The Writer As Eternal Student

For the next roundtable let's talk about how writers are eternal students (though usually on self-study courses). 

The first side of that coin is that we can only write what we know. How has that been evident in your work? Are there topics/interests/specifics that you find your work covering over and over again?

Bobby Nash: I always take the “write what you know” advice to be the beginning of the journey. I didn’t know much about FBI agents or serial killers when I wrote Evil Ways, but I knew about the relationship between two brothers so that’s the foundation for the story. If the relationship between them is solid, the rest I can build on from there. I’ve had demeaning day jobs. I can use that as a basis for a story or character, even if it's not the same job, I can extrapolate from real life to make the story feel real. If I took “write what you know” literally, my stories would be very boring.

Ef Deal: I write steampunk, which has the advantage of being set in history. There's a lot to know about history, and the information is readily available. My plots involve an element of social conflict, an historical setting including historical figures and events, scientific dvelopments of the time period (1840s), and paranormal features as they were understood at the time. Research is essential to nail down all of those elements in such a way as to find a nexus where they present a plausible plot for me to pursue. I like to get down to the personal level, so I often read journals of the time, memoirs of the historical figures, newspaper articles. These often give me significant lines of description or dialogue. When I saw Eugene Delacroix's comment about the Paris-Orleans railway being "a blessing to my rheumatic bones," for example, I knew that line had to be in the book and that the story would begin there. In researching conditions for child laborers in the coal industry, I learned of the disaster that drowned 30-some kids, and I learned their names so at least one would be immortalized.

Paul Landri: Buckle up because this is a long one! 

One of the best compliments I’ve gotten so far for the first book in the Crimson Howl series came from an up-and-coming comic book writer friend of mine named Patrick Reilly (he’s got an anthology series coming out later this year everyone should check out,) who told me that I write “white rage” very well. Now, I don’t normally talk politics but art has been and always will be political by its very nature.

I am not an angry white man in the sense that I feel my privilege is being eroded by outside influences. I am angry at the injustice I see all around me perpetuated by thoughtless and ignorant men who feel like the march of progress is somehow an affront to their identities. In Howl book 1 I wanted to channel that feeling because I grew up around this type of thinking. The Jersey Shore where I lived, Atlantic Highlands, is a pretty blue-collar area despite its status as a tourist town. Lots of fishermen and old salts who’d spend their late afternoons and evenings at the local watering hole lamenting about how the good days were behind them. These were people from an older, less tolerant generation who had no filter and didn’t care, after a few Miller Lites, who knew their opinions. Of course, this was constantly brushed off because they were “from another generation” (as if that was any excuse!) So when I came up with the character of Arnold Grant, the titular character of the Crimson Howl series, I wanted to see how a character with superpowers from a “different” generation would exist in the modern era. I came up with the idea of the Crimson Howl as a character in 2014. Two years before the MAGA movement usurped the Republican party and transformed it into something unrecognizable. I like to joke (although it’s becoming much less funny as time goes on,) that the Crimson Howl was MAGA before MAGA was MAGA.

I have a degree in history from Monmouth University. My senior thesis was on propaganda during World War 2 in America. You can read it at the Guggenheim Library in West Long Branch if you’d like. I found the subject fascinating (and got an A on it, to boot!) and wanted to incorporate as much of my WW2 knowledge and nostalgia into the book as possible. When creating the world for Return of the Crimson Howl I had to marry my love of Golden Age comic books with my fascination with World War 2. How to do that, though? Well, the answer is simple: make superheroing a part of the New Deal. I don’t seem to recall if this had been done before, but it definitely worked in my narrative. I currently work with the estate of Joe Simon, who along with Jack Kirby created Captain America. My work has a heavily anti-fascist bend that I’m very proud of.

Despite also being very anti-mafia in real life, I find mafia stories fascinating because it’s a shared part of my Italian-American heritage for better or worse. I’m a big fan of Mario Puzo and wanted to honor his style when I wrote the origin chapter of Rudyard Sinclair, our magical/mystical character named The Swami (He’s on the front cover of Return of the Crimson Howl, done up in full color by Terrific Ted Hammond). In that chapter I got to bring the knowledge of the mob I learned while living out in Nevada and bring it into the story in a fun way. It’s always great to name-drop Kefauver and the hearings that helped destroy the prestige of the Italian mafia.

Lance Stahlberg: If I only wrote what I knew, my books would be pretty boring. I do not live an exciting life. I go out of my way to make sure that not every character has all of my interests and such. Though of course there are elements of me in each of them. I know Chicago, but I've only set one of my books there.

Forget the Scissors, I Need a Machete!

Will these do?

For this week's writer roundtable, we're going to talk about cutting words -- and not just a word here and there but a significant amount of them. 

Here's the scenario... You finish your latest novel or novella, but you're WAY over the word count. 

WAY, WAY OVER. 

How do you get it back to the side your editor wants? 

What are your techniques for serious trimming on your work?

Lee Houston Jr.: Actually, there have been a lot of times where my writing buddy and friendly neighborhood beta-proofreader Nancy Hansen says I write too tersely and always fall short of the minimum word count, so I go back and keep re-reading and adding more until I've reached the goal.

In the end, if I'm over, I just reverse the process. I keep rereading and subtracting. Making choices in that category is tougher because you cannot be so in love with your own prose that you are unwilling to cut anything, even if in hindsight the passage in question actually doesn't add anything to the overall story.

But whichever way you're headed, you have to be careful not to subtract too much or your story might not make sense and adding too much could have your readers think you "pad" your stories.

It's a tricky tightrope to traverse, but every writer finds themselves walking it at one point or another during any project. The real trick is to get to the other side successfully.

PJ Lozito: I am a big believer in cutting out (but save it to a file!). That's one reason I don't think giving a daily word count means much. As for getting up to size, I have notes I can and do use. Nothing makes me prouder than finally being able to use some interesting tidbit I was saving.

I heard you were looking for a word-cutter.

Nancy Hansen: Anybody who's had to edit or publish me knows, I write too big at times. I have to cut all the time, and it's hardest with your own work. I can show you where to cut, but I can't seem to see it in my own stuff—at least not initially. So first off, if I have time, I set the piece aside and go on to something else. It's kind of like cleansing your palate with something in between courses. When I go back, I have fresh eyes. If that doesn't work, I'll hand it over to someone else, a trusted beta reader or even the editor who is waiting for it, and explain that I've tried to cut back but I am too close to the material to see where, and could you please take a look. Nine times out of ten with a short piece people are happy to help, and they give you an idea where and what should go. On longer pieces like novels, the usual advice is to look for a spot where something momentous is about to occur and taper it off there. Most times I can figure it out myself, but now and then you need a different pair of eyes.

Frank Fradella: Step One: Check your ego.

Step Two: Ask yourself if you have started this story as late as possible. Do I need this first chapter? The first three? Am I creating too much preamble? Do I REALLY need this characters origin or can it be revealed as necessary through dialogue or flashback later on?

Step Three: Ask yourself what purpose each character serves in the story. Do you have two characters who play the same or similar role? Can you eliminate one of them?

Step Four: Identify the purpose of each and every scene. Chances are you have one or two that you're chalking up to "character development" that can be axed outright.

Step Five: Push back. If every single character or every single scene has an unshakable purpose, present your case to your editor and ask them to suggest edits, and then be prepared to show why those scenes or characters need to be there. But remember Step One. Very often, they're right and you can make the cut. So cut.

Robert Krog: I start by searching for and deleting adverbs, interjections, needless intensifiers, words like just, so, and well. That always reduces the word count by a bit. Then, I go through and find wordy phrases that can be supplanted by fewer or even one word. Why be lazy and write "very happy" when "elated" means the same thing and so much more? When this too has failed to reduce the word count into the acceptable range, I begin looking for passages that don't advance the plot or build character. This is the painful part because I thought they all advanced the plot and added to characters when I was writing. I have, occasionally reduced the role of or even cut extraneous characters from stories. This usually does the trick. If the protagonist is still able to do all that needed doing without the sidekick, and the sidekick didn't add much or anything meaningful to the story, then out the sidekick goes. This greatly reduces the verbiage. Sometimes, I have already written lean enough that such cannot be done, in which case I've had to ask the editor for leniency on the word count. This has been known to work, but not often. Sometimes the editor will shoot back with suggested cuts, and I will have to admit that the editor is correct. Another trick is, of course, to look for inadvertent info dumps and eliminate them. Working the required information into the story in a show rather than tell format is usually less wordy, and the reader didn't buy a work of fiction expecting textbook style writing, anyway. Information dumps often insult the intelligence of the reader. Respecting the reader's ability to pick up what is needed from context is a good policy and should be used whenever possible.

The Internet called and said you wanted an editor.

Ellie Raine: Usually, I first look at each chapter and determine if I can afford to cut those out, or cut them in half. Sometimes, the hardest things to catch are the not-so-integral scenes before and after the good, important, meaty bits that actually matter, and firing those. It's usually mundane things like the character asking the desk clerk to check in, when that can be wrapped up in a paragraph to get to the scene where his hotel suite is broken into. Basically, I just look at what I think should be the focus of the audience's attention and cut the fat out.

Bobby Nash: The first things I look for are any side trips or character moments that, while can be great, don't necessarily advance the plot. After that, it's looking for extraneous words, adverbs, and tags that can be cut.

Lance Stahlberg: I am literally going thru that scenario now. Was also thinking it was blog worthy of listing off what I did. (Posted here: http://lrstahlberg.blogspot.com/2017/06/tips-to-reduce-word-count_23.html)

Matt Hiebert: The words "Kill Your Darlings" always haunt me. But I don't kill them. I cut and paste them into another document. Although I never go back and read them, I know they're there and not gone. Not dead.

Know-It-Alls Telling Stories: Writers on Omniscient Narrators

For this week's writers roundtable, let's look at the Omniscient Narrator. For years, it was the standard, but now it's fallen out of vogue for Third Person Limited. But why? And should we writerly types be ready to re-embrace this ol' standard?

Do you still write in omniscient POV? If not, when was the last time you did? Why do you keep using it or why did you stop?

Rebekah McAuliffe: While with omniscent POV you can get inside the minds of all of your characters, it can be difficult to keep up with because, again, there are so many characters. At least for me, I feel like first person is where it is much easier to "show, don't tell."

Robert Kennedy: I can't think of an instance where I've used omniscient narration. In my own writing I tend to tell the story in the First Person. I generally do the Voice that way. That often leads to "I didn't know that this was happening until later…" interjections to the readers. (The only time the Voice has appeared in the third person is in "Voice to a New Generation" that appeared in the first anthology of The Pulptress.)

Jeff Deischer: I always use omniscient. I want to jump around and make each character personal for the reader.

Ron Fortier: Never used it. Always preferred 3rd person…even the few times I wrote 1st person, I purposely avoided the omniscient factor.

Lance Stahlberg: I'm not sure if I've ever written in true third person omniscient. At least, in my mind, I'm always seeing the story through a particular set of eyes, even if that set of eyes changes.

When a friend read my GI JOE Kindle Worlds story, they commented that they normally hated third person omniscient, but I made it work. I think it's because it was actually third person limited, just with multiple third persons.

When you have an ensemble cast, it's hard to stay focused entirely on one character. Most of the breaks would be obvious (separated by ***) but in some scenes, I might have to shift from one set of paragraphs to the next because a hard break would be too jarring to the flow of the action. I'd never bounce back and forth too much, though. If I was focused on a particular character, and wanted to get the thoughts of another, I'd go with visual cues and expressions, not their actual internal dialogue.

Break Mwango: I write in whatever POV I feel suits the style of the story I'm writing, and which suits the characters too. Like, do I want to be able to expose ALL the characters' thoughts and emotions? Or do I want to limit it to just one character in order to possibly deceive the reader into thinking one thing when it's the other thing?

C.E. Martin: For me, I like to tell the story the same as if I'm doing a screenplay. I follow one person around, but don't limit the description for the reader to just what the character I'm following is aware of. Then, at a chapter break or a time break, I like to switch to another perspective, creating a mini cliffhanger with the first part. I think it works well for building suspense and mystery--just like it did in the film Pulp Fiction.

Robert Krog: This is, again, one of those questions I rarely ponder but intuitively answer regularly.  When I first read it, I had to stop and ask myself what point of view I use anyway.  It’s usually third person, sometimes first, and only once second.  I wrote in second, because I was asked to do so.  I normally gravitate to third but occasionally fall into first without really thinking about it.  Which third person do I use though?  It’s a question I don’t usually ask myself.  Looking over my work, it appears that I write in third limited with rare occasions of omniscient.  Most of my work is short fiction from novelette to short story and follow the actions of just one character.  There is sometimes head hopping (a sort of level in between omniscient and limited).  There is often insight into what the characters think and feel on top of what they say and do.  Sometimes, however, there is no precise insight into any one character’s head or heart.  The reader is witness to a scene and the narrator, if he is there, reveals nothing beyond what is witnessed.  The narrator comes across as a very ignorant tour guide, knowing locations, names, and basic relationships.  After that information, the reader and he are in the same boat, witnessing an event as it happens.  

I’m working on a novel that is written in periodic episodes of third omniscient, but in which the all-seeing narrator is primarily interested in relating the story of one, particular character, and the story comes across often as third limited.  The reader, after all, doesn’t have the time and the patience that an omniscient narrator has.  The narrator could go on forever, revealing all, but frankly the reader would never bear it.  The narrator stays chiefly in the head of the main character, but does visit the experiences of others as the story demands.  Who could read a book that delivered all the available information in a story at once?  Who could read a book that revealed every character’s, individual experience separately?

I keep to a fairly tight and near perspective, the then and there, only straying from that from time to time, leaving foreshadowing out or keeping it very subtle.  The omniscient narrator may know a great deal about the world through which he guides the reader, it’s history and geography, but he does not know its future. The ending seems to be mystery to him as well as to the reader.  He can’t give it away.  Anyway, he isn’t telling his story, but someone else’s.  He stays as true as he is able to the story he has taken upon himself to tell.

I think I write this way in order to keep the suspense in the story and to enable to the reader to identify with the characters as much as possible to walk in their shoes.  At times, when I think the story on which I’m working requires greater objectivity, I pull back and write from higher up, so that the reader will be able to witness the events from outside rather than as one inside, holding the main character’s hand or riding around in his head.  I use the methods that seem appropriate to the story.  I don’t consider either one more modern or more old-fashioned or outmoded.

Ellie Raine: I’ve tried writing in omniscient, but every time, I unintentionally slipped into 3rd limited. What can I say? I like not knowing anything outside of what the character sees.

Bev Allen: Interesting and I imagine extraordinarily hard to write if you are going to maintain the reader's interest and not burden them with detail.

Lee Houston Jr.: I'm not sure I have ever intentionally written in the omniscient pov. There have been times proofreading when I've discovered that I either foreshadowed too much or revealed too much too soon in the narrative, but those instances were quickly rewritten long before the final manuscript was submitted for publication.

Bobby Nash: Sure. I guess. Is it sad that I don't really think about it before I start writing? I use the narration to set the scene, tell us what is going on, what people look like, how they are dressed. I do try to stick to the POV of one character at a time per chapter or per section of the chapter. I have been known to head hop a few times here and there though. Whatever works best to tell the story or whatever the publisher/editor will allow.

What do you feel are the strengths of the omniscient POV? What are it's weaknesses?


Ron Fortier: It has no strengths. It’s weakness is the temptation to foreshadow an event, which is a cheap trick to play on the writer. Example: "Sam left Irene’s little realizing he would never see her again." Stephen King is notorious for this playing God. I hate it.

Bobby Nash: Strengths -- you can get into the heads of multiple characters and see everything from a big picture standpoint.

Weaknesses -- sometimes I have to rephrase things a certain way that would work better if one of the characters was the narrator.

Lee Houston Jr.: If done right, the Omniscient Narrator can serve as an extra character, so to speak, to tell the story from a viewpoint that none of the other characters in your tale/novel have. Done incorrectly, this "extra character" overshadows the main cast so the reader wonders who the book is actually about.

Bev Allen: I see the possibility of creating a rich texture to the descriptive narrative, and the possibility of including subtle layers of visual experience, but do I, as a reader, really need or want that?

Robert Krog: I suppose the strengths and weaknesses of the differing third person points of view depend on the way in which they are implemented and on other factors as well.  One doesn’t want to reveal the end of a mystery at the beginning, generally, and one doesn’t want the reader to think that the narrator knows but isn’t telling, just because he likes to keep the reader in suspense.  Mind you, many readers do like to be kept in suspense, so there is that to consider.  In fact, the main problems with omniscient may be nothing more than reader expectation and writer execution.  Terry Pratchett wrote primarily in omniscient and is a beloved author still read by many, so I’m not ever sure why some today suggest that the omniscient point of view is out of date.  Readers loved the voice of the narrator and didn’t mind that he knew everything and only revealed what he wanted to in the order that he liked.  They liked the manner and order of his revelations and delighted in them.  Is Pratchett’s work already that out of date?  Perhaps what is passing for conventional wisdom on the subject is what is sadly out of touch.

Another more recent best seller using omniscient is the novel Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke.  Again, I suggest that omniscient not really all that out of vogue anyway.  I think the question with the strength and weaknesses of the omniscient point of view is whether or not the narrator of the story is in and of herself an engaging storyteller telling an engaging story.  This is the question with every other point of view as well.  Are the characters and the story ones that the readers will find engaging?  If the narrator is dull, the story however exciting it should be, will come across as dull as well.  This is why so many people do not read History.  It is not that History is boring, it is that it is told by Historians, and they are, as a lot, not very good storytellers.  Individual Historians do shine through, from time to time.  Thomas Costain comes to mind.  On the other hand, a really good story teller may get away for some time by finding some amusing way of presenting what is essentially a dull event.

Given all that, readers who enjoy the plot most will probably like omniscient better than limited, but no always, whereas readers who enjoy characters more than plot will generally like limited better, since it usually is a more intimate way of telling a story.  These are only strengths and weaknesses depending on reader expectations, and they are not hard and fast rules.  A good, omniscient narrator, who feels for the character whose story is being told will supply the necessary intimacy, I think.  The reader will sympathize with the narrator and therefore with the character in question.

Lance Stahlberg: I am sure there are times when you would want to get in everyone's head at once. This makes me think about a common trope in older comics when you have two characters in the same panel looking at the same thing with opposing thought bubbles over their heads. But this isn't done so much anymore for a reason. It breaks the cardinal rule "show, don't tell".

In the story I'm working on now, I get to cheat because the main character is a telepath. Though not knowing exactly what everyone in a scene is thinking is more interesting to read and a fun challenge to write.

Ellie Raine: The strengths are definitely knowing what everyone and everything is doing/seeing/thinking/feeling. But that in itself feels like a weakness to me; there’s no focus.

Jeff Deischer: I don't think it has a weakness, per se. It's a matter of taste. Some stories -- mysteries particularly -- work very well told first person.

Rebekah McAuliffe: I don't think I've ever written in omniscent POV. First person is just easier for me.

Robert Kennedy: Often the viewpoint is generated by the publisher/producer of the end product. Take the TV show Adam-12, for instance. A number of writers, who have more recently been TV producers, apparently did not like Jack Webb's command that they could show "Only What the Cops See!"

When writing in the third person I tend to mostly stick to the protagonist's POV. Or, to the hero and his team's viewpoint. Sometimes, usually near the end of a story, I jump around like crazy when the "Plan is Coming Together."

As a reader (not as a writer this time) do you enjoy reading the omniscient POV? Why or why not?

Rebekah McAuliffe: As long as it is a good story, and is written well, I don't really care whether it is in omniscent or first person or whatever.

Lee Houston Jr.: No. While you need set ups, introductions, etc. that require a narrator; I want to read what happens next, not be told by "someone" not even involved in the tale what happens.

Bobby Nash: I don't mind as long as I'm enjoying the story

Jeff Deischer: I still like reading it, yeah. That was about all there was when I was growing up (I mean readily given to teens). I don't know when I read my first first-person story but it was probably in my twenties. First person is hard to write well for most people.

Ellie Raine: When I read, I like to feel like I’m experiencing the story, not hearing about it. I feel like omniscient POV (at least for me) solidifies that line between fiction and reality to the point where I don’t believe anything that’s happening in omniscient. But that’s me.

Robert Krog: I enjoy a story that is well told, whatever the point of view.  That inevitably includes the omniscient one.  Having read the works of Terry Pratchett and Susanna Clarke, I can point you to current examples I enjoyed.  I suggest you give them a read and see what you think.

Lance Stahlberg: The reader wants someone or something to follow. If the perspective bounced around too much, it could get confusing quickly. A big part of this could be thanks to movies and TV. People are more visual than ever. We've become conditioned to "see" a story play out from a certain perspective.

Robert Kennedy: If somebody writes well in the Omniscient Narrator style, I have no problem with that.

(For publishers only) Does your company solicit or seek stories in the omniscient pov? Why or why not?

Ron Fortier: Nope, save for rare occasions that demand first person such as our Sherlock Holmes or Quatermain tales, we only want third person. A writer should bring his readers along with him or her in the story’s journey and allow for genuine, organic surprises to them both.

Debra Dixon: I don't actively solicit any particular POV. However, deep limited third (multiple deep limited, too) or first person generally deliver the most immediate, emotional reads. Including the feel of the action in a plot dependent upon battles, fights and fisticuffs.

Tommy Hancock: I don't discriminate.

Joe Gentile: We do not ask for specific POVs, however, that being said, sometimes when working with licenses, they will prefer a POV type.

Sean Taylor Shares the Skinny on THE NEW DEAL: MASKS AND MUTATIONS!

If you need someone to blame for this book, here I am. It’s simple math. A + B = C, with C being this book. If you’ll keep reading for a moment or two, I’ll attempt to explain.

A: What If

“What if” is a writer’s favorite game to play. It’s the basis of all stories. What if King Lear happened on a farm but from the POV of a “bad” heir? That’s Jane Smiley’s A THOUSAND ACRES, for the record. What if spiritual samurai tried to hold off imperialism from an invading and technologically superior force? That’s both history of Japan and the basis for a little space movie called STAR WARS. What it space were the wide-open West and we sent people out to explore it? You guessed it, STAR TREK.

“What if” keeps the fictional world from becoming stagnant. It’s the remix that word-artists use to create something new from something borrowed, something blue. “What if” is the glue (sorry for the cliché) writers make from the hooves of both classic and often forgotten literary steeds.

Now that we’ve established that, what about this one: What if the American public had a scapegoat on which to blame all the bad stuff from the 1920s and 1930s, such as the stock market crash, increasing crime, etc.? And what it that scapegoat weren’t a race but a whole new kind of people, a new generation of people born with amazing powers, some that could stay hidden in public and others that didn’t have that luxury?

B: Man Vs. Man  

Two super hero-themed books have always stuck with me as being important to the American cultural/creative landscape. The first is the X-Men adventure God Loves, Man Kills. It’s a masterpiece of Us vs. Them literature. The second is the Wildcards series edited by George R.R. Martin et al, particularly the first book with its crazy trip through American history with the added benefit (or detriment) of Aces and Jokers.

But this Us vs. Them theme sadly isn’t confined to books and movies. We all know that. Without racism, the X-Men wouldn’t have been so popular since that was their story to tell (only slicing it in a fantastical way).  The Wildcards books would have had little to say beyond mere escapist fiction without the realities of McCarthyism and anti-socialist and anti-communist politics at their core.

I’m not talking about simple man vs. man plot structures here. This is far deeper than the noble sheriff vs. the bad cattle rustler, or even the disillusioned copper vs. the vicious gangster. I’m talking about the propensity of human beings to focus on the things that make us different and use those very things at best to segregate the greater (us) from the lesser (them), or at worst the right and proper (us) from the evil and should be gotten rid of.

It’s one of the things that makes us rightly and truly suck as people, but it makes us great fodder for stories, fantastic fodder for compelling stories.

It’s the fodder at the heart of this collection of stories, which brings us to…

C: This Book

At its simplest, this book asks the question, “What if the X-Men happened in a generic way right around the Great Depression and took all the blame for, well, everything?” But it didn’t stay there. With the input of several writers I trust, value, and am jealous of, it became more than just a rip-off of the X-Men. It became something wonderfully and truly pulp, something that took the ideas of masked men with guns and fedoras from the realm of possibility into the realm of the fantastic, of superheroics.

The pulp era is filled with costumed do-gooders, but most of them were what my first super-fiction editor staunchly referred to as “mere vigilantes.” (A super hero, after all, had to have super-powers, according to him.) Men and women with guns. Men and women who were tremendous athletes, but nonetheless merely human.

This volume takes those men and women farther. But rather than putting the superhuman on a pedestal and seeing him or her as a god or goddess, it takes a more realistic approach. As I said above, we humans don’t have a good track record welcoming the new and different, especially when it frightens the bejeeszus out of us.

The title is an obvious riff on President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s political stab at rejuvenating the country. Only in this case the new deal is not what history tells us. It’s a new kind of human. The new and different. The thing no longer in the shadows that frightens the bejeezus out of us.

How the people involved “deal” with that new is what makes the stories in this collection worth your time and money.

So welcome to THE NEW DEAL: MASKS AND MUTATIONS.

I hope you enjoy your trip to the past that never was.

Sean Taylor
Creator of The New Deal: Masks and Mutations
September 30, 2016
Atlanta, Ga.

HEROES AND HISTORY IN THE CROSSHAIRS- ‘THE NEW DEAL: MASKS AND MUTATIONS” DEBUTS FROM PRO SE PRODUCTIONS

A cutting edge Publisher of Genre Fiction, Pro Se Productions proudly announces the release of THE NEW DEAL: MASKS AND MUTATIONS.  A collection organized by Sean Taylor, THE NEW DEAL turns the best in New Pulp authors today loose on the concept of super powers in a real world setting at the end of the 1920s.  The anthology is now available in print and digital formats.

“THE NEW DEAL,” explains Tommy Hancock, Partner in and Editor in Chief of Pro Se Productions, “asks the question ‘What if Super Powers were a thing at one of the most explosive points in our history?’ And this taut, thrilling anthology is most definitely the answer to that.  Each story tackles both the nostalgic view we have of the Golden Age of Comics and Super Heroes as well as the actual ramifications of something like this happening when the world was well on its way to Hell already.  From sentimental to terrifying, THE NEW DEAL: MASKS AND MUTATIONS delivers on every note, pushing readers into a world of fedoras and movie matinees that has so much more hidden under the surface.”

The Jazz Age is over and the Great Depression and Dust Bowl are ravaging across the United States. People need someone to blame. Luckily for a population who needs a scapegoat, the next wave of human evolution has begun, and it couldn’t have chosen a worse time to be born.

Men and women with amazing powers now fly across the sky, turn their skin into gold, and block bullets with their bare hands. Some take to crime. Some hide their powers for their own safety. Some seek the Underground Railroad for safe haven and a new life in Mexico. Some try to fight the good fight and turn the tide of public opinion as heroes. All of them are in the wrong place at the wrong time in a wounded, terrified, and violent country.

In this collection from Pro Se Productions, Sean Taylor, D. Alan Lewis, Lance Stahlberg, Sean Dulaney, Andrea Judy, and Tommy Hancock spin history ’round like a top to create an alternate reality both comfortably familiar and strangely new for readers of action, adventure, and crime stories. THE NEW DEAL: MASKS AND MUTATIONS. From Pro Se Productions

Featuring an amazing cover by Timothy Standish and cover design and print formatting by Antonino Lo Iacono, THE NEW DEAL: MASKS AND MUTATIONS is available now at Amazon and Pro Se’s own store  for 15.00.

This exciting super hero anthology is also available as an Ebook, designed and formatted by Lo Iacono for only $2.99 for the Kindle and for most digital formats via Smashwords.

For more information on this title, interviews with the author, or digital copies to review this book, contact Pro Se Productions’ Director of Corporate Operations, Kristi King-Morgan at directorofcorporateoperations@prose-press.com.

To learn more about Pro Se Productions, go to www.prose-press.com. Like Pro Se on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ProSeProductions.

Thank You, Captain Planet -- Writers Respond to Politically Correct Character Casting

When I first heard the politically correct combining of various races and genders in a preset, paint-by-numbers exercise as "Captain Planet" casting, I nearly snorted Diet Coke onto the shoulders of the con-goer sitting in front of me.

I always hated Captain Planet as a kid, perhaps for that very reason. It seemed so... forced.

But rather than assuming I speak for every writer, I took the hard questions to a group of authors who know all about these things.

What responsibility (if any) does an author have for portraying a variety of cultures/races/genders in a given work?

Michael Baron: The first responsibility is to entertain. A good writer uses his imagination to put himself into the heads of many people. I use whatever characters are appropriate to the story. Anyone who reads my fiction knows I incorporate many diverse types. But not for the sake of diversity. For the sake verisimilitude.

Chuck Dixon: A writer has no responsibility to anyone about anything.

Adam L. Garcia: I believe the author responsibility is to tell a good story and should focus on that first, but should do so in a way that treats the characters equally, regardless of race/gender/culture.

Beau Smith: Writing a compelling story with characters that have something to say, Likability is a key that so many times goes neglected. Without an emotional investment, readers won't care about the situation, or the conflict.

Gordon Dymowski: Let's be absolutely clear – we live in a multicultural world. An author has an absolute responsibility to portray a variety of cultures, races, and genders within a story. Cliched complaints like being "politically correct" or "being inclusive" are merely forms of intellectual laziness, substituting catchphrases for honest, open dialogue. And for those who think that a writer should reflect their reader's politics, sorry people - writers don't serve any political agenda but their own.

Crafting a diverse range of characters even in a traditional pulp milieu can be done...and it actually has been done within New Pulp. Barry Reese's Lazarus Gray stories are an excellent example:  one of the characters is a gay person of color, and Barry's writing imbues the character with dignity and honesty while acknowledging that the time in which those stories takes place was not welcoming of diversity. (And let's not forget Black Pulp and Asian Pulp from Pro Se Productions) So yes, a writer should work hard to be as multicultural as possible within the context of their story and setting.

John Morgan 'Bat' Neal:Well it doesn’t hurt to be mindful of it but it also isn’t something you want to force.  Like many things it should organic to what you are writing.  Many things have a reason to have the people populating the story that is being told.   But it can work to toss in something that contrasts with the commonality of the people and places that are the main part of the story.  Take Dracula for example.  Stoker told a timeless tale of an invading alien coming into a set society. Dracula was as different from the main English characters as he could be.  But he at least shared that uniquely European notion of nobility.  Stoker could have stopped there but he also added Quincey Morris.  A tall Texan.  A character that provided further contrast and relief and helped make the novel one of the best of all time.   So it pays to throw in a bit of spice.  That spice can come from different races, cultures, sexes, and sexual orientations.    In summation, I think the main responsibility of a writer is to write something good and entertaining.  Once that is achieved they can see about being socially responsible. 
 
Anna Grace Carpenter: I have a responsibility to write a convincing story that feels real, even when it's not. Different stories will involve different elements to feel "real", but lack of diversity has more and more taken on an aspect of unreality for me. (It was less so when I was younger and in a more limited social setting. As an adult I interact with all types of folks on a regular basis and recognize that is more the reality of most of the world.)

B. Clay Moore: Unless directly commissioned to address specific cultural, gender-related, or racially relevant themes, a writer's responsibility is to be true to himself (or herself), period. He has no "responsibility" to please anyone, or not to offend anyone. Once the work exists, it's open to whatever interpretation people want to lend it, and the author is open to whatever criticism may come. But there is no "responsibility" to anything beyond the story.

Logan Masterson: The writer bears whatever responsibility he or she accepts. We can write silly stories and sad stories and meaningful stories.

I choose to write what I hope is meaningful fiction. It's not all inclusive. Ravencroft Springs is about a white guy. But Canticle of Ordrass: Wheel of the Year is about a girl fleeing religious persecution only to confront racism and ignorance. All the MCs are women. It's a challenge for me to write, which is one of the better things about it, and I think it makes me better.

As makers of art, we are the front line in the culture war. Stories like ours become films. They become TV shows and graphic novels. They enter the zeitgeist.Our stories can change peoples' minds, and the world itself, if only in tiny ways. But we're all tiny, and pebbles make ripples.

Ultimately, are you obligated to be inclusive and exploratory in your work? No, but I am.

Lance Stahlberg: Responsibility? None. The author's job is to tell a story. It's not our job to appeal to the sensibilities of every possible reader. That way lies madness. You can't win with the politically correct. Don't even try.

Now, if you're trying to be realistic, then you are going to want to portray the variety of races that a reader would expect to find in your setting. If you're in a modern day major city, it might be weird if you don't run across any blacks or hispanics with a speaking role. Unless your plot takes place entirely within the Irish mob. Or a small Midwestern town. Then a random non-white character might feel like a token.

If you try to force something in, it will feel forced and your reader will be jarred out of the story. So the bottom line when it comes to ethnicity, IMHO, is be representative of your setting, but don't feel obligated.

Gender is a little different. Women are no longer relegated to damsels in distress or love interests. If you have a big cast of characters, but don't have any females outside of those two roles, readers will notice.

The Bechdel Test isn't half bad as a guide. But again, don't feel obligated. If your plot plot does not allow for the occasion for two female characters to meet, don't make them. Don't force anything into your work just to appease a reviewer at jezebel.com. Same as above, trying to make the politically correct happy is not your job. Telling a story that feels real and engages your target audience is.

Percival Constantine: It depends on the setting. I'm planning a series set in modern Japan which is very homogenous. So there won't be a lot of multiculturalism in that book. But if I'm writing something in Chicago, only having white guys would be unrealistic.

Ron Earl Phillips: As has been said, you shouldn't ever write to appease some cultural ideal. It is your world you are building, and so the situations are yours to create. But if your story is set in a specific reality, then it has to adhere to those rules set in that reality.

Robert Krog: I was never a fan of Captain Planet either for precisely the reason that it was so forced.  I don’t believe that a writer has any set obligation to meet quotas of that sort or even to write stories addressing such issues.  That being said, great works of literature that persist and are retold over many generations do address socially relevant issues such as equality, tolerance, and love of humanity.  I do believe that stories should tell the truth in as much as the writer knows the truth. I don’t mean the facts, necessarily, but the truth.  The truth is that people come in two sexes and from many cultures and ethnic backgrounds.  It’s bound to come up some time.  So have at it, but don’t force it. 

Also, be careful about being preachy.  It’s one thing to have a preachy character.  Those people exist.  It’s another to break readers out of the story by being a preachy author.  Sermons and stories are hard to weave together convincingly.  That is to say, it’s fairly easy to work a story into a sermon or a sermon into a story, but it’s also easy to confuse the two completely and lose either or both.  Most readers, these days, I think, do not want a story to turn into a sermon.  Some do, I suppose.  Most, I think, do not.  I’d avoid it.

What advice do you have for building an ensemble cast without resorting to a paint by numbers, politically correct cliche? 

Gordon Dymowski: The greatest lesson I learned in writing the “other” came from graduate school, when I was learning to be a counselor. One key  idea was that some counselors tend to stereotype certain groups by symptoms and/or beliefs (like “Asian-Americans are less likely to be alcoholic” or “Hispanic men rely on machismo), rather than seeing how specific cultures affect them. (It's also key to realize that there's no such thing as “Asian” or “Hispanic” culture – there's Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Mexican, Puerto Rican….in short, it's about learning the intricacies of each culture and reflecting those differences). Same with gender/sexuality - learning about the nuances and other's experiences allows me to be more empathetic towards them, and portray them as human beings first and traits later.

When I write a person of color (or gender/sexuality/other characteristic that is not me), I really try to understand that person emotionally, and how their culture affected them. When I was writing “When Angels Fall” for DREAMERS SYNDROME: NEW WORLD NAVIGATION, Jessica (the female lead) was originally a faded Southern beauty queen, chock full of the usual cliches and stereotypes. (In other words, the story sucked because of that poor writing). Remembering past work with local quinceanera shops in my neighborhood, I decided that might be a great way to make the character interesting, and that a cultural influence might strengthen Jessica's character. Integrating that aspect made Jessicar a more interesting character to write, granting her added dimensions which I hadn't considered when thinking about her.

(It also helps me as an author to step outside my comfort zone, and experience other cultures while learning about different groups of people. Actually realize that when you're writing a person of a different gender/sexuality/race, you're writing a person/character first who happens to be influenced by their experiences/culture. Writing stereotypes or falling on the typical cliched tropes hurts both the writers and the writing. As that same grad school professor once advised, eating at Taco Bell does not count as “engaging in Mexican culture.” 

Percival Constantine: Start with character. Always with character. I think about actors and actresses who would fit my characters so that can help.

Ron Earl Phillips: I write stories set in rural America. Very homogeneous, and often times starkly black and/or white. And depending on how I want to serve the story, the use of outsiders would be distracting unless it were a stranger in a strange land type story. Serve the story first, then yourself, and then the reader.

Lance Stahlberg: Sean cited Captain Planet as an example of a paint by numbers cast. That is a great illustration of how putting the message first kills your story. That painfully lame cartoon never even attempted to be entertaining. It was only trying to push an agenda.

The example I always think of is Power Rangers. I mean, the white girl was pink, the Asian girl was yellow (!!!), and the black guy was in the black costume. Really??

In your writing, especially pulp writing, the story is king. So if you have, say, a Muslim character thrown in whose only apparent purpose is to be Muslim, your story sucks. If the fact that they are Muslim works within the framework of your story and is part of what makes them interesting, that's one thing. But if you do it just so you can puff out your chest and announce how diverse your cast is, you are not doing your story, your readers, or the Muslim community any favors.

Really, my advice is to just not overthink it. If your story calls for an culturally diverse cast, go for it. If you find that your lineup needs more variety to the point where you are afraid your readers will get them confused because they all look and sound alike, then yeah, it makes sense. But the minute you say "this story needs a _________", walk away from the keyboard and take a deep breath. It's your story, not the PC police's.

John Morgan 'Bat' Neal: Just be mindful of it.  If you can’t see that you are being cliché or PC then perhaps you shouldn’t be trying to make an ensemble cast and go with what you know until you can see it.  But I think most if not all can if they try harder.  The best advice I can give is make the character.  And then see who they are, and usually that will lead to different races, cultures and orientations if that is what and who they are.  When I created the PostModern Pioneers I did not set out to make them all what they ended up being.  That came as they were being former.  “Bird” Portamayne for instance could have easily been White or Hispanic or whatever.  But as I was writing him it was clear to me he was a middle aged black man. 

And sometimes avoiding clichés is just as bad as pushing them.  Because sometimes clichés are based in a reality.  The character of “Granny” Roh is an Asian computer whiz. That is as cliché is cliché can get these days.  But it just never occurred to me to avoid that as that is what she was.  And it is what it is. 

Robert Krog: If your story includes people of diverse backgrounds, write those diverse characters based on people you actually know, not on stereotypes.  Most folks are not stereotypes.  They may spend a fair amount of time spouting ideology, grievances and talking points, but they do have lives outside of those things, for the most part. The sad truth is that some people are exactly like the stereotypes.  The glad truth is that most aren’t.  Recognizing that all members of the human race have certain common concerns regardless will go a long way toward making characters believable and real. 

It’s a bad idea, generally speaking, to start out writing a story to make a political point.  It’s much better to start out with (a) true-to-life character(s) and then put that/those character(s) into a situation involving socio-political issues relevant to racial/cultural/gender interaction. 

Incidentally, it usually helps not have characters self-consciously preface what they say or do with, “As a fat, white, middle-aged male, I think…” Or, “As a short, skinny, Polynesian woman brought up in Brooklyn, I always…”  There are some folks who shove their identity into the conversation every time they have the chance, of course.  Most people do what they do and say what they say without that.

Adam L. Garcia: Just simply make them complicated, human characters first, their culture, race, sexuality comes second.. Just like you would do with any other character. Focus on the content of the character and then reflect how their background would influence them

Chuck Dixon: Figure out what your characters want. Build a three dimensional character. If your character is only about their "diversity" then they're boring stereotypes and far more insulting to the minority you're trying to represent than not including them would be.

Beau Smith: Again, likable characters. Everything else is secondary, gender, sex, race, whatever.

Anna Grace Carpenter: In order to try and get a broader group of characters, I ask myself what might prevent folks from multiple cultures living together. Then I figure out what sorts of things might cause them to live together. I don't look for token representation (one of every category) but attempt to create a group that indicates there is diversity, even beyond the characters I'm writing about.

B. Clay Moore: Build a cast naturally, and ask yourself if you're truly representing the environment in which you've set your story. Personally, I feel it's important to represent diversity even if the story doesn't demand it. I just think a diverse cast adds depth to the world I'm creating, and I understand that there's an audience out there actively seeking cultural and racial representations they can relate to. There's absolutely no harm in gender-switching or race-switching a character whose identity isn't wrapped up in being a white dude. But in doing so, consider how their relationship to their environment changes with the switch, if at all.

Logan Masterson: There has to be a convergence though, of meaning, market and entertainment. The market wants diversity. Diversity is definitely meaningful, and has plenty of room for fun.

And in a time where even what we consider diverse is still changing, it's an important area to explore. It wasn't that long ago that Irish and Italian people weren't "white." People of color weren't always thought of as people at all.

How can multi-cultural casting help your stories become better? How can it hurt them?

Chuck Dixon: Introducing multi-cultural-ism into a story for its own sake is idiotic pandering.

Adam L. Garcia: It represents modern society, and opens the story to readers of all kinds. It only hurts if you portray other cultures in a cliche negative fashion.

Lance Stahlberg: A monochrome cast has the potential to be really boring. And as I mentioned before, having too many characters who look and talk basically the same can get really confusing. I like to create as many different ways to refer to my characters possible, so that I don't have to fall back on the same words over and over again in my dialogue tags or when describing an action scene. One easy way to address both pitfalls is to vary up racial backgrounds.

But depending on the setting and the situation, throwing in characters of color might come across as a lame attempt at political correctness. In the real world, people of the same cultural and ethnic background tend to congregate. Not always, but a lot. It doesn't make them racist. It's just a fact of life that we never used to question. Same goes with a group of guys not necessarily having a female in their midst at all times and vice versa.

So if your story is about a crew in the Italian Mafia, or a bunch of rich kids in a suburban high school, or a farming community in rural Illinois -- or for that matter if it's set in east or west Baltimore, or the south side of Chicago, or Chinatown -- then you are not necessarily looking for ethnic diversity among the main characters. There are other ways to make characters unique without relying on race.

It's worth repeating: Don't overthink it. The story comes first.

Percival Constantine: As Adam said, it reflects modern society. But know why you're doing it. And know the cultures you're depicting. Living in Japan, I've seen lots of stories about Japanese characters that get it incredibly, insultingly wrong. Many western writers seem to assume Japanese history consists of three periods—the samurai era, WW2, and modern Japan. So you get things like samurai walking around with katana in stories set centuries before those things were even invented.

Robert Krog: The real world often involves people of different ethnicities brought up in different cultures meeting and doing things together.  We meet, trade, cooperate, fight, enslave, intermarry, etc.  Given this circumstance, stories involving such people interacting in such ways will tell truths about humanity.  But then, insular or isolated societies and peoples have also existed and still do exist. Stories of such isolated people can also tell truths about humanity.  I suggest, of course, that one should not write about what one doesn’t know.  If you haven’t a clue about a certain culture, and research isn’t helping, stop your story until you do if the culture in question is pivotal to story.  Not knowing your subject matter can kill your story. 

If your story doesn’t really need a particular character of a particular cultural or ethnic background and you force it in anyway for whatever purpose, it will probably show to the detriment of the story.  Readers will notice and probably not like it.  If the character’s particular ethnicity or culture is nice background color, that’s good and adds flavor to the work as a whole.  If it becomes an unnecessary or forced plot point, readers may notice and resent it.  Of course, the cultural meeting/clash may be vitally important to the plot and socially relevant at the moment and maybe even a timeless theme. That’s great. Go for it.  Know your stuff though.  Get it right.  You don’t want your protagonist who is an African American gangsta type to bravely face his fate with his shirt tucked in.  I believe sagging pants are the M.O. there.  He’ll rush out the door, facing down The Man with one hand holding his Glock sideways and the other holding his pants up.  That’s the stereotype, of course, but if you don’t know that, you can’t address it one way or another, and it sure will show if you don’t. 

Anna Grace Carpenter: Multi-cultural casting provides the opportunity both for more story conflict and deeper empathy and, for me, gives me a chance to explore real life issues without necessarily writing about "real life" circumstances. Lack of research into those issues and how they play out across different cultures can come across as patronizing or simply ignorant and weaken the story by falling into stereotypes.

B. Clay Moore: As I said above, it adds depth to the world you've created, and opens the door for a variety of perspectives. It only hurts a story if you're obviously pandering to an audience, or if you're a shitty writer who leans on stereotypes and broad tropes. In that case, though, your book is probably going to suck with or without a diverse cast. After all, part of being a good writer is being able to convincingly sell the reader on the believability of a variety of character types, regardless of gender, sexual orientation or race.

As a straight white male writer, I fully understand that I won't get "credit" for the diversity of my cast, but it's still important to me not to present the universe only in shades of pasty pale.

Beau Smith: If it is a part of the real story and not forced upon you by a non-writer, editor, marketing, then it's fine, but what comes out of my imagination is what I've made up to be entertaining to hopefully more folks than myself.

Gordon Dymowski: Multicultural casting only hurts if I either do it to fulfill someone else's political agenda or if I choose to rely on outmoded tropes (the streetwise African-American male, the Asian tech expert, etc). Writing about certain time periods provides a great opportunity to write about other cultures with sensitivity and insight within a very oppressive, less enlightened historical context.

Think that writing for diverse, different perspectives is a challenge....well, let me provide a great example of such writing being done right: the television show Leverage provides a showcase where every role is played and written with a mind towards diversity/inclusion, but not at the expense of the overall narrative. If you think it's merely too much work….maybe you should consider not being a writer. (Also, for those who complain that such writing is "politically correct"....the 1990s just called; they want their overused catchphrases back).

John Morgan 'Bat' Neal: It can hurt if it’s just used as a device without any real story telling reason or purpose other than to be PC or inclusive.   Two of my projects have female leads.  Both lead a team of very varied individuals of various colors, sexes, sizes, and personalities.  But none of them were created with some agenda in mind of some meaningful message.  The only thing done on purpose was them all being different.  That is the hook that gets me.  And it comes from being a fan of Doc Savage’s Famous Five, and the Fantastic Four, and The Legion of Superheroes, and all the other things I love that had rich varied casts of all sorts of different folks.  That to me provides some of the richest story telling possible.

Have It Your Way -- Genre-Blending in Contemporary Fiction

This week's roundtable deals with genres and how they never seem to remain a "pure" work of a single genre. Just like we like to have our burgers "our way" and mix up our favorite latte with our choice of flavors, as writers we tend to like to mix up our genres to a desired preference.

What are your favorite genres to blend when you write?

Selah Janel: It really depends on the story. I think aiming something at a genre is exactly the wrong way to go about stuff. If you're looking for a gimmick, absolutely try to cram things together, but otherwise start with the story and see where it goes. Often times, the question of merging genres will solve itself. That being said, a lot of what I prefer to write is fantasy, urban fantasy, or horror, so I often blend those together quite a bit. I also take a lot of inspiration from the literary fiction I've read, as well as historical accounts and all sorts of other things. If there's an element or theme or genre device that I think will work, I'll use it. Often times that approach brings me to using elements from genres that I'm not comfortable writing wholesale, so that's always fun, too.

Lance Stahlberg: Urban Fantasy, as in fantasy with a modern day setting. I wrote one fantasy blended with a heist/crime story with a superhero story. And one fantasy with a Western. I have another urban fantasy idea I want to run at some point, a fantasy-mystery I suppose.

Lisa M. Collins: I love to write action/adventure and blend in elements of fantasy or science fiction.

Allan Gilbreath: Suspense and sensual-ism blended into everything else.

Mark Bousquet: My favorite genre blend was horror and journal writing, in which I wrote a first person story of a woman working in a haunted estate. I really liked how that daily desire to keep a journal mixed with the descent into horror because it added another layer to the tension - there was the terror and horror of the individual acts, but there was also the step back from it, since one largely writes a journal in quiet times while reflecting back on unquiet times.

What are the advantages of blending multiple genres in a single story?

Selah Janel: It gives you more tools in the belt, more paint colors in the palette. It can also technically appeal to more readers, bringing in those who prefer certain genres together. What I love about it, though, is it helps me to expand a story and take it away from the formulaic and into a unique direction. Kingdom City would be nothing without my love of HP Lovecraft or my adoration of regular people historical literature. Granted, all of that is put through a fantasy/fairy tale filter, but that's the real thing - you have to blend the genres until they become their own thing and not jam them together. I love the comic series East of West because it just excels at this. That title is it's own unique world. It has western elements and sci-fi elements, but it has a ton of other little things in it that give it its own unique look and feel. It's incredible. Stories like that are so good they're their own thing - they make me /not/ want to define it by genre, because that takes away from the brilliance that is that particular story.

Lance Stahlberg: Today's savvy readers need more variety to keep their interest. Traditional storytelling runs the risk of falling into predictable patterns and overusing the same tropes that everyone recognizes by now. Something like urban fantasy is easy in that it's whatever genre you want your story to be, but with magic and dragons thrown in.

Lisa M. Collins: My genre is speculative fiction, and I mostly write science fiction or paranormal. Dictionary.com defines speculative fiction as: A broad literary genre encompassing any fiction with supernatural, fantastical, or futuristic elements. In this genre I can throw out all the rules. I can have a unicorn walk down main street, a plumber who flushes herself to other dimensions, or psychologist who lives on a distant world.

Allan Gilbreath: Gives the reader a deeper experience bringing in all the senses

What are the disadvantages of blending genres?

Selah Janel:  If done poorly, it can be confusing or obvious. I think a lot of people have started looking at it as a humor device or a marketing gimmick. That's fair, and it works to some extent, but it really takes away from the artistry of what makes good genre fiction. To me, stuff like that takes away from all the hard work I'm putting into my own stories and subverts authors who are doing it really well. I don't have fantasy creatures in Kingdom City using modern tech because it's funny (though it is, by default). I did it because that's the world that their progressive viewpoints would fit in, and it would be an interesting way to explore traditional fairy tale views versus more progressive world views, and what kind of characters would be caught in between.  It would be really easy for me to write funny stories about trolls using laptops, making the obvious jokes, but that sort of thing is so one-note to me. It's always going to be about what's best for the story, and the genres or tools you use should work for you, not get in the way of the world and tale you're creating. 

Lance Stahlberg: Only from a marketing perspective maybe. Wondering where to file your book on the shelf might be a confusing question. But not really.

Lisa M. Collins: When I blend speculative elements into a story I need my reader to suspend their real world limitations. The paranormal/fantastical/futuristic has to be believable. A unicorn walking down main street might be a hard sale, unless you had already read about our heroine having dreams of the event since childhood.

Allan Gilbreath: Getting lost in the details and not moving the story along.

Is blending genres something you do intentionally, or does it seem to just happen as your write? Why do you think that is?

Selah Janel:  A little of both. I don't tend to think in distinct genre lines. I like seeing how different things make sense - like how a lot of old fairy tale quirks like talking animals and trees, different elements of magic, etc could also read like Lovecraftian horror. I never intentionally went at it from that viewpoint, but it occurred to me one day that things lined up, and there was a lot I could do with it. It solved a lot of problems in my manuscript at the time. I don't throw vampires into tales about lumberjacks just to do it -- there happened to be a term for a forest creature that meshed up with vampire mythos and typical lumberjack life. I definitely don't shy away from blending genres, though. To me it can bring up interesting twists and things the reader may not expect, as well as provide some really nice metaphors, as well. If it doesn't read well, or seems to forced, I absolutely won't do it, but if it gives the characters more room to play, if it enriches the world, if it expands the story, I'm game for anything.

Lance Stahlberg: I never think about it consciously. There is so much cross-pollination of genres today that genre rules are almost meaningless. At least with the kind of audience I want to capture.

Lisa M. Collins: While writing my mind bubbles with ideas. I’ll be typing along and the next thing you know a mecha suited girl strolls through a barnyard with a cow tucked under her arm. LOL, something like that happens every time. :)

When I was kid I was interested in movies and books full of fantasy and science fiction. I can’t imagine not looking in to the future and wondering what might happen or who we will become.

Allan Gilbreath: I hope it happens naturally. At least I hope so. I think and see a story in more than just sight, thus I try to write it that way.

Building stories on unconventional structures -- breaking the rules for fun and profit!

This week we're going to talk about story structure. When do you stick to the rules of conventional structure, and when do you break them?

Editor's Note: For more information about unconventional story structures, click here.

When you create a story, how do you approach story structure? How often do you alter that structure with minor changes like a framing sequence, flashbacks, etc. and how do you know when one is appropriate for a story?

Mark Bousquet: I find that when I get unconventional, it tends to be mood driven rather than story driven. That is, I decide I need a break from straight-ahead, linear style and jump into writing something that pushes me to get out of the linear comfort zone, and look for a story I can tell in that style. I wrote a Victorian horror novel in the form of a journal (The Haunting of Kraken Moor). I've written a superhero novel called USED TO BE (not out yet) which jumps narrative tense with nearly every chapter. When my main character, Kid Rapscallion (Jason Kitmore), is in the present, I write in first person, present tense, but when I flashback to the story of his life, I use third person, present tense. The book is divided into sections, with each section taking a different year of Jason's life (at the start of the novel, it's a decade since he stopped being Kid), and there's all kinds of news clips and video transcripts cut in to round out the story. It's meant to be unconventional because I wanted to write something that jumped around and shifted perspective because that's how we tend to remember our lives, I think - in bits and scattered pieces, where something we do at 28 might be because of something that happened when we were 18, even though there were lots and lots of things in between. It was a blast to write.

Robert Krog: I approach structure instinctively most of the time, which means I usually tell stories with a pretty conventional or natural feeling structure; that is, what feels natural to me. I rarely make a conscious decision about it. I’ve written several stories that match up with items on the list at litreactor, and, of these, two were consciously planned as being unusual types and one was just a moment of inspiration. The first one of this type is “Guirsu’s Story” from the unfinished, collaborative effort that is forever stuck with the working title The Eden Charm. In it, the title character is magically entrapped in a state of sensory deprivation and subject to subtle, psychic attack for years. His story is told in random bursts, out of sequence, and with an unreliable narrator. So I get a twofer for unconventional on that one. The demands of the story seemed to require both, and my collaborator and I, a pox on him for not finishing his part, decided on that before I wrote a word of it. I wrote a story in second person for a specific story call. “The Guy that the Other Guy Fell on, or Vice Versa” was published in You Don’t Say: Stories in the Second Person. I approached it that way because the guidelines said to do so and the editor asked me so nicely to contribute. The last one that is clearly unconventional is a story titled “Other Songs.” It told from the point of view of a piece of rock, because I was inspired that way. You may find it here.

Percival Constantine:I start with a collection of ideas jotted down in a notebook, then I form these into a coherent story by writing up a synopsis. But I don't think of things like framing sequences and flashbacks as something to alter a structure, rather they're part of the structure.

R.J. Sullivan: It's all about what best serves the story. I can think of two instances where I ignored convention and in both cases it worked better for the story and as far as I can tell, it hasn't confused anyone yet. The majority of my first novel Haunting Blue is a first person tale from the POV of the teenage protagonist. There is a flashback incident that takes place before she was born, but vital to the tale. I inserted three lengthy third person "interludes" between chapters that go back and tell that story. So there's three chapters in the present, an interlude 15 years earlier, three more chapters in the present, a second interlude (picking up from the previous interlude) then repeat one more time. By the end of the third interlude the reader knows where the money is hidden and how it got there, just as the protag is planning to go out and find it.

Another time I broke tradition was in the short story "Robot Vampire," which starts out telling the story in deep third from the point of view of the inventor, At a key point, the robot gained sentience, and I broke the narrative and began again first person from the robot's perspective, taking the reader through the 'awakening" and going forward to the end of the story.

Lance Stahlberg: Would in media res be considered "unconventional"? I also tend to weave in a lot of flashbacks, which seems a lot more common in TV scripts.

With the success of unconventional structures as in movies like Pulp Fiction, Mulholland Drive, and Memento, and books like They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, Gone Girl, and S., do you find your work more or less open to embracing an out of the box approach to the narrative structure?

Mark Bousquet: Even going back to my fanfic days, I really enjoyed writing narratives that jumped around. I think there's something powerful about the meaning we can derive from a non-linear look at a person's life. It's always taken me aback, a little, how a genre like New Pulp can be open to a social enlightening (going back to an earlier time and focusing on issues that were not popular in the pulps of the day) but that it often seems so completely closed to doing this aesthetically. There's a resistance in some quarters to telling non-linear stories.

Robert Krog: Eh, I hadn’t thought about it. I’m actually not inspired to write by most movies I see and haven’t read the books that are cited. It seems that Slaughter House Five had what qualifies as an unconventional structure. I read that long time ago. It may have unconsciously influenced me on some occasion, I suppose. It begins with the main character being unstuck in time or some such phrase. The situation of the character in my, alas, unfinished, collaborative work is similar. Generally, I tend not to follow trends, so seeing a movie or reading a book that is unusual in its structure isn’t likely to alter my habits, at least not immediately. Things do sink into the subconscious mind.

Percival Constantine: I taught a class recently on story structure, specifically focusing on the three-act structure and how common it is, and one of the students asked me about things like flashbacks or telling a story in a jumbled chronological order. And what I said is that structure doesn't have to follow a linear timeline. If you look at something like Memento or Mulholland Drive, even though the story isn't presented in a linear fashion, the elements of structure are still there, and they still hit the basic points in the format. But as for me, I don't really see the need for a lot of unconventional storytelling in the type of stories I write.

When and why would you use an unconventional narrative in your work?

Mark Bousquet: When the work will be better for it and when I feel like stretching my typewriter.

Robert Krog: I use unconventional narrative structure when the narrative calls for it, and, until now, I never called it unconventional narrative structure. I did think that writing a story from the perspective of a rock was pretty unique, it’s true. If the guidelines of a story call for it, of course, then that’s how it has to be if one submits. Otherwise, it’s a moment of inspiration thing or a what is called for thing. As I mentioned above, a character in an unhinged situation or mental state might well call for an unhinged structure to his narrative. I may, at some point set out on purpose to write something according to the suggestions at litreactor just for the challenge. That’s as good a reason as any.

Percival Constantine: When the story calls for it. Always when the story calls for it.

R.J. Sullivan: While I typically try to stick to the rules, I found that playing around in instances like this have paid off.

Which do you prefer to read, a regular narrative or something more outside the box? Why?

Mark Bousquet: I like the variety of jumping back and forth, the same way I like reading Faulkner next to Hemingway, or Twain next to Eco, or a horror novel next to an espionage thriller. I think reading, say, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn next to The Island of the Day Before helps me to see beyond the surface of the texts in a more vibrant way. It helps bring out the depth of Huck and Jim and helps to focus the memories of Roberto della Griva into something more understandable.

Robert Krog: I have a preference for good stories. The narrative style either works or it doesn’t. I don’t recall having ever thought upon closing the last page of book, “Wow, that story had really good narrative structure!” My response is usually more on the lines of, “Wow, what a good story!” I’m not unaware of structure, mind you, nor am I disdainful of it. It is merely that it is not usually at the forefront of my thoughts. My thoughts on structure come up when a story is bad and the badness stands out because of structural defects or much later upon reflection. It is not what I think about when choosing a book to read nor is it my first thought on finishing a book. When I do reflect on a book, after finishing it, I will sometimes include its structure in my reflections, if that structure was unconventional or just particularly well constructed.

Percival Constantine: I don't really have a preference one way or the other. Mulholland Drive is one of my favorite movies. But then again, so is The Avengers.

R.J. Sullivan: As for what I prefer, again, it comes back to the story. If the reason the writer did it is clear, and it helps me follow along, I'll go with them anywhere (Christopher Nolan's Momento comes to mind -- which worked surprisingly well) If it's just the writer goofing off, I get frustrated and quit.