When someone asks me for an explanation of some esoteric physics topic—say, “What’s dark matter?”—I know I can’t go on very long before I lose the person, because I’m that way too! (That’s why I subscribe to Science News. Asimov did too, so I’m in good company.) The reasons for this vary from not really caring (that someone…or me…is just trying to make conversation, at a cocktail, for example) to lack of attention (cocktails start having effect…or Jameson whiskey, in my case).

Most people are just users of science and technology—does anyone actually worry about how a smart phone works, whether it’s the little computer inside them or the RF signaling?—they’re not creators of that science or technology, they’re users. That’s fine. Other people often have skills that can boggle our minds, even if they’re not considered technical. I never knew the skill it takes to back up a semi until I had to wash them on a summer job. Have you ever watched a crane operator? Or seen a lifeguard save a drowning swimmer? Or a major league batter swatting a ninety-five-mile-per-hour pitch out of the park? That’s all technical knowledge I can’t even imagine having!

Writers have their own technical skills…and technical jargon to go along with it. Most people have heard of plot and characterization, but the jargon can go far beyond that. Poetry seems to be the worst in that regard—iambic pentameter sounds more like Romulan than English, for example (by the way, I don’t speak Romulan). I once had to learn some of that jargon—high school English teachers and college English TAs love to speak it and force you to speak it too. Maybe that’s why I didn’t like poetry very much until N. Scott Momaday taught me to love it…in spite of his TAs!

Fiction writers can speak in code with their technical jargon; Oxford comma, comma splices, magical realism, zeugma, POV, dialogue tags, internal dialogue, genres, metonymy, and synecdoche are some examples. (Authors who read this post can have fun looking up some of the definitions if they don’t know them. I hoped I spelled them all correctly…most from repressed memories.) Writers’ discussions and arguments are rife with technical terms to describe their craft as much as electrical engineers’ or crane operators’. In the arts, maybe they’re not as bad as artists, architects, sculptors, and so forth, but technical enough to make some wonder what language they’re speaking. (Maybe a screenwriter might even speak Romulan?)

The art and crafts world has its own technical jargon, but like that of technological and scientific jargon, users—readers, in the case of writing—don’t need to worry about it much. Storytelling is an art, and a reader can appreciate a good story without getting bogged down in technicalities, just like we can admire van Gogh’s “Starry Night” without learning about the technical details associated with how the master painted it (which didn’t require having just one ear, by the way).

Does that mean that both these artistic products are more human than the scientific and technological ones? Probably, but that’s debatable. Storytelling existed long before modern science and is a quintessential human activity; even the art on the walls of that French cave is storytelling, as are many paintings down through the centuries. The fact that we can now view such things on our smart phone just adds to their mystery.

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Comments are always welcome.

“Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series.” Their homicide cases often go from local to national and international—for example, Gaia and the Goliaths. In this seventh book of the series, the homicide case of an environmental activist leads to the discovery of an international conspiracy perpetrated by a US energy conglomerate and a Russian oligarch. Bastiann van Coevorden, Interpol agent and paramour of Esther Brookstone in Rembrandt’s Angel, has a cameo in the novel. And the villain of the first book in the series, The Midas Bomb, continues to play a nefarious role. But which side is he really on? Lots of entertaining reading for mystery, crime, and suspense fans! Available on Amazon and Smashwords and at all the latter’s affiliated retailers (iBooks, B&N, Kobo, etc.).

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

The decision I made long ago that I’d better do something else because I couldn’t make money at writing to feed a family was a good one. That might not sit well with aspiring young writers. Admittedly I’m just one datum in a very large statistical pool of writers. And I have to qualify the statement: the writing I’m doing now is not profitable enough to support a family either.

That said, there are other ways besides novel writing that a writer can use to make a living: ghost writing, editing, advertising, science writing, and so forth—a lot of companies employ people who know how to write because most of their other employees don’t. Especially in the more technical fields. You can’t read the instruction your doctor wrote on your prescription, but the doc’s handwriting is only the beginning of his bad writing skills. Many scientists and engineers are lucky to communicate via speech; their writing skills often make you wonder how they passed high school English, let alone college level.

Unfortunately none of these jobs pay much and benefits are usually terrible, especially if you work for a company that outsources writers to big corporations. In our illiterate society (just sample the usual text messages), a literate person should be royally treated, but that’s not the case. Unlike most people, I read the scrolling comments on TV news reports; they’re often illiterate, by which I mean it’s hard to figure out what the person wants to express. I see tweets from famous (or infamous) people on Twitter (yes, I’m there, but I’m not famous…or infamous); they’re often illiterate too. Literacy takes hard hits from many directions and many sources.

Freelancing of one form or another can be a good source of income as the world becomes less literate and spirals down toward complete illiteracy. There are enough people out there who want writers’ skills—their products, ideas, and dominance of issues. The global market still requires intelligent expression…for now. I don’t know how long that will continue. Freelancing includes most of the detailed writing activities I’ve mentioned, and more (even a poet can find employment writing humorous greeting card couplets). Unfortunately, having success with freelancing is a bit like having a successful book: You not only need to produce a quality product; you also need several examples of such products in your portfolio to establish your brand.

I’ve never freelanced or employed a freelancer (discounting those people I use for my self-published books—editors, formatters, cover artists, and publicists), but I’ve been told by many writers that it’s the only way to make a living as a writer. Illiterate celebs need ghostwriters. Think tanks and lobbyist orgs, both containing illiterate people, employ writers to clean up their messes. A CEO’s speechwriter can become that CEO’s go-to person (although that might become a permanent position). Illiterate politicians need writers of literate position papers. And so on.

Again, these might be transient opportunities. Literacy is under attack in America and elsewhere in the world. Like most anything else that it touches, high tech adds to that assault. But for now, there are ways to make a living as a full-time writer. If you don’t like the idea of freelancing, though, don’t leave your day-job. Unless it already involves writing.

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Comments are always welcome.

Mind Games. “You can’t walk into the CEO’s office in a major corporation and accuse him of murder. As a scruffy fourteen-year-old from the Dark Domes of Sanctuary’s capital city, I couldn’t even get in the front door!” Androids with ESP? What could go wrong? Find out as a young girl searches for her adopted father’s killer in A.B. Carolan’s new addition to the “ABC Sci-Fi Mysteries.” Available in print and ebook format on Amazon and in ebook format on Smashwords and all its affiliated retailers (iBooks, B&N, Kobo, etc.)

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

When I started my last day-job, occasionally the language in my mind was still Spanish. I would make work presentations where I’d need to adlib a bit, especially in Q&A, and it was frustrating that sometimes the Spanish word was the first one to pop into my mind…and embarrassing when I used it. I’d spent a long time living in Colombia and had reached the point where I even dreamed in Spanish—extreme total immersion, if you will—so I wrote this off as a natural phenomena that would soon go away as I adjusted back into U.S. society.

As I write my fiction, that’s still happening, although less often. This leads me to the subject of this article: How does an author know the right word to use in a given circumstance? Putting aside my strange quirks attributable to my sojourn in Colombia causing my first choice to be a Spanish word (sometimes I have to check that), consider any word and you will find synonyms for it (an online thesaurus is good for that). That process might help you find the right word—your mind recognizes it—but it won’t tell you the different shades and nuances of meaning that the mind often seems to know intuitively.

Most authors have an uncanny ability to choose the right word. Of course, and frequently as a reviewer, I’ve seen some bloopers, but, in general, an author’s mind is on automatic and chooses the correct word. Better said, best word, because correctness is more logical and bestness is more emotional (when the right word doesn’t exist, you can make one up…like I just did for the property of being best!). I suppose the more talented the writer, the better the skill at choosing the right word.

Whether from aging or the influence of my second language (Spanish has been relegated to second place now, primarily due to the lack of use), I often “know” there’s a best word choice but just can’t remember it, so I write an X and go on. As I content edit (I continuously do that), the right replacement often pops into my head.

That’s an even stranger phenomenon: My mind knowing there’s a right word—I say to myself when I’ve found it, “Eureka!”—but not coming up with it immediately. The human mind is a strange computer. There’s no operations manual for it, but everyday things can seem stranger than ESP.

“That’s just active versus passive vocabulary,” you say. Okay, but giving it a name doesn’t take away the mystery. And, of course, finding the right word is a problem for all of us in everyday speech, but do writers suffer from it more? Moreover, I always thought my writing vocabulary is passive vocabulary. Maybe there are multiple levels of active and passive vocabulary? Psychologists and other professionals studying the human brain, speech, and language, please weigh in. I might be an ex-scientist, but this is one of many scientific problems I can’t even imagine how to solve!

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Comments are always welcome.

Mind Games. “I found Ferdie when I returned from my internship. I’d entered our secure niche in the Dark Domes and stood frozen staring at his body.” Androids with ESP? What could go wrong? Find out as a young girl searches for her adopted father’s killer in A.B. Carolan’s new addition to the “ABC Sci-Fi Mysteries.” Available in print and ebook format on Amazon and in ebook format on Smashwords and all its affiliated retailers (iBooks, B&N, Kobo, etc.)

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

As I watched PBS’s presentation of the Vienna Summer Concert recently, I started thinking about globalized literature. Yes, the music was great, and I hummed the great, rousing trombone countermelody from Sousa’s “Stars and Stripes” along with the orchestra because I’d once come to the front of the stage with my fellow trombonists to blast that out as part of a rousing finale for a high school band concert decades ago. Of course, the Vienna Philharmonic isn’t a band, but they were playing both band and orchestral  music—“American music,” written by Americans or inspired by America.  An earlier piece was Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” but the pianist was Wang Yuja, and that was the trigger for my thoughts. The first movement of Dvorak’s “New World” Symphony sealed my fate.

Nationalist music is old music. So is nationalist literature. Today, across Europe with all those different countries with different languages, people speak and read English. I’ve heard better English from foreign diplomats whose native tongue isn’t English than I heard in any classroom I’ve taught in. If books are written in another language, they’re often translated. Agents and lawyers make money representing authors so their books can be translated. Not long ago I read Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Problem; it won a Hugo award. (A poorly written, chaotic plot, but maybe it lost something in the translation.)

Does any reader check where an author comes from anymore? Maybe at local book events (people want to know where I’m from in NJ), but most readers don’t care until they’ve finished the book, if then. In fiction, I only care that the author spins a good yarn. In non-fiction, I only care that s/he’s knows something about what s/he’s writing about.

Yes, it’s true. Stories that take me globetrotting through the pages might be a lot of fun, but again that makes the point: literature is global now. We read stories no matter what their settings are and where their authors come from or where the stories go.

That Viennese orchestra was playing American music—old music. In our high schools and colleges we teach American literature—old literature. Classical, jazz, rock, and other musical styles are universal now. Mystery, thriller, and sci-fi genres are also universal. Now both music and literature are global because modern society is global.

Books are global, the stories are global, and the readership is global. In fact, publishing conglomerates, often composed of hundreds of subsidiaries, are global, and, like it or not, have the most readership. Of course, it’s not the publishing industry driving this globalization; it’s the readership. Readers aren’t interested in nationalist literature; they’re interested in good stories. Stieg Larsson is widely read. So is Garcia Marquez. Books are international treasures now that everyone and anyone can read, unless an autocratic government bans them (plenty of those are still around).

And maybe that old literature will rise from the ashes and become international too. Salinger is making ebooks. New media possibilities add to the globalization of literature.

The world is getting smaller. So is the world of literature. This isn’t a bad thing. We’re all humans on spaceship Earth together, and storytelling is a quintessential human characteristic. It doesn’t belong to one country or one region.

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Comments are always welcome.

Son of Thunder. Scotland Yard Inspector, Esther Brookstone, now retired, becomes obsessed with finding St. John’s tomb, using directions from Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli, in this mystery/thriller. Interpol agent Bastiann van Coevorden tries to keep Esther focused and protected while he multitasks fighting illegal gun merchants. The reader can also follow how their romance is going. All in this new book in the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series–coming soon from Penmore Press.

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

I allege they are. The country’s largest retailer started as an online bookstore. Maybe now they should be banned from the book business?

I’ve hammered the online retailer for years on this blog, and for many reasons, but the story about illegal copies of my favorite classics like 1984 and Animal Farm in August 20’s NY Times is my tipping point. Orwell’s estate isn’t getting any royalties from these classic dystopian books and others. Someone else is, because they’re often rewritten (some by high school students!), and/or have the author’s name changed (you can’t copyright a title, but if the content is basically the same). And Amazon condones these scams by allowing them to happen.

These scam tactics and piracy in general occur because some readers want cheap versions, and scurrilous “entrepreneurs” are willing to provide them. It’s like a customer buying a fake Gucci handbag or fake Rolex out of a car trunk in Manhattan (I’ve seen that occur, and many of those cheap knock-offs come from China). If it looks the same and costs less, what the hell, right? Wrong! Think about it. China’s whole economy was built on this principle (other countries like India are now playing this game), so consumers should know better, but they still buy the knock-offs. Those classic knock-offs on Amazon are in that same category…and Amazon is a much larger trunk!

A few nights ago, I was browsing on Amazon. I do that sometimes because I don’t want to leave a chapter of the book I’m reading unfinished before I turn on the TV—in this case, it was a PBS show without commercials, so I couldn’t finish the chapter as the commercials ran (muted, of course—annoying soundtrack plus annoying video equals doubly annoying, so I eliminate the soundtrack). It seemed like the more I refined my search criteria, the more books the Amazon bots threw at me and the more worthless they were, and, presumably, the more their authors or publicists paid to get into that exalted position on Amazon. I was denied the experience I have in a bookstore or library by this huge company that, when history is taken into account, owes its very existence to the book business.

I soon embarked on another browsing journey. For some time now, I’ve bought some classics just to have them on my Kindle. I looked for 1984 and Animal Farm and a few others. Lots of Kindle versions, but they all looked wrong, so I was at a lost to find one that was like the original paper version. I was ready to give the retailer the benefit of the doubt (silly me), but my show came on. The next morning, I saw the Times article and had my suspicions confirmed—old classics can be knock-offs.

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In book events and online, I often get the question, “Have you read X’s book Y?” I don’t know about other authors, but I’m not embarrassed to say, “No, I haven’t.”

I know where readers are coming from when they ask such a question. They either follow X or really liked Y, and that “or” isn’t necessarily exclusive. I could be dishonest or say something like “I’ll have to look out for X’s books.” That would make the person who’s asking feel better and maybe validate her or his reading choices, but I’m an honest person. I’m not going to say I’ve read a book if I haven’t, for several reasons that go beyond honesty:

First, there are so many books and good authors now. I don’t have time to read them all. Maybe if I were on a long-haul starship like Brian Aldiss’s (have you read that novel?), I might get through all the books in the ship’s database, assuming I wasn’t sleeping away in a cryopod. Here on Earth, I just don’t have time to read them all. For fiction, I’m a speed-reader, which is why I often peruse a fiction story a second time before I review it, looking for writing details I might have missed (as a speed-reader who’s also an author, I tend to autocorrect as I read, sailing through the editing errors). For non-fiction, I read more slowly, searching for the little details I want to file away in that hard drive in my head. (I do this for fiction too, but not as much, yet certainly more for historical fiction where I always wonder where reality ends and the fiction begins).

Second, although I’m an avid reader, I might not like X and I might hate Y. To avoid mentioning current authors who piss me off, let me mention X = Eliot and Y = Silas Marner—terrible author and terrible book. In fact, I’m not much into classics. The only Dickens stories I like are Tale of Two Cities and A Christmas Carol. The last classic I read was Les Miserables (I read it in the original French in high school). The best thing I can say about that boring novel is that it’s better than the musical that has not one memorable tune. Because no one can read every book, reading choices are subjective. The person who asks me about X and Y made one choice, but my reading list might have zero intersection with that person’s list. And my choices aren’t based on popularity or critical acclaim. I think the last book on the NY Times bestseller list I read was Isaacson’s Leonardo da Vinci. (I used the Renaissance milieu depicted there in my upcoming novel Son of Thunder, but I also read the book just for fun and my general education.)

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I get it. People live vicariously via their fantasy movies—Endgame, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones,…. They also get lost in their computer games, so much so that Fortnite becomes a competition on national TV. I don’t agree with you-know-who that either one drives gun violence. This kind of escapism is a much healthier way to get a high, even compared to gambling, alcohol, or opioids. But the scientist in me makes me think there should probably be an organization with acronym EA, for Escapists Anonymous because the media experience of these “safe activities” can be addictive.

That said, let me state that I also participate in escapism too, via book reading. The Marvel Universe in film can entertain sometimes, but those old comics entertained me more. Harry Potter was a series of seven books long before they became movies, although the last book in the series was so verbose that it became two movies. Game of Thrones became popular in books before audiovisual addicts got hooked on it watching HBO.

Generally speaking, I’m not a fantasy book reader. I enjoyed the first Potter books, but hated the intruding and bludgeoning verbosity of the later novels. I gave away my Marvel Comics long ago (they’d be collector items today), simply because all comics seemed immature as I read Agatha Christie and H. Rider Haggard under the bedcovers with a flashlight. I’m proud to say I never read Game of Thrones—anything with dragons turns me off (I did like Sean Connery as a dragon, though).

What becomes popular in the fantasy genre often seems inferior when compared to books in other genres…with some notable exceptions. Stan Brown’s Veiled Memory represents very original fantasy writing, for example; it contains no dragons, has many historical references, and can be considered young adult-oriented just like the Potter books…and like the Potter books, adults who are young at heart can enjoy them too. Zoe Tasia’s Kilts and Catnip is another example of fantasy writing—I can even relate to the Celtic people with the magical powers! (Irish writers seem to have them in abundance. See the pic on my web page “About the Author.”)

I don’t write fantasy. It’s complicated to write. The author must build a fantasy world, sometimes within our real world as in the case of Harry Potter and the last two books I mentioned. This world still has to have consistent rules. I’ve seen many a fantasy story ruined by deus-ex-machina appearances of a different rule that allows a protagonist to survive. That’s not allowed! Building this fantasy world with its own rules is similar to sci-fi where world-building narrative is required if only to establish the other-worldly settings.

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Maybe I’m just too serious, but I have trouble writing humor. I can be ironic, biting, wry, and cynical, but it’s hard for me to sustain a long, humorous story. No novels, just some short fiction.

The Secret Lab (it has a second edition, rewritten and reedited by A.B. Carolan) contains some funny moments, if only for Mr. Paws, the mutant feline mathematician who relates a lot of the tale. Other than that, I don’t have another novel that has sustained humor. And Mr. Paws’s story is for young adults, so it’s not as long as my adult-oriented books.

I’m now revisiting my short story “The Apprentice.” You can find it most easily in Pasodobles in a Quantum Stringscape, Volume Two—see the list of free PDF downloads on the “Free Stuff & Contests” web page of this website. It’s a serious presentation of my views about time travel, but I believe I maintained the humor all the way through. I’m thinking about extending it to a full novel. That should be challenging. Stay tuned.

They say humor is the hardest thing to do on stage. If it’s like writing a humorous novel, I can understand that. Maybe my problem is that I don’t want slapstick, food fights, or absurd, sexual situations. I want a story with a serious foundation—The Secret Lab has it—with a frothy, humorous covering, something like a huge brownie with a whipped cream smiley on top.

Hiaasen seems to have mastered this kind of story. In Skinny Dip, for example, a husband tries to murder his wife by pushing her overboard on an ocean cruise. Not funny per se, but the wife’s revenge is funny as hell. That combines humor with mystery—or call it a humorous thriller. I like Hiaasen’s writing all the more because I can’t do it!

So I thought I might try some humorous sci-fi. Now all I have to do is see if I can write the story. The characters are good ones. I first have to figure out more of the science—that old dentist’s chair is a bit too limited right now, considering where the short story ended. I need to make Jeff a better foil to Gail too. Then comes the critical question: can I sustain the humor?

I went through a similar process when embarking on mystery and YA stories. Teeter-Totter between Lust and Murder was the first Chen and Castilblanco novel that was more mystery than thriller, although The Midas Bomb, #1 in that series, has a lot of mystery elements. That evolution took a few years.

Before starting on The Secret Lab, I studied the YA genre in general. I’d always admired Heinlein’s Podkayne of Mars, a YA sci-fi thriller, as well as Asimov’s Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun, both sci-fi mysteries. So my YA novel became a sci-fi mystery, and A.B. has continued with that tradition.

I’m always looking to try something new. I don’t know if I can do humor, but I’ll try that before romance or erotica—I’m certain that I can’t write in those genres. But who knows? The question I always ask myself: Is there a good story to be had there that might entertain my readers? That’s what it’s all about!

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Comments are always welcome.

A.B. Carolan’s Mind Games. “I found Ferdie when I returned from my internship. I’d entered our secure niche in the Dark Domes and stood frozen staring at his body. My mentor, my confidant, my foster father, and best friend was dead.” ESP and androids. What could go wrong? If you’ve enjoyed The Secret Lab and The Secret of the Urns, or even if you haven’t–all the books are stand-alones, you will enjoy this sci-fi mystery for young adults and adults who are young at heart as it follows a young girl’s search for her adopted father’s killer. Her father told her to never use her special powers, but she has to use them to solve the mystery. Fortunately she finds many friends as she searches for the truth on her home planet Sanctuary, Earth, and New Haven, the seat of ITUIP (Interstellar Trade Union of Independent Planets). Available in print and ebook format on Amazon and ebook format on Smashwords and all its affiliated retailers (iBooks, B&N, Kobo, etc.)

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

One thing I don’t mention in my little course “Writing Fiction” (a free PDF readers and writers can download—see my web page “Free Stuff & Contests” at this website) is that authors need to be vulnerable—in other words, no author can see how readers react to their work if the author doesn’t conquer their fear and let readers see it. You can’t say you’re a writer until you do that.

Even if it’s only a critique group or Wattpad (or, if you have a website, a place where readers can download samples of your writing), you’re not a writer until you swallow that fear. Yeah, I know—new authors say to themselves, “Will anyone like my X?” where X could be any writing sample—essay, memoir, short story, novella, novel…you name it. Losing that fear is required for all would-be writers from ten to one hundred. It’s a common fear for all of us—I feel it for every story my wacky imagination creates—even after publishing many stories. I don’t think it’s peculiar to only introverts, but maybe for us, it’s more common.

Early on, I perhaps developed a masochistic attitude. It could be summarized by “Oh, what the hell? Let’s see what readers think.” From my first novel Full Medical (2006…now with an ebook second edition) and beyond, I’ve said that. Maybe here’s a better way to say it: “Being vulnerable…isn’t about displaying your emotional life. It has to do with attaching your reputation to a project when there is a risk of failing publicly.” A story begins as a project; publishing it creates the risk. (The second quote is not mine. I won’t specify who stated this mantra that works so well for new authors. The first five readers that tell me who did state it will receive the complete “Clones and Mutants Trilogy”—Full Medical, Evil Agenda, and No Amber Waves of Grain—or The Chaos Chronicles Trilogy Collection, a three-book bundle.)

I suppose that first small step is a big one (with apologies to Neil Armstrong). Initially, before my first novel, I thought about taking the easy way out. While one way is to use critique groups (Wattpad didn’t exist back then), I’d heard that was a mixed bag. “The more experienced authors lord it over the newibies,” author friends would say. Or, “Authors in the groups try to make you write like them.” (MFA programs built on the critique group concept have the same problems, of course, with the prof often joining the guilty parties.) I’ve had enough bad experiences that I avoided critique groups and no longer participate on Wattpad.

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I keep a list of what-ifs and look at it every so often for the next story. I did that recently and came up with a sublist of what-ifs I can now state will never become my stories. In the spirit of providing writing prompts and ideas for new writers and those with writer’s block, I list a few of these orphaned what-ifs here…lightly edited and just for fun.

What if the many worlds of quantum mechanics theory is used to take a time traveler back to a nineteenth century in another quantum state of the Universe where that asteroid never destroyed the dinosaurs? Call it reptilian steampunk?

What if Charles beheaded Cromwell and not vice versa? That might lead to a good alternate history tale.

What if the Soviets reached the moon first? Would our space program be any different now? We could call that alternate future history!

Here’s a fun one: What if the Hardy boys grew up to be mobsters terrorizing…hmm, was it Bridgeport, Connecticut where they lived? Or what if Nancy Drew grew up to be one of the first colonists on the moon? Those have mystery/crime and space opera covered.

What if a gladiator is yanked from the Roman Circus to help fight against an ET invasion? I wonder if a light saber is heavier than a broadsword.

What if leprechauns decided to rise up against normal folk and take over the planet? They might do better at managing it, after all. A.B. Carolan might like this one. Would this be a fantastic militaristic sci-fi tale or a sci-fi warlike fantasy story?

And what if the little engine that could encountered a damsel tied up on the tracks? Would he stop to save her? Call this a steampunk romance?

What if Leonardo da Vinci was really an android who traveled back in time? That presupposes androids can make art, which isn’t obvious. Or maybe the time-traveling android just serves as a model for the Vitruvian Man.

What if global warming turns Earth into Venus? That might make a good disaster movie, and maybe those creatures that can live in those deep, steamy ocean fissures will take over. Or maybe global warming turns eastern NJ into beachfront property? (Maybe I should keep my house until I die just in case?)

What if LBJ had lost to Barry Goldwater? Would the Vietnam War had ended? If so, how? And would that Arizona White House increase or decrease the number of retirees settling in Arizona? More alternate history awaits readers.

What if all the hard-boiled school of mystery/crime writers had written romances instead? Would the romance genre be the same as it is today? And would hard-boiled take on a new meaning?

Okay, I’m tired. Readers and writers can add more to this list with their comments. Who knows? I might even use one of your what-ifs…but not any of the above.

More seriously, let me just say that writers, whether currently writing or thinking about storytelling,  should always be collecting what-ifs. They lead to plots, characters, settings, and so forth. If writers have a long list of them, they should never suffer from writer’s block. The what-ifs should be a bit more serious than the above, of course (although that’s never a requirement when I add one to the list). But you knew that, right? Although I suppose many of the above might lead to a Hiaasen-like tongue-in-cheek story…go for it!

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Comments are always welcome.

Rembrandt’s Angel. “Are you going to haunt me, MacDougall? Maybe his ghost had been in the castle and was now following her around? But how did he find me?” Ex-MI6 agent and current Scotland Yard Inspector Esther Brookstone becomes obsessed with recovering a Rembrandt painting stolen by the Nazis in World War II. Interpol agent and paramour Bastiann van Coevorden tries to control her obsession and keep her safe. Their quest to recover the painting leads them to an international conspiracy that threatens Europe. Published by Penmore Press, this mystery/thriller is available in ebook and print format from Amazon and as an ebook version from Smashwords and its affiliated retailers (iBooks, B&N, Kobo, etc.). Also available from the publisher or your local bookstore (if they don’t have it, ask for it). A sequel is on its way!

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!