Sean Gibson's Blog, page 6
November 20, 2014
So, what's the deal with the Victorian thing?
A few people have asked me (probably more in an effort to be polite than out of any genuine interest) why I set The Camelot Shadow when/where I did (namely, somewhere in the middle of Queen Victoria's reign, circa 1870 or so).
I've had a thing for Victorian-set stories since discovering Dracula in second grade (in retrospect, probably not the most age-appropriate material, but it made a nice change of pace from Benny, Benny Baseball Nut and Chicken Trek). That flame was further fanned when Sherlock Holmes came into my life, and then Charles Dickens sealed the deal (and not just because he gave us a legitimate reason to say "Master Bates" repeatedly in 9th grade, though that certainly didn't hurt his cause).
(Incidentally, overuse of parenthentical asides continues throughout this post, so if that's a thing for you, I'd suggest bailing now.)
Since then, I've devoured everything from legit Victorian lit (hello, Thomas Hardy and George Eliot) to schlocky Victorian-set pseudo-literary thrillers not unlike, say, The Camelot Shadow. But what exactly is the appeal, asks the modern reader as he/she Instagrams a tweet of a selfie? Well, I guess it's the fact that you can't Instagram a tweet of a selfie when you're cruising through the foggy, gaslit alleyways of London in the back of a hansom cab.
Don't get me wrong--modern hygiene is swell (I'm a particularly big fan of toilets that flush and trips to the doctor that don't involve leeches), and, frankly, a world without Slurpees is probably one in which I don't want to live. But, as a storytelling environment, I find it much easier to create tension and mystery when my characters can't turn to the giant series of tubes that comprise the interwebs to find the answers they seek, or when they can't whip out a cell phone and send a message to avert disaster, or when they can't point to science as a satisfactory explanation for something that seems supernatural. In a world where data travels almost instantaneously, it's difficult to have a true race against time without some eye-rolling contrivance. (Oh no--the cell phone is dead! We're trapped underground with no signal! Our hero is Amish!) Choosing a setting that's not so far removed from our world that it's unrecognizable (that is, no one's running around in togas, or tithing the local lord with eight bushels of wheat) but that lacks some of our technological marvels creates infinite possibilities for intrigue and excitement and allows for the characters to evince a sincere belief in the possibility that magic exists.
Of course, it doesn't hurt that Queen Vic was smoking hot, the undersexed minx.
I've had a thing for Victorian-set stories since discovering Dracula in second grade (in retrospect, probably not the most age-appropriate material, but it made a nice change of pace from Benny, Benny Baseball Nut and Chicken Trek). That flame was further fanned when Sherlock Holmes came into my life, and then Charles Dickens sealed the deal (and not just because he gave us a legitimate reason to say "Master Bates" repeatedly in 9th grade, though that certainly didn't hurt his cause).
(Incidentally, overuse of parenthentical asides continues throughout this post, so if that's a thing for you, I'd suggest bailing now.)
Since then, I've devoured everything from legit Victorian lit (hello, Thomas Hardy and George Eliot) to schlocky Victorian-set pseudo-literary thrillers not unlike, say, The Camelot Shadow. But what exactly is the appeal, asks the modern reader as he/she Instagrams a tweet of a selfie? Well, I guess it's the fact that you can't Instagram a tweet of a selfie when you're cruising through the foggy, gaslit alleyways of London in the back of a hansom cab.
Don't get me wrong--modern hygiene is swell (I'm a particularly big fan of toilets that flush and trips to the doctor that don't involve leeches), and, frankly, a world without Slurpees is probably one in which I don't want to live. But, as a storytelling environment, I find it much easier to create tension and mystery when my characters can't turn to the giant series of tubes that comprise the interwebs to find the answers they seek, or when they can't whip out a cell phone and send a message to avert disaster, or when they can't point to science as a satisfactory explanation for something that seems supernatural. In a world where data travels almost instantaneously, it's difficult to have a true race against time without some eye-rolling contrivance. (Oh no--the cell phone is dead! We're trapped underground with no signal! Our hero is Amish!) Choosing a setting that's not so far removed from our world that it's unrecognizable (that is, no one's running around in togas, or tithing the local lord with eight bushels of wheat) but that lacks some of our technological marvels creates infinite possibilities for intrigue and excitement and allows for the characters to evince a sincere belief in the possibility that magic exists.
Of course, it doesn't hurt that Queen Vic was smoking hot, the undersexed minx.
November 10, 2014
Self-deprecating self-aggrandizement
While writing The Camelot Shadow was a fun, fulfilling, and exciting process in and of itself, I'm finding that flogging something as personal as your own writing is a strange experience that requires a delicate balance between horn tooting and self-effacement--especially when you're self-publishing. In some ways, I feel like it's easier trying to sell someone else's work, or, say, a juicer ("It slices AND dices...how f#@$king genius is THAT!?). In that case, you get to be a convert to the cause, an enthusiastic champion swayed by the quality of the product ("I used to think that juice was just for nincompoops and right-handed people; turns out I've been wrong for YEARS--left-handed non-nincompoops can love it, too!"). When you're trying to hawk your own wares, it gets awkward--you want to tell people that it's really good, but without seeming arrogant, and you want to tell people that it's worth their time to read it, even if you're not entirely sure that's true. Let's go back to the juicer--if I'd invented one of those, at least I'd have something as objectively delicious as juice to show the quality of my creation. In this case, all I've got are some words strung together that may or may not make sense, and that will hopefully appeal to the small subsegment of the reading population that happens to dig Victorian settings, King Arthur, anachronistically semi-comedic banter betwixt characters, and way too many Scotch references. Wherever you are, I hope both of the people to whom that description applies are reading this.
Really, though, my only goal in this whole process is to not come off as an asshat (or, at least, to not come off as an asshat for the way in which I'm trying to promote the book; I accept that I'm going to come off as an asshat in life, generally speaking).
Really, though, my only goal in this whole process is to not come off as an asshat (or, at least, to not come off as an asshat for the way in which I'm trying to promote the book; I accept that I'm going to come off as an asshat in life, generally speaking).
