Craig Schaefer's Blog, page 25

Writing Challenge Tuesday: Shall We Play a Game?

This will likely be my most complicated challenge yet, because the concept of it requires a lot of research and planning to execute. Maybe this doesn’t even count as a writing challenge so much as a thought exercise, but I figured people would enjoy it all the same.

One of the common tropes in nerdy fiction is the idea of a game. A villain requires the protagonist to play their game to survive, or to get back something they lost. The problem with the game trope is that if your character’s motivation isn’t sufficient to really satisfy the story, the game falls flat and your audience asks why they played along. You see the game trope in a lot of serial killer stories, in nemesis/villain plots, and the like. I even explored it with one of my villains, though I was sort of bemused to have the villain subvert it later and sell out any interest in being an enemy in favor of something else they wanted.

(And as you might guess from the pun in the title, the plot of the next Faust book -- A Plain-Dealing Villain -- is all about games of the literal and figurative variety.)

So for this writing challenge, or thought exercise, I invite you to dig into a character and determine what would motivate them to truly give in to a game. What is worth enough to them to step to someone else’s dance and risk their lives for a nemesis’ amusement? Someone’s life? A huge Macguffin? Their reputation? A family member, lover, friend? For me, I found it most important to understand what was at stake to motivate Faust in that situation.

Then, what’s the game? Is it a multistep Saw-like process with ridiculous traps? Is it a series of tasks the protagonist has to do for the villain’s edification (and to further his goals?) What would a nemesis require of your main character, and how far could your protagonist be pushed given the circumstance?

See you on Thursday for a new author spotlight!

Author Spotlight Thursday: Katherine Kerr

Epic. If there’s one word I could use to describe Katherine Kerr’s writing, her legacy, and her talent, that word is definitely, “epic.” These books started with Daggerspell back in 1986, which for those reading at home is almost three decades ago. Hell, I was only (mumble) then! Since, she’s published a full 15 books in the series.

When I look at authors with longevity, industriousness, and poise under fire, Kerr is one of the first who occurs to me. In thirty years, I hope to have that many books critically acclaimed and reviewed by thousands, beloved by far more. Starting a series like Faust, and like the Revanche cycle, means committing to a love affair no less trying than one with another person. In fact, people tend to leave you alone for things like sleep and meals, while novels threaten to overwhelm you in the dead of night and make you get up and go type before they let you sleep. Not that I’m my novels’ bitch or anything. (I totally am.)

In any epic story, you have to have characters worth investing in. Kerr does this beautifully. I admit, the books are a little dated now. They have that ‘generic fantasy’ feeling to them which only comes from either complete lack of creativity or, in this case, being one of the first in a genre. Like PVPOnline said years ago, you can’t snark Tolkien for having a wizard in a grey robe when he’s the one who set the standard.

Just as J.R.R. Tolkien is an industry standard, I’ve come to view Katherine Kerr as a similar standard for fantasy books. Her other series are equally remarkable, but I admit, they never pulled me in quite as much as the Deverry books. Their stylings are classic, and the way she uses time jumps and perspectives is something I’ve aspired to in the Faust books, as well. Taking a single perspective and splitting it by leaping to different places in the narrative takes masterful poise, which she manages with grace.

If you’re interested in picking up a new series, Daggerspell is a fantastic place to start. Fifteen books before the end, and they are more than worth the read. Check her out!

Writing Challenge Tuesday: Tis the Season!

The season of holidays and dysfunctional families, that is. Holidays are a time honored tradition for many families, and a cringe inducing thing to be avoided at all costs, for others. In the spirit of this week, being Thanksgiving, I challenge all you writers out there to place one of your protagonists in the spirit of the holidays and the house of their family.

Every family has their skeletons. Some of those are misadventures, old stories, and some are… Literal skeletons. I think Faust and his limited family probably have a few of those. The most important thing for me in a story about family is to make it worth more than just the awkward humor one might expect from Will Ferrel. Mind you, Will Ferrel definitely has his moments, but I don’t feel the need to inflict ELF on my readers.

That’s always been the hardest part for me about shows with dysfunction and humor. Past a certain point, the watcher or reader would change the channel or put down the book. Humiliation and schadenfreude can only go so far. Once it starts to remind us too much of the banal agony of family ridiculousness, it’s really hard to want to continue watching.

So the challenge lies in writing a scene that is both compelling and worth sticking through. I think of Faust, with Bentley and Corman, Jennifer and the rest of their motley crew, and I can think of plenty of humiliating stories or ways to embarrass Daniel. It’s a bit harder for me to imagine why they’d do that, since they actually want to keep him around. Embarrassing stories do have their place, however. I’m sure Corman and Bentley have their share of Daniel’s worst hilarity, and probably wouldn’t mind sharing it. The real kicker to any holiday night, naturally, will be Caitlin.

A demon at Thanksgiving dinner. Can you imagine her social commentary about America? I’m trying not to, because if I typed any here I might be DDOS attacked. Demons have a strange perspective about ritual animal sacrifice, i.e., turkey dinner. I’m reminded of Anya, from Buffy, and the dreadful Thanksgiving dinner when Spike tried to give sensible advice about the history of our nation. On the one hand, having him do it really did let us say with a straight face that he is just a jackass at times. On the other, it did let a few people off the hook.

So with this week’s writing challenge, try to picture a scene both familial and compelling. Maybe it’s a blood family, maybe it’s a chosen family, but whatever the entanglements, it’s a place your protagonist chooses to be for a holiday.

This Changes Everything (No, Really)

Hear that fiendish giggling in the shadows? It's only me, coming in on the finishing stretch of the fourth Daniel Faust novel, A Plain-Dealing Villain, before it goes into editing and rewrites in December.

(Yes, I'm writing under your bed. Don't judge me, it's my artistic process.)

Like many of you, comics were a staple of my early reading. I read Dickens and Lovecraft right alongside Jack Kirby and Stan Lee, and I daresay there were valuable lessons to be gleaned from one and all. One thing I learned fast (thanks to you, Stan) is to never, ever believe the front-cover hype.

"The Marvel Universe will NEVER be the same!!!" Yes, it will.

"This issue changes EVERYTHING!!!" No, it doesn't.

"One of the X-Men must DIE!!!" No, they won't. Or if they do, they'll be back in five issues. Two, if it was Jean Grey.

The slavish adherance to the status quo always irritated me. I could understand it on television, where episodes might be shown out of order or in repeats, and hitting the reset button at the end of most shows was a given. But literature -- be it told in prose or pictures -- has no need for such constraints. Sure, there's familiarity and comfort in the status quo, but sometimes you really have to shake things up to keep a series fresh and exciting.

I'm not a big fan of the status quo. You also know, if you've read my earlier books, that I love planting seeds that pay off later down the line -- be it a fun little easter egg or a full-blown revelation waiting to happen.

Book Four marks a new beginning and a major shift for the Faust series, as new antagonists take the stage and old business may not be totally dead and buried. One of those new antagonists is Royce, the hound of Prince Malphas and Caitlin's opposite number in the rival Court of Night-Blooming Flowers. Royce has been dying to ask Daniel a question. Just one simple question, three words long. The answer will shake Daniel's world to its core.

I can tell you, straight up, that this book changes everything. If I pull this off (and there's a big if for you), you'll come away looking at certain events in The Long Way Down and Redemption Song in an entirely new light, and looking forward as a new, labyrinthine plot begins to unfold. Book Four is all about questions. Sure, I could give you the all the answers...but where's the fun in that?

Okay, time for me to get back to work, this heist won't write itself. You have a great weekend, be safe and stay warm.

Mea Culpa

There are times when a person realizes he's utterly screwed up, and the only reasonable response is an apology. This is one of those times. It's something I've been thinking a lot about, the past couple of weeks, and it has to be said.

Not long ago, I became aware of Canada's bill C-36, which is an abomination masked as legislation. I'm not going to go into heavy detail here, since it's outside the scope of this post, suffice to say it's a horribly written, shameful piece of law that's going -- and I say this with zero hyperbole -- to get women killed. It's a product of a mindless moral panic, and will essentially victimize sex workers by forcing them into the roles of victims, whether they like it or not. Go look it up for yourself; and if you're Canadian, look it up, then write to your government about it.

In the process of learning about this, I spoke to a number of professional sex workers, and that led me to one incontrovertible conclusion: I wrote some shit without having any idea what I was talking about.

See, I write an occult pulp-noir series set in Las Vegas. So there's a lot of sex and sleaze; it goes with the territory. Problem is, while I normally pride myself on doing my research, there are a couple of places where I fell flat on my face to an utterly embarrassing degree. Worst case, in The Long Way Down, the comment that "plenty" of sex workers do what they do out of personal choice.

Plenty? Try most. Try a staggering, overwhelming majority. What I thought at the time to be a level-headed observation was, in fact, patronizing as hell and feeding into the common narrative of sex-work as a product of human trafficking. (And yes, human trafficking is very real, and a horrible crime, but the majority of victims end up on farms and in factories, not on mattresses.)

Then, in The Living End, the protagonist canvasses for info on the street and ends up talking to a prostitute (and deals with her angry pimp) who could have stepped out of a 1970s exploitation flick. Now, this is tricky. I genuinely like this scene, it fits the generally bleak/gritty tone of the series, and it's not utterly out of the realm of the possible. But that's exactly what makes it such a problem.

See, sex workers -- real ones, not the ones you see on TV -- are marginalized and misrepresented every day. So while that scene might not be the Worst Thing Ever, when you take into account that it's the only representation of a sex worker in the book, well, that's pretty bad. Because it's reinforcing stereotypes while ignoring the incredibly more interesting reality.

So, I apologize. The last thing I ever want to do, in my books, is promote prejudice and falsehoods. That's not what I'm about. I can't change my past mistakes, but I'll do my very best, going forward, not to repeat them.

Writing Challenge Tuesday: I Hear You!

This week’s writing challenge is named after one of the best episodes of Babylon 5 ever. Picture if you will a pair of mortal enemies who have spent years hating one another. Now imagine that they have to deal with each other as diplomatic envoys on a space station. Finally, imagine the station is attacked and they are trapped in an elevator together, in potential life-threatening danger.

It was truly phenomenal when done on the show. I’m not going to spoil the whole thing, but suffice to say, it’s an episode I’ve always loved.

So I pose this challenge: Imagine your protagonist and their worst enemy forced, beyond all escape, to work together. Maybe they’re trapped in a garbage compactor on the detention level. Maybe they’re locked in a freezer with a bomb. Maybe they’re on a ship which is sinking into waters infested by the shrieking eels. Whatever the cause, your protagonist and their bitter enemy or nemesis are stuck, and cannot escape without the help of the other.

How would each of them react? Would they be pragmatic and call a temporary truce in order to get out alive, then turn on one another? Would they try to get the upper hand and leave the other to die? Or would they decide that letting the other person die is worth their own death? How would each of them react differently? What if your hero decided he couldn’t morally work with his enemy, while her/his nemesis was willing to temporarily put their feud aside?

What brings out the worst in our characters, and is a situation of life or death going to expose darker sides of them? Would your hero do something brutal and expedient to survive, or would they act with integrity?

The way that characters act under stress is a huge indicator of their inner natures. I find that putting my protagonists and their allies in extreme pressure situations can be a fantastic crucible for learning what they’ll do. Sometimes, I don’t know until I’m in the middle of writing it. Faust always manages to surprise me. He’s a hint too noble to be smart sometimes, and then others, he’ll happily shoot someone in the head if they deserve it.

Characters surprise us in the strangest ways. This particular kind of crucible can bring up the ways in which they are similar to their enemies, and the ways that they differ. Explore what your protagonist would do, as well as the antagonist, and see what comes up!

Author Spotlight Thursday: Jane Lindskold

Today, I want to shine a light on Jane Lindskold. She has two fantastic protagonists I’ve enjoyed a great deal, specifically, Firekeeper, and Sarah, from Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls.

I’m aware that the whole “wolves are awesome” thing has been played out in the geek crowds, three moon wolf shirts and pack analogies. One of the things I love about Firekeeper, however, is the alien nature of her thinking. Reading her mentality and her odd way of speaking and processing is part of what informs my use of demons and non-humans in the Faust books. It’s all too easy to write a character in a book from the perspective of their choices, and forget for a time that they are truly and completely without the same perspective as humans.

It’s easy for Daniel to forget now and then that he is dating a demon, who doesn’t think of life as precious or care if she kills anyone. She has some vague regret for a life wasted, but only in the way that someone might regret losing a shiny quarter. They aren’t valued because they’re special; they’re valuable because they have a use. Now and then, it’s easy for Daniel to forget. Redemption Song was very much about that divide, and what sets man apart from demons. I was proud of how that came about, and how the various threads came together to show two very different sides of the same problem.

Even in Brother to Dragons, Sarah lives in a different perspective from most. She is disabled, with some form of either catatonia or autism which makes her unable to function on the same level as others - but still deeply intuitive and highly intelligent. I appreciated that, too, from Lindskold’s books. Her protagonists have limitations, but they are not superpowers or ultimately their undoing. They are simply differences in who the person is.

I also appreciated that Sarah had a full romantic relationship. It’s easy, especially in common media, to forget that everyone loves, and loses, and learns from their experiences. It’s easy to tag a character as “the gay guy” or “the demon” and forget that they have individual motivations. And from a very ableist perspective, some folks are sort of despicably uncomfortable with neurodiverse men and women having love and relationships. I feel like it was very important to have that, to have her connections both familial and romantic, to provide touchstones.

Jane Lindskold is a fantastic author, and someone very worth reading. I recommend you check her out. For the first book in her Firekeeper series, look up Through Wolf’s Eyes. For a standalone masterpiece, check out Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls.

Writing Challenge Tuesday: Consequences

(Okay, it's Wednesday, but everything waits for Launch Day.)

In any story, there are conflicts, confrontations, and most importantly, consequences. The Faust books have a vast array of consequences from the benign to the utterly earth-shattering, and I’m proud of that. Tormenting your protagonists with the weight of terrible choices and the results is part of being an author. We do horrible things to our characters. I mean, if you don’t believe me, just think of Roxy in the third book…

So the question I have, and the challenge for this week, is as follows. What is the roughest consequence your characters have to face, and what about that could be worse or better? What about it could be mitigated by other characters, or made worse when they find out? What’s the worst sequence of events your protagonist has ever set in motion?

I challenge you to write about those consequences, and make them worse. Figure out just how screwed your protagonist could be. Bad enough that your hero was fired from her/his job as a cop, or found out as a spy, or captured by Montana militia members. What if they have a plane to catch, a kidney to donate, a child waiting for them at home? How can the consequences of their actions weigh on them even more heavily?

This doesn’t have to be a story in progress; I kind of enjoy adding on to existing stories as a way to explore the larger reach of my protagonist’s actions. From start to finish, the worst part of Daniel’s choices is often in how it affects his larger life. What if something he did put Bentley or Corman in danger? What if he set a series of events in motion that banned him from seeing Caitlin? What if he accidentally signed his soul away, thinking he was just putting his John Hancock on a UPS package? Looking into the irrevocable changes that protagonists have on plots is fun, and it offers an insight into the ripple effects of the world. It isn’t arrogant or foolish to think that each action has more reactions than we can know.

So in short, my challenge is this: Write a scene out of context for your protagonist that deals with a far reaching consequence they never saw coming. Explore who they would be if that happened, if it would destroy them, shape them, or terrify them. Maybe it would even make them feel powerful. It’s up to you.

Writer Challenge Tuesday: Consequences

(Okay, it's Wednesday, but everything waits for Launch Day.)

In any story, there are conflicts, confrontations, and most importantly, consequences. The Faust books have a vast array of consequences from the benign to the utterly earth-shattering, and I’m proud of that. Tormenting your protagonists with the weight of terrible choices and the results is part of being an author. We do horrible things to our characters. I mean, if you don’t believe me, just think of Roxy in the third book…

So the question I have, and the challenge for this week, is as follows. What is the roughest consequence your characters have to face, and what about that could be worse or better? What about it could be mitigated by other characters, or made worse when they find out? What’s the worst sequence of events your protagonist has ever set in motion?

I challenge you to write about those consequences, and make them worse. Figure out just how screwed your protagonist could be. Bad enough that your hero was fired from her/his job as a cop, or found out as a spy, or captured by Montana militia members. What if they have a plane to catch, a kidney to donate, a child waiting for them at home? How can the consequences of their actions weigh on them even more heavily?

This doesn’t have to be a story in progress; I kind of enjoy adding on to existing stories as a way to explore the larger reach of my protagonist’s actions. From start to finish, the worst part of Daniel’s choices is often in how it affects his larger life. What if something he did put Bentley or Corman in danger? What if he set a series of events in motion that banned him from seeing Caitlin? What if he accidentally signed his soul away, thinking he was just putting his John Hancock on a UPS package? Looking into the irrevocable changes that protagonists have on plots is fun, and it offers an insight into the ripple effects of the world. It isn’t arrogant or foolish to think that each action has more reactions than we can know.

So in short, my challenge is this: Write a scene out of context for your protagonist that deals with a far reaching consequence they never saw coming. Explore who they would be if that happened, if it would destroy them, shape them, or terrify them. Maybe it would even make them feel powerful. It’s up to you.

Winter's Reach is LIVE!

Keep you waiting another two weeks? I think not, dear reader. We finished all our backstage tasks, checked all the boxes on the to-do list, and there's nothing left but to push our new story out of the nest and hope it takes wing. You can grab Winter's Reach right now, at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PA0T0W4. The paperback version is in processing and should launch very soon (hopefully by end of day), and Barnes & Noble/Kobo versions will be live...whenever they get around to it, really. You know.

The Revanche Cycle (Winter's Reach being the first book of four) is a special project, something I've wanted to write for a long time: a sweeping dark fantasy epic with a big cast of characters, set in a world with echoes of the Italian Renaissance. It's a story about grief, loss, revenge and the fallout, the collision of idealism and politics, and the price of power.

I'm really excited to share Winter's Reach with you, and I hope you enjoy it.

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