MCM's Blog, page 14

Introducing the EpiCast!

The EpiGuide community for webseries and webfiction produces the EpiCast—a monthly podcast that launched in November 2011. Hosted by Kira Lerner, the co-founder and current administrator of the EpiGuide, and Michael, who's both a longtime community member and the author of the webserial Footprints, these EpiCasts are monthly guides to the latest in the world of original online entertainment.

When 1899 kindly asked us for a guest post about these podcasts, we decided that the best way to introduce the EpiCasts to you all was to create a mini-version of a typical episode—basically, just a conversation between two webfiction creators and community members chatting away and hopefully imparting some enjoyment and info at the same time.

Here's a transcript of our session, which was recorded just prior to recording our most recent EpiCast episode (#005, already posted by the time this blog entry is published).

* * * * *

Kira: Hi everyone. Well, I guess we should start talking about how the EpiCasts began, and why.

Michael: Makes sense. What made you decide to produce these podcasts?

Kira: Honestly, until August 2011 I'd never have considering doing a podcast as a participant, much less creating and producing one for the EpiGuide. Which, I should say, is an online community devoted to webfiction and webserials of all sorts. Anyway, as I said, podcasting seemed anathema to me, since I'm fairly… what's the right word? Reticent? Reluctant?

Michael: Shy, probably.

Kira: Right, okay. So yeah, I'm pretty shy, and I know people over at the Eppy may laugh because I usually seem more self-assured in my online persona, but yeah, I'm totally not that person in real life. But then the good folks at the Webfiction World podcast invited me to talk about writing marathons generally and WeSeWriMo—

Michael: By which she means Web Series Writing Month.

Kira:—Yes, thanks. See, this is why we work well together as co-hosts. We can read each other's minds and step in when the other host (usually me) is suddenly inarticulate, helping to provide le mot juste.

Michael: Yeah, it works well even though we don't have exactly the same style. Like I don't think I'd've gone with le mot juste.

Kira: Hey don't ask me why I can't think of words like 'shy' but le mot juste pops up! Anyway, so the Webfiction World podcast—which I'm sure everyone reading this will know is now hosted by A.M. Harte and Greg X. Graves and produced by the Webcast Beacon Network—last August they invited me to talk about the WeSeWriMo project and doing the interview was surprisingly fun and engaging. At least after the first ten minutes or so, I wasn't as nervous as I'd thought I'd be, which I guess is thanks in large part to the hosts. Couple months later I got to thinking about ideas to liven up the Eppy community and came to the idea of creating a more specific podcast, by which I mean specific to our corner of the web, which is a bit different from the Webfiction World's focus. I guess for me, I realized that a) I didn't hate the process, and b) I wanted to spotlight the EpiGuide as a hub, to find a way to bring us… to create something for the community to think about from month to month. And c) I wanted to talk about serials with someone interesting, which is why I thought of you, Michael.

Michael: Thank you!

Kira: Also because we've been around the community the longest, at least of the people who are still active. But what led you to say yes?

Michael: I think it appealed to me because it seemed like a necessary breath of fresh air for the EpiGuide. Because we'd really stopped publishing regular content, and it seemed like a very current way to produce original content that would get people talking. And on a personal level I liked the idea of being "forced" to pay attention and engaging with the entire community. 'Cause it's easy to work on my series (Footprints) and get feedback on that, and read the few series that I'm interested in, and that my friends produce, or whatever. So it was appealing in that it both opened up my perspective and created a new venue for stimulating discussion and making the EpiGuide more of a destination. Instead of just purely for serial promotion, which I think it's always in danger of becoming just by the nature of what it provides.

Kira: You're absolutely right, and I think that's especially true for me since I haven't been actively producing my own serial (About Schuyler Falls) for the last year.

Michael: Yes you are!

Kira: Well, okay, yes, now I am, in a behind-the-scenes sorta way, but I've been very off-and-on with my writing, and it's very easy for me to detach due to my personality and various issues; very easy to pay less attention to the community even though I sort of run it, when I'm not actively producing my own serial. So even though I'm… I don't have any episodes coming out currently, the podcast is re-acclimating me to the current scene—doing the recaps, focusing on the new serials coming out, and so on. Actually—well, this is kind of belated, but we should explain what our podcasts' contents tend to be.

Michael: (laughs) Probably a good idea! We should've done that right from the start.

Kira: Yeah, my bad on that one. Okay, so first, after the intro, we recap installments of a bunch of different webserials—both ones whose writers submitted the recaps to us, which we always encourage, or serials we've made a point to find and recap on our own. Actually I think the latter's been the case most of the time, isn't it?

Michael: You mean having to search for new serials to recap? Yeah. I think that is true. I'd have to go back and look at our archives to see but my impression is that we've sought out serials specifically to find a wider selection, rather than just relying on the three or four people who submit materials each month.

Kira: Right, and this is probably to be expected since we've only just begun, really. In addition, we try not to recap the same series two EpiCasts in a row. We don't want the listeners to be bored instead of getting introduced to a variety of serials. I mean, some people (very generously) send recaps each month but since time is limited—

Michael: We try to keep recaps to under twenty minutes or so, not always successfully.

Kira: Definitely not always successfully! So for that reason, we'll usually give precedence to webseries or webserials—you know, we do both text and video series, by the way—that haven't been in the spotlight yet. But if there's room we'll definitely try to include anyone who's submitted material.

Michael: Yeah they should get rewarded for participating. Oh, we also should mention that even when we go looking for series to recap, we try mostly to find series whose writers have participated in the EpiGuide in some way. I mean, not just the series that get the most exposure…

Kira: By which, you're talking about the series that have their message boards hosted with us, those are probably the most prominent at the Eppy.

Michael: Right, right. But though we do include those—

Kira: Actually as of this latest podcast (#005), we'll have officially recapped all the series with EpiGuide-hosted forums.

Michael: No kidding, really? That's a fun piece of trivia.

Kira: I should say, just the active series, obviously. The series on extended hiatuses are S.O.L., heh.

Michael: (laughs) So getting back to how we find series to recap, though we do include the more prominently placed serials, we also pay attention to the EpiGuide's Site News area and the Web Buzz forum.

Kira: True. We want to encourage any writers or producers listening in to participate at the EpiGuide in some way. A serial has a better chance of being recapped or mentioned if you're at least somewhat visible in our home turf.

Michael: But it's not a necessity.

Kira: No, absolutely not. I know I've done news about MZP-TV shows, for example, and there's also your recap of the webseries Husbands in the most recent episode. Which is definitely not promoting itself on the EpiGuide. Anyway, speaking of the different segments we do, it'd be interesting to see which ones are most or least popular. Probably the recaps aren't hugely exciting, although maybe the fact that we add our commentaries to them adds some value.

Michael: I definitely think that keeps them from being just plain info that only appeals to the recapped series' writers themselves. That's why I like to keep them quick and add our commentary. We almost never read a submitted recap verbatim.

Kira: True, we'll use those as guidelines, mostly, but—

Michael: —But we'll always go back and read or watch the installments so we can come from a place of knowledge and add some relatively informed, um, commentary.

Kira: And also on the latest EpiCast that we just recorded, I did more of a review of one of the series along with recapping its recent storylines.

Michael: So getting back to our segments…

Kira: Okay, okay. Yet another reason Michael's such a great co-host is that he sticks to the topic rather than letting me branch out into digressions too much.

Michael: In other words I never shut up and let you speak.

Kira: No, no, it's a pleasure that you're so energetic, and the words seem to come so easily for you. I feel like I'm constantly searching for things to say even when I know what I want to say. Anyway, back to the segments. In addition to "The Story So Far…" which is our recaps section, we usually have a news section focusing on new, returning or ending series announcements, interesting articles we've read, topics of interest we've come across, and so on.

Michael: And then we finish up with a discussion.

Kira: Right. So far we've found it very easy to yammer on about a specific topic, for example, awards, or our favorite/least favorite serial endings, or … what else am I forgetting?

Michael: We did a talk about platforms… you know, the HTML versus WordPress or blogging software discussion. What works for us as readers/audience members, and what works for us as writers, and so on.

Kira: Oh yeah, gosh I forgot about that already and that was just like an episode ago. Scary.

Michael: Speaking of what works for writers, getting back to what you were talking about earlier, the fact that you're more invested in the writing world since doing these 'casts… do you find that doing these 'casts, having the responsibility of being involved, motivates you to work on your series?

Kira: Yes, definitely. Because sometimes I do think "Gee it'd be nice to be mentioned on one of these damn things!"

Michael: (laughs)

Kira: Even though we'd be sure to treat it like Footprints—not highlighted more than any other serial, just every few months. But it'd be great to at least have the opportunity, and the EpiCast definitely feels like a kind of golden prize. Which is either a big compliment to the EpiCasts or proof that I'm kind of pathetic. By the way, before you got involved with the EpiCast, did you, or do you, listen to any other podcasts?

Michael: I really don't. I think it's because I listen to music or audiobooks, so I haven't discovered stuff and the podcast thing is sort of a new world for me.

Kira: There are just so freakin' many!

Michael: Yeah, exactly, I think—similar to webseries in a way—there's so many things to look at and so many are of… um… poor or sort of unpolished quality, that I get a little overwhelmed. I know I've listened to soap-related ones, but while they're fine, I feel like I've spent time on something that wasn't illuminating anything for me. So I don't really have a ton of experience with podcasts, and I didn't have much experience getting into this.

Kira: Of course I assume you listened to the episode of Webfiction World where I was on, right? Right?

Michael: Yes, I definitely did.

Kira: Now those podcasts are really well done.

Michael: They do a nice job of them. They're structured, they're clear…

Kira: That's what I aspire to, whereas our own show kind of feels like an amateur hour compared to them. I think it helps that they have a separate producer. Doing everything from planning to recording to editing and adding music cues… that's quite a major process. The Webfiction World podcast sounds impeccable compared to the EpiCast, I think. Though maybe there's some, I don't know, charm? –in how casual and, um, nonprofessional our 'casts seem. At least that's what I tell myself. Technically speaking, I know from when I was on the WeSeWriMo show, they had a lot of breaks, and I think they record things on different days. For example, in the middle of our episode—they always have a reading of someone's serial—

Michael: Oh wow.

Kira: I know! But anyway in our episode there was a break where they'd insert the reading, which obviously wasn't recorded at the same time as my interview. And by the way, that's something I'd like to do, finding a good excerpt of a serial to read out loud. The segments we have now that we've mentioned—the recaps, news, then discussion—they're great but we want to add more. Such as a reading.

Michael: Yes, or to spotlight a single serial in-depth.

Kira: Precisely, that's one of the things we'd talked about for the future as we start to get more into the groove of things here. We're still feeling our way around a bit.

Michael: Ideally it would be great to combine interviews and readings. To have someone on as a guest, and then have them do a reading from their work—or we would do it—and then use that as a sort of jumping-off point of discussion. So instead of just reading something without it having any context, or any connection to what we're discussing, the reading would maybe be specifically chosen to fit in with what we want to talk about.

Kira: I'd love that. The context thing is especially important because I think readings by themselves might not offer enough of a… a sense of what the serial's about, or what the author is thinking, and so on. Your idea would let listeners really get a good feel for the series itself. Also, just having a third voice to listen to would probably be a relief after hearing both of us chatting in their ear for an hour!

Michael: Yup. So eventually we want to mix things up so each show's not too predictable, with the same segments over and over. Fortunately we haven't run out of topics, but we should put in a plug to ask people what they'd like to hear us talk about?

Kira: Great idea. If anyone reading this has an idea for a topic, let us know! Same thing with questions. Actually that's another segment we've added, listener questions. For example, one of our listeners asked us about awards, and so that's how we came up with discussing that particular topic.

Michael: Also on another episode we were asked about our most-missed serials, which led into that discussion about serials from years ago.

Kira: Holy crap, I forgot about that one too. Old age is a terrible thing. So yes, we get a lot of ideas from our listeners. I'd definitely like more precipitation—

Michael: Precipitation?

Kira: (laughs) Participation. I mean yeah, it'd be great to have some rain in here, maybe some snow… No but seriously, another one of our ideas is to have an entire a call-in episode. Though we'd need to learn how to handle that, technically speaking.

Michael: There'd be a learning curve for sure. Speaking of which, what do you think we've learned along the way? What's the difference from the first EpiCast to the fifth one?

Kira: Well first of all we've gotten smoother as a team, I'm almost certain of that. I think we've found a good rhythm.

Michael: Yes. We've meshed with each other and feel way more comfortable than in that first episode.

Kira: Totally. I mean, it's weird because we've known each other for like..

Michael: Fifteen years!

Kira: Oh my God. And yet we'd only spoken once or twice before, when…

Michael: …when we briefly worked for a lunatic. Long story.

Kira: Ha! So in addition to the improved interactions between us, and probably getting through segments more quickly, another thing we've learned is how to add some constructive criticism. Not that we've done a huge amount, other than little bits of snark that we add to the recaps of the more ridiculous plots—now I'm saying that with affection, everyone—in many of the serials. That said, advice and critiques aren't a huge part of the podcast but we're trying to integrate them a little more, from the vantage point of readers or audience members as well as writers. I mean, as we said, between the two of us we have thirty years of experience—

Michael: Oh God, that is literally longer than I've been alive!

Kira: Oy. I wish I could say the same thing. So we will get more into critiques and tutorials and advice, that sort of stuff. As long as we don't sound like we're sitting on some mountaintop making proclamations from on high…

Michael: I think the best way to come at that, particularly about critiques, is exactly what you said—that we're speaking about this from the perspective of a reader or audience member. This'd be a respectful way of offering feedback without sounding too superior. Just sort of, "you're putting out something that has an impediment to my enjoying your serial, here's a possible solution."

Kira: That's very very true. We want to avoid sounding snobby but we do have a lot of experience following online entertainment, so why not share our thoughts that might help someone, right?

Michael: Yeah, I think we'll be getting into that soon.

Kira: Another thing I've learned, personally, is the technical side of putting these 'casts together. Using the various software programs, picking music that's podcast-safe (easy enough to do since I'm going exclusively with Jonathan Coulton, whose music is all Creative Commons), dealing with levels, updating the various feeds and so on. But … okay, so what else have we learned?

Michael: We've learned how to end instead of going on and on.

Kira: (laughs) And speaking of which, let's wrap up. In summary, we hope everyone reading will listen in and give us a try. There's something for everyone whether you're a reader, viewer, writer or producer. Also since we want to be representative of the whole world of webfiction and webseries and so on, it'd be great to have a more interactive feel. People should feel free to submit stuff to us, either questions or topics or even your feedback about a recent installment of a serial you're reading or watching.

Michael: The best part of that is, the more you guys submit, the less work we have to do.

Kira: Always our Machiavellian goal. Anyway, thanks very much to 1889 Labs for providing us the opportunity to spread the word about the EpiCast! Hope you'll all check us out.

The EpiCast is broadcast each month and can be found by following our feed, visiting http://epiguide.podbean.com or http://epiguide.tumblr.com , subscribing to us on iTunes, or right on the EpiGuide.

Kira's About Schuyler Falls and Michael's Footprints are two of the longest-running serials on the web.

Get A Heavy Hammer

It is four o'clock in the afternoon, and the author sits before a laptop, coffee in hand, a sneaky drab of whiskey put into it for good measure. The day is bright and sunny, and the author toys with the idea of wandering outside, getting a good dose of vitamin D and perhaps a pint or two at her favourite watering hole–with laptop in tow, of course. The trouble is, certain… people… refuse to leave her alone, and their needy, grabby, whining is really getting on her last nerve. No matter how heavy the hammer she throws at them, they always come back, broken and bloodied and demanding she do something about something.

Whiners. The lot of them.

Take this one fellow wandering in now. He's got nothing to do with this particular article the author is trying to write, but he keeps peeking in at her from the periphery, anxious eyes watching every keystroke as she types.

"You have to finish my outline," he reminded her for the four thousandth time.

"Not now, I have an article to write."

"But you left me battered and bruised and half dead, and there's a whole flashback scene you have to get to. I really need you right now."

"I told you. I'll get to you when this is done."

"You said that before. Then you went and worked on a short story. You don't care about me anymore. You don't love me."

"Of course I do. I hit you with a hammer, didn't I? Now get out of my office space and get back in that file until I'm ready for you."

He reluctantly did as he was told, but not without muttering a few choice words about how cruel and unreasonable she was being. Really, she was going to have to up his masculinity the next time she went over his outline and definitely before he fleshed out a few scenes. There was no way she was going to put up with a wimpy hero. Miserable and conflicted, yes, but never, ever a wimp!

Which brought her to her next problem. She sighed and hit the buzzer on her desk. "Outstanding Neglected Novel, can you come in here for a moment, please?"

There was some shy shuffling at her office door, and it opened with a tiny creak. Her Neglected Novel slid in and tiptoed across the carpet, to sit in the leather chair across from her creator. "Yes? Have you decided to finish me?"

"No," the author said.

Neglected Novel was stricken. "But…You worked on me for *hours*! For *weeks*! You were so proud of the words that were put together, we were really going places, things were happening!"

"No." The author was firm, unbending. "You were meandering all over the place, and your characters were bland. I've tried every possible way to fix it, but there comes a time when you have to admit there's no hope. The basis of your existence just isn't working. The conflict was incomprehensible, and frankly, you were more than a little boring. There is no hope for a novel that is boring. Controversial, ugly, maddening, yes, these are things that can redeem even the worst writing. But to be boring is worse than a death knell. It's like you shouldn't have been born and yet here you are."

"You can spice things up," Neglected Novel insisted. "I can become an experimental piece. A surreal exploration of the human condition."

The author yawned. "I'm slipping into a coma just talking to you. Maybe I can use some of the research in my other project, but right now, I'm afraid your services are no longer required." She pressed a red button marked 'delete' on her desk and Neglected Novel dissipated into a pile of crumpled papers at the base of her desk. She continued to type at her laptop, heedless of the quiet clean up job of her Editor, who muttered a few curses under her breath over the mess being made.

The door to her office slammed open, and yet another fellow stormed in, his face clammy with sweaty exertion.

"I demand a sex scene!" he shouted.

The author paused, her fingers hovering above the keys of her laptop. "I beg your pardon?"

"You heard me." He was breathless as he pulled up a chair. "I want a filthy, dirty sex scene. One that lasts four chapters."

"That is not going to happen. You're getting a fade to black, then do whatever you want, I don't care."

"But…"

"Protracted sex scenes are tricky to write, and when they aren't part of an erotic novel, they get boring. In a novel where sex isn't the plot or the focus, it gets weirdly clinical and icky. Just take a cue from the Bad Sex In Fiction Award and tell me I'm wrong. Last I looked, you were in a horror novel with a zombie focus, not 'In The Cut', so if you do manage to get a sex scene, it will be one paragraph of oblique feeling at best."

"Make it two and I'll be happy."

"I'm not here to make you happy." She picked up her hammer and swung a warning at him. She hit him on the side of the head and he collapsed onto the carpet, moaning in pain. "Miserable characters are conflicted characters and they drive the plot forward." She gave him a fierce kick in the stomach. "Now leave me be and let me finish this article!"

The afternoon waned on, the beautiful outdoors a passing memory as day slipped into evening. The author sighed and got herself yet another cup of coffee, which gave her a jittery, uneasy mood that rode on the wave of caffeine. She had the strangest, insufferable sensation of someone reading over her shoulder, an unpleasant feeling that refused to abate. She shook the invisible reader off, and it slid down her arm, across her keyboard and finally to the chair in front of her desk. Her nemesis sat prim and proper in front of her, a sickeningly sweet, pride-filled smile beaming at her.

"The last person I need to see right now is you," the author said.

"Everyone knows that all stories and characters are just extensions of their original author" She giggled and coyly bit her bottom lip. "It's all about me."

"Hardly. Great characters are made out of anxiety, misery and torment, and none of those things are part of my own experience. I live a pretty dull, and happy, life. My opinions on the great, untapped sustainable resource of penguin droppings should have no bearing on my character's personalities, and there is no need to make them soapbox it. It is vital that I get out of the way of the characters' development and allow them to breathe on their own."

The author opened her desk drawer, beginning a frantic search through piles of papers, sticky notes, research links, spent coffee grounds and USB sticks. It had to be here somewhere.

"Looking for this?"

Her nemesis, also known as Herself, held a shining silver gun in her hand. Herself laughed at the folly of it, for it was impossible to completely eradicate the creator from the process. Killing the author. How absurd.

"You don't have bullets," the author said, halting Herself's fit of giggling. The author smiled, and this time Herself looked worried, her hands clutching the padded armrests of her leather chair.

"I may not have a loaded gun," the author said, gravely serious, her weapon of choice weighed affectionately in her hand. "But I can always get a heavy hammer…."

It was a dark and stormy night….

A little while ago, I was involved in a discussion with a writer who was banging his head over a new story idea. His page was blank so I suggested a first line, something like:

"An ancient hermit, his skin as gritty as a cave floor and his hair like spider's web, walks into a pub, digs around in his rags for something that he lays onto the bar, squints up at the barman and says, '…."

Not surprisingly he knew exactly how that story went. He knew stories that start in a tavern have a fighter, a thief, a mage, and a healer who have randomly come together under the employ of a strange and mysterious wizard. It's the rules. He also knew it would be a dark and stormy night.

One sentence created an image so familiar in fantasy fiction that it suggested a thousand unspoken words. That is not good, of course, no one wants to write or read that story again; it's too familiar, there is nothing new to learn from that scenario. 'Avoid clichés in word and scene' is one of the 101 rules of quality fiction. But clichés, stereotypes, and memes of all kinds come to be as familiar to readers as this one is when they are used repeatedly and specifically to tap into that pool of instant, common recognition.

There are not enough words in any book to describe every scene, every character, or every nuance.  Entering a world in which we want to immerse ourselves as readers requires the ability to recognize certain details in shorthand. Stereotypes facilitate that abbreviation by providing a common understanding. Try as they might to rid their work of clichés, in truth every author relies on them to a greater or lesser degree. The better the wordsmith, the less obvious the ruse.

Human minds are designed to differentiate. We put things in mental boxes. The first conversations we have with our babies and toddlers are comparative. Big and small, short and tall, loud and quiet, hot and cold, good and bad, light and dark, black and white. Identifying things which are same and different is part of our survival arsenal and we do it automatically. At its best it broadens our appreciation of the world around us. At its worst it is the basis for xenophobia and discrimination. It is so natural for us to compare self to other that we do it subconsciously, and then usually attach a raft of associations with each point of difference. We put people, places, and situations into our mental boxes, and then we decide how we feel about them.

Gender stereotyping is frowned upon in today's enlightened society, but the differentiation remains: male and female, it can't be ignored. As soon as they enter a story we will want to identify them as good or bad, hero or villain, knowable or alien [in terms of personality rather than galactic ethnicity] and each time we attach one of those labels, our reaction to that character will change and grow. We react with uncertainty and reserve when we see what we consider negative points of difference, and we embrace and empathize when we attribute positive traits.

Overt racial stereotyping has also gone the way of the dodo in most respectable fiction. It is no secret, however, that race as a point of difference is deeply entrenched in all cultures; is widely understood even when discrimination is not practiced or is discouraged; and remains common when you scratch the surface of modern fiction. [In researching this article I found a brilliant illustration of this exact point at io9.com]

To a lesser degree, but just as importantly, we assess the environment in stories, too. In fact, it is the basis of choosing genre for many readers. If we want to break away from our day to day reality, it is common to seek out worlds that are different to our own in some important way. It might only be in time, a different era; or it might be a transporting difference in climate, desert or snow or deep forest; or it might be a world entirely created by the author whose work we are reading. No matter which environment we choose, we can only enter it by assessing its characteristics against our set of known points of reference. And the author must rely on commonalities in his readership. Stereotypes.

And there are typical experiences. When we read, we call these experiences plots and we know them all. Depending on whose theory you choose to follow there have only ever been seven stories written, or twenty-five, or a hundred. It doesn't matter how many parts you slice the world of fiction into, the bottom line is plots are reused as they gain or lose popularity, and the fashion for a type of story grows or wanes.

I for one find it fascinating that it is possible to read a word or two and to know that very nearly every other reader around the world who reads those same words will react, and if it is a skilled wordsmith they will react in a similar way, to the characters moving through the story. Housewife, doctor, nerd, temptress, bad boy, hippie, clown, used car salesman – every term produces an image. More than that, the same basic characters can move through our books over and over again, and we will still look for them and enjoy following their adventures.

So I thought I might have a look at some stereotypes, types, and archetypes in fiction, and see if there is a reason we like to share their lives.

How willing are you to flesh out a character with subconscious assumptions? Do you look for a favorite character in every book you choose? A muscular hero? A savvy warrior chick? A cool professional? A violent psychopath? I know now that I do, but for many years of reading I did not see it.

How easily are you led?

Webcomics and Webfiction: Considering the Audience Gap

I was encouraged to write a post that dealt with both webcomics and webfiction, because I do both: I started a web comic in 1996 and began posting web fiction in 2011.

It's an uneven relationship: my comic is old, but it's not particularly successful — Help Desk's audience is nothing compared to the real success stories (Penny Arcade, PvP, Sinfest, etc) — and I don't make money. I'm not someone to emulate if you're looking to earn a living.

On the other side, I've only been involved in webfiction for a year: Pay Me, Bug!, my first serial, started in January 2011 and finished in October. The Points Between, my second, started in September and is still updating. Compared to many, I'm painfully new.

Still, I've seen enough of both worlds to notice a few interesting differences, and I'm brash and arrogant enough to foist my opinions on anyone who will listen… or who is forced to listen… or who is grotesquely fascinated by the apparent impending trainwreck of an idea, and doesn't necessarily want to listen, but just… can't… turn… away…

Hi!

When I started publishing webfiction, I put it on a site that was completely separate from my webcomic. Both sites have since been fused together, but while they were separate I had the opportunity to monitor traffic on both. The difference was substantial: my webcomic averaged between 2,500 and 4,000 visitors a day, with roughly 5,000 RSS feed subscribers. (Note: this is extremely low traffic compared to even moderately successful webcomics.) On my webfiction site, my best day during Pay Me, Bug!'s run was about 350 unique views. There were perhaps 200 RSS subscribers. That's quite a gap.

Some of that can be explained by the relative newness of my entry into webfiction: it takes time to build an audience, and the early years can be painful. But I started poking around—looking up sites on Alexa, checking out Project Wonderful statistics—and it seems this phenomenon is more true than not: webcomics attract more visitors. Seeing what appeared to be a trend, I immediately wanted to know why it was a trend.

I have a few hypotheses.

Webcomics: Less Involvement is Required

If you go to ubersoft.net, you're immediately redirected to the part of my site that displays the latest comics I've posted. After that, all you have to do is scroll down to read 1-6 panels.

Boom. You're done.

Reading a comic is easy, and the relative ease with which someone can "consume" a comic is a fundamental strength of webcomics. Because comics are easy to read, readers don't feel they'll lose something if they read them. I know people who have special links set up in their browsers so that they can open 30-40 tabs at a time, each pointing to a different comic. Then they read each one in turn: read, close, read, close, read, close, read, close, and so on. In ten minutes they've gone through 40 comics that they follow regularly. That's awesome for webcomics because it means it doesn't take a lot of effort to get casual readers.

Right now, I have more readers who subscribe to my comics on RSS feeds than I do who visit my site directly. I didn't realize this until I innocently asked a question about my RSS feeds and was suddenly inundated with responses from readers I never knew I had, then started paying closer attention to different parts of my log files. The more ways you give potential readers to read your comic, the more people will read your comic, because the act of reading a comic isn't that taxing.

But the most important part of the subtitle is 'required', as in "Less involvement is required". That doesn't mean that a high level of involvement is forbidden, and in fact, you will find readers who voluntarily increase their involvement. Communities spring up around webcomics. Large, vocal, thriving communities. The community of fans who follow Penny Arcade can decimate unwary servers if Gabe or Tycho link to something they find interesting—the equivalent of a webcomic denial-of-service attack, only not so much "malicious" as "mass quantities of enthusiastically curious".

So webcomics have the best of both worlds: not only is there a low barrier to entry, but there's nothing preventing you from becoming a more involved fan, either. Rather, the only meaningful barrier is the cartoonist.

Webfiction: More Involvement is Assumed

So does it work the other way around for webfiction? Does being a casual reader of webfiction require more work on behalf of the reader?

To a certain extent, I think it does—it takes more time to read your average webfiction update than it does to read your average comic update. More importantly, there is a strong perception that reading webfiction is time-consuming, and that perception acts a deterrent for webfiction that webcomics simply doesn't have to deal with.

Why does webfiction suffer from this? Because while the World Wide Web was originally text-only and hyperlink-driven, culturally the web seems to shy away from the dreaded "wall of text" phenomenon. The more text you see on a page, the more you unfocus. The term TL;DR didn't spring out of nowhere—at some point, someone decided that there was more work involved in trying to read a big chunk of text than there was a return from doing so, and they just stopped reading.

There are communities in the web that are not text-averse. Political sites are filled with people who do not shy away from essays—but they're not reading fiction (at least, they're not reading anything they'll admit is fiction). Bloggers in general aren't averse to reading text, but blogging also seems to favor short posts, and they're being supplanted by sites like Pinterest and Tumblr and Twitter—sites that demand brevity. A lot of people I know like to read review sites, and if the writer is a good enough reviewer, he or she can amass a fairly loyal following (Eric Burns-White of the now-in-limbo Websnark was an excellent example of this when he was actively updating). But political and review websites are a means to an end—a place where you can read opinions about topics that interest you, and join in the discussions yourself. Those kinds of sites promise to deliver a very specific benefit that makes the reader willing to commit the time to sift through the text.

Webfiction is a blank slate. Is the story any good? You won't know until you make the commitment to start reading. Since each chapter generally doesn't stand on its own, it means you will also have to start going through the archives to get a grasp of the story—whereas with webcomics you usually glance at the current update and quickly decide whether you like the cartoonist's sense of humor, or artistic talent, without needing to understand the context of the story.

Webfiction publishers have to fight against inertia in order to increase their audiences. I haven't been writing webfiction long enough, nor talked with other webfiction publishers often enough, to learn any mitigating strategies.

Community is King

But there is an audience. People are willing to read on the web—communities like Wattpad and Fanfiction.net are proof of that. So how to go from "people read my webfiction" to "hey, a lot of people are reading my webfiction" to "I need to upgrade my server in order to handle all this traffic?"

You develop a community.

At one point in webcomic history, there was a lot of talk about how webcomics needed to get out of their "niche" markets in order to succeed. I scoffed at the idea then and still scoff at it now, because the one defining trait of every single successful webcomic out there is that it has built a loyal, active, thriving, often boisterous community of readers. Readers flock to forums to talk about the latest update, or comment on the update itself. Once they've finished talking about that, they talk about other things. Related things. Semi-related things. Off-topic things. Books, movies, music. Even, in some remote enclaves that are spoken of only in hushed tones, religion and politics. The comic becomes a cornerstone of the community, but their interactions branch out into other things.

When people congregate around your site and put down roots, you've developed a community. And that initial common interest that drew them to your site to begin with? That's your niche.

The definition I'm using for niche is 'a distinct segment of a market'. A common misconception of the word is that because a niche is specific is must be small. This is not the case. Penny Arcade, PvP, User Friendly, Dumbing of Age, xkcd, Chainsaw Suit, Megatokyo, Schlock Mercenary all have huge communities, but they also project very specific images that communicate what they are, and what you'll get out of them. That very specific image is their niche. None of those communities are as large as, say, fans of professional sports, but even professional sports fans are not one, single, unified community—they tend to follow specific teams, and teams are niche markets that have been exploited so completely, with niche identification so utterly complete, that some markets literally lead to rioting during games (eg, football in England).

This sense of community is not as pronounced in the world of independent webfiction. But it is present—again, look at Wattpad. Look at Fanfiction.net. Look at Goodreads. Readers of fiction congregate and form communities, just like readers of webcomics.

"That's great, smart guy," I hear you say. "So how do you do it?"

Oh, hey, look at the time….

* * * * *

Christopher B Wright is a writer, occasional musician, borderline cartoonist, and recognized authority on his own opinions. His webfiction can be found at https://www.eviscerati.org/fiction.

Flashback Reflections: How Reader Interaction Has Killed My Story and Given Birth to a Better One

When I was first approached to work on the series that would become Losing Freight, I had very little idea what the project was going to look like. I knew the format—one page every weekday, with a reader interaction poll at the end of each page—and I quickly came up with the story concept—a money-hungry space freighter pilot loses a valuable piece of cargo and has to go on the run—but the actual writing process and the nature of the reader interaction were so unique, so different from anything I'd ever done before, that I quickly discovered that my "normal approach" simply wasn't going to work.

In this blog post, I want to describe some of the ways that Losing Freight, and my approach to writing it, has evolved since I started working on it two months ago. There are two main things that have changed: the types of poll questions I'm asking are different from when I started, and my writing process has evolved, too.

The Polls

At the beginning of Losing Freight, I was asking readers to mostly fill in worldbuilding details, or to choose among various interchangeable pieces within the story. For example, I asked for the name of Tic Bolter's spaceship (the readers chose "The Galactic Pelican"); I asked what the currency was called in Tic's galaxy (they measure their money in "Litres," apparently); and I asked what valuable collectible Tic had managed to misplace (it was an action figure).

Any of these details could have turned out otherwise—Tic's ship could be the Farting Walrus, his money could be quadriloons, and he could have lost a space whale's cosmic hairball—and none of it would have significantly changed the direction of the story. It just would have filled in some of the blanks differently.

As we moved through the first three or four weeks of the story, I realized that readers would soon get bored of these types of questions. I think it was obvious that a lot of the polls had more-or-less completely interchangeable answers, and while those polls can still be fun—and I'm still using them now and then—the real uniqueness of Losing Freight's interactivity comes from the ability of readers to have a direct impact on the shape of the story from one day to the next. I realized that I had to start asking more questions that allowed readers to have that kind of impact.

During Week 4, I asked readers to help choose the setting of the next several pages: they chose a pawn shop on an ice planet. Even that was somewhat interchangeable: it didn't change the plot, only the details and descriptions. But it was heading in the right direction.

During Week 5, I let the readers choose the strategy that one of the characters would use to try to infiltrate the villain's headquarters. Here's where things started to go right, I think: I knew what the next page had to result in, and where it was going to "end up," but I didn't know how the character was going to get there. I had to wait on the results of the poll to write most of the next page.

That continued on in Weeks 6 and 7. I asked which of two characters should go undercover disguised as one of their enemies, what kind of character they would run into on the next page, and whether they would take that character along with them when they escaped. The answers to those questions are definitely not interchangeable. The various poll options drive the story in very different directions, lead the characters down different paths, and affect character development. These types of questions have drastic effects not only on the next few pages, but also on the overall plot of the story.

That's both inspiring and terrifying, to be honest. It's inspiring because I'm adding new wrinkles into the story all the time, forcing myself to write a story that doesn't go straight from A to B; it has lots of different twists along the way, whether I anticipate them from week to week or not. But it's terrifying because I can't really write ahead. Which brings me to the second big change that's been taking place with Losing Freight.

The Writing Process

I began Losing Freight with an outline. It was a pretty good outline, if you ask me, because unlike Greg X. Graves I actually really like outlining. It covered about 12 weeks of the story, with basic guidelines for what would happen during each week, what direction each character would be developing in, a nice rise and fall to the intensity of the action, well-paced "reveals" and plot development…

I prewrote the first two weeks' worth of the story, and kept about a two-week buffer going for the first month or so, taking one day per week to write a full week at a time. I left the appropriate portions of each page blank so that each day all I had to do was slot in the appropriate poll results and hit "Publish."

It was easy. It was comfortable. Then I started changing my polls.

When my poll questions began to change, my comfortable rhythm quickly went out the window. How could I write a page a week or two in advance when I didn't know what was going to happen on it until I'd received the previous day's poll result? I was forced to abandon my precious prewriting, my nice little buffer.

Instead of sitting down once a week to write a week's worth of pages at a time, I now find myself taking that time to outline only the roughest frameworks of the next week's pages—which page is an action scene, a conversation scene, a stage-setting scene?—and to plan out a basic idea of where the characters are going to end up at the week's end.

The path from Monday to Friday is becoming too wide open to plot it out more than a few days ahead of time. And if things keep going this way, the same thing might happen to the path between Monday and Tuesday! Crazy stuff.

Where This Leaves Me

My "12-week plan" is in shambles. I have been reduced to annotating each upcoming week with only the barest elements of pacing: this is a rising action week; this is a falling action week; this week is a character development week; this week holds a big revelation; this week contains the climax of "Act One."

It's scary for me to be writing in an unknown direction, with very little idea of where my story might go from one week to the next, but that's the beauty of this project: if I had all the details worked out beforehand, the readers wouldn't be having much input, would they?

I'm still learning a lot every week about how to best make use of the daily polls, what kinds of questions readers have the most fun answering, and how to make every day's page exciting and interesting to read. I hope I learn as much over the next two months as I have over the previous two.

Maybe by the end of the story I'll have this thing mastered! Then again, maybe the whole point of this format is that it's unmasterable. And that's part of the adventure.

Losing Freight, by Tim Sevenhuysen, is 1889 Labs' first reader input-driven "Flashback" series.

In Review

Readers, have you ever wondered how you can get rich on the bonanza that is independent fiction? Have you considered picking up a pen and then realized there really is a skill to getting a story onto the page? Here's an alternative to consider.

Review. I mean it. Not just a few lines of recommendation at Goodreads — if you have an enormous history of loved books clogging your living areas, you could turn out to be one of the great lights of the digital revolution.

Reviewers need a big clap; it isn't easy. It's a vital role, and its importance will come to the fore as the independence movement in fiction progresses. At present there are names in high places, known reviewers at the big print papers, whose word can make or break a novel. They are the people the readers go to to hear what they should be reading and what they should think about it. Going forward, a new group of people with real insight and the ability to summarize a book reliably for the wider audience will emerge with great power. Go for it now! All hail the powerful.

Meek, you will have to wait until you inherit the earth, I'm afraid.

I've been hunting out reviewers in the week since Touchstone hit the presses, looking at their work and their preferences and trying to find people who might like to review for me. In the spirit of sharing that has arisen, and with the sudden absence of inspired blog material, I thought I'd share one of my past lives with everyone.

Now, there are people who share like this with such precise beauty and wonderful phrasing that it makes me shake my head and eat my own words. Someone like that would be Penny Goring in her incredible work, Temporary Passport.

My own worst memories are of the decade 1965-75. Do you recall it? Ugggghhghghg!

Moulded plastic furniture and shiny clothes that melted on your skin if you went too near a candle. Colors like mustard, tangerine and burnt orange, lime green, mission brown, and acid yellow. Light blue shimmer eye shadow, beehives and Osti patio frocks; white shag pile rugs, everything circles and holes and MODERN. Help, my skin is crawling away. Plastic. Plastic. Ewwww. Plastic jewelry! Plastic sofas. Plastic wood-grain bas relief matadors and geometric design curtains still lurking in forgotten caravans. MARBLECRAFT! K Tel record selector.

I need a Bex and a little lie down.

When I review those days, I watch Rocky Horror, Velvet Goldmine and JC Superstar to recall the history that never really was, but I fantasized about anyway. Frankie said, 'Don't dream it, be it,' in a small town picture theatre in north Queensland and loaned me dreams above my station.

We were hippies and students, too, so we knew the poverty and the gypsy soul, but it was a decade or two earlier in the twentieth century and Penny's cities in Europe might as well have been on the moon. Those I know who made it to the far off brighter lights were the sensible souls who studied nursing or teaching, then did Europe on a dollar a day or backpacked in packs without the obligatory pack, worked bars in London, and squatted in Brixton.

I do miss that time, though, before we learned we were all destined to burn in a nuclear holocaust.

We knew we should husband the earth, and that men didn't have the right to keep taking as long as the planet kept giving. We knew it. But when the great terror campaign was perpetrated, most of us became yuppies and lived well in glass and chrome and very nice cars. We ran ahead of the fear, or celebrated with who-cares-anyway when there's nothing you can do about it. We remembered life before the sexual revolution and yet we let the media strangle and distort the message so that women were left with the right to say yes. And only yes. To everything. And we did nothing.

Then all the guys became girls. The straight boys were pretty, the gay boys were macho; we all wore leather and feathers or tartan and painted our hair to match our clothes. When there was money we dressed in labels and drank all day. When there was none we knew all the best came from op shops [before TV current affairs shows taught the senseless how to forage].

And tonight I'm listening to Queen's first album, from back when they were poor, and wondering who we actually ended up being – Baby Boomers, the scourge of the earth – when I should be babbling about the week in review. What's happened lately…?

By now everyone knows there was a bit of a kerfuffle over censorship at Smashwords. It had to do with PayPal not liking some content.

In an email directed to all 30000+ Smashwords authors, publishers and literary agents, Mark Coker, Smashwords Founder, outlined the problem:

"PayPal contacted Smashwords and gave us a surprise ultimatum:  Remove all titles containing bestiality, rape or incest, otherwise they threatened to deactivate our PayPal account.

PayPal tells us that their crackdown is necessary so that they can remain in compliance with the requirements of the banks and credit card associations (likely Visa, MasterCard, Discover, American Express, though they didn't mention them by name)."

So then, no man can buy or sell fiction unless he bears the mark of approval by bankers. And erotica is such an easy target. Sexual aberrations crowd our waking nightmares; we are never to forget the dangers of perverts. They're everywhere waiting for us to blink and they'll pounce. They're front and centre of the 'fodder for irrational fear' files.

Like child eating, broom flying, Satan sucking, night dancing, spell casting, evil spreading witches before them, they're waiting in the shadows. We jump at every sound. If we don't do something about the threats, our fears will choke us all. We'd better burn someone soon, or we'll all be doomed.

And just like witch trials, or lynchings, there is a fear of guilt by association. If anyone stands up for the group to be excised, they risk being 'tarred with the same brush'. We've gone over this ground so often in history we know the drill. We watch our feet as society is cleansed for our benefit. We know that there is nothing we can do to save them without risking our own safety. And no one is going to risk losing their safety for a rapist, am I right?

Except we are talking about authors, here, not rapists. Not people breaking a law. Not people practicing any violation of anyone else's rights. We are talking about the arts.

The primary role of the arts across the board is to discuss the world in all forms and in all variations of form. Art should prompt us to ask ourselves what we think and what we value. In fiction we can watch a scenario played out for us without injury. I am more afraid that the role of our arts community should be reduced to supplying some mindless color and movement; more afraid that the only voices we should hear are those who say what they are expected to say; than I am afraid of some works of fiction with sharp edges.

Well, surprise! This time it's good news. Mark Coker wrote today to thank Smashwords authors and customers for writing in support of those works blacklisted.

He explained:

"Yesterday afternoon I met with PayPal at their office in San Jose, where they informed me of their decision to modify their policies to allow legal fiction….

…. Smashwords authors, publishers and customers mobilized. You made telephone calls, wrote emails and letters, started and signed petitions, blogged, tweeted, Facebooked and drove the conversation. You made the difference.  Without you, no one would have paid attention. I would also like to thank the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE) and the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC). These three advocacy groups were the first to stand up for our authors, publishers and customers. Their contribution cannot be overstated.  We collaborated with them to build a coalition of like-minded organizations to support our mutual cause. Special kudos to Rainey Reitman of EFF for her energy, enthusiasm and leadership.

I would also like to thank all the bloggers and journalists out there who helped carry our story forward by lending their platforms to get the story out.  Special thanks to TechCrunch, Slashdot, TechDirt, The Independent (UK), Reuters, Publishers Weekly, Dow Jones, The Digital Reader, CNET, Forbes, GalleyCat & EbookNewser and dozens of others too numerous to mention.

I would like to thank our friends at PayPal.  They worked with us in good faith as they promised, engaged us in dialogue, made the effort to understand Smashwords and our mission, went to bat for our authors with the credit card companies and banks, and showed the courage to revise their policies."

Good work, world! There might be other things we can change together!

So then, who wants to be a famous reviewer? Who has memories? Who has something to say about censorship? Who wants to change the world? Speak.

The Birthmark by Nathaniel Tower

 

            The first time they made love they were underneath the ladder leading to the hayloft in his grandfather's barn. He had to make love to her there to prove he wasn't superstitious. She needed a man who was grounded in reality. For her, he could be anything.

            "Jesse, I think there's straw up my ass," she whispered in his ear right before he was about to climax.

            "Jessie, don't ruin the moment," he responded.

            No one had called her Jessie until they had met. He chalked up their similar names as a sign. She thought it merely a coincidence. There were other coincidences as well, most notably the similar birthmarks on their left butt cheeks, although he couldn't always tell for sure that his was a birthmark or that it was on his left cheek.

            She would have laughed at him if she knew that he thought they were making love.

            Making love to her in that barn was the highlight of his life.

            "I love you," he told her.

            But before he could even utter the final syllable, she had buttoned her blouse and jeans and was off, her bare feet crackling the loose hay with every step.

            He was too stunned to chase her. "Wait," he called, but there was no one nearby to hear.

            Jesse, a hard-headed man by nature, assumed that Jessie was playing hard to get, so he vowed with his grandfather's tombstone as his witness that one day he would bring the woman back to the haystack and begin his family.

            Unfortunately, Jessie was quite a bit more elusive than Jesse had anticipated. She was the type of woman that swooped into a town, seduced a handful of man, and then disappeared. He found this out when he asked around and learned she had also slept with his best friend under the name of Florence, although he had called her Flo against her wishes. Jesse harbored no ill will towards his friend, but he was envious that someone else had seen his Jessie's birthmark, which was what had caused Jesse to fall in love with her.

            With only a butt cheek birthmark to go on, Jesse knew the search would be difficult, but a vow was a vow. Jesse would bring that woman back to the haystack and make love to her again and again until they had a family. He imagined himself caressing that birthmark as she repented for her loose ways.

            The search lasted for days, weeks, months, and years, but he never relented. He had very nearly slept with dozens of women, all of whom seemed to be his Jessie, but he would always check for that birthmark right before the deed, and when their asses came up bare, he confessed to them through sobbing tears. The women undoubtedly would have been furious with him if he hadn't seemed so pathetic. They each held his naked body in their naked arms, pressing his hair up against their breasts, collecting the tears on their delicate skin.

            This continued for nearly a decade until one comforting woman, a tattoo artist, said to him, "I know her."

            Almost instantly, the tears dried up, like some clichéd sudden end of a storm giving way to an even more clichéd bright blue sky filled with sun and rainbow.

            "Where is she? Are you sure it's her? How is she? Is she married?" the questions flowed from his tongue.

            The answers came: "I don't know," "pretty sure," "she's okay," and "yes, at least she was."

            He begged, "Will you help me find her?"

            "Yes," she said, having already fallen in love with him, secretly hoping that helping him find the invisible woman would cause him to feel the same about her.

            After two years had passed and the money for food and lodging had run almost dry, the woman decided to make her move. "You know, you can call me Jessie if you would like."

            "It wouldn't be the same," he responded.

            "I've always wanted to make love under a ladder in a hayloft."

            "I'll never make love with a woman other than her."

            "I can have a birthmark on my ass, too."

            "But it won't be the same," he said again.

            "Sure it will be. You don't know squat about this girl. You love the idea of her. I can be that same idea."

            "But it was destiny. And I made a vow."

            "Vows can be broken. They're broken every day. And destiny doesn't know what's best for the world. Sometimes, I like to think we can make our own destiny."

            "But there was something in that mark that connected with my soul."

            "I'll make one just like it on my ass."

            "You can't make one just like it. It's one of a kind."

            "Sweetie, I think I can repeat my own work."

            Speechless and confused, he stared at the tattoo artist, noticing for the first time the irony of her art-free skin.

            "You mean…"

            "That's how I knew her, love."

            "Are you sure?"

            "It's the only thing I'm sure of."

            Jesse stared at her for a long time, imagining this woman creating the most beautiful mark upon the most beautiful woman, a mark he thought only God could have made.

            And then he broke the silence.

            "Well, get drawing," he said. "We've got a hayloft to visit."

            He was finally bringing his Jessie home.

 

Nathaniel Tower writes fiction, teaches English, and manages the online lit magazine Bartleby Snopes. His short fiction has appeared in over 100 online and print magazines and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. His story "The Oaten Hands" was named one of 190 notable stories by story South's Million Writers Award in 2009. His first novel, A Reason To Kill, was released in July 2011 through MuseItUp Publishing. Visit him at www.bartlebysnopes.com/ntower.htm

 

The Death of God by Tim Reynolds

"You know you're the last, don't you, Neela?"

She does, of course, this beautiful, fragile Child of mine. She's conserving air and energy but she nods to me from her cot, although with her eyes closed she can't see me. Or maybe she does… what stands before her mind's eye no one will ever know, even me. Omniscience isn't quite what my Children have assumed down through the ages.

She stirs.

"I don't know if this will come as any comfort to you, Child, but the last of your siblings down below on Terra Toxica went away thinking how blessed you and your fellow crew members were to not suffer the ravages of that plague they had created and released in my name while you were here in orbit. Every one of them would have traded places with you in a heartbeat, even if only for a heartbeat. Every one of them would have traded the pain, the blindness, the bleeding and the madness which came to each and every one of them, young and old, rich and poor alike. Came to them all before their last, strangled, choking breaths.

"With you alone remaining, my Child, I'm able to hold you closer than ever. No one else seeks my succor. No one else struggles or suffers. You truly have my undivided attention. But as a matter of respect I ask for your permission, your leave to share these last moments.

"I see you nod once more. Thank you. And so, here I… AM.

"Oh, my Child, I wasn't aware of how cold you are. Here, let me warm you. Now that I'm right here, is there anything you wish to talk with me about. Anything at all? No? Ah, I see. You're drifting away and it's too late for discourse. At least you're not alone here at the end, unlike your fellow space station crew members. Of course they weren't really alone because I never left them, but they believed they were alone. In their silly despair they thought I had forsaken them.

"Two of them went out through the airlock unprotected, preferring to face the vast emptiness of space rather than the vast emptiness of their futures. Three of them shared a poisoned cup, hoping for a painless, peaceful end. Judging by their convulsions and consciousness-shredding fear, it was neither painless nor peaceful. I could have made it so, had they asked, but they didn't.

"Is that a tear I feel slipping down our cheek? Silly Child of mine, there will be no pain for you, only peace. Ah, it's a tear of love. Well, that's all right then. Here, let me add a tear of my own, now that I can, thanks to your generosity.

"Oh, my Child, you're done. Your oxygen is depleted and it's finally time to sleep. Sleep well my—

 

Tim Reynolds is a Calgary writer with his most recent published stories in the genres of science fiction, horror, and steampunk. Other hats he occasionally dons include that of poet, stand-up comic and photographer, all detailed at www.tgmreynolds.com.

 

Introducing ULTRA: 1889 Labs' Anthology Collection

Aside from serials and webfiction-to-print, we're about to take on an even bigger project; one that you can be a part of.

Today is the launch of ULTRA, 1889 Labs' official anthology collection, which will be coming out semi-annually from now on. So, tell your friends: submissions are OPEN.

How does it work?

You'll notice the ULTRA section on the top menubar of the site. Once you click, there is a section allowing you to submit your story to us. Anyone can submit their story, but the word limit should be between 500-1500 words. ULTRA is essentially a flash fiction anthology, so we'll only be accepting flash fiction submissions. There is no genre restriction, so go nuts.

However, we will not be accepting tie-ins to already established webserials. We want completely new, original and stand-alone work.

Once the submissions are given a look over and accepted, they'll go into the 'inbox', where readers can read and vote on which stories they like the most. Stories that receive more than ten facebook 'likes' become featured on the main page of the ULTRA section.

Then, a handful of the approved submissions are chosen to appear in the anthology. This anthology collection will be out in print and ebook, available through all channels that our other books (and ebooks) are. If you're a prospective author up for a bit of a challenge, this is a great opportunity!

So, what are you waiting for? 

 

 

 

 

Free book review: Come With Your Shades On by Joe Gotham

With independent fiction, freedom from genre restrictions and editorial direction can produce either new forms of expression, or unfocussed ramblings, perhaps well-written, but going nowhere.

CWYSO is a delight for anyone looking for the former. This is not a light read; time and characters slide in and out of place, and there is at least one complex mystery to solve. I'd say it is perfect for Johnny Vegas fans who wish they could cut the soap opera out of Ideal and turn the drug lords up to eleven.

The plot cannot be better summed up than as it is by the author himself:

"A black comedy following the adventures of a disparate group of people in the Netherlands in the days following 9/11. A faded rock star, Dr Kosmoss, his blind companion, Christian, and a Nigerian King called Lord Ahmed go to the Netherlands to rescue a girl kidnapped by a porn star. Since Dr Kosmoss lost his memory in the WTC attacks, all he has to go on is a note telling him to go to the Netherlands and find a man called Bran Van Haappen. Meanwhile, a drug dealer called GSUS and his three pals have to come up with ten thousand guilders in three days to pay back the local big cheese or they're all dead."

How well comedy works is always down to the individual reader and I did not find the book laugh out loud funny. It walks a fine line between dark comedy and violent/bad taste humour and in my opinion the line is crossed more than once. It is the sort of gross/cum-splatter humour that might work best in the locker room or among shipyard welders. That said, there were times when I laughed unexpectedly, and overall I did find the story both engrossing and amusing, and not at all offensive.

There is one thing I can say for certain about CWYSO: you will not have put the pieces together and solved the puzzle before you reach the end. When you get to the final reveal, there are several, and if you have enjoyed the style of humour, the author's cunning will amuse you all the more. If you have struggled, you will groan.

There are peculiarities; each character is introduced, described from head to toe including the inevitable t-shirt logo and shoes, and ascribed a likeness to a celebrity. Because it is done so often and by rote, I guess it is by design rather than accident, but it does stand out as unusual when reading. Puns are repeatedly explained, which might help readers who find the wording obscure; references to art and philosophy are also explained, almost as if the author would like the reader to note his academic range.

I enjoyed Come With Your Shades On and recommend it – if you like dark comedy, if you can follow UK accents, and if you don't squick easily.

Joe Gotham says of his work, "I'll let my writing speak for itself." It's good advice.

Four stars.

Come With Your Shades On is available for FREE download from Bibliotastic.