MCM's Blog, page 4

To Be a Villain by Leigh Cameron

When I started out, I spent a long time saving things from trees.  When people tell the story, it’s always a cat.  I think the whole practice started in the south.  Cats matter more; they’re living things.  And people would say puppies if they could, but puppies don’t often climb trees.

If you want big stories you have to do big story things.  There are only so many cat-and-tree incidents that a paper can write about.  But I guess if you do it for the paper, you’re in the wrong business.

One time, I was sitting at the little corner bistro with those grilled million-cheese sandwiches, and the TV was switched to the news. They were showing videos of some crash, or explosion or something; whoever was piloting the helicopter didn’t understand that he could get a better view if he was outside the column of smoke. I waited to read the halting closed captioning to catch up. While the anchors grinned at some cat video, and while I began to resent cats, the captioning read that…Well, I forget exactly. Train derailed? No, a house-fire. I don’t know, but I’ll tell you about the plane crash.

I sloshed the rest of my coffee down my throat before pocketing my sandwich. A million cheeses don’t come out cheap and that day I decided I’d be damned if I waited in that kind of line to leave it all on the table. Let me tell you, a scalded esophagus makes it hard to believe it’s any better than just eating the money itself. Though, I’m sure my intestines don’t appreciate exact change as much as I do.

I flew down the highway, passing at least one cop. I think I went fast enough by him that he gave up the chase before it started. I respect his ability to prioritize. The smoke appeared to my left, but I had to give up on the confused British voice that served as my GPS because it refused to let me know where to go unless it was in the loop too. I know now that there was a more direct route, but making a U-turn would have put me in a sour mood.

When I got to the site, there were more cops so I played it cool. They don’t really take kindly to non-cops. I could see the firefighters were making slow work of the wreckage. They were at that point of having to consider endangering their lives and making heavy decisions. Heroism stuff.

The plane had been split in two, lying a good distance apart, but close enough to be considered a single disaster area. One part had the majority of the passengers, and other was about to explode. One options weighed a lot more so I went for it. I hadn’t gotten to eat my sandwich yet.

And it turned out that the other part did explode. The entire field shook and everyone dropped to their knees. I found myself clutching my pocket.

As I worked through the main part of the cabin I was thankful for that boost of caffeine, throat be damned. I like it when things work out.

My story was in the paper, but I didn’t know it until the next day when I caught my name in print before it drained into the sewer.

I took a few weeks off after that. I tried some painting, ate some tacos, caught up on my cartoons. It was a good vacation, and I deserved it.

Eventually I found my way back to the bistro and read about a robbery in progress down the street. I was blessed with convenience. It was even a nice day so I drove with the windows down. The Brit took me to a bank where I rolled my eyes. I mean, haven’t they figured out a better system for this? And by ‘they’ I mean either the burglars, who always get caught, or the banks, which always get robbed.

When I stepped out of the car, there was a guy. A guy in charge. And in costume. Just taking charge. So I approached him.

And he said to me, “Stop right there, Villain.”

I did stop. I turned slowly to the gathering crowd, all looking to the other guy in expectation. All I got were nervous glances, like I was that spider crawling up the wall you can’t help but keep an eye on.  If it gets any closer, suddenly it’s filled with malicious intent.

And then it did fill me with malicious intent.  I balled a fist imagining the feeling of his trachea.  I imagined the shooting pain in my knuckles as they connected with his jaw.  He had a strong jaw; it would hurt like hell, but it would be worth it.

“Say what now?” That’s what I said to him. I leaned over to see past him and watch two men in ski masks peer out of the bank. They’re in luck; all eyes are on ‘Hero’ here in front of me. I thought to myself, maybe I am the villain he’s lecturing about because at this moment, all I want is to see them drive off with the money while he harangues for the next few hours.

“I think you planned the whole thing.” He pointed a finger at me.

“The conspiracy route?” I nodded to myself. Could pique some interest.

That’s when it hit me. I am in it for the papers. I mean, look at me now, here with you. Listing off my story.

Sorry, I don’t mean to laugh, it just hit me now too that this is kind of a monologue. You know, a villain thing.

Anyway, he continues. “Trying to make yourself look like a hero. Have the city in the palm of your hand,” he accuses, I should say. Actually, that sounds more annoying than anything.

“Exploit people, manipulate them to get what you want.”

“Well, as long as no gets hurt…” I mean, is it totally immoral?

“It’s an intricate plan. And subtle. A clever disguise.”

“You might even consider words like diabolical.” I remember thinking that I shouldn’t joke. Story of my life.

“But you don’t realize how many people you hurt.”

I’m trying to think, but I don’t have any permits for weapons, and I’m pretty sure my only jail time was related to alcohol. I guess I have thought about hurting people. But very certain people. I squinted at him to really get my point across. “You’ve lost me.”

“It was months ago,” he inhaled a long breath.

He could definitely see the pain on my face.

“There was a fire uptown.” He looked off in the distance and I started thinking about how life stories might be my kryptonite.

“And you were there. Impossibly fast.”

I was squinting again. I’m pretty sure that was when my bistro was under construction. That stupid place uptown boasted it was better but it sure as hell never satisfied any cravings.

“And you jumped in like you’d been there a hundred times. Somehow you knew exactly what you were doing.”

Now I’m angry at that place. I wonder if it’s out of business yet.

“That little house that I grew up in.”

And so thankful for my usual bistro. I’m having a vague craving for a sandwich. At that point I was hoping he wasn’t asking me questions.

“And now they’re dead.”

I had no answer for that. And still no chance of a sandwich anytime soon. “Listen, man, I\’m not who you think I am.” Thinking back, I wonder if that came out wrong? “Blaming me isn’t going to bring your family back.” Yeah, still wrong. Maybe worse.

“It doesn’t matter. I’m here to make sure no one suffers you the same way.”

I knew something was about to happen. Thank the stars, right? “Maybe I just like to climb ladders. Stand stoically on precarious ledges. Get in fights with jerks.” Or conversations.

“You think you’re fearless.” I liked the look on his face as the thought resonated.

“Better yet, I’m feelingless,” I offered.

He stood there pondering the meaning of life for a while.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I just went for it, you know? “Hey,” I suggested, “you need someone to chase, I need an adrenaline rush. We can help each other out.”

“What does that mean?” He could have been scratching his head, I don’t know.

For the love o’—. “These folks need a show. You gonna avenge your family or what?”

*      *      *

Leigh Cameron recently earned a Literary Studies/Philosophy degree from Iowa State University. She’s hoping to keep her accomplishments relevant with sporadic writing endeavors. Currently, she is finding out what it really takes to write a novel.

Best Before…

I’ve discovered that people have use by dates.

Well, maybe they are ‘best before…’.

People have a taste in music that was born in the years that they cared about words and beats and such. People like a particular style of clothes. Most of us can find something to wear prêt-à-porter, but it never quite gives us the feeling or the look we know was our best. Far too many of us get about with the hair style we chose in our golden years. It’s dated now and youngsters whisper, ‘Is the hair on purpose?’, but we carefully apply the heated rollers, firm hold gel, and gossamer steel hairspray each day before we leave the house.

There is a great deal of hard-edge painted on eyeliner gadding about. Often it is teamed with platinum blonde hair that is edging toward the purple-grey discount home bleaching kit shades and single-hair width eyebrows, but once it was THE look and we knew we had IT.

Once we were the cutting edge. Once we were the Avant-garde and we were shaking it with the best.

Even authors knew there was a way to put words on a page.

Once there were rules – but although they seemed to be set in stone, the overview of language shows it was actually always fluid. Even if teachers in the forties and fifties and sixties whacked our knuckles and berated us as fools when we misplaced a comma or couldn’t remember our Latin roots, they were really only commanding their own brief and glorious moment of literary certainty. A passing fashion. Not only have those rules all changed, the world does not want to have to recall them. Fashion, as Oscar so wisely pointed out in regard to clothes, is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months. Language buys us a little longer than six months, but it still passes and is just as despised.

It doesn’t matter if we wrote revolution in the 50s or beat in the 60s or psychedelics in the 70s or punk in the 80s or glorified capitalism in the 90s or apocalyptica in the 00s or Sparkly YA primers in the 10s, it is hard to shake the formula that made sense and spoke truths to the masses when we were flying ahead of the winds of change. We are creatures of habit. We repeat what we know. If it doesn’t seem to work, we do it again with even more determination.

Some very lucky people have an eye for the classics. They choose labels that do not date; their hair is simple elegance and their make-up barely there natural beauty. They loved the bands that lasted and they know their classical canon. Chanel No. 5 has never been out of style. They are widely read, and when it comes to writing they come like water and like wind they go. Wondrous superhuman creative paragons. All praise to them.

Most people shine briefly and then the world moves on.

People have use by dates.

I wish it wasn’t so.

Wuthering Heights

Recently, our Editor-in-Chief, AM Harte reviewed Wuthering Heights at Goodreads. Her motivation to read the Emily Bronte book began some time ago with a conversation in ergoFiction.

Plainly it is a book that divides readers. For my part, I love it. It’s not a five star read, maybe a four and a half, but I don’t mind the unlikeable characters. Happy endings are not the norm as far as I have seen in real life; people are rarely wholly ‘good’ and fewer actually develop the redeeming characteristics we like to see in our fiction.

Heathcliff and Cathy are not nice people. They are sociopaths at best, psychopaths at worse. Heathcliff feels no human bonds and has no empathy for any other person. He is driven by revenge, and we can only use our imagination to provide the awful details of his methods as he rose to power in the wild places of the world.

Cathy is no better. But none of the characters of Wuthering Heights, except perhaps for Nelly Dean, are.

I think that is one of the reasons I do like it so much.

No one in this story is virtuous and no one learns a great life lesson. That is real life. Wuthering Heights is a train wreck, and that is why many other readers hate it.

We like to see, as a general rule, character growth and development in the fiction we read, not the spiral descent into suffering that is the reality we live and prefer to ignore. Not many of us as individuals, or the multitudes around us, reach an enlightened state where love for all creatures great and small helps us overcome the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. People, ordinary people who are not heroes and heroines of fiction, tend to make their mistakes and keep making those same mistakes throughout their lives without ever realizing their own complicity in their suffering.

Yet in fiction we like to find a world where the light is bright at the end of the tunnel, and characters find their way to happiness.

The idea of imperfect and driven heroes moving toward an inevitably bad ending is common in yesterday’s fiction. All through the classics: Moby Dick and Anna Karenina, half the plays of Shakespeare, Russian and German literature as a whole.

It probably still exists in the fiction of today, but titles escape me for the moment. What we do see all too often when truly flawed characters appear in modern fiction, is a miraculous healing of dangerous traits. Characters like Heathcliff and Hamlet do not get better. They do not forsake their misogyny. And yet, the half-understood badass hero of modern fiction can be turned from drinking, gambling, violence, misogyny, masochism, narcissism, etc by the love of a good woman. That I do not like. I can read and enjoy unlikable characters, but unlikeable characters that turn into paragons of virtue to suit a plotline are loathsome.

Wuthering Heights is a good point of discussion on this subject because most people have read it, by choice or otherwise. And whether readers enjoy it or not, whether they like Miss Bronte’s writing, or her characters, or her bleak world, or even Joseph’s laboriously accented English, or not, at least, AT LEAST she understood her characters and she allowed them to live their lives on the page as they should.

That’s what I think, anyway.

Flattr and the Internet Wilds

by Aelius Blythe

The wild and transient pulse of creation beats here.

Here in the digital spaces, everyone creates. Here in the digital spaces, everyone is a writer, a photographer, a journalist, an artist. Here in the digital spaces, everyone can shout and be shouted down. And as intoxicating as Here is, this rough and tumble mess that is so… internet begs the question: why does anyone create here at all?

Simple. It’s fun.

But what’s fun isn’t always profitable. And what fills your heart doesn’t always fill your wallet. Choosing this new world means leaving behind the support of the old, and lurking fears wonder if poverty is the price of creation.

Maybe it is.

Most of the unorthodox writers I know accept this price. We trade support away for freedom. We trade comfort away for creative control. We trade a paved road away for a machete to cut our way through the wilds.

It’s okay because it’s fun.

But not everyone thinks there needs to be a trade-off. While we accept certain sacrifices and challenges for the sake of our work, others are busy not accepting that there need to be sacrifices and challenges — or maybe not so many. Others are busy not accepting that digital arts need to go without support. Others are busy not accepting that the path of independent creators needs to be hard and lonely. While we, machetes in hand, hack through the new, pathless wilds, others are running ahead to make the wilds more hospitable.

The Flattr team make up some of these others.

Flattr is a micro-payment system for free stuff. A “Like” button with a few cents attached.

It’s just a few cents.

Here and there.

Maybe a dollar.

But for myself, as a small time newbie, micro is about as much as I can manage. After all, when you’re a small time newbie, not too many people are opening doors for you. And when support is hard to come by, accepting the spare change of a few supporters means more than waiting for a big check.

Of course, creativity has always found some way to support itself, and so too in the internet age. Donations and ad revenue and sales have lined the pockets of many creators. But in the internet’s chaotic mess, there’s a bottleneck at the most popular doors to success and not everyone gets through. And while donations and ad revenue and sales find their way to a few talented creators, Flattr — and other new models of support — opens the door to a few more.

Some people look with dread on the masses of creation online: the meme fields, the cat forests, the troll caves. Some people shake their heads at the folly of trying to find a new path through these wilds. Sometimes even we independent creatives roll our eyes at the crazy technologists that think they can change things for us. And maybe it is crazy to think this chaos can be made any easier. Maybe it is better to look at the sacrifices and challenges and accept them, rather than hack through them.

But I look at the book in my hands.

It’s a POD collection of blog-posted fiction. Not something everyone would be ecstatic about. The only professional thing about it is the cover. But this is my work and, goddammit I am proud of it!

I don’t have experience with many crowd funding methods. Here on the internet, one size doesn’t fit all. One size fits some. Maybe Kickstarter gives some writers covers and physical books. Maybe PayPal buttons are some artists’ bread and butter.

Maybe we don’t need a new model.

Maybe some people look at all the paths through the mess of creation here and think the new ones just add to the chaos. Maybe some look at the growing, pulsing mass of creation and think it is too much, too chaotic, too uncertain.

I don’t.

I look at the book in my hands.

I look at the book I can hold in my hands, the pages I can flip, the ink-on-tree pulp, the cover that I could never have produced myself. I look at what I — just one voice shouting in the forest of words Here — hold: my book, my work, a tangible something, that grew out of a few cents here and there, maybe a dollar. I look at it and I’m happy for a few cents. I look at it and I’m happy for the people who think things can be different, that this new world, this chaotic, uncertain path doesn’t need to be so scary and lonely.

A shiny new cover and printed pages aren’t success, but they are rest stops on the way. These wilds are tough, we need stops along the way. We need all the support we can get.

Even if it’s just a few cents.

About Aelius Blythe

Aelius Blythe is a writer, digital rights activist, and blogger at CheapassFiction.com.

The Antithesis Blog Tour: The End!

If you missed some of the tour posts, check out the Week One and Week Two recaps.

Today is the LAST day of Terra’s blog tour for The Antithesis… which means it’s your LAST chance to enter to win print copies of the entire series.

I mean, damn. How good would all 5 books look on your shelf?

Here are the final blog tour stops for you to enjoy:

Guest posts:

How did Terra develop the world of The Antithesis? Find out on Musings of a Writing Reader!

Interviews:

What does Terra do when she’s NOT writing? Read this interview to find out.

Reviews:

Lizzy’s Dark Fiction “adored Leid more than any heroine as of late. She’s like a tiger -– beautiful, exotic, but dangerous for your health in close quarters. I have 10 or 15 different texts highlighted in my Kindle of the awesome verbal exchanges between [Alezair and Leid]… Every time they meet is like a hit and you can help but turn page after page looking for that next high.”

“The Antithesis does a good job of creating an unusual scenario, unique worlds, and new races,” says A Bit of Dash.

Win Prizes!

Commenting on the blog tour stops above is one way to enter to win. Fill out the fun little widget below to make sure you’ve got the best possible chance of winning.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Hurray!

For more information about the tour please visit the splash page.

Fish-Slapping and Naval-Gazing Water Rabbits.

Do you know what happens when the Xbox red rings?

If, like me you own a houseful of adolescent males, initially you will be unaware that your worst fears are about to be realized. You might imagine mowed lawns, washed cars, movies rented, even in flights of pure fantasy, washing up done and folding put away.

Wrong.

When the Xbox red rings in a house full of adolescent males, the N64 comes out of retirement and those Mario Party songs you thought you would never have to listen to again, start repeating through the house. Did you think you’d never hear Snowboard Kids again? I did. Did you think if someone was twenty-five they were too old to laugh hysterically at Super Smash Brothers?

Wrong again.

When the homegrown spawn were small, one was an early riser. He was up with the sun every day. I could get up with him at 4am or 4.30am, or I could, as I did, teach him to make his breakfast cereal and come to my room where he could see a red and a green spot on the vcr buttons.

All he had to do was put in a video and press green.

Born into the techno generation, he’d learned the vcr manual by the time he was four and was rebuilding computers from the dump shop by ten, but in those early days he would put on his videos of Spot, Bananas in Pyjamas, Thomas the Tank Engine, or Wiggles. And he did. Over and over and over again.

To this day, if I hear the start music of any of those children’s shows, I develop a tremor and a facial tic.

There’s been talk this morning of reconnecting the SNES and Sega and if I hear Alex the Kid start I might jump off the roof.

So I watched some movies.

Michael Rennie was there The Day the Earth Stood Still, as we know, and not Keanu Reeves. Apart from grave concerns about a mother who leaves her first born in the care of a homeless stranger, I prefer it to the remake by millions. Except that there are few commonalities to compare, really. So I watched Michael Rennie save us all from ourselves, again.

Watched Berserk on and off; it can run for days and weeks without pause.

Watched Evil Dead, Dead by Dawn, and Army of Darkness. I love these three movies, as terrible as they are. They’re wonderful. [I loved Hercules, TLJ, too.]

Watched Dead Man. Just moving art, isn’t it? I love it. There are times I wish for colour, for the landscapes, but I’ll never get enough of this movie. It’s like a painting you hang on the wall for years and never tire of seeing.

Watched Reservoir Dogs, and Inglourious Basterds, and The Great Dictator.

Also watched All Quiet on the Western Front. I’ve never seen the 1930 original, I must. And a remake is in production for 2012. I wanted to move about after that, but ended up putting on Eric the Viking because AQotWF makes me so sad.

I will have to watch some more Python now and reaffirm the knowledge that no matter how bleak and hopeless the world looks, it is really just a big mass of total absurdity and nothing to be worried about. In any melting pot the dross floats to the top; the thick shit at the bottom gets burned; most people are blind men patting elephants and holding forth on the result; and interdependence is a dirty word when everyone is so damnably accomplished.

I have some kippers – it’s time to dance.

I read some reviews.

Reviewers need a big clap; it isn’t easy. It’s a role which will come to the fore more as the independence movement in digital fiction progresses. Those readers with real insight and the ability to summarize a book reliably for the wider audience will emerge with great power. All hail the powerful.

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

I entered the giveaway at bibilotastic a while ago. That was exciting – I was trying to win an apple and some kindling. I posted my comment, noted my favourite Romanian poet and posted my entry off to the team. I’m still on tenterhooks. Who knows if I’ll win!

I doubt it. I never win anything.

In fact, centuries ago when I was born, the universe stamped me with the special mark it puts aside for those who are destined to sit, wizzened up in a cave with a hessian robe and hemorrhoids, contemplating navel fluff.

The universal powers said, “Don’t give that one nuthin! [Except in the 80s – it was a really great time to have been rich.] Wastes everything. Bastard!” Instead they made me a Scorpio water rabbit, and left me to think about humanity and its endlessly fascinating insanity.

Of course, the other navel gazers know my cave. It has the satellite dish, conservatory, and Gucci door mats. Have to look the part.

That’s all.  I need a Bex and a little lie down.

Then back to my dancing!

Lxx

The Antithesis Blog Tour: Week Two

I assume you’ve seen all of last week’s The Antithesis blog tour posts!

Well there’s even MORE for you to enjoy… and MORE chances to win some awesome prizes!

Interviews:

The best bit of the interview on Off the Page is the decapitated princess. #yesreally

Want to know Terra’s day job? See the interview on The Bunny’s Review

Guest posts:

What materials or influences inspired The Antithesis? Find out on The Avid Reader!

Reviews:

The Antithesis got 5/5 stars from Kaidan’s Seduction!

I am Indeed reviewed The Antithesis, concluding that it combines “the best features of action manga and urban paranormal”.

Excerpts:

“As we approached the base, Leid tripped over her own feet, landing on her knees. I moved forward, but she shot out a hand to stop me. I froze. Then she lurched, vomiting blood all over the first step.” Keep reading…

Win Prizes!

Commenting on the blog tour stops above is one way to enter to win. Fill out the fun little widget below to make sure you’ve got the best possible chance of winning.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Hurray!

For more information about the tour please visit the splash page.

The Antithesis Blog Tour: Week One

If you haven’t noticed yet, we’re running a blog tour for The Antithesis!

There be PRIZES! Guest posts! Book playlists! Reviews! Interviews! Exploding heads!

Yeah, I was kidding about the exploding heads bit.

…Maybe.

More seriously, here’s a recap of the blog tour posts we’ve had so far.

Guest Posts:

How do you deal with a kickass protagonist like Alezair? Terra tells us about portraying a villain as a hero.

If you scroll down (quite a bit!) you’ll discover more about Terra’s writing space and how to get into the writing zone.

Or are you simply bewildered about how Terra keeps it all together? Read Balancing A Day Job With Writing.

Book Playlists

On Simply Infatuated there are NINE songs plus an excerpt from The Antithesis to give you a taster of its darkness.

Prefer your music more instrumental? Try this playlist instead.

Book Reviews

My Seryniti says: “People are getting heads chopped off and straight away I’m in love with one of the main characters.”

My favourite quote from Beach Bum Reads is: “Hell, your main character is a physicist who lives in Purgatory.”

And we scored a hat trick with yet another fan. “You need something to keep the passion for books alive, and The Antithesis definitely provided that,” said Words I Write Crazy.

Win Prizes!

As USUAL — what do you mean, you don’t know how this works?! — commenting on the blog tour stops above is one way to enter to win. Fill out the fun little widget below to make sure you’ve got the best possible chance of winning.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Hurray!

Serial Fiction: the New Wave of Publishing.

Guess what: serialization is the next big thing in publishing. Amazon says so. They are marketing their new kindle with serial novels a plenty. It’s new! It’s brilliant! It has a proven track record harking back to Dickens, but authors and readers had completely forgotten this form of writing until Amazon came along!

Not.

I got a bit frustrated when I read the articles that blossomed around this idea of serialization making a comeback. You see, serialized fiction is not a forgotten art. Thousands of authors have been writing episodic stories, and millions of readers have been reading them. The only people who forgot they existed were the big publishers and the authors who continued to cast votive offerings before them, who spat on any form of writing that did not conform to the publishers’ guidelines.

Those same authors now hear that a publishing house is buying serials for kindle packages. Hoorah. Serials are the new black!

Yes, I’m sarcastic and venting a bit here. It beggars belief that so many people can wear such tightly focused blinkers that they do not look at the world they have chosen to colonize. And I risk offending you, dear reader, who might well be a reader or writer who had never heard of the world of serialized fiction. Sorry.

Serial fiction has been continuously written and read online since the advent of the PC. It began as soon as authors found there was an audience out there for what they wrote in blogs and zines. It began, as might be expected, as predominantly speculative fiction, but over the decades it has grown to encompass all genres. It began as free content. As digital publishing has exploded and DIY ebooks have become widely accepted, many web fiction authors have experimented with ways to sell their work, too.

Some provide a ‘tip jar’, an easy way for readers who enjoy the story to make a donation. Some authors offer a subscription, and readers can affect storylines and character development, or receive special, premium content extra to that which is provided free. Recently, some authors who have developed a wide following and who have made considerable gains in offering paid-for content have found remarkable success with kickstarter  projects.

Where a particular serialized story has been plotted to arrive at a conclusion, other authors have chosen to remove their storyline from free view, edited and rewritten the text where needed, and released the once episodic piece as an ebook. Because this writing has been going on for many years, there are much loved serials which, when published in book form, can become eight or ten hefty volumes.

My introduction to web fiction came through the Web Fiction Guide.

As a community, the WFG has changed a little in the last few years. There is less emphasis on review and shared experience than there once was, but it remains one of the finest and easiest to navigate directories of serial fiction on the web. Most, if not all of the stories listed are available to read for free.

There is a vast list of titles. From there, readers can find ratings and reviews for most of the serials listed. Most individual serials with a regular readership have their own forums for discussion of the plots, characters, and themes, but for more general group discussion of trends in fiction, recommendations and support, the WFG provides its own active forum.

Also associated with the WFG is Top Web Fiction, a list of series which are voted on by readers to provide a constantly updated view of what is hot on any day.

The WFG is not alone. There are a number of directories which specialize in serialized fiction. One of the first to be developed was the EpiGuide. Home to a number of long running soaps and serials, the Epi also has a popular forum with an active and supportive community for both readers and writers of web serials, and perhaps most importantly, is the hub for the annual WeSeWriMo – web fiction’s answer to Novel Writing Month.

Muse’s Success is a web fiction wiki, where reader participation is encouraged in the sharing of reviews, thoughts and ideas, links and information. Anything web fiction.

Protagonize is a community for collaborative web fiction. Authors can extend a branch on any story, taking the original idea off on a tangent, or refreshing an idea that had lost momentum. The membership is huge and reader participation very active. Primary schools worldwide have used Protagonize as a base to encourage literacy in young people, allowing them to see their own work published online.

A group of authors, all veterans of the serial novel, contribute regularly to Digital Novelists. Most of the names here have made the successful transition from free content to the marketplace. Again, this is no new phenomenon. At weblit.us they were experimenting with direct to kindle subscription more than a year ago.

For young readers and writers, there is Fiction Press. Not to all tastes, I’ll admit, but popular and active, with stories across all genres, forums and RPGs.

Spreading both serialized and complete novels, Wattpad is an enormous library of fiction with a readership to match.

There are fan-fic sites too numerous to mention. There are graphic novels and web comics, published on a regular schedule, that have drawn in audiences as long as the screen has been lighting up. And authors of each type of web serial have found ways to bring their work direct to readers on their pc, or their laptop, or their phones or their tablets. This is not a new phenomenon.

And, of course, as a publisher dedicated to bringing the finest in web fiction to a wider audience, 1889 Labs has been publishing serialized stories as novels since 2006. This is not new.

What is new, and what are constantly changing, are the models for connecting readers and authors. That is always an exciting place to be, as technology moves and great minds move with it. At 1889 Labs we are working on the best ways to connect our readers with great fiction.

What does an author need, today, to capture your attention? What is the most convenient way for you to view the digital fiction you love?

What really will be the new wave of publishing?

The Legion of Nothing Blog Tour PRIZE WINNERS ANNOUNCED!

The blog tour and giveaway has come to an end! What does that mean? Well, after an entire month of suspense, it means I get to tell you WHO WON THE KINDLE! And the other prizes! Are you ready?

Congratulations to first place winner Joye Barr, winner of an Amazon Kindle and a kindle copy of the Legion of Nothing: Rebirth!

Congratulations to second place winner Deanna Reza, winner of a

Legion of Nothing: Rebirth t-shirt and a print copy of the book!

And finally, congrats to our third place winners, who will each get an e-copy of both Legion of Nothing: Rebirth and The Antithesis by Terra Whiteman! Here they are below:

Crystal Renee

Jonathan Laughlin

Dacia Joyner Vaughn

Jaime Cross

Melissa Dawn

Thanks for everyone who entered and followed the tour all month. We hope it was as fun for you as it was for us. Remember that The Antithesis 3: Beta is being released THIS MONDAY and we have another blog tour to celebrate! Wootwoot. Yipyipyipyipyip.

All winners should receive an email shortly!