Ask the Author: Bridget Tyler
Answered Questions (12)
Bridget Tyler
It's real! Or at least it's really a shadow passing in front of a real star called Tau Ceti that the Kepler telescope has captured. Tau Ceti is a G-type star, like ours. It's one of the closest ones with planets in its habitable zone. For that reason, you'll see it pop up in a lot of science fiction. We don't know anything about it's planets, but I've estimated Tau's rotation based on it's size and distance from the star. Most of the actual attributes of the planet are made up, but based on places on Earth that I've been and love. The Diamond Range, which features heavily in the first book, is inspired by a trip to Zion National Park. And the second book has a lot of action in a wetlands zone inspired by the Florida Everglades. I wanted Tau to feel like a real planet with many ecosystems, just like Earth, unlike a lot of planets in Star Wars inspired sci fi that are single ecosystem planets.
Bridget Tyler
My research strategy is about 70% just being very interested in science and technology and reading about new advances and cool ideas in my daily rounds of the internet. If something catches my eye, I dig in and usually end up either building a story around it or adding it to the world of a story I'm working on. I'm also married to a robotics engineer so I'm surrounded by smart people doing cool science stuff, many of whom love science fiction! That is incredibly helpful, when you're writing sci fi. For instance, when I realized that I was building the taxonomy for the world in the Pioneer wrong I posted on my facebook feed asking for help. A friend connected me to a friend of hers who is an evolutionary biologist. She helped with my taxonomy and came up with some super cool stuff I can't tell you about because of spoilers. I'm so grateful for that!
Bridget Tyler
I think all writers have themes that appear again and again in their work, whether they mean them to or not. Families are one of mine. I think it's just because when I start thinking of my characters I inevitably think about how their families have influenced them and then some of their family members turn out to be interesting characters and bam, I'm writing a family story. That's fine with me, I love family dynamics in storytelling.
Bridget Tyler
First thing in the morning and then after dinner. I lose steam after lunch unless I'm on a hot streak.
Bridget Tyler
Fruit and coffee! I was the kid who asked for fruit salad in a hollowed out water melon for my fifth birthday party instead of cake. Thankfully, my mom was kind and got a cake too, so the other kids didn't hate me.
Bridget Tyler
Oh, that's a good one! I think something that let me work with my hands and be physical (the opposite of sitting at a laptop all day). Maybe wood working or carpentry? Or architecture?
Bridget Tyler
Interesting question. I think there are shades of John Scalzi, Chuck Wendig, Anne McCaffrey, Suzanne Collins, Joss Wheton, and Lois McMasters Bujold in my general voice and attitude towards world building and character forward story telling. The style of the Pioneer is pretty heavily influenced by my television writing past. Screenplays are all written in present tense and can be quite poetic, since you're trying to give the reader (and all the people who have to put the story on screen) a sense of your intention and the characters actions and emotions in the fewest possible words. I think that's really influenced my prose - I hope in an interesting and good way.
Bridget Tyler
You are not wrong! But the world building is one of my favorite parts of writing sci fi. I think my non-fiction interests in space and science and history actually contribute to that more than my fictional tastes (though I grew up on a steady diet of Anne McCaffrey, Tolkien, Star Wars, Marion Zimmer Bradley... the list goes on!). I track tons of science news to see things that might inspire a new world or story, and I actually find historical non-fiction really help. The past is an incredibly weird place, and the little details of the past can be repurposed to build new societies pretty well.
Bridget Tyler
ooo that can be HARD. I have found that hand writing my first draft helps a LOT. Apparently my writer mode works best in ball point pen.
Bridget Tyler
Leave the computer. A typical day in my life: I sit down to write, start struggling with a scene and fight with it ALL DAY LONG until I just have to go pick up the baby from daycare or meet a friend and then, low and behold, just in time to make me late, the scene pops into my head. To avoid this, I've learned to go on a long walk if I'm stuck. That will often shake things loose.
Bridget Tyler
Finish stuff. That is the first (and most vital) skill in your writing tool box. Once you know you can stick with it long enough to type "the end" THEN you worry about making it awesome. (cuz there's a good chance it already is!)
Bridget Tyler
Book two of The Pioneer! And a couple of television pilots I can't talk about yet.
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