Category: Speculative Fiction

Writing Feminist Speculative Fiction

2/1/2026

I’m an unapologetic feminist writer of speculative fiction.

When I first read The Handmaid’s Tale in the 1980’s, it was very much an impossible fiction. Then, when I re-read it in the mid-2010’s, it made me cry because it had become a very possible version of reality. Globally, women and other minorities are having their hard won rights stripped away. Even supposedly democratic countries, like Aotearoa New Zealand, are systematically dismantling our legal rights. In countries ruled by conservative, religious-fascists, it’s even more horrifying.

Modern feminist speculative fiction requires more than passing the Bechdel test. It’s also more than just confronting the patriarchy and challenging misogyny. Over my lifetime, feminist speculative fiction has progressed from the comparative binary of dystopias and role-reversed separatist utopias, to intersectional fiction that considers race, gender, class, disability, sexuality, colonial history and ageism.

In much of my recent writing, I’ve combined that intersectionality with the concept of a separatist utopia. This comes from my belief that women/minorities need to save ourselves before we save the world, and we can’t do that when we’re in imminent danger.

In my stories, much like women preferring to meet a bear in the woods, my female characters often prefer to engage with the unknown of a cyborg, an alien or a monster than with human men who have demonstrated only violence, oppression and discrimination.

Literature, in the right hands, can be subversive—if it wasn’t there would be no calls for so-called ‘dangerous’ books to be banned. Through stories we can: create templates for rebellion, resistance & disruption; offer up cautionary tales; and, interrogate reality through metaphor—where rage and trauma are magic, ‘others’ are monsters, history is reclaimed & fates rewritten through time travel. Authors of feminist speculative fiction, are perfectly placed to offer hope and alternatives in the guise of fiction. Where speculative fiction asks, “what if?” feminist speculative fiction adds, “Why not?”

If you’re interested in reading my published feminist works, check out:

In Remains to be Told: Dark Tales of Aotearoa, my short story Fires of Fate is retribution horror, where men are punished for their environmental damage.

In Byline: An anthology of poetry and prose from Tauranga Writers my poems, Her Husband (2023) and A Year of Death (2024), both deal with retribution for domestic abuse.

In my short story collection Letters from Elsewhere:
A Letter From Elsewhere: a street kid taken by aliens, prefers to die, the only human on a distant planet, than return home. The letter she sends home is described as fake by the new Christo-fascist regime.
The Abyss: retribution horror for rape.
Star Killer: where taxidermy becomes retribution for rape.
Redundant: retribution horror, where the spider/wasp is a metaphor for exploited women.

Some fantastic feminist speculative fiction that I’ve read:
The Mere Wife by Maria Dahvanna Headley. Retelling of Beowulf where Grendel’s mother is a returned servicewoman whose child is the product of rape from when she was held captive. She chooses a solitary life on a mountain until the small town kills her son. Blurs the line between literary and genre fiction.

The Stanger by Kathryn Hore. Feminist western set in an apocalyptic future. A walled off town, run by men, is steeped in lies maintained by fear. A woman rides into town, challenges the town’s view of the outside world and the patriarchy.

Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Galley. Another feminist western set in an apocalyptic future. Queer librarian spies spread resistance propaganda under threat of death by bandits and fascists.

The Binti Trilogy by Nnedi Orokafor. A young woman escapes family expectations to attend university on another planet. Attacked en-route, she saves herself, by assimilating with the attackers, further ‘othering’ herself.

Sister, Maiden, Monster by Lucy Snyder. A cosmic, plague horror told from the point of view of three women whose lives intersect in ways they don’t understand. Highlights gaslighting, violence against women and medical abuse (inserting IUD w/o pain relief).

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Reclaiming the Crone

6/3/2025

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Speculative fiction (fantasy, science fiction, horror etc) is all too often populated with strong, young characters. People and creatures breaking out of their adolescence and at the start of their adventures or approaching the prime of their lives. Where young women and girls and non-binary characters feature more often as main and secondary characters, the same can’t be said for older characters. It’s uncommon for the protagonist to be of advanced years, and rare if that character’s a woman.

Older characters are either cast in supporting roles, like the wise old wizard and the sweet grandmother, or as the evil antagonist, the barrier to youthful success. If the antagonist is a woman—the witch, the hag, the crone—she’s often portrayed as jealous and spiteful, corrupted by age and bitter with disappointment. The crone is frequently portrayed as trying to regain their youth at the expense of the victim (some princess who’s never the hero). Youth is the prize.

In fantasy, crones are depicted as deceitful and ugly old women who use their powers for malevolent purposes. Recall how the beauty of Snow White’s stepmother and Melisandre in Game of Thrones corrupts when their true natures are revealed. As always there are exceptions to generalised observations, examples include Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg from the Discworld series and General Leia Organa from Star Wars—these magnificent characters embrace and celebrate their age and don’t pretend to be anything but what they are—but they’re rare.

The crone, with some exceptions, is a woman to be feared.

In science fiction, crones as characters are often, non-existent or invisible. Check out the list of SciFi books featuring old women compiled by Sylvia Spruck Wrigley HERE.

It’s disappointing that our literary interpretations of alternate and future civilisations are, again and again, bereft of the aged. That there are so very few examples of older women cast as characters who captain spaceships or rule societies or play an active role in revolutions and rebellions. And yet, in terms of readership, women prevail. Read Nikky Lee’s summary of a 2018 James Cook University study HERE.

We need to do better. It’s bad enough having to live in a society that worships youth and strives to push back against the ravages of time through surgeries, fillers, pills and creams. We’re urged to disguise our age with makeup and hair dye, then accused of being deceptive. It’s an unwinnable battle.

I not only need my fiction to offer escape from reality, but I also crave to be represented in the books that I read. I’m not ashamed of my age—it’s hard won. My husband and my parents died younger than they should have—I celebrate every day that I’m gifted. But I’m very aware that I’m often no longer ‘seen’ or ‘heard’. We older women exist, we’ve seen and experienced a lot of shit, and we can’t be fucked putting up with it anymore.

When I set out to write the first novella in the Ghost Assassins of Bijou series, I did so with the conscious decision to portray the invisible crone. I went further than that—I weaponised her invisibility. Although it’s not always explicit, more and more of my recent stories feature older women as the main character. I’m reclaiming the crone as a feminist icon and whether they’re the hero or the villain depends on your point of view.

If you consider my characters to be evil, then I suggest that you should fear the crone!

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A Year of Writing with a Critique Group

2/2/2025

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Just over a year ago, I committed to writing an additional four novellas in the five book Ghost Assassins of Bijou collection by year’s end. That meant committing to writing a novella, of around 25,000 words, every three months. I’m an inherently lazy human being and a slow writer, so the task I’d set was daunting.

Then, by the delightfulness and serendipity that is fate, I was invited to join a critique group with two local speculative fiction authors – both of whom are vastly more experienced, lauded and awarded than I am. We meet for two hours every fortnight to critique and offer feedback on each other’s work. When we can’t meet in person, we meet online and once or twice we’ve relied on electronic feedback only.

Despite our early decision to limit our submissions to 4000 words, or a short story, that didn’t last past our first get together. I’ve routinely bombarded them with over 10,000 new or rewritten words each session. They never complain (well not to me anyway!) and at times were disappointed when I didn’t give them the next chapter.
It’s been amazing! I’ve learnt so much.

When I look back at their comments from the beginning of last year, the pages of my manuscripts are littered with corrections to grammar and sentence structure, and comments pointing out inconsistencies and problems with my plotting. The most recent feedback was much less grammatical, and more about tweaks to the storyline aimed at keeping the reader satisfied. I still can’t quite get my head around run-on sentences but I’m much better at comma placement.

My critique crones have gifted me ideas for literary devices to keep dry details out of the prose and others that weave poetry into the prose in ways that I never would have had the courage to attempt on my own. They’ve kept my characters’ voices true and the plot holes tiny. Best of all though, they’ve littered my pages with ticks and scrawled love-hearts in the margins when they find a phrase or section that they enjoy.

For the first few months I was terrified I was bringing very little to the group. I’m neither an expert in grammar nor spotting plot-holes and need time to chew over new ideas – but I have other skills. I’m good at world-building and character development, I possess a strong aversion to the overuse of -ly adverbs, and I know when a story needs more tension. I also do my best to be generous with ticks and love-hearts in the margins.

So – did I meet my goal of writing four novellas in a year?

Not quite.

With rewrites for consistency through the collection, it took an extra month. I’m now in the process of doing final edits and lay-out and writing the synopses for each novella and one for the collection.

Could I have done it without my critique crones?

Maybe.

But, without them, it would have been a set of pretty stones rather than a collection of polished jewels.

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Monsters From the Deep

10/31/2024

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In the antipodes, Halloween is out of season, it’s spring here and all about rebirth and hope. So rather than talk about spooky things, this month I’ve mixed my interests in monsters and marine critters to talk about monsters from the deep.

As I’ve been writing the initial five Ghost Assassins of Bijou novellas, I’ve leaned into my training and expertise as a marine biologist. Bijou is a marine planet, with an equatorial archipelago of extinct volcanic islands making up the minor terrestrial habitat. Much like we Earthlings, the human inhabitants of Bijou are limited to the land and the coastal fringes and surface of the ocean. As the stories have progressed, it’s become obvious that, also like us, the human residents of Bijou know next to nothing about most of their planet. Unlike us, however, they do have relationships with the sentient inhabitants of their ocean—especially with the belosa, a cuttlefish-like creature, some of whom choose to be living spaceships for the ghost assassins.

I could have created an entirely new creature to fill this role, but the shape and motion of cuttlefish lends them beautifully to being spaceships. They’re also intelligent, have distinct methods of communication and are well studied. This made it (relatively) easy to take an extant creature and develop it into one of science fiction. And there’s so much more life in the depths that we can use in this way.

The deep sea is Earth’s largest habitat, offering a massive 97% of the habitable space available to life on our planet. Which is remarkable, given how little we know of the lives and range of creatures that exist there. It’s estimated that we know less than 10% of the existing species of the deep sea. What monsters lurk beyond our reach and understanding?

Let’s set the scene in our search for monsters from the deep.
The deep sea is defined as beyond the reach of light, on average this happens at around 200m of depth. No plants live beyond this depth. The water is cold (~2°C), and the pressures are immense (an additional atmosphere of pressure for every 10m of depth). Around 70% of the sea floor is abyssal plains, but there are a multitude of other habitats including: seamounts, canyons, troughs, ridges, cold seeps, hydrothermal vents, polymetallic nodule fields, and asphalt fields or brine pools. Life in these habitats requires extreme (to us) adaptations.

Many animals at these depths have foregone the need to move. Why waste energy on locomotion when the food comes to you? Others have abandoned the sun as their source of energy and rely instead on the energy contained in inorganic chemicals that leach through Earth’s crust at vents and seeps. Oxygen isn’t always required, and life has found ways to exist in extremes that should kill. Creatures are diverse, often long-lived, and can be surprisingly large.

Onto the monsters!
Let’s start with Cnidarians (the C is silent)—jellyfish, corals, anemones and hydroids. These creatures have a mouth that also serves as their anus, they also have muscles, reproductive organs and tentacles. Already so much fun. But best of all, they kill with an explosion of tiny poison-tipped harpoons. Imagine visiting a strange planet, where simply brushing past a delicate feather-like shrub results in your body being swamped with a neurotoxin that stops your heart. The feathers wrap around you and the creature spends the next century feasting on your remains. Or your spaceship emerges from hyper-drive into the slow drifting tentacles of a massive space-jelly. There is no escape. Death is slow in the gut sac behind the creature’s dual-function mouth/arse—but it’s inevitable.

I’m not going to bother talking about marine worms, because…well…Dune. We all know what that looks like. All I’ll add is that the penis worm doesn’t hunt—it waits. To capture passing soldiers, the penis worm vomits out its toothed throat then retracts it, dragging the flailing prey with it. Death by penis worm—so noble.

Molluscs include a wide variety of life-forms including snails (gastropods); clams (bivalves); chitons; and squids (cephalopods). This group is rich pickings for premade monsters filled as it is with active predators armed with deadly toxins, camouflage and more terrifying tentacles. Probably the most frightening thing about molluscs is the weird feeding organ they all possess. It’s called a radula, a movable belt covered with teeth. The radula can scrape flesh from bones, drill holes in the hulls of space stations and inject toxins into unwary interplanetary explorers. Abandon all hope, weary travellers.

Crustaceans are equipped with many limbs. So many limbs. Delicate antennae that detect movement, taste, electrical currents to focus the hunt. Legs and more legs enable them to skitter over the barriers protecting a newly established colony. They swim through space and time using the oar-like appendages under their tails. Hidden beneath desert sands, they’ll spy on you with stalked eyes, then snap you up with claws and pincers that hold, slice and dice. Some of them move so fast they can teleport. You’ll never see the parasite before it steals your body for its own purposes—leaving you a more witless zombie than usual.

Next on our list of monsters from the deep are the armoured echinoderms—starfish, sea cucumbers, urchins, brittle stars, crinoids and the like—distinct in the animal world with their 5-sided symmetry. Ravenous and relentless they glide across the vast freeze-dried plains on hydrostatic tube feet. They’re impervious to your weapons. When they catch you—and they will catch you—they’ll hover over your trapped body and extrude their stomach out through their mouth. Once you’re digested, they draw their stomach inside and glide away. Behind them, the hollow husk of your once perfect body wafts in the currents of an alien breeze.

When you stare out at the night sky, filled with stars and mysteries, some of those stars aren’t what you think they are. Giant angler fish drift the universe on cosmic tides, their bodies invisible against the blackness of the void. Some of those distant stars are bioluminescent lures, hung out to draw in unsuspecting colonists searching for planets within the Goldilocks range. Once the unspeakably enormous maw closes its needled teeth around your interstellar generation-ship, the lights wink out—forever.

If, these macro monsters don’t offer you the perfect character for your next space horror…then what about the dangers of the micro monsters of the deep. Imagine bacteria that deplete the sulphur in your skin, leaving you with lesions that can’t heal and a compromised metabolism. Maybe the archaea in your gut are replaced by those that feed on, rather than produce, the methane you require for digestion? Deep sea viruses are more likely to be lysogenic, meaning they replace sections of your DNA with their own to reprogramme your metabolism for their own needs and they need to be cold…so very, very cold.

Honestly, I could write so much more but I think I’ve made my point. There’s no need to reinvent biology in the search for monsters. The way I imagine and extrapolate monsters from living creatures is, if it can swim it can probably also fly, if it can live in the dark expanse of the ocean, it’ll do just fine in space and if it’s small it can become very, very big.

Need more inspiration? Then, let your fingers lead you down a penis wormhole of online research. Or head to your local library and flick through any number of books about sea life (because it lives in my bookshelf, I referred to Peter Batson’s 2003 edition of, Deep New Zealand: Blue Water, Black Abyss, in my research for this blog). Finally, if you enjoy a field trip head to your nearest aquarium or marine research lab on an open day.

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Writing the Subversive

8/1/2024

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I didn’t set out with the deliberate intention to write subversive speculative fiction. I just fell into it. After all, there’s much to subvert in the world today—misogyny, religious fundamentalism, racism, runaway capitalism, extreme nationalism, over-population, fascism, environmental disasters, global climate change, so-called artificial intelligence, and more—it’s terrifying. So much it can be overwhelming. Through my stories, I try to offer an escape, some hope, an alternative or a template for resistance and rebellion.

To understand what I consider is subversive speculative literature a simple dictionary definition falls short. For me, it’s fiction that challenges societal norms, questions methods of social control and defies the conventions of current mainstream culture. It's stories that encourage us to think critically and examine conflicting ideologies. Subversive literature is transformative, offers us new insights and expands our thinking. It provides us the opportunity to develop empathy, to question our beliefs and values, and to consider alternate viewpoints.

Using this wider view, what’s considered subversive not only changes with time but also with the socio-political and cultural climate. It's also personal. When, where and who you are will sway your view. Books banned for being subversive in parts of the USA, are freely available in Aotearoa / New Zealand. Being subversive is a very far cry from being harmful.

Through the vehicle of subversive literature, readers are given the opportunity to try on someone else’s skin and feel the world through their hands or tentacles or programming. It allows us to smell, taste and see the universe through the lens of another’s experiences—to be ‘other’. Subversive literature gives us permission to change and grow and be better. It has the capacity to burrow under our skin, penetrate the marrow of our bones and alter our DNA. But it doesn’t need to preach or beat us over the head to do so. The best subversive literature entertains us—it draws us in with majestically wrought worlds and complex characters—and takes us on a wondrous, thrilling or terrifying journey.

Asked to name titles of subversive speculative literature it’s easy to only consider the classics. Most people know Orwell’s 1984, Dick’s Blade Runner, Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness and Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. Going back further we think of Verne’s 10,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein. In Aotearoa / New Zealand we have our very own Vogel’s Anno Domini 2000; or Woman’s Destiny. While these were all subversive in their day, very few of them meet the lowest bar of that definition in a modern context.

Instead, I offer you the following list. These are some of my favourite examples of subversive speculative fiction from the last few years (it’s far from exhaustive and in no particular order!).
Lee Murray – Fox Spirit on a Distant Cloud
Claire Coleman – Terra Nullius
Martha Wells – Murderbot Diaries
Ann Leckie – Imperial Radch Trilogy
Nnedi Okorafor – Binti Trilogy
Pip Adam – Audition
Nicky Drayden – The Prey of Gods
Sarah Gailey – Upright Women Wanted
Guy Morpuss – Five Minds
Kathryn Hore – The Stranger
N. K. Jemison – Broken Earth Trilogy
Nicky Lee – Once We Flew
Adrian Tchaikovsky – Children of Time
Tabitha Wood – Dark Winds Over Wellington
Laura Jean McKay – The Animals in that Country
Simon Stephenson – Set My Heart to Five

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Why Speculative Fiction?

6/1/2024

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Human beings, and I expect many our hominid ancestors and relatives, have indulged in sharing speculative fiction for as long as we’ve spoken stories. We created myths and legends to explain the world around us – to rationalise what we saw, felt, heard, tasted, and smelled. We’ve always speculated about things that lie beyond our understanding. It’s in our very nature to ask, ‘What if?’

We love reading speculative fiction. According to Wikipedia – if we ignore religious texts (I have thoughts), comics and textbooks, and add Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings (reportedly over 120 million copies sold in different formats) – 5 of the 8 best-selling books of all time are speculative fiction (and, yes, this is a western-centric assessment).

When we engage with speculative fiction, we’re not just entertained, we’re taken on a journey into the unknown. It allows us to indulge our desire for the extraordinary. It’s an invitation to dream and question.

Speculative fiction offers us an opportunity to interrogate the real world from a safe distance. We can investigate what it means to be human. Most of the stories in ‘Letters From Elsewhere’, my collection of speculative short stories, explore what it means to be monstrous. What better way to do that than from the perspective of a so-called monster. Who was more monstrous – Mary Shelley’s Dr Frankenstein or the monster the he created?

Another favourite character of mine, who offers a unique perspective on humanity, is the cyborg, Murderbot (The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells). Much of Murderbot’s understanding of humanity comes from streaming soap operas, but when they work alongside actual living humans the reality is quite different. Through internal, and often comedic, dialogue, Murderbot provides a running commentary on the dangers of human emotions and how they compromise our motives and behaviours.

Through speculative fiction, we can hold a mirror up to ourselves in a manner that isn’t dangerous or confronting but gets to the truth of who we are. It allows us to confront our deepest fears, desires, hopes and wildest dreams from within the safety of fictitious construct.

Think of how ground-breaking ‘The Left-Hand of Darkness’ (Ursula le Guin) was in challenging the concept of binary sexuality, and ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ (Margaret Atwood) was in exploring the rise of fundamentalism. Both books brutally critiqued society. That’s what speculative fiction can do.

Sometimes, the answer to ‘What if?’ isn’t happy. I wrote ‘Rose Moon’ in response to the election of Trump as President of the USA. I imagined a human world darkened by repression, cruelty, environmental damage, and religious extremism – tragically, that didn’t turn out to be the speculative component of the novella!

In the upcoming ‘Ghost Assassins of Bijou’ collection of novellas, I’m delving into misogyny, repression and the patriarchy. To lighten the tone, I’m telling the stories in the form of a Space Opera with humour woven through the prose. The messages are no less confronting, they’re just delivered in a more palatable package.

In speculative fiction, we can imagine how different environments, technologies, or societies might alter the human experience. Speculative fiction can foster discussion about socio-political issues, encourage diverse thinking and offer concepts for technological innovation. Submarines, space travel, computers, cell phones and virtual reality all featured in speculative fiction before existing in reality.

Speculative fiction taps into our curiosity about the future, the supernatural, and the abstract possibilities that lie just beyond our reach. It’s also fun!

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A Leap

3/1/2024

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It’s a leap year!
An entire extra day to do whatever I want with…except…I’m on a mission.

I’ve received an expression of interest from an Australian publisher of speculative and dark fiction for a five-book series of speculative feminist novellas/short novels. The five manuscripts are to be delivered late 2024, early 2025, for quarterly release. I’m so excited, but also a bit daunted.

One of the novella’s is complete, the second almost half written and the remaining three are planned out. So, I’m on a mission to write like the wind…not the turtle of habitude!

One of the joys of writing them all before delivery, is having the ability to tweak details. I’ll be able to adjust each of the individual stories as the over-arching plot is revealed. It also gives me laser focus on writing to a schedule – something I’m not very disciplined at.

For readers, this approach will guarantee the series is complete. There’s nothing worse than committing to a series only to discover it was never completed. It will also mean the books will be published on a schedule close enough together, so the story remains fresh.

So, my focus is on writing. I’ll still do my best to write a blog at the start of every month, and in between will send out a newsletter (Click on the Contact tab to subscribe).

Wish me luck!

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Getting Your Facts Right

1/31/2024

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I recently read H. P. Lovecraft’s 1936 novella, ‘At the Mountains of Madness’. If you haven’t read it, it’s a science fiction horror story set in Antarctica in the 1930’s. It describes a scientific expedition hit by disaster after the discovery of impossibly old fossils on the icy continent. Not being fond of Lovecraft (I find his writing overwrought and he was a raging racist) this was not a recreational read.

I struggled with much of Lovecraft’s ‘science’ and assumptions of what was possible in that environment, particularly in terms of aviation and human survival. I’m an ex-scientist, who has a professional understanding of the rigours, limitations, and requirements of carrying out research in Antarctica. I understand he wrote according to the knowledge of his time, but he had a deep interest in Antarctic Science of the day. As such, he would’ve had access to articles and reports from Scott’s ventures to the continent some 20 years prior. In addition, aspects of his novella were, in part, based on Byrd’s 1929 scientific endeavours. Byrd, the first person to fly in Antarctica reported his struggle to gain altitude on the Polar Plateau (over 10,000 feet lower than Lovecraft’s intrepid pilots flew!). To give credit where it’s due, Lovecraft embraced the emerging theory of continental drift, a concept considered fringe science in the 1930’s. So, he couldn’t claim to be ignorant of the science of the day, yet he ignored much of it.

My annoyance at Lovecraft’s fanciful exaggeration of what his characters could achieve in Antarctica got me wondering — does speculative fiction need to be factually accurate?

The answer is — not always. If it did, there would be no space for the imagination and the impossible: no monsters, elves, fairies, aliens, warp-drives, teleportation, or magic. Speculative fiction doesn’t need to be scientifically or historically accurate, but it does need to be believable, and any deviations from known truths should be explained. I most definitely do not prescribe to the Write What You Know school of thinking, but I believe writers should do appropriate research when necessary. With such easy access to information, there really is no excuse for making mistakes.

When I wrote the fantasy novel ‘Gods of Fire’ (Currently not available and may never return to the ebookshelves), I set it in the real world in the late 10th and early 11th century. A good chunk of the story took place in Scotland, and it seemed natural to me that the characters would drink whisky. I did some research on the origins of whisky distilling and to my great disappointment found that whisky wasn’t distilled until 1494. My poor characters had to put up with shitty beer and mead.

In my ‘Ghost Assassins of Bijou’ series, I need faster than light travel (FTL) to enable the assassins to travel the known universe. I don’t explain it in any detail, and I don’t have to, because the series sits somewhere between soft science fiction and a space opera. BUT, I did do enough research into the possible physics and mechanics of FTL to enable me to use the correct terminology and have confidence that it wouldn’t sound ridiculous to most readers. If I was writing hard-science fiction, I would expect to include a level of technical information, based on current theories, to keep a space engineer happy.

I think it’s important to know your own limitations. I’m not a great planner and the characters, plot and setting of my stories evolve as I write them. My stories are generally character, then plot driven. The setting, which includes technology, history, society etc, needs to be just enough to make the story believable. I’m just not going to spend a year or more working on the fine details of the technology of a planet or spacecraft. I will never write hard science fiction and I accept that.

If anything, I probably spend too much time on research to the detriment of my writing time. I once spent a day trying to find a word to describe the way a cat’s whisker move forward and spread out when they’re hunting — in the end I wrote “…outstretched whiskers”, it still annoys me I didn’t find something more evocative. Most of the research I do never appears on the page, but what does appear is informed and supported by what I’ve learned.

Sometimes we just don’t know what we don’t know. That’s when we need help. Find a friendly scientist or historian to read your questionable science and history. Don’t be afraid to put out a call on social media for help. I guarantee you, someone you know, or someone they know, knows of a rocket scientist!

So, in the spirit of supporting my fellow writers, get in touch if:

You need help with understanding marine science, general biology, Antarctica, or farming (sheep, beef, deer);
You want some advice on writing good sex scenes, world-building or writing emotion.

If I can help, I will.

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Genre Blending

10/5/2023

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I often blend genres in my stories. I don’t do it to challenge standard conventions of genre, but as an extension of the “What If?” question. What if an elf finds herself in space? What if a Greek god finds herself in Aotearoa? What if pirates are in space and use sex as a weapon, a reward and a negotiation tool?

What is a genre?
Genres began when Aristotle developed an absolute classification for Greek Literature: they’ve evolved.
Today, genre is an ever-expanding way to group books. Genres are used by librarians and booksellers to group books on shelves. They’re also a strong marketing tool and set readers expectations.
Genre fiction can be broken into a multitude of categories, including: comedy; fantasy; science fiction; climate fiction; dystopia; erotica; horror; crime; thriller; historical; romance; western; war; spy; and so on…the list is ever changing.
By blending genres, we create opportunities for new ways to tell stories. For example, science fantasy: where technology and magic coexist, and space opera: where science fiction, fantasy and drama can coexist.

How to blend
It’s important to start with a base genre. At its core what is the plot of your story about? Once the base is established other genres can be overlaid. It’s important that the secondary genres enrich, but don’t overpower the base genre. Each element must play a part in the plot or contribute to character development.
In my collection, Letters From Elsewhere, the story, Moths to the Flame, is at its heart a science fiction story with elements of fantasy, erotica and historical fiction.

Why blend?
Multiple genres can add depth to the plot. Readers don’t want to just know the science in science fiction, they want to know how it impacts the characters. Characters come alive. A detective story is one thing, but what if she’s having to deal with the challenges of being married to a vampire? By blending genres, the world gets bigger. We can create a universe where everything is not as it seems.

But the most important thing is to write a good story. All the genres in the world won’t make up for poor character development, weak world building or a lack of plot.

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Creating A World

9/21/2023

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All forms of writing require some level of world building. This is especially true in speculative fiction. The reader needs to have a sense of the environment within which the story takes place. That environment is wider than just the physical setting, it includes all the trappings of a society: art & culture; food & drink; politics & religion; fashion; science & magic; infrastructure & transport; technology & structures; languages & class structure; flora & fauna; disease; races of humans, monsters & aliens; and rules & laws – amongst other things.

BUT (that’s in capitals because what follows is very important) …all the details of the world you create don’t need to be included in your story. I know it’s tempting to include it all that gritty minutia you spent hours, days and even weeks researching and thinking about, but just don’t. Only include enough to provide a scaffold for your reader’s imagination, context for your characters, and to move the plot forward.

Because I’m a discovery writer (I discover the story as I write it), I don’t do a great deal of world building before I start writing. I’ll just do enough to get me going. My typical approach for developing a world is very organic. I start with the main character. Once I understand who they are and what drives them, I can start to write the plot around them. The final step is to construct the world in which the character and the plot exist. This means my writing is often interrupted by periods of research.

For The Grotesque Wars (novelette in Letters From Elsewhere), I spent a lot of time researching castles. The final story only carries a glimpse of all that research. I’ve included just enough so the reader can picture a castle, but not be bogged down and distracted by in-depth descriptions. I know the exact layout of the castle and even details of the materials used in its construction, but these have no bearing on the story. Specifics, where needed, are woven into the story, rather than dumped in as a chunk of exposition.

In my novella, Rose Moon, the story moves between three realms: a fantasy realm; a human realm; and the realm of the seasons. Each needed sufficient depth and vibrancy to make them real. Most of the action occurs in the human realm, so that’s where I needed the most detail. I had to consider politics, religion, laws, technology, magic and the setting. Then, determine how the realms interacted.

In the above examples, the worlds were built on an earth or earth-like reality, but that’s not always the case. I’m working on a series of space opera novella’s, Ghost Assassins of Bijou, where almost nothing about the series universe is familiar. I’ve had to build almost everything from scratch, but I start with the known.

The assassins and their targets are human, but different races.
Societies are versions of democracy or autocracy.
Religions have distorted to fundamentalism and misogyny.

After that, and because I’m not bound by hard science, I can let my imagination riot.

Spacecraft are mechanically enhanced, sentient cuttlefish-like creatures.
Intergalactic travel is possible via ‘Punch Flight’.
There are multitudes of sentient species other than humans.
Universal translators are glitchy, but exist.

Worlds don’t need to be based in reality, but they do need elements of fundamental truths. Readers need to have something or someone they can identify with or understand.

There’s a whole bunch of stuff I have high confidence writing about: women; sexuality; animals; habitats; politics; and the logistics involved in managing large-scale international projects. There’s a much larger list of things I have less confidence about, including: technology; physics; strategies of war; legal systems; and medical procedures. Those differing levels of confidence will dictate how much research I may need to do, which facets of a world will be more important to my story, and whose perspective the story is being told from. For example, if I have a scene set in a hospital, it will be told from the perspective of a visitor or patient, not from that of a surgeon or staff nurse.

Setting is a critical component of world-building. All too often it’s one dimensional – visual. Add richness with the other senses. The stench of rancid milk evokes an almost involuntary gag reflex in most of us. That first mouthful of rich, bitter coffee in the morning is nirvana to some of us, and repulsive to others. Aromas and flavours are powerful drivers of emotion, as is sound. The mewl of a kitten, the screech of brakes, the scream as you plunge a knife into someone’s stomach. Don’t forget the feel of the warm blood as it splatters on your face, the silk smoothness of the dress you wear, and the irritation of the sand in your eyes. Use all the senses to draw your reader deep into your world.

Finally, it's important to remember that no world is perfect. There will always be dissent, crime, and inhabitants of societies fringes. Recorded history doesn’t always align with reality, it usually suits those who are in power. The same applies to the interpretation of the tenets of religion, think about the difference between a zealot and someone with faith. We’ve bred thornless varieties of lemon trees but left to themselves, they revert. Animal species aren’t meant to be able to interbreed, yet there are numerous examples of hybrids in nature. Don’t limit your world to one dimension – allow it to be full and rich.

Here are some of my favourite worlds.

Pern – Ann McCaffrey
The Dandelion Dynasty – Ken Liu
The Murderbot Diaries – Martha Wells
Binti – Nnedi Okorafor
Discworld – Terry Pratchett

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Writing Feminist Speculative Fiction

Reclaiming the Crone

A Year of Writing with a Critique Group

Monsters From the Deep

Writing the Subversive

Why Speculative Fiction?

A Leap

Getting Your Facts Right

Genre Blending

Creating A World

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