Hello Fellow Brigaders!
My name is Laurel Wanrow. According to my taxes, I’ve been an Independent Writer for three years, but writing has always been part of my career as a naturalist.
(Please note the ‘al’ in the word and recognize the label as a person who answers questions at a nature center, leads wildflower walks, and can identify Regulus—the star in the summer night sky, not the J.K Rowling character. I garnered a few funny looks from the Aussies at RWA Nationals last year who thought I’d said naturist.)
My love of nature emerges in my fantasy stories through scientific details and green lifestyle sub-themes, leading me to brand my writing ‘where nature and magic merge.’ IRL, I live in metro DC area with the supportive DH, two teens and an assortment of pets and foster guinea pigs. In my writing life I serve on the Maryland Romance Writers chapter board as secretary and hold membership in WRW, KOD, YARWA and FF&P, including the chapter’s crit group, The Mud Puddle. I write adult and YA fantasy romance.
A year ago I wrote my SFR book, not knowing combining futuristic, fantasy and romance elements was crossing a few too many lines. Typical for me: I start with the germ of an idea and follow it. Happily I can do this because I’m pre-pubbed. Being unhindered by convention—okay, a rule-breaker—I fell into this new (?) subgenre accidentally.
I’m coming to SFR from the romance side, which I learned this last year is an important distinction. A writer in my local RWA chapter has recently joined from the SF side and we compare notes, which I hope to be able to also do in this forum. I’d like to explore what other SFR writers are creating in their storytelling that makes the subgenre unique.
To kick off a discussion today, I’d like to know, who are your SFR H&H?
Mine surprised a reader.
In the opening chapters of my novel Passages, the hero and heroine appear to be a guy on the run with a skill for jumping, seeking help from a local girl on a throwback planet. The reader soon discovers they are both electorgs. Not wanting to use the well-known name cyborg, or its rules, I coined the term from the words electronic organism, humans enhanced with electronic components.
My reader asked, “Your main characters are robots?”
Not exactly. They appear as humans and behave with their original personalities, but the electronics add to their skills: ‘torgs can ‘learn’ or download new functions, age up or down and are immortal. In fact, they were selected for the specific human gifts the Docga (futuristic creators) deemed useful when each died in his own world. In short, paranormal quirks I wanted to use in my plot.
My reader said, “Isn’t anyone human?”
Yo-boy. So who are your H&H?
