Category Archives: Literature

April 10, 2015 · 6:45 am

Elements of the story: Circumstances and Objectives

At the outset of any good story, we find our protagonist, and see him/her in their normal surroundings. An event occurs, and Hero is thrown out of his comfort zone and into the Situation, which is the core idea of your plot. This is the circumstance in which your protagonist finds himself in the beginning of the story.

In the opening pages of The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien, a respectable hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, is living a comfortable life in a prosperous, sheltered village, and has no desire to change that in any way. However, a casual, polite greeting made to a passing wizard sets a string of events into motion that will eventually change the course of history of Middle Earth.

The wizard, Gandalf, tricks Bilbo into hosting a party for Thorin Oakenshield and his band of dwarves, who sing of reclaiming the Lonely Mountain and its vast treasure from the dragon Smaug. When the music ends, Gandalf unveils a map showing a secret door into the Mountain and proposes that the dumbfounded Bilbo serve as the expedition’s “burglar”. The dwarves ridicule the idea, but Bilbo becomes a little indignant, and joins despite himself. The next morning he has second thoughts, but the last minute Bilbo literally runs out the door, with nothing but the clothes on his back.

How will the story start?
What is the hero’s personal condition (strength, health) at the beginning?
How will that condition be changed, for better or worse, by the hero himself or by the antagonistic force?
What could possibly entice him out of his comfort zone?

Now we come to the next part of the core of your plot: Objective

A protagonist has no business showing up on the page unless he/she has a compelling objective. If he doesn’t want something badly enough to do just about anything to achieve it over the next couple hundred pages, then he doesn’t deserve to have a story told about him.

Bilbo does have an objective. Once he gets past his feeling of having made a terrible mistake, he desires nothing more than to help his friends achieve their goal: that of regaining their lost kingdom. Gandalf exerts a parental influence over Bilbo at the outset, guiding him and pushing him out of his comfortable existence. But it is Bilbo who has common sense and compassion, who gradually takes over leadership of the party, guiding and rescuing them from their own greedy mistakes. This is a fact the dwarves can’t bear to acknowledge, and also a fact he doesn’t realize himself.

Those turning points where with each adventure Bilbo gains confidence and a tool or weapon he will later need are what make up the best parts of the adventure. That is what you must inject into your adventure, be it urban fantasy or science fiction.

At the beginning of the story, what could the hero possibly want to cause him to risk everything to acquire it?
How badly does he want it and why?
What moral (or immoral) choice is he going to have to make in his attempt to gain that objective?

Perhaps your tale is set on a space station. What does your protagonist need that is in short supply? What does he have to do to get it?

Perhaps you are writing an urban fantasy. Perhaps your main character is a vampire. He/she requires sustenance–what will he/she do to get it? Or conversely, if a human, what will he/she do to avoid becoming vampire-food?

Protagonists begin their tale in their current surroundings. They are thrown out of their comfortable existence by circumstances, and forced to identify objectives they must achieve or acquire in order to resolve their situation.

Circumstances and Objectives combine to form the plot. Character A desires Objective B–and will do anything to acquire it. Along the way, Character A has a series of adventures that force him to grow and change, but which in the end give him the strength, the moral courage to enable the final resolution.

Thus, whichever you conceive first, characters or objective, you need to know why your character is willing to leave his circumstances and embark on his adventure. That objective must be compelling enough for him to risk everything he values to achieve it.

But what if a side character has such a compelling story that the book becomes about him, and not our hobbit? If you notice that is the case, rewrite your book so that the character with the most compelling story is the protagonist from page one.

Potential for gain must outweigh the potential for loss–so if he is risking his life, there had better be a damned big payoff at the end, whether monetary or in moral coin. Without that risk and potential for gain, there is no story.

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Tagged as adventure, battles, books, circumstances and objectives, creative writing, Elements of a story, fantasy, fiction, humor, indie publishing, J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, writing

April 8, 2015 · 6:45 am

Elements of a story: Identifying your protagonist

Great plots drive great stories, but the best stories start with a character that really moved me. The trouble is, when we first begin to write a story, one character leads to another and soon, each character is vying to tell your their own story. It’s sort of like a family gathering, where they all talk at once, and you love them all.

This makes writing a true stand-alone book difficult. Tad Williams managed to do just that in 2003 with The War of the Flowers. Theo Vilmos is a thirty-year-old lead singer in a marginally successful rock band. Fearing he is past his prime, he seeks refuge in a remote cabin in the woods. There, he reads a memoir written by a (perhaps) dead relative. This relative claimed he had visited the magical world of Faerie. A series of strange events occurs and before Theo knows it, he too is drawn into a place that is both strange and yet familiar to him, revealing the truth about many things that had always puzzled him.

Williams had another great character to draw on in his little fairy, Applecore, but he kept it contained in one wonderful novel detailing Theo Vilmos’ adventures rather than going too far afield and having to serialize it. This is a model we lesser-known fantasy authors might want to take a closer look at and somehow revive: the stand-alone novel.

We might have a great story in our head, and we may have an awesome cast of characters dying to leap onto the page, but until we know who the hero is, we have no story. From the first page to the last, Tad Williams knew who his hero was in The War of the Flowers, and it’s clear that he never doubted it was Theo Vilmos.

Sometimes identifying just whose emotional and physical journey you will be following is easier said than done. When faced with a pantheon of great characters, ask yourself these questions (listed here in no particular order):

Who among these people has the most to lose?
Which character do you find the most interesting?
Who’s personal story inspired this tale in the first place?
Who will be best suited to taking full advantage of all this plot’s possibilities?

From my point of view, one of the best fantasy series of all time is Tad Williams’ epic, three-volume masterpiece, Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn. It opens with volume one, The Dragonbone Chair. This is a very different tale than The War of the Flowers, much larger, and encompassing several entire cultures on the edge of disaster.

In this opening volume, Tad had many great characters to draw on, all of whom had strong stories. Indeed, there is a large cast of characters with incredible possibilities, but as a reader I liked that he managed to tell their stories without losing sight of the original story that sparked the series in the first place.

The fact that Williams was able to weave the many threads of such a large cast of characters into one enthralling story and still leave (Seoman) Simon Snowlock as the main protagonist with a gripping story-line is amazing.

Yet in this series, Tad Williams does just that. He could have written it as the story of Prince Josua, Princess Miriamele, Binabik the Troll, or even the Norn prince, Jiriki. They are each compelling characters, with deep, intriguing back-stories, and any of them would have been an awesome protagonist.

Each and every one of the many characters in this series was strong enough to warrant a book of their own, but Simon the kitchen boy remains the central character, and the other story-lines are detailed but remain subordinate to his, fleshing it out and defining his ultimate fate, driving the plot to the final denouement, and the cataclysmic events in Green Angel Tower.

This juggling act, this ability to not become sidetracked by your wonderful side-characters while telling their story is critical to the progression of your plot. It’s excruciatingly easy to become so enthralled with the story-line of a minor player that you derail your novel in the first draft.

I’m a gamer and I play Final Fantasy type RPGs. I adore side-quests, and I love a little back-story to flesh out whatever tale I’m reading, but just like in a game, the protagonist and the core plot has to stay in motion. Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn has a lot of side-quests, and a lot of back-story, but despite the opportunities for derailment, it is propelled irresistibly toward the final catastrophic event, and does it in three admittedly large books.

As much as I adored the Wheel of Time series, Robert Jordan seemed to fall into the trap of loving all his characters too much, and wanting to tell each of their truly epic stories in the one series–and it couldn’t be done without aggravating his fans.

Consider this: although it was originally planned as a six-book series, The Wheel of Time grew to encompass fourteen volumes, a prequel novel, and a companion book. Jordan began writing the first volume, The Eye of the World, in 1984. It was published in January 1990. With Jordan’s death on 16 September 2007, the conclusion of the series was in question, but Brandon Sanderson stepped in and did a masterful job of taking Jordan’s incredible mass of notes and background, along with the rough draft and finished the series’ final three installments.

It occasionally happens that you have chosen a protagonist, but another character suddenly seems to have a more intriguing way about him. It is up to you to make a decision–who will be the central character? If, after all is said and done, a different character than the one you originally thought was the protagonist comes to the fore, you must go back and rewrite your beginning to to reflect that.

Deciding who that protagonist will be is a matter of knowing which character has the most opportunity to take full advantage of all the possibilities. The other characters serve only to propel him/her to the final conflict.

Sometimes, as in Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, that character is the 14 year old kitchen boy on the verge of manhood, and not the battle-hardened prince with the tragic history.

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Tagged as and Thorn, books, creative writing, Elements of a story, fantasy, fiction, Final Fantasy, Identifying the protagonist, literature, Memory, Memory Sorrow and Thorn, Robert Jordan, self publishing, Sorrow, Stone of Farewell, Tad Williams, The Dragonbone Chair, Theo Vilmos, To Green Angel Tower, Wheel of Time

April 3, 2015 · 6:46 am

Norwescon 2015

This weekend I am at Norwescon in Seattle, Washington, along with fellow Myrddin Publishing Group author, Lee French. This is where I get to do both the work and the fun stuff that goes along with being an author–AND Huw the Bard will be offered on the NIWA table! How cool is that?

Norwescon is a gamer-scifi-fantasy addict’s paradise. The guests of honor are George R. R. Martin (Author), Julie Dillon (Artist), Amy Mainzer (Science), and Random House (Spotlight Publisher) represented by Anne Groell and Tricia Narwani.

Plus, there will be a large number number of seminars and special events: Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night each feature a DJ’d dance in the grand ballrooms, and Lazer Tag and many other games. Friday features an 18-and-over special event. And, don’t forget the Masquerade, complete with Children’s Masquerade. Holy cosplay!

Michael Tinker Pearce came by our booth on Thursday, and I have to say I loved his work, Diaries of a Dwarven Rifleman. I really enjoyed meeting him–he’s a charming man.

Of course, food is tricky–the vegan must provide for herself while on the road. One can only hope that the room she ordered at her hotel that is within walking distance of the event will have the kitchenette as she had requested. Otherwise she will be downstairs at the breakfast area using the microwave at all hours.

Feeding myself at these events is always a challenge, even at conventions where they claim to provide for “special” dietary needs. How hard is it to bake a damned potato and garnish it with a little guacamole, and some veggies sauteed in olive oil? Apparently impossible, as proven by my annual PNWA conference dietary fiasco at the Hilton. I look forward to seeing how they manage to screw up “special” needs every year. Last year I was literally the last person to be served at the banquet, and the food arrived cold and inedible–and my table mates had long since finished theirs when mine was delivered.

Being glared at by the servers for wistfully hoping to eventually see a plate of food was also to be expected–after all, “special dietary needs” are a selfish fad designed to draw attention to ones self, don’t you know.

But Norwescon will be different. It’s far less expensive to attend, less than 1/5 the cost of PNWA (indies pay their own way, you know) and they proved snacks but you aren’t tied to their menu.

The difference is this: PNWA is a writer-focused event with seminars, agent, and editors attending and presenting seminars. I’ve found the writers who give the seminars there to be really entertaining and THAT is why I attend. It is an awesome, inspiring conference that recharges me.

Julie Dillon will be speaking at Norwescon, and as a wannabe artist myself, I’m quite intrigued by her work. The covers art she does for mainstream fantasy authors is just as high a quality as that of the legendary Michael Whelan.

So I get to hang out in the dealers area with my friends from NIWA, buy a new T shirt or two designed by some crazy-gifted people, and I will get to hear George R.R. Martin speak on Sunday morning. Don’t love his work, but I adore him as a man and as a speaker.

If I am really crafty, I can get my pristine, barely-been-read first edition of A Game of Thrones signed during one of George’s 3 scheduled signing events–wowsers.

During the hippie era, of which I was a late entry to, most hippies did not refer to themselves as hippies as that was really term used when our parents were complaining about us. Mostly we referred to ourselves as freaks, since the mainstream society considered our willful desire for world peace to be aberrant. But out of that culture grew some of the best scifi and fantasy authors and artists of all time.

And so I say, it’s good to be a freak in a land where freaks really know how to freak! Norwescon will be an adventure for sure!

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Tagged as Amy Mainzer, author Lee French, Connie J Jasperson, George R R Martin, Huw The Bard, Julie Dillon, Michael Whelan, Norwescon 2015, vegan lifestyle, Writers Conventions, writing

April 1, 2015 · 6:47 am

Creating Conversations

Conversations are easy to write…badly.

Unless the author thinks about it carefully, they can be stilted, stiff, and an unnatural wall of blah-blah-blah. Good writing involves learning the craft, and nowhere is that more apparent than in a conversation.

So how does the intrepid author write this phenomenon in such a way that it sounds natural? I always think of a conversation as having an arc: It begins, rises to a peak, and ebbs, an integral part of the scene, propelling the story forward to the next scene.

We might jabber about nothing, but in writing, a good conversation is about something and builds toward something. J.R.R. Tolkien said that good dialogue must have a premise and moves toward a conclusion of some sort. If nothing comes of it, the dialogue is a waste of the reader’s time.

First, when we write about conversations between our characters, we want to ensure they don’t all sound like the same person. Imagine you are at a party. If you look around you, observing the conversations going on in small clusters, you will notice that every person has different mannerisms. The same is true of your characters when you see them in your head. With that image in mind, you want to include those differences in their gestures, and their manner of speech.

When people talk, they rarely follow grammatical rules. Any English class you’ve taken will have stressed the importance of using proper grammar and punctuation in your writing, and believe me, those rules are important. However, when we attempt to write dialogue, those same rules should be thrown out of the window. People speak in broken sentences, with pauses, and even use incorrect words.

Now we get to the part where my editor and I have our own little conversation—the one where I stick random bits of punctuation in at odd places and she puts them where they belong or removes them entirely:

She: “I agree with the grammar part. I take exception to the punctuation. Punctuation rules MUST be followed especially in dialogue so that the reader reads the dialogue in the same manner the writer intended it to be read.”

Me: “Yes, ma’am.” (Muttering as I find ways to insert action where I want the pauses to go.)

We all take breaths at different places. Some people speak quickly and off the cuff, with short bursts. Others consider their words before they say them and speak more slowly. Every person in a given room speaks with their own unique style and pattern.

What are the roots of these patterns? Speech habits are born in the environment the speaker grows up in, but they become identifiable mannerisms acquired throughout our lives.

Consider how the conversation fits into the arc of the scene.

We’ve talked about this before, but it bears repeating: first we must identify what must be conveyed in our conversation.

Who needs to know what?
Why must they know it?
And how many paragraphs do you intend to devote to it?

My rule of thumb is, keep the conversations short and intersperse them with scenes of actions that advance the plot. Walls of meaningless conversation don’t keep the action moving and will lose readers, so the conversations you include in your narrative must be important—and intriguing.

Author James Scott Bell says dialogue has five functions:

To reveal story information
To reveal character
To set the tone
To set the scene
To reveal theme

Some people will have the characters discuss the back-story, and this can be good if done the right way, in small snippets at critical points, and only when that information is needed. But this can be bad, especially when used as away to dump history in long, bloated paragraphs of dialogue.

Don’t give your characters long paragraphs with lines and lines and lines of uninterrupted dialogue. Those are sometimes seen as a wall of words by the reader. When asked how to write a good book, Elmore Leonard said, “Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.”

That goes double for dialogue. When I think of the novels I’ve enjoyed the most, the important information in their conversations is dealt with up front, and the minor details emerge later as they become important.

We don’t want our characters to be just a bunch of talking heads, sitting around, yammering on. It’s unnatural and doesn’t happen in real life except on the nightly news.

I’ve mentioned this before, but your characters should pause in their conversations, and sometimes miss a few beats. Beats are what screenwriters call the little bits of physical action that are inserted into dialogue and which in a novel can serve to indicate who said what without a dialogue tag interfering with it. Actions serve to punctuate the dialogue, to give the scene movement, and to maintain a strong mental picture, especially when an author is trying to balance the use of dialogue tags.

Remember, actions are best placed where there’s a natural break in the dialogue. They show the mood and personality of your characters and allow the reader to experience the same pause in the dialogue as the characters do, and increase the sense of immediacy, making the scene real in the reader’s mind. It’s through the small habits we give our characters that we convey a little bit of their back-story, without having to resort to an info dump.

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Tagged as books, creative writing, Editing, Elmore Leonard, fantasy, humor, J.R.R. Tolkien, self publishing, the arc of the conversation, the arc of the scene, writing, writing natural conversations

March 27, 2015 · 6:45 am

Serial commas

Commas: those little morsels of goodness that few authors understand. In general, serial commas are used to resolve ambiguity. When we have a list in a sentence, not using commas can create some interesting situations.

Comma use is part of what we call ‘style:’

Google says: “Style is the way writing is dressed up (or down) to fit the specific context, purpose, or audience. Word choice, sentence fluency, and the writer’s voice — all contribute to the style of a piece of writing.”

We use a style to ensure consistency in our phrasing and punctuation, and make it easier for the reader to enjoy the book. The books I use to help me with that are Elements of Style, the Chicago Manual of Style, and the Oxford A-Z of Grammar and Punctuation. In my opinion, as an avid reader, the style that always uses the serial comma is less likely to result in ambiguity. Consider the legendary book dedication often attributed to Teresa Nielsen Hayden:

To my parents, Ayn Rand and God.

There is ambiguity about the writer’s parentage, because Ayn Rand and God can be read as meaning that the writer claims Ayn Rand and God are the parents. That is actually rather hilarious because Ayn Rand is famously atheist in her beliefs. (I’m not qualified to say whether or not God believes in Ayn Rand.)

However, a comma before and removes the ambiguity: To my parents, Ayn Rand, and God.

But lists can also be written in other ways that eliminate the ambiguity without introducing the serial comma, such as using other punctuation, or none, to introduce or delimit them. For example, in the following manner:

To God, Ayn Rand and my parents. Hemingway used and in place of commas in much of his work, and it was quite readable.

A famous example reportedly collected by Nielsen Hayden was found in a newspaper account of a documentary about Merle Haggard:

Among those interviewed were his two ex-wives, Kris Kristofferson and Robert Duvall. This could be taken to mean that Kris Kristofferson and Robert Duvall were Merle Haggard’s ex-wives.

Although Merle Haggard has been married five time, he was never married to either Kris Kristofferson or Robert Duvall, and a serial comma would resolve that inaccuracy:

Among those interviewed were his two ex-wives, Kris Kristofferson, and Robert Duvall.

I’ve seen people launch into rants against serial commas, claiming that it’s too many and looks awful.

I’m just going to say that argument is hogwash.

Who are your writing for, yourself or an unknown reader who may one day buy your book?

If you are writing for your own eyes only, do whatever you like.

But if you expect others to enjoy your work, you need to think about the reader: consider what is going to make your work easy for the reader to understand what you are saying.

Other aspects of commas may escape me at times, but the serial comma, also known as the Oxford comma, is one I adhere to in my own work, and heartily wish other authors would too.

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Tagged as Ayn Rand, Ayn Rand and God, creative writing, Elements of Style, humor, Kris Kristofferson, Merle Haggard, Oxford A-Z of Grammar & Punctuation, Oxford comma, Robert Duval, self publishing, serial comma, the Chicago Manual of Style, writing, writing style

March 23, 2015 · 6:44 am

World Building part 4: Questions to consider when creating a society

Thomas Cole, 1836: the Course of Empire: the Consummation

In speculative fiction, we often have one culture that is more advanced in contrast to the neighboring, somewhat more primitive cultures. Each of these societies have unique cultures, and if you know the culture of your characters’ homeland, you understand your characters and why they think the way they do.

But what is a society formed of? Initially, people come together and form small communities, or tribes, for protection. They find it’s a good way to consolidate more consistent sources of food and resources. With adequate food and shelter, people live longer and are generally healthier. Out of a need to get along with each other, they develop certain commonly agreed upon rules-of-the-road for sharing that wealth. Eventually these common rules become a complex social structure. As life becomes easier for the population in general, other amenities of civilization begin to be a part of their culture.

I write in many different worlds with widely varying levels of technology and forms of government. When I first began writing I knew it was important to know what the social structure was in each fantasy world, so I made a list of questions to consider when I begin constructing a new society. I was new at this, so please bear with the randomness of the order in which these things are listed:

Social Organization: Society is always composed of many layers and classes. How is your society divided? Who has the wealth? are there

Nobility?
A servant class?
A merchant class
A large middle class?
Who makes up the poorest class?
Who has the power, men, women—or is it a society based on mutual respect?

Language, the written word, and accounting: Do they have a written language? This is really important if you are setting your people in a medieval world or in a really low-tech society, because it determines how knowledge is passed on. Low-tech generally equals an oral tradition.

How are people educated?
Who is allowed to learn to read and write?
How are bards, storytellers and other disseminators of knowledge looked upon?
How is monetary wealth calculated?
Do they use coins? What is their monetary system? If you are inventing it, keep it simple. (I generally use gold, divided into tens: 10 coppers=a silver/ 10 silvers=a gold)

Franz Defregger, 1921: Auf der Alm

Ethics and Values: What constitutes morality?

Is marriage required?
How are women treated? How are men treated?
How are same-sex relationships viewed?
How are unmarried sexual relationships seen in the eyes of society?
How important is human life? How is murder punished?
How are treachery, hypocrisy, envy, and avarice looked upon?
What about drunkenness?
How important is truth?
What constitutes immorality?
How important is it to be seen as honest and trustworthy?

Religion and the Gods: How important is religion in this tale? If it is central, ask yourself: Is there one god/goddess or many? If the worship of a deity is a key part of your tale, you must design the entire theology. You must know the rituals, and know how their deity holds their hearts. You must know how that deity considers his/her worshipers.

What sort of political power does the priestly class wield?
What is the internal hierarchy of the priesthood?
Who has the power?
Is this religion a benevolent entity or all-powerful, demanding, harsh?
How does the priesthood interact with the community?
Who can join the priesthood
Do people want to join the priesthood or do they fear it?
How is the priesthood trained?

Jahn Ekenæs, 1908: Family in a Norwegian fjord landscape

Level of Technology: What tools and amenities does this society have available to them? What about transport?

Hunter/Gatherers?
Agrarian/farming
Greco-Roman metallurgy and technology?
Medieval metallurgy and technology?
Pre-industrial revolution or late Victorian?
modern day?
Or do they have a magic-based technology?
How do we get around and how do we transport goods? On foot, by horse & wagon, by train, or by space shuttle?

Government: There will be a government somewhere, even if it is just the local warlord. Someone is always in charge because it’s easier for the rest of us that way:

Is it a monarchy, theocracy, or a democratic form of government?
How does the government fund itself?
How are taxes levied?
Is it a feudal society?
Is is a clan-based society?
Warlord, President, or King/Queen?
How does the government use and share the available wealth?
How is the government viewed by the citizens?

Crime and the Legal System: What constitutes criminal behavior and how are criminals treated?

Foreign Relations: Does your country coexist well with its neighbors?

If not, why? What causes the tension?

Feat of the grenadier of leib-guards Finnish regiment Leontiy Korennoy in the battle of Leipzig at 1813

Waging War: This is another area where we have to ask what their level of technology is. It is critical for you as the author to understand what sort of weapons your characters will bring to the front, and also what the enemy will be packing. Do the research and choose weaponry that fits your established level of technology.

What kind of weaponry will they use?
How are they trained?
Who goes to battle? Men, women, or both?
How does social status affect your ability to gain rank in the military?

This is by no means a comprehensive list. It was initially meant to be a jumping off point, just a short list of things for me to ponder, but I thought I would share it with you today. Considering this little list of ideas always leads to my realizing a kajillion other rather large concepts that combine to make up a civilization. You are welcome to use this roster to form your own inventory of ideas about society.

What I originally did was to write the whole story of the community my protagonist grew up in, a word-picture of about 5000 words, and then I set it aside, to use as reference material. This is the method I still use today.

When you have cemented the society in your mind, the world your characters inhabit will flow naturally and your protagonists will fit into it organically. Their society will be visually real to the reader, even if the world it evokes in their minds isn’t exactly your vision of it. You will have done your job, by giving them a solid framework to imagine the story around.

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Tagged as books, creating societies, creative writing, fantasy, fiction, government, indie publishing, literature, self publishing, technology, world building, writing

March 20, 2015 · 6:46 am

To swag or not to swag

I’ve several multi-author events coming along in the near future, and I’ve been preparing accordingly. I’m now technologically able to accept any sort of payment for my sales at these events: I actually own a portable store.

Now I have to consider swag–that portable bit of treasure to keep others thinking about you and your books.

It’s always hard to know what sort of swag to invest in, what is going to pay for itself. I can’t really afford to go nuts here, so I’m going to see what my author friends are pushing, and try to determine just what is going to be the right fit for me. So I ordered the old standby indie swag-item, book marks. I’ll make sure each book I sell has one in it, and if a passerby asks for one I will hand them out. Some folks like them so I’ll make sure I have some for them, but at various different conferences and conventions, I’ve observed that a lot of things like that just get tossed unless the person actually asked for it. Why invest in something that will just end up littering the mall?

I went to an event and met a lovely man from Alaska who practically forced me to take a cardboard replica of his book cover. As I said, he was friendly and nice, but…it must have been costly and I had no idea what to do with it. By the time I arrived home it was a mangled mess and went out with the recycling. Thus, I don’t even remember his name, or his book.

That incident got me to asking myself: what do I really want out of this? After all, I am selling my brand, and that brand is my author name. I want people to remember it.

SO: Business Cards–These are an absolute must. They’re cheap and easy to make on my home computer and good to hand out when asked for one. Keep it simple and readable, with just the facts:

Your Author Name
Your website
Your Fan Email Address
Any other contact information you feel comfortable giving out
Your book title (s)

Remember: Don’t Junk It Up. Simple and readable is the way to go with business cards.

I have another friend who is investing in postcards that have to do with his book, and each one will have a coupon to redeem a free paper copy of his forthcoming novella–and that’s a good idea, but also costly. I need to keep my costs a low as possible, so that will not be an option for me. Romance authors are encouraged to offer all sorts of little swag items–chap-stick, makeup mirrors, even tote bags–these are costly though. Whatever I do, it has to be effective and low-cost.

I do think custom post it notes might be a good idea. They seem reasonably priced, and fairly easy to do. Again, I think the key is to do it like business cards and book marks–keep it simple and just the facts: Author Name, website, and book title. If I decide to do those, I’ll let you know how it goes.

I had fun finding clip-art and designing a special Huw the Bard Stamp for an event that will happen in June–each participating author will have a stamp and will stamp the programs of the crowd as they pass through. This was intriguing, and something I can use later in so many ways. Plus it was only $ 7.95 + shipping.

Anyway, I’m sure my little stamp will be great fun for the grandkids–heh heh…hold still and let grandma stamp this little tattoo on you….

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Tagged as books, Connie J Jasperson, creative writing, fantasy, fiction, humor, Huw The Bard, indie publishing, literature, self publishing, swag, writing

March 18, 2015 · 6:33 am

Dark, Gothic, and hurtling toward disaster

Steampunks by Kyle Cassidy

Well…apparently my current scifi work-in-progress, a short story, is steampunk. Who knew? My good friend, author Lee French, figured it out yesterday at our regular Tuesday morning brainstorming session at Panera. After she pointed it out, I could see it clearly, despite my original thought that because I had set it on a mining-colony world, it was a scifi tale.

I was a little surprised I hadn’t seen it earlier, and once it was pointed out, I could see why I was struggling with the tale–I didn’t know what I was writing.

It began as an exercise in writing from the point of view of the flâneur–the man of leisure, the idler, the urban explorer, the connoisseur of the street. Click here for Scott Driscoll‘s great blogpost on the flâneur. In short, he tells us that: “With a flâneur narrating, you can remove the noticing consciousness from your point of view character to accomplish other purposes.”

The flâneur is frequently found in literature from the 19th century. The story is filtered through his eyes and perceptions–it distances the reader from the immediacy of the scene, so be forewarned: genre-nazis and arm-chair editors who want the material delivered in 60 second sound-bytes of action won’t love it. Literary fantasy explores the meaning of life or looks at real issues, and I tend to write from that aspect. Often, the fantastic setting is just a means to posing a series of questions. Sometimes the quest the hero faces is in fact an allegory for something else. I read good literary fantasy–it tends to be written by men and women who can actually write. Not only are the words and sentences pregnant with meaning, but they are often beautifully constructed, and I learn the craft of writing from reading it.

The Rainy Day, Gustave Caillebotte

My flâneur is Martin Daniels, a young, wealthy, retired crystallographer. He spends his time roaming his city’s streets and sitting in sidewalk cafés observing his fellow citizens, and making social and aesthetic observations. He regularly finds himself crossing paths with one man in particular, Jenner: a self-made man who came up through the mines.

Jenner is battering against the prevailing social barriers which stand in the way of his achieving a political office that he covets, using whatever means at his disposal. He is uncouth, a barely civilized rough-neck with a bad reputation, but something about him draws Martin’s attention, and so he finds himself both observing Jenner, and listening to the whispered gossip that surrounds the man.

One day, as Jenner is passing Martin’s table, his hat blows off and Martin catches it, returning it to him. Jenner then introduces himself, and admits that he has been watching Martin for some time. He has a task for Martin, one that intrigues him enough to bring him out of retirement. Thus begins an odd relationship.

Thus my flâneur ceases to be merely an observer, and becomes my protagonist, yet he is reporting the events from the distance of his memory, so he is still the observer.

So what is Steampunk? Mike Perschon, in his dissertation, The Steampunk Aesthetic: Technofantasies in a Neo-Victorian Retrofuture, has described it as “…an aesthetic that mixes three features: technofantasy, neo-Victorianism, and Retrofuturism.” The key word here is aesthetic.

So how does that relate to my short story? When I looked at it with a critical eye, I realized it incorporates all three of those devices:

Technofantasy: Technology that lacks plausibility, or utilizes fantasy elements as the force or motive behind an action or process. No explanations will be given. The technology exists within the story, not the real world.

Neo-Victorianism: A setting that evokes the nineteenth century, whether it is set there or not. In my tale, the use of the flâneur evokes a 19th century atmosphere, as do the other constraints I had inadvertently written into it.

Retrofuturism: How we think the past viewed the future. It is set in the distant future, but it is a future I think Victor Hugo would have recognized.

I have always perceived steampunk as cogs and diodes, dark atmosphere, rather Gothic, and with a plot that has the protagonists hurtling toward disaster. Now I know it is all that and more. They hurtle toward disaster, with a nineteenth century flair.

Thus my sci-fi flâneur is now the protagonist in a steampunk mystery. This short story, which had sort of stalled, is now back on track and fun to write. Through writing short stories we have the opportunity to write in different genres, and stretch our writing-wings.

I learn more about the craft of writing with each tale, and that fires me up, helping me see my longer works with fresh eyes.

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Filed under Adventure, Books, Fantasy, Humor, Literature, Publishing, Self Publishing, Steampunk, Uncategorized, writer, writing

Tagged as adventure, Art, battles, books, Charles Baudelaire, creative writing, flâneur, Lee French, literature, Mike Perschon, Scott Driscoll, self publishing, Steampunk, writing

March 16, 2015 · 6:44 am

Rainy Saturdays

I’ve been doing a little more reading lately. I like reading on my Kindle. Might have some book review blogs to write for Best in Fantasy soon. I had to cut back on that because my editing business picked up rather sharply and my previously copious quantities of free time suddenly became moot.

Also I’m a regular contributor at Edgewise Words Inn, which has been a LOT of fun. But this means I must occasionally write…doh!

The reading world suffered a great loss when we heard the news that Sir Terry Pratchett had died. His work was hilarious, irreverent and absolutely divine. Of all his many great characters, I think Death was his best, and Mort was my favorite book in the Discworld Series.

Losing him just emphasized the rain this weekend. It’s been a strangely warm winter for us Pacific Northwesterners. For one thing, down in my valley we had no snow. Usually we get at least a small snowstorm. We’ve had a little frost, but nothing terrible.

Also, we’ve had very little black-ice this year, for which I am grateful, but truthfully that really is odd. Black ice, sometimes called clear ice, refers to a thin coating of glazed ice on a surface. While it’s not truly black, it is virtually transparent, allowing the black asphalt/macadam roadways or the surface below to be seen through it—hence the term “black ice.” It’s been a winter staple here for the last few years–going to work in the morning on a safe, dry pavement takes all the adventure and high drama out of the morning commute.

It was a normal rainy March weekend, and I’m so spoiled by a winter of sunshine and warm weather, that I feel all whiny about it.

I know–how sad.

So on Saturday we got over the way most people do–we went shopping. I upgraded my phone and and got a fancy thing or two–and we bought food, and baked a pie in honor of Pi Day. But not one this fancy—>

It was sort of fun– I don’t really do a lot of shopping in person, because the Drones of Amazon will deliver anything I need, from glittery hair clips to zebra print carpets. I get my music, kindle books, clothes, shoes–you name it, I get it from Amazon. They even sell books, and deliver them right to my house!

But Sunday was a different thing. Dealing with a kidney stone. Didn’t sleep well–woke up at 2:30 am and couldn’t get back to sleep. Suffered the agonies of the damned but survived another one. Stayed home and figured out how to use the new technology. Tried to catch up on my writing.

Accidentally blew off a write-in.

Oops.

Actually, when I am having a day like that, I doubt if I should be allowed behind the wheel of a vehicle… .

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Tagged as books, creative writing, Death, fantasy, fiction, humor, indie publishing, Mort, My Writing Life, Pi Day, rainy weekends, self publishing, Terry Pratchett, writing

March 13, 2015 · 6:31 am

Worldbuilding part 3—Magic

Every now and then I read a book where it’s clear the author has no concept of his own magic system. You, as the reader, are sailing; the story is flowing; and then suddenly you realize that Bart the Mage seems to have unlimited magic ability. Well, that’s no good, because now there is no tension; no great ordeal for Bart to overcome. Bart can do anything–game over–end of story. The book goes into the recycling bin, unfinished and you never buy that author’s work again.

Every author has their own way of doing this, but I approach it from an engineering and scientific viewpoint–I spend time designing the system:

Let’s talk about Bart. He’s a lowly journeyman mage. For a multitude of reasons he has decided that he must rid the world of Evil Badguy; a very powerful, very naughty wizard. Evil Badguy is very strong, and has great magic, and he seems unstoppable! But fortunately for our story, there are rules, so he is not omnipotent. He has a weakness and your protagonists now have the opportunity to grow and develop to their fullest potential in process of finding and exploiting that weakness.

Now let’s say that Bart is a mage with offensive magic – maybe he can cast lightning at an enemy, or perhaps he can set fires with his magic. Can he also use magic to heal people? Can he heal himself? What are the rules governing these abilities and how do these rules affect the progress of the story? When it comes to magic, limitations open up many possibilities for plot development.

Let’s say that Bart can only reliably use one sort of magic. This is good, because now you have need for other several characters with other abilities. They each have a story which will come out and which will contribute to the advancement of the plot. Each character will have limits to their abilities and because of that they will need to interact and work with each other and with Bart whether they like each other or not if they want to win the final battle against Evil Badguy. This gives you ample opportunity to introduce tension into the story. Each time you make parameters and frameworks for your magic you make opportunities for conflict within your fantasy world, and conflict is what drives the plot.

What challenge does Bart have to overcome in order to win the day?

Is he unable to fully use his own abilities?
If that is so, why is he hampered in that way?
How does that inability affect his companions and how do they feel about it?
Are they hampered in any way themselves?
What has to happen before Bart can fully realize his abilities?

Without rules, there would be no conflict, no reason for Bart to struggle and no story to tell.

So now, you realize that you must create the ‘rules of magic.’ Take the time to write it out, and don’t break the laws, without having a damned good explanation for why that particular breaking of the rules is possible.

Each world should be unique, and so we need to tailor the magic to fit each unique situation.

Who can use magic?
What kind of magic can they use?
How are they trained?
What happens to those who abuse their gifts?
How common is magic?
How does the ability to wield magic fit into the political system?

I have two worlds that I am currently writing in, and their magic systems are radically different.

The following was my first list from 2009 for creating the world when we were originally designing a game that eventually became The World of Neveyah series.

Elemental Battle Magic of Neveyah

Water: non battle-use can fill water jugs and basins

Water spout (novice)
Gully Washer (intermediate)
High Seas (Advanced)
Raging River (Advanced)

Earth: non-battle use, putting out campfires, digging holes, gardening

Square Dance (novice)
Landslide (intermediate)
Mudslide (advanced)
Mountain Drop (Advanced)

Fire: non battle use – can light candles, and ignite fire in fireplace

Hot Shot (novice)
Fire Ball (Intermediate)
Inferno (advanced)
Hell Fire (Advanced)

Lightning: non-battle use for lightning: creating finish on armor, glazing pottery

Cat-Zapper (novice) Zippety-Doo-Dah (novice-spell)
Thunder Fist (intermediate)
Curtain Call (Advanced)
Thunder Walking (Advanced)

This basic grocery list has since evolved into a complete curriculum for domestic uses, and the names for most of those spells has changed, but it remains relevant because it shows how I divided it. A game player would have had to gain in strength in order to use those spells, and that is how my characters do in the Neveyah books.

It’s very different in the Billy’s Revenge series which set in Waldeyn, an alternate-medieval earth which is the setting for Huw the Bard. There, the actual environment is magic and Huw’s journey involves his overcoming its inherent dangers. The plants and animals of Waldeyn are shaped by the overwhelming abundance of magic in that world, like radioactivity affects and mutates life here. Many of the most dangerous creatures are born of twisted magic, or as they call it, majik.

Mind-majik, healing, and the ability to imbue their healing majik into a potion or salve is the feminine side of majik, governed by the Sisters of Anan.

The ability to bind the elements into weapons and wield them is the male side, and they are governed by the Brotherhood of St. Aelfrid.

Part of their political/religious power comes from the fact that it has been determined the majik is a God-given gift, and all who’ve been granted that ability must be bound to the church.

There are strict rules, and if a gifted person doesn’t choose to serve the people through being bound to the church, the ability to sense majik is taken from them by the Mother Church.

I don’t have any main characters in Waldeyn who are majik wielders, although one side character in the forthcoming novel, Billy Ninefingers, is a member of the Brotherhood of St. Aelfrid: the Fat Friar, Robert DeBolt. However, many times these characters are in need of healing. (Heh heh.)

Because of my characters’ frequent tendency to bleed, gaining and acquiring good healing potions and salves is important.

In the World of Neveyah, which is where the Tower of Bones series is set, the situation was different—The Tower of Bones grew out of what was originally the walk-through for a computer-based RPG that was never built. Thus the constraints of magic are quite strict, but as you saw in the list above, they are game-based.

In the forthcoming prequel to Tower of Bones, Mountains of the Moon, a mage is either a healer or a battle-mage. Healing is building and preserving, battle-magic is death and destruction. It is thought that one can’t be both, because on the rare occasions that a dually-gifted mage is born, they go mad. There is a strict system in place for controlling magic and those who are able to use it, and this creates the conflict.

Once again, there is a governing body for mages–in Neveyah it is the Temple of Aeos. Children with the gifts are taken to the Temple and trained in the use of their gifts until they are adults. They are sworn to serve and protect the Goddess Aeos and her people, or die doing so.

But forty years after Wynn Farmer’s tale, during the time in which the Tower of Bones takes place, the clergy has been decimated by a great war that took place twenty years before. The goddess Aeos is in danger of losing the battle with Tauron the Bull God. She slightly changes the way her magic works. Wynn’s grandson, Edwin Farmer, is the first to be born with the ability to wield both sides of the magic who also has the force of character to survive the learning process. His biggest problem is there is no one who can teach him how to use his dual gifts—his teachers only know how one side or the other works.

That learning process forms a huge part of his story. Yes, Edwin has access to power, but so does the antagonist, Stefyn D’Mal, and he is completely mad. Even so, he has rigid constraints. These constraints create the conflict.

Remember, unlimited power in a mage equals unlimited boredom to the reader. Magic without rules is tiresome and unbelievable, and no one wants to read that story.