Cross-Genre Fantasy...

...is the title of a panel I'll be on at WisCon 30 (at 8:30 in the morning on a Saturday, no less). And, I am currently wondering how the hell the three of us are going to fill an hour and a half.

Luckily, I'm on the panel with interesting people – Elizabeth Bear and Cynthia Ward.

I extremely hopeful that one of the other women involved will bring a list of titles (other than, no doubt, what we all write), but my problem with this topic is that there’s nothing inherently interesting or controversial about it. I mean, And?

Aren't most novels these days some kind of genre blend? Maybe this is still news to someone out there, but, guess what? You can find books with angels AND computers, private investigators AND werewolves, romance novels WITH vampires! Whoo! It's a damn news flash.

No one is going to be there.

And the bar isn’t even going to open yet.

*sigh*

Just so you know... I got all the hot panels. I'm also on "Feminist Fiction is So Five Minutes Ago," which would probably be extremely interesting to me if I, say, read feminist fiction. I'm not even entirely sure what, exactly, qualifies as feminist fiction. My last panel on late Saturday afternoon is "Feminist Romance," which I think I may actually have something to say about.

I'm actually kind of distressed how many of my panels have the word feminist as part of their description. It's not that I wouldn't consider myself one of THOSE, but I'm so not a theory grrl. I'm absolutely certain I haven't read the manifesto, even though I was, in my senior year at high school, voted the "Biggest Women’s Libber" (no joke -- and, man, does that date me, or what?)

I'm not entirely sure I qualify, you dig? There are certain aspects of my life that would neatly fall into "feminist" check-boxes. 1, I'm a woman. 2, I like other women. 3, I read books by women. But, after that, things fall apart. I really have never read any of the classic works by feminists, except I may have been required to read A Room of One's Own by Virginia Wolfe as part of my English degree. If you asked me to name a feminist, I would hard pressed to list even one. Bella Abzug? Harriet Tubman? Sojourner Truth?

I don’t know.

Thing is, I certainly wouldn't call what I'm writing right now feminist. I am writing romance which is a much-maligned genre particularly because it is written by women, for women. Even other women want to disparage it and marginalize it, despite the fact that it represents almost 55% of all popular paperback fiction sold in North America, which is 1.2 billion dollars in sales (in 2004) (see RWA statistics)

Recently, when I was asked to be a guest speaker at an informal meeting, I was surprised by how many people there tried to convince me that romance had, in fact, a formula, which all romances were required to follow. Hey, I said, no one sent me the memo. And, your memo? It's about two or three decades out of date. Harlequin is not the same publisher it was in 1980, kids. They have so many lines now – even an erotic one.

And that kind of trash-talkin' gets my hackles up. And, I suppose, my desire to take on all comers makes me a kind of feminist.

Supernatural's Vampire Episode—Dead Man’s Blood

First of all, why is it that vampires always seem so cheesy on the big (or in this case, little,) screen? I love reading about them, but the instant someone bursts through a glass skylight or their eyes reflect, cat-like, in the headlights, my brain thinks, "duuuuuuuuuu-mb.

I'm a big fan of WB's series "Supernatural." The story follows two brothers Sam and Dean Winchester as they X-Files their way across the country hunting down various spooks and things-what-go-bump-in-the-night. I've watched this show since its very first episode, and, for horror-TV, it's usually a hit rather than a miss. I was a bit nervous on Thursday night, however, when it seemed pretty clear we were dealing with vampires in "Dead Man’s Blood."

I should have trusted "Supernatural." They're usually very good at making what should be dumb monsters (possessed trucks?) into at least entertaining, if not downright creepy creatures. They solved the cheesy-vampire phenomenon deftly -- by acknowledging it. About five minutes after confirming that we're, in fact, dealing with vampires, Dean (played by Jensen Ackles, can you say: "yum?") says, "Vampires. Every time I say it, it sounds sillier."

That helped tremendously.

Also, they were willing to mess with the vampire mythos (while staying true to the folklore vampire.) The vampires in the "Supernatural" universe can go out in the daylight, ala Bram Stoker's very own Dracula (if you don't remember it, go read it again). They're transformed humans, which makes them potentially sympathetic. Oh, and, as the title suggests, they can be poisoned by arrows dipped in blood from someone who died (presumably by natural causes – or at least non-vampire induced trauma, otherwise dealing with the corpses of their own victims becomes somewhat problematic.)

Some things annoyed me. I am _so_ over vampires dressed in Lost Boys leather. I mean, I know vampires live forever and can be fashion victims just like the rest of us, but the whole eighties Goth thing is kind of been done to death (pun intended). Time to update your wardrobe, vamps! What I wouldn't give to see a vampire in the suburbs! Or dressed like a dork. No one would suspect the dude with the buzz cut, pocket protector, and the horn-rimmed glasses to be a bloodsucker. Step into chess club and I'll drain you dry! Bwah-ha-ha-HA.

Also, the whole vampires living in a nest together seems like a remarkably bad idea, especially given that in this universe there were people who were actively hunting them. Sure, crows rook to keep themselves safe from predators, and, in a sense, that is how this worked. The vampires turned one of their victims, so that when Dean came to rescue her, she acted as an alarm. But, still... a "nest?" It makes me think of that horrible John Carpenter movie called Vampires.

However, generally I was well pleased. I even ended up like the head vampire, Luther. I also really liked that in the "Supernatural" universe, vampires mate for life. They didn't say whether or not vampires lived forever in this universe, although Luther had been around when Colt was making guns, but I thought that was mightily fascinating, especially given that these are turned humans (not an alternative species.)

Another fascinating clue to the vampiric nature was that at one point, when the vamps are decided who's for dinner, the lead vampire looks into the eyes of the woman they've captured and says he sees something interesting. Later, as they turn her, he says, "Welcome home."

Creepy. Cool.

Does that mean there could be a potential vampire in all of us? Is it a potential for darkness or something insipid like midiclorians? (Me, I'm voting for the former.) Either way, THAT was worth the whole episode as far as I'm concerned. I absolutely love the idea that vampires chose who they turn based on a potential they see in that person's eyes.

Cool.

Might have to steal that.

Go Placidly Amdist the Amazon.com Sales Rankings

Geek Alert!

When I was younger, I had an album (actually, two,) recorded by Leonard Nimoy in which he (among other things, including, yes, singing,) read the poem "Desiderata."

The poem has a line that goes like this, "Do not compare yourself to others, for there will always be greater and lesser persons than yourself." Ah, if only I could listen to that most excellent advice. It would spare me the heartache (and carpel tunnel) of constantly checking my Amazon.com sales ranking and comparing it to that of other writers I know. (And then doing the evil dance of glee when mine is better.)

My biggest problem is that my powers come from the Dark Side of the Force. Fear, anger, and jealousy motivate me, particularly my writing life.

If I may talk seriously about this for a moment. Fear is something I think every creative person should experience. Why? Because if you're not a little bit afraid, it means you're probably not challenging yourself. It means that you're sticking to what's safe.

Jealousy... well, that's just my evil Scorpio nature. When someone I know who is also a professional writer does something I wish I were doing (selling more short stories, writing a better book), I find myself deeply inspired. I want what they have. This desire tends to light a fire under my butt. That can be a very good thing for me.

Anger. There is a part of me that wants very much to "show them, show them all" that I can rise above whatever box it is I feel I've been shoved into. The anger I have over my past publishing life gets turned around into this burst of "you'll never defeat me!"

But compulsively comparing my Amazon.com sales ranking to other writers? Not very helpful.

I know a lot of writers who get get caught up doing this. We try to figure out what it means... oh, look, I've gone up 1,000 -- will I be the next Dan Brown??

I think the reason we do this kind of "reading the entrails" has to do with the fact that so much of a book's success is completely out of our hands. Fate has, it seems, a lot more to do with whether or not a book does well than writing a good one. I know lots of good books (not just my own) which have languished and died for the lack of an appreciative audience. What can a girl do? Not much other than pray for a miracle it seems.

And, of course, dust off her Leonard Nimoy vinyl and listen carefully to the words that begin, "Go placidly amidst the noise and haste...."

No Rest for the Wiccan...

Romance Junkie's Tracy Marsac gave Tall, Dark & Dead a 4.5!

Read her review at http://www.romancejunkies.com/artman/publish/article_5055.shtml

The Dreaded Synopsis

Interestingly, I'm in the middle of this process right now. My agent was curious what my plans were for Garnet after I deliver DEAD SEXY in late-May, so I started crafting synopses/proposals for the next books currently cleverly titled: GARNET BOOK III, and GARNET BOOK IV.

There are two times in which you may be required to write a synopsis. First, when you finish your first novel and begin the process of selling it, and, second, when you're selling the idea of the next novel to your existing publisher/editor. I have been fortunate that the majority of my synopsis writing has been in category two.

I don't imagine that's very typical, and it gives me a slightly skewed sense of how the proposal process works. Still, I've had a fair amount of experience writing synopses, and it's actually an exercise I kind of enjoy. I know, I’m sick. This is news?

I have a really great book that I would like to suggest to any of you who are sitting down to struggle with the proposal process. It's called YOUR NOVEL PROPOSAL: FROM CREATION TO CONTRACT by Blythe Camenson and Marshall J. Cook (Writers Digest Press, 1999). Chapter Six is the pertinent section and is worth, in my opinion, the entire cover price of the book (not to mention Amazon.com offers used versions much cheaper.)

The most important thing to remember about writing synopses is what they're used for. They are a shorthand for agents and editors to get a sense of what your story is about. Herein, lies the key. Just as in writing a short story, you need to lay out the conflict in the first sentence (or, at the very least in the first paragraph.) By conflict, I don't just mean the wham, bam exciting plot element. I mean the emotional conflict. What is it that compels your hero or your heroine to take on this adventure? What does s/he stand to lose? To win? Why is this story going to change the protagonist's life? What does your character want? To quote Philip Martin's THE WRITER'S GUIDE TO FANTASY LITERATURE: FROM DRAGON'S LAIR TO HERO'S QUEST, "As Kurt Vonnegut famously said, a story should start with a character who wants something, even if it’s just a glass of water."

In a synopsis you need to lay that stuff bare. Just spell out what is motivating your hero/ine. Then (and here's the part that's much tougher when you're distilling a 400 page manuscript into a ten page synopsis) tell us only what you need in order to explain how that person either gets or doesn't get what they want over the course of the novel. Sub-plots can be cut. Major plot points can be cut – but only if they don't reflect an answer to the question of how you character gets (or doesn't get) what they want.

Also, in a synopsis, there is not point to being coy. Just tell us what happens, no need to be clever or mysterious – particularly about the ending. Endings must be revealed, and they should give the reader a sense of resolution. Synopses are the opposite of "show, don't tell" – they're all about the telling.

Yet, with all this telling, it's very easy for a synopsis to start sounding repetitive, "and then, and then." You also need to stay on top of your storytelling game. Find a way to make what you're saying reflect the tone of the novel. Luckily, I write chatty, sassy novels, so my synopses can have clever asides or other kinds of sarcastic comments – which may be why I find the writing of them much more fun than most people do.

Ah, yes, there are a couple of rules to writing synopses that I forgot to mention. Regardless of how the book is written, synopses must be in third person (he, she, it) and in present tense (is, am, are). There's also some formatting requirements, but you can find those in books like the one I mentioned above.

If you want to see an example of a synopsis, I have one on-line (for my alternate personality, so I guess the cat’s out of the bag) here: Messiah PDF (It's in PDF format.)

The Writing Life

I've gotten into the portion of the class where we talk about the life of writing (as opposed to the craft), and so I've stopped cross-posting here because, frankly, I find talking about manuscript preparation extremely boring. Important information, but boring to convey. If someone checking in is interested in all that jazz, let me point you to this extremely helpful website: http://www.sfwa.org/writing/. All the articles about writing are great, but the ones about the business of writing are especially useful, in my opinion.

So, I’ve been at a bit of a loss as to what to say here about writing. I stumbled across this question from Jennifer Pelland at the Live Journal community Serious Writers. Which is, "how much attention should a writer expect from an editor?"

Jen is asking in terms of a short story editor, I believe, and my experience with short story editors is that you hear from them three times -- once at acceptance, then just before publication when you're asked to check over your page proofs, and lastly when you get your check and contributors copy(s).

Novel editors... I've found that I like to keep in fairly regular contact with my novel editors, even if we're chatting about something only just tangentally related to the book. My experience is that a talkative novel editor is MUCH preferred to a silent one.

Saturn Direct!

Because I know you count on me for these kinds of astrological updates... here's the newest "Astro Alert" which I received compliments Astrology.com

"Saturn is often considered the Taskmaster Planet, and when it's retrograde? Well, there's no two ways about it: Issues of authority come to the fore, and a conservative attitude toward responsibilities creeps into even the most free-spirited souls. Whether consciously or not, you've probably been experiencing Saturn's four-and-a-half-month retrograde as a time to reflect on past decisions and learn from your mistakes ... but definitely not a time to easily charge toward your goals. Well all that's about to change as Saturn turns direct on April 5!"

Time to charge towards our goals, people.

Mine? Get more sleep!

More about Tall, Dark and Dead

Charlaine Harris reviewed Tall, Dark & Dead on the Books & Blog section of her website. A highlight: "I think it’s fair to say that if you enjoy my work and MaryJanice Davidson’s, you will like Tall, Dark and Dead."

It's less than a month away until the book hits the shelves!

4 STARS for TD&D!!

Romantic Times liked me, they really liked me...

"Call it sexual attraction. Call it fear. But whatever name you attach to Garnet Lacey's attraction to the new man in her life, Sebastian Von Traum, it is definitely connected to her past -- and, even more definitely to her future. Garnet is a witch who has vowed never to practice magic again -- even though part of the goddess Lilith (said to be on the dark side of the divine) resides in her. Furthermore, she senses absolutely no aura when she's around Sebastian. Is he a witch? Vampire? Ghost?

Garnet knows she should strive to get as far away from Sebastian as she can. Nearly a year ago, Vatican assassins destroyed her entire coven and she fled. She doesn't want to restart her old life ever again. Can Garnet and Sebastian find a way to work together to evict Lilith from Garnet, while at the same time keeping Sebastian safe?

Hallaway presents a terrific and enjoyable read. The characters are lively, and the story stays strong and balanced throughout. With a short conclusion, readers can onlyhope there will be a sequel. -- Robin Taylor

Promotional Fever

Sorry I've been absent for a while. I've got "a lot on" as the British might say. Not only am I in the middle of major revisions of Dead Sexy, the sequel to Tall, Dark &Dead but I also foolishly agreed to judge Mid-Michigan RWA's Happily Ever After romance contest for unpublished writers, *and* review an article for a scholarly journal about romance writers. Both of which just happen to be due in about twelve days (not the book, though, that's due at the end of May).

Also, I'm about a month out from the street date of Tall, Dark & Dead so I've been kind of in a promotional fever. I've been addressing postcards to independent bookstores, libraries, and the like. I've updated my website. Booked a few signing/reading gigs. Designed and submitted an ad for WisCON (a science fiction convention I'll be attending.) And generally running around like a chicken with my head cut off, "Book! Book! My book is coming out! Book!" (You can hear the chicken, right?)

If you've never hopped over to my web site -- www.tatehallaway.com, there is now also a rather long excerpt of Tall, Dark & Dead to whet your appetite. It's the entire first chapter. Enjoy.

I've done a lot of self-promotion over the years and I've always wonder what REALLY works. How do YOU decide to pick up a book? Is it through reviews? Meeting the author at a convention? Noticing an ad? Having your friendly, neighborhood bookstore clerk suggest a title? Browsing? What?

Okay, back to postcards addressing! Whee.

A New Review of TD&D

The Page Boy (E.B. Boatner) had this to say about Tall, Dark & Dead in the Minneapolis/St. Paul GLBT Magazine Lavender.

The last line of the review is a bit baffling. I read it twice and am still not entirely sure how to take it.

However, I met Mr. Boatner for coffee the other day and he expressed enthusiasm for the book, so my guess is that I'm to read that line as "I wish I'd written a book this cool," not "This is so fucked up, I wish I were making it up, but I'm not."

Oh, and please note that at the time I was posting this the picture and the review did not match. My cover is in front of the review for Michael S. Berman and Laurence Shames' Living Large and visa versa.

Random Thoughts at Midnight

Wondered about this last night...

...do you suppose all those people who won a "lifetime supply" of Rice-o-Roni (the San Francisco treat) on The Price Is Right are still getting it?

Stupid Heros, Stupid Heroines

Having a clever, intelligent partner can be so annoying.

Sometimes, like with this novel, when I'm writing without a proposal/outline I get stuck. Usually, what is required is dinner out with my above mentioned sweetie and a couple of glasses of wine. I find that talking my plot out loud can really point out its flaws. It's like the advice a lot of novice writers get about reading their dialogue out loud to "hear" how it sounds on the page. When I start going through my, "And then she, and then she...." I can sometimes notice the gaps in my thinking. Especially when I get to the part last night where I said, "And, only I don't know how to get them out of this one! What would you do?"

Of course, like every ego-sensitive writer, *I* would like to be the one pointing to the flaws, but, whatever. Even when I'm cranky about hearing it, I trust my partner's plot sense. (She reads a LOT more than I do.) Unfortunately, last night's discussion is going to put me back about twenty pages. I hate that.

Still right is right. It's got to be fixed.

Part of it has to do with the fact that I know that, as a reader myself, I absolutely hate it when things don't make sense simply because an author wasn't willing to tell a truth that's inconvenient to her plot. You know what I'm talking about. The heroine is being chased by the cops, but somehow, when she gets back to her apartment, they're not there waiting there for her. She has time to take a nap, read a book, and talk to six people before there's a knock on the door. Okay, so that's exactly what _I_ just wrote, and so you can see the problem. It's just not true to life. At the very least, my heroine has to be cautious when heading home or the whole thing just starts to look a little too convenient or she seems a little too stupid, you know?

Stupid heros/heroines are the number one reason I get turned off as a reader. (Of course, that's provided I picked up the book in the first place.) I really like to be able to understand-–if not directly relate to--the choices the main character makes. Preferable is the heroine who is cleverer than I am. I like reading stuff that makes me say, "Oh, THAT was smart! I'll have to remember that the next time I'm being chased across a desert by a wombat!" Which is probably why when I stray from SF/F, I tend to read mysteries. People who can solve murder mysteries are usually much smarter than I am.

So, if I disappear for a few days it's because I'm in a revision quagmire.

File This &%#! Under Information I Never Wanted to Know

Bull sharks (carcharhinus leucus) can live in FRESH WATER, including rivers such as the Mississippi, and have been found as far north as Illinois!

Submission 101: Do You Really Have to Read Asimov's to Sell?

Yes.

If you want to publish SF/F/H/whatever you should read the magazines to which you want to sell.

In fact, instead of reading my blog, I think you should take a few minutes and check out Strange Horizons an online science fiction/fantasy magazine.

Of course, no one has the time to read every single issue of every genre magazine they might want to submit a story to. This is where having a writer's group is really helpful. My writers' group has sort of informally divided the work. Certain members read certain print magazines and report on them. A goodly portion of our workshop time we spend gossiping.. er, networking about the various markets – rumors we've heard about who's taking what, what kinds of stories they seem to prefer, who's overstocked, and notes on rejections (i.e. "we seriously considered your work, but, alas, we have three elf cowboy stories in the queue right now.")

If you don't have a writers group, there are places to catch up on this kind of information. Ralan's Webstravaganza and Speculation's Rumor Mill.

But, if you're reading the magazine, you can sometimes spot trends on your own. For a while it seemed you could sell anything involving a cat to Gardner Dozois. This is helpful if you have a cat story handy, not so much if you think that by writing a story about cats you will instantly sell.

Plus, there's the whole karma thing. My feeling has always been if you want science fiction short story markets to pay money to publish you, you need to make sure they stay in business by paying money to read the stories they paid other authors for. Plus, c'mon. Most subscriptions are not only fairly inexpensive, you can also write them off on your taxes.

Karma. Don't mess with it.

Seriously, I had a weird experience once that convinced me that reading short stories actually helped me understand them. Before I'd published my first novel, or really had a pro sale of any kind, I sat down one Thanksgiving weekend when I was stuck up in Grand Rapids, Minnesota visiting the in-laws and read an entire short story collection. Cover to cover. A week or so after that, I wrote a short story that would later become my first professional sale (seven cents a word, no less! Still the best, I think, I've ever been paid). I'm convinced it was a kind like when people go off to language camp to be completely immersed in a particular language in order to break through into fluency.

So go read stuff.

More Mason Humor

What do you call a cranky bee?

....a GRUMBLEbee.

Future Farmers of America

Remember way back when I said I was working on an erotica piece? Well, I sold it. It will be appearing in Periphery -- Erotic Lesbian Futures (tentative title) under my OTHER name, along with such other amazing and talented writers as: Nicola Griffith, Catherine Lundoff, Gwyneth Jones, Marianne de Pierres, Cecilia Tan, and Melissa Scott.

This short story was really hard for me to write. I mean, it was just a pain in the ass (and not in the fun erotica way, either). I think it went through three complete drafts and took me three months to hammer out. What's funny about it is that the sex in it got less and less graphic the more I rewrote it. It went from fairly hot to what they'd call in the romance genre "sweet."

The reason the blog title is what it is because in one of its previous incarnations "istartu" (the name of the short story) had its climatic scene (yes, in the fun erotica way) on a farm. I ended up changing that for the final version because it wasn't terribly important to the plot, and in fact, had simply given me an excuse to meander through the scenery for a while.

Anyway, I'm kind of sad I ended up axing that now, if only because I don't think you see enough African-American lesbian farmers in science fiction.

Seriously, I was thinking about this in terms of what we talked about in class last night (which was overused F&SF cliches). One of the things we left with was the fantasy cliche of a world which appears to only produce adventurers and no one actually does the labor required to sustain a viable economy. I started thinking -- are there are lot of farmers in space? Not really. Okay, Luke Skywalker was a moisture farmer on Tatoonine. But, the farm existed as something to escape. I mean, it had to be literally torpeodoed for him to get his butt off-world and on to the work of becoming another science fiction/fantasy cliche -- the lost heir with the secret powers to defeat the evil empire.

James T. Kirk was from Iowa, but I don't think that should count. (Sorry, JPJ!)

Seems to me the girlfriend in "Vampire Hunter D" lived on a farm in the future (complete with ravenous mutants as a kind of stand-in for the coyote/wolf), but for some reason monsters and farms go hand-in-hand. (I just watched "Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Wererabbit." What a hoot! And also all about monsters and farms -- or at least veg!)

On a whim I checked into Adherents (a great resource for religion in SF) and found a few entries under Amish in Science Fiction. But, there's not a lot.

Of course, Serenity/Firefly had a kind of rancher feel to it, but I think that's one of the reasons a number of SF fans couldn't really grok it. The whole farm/frontier thing rang too much of Westerns, than SF.

I wonder why farms and farmers have not had their day in SF? I mean, I had some fun imagining farming in the future. (I went for the bio-dome myself). Anyway, I think that there's a lot about the current state of farming, particularly in America, that lends itself well to a dark, cyberpunk future. My sense is that family farms are becoming a thing of the past -- and who better to be a villian in a cyberpunk story, but THE CORPORATION??? It's not like farming isn't fraught with conflict and tension.

Maybe I should challenge myself to write an SF story that takes place on a farm of the future.

Hmmmmmm.

*Cricket*, *Cricket*

Sorry I've been so quiet. Actually, I've been cheating on you. I joined one of those Live Journal communities (one called whileaway, which is a feminist fantasy and science fiction literature group) in order to talk more about books – actually, a certain book, and I've already wrote a missive about it here, and I really wanted more than what you gave me.

Well. Now the cat's out. Try not to cry. I still love you.

Anyway, I was talking to my friend April the other night and we both agreed that it's really kind of a shame that you can walk up to almost any science fiction fan and talk about the latest movie or TV show (ah, Battlestar Galactic-crack!) – but there's no place you can go where you're guaranteed to find someone who's read whatever book has been turning you on lately. You can surf the web for reviews, but that's not terribly interactive, you know?

I'm not trying to be some kind of literature snob here, because I'm not. I came into science fiction fandom by way of media. I saw Star Wars sixteen times in the theatre, and still didn't feel done with it. At my local library, some incredibly clever librarian put the Star Wars novelizations and books like Han Solo's Revenge right there in the science fiction section, so that when I finished with those I just randomly picked up one of the other SF books. I believe it was either one of the Nebula collections of short stories or possibly Philip Jose Farmer's Jesus on Mars, (which might explain a lot about my alternate self, wouldn't it?)

The point is, I enjoy talking media as much as the next geek, but I think part of the problem is that there's no way a person can keep up with all the SF&F and related genre books that come out in any given year. There's just too many. So finding six other people who happened to all pick up the same book (and who found time to read it) is pretty tough. And, of course, most books I read for pleasure don't make me really wound up. It's a rare book that gets me hopping – well, anything, mad, happy, torqued. Even books that make me think don't always get under my skin, you know?

Like the book I'm reading right now. It's called A Spectacle of Corruption by David Liss. It's a good book so far (I'm on page 88), but it's not SF or F. It's a mystery (my other genre of choice), and a historical one at that. I don't think it's going to be something I'll want to shout about though, other than the usual: hey, here's a good book.

This is an interesting thought, I suppose. I mean, is the point of writing to make someone think? Obviously, I don't think so. I generally write "beach books." I've always maintained that my whole purpose in writing to tell a "ripping good yarn." So... so what? What's my point? My point is that it's all good, but when a book makes you think it'd be cool if there were a bunch of people waiting in line to talk about it with you, don’t you think?

And Now Back to Vampires

So I took the dumb vampire quiz: "What Type of Vampire Are You? expecting to be annoyed by the answer, but, no, this is totally the kind of vampire I find hot (and thus, would like to be):

Walking Sex Vampire

What type of vampire are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Mercury Retrograde and Other True Tales of Magic

Do you know that saying about the gods of Cthulhu? The more you become aware of them, the more they’re aware of you? I think magic is like that (and astrology, too).

Here's my story. I have this ritual I do every calendar New Year. On New Year's eve, I take a number of dimes (I think it started at five and we've added one every year we've been doing this) and wrap them in a gold colored silk scarf. I place the scarf outside on our doorstep (hidden from the neighbors, of course.) We leave it there overnight. The idea is that the physical act of bringing the money inside the next day represents being receptive to good fortune, particularly in the form of cash, throughout the upcoming year.

Well, this year we forgot about our dimes for a couple of days.

And I have to say there have been a number of things that make me feel like this is exactly what's been happening to us this year in terms of my incidental writing money. Like, so far, it hasn't been anything big, but there are a number of short stories that I have out to market which have made it past various first cuts (or so the editors have informed me), but which seem to have gone into a kind limbo ever since getting the initial good news. Similarly, my agent sold Japanese rights to books I wrote under another name and the IRS and I have been back and forth (with my tax consultants acting as an intermediary) over one silly little form which means the world of difference in how I get taxed on such things. In other words, the money is there, it's just being held up.

Weird, huh?

And, of course, Mercury is retrograde (and has been since March 2).

Don't you just hate it when that happens?

Sure, you do. You just don't know it. Thing is, if I tell you want Mercury in retrograde means, I know you're going to find yourself suddenly aware of its effect on your life. I know, because this is exactly how I got sucked into astrology.

I get these silly little astrology alerts about various retrograding planets, and here’s what Astrology.com says about Mercury: “It's that time again: Mercury turned retrograde on March 2, and will continue its apparent backward journey until the 25th. Better dust off all the standard Mercury-retrograde cautions: Back up computer files and go the extra mile to express yourself clearly. When the Communication Planet is in reverse, it can feel like productivity is in park! But no two retrogrades are the same -- and Mercury's latest move makes this a crucial time to strike new balance."

"Mercury retrograde is always cause for introspection -- even more so as it takes place in Pisces, the imaginative final sign of the zodiac. The Fish swim through deep, dreamy waters, so pay close attention to your subconscious cues for the next few weeks. Reason may be particularly obscured, but as typical modes of communication become tricky, we'll all benefit from indulging those creative sides!”

For me, Mercury in retrograde usually means I should shut the hell up. So I will.

Less Than Serene

SPOILER WARNING

I finally saw "Serenity." I meant to watch it much earlier. In fact, I meant to go to the theatre and help with the box office numbers, but I blew it. We couldn’t find a babysitter for opening weekend, and then... well, at least I bought it. Or rather, my nephew Jonathan bought it for me for Christmas. So, Joss Whedon got my money, just later than I’d intended.

At MarsCON I was on a panel about Firefly/Serenity, and I accidentally heard a few spoilers that made me want to watch the movie to... well, basically, get it over with.

I've been a fan of Firefly since its first episode aired. Up until Saturday night, I would probably have cast myself in the ranks of the browncoats.

I was disappointed in the movie.

My big complaint boils down to this: it wasn't very funny. I'd been warned that that movie was much darker than the series, and I was (and still am) okay with that. I don't mind dark futures, in fact, I prefer them. But one of my favorite things about the series was the way the characters found humor in the darkest of hours. The fact that they said stupid things or made sarcastic/sardonic side comments made them seem more real, and gave the 'verse that much more depth. The worst part was that when Shawn and I viewed the deleted scenes we discovered that many of them were the funny bits. It's like Joss had it, and then purposely torpedoed it. I thought he was smarter than that. In fact, seeing those reminded me of viewing the deleted scenes of "Attack of the Clones" where George Lucas talks about how he'd ditched that stupid character building stuff for more action. It's like neither of them realize that the stupid character building crap is really what we wanted.

Speaking of which, I was also pre-warned about the fact that the movie was not so much an ensemble, as it was about Mal and River. I like Mal. River... I was never a huge fan of the River sub-plot. Secret, living weapon, evil empire, yeah-yeah. I feel like we've been there and done that with so many other science fiction films/TV that it was neither fresh nor interesting to me. What I loved about Firefly was its ensemble cast. That was fresh. Everyone had equal screen time – or nearly so, depending on the episode. The characters-- Jayne, Wash, Book, Kaily, and Zoe-- all played off each other to the point where when Mal talked about his ship as a family, I totally bought that. Not so much in the movie.

In fact, one of Mal's big issues in the film is supposed to be his struggle with his duty to his ship's family and the hard-cold reality of survival in space (especially given he has two fugitives aboard.) Joss made the assumption we'd all remember how cool everyone was from the TV series, and that would ride us through Mal's struggle. It mostly worked for me, because I'm such a big fan, but I think the point would have been hammered home a lot more if the "damn family" had had a few more lines. At least one good sitting around having dinner in the galley scene, even. There was no sense of the usual camaraderie.

Plus, when Wash bites it (in a cheap way, I might add), Zoë’s complete and utter despair makes no sense on the screen. Wash previously had six lines and half of them were "I am a leaf on the wind." (Funny, but over done) Who cares that he's dead? (Well, I did. Deeply. As he was my favorite character from the series.) But, I could totally understand why someone coming in off the street could hardly give a flying rat's ass.

Same with Shepard Book. Also, can I say I can't believe that of all the people on the colony Book stayed alive long enough only to whisper something unintelligible to Mal? Annoying. That's the biggest movie cliché in the 'verse. I would have expected Joss to turn that one on its head, but he didn’t. (Also, some of the blooper reel had better lines, I thought, like that scene, where Mal says that they should put Book's body on their reaver ship out of respect and this and that, and Jayne stop stealing people's shit! <-- because you know that's what he’s doing.)

That's not to say there weren't good moments, and it was good to see everyone again, kinda. (It's the everyone I’m kinda-ing.) I was really glad to see Jayne's stupid hat, for instance. I just wanted more.

I suspect that Joss was afraid to make a two-hour episode. I think he should have embraced the fact that critics were going to say that's what he did no matter what he did, so why not make it the best two-hour episode ever? I suppose there are many out there who would argue that's precisely what he did. I disagree. I think he ruined a perfectly good TV concept by trying to make it too "big screen-y," as one of his characters might say.

"It's Racing Day!"

I've become a HUGE fan of Doug Wieselman.

I know, you're thinking, "Wow, that's so cool, Tate. Uh, Who?"

Dude, Doug Wieselman, the guy who writes the best music for Nick Jr's The Backyardigans. I've been singing "It's racing day, it's racing day. It's racing day, it's racing day. It's not picture-tracing (nervous pacing, puppy chasing, sausage casing, doily lacing, self-effacing) day. Today's the day we race." Over and over.

It makes me smile. Every time.

Unconquered Plot

I don't really think I conquered plot in class last night. I started to, but I don't think I had enough caffeine in my system to do it justice. (I'm not sure I do now, for that matter.)

What do I want to say about plot? Plot is the action of your story. It's the stuff that happens – although not always the wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am, whiz-bang moments, but also the revelations, the emotional high points or lows, and the internal reflections of your main character. (Given, of course, that these other things reveal or reflect on "the story.") Plot answers the question what happens next?

Plot is difficult to teach, because in so many ways plotting is instinctual to storytelling. If people tell you don't have a strong plot, it may be because you haven't come to terms with the story you really want to tell. Strong plotters are often people who have taken some time outside of actual writing to consider the questions of: what's at stake here? Whose story am I telling? What do I want to _say_? What is this story about, really?

I think once you know those things, plot happens fairly organically. Provided, of course, you stay true to the character's motivations. I say this, clearly, being a character-driven plot writer. (I teach my classes about idea-driven stories, but really I don't know that much about them. My friend and fellow writer Kelly McCullough is much more skilled with that sort of story than I will ever be.)

That reminds me of something else entirely...

I've been a paperback reader and writer my whole life, so I've been known to get into arguments with certain writers about plot. I believe everything should be in service to plot. In fact, at one point I joked to Walter Hunt at MarsCON that I have "in service to plot" tattooed over my heart. I don't, but I could, because I believe it that strongly.

Don't waste my time wandering down a dark alley unless the scene tells me something fundamentally important about the character. I'm not a big fan of mood, unless it tells me something about the characters or the situation. Travelogueing your way through some crunchy scenery is vaguely annoying to me, unless, again, it tells me something important about the characters or society your building (as it reflect on the story).

Serve the story! Serve it up HOT!

If a scene has nothing to do with the story, why is there? If it has no purpose, cut it.

Okay. Those are my thoughts for today. Off to find caffeine.

Grammar Geekfest or On Having an Omniscient Aneurysm

First of all, I have to totally disagree with Bob when he suggests that there is no authority on _how_ to write. I'm so sorry, but this is one of my biggest bugaboos. I actually got myself kicked out of a writer's critique group for insisting that a sentence is comprised of a subject and a fucking verb. (Not just any verb, mind you, but a fucking one.)

LISTEN: writing is the act of making order out of chaos. I am the Word, ya dig? Order needs laws. Laws must be obeyed – (mostly.)

Traffic laws exist so that people don't ram into each other at seventy-five miles an hour most of the time (people still do, even when they're obeying the law). I will concede that it is possible that without any laws of any kind the universe might not descend into utter chaos. But why ask for trouble?

Bob, I applaud your efforts in taking on Strunk & White (E.B. White, btw, author of Charlotte's Web and the Stuart Little books), but if someone is setting out on the writing journey for the first time, Strunk & White's Elements of Style makes an excellent road map. I never really understood the concept of passive voice until I read Elements. Plus, their examples are funny, not punitive -- unlike, say, most English grammar textbooks. I found them eminently readable. For this alone, I think they are laudable. They made, for me, at least, relearning basic English grammar tolerable, if not actually sort of amusing.

Granted, I still don't understand how to use commas. And anyone looking at my writing as it appears here (and in my professional work) could rightly quibble about my actual grasp on the English language. Clearly, I love the parenthetical phrase over much. However, I try to – at least in my professional writing – write in a way that is understandable to the vast majority of my readers. In order to do that, I use sentence structures that include a subject and (when writing fiction particularly) an active (fucking!) verb. I use omniscient point of view in the way it is most easily understood, which is with an outside narrator who is acting the part of the god's eye view, who is telling a story with insider knowledge, like you might in a fairy tale or a myth. I use words in their form most recognized by the largest percentage of readers -- which is to say I'd prefer to say "ominous" over "portentous" given that most readers recognize the first over the second, unless the plot or style requires one word over the other.

The goal here for me is to be read and understood. And preferably, I'd like to be read by the largest number of readers. Let's just say millions – hell, go all Dan Brown and say tens of millions.

Tens of millions of people aren't going to "get" me if I go all kung fu stylistic on them. If I decide not to use commas most editors are going to assume I'm stupid, not artistic. If I tell them I think Strunk & White is full of crap and I'm going to write however I want, they're likely to say, "Great, except no one understands a flaming word you've written."

I want to be understood. I think great writing is all _about_ being understood. If I can make you, who is so very different than me, understand who I am and where I'm coming from (or even just what I experienced yesterday), then I've performed the miracle of great writing.

Word!

"Plot, What Plot?" or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Outline

The only stories (including novels) that I have ever been able to finish are the ones where I already know the ending.

I don't have to know, chapter by chapter, what's going to happen, but I do need a sense of where I'm going. Science fiction author Joan Vinge once told me in an interview I did with her that the way she conceptulizes the process of novel writing is with the metaphor of a road trip. For her, novel writing is like knowing that you want to go to California with a bunch of friends. You don't know exactly where you're going (San Diego? Sacramento? Oakland?) or what's going to befall you on the trip (flat tire? in-car romances? too much drinking in Alberquerue that ends with a night in the poky?), but you've got your eyes set on California. Thus, there's plenty of wiggle room for that "magic" a lot of writers talk about where their characters do things the author isn't expecting them to, but you still have a goal, an end, in sight. This is exactly how I write.

I find, in fact, the more I've planned out my "trip," if you will, the tighter I write. I'm not a big fan of that bizarro advice often told to novice novel writers which involves colored index cards and a ridiculous amount of time spent organizing and brainstorming. But lately I've written to proposal, which is basically a synopsis of a book not written yet. A good synopsis is a sketch of the important emotional and action highlights, and knowing what those are going to be before I write saves me a lot of useless meandering down the backroads, if you know what I mean. I think of my synopsis as a kind of map to get me where I'm going faster and more efficiently.

Not everybody writes like me, though.

My bottom line feeling about outlines (and index cards for that matter) is that if you're having trouble writing, see if it helps. If you find the process a hinderance, stop. Anything that keeps you from writing is evil. This extends to index cards.

MarsCON: One Fan's Report

MarsCON was held last weekend at the Holiday Inn Select in Bloomington, Minnesota. This year's theme was "Things That Go Bump In the Night." There were a couple of media guests of honor that I should have known, but didn't, and the literary and artist guests of honor were both friends mine, respectively: Walter Hunt (literary GoH) and Beth Hanson (artist GoH).

I went.

Okay, I'm terribly tempted to leave the post like that, but I should probably say something more.

I had a good time, generally.

I was on a BUNCH of panels, probably the best of which was "Van Helsing's Heirs." I got... really rowdy, and ended up leaping up out of my chair at one juncture to make my point.

I blame Walter Hunt. He gave me drugs.

Okay, so the drug in question was caffiene, but still...

I think the best thing about science fiction conventions for me is that they give me a chance to be, in public, really as nerdy and geeky (and as ethusiastically nerdy and geeky) as I am deep in the bowels of my heart of hearts. I mean, if it were more socially acceptable in other venues I have no doubt that I would leap up out of my chair and scream, "You know what drives me crazy about that vampire myth? Huh? Do ya, punk!?" much more often. But, really, SF conventions are the best place to do that because it's at least moderately acceptable, if not somewhat expected.

I'm really bummed I had to miss Sunday morning because Stone Soup Films was screening their full-length vampire film, "Pray for Daylight." I can't say anything about the film, but the screenwriter and the vampire-actor-dude (both of whom I met), were really cool. If you're curious (and I certainly am), check out their teaser page.

More About Bob and Other Stories of Omniscience

I think we have a fight on our hands.

And, for the record? I can’t BELIEVE it’s about point of view.

I agree with Bob that most of us learn that the omniscient point of view is meant to be a "God's eye" view. I think, however, the mistake is thinking one is actually meant to take on the part of God (or the Goddess), if you will, and not have any opinion about what's being portrayed in the story you are telling. The omniscient narrator is a narrator and a participant in the story, just as a limited third-person narrator would be. This is not just my opinion.

This definition comes from NYU’s class on English reading & writing. Citation: http://www.nyu.edu/classes/op/writing/old_pointofview1.htm

Omniscient Point of View:

"The story is told by the author, using the third person, and his knowledge and prerogatives are unlimited. He can interpret the behavior of his characters; he can comment, if he wishes, on the significance of the story he is telling.

It offers a constant danger that the author may come between the reader and the story, or that the continual shifting of viewpoint from character to character may cause a breakdown in coherence or unity. Used skillfully, it enables the author to achieve simultaneous breadth and depth. Unskillfully used, it can destroy the illusion of reality, which the story attempts to create."

The implication here is very obviously that there is a narrator, a commentator—with a personality (likely the author's)—who is telling the story in omniscient point of view. In fact, as said above, the biggest danger is that the story will suffer from "his" intrusion -- that the narrator will be too present.

Again, I will agree that the solution to this is not to pepper one's prose with "I supposed" or "I consider" or other wishy-washy language. It is imperative that the narrative voice make some kind of stand, posit some kind of opinion. That is what narrative voice does. It should, in point of fact, be the expression of the character's opinions, their feeling, and their general take on the scene or whatever.

A Correction!

A big HUGE apology to Mike Resnick for giving him "undue" credit. The Mike I was thinking of was actually Mike Swanwick

Sorry Mr. Resnick... I guess I just think if it's cool, you must have written it.

Openings... A Can of Worms?

Now if we all agree hooking the reader is important, how do you do it?

A lot of writing instructors will suggest that you start the story in the middle of THE ACTION. You know, "Twang! The arrow barely missed her head," and such like. That method can be effective, and it's a good thing to try particularly if you feel like your story lacks a certain amount of movement or if you've been having trouble with your pacing.

Not every story needs to start with a literal bang, however.

In science fiction and fantasy, you can also start with an eyeball kick, as William Gibson did in his famous opening for Neuromancer: "The sky was the color of a television set tuned to a dead channel."

Juxtapositions work well too. I'm not sure I can find the exact opening, but Mike Resnick's "Scherzo with Tyrannosaurus" would be a good example of how putting to disparate elements together can grab a reader's attention. Turns out it was downstairs. Here's how it goes: "A keyboardist was playing a selection of Scarlatti's harpsichord sonatas, brief pieces one to three minutes long, very complex and refined, while the Hadrosaurus herd streamed by the window."

From the same collection, this alternative from "Mount Olympus" by Ben Bova, "Tomas Rodriguez looked happy as a puppy with an old sock to chew on as he and Fuchida got into their hard suits." What I like about Bova's is that nothing is really happening. It's the turn of phrase that sounds very American South coupled with a term I'm not sure of "hard suits" (space suits? something else?) that catches and holds my attention.

Let's see if there's anything else fun in here (BTW, I'm perusing the SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR’S BEST SCIENCE FICTION, edited by Gardner Dozois). Okay, here's the beginning of Paul J. McAuley's, "How We Lost the Moon, A True Story by Frank W. Allen"--"You probably think you know everything about it." A provocative accusation in second-person (you) which jumps out and bites you, personally. This works for me, especially given the title of the story. Something like that could work for you, too, perhaps.

One thing that writing instructors will also tell you, but which I've actually found fairly useful, is that sometimes it's best to leave the beginning to the end. Which is to say, start the story wherever you need to in order to write it all the way to the end, and then, once all is said and typed, go back and revamp your hook so that it's catchier. Also, depending on how you write, you may not know what a story is about until it's over, and really, the beginning paragraph of a short story (or first chapter of the novel) should lay out the main conflict of the main character. It needs to answer the question: What’s at stake here? Who stands to lose the most?

...And Now, Hooking like a Pro

I love the double entendre of that, don't you? Plus, it serves as a fairly good example of how to write an effective opening line, otherwise known as a "hook."

The idea of a hook that it grabs your reader's attention, draws them in, and (fingers crossed) keeps them rapt until the words THE END. Why is it important to do this? Why not just start at the beginning and go?

The reason is because the competition is enormous.

I was walking through the Washington County Library on my way to class last Wednesday and I was struck by the fact that each one of the books I passed represented a person, and not just any person, but a professional writer just like me. Each one of those people managed to jump through the same hoops I did, and, in so many ways, beat the odds and got their book in print.

For every book on the shelf, I imagine there must be hundreds, if perhaps not thousands, of writers who didn’t… or, more positively, haven't YET.

If you're writing for the short story market, you have the same kind of pressure. Asimov's receives something like a thousand submissions a month. I think they run a dozen or more stories, plus you have to factor in all the bigger names than you (and me) who are also taking up valuable real estate.

So, how do you stand out in a crowd like that?

Like a 'ho, ya gotta have a good come-on.

That's a sickeningly apt metaphor, since the opening is a kind of advertisement, a way of letting people know what kind of story they're getting themselves in for. If your opening is dark and serious, then the reader will expect that what follows is also dark and serious.

First, A Reply

I thought I'd reply to Bob's (and to some extent Megan's) comments on my narrative voice post here since my response is likely to be long, meandering and drawn out and, thus, not terribly suited for the narrow comments page.

Bob asks, "What about voice with gravitas? Why are so many writers terrified of sounding serious?"

I don't know that they are, but you're right that there is a trend in fiction right now toward a chatty, first person narrative voice. I suspect part of that is because the target audience (the slacker generation and younger) tends toward sarcasm and meta-fiction in their life and entertainment. Thus, it's an easy way for a writer to establish a rapport with her audience. Plus, I think a lot of writers enjoy the challenge of working with a potentially unreliable narrator. It's fun to try to figure out how to let your readers know the truth about a situation when your narrator is lying to him/herself about it, you know?

But, I think you can have a serious narrative voice. What I was trying to caution new writers about is being careful of the distinction between serious and flat. You can be plenty serious, but still have that view color the way you look at things. A serious narrator will still "notice" things that are important to him/her as they reflect plot or character. (Example: hero is space captain going for job interview. When he walks in the room the thing he might first notice is the cheap veneer on the table... or some other clue that will forward, in many ways, the plot, as it will dictate how he responds to the scene. This can all be described seriously, but I think it still ought to be a filtered by his personality and situation. A flat narration would simply start listing the dimensions of the room, the table, the color of the walls, etc with no regard to how the character might be reacting to any of it.)

I disagree with Bob about omniscient p.o.v., in that I don't see omniscient as lacking a personality or distinct narrative voice. In fact, the omniscient p.o.v. is merely a character outside of the story who can see into other people's heads. A good example of this is almost any sort of mythological or fairy tale like story, in which the narrator basically directs the story to the moral that he or she is trying to make. Sometimes they're _not_ invisible in the text, they might break out with an imperative sentence like, "Imagine!" or a comment directly to the reader, like, "This was before you were born, and so things were different then." A great modern writer who uses omniscient well is Eleanor Arnason.

Certainly, Bob is right when he says that it is possible that pumping up the voice won't help every writer who has been told that their writing is flat. I agree that it's likely something more holistic. However, I have read at least two manuscripts from students of mine who did everything else right, as far as I could tell, but there was still something that felt missing. I spent months mulling over the problem, and finally decided that what I thought the manuscripts needed was a better sense of voice.

But, voice as a concept is no trendier than the idea that a sentence must include a verb.

How voice is presented has changed dramatically over time, but fiction has always had a voice. Why? Because fiction in its primal form was spoken. Stories have always been told by SOMEONE. This doesn't change because they are written down.

My First Review!

Barb Radmore reviewed Tall, Dark & Dead at Armchair Interviews.

"What's My Motivation?" Creating Character Through Narrative Voice

Creating believable characters is the essence of fiction writing. But how is it actually done?

First of all, I don't think anyone really knows. So much of writing is magic, after all. (I mean that quite seriously, but maybe that's a post for another day.) Even so, it is also a craft. There are tricks of the trade that help flat words on the page blossom into vivid, living imaginary creatures.

One such trick is what is called narrative voice.

I searched desperately for a good definition of what is meant by narrative voice and I didn't come up with much of any use. So, I’ll have to stumble through an explanation of my own. The narrative is comprised of the parts of the story that is not dialogue. That would include all of the description, the internal dialogue (if there is any), the action, and everything (except the bits in quotations). The narrative voice, therefore, is the way – the tone, if you will – in which those parts are written.

Your narrative will be in a point of view (the usual suspects: first or third). It will be in a verb tense of some sort (past or present).

The voice, on the other hand, will convey a certain kind of personality, such as chatty, sarcastic, militaristic, hesitant, or angry. Since your story is being told, in essence, by the main character, the narrative voice (remember: the bits in between) should reflect their personality as much as the character's dialogue and actions. It will be consistent throughout the text, ie. your chick-lit heroine will still be chatty even during the scary scenes or the sad scenes. She'll just be chatty in a scared way or a sad way. Though not necessarily when she's talking (dialogue), but when she's explaining things to us, the readers.

One of the big mistakes beginning writers often make is to underutilize the narrative voice. I don't know why, but a lot of people seem to approach those parts of the story as if they're the boring bits. He walked into the room, yada, yada.

No, no, no. The narrative is where your character LIVES. If your critique group is telling you that your characters feel flat, this may be part of your problem.

The narrative voice is the reader's main window into the mind, the emotional state, and the... well, character of your main character. So he walked into a room. Is it a room he's been in before? Does the room make him feel instantly at ease? Why? What about it? Is it the dried flower arrangement collecting dust in the sunlight that reminds him of his mother's house? Is the room warm? And, how does this reflect the plot (or the theme)? Is this room a place in which he's going to take shelter after having his world-view shaken after discovering his lover is a werewolf? If so, what about this familiar place suddenly feels wrong?

Plus, as I've said many times before I think one of the reasons readers read is to get a sense of what it’s like to be someone else. We want someone else's take on the familiar. So he walked into a room, is there something there I might understand, relate to? Okay, so I've never discovered my lover is a werewolf, but what is it about walking into a room you've been in a million times before after hearing some world-altering news that is universal to the human experience? Or maybe it's not even that close. Maybe it's like the feeling of wrong familiarness that you get once you’ve been overseas and come home, and you look at all the houses in the Midwest with their expansive lawns that you've grown up with all your life, and suddenly they seem far too far apart.

That's part of using narrative voice to its full potential.

The other part is word choice. Part of keeping your narrative voice consistent is remembering to always use the kinds of words your main character would know when describing people, places, and things. For example, a nuclear physicist would describe a garden in a different way than a ten-year old girl.

One of the more difficult parts of writing is remembering to always stay in your main character’s head – to think like they do. One of the reasons I don't like to read much horror, particularly the kinds of horror novels where there’s a serial killer who has p.o.v. chapters, is that I hate getting into the mindset of someone so damaged. And, when a writer does it well, that's exactly what happens. It can be kind freaky, actually. See my nephew's blog (Sunday, January 29) where he talks about reading American Psycho.

The Magical Forests of Schenectady, or Hunting Down and Capturing Fantasy Ideas

The best place I’ve found for hunting down fantasy ideas is a library (or your favorite local, independent used bookstore).

If I look up from my computer I can see books with titles like these – A Dictionary of Angels, Arab Folktales, Tokyo Underworld, Mythical Trickster Figures, American Indian Myths and Legends, Greek Homosexuality, The Complete Prophecies of Nostradamus, and the History of Grave Robbing.

I think the word you’re looking for is: eclectic.

And, actually, this represents one shelf. I’ve got books of much greater range stashed all over the house.

The best reason for becoming a writer is because, when all else fails, you’re often a hit at cocktail parties. Because we’re trolling dark and strange places for ideas, writers know the weirdest stuff – and we know it passionately. When I get on the thread of something, I’ll follow it all over the place. Often my original intent gets lost among all the cool side streets.

So, I think if you’re trying to cultivate the heart of a fantasy writer, you need to develop the passions of a researcher.

Or, as I said in class, it helps if you naturally think too hard about stuff. (God, I’m so articulate!)

Part II: Does Blood Pool in Zero G? Or SF/F Ideas Lost in Space

One of the things that can scare nascent writers about science fiction is, well, the science. Even professional SF/F writers, like my mentor Eleanor Arnason, have been known to choke when it comes to the nuts and bolts part of the story.

First of all, don’t let "getting it right" stop you. Remember – William Gibson wrote his groundbreaking cyberpunk novel Nueromancer on a typewriter, and while having almost no experience with a computer. All you really need from the science is the spark for the idea.

In fact, a quick side story about all of that.... I had the honor of being at the pre-award banquet for the Hugo the year that Eleanor's "Stellar Harvest" was nominated in the novelette category. She had named me her alternate, because she didn't want to deal with going to the award ceremony. I talked her into going. Which was funny in and of itself since my name was listed on the guest list and on the reserved chairs, and I actually had to tell the guards at the door that Eleanor was _my_ guest.

At any rate, being the sort of person I am, I instantly recognized all the luminaries in the room (I regularly scan the photos of LOCUS so I’m never caught with my pants down, as it were.) At any rate, the editor of Analog came up to Eleanor in a kind of fanboy way and started telling her how much he loved her work. I could see her slinking away from him, so I took on the role of introducer, even though he and I have never met. I said, "Eleanor, do you know Dr. Stanley Schmitt?" She brightened instantly. He immediately chided her for not sending more of her stories his way. She gave a dismissive wave of her hand and said, "My stories aren't technical enough for you." Dr. Schmitt never missed a beat. "Eleanor," he said, "Let me be the judge of that."

The point of this story is that the story elements -- like character and plot and theme -- are far more important to most editors than the preciseness of the physics (or chemistry or biology or math). Now, that’s not to say you have a license to not TRY to get the science as right as possible, because SF/F fans (your readers) will notice egregious errors and be more than happy to corner you at a convention and explain the way gravitational physics REALLY works.

I think the key to writing successful science fiction stories is to be enthusiastic about the science you're writing about. I don't think about science every day, though I'd like to. One of the ways I keep myself open and receptive to the seed of a science fiction story is to hang out where ideas germinate.

If you're struggling to find SF ideas, (or if, like me, you just like to hang out where the smart people are,) I'm going to suggest that after you read the New York Times in the morning (or whatever your post-coffee gathering ritual is) you check out some scientific web sites – or, like I do, keep a few of these magazines in their print form in the bathroom for quick perusal.

Popular Science
Popular Mechanics
National Geographic
Science News

There are many, many more I could list, but the articles in these magazines are written in such a way to make you the kind of vaguely informed dangerous that really promotes a good science fiction idea. That's to say, they aren't terribly technical and they leave out the details that would probably send your idea down in a flaming wreck.

Half-assed ideas are the ones with the most wriggle room. Go for it. Make your characters real and the situation believable and the science won’t matter. Get it close enough, and then find an expert to fix what needs fixing. Or just pray that with enough hand waving, the editor will be so charmed by your work that s/he won’t give a crap that your science is wonky.

Next up -- Part III: The Magical Forests of Schenectady, or Hunting Down and Capturing Fantasy Ideas

Y’all Come Back, You Pagan Cowpokes!

I was listening to country music last night in the car, as I often do, and I was struck by the fact that country western really has the corner on the sappy, sentimental, stirringly religious songs, and, frankly, that's just not fair. I mean, I love singing along to Carrie Underwood’s "Jesus, Take the Wheel," but the Pagan in me recoils at having to promote through osmosis the one dying and rising god I have a few problems with (really, my issues are with his father and his folowers, but still.)

Since I love singing along so much, I've come up with a number of solutions:

For: "Jesus, Take the Wheel" (Carrie Underwood), I sing: "Isis, Take the Wheel"

For: "When I Get Where I’m Going" (Dirks Bentley and Dolly Parton) – They sing: "...And see my Maker's Face, I'll stand forever in the light of His amazing grace;" I sing, "And, see my Mother's Face, I'll stand forever in the light of Her amazing grace."

For: "Long Black Train" (Josh Turner) – He sings, "I cling to the Father and His Holy Name;" I sing: "I cling to the Mother, and Her Many Names..."

For: "The River" (Garth Brooks) – He sings, "But with the good Lord as my captain;" I sing, "But with the Goddess as my captain..."

I’m still working on how to fix songs like "Three Crosses," by Randy Travis, but it doesn’t stop me from singing along. If only there were pagan songs Christians felt the same way about.

Oh wait, there is: "Deck the Halls." (Quiz: What's Yuletide?)

When Accuracy Strangles Writing

One of the things I've been yammering on about is this concept that it's a good idea to have one's fiction be faithful to the world as it exists. My main argument revolves around inclusiveness, particularly when imagining supporting (or main) characters' race, ethnicity, religion, gender, and sexual orientation.

I also think it's great, if one has the expertise, to write settings that are atypical. I'm particularly drawn to this, even though I have in my other life written the excruciatingly familiar cyberpunk in a big city (in fact, THE big U.S. city, New York) and a fairy story that takes place in of all stereotypical places as Kerry, Ireland.

I know someone who, as far as I know never finished, had set a novel in a future Thailand. She was a good writer and, IMHO, probably had a shot at publishing the thing because the setting alone was deeply captivating. She'd spent some time in Thailand and she was a good enough writer that you really felt like you were there. I think you can get a lot of mileage out of that kind of expertise or, as I sometimes like to refer to it, "arcane knowledge," because I think that one of the reasons people read is to go somewhere new and to experience someone else's life. I think that desire is profoundly universal. To quote A. A. Milne’s WINNIE-THE-POOH, Chapter 2, In Which Pooh Goes Visiting and Gets Into a Tight Place, "Well, [Pooh] was humming to himself, and walking along gaily, wondering what everybody else was doing, and what it felt like being somebody else..." [emphasis added.]

A friend of mine and fellow writer Naomi Kritzer has books set in ancient Uzbekistan, and short stories set in WWII Russia and Prague. But, having talked to her, I also know that the amount of research that goes into some of her scene setting can be overwhelming -- to the point of strangling the creative process.

Writing isn't terribly fun. Anything that stops you from writing is EVIL.

So, while I advocate all of this deep thinking and going somewhere different from the norm, I also admonish you to never let it stop you. You also have to trust that your experiences are unique.

I remember talking to a writing class about this. The question inevitably arises as to how much physical detail is necessary. My answer is always -- only as much as the plot requires. But, the plot is more than a simple moving forward; it's often also an expression of character. So, I tell my students that a drive through the boring bits of North Dakota can become a moment of character revelation, even if it's something simple, like, that your character is the sort to randomly turn on the windshield wipers to stay awake while rolling past yet another flat field of tumbleweeds. (If the trip itself is Important. Otherwise, synopsize it at the beginning of the "arrival at destination" scene.)

Anyway, the point is this: when you can, explore the complexity of life, think beyond your own neighborhood, but don't let what you don't know stop you from writing what you do.

For Those With a Fast Internet Connection

...and who are vampire fans -- check out:

http://www.annefrasier/currentprojects.html

It's what's called in the biz as a "book trailer," part music video, part advertising tool.

Ah, if I had the time and money!

Mason Humor

This gem from my two-year old...

What sound does a rooster make when he's sick?

*cough*-a-doodle-do.

Thank you. Thank you very much. I'll be here all week.

The Devil Is Not in the Details, the Devil is In My Pants. Yeah!

Spare me a media fan moment.

Can I tell you that I love the new Battlestar Galactica? I know, I know. I'm not exactly bleeding edge here with this admission. Thing is, we don't have cable. I've been catching up on this series as soon as the DVDs arrive at Netflix.

I'm sure there are plenty of blogs devoted to this series, so I'm not going to say much. Except that last night while I was watching the first few episodes of season 2, I turned to Shawn and said, "Do you know what I really love about this series? What I love is that when people get hit hard enough to bruise the bruises don’t magically disappear in the next episode! Apollo has been sporting a shiner he got in the middle of the last season during a prison riot."

My suspenders of disbelief are made of the strangest kind of stretchy material. I have no problem with faster than light or machines that can mate with humans.... IF, and this is the key, IF you provide me these "contemporary fantasy" details I talked about in an earlier post. I will roll with the most insane plot holes -- like a virus that can infiltrate a LAN -- because the people, the situation, and the details captivate me.

This is true in writing to a fair degree as well. TV has the advantage of being singularly consuming. Pretty pictures can completely distract from a lame storyline (sometimes). Reading is a slower more internal process, so you have to be much more careful with plot... BUT, I still think that a detail can make or break a book. A detail that knocks the reader out of the story is a very, very bad thing. Cops don’t use those kinds of handcuffs anymore! Bang. The book hits the wall and bounces into the recycling bin. (And, if you’re my partner, the author's name is committed to memory on the "never buy again" list.)

Meanwhile, bits of arcane minutia can fascinate and captivate a reader. My experience as a reader tells me that a reader wants to feel like they're experiencing something new in a "true" way. Like reading about an archeologist might actually give you a tiny bit of understanding about archeology as a science, or a profession, or a lifestyle. (Like, the summer I did archeology camp I got eighty hours of sun. I had the best farmers' tan ever that year. Of course, my snot was black from the dust... but hey, I looked good.)

I think about this in reflection of the other posts I’ve made recently. Like, one of the reasons I think it's important to represent all the various ways of being in the world (ethnicity, queerness, religious bent) is because the more of the weird, fascinating truth you include about your world, the more real it becomes to the reader, and the more interesting. Knowing that Minnesota has a large Armenian immigrant population, for instance, is just the kind of cool, useless knowledge that readers love to collect, IMHO.

And, in some weird way, you can get away with minor plot problems if your details are all right. At least a satisfied reader is more likely to forgive.

She Thought She Was A Woman, But She Was Another Man

I want to talk about a book I read some time ago called A BROTHER'S PRICE by Wen Spencer. Set in ubiquitous fantasy/stock science fiction alternate universe, this is a fairly straightforward gender role reversal story. On this unnamed Earth-like planet (complete with horses, steam power, and European feudalism), men are rare. Women do all the heavy lifting and the men are left in charge of raising children and keeping house. Our hero, Jerin Whistler, is the prettiest and most fertile boy in the all land. When a princess ends up nearly dead on his family's doorstep, sexual hijinks ensue.

Actually, I found the sexual situations fairly entertaining. Admittedly, this is a fantasy I like to play with myself. I've even started a few role-reversed stories of my own (though none are finished, see entry regarding my problems with short stories below) and I even have a dystopian matriarchy, which involves an alternate future Russia that I've been noodling around with in my own head for years.

Plus, my own life lends itself to thinking about gender and gender roles a lot.

I had a very weird problem with this novel. It pushed all my buttons, but none of them hard enough. It's a strange complaint to say, "Hey, you didn’t piss me off enough."

I think in a lot of ways this is a really ambitious novel. Or, maybe it could have been, and that's what bothers me. My sense is that all my big questions with this novel were accidental. Spencer seemed to be playing up the titillating aspects of all of this, rather than bringing the gender/sex question to the forefront.

After a couple of days of mulling this book over, I started asking myself, what was Spencer thinking when she wrote this? Was she actually intentionally making some kind of statement about gender and society? In many ways, our hero, Jerin, could just as easily have been a woman. Though I think there would be a fair number of feminists out there (probably including myself) who would have cried bloody murder if she had written this book with Jerin cast as a woman. The number of times he's threatened with rape alone would have pissed me off. The things that are vaguely titillating about his situation (the way women grope him, the words they use to discuss, crudely, having sex for procreation with him, how he’s treated like property, and the amount of money he’s "worth") would be completely offensive if he were a woman.

Then, I thought, well, Tate, you sexist pig. They're plenty offensive as they're written. And, that could could be the point. Pretty subversive on Spencer's part.

But, at the end of the thing, I decided that I was once again just thinking too hard. It seemed to be meant as a kind of science fictional Regency romance, all meant in a tongue-and-cheek, wink-wink-nudge-nudge kind of way. (The very last line in the book was my tip off.)

Yes, But What's the Hypothesis?

Do you ever wonder if someone is running a social experiment on you?

On my way to taking my partner to work the other day, I discovered, of all things, a plastic pot -- the kind you might, in a less inclement season, find an ivy growing in -- sitting on the last step in front of my house. I had a brief moment where I thought, "I could walk around this." But, I didn't. I picked up and threw it into the garbage bag I keep in the back of my car.

Today... there was a newspaper in the exact same spot.

Okay, who ever is out there, yes, I am compulsive about picking up what I perceive as garbage in front of my house.

Stop it all ready. You're making me crazy.

At Home in SF/F

It's interesting to hear Elizabeth Bear say she's also on the look out for queer folks in novels she reads. And that finding them is like finding home.... or at least suddenly feeling more welcome.

There are many reasons I read. One of the reasons science fiction and fantasy keeps me coming back is because it is one of the few places in which an odd duck like myself can reliably find a reflection on the page.

I think that's why this issue of diversity is so important to me.

I remember having my heterosexism kicked in the teeth by Elizabeth A. Lynn's novels, which I read in high school. She not only made me realize when I was fourteen that people of the same gender could love each other, but also she made me really take a hard, cold look at my gender assumptions, in general. Who says "soldier" automatically means "male"? Who says "artist" is more likely female?

These questions have haunted me my whole life. When I see a science fiction show with the ubiquitous male space ship captain, I ask myself, why? Why is the captian a man? Why is white (if he is)? Why is he straight (if he is)? What else is out there?

Of course, I ask these same questions when watching commericals, driving my friends and relations absolutely spare. A real quote from me: "Honey, did you notice the guy selling the matresses is the white guy with perfect teeth and the people who can't seem to find a decent bed are the black couple?" Real response from significant other: "Could you just not think for five seconds?"

I blame Elizabeth A. Lynn.

Don't Ink and Drive: Writing and Responsibility

Still thinking -- which is probably dangerous -- about my previous post. Zoe commented that a writer who includes queer folks in the background runs the risk of seeming ham handed in their attempts at inclusion (or diversity or whatever you might want to call it.) This is a conversation I've had with other people (and on this blog, see below "The Whiteness of Space") about race/ethnicity, too.

There's a lot of validity in her concern. I grew up in the era of television "tokenism," where every show seemed to have to include the hero (white guy), the sidekick (black or other color guy), and the girlfriend (not guy). It was annoying, if only because the formula wherein the person of color was still stuck on the sidelines was never, ever violated.

On the flipside, I find TV shows (and movies and books) where there's a homogony of color (or gender or sexual preference) to be deeply, deeply frightening. It's the whole "Friends" phenomenon. How is it that these people who lived in New York City never seemed to know anyone of color? Or gay? And what does it say about them that they don't?

And does it matter?

Sure, people live like that. I would be forced to admit that ninety-percent of my close friends are white and straight. The "Friends" phenomenon is its own kind of truth, but I've always felt that a writer's responsibility is to see the whole picture – beyond the assumptions. Like, for instance, before I worked at the University of Minnesota's Immigration History Research Center, I would have guessed that the majority of immigrants settling in Minnesota were Norwegian, and that Saint Paul’s (my home town) main settlers were Irish. Not true. Both of those are myths perpetrated by storytellers, like Garrison Keillor (and the later by our former governor Jesse Ventura.)

I'm not trying to imply that either of those men are racists, but my feeling is that sometimes by not going beyond what we *think* is true, we inadvertently paint a picture that's not complete.

So what? Fiction writing isn’t about the truth, is it?

I think it is.

I think, in particular, when writing about the future, we need to be awake and paying attention to our words on the page. Our silences -- the people we leave out -- speak volumes about what we think is true... and what we feel is valuable.

I say this as someone whose life was changed by reading science fiction. In 1953, Theodore Sturgeon wrote a short story called "The World Well Lost," and he taught me the power of thinking beyond our assumptions.

Oh Look, Honey, the Gay Hustler is Cruising the Martians

I woke up this morning thinking a lot about something Melissa Scott once told me in an interview. We were discussing GLBT/queer content in science fiction and she pointed out that, particularly in cyberpunk, GLBT elements are often used as scare tactics -- a way to show the seedier side of life. You know you're in the deep, dark place because Jo-Jo sitting at the bar is a transsexual cyborg. Oh look, honey, the gay male hustler is getting cruised at the space station by the Martians. We must be in the dark underbelly of the future.

Where are the non-threatening, happy gay couples in space?

Of course, as a writer I understand that happy = boring. There's not a lot of drama when everyone gets along famously. But, I'm wondering if science fiction as a genre still hasn't shaken that idea that Melissa suggested nearly a decade ago -- that queerness is inherently "scary."

In the last year, I read nearly every paperback science fiction novel published in the United States (this is not an exaggeration, I was on a SF award committee). And, I have to tell you that the GLBT community was woefully under-represented.

In Elizabeth Bear’s series, we find out in the second novel that the main antagonist is a Family man, and has a husband in Toronto. Kudos to Bear for blindsiding me since my gaydar didn't go off on that one, and she did make me ask myself, "Why couldn't he be gay? Was I being heterosexist?" Shame on her for introducing the husband (and his very nice parrot) and killing them off at the end (often the usual fate for gay folks in the media.)

I would say, though, however, that Valens and his husband (of the above mentioned Scardown,) were, at least, nice men. They had a typical upper-middle class life in future Canada. Valens was of squishy moral character, but then so was the hero of the series.

So, at least some GLBT people in the future are non-threatening... but, then it's easy to be non-threatening when you're dead.

Then there’s Karin Lowachee's Cagebird. A difficult book, though a worthy one. However, there's no question that the gay people (and they're all men) in this book are broken, and broken very badly. They're broken in a way that is, sadly, very true to real life -- at least in my experience, but none-the-less this is far from the feel-good GLBT book of the year. There's some serious sickness here, and the sickness is wrapped up in being queer, and, specifically, in knowing that often in society one man's expression of love is another man's kink. This leads to ugliness and heartache. The book is about that, and about what that does to people.

I can’t think of a single other instance in a paperback novel this year in which there were even queer people present in the background. I don’t know what to think about that. Maybe people have been Will & Grace'd to death, and no one wants to even imagine a future with gay people in it. Or maybe GLBT people are no longer scary enough to even sit in the background so that the reader knows that we're not in Kansas any more.

My First Web Listing!

Check this out!

http://www.eternalnight.co.uk/books/h/hallawaytate.html

I'm now officially part of the Eternal Night Science Fiction and Fantasy Horror Fiction Web Site.

Getting the Itch Again (Somebody Stop Me)

I woke up this morning with the desire to write another short story.

"So what," you say, "Sounds great. Go for it." No, you don’t understand. This is an incredibly bad idea. Why? I suck at writing short stories. Worse, to paraphrase Marlin from Finding Nemo, I think I can do these things, but I just can't.

I imagine myself a fairly competent novelist. Certainly, I've written my share of them. I seem to understand the process of writing a novel at least well enough to get to THE END. Starting a short story seems to be the best I can do. I usually stall out a page or two into the thing.

I suspect the reason I don't finish most of the short stories I've started is because of the way I write. I've written to outlines for my novels, but more often than not I feel my way into the story. I dilly-dally for several pages before I really know what the novel is about -- both in terms of plotting, but, perhaps more importantly, in terms of theme, as well.

This is the stuff I have to know when I start a short story. If I don't know what the theme or the plot (especially the ending) is going to be before I start, there's no way I can wrap the thing up in 5,000 words or less.

5,000 words is nothing to a novelist. That's not usually even my first chapter. I'm just getting revved up in those first thousand words, not even thinking denouement, for god's sake.

Plus, for me, writing a short story ends up being a weird kind of time commitment. It takes me months to write a short story, plus then I figure in critique and revision... and suddenly, four or five months have gone by and I haven't written a damn word on my novel due to the publisher in August, you know?

So, like I said. Stop me. For crap's sake, someone stop me.

What Makes a Hero?

I finally saw the last "Star Wars" movie Revenge of the Sith and I didn't hate it as much as I expected to.

This, I should point out, is a major admission from me. I once carried on a year long argument over e-mail with a guy I met at a friend's wedding about how betrayed I felt by Phantom Menace and the subsequent (and, in many ways worse) Attack of the Clones.

Yes, I know I'm a geek and I need a life. Listen, I write SF/F, this *is* my life.

But, I have to give He-Whose-Name-Should-Not-Be-Uttered-(Lucas) a tiny modicum of respect for what I felt he was trying to do in Revenge. For once in a Lucas film, what I liked was the political intrigue.

I wish, in fact, there had been a bit more of it. What was missing for me was a better sense of how corrupt the Jedi had become. When Mace Windu insists that they must kill Emperor Palapatine he says something about how the justice system is completely in Palapatine’s pocket. All we have at that point Windu’s word on that. So, there’s really no conflict when Skywalker-soon-to-be-Vader is horrified.

However, that’s a great moment. It suddenly makes the Jedi into the street wise cops who end up bent because they want justice so badly they’re willing to be unjust to get it.

If only that could have been set-up a bit more... there was even a perfect moment to insert it. One of the first scenes we’re given is the rescue of Palapatine where, when Obi-Wan is knocked out, Palapatine orders Skywalker to kill his captor. I’d have liked a sense of Skywalker’s outrage that that point. I would have liked to see him stand up to the Senator and say, "No, we take him to justice." And then have a small scene where the justice system completely fails Skywalker.

Because then, when the moment comes up, we would know. And, more than that, Skywalker would know. Yet, he could STILL be horrified to hear a Jedi say this.

Especially after having been asked to spy on his friend.

Which is another set of scenes I would have liked expanded. I wanted Skywalker to be a lot less naïve. I thought, in fact, it would have been interesting to see him become a true spy. Playing Jedi off Emperor and visa versa, and in the process discovering the wickedness of both sides and becoming more and more disgusted with the whole political game.

I could relate to that. It would make Skywalker much more sympathetic, in my opinion. And his transformation fairly believable.

On a similar note, I totally dug the way the Jedi treated Skywalker (sorry, I can’t call him Annikin, it’s such a stupid name). I loved the scenes were he’s left behind and left out. That really underscored how much they never trusted him... which again, I’d have played up by having Skywalker really turn spy against them (while also working for them).

The only major problem I had with all of this is that the guy who says he doesn’t want to kill Emperor Palapatine turns around and kills Windu (for wanting to kill Palapatine.) This is not a very consistent philosophy. He then, ten minutes later, goes off and slaughters children in the service of Palapatine, which, in my opinion, makes absolutely no sense given his character up to this point. (Which is why Lucas had to include the stupid subplot about Padme and necromancy -- another Knights Templar reference for those of you who are counting).

As a good counter, I offer you Bruce Wayne of Batman Returns.

I was really enamored of the whole issue of compassion in Batman Returns.

(Skip this line if you haven't seen the movie). There's a major scene when the young Bruce Wayne is learning the ninja arts from his mentor Qui-Gon Jinn, er, whoever Liam Neeson is character is... and the mentor says to Bruce, "Your enemies will show no compassion," and Bruce replies, "That's why it is so important to have."

I have always maintained that a hero need to distinguish himself precisely in this way. The first Batman film shocked me when Batman killed the Joker. As a long time reader of comicbooks (though I'm mostly a Marvel girl, myself), I was very used to the idea that heros are not the killers. Villians (especially long time nemesises, like the Joker) come back and back and back because that's the line which is never crossed by a good guy... that's what makes our heros, well, heros.

Villians are supposed to live, stand trial, go to Arkham Asylum... just like Skywalker says they should.