Bryant Delafosse's Blog
May 8, 2016
10 Questions
I was recently asked 10 questions by the website Books Go Social and thought the outcome was interesting enough to post as a blog:
1) Tell us something unexpected about yourself.
I'm the guy you pass every day on the way home from work holding the sign that reads: "Will write for food."
2) What kind of books do you write?
First and foremost, I write the kind of books I’d be interested in reading, mostly thrillers, horror and science-fiction. As a writer, I put ordinary characters in extraordinary situations. I grew up on Stephen King novels, Marvel comics, and the films of Spielberg and John Hughes. Their work can’t help but bleed into the worlds of my characters.
3) What inspired you to write?
I grew up reading and drawing my own versions of comic books. Eventually, I graduated to reading mainstream fiction and gravitated to King, Bradbury and Asimov. It seemed only natural that I start telling my own tales.
Coming from an Acadian heritage (dat’s Cajun, Sha), the storytelling gene infected me early on. All of you have to do is listen to some our music to know the truth of that statement. (For the uninitiated who may be interested in a gateway drug, try some of the new generation, Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys and Pine Leaf Boys. Then try the bayou-masters like Nathan Abshire and Lawrence Walker.)
4) What makes your writing stand out from the crowd?
Once again, my childhood revolved around the works of Stephen King and Isaac Asimov—if you read THE MALL, a story about a fully automated shopping complex that goes dark during an EMP, trapping a single mother and her two children, that much would be obvious. Together, the pair is the yin and yang of my literary universe. King is all gut, while Asimov is all head. Therein lay each writer’s greatest strength and weakness. I try to inject all of my work with a balance of both logic and emotion and satisfy both parts of the reader’s nature. In addition, I love testing the boundaries of genres, until I get something like a haunted shopping mall overrun with killer robots.
5) What is the hardest part of writing for you?
With a six-year-old son and a wife with health issues, time is my greatest enemy. But with any passion worth pursuing, writing is a compulsion for me and I take every opportunity to create new worlds.
6) Where do you like to write - what is your routine?
I write anywhere and everywhere from Metrolink trains to the waiting rooms of doctor’s offices. I happen to prefer to write either early in the morning or late at night. My muse seems to speak to me all the more clearly during this twilight zone.
7) What do you do when you are not writing - do you have a day job?
Yes. Unless you’re the aforementioned King or Asimov, we all have to put food on the table. And remember, both King and Asimov were college professors until they hit it big.
8) Do you work with an outline or just write?
When I put pen to paper, I’ve already mapped out a route in my head, but I give myself enough flexibility for the characters to move in any direction that seems natural to them once they’ve developed sufficiently to dictate to me. When a character has enough flesh on them, they organically start calling the shots. The best thing a writer can do when his character becomes that real is to hoist up his ego and get out of the way of the story.
9) How important is marketing and social media for you?
For an e-published author, social media is everything. It took me a while to realize that this is the new world of the 21st century writer. I’m still acclimating to this new reality and services like Books Go Social really help the struggling author who barely has enough time to write, much less promote.
10) What advice would you have for other writers?
Write at least a little something every day (even when you don't feel up to the task) and support other up-and-coming authors as you gain popularity. I love hearing anecdotes about the Golden Age of science-fiction when still unknown authors like Asimov, Clarke and Heinlein all seemed to know each other. That sort of camaraderie would be a welcome change to the all-for-one attitude we seem to have these days.
1) Tell us something unexpected about yourself.
I'm the guy you pass every day on the way home from work holding the sign that reads: "Will write for food."
2) What kind of books do you write?
First and foremost, I write the kind of books I’d be interested in reading, mostly thrillers, horror and science-fiction. As a writer, I put ordinary characters in extraordinary situations. I grew up on Stephen King novels, Marvel comics, and the films of Spielberg and John Hughes. Their work can’t help but bleed into the worlds of my characters.
3) What inspired you to write?
I grew up reading and drawing my own versions of comic books. Eventually, I graduated to reading mainstream fiction and gravitated to King, Bradbury and Asimov. It seemed only natural that I start telling my own tales.
Coming from an Acadian heritage (dat’s Cajun, Sha), the storytelling gene infected me early on. All of you have to do is listen to some our music to know the truth of that statement. (For the uninitiated who may be interested in a gateway drug, try some of the new generation, Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys and Pine Leaf Boys. Then try the bayou-masters like Nathan Abshire and Lawrence Walker.)
4) What makes your writing stand out from the crowd?
Once again, my childhood revolved around the works of Stephen King and Isaac Asimov—if you read THE MALL, a story about a fully automated shopping complex that goes dark during an EMP, trapping a single mother and her two children, that much would be obvious. Together, the pair is the yin and yang of my literary universe. King is all gut, while Asimov is all head. Therein lay each writer’s greatest strength and weakness. I try to inject all of my work with a balance of both logic and emotion and satisfy both parts of the reader’s nature. In addition, I love testing the boundaries of genres, until I get something like a haunted shopping mall overrun with killer robots.
5) What is the hardest part of writing for you?
With a six-year-old son and a wife with health issues, time is my greatest enemy. But with any passion worth pursuing, writing is a compulsion for me and I take every opportunity to create new worlds.
6) Where do you like to write - what is your routine?
I write anywhere and everywhere from Metrolink trains to the waiting rooms of doctor’s offices. I happen to prefer to write either early in the morning or late at night. My muse seems to speak to me all the more clearly during this twilight zone.
7) What do you do when you are not writing - do you have a day job?
Yes. Unless you’re the aforementioned King or Asimov, we all have to put food on the table. And remember, both King and Asimov were college professors until they hit it big.
8) Do you work with an outline or just write?
When I put pen to paper, I’ve already mapped out a route in my head, but I give myself enough flexibility for the characters to move in any direction that seems natural to them once they’ve developed sufficiently to dictate to me. When a character has enough flesh on them, they organically start calling the shots. The best thing a writer can do when his character becomes that real is to hoist up his ego and get out of the way of the story.
9) How important is marketing and social media for you?
For an e-published author, social media is everything. It took me a while to realize that this is the new world of the 21st century writer. I’m still acclimating to this new reality and services like Books Go Social really help the struggling author who barely has enough time to write, much less promote.
10) What advice would you have for other writers?
Write at least a little something every day (even when you don't feel up to the task) and support other up-and-coming authors as you gain popularity. I love hearing anecdotes about the Golden Age of science-fiction when still unknown authors like Asimov, Clarke and Heinlein all seemed to know each other. That sort of camaraderie would be a welcome change to the all-for-one attitude we seem to have these days.
August 12, 2014
KDP vs. Big Publishing--The Debate
The other day I received an interesting email from Kindle Direct Publishing about a struggle within the e-book industry. I know for me, the advent of the e-book has enabled me to reach a much larger audience than I could previously. It seems to me that if the big publishing houses see fit to transform this industry, it will simply mean that our books will reach far less people than they do now. That would be tragic for us burgeoning writers. I don't normally like getting into the politics of writing, but I felt this was important enough to the e-book community to reprint that letter here:
Dear KDP Author,
Just ahead of World War II, there was a radical invention that shook the foundations of book publishing. It was the paperback book. This was a time when movie tickets cost 10 or 20 cents, and books cost $2.50. The new paperback cost 25 cents – it was ten times cheaper. Readers loved the paperback and millions of copies were sold in just the first year.
With it being so inexpensive and with so many more people able to afford to buy and read books, you would think the literary establishment of the day would have celebrated the invention of the paperback, yes? Nope. Instead, they dug in and circled the wagons. They believed low cost paperbacks would destroy literary culture and harm the industry (not to mention their own bank accounts). Many bookstores refused to stock them, and the early paperback publishers had to use unconventional methods of distribution – places like newsstands and drugstores. The famous author George Orwell came out publicly and said about the new paperback format, if “publishers had any sense, they would combine against them and suppress them.” Yes, George Orwell was suggesting collusion.
Well… history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.
Fast forward to today, and it’s the e-book’s turn to be opposed by the literary establishment. Amazon and Hachette – a big US publisher and part of a $10 billion media conglomerate – are in the middle of a business dispute about e-books. We want lower e-book prices. Hachette does not. Many e-books are being released at $14.99 and even $19.99. That is unjustifiably high for an e-book. With an e-book, there’s no printing, no over-printing, no need to forecast, no returns, no lost sales due to out of stock, no warehousing costs, no transportation costs, and there is no secondary market – e-books cannot be resold as used books. E-books can and should be less expensive.
Perhaps channeling Orwell’s decades old suggestion, Hachette has already been caught illegally colluding with its competitors to raise e-book prices. So far those parties have paid $166 million in penalties and restitution. Colluding with its competitors to raise prices wasn’t only illegal, it was also highly disrespectful to Hachette’s readers.
The fact is many established incumbents in the industry have taken the position that lower e-book prices will “devalue books” and hurt “Arts and Letters.” They’re wrong. Just as paperbacks did not destroy book culture despite being ten times cheaper, neither will e-books. On the contrary, paperbacks ended up rejuvenating the book industry and making it stronger. The same will happen with e-books.
Many inside the echo-chamber of the industry often draw the box too small. They think books only compete against books. But in reality, books compete against mobile games, television, movies, Facebook, blogs, free news sites and more. If we want a healthy reading culture, we have to work hard to be sure books actually are competitive against these other media types, and a big part of that is working hard to make books less expensive.
Moreover, e-books are highly price elastic. This means that when the price goes down, customers buy much more. We've quantified the price elasticity of e-books from repeated measurements across many titles. For every copy an e-book would sell at $14.99, it would sell 1.74 copies if priced at $9.99. So, for example, if customers would buy 100,000 copies of a particular e-book at $14.99, then customers would buy 174,000 copies of that same e-book at $9.99. Total revenue at $14.99 would be $1,499,000. Total revenue at $9.99 is $1,738,000. The important thing to note here is that the lower price is good for all parties involved: the customer is paying 33% less and the author is getting a royalty check 16% larger and being read by an audience that’s 74% larger. The pie is simply bigger.
But when a thing has been done a certain way for a long time, resisting change can be a reflexive instinct, and the powerful interests of the status quo are hard to move. It was never in George Orwell’s interest to suppress paperback books – he was wrong about that.
And despite what some would have you believe, authors are not united on this issue. When the Authors Guild recently wrote on this, they titled their post: “Amazon-Hachette Debate Yields Diverse Opinions Among Authors” (the comments to this post are worth a read). A petition started by another group of authors and aimed at Hachette, titled “Stop Fighting Low Prices and Fair Wages,” garnered over 7,600 signatures. And there are myriad articles and posts, by authors and readers alike, supporting us in our effort to keep prices low and build a healthy reading culture. Author David Gaughran’s recent interview is another piece worth reading.
We recognize that writers reasonably want to be left out of a dispute between large companies. Some have suggested that we “just talk.” We tried that. Hachette spent three months stonewalling and only grudgingly began to even acknowledge our concerns when we took action to reduce sales of their titles in our store. Since then Amazon has made three separate offers to Hachette to take authors out of the middle. We first suggested that we (Amazon and Hachette) jointly make author royalties whole during the term of the dispute. Then we suggested that authors receive 100% of all sales of their titles until this dispute is resolved. Then we suggested that we would return to normal business operations if Amazon and Hachette’s normal share of revenue went to a literacy charity. But Hachette, and their parent company Lagardere, have quickly and repeatedly dismissed these offers even though e-books represent 1% of their revenues and they could easily agree to do so. They believe they get leverage from keeping their authors in the middle.
We will never give up our fight for reasonable e-book prices. We know making books more affordable is good for book culture. We’d like your help. Please email Hachette and copy us.
Hachette CEO, Michael Pietsch: Michael.Pietsch@hbgusa.com
Copy us at: readers-united@amazon.com
Please consider including these points:
- We have noted your illegal collusion. Please stop working so hard to overcharge for ebooks. They can and should be less expensive.
- Lowering e-book prices will help – not hurt – the reading culture, just like paperbacks did.
- Stop using your authors as leverage and accept one of Amazon’s offers to take them out of the middle.
- Especially if you’re an author yourself: Remind them that authors are not united on this issue.
Thanks for your support.
The Amazon Books Team
P.S. You can also find this letter at www.readersunited.com
Dear KDP Author,
Just ahead of World War II, there was a radical invention that shook the foundations of book publishing. It was the paperback book. This was a time when movie tickets cost 10 or 20 cents, and books cost $2.50. The new paperback cost 25 cents – it was ten times cheaper. Readers loved the paperback and millions of copies were sold in just the first year.
With it being so inexpensive and with so many more people able to afford to buy and read books, you would think the literary establishment of the day would have celebrated the invention of the paperback, yes? Nope. Instead, they dug in and circled the wagons. They believed low cost paperbacks would destroy literary culture and harm the industry (not to mention their own bank accounts). Many bookstores refused to stock them, and the early paperback publishers had to use unconventional methods of distribution – places like newsstands and drugstores. The famous author George Orwell came out publicly and said about the new paperback format, if “publishers had any sense, they would combine against them and suppress them.” Yes, George Orwell was suggesting collusion.
Well… history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.
Fast forward to today, and it’s the e-book’s turn to be opposed by the literary establishment. Amazon and Hachette – a big US publisher and part of a $10 billion media conglomerate – are in the middle of a business dispute about e-books. We want lower e-book prices. Hachette does not. Many e-books are being released at $14.99 and even $19.99. That is unjustifiably high for an e-book. With an e-book, there’s no printing, no over-printing, no need to forecast, no returns, no lost sales due to out of stock, no warehousing costs, no transportation costs, and there is no secondary market – e-books cannot be resold as used books. E-books can and should be less expensive.
Perhaps channeling Orwell’s decades old suggestion, Hachette has already been caught illegally colluding with its competitors to raise e-book prices. So far those parties have paid $166 million in penalties and restitution. Colluding with its competitors to raise prices wasn’t only illegal, it was also highly disrespectful to Hachette’s readers.
The fact is many established incumbents in the industry have taken the position that lower e-book prices will “devalue books” and hurt “Arts and Letters.” They’re wrong. Just as paperbacks did not destroy book culture despite being ten times cheaper, neither will e-books. On the contrary, paperbacks ended up rejuvenating the book industry and making it stronger. The same will happen with e-books.
Many inside the echo-chamber of the industry often draw the box too small. They think books only compete against books. But in reality, books compete against mobile games, television, movies, Facebook, blogs, free news sites and more. If we want a healthy reading culture, we have to work hard to be sure books actually are competitive against these other media types, and a big part of that is working hard to make books less expensive.
Moreover, e-books are highly price elastic. This means that when the price goes down, customers buy much more. We've quantified the price elasticity of e-books from repeated measurements across many titles. For every copy an e-book would sell at $14.99, it would sell 1.74 copies if priced at $9.99. So, for example, if customers would buy 100,000 copies of a particular e-book at $14.99, then customers would buy 174,000 copies of that same e-book at $9.99. Total revenue at $14.99 would be $1,499,000. Total revenue at $9.99 is $1,738,000. The important thing to note here is that the lower price is good for all parties involved: the customer is paying 33% less and the author is getting a royalty check 16% larger and being read by an audience that’s 74% larger. The pie is simply bigger.
But when a thing has been done a certain way for a long time, resisting change can be a reflexive instinct, and the powerful interests of the status quo are hard to move. It was never in George Orwell’s interest to suppress paperback books – he was wrong about that.
And despite what some would have you believe, authors are not united on this issue. When the Authors Guild recently wrote on this, they titled their post: “Amazon-Hachette Debate Yields Diverse Opinions Among Authors” (the comments to this post are worth a read). A petition started by another group of authors and aimed at Hachette, titled “Stop Fighting Low Prices and Fair Wages,” garnered over 7,600 signatures. And there are myriad articles and posts, by authors and readers alike, supporting us in our effort to keep prices low and build a healthy reading culture. Author David Gaughran’s recent interview is another piece worth reading.
We recognize that writers reasonably want to be left out of a dispute between large companies. Some have suggested that we “just talk.” We tried that. Hachette spent three months stonewalling and only grudgingly began to even acknowledge our concerns when we took action to reduce sales of their titles in our store. Since then Amazon has made three separate offers to Hachette to take authors out of the middle. We first suggested that we (Amazon and Hachette) jointly make author royalties whole during the term of the dispute. Then we suggested that authors receive 100% of all sales of their titles until this dispute is resolved. Then we suggested that we would return to normal business operations if Amazon and Hachette’s normal share of revenue went to a literacy charity. But Hachette, and their parent company Lagardere, have quickly and repeatedly dismissed these offers even though e-books represent 1% of their revenues and they could easily agree to do so. They believe they get leverage from keeping their authors in the middle.
We will never give up our fight for reasonable e-book prices. We know making books more affordable is good for book culture. We’d like your help. Please email Hachette and copy us.
Hachette CEO, Michael Pietsch: Michael.Pietsch@hbgusa.com
Copy us at: readers-united@amazon.com
Please consider including these points:
- We have noted your illegal collusion. Please stop working so hard to overcharge for ebooks. They can and should be less expensive.
- Lowering e-book prices will help – not hurt – the reading culture, just like paperbacks did.
- Stop using your authors as leverage and accept one of Amazon’s offers to take them out of the middle.
- Especially if you’re an author yourself: Remind them that authors are not united on this issue.
Thanks for your support.
The Amazon Books Team
P.S. You can also find this letter at www.readersunited.com
May 17, 2013
The Hunger Games versus Stephen King’s The Long Walk
When all the hype started regarding the Young Adult series The Hunger Games, I asked my wife--who had just read the first book--to describe the concept of the story to me. She told me that it took place in the future when twelve districts were each asked to send one representative under the age of eighteen to compete in a competition where only one contestant survives. “Waitaminute,” I told her. “Stephen King already did that story back in the seventies.”
Of course, those who are fans of King know that he released some of his early work under the name Richard Bachman (who, as the author is fond of saying, died an untimely death of cancer of the pseudonym). Two of these early novels (The Running Man and The Long Walk) were collected back in 1985 in the omnibus title The Bachman Books. Although The Running Man deals with very familiar territory as The Long Walk and The Hunger Games (ie. Totalitarian society, game show where contestants compete for their lives), the latter two have much more in common as they deal with teenagers and the similar themes of the coming of age and mortality.
“In the old days, before the Change and the Squads, when there were still millionaires, they used to set up foundations and build libraries and all that good shit. Everyone wants a bulwark against mortality, Garraty.”—from The Long Walk
Both have sixteen-year-old protagonists, but The Long Walk tells the story from the viewpoint of a teenaged male (Ray Garraty) and The Hunger Games from the female perspective (Katniss Everdeen). Also, while Games leaves much to the imagination when a “tribute” dies, Walk dispenses with its competitors in graphic detail. (After all, what would a Stephen King novel be without blood and entrails spilling onto the blacktop?)
It turns out that this is the first novel Stephen King wrote—eight years before Carrie was published in 1974, when he was a freshman at the University of Maine in 1966–67, and as far as I’m concerned it is one of his best works. Not one of his best horror novels, mind you, because it’s not a genre piece by any stretch. It’s more like one of the novellas from Different Seasons (the book from which Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption springs) that defy classification.
While Games is heavily plotted, readers will notice right off the bat that King is not as concerned with plot as he is in developing a theme in the same way he would develop a character. Here is where Walk excels and plumbs deeper than Games. The Long Walk is a classic metaphor of life and death.
The basic plot of the story involves a group of 100 teenaged boys who start walking from the Maine/Canada border until only one remains. The rules are, you have to maintain a pace of at least four miles per hour or you will be given a warning. After the third warning, you will be shot dead by the soldiers of the “Squads” that rank you on both sides. Canteens of water are given upon request, but a belt of limited nutritional pellets are only given out once a day. Any biological functions have to be taken care without leaving the route.
The result is a story that is fascinating in its mundaneness. At times grueling and as uncomfortable to read as it must be for the spectators along the Walk’s route to watch. The visuals are dark and ugly in direct opposition to the glossy spectacle of the Capitol’s Games.
Unlike Games, there is no explanation given as to why these children have to sacrifice their lives every year in the Walk. King only teases the explanation when the main character reminisces about his father and the one trip he took to watch the Walk live when he was younger. Soon after the event, his father made statements that caused him to be taken away and forced to join the Squads, which seems to be the enforcement arm of a Totalitarian government. In Games, the main protagonist, Katiniss’s father also disapproved of the contest, but did it more clandestinely by teaching his daughter a banned song called “The Hanging Tree.”
The characters that inhabit The Long Walk exemplify different life philosophies. So common are these individuals that you might recognize their type as people you know and work with. Barkovitch, the boy with the Plan with how to win the Walk and not the least concerned with making friends along the way. Olsen, the boy who is all bravado up front, but discovers that winning the Walk will be much harder than he had first imagined. Scramm, the married guy with so much self-confidence and skills to back it up that he never even considered the fact that he could lose the Walk until the common cold takes him out.
And then there’s the protagonist, Ray Garraty, the every-boy, a sixteen-year-old who’s not even sure why he entered the contest to begin with, and during the course of the Walk will re-examine his short life in the effort to make some sort of meaning out of everything. In the course of time and as the Walk starts to take a physical and psychological toll, we see as readers the sobering effects of Life in miniature—in fast-forward if you will--thrust upon the carefree spirits of youth. We see boys recognize their childhood illusions for the first time and either self-destruct or step up and become men. We see these young men age and their bodies betray them before their will does.
“I think about those things, Garraty. Just lately. Like I was old and getting senile.”--from The Long Walk
Taken as a whole, The Long Walk becomes a fascinating experiment that succeeds in what it attempts more than it fails. Ultimately, this short gem of a story manages to say more about Life and Death than The Hunger Games in three books, with all of its tightly-plotted dramatics and action sequences.
It seems odd to be recommending a tightly-contained, cerebral book from an author who is known for the polar opposite-- exactly what Suzanne Collins did with The Hunger Games. But in this particular case aiming low with an old-fashioned “weapon” finds the target where a highly-polished technological one misses.
Oddly enough, Katniss Everdeen, the main character of The Hunger Games, whose weapon of choice is a bow and arrow, would surely approve of the finesse of this particular kill shot.
Bryant Delafosse is the author of The Mall & Hallowed available at Amazon.
Of course, those who are fans of King know that he released some of his early work under the name Richard Bachman (who, as the author is fond of saying, died an untimely death of cancer of the pseudonym). Two of these early novels (The Running Man and The Long Walk) were collected back in 1985 in the omnibus title The Bachman Books. Although The Running Man deals with very familiar territory as The Long Walk and The Hunger Games (ie. Totalitarian society, game show where contestants compete for their lives), the latter two have much more in common as they deal with teenagers and the similar themes of the coming of age and mortality.
“In the old days, before the Change and the Squads, when there were still millionaires, they used to set up foundations and build libraries and all that good shit. Everyone wants a bulwark against mortality, Garraty.”—from The Long Walk
Both have sixteen-year-old protagonists, but The Long Walk tells the story from the viewpoint of a teenaged male (Ray Garraty) and The Hunger Games from the female perspective (Katniss Everdeen). Also, while Games leaves much to the imagination when a “tribute” dies, Walk dispenses with its competitors in graphic detail. (After all, what would a Stephen King novel be without blood and entrails spilling onto the blacktop?)
It turns out that this is the first novel Stephen King wrote—eight years before Carrie was published in 1974, when he was a freshman at the University of Maine in 1966–67, and as far as I’m concerned it is one of his best works. Not one of his best horror novels, mind you, because it’s not a genre piece by any stretch. It’s more like one of the novellas from Different Seasons (the book from which Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption springs) that defy classification.
While Games is heavily plotted, readers will notice right off the bat that King is not as concerned with plot as he is in developing a theme in the same way he would develop a character. Here is where Walk excels and plumbs deeper than Games. The Long Walk is a classic metaphor of life and death.
The basic plot of the story involves a group of 100 teenaged boys who start walking from the Maine/Canada border until only one remains. The rules are, you have to maintain a pace of at least four miles per hour or you will be given a warning. After the third warning, you will be shot dead by the soldiers of the “Squads” that rank you on both sides. Canteens of water are given upon request, but a belt of limited nutritional pellets are only given out once a day. Any biological functions have to be taken care without leaving the route.
The result is a story that is fascinating in its mundaneness. At times grueling and as uncomfortable to read as it must be for the spectators along the Walk’s route to watch. The visuals are dark and ugly in direct opposition to the glossy spectacle of the Capitol’s Games.
Unlike Games, there is no explanation given as to why these children have to sacrifice their lives every year in the Walk. King only teases the explanation when the main character reminisces about his father and the one trip he took to watch the Walk live when he was younger. Soon after the event, his father made statements that caused him to be taken away and forced to join the Squads, which seems to be the enforcement arm of a Totalitarian government. In Games, the main protagonist, Katiniss’s father also disapproved of the contest, but did it more clandestinely by teaching his daughter a banned song called “The Hanging Tree.”
The characters that inhabit The Long Walk exemplify different life philosophies. So common are these individuals that you might recognize their type as people you know and work with. Barkovitch, the boy with the Plan with how to win the Walk and not the least concerned with making friends along the way. Olsen, the boy who is all bravado up front, but discovers that winning the Walk will be much harder than he had first imagined. Scramm, the married guy with so much self-confidence and skills to back it up that he never even considered the fact that he could lose the Walk until the common cold takes him out.
And then there’s the protagonist, Ray Garraty, the every-boy, a sixteen-year-old who’s not even sure why he entered the contest to begin with, and during the course of the Walk will re-examine his short life in the effort to make some sort of meaning out of everything. In the course of time and as the Walk starts to take a physical and psychological toll, we see as readers the sobering effects of Life in miniature—in fast-forward if you will--thrust upon the carefree spirits of youth. We see boys recognize their childhood illusions for the first time and either self-destruct or step up and become men. We see these young men age and their bodies betray them before their will does.
“I think about those things, Garraty. Just lately. Like I was old and getting senile.”--from The Long Walk
Taken as a whole, The Long Walk becomes a fascinating experiment that succeeds in what it attempts more than it fails. Ultimately, this short gem of a story manages to say more about Life and Death than The Hunger Games in three books, with all of its tightly-plotted dramatics and action sequences.
It seems odd to be recommending a tightly-contained, cerebral book from an author who is known for the polar opposite-- exactly what Suzanne Collins did with The Hunger Games. But in this particular case aiming low with an old-fashioned “weapon” finds the target where a highly-polished technological one misses.
Oddly enough, Katniss Everdeen, the main character of The Hunger Games, whose weapon of choice is a bow and arrow, would surely approve of the finesse of this particular kill shot.
Bryant Delafosse is the author of The Mall & Hallowed available at Amazon.
November 13, 2012
10 Desert Island Books You Must Read!
Last week, a fellow indie author and blogger named M.C. O’Neill (The Ancients and the Angels) recommended me for the Booker Award. This award is given to authors who are described as those “who refuse to live in the real world” or as I call it, the “outside-of-the-box” quotient. My job as a recipient is to recommend five other bloggers who fit that bill and then give a list of my favorite all time authors who have inspired me as a writer to live in that brave new world. I’d like to heartily thank Mr. O’Neill for the mention and get right to my list of those authors that have blazed the pioneering trails that have made me want to become a writer in the first place.
J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings: When I picked up this weighty tome as a child, I remember thinking, “This is much longer than The Hobbit. Hope I can get through it.” By the time I reached the third volume I was purposely reading much slower, savoring every word and resenting the fact that I would soon be forced to leave Middle Earth and my dear friends behind. If truth be told, I tested my wife during our courtship by lending her my copy. Not only did she love it, but she had grown so attached to the characters that a few days after she’d started reading it, she slugs me on the arm resentfully because a major character had just died. That’s the effect Tolkien has on his readers. His description of Middle Earth and the characters that live there is miraculous to the point that I refuse to waver in my firm belief that he had access to a dimensional portal and visited another world to mine the wealth of detail he peppers throughout the book. Of course now there is a motion picture industry built up around the books, but fans of the literary base lament the fact that some may never read the source material out of sheer laziness. And those that do read the books only after seeing the movie will never have the blessed gift of seeing the word-images that Tolkien created without the influence of Peter Jackson’s own personal vision. Tolkien should be canonized as a minor literary saint. It is a tragedy that he did not produce more. But perhaps he needed the time and effort he spent on his three masterpieces (The Silmarillion, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings) in order to perfect them and imbue them with life. If anyone deserves an award for refusing to live in the real word, it is Tolkien. He essentially created the high fantasy genre.
Isaac Asimov’s Caves of Steel: The first book in Asimov’s Robot Mystery series starts simply enough with a simple pairing of Detective Elijah Baley and a humaniform robot named R. Daneel Olivaw in order to solve a murder in the enclosed super-city of New York. It’s impossible to know from this simple concise mystery story that these characters will impact the entire universe and dovetail with Asimov’s other masterpiece Foundation series, thus creating a single enormous epic across 14 books which successfully retain coherence with his other free-standing novels--a feat that Stephen King attempted and failed with his Dark Tower series. This series has everything science fiction has to offer: hard science, action, character development, romance and an epic universal theme, and no one rivals Asimov for his impeccable logic and air-tight plots. The story goes that Caves of Steel is a response to a bet Asimov had with his editor that the science fiction and mystery genres were compatible. Asimov believed that science fiction could be applied to any other genre and create a fresh hybrid genre—a belief to which I heartily subscribe. Asimov and Caves of Steel in particular was a great influence to me in the writing of my own science fiction/horror novel The Mall.
Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine: When I first heard that Mr. Bradbury passed away earlier this year, a little of myself died as well. He is secretly every science-fiction/horror writer’s adopted father. There’s a famous anecdote that in his youth a magician named Mr. Electro touched Mr. Bradbury with a sword and declared that he would “Live forever.” Well at 91 years of age, he came as close in this physical world to doing just that. But we all know he was never talking about his physical vessel, but the worlds he created and the lives he inspired through his books. As I considered which of his books to recommend, I could have chosen such genre classics as The Martian Chronicles, Fahrenheit 451, Something Wicked This Way Comes, or The October Country, but the favorite of my heart is Dandelion Wine, the lyrical love letter to our lives as children, especially we boys. What a wonderful treasure trove of life lessons, ranging from such broad subjects as personal happiness to Death itself. When I revisit Green Town, Illinois and race through the tall grass with Doug and Tom Spaulding, I equally laugh, shudder, and well with tears. To further appreciate the story, one must read the novella Farewell Summer (published 50 years after the original) as it was the intended ending when it was originally written. Once again, I want to thank you, Mr. Bradbury, for your work and your inspiration to other writers. Thank you.
Stephen King’s The Stand: When I was still just a kid and developing my taste for “adult” books, I found a big fat hardback by an author named Stephen King while snooping around my older sister’s room. After she had yelled at me for going into her room, she said that I could have the book for all she cared. Seems an ex-boyfriend had loaned her the thing and she had no intention of ever seeing the loser again. What I found between those pages warped my mind, made me lose sleep, and affected the rest of my life. To this day, every time there is a flu outbreak somewhere, I wonder if Captain Trips has finally paid us a visit. The Stand is THE book about the Apocalypse, before every hack writer had their End of the World book, and believe it or not, there’s not one zombie in it. It is the visceral horror of what could happen in a world without vampires and werewolves, just old-fashioned evil and shitty luck. In my view, it is King’s hands- down masterpiece, back when Steve was a cocky bad-ass, S-O-B that spun a yarn without all the hang-ups of his personal demons or politics that weigh down the 1000-plus-page-seemingly-editor-free treatises he writes today. Sure, The Stand is a thick book, but that’s because it’s epic-sized horror and makes use of every page. The original (not the restored version) is lean, mean and moves as fast as a stripped down ‘58 Plymouth Fury. You get to know Stu and Franny and Larry and Nick and Harold and care for them so much that when things go south and the betrayals and deaths begin, you love and hate along with them. In The Stand, King showed us the unconventional and horizon-expanding possibilities of modern horror, and essentially set the bar higher for all other authors in the genre. It inspired legions of writers such as JJ Abrams who used the book as a “Bible” for his series Lost. This is still the singular book I think about when I pick up King’s most recent bestseller and, despite the last disappointing outing fresh on my mind, give him “just one more chance.”
Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle: If you’re a fan of Vonnegut’s particular brand of madness, it’s a little difficult to choose a favorite. After all, the man is the author of Slaughterhouse Five and Breakfast of Champions. But for me, his wry commentary on science and religion reached its perfection in this science-fiction-laced, satirical, pseudo-memoir. Like all Vonnegut’s works, Cat’s Cradle is a little hard to categorize. He’s not big on character development or plot. In most of his books, both are usually there for the greater purpose of serving up his commentaries on life. But of all his works, this one comes closest to offering the whole package. And it’s the most fun, because of the apocalyptic sub-plot involving a weapon called Ice-Nine. One of the wonderful conceits of the novel is Vonnegut’s use of a lexicon of new words used by the practitioners of the fictional region called Bokononism. I still use words like “karass,” “wampeter,” and “granfalloon.” (For example, every karass has two wampeters, one waxing and one waning, yet a granfalloon has none, as it is a false karass.) Science-Fiction author Theodore Sturgeon once described its storyline as “appalling, hilarious, shocking, and infuriating.” He went on to say that “you must read it. And you better take it lightly, because if you don’t you'll go off weeping and shoot yourself.” That essentially is the dark beauty that is Vonnegut. He makes the horrific realities of existence more palatable by keeping you laughing your ass off.
And now here’s my list of fellow author/bloggers that I believe deserving of the Booker Award
(Please pay it forward, folks, because with great power comes great responsibility!):
Ernest Cline: http://www.ernestcline.com/blog/
Jool Sinclair: http://joolssinclair44.blogspot.com/
Graham Storrs: http://grahamstorrs.cantalibre.com/
Joshua Graham: http://joshua-graham.com/blog/
G.P. Ching: http://www.gpching.com/
Bryant Delafosse is the author of The Mall & Hallowed for Amazon Kindle.
J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings: When I picked up this weighty tome as a child, I remember thinking, “This is much longer than The Hobbit. Hope I can get through it.” By the time I reached the third volume I was purposely reading much slower, savoring every word and resenting the fact that I would soon be forced to leave Middle Earth and my dear friends behind. If truth be told, I tested my wife during our courtship by lending her my copy. Not only did she love it, but she had grown so attached to the characters that a few days after she’d started reading it, she slugs me on the arm resentfully because a major character had just died. That’s the effect Tolkien has on his readers. His description of Middle Earth and the characters that live there is miraculous to the point that I refuse to waver in my firm belief that he had access to a dimensional portal and visited another world to mine the wealth of detail he peppers throughout the book. Of course now there is a motion picture industry built up around the books, but fans of the literary base lament the fact that some may never read the source material out of sheer laziness. And those that do read the books only after seeing the movie will never have the blessed gift of seeing the word-images that Tolkien created without the influence of Peter Jackson’s own personal vision. Tolkien should be canonized as a minor literary saint. It is a tragedy that he did not produce more. But perhaps he needed the time and effort he spent on his three masterpieces (The Silmarillion, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings) in order to perfect them and imbue them with life. If anyone deserves an award for refusing to live in the real word, it is Tolkien. He essentially created the high fantasy genre.
Isaac Asimov’s Caves of Steel: The first book in Asimov’s Robot Mystery series starts simply enough with a simple pairing of Detective Elijah Baley and a humaniform robot named R. Daneel Olivaw in order to solve a murder in the enclosed super-city of New York. It’s impossible to know from this simple concise mystery story that these characters will impact the entire universe and dovetail with Asimov’s other masterpiece Foundation series, thus creating a single enormous epic across 14 books which successfully retain coherence with his other free-standing novels--a feat that Stephen King attempted and failed with his Dark Tower series. This series has everything science fiction has to offer: hard science, action, character development, romance and an epic universal theme, and no one rivals Asimov for his impeccable logic and air-tight plots. The story goes that Caves of Steel is a response to a bet Asimov had with his editor that the science fiction and mystery genres were compatible. Asimov believed that science fiction could be applied to any other genre and create a fresh hybrid genre—a belief to which I heartily subscribe. Asimov and Caves of Steel in particular was a great influence to me in the writing of my own science fiction/horror novel The Mall.
Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine: When I first heard that Mr. Bradbury passed away earlier this year, a little of myself died as well. He is secretly every science-fiction/horror writer’s adopted father. There’s a famous anecdote that in his youth a magician named Mr. Electro touched Mr. Bradbury with a sword and declared that he would “Live forever.” Well at 91 years of age, he came as close in this physical world to doing just that. But we all know he was never talking about his physical vessel, but the worlds he created and the lives he inspired through his books. As I considered which of his books to recommend, I could have chosen such genre classics as The Martian Chronicles, Fahrenheit 451, Something Wicked This Way Comes, or The October Country, but the favorite of my heart is Dandelion Wine, the lyrical love letter to our lives as children, especially we boys. What a wonderful treasure trove of life lessons, ranging from such broad subjects as personal happiness to Death itself. When I revisit Green Town, Illinois and race through the tall grass with Doug and Tom Spaulding, I equally laugh, shudder, and well with tears. To further appreciate the story, one must read the novella Farewell Summer (published 50 years after the original) as it was the intended ending when it was originally written. Once again, I want to thank you, Mr. Bradbury, for your work and your inspiration to other writers. Thank you.
Stephen King’s The Stand: When I was still just a kid and developing my taste for “adult” books, I found a big fat hardback by an author named Stephen King while snooping around my older sister’s room. After she had yelled at me for going into her room, she said that I could have the book for all she cared. Seems an ex-boyfriend had loaned her the thing and she had no intention of ever seeing the loser again. What I found between those pages warped my mind, made me lose sleep, and affected the rest of my life. To this day, every time there is a flu outbreak somewhere, I wonder if Captain Trips has finally paid us a visit. The Stand is THE book about the Apocalypse, before every hack writer had their End of the World book, and believe it or not, there’s not one zombie in it. It is the visceral horror of what could happen in a world without vampires and werewolves, just old-fashioned evil and shitty luck. In my view, it is King’s hands- down masterpiece, back when Steve was a cocky bad-ass, S-O-B that spun a yarn without all the hang-ups of his personal demons or politics that weigh down the 1000-plus-page-seemingly-editor-free treatises he writes today. Sure, The Stand is a thick book, but that’s because it’s epic-sized horror and makes use of every page. The original (not the restored version) is lean, mean and moves as fast as a stripped down ‘58 Plymouth Fury. You get to know Stu and Franny and Larry and Nick and Harold and care for them so much that when things go south and the betrayals and deaths begin, you love and hate along with them. In The Stand, King showed us the unconventional and horizon-expanding possibilities of modern horror, and essentially set the bar higher for all other authors in the genre. It inspired legions of writers such as JJ Abrams who used the book as a “Bible” for his series Lost. This is still the singular book I think about when I pick up King’s most recent bestseller and, despite the last disappointing outing fresh on my mind, give him “just one more chance.”
Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle: If you’re a fan of Vonnegut’s particular brand of madness, it’s a little difficult to choose a favorite. After all, the man is the author of Slaughterhouse Five and Breakfast of Champions. But for me, his wry commentary on science and religion reached its perfection in this science-fiction-laced, satirical, pseudo-memoir. Like all Vonnegut’s works, Cat’s Cradle is a little hard to categorize. He’s not big on character development or plot. In most of his books, both are usually there for the greater purpose of serving up his commentaries on life. But of all his works, this one comes closest to offering the whole package. And it’s the most fun, because of the apocalyptic sub-plot involving a weapon called Ice-Nine. One of the wonderful conceits of the novel is Vonnegut’s use of a lexicon of new words used by the practitioners of the fictional region called Bokononism. I still use words like “karass,” “wampeter,” and “granfalloon.” (For example, every karass has two wampeters, one waxing and one waning, yet a granfalloon has none, as it is a false karass.) Science-Fiction author Theodore Sturgeon once described its storyline as “appalling, hilarious, shocking, and infuriating.” He went on to say that “you must read it. And you better take it lightly, because if you don’t you'll go off weeping and shoot yourself.” That essentially is the dark beauty that is Vonnegut. He makes the horrific realities of existence more palatable by keeping you laughing your ass off.
And now here’s my list of fellow author/bloggers that I believe deserving of the Booker Award
(Please pay it forward, folks, because with great power comes great responsibility!):
Ernest Cline: http://www.ernestcline.com/blog/
Jool Sinclair: http://joolssinclair44.blogspot.com/
Graham Storrs: http://grahamstorrs.cantalibre.com/
Joshua Graham: http://joshua-graham.com/blog/
G.P. Ching: http://www.gpching.com/
Bryant Delafosse is the author of The Mall & Hallowed for Amazon Kindle.
October 11, 2012
The Halloween That Changed My Life
Growing up, I simply loved the whole season. I love how after a long hot humid summer, the weather takes a change for the better and the breeze takes on that special snap that balances out the warmth of the blazing Texas sun. I wait expectantly for that sudden transformation of color the natural world around me undergoes, those reds and browns and the oranges. And then there’s the smells in the October air, of pumpkin pies and harvest bonfires and latex monster masks. I loved the spectacle and magic that produces that intangible quality just one step back from the sacred, like the dark interior of a magician’s top hat.
Halloween had commanded my attention the very first time I saw a simple spider web covered skeleton dressed in a tuxedo and displayed within an old wooden coffin outside an old T G & Y store in Austin--y’know, the ones that don’t exist anymore--back before every display moved, made sounds and emitted smoke.
It was only years later when a Great Aunt on my mother’s side passed away —Mom’s side of the family was the one with the long life genes, while Dad’s had the bad ticker genes--that I realized that the Halloween display I saw outside the TG & Y was, in fact, my first introduction to the concept of Death. That skeleton, something tucked away within every last one of us, is a reminder of our own mortality, of the hands of our internal clocks slowly ticking away toward our own personal expiration date.
Though at the time, I didn’t understand my own fascination with Halloween, it dawned on me that perhaps the holiday was nothing more than the way we human beings cope with the Unknown--that dark inviting corridor due south of the end of our long walk through Life.
A terrifying carnival-like journey with candy at the end.
Halloween had been my favorite holiday since that first Batman costume I wore when I was eight and tore it on a bush leaping from the Bradley’s porch when their Pit bull got loose. I could remember every costume I’d ever worn, every character I’d ever become, every memorable night from my youth that I spent trick-or-treating door-to-door.
When I was nine, I was a werewolf and diligently rehearsed my transformation in the weeks leading up to the night until I learned that Halloween night did not land on a full moon that year. Surely, that must be why I didn’t change as I had been led to believe I would.
With the vivid recollections of an introverted child, I can clearly remember the year I became Torr the Avenger, the super-powered robot from “Manheim’s Machine,” a Saturday morning TV series that was popular the year I was ten.
More than the costume I wore, my memories of my first encounter with injustice and the talk with my father are what return to me when I think back to that night.
Me, Greg, and Sonny were trick or treating under the watchful eyes of my mother in a neighborhood not far from my own. My mother had stopped to talk to Mrs. Gordon and with the impatience of boys missing out on free candy, we begged to go ahead without her to finish off the last two houses on the block. After she’d agreed, I rushed down to the next house and was so happy with the top-notch chocolate bar I got that I didn’t notice that Sonny and Greg weren’t with me until I started down the steps.
I ran through the yard guessing that they had gone on ahead to the next house when they appeared in front of me on the sidewalk. Sonny and Greg stood facing a pair of kids that looked to be at least three years older. While one of them got in Sonny’s face, the other snatched his official Batman Halloween sack away from him. When Sonny tried to take it back, the bigger kid laid his hand over Sonny’s face and shoved him backward to the pavement, laughing with the confidence of an experienced bully. When they turned and demanded Greg’s candy, he ran past me back the way we’d come.
Then they turned to me.
The one who was holding Sonny’s bag of candy turned to me and snarled, “What, you want to do something about it, shrimp?” They started away with the entirety of Sonny’s hard earned candy with no argument from me.
Lying there on the sidewalk crying, Sonny refused when I tried to help him up. Moments later, my mom arrived with Greg and announced that trick or treating was officially over. Despite the fact that my pumpkin was nearly filled to the brim, I screamed and demanded to know why I was being cheated out of more free candy, ultimately having to be dragged home by my arm.
That night, my father sat with me in the living room on the old leather couch. The silence was a physical presence, a stranger in our normally animated home. Dad—a man who, by that time, had already risen to the position of Sheriff within our county, and practiced at the art of speechmaking--contemplated the words he would utter for a good thirty seconds before he even opened his mouth. By his first breath I knew that in his eyes what I had done that night had been a serious offense, though I couldn’t for the life of me understand why. After all, it wasn’t me who had hurt Sonny.
“Do you know what you did wrong tonight?”
“But I didn’t do anything!” I exclaimed.
“Exactly, you didn’t do anything. Your mother told me what happened,” he stated, fixing me with the sternest expression in his arsenal. “The worst thing you can do in the face of injustice is absolutely nothing.”
Many years later, my uncle would express the same thought to me, just in different words. “Paul, the only thing necessary for evil to get a foothold in this world is for good men to do nothing.”
Now, under the hard gaze of my father, I lowered my head and allowed the shame that had been nagging at me to finally take hold. “I didn’t know what to do,” I admitted, my lips starting to quiver.
“Here’s what you never do. Never back down from a bully, no matter how overmatched you might feel. You stare them in the eye and if it comes to it, you fight back, especially in defense of a friend. Do you hear me, Paul? Always stand your ground!”
Suddenly, it struck me that life wasn’t all fun and games anymore and I damn sure wasn’t Torr the Avenger. From my new position, the world looked a whole lot messier than when the night had begun. My eyes glazed over and I stared at the string of framed pictures on the wall. All those Graves’ relatives, Great Uncle Philip & John, and Grandpa Milton, seemed to be giving me a look of assessment. They all knew what I had done tonight and were disappointed in the next generation of the Graves family my Dad had produced.
Dad and I had made a special trip to Sonny’s house so that I could give him half of everything I had collected that night from my stash of candy. Despite that gesture, the events of that Halloween when I was ten affected the way I was to view the world from that day forward.
Excerpt from the new novel HALLOWED by Bryant Delafosse, featured exclusively on Amazon Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/Hallowed-ebook/dp/B009KN8BY0/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1350007425&sr=1-2
Halloween had commanded my attention the very first time I saw a simple spider web covered skeleton dressed in a tuxedo and displayed within an old wooden coffin outside an old T G & Y store in Austin--y’know, the ones that don’t exist anymore--back before every display moved, made sounds and emitted smoke.
It was only years later when a Great Aunt on my mother’s side passed away —Mom’s side of the family was the one with the long life genes, while Dad’s had the bad ticker genes--that I realized that the Halloween display I saw outside the TG & Y was, in fact, my first introduction to the concept of Death. That skeleton, something tucked away within every last one of us, is a reminder of our own mortality, of the hands of our internal clocks slowly ticking away toward our own personal expiration date.
Though at the time, I didn’t understand my own fascination with Halloween, it dawned on me that perhaps the holiday was nothing more than the way we human beings cope with the Unknown--that dark inviting corridor due south of the end of our long walk through Life.
A terrifying carnival-like journey with candy at the end.
Halloween had been my favorite holiday since that first Batman costume I wore when I was eight and tore it on a bush leaping from the Bradley’s porch when their Pit bull got loose. I could remember every costume I’d ever worn, every character I’d ever become, every memorable night from my youth that I spent trick-or-treating door-to-door.
When I was nine, I was a werewolf and diligently rehearsed my transformation in the weeks leading up to the night until I learned that Halloween night did not land on a full moon that year. Surely, that must be why I didn’t change as I had been led to believe I would.
With the vivid recollections of an introverted child, I can clearly remember the year I became Torr the Avenger, the super-powered robot from “Manheim’s Machine,” a Saturday morning TV series that was popular the year I was ten.
More than the costume I wore, my memories of my first encounter with injustice and the talk with my father are what return to me when I think back to that night.
Me, Greg, and Sonny were trick or treating under the watchful eyes of my mother in a neighborhood not far from my own. My mother had stopped to talk to Mrs. Gordon and with the impatience of boys missing out on free candy, we begged to go ahead without her to finish off the last two houses on the block. After she’d agreed, I rushed down to the next house and was so happy with the top-notch chocolate bar I got that I didn’t notice that Sonny and Greg weren’t with me until I started down the steps.
I ran through the yard guessing that they had gone on ahead to the next house when they appeared in front of me on the sidewalk. Sonny and Greg stood facing a pair of kids that looked to be at least three years older. While one of them got in Sonny’s face, the other snatched his official Batman Halloween sack away from him. When Sonny tried to take it back, the bigger kid laid his hand over Sonny’s face and shoved him backward to the pavement, laughing with the confidence of an experienced bully. When they turned and demanded Greg’s candy, he ran past me back the way we’d come.
Then they turned to me.
The one who was holding Sonny’s bag of candy turned to me and snarled, “What, you want to do something about it, shrimp?” They started away with the entirety of Sonny’s hard earned candy with no argument from me.
Lying there on the sidewalk crying, Sonny refused when I tried to help him up. Moments later, my mom arrived with Greg and announced that trick or treating was officially over. Despite the fact that my pumpkin was nearly filled to the brim, I screamed and demanded to know why I was being cheated out of more free candy, ultimately having to be dragged home by my arm.
That night, my father sat with me in the living room on the old leather couch. The silence was a physical presence, a stranger in our normally animated home. Dad—a man who, by that time, had already risen to the position of Sheriff within our county, and practiced at the art of speechmaking--contemplated the words he would utter for a good thirty seconds before he even opened his mouth. By his first breath I knew that in his eyes what I had done that night had been a serious offense, though I couldn’t for the life of me understand why. After all, it wasn’t me who had hurt Sonny.
“Do you know what you did wrong tonight?”
“But I didn’t do anything!” I exclaimed.
“Exactly, you didn’t do anything. Your mother told me what happened,” he stated, fixing me with the sternest expression in his arsenal. “The worst thing you can do in the face of injustice is absolutely nothing.”
Many years later, my uncle would express the same thought to me, just in different words. “Paul, the only thing necessary for evil to get a foothold in this world is for good men to do nothing.”
Now, under the hard gaze of my father, I lowered my head and allowed the shame that had been nagging at me to finally take hold. “I didn’t know what to do,” I admitted, my lips starting to quiver.
“Here’s what you never do. Never back down from a bully, no matter how overmatched you might feel. You stare them in the eye and if it comes to it, you fight back, especially in defense of a friend. Do you hear me, Paul? Always stand your ground!”
Suddenly, it struck me that life wasn’t all fun and games anymore and I damn sure wasn’t Torr the Avenger. From my new position, the world looked a whole lot messier than when the night had begun. My eyes glazed over and I stared at the string of framed pictures on the wall. All those Graves’ relatives, Great Uncle Philip & John, and Grandpa Milton, seemed to be giving me a look of assessment. They all knew what I had done tonight and were disappointed in the next generation of the Graves family my Dad had produced.
Dad and I had made a special trip to Sonny’s house so that I could give him half of everything I had collected that night from my stash of candy. Despite that gesture, the events of that Halloween when I was ten affected the way I was to view the world from that day forward.
Excerpt from the new novel HALLOWED by Bryant Delafosse, featured exclusively on Amazon Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/Hallowed-ebook/dp/B009KN8BY0/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1350007425&sr=1-2
August 8, 2012
Do we still need heroes? The Dark Knight’s place in Popular Culture
In the wake of the tragic events in Aurora, Colorado, the inevitable question was asked in the media if our modern culture might have created the monster that can murder ordinary people going to a midnight screening of a Batman movie. I’ve heard this sort of argument before and my first reaction is that a single piece of popular culture (like Christopher Nolan’s Batman series) might have a powerful influence, but it takes an individual that is already considerably damaged to use it in such a horrific way.
Terrorists have been using Holy texts for centuries to justify their bloodshed, and that doesn’t make those texts evil in and of themselves.
So, I saw The Dark Knight Rises last Saturday, so I could see firsthand this movie I’d heard some criticize as pessimistic, ultra-violent and the reason why this madman may have targeted innocent people.
Here’s the bottom-line for me. The Dark Knight Rises is a movie about the inner strength and will-power which makes an ordinary individual a hero, and in no way glorifies the villain of the story or the evil that he commits.
There’s a line from the movie delivered by Christian Bale’s Bruce Wayne to Gary Oldman’s Commissioner Gordon that defines a hero. Referencing his first meeting with Gordon as a child just after his parents’ murders, Bruce Wayne says, “A hero can be anyone, even a man doing something as simple and reassuring as putting a coat around a young boy's shoulders to let him know the world hasn't ended.”
That’s a damn good line! And it drives home the point that in reality, heroes rarely wear capes.
Three of the top four grossing movies so far this year are based on classic comic book characters: the Avengers, Spiderman and Batman. (The remaining movie of the four is the adaptation of The Hunger Games, a story which portrays a classic heroine named Katniss.)
Is it coincidence that our popular culture is loaded with superheroes or is it a sign of the times? Well, the times we live in are bleak. Record unemployment. Gas and food prices are the highest in recent memory. Just as we turned to Spiderman, Harry Potter, Star Wars, and the Lord of the Rings during the year following the 9-11 attacks, we as a culture seem to be once again seeking comfort in a positive message. Good overcomes evil.
If you look at the other side of the coin, during the prosperity of the 1980’s, a lot of popular movies seemed to revolve around anti-heroes like Michael Myers and Freddy Krueger from the Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street series.
It’s almost as if we try and seek equilibrium between culture and reality.
The Dark Knight Rises though dark and oppressive as advertised, ultimately leaves its audience with a positive message. Evil can be overcome and happiness--though never assured--can be pursued.
On a purely gut level, The Avengers and The Amazing Spiderman released earlier this summer were lighter and more fun viewing experiences. But all of these movies gave us our hero “fix” in an otherwise depressing economic year.
It is escapism in its purest, most unadulterated form and reminds us why we all go to the movies in the first place. We need our heroes, if for no other reason but to remind us that every struggle has a resolution, and every day that begins in darkness ultimately ends with a sunset.
And just when you thought every big budget hero epic had been released this year, another classic literary figure is adapted for the big screen this December when the first part of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit will be released.
Don't know about you, but I'll be there!
Bryant Delafosse is the author of The Mall for Amazon Kindle & is preparing for the launch of his new novel Hallowed coming in October. An excerpt from the upcoming novel is included at the end of The Mall.
Terrorists have been using Holy texts for centuries to justify their bloodshed, and that doesn’t make those texts evil in and of themselves.
So, I saw The Dark Knight Rises last Saturday, so I could see firsthand this movie I’d heard some criticize as pessimistic, ultra-violent and the reason why this madman may have targeted innocent people.
Here’s the bottom-line for me. The Dark Knight Rises is a movie about the inner strength and will-power which makes an ordinary individual a hero, and in no way glorifies the villain of the story or the evil that he commits.
There’s a line from the movie delivered by Christian Bale’s Bruce Wayne to Gary Oldman’s Commissioner Gordon that defines a hero. Referencing his first meeting with Gordon as a child just after his parents’ murders, Bruce Wayne says, “A hero can be anyone, even a man doing something as simple and reassuring as putting a coat around a young boy's shoulders to let him know the world hasn't ended.”
That’s a damn good line! And it drives home the point that in reality, heroes rarely wear capes.
Three of the top four grossing movies so far this year are based on classic comic book characters: the Avengers, Spiderman and Batman. (The remaining movie of the four is the adaptation of The Hunger Games, a story which portrays a classic heroine named Katniss.)
Is it coincidence that our popular culture is loaded with superheroes or is it a sign of the times? Well, the times we live in are bleak. Record unemployment. Gas and food prices are the highest in recent memory. Just as we turned to Spiderman, Harry Potter, Star Wars, and the Lord of the Rings during the year following the 9-11 attacks, we as a culture seem to be once again seeking comfort in a positive message. Good overcomes evil.
If you look at the other side of the coin, during the prosperity of the 1980’s, a lot of popular movies seemed to revolve around anti-heroes like Michael Myers and Freddy Krueger from the Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street series.
It’s almost as if we try and seek equilibrium between culture and reality.
The Dark Knight Rises though dark and oppressive as advertised, ultimately leaves its audience with a positive message. Evil can be overcome and happiness--though never assured--can be pursued.
On a purely gut level, The Avengers and The Amazing Spiderman released earlier this summer were lighter and more fun viewing experiences. But all of these movies gave us our hero “fix” in an otherwise depressing economic year.
It is escapism in its purest, most unadulterated form and reminds us why we all go to the movies in the first place. We need our heroes, if for no other reason but to remind us that every struggle has a resolution, and every day that begins in darkness ultimately ends with a sunset.
And just when you thought every big budget hero epic had been released this year, another classic literary figure is adapted for the big screen this December when the first part of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit will be released.
Don't know about you, but I'll be there!
Bryant Delafosse is the author of The Mall for Amazon Kindle & is preparing for the launch of his new novel Hallowed coming in October. An excerpt from the upcoming novel is included at the end of The Mall.
July 12, 2012
Stop Planning and Just Live
While I was at work today at my non-writing, better-paying full-time job, an errant yellow balloon literally rolled past my cubicle entrance from another co-workers birthday celebration. I confiscated it and stowed it away for my toddler waiting at home.
It was a simple object that cost me nothing but the time it took me to tuck it away and transport it home. But the joy it brought to my son was indescribable. That level of laughter and fun I couldn’t have bought him even if I’d wanted.
Simple pleasures are what make up the body of our living narratives as human beings between the climaxes and the resolutions.
To paraphrase John Lennon’s song “Beautiful Boy,” “Life is what happens when you’re busy making plans.”
I always thought that particular line was genius. Not only does it point out the foibles of ambition, but the line itself seems to offer a solution. It’s as simple as this.
Stop planning for a change and just live.
After all, he was the Walrus, right Ferris?
That’s good advice no matter what you do for a living, but it got me thinking that as a writer we have to step back sometimes and live our lives so that we have honest material to write about. That’s why older, more experienced writers tend to write dense, layered narratives. To use an old literary metaphor, they have “full wells.”
One of the reasons why we as readers buy some of Stephen King’s more fantastic elements is because he often creates vividly real characters that we believe in when he takes them out of their mundane surroundings and puts them in haunted houses and alternative universes. Those characters came straight out of the life he lived before he ever touched pen to page.
And that’s where the simple pleasures come in.
If you, as a person, don’t live and love and hate, the characters you create will not feel “lived-in.” They will be hollow constructs that you hang stories around. I don’t know about you but I know right away when I don’t invest emotionally in a character, because I don’t care if he achieves his goal.
So here’s your assignment for this weekend. Step away from the word processor and go on an adventure outside your office.
Hey, it doesn’t even have to be real fun. It just has to be real.
Live a little, so you have something to write about.
(Bryant Delafosse is the writer of the supernatural thriller The Mall, now available on Amazon Kindle)
It was a simple object that cost me nothing but the time it took me to tuck it away and transport it home. But the joy it brought to my son was indescribable. That level of laughter and fun I couldn’t have bought him even if I’d wanted.
Simple pleasures are what make up the body of our living narratives as human beings between the climaxes and the resolutions.
To paraphrase John Lennon’s song “Beautiful Boy,” “Life is what happens when you’re busy making plans.”
I always thought that particular line was genius. Not only does it point out the foibles of ambition, but the line itself seems to offer a solution. It’s as simple as this.
Stop planning for a change and just live.
After all, he was the Walrus, right Ferris?
That’s good advice no matter what you do for a living, but it got me thinking that as a writer we have to step back sometimes and live our lives so that we have honest material to write about. That’s why older, more experienced writers tend to write dense, layered narratives. To use an old literary metaphor, they have “full wells.”
One of the reasons why we as readers buy some of Stephen King’s more fantastic elements is because he often creates vividly real characters that we believe in when he takes them out of their mundane surroundings and puts them in haunted houses and alternative universes. Those characters came straight out of the life he lived before he ever touched pen to page.
And that’s where the simple pleasures come in.
If you, as a person, don’t live and love and hate, the characters you create will not feel “lived-in.” They will be hollow constructs that you hang stories around. I don’t know about you but I know right away when I don’t invest emotionally in a character, because I don’t care if he achieves his goal.
So here’s your assignment for this weekend. Step away from the word processor and go on an adventure outside your office.
Hey, it doesn’t even have to be real fun. It just has to be real.
Live a little, so you have something to write about.
(Bryant Delafosse is the writer of the supernatural thriller The Mall, now available on Amazon Kindle)
July 4, 2012
Happy Birthday, America
With all of its flaws, the United States is my country and I love it. Today I celebrate its independence with the reminder of what it stands for.
Just look on any U.S. coin and you will find the things that make our country different than all others:
Liberty, In God We Trust and E. Pluribus Unum (Latin for “Out of Many One”).
This is what makes our country great!
Happy Birthday, America.
Just look on any U.S. coin and you will find the things that make our country different than all others:
Liberty, In God We Trust and E. Pluribus Unum (Latin for “Out of Many One”).
This is what makes our country great!
Happy Birthday, America.
June 28, 2012
Criticism: The Highest Form of Flattery
Speaking as a writer, I was always told by mentors and peers that you write for yourself. You should write whatever you would like to read.
This is great advice if you want to sit on stacks of unpublished work that no one will ever read.
But if you want to be a working writer, you need feedback from your readers. For an artist to survive in the market and—and excuse me if I sound pompous here—“hone his craft,” he needs to know what he’s doing right and wrong. Otherwise, he might be making some of the same mistakes over and over again.
Those who read for pleasure usually never consider writing reviews. Their idea of a review is telling their co-worker Dave that they enjoyed reading a book over the weekend and if Dave likes this sort of thing, it would be in Dave’s best interest to look into said book.
Unless you, as a writer, work with this Dave character, you might never get this valuable information.
Reviews are for the writer. Reviews help. They really do.
There are those that say they never read the reviews. I never understood these people. Do these folks live in a bubble where the outside world never intrudes on them?
You should always read the reviews. You just don’t react to every review.
Reviews might say that you did everything right as a writer. Reviews might say that you did everything wrong. But the reviews that truly help are the ones that give you a mixture of both. Y’know, the honest ones.
Unless you are a talentless hack like Vonnegut’s Kilgore Trout, every writer will have something a reader will connect with. (And if truth be told, even Trout inspired a few, as Breakfast of Champions and my novel The Mall exemplified.)
Sometimes the most passionately negative reviews tell you just as much about what you’re doing right as what you’re doing wrong. If a reader hates the fact that your style resembles Ray Bradbury or that they despise your lavish technical Tolkienesque details, that review may inform those readers that adore Bradbury or Tolkien that you are their kind of writer, that you should just “keep on keepin’ on,” as the song goes.
For a writer that is just starting out in the industry, a review is the only feedback he’ll ever get outside of his own family and friends--or if you’re lucky enough to have the ear of an industry professional that actually gives you something more detailed than a form letter. (You know the ones: “We appreciate the opportunity to read your work, but…”) In my experience, the comments I’ve received from agents and publishers on occasion have been invaluable to my career as a writer. After I got past my wounded ego, I realized that those people didn’t have to tell me what they liked or disliked about my work, but they felt that I was good enough to justify their time in communicating something extra that would help me grow and evolve.
That’s really all we ask for as writers.
Actors and singers get instant reaction from their work in the form of applause or boos.
Writers have to wait for the reviews.
(Bryant Delafosse is the writer of the new supernatural thriller The Mall, which will be available as a free promotion on Amazon Kindle on 6/30/12 & 7/1/12)
This is great advice if you want to sit on stacks of unpublished work that no one will ever read.
But if you want to be a working writer, you need feedback from your readers. For an artist to survive in the market and—and excuse me if I sound pompous here—“hone his craft,” he needs to know what he’s doing right and wrong. Otherwise, he might be making some of the same mistakes over and over again.
Those who read for pleasure usually never consider writing reviews. Their idea of a review is telling their co-worker Dave that they enjoyed reading a book over the weekend and if Dave likes this sort of thing, it would be in Dave’s best interest to look into said book.
Unless you, as a writer, work with this Dave character, you might never get this valuable information.
Reviews are for the writer. Reviews help. They really do.
There are those that say they never read the reviews. I never understood these people. Do these folks live in a bubble where the outside world never intrudes on them?
You should always read the reviews. You just don’t react to every review.
Reviews might say that you did everything right as a writer. Reviews might say that you did everything wrong. But the reviews that truly help are the ones that give you a mixture of both. Y’know, the honest ones.
Unless you are a talentless hack like Vonnegut’s Kilgore Trout, every writer will have something a reader will connect with. (And if truth be told, even Trout inspired a few, as Breakfast of Champions and my novel The Mall exemplified.)
Sometimes the most passionately negative reviews tell you just as much about what you’re doing right as what you’re doing wrong. If a reader hates the fact that your style resembles Ray Bradbury or that they despise your lavish technical Tolkienesque details, that review may inform those readers that adore Bradbury or Tolkien that you are their kind of writer, that you should just “keep on keepin’ on,” as the song goes.
For a writer that is just starting out in the industry, a review is the only feedback he’ll ever get outside of his own family and friends--or if you’re lucky enough to have the ear of an industry professional that actually gives you something more detailed than a form letter. (You know the ones: “We appreciate the opportunity to read your work, but…”) In my experience, the comments I’ve received from agents and publishers on occasion have been invaluable to my career as a writer. After I got past my wounded ego, I realized that those people didn’t have to tell me what they liked or disliked about my work, but they felt that I was good enough to justify their time in communicating something extra that would help me grow and evolve.
That’s really all we ask for as writers.
Actors and singers get instant reaction from their work in the form of applause or boos.
Writers have to wait for the reviews.
(Bryant Delafosse is the writer of the new supernatural thriller The Mall, which will be available as a free promotion on Amazon Kindle on 6/30/12 & 7/1/12)
June 22, 2012
Issues? Do we have issues??
For those of you with Amazon Kindles who have downloaded The Mall, please let me know if you are experiencing any technical issues. I've heard vague reports but no details, so I don't even know if there IS anything to fix. If so, I need to know specifics so that I can look into correcting these problems ASAP. (And for those of you who have read my previous blog, I hate, Hate, HATE, anything that takes away from the experience of enjoying a good story.)
Here's my email for those with anything to report:
bryantdelafosse@yahoo.com
Thanks again, everyone!
Here's my email for those with anything to report:
bryantdelafosse@yahoo.com
Thanks again, everyone!
