@stephenwhq@mastodon.social
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stephenwhq

@[email protected]

Warm intelligent accessible #SFF Our Child of the Stars/Our Child of Two Worlds. #writer

#Free #fiction on website and smart #newsletter.

Bi, parent, humane, "writes beautifully" I'm told. UK/the world.
I help writers with their writing

craft and business of writing/ science health policy/ professional communicator

Profile photo: genial white bearded guy grey hair and beard, in shirt with braces UK suspenders (USA)

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NickEast, to writing
@NickEast@geekdom.social avatar

What, to you, is the most important ingredient to a great story? 🤔

@writers @writingcommunity @writing


stephenwhq,
@stephenwhq@mastodon.social avatar

@NickEast @writers @writingcommunity @writing

Stories have multiple ingredients. Pure character, pure setting or pure idea are not stories on their own.

stephenwhq,
@stephenwhq@mastodon.social avatar

@NickEast @writers @writingcommunity @writing

Theoretically, in the next month, which is more important. Getting any food, any water, or any air?

In 5 minutes, air is the most important, by 5 days water becomes equally important, in a month, so does food.

But in a sense a story needs characters, so gun to head, characters - because they imply setting and their needs will create the plot.

clayrivers, to blackmastodon
@clayrivers@mastodon.world avatar

💛 “Exploring the Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Social Justice”

Is AI humanity’s Prometheus moment?
–Jesse Wilson

#AI #ArtificialIntelligence #SocialJustice

@BigAngBlack
@blackmastodon
@BlackMastodon

https://www.ohfweekly.org/impact-of-ai/

18+ stephenwhq,
@stephenwhq@mastodon.social avatar

@BigAngBlack @Robotron @clayrivers @blackmastodon @BlackMastodon

It stands for arsehole imperialism

drinkswriter, to writers
@drinkswriter@epicure.social avatar

Working on a idea for a change and could do with help for a pregnancy timeline.

Young couple - just kids really - fool about and she gets pregnant. Let's say that's late summer, end of harvest maybe.

I need to figure out:

  • How soon she realises
  • How long she keeps it hidden
  • How quickly the parents can arrange a wedding for these only-just-old-enough kids to preserve some social standing

For context, this is 1890s, small town in Northern England.

@writers

stephenwhq,
@stephenwhq@mastodon.social avatar

@drinkswriter @writers

A wedding could be organised quickly, the legal requirement was for banns to be read 3 consecutive weeks.

Not well informed young women can be pregnant for a while before they realise, hence 'I didn't know until I went into labour' stories. Or wise gran might have her waiting for missed periods. Suppose she showed at 20 weeks. In rural & working class areas, a wedding at 24 weeks with a careful choice of clothing wouldn't be unusual. Kid legally 'legitimate'.

duanetoops, to bookstodon
@duanetoops@mstdn.party avatar

This is the third time Samuel Johnson has come across my path recently. It's clear the universe is shaming me for having not read him.

https://booksthatmadeus.substack.com/p/you-can-never-be-wise-until-you-learn

@bookstodon

stephenwhq,
@stephenwhq@mastodon.social avatar

@duanetoops @bookstodon

He is fabulously quotable, sometimes really reactionary, sometimes brilliantly on point. Or just nasty-but-funny. He attacked women preaching because a woman, a Quaker, challenged him on the Bible and didn't bow down to his genius.

On the other hand he was scathing about slavery and once called for a toast 'to the next slave revolt!' and gave us 'noone cries louder about liberty than the drivers of [enslaved people].'

ChrisMayLA6, to bookstodon
@ChrisMayLA6@zirk.us avatar

This week I've been mainly reading, no. 108.

Ave Barrera's The Forgery (2013/2022) is a Mexican caper story about an forced to complete a forgery as part of an inheritance fraud. But by the end its unclear (perhaps purposefully) whether the narrator has experienced imprisonment & exploitation by a violent & rich mastermind, or whether its all a fever dream brought on by a hand injury (turning to sepsis). While quite enjoyable its also finally unsatisfying as a novel.

@bookstodon

stephenwhq,
@stephenwhq@mastodon.social avatar

@ChrisMayLA6 @muirinnmac @bookstodon

There's an authority in writing which makes people disposed to trust the author on the world. Even among some, not all, people who are not uncustomed to reading SFF. The same authority in the historical writer Mary Renault, who I rate massively.

stephenwhq, to bookstodon
@stephenwhq@mastodon.social avatar

So a dilemma. A book with a great premise, written with panache, should be in my love zone, by a small press I admire.... doesn't land for me.

I don't particularly like posting meh reviews, unless they're big authors who can take it. It has a hefty number of reviews which really like it. And I'm not an edgelord who just wants to be a contrarian.

So, do I give it a three stars review for trying.

@bookstodon

stephenwhq,
@stephenwhq@mastodon.social avatar

@Arlenecw @bookstodon

Thanks. I think I am wanting to write same premise but better.

duanetoops, to bookstodon
@duanetoops@mstdn.party avatar

Community is so neglected, perhaps not by everyone, but especially by me. How many creative blocks could have been undone, or avoided all together if I could manage to be good company?

@bookstodon

stephenwhq,
@stephenwhq@mastodon.social avatar

@duanetoops @bookstodon

It's fascinating to me the gaps in any community between "this is what the community owes me" and "this is what I personally want to do for the community"

stephenwhq,
@stephenwhq@mastodon.social avatar

@kwheaton @duanetoops @bookstodon

Essentially that defined community for me

I've been involved in communities which appoint people to focus the caring for others and where, objectively, that made those people hyper burdened although their needs were no less and sometimes greater than those they needed to help

appassionato, to bookstodon
@appassionato@mastodon.social avatar

Language, Thought and Reality
Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf

The pioneering linguist Benjamin Whorf (1897–1941) grasped the relationship between human language and human thinking: how language can shape our innermost thoughts. His basic thesis is that our perception of the world and our ways of thinking about it are deeply influenced by the structure of the languages we speak.

@bookstodon



stephenwhq,
@stephenwhq@mastodon.social avatar

@ppscrv @jk @appassionato @bookstodon
@linguistics

I can't help wondering if using the same my for 'my wife' and 'my boot' has an effect.

The research paper should be rerun with people whose first and second languages are the opposite pairing. To fnd if the effect is simply 'thinking in a second language'

stephenwhq, to bookstodon
@stephenwhq@mastodon.social avatar

I have just sent out my little newsletter.

It includes why my novella is kicking my butt, details of my Media Masterclasses, important chutney updates, and why further updates on the novel I keep talking about on here will be in next months issue...

Back issues and subscribe here (get free short story)

https://tinyletter.com/stephen_cox

@bookstodon

rabbit_fighter, to bookstodon
@rabbit_fighter@mastodon.world avatar

@bookstodon I'm looking for book recommendations for an 11yo who reads at a much more advanced level. He likes sci-fi. He has read the Hitchhiker's Guide series and loved them. I think he would enjoy some more 'hard' sci-fi as well. He needs something challenging but without subject matter that is too mature. Thanks for any help!

stephenwhq,
@stephenwhq@mastodon.social avatar

@DarkMatterZine @Hippasus500 @rayckeith @rabbit_fighter @bookstodon

We can do better than Asimov., and Asimov could do a lot better than the Robot and Foundation stories.

GrittyLipids, to bookstodon
@GrittyLipids@c.im avatar

So in Confederation America (1780s) there was the Anarchiad, a satiric epic poem that for the most part is tedious because I’m not into that kind of literature.

However, there are chunks of it motivated by extremely Confederation problems, like fighting over whether or not paper money should be accepted and/or states should be able to issue their own.

@histodons
@bookstodon

https://quod.lib.umich.edu/a/amverse/BAD5699.0001.001?rgn=main;view=fulltext

stephenwhq,
@stephenwhq@mastodon.social avatar

@GrittyLipids @histodons @bookstodon

On one issue, the Confederate States were absolutely against states rights. Slavery was mandated in every state, and every terretory controlled by the Confederacy, it could not be abolished by any State means, and full complicance with enforcing it was required. I think it emphasised only black people could be slabes. Everyone who says the Confederacy would have quietly got rid of slavery if left alone is talking out of their fundaments.

annaleen, to random
@annaleen@wandering.shop avatar

If I were going to write a cultural history of monogamy, I think I would argue that humans have a history of religions and philosophies that idealize monogamy. But the majority of humans themselves have never been monogamous in practice.

stephenwhq,
@stephenwhq@mastodon.social avatar

@annaleen

patriarchal monogamy is about a chance of a wife for low status men. (and lots of other things);

janbartosik, to fantasy
@janbartosik@witter.cz avatar

Fatherland by Robert Harris

A Goodreads link, this time only: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56842.Fatherland

Alt history fan's must-read.
There are 1984, 2001 and 2022 movies about a certain event in which are related and worth watching.

@bookwyrm @bookstodon @fantasy

stephenwhq,
@stephenwhq@mastodon.social avatar

@charles222a203 @janbartosik @bookwyrm @bookstodon @fantasy

There's a series of novels where the Nazis do to Africa what they also do to Jews.

stephenwhq,
@stephenwhq@mastodon.social avatar

@charles222a203 @janbartosik @bookwyrm @bookstodon @fantasy

not Harris. Fatherland is a standard alone if i remember correctly.

The book is the Afrika Reich by Guy Saville. It didn't strike me as particularly good though.

stephenwhq, to bookstodon
@stephenwhq@mastodon.social avatar

Eliza Chan's cover reveal for Fallowfolk (Orbit)

The book is out in Feb 2024

@bookstodon

Deglassco, to blackmastodon
@Deglassco@mastodon.social avatar

On July 15, 1944, in Bristol England, the "Park Street Riot" occurred as 400 Black soldiers confronted 120 MPs over pub access. Observers later recounted that locals rooted for the Black troops. Like the Battle of Bamber Bridge a year earlier, this event underscored the racism Black troops faced as well as the disconnect between how they were treated overseas vs in their own country.

1/

@blackmastodon @BlackMastodon

stephenwhq,
@stephenwhq@mastodon.social avatar

@Deglassco @blackmastodon @BlackMastodon

very sound. the UK had racism, but not racist laws by and large. As a Bristol schoolboy we were taught nothing of this but 'folk memory' is that we were grateful for the black soldiers but the more honest old people said interracial relationhips caused issues. Some pubs famously barred white soldiers when told to discriminate. i'm grateful for this expansion of my home city's history

Private
stephenwhq,
@stephenwhq@mastodon.social avatar

@AnnieTheBook @libraries @librarians

his fiction is fiction and his theology/commentary etc is not. We don't keep Alice in Wonderland next to Caroll's maths textbooks?

Private
stephenwhq,
@stephenwhq@mastodon.social avatar

@andreaslindholm @CommonMugwort @lunalein @bookstodon

I am fascinated by people who think the solution to thinking like people in the future, is to write either more like people did in 1940 or 1840. FWIW I don't recognise the criticism of books published now as universally true.

stephenwhq,
@stephenwhq@mastodon.social avatar

@andreaslindholm @CommonMugwort @lunalein @bookstodon

I'm 60, and I have moved on from some (not all) the writers I admired. New science fiction and fantasy are going to new places. Some of it is tropey - lots of the old stuff was too - but not all of it. You're missing out.

Also, if some stuff is aimed at young women, read it.

BTW Hunger Games talked about state violence and media complicity at a time when 'grownup books' were 'Oh, sleep with my pilates instructor, or not?'

stephenwhq,
@stephenwhq@mastodon.social avatar

@lunalein @CommonMugwort @andreaslindholm @bookstodon

agree.

stephenwhq,
@stephenwhq@mastodon.social avatar

@andreaslindholm @sentient_water @lunalein @CommonMugwort

Ursula Le Guin described
J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series as "stylistically ordinary, imaginatively derivative, and ethically rather mean-spirited." Fair.

I'd add with some of the chonkiest worldbuilding in history.

They were enormously important to my kids generation, they got people reading, I read them aloud at bedtime, and she needed an editor.

@bookstodon

stephenwhq,
@stephenwhq@mastodon.social avatar

@meshell @lunalein @bookstodon

While scientists who don't talk feelings and scientists who don't need other people much happen, so does the opposite.

Alan Turing was described as 'rather good company' by Alan Garner who knew him, and he suffered no issues at his work after his arrest, which accepted him back without question.

Private
stephenwhq,
@stephenwhq@mastodon.social avatar

@lunalein @bookstodon

I threw a Gore Vidal novel from a train once. Some of his work, I liked.

franciscawrites, (edited ) to bookstodon
@franciscawrites@mastodon.scot avatar

Books make the world better.
This week I'll be posting about some of my favorite books YA, their covers and their fabulous opening lines.

“The island of Gont, a single mountain that lifts its peak a mile above the storm-racked Northeast Sea, is a land famous for wizards”
-A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin

@bookstodon

stephenwhq,
@stephenwhq@mastodon.social avatar

@Penguinflight @franciscawrites @bookstodon

let's be clear, an orphan raised by an aunt, who runs into entitled aristocrats at his wizard school, and causes havoc by taking them on.

although very different and of course, much better

Private
stephenwhq,
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@DavidTomashek @lunalein @bookstodon She is a wonderful author, I preferred The Daughter of Doctor Moreau because pure gothic horror is not wholly my bag.

stephenwhq,
@stephenwhq@mastodon.social avatar

@lunalein @Funktious @bookstodon
It's Regency, not Victorian.
And it's very impressive.

stephenwhq,
@stephenwhq@mastodon.social avatar

@DavidTomashek @lunalein @bookstodon
me too.

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