The last thing I want to talk about, discussing writing, is Rowan.
I decided at some point when Rowan was originally a POV character that she was a noble from "somewhere" and then decided, what the heck, the Alliance because having her be a black sheep might be neat. This opened up a LOT of possibilities: gaining me access to a
Merlin, which was fun to put into a story, and then her "my whole family are pilots so of COURSE I can do Close Air Support better than all-y'all" plot hook- originally Lila's company was going to call it in, but once you have a character like this, you just let the story take them where they should go.
now, researching 3025 OA stuff led me to the note about the Gregorian religion and I was like, "how awesome would it be for her to be wearing three engagement rings and then not even discuss it?"
BUT.
Old 80s BattleTech can be... weird. Some of it hasn't exactly aged as well- nothing is OUTRIGHT bad, but there can be some...
questionable areas. For example, the LC starts drafting 14 year old kids during one of the S-Wars and is never brought up again. My kids are about that age, and I'm not sure I want to write nor read a war story like that, you know? This is supposed to be entertainment, at the end of the day.
So, this is where I asked some trusted friends for advice: is the Gregorian religion, encouraging Polygamic marriages an interesting idea, or something best left in the 80s? And they both encouraged it, to show that, in the future, "non-traditional" marriages might be around in places because of society pressures or allowances we don't have here on modern Earth. Showing things like this is VERY traditional Sci-fi, so I was glad they both approved and encouraged it.
Writers, never be afraid to consult with an outside expert if you're going to write outside of your culture. I won't get into the whole "who should write about what" debate (consult your google) because of forum rules, but I WILL WILL WILL encourage respect and understanding and ASKING FOR ADVICE. If you don't understand a culture, a language, an idea, ASK FOR HELP. it will make you a better writer, and your story better for the readers.
The other point is about her hair.
So, there's a few threads around here talking about Tara Bishop's "spiky" blond hair, and the main point of discussion is, "it's unrealistic to expect a person to have the same hairstyle for
twenty years."
This is a fair complaint. Now, in a IP universe, maintaining the "look" of a person is important. See the uproar when Keri Russell cut her hair on "Felicity." Being able to spot the character on-screen is important.
Same in fiction. Having Tara Bishop have spikey hair from 3131 to 3151 isn't really ACCRURATE, but it allows a reader to quickly remember her from previous books that may have been written YEARS ago. My dad would grow a beard in winter and shave it every spring, but Jamie Wolf had the old salt-and-pepper beard for DECADES of fiction time and real life!
Is it a prop used because of the fictional universe we write in? YES
Is it also lazy writing? It can be. And that's a fair complaint.
So, these discussions were happening while this story was underway, and so I made sure to note the hair. To make them all different. these characters are "real" in THEIR universe, and I wanted to make sure this was shown.
oh, remember this post when story 9 comes out, by the way.
So, for rowan, I was giving her braids and then it hit me: "what if the engagement rings were
barrettes? I could take this idea and new religion and combine them into something unique- I don't know of
any culture, on Earth or in Sci-fi, that shows how many suiters a woman has by the number of braids in her hair!
And those are the points I want to drive in: ALWAYS play NICE in an IP, yes- professionalism.
BUT: DO be open to new ideas and DON'T be a LAZY writer. Don't just take the writings from before and parrot them back out: make them fresh again, make them yours, and what you present to the readers will be so much more rewarding for it.
Ok, I think that's it for now. :-) hopefully other writers will jump in on what they did and why and THEIR "rules of writing BattleTech."
