Chuck Wendig's Blog, page 145

In Which I Answer Why Adults Read So Much Young Adult Fiction

The Guardian asks the riveting, entirely original, never-before asked question:

“Why are so many adults reading YA and teen fiction?”

And I, alone, have the answer.

Me. The brave one. Who plumbs the depths none would dare.

I have done rigorous scientific testing with beakers.

I have traveled the earth and gone in many caves.

I have fought three bears.

I have consumed exotic poisons.

I have even been a teenager once, maybe, probably, I dunno.

And the answer is –

*reveals envelope*

*opens envelope*

*a smaller version of me climbs out*

*the smaller version of me hands the larger version of me a microphone*

*clears throat into mic*

*taps mic*

The answer is:

Because a lot of YA and teen fiction is really, really good.

*flings microphone in a lake*

Adam Christopher: Everything I Learned, I Learned From Fan-Fiction

Adam Christopher is a deviant and a murderer and must be — *checks notes* — wait, that can’t be right. Oh! Ah. Yes. Adam Christopher writes some of the most delightfully fun books I’ve read, and in addition, I’m pleased to call him a friend as well as my fellow co-writer of the upcoming reboot of Dark Circle’s THE SHIELD comic. So, anytime Adam wants to stop by here, he’s welcome — this time, he’s swinging by to talk about the intersection between fan-fiction and tie-in-fiction, just in time for the release of his new tie-in: Elementary: The Ghost Line.

* * *

Storytime.

In 1985, I turned seven. That same year, Television New Zealand began a repeat season of a show my parents — who had seen it back in the UK — thought I would like.

That show was Doctor Who, and from the first night of that repeat run (a double-bill of The Mind Robber parts one and two), I was most certainly hooked.

No, more than hooked. Doctor Who was an interest that turned to obsession when I discovered my school library had a huge collection of Doctor Who Target novelizations. For several years—quite possibly to the dismay of parents and teachers alike—I would read nothing else.

I also began to write.

My favorite Doctor Who author was—still is—Terrance Dicks. He wrote most of the Target books, and by coincidence, had been script editor on the exact period of the show I was then watching on TV. His books were journeys of pure wonder, and the weekly adventures of the Third Doctor on the small screen sent my imagination into a spin.

Back then, writing was actually part of every school day. We wrote whatever the hell we wanted. No rules, no restrictions. This class of seven-year-olds was told to let rip.

I still have a couple of journals from that year and, with rare exception, everything within is Doctor Who. If you step back and hold them up and squint a bit you might be generous enough to call them “original”, but really they’re a bizarre mash-up of whatever episode was on TV that week and my own wild tales of space adventure.

But it was a start.

Flashforward (cue the montage). Interests and ambitions waxed and waned. Exciting adventures with Daleks, Cybermen, and the last xerophyte survivors of Zolfa-Thura were hardly suitable for creative writing in high school English, but my love of the show endured even if my fiction output (thankfully) broadened in scope.

Then one day I discovered there was a New Zealand Doctor Who Fan Club. The fan club had a fanzine. The fanzine published fan fiction.

So I sat down and wrote a short Doctor Who story. I wrote another, and then some more. I submitted. I was rejected. A lot. I kept writing. I kept submitting. I kept getting rejections but those rejections started coming with editorial notes.

Then I was accepted. I kept working on my craft, and soon the acceptances began to outnumber the rejections.

My first published fiction was Doctor Who fan fiction. Writing that fiction taught me… well, it taught me everything. It taught me about storytelling, about plot, about characters, themes, voice. The whole shebang.

Thirty years after those first steps into creative writing, I’m a professional writer. I’ve had five novels published, another five or six under contract, a couple of comics on the boil, and I’m doing what I love to do.

I think my seven-year-old self would be pretty pleased with how things turned out.

TIE-IN FICTION IS DOESN’T HAVE TO BE FAN FICTION…

According to Wikipedia, a tie-in is:

“… a work of fiction or other product based on a media property such as a film, video game, television series, board game, web site, role-playing game or literary property. Tie-ins are authorized by the owners of the original property, and are a form of cross-promotion used primarily to generate additional income from that property and to promote its visibility.”

Those Target Doctor Who novelizations I devoured as a kid are one of the best examples of the tie-in — they even say they are TV tie-ins, boldly and, I think to like, rather proudly, on the back cover. I read them because I was a fan of the TV show, but the TV show wasn’t enough.

I wanted more.

Perhaps that’s a defining feature of fans: we want more. Whether it’s Doctor Who, Star Trek, Star Wars, Fringe, Supernatural, South Park, World of Warcraft, Pacific Rim or Beverly Hills: 90210, there is a chunk of the audience—a sizeable chunk—who want to go beyond the source material. Tie-ins are an important part of collective fan experience.

But there’s something which tie-ins are not.

They are not fan fiction.

And I don’t mean they’re not fan fiction because they are officially approved and legally published, and the writer gets paid professional rates to write them. Tie-ins are not fan fiction because it unreasonable—even impossible—to expect the writers to be fans of the property in question.

Sure, the writer needs to know the property. If they don’t, it’ll show, with disastrous results. And if a writer doesn’t like the property, then it’ll be a miserable experience for everyone—writer and reader alike.

But writers are professionals and tie-in fiction is one of the different kinds of jobs available to us. The writer must therefore fulfill the brief to the satisfaction of the license owner, and they have to craft a story that people want to read.

But hey, we’re professionals. That’s all part of the job.

All of which means: the writer doesn’t need to be fan. A property can be learned. Help is available too—script, story bibles, development notes, concordances. And there’s the source material, of course—the film that is going to be novelized, eighty-nine episodes of the TV series, the console game and the art book. All of this material is available to the writer, and part of the job of writing a tie-in is to study it, and study it well.

Let’s go back to Terrance Dicks. I’m lucky enough to have met him—my seven-year-old self can’t stop grinning from ear to ear—and when I did, I learned one important thing.

Terrance Dicks is not a Doctor Who fan.

This is a man who has written more Doctor Who than anyone else, who has shaped the childhoods of millions of people like me. When I really boil it down, I’m a writer because of Terrance. I owe him everything.

But… he’s not a fan. He’s a professional who was doing his job, and doing it well. He has an in-depth knowledge of the show. He knows what makes Doctor Who tick. He has an untold wealth of experience from working on the program itself.

His books are the best Doctor Who books. They were my favorites when I was growing up, and they are my favorites now.

But Terrance Dicks is a professional, not a fan, and that’s the primary qualification requires to write tie-in fiction, because tie-in fiction is not fan fiction.

…BUT IT DOESN’T HURT IF IT IS

This year, my first official tie-in novel comes out. It’s not a Doctor Who book—that particular ambition is still high on the bucket list—but an original novel based on the CBS TV show Elementary, which stars Jonny Lee Miller as Sherlock Holmes and Lucy Liu as Joan Watson in a modern interpretation of the Holmes mythos, swapping 19th century London for 21st century New York City.

I’m a professional writer, and this was another book contract. It also just happened that, Doctor Who aside, Elementary is my favorite TV show. The program sunk its claws deep into that particular part of my brain from the very start.

In fact, you could call me a fan.

Being a fan has some advantages. Elementary is a show I know inside-out and back-to-front. I know the universe, I know the characters, I know the stories. More importantly, I know how these three factors come together to create something unique to the show.

Knowing what makes Elementary tick gave me a hell of a head-start on the novel. Sure, I had all the help I needed—all the episodes at my fingertips, scripts, the top-secret story bible. These were valuable assets, but they weren’t a crutch. They were there when I needed them—and I did need them—but I was able to get to work straight away, with confidence and excitement.

Being a fan of a property will show in the finished work, and while this is a good thing, it can also be bad.

The good thing is that the tie-in should feel like the real deal. This is the most important thing about tie-ins. There are tie-ins where the book bears little resemblance to the show or movie the reader loves love, despite using all the right characters and all the right locations and all the right plots. If a fan knows the property, they’ll know how the property should feel. If the reader isn’t a fan, they’ll still be able to pick it up, even subconsciously.

The tie-in will feel right.

But being a fan can be dangerous. Fans can get carried away, the resulting work being indulgent and conceited, packed with every reference and obscurity imaginable. That’s when a tie-in truly becomes fan fiction—fiction that only a fan can read, or even understand.

I’ve read a few of these. They aren’t pretty.

TIE-IN FICTION IS EASY

The characters are ready-made. The universe is provided, fully-furnished with en suite bathroom and sea views. The story fits a formula, a template carefully constructed by the creators.

All you have to do is write. You know how it all works. You know what makes Stargate: SG1 Stargate SG:1 and Murder, She Wrote Murder, She Wrote. Get it right, understand the property, and it writes itself. All you are doing is transcribing the wild adventures that you can see in crystal clear 4K UHD in your mind’s eye.

Writing tie-in fiction is a piece of cake.

TIE-IN FICTION IS HARD

…but if you get it wrong, you’re in trouble. Star Trek fans want to read about the continuing voyages of the Enterprise or, erm, Voyager, and they want to see what their favorite characters will do and how they will tackle whatever diabolical obstacle course the writer has carefully laid out for them.

Listen, very carefully. This is important.

We’re in some very treacherous waters here, because what we’re talking about here are favorite characters. Fictional creations, brought to life on the screen by talented professionals in performances that people not only love and have loved for decades, but feel they own themselves. It could be Harrison Ford as Han Solo, William Shatner as Captain Kirk, Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor.

Which means one thing: the writer has to get it right.

Plot and story is largely incidental, so long as you’re within the boundaries of the property. Story may be King, but with tie-ins, character is God-Emperor.

And make no mistake, capturing the essence of a character that has been long-established by someone else—whether it’s another writer or showrunner or actor—is hard work. It requires study. It requires the writer to be at the top of their game.

Writing a good tie-in novel is damn hard work. Immensely rewarding, fantastically satisfying, and the best fun ever.

But, boy, it ain’t easy.

SAY HELLO TO YOUR NEW AUDIENCE

Some writers make their break in tie-in fiction, but often they’ll come in with their own steadily climbing back catalogue of “original” fiction. That back catalogue—and that writer—will have their own readership, their own fans.

Tie-in fiction comes with its own audience—the audience of the show or the film, the readership of the last two hundred novels in the series. While an author will bring their own readership to the property, they also be introducing themselves to a whole new audience.

That audience might be huge. Tie-in novels frequently appear on the New York Times bestseller list. It’s possible for the writer to reach many new readers; if the tie-in is in a genre they haven’t previously written for, that potential pool is even bigger.

New writers, new readers. Tie-in fiction is an opportunity for both sides to discover something new and wonderful.

It doesn’t get more exciting than that.

TIE-IN FICTION EXISTS IN A WEIRD TWILIGHT ZONE 

Tie-ins have been around forever, and in the past they’ve been overlooked, even sneered at. They’re not real books, some would argue. They’re not original novels, they are a lesser form of fiction and they are easy and lazy because most of the work has been done for the writer. The writer doesn’t hold the copyright, doesn’t get paid that much, the royalties are terrible—if there are royalties at all.

There are exceptions, but tie-ins don’t usually appear on This Year’s Most Anticipated Books That Will Save Civilization As We Know It! lists. They tend to be skipped over for Last Year’s Books That Blew My Mind And Changed My Life Forever! lists. They don’t win awards. They aren’t even considered for them, unless there is a specific tie-in category.

For the writer, there is a strange period of quiet prior to release. There are no Advance Reader Copies and there are no advance readers. There are no early reviews. The day the book is on the shelf in the store is the day that anyone will be able to get hold of it.

In a way, this means that tie-ins are genuinely books for readers. They come with no preconceptions, no baggage. Only a sense of excitement and anticipation.

…BUT TIE-IN FICTION IS STILL ORIGINAL FICTION AND, Y’KNOW, JUST AS WORTHY

Look, let’s quit with the literary snobbery. Tie-ins are not some “lesser” form of fiction. That’s ridiculous. Tie-ins are “original”. There is no flow-chart or algorithm to follow, no random number generator that will fill in the plot while the author merely pilots the pre-existing characters through it with one eye on the clock.

A tie-in novel is exactly that: a novel. It’s the blood, sweat and tears of the author. It’s the work of the writer trying very hard to write the best thing they ever have. It’s long hours and late nights and office walls covered with post-it notes.

Just like any other novel. And just like any other novel, a tie-in is something a writer should be proud of. This is creation out of nothing, art out of thin air. Yes, with a tie-in the writer is supplied with a toolkit and a few blueprints, but the novel is theirs, the story is theirs. 

BUT ABOVE ALL, TIE-IN FICTION IS HELLA GOOD TIMES

Tie-in fiction is a celebration. Tie-in fiction is the opportunity for a writer to work—and play—in an amazing world that is beloved by millions. It’s a privilege and an honor to be given the keys.

Tie-in fiction is the chance for fans to explore new horizons, new stories, to see their favorite characters face new challenges and defeat new enemies.

Tie-in fiction is hands-down, pedal-to-the-metal fun. It’s a real joy, for the writer and the reader both. Tie-in fiction is for readers who want more, and there is no way on Earth that can be a bad thing.

I love tie-in fiction. I grew up with it. My home is filled with shelves of it. And now I’m writing it.

Seven-year-old me would be very, very happy.

ELEMENTARY: THE GHOST LINE

A summons to a bullet-riddled body in a Hell’s Kitchen apartment marks the start of a new case for consulting detectives Sherlock Holmes and Joan Watson. The victim is a subway train driver with a hidden stash of money and a strange Colombian connection, but why would someone kill him and leave a fortune behind? 

The search for the truth will lead the sleuths deep into the hidden underground tunnels beneath New York City, where answers — and more bodies — may well await them…

Adam Christopher: Website | Twitter

Elementary: The Ghost Line: Excerpt | Amazon | B&N | iBooks 

The Social Media Rules That Govern My Slapdash Online Existence

Over the weekend I saw someone on Facebook opining about how someone unfriended them and they wouldn’t dare unfriend people that quickly and what’s wrong with that other person and, I dunno, at some point there I faded out, took a nap, and woke up seven hours later in a snowy field covered in a space blanket and somebody else’s blood?

That last part isn’t really relevant, so we’ll just pretend I didn’t say it.

*wipes two Jedi proctologist fingers across the air, hoping you’ll forget*

What’s relevant is that I’ll unfollow/unfriend people like that.

*snaps Jedi fingers, accidentally breaks someone’s neck with The Force, oops*

I thought it might be interesting to codify my social media “rules” — which are as ironclad as a jar of marshmallow fluff, which are as eternal as a fruit fly’s sexual maturity, which I fail at as often as I succeed — here on the BLOGGEREL CAROUSEL known as ye olde terryblemynds.

1. The Unfollow Button Is On A Hair Trigger With Me

I don’t think twice about unfriending or unfollowing people on This Here Internet. I have an almost sociopathic bridge-burner mindset when it comes to social media, and sometimes it makes me feel cruel — like an emperor who whimsically thrusts his thumb up or down in order to decide whether or not you’ll plunge into the pit of syphilitic tigers I have raised from cubs (and apparently, given syphilis to?). But truth is, me following you is not that exciting, so I’m pretty fast on the trigger when it comes to ejecting people from my feed.

Let me unpack this a little, because I think it suggests I’m a total asshole (which may be accurate!). But the logic for it goes a little bit like this:

I view my social media landscape as equal parts “my backyard” and “the radio stations I listen to in the car.” It is curated. It is me attempting to filter signal out of noise. It’s me attempting to make sure I have the right ratio of voices on my radio and guests at my backyard BBQ bondage orgy bacchanalia. In other words…

It’s all about me.

I recognize that social media runs the risk of granting us all our own little echo chambers. We cultivate little gardens of foods we’ve already tried and won’t take a bite of a funny looking vegetable despite the wisdom of expanding our palates. But social media for me doesn’t work well as an ideological melting pot. I think you have a right to your opinion, and I have a right to not really want to hear it. That’s not to say I dislike you, or don’t believe you possess the right — but there comes a point where if your feed feels like I’m rubbing my hand the wrong way on a shark, where it feels like hot sandpaper-on-sandpaper action, I’m gonna to cut you loose. (This is doubly true if your only function online seems to be: “Show up wherever I’m at, and disagree noisily.”)

(I should also note that my social media feed goes well beyond family — it contains a wealth of people who I have literally never met. If I’ve actually met you or know you in some capacity, I’m a lot slower on the EJECT button. But if you’re Just Some Person, then I’m quick with the tiger pit.)

I will at times aggressively prune my follow/friend list like a meth addict tending to his bonsai tree. I go online to delve into social media to have fun and be funny and, yes, at times try to engage in deeper conversation. Largely, though? I use it for enjoyment. Mirth. It’s like, I don’t hate-watch television shows just to watch them. I read books that try to expand my mind and my experience, but I still have to dig the book. My social media feed is very much like that.

And if I feel like for some reason it’s just not a good fit, I will silently bid you a fond farewell.

NOW PLEASE TO MEET MY TIGERS: MISTER STRIPEY AND LASERFANG THE MIGHTY.

2. I Follow For A Lot Of Reasons But Mostly It’s Because You’re Funny

If you’re funny, I’ll probably follow you.

This is not a cue for you to try to tweet funny things at me.

It’s not that you’re not funny. It’s that I have a particular sense of humor. I don’t even know how to describe it. Some shit makes me laugh. Some shit doesn’t. Yes, yes, I’ll follow you too if I think you’re a good writer or a nice person or blah blah blah. But if a RT comes into my feed and it makes me BFLOL (bona fide laugh out loud), I’m in. I’m your Huckleberry.

3. Be A Fountain, Not A Drain

I try to be positive about things online because being online is frequently a big drain. It’s very easy to get swept into the sewer online and suddenly everything is GLOBAL WARMING and LOOK DEAD CHILDREN and HAVE YOU SEEN WHAT GAMERGATE DID THIS WEEK, THEY GLOBAL WARMED A BUNCH OF DEAD KIDS and too much of that makes my sphincter clench up hard enough to bend a drainpipe. Let’s be honest: the Internet can be kinda fucking depressing.

So, I try to introduce into it a positive voice. Not universally, but even when I’m waggling my toes in septic waters I try to at least be a little funny about it.

This is true too in how I talk about pop culture. I try to remember that even if I don’t like something, someone else probably did like it — hell, someone else probably loved it. I might think your shoes are ugly, but I’m not going to pop a squat over them — you like them, so what’s the problem? I will make my own shoe statement by wearing the shoes I like to wear, and when I discuss shoes, I will discuss them as if these are my feelings and not my expert opinion because really, what the fuck do I know about shoes?

4. I Keep Self-Promo Original And Minimal

Self-promotion is part of being Author Human Who Authors Things.

(Read: Brian McClellan on the tricky relationship an author has with self-promotion.)

As such, I have to do it. I have to do the Booky-Book Dance.

And I assume if you’re following me, an Author Person, you will gladly submit to and even sometimes expect a little self-promotion. Ah, but here’s what I also assume:

I assume you don’t want to be bludgeoned about the head and neck with it.

Further, I remember that I am ultimately a storyteller and an entertainer and it is my job to WORD THINGS GOOD, so if I cannot bring a little style and panache to my self-promotional efforts, then what good am I? So, if I’m going to pollute your feeds with my own Narcissistic emissions, the hope is that I will do it in a way that is both painless and perhaps even amusing or informative.

5. The Imperfect Ratio

Very, very roughly, here is the ratio I try to live by online:

10% self promotion

30% signal boosting

20% me talking about writing stuff

40% who the fuck knows just gimme the mic

It’s that 40% that I particularly enjoy, where I’m going to talk about… mmmyeah whatever I want to. I’ll talk about B-Dub or my dog or that TV show or the coffee I’m drinking or I’ll just shout incoherent things at the screen in PURE ADRENALIN-LACED HOT CAPSLOCK ACTION or instead i won’t use capitol letters at all or even punctuation.

Or maybe I’ll just tweet a strange photo at you.

Or engage in hashtag memes or:

*places funny action inside asterisks*

I don’t know. It’s the Wild West out there. AND I’M “TWO PISTOLS” WENDIG FLINGING BULLETS OF PURE WEIRDNESS IN YOUR GENERAL DIRECTION oh god those weren’t weird bullets those were real bullets weren’t they.

*quietly flings both pistols into a shrub*

*kicks dirt on corpse*

*casually backs out of the scene*

6. It’s Okay That I Offend You (Long As I Don’t Hurt You)

My social media feed, which includes this blog, is NSFW.

It may even be NSFL.

I offend people.

I get messages about how I offend people, often because I like to use naughty language.

And honestly, I don’t care.

Offense is easy. It’s shallow as a spit puddle, offense. Offense is cheap-as-free: you can be offended at how somebody’s dog is looking at you, you can take offense at somebody’s shitbutt sweater. I have been offended at the way a tree just sits there. Judging me. Stupid tree. With its stupid leaves and its condescending bark. PUTTING ON AIRS. I see you, tree. I am offended by you.

That tree doesn’t give a root that I am offended.

Nor should it.

Where I worry is when I veer into hurtful territory. We like to make hay about how words are just words, but when writers say this, I want to poke them in the eye and remind them that words have power and that’s pretty much the entire core of what it means to be a writer in the first place. If you don’t think words matter, you should stop committing so many of them to paper.

The line between offensive and hurtful is broad, but blurry, and it’s easy to traipse over it and go too far — I’ve done it, others have done it, and when called on it, I like to think I’m responsive and responsible, where appropriate.

7. Social Media Easily Weaponizes Shame

Social media affords us a fascinating ability — the power of the mob. The power of the mob is not a thing I say lightly, and it’s not a thing I say dismissively. The mob is a force of nature, and must be respected. It is neither good nor evil. It can be used for good, and can be used for ill. The mob throughout history has moved the needle toward acquiring freedoms for people, and it’s also gone the other direction and taken freedoms away.

Online, ideas move fast. You can say some dumb shit online, get on a plane, and hours later your career is over and your life is set spinning like a top (and there’s even a hashtag devoted to your now-eternal oopsie). I’m the first to admit that sometimes, bad ideas and toxic people need to get burned, but I also realize that I’m not very comfortable being the one constantly flinging gasoline and lit matches. Because everything moves fast here, the mob mentality moves fast with it. Let he who is without sin HA HA WHAT I CANNOT HEAR YOU OVER ALL THESE STONES I’M THROWING MAN THESE STONES ARE JUST EVERYWHERE AND SO EASY TO PICK UP AND FLING

Ahem. That’s not to say every opinion is worth listening to. Or even respecting. It’s not. That’s bullshit. There genuinely exists a lot of straight-up poison out there, and you are under no obligation to share it, respond to it, or drink it up and let it sicken you.

But I just try to remember at times that shame is very easy to weaponize on These Here Internets. It’s very easy to want people to feel bad about what they’ve done — and calling them out is probably also not a very good way to make them feel bad about it. I have to be doubly cautious of this because, as someone with a larger social media footprint than some, it’s easy for me to mobilize the troops even without meaning to. (“Hey, look at this bad review.” “WE HAVE BROUGHT YOU THE REVIEW’S CORPSE. COOKIE NOW?”)

8. The Three Pillars

So, with that said, I try to remember three traits I try possess while socially mediaing:

Empathy.

Logic.

Nuance.

Empathy is important as it helps you imagine where people might be coming from. It’s that idea of, hey, someone ahead of you on the road is driving slow — before you bite through your steering wheel and road rage them into oblivion, try to imagine what they’re going through. Maybe they have a dog in the car. Maybe they have a stack of teacups in the backseat and if any of those teacups break, some supervillain will kill their family. You just don’t know.

Logic is important to try to suss out what things are real and not real. (This is particularly important as bad information travels just as fast as good information here. These days I see a news article going around about a girl whose cat got stuck in a tree, I’m practically paranoid about it. “WHO WROTE THIS. IS THERE A STUDY? ARE THERE INDEPENDENT WITNESSES? IS THIS PROPAGANDA FROM THE ANTI-TREE COMMISSION, OR THE CAT COALITION. WHO BENEFITS? FOLLOW THE MONEY, WENDIG. FOLLOW. THE. MONEY.”

Nuance because, hey, we really, really like things to be black and white, which is usually a pretty good reason to remember that things are not that black and white. It’s easy for us when things are simple, two-sided problems. And they rarely are. So, just try to see if there are shades of gray. I don’t mean to suggest that you should look for nuance in people who are straight up hateful trolls, but just try to get the measure of a person. Sometimes we judge folks for one slip-up and fail to look at the overall picture, at the larger pattern — it’s not all white hats and black hats out there. People usually aren’t heroes or villains. They’re just people. Except when they’re trolls.

9. I Try To Remember That It’s Okay If You Unfollow Me

Just as I am fast to unfollow folks, I have to remember to be okay with you unfollowing me.

I’ll admit that when I see someone I admire has unfollowed me, it causes a twinge in my gut — but at the same time, I have to remember: this is the point of social media. If for some reason I was too noisy or too weird or too mouthy, then more power to them for cutting my ugly square ass out of their quilt. Damn, yeah. Don’t keep giving me the microphone if you don’t want to hear what I have to say. The last thing I want is to be sand in your social media undies.

10. Yes, I Vanity Search My Own Name

Sometimes people are surprised that I do this.

Some view this as particularly sad or pathetic.

And that’s fine. I understand the inclination.

But as noted, I am Author Person. My life and my profession is very connected to social media. So, I like to know what people are saying. Not just shit-talk (though I do see some of that weekly) — but vanity searching my name has shown me news stories, blog posts, reviews, sales.

This also means that if you’re talking about me, at least on Twitter, I’m probably seeing it. At least if you use my last name, correctly-spelled. (Pro-Tip: basically nobody else in the universe has the last name of “Wendig,” and if they do, they’re related to me.)

11. I Reply When I Can But Man, That’s Getting Hard

I once had the ethos that I would thank people for retweets.

Then I had the ethos that I would reply to all tweets sent to me.

Ha ha ha ha *sob* no.

I can’t do that anymore. I can’t do it for a few reasons:

a) Because my Twitter feed is a swiftly-moving river. It is no longer a lazy stream. Drop a paper boat into it, and that fucker is crushed between Scylla and Charybdis fast as you can say “first edition Iliad.” (Yes, yes, I know, Scylla and Charybdis are from The Odyssey but then the joke wouldn’t have worked and YOU KNOW WHAT JUST SHUT UP.) This means I don’t see every tweet and even when I do see it, I don’t have time to reply to everyone. If I did, I wouldn’t be able to write books. And writing books is how I pay for my mortgage. And my sex furniture.

b) Not every tweet requires a response. I try to respond to genuine questions, but a lot of times it’s just statements and… I don’t wanna just tweet “OKAY” at you. “I ACKNOWLEDGE YOU.”

c) Twitter is a jerk in that it won’t show me everything anymore. Different apps show me different sets of mentions, but ultimately — I’m just not getting them all.

12. All Roads Lead To Here

One tenet of my social media tentpole rules that remains true:

All roads take you here, to this blog.

And, ideally, to my books.

I don’t use social media and this blog just to sell books — I do this and that because I like this and that. But I also need to sell books (if only to pay for the no-kidding very-high fees associated with hosting and operating this blog). As I have said in the past:

I CAN’T EAT TWEETS.

And I have tried. The Apple logo on my iMac has a literal bite taken out of it.

Right now, this blog remains a viable location. And it’s nice because I control it, I own it, I operate it, and I can opine at needless length. So, I try to drive traffic to this place.

A central hub.

A supervillain HQ.

THE MOTHERSHIP UFO.

Anyway.

That’s it.

Them’s the rules.

Now, after that very long and probably unnecessary post, I ask:

What are your social media habits, rules, guidelines?

What ideas and behaviors govern your online existence?

Flash Fiction Challenge: The Four-Part Story (Part Three)

Back to it, peeps.

Go, visit the page for Part Two of this challenge.

Once again we return to the four-part story you’re all choatically cumulatively writing. Your task is to go to the comments, find the second part of a continued story, and then continue it by writing the third part of that story. Three out of four parts. Not the last bit — but the penultimate one.

You have another 1000 words to do this.

Make sure to identify which story you are continuing and who the writer was.

Do not continue your own story.

Do not end this story — you’re writing the second of four total parts.

You can partake in round two even if you didn’t participate in round one.

You must finish your second entry by noon, EST, next Friday (the 27th).

If you can and the original author approves — please compile all the stories into the single page, and credit the original author. (That may save folks from having to track back through multiple links to get the whole story so far.)

Jump in, get writing. Part three awaits.

Alan Baxter: Five Things I Learned Writing The Alex Caine Series

Alex Caine, a fighter by trade, is drawn into a world he never knew existed — a world he wishes he’d never found.

Alex Caine is a martial artist fighting in illegal cage matches. His powerful secret weapon is an unnatural vision that allows him to see his opponents’ moves before they know their intentions themselves.  

An enigmatic Englishman, Patrick Welby, approaches Alex after a fight and reveals, “I know your secret.” Welby shows Alex how to unleash a breathtaking realm of magic and power, drawing him into a mind-bending adventure beyond his control. And control is something Alex values above all else.

A cursed grimoire binds Alex to Uthentia, a chaotic Fey godling, who leads him towards destruction and murder, an urge Alex finds harder and harder to resist. Befriended by Silhouette, a monstrous Kin beauty, Alex sets out to recover the only things that will free him – the shards of the Darak. But that powerful stone also has the potential to unleash a catastrophe which could mean the end of the world as we know it.

***

Genres are bullshit

Thankfully, when Voyager made an offer on this series, they didn’t ask me to be too specific about what genre it is. Genre is for bookstores more than real people anyway, but I subsequently realised that it was a question I was going to get asked a lot. About the best genre description we’ve managed so far is dark urban fantasy thriller.

The books definitely delve into the arena of horror here and there; there’s magic and monsters and a modern setting, so it’s urban fantasy; and it’s fast-paced like a thriller. I’m a big fan of all those genres and more, and I like nothing better than to mash them up. But genres are bullshit and far too restricting, so I’ve learned more than ever after writing these books to take any genre description with about a heaped ladle full of salt. But I’ve also learned that people need their categories, and a good genre description is necessary.

So, dark urban fantasy thrillers.

More than 30 years of my life made a character who’s not a character

These books follow Alex Caine into a world of darkness. At the beginning, he’s a successful underground cage fighter, and he’s happy with that life. But then various events lead him into a realm of magic, monsters and complete mayhem. He navigates this nightmare largely thanks to his martial training.

Having grown up with a wise and experienced mentor, Alex learns to apply the rules and philosophies of the martial arts to these new and unusual challenges. Throughout the books, he hears the voice of his now-dead Sifu (the kung fu equivalent of a Sensei). I’m a Sifu myself, having spent more than thirty years training and teaching in the martial arts. This is why Alex Caine was such a fun character for me to write – he’s a very different person to me, but he’s grown up with a very similar set of guiding philosophies.

It turned out that through the course of these books, one of the characters I enjoyed writing the most isn’t even there – he’s just a voice in Alex’s head. So my lifetime of martial study created a character who’s not a character, but who is nonetheless absolutely essential to the series, and to Alex Caine.

Bad guys think they’re good guys

Antagonists who are two-dimensional cut-outs are boring and insulting to readers. It’s always important to me to make sure the bad guys in my books (hell, all characters in my books) are as well-developed as the heroes. This can be hard, but I’ve learned that the best way to deal with it is to always think from the bad guy’s point of view; and they never think they’re wrong.

Everyone is the hero of their own story. Bad guys may well have enough self-reflection to know they’re selfish and lack empathy, but simply because of that, they also don’t care about it. They think they’re the good guy, the justified one, entitled to what they take, because anyone else is simply not strong enough, or brave enough, or honest enough to do what they do. When I write bad guys with that in mind, they come out as interesting and compelling characters. And it’s a hell of a lot of fun to put them up against someone who can kick serious ass and has just discovered magic.

It takes a lot of reading and study to ignore everything

One of the things I wanted to do with the Alex Caine series was subvert common notions of various mythologies – fairy tales, werewolves, vampires, and so on. I wanted to reinterpret and reform those tropes and put the dark back into them. So that meant I needed to read a lot, then ignore everything I’d read. Of course, I’ve grown up reading all that stuff, but I studied more for these books. If you’re going to break rules, you need to know the rules, or you’ll just come off like a hack. It’s the same with tropes – know them to smash them.

Trust your gut, sanitize for no one!

These books, in places, are very dark. There’s a lot of strong language, by which I mean swearing. After all, a badass cage fighter isn’t likely to talk like a British blueblood. And if there are creatures who prey on humankind and eat their flesh, kinda glossing over that in the story would be disingenuous. So no matter how dark it got going down the various rabbitholes into which this story led me, I didn’t turn around. I followed them all the way down. This led to some confronting scenes and situations. All very much in context of the story and never gratuitous, but I wondered if Voyager might want me to sanitize where I had chosen not to. To their credit, they didn’t. And one reviewer said, “I am so thankful that HarperVoyager allowed the swearing and the dark fantasy/horror elements to come though…  Baxter and HarperVoyager are treating us as adults with this one and that’s refreshing…”

Fuck, yeah!

***

Alan Baxter is a British-Australian author who writes dark fantasy, horror and sci-fi, rides a motorcycle and loves his dog. He also teaches Kung Fu. He lives among dairy paddocks on the beautiful south coast of NSW, Australia, with his wife, son, dog and cat. He has been a finalist in the Ditmar Awards four times, with BOUND: Alex Caine #1 currently shortlisted for the 2015 Ditmar Award for Best Novel. He also wrote the popular writer’s resource, Write The Fight Right , a short ebook about writing convincing fight scenes. Read extracts from his novels, a novella and short stories at his website and feel free to tell him what you think. About anything.

Alan Baxter: Website | Twitter | Facebook

Bound: Alex Caine #1: Amazon | KOBO | iBooks | B&N Nook | Google PLAY | Goodreads

What They Didn’t Tell Me As A Parent: Kids Go Through Phases

They don’t tell you a lot of things when you have a kid. Actually, nobody really tells you anything except: “HERE, HAVE THIS BABY.” If you’re lucky they give you pointers on how to feed it (breast milk, formula, cheetos), how to clothe it (diapers, superhero outfit, robotic exoskeleton), how to get it to sleep (lullabies, bourbon, veterinary pharmaceuticals). You can, if you ask, find out a whole lot about the basic biological needs and functions. Early on and even through toddlerdom you gain a great deal of knowledge about poop. Look, shape, consistency. How it begins in infancy as some kind of black X-Files tar, how it smells at first like buttered popcorn but later stinks like the leavings of an adult drunk who just ate a dozen egg rolls, how there are colors to watch out for (green, red, paisley, technicolor, pulsating starlight).

But when it comes to intellectual and emotional development, I’ve found that the information there is considerably more scarce — or, at least, a whole lot less certain. Mostly, you just have to roll with it. You go through all the crazy whackaloon shit you get with having a two-year-old toddler. Then they become threenager monkey-demons with the hormonal surge you thought was left only to pubescent thirteen-year-olds. You take each day as it comes.

Thing is, each day has this way of feeling like forever. Especially when they seem to repeat, ala Groundhog Day. And that’s one of the things they don’t necessarily tell you, or at least, nobody told me. (Or maybe I just wasn’t listening — never discount the possibility that when somebody was trying to explain something to me I was staring off at the middle distance thinking about sex, cake, video games, pie, sex, cookies, or how one day we’re all going to die.)

We often measure our children’s early lives in months — “Oh, he’s six months, he’s eighteen months, he’s 312 months.” But you can also measure their existence in phases. Our kid goes through these phases and while they’re happening, they feel like forever. They feel like, this is who he is instead of this is who he is right now. You get used to a certain phase as awesome or scary or weird as that stage may be, and then one day it’s just — poof, it’s over. And you almost miss it. They’ve moved on, and even if it was a phase that drove you to drink a six-pack of wine coolers a day in a dark downstairs bathroom, you might miss it, too.

I don’t know what phases your kids have gone through or will go through, but I thought: “Hey, maybe I’ll write down some of B-Dub’s phases.” Just for a lark and a larf.

So here I present to you: ten of B-Dub’s most notable phases.

The Eon Of Marshmallow Cereal

Our kid, he eats pretty all right. He’s some kinda weirdo who eats his vegetables first. He’ll eat stuff that I wouldn’t have touched as a kid: mushrooms, kale, avocado. But there was a point where the only thing he wanted for breakfast was marshmallow cereal. Like, Lucky Charms, except we’re those hipster crunchy hippie assholes who have to buy the kind without artificial colors and high-fructose-corn-syrup and whatever? That.

We’d try to expand his horizons, we’d make eggs and pancakes and French Toast but if he didn’t get marshmallow cereal, it was fucking Thunderdome in our kitchen. He was like a nuclear reactor with all the safety protocols gone to shit: a nation-destroying meltdown. You hit this grave realization where as a parent you think, “Eventually someone’s going to come and take our child away from us because at this point we cannot get him to eat a healthy, proper breakfast to save his life. They’re going to give him to another family who won’t buy marshmallow cereal. We have made a monster. We are terrible parents.” And then one day, months later, it’s over. Like birth contractions over a much longer period, they come and then they go. Now he eats diversely again (though there was a very short pancake surge).

He has not asked for marshmallow cereal in months.

The Days Of The Transformers

Everything was trucks until it wasn’t — then it was trucks that become robots. One day, B-Dub couldn’t give two rat pubes about Transformers. The next, they were the best thing ever. (I’m lookin’ at you, Rescue Bots.) Everything was Bumblebee and Heatwave and Ironhide and he would be those character and he would make them out of Duplo blocks and every mundane object he picked up — pillow, fork, cement block, piece of dog poop, brick of uranium — he pretended was a Transformer even if he had a perfectly good Transformer toy within reach.

The bonus? Pretending to be Bumblebee or Optimus Prime gave him confidence to do things like they would: heroically and with great robotic panache. And shit, I was excited, too! I loved Transformers as a kid. And so for Christmas we bought a bunch of cool Transformers gear and lined up to give him his new presents and — the boat left, and we were not on the boat. The Days of Transformers were over. Transformers all diminished, and went into the West. He was… y’know, excited enough, I guess…

But the All Spark had gone dark.

Everything Is Coming Up Minecraft

Now, it’s Minecraft.

I know that right now, Minecraft is basically Heroin For Children, but just the same, I expected that Wee Little B-Dub was too young for it — and by the time he was old enough for it, the Small Person Zeitgeist would’ve moved onto something else. But, oh no. He saw me playing it and wanted to try — and we were like, “No, son, it’s too hard, and there are zombies, and — you’re going to embarrass yourself, and nobody wants that.” But he picked up the controller and within a few short days basically owned the game. He was playing it better than I was. Doubly awesome was how much he glommed onto the Creative Mode, which he treats like Digital LEGO. (Below, you’ll see a thing he built where one day he was like, “Look, I built Mommy, Daddy, and me!” Okay, sure, our family portrait comprises a trio of horrific pumpkin-headed wool-bodied scarecrows, but I’m a horror guy so I thought it was pretty damn amazing.)

As with the Transformer phase, this wasn’t just him wanting to play the game. This was him embodying the entire experience like an obsessive little sponge. He was Steve. He was a zombie. You’d find him around the house pretending to chip iron ore out of our drywall. He wanted the toys. The LEGO sets. The YouTube videos. Every day was like a Minecraft improv group: “Mommy, you be an Enderman. Daddy, you’re a zombie. I’m Diamond Steve. Let’s go.” This phase is guttering like an old candle, now: I think we’ll soon be out of it.

But one never knows.

The Curious George Era

We have watched every episode of Curious George about four million fucking times.

Apiece.

We have memorized whole swaths of this show — not through concerted effort, but merely through experiential osmosis. My wife and I have pondered over this cartoon — a ‘toon that prominently features what I think must be chimpanzee that they call a monkey instead of an ape, a show that begs us to ask questions like: “If this so-called monkey cannot properly put a xylophone together or tell the time and if he screws everything up always, why do the Only Three Scientists In The World let him go on important space missions or polar expeditions? And at what point does Curious George finally go through Monkey Puberty and maul the Man with the Yellow Hat in some sort of sexed-up ape-rage? And can’t we just admit that the Man with the Yellow Hat is a little over-invested about this whole everything has to be yellow thing?”

(Seriously, even his underpants have to be yellow.)

Our son asks none of these questions and simply adores watching the antics of this funny monkey. Unlike other phases, B-Dub hasn’t gone all in — this is not a supernova phase where Everything Is George Until It’s Not. Only the show and the books are George but otherwise it affects his life not at all. Except when it comes time to watch something on the television: then nine times out of ten, he defaults to this show about a toddler-analog monkey who screws everything up lovably. Because, one realizes, toddlers and monkeys are alarmingly alike.

This phase has been ongoing since he was tiny.

The Developmental Contractions

Children grow intellectually, physically, emotionally, socially.

That sounds awesome. And it is — or, at least, the result is.

But again, another thing they don’t tell you? These stages of growth are often accompanied by utter tumult. They don’t tell you that to get to the next stage of development — to put on an inch in height or to upgrade to the next level of intelligence — your kid has to first become some kind of hangry rampaging werewolf. He might stop sleeping. He might wake up at 3AM every night for two weeks. He might start eating three plates of food at dinner, or he might instead start fighting every bite he has to take. He might engage in SUPER-TANTRUMS, which are like regular tantrums except the earth splits and he shrieks ball lightning out of his mouth and people goddamn die. He might sleep extra-long and you’re standing outside his door at 10AM wondering, “Is he alive in there?” It’s like, to become a butterfly he doesn’t need to enter a cocoon so much as he needs to become an over-emotional, unpredictable velociraptor. And the velociraptor has a saddle and in the saddle is a honey badger, and also, the honey badger is high on bad cocaine.

These contractions are short-lived. A day here, two weeks there, then done and gone. But they’re like bad storms from which emerge beautiful, sunny days.

The I Can Help / Mommy Can Do It Continuum

The best worst thing your Tiny Person will say is:

“I can help you.”

It’s best because, yay! You’re kind! You want to help! You’re a nice little creature!

It’s worst because your child is not qualified to help anybody do anything ever. They’re just — they’re functionally worthless. He has no skills. He can’t cook or clean but he thinks he can cook or clean. His only marketable ability is to — like the monkey-ape known as Curious George — wreak well-meaning havoc. But it’s still a nice stage and mostly you just let him help you and try your best to correct his efforts without punishing them. “I’m glad you threw the cat in the dryer because the cat was wet from knocking over its water bowl, that’s very good thinking and thank you for helping but hey, just for future reference, animals do not go inside appliances. Any animal inside any appliance. Ever.”

The opposite of this phase is when he goes through a period of not wanting to do anything, ever. The most wretched version is when Only One Parent Has Been Chosen By His Emperor, The Magnanimous B-Dub, to perform any and every given task. “NO, MOMMY HAS TO TAKE THE CEREAL BOWL. NO, ONLY MOMMY CAN HELP ME DRAW. ONLY MOMMY CAN HELP ME HIDE THE BODIES IN THE PUMPKIN PATCH AHHHHHH.” It’s like, jeez, kid.

But this too shall pass.

It shall always pass.

The Sweet, Sad Season Of Our Passed-On Poochie

Our taco terrier passed away this past year. It was hard on all of us as it always is and always will be, but this time we had the added random factor of hey so how well do toddlers deal with death –? I know I don’t deal well with death both real and imagined and I ostensibly have a better-developed emotional switchboard. But we faced it head on and didn’t sugar coat it and tried to be very clear that, yes, the dog had died, and that means she is gone forever. But the kid dealt with it like a champ, literally telling us that she is still here because can “remember her” (I swear to all the gods that he said this — a lesson even we adults could stand to learn).

Then, about three months after she passed away, B-Dub started talking about her. Sometimes like she was still around or coming back. Sometimes like he was her — at one point he pretended to be her and said, “I’m sick.”

So we said, “We’ll give you medicine.”

“The medicine won’t make me feel better,” he said.

And then we swept up the pieces of our broken hearts with a broom and dustpan.

But over time he gained control of it — and there ensued a period of time when Everything Was Our Old Dog. Every stuffed animal, every toy new and old, every conversation. Over time that softened, and now he brings her up occasionally. I’m guessing this phase was a vital one just to help him deal with the loss.

Phases can have that kind of value. Maybe that’s the value they always bring: helping your fumbling little weirdos figure out how to deal with the rigors of existence.

The I-Can’t-Poop Epoch

“I can’t poop,” he says, one day.

It had been three days since his last dropped deuce.

“Why not?”

“Because it’ll hurt.”

“Did it hurt last time?”

“No.”

“Did it hurt at some point in the past?”

“No.”

Blink, blink. “So why do you think it’ll hurt now?”

“I don’t know it just will.”

Ahh, the logic of the tiny person. When pressed, he further explained:

“My poop is old and I don’t like this poop anymore, so I will not poop.”

Uh. What.

This week has suggested an end to the phase — but man, has this one been A CEASELESS DELIGHT. You know what happens when your Little Person fails to dump his biological garbage? It backs up. It makes him cranky. He does dances that he identifies as his “poop dances,” which are interpretive dances that you should interpret as, “I have to poop but I don’t want to so I’m going to spasm in an inelegant way in order to try to coerce the poop to never leave my butt.” Then he gets skidmarks in his underwear and you start having to have frank discussions about WHY HUMANS NEED TO EXPEL WASTE without at the same time creating some kind of psychological condition and fear about the entire act (IF YOU DON’T TAKE A CRAP YOU WILL FILL UP WITH CRAP AND THEN YOU’LL JUST BE A CRAP GEYSER PLEASE ENJOY THE RESULTANT NIGHTMARES OH AND DON’T FORGET TO FEAR YOUR HORRIBLE, PURGATIVE BODY).

We tried lightly incentivizing — you don’t want to over-incentivize because if he thinks that simple, necessary acts can net him a new toy or a pony ride or some shit, he’ll push that button every time. So, it’s mostly a little bit of chocolate. (As the aforementioned crunchy hippie hipster douche-dumplings, we buy him these no funky coloring choco-rocks that taste better than M&Ms and have a perfect texture.) But the best incentive, I think, is celebrating when he goes.

Which means that whenever our kid takes a crap, we all clap and applaud and have a grand old time. YAY, YOU POOPED, YOU PERFORMED ONE OF THE CORE TASKS OF HUMAN EXISTENCE, LET’S ALL GATHER ROUND AND MARVEL AT IT and then you marvel at it and his fecal leaving is about as big as the leg on a baby doll and your eyes bug and wonder exactly how this very small person produced this very large, adult-sized tugboat into his potty.

Needless to say, we’re glad this phase is over.

Even if we have to applaud our kid taking a dump.

To be honest, I now kinda wish people applauded when I did it.

The Police Boat And Bear Cycle

People don’t understand how fucking weird kids are.

Just fucking super ultra weird.

Like, I feel as if I’m weird, but then my son says or does something and you just want to ask, “What is wrong with you? Are you all right? Why did you say that thing? Are you human or some kind of alien intelligence pretending at being human?” (The other day at dinner he knocked on his head with his knuckles. We asked, “Why are you knocking on your head?” His response: “I’m just seeing who answers.” As if a praying mantis might explode out.)

So, at night, we play for a short while in his bedroom before book-time. Stuffed animals and pretend and the like. Lately one of the things he insists on seeing is that we take his GIANT EPIC STUFFED BEAR (it’s bigger than he is) and then I drive one of my old Matchbox cars that looks like a police boat on and around the bear. The boat drives on his head, in his mouth, the bear stomps around like Godzilla with the boat riding shotgun, the boat flies out of his butt (that earns paroxysms of laughter) — it’s just weird. I don’t get it. I do not understand the appeal. Why do these things belong together? No idea. (Though I call dibs on turning this into a sitcom or hour-long action dramedy on FOX. Dibs, I say, dibs!)

(A related pre-bedtime playtime weirdness was how he would demand to take me or my wife and pile pillows and stuffed animals on top of us. He would call this “Janteen,” or alternatively, “Anteen.” He would find this so funny, he’d almost cry. I mean, what the shit, kid.)

One day he won’t do it anymore and this, like so many other phases, will fall to the wayside and find itself replaced with some new habit, hobby, obsession or fixation.

The HyperDrama Never Forever Phase

Here’s a new fun one:

Everything is super-dramatic when he doesn’t get his way.

Let’s say he wants to play a game or run around with his toys or leave the dinner table before he’s eaten his food — and we say “no” for some reason or another. Whatever the restriction, his response is incredibly dramatic and usually contains the words: “never again.”

“I’ll never ever get to play with my toys ever again. Forever.”

He’ll never watch that show again.

He’ll never be able to eat that food again.

He’ll never forever ever finish his dinner ever again ever ever ever.

Ever.

One time he was playing with a toy but I was busy doing something. He wanted me to play with him and I said, hold on, Daddy’s gotta do this really very important thing for work (translation: probably tweet something dumb). And B-Dub, without missing a beat, keeps his eyes on me and then takes the toy and goes and tosses it flippantly into the corner of the room. “I guess that goes there now,” he said. “I guess that’s… that’s just it. Just throw it in the trash. We’re never gonna play with that toy ever again.” It was this totally passive-aggressive vibe, all: “MIGHT AS WELL FLUSH THE WHOLE THING DOWN THE TOILET, THEN. THAT’S CIVILIZATION SORTED. IT’S ALL OVER NOW. I HAVE NO FATHER. ALL OF LIFE IS EMPTINESS SO LET’S DIE.”

So, this is the phase du jour. Utter melodrama.

Soon, it’ll be something else.

And then we’ll miss the ones that have gone past, odd as they may have been.

*pours a little apple juice on the curb for all the lost phases, weird and wonderful*

How “Strong Female Characters” Still End Up Weak And Powerless (Or, “Do They Pass The Action Figure Test?”)

The idea of writing a “strong female character” isn’t enough.

As shorthand, it sounds noble. It seems spot on. But a lot of writers — and writing advice about the subject — seem to get it wrong. I get asked about this a lot, I guess because write women or girl characters like Miriam Black or Atlanta Burns who, on paper, kick a lot of ass.

And that is often the focus of the question — they’re characters who can fight, scrap, throw a punch, fire a gun, and that seems to end up the focus of the question. It’s where the buck stops. But for me, that’s never where it begins. It’s not even what makes them who they are.

Instead of writing “strong female characters,” try to aim for “women or girls that possess agency.” I’ve defined agency before and so I’ll repeat that definition here:

Character agency is… a demonstration of the character’s ability to make decisions and affect the story. This character has motivations all her own. She is active more than she is reactive. She pushes on the plot more than the plot pushes on her. Even better, the plot exists as a direct result of the character’s actions.

Strong is a word with an often male connotation — it carries with it a lot of baggage. And what we end up with are female characters who are physically strong and little else. Meaning, they can fight, scrap, throw punches, fire guns.

But their ability to fight isn’t what makes them interesting.

What makes them interesting is that they choose to fight.

And it’s that word — “choose” — that matters.

We focus so much on their Powers, we forget about empowering them with the ability to choose, to have wants and needs and to make decisions based on those things. (You know, like real people do.) We think of Abilities and Skills like they’re stats on a character sheet rather than thinking about what abilities women possess inside the story to affect that story. We think of Powers like She Can Fly or She Knows Kung Fu or She Has Mastered The Ancient Art Of Laser Kegels when we should be focusing on the character’s internal power, her narrative power to push on the story, to be a well-rounded human being, no matter how vulnerable, no matter how strong.

Look at it this way: video game characters are notoriously without agency largely by design. The technology of a game doesn’t allow for a great deal of free-range character choice — in Halo, I can’t take my character outside the mission boundaries. In Tomb Raider I can’t say, “I want Lara Croft to leave this life of horrific blood-soaked spelunking to become a well-paid, respected accountant,” because she’s not my character. I only inhabit her and can only inhabit that character insofar as the technology allows, but the illusion is enough inside a video game for the most part because it feels active — video games are very good at lending you the illusion of choice, making you feel like, because you can choose a bow or a gun or because you can go down the left passage instead of the right, you have agency in the world.

But you’re not writing a video game character.

The illusion of choice is not enough.

The physical, violent strength of the character is not a meaningful metric.

Many “strong female characters” feel like something ripped out of a video game. Or worse, they feel like toys — objects that look tough, hold guns, wield swords, have karate-chop arms, but are ultimately plastic, posable action figures. Empty and maneuverable, they go where you tell them to go because they’re just devices.

Alison Bechdel coined the Bechdel Test, which asks if the story (or an overall body of storytelling) features at least two women who talk about something other than a man.

Gail Simone talks about the “Women in Refrigerators” problem, where women and girls inside comic books are used as fodder — raped, killed, or otherwise excised of power through violence (and often to make a male character feel something). The only power these women have in the story is to be damaged enough to motivate the story or the male characters in it.

Kelly Sue DeConnick talks about the “Sexy Lamp” test, which says, if you can replace the woman in the story with a sexy lamp and it doesn’t affect the story outcome, well, fuck you, that’s what.

It’s no surprise that these three amazing writers come out of comic books, where women superheroes are often hyper-sexualized and contextualized as objects — and you’ll note that’s the theme that runs through these three tests, and what I’m getting at here. Women in fiction are often presented as objects. They’re pieces to move around a chess board. They’re toys and devices and objects of lust and precious treasures to save and mirrors to reflect ManPain and things to break so that ManTears happen. They’re sexy lamps, cold corpses, and singular creatures who only exist in relation to the male characters around them. And we need to test against this.

(This is ostensibly why we see a lot of pushback against a story like Twilight or its sexualized fan-fic reiteration, 50 Shades of Grey — it’s because of the toxicity that results when your women and girl protagonists are given almost no agency within the stories themselves. They’re just pretty dolls floating down river, picked up by men who find them fetching.)

Thing is, we often expect that we’re undercutting this objectification by making the characters “strong, kick-ass female characters,” but what happens is:

Forget about kicking ass.

That’s not the metric you need to worry about.

The only ass that your female character need to kick is the ass of the story — that’s the power you want to give them. The power of agency. They can be sexy and sexual without being sexualized or objectified. They can kick ass or not kick ass or have Power or Not Have Powers as long as you elevate them above mere action figures (“Look how poseable she is when she does her sexy high-kicks!”) They can be vulnerable or flawed or unlikeable as long as you treat them like real people, not like video game characters or a list of abilities or dolls or lamps or The Reason That Dude Does The Thing He’s Meant To Do. They’re not proxies, they’re not mannequins, they’re not mirrors, they’re not Walking Talking FleshLights, they’re not princesses in towers waiting to be saved, they’re not emotionless ass-kicking chicks who still don’t kick as much ass as the hero. I’d even argue that calling them “female characters” has its problems because it sounds clinical, distant, a characteristic, a check box, a footnote.

Think of them as women or as girls.

Think of them as people.

Then give them agency within your story, within its world, and equal to the other characters.

So endeth my rant.

And now I ask you:

Who are some of your favorite women and girls in fiction (books, comics, film, TV, what-have-you) that possess agency? Drop in the comments and sound off. Offer your thoughts, too — am I getting this wrong? This feels right to me, but happy as always to discuss. Just be polite, because the SPAM OUBLIETTE awaits those who act as dire shitbirds.

Post A Paragraph From Your WIP, Receive Critique

It’s that time again, word-nerds.

The comments on this post is now an open forum where you can drop a paragraph of your work-in-progress (aka “WIP”) — limited to ~100 words or so. Pop it in the comments and others may offer some critique — critique not meaning, “Tear it to shreds,” but rather, “An evaluation of the good and bad elements of the work.”

(This is salient, by the way, as this week I’ll have a short post about critique.)

The one rule is:

If you post a paragraph for critique…

You must then also offer critique for someone else’s paragraph.

Quid pro quo, Clarice.

As to what paragraph you choose?

You might choose an opening paragraph, or a paragraph that’s giving you some trouble.

Good luck.

Be kind.

Be constructive, not destructive.

Go forth and help one another.

Flash Fiction Challenge: The Four-Part Story (Part Two)

And we’re back.

Go, visit the page for Part One of this challenge.

The task here is to hop into the comments, check out the (incomplete) stories there, find one you like, and continue it by writing part two of that story.

You have another 1000 words to do this.

Make sure to identify which story you are continuing and who the writer was.

Do not continue your own story.

Do not end this story — you’re writing the second of four total parts.

You can partake in round two even if you didn’t participate in round one.

You must finish your second entry by noon, EST, next Friday (the 20th).

THAT IS ALL.

Now get to work, weirdos.

Emmie Mears: Five Things I Learned Writing Storm In A Teacup

Mediator Ayala Storme kills demons by night and handles PR by day. She avoids Mediator luncheons and a fellow Mediator who’s been trying to get in her pants for years. She does her job. She keeps her sword clean and her body count high. But when a rash of disappearances leads her to discover that Nashville’s hellkin are spawning a new race of monster on human hosts, Ayala will be the first line of defense against these day-walking killers. That is, until one of them saves her life. Dodging the Mediators and the demons alike, Ayala’s new knowledge of the hybrids’ free will challenges everything she’s ever known about her job. Racing the clock and trying to outrun her comrades and enemies alike, she’s not sure who will catch her first…

* * *

Lesson the First: It’s Okay to Play God

When I first started writing, I was a die-hard pantser. I wrote two and a half books you will never ever ever see, and I did it resting in the soaring butt-ress of my trouser bottoms. (#butts)

Some people can keep on that way and their work flows and molds itself into the elegant forms of a glass sculpture that started out a vase and turned into this platter of perfection.

Hahaha, not me.

Those first 2.5 books started out like books and grew into Cthulu-esque page monsters with plots dangling from every orifice. I tried to query one of them. I’ll sit here and eat popcorn while you imagine how that went.

Yep.

When I went back to STORM after a long hiatus, the central feature of the book had to go. I’d learned that from a blunt literary agent at a conference who wasn’t even talking about that book. For the first time, I looked at my book and told it that it needed to be what I wanted it to be instead of what it’d slimed all over the page — and lo and behold, the dangling plots retracted, the drips of ink coagulated into words, and when I was done I had the strongest book I’d written at that point.

Through that, I learned that I could be god in my fictional worlds. (Maybe in this one too. YOU’RE NOT MY MOM.)

Lesson the Second: You’re the Only One on the Racetrack

I’ve got a lot of really successful friends.

(Hi, Chuck.)

Like…even present host-face excluded? I have a self-published author friend whose books are perpetually at least eight out of the top twenty books in her category on Amazon. She just owns that list. Always. She just hangs out there and kicks her feet back and watches editors not buy urban fantasy knowing her readers are just slavering for her next book.

I know a lot of authors who are just…everywhere. Doin’ their thing and doing it WELL.

On release day, STORM cracked the 10,000th rank on Amazon, and I cried because I was so excited and happy and overwhelmed. My trad published book didn’t do that when it came out last year, even though I’d put together a 40 stop blog tour and basically was wearing my rib cage as a hat by the end of it.

I had this…moment after I shared a screencap of my book at #9388 on Amazon’s paid Best Seller rank where I thought, “There are 9387 people ahead of me. Most of my friends’ books LAUGH at numbers like this as they go speeding by. I look like a fool.”

But then I took a deep breath and looked back to December where over 80 people, some friends and some strangers, literally saved me from losing my car and probably my home. Those names are listed in the back of STORM. All 80 of those people got an ARC of Storm and almost half of them bought the book anyway.

You’re the only one on the track, and the only bunny you’re chasing is the one you put there for yourself. That’s the only one that matters. You chase that bunny, keep your eyes on it, and never forget that for the people who seem to be ahead of you, there’s someone who seems to be ahead of them. We’re all chasing our own bunnies, and art is not a zero sum game.

Lesson the Third: It’s Okay to Walk Away

STORM was offered a publishing deal.

It was with a small press that had a stellar reputation. They told me and my agent that it’d be published in print and ebook, and we felt great about it. But then the terms changed very suddenly, and we decided to back out.

Had I not had a conversation with an author friend at Capclave the week before about just that, I don’t know that I would have had it in me to walk away, even though it was the right thing to do for my book.

What he told me, sitting on a couch on the last day of a long, grueling weekend where he’d had some serious ups and downs, was that it’s okay to walk away. That they should want you as much as they want them. So often in publishing we turn to the relationship metaphors, but it’s really true. If you want the sweet romantic footrubs and tuna melts in bed with The Bachelor blasting on the TV but their idea of romance is a mud pie and a beatific smile? The metaphor kind of fits. Ain’t nobody got time for that.

It’s okay to walk away if you don’t think someone will be good to you. It’s also okay to walk away if they’re just not right for you.

Lesson the Fourth: Sometimes You Need a Bunny

Those bunnies. They just keep GOING. And going and going like tired 90s references.

STORM gave me something to chase again. I took a beating in 2014, and not just because of the aforementioned shenanigans. The decision to put STORM out on my own rejuvenated me in a lot of ways. It was a terrifying decision for me, not unlike sticking a hand into a dark hole on the side of the tree. (PS: I know what’s in those. Spiders. Spiders are what’s in those.)

I learned a lot of things I didn’t know I was capable of doing. Thank the Scrivener gods for having useful tools, because without them I would have been holding that bunny between two shaking hands and snotting all over it.

For the last three months of 2014, I felt like the biggest failure in this galaxy. I was stalled on my new manuscript. Broke and about to lose my car and the single room I rent. Going through a divorce. Dealing with [redacted because reasons, gah] and generally feeling like no matter what I did, it would never be enough.

For eight years now, I’ve worked 80-130 hours a week (I actually clocked a 130+ hour week just two weeks ago) because I want writing to be my career…but I also like eating, and so do my cats. I came to a broken, broken place in December, yo. Things were not good.

STORM became my bunny. It became my way of fighting back, of chasing this thing I’ve been chasing for so long (far, far longer than these last eight years).

And funny story? On STORM’s release day, SFWA announced they’re gonna start letting self-published and small press published authors join their club. While not strictly relevant to me at the moment, it felt like a nice indication that doing my thing could dovetail with the other dreams that still stick in my head.

Lesson the Fifth: Sometimes the Goal is Just Past the Tape

A few years ago, if you’d asked me what my writing goals were, I would probably have told you sort of pompously like a jackass that “BOOK ON SHELF BECAUSE SHELF.”

I wanted to see my books on a shelf. I think to me the shelf was always a metaphor, but I was totes McGotes missing the point.

The shelf was never really the goal — and when I had this epiphany about eleven days ago, I wanted to put myself on a shelf without any dinner.

The shelf had been the tape for me at the finish line. This thing by which I would measure success. Each book I’d written from book 1-3 I’d thought it would be The One. Until the epiphany.

Which was this:

Readers are the goal. The shelf might be a way to get the book to them, but the shelf is not the ultimate goal. Because if a book’s on a shelf, it’s not open in anyone’s hands. (This also goes for digital shelves.) The readers are the real goal, and to get to them, there usually isn’t just ONE book. Few people write a single book, snag a hefty book deal, and waddle off to the bank to a chorus of adoring, angelic fans pelting them with rose petals and whisky.

There’s not a THE One. But there are many. There’s the one that you first finish. There’s the one that’ll get you an agent, if that’s what you want. There’s the one that’ll get you a publishing deal. There’s the one that will bring you your first tweet that happened at 4:30 AM, where you wake up to see it and someone’s yelling at you for keeping them up all night because your book was SO DAMN GOOD. There’s the one that will bring your first email from a reader telling you that your book moved them. Changed them. Saved them. There’s the one that breaks 10,000 on Amazon’s rankings for the first time. Or the one that, while you’re signing them in line, someone breaks down in tears and tells you that they wouldn’t be here without those words you wrote.

There’s the one you’ll write and go back and read and feel real pride at the world you built from nothing. There’s the one people will tattoo onto their skin. There’s the one that will make you a friend you never thought you’d meet. There’s the one that will break you to write, but heal others to read.

It’s probably not going to be just one book. There isn’t just ONE that will do all those things, most likely.

But writing just one story was never the bunny, was it?

* * *

Emmie Mears was born in Austin, Texas, where the Lone Star state promptly spat her out at the tender age of three months. She speaks Polish, enough German to tell you her anteater is sick, about as much Spanish as a native two-year-old, and has a crush on Portuguese and Gaelic. Growing up she yearned to see girls in books doing awesome things, and struggled to find stories in her beloved fantasy genre that showed female heroes saving people and hunting things. She now scribbles her way through the fantasy genre, most loving to pen stories about flawed characters and gritty situations lightened with the occasional quirky humor. Emmie now lives in her eighth US state, still yearning for a return to Scotland. She inhabits a cozy domicile outside DC with two intrepid kitties who fancy themselves lions and tigers. She spends most of her time causing problems and ruining worlds. Emmie is also the editor and Grand Pooh-Bah of Searching for SuperWomen, a geek hub focused on furthering the conversation about the role of women in geekdom and loving awesome things in the process. Emmie may or may not secretly be a car.

Emmie Mears: Website | Twitter

Storm in a Teacup: Amazon | B&N