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D-E-M-Emrys

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Today I'm featuring another guest poster on my blog. In my last entry I invited Doug Strider, an indie Sci-fi author to discuss his work. In that post I introduced Doug by saying that 'Writing and publishing is not the dog eat dog world you'd think it is. Indie or indie, e-published or paperbound, genre or otherwise, for the most part the 'writing' community stick together - a pack, almost.' This is true in my experience. So, from an indie Sci-fi author to a upcoming traditionally published fantasy author, I give you the very entertaining Brian Staveley!



…AND STAY DOWN!

I just finished a post on the murder of main characters over at my blog (bstaveley.wordpress.com), and the writing of it got me all riled up about another issue I run across frequently in fantasy (books and movies alike): dead people who aren't really dead.

One of the great things about fantasy is, of course, that the rules are different: people can fly or shoot lighting out of their asses or turn into walruses (unfortunately, the correct plural is not "walri" – I checked), or what have you. As it turns out, that sometimes means that people can come back from the dead. To my mind, there are several problems here.

First, and most obvious, a central drama of much fantasy revolves around mortality; the relevant stakes are often life and death. It's worth noting that this need not be the case. In many stories life and death are either irrelevant or secondary considerations. The main stake in Hamlet, for instance, is not his survival, but his revenge. The characters in The Office aren't generally worried about impending death; they're concerned with their love lives, the office drama, their reputations, and therefore, so are we.

Fantasy, however, tends to hunt the big game, and one of the major questions we have about the characters we love is: "Will they make it?" Given the centrality of mortality to the genre, writers are taking a dangerous chance when they resurrect people we thought dead. It means the next time a character is in a tight space, we won't believe that the full gravity of life and death awaits the outcome of the trial. "Enh," we shrug, "they'll sprinkle some holy water on her in book two, and she'll be good as new."

The second danger involved in bringing characters back to life is the way in which this practice undermines the deaths of those characters who stay dead. Readers mourn the passage of important characters; this is a crucial part of the emotional experience offered by stories. When we're not sure the characters are dead, however, it's impossible to mourn. On more than one occasion, I've been convinced by the ambiguous nature of a character's death that she was coming back. Only hundreds of pages later do I realize that, "No, she's actually gone." By that point, the edge of the tragedy has dulled.

To be clear, there are a couple of circumstances in which resurrection seems to work.

First, when the ground rules are clear. Plenty of fantasy differentiates between "plain old dead" and "seriously fucking dead." As Miracle Max from the Princess Bride reminds us, "There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead." In this case, the writer shares the rules with the reader up front. We don't feel confused and irritated when a character comes back to life, and we understand that there remains a bourne from which no traveler returns. Mortality is still real, annihilation a possible fate. The rules have just been tweaked a little.

Second, there's the "Question-Mark Death." In this case, we never actually see the character in question good and dead. The house collapses on them, they fall off the cliff, the ship sinks, but we never actually see the body. I always assume that if I haven't seen the body the character is still alive. Of course, it's a disaster to employ the "Question-Mark Death" when you actually have offed the poor bastard. Once again, this denies the reader the opportunity to feel the drama and pathos of the death itself.

I'm not sure that others agree with me on this point, and I'd be curious to hear dissenting views. For example, how do people feel about the "resurrections" in A Song of Ice and Fire? I'm very much on the fence here, as I love those books, and I think George R.R. Martin is up to something slightly different…

Brian Staveley is the author of The Emperor's Blades, the first book of the Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne, due out from Tor Books in 2014.
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Writing and publishing is not the dog eat dog world you'd think it is. Indie or indie, e-published or paperbound, genre or otherwise, for the most part the 'writing' community stick together - a pack, almost. We have our alphas, our betas, cubs and sires. A pack sticks together, and that's what this post is about.

At present, I have only published fantasy stories, but my second love is Sci-Fi. I stumbled across a Sci-Fi author by chance the other day, and found my god can he spin a good yarn! So without further ado, I'd like to introduce you to Doug Strider.



Hello, I'm Doug Strider.

There is a part of me that remains 7 years old. The part that absolutely loves sci-fi. Watching spaceships, ray guns, aliens, heroes fighting the good fight on cinema screens and the humble old television. My dad and I engrossed in everything that was going on. Very fond memories right there, sci-fi was something we both shared a love of.

That same 7 year-old also had a fantastic imagination. He was a space captain, he had a nemesis (Ruston, I'll let you guess what his speciality was), he had a spaceship (rather reminiscent of Thunderbird 2 it turned out) and he was a goddam space hero. That was my first proper creation I believe. I don't think building vast spaceships from Lego, that constantly fell apart every time I tried to woosh them through the air, counts as much but it was bloody good fun.

Thirteen years later the 7 year-old piped up in my brain and I started writing properly. I wrote a sci-fi novel and the start of many more but that all faded away as my attention was needed elsewhere and it would take around twenty years for the voice to say, "Hey, remember when you were a space captain? That was great."
Surrounded now by many creative people, especially my writerly partner Jen, I felt comfortable to pursue story telling once more and the 7 year-old me is very happy indeed. So that's how I came to start writing Space Danger! It has spaceships, ray guns, aliens, heroes fighting the good fight and it's fantastic fun. I'm loving immersing myself in this universe, it's giving me a chance to express my imagination, my humour and that there's life in this tired old brain yet.

Surrounding my rekindled love of writing, I'm still involved a fair few audio projects, another awesome outlet for my creativity. The Bearcast (co-hosting in character), Soldiers of Tangent (co-hosting as myself in an ever expanding spiral of tangents and Grade A fibbing), Dark Fiction Magazine (narrating, herding narrators and producing) and the odd contribution to other projects here and there.

The 7 year-old loves it all but is mostly excited that he gets to be a space captain again. That's the best bit.
This blog post is brought to you with thanks to D.E.M. Emrys who has let me guest on his site. He writes a cracking tale himself. Currently reading It Began With Ashes in my other genre of choice and I'm really bloody enjoying it.
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Can there be such a thing as too much fantasy?

Is the fantasy world over-populated? It's a valid question and one that keeps raising its ugly head in the current era of 'Lord of the Authors: The Fellowship of the Fantasy'.

Without battling out the topic of Indie vs Traditional, I want to take a moment and talk about fantasy worlds. A simple blog post can't cover every single fantasy tome to have ever graced a book shelf (or a digital market place like Amazon, for all you e-publishing gurus), but we can highlight a few.

J.R.R. Tolkien with his elves, and his dwarves, his hobbits with their hairy feet, and his trolls. Ringwraiths, a dark lord, and a powerful artefact that is a curse to all those who bear it.

George R.R. Martin with his thrones, and his games, the squabbles of men, and the treachery, futility and thick-fast plots (oh, and if you've watched the tv adaptation, there's a fair share of boobage, too).

Peter V Brett – demons galore! How 'man' (and woman!) can overcome their fears for what they believe is right.

Mark Lawrence explores the moral depravity of a Prince who won't let anything – or anyone – stand in his way, even if that involves burning the world just to keep warm.

Michael J Sullivan brings bromance to the fold (Webster's unofficial definition of bromance: bro-mance, a combination of brother and romance, meaning 'a brotherly romance' between two males. Often seen sharing large quantities of bruises, beauties, and beatings) with a healthy dose of death-defying escapades and swashbuckling adventures.

John Gwynne breaths fresh life into the folklore and legend side of fantasy, giving Giants, Wyrms and even Angels a gritty new lease with a Nordic/Celtic feel.

Brent Weeks forefronts assassins in one, and mages in another, but above all else they struggle with their own powers for further means.

Brandon Sanderson…magic, need I say more? But then again, his world-building is second to none.

Joe Abercrombie touts more knives than any sane man should ever need, but lucky for us not all of his characters can be deemed sane enough to count or care for that matter. But when all is said and done, it's down to being what you're meant to be, and (as he often states by way of infamous barbarian Logen NineFingers) once you've got a task to do, it's better to do it than live with the fear of it.

I've barely even touched the surface here. I could go on for hours. James Barclay, David Gemmell (big daddy of British heroic-fantasy), Robert E Howard, Patrick Rothfuss, Robert Jordan, David Dalglish, Mazarkis Williams, Moses Sirergar III, Ben Galley, Steven Erikson, Christopher Paolini…ok, ok – I'll stop.

So, fantasy is a busy world(s). But each and every one of them is different. Yes, a lot of them share themes or creatures (elves, dragons, hobbits, dwarves, damsels in distress…hobbits, or other creatures with hairy feet?), but would you really say: 'No more'! Heck, I'm sure if you asked a lot of these authors they'd admit to being inspired by one another. Of course they would.

Ok, let's imagine if someone said 'No more' to Robert Jordan. Would we have the Peter V Brett's, and Christopher Paolini's of today? 'Put that pen down' David Gemmell…and voila, no John Gwynne's or James Barclay. How many would we lose if Robert E. Howard had run out of ink on the first page, and Conan had been lost to an unfinished sentence?

IMAGINE THE CHAOS if someone told J.R.R. Tolkien to shave his hobbit and write a romcom. Think of the children, pray for their futures!

Publishing is an ever changing industry, and fantasy is an ever changing realm of possibilities. If you're Indie or Traditional, reader or writer…could you really say NO to one last fantasy? And before you start culling dwarves, shaving hobbit feet, or cashing in dragon fangs for the last copy of '50 Shades of Grey' from Amazon…just remember:

A Fantasy author isn't just for Christmas. They're for life.

(And even then, they'll think of a way to come back and haunt you from the afterlife – they're fantasy authors after all).


D. E. M. Emrys. Author. Soldier by day, Soldier by night - Writer in between. Knows war to write war.

'From Man To Man' FREE from Amazon!
Amazon US www.amazon.com/From-Man-Wroge-…
Amazon UK www.amazon.co.uk/From-Man-Wrog…


'It Began With Ashes'
Amazon US www.amazon.com/Began-Ashes-Wro…
Amazon UK www.amazon.co.uk/Began-Ashes-W…
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Just a little something that I'd like to share with you all. This was brought to my attention by Allison Morris, who created this graphic which illustrates the benefits of goal setting and why, in light of the New Year, it's important to commit to our goals.



Originally hosted on the Online Education Database blog: www.onlineeducation.net/2013/0…
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Today is a very important day. It's no less important than yesterday, but it's no more important than tomorrow - neither is it in between the two. But, it's still important. I could ramble on with justifications all day, each no less important than the last...but I'm procrastinating.

Procrastination (DON'T SAY DIRTY WORDS!) is one of many enemies to a writer, another being lack of time. But for many, the title of arch rival belongs to doubt.

Writer's doubt a.k.a. Terminal Teminitus. If Webster was to define it, the following would be noted in the dictionary:

Writer's Doubt (latin: Terminal Terminitus, Scribblius Maximus Gettius Nowhereius). A condition effecting writer's in which they deem their work of too low a value to continue or start. Symptoms include cold sweats, tummy aches, head pains, nausea, nose bleeds, broken pens, smashed laptops, frayed wits, and sometimes death (by stray paperclip).

Have you ever thought that you writing was not good enough to share? Have you given up on a story because it was 'just not good enough'? Have you ever put down the pen before picking it up because you were scared of what might come out? Then this blog entry is for you!

Look, I get writers doubt, so do thousands of others. Best selling authors are struck dumb with it all the time. It's like a personal version of writer's block, but arguably it can be harder to overcome. You aren't just questioning the writing, you're questioning yourself.

Points to consider.

Play the field.
Don't just stick to one genre. Mix it up. Discover new things with other works. Find a new audience. This will help prevent you from typecasting yourself to a single genre. Just write whatever. Me? I'm a heroic-fantasy writer at heart, but I dabble in Sci-fi to clear the cobwebs (and trust me, these cobwebs are spun by writers doubt, and they smell suspiciously of a toilet!), and 'adult' themes for my fiance (secret's out now!).

Don't Fall In Love With Your Manuscript.
No, it's not a genre breaker. No, it'll never outsell the bible. No, it'll never be bigger than 'The Hobbit' (not literally...well, depending on how thick the book is, and how tall your average hobbit is). You have literally NO chance of writing 'the next big thing'. But, you might just sneak in a sunday stroll of a book - anything more than that is thumb's up worthy. Don't set out to top the pile, set out to WRITE A GOOD STORY.

Enjoy what you write.
It's your thoughts and ideas. If you aren't enjoying it, change it. Who can tell you otherwise?

You're not the only one.
As above, everyone suffers with it at one point or another.

Listen to lovers, not haters.
Ignore those that you have no hope of winning over - if you fight for their approval, you might end up losing your current readers/friends/fans. Write to please, not appease.

Write, don't publish.
Be a writer, NOT an author. Think about it.

REMEMBER: you can always go back and change it (unless you've just hit the 'publish' button on Amazon, at which point you're boned...well, not really, you can go back and change it, but it's a b****!)

The best way to get over Writer's doubt? Allow yourself to write badly once in awhile. Have a guilty pleasure folder where you stow your abominations. Heck, the monstrosities might pull a Frankenstein and lumber into greatness one day! (Nuts and bolts not included, take precautions whilst handling electricity).

And that, as they say, is that!

D.


((On a sidenote: no writers were harmed in the making of this blog entry - though there was a close call involving a stray paperclip.))

D. E. M. Emrys. Author. Soldier by day, Soldier by night - Writer in between. Knows war to write war.
'From Man To Man' available from Amazon www.amazon.com/From-Man-Wroge-…
'It Began With Ashes' available from Amazon www.amazon.com/Began-Ashes-Wro…
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Featured

Guest Post: Fantasy Author, Brian Staveley. by D-E-M-Emrys, journal

Guest Post: Sci-Fi Author, Doug Strider. by D-E-M-Emrys, journal

Can There Be Such a Thing as TOO Much Fantasy? by D-E-M-Emrys, journal

Creative Writing - The Importance of Setting Goals by D-E-M-Emrys, journal

Writing101: Writer's Doubt aka Terminal Terminitus by D-E-M-Emrys, journal