Branching Out

There are times in our lives when we all do things, whether on purpose or not, that limit us. "I only eat" this or "I only wear" that brand, that type of thing. When we label ourselves, we limit ourselves. And, in doing so, we don't grow as human beings, or as artists. Imagine, if you can, being handed the variety pack of breakfast cereals and being told that, whichever one you choose, it's the only one you can have for the rest of your life. Bummer.

This past weekend at StokerCon (in Long Beach California), I met with my agent who did what she is supposed to do... She told me a harsh truth. The markets for horror are flooded. My work, she says, is good, but people just aren't buying it at this time. Horror's not dead, but it is in a state of overexposure. There are seasoned pros out there who haven't sold a book in a long time (me being one of those) because, well, people just aren't buying. I didn't want to admit it, but it's true.  And so the time has come.

See, for the longest time, a horror writer was all I was and all I wanted to be. I've only been good at a few things, and scaring the shit out of people is one of them, so I embraced it and ran with it. Hell, my website URL was AmericanHorrorWriter (both .com and .net because reasons). But back in the day, I had an inkling this might happen. So I registered a new domain name:  http://www.creepylittlebastard.com. It still sounds like horror, but there's now wiggle room as to what I actually write. Which brings me to the point of this blog:  What do I write?

Horror is still my first love, and I'm never stepping away from it. That's a fact. I will write horror until the day I'm dead, and probably even after that because that would be really creepy and awesome. But now, I'm branching out into four categories. The first two should surprise no one: Science Fiction and Dark Urban Fantasy.  The Stanley Cooper Chronicles, as you may know, is not straight horror. I've always billed it as "Dark Urban Noir Fantasy," so that's no real big stretch. Science Fiction has long time been a love of mine ever since I picked up the works of Phillip K Dick and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy when I was a kid. So those really aren't the ones that are scaring the hell out of me right now.

See, I'm of the belief that we should always do things that frighten us. We grow that we, gain new skills and confidence, and we experience new and amazing things. So I'm doing just that. I'm going to be writing a novel in a genre that scares the ever-loving hell out of me under a pen-name.

YA.

You read that correctly. Young Adult. I will be writing a YA-horror-dark-urban-fantasy very soon under the name William Strange. Go ahead. Get your giggles out now, but I'm going to do it.

"But wait," I hear you saying. "You said four genres. That's only three. What's the fourth?"

You really want to know? Okay.

Poetry. I'm coming for you, Wytovich.

I'll keep you informed of the latest.

Until next time...

SAJ

Chairs

While mentoring young writers, I often come across similar issues.  One of my favorites is when the writer in question has a brilliant imagination, but clearly hasn't thought things through enough.  I teach a module called "Evolution of the Species" in which we discuss this type of issue, but here' i'd like to focus on a small problem that turned huge pretty quick as an illustration. 

For the purposes of this exercise, let's assume you're a writer.  

Your genre is fantasy (or "high fantasy").  You've created a race of people who have wings.  You have a gift of description that leaves your readers breathless with the beautiful images of purple feathers and soft collars of down.  In fact, this race is so ancient that you have no real reason to create a complete backstory for them because they "have always been."

Submitted without comment...

Then one sits in a chair. 

Now, for a moment, lets ignore all the other issues this world has, such as your winged people living in houses.  Let's just focus on that one detail for a moment. 

In your home, you have chairs.  No, really.  Don't believe me?  Go look.  I'll wait.  See?  Told you.  Now, in your description of these chairs, you go on and on about highly decorated ornate backs of wood and employ your gift of descriptive imagery to its full extent.  The chairs in your world are beautiful and realistic to all the readers.  

Pictured:  Your character's chair.

They're also wrong.  Here's why. 

Follow my thought process here.  Intelligent species first begin designing object to use out of utilitarian need.  We design things that fit our bodies, and if it doesn't, then why on any world would we create them?  Do you see the problem yet?  Okay... Here it is:  If your character, which you describe as the size of a roughly good sized human, has wings large enough to bear him aloft in accordance with the laws of physics, he could not physically sit in a chair because he would break his wings.

"Dammit!  This is why we can't have nice things!"

The same thing applies to every aspect of this new world in which the dominant species has a twelve-foot wing span.  So now it becomes your job as a writer to build your world backward, so you can see what would've been built how, and why.  A species with a twelve-foot wing span would not, for example ever build anything that would necessitate the crushing of one's own wings.  In fact, if you take into account physical limitations, this particular species would, likely, have invented the bar stool long before it ever invented something as obviously meant for torture as a "chair."

See?  No backs, no wing crushings.

Now apply this to other areas.  For example, a "bedroom."  What's the first thing you like to do when you wake up in the morning?  Stretch, right?  Now take a good look at your bedroom.  Hard walls, low ceilings, etc.  If you had a twelve-foot wingspan, would you ever be caught inside something like that?  Chances are, no.  Chances are, it would be torturous for you.  Small windows, roads, vehicles... None of it would even exist in a world where the dominant species had wings.  Hell, roads might not even exist. 

The point is this:  You need to think it through.  Build your world from the bottom up with the dominant species in mind.  There's a brilliant joke that the late great Douglas Adams wrote in The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy which involves a multi-limbed creature that was unique in the universe in that it invented underarm deodorant before it discovered the wheel.  Necessity.  It's why we create things.  Your species would do the same. 

When you build a world, start with your species.  Then ask yourself a series of questions:

• What are its needs?
• What are its limitations?
• How are they like me?
• How are they dissimilar?

Make good choices for your characters and make your world more believable.  I don't mean make your readers think the world is real, but at least make them wonder at the possibility.  Otherwise, you have creatures who are doing incredibly uncomfortable things for their anatomy.  Like sitting in chairs. 

Consequences: Super Powers and Magic

Enhanced strength, laser vision, electric blasts, magic...  In the realm of horror, fantasy, sci-fi, and any other speculative genre, we all create characters who are "special."  Whether their power is overt or subtle, natural or man-made, inherent or learned, it is important to remember that such abilities should not be a "catch-all."  The purpose of this entry is to address the use of super powers through either tech or magic, nature or nurture, and to show how to effectively use such abilities in your writing.

First, a super hero is only as interesting as his weaknesses. Wait, what?  Yes, you read that correctly. Think about it.  If Superman had no weaknesses, where would be the interest?  Where would be the drama?  If there's no chance he could lose, why should we care?  It becomes boring.  We know he's going to win because he always does.  The Big Blue Boyscout just zooms in and saves the day.

*Yawn*

But then we introduce Kryptonite.  Then we introduce limitations on his powers.  Then we introduce Doomsday, a bad guy who can physically tear Superman apart, and suddenly we have real drama.  There's the possibility that he could fail, and that's why we keep reading.  Think about every hero worth his tights and you'll realize that every one of them has a flaw, an chink in their armor.  So when we write them, we need to give them weaknesses, and exploit them, to let the reader latch hold.  Give them something to invest in emotionally, and then they're hooked.

Most people think of how awesome it would be to have super powers.  But we, as writers, need to look beyond the immediate gratification.  We need to climb deeper into our characters' lives to see what the real consequences of having such abilities would be.  For example:

• Super Strength - Implies super density, and therefore increased weight.  Would this person be able to ride in an airplane if he was dense and heavy enough to lift it?  Probably not.  Would he be able to take public transit?  How about sit in a chair?  Or lay in a bed?  Or have sex with someone?  Would a one-night tryst become a case of manslaughter?  Could he even live in a world designed for normal people?  
• Super Speed - Einstien, that lovable follically challenged genius, stated that the faster something moves, the faster time passes for it.  I'm paraphrasing, of course, but think of the consequences of super speed in those terms.  A run around the block, a year of your life goes away.  Even if you could manage to keep your clothes from bursting into flames every time you took a jog, could you keep your skin from tearing off from wind sheer?  And let's not get into the whole sex thing again.  Oy. 
• Flight - Okay, we've all wanted to fly at one time or another.  But think about what that means.  Assuming, for a moment, that you could actually breathe in high altitudes (there comes a point where you can't, by the way), what's to stop you from getting killed when you hit something like a bird?  Ever seen one go through a windshield?  Now picture it with your character's head.  Powerlines, airplanes, lightning...The skies are littered with potentially lethal obstacles.  And then there's the matter of navigation.  Unless your character is lame and follows the highways when he flies, how's he going to navigate?  
• Invulnerability - Everyone thinks they'd like to be invulnerable.  Bullet-proof, knife-proof, everything-else-proof.  The implication there is that, no matter what, your character suffers no damage and no pain.  If that's the case, if a speeding bullet cannot upset the nerve receptors in your skin, then what can?  Certainly not the touch of another human.  And therein lies the tragedy.  Invulnerability would make your character one of the loneliest creatures on the planet.  
• Immortality - Who really wants to live forever?  Not me.  Stand around and watch everyone you've ever cared for wither and die?  Watch cities crumble to ruin around you?  Realize that you're the last and only of your kind left?  That's a horror story.

The point here is that for every power you can name, there's a downside, and writers need to explore them to give that layer to your characters.  

"But wait," you say.  "Hold on just a minute.  What about magic?  My character can do anything through magic!  Magic has no rules!"  Not true.  No matter what version of "magic" your character uses, you're still trying to do one thing:  Keep your reader interested.  Again, if your character can do whatever he or she wants with the wave of a wand, what's to keep the reader interested?  It's the limitations that make the story interesting, and the consequences that make our limitations.  

Magic is, in simplistic terms, the manipulation of energy.  Energy, according to our follically challenged physicist up there, can neither be created, nor destroyed.  It can only change form.  So if your character is throwing energy around, where's it coming from?  A body can only create so much before it needs to be replenished.  Pulling energy out of surrounding things has its own consequences, and a body can only handle so much energy before it gets damaged.  That's why we can get electrocuted.  So what kinds of consequences are we talking about?  What kind of limitations? 

First, magic is not a catch-all.  If you're stuck (or your character is), you shouldn't get him out by giving a flippant wave of your hand and screaming "he does magic and it's better now!"  Magic should be specific, and it should cost.  In the Stanley Cooper Chronicles, my character, Maggie, uses magic in her daily life.  She throws around a serious amount of energy, and it costs her.  She draws the majority of her energy from within her own body, so she has to replenish her energies by eating.  Just like we do when we exercise.  Any character that tries to channel too much energy through their body gets burned.    Draw the energy from around your character, and there should be a reaction from the environment.  Does he draw it from the power lines?  Maybe the lights around him go dim because that means less energy getting to them.  Pulls it from the plants?  Maybe the plants turn brown and die because he's feeding off their life source.  What if he draws power from a higher being?  Do you think that higher being will give power out of the kindness of his heart?  Nope.  Chances are, he's going to want something in return.  And think about this:  Physiologically, energy passing through a body creates a sort of "high."  How addictive would it be?  How many times will the user want to keep using it?  How will it affect him physically?  Emotionally?  Spiritually?

In writing about magic, theres a blog entry by Mette Ivie Harrison in which several questions are asked about your book's system of magic.  I recommend reading the questions and putting some serious thought to them, as well as those listed above. 

The point of all of this is that having characters with special powers and abilities are fine, but you must make the powers finite.  You must give them limitations.  You must give them consequences.  Without them, there's no tension, no reason to turn the page.  And that's what you're really hoping for, isn't it?  That the reader will turn the page? 

WS