Chris Jackson: Real People in Fantasy Worlds

As a professional sailor, writer, scientist, and life-long gamer, writing nautical and RPG tie-in fantasy came naturally for Chris.  His Scimitar Seas novels (Dragon Moon Press) won multiple gold medals from Foreword Reviews Magazine, and his Pathfinder Tales—Pirate’s Honor, Pirate’s Promise, and Pirate’s Prophecy (Paizo Publishing)—have received high praise and are fan favorites. Though he’s built a reputation writing pirate stories, his Weapon of Flesh series about a magical assassin has hit the Kindle bestseller list several times, and is now being released as an audiobook, too. Chris has also branched into other genres including horror with his novella The Deep Gate, a tie-in story for the Arkham Horror game (Fantasy Flight Games), and satirical science fiction with his Cheese Runners trilogy of novellas. His latest series—The War of Souls and Seeds of Darkness Trilogy—are being published through Falstaff Press.

Tell us a bit about your most recent work.

I recently wrapped up two trilogies nearly on the very same day. The Eternal, Book 3 of the War of Souls Trilogy, is published by Falstaff Books, a gritty, post-apocalyptic fantasy. The other, Son of War, is the third in a high fantasy trilogy, The Seeds of Darkness, set in my own world. Really satisfying!

What are the themes and subjects you tend to revisit in your work?

Personal struggle, deep emotion, quite often romantic elements, though not always, and humor. I tell my fans that I create real people in fantasy worlds (SF and Horror, too), and real people are messy, conflicted, emotional, and complicated. My own world is a “magic lite” fantasy. I have two nautical fantasy series there, the Scimitar Seas novels, and the Blood Sea Tales, but also magically augmented assassins, swords and sorcery, and dark fantasy.

What happened in your life that prompted you to become a writer? 

The answer’s kind of tropey, but running TTRPG adventures taught me storytelling. I ran a very long and involved adventure for friends in grad school, which, when it was done, had created an entire region of my current fantasy world. With the players’ permission, and my then girlfriend’s (now wife of 35 years) impetus, I wrote the adventure as a novel, which morphed into a trilogy. After you write 400K words, you can’t tell yourself you’re not a writer anymore. I took that ball and ran with it.

What inspires you to write? 

That’s a hard question to answer. People ask where I get my ideas, and I’m always like “Really?” My brain is a bit like trying to drink from a firehose on full blast. I have more ideas than I’ll ever be able to put on paper. I’m inspired by other writers, fans, games, travel, cultures, food, and even politics. I got one of my best ideas, for the Scimitar Seas novels, simply by looking up at the night sky and a thin crescent moon. I thought “that looks like a scimitar” and then “Huh… Scimitar Moon” and realized that was the title of my next book. I built an entire series over that title.

What of your works has meant the most to you?

The Weapon of Flesh series was our most successful, by far, and was life changing. Because of the success of that series, we were able to extend our sailing adventure from the planned 3-4 years to 13 years! I haven’t had a “day job” since 2009, largely thanks to that series.

If you have any former project to do over to make it better, which one would it be, and what would you do?

Another hard question. Nothing really comes to mind other than a very few anthologies I’ve taken part in that didn’t sell well or were at the behest of a manipulative “publisher.” I don’t regret writing the stories, but really should have been more “eyes open” as to the motives of the publishers. Live and learn, and always read the contract thoroughly!

What writers have influenced your style and technique?

Steven Brust (his Vlad Taltos novels) Elizabeth Moon (her Deed of Paksinarion Trilogy) and Jacqueline Carey (her Kushiel series), all for different reasons. Brust for his simplicity, Moon for her consummate storytelling and emotion, and Carey for her amazing use of the English language.

Where would you rank writing on the "Is it an art or it is a science continuum?" Why?

Art, by far, but as with every art, there is technique involved, which can be called a “science” but not in the scientific definition. As a scientist by training and education, I take exception when people call something “a science” when it’s really not. Science is hypothesis, testing, theory, experimentation, analysis of results, critiques by others, and more experimentation. Writing is simply a learned technique, like flying a plane or building a piece of woodwork. It’s beautiful when it’s done well, and artistic, but a result of practice and learning methods and using tools.

What is the most difficult part of your artistic process? 

Keeping up the momentum. There’s a chart often shown by writers of enthusiasm, it starts high, then dwindles until it’s really low, usually about three quarters of the way through a project, then increases again. At that low, I find it hard to continue each morning… but I do.

How do your writer friends help you become a better writer? Or do they not? 

If they didn’t help me become a better writer, they wouldn’t be my friends. Mostly, through enthusiasm and little things like beta reading and bouncing ideas around. They call it “networking” but it’s really just being friends. On a larger scale, I belong to the International Association of Tie-In Writers, which is an absolutely fantastic group. If you have any question about a tie-in project, there’s someone to help you who has been there.

What does literary success look like to you? 

That’s something that I don’t know if any writer can point at and say, “I’ve succeeded in my career as a writer.” It’s different for every writer. For me, it’s continuing to entertain my fans with original, meaningful, emotional stories. At this stage of my life, I’m not in this for the money, though it would be nice to have a bestseller. But I think even that success would be more of a thrill that I was reaching than many more fans, enriching their lives a tiny bit with a good story.

Any other upcoming projects you would like to plug?  

I’m working with Paizo Publishing on a new Pathfinder novel, which is still going through development stages (even though the novel is written). My very first tie-in novel was with Paizo, and I love working in that world.

For more information, visit: 

http://jaxbooks.com

Motivational Monday: Oh, Misery!

Sunday Funnies: Is It Though?

[Link] A 5-Minute Fix for a Blah Scene

by Janice Hardy

Sometimes the best fix isn’t changing what characters say—it’s changing where they say it.

This might be sacrilegious as a science fiction and fantasy writer, but I dislike writing description—especially settings. I’m more of a dialogue and action gal, and my first drafts (okay, sometimes second drafts as well), have a lot of “white room” scenes, where nothing about the setting is mentioned. This was a big problem in my early writing days, since SFF readers enjoy the world building and setting and all the things I had to slog through to write.

I got feedback such as:

• I can’t picture the setting
• Where is this happening? Could they interact more with the room?
• I feel unanchored, and there’s no sense of place

All of it was justified, and after a lot of reading, learning, and forcing myself to just do it, I found a way to enjoy writing setting descriptors.

I stopped thinking of setting as decoration and started using it as a storytelling tool.

Setting works best when it does something—not when it just sits there.

A vivid location can add atmosphere, but an active setting can add pressure to a ticking clock, reveal emotion a character is struggling with, and shape the choices that character makes. It becomes part of the story, not just where the story takes place.

Read the full article: http://blog.janicehardy.com/2020/08/a-5-minute-fix-for-blah-scene.html

Teel James Gleen releases A Walking Shadow

A Walking Shadow blends classic horror and hard-boiled intrigue. 

Published by Macabre Ink (Cross Roads Press)

It is the year 1939, and Adam Paradise, the creature of the Frankenstein legend made real, has returned to civilization to discover his place in the world.

While enjoying a pleasant evening of moviegoing in Chinatown with his friend Hank, they end up in the middle of a brazen robbery.

Adam thwarts the holdup, which puts him on the hit list of not only the Tongs, but Yakuza killers, the Italian mob, and a mysterious mastermind bent on starting an ethnic gang war.

With his faithful Roma secretary, Vandoma Kalderash, he and Hank are soon plunged into a whirlwind of ambushes and deadly double-crosses.

The patchwork private eye also discovers a level of reality beyond the material world that shakes the foundations of all his beliefs.

Can he defeat the unseen forces of this evil without losing the very humanity he's trying to attain? And who—or what—is Daitengu, a creature that knows his deepest secrets?

• Available on Amazon
• For more information, visit:  TheUrbanswashbuckler.com or email Tjglenn@aol.com

*******

"Teel James Glenn has penned one of the finest literary mashups of our time. Part Hammett, part Shelley, and all heart. A Walking Shadow is a wholly unique take on the PI mystery genre, so well written it will leave you longing for the next installment in this Shamus-nominated series. Brilliant!”

—Bruce Robert Coffin, bestselling author of Crimson Thaw, International Bestselling Author, Silver Falchion Award winner, Maine Literary Award winner, Anthony Award finalist, Agatha Award finalist

"This marvelous genre mashup was a fun read from beginning to end. Frankenstein’s monster – true to the book, not the movies – is presented as a 1930s hard-boiled detective written in a tight, strong pulp style. Elements of Eastern mysticism blend smoothly with the sci-fi character in this sweet detective soup in a suspenseful story that pulls you through the action to a satisfying finish that left me eager for a sequel."
—Austin Camacho, author of eight novels in the Hannibal Jones Mystery Series, five in the Stark and O’Brien adventure series, and short stories featured in the Edgar-nominated African American Mystery Writers: A Historical and Thematic Study by Frankie Y. Bailey.

Paige Watts: Finding the Balance

This week we're jumping into an interview with a non-fiction travel writer. Paige Watts is an Atlanta-based travel blogger, and ready to help you plan your travels around the Southern USA and the world.

Tell us a bit about your most recent work.

My most recent release is called What’s With Atlanta?: The Quirks, Personality, and Charm of the ATL. It’s a fun history guide to Atlanta, with each section a short tidbit that reads like trivia (so you’ll ace any Atlanta-themed trivia night!).

If you’ve ever wondered why every street is named “Peachtree” or how the Braves came to be in Atlanta, then this is the book for you. It’s a great guide for both tourists and locals, especially Atlanta newcomers who want to know why they can’t call it “Hotlanta”. I really tried to hit all the big attractions, festivals, traditions, sports, food, and historical moments that make Atlanta tick.

What are the themes and subjects you tend to revisit in your work?

I’ve always been interested in the unusual, the quirky, the odd attractions, the things that give a place character. And I’ve also found that even the major attractions that seem quite normal will often have something quirky in their past, so I try to get to the heart of that unique history. I mean, every state has a capital building, so what makes one more special than another? (For Atlanta, it’s the Dahlonega gold and the weird way they got it here.)

What happened in your life that prompted you to become a writer? 

I’ve always been a writer. I remember writing stories for assignments in elementary school, and I started writing short stories for fun in middle school. My English teacher even let me and my friends put my stories toward pages read in our reading logs. Then I entered and won a few short story contests in high school, took a creative writing class, and found a university program for creative writing that showed me that I could actually make a career out of writing.

Motivational Monday: Writing Changes Everything

Sunday Funnies: The Irony of It All Is...

[Link] Editing for Self-Published Authors: Types of Edits and How to Find the Right Editor

by A.C. Williams

Your manuscript is written. You’ve celebrated. You’ve done your research and prepared for every potential scenario, and now it’s time to start working on the finished product. Right? 

Wrong. There is more to producing a competitive quality novel than just writing it and making sure it has a good cover and that you know where it’s being distributed. There’s a very important step that you would be remiss as an author to overlook: Editing. 

So far in this series on self-publishing, we’ve talked about setting your goals, understanding your legal rights as a self-published author, ISBNs, distribution channels, market research, and book cover design. But before any of that happens, you really must have some kind of edit. 

Editing has many variations, and you might need one variation more than another. But no matter which kind of edit you opt for, you really need another pair of eyes on what you have written. When you have lived and breathed your story for a long time, you become blind to its shortcomings. You can’t see the problems. You might recognize that it isn’t perfect, but you can’t see how to fix it. That’s why you need an editor. 

However, there are some caveats to consider before you hire out this important element of producing a book. 

Here are some questions to ask before you get started with an editor. 

1. Does this editor understand my genre? 

While many editors have experience in editing multiple genres, not all of them do. Some editors have specialties. It’s not a good idea to give your historical romance manuscript to an editor who specializes in suspense/thriller editor. Additionally, if you write science fiction or fantasy, giving your manuscript to someone who only edits contemporary romance won’t end well. Those genres all contain specific elements that are unique to their genre, and an editor who doesn’t understand those genres won’t know to look for them.

Read the full article: https://thewriteconversation.blogspot.com/2025/09/editing-for-self-published-authors.html

Skerry Tales by Milton Davis available for pre-order!

Skerry Tales by Milton Davis. 

Release date: October 1, 2025. Currently available for pre-order.

Art: Bloodline by Oz Ezeogu. Cover design by URAEUS.

Skerry Tales is a collection of eight creepy stories by award-winning author Milton J. Davis. Prepare yourself for a macabre journey filled with thrills, chills, and more!

"Milton Davis is renowned for his award-winning sword and soul fantasy works. Yet, a great storyteller transcends genres, and Milton is, if nothing else, a fantastic storyteller. Fear exists in every aspect of our lives, and as such, horror infiltrates genres. When you combine the talents of a world-class storyteller and the insidiousness of terror and fear, you get a collection like Milton’s Skerry Tales."
    - Nicole Givens Kurtz, author/owner Mocha Memoirs Press

“Milton really shows us his writing depth by stepping out of his comfort zone to deliver some truly scary stories.”
    - Marcus H. Roberts, Owner/Publisher, Second Sight Publishing

The Name Game: How Do You Name Your Characters?

Let's talk about naming your characters for the new Roundtable.

What resources do you consider the most valuable when coming up with character names?

Samantha Dunaway Bryant: When I’m working in a contemporary, close to real-world setting, I look at details like where my character is from, what year they were born, who their parents were, and use that to help me select a likely name.

Census records and baby name books are useful for this.

Cindy Bergquist: Some come to me. Some I reference my favorite character naming book, The Character Naming Sourcebook. 

Lisa Haman: For me it depends on the story I'm writing. For The Insignificant Amy Dodd, I tried to think of a name that sounded like someone who is invisible. For Philippa Marlowmellow, since it was a parody of the noir detective stories I tried to make the name sound like an old detective series.

Van Allen Plexico: Writing ALPHA/OMEGA from 2005-2024, I needed a LOT of Russian names. Like 35 distinct Russian characters. I used every source I could find for first and last names, from websites to baby name books.

And I still wasn't completely happy with the range of Russian names!

Bree Jackson: If I’m going for symbolic, I take attributes of the character (ie: strength, beauty, resilience,etc…) and translate those words into different languages. Then I derive a name from the word that works best. In other instances, I’ll ask my beta reader group silly questions like “I need a name that isn’t Chad to describe a gym bro guy who looks like he lives off of wheatgrass and unseasoned chicken.” The results are entertaining and useful.

Chris Pocase: There were two methods I used to use when coming up with character names. The first one was to take two Latin words and sort of splice them together to make a name. But I plan to rename those characters since the combinations can be fun to come up with but difficult to pronounce.

The other method…use Google Maps and pick a random place in the USA, and look at street names. There are some really interesting ones especially in rural areas

Kay Lee: Sounds weird but I feel like my characters name themselves lol. Based on the personality of that character names that seem like a fit just kind of come into mind and make sense.

Movie Reviews for Writers: House of Long Shadows

 

It's not the most common trope in movies about writers, but it is common enough to be a trope. What is it? It's the bet, the wager, that an author can whip out a novel in a limited amount of time when given the proper place and the proper incentive. 

One of the best examples is the star-riddled comedy murder story The House of Long Shadows. Featuring the classic horror talents of Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Vincent Price, and John Carradine -- as well as the teen heartthrob Desi Arnez Jr. -- it's hard to imagine it not being amazing (or at least a wink-and-a-nod, tongue-in-cheek pastiche of classic horror tropes).

Arnez plays novelist Kenneth Magee, an author of contemporary novels who feels they greatly outweigh the quality and humanity of classic Gothic literature. While discussing the idea with his publisher, they indulge in the following conversation.

Sam Allyson: When I think of Tolstoy, Victor Hugo, Charles Dickens, where are they all now I ask myself?

Kenneth Magee: I think they're dead, Sam.

Sam Allyson: You know what I mean. They dealt with people, human passions on the grand scale.

Kenneth Magee: People have different behavior patterns now. They just don't go around acting like they're out of Wuthering Heights.

Sam Allyson: Are you trying to tell me that Wuthering Heights with all its brooding intensity, isn't as involving and real as a contemporary novel?

Kenneth Magee: It's over the top. I mean anyone can write one of those things. It's just a question of letting your imagination go bananas. Jesus! You want that kind of novel? I can knock it off for you in 24 hours.

Sam Allyson: That I don't believe.

Kenneth Magee: $10,000.

Sam Allyson: Oh come now.

Kenneth Magee: $10,000, I'll bet you.

Sam Allyson: Kenneth I rea...

Kenneth Magee: $20,000.

Megan Mackie: Cooking the Books

Megan Mackie is a Chicago writer. She started her writing career as an indie author and had such smashing success in her first year with her inaugural book The Finder of the Lucky Devil, that she made the transition to traditional publishing. She has become a personality at many cons, recognizable by her iconic leather hat and engaging smile.

Tell us a bit about your most recent work. 

Currently I am writing the third in my Culinary Infernal series, Tea and Imps. The previous two books, Cookbooks and Demons & Baking and Angels are doing really well and gaining traction on booktok so I decided to get the third one written and out sooner. 

What are the themes and subjects you tend to revisit in your work? 

Redemption comes up for me a lot. Also, the importance of trauma recovery. I am also always looking to play with twisted fairy tales, like finding the different ways I can retell "Beauty and the Beast," which is my favorite fairytale.

What happened in your life that prompted you to become a writer? 

I was always a reader. I also wanted to be an actor, but once I became pregnant with my first child I took a pause on that and started writing plays. But I had a hard time selling my plays so I turned them into books and now they sell just fine. 

What inspires you to write? 

I have stories in my head that need to be told, and I get a lot of pleasure creating those scenarios on the digital page. 

Motivational Monday: Reading As Preventative Brain Medicine

"Fiction is a challenge to your working memory," says neurologist and neuropsychologist Richard Restaks. Fiction reading requires following a plot and keeping track of characters. When he asks new patients, "Are you much of a reader?" and they respond with "I used to read lots of fiction but not anymore" he says "that's a red flag for potential cognitive decline."

-- Leslie Goldman, "Six Memory Boosters," AARP The Magazine, Dec 2024-Jan 2025

Sunday Funnies: Mystery at the Mystery Shelf

[Link] How to Revise Your Novel Like a Pro (Without Losing Your Mind) With Alice Sudlow

by Savannah Gilbo

You've finally done it. After months of wrestling with character arcs, plot holes, and that stubborn middle section that refused to cooperate, you've typed those magical words: "The End." Your first draft is complete, sitting there on your computer like a 100,000-word monument to your persistence.

But now what?

If you're like most writers, you probably opened that document the very next day and started fixing sentences. Maybe you rewrote Chapter One for the fifteenth time. Perhaps you got lost tweaking dialogue tags and obsessing over whether you used "said" too many times. And three months later, you're still stuck in the same five chapters, polishing the same scenes over and over while the rest of your manuscript gathers digital dust.

This is exactly what I talked about with Alice Sudlow, a developmental editor and book coach, on the Fiction Writing Made Easy podcast. Alice and I have been in the editing world for nearly ten years, and we've both observed this pattern repeatedly. The problem isn't your writing ability. It's that nobody taught you how to edit a novel.

The Manuscript Editing Mistake That Keeps Writers Stuck Forever

Most writers approach editing like they approached writing their first draft: they start on page one and work their way through. It seems logical, right? After all, that's how you wrote the book in the first place.

But as Alice explained in our conversation, editing a book is a completely different beast from writing a book. It requires a different process, different tools, and most importantly, a different mindset.

Read the full article: https://www.savannahgilbo.com/blog/novel-revision-strategy-with-alice-sudlow

Shudder Stories to Send Shivers Up Your Spine!

Creeping to you from Becky Books!

The so-called “shudder pulps” of the 1930s enticed Depression-era readers into dark alleys of weird menace, ghastly gore, terrifying torture, and too-hot-to-handle horror until being shuttered by a virulent movement of puritanism to clean up newsstands. Today, Shudder Stories harkens back to those “Dirty Thirties” to resurrect the grim ghost of those bygone days of shock and awe.

In the full-length “Corpus Vile,” writer Jim Beard plunges a major, metropolitan city into the Stygian depths of doom and destruction when a devilish villain holds the power of life and death over its citizens, and a despoiled ex-district attorney finds himself the one man standing between a stack of corpses and the quickly fading rays of daylight. When dead men walk, rivers of blood flow, and entire buildings fall, it’s time for an unlikely hero to mete out some harsh justice.

Brian K. Morris also offers up “They Call My Name,” a short shocker of a man who awakens to his name being called in the middle of the night, a siren scream that leads him down into a nightmare of fear and loathing, not to mention a baffling mystery with no solution in sight.

Then, in “The Infernum Affair,” Frank Schildiner tells the terrifying tale of a dastardly evil-doer dead set on destroying twenty-three lives to gain a fiendish foothold on his lust for power, and the one offbeat occult-fueled mystery man who may be able to stop him.

Join these passionate pulp scribes in their haunts of horror, but be prepared to be terrorized, titillated, and perhaps not a little toughened by the ordeals that lay before you—Shudder Stories pulls no punches in its headlong drive over the edge of sanity…and into madness!

Created and edited by Jim Beard
Cover and logo by Jeffrey Hayes
Interior design and formatting by Maggie Ryel

Currently available on Amazon.

[Link] What Authors Need to Know About the $1.5 Billion Anthropic Settlement

Today, Anthropic agreed to pay $1.5 billion to settle claims that it downloaded pirated books to train its AI systems—the largest U.S. copyright settlement in history. The parties in Bartz v Anthropic, one of the major copyright lawsuits brought by authors against an AI company for using pirated books to train its large language models, filed a proposed settlement agreement with the court that would settle the claims regarding the company’s mass piracy in downloading millions of books from notorious pirate sources Library Genesis (LibGen) and PiLiMi and then retaining them in a central library.

The settlement provides that Anthropic will pay $1.5 billion plus interest in cash into a settlement fund, representing the largest U.S. copyright infringement settlement ever and greater than any copyright damages award ever secured. The amount of the award sends a signal to all AI companies that downloading illegal copies of books to train AI comes with a heavy cost and, we expect, will foster further licensing, given the potential enormous liability AI companies risk when they help themselves to books for free from illegal channels. 

“This historic settlement is a vital step in acknowledging that AI companies cannot simply steal authors’ creative work to build their AI just because they need books to develop quality LLMs,” said Authors Guild CEO Mary Rasenberger. “It is truly shocking that Anthropic and the other major LLM owners engaged in criminal-level piracy schemes to torrent millions of books knowingly from infamous foreign ebook piracy sites that the publishing industry has actively been trying to take down for years. Imagine the outrage if Anthropic and others had illegally siphoned off electricity to build their AI, claiming it was too expensive to pay for it? These vastly rich companies, worth billions, stole from those earning a median income of barely $20,000 a year. This settlement sends a clear message that AI companies must pay for the books they use just as they pay for the other essential components of their LLMs.   This settlement lays down an anchor that it is not okay. We expect that the settlement will lead to more licensing that gives author both compensation and control over the use of their work by AI companies, as should be the case in a functioning free market society.”

Read the full article: https://authorsguild.org/news/what-authors-need-to-know-about-the-anthropic-settlement/

Movie Reviews for Writers: The House in Marsh Road

In this fun little ghost flick based on the book The House in Marsh Road by Laurence Meynell, David Linton is a "novelist" who is working on the novel that's going to end all his and his wife Jean's problems -- once he gets something down on paper, that is. In the meantime, Jean inherits a large house (yes, on Marsh Road), and the two move in so they can stop scamming rent-free boarding from landlords and landladies. Only, the place is haunted by a ghost named Patrick. Oh, yeah, that and David begins an affair with his typist and plans (in classic Film Noir style) to kill his wife so he can inherit and sell off the house. 

Making Excuses

For a "by the numbers" thriller, this one gets quite a few things right about the writing life, starting with the negative -- but accurate -- depiction of the always aspiring "author." David isn't writing as much as he is planning to write, getting distracted, dreaming of having written, basically, everything but actually writing. And like those of us who fall into this category (we all do from time to time, sadly), he has an excuse for every issue. 

While arguing with Jean, he says:

David: If only I could get six months peace and quiet to write my book.  

Jean: Ah, the book. 

David: You don't believe in it, do you? You don't think I'm capable of writing a book.

But we haven't exhausted David's greatest hits yet. When he is down at the bar, he gets into a conversation with a local. "Well," he says. "I'm trying to get down to a novel at the moment, but, I have to keep stopping to review other people's books. Anyway, I'm a lousy typist."

For those keeping score, that's not one, but two excuses delivered like a one-two punch. 

Steve and Paul: Two Men and a Typewriter

Steve Murphy has spent much of his life in uniform, starting with four years in the Navy as a GMM, where he earned the Navy Expeditionary Medal and Navy Unit Commendation. Afterwards he did a stint in the Army National Guard. As if that wasn’t enough, Steve then spent 23 years as a police officer, working 9 of those years as a SWAT sniper. So naturally, he writes science-fiction, fantasy, and space opera.

Paul Barrett has had multiple careers, including rock and roll roadie, theater stage manager, television camera operator, mortgage banker, and support specialist for Microsoft Excel. This eclectic mix allowed him to go into his true love: motion picture production.

Tell us a bit about your most recent work.

We have two most recents. The first is Knight Ascendant,  the second novel in the Knights of the Flaming Star series, which is about a group of intergalactic mercenaries. Think Guardians of the Galaxy with magic. It’s a standalone like the first book, with a few throughlines. We came up with the characters in our 20s and they stuck with us all these years. We are currently working on the third book of the series.

The second is the Malaise Falchion, which we call JRR Tolkien meets Elmore Leonard. It’s about a dwarf private eye who gets in over his head trying to help a femme fatale. Paul wrote the first novel, but the second book is in the works and is being done by Paul and Steve.

What are the themes and subjects you tend to revisit in your work?

Motivational Monday: Drilling Rock

Sunday Funnies: New Genre?!

[Link] How NOT to Create a Protagonist

by Rob Bignell

You can have the greatest plot in the world, discuss a deep, universal theme, and write crisp, taut sentences, but if the reader can’t connect to your protagonist, the story will fall flat. Simply put, you always must create a protagonist the reader will root for.

Too often aspiring authors trip up on that challenge. Many seem content to simply provide meaningless details – like the protagonist’s height, hairstyle, school grades – believing that makes the character “real.” And real means likable, right? And likeable means a connection, correct?

Not quite.

Uninspiring details aren’t the only way writers can stumble with their protagonist. To avoid creating a poorly written main character – that is, one who isn’t real – watch for these seven pitfalls…

Never solves a problem

A main character who never attempts to solve the story’s central problem usually comes off as dull. Worse, if the character spends the whole book merely ruminating about how the problem is hopeless, he’ll come off as whiny.

Read the full article: https://inventingrealityediting.com/2017/08/19/how-not-to-create-a-protagonist/

Queer Eye for the Crime Tale

In 2023, a study of thirty major crime fiction anthologies revealed A disturbing figure: of the 517 stories published, fewer than one percent were written by LGBTQ+ authors. That statistic speaks volumes—not only about ongoing exclusion in publishing, but about whose stories are deemed worthy of telling. Enter Crime Ink: Iconic, a new anthology co-edited by award-winning novelist John Copenhaver and Bywater Books publisher Salem West. A vibrant and unapologetic collection of crime fiction stories inspired by queer icons—James Baldwin, Radclyffe Hall, Candy Darling, Oscar Wilde, Megan Rapinoe, Laverne Cox, and more—Crime Ink offers a necessary course correction for a genre that has historically sidelined queer voices.

The stories in this book are so compelling and so necessary, now more so than ever. We’re up against a regime whose primary and most devastating weapon has been the deliberate and systematic devaluing of empathy. There is a concerted effort underway to censor our voices, to restrict or eliminate access to our books in schools and public libraries and to label stories based on our lived experiences as “woke propaganda,” inherently obscene, or even pornography.

These two things are not separate, but intimately connected. Because nothing builds empathy like reading and sharing stories. You can’t see people as vermin to be eliminated if you’re allowed to see the world through their eyes.

I’m not talking about Manic Pixie Dream Gays who fart rainbow glitter and make “normal” people’s lives more fabulous, either. The characters you’ll find in this book are complicated, flawed, flesh and blood human beings.

So, if you’re queer and hungry for stories that resonate and make you feel seen at a time when it seems like the whole world is conspiring to erase you, this book is for you. But I really hope that people who don’t think they have anything in common with these characters will check it out too.

-- Christa Faust

Beyond Plotting and Pantsing -- Creating and Maintaining Your Story Structure

Okay, writerly types, it's time for another Writer Roundtable here on the blog. For this one, let's talk about story structure and how you build your stories.

Instead of rehashing the same old plotter vs. pantser argument, let's talk about how to work your plots regardless of which method fits you. 

How do you store ideas that you want to work into your stories? How much detail goes into plot "nuggets" when you store them?

Sheela Chattopadhyay: I either write ideas down in a small nugget/trivia like form or I record a voice note for later on to add into my writing notes for later. The detail level varies by the idea's depth at that moment in time.

Duane Laflin: I simply have a file on my computer labeled "Book ideas." When I see something that might work in a future story, I put it in the file.

Nancy Hansen: I don't outline, but I generally start something with a vague concept of what might happen. Now and then I will get a good idea that I can't work on now, so I'll shove it in a file for that particular story, which are all in virtual file folders on my PC, and backed up elsewhere on thumb drives or a portable hard drive. With AI out there, I'm not into cloud backups. I just get enough of the general notion laid out in a few sentences so that when I pull it up again, I have something to go with. Sometimes it's just a picture I saved that sparked an idea. That goes in the file too.

Klara Schmitt: While formatting goes out the window, I do try to be pretty detailed in my idea chunks. I do not bother trying to account for redundancy (e.g., when one idea undoes another), though. I'll sort that out later.

Tony Sarrecchia: Story ideas go into my Notes app with a hashtag Story Idea. This is my clearing house as I also have notebooks where I capture ideas in greater detail, but eventually move them into this file. Some notes are detailed down to dialogue and actions, while others are ‘guy discovers a pack of werewolves live in his garage’.

Sean Taylor: Pre-structure, I use speech-to-text to store any ideas that hit me from out of the blue. I keep them in a file on my phone. Eventually, I cull what doesn't work and write the others into plot points in my plot document in Word. Sometimes, these nuggets can be very details, with word choices and beats and what scene they lead into. Other times, they may just be a kernel of an idea that isn't fully popped yet, just sitting there waiting for another new idea to help it make sense and fit it. 

Van Allen Plexico: My outline and first draft is in a Google Doc, and I just add stuff as I come up with it, in order, while writing the actual draft from the top.

Brian K Morris: Little bits of business or scraps of dialogue are dutifully scribbled onto a small notepad I keep by my laptop for when these ideas occur. However, if I know exactly where one of these nuggets can go, I will stop what I'm doing and insert it into the story. As I work, I tear off the paper where the event/special words waited for me. And yes, I know I shouldn't edit as I go, but this works for me.

Movie Reviews for Writers: Killer Book Club

Oh my God! A horror slasher about a book club that focuses on horror fiction?! Can't believe I just discovered this one. It's as if it were written for me in particular. 

El club de los lectores criminales, the film's original Spanish title, is based on the book of the same name by García Miranda. From a plot standpoint, it shares a lot with Scream. In fact, much of the plot and the tone are lifted almost directly from Kevin Williamson's deconstruction of modern slashers. 

But Killer Book Club takes the premise of a campus slasher and moves it into territory I love -- writing and reading books. Even the mysterious death that sets the plot into action involved writing and coming up with story ideas. Any more than that, well, that would be spoilers. 

Writing that lacks truth. What is truth?

In the first few minutes of the movie, we have a scene set in a writing course at college. Our professor, who is clearly not in favor of horror writing, says: "Monsters, demons, ghosts, witches… and other representations of darkness have never been well received by critics, despite their commercial success. I've always seen horror as a mediocre genre. It has a major weakness. It always seems to be missing something. What could it be?"

A student responds: "Maybe that the stories lack authenticity?"

Eli Rainwater: Creative Overload

Born in Atlanta, Eli Rainwater was taught how to read as soon as she started talking. And she loved to read! She read everything she could get her hands on, and it wasn’t long before she wrote short stories in school that won awards in the local papers. She was the most obsessed with fantasy and vividly remembers how much trouble she was in after she tried to take out the back of her mother’s antique wardrobe while looking for Narnia. 

Tell us a bit about your most recent work.

I released book 3 of The Witch's Bar Chronicles last September, and book 4 will be out in fall of 2025. The books follow Jessie, a retired witch who owns a bar in north Georgia, as she sets out with her fae, cryptid, human, and witch friends to solve a murder and save the world from a power-hungry cabal. 

Jessie is based on my best friend, which makes her especially fun to write, and I enjoy all of the research I put into fae and cryptid lore from around the world that I include in my characters. 

What are the themes and subjects you tend to revisit in your work?

Standing up for the little guy and fighting against powerful, power-hungry entities set on domination is a big theme. I also focus on found family, bonds of friendship, and acceptance. 

Monday Motivation: Not Dead Yet