Tag Archives: SFF

Fencon 2025: Reflections on Intergenerational Fandom

This past weekend I had the pleasure of attending Fencon, a fan-run science fiction and fantasy convention in Dallas/Fort Worth. The convention skews towards older, Southern fans in their late forties to seventies, and as a younger millennial steeped more in Tor than Baen, I had a blast getting outside my bubble and diving into oldschool fandom, learning the history, and exploring some cultural divides.

The convention, attended by perhaps 150 people, featured panels ranging from cozy discussions on favorite books, to brainstorms on military strategy in alternate histories, to NASA scientists debating the best way to mine asteroids. Military SF author Jack Campbell gave a lovely keynote speech about respecting your readers, and other people generally, and delved into the complicated dynamics of writing military life and hierarchy. I particularly enjoyed the contributions of Baen publisher/editor-in-chief Toni Weisskopf; I could listen to her talk all day! She is incredibly humble and generous, funny as heck, and has a breathtaking mastery of the editing craft–truly a legend. Rhonda Eudaly was another leading voice at the con, whose passion for sharing resources and bringing up new writers shone in everything she did.

As a younger millenial, and someone who fell away from reading for a while in my twenties, my speculative fiction cultural touchestones are way more recent–Ann Leckie rather than C.J. Cherryh, Jeff VanderMeer rather than H. P. Lovecraft. I was as surprised by the ignorance of many older fans about the stuff I consider “big” right now as I was confronted by my own ignorance of the giants on whose shoulders we stand.

I kind of assumed even older fans would occasionally check out what’s currently bestselling, but at a number of panels, speakers confessed a lack of knowledge about developments in the genre since 2000. For example, one panel focused on the panelists’ perceived prevalence of cynical stories about brutally violent antiheroes, but my perception, based on what my peers are into, is that the hottest heroes right now (outside dark fantasy, at least) are messy but noble-hearted reformists and revolutionaries working against Empire: Ancillary Justice, A Memory Called Empire, Gideon the Ninth, the Expanse, Some Desperate Glory, etc. On the flip side, through the weekend I collected an extensive list of big names I am embarrassed to have still not yet read—Zelazny, Delany, A. E. van Vogt, Lois McMaster Bujold, C.J. Cherryh, etc. Folks were more than happy to recommend titles (and pass on 6 actual books, courtesy of Scott Cupp) to deepen my knowledge of the pre-1980’s era.

Another divide was the difference between this type of con and what its members deride as “gate shows”–huge conventions like Comic-Con and Anime Expo, that are professionally produced and intended to turn a profit. The fans in my generation and younger attend these types of cons, and don’t even know smaller cons like Fencon exist. And unless Fencon finds a way to radically transform, or use their institutional knowledge to help invent a new kind of fan-con for the new era, it’s apparently on the decline. I heard several older fans lament “the problem of graying,” and the approaching death of Fencon, and reference a similar fate that befell ConDFW (Covid didn’t help). I was surprised to feel a surge of grief myself for something I only just learned existed, and started brainstorming ways I could bring all my friends next year, perhaps reinvigorate it with new life, connect the rich, institutional knowledge of these fore-fans with the new fandoms of today. But, and I say this well aware when we’re old, we’ll probably do exactly the same thing, it seemed like many of the older folks are content to keep it as it is and grumble about younger fans and their strange ways.


Still, I had a surprisingly emotional experience at Fencon, a bittersweet sense of both reunion and loss, coming home and grieving. This is a community that grew from handmade fanzines and correspondence snail-mailed across the country, from clubs organized out of the backs of magazines, who remember taking guest speakers like Harlan Ellison and Leonard Nimoy out to the local honky-tonk for drinks. I had a glimpse of what we younger fans have missed out on: a cozy, for-us-by-us gathering of fans, artists, editors, and writers from amateur to big name, all nerding out and partying together without autograph fees or thousand-dollar costumes or the expectation that you be the very best in whatever you do. Sure, we can exchange fanfiction and fanart instantly across the internet and have extensive discourse over social media, in special Discord servers, etc. but dammit, I want something tangible!

Hearing tales of Fandom past made me pine for an actual paper zine with scribbly cartoons and hot takes and gossip that arrives in my mailbox. And yes, I know people still make zines, but it’s not the thriving culture it was, and there’s also things like perfectionism and fear of commitment that makes organizing persistent activity difficult. So many initiatives start with a burst of energy and then immediately get dropped. Why make little fan cartoons when other creators are sharing professional quality content on Instagram–who would read it? Isn’t it cringe? And why show up to a small club or fan convention if you don’t know anyone, or don’t totally feel like it that day, when you could just connect with your perfect group of people online, without leaving your house? We know we’re lonely, we know we’re missing face-to-face connection and the joy of building something together, but I think we largely just don’t know how to do it anymore. I think many of us are struggling with having been raised as consumers and/or capitalists, “creators,” but not creatives, not organizers and participants in an offline creative social life.

But I don’t want to end on a morose note. Despite the comments above, I don’t feel cynical about the newer generations, and I’m confident we will continue evolving our own forms of community and overcoming the obstacles to it. And, while this will sound like a cliche moralism, I do think we will get a head start if we make an effort to seek out the wisdom of older generations, get outside our bubbles and attend things like Fencon, and study the history of the genre even where pulpy and problematic. Likewise, I would love to see older fans fight for continuity–pass on that institutional knowledge of how to organize cons, how to bring people together, how to resolve conflicts, etc. to new generations.

One idea–Fencon has often run a “con within a con” format, where they team up with a specific fandom (this year, the 1632 universe) to bring in more numbers. What about networking with Gideon the Ninth, or Powerless, or ACOTAR fans, who don’t have a con of their own, to have a mini-con within Fencon and bridge the gap between established and brand new fandoms? Now, there’s nothing more annoying than someone rolling up, knowing nothing about what you’re doing, and telling you how to fix it, so my two cents may be worthless. But I would love something like Fencon for the next generation, and despite retiring from organizing I find it hard to turn off organizer brain, so I can’t help scheming… 

“A Fine Balance,” by Charlotte Ashley – Analysis and Plot Beat Sheet


“A Fine Balance” came out in 2016, but I have it in an anthology and recently did a deep dive analysis of the story structure. Sharing my notes here in case anyone else finds this helpful—I talk about the significance of character names, meta themes, an interestingly passive twist on a heroic figure, and outline what makes these action scenes so tight and explosive.

You can read or listen to the short story via PodCastle!

  1. Synopsis
  2. Concept / Passive heroism
  3. Structure analysis
  4. Worldbuilding / Themes
  5. Significant Names
  6. Plot Beat Sheet / Story Structure Breakdown

Synopsis

Set in a fantasy version of the Ottoman Empire, the story is told by Emin Akdari, apprentice to a Kavalye, a duelist whose engagements with her rival from the opposing ethnic group not only provide entertainment, but play a critical political-economic role in maintaining equilibrium within a divided city. Because of this unique tradition, the city doesn’t know war, and has literally not invented the concepts of “soldiers” or armies yet. However, the balance has been upset, and the city is on the verge of a crisis because the two top duelists are so godmode and their prize money so high, that either one winning stands to destroy the whole system.

The main character seems to tag along simply supporting her mistress’ mission, while being somewhat of a lackluster apprentice duelist themself. But at the climactic moment, we see that it’s just that loyalty, that diligent service, which saves the day.

Concept / Passive heroism

What’s special about this story is an intriguing story structure which refuses to “stand on only two pillars,” as the main character says. Instead of having a hero and an antagonist, there’s a compound cast of heroes: the POV main character, their mentor, their mentor’s rival, and being generous and taking the story’s moral to heart, all the characters that assist them along the way—doctors and messengers and witnesses.

On the surface, the “true” hero, the POV main character, directly undermines standard protagonist conventions: they take a backseat to their mentor, who seems like the real hero of the action, to the point of straight up curling into the fetal position to hide at the climax of the story. They have their own lengthy combat scene, but it’s almost completely irrelevant to the plot (it does a little characterization mainly)—a good example of, if something is interesting enough, it doesn’t need to strictly follow the “rules” of plotting. The main character doesn’t even get a gender. One might assume they’re a woman, as all the duelists in the world seem to be, though it’s ambiguous since their name, at least in the real language it’s pulled from, means “young man.”

However, Emin serves the role of hero in two humble, yet critical, ways. First, by their singular virtue of being a reliable servant of their mistress, encapsulated in a ritual: every day, they clean and prep their mistress’ gun, even though she never uses it. This obedient and diligent practice ends up saving the day when the time suddenly comes to use the gun. But the second and lasting way the POV main character is the hero, as is suggested at the end of the story, is by simply being Witness to the events recounted, as many others were. This witnessing and then testifying to others teaches the city, persisting through future generations long after the heroes of the story are gone, the values the heroes stood for, thus inspiring perpetual peace.

Structure analysis

On a structural level (see full breakdown below), the story does this cool thing by having the decisive action of the climax, the decisive “heroic action” of the protagonist, occur in the opening lines of the story. Only, you don’t know its significance until the end, and spend the rest of the story thinking how our “hero” isn’t heroic at all, in comparison to the superhero-esque duelists. It’s Chekhov’s gun—gun included—but with a unique spin.

There’s a lot to learn from this story about writing action scenes, as well. I’m holding onto this one for future reference writing combat beats. I break them down in the outline below, so check that out there.

I’ve been studying basic stuff like the 3 (or 4) act structure, but that’s geared towards novels and screenplays, so it’s interesting to see where short story structures diverge from or condense these points. In this case, I identify 6 acts – Setup, Part One, Interlude, Part Two, Part Three, and Resolution/Summing-Up. These parts roughly follow the given breaks in the story, with one exception. But you might also divide the story into these broad beats: Hook, Setup, First Battle, Interlude, Second Battle, Interlude, Crescendo, Third (Climactic) Battle, Climactic Moment, Resolution.

In the 3-4 act novel structure, you have an initial plot point where everything changes, from which the hero goes through three stages: reactive (act one), active (act two), heroic (act three-four). Here, the hero remains reactive throughout the course of the story, but for this story, it’s their very passivity and obedience to a higher power that makes them heroic.

You can still identify all the beats of a 3-4 act structure here, but condensed and pulling double duty. The middle point, where a twist is introduced, and the dark night moment, where a mentor or someone close to the hero is lost, happen concurrently. And the third plot point, where the real antagonist and final piece of missing information is fully revealed, and the climax where it’s all systems go, are back to back in the same scene.

As I analyze more stories, I am curious to learn how common this structure is for an action story. Perhaps it’s standard, just seems new to me because I haven’t looked closely at too many!

Worldbuilding / Themes

Set in an alternate version of Early Modern Albania, there’s a lot that appears like fantasy to an uneducated reader (me) that on further research, is actually references to real things. What I took for a fantasy spin on the word “cavalier”—”kavalye”—is literally the Turkish word for “cavalier,” and a “shashka” is an actual, historically relevant type of sword. “Dushiq,” the name of one of two peoples in the story, is a real place in Albania, where uprisings against the Ottoman Empire took place, a variation of which seems to be happening in this story. I’m not sure what “Onsen,” the name for the other peoples, is supposed to reference—the Ottomans, presumably, but was it an actual name for a Turkish place or group of people, as “Dushiq” is?

One of the most interesting terms is “sahidi,” the name for the dueling tradition/relationship. “Sahidi” doesn’t translate to “duel” as you might expect. Instead, it translates to “witness” or “testimony.” Because of the way the duels are used to settle disagreements and redistribute wealth between two opposing ethnic groups, and a form of Islam spirituality informs the characters’ decision, I think we are meant to understand, without it being outright explained, that the duels have a religious basis. They are a “testimony” to the will of God—whoever wins, God must favor that people to receive wealth.

But also, in the context of the story, our main character is the true sahidi, the witness to the events that unfold. And it’s these testimonies, stories and allegories like this one as the narrator concludes, that reinforce peace as they persist in the minds of the greater people. So that in the end, it’s not the hero of the story who defeats evil—they do, but briefly, for one instance in history. The real heroes who bring peace to their country are the witnesses, the storytellers, who collectively cultivate peace through how they pass on these stories, which heroes they affirm, and cultural values they want to preserve.

Also, at the inciting incident of the story, the Rival and apparent antagonist is spotted at the courthouse, “talking to lawyers,” and disappears down “Justice Way,” so there’s some symbolism there, and also the conflict between the traditional/religious form of conflict resolution versus the modern/military war method seeking to break or rewrite the law.

Significant Names

The characters’ names draw on Turkish, Albanian, Arabic words, and seem to reference each character’s essence. Making some guesses, since there’s a fantasy/invented slant to the names that leaves ambiguity rather than one for one translation, they are:

Emin Akdari = “Trustworthy/reliable young man” – this is this character’s whole thing, their shining single virtue on which the climactic moment rests, that they are a completely trustworthy and reliable servant to their heroic Mistress, and that the fate of the world depends on such sharing of responsibility, not simply individual heroes.

Shoanna Yildirim = “beautiful/fantastic lightning” – a fitting warrior’s name, and also evocative of how her final act will be to strike a fire into the top palace tower of her enemy, like a bolt of lightning.

Kara Ramadami = “Earth Scorched/Set alight” – also a fitting warrior’s name, and also evocative of her role in the story, in several ways. First, “lightning” and “earth set on fire” go hand in hand in the natural world, so her and her rival’s names pair together. Second, “Ramadam” recalls “Ramadan,” the Muslim period of fasting, making sacrifice to draw closer to God, like this character makes the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of peace.

Dashuri Dushku = “Tree of Love” – less clear what’s up with this name. “Dashuri” means “love,” and “Dushku” is just a last name, which does mean a type of oak tree. I feel like the main foreshadowing or symbolic point her name makes, is that one’s rival in the world of the story is not one’s enemy as it first appears, but actually one’s other half, the love of one’s life in a way, the person who makes you who you are, even if the mechanism of that is violent duels.

Plot Beat Sheet / Story Structure Breakdown


Title
+ References theme, “ a fine balance,” which will be stated in closing line of story.

Introduction
+ Hook – Opening line foreshadows climactic moment
+ Action taken in opening paragraph is actually the critical choice made to determine the course of the story, but this won’t be revealed until the very end climax sequence – Chekhov’s gun
+ Introduces the main (POV) character, who fails at basically everything except her Virtue, being a trustworthy servant of her mistress
+ Introduces main Feature character (Mentor) name-drops her Foil/Rival, and the Concept.

Part One
First half
+ First line foreshadows the theme with key words, “a pair” – theme of pairs
+ Exposition
+ Inciting incident – spotting rival on the move: hunting her will unfold rest of plot
+ Builds up characters and setting
+ Low stakes action and dialogue

Second half
+ Introduces MC’s foil/rival
+ Provides some further light exposition
+ Highlights characters

Action sequence #1 – status quo battle, still in Act One equivalent – initial failure:

  • 1. Prepares for battle
  • 2. Makes challenge, challenge accepted
  • 3. Enemy attacks first
  • 4. Result = MC injured
  • 5. Counter attack = fails
  • 6. Recovery = too slow, losing chance to riposte
  • 6.5 flash of reminder of stakes, heightening stakes
  • 7. Enemy attacks a second time
  • 8. MC retreats
  • 9. MC has an idea, change of plan/tactics
  • 9.5 exposition to setup action
  • 10. MC puts wild idea into action as enemy attacks again
  • 11. Initial success in escaping the attack
  • 12. Ultimate failure in enacting wild plan to attack back though = END
  • 13. Enemy gloats and takes prize
  • 14. Dust settles. Mentor helps to recover, assess damage, debrief and lick wounds

+ Concluding paragraph with exposition of the overall Stakes


Interlude
+ Backstory exposition more fully explaining the situation/predicament and the stakes
+ Hero recovering from injury and Mentor plotting main battle

Part Two
+ Almost full page of exposition and description setting the stage, and showing (not telling) the theme: a pair, two sides, unbalanced, and the problems caused by their being unbalanced. One paragraph shows the hero’s side, and one shows the “enemy” side.
+ Foreboding foreshadowing, you know it’s not going to end well.

Action sequence #2 – the ambush – Plot Point 1 + Brush with death combined

  • 1. Following a false lead, MC leads Mentor into danger, pursuing who they think is Rival
  • 2. Ambushed in darkness, Mentor injured by surprise attack
  • 3. Prepare for battle
  • 4. Mentor counter-attacks = success, but already wounded, & two more attackers appear
  • 5. Attackers reel confused, MC attacks = success
  • 6. Assessment – 4 attackers left, but both MC and Mentor injured, & more attackers coming. Forms new idea
  • 7. MC attacks = success (but false success, another trap not sprung yet)
  • 8. MC continues attack = Success! (But…)
  • 9. Mentor grievously wounded – reveal MC was lured away so she’d be exposed – END
  • 10. Assessment of damage, retreat/escape

+ Recovery scene, nursing wounds
+ Fast forward to next day
+ Reminder/foreshadowing subtly of the action MC took in opening paragraph, which will set up for final victory


Part Three
+ Lull beat, waiting for coming storm
+ Messenger arrives whose dialogue gives exposition, setting up for arrival of climax, introducing new details regarding antagonistic force, questions to be answers
+ Preparing for final battle sequence – safety off – pulling out all the stops – Chekhov’s gun loaded
+ Full reveal of the antagonistic force AND of Rival (not yet distinguished)
+ Showdown dialogue between Mentor and Rival, reveals character and some key exposition that’s been missing until now
+ Theme on display: the pair echo each other’s words, affirm how each has been forged by the other, two opposing sides depend on each other, and balance and trade offs between them, for peace.
+ Dialogue ends with twist: seemed to be setting up for battle, but instead, a quick and immediate victory, as Rival immediately surrenders – not part of the antagonistic force after all, even though it’s her own government, but equally its victim
+ The two rivals team up to face down the real antagonistic force, which responds with confusion, warnings

Action Sequence #3 – Climax

  • 1. Mentor draws Chekhov’s gun and fires before countdown can even begin = kills one
  • 2. Mentor fires again = kills two in a badass way
  • 3. Enemy counterattack = too late. Mentor/Rival launch clever plan.
  • 4. Rival attacks = success
  • 5. Mentor attacks = success
  • 6. Longer paragraph, enemy routed, deal sealed with final volley of attacks from Mentor/Rival
  • 7. Enemy fires while fleeing = fails. Notably, MC hides and curls into fetal position, taking as far from a heroic action as you’d expect. Will juxtapose with climactic moment.
  • 8. Rival urges MC back into action
  • 9. Dust is settling, the battle is over, but one final heroic action remains to win the war. Like in LOTR, at the end of the whole entire war, it still comes down to the climactic moment of throwing the ring in the volcano, the moment of truth that proves the hero.
  • 10. CLIMACTIC MOMENT – brings into play everything foreshadowed in the introduction of the story, and subtle reminded throughout. While on the surface, MC herself does nothing, while Mentor fires the heroic shot that ends the war, MC is the hero because of her trustworthiness as a servant – she has diligently maintained that gun since day one, is able to inform her Mistress of exactly how many bullets are left since the attack began (a single bullet) so she can decide how best to use it, and although the Mistress certainly wins the day with her individual skill, she could not have gotten to this moment without all the behind the scenes preparation MC has done consistently to equip her for this moment, again, the Theme of pairs of people who depend on each other for their success, no one person can succeed alone. —- I think having the virtue of the hero be this little virtue of being a reliable servant is so refreshing and cool to read, you don’t see that virtue too often as traditional servant/master values and little virtues in general aren’t typical main course in action stories at the moment.

Resolution / Summing Up
+ A brief handful of short paragraphs ties up the loose ends. What happened with the Mentor and Rival after that, what happened to the antagonistic force, that peace was restored and tradition preserved, balance restored.
+ Last line restates theme in new light, “no peace could stand on only two pillars, no matter how strong. The fine balance between Onsen and Dushiq, we all shared between us.” Shows that in common understanding, people see the balance of binaries, Us vs Them, Good versus Evil. And they are mostly right, that these yin and yang pairs are important. But it’s an oversimplification, for the interrelated pairing of all people. And as we saw, the least powerful, overlooked person in the story, was actually crucial to the success of who everyone else, including even herself, perceives as the “Hero” who restores balance.