The Courageous Soul

For the next roundtable for authors, let's talk about that "Courageous Soul" Kate Chopin said an artist must possess. 

In what ways have you found you had to be courageous as you became a writer? Is it something practical like just having the guts to try to make a living at it or something more cultural by using your work to make a statement?

L. Andrew Cooper: Writing anything for publication involves the possibility of ridicule and rejection and so always requires courage, but beyond that, the amount of courage you need relates to how much of yourself you're willing to expose and what other chances you're willing to take. I believe the best writing involves risk, so it requires a lot of courage.

Ef Deal: The only "courage" I needed to summon was to keep writing although I never sold or made a cent out of it for over 25 years. My husband resented it immensely, but he was someone who'd been paid to play since he was 9 years old. He was impressed that I had a rejection from Lester DelRey, and that I chatted or hobnobbed with writers he knew, but I don't think he ever thought anything would come of my writing until it actually did a few years ago. I never considered it courage, though. I just couldn't not write.

Bobby Nash: I think you have to be pretty courageous to put anything creative out in the wild. People can be cruel.

Brian K Morris: A little of all of them. I realized early on that if I wanted to carve a portion of the market for my work, it had to sound like me. I could sound like it was from a store of knowledge I'd amassed, or a point of view. I believe ANY opportunity to expose your inner workings, especially your heart, leaves you vulnerable and should be approached with derring-do.

Sheela Chattopadhyay: While I might not care much for Kate Chopin's works, I can understand her "Courageous Soul" concept. Taking the risks of being exposed to criticism, authenticity, and integrity are all part of the creative processes for any type of artist. Any artist being defined as working in any type of medium, whether that be writing to music to paint to architecture, etc. I specify that because even your architect has some artistry in the field since science and art do go hand in hand. That being said, building up courage often relies on trusting yourself and your own belief in your creative works.

I found that courage is necessary in general to be able to be oneself. Some of it was practical in wanting to become a better communicator and being able to connect with people better. While I sometimes make a statement with some of my work, I do sometimes have other works that are to help others grow as individuals. I try to leave people better than I found them.

Sean Taylor: I think it's both, at least for me. There will always be the courage of putting myself out there as a writer and finding readers to pick up what I'm laying down (so to speak). But I also believe that, as a friend reminded me today, all art is political, and well, we live in a time when art is under attack, particularly art that doesn't fit a strict and confining definition. Anything that goes beyond a conservative, backward ideal or takes a more critical look at United State politics and culture now seems to be suspect and suspicious and likely to be censored in the days to come, so the pushback is there to only create "safe" art. But I'm not that writer. 

Do you find that courage becomes more "old hat" and just part of your personality as a writer after a while, or do you still feel the butterflies when you put it out there for public consumption and critique?

Creative Non-Fiction

Hey, writerly types, we spend a lot of time covering fiction on this blog because that's the main topic we discuss. But what about the other side of creative writing? No, not poetry. I'm referring to creative non-fiction. Let's bang that drum this week, shall we?

What kind of non-fiction do you prefer to write/read? Personal essays, how-tos, researched topics, true accounts (biographies, true crime, etc.)?

Alisa Richie Childress: I write personal essays. I write stories from my own life about mental health struggles (mine and my son's). Caregiving for me mother who passed from Alzheimer's last year. A lot about grief as I lost both of my parents in three years, my dad from cancer in May 2020, and my mom from Alzheimer's in June 2023. I write about parenting and what it is like to raise a child who had a major mental health crisis and who is gay (we live in a red state with conservative family members). Mostly I with about whatever I feel like I need to get out and what I hope will help others. My blog is alisachildress.com. I have been published in physical and online journals and write a lot on Medium.

Brian K Morris: I like to read mostly historical and scientific books when I read nonfiction. These days, I'm mostly into the business behind the creative efforts (such as how the comic companies were run by people affiliated with organized crime, or the boom/bust periods of comic books) these days. I also enjoy books on writing and marketing because I always want to do better at my job.

L. Andrew Cooper: I’ve been writing a lot of interviews for which I do extensive prep and into which I put significant thought, so that’s a biggie. Otherwise, I’ve done a lot of academic literary and film criticism, and after a long hiatus, I recently got back into film criticism a bit and found I still enjoy it. As for reading, I enjoy reading non-fiction for research related to whatever I’m writing (fiction or non). Otherwise, I enjoy reading philosophy.

Elizabeth Donald: Nonfiction is my bread and butter. I took my journalism degree into the newspaper world in 1997 and have worked in the news ever since, including my time on the national ethics committee and as president of the St. Louis Society of Professional Journalists. I was a full-time newspaper reporter for more than 20 years and I covered every beat except sports. I have stood in the snow outside a murder site and waited for an indicted governor at the end of a long dusty road and interviewed a president before he was anybody. Sometimes it was the county fair and sometimes it was the vicious beating death of a toddler. I wrote stories that changed the law and stories no one read. 

I went freelance in 2018 so I could have the freedom to go to grad school and begin teaching, but I have continued to work for local and regional news organizations, for regional and national magazines and so on, including a few investigative pieces. Freelancing has also given me the freedom to write more personal essays, writing essays and other free-form nonfiction, most of which is published on Patreon and Medium if it is not picked up by a magazine.

Scott Roche: Read - Biographies, history (particularly of science), and religious topics (not solely my religion, though primarily). Write - How to, reviews, commentary, and I'm getting to the point where I want to write some memoir-adjacent stuff.

Sean Taylor: I read a lot of various shades of nonfiction, everything from religious stuff (both classic like Augustine's City of God and contemporary progressive like Jim Wallis and Keith Giles), political/cultural stuff (currently reading White Rage and Hatemonger), to history (my fave is Lies My Teacher Told Me), and then also more fun stuff like books about horror and giallo movies and bios of my favorite actors and actresses. In terms of writing, I tend to do more essays about reading (like here on the blog), movie reviews (for a new book), and articles about the art and craft of writing. 

Van Allen Plexico: Most of my top sellers are nonfiction. Two books about the Avengers comics (I edited and coordinated both and wrote sections) and five books about Auburn sports (co-authored with my podcast cohost).

The Avengers books got me badges to Heroes Con and raised a lot of money for charity; the Auburn books have gotten me TV and radio appearances, speaking engagements before alumni/fan groups, and several book signings.

So yeah, I love writing nonfiction.

I also enjoy reading it a lot -- as a History professor I sort of have to -- and I find nonfiction works better in general on Audible than fiction does. So it's easier for me to listen to.

When writing non-fiction, particularly if you also write fiction, how does your routine or strategy differ from when you write fiction (if at all)?

Elizabeth Donald: Nonfiction and fiction use completely different brain cells, at least for me. My newspaper colleagues used to joke that I could sneak in a novel when the police beat was quiet, but I can’t work that way. After 25-odd years of writing news every day, I can turn out a high-quality news story in 15 minutes. It’s like falling off the proverbial log. Fiction, on the other hand, requires a good energy environment, the right caffeinated beverage, the alignment of the stars and planets and possibly the sacrifice of the nearest available virgin for the words to come. You’d think it would be easier to write stuff you can make up rather than the stuff that has to be accurate, ethical, responsible and all that jazz, but for me, the reverse is true. This goes back to one of those old writing saws we all hear and ignore: practice practice practice. Every word you write makes you a better writer, and I know journalism is easy for me because I’ve written 2-5 stories every day for decades. If I wrote fiction all day, every day for the next 20 years, maybe that would be like falling off a log.

Van Allen Plexico: I've found that when writing nonfiction I tend to outline very carefully beforehand--more even than I do in fiction. With fiction, I'm usually trying to leave myself lots of leeway to change the story as it wants to change when it unfolds.

With nonfiction, I need to know up front, "Okay, this section will cover the Sonny Smith years of AU Basketball; and this first chapter will be about how Auburn hired him and his first press conference and the preseason and then how his first team fared. And then the next chapter will be about how he recruited Charles Barkley and about Charles as a freshman. And then a separate chapter just of funny stories about Charles. And then..." sort of like that.

Alisa Richie Childress: I do not really write fiction, but I would like to. I have written a short piece in the Imaginarium anthology and am working on another. I have some ideas for novels. But I do not have a good fiction writing process. Or really a great writing discipline at all. I am working on this.

L. Andrew Cooper: Although I’m big in outlines for both fiction and non, for non, there’s an even more structured funnel process that goes from reading and research to organizing notes into conceptual groups that become outline points that become sections, paragraphs, etc.

Sean Taylor: It's actually easier for me to write nonfiction than fiction. I think this comes from being a Literature major in college and having to write so many essays and papers. They just kind of roll out of my brain onto the page. Fiction becomes so much more personal and that slows me down a lot because I really try to get my first draft super close to the way I want it. Nonfiction is the kind of thing I tend to trust myself to go back and edit/rewrite as needed.

Brian K Morris: Before I focused on New Pulp fiction, I wrote a number of articles about comic books. Usually, I'd look for the drama in the project (editorial whims, stumbling blocks in the production process, inherent challenges in changing a series' direction, etc.) and build a narrative with a satisfying conclusion. For instance, one of my favorite articles for Back Issue Magazine was about the final tales of the Silver Age Supergirl, how she'd gone from Superman's Secret Weapon to public acceptance, on-off powers, different locales, then her eventual death to become a spirit that helped talk people off the ledge, returning to her roots as a "secret weapon" for good.

What do you find most fulfilling about non-fiction writing?

Scott Roche: For me, any writing scratches roughly the same itch. Writing non-fiction does tap into a different vein. It requires more research/experience. For me it requires a different kind of brain work. I wouldn't say it uses a different part of your brain since I haven't done that research and am not a psychologist/neurologist, but it would make sense to me if it did.

Elizabeth Donald: I always knew I wanted to write and create, and I wanted to be in public service. Journalism allowed me to indulge both, while also engaging my brain, and I was able to make some small difference in the world around me. It is an incredibly difficult job, poorly paid with wildly unpredictable hours and an enormous emotional and mental toll, and as a weekend bonus, absolutely everyone hates you! We burn up new journalists at an alarming rate. But I loved it, and I still do. Doing what we do is a privilege, and one I’ve never taken for granted: we tell people what happened today, because they need to know. It’s that simple, and that complex, and completely unappreciated in this modern era. We write the first rough draft of history, as Phillip Graham said, and that is an enormous responsibility, as well as our honor.

Sean Taylor: When I write about writing, which is the bulk of my nonfiction, I'm telling the story of who I am directly. When I write fiction, it's still telling my story too, but it's far more subtle, far more hidden behind the symbols and the themes. With nonfiction, I can just come out and say what I think, feel, believe, etc. 

Van Allen Plexico: The really creative part of that kind of book for me is when I write the beginning and the ending, where I lay out what the book is trying to do, and then I make the closing argument at the end for what I was trying to say in it.

L. Andrew Cooper: I get to say what’s on my mind quite directly!

Alisa Richie Childress: The type of writing I do is very cathartic. Putting it all in paper helps me to organize me thoughts and my feelings in a way that I cannot do if I keep them in my head, it even if I am just journaling. Having an imagined audience to talk to helps me with clarity. I also hope that I am helping others. It really makes me feel good when someone tells me how much something I said resonated with them or helped them in their journey.

Brian K Morris: I enjoy finding out new ways of looking at something real, whether it's the history of a comic book character, getting perspective on a creator and their thinking, or instructing WHY something has merit, such as writing book reviews and how simple it can be.

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

Stains of Atrocity: Twenty Tales of Horror and Dark Fantasy

by L. Andrew Cooper

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

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

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

About the Author:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bobby Nash: Oh, I love this topic.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

L. Andrew Cooper: B

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

New Interview Posted!

 

L. Andrew Cooper interviews me about my upcoming horror collection A Crowd in Babylon.

"Southern is the drive to remain part of that community despite those kinds of behaviors. After all, it may not be the best place to be, but it is MY place. I think that’s something I learned to put into words from reading Flannery O’Connor..."

Baby Makes Her Back Cover Talk (With Apologies to Dr. Hook)

What sells books? Covers? Yes. Big advertising budgets? Well, most likely you don't have access to that. What sells you a book in a bookstore or online when the cover has already caught your attention? That's right... The back cover blurb. 

What makes a back cover blurb effective?

Perry Constantine: You have to approach it as a sales pitch, not a description. Entice the reader just enough to want to find out more about the book.

Amy Leigh Strickland: What would entice you to pick up this book? You’ll want to make a list of the essential plot elements, the core bits of the conflict. I don’t want to hear every twist and turn. I’ll read the book for that. Those twists are only interesting in the context of the story when I’ve gotten to know the characters. I don’t want to know every subplot at this phase of the purchasing process... If you’re rambling on about multiple characters, telling me every twist and turn of your plot, you’re doing it wrong. If you’re giving me the entire history of your world, you’re doing it wrong. If I hear the phrase, “but it turns out, she’s the chosen one,” you’re definitely doing it wrong.

Looking for a few good... examples of back cover copy.

Bobby Nash: The back cover copy is important because it is the 2nd look a person has at the book to decide if he or she wants to pick it up. In a bookstore, a potential customer sees the cover, it grabs their attention. The reader picks it up, turns it over, and reads the back cover. If that grabs them, they might open it up and read a few lines. In on-line sales, the same is true, except that information is all on the screen.

L. Andrew Cooper: A back cover blurb is one of a book’s most important pitches -- the pitch to the audience who doesn’t know what they might be getting and needs help to decide. It has to have a hook, a sense of character and story (or subject and thesis, for nonfiction) in a short enough sound bite to grab attention and say, “This is the kind of book you like to read, but not so much like those books you’ve read that it’ll be too familiar!” It’s also got to say something about the author, something to make the reader think the author has what it takes to sustain interest for however hefty a time the weight of the book suggests. A snippet from a bio or a review to go along with the tempting sound bite… everything short, neat, packaged, glittering and beautiful. Good blurbs are hard work!

Bill Craig: The back cover blurb has to work in conjunction with the cover to grab the reader's interest and imagination.

Kristi Morgan: What makes a back cover blurb effective? Keywords that explain the genre and content effectively. Short, engaging. Not a long blocky paragraph with too much description. Just enough info to tell what the book is about, build some interest and intrigue but don't give away any spoilers.

For the changing, highly ebook-driven market, is back-cover copy as important as it used to be?

Kristi Morgan:  I think so. Most people use the back cover blurb as the Amazon listing description, so it's important.

L. Andrew Cooper: Blurbs are as important as ever, if not moreso, because the copy from the back of the book usually ends up being the copy that sells the book on Amazon and other sites, too, so it’s going to support the “product” across formats. For e-books, buyers might not be able to hold the book and do a flip test, but they can read whatever blurb information the authors and/or publishers have provided, so a lot of pressure falls on a small amount of text.

Bobby Nash: Absolutely. It may not be on the back cover in this scenario, but that information is still relevant and helpful to the reader so it becomes part of the description on the page.

Bill Craig: I would say the back cover copy or description is even more essential in the field of e-books because there are so many out there. That copy is an essential hook to grab a reader and get them to buy the book.

Perry Constantine: If by the text you put on the back cover of a paperback, then no, that's not important because most of us won't be in bookstores to begin with. But if you're talking about the description on your book page, then that is crucial. The first thing that will get someone to click on your book is the cover. If the cover gets them to click on it, the very next thing they'll look at is the description. It's the second most important tool in your marketing arsenal.

The back cover of The Ruby Files Vol. 1. 

What advice do you have for those writers asked to help create back cover copy or self-publishers looking to improve their blurbs?

Bobby Nash: Look at the type of books you like to read. Look at how those publishers handle back cover copy and blurbs. Use that as your starting base. Remember, tease the readers so they want to buy the book. Don't spoil your secrets or get bogged down in details on back cover copy. Just give it the pitch. Blurbs may or may not help. I don't have any real data there. If the reader trusts the opinion of the person giving the blurb, then it probably helps.

Kristi Morgan: It's not just the content that matters. The layout is important, too. I have seen some really great front covers with poorly designed back covers. Don't skimp on the back or the spine. Choose a color scheme and font that looks professional.

Perry Constantine: Approach it as a copywriter, not an author. Look at other successful books in your genre and see what they're doing with their descriptions. Compare them to yours to see what you're doing wrong. Libbie Hawker's Gotta Read It! is a great resource for writing effective descriptions.

Bill Craig: Lead with action! You want a hook to grab potential readers and make them want to read it!

Amy Leigh Strickland: If you’re at a loss for how to write a book description, get your butt to the DVD section at Target and walk around reading the backs of movie boxes. What catches your attention? What drives you away? What tense are they writing in? What tone? How long are the blurbs?

L. Andrew Cooper: A big mistake is confusing a blurb with a synopsis—you’re not summarizing the story, or even giving a rough overview of how the story gets going. Some story orientation might be part of a blurb, but a blurb might also be a snippet from a scene followed by very brief commentary about how the qualified author has opened up a new world of adventure/horror/romance/whatever. A blurb is not what the author wants to see shown off about what’s inside the book. It’s whatever you can say about the book that makes sense on its own and still grabs a reader to say, “Let’s go.” Also, publishers will (in this writer’s experience) often ask you to write potential blurb copy and then use it as one of several sources for the final blurb. Use the opportunity: find something genuinely fetching about your book, highlight it with your best prose, and turn in the best blurb you can. Your good work is likely to give you more control of what your marketing (your blurb and everything related to it) looks like.

Pushing Your Genre Boundaries -- Writing Outside Your Comfort Zone

This week, let's talk about jumping into a new genre from the one you're most comfortable with.

Think back to the first time you wrote in a genre other than you're favorite, did it rattle you at all? How did you prepare for the new experience?

Bobby Nash: I love the challenge of playing in a new genre or mixing genres in a way I haven't attempted before. Each story offers up a a challenge. When I wrote Lance Star: Sky Ranger for the first time, it was new for me writing this type of action/adventure story and my first time getting into the head of pilot characters. When I moved over to Domino Lady, even though it was still a pulp story, it was a different kind of character and story so those same kind of challenges were there. Then, one day, I got the chance to write a western. It was a little nerve-wracking, but it was also fun to scratch that particular creative itch. So, maybe a little rattled, but just a little. No real preparation other than researching where needed, but that happens no matter what genre I'm writing.

Lucy Blue: I've always written for myself in various genres, but the first time I consciously wrote for publication in a genre that wasn't romance was a noir story (or pulp story?), and I was a little self-conscious. I went back and read a couple of noir classics that I knew well and a couple of new things in the genre I'd never read before, just to get the taste of it in my mouth, if that makes any sense.

Lee Houston Jr.: No, because even when you're tackling what you might think is just 1 specific genre when creating a tale, you always bring elements from others (action, drama, etc) into your story whether you're consciously aware of doing so or not. 

L. Andrew Cooper: I’ve been writing in different genres since I was a kid, so I remember adventure (a choose-your-own-adventure with kidnapping and a plane wreck on a desert island! –second grade) and horror (ghost child kills parents –third grade) and sci-fi (genetically engineered antichrist –eighth grade)… and my first novel, at 18, was experimental literary (don’t even ask). If I can immerse myself and get a genre’s feeling, I’m ready for the experience. I don’t get the feeling of romantic comedy or—from the storytelling perspective—happy porn. I couldn’t write it. I tried porn. Embarrassing fail.

Bill Craig: It didn't because it was a genre that I loved to read. Preparation was getting the character just right.

Hilaire Barch: Yes! I am used to happy endings. Dark fantasy/horror were hard. I wrote in lieu of therapy.

Nancy Hansen: Rattle me? No, but I was a bit nervous about getting it right. First time was PI fiction, and Tommy Hancock tossed me an idea that I said no to, and then went ahead and did it —- my way. That idea transformed into The Keener Eye. Second time I got myself involved in writing a western, which is something I'd never tackled before. Because that was a 'write like the original author' scenario, I had to do my research. I had never even read a western. I think the story I did for Senorita Scorpion turned out pretty well, but I had doubts all along the way. Now I'm writing a pirate series...

Danielle Procter Piper: As a kid, I wrote mysteries (or tried to). As a teen, I broadened into sci-fi and fantasy. Basically, I followed the rule; write what you'd like to read. I love humorous horror, so that was not a stretch. I was encouraged to write erotica because it apparently sells well. I learned I'm no good at erotica because I tend to make everything I write funny or horrific. I can write some steamy sex scenes for my sci-fi, but a whole book surrounding sex... it just feels goofy to me. I guess because I've never felt sexy -- only goofy. It was recently suggested that I try my hand at writing a western. I do own a few western DVDs, but I've never read any, so without a sci-fi or fantasy twist, I doubt it will happen. Writing genres I'm naturally drawn to is a piece o'cake.

Robert Krog: My default setting for writing is Fantasy.   It’s not precisely my favorite to write, but most of my favorite books to read are Fantasy.  That being stated, I’ve rarely had trouble working in a new genre.  The first time I was required to write something not in a genre to which I had gravitated of my own interest was, I was asked to write a Steampunk story.  At that time, I had only heard of Steampunk and didn’t really know what it was.  I wasn’t rattled, but I was perplexed.  After doing some careful research, I discovered that Steampunk is mostly about setting and technology and is often a hybrid subgenre, from there it was easy.  I read a few well-known examples and a few obscure samples of the genre to get a feel for the setting and then went a told a story that met

I have had a more difficult experience in writing a piece of Historical Fiction.  I trained as an Egyptologist in graduate school and have always wanted but always been leery of writing a story set in Ancient Egypt.  I recently did so at last, and it was a difficult process due to my own concerns about getting the facts right and capturing the spirit of the times.  I’m still not sure I did the job properly, and I don’t think I’ll try it again any time soon unless I have a lot more time to brush up on the subject matter. 

Ellie Raine: I started on a detective story that was more or less intended to be a straight murder mystery… yeah, that didn’t go over so well with my fantasy-tuned attention span. I got so bored with the straight detective story (most likely because I’m just not that great at it) that I contacted my publisher and asked “Just HOW paranormal can I go with this?”. He said “go crazy”. So, I rewrote the story into a paranormal noir until I found it fun. And it was. I regret nothing… *maniacal laughter*

Retta Bodhaine: I've started out on missions to write either horror or mystery, but have yet to complete one. It's still something I'm working towards, but the main reason I want to accomplish this is to push my own boundaries. I think it will help me grow as a writer to wander outside of my comfort zones.

When branching out into a new genre, has the new one ever become your new favorite, even to the point of taking the place of your previous "go-to genre"?

 L. Andrew Cooper: Awhile ago I started playing with poetry and haven’t been able to stop—not a genre, exactly, but it’s a go-to form these days instead of prose. I’m still a horror guy, though, and novels are happening. I’ve got a sonnet cycle coming out that’s a superhero horror story, also kind of autobiographical. It’s weird. 

Lee Houston Jr.: No. While I do have my favorites (superheroes, sci-fi, mysteries, and fantasy) I like variety. The one genre I probably would never tackle is modern horror because by today's definition of it, horror is more blood, guts, and violence than suspense and dread from back in the days of Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney Senior or Junior, Boris, Karloff, Vincent Price, etc.  

Danielle Procter Piper: When I published my first fantasy a few years ago, I found writing it rather freeing as I was not constrained by either science or history. The problem I had was keeping myself reigned in so I didn't add too many fantasy elements that I had no intention of explaining better or tying off neatly by the story's end. I also have to control myself when I write horror. I have really freaked a few people out by "going too far". I thought that was the point, but perhaps not if it disturbs readers so much they don't really want to read your stuff again.

Hilaire Barch: So far, no. I think it's made me a better writer though.

Bill Craig: Mystery writing became my new favorite genre to work in, because it let me take the plot pieces like they were a puzzle and build the story around them until I had a good solid book.

Robert Krog: I haven’t found a new favorite, much less a new default genre for my writing.  I’m most comfortable with Fantasy to this day, but I enjoy telling stories regardless, and I rarely think of what I write as genre anyway. Stories are about people, genre is mostly window dressing, so far as I can tell. 

Bobby Nash: Before writing my first pulp story, I had been writing mystery/thrillers and comic books. Once I worked on Lance Star: Sky Ranger and Domino Lady stories, I was hooked on writing pulpy adventures and I write pulpy stories more often than most types.

Lucy Blue: I adored the experience of writing outside romance and have been doing more and more of that, and I have written a couple of other noir things since that felt amazing. I haven't really picked a new favorite genre yet, but the experience of that initial branching out has been a huge deal in helping me rediscover who I want to be as a writer.

What advice would you offer for new writers looking to broaden their horizons into new genres?

Lucy Blue: Pick a new genre that you genuinely love as a reader, not just the hot new thing; read lots of it and learn the tone and language and commonplaces; then write YOUR story. Know the rules well enough to break them in a way that makes sense within the context of the genre. Don't try to bait and switch an editor, calling your book one genre that they've asked for when you know in your heart it's really more something else.

Retta Bodhaine: As a part of my quest I have taken to reading many instructional books and delving back into those genres for my pleasure reading too. I am currently reading How to Write Crime Fiction by Sarah Williams and re-familiarizing myself with some of my favorite Poe.

Bobby Nash: Do it. If you have an idea for a story or a passion to try a genre, do it. You might fail. You might succeed. You might discover that publishers have pigeon-holed you into one type of writer and will have to pitch it under a pen name. You can learn a lot about yourself as a writer by getting out of your comfort zone and trying something new.

Robert Krog: Despite what I stated about window dressing, stories set in other, real cultures, past or present, do need to be well-researched and do present intellectual challenges to the author if he wishes his stories to be accurate and well-received by those in the know about the setting.  Do your research, and even if you are making it all up, be sure to keep your story internally consistent.  If it doesn’t follow its own logic, you are cheating, and the reader will catch you.  If it is set in a real-world culture, you will turn off readers who know better than you do when you make a mistake by using customs or technologies not associated with the time and/or place.

Danielle Procter Piper: The advice I'll give new writers is to go ahead and have fun, be adventurous. You'll know while you're writing a story if it feels right or not. The best thing you can do is find total strangers to review your work. They won't lie to you. And never take their criticism personally. You'll never know where your weaknesses are until several strangers have picked out the same fault. Book stores want you to write within a genre just so they know where to shelve your work. Publishers want you to write within a specific genre so they know how to promote your work. You can try to please them, or you can choose to please yourself and write whatever you like. Little hint: If you're good enough, no one will care what you're trying to do with your writing, so write what makes you happy.

Bill Craig: Don't be afraid to write outside your comfort zone. You will be surprised at how it opens you up to new ideas.

Hilaire Barch: Don't discount any genre until you've given it a shot. All have different writing aspects that even if the piece never sees the light of day, can help you improve your craft.

L. Andrew Cooper: A genre is built primarily on readers’ expectations and secondarily on historical conventions. Know both—screw with both, sure, but know both, and then have fun. Genres are full of little seeds to plant in your own stories. Cultivate them however you like.

Lee Houston Jr.: READ MORE! Broaden your mind and increase your horizons at the same time. You might enjoy something new that you were unaware existed, and at least experiencing other genres will help you down the road when you least expect it.

Nancy Hansen: Sword & Sorcery\Epic\Heroic Fantasy will always be my favorite genre, but it's good to be able to write other stuff. It opens up new markets. I've even done some horror now. I'm a better writer all round for branching out. I also read more diverse genres than I used to. So I'd say do your homework, read within any genre you're interested, both well done work and sloppy stuff, old and new. Then get out of your comfort zone and start dipping your toes in a new area of fiction. It's good for you and will broaden your appeal as an author. Learning to write stuff like westerns and pirate tales is like learning a new language. You start out overwhelmed by the sheer amount of knowledge you need, but over time it begins to make sense, and before you know it, you're explaining things to other people. Just stick with it and you'll eventually be fluent enough in the lingo to write it well.

REEL DARK, a collection of masters, has arrived

The converse is not true, but all monsters are hybrids, or at least John Locke thought so, and although I’d like to believe the human imagination isn’t limited in the way he says it is, I can’t think of a counter-example, and I’ve looked at thousands of variations on monsters and their subtypes around the world.

So last weekend, at the World Horror Convention in Atlanta, BlackWyrm Publishing and I introduced to the world our latest monster!

Go to Amazon to get the marvelous back-cover blurb that co-editor Pamela Turner crafted, but the monstrous gist is that it’s a book about film infecting the world with dark realities, so while we’ve got comedy, western, sci-fi, and, yes, horror, the bottom line is that it’s dark and smart and full of fresh voices and some amazing pros. Hal Bodner! James Chambers! James Dorr! JG Faherty! Amy Grech! Jude-Marie Green! Karen Head! Lots of other great people–accomplished poets, storytellers, and filmmakers as well–and I am honored to be in their company and to have had an opportunity to work with their words, to arrange them so that they can have conversations you can now overhear.

To round out this post, here’s my intro to the volume:

“The film delivers baroque art from its convulsive catalepsy. Now, for the first time, the image of things is likewise the image of their duration, change mummified, as it were.”
—André Bazin, What is Cinema?

“The cinema combines, perhaps more perfectly than any other medium, two human fascinations: one with the boundary between life and death and the other with the mechanical animation of the inanimate… the answer to the question ‘what is cinema?’ should also be death 24 times a second.”
—Laura Mulvey, Death 24x a Second

These two quotations—from two of the most important thinkers about the cinema since mad scientists pieced it together from other art-forms in the late nineteenth century—tell us that even in the silent era that so few horror fans pay due, people saw a close connection between reels of film and the realities of horror and death. Our mission as editors was to find stories that offered dark, diverse perspectives on how far that connection between reel and real might go, and we wanted diversity in both the types of films people wrote about and in the writing itself. Rose Streif attends to the silent era’s neglect by horror’s mainstream in “Caligarisme,” and in addition to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919/1920), my own movie-obsessed madman narrator in “Leer Reel” riffs on many a silent: he jumps in time but has 1928 as home base. Arguably the first horror film, “The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots,” made by Thomas Edison’s studio the year regarded as cinema’s beginning, 1895, is just a few short seconds of a woman guillotined. The other contender for first horror film, Georges Méliès’s 1896 “Mansion of the Devil” (or “House of the Devil” if you want Ti West continuity) focuses on magical apparitions. People understood at the outset that just as the photographed, moving image made an action immortal, the immortality was “change mummified,” the immortality of the undead, and, as our debut poet Caroline Shriner-Wunn writes in “Confessions of a Woman of a Certain Age,” “The Mummy,” and some others we’ve scattered in between, the undeadness of the film real is not likely to be your sparkling friend. Think about a movie from 1900. Every frame that shows you a person is showing you a corpse. That person is dead. Chances are, if you’re my age, that person’s corpse looks younger than you do. And it’s smiling. Film, on average, advances at 24 images, or frames, per second. Those corpses are smiling at you 24 times per second. Cheeky bastards.

We selected stories that are dark (that was the point), so though we’ve got laughs and action and western and sci-fi and twisted relationships and WTFs, along with some light as well as extreme horror, expect chills, smart ones, as a thread. Our featured story, Hal Bodner’s “Whatever Happened to Peggy… Who?,” is fast, fun, and creepy on its own, but it pays double if you know mid-20th century American and British horror movies, quintuple if you’ve not only seen but really know Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), with bonuses if you know The Bad Seed (1956) or a lot of what Bette Davis and Joan Crawford were up to around then. Likewise, Jude-Marie Green’s “Queen of the Death Scenes” harkens to an age of screen queens that is behind us. Pamela Turner’s “Rival” riffs on 40s and 50s film noir with a twist; James Dorr’s title “Marcie and Her Sisters” points toward prime late 70s and 80s Woody Allen, but this editor’s opinion is that, intentionally or not, he manages in Jane Austen comic-horror adaptation territory better than many recent adapters have in several media. Sean Eads also takes us toward more contemporary territory with “The Dreamist,” on the Inception (2010) side of the postmodern mind-game.

Wait! Stop worrying! This ain’t a history book.

We offer you three sections, mostly short stories, with short poems providing different sorts of pleasure scattered in each of the three. Many selections could appear in more than one section,so we placed based on where we thought they leaned.

Part 1 is “Decaying Celluloid,” and selections here either center on specific films or specific genres. In addition to the stories by Bodner, Turner, Dorr, and Streif, you’ll find Shriner-Wunn’s “Last Show at Hobb’s End” especially meaningful if you’ve seen John Carpenter’s Lovecraftian In the Mouth of Madness (1994). Prepare yourself for a story that matches the inversion in the title of Jason S. Walters’s swan song to the classic Western “Low Midnight” (which makes me want to discuss post-Kurosawa samurai films with him… Walters understands bleak but doesn’t present it like Sam Peckinpah or even Sergio Leone). The section concludes with our featured poem, the inimitable Karen Head’s “Amnesia,” a layered reflection on watching/living David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive (2001).

Part 2, “Framing You,” transitions from Head’s poem and focuses on how audiences—the “real” world—might get caught up, often in ways far more literal than most people would think possible, in media. Thinking about Amy Grech’s “Dead Eye” still gives me  hills; all I’ll say in an intro is that she derives horrific concepts from the multiple meanings of “frame” and “shot.” Shriner-Wunn’s brief contributions here focus on spectacle, particularly the spectacle of the mutilated woman and what its cultural appeal seems to say (if you don’t know about it, read the poem once before you web search the real Black Dahlia case). Jay Seate and Mike Watt take us into fictional film production worlds, where films have very different ways of absorbing their makers. Sean Taylor’s “And So She Asked Again,” has maestro Mario Bava’s Black Sunday (1960) and its legendary star Barbara Steele as major references, but it’s about obsession with the power of film more generally… and what it could deliver. Likewise, master storyteller J.G. Faherty concludes the section with a tale about a man who finds immense, horrific power in a camera.

The book concludes with Pt. 3, “Pathological Projections,” the smallest and likely weirdest group, as their uniting feature is that they take a (usually kind of abstract) aspect of the medium of film itself and expand it into a (generally fairly messed up) story. Russ Bickerstaff kicks it off with ruminations on the 24-per-second concept in the dark sci-fi “24 per second: Persistence of Fission.” James Chambers suggests the medium may be the monster in “The Monster with My Fist for Its Head,” and in “Queen of the Death Scenes,” Jude-Marie Green finds that manipulating the medium’s immortal qualities could have unwanted side effects Shriner-Wunn’s “The Mummy” recalls Bazin but again goes fuller monster; “Cigarette Burns” by Jay Wilburn finds a perspective on the horror of being in the movies that nothing else I’ve read captures in the same way. My own story… well… it’s last. You get your money’s worth without it. You don’t have to read it. Perhaps you shouldn’t. The narrator is looking at you while you read.

—L. Andrew Cooper
April, 2015

(reposted from http://landrewcooper.com/reeldarkpremiere/)

Available at Amazon now!

Time is running out for submission on this awesome anthology!

BlackWyrm Publishing is opening several positions in its spring short fiction anthology for general submissions. We offer professional rates (typically $.05/word, negotiable upon acceptance) for writers qualified to be full members of professional organizations such as the HWA, MWA, RWA, and SFWA; other stories accepted through general submissions receive a flat semi-professional rate of $25. All contributors receive copies. 

The collection, tentatively titled Reel Dark: Twisted Fantasies Projected on the Flickering Page, focuses on the infection of (prose-fictional or poetic) worlds by movies. We want innovative approaches: if you think endless references to films or characters stepping into or off of the screen is innovative, reconsider submitting. 

Although the anthology as a whole will be dark in tone, it will speak to a range of audiences interested in horror, science-fiction, fantasy, mystery/suspense, and/or romance (particularly paranormal). 

Stories should not exceed 3,500 words. 

Submissions are open now and close November 1, 2014. 

We intend to launch the collection at the World Horror Convention in May 2015. Submit stories in standard manuscript format via movieantho@blackwyrm.com. Direct questions about the focus, rates, etc. to Editor-in-Chief L. Andrew Cooper via landrewcooper@blackwyrm.com. Submissions sent directly to the editor will be deleted unread. Authors accepted or invited to submit may join the group at www.blackwyrm.com/movieantho for more information.

Imaginarium -- The Birth of a Truly Literary Focused Convention

The Imaginarium Convention I attended this past weekend is unlike any other convention I've been a guest for. Why? Because this one was all about writers and their creative works. Rather than short-sheeting the folks who create the stories readers love, Imaginarium chose instead to honor them and put them on display.

Were there some obstacles to overcome? Of course. Any con will have them. Particularly any first-year con. But with plans in place to stomp them into dust, Imaginarium is one of the cons I'm most looking forward to hitting again as a guest -- as often as the awesome folks there will have me.

What rocked?

For starters, the staff. Stephen Zimmer, Susan Roddey, and their team of evil minions made me feel right at home from the get-go. They seem to have a knack for anticipating issues and already be working on them before someone like me could even approach them to let them know the issue existed.

Also, the guest list was like a family reunion for me. It's often been said that you have two families -- the family you're born with and the family you choose to surround yourself with. This family is the one that I've made my own and has welcomed me into the madness we all share.

So, thank you to all who made it awesome from the bottom of my heart. My “booth babes” (daughter Charis Taylor and friend Ellie Raine) and I had a great time, from hanging with friends new and old to shaking out booties on the Masquerade Dance Floor.

Can't wait for next year!

And now for the photos...

The lovely Charis Taylor, working the table. 

My neighbor and new friend, author Heather Adkins. 

The beautiful and very patient Spider Queen herself, Jen Mulvihill.

My doomed dance partner, Selah Janel.

Tommy Hancock, Grand Guru of Pro Se Productions.

One of the finest writers I'm privileged to know, L. Andrew Cooper.

The best legs in Florida, M.B. "Embe" Weston.

Embe in action, selling books. 

Charis Taylor, holding down the fort and making all the money.

The books. 

The books and the comics. 

Charis' books and comics. She's also a published writer.

Dinner in the dark. I'm surprised the waitress could put up with us. 

Michelle looks far better in Tommy's hat than he does.

Ellie Raine, Kimberly Richardson, and Charis Taylor

wait for food. And wait, and wait, and wait...

The cast and crew of Kimberly Richardson's sure to be award-winning film short

The Attack of the Killer Beignets, coming soon to a computer near you. 

(From left to right, Michelle Weston, Charis Taylor, Me, Allan Gilbreath, Andi 

Judy, Tommy Hancock)

My lovely daughter Wonder Charis and my favorite femme

fatale, Kimberly Richardson.