Selah Janel reveals her Visiting Hours! Visit the Shadow Realm -- at your own risk!

In the Shadow Realm, everything has a story.

A little girl’s tall tales foretell the end of the world. A monster becomes the hunted at a haunted attraction. Sacrifices aren’t what they seem and traditions are meant to be followed for a reason. Vampire siblings confront their past while fighting about their future. A woman struggles to remember who she is while her rescuers hide their family secret in the depths of their cellar. Love and loss are stitched together in strange ways on the prairie. A young boy finds an unlikely friend who can fit in the strangest of places.

In these pages lurk tales of time loops, travels gone wrong, revenge, strange memories, hard decisions, and new variations on old fairy tales. Take the time to visit all the shadowy places and reflect on what you find. Just make sure you know how to find your way out again.

Available on Amazon. 

What makes holiday fiction work? (Or does it not?)

Well, the season is upon us. So, I guess we should tackle a more seasonal theme for this new roundtable. We're going to talk about holiday-themed fiction, and why it works (or doesn't).

There's a long tradition of holiday-themed (particularly Christmas) stories and novels. Is that a theme you've covered in your work and to what degree? Whole novels? More of a setting?

Mari Hersh-Tudor: I was instrumental in developing the basis of a holiday urban fantasy anthology involving “maximum explicit spice” that we self-pubbed a few years back. The combination of subjects was… bracing.

Selah Janel: I’ve written a magic realism/faerie-based novella called Holly and Ivy, as well as a Christmas horror/zombie short called Candles. They’re very different stories centered around different aspects of the season.

Marian Allen: I wrote stories for Christmas anthologies. One was a fantasy set at the turning of the season (not Christmas, per se). One was a comic Sci-Fi set on another planet during the Anti-Hot Solemnities, but that was sort of Christmas, since it featured a librarian of a Living Library of people native to the planet who are so obsessed with Earth literature they memorize texts (like in F451), and a Compendium of Christmas stories always goes to her family's Solemnities with her. One was a mystery that just happened to be set during the holidays, and my current WIP, Pickle in a Pear Tree, is set during Christmas and revolves, in part, around a family tradition. 

Bobby Nash: Not really. I mean, I’ve set stories during holidays, but I’ve not intentionally written a “Christmas” story. Every year I think I should, but that usually happens in December so I tell myself I’ll do it next year. Then next year arrives and I repeat the process.

Brian K Morris: My first paperback novel release was Santastein: The Post-Holiday Prometheus. It was originally a ten-minute stage play script that never was picked up, due to its irreverence, and expanded into novel form. I've never visited the holiday motif since.

Kay Iscah: Not yet, though the next book I have coming out should establish major festivals in the fantasy setting. There's a quick reference to the Harvest Festival in Seventh Night, but it's not really explored beyond setting up a timeline. For the next story, getting to go to the Winter Feast does become a plot point and takes up two chapters and sets up some class contrast, Kaleb's desire to be loved and recognized, and plot points for the murder mystery towards the end.

Sean Taylor: Funnily enough, the only times I used the holidays as a theme for my stories was during my time as a staff writer for Cyber Age Adventures/iHero Entertainment, and then because we would do themed stories for various holidays and for December and October. Some of those remain my favorite stories. I tended to use them as a setting more than a plot point, although sometimes I loved to mingle the two. 

Ian Brazee-Cannon: I have written one holiday story and it uses Christmas folklore from around the world, avoiding any of the modern Christmas traditions, not mentioning Christmas, Christ, or Santa at all.

Does holiday-themed writing work equally well in all genres or are there genres you feel are better suited to the familial/celebratory themes? Or are the negative feelings drudged up by the holiday loneliness/greed/selfishness equally powerful themes that can make for great holiday fiction?

Darin Kennedy: My book, Carol, is Scrooge meets Mean Girls, a modern date, an adult adaptation of the Dickens classic.

For this particular book, the fantasy/ghost story genre is pretty much established for me.

Since this is such a famous story of redemption, I tried to lean fully into that.

Brian K Morris: Since I feel there are very few genres or tropes that can't fit into the holiday spirit, with the exception of hate. Not hate for the holiday itself, which I can understand (and I fell prey to it due to my mother dying around that time), but hate for other beings. I mean Scrooge hated Christmas and had a valid (to him) reason, but he changed his mind.

Kay Iscah: I think it's less an issue of genre and more an issue of do you actually have anything worth saying about the holiday or does it serve a purpose in the story. I doubt anyone would think of The Fugitive as a St. Patrick's Day story, but the parade serves a story function in the film. A Christmas Carol is an exploration of the holiday but also universal themes like greed vs. generosity and human connection vs. isolation.

The problem with most Christmas films is that they're vapid. Many will try to tack on a feel good message, but if it feels tacked on, it's a failing of the narrative. I loathe A Christmas Story; however, I think many people relate to it because it does reflect the sort of messy contrast between what we would like Christmas to be and how it actually is for many people.

Bobby Nash: All of the above, I suppose. Most holiday fare tends to have a happy ending, but there’s nothing that says a downer couldn’t be just as valid of a holiday story. It all depends on the story and how it’s told.

Sean Taylor: I think it can work well in any genre. We seen it in fables like "Little Match Girl" and literary tales like "The Gift of the Magi." I think though that it has almost been taken over by two genres almost to the exclusion of others. One is the very obvious romance genre, as seen in the seasonal Harlequin and Harlequin-adjacent displays set up in bookstore this time of year. The other is the flip side of the coin, that of ironic horror, usually featuring a zombie Santa or another Krampus story. Not that those aren't fantastic uses; I'd just love to see more holiday-themed crime stories and thrillers. 

Mari Hersh-Tudor: I don’t do sappy. I can’t. It’s not real, which may be the entire point for some, and that’s okay. It’s just not my cup of mead. I like to turn things upside down to provide a different perspective. And I’m always funny, even if grimly.

Selah Janel: Holiday fiction *can* be done in all genres, but isn’t necessarily easy to pull off in all genres. It’s really easy for Christmas horror to come off as schlocky, and I think sometimes inspirational or romance stories can be a little too easy in terms of the holiday season being the resolution for characters’ problems. Some people are happy with that, though, so I think everything probably has an audience of some sort.

I think people forget that Christmas is a very nuanced season. Not everyone is happy, or there’s stress in the forced happiness. Likewise, being with loved ones can be the bright spot in otherwise terrible situations.

In Holly and Ivy, I lightly use some romance tropes to get the plot going, but it becomes a story about finding oneself, making tough decisions, and loss during a celebratory time. There are happy and sad events for Holly, just like there are for so many people. Her success and happiness at the end isn’t free. I took some influence from Hans Christian Andersen’s story "The Fir Tree," and usually describe it as my book for people with complicated feelings about Christmas.

Candles, while extremely dark with a bleak ending, focuses on family and found family struggling to do what they can to celebrate the holiday during the zombie apocalypse. They lean into comforting traditions, such as they are. While not really riffing off "Gift of the Magi" exactly, it leans into the theme of a mother doing what she can to give the gift she feels would benefit her loved ones during a horrific time. I would hope people can find some connection with both stories.

How do you walk the line between sappy and serious when you write with a holiday theme? How do you avoid the sugar-sweet nostalgia or do you just go whole hog and embrace it?

George Tackes: When the story is more than just a story during Christmas. Could it be set at any other time without alterations?

Marian Allen: One avoids sappiness by remembering that no true human feeling is pure: There is always a dot of yin in our yang and vice versa.

Selah Janel: I typically need to determine the genre, what my plot is, and how my characters relate to the holidays. Once I determine those, I know how much to lean in. Since there are so many aspects to the season, trying to embrace it all is to difficult and loses the point of the story for me. The nostalgia and saccharine have to support the other elements, either by enhancing or subverting. I try to go off things I know I or others connect with so I can really use them well, and not try to overload a story with a ton of set dressing. Otherwis,e you have a little bit of cake with a ton of icing.

Kay Iscah: Hallmark has ruined Christmas for me, so I have to comment on this one as an outsider. I do appreciate the appeal of a channel with minimal violence and no foul language or sex. The problem is my mom leaves it on almost constantly since the pandemic, and when you can't eat or go to the bathroom without a Hallmark Christmas movie playing in the background, it does start wearing on your soul.

There are a few gems in the mix. But in general, Hallmark Christmas is a soulless worship of materialism. It tries very, very hard to romanticize how important the decorations are, and that you're some kind of monster if you don't get a live tree or bake fresh cookies. But it is not interested in exploring any deeper themes than how it's bad to ruin other people's fun, which is expressed by how much they over-decorate their house. It's particularly grating when they pretend to give their heroines financial problems while having them in million-dollar houses with thousands of dollars in decorations and never having to miss activities for want of funds. I remember one Hallmark film that actually tackled poverty at Christmas in a somewhat believable way, but it was one in a sea of what is rapidly becoming hundreds.

And it's extra sad, because when I was a kid. "Hallmark Presents" were special movies and usually pretty good. When they became a channel, quantity over quality became the focus.

I can definitely see the lure of wanting to capture that Christmas magic, but I think if you stay on a very surface level, the lack of real heart shows. The good, classic Christmas stories touch on some deeper universal theme and what makes them so magical is partly that contrast between despair and hope with hope coming out the victor. If your heroine is a spoiled brat who everyone loves and always gets her way and never faces a problem that can't be fixed with a few phone calls, it's hard to feel much victory in her achievement. And it's a little hard to back this one with examples because these films all start running together after a while.

I certainly think there is a place for gentler and smaller-scale stories. But while stakes can be small, they need to also feel real and should matter to the story, and in some of the best Christmas stories the characters win by letting go of the material expectations. So stories that double down on everything being about the presents and the decorations and the festivals often come off as anti-moral and having missed the whole point. They try to remind us of better stories, but fail to be good stories themselves.

There's nothing wrong with a story highlighting a functional family or something simple and heartwarming. There is something wrong with celebrating materialism and rewarding bad behavior in a narrative, particularly when it's a pattern.

Bobby Nash: It depends on who you’re writing it for, I’d say. Is the publisher looking for sappy? Serious? Nostalgic? Or something else? What are your readers looking for? What are you, as the writer, trying to get across?

Brian K Morris: I guess I lack the ability to wrap really, really sappy stuff. My inherent cynicism and irreverence toward convention won't allow me to write anything grim without poking fun at it, or ridiculing it. I'd rather embrace the spirit of the holiday of peace and showing love and compassion for others.

Mari Hersh-Tudor: Emotions are universal. Exploring them through the lens of a holiday gives an extra dimension and a chance to get some universal truths.

Sean Taylor: While I can write sappy without too many problems, it almost always ends up cut from the file or balled up and thrown into a trash can. It's almost like I have to get the sappy out of my system first to find the better, more effective use of nostalgia for my admittedly more bittersweet types of stories. 

Holiday Re-Runs: Writing Holiday Fiction

Let's get seasonal, all you writerly girls and boys and those along the spectrum. This week we're going to look at what goes into writing great holiday stories.

What makes seasonal-themed fiction popular?

Lucy Blue: I think seasonal fiction is popular for the same reason some people start listening to Christmas music the day after Halloween. Readers want to cocoon themselves in that warm, fuzzy holiday feeling, and publishers are more than happy to feed that to make a buck. And writers are as susceptible as readers. The first time I see those Hershey's Kisses playing handbells or hear Nat "King" Cole, I want to drop every other project and write a Christmas story. Sadly, that's only about six months to a year too late to effectively publish, but never mind - so far, Christmas always comes back around.

Alexandra Christian: Even kids want to write and read about Christmas. When I taught 2nd grade, my kids would write and read Christmas stories well into March.

Mandi Lynch: When you're in the spirit, you're in the spirit. Alternatively, when you're buried under 14 feet of snow, the last thing you want to read about is somebody sweltering in the hot July sun.

Selah Janel: I think it has certain themes, tropes, and archetypes in a way that a lot of people relate to. Everyone has some sort of relationship with the holiday, good or bad, included or excluded. At times holiday fiction can be a comfort during a stressful time, at the extreme, some types can be an anesthetic. Because the go-to is cozy holiday stories, it's also ripe for subversion in the dark fiction genres, too, because that inversion can be really jarring.

Sean Taylor: Seasonal fiction taps into the general positive vibe of the holidays. It is able to reinforce those happy thoughts of holidays past and, if done well, cause the reader to reflect on something else to make their season a little more exciting, or spicy, or romantic, or action-packed, or just plain on more filled with warm fuzzies.

Do you find it to be as good as "regular" fiction, or does it tend to be mere marketing and/or sentimentalism?

Sean Taylor: I'm a bit of a snob, so I tend to find a lot of holiday stories to be melodramatic drizzle designed to cater to the easy plots and tired tropes of either love lost and rediscovered just in time for the holidays or to the Christmas Carol model of someone learns the "true meaning" (insert the author's personal definition of that here) and makes a permanent change for the better. I don't, however, find some truly enjoyable -- even to my snobbish tastes -- holidays tales.

Selah Janel: Depends. I've read enough to be able to tell when it's hitting an obvious formula. There are tons of bland or plain not great holiday fiction out there, but that doesn't mean they don't speak to someone. When it's done super well, whether it's because of well-developed characters, use of obscure folklore (because this time of year is FULL of it), or just really taking a chance on an unconventional plot choice (and doing it well), holiday fiction can strike a chord in people and be really exceptional.

Mandi Lynch: Depends. I've found both - but then again, I find good and bad in all genres. Depends on who writes the story.

Lucy Blue: Some genres lend themselves more to holiday stories than others, and their publishers quite obviously know it--the mainstream romance Christmas cowboys start riding onto the shelf at Wal-Mart by mid-October. But my hubs played a Christmas-themed DLC mission for Hitman last weekend, so no genre or format is entirely immune. I think a lot of them ARE callous cash grabs, playing on our sentiment or feeding our contempt. The overarching theme to almost every holiday romance is "You don't have to be alone at Christmas." The overarching theme to almost every holiday horror or pulp story is "You're smart to hate Christmas." The overarching theme to almost every science fiction holiday story is "Christmas is an illusion." As readers, we look to these stories not so much for originality or art but to find confirmation of our own feelings about the holidays. And as writers, we do the exact same thing. I don't think this makes these stories worse than "regular" fiction; they just have a somewhat different purpose. But because of that, they aren't nearly as effective in July. (There are many, many notable exceptions, of course.)


What makes for bad or mediocre holiday fiction?

Mandi M. Lynch: A story that's too worried about the pretty to worry about the storyline. It's fine that you want to describe all 42947 ornaments on the tree, but there needs to be something beyond, too.

Sean Taylor: Tired tropes. More Christmas Carol redunits. Anything that is satisfied with the low-hanging fruit of just warm fuzzies. A lack of surprise for the reader. And most of all, anything so steeped in sentimentalism that it requires more suspension of disbelief than an episode of Gumby.

Selah Janel: For me, if it's supposed to romance or a cozy read, it's bad if I can figure out the plot immediately, if the characters are cardboard audience-inserts, or if it tries so hard to be holiday that it breaks from reality. A lot of anthology Christmas reads are this way for me - maybe ok once but they fall apart on repeat reads. In the case of horror or even romance, if people try to be too out there or too clever-clever without backing up the idea with great plot elements and characters, it's just as lame. Everyone has done evil Santa, so if you make that choice you'd better give me a fantastic reason for it and a gripping plot arc. Every conceivable type of holiday romance has been done so if you go too out there, there'd better be some balance with the Christmas crazytown. The old legends work whether they're medieval or from different countries or what have you because they're short narratives. The moment you build on that with any holiday story, you need to be able to do it with some substance or else it's sugary icing with no Christmas cookie underneath.

I've had mixed reactions to my title Holly and Ivy, but my intent was to show the good AND bad of the season. People struggle that time of year, just like any other. People still hurt, they still die, but there's also family and relationships and hopefully some comfort, as well. There's magic, romance, holiday cozy rituals, and some faeries, but at its heart, it's about the choices the main character has to make and how she tries to grow and do the right thing, just like so many of us do. It's about trying to find the bright spots when things are shadowing the season, and I hope that's something that people can identify with, because it's definitely something I face every year.

What elevates holiday fiction into something that still stands beyond the season?

Ryan Cummins: I'm going to use one of my favorite films here as an example, DIE HARD. People argue it's relevancy in the holiday genre constantly but what I love about this film is that it has a great story that just so happens to take place during the holidays. Would it have worked just as well if it was set during Labor Day? Probably, but the fact that they used the Christmas as a seasoning instead of the main course is what gives the story its charm. That's why no one ever debates whether DIE HARD 4 is a Fourth of July movie or not. As long as what is at the center of the story has an emotional pull for the audience, its place on the calendar should be of little consequence.

Mandi M. Lynch: A story where the main issue could fit without a holiday. Blaire could just as soon bring Enrique home in April, it would still make a story. Luther could still want to keep within his budget. Frohmeyer will still be an overbearing neighbor in summer.

Selah Janel: For me, if it connects with my actual life experience. I love On Strike for Christmas by Sheila Roberts because I know women like those characters. I grew up with similar traditions. I've seen that clash of wills. Likewise, I like the graphic novel Marvel Zombies Christmas Carol because it takes a gimmick but makes it make sense without going completely off the rails and destroying the original story. In both cases, you actually come to empathize with the characters and identify with the familiar holiday rituals.

Sean Taylor: Personally, I think the best holiday fiction uses the holiday itself as setting more than marketing or moral. It should have something to say about the people celebrating the season rather than merely becoming more "true meaning of Christmas" propaganda. The characters need to be fully realized people, not just Colorforms stuck into the same old manger scene rediscovery or "Scrooge learns his lesson" fable. Regardless of the time period in which they are set, they should say something true and honest and meaningful to modern readers. They should get beyond marketing and be good stories... period.

Case in point, I can watch It's a Wonderful Life anytime during the year, as well as Gremlins and Die Hard, and even Scrooged, but not The Bells of Saint Mary's, Christmas in Connecticut, or any of the Hallmark seasonal movies. Why? It's the difference between being steeped in sentimentalism and using the season as a springboard to tell a genuinely human story.

And yes, mentioning Scrooged sounds like I'm disagreeing with my own criteria, but that movie transcends it's typical Christmas Carol plot in so, so many ways.

From my own work, I tend to use the holidays to let my characters reflect, but not in the traditional sense. I've had them have to figure out the true nature of being a hero while dying during the holidays, rediscover the spark that died long ago because of a robbery and a captive's life in danger, and deal with the life choices that led to going from superhero to street bum (and was it worth it?) -- and that's a far cry from your visits with family in the snow-capped mountains or your big-city lawyer discovers the true meaning of Christmas in the idealized, pastoral setting where his car broke down. But, to each his or her own.

Lucy Blue: My own holiday-themed writing usually comes from something silly. For example, the one and only Hallmark-Channel-ready, contemporary holiday romance I've ever written in my life, Jane's Billionaire Christmas, came about as I was watching a Southpark Christmas episode with my digital artist/writer husband. We were discussing how obviously the guys who make Southpark have some female influence in their lives--every once in a while, Stan's girlfriend, Wendy, comes out with a monologue that Justin swears I wrote. ;) And as we were watching, I was thinking, geez, what WOULD it be like to be in a relationship with the brain that came up with Cartman? Laws, can you imagine taking that guy home to meet your parents at Christmas? And out of that came a Christmas story that is very sentimental and romantic and smooshy, but also, I hope, very funny. 

Selah Janel Decks the Holidays with Holly and Ivy!

Holly is forced to return to her parents’ farm after she loses her job and goes through the worst breakup of her life. Incapacitated by hopelessness and embarrassment, she doesn’t expect to bump into a forgotten childhood friend who isn’t supposed to exist.

Ivy is a dryad who lives in the pine trees Holly’s family grows as part of their livelihood. As the friends reconnect, Ivy not only shares her views on life, nature, and the modern world, but also gives Holly a magic charm that will change both their lives.

As the year progresses, things magically fall into place and a new figure is introduced into Holly’s life. Still, guilt lingers that maybe all the good developments aren’t deserved and aren’t even her own doing. Christmas not only brings surprises, but a choice. What’s more important: success, happiness, and love, or keeping a promise to an old friend?

Available on Amazon.

Holiday Re-Runs: Writing Holiday Fiction

Let's get seasonal, all you writerly girls and boys and those along the spectrum. This week we're going to look at what goes into writing great holiday stories.

What makes seasonal-themed fiction popular?

Lucy Blue: I think seasonal fiction is popular for the same reason some people start listening to Christmas music the day after Halloween. Readers want to cocoon themselves in that warm, fuzzy holiday feeling, and publishers are more than happy to feed that to make a buck. And writers are as susceptible as readers. The first time I see those Hershey's Kisses playing handbells or hear Nat "King" Cole, I want to drop every other project and write a Christmas story. Sadly, that's only about six months to a year too late to effectively publish, but never mind - so far, Christmas always comes back around.

Alexandra Christian: Even kids want to write and read about Christmas. When I taught 2nd grade, my kids would write and read Christmas stories well into March.

Mandi Lynch: When you're in the spirit, you're in the spirit. Alternatively, when you're buried under 14 feet of snow, the last thing you want to read about is somebody sweltering in the hot July sun.

Selah Janel: I think it has certain themes, tropes, and archetypes in a way that a lot of people relate to. Everyone has some sort of relationship with the holiday, good or bad, included or excluded. At times holiday fiction can be a comfort during a stressful time, at the extreme, some types can be an anesthetic. Because the go-to is cozy holiday stories, it's also ripe for subversion in the dark fiction genres, too, because that inversion can be really jarring.

Sean Taylor: Seasonal fiction taps into the general positive vibe of the holidays. It is able to reinforce those happy thoughts of holidays past and, if done well, cause the reader to reflect on something else to make their season a little more exciting, or spicy, or romantic, or action-packed, or just plain on more filled with warm fuzzies.

Do you find it to be as good as "regular" fiction, or does it tend to be mere marketing and/or sentimentalism?

Sean Taylor: I'm a bit of a snob, so I tend to find a lot of holiday stories to be melodramatic drizzle designed to cater to the easy plots and tired tropes of either love lost and rediscovered just in time for the holidays or to the Christmas Carol model of someone learns the "true meaning" (insert the author's personal definition of that here) and makes a permanent change for the better. I don't, however, find some truly enjoyable -- even to my snobbish tastes -- holidays tales.

Selah Janel: Depends. I've read enough to be able to tell when it's hitting an obvious formula. There are tons of bland or plain not great holiday fiction out there, but that doesn't mean they don't speak to someone. When it's done super well, whether it's because of well-developed characters, use of obscure folklore (because this time of year is FULL of it), or just really taking a chance on an unconventional plot choice (and doing it well), holiday fiction can strike a chord in people and be really exceptional.

Mandi Lynch: Depends. I've found both - but then again, I find good and bad in all genres. Depends on who writes the story.

Lucy Blue: Some genres lend themselves more to holiday stories than others, and their publishers quite obviously know it--the mainstream romance Christmas cowboys start riding onto the shelf at Wal-Mart by mid-October. But my hubs played a Christmas-themed DLC mission for Hitman last weekend, so no genre or format is entirely immune. I think a lot of them ARE callous cash grabs, playing on our sentiment or feeding our contempt. The overarching theme to almost every holiday romance is "You don't have to be alone at Christmas." The overarching theme to almost every holiday horror or pulp story is "You're smart to hate Christmas." The overarching theme to almost every science fiction holiday story is "Christmas is an illusion." As readers, we look to these stories not so much for originality or art but to find confirmation of our own feelings about the holidays. And as writers, we do the exact same thing. I don't think this makes these stories worse than "regular" fiction; they just have a somewhat different purpose. But because of that, they aren't nearly as effective in July. (There are many, many notable exceptions, of course.)


What makes for bad or mediocre holiday fiction?

Mandi M. Lynch: A story that's too worried about the pretty to worry about the storyline. It's fine that you want to describe all 42947 ornaments on the tree, but there needs to be something beyond, too.

Sean Taylor: Tired tropes. More Christmas Carol redunits. Anything that is satisfied with the low-hanging fruit of just warm fuzzies. A lack of surprise for the reader. And most of all, anything so steeped in sentimentalism that it requires more suspension of disbelief than an episode of Gumby.

Selah Janel: For me, if it's supposed to romance or a cozy read, it's bad if I can figure out the plot immediately, if the characters are cardboard audience-inserts, or if it tries so hard to be holiday that it breaks from reality. A lot of anthology Christmas reads are this way for me - maybe ok once but they fall apart on repeat reads. In the case of horror or even romance, if people try to be too out there or too clever-clever without backing up the idea with great plot elements and characters, it's just as lame. Everyone has done evil Santa, so if you make that choice you'd better give me a fantastic reason for it and a gripping plot arc. Every conceivable type of holiday romance has been done so if you go too out there, there'd better be some balance with the Christmas crazytown. The old legends work whether they're medieval or from different countries or what have you because they're short narratives. The moment you build on that with any holiday story, you need to be able to do it with some substance or else it's sugary icing with no Christmas cookie underneath.

I've had mixed reactions to my title Holly and Ivy, but my intent was to show the good AND bad of the season. People struggle that time of year, just like any other. People still hurt, they still die, but there's also family and relationships and hopefully some comfort, as well. There's magic, romance, holiday cozy rituals, and some faeries, but at its heart, it's about the choices the main character has to make and how she tries to grow and do the right thing, just like so many of us do. It's about trying to find the bright spots when things are shadowing the season, and I hope that's something that people can identify with, because it's definitely something I face every year.

What elevates holiday fiction into something that still stands beyond the season?

Ryan Cummins: I'm going to use one of my favorite films here as an example, DIE HARD. People argue it's relevancy in the holiday genre constantly but what I love about this film is that it has a great story that just so happens to take place during the holidays. Would it have worked just as well if it was set during Labor Day? Probably, but the fact that they used the Christmas as a seasoning instead of the main course is what gives the story its charm. That's why no one ever debates whether DIE HARD 4 is a Fourth of July movie or not. As long as what is at the center of the story has an emotional pull for the audience, its place on the calendar should be of little consequence.

Mandi M. Lynch: A story where the main issue could fit without a holiday. Blaire could just as soon bring Enrique home in April, it would still make a story. Luther could still want to keep within his budget. Frohmeyer will still be an overbearing neighbor in summer.

Selah Janel: For me, if it connects with my actual life experience. I love On Strike for Christmas by Sheila Roberts because I know women like those characters. I grew up with similar traditions. I've seen that clash of wills. Likewise, I like the graphic novel Marvel Zombies Christmas Carol because it takes a gimmick but makes it make sense without going completely off the rails and destroying the original story. In both cases, you actually come to empathize with the characters and identify with the familiar holiday rituals.

Sean Taylor: Personally, I think the best holiday fiction uses the holiday itself as setting more than marketing or moral. It should have something to say about the people celebrating the season rather than merely becoming more "true meaning of Christmas" propaganda. The characters need to be fully realized people, not just Colorforms stuck into the same old manger scene rediscovery or "Scrooge learns his lesson" fable. Regardless of the time period in which they are set, they should say something true and honest and meaningful to modern readers. They should get beyond marketing and be good stories... period.

Case in point, I can watch It's a Wonderful Life anytime during the year, as well as Gremlins and Die Hard, and even Scrooged, but not The Bells of Saint Mary's, Christmas in Connecticut, or any of the Hallmark seasonal movies. Why? It's the difference between being steeped in sentimentalism and using the season as a springboard to tell a genuinely human story.

And yes, mentioning Scrooged sounds like I'm disagreeing with my own criteria, but that movie transcends it's typical Christmas Carol plot in so, so many ways.

From my own work, I tend to use the holidays to let my characters reflect, but not in the traditional sense. I've had them have to figure out the true nature of being a hero while dying during the holidays, rediscover the spark that died long ago because of a robbery and a captive's life in danger, and deal with the life choices that led to going from superhero to street bum (and was it worth it?) -- and that's a far cry from your visits with family in the snow-capped mountains or your big-city lawyer discovers the true meaning of Christmas in the idealized, pastoral setting where his car broke down. But, to each his or her own.

Lucy Blue: My own holiday-themed writing usually comes from something silly. For example, the one and only Hallmark-Channel-ready, contemporary holiday romance I've ever written in my life, Jane's Billionaire Christmas, came about as I was watching a Southpark Christmas episode with my digital artist/writer husband. We were discussing how obviously the guys who make Southpark have some female influence in their lives--every once in a while, Stan's girlfriend, Wendy, comes out with a monologue that Justin swears I wrote. ;) And as we were watching, I was thinking, geez, what WOULD it be like to be in a relationship with the brain that came up with Cartman? Laws, can you imagine taking that guy home to meet your parents at Christmas? And out of that came a Christmas story that is very sentimental and romantic and smooshy, but also, I hope, very funny.

Is Your Setting Just a Place or a Character?

As writers, we all have our favorite setting in which to tell stories, and we also have our favorite passages that establish those setting. As a reader I've seen the masters at work, from the arid tone and sparseness of Capote's In Cold Blood...

"The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call 'out there.'"

...to the rambling, darkly poetic tour of Manderly in DuMarrier's Rebecca...

"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. It seemed to me I stood by the iron gate to the drive, and for a while I could not enter, for the way was barred to me. There was a padlock and a chain upon the gate."

But let's make it personal. How do YOU establish setting in your fiction?

On a range of "the setting is another character" to "a few words about the weather and the name of the town is more than enough," how important is setting to your stories?

Gordon Dymowski: For me, the setting is one of the key elements of making a story work. Even if I'm just writing a modern-day tale, providing an appropriate atmosphere is critical. I'm strictly in the "setting-as-character" camp since it provides a backdrop for the flesh-and-blood characters. Providing that atmosphere enhances both my writing and the reader's experience.

Elizabeth Donald: When I first began writing fiction, my stories were like the Star Trek original series episode “The Empath.” You’ll remember that one - they ran out of money for sets and the whole thing takes place on an empty sound stage with a square block for the characters to occasionally sit. It’s actually a pretty good episode, but I was always struck by how it seemed to be taking place in nowhere.

That’s what my writing was like. People did things, said things, died horribly, but it might as well have been in that nowhere space for all the description I put into place and setting. As I grew and developed my craft, I realized that setting can absolutely be a character, and knowing a place can really inform your story. I’ve infested Memphis with vampires and rusalka and a number of other critters, because I lived there for several years and I know the city will. I’ve often used settings like Illinois river towns, because it is territory I know, having lived and reported in Illinois river towns for more than 25 years. 

In the micro sense, where you place a story can greatly influence the reader’s opinion. For example, a recent story I submitted to my MFA workshop was set in a cheap, kind of slimy motel. My colleagues said that having this moment take place in that kind of setting led them to expect it would be a tawdry moment, something illicit - cheating, drug-fueled, perhaps people on the edge of homelessness - none of which I intended form the story. Setting matters to the characters, influences the readers, and thus it needs to matter to the writer.

Vonnie Winslow Crist: For me, setting is almost another character. I choose a setting for my fiction that has an impact on the story. Sensory language is the most important tool in my toolbox for creating a strong sense of location. That said, the sensory details need to carefully selected for maximum impact. No one wants to read pages of sensory observations. Sometimes, one well-chosen detail can define the location, set the mood, and start the action in motion.

Anna Grace Carpenter: I am very fond of setting as character, but fluctuate as setting as a reflection of the central characters, and setting as a contrast to my central characters. (For example, The Gear'd Heart is all rainy and dark and cold as the characters fight otherworldly, serial killers. But the current work-in-progress is a desert setting but with characters who are desperate to live.

Selah Janel: It depends on the story, but setting matters in a lot of my work. I gravitate towards forests and small towns, and both can be portrayed to convey tone and characters. In one form, they can be romantic and comforting, in another they can be suffocating and foreboding. For me, setting can be an extension of my characters or a character in itself, yet another antagonist working against the characters like in Candles or Mooner, or something that’s more supportive like a quiet best friend in a story like Holly or Ivy. Even in my short stories, I use setting to echo the tone and feel quite a bit.

HC Playa: Setting sets tone. It is both little more than background and yet absolutely integral to the story. In genre fiction it can outline the realities and rules of the world, whether there's magic or aliens or we are reading by candlelight.

I sketch it out through my character's eyes and senses, dropping things in as they go. IF I am using a real place I may put in less description, but still want to paint an image in the reader's mind because not everyone has been to the same places.

Herika Raymer: As setting is when and where the story takes place, I agree with HC that it sets tone. Usually setting through a character's eyes helps, but there is the added measure of setting through a character who had not been in your setting before. That way, not only the character but also the reader are exploring a new area. It allows the reader to (hopefully) connect with characters as well as get the background and events of the Setting to help understand what is happening.

Bill Craig: In my Marlow books, Key West is every bit a character as well as setting.

Bobby Nash: The vast majority of the time, setting is very important to me and my work, especially in a series where the setting is visited and revisited often. Sommersville is a fictional city and county I created that has become an important location in multiple books fronted by different characters. I think it’s a very important character in the stories. I want the reader to have a feel for the settings.

Murky Master: So it depends. In the last two short stories I wrote, they were short so going verbose on the setting wasn't an option. In my novel, it's set in San Antonio and I didn't really think much about establishing setting in that one. But, when I write my fantasy stories, I like to think of it this way.

Ian Totten: Setting is extremely important to me. When I write I see everything in my mind and try to convey that to the readers. Generally speaking, my settings either serve to create a sense of dread (such as the place where a killer is going to strike), a false sense of safety, or an actual area where the characters don’t need to have their guards up.

What is your most effective tool in your writer's toolbox for creating a strong sense of setting in your work?

Bobby Nash: The setting you create has to feel real, not just to the reader, but to me as the writer. I need to be able to imagine walking down the streets of that location, recognize the smells, the colors, the things that make that place unique. If I believe it’s real, that translates into the story.

Herika Raymer: Using the senses, but trying not to be too descriptive. I do not want to be a writer who uses two pages to explain what one thing looks like or tastes like. However, a reader experiencing their surroundings through the senses of the character can definitely be instrumental to setting the scene.

John L. Taylor: Depending on the story. If the setting is fairly fantastic, I'll go more detailed and emphasize the contrast between it and the known. If more down-to-earth, I'll write it as a metaphor for the POV character's mood/personality. 

Selah Janel: I really like to lean into details, and if I don’t have the space for that, I try to use setting just enough to induce a mood in the characters, and by extension my readers. Little things matter, though, and knowing a place or type of place well can give you so much to work with in terms of story.

Bill Craig: The places where I set a lot of the action are real places where I have been. I try to make descriptions of places as vivid as I can in order to make readers feel as if they are visiting the island. For Key West, the sights and sounds are well known by many people, so it is easy to incorporate them, from wild chickens running all over town to iguanas coming out of the trees to swim in hotel swimming pools. Island music is everywhere as there is some sort of musician playing nearly 24 hours a day, giving a flavor from salsa to calypso, to Jimmy Buffet. 

Gordon Dymowski: Details, details, details. It's amazing how some writers will point to obvious landmarks (like the Empire State Building) as if to say "We're in New York". Writing places that are out-of-the-way or suggesting a deeper history can do a lot for setting place, tone, and mood.

For example, when I write about Chicago, most of my action tends to take place on the city's south side. Part of it is that there's a historic tension between the North Side and South Side (due to both class and racial factors that are too lengthy to go into here), but part of it is...I know Sears Tower exists (and nobody calls it Willis Tower, just like nobody calls where the White Sox play Guaranteed Rate Park -- it's Sox Park or, if you're older, Comiskey Park). Anything that suggests that the setting has a history improves your ability to tell a story.

Elizabeth Donald: Live your life. I know that’s not the craft response, and certainly addressing metaphor and descriptive passages and details are all very important, but the reader can tell if you’re making up a setting from what you’ve seen in a movie or TV show rather than real-life experience. I learned to shoot guns because I was writing a lot of shoot-em-ups and it was blindingly apparent I’d never shot a gun in my life. I wrote an early novel in New York City that was fairly terrible, as I had never been to New York and I didn’t realize a lot of aspects you only realize once you’ve walked around on its streets. 

If you want to create a place, first visit it or something similar. Pay attention. Take notes. Engage all five senses and experience a place if you want to recreate it in fiction. And then send in the zombies. It livens everything up. 

Davide Mana: I started writing my "Buscafusco" stories, about an unlicensed PI working in the wine hills of southern Piedmont where I live, as a collaboration with the local Chamber of Commerce and Tourism. The idea was to use my stories to promote tourism in the area. The place had therefore to be really another character in the stories, and I used a mix of historical details and contemporary color to give the readers as strong an impression as possible. I had to be as close as possible to the authentic places I described and tried to use as much true detail as possible in setting up action scenes and plot elements. I used real people whenever possible.

The result was highly satisfying for me as a writer and (based on feedback) for the readers and paid back the extra research and effort needed.

Ef Deal: I like to focus on texture and sensory details like scent and taste. I also will describe a general layout as it affects the plot or action. For example, an opening of a second chapter describes the history of the chateau only to highlight the engineering genius of my heroine in bringing it up to date (1843), since those changes will play a part in the action later in the book.

Anna Grace Carpenter: I focus on those visceral details. The chill and misery of a rainy setting, the exhaustion and thirst of a desert setting. If the characters have injuries I focus on how the environment affects those wounds.

HC Playa: Invoking the senses. I do admit that this is something I feel is a work-in-progress skill. I joke that a reader might accurately guess without knowing me that my sense of smell is not very good. My characters tend not to smell much unless it's really strong and generally ick 😂. Yay allergies.

How important are sensory details when establishing setting? Internal monologue to establish "connection"? Omniscient telling for all the facts?

Robert Waters: Internal dialogue is important to me. But it's something you have to balance and not have it dominate the story. I've seen stories with whole paragraphs of internal dialogue, to the point of annoyance. IMO, not a good way to go. What I often do is have the character thinking / brooding / contemplating over something as part of the main narrative, and then, he/she will say a few words to him or herself to cap off the thought. That to me is a better way to handle internal dialogue. 

Selah Janel: It depends on word count and what’s going on in the story. I love sensory details, because they help build a world and immerse readers, as well as giving characters so much to work with externally and internally. Sometimes, though, showing their own thoughts about a place is enough with less emphasis on external description. It really depends on what the goal is for the scene.

Bobby Nash: It all goes to set the stage. I like to have the narrator let us know not only details about the place but how they connect to the POV character in that chapter. I can drop details about Sommersville, and they work, but when I tie those details to Tom Myers’ life, they take on greater meaning.

Bill Craig: Sensory details are hooks to put the reader into the story and setting. 

Anna Grace Carpenter: I only write 1st or close 3rd person. So the voice is always immediate and tied to the centralized character. (Even in third, everything is very close to the character who is the focus of the chapter. So those details are personal.)

Elizabeth Donald: I struggle with interiority in my writing, and it’s something I’ve been focusing on in my craft. Internal monologue comes more from character than setting, in my humble opinion, but both of these help develop a rich narrative that draws your reader into that total immersion for which we strive when we’re writing. Those sensory details go much further in terms of setting, as far as I’m concerned: when you’re standing in an open-air market in San Antonio, hearing mariachi music, smelling the street corn and tamales, watching the brightly-colored flags flutter against the blue sky, feeling an overly-warm breeze on your face… that puts you in a place, at a time, and you have established a place. 

HC Playa: I avoid omniscient telling in my writing. As a reader, nothing makes me skip ahead quicker than a setting info dump from an invisible omniscient narrator. If I skip it and don't enjoy it, I don't write it. While I do occasionally use internal dialogue, I rely mostly on the character's POV to relate setting. It gives the reader a more immersive experience.

Gordon Dymowski: Sometimes the way to "dot the I" when crafting a setting is ensuring that every sense is involved. For example, my high school years were spent commuting through Chicago's Maxell Street market. I could discuss how I took the Number 8 Halsted bus, but the reader would be more intrigued by describing the storefronts along the street (with metal covers for the windows), the vendors hawking wares on the sidewalk (including hubcaps), and the strong odor of grilled onions and Polish sausage wafting through the air.

I've just painted a picture for you of that experience. The Market has since moved (and the street is now covered by amenities for college students), but that sense memory still lingers.

As far as internal monologue/omniscient narrator, it depends on the type of story. Leaving out details can be critical in setting the scene (just read Poe's short stories), and having the "innocent bystander" narrate can drive insight into actions and behaviors (paging Dr. Watson). All of these are tools that any writer can and should use.

Vonnie Winslow Crist: Used judicially, internal monologue can let the reader see into a character and their motivations, goals, etc. Again, a little goes a long way. Too much internal monologue slows the pace of the story. I'm not a fan of omniscient telling -- it usually feels like "telling" and not like a story unfolding. The setting doesn't work in my fiction when I "force" a story to be set in a place. When I allow the narrative to settle comfortably in a location rather than force it to fit into an environment, it's easier to write and the resulting tale works better for readers (and editors). 

I'm a fan of George Martin's term "gardener" for a writer. One organically selects details, adjusts the narrative, and makes decisions about location, internal monologues, pov, etc. much like one gardens -- well, much like I garden. For me, it's less about straight rows and perfect flowers, and more about the beauty that comes from discovery and adapting to the unexpected.

Herika Raymer: Sensory details are important because we all (unless otherwise incapacitated) experience our reality through our senses, makes sense we would want a bit of sensory in the stories we real.

Internal monologue can help establish "connection" with a character because it helps the reader either comprehend, understand, or even approve/disapprove of a character's motives and actions.

Omniscient telling for all the facts can be fun, but it depends on the presentation. For instance, I am watching an anime right now based of a manga series. Though a different presentation, the author's way of presenting omniscient facts is to have a narrator make hilarious remarks on what is happening. It adds spice to an otherwise pretty cut and paste story. This may not be feasible in a traditional written format, but I have read some authors who have ways to bring in omniscience without it being too much of a data dump and thus taking away from the lure of the written word.

What have you read or written that absolutely didn't work in regard to making the setting feel real or important to the work? Why didn't it work?

Bill Craig: Longmire did a great job in character and setting. The only book I have read that failed in this respect is a book about a pulp character by a "Name" mystery writer. Sadly, it was so poorly written that I could not finish it and returned it. It ignored the history of the character and turned him into a secondary character rather than being the titular hero.

Elizabeth Donald: I will be generous and pick on TV, because they make a lot of money and won’t care. I always had myself a huge giggle at Smallville, as the teens of Smallville High would go swimming in the lovely alpine lakes shrouded with evergreens in… Kansas. Seriously, folks, at least try to hide that you’re shooting in Vancouver. Shows like Supernatural were equally ridiculous about this - claiming to be in St. Louis and an establishing shot of the Arch really doesn’t qualify as establishing a setting. At least when Doctor Who lands on Earth, he’s honest enough to admit he mostly toodles around London because budget. 

How can we apply this to the written word? Know the territory. If you can’t physically visit a place, use your Google-fu and explore. Try to find someone who lives there or has visited there and interview them. I did this when I set a Blackfire adventure in the Philippines, and before I even ventured close to that one, I interviewed a friend of a friend who grew up there. I see it as no different than interviewing experts in advance of writing something technically different, like asking an arson investigator how you can most efficiently kill someone with fire and get away with it. (Just be sure they know you’re a writer; it’s far less likely to result in a search warrant for your apartment.)

Murky Master: Setting is only the combined sensory input going into a character's mind. The details that are important to the character are important to the story, so they will rise to the top.

A missionary about to face Elder gods in the Vietnamese jungle would see the following

"The dark of the night gave every biting insect an echo. The vines strangled like tentacles, their origins in the pitch black of the tree forks, like they were dropping out of the unknowable night..."

But, an adventuring doctor rushing to get medicine through that same jungle would see this

"Every branch, every vine clawed and tugged at Dr. Nguyen, grasped and clawed at his sweat-soaked pant legs. Even the air dragged on him as he swam through the humidity, every leaping stride through wet, leaves feeling like a backhand. Like the one that mother would deal him if that girl drowned in her own pneumatic lungs).

Bobby Nash: Sure. Probably. I can’t think of an example off the top of my head and wouldn’t want to throw another writer under the bus. As a writer, if the author isn’t giving me those details, my brain fills them in, which could hurt the scene the author is trying to convey. If I don’t connect to the location, it becomes a generic location in my imagination.

Anna Grace Carpenter: I can't say I have written anything that was disconnected from setting. I write a lot of suspension of disbelief stuff, but setting is rarely a part of that. But, I did stop reading "The Lies of Locke Lamora" after a particular scene that was particularly brutal but also ignored some general physics.

Herika Raymer: The most glaring example that comes to mind was reading a sample chapter in Amazon from a highly recommended book (though not so much later on once more facts were discovered about the author). Her description of the scene was fair, setting the tone of tension and the fear of being chased. However, when it came time for the main character to act -- that is when it did not work. She had her character running on a broken ankle. Yes, broken. Readers can suspend belief for some things, but unless the author establishes right away that the main character is in some way supernatural, I have yet to meet someone who could run on a broken ankle with no problem. It was not the only problem with the story, but it was the first of many.

HC Playa: I can't think of any specific examples off the top of my head, but plenty of romance-type stories and contemporary fiction really have no connection to the setting. You could pick up the entire story, plop it in another city and it wouldn't matter.

Davide Mana: There is a notorious thriller novel, published a few years back by an Italian writer, and set in London. It was so successful Amazon did an English translation - that was pretty popular with the American public and got the British readers rabid (we talk a few dozens one-star reviews).

The author did not do any research, and what she produced was a story in which the London police carried guns, in which Scotland Yard is closed for business on weekends (!!), and the big set piece is a car chase and shootout on the streets of London (but the geography is all wrong). The plot was OK, but all the setting details that should have propped it up were wrong, and a lot of people noticed. It was an absolute failure on the worldbuilding side, caused by an obvious lack of research.

So, the bottom line: using actual places as setting can be a disaster if you don't do the minimum of research needed to establish an authentic sense of place. Sometimes Google Maps is enough.

Also, sometimes researching the worldbuilding changes the direction of your story: while writing my first novel (historical adventure), I spent a weekend working with my brother (who studied Chinese), browsing Chinese-language websites in search of the actual location of the Italian consulate in Shanghai in 1936. I could have played it fast and loose, but the time spent on research revealed the consulate was across the street from the British police barracks - which changed the whole dynamic of the action in the first third of my story. I had to do a lot of rewrite, but it was well worth the effort.

Gordon Dymowski: As part of my review duties for I Hear of Sherlock, I read one pastiche which read more like a cliche screenplay than an actual Holmes work. (I'm not going to name it here). By the end, it was more concerned with being clever than setting a great mood or driving strong characters. Let's end on a positive note: some great examples of authors who use setting well are Robert B. Parker's early Spenser novels, Sara Paretsky's VI Warshawski novels, and Jim Thompson's novels (which, yes, are unsettling but that's half the reason why I enjoy them).

John L. Taylor: Best example, again from an in-progress book of mine is introducing main characters who can travel in dreams by cornering their target in a dream of an abandoned decaying mansion meeting them at a chessboard with a game in progress. Both characters are damaged people, past their prime, but still intelligent and elegant in their ways, and ruthless hunters of their quarry. The visuals are symbolic of that.

Romancing the Genre (With Apologies to the Stone)

This week, we're going to look at working romance into your other genres. What is the appeal of having romantic subplots in stories that are more typically focused on action, adventure, or even horror? We turned to the jury to get their verdict. 

Have you found a romantic subplot in your action and adventure (whatever genre you're actioning in) stories to be a helpful extra layer or not? Why?

Corrina Lawson: To be specific on questions, my own work straddles the line between romance and other genres. It's a terrific layer because it should (ideally) key into the growth of the character. A character has to undergo a sort of transformation to their best self in the story--and sometimes it's only the romantic interest who can see through the chaff to that best self. (Witness, say, Romancing the Stone, where Kathleen Turner basically forces Michael Douglas to take a hard look at who he wants to be.) 

Selah Janel: I haven’t written a lot of romance, but I’ve done a few things and a lot of what I write has romantic subplots. For me, I really like exploring relationships and interactions between characters. I really like playing with circumstance and tension, and getting under the surface to explore how characters relate and grow together. 

HC Playa: I write adventures with sex and love because I cannot for the life of me write actual romance.

Lucy Blue: Why do I write romance? Because I think human connection is the most interesting, most valuable reward any protagonist can achieve. It’s what we fight for. It’s what we survive for. And we can portray that by putting in a generic hot chick or dude to fridge and forget while we get on with the kung fu fighting. Or we can be brave and let that relationship be real. In movies, that works all the time. But in books, a real relationship equals romance, and romance equals Hallmark. And yeah, that makes me tired.

Emily Leverett: I've got a romantic subplot in my Eisteddfod Chronicles. The two MC have an affair. It's as much about the political implications as the personal, and both will continue to matter as the story comes to a close. Sometimes (all the time?) it's not possible to separate the personal and political. 

Sean Taylor: I almost always have a romantic element in my stories. I think it makes a fantastic B-plot or even C-plot depending on the length of the work, and it allows me to showcase more characteristics of my characters rather than just their ability to punch or exorcise horrors. 

David Wright: I tend to let the characters decide.

Mike Hintze: I go with the flow. The story tells me what happens

What is the appeal to readers to find a romantic story squirreled away inside other genres?

Lucy Blue: I have never written about rose petals in my life. I write action-packed, gory, hard-edged horror and fantasy stories with real conflict and peril that just happen to have a romantic relationship at their center. But as soon as I say I write romance, other horror and fantasy writers think rose petals and emotional melodrama. (This is me not talking about it.

Sean Taylor: As a reader myself, I always love to find them, as long as they don't overpower the A-plot. But they can get as close as they want to without bothering me. I look to the greats like Rebecca or even Haunting at Hill House. Without the romantic subplots, even those stories (one to a great degree obviously) would have been far more "one note" stories.

Emily Leverett: A romance can make a good backdrop for those explorations, because little is more personal than who you're having sex with.

Selah Janel: I think people tend to simplify what romance is and why people read it. I think it’s another way of seeking catharsis and when a person sees themselves or their personality reflected in a character, it gives hope that things can work out for them and they’re worthy of love, too. There’s a whole gamut of situations and emotions to explore - is a feeling required, unrequited, is there loss involved or baggage that might be an obstacle, how they see themselves and others - just all sorts of things that factor into how people relate to each other. It makes that moment when two characters do connect or reconnect that much more interesting and sweeter.

Corrina Lawson: The appeal to readers is more insight into characters, I would guess. Less so than in novels, but in movies, the romance part often seems tackled on because the love interest is only there to be rescued or in peril. *Even today.* I think romance gets a bad rep because of those types of movies. Most of the time, the movies would be better without them because they're not central to the character's story.

Or do you feel that romantic subplots just get in the way of your main plots?

Mark Holmes: I love a good romantic subplot! The problem is in 8 to 10 pages of a comic script I usually don't have any space to tell one other than a quick smooch at the end of the story.

Nik Stanosheck: The romance can be a way to get to know the characters and to help them grow and develop more.

Corrina Lawson: Romance is a type of relationship. I find authors who write relationships well tend to also write romance well, and it adds character and depth to a story. I should clarify, that in the genres I write, characters try to find their best selves. Obviously not true of other genres where tragic endings are fine. But romances there can also underscore character faults and bad choices.

Sean Taylor: At least the way I try to write them, they add to the main story rather than getting in the way, at least I sure hope so. That's the plan when I start to write anyway. 

Just one question this week, folks. And it's for the horror writers.

Why Do You Write... Horror?

Nikki Nelson-Hicks:

I have a theory that writers write because they subconsciously want to save...or kill...someone over and over again. As for me, horror gives me a way to not only be an agent of Nemesis and give justice to people who are wronged but it also gives me the opportunity to see the crime from the other side when I dive into the antagonist's POV. While this makes me more empathetic, it doesn't do much for my anxiety.

Also, it's just a lot of fun. I love monsters and ghost stories.

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Nicole Givens Kurtz:

I write horror to engage in stories and emotions that are often viewed as negative when displayed in real life. Horror gives me permission to be angry, to be vengeful and to be afraid. When I write horror, I am free to run the gambit of emotions without fear of reproach. Writing horror for me is freedom to be truly creative.

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Selah Janel:

I think it’s natural to seek a catharsis that we might not get in real life, especially during times of stress and chaos. It doesn’t even have to have a happy ending - being able to immerse myself in a story where I control the outcome and can explore terrifying possibilities is a powerful position to be in. I’ve always been intrigued by the fear and intrigue that warred inside me any time I read or watched something in the horror genre. As a kid, it freaked me out, but as an adult there’s a certain freedom in being able to toy with plot elements that delve into the darker parts of the psyche. With so many sub genres, there’s a lot of fun to be had and a lot of topics to explore. Horror naturally puts a reader in a point of view situation, so there’s also the chance to explore empathy for people who aren’t in my situation. There’s a lot of freedom in the horror genre and sub genres, and a lot of power over terrible things in a controlled environment.

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Bill Craig:

For me, turning to the horror genre was a natural extension from writing mysteries. There are many ways to explore the supernatural and the various forms of race/species available in those things that go bump in the night.

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Sean Taylor:

I write horror for the same reasons I write super heroes. I write horror for the same reasons I write new pulp. It's all about finding the right story to put my characters through hell.

Horror has always been, at least for me, a way of pushing my characters. I believe that the best way to create a compelling story is to make your characters face the worst thing that can happen to them -- whether romantically, philosophically, emotionally, or physically. That's why for me the best horror has always had more at stake than mere death or dismemberment or gore. It operates on a deeper level at a higher kind of loss. Losing to the spirit, zombie, creature, etc. must always mean losing something of the character's self -- a chance to make things right with someone, the opportunity to finally become someone important, that one last break to talk to your parents before you die. If the only thing they have to lose is their lives, then ultimately (at least for horror stories) there's not enough at stake.

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Ralph Wheat:

I enjoy writing horror for the simple fact I like to scare myself and others. Creating characters is fun and intriguing. Breathing life into beings that came from my demented mind, a story from stray thoughts, interesting stories I happen to click to on tv, cable, or an article in the paper ( and yes, I still read those) and a germ of a idea germinated into a spark for a short story. As a matter of fact, an idea I was ruminating about lately, brightened to a fiery glow of creative fire as I riding in a car by a cemetery. Suddenly, I had the framework for a terrifying horror story. I wanted to do for my character, Malcolm Hellbourne, Occult Detective. I've written a few short stories with him. First time I introduced him to a select few, is when in my technology school for computer programming had a school paper. They wanted the students to submit a story and I did. The students and faculty loved it. That's when I knew I could write. Then when I worked at the World Trade Center, before its tragic end, I put a couple of his shorts together and sold them on the Commodities Exchange's Floor for $2. I made $50 bucks! Also, I found myself elated, full of pride and respected. Here were grown men and women reading my stories, some of them acting out some of Malcolm's hand gestures to perform spells doing them in real-life. Brought a smile to my face. And many, saying they enjoyed very much, wanted more stories. Later, I found out since I sold my work, I was a published author. I finally, brought all the stories of Malcolm in one series and hopefully soon to get it published. So horror stories are good for the heart rate and keep you up late at night.

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Robert Freese:

Why do I write horror? I write more than just horror, but with horror I feel a real connection. Horror movies were huge when I was a kid and I just gravitated toward them. Fangoria magazine opened a world of horror movies as well as horror novels. At the time, Stephen King was insanely popular, but I read guys like John Russo, Richard Laymon, Gary Brandner, Guy Smith, James Herbert. Horror is like the coolest club to belong to.  I am currently writing a new horror novel and I'm having a ball. I get to revisit a wonderful world where anything can happen. I don't want to explore man's heart of darkness or any of that jazz. I enjoy writing what I call "drive-in horror," horror stories that works like a Roger Corman drive-in horror movie. You can use a horror story to tell a bigger story, give the characters real depth. I also see it as a challenge to use words like magic tricks. Robert Bloch did that with his twist endings. How can you seem to show something to your reader and then flip it and give them a little jolt? I love that. When I write other stuff I tend to always write one character who is a fan of horror movies and novels, just so I can still play in that world a bit. I think at this point it's in my blood.

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Bobby Nash:

I like to do the spooky from time to time. It's fun writing scares.

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DK Perlmutter:

In my case, it's to follow the advice of my idol of G.K. Chesterton, who said the purpose of fairy tales was not to tell people that dragons exist, but that they could be killed.

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Daniel Emery Taylor: 

I tend to write a lot about outcasts - which I don't suppose is particularly unique - and the choices they make in light of their hardships. So, someone is bullied as a child - does that make them more likely to become a hero, because they know what it's like to be victimized and they want to save others from the same fate, or do they become a villain, because they want the world to suffer as they did? Really, it could go either way, depending on a variety of other factors. We each have choices to make in life and it is fascinating just how quickly our entire situation can change based solely on our reaction to it. Plus, there is the splendid duplicity of man - the fact that most humans are basically good but also carry within them the potential for the gravest forms of evil. I'm not saying we're just a bad day away from becoming homicidal maniacs ... but I think we would be shocked to discover what we would be able to do given the right set of unfortunate circumstances.

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James Quinn: 

I wouldn’t consider myself a horror writer to anyone’s imagination, but not because I don’t like horror I just don’t want to put into a genre-box that many writers like Stephen King have struggled with. Had I been asked a few years ago about the horror genre, I’d say I wasn’t all that into it but considering all the horror movies I’ve enjoyed watching and the Stephen King titles I’ve read, I realized that I liked the genre more than I’m aware of. Why is horror so fascinating to me? 

To clear the air, I want to be fully honest and say I am not what most would consider a professional writer. I’ve just last year begun writing my first novel, I’ve only had 6 poems published on literary websites and literary journals, and I am currently running a geek-centered blog site of my own construction. I am by no means a “professional” on the status of most well-known and established authors. However, I do still write, and I am on the road to becoming what I would to imagine a…. black Harlan Ellison. A genre-fiction writer of the ages!

With that bit of honest professionalism out of the way for context, I do write continuously and the projects I’ve written so far that have been published and just written have been horror related. My first love is always going to be science-fiction, a genre that imagines humanities future in whatever good or bad form that takes, and my second is superhero comics. Is it possible to even have a third love? Horror, although I don’t speak on it all the time has always creeped up in my work so far. The first short story that I ever tried to professionally publish was a horror story about a woman being haunted by the spirit of her dead daughter in hell. The first poem I had ever gotten published is called “Smoke-Town Zombies” and is about a shy black kid that slowly decays mentally and physically into a zombie. Even the first script I had written was based on that previously mentioned horror poem. In November of 2020, I had started working on my first novel which is going to be a horror story. Despite considering horror a third favorite genre, I’ve certainly found myself coming back to the genre time after time. 

Why do I write horror? Why do I write science fiction sometimes? Science fiction is a genre I look to envision a future for myself and the world around me. The future might be taken over by robots, or we might be enslaved by an alien race in the future, but there’s still a future, nonetheless. Superhero comics are power fantasies that inspire me to envision better and more helpful versions of myself. But what about horror? Horror, as I consume it, investigates our darker halves and evil intentions so that we’re aware of the awful things we’re capable. The best horror fiction is always an exploration of our fears and how those fears shape into monsters or shape us into monsters. Fear is a driving force in all our lives, and it leads me into the driving force behind my fear: my identity. 

As a queer African American, I live in a country/world that is always working against me; that’s not to say that I specifically am facing any hardships currently, but as a race in this country it’s hard to not conclude that black bodies are always targets for hate.  I live in Louisville, Kentucky and when I had started writing my horror novel last year (currently we’re in the editing and re-structuring phase) we had several major protests during the summer concerning the murder of Breonna Taylor by the Louisville Metro Police Department. Despite the angry chants, the protests, the looting downtown, the threats to destroy the city, despite the cries for justice against a woman that didn’t deserve to have her life taken away, Kentucky law opted to not arrest the cops that killed Breonna Taylor. To add insult to injury, Kentucky senate passed a bill that would make illegal for anyone to insult cops which was also met by protest. The state and the overall United States have made themselves clear about how they feel about black lives: they don’t care. By not arresting the cops that killed Breonna Taylor, Kentucky sent out the message that the police can come into any black person’s house, kill them, and not face any punishment for it. Not to mention the other countless black lives that have been lost the to the American Police force. America has always had black bodies in a state of fear, and even though I’m one of the few black people to be privileged enough so far to avoid these obstacles, but that’s not the reality for a lot of people that look like me or identify as I do.

The world is a horror story for black people, from our history down to the current events on the news through the African diaspora. Black bodies are always in a state of danger. When I write horror, I tend to write from this perspective. As a writer I believe fiction is the ultimate way for those to gain empathy and sympathy from people who are different from you; to gain a perspective one might not have previously had. It’s why I love writing and consuming fiction; it holds a mirror to us to reveal human truths. If I can make others understand the fear of black people through my horror stories, maybe others will understand why so many of us hate this country and want to dismantle it for a better one. Or at least I hope so.