What makes holiday fiction work? (Or does it not?)

Well, the season is upon us. So, I guess we should tackle a more seasonal theme for this new roundtable. We're going to talk about holiday-themed fiction, and why it works (or doesn't).

There's a long tradition of holiday-themed (particularly Christmas) stories and novels. Is that a theme you've covered in your work and to what degree? Whole novels? More of a setting?

Mari Hersh-Tudor: I was instrumental in developing the basis of a holiday urban fantasy anthology involving “maximum explicit spice” that we self-pubbed a few years back. The combination of subjects was… bracing.

Selah Janel: I’ve written a magic realism/faerie-based novella called Holly and Ivy, as well as a Christmas horror/zombie short called Candles. They’re very different stories centered around different aspects of the season.

Marian Allen: I wrote stories for Christmas anthologies. One was a fantasy set at the turning of the season (not Christmas, per se). One was a comic Sci-Fi set on another planet during the Anti-Hot Solemnities, but that was sort of Christmas, since it featured a librarian of a Living Library of people native to the planet who are so obsessed with Earth literature they memorize texts (like in F451), and a Compendium of Christmas stories always goes to her family's Solemnities with her. One was a mystery that just happened to be set during the holidays, and my current WIP, Pickle in a Pear Tree, is set during Christmas and revolves, in part, around a family tradition. 

Bobby Nash: Not really. I mean, I’ve set stories during holidays, but I’ve not intentionally written a “Christmas” story. Every year I think I should, but that usually happens in December so I tell myself I’ll do it next year. Then next year arrives and I repeat the process.

Brian K Morris: My first paperback novel release was Santastein: The Post-Holiday Prometheus. It was originally a ten-minute stage play script that never was picked up, due to its irreverence, and expanded into novel form. I've never visited the holiday motif since.

Kay Iscah: Not yet, though the next book I have coming out should establish major festivals in the fantasy setting. There's a quick reference to the Harvest Festival in Seventh Night, but it's not really explored beyond setting up a timeline. For the next story, getting to go to the Winter Feast does become a plot point and takes up two chapters and sets up some class contrast, Kaleb's desire to be loved and recognized, and plot points for the murder mystery towards the end.

Sean Taylor: Funnily enough, the only times I used the holidays as a theme for my stories was during my time as a staff writer for Cyber Age Adventures/iHero Entertainment, and then because we would do themed stories for various holidays and for December and October. Some of those remain my favorite stories. I tended to use them as a setting more than a plot point, although sometimes I loved to mingle the two. 

Ian Brazee-Cannon: I have written one holiday story and it uses Christmas folklore from around the world, avoiding any of the modern Christmas traditions, not mentioning Christmas, Christ, or Santa at all.

Does holiday-themed writing work equally well in all genres or are there genres you feel are better suited to the familial/celebratory themes? Or are the negative feelings drudged up by the holiday loneliness/greed/selfishness equally powerful themes that can make for great holiday fiction?

Darin Kennedy: My book, Carol, is Scrooge meets Mean Girls, a modern date, an adult adaptation of the Dickens classic.

For this particular book, the fantasy/ghost story genre is pretty much established for me.

Since this is such a famous story of redemption, I tried to lean fully into that.

Brian K Morris: Since I feel there are very few genres or tropes that can't fit into the holiday spirit, with the exception of hate. Not hate for the holiday itself, which I can understand (and I fell prey to it due to my mother dying around that time), but hate for other beings. I mean Scrooge hated Christmas and had a valid (to him) reason, but he changed his mind.

Kay Iscah: I think it's less an issue of genre and more an issue of do you actually have anything worth saying about the holiday or does it serve a purpose in the story. I doubt anyone would think of The Fugitive as a St. Patrick's Day story, but the parade serves a story function in the film. A Christmas Carol is an exploration of the holiday but also universal themes like greed vs. generosity and human connection vs. isolation.

The problem with most Christmas films is that they're vapid. Many will try to tack on a feel good message, but if it feels tacked on, it's a failing of the narrative. I loathe A Christmas Story; however, I think many people relate to it because it does reflect the sort of messy contrast between what we would like Christmas to be and how it actually is for many people.

Bobby Nash: All of the above, I suppose. Most holiday fare tends to have a happy ending, but there’s nothing that says a downer couldn’t be just as valid of a holiday story. It all depends on the story and how it’s told.

Sean Taylor: I think it can work well in any genre. We seen it in fables like "Little Match Girl" and literary tales like "The Gift of the Magi." I think though that it has almost been taken over by two genres almost to the exclusion of others. One is the very obvious romance genre, as seen in the seasonal Harlequin and Harlequin-adjacent displays set up in bookstore this time of year. The other is the flip side of the coin, that of ironic horror, usually featuring a zombie Santa or another Krampus story. Not that those aren't fantastic uses; I'd just love to see more holiday-themed crime stories and thrillers. 

Mari Hersh-Tudor: I don’t do sappy. I can’t. It’s not real, which may be the entire point for some, and that’s okay. It’s just not my cup of mead. I like to turn things upside down to provide a different perspective. And I’m always funny, even if grimly.

Selah Janel: Holiday fiction *can* be done in all genres, but isn’t necessarily easy to pull off in all genres. It’s really easy for Christmas horror to come off as schlocky, and I think sometimes inspirational or romance stories can be a little too easy in terms of the holiday season being the resolution for characters’ problems. Some people are happy with that, though, so I think everything probably has an audience of some sort.

I think people forget that Christmas is a very nuanced season. Not everyone is happy, or there’s stress in the forced happiness. Likewise, being with loved ones can be the bright spot in otherwise terrible situations.

In Holly and Ivy, I lightly use some romance tropes to get the plot going, but it becomes a story about finding oneself, making tough decisions, and loss during a celebratory time. There are happy and sad events for Holly, just like there are for so many people. Her success and happiness at the end isn’t free. I took some influence from Hans Christian Andersen’s story "The Fir Tree," and usually describe it as my book for people with complicated feelings about Christmas.

Candles, while extremely dark with a bleak ending, focuses on family and found family struggling to do what they can to celebrate the holiday during the zombie apocalypse. They lean into comforting traditions, such as they are. While not really riffing off "Gift of the Magi" exactly, it leans into the theme of a mother doing what she can to give the gift she feels would benefit her loved ones during a horrific time. I would hope people can find some connection with both stories.

How do you walk the line between sappy and serious when you write with a holiday theme? How do you avoid the sugar-sweet nostalgia or do you just go whole hog and embrace it?

George Tackes: When the story is more than just a story during Christmas. Could it be set at any other time without alterations?

Marian Allen: One avoids sappiness by remembering that no true human feeling is pure: There is always a dot of yin in our yang and vice versa.

Selah Janel: I typically need to determine the genre, what my plot is, and how my characters relate to the holidays. Once I determine those, I know how much to lean in. Since there are so many aspects to the season, trying to embrace it all is to difficult and loses the point of the story for me. The nostalgia and saccharine have to support the other elements, either by enhancing or subverting. I try to go off things I know I or others connect with so I can really use them well, and not try to overload a story with a ton of set dressing. Otherwis,e you have a little bit of cake with a ton of icing.

Kay Iscah: Hallmark has ruined Christmas for me, so I have to comment on this one as an outsider. I do appreciate the appeal of a channel with minimal violence and no foul language or sex. The problem is my mom leaves it on almost constantly since the pandemic, and when you can't eat or go to the bathroom without a Hallmark Christmas movie playing in the background, it does start wearing on your soul.

There are a few gems in the mix. But in general, Hallmark Christmas is a soulless worship of materialism. It tries very, very hard to romanticize how important the decorations are, and that you're some kind of monster if you don't get a live tree or bake fresh cookies. But it is not interested in exploring any deeper themes than how it's bad to ruin other people's fun, which is expressed by how much they over-decorate their house. It's particularly grating when they pretend to give their heroines financial problems while having them in million-dollar houses with thousands of dollars in decorations and never having to miss activities for want of funds. I remember one Hallmark film that actually tackled poverty at Christmas in a somewhat believable way, but it was one in a sea of what is rapidly becoming hundreds.

And it's extra sad, because when I was a kid. "Hallmark Presents" were special movies and usually pretty good. When they became a channel, quantity over quality became the focus.

I can definitely see the lure of wanting to capture that Christmas magic, but I think if you stay on a very surface level, the lack of real heart shows. The good, classic Christmas stories touch on some deeper universal theme and what makes them so magical is partly that contrast between despair and hope with hope coming out the victor. If your heroine is a spoiled brat who everyone loves and always gets her way and never faces a problem that can't be fixed with a few phone calls, it's hard to feel much victory in her achievement. And it's a little hard to back this one with examples because these films all start running together after a while.

I certainly think there is a place for gentler and smaller-scale stories. But while stakes can be small, they need to also feel real and should matter to the story, and in some of the best Christmas stories the characters win by letting go of the material expectations. So stories that double down on everything being about the presents and the decorations and the festivals often come off as anti-moral and having missed the whole point. They try to remind us of better stories, but fail to be good stories themselves.

There's nothing wrong with a story highlighting a functional family or something simple and heartwarming. There is something wrong with celebrating materialism and rewarding bad behavior in a narrative, particularly when it's a pattern.

Bobby Nash: It depends on who you’re writing it for, I’d say. Is the publisher looking for sappy? Serious? Nostalgic? Or something else? What are your readers looking for? What are you, as the writer, trying to get across?

Brian K Morris: I guess I lack the ability to wrap really, really sappy stuff. My inherent cynicism and irreverence toward convention won't allow me to write anything grim without poking fun at it, or ridiculing it. I'd rather embrace the spirit of the holiday of peace and showing love and compassion for others.

Mari Hersh-Tudor: Emotions are universal. Exploring them through the lens of a holiday gives an extra dimension and a chance to get some universal truths.

Sean Taylor: While I can write sappy without too many problems, it almost always ends up cut from the file or balled up and thrown into a trash can. It's almost like I have to get the sappy out of my system first to find the better, more effective use of nostalgia for my admittedly more bittersweet types of stories. 

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.

Normalizing Marginalized People In Your Fiction

Okay writers, let's talk about diversity and slice that pie in terms of marginalized groups. 

What is the difference between including diversity in your work and using your work as a platform to encourage understanding and empathy in regard to diversity? Is one better or worse for authors?

Rachel Burda Taylor: Hmm... For me, I don't know that diversity is something I set as any type of goal.

At the same time, I live in a place that is crazy diverse where it's normal to be surrounded by and be friends with a range of people from different backgrounds, lives, etc. (Visiting the nearest mall is about like going to an international airport. My WASP kids are the minority-by-numbers at their high school.) It would be weird to not include the same diversity in my books that I have in my daily life.

Josh Nealis: In novels, not always but often, I never mention skin color of a character. Also, I try not to create a character in comics specifically to be black or female etc, the charcter idea needs to be pure. Not pandering, but purposeful.

John Anthony Chihak Soltero: The difference would lie in the intent and the knowledge and experience one has on the subject, just like any other story or character. 

Chris Riker: If the aspect/trait/feature/preference is important to the plot, SHOW DON'T TELL. If it's not important to the plot, be satisfied with representation. Don't force it. Don't preach. Don't kill the lesbian just for the hell of it. Above all, remember to tell a story. I invite you to review my work and tell me if I handle things well. (Getting to Know People at the Rainbow Connection, Itsy Bitsy).

Jesse James Fain: David Weber once said when complemented for his female characters that his success in writing a woman without being one was "That's because I wrote a person, a character, that just so happened to be female."

I try my damnedest to do this with any character of any marginalized or oppressed group. My latest sold story has a mixed native hero with complex beliefs. He venerates the great spirits and the Norse gods. He is a child of his two cultures. Two cultures I myself have ancestry in and know academically and from being involved in ritual. I give the details you need, and let you fill the rest, because this is fiction, and it's my world, and my tale, and you were kind enough to share it.

Kay Iscah: The difference is intent. Which is better? Depends. If you want to feature a culture/disability or bring awareness to it, you have a higher responsibility to get the details right, but well done, those stories can be very engaging and meaningful.

I generally write stories removed from the context of Earth, so that gives me some freedom to think it about it more in terms of creating variety. What's jarring is taking current-day issues and trying to cut and paste them into a setting where they don't fit. But as long the issue or inclusion is organic to the story, it's fine. As a general rule low tech, remote villages should be more homogenous, and high tech, urban settings are more natural to blended populations. But diversity isn't limited to skin tone (or species if you're writing sci-fi/fantasy). Diversity is personalities and perspectives, heights, talents, etc. etc. You should write different characters with distinct personalities and goals.

Brian K Morris: I've just dabbled in what I call "pulp with a social conscience." Until now, I've managed to write some really strong female characters, as opposed to "romantic interest/hostage." But I've not built up the moxie to go further until a year ago.

Building diversity is a good thing. In the introduction of ANY character, the reader should be able to UNDERSTAND them and why they do what they do.

Sean Taylor: I've actually done several posts on this blog about this, and my POV on it is constantly evolving. I still believe we can force diversity into our writing without it coming out well, forced, and without hurting the stories themselves. However, I do not feel that we can intentionally choose themes that offer us the opportunities to include a more diverse cast or create situations and settings when and where a more diverse cast makes sense without having to be forced like a triangle block into a circle hole. And I am embracing that aesthetic more and more in my writing. That way, the intentionality is there, but it still doesn't come across, at least to me, as trying to write "message fiction." But honestly, our history as writers is filled with what some folks derogatorily call message fiction nowadays. Look no further than the poetry and stories of Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Kate Chopin, Oscar Wilde, Harper Lee, and Khaled Hosseini. Sadly, when most folks I hear bag on "message fiction" is not because the fiction is bad, but because they don't agree with the message. Case in point: The Narnia books are straight-up message fiction, but whether you agree with the message or not, the stories still hold up as fun adventure yarns for children and children at heart. 

What have you done up to this point in your fiction to put a focus on the marginalized and to build intentional diversity into your stories?

Rachel Burda Taylor: I do try to reflect the actual populations of the places I write about. So if a place (talking about you Gander, Newfoundland) is primarily WASPs, it's important to me to reflect that while also having the visiting protag have a more diverse friend group that reflects the population of her hometown.

TJ Keitt: You need to avoid tokenization, as well as tropes that are insulting and bigoted (e.g. the "noble savage" and "magic negro"). There are two ways to do this:

1) Tell a story that only your character from the marginalized community could lead. I think this is what made the first Black Panther movie, for example, so interesting. If you inserted any other Marvel hero into that story, it would not have made sense. It's also why I think the Tom Holland Spider-Man movies worked so well (they truly were stories about a teenager) and why I thought the first Wonder Woman missed the mark (aside from a couple of scenes, any DC hero who was overpowered and long-lived could have helmed that story). The challenge with this is you have to have a deep understanding of the character and story to pull that off, or else it becomes cringe.

2) Allow the marginalized character to exist normally in your broader world. Black, Hispanic, Gay, Trans, etc. are just ordinary people who interact with other people from different communities on a daily basis. Those interactions can include conversations about their identities, but most often, people are just interacting and discussing regular stuff. It's actually why characters like War Machine and Falcon work in the MCU: Yes, they're Black Americans, but they're also just regular (in the context of this world) people who are working through extraordinary circumstances. They don't have to be "credits" to their community; they just have to be represented as fully realized humans and not tokens or tropes.

Sean Taylor: I have also written stories with a theme, not just a plot. Those themes were ideas that were important to me at the time of the writing. My first published story was about the change in the heart of a small-town sheriff when he has to choose between letting his town give vigilante justice to a black kid accused on flimsy proof or to protect the kid until he can actually have a fair trial. I guess the story was still strong enough to make the message worth telling because it won an Award judged by the late Judith Ortiz Cofer. Even in my Pulp work, Bobby Nash and I were intentional when we set Rick Ruby, a white P.I., in an almost black world. Not only did it give up better opportunities to tell good stories with a variety of diverse characters, but it also allowed us to use even classic Pulp tropes to tell stories that mattered beyond mere punching and shooting tales. 

Jesse James Fain: I can only write what I know and understand. So I make no specific efforts to represent anyone I have not witnessed, and that I cannot flush out to be A PERSON and a Character with a role to fill.

This only applies to me, and my approach, but In fiction I am no one's champion. I am a storyteller weaving threads of human themes, themes that everyone from Vladivostok to Lisbon and Patagonia to the Arctic would understand if they read English.

Message fiction irritates me heavily. I don't want real-life politics or struggle in my fantastic escape. I champion my beliefs all day by example and debate. I don't need to thinly veil them in someone's good time. If the quiet part is noble, you will say it out loud. That goes for my own beliefs as well.

Every writer shows ideals, that's part of the human experience and thinking, but the difference between "this is how I think and it bleeds in a little." And "HEY GUYS THIS IS THE POINT, SEE! SEE! SEE ME SUPPORTING THE THING." IS normally sparkly clear, and the story normally sucks in the latter example.

John Anthony Chihak Soltero: I have done a lot. I don't know what to point out or suggest. I have mainly female characters of various racial backgrounds in my comic books. I attempt to make them pointed and have purpose instead of just being women. 

Connor Alexander: Years back, I had a Sikh character in a book I was writing (While I'm not religious, I find Sikhism fascinating). I was mostly using the internet and not feeling great about the character. Then, I was at a pizza place and realized the owner and his family were Sikhs. I asked the owner if I could buy him lunch and ask him about his faith. He agreed and we sat over lunch for hours. He was so generous with his beliefs and perspectives. Really made the character come to life.

Carl Moore: I let the geography do it naturally -- my horror novel that took place in New York City would be silly if it didn't have a diverse cast of characters.

Brian K Morris: As seen above, I've not done a lot until The Terrors from last year. I did my research on African-American communities during World War II and talked with a number of my Black friends in the hopes that I got it right.

Kay Iscah: Unfortunately my best stories for showcasing diversity aren't published yet (which frustrates me, but it's a long story). Seventh Night is vaguely medieval, so the conflict is more class diversity than racial or cultural diversity. You see a bit more of the broader world in the Before the Fairytale set, but not at a level I would brag about. I did have a subplot about the young sorceress using magic to treat someone with a harelip (cleft lip/cleft palate) and promoted Operation Smile when I first released those chapters. I have several back-burner projects that are more deliberate with racial diversity, particularly in protagonists... I don't think every story needs to hit every check box, but I do see the value in diverse stories, settings, and characters. Hoping to live long enough that my catalog of work will show a better variety. I didn't worry about Seventh Night being a bit Eurocentric because other stories I had in the works explored other cultures or more naturally diverse settings, but I honestly thought those would be out long before now.

Do you plan to ramp that up or back off or make any other changes to the way you include the marginalized in your work based on recent events?

Ef Deal: In my recent book, Aeros & Heroes, tout Paris is at the chateau, including the infamous Count Custine, an open homosexual in France, where it wasn't illegal. The king states, "It's an offense against God. Scripture is clear." Jacqueline says, "Scripture is rarely clear." She then expounds, for the sake of her 'salon' audience, on what is natural. She challenges the king to heal a guest's crippled leg, or turn water into wine, or walk across her pond. Yet we're all commanded to be imitators of the Christ, so why can't he do it? She then points out that Scripture is very clear on one point: The punishment for adultery (of which the king is notoriously guilty) is death. The king quickly shuts up.

Later, her lady's maid, a young teen, confesses that she's a lesbian, and the local priest has told her it's a sin. Jacqueline says, “I can’t tell you what sin is for you, Gaudin. If the curé says it’s a sin, I’m sure he will be happy to hear your confession. At the least, you’ll do penance. At the worst, you’ll be looked down upon by everyone except those who truly love you. If I could, I’d send you away to school to learn Greek and Hebrew properly. Then you could read the Holy Scripture for yourself, study it, and wrestle with God as Jacob did, and as I have done, to learn what God wants from you. Confess yourself to God. I’ve found God to be far more forgiving than the church.”

John Anthony Chihak Soltero: I am changing how I create these stories as I feel someone with better experience should share that voice. I will be concentrating my efforts on what I know, which is being Latino, having mental illness and being queer. I don't know that I am qualified to give a voice to other minorities. 

Jesse James Fain: I'm writing people. People who may be of any race, creed, or color, but I'm not banging on mental doors for anyone, not even my own groups. I'm telling tales about heroes and villains and badasses that come from where they come from, and I believe that's the best way to do them justice in speculative fiction.

Shay Vetter: I'm struggling with this right now. The books I have out are middle grades with a diverse cast, including LGBTQIA+ characters. The new administration wants to call those characters porn, even though there is absolutely nothing spicy in my books. Certain billionaires who own book platforms support the new administration. Do I pull them off those platforms? What about the cozy SF series I'm writing for adults?

I'm nonbinary and bisexual. What I write is reflective of who I am and the kind of world I want to see. It's not just about normalizing marginal groups but making a world where people like me can live to their fullest. I don't believe my existence takes away from someone else. If anything, I think we'll all be richer through diversity. I think the belief that I infringe on someone else just by existing is propaganda by people who need someone to blame so their followers will focus on that and not on the fact that their leaders are actual ones who want to infringe on them.

I'm pretty upset at the world right now.

Brian K Morris: When I released The Terrors, one person accused me of "race swapping" and equating it to lazy writing (which would have been to just stick with a white cast). Two minutes later, I got a 2-star rating on Amazon. While I got some amazing reviews for the book, the comments on FB were all about their disappointment in seeing someone introduce a strong, Black set of characters. (For the record, when I checked out the accounts, they were all middle-aged white guys who probably weren't even around when the characters MY cast were based on were in print). And I am petty at heart...I wanted to tweak their noses and annoy them. So I'm working on the sequel novel, along with two other novellas in the same universe. The only change I'm making is that there will be more of what upsets the bigots, and I couldn't be happier.

Klara Schmitt: I know TikTok often gets a lot of pushback for being a time-suck and/or an echo chamber, but I will credit it to really exposing me to a ton of different voices and perspectives. Anytime I wanted to learn more about what it was like being ADHD or Ace or even what experiencing seizures might feel like, I search it and watch videos exploring peoples' lived experiences and listen to their thoughts. I am also grateful to the resource https://www.tumblr.com/writingwithcolor, which has helped me tremendously.

In high school I took a course Teaching Tolerance through a homeschool co-op, which I believe has since been renamed Learning for Justice, but that course really stuck with me. I think that course was perhaps more inline with the first point "encourage understanding and empathy in regard to diversity." I think it's important to have both, to expose folks to diversity, but to also build up empathy for what it's like to live an experience other than your own.

My story actually blends a lot of cultures' folklore with elements of a lot of mainstream religions and I'm trying to do my best to keep it in grays. My main characters might have perspectives of the legitimacy of certain beliefs, but that doesn't mean they are right in their thinking, which will evolve as they continue to be exposed to more people and more context.

In addition to religion, I have two non-profits essentially brokering diversity in pursuit of peace and the right of existence, one of which is international, so I wanted that represented in the makeup of their employees. I try to include people of different races, ethnicities, genders, sexualities, disabilities, etc., but also put them in positions of authority. Perhaps as a woman, who works a corporate job where there aren't a ton of women in leadership roles, I wanted to write what I wish was more readily prevalent. So now I have a lot of women in my book, some questing for honor, some for power, but the variance is in their motivation, not their gender.

The one lesson I learned the hard way though is to definitely find 2-3 sources on name pronunciations that originate outside my own language/country. One chick is stuck with an incorrect pronunciation because I only verified her name once before writing it down phonetically. But then I fell in love with the name and now I can't seem to change it in my head. Oops. Coincidentally, I am really glad I listened to books #2 and #3 of Naomi Novik's Scholomance series, because it allowed me to hear all the international students' names with proper pronunciation and I definitely missed out on reading book #1.

Also, writing accents is a lot harder than I thought and I've spent a lot of time on websites teaching Haitian Creole because I value authenticity. I am still hoping to find some folks who might be able to vet my dialog for the various accents before I publish, because incorporating languages that I don't speak into my writing means I'm much more likely to get it wrong. (See previous paragraph, lol.)

Kay Iscah: I have too many projects on the back burner to react to recent events through fiction.

For readers, it may seem to ramp up as I go along. For me, it was always part of the plan. Though I think of it more as variety than highlighting marginalization. Phillip is essentially a nerd stuck in the life of a medieval peasant, so he's marginalized in his society. Meanwhile, the princess is neurodivergent (on the psychopathy spectrum) but there's no language for that in a medieval setting, so I just hint at it with things like "thought more than she felt". The sorceress lives a marginal existence as the only practicing magic user in the country, and she has a magical ability that was a bit of a disability in her youth. The prince has a bizarre family situation... so there are many ways to be an outsider.

A lot of my unpublished protagonists are outsiders or marginalized in some way, but that may be more subtle with some characters than others. I do think it's important to see demographics as a trait of a character and not the whole character.

Sean Taylor: I'm ramping up. Like Kamala said, we're not backing down. The marginalized are going to face a lot of troubles in the years to come, and I like to think that as a writer, I can at least open an eye onto that world and those troubles and the ones who benefit from their hardships. 

 What authors do you recommend who are doing a commendable job of highlighting this kind of diversity in their work?

John Anthony Chihak Soltero: Sophie Campbell does an amazing job in her work on Wet Moon. She features great character development, stories and artwork, while also giving voice to Queer characters, those with disabilities and various races and body types.

Kay Iscah: My reading is all over the place, but I'm reading a lot of dead authors and older books at the moment. I think readers need to put in some of the effort and just try new authors and genres. There's so much pressure on authors to build a "brand" that individual authors may stick to one type of issue rather trying to hit all of them. I watch a lot of Asian media and have started dipping my toe into some Nollywood series. The internet has made the world far more accessible to us. Instead of expecting an Irish author to highlight African stories, I think it's better for readers to try out African authors.

Lot of my personal focus is fairytales and folklore. So I'm constantly (if slowly) trying to expand my imagination by reading the mythologies of different cultures.

Marginalization is a concept where setting is very important, and anyone tackling the issue should be very aware there's a difference between being the only one of something in the city, and a city full of people like your character. Same character, different level of marginalization because the setting changed. Both place and time. Being a witch in London in 1524 and being a witch in London in 2024 are completely different experiences.

Sean Taylor: I think if you look past the works of more old, white dudes like me and read more LGBTQIA+, POC, refuge, and international writers, you'll find all the stories you could ever find. Sure, that means you may read fewer folks like me, and that'll hurt my wallet, but I'd rather you learn to be a more diverse thinker and more active in fighting for marginal peoples. Heather Plett has a wonder article about this called Centring Marginalized Voices and De-Colonizing My Bookshelf that is well worth checking out. 

A lot of my own interest in reading marginalized voice comes from being an American Lit/Comp teacher. As I mentioned in my response to question #1, I think back to the poems of Langston Hughes writing about being Black in a White United States, Kate Chopin writing about being little more than property in a patriarchal world, and Oscar Wilde, who had to hide (though clearly not very well - 😏) his homosexuality in metaphor and symbolism in his fiction. 

Connor Alexander, who replied above, is a board creator creating amazing RPGs and board games based on marginalized groups. 

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.