Remembering Harlan (1934-2018)

It's appropriate that people don't have any words to eulogize Harlan Ellison's passing. How do you sum up a life so marbled and striated and so deeply influential in a few sentences? And as someone else already pointed out, he used up all of the good words long before us.

Nevertheless, I hope you'll indulge me as I try to bring some understanding for myself on the death of one of my literary inspirations. I can't call him a mentor, because it wasn't an active relationship--or otherwise, he was a mentor to all of us--but he did teach me a few things, even if he never knew it.

It was my old friend Billy Haney who turned me on to Ellison at the age of seventeen. I'm not going to say "It's Billy's fault," because that is a hoary cliche and moreover, I don't blame him for it. We were both writers, and he was the first person I could talk craft with and not get a deer in the headlights look. Instead, I'll say Thank You, Billy, because reading Ellison as an angry young man absolutely changed my life. It got me through high school. I am not kidding about that.

At the time, me and my friends all had front row seats for the giant falling out between Ellison and Gary Groth over remarks he'd made in a lengthy interview about Michael Fleischer in The Comics Journal, which was our New Yorker at the time. The incident turned into a lawsuit that cost everyone a chunk of cash and turned their friendship into an acrimonious sideshow that lasted, presumably, to the end of his life. Billy was the one who articulated to me why this was a big deal, and that alone sent me scouring after his books.

The first Ellison book I got was Strange Wine, a collection that sold me right away on who this Ellison cat is and why he's called a writer. I'd watched his Star Trek episode, like any good nerd, but I was fascinated to know that they changed his script and he flipped out and walked out when they did. But I'd never read Ellison in his pure, uncut form before. I opened the book up to Ellison's introduction, Revealed at Last! What Killed the Dinosaurs! And You Don't Look So Terrific Yourself, and that was it for me. This cat had some fire. And I got a little obsessive looking for Ellison books after that.

It was probably six months after reading Strange Wine that this guy walked into the comic and book store where I was working and--my hand to God--he brought a sack of books to sell. Along with some of the usual used fantasy and science fiction titles (did everyone read Stephen Donaldson in the 1980's?) was a cache of twelve Ellison paperbacks. I will explain to you Internet users why that's a big deal.

Before everything from pistachios to porn was three mouse clicks away, if you wanted to read a book, you had to go actually find that book. You had to drive to a used bookstore (because there was no Ellison in print at that time--he sold out quickly) and you had to scour their stock, and then, sheepishly, or in desperation, you had to walk up to the register monkey and ask, "Do you have any Ellison?" and then you had to take it when they gave you a sympathetic shake of their head or worse, a derisive sneer, and they almost always said the same thing. "He sells when we get him." Yeah, no shit he sells. I can't find his stuff anywhere.

That's what it used to be like, when dinosaurs roamed the earth and Victoria Vetri was the queen of us all. Collecting books took years. Finding authors whose work you enjoyed was akin to archeology. You bragged to your friends about what you found on your trips.

So, when twelve Ellison books showed up, in my store, in front of me, I bought them. I paid the guy half of what I was going to buy them for, and he left happy. I never saw him again. But I stared at those twelve books: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, Deathbird Stories, The Glass Teat, The Other Glass Teat, Love Ain't Nothing But Sex Misspelled, The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World, Dangerous Visions, Ellison Wonderland, Spider Kiss, and the rest, and I felt like the book-nerd version of Indiana Jones staring at the Ark of the Covenant.

I read those books, nearly straight through, for the next two or three years. Here is a short list of just some of the things I pulled from the pile of books, aside from a mass of thoughtful and intelligent prose, sometimes poetic and sometimes distractingly baroque and dated:

It was in The Glass Teat that I read Ellison talking--as a TV and cultural critic--about the effect that television was having on the American public. Of particular interest to Ellison was the cognitive distortions he witnessed that were occurring to us as a people. An alarmist screed, 90% of which either came true or is still relevant to this day.

It was in Deathbird Stories that I first read"The Whimper of Whipped Dogs," a story Ellison wrote in a blind anger about the murder of Kitty Genovese, was one of those watershed moments for me as a fledgling writer.

It was in Spider Kiss that I realized you could write about someone or something very real without using their name, i.e. Elvis. Ellison had some things to say about the seduction of celebrity and he wanted to use Elvis as a metaphor for that, even as Elvis was still very much alive at the time the novel was written. After reading Spider Kiss, and decoding it as an allegory, I started seeing it everywhere.

Reading the Ellison-edited anthology Dangerous Visions was the first time I'd encountered the work of Carol Emshwiller ("Sex and/or Mr. Morrison), whom I'd never heard of, Samuel Delany ("Aye, and Gomorrah"), who I had heard of, but never read before, and Theodore Sturgeon ("If All Men Were Brothers, Would You Let One Marry Your Sister?"), who I realized I'd been reading for years in other anthologies and loved him.

In The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World, I first read "Along the Scenic Route," about a man on the highway, his car armed to the teeth, that decides to fight back against his unnamed tormentor with a fusillade of machine gun fire. The short story was one of the inspirations for the game Car Wars and probably also Deathrace 2000. My first car, a 1971 Volkswagon Beetle, had a toggle switch on the dash that was labeled "Missile Launcher."

 There are more, but you get the idea. Ellison shaped my tastes and influenced my writing, so early, and so much, that it's difficult to say where, exactly, but I can point to one thing that jump-started what eventually became my "voice": Anger.

Ellison was angry, a lot. Many of his best stories and essays have the white-hot intensity of someone who is righteously indignant about something, and in Ellison's case, it could be anything: creative theft, social injustice, gross stupidity, corporate greed, professional greed, personal greed, pride, avarice, lust, war--pretty much any combination of the seven deadly sins of man--betrayal, mediocrity, and a horde of enemies, a legion of lickspittles and toadies that all conspired to bring us as a people down into the muck, a backslide into barbarism. Ellison hated all of that shit, and he punched back as often and as hard as he could, for as long as he could.

His anger made it all right for me to be angry, and moreover to express my anger. Venting my spleen was good for me. It let me articulate, sometimes better, and sometime worse, what bothered me. It made me choose my words carefully. It sharpened my wit, if not my wits.  It honed my voice. He made me a better writer by his example. I've been thinking about my anger a lot for the past six months and I've spent years strangling it off, bit by bit. I'm not going to do that anymore. I don't know if I'll ever be as pissed off as I was in my twenties, but I've stopped censoring myself. Anything less would be a betrayal of me as a writer, and that's something I took straight from Harlan Ellison's own playbook.

I got to meet him, twice, and the meetings where, thankfully, free of drama. By the end of the 20th century, he'd become something akin to the barker at his own sideshow. He'd been "the angry guy" for so long that people expected it. And many people goaded him, like it was a party trick, to blow up and do his little song and dance. I saw that in action at a San Diego, where a fan in front of me asked, grinning like an idiot, "I wonder if you'd seen the latest editorial that Gary Groth wrote in The Comics Journal where he mentioned you by name?"

By the mid-90s, Ellison and Groth hadn't spoken in years. The lawsuits had poisoned their relationship and they were not in contact. Anyone else would have slapped a smile on their face and said, "No, I haven't. We don't communicate anymore." Or something to that effect. But Ellison woke up like the chicken at the state fair that plays Tic-Tac-Toe and said, "Gary Groth?! Don't ever mention his name to me again or I'll drive to your house and kill your mother!" He vented for another fifteen seconds, and the fan basked in it, like it was a refreshing shower. He walked off. He'd gotten his Ellison story. "Harlan blew up at me for mentioning Gary Groth in a conversation." It was bullshit, and I felt sorry that Ellison felt like he had to play along.

The second time I met him was at an AggieCon in 2000, along with the other members of Clockwork Storybook. We were selling chapbooks and we gave one of each to Ellison. He made a point of looking through them and complimenting us on our attention to detail in the creation of the books. Later, he actually called Chris Roberson to talk to him about things he'd written--and at the time, I was glad he hadn't called me, because Ellison could be just as effusive with his scorn as his praise. Now I wish he had. I would have taken Ellison's abuse and thanked him for it.

I wish I'd thanked him earlier.

Rest in Peace, Harlan. If anyone earned it, it's you.

It's difficult to measure his influence on speculative fiction, a term he used to describe fantasy and science fiction because he thought the genres needed elevating. I certainly took more from him regarding my non-fiction writing, and also a lot of how to conduct business as a writer. He walked away from a lot of jobs, and picked fights and even lawsuits with many others, over the treatment of himself and his work. He made it clear that writers--all artists--have value and should be treated fairly and with dignity. Also, he made it clear that writers were under no obligation to write happy stories. He said it best himself:

I don't know how you perceive my mission as a writer, but for me it is not a responsibility to reaffirm your concretized myths and provincial prejudices. It is not my job to lull you with a false sense of the rightness of the universe. This wonderful and terrible occupation of recreating the world in a different way, each time fresh and strange, is an act of revolutionary guerrilla warfare. I stir the soup. I inconvenience you. I make your nose run and your eyes water.

In the next few days, I'm sure that there will be a slew of counter-eulogies, describing what a misogynist prick Ellison was, or how he was an asshole and shouldn't be lionized. They will all be within their rights to offer up such a course of action. And they will be wrong. Now about him being an asshole, but over his canonization. Whatever problems Old Ellison had in the digital age, Young, Fresh, Blood-in-his-eyes Ellison set the pace for generations of writers and artists. He deserves his place at the table, and don't think for a minute he doesn't.

Polemic. Irascible. Curmudgeonly. Alarmist. Controversial. Brilliant. Born out of time and indelibly of his time. There will never be another Harlan Ellison. How could there be?

The Backlist Project is Nigh Complete

Possibly the most anticipated book
I've put out so far. The other half of
the Sam Bowen story. Ta Dah!

I love that word, "nigh." It's so delightfully Biblical to me. But that's not what we're here to talk about. Bowen's Bluff, the second Sam Bowen volume, dropped this weekend in paperback form. I'll have the ebook figured out soon. That leaves only one book: The Third and final Con-Dorks volume, One in a Million.

I've needed to rescue and resuscitate my backlist for years now. I was all set to do it a couple of years ago, but I went and wrote a bunch of comics that, as it turns out, will never see the light of day. Ah, well. Sometimes you back the wrong horse, you know?

 Once One in a Million drops, next month, that'll be it. I had seven books that needed to be reprinted and updated for ebook consumption. There's eight because Fight Card collection, The Adventures of Sailor Tom Sharkey, slipped in there when no one was looking.  Not that I'm complaining. I love the book and I'm happy those stories have found a collected home.

Coming soon: the final chapter
in the Con-Dorks Saga and it's
a doozy, I tell you what.

I never started this project to make money. Well, let's back up: I didn't publish all of these books to get rich. I fully expected to make a little dough off of the endeavor. And so far, that's exactly what's happened; a little dough. Twenties of forties of dollars. A couple hundred and change, truth be told. I did it so they would serve as a backdrop for other, more recent work coming out this year (and hopefully next). I've got NEW books, see, and they will need some love. But in the meantime, let's see what we can do about this stuff, shall we?

Let's do a contest: I've done some review trawling from you before, but now I'm upping the ante with genuine loot from the past. Collectible, interesting stuff, at that. 

I'm a once and forever member of Clockwork Storybook, a writer's collective that was founded by four people: myself, Matt Sturges, Chris Roberson, and Bill Willingham. We started out as a writer's group to work on our prose, and quickly decided we'd get a lot better, a lot quicker, if we learned how to write fiction in front of a live audience. So, we created a fictional city, San Cibola, and made a shared world out of it. The "online magazine" was updated monthly, and sometimes more frequently, as we were prone to pulling a lot of stunts like 30-day Novel challenges and the like. Our goal was to eventually transition into a print medium, and in this regard, we were only about 10 years ahead of the trend.

Yes, that's Bill's art on the cover. He also illustrated his
story, too. It's very cool.

One of our first projects was a series of chapbooks, designed to get our beaks wet for page layout, printing, and all of that complicated stuff. Our first one was called Offline Volume 1: Mythology, and it featured an original prose story from each of us, not available on the website, with illustrations by our friends. This was our calling card as we started making the rounds at Texas conventions. We sold hundreds of these things. Not thousands, but definitely hundreds.

Now they are all but gone. I've got five spare copies of Offline Volume 1: Mythology to give away and I will do just that. All you gotta do is pick one of my books that you have read over this past year and post a review somewhere that you can point me to it. Amazon, Good Reads, wherever there's decent traffic. That's it! I'll pick my five favorites and send you a rare piece of Clockwork Storybook history. I will even sign it, if that's your bag, baby. Once you have the review up, shoot me a Tweet or an IM or however you get ahold of me, and point me to where it is. I will in turn contact you for mailing instructions.  How does that sound?

Just to sink the hook a little deeper, here's the Table of Contents:

Mythology by Bill Willingham

illustrated by the author

Persuasion by Matt Sturges

illustrated by Harold Covey

A Port in a Storm by Chris Roberson 

illustrated by Doug Potter

An Encounter at Leed's Point

by Mark Finn

illustrated by Mack White

Okay, that's all you need from me! Review! Review for your lives!

A Beginner's Guide for Reading Mark Finn *UPDATED*

The Author, trying to out-spooky Alan Moore.

You may have noticed this year that I've had a few books re-issued, published, and reprinted. So far, there's five new books out there and three more on the way. You may be thinking to yourself, "But Mark, you've written so many books, I can't keep up! I might as well just go outside and play with my dog."

Don't pick up that leash yet, Hot Stuff. Sure, modern living forces you into doing these you don't want to do, like Jury Duty, and math. I get it. So, for those of you who want to support your old buddy/school chum/lover/personal trainer Mark Finn, but you don't have time to read brief descriptions to gauge your interest levels, here's a quick and easy guide to help you select the book that's right for you. Just click on the links below and you will be whisked to Amazon.com where you can make a fast, painless transaction. And if you still can't decide, you can always buy two books. I promise, I won't tell.


"I don't like all that weird sci-fi and fantasy stuff you like. Except for True Blood. And Game of Thrones. Oh! And Twilight. And of course, the Harry Potter books. And American Horror Story. But other than that, I'm not really into that crazy stuff."

Newsflash: Yes, you are. And you'll love Year of the Hare. Sam Bowen is one of my most popular characters and he's a normal guy who learned magic to try and reverse a family curse that's been placed upon him. This is the first of two books that will collect all of his stories together from the Clockwork Storybook shared world of San Cibola. Click here for a preview!

"I like fantasy and sci-fi, but I'm not real familiar with it. It's all very big and new to me. Also, I like romance and love stories."

If this is you, then you want to pick up Empty Hearts, my collection of short stories that all deal with love, loss, and desire in a modern-day city where magic is an everyday occurrence. These stories take place in San Cibola, as well, and are a kinder, gentler introduction to that world. Well, mostly... Expect some ghosts and some monsters mixed in with the romance and intrigue. Click here for a sample!



"I love modern fantasy, and I also think Quentin Tarantino is a hoot! This means I have a short attention span. And if you've got something with Elvis in it, well, that would be one Hell of a Hat Trick for me!"

Say no more, Bwana! Road Trip is just what you need. Brash, violent, over the top, and best of all, it's chock-full of profanity and adult situations, just like an R-rated movie! Elvis and Cupid are on a Road Trip to South Padre Island to find Cupid's mother, Venus, who is hiding out amongst the mortals. Really, that's all you need to know. Anything else will spoil the story. Perhaps best of all: It's short! Click here for a sample!



"I'm really into this geek culture. I love it. I have strong opinions about all sorts of things that are, in fact, completely outside of my control, like every casting decision made in Hollywood. Got anything for me, Smarty Pants?"

You betcha! The Transformation of Lawrence Croft is tailor-made for you. Follow four super geeks as they make their way to MagicCon, a three-day comic and sci-fi convention in San Cibola. What could possibly go wrong, right? Plenty, is what. It's a romp through geek culture at the intersection of magic and make-believe. And it's also the first part of a trilogy of stories starring the four Con-Dorks.And if you like the first one, the second book, The Chance of a Lifetime, is also available. Click here for an excerpt!


"Well, I don't know about any of that. But I am curious about this mysterious story you just sold to Vertigo. What's that all about? Can we get a hint?"

I can't really give you a hint, since the book hasn't been announced or solicited yet. However, if you want to read something that's 100% in the wheelhouse of what I wrote, let me show you The Adventures of Sailor Tom Sharkey. This is a collection of historical weird humorous boxing stories written about real-life Golden Age boxer Tom Sharkey. These stories are very much in the tradition of Robert E. Howard's Sailor Steve Costigan stories, so if you like those, you'll probably like these, as well. Click here for a sneak peek!


"Robert E. Howard? Now you're talking. Aren't you supposed to be some kind of Robert E. Howard expert or something like that?"

Yeah, something like that. Here's the biography of Robert E. Howard that I wrote. It's called Blood & Thunder: the Life and Art of Robert E. Howard. If you like biographies of literary people mixed with Texas history, then you'll enjoy this book. It's probably what I'm best known for, and a number of people have read it who were not fans of Howard or his writings who said they enjoyed it a great deal. It moves fast, and has a lot of information packed into it. The book was nominated for several awards when it came out. This is the updated and expanded second edition. Click here for a sample!

"Yeah, so, none of that's really working for me. Anything else you want to show me, Mister Writer Guy? Or can I go play with my dog, now?"

Boy, you're a tough nut to crack. Why don't you just head on over to my Amazon Author Page and browse the other things I've got listed there? I've got stories and essays and introductions in several books, and there's even a couple of comics for you to purchase if you want to go that route. For example, in The Apes of Wrath, I wrote an essay about the guys who play gorillas in the movies. It's a fun romp through that specialized world. And the rest of the book is really good, too! Fun Fact: Many of my books are also available as ebooks.


Granted, this isn't everything. I've got some projects in development, some stories which are scheduled to appear in books coming out later, and some novels in various stages of completion. If you'd like to keep up with me and you're not bored with Facebook, I've got an Author's Page you can follow. Optionally, you can find me over at Good Reads, where I am trying to be more active.  I'll keep on writing, if you keep on reading.

A Quick Update on the Publishing Side

Sorry this has been so quiet lately, but I have been forced to choose between finishing Replacement Gorilla and writing pithy, hilarious observations about racist squatters in other states and threatening the entrenched misogynists and sociopaths in the Geek Nation to within an inch of their lives if they don't shut up and bury their heads in the sand. Guess which wiser course of action won out?

Not that it hasn't been really tempting. It's like, life is throwing me these soft, slow, underhand pitches right over the middle of the plate, and I just want to belt them out of the park, but I've got stuff to do.

So, you may remember I had a plan to get all of my backlist out this year as publishing projects. Here's the updated link to my Amazon Author's Page, if you want to go swing by and check it out.

The most recent thing to get the CreateSpace treatment is Road Trip. I know, this has come out before, but I am moving it off of Lulu and onto CreateSpace, and then later, Kindle. This will be a special book, in that I'm going to give it away on Kindle. That's right, give it away. It's going to be my loss leader. I think it's a strong book, and a pretty good idea of what I write, and how. So, it's currently available as a paperback, and soon it'll get ebooked. Look for it, if you will.

Oh, hell, who am I kidding? On the day it's available for free, I'll tweet it and post it to the heavens. Please share, won't you?


This book is the first collection of stories from the San Cibola universe, and it's not the last, by half. I've gotten two reviews for Empty Hearts, for which I am very grateful. If you post a review and let me know about it, I'll send you a bonus story, "That Still Don't Make it Wight," as a thank you. How cool is that? It's currently live on Kindle, but I'm having the files redone because I didn't realize the Kindle format was so different. So, that's happening and should be updated by the first of May. I like the collection; I think there are some strong stories in the book.

Again, I'll let you know when the Kindle file is updated and repaired. I've got a hell of a learning curve on all of this.

Coming soon, in the next few weeks, look for two new books: A collection of the Sailor Tom Sharkey stories, published by Fight Card Books, and the first novel in the Con-Dorks Saga, the Transformation of Lawrence Croft. I'm actually going to put out all three Con-Dorks books in the trilogy (I can't believe I just typed that word--trilogy...it sounds so...author-ish.) as well as BOTH of the Sam Bowen books. Those of you who are TickWits will doubtless rejoice, leaving the rest of you to say, "So what?" Hopefully, you'll check it all out.

My Writing Year: The March Numbers

Month three of my little experiment to write a half million words in a year has come in like a lion (see? That’s March!) and now we’re moving into April. Before I start pranking people today, I thought I’d report on the results for March. Here's the stats:

Projects Started: 1
Projects completed: 0
Bonus Projects (meaning, things not on the calendar): 3
Words typed: 46, 027
Target number: 42, 466
Surplus: 3,561

Much better! I had to push and fight and sweat to meet this deadline, mostly because I had huge pressures in my private life finally coming to roost. Thankfully, most of them are off y plate. I don’t know if that’s contributed to the glacial pace of Replacement Gorilla, but I’m essentially twice-over my time budget on this book. It’s sitting at 38 thousand words and I’m on target for 60 thousand or more for a final draft. I’m having a ball writing it, and I am really happy with where it’s at right now. Of course, it’s not about what I think; other people have to like it, as well.

One of the things I jammed on during a productive session was a series of short stories involving Clay Stark that take place in between the ten year periods between each Gorilla novel. One of these stories, “A Whim of Circumstance,” is already done and was published in the collection Cross Plains Universe: Texans Celebrate Robert E. Howard. Other stories have suggested themselves, based on the weirdness that took place in that story. I’m eager to get to some of these. Scott Cupp suggested one to me that is just too good to pass up.

I am behind in some of my other projects, but I kinda knew that would happen. Right now, I’m content to push other things back to make sure Replacement Gorilla is as good as it can be. I’ve kept my schedule loose after June to take care of overflow, new projects, and the like. Also, I’m on track to publish my backlist.

First up is The Transformation of Lawrence Croft, the first book in the Con-Dorks Saga. By the end of the year, the three Con-Dorks novels will be in print. Also on deck is Road Trip, which is a kind of sequel to one of the major Sam Bowen stories (which will be available later this year) and also a kind of linchpin in the San Cibola universe.  The books that take place in the San Cibola universe will all have a special logo to identify them as such, so anyone wanting to follow along may do so.

Finally, I just got the final edits back for my collection of Sailor Tom Sharkey stories to be published by Fight Card Books. This book will be available as an ebook first, but I’ll have physical copies on hand at Robert E.Howard Days this year, in case anyone would like a signed copy. I love these stories and I’m really glad this book is coming out for other people to read and enjoy.

And don’t worry, those of you who are wondering about my review of Wonderbook. I’ll get back to it. It’s perhaps ironic that I’ll finish that review after I finish Replacement Gorilla. Wouldn’t it be the height of irony if my book sucked because I didn’t heed the great advice found in Wonderbook? I’m going to roll those dice and do it, anyway. We’ll see what happens.

Working Through WONDERBOOK, part 4

Author's Note: These are transcripts of my handwritten notes that I took while reading through this project, my self-appointed writer's workshop. As such, the post below may not make a lot of sense to the casual reader who doesn't have a copy of Wonderbook: The Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction by Jeff Vandermeer. So, if you click on that link, you can go get yourself a copy.  Or, don't. It's up to you. But I'm going to be transcribing my handwritten notes for myself (and others who have the book) and I won't be using a lot of context to back it up. 

Chapter 3: Beginnings and Endings

Confession: this is a graphics-heavy chapter. Not sure how many notes I’m going to make. We’ll see at the end.

A Charged Image—an image that has some psychological or symbolic resonance; it has a life beyond its presence as part of the setting or part of the character’s possessions.

That’s an interesting term. I’ve not heard it before. But I can think of a number of examples in my stories, so, okay.

“That’s why you must not mistake the progress of your inspiration for the actual progress of the story.” Good advice, well stated.

Beginnings are critical.

More organic metaphors, but I'm okay with this, I suppose.

The Lure of the Hook

The idea of an exciting hook is an old chestnut—but I love chestnuts. Nothing draws interest like a punch in the nose. I think this works best, though, with characters readers have a familiarity with already.

Obviously it’s different for novels than for short stories.

Elements of a Good Beginning

 A main character presented from a consistent POV.

A conflict or problem.

A hint or suggestion of a secondary conflict or problem that may form a subplot or an additional complication.

A sense of action or motion, even if the opening scene is static.

A general or specific idea of the setting.

A consistent tone and mood to the language.

*The economy and sophistication with which you provide these elements, and the style in which you present them may depend on whether you are writing a short story or a novel.*

An opening sentence can and should do more than one thing.

Questions to ask yourself

Is the main character or at least one character introduced in the very first line? If not, why, and what is emphasized in the first line in place of character?

Is the man character fully integrated with other elements: can we begin to see the character’s opinions about his or her environment andabout other characters?

Have you chosen the right viewpoint character?

Have you chosen the right approach to point of view, whether first person, third person, or (blech) second person?

Is the starting location or general setting appropriate for the story?

Is the problem or dilemma facing the main character clear to the reader to the degree required for this particular story?

Is the tone of the opening consistence and does it carry through the rest of the story?

Does the style fit the characters, setting and purpose of the story?

Does the emotional content of the words you have used to create the correct context and the correct pact with the reader to the type of story?

Does the opening support the ending?

Lots of questions that I freely admit I don’t consciously ask. I tend to brainstorm until I see a clear beginning in my head, and then go with that. Definitely something I need to work on. Admittedly, a lot of the above is stuff I do intuitively. Perhaps to my detriment.

Additional questions to consider for Genre Stories

Do we know WHERE we are?

Do we know WHEN we are?

If where and when are implied, is that enough information? Is the implication providing the right kind of information?

If you have stated where and when, have you been too obvious in your approach?

Do we know if the protagonist is human or not?

If no, do we have any clues as to how differently this protagonist  understands and processes the world from a human protag?

In conveying context, have you provided too much content up front?

Do we have a general idea from the word choice and other contextual clues as to whether we are reading SF, fantasy or something else?

Does your word choice help convey the differences between your setting and Earth Prime in a seamless fashion?

Have you included too many made-up or unusual words to try to convey your unique setting?

That’s a LOT of questions to ask. I think that many of these are intuitive.

Myster Odd presents Memorable First Lines.

Some good examples here. My favorite of the lot is:

“Don’t look now,” John said to his wife, “but there are a couple of old girls two tables away who are trying to hypnotize me.”

 –Daphme de Maurier, “Don’t Look Now.”

For me, I consider the first like to be “the hook” that pulls the reader to the second sentence.

A good opening line might offer the reader:

A sense of mystery or atmosphere

An interesting initial situation

Immediate tension and excitement

An intriguing statement

An unusual or interesting description

A point of view

When Not to Commit

Good examples using Kim Stanley Robinson’s 2312.

Jeff is spot on that an established writer can get away with, or is afforded more latitude, when it comes to development a story.

This leads me right to American Gods.

I wanted this to be good. It just wasn't.

The Beginning of American Gods, by Neil Gaiman

I’m not doubting the veracity of anything Neil says in this essay. But this was absolutely useless and in my opinion, the first clunker of any of the included material in the book. I think the way he described events that led up to the book being written offer no useful help in the writing of a novel, unless one is Neil Gaiman, and the novel being written was American Gods. I should explain, I think.

I like Neil Gaiman. I like his work. I’ve met him several times, and on at least two occasions, we had a lovely conversation. In person, and whenever he speaks in public, he’s the very definition of charming. I mean, he’s charismatically charming. It’s like his superpower. And everyone who meets him fails their saving throw versus magic. He’s that guy. I’ve been a fan of his ever since Sandman. I went back and actually owned, for a time, Ghastly Beyond Belief. I have an original first edition of Good Omens. I’m a fan, understand me?

But I think American Gods is his most overrated book. It’s easily the worst thing he ever wrote, and that’s a shame, because it should have been the best thing he ever wrote. Since we’re talking about beginnings, let me say that the beginning is fine. It’s great. It’s got mysteries and clues and foreshadowing and all of the stuff being talking about in this chapter of Wonderbook as necessary and good and important.

But then the short stories start showing up, apropos of nothing, in the book. Shadow (a terrible, terrible name for a character) is running around with Odin, meeting and talking to all of the old gods (and meeting the new gods who are trying to take over), and they all keep telling him, “there’s a war coming, you’d better pick a side.” Then every three or four chapters, some brilliant little short story drops in to interrupt the flow of the narrative—my favorite one being about the Djinn who is driving the taxi—which is, in fact, its bottle. Genius. The KIND of thing Gaiman is known for.

Then we go back to Shadow (did I mention how much I hate that name? It’s like when geek girls tell everyone to call them “cat” because they’re just like a cat, don’tcha get it?) and Odin, driving across America, meeting people who are old, forgotten gods...and then, to paraphrase the Police song, Synchronicity II...Many miles away, something pushes a car out on the ice, where it sinks to the bottom of a dark Minnesotan Lake...

Okay, three narratives going on, right? What’s happening with the car on the ice, this massive build-up to American Raganarok, and these little gems of short stories that seem to have fuck-all to do with the other two stories. Surely this’ll all come together, right?

Well, no, not exactly. The short stories dry up about half-way through. The big war that’s supposed to happen, that he says throughout the whole novel is going to happen, finally arrives and guess what? It doesn’t happen. Shadow (god, that name!) gives this chastising speech to all of them that starts out with the inane observation that “America is lousy soil for gods.” Excuse me? It is? Really? Is that how come you and Odin have spent the last three hundred pages of the book driving all around and visiting them? In what way exactly is that lousy? I don’t understand. But apparently, all of the other gods do, because they leave without fighting! Yep. Powerful words, from a guy named Shadow.

So, that leaves the Lakeside story. And finally, the two narratives collide, and it’s pretty cool. Granted, it’s not epic Gotterdammerung-level good, but at least finally the two plotlines have converged and provide us with an ending.

And then Gaiman went and wrote another ending.

And then he went and wrote another ending.

The book is a mess. And reading the essay, and kind of reading between the lines, I can see why this was so. I don’t think Neil had a big high concept in mind when he started writing on the book. I think he had a contract to fill. And considering that the publisher took his working title and ran with it, I question if American Gods was the best name for the book. It’s a great name, don’t get me wrong. And the ideas that he came up with—Media, Internet, and so forth—are very cool and interesting as creative counterpoints to his Endless.

But that’s what the WHOLE book should have been about. And it wasn’t, not really. Or, optionally, he could have filled an entire book with short stories about “the American Gods” like the cab-driving Djinn. That would have been great. What we got instead was a mishmash of stuff, half-finished, with some brilliant ideas and the desperate need for an editor who wasn’t afraid to ruffle the fur on the 800-lb gorilla to make that a readable book—or two.

I know that I’m in the minority on this. I know that everyone loved American Gods from the word go. I think he’s written much better books, both before and since, and I’ll continue to read him. He will continue to be charming, to me and everyone else, but I’m not so enamored of him that I’ll forgive a book that, if someone who was not Neil Gaiman had turned in, would have undergone a severe editorial round or two of corrections and a partial rewrite, provided it even made it past the assistant editor.

So, while I value what Gaiman wrote about the beginning, and searching for it, I think it’s a terrible mistake to do all of that searching while under a contractual deadline.

Bad Beginnings

Whoops. Guilty as Charged. I know I’ve done this before. But actually, pointing this out gives me a great idea for a better beginning to the book I’m starting now. Most excellent.

This may be my favorite chapter yet in Wonderbook.

Novel approaches: Finch

This is a lengthy and heavily illustrated section where Jeff deconstructs his own book, Finch, and discussing in great detail what approaches he considered and rejected as beginnings, and also why.

This is very useful stuff. This new book I’m working on has been a thorn in my side for years. I’ve started it twice, and it’s defeated me twice. It’s looking like I’m going to start working it over whilst still reading Wonderbook. It will be interesting to see how these notes and all of this reading reshape my process. I’m actually open to it. I need a new angle on this book.

Middles

Looking at the graphic for The Middles—and it’s pretty damn accurate, at that—reminds me of exactly why I like to use outlines for novels. It simplifies the path and created order out of swirling chaos for me. Having a path to follow through that mess makes it easier for me to hop off it and go exploring if I need to.

The Beginning of Endings

I would say that 90% of the time, I know my ending before I start writing. Only in a couple of instances have I done otherwise. And both times, I’m glad I did. I needed the rest of the story to tell me what the ending would be.

I think there’s weight in the elements of the story that suggest an ending naturally, on its own.

Myster Odd presents Final Lines:

Hmm. Nothing in these examples really speaks to me. Except for the Jerome Bixby story, of course. Of course, one of the best final lines ever, from Matheson’s I Am Legend, kinda gives the whole story away if you know it in advance. It’s tough to write about those lines, isn’t it? It’s cheating the reader.

The End of Endings

I like the idea of cutting your last paragraph off to see if you really need it.

Writing Challenge

 Given my eagerness to get on with it, I wrote three first lines based on an illustration provided within the book. I tried to conceptualize three different openings with tone, varying levels of distance, and immediacy. Also, I tried to impart some information about the world, especially in the first one. 

1. When the first Kraken attack happened, I was only ten years old.

2. Ensign Hicks stared, uncomprehending, as the tree-trunk sized tentacle arced up out of the sea as if it grew unchecked from some ancient garden below the water.

3. “Sir, you’d better have a look at this.” The first mate handed the binoculars to the captain and held his breath.

Going back to them after reading the chapter, the only thing I would do differently is I would keep brainstorming openings until I got something that was genius. I tend to give up early on things like this in order to get to the good stuff. Not all the time, but sometimes. Interesting exercise. Reading about Jeff working through the opening for Finch was the best part of this chapter. 

That Old Christmas Spirit: A Heartwarming Yuletide Nightmare

Author's note: This is an old story I wrote back in the days of Clockwork Storybook. We wrote a lot of Christmas stories during our run, of varied quality, but I really like this one, still. It sums up most of my feelings about Christmas nicely. It was literally inspired by a dream I had, and it scared the hell out of me at the time. I tried to make the "off the rails" part of the story just like my dream. You can let me know if I succeeded or not. Hope you enjoy it! 

“Santa Claus, Daddy!” Martin Hartsfield tugged frantically on his father’s arm, to no avail. He leaned into the task of attempting to steer the grown-up away from the Old World Sausage Shoppe and into the North Pole Pavilion of Guildcrest Mall.

“Marty, calm down!” Joseph Hartsfield’s tone was rougher than he’d intended, but Christ, that kid was driving him nuts.

“But Daaaad...” whined Marty, the nasal tone raking down Joseph’s spine.

“Son,” said Joseph, as he leaned down and turned the six-year old around to face him, “do you remember our deal?”

Marty’s expression went from petulant to thoughtful.

“What we talked about on the way here? If you’re good and quiet and help me out tonight, we’ll go see the Christmas lights.”

“Yeahbut, Dad, that’s Santa Claus over there!” Clearly this changed the deal in Marty’s eyes.

Joseph didn’t even glance over his son’s shoulder. “Did you see the line over there? Son, the mall will be closed before you can even get to talk to him.”

“Yeahbut...”

“Marty, I promise, we’ll come back later, when it’s not so crowded.” Say, in June, Joseph thought. “Now, if you want to see the Christmas lights tonight, then you’ll be a big kid and help me out, okay?”

“Aw, but Daaaad...”

“Okay,” said Joseph, standing up, “here are your choices: keep quiet and help me out, then we’ll go see the Christmas lights, or keep whining and go home with nothing. What’s it going to be, son?”

Marty hung his head. “Aw, I guess I’ll be quiet.”

“Good,” Joseph said. They resumed walking. “While you’re being quiet, why don’t you tell me what you’re going to ask Santa for this Christmas?”

Marty’s eyes lit up. The Santa incident now forgotten, he started in on his list, rapid fire. “I want a Gameboy with the Pokemon Gold, and an Action Man with the blow gun thing, and Spyro for the Xbox...”

Joseph let him chatter away while he gnashed his teeth at the whole thing. Christmas was for the kids now, not the adults. He surveyed the mall, bedecked to overflowing with silver and gold tinsel, red and green wreathes. Every single store had some overt way to signify that it was indeed Christmas, and all of your shopping needs could be taken care of in one fell swoop if you would just come inside. Joseph hunched his shoulders and stuck his hands in his pockets, feeling grinchy. It had been like this since early November, for Christ’s sake! As if anyone needed any reminders. 

Raiders of the Lost Ark Made Me This Way...

Over the years, I've tried, unsuccessfully, to explain to folks just how important and influential a film Raiders of the Lost Ark was for me. It dropped into my wheelhouse as I was turning the corner on adolescence, at a time when there was no Internet, no Netflix, no YouTube, none of that crap. If you wanted to know more about any given subject, you had to read about it. In books, or magazines--Thank God for Starlog!

As a 12 year old male, Raiders forever altered my course in ways that I've noted over the years, but until you sit down and start trying to backtrack your influences, you don't realize what a tangled mess it all is. I specifically and deliberately stopped when I got to large topics--either existing interests, or newly discovered interests, as they each lead to other branching charts. That's how I was back then (okay, still am)...when I get interested in something, I want to know everything! So, in the case of Raiders, specifically, I watched the television special about the stuntmen who worked on the film, and I read every interview I could find with Spielberg, Lucas, and Lawrence Kasdan. I read the novelization. I collected magazines, bubble gum cards--anything I could get my hands on that had behind-the-scenes information that I could use to decode the formula of how someone could come up with a modern-day whip wielding archeologist who fought Nazis and played with monkeys. You can see how that would appeal to just about anyone, right?

And don't get me started on the my film theory that Raiders is the first post-modern film--a movie about a type of movie, rather than the movie as genre unto itself. I submit to you that because we had Raiders of the Lost Ark, we also got Kill Bill, Inglorious Basterds, and now Django Unchained. I'll go into it later, one of these days, when I have the time. But it's a great theory and it explains why the first film is so very different from the three sequels, and how that happened.

For decades, I've tried to explain it to people, and they would just nod, politely, and reply, "Well, MY favorite movie is blah-blah-blah." No, you don't GET it, I've thought more about this film and its antecedents and influences than I have any other film including Star Wars.  It's not my favorite movie because, well, I just like it, and stuff. It's a part of my creative DNA in ways that still resonate with me to this day.

Because of RotLA, I created "The Blue Menace Mysteries" courtesy of the Violet Crown Radio Players.  Sam Bowen from Clockwork Storybook owes SO MUCH to Indiana Jones. Every 1930s pulp-era Role-Playing Game session I ever ran was informed by the way Lawrence Kasdan chose to write the screenplay to RotLA.

I made this flowchart so you could really see and understand. It's not my fault I'm like this. Raiders of the Lost Ark made me this way...

Here's the chart at full size. Enjoy! The Chart, Full Sized

DAY THREE: The CWSB 30 Day Novel Challenge

I am on pace so far, but I feel I should warn some long time readers of me and San Cibola in general. Well, not warn, so much as explain.

I'm taking the San Cibola out of the Con-Dorks.

When I rework the first two books (with the intention of selling the three novels as a trilogy) I will be shortening the distance between the Con-Dorks and the Sisters by having all of the events take place in San Francisco and the Bay Area. So if some of the geography in this third book seems off, that's why.

But why am I doing this? It's simple, and a little sad, too. Without all of the other authors on hand to prop up San Cibola with their writing, the concept of a magical city with open secrets becomes harder for one book (or even a set of books) to maintain on its own. San Cib was a shared world, not just in that we were sharing the real estate as writers, but that you, as readers, were sharing the information about the place picked up from all of these stories. That's how the shared world operates.

So, for the purposes of, say, introducing the first Con-Dorks book, it's much easier as an author to say (and for you as a reader to buy into) "Okay, magic is real, and it's largely secret. Some folks know about it, and they are special. Most people don't know about it, and they are normal." If I don't have to further explain the world, this brand-new city, and how it all works to a new reader, then they can get involved in the story that much quicker.

So, If you have a copy of Gods New and Used, or if you liked the books when they were serialized on RevolutionSF, I recommend you hang on to them. When next they appear, they will be in a new form. It's almost as if the Blue Cutters got ahold of the books, but not really. I hope.

Oh, and for the rest of you following the contest: Insert obligatory Trash-Talk here.

The CWSB 30 Day Novel Challenge, circa 2012

No, you didn't misread that. I'm currently on day one of a thirty day novel challenge. You can read the details about the contest here at Major Spoilers, where the contest will be held.  Why am I doing this? Because there is something wrong with me. I've got enough on my plate already, but dammit, I'm overdue for this. I need--no, I want--the kickstart that this contest inevitably produces in me. It's essential for 2012, and I'm going to create early momentum.

But what about my existing commitments? I'm working on two things right now for other people, including a long-running writing project I'm doing with another author. Well, never let it be said that I'm not barking mad. I'm going to do this contest IN ADDITION to upholding my existing commitments! Yeah. No sleep 'til Brooklyn.

That means I'll be sending chapters to my co-author, for we have a deadline to hit this year. Also, I'll be turning in comic book script pages for SCOUTS! as well. Plus my weekly column in the local paper, and anything else coming down the pipeline, like old time radio scripts.

Am I crazy? Is there something wrong with me? You bet there is. But the nice thing is, if I crack up and explode, it'll be live and on the web for everyone to see. So, please follow along and keep up with what we're doing over at Major Spoilers. I'll be posting chapters over there, and offering commentary here. Lots to see and do and read in January. Looks like the start of a great 2012.