Guest blogger, Michele Lang shares a free story titled “The Walled Garden” — it’s a re-release of a story she wrote for the Mammoth Book of Time Travel Romance:
Category Archives: Guest Blogger
Word Alchemy — Writing Historical Fantasy
by Michele Lang
Writers of historical fantasy face so many pitfalls. We have to get our historical facts right, and capture the truth of a place we can never visit – the past. We have to build a believable world that incorporates both the historical setting and the fantastical elements we interweave. We must create convincing characters that embody both the historical milieu and their own peculiar magic — and most difficult of all, we must make this multilevel process look effortless or we lose our readers.
By trial and error, I’ve developed some moves designed to balance the historical and fantastical in my work:
*Escape the Research Bog: I am a history freak who would gladly stay stuck in the research phase forever, but I have to stop research at some point to write. Some people recommend you do all of your research up front; others say that you should search for information only after you’ve dug your characters into a deep hole. Why not do both? Get oriented, and when you think you know enough, follow your characters. And when you come up short, dip back into research to get clues that will help you advance.
*Secondary Sources: History is written or other documentary evidence of past events. Secondary sources of evidence – scholarly historical works, essays, biographies – will give you the best overview of a particular historical period. To get up to speed quickly, I suggest starting with middle grade or YA histories – they tend to present the facts in a straightforward way.
*Dig Deeper with Primary Sources: Once you have a feel for the major events and geopolitical forces at play, you need to hunt out primary sources. Diaries, newspaper articles, and letters will give you the voices of people who lived through the period. Their biases and unspoken assumptions will tell you a lot more than a scholarly history, but remember that these individual voices are not objective. It’s good to read a number of them, and see where they disagree.
Where to find good primary sources? A well-researched history will list primary sources in its Bibliography; costume books and cook books can also give you some insights into the clothes and culinary delights of a place.
*Metabolize the Past: To get a flavor of a place and time, go deeper still and listen to the music, wear the costumes, eat the food, smell the spices, drink the libations. The Internet is a great place to find organizations devoted to exploring and recreating historical periods. Obvious places to start are groups like the Society for Creative Anachronism. https://www.sca.org/
*Some Dangers and Opportunities: Beware travel guides! They are a good introduction, but guides are themselves a product of a particular place and time. No location is static, and some places transform more completely and abruptly than others.
For example, I write about 1930s Budapest in my LADY LAZARUS series. Budapest entered its Golden Age before World War I; by the end of World War II the gilded city was blasted into ruins. When I first visited Budapest in the 1980s, the city was a muted gray, and the people never stopped moving. During Budapest’s heyday, the city had a thriving café culture, where lawyers, photographers, moviemakers, and poets plied their trade, debated the politics of the day, and made loitering an art form.
And yet, details bring the soul of a setting to life. At a bakery in the old city of Buda, I bought a hard, heart-shaped cookie with a mirror stuck into it, the stiff black icing spelling out “From My Heart” underneath the mirror in Hungarian. I still remember the quail eggs floating like eyeballs in my soup, can almost taste the hot coffee served alongside pitchers of hot milk.
Travel can’t give you a city as it was decades or centuries ago; still, nothing is better for capturing ephemeral sensory details, the telling details that will sometimes give you the essence of a place.
*Magic in History: My favorite part of writing historical fantasy is discovering the point of departure from the bare historical record — where the fantastical elements begin to grow organically from the place and time of your story.
Here’s another example from LADY LAZARUS. In my preliminary research I learned that the Werewolves https://www.answers.com/topic/werwolf-1 were partisan units trained by the SS to keep fighting after the war was lost in 1945. In the world of LADY LAZARUS, these partisans are actual werewolves, and the Wolf’s Lair https://www.polandforall.com/wolfs-lair-hitlers-headquarters-gierloz.html , where Hitler commanded the Eastern Front, becomes the headquarters of the werewolves and their pack leader supreme.
A great historical fantasy illuminates the past by embellishing it with magic. To achieve this balancing act and tell a compelling, believable story is a kind of magic in itself.
Here are some links for your own writer’s grimoire:
Article by Elizabeth Bear – “Achieving Freshness in Fantasy.” How to put original spin on material that may have been mined by other writers before you. https://www.reflectionsedge.com/archives/dec2004/afif_eb.html
“Historical Research for Fiction Writers” by Catherine Lundoff. A nice overview of historical research, with a list of internet resources at the end.
https://www.writing-world.com/fiction/lundoff.shtml
For inspiration, check out the website of the PBS series “History Detectives” – the show itself is fun to watch, and you might get story ideas from watching the investigators hunt down clues about the past.
https://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/techniques/index.html
You can listen to the audio from when Michele was a guest of Blog Host, Gail Z. Martin’s Ghost in the Machine podcast here: https://www.audioacrobat.com/play/Wrc6sYjX
Filed under Guest Blogger
Freebie Friday from Jennifer St. Giles
Guest blogger, Jennifer St. Giles, wants to share the first three chapters of Collateral Damage on her website: https://jenniferstgiles.com/content/bookshelf/collateral-damage/#more-87
Or get a short excerpt at:
https://samhainpublishing.com/coming/collateral-damage
Filed under Freebie Friday, Guest Blogger
Damn the Consequences! Full Speed Ahead!
by Jennifer St. Giles
That was Sergeant First Class Jack Hunter’s only viable option in Collateral Damage, the first book in my Silent Warrior Series. These books are romantic thrillers featuring military heroes and heroines with extraordinary hearts. Collateral Damage starts two weeks after Jack has been seriously wounded on a FUBAR mission in Lebanon. Jack sees the picture of prominent American businessman, Bill Collins, on the news, who he swears he killed in Lebanon two weeks ago, but nobody believes him, especially since Collins reportedly died in Brazil just yesterday. Leaving the hospital, Jack goes AWOL to uncover the truth. Instead of answers, he gets assassins, more questions, and a terrorist plot that threatens to ignite a world war. As Jack fights to keep Lauren Collins, Bill’s estranged widow and her twin sons alive, he lays more than his life on the line and stands to lose everything when the truth behind Bill’s death comes to light.
There is an interesting story behind Collateral Damage. In early 2001, I read a magazine article about mining from asteroids in the near future and being the writer that I am, my mind whirled with “what if’ questions. What if a new or highly concentrated element was discovered? What if that element became the basis for a new super fuel? What if someone or group of someone’s decided to use that new fuel to gain world-wide power? What if? What if? What if?
I sat down and wrote the proposal for the story then. I set the story ten years in the future and used the world’s dependency on oil and inflamed religious factions to bring about global chaos as the backdrop for the story. I chose an extraordinary soldier for my hero and an ordinary mom for my heroine and threw them into the deep end of trouble where they uncover the truth, conquer the odds against them, and fall in love with the best and worst of each other. I sent the proposal out to agents and editors.
Then 9/11 happened and no one wanted to touch the story. Al-Qaeda and terrorists were issues too sensitive to use, especially for a romance writer. I went on to become published in the historical and paranormal suspense markets and Collateral Damage sat in my file cabinet for nine years. But the way the real world events kept playing out since 9/11, I couldn’t get the story out of my head. I kept seeing how ripe the world was for this “what if scenario” and I finally decided in 2010 to write the book.
To make the story less sci-fi and more realistic, I went from a space mined fuel to an algae-based biofuel and I went from generic American businessmen to a ruthless environmentalist as the mastermind behind the plot.
My next problem was to bring the big world plot down to a personal level. In the book, both Jack and Lauren, my every day hero and heroine, are affected by collateral damage from the choices other people in the story make. They learn from each other that how they deal with the fallout is what determines the quality of their future. In fact, I think that in one way or another everyone becomes a victim to collateral damage in their life. What do you think?
This is my first military inspired thriller and my first e-book release. I would love to hear from you on your opinion of the book and also the e-book format.
You can listen to the audio from when Jennifer was a guest of Blog Host, Gail Z. Martin’s Ghost in the Machine podcast here: https://www.audioacrobat.com/play/WyZgXJ7k
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Freebie Friday – Tony Ruggiero
Our guest blogger, Tony Ruggiero, is kind enough to share some excerpts, audio and written, on his web page at: https://www.tonyruggiero.com/sampleaudiodatafiles.html
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Something old…Something new
by Tony Ruggiero
The final installment of the Team of Darkness vampire series is on its way to bookstores for the Halloween release. Book four, Operation End Game, is the much anticipated story where readers learn what happens to Commander John Reese, Christina and Dimitri. Does Reese become a vampire? Will he be with Christina? Will Dimitri come between them or will he help them? Will the secret government Agency leave them alone? Knowing Tony Ruggiero’s penchant need for realistic vice happy endings, many readers are on the edge of their seats waiting to see what happens. All of the questions do get answered, or so Tony Ruggiero says they will. Tony gives us his thoughts on ending the series:
“Saying goodbye is always tough even when it is a fictional story comprised of characters we have made up from our imagination and even some which are non-human like vampires. Yet this miraculous transformation happens. We come to live and breathe with the characters, we take meals with them, we feel what they feel and hope for their success as much as we hope for own. They do what we cannot and thereby give us hope in our own meager lives. When the series ends or our characters die (no spoilers here—I swear, well maybeJ) they take with them a piece of us, but they leave something in return. The memory of them and what they are/were but more importantly— what we can be.
I heard a line in a movie once that summed this up quite well. The character said something along the lines of how it didn’t matter if the event/story was true or not. What mattered was if you believed in it. Belief comes in many shapes and forms and as long as it gives us hope—I guess that’s a good thing. That to me is the value of reading fiction and that’s the way I will always remember Commander John Reese, Dimitri and the others. They gave me hope that I could write this series…and I did. Now I hope that they have given you something as well to remember them by. As to will we see any of these characters again…well that part is still up in the air…maybe even orbiting Earth (yes…that is a hint).
Thanks to DragonMoon Press for having given me the opportunity to share this story with readers everywhere. And thank you—the reader for taking this one last journey with me and the Team of Darkness.”
You can listen to the audio from when Tony was a guest of Blog Host, Gail Z. Martin’s Ghost in the Machine podcast here: https://www.audioacrobat.com/play/WyX6tk0s
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It Is Not What It Is
by Michael A. Arnzen – https://www.gorelets.com
I can’t quite put my finger on when I first noticed the rise of the popular expression, “It is what it is,” but I suspect it began circulating in American culture almost a decade ago, shortly after the fall of the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001. Sure, maybe it was already circulating in sports lingo and on military bases before then, but now I hear it all the time, whenever there is some kind of suffering, exhaustion, or tragedy at hand.
Lost your job due to the economy? It is what it is. Teenager out of control, experimenting with drugs and texting at the dining room table? It is what it is. Crazy unemployed man on the loose at the local playground with a shotgun, hunting down his drug-addled son? It is what it is.
The phrase is probably meant to summon our courage so we can deal with the reality of a situation. It means “get over it.” Accept the facts and move on.
But nothing is what it seems and I see this phrase as defeatist, not pragmatic. It is irresponsible at best, and censorious at worst.
As a fiction writer, especially a HORROR fiction writer, one of my essential aims to alert others to the fact that nothing is what it seems on the surface. Nothing “is” what we think it is at first glance. The truth is always “out there,” not present and accounted for. There is always something more than meets the eye, and often this “something more” is something we don’t usually want to face or confront. Horror writers show us things we don’t want to see; they remove the mask from the superficial versions of reality we often come to accept. Horror readers like to be reminded of this, and open themselves up to exploring the unknown and looking with morbid curiosity at the things they are told they shouldn’t or can’t know.
One of the greatest examples of this would be a shapeshifter or werewolf story. My favorite has to be John Carpenter’s version of “The Thing,” based on John W. Campbell’s short story, “Who Goes There?” [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Goes_There%3F ]. In this story, a shipwrecked ancient alien — essentially a mimic — is thawed out of the arctic ice near an isolated research camp. It takes the form of the last creature it devoured, and progressively devours the entire camp. We never really see the “thing” itself; the alien is unknowable. But we do see it in moments of horrifying transition, when characters catch it in the act of transformation from one being to another. These are always the coolest, and most grotesque, moments in a werewolf or shapeshifter story: the “turning” moment, when man is shown in a state of becoming something new.
It is what it is? No, it is always something else. Something either unknowable, or something different than what we expect. And something that changes. That change is scary. But it is responsible for the entire thrill.
One of my favorite horror writers, Robert Bloch (the man who created Norman Bates, in Psycho), once said that “horror is the removal of masks.” That’s become my defining phrase for the genre, and something I firmly believe that writers need to perform on the superficial skin of everyday “reality”. We tear of the mask to show “It is not what it is.”
If I didn’t see such things as my aim, I would write encyclopedia articles or laboratory reports and attempt to capture in words what things “are.” Or I would be a journalist, and tell stories that purport to chronicle events and say “and that’s the way it was” on such and such a date.
I do not mean to damn science and journalism. Objective science is responsible for raising our awareness for the way things are, but scientists never settle for things being “what they are.” They take what “it is” and unveil what ELSE it is, or what else they can do about it. They invent just like writers, sometimes. They cure things. If we said “cancer is what it is” we’d never try to find a cure.
And if we believed that journalists were solely reporting facts, we would only need one news station or newspaper, and we could consult it the way we do a common dictionary, as a guidebook to the truth, without question. Instead, clearly, there are multiple viewpoints at play in any event, and while good journalists report THOSE VIEWPOINTS, they can never entirely testify to have the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
We NEED fiction writers to indulge the imagination and consider all the alternatives, scary or not. The freedom of fiction to make things up provides society with viewpoints that science and journalism can never provide. Our aim is to show different ways of being/thinking/doing — alternatives to perceptions and common truths (if not common sense). The fiction writer’s motto is inherently that “there is always another way” of thinking/seeing/doing.
Some might argue that fiction is nonsense and tell me to get over it already, because it makes more sense to address real world problems and issues. But the more you think about it, the more the expression “it is what it is” is more nonsense than any fiction story. Stories follow a plot logic, and unfold meaning through drama. The expression “it is what it is” is illogical, and closes down meaning altogether. Let me explain.
First off, the phrase “it is” is an empty set. What is “it”? Anything. Let’s call it X. What is “is”? Being and existence. The weakest and most generalizing verb in the universe. Thus “it is what it is” turns the potent question “What?” into nothing more than an equal sign. It is what it is. X = X.
Such algebraic thinking is unquestionable, but when language and ideas enter the picture, it becomes a claim, a point of view. Logicians call such a way of thinking a “tautology” — a false argument, fallacious because it draws no conclusion from its premise. It circles back on itself, presenting the premise as if it were the conclusion. It is not only an “empty” set, but a “closed” one. Thus, it has the suggestion that the idea is inarguable, when in fact it is actually illogical and simply seeks to close down further discussion and thought. It answer the potent question “Why?” with the answer “just because.” Why is X that way? Just because it is.
It asks us to give up. To stop thinking, and to give up considering alternatives to the status quo. To accept the given “reality” and not to question where that version of reality came from. It is a claim to authority over the truth. When I hear “it is what it is” I hear the echo of a parent, saying “Why? Because I said so, that’s why.”
Now, sure, sometimes things really are what they are, but whenever someone feels the need to say so, I wonder: What are you afraid of here? How do I know you are seeing the same “it” that I am? What qualifies you to be the person who stops this discussion? And what ultimately happens when I accept your definition of what “it is”?
Declaring “it is what it is” seeks to deaden. To put an end to inquiry. To control a problem through a shrug.
But things always change, and I say it is better to treat the statement as a transition. To reply, “Okay, so now what?” or “Why is it that way?” To recover the power of those questions, what and why. That’s the only way to transform a situation from “it is what it is” to “it is what it was and now it’s something else.” Hopefully, something better.
But as The Thing teaches us, it is not always so hopeful. Sometimes “it is” something worse, far worse, than we ever imagined. That’s the fun part of horror and fantasy writing. Stories from these genres are sometimes called “cautionary” tales, because they warn us not to, say, go into the woods alone…but they also prick our curiosity about what else might be out there. They encourage our wonder, while reaffirming our fears. If “it is” worse than what we think “it is,” I would want to know that, not put my head in the sand. Because when your head is in the sand, it only makes it easier for the reaper to change his golf swing. Horror fiction reminds us to keep looking, even if we don’t want to, even when we’re told we shouldn’t. And maybe it encourages us to have a little fun dodging the scythe.
Horror fiction not only destroys the “it is what it is” tautology, it also shows us that “it is what it is not.” That things are sometimes so alien and Other that they are the exact opposite of what we believe them to be. They are UNdead, UNknown, UNreasonable, UNcanny. This is not mere opposition. It is more like “contrarianism”: it challenges us to distrust what is given to us as the Truth with a capital T. This is also why horror is discredited and denounced by those who see the entire genre as something threatening. They treat it as childish or whimsical nonsense and nothing more. Because those Truthmakers have something to lose in the questions that such a worldview raises. But there is as much truth in nonsense as there is nonsense in truth. And fiction, especially fiction of the fantastic, is a powerful reminder of this.
I read speculative fiction — science fiction, fantasy, horror — because I want to know what else “it” could be. I write horror fiction to ask that very same question.
So go ahead: tell me that it is what it is. All you’re doing is giving me ideas for more stories, so I can show you just how wrong you really are.
Michael A. Arnzen is a college teacher by day and a horror writer by night. He has been educating novelists since 1999 as faculty in the Writing Popular Fiction graduate program at Seton Hill University in Greensburg, PA, where he is currently Chair of the Humanities. His often funny, always disturbing horror stories have won four Bram Stoker Awards, an International Horror Guild award, and several “Year’s Best” accolades. His latest book of short fiction, Proverbs for Monsters, collects the best of his writing over the past twenty years. A new “how to” book he co-edited, for writers of all genres, called Many Genres, One Craft: Lessons in Writing Popular Fiction, will be published this Spring from Headline Books.
He invites you to subscribe to his creative newsletter, The Goreletter, at https://www.gorelets.com
As a special deal to readers of this blog, Mike Arnzen is offering signed copies of his crazy music-enhanced storytelling CD, Audiovile, for just $5 ppd! To get a sense of what it is like, visit this link for a new single (not on the CD) called “Attack of the Bleu Man Group” at: https://www.gorelets.com/blog/weblog-exclusive/attack-of-the-bleu-man-group-exclusive-halloween-audio-story/
To get the special discount you need to order via paypal to arnzen@gorelets.com and mention the phrase “GAILZ” when you provide your information.
You can listen to the audio from when Michael was a guest of Blog Host, Gail Z. Martin’s Ghost in the Machine podcast here: https://www.audioacrobat.com/play/WZDv4PZ4
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Freebie Friday: Charles Gannon
Our guest blogger this week, Charles Gannon was kind enough to share the following poem with us:
The Charge of the Flight Brigade – removed from Charles’ forthcoming Baen novel.
The Charge of the Flight Brigade final to download.
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It’s Epic–and It’s American
by Charles Gannon
A thought-piece on the nature of American Narratives
Arguably, there are some useful analogies between cooking a gourmet dish and cooking up a saleable story. One of the analogies resides in the multiple avenues of sampling and analysis that are possible. To choose a pertinent example, one can choose to assess the dish itself, or the ingredients that are used to create it. The latter is my focus in this micro-essay—and the narrative cuisine in question is science fiction.
While not particular to any region, science fiction seems to be served up in the US far more frequently–and with greater gusto—than any other country. It is also not known for being a ”light” cuisine: science fiction narratives tend to be sizable repasts. This does not imply that they are always intellectually nourishing (as evinced by the ideational junk-food that still dominates the output of Hollywood) but usually do manage to sate audiences’ appetites for action and adventure; they are filling, at the very least. Or, in overtly literary terms, they are rarely humble opuscules; they are usually ambitious epics.
So,by this (threadbare) process of analogical deduction, an examination of the nature—and impulses—of the American Epic should, potentially, explicate certain of the creative threads that are both employed by, and give shape to, American science fiction. However, since there are plenty of American epics that are not science fictional, perhaps it makes sense to approach this topic through a sub-genre that is seasoned by both the mainstream and genre traditions. Consequently, American “bigger-than-life” disaster narratives may prove to be a useful point of entry into the subject–of which, because of this short fomat, we may only expect a fleeting glance, not detailed scrutiny.
* * *
Arguably, many, if not most, American epics are morality plays cum primers which either reprise, revise, or rejuvenate what might be called the nation ‘s “moral self-image in the course of a crisis.” The Towering Inferno, The Poseidon Adventure, 2012, Earthquake, and Deep Impact all have this in common: a group of individuals who are spun from the very warp and woof of the nation’s life must work together to rise above the challenge that they face. In the course of so doing, differences of class, ethnicity/race, gender, region, education, experience, are shown to be not merely baseless, but impediments that must be shed in the face of a crisis. Those who cannot, or (more severely) will not give in to this situational compulsion for what might be called “cultural transcendance” almost inevitably meet grisly ends, usually hoist by their own petards and expiring unlamented. Other, right-thinking persons may die along the way, but they are memorialized, held up as examples (often to a recidivistic group member who is shamed into moral rectitude by the sacrifice of the deceased). Perhaps the most trite and hackneyed version of this latter trope is that of the righteous person of color who voluntarily sacrifices him/her-self to ensure the survival of the rest of the group—including the prerequisite bigot—when a desperate but ingenious bid to escape the onrushing forces of destruction goes horribly and unpredictably awry in the film’s penultimate scene.
What are the core “cultural values” being celebrated by these narrative tropes and structures—and so many others which there is no space to list here? And why are they (as a syncretic whole) so peculirly American?
There are many possible reasons (and I warmly encourage others to take up the ennumeration and analysis of all of them) but I can only deal with one here, so I will focus on what I consider both the strongest, and also, the most provocative, factor in the mix: these tropes establish the essential national virtue of American culture–a value with deep, even urgent roots in the nation’s social contracts. Specifically, these narratives indicate that a ‘good’—and certainly a ‘heroic’—American need not be shrewd, or strong, or deft. But two traits are required—prerequisites for which no substitutes are allowed or tolerated: the hero of an American Epic must have the qualities of basic integrity (“say what you mean; do what you say)” and determination (never give up and always do your best).
What is most interesting and illuminating about these traits is their utterly democratic nature, insofar as any person may aspire to excel at them, regardless of other innate talents, predispositions, or impediments. These are the qualities celebrated not just in the form of bold heroes upon battlefields or stranded in the wilderness, but also in the Special Olympics, where physical and mental disabilities present a steep and unforgiving challenge to the participants. But that challenge becomes a peculiarly poignant and powerful opportunity to express the epic-heroic values of integrity and determination, largely because it is a foregone conclusion that no one in the special Olympics is going to set a true world’s record. Nor are they going to earn mention in the Guinness Book of World Sports Records. And because of that, the entire emphasis, and test, of the Special Olympics is focused upon those two qualities to which anyone may aspire, and therefore, which are celebrated as the only prerequisite American (because universal) traits: integrity and determination. The political and social pragmatism (and constancy) of this valuation is a noteworthy feature of most American epics: each one serves as a kind of “folk-tale” retelling, reinforcement, and revalidation of the nation’s most fundamental juridical, political, and philosophical credos. In essence, America reasserts, restores, and remakes itself it in every epic that it produces. And its science fiction epics are no exceptions to this rule: indeed, they may be its exemplars. But that, alas, would be the subject of another micro-essay…
Other cultures may dismiss the basic values celebrated in America’s epics as childishly delusional: that lauding mere determination and integrity simply means that the morality of an idealized playground has been hypertrophied into a cultural ideology. This may be true, to some degree, and to the degree that it is, it may say and reveal something about America’s adolescent zeal and immaturity, about its idealism, and perhaps its uncritical self-confidence. But it may also reveal something about people who perceive only ingenuousness in such values, may reveal not merely their worldiness, but also a predisposition toward niggardly pessismism, toward a prudent but self-limiting cynicism. As one philosopher observed, every object has the defects of its virtues. Apparently, different cultures and their epics are not exceptions to this rule.
In closing, look for America in all its epics. But especially, look for the nation in its seemingly non-political science fictional epics, because—since the tales are usually freed of the specific flags and partisan outcries of the moment—they often hold a clearer lens up to America’s core heroic values than any other narratives do—or can.
You can listen to the audio from when Charles was a guest of Blog Host, Gail Z. Martin’s Ghost in the Machine podcast here: https://www.audioacrobat.com/play/WVkgV7SX
Filed under Guest Blogger
Freebie Friday from Benjamin Tate
Our guest blogger, Benjamin Tate, is gracious enough to share the first six chapters of his book, The Skewed Throne.
Filed under Freebie Friday, Guest Blogger
