The Holiday Re-Runs -- Favorite Holiday Stories?

What's your favorite Christmas story? Why?

Well, like in most things I can't pinpoint down to a single favorite, so I'll have to do a list of my top three.

1. How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Suess

I tell my family and friends all the time this is the second greatest redemptive story for the holidays. Everything in this story hinges on the moment when every Who down in Whoville (the tall and the small) comes out to sing the joy of Christmas in spite of their missing tinsel and presents. (Which incidently is why I don't like the live-action movie version. It totally changes the mood Ted Geisel was aiming for.)

2. The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry

One of the most beautiful, most sacrificing love stories every told. Period. The first time I read this I felt sad that the lovers would lose their cherished possession, but each reading since makes me happy for them to have found such love for each other that values the stuff so little ultimately in order to focus on the loved one instead.

3. The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Anderson

There's a tragic beauty to this incredibly sad story. If I can ever capture the pathos of tragedy in a story as well as Anderson does in this tale, I'll not have written a single word in vain.

For more fun Christmas tales, visit:

• http://osr.org/christmas/20-famous-christmas-stories/
• http://www.imom.com/10-great-christmas-stories/#.VmWwvL9EdS4
• http://americanliterature.com/christmas
• http://www.buzzfeed.com/ellievhall/20-childrens-christmas-books-to-read-aloud#.jgqgjVdV9

The Writer Will Take Your Questions Now #353 -- Favorite Short Story Collections

Since you're so vocal about your support and love for short stories, what are you favorite short story collections?

I'll play along, but to do this right I'll have to break it into genres. Sound fair?

Science Fiction:

 

 



Horror: 







Fantasy:






Mystery/Crime:



 

 

Literary:



 

 

 

The Writer Will Take Your Questions Now #352 -- Depressing Holiday Stories

Why are all of your Christmas-themed stories so depressing?

But my trees don't stand up again... usually.

Well, I don't actually think of them as depressing. Dour, yes, Downbeat, of course. Bittersweet, absolutely. But depressing, never!

I also think of them as redemptive, at least somewhat. Most of my stories that take place during this season tend to feature characters who are facing some sort of crisis of faith or some decision that threatens to make them less than who they are.

In the free story from Christmas Eve Day, "It's Christmas, Baby, Please Come Home," I present a mom who isn't physically or emotionally or financially capable of taking care of her new child who is born with super powers and tends to break out in fire in times of stress, something common to babies (only in this one's case, not crying but burning down your house).

In " The Ghost of Christmas Past," I give Boom Machine (my most intentionally bad hero name) his shot are redemption after staying off the grid because he accidently killed an innocent person in one of his early missions.

Now, in "Sin and Error Pining" on the other hand, I can't spin that one into redemption at all. It's pure tragedy. Poor, poor Ms. Futuru and her scatter packages. That one's depressing, but not totally, at least not to me. To me, that one is a story about a dying woman's strength, and she owns it till the proverbial (and literal) last breath.

So, there. You say potayto, I say potahto. You say depressing, I say redemptive. Potayto, potahto, depressing, redemptive, let's call the whole thing off. (Please forgive me. I'm a sucker of old musicals.)

The Writer Will Take Your Questions Now #351 -- Writers on the Writing Life (Bio-Journals)

What do you consider the best books about the writing 

life (not those about "how to" or that kind of thing)?

Excellent question. I love reading writers writing about the world as they experience it specifically as writers. (Hmm... I wonder if I can get the word "write" in that sentence one more time...)

For my money, Stephen King's ON WRITING is fantastic. It almost goes without saying to include this one is you are a contemporary writer. But that's only because it's such a great story of his life of crafting stories.



Another I absolutely adore is Eudora Welty's ONE WRITER'S BEGINNINGS. This one is as much a biography as it is a journal on becoming a writer. And trust me, it's prose is pure beauty.



Next would be one from my all-time favorite non-fiction writer, Annie Dillard. Here THE WRITING LIFE captures the beauty of creation through both the natural world and the internal world of imagination.



But perhaps no one understand the writing life better than that beagle of all authors -- Snoopy (with a little help from some of his biggest fans).

The Writer Will Take Your Questions Now #350 -- Fear the Future?

What is your biggest concern
about the future of publishing?

My biggest fear about the publishing world hasn't changed one little bit in the past fifteen years. It's the big houses' reliance on "epic" series that fill up the publishing schedules and leave new voices relegated to small houses where the largest percentage of readers are too lazy to look and will instead continue to take part sixteen of whatever epic series is being spoonfed to them.

I think the future of any kind of publishing of art (whether stories, music, movies, painting, mixed media, you name it, it counts) is ALWAYS dependent on new voices who bring change and growth and expansion and new ideas to the medium. ALWAYS.

It's the new voices that prompt old voices to listen and adapt. It's the new voices who push the envelop and seek out either romantic returns to old (i.e., new again) or mash-ups of what has gone before to create new out of old (something borrowed, something blue) or listening to current and changing viewpoints in culture to same something about the now, not just the then.

But with the guarrenteed sales of big, epic, "don't make me look for something else since I'm familiar with this" series, those new voices are far too often overlooked.

And if you ask me (which you did), I believe that the whole of the publishing world suffers for that.

The Writer Will Take Your Questions Now #349 -- But I Don't Want to Write

What do you do when don't feel like writing? How do you make yourself write?

I know this isn't the answer most new writers want to hear, but most of the time if I don't feel like writing then I simply don't write. Forcing the muse, so to speak, at least for me, can do more harm than good. Chances are, if I really, really don't feel up to writing, I'm not going to like what I've written.

Now, on the flip side of that, there are times when I simply don't have the luxury of not writing. Deadlines could be pressing. I might need to get some key story segments out of the way before a busy week at work, or a pending vacation (yeah, what are those again?). Regardless, I just might not have time to spend away from the story. In those times, I really have to trick my brain into tapping into the subconscious part of writing.

I can sometimes do that by using a writing prompt, or by reading a short story, or perhaps even by skipping ahead to a part I feel more in tune with (and then once my brain is lost in writing again, coming back to the sticky part).

However, this doesn't always work, and quite often I simply have to trudge through the stuff I simply don't feel like doing. It doesn't make for the most inspired fiction, but it does make fiction take shape. And sometimes that's the best you can get, and all that you need in that moment.

The Writer Will Take Your Questions Now #348 -- Novels in the Bathroom

How often do you actually read? How often do you read a book, 

as opposed to smaller options like newspapers or magazines?

I read all the time, but it's mostly articles online and stuff like that. I try to read several short stories or chapters from novels each week (often in the bathroom, when I can get my official *Sean time* during the week). I do try to sit down either at home or during slow times at work at least once per week for about an hour or so of devoted reading time. And of course, as the manager of a comic book store, I read about 35-45 comic each week to keep up on the product knowledge I need to run the store.

The Writer Will Take Your Questions Now #348 -- What Books Influenced You?

What books have had the greatest impact in making you the writer you are today?

 I get asked this from time to time, and I always love to talk about the books that have influenced me enough to make me, well... me.

 

The Adventures of Monkey by Arthur Waley taught me the thrill of reading when I was young and longed for adventures guided by words.

 

The Childcraft Encyclopedia: Stories and Fables introduced me to the stories of the world beyond just the legends of the Greeks and Romans.

 

Fox in Socks by Dr. Seuss showed me how much fun words could be, both alone and in a group.

 

Welcome to the Monkey House by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., and in particular "Harrison Bergeron," inspired me to never let myself get shackled creatively, damn the consequences, and to try to inspire others to lose their shackles too.

 

A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway taught me how to write and taught me that bittersweet, not completely happy endings are the best endings for stories because we human beings learn best through them instead of happy endings that don't challenge us.

 

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver taught me how to be inspired by Hemingway without trying to be a clone of him when I write.

 

The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler taught me how to bring the literary inspiration I got from Hemingway and marry it up to pulp-based, adventure storytelling.

The Writer Will Take Your Questions Now #347 -- Crowded Narrative

Is there a rule of thumb to tell when or if your narrative is getting too "crowded," when writing pulp?

Sure. Depends on what you mean by being "crowded."

Too many characters?

Too much going on at one time?

Too much develop for what should be a more simple story?

I don't think there's a rule of thumb as much as a what feels right to you as the person creating the tale. In general a pulp tale should be a fairly straightforward adventure story with a linear, easily progressed and followed plot. So, I guess you could say that when things start to get convoluted you're probably leaving the arena of pulp and moving into something different.

The Writer Will Take Your Questions Now #346 -- Internal Monologue

How do you folks handle internal monologues? Any tips? 

That's a great question. And it's a standard that has changed over the years in the publishing business.

My preferred method is to make it as invisible as possible, such as:

Everyone laughed at Susan. She was never going to trust these people again. No way.

If I do first person internal monologue then I use italics, but I try to avoid that. It seems visually jarring to me, as below:

Everyone laughed at Susan. No way I am never going to trust these people again.

And my least favorite (though I'm guilty of it from time to time) is the "it seemed to Susan that.." or "Susan realized that..." These seem to draw the most attention to the mechanics of the writer, at least to me, as in:

Everyone laughed at Susan. She released she would never trust these people again. No way, she thought.

As with any kind of writing technique, I prefer the one that interferes with the story the least, and draws a little attention to the writer as possible to pull readers out of the adventure itself.

The Writer Will Take Your Questions Now #345 -- Getting Started

What's your favorite question for folks to ask you during conventions?

Easy, this one.

"How do you get started as a writer?"

To which they either mean...

1. How do you learn how to write?

2. How do you publish what you've written?

3. How do you find paying work as a writer?

or...

4. My friend is too shy to ask you, so I'm asking on his or her behalf and don't really know what else to ask.

Regardless, it's a great question because it is so full of the naivity, hope, and innocence that we writers tend to lose as we get lost in the business of being published.

It's a question that full of readiness, even if the asker has no clue what he or she is really in for, or that by asking it that way, he or she has revealed just how little he or she actually knows about the industry -- BUT THAT'S OKAY! That's the point of the question.

And for that reason, I'll do my best to answer it each time I'm asked, regardless of which question the asker is really trying to get the answer to. I'll tell him about the rigors of bettering the craft and self-editing. I'll tell her about the constant need for building a better and more connected network of writers, artists, and publishers. I'll tell him about the traps that accompany neglecting submission guidelines. I'll tell her about the joy of seeing your first byline in, well, anything from a local newspaper to a book of short stories. And I'll tell every asker that I wish I could go back and recapture that moment of asking for myself.

The Writer Will Take Your Questions Now #344 -- Verbing

What do you think about the current trend of "verbing" nouns?

I love language. I love the etymology of words that haven't changed in hundreds of years, and I equally love the constant changing and updating of language that keeps English a sort of living, breathing, growing thing.

A few years ago there was a bit of a uproar about a French group devoted to keeping the French language pure and (for the most part, unchanging) defending it against the assaults of modern colloquialism. A lot of my friends are so-called grammar Nazis who feel the same way about American English.

I myself only recently grew up enough to get over the debate about the Oxford comma. My policy on it now if whatever my publisher in question decides as its official stance.

I have no problem verbing a noun. Nor do I have any issue with nouning a verb. (See what I did there?) I think it's an amazing facet of language that it can be versatile enough to adapt in the face of changing culture.

After all, this isn't anything new. We gave up -est and -eth a long time ago. And who among us speaks the official English of Chaucer? And to give someone "solid dick" now doesn't mean what it did in the 1930s. Nor does "gay" primarily mean happy in the mind of the average listener.

Things change. Words and grammar change. And we as writers should welcome and understand that change. Or at least that's what I believe, and you can trust that to be the solid dick from me.

The Writer Will Take Your Questions Now #343 -- Making Monsters

When you write horror, what goes into making a creepy, horrific monster?

In all my horror stories, even in those with creatures such as zombies and monsters -- especially in those with monstrous creatures -- one thing remains the same for me as a writer. People make the best monsters in fiction. You don't need claws and fangs to bring on the evil, creepy, or scary. For example, in my first published zombie story, the big bad isn't the zombie itself, but the man who has created an art project of his late wife's undead corpse.

I think it comes from the influence of Gothic horror movies. Sure, the castles were filled with ghosts and monsters, but the evil that always seemed to be most at play was that of the living humans. Greed brought out the ghosts. Lust ignited the passion of vampires. The human evil always trumped the supernatural one.

I think that's a trait of much of the best horror fiction.

The Writer Will Take Your Questions Now #342 -- Details

How much detail is too much detail for a story?

The cliched answer is still the correct one: When the amount of detail pulls you out of the story, it's too much.

Only you and a reader can know that sweet spot it, and it's going to change with each story. In fact, both you and the reader may have differing criteria for the "how much is too much" question.

But I don't think so much it's the "amount" of detail as it is the "choice" of details you reveal. Those that forward the plot and build on character tend to work better than those that merely drone on about the shape of the rocks. Use world-building details carefully. I'll repeat that. Even if you're writing epic fantasy, be very careful when using world-building details unless they also help advance the plot or reveal character.

I know there's a history of epic tales that focused (some might say overfocused today) on the details of the geography of the mountains, the castles, and even the Gothic mansions, but those were written for audiences who hadn't been over-inundated with image-based media. Modern readers are so used to pre-established visuals that best-selling fiction tends to use short-hand that gets the details out quickly and them move directly into dialog and action.

The Writer Will Take Your Questions Now #341 -- More on POV

How do you choose the POV for a story? Does it happen organically, or is it something you put a lot of thought into before you begin? Or perhaps it's something assigned by your publisher?

For me, POV is something that has to be settled before I begin the act of writing. I can pre-write for days and months without it, but I can't put fingers to keyboard without knowing who is telling the story and how. For me, that's as intrinsic as a story to the plot, theme, and tone. In fact, that single decision can affect plot, theme, and tone drastically, I believe.

Sometimes, that decision is out of my hands, actually. There are a few publishers who have a preference, and request that writers write only in a certain POV, and as a writer who likes to earn a paycheck for my work, I have to abide by their call on that.

The Writer Will Take Your Questions Now #340 -- Favorite Christmas Story

What's your favorite Christmas story? Why?

Well, like in most things I can't pinpoint down to a single favorite, so I'll have to do a list of my top three.

1. How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Suess

I tell my family and friends all the time this is the second greatest redemptive story for the holidays. Everything in this story hinges on the moment when every Who down in Whoville (the tall and the small) comes out to sing the joy of Christmas in spite of their missing tinsel and presents. (Which incidently is why I don't like the live-action movie version. It totally changes the mood Ted Geisel was aiming for.)

2. The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry

One of the most beautiful, most sacrificing love stories every told. Period. The first time I read this I felt sad that the lovers would lose their cherished possession, but each reading since makes me happy for them to have found such love for each other that values the stuff so little ultimately in order to focus on the loved one instead.

3. The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Anderson

There's a tragic beauty to this incredibly sad story. If I can ever capture the pathos of tragedy in a story as well as Anderson does in this tale, I'll not have written a single word in vain.

For more fun Christmas tales, visit:

• http://osr.org/christmas/20-famous-christmas-stories/
• http://www.imom.com/10-great-christmas-stories/#.VmWwvL9EdS4
• http://americanliterature.com/christmas
• http://www.buzzfeed.com/ellievhall/20-childrens-christmas-books-to-read-aloud#.jgqgjVdV9

The Writer Will Take Your Questions Now #339 -- Show, Don't Tell

Show, don't tell. What does it mean to you?

Ooh. Good question. I think it means the same thing to me it means to most genre writers. Let your characters tell the story by doing things and saying things. Don't over-narrate. If your protagonist is a fighter, don't tell me she's a fighter. Make her fight someone -- or many someones. If someone is sad, don't tell me he is sad. Show me what being sad looks likes. Above all, for me at least, it means remove myself from the work as a writer as much as possible, and let the story belong to the characters as they experience and react to it.

The Writer Will Take Your Questions Now #338 -- Brown-Noising

Do you have a certain kind of music that

helps you focus and write? What kind?

I rarely write to music intentionally. Most often, when I do, it's because there's background music playing at Starbucks while I'm writing. Sometimes will put on some soft ambient "chill" music or even jazz, or perhaps piano music that's not too bouncy. But honestly, what is best for me to write to is brown noise. That's right. Not white noise, but the more sedate brown noise. 

And there's a wonderful noise mixer at www.simplynoise.com.

The Writer Will Take Your Questions Now #337 -- Moving Pictures

Do you ever draw inspiration from movies, and 

if so, which ones have most inspired your writing?

Since this was the topic for the roundtable, I guess it's my turn to answer it now.

Lots of movies have influenced the way I write. Among them:

• The opening shot in Hitchcock's Rebecca is my standard for establishing shots in comic book writing. I almost always refer to it when working with artists I've not collaborated with before.
• The use of angles and POV for the camera in the movies Citizen Kane and Peeping Tom. These are the pinacles of what can be done with distance and with closing the distance to the extreme close ups. Again, these influenced the way I write comics.
• The dialog in almost any Tarantino flick, but particularly in Reservoir Dogs. It sings, plain and simple. Neither Carver nor Hemingway could have done better with people talking around the things actually on their minds.
• And believe it or not, The Rocky Horror Picture Show influenced me to not limit my choices for what happens next. Because of that movie, I'm far more open to left field choices when I plot.

And there you have it.

The Writer Will Take Your Questions Now #336 -- Want to Write?

What concepts or characters would you most like the opportunity to write? 

I get asked this a lot. A whole lot. And it's difficult to put them in order, but the top six have been pretty consistent since day one.

In no particular order:

• X-Files
• Kolchak, the Night Stalker
• The Metal Men
• Valkyrie
• Poison Ivy
• Doctor Who (preferably the Seventh with Ace)

So there you have it.