Ideas Like Bullets -- Remembering Logan Masterson

by Tommy Hancock

First, my apologies for the absence of the column these last few weeks.  On March 30, I and the community of creatives within which I work received the news that one of our own had passed away at his own hand.  Logan L. Masterson was an author writing for me at Pro Se Productions as well as having been published by other companies.  Logan was also a friend of mine, and his passing was poignant for many reasons, one being that just a week before, I had written a column here on depression.  

So, yes, I’ve been away, dealing with that loss, both professionally and personally.

And to be honest, I’m still struggling with it as many of us are, so much so that I thought about simply letting another week go by without posting.  But, instead, I’d like to share something with you.  Something of Logan’s.

This piece appeared in RAT-A-TAT: SHORT BLASTS OF PULP, a flash fiction volume Pro Se did a couple of years ago.  It is a very short, but complete look at Logan as a writer, at the amount of talent and imagination contained in one large man, a guy with a heart bigger than the Western Hemisphere.

Miss you, man.

ESCAPING ATLANTA 
by Logan L. Masterson

Her fingers weave through the diamond gaps of the chain-link fence. As the pursuers grab at her, pulling at her pants and shoes, the steel wire bends, giving out in advance of her desperate strength. Eventually, she falls. The men, all gray cloth and gas-masks gather her up, ignoring her kicking and screaming.

“Atlanta ain’t what it used ta be,” one of them says. She kicks at him, receiving only an elbow in the ribs for her trouble.

“Easy!” says the other. “Don’t mark her up.”

Moments later, she is thrown into the back of the wagon. Doors slam closed, leaving steel bars and benches her only companions. She sighs, drags herself up onto a bench and straightens her hair. Her blouse is torn, and no matter how she tugs or tucks, it will not cover her bra. Looking through the bars, she notes the passing buildings: the Midtown Hotel is close. It had taken everything she had to make this escape. She will not be given back to him. She would die first.

Steeling herself to this thought, solidifying it into fact, she bashes her head against the bars, hard. It stings and aches all at once, but she does it again and again. Blood drips down the bulwark, splatters the sides of their unmasked faces. The wagon pulls over. Outside, the men argue in frantic voices. She doesn’t stop until the doors open. When the first soldier starts to climb in, she throws herself at him, toppling him back onto his partner. They struggle against her and each other. She rips the mask off his face, spitting and clawing at him. His reply is a sharp blow to the stomach.

With the breath driven from her, she slumps over. They get to their feet, straighten themselves out. She sees his vicious smile vanish under the mask, but she has a smile of her own. As they come to return her to the mobile cell, she levels the pistol at him.

He stops dead, feels his empty holster. Four ringing, echoing shots later, she has a vehicle and a mask of her own.

She will finally make it out of Atlanta tonight. Tomorrow, she will watch it burn.

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.

DEATH AND DESTINY COME AT THE CLOSE OF WINTER-CANTICLE OF ORDRASS: THE WHEEL OF THE YEAR: IMBOLC DEBUTS

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Pro Se Productions, a leading Publisher of cutting edge Genre Fiction, invites you to return to a unique innovative world of fantasy and magic created by Logan L. Masterson in the second tale of his Pro Se Single Shot Signature Series- Canticle of Ordrass: The Wheel of the Year- Imbolc. 

“Fantasy,” says Tommy Hancock, Editor in Chief of Pro Se Productions, “comes in so many varieties. What is a skill is to take aspects of the various types of fantasy tale and to weave them together seamlessly into something that not only reads well, but maintains a reader’s attention from tale to tale. Logan L. Masterson’s Canticle of Ordrass digital single series does all of that, as well as gives readers characters that resonate with such breath and life all their own. It’s a fun, engaging read and Logan makes sure his readers are invested in what is to come.”

As winter comes to a close in the ancient land of Marien, an assassin stalks forest and field in search of her target, a young pagan priestess. As Nicoletta slaughters villagers, the rangers try to hunt her down, and the Maiden-Sisters prepare for battle, but the sacrifices they make aren’t part of the plan.
Canticle of Ordrass: The Wheel of the Year- Imbolc is the second short story in Logan L. Masterson's Pro Se Single Shot Signature series of digital singles from Pro Se Productions.

Canticle of Ordrass: The Wheel of the Year- Imbolc features an atmospheric cover and logo design by Jeff Hayes and ebook formatting by Russ Anderson. The story is available for only 99 cents for the Kindle at http://tinyurl.com/lru6paf and for most other formats via Smashwords at http://tinyurl.com/oxuxh2t.

For more information on this title, interviews with the author, or further details on the Pro Se Single Shot Signature line, 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.

Something to Say -- Writers on Theme

You can't tell any kind of a story without having some kind of a theme, something to say between the lines. -- Robert Wise

Obviously we're talking about theme this week. So let's get to it.

Looking over your body of work, does a cohesive theme seem to be present in it? If so what is it?

Stephanie Osborn: I don't know that there is a cohesive theme in my work. I don't set out to put a message in, but to write a good story. There are some books/series that do have loose overarching themes, but in general I guess my thought is that "There is always more going on than meets the eye," or, said a different way, "Things always work out the way they're supposed to."

Rebekah McAuliffe: As I've been looking back at Gears, and even now while I'm writing ALPHA, there's always been this theme of acceptance and sticking up for "the least of these," no matter the cost. This issue is very close to my heart, not only as a woman of faith ("Whatsoever you do for the least of these, you do for me"), but as someone who has witnessed poverty, and the hardships that many people go through, and the crap that they get from other groups of people.

Logan Masterson: I consider theme to be pretty damned important, and I pay it a lot of mind. Sometimes, when I begin a new story, I'm not sure quite what the theme will be. More often, it makes itself known early on in the process. My favorite themes are all very human. Justice, freedom, love, despair. And I do tend toward the darker side of things.

Percival Constantine: I don't think there's really a cohesive theme in my entire body of work. Redemption seems to occur a bit, though. So does escaping the past.

Bill Craig: Sometimes the stories determine the theme, sometimes the theme emerges with the writing of the story.

H. David Blalock: My last series (The Angelkiller Triad) appears to have been the most blatant example, although I can now see it through much of my past work as well. I have to admit, then, there is a great deal of truth in the adage that a writer puts him or herself in their work, whether by attitude or inference. I would like to think that stubbornness and courage my characters show in the face of adversity is a reflection of my own worldview even if I would doubt my own courage in their circumstances.

Rose Streif: The most obvious theme is that of being an outsider, often in a hostile world.  The outsider status is often bestowed by birth or by fate, and it is up to that character (or those characters) to survive when their very existence unnerves or even causes a violent reaction in those around them. It is also up to them to (somewhat paraphrasing Nietzsche) not become monsters themselves, however monstrous they may feel, or however monstrous the world perceives them to be.

Desmond Reddick: There are a few that crop up. Coping with legacy is a big one, and so is kicking against the pricks, usually apocalyptic circumstances in that aspect. 

Do you write with a theme in mind, or do you just have a worldview that writes itself into your work through you? Or do work hard to keep anything that "meta" out of your work? How so?

Stephanie Osborn: I'm a licensed Christian minister, so I do have a worldview that I try to ensure that the good guys don't violate, or at least realize as a mistake when they do. Bad guys by definition are gonna violate that, and I'm not going to pull punches in my writing to soft-pedal that. Drama is all about conflict, and the conflict between good and evil is about is dramatic as it gets. But the story always comes first.

Of all the books, I think my Displaced Detective series comes closest to "writing with a theme in mind," but that theme is one of parallelism. The books come from the concept of multiple universes, and if I am actively writing about these alternate realities, as I did in the first 4 books in the series, I keep in mind that concept of parallelism -- as for instance Skye Chadwick is her universe's Sherlock Holmes, etc.

Rebekah McAuliffe: Sometimes I may start with a theme, but then as I write the story, the theme will shift on its own. For instance, Gears of Golgotha was originally meant to be a commentary on the science vs. religion debate (get it? science (Chemists) and religion (Mages?)). That was even where the name came from: Gears for science, Golgotha for religion. But then as I kept writing, it evolved into something greater.

Logan Masterson: Themes can become too heavy, but I find that focusing on the characters and plot when actually laying down the words keeps me from getting preachy. I hope that's true, anyway.

Percival Constantine: I don't write with a theme in mind. I focus on the characters and the story and through that, a theme will kind of develop by the time I'm done with the first draft.

Bill Craig: I deal with certain themes in different series because I seem them as real world problems that need to be kept in front of the public eye, human trafficking being one. I dealt with it in the Jack Riley title the Child Stealers, dealt with it again in Decker P.I. A cold and Lonely Death, And in Marlow: Mango Run, and touched on it slightly in Chandler: Circle City Shakedown.
     
H. David Blalock: Looking back at my work over the years, there does seem to be something of a theme. I would call it "Resist the inevitable". Refuse to give in, no matter the odds. Stand up for yourself and others even when it seems futile. I can't say I've used this theme deliberately. It does seem, however, to be the driving force.

Rose Streif: I do write with themes in the back of my mind, and inevitably my worldview and interests are going to color what I write.  I try to blend them in as seamlessly as possible, and I try to be understanding when people just don't "get it".  Sometimes subtlety works against you, and you always run the risk of running into that person who is so wrapped up in their own worldview that they can't possibly see yours, even when they think they do.

John Morgan Neal: I don't have a conscious theme. Mostly my stuff is born from the stuff 12-year-old John Neal really liked and wanted to see more of. 

Desmond Reddick: No, absolutely not. The themes are common, but they spring up on their own. 

When writing, have you ever had so strong a sense of theme occur in the work that you felt it overpowered the story? How did you remedy that?

Stephanie Osborn: No, never have had that happen. Like I said, the Displaced Detective series has the strongest ongoing theme of any of my books, and I think the parallelism theme only makes the whole thing stronger, personally. I think that you have to be so involved with theme that you become fixated on it, for it to become overpowering of the story. And if that's the case, you need to back off and lay down the theme and gain some fresh perspective before you try to write on it again.

Rebekah McAuliffe: The original ending to Gears. I'll admit, that first ending was complete s**t. I edited it, and the new rereleased version will have the new and improved ending.

Logan L. Masterson: As an author of genre fiction, I never want theme to be the focus of the readers' experience. I want them wrapped up in thrilling events and captivating people. A good theme is like air, ephemeral and ubiquitous.

Percival Constantine: Yeah, but it wasn't when I was writing the story, it was after I had finished it. Years after, in fact, I felt that I was far too heavy-handed with the theme of my first book. After that, I decided I'd focus more on the story and the characters and worry less about the theme in future works.

Rose Streif: I maintain an awareness at all times, and I try not to let the theme take over the story, to preach and pander, because that yanks the reader out of the flow of things and puts them at the mercy of a person on a soapbox.  We get enough of that in real life.  In any case, if you want to get a point across, it's best to put the reader in the shoes of a sympathetic character and show them by example what it is to live that character's life.

Desmond Reddick: That's interesting. No. But I'm not sure how I would resolve that situation. If I felt it was getting "preachy" (ie: a lesson versus a theme) I'd have to change it.

[Link] Nikki Nelson-Hicks on Sherlock Holmes

Hi, Nikki. Tell our readers about your love of Sherlock Holmes. When did it start? Why has it persisted? What about it grips you so tightly?

“My infatuation with Holmes began in the late ‘80s when I started watching the Granada Sherlock Holmes television series starring Jeremy Brett.  My only experience with Holmes before Brett was watching those horrible Rathbone movies. Granted, Rathbone was a fine Holmes but the movies were terrible! And that Watson…I wanted to strangle him. What an idiot.

“But Brett! Oh, that man! He brought depth and gravitas to the character that no one had done before him. With just the flick of his long hand, he could dismiss a King. With a smirk and a roll of his eye, you felt the depth of his disdain. And when Holmes became angry, you could see the seas boil in Brett’s eyes. He understood the character in a way other actors did not because Brett suffered from bi-polar disorder and knew, very personally, about what it was like to be riding a high as well as drowning in a low. He brought that into his performance and it capped the personality of Sherlock Holmes.

“Why has it persisted?  Because Sherlock Holmes is a badass. Many people think of him as only a stick thin, snooty English aristocratic asshole but he is so much more. He is the one man you want on your side when shit goes down. He is like a terrier, digging for the truth, and he won’t stop until the mystery is solved. He doesn’t let things like law and bureaucracy get in the way. If a little B&E is required, so be it. If he has to lie and trick people to get what he needs, oh well. And God help the fool that messes with anyone Holmes considers under his protection.  He is not beyond pulling strings to bring people down if they kill off a client (“The Five Pips”) or standing by while a victim renders some vigilante justice (“The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton” and “The Adventures of the Devil’s Foot”).

“Yeah, he can be a bastard but sometimes you need a bastard to get things done. Looking at my choice in literary heroes, I tend to run towards bastards. Huh.”

Read the full interview: http://agonyzer.com/?p=770

Anti-Heroes: Why?

For this next roundtable, we're going to talk about anti-heroes. Stuck somewhere on the gray part of the number line between good guys and bad guys, they're all but taken over the world of fiction, from books to movies to comics. 

What makes anti-heroes so popular? Is it something cultural or just readers getting tired of black and white good guys and bad guys?

Marian Allen: Anti-heroes are (IMO) the lazy person's hero. They have few limits and few scruples, they're no better than the bad guys; they're just OUR asshats, not THOSE FOLKS' asshats. You don't have to feel inferior to an antihero or worry that their self-imposed standards will put them at a disadvantage. They're certainly more realistic than the White Hats of 50's children's television, say.

H. David Blalock: I believe anti-heroes seem to have become popular about the same time as the counter-cultural revolution of the 1960s. I think they were the media reflecting that for the baby boomer generation which was becoming the largest marketable demographic. Using the noir detective as a base (Spade, Marlowe, etc) they combined the atmosphere of the "new age" image of mysticism and magic to darken the hero, throw him closer to the center of the spectrum. In my opinion, the anti-hero was created to give voice to an audience more involved with the outside world, less isolated politically and socially, more attuned to the nastiness that is real life and unwilling -- or unable -- to separate their entertainment from that immersion.

Terri Smiles: The truly good guys are challenging for most people because a truly "good" guy calls out our own failings to be that kind of person. Anti-heroes, on the other hand, show the function of those who are often more flawed than we are ourselves, often resulting in some societal good, even if that was not the character's motivation or goal. Thus, we are comforted by anti-heroes being like us - and in particular, being redeemable in at least a limited way.

Peter Welmerink: Anti-hero characters are popular because they are most like you and me. They are not the hero standing atop the building, fists at hips, chest thrust out, hero and master of all their domain. Anti-heroes are not the villain below the city streets, rolling their eager hands over and over and snickering mischievously. Anti-heroes are the you and me peeps, standing on the sidewalk between both, trying to determine up or down.

Katina French: I think part of the popularity of antiheroes right now is the cathartic aspect of a protagonist who doesn't hold back in exacting vengeance or justice. While it's tempting to think of them as a new invention, prior to the Comics Code Authority and other censorship movements in the early 20th century, pulp heroes were much darker. The current trend feels like a rebalancing away from the forced naivete of some earlier generations.

Who are some of the contemporary characters who best define the concept of anti-hero from prose fiction?

H. David Blalock: Currently, nearly every "hero" in fiction can be defined as an anti-hero because they all have serious flaws (Sherlock Holmes, Harry Dresden, etc). Some are even blatantly villains (e.g. Dexter Morgan, Walter White, etc). It's increasingly difficult to separate the good guys from the bad because they are increasingly becoming one and the same -- a statement on a society that has learned the ugly lesson to "trust no one".

Terri Smiles: Examples of current anti-heroes are Elphaba from Wicked, Artemis Fowl from that series.

Logan Masterson: The King of Antiheroes is Thomas Covenant. What makes him so effective? The first thing is the scope of his responsibility. The second thing is that he's a very real person. He's a bitter, furious, damaged human being. Combining those elements makes for an amazing character arc. There are similarities with Londo Mollari.

Marian Allen: The hard-boiled PI is the classic anti-hero. Sword-and-sorcery heroes. Steampunk/cyberpunk rebels against a corrupt establishment. Gillian Phillips' fairy rebels.

Katina French: Scott Lynch's Locke Lamora is a very good example of the type in current prose fiction. Patrick Weekes' Isafesira de Lochenville in his Rogues of the Republic series is also a good example (who isn't a white male). "Lovable rogues" are a more lighthearted example of an antihero. In that sense, we've had them since Robin Hood.

What advice do you have for writers looking to create memorable anti-heroes for their fiction?

Peter Welmerink: My advice to writers looking to create memorable anti-heroes for their fiction is MAKE THEM HUMAN, well, give them normal traits, the good, the bad and the ugly, tragedies and triumphs...you know, that normal folk have. Then throw them into a unique situation that really tests their morality, pushes them to perhaps make bad decisions that bring them down low to an almost villainous level where they need to do something to bring themselves back up to their normal playing field or slightly above to be the hero in the end.

Katina French: Brandon Sanderson offered up the idea of "the character sliding scale" in an episode of Writing Excuses. It suggested that your protagonist has three characteristics -- competence, proactivity, and sympathy. You can lower one of these (in the case of an antihero, probably sympathy) and raise the others, and readers will still invest in your character.

Terri Smiles: They need to be driven by motives that are not "good" ones even if their acts are good (think the BBC's Sherlock Holmes - he's not solving crimes to protect the public), but the anti-heroes that I prefer, experience a hidden pleasure when their actions help others.

H. David Blalock: The best way to create a memorable hero for today's audience is to figure out what the hero must do to save the day then make it impossible for him to do it without compromising himself in some way. That, more than anything else, is what people seem to want: a way to pull down the hero to a human level. People are afraid of the absolute values of Captain America because they no longer see life as positive and negative. They want Don Draper because they see their lives as convoluted and difficult as his.

Marian Allen: Make a clear and important difference between your anti-hero and the bad guys. If your anti-hero is no better than the villain, I have nothing to invest in him or her.

HIGH FANTASY AND ACTION AND ADVENTURE DEBUT IN LATEST PRO SE SINGLE SHOT SIGNATURE SERIES LOGAN L. MASTERSON'S CANTICLE OF ORDRASS: THE WHEEL OF THE YEAR-SAMHAIN

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Known for bringing the best in Genre Fiction today to readers, Pro Se Productions announces the debut of a high fantasy series with a definitely Pulp like pacing as a part of its Pro Se Single Shot Signature line. Ravencroft Springs Author Logan L. Masterson introduces a unique innovative world of fantasy and magic with the release of Canticle of Ordrass: The Wheel of the Year-Samhain, the first chapter in Masterson’s epic series of interconnected short stories.

“Logan L. Masterson,” says Tommy Hancock, Partner in and Editor in Chief of Pro Se Productions, “is simply one of the best writers of Genre Fiction working today. Not only does he have a meticulous knowledge and caring for how to write, but his ability to walk the finest of lines as an author is amazing. Samhain is the doorway into a series that can only be referred to as ‘high fantasy’, complete with politics, religion, warring races, and more than enough to keep any Martin or Tolkien fan happy. Also, though, Logan writes in such a crisp, sharply paced voice that readers who enjoy the pulpiness of Howard and other such fantasy writers will more than get what they like out of this tale. That’s the line Masterson walks and he does it with a skill so very few have.”

When Davia Mollari, a young woman from a distant land, is called to an ancient temple, new vistas of friendship, hope and spirituality open before her, even as inquisitors from her homeland close in. Guided by priestesses of an ancient religion, defended by the Royal Rangers, and hand-in-hand with her two fellow postulants, Davia will face the demons of fear and loss. But as she rises to accept a purposeful new life, the servants of Kruss make plain just how far they're willing to go to put an end to her heretical bloodline.
Canticle of Ordrass: The Wheel of the Year-Samhain is the debut short story in Logan L. Masterson's Pro Se Single Shot Signature series from Pro Se Productions.

“Writing Samhain,” says Masterson, “and planning the rest of the Wheel of the Year Cycle has been a tremendous challenge, but rewarding beyond measure. The themes of the work have required some delicacy, and finding room for so many characters took a lot of precision. Then there's the balance of action/adventure fantasy with character-driven plot. I feel like it all comes together pretty well, and Samhain (pronounced 'Sowen') is definitely a project of which I can be proud.”

Canticle of Ordrass: The Wheel of the Year-Samhain features evocative cover art and logo design by Jeff Hayes and eBook formatting by Russ Anderson. The series’ debut short story is available for the Kindle via Amazon at http://tinyurl.com/leqwnjj and for most eBook formats at www.smashwords.com for only 99 cents.

For more information on this title, interviews with the author, or digital copies for review, 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.

Your Character is Your Contract with the Reader

We've talked quite a bit here on the blog about building and developing great characters in our stories, but we've not quite sliced it this way before. So, at the suggestion of one of our readers (and one of my writing mentors), this week let's talk about how we honor the contract we have with our readers in terms of our characters and how they interact with our stories. 

Characters are met in an instance but defined over time. As such, how do you remain true to your character as he or she or it (and you!) encounter the various twists and turns of a story?

Peter Welmerink: Character and plot need to weave about each other and grow together. Both need to develop simultaneously to maintain the readers curiosity, retention and draw to both. Having a great character in a stale plot line, or vice versa, will kill a story for me. You don't need both punching you in the face the whole time vying for your unwavering attention, but there needs to be that give-a-shit factor with both or I, like anyone else, will simply put down the book and move on to something else.

Lance Stahlberg: There's an interesting balancing act that goes on in telling a good story. Readers get invested in characters. Characters are what will drive your story and keep your readers coming back. Character is king. That said, focusing a story entirely on a character runs the risk of getting boring fast. They need to be involved in an interesting plot. Character-driven stories tend to come off as pretentious to me. So you ideally are going for a plot-driven story with a solid, memorable character to follow through events.

So here's the trick, which gets closer to answering your questions here: Characters have to be flexible. They must be solid enough to engage readers, but they have to be adaptable to those twists and turns you want to throw at them without screwing up your narrative. You stay true to them above all else by getting into their heads.

Mark Koch: Character comes first and foremost. They are the life to the setting and what makes a story something other than a beautiful photograph, whatever the medium.

Ellie Raine: My version of “remaining true” to a character is kind of hard to explain. I usually write in a first person perspective, so in regards to the narrating character, I sort of shift my personality during the writing. My way of thinking changes, my morals change (only for these sessions), and my history/childhood/upbringing changes. So in a sense, I’m not me when I’m writing. I’m that character. If something dramatic happens to them, the gears turning my brain are synced with theirs. Whatever their instant, knee jerk reaction to that situation is, that is what I feel "rings true” for them.

Though, for the characters surrounding the narrator (or those in 3rd person), I pretend that I’m observing my friends (or strangers I’ve encountered) during those dramatic events in the story. If my mind isn’t in the story, or if it is shoved out during the writing, then that’s a red-flag for me. If I’m thrust out of the story and am reminded that I’m writing it, that tells me the characters probably wouldn’t be reacting this way—and I try again with a different reaction.

Selah Janel: I think it’s important to remember where a character starts at, but to also allow room for growth. I’ve changed considerably over the years, so it’s unfair for me to think I can dictate everything blow by blow for a character. If something comes up that I initially didn’t plan on for that person, I’ve learned to embrace it because it’ll often make a story better.

Percival Constantine: Character is key. You have to know your character more intimately than you know your significant other, your parents, your children, etc.

Dave Creek: Depending upon the particular problem, you could go in the other direction -- take the story in a new direction based upon who your character has become. That might even lead you down a path you never would have thought of otherwise.

Logan Masterson: The world itself can often provide guidance, too. Especially with genre fiction, antagonists are free to provide all kinds of interference. Then there are geography, weather, and a bazillion other variables at our fingertips. Lastly, there are subplots. Not only do they round out characters, but they can guide them too. Subplots should intertwine with the main plot, and leading a character toward the goal is probably the best way to do that.

What do you do when you face that moment when you must chose between character and advancing the plot, when one seems to be a forced fit onto or into the other?

Ellie Raine: It depends on the plot points before this moment. If I write out those points on a whiteboard and see that I have too much characterization already, I will try to focus more on plot. If there is too much plot and not enough characterization, I will focus on character.

Percival Constantine: That's simple—you change your plot. This is why I keep my plot outlines somewhat free and loose, so I have freedom to change them if the character changes in ways that I didn't take into account when writing that plot.

Mark Koch: Well defined characters don't have to be so rigid in that definition as to be unbending. Hit something rigid hard enough and you will find that it will dent or crack. Those moments are some of the best moments in character development -- when we see that the characters have depth and more dimension than the sound bite voice over.

H. David Blalock: Okay, I'm going to just put this out there and say this is my opinion and you know what they say about opinions.

Story-telling has gone from simply telling a story to the tale having to be riddled with "relateable" people. Since the advent of soap-opera fiction, readers have changed in their expectations towards identification with the players. Readers want to inhabit the hero (or the villain, depending on the reader's character). However, character development is part of the plot. It shouldn't be a problem to have the character react differently than expected as long as the progressive growth of the character itself is plausible. 

Most every story relates a change in a character from one state to another, whether through conflict or epiphany. As such, all characters should act "out of character" at least once as an expression of that growth. The magnitude of that odd behavior should define the level of radical growth the character experiences. 

In other words, if a character must act "out of character" to forward the plot (and the writer doesn't want to completely abandon the storyline) then the character must adapt. Plot advancement trumps character action.

Marian Allen: If there's a conflict between what you need the character to do and what the character WOULD do as you've developed her, and you absolutely can't get some other character to do the thing or reshape the plot, then you need to sit down and pretend you're having a heart-to-heart with your character. "Why would you do this thing? It seems so unlike you." Eventually, you come up with a wrinkle in the character that makes the thing INEVITABLY what she would do. Then you make a note of it and go back and iron that wrinkle into the fabric of what came before.

Lance Stahlberg: There is a metaphysical aspect to writing. Instead of just being a puppeteer and making your creations do whatever you want, you have to give them life. You know that you need the plot to move from A to B and somehow get to C. But when your character is confronted with a situation where you need them to go one way, but they refuse because it would go against their nature, the character wins every time.

It's now your job to figure out how to get things back on track. There's a lot you can do to finagle events to move things where you want them to go, but not quite as much when it comes to characters, once they are established.

Selah Janel: I stop and think very carefully about why I’m trying to choose one over the other. For me, they go hand in hand…a character is either reacting to the plot in an authentic way, or the way they act move the plot forward. For me, personally, if I come to a point where I’m in crisis, it’s usually because I’m trying to force something to happen and it’s either not being translated right by the characters or it’s just the wrong thing to happen. On the flip side, I may think up new ideas mid-manuscript and stop to rehaul everything because it’s a better idea than what I’d initially planned. I have to be very honest with myself at times – am I writing something that’s best for the manuscript for that character, or am I going slightly AU because I’m amused and it’s what I want to read? Is there some way to combine the two to preserve what I like but still move things forward and stay true to the character?

A friend of mine once said that "making the character perform an action that runs contrary to his or her character just to move the plot forward is a betrayal of the trust of the reader." Agree or disagree? Why?

Frank Fradella: Witness The Mummy 2. In the first film, the entire plot is driven by the love of two people -- Imhotep and Anuck Su-Namun. Without that backbone, you have no story. By the time the second film comes around, they have both proven their love over and over again, even winning against death itself.

And yet at the end of The Mummy 2, when the stone temple is crashing down around them, Anuck Su-Namun gets scared and leaves Imhotep to die?

I call bullshit. The entire story hinged on that relationship, and they threw it away in an effort to make the "heroes" look better. THAT was a betrayal of the characters. I was very, VERY angry with them over that."

Logan Masterson: Characters can sometimes frustrate us, and never moreso than when they refuse to stick to the script. I, for one, am always looking at ways to subtly influence my players to keep them in line, but I'm pretty good at it. Characterization is just natural for me. I pay close attention to each major character's known and unknown motivations. I sometimes do mindmaps of these relationships. Then, I can use other characters to nudge a contrarian in the right direction.

Selah Janel: A little of both. I think yes, you have to be careful to not let your personal interest control the character in a way that the reader is going to find disheartening…..but at the end of the day you are the author. You’re the one with the pen. It’s your idea. I think it’s also slightly dangerous to be writing with the intent of giving people what they want, especially if that’s not true to your original (or slightly altered, even) vision. It’s just as dangerous to pander as it is to try to force a character to do something that isn’t necessarily in their wheelhouse, in my opinion. If the plot needs to move, it needs to move – that may mean stopping and taking extra time to rework the plot, it may mean taking time to rework a character or redefine what that character’s actions might be, but I also feel that worrying too much about what readers are going to think is something that will compromise the end product, as well.

Ellie Raine: Again, this depends. If there was a strong reason for the character to go against his usual behavior, then I’m more likely to accept it. But if there is no explanation, I will forever question why a character did something so unexpected and irrational (according to their established personality).

Mark Koch: If you have to force a character forward or into a situation or action contrary to their dictates as they are defined- be true to those dictates regardless. Have them react accordingly. Force them, by means of outside influences or fate, but then keep them honest by expressing anger, or outrage, or sadness, or irritation and defiance. At the very least, give a window to some guilt or shame afterwards depending upon what the plot requires.

If someone walked up to you or me and compelled either of us to do something we would not choose to do- we'd have a predictable reaction. If it was truly contrary, that reaction might even create an opportunity for a new plot point or story of its own. Revenge. Redemption. Regret.

Percival Constantine: Agree completely. This is why I think it's important to have flexibility in your plot. I was a huge fan of the TV show How I Met Your Mother, yet the series finale was one of the worst endings I'd ever seen in any medium. To the creators' credit, they had a fixed ending in mind, something that doesn't often happen in TV and especially not in sitcoms. But over the course of the show's nine-year run, the characters evolved and that original ending no longer made sense. Yet the creators still insisted on using it and the result was an incoherent mess that betrayed the trust of the viewers. 

Jay Wilburn: If the character doesn't fit the action and being forced into committing the action can't be explained by the circumstance or some change in the character, then the story outline is wrong. The course of events needs to be rethought to fit the world and characters you created. It may only be a small adjustment in the end. It might be a different journey than you expected to the same destination. It might be a different story than the one you originally thought you were writing. As you need to be ready to kill your characters, you also need to be ready to kill your original story outline when it has outlived its usefulness.

Lance Stahlberg: Wholeheartedly agree. A reader will notice characters acting out character faster than they will notice a supposed plot hole. They can be pretty forgiving of the latter if you keep the characters enjoyable.

At what point, if any, does the reader's need supercede that of the storyteller? Is there a time when it becomes more important to move plot forward "come hell or high water"?

Lance Stahlberg: Never. If you can't move your story forward in a way that keeps your characters consistent, then either your plot sucks, or your character sucks. Or maybe just the corner you wrote yourself into sucks. Both the plot outline and the characters have to be malleable enough to get through those rough patches.

I mean, there are ways to get away with a character being forced to act in a way they normally might not want to. Heat of the moment, stress under pressure, an impossible choice with no “right” answer, false perception at odds with what's actually happening. Or maybe a core trait of the character is that they are unpredictable. But there always has to be some way to reconcile what a character does with who they are. Always. At minimum, you have to acknowledge in the narration or inner dialogue that they acted oddly, which you could always explore later. But never ignore it.

Mark Koch: Storytelling gives your character lemons because the plot has to advance? Have them do something with them, be it make lemonade or curse the lemons and grind them under their heel.

Great characters don't appear to be directed in the story, they appear to be reacting to it as it unfolds. Give them choices that are true to who they are- even if they don't get choices in the outcome they can always choose their inward or outward reaction.

Dave Creek: You can take the character anywhere you want her to go as long as you motivate that action. It may take going backwards and putting in the motivator earlier in the story.

Ellie Raine: The only time I can justify sacrificing character development for plot is when a reader is half way (or sometimes near the end) of the book and still doesn’t know where the hell it’s going. I’ve read too many books that only cared about developing characters, and so went entire stories staying in the exact same place with little plot advancement. But on the other hand, I’ve read a few books where they didn’t give a damn about character development, and I ended up not caring about the characters at all.

Percival Constantine: Never. Characters can change and grow over time so they shouldn't be stagnant, but at the same time that change has to be visible. A character who was once a paragon of virtue and honesty in chapter one can't suddenly be a lying, back-stabbing bastard in chapter ten without any reason for that change. If you get to a point where you have to move the plot in a way that is contrary to your character, then you need to change the plot or go back and see where you went wrong with that character's development.

Selah Janel: I worry about moving plot forward on a schedule more with shorts or anthology calls than I do individual projects. That being said, I do think you have to keep a balance in pacing the plot and everything else. That being said, there’s no reason why they shouldn’t work together. Plot needs character and character needs plot. It really also comes down to show don’t tell –- this is where you need to figure out ways to showcase your characterizations as quickly or succinctly as possible to keep the story rolling while still being true to your cast.

The Cover Story -- What Makes Book Covers Work?

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but a book cover had better be worth about a hundred thousand. So, what makes a book cover effective? Let's find out from several key artists and publishers who work on them. 

 

It's been said a lot that faces sell a cover. In your experience, do faces tend to enable stronger sales, and does it matter how large the faces are on the cover?

Jeff Parker: I like design-y covers most of the time, conceptual stuff like Dave Johnson does. I think the way books are racked together in a big mass with other images, something a bit simpler and bold with images and color choices stands out better and has a chance to be seen.

Frank Fradella: Yes, faces sell a cover. Faces sell everything. I can take two slices of an orange and a whole banana and lay them on a table and what you'll see are two eyes and a mouth — a face. We see faces everywhere; we subconsciously LOOK for faces everywhere. The best cover won't just be a face, but you want that human connection.

Logan Masterson: There's a lot to consider here. Faces are great, especially for romance, paranormal, and character-themed properties, but they aren't the definitive answer. Neither is the inclusion of action definitive. To see what works, check out the original Wolverine limited series #1 cover: Face, beckoning "action," tremendously effective. But also, the Kitty Pryde/Wolverine Wanted cover, more action, more faces, but with less emphasis. The emphasis is on the framing. Personally, I think that illustrated covers trump photo covers every time. I tend to avoid fiction with photo covers.

Aaron Meade: I can only chime in on the action/adventure/superhero genre' from my point of view. That said... Faces are ok on covers depending on how they are used to portray what the story inside is about. It depends on the artists vision and storytelling abilities. I always LOVED the use of a ROLL CALL on superhero team books that bordered the cover itself. That said, you don't want to over use it or any technique.

Jenny Reed: The first rule of thumb is that the cover must be interesting to look at. People must see the cover and start imagining what's inside. While showing people isn't necessarily required (depending on the genre), any people who do show up must be doing something interesting. A face staring into space isn't particularly interesting - unless there's something really strange about the face.

What about action covers? Do they work well for contemporary fiction, or are they best used for adventure novels and comics?

Jenny Reed: Cover art trends change rapidly. What counts as a great cover today, is a lousy cover five years from now (and vice versa). It's hard to keep up. Also, cover art expectations vary widely from genre to genre. For example, romance covers generally want to see something implying romance - a couple kissing, a hot guy in a sexy pose, a girl in a prom dress, or something along those lines. However, a romance cover would not sell a science fiction book, or a sports book, or your typical action comic book.

Frank Fradella: The answer is between the pages. If there's a lot of action inside, then the cover should speak to the audience who likes that in a book.

Aaron Meade: I think the more action you can portray on any cover of any genre' will be better than dull no action covers.

Logan Masterson: As for the general keys, I think there are three.

1. Tone. The cover's got to carry the tone of the book, whether that's bright and brilliant action or deep, dark mystery.
2. Design. Attractive, appropriate fonts that contrast or accent the cover illustration, placed to accent the image and balance the overall effect.
3. Professionalism. The cover needs to be pro. It shouldn't look like something desktop published in 1996. It shouldn't be jammed up with text, or too many logos, or any of that stuff. The elements should be integrated attractively, and the illo itself needs to be high-quality and appropriate. 

What are the most important things to keep in mind when designing a successful book cover or a successful comic book cover?

Ruth de Jauregui: Your type treatment. Scrawny little letters that fade into the cover image are just not as effective as something that the buyer can actually read. Also, look at the size of the cover on Amazon, Barnes and Noble or other website. Can the buyer see it? Can they read the type? Does the cover "read" as a romance, science fiction, fantasy, action story? Consider your audience too. A half naked woman on the front of a YA urban fantasy may look pretty, but it's not appropriate for the audience. Also, last but not least -- actually LOOK at the dang main character. If he/she is described as dark complected with natural hair, don't put a dang blonde on the cover. It's inaccurate and offensive and buyers like me notice these things. I might still buy the book, but I'll talk mess about that cover forever.

Logan Masterson: As a former website designer and illustrator, one picks up the little details that others miss. It's not some unquantifiable mystery -- it's the proper alignment of elements, colors, and content.

Aaron Meade: Most important thing...show in art a synopsis of what the reader is about to read. Show THE most exciting and enticing portion of the interior story. Galvanize the readers eyes so they will gravitate to your book over all the others.

Frank Fradella: Color, contrast, composition. Beautiful women never hurt. Go look at Frazetta and keep looking. It's all there.