I'd like your opinions on a project I'm thinking of starting
Nancy Lebovitz
>
> Hi. I'd like to get some opinions on something. My
> work schedule may be shortened when the current project ends.
> To make up for this, I'm considering starting a small writing
> service. Comments would be appreciated.
>
> I've been writing amateur sf for a few years, and
> one of my strengths is that I can come up with complete and
> consistent settings and devices. My idea is to help writers
> who are weak on this point. The customer and I would discuss
> what needs to be developed and how much technical detail is
> relevant. I would then do research and write a "science made
> easy" paper, to which the customer could refer. I would not
> require co-authorship; I would only be paid for the report.
>
> I'd like to get some feedback on this idea. Would
> you use such a service? Reasons for and against are most
> welcome.
I'd give you an unqualified maybe on this--I keep reading complaints from
writers about people offering ideas when the writer will never be able to
write fast enough just to enflesh (enfiction?) their _own_ ideas.
On the other hand, there might be a market for people doing scientific
research for sf, though bear in mind that most sf writers make very little
money, and that they seem to build up informal, unpaid research net-
works.
Actually, it's beginning to look to me as though there's no obvious niche
there, but I could be wrong.
There might be more money in designing/researching game universes.
----whirlwind
Michael D. McAfee
Hi. I'd like to get some opinions on something. My
work schedule may be shortened when the current project ends.
To make up for this, I'm considering starting a small writing
service. Comments would be appreciated.
I've been writing amateur sf for a few years, and
one of my strengths is that I can come up with complete and
consistent settings and devices. My idea is to help writers
who are weak on this point. The customer and I would discuss
what needs to be developed and how much technical detail is
relevant. I would then do research and write a "science made
easy" paper, to which the customer could refer. I would not
require co-authorship; I would only be paid for the report.
I'd like to get some feedback on this idea. Would
you use such a service? Reasons for and against are most
welcome.
Thanks.
Michael, the Chaotic
disclaimer: Employers, si! Opinions, no!
Bruce J Bell
Well, I personally wouldn't use such a service, if I were writing sf
(one of the many things I'd like to try "one of these days"), because
scientific/technical/concepts happens to be my strength, as well. But,
I have to admit, there are lots of authors out there who really need
that kind of advice...
The real question is whether you could get them to pay you to do it.
From what I've heard, writing (for most people) tends to be a low-margin
proposition, so I don't think you'll find individuals ready to pay you
much cash.
You might do better talking to a publisher; they might take you on as a
consultant, to work with their authors on upcoming books. In that vein,
you might conceivably do a *lot* better as a movie consultant; besides,
SF movies strike me as needing your advice a lot more than even the most
technically-illiterate books...
Of course, I'm the kind of person who would gladly construct worlds and
societies, or advise people on science, for free...
Just sheer speculation, worth what you paid for it.
Skeeve
jody b
na...@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Nancy Lebovitz) writes:
|>In article <920604180...@sparc2.Prime.COM> m...@sparc2.Prime.COM
(Michael D. McAfee) writes:
|>> I've been writing amateur sf for a few years, and
|>> one of my strengths is that I can come up with complete and
|>> consistent settings and devices. My idea is to help writers
|>> who are weak on this point. The customer and I would discuss
|>> what needs to be developed and how much technical detail is
|>> relevant. I would then do research and write a "science made
|>> easy" paper, to which the customer could refer. I would not
|>> require co-authorship; I would only be paid for the report.
|>Actually, it's beginning to look to me as though there's no obvious niche
|>there, but I could be wrong.
|>There might be more money in designing/researching game universes.
I agree whole-heartedly as a disgruntled gm on this last point, but you
should be willing to go beyond the sf genre.. a well-researched background
and list of suggested ideas helps immensely when gm's are busy fleshing
out their worlds.. also, it always helps being able to have a pre-generated
set of statistics for various things inside of a game system.. so maybe
working on researching sf/history/fantasy possibilities and making believable
assumptions for game companies could work.. still, it might be better to
talk directly with the people at tsr, fasa, sjg, and all those other companies
if you want to try that instead..
__.__.__.__.__
jody...@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu
"I've always been of the opinion that anything can be accomplished given
enough education, effort, and preparation."
John Charles Fiala
"Now, me, if I was good at that, I would write up stuff for GURPS. Steve
Jackson Games has been doing a good job at setting up lots of worldbooks
to cover all sorts of things, and probably would look favorably upon any
suggestion you might make.
"SJG, in case you haven't been looking at them lately, have been coming
out, as I can see, with three different classes of worldbooks.
"One class is the 'general-instruction' worldbook. This is the sort that
Space, Time Travel, and Illuminatus fall in. They provide a large amount
of information about a certain genre of fiction/role playing.
"Another is the 'world' worldbook. This would be such like their 'fantasy',
which is really their fantasy world, and 'terradyne', which is a science
fiction game. This would probably be one of the things you could do well
with... coming up with an entire future society to play in at a further
tech level than the one offered in TerraDyne, which I think is only
intra-solar system. A more far-flung one might be good. Another subset
of this type of worldbook is the liscensed worldbook... like Andre Norton's
WitchWorld, or, Callahans.
"The final type of worldbook that they've been turning out these days are
the historical worldbooks. A worldbook that describes, in detail, a
particular society at a particular time, either for continued roleplaying,
or perhaps for a stop off if time-travelling. This might also be a good
idea, if you feel like working on a past time...
"The final type of book that SJG puts out isn't a worldbook, but more
a rules supplement. The Magic, Psionics, Tech books, and the aliens,
etc, all tend to fall in here."
John hopes that might help.
-john
"God, I need a cherrycoke." -Mage
jf...@andrew.cmu.edu
{ john, you talk too damn much. } - george
*purrrr* - em'ly
Speaker-to-Minerals
StM makes a request. "If you *DO* end up doing that, could you add to your
technical advice that the organization for which I work is called `Caltech,'
and not `CalTech' or `Cal Tech.'? Thanks."
Jim M. Pierce
|> You might do better talking to a publisher; they might take you on as a
|> consultant, to work with their authors on upcoming books. In that vein,
|> you might conceivably do a *lot* better as a movie consultant; besides,
|> SF movies strike me as needing your advice a lot more than even the most
|> technically-illiterate books...
ship in question, you can't hear it or its engines moving through the
vaccuum of space." Linda
"That has made more than one movie a total waste of money for me." NickD.
|> Skeeve
--
pie...@navo.navy.mil Jim Pierce Bach. of Sci. in Applied Comp. Sci.
jmpierce%usmcp6...@vm.tcs.tulane.edu <- guaranteed there Wed. only !
Disclaimer: Standard. "Peckish, Sir ??" a cheese clerk
Michael S. Schiffer
>"Now, me, if I was good at that, I would write up stuff for GURPS. Steve
>Jackson Games has been doing a good job at setting up lots of worldbooks
>to cover all sorts of things, and probably would look favorably upon any
>suggestion you might make.
>"SJG, in case you haven't been looking at them lately, have been coming
>out, as I can see, with three different classes of worldbooks.
>"One class is the 'general-instruction' worldbook.
...
>"Another is the 'world' worldbook.
...
>"The final type of worldbook that they've been turning out these days are
>the historical worldbooks.
"Hmmm... well, _inshallah_, they should be coming out with a
type which is a hybrid of the last two Real Soon Now. A couple
friends of mine and I are in the process of negotiating to do a book
of alternate histories for them as an adjunct to the "Infinite Worlds"
campaign described in GURPS Time Travel. The format should be seven
or eight chapters, each with history, background, maps, character
types and skills, etc, plus an introductory section on how to do an
alternate history.
"It all started back in college, when a couple friends of mine
and I amused ourselves by coming up with histories to explain the
global situation in Supremacy games played at the UC SF Club meetings.
(We are forever indebted to S.M. Stirling for giving us an easy
default to explain a superpower in Africa, though it was sort of hard
luck for the Africa player since once we identified him/her as the
Domination of the Draka, we felt sort of honor-bound to root against
that player. The Draka are a _truly_ unpleasant people.) This led to
a time travel game involving alternate realities, each of which were
color coded, which in turn led to the "Crayola Challenge"-- 64
alternate histories, each identified by one of the crayons in the big
box.
"Then, last year, GURPS Time Travel came out, leading my
friend Ken to say, `You know, Mike, we do all these alternate
histories anyway. Why don't we see if we can get paid for them?'
(Side note: the logic seemed reasonable to me, but there is no
question that we've ended up doing quite a lot of work that we
wouldn't have done coming up with this stuff for our own purposes, the
GURPS mechanics being the primary example, but formatting and editing
have been taking at least as much time.) So, after Ken did some
preliminary inquiries at GenCon, we wrote up the first and second
chapters (intro and first alternate history), and we shipped it off to
SJG.
"I should give special mention to the U.S. Postal `Service'
for nearly torpedoing the deal at this point. We sent our query
letter, sample chapter, releases, etc. to SJG back in November or so,
and waited... and waited... Finally, about a month ago, we sent them
another letter, and they responded saying they'd expressed interest
back in January and had sort of wondered why we were being so slow
about responding. Still, we're back on track (though, *sniff*, they
rejected two of the three worlds which were primarily mine.
Philistines! Heathens! :-) ). Still, it looks like it's going
ahead-- someday, I may find myself made a dozenaire by my gaming
profits. :-) Given that it's still in the _very_ preliminary stages,
though, don't bother looking for it in your gaming store this year."
Michael
--
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS "Indeed I tremble for my country
ms...@midway.uchicago.edu when I reflect that God is just."
mike.s...@um.cc.umich.edu -- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on
ms...@usite-next.uchicago.edu Virginia (1784)
Alfvaen
> In article <bruce.707691887@betwixt>, br...@betwixt.ugcs.caltech.edu
(Bruce J Bell) writes:
> |> You might do better talking to a publisher; they might take you on as a
> |> consultant, to work with their authors on upcoming books. In that
vein,
> |> you might conceivably do a *lot* better as a movie consultant;
besides,
> |> SF movies strike me as needing your advice a lot more than even the
most
> |> technically-illiterate books...
>
> "Yes, please help Hollywood realize that unless you are on the
space/star
> ship in question, you can't hear it or its engines moving through the
>
> "That has made more than one movie a total waste of money for me."
NickD.
"I was critiquing one of Nicole's recent books(not published yet, although
Maxwell-MacMillan expressed interest in an earlier version of it...so it may
be the next one out). At one point, the characters are on a spaceship being
taken to a small asteroid. Now I'd already worked out for her what the
gravity would be on the asteroid, using elementary physics, but I suddenly
realized that there was gravity on the spaceship as well. So I asked her,
'How do they get the gravity on the spaceship? Do they rotate it? Or do
they have artificial gravity? Artificial grav strikes me as a bit ahead of
the technology prevalent in the story...'
"I trailed off at her blank look. 'I never thought of that,' she said. 'I
just kind of assumed they had gravity. They have it on Star Trek...'
"Nicole's never taken physics, that much is obvious. She'd made an
assumption, based on popular media SF...but she didn't know that their
justification for it wouldn't work in her case. Eventually we worked out a
rotating spaceship to provide gravity, and kind of a simplistic design.
Nothing too sophisticated, so there're probably myriad problems with it, but
I'm not an engineer...;-}
"But that's another thing that would be beneficial, for those who want to
use spaceships but know nothing about practical design--spaceship designs
that would at least satisfy modern technological assumptions, and perhaps
modified to include future developments, including artifical grav.
Similarly, for those who want to write fantasy and know nothing about real
medieval-type conditions, some realism bits there wouldn't hurt. A lot of
people would be using the same sets, so to speak, so somebody could make
them realistic, do their research work and give them something basic to work
from."
> |> Skeeve
--
---Alfvaen(a.k.a. Aaron V. Humphrey)
Canadian Network For Space Research, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Her hair spilled out like rootbeer...
Current Album--Eurythmics:Touch
rma...@waikato.ac.nz
> Still, it looks like it's going
> ahead-- someday, I may find myself made a dozenaire by my gaming
> profits. :-) Given that it's still in the _very_ preliminary stages,
> though, don't bother looking for it in your gaming store this year."
>
> Michael
>
have any ca$h at the time). GURPS is my current fave system, and Time
Travel is one of my fave concepts (though I haven't got the book yet, them
$$ again) so your effort will go on my 'must buy' list as soon as it
appears. Say, if we ever get together in RL sometime, could I get you to
autograph it?"
--
Robert 'Stumpy' Marsh | 95 Fairfield Rd | I can't reply to E-Mail, but
rma...@waikato.ac.nz | Hamilton | don't let that stop you sending.
+64 7 855 4406 | New Zealand |
Michael S. Schiffer
> "Well, you can bet that you'll have at least one buyer for it (assuming I
>have any ca$h at the time). GURPS is my current fave system, and Time
>Travel is one of my fave concepts (though I haven't got the book yet, them
>$$ again) so your effort will go on my 'must buy' list as soon as it
>appears. Say, if we ever get together in RL sometime, could I get you to
>autograph it?"
"Oh, gosh, you know, I have so _many_ autograph sessions. I
suppose I can do my best to squeeze you in, but no guarantees...
( :-) :-) :-) :-) )
"Seriously, assuming you manage to get out to Chicago (where I
hope to be by the time the book is published, though that depends on
getting a job...) I can pretty much guarantee autographs by two of the
three co-authors. (The third is currently in St. Louis, Missouri, and
will be going to grad school in Minneapolis, Minnesota, both a few
hundred miles from Chicago, so that one would be trickier.)
"In any case, thanks for the enthusiasm-- one of my little
worries has been that we'd finish it, put it on the market, and watch
as they became permanent fixtures in the gaming store inventories.
`Sold another one today.' `Cool! That makes ten this year.' :-)"
Paul A. Estin
>'How do they get the gravity on the spaceship? Do they rotate it? Or do
>they have artificial gravity? Artificial grav strikes me as a bit ahead of
>the technology prevalent in the story...'
>
>"I trailed off at her blank look. 'I never thought of that,' she said. 'I
>just kind of assumed they had gravity. They have it on Star Trek...'
>
>"Nicole's never taken physics, that much is obvious. She'd made an
>assumption, based on popular media SF...but she didn't know that their
>justification for it wouldn't work in her case.
What *is* the standard Star Trek justification for gravity in the
ship? And is it ever explained in the actual shows/movies, or is it
'fan knowledge' from somewhere else?
(I'm just curious, not picky. For reasons *why* I don't get picky
about Star Trek, see my post over in rec.arts.comics about standards
for future histories. In brief, though: It's Star Trek, not SF.)
-----
"Left hook, jab. Right cross, combination. Uppercut."
"Mister, where I come from, them's fightin' words."
--Cowboy Wally's Rough-up Theater
Paul Andrew Estin, net.Snark, r.a.c Welcome Poster, HoloMuck Chancellor,
Fellow of the Clementine Society, UCSFC First Consul/ Keeper of the Slinky
HEART: es...@midway.uchicago.edu [new address forthcoming]
HOME/ es...@csmil.umich.edu 214 Beakes St. Ann Arbor, MI 48104 313-769-4826
WORK: es...@um.cc.umich.edu 330 Packard Rd. 48104
Jonathan Gardner
>In article <bruce.707691887@betwixt>, br...@betwixt.ugcs.caltech.edu (Bruce J Bell) writes:
>|> You might do better talking to a publisher; they might take you on as a
>|> consultant, to work with their authors on upcoming books. In that vein,
>|> you might conceivably do a *lot* better as a movie consultant; besides,
>|> SF movies strike me as needing your advice a lot more than even the most
>|> technically-illiterate books...
Just be prepared to be frustrated. They might even pay you, but they won't
listen to you. Charles Beichman, an astronomer I respect, and a graduate of
the same august institution from which God and my committee willing I hope
to graduate, was listed as the technical advisor to Star Trek ... uh
... don't flame me ... V, I think, you know, the one where they went
to the center of the galaxy and did a bunch of silly things? Well, the
science in that was pretty bad, obviously Dr. B. had nothing to do with
that.
But the money in movies is pretty good.
The Space Cadet
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jon Gardner gar...@hale.ifa.hawaii.edu
Institute for Astronomy University of Hawaii
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Alfvaen
> What *is* the standard Star Trek justification for gravity in the
> ship? And is it ever explained in the actual shows/movies, or is it
> 'fan knowledge' from somewhere else?
>
> (I'm just curious, not picky. For reasons *why* I don't get picky
> about Star Trek, see my post over in rec.arts.comics about standards
> for future histories. In brief, though: It's Star Trek, not SF.)
"I seem to recall that in the animated series(which may or not be considered
canon)that there was at least one episode where the artificial gravity on
the ship was disabled, and hence everybody got to float around for a while.
So they actually have artificial gravity generators. Anybody trekkie enough
to have specs for the ship? Are they listed somewhere?
"I don't think they did anything with it in the 'real' show, because a) the
effects would've been much too expensive, and b) they probably didn't think
there was anything wrong with gravity on a ship anyway, since even the
derelicts had gravity..."
--
---Alfvaen(a.k.a. Aaron V. Humphrey)
Canadian Network For Space Research, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Her hair spilled out like rootbeer...
Current Album--Prince:Controversy
Michael S. Schiffer
>"I don't think they did anything with [losing artificial gravity] in the 'real' show, because a) the
>effects would've been much too expensive, and b) they probably didn't think
>there was anything wrong with gravity on a ship anyway, since even the
>derelicts had gravity..."
"It's clear that the Federation designs starships so that the very last
things to go are a) the bridge camera and b) the gravity, in that
order. Ships can lose weapons, life support, warp drive, and shields,
and still survive. But if the bridge camera is failing, they're
pretty much doomed ("Enterprise... help... giant [sssss] green
[*crackle*] ice... cubes..." [*WEEAAOOooww* ... fade...] "Sir, we've
lost their transmission."), and the only way to destroy it completely
is for the ship to explode. The artificial gravity generator is
somewhat better protected than the black boxes in our major airliners,
and apparently powered by starlight and good wishes, since ships with
no fuel, engines, or maintenance crews can maintain their fields
indefinitely." :-)