Spooky Stories That Affected You

For our Halloween week writer roundtable, tell us the spookiest or creepiest book or story you've ever read and why it affected you. 

Amelia Sides: Children of Men. *Waves vaguely at our current state of affairs*

Danielle Procter Piper: It's a very short story... I wish I could recall the title or author, but it's published in a book I read long ago. Two medical students are still cleaning up their workspace after class has ended and begin a conversation about how cadavers sometimes move due to a buildup of gases in their decomposing bodies. They've even been known to sit up or fall off tables! As they finish up, they wheel their cadaver down the hall to the elevator to return to the morgue...and a power failure leaves them stuck between floors in total darkness. That's it. I think the story might be three pages long? So, anything frightening that could happen in real life scares me, while fantasy horror is just for fun. This, Misery scares me more than any other Stephen King story. It could happen. It's the difference between the news and a nightmare you had.

Seth Tucker: Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House and Matheson’s Hell House spooked me. Despite being two very different styles of haunted house stories, Jackson got to me because of the unreliable narrator, which leaves every event in question, while Matheson made you believe in a malevolent cadre of specters enjoying the torment they filed out, and then that reveal at the end. Both of them build atmosphere equally though, which I don’t see as much in more modern ghost stories.

Writing Non-Human Characters: How Other Should Other Be?

During Stellar Fest, I was fortunate enough to be on two panels on characterization, both of which addressed the idea specifically within the realm of science fiction, and with a focus on non-human characters. But, sci-fi doesn't have a monopoly on non-human characters, so I realized immediately that I wanted to take this discussion to the blog. (And here we are.)

When writing characters who are not human, what is your starting point? The race, the species, the human characteristic to use as an entry point, what?

E. Robert Dunn: Typically, it starts with a race/species that I'd like to develop ... which may or may not include 'human characteristics.'

Danielle Procter Piper: First, I must realize that the story requires a non-human entity, after which I then decide what sort of being it should be. My background in biology helps me create realistic creatures, as does my artistic ability. When I wrote Quasar 169, it was based on a dream I had where a news anchor described a murder, and an image of the victim slowly morphed into an image of the killer. That's what inspired me to create a species of humanoid sexual shapeshifters. 

Bobby Nash: I start with the character. Most non-human characters can still have a human-ish trait that I can start with like how family works, or something about their personality. Then, I build from there.

Sean Taylor: I have to start with the character, plain and simple. That's always true for me whether I'm writing a straight white dude, a poly black woman, a purple Glorp from Vendellia 45, a Loup Garou from the Bayou, or a gaseous floating cloud above the top of Kilimanjaro. For me, that means something human in terms of characters, some need, some drive, something that man, woman, Glorp, Lou Garou, or cloud wants and must overcome some hardship to achieve. If I don't have that skeleton to put a coat on, then I can't start moving on the story. 

Titles and Stories (We Got Together, Like...)

This week, let's talk about stories and titles and how they go together (or don't -- I wan't presume your process!). 

What comes first for you, the story or the title? How does one drive the other through the process?

Sara Freites Scott: The title comes first but may change after I write the story! (Which actually happened with my first book.)

Bobby Nash: It could happen either way. Most of the time, it’s the story. That said, doing series work, like Snow or Tom Myers, I like to have a page at the end that states, “Tom Myers will return in…” and so I try to have at least a loose idea and a title for the next book ready to go. I have had instances where the title changed in the process.

Sean Taylor: I find it very difficult to write without a title. I'll jot down story notes and hold off actually writing the narrative until the right title falls into place. Yes, I know that (among other things) makes me an odd duck. 

Chris Riker: First - the moment. That one heart-wrenching scene. It contains the seeds of the story. It lives at the heart of the theme. Where do they come from? I live in a stressful world. Perhaps you've heard of it. Earth? Second - a few characters. Names. Quirks. Third - The ending. Not the plot; that's different. I need to know where my characters need to get to emotionally. Lastly: WRITE!

Jerry Motyka: Yes. Sometimes I get inspiration from a title, other times I get inspiration for the story and the title comes last.

Brian K Morris: Most of the time, it's the story, especially when I'm working with someone else's characters. Then again, I've come up with a title that practically writes the story for me. Also, I have to really put on my thinking cap to come up with a halfway pleasing (to me, at least) title.

Aaron Rosenberg: Oh, story 99 percent of the time, definitely. A lot of the time I'm scrambling for a halfway decent title -- I just use a placeholder to start, and hope something better comes to mind as I get into the book properly.

Gordon Dymowski: For me, the story almost always comes first. It's easier for me to come up with a killer title for a well thought-out story than it is a story for a killer title. I have several works in progress which I have named "Untitlted [INSERT GENRE OR CHARACTER" here to make them easier to track.

George Tackes: Always the story. Something in the story inspires the title. I couldn’t imagine having the title dictate the story. Because sometimes a story can go in an entirely different direction.

Iscah: Usually the story comes first, but it depends. Originally Seventh Night was called The Magician's Apprentice, and the story more heavily focused on Phillip. Then I saw a book with the same title at the store and decided I needed a new name. As the best fairytales are named after the princess, I went with *Seventh Night*, but this meant my title character was unconscious for two-thirds of the book. So, I reworked the middle to give her more to do and a bit more of a growth arch. I do think the story works a bit better that way.

When I say the story comes first, I tend to mean the general story. I usually have an idea for the title before I have finished writing. In some cases, it's a working title. I had a story called The Littlest Vampire, which is another title that I discovered was taken. That one has been sitting on my hard drive long that I may have to retitle it again if it ever comes out.

Some titles emerge while the story is still forming. I can be glacially slow from the spark of an idea and finding time to write it. So I have several backburner novels which are partially formed and still in the notes stage. Most of those have working titles.

Incorporating Multiple Religions Into Your Writing Diversity

 

Okay, let's talk about diversity this week, but not what you normally think about. Let's talk about religious diversity in your work. (In the interest of honesty, this one also was inspired by a panel I was on during Multiverse.)

Writers often err in one of two ways when it comes to writing protagonists (and antagonists) with a personal faith life -- either only writing their own because that's the only one they know well enough to write (or to be propagandistic) or they avoid religion in their stories altogether because they've been taught that it's something you don't discuss at Thanksgiving. 

I disagree. I think a character's inner POV and faith life can bring a new dimension to them. 

But let's see what our roundtable panel of writers thinks.

How does your own faith background or lack of one influence your writing?

Danielle Procter Piper: I was raised Catholic, so one of my characters has that background also. But I don't use it as an opportunity to "invite" people into that belief system. In fact, that character struggles with what he was taught and what he now knows as an adult. He's very good at encouraging his adopted daughter to find her own path...if she has spiritual inclinations at all.

Mari Hersh-Tudor: I was raised a strict Roman Catholic-mass in Latin and a narrow worldview. The more exposure to Weird Sh!t People Do When Someone Dies ™️ that I get, the more I absorb about how various cultures and religions treat adversity.

Kay Iscah: Definitely. I think a lot of fantasy has gone polytheistic, so I like centering monotheism, though not writing on earth I try to give things a distinct spin for their setting. The monotheism of Seventh Night is based on the idea of Christianity but without sacrifice or organized churches. This isn't necessarily a criticism of those elements, more of an exploration of how things might work or not work without them. I try not to be heavy-handed with those themes. In the interest of writing more universal stories, I tend to focus on ethics, but if you pay attention, it's a world where prayers are answered. Though not always in an obvious way. But I think writing and creating worlds can give us insight into the mind of God and how He operates.

Sean Taylor: I was not only raised in conservative Christian evangelical churches (Southern Baptist for the most part), but I also worked for the denomination at the national level for a few years until we had a bit of a doctrinal disagreement. So, yeah, my faith has been something that has been on my mind -- and therefore in my writing -- a lot. Both through the more devout and the current deconstruction and reconstruction period. It's difficult not to see a travelogue of my journey as your read my work and see the kind of questions that creep into my themes. 

If you do incorporate religious viewpoints into your fiction, how do you walk the line between advocating them and merely having them be a part of a character's, well, character?

Ef Deal: Having been raised Roman Catholic in the '50s and '60s (no, I did not have vicious nuns but I did get kicked out of church by the priest) and now writing a setting of 1842 France, religion is discussed in my second book, first when she overhears the King declaring homosexuality an offense against God, "Scripture is quite clear," and again when her lady's maid confesses her own lesbianism and fears for her soul. I happen to subscribe to the belief that God is love, and frankly, the King had more mistresses than he had children, and the punishment for adultery is quite clear if you want to declare Scripture as your rule instead of God's love.

It was a fun diatribe to write, given the setting of a Paris salon, where men engaged in philosophical discourse that amounted to little.

Kay Iscah: I think I try to advocate more for ethics, education, and spiritual seeking than promoting specific spiritual practices. I promote seeking truth, but I think that generally needs to happen through the story and not feel like something tacked onto it. I can get into the head of someone with a different belief system, and do so a bit in Horse Feathers. Phillip is a skeptic and atheist, but becomes interested in moral philosophy. He mostly fights it out in his head as atheism is not particularly popular in his period, but if I ever get around to writing sequels, it will cause some contention.

Sean Taylor: I don't write much fantasy, so most of the religions I write into my fiction are based on real-world faiths. I have written about fantasy-type gods once, but even then I made up my own and shied away from the established pantheons from world religions so as not to screw up details that might really matter to some readers. 

None of my characters evangelize their beliefs. That's so not my style, not even in my more devout days. And most of my believing folks (whatever the belief or the deity) they tend to be a lot more loosey-goosey about things like doctrine and rules, and tend to side more with the "Big Guy in the sky who wants us to love on each other" kind of thing. There are a few characters though, like my angel superhero, Tobit's Angel, in the Show Me A Hero collection, who is particularly exploring what it means to be an angel and in what religious direction he fits. Is he a Christian angel? A Muslim angel? A Jewish angel? A New-Age angel? All he knows is that he is most definitely an angel. Another superhero character, Fishnet Angel (not an angel), is a former Catholic who becomes possessed by an ancient deity and now must deal with the fact that his/her religion doesn't stand alone anymore. 

Danielle Procter Piper: Because I don't believe in shoving my beliefs down other people's throats (because I strongly dislike it being done to me), I don't depict religious belief as an asset but more of a curious choice. In fact, I tend to tone down major religious holidays. My sci-fi/action/thriller Venus In Heat is a Christmas story in that it takes place over the holiday, and while it's mentioned, none of the lead characters actually celebrate it in any way and they're all perfectly fine with that. 

Mari Hersh-Tudor: My own fiction encompasses a wide range of religions, from theoretical to Actual Gods Interfering™️.

It’s pretty easy not to advocate toward any one religion, I made mine up anyway, and I don’t have any characters (so far) who would do so.

Just as some writers make a conscious effort to break out of their boxes by intentionally learning to write characters of a different gender or sexuality or race, how have you sought to bring in a variety of "faith" backgrounds into your fiction?

Sean Taylor: I love to study other faiths and in particular the absence of such a faith. I think some of it comes naturally by just having a wide variety of folks in my circle of friends and writer buddies, but some of it involves intentional research and study and seeking out people to talk to to get details right, particularly emotional and psychological details. 

Danielle Procter Piper: Because my world is populated with people of various beliefs, so are the worlds of my stories. In my sci-fi I have the former Catholics, pagans, and a Buddhist, and most of the characters' faiths are never even mentioned. In my Medieval fantasy I have characters from all over Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa...and each has their own beliefs, but the main characters simply accept each other as they are without clashes of faith. 

Kay Iscah: This may expand as my catalog of published fiction expands. I do poke at it a bit in Horse Feathers. But I tend to treat it a bit as an aspect of setting. There's an unpublished series I'm working on where I anticipate navigating some different religious views in characters, but again, I want to keep that a light touch. It should feel like an organic part of the setting and aspect of the characters not a lecture for the reader. It should come up because the characters are debating moral philosophy of situations, and not simply because I want to soapbox about something.

And even within the same religion, you have sects and interpretations and room for debates and differences of opinion. It would be an unusual faith where all the practitioners agreed on every aspect.

Now, to twist it on its ear, how much more does a character's non-religious POV get strengthened as an MC when they are surrounded by a variety of real-world characters of varying beliefs -- as opposed the non-religious MC in a world that seems to be void of any religious thought whatsoever?

Mari Hersh-Tudor: It is a great deal of fun, however, to torment narrow-minded characters by throwing them at angry gods that they don’t believe in and writing the fallout.

Kay Iscah: I don't write a lot of "real world" stories. But in a way, this described Phillip in Horse Feathers. He has a fairly scientific mind for a medieval peasant. He comes from a country with a lot of competing faiths and that feeds into his skepticism. He settles in a heavily monotheistic country and avoiding religious instruction is his small act of rebellion against a society where he feels very limited. But for the general question, I think personality and individual experiences play a huge role in how the religious setting affects the MC. You could take two different characters, run them through the same scenarios, and get two wildly different reactions.

The non-religious MC may have his views challenged more if confronted with a variety of faiths whereas the non-religious MC in an atheist or agnostic setting might never be pushed to think about them. Some people would welcome never being challenged while others would start asking certain questions because no one else is asking those questions.

The rub is that the author determines what the "truth" of that world is. Which will determine what "truth" the MC will be able to find with their questions and seeking.

I've heard of Christians who dislike The Truman Show because they think it's intended to be a metaphor for breaking out of our philosophical bubble or belief system. But as a Christian, I find The Truman show very in line with the faith as it's about seeking truth at all costs... and if you pay attention, the female protagonist does pray for Truman's release and safety. So there's an in world establishment of a God or at least belief in God, that is not the producer playing at being God.

Danielle Procter Piper: One of my sci-fi heroes, Alex, has no background in any faith, yet is surrounded by people of many faiths. A telepath, he's often revolted by the fact that most people who play at ceremony and holidays do it for the material benefits...money, gifts, food, and not out of any actual belief in something greater or a need to worship. Or, they function like robots, programmed by tradition, trying to force each other and their families into old molds forged generations ago which are often impractical today and can cause more stress than gratitude and wonder. He finds all of this extraordinarily bizarre and is amazed when he meets anyone who seems genuinely convinced that what they do serves their deity of choice and benefits more than just themselves and their personal agendas. So his extra powers of observation allow him to better understand others and even manipulate them using their own ideas of how things are and what they should be. One needn't be telepathic to figure this stuff out, but it saves time and makes him more formidable for it.

Sean Taylor: To me, a religious viewpoint is one of the things that says a lot about a character. I believe it's as important as a character's race, nationality, gender, sexual identity -- all those things. It adds a dimension to them that can provide stability (when the religious POV matches their actions and words), irony (when their religious POV reveals their hypocrisy), and depth (when their religious POV reveals questioning and struggle based on their conflicts in the story. I picked this up very early from the works of Flannery O'Connor, and I've never let go of it in my own work. 

It's just another way to create a real, solid, three-dimensional world with words, as far as I'm concerned. It's like the argument for diversity in fiction. "We're here. So don't write as though we aren't." So they exist in my fiction too. Religion also exists. It's here. So it is just another element in my world-building. 

The Influence of Folklore on Genre Fiction

I did a panel with several wonderful, super-intelligent folks at Multiverse Con. It was so inspiring that I wanted to bring the topic over to the blog and open it up to our writing community at large. 

The panel was on folk magic/folk horror, (as evidenced by films such as Midsommar, The Village, The VVitch, etc.) but I think it applies to general genre fiction throughout as well. So, that's where we're going. 

Ready?

Folk magic and folklore began with the common people (folks), or as author Jessica Nettles put it on the panel, "As long as there are people, there is folklore." With so much emphasis in fiction having been spent on the rich or leisurely class, how has this notion of the commonplace protagonist influenced your writing?

Danielle Procter Piper: I shall admit a wealthy protagonist is not often necessary, but written as such for convenience sake. So many stories involve characters doing things while not at a regular job, that it's easiest to explain it away by making them wealthy/important enough to be free for whatever adventure the story calls for. That said, I love the new wave of stories I'm seeing where characters do have fairly regular Joe lives and there are consequences for vanishing to save the world or what have you when school or work is imperative. 

Nikki Nelson-Hicks: The first thing that comes to mind is Alan Moore and John Constantine. He said he wanted to make a magic user that was from the streets and not some lofty white tower. I’ve always loved that.

As for my work, the best examples of folk magic are in my Jake Istenhegyi stories. Jake, the protag, doesn’t use it as much as he gets used by it. The stories are set in 1930’s New Orleans so, of course, vodun, is the first thing to play with but I was able to dip my pen into Golems and Alchemy. While doing research into some of the folk tales of the swamp, I came across the Boodaddy and I used it albeit I did take some creative license with the creature.

A story I am working on currently, Crown of Feathers, is about a boy on the brink of losing his mother but, against the advice of the granny witches that live on the hill, he finds a way to snatch her from the claws of death. Although it doesn’t work out the way he plans. I’ve been doing a lot of research into Appalachian death culture and hedgewitchery.

So, yeah. Long story short, folk magic always somehow influences me.

Jessica Nettles: I feel like my characters are commonplace almost always, probably because I see myself as pretty commonplace. In that space of the commonplace there is the folklore. As a Southern woman, folklore is part of my infrastructure. We are taught it from the time we can hear stories and learn what's important. This feeling of being commonplace and being "not the lady or the Southern Belle" has made me aware of the people who farm the land and are the plain folk. I was raised not only around women like my granny, who taught me how to pick peas and read, but also around my daddy, who took me fishing, taught me to fix old furniture, and to also watch where I put my hands and feet in the woods. My characters often are those sorts of people instead of the well-off. I know those people best.

Kay Iscah: Far more of us are common people than wealthy. We may enjoy the fantasy of wealth, but we’re more likely to relate to people who remind us of ourselves or at least the challenges we face. However, I think there’s a distinctly rural aspect to the term folklore that implies a degree of isolation and being on the edge of nature. Particularly if you’re urban or suburban, visiting rural relatives takes on a magical aspect because you’re so much closer to the edge where you can step out of one world and into another.

In the two Before the Fairytale coming-of-age stories that I’ve written, early on the characters from humble backgrounds pass through the same forest as a significant passage in their journey, though they’re headed in different directions. The back and forth between the safety of civilization and the mystery and danger of the wilds is something believed at the heart of much folklore.

Sean Taylor: I've always preferred the common folk when I write. Even when I write Pulp stories, whose stable of heroes come from the richest and most leisurely people, I tend to want to surround them with the common folk. When I create my own, such as with Rick Ruby, it was important not to make him independent and wealthy, which is typical of a Hammett and Chandler hero, but also to put him in a culture not his own, a white guy in a black world, where every one of his preconceptions is challenged. 

I don't tend to use a lot of magic or spiritual power unless I'm specifically writing fantasy, but I love the notion of the "dark" being looming and mysterious and dangerous, and I picked that up from reading both Gothic lit and fairy tales. 

Lots of folklore comes from people who have been "othered" by those in power, for example, by race, poverty, or gender. Folklore-inspired tales give power back to those people (often for vengeance in horror, for instance). How do you use othering and the empowerment of the "other" in your work?

Danielle Procter Piper: In my sci-fi series, the hero becomes everything he despises and fears...and while many believe he has become a villain... he actually still works for good, but on a much grander scale. In a way, it suggests God doesn't do enough little things because perhaps He's busy with even bigger things...and that's not an excuse to ignore the plight of those who struggle. In my Medieval fantasy series, the hero is about to achieve something uncommon that should be beneficial...but which drives him to push his limits to overcome mockery and protect others similarly mistreated. Eventually, he must give in and become something dreadfully fearful just to save innocent others. In both cases, my heroes must learn to accept and embrace dark things that not only terrify them but completely change them in the eyes of others—even those close to or who love them, sacrificing who they are as they learn how to use these new identities for good no matter the consequences to themselves. 

Kay Iscah: Continuing with the two characters already mentioned. One is an orphan who thinks she’s been abandoned, and the other is an abandoned child who thinks he is orphaned. I’m definitely a fan of clever protagonists, so both work their way up to better positions or at least respectable work with a mix of luck, skill, and determination. But both also make decisions to walk away from situations that might have given them material gain for moral reasons. I had not intentionally set up that parallel, but I see it now. I certainly think there’s a theme of how far you’re willing to go to find acceptance. Are you willing to walk away from power, community, or comfort if it compromises who you are? They both take completely different paths. One walks away from society completely to essentially become the witch in the wilderness, and other works his way up to management and then a royal court position. I don’t think either is wrong or better, but it’s different paths to empowerment. One creates her own space, and the other moves to a position where he might be able to influence larger-scale social change.

Sean Taylor: I love to either set stories in "othered" places, like with Rick Ruby mentioned above or to look for the "other" even in characters who don't immediately seem like an "other." For example, when I wrote Agara, a sort of female Conan for Black Pulp II, I wanted her to be disconnected from everyone else. I wanted to explore someone who exists outside of community but still must live within one. A lot of super hero fiction deals with this as well, I've found. They only pretend to be part of it, but in reality, they have a unique set of problems and issues "normies" can't possibly understand. 

One of my favorite aspects is how the power balance is restored and even tipped to the "other," whether my story has genuine folkloric elements or not. Agara wins, but at the expense of community, which she remains distant from. Rick Ruby's world influences him far more than he influences it. Even in my horror tales, the true power tends to reside in those who are outside the norm. 

Nikki Nelson-Hicks: In the collection of short stories I am working on, Politics of Children and Other Stories of Revenge, I play with this idea in quite a few of them. In, "A Beautiful Thing," a Golem is able to get revenge against the murderer of his protector with the help of some furry friends. In Sweet Revenge, a witch gets revenge against the bank president who finagled the foreclosure of her candy shop.

Magic is a way for the powerless to feel as if they have some kind of say in a game that is rigged against them from day one. I am guilty of that. I have two altars in my office. One is for blessings; I keep it to the right of me, close and under the care of Bridgid. The other is way back in the left side of my office, under the care of Maeve, is where I collect my hex jars. Do I believe that these quaint little jars hold any real power? Is it all just a psychological tool to deal with life with a dose of magical thinking? Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, it gives me comfort.

But in fiction, all things are possible. And I can take revenge with absolute impunity.

As for themes, folklore typically includes what DL Wainwright called (on the panel) "strangeness and wonder." In its origins, it often involved the encroachment of the dark and mysterious (often the forest or night) on the so-called normal world of the village or daylight. Does that encroachment of dark upon light weave into your work? Howso?

Danielle Procter Piper: All of my writing deals with heroes encountering and learning to function within the darkness of life. It's just a metaphor for dealing with all that life throws at you and discerning if there's anything good that may be wrought from it.

Jessica Nettles: I don't think the folklore comes from being "othered." The folklore comes from people who have their own primary cultures that are not ours so we don't understand (and in some cases don't want to understand) the importance and power of those stories to "those people over there." In Menlo Park, my witch, Deborah, has been othered because she comes from Romani roots and people fear her witchy powers (she is a VERY powerful witch). Her back story lands her in one of the asylums in New York City because no one knows what else to do with her. Her true power comes in her ability to love and believe in what she knows is true when no one else can. She's not powerful because she's Romani. She's powerful because she loves and is loved by her created family and that grounds her magic. She still believes in her folklore and the magic of her folklore, but in a way, she has created her own branch in her folklore.

Sean Taylor: Now this is a theme I can really get behind. My entire horror short story collection A Crowd in Babylon is based on the fuzzy line that happens where normality and strangeness & wonder meet. One of the stories went back to Indigenous Peoples legends. Another combines folk magic with the quantum mechanics ideas of M-Theory. And one of my favorites goes back to the metaphor of the crossroads and the Blues but removes the crossroads and puts the story in a dive bar in the middle of nowhere. One I'm currently working on involves a couple getting an unbelievable deal on a house... as long as they don't remove the dead squirrel in a jar in the cellar -- a sort of folkloric protection or ward. 

Nikki Nelson-Hicks: The hedgewitches in my Crown of Feathers story are representatives of the Furies: Alecto (mother), Tisiphone (maiden) and Megaera (Crone). Alecto and Meg, the Mother and the Crone) often fight about their responsibilities to help the Protag since he started the whole mess. Meg isn’t one to mess around with. She has no patience and enjoys the taste of a young boy’s flesh.

I like to entangle what might be consider Dark into the Light of my fiction. Mainly because Anger, which is always seen as somehow negative, gets shit done.

But I’ve always been drawn to the antihero.

Jamais Jochim: This is sort of what I'm playing with my Vella book. Folk stories are how we explain the weirdness in our lives while looking at the existence of the awesome and the profane, and how they are sides of the same coin.

Kay Iscah: I think I skipped ahead with my first answer, but yes. The first scene that pops to mind is young Phillip making a nest in a tree, and unable to sleep, he listens to the night noises around him. He’s very aware of his vulnerability and has a similar moment of hyper-awareness when he takes shelter with a tanner in an isolated cabin. There’s another scene where he encounters fireflies for the first time and I think it shows how nature can inspire certain myths about fairies and other creatures of folklore. If I remember correctly both of the bandit attacks that dramatically changed his life happened in daylight in an isolated place. He also encounters actual magic for the first time in daylight, so it’s a bit of flipping the script on his expectations. The girl’s story by contrast is constantly setting up tropes to sidestep them. She is a shapeshifter, the fairy, and a strange old lady who lives alone, so night does not tend to intimidate her to the same degree. She often finds comfort in it; “The stars hummed a lullaby… dreams lack all restrictions. So that night she could be small as a bug or big as a mountain.”

One of my favorite quotes from the panel comes from Dee Norman. "That's how folk magic survives -- through efficacy, not explanation," she explains. How do your magical or belief systems in your work, more commonly fantasy, horror, or some more esoteric sci-fi, line up against this notion of folk magic being more a practice than a doctrine?

Kay Iscah: In the world of Seventh Night where my examples come from, I describe magic in terms of rhythm and song. It’s based on the more scientific idea that everything vibrates, but with the more mystic idea that these vibrations can be harnessed and shifted to produce almost any desired effect. I do think this ties into common magic tropes of saying the right word or humming the right tune. There’s also an element of potion-making, which ties to understanding the potential effects of the ingredients. It’s a blend of science and art.

I do distinguish magic/sorcery and witchcraft as separate practices. The first has more to do with rhythms and is not seen as a spiritual practice by those who practice it. Witchcraft by contrast utilizes spirits, and there’s a stronger taboo against it. Laymen may confuse the two.

Jessica Nettles: Dark and light must always push and pull against one another. In my stories, there is always that element. There is the small town that seems very familiar and the people seem so nice, but there something swimming in the undercurrent you can't see, but can sense. If we're honest, this is more true than not, but most of the time, no one wants to say that out loud. My Eulaila stories explore those small spaces--those towns and areas where things seem off by about two steps, but maybe to the drive-thru tourist, on their way to Panama City, might just guess at. In my Three Sisters stories (y'all ain seen them yet) there is also this same push of darkness and light with the sisters witching their way against various dark elements that seem drawn to their small town for reasons they haven't figured out yet.

Nikki Nelson-Hicks: This reminds me of the dichotomy of Wizards and Witches in Discworld. The Wizards go to a college and spend all their time debating and studying the idea of magic. Witches just WITCH and get shit done.

I tend to waver between ritual and natural magic practices in my fiction.

In my story, "What the Cat Dragged In," the witch in that story is highly ritualistic. Her hex jars are meticulously prepared. Plus she has jars with Kabbalistic sigils on her shelf. Not something a hodge podge hedgewitch would have sitting around.

In the story, "A Beautiful Thing," the Golem has to follow strict rituals as does the John Dee Wanna-Be wizard that it has to fight against.

I prefer the more hodge podge sort of magic that my girls in Crown of Feathers deal out but that’s probably more due to my ADHD than anything else. I don’t have the attention span for ritual.

Danielle Procter Piper: My Medieval fantasy is watching "magic" struggle to thrive in a world where religion and reason fight to suppress both the average person from obtaining what they need on their own and to drive away magical beings and creatures that prove there's another way of getting what you desire that does not rely on obeisance to others. In order to control the masses, you must strip them of their ability to get what they need on their own and convince them that what you say and do is the only way to accomplish things. You introduce government, capitalism, and religion to provide for yourself and those you deem worthy on the backs of innocent others you break with rules that only work so long as you keep throwing them crumbs. The self-empowered person is considered radical and potentially dangerous for what if he or she showed people there's another way? You lose everything you worked so hard to build by letting the commoners know they had the ability to provide for themselves all along—they just needed the knowledge you've worked so hard to convince them was unsafe poppycock.

Sean Taylor: I avoid doctrine in my work as much as possible. I love the idea of loosey-goosey belief systems because, honestly, that's what even most of our entrenched religions were before they were voted on and codified and made safe at the state level (Constantine). And it's so much fun to play in that area where "good Christian people" will argue about a dead squirrel ward in a house for protection or a suburban family will continue to wait up on the night of a new birth in the family for the spirit of an ancestor to show up for a blessing (that's another currently in progress). It's also fun to see ardent atheists encounter something supernatural that sends their world into a spin even if it doesn't trigger any kind of faith. Just the tailspin of supernatural stuff is enough for a good story, especially if it comes from a place intrinsic to their family's past that they thought they were so far beyond having to deal with as modern people in a real, scientific world. 

Jessica Nettles: Deborah would agree with Dee. Magic is practice. It's everyday living for her. It's in her music when she plays her cimbalom between shows, or when she sings as she makes tea. She sees it in the way Thomas, her husband, smiles and his eyes light up when she teases him about the way he likes too much sugar in his tea. It's the way she and her son Seth connect over his dreams. Sometimes it just the way a meal comes together at the end of a very long day. Magic has to be practical in nature and connect to something that applies to life. Doctrine doesn't do that. Those are just rules. Practical magic is a daily, living thing.

What are stories, novels, short stories, or graphic novels, that best highlight the ideas of folkloric influence that you would recommend to others who want to learn how to include such themes in their work?

Danielle Procter Piper: Fairy tales, the ones most of us heard as children, are the best springboard for jumping into folklore as many of these stories are centuries old...but please don't write another variation on any of them. I've read dozens and dozens of variations of Snow White and Cinderella and the lot and most are drivel with very few introducing anything new. It's much cooler if you forge your own fantasy world.

Nikki Nelson-Hicks: Check out the Witches and Wizards in the Discworld series. My favorites are: Lords and Ladies, Witches Abroad, and Carpe Jugulum. For Wizards: Interesting Times and The Colour of Magic.

Graphic Novels: Hellblazer and Promethea or anything done by Alan Moore. He’s a maniac and an actual wizard. Very interesting ideas on magic.

Jessica Nettles: Start with the basics: Read your mythos. Which ones? All of them? As many as you can learn about. I started reading Greek mythology when I was very young (I look back and realize that it was probably too young). Then I learned about other mythos and read them too. Why do that? Because this gives a better understanding about what people believe and why some magic works certain ways. Read good books with strong magic systems, like Wheel of Time (okay, I'm not a huge fan, but the magic system is pretty consistent), Jonathan Strange and Mr. Morrell, the Sandman (yes, Gaiman has issues, but his magic systems are spectacular and his writing is worth studying), read Dr. Strange and some of the other Marvel titles that deal with cosmic magic (once again, somethings are problematic, but also there are a lot of really cool things that happen in this magic system that are worth studying, plus they play around a lot with mythos and their takes on folklore). Also read things from people who don't look like you. It's really easy to fall into reading information filtered through those who are part of your culture. When you do that, you miss all the nuances of the culture you are learning about. It's one thing to learn about Anasi from a very Western point of view than it is to learn about Anasi from the African or even West Indies point of view. Same with magic. If you are going to learn about magic of certain cultures--talk to the folk who practice it or find books by the folk who practice it. I recommend reading folks like Nicole Givens Kurtz, Milton Davis, Geneve Flynn, L. Marie Wood. You will get schooled.

Sean Taylor: I think there have been some amazing comic books and graphic novels exploring folkloric themes. The Writer from Dark Horse looks into Jewish folklore and mysteries. Harrow County is hands-down my favorite take on mountain haints and spellcraft. Obviously lots are drawn from folklore in The Sandman, even if Gaiman himself is a bit tarnished. Image Comic's I Hate This Place begins as a sort of homage to folk horror before sliding off into Lovecraftian themes. 

As for books, no one does this better than Angela Carter in The Bloody Chamber or Shirley Jackson in "The Lottery." 

Kay Iscah: Definitely Brothers Grimm Folklore and Fairytale collection for my work as I borrow elements of the folklore style, particularly in The Girl With No Name. But I think it’s good to read broadly. I lost my African folklore collection in a housefire, so can’t give you the title, but it’s a big influence on one of my works in progress. I make a reference to Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain, which is a retelling of Nandi folklore. In Seventh Night there’s also a nod to Legend of Zelda.

A lot of folklore is retelling of older myths with a local flavor thrown in, which may be hard to recognize if you don't know the older myths. Reading The Mabinogion before rereading Brothers Grimm helped me start connecting several of the Grimm stories to older myths, Celtic, Greek, and Bible stories. I think the more you dig into mythology, the more you see the patterns as stories are told and retold.

Fanfiction -- No Longer a Dirty Word in Fiction?

For this week's roundtable, let's talk about fan fiction. For a long time, it was synonymous with both "amateur" by professionals and "theft" by IP owners. But that has seemed to be changing as time moves on. So, this one is for all the fan-fic writers out there. Let's chat.

What is your experience with fan-fic?

Angelia Sparrow: I got into pro writing from fanfic. I have done a few filed off pieces (took an old Star Wars fiction, made Luke a girl and Han a cat-girl, kept the plot, changed the end)

Kay Iscah: I've written four or five fanfiction novels, including a perspective trilogy (same story from 3 different limited perspectives), a novella, and some short pieces. But I'm careful to separate it under a different pen name from my professional work, and think it's important to respect the copy right holder's wishes when it comes to writing fanfiction. I've also edited or beta read stories for others.

Ed Erdelac: I started out writing Star Wars fanfic and was eventually hired to write the real thing a couple of times. My last novel was a thinly disguised Friday The 13th fanfic. 

Bobby Nash: I started out writing the characters I knew and loved. That helped me learn the basics of writing and eventually it led to creating my own characters and telling their stories.

Jana Oliver: My first few stories were fan-fic though I never uploaded those so no one else has read them. All three were book length (a Dr Who and 2 Babylon 5s). My fan-fic proved I could handle plotting and the story structure, and so I started writing books set in my own worlds.

I do not read fan-fic, especially anything based on my main UF series due to the legal implications. I just ignore that those exist, though I was kinda jazzed when they first appeared.

Danielle Procter Piper: The most valuable thing I've learned in writing fanfiction is that another writer is going to jump you and nitpick your work, telling you how you're not following the original ideas to the letter. It's fanfiction. I can do what I want. 

Susan Roddey: Oh, do I have thoughts on this... Let me preface this by saying fanfiction writers are absolutely lifting IP from the creators. That's just the way of the craft. HOWEVER... I cut my writing teeth on fan fiction. Granted, most of it is terrible and will never, ever see the light of day beyond what used to exist on Livejournal and in old Yahoo! Groups, but it helped me learn how to write. When the rules of the world are pre-defined, it's easier to focus on technique - dialogue, plot, characterization, etc. I took what I learned playing in others' sandboxes and used it to create my own original work.

Nope, wrong kind of fan.

Jason Bullock: I have had a little experience with fan fiction of owned IP. I have written several novellas and short stories of public domain characters. My family has written several works of fan-fic of sci-fi television series however. I have read several fan-fic series including sci-fi from movies and television for entertainment as well as creative inspiration.

Maya Preisler: I’ve been writing fanfic for about thirty years, though it’s only recently that I’ve started “publishing” stories on AO3 for others to read. My most popular work is an ongoing epic series that currently has around 263k words and around 16k page views.

Bertram Gibbs: For several years, on top of my original stories, I was given the chance to write a few DC Comic stories for this online fan fiction group. My first was a tribute to the 80s Justice League series (‘The Return of BWAH-HAH-HA’) where Plastic Man, Blue Beetle (Ted Kord) Booster Gold (with Skeets) take on Lex Luthor using their combined powers of annoyance. That was because DC didn’t want to publish the novel (rubes). It was so well received, I was invited to write a few more (a time travel Batman story and a JSA piece). And if invited here, I’ll be more than happy to share them with you.

What are the pros of writing fan-fic that you've experienced?

Maya Preisler: First and foremost, fan fiction has become a form of self-care for me; it allows me to escape to another galaxy and process my thoughts and feelings through fictional characters. Fan fiction has brought me several friendships, including meeting one of my readers at DragonCon. Having a community of readers who value and support my writing encourages me to persist and continue long past when I would normally have abandoned a story. I also cannot overemphasize how good it feels as a writer to wake up to comments, kudos, and other notifications. Receiving positive feedback is also an excellent dopamine boost.

Additionally, writing fan-fic assists me in growing and developing my skills. As someone who often gets mired down in the details while writing, fan-fic empowers me to practice by skipping the steps (like naming characters) which would normally cause roadblocks for me. This allows me to focus on the details of my writing such as foreshadowing, grammar, word use, dialogue, descriptions, and even story flow. After two years of consistent fan-fic practice, I can see already see where my writing has improved.

Susan Roddey: I think the pros are very much what I mentioned above -- it's a sandbox. You don't have to worry about keeping the details of the world straight because those who would read your work in that world are already familiar with the rules. It takes a large part of the stress of writing off the table so it becomes easy to pick the skill you want to develop and practice. I learned character voice by emulating well-known characters. I learned how to build a plot by fixing the things I saw wrong in the properties I love. It also gives writers a sort of neutral ground to play with gender identity and sexual orientation because again, the rules are set but can be manipulated so long as you keep the changes within the confines of the character's predefined personality. It does also create a sense of community - a place where people can belong. It's a fantastic arena for outcasts because we can find common ground among other outcasts. For the most part, it's a very accepting and loving community. I met nearly all of my friends as a result of fanfic communities.

Danielle Procter Piper: The benefits of fanfiction are that it's good practice writing, immediate feedback, and can help establish you as an author worth following.

Bertram Gibbs: It’s refreshing to write stories that I feel have yet to have been explored in the comics and enhance known characters. As a writer, there’s always that ‘what if’ moment where an interesting story comes from your soul and you hope that the writers of the stories you hold dear will share that thought. And when they don’t, you know that it’s up to you to put those thoughts to paper (or computer), to experiment with the beloved characters physically and/or emotionally, and create unexplored twists.

Kay Iscah: I think fan-fic can be a good training ground for writers. It's functionally not much different than franchise writing, except you have fewer rules to follow and no hope of a paycheck. Using another writer's characters well involves study of those characters and building a deep knowledge of their world. Fan fiction writing at it's best is a pure love of the characters and the craft of writing. It's writing for joy and not profit, a modern version of retelling stories around a campfire.

Jason Bullock: I have found inspiration creatively with fan-fic. I have written several fan-fiction stories in scripts for fan comics, including Star Trek Next Generation, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, X-FILES, and Murdoch Mysteries. I found writing those particular IPs gave me the challenge to put myself into the experiences of exotic universies helps me stretch my range. Meek characters, hubris-ridden oligarchs, otherworldly interloper, all were subject to me writing them in inside their own skin. How would they act? How would they talk? Why would they react to situations they would be placed in? These are a few of questions that I would need to familiarize myself with about the characters I was writing.

Bobby Nash: It’s good practice. It’s a fun hobby. You can polish your writing and maybe translate that into getting a professional writing gig.

What are the cons of writing fan-fic that you've experienced?

Kay Iscah: At it's worst, it's amateur porn, exploiting characters for name recognition.

And that's really the worst part of fanfiction. It's often thoughts without filter, which is one thing for your diary and another when sharing it with other people. Particularly for sexual titillation. My worst experience was being in fan group for a Star Wars character. Another person who seemed normal in forum conversations asked me to read her story, and it was just a graphic description of a gang rape using established characters. And I don't mean the story included a difficult scene. I mean there was no story, just a scene of gang rape with no warning that the content was explicit. I believe I was a minor at the time as well, though the person who sent me the story had no way to know that.

Ed Erdelac: I've personally found that so-called fans aren't particularly supportive of anything that isn't given the licensor's official stamp of approval or that doesn't go for broke and use the exact names of everything. Even then, there are perceived tiers of licensed fiction. All in all, too many amateur gatekeepers. I don't think I'd indulge myself in it again.

Jason Bullock: Conversely speaking to the answer of the previous question, I am limited in the level of changes to the characters beyond the established paradigms put in place by the original author. No permanent body modifications, no personal alteration that would destroy existing cannon, or death of lead characters is allowed when writing fan-fic.Bertram Gibbs: Finding a place to show and share your stories and get feedback to see what you could have done differently or, being a writer, get a modicum of praise because our egos could power a third world country (I know mine is).

Maya Preisler: For me, I’ve noticed it’s easy to become accustomed to the praise and positive feedback to where I feel less secure in my writing when no one is actively cheering me on. I’ve also noticed that the dopamine reward of posting a chapter is much quicker than publishing a short story (not to mention a novel), which makes me more likely to want to write fan-fic than the five original WIPs I have going.

Bobby Nash: I run into way too many people that think they can publish their fan fiction and make money off of it. That’s when fan-fic becomes theft and the publishers/IP owners start cracking down. If you do fan fiction, know that it cannot be sold. You don’t own it.

Danielle Procter Piper: The pitfall was discovering the person mentioned in the first answer. 

Susan Roddey: Readers are brutal. If you get even the smallest details wrong, fanfiction readers will absolutely level you in the most savage way possible. However, I think the biggest con is that there's a belief now that "if you can write fan fiction, you can change the names and call it original," and that's not always true. There has to be a differentiation between your world and theirs. You can't just scrape a few details off the top and pass it as new. There also seems to be a trend of fan-fic "rules of writing" bleeding over into original work. I see a lot of readers and editors complaining about things like point of view (fanfic rules don't widely accept an omniscient narrator in my experience), and many techniques that were used by the older writing generations appear to have been pushed out of popular use.

You'll have to forgive my soapbox moment, but as a con, one of the worst for me is the concept of real-person fic. Fictional worlds and characters don't bother me in the slightest because again...not real. Made up. There for the daydreaming. But I have seen some truly creepy things written about real people that toe the line of questionable. It's a worrying trend to me because it perpetuates the idea that celebrities "belong" to the fans. Maybe it's just me, but it makes me VERY uncomfortable.

How and why do you believe the world of fan fiction is changing? Do you see it becoming more or less acceptable to the reading public?

Jason Bullock: The acceptance of fan fiction is filling the void of mediocrity and overuse of story themes or clichéd elements presented to them in media across the board. With writing strikes involving established media outlets, you and I are always looking for that next great literary concept to share with everyone else in the paradigm of our favorite universes. Fan fiction is becoming accepted even more so in a wide range of target audiences. Children's fables to adult slasher stories, fan-fic is meeting the creative needs of many in today's story desert.

Kay Iscah: I think people are becoming more aware of what fanfiction is, particularly as we connect more with strangers who share our niche interests online. When I started writing fan fiction, I was a kid before the internet and thought I was the only person who did such a crazy thing. My first hope had been becoming a franchise novelist, but for Star Wars, you had to be invited which meant establishing yourself as an author with original work first. I even wrote a letter to Lucasfilm and got a polite rejection and a book mark.

Even some copyright holders have learned to embrace it as a way to keep fan bases engaged between releases. Like at one point Lucasfilm had fan film competitions and Pretty Little Liars experimented with letting people monetize fanfiction through a program with Amazon.

I think it will always be seen as amateur because it is amateur, and that's the fun of it. But a hobbyist knitter may still be excellent at their craft. The campfire storyteller may keep you spellbound. Monetization is not always a mark of quality. High point of my fanfiction career was having a librarian tell me that she like my version of Harry Potter's last year better than Rowling's.

However, I still know I was playing in Rowling's (or Lucas's) world. If I want to be ranked among the great writers, I can't just be a good wordsmith but also be a world builder.

Bobby Nash: As I mentioned before, there are folks out there trying to sell stories with characters they do not own. The publishers and IP owners then crack down and inhibit the fan-fic hobby for everyone.

Maya Preisler: I believe that as preservation of fan-fiction through online archives continues, along with support for legal protections, fan-fiction will become more popular and acceptable to the reading public for a variety of reasons.

First, I think fanfic provides readers with a lot of possibilities that aren’t as feasible in mainstream publishing because it eliminates a lot of barriers. Fan-fic is accessible to anyone with an internet connection, the text can be enlarged or turned into an audiobook with any screen reader, and it can be translated to someone’s native language in-browser. Additionally, fan-fic allows for the extension of comfort media, empowering fans who are craving familiar people and places to enjoy new stories within the safety of their favorite fandom.

Second, fan-fic has also historically been more diverse and inclusive than published media, as it allowed for the creation of works which would have been banned under the Hays Code or simply never considered publishable for containing certain subjects.

Third, fan-fic allows a fandom to evolve and adapt media franchises into something better. Many dedicated fans have already retooled several problematic IPs into alternate versions far better than the original ones ever could have been.

Fourth, the myths and legends which once collectively belonged to humanity are now owned by a handful of media companies and that number is actively growing smaller and smaller. Fanfiction reclaims the collective ownership of these cultural myths and returns them to the hands of the public, empowering us to former deeper personal relationships with them as we imbue them with better representation and deeper meaning.

Susan Roddey: It's absolutely becoming more acceptable, particularly with the awards bestowed on AO3 as a whole. There are absolutely some gems on that site, but there are also some pretty terrible things. I also believe that fanfic as a craft is on the upswing because people have less money these days and it's always (or at least it should be because we get into serious legal issues if it's not) free to read.

John L. Taylor: While I haven't written outright fan-fic, I'll weigh in with this. Works that become part of a culture's heritage are ones that have fan input. Creators like H.P. Lovecraft and George Lucas understood this, and their worlds have flourished for decades after their contemporaries faded. Star Trek had a very similar experience where fan writings of many kinds brought a dead IP back to life. It's weirdly important to a work becoming remembered and passed on to future generations. Mythologies begin that way, and fan stories make the difference between myth and a limited IP. Case in point: the SCP Foundation stories. The entire IP is literally fan fiction based on a random Reddit NoSleep post. Yet it is one of the most vibrant shared universes ever written. Let fan-fic thrive

Bertram Gibbs: I see more fan fiction sites popping up, but I also see what appears as stories that break the traditional characters and the way history has presented them. Some use LGTBQ angles, which while good are not truly showing the characters we love and respect. They are unnecessary twists that do not enhance the story and (I feel) are designed for shock value. Not saying that there isn’t an audience for these stories, but it feels like the focus is not on the heroes or villains or the hearts of the stories, but wish fulfillment of the writers.

I think that fan fiction can be more acceptable if there were more known and publicized sites that invite new and old writers to contribute, giving their spin on known characters, and to develop new, interesting and entertaining stories.

On the Dark Side (Yeah, Yeah) On the Dark Side...

For this week's roundtable, we're all going to take a walk on the dark side. (It's okay if you sang the Eddie and the Cruisers song just then.) 

Do you have limits to how dark you will allow your fiction to become? How do you determine those limits?

Sara Freites Scott: Yes I do have limits. I go by how it makes me feel when writing. I push it a little but if I start to feel too uncomfortable reading it back or even writing it I’ll scrap it.

John L. Taylor: Since my writing is mostly of a darker tone, I'll answer here. As to how dark I let it get, two things determine my limits:

1. The community standards of the publisher/platform, and 

2. the needs of the narrative and characters. 

Sometimes going needlessly dark works against you, but as a rule the less likable or "good" my protagonist is, the darker the antagonists need to be by contrast to still accept the point of view of the main characters. Stories like Blood Meridian and The Hellbound Heart wouldn't work with lighter treatments. But darkness isn't always just horrible deeds being done to someone for shock value. It's as much the way they process their experiences, beliefs, and traumas that's dark. There I wish community standards on platforms like YouTube were more context-flexible. I have a half-complete yet unpublished novel. The protagonist is someone who engages in self-harm behaviors and a big part of the plot is her overcoming her trauma and evolving beyond it. In no way does the work glorify this behavior or encourage it. Indeed, it takes a stand against self-harm. Still, any such descriptions are against Facebook and Amazon's standards, so the project remains unfinished because content platforms deem any depictions of such behaviors unacceptable without regard to context. That said, I do have hard limits on some content as both my wife and mother are survivors of abuse situations which I refuse to portray in a positive light or for rote shock value. Simply put, I'll write like Clive Barker or Dean Koontz, not Bentley Little or Aaron Beauregard. 

Lucy Blue: I write in two very clearly defined, very much opposite modes--light stuff like the Stella Hart books (which are downright frothy) and dark like The Devil Makes Three, which is very dark indeed. But yeah, there are limits. I'm good with disturbing or frightening my readers--I love it. I even enjoy the idea that my story might haunt them later. But I don't want to make them vomit. As a reader, I'm a total wuss, but as a writer, I blow right past my reader limits like I don't even know they're there. 

Ef Deal: There is a bottomless well of rage inside me. I have been to so many dark places myself that I have no choice but to go there when the story requires it, but I hate it, and I feel filthy with it afterward. 

Jason Bullock: I haven't tried to push my writing into darker elements in my writing anymore. As a storyteller doing tabletop RPGs for 20 years, I explored really dark themes often visceral in nature. Beyond what I would call sinister in my stories was what I now avoid. Imperfect man can perpetrate enough "evil" on his own not to involve external individuals or forces of a negative supernatural nature. There is a line I will not cross anymore. I had several personal encounters which shaded my own family life. I don't want to go down that terrifying part of my past again. So I take great effort to avoid it. Man and Science have enough order and chaos for me to write about.

Scott McCullar: I have an upcoming storyline in a future THRILL SEEKER COMICS story featuring Yellow Jacket: Man of Mystery as he attempts to retire by putting his guns in the ground so that he can finally find peace that gets REALLY dark. It was so dark for me to write and draw, I couldn’t even believe I was doing it… but the story demanded for me to do it and I could never escape not doing it. I finally completed it and I feel it is one of the strongest and most emotional stories that I’ve written and drawn. It’ll be in the next issue.

As for determining limits? I pushed beyond even what I was comfortable with but what was needed for the story to be effectual.

Bobby Nash: There are certain darker themes that I simply haven’t been interested in exploring. Never say never though. You never know when a great story will hit you that focuses on darker elements.

Danielle Procter Piper: Apparently not. I go deep, like Marianas Trench deep, into places most writers wouldn't venture into. I am all about disturbing people if it can make them think and/or at least entertain them in some way. 

John Hartness: Not until I start writing. Then I know how dark it needs to go.

Sean Harby: I write as dark as a story requires. As to how I decide that, I just kinda feel my way.

Susan H. Roddey: Oh, I can get pretty dark. The limit to how dark varies from book to book because different characters, just like us real breathers, have their own limits. There are a few hard stops for me personally - I don't like body horror, can't do terrible things to kids, and refuse to glorify assault - but beyond those, quite a few things can be considered fair game.

Jessica Nettles: I don’t have the limits written in stone and am willing to push when needed in a story. My stories and characters tend to let me know how far into the darkness to walk.

Raymond Christopher Qualls: The darkest story I wrote is "Manipulations." The daughter of a billionaire who needs multiple organ transplants, and he convinces members of a religious cult to kill a child so she can have pristine organs in his daughter's age range. It's in my Cosmic Egg for Breakfast and Six More Short Stories collection.

John French: There are some things I will not write about or do to my main characters. But when it comes to dark fiction, I recently found that just when I thought I'd reached my limit, I went further into the blackness.

If you are using the term “darkness” to refer to certain acts of violence, then I tend to avoid things like violence for the sake of violence or splatterpunk elements or slasher-style writing in my horror stories. It’s not my style.

Darin Kennedy: My stuff that is horror-adjacent typically is a lot darker. A little darkness, however, always makes the light stand out.

Sean Taylor: Not really. I like to go where the story needs me to go. If that means dark places, then I'll just light up a torch and make like Peter Cushing during the Hammer glory days. That's a kind of flippant answer, but it's true. Stories will let you know where they need to go to convey what they want to and need to say. 

TammyJo Eckhart: Most of my stories tackle something "dark" usually so that we can see success against it. The characters and the purpose of the story dictate how "dark" it should be.

Robert Bear: I'm in a sort of grim phase right now, and because it is specifically grimdark, I get it to where I start to feel uncomfortable with it, and then go a little darker. I think in my grim work, I'm exploring my own darker side... seeing just what I am prepared to experience (through storytelling)... because if you can't visualize, smell, or taste it... how can you write it? So, I have to research a lot of these things in order to get it right. So, 'how dark of a material can I stand to research' is what becomes the question.

Robin Burks: I like to push myself to go as dark as I can -- at least when I'm writing adult fiction (not YA, obviously). I love horror and the more uncomfortable it makes me, the better I think the scene is. However, there are some lines I won't cross, like rape, sexual situations with children, etc.

Dale Kesterson: I've noticed a lot of my short stories are considerably darker than my mystery novels, but I try very hard not to think about why. 

Jordan Leigh Sickrey: I feel like for me, I don’t like darkness for the sake of darkness. My main character in my fantasy novel was primarily built on the fact that female leads end up hardening themselves due to the “harsh realities” or they start off hard and maybe only dull their edges over time, and I wanted a female lead who could retain that softness and optimism. Yes, dark things happen. My prologue alone requires quite a few content warnings when I share it. But darkness isn’t the total story. It’s about finding the light in the dark and shining anyway.

Robert Lee: I once wrote a story, where the main character was a hitman and the very idea and notion of the story was everybody was a shade of gray and a level of hypocrisy for each person's position. The main character, The Hitman, tortured a gentleman by using a sharpened orange peeler, or maybe a lemon peeler. Yeah, I have no problems going in like that because it shows you the reflection of humanity's inhumanity toward others. I also abide by the concept that crime fiction at its darkest reflects society and humanity at its worst, but it also can show moments at its best but those moments are few and far between.

Teel James Glenn: I don't really write dark--for its sake. If I go dark it is to give my protagonists in the light balance and a challenge. Not a fan of nihilism.

Do you find writing darkness in your stories liberating? In what way? Or why not?

Lucy Blue: The silly thing is, I just write the story; I don't stop and think about how dark it might be. It's only later when my editor says, "geez, Lucy!" that I realize it might be darker than I thought. 😉 And that is liberating; that makes me feel like the story has taken on a life of its own that isn't limited by my own fears. 

Danielle Procter Piper: Is writing darkness liberating? I've never considered that...but it's as close to the rawness of my dreams as I can get, and I love dreaming. Many of my stories, screenplays, and pieces of art are dream-inspired. I suppose I'm hinting that the darkness in my stories is often a psychological mind-f*ck. Manipulating my readers' emotions is the highest pleasure I achieve with my work. 

Sara Freites Scott: Sometimes yes I do find it liberating! I’ll either find myself feeling thankful that I haven’t had such darkness in my own life OR share a dark moment in my writing from my past or someone else’s past that I know as part of the character's story that helps me to feel not so alone about it.

John Hartness: I haven’t thought about it in that way, so not currently.

Susan H. Roddey: I wouldn't necessarily call it "liberating," but there's definitely catharsis there. Going full dark is good for purging demons. It's how I work through things.

Dale Kesterson: Possibly cathartic? I do know I love 'killing people on paper' in the mysteries (third one came out very recently). I don't think I'll go overboard with it though.

Sean Taylor: It can be. But it can also be scary, not because of the content but because of the lack of outside edges to box me in. If I'm really free to go anywhere in a story, then I have to maintain a tighter grip on the reins of the storytelling itself. It can be too easy to go a step too far or let all that freedom go to your head and suddenly you're writing yourself out of a genre's or a publisher's and a target audience's good graces. When that happens, you have to make a choice. Keep the story going in a direction that might not be as marketable, or whip out that editing eraser. 

Ef Deal: It's not cathartic in the least; in fact, it feels more like wallowing, like picking at a scab until the blood flows anew: The wound never heals that way; it just gets worse. And no, I have no limits to the darkness I put on the page, although my publisher does, and she reins me back in.

Sean Harby: I do find it a little liberating. I had a Rockwellian youth, so darkness appeals to me.

John L. Taylor: Most dark stories emerged to sort out their emotions in bad situations. The very first recorded story, Gilgamesh, is really about the grief of losing your best friend. Yes, I do find writing darker material to be cathartic. Dark materials can both be a way to work through trauma and depression and to hold up a grim mirror to negative aspects of society. Some of my darkest work was either socially satirical or based on deep-seated anxieties. I've always had the philosophy that people flourish when they admit the darkness in their own subconscious and vent it. Take, for example, two very different works the hymn "It is Well with My Soul," and James O'Barr's The Crow. Both were written by men processing the senseless loss of their significant other. O'Barr's work took a much more visceral path to it than the hymn did, but both are lamentations of the human condition and attempt to reconcile a loving God with an indifferent universe. Each succeeds in its own way. I believe it is vital to the human condition that fiction be able to tackle difficult and disturbing subjects in an expressive fashion. 

Jessica Nettles: I mean, all good stories have elements of darkness, don’t they? I have never seen this as a factor for me.

Bobby Nash: I find something liberating about every story I write. Writing can be part therapy, part exploration of thoughts and feelings that are outside the norm for me, even a way to study and understand behaviors not my own.

Scott McCullar: I never thought about the word “liberating”. I think “cathartic” and “revealing” are more appropriate descriptions of what I have experienced.

Jason Bullock: Writing dark themes, I mean really dark themes, costs. The current chaos in our world tears enough at the individual but I don't feel liberated by diving into the truly abyss-level miasma. For me , crime, murder, and other such activities are about as far as criminal activity I would explore in my writing... well at this time in my life.

Are there advantages to writing darker stories that you don't have when writing lighter fare?

Sara Freites Scott: I think there are advantages! It can help connect a reader to a writer/character if there is some darkness because the world we live in is rather dark and we all have that darkness in us to some degree.

Sean Harby: Dark always seems more real to me.

Susan H. Roddey: I don't know that I can call it an advantage really, but I believe that darker stories are often more relatable. We've spent the last several years living in an actual dystopian horror show come to life, so we can relate to that kind of scenario. We all know what that despair feels like. So channeling that darkness into a situation where the good guy can win? Yeah, that's definitely going to draw people in and give them a sense of satisfaction at the end. Then there are some of us who sometimes just want to see the bad guy win.

Bobby Nash: There are certainly stories that benefit from darker themes or scenes. Evil Ways, my first novel, has some far darker stuff than I generally write today. It all depends on the story I’m telling and the audience I’m telling it to. Being able to delve into darker aspects when the story requires it is an advantage. Also, knowing when not to put the darkness on the page is an advantage.

Danielle Procter Piper: The only advantage to writing darker stories is the fun of taking the filters off, but it's also a dangerous thing to do because you may find your audience shrinking. Then again, writers always find their audience one way or another. Stephen King has gone to some pretty dark, weird places and still reigns in the world of horror. I'd like to write stuff that makes him squirm, though...is that too far? Maybe that's perfect.

Lucy Blue: I like knowing I can "go there" if the story demands it.

Jessica Nettles: Both can explore themes and characters in similar fashions. I see comedy and horror as different sides of the same coin, which is why they can work well together. The advantage could be in the audience you are trying to reach and what you want to say to that audience. For me, I don’t find an advantage in either. What I do find is a joy that I can write both and get a response from my audience that is positive.

Yes, I’m in it for the applause, folks. I ain’t gonna lie.

Scott McCullar: I like to balance both the light-hearted, fun, and loving as well as the darker opposites. There are advantages and disadvantages to both that I find. I have personally experienced death, despair, fear, darkness, and more in my own life and I think storytelling allows for those demons to be revealed just as much as the angels that need to show us the light (for example, in my MS. TITTENHURST Dame Detective stories… she is a guardian angel and not a femme fatale… which I wasn’t originally setting out to do when I began telling her stories in the THRILL SEEKER COMICS universe.)

John Hartness: I have to come up with fewer dick jokes on the darker works. Usually.

John L. Taylor: Piggybacking off of the last entry, darker subject matter leaves more room for whimsy than some lighter, but more serious fare. I'll hold up the works of H.R. Giger and Zdzisław Beksiński in this respect. Their works, despite being visual, were genre-defining works of darkness not matched since Bosch or Goya, yet there is an overriding sense of whimsy and a shadowy allure to their images. Authors like Clive Barker, E.L. James, and Brian Lumley accomplish the same effect in words. That alone makes darker tones worth writing to me. The room for innovation in processing pain and reckoning with our mortality can create some such beautiful art if you have the tenebrous vision to appreciate it

Jason Bullock: Many people make excuses in those instances as there can not be moments of lighter fare if they are not contrasted by darker fields around them. I find that they are indeed diametrically positioned elements of everything and or everyone now in man's existence at this point in history. Writing is no different. When writing about negative elements, I try to end with presenting a positive outcome. In that way, my catharsis is less myopic and rather panoptic in its results.

Sean Taylor: I think a lot of folks, both writer and readers, confuse "dark" with either "gross" or "horrifying details." That's sad, because true darkness in a story is more of a context than content. It's more the overarching something that makes a story feel uncomfortable, even without a healthy (or unhealthy) slathering of body parts or icky descriptions. It's more akin to the difference between an atmosphere of dread and a laundry list of creepy images or plot points. A dark story needs light moments to let a reader breathe, even if just for a moment. So, for me, it's hard to write lighter fair because if I have a motif to all my work thus far, it's this: Humanity doesn't learn anything from the fluffy, happy moments, because it takes tragedy or near-tragedy to make us stop and listen in order to learn anything.