The Catholic Geek: Finding God Among the Stars, with Brad Torgersen

TONIGHT, ON The Catholic Geek: Finding God Among the Stars, with Brad Torgersen 08/28,

7PM, EST

Host Declan Finn is joined by novelist Brad R Torgersen, where they will discuss religion in science fiction and fantasy, as well as religion in the modern secular 21st century American landscape, spiritual themes in a technological society, and how science can only ever answer the ?How? while we (as a species) often need religion to answer the ?Why.?

In short: We're going to have so much fun.

Brad R. Torgersen is a prolific science fiction author who first broke into print in 2010, with a double debut in the pages of Analog magazine, and the 26th volume of Writers of the Future. Since that time he's either won or been nominated for numerous awards, including three readers' choice awards from Analog, and has published in various magazines, e-zines, and anthologies. His novel, The Chaplain's War, from Baen Books, hit print at the end of 2014. In addition to being a science fiction author, Brad is also a Chief Warrant Officer in the United States Army Reserve, and returned from overseas deployment earlier in 2016. Married for over twenty years, Brad makes his home in Utah.

Please remember that today is the LAST DAY to register for a Dragon Award. Register Now, or forever hold your piece. You'll get an email. You can then vote for Honor at Stake. Sound like a plan?

The American Journal, GamerGate, and other Insanity

A few weeks ago, I posted links to reviews of brand new shows that I wrote for The American Journal, which is a news site that lets me write for them. Usually, the more ranting and raving I am, the more the readers like it.  So, if you want to see me go bat-guano insane on a semi-regular basis, you can get it out. I think I've officially written over half the articles, so hit something at random, it might be written by Declan Finn.

Anyway, I've done a few articles in recent weeks that some of my readers may like.  In a lot of cases, I just keep a relatively neutral stance -- that stance being "Why can't you freaking morons shut up and leave me alone?"

However, you might want to check out some of these.

Walking Dead Actress Breaks up Sex Ring. Yes, this happened. And what did YOU do with your weekend?

Journalists Conspire to Shape News Over GamerGate This was just .... ARGH

Catholic Church to Support Gay Marriage Yeah, if you had questions about what the HELL is going on about this most recent synod, this is part of it. The other part: Here.

Comic Con Announces Guardians of the Galaxy Cartoon Good luck with that

Sequels for Iron Man and Independence Day in the Works

WB Releases DC Comics Movie Schedule

Video: Liam Neeson Returns in 'Taken 3' 

VIDEO: Viking Rejects Job Applicant Based on Faith -- It's not really politics, it's more of a comedy.  And completely insane. You have to see it to believe it.  Most of it isn't commentary, it's just the news story. Oy.

Zero Tolerance, Zero Intelligence. If you're read my official Amazon bio, you can guess why this is near and dear to my heart.

I think you folks might enjoy some of this.

And if you're wondering what I've been doing with my time.... now you know.

Fighting and writing workshop, day 5 and 6: military fight scenes

This is the online workshop in writing fight scenes that I did for the Catholic Writer's Conference.  Karina Fabian had managed to draft me ... or I volunteered, I'm not entirely certain.  Either way, it was an interesting little experience.

Since most of you folks have been with me for a while, I'm going to give it to you.

Don't worry, I wasn't paid for this, so giving this away for free will hurt no one. And, few to no people wanted to show up and play with my workshop, even though there were over 25 viewers for each post.  But, I've been told few people showed up anyway for the forums, something to do with schedule confusion.

So, here is day five and six.... Day five was merely an assignment. Day six was more interesting.

 Day Five: Putting It Together

At this point, you should have an idea of what you're doing. Take assignments three and four, and put them together. Whether you start from a weapon and go to hand-to-hand, or vice versa, is up to you. This is the assignment.

Like with most writing, practice makes perfect. So don't be discouraged if you're not writing full-scale battle choreography by now.

Day Six: Writing For Military Fights

Writing a military fight scene is no different from any other, when you get down to it. Do some research on terms, maneuvers, etc., but don't overstress that part. It's mostly just a matter of vocabulary.

But, seriously, there's little difference from warfare fighting.

Character: In describing filming for Lord of the Rings, and the Battle of Helm's Deep, director Peter Jackson discovered a basic law of fight scenes – Jackson had hours upon hours of stuntmen beating each other to a pulp, but the battle was boring when the camera was not on the primary characters.

The important thing you need to know is, no matter what, you need to focus on the individuals involved. The more modern your setting, the more things are done by groups of individuals, squads and fire teams, and not massive lines of fire, one against another.

However, no matter how many people you have fighting whatever enemy, you need to have individuals the audience can focus on and care about. Writing about a line of tanks is boring. Writing about someone the audience has met, and is invested in, is much, much better.

For great examples of this, read the Richard Sharpe series by Bernard Cornwell – he has, on average, about six players in any battle that he focuses on, as well as a massive, historical battle taking place.

Setting: If you want to focus on a full-scale battle, in whatever age and setting, one thing you'll want to focus on is the field of battle. You're going to want to focus on the sounds, and the sights, perhaps even the smells. You want to recreate it as though the battlefield is a character. A loud, monstrous, messy, rampaging character, with lots of property damage.

The best I've ever seen of this type of recreation is John Keegan's The Face of Battle, where he recreated the battlefields of Agincourt, Waterloo, and Verdun.

Hand-to-hand combat and weapons: Depending on the scenario, military battles do not start with close combat, unless it's a type of covert infiltration, where getting in close and killing people silently is important. And, let's face it, the use of weapons will vary wildly depending on what time period and setting you're using. For the most part, it boils down to individuals.

Fighting and writing workshop, Day 4: Guns in Fighting.

This is the online workshop in writing fight scenes that I did for the Catholic Writer's Conference.  Karina Fabian had managed to draft me ... or I volunteered, I'm not entirely certain.  Either way, it was an interesting little experience.

Since most of you folks have been with me for a while, I'm going to give it to you.

Don't worry, I wasn't paid for this, so giving this away for free will hurt no one. And, few to no people wanted to show up and play with my workshop, even though there were over 25 viewers for each post.  But, I've been told few people showed up anyway for the forums, something to do with schedule confusion.

So, here is day four.

***

Day 4: Guns in Fighting.

There are more weapons in Heaven and Earth than there are in Thomistic philosophy. However, guns seem to be the magic weapon that everyone uses, and uses badly. With any weapon you decide to use, make certain that you have a basic knowledge of these weapons, even if it's merely researching them online. This day will also assume that you've never even seen a gun up close and personal – perhaps an erroneous presumption, but I'm not going to assume everyone knows guns. If you have do know things about guns, please bring it up.

Weapons are tools. Knives do more than stab people. Lead pipes do more than club people over the head. And guns do more than shoot people. Don't get me wrong, guns are great. But if you're writing for someplace like New York, guns are not readily available to the general populace.

Remember Day One, writing the rules for the culture on fighting? Now you know why we bothered.

Everything in a fight has to feel fast-paced, as we said before. But when you introduce a weapon into any scenario, the characters and the writing have to move fast. Or at least intelligently. What do I mean by this? I mean that no one is going to outrun a bullet – the best they can do is be faster than the trigger finger of the person targeting them – but finding cover, providing distractions, and shooting elements of the setting or other uses of the gun.

In actuality, gunfights are not like an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie – if someone is moving in a straight line, a smart gunman will lead the target. However, smart gunmen do not use fully-automatic fire in extended bursts. Firing a full magazine of ammunition on full automatic will not lead to a stream of bullets that come out in a straight line, but will cause the muzzle of the gun to jerk around like a spastic mime having an epileptic fit. In a gun battle, at a distance, even slight deviations of the gun's barrel will cause bullets to go wildly off course.

Then again, stupid things happen with guns. The average shootout with the police takes place at a distance of nine feet, but three out of every four bullets will miss, mainly because everyone is popping in and out of cover, snapping off shots and hoping they'll hit something.

Again, now is not the time for technical terms. If you're writing for a medieval setting, or a fantasy setting, if specific parts of specific weapons are going to come into play, you may want to introduce them before the fight even begins. And, if you're using a technical detail of a gun that only people who field-strip their own weapons would know, don't discuss it in the middle of a fight. A previous example has been the Lee Child model, where his character Jack Reacher describes how a fight will turn out and why, before the first punch was even thrown. You can have such discussion then, but when the bullets start flying, try not to dwell too much on the pieces and parts.

You can, however, have a technical analysis as the hero/ine is taking cover, and thinking about what to do next. If the pieces of the gun are important to the solution, and you can provide a “lull” in combat (if that's how one can describe taking cover while being shot at), then by all means, make it relevant. However, you do not want to give the vital statistics on a gun in mid-battle. In fact, you might not want to go into it at all.

The most anyone needs to know about most guns might include:

Ammunition capacity: Do not use Hollywood forever shooters. You will want to reload – if only because it's more thrilling to have a count of how many bullets your hero/ine doesn't have. (Would the end of Die Hard work at all if John McClane had had a full magazine left, instead of just two bullets?)

Type of ammunition: This only matters for level of impact, and penetration. If it's a .22-caliber from a handbag pistol, you can stop if with a pocket Bible. If it's a .45-caliber, you will stop someone if only from the shock value (no one takes an impact from a .45, rolls into a doorway, and returns fire. It's gonna suck to be that person). If it's a .50-caliber handgun, you can disable engine blocks and amputate limbs. If you're writing science fiction, ammunition type is doubly important.

Type of gun: Revolvers, pistols, assault weapons, submachine guns, hunting rifles, and machine guns all have different strengths, ranges, weaknesses, and abilities inherent in the type of gun. You will not put a bayonet on a pistol, and no one should try to rob someone with a sniper rifle.

Length of weapon (optional): many handguns make for great blunt-force weapons.

Appearance: I'm a very visual reader. There are some guns that are very visually distinct: a FAMAS assault rifle looks nothing like an M-16, which looks nothing like an Uzi, which looks nothing like an H&K G-11, which looks nothing like an AK-47. However, there are a lot of knockoffs that resemble M-16s, AK-47s, and Uzis. You don't need make, model, and serial number; just say “it looked like X, Y, or Z” gun, unless you want to go into more detail.

In essence, you can boil down someone's handgun to “short-barreled .22-caliber revolver,” or “a semi-automatic that looked more like a hand cannon” (for an example of this, look up the image of a “Desert Eagle” .50 caliber.)

Note: Please remember that Kevlar is not a magic shield. At best, it will take that small metal object going at hundreds of feet per second, and redistribute its force so that your character will essentially feel like s/he's being slapped with sheet metal at ten miles an hour.

Assignment #4: Choose Your Weapon.

Take your setting, hero/ine and the enemy from assignment #3. Pick a weapon and put it into a fight between the two. It does not have to be a gun (for thoughts on weapons, and improvised weapons, check the “How To” article link in the initial documents packet). It doesn't matter if your hero has the weapon, or your villain does. It doesn't matter if the weapon was found at the fight location, or if it was brought.

If your hero does not have a weapon to start with, they will need to disarm the bad guy and/or find their own weapon.

Youcan check the how-to article again to at least get the principles for gun and knife disarms, though the principle is mostly based in common sense – don't get in the way of the weapon.

Remember, you do not need to have anyone killed, even if you're using a gun in the scene. Guns can shoot the environment, make people flinch, duck, or buy the characters time.

Fighting and writing workshop, day 3: Writing Fight Technique

This is my online workshop in writing fight scenes that I did for the Catholic Writer's Conference.  Karina Fabian had managed to draft me ... or I volunteered, I'm not entirely certain.  Either way, it was an interesting little experience.

Since most of you folks have been with me for a while, I'm going to give it to you.

Don't worry, I wasn't paid for this, so giving this away for free will hurt no one. And, few to no people wanted to show up and play with my workshop, even though there were over 25 viewers for each post.  But, I've been told few people showed up anyway for the forums, something to do with schedule confusion.

So, here is day three.

****

 Day Three: Now, Let's Talk About Writing Fight Technique.

There are a lot of basic moves that you don't need to describe too much. Most kicks and punches are like that, for example. You don't necessarily require a full description on a “forward vertical defensive kick” (as seen in the article on how to throw a stop kick) – you can just write “X kicked Y in the chest the way a fireman would kick down a door.” It's the same kick, just a less technical way of writing it.

Speed of attack: keep in mind that most fights don't even last for five seconds. A kick to the groin, a punch to the throat, and it's game over. Even a fight with a weapon can only last so long. Fighting over a knife will ensure that all sides get cut, and someone will be hurt in short order.

And, keep in mind, fighting is hard work. Even something as simple as punching is going to take a lot out of someone. If you don't believe me, go hit a punching bag for a minute. Punch it, kick it, headbutt it if you like, but do it at full speed, as hard as you can. You're going to find that it is very, very hard work. After the initial burst of energy, you're going to slow down after thirty seconds. Stamina should not be important in a fight, because most fights shouldn't last very long.

Another element to keep in mind: the enemy is also reacting. We don't need three-dimensional chess with hand-to-hand combat, but we also have to remember that (for example) kicking someone between the legs (even if they're feeling no pain), will still force the body to lean forward, and that opens up possibilities. If we punch someone, their head will go back. If we feint, they become defensive, preferably where we don't want them to be.

If you're going to have a long fight scene, it should be for a good reason. Either it's a war—in which case it's perfectly understandable—or there are multiple attackers, or both participants are very, very well-trained.

Yes, you can have a half-page of description for something that takes only a split second. You can have all of the technical details down cold, but you must at least convey to the audience the speed. And, even if you don't go into exacting, excruciating detail for your audience, you should at least know the mechanics, so you know what you're doing. Don't be insulted – trust me, I used to do that a lot.

If you like, look at the fights scenes of Lee Child's character Jack Reacher. He'll give a half-page dissertation on something like the tactical usefulness of a headbutt, or he will work out a fight, chess-like, before the first punch is thrown. He then does it, writes a few lines of the enemy's reaction, and keeps going.

Note: If you have formal training, or have practical experience in a self-defense system or martial art, realize that high kicks, spin kicks, or any kick that goes above the hip can pose a danger in a real fight. In a real close-combat situation, there are no rules, and there is no tapping out. This may sound patronizing, but trust me, there are plenty of people who try to use fancy moves they learn on a gym mat and try to use the same moves on concrete. It doesn't end well, sometimes.

Assignment #3: Writing Hand-to-Hand Technique

Look at the various articles assigned here: http://shar.es/giQgA. Choose at least one technique. Do not worry about plagiarizing; there are only so many ways to describe some moves. All that I require is that you use one element of one described technique over the course of your fight scene.

Step 1: Set up the fight, be it a mugging, or something with a minor villain, what have you. Write out a full technical description of what your character will do – not only with the technique, but most importantly with what comes next. (Continue to fight, to run, et al). How does the other combatant react/reply?

Step 2: Give reasons for their actions, and how it fits with your character.

Step 3. Repeat step one, only take the entire technique and condense it. Boil the technique into only a paragraph, at most. Now that you know what your character is doing, there's no reason to belabor the point for your audience. You can go into great detail, if it's an obscure method, or if you have a style similar to Lee Child, described above. You don't have to do one or the other in your writing, but you should at least be able to do both.

Please note: when writing your fight scene, be certain that you, and your readers, can keep track of what side everyone is on. Even professional writers of military fiction, like Bernard Cornwell, will occasionally leave out details like “Character Y is blocking with the sword and hitting with the empty hand, and kicking someone else …. what direction are all of these people coming from!!!”

Fighting and writing workshop, day 2, Setting the Chessboard

This is my online workshop in writing fight scenes that I did for the Catholic Writer's Conference.  Karina Fabian had managed to draft me ... or I volunteered, I'm not entirely certain.  Either way, it was an interesting little experience.

Since most of you folks have been with me for a while, I'm going to give it to you.

Don't worry, I wasn't paid for this, so giving this away for free will hurt no one. And, few to no people wanted to show up and play with my workshop, even though there were over 25 viewers for each post.  But, I've been told few people showed up anyway for the forums, something to do with schedule confusion.

So, here is day two.... see you next week.

***

 Day Two: Setting the Chessboard

Before even beginning a fight scene, you should know where it is, what happens to be lying around, and what is or is not available.

Keep in mind that you're going to have different rules of engagement for each fight, depending on the setting and the bad guy. If you're in the middle of a fantasy universe, where the technology is pre-atomic, the moment that some random adversary pulls a weapon, your hero/ine can immediately counterattack – be it a full disarm or a quick kick where it hurts – if only because the likelihood of your character being arrested for defending him/herself will be nonexistent (and you thought day one was a waste of time, didn't you? Heh.).

Obviously, the method and manner of the counterattack will be dictated by your character, and the situation. A civilian who knows Krav Maga will have different instincts than, say, a police officer with a gun.

Step one, of course, is your players. What is the physical condition of your character? How tall? How fat? How many protagonists vs. how many antagonists? If your hero/ine is seven feet tall, or three feet wide, it would be difficult to hide. An athlete can, at the very least, run or hide. Are either or both armed? With what?

Step two is knowing where your players are in relation to one another, and in relation to the environment. Fights do not take place in a vacuum. Pick a setting for your fight. Set it up in your own home, or someplace you know well, or someplace you've created out of thin air. Is it a place rich with weaponry? (See the improvised weapons article.) Or is it a place rich with hiding places?

Important note: consider that while your paper is two-dimensional, your setting need not be. In fact, unless you're on a stretch of highway in one of the flatter parts of Ohio, or in a strange part of a desert without sand dunes, you're going to have three-dimensional elements to it. Just something to think about.

Step three: Where is your hero(es)/heroine(s)? Where is your bad guy? This will dictate many of the choices for your main character. Is it easier to run, fight or hide? Does your character need to take cover? Can s/he get to a weapon, or will s/he have to work for it?

Assignment #2: Setting the Chessboard

Create a setting for your battle, keeping in mind everything discussed in the reading. Go as big or as small as you want. And keep in mind while your page is two-dimensional, your setting is three-dimensional.

What weapons areavailable to each character involved? What hiding spaces or cover is there? What would your hero/ine notice? What would the enemy notice?

In short: describe a room with a tactical eye. Can you characters run? Hide? What can they fight with? Throw?

For more ideas on the matter, I recommend looking at the http://shar.es/giQg reference link, mainly for some basic ideas on being aware.

Fighting and writing workshop, Day 1: fighting, your characters, and your world

As I mentioned, two weeks ago I said I was going to host an online forum workshop in writing fight scenes -- it was loosely based on one of my own blog posts. It just spun out of control.  Karina Fabian had managed to draft me ... or I volunteered, I'm not entirely certain.  Either way, it was an interesting little experience.

Since most of you folks have been with me for a while, I'm going to give it to you.

Don't worry, I wasn't paid for this, so giving this away for free will hurt no one. And, few to no people wanted to show up and play with my workshop, even though there were over 25 viewers for each post.  But, I've been told few people showed up anyway for the forums, something to do with schedule confusion.

So, since this workshop screwed over my blog posts last week, I figure that I should get some use out of it.

This was the first day.

***

Day One: Fighting, Your Characters, and Your World.

Before one even gets to writing a fight scene, you have to answer multiple questions, not only about you character, but about the world s/he inhabits.

For example: if your main character is a civilian in the modern world, not only do you have laws to contend with, but a question of training.

Start with a situation. Your character is mugged. Some strung-out druggie who needs a fix wants your character's money. This character has a feeling that things are going to end badly no matter what s/he does. It is time to resist.

But then you have a problem before you even get to the technical aspects of writing a fight. Why would your character know how to fight?

Family – is fighting in the family business? Mercenary, samurai, knight, military family?

Culture – does your world resemble Sparta 2.0? Are there laws against fighting? For fighting? Is dueling outlawed or celebrated?

Profession – is your character a SEAL? An enthusiastic reservist?

Sports: Does your character like MMA? Wrestling? Target shooting? Hockey? Soccer? Any of these can be adapted to create the realities of a fight scene.

Hobbies: Your character may be nothing more than a smart, reasonable person who believes in self defense. S/he may also be a ballerina who can launch a nasty spin kick because that's what s/he did in Swan Lake – don't laugh, it works for actresses Jennifer Gardner and Summer Glau. S/he may have taken capoeira because s/he thought it was only a dance class. If s/he likes to fire off a hundred rounds a week at the local shooting range, why not? Even the basics of handling a gun can be useful.

As an example, you can check outseveral characters from one of my books.

Now, fight scenes do not necessarily require fisticuffs. Running away is a good, reliable tactical maneuver. Your character can always run.

Why does this matter? Establishing your character's own style of fighting is perfectly reasonable, otherwise, you have fight scenes that you've stolen from action movies … Yes, I've done that. Then I took a real self defense system, and I'vesince rewritten every last one scene.

Assignment #1

1) What are the cultural rules/legalities of your world when it comes to fighting? In modern settings, these laws vary by country, and even by state. In New York, if you defend yourself against an armed mugger, laws can be used to prosecute you. In Texas, if you defend yourself, you get a medal.

2) If your character had to fight, how would they do it? What is the style of fighting your character uses? It can be straight up punching and kicking, or furious punching and gouging, or something more informal like Krav Maga, or much more formal, like Tae Kwan Do. Does your character fight with improvised weapons, or instead use traps and trickery to dispose of the adversary? Or (also acceptable) do they run away until they can find a solid position to fight from?

3) Why does your character know that system of fighting? If you're writing the character of a Navy SEAL, that's one thing. If it's the civilian offspring of a military family, that's another. Does a family member teach the fight system? Was it something they thought was cool when they were twelve? Did they read too many thrillers growing up? Did they take ballet, or soccer, or football – something with a lot of kicking?

Evil Religions 1: Allahu Akbar.

An evil religion blog post.

When I first proposed the "Evil Religions" series of blogs, I figured I would make it ironic. You may all remember the "first" Evil Religion post back on April 1st. This is the real one.

Before you get your panties in a twist, I warned readers of this blog quite some time ago that there would be a series of “Evil Religion” blog posts, and that it wouldn't be what you think it is. Guess what, it's still not going to be what you think it is. Read the rest of this preface here.

Now, let's start with our first “Evil Religion.”  The following can be footnoted in the works of Bernard Lewis, David Dalin, Ralph McInerny, or Roy Schoeman’s “Salvation is from the Jews”

The Middle East has a problem, and it's not Islam. It's their culture... which is also not Islam.

Yes, sorry, hate to break it to all of you, the culture of the Middle East was not substantially altered by The Prophet. Mainly because there were no real fundamental building blocks for the culture to be altered …

The trouble with the Middle East, in part, can be traced to the Nazis.

No, I am not being allegorical, but literal.

If you're a newcomer to this blog, you may not have heard of the term “Hitler’s Pope”: that Eugenio Pacelli, aka Pope Pius XII, worked with, for, or around Hitler in support of the final solution of the Holocaust.

What I'm almost certain you never hear about is what has been labeled Hitler’s Mufti.