Marshall Ryan Maresca

Wheels within wheels

2012-02-09T09:41:00.000-08:00

Part of looking at the big picture means not only making plans for further installments, but making sure that those further installments also involve good plotting and storytelling.* The series has to work, as well as the individual books.

Because, let's face it, we use the term 'series' to describe two very different things. One type, like Lord of the Rings of The Belgariad, is actually a single story, which happens to be broken down into several separate books, for one reason or another.** The other type, like Harry Potter, tells an overarching story, but each books stands on its own as an individual unit. The latter is the type I prefer, and that's what I intend to write. But the overarching story needs to pay off, as well as the individual books.

This is where I go back to the Twelve-Part Structure. It can apply to whatever grand arc-plot the series has, as well as each individual book. How much of the twelve-part structure goes into each book, that depends on how many books you plan for your series.*** Trilogies are easy to break down. Tetrologies work, but come out a bit odd in the twelve-part structure. Pent- and Heptologies, which seem to be the very popular****, don't necessarily break cleanly, but that isn't a big deal. But personally, I like the Hexology. Possibly because it breaks down so cleanly with my twelve-part structure. So this is how it works for the Hexology, though it's pretty easy to re-work it as you see fit for however many books you think your series should have.

Book 1: Establishment and Incitement. This is pretty clear, as any first book in a series need to set establish the players of the larger arc-plot, and lay the hints for the bigger things to come. On the whole, this story needs to stand on its own the most, for obvious reasons.

Book 2: Challenge and Altercation. The plot of this story needs to turn the screws tighter on the larger plot. Here, really, is where your main characters realize that something bigger is looming, and they will have to deal with it. More important is, though, is that in Book 2 your main characters need to be challenged far beyond whatever Book 1 did to them, they need to push themselves further than they thought they were capable of, and they should prevail.

Book 3: Payback and Regrouping. On some level, Book 3 should be a dark mirror of Book 1. In the grand scheme of things, Book 1 is a romp (even if it leaves plenty of bodies on the floor). Book 3 should make the problems of Book 1 look like fun and games. But even with that, it can feel like conclusion, in terms of the arc. It can feel like, despite the things your heroes go through, everything is going to be all right.

Book 4: Collapse and Retreat. Everything isn't going to be all right. This is where the hammer drops. On whatever sliding scale you use, Books One through Three were walks in the park. Book 4 doesn't leave scars, it leaves walking wounded. This phase of your arc needs to be about despair. Even if the individual plot of Book Four can be considered a "victory" for your heroes, it's a Pyrrhic one at best. Things will not be the same after this.

Book 5: Recovery and Investment. The arc is in a dark place in the beginning of Book 5. The dark place is the "new normal" that the characters need to believe they live in, and the plot of Book 5 needs to be their fight back to the light. This is where they consider quitting. This is where they decide they can't do that.

Book 6: Confrontation and Resolution. The last book is, of course, about wrapping up the arc plot.

That's how I break it into six books, but like I said, it's easy to shift and shuffle that for however many books your series is. Take, for example, a classic example of seven: Harry Potter.

Sorcerer's Stone (Establishment and Incitement): Harry learns about the magical world and his history (Establishment) and makes the decision that he stands against Voldemort and what he represents (Incitement).

Chamber of Secrets (Challenge and Altercation): Harry learns that the legacy of Voldemort has deeper roots than he expected, and it's still effecting his life (Challenge), and in facing Tom Riddle and the basilisk, he steps up to actively fight that legacy (Altercation).

Prisoner of Azkhaban (Payback and Regrouping): Harry faces uncomfortable truths about his parents, having to confront his own fears directly (Payback). He stands up to those fears, masters the Patronus, is able to fight off the Dementors, and gains some apparent stability through his relationship with Sirius (Regrouping).

Goblet of Fire (Collapse): Voldemort is back and Cedric is dead. Things just got serious.

Order of the Phoenix (Retreat and Recovery): Harry is devastated, ridiculed and tormented over the events of Goblet, and through Umbridge, the system itself is against him (Retreat). Despite that, he pulls it together and creates Dumbledore's Army, and refuses to go along with the lies of the Ministry (Recovery).

Half-Blood Prince (Investment): In learning the full scope of what it will take to stop Voldemort, and losing Dumbledore, Harry decides it is his responsibility to defeat Voldemort.

Deathly Hallows (Confrontation and Resolution): Harry goes after the horcruxes (Confrontation), and then faces Voldemort in the Battle of Hogwarts. (Resolution).

See? The structure of the arc is there, yet each of those seven books also have their own story structure. I haven't gone through to figure out if each of the seven books individually match the twelve-part structure, but I bet they come close.

*- This is, of course, getting ahead of myself, but I always like to keep looking at the map while I'm on the road.

**- I've heard that, in the case of LotR, it had to do with binding machines at the time wouldn't be able to handle the full text. For the Belgariad, it was pure business- Lester del Ray could make more money selling five books instead of three, as Eddings had originally planned.

***- I will not go on a rant about series that have indeterminate lengths.

****- Why is that? Is it the prime numbers?

The Revolving Door of Death

2012-02-06T14:00:00.000-08:00

This video hit the internet this weekend, as a sort of side-door promo for "Chronicle", but it's pretty entertaining stuff in its own right.

Now, I've always said it's pretty easy to take any story, book, TV show, movie, or whatever else and talk about it in a reductive, distainful manner. You can rant about anything, and be accurate (and this rant is, for the most part, accurate), but not actually be honest about what really happened in the story.

I do think this one is pretty accurate and entertaining, and relatively honest. Let's face it, there's been plenty of craziness over the past however-many-years in comic books. (Comics, everybody!) Death of Superman is hardly the craziest story out there.

But one bit in which this recap is a bit dishonest is the idea that Superman coming back to life killed "death" in comics, and hurt sales in a way which Action Comics never recovered from. The revolving door of death had always been a common trope in comics. No one stays dead except Uncle Ben and Thomas & Martha Wayne. Death is not a permanent condition in that world. No one was upset that Superman came back; him coming back was pretty much assumed from the get-go. If anything, they were mad about how it was done, with a bit of handwaving that essentially said he didn't REALLY die, he just went into a "healing coma", while still claiming that he DID really die. It's classic having-cake-and-eating-it situation. Superman coming back wasn't earned. He just woke up when he needed to.

Is that dramatically interesting? No, it's lame. That's what made people mad.

If anything was killed by the Death of Superman, it was the idea of manufacturing a Collector's Item out of whole cloth. Tons of people bought the Death of Superman issue and vacuum-sealed it, forgetting that the thing that makes a collector's item worth something is its rarity. The bubble finally burst on the collector boom of the late 80s and early 90s, and sales of EVERYTHING dropped. People weren't buying anymore with the hopes that they were squirreling away a fortune to be cashed in 30 years later.

Still the video is fun, and it reminds one that if you want your stories to matter, then the consequences have to pay off. Death can't be the same thing as a bit of a nap.

Worldbuilding and Language: Idioms and Slang

2012-02-02T14:48:00.000-08:00

As I've said before, I'm not too keen on doing the nuts and bolts of a constructed language as part of my worldbuilding. Well, more correctly, I think it's a great thing to do, I just don't have the skill or patience to do it.

However, playing with idioms and slang? That's always fun. And, I think, an important thing to do. It seems like it was the underlying structure behind Douglas Hulick's Among Thieves, even to the point of bringing up the details of his Thieves Cant in the foreword. (I especially like how he admits that he combined historically accurate slang with stuff he just plain made up. I approve.)

I made up plenty of slang for Thorn of Dentonhill and the other books set in Maradaine. I even made a point of tweaking it a bit so that slang from the gangs in the Aventil neighborhood would be different from the slang of street kids over in Seleth and Keller Cove (in Holver Alley Crew). Some of the things came from wanting a slang word for something, and wanting to avoid our own word. Street kids and gang members would have a term for constabulary officers, and I didn't want "cop". I tried to think of what they might call them. Since patrol officers are all armed with handsticks (and might use them a little too freely on some street kids), the term "sticks" made perfect sense to me.

That, I think, is the key to doing this sort of thing: does it feel like a term or phrase that evolved naturally? Can someone reading it parse it a figure out the term from context? If so, then you've got a winner.

Idioms are a bit different. I wanted Druthal to have idioms that didn't necessarily apply in English, or meant something that the idiom in our language was too modern or culturally specific. Sometimes I look to idioms in other languages (though usually Spanish, for obvious reasons) and translate them literally into English. Case in point, one of my favorites in Spanish is one common response to ¿Cómo te va? ("How's it going?", or more literally, "How to you does it go?"), which is Va a la patada. Idiomatically, you're saying, "It's going badly", but literally you're saying, "It goes of the kick." In other words, "Life is kicking my ass." Thus, "the kick" could become slang for any kind of ill fortune.

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A brief political aside, for those interested: I'm all for donating to Planned Parenthood, and if I had something I could offer as an incentive to get others to do it as well, I'd do it. But I don't. (At least, I don't think I do. Open to suggestions.) Thus, I'll just point you toward some writers who are. Buy John Scalzi's eBooks this week, and his profits go to Planned Parenthood. Also, Amanda Downum is offering signed copies of her highly-anticipated (by me, anyway) Kingdoms of Dust to the first 15 qualifying PP donators. Have at either one, if you are so inclined.

Stepping Back to look at the Big Picture

2012-01-30T13:35:00.000-08:00

This weekend was spent, in part, organizing and purging. This tied, in part, to deciding to rename the warrior orders in Druthal. Going through documents, finding outdated info, changing the names of things, purging out needless duplicates of paperwork. (It's amazing how many times I've, frankly, thoughtlessly re-printed the same info.) But I'm working on putting together both clean working files to reference (in Scrivener format primarily, though exporting that to a text format as well, in case of disaster), as well as a single, easy hard copy to go to if I need it. It also involves digging through random handwritten notes (as I will jot down ideas just about anywhere) and making sure I've transcribed them somewhere where they'll do some good.

Part of this, of course, involved taking a good, hard look at the bigger picture of things. I've made no secret of the fact that I have four different "heroes of Maradaine" series mapped out, with Thorn of Dentonhill, Holver Alley Crew, Maradaine Constabulary and Way of the Shield each representing the first of their own respective series. Each of these four books stands alone just fine, though I've made a point of including hints and connections that pay off for readers who read everything.

Now, I have a big crazy plan for each and all of these series, which I've worked to some degree. Part of this weekend's process involved finding more detail to fill in, which then filtered back into the final bits of the Maradaine Constabulry re-write.

On some level, I know that it's completely crazy to even be contemplating the level of plan that I have. But I think in terms of epic. And hopefully, I'll be able to make that pay off.

It occurs to me that this particular blog is coming off just a hair short of a total box of crazy. Which is how stepping back and looking at my whole big-picture plan makes me feel, sometimes. The scope of what I want to do is so huge, it feels like a tidal wave that I have to hold back. It's almost the opposite of writer's block: there's so MUCH you can't get out. If I just let it go, it would be an intelligible word-salad of madness. An unsolved jigsaw puzzle, dumped out on the floor.

Thus: Plan. Organize. Focus. Build the edges of the puzzle first. I've got three sides almost done, and I'm starting to build the fourth.

This whole thing will probably make no sense to you, or it makes perfect sense, in which case you should probably be scared for your sanity. Mine's toast.

Off to the word mines.

Using Structure to Best Effect

2012-01-26T14:46:00.001-08:00

Like I've always said, I'm a planner and an outliner. I can't just wing my way through a novel.I need my big picture.

Part of having that big picture outlook is knowing what the meat and bones of the story are ahead of time. The dressing, the sinew, the sauce (depending on which metaphor you feel like using), that always comes out in the writing itself. Sometimes on the second draft. (Case in point, in the currently-wrapping-up Maradaine Constabulary, I've found Minox's whole extended family, something that didn't exist before. Taking him out of the standard 'loner' trope has had some interesting effects.)

But a problem I've run into, almost every time, is that desire to write those "meat and bones" scenes, making it something of a challenge to write those "sinewy tissue" scenes, that are just as necessary. Each time, on Thorn, on Holver Alley, and on Maradaine Constabulary, I reached a point where, in frustration, I would write a [SCENE ABOUT THIS] notation and move ahead.

And that's fine. I think every writer needs to learn their own particular process, and accept how they work it. It took me a while to realize I had to be a planner. I had many, many crash-and-burns romanticizing the "just write and see where it takes me" method. It doesn't work for me.

(If that works for you, excellent. I'm not knocking on any one person's methods. If your methods work for you, then continue with what works. Though I think people should always analyze whether something REALLY works for them, or they just THINK it does.)

Anyhow, I've now accepted that simply writing straight through in a linear way doesn't work for me. I need to satisfy those urges to write the big tentpole sequences that hold the story up, and then use the ropes and canvas to hold it all together.

(I'm just throwing all sorts of metaphors around, aren't I?)

So, this is the experiment with Way of the Shield. It'll also be my first attempt at writing a novel entirely on Scrivener. Scrivener, of course, it's quite useful in non-linear writing. Scenes can be written individually, and then assembled in the desired order, new scenes stuck in-between, and so forth. I believe that this will yield faster results, as my finish-by goal for the rough draft is May 15th.

Down to the word mines I go.

Fantasy Tropes: The Noble Warrior

2012-01-23T13:54:00.000-08:00

Generally speaking, the classic Anglo/Francan/Germanic knight doesn't exist in Druthal or Maradaine. It's a trope that doesn't fit with the worldbuilding I've done, despite it's longstanding place in the genre. Don't get me wrong, I like a good full-plate clad knight thundering on his horse as much as the next guy. But it's not something I'm interested in putting here.

That said, I do have two elite warrior orders in Druthal, neither of which fit the traditional "knight" model. (There are also various elite orders in other cultures throughout the world-- it is a common trope for a reason.) However, on some level, I'm dissatisfied with these two orders.

Conceptually, I still like them. On a basic level, they represent two sides of the same coin. One specializes in offensive combat; the other, defensive. It's the defensive order that is the focus of Way of the Shield, with the main character a fledgling member of the order.

Also, since Druthal as of 1215 has a centralized government and a standing army, an organization of specialized warriors with no direct accountability to that government becomes problematic. The orders still stand, mostly out of tradition, but their roles in society have become obsolete. This obsolescence is a key factor in Way of the Shield as well. Dayne believes in the order, but he sees that others around him are using it more as a political stepping stone. Successfully joining the order offers a lot of social mobility. Dayne is the son of a horsegroom, and now he can rub elbows with nobles and parliamentarians.

So, what's my problem? The names of the orders.

See, originally (the initial worldbuilding, which I did in my early 20s), I had named them the Vanguard (the defensive order) and Warlords (the offensive order). I still like the orders themselves as part of the worldbuilding, the culture. But the names? I'm less comfortable with them. "Warlord" conjures up images of despotic rulers. "Vanguard" means "the foremost division or the front part of an army; advance guard" or "the forefront in any movement, field, activity, or the like." While it could be used for a warrior who stands in front, placing himself between others and harm, I'm not crazy about it.

But what to change them to? That's my question. I'd prefer not to simply have made-up names*. Druthal does follow certain anglo-saxon models, so names that derive from the plain English would be ideal. And ones that conjure up images of "defensive warrior" and "offensive warrior". But I'm at a bit of a loss as what those would be.

Or am I overthinking this? Are "Vanguard" and "Warlord" fine?

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*- I do have a certain fondness for Eddings's Pandion, Genidian, Alcione and Cyrinic knights in his Elenium, but I would feel a bit gross simply mimicking that kind of name.

A less binary look at Genre Fiction Quality

2012-01-19T11:33:00.000-08:00

Earlier this week, Strange Horizons reviewed Michael J. Sullivan's Thief of Swords, in which the reviewer finds the book quite wanting. Her review is pointed and barbed, though entertainingly so. It's the kind of negative review that, I have to admit, I enjoy reading. It is scathing, but it makes its points and backs them up with examples. I've not read Sullivan's work yet, so I cannot comment on the review's accuracy (or, more accurately, how my opinion would differ from the reviewer's), but my gut tells me that I would probably agree with her.* Especially with her point of incorrect usage of Shakespearian style English, where it appears the author had a character speak with "thou", "methink" and "would'st" without much regard to how the grammar of Early Modern English actually works. But that's neither here nor there.

What is here and there is the bit of online firestorm this review sparked. The reviewer was accused of being "mean" and "unprofessional". There was speculation of her motivation in writing a review, even to the point of wondering why Strange Horizons should even publish a review of this book. (This puzzles me, since reviewing genre lit, movies and television is pretty much what Strange Horizons does.) But one of the recurrent points that really jumped out at me was the accusation that the reviewer was too "literary minded", and thus she couldn't appreciate what Thief of Swords is supposed to be: a fun, pulpy romp. The term "ivory tower" is even bandied about.

Now, I'll admit I have read some Strange Horizon reviews with an air of haughtiness to them, but on the whole, even when I don't agree, I find them intelligent and well-thought, showing me a perspective I hadn't considered. But I won't get into that. I won't even get into the personal attacks made on the reviewer and her motivations for writing it, which had some uncomfortable hints of misogyny to them. Rather, I'd like to address the notion that a genre novel can be excused of being well-written if it's a fun, pulpy romp.

The underlying idea here is that there's only one axis to look at: at one end of the line, you have more literary genre novels (let's put, say, Michael Chabon's Cavalier and Clay as an example), and at the other hand you have the pulpy genre novels. The false argument is that someone who likes books at one end of the line simply can't appreciate books at the other for what they are. There's no looking at the perpendicular axis of skill and craft: how well-written or poorly-written the books are, be they literary or pulp.

To take my analogy to food, it's not just a choice of haute cuisine or burgers and fries. Haute cuisine can be a truly well-crafted, elegant dish whose flavors you savor for years to come, or it can be a busy, over-dressed plate whose presentation is designed to cover the fact that the food itself is nothing special. Burgers and fries can be McDonalds Value Meal, or it can a fresh-ground, fire-grilled grass-fed beef patty served with hand-cut fries. Skill and craft matter, and I see no value in excusing sloppy writing and poor research under the banner of, "It's just supposed to be pulpy fun!"

In other news, since we're speaking of reviews, I found** this review of Hint Fiction which specifically mentions (and praises) my story. So that's pretty cool.

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*- Strange Horizons, I discovered, also had a review of my current read, Douglas Hulick's Among Thieves, and while I haven't finished, I'm finding that I am so far agreeing with the negative points the reviewer raised.

**- Yes, I was Googling my own name. Like you don't.

Fantasy Tropes: The Gentleman Thief

2012-01-16T17:17:00.000-08:00

Right now my fiction-reading* is Among Thieves by Douglas Hulick, which I had heard from several sources as being the best fantasy book from a debut author in 2011. So far, I'm enjoying it, but it is definitely a cozy walk down some familiar road. The worldbuilding aspects are a bit more info-dumpish than I care for, but certainly workable-- especially given a first-person narrator that has an interest in history. But on the whole, it's an underworld romp with a thief-hero that does what it says on the tin.

I have to admit, I'm kind of fascinated by how common the thief-hero is in the fantasy genre. We have tons of them. Gray Mouser in Leiber. Prince Kheldar in Eddings. Vlad Taltos in Brust. Locke Lamora in Lynch. You could even make the argument for Bilbo Baggins as a thief-hero.

I'm not immune to it myself. Veranix in Thorn of Dentonhill certainly has thief-hero qualities, and Asti and Verci Rynax, as well as the rest of the Holver Alley Crew, are thief-heroes as well. In both cases, I at least try and subvert the trope a bit. Neither Veranix or the Rynax brothers are just work-a-day thieves in the guild. (It's always a guild, isn't it?) Not to say that's all other writers are doing, but that is the common trope, to the point that Pratchett specifically mocks it in Discworld.

But what is it about the charming scofflaw that appeals to us, as readers? Do we just love the bad boy? I don't think it is quite that simple. We (by which I mean audiences in general) do love to see an underdog win, especially if he does it in a fun way. Heist movies, of course, have the same appeal. We love to see someone beat the system by being clever.

But it's always a tricky balance to walk-- you want your thief-hero to do bad things, but never so far that you can't call him a hero. That's my hiccup with Hulick's book so far-- his main character starts out torturing someone for information. It's a bit hard to get on someone's side when that's how you first see him.

Any favorite thief-heroes that I didn't mention?

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*- At any given time, I'm probably reading three different things: one fiction (Among Thieves), one non-fiction (The Edible History of Humanity) and one for-critique for a fellow writer (Elle Ven Hensbergen's latest, for which writing up my comments is on this week's to-do list).

Whatever you prefix to the -punk

2012-01-12T06:19:00.000-08:00

My good friend Dan Fawcett has started up his own blog, kicking things off with a conversation about the various subgenres in SF/F that get called (prefix)punk. Dan, being much more of an academic scholar that me, notes several of them. The big boys, cyber- and steam-, of course, and then the lesser entries to the canon: clock-, diesel-, sandal-, atom-, tesla-, and the somewhat bewildering "nowpunk".

What, exactly, is "nowpunk"? I'm not entirely sure, beyond the fact that Bruce Sterling, my dear close personal friend*, describes one of his recent works as that. I'm not entirely sure what it might mean.

The various (prefix)punk subgenres are often about style. Not entirely, of course, but style is a big part. They're alt-histories, but specifically ones where culture and technology branch off in a different direction, rather than the usual "What if X was different?' sort of alt-histories. To "punk" something, in this usage, is to alter history in terms of technological and social changes. Give the past something more advanced than they had, or as advanced but in a different way. And the "punk" suffix has become a really useful shorthand. If I tell you I'm doing, say, a "clockpunk" story (and I might argue that the various Maradaine books, especially Holver Alley Crew, have clockpunky elements to them), then you'll probably be able to conjure up a solid idea of the look and feel of the story. (The other edge of that sword is if a writer relies on that trope lazily, figuring just the subgenre name will do the work for them.)

But back to "nowpunk", which kind of fascinates me. What does it mean? Tweaking tech and history of current times? I can't help but think that 24 might be a fine example of it. On one level, it has a recognizable setting of "now" (or the "now" of when it was airing). But it actually presents a very different America than the one we live in. We see eight single-day glimpses from the year 2000 to 2014. In those fourteen years, there are seven US Presidents, three of which are vice-presidents who assume the office after the death or removal of the sitting president. The series centers around CTU, a federal agency that exists to investigate terrorist activity on US soil, and has a fair amount of latitude in terms of violating civil rights to achieve its mandate. It's an America that never had 9/11, but accepted even more trade-offs of liberty for the sake of security than we did after 9/11. It is also an America that fell prey to several more homeland attacks, including two nuclear explosions over those 14 years. Not to mention the technology-- cyber and surveillance tech are slightly more advanced, though to the degree that is typical in any modern technothriller. (Of course any grainy picture can be "enhanced" to perfect clarity.) Would this be "nowpunk"? Possibly.

Thinking about this, it occurs to me that cyberpunk has, in a way, become as much of a past-offshoot as steampunk, where tech and culture branches off in a different direction in the 1980s. Consider this: Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash is set in 1998. (This isn't made explicitly clear, but Hiro Protagonist is about 25 years old, and was born in 1973-- same year as me! And the fact that his father served in WWII is a major plot point.) Though I'm sure there are more current cyberpunk books that are based on branching off today's tech.

So, that all said, anyone have any good (prefix)punk recommendations?

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*- Or, in reality, the sci-fi superstar I sat next to in a panel that one time.

January is not the Month of Doom, for once

2012-01-09T12:16:00.000-08:00

Last year at this time, I was sinus-deep in misery, thanks to Austin Cedar allergies. It was pretty awful, much like it was in 2010 and 2009. It actually had been bad for me in Januaries before 2009, but that was when I realized what was causing the problem. Anyway, in the two years since, I mostly did my best to manage allergy season once it hit. This year, I was actually proactive, taking daily doses of antihistamines, starting a few months out. This has made a huge difference. Cedar levels are ridiculously high, yet despite that, I'm as mentally functional as ever.

(I'll let you all judge how functional that actually is.)

So projects are getting done. Holver Alley Crew was sent to the agent today. I've been doing plenty of work on Maradaine Constabulary, and should have that draft finished pretty soon. Ideas are percolating. Work is getting done. I finished reading the manuscript for my critique group ahead of time, for once.

I like having my January be useful and productive. How about that?

So therefore, back into the Word Mines.

Crazy Shakespeare Ideas

2012-01-05T13:37:00.000-08:00

Every once in a while, that germ of an idea plants itself in my head, and I like to let it play out a little bit, even if I know I'm not going to actually do anything with them.

This often takes the form of ideas for theatrical productions that I'll never do. My days as a theatre producer are behind me for the most part, having already lost my shirt on it once. But that doesn't mean the bug isn't still there.

The idea hit me of doing really crazy Shakespeare productions. I've been involved in my share of crazy ones (a slapstick As You Like It with wise-talking trees, an all-female Macbeth, an utterly doomed surreal Twelfth Night, to name a few), so those ideas still percolate up to the top of my brain. I mean, I know that "high-concept interpretation of Shakespeare" is almost a cliche, but I do enjoy them. Anyway, some strange ones came to me.

Zombie Apocalypse Titus Andronicus- Shakespeare's blood-filled atrocity could go quite nicely with a zombie apocalypse churning in the background. It certainly fits in terms of bleakness. And there's tons of bits that you can use. When Mutius and Quintus are trapped in the pit, it can be a pit full of zombies! When Lavinia is raped, with her tongue and hands cut off, why not go one step further: have her be zombified. Then she spends the rest of the play muzzled and trying to bite people. (This makes the bit where Young Lucius is freaked out by her even more freaky.) Then when Titus captures Chiron and Demetrius, he can let Lavinia eat them! And then Tamora will eat pies of their zombie-infested flesh! Lucius can ride back into town with an army of corralled zombies! It's got a lot of potential.

Military Space Opera Much Ado About Nothing- It's almost TOO easy. Don Pedro's ship docks at Leonato's station, returning from the war. Romance and smart talk between their respective XOs. Alien constable Dogberry speaks in fractured English.

Steampunk Tempest- If any of Shakespeare's plays lends itself to steampunk craziness, it's The Tempest. Prospero can have giant machines. Caliban and Ariel can be bronze-and-pipe covered robots. And awesome costumes.

I'm not actually going to do any of these any time in the near future. So, if you're reading this, and you've got a theatrical fire to burn, why not try one of these?

Digging through the archives

2012-01-02T08:49:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to figure out, going through my old files, exactly what happened on September 18th, 2005.

I say this because it appears to be a significant date, as of my old worldbuilding files and notes, MANY of them were last modified on September 18th, 2005. So why was that the last time I touched them? Near as I can gather and recall, that was around the time I got rid of my old desktop, so I probably transferred/saved a bunch of stuff onto my flashdrive. And while I've kept and shuffled those files around between computers since, I've not really touched them.

Most of this stuff is worldbuilding files of various other nations and cultures in the same world as Druthal. I wrote up a lot of those documents (using a "National Document" format, the origins of which lost to memory) with my old worldbuilding/writing partner (who I still consult & confer with, even though he doesn't do any fiction writing anymore), mostly between 2000 and 2003. Some of them are incomplete. And most haven't been touched since Sept. 18th, 2005.

The truth is, they would all need massive levels of overhaul. For one, I'm not particularly fond of the "National Document" format, and I would need to come up with a new template that's more to my liking. Second, much of the actual writing-- on a craft and sentence structure level-- I find somewhat embarrassing. Third, and most important, there's a lot of stuff in all that I don't necessarily agree with anymore.

Some of it is due to being more knowledgeable now. I've done a lot of reading and research since writing those, and knowing that I have stuff in there that's just plain wrong. Other parts I just don't like, too simplistic, or the broad brushstrokes are a little too broad. (I'm looking at one right now that I really don't remember a lot of it, but I don't care for it.)

But the only nation in which I've done modern, up-to-date work on is Druthal. Two other nations (Acseria and Imachan) I had some more recent work (dated in 2007)-- but that was because I was working on Crown of Druthal in 2007 (that was when I finished the rough draft), and it's set primarily in those two nations.

Since then, I narrowed my focus to Druthal, and specifically the city of Maradaine, which was a major factor in improving what I was writing. I was trying, since I had done an entire world's worth of building to showcase THE ENTIRE WORLD. I mean, that was the underlying concept of the Crown of Druthal series-- they would travel around the world and stop in every country. Because I made it so I MUST SHOW IT ALL.

I've gotten that out of my system since then.

At some point, I would like to go back through it all. Especially since I've made far more specific maps since then. But that's not a project I'm going to get to any time soon.

Plans for 2012

2011-12-29T20:29:00.000-08:00

I did accomplish a lot of things in 2011, but on some level I always feel like I could have done more. So here are my Unrealistic Goals for 2012:

1. Get a book deal for Thorn of Dentonhill. On some level, this is out of my hands. I would really like to say 2012 is going to be my year for this to happen. But the industry moves slow, and I need to be patient. But fingers crossed.

2. Finalize Holver Alley Crew, make that book deal as well. Because we should either go big or go home, right?

3. Final draft of Maradaine Constabulary. Have Mike approve that and start selling it. If we can get the hat trick with the book deals, all the better. But that might be pushing, even in the dreams department.

4. Finish Rough draft of Way of the Shield. Because I need to have the new project working as well. Move or die, just like a shark. And with that, I’ll finish all four planned Heroes of Maradaine first books.

5. Finish worldbuild and outline for Banshee and Starcrossed. Knocking out a first draft wouldn’t suck, either.

6. Outline/Worldbuild for one or more of the unnamed YA/Heroine/Steampunk projects. Because I’ve got stuff rattling around in my skull that wants to get out.

In addition, I’ll be attending Boskone (just as an attendee, not as programming) and ArmadilloCon 34, including the Writers’ Workshop. And there will probably be a few short plays written in that time as well.

So, that should keep me plenty bust for the next twelve months.

2011 in Review

2011-12-26T13:42:00.000-08:00

This has been a good year for me, in terms of growing as a writer. Honestly, I think every year since 2007 (which is probably the year I knocked the training wheels off an got serious about I'm Going To Be A Writer) has been an improvement. But 2011 was a year with a few notable highlights:

First and foremost, there's acquiring Mike as my agent. This has been such a joy and relief in my life this year. I really am quite happy to have him in my corner. Getting an agent has become such a huge (and sometimes insurmountable-seeming) step in the path to publication, I really can't express how glad I am to have moved up to the next step.

And while I did have an excellent time attending the DFW Writers Con this past year (and would recommend the experience to those seeking agents), I'm glad I don't have to do that again.

This year is also when I decided to be diligent and post here on the blog every Monday and Thursday. It's a project that's sometimes challenged me (I almost forgot that today was a Monday), but I've been pleased with the results. It's built the regular readership, and driven traffic to my blog. So that's been a good thing.

This was also my first year at ArmadilloCon in a panelist/professional capacity, as well as a coordinator and teacher for the Writers' Workshop. This was a fantastic experience, and I do owe a lot of it to Stina Leicht. She's been a fantastic source of moral support on this journey.

What else? This year I have Thorn finished and shopping, Holver Alley Crew redrafted and (hopefully) ready to shop. This year I also finished the draft of Maradaine Constabulary and will hope to have the revision ready to send to Mike in just a few weeks. I wrote a couple short plays, including Entropy, produced by Austin Scriptworks.

So it's been a pretty good year. Fingers crossed for 2012 being even better.

It's Thursday already?

2011-12-22T13:07:00.000-08:00

Since 2011 is almost over, time for an update on State of the Writer.

From my last update:

Thorn of Dentonhill (Book 1 of Veranix series): Shopping. I know it's at a few publishing houses right now.
Holver Alley Crew (Book 1 of Holver Alley Crew series): A new finished, polished draft, based on notes from the agent. I'll be sending that to him, plus synopses for potential second and third, in the near future.
Maradaine Constabulary (Book 1 of Maradaine Constabulary series): Working hard on the second draft, which includes a significant change in one of the two main character's living/family situation. I've decided if Minox comes from a long line of Constabulary men, then he needs a sizable amount of family who are either in or somehow adjacent to the city constabulary. That includes tweaking an existing character to now being his cousin.
From Star to Star (Book 1 of Banshee series): As said before, I scrapped my old "USS Banshee" concept to something a bit stranger, and I like it, but I'm still in the plotting/outlining/worldbuilding phase of things.
The Way of the Shield (Book 1 of Vanguard series): I still have a full outline, and I've done some more detail work, and some initial writing. I've hashed out the problems with the main character that were eluding me, so once I finish the aforementioned Maradaine Constabulary rewrites (mid-January, allergies willing), I'll be off to the races there.

Now, what else is there? All the previously mentioned scraps and ideas are still out there (Starstruck, Zodiac 13, Untitled YA Project), plus another high-fantasy big-picture idea that I'm only beginning the worldbuilding on, and the Untitled Steampunk/Spaceopera/Can'tDecide Project. And, of course, Crown of Druthal is in the trunk. Don't think it'll ever come out.

Interstellar Worldbuilding: You are who your neighbors make you

2011-12-19T13:46:00.000-08:00

My space opera stuff is all still in its building and outlining phase, but every once in a while I do a big push of figuring stuff out. And when I do, I always get a sense that the scope STILL isn't big enough. For example, I've roughly defined the area within a 100ly radius of Earth (roughly 4.2 million cubic light years), which includes 4660 stars. Off those, 1568 stars have planets, 361 of those have life of some sort, and 153 of those have intelligent life. And of those 153, 71 have achieved interstellar travel by the year 2373.

(Excel spreadsheets and some extreme dorkiness on my part are responsible for all this information.)

One thing I asked myself is how one can apply the lessons from Guns, Germs and Steel on an interstellar scale. It's a challenging thing to speculate, as how can you tell what resources will really make a difference on an interstellar scale? Do germs really matter at all?

But one thing that became clear as I mapped stuff out was this: who your interstellar neighbors are matters. Because the technology difference between "capable of interstellar travel" and "not capable of interstellar travel" are so extreme, it would make Pizarro's defeat of the Incans seem like a balanced fight. Once interstellar travelers come upon a planetbound species, what they decide to do defines the entire encounter. If they're genocidal conquerors, then the planetbound species will be eliminated. If their imperialists, then the planetbound species are now part of the empire, full stop.

So I decided, for things to make sense to me, Earth's neighbors had to be preservationists. They had to be of the mindset that when you encounter a lower-tech society, you might do a little clandestine research for the sake of science, but you otherwise leave them the hell alone. Perhaps even a step further: they had to have just enough militant in them to draw a line and defend a defenseless species from an invading force.

Using that knowledge helped me define our immediate neighbors, as well as humanity's role on the interstellar scene (which is more or less like a teenager who is smarter than he's wise on his first internship).

Of course, the same logic applies when two interstellar species clash. If you have one species with no respect for alien life who will commit acts of genocide without a moment's hesitation, then the species they come in contact with must devote themselves to defense. They have no other choice.

But it's more than just wars and genocide, of course. You want alien species to work together and cooperate, or at least trade. Because if you don't, how else can you get a cool cantina scene?

All the Tools in the Box

2011-12-15T13:43:00.001-08:00

I was reminded the other day about all the "rules" people like to quote at us, as writers, of how we should (or more often, should not) be writing.

The "should not" is the crucial bit here, because far more often than not, these rules tend to be things not to do. Which is all well and good, but I've noticed that rules that ought to be phrased "try to avoid too much..." or "be aware of..." become gospel from on high: THOU SHALT NOT.

Sometimes I love hearing people spout these "rules", because then it means it's relatively safe to discount other things they have to say.

1. Thou shalt not use passive voice. On the whole, this is sensible advice. However, more often than not, the person giving it does not know what passive voice actually is. Here's a hint: it is not when the gerund form of the verb is used (as in "the boys were walking down the street".) Or anything to do with verb tense or helper verbs. Here's passive voice in a nutshell: when the object of the action is the subject of the sentence. Take "the boys were walking down the street". What the subject? The boys. What's the action? Walking. Who was walking? The boys. The subject is doing the action. Active voice. Passive voice would be, "The street was walked upon by the boys." Subject? The street. But the action is done by the boys. Got it? Good.

2. Thou shalt not use 'to be' in any form. I've heard it said that using forms of 'to be' is "weak writing". But you know what's really weak writing? The kind of convoluted verbal cartwheels I've seen to avoid a simple "to be" sentence. Sometimes it pays to be concise.

3. Thou shalt not use 'said'. I'm of the school of thought that 'said' is an invisible word. People don't get caught up in its repetition. True, if you have a two-person conversation, their dialogue should be distinct enough that you don't need to indicate the speaker at every line. But when you do tag, 'said' is nice and innocuous. I'd also rather tack an adverb onto 'said' every once in a while instead of having characters chortled, exclaimed, exuded, implied or, god forbid, ejaculated. I do like, when appropriate, asked, answered, whispered, muttered, murmured and shouted. But on the whole, said gets the job done.

4. Thou shalt not use adverbs. Yes, sometimes adverbs can be over done, and using an adverb is used where a stronger verb would do a better job, but adverbs are a useful tool, and they are part of the language for a reason.

Here's the thing: I'm against any rule that's about keeping the tools stuck in the box. The words and tools are there, used them.

Plus, can you actually name a book you love that REALLY follows these rules?

Worldbuilding: Cultural Perception Filters

2011-12-12T13:17:00.000-08:00

My current worldbulding/research read is "Spice: The History of a Temptation" by Jack Turner. It's a fascinating look at how the search for spices drove European exploration, as most of what we consider "spices" come from India and the Orient. (This may also be a factor in why most Asian civilizations, while as technologically advanced as Europe, were not as interested in exploration: they already had the spices Europe was seeking out.)

But something that captured my attention was this bit regarding Vasco de Gama's first voyage to India:

In his report to the king, de Gama painted a somewhat distorted picture. Even now he was convinced that Hinduism was a heretical form of Christianity. After two months in the country, he seems to have concluded that the unmistakable polytheism of Hinduism was some sort of misconceived Trinity.

This fascinates me. The idea that de Gama was so focused on Christianity being the only true faith that he couldn't even comprehend a culture having a truly different belief system is rather eye-opening. I think this is an element I've not quite incorporated into my worldbuilding, at least not entirely.

I mean, I have plenty of examples of one culture seeing something another culture does, and thinking, "Well, that's ridiculous" or "That's heresy!"-- but it's another thing to be so deep in one's own blinders that they literally do not understand what the other culture does. And that's a great tool to use, be it in fantasy or sf.

A great example is in Orson Scott Card's Speaker for the Dead. It begins with a group of aliens doing something to a human being that is unspeakably horrific. It's more than murder, it's purely gruesome. But we find out later in the book, from their perspective, they were doing a great honor, and makes perfect sense given their biology. They just didn't get that it works differently for us. Nor does our way for them. Card does interesting things with the ideas of "hierarchy of foreignness", definitely worth checking out.
--
I've got a busy week, and indeed the rest of the year, ahead of me. So off into the word mines I go.

Impatience: The Writer's Worst Enemy

2011-12-08T13:44:00.000-08:00

I've written before about how e-publishing comes off as too easy, but what it really comes down to is impatience.

We're at the beginning of December, which means that NaNoWriMo (aka National Novel Writing Month) has just ended. I don't have any figures or statistics, but I do know that agent querying spikes in the beginning of December, as people who have JUST FINISHED their sprinted masterpiece immediately try to put it to market. And I would bet a minor appendage that e-pub "indie" books spike right around now as well.

And this is because people are impatient about getting their book "out there". "Out there" now is more important than getting it right later. And I know why. You can't write a book without it being a labor of love, and then you have this thing that you have such deep and abiding love for, and you want to share it. Right away. Whether it's ready or not.

I get it. A few years ago, I would have declared Fifty Year War or Crown of Druthal "ready", and had my impatience not been tempered with a strong desire to succeed via the traditional publishing path, I might well have forged ahead and gone straight to the indie publishing method. And I would have failed with those, because those books were not ready. They are now deep in a drawer.

Most of the time, when I read books for critiquing, I can tell they aren't ready, on a fundamental level of pure craft. And I know of two that have been indie published recently, both times because the author insisted that they "didn't want to wait any longer".

Added to this is what I call the "cult" of Indie Publishing. There are success stories in indie/e-publishing, but then you get these proselytizers who insist since someone has succeeded doing it, that EVERYONE should do it and throw away the traditional publishing industry. I'm just not on board with that. But these cultists feed the beast of impatience.

But you know what? Prove me wrong. If you've got an indie/self-pubbed book that you think is FANTASTIC and will turn me around that this person was right, they didn't need to wait and grind the book through the system, than show me. Let me know, and I'll give it a read, and talk about it on here.

POV: The Ignition Timing of the Writing World

2011-12-05T13:48:00.000-08:00

I should preface this entry by saying I know very little about auto repair or automotive engineering. I probably could, say, change my oil or a possibly a spark plug, but beyond that, I'm at a loss. If something's wrong with the car, I'll open the hood and look inside, by mostly that's to make sure that the engine is still there or there isn't a family of squirrels nesting inside or some other "THIS IS OBVIOUSLY THE PROBLEM" sort of situation.

I say this so you all can understand, when I'm talking about ignition timing, I don't really know what it is. Even though I looked it up and everything. But that's kind of the point: this is technical stuff that is going on under the hood of the car that I just don't get, and neither do most people who drive their cars. And they don't want to know, really. They want their cars to work, and they care when it doesn't. And sometimes they can even tell when something isn't quite right, but they don't know what... and the what is the ignition timing is off. Possibly in minute ways that a layman like me can't quite put our fingers on, but we know something isn't right with how the engine is running. But mechanics are probably very aware of it. (Maybe. It might be that most mechanics couldn't care less about it either.)

Point-of-view in writing, I think, is kind of like that. Writers talk about POV a lot. They worry about it, sweat over it, freak out if someone gets it wrong, etc. etc. But I bet it's something readers who aren't writers don't notice all that much.

I mean, I'm sure the average reader knows and notices the difference between first-person and third-person POVs. (Or in rare cases, second-person.) But do they really notice-- or care all that much-- between third-person limited, multi-third-person-limited, or third-person-omniscient? Do they notice when those POVs get violated? And what is a POV violation, anyway? I've had some critique readers ping me for that just when the POV character has too much insight on someone else's emotional state. (Is there really any difference in POV from "Jane was angry" and "Jane's face was full of anger", for example? The latter, of course, would be strange in Jane's POV, but either would work fine in, say, John's POV.)

At the same time, I do think readers notice something is wrong when your POV is done poorly, or breaks established rules. Take for example, the Harry Potter books. For the most part, the books are in limited third-person POV, namely Harry's. There are a few times, notably in the early chapters of many of the books, where the POV is intentionally focused on someone else. (My personal favorite being the Muggle Prime Minister in Half-Blood Prince. I think it's a damn shame the movie version didn't have that scene, possibly with Hugh Grant reprising his role from Love, Actually.) But there is one chapter-- the first Quidditch game in Sorcerer's Stone-- where the POV hopskotches between Harry and Hermione, and I've heard from plenty of readers that they knew something was off there but couldn't quite figure out what.

I'm, personally, a big believer in multi-third-person-limited. I like having a broad canvas of whose head I can get into-- protagonist, villain, sidekick, underling. Only in Maradaine Constabulary did I intentionally limit myself, only allowing the POV to be Katrine or Minox. Though I didn't force that into a structure, always alternating each chapter or such. I don't think I could have pulled that off.

Speaking of, I'm in the process of editing and re-writing that, so back down to the word mines I go.

Now December is Upon Us

2011-12-01T13:56:00.001-08:00

Which means no more Druth History Month. We hadn't actually reached the end of Druth History-- there's still 215 more years to go. (Thorn of Dentonhill, Holver Alley Crew and the rest of the Maradaine stories take place in the year 1215.) However, I've come to realize that I need to do a serious overhaul of the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries, especially with the Reunification.

See, in Druth history, 1009 is a Pretty Big Year, like 1066 for England or 1776 for America. The splintered kingdoms come back together as one nation, Druthal, but in the history as I currently have it written, I gloss over that process somewhat. And I don't want to gloss it over.

Part of that comes from the ideas I have for Vanguard, as Dayne (the protagonist) is a Druth History buff. And an early action sequence takes place at the opening of a new museum by the Royal Historical Society. (Yes, it will be exciting, even if it takes place in a museum.) The point is, the finer points of Druth history, especially regarding the Reunification, needs more detail work. And in some places, just plain rewriting.

In other news, I've finished the Holver Alley Crew rewrite, and once my beta people give it a once-over to make sure I didn't keep writing "through" when I mean "threw" (a sloppy mistake I make far too often-- it's totally a writing-on-autopilot thing), then I'll send it off to the agent. I'm now working on the re-write of Maradaine Constabulary, which is going well enough for now. I'd love to have that done before the year is over-- especially since January cedar pollen tends to turn my brain into tapioca. And then I can devote the beginning of 2012 to finishing the rough draft of Vanguard.

Druth History Month, Part 4

2011-11-28T13:29:00.000-08:00

Previously, under the incompetent reign of Shalcer, Druthal splinters into several smaller nations, including the democratic Acoria, and the nation of Oblune under the ruler of Warlord Merit Terkin

Now, the Eighth through Tenth Centuries
----

Eighth Century
Shalcer focuses all his attention on the lands closest to Maradaine, and as a result Southern Druthal gets ignored in all respects. Many lords realize that Druthal is no more and see opportunity they make a grab for power and land. In 700, many of the counties secede and form new nations, grasping on to old cultural identities: Shielik, Nalat, Limarra, Oscina, Tivark and southern Ciolsan become Scaloi; Siltana, Briyon, Jierre and Henitan become Monim; Cijana, Amalade and northern Ciolsan become Linjar; Nirado, Stalakae and Resechet become Yinara. Kesta, like Brellin, becomes its own state.

In 704 the Kierans call a meeting of Trade, realizing that most of their treaty and trade agreements are signed with Druthal, and are therefore void for all intents and purposes. As a Trade Convention, it is a dismal failure, being nine new nations represented and quite a lot of bad blood between them all. Kieran politicians use this to their best advantage, pitting the various new leaders against each other, who have no idea that they are being used, but rather think that their new Kieran “friends” are helping them. Warlord Preceptor Korit Hiekar discommendates Terkin from the Order, which results in Terkin declaring war on Monim (as Hiekar was from Vargox). Acoria declares war upon Patyma; Scaloi upon Linjar. Shalcer declares war on all the new nations, saying he will reclaim Druthal, and pledges that the Orders will help him.

The Preceptors are wary on committing themselves to Shalcer, as they know that their members owe allegiance to various different kingdoms and lords. When the Preceptors and Grandmasters meet in private, it is decided to not involve the Orders in these internal wars. Vanguard Preceptor Alamarkin states, "In these dark years ahead, We shall be the ties that bind the Trade Nations together. The Orders must place themselves in light of the greater good, and we must place ourselves above any nation, any king, any emperor and even any God who strives against the light. Each man of the orders shall decide for himself which fights he lends his arm to, as his honor decrees, but our pledge is to the Order first."

Thus in 705 the Wars of Possession, possibly the bloodiest period in Druthalian history, begin. The first stage of this is The River Wars. The rivers, specifically the Maradaine and its source rivers (The Waish and the Oblune) controlled the land, Shalcer and others reasoned. The mouth of the Maradaine was controlled by Druthal (or Druthalia Proper, as Shalcer had dubbed it), and Shalcer imposed an embargo on all ships trying to go further inland, seizing their contents, as well as ransacking any ship, armed or not, that came from inland.

Also, the rivers formed most of the new borders, and as many of these new kings and lords were feeling expansionist, to push ones border one must have control of the river. Therefore, many battles were fought on the water, which required boats and ships. For both Oblune and Monim, this was a considerable problem, as neither nation had an appreciable shipyard. Their boats were rather poor, and their tactics were limited to ramming the enemy, which usually resulted in both boats involved sinking.

In 706 an army from Waisholm landed on the north shores of Patyma, and made a march directly for Maradaine. However, the Patymic army tore apart this invading force, whose single-minded march made them extremely vulnerable. The army wore no colors of clan and the Waish king and Clan Lords denied all knowledge of it.

In 712 Ian Acorin dies, and the Republic elects Mikael Canar to the seat of Republic President. Canar is an effective administrator, who craves peace above all else. He sends emissaries to Patyma to end their war. At this point, the body count of the River Wars is enormous. However, no one nation is in any better of a position than when they started.

Shalcer dies in 719, heralded as "Shalcer, Idiot King of Druthalia Proper". His only son, Malceen, is complete moron, barely possessing the ability to speak in complete sentences, let alone to rule. What remains of the royal court sequesters Malceen away and places his second cousin Cedidore on the throne. King Cedidore (719-754) was brilliant and efficient as a ruler, but was regrettably quite insane. He has no interest in reclaiming Druthal or making war with the new nations. He did, however, begin a massive campaign of conscription and mobilization, to the end of completely sealing the borders of Druthalia proper. King Alasar of Kesta declares neutrality in the Possession wars when it becomes clear that Oblune, Monim and Yinara had been eyeing Kesta as a means against each other. King Terkin II of Oblune heads a massive assault on Vargox, which is almost completely burned to the ground.

In Druthalia 722, Cedidore begins "cleansing" his nation by executing any non-Druthalians found.
This is also the year of "The Salt War". Convinced that Kestan neutrality is a lie, and that Kesta is truly allied with Oblune, Monic forces march through the salt flats into Kesta. The Monics have superior numbers in the fights, but when they meet the Kestans they are weakened by their march through the hostile climate. There are five battles total, during which both sides almost completely destroy each other.

By 723 Cedidore decides that Corvia is not worth protecting or having, as it has little of value and is too separated from the rest of Druthalia. Four ships leave Kyst for Corvia, filled with refugees. Once they are gone, Cedidore declares that no more ships will leave Druthal ever, nor will any dock again. He seals the border-- no trade, no entry or exit for any reason. Thus begins The Quarantine. The true degree of Cedidore's insanity is clear, but to the dismay of potential usurpers, he is too prepared for anyone to be able to remove him from the throne. He is oddly charismatic, and he has manipulated the army so members of it are fanatically loyal to him. Druthalia Proper is now a militant state.

In 728 the Pathfinder and Underbrush clans both start a war with Acoria. Acorish President Canar tries to send emissaries to the clans rather than fight. This proves ineffective. Canar tries to give lands to the Waish to appease them. The Waish take the lands, and start to fill them up with soldiers, primed to move forth.

The next year King Yar of Brellin notes the ease in which the Waish took the Acorin land. He takes his forces into Acoria up to the Waish River, slaughtering thousands of Acorins. Canar tries offering money to Yar, which he takes, but the Brellic forces do not leave. Canar sends word to any allies Acoria may have to help him. The Kierans send relief troops to Acoria to help remove the Brellic forces from Acoria. The Kierans will not help remove the Waish troops, since Acoria ceded that land to the Waish.

In 732 Canar dies in his sleep. Some Acorin officials suspect foul play, but it is never followed up on. Rafael Parrin becomes President. Parrin is not the peacemaker the Canar was, and he pushes retaking the territory lost to the Brellics. Acoric and Kieran troops march against the Brellic troops. The Brellin Army is joined with forces from Jastam. The Waish clans move in as well. The assaults are brutal, and in the end, the city of Talite is burned to the ground.

The Kierans follow strict adherence to the Trade Nations Treaties, and refuse to send any troops into Brellin. As the Acorin troops march into Brellin, the Kierans enter Jastam, since their violations give the Kierans right to enter their territory.

Meanwhile, a refugee from the Opiskan territory in Druthalia Proper has reached Yin Mara, having escaped the Quarantine. He reports that food supplies are all rounded up and brought to the major cities, while thousands starve in the countryside. He begs for help for Opiska to be free from Cedidore’s tyranny. These pleas were mostly ignored except by a Vanguard named Lotain. Lotain convinced the Yinaran King that he would sneak into Opiska, observe the conditions, and give an objective report for the King to base any decision on.

At this point, The wars between Linjar and Scaloi continued unabated.

The Acorins lay siege on Gorivow in 737. The city holds for a short while, but soon the defenses fail. However, before the Acorins can enter the city, a diplomatic contingent of Kierans arrive asking that they not further assault the city. Rather, they will arrest and try King Yar for War Crimes. The Acorins balk at first, but the Kierans remind them that they enjoy good relations with the Kieran Empire due to their abiding by the tenets of the Trade Nations Treaties and the Rules of War. The Acorins relent, and King Yar is tried and found guilty. Brellin is forced to pay reparations, and Brellin and Jastam are considered “Dominions of the Empire”, as terms of the trial. Kierans leave an “Administrative Force” behind to govern the regions.

In 740 Lotain returns to Yinara from Druthalia, have barely escaped. His report of the horrors under Cedidore’s rule (which is graphic and thorough) shocks, astounds and horrifies the Yinaran court. People are starving, arrested on a whim, tortured and executed for little cause. The king of Yinara, Essa, decides to try and free the Opiskan territory from Cedidore. The Yinaran forces mobilize.

For ten years, the Druthalian/Yinaran War progressed no further. The Yinarans attempts to occupy any part of Opiska last for only a few days before they get pushed back again.

The northeast settles down, with a Kieran “peacekeeping force” (which very carefully never violates a single treaty) keeping the Waish in line. During this time, Acoria flourishes.

The Scallic/Linjari War rages on, with no sign on the horizon for settlement or victory.

Kestans break their neutrality and join the Yinarans in freeing Opiska in 754. Cedidore himself, while being almost 70 years old, rides to Opiska to “Show the fools how to fight!” It’s clear that he is quite insane, but he is a capable warrior. He leads the charge against the combined Kestan and Yinaran force. The Druths are beaten, and Cedidore is killed.

His eldest son takes the throne, and the title Cedidore II (754-787), claiming that the Cedidores are the “New Maradaines of a New Druthal”. He is just as charismatic and fanatical as his father, but he sees a hopeless cause for what it is. Cedidore II also has five brothers, whom he gives key positions and titles to, helping to secure his place in the government. He withdraws from Opiska, and begins building the “Druthal Wall”, a forty-foot high wall that surrounds the entirety of the nation (even though most of its borders were marked with great rivers—Cedidore II also has the bridges destroyed). This project is finished shortly before the end of his reign.

The nation of Free Opiska is formed, with the aid of Kesta and Yinara. The three nations sign a mutual alliance pact. The Kierans also send aid.

The Druthal Wall being well underway, the other nations see fit to leave Druthal well enough alone. By 765, the western part of what once was Druthal settles down into a relatively calm area. The Kierans sense an opportunity, and send out emissaries to the various new nations, offering to make trading agreements, build and repair roads, and send in “Peace Patrols” to protect the roads and trade caravans. Kesta, Yinara and Free Opiska accept these offers.

The east begins to settle as well, as the war between Monim and Oblune cools, but does not end. Both sides line the Oblune River with soldiers and siege engines (which the Kierans sold to both sides), so that any attempt to cross the river is fatal. This effectively ends active hostilities. The city of Monitel, high in the Briyonic Mountains, is isolated by these actions, having relied on the river to ferry its mined goods to Vargox and Marikar. Although Monitel was technically part of Monim, when goods stop coming from there, it is virtually forgotten.

When Cedidore II dies in 787, his son takes the throne as Cedidore III (787-792). Cedidore III is a raving lunatic of a tyrant, however he is completely lacking in charisma and therefore destroys the loyalty from the military that his father and grandfather built up. Without this protection, the other Druthalian lords remove him from the throne in short order and execute him. In an effort to retain some royal continuity, they give the crown to Lord Mishral, grandson of Cedidore by his third son.

King Mishral (792-799) seems to lack the madness that ran in his cousin’s line. His short reign concentrated on rebuilding the damage done by the Cedidores, improving the condition of the common man. Unfortunately, while personally visiting a particularly devastated farming village, and mob of angry peasants, blaming him for their situation (for they only knew that the King had done this to them, and he was the King), attacked the King’s train and stoned Mishral to death. His son, Mishral II (799-808) continued to work for his father’s goals.

By the end of the eighth century, the Scallics and the Linjari were still fighting their war. The war had gone on for five generations, and the original goals of the war had long been forgotten, both side now possessing an intense blind hatred for the other.

Ninth Century
Mishral II had never been healthy, and over the course of his reign he almost never sets foot outside the royal palace in Maradaine. He also proved unable to father a child. When he finally died in 808, his successor had already been chosen. Mishral took part in the choosing, though many lords found fault in it. The new king was Duke Halitar of Delikan, who was eligible due to being Cedidore’s great-great grandson (by Cedidore’s fourth son). When historians point out that there had already been a King Halitar, he takes the throne as King Halitar II (808-815).

Both he, and later his son, focus one rebuilding what is left of Druthal as a strong nation. Halitar III (815-831) has Druthal build ships again, contacting those on Corvia. To a limited degree, he re-opens trade routes, as Druthal still controls the best source of wool. Some of those prime wool sheep are raised outside the city of Erien, near the border of Patyma. As it is a valuable commodity, the Patymics send their army in, trying to claim all the wide pastureland that the Druths control north of the Patyma River. Halitar III leads the Druth army against them. Starting in 826, the Druth and Patymics gain and lose control over Erien, the city crumbling around them, for several years. Then in 831 the king is killed defending the city.

Halitar III had no sons, and the various lords were primed to pick a new king, and several candidates began politicking and backstabbing to gain the throne. Some thought they could increase the legitimacy of their claim by marrying Halitar’s daughter, Mara. Mara was not interested in any suitors, and announced that she would claim the throne for herself. Some lords considered this a joke, but Mara, who had learned the art of swordplay from her father, showed the lords that she was not to be laughed at by disemboweling several of them in the Council chambers. The rest quickly crowned her Queen Mara (831-838).

Mara pushed the authority of the crown to its limits, as she herself took charge of the Druth army at Erien. The soldiers were at first reluctant to follow her, but she showed that she also had a keen tactical mind, and under her command, they routed the Patymics.

Her rule did get her many enemies though, most notably Lord Ferrick of Abernar. Lord Ferrick, at first covertly and then openly, attacked the legitimacy of her rule. He did this, though, by challenging the legitimacy of Halitar II’s claim to the throne. Ferrick himself also descended from Cedidore, through the second eldest son (though it was not a straight male line), and therefore by all rights his family should hold the royal position. His supporters grew, and eventually rose up against Queen Mara. Mara refused to give up the throne, fighting to the last. According to legend, she defended the throne room in the Royal Palace, killing twenty knights before she was slain, and she died on the throne still holding her sword.

And thus Ferrick (838-861) was made king. Despite the bloody beginnings of it, his rule was quite benign and enlightened. Druthal’s peaceful relations with the power bloc of Kesta, Opiska and Yinara allowed for increased trade. Druthal also negotiated with various Fuergan and Imach traders, creating diplomatic enclaves at the harbors of Kyst and Maradaine, which made those ports more attractive for foreign ships than Lacanja or Yoleanne. The shipyards of Kyst worked to build up a strong Druth Navy.

The situation in the east began to become active again. The Ringfire Clan of Waisholm claimed that Acoria was their ancestral home, and since a Ringfire now sat on the Waish throne, the clans
all came together and attacked Acoria. The army of Acoria was in no way prepared for the full might of Waisholm, and the entire country was overrun in 845. Several hundred refugees took to fishing vessels to escape the Waish, traveling along the northern coast and then turning south until they eventually landed on one of the northernmost Napolic islands, where they formed New Acoria.

The Kierans then declared war on Waisholm for these actions. They pulled out all of their “peacekeeping” legions from the west and Kellirac to attack the Waish in Acoria. The Waish responded to the Kierans, and soon the two nations were fully at war with each other.

Through the 850’s, the Scallics and the Linjari became unable to continue their war, as both sides were so utterly drained of resources and men from the effort. The border between the two was called “The Wall of Bones”, for it was literally a barrier made of eight generations of their dead. Acserians send relief to both nations in exchange for a cessation of hostilities. The two nations agreed, and the Acserians came with relief, food, and the word of God, all of which they spread throughout the two nations.

By the reign of Ferrick II (861-883) the Acserian church had taken a strong hold of the Scallic people. It had also spread into southern Monim, as well as into Kesta and Yinara. In Linjar, in didn’t take as strong a hold, as the Linjari loved what the Acserians would call “sin and hedonism”. Eastern trade is disrupted when the Tyzanian Empire falls apart, throwing its entire continent into turmoil.

It was during the reign of Ferrick III (883-903) that the institution of slavery (as is allowed by Acserian doctrine) came back into fashion in Scaloi and the southern parts of Monim, usually using Linjari for slaves. The people in northern Monim were appalled by this and in 892 they broke off from the southerners, creating North Monim. Since a majority of the Monic army was northern, they were able to effectively create and guard the border. They declare the practice of Acserianism to be illegal in North Monim.

Tenth Century
Acserianism has a hold on all of the people of the west, with the exception of Linjar and Opiska, when Ferrick IV (903-915) comes into power. The real test of this comes in 907, when Allynum, an extreme member of the Fundamentalist side of the Church, is elected Rei. He passes a number of anti-magic and anti-tolerance laws in Acseria, and a number of the Druth nations follow suit. Druthal itself does not, as Ferrick IV is not a believer in Acserianism. A large number of the Druth people are amongst the faithful, though, and there is a growing feeling that the king does not speak with the voice of authority since he has no faith in God. The people rally around Kellith, second cousin to Ferrick, and a vocal proponent of the Acserian faith. Faced against this, Ferrick abdicates the throne and exiles himself to Corvia. Kellith takes the throne and the people rejoice, although later most historians would call him Kellith the Cruel (915-934).

Kellith immediately declared that Druthal would again be a whole nation, starting with the heathens of Opiska. The Druth Army thundered into Opiska. Both Kesta and Yinara then declared war on Druthal, although they did not ally themselves together. Opiska became the burning battleground for their three-way war. Kellith also would take any opposition to his orders, even to the point of slight disagreement, as a challenge to his power, and since he was on the Druth throne by the divine right of God, it was a challenge of God, and therefore heresy. Heretics, by his decree, were to be tortured and crucified. The Druth nobility quickly took up the policy of staying quiet.

Since the Druth attention was focused in the south, Erien and the surrounding countryside was left undefended. In 919 the Patymics moved in on this opportunity, capturing the territory with almost no resistance. Patyma, Oblune and North Monim also signed a mutual defense treaty, as the Waish/Kieran war had now spilled over into Brellin and Kellirac. The Kings of these three nations also affirmed that the Rei of Acseria would get no foothold in their countries, and the northwest became the only safe area for free thinkers and practicing mages.

In 934 Kellith and several of his close advisors die during dinner, which was obviously poisoned. His son takes the throne as Kellith II (934-938), and various lords persuade him that he is needed on the war front. He goes, giving the group of lords who were plotting against the line of Kellith some latitude. They wished to remove him from the throne, but needed a suitable replacement that the people would accept without hesitation. As they discuss in secret, a breakthrough is reached when Baron Culathain casually mentioned the differences between the Acseram and Kellith would quote and the one he possessed.

Some of the other lords examined his copy, mostly out of idle curiosity, and found it to be almost a millennium old. Culathain explained that the book had stayed in his family for all these generations, noting the record of births that had been written in the back of the book for the past centuries. This record revealed (unbeknownst to Culathain) that this Acseram was given to the first King Maradaine by Galena as a gift, and the lineage it marked was Maradaine’s—Culathain was a direct descendant of the first king of Druthal! Knowing they now had the strongest possible claim to make on the throne, this discovery was announced to the populace. It was met with skepticism until Kanna Ishien, the Church’s representative in Maradaine, verified the authenticity of the book. Kellith II got the news and rushed to Maradaine to find himself neatly deposed, and Culathain being coronated Maradaine VII (938-964).

Maradaine VII quietly ceded the war in Opiska, pulling Druth troops out. The Kestans quickly moved in and annexed the area. Neither the Kestans nor the Yinarans gave up on fighting Druthal, though, as both armies began to push at the southern border, forcing Maradaine to keep the bulk of his troops there to defend it. By 940 these armies stop trying to invade Druthal, but keep their forces at the border as well.

The next few decades are marked with a “quiet, uneasy peace” in which most countries took up an attitude of isolationism, as it seemed the slightest misstep might trigger a new war. The only contact between nations was through the Acserians, who had missionaries and ambassadors throughout the Druth Nations. All nations began to build their armies and hoard as much gold as possible, knowing that some great war was coming. The lowest classes suffered the most from this, as they were heavily taxed.

Druth ships started traveling east again during the reign of Maradaine VIII (964-988). In the wake of the fall of the Tyzanian Empire, the territory known as Bürgin had become a major power, showing dominance on the oceans. Another major power in the midst of several petty kingdoms was Lyrana, which seemed to be holding on to several Tyzanian traditions. Neither country seemed to be worth trading with, however.

As Maradaine IX (988-1009) came into power the tension between the nations was intense. All borders were closed, except for between Patyma, Oblune and North Monim.

The Latest in Self-Publishing Scandals, aka The World vs. BookCountry

2011-11-24T08:20:00.000-08:00

"You remember when I said how I was gonna explain about life, buddy? Well the thing about life is, it gets weird. People are always talking ya about truth. Everybody always knows what the truth is, like it was toilet paper or somethin', and they got a supply in the closet. But what you learn, as you get older, is there ain't no truth. All there is is bullshit, pardon my vulgarity here. Layers of it. One layer of bullshit on top of another. And what you do in life like when you get older is, you pick the layer of bullshit that you prefer and that's your bullshit, so to speak."
-Bernie LaPlante (Dustin Hoffman), Hero

Last week BookCountry launched from public beta to being fully open. They also launched their self-publishing services. This second aspect has gotten a lot of attention in the author blogospheres, especially from successful self/indie publishers. Here and here are two prime examples. There are plenty of others. The main argument being made is that BookCountry's self-publishing services are charging MUCH TOO MUCH for what they offer, and therefore are a scam and a rip-off.

You know, that may be.

But so is every other self/indie-publishing service, to one degree or another. The successful self/indie authors out there who are trying to get everyone to Join the Movement (or Cult, depending on your POV) might want to pretend otherwise, but that's the basic gist of it. Every self/indie service wants to make money off of you selling your writing. That may be with an upfront fee, or a percentage of sales, or both, but that's what they want to do.

And that is all right as well. Of course all these services want to make a profit. I don't begrudge them any of them for doing that.

Before I continue, some disclaimers.

I have been involved in BookCountry since early in its private beta, specifically in its primary function as a peer review site. In that capacity, I think it's quite excellent and I recommend it.
I have had several exchanges with Colleen Lindsay at BookCountry, including testing out their self-coding-for-ebook instructions. My main purpose in doing this was helping them confirm that their instructions were clear and easy to follow. My main take-away is that Colleen Lindsay is a good egg in this business who genuinely loves books and wants to help writers with tools to succeed.
I, personally, have little-to-no interest in self/indie publishing. I currently have no intentions for doing it myself, nor do I begrudge anyone who decides that it's the best choice for them.

What I find kind of fascinating is why some of the Indie Pub Pushers consider BC more of a scam than their Self-Pub methods of choice. To which I say, eh. I don't see Amazon or Smashwords operating on altruism.

The premium package at BC (the one that gets their dander up the most) offers hand-coding of e-book/printed book layout and distributing it to various sellers. Apparently, all you have to do is send the MS Word doc, and they do the rest. The argument against, made by the Indie Pub Pushers, is that everything they are offering are things you COULD do by yourself with a minimal investment of time and money.

I can see their point, but on some level it's the Auto Mechanic argument. Yes, I COULD save money by taking the time and effort to change my own oil and filters and rotate my tires. But I don't want to do that. I'd rather give it to a professional and pay him and not worry about that. There are some that would say that's a bad attitude about car maintenance, and I should be more self-reliant. But that's not for me.

Does BookCountry charge Too Much for it's particular form of Indie/Self Publishing? Possibly. But I find it kind of funny that the argument against is more or less, "Their rip-off is horrible. You should use the rip-off I use. It's much better." Find the bullshit you like, and leave others to their own.

Druth History Month, Part 3

2011-11-21T13:40:00.000-08:00

(Previously in Druth History: Druthal frees itself from the rule of the Kieran Empire, and starts the slowly, painful process of self-rule. Weak central government leads to squabbling and infighting amongst the Druth counties, and the southern countries of Yinro and Scaloi engage in all-out war.)

Now: The Third through Seventh Centuries.
----

Druthal, by counties, in the Fifth Century

Third Century
In 204, the King, Falsham II, develops a degenerative sickness. Many of the counts feel that his son, a cruel and pompous fool, is ill suited for the throne, and while Falsham is in the throws of fever, they organize a quick hearing and declare his son incompetent. Falsham dies shortly thereafter, and his nephew Thalin becomes king.

Thalin (204-227) ends the isolationist era for Druthal. Thalin was in league with a number of lords (which was why he was elevated to the throne), and these lords were interested in improving opportunities for trade and business. Under his leadership, Druthal starts building merchant ships, and sending out diplomats. These diplomats went out to every Kieran duke, Waish clan chief, Kellirac lord and Acserian prince, as well as the kings of Monim and Yinro and the queen of Scaloi, with purpose of opening up trade routes for Druthalian merchants. By the end of his reign, there were agreements throughout the former entirety of the Kieran Empire, and the treasury of Druthal was overflowing with trade revenue.

When his son was crowned King Halitar (227-243), he took control of a Druthal that was now thriving. Halitar’s greatest success came through fortuity rather than skill, as it was during his reign that a fleet of merchant ships from the Fuergan family of Giowen made harbor in Lacanja in 237. Up until that point, contact with any of the Fuergan families had been extraordinarily rare, reliant upon travel across Kieran. Knowledge countries and cultures in the east had been nothing but fleeting rumors. Through the Giowens, Druthal now had a new source of trade and solid information about the eastern world.

Halitar’s reign is not without tragedy. In 238 his son, Prince Fultar, falls in love with Princess Demea of Pelkin in Acseria. While courting her, however, Lord Kuvar of Kellirac marched a unit over the mountains into Acseria, storming Galena, kidnapping the princess, and taking her to The Keep. The Prince of Druthal appealed to King Halitar for troops to take her back with, but the King refuses to commit any troops to a protracted conflict in Kellirac. Prince Fultar gathers a few close friends, and attempts to rescue Demea himself. However, in the attempt, all but Fultar are killed. Fultar is captured by the Kelliracs, and thrown into the dungeons of the keep. King Halitar begins an assault on Kellirac to rescue his son. Upon hearing this, Fultar and Demea (who refused to marry Kuvar) are executed. The Druthalian army, badly beaten by the weather and the forces of Kellirac, return home, ashamed. The agreements between Druthal and Kellirac are destroyed, and massive military installations are constructed along the Druthalian/Kellirac border, so Kellirac is effectively sealed off from the outside world. This event, years later, served as the plot for Demea, a famous Druthalian opera. It also left Druthal without a crown prince.

As Halitar neared death in 243, there was much debate over who should be king. The various lords of Druthal argued hotly over it, until the arrival of the preceptors of the Warlords and Vanguard. These groups had remained reclusive for two centuries now, but had stayed in strong contact with each other, and now intended to take a role in the current politics in order to maintain the rough peace that Thalin’s trade treaties had created. They declared that the best choice for king was Gelmin, Halitar’s grandson by his eldest daughter. Gelmin was only ten, so the Preceptors took it upon themselves to act as his regents. Some of Druth lords were enraged at the idea that men of “common birth” would serve as regents and advisors, until Callum Tor, the Warlord Preceptor, pointed out that the preceptors of the orders served as advisors to King Maradaine, and would it not suit Gelmin to have the same advantages, and be as great a king?

Gelmin was officially crowned at the age of fifteen. The Kierans reacted warmly to him taking the title King Gelmin (248-278), as this name was a Kieran one. Gelmin would give the Kierans no preferential treatment, though. The preceptors of the four orders became his close friends and advisors, and through them he had access to the orders, and therefore had better information as to what was truly going on in the kingdom. Several barons had their private injustices brought to light during Gelmin’s rule.

Gelmin also shocked the royal court by forming a military alliance with Yinro, solidified by marrying Princess Isabeau, daughter to the Yinrite king. This alliance enraged both the Monics and Scallics, who both respond by regrouping their forces and engaging in a unified assault upon Druthal and Yinro, with Yinro taking the main focus of this. Gelmin does honor the alliance and sends relief troops, including some members of all four orders.

King Fendrick (278-310) takes the throne at the age of fifteen when Gelmin dies suddenly. Some suspect use of poison or magic in his death, but no investigation is made. He continues with fighting the war against Monim and Scaloi with Yinro. In 284, the two Yinrite Princes (Donclaude and Pondaux), who were serving as generals in the war, are killed. Old King Orjean of Yinro was devastated by the news of this, and died two years afterwards. The chiefs of protocol in Yinro and Druthal both studied the situation, and all came to the same conclusion that the man with strongest claim to the Yinrite throne was, in fact, Fendrick. In 287 he was crowned with that title.

Burdened with two crowns, Fendrick decided that he would end the situation with Monim and Scaloi once and for all. Monim, in particular, was targeted, due to its long-standing use of work camps and slave labor, practices that Scaloi had instituted as well. Both nations used Druths and Yinrites as slaves. For the sake of both his nations, Fendrick committed the full might of his forces upon their enemies.

The Druth nobles were not particularly interested in aiding Yinro or righting moral wrongs, but the thought of getting control over Monim—land rich in gold and silver and other metals—was motivation enough to lend their full support to the war.

Against this commitment, neither Monim nor Scaloi could hold their ground. The Druth force swept like wildfire southward, led by Fendrick. While he, the heads of the Orders and the most loyal of the Druth nobility are in the south, treachery brewed in Maradaine. In 295, the Royal Lord Chamberlain Maxwell, once he is sure the King is safely away, dismisses several Counts and lords, and replaces them with loyal followers. Then, he names himself commander of the Maradaine militia (the defense force left behind in case of surprise attack on the city). Any militia commanders who disobey he has removed from duty and executed. Lord Chamberlain Maxwell was a powerful enough and trusted enough advisor to do this all with little trouble. He had the Prince sent to a Kieran academy, and the Queen sent to a nunnery. In just under few months, he effectively seized the throne with next to no bloodshed. Chamberlain Maxwell declares himself King of Druthal, as the King of Yinro (the emphasis he makes in his speeches) has been too busy for Druthal, and has been ignoring his own people. Surprisingly, the Druth people largely agree, and support this "new King".

Leaving an occupying force in the newly conquered south, Fendrick and his lords make a frantic march north. Maxwell manages to meet their forces in Jarechna. Fendrick pulls his forces back to the city of Lacanja, while the Preceptors of the Orders keep Maxwell’s forces busy. In Lacanja, soldiers are loaded onto ships that sail north and then down the Maradaine. Fendrick and his allies are able to pin Maxwell within Sauriya.

King Maxwell (295-296), unable to fight a war on two fronts, pulls back to the city of Kyst, his birthplace, and sight of his proposed new capital, for a valiant, but insane, last stand. His forces, outnumbered by at least seven to one, dig themselves into defensible positions, and manage to hold the forces of the Fendrick for nearly a week, before surrendering. King Maxwell was captured, hiding in a wine cellar, crouched in a pool of his own urine. During his trial for treason, his obvious mental instability kept showing up, as he defied the authority of the royal courts up until the end. At his execution, his final words were "You cannot kill me! I'll have you all arrested!"

King Fendrick begins a massive purge of his corrupted government. In the end, he has people on every level of the government, from the Dukes right down to the petty officials, removed from power, and replaced. Beyond that, he now has massive amounts of new, conquered territory that needs to be controlled.

Fourth Century
In 302 Fendrick announced his new plan—he literally redrew the map. He declared that what was Druthal, Yinro, Monim and Scaloi would now be one nation—Druthal. The entire country was broken up into new districts with new names, and those who had been loyal to Fendrick and proven themselves with valor received titles corresponding to the new districts. The southern areas in particular had been broken up into small groups to end any previous sense of national identity.

Fendrick shocked the rest of Druthal one more time by stepping down and ceding the crown to his son before he died. King Meltin (307-329) ruled unobtrusively, focusing on repairing trading relations with Acseria, Kellirac, Waisholm and Kieran. For the first time in Druth history, the Counts of Druthal had the means and motivation to encourage and sponsor artists and thinkers, so a number of great works came about during this time.

The reigns of Santral (329-348) and Bintral (348-372) proceeded in much the same way, and Druthal prospered. Even the once shattered and demoralized southern territories began to recover. Bintral wanted to improve education in Druthal, but his advisors had no idea how to go about it. Requests for assistance in this matter were sent to Kieran and Acseria, but only the Acserians responded, sending traveling missionaries to go to Druthal, from town to town, teaching basic skills such as reading and writing. They did this with their holy texts, however, so this resulted in several Druthalians, especially the rural ones, being exposed to the Acserian faith, and many began to take up its beliefs. Faith in the Acserian religion grew particularly strong in southern Druthal.

This reached the point where King Fendrick II (372-398) declared his own faith in the Acserian religion, and ordered that churches be built throughout Druthal, and encourage his citizens to attend, and for some to become ordained as priests of the faith. His advisors grew worried that Fendrick’s decision making was completely centered in his faith, and he would often not take action without first consulting with members of the Kannan Assembly, if not the Rei himself. They took steps to circumvent the king from as many major decisions as possible, making sure that people in key positions in the royal court did not share his faith. When Fendrick announced his intention of a vow of chastity and celibacy, his advisors did nothing to discourage this, so when Fendrick II died, the government of Druthal was primed to place a man on the throne that had been long groomed for this position.

King Haldrin (398-413) had only a tenuous claim on the throne—he was the great-grandson of Santral, and any expert in protocol would be able to point out three or four men with stronger claim than he had. When Haldrin was crowned, though, none of these men stepped forward to challenge it, having been bought or bullied by Haldrin’s supporters. Haldrin was quickly able to form strong ties with the neighboring areas, partly because he claimed affinity with each one; his ancestry could trace a Waish Clan-Chief, an Acserian Prince, a Kieran Duke and a Kellirac Lord.

Fifth Century

Haldrin and his aides decided that Druthal needed a stronger presence in international politics—even to the point of arguing that Druthal had the right to rule over what had once been the Kieran Empire. Haldrin, with his mixed heritage, could bring legitimacy to claims he might make within the other countries. Citing the trade agreement that Halitar had made centuries before, he sent notice to the other nations that the five nations were now “The Trade Nations” and he was now the “King of Trade”, the Overlord of them all, and the Druth army had the might to enforce this.

In 403, Haldrin was proven quite wrong, as the Kieran Legions and Waish clans swept into Druthal with a deadly fury. The Druth army was overwhelmed, and Haldrin was forced to concede. The Acserians kept the armies from completely overrunning Druthal, and it is Rei Trofilian IV who suggested that some of Haldrin’s ideas were not without merit. At this point, a treaty is drawn up between Druthal, Waisholm, Kieran, Acseria and Kellirac, which does not necessarily bind them to peace or alliance, but opens up the opportunity for trading between all five nations, and thus is called the (First) Treaty of the Trade Nations.

Haldrin’s supporters made themselves scarce as the other counts brought him to task. Haldrin was sanctioned by the Counts, and as a result the power of the throne was greatly diminished, and there now existed the Council of Counts. This noble council held great amounts of power in Druthal for some time to come. Haldrin spent most of the rest of his reign in seclusion and study.

For the next decades Druthal both thrived and regressed. Druthal thrived because the Treaty of the Trade Nations allowed for increased trade and reduced tariffs at the borders. The Counts all had their hands it various merchant enterprises and everyone thrived. Druth ships even traveled around Acseria to the eastern nations such as Mahabassa, Fuerga, Tsoulja, Mocassana, and the Tyzanian Empire. Druth wool and leather in particular were popular goods in the east. It regressed, however, because while kings like Falsham III (413-437) and Haldrin II (437-468) sat on the throne, they wielded very little power. Under the Council of Counties, Feudal traditions returned. The king no longer held control over Druthal’s forces. The Counts, and even the lesser lords, had their own soldiers. In addition, members of the Orders took up the tradition of serving a specific lord, often as a close advisor and captain of their forces.

As would be expected, the Counts began to argue with each other, and since they had fighting men at their disposal, would do battle upon each other. The Council laid a series of rules for these battles (on top of the Kieran Rules of War which the Trade Treaty imposed upon them) to keep them honorable. Part of this was that the attacking Count, to have a fair and legal attack, must write up a series of grievances against the Count he was attacking, and the King must acknowledge the grievances. As far as the Council was concerned, if the King had received them, they were acknowledged. During these years Druthal suffered several score of these private wars, some of which were no more than an excuse for the lords to practice their training of tactics.

During the reign of Haldrin III (468-494) some attempt is made on the king’s part to formalize these conflicts into tournament—using less fatal skill-at-arms challenges (such as jousting) to settle the grievances. To an extent this works, as the tournaments become a greatly enjoyed social event, but it in no way replaces the actual battles. But Druthal was so disjointed that almost no one had noticed that Kellirac had united under Gerfurt, who had been named “Dudrican”, the Kell equivalent of king.

In 483 Gerfurt took an army of Kelliracs and sacked the city of Gorivow in the county of Brellin. While the Baron of Gorivow fancied himself an excellent tactician, he was in no way prepared for the full fury of a Kellirac assault, and Gorivow fell. The Kellirac army then pushed west, wrecking its way through Maquisa, Keonia and Prenkaw, until the combined forces of the Counts of Itasa and Kesta met him at Torest to hold him at bay. Gerfurt is forced to more his army into the city as they lay siege on it. Haldrin III put out the call to arms, and many Druth lords quickly responded. Several Waish Clans, notably the Arrowflights, came to aid the Druths, mostly for the chance to fight the Kellirac. As these forces unite, Gerfurt breaks his army through the Itasans and Kestans and heads up the river to Maradaine.

Gerfurt’s forces are met by the combined Druth and Waish forces at the city of Delikan, and he is unable to get a foothold in the city to use as shelter. After a long and terrible battle the Kelliracs are defeated and Gerfurt is captured. The Druth and Waish are eager to execute him, but emissaries from Kieran and Acseria are on hand to point out that by the treaty of Trade Nations, he must be tried, and being of noble blood, he must be treated with a degree of respect. A court is assembled (upon which sits Haldrin III), and a proper punishment for Gerfurt is decided upon. He is exiled to Bardinae, but allowed to take a small force (no more than 200 men), and given the title "Emperor Gerfurt of Colthinwia". Colthinwia is a small, inhospitable island off of the Bardinic coast.

While Druthal puts its efforts into rebuilding, a new version of the Trade Nations Treaty is written, in which it is decreed that Kellirac will be permanently divided into four parts of equal power, and never allowed reunification.

In 494 an older, bitterer Gerfurt attacks Maradaine by sea with his new Bardinic army. He manages to take the Druthalians by surprise, and occupies the city. He has Haldrin III executed, and himself named King of Druthal. He then sends his Bardinic fleet upriver to attack Delikan and further Druth cities. Three months later, he is turned out by Prince Caldrais, who declares that since Gerfurt has had a trial and violated the court’s decision that no more trials are necessary and has Gerfurt executed, and his generals tortured. King Caldrais (494-513) is a harsh ruler, bitter over his father's death. Under his rule, the Council of Counties submits to his authority.

Sixth Century
Druthal spends the rest of Caldrais’ reign repairing and rebuilding. Trade with Druthal’s neighbors diminishes as the borders are more tightly controlled. Overseas trade with the east all but disappears as The Great Eastern War begins in 511. Some Druth soldiers and members of the Orders travel east to join up as mercenaries in the war, but otherwise the Trade Nations stay uninvolved in the whole affair.

After Caldrais’ death, the authority of the throne once again diminishes as the Council regains power. The reigns of Gelmin II (513-524), Falsham IV (524-549), Gelmin III (549-557) and Gelmin IV (557-581) are only remarkable in how unremarkable they are. Once again the Counts fall into the pattern of small wars and tournaments. The Counts pushed for more power, and increased the taxation of their lands. The poorest class, the serf, which had before been merely struggling, were now in a state of oppression, as the taxes crushed any chance they had at making more than the merest subsistence living.

It was Haldrin IV (581-602) who showed a degree of cleverness in playing the Counts against each other. Realizing he had little power at his disposal, he created havoc in the social circles of the nobles by using one of the few authorities he had left—the granting of title. He announced that Count Otherin of Rinaser was now a Duke, the first Druth to bear that title.

Immediately the court of Druthal was astir—Counts scrambled to curry Otherin’s favor, or Haldrin’s, or to plot against them both. Haldrin treated it all as a game, and when the game got boring for him, he would name another Duke (sometimes one of the ones plotting against him), and the lords would all pounce again. The political scheming and backstabbing reached a new high in Druthal, which Haldrin never took seriously, because for him it was merely entertainment.

Seventh Century
When Haldrin IV died in 602, approximately half of the former Counts were now Dukes. Haldrin V (602-617) was no where near as clever or as easily amused by these games. Unable to play the Counts the way his father had, he was quickly pressured into naming the rest of them Dukes. Their new titles now secured, the Dukes of Druthal went back to their political intrigues against each other, using the throne as a tool in their games.

This line of kings, originating with Haldrin in 398, was the longest in Druth history. The line was beginning to suffer from too much intermarriage as the bad traits continued to surface. Fendrick III (617-629) was not very clever, nor was Bintral II (629-652). The both held the throne well enough for the needs of the Dukes, however. It was during the reign of Bintral II that the Orlikan Plague stuck.

Believed to have come from the east through the Fuergans, Orlikan (from the Fuergan for “Slowing Breath”) attacked the lungs, making it harder and harder to breathe until one was too weak to breathe at all, and then died. Unfortunately, it would take months to notice it happening, but then only a few days to die. When the Druths started to notice the increase in deaths in Lacanja, the city where it seemed to have started, they decided to quarantine the city in 649. At that point it had been too late, the disease had long since spread throughout the country. There are massive deaths, and whole communities become empty from it.

The plague, spreads like wildfire throughout Druthal, as well as Waisholm and Kieran, and wipes out large amounts of their populations. Farmland lays fallow for years. The king himself dies from it in 652. Kellirac, being somewhat isolated geographically, is virtually unaffected by the plague.

Bintral III (652-674) inherits a wounded, bleeding kingdom. By 670 the plague dies down, but the aftereffects are serious. Druthal is struck with famine, as well as economic depression. Serfdom is no longer viable, since the lowest classes were struck the hardest by the plague and the serfs are almost completely wiped out. Since good workers become a valuable commodity, the Dukes and lesser lords are forced to sell land and hire yeomen to work the land. When Bintral IV (674-684) becomes king, Druthal is only starting to mend itself.

In 684, King Bintral IV dies, and his son Shalcer (684-719) takes the throne. Due to the fact that most of the Dukes and Lords are occupied with their own concerns, few notice that Shalcer is an incompetent fool.

Duke Malcor of Rinaser, financially devastated by the effects of the plague, tries to crack down on taxation of his populace, which do not respond well. In 687, Ian Acorin, a rich landowner, leads a middleclass revolt against Malcor and the rest of the nobility in Rinaser. Malcor discovers his resources are quite depleted, and he is unable to mount a defense. Acorin and his followers gain control, and Malcor and many of his barons are executed.

By 689, Acorin was moving north and east with his "Banner of Freedom", which appeals to the overtaxed middle and lower classes. They effectively extinguish the noble presence in the region. Rinaser, Weisa, Wenika and Erytina unite and declare themselves seceded from the Druth throne. King Shalcer, too mired in financial problems to do anything about this, lets the lands go. The Free Republic of Acoria is formed. The Kieran Empire sends diplomats to Acoria, much to the annoyance of King Shalcer. Ian Acorin gladly accepts the emissaries, which gives his new country more credence.

Following Acorin's lead, an ambitious Warlord named Marit Terkin (who recently had a failed bid to be Preceptor) takes control over Prenkaw in a rather bloody coup in 692. Terkin moves east with his ragtag army and takes Keonia and Maquisa. He declares himself the Lord of Oblune. Shalcer attempts to marshal his forces to reclaim the lost areas.

By 697 the Druthalian army is moving against Oblune, but Shalcer suffers hideous losses against Terkin's armies. While this is happening, the counties of Forleon, Drikam and Pital secede, forming Patyma, a monarchy, placing Duke Parlik of Drikam on the throne. The main reason for secession was stated as "intolerance of Shalcer's gross incompetance." Shalcer concedes the complete loss of the Northeast. The county of Brellin, cut off completely from the rest of Druthal, decides that it must be its own autonomous state. Shalcer does nothing to discourage this.

Space Opera vs. Steampunk

2011-11-17T13:55:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine sometimes refers to writing as "going into the word mines", which is a very nice metaphor, if I do say so myself. Not only because it conjures up the image of hard, grueling work to bring up a few precious gems, though that is a key reason.

Part of why it works for me is the image of the mine itself: filled with large passages and twisty tunnels. I like to think, when I'm working on a specific project, like I'm supposed to be right now, I'm going down that specific tunnel. So, right now, the Holver Alley Crew tunnel is the one I'm supposed to be working on. I've gotten almost all the words out of there, and then it's just a matter of putting and polishing and putting them to market. (Go with me on this metaphor, will you?)

However, when I go down into the mines, I make some discoveries. I've found a whole new vein of words in the Maradaine Constabulary tunnel, so once I've finished in Holver Alley, I'll have plenty to do there.

(And there are, of course, the tunnels that dead end, that turned out to have no words to mine. We won't get into that.)

But then there are the times when you find a whole new tunnel. One that might have thick, rich veins of many shiny, sparkly words.

The ground shifted on me while heading down to Holver Alley, and I saw a shaft leading to a whole new tunnel. I peered down, as you do. I wasn't ready to go down and start working, of course, but I wanted to know what might be there.

I saw a ship, and a crew. A crew of rough-but-decent-hearted privateer types. On some level, the crew and the ship were completely clear to me. I knew exactly who they were and what sort of adventures they could have. In my Space Opera timeline they could fit right in, cruising around the asteroid belt and the outer planets on a solar-sail ship in the early 22nd century.

Then I looked again, from a slightly different angle. The same basic crew, a very similar ship, but... not quite. Suddenly they were a Steampunk crew, cruising around the uncharted west of North America on a sailed-airship in an alternate 19th century.

And I felt a bit of panic. I really could go either way with them. Except I don't have a Steampunk setting that I've done the worldbuilding for. Not yet, anyway. But this crew might inspire the idea that I need to.

So, that's the thing to figure out: are they Space Opera, or are they Steampunk? Not sure yet.

In the meantime, I've got to go into the mine to finish the Holver Alley re-write.

Druth History Month, Part 2

2011-11-14T13:30:00.000-08:00

(Previously, the area known as the Druth Protectorates was under the rule of the Kieran Empire. A catastrophic mass-assassination sends the entire Empire into chaos.)

Now: The Rebellion, and the first two centuries of the new calendar (The "Free Era".)
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The Rebellion

Duke Rizari of Inemar survives the poisoning incident, and flees to Inemar to raise support for himself. He confides in the Inemar Civilian Governor, Oscana, to assist him, but Oscana misleads him. Oscana was secretly a member of a resistance movement, and manipulates events to stage a rebellion to liberate Inemar. He kills Rizari and takes control, defeating the local legionnaires with his small army, liberating Inemar. Oscana is aware, though, that Inemar won't be able to stand alone once the Empire turns its attention back to them; he seeks allies in other Druth provinces. Over the next several years, his influence grows through northwestern Druthal, as he and his allies force out the Kieran presence. By 31 BFE, Clwythnn Strongtree of the Waish Clans and Galena of the Acserian Church (the growing religion in the Futralian Protectorates) contact Oscana, and these three leaders form an alliance to free all the Protectorates.

In 27 BFE, after some minor victories in all three Protectorates, the three armies unite for a major victory in taking the city of Fencal away from the Kierans. The toll is high, as a majority of the Acserian zealots are killed or injured (having led the first charge). Oscana's eldest son is killed as well. Shortly after they take the city, they learn of an enormous Kieran Army marching south to reclaim the Futralian provinces. Oscana pushes the army to intercept them and the Kieran legions are slaughtered in what is called the Battle of Blood Lake. The Rebellion Army, however, is greatly weakened by these two victories. Meanwhile, the province of Monim remains under Kieran control, and the civilian population is placed into work camps and many are executed.

As more years of fighting continue, the rebellion forces had pushed the Kieran front further back. Based on loose intelligence, all three leaders make a push for Mal Arengi, The Keep in Kellirac. Other territories are sacrificed to allow a majority of the Rebellion forces to push into Kellirac. In 21 BFE, the three forces lay siege to The Keep, and eventually take control of it, defeating the legions that were there. The Kierans had been using it as a staging point for the next major invasion, so the victory was a major setback for the Kieran offensive.

Oscana and the other military leaders of Druthal return to Inemar, the center of the rebellion, to find a number of rich men who played no role in the war making claims on being the new Druth Nobility. They try to take control over the new nation, and attempt to remove Oscana from any seat of power. Their attempt fails, as the loyalty he has earned keeps the military forces on his side. He knows, however, that he needs their money to succeed, so he integrates these New Nobles into his plans for a free nation.

Tensions flare as the new Count of Thaneil pushes a patrol into the territory of the Ringfire Clan. The situation is very tense as members of the Warlords, specifically the Preceptor Mastak, steps in to cool it off. Almost as soon as the situation is resolved, a Druthalian caravan near the Waish border that carries some of Thaneil's relatives is attacked and destroyed by an unknown band of raiders. Conflict between Thaneil and Ringfire explodes, and the Kierans hear word of it and takes advantage of the confusion to move into the area with troops. They quickly establish dominance in the area, slaughtering the Ringfire Clan. Clwythnn comes to the area to try and save as much as he can, but is forced to take a stand to delay the army (with only six other men by his side) while villagers escape. Clwythnn is captured and executed by the Kierans. The Kierans begin a full assault on Druthal, using ships now to assault the northern and western coast, squeezing away the area that the Druth control.

The efforts of the Rebellion continue, albeit poorly, in Druthal and Waisholm. The Acserians do not give very much support at this time, as the Kierans are mostly ignoring them. Oscana is lured into an ambush in an effort to contact rebels in the strongly occupied province of Monim. He is captured and executed. Upon hearing this news, the Druth resistance begins to crumble. The Kierans offer a cease-fire to allow the Druth leaders to agree to a surrender that would give amnesty and power to the new Druth Nobility.

In 14 BFE, Oscana's youngest and last living son, Maradaine, takes control of the situation in Inemar, lambasting the Nobles for considering the Kieran deal. He unites the people, and, citing the vicious, immoral, murderous tactics of the Kierans, whips the people into frenzy. The Druthalians, now with Maradaine as their ruler, vow to crush the Empire completely.

After five years of several battles, the Druthalians and Waish, thrilled by their many victories, push deep into the heart of the Kieran Empire, to set up a crippling assault on the Kieran city of Vedix. Once the city had been reached, the invaders realized that they had stretched supply lines too thin, and discover a serious weakening of morale. The Acserians calmly encourage their allies to pull out of Kieran, which they do. The retreat stops at the Waish/ Kieran border, and the Rebels wait for any sign of aggression from the Empire to renew their efforts. After a time, a contingent of Kieran diplomats comes to Maradaine, Galena, and Luthan Kinslayer with a treaty. After a quick period of deliberation, the treaty is signed. The Kierans immediately pull out all legions from the area to deal with a crisis on their eastern border.

A council of nations is established that respects national boundaries and sovereignty, but establishes them as a unified power. The council, however, discovers too many problems of culture to successfully integrate. The situation nearly erupts into war, when the council decides to save their fragile unity by dividing into separate nations, held together by a treaty. This solves the military problems, and the three nations begin to normalize relations.

Druthal spends many years determining structure of their own government, with long debates regarding the nature of independence and whether or not the various Druthalian Provinces should be united or separated. The end result is the documents known as the National Accords of Druthal, which lays out the framework of the relationships of the Provinces (now called Counties) to each other, the laws and regulations they must all adhere to and their fealty to the king, whomever that would be. There are many debates upon who should be king, but eventually Maradaine is chosen.
Parwyn Greyhilt, the Waish king, and Maradaine marry sisters, Rhyshel and Rhyshan Whiteground (daughters of another who stood with Clwythnn), hoping to strengthen the relations between the two kings.

First Century

Maradaine is crowned king, and the official declarations of powers, borders and titles in Druthal are made. Maradaine proclaims that this is “The First year of a new, Free Era.” Consequently, the Druth start a new calendar, and Waisholm and Acseria follow suit. The most surprising development is the arrival of Kieran emissaries who offer the official congratulations of to the new king.

The new nation of Druthal did not encompass all of the former “Druthalian Provinces”, as four of the southern ones which did not participate in the Rebellion establish their own tenuous independence. Scaloi and Yinro both designate themselves as free kingdoms with their own rulers (Queen Adisala in Scaloi and Chancellor Deljean in Yinro). Maradaine, eager to prove to his other lords the importance of respecting freedom, makes treaties with both nations. The small province of Trelesca, south of Scaloi, is mostly ignored, as it has fallen into almost complete anarchy. A handful of greedy, disenfranchised Kieran lords scramble to gain control over it.

A far more troubling situation brewed in Monim, which had never been relinquished of Kieran control, specifically by Duke Breialli and his legions. Breialli was disgusted by the Kieran surrender to the Rebellion, and declared Monim to be the new seat of Imperial Regime, and himself as Emperor. The local population had long since been imprisoned and enslaved in work camps. Several imperialist nobles and deserting legionnaires left Kieran for Monim to become leaders in this new nation, with the region’s rich deposits of silver and gold being an added incentive.

Several years pass with little incident, as all the various nations rebuild and reorganize. Farming and mining operations in Druthal slowly return to normal as the population builds back up. The new nobles and landowners of Druthal prosper, as they hire the freemen (the title of respect given to the peasantry) to work their lands. Slowly, prosperity comes to the nation.

The quiet of the early years of Maradaine’s reign did not last. The Empire of Monim had focused its resources on building up its army. By the year 13, the Monim army was ready to make its move. They placed their great catapults and ballista along the shores of the Oblune River, their northern border, and sank every vessel in the river. The various Counts in Oblune were unable to do much besides cease using the river (effectively decimating their trade routes.) Word was sent to Inemar (and thus King Maradaine) requesting aid. As these messengers were sent, the Monics marched into the counties of Kesta (formerly Fencal).

Maradaine put forth the call to arms to raise troops to defend Druthal. The army had been all but disbanded, with each Count and Baron responsible for his own men. Most of these lords felt the troubles from Monim were not their problem, and therefore sent no troops.

With the authority of the crown being tested, Maradaine sent every soldier in the counties of Inemar to the border of Monim. The Warlords and Vanguard still held loyalty to the crown, though their numbers were now small. This force pushed the Monics back to their border, and then the War Mages, who had also come out of seclusion on Maradaine’s behalf, cast dire enchantments on the border that would prevent armies from crossing it.

Maradaine tried to have the unhelpful lords arrested, but found that every one of them had acted with the bounds of powers and responsibilities that had been agreed to. The only option Maradaine had was to form the Army of the King, a special force whose purpose was to “defend all of Druthal.” The lords protested this as a violation of the spirit of the agreements of powers, although it did not violate the letter of them.

The years passed, and Maradaine found that his principles often ran contrary to the realities of what necessary to rule, as he had to struggle to keep the power-hungry lords in check. In 38, knowing that his son lacked the intelligence or character to rule, Maradaine declared his close advisor, Corinath Baldas, as his heir and successor. Maradaine died just a few months afterward. Baldas took the throne, and the name Maradaine II. He also declared that in honor of their former king, Inemar would now be called Maradaine.

Maradaine II (38-69) did not hold the principles of pure freedom that Maradaine did, and ruled harshly, shifting Druthal to an absolute monarchy. His harshness was directed at the nobility, rather than the commoners, concentrating his efforts on reining them in. Most of note, he instituted the Title Tax, which forced the nobles to pay annually for the privilege of their title. Maradaine II was a skilled politician, so the nobility spent these years plotting against each other in an effort to curry his favor.

During his reign, Monim began its war with Yinro. This results in a protracted stalemate; while the Monics had greater numbers and resources, the Yinrites had the advantage of terrain, knowing how to use the swamps to their advantage.

Maradaine III takes the throne upon his father’s death in 69. While he tried to play the same politics as his father, pitting the lords against each other, his ambition was too naked and he lacked the skill to accomplish his goals. Nor did he inspire loyalty in his advisors. In 73, a group led by Count Blackshire of Hechard sent their forces into Maradaine and ousted the king. Maradaine III fled to Kellirac. Blackshire then formed a ruling council with eight other counts, in which they all held equal power.

After several years of the council government, the varying political agendas of the Lords of Druthal threaten to tear the nation apart, with counties waging war upon one another constantly. Desperate for a unifying figure, the council sends men to search Kellirac for King Maradaine III, in order to reinstate him as King. However, they find that he had been killed. Unable to agree on one of their own number, they finally agree upon Lord Mastile of Sauriya, cousin to the former king. In an effort to help re-establish Druthalian unity, he takes the name Maradaine IV.

Maradaine IV (79-97), feeling secure in his position, ruled harshly, even more so than Maradaine II. He put forth the idea that all lands and forces of the nobles in Druthal were actually the king’s, and the nobles merely had stewardship. “All soldiers serve the king,” was his decree. Under his rule, the orders of the Vanguard, Warlords and War Mages became reclusive, not wishing to be considered part of that service. While no wars were declared during his reign, Druthal became prepared for it: increasing trop sizes, strengthening defenses along the border, building siege weapons, raising walls and garrisons. Upon his death, Druthal was a nation ready for war.

Second Century

It was during the reign of Maradaine V (97-127) that the situation reached its boiling point. In the year 100 an army from Kellirac began its march on northeastern Druthal. The Kelliracs fought viciously, and the broil spilled over into Waisholm, drawing them into the fray. Soon afterwards, the Kell forces withdrew, leaving the Druth and Waish fighting each other. Druthal pushed hard into Waish territory for two years, until the Waish clans had a coup, resulting in a new king, Ullen Kinslayer. King Ullen made concessions of land to Druthal to end the fighting. Secure in this victory, Druth forces then concentrated in protecting the southern borders, as the war between the Monic Empire and Yinro continued unabated. Scaloi annexes Trelesca with almost no resistance.

Maradaine V’s reign ends quietly with his death in 127, and his son becomes Maradaine VI. Unlike his predecessors, Maradaine VI was a rather unassuming king, concentrating his efforts on improving roads and travel conditions. Maradaine VI (127-140) also established diplomatic ties with the Kieran government. A number of treaties are signed between Druthal and Kieran, allowing trade and establishing ambassadorial envoys to be stationed in each other’s capital. This gives the king the opportunity to send his son, the crown prince, to Vedix for a well-rounded education. However, an incident involving Kieran dissidents results in the young prince being captured and killed. Upon hearing the news, Maradaine VI closets himself in his private chambers, where he reportedly died of grief. After deliberation on the part of the lords of protocol, the throne goes to Count Nerainu of Itasa, who decides to break with tradition and keeps his name as king.

King Nerainu (140-162) closed the Druth borders to Kieran trade. He, as well as the two following kings of his line, Falsham (162-187) and Falsham II (187-204) ruled Druthal in a quiet, unassuming fashion that focused on building up cities and roads, protecting the borders and isolating Druthal from its neighbors. During this time the south continued to be enflamed, as Scaloi joined in the war between Monim and Yinro.

Villainy and Cult of Personality

2011-11-10T13:47:00.000-08:00

I'm not a big fan of the Schwarzenegger Conan the Barbarian, but there's a scene that sticks with me, even though I haven't seen it in over twenty years. At one point, Conan is talking to James Earl Jones, who leads the cult of evil snake-hippies (or whatever was going on in that movie-- have I mentioned it's been twenty years?), and Conan is espousing his belief in the strength and power of muscle and sword. James Earl Jones scoffs at this, and demonstrates real power. With a simple, kindly spoken call ("Come here, child."), one of the snake-hippie cultists on a high balcony takes a step closer to him... and happily plummets to her death.

I bring this up because very few fantasy villains ever seem to truly deserve the to-the-death loyalty they often receive. James Earl Jones in Conan is literally the leader of a cult, so it works. Plus, he's James Earl Jones, so he's got that voice and charm. It's easy to buy. But other times, I really wonder.

Take, for example, the Grolims in David Eddings's The Belgariad. They worship Torak, the evil god. Now, at least in the world's beginnings, Torak (and the other gods) had a direct, physical presence, which can go pretty far in inspiring loyalty. He's an actual god, and he's standing right there telling people what he wants them to do. But in the time the series takes place, Torak has been asleep for centuries, presumed dead. But the Grolims still act with fanatical loyalty. More importantly, they have fanatical loyalty to the two heads of the Grolim Church: Ctuchik and Urvon. (Zedar, in theory, is also one of the heads, but he doesn't seem to actively wield any political power, mostly due to disinterest.) But how do Ctuchik and Urvon inspire such loyalty? It's unclear. Urvon, in particular, is depicted as a sequestered, babbling moron who couldn't inspire fish to swim, let alone get a cult of unswerving loyalty to kill and die at his command.

This is what I want in my villains, at least those that aren't lone psychopaths: some sense that they inspire people. Even if those people are woefully ignorant and misguided. But if your underlings going to have the kind of loyalty that transcends just-earning-a-paycheck, I need to understand why they have that unswerving faith.

November is Druth History Month

2011-11-07T13:56:00.000-08:00

This will be the first of a few entries on the history of Druthal. Here we have the pre-history, early communities and the centuries as protectorates of the Kieran Empire.

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Various agricultural communities thrive throughout the central Druthalian area, particularly around what would be later called the Maradaine and Patyma River valleys . These communities thrive and begin engaging in commerce and minor skirmishes.

Around 2300 BFE, a season of massive storms floods out the rivers, destroying many settlements. Several communities are forced to move to higher ground, and convene in one fertile, rich and isolated area. After initial hardship and squabbling, they eventually integrate their communities to build a new city: Saranus.

After a few generations, Saranus becomes the most advanced culture in the area, progressive far beyond their neighbors in technology and mysticism. The Sarani wall off their city, and isolate themselves, allowing no outsiders ("Kindrica" in the Sarani tongue) to come in or near their city.

Other communities in the area grow, but none reach the level of advancement of Saranus, as they would perennially raid and assault with one another. Struggles for land, power and wealth ensue amongst the groups, and territories get carved out, each one typically ruled by the strongest, most vicious warriors. This "War Prince" rule becomes the standard in the Kindric cities.

In approximately 2100 BFE one War Prince puts together a large army, gathered together from several communities, for the purpose of laying siege to Saranus. Despite having the advantage of numbers, the siege was short, brutal, and ultimately a failure. It did, however, increase the anti-outsider sentiment in Saranus.

The leaders in Saranus decide that the Kindrica must be handled somehow. Conquest and genocide are tried, but both tactics are abandoned; they lack the manpower to effectively slaughter their enemies, nor do they wish to devote resources to ruling the Kindric once conquered. They then embark on a long-term plan of fear and misinformation, which most scholars believe is the earliest use of espionage in history. The Sarani would go out amongst the other towns, disguised as "travelers", spreading rumors about Saranus designed to scare people away. These spies would also keep an eye out for advancing technology and civilizations uniting together, and do what they could to quash it.

This proved an effective strategy for the Sarani: most of the cultures stayed technologically and sociologically stagnant for centuries, never trusting each other enough to share technology or unite into stronger powers. They each developed into small kingdoms led by a War Prince, which often made war on each other. Also, they all gave Saranus a wide berth, fearing the wrath of the Sarani, and the legends of Saranus, over time, were enough to prevent any organized assault. Lastly, the kingdoms started to refer to themselves as "Kindric", not aware of the original meaning of the word.

Despite nearly constant warring with each other, the various Kindric kingdoms do manage to flourish to a degree, making improvements in farming and irrigation techniques, especially the cities of Inemar and Fencal.

Around 1450 BFE, expedition parties from the Kieran Empire to the north start arriving and exploring the Kindric kingdoms. Decades after that, the Kierans return, this time with full armies. The kingdoms, divided and disorganized, fall one by one. The leaders of Fencal try and organize an alliance, but the mistrust between the kingdoms is too strong, and some kingdoms make deals with the Kierans.

The Kieran army marches across the Kindric nations, approaching Saranus. They have heard the legends of the city, and prepare themselves for a massive battle. However, the Sarani had long since grown decadent and weak. The city was decayed, with the mighty walls in disrepair, and the population was a fraction of what it once was. The Kierans laid waste to the city entirely, only discovering the most mundane of the Saranic secrets. The most useful secret the Kierans gained from Saranus were advanced techniques in ironworking. Up until that point, the Kierans used primarily bronze weaponry.

Inemar and other western Kindric kingdoms, which had been hoping the Sarani would stop the Kierans, quickly surrendered to the Imperial Army. Over the next centuries, the Kierans solidified their control over the Kindric territories, bringing in their own nobility to rule over the lands. They also had roads built, and worked with Kindric irrigation techniques to make further improvements. Under Kieran rule, the Kindric began to flourish, and the old divisions of the kingdoms began to be forgotten.

The Kierans expand southward to Futralia, and Kindric men are conscripted into that war. The Kindric are allowed certain freedoms during this time, trained in using Kieran weapons. The war with The Futralian Empire lasts for nearly a century, during which time the Kindric Territories provide not only soldiers, but also proves to be an invaluable resource in supplying food and metal to the war effort.

When the Kantari Imperial Dynasty ends (855 BFE), the Kieran nobles struggle for the throne. Duke Jutirio of Inemar, the most prosperous city in the Kindric territories, makes an attempt at the throne. The Senate mostly ignores him since he is not an Archduke, and thus he is not eligible. Still, Jutirio takes many of the legionnaires from his district with him to Vedix in an attempt to intimidate the Senate. During this time, Inemar is almost ignored, and the populace stages a minor revolt, throwing the Kieran Lords in Inemar out of the city, and attacking merchant caravans coming in. Legions quickly came and resumed order, and Jutirio was tried for treason.

In the center of the empire, the Kaylron Dynasty begins. Most of this Dynasty is concerned with better defining this now vast empire, to better control the populace. The original territories are referred to as the Imperial States of the Empire, and their nobility, the Archdukes, are the Great Houses of Kieran. The Senate specifically represents the Imperial States. Kelther, Kindrica, Arengi and Futralia are now called the four "Protectorates", which are broken down into Provinces. The Dukes who rule over the Provinces are Kieran nobility, Lesser Houses, but these people come from families from the Imperial States.

The next two dynasties, which are the First Vatali and the Second Luciex, are both short lived, but it is under these rules that the Protectorates are encouraged to thrive in their own terms, with the Kierans mostly ruling in an advisory method. At this time, Kieran culture is considered to be at its peak, as all the Protectorates thrive under relative freedom. Roadways are improved throughout the whole of the Empire. Kindrica thrives immensely, as the citizens are given many freedoms, and advances in agricultural techniques are made.

In 751 BFE, the Nenevar Dynasty takes control in the Empire. Lasting 142 years, it is an extremely long dynasty, and is also one of the most brutal. Nenevar I began his reign by promoting the idea, which flourished throughout the Imperial States, that the people of the Protectorates were not true citizens of the Empire. Laws were drafted referring to them as "civilians", with very few rights or privileges. "Kieran Purity" became a major driving concept during this time.

It was in 696 BFE that Nenevar V, obsessive over the fact that the Kieran language now had many words of Kelther, Kindric and Futralian origins, began The First War of the Tongues. The purpose of this "war" was to eradicate the non-Kieran languages, forcing the Protectorates to speak the Kieran tongue. The first one was mostly concentrated on the Kindric Protectorates, where texts in Kindric were destroyed, children were separated from the parents and taught Kieran, and those heard speaking Kindric in public were arrested and executed. By the time Nenevar VII took power, the Kindric language was all but wiped out. The Emperor was satisfied with these results, and the war stopped. He did, however, think that the Protectorates had too much of their old identity, and had the Senate redraw the maps. From here on, the Kindric Protectorates were referred to as the Druthalian Protectorates. Many provinces within "Druthal" (named after the mapmaker's eldest son) also were renamed.

In the Province of Jarechna, the first sailing ships are developed. The Kierans take full advantage of this development and put the Jarechnans to work building sailed ships to explore the western seas. The Napolic islands, Bardinæ and the island of Corvia (which was completely uninhabited) were all discovered.

The Kierans start a war against the Hletrans on their eastern border, and during this time food supplies and other goods that are produced in Druthal are taken by Kierans and used in the war effort. As a result, many in the Druthalian Protectorates go hungry. Some try and organize a revolt, but the Druth morale is far too low for it to go anywhere.

Kieran control continues to be tested through the Miedikar Dynasty and the Third Kantari Dynasty. This mostly takes the form of small revolts and uprising in single cities, or involving one Waish Clan. While each one is dealt with, the Kieran military feels the strain of having to run all over the Empire putting out fires of unrest. Stricter laws are passed on the civilians of the Protectorates, limiting their ability to meet and assemble. Corvia is established as a penal colony for dissenters and rebels.

Near the end of the Third Kantari Dynasty, the Empire is visited by a delegation from the Tsouljan Regime, who are there to learn all that can be learned about the Kieran culture. Kantari XVI welcomes these strangers with open arms, hoping to use it to further establish the empire in the east. The Tsouljans have a profound influence over his son, and when Kantari XVII becomes Emperor, he uses his power to try and ease tensions in the Protectorates, by giving a way for civilians that demonstrate loyalty to be rewarded. In doing so, he starts the practice of Civilian Governors in the Protectorates, whose main purpose is to ease the burden of day-to-day ruling of the civilians from the Kieran lords, and to show the civilians that they have a voice. The Civilian Governors are, for the most part, puppets of the empire. Also, he forms the Warlords and Vanguard, Orders for loyal civilians to learn fighting skills that they can use to defend the Empire and Protectorates.

The Dreciem Dynasty tries to hold down the unrest in all the Protectorates, which is growing greater and greater. The nobles leave it to the military and Senate, who decide to enforce drafting all able bodied citizens into a number of years of military service. They even offer citizenship to Protectorate civilians who swear allegiance and serve the Empire in the military. Every city in the Protectorates becomes a military outpost. Domination from the military over all Protectorate provinces increases during the Anipar Dynasty, as civilians are often arrested and executed on minor charges, and many people flee to the forests, to form bands of rebels. Civilian Governors and the Orders are called upon to hold the order together.

The last dynasty of emperors, the Second Gelmin Dynasty, ends in 35 BFE, when at a New Spring Festival held by Gelmin V ends in disaster, as a mass poisoning results in the deaths of not only the Emperor and all his heirs, but all the Archdukes of the Imperial States, almost all of the Legion Generals and most of the Senate. The entire government structure of the Empire is thrown into chaos.

Worldbuilding: Calenders and Holidays

2011-11-03T15:28:00.000-07:00

¡Feliz Día de los Muertos! All right, it actually was earlier this week. So was Halloween, which you probably paid slightly more attention to. And it's Guy Fawkes Day in England in a couple days.

Working out the calendars and holidays was one of those things that I got a little over-zealous about. Did I need to come up with a whole 12-month calendar with month-names and matching the dates to the cycles of the two moons? Did I need to come up with a slew of major and minor Druth holidays? No, probably not. But it was fun.

One thing that has crossed my mind was how so many holidays-- such as these recent three-- have a strong current of darkness they had. Cultural have a strong need to use celebration in conjunction with the macabre.

Take, for an example from Druthal, the Feast of St. Jontlen. The tradition of the holiday is to have all the children of the household (or ladies and young men, if there are no children in the household) hide in closets, under beds, wherever. Then the feast is laid out on the table: traditionally roasted lamb, sausages, beets and berry pies. As much bright red as you can get. Then the master of the house, dressed in red robes, gets his hands in the pies, and calls out, "Free! Free!" and the hiders all come running. There is laughing and feasting and everyone is happy.

Of course, the basis for this feast is the story of St. Jontlen himself, traditionally depicted "red-eyed and anointed in blood". As the story goes, Jontlen was a soldier who became a monk, and was in charge of an orphanage. The orphanage was attacked by slavers, who took all the children to work the mines. They had left Jontlen for dead. But he came for the children, viciously slaughtering every single slaver in a one-man rampage that no one could have predicted. When the last slaver was killed, Jontlen, red-eyed and anointed in blood, called out to the children that they were free. And then dropped dead himself.

But that's just the story. Now there's the feasts.

Bard for Life

2011-10-31T13:57:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I went to see "Anonymous". Afterward, I found this bit from the New York Times review spot on:

“Anonymous,” a costume spectacle directed by Roland Emmerich, from a script by John Orloff, is a vulgar prank on the English literary tradition, a travesty of British history and a brutal insult to the human imagination. Apart from that, it’s not bad.

I'm hardly a Shakespearean scholar. I know the plays, I've been involved in the production of several, and I've got a decent amateur-historian sense of the man's life, his peers and the events of the time. Let me put it this way: I got the John Webster jokes in "Shakespeare in Love". But I wouldn't claim deep scholarship or expertise.

Needless to say, I find the anti-Stratfordian/pro-Oxfordian theories of "Anonymous" pretty damn ridiculous. My cursory research over the weekend into the Oxfordian theories tells me it holds very little water. On top of that, the movie decides not only to promote that theory, but also a sub-theory of that theory (that the Earl of Southhampton was Oxford and Queen Elizabeth's secret bastard child) AND a fringe sub-theory of THAT theory. (I won't even dignify it with printing.)

What kind of astounds me is the core of anti-Stratfordian theory comes from the idea that a writer of Shakespeare's level HAD to come from the aristocracy-- undereducated commoner stock couldn't have possibly produced such genius. But the movie then goes out of its way to declare the Earl of Oxford as a unique, blessed-by-God genius. If that was the case, then why does the stock of birth matter?

But, other than that, it's a decently crafted film. Disaster-Epic Master Director Roland Emmerich strays from his comfort zone here, and does a fine job. Though I would say one of his strengths as a director is assembling a strong ensemble that elevates the material, and that's exactly what he does here. The cast all does an excellent job. (Emmerich's other strength, of course, is destroying recognizable landmarks. He can't resist that; he does, indeed, burn down the Globe Theatre early in the film.)

A strong point in the film is the production of the Shakespearean plays within the movie. They are well done, though I have heard that noted Shakespearean actor Mark Rylance had a hand in crafting those, he himself playing one of the actors in troupe, playing the Chorus in the production of Henry V, and Richard in Richard III.

Actually, that does remind me of two sticking points. One's a nitpick. To rouse the crowd for the failed Essex Rebellion, Oxford arranges a performance of Richard III, with hunchbacked Richard to make the commoners think of hunchbacked Robert Cecil and thus revolt. In history, the Essex conspirators planned to arrange a performance of Richard II, with its theme of crooked advisers doing more subtle work. Richard III, besides being the more famous play, was a more crass choice of blad manipulation.

The other is more crass, bald manipulation. The first public production of an Oxford play (arranged by Ben Jonson with no authorial attribution- Drunken, showboating Shakespeare later claims credit, which Oxford goes along as fitting his needs) is Henry V. As soon as it starts ("O for a muse of fire...") the audience is enraptured. Over in the gallery of jaded playwrights (Jonson, Kit Marlowe and a couple others), they are all INSTANTLY agog, with dumbfounded looks at each other as they keep their attention on the stage, all of them amazed at the brilliant prose. They cannot believe how mind-blowingly good this speech is, and wonder (save Jonson, who occasionally glances awestruck at Oxford up in the noble seats) who was the hidden genius behind this astounding work.

Now, the Chorus prologue of Henry V is a great speech. But it needs a bit more than six words to work its magic. In not letting the speech itself work its magic, in telegraphing the oversold reaction, the scene lost the speech for me.

That said, the St. Crispin's Day Speech part? That they oversold a bit as well, but in a way that worked for me.

All in all, an interesting movie to see, if you don't mind the utterly insulting concept at the core.

Playing with a New Toolbox

2011-10-27T13:55:00.001-07:00

I have to admit, the first time I checked out Scrivener, I was underwhelmed. Part of that was being mildly put off by their website's pitch, claiming that Word and other word processing programs don't work "like writers think". I wouldn't say that I think the same way as other writers, necessarily, or that there is One Way in which writers think. I also wasn't too keen on how that version of Scrivener worked, essentially as a specialized viewer for a folder full of text files. So after little time checking it out, I ignored it and let the trial period run out.

However, a few months ago I decided to look into it again. Maybe I had a new mindset, maybe it was a new version, or maybe it was that it didn't just create a folder of TXT files, but it felt different. It felt more interesting. It felt more useful to the way I was writing.

And perhaps that was because I was being more open-minded to writing in a non-linear fashion. I had often used the, "I need four scenes in here that do this, but right now I want to write this bit" method. On Word, this can get a bit unwieldy, especially when one is working on expanding or inserting scenes in the middle of a piece. But it's definitely very useful for breaking the a novel down into scenes, and then figuring out where the scenes group into chapters, and such.

I'm still messing with it to figure out all the features, bu I do like it. It's what I'm writing Way of the Shield on, and I've now converted the current drafts of Maradaine Constabulary and Holver Alley Crew to Scrivener as well. Both of those were, I admit, a bit time consuming in terms of copying and pasting each scene into its own separate bit, but now that it's done, I'm finding it very helpful. Plus I can then keep the support information (Character lists, maps, potential future projects) all in there as well.

So I may be a Scrivener convert.

I also recently got Freedom, which is a nice little tool to temporarily disable your internet. Always useful when one can get easily distracted by the shiny things and just read one more article before starting to really get to work on the writing.

Speaking of, time to get to work on the writing. Signing off.

Everything I know I learned from doing that crazy show

2011-10-24T13:44:00.000-07:00

OK, the title may be a bit of exaggeration. But it's not much of one. See, writing a novel is something of a marathon, and on some level, you don't know if you can do it until you do it. Before I did manage write a novel, though, I did Flame Failure, and on a lot of levels, it was a crucial learning experience.

Flame Failure: The Silent War was a unique theatre experience, “spinning a tale of industrial espionage in serial fashion” according to the Austin Chronicle. Every month, for twelve months, we put on a short play (usually 40-50 minutes), late night in the downstairs part of the now-defunct Public Domain Theatre. From May of ’97 to April of ’98, Flame Failure was my life. It remains to this day the single biggest, hardest, most nerve-wracking project I’ve ever been a part of.

It was a hair-raising, mind numbing, soul-sucking experience, one which I wouldn’t trade for anything.

Flame Failure: The Silent War, was the brainchild of Dan Bonfitto, who wrote and directed every episode. Joined by myself (producer, sound designer), Marco Noyola (set, costume and prop designer) and David Sebastian Boone (light designer), we set forth to create this epic theatre event on no budget whatsoever. When I say “no budget”, I’m not speaking metaphorically. This show was paid for entirely out-of-pocket by the four of us. Given the circumstances of putting up, essentially, twelve different original shows over the course of a year on no money, it’s a wonder we didn’t go completely insane. The whole thing was a crash-course in How To Do Theatre On The Fly.

And when I say it “was my life”, I’m not exaggerating. Not only was I somehow involved in every episode, usually in multiple capacities, but my home was as well. The House on Greenlawn was production headquarters and rehearsal space. Of the four guys who lived there, the one LEAST involved was Dave, who played Doc Recon. Every non-bedroom space (and probably some bedroom space as well) was used for the show in some way.

One big obstacle in the process was the scripts. In that they didn’t exist. When Dan first pitched the project to us, he had the whole thing outlined, episode-to-episode, and a rough idea of the characters. But no actual scripts. When we were holding auditions, the first two were done and the third was well underway, but as production ground on, the writing kept getting more and more behind. Episode Twelve was finished on the morning of the first rehearsal for it, a scant nine days before it was to premiere.

Which was frustrating, to say the least, but an interesting aspect was how story aspects evolved due to the actors behind the characters. The character of Caio blossomed from a minor thug to a key player, in no small part due to Alvin’s gung-ho, extreme team player attitude. Another character, conversely, got significantly marginalized because the actress was, shall we say, less than gung-ho in her attitude.

What was it about? Well, that’s a complicated question. The Austin Chronicle wrote this when we were awarded "Best Theatrical Page Turner": “Forget about The X-Files. Return all of your books on cults. Instead, go to Flame Failure, an industrial thriller in 12 episodes running through April of 1998. The Gallery at The Public Domain has been transformed into a laboratory for Dan Bonfitto's plots, ripped out of comic books and conspiracy theories, and staged by the DownStage Players with bold, highly theatrical elements that have been simplistically but dynamically implemented. The occasionally rough edges simply add to its sleazy but cerebral charm.” Doesn’t quite answer the question, though?

Here's the breakdown:

Episode 01: Firebox (May 1997)

Cast: Drake (Walter Clark), Wormwood (Marshall Ryan Maresca)
Synopsis: A mysterious man (Drake) is tied up and left to die in the firebox of a boiler. As revealed to him by his unlucky companion, a homeless man named Arthur Wood (who was hiding in the firebox and got trapped in there with him), very shortly the flame will light, filling the room with fire and killing them both. Their only chance to survive is if the boiler has a flame failure. Drake tries to get Arthur to untie him, but Arthur doesn't trust Drake, in no small part to Drake's tendency to occasionally scream, speak in a strange, all-knowing voice, and then forget all about it. After some convoluted back-and-forth, Drake eventually reveals that he was involved in a conspiracy involving a secret government agency, a crime syndicate and a techno-cult, all of whom are looking for a book, which Drake-- who was at least a triple-agent, betraying all of them-- was the last one to have. What makes the book so special? Drake can't remember, but the other part of Drake seems to know everything, including that Arthur is really Wormwood, con-man on retainer for Anaconda, the head of the syndicate. He tells Wormwood that the book is "hidden in plain sight" at Wagner's Books. When Drake reverts to "normal", Wormwood clubs him over the head and is let out of the box. The "other" Drake comes to and puts his head in the line of the flame jet, which clicks on right as it goes to blackout.
Notes: This one was the most complicated, set-wise. The Firebox was a box that we built, 8'x8'x5', lifted two feet off the ground, with the lighting done from underneath, and parts of the side of the box cut-away for the audience to see us. It was a potent experience as an actor-- first being in a one-on-one show, just me and Walter (who, at that stage of the game, was terrific to work with), and second, being confined to such a limited space. Also, since the show started with just voices in black-out, no lights at all until Wormwood turned on a flashlight, Dan decided that each episode should start with a scene in total darkness- a conceit that sometimes didn't work all that well. The show also ended in darkness except for a single tiny red light-- the Flame Failure indicator in this case-- but that became a lighting conceit that I rather liked. Each episode ended with that single red light, and it was always something of a fun challenge to incorporate it into the set somehow. One thing to note-- I was not originally going to be Wormwood. We cast a guy named Jorge in the role, but then he got another part that essentially conflicted, and dropped out. Dan then decided-- almost under duress, though it was essentially duress with himself-- to go with me in the role. And over the four episodes I was in, it's probably the most interesting part and dynamic work I've done.

Episode 02: Hay in a Needlestack (June 1997)

Cast: Wormwood, Tail (Ryan King), Wagner (Gay-Gaughn-Hurst), Agent 13 (Brian Jepson), Caio (Alvin Cantu), Doc Recon (Dave Crawford)
Synopsis: The Silent War moves to Wagner's Books, where everyone is undercover, trying to find the book without being noticed. Wormwood (freshly cleaned and shaven from the Firebox) is there with Caio, a Syndicate Thug, and two Agency operatives, Tail and Agent 13 are searching under the guise of college students. Of course, Wagner herself is a member of the technocult, the Mechanical Fellowship. And then there's Doc Recon, a cybernetic surgeon who, despite being as deep in game as anyone, doesn't seem to take things too seriously, making a point of pretending that his cover is that of a boiler-repairman. Tail, of course, knows who Doc is, since Drake had introduced them, and Doc put in Tail's illegal arm-implants. Tail also isn't sure where Drake's loyalties really laid, but he wants to still trust him. Doc reveals that Drake is alive-- he managed to survive the Firebox by triggering a flame failure, though he's still badly burned. After all the groups keep searching and tensions mount, Doc finds the book, sitting in the window display. Wormwood, enraged, blows cover and stabs Doc Recon in the heart, taking the book. But before he and Caio can get past the Agents, Doc Recon gets back up, clobbers Wormwood and takes the book, and leaves. Tail tries to follow Doc, and Caio drags Wormwood out. Agent 13, however, got surprised by Wagner, who implanted him with a mind-control chip, and welcomes him to the Fellowship.
Notes: This episode was interesting, but it was considered something of a disappointment. The few who saw Episode One thought it was really astounding, especially the creativity in the lights and set. So this one-- a bookstore-- didn't have the same kind of design inspiration. But we did some neat things with the set, including starting the idea of totally changing the configuration of the downstairs space in each episode. The real standout here was Alvin as Caio. When Alvin auditioned, we thought he was, well, crazy. He's great, in that he's incapable of giving you less than 110%. There was one bit that emerged as ad-lib but got fully incorporate, where Wormwood blows off Caio and walks away, and Alvin grabbed a book (paperback) and whipped it at my head. It really played well, but by the end of the run, that book was in tatters.
Oh, and the hardest part of putting this set together? Getting EVERY BOOK that was owned by the cast and crew together, and then sorting them back out at the end.

Episode 03: Declaration of Noise (July 1997)

Cast: Wormwood, Caio, Leo (Lenore Perry), Crowley (Zach Murphy), Salvadore (Anne Engelking), The Asp (Heather Menard), Lovecraft (Jen Hamburg), Anaconda (Bruce Brown)
Synopsis:In the Syndicate Safehouse, Leo (a cybernetic hacker) is running security for the building, but acting strangely, talking through her cybernetic commands. Crowley (the accountant) just thinks it's odd, and not until Salvadore (another Syndicate thug) comes in does it become clear that something isn't right with Leo, who starts seizing. Sal saves Leo by yanking out her connection, which they discover someone tampered with. However, Leo also says she was attacked in cyberspace-- something powerful that stole two of her programs, Mammon and Moloch. Caio bursts in, Wormwood tied up and in tow, both of them battered, bruised and bloody. Since the bookstore, they've been fighting for their lives against agents and cultists, only now making it back. The Anaconda, the boss, arrives with Lovecraft (syndicate thief, and Anaconda's girlfriend), wanting to know how Wormwood screwed up. Caio gets upset to find out that Wormwood has been involved in more Syndicate jobs than he was aware of-- always under disguise, including the Messina Operation, where the Syndicate stole a shipment of Lotus Dust (a colorless, odorless powder that's a powerful paralytic toxin). Wormwood convinces Anaconda to untie him, and but then hits Anaconda with some Lotus Dust he had hidden, and tries to run for it. He's caught by The Asp-- she, Sal and Caio pummel him until the Anaconda grabs him and breaks his neck. As Anaconda and Caio both head off to brood, the Asp (the Syndicate's assassin) tells about her difficulty in killing an agent who turned out to be a cultist. She had such difficulty (as the mind-controlled cultists feel no pain), she had to blow up the apartment building to stop him. Then the safehouse appears to come under attack. All the syndicate evacuate-- but Crowley and Lovecraft return, both of them having been mind-controlled cultists that Drake implanted. They saw open Wormwood's head to steal his brain (and whatever secrets about the Book and the Lotus Dust he knew) and slip off. Anaconda and his people return-- the attack was faked, and Wormwood's body left behind, specifically to smoke out the cult traitors that Anaconda knew was in his midst. Left with only his core group, he sends The Asp to hunt down Doc Recon to get the Book back.
Notes: This one is my favorite, and it was probably our most "successful" on the level of audience and response. It's also the first episode Dan wrote after casting was done, so little elements like jacking up Caio a bit more came into play, as well as some changes to Wormwood, since he specifically wrote it knowing I was playing it. A few jabs at me (Salvadore: He's shorter that I thought he'd be.) as well as the almost complete excisement of an Asp/Wormwood romantic subplot he had originally planned (and set up in 1 & 2). I think because he didn't want to see anything resemebling a love scene involving me. As it came out, the Asp and Wormwood share no dialogue at all. He's dead before her first line ("I lose more lovers this way.") Here, the real standout was Lenore, who took a scene that could have been dreadfully dull-- her acting as if she's in cyberspace, but we only see her responding while a big glowing cable is plugged in her head-- and made it work. Also, this was the first episode where the "begin in the dark" hurt us. The scene was between Anaconda and Lovecraft-- but it didn't have the energy to make it engaging. The red light at the end? Part of Leo's computer.

Episode 04: Beyond Function (August 1997)

Cast: Doc Recon, Drake, The Asp, Wagner, Tail (now played by Renato del Vente), Webster (Miriam Yucht), Marlowe (Marion Thambanayagam)
Synopsis: At Doc Recon's Cybersurgery Clinic/Chop Shop, Doc and his nurse work on patching Drake back together. Drake is a mess-- severely burnt and brain damaged, missing one arm. (The Book, ironically, Doc has "hidden" on his waiting room table, amongst the Highlights.) Tail interrupts, having come to Doc to save Agent 13 (who had been blown up by the Asp off-stage in Episode 3). While Doc goes to help 13, Marlowe (a junior Agency Operative) and The Asp both arrive in the Waiting Room, whose fight is interrupted by the Nurse (Webster), who insists that Asp go back and have her injuries looked at. Webster is actually Agency, in deep cover as Doc's Nurse. Doc, however, was well aware of that, and used Webster as his test subject for his version of the cultist's mind-control implants. Wagner shows up, having tracked the book here, but she gets distracted talking implant-shop with the Doc. As Marlowe and Asp hunt each other, Tail tries to rescue Webster from her mind-control, only to discover she's not under Doc's control, but Drake's-- he's using his Controller-Implant to work around his own damanged brain, through Webster. It comes to a head when Drake (through Webster) throws the Book out at everyone, letting anyone who wants to try and grab it. Doc tries to just walk away, and gets stabbed by the Asp, who then gets pummelled by Marlowe. Webster loses all control, creating enough confusion for Wagner to grab the book and run. Tail chases her, while Marlowe gets Webster out, and the Asp escapes. Doc, bleeding on the floor, starts to sew himself up, as Drake emerges from the back-- he's implanted himself with a Mind-Control chip, essentially regaining control of his body around his brain-damage by mind-controlling himself.
Notes: This episode came off pretty poorly, actually. In no small part to Heather, who played Asp, missing several rehearsals. Plus a major aspect were fight scenes between Heather and Marion, neither of whom were very deft at stage-fighting-- so it lacked panache. We also lost Ryan as Tail, forcing us to scramble to recast. Renato was an excellent substitution, pretty much game for whatever we threw at him. Further problems were caused by trouble at the Public Domain that forced us to do our tech rehearsal late-- so the week before we went up, we were there until 3 or 4 each night, and most of us had jobs to be at at 8. This was also where the schedule of writing and production at the same time was starting to take its toll. For the first three episodes, Marco and I read first drafts, made editorial notes, and Dan made changes. By this point, we had to start rehearsals when the script was done, and from this point on, "first draft" was the only draft we got.

Episode 05: Filter for Zeal (September 1997)

Cast: Caio, The Asp, Tail, Wagner, Lovecraft, Crowley (now played by Dave Dubose), Gecko (Marco Noyola), Fautron (Michael Miller), Moloch (Virigina Pratt), Mammon (Bob Gutierrez)
Synopsis:All the groups converge in the inner sanctum of the Mechanical Fellowship, as Asp and Caio chase Lovecraft and Crowley down the catacombs, and Tail and Gecko-- the Agency's most dangerous agent-- follow Wagner. High Priest Faustron, head of the Mechincal Fellowship, welcome Lovecraft and Crowley, as he's eager to analyze Wormwood's brain. Hooking the brain up to his altar, he tries to learn from it, but Wormwood's brain is uncooperative, since the Asp managed to taint the altar with Lotus Dust. Faustron also has to deal with his two other cultists are being controlled by someone else, who has put the Mammon and Moloch programs in them to observe him. Wagner arrives and delivers the Book to Faustron, who is overjoyed to have it. His people also catch Caio and The Asp, and begin to implant them. Gecko and Tail make their move, at first having to fight overwhleming odds. Tail gets the idea to yank out the implants from Caio and Asp, freeing them to help fight. Crowley and Lovecraft are killed, as are the bodies controlled by Mamon and Moloch, and Caio and Asp are knocked out. Gecko grabs the book, but Faustron grabs Tail, threatening to kill him if Gecko doesn't give up the book. Instead, Gecko sends the Book into the trash chute. Faustron kills Tail and escapes, and Gecko makes his way out of the catacombs.
Notes:You know, I have to admit, I never quite understood what "Filter for Zeal" meant. Anyway, here we had to replace Gecko, a key role we cast a guy named Travis in, but we had cast him five months earlier, and he got a gig in NY and had to bail on us. Marco stepped in, now essentially doing quadruple-duty of set/costumes/props/lead role. Another actress, Virigina, was a replacement of someone who just vanished altogether from the earth. Virignia was not an actress, but a friend of Gay's who just thought it would be fun. And she did fine, very nice person. But, not an actress. We also had to replace Zach as Crowley, because he had basically shifted his interest from acting to doing light-design gigs for money. Dave Dubose was a guy I worked with on Julis Caesar-- one of the nicest guys I've known-- and I called him and got him to the first rehearsal on about a two-hour notice. This show had a HUGE fight as a centerpiece, and in choreographing it, we were out of our element, and we got a guy named Hank to come in and block it. Hank was, well, pretty brusque with us, but he put up with us and got the job done, so bravo on him. As Marco said, "He made me look cool, and that's an accomplishment." Michael Miller as Faustron was a casting coup. He had done shows with the Public Domain, and really is one of the premiere actors in town, though he likes taking smaller jobs sometimes as well. He's brilliant.

Episode 06: The Algebra of Sacrifice (October 1997)
Cast: Gecko, Webster, Salvadore, The Hobo King (Michael Stuart)
Synopsis: Salvadore is in the junkyard, torturing Rex, The Hobo King, thinking he knows something about The Author of the Book. He takes Salvadore's abuse with a certain amount of grace, and eventually tells her that the Book had been by the trash chute that morning. She goes off to look for it, but Rex, himself has it, and has read it. Webster wanders in, having completely lost her mind from being brain-fried by Doc and Drake, and is found by Gecko, who just emerged from the Catacombs. He tries to reason with her, but is unable to get through to her, and she runs off. He is then confronted by Rex, who is mostly annoying, talking in various tangents, but gives Gecko just enough info to keep him interested. Eventually, Rex reveals that he has the Book, and he's read it, and what that means: when you read the Book, you know EVERYTHING. Infinite knowledge. Unfortunately, infinite knowledge can't fit in a finite brain, so if you read it, you will die from an anuerysm eventually, just as Rex says he's about to do. He gives Gecko the Book, and then dies. Gecko manages to get Webster focused, and with her help, captures Sal. As Webster drags off Sal, Gecko stays behind, and reads the book. After he finishes it, he calmly takes out two blades, and cuts out his own eyes.
Notes: Originally, this was just supposed to be Gecko and The Hobo King, but Dan decided to add Sal and Webster into the mix. Actually, he was originally going to have Marlowe instead of Webster, but Marion wasn't available that month. Michael Stuart, in a single-episode guest role, was another casting coup-- he's been described as the Busiest Actor In Austin, but he's great. Hysterical guy, really made The Hobo King something special. The set of the junkyard, done in the round, was pretty fantastic, with this giant wirespool as the centerpiece. That thing then sat on our front porch for about two years, until we finally got a truck to take it to the actual junkyard, where we saw a giant trash-smasher crush it to splinters. There was something cathartic about that.

Episode 07: Station Static (November 1997)
Cast: Gecko, Caio, Asp, Faustron, Doc Recon, Gail (Bernadette Nason), Maryanne (Cheryl BeckHam), Mitch (“T.J.”)
Synopsis: A month having passed since Gecko or the Book were last seen, a mysterious tip from Drake about it showing up at a bus station puts Caio and Asp working undercover at the ticket window and coffee kiosk. They both hate it, especially with the crazy bum who pisses in the corner. However, their efforts are rewarded when Gecko arrives, blind and extremely serene. They’re confused and decide not to move too quickly. Gecko is met by Gail, the Head of the Agency, who is very confused why, when he got the Book, he didn’t bring it in. Gecko tells her that in reading the book, he knew everything, including his own destiny, destroying his own free will in the matter. He’s dying from the Book, and he’s poisoned Gail to force her to play her part in the upcoming charade, as his wife. He’ll give her the antidote after they’ve done it. Enter Mitch and Maryanne, husband and wife, and civilians as far as the Silent War is concerned. Also, old college friends of Gecko’s. After a bit of charade where it comes out that Gecko had a sexual relationship with both of them (separately and together), he tells them he’s dying, and ask them to deliver his briefcase (which holds the Book) to a specific address, and then makes Gail take him to the hospital. Gail offers to deliver it herself, but he tells her that he wants to make sure that “exactly who deserves it” gets the briefcase. They leave, and Mitch and Maryanne are confused, since the address he gave them is the bus station itself. Their confusion doesn’t last long, as they are eviscerated by Caio and Asp, who take the briefcase. They don’t have long to celebrate, since the crazy bum is actually Faustron, who kills Asp and stabs Caio, leaving him to die. As Caio writhes on the floor, Doc Recon, who had been sitting there the whole time with a stealth device, picks him up and carries him off.
Notes: This episode was something of a failure, the weakest of them all. In no small part to the whole episode having been originally an idea for a stand-alone play that Dan and I had cooked up a year earlier, and it got essentially grafted into the Flame Failure serial. There it had been a story about a spy who makes a choice to set up his former lovers as patsies to save his own skin, and here it played flat because of where Gecko’s character was due to reading the book. Michael, at least, had a great time playing Faustron-as-the-crazy-bum, doing it at full tilt. Bernadette, playing Gail, was another real find for us. She actually was the first person cast in the whole serial, when Dan was first cooking up the idea. She’s a saucy British lady in her 40s, and the idea of playing an “Emma Peel twenty years later” was right up her alley. “T.J.”, who played Mitch, was not an actor. And he’ll tell you that. He was just a guy who worked at Dan’s office who agreed to do it. We lost the original guy we cast, because before the episode came up, he was in another show upstairs at the Public Domain, where reviews singled him out (not undeservedly) as being the lone terrible thing in an otherwise excellent production. So he vanished from the acting scene.
Also, this marked one of the biggest changes in the original outline, which had Caio dying at this point. But Dan liked working with Alvin so much, he cooked up the whole “Doc Recon ‘saves’ Caio” idea, which involved Dave as Doc Recon sitting on stage unobtrusively for the whole show, only getting up at the end to pick up Alvin—which actually worked quite well. You literally forgot there was another person on stage until he got up.

Episode 08: Control Shift (December 1997)

Cast: Faustron, Wagner, Wormwood, Mammon, Moloch (now played by Shannon Grounds), MEPH-AI (Marina Lee)
Synopsis: Faustron, now in possession of The Book, is having it slowly downloaded into his brain. In doing so, he has already learned a lot, including the identity of the mysterious entity who has been a ghost in his system—the MEPH-AI, an artificial intelligence created by Drake, now acting on its own and making its own bid for power. In cyberspace, he and Wagner make contact with it, and make a deal to work together with it. The MEPH-AI uses its servitors, Mammon and Moloch, to demonstrate its power by destroying a children’s hospital. As part of Faustron’s deal with MEPH-AI, he sacrifices Wagner, who is killed by Mammon and Moloch. They find the copy of Wormwood’s brain in his system, and after filtering through its lotus-dust madness, they find the secret Faustron hid in Wormwood—they location of the Book, and the digital copy of the Book itself. Having found it, Mammon and Moloch destroy Wormwood, and then the MEPH-AI kills Faustron. The MEPH-AI runs experiments, in making copies of itself to read the Book, but each copy is destroyed in the process. Since it cannot use the Book itself, it decides to make use of it to tempt the other groups involved, as well as orchestrating mass-publishing of it.
Notes: This episode was a very strange one, but in a good way. First of all, it took place entirely in cyberspace. How do you do cyberspace on stage? With blacklights, of course. We all wore florescent make-up, and the “human” characters had whiteface as well. The stage was all done in isolated platforms, each being its own area of cyberspace. In addition, the whole episode was told in a disjointed fashion, as if we were not seeing it as it happened, but reviewing the MEPH-AI’s files of the events after the fact, in the order she felt like looking at them. So you saw Wormwood’s “death” before you saw Fasutron hide the files in him.
This was also a change from the original outline, in that Wormwood was not initially going to appear in this episode. Somewhere around episode five, I dropped the bug in Dan’s ear that he could, though, and Dan ran with it. It was a lot of fun, especially getting to do a scene with Michael (albeit where I had no lines). Michael is a great guy to play off with, because he’s the type of actor who will steal the scene from you, and then wrap it up in a pretty bow and give it back to you. He has a rare gift of being able to be over-the-top without forgetting about the actors he’s on stage with. So to have give-and-take in a scene where he’s giving an Evil Overlord Monologue and I’m giggling and drooling like the village idiot—that’s something.

Episode 09: A Pure Situation (January 1998)
Cast: Leo, Doc Recon, Agent 13, MEPH-AI, Moloch, Mammon (played by Ehren Christian for half the run)
Synopsis: The MEPH-AI invites representatives from each faction—Leo, Agent 13 and Drake—to a VR Poker game, with information being the currency on the table. Drake, however, does not show, sending Doc Recon in his place. This doesn’t please Agent 13, who hated the results of Recon’s “saving” his life—while he appears in VR as a tuxedoed Bond-type, he’s now really a half-robotic monstrosity. The MEPH-AI allows the substitution, though. Doc is amused by the whole thing, including the MEPH-AI’s shiny appearance. The game goes through five hands, with many various tidbits of choice information being put in the kitty, including the physical location of The Book, the digital copy of The Book itself, the location of Salvadore’s holding cell, the Agency’s file on Drake, Doc’s zombie-making formula, and Mother Recon’s Cookbook (which no one wants). After various wins and losses, the final hand is Indian Poker, as chosen by Recon—a version in which each person puts their card on their forehead, so you only know what everyone else has, but not your own card, and the high card wins. Recon wins the hand, and is about to leave with his prize, including The Book and its location, when he confesses that he cheated on the last hand, seeing what card he was holding on the MEPH-AI’s reflective surface. The AI claims his winnings and starts to read the files. When it reads the cookbook, the MEPH-AI screams and is destroyed, as Recon had swapped the files of the cookbook and The Book. Mammon and Moloch are about to avenge their master, but Leo disables them. Doc destroys the file of The Book, which annoys Leo and 13, and all three go their separate ways.
Notes: Of the episodes I didn’t appear in, this one was my favorite. The banter at the table is terrific, and it’s all a lot of fun. Plus, on a design level, it was perhaps our finest hour. First and foremost was the Poker Table, which was both the set and the lighting. The four players each got their spot at the table, which had a glass panel with their color-coded light beneath it. It looked like a giant game of Simon. As the poker games went on, whomever the bet went to, their light came on, so the color of the whole show took on the tone of the character in charge at that moment. I took that concept to heart with the sound design—and I will fully admit this was the only episode of the twelve where my sound design really mattered or worked. I created theme music for each of the four, recorded an hour of each on a continual loop, and set up four tape players (yes, this was on tape, it was the 90s) through a mixer, so that when the lights changed, the sound did as well, giving you the theme music to match the color scheme. Agent 13’s music was the Peter Gunn theme, reversed, Doc Recon had calypso music, Leo a warped version of something akin to the Godfather theme, and the MEPH-AI? The end of the 1812 Overture, reversed and slowed down so much, it was just these long, low ominous notes. It sounded very evil. Plus Marco got to have a lot of fun designing the MEPH-AI. Poor Marina, in episode 08, was buried in a huge cloak and a fencing mask. She’s a very pretty girl, with a very expressive face, and in this episode you actually got to see her-- in a silver evening dress with every inch of skin covered in silver make-up. She looked very neat. And shiny.

Episode 10: The Havoc of Potentials (February 1998)
Cast: Drake, Doc Recon, Gail, Marlowe, Webster, Leo, Assorted Zombies (Eric Love, Shannon Grounds, Bob Gutierrez, Jeff Shaevel)
Synopsis: Doc and Drake are at a warehouse holding thousands of copies of the book (as set up by the MEPH-AI), coating the place in a fire-accelerant, in preparation for burning the place down. Drake seems in good shape, with a new cybernetic eye and arm. He also has, thanks to Doc, new skin lined with an asbestos weave—rendering him theoretically fireproof. His mind is also functioning, for the most part—but he has gaps in his memory. He’s forgotten, for instance, telling Doc to grab Caio and fix him up, and that he told Doc to let Caio go, as well as telling Doc to go to the poker game. His omniscience has gaps—specifically regarding himself. He realizes, though, that he saved himself from the Book’s destructive effects by destroying part of his brain, and by utilizing his ability the compartmentalize his brain—the way he kept his “identities” separate when he was being a quadruple-agent. He does remember, however, that the warehouse is owned by the Syndicate, which is why Leo comes to check out the place. She doesn’t find anything, since Doc and Drake are using Doc’s stealth devices. They don’t realize that Webster is there as well, using a new Agency stealth device (as 13 won the designs in the poker game). When Drake goes out to the van to get the detonator, she clobbers Doc and beats him to a bloody pulp—making sure he stays dead despite his extra organs. Gail and Marlowe show up—Marlowe having been promoted to being Gail’s new lieutenant, as well as being given a new eye designed to track stealth devices. She spots Drake, and they capture him, disabling his new arm. Gail interrogates him, and he eventually tells her that these copies of the book have a single printing error—a lone typo, but essentially a critical flaw that make them useless. He also tells her that he had already re-stolen and re-hidden the original, and whispers to her where it is. She leaves for it, leaving Marlowe and Webster to finish the job in the warehouse. Before they can, they’re interrupted by Leo. They think they have an advantage over her, but she’s brought back-up of her zombie army—made with Doc’s formula that she won at the poker game. While the zombies fight Marlowe and Webster, Drake realizes he can use his mind-control implant to take over any one of the zombies. As he jumps between bodies, he kills Marlowe and Webster, and then goes for Leo, who shuts off the zombies and goes to kill Drake himself. Before she can, he sets off the detonator, exploding the warehouse.
Notes: One big change in this episode was with Doc Recon, who originally was supposed to die at the very end of the episode, instead of halfway through it. This script was incredibly late in getting done, however, so Dave essentially issued a “finish it today or I’m not doing it” ultimatum, so Dan skipped work, pounded out the script, and killed Doc’s character early on. Dave was perfectly happy with this, since the script was done. The zombies, also, were not part of the original plan. But while in earlier episodes we were scrambling to find replacement actors, we now had gotten some clout of cool, and thus a handful of people who were saying, “If you need someone, let me know.” So, zombie army, and another big fight scene. It also gave us an excuse to do a variant on our usual blood packs. (Did I mention we used blood packs on these shows? A LOT of them? We did. Mopping and laundry after each performance was mandatory. Go back to episode 03, where they CUT OPEN MY HEAD, and think about the amount of blood we used there.) Kool-aid powder—Black Cherry, specifically, was a key component of our blood, but for the Zombies? Lime. Bright electric green ichor. This episode also had some new technical work with the detonator, made by wiring a bunch of old disposable cameras together with a jury-rigged switch to make all the flashes go off at once. That was a pain to make, but it looked cool, especially the moment Drake charged it, and you heard the multiple whines of all the capacitors loading up.

Episode 11: The Man Behind the Dustcover (March 1998)
Cast: Drake, Anaconda, Gail, Agent 13, Salvadore, Caio, The Author (Craig Kanne)
Synopsis: Drake comes to a small apartment, where the book is hidden, and re-reads it, regaining his total-omniscience. He slips out just as Anaconda, Caio and Salvadore come in, having been sent here on a tip from Drake. Anaconda is tired of the whole game, and Caio is freaking out, both at their dwindling numbers, as well as his own experience of being left to die and put back together again by Recon. But they’re here because they believe it’s the home of The Author of The Book. As they wait, a man comes in, whom Anaconda knocks out, and they tie him up. When he comes to, Caio and Sal interrogate him, but half the time he seems to know nothing, and the rest of the time, he answers as if he was Drake. They realize he has an old cult-implant, and through the Author, Drake reveals that the guy is the legitimate article, the guy who wrote The Book, but he reprogrammed him with an old cult implant to keep him in a recurring loop, so his own brain wouldn’t be destroyed. Suddenly, Gail and Agent 13 burst in (13 now seen as the half-cyborg he has been turned into). 13 grabs Sal, Caio grabs Gail, and Anaconda grabs the Author, and they have a three-way Mexican Stand-off. It breaks when Gail orders 13 to release Sal. Sal, being set free, stabs Caio in the chest—when she was held captive, the Agency turned her to work for them. Outnumbered 3-to-1, Anaconda breaks the Author’s neck, and they grab him. As the agents interrogate Anaconda, Drake slips in under the cover of a stealth device, and revives Caio (activating the back-up heart Doc installed), who savagely kills Sal. Caio and 13 then fight, and then Gail and Anaconda kill each of them. Gail and Anaconda, now left with only each other, realize that a stealthed Drake is in the room with them. Before they can react, Drake gasses them both with Lotus Dust. With them both knocked out, he goes over to Caio’s body and pours some green fluid down his throat, saying he has “one last job”.
Notes: Craig Kanne as The Author was our last Special Guest Star role. Craig is a terrific actor who can do just about any voice you can think of. We were lucky to convince him to do it. This episode also had the Lotus Dust bomb, in which we blew out own continuity. In episode 03, it was an “odorless, colorless gas”, and here it’s a white smoke. Why? Because Dan was really keen to make a smoke bomb. This is because of Jerry. Jerry was the husband of Gay, who played Wagner, and whenever she rehearsed, he’d just come over and hang out. And Jerry was an expert on chemistry and explosives. So, at one point, he told Dan how to make a smoke bomb, which meant, of course, that Dan HAD to do it.

Episode 12: Theoretical Cauterization (April 1998)
Cast: Drake, Anaconda, Gail
Synopsis: Anaconda and Gail wake up to find themselves in a dark places, both of them tied up. After they argue with each other, trying to figure out where they are and what happened to them, they remember that they were gassed by Drake. A flashlight comes on, and Drake is in the corner, back in brain-damaged mode, unable to give them meaningful answers. Then he switches personalities, and reveals that they and him, and the book, are all trapped in the firebox of a boiler, just as we was in the first episode. As they argue with him, he keeps screaming and switching personalities—though the “omniscient” Drake tells them that he’s actually killing off the personalities in his head, closing the compartments completely. They try to convince him to untie them, which he eventually does, and then to let them out, which he can’t do. He locked them all in there by reanimating Caio’s body, and once the door was latched, he smashed the controls to Caio. In a few minutes, the boiler will light, and they’ll all die. Anaconda knocks out Drake, and at first he and Gail work together to disable the fireeye and cause a Flame Failure. Their partnership is short-lived, as Anaconda uses brute force to take the book from Gail, and goes in the corner to read it. Drake wakes up, and with his last personality, tells Gail that Anaconda is now in the throws of reading the book (whenever anyone read it, they went through it faster and faster, growing more and more manic until they finished it)—however, he had already torn out the last page and left it outside the boiler. Anaconda, reaching the torn-out part, starts beating his own head. Drake then tells Gail that despite the state the Anaconda is in, he probably knows enough to know that Drake disabled the safety circuits, so the boiler will not have a flame failure. Drake’s brain resets, leaving only the brain-damaged Drake, who holds onto Gail and cries like a child, just as the pilot light goes on.
Notes:Somehow, we made it to the end. There were points where it seemed like we wouldn’t. This episode was especially challenging, not only because we had to rebuild the Firebox, but because there were two shows using the Downstairs of the Public Domain at once. It really was the most use out of the theatre it had ever seen—upstairs, Thursday through Saturday at 8pm, there was the Mainstage show of Life of Galileo, while downstairs, Monday through Wednesday at 8pm, there was Edward II, and Friday & Satruday at 11p (and Sunday at 8pm) was Flame Failure. Two sets on opposite sides of the room. Dan was really annoyed, because he thought it should have been one or the other, and that Robi (who was the artistic director of the PD) screwed us in letting that happen. Robi didn’t decide either way, telling us to work it out with Chris (who was doing Edward). Which Marco and I did. It was crazy, but we got it hammered out and only had a few sleep-deprivation-based hallucinations.
The final night, though, was fun, because almost everyone who had been in the cast showed up, and we took a giant collective bow where Dan introduced each one of us in the order our characters died. We struck the set, swept the space, and everyone went to the house for a blow-out cast party.
Right before we left, Dan, Marco and I were the last ones out of the downstairs space, and Marco turned to us and said, “Gentlemen, I just want to say one thing: we did this.” And the we turned off the lights, and locked the doors.

We did get one final acknowledgment. The next month, when the Austin Critics Table Awards were announced-- as the eligibility period was, coincidentally, May to April-- we were given a special award of "Theatrical Marathon". In the beginning, when we first announced what we were doing, the arts editors of the papers treated us with what could be called, at best, healthy skepticism. They all but bluntly told us that we wouldn't actually pull it off. So that was a nice nod, saying, "Yes, for better or for worse, you did do it."

Would I do something like that again?

What, like novel-writing isn't hard enough?

Worldbuilding: Constructed languages

2011-10-20T14:01:00.001-07:00

I have to be honest, this is an area of Worldbuilding that I don't have the patience for. I mean that on a personal level; I don't have the patience to do it. I think it's really cool when done well. But that's not going to be me, unfortunately.

I say unfortunately, because on some level, I wish I did have that kind of patience. I think, when it is done correctly, it adds an incredible amount of flavor and character to one's world. I have some sense of linguistics and the rules one should follow to make a new language. My main character in Crown of Druthal (now trunked) was a linguist. And, after all, I am married to a polyglot. But even though I can totally get lost in mapmaking or history writing, trying to crack the spine of a new language can't keep my attention.

I do try and at least work out the broad brushstrokes of a culture's language, though. If they use alphabetic characters or pictographs. How sentences are structured. Words that represent unique or key cultural ideas.

(And I remain a big believer that one should never make up words when a perfectly good word already exists.)

I do like coming up with cultural quirks that are expressed through language and grammar. I came up with all sorts of craziness for the Poasian language. Verb conjugation diesn't just have first, second and third person, singular and plural. Second person is split into three different categories, dependent upon the relative social rank of the speaker and the person being spoken to. Third person is also split the same way, with an additional split depending on if the person is present or not. (Which creates a marvelous way for a high-ranked Poasian to dress down an underling-- instead of speaking to him using second-person-inferior, they could use third-person-inferior-absent. In essence saying, "I think so little of you I will pretend you aren't even in the room." just by using a different conjugation of the verb.)

But the actual nuts and bolts of vocabulary? Can't do it. I have tons of respect for those who can do it.
Anyone out there know any good constructed languages work? I'd love to check it out.

All Bathwater, No Baby

2011-10-17T13:31:00.000-07:00

Back in my film school days, a common phrase drilled into our heads by our professors was "Kill your babies". Nowadays I hear the same basic sentiment, somewhat sanitized to "Kill your darlings"." The essential idea is the same, though: sometimes you have a wonderful idea that just isn't working, and you have to be willing to give up on it.

It's a good idea in practice-- rather than kill yourself over something you love but can't make work, you drop it and move on. This is especially true in terms of scenes or single bits of dialogue, like the kind that gives you a "Hell, yes!" moment... but including them stops the story dead. Trim the fat, and move on.

However, sometimes it's more about figuring out what isn't working about it, and fixing it. Get rid of the bad, but keep the stuff you love.

This is a roundabout way to say that I figured out a problem I had been having with Way of the Shield, namely that the main character didn't want anything. He was essentially being a hero because that's the kind of guy he is, but there's got to be more to it than that. (This is one of the criticism that was laid on the Captain America movie-- he wants to go fight in WWII, but his body is stopping him. At the end of Act I that's fixed, and he doesn't have any more character arc.) Dayne had a plot arc, but no character arc.

Here's the thing, though: I kind of knew the solution, but didn't accept it until just this weekend. Now that I have, I can feel the rest of the story unfolding in my head. Now, I think it's going to work.

The Siren Call of Too Easy

2011-10-13T09:18:00.000-07:00

An online associate of mine is having their book published by a brand-new small-print publisher. As in, their book is going to be that publisher's first book. Now, I'm not going to pretend I know all the ins and outs of how that happened or anything resembling the full story behind the deal. I don't. But I can say what I have seen sets off yellow alerts in my brain, and it isn't a deal I would do.

But, if I'm being honest, a few years ago I would have been all over that had I been offered it. Whether I would have done it out of ignorance or arrogance or eagerness or anxiousness, I'm not sure. Though I do know I wouldn't have looked at the fledgling publisher with the same critical eye that I do now. I would have just yelled, "Awesome!" and signed away.

A lot talk is going around about E-books, publishing through Amazon, Print-on-Demand services, and who even knows what else, all of which are essentially geared to the same thing: eliminate the middlemen/gatekeepers, and get your book out there to "the people" NOW.

And that's the big temptation there, isn't it? No waiting. No gnawing your fingernails to stubs after you send out queries to agents. No sleepless nights wondering if that editor has even looked at your manuscript yet, let alone if they liked it. You can just get your book out there.

It's oh, so tempting, isn't it? Because it would be so easy. But here's the thing. It shouldn't be easy.

I'll let Tom Hanks explain:

What amazes me is how many people out there are trying to sell me on the easy. No one is trying to sell me on the great. Cat Valente makes a great point that while so many people are talking about how many e-books Amanda Hocking sold, no one is really talking about whether or not the books are great. No one seems to care, they just think it's awesome that she sold so many. This makes me really nervous.

I do hear the sirens calling how easy it is. But I'm going to stay lashed to the mast and weather through, thanks.

Locked in the Box

2011-10-10T20:16:00.000-07:00

I have a strange fascination for "Locked in a Box" horror movies. Or thriller movies, more correctly. In my personal definition, thrillers are movies where deaths and terror are happening due to someone having a diabolical plan. There's a brain behind the horror, and the smarter the brain, the better the movie is, for me.

This is especially true for "Locked in a Box" movies. The typical pattern involves a group of strangers waking up in a room together (or finding each other in a series of rooms), and realizing that they need to figure out a way to escape.

(Some spoilers follow, but odds are, they're none you really care about.)

The various Saw movies all work on this essential idea, but I've found them somewhat dissatisfying. Usually because the solutions to the "puzzles" have less to do with using one's brains, and more to do with having the intestinal fortitude to muscle through whatever pain Jigsaw's traps are causing in order to escape. They are more about gore than cleverness. (The one possible exception, in my opinion, was in Saw V, where the main group of trapped people each act selfishly to get past each trap-- one dying in each trap-- only for the final two to realize at the end that it would have been possible for everyone to cooperate and survive.)

Possibly one of the most interesting of these is Cube. At least, it's interesting to me, since all the puzzlies that the people inside need to solve are math-based. It's fairly clever along those lines. However, while I appreciate the level of mystery behind the situation-- the characters never discover why they've been put in the Cube, or who put them in there-- on some level it feels like a cop-out. It feels like the filmmakers themselves never figured out the answer, and decided an open mystery was better than a lame answer.

Speaking of lame answers, Shadow Puppets has it in spades. Despite boasting a decent cast of recognizable genre actors (Jolene Blalock, James Marsters and Tony Todd), and a decently spooky first hour. It starts out with Blalock and Marsters waking up in cells of a sanitarium of some sort, with no memory in their underwear. As they search around they find a handful of others in the same condition. And there's a shadow creature killing people off. Neat. But it falls completely off the rails in the last third. This hospital was doing memory-erasing experiments, and tried it on a guy who was brain-dead. Apparently this is like xeroxing a mirror or something, and it creates a shadow monster that eats people. Or, SOME people-- apparently if you are in bright light, it leaves you alone, OR if you have no strong identity (like being mind-wiped and in your underwear). Leaving alone the ludicrousness of the shadow monster randomly eating whoever, cheesy effects, and James Marsters suddenly becoming the Secret Bad Guy... I'm just trying to wrap my head around logistics. See, the braindead guy was the third person mindwiped, creating the shadow monster... but then why was he still hooked up to the memory-erasing machine when five other people were erased after that? How did those five people get erased and put in their various cells to wake up in while the Shadow Monster Apocalypse was apparently already underway? Why, if two of them were legitimate patients who got mind wiped, and the rest were employees mindwiped against their will, is there a single locker room that has eight lockers with everyone’s files and everyone’s clothes, as if the eight of them had come in together? Who set that room up and why? Why does James Marsters mindwipe five people so they won’t, apparently, complain to HR or something about his mindwipe of the braindead guy, when his entire facility is already some bizarre nightmare. Seriously, the place is an underground bunker with only one entrance/exit, which is hidden in the middle of the woods. I can’t imagine anyone going into work there and thinking, “You know, up until this point I thought things were on the up and up, but now that I see them using the mind erasing machine on a guy already in a coma and accidently making a shadow monster of doom, clearly I need to go and file a report with my union rep or something.” I'm wondering if there was some sudden funding pullout or something that forced them to throw together a nonsense ending.

That, at least, had some degree of high concept. Far less successful is the clearly no-budget affair Breathing Room. There, it seems like the filmmakers felt the raw tension of "fourteen strangers trapped in a room for a deadly game" was all they needed, even though there's pretty much no script or story there at all. There is no game, just a handful of arbitrary rules (though the fact that one person is killed for breaking the rule "players must wash their hands" was mildly amusing, showing that all the rules are equally enforced despite their arbitrariness.) Players are picked off one by one, for no real reason, as there is no reason why these people are chosen. There's a bit of a hint that a couple of them "deserve it", in that there are a pedophile, rapist and murderer in the mix, but this never pays off. There is a mildly clever idea that #14, the character set-up as the obvious "Final Girl" IS the Final Girl, but that's because she's actually the killer behind it all. Why? To what end? The movie doesn't know.

All this is why I actually found Nine Dead relatively refreshing. I'm not going to lie to you, it's not brilliant or anything, but there actually is a certain degree of point to the whole proceeding. Nine people find themselves trapped together in a room, and a masked man tells them he'll kill one of them every ten minutes until they figure out what their connection is and why they've been brought together. It's a decent script, and is worth checking out, even if most of the performances in it are a bit one note.

Another winner is the stylish Exam, which wins out because it's not a deadly trap, but things get tense and deadly because the people trapped in the room (but they aren't trapped, they could choose to walk out at any time) are just that cutthroat about winning the job promised to the successful candidate. It's not completely satisfying (I wasn't crazy about how none of the candidates knew what the job they were competing for actually was, or for whom), but the strong filmmaking craft in play here more than makes up for it.

Any other favorites in this subgenre?

Breaking the blocks

2011-10-06T16:14:00.000-07:00

One of my usual stopping spots for news on all things sci-fi and fantasy is io9, and pretty much every day there's multiple things worth checking out. Today there's a rather nice one on the Ten Types of Writers' Block.

I have to admit, #2 (Plenty of ideas, but nothing sticks) and #4 (stuck in the middle with nowhere to go) were frequent problems I had. Those two comprise a key reason why I have a handful of started novels buried away in my files. I would have a concept for a book, and jump in a start writing... and then find it doesn't go anywhere. A few of those was what helped me accept that I'm an outliner at heart.

Now that I am an outliner, of course, I do hit bumps with #3 (stuck between points in the outline). I've often had those moments where the path from A to B to C just isn't as clear as it seems it out to be. Often what I've done is just go ahead and write C and leave a notation for B to write later. Usually what I've found is that the problem was I had to do a lot more things than I expected to get from A to C.

My main paralyzers at this stage are numbers 7, 8 and 9-- all of which boil down to that inner voice of self-criticism. I'm often staring at the screen thinking, "This doesn't work, this CAN'T work, I'm a hack and everyone will think this is stupid." Then I get over it, best I can, and plow on through.

What else am I going to do? Not write? Yeah, that doesn't work either.

Mood and Tone and Mad Men

2011-10-03T14:25:00.000-07:00

Here it is, Monday, and I almost forgot to write a blog post. It's been a hectic week, loaded with a bunch of minutiae that aren't problems, per se, but aren't necessarily fun to deal with. But that's neither here nor there.

What is here or there, or at least on my mind this week? Mad Men. Yes, the award winning AMC show which everyone else has been watching for four years. I only just watched it recently, but I consumed it all like a man who went from a deserted island to an all-you-can-eat bar. I had my doubts about the hype, but I found this show to live up to it in spades.

The show is a jewel on so many levels: characterization, performance, dialogue. But beyond that, well above and beyond that, there is the worldbuilding.

Now, worldbuilding in the case of Mad Men isn't the same thing as worldbuilding in the SF/F sense. This is history, not whole cloth, after all. But it's amazing how much work is done with a few details: the right costumes combined with excessive smoking, casual drinking and the occasional comment that would get you fired or arrested today. Simple work, elegantly done.

The other thing I love about the show is how it both manages to foreshadow fairly, while at the same time throw curveballs as to where it's going to go. That makes the most interesting drama to me.

How can I apply this to what I'm writing? I can certainly take another pass at Maradaine Constabulary with a new eye to how Katrine is treated as the first female inspector in the unit. Mad Men helped me realize that I was probably giving that element too light a touch. I don't have to walk on eggshells, I can make it harder on Katrine.*

What I really love here is how a piece of work that's one genre and media can serve as inspiration for something completely different. Will the Mad Men seeds be immediately apparent in Constabulary or other works? Maybe, maybe not. But it, like everything else mixed up in my brain, ends up back on the page.
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*- Sometimes I think one problem I have as a writer is I'm too nice to my characters. I don't do enough to really shatter the floor out from under them.

The Limits of Brand Control

2011-09-29T14:43:00.000-07:00

One of the things fledgling and prospective authors hear a lot about is "managing your brand". In rough practice, it's a good idea. Your brand is, in essence, your own name, and you want your name to be thought of in the context of "successful writer". Or something in that ballpark. You want a Google search of your name to bring up you and the things about you that you want people to know. You don't want it to bring up a Livejournal rant where you call some famous writer a crazy hack who isn't fit to write shampoo directions.

But, at the same time, there's only so much one can do to really influence people's opinions of you, and you certainly can't control them. Sometimes even trying to do one thing can have the exact opposite effect, despite your best intentions.

Many years ago, in my earlier life as a local theatre director and producer, I was putting together a show in which I had hoped to get one particular actress. That actress, however, was planning on doing another show with a relatively big name, locally, and that show would conflict with mine. No big deal. However, at one point in my casting process, some other people approached me saying that Big Name Director's show was already cast, and we should let the actress know that so we could get her.
Now, I didn't waste a thought entertaining this notion, and told these other people that it was none of our business.

So, you can imagine my surprise when I get an email from Big Name Director, in which he tears into me for spreading rumors about his shows and sticking my nose into his business. Apparently the idea that I was the one telling other people his show was already cast had reached his ear, and I certainly don't blame him for confronting me given what he believed. I wrote back explaining my side of things, received a terse non-apology, and that was the end of that.

But-- and I can't confirm this with certainty, but I have a strong sense-- a certain amount of damage was done to my reputation, through no action of my own. It's hard to say if it affected me in the local theatre community. I only ended up doing a few more shows before more or less retiring, mostly because I wasn't that good as a producer/director. (For most of the shows I did, I will fully say that the elements that did work were due to the good people I had working with me, and those that did not were in all likelihood my own failings.)

The point is, control of one's brand, one's reputation, can only go so far. Once it's out there, it's out there, and you don't get to decide what other people think about it.

Now for a reader question

2011-09-26T13:46:00.000-07:00

In response to last week's opening, Leigh asks:

In the event of having a series published and readers overnight flocking to consume every page, are you okay with them knowing "Marshall The Person" with a film degree and a wife and child and home with Mexican-inspired interior decor in Austin, TX, or do you plan to cultivate (or are you already cultivating) your identity as Marshall The Author? Are they one in the same, or would you, like me, strive to draw a clear delineation between the two? Are there boundaries, or is your life the metaphorical open book?

As you can probably guess form context, Leigh is someone I know personally; she's been in my home. So she has something of a leg up on knowing "Marshall the Person" over "Marshall the Author". But the question is a good one.

I've had inklings of experience, having been an actor/director/producer/playwright in Austin theatre, with having a "public face". And armed with that knowledge, I can say it's challenging to form too hard of a line between me the Author and me the Person. It's more work than I'm personally interested in doing to delineate it too much.

That doesn't mean that there aren't boundaries, of course, and on my end I define them by how much I'm willing to put out there. I mean, I'm a pretty easy person to find, via Google or other search engines. My name is unique; search for me, I'm who you find. There's just a limit of how much I can hide. With that in mind, I tend to have a pretty strict "think it over before you post it" rule about anything. The internet never forgets, and I've been out here using my actual name for a while now.

Basically, what I'm saying is, like most professionals, I'm putting forth the public face that I've crafted as what I want to present. But it's not an act, it's not really too different from who I really am.

Sesquincententh, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Blog

2011-09-22T13:36:00.000-07:00

This marks my 150th blog post here. It's not much of a milestone, I admit, but it's one that I think a lot of blogs never quite reach. Several don't quite make it out of the gate with the first ten. And I probably wouldn't have reached this if I hadn't made the decision about six months ago to post here every Monday and Thursday. I've stuck to that schedule, and my readership has had a slow, steady gain over those six months, so on the whole I think the plan has worked out.

One of the panels I was on at ArmadilloCon was "How Much Interaction Should Writers Have with Their Readers?", which was a bit of a strange for me. I mean, I was asked questions from a writer's perspective, but I've had more experience from the readers. I'm really not getting much interaction coming towards me at this stage of the game. But being up there did help me clarify some thoughts.

Namely, how we, as writers, should best utilize social media. With so much out there it's real easy to fall into the idea that one needs to master it all, use every element to its fullest. Problem is, doing that can become a full time job, and then you aren't actually writing any more. You're just juggling social media.

So, here's my best advice. Pick one thing. For me it's this blog. Then use every other thing (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Livejournal, whatever) to direct traffic back to your central thing. That way you're minimizing the amount of "management" you need to do.

This is probably nothing you haven't figured out already, because you're all smart people, right? Of course you are.

That said, how should we celebrate this 150th post? How about any reader questions will get answered in Monday's post?

The Problem with Being a Planner

2011-09-19T13:34:00.000-07:00

I don’t ever tried to hide the fact that when it comes to the planner/pantser divide between writers, I fall firmly on the side of planners. (Except when it comes to writing these blog entries. With these, frankly, I’m usually winging it. I’m sure it shows.)

My problem with Planning, however, is my desire to Plan will kick into overdrive. I don’t just plan a book. I plan a series of books. I plan long term. I plan the full weave of things where sewing one thread into a story now is going to pay off in some imagined piece years down the line.

Which, given my current status as a writer, is kind of putting the cart before the horse. I haven’t sold Thorn of Dentonhill yet. I haven’t finished Holver Alley Crew or Maradaine Constabulary in a “this is ready to send to publishers” way. (Both I’m in the process of re-writing.) I haven’t even finished the first draft of Way of the Shield. Does it matter that I have a six-book plan for each of those series? Does anyone care? Is it even a good idea to have such a plan? Should I stop talking, like, right now?

It creates a problem, of course, because now and then, while writing, I get excited for scenes that are a long way off. A LONG way. And I write myself a little note and file it away where it needs to go, and get back to other work.

I wonder if other long-term planners work this way.

An allegorical tale

2011-09-15T14:35:00.001-07:00

A sharp knock came at the old sergeant's door. The was odd. No one ever knocked. Sure, sometimes a young buck would barge in, usually to demand the answer to some question or other. Simple questions, ones that were hardly worth his time. He'd answer, dutifully, and they'd leave again. Leave him, alone in the dark room.

Wearily, he answered the door. It was not one of the young bucks, not at all. It was him.

The golden boy. The new favorite. The warrior-poet.

"What is it?" the sergeant asked.

"How have you been?" the poet asked. Always the small talk with this one. Always the words.

"Been?" The sergeant chuckled, mirthlessly. "Been sitting here. No challenge worthy of me."

"Not since Essaity?" The poet's eyebrow went up.

"Essaity!" The sergeant's heart raced just at hearing the name. "Now that was glory! That-- you and I, leading at either flank!"

"Indeed. You were in fine form that day. Almost perfect."

"Almost," the sergeant said ruefully. He had taken one wound that day, just one. And it was minor, save the damage to his pride. He had been lauded by all when the day was won, though he knew that injury had been a mistake of pure carelessness. "Since then, though, you haven't needed my prowess, have you?"

"No, sir," the poet said. "The battles we've fought since, they haven't been worthy of your skills."

"The few skirmishes I was called out for were pitiful excuses. Barely worth my time."

"The battles of late have been very different from the kind you specialized in, old friend."

"But I was the best!" the sergeant roared. "I was the champion! We were going to blaze through every challenger who came before me!"

"We were," the poet said. "But it got too easy for you, didn't it. You heart hadn't been in it. Even long before Essaity."

The old sergeant sunk to the floor. "You're right. I had given up long before you ascended to your exalted position."

"I need you now, though, old friend. We are launching a new campaign, but there is a beast guarding the road to where we are going."

"A beast? Of what sort?"

"It is the Jeearie."

"The Jeearie!" The three-headed beast was legendary. "I had thought it had passed us by. We would never face it."

"We thought we'd never take this campaign. But now... we have to face it."

"I... I haven't fought in so long... to face such a creature. I'm not prepared."

"You must, my old friend. I can handle two of the heads. I am certain of it. But the third head..."

"That must be me." The old sergeant smiled.

"There is no one else who can face it."

"I will probably fall before it, you know. And you will be the one crowned with honors."

"This isn't about my honors," the poet said. "It is about us, facing what approaches. Like we always did."

"But what lies down the road, past the beast... this campaign is for you."

"It is," the poet admitted. "But right now, I need you."

"I carried you at Essaity, you know."

"And many battles before that," the poet said warmly. "So, you'll come?"

The old sergeant nodded. "One last fight. Yes, I think I have that in me." He laughed, like he hadn't laughed in years.

He would face the Jeearie. And he would beat it, or die trying.

Fantasy Sports

2011-09-12T12:31:00.000-07:00

I'm not going to be talking about Fantasy Football Leagues, or anything of the sort. Frankly, I don't know much of anything about those. Rather, I want to talk about the use of sports in fantasy fiction.

Now, I should preface this by saying, I'm not really a sports fan. At all. I went to Penn State and watched a grand total of half a game, and that was only because a sick friend wanted someone to take his season ticket so it wouldn't go to waste. I've lived with sports fans, my cousins and brother-in-law are big fans, and my agent is a huge hockey fan, so I'm aware of the mindset behind sports fandom. I don't share it, but I get it.

And, more importantly, I'm aware of how sports is important to societies as a whole. This is crucial in fantasy fiction. Unfortunately, it doesn't get quite the amount of coverage as it should.

Probably the biggest use of sports-- pure, game-for-the-sake-of-the-game sports-- would be Quidditch in Harry Potter. It's a flawed game, designed with a significant failure in sports logic-- the Seeker can instantly turn a 14 goal blowout into a victory-- but it as a cultural point for the wizarding world, it's great. Quidditch matches matter to the people playing them, and to the people watching them, even though nothing plot-wise is ever riding on them. Does it matter if Slytherin wins the Quidditch Cup? Not in the grand scheme of things, but it matters to Harry and his friends, so it matters enough. Though, if there is a flaw in the use of Quidditch, it's that it's the ONLY sport in the wizarding world.

I've only used it, so far, in Thorn of Dentonhill and other Maradaine books in a glancing way. The main game I've mentioned is tetchball, which is sort of a bastard child of rugby and cricket. I have a few others, but I haven't used them too much. Yet.

Are there other good examples? Most I can think of are more gladitorial fights rather than actual sports.

Dismantling the Structure

2011-09-08T13:24:00.001-07:00

With two next-draft projects on my plate, I thought I'd take a look at what next-drafting entails. It boils down to three things: editing, re-writing and adding new material. The first two tend to be relatively easy, and in many cases, it's mostly a matter of tweaking and fine-tuning. I like to go through that stuff first, fixing the stuff that's easy. In the case of Holver Alley Crew, a lot of that was just me being a bit sloppy: a few instances of "through" instead of "threw", a few sentences where I dropped a crucial word. Embarrassing, sloppy stuff. But that part is easy.

Then I go through again and note the stuff that needs more serious work. I don't tackle that work, not just yet. Just make notes. Then I make a timeline of the book. This part is crucial in adding new material, as it helps identify points where additional material could be weaved in.

Next step: remove all the chapter breaks.

This is crucial for me, for the way I write. See, when I first write the rough draft, I don't write in chapters. I don't really think in chapters. For me, it's all scenes. Once I'm done, I go through it scene by scene and find the chapter breaks. If I need to pepper new scenes throughout, it's a lot easier for me not to think about how it affects the size and sequence of chapters.

It's purely psychological, I know. But, for me, it feels a lot more natural to take the whole thing apart, and then rebuild something newer and stronger, than it is to try and slip and pry new things into an existing structure.

Gear Shifting

2011-09-05T20:10:00.000-07:00

At the Writers' Workshop, Scott Lynch came up with a rather fun writing game, where the students imagined themselves as pulp fiction writers from the Golden Age, and they needed to crank out a few sentences of outline for a story. Then one of the teachers would play the part of the editor, saying, "That's great, but I think you need to add a monkey and a waffle shack into it." Or something like that. And then the students would re-write.

The purpose of this exercise was to practice pushing through and doing the work even when the muse isn't whispering to you. (Or, in my case, muttering and swearing.) For me, inspiration is rarely the problem, though I often have those moments where I feel like I'm digging deeply into the word mines and not bringing up enough gold.

That said, I recently received notes on Holver Alley Crew from my agent. And in his opinion, it is definitely not gold. Which is understandable. It could use another push through the sausage grinder, and I'm happy to do it. This means, however, that I'll be shifting my goal for finishing a draft of Maradaine Constabulary for him until at least the end of November. Possibly December. But the real goal is to continue to grow at working better, working faster.

Autumn is Upon Us

2011-09-01T13:21:00.001-07:00

Ah, September is here, and the leaves are changing color. Of course, I'm in Texas, and that has more to do with drought than seasonal changes. The temperatures here are still in the triple digits.

But still, for all practical purposes The Summer Is Over. The post-con haze is fading, and one is left with fond memories and a nice bump in Facebook friends and Twitter followers. And the lingering question, Now What?

Despite my best intentions, I didn't finish the new draft of Maradaine Constabulary. I did a fair amount of work, but it turned into a slightly bigger project than I anticipated. My current goal is to get that done by the end of October. Please, dear readers, fee free to hassle me on the status of that one. That will make me feel like it's anticipated. And I can't let my fans down, right? (It's best to adopt this sort of attitude early, so it's instinctive when it actually matters.)

After that, then I'll sink my teeth into Way of the Shield in earnest. I think I'm almost on a breakthrough with this one, in terms of figuring out the plot in terms of character.

I did have some major breakthroughs on Flight of the Banshee (formerly USS Banshee), which has shifted from being Military SF to more Space Opera. Though some of those ideas might find a better home in Starstruck, which is pretty pure Space Opera with some old-school style Infocom inspiration sprinkled in. (And, no, it's not written in second person. I'm not THAT crazy.)

ArmadilloCon After Report

2011-08-29T09:03:00.000-07:00

Now it's over and done, this is the last I'll post on ArmadilloCon for a while.

First off, the Writers' Workshop went very well. I'm very happy to be a part of it. My group of students (with Julie Kenner and Rosemary Clement-Moore) were all fantastic, and did a very good job taking critique and giving it to each other. Not to mention listening to my rambling with cheer and good grace. Stina Leicht, the Workshop Coordinator did an amazing job and is an amazing person. And if the excerpt she read from her second book is any indication, it's going to be astounding. If you haven't read Of Blood and Honey yet, what are you waiting for?

Some other high points:

Seeing people I hadn't seen in a while (like Kimberly Frost) and meeting some fantastic people for the first time (like Scott Lynch and Elizabeth Bear). I may have gotten a bit fanboy around Scott. But only because Lies of Locke Lamora is just that good. And his reading from upcoming Republic of Thieves has me very excited for that one.
Lou Anders of Pyr Books, the editor special guest of the con, was brilliant and informative and very personable with everyone who came up to him. And he spoke at length praising and promoting my fellow Onyxhawke-represented author James Enge. I think a lot of people left the Con with him on their to-read list.
Paolo Bacigalupi, the Guest of Honor of the con, is totally hysterical. Especially when he's sitting next to Lou Anders. If those two had a podcast, it would be the best thing ever.
My panels were a lot of fun. The Food one was a hoot, especially given that it was at 10PM Friday night. I talked at length about food and worldbuilding and culture and exotic fruits and okra. No one made me shut up. The one on Class in SF/F was very cool, and a packed room, but that was since it was me with Joe Lansdale, Will Shetterly and Scott Lynch. The Singularity panel was fascinating, especially since Bruce Sterling was a surprise late addition to the panel. I'd like to think I didn't totally embarrass myself on that panel, though I'm probably wrong.
On that note, a public apology to Elze Hamilton. I claimed a certain story was an Asimov story, insisting even after she said it was Greg Egan. I dug through my books last night and found out I was in error. So: I was completely wrong, she was completely right. I'm very sorry, Elze.

And I pretty much fell into a mini-coma after getting home. So now: back to work. Plenty to do.

Scrounging around at the last minute

2011-08-25T09:21:00.000-07:00

If you've been reading my blog with any regularity, you know that ArmadilloCon is tomorrow, so I'm handling all the various personal last-minute details-- household organization and such-- before things kick off.

One of those things involved doing a bit of work cleaning up the garden, pulling out plants that are a waste of time and water, trimming away dead leaves, etc. And then this question-- in connection to the Food in SF/F panel I'll be on tomorrow night-- crossed my brain.

Are there any fantasy books* where people eat okra?

I can't think of any. Plenty use a basic British/Western Europe template for their cuisine. Some lean towards Mediterranean, Middle Eastern or Asian... but using American Deep South as inspiration? I can't think of any.

--

*- By which I mean secondary-world fantasy. I'm sure various urban fantasy books have it. I haven't read the Sookie Stackhouse books but I'd be shocked if there wasn't okra in those.

Worldbuilding: Everything Is Research

2011-08-22T19:04:00.000-07:00

I've just come back from a lovely trip to Akumal, Mexico. I'm now home and a little behind in all things, as is to be expected when one takes a trip. Plus ArmadilloCon starts on Friday, so the crunch to get stuff done is on.

But it was a lovely trip: pristine beaches, Mayan ruins, a boat trip and snorkeling. All amazing experiences. And every bit of it, as far as I'm concerned, is worldbuilding research. I've mentioned the idea of doing something set in an Atlantis-like setting, and snorkeling and diving have given some fuel to those ideas. We'll see where it goes.

Back to work now. I'll leave you with a video of a sea turtle.

NPR's Top 100, final list.

2011-08-18T07:00:00.000-07:00

NPR has now put out it's final list, based on the votes put in. Of my 10, seven made it in, with Lies of Locke Lamora and the Octavia Butler books off the list. Lies not making it doesn't surprise me, it's a young book.

But the Butler not making it-- NO book by Octavia Butler making the list-- I find that kind of appalling. She's possibly one of the finest voices in the genre, and it's a shame she isn't more "popular".

--

As another note, for the ArmadilloCon Writers' Workshop, my group is Team Octavia, named for Ms. Butler. I'm quite pleased with that. I'm also pleased to be working with Julie Kenner and Rosemary Clement-Moore, two writers I greatly respect and admire. So that's pretty cool.

Pre-ArmadilloCon, Part Two: Panels I’ll be attending

2011-08-15T08:00:00.000-07:00

In addition to the panels I’ll be on, there are plenty of other panels I’m excited about. (Though possibly the one I’m most excited about, “The Second Book is the Hardest” with Scott Lynch, Amanda Downum and Stina Leicht, conflicts with one of mine, so I won’t be going.)

Friday, 8:00 pm

Building a Fictional Society from the Ground Up
P. Bacigalupi, E. Bear*, A. Latner, A. Marmell, J. Reisman, M. Wells

Worldbuilding, one of my favorite topics. I’m sure I put in to be on this one, but plenty of writers probably would. I’m quite interested.

Friday, 9:00 pm

Imagining the Future: World Politics, Global Economies and More
M. Cardin, K. Hoover*, C. Mills, A. Simmons, W. Siros, S. White

More worldbuilding stuff, though as it applies to SF-future building.

Saturday, 10:00 am

Game of Thrones: Comparing the Book to the Series
M. Bey, A. de Orive*, S. Leicht, G. Oliver, J. Rountree

I’m definitely interested here. I didn’t try and get on this one, since I knew I wasn’t expert enough in the books to add much.

Saturday, 1:00 pm

Pyr Presentation
L. Anders

What is Lou Anders presenting? I’m not entirely sure. But I want to find out.

Saturday, 2:00 pm

Writing a Strong Female Protagonist
A. Allston, E. Bull, A. Downum*, J. Kenner, T. Mallory, M. Wells

I think I did a good job on this with Maradaine Constabulary, but I always want to learn more.

Saturday, 4:00 pm

Learning from Others' Mistakes: Writing Errors to Avoid
R. Bennett, M. Dimond, J. Kenner*, W. Spencer, M. Wells

This just sounds like a smart thing to listen to.

Saturday, 8:00 pm

Wiscon and Elizabeth Moon: What Happened and What Can We Learn from It?
E. Bull*, S. Leicht, S. Lynch, L. Person, C. Rambo, L. Thomas

Definitely potentially intriguing.

Sunday, noon

Superhero Movies
B. Hale, R. Kelley, A. Martinez, J. Perez, L. Person, R. Rogers*

One of my favorite subjects.

Sunday, 1:00 pm

The Return of Sword and Sorcery
L. Anders*, L. Donahue, J. Hall, R. Rose, W. Siros

This, obviously, would be of interest.

Sunday, 2:00 pm

Writing from a Viewpoint Other than Your Own
A. Allston, J. Lansdale, S. Leicht, A. Martinez*, P. Roberts, W. Shetterly

Like the strong female protagonist panel, certainly something I can learn from.

Of course, plans like this are just plans. They don’t always survive contact with reality. Especially if there turns out to be a really interesting conversation in the bar.

Pre-ArmadilloCon, Part One: My ArmadilloCon Schedule

2011-08-11T08:00:00.000-07:00

So, I've now received my schedule for ArmadilloCon. As this is my first time being on the panel side of things (as well as teaching in the Writers' Workshop), I'm really ridiculously excited.

Fantastical Feast: Food in SF/F: Fri 10:00 PM-11:00 PM Trinity; S. Allen, C. Rambo, L. Donahue*, K. Frost, J. Mandala, M. Maresca; I have to admit, having my first panel being right in my wheelhouse is a good way for me to start. Talk about food, and how it's used in Sci-fi and Fantasy? Oh, yeah, I can do that. Plus I'll be up there with Kimberley Frost, who is one of my favorite people.
Class Issues in SF/F: Sat 3:00 PM-4:00 PM Sabine; J. Lansdale, S. Lynch, M. Maresca, C. Richerson, W. Shetterly*; This should be fun. I certainly use class issues (and class as it relates to neighborhood) in all the various Maradaine books. Plus I'll be up there with Scott Lynch. Scott Lynch is cool.
How Much Interaction Should Writers Have with Their Readers?: Sat 5:00 PM-6:00 PM San Marcos; E. Burton, K. Holt*, M. Maresca, J. Nevins, R. Rose; A bit of a strange panel for me, but I can roll. I've been online for a long time, and I've seen plenty of author/reader interactions, seen how fandom interacts, seen some of the explosions and pitfalls. I've seen the evolution of those interactions. So I'm intrigued.
Is the Singularity Possible?: Sat 10:00 PM-11:00 PM San Antonio; J. Gibbons*, A. Latner, M. Maresca, A. Simmons, K. Stauber; I have to admit, this is one I'm going to have to do a bit more research for. Not exactly my specialty. But that's good. I like a challenge.
New Directions in Space Opera: Sun 10:00 AM-11:00 AM San Marcos; A. Allston, S. Bobo, W. Ledbetter, M. Maresca*, F. Stanton, T. Wagner; Space opera. Ah, back to my comfort zone. Which is good, since I'm also moderating this panel. Plus I'm familiar enough with Aaron Allston, William Ledbetter, Thomas Wagner and Fred Stanton to know that I won't have to prod them too much to get them talking.

And now some things I didn't vote for

2011-08-08T07:33:00.000-07:00

Last week I talked about what I voted on for NPR's top 100 SF/F novels of all time. Voting is now closed, but the winners haven't been announced yet.

So I thought I'd talk about some specific things I didn't vote for. Of course, books that I never read I wouldn't count. This is stuff that I've read and strongly felt shouldn't be on such a list.

The Incarnations Of Immortality Series, by Piers Anthony: I was shocked to see this on the voting. I mean, the first book of the series, On a Pale Horse, is solid and interesting. But each subsequent book falls further and further apart, to the point that the "crucial choice" Luna will make that is hinted at in the first book turns out to be a vote in the US Senate declaring that God is Dead. Because what the Senate votes on has actual, binding affects on the Almighty in this series. Add in the level of virginity-fetish Anthony has with most of his female characters and a bit where statutory rape is justified with time travel ("We've moved four years into the future, so legally you're nineteen now!") and the interesting things early out are pretty well sullied.

Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson: As often as I've complained about Stephenson's failure to end many of his books well, this one takes the cake as being the worst, at least for me. Mostly because it seemed to be moving towards accomplishing a certain goal, and then at the end the actual thing the characters were trying to achieve turned out to be completely different for no reason. Plus there's the random attack from a well-forgotten character from early in the book. One comparison I saw (I can't take credit for this) which I thought was apt: "It was as if Lord of the Rings ended with Frodo climbing up Mount Doom to be suddenly attacked by one of the Sacksville-Bagginses, and after Frodo kills him, he blows up Mount Doom. The End."

Time Enough For Love, by Robert Heinlein: After being nigh-immortal for a couple thousand years, Lazarus Long decides he really has done it all, and it's time to let himself lie down and die. Until he realizes he hasn't done it all, since at least two things were missing: A. clone teenage female versions of himself, and have sex with them, and B. travel back in time to his youth so he can have sex with his mom. I AM NOT MAKING THESE THINGS UP.

NPR's Top 100 Sci-fi and Fantasy Novels of All-time

2011-08-04T06:32:00.000-07:00

Right now (until August 12th) you can vote on NPR's list for the 100 top Sci-fi and Fantasy novels of all time. I've put mine in, and while there are several deserving candidates that I didn't vote for (like Tolkein won't make the list if I don't vote for him), these are my choices. I didn't vote for cultural significance. I voted for things that spiked across my brain in the right way, and have mattered to me.

1. Watership Down, Richard Adams
      This is probably my favorite book of all time. Great adventure, vibrant characters, clever use of myth and storytelling within the story. And you know what else it is? It's a great heist/prison break story. And an epic war story. The fact that it's rabbits is almost incidental.

2. Lillith's Brood, Octavia Butler
     This trilogy is really fantastic stuff. Humanity is saved from their own self-destruction by aliens-- aliens that turn out essentially be a kinder, gentler organic Borg who insist on "trading" DNA with the surviving humans-- and those humans are none too happy about it. Told from the perspective of Lilith-- the first human awoken after the cataclysm, who is forced to accept the terrible reality of the future of the human race, and sell it to the rest of humanity. Great stuff.

3. Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler
   Octavia Butler is the only repeat on my list, which came to me as a bit of a surprise-- but it shouldn't be TOO surprising, because she was a fantastic writer. The Parable duology (actual Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents) is a frightening look at the near future. Not dystopian, but close to it, as it shows an America falling slowly into anarchy as government gets weaker and weaker and gives more and more to privatization, and the middle class has completely crumbled. Scary, prescient and fantastic.

4. Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Robert Heinlein
Probably my favorite of the Heinlein, possibly because it it's solid, dynamic, and minimizes the somewhat creepy group-sex aspect that seeps into many of his works. Especially his later works. Moon, however, has little of that, and plenty of great worldbuilding and fun action.

5. Lies of Locke Lamora, Scott Lynch
Really fun caper, old school fantasy written in a modern voice. I will admit a certain degree of over fondness for a book that's probably too new to really belong on an "all time" list... but I don't care.   It's fun.

6. A Journey to the Center of the Earth, Jules Verne
Some serious old school to balance the previous recent work. When it comes to old school, I'm a big fan of Verne over Wells. Journey was one I read and re-read many times as a teenager. My old copy is on my son's shelf, beat all to hell.

7. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
Yeah, like this one wasn't going to make my list.

8. Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov
Or this. Seriously, Asimov and Adams were a major part of my teenage reading.

9. Anathem, Neal Stephenson
Just about all of Stephenson's body of work is on the nominating list, save my personal favorite of his, which is Zodiac. But Anathem is a close second for me. It's a solid, clever story that moves, and once you get into the groove of the made-up vocabulary, the worldbuilding really sings. Plus it has an ending that's a proper ending. I like that in my novels.

10. Belgariad, David Eddings
   Yeah, it's more sentiment than true value, but it's a series that has always been important to me. So of course I'm going to include it. And, like I said, it's not like Lord of the Rings needs my vote.

Working on a working space

2011-08-01T15:33:00.000-07:00

I do most of my writing work on my laptop. This is mostly out of practicality, in that I kind of need to be mobile and write when and where I get the chance. Right now I'm in a bookstore, and once I finish this entry I'll do a bit on Way of the Shield before I have to go again. I do know that I'm fortunate in that I can work just about anywhere. In my briefcase I can easily carry my laptop, power cord, memory stick, headphones and notebooks and pens. Boom, instant workspace anywhere I need.

Heck, I wrote a sizable chunk of Maradaine Constabulary in the car driving out to West Texas. (I was in the passenger seat riding; I didn't write and drive at the same time.)

But getting really productive writing done takes getting into the mode, into the rhythm, and that is kind of challenging if one needs to move around.

On the other hand, I have a desk with the desktop, and sometimes I find working there a bit stifling. Possibly because it's in our guest bedroom, so in some ways it feels like the space isn't "mine".

On top of that, I just received the poster-sized maps of Maradaine, Druthal and the whole world they are a part of. They're really pretty, if I do say so, though I recognize that I'm the only person dorkish enough to care about such a thing. But part of my "workspace problem" is figuring out where I'm going to hand these things.

---

One side point: If you're thinking about going to ArmadilloCon and haven't firmly decided yet, the reduced convention rate for a hotel room expires on Thursday (August 4th) and 5PM Central Time. You know it'll be a lot of fun, and you want to go. Yes, you.

On Conventions

2011-07-28T15:46:00.000-07:00

So, the DFWCon has announced when and where the 2012 convention is going to be. It's in a completely different place than last year-- which is a good thing, since last year's hotel can best be described as functionally spartan, and that's buttering it up-- and a few months later. I don't know why that is, but there you go. For those who are seeking representation and can spare the time and money to go, it's worth your while. Even though I didn't meet my agent through DFWCon (or any other convention), I still found going to be a highly valuable experience.

Also, ArmadilloCon is coming up in a month. I am quite excited and nervous for this one-- it's my first time on the other side of the table. I don't have a problem with public speaking (I was at one time an actor, after all), but I will be quite aware that on any given panel that I may be on, pretty much everyone else on that panel will be someone cooler than me. I can easily come to terms with that. I'm an excellent spear-carrier, after all. I also just read some excellent advice on how to behave when on a panel. I wasn't going to be in much danger of shameless self-promotion, but it's good to have that extra reminder now.

Another Map for another busy day

2011-07-25T14:30:00.000-07:00

Today's post is another map. A lot going on this week. Maybe the next post will be a guided culinary tour through Druthal...

That crazy muse

2011-07-21T16:56:00.000-07:00

I have mentioned that the personification of my muse is something of a wild-eyed chain-smoking conspiracy nut that whispers crazy things in my ear. The thing is, like most muses, he's less than reliable when it comes to giving me what I need when I need it. More often, he gives me what I don't need when I don't want it.

Take a couple weeks ago. My plan was to go deep into the word mines and come out with a more polished draft of Maradaine Constabulary. Plan went awry, since I started hearing whispers of a grand empire that once spanned half a continent. Then there was a cataclysm, massive magicks shattering civilization. The only thing spared were a handful of outposts on a barbarian-populated island several hundred miles off the coast. (Massive magicks don't cross the ocean, you see.) Then, these whispers tell me about centuries passing on this island, until its civilizations grew to a handful of relatively peaceful monarchies in a renaissance of discovery and exploration. So now they cross this ocean to find a land filled with dangerous and fascinating creatures, wild and uncontrolled magic, and the ruins and remnants of a lost civilization.

What do these whispers have to do with Maradaine Constabulary, or even the city of Maradaine, or the world it's on? Nothing. Not a blasted thing. But it becomes a thing that gnaws and picks and hisses in my ear until I write some notes, give it enough of my attention to mollify.

Will I end up doing anything with this? Hard to say. History tells me that as an idea, it's going to sit in the back of my brain to germinate and ferment for a while before anything useful comes out. Which is good, because I still have to get finished with the rework of Maradaine Constabulary.

Worldbuilding: Setting the Limits

2011-07-18T12:34:00.000-07:00

I was reminded by Mike Caton's post about the sometimes artificial limits we place on our worlds when we are building them. On some level, that's because without those limits, there's a whole other can of worms opened up that we, as writers, would prefer not to deal with. Take, for example, my 2373 Space Opera setting. In that setting, humans don't have artificial intelligence technology, robots or boutique cybernetics. Why? Because I didn't want to deal with that.

But how to explain WHY? In that case, I put a dark chapter in human history (unimaginatively called The Cyber Wars) in which AIs tried to rise up against humanity. Humanity prevailed, and from that point on put safeguards on their computer technology to keep it "dumb".

Magic is another thing that needs its limits. I know one person who insists that "rules of magic" need to be defined early in a story, which I think may be going a bit far, but certainly as a writer, one needs to know what magic can and can't do. In my various Maradaine stories, magic can't heal, touch the mind or affect the dead. Magic is physically draining, and takes energy, and energy means calories. Mages tend to be skinny and constantly eating.

Magic also has to have an impact on society. One thing I believe, and it's reflected in the technology level of most fantasy works being Medieval/Renaissance levels, is this: the presence of real, quantifiable magic impedes the progress of technology. Impedes, but doesn't halt. (That's why in Maradaine, technology is closer to 17th century instead of 10th.)

What ways do you all set limits in your worldbuilding?

Old School Influences, Part the Second

2011-07-14T14:51:00.000-07:00

Please forgive a certain degree of incoherence in this post. I'm not drinking coffee this week, and it's hitting me hard today.

I need to confess something about my influences: I was never that big into Tolkien. Frankly, several times in my teen years I butted my head up against Lord of the Rings to no avail. It wasn't until I revisited it in my twenties that I was able to get through it, once I figured out what parts I could skim and what to really read. Part of my problem is Tolkein is very, very enamored of giving things names, many different names.... and isn't all that interested in, you know, stuff happening.

"What happened to you?"
"As you may have heard, I was captured by the people of the hills of Jutrel, who are called the Jutreila, who are also known as the Hillmasters of Hemia. They took me across the Swamps of Sisssentaria, which the elves called the Illitírian Fens. This led us the the Pits of Helsinara, called Hudza-Küm by the dwarves and Úlieteza by the elves, where I was cast down, forever trapped."
"Then how did you escape?"
"You know of the one called Rathanor, also known as Jontor Helmin, also the Brown Wanderer, the Fox of Hulestia. The Elves called him Tríesiniilia, the dwarves know him as Hÿnsa the Bold, and the Orcs call him by the most terrible name in their language, which I will not tell you for it is most vile and despicable."
"Yes. He's standing right next to you."
"Well, he came and rescued me."

I admit, I'm exaggerating for effect. But not by much. The point is, Tolkien? Not a big influence on me.

So what was, then?

If I'm being honest, I'd have to say it was David Eddings's The Belgariad. I know. I know. It's completely derivative. It's totally by the numbers. Everything in here is archetype, and it's totally on purpose. Eddings doesn't deny it in the slightest. He puts his hook in you, and you're sitting there going," "Oh, hey, he's doing this here to hook me." and yet... hooked.

What it really came down to was characters and dialogue. Eddings was the first fantasy I read that didn't try to be "high" fantasy. People talk like people. There's a snap and a patter to the dialogue. Despite everyone being on a big Save The World Travelogue Quest, people just chat and ramble on and tease and joke and act like a bunch of people who are traveling together.

And that's what elevated it above being just derivative and by the numbers.

Old School Influences

2011-07-11T18:32:00.000-07:00

"It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue."

Those words either mean something special to you, or they don't. If they do, then you, like me, spent much of the 80s (and perhaps even later years) sitting in front of an Apple II+ (or similar machine) playing Interactive Fiction Games. Mostly from Infocom, which was the company that set the gold standard for these things.

They made a ton of great games... and those games really were stories. Though in raw text, none of them were probably more than a novella's worth-- maybe 20k words. But the writing was typically so tight and effective that it packed significant worldbuilding and storytelling punch in those few words. I was immersed, and I was far from the only one.

Probably my three favorites from Infocom were Planetfall, Sorcerer and A Mind Forever Voyaging. It's probably not a coincidence that Steve Meretzky was the writer of all three.

Sorcerer holds a special place in my heart because it was the first one of these games that I honestly won, with no hints, walkthroughs or other help. Just doggedly plugging away at it over and over until I got through it. For a while I was totally stuck on one puzzle, and it wasn't until I thought about a piece of information given in the supplemental materials (the "feelies", as they were called-- Infocom was great at packaging as well as the games themselves) and hit a revelation ("Bat guano!" I actually said out loud wherever I was at the time, and I couldn't wait to get home to test my theory. And I was right!) Plus Sorcerer has a terrific Time Travel puzzle. It's really great, fun work.

A Mind Forever Voyaging is great because it is little more than a rich, detailed environment. Unlike most games, there isn't much to "solve", in the traditional sense. But it's a fascinating bit of dystopian sci-fi that's worth experiencing.

How have these thing influenced me? Hopefully, they helped me be able to do a lot with just a bit of text. To create situations that characters have to think their way out of. And to just have fun when I'm writing, keep plugging at it until I have that bat guano breakthrough that gets me through to the end.

Late Thursday Post is Late

2011-07-07T17:30:00.001-07:00

I'm going deep into the word mines, dear readers, on something of a personal writing retreat. So today you get a small map of the city of Maradaine.

Later.

Independence Day Worldbuilding Blog Post

2011-07-04T09:57:00.000-07:00

So, it's Independence day. I would like to say I'm a big American History geek, but I don't know as much about it as I'd like to. (I blame my high school American History teacher, who, I kid you not, had a teaching style that mimicked Ben Stein's in Ferris Beuller. That and I was a surly teenager who didn't study.) But my American History knowledge is solid. Not exceptional, but solid. I can list of the presidents in order (though I might get a little muddled in the Coolidge/Taft/Hoover area).

What does this have to do with worldbuilding? Well, I recently pulled out my Druth History file, a document I hadn't actually worked on in several years. It's actually a pretty thorough document, coming in around 15,000 words, and filled with plenty of information that will, in all likelihood, never have any relevance in any actual novel I write. But I like having that information anyway. BUT, that said, it needs a re-write, mostly because I feel I'm a much better writer now than I was when I wrote it.

The bones of it are solid. I don't plan on making any major changes to how the history of Druthal goes. I do plan on tweaking the writing itself and fleshing out some more details.

One place where I plan do a lot more fleshing out is in the beginning of the eleventh century. 1009 in Druth History is a year of great significance, much like 1776 is in our history. In fact, a lot of it is about restructuring the nation. But what I don't have is (in my mind) enough information about the personalities that help shape that restructuring. Much like how the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and Bill of Rights and the Federalist Papers were shaped by people like Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, Hamilton and many others... I feel like I need to get to know more about the people who shaped Druthal into a Parliamentary Monarchy.

Plus, I actually have some thoughts on making that stuff somewhat relevant to part of the plot of The Way of the Shield. Because Dayne is going to be something of a Druth History geek.

Busy Week, Quick Post

2011-06-30T07:58:00.000-07:00

Two points:

1. You still have about 36 hours to sign up for the ArmadilloCon Writers' Workshop:

Writers' Workshop
Are you an unpublished, beginning to intermediate level writer?
Put your unpublished, original work of SF/F/Horror fiction in front of pros! Sign up for the ArmadilloCon 33 Writers' Workshop and receive invaluable feedback from two SF/F professionals (writers and editors), plus critiques from fellow attendees.
The $75 fee includes group sessions and panels or presentations throughout the day about the craft and profession of writing, plus lunch on Friday. You also get admission to all three days of the convention.
Instructors
Lou Anders; Paolo Bacigalupi; Matthew Bey; Jayme Lynn Blaschke; Rosemary Clement-Moore; Amanda Downum; Mark Finn; Scott Johnson; Julie Kenner; Stina Leicht; Scott Lynch; Marshall Ryan Maresca; J.M. McDermott; Jaime Lee Moyer; Marshall Payne; Patrice Sarath; Katy Stauber; Lee Thomas; Thomas M. (Martin) Wagner.
About the Workshop
The ArmadilloCon Writers' Workshop has become a major event for aspiring SF/F writers. On the Friday of the convention, you will have the opportunity to have your work critiqued by major pro editors and writers. Breakout sessions will cover craft, markets, the dos and don’ts of preparing your work for professional publication, and more. Discussions range from the basics of grammar and style to plot, theme, character, and setting.
You will get an in-depth critique of your work from the teachers in your group as well as from your peers. This roundtable style critique session is invaluable for learning what works, what doesn’t, and how to edit your work.

Check it out here.

2. I'm still open for Book Trailer reviews. Send me yours, or send me ones you find interesting. I'd especially love to see some that people consider to be winners.

Book Trailer Reviews

2011-06-27T16:33:00.000-07:00

So, I was suggested two book trailers by my friend Abby. In her opinion, the first one is worse than the second. I actually feel it's the other way around. Though, not by a lot. We're talking about the difference between a C- and a D here.

First up is "Infected".

I like that it's active. Things are happening, and the whole thing keeps moving. That's good. However, content-wise, it's something of a mess. It spends a good portion of it's 1:38 telling you what it's not about. I don't get that. A large percentage of time-- not to mention the CGI work (presuming that wasn't stock) showing meteors coming to Earth and telling the audience how it isn't what the story is about. There are a lot of things it's probably not about. Why tell me that? It's not an effective reversal. There's some other footage, which isn't terrible, but it's not well lit. This shows we're looking at, apparently, a viral-zombie story. If there's more to it (the virus's extraterrestrial origins aren't much of a game-changer for me), I can't tell from this.

Does it make me want to read it? Not really.
Grade: C-

Next up: Max Quick.

This is exactly what I was talking about last week when I was talking about trailers that have no point was a video. There's a single image-- I presume the cover-- which is either shaken or zoomed in and out in a vain attempt to not have it be completely static. Sound is forgettable. Some blurbs and back-cover copy. In other words, there's nothing here that I wouldn't get from just picking up the book in the store and looking at the front and back. Actually, it's more like if someone else picked up the book, held it in front of me and shook it.

Does it make me want to read it? Not at all.
Grade: D

Do you have a trailer you want reviewed, or know what you want to see reviewed? Let me know.

Book Trailers

2011-06-23T07:41:00.000-07:00

Book trailers are a phenomenon that have fascinated me for some time. This shouldn't be much of a surprise, as I am a writer and have a degree in film production. I think, in theory, book trailers can be an excellent method of promotion.

Theory and practice are two different things.

I've almost never seen a book trailer where my reaction scored higher than, "Well, I don't NOT want to read the book now." I can't think of seeing one where it actually enticed me.

Part of why is so few book trailers (at least, of those that I've seen) use the medium effectively. The book trailer should do the same sort of job as the cover and blurb... but not the exact same job. Because the medium is not the same. It's video, you need image and motion and sound. Some give me little more than words on the screen, words that I might as well read on the back of the book. That's not a trailer, it's just dictating my reading speed.

And, let's face it, many book trailers (even ones for traditionally published books) are very amateurish. I once, on a panel, heard professionals advice would be writers to use stock images. This strikes me as completely off the mark. If you use stock images, then all you'll accomplish is making your work look painfully generic. Same thing with the sound: sometimes I see nothing, or a selection that came from The Public Domain's Greatest Hits. Does it FIT? Does it work? Eh, usually no.

Here's one that's not bad.

The sound design is crisp and professional. A nice voiceover of, I presume, text from the book read by someone who has a good dramatic voice. Music is well-crafted into the rest of the work. I like the shot of the moon with the clicking years. The shot of the eye goes on a bit too long. The naked body is a bit generic-stock looking, but the shifting words over it keeps it active. The shot of the guy in the suit, standing on a cliff edge while carrying a briefcase? Kind of pointless. That reads like someone plucked the word "stockbroker" out of the text without paying attention to the context. But the whole thing keeps moving and gets done in one minute and 11 seconds. That's good.

Do you have a book trailer? Do you know someone who has a book trailer? Do you know of a book trailer that you think is really good? Send me a link. I'm going to start doing reviews. (And I have a film degree, and I had an A- average, so I'm right, like, 93% of the time.)

Writing Minor Characters: The Story of Citizen #4

2011-06-20T15:45:00.000-07:00

I believe that I'm somewhat unusual amongst fantasy/sci-fi writers, in that I cut my writers' teeth as a playwright. Coming at writing novels from a theatre background gives me a different perspective on writing than most people, especially since I was also an actor.

I'm not going to pretend that, as an actor, I was much above "competent". My presence onstage would not be a detriment to your show, but that was about about the extent of my skills. So, many years ago, in my acting days, I was in an excellent production of Julius Caesar, playing "Citizen #4".

For those of you unversed in the specifics of Julius Caesar, after Caesar has been murdered and Antony turns the public against the conspirators with his "Friends, Romans, Countrymen" speech, the public goes a little nuts. Thus, four citizens are hungry for some blood, and they know one of the conspirators was a senator named Cinna. They find another guy named Cinna, and proceed to beat the snot out of him, because that's good enough. Citizen #4 gets to explain the logic behind that:

It is no matter, his name's Cinna; pluck but his
name out of his heart, and turn him going.

As an actor with only a small bit to do, you do try and make the most of it. Why? Because it's who you are in that moment. I was never a method actor, but I always took to acting with the idea that there's more going on than just your lines. I recall this advice from Michael Caine*, talking about what a director told him when he was in a small part. The director noted him and said, "What are you doing right here in this part?" "Nothing, I'm don't have anything to say." "Of course you do," the director said. "You have amazing, brilliant things to say. You're just deciding not to say them."

Doing this kind of acting crystallized something for me when I was writing. I can't, as a playwright, write a part that would be no fun for an actor to play. And as a novelist, whenever I write a character, even the most minor ones, I can't help but think about making it at least a little more interesting than it, strictly speaking, "needs" to be.

In Thorn of Dentonhill, there's a bit where Veranix runs into two mounted constabulary. These two cops (or "sticks", to use the street vernacular of Maradaine) could have been just Cop #1 or Cop #2. But where's the fun in that? These are still two guys who got up that day, put on their uniforms, got on their horses and went to work. These are two guys who work at night, as partners, in a tough neighborhood where most cops are in the crime boss's pocket. But not these two. These two are a couple of guys who have each others' backs and do their best. These two guys would be the heroes of their own story.

Conversely, in Holver Alley Crew, at one point I jump to the POV of a character who hadn't appeared before and doesn't appear again, partly for the fun of seeing one of the main characters from a completely outside perspective. She has her own problems and concerns, which have nothing to do with what intrudes upon her. Her reality gets affected by the main story, but it stays her reality. And, if I may say so myself, it's a fun bit. It's more fun than had I written it from the main character's POV.

*- This was in a lecture he gave on video, it's not like he told me directly.

Intentionally hiding tools in your toolbox.

2011-06-16T05:56:00.000-07:00

Interesting bit of "advice" I heard the other day:

A stylistic thing: I was just at the Backspace Conference, where in the opening pages agent-author seminar, the agents stopped reading a participant's opener as soon as they hit an exclamation point, and stressed that shows lazy writing. There must be some other way to show the emphasis, or else don't emphasize the point where it is used.

I have to admit, I'm always a little skeptical about those sorts of arbitrary rules that one hears, like the exclamation point thing. That one, in particular, strikes me as especially arbitrary. Exclamation points show lazy writing? Incorrect usage of exclamation points can certainly be problematic, but to exclude their usage altogether? Absurd. I'll say again with emphasis: Absurd! (Especially considering one of the events at that conference was titled, "The Power of Positive Writing!” Yes, with the exclamation point.)

But more to the point, there are only three punctuation marks that can end a sentence. Why avoid one-third of them completely? How is that lazy writing? I don't know. It's a fundamental part of punctuation. The advice, as a reading rule itself, I find almost obscene. It's a step away from saying, "If I see a sentence with two words that start with a 'k', I stop reading." I shudder to think of fledgling writers running to their manuscripts and slashing out exclamation points. Because THEY! MUST! GO!

I'm so glad my agent doesn't follow such a silly rule.*

--

*- The first sentence of Thorn of Dentonhill is "Thief!"

Revisiting the Fantasy Manifesto

2011-06-13T13:50:00.000-07:00

Back when I first started this blog, I did a few posts on the idea of my Fantasy Manifesto-- a series of guidelines of what I wanted to avoid in writing fantasy. Looking back, there's elements that I still agree with, and elements that I don't.

1. No Fucking Elves. The principle behind this, I still hold. The presence of elves tends to indicate lazy worldbuilding, which then tends to lead to uninspired writing. I think there could be a good elf-using story out there, since the concept of what "elves" are in folklore is actually a lot wider than their typical fantasy usage. But I mostly see elves used as a sort of culture-building shortcut.

2. Don't Rename the Wheel. Again, I'm still behind this idea: if a perfectly good word exists, don't make up a new one. I recently read something for critique that did the inverse: using a perfectly good existing word, and have it mean something utterly different (in this case, the author created a unique creature and called it a horse). That said, I'm all behind creating new slang that exists in a world. Slang is constantly evolving, and the way people say something can change from year to year. Well done slang, of course, is when the reader can quickly pick up the meaning and follow along.

3. No More Chosen One. There can be interesting twists on this cliché, of course. One thing that always struck me about this cliché is this: if someone is chosen, then who is doing the choosing? And what gives them the authority to do that? I don't know of a story that explores that very much. Harry Pottter did a good job of showing the burden Dumbledore took upon himself in mentoring Harry, but ultimately he wasn't the one who chose Harry.

4. Dont' Copy and Paste Cultures. I still believe this is crucial, and I still believe it is very hard NOT to do, to some degree. What fascinates me is how many times I've seen readers complain about something not being a straight copy of medieval Western Europe. Though I have to admit something of a bias: it used to be that a copy-and-paste of something European will always bother me less than a copy-and-paste of Middle Eastern or Asian. I'm starting to get over that. I think Amanda Downum did a very good job creating an Asian-based culture in The Drowning City (though it helped she drew more from Southeast Asia than China or Japan), and I am looking forward to seeing what she does in Kingdoms of Dust.

Worldbuilding: Food and Regionalism

2011-06-09T20:39:00.000-07:00

Here are some choice passages from the intro of a book that most people probably wouldn't think of in terms of worldbuilding, especially fantasy/sci-fi worldbuilding:

In bald terms, terroir refers to the soil, climate and topography of a microregion, and pinpoints what makes an ingredient grown in one place taste different from the same ingredient grown in another.
But terroir isn't merely rainfall, mineral content, and angles of exposure to sunlight. no matter where we're form, terroir is our cultural and historical link to the land, the expression of the land itself and the people who live there.
--Country Cooking of France, Anne Willan

Defining regions, when it comes to worldbuilding, is a big part of a shift from macro-worldbuilding to micro-building. The food people raise says a lot about who they are and the way they live. Especially in any sort of pre-industrial setting, where a hundred miles of distance could may as well be a world away.

The basic staples of domesticatible animals and major crops will only give you so much definition (unless you really go to town in building all new flora and fauna, in which case, I salute you)... but the minor variations of culinary regionalism can give you a wealth of details to color your world with. Then you can even take a basic dish-- say a stewed chicken-- and then add in two or three ingredients that define the region, and you have a traditional regional dish.

Travelers in Druthal could therefore have Chicken Thalin (in the eastern region of the Archudchy of Sauriya), cooked with onions, carrots and mustard seed, and then cross the Maradaine River into the Toren region of Maradaine Archduchy, where the local dish is stewed in cabbage and beer. (And, of course, Toren locals might give funny looks to a bunch of bulbmouths from Thalin coming over. But that's just what those cabbage-eaters do, isn't it?)

Summertime and the Living is Easy

2011-06-06T16:01:00.000-07:00

Now it's officially summer, which means that my non-writing job becomes as close to a "typical" day job as things get for me. I do like the change in pace-- it usually works just about perfectly that around May I'm ready for things to change and have a more "set" schedule, and by August when the summer camp sessions are winding down, I'm ready to go back to the more free-form schedule.

So, what about writing work for the summer? I've got my plans, here laid out in order of priority:

Maradaine Constabulary- Transforming the first draft to a solid second draft.
Holver Alley Crew- Writing up full synopses of potential books 2 and 3. In case I need to have that.
Vanguard- Writing the rough draft. You know, it's funny, but if I was asked three years ago, I would have told you I would write my four Maradaine books in this order: Thorn of Dentonhill, Vanguard, Holver Alley Crew, Maradaine Constabulary. But Vanguard kept eluding me. I think I'm getting it figured out now.
Banshee and Starstruck- Hashing out characters and outline. Right now they're vague ideas that need fleshing out before real writing can begin. But that's a good "writers' block break" kind of project.

Off to a hopefully productive summer.

Breaking the glass and hitting the Big Red Button

2011-06-02T13:02:00.000-07:00

One of the Big Stories out there this week is how DC Comics is apparently planning a hard reboot of their entire universe, re-launching everything as #1 with 52 different series.

Whenever news like this comes out, I try to approach it with a healthy dose of skeptical optimism. It could prove really interesting, or it could fail horribly, but I want to believe that it'll prove interesting.

For me, the most interesting aspect is the fact that they are going all in. When Marvel did Heroes Reborn or their Ultimate line, they didn't stop publishing their regular universe. They were both toe-in-the-water experiments, with varying degrees of success. DC, in some ways, had intended to do exactly this back in 1986 with Crisis of Infinite Earths, giving an in-story reason for a hard reboot. The problem was there wasn't full commitment to the hard reboot, and there certainly wasn't a cohesive editorial vision behind it. Here it seems that DC is doing a full jump-out-of-the-plane bold move that could soar or crash, but they aren't hedging their bets.

Now, for me this sort of idea can work a lot better for DC than it would for Marvel, because when you come down to it, DC's characters are more iconic. The proof comes when you try to parallel the DC characters to Marvel counterparts: the main DC characters tend to embody a iconic Big Idea, and the equivalent on the Marvel side is somewhere in the C-list. The Flash is super-speed, while Quicksilver is a superfast guy who is more known for being a creepy, possessive anti-hero. Aquaman is the ocean-based hero, while Submariner is... more known for being a creepy, possessive anti-hero. (I would argue the only major DC hero that has a solid Marvel counterpart is Green Arrow, who matches Hawkeye, both being definitive bow-wielding heroes in their universes.)

My point being, the DC universe is one where you can boil down the characters to their core, restart them and do something very interesting with them. That was the core idea behind Marvel's Squadron Supreme and Supreme Power. (And it should be noted, DC has never really successfully done the same sort of treatment with Marvel's characters.)

So can this idea work, and be a huge success? Absolutely. Will it? Hard to say.

I have to admit, I do have a twinge of jealousy towards the writers on these projects. The opportunity to write these iconic characters, but starting from scratch? That's potent. If I had my druthers, do you know who I'd want to take on in that context? Aquaman. My big idea there would be to change Atlantis into a far more complicated political landscape-- many nations with loose alliances and straining relations. Cast Aquaman as the Ned Stark in an underwater Game of Thrones, if you will. Throw in some environmentalism and intrusions from the surface world, and set the whole thing on a low simmer. Oh, yeah. That would be fun to write.

ArmadilloCon and Writers' Workshop

2011-05-30T14:35:00.000-07:00

I will be at ArmadilloCon this year, including participating in the Writers' Workshop, this year from the other side of the table. I am incredibly excited.

I can honestly say that I am the writer I am today in no small part due to ArmadilloCon and the workshop. I first went in 2005, and on some level I was completely unaware what I was going to. At that point, I had written (as a NaNoWriMo) a novel called the Fifty Year War-- which is terrible, by the way-- and was working on Crown of Druthal, which at the time I was convinced would be my grand opus. For the workshop, I had submitted the first chapter of Crown.

Friends, let me tell you, I walked in there totally cocky. I had read the other pieces for my group, and found them all wanting, and was convinced-- absolutely rock-solid certain-- that I had something truly awesome on my hands, and that's what I would be told. Sure, they'll give me some notes on polishing it. Just the little tweaks it needs to go from, say, A+ to A++.

It was savaged. Deeply, horribly savaged. Torn to pieces.

And, looking back, rightly so. It was deeply, deeply flawed. I'm talking on a fundamental level in terms of POV and verb tense. Let alone a third of the whole thing was an infodumping history lesson on how the main character's uncle got elected to Parliament.

Now, that said, despite said savaging, I realized that there was more going on than just the workshop-- there was a whole conference. With panels of writers talking about writing, and the business of writing. And I, in my cocky ignorance, had already paid to go to all this and could. So my weekend was redefined from my previous plans.

I went again, including the Workshop in 2006, and was again savaged, but with a sense of a glimmer of potential.

I had to miss 2007's conference, but I went again in 2008. And what I brought with me that year was the beginning of what would become Thorn of Dentonhill. And that was not savaged. With that, I was told, "You're really close."

So, if you're in the central Texas area, or can get to it in August without significant hardship, come on down. You'll be glad you did.

Worldbuilding Link Post

2011-05-26T11:39:00.000-07:00

I have continued to be very busy, so for today's post, I'm compiling links to the various Worldbuilding posts I've done in the past.

Worldbuilding on an Interstellar Scale

State of the Writer, May 2011

2011-05-23T14:56:00.000-07:00

It's been a bit more than a year since my last update of my various writing projects, and I figured given the recent news it was high time to update again.

First, from what was listed then:

Crown of Druthal (Book 1 of Crown of Druthal series): This project is well and truly Trunked. I don't plan on going back to it in the foreseeable future. Doing it was definitely a valuable learning experience, but the problems it has are fundamental flaws. Namely, it's a travelogue where the places I wanted the characters to go dictated the plot, rather than the other way around.
Thorn of Dentonhill (Book 1 of Veranix series): Finished. I'm currently polishing the synopses of planned sequels so my agent can shop it as a potential series. But other than that, it's as done as I can make it.
Holver Alley Crew (Book 1 of Holver Alley Crew series): A finished, polished draft.
Maradaine Constabulary (Book 1 of Maradaine Constabulary series): Finished first draft, with tons of notes from my critique group to start the process of the second draft.
From Star to Star (Book 1 of Banshee series): The original concept behind this I've more or less utterly scrapped, trashing just about everything except the central character and the name of the ship (though the nature of the name of the ship itself has changed, from being the actual name to an humanization of an alien name.) I really think the new concept can be a lot of fun, but I need to do a lot of work before real writing can begin.
The Way of the Shield (Book 1 of Vanguard series): I still have a full outline, and I've done some more detail work, and some initial writing. But it's only been starting to come together now, since I've just figured out some key things about the main character that were eluding me.

Now, what else is there? A few things that are really just at the Initial Concept stage: characters, setting, rough starts and scraps. There's the tentatively named "Starstruck", an alien abduction/space opera story, "Zodiac 13", a modern/soft-sci-fi action adventure, and the scintillatingly titled "Untitled YA Project". Those might, of course, never coalesce into an actual written works. Lord knows I have stuff in the graveyard.

Short and Sweet

2011-05-19T12:09:00.000-07:00

I don't have a lot of time right now, so I'll make this post brief. Just a bit of news.

I'm now represented by Mike Kabongo of the Onyxhawke Agency.

This is awesome, and I am thrilled. But it means I've got some work I have to get to RIGHT NOW.

Worldbuilding: Listening to the whispering muse

2011-05-16T13:52:00.000-07:00

I'm not much of one for personifying my process, or presenting it as being something outside of myself, out of my control. I'm not a fan of, as I once heard it called, "method writing", which is a very accurate description. (Side note: as an actor, I was also not fond of method acting. I'm never one to question a process that delivers results, but more often than not I saw "method" being used as an excuse not to follow direction rather than a process that generated a remarkable performance.)

Were I, though, to personify my muse, it would be something of a wild-eye, chain-smoking, unshaven conspiracy theorist, complete with a Wall of Crazy of plot points, character sketches, long-term plans, connections and concepts.

See, sometimes the muse comes and whispers things that feel completely useless, in terms of actually writing. Just this weekend my brain started revving on things like Druth astronomy (and thus astrology) and playing cards and putting all the saint-day holidays in the calendar. Will any of these things come into play in any of the books I've completed* or are currently drafting? I don't know. But on some level, I want that stuff worked out.

So I've got to get back to work. If I don't name these other planets and constellations (with their classic Kieran names, since all astronomy has its roots in the Kieran Empire, and it remains a language of scholarship), then someone will start putting out his cigarettes on my arms. Metaphorically, that is.

----

*- "Completed" is a relative state, of course. There's the difference between a complete, polished draft that I'm shopping, and the eventual Final Finished State a book might be in.

Worldbuilding: Avoiding the Generic

2011-05-13T09:46:00.001-07:00

I was going to talk about maps and food today. Then I decided I needed to rework the map in question. Looking at it again, I was unhappy with it-- mostly in how it looked. I knew I could do it cleaner and better. So I started work on that this week, but it was too much to get done before today's post.

I've heard some writers dislike using maps because they don't want to "lock anything in" before it's time to write that. Whatever is over the next hill is in a quantum state, undefined until someone goes to have a look. I respect that, but it doesn't work for me. I need to know what's over the next hill, so I know why my characters might want to go there in the first place. More to the point, when I'm writing, I crave the solid ground of the map, to have those details at the ready for when I need them. If those details exist, then everything comes off more real.

There is a strange tendency in fantasy worldbuilding, both on the professional and fledgling level, to be almost painfully non-specific. Especially within cities. Vague shops on unnamed streets. Neighborhoods with little definition beyond rich or poor, east or west. No personality. No character. No sense that the city is anything of greater depth than Generic City. Could be anywhere. Sometimes a little bit of name is given, but it's even worse: neighborhood names that are purely descriptive. The wealthy part of town is the Golden Quarter. The slums are Beggar's Row.

Worldbuilding like that makes me feel like the writer didn't care about the world. And if they don't, how can they expect the reader to?

Worldbuilding: Wonder and Amazement

2011-05-09T13:41:00.000-07:00

So here's a question for you worldbuilders: Do you have a subscription to National Geographic?

No?

Get one.

Regardless of what kind of worldbuilding you do, odds are there will be articles in National Geographic that will be useful or interesting to you. Frankly, I don't know of a single resource out there that would be better for compiling together the kind of fascinating cultural, biological, geological and historical information that any worldbuilder would want to get their hands on. Every issue is chock full of ideas you can use.

Some favorites:

Paris Underground: This one was so critical. Maradaine is an old city, with lots of underground sewers, catacombs and forgotten tunnels. The article helped me clarify depths, usage, and practicality.

Angkor: The ancient city, then and now. A good encapsulated look at a non-Western culture's ancient style and engineering.

Incas: Another great look at a historical culture.

Plus, EVERY MAP YOU COULD EVER WANT.

Next time, we'll talk more about food. And maps.

Worldbuilding: Crawling Towards Advancement

2011-05-05T16:37:00.001-07:00

Today's required reading: The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean.

A look at chemistry through the lens of history, The Disappearing Spoon talks about every element on the periodic table, its properties and its history, not to mention the history how the periodic table itself came about. I found it a fascinating read, and the history of science in general is a subject I feel gets something of a short shrift, both in academia (in study of history or science) and in worldbuilding.

Until this century, science was something someone could putter around with. There were, of course, men (and women) of scholarship working out of universities. But there was plenty of science being done, more or less, by the bored and wealthy as a hobby. A lot of discoveries came about through trial and error of people filling up their spare time. X-rays, for example, were discovered by someone who was just messing around with different stuff to see what would happen. When said messing around resulted in a picture of his bones, he was convinced he had actually gone insane, and in order to prove to himself that it wasn't real, he kept repeating it over and over, and then showed it to his wife (who fainted dead away).

Most science was done with the time honored tradition of the following steps.

Poke something.
See what happens.
Poke it again and see if it happens again.

Secondary worldbuilding tends to ignore science and the history of science. I've been guilty of it as well. History in secondary worldbuildingn tends to be mostly about kings and nations and wars. But the history of a civilization is more than that. When looking at your world's history, ask yourself: Who was the Socrates of this world? Who was the Pythagoras? The Isaac Newton? Galileo? Kepler? Pastuer? Curie?

Will this stuff come into play in what you write? Probably not. But it's always more interesting when you know it.

The other good reason to read The Disappearing Spoon? Little bits of science trivia you just might apply in your worldbuilding. Here's a free one: copper is a natural disinfectant, killing bacteria. Water piped through copper pipes won't have bacteria, nor will copper coins or doorknobs.

Worldbuilding: How We Fall

2011-05-02T14:00:00.000-07:00

Next bit of Required Reading for worldbuilding is also by Jared Diamond (seriously, worldbuilders, this man is a goldmine), namely Collapse. While GG&S is about how and why civilizations prevail, grow and dominate, Collapse is about how and why they fail and fall.

One of the most important lessons from this book is how the prime reason for a civilization to fall is due to resource management failure, and this can happen to just about every civilization. And does. I love how Diamond eviscerates the myth that various non-European/Caucasian cultures are these gentle guardians of their environment, while Western cultures are destructive wasters. For example the whole "Native Americans used every part of the buffalo" thing. Yes, they did. And westerners used every part of the cows and sheep, too. And they pretty much still do on an industrial level. It's really only now in the modern, household usage that we throw away potentially useful animal products.

But the other underlying reason for a society to collapse, and for poor resource management, comes back to the Tragedy of the Commons. This is the fancy name for the idea that for any public resource, it is in the best interest of any individual to A. use as much of it as possible and B. invest nothing in maintaining it. Problem is, if everyone does that, the resource gets used up. But this happens all the time, and societies have fallen apart for it.

So in worldbuilding, look at how your societies use their resources, and if that is leading towards collapse. And the conditions that led up to that.

In my various Maradaine books, you'll catch mention of a country called Poasia. Mostly it's in passing, as Poasia had a war with Druthal in the recent past. Poasia is a nation that is potentially headed towards collapse. In my initial notes, made years ago, I had made it that Poasia never had a strong agricultural base. I've since revised that, based on last week's information. Now its that the resource base is dwindling, and the Poasians have spent decades overmining, overfarming, and pushing the limits of their resources and people. They mostly ended the war with Druthal because they were literally unable to maintain it.

Collapse isn't just about the failures, but also the success stories. Civilizations that excelled at resource management, and how they thrived because of it. Both Japan and Germany treated their lumber industry like long-term farming. Those same principles I put into place in Druthal, and helped define the character of the Druth people.

I'm still thinking about how to apply these principles on an interstellar level. Space Opera is quite fond of "Old Ones", ancient interstellar societies that eventually fall and leave only remnants. It's fascinating to think about, but I'm still trying to figure out how to make it work practically.