White by Default? A Character Assumption Roundtable

This new writers roundtable topic comes from a recent discussion on a Pulp Writers list of which I'm a member. I thought the topic a pertinent one, so I wanted to share it here as well. 

The key kernal for this discussion comes from an exchange my fellow pulp writer I.A. Watson had with one of his editors, and is as follows:

Editor: About this villain, Ms Zeuzi. Why is she White? Aren’t there enough White characters in your book? 

I.A. Watson: Where do I say she’s White? I don’t describe her appearance at all, except her business suit and mannerisms. 

Editor: You don’t say she’s not White. You could have mentioned she’s African American or Latino. You don’t. 

IW: There’s lots of characters in the book, some of whom are White, but I don’t say they are Caucasian or put in a description of their skin colour. Why do I need to specify that Ms Zeuzi is non-White if it doesn’t come up in the story? 

Editor: Readers default assume characters are White if you don’t say otherwise.

I’m really not sure about this. Advice?

Is this true in your experience? Why do you think that?

Lee Houston Jr.:  Only in regards to classic characters created before the late 1960s, and the writers of the day didn't dare challenge the "social norms" of their time.

Erwin K. Roberts: Before "enlightenment" came to the various media, there were occasional stealth minority characters. In his book,  Space Cadet, Robert Heinlein's three protagonists were a kid from Des Moines, a wild & wooly Texan, and a quiet fellow from colonial Venus. One presumes they all had white skin. After they finish training, the three spend a year or so on a spaceship with a crew of about a dozen. What is not revealed, until after they leave the ship, is that one of the ship's officers was "as black as the ace of Spades." Not exactly politically correct, but I'm sure a lot of younger readers circa 1950, or so, were shocked by the revelation.

Kristi Morgan: This is true, and applies to writing that has more than just humans in it too. I am in the middle of editing stories for a collection that contains humans, elves, dwarves, and kobolds. Every story started of with dialogue or what their characters were doing, but nothing about what they looked like. My mind assumed they were human and probably white unless the writer said otherwise, and most of them never did. Readers are not mind readers. Unless you describe the characters, we will make up our own descriptions in our mind.

Van Allen Plexico: I think readers consciously or subconsciously look for cues, even tiny ones, that tell them more about a character. Those cues can come via outright descriptions of appearance, yes. But also via tiny comments during dialogue, manner of speech, name, and so on. And those don't even have to be intentional or conscious decisions on the part of the author in some cases, I think.

So, no, I don't think all readers default all characters to white as long as there are any reasons not to... But likely some do.

Alan Lewis: In most cases, I'd say it is true. Or maybe, more to the point, we like to make the characters like ourselves, so we default many characters to our own race.

Lucy Blue: I know as a reader, i do this, and I always assumed that everybody just defaulted to their own race until told otherwise. But of course, that isn't true--readers of color have gotten so used to white being the "default setting" in fiction that they make that assumption, too. (May that someday not be so.) So yeah, as a writer, I struggle with this. I don't want to point out every character's race as soon as they're introduced, but if a character's race is important to the story, I want the reader to have a clear picture of them. That's one great thing about writing science fiction and fantasy; in those worlds, a lot of the time it doesn't matter what skin tone the characters have; readers can picture characters however they choose. But in writing any kind of contemporary or "realistic" fiction, it's definitely a concern.

Rose Johnson Streif: This is weird, but the characters tend to remain somewhat amorphous to me until they are described, or begin to take shape. I have a highly visual mind, but I want to see what the writer sees when I am reading someone else's work. I'll fill in the blanks as time goes by, but I want to see their world, not impose my own. (That's for my own work.)

And so, as to race, I'll pick up cues, wait until the author says it outright, or just not assume. But if it goes on for too long without description, I probably will default to white, because the author probably did too. (And I dislike not having descriptions. I don't need info dump, but show me these people you created, d@mmit.)

Marian Allen: I think it's true. If somebody's ethnicity doesn't matter to your third-person story or doesn't impose itself on your first-person narrator's consciousness, don't bother with it.
Herika Raymer: I usually default to the race of the writer, not sure who else does. It's usually the correct assumption, unless otherwise stated.

Gary Phillips: I once wrote a novel giving hints as to various characters' race -- she was a natural blonde, his name was Kurasawa and so on, but deliberately gave no indication of the main charater's race. And being black but with a "whitebread" name, left my photo off the back Of, and the anti-hero, the main guy is only called O'Conner, though plenty of black folks have Irish sounding last names.

How do you handles such descriptions of ethnicity or do you prefer to let the reader default to their preconceptions?

Erwin K. Roberts: I tend to sprinkle minority characters around my stories. But only if the story is not slowed down by explaining how and why the character happens to be there.

Sometimes there is a compelling reason for a minority character, or group, to be included, even it such a thing was not common to the period. In my Sons of Thor the first section is set in World War One. The French need a battalion of Infantry to provide security for a very important meeting. There can not, must not, be any German sympathizers or spies among them. Who they gonna call?

Well, there's this Regiment that the U.S. Army dumped on them. The Yanks just couldn't figure out what to do with the unit calling themselves The Men of Bronze. The 369th Infantry Regiment is best known as The Hellfighters From Harlem. How many Germans are in an all African-American (to include some of the officers) unit? This retired Missouri National Guardsman was proud to shine some fictional light on the former 15th New York Infantry Regiment.

Marian Allen: GENERALLY SPEAKING, I don't think of characters as being a particular ethnicity or race so much as I think of them as individuals OF a particular ethnicity, race, or background. I might specify this lady has milky skin and red-gold hair, or this guy might have tightly curled black hair, brown eyes, skin the color of bittersweet chocolate .... If there were no such thing as the concept of "race," or if we understood that "ethnicity" doesn't mean "everybody but white," how would we describe characters? That's what I try to do. It kind of pisses me off when writers don't describe characters unless the characters are people of color, or when writers do describe characters UNLESS they're people of color, in which case they're "black" or "Oriental" or some nonsense.

Lee Houston Jr.:  Unless I am writing either aliens in science fiction stories or contributing a story to an already established character, I usually don't mention ethnicity and let the readers judge/decide for themselves.

Alan Lewis: I only feel that the color of a character's skin should be important if it is a factor in the story.

For example, in my Black Wolf stories, the lead character is a black man, living in 1930's South Carolina. He lives in a predominantly black neighborhood and is always dealing with racist attitudes when he ventures into the white parts of town. He dates a young white woman, which was very taboo in those days. All these factors come into play in the stories, telling the daily struggles with racism while the man is simply trying to do his job.

Now take away the prejudice and time period and drop him into a contemporary setting, and those issues of race are greatly reduced. Therefore, the color of his skin isn’t an issue and doesn’t need to be made part of the story.

Van Allen Plexico: I will admit I do feel a responsibility to make the casts of my stories at least somewhat diverse in terms of race and gender, rather than monochrome and all guys. I don't do this out of any sense of trying to be "PC", but because it makes the story more interesting and more appealing to more people, and it's more logical in a world of diverse people, particularly one set in the future. The fact that it is the right thing to do is only a happy side effect.

To convey this, I try to provide as many cues as reasonably possible (short of doing any harm to the narrative) to make the characters "visible" in the minds of the readers as close to how I've imagined them as possible.

As a made-up example:

Hawk drew off his glove and stared down at his olive-skinned hand, flexing it carefully. 

Hawk glanced over at Falcon, then ran his hand back through his thick, black hair. 

I generally follow Roger Zelazny's rule that you should provide no more than three outright physical descriptions of a character when you introduce him or her (more than that and they get fuzzy in the reader's mind, rather than clearer), and then fill in any remaining visual blanks during the course of the narrative or dialogue later, as needed, as you go.

Time After Time -- Writing in "Period"

This week's Writer Roundtable is another from the open call for ideas and topics. With many of the writers I know and love being period writers, this one really grabbed my attention when a reader suggested it. So keep those suggestions coming and we'll keep sending them to the roundtable for the peanut gallery to respond to.

Do you tend to write in a particular time period? If so, why are you drawn to it? If not, what keeps you popping around from time to time?

Robert Krog: I don't gravitate to a particular historical time period but I do tend toward, when I'm not writing for a particular story call, to a setting with a generally ancient world feel to it. However, my work bounces around from settings that are ancient, to medieval, to modern, to futuristic, to indeterminate.

I started reading fantasy at an early age so ancient and medieval settings pop to mind very easily. I studied ancient history for years, so that setting edges out the fantasy one by a slim margin. But, I'm a fan of many genres and settings, so no one time period or setting predominates. Between that and writing to particular story calls I have pretty well eliminated the tendency to fall into a rut and write stories in just one such setting.  

Stephanie Osborn: The two periods in which I find myself writing most often are "near future" and Victorian era. I figured, when I started writing SF, that I'd do a lot of far future stuff, but I actually don't. See, I write hard SF, because scientist here. That means that the science in the story should at least be plausible, even if the extrapolation eventually proves incorrect. The farther ahead you go, the harder it is to do anything like a reasonable extrapolation of current cutting edge science, and have it turn out semi-realistic. I've played some games with advanced cultures contacting ours, and one novel I wrote with Travis S. Taylor jumps around in time a bit, but in general, if it isn't Victorian, it's pretty close to the modern day.

Since I'm fond of a) steampunk and b) Sherlock Holmes, I do a fair bit of writing in the late Victorian era too. (1880ish to around 1900) I think it's just a cool timeframe. Very elegant, a wide blend of prim-and-proper and ain't-got-no-clue-guv'nor from which to draw characters, and SO VERY much science and engineering going on! A significant chunk of our "modern" physics was being developed during this period, much of which was then confirmed in WWII's Manhattan Project and the space program of the 1960s. Just a fun time to dink around in.

Mark Bousquet: I'm drawn to the mid-to-late 19th century. I don't write there exclusively, but it's where Gunfighter Gothic is set and so I tend to come back to those characters and that universe. I like that time period and I like those characters, so there's always two reasons to jump back to the 1860s and muck around.

Bobby Nash: I'm all over the map with the time periods I've written. My preference is to do stories set in modern times so I can explore the world outside my window. Of course, as I also am a work-for-hire and tie-in author as well, I often find myself working on characters that are set in a specific time period by the publisher. This is especially true when it comes to writing pre-existing pulp characters. Many of these pulp characters and books have become period pieces, with the publishers preferring to keep them in the time frame that their original stories took place. That is, of course their right so when I write Domino Lady, The Spider, Green Hornet, Ghost Gal, or whichever pulp character is set in a specific time, that's the time period I place that story. Sometimes I think it would be fun to see what adventures Domino Lady found herself in during the WWII years. I suspect she would have made herself useful to the war effort.

After spending time in the past, it is nice to step back into present day and have characters use modern technology.

Walter Bosley: I prefer the post-Civil War 19th Century and early 20th Century up to World War 2. Society had not jettisoned elegance and technology was not so advanced as to make people lazy. There was still some mystery in and about the world. When I write in the present, it's either in a time travel story demonstrating the contrast of how today sucks, yesterday remains still more desirable, or tomorrow can't get here soon enough; or it's just for convenience but the story will still be a throwback in style.

Nancy Hansen: I do a lot of quasi-medieval stuff in my fantasy line, anything that is before gunpowder. But I'm really all over the place these days, with a buccaneer era (mid-late 1600s) novel series, a modern day PI series, and a children's book series that is contemporary and has magical otherworlds (including economies based on chocolate and genie GPS units) as well. I've done period pieces in short fiction. So I don't limit myself that strictly. The project has to interest me, and then I'll worry about how to set it in the proper time period.

Erwin K. Roberts: I've written the most in the so-called "Pulp Era" in the 1930's and '40's. But that's largely because I've used a lot of public domain characters from that timeframe. Dr. Watson and the Masked Rider in the wild west came fairly easy for me given the huge number of radio, TV, and movie westerns and northerns I absorbed while growing up.

I.A. Watson: I write a lot of Victorian-era stuff, but that's mainly because that's the era SHERLOCK HOLMES, CONSULTING DETECTIVE is set in. These days the Victorian period (which was pretty much the US Wild West period) has become a fictionalised world of its own, so it's challenging to keep it "real"; one has to remember that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wasn't writing historic fiction, he was telling contemporary mystery tales. That era was the crucible of modern culture and civilisation. It's where the shadows of the past meet the coming modern world. It's the first time period where society and people's reactions are recognisably like our own, making it a great mirror through which to see ourselves and a lens by which to focus on what has changed.

I've also done four books of ROBIN HOOD stories, which are set in a fictional version of 12th century England, the middle of the mediaeval period of knights and castles. That time in England was a fierce mix of shifting and solidifying power bases, a hundred and twenty-five years after the brutal conquest and ethnic cleansing of the Saxons by the Norman invaders. The stratification of society, where 80% of the population are serfs, effectively slaves tied to a geographical location, the independent and authoritative church institution, and the overwhelming might of feudal overlords makes it a situation ideal to apply a laughing resistance-leader bandit to make everything change.

My most recent historical was a two volume ST GEORGE AND THE DRAGON set in 4th century North Africa. The appeal there was that it was a time and especially a place I knew less about. It required me to learn something and make some creative choices. If there was an historical St George he was a Roman knight, of the later Roman legions that had moved on from the "traditional" footsoldiers with auxiliaries that we generally think of. He lived at a time when the empire was crumbling. Rome was marginalised. Byzantium or some other eastern city was the capital. The Empire formally recognised a state religion but was overrun by Christians, Mithraists, eastern mystery cultists and others. The formerly rich and fertile Libya was suffering from climate change and rebellion, gradually devolving from its former glories like the dustbowl towns of depression-era America. It seemed to me to be an interesting place to tell a dragon story.

I've done other historical works as well, in part because that's the period I was asked to use because that's when the characters were active -- Gideon Cain, Demon Hunter (18th century Europe), airman detective Richard Knight and the Zeppelin crew of Airship 27 (pre WW2), Semi-Dual (pre-great crash 1920s), Hawkeye the Mohican (Anglo-French conflict in colonial America), Sinbad (Caliphate-era Middle East), Armless O'Neill (1930s Congo), and some other stories due for my WOMEN OF MYTH anthology in August 2015. In many cases the setting is essential to the plot. In others the setting is essential to the mood. Some character4s can only exist in certain times and places.

Lee Houston Jr.: I tend to go to whatever time period the story dictates. If I'm drawn to any specific time period, I would say the 1960s/1970s because that's basically my childhood. Despite such serious issues like the multiple assassinations, the Vietnam war, Watergate, etc; there was also a lot of positive aspects of those 20 years like the original Woodstock Music Festival, the Apollo 11 moon landing, the bicentennial, etc; that I would either love to experience to begin with or relive.

Allan Gilbreath: I am a complete hack -- I write what is on the story request.

When you begin to write a period story, how to you begin? Research? Just diving in? Watching documentaries (don't laugh, I've done this for inspiration)?

Stephanie Osborn: Actually, the documentaries -- and sometimes even well-done period fiction films -- are very good ways to get a feel for the dialects and lingo. I was having trouble getting the hang of phrasing and speech pattern for a rural Englishman, and my editor tagged me onto a British film -- can't recall the name, but Ian McKellan was in it -- where the characters were basically the Brit version of rednecks. Half an hour in, I was writing the dialect like a champ.

But in general, yes, I dive head-first into the research. I may not have all of the history accurate in a given story, but by golly if it isn't, it's because I did it DELIBERATELY. (Yes, I have a steampunk novel I'm shopping, where I played fast and loose with a few historical events just for fun. I figure, I'm playing with an alternate timeline as it is, I can "adjust" a few things here and there for more excitement.) And there's a ton of stuff I study that sometimes amounts to only one or two words in the manuscript, but they're the PROPER terminology for the situation. I spend probably as much time researching history, culture, and such, as I do the science. Sometimes more, depending on the science -- for a Victorian setting, I already know most of the science and engineering.

Robert Krog: I generally dive in, if I am already somewhat familiar with the era in question, and research as necessary along the way. While I don't write anything with the intention that it be strict historical fiction, I do research so that the setting seems close enough to an actual historical setting, if you follow me. I am an historian, and one would suppose that I'd love to play around in accurate historical settings, but the truth is that I'm afraid I'll do that and get important or even minor details wrong. For that reason, I never try write something that is in an actual historical setting, just one that resembles a particular era.

I do research as much as time allows on the era my story resembles. I've read up on the intricacies of clockwork, on the making of iron into steel, on the process of dyeing wool, etc.. I don't mind documentaries, but I always double check the assertions of such shows. The state of documentary film making is often sketchy. Documentary film makers and their publicists frequently make unfounded assertions a central point in their work in order to attract viewers.

Where one hasn't had time to do rigorous research on every aspect of life in a historical setting, even for merely pseudohistorical stories such as mine, there is the marvelous trick of deliberately vague language. If you really don't know what the clothes looked like and don't have time before the deadline to research them, and they aren't vital to the plot anyway, avoid describing them as much as possible. If the clothes are essential, you'd better make the time.

Mark Bousquet: It's usually character based. I come up with a character and a scenario and then I research to make the world of my story a more lived-in place. There are times, however, when I'll be watching a movie or a documentary and think, "That would be perfect for Character X" or "I need a character to walk in that world." George Michael once said he knew he wanted to be a songwriter when he was listening to a song and realized he would have done one particular part of that song differently. I think there's a lot of truth in that, for me. I can't read/watch a Harry Potter story and not think how I would've told this whole universe from Hermione's perspective. So if I'm watching a documentary, part of me is definitely mining it for future story possibilities.

Bobby Nash: I usually have a story idea in my head when I start so I just dive into the writing, stopping to research as I need to as I go along. It's usually the minor details that I have to look up. A few that I've run across. When were binoculars invented? When did they become available to the public? Price of a payphone in 1936? When were seaplanes invented? What was the price of gas in 1940? How would a prostitute dress in 1935?

There are certain plots that technology has rendered ineffective. In the 60's or 70's, you could have a plot where you P.I.. character uncovers an assassination plot all the way across town. He cannot get hold of his police contact on the pay phone so he rushes to get there in time to stop the shooter. That's your plot. These days, cell phones, texting, heck, even social media have made that basic plot a lot more difficult to pull off without adding another layer to it that will keep you P.I. from making contact. And yes, using "no signal" is a cop out. You have to come up with something better than that. That's one of the challenges of writing to time periods, but it's a challenge that makes the writing better, I believe.

Erwin K. Roberts: Sometimes I just dive in, if I have have an idea hit me. But, at some point, I will do research to back up what I have written. I definitely do not want to do something insane, like putting the Grand Canyon in Idaho.

Huge numbers of experts and teachers tell the writer to "Write what you know." That works, sometimes. When I agreed to do a Masked Rider story for Airship-27 I immediately remembered my son and I stoppin g for a brief visit to Devil's Tower. Ka-Blam, I decided the Robin Hood Outlaw would end up having to climb the thing a decade or two before anybody really did.

Like Sean, I have pulled fiction ideas out of documentaries. I've also been known to search a date on-line so I can use real happenings as a backdrop to the stories I tell.

Walter Bosley: The beginning of each of my stories is usually driven by the character's motivational issue or angst -- or my own.

I'll usually set a story in a period I am familiar with and the research comes in on details for authenticity, i.e. clothes, accessories, guns, ladies underthings (I know I said clothes, but it's fun to say 'ladies underthings'), food, etc etc.

A favorite research tool of mine is finding various series of historical encyclopedias popular in the 70s and 80s, like Time-Life books because they're always full of old photos from the particular era that you don't always find online. And there's something authentic about looking it up in a book in a library. After that, I'll go online and watch films from the silent era so I can see people actually in that time and moving and breathing and still alive.

I find my personal desire to be there impacts my period writing.

Nancy Hansen:  Really depends on the project, but regardless, I do a  lot of research. If there is background material on a storyline, I'll go there first, and then branch out to what the area it takes place in would have looked like, whatever vehicles, weapons, and any other props that might delineate the era. I want to get the setting right, and kind of visualize it so that I can 'see' what people are doing and how they'd move around on my canvas. So I'll dive in with a visitors guide firmly in hand.

Right now I am up to my eyeballs in the second historical fiction pirate novel in a series I'm doing for Airship 27. Previous to starting the first one, my only knowledge of pirates was from Hollywood action flicks (including those ever-popular Disney movies). I spent more hours researching material for the first one than I did writing it, because I know virtually nothing about sailing or the Caribbean of that era, which is where the stories take place. While I was wading around in there, I learned a ton about possible cargoes and treasures, how world politics of the era affected colonial government, local weather patterns, medical knowledge, even how often colonial areas changed hands between countries. There's so much more to know, because I am only just getting to the point where I can recognize ships by their rig and sails, and can barely recall what to call the darn things. I still spend a lot of time looking stuff up, poring over my growing library of pirate and sailing ship info, and just trying to wrap my brain around how things worked. At night, before drifting off to sleep, I read, and my Kindle is filled with piratey adventures. I'm now quite fond of Rafael Sabatini, who sure could tell a rousing good tale. I can also tell when an author is fudging it, because I know just enough to understand what should be going on.

Anybody have any good historical pirate documentaries to recommend?

I.A. Watson: It depends upon the period. Victoriana is reasonably easy. I'm British. My grandmother who helped raise me was a Victorian. There's a wealth of literary and scholarly sources easily available, many of them in my library downstairs. I have maps of 19th century London and the world within reach of my writing chair.

The middle ages require more research, although mostly I prefer to go to primary sources rather than textbooks that interpret them. For example I'd prefer to read the actual treatise on law attributed to Henry II’s Justiciar Ranulf de Glanvill on raptio - illegal rape (as opposed to the legal kind by husband upon wife) which sets the compensation prices and outlines the enforcements to make the rapist marry his victim than wade through modern commentaries on it. That way I form my own impressions.

When I'm out of my "periods" entirely, as with the late Roman African story I mentioned earlier, I start with what primary sources I can get. Several Roman authors wrote travelogues and descriptions of the place. The Greeks who has founded Cyrene, capital of Libya, eight hundred years earlier had also described the place. The ruins of Cyrene, at modern Slontah, are a World Heritage Site - a very endangered one, partly lost just two years ago by local bulldozing for new housing and by war damage and looting - but there's good archaeological evidence and maps dating back from Victorian-era investigations. Working from the oldest sources up to the modern commentaries helps me form my own "artistic" choices as I go. I'm not looking to write a textbook. I'm selecting those elements of history I want to weave into my story. It has to be "true" like a painting is true, not like a photograph is.

Finally, to help me assimilate what I've learned I write myself little essays. I sometimes inflict these on other people, such as an authors message list. Some got collected in my non-fiction book WHERE STORIES DWELL. Others get hurled at the reader in the form of copious footnotes to satisfy those who want to know more than should be properly told inside a fictional narrative. I can't resist a footnote.

Lee Houston Jr.: Research is very important, and a topic of debate unto itself. Depending upon the when of the story, I usually go to a book or online references. Yet I've also found that the music, movies, and television of a specific period (at least from the late 1950s onward) can convey much needed information too; like the fashions and atmosphere of the day in question.

Allan Gilbreath: Research, research, and research -- no limit to research. Other works in the time frame, online, books, and even documentaries.

Workspace -- A Visual Roundtable Experience

Thanks to the ever thoughtful Andrea Judy, this week we're doing something different for the roundtable. No questions. None. Instead, we're going to do a visual roundtable and look at the workspaces of some of mine and your favorite authors.

Let the games begin.

Armand Rosamilia

 Ellie Raine

 J.H. Glaze

 

 Nikki Nelson-Hicks

 

 Pamela Turner

 

 Percival Constantine

 

 Erwin K. Roberts

 

 Robert Krog

 

 Terri Smiles

  

 Lance Stahlberg

Gordon Dymowski

Bobby Nash

The bonus pic showing Bobby hard at "work"

And of course, mine... the local Starbucks.

 

So... Sherlock Holmes?

With the news that the big Detective with a capital "D", the granddaddy of all detectives in fiction has finally and it's-about-time become public domain, I figured it was time to honor the fabled clue-finder with his very own roundtable. 

So, it with great gusto that I present the Sherlock Holmes roundtable. 

What makes Sherlock stick around in the imagination of readers while so many of his contemporaries have been all but forgotten?

Stephanie Osborn: I think that Holmes was the first time a writer had ever put together ALL of the different components that comprise a classic detective character. He has intelligence, skill, knowledge, courage, a cool head...yet he also has a great heart, which he tries hard to hide. He also has the flaws without which this übermensch would be insufferable, the very flaws which make him human.

Another character, created much later, and eventually added to Holmes’ family tree, has similar properties, and I like to say, “Sherlock Holmes had the Spock Syndrome before Mr. Spock did.” Simply put, he is the first and ultimate detective character.

John Morgan Neal: He's that damn good. He was a template the likes of which characters such as Batman and Mr. Spock were begat among many others. There is something about it that appeals.

Nikki Nelson-Hicks: In no particular order:

• He is a total badass. He is willing to put himself in harm’s, go undercover and deal with the slime of the underbelly of society and face all sorts of obstacles using his wits and, if needs require it, his fists to solve a mystery and help a client. He is the Big Brother we always wanted to run home to when the neighborhood bully pushed us down and stole our bikes. He is the rogue that works outside the Law and sees that justice is done. He’s not beyond a little B&E to solve a case. He also acts as a shortcut judge and jury, pardoning the criminal if he believes that the perp did the crime for all the right reasons (Devil’s Claw and the murder of Charles Augustus Magnusson come to mind.)  
• He is simply very good at what he does. He has a superpower, of sorts, but it’s not supernatural or unattainable. When he explains how he figured it all out, it seems so very simple and….well, elementary. He gives the reader hope that they could also sharpen their senses to achieve such powers. This makes him an attractive, attainable superhero.
• But he is also The Great Other. There is something very otherworldly, something special about him that makes him cut off from humanity. This is where Watson comes in as his link between Him and us. 
• There is also a strange purity about the character. He is a walking encyclopedia of crime but doesn’t know that the earth goes around the sun. He sees commonplace knowledge as clutter and can’t understand why we would bother learning them. We wonder how someone so smart can be so ignorant! Coupled with his complete disinterest in sex, this just adds to his appeal as someone who is just a touch above and beyond the ordinary mortal.
• All heroes need flaws and, no, I’m not talking about cocaine; Doyle went on record to say that Holmes was not an addict and only took cocaine to help him deal with the doldrums of depression. Sherlock Holmes’ flaw is one that allows him to be identifiable to people of the 20th and 21st century: existential angst. A very modern problem that people of the 19th century were only beginning to grasp with the arrival of the Industrial age. His mind raged against inactivity and the boring stillness that the bureaucracy and social mores of his time demanded. He is always looking for something to engage his mind, to challenge him….even threaten his life. A bit of an adrenaline junkie. This is a thread that connects him to the readers of the numbing technocratic 21st century.
• Which leads to another facet that connects Holmes to our own age: his secularism. He shunned superstition and favored science as a Higher Power. To Holmes, anything worth knowing could be verified and quantified and everything else was clutter. By devoting himself to logic and the scientific method, he was able to rise above the hoi polloi and see things as they were not as they merely seemed. His ability to cut through bullshit with a smirk and quick wit is just icing on the cake. 
• Did I mention he’s a badass?

I.A. Watson: The format of Holmes stories is perfect for detective fiction. We have a brilliant and insightful lead but we only see his thought processes through his companion. This allows us to discover the mystery slowly as the detective reveals it and additionally allows for a narrator commentary and interpretation on the detective himself.

Holmes himself is an eccentric character, not always likeable but always compelling to follow. He has become an archetype by being so distinctive. Watson, acting as everyman and as a reader surrogate, both humanises what would be an otherwise intolerable principal character and drives the plot points along with his questions.

Finally, for modern readers, the Holmes stories are set in the dead centre of an era and place that has become one of the most established venues for fiction, at the heart of Victorian England. Even better than modern tales set in that time, they are steeped with authentic trappings and sensibilities from the period. They have the same allure as would a great Western story written by a genuine pioneer.


Joe Gatch: I believe that it is his reclusive nature and his superior intelligence that makes readers wish to be so memorable.

R.J. Sullivan: I think his success is attributed at least in part to the fact that when the first stories were written, deductive reasoning was not a normal part of police procedure and the stories actually helped make that happen,

Erwin K. Roberts: I first took an interest in Sherlock Holmes before I could read. I listened to some radio adaptations when I was five. "The Speckled Band" really grabbed me, for openers. Unfortunately, the second I heard was "The Final Problem." I remember my mother, or maybe my older sister, assuring me that Holmes somehow climbed out of the Falls.

Over sixty years later I can still recall a few passages from those episodes. Part of why Holmes sticks around is that he is a complete package of well constructed mysteries, with interesting characters. And, as Ian Watson said, Holmes' era has been engraved into the minds of a very large chunk of the planet's population.

His contemporaries, even those with merit, never rose to the level of attention he did. In the same way my contemporaries, who were not comic book fans, may remember Superman and Batman, and to a lesser extent Spider-Man or the Fantastic Four. But, few, if any, knew of the existence of of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., (Green) Arrow, or Constantine, and especially Blade, before recent films and TV shows. Holmes survived because he was original, well written, and able to be adapted into other media.

On the other hand, how many people remember Race Williams, the first hard-boiled detective? Not many. That's because guys like Chandler and Hammett came along and did it so much better. Holmes started at the top and has generally remained there.

As a writer, what lessons can you credit to Holmes that you've learned about writing technique and character creation?

Joe Gatch: Doyle shows that backstory isn't always important to enjoying the character...everyone is so hung up on origin stories these days that they forget that lack of origin is part of the mystery surrounding the character.

I.A. Watson: Doyle was a master at using reported narrative. At times we have Doyle telling us what Watson wrote about what Holmes said about an account given by a client at Baker Street, tier upon tier of reportage allowing for all kind of subtle writing tricks and a good deal of reader-fooling obfuscation. There is a lot to pick up on there.

Doyle also demonstrates that sometimes less is more. He does not define every detail of Holmes’ career and background. Indeed, he delights in teasing the gaps, the cases not reported, the detail of character quirks never explained. He imbues his cast with only those characteristics necessary to tell the tale but manages to engage readers with those few sketched lines. It is impressive in a genre where hiding clues in plain sight is a necessary authorial skill that Doyle can manage this with so little extraneous verbage.

Erwin K. Roberts: Watson's narration is one of the reasons I do a lot of my writing in the first person. My occasional forays into private detective stories, plus my New Pulp hero the Voice are first person. Though the narrator may, or may not, be the main character.

John Morgan Neal: Engaging your readers. Bringing them into the method of your heroes and allowing them to sort of be part of the team. Keeping them interested in the mystery.

Nikki Nelson-Hicks: The first thing that comes to mind is, of course, the relationship between Watson and Holmes. They complete each other. The Apollonian and the Dionysian. Mind and Heart. Holmes gives Watson the adventure that the old soldier craves and Watson gives Holmes a solid anchor to the baser points of humanity.

But what I always found really interesting is how the stories (except His Last Bow and Lion’s Mane) are told in the POV of Watson. Frankly, Holmes is really in the background, literally in the case of The Hound of the Baskervilles. That is fascinating to me. To have such a prominent protagonist, basically the star of the show, NOT tell the story. It just makes Holmes more intriguing and gives Watson, the foil, more depth.

R.J. Sullivan: Arthur Conan Doyle compared to his contemporaries, is more approachable than many "classic" authors because of his use of plain, to the point, but descriptive language. His prose has survived better than, for instance, Poe or HP Lovecraft, whose use of language tended to get a bit thick at times.

Stephanie Osborn: How utilising the appropriate vernacular can transport the reader into a different place and time; how important proper research and planning is to the construction of a good mystery; how description can set a mood. Digging into the background of a character, and determining how his personal foibles operate, can also make for a more realistic character. For example, many of Holmes’ quirks are likely caused by the side effects of his cocaine usage; Doyle, as an ophthalmologist, was undoubtedly familiar with the drug and its side effects, as one of its first specific uses in medicine was as an anaesthesia for eye surgeries.

Does Holmes still work for contemporary audiences as is, or does he have to be brought lower some way to be less of a "super hero" so modern readers and views can relate to him or perhaps tolerate him?

I.A. Watson: Holmes’ sharpness and lack of tolerance for fools have always endeared him to his audience. He is a grump – but our grump, using his antisocial tendencies for the public good against far nastier adversaries. The harder his clash and the more difficult his work against such foes the better we love the story.

Holmes’ omnipotence is skilfully offset by Watson. As narrator he helps obscure Holmes’ thought processes so we are not bored by the great detective’s instant analyses. As Holmes’ friend, Watson is able to criticise and comment, bringing the genius down to size when required, but also washing our view of Holmes with a warm affection.

One modern feature of Holmes fiction that perhaps even developed before Doyle finished writing his Canon tales is an expectation that Holmes will have an almost-supernatural ability to discern the truth. A modern Holmes author’s challenge is often to keep Holmes’ deductions grounded in the possible rather than indulging in the audience’s expectation of his immediate infallibility.

Erwin K. Roberts: Holmes can work for modern auriences. But not always. I have been more or less indifferent to the current big budget films. Recently I saw a complete DVD set of the Granada / Jeremy Brett TV productions for sale. Now that is the Holmes I want.

I do find it interesting that both contemporary versions of Holmes and Watson, Elementary and Sherlock, have found favor with the general public. I enjoy them both, but for somewhat different reasons. Both respect the original while bringing the concept into the modern world. Both, unlike some past versions, have a strong and intelligent Watson. (Having written Watson without Holmes, that is very important to me.)

John Morgan Neal: Oh heck yeah. Two successful TV shows and two successful movies and all with a bit of a diff take on the character. Sherlock was a 'super hero' in that he had a super human ability to think. But he was always a character with foibles. He was always relatable to a degree. And besides we have Watson for that. I think people are hungry for heroic and amazing characters.

R.J. Sullivan: Contemporary interpretations have given Holmes a sort of high functioning autistic/ sociopathic personality I honestly don't believe the text supports. He had mild quirks, but he was always aware of social noims and aware when he was breaking them. I find the modern interpretation a bit insulting, as if a normal person couldn't possibly simply train themselves to be the most observant man in the room, they have to come up with some sort of way to "relate to" him, (I hate that term, too, as if 21st century readers lack the imagination to put themselves in the place of anyone not in the 21st century).

Stephanie Osborn: Does Holmes still work for contemporary audiences as is, or does he have to be brought lower some way to be less of a "super hero" so modern readers and views can relate to him or perhaps tolerate him?

Judging by the fact that there are currently 3 media franchises (BBC Sherlock, CBS Elementary, Guy Ritchie/RDJ Sherlock Holmes movies), and untold pastiche novels set anywhere from the original Victorian era to the future, as well as uncounted numbers of versions of the collected Doyle stories, I’d say Holmes needs no help.

Nikki Nelson-Hicks: Sherlock Holmes is a rogue super brain that uses science and technology to bring down the bad guys? How does that NOT work for today’s audience?

Granted, they dirtied him up for the Robert Downey Jr. movies (the character of Holmes is described as fastidious when it comes to his grooming, like a cat. He might let his flat go to shit but he is always perfectly groomed.), sexed him up for Jonny Lee Miller’s, Elementary (seriously, two whores at once? And all those tattoos?), and gave him a place of the autism spectrum with Cumberbatch’s portrayal in BBC’s Sherlock, still it is not a lowering as more as a molding to fit a modern perspective.

As for tolerating a character who, frankly, has to bring himself down to our level to give us the time of day, yes. He’s a bit acerbic in the stories and they do tweak this up a bit for today’s storytelling but that’s to be expected. Modern audiences LOVE an asshole. We expect it, hell, we even TRUST the asshole more than we do the Sir Galahad, paragon of virtue. We’re always waiting for the cracks in the veneer.

Joe Gatch: Readers should be challenged, not talked down to. Downey's portrayal of Holmes was, however, refreshing and more realistic when you think about it.

What's your favorite Holmes story and why?

Joe Gatch: Always The Hound of the Baskervilles...it was the first story I read, the first SH movie I watched and it will always be the case I most relate Holmes with

Nikki Nelson-Hicks: In no particular order (and definitely not the ultimate list):

A Study in Scarlet:  Because it’s the beginning and you need to see where Holmes and Watson started to appreciate where they end up.

The Adventure of the Red Headed League, The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle, The Adventure of the Dying Detective: Because of the humor and well-paced story telling.

A Scandal in Bohemia and The Adventure of the Yellow Face: Because in the first one he is bested for all the right reasons and in the second he is simply WRONG, WRONG, WRONG and in the end learns a bit of humility

But a few of the best written stories, IMHO, are: The Man with the Twisted Lips, The Adventure of the Speckled Band, The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual, The Adventure of the Crooked Man, The Adventure of the Naval Treaty, The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter, The Adventure of Black Peter, The Adventure  of the Six Napoleons, The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton, and the Adventure of the Devil’s Foot.

John Morgan Neal: The Hound of Baskervilles. Holmes only 'horror' story. I like the plot. The setting. Watson getting some stuff to do alone. It works for me in a big way. And I like several of the movies based on it. Including the Peter Cooke and Dudley Moore one.

I.A. Watson: Among the canon stories I am fond of:

 “A Scandal in Bohemia” from the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes for its early definition of Holmes’ character and for the inestimable “Woman” Irene Adler; the story is not flawless but is all the more satisfying for that.

The Hound of the Baskervilles, for its brooding atmosphere and the extended role of a heroic and competent Dr Watson.

 “The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter” from The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, for being one of the most Sherlock Holmes-y of all Holmes stories, not least because it also features his brother Mycroft and includes much of the standard “furniture” of Holmes stories.

Of my own Holmes stories in Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective volumes 1-6, I am most fond of volume 5’s “The Abominable Merridew”, perhaps because I had license to use so many elements of the Canon material. It is the Holmes story I have most enjoyed writing. By the way, I just finished my story for volume 8 today.

Of non-Canon-compliant Holmes, I recommend Neil Gaiman’s “A Study in Emerald.”

R.J. Sullivan: Hound of the Baskervilles, because it's a longer work and Watson is very involved in it.

Stephanie Osborn: I would be hard-pressed to pick which one of Doyle’s stories is my favorite. I think it would depend on what mood I’m in at the time. But in general, if one put together the two short stories, ‘The Final Problem’ and ‘The Empty House,’ the combined story of Holmes’ presumed death and return probably form my favorite of Doyle’s stories.

Hot Lead and Dead Steel? What about Westerns?

We're talking Westerns today, folks. So mosey on up to the table and let's find out why they're out of vogue and what keeps creators working on them anyway. 

What is it about the Western genre that drew you to it as a creative person?

Erwin K. Roberts: When you are, like me, an early U.S. baby boomer, you grew up immersed in westerns. They came at you on the radio, followed by TV as soon as your family bought that first set. "B" westerns were on the way out in Hollywood, but "A" westerns would sill be common for quite some time. Western comics came from just about every surviving comics publisher. Most of the last surviving pulps were westerns. (Ranch Romances ended in 1971.) Mixed in were Easterns featuring folks like DC Comics' Tomahawk. Plus, for over fifty years, Northerns like Challenge of the Yukon (SGT Preston) and Zane Grey's King of the Royal Mounted were very popular.

Nowadays, westerns are more popular in places like Australia, than the United States. And, to an extent, I miss them. That's just one of the reasons I jumped on to Airship 27's Masked Rider wagon train. I had a (pun intended) blast writing "Thunder at Devil's Tower." The research about that area fascinated me. I got to play with any number of western stereotypes. I turned one or two on their ears.

These days the western often gets mashed up with other genre. Cowboys & Aliens did not even come close to inventing that concept. About 1953 Shadow author Walter B. Gibson created and wrote six issues of Space Western for Charlton Comics a year or two before Dell launched Turok, Son of Stone. The hybrid possibilities are endless.

Ray Dean: Everything... wide open spaces... raw conflict, survival, high emotion, and the paradox that so many went to the 'West' for a new start.. and then they get there and the same old prejudices are in place or if your 'past' comes back to haunt you... you're done. There so much to love/hate/revel in about the "Old West.'

Bill Craig: It was a simpler time, heroes and villains were very black and white in the distinctions.

Derrick Ferguson: My love and appreciation of the Western came from my parents, especially my father. He would watch any and all Westerns that came on TV no matter who was in. And back then we only had one TV so if I didn't watch what my parents did, I just didn't watch TV. He didn't have a favorite Western star. He just loved all Westerns. He and I would watch Have Gun Will Travel, The Wild Wild West and Wanted: Dead Or Alive together and my very first grown up movie was The Wild Bunch, which I saw at the tender age of 10 and changed the course of my life forever.

What draws me to the Western as a creative person? My gut says it's because you can make a Western as simple or as complicated as you want and nobody will give you any shit about it. The Western is American mythology which is why it'll never go away. Myths just don't go away. They get changed, sure. In the 60's/70's/80's many of the tropes of the Western were adopted by police/crime thrillers and science fiction movies. But we always come back to the Western because there's a purity there, a stripping away of the bullshit that infects our society today and brings us back to basic, core beliefs, traditions and codes of behavior that we've lost but still long for.

Lee Houston Jr.: Westerns represent a more simpler time in both literature and history. Where you could tell the heroes from the villains, and not just by what colored hats they wore. It was a period where hard work and honesty were their own rewards for most folks.

Aaron Smith: I’ve never really considered myself a fan of the Western genre. Yes, I watched Bonanza and Gunsmoke reruns as a kid, but I never sought out Westerns on purpose. If I made a list of my 20 or so favorite movies, the only western on it would be The Searchers. The only reason I’ve written a western story and had it published was because I was once asked to write one for an anthology. I like some Westerns, but have never consciously wanted to write them. I like good stories and if I happen to have an idea for a story that works best as a Western, I’ll write it, but that particular genre is not something I’m specifically drawn to.

What are the key elements of an effective Western story?

Erwin K. Roberts: They are pretty much the same as any good adventure story. Look at it this way: The Seven Samurai became a very successful western as The Magnificent Seven. Then, in the aftermath of Star Wars, the plot got recycled yet again in outer space with George Peppard, John Boy, and Robert Vaughn reprising his The Magnificent 7 role. (Battle Beyond the Stars).

Derrick Ferguson: Being set in the West helps. I think the untamed frontier is just as much a character in a Western as any of the humans. Sergio Leone understood this and used it to great advantage as his American West is as much of a fantastic realm as Robert E. Howard's Hyborian Age. Cowboys. Indians. Schoolma'arms. Gunslingers. Gamblers. Hookers with a heart of gold. Greedy land-grabbing cattle barons. Rustlers. Showdowns at high noon in the middle of Main Street. Sheriffs. Owlhoots. Barroom brawls. Cattle stampedes. And I think that there’s a certain heroic element that has to be in play. The good ol’ fashioned “A Man’s Gotta Do What A Man’s Gotta Do”

The last I really think is important because the Western is a genre where we can still read about heroes being heroes simply because you have rugged men and nurturing women doing The Right Thing simply because it is the The Right Thing and bringing. Law and Order to a ferociously savage and chaotic land.

Aaron Smith: The key elements of an effective western are the time period, setting, and archetypes specific to the genre, which are obvious, but a good story that’s a western needs the same key elements as any good story whether it’s science fiction, or a Victorian period piece or a Game of Thrones type fantasy epic: good characters, believable motivations, suspense, drama, etc.

Ray Dean: CONFLICT, CONFLICT, CONFLICT. One person rubbin' up against another and causin' friction... ranchers against farmers, cattlemen against sheep farmers, soiled doves against proper womenfolk. There's a wealth of conflict in a world where people are trying to make a living and get what they want. Sounds like any other genre? I don't know really.. Maybe it's just how I see it in my head... the dust, the boarded walkways and false fronts... lone men on horseback riding into a town full of people that might want him dead... It all works for me.

Bill Craig: Keys elements are cowboys, horses and guns, and a pretty gal in distress.

Lee Houston Jr.: There are no 'shades of grey' in a western and justice was always triumphant in the end.

Is there really any hope at making the Western story popular again, or has the world moved on?

Derrick Ferguson: I think that in print The Western is still as popular as it ever was. There’s a British publisher of Westerns, BLACK HORSE WESTERNS that started in the 1960’s and is still going strong to this day Here’s a link if anybody reading this is interested in submitting to them or just reading their books: http://website.lineone.net/~adam_and_lynne/index.html.

As for movies and TV: I think we’ve just got to accept that The Western has had it’s heyday on TV and that’s that. We may get the occasional mini-series like Lonesome Dove or Broken Trail but that’s it. As for theatrical films, it’s all about superheroes now so I’m not holding my breath there.

Aaron Smith: I don’t think the Western will ever be as popular as it was from the 30s to the 60s when TV, film, books, and comics were full of westerns, but I think the western will always have a place, however small, in fiction because the old west is just as valid a setting for a good story as space or the jungle or Holmes’ London or modern San Francisco or whatever.

Erwin K. Roberts: The western has become sort of a cottage industry. Tom Selleck, Sam Elliott and more recently Kevin Sorbo make westerns from time to time. Westerns seem to be a bit more regularly published in the UK and Down Under than in the U.S. of A. Perhaps something, somewhere, will catch fire again, like the 1960's Spaghetti Westerns. But if all the general public sees for westerns are things like the Lone Ranger film, there is not much hope.

Lee Houston Jr.: The basic tenets of a good western, as listed in my two previous answers, are evident in a lot of stories today. As for a revival, there is still an active, but small, western genre with authors like William Johnstone and Robert Knott, who is carrying on Robert B. Parker's Cole and Hitch westerns. However, the typical western deals with a specific time period, so the best bet for a revival will probably be with licensed material from the days of The Lone Ranger, Gunsmoke; Have Gun, Will Travel; The Wild, Wild, West; Bonanza; etc. Hopefully the next attempt will be handled better and be more successful than past efforts.

Ray Dean: I don't think it has... Open Range, Crossfire Trail, the Love Comes Softly Series, Purgatory, Appaloosa... a number of well-received Western miniseries and movies have been made... Tombstone was another great one... I think the long sweeping visuals of open land, cacti, tumbleweeds.. those images are part of our american heritage... and I think some part of our culture will be attached to the 'Western.'

Look at Firefly, with its space cowboys... the show Defiance with some Western elements... shows like Supernatural have western settings, backstories, and episodes. Perhaps it just comes down to what 'new stories' can be set and written and produced in that genre to help keep it alive for generations to come. Don't forget to introduce the 'next generations' to the genre! My son (17) loves watching the 'old' Western films with me (El Dorado, Rio Bravo...)

Bill Craig: Westerns are gaining in popularity again because people are so fed up with the inhumanity they see around them on a daily basis. I enjoy reading them, and I enjoy writing them.

Airship 27 announces THE MASKED RIDER in Wild West Tales Vol II

Airship 27 Productions is thrilled to put on its spurs and chaps to announce the release of its second Masked Rider anthology; THE MASKED RIDER – Wild West Tales Vol. II

After the bloody City War ended, the rugged landscape that was the frontier west was soon flooded by all manner of immigrants; from cowboys, pioneer settlers and an all manner of outlaws.  In their path the various Indian tribes desperate to save their lands.  Soon the mountains, plains and valleys echoed with the sounds of gunfire and bloodshed flowed like rivers in these lawless territories.

Then a masked man appeared on the scene, his twin Colts barking out justice.  He and his Yaqui partner, Blue Hawk, rode these endless trails protecting law and order wherever they went.  He was known as the Masked Rider and now he returns in three brand new gun-blazing adventures by writers Erwin K. Roberts, Bill Craig and Roman Leary.

“Our first volume was a mix of western heroes, both real and fictional,” elaborates Airship 27 Productions Managing Editor, Ron Fortier.  “This time our writers all wanted to write about this classic western pulp hero and we had no problems with that whatsoever.  He’s a great character to write.”  A popular figure in the days of the original pulps, the Masked Rider was one of the few that actually made it to the comics and appeared in his own title for many years.

This book features twelve interior illustrations by commercial artist, and teacher, Tom Rubalcava with a pulp inspired cover painting by Andy Fish, a self-confessed Masked Rider fan.

So now it’s time to saddle up, pulp readers, for classic western action as only the Masked Rider can deliver.

AIRSHIP 27 PRODUCTIONS – PULP FICTION FOR A NEW GENERATION!

Available from Amazon.com –
(http://www.amazon.com/Masked-Rider-Tales-Wild-Volume/dp/0692239820/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1402932949&sr=8-3&keywords=Masked+Rider%3A+Tales+of+the+Wild+West)

And on Kindle –
(http://www.amazon.com/Masked-Rider-Tales-Wild-West-ebook/dp/B00L0KTTEM/ref=sr_1_1_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1402944033&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Masked+Rider+Tales+of+the+Wild+West)

[Flashback] Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow—In What Time Period Does Pulp Fit Best?

Here's a blast from the past for today's roundtable... 

If you want to get fans, both readers and writers, of pulp talking, ask them about which decade is the one that truly defines pulp stories.

The slam-bang action stories of the 1930s?

The noir boilers of the 1950s?

The uzi-packing thrillers of the 1960s and 1970s?

The new pulp explosion that tries to recapture the 1930s (and in some cases update those characters to the present)?

After asking the question, just sit back, sip a cold one, and watch the sparks fly. Opponents of change will bring up The Phantom and Doc Savage, and the current attempts to put them in the present (or in some cases, even the future). Supporters will point to the BBC’s hit show Sherlock. For every successful attempt to move beyond the originated time period, there seem to be a fistful of failures to prove the exception to the rule.

In other words, very little is more sacred to pulp fans than the era in which their definition of pulp is cemented.

So once again, I went to the writers who are leading the pack in the contemporary pulp movement, both classic and new, to see what they had to say.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of writing pulps and noir in their original time periods?

Andrew Salmon: For today's writer it's glorious hindsight. Not only can we work towards authentically recreating a past time, but we know what comes after, historically speaking, which can give an adventure that extra little bit of coolness. Plus there's the opportunity to drop in Easter eggs for those historically inclined to find.

Bill Craig: Writing period pieces are fun, and it gives the reader a sense of history, as well as the adventure of the stories.

Ron Fortier: Did you know there is a gold-leaf plated grasshopper as a weather vane on atop the bell tower of Fanueil Hall in Boston?  I didn't either until I set it as the locale for the Rook story I'm writing for Barry Reese's new anthology.  Set on New Year's Eve 1929, doing this kind of background research is one of the real joys of writing period pulp adventures.

James Palmer: What Ron said. Truth is stranger than fiction, and it’s fun to take real and obscure facts from history and use them to populate your pulp tales. Plus, in a period pulp tale, it's still possible to have lost cities, islands inhabited by dinosaurs, and mad scientists intent on ruling the world. The hardest thing for me is researching what a place you've never been was like in 1938. While researching my first Lao Fang story for Pro Se I found a great old, black and white travel film about Hong Kong that had been converted to video and uploaded to YouTube. It gave me some great details I was able to use in my story that I never would have known about otherwise.

Erwin K. Roberts: I once searched for "July 1938." Out of that search came a skeleton found near Los Alamos, New Mexico, and the crossing paths (but probably not meeting) of Howard Hughes and Douglas "Wrong-Way" Corrigan at a New York City area flying field. I added in my personal experience riding the Santa Fe railroad between Kansas City and Albuquerque, and living in downtown San Francisco, plus an established villain. Presto! I had the beginning, middle and end of a Jim Anthony adventure of worldwide importance.

Bobby Nash: One advantage is that writing in character's original time periods is familiar. Fans of the originals will already have a feel for that time frame. Plus, it's amazing how much cool stuff you can learn by doing a little research. Using the original time period also gives you a familiar frame of reference from the original stories to your story.

The disadvantage is that if (for example) every Domino Lady story was set in 1936 then there is the possibility of the stories becoming predictable and covering the same ground, which can turn readers off. It's a catch 22 to be sure. Many readers do not like it when you do something new with a character they love, but they also complain when it feels like the same type of stories are being told over and over. Also, if you're on a tight deadline and don't have a lot of time to do research, then that's a potential disadvantage.

Lee Houston Jr.: Writing within a specific time period or era is a daunting challenge. There is always the risk of there being someone who would challenge you on the historic details. If you happen to be working in a period you are personally familiar with, like the 1990s, then no problem. But the further back you go, there is always the risk of getting some minute detail wrong that might affect the story and the reader's enjoyment of it no matter how much research you do.

But a lot of what we consider period pieces today like the Shadow and Doc Savage were actually contemporary stories at the time of creation because that was the easiest venue for the writers to work in.

Ian Watson: With existing properties from earlier eras, for example with new Shadow stories or Sherlock Holmes stories, the advantage of keeping the tales in period is that the setting works for you, and generally well suits the character too. Displace the character in time and the story generally becomes about what's different now, like how Margo Lane can call the Shadow up on her mobile when she gets into trouble. That's not to say that there can't be great stories told where the characters wither travel from their original time or are assumed to have always been contemporary, but mostly its another uphill challenge to sell a "genuine" version of the character; even the very successful BBC Sherlock has fun riffing on what's similar and what's different to the original.

That said, there are some characters with long publication histories that have been the same age all their careers. Simon Templar's only concession to time was to upgrade the car he drove from a Hirondel to something more modern. Clark Kent was no longer a battlefield reporter during World War II. James Bond has had to trade in his Walther PPK for something that's not an antique in 2011.

A disadvantage of using original time periods is that our knowledge of them is much more imperfect than the writers who lived in those times, so we have to work a lot harder to fact-check. And readers know a lot less too, so we have to explain references that the original audience would have got right away.

The other change is that we have a developed sensibility about some ethical things that weren't understood in, say, the 1930s period. We can't reflect attitudes to race, gender, and sexuality that were common and acceptable then. Comedic "Negro sidekicks" are a particular problem. Our heroes have a harder time slapping a dame if she gets hysterical, and our readers have a harder time swallowing it. A hero who smothers a heroine in kisses and tosses her on the bed while she cries "no, no..." was a real man in the 30s and would soon change her resistance to passion; nowadays we're more likely to call it rape. And so on. We just have to remember that what the original writer wrote as contemporary fiction we're writing as historical fiction, and make adjustments accordingly.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of contemporizing pulp characters and stories by bringing them into present day or placing them in future time periods?

Bill Craig: In my own case, Hardluck Hannigan was originally written as a much older person in the present, and then I enjoyed him so much I wanted to see what he was like as a young man, so I took him to period pulp-era stories.  Updating them to the present can be done as long as you remain true to the character's origins.

Lee Houston Jr.: If you ever wanted to take and do that, then it would probably be best to make your character a descendant/heir of the original. For example, I have an idea as to how a modern day Zorro might be possible. But even if the Johnston McCulley estate was interested, would the general public have the same enthusiasm?

Some characters are just too entrenched within certain eras to work/be accepted elsewhere. So the answer to this part of your question would be to review each character on a case by case basis. The Lone Ranger certainly would not work outside the early West. The Green Hornet would need to be handled properly to do so, but is a lot more feasible.

Yet there are plenty of pulp creations out there that prove it's possible to have a story occur somewhen other than between The Great Depression and World War 2.

Andrew Salmon: The practice of moving characters from one time to another is one I generally abhor. The only true exception, for me, is Sherlock, which is brilliant. The key for this reader is not to take an established character and bring him or her forward, but, rather, to bring the story forward. Writing contemporary pulp tales with action galore? I've got no problem with that. Create a new cast of characters based on the classic pulp archetypes? More power to you. Move Doc Savage into the 21st Century? I'm out of here!

Ian Watson: Some suit a modern age better than others. Tarzan might well battle logging companies or oil drillers or ivory poachers. On the other hand, it may be less acceptable for African tribesman to recognise that he should be their natural leader because of his “superior white traits.” Others are impossible to transplant; the Three Musketeers, the Scarlet Pimpernel, or Horatio Hornblower, for example, whose whole situation revolves around a particular situation in history.

If there is an advantage it's that one has to distil the core of the character and what his or her stories are about rather more thoroughly. A contemporary Philip Marlowe can't hide behind the gin-joint trappings and stock cast of the pre-war era, so he'd better damn well be the Marlowest Marlowe there ever was! He can still be tough, cynical, two-fisted, street-smart, down to earth, and tormented by lethal women—but without the "wallpaper" of his original period more effort needs to go into getting our hero exactly note-perfect.

The main disadvantage not yet mentioned is that the reason for using an established character is presumably either (a) because there are fans out there who know and like him and his world, or (b) because the author thinks the character and his concept as interesting and exciting. So taking the character out of that world the fans like and expect would alienate the most loyal readers right from the start—think of all the flak the Green Hornet movie took for not being canon. And if the point of doing the character is because the author likes the property, why then change it to something else?

Bobby Nash: The advantage is that there is a whole demographic out there that does not and will not read period pieces. Writing a contemporary story opens up this new group of potential readers who might, just might, go back and see what the original, or new stories in that time period, are like. You also have the potential to take the characters in a new direction that might not have been possible in the 1930's. The world has changed a bit over the years.

The disadvantage is that there is a whole demographic out there that does not and will not read any pulp character that is not set in its original time period. Sadly, these readers are less likely to be swayed and you run the risk of alienating readers who might not forgive you for writing a modern day Doc Savage (for example).

Ian Watson: What periods work best for pulps? I suggest that any era which is turbulent, atmospheric, and has a distinct mood does. We've talked before about how pulp tends to use stereotype to shorthand things so as to emphasize other elements of the story. Periods that are well known and have distinctive settings are another way of doing that. Most people can picture 1938 Berlin, or Victorian England, or the age of the Barbary Pirates, or even a Buck Rogers future. There's no reason you can't set a story in 1806 Bavaria during the reign of King Maximilian I Joseph, but you're going to have to work that much harder to get the scenery right.

Erwin K. Roberts: The potential for exciting stories didn’t end with the pulp era. I was stationed on the Precidio of San Francisco in 1973 and 1974. That was part of the time the Zodiac Killer was active. The anti-war movement had calmed down a bit by then, but it was still around. And I was there for the entire Symbonese Liberation Army/Patty Hurst saga. The SLA began its assault on America by murdering (I will not say "executing" or "assassinating.") the Superintendent of the Oakland city schools with cyanide filled bullets. Is all that not a pulp environment? As a matter of fact, in 1972 Don Pendleton sent Mack Bolan on a rampage through the city. How is that different from Jim Anthony having a major battle at Coit Tower?