I've put a lot of thought into what kind of thing this site should morph into, and I haven't quite decided yet. I think I'll start doing book reviews, but we'll see. For now, I'll post the occasional thought and progress as I work toward publication.

I completed my first horror novel of 81,000 words during my program. At my final residency in June I gave my thesis defense which included  reading a section of my novel and fielding questions from the audience.

This is me reading.

Photo Copyright Coelynn McIninch

I was scared. I was fortunate to have a lot of familiar faces, and my mentors Scott A. Johnson and Tim Waggoner were extremely supportive. The whole experience was like my first roller coaster ride. I spent hours in anticipation, racked by nervousness, only to get on, pull the bar down, and find out that I LOVE roller coasters! I'm proud of what I've accomplished, eager to keep producing more (hopefully) quality fiction, and enticed by the possibility of sharing more of that work in person.

I have already started my next steps.

I've submitted my manuscript to two places already. I have a short list of more agents. Why haven't I sent it to all of them yet? I expect rejections. A lot of them. I just don't want them all to come in at once.

I have started my next novel-length project. It's turning out to lean more into fantasy, but there's still strong elements of horror in it. I'm having fun with it, and I hope when it's done that my readers will too.

And to fill the spaces between, I'm working on some short stories. I have a two long-overdue for revision based on critiques from my graduate program, and one that I'm drafting to submit to an upcoming (no ETA) anthology of Meatpunk stories. Yes. Meatpunk. It's all the rage. Want to know more? Check out the blog posts by Chris Shearer and John Dixon.

~Meat punk - it's what's for dinner. Now stop whining and eat.~

That's it for now. Watch this space for more words and stuff, sucka.

There are some interesting things going on at Literature & Latte. First, they've released a Windows Beta version of their unique and popular writing software Scrivener, which isn't really news. However, what doesn't seem well-known yet is that on their message boards, a group of folks are playing with an unofficial version for Linux.

If you're really interested in using Scrivener, I urge you to sign up for the Windows Beta and try it out. Use Wine if you're Linux only. Also, see the Linux user thread on L&L's forum. Sign up; help out. Finally, be aware that I do not give any files directly in this post. I only link to files on L&L's forums.

This'll get you started, then once you're up and running head back to L&L's message board for updates.

Installation

I'm going to preface everything here with a quote from L&L's Blog, 13 Sept. 2010:

10. Syncing for iPad, iPhone and Working Externally

There’s been a minor furore over my announcement that we currently don’t have any immediate plans for an iPad version, although an iPad version isn’t ruled out altogether in the long-term (other platforms that Scrivener won’t be coming to any time soon include Google Android, Linux and Commodore 64). But even without a dedicated app, Scrivener 2.0 provides some great ways for you to take your Scrivener documents with you for editing on an iPad or iPhone. (Emphasis mine).

This is all very unofficial. I use Ubuntu 10.10, i386 on my laptop and AMD64 on my desktop, but this information should apply to other distros as well.

Manual (i386 & AMD64)

See the Announcements on the Windows Bug Hunt forum for the latest Beta release. As of this writing, it's 1.3. Download the .zip file for Linux. I assume your download goes to ~/Download.

sudo unzip -d /tmp ~/Download/LinuxScrivenerBeta3.zip
sudo mv /tmp/LinuxScrivenerBeta3/LiteratureAndLatte /usr/local
sudo ldd /usr/local/LiteratureAndLatte/bin/Scrivener
sudo chmod 755 /usr/local/LiteratureAndLatte/bin/Scrivener
sudo rm -r /tmp/LinuxScrivenerBeta3

Packages

randywallace has provided packages on the forum. The latest are available here. He provides deb, rpm, and tgz.

Spell Checking

Spell checking worked for some but not others.

i386

Make sure you have the libaspell and libaspell-dev packages installed. That's it.

AMD64

Not so easy. It appears that Scrivener can't use the 64-bit aspell libraries. But, it also seems that Opera had a similar issue on Ubuntu. Based on the Ubuntu help for Opera, I did the following:

Install libaspell and libaspell-dev from the repositories. This'll put the AMD64 versions on your system.

Download the i386 versions of libaspell and libaspell-dev. If you're not using Maverick, search for your release @ http://packages.ubuntu.com. Again, I assume you downloaded to ~/Downloads.

cd ~/Downloads
dpkg -x libaspell15_0.60.6-4ubuntu1_i386.deb ./libaspell
dpkg -x libaspell-dev_0.60.6-4ubuntu1_i386.deb ./libaspell-dev

You have a choice now. You can install to Scrivener's lib directory:

sudo cp -d ./libaspell/usr/lib/libaspell* /usr/local/LiteratureAndLatte/lib/
sudo cp -d ./libaspell-dev/usr/lib/libaspell* /usr/local/LiteratureAndLatte/lib/

Or you can install to /usr/lib32 (which is what I did):

sudo cp -d ./libaspell/usr/lib/libaspell* /usr/lib32/
sudo cp -d ./libaspell-dev/usr/lib/libaspell* /usr/lib32/

In either /usr/lib32 or /usr/local/LiteratureAndLatte/lib, you should wind up with:

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root    936 2010-11-24 16:19 /usr/lib32/libaspell.la
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root     19 2010-11-24 16:19 /usr/lib32/libaspell.so -> libaspell.so.15.1.4
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root     19 2010-11-24 16:18 /usr/lib32/libaspell.so.15 -> libaspell.so.15.1.4
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 603852 2010-11-24 16:18 /usr/lib32/libaspell.so.15.1.4

My original forum post is here.

Install the Tutorial

The Linux zip file is provided without the Tutorial project. Here's how you can add it. This requires an install of the Windows Beta, either in Wine or on Windows box:

1. In the Windows install, go to: C:\Program Files\Scrivener
2. In that directory, you'll find a folder called: Tutorial.scriv
3. Copy that entire folder to the bin directory of your Linux Scrivener install. This might be/usr/local/LiteratureAndLatte/binor /opt/scrivener_beta/bin depending on if you installed from scratch or used one of the packages from @randywallace.
4. Make sure the Tutorial.scriv directory and all its files/subdirectories are owned by root:
   chown -R root:root Tutorial.scriv
5. Start Scrivener, go to Help -> Open Tutorial, and choose a place to save the Tutorial project.

Tutorial.scriv is not distributed in the Linux zip. I assume there's a good reason, so do the above at your own risk.

Well, that's it for now. Enjoy!

Okay, all due praise aside, there are two things about the novel that stood out for me as a writer.

The first is Blatty's use of point of view (POV). The story is told in third-person, and there's no surprise there, but Blatty often violates something I hear repeated in how-to books and workshops: stick to one POV as much as possible, and never switch POV in a scene, let alone within a paragraph. But Blatty does exactly this throughout. For example:

From the stoop, Karl watched, his features stolid and impassive as Kinderman opened the door of the squad car, reached inside to a box of Kleenex fixed to the dashboard, extracted a tissue and blew his nose while staring idly across the river as if considering where to have lunch. Then he entered the car without glancing back.

As the car pulled away and rounded the corner of Thirty-fifth, Karl looked at the hand that was not on the doorknob and saw it was trembling.

When she heard the front door being closed, Chris was brooding at the bar in the study, pouring out a vodka over ice. Footsteps. Karl going up the stairs. (p. 211)

There's no break in the quote above, and this jumping from one POV to another without any visual cue takes place throughout the novel. I don't point this out as a flaw; I think it works for this book. But, I don't think it's generally a good idea. As a reader, I had to adjust to the lack of transitions in POV switch, and while I got accustomed to it eventually I found it a chore at first. So I think the advice I keep hearing about sticking to a single POV is well-given, but I think that in part it's because modern readers aren't accustomed to such changes.

The second thing that sticks out is how Father Karras, who is also a psychologist, acts almost counter to how one might expect a priest to act in his situation (at least in 1971). Chris MacNeil asks for his help with Regan, certain that her daughter's possessed, and what does Karras do? He tries to prove she's not possessed. This seems less bizarre once the reader learns he's following church procedure:

The exorcist will simply be careful that none of the patient's manifestations are left unaccounted for... (p. 254)

So Karras sets out to give non-religious explanations for Regan's behavior, going so far as to offer up psychokinesis and other para-psychological reasons. Chris becomes upset with his approach, wanting for him to also believe Regan possessed, and Karras tries to put an end to one argument with:

"The best explanation for any phenomenon," Karras overrode [Chris], "is always the simplest one available that accommodates all the facts." (p. 239)

I'm reminded of an essay by Marion Zimmer Bradley I read earlier this year in How to Write Tales of Horror, Fantasy & Science Fiction (Ed. J.N. Williamson) called "World Building in Horror, Occult, and Fantasy Writing". I blogged about it back in March, and in that post I used the following quote from the essay:

The major choice, then, for the writer of horror, fiction or nonfiction, is to choose between limited and unlimited views of reality--the horrors of the tabloid writer, the true-crime addict, or the specialist in abnormal psychiatry, whether or not the unknown belongs to a different order of reality--to choose between the worlds, in fact, of the policeman, the priest, or the parapsychologist. (Williamson, p. 76)

What strikes me as unique about The Exorcist is how Blatty uses Father Karras more as a parapsychologist than a priest. What's more, Blatty didn't choose between the worlds, as Bradley suggests, but he incorporates all three worlds--policeman, priest, and parapsychologist--in a single work, giving the novel depth through multiple perspectives on a single situation. The policeman is represented by Detective Kinderman, who spends the novel investigating the death of one of Chris' associates, a man killed off-screen but who the reader comes to believe is killed by Regan while possessed. And the exorcist is also represented by a priest, Father Merrin, called in at the end once Karras is able put in a request for Exorcism.

Blatty does a wonderful job of blending the three worlds throughout, giving the reader a well-rounded picture exorcism in the modern age. And it is this well-rounded picture that puts this book at the top of my list of classics.

The term plot (my archenemy when it comes to writing) appears in both toolkits, and I think that is terribly confusing.

I believe that good stories almost invariable need a good plot. But I also believe that there's a difference between plot as used in literary analysis and plot as used by writers. Plot as a complex tool of literary analysis does me little good as a writer. I don't want an analysis of an end product, I want guidelines for creating something new.

Ansen Dibell shows us in Plot that she understands the need for this distinction. She opens chapter one with:

The common definition of plot is that it's whatever happens in a story. That's useful when talking about completed stories, but when we're considering stories being written, it's about as useful as saying that a birthday cake is a large baked confection with frosting and candles. It doesn't tell you how to make one. (pg 5)

What she does is offer a clear working definition of plot and supplies relevant material to help any writer in the struggle to develop and create plots that work. "Cause and effect: that's what makes plot." (pg. 6)

Dibell provides a breakdown of plot in terms of cause and effect, and leads up to a list of four questions a writer can use to test a story idea, which I've dutifully tacked up on my bulliten board:

1. Is it your story to tell?
2. Is it too personal for readers to become involved with?
3. Is it going somewhere?
4. What's at stake?

The rest of the chapters address various elements a writer should pay attention to when working on a story to help craft the plot: openings, point-of-view (POV), exposition, middles, scene building, melodrama, patterns, pacing, and endings. In all of her discussions, she provides excellent supporting examples, some from the original Star Wars trilogy, which I think takes her advice from academic to practical. I recommend the book to anyone interested in writing. Here are a few ways she helped me.

The chapter on POV, titled "Would You Trust A Viewpoint with Shifty Eyes?", is particularly relevant to me. My thesis novel has a problem here, and it happened because I wasn't paying enough attention. I shift between the viewpoints of... crap, I just added it up: three major characters and six minor characters. That's nine viewpoints across 400 pages.

Dibell suggests sticking with a single POV, and tells us that, "A story with too many focuses can become a story with no focus at all." (pg 12) I panicked, but not for long. She concedes that a writer may choose to use multiple POVs and provides practical advice to reduce reader distraction, such as building in connections, keeping things simple at the beginning, and never switching in the middle of a scene. But above all, she reminds us that it is the writer's eyes that matter the most, that the writer must have a coherent vision of the story. Whew. I think I'm okay then.

I also found the chapter on melodrama enlightening. It made me realize that I often avoid melodrama in my scenes, tending more towards understatement and subtlety. But she tells us that melodrama is critical to creating a good plot:

Melodrama is the technique of revealing reality by concentrating on the ends of the spectrum rather than the middle, the remarkable rather than the ordinary. (pg 81)

She calls it lightning, and she's right. In fiction, particularly in genre fiction, readers look for the remarkable and a writer can't fulfill that need by writing strictly in ordinary scenes. As writers we must break out from the ordinary and show the extraordinary, and what's more, the writer must make it believable. Dibell provides guidance on tackling melodrama, which she embodies as a curse for example, and making it believable with two sets of techniques, the straightforward and the sleight-of-hand.

Straightforward (pg.84 - 89)

1. Show that it works right away
2. Show that the curse has worked in the recent past.
3. Establish a reasonable character, and have him take the curse seriously.
4. Surround your curse with tangible everyday objects and activities, described in detail.
5. Use just one curse at a time (and don't cross genres).
6. Don't undercut your curse.
7. Especially at first, don't talk about the curse yourself, in narrative summary.
8. Don't let the curse either take over, rendering the whole story weird and uninvolving, or become commonplace.

Sleight-of-hand (pg. 90 - 91)

1. Introduce the melodramatic element by the back door in a scene ostensibly dealing with something else.
2. Have one or two previews, or false alarms, before the real curse shows up.
3. Have a character expecting something even more extraordinary, so that when the real curse comes, it'll seem credible by comparison.
4. Have a character expecting a smaller and more credible version of the thing you actually intend to spring on him.

She closes the chapter by suggesting that novel-length fiction should use multiple techniques throughout, which seems like a given to me. But she's provided a practical list of tools that I can use to strengthen my current work, which deals with some pretty extraordinary events.

Other chapters  of note for me were on patterns, and of course, coming to the end. Ending a story is always a struggle for me, I think in part because I'm afraid I didn't say enough--which is a very bad fear for a writer to have--or maybe because I'm just not sure when I got there. She emphasis that we must stop at the end, and provides two "shapes" for endings: circular and linear. I won't go into details on each, the names are pretty self-evident, but I suggest that anyone who struggles with coming to a stop as I do will benefit from her guidance.

I think I stated in my last post on a how-to book that I hate them. That's still true--mostly. Dibell's work on plot has given me hope, however, that there's more how-to literature on writing out there that isn't just a rehashing of the same old advice. It's practical and refreshing, and though I found myself reluctant to get engaged in her book, in the end I did just that, and I feel that my writer's toolbox has grown considerably for it.

If you want to write, and the idea of plotting makes you cringe, give this book a read.

Bently Little

Once the family moves, a very serious and diverse set of circumstances occur. Several deaths take place, the town is slowly overrun by evil spirits, and some very bizarre possessions happen--one involving a Molokan church growing hair.

I really appreciate how Bently handled the characters. Winning the lottery is supposed to be a good thing--as is anything that brings a person into money--but in this case, Bently provides what feels like a more realistic take on the matter. The father, Gregory, finds himself at odds because he no longer has purpose. He doesn't have to work for money and is no longer tightly connected with the town. He finds some pet projects, one of which is to help an old high school friend redevelop his café into a small entertainment venue, all of which wind up backfiring. Everything Gregory experiences in the book, the supernatural as well as his well-intentioned actions, drive him slowly insane. I cared about this man, and the rest of the family, because even though they had money their lives were tough. I was reminded of the main characters in Ed Lee's The Golem--also rich--and the reason I didn't care much for them was that they had options. I felt they could have walked away at any time and that their hardship was self-inflicted. In the case of The Town, the money won from the lottery was paid annually (I think @ 80K), the family spent most of the first check on the new house, and there was no walking away. They were stuck in their situation for at least a year, until the next check arrived. To make it even worse, the house they bought had a sordid history--unknown by Gregory at the time of purchase--and there was little to no chance of them reselling it.

Bently also tied the events in the story up very well in the end. So many strange things occur, that mid-way through I found myself thinking there was no way everything related. But through an interesting convergence of Molokan and Native American mythologies, Bently came up with a satisfying explanation that unified the deaths, possessions, and general craziness of the town. And to have the solution to the hauntings require the cooperation of the two cultures--through ritual and force--really reinforced the explanation of the hauntings.

I was unfamiliar with the term Molokan before reading this book, and while I didn't read it for a cultural lesson I found myself reading up a little on the culture. They're a fascinating sect of Christianity from Russia, and I think Bently's use of Molokans instead of the more familiar Catholics gave the book an interesting take on christian spirituality and mythology.

If you like  small-town horror and supernatural horror, this book should be on your list. I'll definitely pick up more of Bently's work down the road.

We don't see the golem used much in popular fiction. I can only recall one instance where I've seen it used--an old episode of the X-Files called Kaddish. Lee brings the reader a modern version of an old Jewish folk tale based on Judah Loew, a 16th century rabbi who created a golem to defend a Prague ghetto from anti-Semitic attacks. Lee brings the folktale to life with vibrant rituals and an exploration of a dark sect of Kabbalah based on Kischuph. The story revolves around the small town of Lowensport, Maryland. In 1880, a group of Jewish refugees from Prague,  led by the evil rabbi Gavriel Loew, construct two golems to defend themselves from the attack of the Conner clan, a local group of settlers lead by an ex-military deserter. The story is told in parallel with the present-day tale of Seth Kohn and his girlfriend Judy, who move into the old Lowen mansion and find themselves in the middle of a plan by Gavriel's great-great-great grandson to resurrect Gavriel as a golem and--you guessed it--take over the world, or at least small part of it.

I think the book presents an interesting bit of folklore, but aside from that, I didn't find much appealing here. I don't know if this work is representative of Mr. Lee's style (I'll have to read another to decide), but I had difficulty in getting into the book because of the language. The book is riddled with adverbs, which isn't necessarily a problem in and of itself but Lee uses them to such an extent that I found myself struggling to visualize much of anything in the book. For instance, twice in the work Lee uses the word 'paranoically' to describe two different characters.

"Of course!" But then [Judy] looked paranoically behind her. (pg. 24)

And

Czanek looked paranoically over his shoulder again. (pg. 52)

In both instances, Lee provides the action (the showing)--both characters look over their shoulder. The reader sees what the characters are doing and the context provides the tension. What does the word 'paranoically' bring to the reader? The reader is bumped from the story with such an awkward word. These are two instances, but they are representative of the work's style. I found myself jostled from the story with almost every turn of the page. This is what made the book feel like a first draft. I think the language could have been cleaned up and more appropriate description put in to help draw the reader deep into the story.

In addition to the language, I struggled with some key things Lee chose to focus on in the story. The reader gets two pages describing the video game Seth wrote and sold to make his millions, but the game itself has very little to do with the storyline. The reader also gets a lot of time spent on Switchgrass, the local cash crop, but again, other than providing a setting for characters to hide in, the Switchgrass and its use as a biofuel has little to do with the story. Whats more, the way the reader finds out many of these details was bothersome. Judy, being an ex-college professor, seems to know a bit about everything. Whenever the reader needs an explanation, or even when the reader doesn't, Judy pipes up to give details. Yet, when she's walking through the Switchgrass, the reader gets a strange gap in her knowledge:

Watch for snakes, she recalled the remarks of the man from the state. This new path was barely shoulder width. Did ticks live in switchgrass? No, she didn't think so. (pg. 194)

We get pages of infodump from this character, but when it comes to something as trivial as ticks, she seems at a loss.

So, style aside, is there a good story here? It's interesting in terms of the ritual and folklore of the golem, but I found myself struggling to care about what happened to any of these characters.

First, the 1880 story centers around a group of black-magic Jewish refugees (evil guys) locked in a struggle the Conner clan, with a group of local settlers led by an ex-military deserter and his cohorts (evil). I found neither side appealing, so I had no one to root for. Both sides wind up wiping each other out, leaving a single golem. I found nothing redeeming in the people on either side of this conflict. I initially had some sympathy for the Jewish refugees until it became clear that they were ousted by their own people in Prague because of their adherence to Kischuph. So while there's some satisfaction in having a bunch of bad guys kill each other, there's no one left at the end that I cared about.

The present-day story centers on Seth Kohn and his girlfriend Judy. Seth is a game designer lost his wife two years earlier and struggled through a bout of alcoholism. His girlfriend is an ex-college professor who struggled with crack addiction. They met in rehab. But when the story opens, both have recovered, Seth has made millions on his video game, and they buy Seth's dream home near Lowensport, Maryland. These people have everything, so I also had trouble sympathizing with either of them. During the course of the story, Judy falls off the wagon and gets raped several times by local drug dealers as part of the plot to recover Gavriel Lowen's head from the mansion, but by the time this all happens I, as a reader, have already disconnected from her as a character.

Compare these two with the main characters in Nate Kenyon's novel Bloodstone. Billy Smith is an ex-convict, guilty of drunk driving and manslaughter. Billy is paired with Gloria Johnson, a heroin addict and hooker. These are sympathetic characters at low points in their lives, victims of circumstance to a degree. The reader cares about Billy, who has done his time but still lives burdened by the guilt of his crime. The reader cares about Gloria, a victim of drug addiction who, at the start of the story, is near the end of her rope. We cheer them on, we want them to get better.

Overall, I think The Golem provides little in the way of a good writing or good story telling. But I have to admit, if this book is ever made into a move, I will watch it. I think there are some visually stunning scenes: the Kischuph ritual of golemancy, the dynamiting of the mill, and of course the murderous mayhem inflicted by the golems. I have a deep love for horror movies, and I'm much more forgiving of story in exchange for the visual appeal.

I look forward to giving Lee's work another chance. If you have suggestions of what is representative of Lee's writing, post a comment. I'd love to hear from you!

I decided to create my own templates based on his guidelines and offer them here for all to use. I emailed Mr. Shunn several times over the past year to ask permission to post these, and never received a response. I decided to go ahead and offer them anyhow, and if Mr. Shunn objects, I will remove them.

Shunn has three format guidelines: Short Story, Novel, and Poem. While I write poetry for my own amusement, I don't try to market it, so my templates only include Short Story and Novel. If there's enough interest in a Poem template, I'll add it.

Instructions

1. Download the zip: Shunn OpenOffice Templates
2. Extract to any directory. You should see two files: "Shunn Novel Format.ott" and "Shunn Short Story Format.ott"
3. In OpenOffice Writer, select File >> Templates >> Organize from the menu.
4. In the left-hand pane, double-click "My Templates" from the list.
5. On the right-hand side, select Commands >> Import Templates....
6. Browse to the extracted files and select one. It should now appear in the left-hand pane under "My Templates".
7. Repeat steps 5 and 6, selecting the other file.

That's it! You should now be able create a new document by selecting File >> New >> Templates and Documents. You should now have two new templates listed!

I am also working on a set of templates for Microsoft Word since I sometimes use it as well.

Leave comments if you have questions or suggestions for improvement!

The first thing that I noticed is the uniqueness of every character.  I was familiar with the book prior to reading it, and had an admittedly biased expectation that at least some of the characters would be backwater rednecks.  Piccirilli, however, invests each character with a distinct personality that I don't believe fit any stereotypes.  Further, I expected at least some of the dialog to have poor diction.  Again, I was totally wrong.  Most of the dialog uses good diction--Piccirilli makes very prudent use of "ain't"s throughout, for which I'm grateful.

But--why did I have those expectations?  As a reader, I'm not sure I would have ever noticed the very subtle use of regional dialect.  As a writer, however, I noticed it because I often fail at capturing dialect or using it properly.  Reading Piccirilli's book has made me aware that my failure comes in large part from personal bias.  I'm born and bred mid-west; I've lived in Ohio my whole live, though I've been fortunate enough to travel to many states and abroad.  But still, part of me connects southern dialect with uneducated, not through any conscious decision, but simply from my experiences (or lack thereof).

But the characters presented in A Choir of Ill Children are anything but uneducated.  They lack formal education, but are full of the knowledge and experience life offers in such a setting.  We're told as much in one section where Thomas, the main character, reflects the fallacy of his father who built schools for the county:

The schools sat empty until the storm and wind damage wore them away inch by inch.  You couldn't blame the people of Potts County just because the board of education hadn't offered any kind of a useful curriculum.  Chemistry in a tube wasn't pertinent.  The wheel of the universe didn't turn when the cream went bad.  Logarithms, geometry, and algebra did not apply to the height of the river during flood season.  (p. 24)

So throughout the story we find characters who speak with very little regional dialect, which I believe helps the reader see them as honest people and not just a collection of rednecks.

So if these aren't rednecks, who are they?  Piccirilli presents a truly unique and memorable collection:  a biker obsessed with fencing, a pair of drug-addled film students, a monastery dedicated to The Flying Walendas, backwater granny witches who fight to stave off storms, a child molester and the ghost of one of his victims, and a mute girl who appears from nowhere.  There is also Thomas, heir to a huge house, a sizable family fortune, and The Mill--the town's only sustainable business.  The story is told from Thomas's point of view, in present tense, with calm clarity and deep inquiry into the events that surround him.

Thomas also has three brothers, which I hesitate to count as more than a single character,  conjoined at the frontal lobe, sharing a pineal gland, and at times speaking as one although each has a distinct voice as well.  Ah, this must be the backwater, uneducated redneck of the book.  Well, no:

Sebastian is full of malice, Jonah with regret, and Cole speaks of love and nothing but love, no matter how hideous his words. (p. 1)

Interesting.  Or how about:

My brothers speak as one, each mouth working like a pipe organ, playing a different portion of their communal speech.  It's the way that the brain works.  The "ch" goes to Sebastian, along with the glottal noises, "uh" and "ooh," "ing," names of foreign countries and pronouns, anything that brings the teeth together.

Jonah gets the hisses, the "ph" and drawn-out orgasmic "eeeeeee," titles of symphonies and sit-coms, all the poetry.

Cole is left with the growls and hard consonants, the adverbs, numbers following ten, dirty words, colors, sweet nothing, and every predicate. (p. 5)

Now that's one (or is it three) intriguing character.  So what's this guy sound like when he speaks?  Just a sample:

Jonah's up there already beginning to squawk and croon, the poetry pouring into the air.  "For where she lies, my swept drifted spirit follows, the course unmatched and not known, nor cared for, whether it dies or is kept..." (p. 22)

And again, later, Thomas describes Jonah's poetry as he tries to woo Sarah (one of the drug-addled film students):

His sonnets have poorly stressed syllables but the meaning is worthy.  He has talents that would have meant something a century ago. (p. 90)

So very clearly this, the most deformed character in the book, is not a redneck but a complex character who is more than capable of the full range of human emotion.  This is, in my opinion, one of the most interesting and challenging characters I have ever encountered in horror.  I think Piccirilli plays against the reader's bias, particularly in this case, to develop interesting characters that the reader can relate to.

Later in the story, Velma Coots (a granny witch) tries to convince Thomas to give some of his sperm for a brew to stave of a storm of souls.  Their brief dialog is follows, with Thomas speaking first:

"What the hell do you want from me?" I ask.

"Jest a little blood and vinegar, there, in the pot."

"Vinegar?"

"Some of yer seed."

"My seed?"

"Sperm."

"You've got to be shittin' me." (p. 51)

I call this out to because Velma Coots's diction, a backwater witch, has minimal dialect--just two words of improper English: jest, and yer.  Even this woman's dialog is kept relatively clean, letting the reader focus more on what's being said than how it's being said.

Another example of fine dialog is found when Thomas speaks with Abbot Earl of The Holy Order of the Flying Walendas, a man who used to drive a bulldozer for Thomas's father.  Abbot Earl wants to discuss Lucretia Murteen with Thomas, a prominent nun of the order who the Abbot was once intimate with.  Thomas tells the Abbot he has nothing to be ashamed of, and Abbot Earl replies:

"And I'm not, to be sure.  But it's also true that she's been acting...reticent lately.  Perhaps a bit taciturn.  She refuses to tell me what's bothering her.  I'm afraid that these troubles are actually making her consider leaving us." (p. 86)

Once again, through using words like "reticent" and "taciturn", Piccirilli shows the reader that this man is not just some dumb redneck who runs a strange cult of acrobat worshipers.  The word choice gives the reader a sense of depth to the character.

The last character I want to touch on is Darr, a biker who has a couple run-ins with Thomas.  On their second encounter, Darr and Thomas come face-to-face, and Darr asks Thomas a question:

"You know what I simply cannot stand?" he asks me.

"I'll play along since this has the structure of a rhetorical question.  What is it that you cannot stand?"

"Fencing."

I clear my throat.  "Fencing?"

"Watching fencers who have no notion of the hardcore reality behind the art form.  They think it's a sport, the damn fools.  Or worse, some kind of performance they're putting on for their mamas, like ballet or synchronized swimming.  It was never meant to be a sport.  You've got to have convictions to live with the blade.  Belief.  True belief, that's it, that's what I'm talking about.  But those players, they might as well be shooting hoops or sliding into third base.  They never embrace the...the tenets, the ideology behind that discipline."

"I can't say that I have an opinion one way or the other."

"Trust what I'm tellin' you.  No matter how much training they go in for they always got that swashbuckling bullshit fantasy going on in their heads.  No way around that for most of 'em.  They feel gallant sashaying around with their Musketeer sword, lunging after each other on the mats, shouting in French like it means somthin' special when they can't even pronounce the words.  With those silly helmets on over their faces, you shouldn't be caught dead in one'a them, and the machines buzzing when they tap each other on the chests." (p. 119-120)

Now clearly this biker has not only been exposed to fencing--something most would consider an upper class sport--but he's put the time into contemplating the sport and how it relates to him.  This, and the subsequent dialog, give Thomas (and the reader) a unique insight into this biker character:

Not only does Darr expect the world to handle itself but he's also got high hopes for the logic of his assertions to eventually come to validity all on their own.  Maybe he's talking in metaphor.  I wonder if this is some vague attempt at intimidation. (p. 121)

Is that a threat?  How does one respond to a man like this?  I think Thomas's reaction reinforces Darr's character by matching closely what most people would think.

I have one more section of dialog to call out.  Whether Piccirilli meant this to reinforce the idea that the people of Potts County are anything but uneducated, or whether he simply meant it to be funny I can't say.  But to me, it works well in both ways.  This is an exchange between some minor characters in Leadbetter's, the local bar.  One character, Verbal Raynes, was recently left by Gloria, a woman who has decided to return to her husband Harry.  Gloria and Harry left for a second honeymoon, and left their kids with poor Verbal:

"No wonder she and Harry are lookin' so sprightly these last couple weeks.  I thought it was just 'cause they were heading to the Caymans, but--"

"The hell's the Caymans?  That near Gainesville?"

"Western Caribbean, a peaceful British Crown Colony known as the Cayman Islands."

"What?"

"Consists of three islands just 480 miles south of Miami.  The Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac, and Little Cayman."

"Goddamn!"

"Me and Deeder went down there once, few years back, after the insurance settlement came through for when we caught the game warden illegally tapping our phones."

I found the interjection on the Caymans funny and revealing.  These people don't all just sit around the bar drinking (well, maybe most of the time) but have been exposed to the world at least enough to know that there's a bigger world out there.

The last thing I would like to touch on is the story itself.  I said I had to read it twice, and I believe this will be a book I pick up every year or so to reread because I have trouble understanding exactly what the story is about.  And I realized why on the second reading.  Piccirilli poses so many story questions, using a setting and characters that feel like a fevered dream, that I struggled to keep track of what all the events meant.  But on this second reading, I realized that not all the events are necessarily important to the story.  Piccirilli admits as much in the last chapter, where Thomas reflects on the events and goes through all the unanswered story questions and dismisses them in one way or another.  Normally, I would say that it's bad form to leave major story events unanswered, but in this case I can accept it.  I think many of the unanswered events serve to build the characters and setting and need no explanation.  But the risk is overwhelming the reader with questions and not satisfying them at the end.

This is one helluva ghost story.

The advice found in these final chapters still mirrors advice found in the wonderful On Writing Horror, another collection of How-To articles by some of horror's best writers circa 2007.   But here's one thing I've learned from reading both books (and a slew of other How-To books) that's not actually in either.  I'm sick of reading How-To books on writing.  In my genre session during last writer's residency, Dr. Arnzen commented that if all you read are how-to books, then all you'll be able to write are how-to books.  I've grown to appreciate his statement.  With that, let me get through this and hopefully I'll be done with anything How-To for a while.

Sexist Stereotypes and Archetypes: What to Do with Them/What the Writing Woman Can Hope For, Jeannette M. Hopper

Hopper starts off with the keen observation that women and men are different kinds of creators and then questions where sexism exists in publishing today (circa 1987).  She provides three traditional roles of female characters in SF/F/H and gives a nice breakdown of each.

The stereotypes she discusses didn't interest me much.  I try to avoid stereotypes, be they gender or otherwise, in my writing once I became aware that I was using them--mostly as a result of picking stock characters.  They're relevant and still a problem today (think of the helpless victim), but I feel I'm taking all the right steps to avoid promoting them in my work.  The section closes with advice of making your characters unique--advice found time and again in work about characters and characterization.

What did catch my attention, though was her discussion on what struggles a woman writer faces.  She talks about how it's easy for a new woman writer to "blame her lack of success on others' prejudices."  To me, this argument parallels that of getting published requires being "in the club."  And she uses pretty much the same objections: editors buy good stories.  Hopper also provides some interesting discussion on whether there's intentionally balancing of male and female protagonists, and pretty much boils it back down to the same idea:  editors buy good stories.

So if you want to get published, write a good story.

"They Laughed When I Howled at the Moon", Richard Christian Matheson

Matheson's piece addresses the closeness of humor and horror.  He makes his point with a discussion on Ed Gein, and how jokes popped up pretty much all over Wisconsin within hours of the first news stories.  Except for the town where Ed lived and did his dirty work.  Why?  Matheson says the tension there was too great for anyone to find the humor.

His point is that getting humor into horror requires just the right amount of tension.  Too much or too little and the humor is lost.  I find that the humor surfaces by itself as I write--which in my case is not often, but I'm okay with that.  I find one way is to let the characters break tension with their own form of humor.

The Psychology of Horror and Fantasy Fiction, Katherine Ramsland, Ph.D.

Ramsland's article was a little difficult for me, as she had a lot of psychoanalytical language in it.  But, I did get some bits from it that I could relate to.  She supports the idea that horror springs from isolation, and gives a unique bent on the idea that it springs from the fact that we can never truly know ourselves because our current moment of experience can never be understood... man, or something like that.  Anyhow, however she choose to put it, the idea still comes through.  Isolation is a fundamental part of the human experience, and it terrifies us.  Horror gives us a place to explore the fear of isolation, and related fears, in relative safety, engaging them vicariously through the characters.  And I think she says this goes for both reader and writer, but that the writer goes beyond.

So, for the storyteller, dark fantasy goes beyond just the function of contacting the primal self; it launches him across the spectrum where human existence shades into nothingness, closer and closer to the vulnerability of total individual isolation in the face of destructive forces.

As my work has grown, I have noticed some patterns that show my own fears of isolation.  And as I've noticed those patterns, I see what makes my work stronger--tackling them head on.

Fantasy and Faculty X, Colin Wilson

When a writer says to himself, "I have an interesting problem...," he induces in himself the same state of mind a child feels when his mother says, "Once upon a time..."  This is the proper starting point of any novel.

Wilson presents an interesting view on the writer's mindset.  He tells us that we have to get right into the scene, become a part of it, and fully visualize it.  He compares the this technique to something called Faculty X, an ability to put oneself into another time and place, which he coined for one if his books.  The visualization advice is not new to me, but Wilson provided some pretty cool supporting scientific background on the idea.

He tells us how the brain is split into two halves--most of us know this already--each with its own set of abilities.  The left is considered the seat of logic and scientific ability, while the right is considered the seat of artistry and conceptualization.  He cites research by Roger Sperry and Michael Gazzaniga that determined that what we consider ourselves is the left half.  Most of us are out of touch with the right half.  Further, they discovered that the two halves run at different speeds: the right is slow and the left is fast.  And here's the neat part: the writer (or any productive artist for that matter) works best when the two halves run at the same speed and freely communicate.

I have spent much time trying to figure out why sometimes I can fall into my writing and other times I cannot.  I knew vaguely that it had to do with being relaxed, although I also found that much of the time I can get right into it when I'm all jazzed up on caffeine--clearly not a relaxed state.  Wilson provides an important answer:

There are two basic methods for re-establishing contact between the two selves.  One is to soothe yourself into a deep state of relaxation, so the left slows down.  The other is to stimulate yourself into a state of intense excitement--the younger generation does it with loud music and strobe lights--so the right begins to move faster.  Both these techniques have the same effect; the two halves are like two trains running on parallel tracks at exactly the same speed, so the passengers can lean out of the window and talk...

While what Wilson says may seem simple, it helped me understand that I can use different techniques to achieve the same state of a synchronized mind and get into my writing.  And the more I've thought about it, the more convinced I am that the excited state works better for me.  I'm going to get another cup of coffee...

A "Do" List for Getting Your Literary Agent, Mary T. Williamson

Williamson's article is pretty standard advice for getting an agent, and why you need an agent.  There are a series of recent posts by Jim C. Hines that support the idea using some survey results:  First Novel Survey Results.  Pretty much, the best bet for getting a novel published (assuming you've written a good novel) is through an agent.

So the rest of the article gives tips on things like writing a query letter, submitting only what you're asked for, and being professional in general.  There's another point to the process that Williamson doesn't state directly, but I think is very important for writers to recognize.  The process is there to ensure quality, but it is also serves to gauge how easy an author is to work with.  No one wants to work with a jerk (trust me).  Follow the process, listen to instructions, and work with your agent.  Getting through the process takes time, but the process is there for a reason.  The agent will buffer you from the business aspects and let you concentrate on writing.

Putting It on the Editor's Desk, Alan Rodgers

Rodgers' article falls in line with the previous one by Williamson.  He provides a list of process considerations the writer should follow when submitting work to an editor.  With respect to format, that's pretty easy:  use a standard one.  I use William Shunn's Proper Manuscript Format guide, and have even developed a set of OpenOffice templates from his guides (he provides templates for WordPerfect).

Rodgers is undecided on a cover letter, and I have no opinion yet either.  I haven't gotten that far in the game yet.  I hope to have an agent handle all that stuff for me, but we'll see.

I found the next part a little funny.  This article is copyright 1987, and that's pretty obvious once Rodgers gets into the protocol around copies.  With the advent of home printers, whether or not to send a copy is an unlikely question.  Most people will simply print another copy, or take it to Kinko's (er... FedEx Office) and have another copy run off on high-quality bond.  For any agent or editor out there still concerned, relax--I won't be sending you a carbon copy anything soon.  I promise.

The last thing Rodgers covers is simultaneous submissions.  I think that's pretty simple to address today as well, with the major market guides being available online or at the local library.  Rule of thumb still holds true, though: no simultaneous submissions.  Unfortunately, that's part of what makes the process of getting either an agent or an editor so long.

The Mechanics and Mystique of Submitting Your Novel, Patrick LoBrutto

Continuing in the vein of the publishing process, LoBrutto brings advice on submitting a novel.  Much of it aligns with the previous two articles--get an agent and follow instructions.  He also makes mention of some outdated items such as don't send dot-matrix printouts (I still remember the harsh buzz and scrap of my first dot-matrix printer).  Don't give the editor or agent a reason to toss your manuscript aside unread.  Submit professional quality work.  All of this advice falls under what he calls the "Writer of the Past", meaning the long, hard road to publication as an unknown.

The second part LoBrutto calls the "Writer of the Future".  The advice he provides isn't about some secret shortcut around the publication process; it's about how to eliminate the element of being an unknown.  And his advice boils down to two words: meet people.  LoBrutto recommends attending conventions and conferences.  Put in some face time with the industry.  Meet the people you might send work to.  Name recognition helps.

On the subject of conferences, LoBrutto says that at least in SF, the people who attend can be cliquey.  Those who attend alone can find themselves feeling left out.  I had such an experience the first time I attended the Context convention.  I don't blame anyone there--I chose to go alone, and I had a great time at the workshops.  But, I would have felt much more at ease if I had taken a friend with me.  It's like going to any big party--it's always more fun when you know someone there.

If LoBrutto were writing this article today, I suspect he would also suggest using social media tools like Twitter and Facebook to make connections.  You don't have to say a lot or be everyone's friend, but I've found encouragement in seeing how wide a social net I have and how many industry connections I can make through these tools.  A writer needs to build a platform, and that means getting name recognition.  Use whatever ethical and reasonable means you can to get your face out there.

At first, this might seem contradictory to the "club" mentality--that it's who you know that gets you published.  But I don't think so.  There's a fine line between being with the "in-crowd" and name recognition.  You can build name recognition without being everyone's friend.  I don't have to be able to call up an agent on their personal line any time I want to have name recognition.  You can have name recognition and not be liked.  I guess to me that's the difference.  You don't have to like me, but I want you to recognize my name and the work that's associated with it.

Darkness Absolute: The Standards of Excellence in Horror Fiction, Douglas E. Winter

Last term I read Winter's insightful book on King, Stephen King: The Art of Darkness.  I found this article equally insightful because he approaches his topic not as a series of rules, but as a series of principles.  Where rules enforce boundaries, principles offer guidance.  A subtle, yet important, difference.  Winter tells us there is no recipe for success when it comes to quality fiction, but that a developing writer can grow their skill by applying these principles.  He also makes it clear that his advice isn't about achieving fame and fortune, and that bestsellerdom "is more often the result of extrinsic factors."  The more I've studied the publishing industry and what it takes to be a novelist, the more I've come to believe this as well.  I believe King said in On Writing, that his Carrie deal was like winning the lottery.

I'm going to stop here.  Why?  I've already done a piece on this article in part five of my series on On Writing Horror.  But, I left that earlier paragraph because it seems I've learned a little something since I read this article the first time.  And, I think this article demonstrates what I've said many times already: much of the advice you find on writing is timeless.  Markets change, genres blend, but the skills and mindset needed to be a writer have stayed pretty much the same over the years--at least in the 20 years that separate these two books, and most likely for longer.  So, here's what I originally said of this article:

I like how Winter starts.  He says there is no recipe for success, but there are principles that provide guidance.  Again, he repeats items found elsewhere, but I think that's okay.  I think it's more than okay, actually.  The repetition is a demonstration of the truth, and for all of these writers to say the same thing should indicate that it's advice worth taking.

Winter offers the following principles:

• Originality is unachievable if all you do is imitate.  Be familiar with the genre, admire other authors, but don't try to write like them.
• Originality cannot be taught.  Is is something we each much discover.
• Horror is an emotion, not a genre.  Study across genres and look for horror in other places.
• Readers must have an emotional stake in the characters.  Make the reader care.  Give the reader the characters' perception.
• Juxtaposition of normal and abnormal is much more effective when the normal, or ordinary, is the more pervasive.
• Everyday life may be mundane, but it is also the mystery at the core of humanity.  The fundamental questions we all ask have no answer.  Likewise, modern horror is not about the explanation.  It is about the mystery itself.
• Know the boundaries between good taste, bad taste, and taboo - not to stay in one and out of the other, but to make the boundary crossing a conscious decision.  A good horror writer will cross the boundaries.  (I like this one.  I like crossing boundaries and showing people what's on the other side.)
• Concentrate not only on shock, or not on shock at all, but on the emotions.  Being suggestive can have more impact than being explicit.
• Don't be afraid to add social commentary or subtext to the story.
• Be subversive.  Conformity as salvation is a thing of the past, modern horror sees conformity as 'the ultimate horror'.
• Great horror is rarely about monsters.  It is about us.
• The ending must payout as well as payback.  I think that means the ending must survive the cynical sensibilities of the modern reader.  It's not enough for some neat and tidy solution to wrap things up any more.  Endings can be messy.  I like what he says about the conclusion: "...it is the vehicle by which the reader is awakened from your nightmare and returned to his workaday world."

Writing horror is a forward-facing activity.  We can build on foundations, but as writer's we should be aware that horror lies not in the tropes, but in the emotions those old tropes used to evoke.  How do we go about invoking those emotions in the modern-day reader?  That's a question I'll probably be asking myself the rest of my life.

I'm still trying to figure that last one out.  Give me time, for chrissakes!  It's only been six months since I read it the first time!

Overview of Horror, SF and Fantasy: A long-range Market Study, Janet Fox

And here we are at the end of yet another wonderful series of How-To articles.  How better to end than with the most important part of writing popular fiction: the markets.

Fox uses most of the article to give a core listing of markets to help the new writer explore the field.  But she introduces it with some alternative sources and markets.  She suggests networking, regional magazines, children's magazine, and tells us that speculative fiction could potentially fit into any market--she cites anecdotal evidence of friends selling to biker magazines.  And she's right.  Good fiction succeeds anywhere it's relevant, not just in the genre magazines.

Since this was mostly market listings, I decided to do a little study of my own.  How many of the markets listed by Fox are still operating today?  This may not be entirely correct, as I only did my fact checking on Duotrope's Digest, Wikipedia, and Google.

Still in operation:

1. Analog (magazine): http://www.analogsf.com/
2. Isaac Asimov's SF Magazine (magazine - Asimov's): http://www.asimovs.com/
3. The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (magazine - F&SF): http://www.sfsite.com/fsf
4. Sword and Sorceress (anthology): http://www.mzbworks.com/
5. Baen Books (publisher): http://www.baen.com/
6. Bantam Books (publisher - Bantam Dell): http://www.randomhouse.com/bantamdell/
7. DAW Books (publisher - under Penguin Group): http://us.penguingroup.com/static/pages/daw/index.html
8. Del Ray Books (publisher): http://www.randomhouse.com/delrey/
9. The Donning Company/Publishers (publisher): http://www.donning.com/
10. Leisure Books (publisher - imprint of Dorchester Publishing): http://www.dorchesterpub.com/
11. Tor Books (publisher): http://www.tor.com/
12. Space and Time (magazine & publisher): http://www.spaceandtimemagazine.com/

Not in operation (or at least not on Duotrope):

1. Aboriginal SF (magazine):  1986 - 2001
2. Amazing Stories (magazine): 1926 - 2005
3. Dragon Magazine (magazine): 1976 - 2007
4. Night Cry (magazine): 1985 - 1987
5. Omni (magazine): 1979 - 1995
6. Rod Serling's Twilight Zone Magazine (magazine): 1981 - 1989
7. Shadows (anthology): 1978 - 1981
8. Synergy: The New Review of Science Fiction (anthology): 1987 - 2004 (?)
9. Fantasy Book (magazine):  ? - ? (couldn't find them on the web)
10. Fantasy Macabre (magazine): 1980 - 1996
11. Grue (magazine): 1953 - 2004 (?)
12. The Horror Show (magazine): ? - ? (David B. Silva now runs Hellnotes)
13. Pandora (magazine): ? - ? (couldn't find them on the web)
14. Eldritch Tales (magazine): 1978 - 1995
15. Weirdbook (magazine): 1984 - 1997

A little more than half of the markets Fox listed in 1987 are gone.  But what that tells us is that the markets are ever-changing.  If you search Duotrope for horror markets, it comes back with 265 primary results, so there are still plenty of places publishing horror.

That's it for this book.  In the next week or so, I'll be posting a journal on Tom Piccirilli's A Choir of Ill Children.  I would have done it sooner, but man... I had to read it twice.