AIRSHIP 27 PRODUCTION PRESENTS SOLITAIRE 2 – THE AGENDA

When the son of a wealthy aviation corporation is kidnapped by a vicious South American gang, the family turns to the mysterious entity known as Solitaire to rescue him. In the process, the female master of disguises soon uncovers a personal vendetta against Andrews Aviation. The gang’s goal is not only to ruin the family but also steal their experimental new drone that the U.S. Military is hoping to purchase. Once again, Solitaire will have to rely on her many roles to confuse and defeat a fanatical enemy.

Airship 27 Productions is thrilled to present pulp scribe Lee Houston, Junior’s second fast-paced thriller featuring his original, amazing new heroine, Solitaire. This one is filled with exotic locales, cunning bad guys, and non-stop action.

AIRSHIP 27 PRODUCTION – PULP FICTION FOR A NEW GENERATION!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1969285060/

AIRSHIP 27 PRODUCTION PRESENTS SOLITAIRE

Jesse Frost was a rising star in the worldwide conglomerate communication giant known as Megaplex. But when he accidentally stumbles upon a top-secret project underway that will subvert soon to be launched satellites to illegally benefit the company, he attempts to contact the authorities. In the process finds himself the target of hired assassins. In a desperate last act, he contacts the Daye Foundation via a library computer. The mysterious organization has ads offering to assistance to anyone in jeopardy, regardless of the circumstances.

Help arrives too late to save Frost, but a mysterious agent from the Foundation known only as Solitaire takes on the assignment of uncovering Megaplex's plans and finding the man responsible for Frost’s death. It is an assignment that will take the super spy from New York to Japan and finally to the desert outback of Australia. Write Lee Houston Jr. offers up a brand new pulp hero in this thrill-a-minute adventure that will soon have readers mesmerized. Solitaire’s debut appearance is a welcome addition to the role of new modern-day avengers.

Artist Chuck Bordell provides the interior illustrations while Pulp Factory Award Winner Ted Hammond the beautiful cover. This is the first in a new ongoing series.

AIRSHIP 27 PRODUCTION – PULP FICTION FOR A NEW GENERATION! 

Now available at Amazon.

AIRSHIP 27 PRODUCTION PRESENTS SHERLOCK HOLMES – CONSULTING DETECTIVE VOL. 16

Once again, the famous Baker St. detective and his loyal companion take on the most baffling cases. Whether it be chasing down a cunning anarchist determined to destroy London, or rescuing his older brother from enemy agents, Sherlock Holmes, the world’s greatest consulting detective uses his amazing intellect to solve four new mysteries.

Writers I.A. Watson and Greg Hatcher offer up three unique cases while in a novella length adventure, Lee Houston Jr. has Dr. Waston traveling northward to solve the puzzle of mysterious flying lights in the night skies. Four amazing tales in which the world famous duo is once again pit their courage, skills and loyalty in the service of crown and country.

Also features a cover by Pulp Factory Award winning artist and designer Rob Davis inspired by a pen and ink sketch by Italian artist Ugo Matania.

AIRSHIP 27 PRODUCTION – PULP FICTION FOR A NEW GENERATION!

Available now from Amazon in paperback and on Kindle.

SHERLOCK HOLMES RETURNS!

Airship 27 Productions is thrilled to present in the 11th volume in its best selling mystery series, “Sherlock Holmes – Consulting Detective.” All of them new and never published before.

“Our Sherlock Holmes fans have made this series so popular,” says Airship 27 Productions’ Managing Editor, Ron Fortier, “that the second we release one volume, they start asking when the next is coming out. I’m really not kidding.”

A woman’s remains are found in the newly excavated foundation of what will become the New Scotland Yard. The missing painting of a dead woman leads to unraveling a devious conspiracy. A U.S. Deputy Marshal is in London chasing a vicious and elusive criminal. A sadistic serial killer leaves the authorities puzzles before each of his killings.

Four unique and original case to challenge Sherlock Holmes and his loyal companion, Dr. Watson as delivered by writers I.A. Watson, Lee Houston Jr., Peter Basile and Greg Hatcher. Denver artist Laura Givens provides the outstanding cover and Art Director Rob Davis the twelve black and white interior illustrations. Once again the streets of London are hidden behind the fog of crime and villainy. Yes, indeed, the game is once again, afoot!

AIRSHIP 27 PRODUCTIONS – PULP FICTION FOR A NEW GENERATION!

Available from Amazon in both paperback and on Kindle.

MORE ADVENTURES IN THE SOUTH SEAS

Airship 27 Productions is happy to announce the release of our second “Tales From The Hanging Monkey” anthology.

When Irishman Corky O’Brian opened his bar, the Hanging Monkey, on the island of Motugra he had no idea it would become a magnet for some of the most colorful rogues ever to ply their trades in the South Seas.  The cast includes his lovely, but deadly Chinese waitress Miko, Khuna the powerful island warrior, sea captain Nick Fortune and pilot Jimmy Dolan.

Together these five colorful characters fight their way through one breath-taking adventure after another courtesy of writers Bill Craig, J. Walt Layne, Don Gates, Nancy Hansen and Lee Houston Jr.  From chasing after a cursed diamond to uncovering the mystery of a lethal mermaid, when you stop in at the Hanging Monkey, there’s no telling what will happen next.

“Reaction to our first volume was overwhelming positive,” reports Airship 27 Productions Managing Editor Ron Fortier. “Enough so that we knew we had to whip up a second quartet of these fun adventures.”  Fortier then recruited professional artist Mike Harris to do the twelve interior illustrations with Award Winning Art Director Rob Davis taking on the cover to complete the project.

These are old fashion South Seas tales as done New Pulp style with fast paced action amidst tropical sea breezes that will have readers soon clamoring for more…Tales From the Hanging Monkey.

AIRSHIP 27 PRODUCTIONS – PULP FICTION FOR A NEW GENERATION!

Available now from Amazon in paperback and soon on Kindle.

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.

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.

White by Default? A Character Assumption Roundtable

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I’m really not sure about this. Advice?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As a made-up example:

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

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

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

Time After Time -- Writing in "Period"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anybody have any good historical pirate documentaries to recommend?

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

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

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

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

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

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

SMALL TOWN CRIME CAN PROVE DEADLY!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SMALL TOWN CRIME CAN PROVE DEADLY!
CHARLES BOECKMAN PRESENTS JUDSON AND GARDNER DEBUTS

Since the 1930s, author Charles Boeckman has created characters that have thrilled Pulp and Genre Fans of all sorts. Cowboys, detectives, and jazz musicians have played, rode, and solved their way through adventures untold. Pro Se Productions, an innovative publisher of Genre Fiction and New Pulp, brings the best of this pulp master’s creations back to life in new stories by today’s best authors. Two such characters found their way into Boeckman’s original tale, Blind Date, as a team and they live on that way now in Charles Boeckman Presents Judson and Gardner!

“Charles Boeckman,” says Tommy Hancock, Partner in and Editor in Chief of Pro Se Productions, “has a way with mysteries. Weaving them through jazz musicians, big city cops, and private detectives, he definitely practiced that skill best with Judson and Gardner. In their debut story, Mister Boeckman created not only two strong individual characters, but a pair, a team of crime solvers that were both capable of the task before them and relatable to the reader. Flawed, especially Judson, and determined, particularly Gardner, the two of them were simply ripe for more tales. And Pro Se Productions is glad to be the source of new adventures of these rather unique crime fighters.”

Frank Judson, a mid 1960s small town reporter, and Buddy Gardner, a deputy in the same small town with detective skills to spare, find new stories and cases to follow and crack in Kingsbury, thanks to authors Lee Houston, Jr. and R. P. Steeves. Judson, a tightly wound trouble prone reporter and Gardner, a rather laidback, subtly ingenious investigator, make the perfect pair to pull unwilling skeletons from closets and dig up murder, corruption, and crime. Death and mystery haunt this unlikely pair of adventurous crime solvers in Charles Boeckman Presents Judson and Gardner. From Pro Se Productions.

The latest Charles Boeckman Presents volume featuring atmospheric art by Adam Shaw and logo design and print formatting by Percival Constantine is available for only $9.00 at Amazon  and via Pro Se Productions’ own store. The further adventures of Frank and Buddy are also available as an Ebook for only $2.99 with digital formatting by Russ Anderson for the Kindle and most other formats at www.smashwords.com.

For more information on this title, contact Morgan McKay, Pro Se’s Director of Corporate Operations, 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.

Do Your Read & Write Faves Connect?

This week's roundtable is a short, and hopefully simple one, the answers to which have been nagging at my brain for some time.
What is your favorite genre to read? To write? If they're not the same, why is that?

Robert Krog: My favorite genre to read is sometimes history/archaeology, and sometimes fantasy and sometimes, well, you get the picture.  When I look at my bookshelves, I see that I own about an equal amount of history as I do fiction of whatever genre.  These days, I probably read slightly more fantasy than anything else, but I've probably read more history, over all.  I don't have a favorite genre, though.  I move as easily through one as through another, with the exception of romance and erotica, which I do not enjoy, though I have nothing against a love story. 

When I sit down to write a story, it is usually fantasy that jumps out from my fingers first, so that may be a subconscious admission that I like to write fantasy more than anything else.  I certainly fall into that mode most readily. Still, the story that came to me fastest and was written most cleanly in the shortest amount of time was a piece of science fiction.  Furthermore, I limit myself to no genre and have written the gamut from literary fiction to steampunk. 

Why do I think of fantasy first?  Fantasy was what I read most when I was young, and that seems to have formed me.  Also, I spent many hours each week running around outside pretending with my siblings and friends that we were knights and wizards, elves and dwarves and such.  That is probably why.  There is also the fact that fantasy, as much as or more than, any other genre, allows the writer and reader to explore themes that they might not otherwise explore.  The distance fantasy affords is of inestimable worth. We can, through fantasy, symbolically explore questions. The exercise of imagination that fantasy affords is equally useful.  And fantasy is a natural extension of the sorts of stories told in every culture from the dawn of history on.  What is mythology but an attempt to understand the world through fantastic storytelling?  Then, too, fantasy touches us to the heart just as much any other type of well-written literature, engages our sense of wonder, and provides the reader with entertainment that can be edifying or merely escapist.

Ralph Angelo, Jr.: For me, the genre's are essentially the same. action packed Sci-Fi/ Epic fantasy. The same stuff I like to read I like to write. I usually get inspired by what I read at times and new ideas start to flow. My favorite stories to write occur out of the real world. They are in deep space or worlds filled with powerful beings be they magical or scientific in origin.

Kristofer Upjohn: I like writing horror, both non-fiction about horror and fiction. "horror" is a broad term here since some of my fiction isn't strictly horror based on content but rather in terms of darkness or bleakness. I also write stream-of-consciousness slash surrealist stuff. I like to read fantasy, comic books, noir/crime, a little horror (mostly Anne Rice and Brian Lumley) and some sci-fi. I've often pondered why I write one thing and read another and have yet to arrive at a satisfactory answer. Reading and writing are two different activities and I guess what pleases me to read is different from what I find fun to write (and what I'm good at writing).

Marian Allen: NOT simple! ~sigh~ If I HAD to choose ONE genre to read to the exclusion of all others, I suppose it would have to be fantasy, if fantasy could be sufficiently broad to cover magic realism, literary fantasy, urban fantasy, and science fantasy as well as the more traditional forms. And that would be the genre I would choose to write, too, given a broad enough interpretation of the term.

Armand Rosamilia: I write a few different genres but mostly horror and zombie fiction, although I have dabbled in contemporary fiction, thrillers, erotica, and even romance under a pen name... but I usually only read nonfiction books. I love biographies and memoirs. I can't remember the last time I read a horror book, and it has to do with me not wanting to inadvertently bleeding in other author's ideas into my stories, I guess...

Richard Lee Byers: My answer to both "What do you like to read?" and "What do you like to write?" is that it varies according to my mood. Lately, I've been reading a lot of Lovecraftian horror and writing it as well. I will say that although I've written and likely will continue to write more swords-wizards-and-castles fantasy than anything else and love the sub-genre, I don't read nearly as much of that as I used to. I think that's partly because I'm so familiar with the beats and tropes that it's hard to surprise me and partly because if I'm writing a particular type of fiction, reading it in my leisure time isn't always pleasurable. I want something different. My final thought is that I may have reached the point where I don't look for particular genres so much as particular authors. If, for example, Joe R. Lansdale writes something, it doesn't matter if it's horror, crime, or whatever. I'm interested.

Andrea Judy: I love writing action adventure dark types of stories. While I also love reading horror and action adventure, I really enjoy reading romance. I love these because the happily ever after is soothing, the stories are fun, and it gives me an uplifted feeling after I've read them.

Lee Houston Jr.: I mainly read science fiction, fantasy (and despite the commercial applications, these are two separate genres), mysteries, and superheroes. I have written short stories in all four genres, but as far as books are concerned, I've combined science fiction and mysteries to create Hugh Monn, Private Detective and the Alpha series is my contribution to superhero novels. For whatever reason(s), I've yet to write a fantasy novel, or do something in science fiction or mysteries independent of the other genre book wise.

H. David Blalock: Speculative fiction. Both.

Selah Janel: My favorite genre to write is probably cross-genre, because I have a terrible time choosing just one, and I feel like a lot of elements in different genres line up well and play off each other in interesting ways. I also feel that, for me, the genre I write in depends on the actual story idea, and often times a fusion, if done well, is the best course of action for me. I love dark fantasy, love horror elements, but I couldn't give up folklore or fairy tale elements, and a lot of my leanings are firmly rooted in fantasy. I have a healthy respect of literary fiction and try to bring at least some of that to the table, and I don't mind romantic elements...So I guess my favorite genre to write is: yes.

I actually read more nonfiction than I do fiction, depending on the day. I love learning, and I like gleaning things that may help my own writing. That being said, in genre fiction I tend to read a lot of dark fantasy and a lot of comics and manga, but I also delve into cozy mysteries and chick lit/romance, too - it actually depends on the time of year: I have a definite dark mode and a definite fluffy mode. I think authors need to read everything - or if not everything, they absolutely cannot only read the genre(s) they write in. That may keep the focus on your genre(s), but it also really keeps a small circle of things you could be influenced by. Because I tend to embrace everything when I write, I suppose I have no trouble embracing everything when I read.

Stephanie Osborn: I have several fave genres: SF, fantasy, mystery, science. And those are pretty much what I also write.