Guest Post

Guest Post: A Letter to Readers, by Peter Stenson

Civilian Reader Guest Post , , , , , ,

This guest post is adapted from a letter author Peter Stenson wrote connected to his new novel, FIEND, which is published today by William Heinemann in the UK. The novel is published by Crown Publishing in the US (both are imprints of Random House). It is the story of the journey he had to travel before he got to a place in which he could write the novel.

FIEND has been described as “Breaking Bad Meets The Walking Dead”, and is currently sitting very near the top of my To-Be-Read mountain. Expect more on the blog very soon.

Stenson-Fiend

*

Dear Readers,

I’d been kicked out of high school and had run away to San Francisco with a hundred dollars to my name. I had a pretty healthy addiction to opiates going and was still a year away from being able to vote. Needless to say, I wasn’t exactly setting the world on fire.

It was New Year’s Eve and I don’t remember exactly how I made my way to a hotel downtown, but I did. It was full of Phish-type kids who were there for some concerts. There were lots of dreadlocks and cocked hats and sagged pants and patchouli. There were even more faces made concave from malnutrition and narcotics. I stumbled around looking for somebody I knew or at least a place to sit down. Everything was red and gold and seemed to slither. Hundreds of other kids did the same thing. I was struck by the idea that some fundamental aspect of our being—whatever the hell it was that made us human and alive—was missing.

Fast-forward six months. I’d relocated to Washington and was living in a halfway house for adolescents. Life was beginning not to suck. I was sober, my parents spoke to me, I was holding down a job, and I was learning that I could find joy outside of chemicals. The main newfound joy was spending my afternoons in a small used bookstore. I’d go there after work and sit in the literature section poring over the cracked spines of books. I spent what little money I had purchasing said books, oftentimes devouring them that same day. I had my quintessential love affair with literature (albeit a little later than most) sitting on that red carpet, huffing the musty pages of those novels. And it was there that I realized I wanted to be a writer.

Both of these memories have stuck with me ever since. I’ve been sober now for a decade and can’t so much as imagine traveling to a city without a hotel reservation, never mind running away two thousand miles. But I’ve never forgotten that moment when I conflated addict and walking-dead as one, nor the accompanying realization that these kids, like myself then, would do anything and everything to keep the high going.

Fiend is born out of that memory and those realizations. I wanted to tell a story of addiction, and strangely, the most honest way I could portray the kind of addiction I knew was to set the story against the background of zombies. I also made methamphetamines a “cure” of sorts so that quitting would not be an option—and so I could see what depths my characters were willing to sink to in order to stay alive.

PeterStensonAnd as for my other memory, the one about spending every afternoon for six months sitting in a shoebox of a used bookstore, I can’t begin to tell you how excited I am about the thought of my book stacked on your shelves. To be amongst the novels that helped give me a purpose—well, I know I’m supposed to be a writer, but the words are failing me here. Because I can’t express how much that means to me.

Sincerely,

Peter Stenson

***

Here’s the synopsis for the novel…

When Chase sees the little girl in umbrella socks savaging the Rottweiler, he’s not too concerned. As someone who‘s been smoking meth every day for as long as he can remember, he’s no stranger to such horrifying, drug-fueled hallucinations. But as he and his fellow junkies discover, the little girl is no illusion. The end of the world really has arrived. And with Chase’s life already destroyed beyond all hope of redemption, Armageddon might actually be an opportunity — a last chance to hit restart and become the person he once dreamed of being. Soon Chase is fighting to reconnect with his lost love and dreaming of becoming her hero among the ruins. But is salvation just another pipe dream?

Guest Post: “The Details in the Devil” by Lou Morgan

Civilian Reader Guest Post , , , , , , , , , , ,

MorganL-Blood&FeathersFinalThere is one really, really stupid thing you can do as a writer. Monumentally, head-thumpingly stupid.

And that’s to put the Devil in your book.

Where do you start? Whatever name you give him, whatever face, Old Nick comes with some pretty hefty baggage. Trickster, manipulator, tyrant, victim, former angel or demon… he’s still the Devil. You can race with him; you can be caught between him and the deep blue sea. You can have sympathy for him (or not) and he’s even been known to wear Prada.

All this, and we’ve barely even scratched the surface… So why would anyone be crazy or arrogant enough to go ahead and write one of the most (in)famous characters in all of literature into their own book?

The answer’s simple. It’s because he’s fun. And he’s fun because he’s a challenge. Everybody’s Devil is different. The scariest one I’ve ever seen on film is Viggo Mortensen in The Prophecy. He’s scary because he talks, and it’s not just his voice but his words which are seductive; they ebb and flow as he sits there, fiddling with a rose… and then you realise what he’s saying, and suddenly he’s a thing worth fearing…

He should be seductive, in his own way – it’s what he does best, isn’t it? It’s why those pitchfork-wielding dragon-types they were so fond of in medieval art always look so strange to us. The idea of devil-as-serpent we can understand – there’s something compelling about the way a snake moves, isn’t there? – but none of us could imagine being taken in by a gargoyle.

The Devil stands for evil, after all (just look at those two words… Coincidence? Nah.) and how many of us could ever see ourselves as being deliberately evil? Not many. We use words like “seduced” and “corrupted” when we talk about people going to the dark side. To believe that anyone could simply wake up one day and decide to be truly bad, to become any of our modern definitions of evil is unthinkable – not to mention very frightening indeed – and this is where the “Father of Lies” comes in.

And that’s precisely where a writer’s headache starts.

Every writer’s Devil differs. Of course they do: just like every writer differs, and everything they’re scared of differs. There’s a good chance you’ll find an overlap (how can you not with a character like this?), but there will always be something fresh – even if it’s just the pieces of a jigsaw arranged in a new pattern; the whole being re-lit to cast unfamiliar shadows.

I imprisoned my Lucifer in a block of ice at the heart of hell… but then if you do that, doesn’t it rather take him out of the game? It depends how smart you think he is – and I wouldn’t bet against his being able to think his way around that one. If he were stupid, he wouldn’t be nearly so much trouble, would he?

MorganL-Blood&Feathers-RebellionGoing back to medieval paintings of devils and demons, it’s not unusual to see them being pulled out of peoples’ mouths, because this was a time when possession was not only feared, it was absolutely believed in. And what could be more frightening than speaking to someone you know and realising that they aren’t themselves? What could be more seductive than hearing half-truths – carefully phrased and selected to do the maximum damage possible – from the lips of someone you think you know…?

What if his mind could wander at will? What if he could hop into your head, your mother’s, your wife’s, your brother’s, your child’s? What if he could settle down like a toad in a mind that isn’t his, spitting out words that didn’t come from there and planting thoughts that don’t belong?

What’s his deal, anyway? What’s his agenda? Is he angry? Vengeful? Spiteful? Petty? Sadistic? Is he flat-out monstrous or just misunderstood? Just the same as any character, he needs his motivations and his pressure-points; it’s just that his tend to be bigger, scarier and more nerve-wracking than others.

And after all that: the knowing he’s smarter than you and more vicious than you (which is why he’s locked up, after all: he’s officially A Bad Dude) with nothing to lose and everything to gain, you’re left with one very alarming question.

What will he do to get what he wants?

Answer that, and you’ve got a Devil of your own.

*

Author Bio:

Lou Morgan lives in the south west of England with her family. She studied medieval literature at university and loves cathedrals and pizza (but probably not together). Her short stories have appeared in anthologies from Solaris Books, PS Publishing and Jurassic. Her first novel, Blood and Feathers has been shortlisted for the 2013 British Fantasy Awards in both the best newcomer and best fantasy novel categories. She spends far too much time on Twitter.

***

This post should really be read while listening to this song…

Guest Post: “How Do You make Non-Humans Seem Human?” by Madeline Ashby

Civilian Reader Guest Post , , , , , , , , ,

AshbyM-AuthorPicMadeline Ashby is the author of the critically-acclaimed vN and iD science fiction novels, the first two books in the Machine Dynasty series (published by Angry Robot Books). Her protagonist is a “von Neumann machine, a self-replicating humanoid robot”. This made me wonder how one goes about making a non-human character relatable and sympathetic? When I was told Madeline was available for guest posts, I jumped at the chance to ask her about this. So, without further ado…

*

How Do You Make Non-Humans Seem Human?

by Madeline Ashby

How do you make non-humans seem human? Well, with self-replicating humanoids designed to love and serve humans, it’s not that difficult. At least, it’s not for me. In vN and iD, the robots love humans enough to spend significant amounts of time with them. They have long-term relationships, both at home and at work. The longer they live, the better they learn to “pass,” as human, or at least to behave in the most human way possible.

But that’s not the real issue. The real issue is making them read as human – making them leap off the page in the way that three-dimensional human characters do in other books. I try to do that in a few different ways. Continue reading →

Guest Post: “After Apocalypse” by Gail Z. Martin

Civilian Reader Guest Post , , , , , ,

Martin,GZ-ReignOfAshMaybe it’s a sign of the times, but we seem to be obsessed with the end of the world.

Sure, such fascinations, both literary and religious, have come and gone in times past. It’s just our luck to live in the midst of a resurgence of end-of-the-world fatalism.

Pick your poison—climate change, asteroid collision, bio-warfare, zombies, or mad scientists, there are plenty of ways to die. Personally, I prefer magic.

In Ice Forged, and the upcoming Reign of Ash, Books 1 and 2 in my Ascendant Kingdoms Saga, mages on both sides of a devastating war use magic as their doomsday weapon. They manage to destroy civilization on their continent, and magic itself.

Apocalypse-by-mage was a twist that intrigued me. Magic, in the world of the Ascendant Kingdoms, does for them what technology does for us—heals the sick, makes routine tasks easier, reduces effort, and controls the environment. Long ago, people used to do those things without magic, but since the wild power was harnessed so that it could be controlled by humans, people have forgotten the old ways.

That makes it rough when the magic stops working.

There’s a fantastic TV series about “Life After People” that shows just how quickly the modern world falls apart—literally—when people are suddenly removed and no one is left to maintain what has been built. I watched those shows, riveted, as it speculated that in about 250 years after all people disappeared, the world would heal itself and most of our structures would be largely obliterated. We’re not as important as we think we are.

That concept served well as I imagined the apocalypse in Ice Forged. Not only do survivors of the war endure hardship because of the fire that rained down from the skies in a powerful magic strike, they also suffer because there is no magic. Few people know how to treat wounds, protect crops from pests, or do many other essential tasks. Where magic was used for infrastructure, either as a repair patch or to do something important, like keeping back the sea at the sea wall, magic’s failure results in additional disaster. Not only that, but the once-harnessed magic, returned to the wild, becomes a violent force of nature, creating dangerous storms and unnatural monsters.

So when exiled convict and disgraced lord Blaine McFadden discovers that he might be the only one who can restore the magic, the stakes are high. Trying to bring magic back might cause Blaine’s death, and there’s no guarantee the attempt will work. Even if he can restore the magic, it may not function the way it did before, and in any event, the kingdom is in rubble, its leaders dead.

It’s been said that “fortune” is the combination of “danger” and “opportunity.” If you define it that way, then Blaine McFadden is a very “fortunate” man.

*

The Hawthorn Moon Sneak Peek Event includes book giveaways, free excerpts and readings, all-new guest blog posts and author Q&A on 21 awesome partner sites around the globe. For a full list of where to go to get the goodies, visit the Ascendant Kingdoms website.

Book Giveaway on Twitter: Every day from June 21-28, I’ll be choosing someone at random from my Twitter followers to win a free signed book. Invite your friends to follow me – for every new 200 followers I gain between June 21-28, I’ll give away an additional book, up to 20 books!

*

Gail Z. Martin is the author of Ice Forged in her new The Ascendant Kingdoms Saga (Orbit Books), plus The Chronicles of The Necromancer series (The Summoner, The Blood King, Dark Haven and Dark Lady’s Chosen) and The Fallen Kings Cycle (The Sworn and The Dread). She is also the author of two series on eBook short stories: The Jonmarc Vahanian Adventures and the Deadly Curiosities Series. Her books are available in bookstores worldwide and on Kindle, Kobo and Nook.

Guest Post: “Why I Didn’t Write My Book in an Elevator” by Jack Skillingstead

Civilian Reader Guest Post , , , , ,

Skillingstead-LifeOnThePreservationUSHere’s the so-called elevator pitch for my new novel, Life On The Preservation.

A man discovers his city is caught in a time loop. He fears he may be losing his mind. Then a girl from outside the loop arrives. They find each other and solve the mystery. It’s Dark City meets Groundhog Day.

I never actually delivered this pitch. In fact, I only wrote it just now. One time I did find myself in an elevator with David Hartwell, who is the senior editor at Tor Books. I wasn’t even tempted to blurt a pitch at him. All I said was, “Nice tie.” David is famous for his ties. After that, we did what most people do on elevators. We stared at the doors and waited.

On publication day, which was May 28th, I did a public reading from, Life On The Preservation. The reading took place at the University Bookstore in Seattle, Washington. Duane Wilkins, who runs the excellent science fiction section of the store and who is probably as well-read as anyone ever has been in our genre, had this to say in his introduction:

“I don’t know how to explain this book.”

Then he stared into space for a while, repeated himself, and suggested I might do better at describing Life On The Preservation. Presumably, he believed I could describe my own novel because, after all, I’d written it. But I couldn’t, even though I’m a fairly articulate person. If I’d had my elevator pitch handy I might have recited the thing, but I doubt it. Besides, I only wrote the elevator pitch five minutes ago.

People who like to give writing advice will often tell you that if you can’t describe your book in one paragraph you probably don’t have a saleable idea. If that’s true, I’m living in the wrong universe. Though I have described both of my novels in one or two paragraphs, I did it only after the books were finished and sold and the publishers asked me to do it, so they would have some copy to put on the back of the book and to advertise it in catalogues and around the internet.

Skillingstead-LifeOnThePreservationUKThe truth is, you don’t know what your book is about until you’ve written it, and if the book is any good it lives in the details – details that you discover along the way. At my University Bookstore reading I could have described LOTP as a story of alien destruction, time loops, transhuman survival in an environment of outlaw art, paranoid estrangement and redemption. I could even have said its secret theme concerned living in the world you create – whether you acknowledge you’ve created it or not.

But, while true enough, that description isn’t anything but a laundry list of related generalities. And I must say that, generally, I distrust generalities. Before I wrote LOTP I took several stabs at the one-paragraph description. I even tried to outline chapters. It felt a little like looking at a slide show from a vacation I hadn’t yet enjoyed. Here’s a pretty picture of a beach with random people lying around! Yes, the people are strangers, ciphers, and the beach looks like any other beach. But there it is! And I’m going!

My early efforts of transforming Life On The Preservation from a short story to a novel looked something like a generic beach with sun-bathing ciphers. This is because I was desperate to get organized and write a novel that pushed all the right buttons – you know, the buttons that would make people love the book and shower me with contracts and money. Of course, those first attempts to expand Preservation turned out to be abysmal failures. I learned that – for me, at least – there is only one way to discover whatever it is that might be original within myself. I had to go there and document the journey every inch of the way. Only then could I begin to organize my fancy slide show.

*

Life on the Preservation was published by Solaris Books on June 6th. Here’s the synopsis…

Inside the Seattle Preservation Dome it’s always the Fifth of October, the city caught in an endless time loop. “Reformed” graffiti artist Ian Palmer is the only one who knows the truth, and he is desperate to wake up the rest of the city before the alien Curator of this human museum erases Ian’s identity forever. Outside the Dome, the world lies in apocalyptic ruin. Small town teenager Kylie is one of the few survivors to escape both the initial shock wave and the effects of the poison rains that follow. Now she must make her way across the blasted lands pursued by a mad priest and menaced by skin-and-bone things that might once have been human. Her destination is the Preservation, and her mission is to destroy it. But once inside, she meets Ian, and together they discover that Preservation reality is even stranger than it already appears.

Guest Post: “On Editing & Writing…” by Jonathan Strahan

Civilian Reader Guest Post , , , , ,

FearsomeJourneys-2013On writing tips for new writers from someone who has never written a story, but has read a few

Many thanks to Civilian Reader for letting me stop by and chat about editing and writing. I’ve been thinking about what you might say to a new writer who wanted to write a short story, a great one (who’d want to write anything else?) When I first started to work on a list of tips on how to write a terrific short story I drew a blank. I’ve not written a short story since high school, so I’m no expert. I’ve not even thought about writing a short story myself. But then I realized that, like you, I read. I read a lot. And what I mostly read is short fiction. So, it’s possible I might have picked up an idea or two.

1. Write

This might seem obvious, but no one has ever finished a short story without sitting down and actually writing. I have a folder full of stops and starts on a handful of short stories and novels, but none of them are finished. So, do that. Write. Write every day and finish what you start.

2. Re-write

I know you think you’re finished when you write “The End” at the end of your newly minted short story. You probably are. But it’s possible, just possible, that there’s still a little bit of work left to do. Put it in a drawer for a week, and come back to it fresh. Suddenly you’ll see, if you’re at all like me when I write anything, all sorts of problems with it. You might also let a trusted reader see it. Get their feedback, try to listen to it with an open mind, and be willing to re-write.

3. Read

The only way to learn how to write a great short story is to read great short stories. Read them a lot and think about them. Try to work out how they work and why. Pick a writer whose work you love and see how their stories work. If you love fantasy stories, try the work of Fritz Leiber or Ursula Le Guin, and see if you can unpick their stories. They knew what they were doing.

4. Keep it short

We are talking about writing short stories after all, so keep it short. You probably only want a single plot line (the story) and a single point of view character (the person whose eyes we’re seeing the story though). Longer stories, novellas and short novels, can sometimes have subplots and more than one point of view character, but basically you only need one.

5. Make your story work

I don’t mean make it great. Of course you’re going to do that. What I mean is make your words count. Everything you write in a short story should do more than one thing. Setting builds character, voice advances plot, and so on. Look very carefully at each scene in your story. You won’t have many of them – this is short after all – so make sure each scene does more than one thing. Each scene should build setting, develop character and move the story forward. Avoid scenes that only do one thing. You want to avoid your story being dull (which it was never going to be, but you know what I mean) and making sure your scenes are doing the heavy lifting helps.

If you’ve already written a great short story you probably know all of this stuff, and possibly far more. If you’re just starting out, though, it might help. And if you are starting out keep going. You’ll probably write some stinkers. You’ll possibly write some stories that are almost exactly like stories written by people whose work you love. That’s fine. That’s what you should be doing. You have to write through that so you can get to the stories that only you can tell, the ones that are definitely going to be great. And when you do, send them to me. I love great short stories.

*

Fearsome Journeys is out now, published by Solaris Books.

Guest Post: “On Writing Fiction vs. Writing Games” by Richard Dansky

Civilian Reader Guest Post , , , , ,

A 14 year veteran of the video game industry, Richard Dansky is the Central Clancy Writer for Ubisoft/Red Storm. Named by Gamasutra as one of the top 20 game writers in 2009, he has written for games ranging from OUTLAND to the upcoming SPLINTER CELL: BLACKLIST (which I’m rather looking forward to). Richard is also the author of six novels, including the critically praised Firefly Rain. He lives and works in North Carolina with his wife and their statistically improbable collections of books, scotch and cats. His latest novel is Vaporware.

*

ON WRITING FICTION VS. WRITING GAMES

RichardDansky-DinosaurPicThe big difference between writing games and writing fiction is whose story you’re actually telling. When you’re writing fiction, you’re writing a singular, defined narrative. The characters do what you want them to do. They say what you want them to say, when you want them to say it, and the plot moves, one page at a time, toward the conclusion. The reader receives the narrative; the story’s told in linear fashion, and while the reader can adjust the way they receive it by reading out of order – or by skipping the bits with Tom Bombadil and getting straight to the barrow-wights – the text is set on the page. It’s the writer’s story, not the reader’s.

In games, it’s not your story, it’s the player’s. Every piece of writing you do, every word you put on the page isn’t there to advance your story to a singular conclusion. It’s there for the player to pick up and put on and experience, and then to make their own. It sounds counter-intuitive, but it’s true. Without the player actually playing, those story elements sit there inert. They’re pure potential, waiting to be actualized by the player engaging with them. Until then, they just sit in memory, waiting to be triggered by the player’s actions.

What this produces is a very different kind of story. For all the classical genre tropes that so heavily infest game writing, classical storytelling techniques need to be adjusted to allow the player room to play. It’s what I called “the player-shaped hole” at my Game Developers Conference talk a few years ago, the possibility space around what the player might do at any given moment. And even in the most straightforward game, the list of things the player can do at any given moment is surprisingly large. Shoot? Maybe, but even with that there are innumerable choices to be made (weapon, rate of fire, choice of target, etc.). Move? Duck? Jump? Check inventory? Use a healthpack? Fiddle with the controller? All of these things the player can do, things that might be incorporated into their personal story of playing have to be accounted for so that when the player looks back on their experience, it feels like all the choices they made were the right ones at the time. Before it happens, it has to be open; in hindsight, it has to be seamless.

Dansky-Vaporware

That’s not to say that the gap between writing fiction and writing games is insurmountable, though I confess, as someone who’s done both, it’s often easier to go from the ultimately interactive scenario of game writing to the ultimately dictated scenario of fiction than the other way around. And a look at the writers working both sides of the fence these days – Austin Grossman, Erin Hoffman, Lucien Soulban, Jay Posey, and many more – might even suggest that there’s some potential benefit to laboring in the vineyards of games and learning the hard way to tell stories not your own.

***

If you want to learn more about Richard Dansky and his work, be sure to check out his website and follow him on Twitter.

Guest Post: “On Worldbuilding” by Lenora Rose

Civilian Reader Guest Post , , , ,

RoseL-IllusionOfSteel-Crop

Lenora Rose is the author of The Illusion of Steel (Eggplant). A while back, I got in touch with her and asked if she might be interested in writing a little something for the blog, and she agreed. So, in advance of my review of the novel, here is Lenora on worldbuilding…

ON WORLDBUILDING

It seems that lately, worldbuilding has been coming up on the blogs of writers more than usual; possibly this is the case, or possibly it’s confirmation bias, since I’ve been trying to think how to put my own thoughts about worldbuilding into perspective.

Then Ursula Vernon posted this offering, memorably titled Worldbuilding and the Okapi’s Butt, in which she remarks:

The important thing is that the reader get a sense of vast, uncanny history and weird things happening just out of sight. You don’t want to drag the world in and put it on the dissecting table—that way lies Silmarillion-esque prologues—you just want them to catch a glimpse of it, like an okapi’s butt in the rainforest, and go “Whoa. There’s a really big animal over there, isn’t there?” while it glides away into the shadows. … And the truth, of course, is that for me (and I’d guess for many of us) there’s no okapi there at all, it’s basically a big striped butt on a stick that the writer is waving through the undergrowth. Possibly while making “Woooooooo!” noises because none of us actually know what an okapi sounds like.

And this… is true. Any speculative fiction writer, in attempting to present a fleshed out world, will probably several times need to reference something outside the actual story, some past kingdom or mythical animal, some hobby of the lower classes, some religious detail, or a line about, “That time when grandmother got into a drinking contest with a Giant Stoat…” Mostly, they sit in the corners, making the world a bit more solid.

The story where these things are lacking often feels unsatisfying, at least to me as a reader. If there’s nothing past the edges of the map in the frontispiece, if all the people come from the same racial type and same cultural background without a good reason, if the hero isn’t an orphan and yet seems to lack a family, if, to paraphrase Patricia C. Wrede, I can’t figure out who does the laundry (and yet the character’s clothes are always scrupulously clean), my chances of finishing the book decrease. It’s often essential to cultivate the sense that the world is large and has been around a while before the story starts, shifting and changing like the real world does.

RoseL-IllusionOfSteelBut how much worldbuilding, how much extraneous detail is enough? While some people write so as to have an excuse to world-build (Tolkien being the extreme and obvious example), others write so as to get through a story they love. We’re not all up to spending 40 years inventing our worlds; even more so for those working to deadline. It can be a rewarding game, but it can also exhaust the writer.

Even inventing, and remembering, all one’s Okapi butts can be wearing. They seem small, and they’re quicker and lighter than fully writing out the details of the Okapi in the forest (often for the reader as well as the writer), but they all need to be remembered, because when the writer least expects it, one turns into a key detail in the story. Your hero is surrounded by a tribe of giant stoats, and tentatively mentions his grandmother’s name… next thing you know, the stoat nation’s drunken-fu warriors are an essential part of his plan to defeat the enemy.

My usual workaround is to write mostly in the same world. Not the same country or culture, necessarily, not even the same time period, but a consistent world. This gives me some framework to add details that flesh the world out without exhausting myself inventing every single thing from scratch every time. I know what this character’s grandparents were doing, in that country across the sea. I know what animals are in the woods, at least well enough that when some strange thing moves through the trees, even if all I add in this moment is the flash in the trees, in another story, that animal was out in plain sight, being a big part of the plot. So I can produce the whole animal on demand without needing to invent it yet again.

Sherwood Smith uses much the same technique (with some of the overall worldbuilding that doesn’t fit into the stories appearing on her web site, for those interested enough after a few books).

It has its dangers. Not least, of course, is Tolkien syndrome, where most of his stories never got finished because their creator was refining his world yet again, and rewriting all but random pages rather than sitting down to write a piece start to end. The other is the possibility of too many subplots, too many things the reader needs to know to step into a story – as has happened with some of the multi-volume epics.

So for this, too, I developed a personal workaround.

I leave lacunae on purpose.

As I’ve already mentioned in a comment on this web site, when I read Robin Hobb’s Tawny Man trilogy, it often referred back to an earlier trilogy, the Farseer books, sketching out the youthful years of the main character, Fitz. Some of those early years had direct effects on the current story, so of course, the Tawny Man trilogy is filled with references to it, enough to keep new readers in the know but not so much a reader of the first story would feel bogged down by old information.

The main thing I took away from the Tawny Man trilogy, for all I enjoyed it very well, was that I never actually wanted to read the first trilogy. This was not, as it happens, any doubt that the story itself would be well written. I have read and admired numerous other works of Ms. Hobb’s (particularly those published as Megan Lindholm). However, in this one case, the details as they shone through the second trilogy seemed stronger to me as fleshed-out backstory than they would as a story in their own right. They made the world richer, deeper, and they satisfied any craving I had to learn more.

I don’t say this choice was right for others, but it was right for me.

There are places where I have an idea what happens to the characters. In some cases, these turned into essential backstory. In some cases, they’re foreshadowed in stories that already exist. But I do not intend to write these particular stories.

I can’t say that won’t change at some point. But while there are writers of whom I wish, deeply, that they had told more stories, finished works in their lifetime rather than leaving their heir to scramble through boxes and decades of revisions – or simply leaving things unwritten forever – there are other writers where I have noticed that they’re writing every last story they can, every last side quest or passing mention in their other books. And some of them just don’t interest me. I like the implied story, the story as it is in my mind, more than anything I suspect I would read that they wrote to fill that gap.

Story is, after all, something that happens between writer and reader. Fill in all the gaps, and you leave nothing for the reader to do.

***

You can read an excerpt of The Illusion of Steel here. And here’s the synopsis:

Not even a shape-shifter can hide from her past forever…

Abandoned by her mother as a child, never knowing her father, Kanna Mendrays understands how to hide. She has used her shapeshifting ability to mask who she is, what she is, even her gender. Now that she has come to Melidan Tower to heal, she finds her defenses crumbling.

Peace is scarce here. Biadei—the friend who saved her life and brought her to the Tower—goes mad at each full moon. The aged Lord Daemon—infamous for having killed the man who abused him—seems to know too much about her. Every room of the Tower presents Kanna with a mystery when all she wants is peace.

And now she has begun to hear a voice: the spirit of Lord Daemon’s victim, whispering to her through a sword named Desecrator. When Biadei is captured by werewolves, it promises, “Give me Daemon, and I will save your friend. Give me Daemon, and you will know the truth about your family…”

Guest Post: “The Monster Within” by Richard Thomas

Civilian Reader Guest Post , , , , ,

ThomasR-StaringIntoTheAbyss

Richard Thomas is the author of STARING INTO THE ABYSS (Kraken Press – awesome cover, above), and while I do some catching up on my ever-growing TBR Mountain, I thought it would be a great idea to invite him over to CR to write a little something. He kindly took the time to put together a post (despite my hectic, less-than-speedy correspondence). Check it out…

***

“The Monster Within” by Richard Thomas

When we look at classic horror stories, and the need to update them, the way that so many authors today are trying to build on the beasts we all grew up with – werewolves, vampires, demons – I often take a step back, away from these creatures and ask myself what we’re really writing about. Is it a matter of graphic violence, the gore, do we just want to see a creature transform under the full moon, limbs stretching, bones popping, nails pushing through fingertips? Or the evidence of their feeding – necks ripped out, blood drained from pale flesh, muscle and sinew scattered across the forest floor, painting an abstract vision of the grotesque?

What fascinates me more is not a new version of the beast, the boogeyman, the creatures that hide in the shadows, swim in our waters, and hide beneath the earth. What I find the most terrifying, is the monster within us all.

Let me tell you a little story. It’s a true story, at least up to the endings I’m going to give you. When I lived in Wicker Park, a hip neighborhood on the near north side of Chicago, I used to grill out on a little barbeque pit I bought at Home Depot. Maybe $200 total for the gas range, easier to light in a hurry. I make these chicken wings every year for the Super Bowl, a mixture of hot wings, with the standard spices and hot sauces, but with an Asian flair—a bit of teriyaki, soy, ginger and Sriracha. I baste a ten-pound bag of wings overnight, stirring it, sucking the liquid up with a baster, and then squirting it back over the wings. It’s a labor of love.

Well, one year I was standing out in the cold cooking up the wings, after a night of marinating them, off to a party – not the Super Bowl, I know that much, because it was hot out – I kept running back upstairs to grab a cold can of Budweiser. Across the street from us was a block of Section 8 Housing – government property for those that were struggling to get by. I lived with my girlfriend at the time, Lisa, who is now my wife, and the mother of my children. These guys across the street, they were mostly black, a few Hispanics, nobody white. They would stand on the porch, smoke cigarettes, and at night the cars would stop, buy their drugs, and move on. They had kids of course – they were people you know, not monsters. I would nod to them when I walked past – I didn’t bother them, and they didn’t bother me. But I knew they had guns, I knew about the drugs of course – there would be fights, screaming, glass breaking, and the police would show up now and then.

RichardThomas-AuthorPicI was about halfway done with the wings, when I ran back up to get a beer. I was only gone about twenty seconds, but in that time the boys across the street had run over, grabbed the giant metal bowl of cooked wings, and disappeared. I stood at the barbeque, a slow rage building. I looked across the street, and they were all gone, not a single person in sight. I’d even given a few of the wings to some kids that had wandered over, not fifteen minutes early, as they’d walked by, saying, “Man, those wings smell GOOD.” I had paused – should I share with them, I had a lot of wings. “Here you go, have one,” I said, holding out the bowl. They each took one and walked away – happy, I thought. I guess not. One was not enough. They took them all.

As I started to walk across the street to go get my wings, I stopped. I asked myself, “What the hell are you doing?” The guns, the violence I’d seen, black eyes and bloody lips, kids crying, police cars. I turned around and went back to the grill, and cooked the other half of my wings. The bastards even kept the metal bowl.

Why did I stop? Because I knew violence, and I knew that it would escalate, that in the end, I might be the one to suffer, my girl. I’d been in fistfights where the only end to the beating is when one person didn’t get back up. I’d seen faces stomped into the curb. I knew that the monster that lived in me would be happy to get into it, to start something – baseball bat in hand, bricks through windows, slashed tires in the dead of night. I looked at my car parked right in front of the house. How long would it last? Not long, I imagined. The ending I imagined, the one I’m making up here, that didn’t happen (but could have) involved terror – looking out the window, waiting for my girl to get home, standing outside smoking a cigarette, and then a gun is pushed in my temple, and what then? I’d be lucky with a beating.

A few weeks later, a woman was raped in the gangway between our apartment building and the one next door. This is not fiction – this is true. A man beat her, tore off her clothes, and shoved his hard cock in her most private and delicate area and fucked her until she bled, leaving her crying on the concrete. Above, merely feet away, my girlfriend and I slept soundly, the air conditioner blasting, never hearing a thing. The only evidence on the concrete sidewalk was a dark stain that would never quite fade away, some broken glass, and the idea that violence knows no rules, no laws – random chaos that can descend at any moment, and come home to roost.

This is what scares me – not werewolves, vampires or demons. (Okay, maybe demons a little bit, but that also comes back to religion and some sort of factual evidence.) These are the stories that fascinate me, the Dexters and Hannibals, or even the unnamed evil that lurks in the heart of all men, all women – the desire to hurt another human being, the need for vengeance, to be right at any cost. So quite often, in my stories, it’s not that yeti, the chupacabra, or a zombie. No, it’s the guy next door, drunk, running over a child in the street. It’s a moment of selfishness that results in the death of a wife, and the magic and voodoo that any man would trade to get her back, the love of his life. It’s the feeling of loss, of disintegrating, losing yourself in the madness of a moment in time, that tipping point, something you can never get back. It’s the monster within us all, flawed as we are – that’s what scares me.

*

ThomasR-StaringIntoTheAbyssFor more, Richard Thomas can be found on Twitter and his website. Here’s the cover (again) and synopsis for Staring Into The Abyss:

As Friedrich Nietzsche said, “Battle not with monsters lest ye become a monster; and if you gaze into the abyss the abyss gazes into you.” In this collection of short stories Richard Thomas shows us in dark, layered prose the human condition in all of its beauty and dysfunction. A man sits in a high tower making tiny, mechanical birds, longing for the day when he might see the sky again. A couple spends an evening in an underground sex club where jealousy and possession are the means of barter. A woman is victimized as a child, and turns that rage and vengeance into a lifelong mission, only to self-destruct, and become exactly what she battled against. A couple hears the echo of the many reasons they’ve stayed together, and the one reason the finally have to part. And a boy deals with a beast that visits him on a nightly basis, not so much a shadow, as a fixture in his home. These 20 stories will take you into the darkness, and sometimes bring you back. But now and then there is no getting out, the lights have faded, the pitch black wrapping around you like a festering blanket of lies. What will you do now? It’s eat or be eaten – so bring a strong stomach and a hearty appetite.

Guest Post: Can there be such a thing as “Too Much Fantasy?” by David Emrys

Civilian Reader Guest Post , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

David E. Emrys is the author of a couple of self-published fantasies. I got to chatting with him on Twitter, and he seemed like a good fellow. So I asked if he’d like to write something. And he did. So here it is.

image

Is the fantasy world over-populated? It’s a valid question and one that keeps raising its ugly head in the current era of ‘Lord of the Authors: The Fellowship of the Fantasy’.

Without battling out the topic of Indie vs Traditional, I want to take a moment and talk about fantasy worlds. A simple blog post can’t cover every single fantasy tome to have ever graced a book shelf (or a digital market place like Amazon, for all you e-publishing gurus), but we can highlight a few.

J.R.R. Tolkien with his elves, and his dwarves, his hobbits with their hairy feet, and his trolls. Ringwraiths, a dark lord, and a powerful artefact that is a curse to all those who bear it.

George R.R. Martin with his thrones, and his games, the squabbles of men, and the treachery, futility and thick-fast plots (oh, and if you’ve watched the TV adaptation, there’s a fair number of boobs, too).

Ursula K. Le Guin – if there was a Godmother of fantasy, it would be le Guin. Her stories are folklore brought to life, magic and mysticism intoned with a rich world building.

Robin Hobb, who’s back catalogue boasts more tomes than the knives of Joe Abercrombie’s cast (below) – claimed by Orson Scott Card to have “set the standard for the most serious fantasy novel”.

Peter V. Brett – demons galore! How ‘man’ (and woman!) can overcome their fears for what they believe is right.

Karen Miller strives to break down the old fantasy clichés, using them where she will, but bending and twisting them into something new, pushing ‘fantasy’ into a more ‘fantastical’ realm.

Mark Lawrence explores the moral depravity of a Prince who won’t let anything – or anyone – stand in his way, even if that involves burning the world just to keep warm.

Michael J. Sullivan brings bromance to the fold (Webster’s unofficial definition of bromance: “bro-mance, a combination of brother and romance, meaning ‘a brotherly romance’ between two males.” Often seen sharing large quantities of bruises, beauties, and beatings) with a healthy dose of death-defying escapades and swashbuckling adventures.

John Gwynne breaths fresh life into the folklore and legend side of fantasy, giving Giants, Wyrms and even Angels a gritty new lease with a Nordic/Celtic feel.

Brent Weeks forefronts assassins in one, and mages in another, but above all else they struggle with their own powers for further means.

Brandon Sanderson… Magic, need I say more? But then again, his world-building is second to none.

Joe Abercrombie touts more knives than any sane man should ever need, but lucky for us not all of his characters can be deemed sane enough to count or care for that matter. But when all is said and done, it’s down to being what you’re meant to be, and (as he often states by way of infamous barbarian Logen NineFingers) once you’ve got a task to do, it’s better to do it than live with the fear of it.

Helen Lowe, a relative newcomer to the fold, but with her fresh blood added to the mix, the 2012 Gemmell Award winner (Morningstar category) weighs in with a hefty dose of darker, grittier fantasy and a deeper meaning of how we treat each other.

I’ve barely even touched the surface here. I could go on for hours. James Barclay, David Gemmell (big daddy of British heroic-fantasy), Robert E. Howard, Patrick Rothfuss, Robert Jordan, Tamora Pierce, David Dalglish, Mazarkis Williams, Moses Sirergar III, Ben Galley, Steven Erikson, Christopher Paolini… ok, ok – I’ll stop, now.

So, the fantasy genre is a busy set of worlds. But each and every one of them is different. Yes, a lot of them share themes or creatures (elves, dragons, hobbits, dwarves, damsels in distress… hobbits, or other creatures with hairy feet?), but would you really say: “No more!” Heck, I’m sure if you asked a lot of these authors they’d admit to being inspired by one another. Of course they would.

Ok, let’s imagine if someone said “No more” to Robert Jordan. Would we have the Peter V. Bretts, and Christopher Paolinis of today? “Put that pen down, David Gemmell…”, and voila, no John Gwynnes or James Barclays. How many would we lose if Robert E. Howard had run out of ink on the first page, and Conan had been lost to an unfinished sentence?

IMAGINE THE CHAOS if someone told J.R.R. Tolkien to shave his hobbit and write a rom-com? Think of the children, pray for their futures!

Publishing is an ever changing industry, and fantasy is an ever changing realm of possibilities. If you’re Indie or Traditional, reader or writer… could you really say NO to one last fantasy? And before you start culling dwarves, shaving hobbit feet, or cashing in dragons’ fangs and hoards for the last copy of 50 Shades of Grey, just remember:

A Fantasy author isn’t just for Christmas. They’re for life.

(And even then, they’ll think of a way to come back and haunt you from the afterlife – they are, after all, in the business of fantasy.)

***

D.E.M. Emrys is the author of two eBooks in his Wroge Elements fantasy series: From Man to Man (UK/US – currently free on both) and It Began With Ashes (UK/US).

EmrysDEM-WrogeElements