known for her thrillers, Marta writes full-time, assists the Corpus Christi Police Department with crime-scene, training scenarios, and enjoys kiteboarding, scuba diving, and snow skiing.

Bone Wars – Why the Dinosaurs of Your Childhood May Not be Real

June 9, 2016

Ace Jordyn

Ace Jordyn Setting and Milieu No Comments

I love Dino. He’s the best dinosaur-dog ever. When Fred Flintstone comes home to Dino’s puppy-dog greeting of jumping into his arms, knocking him down and licking Fred’s face, well, that’s man’s best friend at his best. We’d all love to have a Dino like that except that Dino is a fictional Snorkasaurus which was apparently modeled on a generic Sauropod/Prosauropod type although another Wikipedia site credits Dino as being inspired from the dinosaur Europasaurus which is also a Sauropod.

The Sauropod was given it’s name by Marsh in 1878, while the Prosauropod (Plateosauridae) was named, also by Marsh, in 1895. Why is this important? Because Marsh was a principle character in the Bone Wars.

The issue of whether the dinosaurs we learned about as children is not just about the liberties taken in the creation of fictional works . The issue is about whether early paleontologists got it right at all.

In the mid to late 1800s, there was a period of intense rivalry between two paleontologists, Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope to out-do each other. This period is known as the Great Dinosaur Rush and the Bone Wars. By the end of the Bone Wars, Cope and Marsh were both financially and socially ruined. In their efforts to out-compete each other, they resorted to theft, bribery and they destroyed fossil sites. They even attacked each other in scientific publications.

Cope’s and Marsh’s discoveries were accompanied by accusations of spying, stealing workers and fossils, and bribery. The two men were so protective of their digging sites that they would destroy or damage fossils to prevent them from falling into their rival’s hands, or fill in their excavations with dirt and rock.^(Source) Their wars went public, even so far as to be published in the New York Herald. Although their public rivalry popularized and romanticized dinosaurs, the scientific community had had enough. In June 1873, The American Naturalist stopped publishing their articles when their dispute became too personal because of their respective accusations, defenses, and taunts. Here is part of the statement made by the editors of the American Naturalist:

WE regret that Professors Marsh and Cope have considered it necessary to carry their controversy to the extent that they have. Wishing to maintain the perfect independence of the NATURALIST in all matters involving scientific criticism, we have allowed both parties to have their full say, but feeling that now the controversy between the authors in question has come to be a personal one and that the NATURALIST is not called upon to devote further space to its consideration, the continuance of the subject will be allowed only in the form of an appendix at the expense of the author. ^(Source)

What does this mean about what we know of dinosaurs?

Although they discovered over 142 species of dinosaurs, only 32 are valid today. Marsh’s and Cope’s antics harmed the reputation of American paleontology in Europe. Their haphazard assembly of bones and their descriptions of new species, based on their reconstructions, led to confusion and misconceptions that lasted for decades after their deaths.

Here are three examples of what they got wrong:

In 1877, Marsh described and named the Stegosaurus, and illustrated it in 1896.

This abridged excerpt from DinoGoss explains what is wrong and how it was subsequently changed:
Marsh drew a generic Stegosaurus species as an arch-backed quadruped with only a single row of plates protruding vertically along both the back and tail. In 1910, R.S. decided that a double row of paired plates was correct, and that the plates were relatively widely spaced, above the top of the rib cage. This interpretation of Stegosaurus is probably the most famous, and the one that found its way into mid-20th century pop culture. Charles W. Gilmore revised this interpretation only a few years later for an alternating, rather than paired, double row of plates, situated close together on the spine. This interpretation was used in several mid-20th century mounted skeletons.

Cope’s most notable mistake was to put the head on the tail when he reconstructed the plesiosaur Elasmosaurus. His reconstruction also lacked hind legs. To cover up his mistake, he bought every copy he could find of the journal it was published in.

Marsh also put the wrong skull on a skeleton of Apatosaurus and declared it a new genus, Brontosaurus.

To learn more about the Bone Wars read here and here. There are excellent references for books on the subject. For more information about the evolution of our understanding of the stegosaurus, check out DinoGoss. Look here for a full list of fictional dinosaurs.

Thank you to all the folks contributing to Wikipedia for their research and photos.

Misconceptions About Terrorism

June 8, 2016

fictorians

Conflict Social Combat The Writing Life World-building Writing Tools 8 Comments

Guest Post by John D. Payne

I first learned about terrorism from fiction. My introduction may have come sitting on the couch with my dad, cheering as Chuck Norris shot motorcycle missiles at Arab stereotypes in Delta Force. Or it might have been playing with my G.I. Joes, re-enacting their heroic efforts to defeat Cobra, “a ruthless terrorist organization determined to rule the world.”

But my conscious, academic study of terrorism didn’t start until September 11th, 2001. That morning, I was a graduate student at MIT, on my way to my job as a TA in an American Foreign Policy class. People around me were talking about some accident or catastrophe. I stopped in front of the window of a sports bar in Central Square and saw a TV with video of smoke pouring out a skyscraper in what looked like New York City. One of the little crowd gathered there to watch said there had been a plane crash.

When I got to class, I learned a little more. The second plane had hit the World Trade Center. This was deliberate. Someone had attacked us. I spent much of the rest of the day trying to reach my sister and her family in Manhattan. That night I sat up with my roommates, all grad students like me, talking about what had happened, what it meant, and what we were going to do about it.

Today, I am an Assistant Professor of Security Studies in the College of Criminal Justice at Sam Houston State University. When I am not writing about princesses, unicorns, and dragons, I teach classes (mostly graduate) about terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, and homeland security.

Along the way, I’ve learned a few things about terrorism that are quite a bit different than what I picked up from TV, books, comics, movies, and popular culture.

Here are ten.

1) Unlike Cobra Commander, Dr. Evil, and other cartoonishly villainous masterminds, the leaders of terrorist organizations don’t want to rule the world. Personal ambition doesn’t drive them. They have causes they believe in, people they consider to be their constituents (whether or not those people actually see themselves that way). In the words of noted terrorism scholar Bruce Hoffman, terrorists are altruists. They do what they do because they want to help someone or something greater than themselves.

2) Terrorism isn’t new. It didn’t start on 9/11, or in 1995 at the federal building in Oklahoma City, or in 1979 when students in Tehran took 52 Americans hostage– or whatever your generational touchstone is. US President William McKinley was assassinated by a terrorist in 1901. And if we really want to turn back the clock, in the first century AD a group of Jews resisted Roman rule by knifing people in public places, which looks quite a bit like modern terrorism. Learning about terrorism (and counter-terrorism) in the past might help us make better policy for the future

3) Terrorism isn’t about expensive, high-tech super weapons like the ones Destro invented for Cobra. It’s mostly low-tech and run on a shoestring budget. Consider al Qaeda, one of the best-funded and most sophisticated terrorist groups of all time. The key to the success of their attacks on September 11th was doing something surprising with ordinary things like box cutters and airplane tickets.

4) Likewise, counter-terrorism isn’t all about action heroes like Jack Bauer or James Bond equipped with amazing gadgets like laser watches. Most of our defense against terrorism is just regular people living their normal lives, like the airline passengers who noticed that Richard Reid’s strange behavior and prevented him from setting off the bomb in his shoes. It’s a lot less Real American Hero and a lot more If You See Something, Say Something.

5) Although individual terrorists might take actions that look very dangerous, terrorist groups are often cautious and risk-averse, particularly as regards new methods or weapons. They generally don’t have spare personnel they can afford to lose in experimenting, so they do what they have seen other terrorist groups do. This also means that once an innovation proves effective (like suicide attacks), it spreads rapidly.

6) With some exceptions (*cough* ISIS *cough*), terrorist organizations are not staffed by sadistic maniacs who kill for no reason. The Dark Knight is often seen as a parable about terrorism, but in real life you don’t want to work with someone like the Joker, even if your job is creating violent spectacle. The operatives who carry out suicide attacks are often referred to by terrorists as “human bombs,” and just like any weapon you want it to be as predictable and dependable as possible.

7) Not all terrorists are motivated by religion. In the twentieth century, religious terrorists were clearly in the minority, and even today scholars such as Robert Pape argue that many terrorist organizations we consider to be religious have ideologies that are more about nationalism and resistance to foreign occupation. We can also look at explicitly non-religious or atheistic terrorist groups, such as the LTTE (or Tamil Tigers) who have been carried out long campaigns of suicide attacks. Their operatives weren’t hoping for a better afterlife, they wanted to bring honor to their families, victory for their organization, and freedom to their nation in this life. It’s easy to dismiss the idea of negotiation when we imagine that we’re dealing with ineffable, otherworldly motives, but terrorists’ grievances are usually more grounded. (Not always, though. See: Aum Shinrikyo, etc.

8) Building a profile of terrorists is really tough. Part of the reason is that life is, naturally, more complicated than fiction. And part of the reason is that terrorist organizations are trying to subvert our expectations by recruiting operatives who don’t fit our profiles. The PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) in the 1990s had a lot of success with female suicide attackers, because that’s not what the Turks expected. Al Qaeda in Iraq (forerunner to today’s ISIS) strapped semtex vests onto mentally handicapped people and children and detonated them remotely as they approached crowded security checkpoints, because it’s so horrible you can’t believe anyone would do that. This is asymmetric warfare, and they know the only way to win is by breaking the rules. So we have to expect the unexpected, which is easier said than done.

9) Killing the leaders of terrorist organizations doesn’t end the problem. Now don’t get me wrong. When I heard the news that Bin Laden was dead, I opened my window, hung out my American flag, turned up my happiest music as loud as it would go, and danced with joy. But one death, no matter how well deserved, didn’t make al Qaeda go away, didn’t make their supporters and sympathizers go away, didn’t make our problems go away. True, al Qaeda is less effective than it once was. But we still have ISIS, lone wolf attacks, mass shootings, etc. We don’t get to ride off into the sunset and roll credits. Terrorism, like crime, and like poverty, will probably always be with us.

10) Fighting terrorism isn’t hopeless. Terrorists don’t always win. In fact, it’s pretty rare that they achieve their ultimate goals. In the two decades after the end of World War II, there were a number of states (such as Algeria and Israel) that won their independence from colonial powers (such as France and Britain), in part through terrorism. But since then it’s hard to point to victory through terrorism. (The Palestinians come closest, but even after decades of struggle they still don’t have a truly independent, fully functional state of their own.) Most terrorist groups fail and disappear. Sometimes they run out of money, or their leaders are all killed or incarcerated, or they just can’t find people willing to fight for them any more.

In the long run, the ‘war on terrorism’ is not about bombs and guns. It’s about ideas, and about will. It’s about hearts and minds. So every one of us is part of this. Just by living your life the way you think is best, by proclaiming your cherished ideals freely and openly and without fear, you’re striking a blow in this war. Keep it up.

John D. Payne:

John D. Payne lives under several feet of water in the flooded-out ruin once known as Houston, Texas. He is currently undergoing nanobot-assisted gene therapy to develop gills so he can keep up with his alluring mermaid wife and their two soggy little boys. His hobbies include swimming, sailing, diving for treasure, and fending off pirates.

John’s debut novel, The Crown and the Dragon, was published by WordFire Press. His stories can also be found in magazines and anthologies such as Leading Edge, Tides of Impossibility: A Fantasy Anthology from the Houston Writers Guild, and Game of Horns: A Red Unicorn Anthology.

For news and updates, follow John on Twitter (@jdp_writes) or read his blog at http://johndpayne.com.