Monthly Archives: May 2014

Ultimate Urban Fantasy Fighter

DEADLY CURIOSITIESby Gail Z. Martin

Today’s urban fantasy teems with just about every ghoulie, ghostie and long-leggedy beastie that ever crawled out of the shadows.  But for my money, I’ll back a vampire for being the ultimate urban fighter every time.

Vampires have both speed and stealth.  Werewolves tend to need to make a trade-off between the two.  It’s hard to be furry and stealthy at the same time, but if you’re looking human, you probably can’t muster wolf speed.

Unlike some ghosts, vampires are not tethered to a particular place, and they have no problem interacting with physical objects, which is a problem for most ghosts unless they have poltergeist tendencies.

Vampires also have strength and a long existence in which to perfect their fighting techniques.  Werewolves are certainly strong, but not as long-lived.  Demons are a bit of a wild card since their capabilities vary so widely, but they are often limited in some way because they are from a realm other than our own.  Vampires, being former mortals, are solidly of this world.

A vampire’s ability to pass among mortals unnoticed is one of his greatest strengths as an urban fantasy fighter.  So long as a vampire can adapt to changing social mores, fashions and speech patterns, he’s got a definite advantage in his ability to move through a crowded city without anyone being the wiser.  The limitation of requiring shelter at night is much less of a problem in a large city where the streets are crowded at all hours and many people are nocturnal.

The vampire ability to heal quickly certainly helps, although it’s something that both werewolves and demons tend to have in common.  But vampires benefit from not losing themselves to bloodlust during their time of the month, or having the awkward need to change shape.  A vampire’s “true form” isn’t at risk of being exposed, only his true nature.

For my money, vampires are the ultimate stealth fighter, easily camouflaged in urban settings, able to use that setting to their advantage.

Reign of Ash, book two in the Ascendant Kingdoms Saga launches in April, 2014 from Orbit Books.

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Epic-Urban Whiplash

DEADLY CURIOSITIESby Gail Z. Martin

After seven years of writing epic fantasy, I’ll have both a new epic novel and a new urban fantasy coming out in 2014.  It’s been fun to work in both camps simultaneously, but it’s also been challenging, and sometimes I have to remind myself which century I’m in.

My Ascendant Kingdoms Saga is a post-apocalyptic medieval setting where the magic upon which the culture depends has failed as a result of a devastating war.  It’s a tough, gritty existence, made more so by the absence of usable magic.  My characters have lost a civilization equivalent to the High Middle Ages, and are trying to salvage and rebuild from the ruins.  By our standards, their life would have been hard before the war and the loss of magic.  By their standards, life afterwards is barely sustainable.

My new Deadly Curiosities novel is set in modern-day Charleston, SC.  Cassidy Kincaide is the owner of Trifles & Folly, an antique and curio shop that really exists to get dangerous magical objects off the market.  Charleston is a grand city that is very much alive and well, and I love visiting whenever I have a chance.  Not only have I not blown up the world in Cassidy’s book, her whole goal is to keep anyone else from doing that.

One of the things that has been fun–and challenging–about writing epic and urban at the same time has been switching between narrative styles.  The newest book in the Ascendant Kingdoms series, and all my epic books, is written in third-person narrative.  I’m constantly looking up words to make sure they are period-appropriate.  And while it’s a fantasy world of my own construct, I still do a lot of historical research to make sure that what I’m writing is plausible, possible or within precedent.

Of course with Deadly Curiosities, I’m writing about modern American culture in a Southern city.  It’s a first-person narrative, and the dialog is going to be consistent with how we speak today, with some Southern idiom thrown in for flavor.  (I’ve been living in the South now for 15 years, so that part has been thoroughly researched!).Deadly Curiosities has a bit more humor, a little lighter touch, because it isn’t the tough struggle for survival my characters face in Ice Forged.  There are life-and-death struggles, but the tenor of the book as a whole is very different.

When I took on the two projects, I wondered how it would work and whether I’d be able to jump in and out of the worlds easily. What I found is that the challenge has been a real creativity boost and a lot of fun.  I haven’t had any difficulty getting back into the mood or the characters’ heads when I’ve switched off projects, and I’m having a blast.

Maybe the moral of the story is, if you’ve been putting off tackling a project because it seems too different, jump in.  You might just find that the switch-off brings creative benefits!

Reign of Ash, book two in the Ascendant Kingdoms Saga launches in April, 2014 from Orbit Books.  My new urban fantasy, Deadly Curiosities, comes out in July, 2014 from Solaris Books. I bring out two series of ebook short stories with a new story every month for just .99 on Kindle, Kobo and Nook—check out the Jonmarc Vahanian Adventures or the Deadly Curiosities Adventures.

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Suspense, Horror and Romance in Epic Fantasy

DEADLY CURIOSITIESby Gail Z. Martin

One of the things I love about writing epic fantasy is that within the genre, there is room for elements of other genres.  Like the old spaghetti sauce ad, “it’s in there.”    Part of it is the scope of epic fantasy, with its large scale, sweeping storylines and large cast of characters.  That creates a lot of opportunity for drawing on a variety of elements, because you’re working on a bigger canvas (and a larger page count) than many other genres permit.

I know that suspense has its own genre, but certainly any dramatic fiction requires more than a dollop of suspense to keep the reader turning pages.  If you want your readers to stick with you over the course of hundreds of pages, there has to be a strong “what’s going to happen next” sense, with tension at the end of every scene and every chapter.  I love when readers tell me that I kept them up late or made them run over their lunch hour because they couldn’t put the book down!

Maybe other genres can get by without a touch of horror, but it fits well inside epic fantasy.  We often write about brutal times and brutal people–warlords, kings, soldiers, mages and monsters.  There’s going to be bloodshed, and often, to illustrate just how bad it is or just how black someone’s heart is, the writing veers into the horrific to make a point.  Unlike a horror novel, an epic fantasy doesn’t stay mired in the horrific, nor does the protagonist remain helpless for long.  But we definitely touch on it, and can often use it to good purpose.

Epic romance also often lends itself to elements of romance.  Dynasties are at stake, and the men and women who produce the next set of rulers are going to have their loves and dalliances, their betrayals and unrequited affections.  It can up the stakes for a hero’s survival if someone is waiting for his or her return.  When people are thrown together under stressful situations for periods of time, romantic relationships are going to happen.  I find that a bit of romance can be a respite from all the battle action and grit, and after having that respite, the hardship seems even more difficult.

The next time you’re stewing up your next epic fantasy, add some spice with horror, suspense and romance.  It makes for a mighty tasty story!

Reign of Ash, book two in the Ascendant Kingdoms Saga launches in April, 2014 from Orbit Books.  My new urban fantasy, Deadly Curiosities, comes out in July, 2014 from Solaris Books. I bring out two series of ebook short stories with a new story every month for just .99 on Kindle, Kobo and Nook—check out the Jonmarc Vahanian Adventures or the Deadly Curiosities Adventures.

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Creating Fictional Holidays

DEADLY CURIOSITIESby Gail Z. Martin

One of the things I love about world-building is the chance to create entirely new holidays.  I personally believe that you can never have enough holidays, so the chance to invent a few of my own is really too much to resist.

As with any world-building, holidays need to fit into the belief structure of the place and people you’ve created.  I’ve found that it helps a lot to read about holidays, feasts, and celebrations world-wide and throughout history in order to get a feel for the kinds of things that people commemorate with a special time set apart.

If you’re writing a militaristic culture, it’s likely that they will commemorate great battles, both wins and losses.  The losses are likely to be solemn occasions, while the victory remembrances may include feasting, storytelling, gift-giving, dances and music.  It may be a time when mayhem is permitted and even tacitly encouraged.  Or it could be the time when young warriors are presented for initiation.

In an agricultural culture, holidays are likely to follow the seasonal cycle of planting and harvest.  There will be times when people are too busy to celebrate, and other times when it’s possible to take a day to enjoy the harvest.  Foods will be what are seasonally available.  Spring will focus on new life, and may be the time for handfastings.  Fall is a time for counting stock and preparing for the cold dark winter.

Holidays play a big role in my Chronicles of the Necromancer series.  Not only do they provide a window into the cultures of the different kingdoms in how they are celebrated, but the characters’ attitudes toward the holidays also provide an insight into who they are and what they have experienced.  In my most recent novel, Ice Forged, even exiles in a harsh arctic colony find a way to make a celebration out of the beginning and end of the “white nights”.

Holidays are also a great way to provide a view of the economy of your fictional world.  Are special goods required for a celebration?  How far in debt will people go to acquire them?  What trade is necessary to supply them? Can they be obtained illegally?  How do celebrations differ between the rich and the poor?  Slave and free? People of different races or kingdoms?

Make sure to study folklore and world customs to avoid just copying the holidays you might be most familiar with.  Throughout history, people have found a rich variety of ways to honor their deities, so you’ve got a lot of inspiration to pull from beyond our modern culture.

Holidays are a lot of fun to write.  Invent a good one, and you may be able to make it an annual celebration with your readers.  Adding holidays to your writing creates a whole new layer of believability and texture to your world.  Try it and see!

Reign of Ash, book two in the Ascendant Kingdoms Saga launches in April, 2014 from Orbit Books.  My new urban fantasy, Deadly Curiosities, comes out in July, 2014 from Solaris Books. I bring out two series of ebook short stories with a new story every month for just .99 on Kindle, Kobo and Nook—check out the Jonmarc Vahanian Adventures or the Deadly Curiosities Adventures.

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Where’s the line between horror and urban fantasy?

DEADLY CURIOSITIESby Gail Z. Martin

I read a lot of urban fantasy, and I’ll have my own urban fantasy series coming out from Solaris Books in 2014, and I’ve been wondering: Where’s the line between horror and urban fantasy?

I suspect it’s been shifting around.  (And I’d love to hear your opinions, so please comment!)  After all, Laurell K. Hamilton started out shelved in horror, then became her own brand of urban fantasy, took a detour into erotica, and seems to have come back to something in between urban fantasy and suspense.  And yet, most of the usual tropes in urban fantasy were standard horror themes not too very long ago.

Remember when vampires were the bad guys?  They’ve made such a thorough transition to becoming the sexy love interest that I suspect they hired a Madison Avenue PR firm to do some reputation management.  Ditto werewolves and demons.  We’ve even seen the softer side of zombies and the soulful side (pun intended) of ghosts.

I’m only partly kidding when I say that horror now seems to be focused on people as monsters, and urban fantasy seems to be focused on monsters as people.  I suspect there’s some deep commentary on society today hidden in there, but I don’t know what it is.

Here’s where I see the divide between horror and urban fantasy–feel free to disagree.  In horror, whether the “monster” is human or some kind of creature, the monster has the upper hand for nearly the entire story.  There’s a sense of helplessness that seems to be essential to horror, a creeping sense of inevitable death. Even though the main character in horror might find a way to survive and vanquish the big bad at the very end, he or she is less a hero than a survivor.

In urban fantasy, whether you’re human, non-human, mortal or undead, it’s the thought that counts.  In other words, do you intend to be the hero or the villain?  Urban fantasy looks beyond the stereotypes to create characters that retain their volition and morality regardless of whether they’re alive, dead or something in between.  As I’m fond of saying, being dead doesn’t automatically make you a bad person.  Urban fantasy also has a clear hero who emerges, and while things may get grim, the lack of control and helplessness that helps to create the atmosphere of a horror story is either absent or brief.  The main character is a hero, not just a survivor.

Everything’s gotten grittier, but I’d also say that while urban fantasy can certainly have its share of blood and gore, it’s less over-the-top than horror and exists to make a point instead of being its own point.  And finally, in urban fantasy, when the book ends there’s the feeling of “we won!” as opposed to “we made it out alive.”

That’s my 2-cents, and I’d love to know your thoughts.  Thanks for reading.

Reign of Ash, book two in the Ascendant Kingdoms Saga launches in April, 2014 from Orbit Books.  My new urban fantasy, Deadly Curiosities, comes out in July, 2014 from Solaris Books. I bring out two series of ebook short stories with a new story every month for just .99 on Kindle, Kobo and Nook—check out the Jonmarc Vahanian Adventures or the Deadly Curiosities Adventures.

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