Tag: Reclamation Project

Posted on

Reclamation Project Year Two Update

This book could use a little heart.
This book could use a little heart.

After months of delay—well, let’s face it, after 2020, pretty much—Reclamation Project: Year Two is finally starting to take some shape. I still have to write my own story for the book, but I have many very good submissions, including lots of returning faces.

But I feel that something is missing, which I described on Twitter as “soul,” but I think it might be better to describe as “heart.” Most of the submissions so far have put a lot of emphasis on action, and have been very fun to read on that basis. But one of the things I was most surprised and pleased by in Year One were the quieter, more reflective stories, that (for lack of a better term) “humanized” this world full of furry adventurers, flying cities, and deranged robots. So far this collection doesn’t really have a “Dark Garden Lake” or “Flavors of Sunlight” to give it heft. It also doesn’t really have much “solarpunk,” veering more into “cold war” style intrigue between humans and furries, or post-apocalypse action.

In The Reclamation Project “Formula” I touched on some of what is missing in the “Character Is King” section; but I think it needs some emphasis. Year Two still needs at least one story that is really about emotional connection, even when that involves blowing up rogue bots or having fun playing with the details of the setting. It also really needs some good solarpunking up—although what that might look like, I’m unsure of. (That’s why I’m editing the thing, instead of just writing it all myself! ;D )

So if you’re out there and you have something you think might fit the bill, please send it along! The “submission cutoff date” has been stretched so many times at this point it’s snapped, and I’m not going to worry about it. My goal is to have the book on the table at AnthroCon 2021, assuming that actually happens, but as mentioned I’ve still got to write my own story for it as well, and I’d rather have a great book that came out late, than an “all right” book that came out on time.

So hit me with your furry solarpunk awesomeness!

Posted on

The Reclamation Project “Formula”

Reclamation Project cover by Teagen Gavet
Reclamation Project cover by Teagen Gavet

2020 has messed with everyone’s heads, mine included. But like Nick Fury, until the world stops spinning I’m going to keep moving on the assumption that it will continue. To that end, Reclamation Project: Year Two carries on! The submission cutoff date is still October 31st, although that may slide as production requirements change. I certainly haven’t been talking about it nearly as much as I have meant to, so let’s fix that, shall we?

I get a lot of questions from would-be contributors about technical details: “Do the humans have laser guns?” “Would it make sense for a furry settlement to have helicopters?” “Does Pax Machina communicate via radio waves?” And while some of this stuff is covered by the setting Wiki, I almost always give the same answer, which is: “Yes, if that makes a good story.” As the editor of the series, I’ll take care of hashing out inconsistencies if they’re big enough that I think they’ll actually cause a problem, but the world is a large and complex place—whether a vehicle has wheels or antigrav is nowhere near as important as who’s in the vehicle and where it’s going. So don’t worry so much about the nuts and bolts! To maximize your chances of acceptance into the anthology, focus instead on the Reclamation Project “formula.”

And just what is that? So glad you asked! Keep in mind, this is just a quickie list of some things to focus on. It’s not a hard-and-fast formula or boilerplate—we don’t want to just crank out write-by-numbers stuff—it’s just a set of touchstones to look for when you’re writing, or possibly a nudge if you get stuck. Not every story needs all of these elements, but these are good places to start, with examples from the Year One anthology to illustrate them.

Furries Being Creative and Proactive; Humans Being Stuck—Or Breaking Free

  • A vibrant furry city being built over the ruins of a disaster
  • Bird-folk scavenge ancient water purifiers to found a tea shop with rails to perch on instead of stools
  • A furry-friendly anthropologist is considered an existential threat by human supremacists for suggesting peace is even possible
  • A sumptuous and elegant dinner party where RP dignitaries gossip about food shortages

The new world being built by the furries should be vital and exciting; the old world being clung to by the humans is stagnant, decadent, and ultimately self-devouring. This is not black-and-white or good-vs-evil. The humans have been born into these broken systems just like a rat born in a maze, and it takes a rare specimen to think of climbing up out of the walls instead of just following the path in front of them no matter where it goes. The furries, by contrast, were dropped in a giant (if dangerous) sandbox and left to find their own way. The natural consequence is rigid, cargo-cultish mindset on the part of humans, and an open-ended, “Everything is risky anyway, why not give it a shot?” mindset in the furries.

Solarpunk/Hopepunk

  • The world is healing and rebuilding after a post-apocalyptic dark age
  • Furries and humans bonding in the direst of moments
  • An invading army is pushed back by the power of rock’n’roll (and a bit of blackmail)
  • A scientist grafts algae into volunteers’ bloodstreams so they never need to eat again

This has been discussed at length elsewhere, but I want to mention it here because it is at the heart of what the Reclamation Project is all about. Now more than ever, we need to provide an optimistic vision, something positive for the world to move toward, instead of reacting to the darkness of the past.

The WTF Moment

  • A cute little cartoon character is the face of a deranged global AI
  • The heroes of your story are an anthropomorphized fish person and a cybernetic octopus who secretly have crushes on each other
  • Carriages pulled by giant beetles… magnetic coins that attract a mountain of junk around them… a coming-of-age ceremony based on going to a distant mountain to be fitted with a jetpack…
  • The terrifying Frankenstein robot with bloody serrated edges is HITTING ON ME???

The world of Reclamation Project is a weird and uncanny place, full of surprises. Don’t just think outside the box—question the very existence of the box and think outside the inverted hypercube! Try not to be arbitrary with it: the WTF moment should be important to your story, either as a core part of the premise, a plot point that moves the story forward, or to reveal/change something fundamental about your protagonist. Action (see the next point) may be spice for your story, but the WTF moment is part of the main course.

Action! Danger! Suspense!

  • Hovership battles against massive robot centipedes
  • RP forces are marching on the city—with or without higher approval
  • You’re alone and cornered by a Pax Machina drone that could kill you in an instant—but doesn’t? What does it want?
  • Ambushed by river pirates!

Besides being strange, the world is dangerous, whether that danger comes in the form of mutant monsters, killer robots, marauders, or marching fanatics. Reclamation Project is fantasy adventure, and there’s no adventure without risk. Be careful with this, though: avoid being graphic or cruel in your depictions, even if the characters are being cruel in what they do. Action should be snappy, to-the-point, and serve the larger themes of the story.

Character Is King

  • The Steward chooses to sacrifice herself so the Prefect can escape—whether for love or duty, who can say?
  • A rabbit defies every voice telling him to stay underground, chasing a star
  • An assassin takes on the role of sin-eater, saving his would-be targets when he can, and minimizing casualties when he can’t
  • A former soldier literally cannot live without someone to conquer

On some level any story, of any genre, is an exploration of character, and the Reclamation Project is no different. Whether your hero is a hardboiled detective, a Regency-era gentlewoman, or a tabby cat that sounds like Antonio Banderas, it’s the things they value, the choices they make, and the consequences of those choices that make a story resonate. A fascinating twist without a character behind it is just an intellectual exercise; a compelling world without engaging people living in it is just a travelogue.

So when coming up with your story, dig in here. What are the stakes for your character? Does the story change them, or do they remain steadfast and thus change the world? A by-the-numbers adventure story with a compelling cast of characters will get you a lot farther than Big Ideas being delivered by cardboard cutouts (see also Star Wars vs. 2001: A Space Odyssey).

Preferably, of course, you’ll have both big ideas and exciting characters! But when in doubt? Focus on character first.

Focusing on these elements should help make your story a great fit for The Reclamation Project. Go forth and create something amazing!

Posted on

From the Word Mines: Editing is Hard!

Crow T. Robot - I want to decide who lives and who dies.
Not counting my own story, The Reclamation Project received over 260,000 words’ worth of submissions.

Dude. Are you kidding me? O.o

I read them all, and loved them all; even the roughest ones of the lot had something awesome about them. But with a wordcount target of 100,000 – 150,000, that meant that at a minimum I would have to say no to 110,000 words written for a world that I spun out of thin air by mashing together some of my favorite tropes.

I gotta tell you, it hasn’t been easy. I still have a double-handful of stories that I just can’t quite decide about, and the clock is ticking. Do all editors go through this?

On the other hand, the stories that I know are definitely in? They are freakin’ amazing. I am proud and astonished to be able to put my name on this book, and I’m ridiculously grateful to FurPlanet for making it possible. Just from my seat in the editor’s chair my own writing has also leveled up from experiencing the different voices and perspectives, and from seeing what worked in each story, what didn’t, and why.

So, yeah, editing is hard. But it’s been way more than worth it.

Posted on

Don’t Find Ideas; Create Them!

Thinking Woman Meme. Source: https://www.themarysue.com/riverdale-netflix-meme-video/
(Source: https://www.themarysue.com/riverdale-netflix-meme-video/)

One of my writing pals contacted me yesterday: he was trying to write a story for The Reclamation Project but wasn’t happy with the results he was coming up with. In an effort to get his creative juices flowing, I sent him a link to a Pinterest board I had created to help me get into the right frame of mind.

“Maybe I’ve been going around this wrong,” he replied. “I’ve been trying to pull story ideas out of thin air, but that’s proving hard. I used to go looking at pictures, but it felt like a crutch…”

I’m here to tell you, when it comes to creating story ideas, there’s no such thing as a crutch. There are only tools!

Inspiration is a Fickle Mistress

Sometimes a story will leap nearly fully-formed into your head, and the biggest obstacle is making sure to get it all written down before you forget it. And those times when the Muse Burns Within You are amazing!

…But unreliable.

If you want to get somewhere as a professional writer, you need to be able to create stories on demand. While “writer’s block” is a very personal experience, in my own case it’s often a matter of “perfect being the enemy of good.” Writing as a deliberate craft is less like dictating the voice of the muse, and more like slopping a giant blob of clay onto the wheel and spinning it into a useful shape — and since the final product is going to be vastly different from that original lump of clay anyhow, you can use whatever you need to get it started. Write about your cat. Take a story out of the news, flip the gender of all parties involved, and set it on a space station or in ancient Babylon. All you need is a starting point!

Here are some starting points I like to use…

Image Boards

A picture can be worth a lot more than a thousand words. Looking at an evocative image and asking yourself, “What’s happening here? Who are these people? How did this come to pass?” might be all you need to get the ball rolling.

I’ve already mentioned Pinterest. It’s not the best for all applications (it’s terrible about original sources, just for starters), but just in terms of finding neat pictures to look at it’s a good start. Tumblr is another source that’s easy to search by keyword. Want to write steampunk? Check out Steampunk Tendencies. Need a very specific “anime + elves” vibe? Do a keyword search for “anime elves.” If you can think of something, there’s probably at least one and possibly several blogs devoted to it.

The point of these boards is not to give you “the thing” you’re going to write; just lifting someone else’s creative work and repackaging it as your own would be a crutch, and worse. The point of these boards is to give you suggestions for moments, or ideas, or possibilities, that you will then weave into your own stories. An old pulp sci-fi painting I found on Pinterest gave me an arresting visual image; when I combined that with my own characters and plot it became a 15,000-word story.

Story Prompts

Story prompts are everywhere, from games like Rory’s Story Cubes or Storymatic, to NaNoWriMo Word Wars, to Writer’s Digest. One friend of mine sometimes uses Tarot readings to create story outlines.

I generally find prompts to be very hit-or-miss; if I don’t have a single notion in my head, the phrase “When you come to a fork in the road, take it!” is not going to be enough by itself. However, a prompt combined with something else — a character idea, for instance, or a relationship dynamic I want to explore — can sometimes be just enough to prod me into the right direction.

Fanfic

Here’s my secret, Cap: almost all my fic is fanfic.

Everybody knows about 50 Shades by now, right? My novel Sky Pirates of Calypsitania began its life as a notion for an AU fic about “Rainbow Dash, Airship Pirate,” even if the final story doesn’t have a little pony in sight.

Fanfic is a massive creative energy generator (well deserving of a Hugo award). One of its most powerful features is that, by piggy-backing onto established properties, it allows writers to cut to the chase in their story creation. The characters are already established and the rules of the universe are already written, so all the writer has to do is figure out what happens and write that.

Remember, however, that we’re talking about tools to get you started here, not finished stories. If all you do is shave the names and serial numbers off of a fanfic and repackage it as a new story, people are gonna notice. Fanfic can give you the bones of an outline, but you still have to go back and do the work of establishing your characters, and building your world, before you can truly call the work your own.

Genre-Mashing

This is a long-established practice, and a great one. Take two very different things you love, mash ’em together, and see what sparks fly. Put Casablanca in space and you get Babylon 5. Put a roaming samurai in the old west and you get A Fistful of Dollars. Put British snark and a touch of sentimental romance into The Book of Revelation and you get Good Omens.

There’s a lot of crossover between this category and fanfic — “alternate universe,” “fix-fic,” and “X but Y” are all well-traveled fanfic paths. You could make a cogent argument that Lord of the Rings is “Macbeth Meets Der Rings Des Nibelungen,” and Tolkien did all right for himself.

Writing to Market

And of course, there’s always just finding out what an editor wants, and writing that. For The Perfect Warrior, I was given the title and back cover blurb, and told to write an adventure that matched it.

In some ways, this is just a leveled-up version of a writing prompt. Cruising sites like Manuscript Wishlist, or checking out upcoming anthologies in your favorite genres, can not only spark cool story ideas, but has the added bonus of giving you a target market and a deadline!

Don’t Be Precious

Whatever method you use to get words flowing, the important thing to remember is that writing any story is a process and a journey. Give yourself permission to create something rough, and get writing! In the words of Tim Powers, “The first draft is supposed to be crap.” Where would the skill of the sculptor come in, if the blob of clay was perfect when it was first plopped down?

Posted on

Ten Days to Get Into the Reclamation Project!

Source: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/ywbgJ
Source: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/ywbgJ

Just a calm, collected freakout to remind you that YOU NEED TO GET YOUR STORIES IN! The Reclamation Project is coming together fast now, but we’ve still got a little space you could squeeze into!

At the risk of tooting my own horn, this book is going to be amazing. We’ve nabbed some of the best writers on the furry scene, and they’ve really done an amazing job of making the world of The Reclamation Project come alive. It’s got mystery! It’s got romance! It’s got adventure, and excitement, and really wild things!

I think that what I’m most impressed by is the amount of love and deep thought that’s shining through in these stories. Even the most gonzo adventure tale I’ve received so far (and there have been some doozies) has been built on a profoundly human foundation. I feel deeply honored to be collecting and curating these tales to bring to the world, and I’d love for you to be a part of it!