There's a venerable piece of advice to writers that says, "Write what you know." If you know what you're talking about, it's easier to bring the reader there. But how does it go when it's not familiar to anyone because you made it up out of thin air and broke the rules of known earthly experience in the process?
Enter the fairy tale. A good one drops in enough familiar things to lure the reader in. We all know what a forest is. A constellation. A frog, or a cat. But then things get weird, the familiar becomes suspect and you can go anywhere. When I started writing these stories years ago, I had all kinds of dark and fanciful ideas. I wrote them down and wasn't thinking about writing what I know. But I was.
Fairy tales create landscapes from metaphors, patterns and emotional impressions. This process isn't conscious or linear. It rises from the inner realms of the mind—not when the writer wants it to, or thinks it should, but when it's time—and what looks like a story about, say, some nefarious creature lurking in an enchanted forest is, beneath the surface, a story about something else entirely. Something we all know and are familiar with.
Wizards, Woods and Gods: Tales of Integration is a collection of eight tales that journey through the darker side of the psyche in the guise of imaginary beings, tree and animal lore, romance, dreams, visions and verse.
The Trouble with Tansy - An orphaned girl on the threshold of womanhood inherits a splendid, mysterious garden from three generations of wisewomen. When a roguish wizard attempts to impress her by disrupting the seasons, she must turn to the old powers for help.
The War God Sleeps - When a lush, fertile land is seized by drought, a lonely hermit's son ventures deep into the hills in search of water and there awakes a beautiful, yet terrible god whom the world has learned to live without.
The Bridge - A visionary who spent her life preparing for a planetary alignment that will materialize a beautiful nature spirit only she can perceive, descends into her blackest fears when she is abandoned to a war for which she is indirectly responsible.
The Fifth Verse - An ancient immortal entity defies the rules of her kind by falling in love with a mortal warrior, an indiscretion that leaves her grieving, pregnant and dependent on the help of a wizard whose army was responsible for the death of her beloved.
Deathseer - Under the influence of a mysterious observatory, the commander of a fearsome army is trapped in a conflict that eventually costs him his honor and the life of his brother, and drives him to accept an inborn magical ability that changes his destiny.
Eating Crow - A masterful, wayward shapeshiftress angers a wizard who curses her by summoning a diabolical immortal hunter that puts her near death and forces her to seek the wizard's cat, a gentle, mystical creature that alone can heal her wounds.
Marked - The mother of a fey child learns the pitfalls of mingling with immortals when her boy is taken by a ferocious winged monster at the request of the god who fathered him.
The Origin - A woodsman discovers that he is a god who created everything around him to know the love of a woman whose mortality drives him to the brink of annihilation.
Wizards, Woods and Gods: Tales of Integration is available as an ebook from Wild Child Publishing (PDF, HTML, ePub, Mobi, Lit and PRC), Amazon (Kindle) and Barnes and Noble (Nook).
See Story Illustrations
Read an Excerpt
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Customer review of Wizards, Woods and Gods:
"If you enjoy a book for sake of an interesting story, this book is for you. If you enjoy a story for sake of how well it's written, this book is even more so for you. F.T. McKinstry writes in a way that involves all the senses. It's not something I read line by line, but sensation by sensation. Highly recommended."
Enter the fairy tale. A good one drops in enough familiar things to lure the reader in. We all know what a forest is. A constellation. A frog, or a cat. But then things get weird, the familiar becomes suspect and you can go anywhere. When I started writing these stories years ago, I had all kinds of dark and fanciful ideas. I wrote them down and wasn't thinking about writing what I know. But I was.
Fairy tales create landscapes from metaphors, patterns and emotional impressions. This process isn't conscious or linear. It rises from the inner realms of the mind—not when the writer wants it to, or thinks it should, but when it's time—and what looks like a story about, say, some nefarious creature lurking in an enchanted forest is, beneath the surface, a story about something else entirely. Something we all know and are familiar with.
Wizards, Woods and Gods: Tales of Integration is a collection of eight tales that journey through the darker side of the psyche in the guise of imaginary beings, tree and animal lore, romance, dreams, visions and verse.
The Trouble with Tansy - An orphaned girl on the threshold of womanhood inherits a splendid, mysterious garden from three generations of wisewomen. When a roguish wizard attempts to impress her by disrupting the seasons, she must turn to the old powers for help.
The War God Sleeps - When a lush, fertile land is seized by drought, a lonely hermit's son ventures deep into the hills in search of water and there awakes a beautiful, yet terrible god whom the world has learned to live without.
The Bridge - A visionary who spent her life preparing for a planetary alignment that will materialize a beautiful nature spirit only she can perceive, descends into her blackest fears when she is abandoned to a war for which she is indirectly responsible.
The Fifth Verse - An ancient immortal entity defies the rules of her kind by falling in love with a mortal warrior, an indiscretion that leaves her grieving, pregnant and dependent on the help of a wizard whose army was responsible for the death of her beloved.
Deathseer - Under the influence of a mysterious observatory, the commander of a fearsome army is trapped in a conflict that eventually costs him his honor and the life of his brother, and drives him to accept an inborn magical ability that changes his destiny.
Eating Crow - A masterful, wayward shapeshiftress angers a wizard who curses her by summoning a diabolical immortal hunter that puts her near death and forces her to seek the wizard's cat, a gentle, mystical creature that alone can heal her wounds.
Marked - The mother of a fey child learns the pitfalls of mingling with immortals when her boy is taken by a ferocious winged monster at the request of the god who fathered him.
The Origin - A woodsman discovers that he is a god who created everything around him to know the love of a woman whose mortality drives him to the brink of annihilation.
Wizards, Woods and Gods: Tales of Integration is available as an ebook from Wild Child Publishing (PDF, HTML, ePub, Mobi, Lit and PRC), Amazon (Kindle) and Barnes and Noble (Nook).See Story Illustrations
Read an Excerpt
Watch the Trailer
Customer review of Wizards, Woods and Gods:
"If you enjoy a book for sake of an interesting story, this book is for you. If you enjoy a story for sake of how well it's written, this book is even more so for you. F.T. McKinstry writes in a way that involves all the senses. It's not something I read line by line, but sensation by sensation. Highly recommended."
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