Fiction Like White Elephants: Subtext in Your Stories

Let's talk about subtext, you know, that stuff that's hidden subtly in your stories even though it never really leaves a footprint.

Dialog. How important is the stuff your characters don't say or avoid saying to each other in your work?

Terrance Layhew: Creating subtext in conversation is necessary. It immediately gives an inner world to the characters and a larger world at play. What people avoid saying directly or indirectly raises stakes, but done too much makes the story a melodrama.

Elizabeth Donald: If my characters are as close to living, breathing humans as I can make them, the things they don’t say are wildly important - just as they are for us allegedly-real people. When a married couple sits at the dinner table and says nothing but “pass the salt,” that tells us a great deal about their relationship, their thoughts and feelings, the comfort level they have reached (or not) between them. There are many times when we feel spurred to speak and do not, either for fear of social or professional consequences, adherence to behavior norms in society, or our own personal tendencies; a person who is generally conflict-avoidant may remain silent when insulted, even as they are burning to speak - or shout - on the inside. All of these should come to play in our characters, if we are to make them real. The worst thing you can do is an “As you know, Bob…” where a character explains the blatantly obvious to a person who already knows this information. A little subtlety goes a long way.

Sheela Leyh: From my own experiences, the subtext and context both matter. What is said is often just as important as what isn't said. It can and does affect your readers, as well as how your communication is received and does affect meaning.

It is important in mine as I hear dialog early in the writing process, even before the plot unfolds fully. What isn't said is often left for the reader to piece together as part of my thisness layer, as well as to help hold the reader's interest. For context, thisness is an older writing technique that helps make a place more real to a reader without jarring the reader out of the reading experience. The Oxford Writer channel on YouTube does one of the best explanations on the thisness concept that I've seen so far. By trusting the reader to fill in some gaps by leaving out only what needs to be left out, it helps build that relationship with the readers.

Jessica Nettles: Dialog: Silence is a lot like white space on a page. It gives room for the reader to breathe and feel and think thoughts about what ought to happen. With dialog it also give space for things to grow between characters. Kate and Shadow have a LOT of unspoken stuff between them. For instance, neither of them have to say, “I respect you.” They say it in the way they work. There are readers who have picked up something more between them—and maybe it’s there. Shadow certainly won’t say what he feels about Kate, mostly because he isn’t sure what to do with that feeling. He files it under respect, but he would defend her until he faded away. She sees him as her equal, which is once again, never spoken.

The Backstory Iceberg

For our new roundtable, let's talk about your characters, specifically their backstory.

How deep do you go into figuring out your MC's backstory? Your lesser characters? How do you determine how far is enough?

Jessica Nettles: It depends on the character and how much I think I need to know. Sometimes that changes as I get to know the character and learn more about them and where they fit in my world.

Sheela Leyh: I used to go very in-depth in the past to get to know everything about my main character. The lesser characters I used to do quite a bit of detail, However, I've stopped doing that as much. It's more of what is needed to move the story along while still giving it life. I noticed that when I stopped going as deep and let the story emerge unhindered that it started taking off easier for me. I let my characters talk to me and then gauge it as it comes up during the writing process.

Elizabeth Mirasol: I'm a pantser, so as I'm writing, my character shows me more of their background and I can build on it. I just start with a brief personality and image in my head and go from there.

Wade Garret: I created DnD character sheets for my MCs and some secondary.

Sean Taylor: Mine vary. I used to go a lot deeper, but the more I wrote, the more I internalized that process and didn't need to address it as a strategic part of my process. I was able to have it take shape as needed as I wrote, leaving on the major character beats as something I needed to spec out before writing.

However, when I create characters that other writers will also tackle, I create a very, very in-depth story bible because I can't afford to leave anything stone unturned (as the cliche goes) or anything to chance.

Ratcheting the Tension

Let's talk tension. No, not the way your back and shoulders feel after watching the news, but the dramatic tension in your stories. 

We're all taught that the best (or at least easiest) way to build tension in your stories is with a ticking time bomb. Have you found this to be effective for you? Examples from your work?

Peter G: I avoid the ticking clock as much as possible. Or, at least, limit its presence. My Hannah Singer books, for example -- there is a sort of ticking clock when Hannah is arguing in court. Once a petitioner's fate is decided, there's no do-overs, so she only has one chance to get it right. But, to ratchet up the tension, that's where the trial arguments come in. I intentionally make the stories where she gets the toughest cases, so the tension comes from seeing if Hannah can figure out what is going on AND can circumvent it. Telling the stories in first person and walking the readers through her mental processes helps. As a result, the tension shifts from getting something done in a certain amount of time and over to how smart she is.

Bobby Nash: I have used figurative and literal ticking bombs in stories. Putting a clock on solving a problem is a great way to ratchet up tension for the characters and readers. Knowing something bad is coming and they are no closer to solving it can make characters snap, lash out, or go introspective. Those things radiate out to the reader.

In Snow Hunt, Snow and his former C.O., a bomb disposal expert, are trying to catch a bomber who has been hired to assassinate someone of importance. They know the general where, the how, and the who. The tension comes in finding the bomb, which could be hidden almost anywhere in the conference center. Then, there’s tension when it’s found. Can we diffuse it in time? Then, there’s tension in trying to catch the bad guy before he gets away. There are several opportunities for tension in those scenes.

Sean Taylor: For me, it has always been the simple question of "will they" or "won't they." That's my ticking clock, and I have till the end of the story to resolve it. This can be a life-or-death situation, such as will they catch the killer or will they escape the death trap, as in my pulp stories. It can also be a more subdued, normal situation, such as will they fall in love or will they be able to reconcile. But regardless of the question, if it has the power to drive the narrative, it will have the power to build tension regarding its answer. 

Smuttin' It, Smuttin' It, Genre Style

Hey, all you writer types. Let's look at spicing up your genre (or even literary) stories with a little (ahem) action. How do you incorporate sexy time into your stories?

Let's say for you a publisher is open to spicy but not all-out erotica, how do you determine where to draw the line yet still keep the sexy actually, you know, sexy?

Elizabeth Donald: Sex is part of the human experience, to a greater or lesser degree according to a person’s personal drives. We don’t have to literally shine a spotlight on the penetrating moment in order for sexuality to be at the forefront of the story. A character may be consumed with deep need and powerful attraction - indeed, it might be the driving force of their actions and even the plot, without us actually following them under the sheets. It’s not censorship to construct a story about sex and sexual attraction without actually depicting the act; if you’re doing your job right with evocative language, the reader will feel all the things you want them to feel, regardless of the explicitness of your story.

L. Andrew Cooper: In the fiction I've published, at least, the sex I've described has always been horrific in some way, from attempts to conceive a child for sacrifice in Descending Lines to the relentless taboo-breaking of Alex's Escape. I guess some scenes in The Middle Reaches are steamy, but they're still weird. So mostly I don't have to worry about sexy... I have to worry about explicit description ("showing") parts and acts. I guess if I have to satisfy a prudish publisher, I describe less or cut more.

Chris Riker: Sex is a great time for internal dialogue. A writer doesn't have to re-invent the old Penthouse Forum; he just has to tell us what the sex means to the characters. 

"Then, while I was still trying to plot her trajectory, she said, “I won’t do anything on a futon, Zebulon.” The futon was in good shape, only a few beer stains on its lime green canvas, but it was a futon, so, as the French would say, ‘non humpez vous.’

I said, “There’s a big bed. The sheets are clean. And call me Zee, please.” I was hoping. Really hard. She kept me waiting a solid minute, standing there, considering her options. Then…

“Zee,” she said my name that way for the first time and put her arms around my neck. “Take me to the big bed with the clean sheets.”

Yes, I remember how her pencil skirt slid off her hips by lava lamp and the way her voice rose in primal song as she taught me to please her and the smoothness of her skin and the way my lungs drank in the scent of her hair. I remember giggling together afterwards and not being able to stop or wanting to. And when at last Jing fell asleep in my arms, I remember lying awake and feeling… real." - Zebulon Angell and the Shadow Army

Sean Taylor: I love to focus on the after or the before. I think there's a lot of magic to be covered there in the buildup or the afterglow. People get real then. Case in point, in this scene, Rick Ruby is visiting one of his, ahem, informants, a nightclub singer named Donna:

Hey You! Get Out of Your Head!

Hey, writerly folks! I have a friend of a friend who can't get out of her head to get started. Let's get together and give her our best advice to get over it, shall we? 

What do you have for her?

Josh Nealis: Just set a small goal. A minimum word quota everyday. Then up it every 10k words or so. Gives you time to find the tone and the story you want to tell.

Frank Fradella: Write the absolute worst opening line in the history of ever ever.

Rachel Burda Taylor: Go get Julia Cameron's book The Artist's Way.

Robin Adams: Research always inspires me as well as gives me ideas!

Jessica Nettles: Just open Word and put the ideas on the page.

Carrie Fisher helped me a lot. She had anxiety and a lot of other stuff going on in her head. In spite of this, she was an actress and wrote hilarious novels. She said, “Stay afraid. Do it anyway.” When I get scared or the imposter syndrome gets loud, I hear Space Mom. If she could things, so can I, and so can you.

I bet your stories are awesome.

Sara Freites Scott: Just sit down and spill it all out on paper/laptop LOL don’t worry about it. Write what YOU want to read. You can always do rewrites later but get what you can down while you still have it!

John Morgan Neal: Start filling the blank page. With anything related to the story you are wanting to tell. Lists. Opinions. Song lyrics. What is the main character's favorite ice cream? Why? What makes them angry? Make up something about the setting. Who's is the weatherman on the local TV News? Describe them. What kind vehicle does the second main character drive. What color is it. Is that the color they wanted.

Kay Iscah: I tend to stay in my head until I can play the story out like a movie and I know the ending and all the key scenes. It was a little gratifying to hear Brandon Sanderson dignify being a "binge" writer as something other than horribly unhealthy in his lecture series. There is a point where you have to sit down and write, but it is okay to figure out what/why you're writing first.

My antisocial is kind of kicking in this week. Frankly writing is a flooded market, so if someone has to make themselves write, I think it's okay to not try to be a writer. Enjoy reading. Enjoy day dreaming. Turning your hobby into work makes it work instead of play.

The Writer As Eternal Student

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Scars and All

(Even the Imperfections Are Part of Beautiful You)

Hey, writerly types! I just finished reading the Yours Cruelly, Elvira book by Cassandra Peterson, and she closed the book with this little tidbit that really made me think: "We all have our scars. Let them be a blessing and not a curse."

That got me thinking about the "scars" that make us who we are and how that works into our writing. 

Are you the kind of writer who has a "writer self" separate from your "normal self" -- i.e. is the writer a persona you put on, or do you use the whole of who you are both while writing and in person (at cons, signings, etc.)? Why do you think that is?

Mari Hersh-Tudor: Of necessity, I view the world through a number of different lenses. My work persona is wholly separate from the rest of my identity, which contains, but is not limited to: Writer Gremlin, Cosplay Demon, Fiber Artist and 2-D Artist who live together, Mom/Grandma, Occasional Musical Genius, Cat Whisperer, Really Good Cook, and Oh Look Squirrel.

Honestly my head is pretty crowded and there’s a lot of scampering back and forth in there.

As for Why, I was raised in a very restrictive environment where I had to excise the unacceptable parts of me for public presentation. I kept them and they grew into New Me selves that I kept in my head.

Bobby Nash: I’m pretty much me. What you see if what you get. Don’t get me wrong, when I’m working as Author Bobby, I put my best foot forward and act in a professional manner. What I don’t do is pretend to be something I’m not. I have enough trouble keeping up with who I am. Trying to keep up with a false identity as well seems like a lot of work. The last thing I want to do is give myself more work. I never really put a lot of debate into it. I’m just me. This is who I am.How have both the good and bad events in your life influenced your work? Are there hardships or traumas (that you are okay to discuss in this interview) that you've found made you a better writer? What about good times or happy events that have made you a better writer?

Paul Landri: I don't see myself so much as a "writer." More like a guy who writes if that makes sense.

I don't have a persona any more than I do when I'm voice Acting or doing my day job. When I market my work I tend to take the Stan Lee approach and be a stout cheerleader for my projects to the point of annoyance. Everything is the biggest, the best, the most thrilling thing you've ever read and if you don't read it the whole world will explode! 

Lisa Barker: I'm guessing that I am the same person/persona when writing, doing writing related things, and when not. However, I do take on my characters when I am writing and they are distinct and for the most part strictly tapped into and expressed when and in writing, though I took on mannerisms of my main character from Inheritance that I noticed in real life. Why to all of that? I'm an authentic person so I am the same me that writes as the me you would meet on the street. As for the mannerisms . . . I get really involved in my work, lol.

Sam Kelley: No. My writer self and “normal” self (whatever that means ahaha) are the same person. I grew up writing. My older characters are part of me. We grew up together. I know some of them better than I know myself. There has never been a time that I was active on social media that I wasn’t talking about OCs (the same exactly ones I talk about online now, for the most part lol).

Sean Taylor: I hope I don't. I really try to be as opening "me" in my work as I am in my day-to-day life. Most people who know me for even a few minutes, I like to think. Sure, they may think there is more to me than they can learn in a few minutes of our meeting, but all the real, true, deep stuff is there. The rest is just details. I try to write like that too, dumping my beliefs and heart and deep thinking into my work, even when if that work is mainly surface-level action or adventure stories. 

How have both the good and bad events in your life influenced your work? Are there hardships or traumas (that you are okay to discuss in this interview) that you've found made you a better writer? What about good times or happy events that have made you a better writer?

Sam Kelley: My characters go through a lot. When I first started writing, I was only 11. When I started writing what later became my debut series, I was 13. I hadn’t gone through much trauma or hardship (besides growing up poor) at that point. But, as I got older, my situation changed, and some things that happened to me were eerily similar to things my characters went through. It sucks, but it definitely helped me to be a better writer (in the sense that the characters & their reactions to situations feel a lot more grounded and realistic than they were originally). Good times have influenced my writing too, but in smaller moments, so it seems less noticeable to me.

Lisa Barker: Growing up with an alcoholic mother who thought she was psychic and wanted to train me as well as control me, set me up perfectly to write my debut novel. I wrote about an adult child of alcoholics without realizing I was one or that my character was one until the editing process was complete. My relationship with my mother also made me keenly observant and I think that makes me a good writer. Bipolar disorder made me a mood writer. Before I was medicated or stable, I could write from depression or melancholy; mania drove me to write around the clock, sometimes not sleeping for days. Now, after over a decade of stability, life is good, but writing has eluded me. I don't have a well spring of the abyss to draw upon, so I have to write in the immediacy of being hurt emotionally, and that is not a likely occurrence. Writing has become more cerebral than intuitive (and that makes producing work excruciating). Unless I can find a way to connect emotionally with my characters, which is how I live and breathe as a writer, I am impotent so I am still figuring it out and journaling seems to be helping with that as well as reading other people's books. To get to the point, positive events and a general sense of positivity and well-being have been great for my life, but has had a negative impact on my writing and I am figuring it out.

Paul Landri: I lost my dad when I was 25 years old. Bad age to lose a parent when you're still trying to figure things out. He does suddenly and it was a shock. Because of this I tend to like to give my characters happy endings. It doesn't happen all the time because real life is messy but if I can pit my characters through hell, the least they can get is a little peace. 

Bobby Nash: There are real-life instances that influence my work. Absolutely. It can be little things like experiences at work, on a date, at a con, or getting a speeding ticket. All of those can translate into character moments. Real people and their attitudes, both good and bad, can be a starting point for building a character or situation. Trauma works. Lost a loved one? That gives you a point of reference for writing a character that’s lost a loved one, for example. Use those things, if you’re comfortable doing so. Sometimes, writing them down can be therapeutic. A nice bonus.

Sean Taylor: I sometimes face situation depression (as opposed to clinical), and there are still wounds that sting from time to time, such as when I was let go from the religious organization I used to work for that really defined my identity for a lot of years and left me struggling to figure out who I was afterward. However, struggling through that post-religious work "me" was something that my writing was able to help me work through -- and sharp readers will notice that in my work: questioning, doubts, identity issues, that sort of thing. 

Mari Hersh-Tudor: Everything is fair game. Everything. Even if I’m only observing it happen to someone else, it’s Story Fodder. This online discussion is fair game.

Have you ever thought to "hide" a part of who you are when you write? Maybe an upbringing that doesn't mesh with your current beliefs or a trauma that you'd prefer not to reveal (even subtly through your work) to readers?

Sean Taylor: Of course I do. There are still deeper parts of me that I don't reveal blatantly -- think that wouldn't go over well with my MeMe and Mom, where they still alive, and that's a part of my faith upbringing I still struggle with most likely. It's there in the work, but it's deep and incredibly subtle. However, the more of an ally to the marginalized I seek to become, even some of that is beginning to bubble to the surface. What kind of things? Well, that's for you to find in my work. 

Bobby Nash: Not really. I mean, I do write things that I never personally encountered also. I use what’s best for the story. The only way the audience knows if it’s truly a personal belief or trauma is if I tell them in interviews or in the book. I will also add that I’ve added things to stories that were very personal, but no one knows it because I have never said it aloud. We don’t have to share everything.

Ef Deal: I am so caught up with health issues right now, I can't even begin to answer except with this one example: beginning at age 15, I began to be molested by a man well respected in the community, even honored as a legend, which I supposed in many ways he was. When I told my priest, he said it was God's will and to bear the trial. When I suggested it (a friend of mine) to my mom, she said the girl probably deserved it, but men were like that. I kept my mouth shut until I was 18 and went to college to discover that no, it was not normal. Then I discovered I was not the only girl in my situation with this man, but the other girls just shrugged and said, "Forget it. It happened. He's dead now. It won't change anything. But it changed ME. Last year I was invited by Speculation Publications to contribute to their Grimm Retold anthology, and I found my perfect catharsis in reinventing Fitcher's Birds into "Fitcher's Chick." It is raw, it may be triggering for some women, but it is in essence true in every sense of the word. And I feel GREAT and grateful that I could finally breathe.

Sam Kelley: Not really, no. I have no problem exploring rather intense subjects in my work. Writing my characters navigating situations that are similar or comparable (albeit often worse) to things I’ve experienced has helped me process negative emotions. I am a bit more pragmatic or pessimistic than the stories I tend to write (as I like to give my characters a generally happy end after all of the horrors they experience).

Paul Landri: I don't hide anything in my writing because what's the fun in that? If Stephen King has the courage to write about even a fraction of the stuff he does (under the influence or sober) then why should I or anyone else hide anything they want to put out there if it means a good story? 

Mari Hersh-Tudor: I’m not consciously writing myself into my work so I never considered it before, but now that you mention it, the idea is a good story prompt.

Lisa Barker: The only thing I have noted that I'd hide and not incorporate into my writing are the "current events" of my life which are the present fears and events of my life. The problem I am having when I try to write these days is that I'm not drawing from a murky pool of melancholy, writing about things I won't understand until I've done some developmental editing on myself (therapy, self-education); instead I am conscious of what these things are about and where they come from and precisely what that means. Thinking about that now, this could be really good for me as a writer, but it's as if the old way of writing was like creating my own static electricity and that was a great magic show, but now I have lightening bolts at my disposal that I can fire at will with deadly precision. What the hell do I do now?! Phenomenal Cosmic Power . . . itty bitty living space.

How much do your (use your own definitions for these words) positive and negative traits and interests influence who you are as a writer and the stories you create?

Mari Hersh-Tudor: Writing is excellent catharsis. If your subconscious won’t let go of something, it’s telling you that you have things to work out, and the keyboard is a good place to start.

Lisa Barker: Now that is what I am going to find out after this year of reading and journaling. I feel like what I have to write is a "tell all". Maybe journal writing will suffice. Maybe I'll write a memoir. I'd like to believe that I can still write fiction and now have the maturity to handle that act. It will be really cool finding out.

On the positive side, a lively imagination can take you down rabbit holes no matter what you’re doing. So what if they don’t pan out? A healthy “cut file” can still spark ideas when you need them.

Bobby Nash: I try to imbue characters with the traits that help define them. No one is 100% good or bad, positive or negative. Even Doctor Doom loves his mother. As writers, we dig deep into our own emotions and experiences, but we’re also natural people watchers. I learn a lot from watching other people and finding traits that work for characters that aren’t like me. Again, both positive and negative.

Sam Kelley: The characters in my debut series all contain elements of me (my traits and thought patterns) in them. Many of those traits are dramatized or exaggerated, often pushed to extremes, and many of my characters have mental illnesses or conditions either I have or someone close to me has (anxiety, ADHD, BPD, etc). I’m careful to keep the characters grounded and complex (developing them for 15 years helps with creating a rounded character lol), but it’s an interesting way to explore both the positive and negative of the human experience and how relationships form and play out between characters with certain traits. Psychology fascinates me, which might be why I like writing stories focused on the characters themselves (rather than plot-driven by external forces).

Paul Landri: I'm a lazy bones when it comes to writing. It seems like a chore up until I sit down and get going, then I can't stop myself. I lay the foundation of the story and my coauthor fleshes out the rest. It's a good system because I do the broad strokes and he adds the finishing touches.

I love dialogue and I love dramatic narratives. When I can marry the two it really is a match made in heaven.

Sean Taylor: I work them all in, but some are more blatant than others. I often attribute my negative characteristics (or characteristics I'm trying to overcome or have overcome) to my characters who are either "villains" or "trying to be better people." I see my good qualities in a more idealized way, and try not to use those too liberally because writing them that way can make my "heroes" seem like they don't have feet of clay, and I don't believe that at all.

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. 

The Influence of Folklore on Genre Fiction

I did a panel with several wonderful, super-intelligent folks at Multiverse Con. It was so inspiring that I wanted to bring the topic over to the blog and open it up to our writing community at large. 

The panel was on folk magic/folk horror, (as evidenced by films such as Midsommar, The Village, The VVitch, etc.) but I think it applies to general genre fiction throughout as well. So, that's where we're going. 

Ready?

Folk magic and folklore began with the common people (folks), or as author Jessica Nettles put it on the panel, "As long as there are people, there is folklore." With so much emphasis in fiction having been spent on the rich or leisurely class, how has this notion of the commonplace protagonist influenced your writing?

Danielle Procter Piper: I shall admit a wealthy protagonist is not often necessary, but written as such for convenience sake. So many stories involve characters doing things while not at a regular job, that it's easiest to explain it away by making them wealthy/important enough to be free for whatever adventure the story calls for. That said, I love the new wave of stories I'm seeing where characters do have fairly regular Joe lives and there are consequences for vanishing to save the world or what have you when school or work is imperative. 

Nikki Nelson-Hicks: The first thing that comes to mind is Alan Moore and John Constantine. He said he wanted to make a magic user that was from the streets and not some lofty white tower. I’ve always loved that.

As for my work, the best examples of folk magic are in my Jake Istenhegyi stories. Jake, the protag, doesn’t use it as much as he gets used by it. The stories are set in 1930’s New Orleans so, of course, vodun, is the first thing to play with but I was able to dip my pen into Golems and Alchemy. While doing research into some of the folk tales of the swamp, I came across the Boodaddy and I used it albeit I did take some creative license with the creature.

A story I am working on currently, Crown of Feathers, is about a boy on the brink of losing his mother but, against the advice of the granny witches that live on the hill, he finds a way to snatch her from the claws of death. Although it doesn’t work out the way he plans. I’ve been doing a lot of research into Appalachian death culture and hedgewitchery.

So, yeah. Long story short, folk magic always somehow influences me.

Jessica Nettles: I feel like my characters are commonplace almost always, probably because I see myself as pretty commonplace. In that space of the commonplace there is the folklore. As a Southern woman, folklore is part of my infrastructure. We are taught it from the time we can hear stories and learn what's important. This feeling of being commonplace and being "not the lady or the Southern Belle" has made me aware of the people who farm the land and are the plain folk. I was raised not only around women like my granny, who taught me how to pick peas and read, but also around my daddy, who took me fishing, taught me to fix old furniture, and to also watch where I put my hands and feet in the woods. My characters often are those sorts of people instead of the well-off. I know those people best.

Kay Iscah: Far more of us are common people than wealthy. We may enjoy the fantasy of wealth, but we’re more likely to relate to people who remind us of ourselves or at least the challenges we face. However, I think there’s a distinctly rural aspect to the term folklore that implies a degree of isolation and being on the edge of nature. Particularly if you’re urban or suburban, visiting rural relatives takes on a magical aspect because you’re so much closer to the edge where you can step out of one world and into another.

In the two Before the Fairytale coming-of-age stories that I’ve written, early on the characters from humble backgrounds pass through the same forest as a significant passage in their journey, though they’re headed in different directions. The back and forth between the safety of civilization and the mystery and danger of the wilds is something believed at the heart of much folklore.

Sean Taylor: I've always preferred the common folk when I write. Even when I write Pulp stories, whose stable of heroes come from the richest and most leisurely people, I tend to want to surround them with the common folk. When I create my own, such as with Rick Ruby, it was important not to make him independent and wealthy, which is typical of a Hammett and Chandler hero, but also to put him in a culture not his own, a white guy in a black world, where every one of his preconceptions is challenged. 

I don't tend to use a lot of magic or spiritual power unless I'm specifically writing fantasy, but I love the notion of the "dark" being looming and mysterious and dangerous, and I picked that up from reading both Gothic lit and fairy tales. 

Lots of folklore comes from people who have been "othered" by those in power, for example, by race, poverty, or gender. Folklore-inspired tales give power back to those people (often for vengeance in horror, for instance). How do you use othering and the empowerment of the "other" in your work?

Danielle Procter Piper: In my sci-fi series, the hero becomes everything he despises and fears...and while many believe he has become a villain... he actually still works for good, but on a much grander scale. In a way, it suggests God doesn't do enough little things because perhaps He's busy with even bigger things...and that's not an excuse to ignore the plight of those who struggle. In my Medieval fantasy series, the hero is about to achieve something uncommon that should be beneficial...but which drives him to push his limits to overcome mockery and protect others similarly mistreated. Eventually, he must give in and become something dreadfully fearful just to save innocent others. In both cases, my heroes must learn to accept and embrace dark things that not only terrify them but completely change them in the eyes of others—even those close to or who love them, sacrificing who they are as they learn how to use these new identities for good no matter the consequences to themselves. 

Kay Iscah: Continuing with the two characters already mentioned. One is an orphan who thinks she’s been abandoned, and the other is an abandoned child who thinks he is orphaned. I’m definitely a fan of clever protagonists, so both work their way up to better positions or at least respectable work with a mix of luck, skill, and determination. But both also make decisions to walk away from situations that might have given them material gain for moral reasons. I had not intentionally set up that parallel, but I see it now. I certainly think there’s a theme of how far you’re willing to go to find acceptance. Are you willing to walk away from power, community, or comfort if it compromises who you are? They both take completely different paths. One walks away from society completely to essentially become the witch in the wilderness, and other works his way up to management and then a royal court position. I don’t think either is wrong or better, but it’s different paths to empowerment. One creates her own space, and the other moves to a position where he might be able to influence larger-scale social change.

Sean Taylor: I love to either set stories in "othered" places, like with Rick Ruby mentioned above or to look for the "other" even in characters who don't immediately seem like an "other." For example, when I wrote Agara, a sort of female Conan for Black Pulp II, I wanted her to be disconnected from everyone else. I wanted to explore someone who exists outside of community but still must live within one. A lot of super hero fiction deals with this as well, I've found. They only pretend to be part of it, but in reality, they have a unique set of problems and issues "normies" can't possibly understand. 

One of my favorite aspects is how the power balance is restored and even tipped to the "other," whether my story has genuine folkloric elements or not. Agara wins, but at the expense of community, which she remains distant from. Rick Ruby's world influences him far more than he influences it. Even in my horror tales, the true power tends to reside in those who are outside the norm. 

Nikki Nelson-Hicks: In the collection of short stories I am working on, Politics of Children and Other Stories of Revenge, I play with this idea in quite a few of them. In, "A Beautiful Thing," a Golem is able to get revenge against the murderer of his protector with the help of some furry friends. In Sweet Revenge, a witch gets revenge against the bank president who finagled the foreclosure of her candy shop.

Magic is a way for the powerless to feel as if they have some kind of say in a game that is rigged against them from day one. I am guilty of that. I have two altars in my office. One is for blessings; I keep it to the right of me, close and under the care of Bridgid. The other is way back in the left side of my office, under the care of Maeve, is where I collect my hex jars. Do I believe that these quaint little jars hold any real power? Is it all just a psychological tool to deal with life with a dose of magical thinking? Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, it gives me comfort.

But in fiction, all things are possible. And I can take revenge with absolute impunity.

As for themes, folklore typically includes what DL Wainwright called (on the panel) "strangeness and wonder." In its origins, it often involved the encroachment of the dark and mysterious (often the forest or night) on the so-called normal world of the village or daylight. Does that encroachment of dark upon light weave into your work? Howso?

Danielle Procter Piper: All of my writing deals with heroes encountering and learning to function within the darkness of life. It's just a metaphor for dealing with all that life throws at you and discerning if there's anything good that may be wrought from it.

Jessica Nettles: I don't think the folklore comes from being "othered." The folklore comes from people who have their own primary cultures that are not ours so we don't understand (and in some cases don't want to understand) the importance and power of those stories to "those people over there." In Menlo Park, my witch, Deborah, has been othered because she comes from Romani roots and people fear her witchy powers (she is a VERY powerful witch). Her back story lands her in one of the asylums in New York City because no one knows what else to do with her. Her true power comes in her ability to love and believe in what she knows is true when no one else can. She's not powerful because she's Romani. She's powerful because she loves and is loved by her created family and that grounds her magic. She still believes in her folklore and the magic of her folklore, but in a way, she has created her own branch in her folklore.

Sean Taylor: Now this is a theme I can really get behind. My entire horror short story collection A Crowd in Babylon is based on the fuzzy line that happens where normality and strangeness & wonder meet. One of the stories went back to Indigenous Peoples legends. Another combines folk magic with the quantum mechanics ideas of M-Theory. And one of my favorites goes back to the metaphor of the crossroads and the Blues but removes the crossroads and puts the story in a dive bar in the middle of nowhere. One I'm currently working on involves a couple getting an unbelievable deal on a house... as long as they don't remove the dead squirrel in a jar in the cellar -- a sort of folkloric protection or ward. 

Nikki Nelson-Hicks: The hedgewitches in my Crown of Feathers story are representatives of the Furies: Alecto (mother), Tisiphone (maiden) and Megaera (Crone). Alecto and Meg, the Mother and the Crone) often fight about their responsibilities to help the Protag since he started the whole mess. Meg isn’t one to mess around with. She has no patience and enjoys the taste of a young boy’s flesh.

I like to entangle what might be consider Dark into the Light of my fiction. Mainly because Anger, which is always seen as somehow negative, gets shit done.

But I’ve always been drawn to the antihero.

Jamais Jochim: This is sort of what I'm playing with my Vella book. Folk stories are how we explain the weirdness in our lives while looking at the existence of the awesome and the profane, and how they are sides of the same coin.

Kay Iscah: I think I skipped ahead with my first answer, but yes. The first scene that pops to mind is young Phillip making a nest in a tree, and unable to sleep, he listens to the night noises around him. He’s very aware of his vulnerability and has a similar moment of hyper-awareness when he takes shelter with a tanner in an isolated cabin. There’s another scene where he encounters fireflies for the first time and I think it shows how nature can inspire certain myths about fairies and other creatures of folklore. If I remember correctly both of the bandit attacks that dramatically changed his life happened in daylight in an isolated place. He also encounters actual magic for the first time in daylight, so it’s a bit of flipping the script on his expectations. The girl’s story by contrast is constantly setting up tropes to sidestep them. She is a shapeshifter, the fairy, and a strange old lady who lives alone, so night does not tend to intimidate her to the same degree. She often finds comfort in it; “The stars hummed a lullaby… dreams lack all restrictions. So that night she could be small as a bug or big as a mountain.”

One of my favorite quotes from the panel comes from Dee Norman. "That's how folk magic survives -- through efficacy, not explanation," she explains. How do your magical or belief systems in your work, more commonly fantasy, horror, or some more esoteric sci-fi, line up against this notion of folk magic being more a practice than a doctrine?

Kay Iscah: In the world of Seventh Night where my examples come from, I describe magic in terms of rhythm and song. It’s based on the more scientific idea that everything vibrates, but with the more mystic idea that these vibrations can be harnessed and shifted to produce almost any desired effect. I do think this ties into common magic tropes of saying the right word or humming the right tune. There’s also an element of potion-making, which ties to understanding the potential effects of the ingredients. It’s a blend of science and art.

I do distinguish magic/sorcery and witchcraft as separate practices. The first has more to do with rhythms and is not seen as a spiritual practice by those who practice it. Witchcraft by contrast utilizes spirits, and there’s a stronger taboo against it. Laymen may confuse the two.

Jessica Nettles: Dark and light must always push and pull against one another. In my stories, there is always that element. There is the small town that seems very familiar and the people seem so nice, but there something swimming in the undercurrent you can't see, but can sense. If we're honest, this is more true than not, but most of the time, no one wants to say that out loud. My Eulaila stories explore those small spaces--those towns and areas where things seem off by about two steps, but maybe to the drive-thru tourist, on their way to Panama City, might just guess at. In my Three Sisters stories (y'all ain seen them yet) there is also this same push of darkness and light with the sisters witching their way against various dark elements that seem drawn to their small town for reasons they haven't figured out yet.

Nikki Nelson-Hicks: This reminds me of the dichotomy of Wizards and Witches in Discworld. The Wizards go to a college and spend all their time debating and studying the idea of magic. Witches just WITCH and get shit done.

I tend to waver between ritual and natural magic practices in my fiction.

In my story, "What the Cat Dragged In," the witch in that story is highly ritualistic. Her hex jars are meticulously prepared. Plus she has jars with Kabbalistic sigils on her shelf. Not something a hodge podge hedgewitch would have sitting around.

In the story, "A Beautiful Thing," the Golem has to follow strict rituals as does the John Dee Wanna-Be wizard that it has to fight against.

I prefer the more hodge podge sort of magic that my girls in Crown of Feathers deal out but that’s probably more due to my ADHD than anything else. I don’t have the attention span for ritual.

Danielle Procter Piper: My Medieval fantasy is watching "magic" struggle to thrive in a world where religion and reason fight to suppress both the average person from obtaining what they need on their own and to drive away magical beings and creatures that prove there's another way of getting what you desire that does not rely on obeisance to others. In order to control the masses, you must strip them of their ability to get what they need on their own and convince them that what you say and do is the only way to accomplish things. You introduce government, capitalism, and religion to provide for yourself and those you deem worthy on the backs of innocent others you break with rules that only work so long as you keep throwing them crumbs. The self-empowered person is considered radical and potentially dangerous for what if he or she showed people there's another way? You lose everything you worked so hard to build by letting the commoners know they had the ability to provide for themselves all along—they just needed the knowledge you've worked so hard to convince them was unsafe poppycock.

Sean Taylor: I avoid doctrine in my work as much as possible. I love the idea of loosey-goosey belief systems because, honestly, that's what even most of our entrenched religions were before they were voted on and codified and made safe at the state level (Constantine). And it's so much fun to play in that area where "good Christian people" will argue about a dead squirrel ward in a house for protection or a suburban family will continue to wait up on the night of a new birth in the family for the spirit of an ancestor to show up for a blessing (that's another currently in progress). It's also fun to see ardent atheists encounter something supernatural that sends their world into a spin even if it doesn't trigger any kind of faith. Just the tailspin of supernatural stuff is enough for a good story, especially if it comes from a place intrinsic to their family's past that they thought they were so far beyond having to deal with as modern people in a real, scientific world. 

Jessica Nettles: Deborah would agree with Dee. Magic is practice. It's everyday living for her. It's in her music when she plays her cimbalom between shows, or when she sings as she makes tea. She sees it in the way Thomas, her husband, smiles and his eyes light up when she teases him about the way he likes too much sugar in his tea. It's the way she and her son Seth connect over his dreams. Sometimes it just the way a meal comes together at the end of a very long day. Magic has to be practical in nature and connect to something that applies to life. Doctrine doesn't do that. Those are just rules. Practical magic is a daily, living thing.

What are stories, novels, short stories, or graphic novels, that best highlight the ideas of folkloric influence that you would recommend to others who want to learn how to include such themes in their work?

Danielle Procter Piper: Fairy tales, the ones most of us heard as children, are the best springboard for jumping into folklore as many of these stories are centuries old...but please don't write another variation on any of them. I've read dozens and dozens of variations of Snow White and Cinderella and the lot and most are drivel with very few introducing anything new. It's much cooler if you forge your own fantasy world.

Nikki Nelson-Hicks: Check out the Witches and Wizards in the Discworld series. My favorites are: Lords and Ladies, Witches Abroad, and Carpe Jugulum. For Wizards: Interesting Times and The Colour of Magic.

Graphic Novels: Hellblazer and Promethea or anything done by Alan Moore. He’s a maniac and an actual wizard. Very interesting ideas on magic.

Jessica Nettles: Start with the basics: Read your mythos. Which ones? All of them? As many as you can learn about. I started reading Greek mythology when I was very young (I look back and realize that it was probably too young). Then I learned about other mythos and read them too. Why do that? Because this gives a better understanding about what people believe and why some magic works certain ways. Read good books with strong magic systems, like Wheel of Time (okay, I'm not a huge fan, but the magic system is pretty consistent), Jonathan Strange and Mr. Morrell, the Sandman (yes, Gaiman has issues, but his magic systems are spectacular and his writing is worth studying), read Dr. Strange and some of the other Marvel titles that deal with cosmic magic (once again, somethings are problematic, but also there are a lot of really cool things that happen in this magic system that are worth studying, plus they play around a lot with mythos and their takes on folklore). Also read things from people who don't look like you. It's really easy to fall into reading information filtered through those who are part of your culture. When you do that, you miss all the nuances of the culture you are learning about. It's one thing to learn about Anasi from a very Western point of view than it is to learn about Anasi from the African or even West Indies point of view. Same with magic. If you are going to learn about magic of certain cultures--talk to the folk who practice it or find books by the folk who practice it. I recommend reading folks like Nicole Givens Kurtz, Milton Davis, Geneve Flynn, L. Marie Wood. You will get schooled.

Sean Taylor: I think there have been some amazing comic books and graphic novels exploring folkloric themes. The Writer from Dark Horse looks into Jewish folklore and mysteries. Harrow County is hands-down my favorite take on mountain haints and spellcraft. Obviously lots are drawn from folklore in The Sandman, even if Gaiman himself is a bit tarnished. Image Comic's I Hate This Place begins as a sort of homage to folk horror before sliding off into Lovecraftian themes. 

As for books, no one does this better than Angela Carter in The Bloody Chamber or Shirley Jackson in "The Lottery." 

Kay Iscah: Definitely Brothers Grimm Folklore and Fairytale collection for my work as I borrow elements of the folklore style, particularly in The Girl With No Name. But I think it’s good to read broadly. I lost my African folklore collection in a housefire, so can’t give you the title, but it’s a big influence on one of my works in progress. I make a reference to Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain, which is a retelling of Nandi folklore. In Seventh Night there’s also a nod to Legend of Zelda.

A lot of folklore is retelling of older myths with a local flavor thrown in, which may be hard to recognize if you don't know the older myths. Reading The Mabinogion before rereading Brothers Grimm helped me start connecting several of the Grimm stories to older myths, Celtic, Greek, and Bible stories. I think the more you dig into mythology, the more you see the patterns as stories are told and retold.