Globe Trotting (Writing Multiple Settings)

Okay, writers, let's talk about settings. Not setting, as in the singular, but settings, such as when you bounce your characters all over the place to tell your story. 

Do you have a sort of "master setting" you tend to use and then sprinkle it full of "little settings" such as how Batman's Gotham City has Crime Alley, the waterfront, etc.? How does this approach work for you?

Brian K Morris: My early work was peppered with planting the story in a spot and leaving it there until I came back to take it home for dinner.

Sheela Chattopadhyay: In my characters' running away from me stories that need fixing, it's all the same continent but different places. I hadn't tried for a bit more simplicity in that world because of how long the story was supposed to be. In my current one, it is within one house so far and that's been working for me.

When you need to bounce around the world with your characters, how do you determine that and how do you make it work as a writer? Do you continue to let a setting become a sort of de facto character in its own right (again, like Gotham for Batman or Los Angeles for Philip Marlowe)?

Sheela Chattopadhyay: In the series that needs fixing, it depended on the timing that the characters needed. In my current short story, it's still based on the timing and pacing. The setting itself is a factor, but I haven't really analyzed if it is at a de facto character level for the story. If it becomes a de facto character, I'm ok with that.

Brian K Morris: For much of my current work, I have a setting of Raceway City, which serves as my Metropolis/Gotham City for many of my characters. For other works, I'll set it in real world locations (which means research since I've not been in many of them).

How does needing multiple settings work into your plotting and planning for your novel? Is it something that you have specific reasons for choosing each location or is it more relaxed than that? Give me an example from your work.

Sheela Chattopadhyay: In the stories that need fixing, each one is supposed to be novel length. That's why the fixing is going to need to happen. I chose to have multiple settings because of the plot being quite large of several interwoven characters trying to solve a problem and overcome a common enemy. Each location is often refuge from temporarily escaping th villain, learning something useful to them, and building another ally.

Brian K Morris: The locations are mostly to disorientate the protagonist and give him/her one extra challenge. This works mostly because my stories tend to take place no less than forty years ago in a pre-GPS age. I also select locations with a bit of a mystique to them, to add to the mood and sense of isolation for the protagonist. For instance, what kind of story can I tell if it takes place in WW2's Paris, or Carnaby Street in 1964, or San Francisco as it rebuilt from an earthquake?

[Link] What Is LitRPG for Writers (and How Do I Get Started Writing It)?

Bestselling LitRPG author Matt Dinniman answers what LitRPG is (for those who don't know) and shares five tips on getting started in this style (not genre) of writing.

by Matt Dinniman

Okay, picture this. You’re sitting down at your desk, and a portal appears in the wall of your office. A mysterious wizard steps from the gate and announces, “Hey! You! If you want to save the realm, you need to complete this quest. You need to write a novel. And it needs to be a LitRPG!” He hands you a pen and a notebook, and he disappears back into the portal with a puff of smoke.

(You, of course, want to save the realm. One must never ignore quests bestowed by mysterious portal wizards. You’ve heard of LitRPG before, but you’re not really sure exactly what it is. Doesn’t it have something to do with video games? All you really know is that the term suddenly seems everywhere, and more importantly, LitRPG books seem to be really hot right now. And now that you have a quest to write one, you better get started. Here are five tips on how to save the day.

Step One. Know what LitRPG is in the first place.

Okay, okay, this sounds pretty obvious, right? Like it should be something the wizard tells you before we even get to the five tips part. But here’s the thing. Knowing exactly what you’re getting yourself into is absolutely crucial for success in this style of writing. Are these games? Are they like those Choose Your Own Adventure books? And why the heck are we calling it a “style of writing” and not a genre?

LitRPG stands for Literary Role-Playing Game, so it’s not surprising that people who are new to the term think these books are games. Or Choose Your Own Adventure Style books. They are not. They are just regular novels, usually with no reader interaction. And while many people call it a genre, they’re not, technically, a genre, either.

Read the full article: https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-fiction/what-is-litrpg-for-writers-and-how-do-i-get-started-writing-it

New Collection by L. Andrew Cooper Will Leave Stains in Your Mind!

Stains of Atrocity: Twenty Tales of Horror and Dark Fantasy

by L. Andrew Cooper

This volume’s twenty horrific tales vary in style and extremity, but each aims to leave an unusual, dark, and lasting impression. It begins with “Silence,” a surreal haunting about a woman who visits a strange house and then quietly loses the people closest to her, and it ends with “Mandy Schneider Makes Friends,” a taboo-breaking account of three psychopaths who form an alliance and then torture a group of campers and their chaperones. Arranged into five sections or “blots” that might stain your psyche in different ways with the atrocities they depict, the stories explore distorted responses to tragedy, strange connections that form when people give in to chance, political anxieties acted out through rent flesh and spilt blood, miraculous feats paid for with massacres, and a crime that lives on in a place and in people devoted to human violation.

In “David Langley and the Burglar,” a thief works up the nerve to add more violence to his crimes, and his intended victim struggles to escape from what seems to be a supernatural trap. In “Highway Romance,” a truck driver takes an illicit interest in a boy he sees in a passing car, and the boy lures him on, pursuing illicit and deadly interests of his own. “Dinner for Two” follows media-obsessed Brandon Landry as he becomes a mass shooter and meets his fan Daisy Ruttle, who after watching him online has decided she must play a part in his murders. A small, diverse group tries to dispatch the scourge of their neighborhood—a white supremacist who refuses to die, no matter how grisly the attempt to kill him—in “Undying Support.” “Blood and Feathers” presents a fateful early meeting between Dr. Allen V. Fincher and Elijah Eagleton, characters familiar from some of Cooper’s other works, a meeting that spawns a spate of human sacrifices. In “Eternal Recurrence of Suburban Abortion,” a young woman goes to a house famous for the atrocities committed there to have something removed from her body, and she ends up on a mind-bending journey between lives.

Seven of these stories have not previously been published, and the others are otherwise unavailable. They share fascinations with the macabre and the grotesque, as well as with storytelling that defies the typical. While some possess a twisted sense of humor, all aim to disturb. Get comfortable. It won’t last.

About the Author:

L. Andrew Cooper specializes in the provocative, scary, and strange. His current project, The Middle Reaches, is a serialized epic of weird horror and dark fantasy on Amazon Kindle Vella. His latest release, Records of the Hightower Massacre, an LGBTQ+ horror novella co-authored with Maeva Wunn, imagines a near-future dystopia where anti-queer hate runs a program to "correct" deviants. Stains of Atrocity, his newest collection of stories, goes to uncomfortable psychological and visceral extremes. His recent novel, Crazy Time, combines horror and dark fantasy in a contemporary quest to undo what may be a divine curse. Other published works include novels Burning the Middle Ground and Descending Lines; short story collections Leaping at Thorns and Peritoneum; poetry collection The Great Sonnet Plot of Anton Tick; non-fiction Gothic Realities and Dario Argento; co-edited fiction anthologies Imagination Reimagined and Reel Dark; and the co-edited textbook Monsters. He has also written more than 30 award-winning screenplays. After studying literature and film at Harvard and Princeton, he used his Ph.D. to teach about his favorite topics from coast to coast in the United States. He now focuses on writing and lives with his husband in North Hollywood, California.

https://www.amazon.com/Stains-Atrocity-Twenty-Horror-Fantasy-ebook/dp/B0BRMS6Q4S

[Link] Let Your Characters Write Their Story. They Actually Know What You Want To Say.

by Rob Bignell

Novelist Truman Capote once quipped, “You can’t blame a writer for what the characters say.”

Sometimes when writing, you’ll feel as if your characters are directing and controlling their own fate rather than you being the one who shapes them. All of them seem to tell you what they’ll say and do. Sometimes their choices may even startle you!

Read the full article: https://inventingrealityediting.com/2023/05/02/let-your-characters-write-their-story-they-actually-know-what-you-want-to-say/

AIRSHIP 27 PRODUCTION PRESENTS THE WARRIOR OF RIGEL

Tan Alvaka of Asudra was a warrior of skill, loyalty and courage. While on a diplomatic mission for his King, he discovers that his entire world, the planet Rigel, is in grave danger. A masked fiend calling himself Zorr, the name of the God of the Under World, has begun a secret campaign to infiltrate every kingdom with his hundreds of spies and assassins. Their goal is to usurp the various monarchies, defeat their existing armed forces and conquer them by any means possible.

As incredible as the plot seems, Tan soon realizes Zorr has the means and fanatical followers to make it happen unless he can expose the treachery, unmask the villain and then gather an army of his own to stop them. In “Warrior of Rigel,” writer Gary Lovisi has offered a fast-paced action adventure in the style of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard. It’s a thrill a page from start to finish. One sword and planet fans won’t want to miss!

Artist Ron Hill provides the cover and black and white interior illustrations with Art Director handling book Design.

AIRSHIP 27 PRODUCTION – PULP FICTION FOR A NEW GENERATION!

Available now from Amazon in paperback and soon on Kindle!

Help! My Characters Hijacked My Story! (But Did They? Did They Really?)

We've heard it as writers over and over again: I was going in one direction, but my characters sent me in another direction. But... is that true? Can our characters really hijack a story from us? Let's ask the panel of experts and get to the bottom of this mystery. The game's afoot, Watson!

How secure are you in your plots when you begin writing a novel? Or a short story? Is one form more or less likely to be disrupted or redirected by a shift in characterization than the other for you?

Daniel Emery Taylor: I’m a screenwriter but in MOST cases, I have scenes and plot points but no finalized plot. I’m more of a free writer … just creating characters, putting them in situations, and letting things evolve naturally.

Sean Taylor: I'm the oddball type who will sit and drive and think on a plot for months before I commit to even beginning to put it on paper. I'm rarely a pantser. Like, almost never. No. Even rarer than that. I like to have a first direction in mind before I start typing. But I think I'm the odd man out for thinking that way. I do it for both longer stories and short stories. 

Because of that, I've never really been one to believe that my character honestly have any control over the story. I'm the writer, damn it, and I made them up. I may add details to their character as I write, but that's not them doing anything. 

HC Playa: As someone who started writing life as a strict pantser and then slowly shifted to some murky middle between pantsing and plotting, my plot is always up for negotiation 🤣. In general, I have specific story beats I want to hit, but if I find a better way or a more character-driven way to get there along the way, I make the changes. For me, novels have far more wiggle room for plot changes than short stories do. It isn't that I can't achieve character growth in short stories, but for me personally, I have to have a concrete beginning/middle/end and expected word count already in my head to tackle a short story. That former concrete planning on the front end tends to override character whims.

Sean Harby: I normally have an idea where I want the story to go, but even after I've done an 'Outline', I often alter things if the story seems better told another way. As far as one type more vulnerable to drastic changes, I would say my novels are less set in stone than my short stories or novellas.

Brian K Morris: I'm a plotter who doesn't look at his outline once the writing begins for the day. This way, inspiration can lead me to fresher modes of thought (or into dark alleyways where there's no escape, which has happened more than once). For the most part, I'm secure in the plotting, but will consider a better way as it occurs to me.

Maya Preisler: For me, sitting down to write is like a road trip. I know where I want to start and end, but I recognize my route may deviate because of roadblocks or because I found something cool I wanted to visit along the way and adjusted my course accordingly. In my experience, longer pieces of writing are more likely to be disrupted or redirected because they’re longer journeys so there are more opportunities for distraction.

Robert Freese: Not secure at all. It’s like a new day, I have no idea what’s going to happen next.

Dale Kesterson: I always know the key plot points of my mysteries (I don't want to have to actually SOLVE the thing on the fly 🙂 ) but there have been times when what I have in mind isn't right for one of my characters.

L. Andrew Cooper: I do a lot of pre-writing for novels, usually starting with notes about the lead characters and then developing them as I develop the plot outline, which will spawn more characters if/as needed. If characters are going to shape the plot, they’re usually going to do it at the outlining stage, so the plot is pretty secure when I begin the actual drafting. That said, in the novel I finished drafting, um, today, Alex’s Escape, the development of two characters and the relationship between them caused me to rework the outline, shrinking it by three chapters so I could change the trajectory toward a new ending and then add three more chapters to develop new concepts (I didn’t want to increase the book’s length if I could avoid it). So, my method doesn’t guarantee plot security. I do less pre-writing for short stories, so characters are more likely to turn a tale in unexpected ways, but they still don’t very often. As a side note, I don’t think characters have ever taken over during the drafting of a screenplay. A screenplay’s story beats are too exacting for me to leave much to chance before I draft.

Jamais Jochim: Yes, they can if you've written them well enough.

My short stories are more likely to survive intact, but only because there's less time for them to influence me.

Bobby Nash: Oh, I love this topic.

I start with loose plots. I know certain things that need to happen. I call these plot points signposts. Then, I set my character(s) off toward the first signpost, but let the characters dictate how I get there. Sometimes, this takes me down paths I hadn’t planned as the characters react to situations. Other times, I uncover wonderful character moments.

When you say your characters send you in a new direction, which of these meanings is closer for you? (a) I wasn't really planning anyway, so I just went with the flow (pantsed it). Or, (b) I had a solid plan in place, but the more I got to know my characters or the more they changed as I wrote them, I had little choice but to refigure my plots.

Daniel Emery Taylor: It’s a little of both. I oftentimes will have specific scenes or dialogue in mind that, as a character evolves and becomes more real, no longer feel authentic. This happens after casting, too … the actor will bring their own input and twist. This can also change the trajectory. We try to make the characters as real as possible and then listen to what they tell us.

Chris Riker: I trust my characters to steer clear of cliches and predictable plots.

Sheela Chattopadhyay: For the runaway projects, it was both a and b. However, the sidetracked parts were more characterization and trying to flesh out more of the world than I was wanting to. It was closer to a non-pulp style, so I'm thinking of rewriting it closer to a pulp style since that tends to be smoother relatively in the writing process.

Robert Freese: I’ve had characters that received an entirely new fate because I grew to love them.

Jamais Jochim: B, sorta: I let the characters change the plot a lot, but a good part of my original outline does survive. Albeit barely.

Bobby Nash: Of these two options, I’m closer to A, but really I’m more option C, which is a combination of A & B. Often, things will shake out in dialogue that makes me realize something important about the character or the plot. In one novel (no titles to avoid spoilers), the antagonist says something that made me realize that he was more involved with something that happened to the protagonist than originally planned. This was a big revelation, not only for the readers but for me because it wasn’t planned. This made the story better and the relationship between the two characters much more interesting.

In a short story, I had a pretty simple plot. Good Guy. Bad Guy. Victim. A couple of secondary characters. My plot was pretty straightforward since it’s a short story. I was writing the final act, where the good guy and bad guy meet face-to-face for the first time. As they are talking to each other, I realized that the bad guy wasn’t the “real” bad guy of the story. That’s when another spoke up and the story went from straightforward to one with an interesting twist that made the story better. I went back to drop clues to the twist and was surprised to find that they were already there. The characters knew before I figured it out.

In a series, I planned a villain arc where the protagonist and antagonist would meet in book 1, then again around book 3, and then have a final showdown in book 6. In book 3, I killed the antagonist. It wasn’t planned, but it felt right for the series and the story. It also allowed another character to move up from a secondary or tertiary character to become the main protagonist. That character ended up being a better villain than the one I killed off early. A happy accident. Certainly not planned. Also, as with the previous example, the clues were already there. That character had been planning a coup all this time. I just didn’t know it yet.

L. Andrew Cooper: B

Brian K Morris: Definitely the latter. I will come up with quirks for the characters as they become more real in my mind. I won't surrender control to them, however, nor will I blame them for my digressions. I'm the one in charge and I'm where the story buck stops.

Maya Preisler: Neither? B is a bit closer. I usually have a plan but it tends to be a broad outline and I fill in the details as the story flows. For me, it’s less about getting to know my characters and more that even our best friends and closest relatives still possess the capacity to surprise us. Often when my characters make unexpected choices I find those decisions make perfect sense in hindsight, especially once I revisit their backstories.

Sean Harby: I'm not one to say the characters change the story. The story changes because I feel it's better told another way or feels more satisfying. I do try to get inside their heads as far as reactions to circumstances and dialogue, but the story determines how it unfolds. So ... sort of?

HC Playa: For me, it is a little of both. I write a mix of series and stand-alone stories. When it's a character I know really well I might just go with the flow b/c I can step into that character like a seasoned actor. When it is a new and unfamiliar character, it's usually me fleshing them out and realizing the idea I initially had doesn't match up with the character I have built so far. It's easier to change the plot a bit than to go back and rebuild the character.

Sean Taylor: If my characters ever redirect me, it's almost always because I didn't really know them well enough to build a plot around them yet. I jumped the gun, and they became better characters while I was writing, it was because I didn't pay attention when I should have been watching them (or creating them and figuring out who they were/are in the first place). 

How well do you know your characters when you begin a work? Do you think that it's only because they're becoming more fully fleshed out as you write that they're reshaping your plot? Have you experienced the opposite, where because you knew the characters inside and out, the plot was changed little because it was already based in character?

Bobby Nash: Character is key when writing this way. Knowing how a character reacts to certain things informs where your story goes. If you take 3 characters that you know well and drop them into the same plot, you will get three different stories because how those characters react and respond to the plot you put in front of them will be different based on who those characters are. These are “real” people to me. If I try to make them do something out of character then it feels wrong to me and to the readers. Have you ever read a book with characters you know well and thought “That character wouldn’t do that?” That’s what I try to avoid by trusting my characters. It doesn’t work without trust.

HC Playa: Oh absolutely. I rewrote my first novel about 5bazillion times. After 3 short stories and 3 novels, I know exactly how each of these characters is likely to act. I just finished a digest novel with a "bonus" story and am starting the final installation. I haven't quite worked out my plot yet, as I have just started, but I expect few deviations. I know how I want this series to end. I know the players. I know the various motivations and conflicts. All I have to do now is weave it all together.

Most of my short stories have gone precisely as I planned in part because I have the character and vignette set in my head before I ever put my fingertips to the keyboard.

Lucy Blue: For me, all the details of plot come from character. I have a situation going in, and I know who my characters are at a pretty deep level not because I plan it but because I just do. Character and dialogue are my superpowers as a writer; both just sort of happen for me. And from that comes plot.

Daniel Emery Taylor: They reshape the plot as they become more fleshed out, yes.

Sean Harby: I have a pretty firm grasp on the high points of my characters when I begin, but through writing them, I get to know them a little better. As I said above, the way I see them reacting does impact the story.

Sean Taylor: I tend to know them inside and out, at least in all the important ways that make the plot matter. I know what they want. I know what they're willing to do to get it. I know what will get in the way of them achieving that. And I know what it will cost them in terms of their soul to claw their way back to a second chance to achieve it when the first one (or few times) fails. I also know their major relationships to other characters and enough "job application" information about them to have the kind of minor details that make a character seem real and not just paper thin. 

Robert Freese: My relationship with my characters is like any friendship- the longer I hang out with them the better I get to know them. More times than not, I know all their strengths up front, it’s their vulnerabilities I discover as the story is written.

Maya Preisler: It depends on the work. For my longer pieces, I usually spend hours agonizing over the details of my character’s lives to really learn who they are. In my shorter pieces, the characters tend to spring from my imagination more fully formed. That’s a fascinating question. “More fully fleshed out” does seem like an accurate way to describe the process. From an internal perspective, there’s a sense of immediacy that occurs as I’m writing where it feels as if the character acquires a sense of agency and enough self-awareness to struggle against the plot. I have had that happen once, where I based the characters off of people I know and love so there were relatively few surprises in my plot. However, that’s only happened once.

Sheela Chattopadhyay: The current one that I'm writing is fairly secure. No one is trying to jump into a different storyline or genre yet. It's a short story, which is probably the difference.

The previous attempts have characters changing everything up, including time frames, and genre, and adding new characters whenever they can't solve something for their own amusement. I was aiming for a book for the other projects, so that might be part of it.

In my runaway projects, I would get to know them too well and they derailed my plots badly. On my current short story where I haven't paid any attention to word count and have been writing it on a typewriter, I had an idea of what I wanted to happen and of my characters. It's going smoother as I know less about my characters before I write.

Brian K Morris: A bit of both, but I know the broad strokes that make up the characters before I begin the actual writing. The little touches that make them more interesting often come to me as I flesh out the story.

L. Andrew Cooper: For novels, I usually know my characters very well before I begin drafting. They tend to live in my head for weeks, more often months, sometimes years, trying out different fantasy scenarios, before I pin down their details and try them out in a storyline. Therefore, I’m more likely to experience a plot that changes little because it was already based in character. For example, in my forthcoming novel Noir Falling, the central (perspective) character was loosely inspired by someone I knew 25 years ago, but I watched what I took from the real person grow and change dramatically before I put him on the page. By the time he got words, though, I knew what his character arc would be, an arc inseparable from the plot of Noir Falling. Of course, writing Noir Falling would have been impossible without a good map… I expect readers to find aspects of it dizzying… but no matter how surreal and seemingly random things get, it was all planned in advance. Characters for screenplays and short stories don’t tend to live in my head as long before I write them, but I still usually know them, flesh and all, before they appear on the page.

Jamais Jochim: I know them absolutely before I start writing, and then they show me things I just can't unsee. Some just say, "Nope."

Motivational Monday: The Difference

"The difference between a novelist and someone

who tinkers around with writing is this: novelists

finish their books." -- Nancy Etchemendy

AIRSHIP 27 PRODUCTIONS PRESENTS GEEZERS VOLUME TWO

They are all back from Geezers, the Vietnam veterans; Patrick Stone, Dan Loman, Sharky Finn, and their manager at the Golden Years Leisure Living, Carla Mendoza in two new adventures. This time in two new adventures 

In “Retirement Recon” the boys are joined by 102-year-old Axel Tuck, a wheelchair-bound WW II vet as they battle a Red Chinese attempt to build a reeducation camp in their small California community. Whatever it takes to shut them down, the Geezers will get the job done.

In “Night Terrors” some of the men must deal with relentless nightmares that still haunt decades after their combat tours. In the process the Geezers and Carla take on twisted forces of censorship and the cancel culture, defending their love of freedom, loyalty, and country. Long ago these men took an oath that has no expiration date and they will fight to the end to protect America. For these Geezers, patriotism is more than just a word.

Writer/artist veteran Darryle Purcell provides not only these great tales but also all the black and white interior illustrations. Artist Adam Shaw turns in another breathtaking stellar cover.

AIRSHIP 27 PRODUCTIONS – PULP FICTION FOR A NEW GENERATION!

Available now in paperback from Amazon and soon on Kindle.

Motivational Mondays: Obama's Reading List

Another reason to appreciate and admire this guy. Great reading list. Balanced too. 

Sunday Funnies: English Teachers

[Link] Use a plot coupon to drive your story forward

by Rob Bignell

Among the tried and true devices you can use for moving a story forward is a plot coupon.

A plot coupon is something a character must obtain that later can be “cashed in” to resolve the overarching conflict so that the story may end. For example, in the ancient Greek myth Jason and the Argonauts, our hero and his valiant crew go in search fo the Golden Fleece, which once obtained will allow Jason to take his rightful place as king. The overarching conflict that began the story is that Jason must gain his rightful place on the throne, and the Golden Fleece is the plot coupon that allows him to achieve this goal. Once he is king, the story is over.

Seeking the coupon moves the plot forward. In Jason and the Argonauts, each adventure they go on centers on one element in the attempt to find the Golden Fleece. In each adventure, they may discover clues that help them find the Golden Fleece or they may suffer setbacks that must be overcome in “episodes” that follow.

Read the full article: https://inventingrealityeditingservice.typepad.com/inventing_reality_editing/2016/06/use-plot-coupon-to-drive-your-story-forward.html

AIRSHIP 27 PRODUCTION PRESENTS METROPOLIS – RESURRECTION

Welcome to Metropolis, an endless Art Deco sprawl-city of future, filling the horizon in a world of steel and neon. Brilliant and ruthless, the tycoon Joh Freder, rules Metropolis with an iron will. His best friend, the eccentric genius Dr. Karl Rotwang, created scientific miracles to keep the city alive. And Dr. Rotwang is nothing without Hel, the woman he loves, whose kind heart rebels at the cruelty and inequality seething below the skyscrapers.

Then excavations below the city discover something bizarre in the ancient catacombs- a flawless metal woman, a Silver Goddess that brings dreams of civic destruction - a mystery Rotwang must solve. While Hel tries to save the city from Freder’s unchecked ambition, the Silver Goddess sends Rotwang down a path of obsession and madness. All there on a journey that could bring Metropolis crashing down or give it hope of a better future.

In this prequel to Fritz Lang’s sci-fi classic, authors Michael Panush (Blood Spiller’s Quarry, The Dead Sheriff: A Cold and Lonesome Grave) and Charles Santino (Toplin,Conan the Barbarian) set the stage for a landmark of Weimar Cinema that still resonates today. Artist James Lyle (The Domino Lady) provides the covers and black and white interior illustrations with Art Director Rob Davis the book design.

Due to the uniqueness of this title, it will be available not only in paperback and on Kindle, but Airship 27 has produced a special collector’s edition hardback copy.

AIRSHIP 27 PRODUCTION – PULP FICTION FOR A NEW GENERATION! 

Available now from Amazon in paperback, on Kindle and a special hardback edition.

Sunday Funnies: Allegorical Opposites

EVEN THE RICH AND WEALTHY DEAL IN MURDER! KIMBERLY B. RICHARDSON’S ‘THE CRACKED GLASS: A CORKED BRIOCHE MYSTERY’ DEBUTS!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Fresh from completing her acclaimed JACKIE VERONA trilogy, author Kimberly B. Richardson introduces fans to another detective in the latest mystery from her KIMBERLY RICHARDSON’S PULP GOTHIC imprint from Pro Se Productions.

Bernice is searching for a fresh start after getting laid off from her lucrative position in a financial firm. Her wish is granted in the form of landing a job at the Corked Brioche, a shop that caters to the wealthy. But when a co-worker dies under mysterious circumstances, Bernice becomes an unlikely detective as she not only solves the mystery but also discovers that even the strongest wine glass can easily break under pressure. 

From Kimberly B. Richardson, noted Genre author, and her own imprint, Kimberly Richardson's Pulp Gothic, comes THE CRACKED GLASS: A CORKED BRIOCHE MYSTERY, a new mystery where the upper crust and the underbelly of society collide. From Pro Se Productions.

Featuring a haunting cover and print formatting by Antonino lo Iacono, THE CRACKED GLASS: A CORKED BRIOCHE MYSTERY is available from Amazon for only $12.99. 

Formatted by Iacono and Marzia Marina, Richardson’s latest novel is also available as an ebook for only $2.99 for a limited time from Amazon. Kindle Unlimited members can read for free!

For more information on this title, interviews with the author, or digital copies for review, email editorinchief@prose-press.com.

To learn more about Pro Se Productions, go to www.prose-press.com. Like Pro Se on Facebook at Pro Se Productions.

[Link] Fighting Edith Wharton's ghost

by LYZ

The day before a war began, I tried to stalk Edith Wharton through New York. 

I knew the war was coming. Despite assurances from officials quoted in the news and a friend of mine, a reporter, who told me that day that he’d spoken on background with a lot of people who knew things. “It’s not going to happen,” he said. “Putin is just bluffing.” But my brother, who is in the Army, had been deployed weeks before. He was sitting in a tank in another country — he couldn’t tell us where. But I could guess. I imagined my brother sitting there, teetering on the edge of something, ready to fall over into an abyss. And here I was in New York, standing in front of a Starbucks that had once been Edith Wharton’s home.

Wharton was a war novelist and a tireless volunteer. Among many philanthropic activities, she spent World War I in Paris serving as the head of the American Hostels for Refugees, feeding and clothing the people displaced by the conflict. She also oversaw an ambulance brigade and put together an anthology about war The Book of the Homeless. Many of her books are about war and the ensuing loss and devastation. But the eternal war of Wharton’s world that I was most interested in understanding was that of marriage.

Writing about Wharton in 2020, Sarah Blackwood noted that the historical foregrounding of Wharton’s more domestic novels isn't necessary “to establish the novel’s significance. Part of the genius of The Age of Innocence is how it insists that the story of a single, torn wedding dress is not qualitatively different from the story of a torn‑apart world, that novels of manners are as significant a contribution to human knowledge and feeling as are tales about combat.” 

Read the full article: https://lyz.substack.com/p/fighting-edith-whartons-ghost

35 Books (Almost) Everybody Should Read

 

If you're a writer and you are familiar with the Google machine, no doubt you've been exposed to at least three or four hundred "Must Read" lists, usually published by either an online lit mag or even a general interest mag like New Yorker or Rolling Stone. And these lists tend to have at least one of two things in common. 

1. They suck. 

2. They all look the same. 

It seems like all these lists also hit the same beats:

• The Great Gatsby
• Lord of the Flies
• The Old Man and the Sea
• 1984
• To Kill a Mockingbird
• Moby Dick
• I Read This in High School and Hated It
• College Requirement
• You Name It
• Etc.
• Ad Naseum
• Snoresville
• Blah, Blah, Blah

Sometimes, many of the often-mentioned authors have much better books just waiting to be discovered. (Fitzgerald's Jazz Age short stories, for example, far outshine his Gatsy if you ask me.) Not only that, a lot of these classics are just plain dated and/or boring (yes, I'm a Literature teacher and I said that!)

So, with that in mind, I figured my list couldn't be any worse. Now, I won't say everybody needs to read all these because that's too big a blanket statement, but I do think most everybody could benefit by including these tomes in your TBR pile. 

I wanted to build a better list, a list that took the last 50 years into account a bit, a list that wasn't just full of dead white guys, a list that, dare I say it, puts those other lists to shame. (Yes, I'm that vain.)

The rules and such: 

• This list contains a mix of novels, short story collections, graphic novels, and creative non-fiction. 
• Not only that, it also contains a mix of genres, from literary to sci-fi to pulpy action and even detective stories. 
• I've only allowed one title per author, but in the case of close seconds, I've put that title in parentheses so you know just how close the race was). 

Without any more ballyhoo, it's time to throw my proverbial hat in the ring and present to you a better list of must-reads.

Let the wonderment begin. Here they are, 35 books you, yes you, need to read. 

Short Story Collections

1. The Lottery and Other Stories, Shirley Jackson (The Haunting of Hill House)

Shirley Jackson is the master of the creepy. She can bring it into Gothic structures and into the suburbs. While The Haunting of Hill House is a masterpiece of modern ghost storytelling, it's this collection that tips it out as her best work. Jackson knows her craft, particularly as it relates to making a reader care about slightly odd and broken people who exist just off the edge of normal.

2. Innocent Eréndira, and Other Stories, Gabriel Garcia Marquez

This collection is the master of Magical Realism at his best. In addition to the title story, two of my favorite stories are contained in this volume "Eva Is Inside Her Cat" and "Eyes of a Blue Dog." If all you've read is "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of this. Yes, skip the overblown One Hundred Years of Solitude and start with his amazing short stories instead.

3. Constancia and Other Stories For Virgins, Carlos Fuentes

This is the second-best collection featuring Magical Realism you'll ever read. And Fuentes is a master of the short story. This is a master class in magical realism and includes stories about a man who discovers his life maybe wasn't what he thought he experienced, youths who "adopt" a mannequin and well, get rather intimate with it, and other tales that explore what it means to be human by pitting human reason against inhuman spiritual and supernatural experience. Outside of Marquez, nobody does Magical Realism like Fuentes.

4. Jazz Age Stories, F. Scott Fitzgerald

I know The Great Gatsby is the go-to for Fitzgerald and is considered above and beyond any other THE great American novel. I know that. I teach 11th-grade American Literature. I'm paid to know that. But, for my money, ol' Fitzy's short stories collected in this volume are his true magnum opus. "Bernice Bobs Her  Hair" alone is worth its place on this list, but if you throw in stories like "The Offshore Pirate" and "The Glass-Cut Bowl," this is his superlative work. 

5. Night Shift Stephen King (Cujo)

This book of short stories is responsible for more Stephen King movies than any other of his works. 'Salem's Lot. Lawnmower Man. Sometimes They Come Back. Maximum Overdrive. "Quitter's, Inc" and "The Ledge" from  Cat's Eye. They all came from this collection. But my favorite is the somber, violent, and yet romantic "The Man Who Loved Flowers," and it remains my second favorite King story to this day. In my opinion, Stephen King is an okay novelist but a damn fine short story writer. These quick bites of horror and terror are King at his best. 

6. The King in Yellow, Robert W. Chambers

Sure, H.P. Lovecraft is usually the go-to guy for otherworldly, esoteric horror. But, if you ask me, Robert W. Chambers out-Lovecrafts him in this collection about a mysterious play that drives those who read it insane. "The Mask" is a particular stand-out, and another of my favorite short stories of all time. The stories in this book will stick with you for a long, long time, particularly those from the opening pages. Chemicals that turn people to stone, ghastly stalkers, creepy painters -- it's all here.

7. What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, Raymond Carver

If Raymond Chandler wrote about relationships falling apart instead of murder, he'd write this book. Take the terse, straightforward style of the pulps and add a few literary techniques like characterization and talking around things instead of about them, and you have this book, one of the finest short story collections ever, and well worth your time. This is the book that shows how to learn from Hemingway's strengtha without having to copy Hemingway. 

8. Dandelion Wine, Ray Bradbury

It is difficult to pick any single short story collection from Bradbury because they are all amazing. This volume is a bit of a departure from the average short story collection because the stories weave in and out of the lives of a town experiencing the seasons. One of the first to combine the novel with the short story effectively, Dandelion Wine is a must-read for any serious reader of short stories.

9. The Ways of White Folks, Langston Hughes

The Ways of White Folks is perhaps the finest volume of stories from the post-slavery United States. Each tale relates the culture shock when blacks and whites try to co-exist in a world that won't let them without shying away from the implications. But best of all, Hughes tells his stories with the ear of a poet, making each tale a feast for the ears and eyes.

10. The Final Martyrs, Shusaku Endo

This is one of the most accessible books that deals with religion you'll ever read (except for maybe Wise Blood below). This collection features the themes of loneliness, nostalgia (and the ultimate emptiness of it), faith, apostasy, spiritual doubt, and sexual longing. It's a thoroughly human and humane work by one of Japan's greatest writers. 

Novels

11. The Adventures of Monkey, Arthur Waley

I must have read this book about a hundred times before I was 12 years old. Adapted from Journey to the West, this focuses on Monkey and his hubris to be the god above gods. I couldn't help but admire Monkey in spite of his pride. He was my first exposure to the trickster caricature, long before I read about Ananzi the Spider or Coyote.

12. The Sirens of Titan, Kurt Vonnegut (Player Piano)

People always tend to default to Slaughterhouse-Five for the best book by Vonnegut, but I continue to believe it's The Sirens of Titan. It's perhaps the most straightforward sci-fi romp the author wrote, and it's both accessible in format and style, far more than so many of his other, more trippy works. The Siren's of Titan is a simple story, actually, about a man on a direct route to his destiny whether he tries to avoid it or not. It actually shares a lot (in terms of plotting) with the story of Jonah from the Old Testament, but don't mistake that was any religious content. Right behind this one for me is another Vonnegut work with a similar theme -- Player Piano (and then we finally get to S-5). 

13. Beloved, Toni Morrison

Beloved is all the right stuff in a novel as far as I'm concerned. Thoroughly literary, it identifies and calls out for cultural change (call it woke, it's okay). Thoroughly a ghost story, it tells of a home haunted by a former slave girl. Thoroughly romantic, it features several relationships that are beautiful, tragic, and optimistic all at once. A freed slave's home is haunted by what could be the ghost of a young slave woman killed to avoid a return to slavery, and that affects everything about the freed slave's family life. At times creepy, at times tragic, at times hopeful, there's a very good reason this novel by Toni Morrison is so, ahem, Beloved.

14. The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler (Little Sister)

This is the quintessential Chandler. Period. Sure, all his books are amazing, but this one just lays out what makes the rest of them work so well. Any writer wanting to learn the trade can use this as a textbook for dialogue, pacing, character, action, theme, all the stuff that makes literature work. In this case, watch the movies, sure but read the books, all the books. 

15. A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway

I'll be honest. I love The Sun Also Rises (best closing line in any book, ever, and I'm looking at you, Gatsby), but when it comes to why I love Ernest Hemingway, it all boils down to this book. This book is why Hemingway continues to top my list of favorite writers year after year after year. Drama? Check. Romance? Yep. Danger? Intrigue? Sure. High-faluting literary art-stuff? Yep. That's there too. The best part of this book is that there are no doves set free to give it a Hollywood ending. That's just for the movie. 

16. Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston (Mules and Men)

I consider myself fortunate that I get to revisit this book each year with my students. I can't think of a better character study for the pursuit of happiness than Janie as she grows to eventually understand she needs no others to define her but herself. She can be loved and she gave give love, but it must be on her terms. And the way ZNH slings words around?! Holy shit! This is one of the most poeticly heartbreaking and yet life-affirming book I have and will every read.

17. Fat Ollie's Book, Ed McBain

Fat Ollie is a prejudiced, fat cop who ticks all the boxes for "that guy." But that somehow doesn't keep him from being one of the fan faves in Ed McBain's 87th Precinct series. That's a testament to McBain's writing. Trust me. This time out, Fat Ollie has his only copy of his first novel manuscript with him, but it gets stolen. Now he must not only do his job as a cop but also find his missing manuscript so he can prove to the world at large he's more than just a "pretty face" with a badge.

18. Wise Blood, Flannery O'Connor

There once was a story about a preacher who walked with rocks in his shoes to create his own type of penance, all the while preaching about "the church without Christ." This is that story. This is about a Flannery O'Connor as a story can get, with memorable characters, even more memorable quirks, and enough moral shortcomings to create a new reason to invoke Old Testament judgments. 

19. Ethan Frome, Eudora Welty

I once wrote an essay comparing this wonderful short novel to Kate Chopin's The Awakening. My take was that the awakening isn't just a feminist feeling. Men can feel it too. Of course, both are written by women, so that has a lot to do with the depth of emotion that Edith Wharton writes into her characters who are trapped in a loveless marriage born of a medical need to stay together. Enter one younger cousin who brings life into a gray world of death, and they begin a journey toward tragedy worthy of Shakespeare's best.

20. Devil in a Blue Dress, Walter Mosely

Picking any single Walter Mosley Easy Rawlins tale for this list is nigh impossible. Rawlins is the African American's Philip Marlowe, but not just that, because he's created from the authenticity of the post-WWII world blacks experienced, he's as much a revolutionary hero as he is a private eye. He crosses the worlds of Pulp, Noir, Hard-Boiled, and Literary Fiction with ease and blends them into a new kind of P.I. Fiction that didn't exist before Mosley. 

21. One-Shot Harry, Gary Phillips

Gary Phillips is my kind of writer, and I'm thrilled to be able to say I've shared a short story collection or two with him. He's a sort of spiritual follow-up to Walter Mosley without being a pastiche, and he has a unique voice among African American pulp writers. In this one, a photographer gets caught up in a mystery during the racial unrest of the early 1960s. Harry is a Korean War vet who just wants to help out a friend, only to be pulled fully into violence and danger. It's also filled with lots of fun historical cameos, so that's a plus that makes it feel very, very real-world. 

22. Money Shot, Christa Faust

This is probably the most recently published book on the list. It's another Hard Case Crime book, and it's the one that introduced me to Christa Faust. It's as gritty as they come and as viscerally raunchy as it needs to be without crossing the line into needing to be sold in a brown paper bag. Angel Dare is a porn actress wrapped up in a murder. The premise is simple and Noir. The storytelling is classic Hard-Boilded Pulp. 

23. I Will Fear No Evil, Robert Heinlein (Job)

Yeah, I know this one is a weird choice for a Heinlein book to include on this list. Most folks who put Stranger in a Strange Land (and to be fair, this covers many of the same themes), but even if I had to choose a different Heinlein, I'd probably choose Job. Still, this one remains my favorite, hands down. The story of a man who gets a second shot at life in the body of his dead secretary, this book crossed so many cultural lines in the sand I'm surprised it was even published. It's as countercultural and straight-up hippy as anything Heinlein wrote, and it's perhaps the most superb M2F transformation book ever written. It's trippy and sexual and goes into several uncomfortable places, but that's what makes it so fantastic.

24. A Princess of Mars, Edgar Rice Burroughs

This book was Star Wars before Star Wars was Star Wars. Seriously. As far as I'm concerned if you read only one Planetary Romance it should be A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Sure, there are some bits in it that stand as identifiers of their time, but none of it reaches a level that interferes with the heroic story of a man shunted to another planet. It's a space isekai that influenced everything from sci-fi movies to animated movies to sci-fi and fantasy books. 

25. Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman (American Gods)

Every reader it seems has a favorite Neil Gaiman novel. This one happens to be mine. The thing I've enjoyed about Gaiman's work is his refusal to write series (outside of comic book series) and to create new worlds with each new novel. I've always loved the idea of worlds co-existing, and this one continues that genre of fantasy story better than about all others (including the famous land under London novel). Plus, Door is perhaps the most fascinating character I've come across in modern fiction. (Some readers may have strong opinions about NG now after the allegations against him, so tread wisely.)

26. The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams

If I have to explain this one, then you've been sleeping under a rock. This is the quintessential sci-fi comedy romp. It's also where several of our favorite geek sayings come from. "Mostly harmless." "42." "Life, the universe, and everything." "Don't forget your towel." "Don't panic." It's all here. Some novels have filler, but not this one. It doesn't let up with the out-there. 

27. She, A History of Adventure, H. Rider Haggard

This is probably the lowest-brow book you're going to find on this list. Yes, it's a straight-up adventure yarn, and not just that, it's a "men's adventure" yarn that was a dime a dozen back in the early days of 1900s fiction. Still, don't let that deter you. This is a fun romp through the tropes that have stood the test of time for adventure and fantasy writing and sometimes is good to go back and see where the stuff we enjoy nowadays came from. It also features a female antagonist able to wipe the floor with any man who dares to stand against her.

28. The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan

This is the novel that introduced me to the amazing Amy Tan. I was even fortunate enough to attend a writers' convention at my college where she did a reading from the book. (And yes, that was amazing too.) This book captures the feelings about being American-born in a culture that prides itself on keeping its traditions. How much does the past, and not just your own but that of your family, determine who you are, and how much of that is a person allowed to shape for themselves? The way Tan answers that question is what puts this awesome book on this list.

29. Borderline, Lawrence Block

This is my favorite tale from the former Edgar Award Winner and Grand Master of Mystery Writers of America. It's raw, sensual, gritty, and violent, and that makes it pure Block. Originally published under the pseudonym Don Holliday as Border Lust, it was republished by Hard Case Crime under the current title, Borderline with all credit going to the author's real name. Written like a five-pointed star converging in upon itself, it features five people whose lives are about to intersect in the most dangerous way possible. 

30. Johnny Got His Gun, Dalton Trumbo

You may have seen Metallica's music video that features footage from the film Johnny Got His Gun, but do yourself a favor and read the book. This is the kind of story you'd expect from someone with the guts to stand up to McCarthyism and even get blacklisted as a screenwriter. Trumbo knocks it out of the park (sorry for the cliche) in this tragic tale of a soldier who loses everything but his life and still manages to lose it all. Trapped in a body without arms, legs, vision, or any ability to communicate with his doctors, our "hero" relives his experience in the war that led to his living lifelessness. It's a downer for sure, but it's probably one of the most important downers you'll ever read. 

Non-Fiction

31. A Grief Observed, C.S. Lewis

This may be the most personal book I've ever read. It's also the most religious book on this list -- and that's for a good reason. It's a religious book only in the since of one man's account of his faith (in God, in humanity, in fate, in goodness, in love) falling apart after the death of his wife. It's also the story of a rebuilding and a rejoining with the sand of humanity (to paraphrase John Donne's "No Man Is an Island"). It is a universal story, never a sectarian one. 

32. A Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard

There is no better natural essayist than Annie Dillard. She has a gift for taking the last breaths of a dying moth, a mottled snakeskin, or any number of other discards and cast-offs from nature that one might find in the woods, and turning them into parables that resonate with all of us. She takes the universal and makes it personal. She is simply the best as what she does. And this book is the proof of that. 

Graphic Novels

33. Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi

Persepolis deserves every award it has ever won. It is quite possibly the finest example of autobiography in graphic novel form ever created. Yes, that even includes American Splendor. The author related her own move to the United States in a way that never distances readers of any nationality, race, or faith. You can't read this book without identifying with Marjane Satrapi in her struggles and confusions.

34. American Born Chinese, Gene Luen Yang

Forget about the weird little streaming series. This book ties together Journey to the East and the story of a second-generation Chinese student trying to figure out who he is. Does he keep his family's culture or treat it as trash to be thrown away? Does he embrace Americanism even if it means he ignores generations that have come before him? And just what does the Monkey King have to do with all of this? This is not only fun. It's profound. 

35. Bone, Jeff Smith

Yes. Bone is a fun little fantasy book. Well, not so little. This baby takes two trees per copy, I'd be willing to bet. Yeah, it's massive. But, for all the fun and adventure this fantasy romp contains, it's every bit as complex as anything by Tolkien, Herbert, L'Engle, or Le Guin. Don't let the cute art and easy-to-follow story fool you. This is epic storytelling at its best. You'll be hard-pressed to find any other fantasy book -- prose or graphic novel -- that matches it in quality.