Introduction: I wrote the novel Aksinya: Enchantment and the Daemon. This was my 21st novel and through this blog, I gave you the entire novel in installments that included commentary on the writing. In the commentary, in addition to other general information on writing, I explained, how the novel was constructed, the metaphors and symbols in it, the writing techniques and tricks I used, and the way I built the scenes. You can look back through this blog and read the entire novel beginning with http://www.pilotlion.blogspot.com/2010/10/new-novel-part-3-girl-and-demon.html.
I'm using this novel as an example of how I produce, market, and eventually (we hope) get a novel published. I'll keep you informed along the way.
I wrote in detail about how to study history and culture to write historical fiction. That moved to how to write about culture in science fiction, and now, I am exploring how to study to write science fiction.
I wrote a little about human studies before. In general, medical studies are problematic. To solve this problem, all legitimate medical device and medicine studies are made "double-blind." A double-blind test always has a control and a placebo. The control is to measure the differences between the active and placebo groups and helps make up for the general low confidence of the studies. The placebo group rules out the placebo effect--which is a real and powerful effect.
How good are double-blinds? Like all studies and research, they have their problems, but if a medicine or other supplement has not gone through a double-blind test, I would never put it in my body. I tell my science classes all the time, if you find a non-double-blind tested medicine that appears to do something--stop it immediately. It is okay to put stuff in your body that is relatively benign, if it isn't benign, you are just asking to injure yourself. This is also why many oriental medicines can be problematic and dangerous. Chinese societies don't believe it is ethical to conduct double-blind tests on humans, therefore their medicines are always suspect. If a double-blind test hasn't been accomplished on a medicine or human procedure, you are just asking to die (or at least to hurt yourself).
I'll write more about science in science fiction tomorrow.
I'll repeat my published novel websites so you can see more examples: http://www.ldalford.com/, and the individual novel websites: http://www.aegyptnovel.com/, http://www.centurionnovel.com/, http://www.thesecondmission.com/, http://www.theendofhonor.com/, http://www.thefoxshonor.com/, and http://www.aseasonofhonor.com/.
No comments:
Post a Comment