It is with optimism and a sense of childlike wonder that TANSTAAFL Press flings open the door of 2021! With vaccinations on the horizon, it is looking like conventions will start up again sometime in the summer or fall. TANSTAAFL Press intends to be there to greet our long distanced friends, fans, and family! We miss you! And while we do miss you as customers, we care for you more as people and how you feed us with your enthusiasm! It is sometimes the only thing that pushes us through the tough days.

And, for those who are interested in our books, we have not been idle. Bruce Graw has The Gremlin of Morningside Heights, the sequel to Faerie of Central Park, almost complete. Thomas Gondolfi is well into the second book of the “Monarchy of America” steampunk series. We intend to have both of these at GenCon this year.

Welcome back to my count up list of SciFi movies. I left off with some massive ties at #18. I’ve realized my rounding to a single decimal space is problematic and causing many ties. SOooooo, I’m going to make some minor tweaks to the numbers to put one over the other in the ties.

# 28 – Young Frankenstein – Rating 7.8

What can I say about this classic laughfest? It is a riot. “Walk this way.” “What nice knockers.” “You made a yummy sound.” “Be careful of the taffeta, darling.” The entire movie is a comedy gem!

#29 – 2001 & 2010 – Rating 7.8

I probably will be abused for this but I preferred 2010 to the original Stanley Kubrick film. The original seemed too psychedelic and pointless. The second one actually went somewhere while keeping the cannons of the first movie.  Standing ovation.

#30 – Omega Man – Rating 7.8

An old movie that most reading this have not seen. It is the movie that “I am Legend” is remade from. If you watch this movie, remember its timeframe. Yes, the special effects aren’t great, but the inner turmoil of the man is much clearer in this movie than its remake.

#31 – I am Legend – Rating 7.8

OK, the difference between them is small. I loved both movies.

#32 – 28 Days Later – Rating 7.8

Looks like I’ve lumped a bucketload of zombie movies (and I HATE zombie movies) in among the better movies I have. In fact the other one on my list isn’t that far down. I don’t know why this one seems better than others, but it felt more real to me.

#33 – Outland – Rating 7.8

Sean Connery as a cop in space. What more do you need to say? The setting was incredible and I loved how he used it to his advantage.  Wonderful watch.

#34 – Super 8 – Rating 7.8

I’m normally not a kid movie kind of person. They are always doing stupid stuff and somehow saving the day from their own idiocy. This one felt different as they didn’t spawn the problem but they helped solve it with empathy.

#35 – Robocop – Rating 7.7

Badass cyberpunk from the word go. Police departments being purchased like commodities. <cough> Not at all like us buying jail space from private contractors, is it? Ok, the acting is cartoonish but really speaks to me on an instinctual level.

#36 – I, Robot – Rating 7.6

Asimov translated to modern era. I had problems with some of the science and the drama wasn’t quite there. The movie really wasn’t sure if it wanted to be a comedy or a drama. If they had taken out Will Smith (don’t get me wrong, I like him) but put in a more serious actor in his place then I think it would have been a better movie.

#37 – Apollo 13 – Rating 7.6

OK, the ONLY place this movie falls down is that you know the ending before you even see the movie. Every other category is spot on! Honestly, I didn’t know my history well enough to know the ending, so when I watched this for the first time I was glued to my seat.

#38 – Ready Player One – Rating 7.5

This movie gets and exceptional rating even after I read the book (which was fabulous)! It brought the visuals that the book lacked. It brought humanization (even in VR) to the main character that the book lacked. OK, the movie took some serious liberties with the book, but kept its essence.

#39 – Warm Bodies – Rating 7.5

Wow, a romantic comedy zombie movie. Who’da thunk it?  Loved it. While it falls down as horror, it certainly holds up everywhere else.

#40 – The Truman Show – Rating 7.5

I will say, despite Jim Carrey, I wasn’t expecting much of this movie when I saw it the first time. But it sucked me in like a vacuum cleaner on high. Couldn’t turn away. A single person as the focus of a 24/7 show just is brilliant. Reality TV at its finest.

#41 – Ender’s Game – Rating 7.5

A journeyman’s attempt at capturing the book.

#42 – John Wick – Rating 7.5

Loved the dark action scenes. Humor fell flat.

#43 – Altered States – Rating 7.5

A psychedelic attempt to find the meaning of life, and no, it’s not 42.

#44 – District 9 – Rating 7.5

Wanted to love this one more. I think the humor in it fell a bit flat.

#45 – Pixels – Rating 7.5

Again, loved the concept. Felt the execution didn’t quite make it.

#46 – War of the Worlds (Tom Cruise version) – Rating 7.5

#47 – Ex Machina – Rating 7.4

This movie tried to do too much and the horror portion of it fell flat.

#48 – Minority Report – Rating 7.4

Enjoy it as a fast action romp. Ignore anything that resembles science. Interesting twist on time travel.

#49 – Ghostbusters – Rating 7.3

Laugh your ass off with this mindless comedy!

#50 – Escape from New York (first movie only) – Rating 7.3

“Aren’t you dead?” First movie is this rating. The others all fell WAY down the board and.. frankly OFF the board.

#51 – Oblivion – Rating 7.3

Too many inconsistencies to make this a truly great movie.

#52 – Star Wars – Rating 7.2

Finally we reach one of the iconic movie franchises in the history of film making. If I rated ONLY the first movie (episode IV), it would be up around a 9, maybe even as high as a perfect 10 for its era. If I rated the first three movies (Episodes IV-VI) It would be maybe 8.5ish. But as a franchise it probably doesn’t even deserve 7.2. Consistency is a problem, as is reusing plots and plot devices. I stopped caring what happened to any of the characters.

#53 – Andromeda Strain – Rating 7.2

Bet you didn’t know there were three versions of this movie. The book is by far better than any of the three movies and they all had their good and bad points. Each of them hovered near this rating. Each different, not just a complete rehash.

#54 – Jericho – Rating 7.0

I am a sucker for post-apocalyptic fiction/movies that are done right. I found this series really close. If they had left out the g’damned government conspiracy/spy crap it would have zoomed up the charts. Which reminds me, if you are a reader and like post-nuclear war stuff, try Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank. You have to deal with the outdatedness of it, but it really works well.

#55 – Death Race and Death Race 2000 – Rating 7.0

I think I liked DR2000 a bit more for its camp value. Acting sucked, but I loved the dark humor.

#56 – Judge Dredd – Rating 7.0

#57 – Flash Gordon – Rating 7.0

Campfest!

#58 – Heavy Metal– Rating 7.0

#59 – The Last Starfighter– Rating 7.0

Everyone as a kid dreamed of this.

#60 – The Matrix– Rating 7.0

#61 – Total Recall– Rating 7.0

Still haven’t gotten to Star Trek or Dr. Who and we are down to #61. How disappointing, but I’ll describe details in a later version.

I don’t know why, but recently I Googled “Best Science Fiction Movies.” I really wondered if I’d missed something. There are many folks out there who give us their views. I guess it is my turn.

This will be a multi-part post. This one will contain choices from 1 to 11.

Instead of counting toward the best, I’m going to change up and give you my favorite movies from the best down… at some point, I’ll just trail off. Note that I’ve lumped franchises together, so if I say, Terminator, for example, I mean all of the terminator movies unless I give some specific exceptions.

Rating system: I rate all movies on Science, Action, Humor, Horror, Drama, Twists, and Consistency. I average all of the pieces that are primarily being filmed and average them. All of my ratings will be on a scale from 1-10, 10 being the best.

Drumroll… My favorite science fiction movie of all time is (4-way tie for first place):

#1 A Man from Earth – Rating 9

This movie, which you probably have never even heard of, did so poorly at the box office that I never even heard of it until I stumbled upon it on Netflix (I don’t believe it is there any longer)
It has no special effects at all. It has no action. It isn’t set in the future. The entire movie two sets, and contains nothing more than people talking.
This is the epitome of a thinking person’s science fiction.

#1 Gattaca – Rating 9

This one’s rating surprised me. I rewatch movies often and pick movies other than this. But when I honestly filled in my numbers for each of the categories, I realized how much this film meant to me. It is an uncomfortable watch, like Schindler’s List. It may be awesome, but it doesn’t mean you want to batter yourself with that discomfort often.
The prejudice that could come, and is already coming, from our DNA is incredible. Prophetic Scifi at its best.

#1 The Sixth Sense – Rating 9

Anyone who knows me will know I don’t understand the horror genre. I do understand suspense, and this movie has it in bucketloads. I’m also a sucker for a twist ending.
While Bruce Willis isn’t known for his exceptional acting range, he stretched here and came away with a winner. That isn’t to take away from his costars. Everyone made this movie work.

#1 Wall-E – Rating 9

What can I say that you almost certainly don’t already know? The humor in this movie is top-notch. There were enough twists to make my heart sing, and it made me feel hope, even out of despair. My top feel-good film.

Coming in at #5 – (I sound like Casey Kasem “And here is a beauty that stayed at #5 for ten long weeks on our charts…”)

#5 Scott Pilgrim vs. The World – Rating 8.8

Wow, another surprise rating and for a movie that isn’t pure science fiction/fantasy by any stakes. It does blur the lines.
Scott Pilgrim is a fun romp that pokes fun at video games, dating, sexual preference, vegans, and more. During the whole time, it is wrapped in this joyful wrapper of youth.
Oh, don’t expect stellar acting, in fact, that would negate most of its charm, but the film is so fun that you can’t help but enjoy it.

There is a five-way tie for #6.

#6 Battle Los Angeles – Rating 8.5

While I’ve never served in our armed forces, I do know a number of people who have. This movie spoke to me like real combat. It also felt like what an alien invasion, if it didn’t completely overwhelm us from technology that is too advanced, would feel like.
Gritty. More action than you can pack into a claymore mine, and high stakes that didn’t feel like they were utterly overwhelming. And, as it was aliens, there were a number of tasty twists in there to keep me hooked for the whole movie. Might have gotten more if it wasn’t too sappy around the father and kid.

#6 Cloverfield – Rating 8.5

Like its counterpart above, this is an alien invasion that overwhelms our ability to respond. As a kaiju movie, I like the “Blair Witch Project” filming of the entire escape of the civilians. Action galore and wrapped up the horror of those unknowns.

#6 Jurassic Park – Rating 8.5

The entire franchise is a rollercoaster ride of action. I mean, you know you are going to get dinosaurs eating people, but why are the people so stupid (read that word as GREEDY) THIS time? The special effects are incredible. The science is there to back it up. And one of the best pieces is the consistency from movie to movie – not just in actors but in not tramping on the traditions previously created.

#6 The Thirteenth Floor – Rating 8.5

Another movie many people haven’t seen. This movie lives and dies on its twists and turns, so I can’t reveal too much without giving it away. Needless to say, once you see it, you will immediately compare it to a movie I have ranked down in the 50s or 60s. This one is a vastly superior breed. Get it. You won’t be disappointed.

#6 Next – Rating 8.5

I’m probably going to catch a great deal of heat on this one. I mean Nicholas Cage?  Really? But the movie itself is a masterpiece. What would a man’s life be like if he could see two minutes in the future, or more under certain circumstances? He would have to stay under the radar screen or be put into a government cell with doctors poking him with sharp needles – forever.

That concludes my top eleven choices. I’ll post later on more great movies and how I rank them. I’ve already thrown in a couple you probably never heard of, so who knows when I’ll throw more weirdness into the mix.

by William Cook

This is the fifth in a six-week blog tour series for the Northwest Independent Writers Association. You can catch up with them at https://www.niwawriters.com/

How many times have you cursed the autocorrect function on your phone because it wouldn’t let you text what you wanted to? It was anticipating your next move, and it was wrong. And that’s what the brain does when it comes to self-editing. It anticipates what should be there, so we often don’t see what really is there. It deletes the repeated article or adds the missing one, corrects the misspelling or the verb tense. The brain does all this in secret—we’re none the wiser. True story: my first novel had been published for two years before I saw the typo on the back cover blurb, a page I had probably read a hundred times.

Self-editing is a perilous undertaking. Who knows what mistakes are lurking in this little blog before you now, ready to leap out to a total stranger on her first read, while they’ve remained hidden to me after three dozen reads? Only the shadow knows.

First, some clarifications. The kind of editing I’ve been talking about is copy editing, which shares some territory with proofreading. Copy editing looks at the use of language, verb tenses, sentence structure, and grammar, as well as the common proofreading things like proper use of punctuation, capitalization, typos, and repeated or missing words. Before we can plunge into copy editing, however, we have to engage in developmental editing. This means examining your novel in terms of character or plot inconsistencies, factual or temporal errors, problems with point of view, pacing, and dialogue. It answers the primary question: does this story work? Good editing, self- or otherwise, is an enormous undertaking.

Why is such a daunting enterprise important? Because before your readers get caught up in your mesmerizing plot, they’re going to see your editing. They will notice the misspellings, the incorrect homophones, the missing or repeated words, the overuse or underuse of commas, the poor grammar. Personally, I find nothing so discouraging as opening a new book by an independent author on my Kindle and finding several typos within the first twenty pages. Errors like that pull me away from the story, distract me from the nuances of plot and characterization. I start looking for more mistakes rather than allowing myself to be swept away by the narrative. Of course, I try to be forgiving. (What do they say about people who live in glass houses?) But it’s the accumulation of these small errors that takes its toll. It makes an independent author look like an amateur, somehow second-class when compared with a writer who is traditionally published. It may lead to a tepid or even nasty review on Amazon or Goodreads, before your reader has been able to appreciate your quirky plot twists, your marvelous character portrayals, your riveting action sequences. It may torpedo future sales.

Here’s a short list of little mistakes that drive an obsessive like me crazy—definitely my fingernails-down-a-blackboard kind of stuff. Of course, I make these flubs myself, and you may find several in these few paragraphs. (Oh, God, I hope not!)

1. Using the wrong case for a personal pronoun. “He blamed you and I for the failure of his company.” Should be “you and me,” direct objects of the verb “blamed.” The easiest way to catch this one is to split the pronouns apart. We’d never say, “He blamed I for the failure of his company.”
2. Using the wrong homophone (words that have the same pronunciation but different meanings and/or spellings. “Peek, peak, and pique; its and it’s; your and you’re; there, their, and they’re; to, two, and too.”
3. Omitting or repeating an article or other word. “Woman left in the Uber,” instead of “The woman left in the Uber.” “She left the the tablet on the counter.”
4. Neglecting to use the possessive when modifying a gerund (a verb form used as a noun). “Do you mind me taking the last cupcake?” Should be, “Do you mind my taking the last cupcake?”
5. Stringing two independent clauses together without any punctuation (a run-on sentence) or with only a comma (a comma splice). “He raced to the airport, she was waiting for him at the ticket counter.” There are several correct options for this one. We can make it two separate sentences. “He raced to the airport. She was waiting for him at the ticket counter.” We can join the independent clauses with a comma and the conjunction “and.” “He raced to the airport, and she was waiting for him at the ticket counter.” We can connect them with a semicolon. “He raced to the airport; she was waiting for him at the ticket counter.” We can re-structure the sentence into an independent clause and a dependent clause. “He raced to the airport, where he found her waiting at the ticket counter.”

That’s just a small sample of a list which includes the correct use of quotation marks (which is actually different in the U.S. and the U.K.!), proper capitalization, the pesky little em dash, and on and on.

Obviously, it makes sense to hire a professional editor, if you can afford one. Short of that, there are other strategies you can employ. First, read, re-read, re-re-read, and re-re-re-read your manuscript, both digitally and on paper. NEVER neglect to order a proof copy of your paperback. Proofing it only digitally doesn’t cut it—you’ll see things on paper that you completely missed on the screen. And since our editing ability gets worse when we’re tired, try reading your book from the last chapter to the first, starting at the end while you’re still fresh, before the fatigue sets in.

The other main strategy for good self-editing is not to go it alone. Join specialty groups. The Northwest Independent Writers Association has a Facebook group that can be very helpful. On the group’s public website, Connie J. Jasperson has been writing a blog called “Making Effective Revisions.” This is the full-meal deal, a primer on good self-editing. Go to https://www.niwawriters.com/blog and study what she has to say. Your writing will improve overnight.

Another group is Willamette Writers, with branches all over the State. It meets monthly and invites guest speakers to present on various aspects of the craft. One I attended on self-editing by a professional editor was more than worth the cost of the annual dues.

I’m also a part of a weekly group known as Writers Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow. We get 7-10 minutes to read our material aloud and get feedback from the other participants. As brief as that is, it’s been a goldmine for me in regard to developmental editing.

Perhaps the most important group to be a part of is a small critique group, a place where you can present drafts of your material and get thorough, in-depth analysis. If there isn’t one near you, form one yourself, inviting writer colleagues you’ve met through Willamette Writers, NIWA, or a local group. Keep it small (no more than 5 people or so) to afford plenty of time for comprehensive work. Members of the critique group to which I belong meet monthly for two hours. We provide each other with hard copies (6-8 pages) of our material, which we then read aloud for twenty minutes. Following that, we share both copy editing and developmental editing ideas.

Finally, when it’s getting down to the wire, you’re going to want beta readers. These are people who will read your manuscript and give you honest feedback. Although they will sometimes do some copy editing for you, their main task is developmental, letting you know whether or not your story is a go. Recruit two or three of them from a group you attend. Out of kindness to your beta readers, never give them a first or second draft, which will be so full of problems they may get discouraged and quit on you. Offer a third or fourth draft, one to which you’ve already devoted considerable time in clean-up. My personal preference is to make hard copies of my text at FedEx and have it spiral-bound, a quick and inexpensive process. That way my beta readers have a kind of workbook they can jot notes in as they’re reading. Make their task easier by asking them specific questions beforehand. Does the story arc flow? Are there logical inconsistencies or plot holes that need mending? Is the time line coherent? Are there factual errors? Have the characters developed naturally, and are their actions in accord with their personalities? Does their dialogue sound real, or is it stilted, pedantic, dissonant with the character speaking? Did you want to keep reading, or did you get bored? If you got bored, where did the story lose you? Is the ending satisfying? (Note: if you’re writing a series, it’s OK to leave a moderate cliff-hanger, but have this book conclude some aspects of the story, so readers aren’t left scratching their heads and wondering what just happened. They won’t necessarily go out and buy your next book if they feel they’ve been tricked.) And finally, the money question: would you buy this book?

There are other resources you can tap into. I have never personally used the free service https://www.grammarly.com/ but I have heard good things about it. A truly helpful (and funny!) volume on punctuation is Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, by Lynne Truss. Many consider The Chicago Manual of Style to be the Bible of grammar.

Some will find self-editing harder to do than actually writing their novel. Certainly, it is more tedious. But don’t get discouraged. Keep the faith! Feeling that book in your hand and seeing it on your tablet will make the effort worth it.

Write on!

Other posts in this series by this author:
https://authorwilliamcook.com/blog/   “Reading to Impact Your Writing (And Can Watching Movies be a Business Expense?)”  March 29-April 4.
www.conniejjasperson.com   “Advice for New Writers” April 5-11.
https://lecatts.wordpress.com  “My Approach to the Writing Process” April 12-18.
www.joycereynoldsward.com/blog  “The Author Community” April 19-25.

Watch for the next post in the series by this author:
https://varidapr.com “Organizing Your Mind” May 3-9.

William Cook moved to the Pacific Northwest from the East Coast in 1989, and worked for a total of 37 years as a mental health therapist until his retirement in 2011. He splits his time between writing, babysitting for his 15 grandchildren, and sneaking off to mid-week matinees (when theaters are open!). The Kindle edition of his latest book, Dungeness and Dragons: A Driftwood Mystery, was published on April 24. Find all his books at:

Welcome

This is the third in a six-week blog tour series for the Northwest Independent Writers’ Association.

Science fiction romance? Fantasy mystery? Western science fiction? Paranormal romance? Science fiction mystery? Gaslight fantasy? There’s a lot of ways to mix up genres within your fiction, and some writers really enjoy the possibilities as they combine genres. But there are some issues to keep in mind as you go about mixing up the genres.

Note: for the purposes of this blog, I am using “genre” in the commercial fiction sense, which means the mixing of various subsets of commercial fiction. In the literary and academic world, “genre” means the separation of types of writing such as poetry, prose, and nonfiction of various sorts. While writing a weighty philosophical tome in poetic form that hearkens back to the Greek era would fit “cross-genre” under the literary/academic definition, that is NOT what I am discussing here. Even though it could be entertaining, you’re likely to drive what readers you will have crazy.

So back to the topic.

The first caveat about crossing genres is that you must be familiar with the tropes, clichés, and accepted standards of the genres you are crossing. No excuses. Know what you are writing, down to the type of characters your readers will expect and the type of plots that are common. Some genres are more forgiving than others, but if you’re not mindful and knowledgeable about what all readers in the genres you mix will expect, you’re not going to have many readers.

Secondly, do pick genres that go together reasonably well. Christian hardcore porn, for example…well, there might be a market for it, but my suspicion is that it’s highly limited. But a comedy of manners set in space? Well, just take a look at A Civil Campaign by Lois McMaster Bujold, which mixes an Austen-ish plot with political power struggles on another planet. Westerns and science fiction cross very well if you pick the right science fiction subgenre. Plausibility needs to be the primary awareness here.

Third, you’re going to need to decide which genre is going to dominate the story and drive the primary plot. In A Civil Campaign, for example, while romance is popping out all over, a power struggle which affects an empire that controls several worlds is a dominant plot while the romances and science-focused subplots are secondary but still important. They do affect how the primary plot unfolds but they’re not the dominant story. On the other hand, if you pull out the subplots, the dominant story becomes much less interesting.

All that said, though, writing cross genre can be quite fun. It’s a means for you to add depth to your work and give strength to your characters. Additionally, you might bring in more readers than you would if you hadn’t mixed up a genre or two. I explicitly market two of my best local sellers, Alien Savvy and Shadow Harvest, as a mixture of science fiction and western. Because I live in a rural ranching community, that combination of genres appeals to readers who otherwise tell me “I don’t read science fiction.” My current work in progress, The Ruby Project trilogy, is a mixture of cyberpunk, Western, and thriller. I do a lot of hand-selling around Christmas and it’s easier if I can attract a new reader by drawing them in through a familiar genre.

And that’s the consideration you really, really need to think about when writing cross-genre work. Who is your audience and what do they expect from your book? No matter what, the genres you cross need to have reader appeal. Above all else, it is the reader who is going to buy your book and, if they like it, spread the word about you and your writing.

Keep the reader in mind, and enjoy your work.

Other posts in this series by Joyce Reynolds-Ward (note: each website owner will post at some point during the week listed).

March 29-April 4^th—Organizing Your Plot www.joycereynoldsward.com
April 5-11—Self-editing, grammar, and beta readers https://authorwilliamcook.com/blog/
April 12-18—Genre and cross-genre http://tanstaaflpress.com/news
April 19-25—My Approach to the writing process https://varidapr.com
April 26-May 2—Reading to Impact your writing www.conniejjasperson.com
May 3-9—Advice for new writers https://lecatts.wordpress.com