One of my favorite films of the Seattle International Film Festival’s annual Fantasy Short Film Festival is view-able on Vimeo! Enjoy!
In the Beginning…
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Author Archives: Stephen Merlino
The War on Obscurity
What did I do for the month after I sent out all the Kickstarter rewards? I launched what I’m calling
THE WAR ON OBSCURITY!
For an indie author, obscurity is public enemy #1. Of course, the more reviews a book has, the easier it is for readers to make a decision about it, but there’s more: to be taken seriously by the best publicity engines out there, a book needs at least 25 reviews on Amazon and Goodreads.
So, January’s Target was to Acquire Book Blog Reviews
What the Heck is a Book Blog?
I didn’t know, either. But it turns out there are thousands of book bloggers–book lovers who’ve taken to posting their own reviews of books in a blog. They don’t get paid, and they don’t HAVE to review anyone. Authors contact them with an attractive pitch and request, and the bloggers accept or decline.
If they accept, the book goes in their To Be Read pile, and months later a review appears on the their blog, Amazon, and Goodreads.
In January, I Queried 127 Book Bloggers
These I found in The Book Reviewer Yellow Pages (exactly what it sounds like, in heft and content) and Indieview. I started with a base pitch email, but each had to be individualized to fit each bloggers requirement policy, preferred genres and formats, and flavor/tone of their blog site.
I Heard Back from 22!
Believe it or not, that’s really good results! The marketer who coached me submitted a book recently to 200 reviewers, landed 20 reviews, and was happy with that. She says 10% is standard, so I’m very pleased with my 17%!
Here’s a Sample Line from my Spreadsheet
Website Blogger Date Queried JOS Sent Est.Post
SFBook.com Vanessa Dec28/Jan28 (Pbk 1/13) Mar 15
You can see too that I queried Vanessa twice—that was b/c she didn’t respond to the first query. I figure, why not send again after a month? Reviewers get busy. Maybe she didn’t reply because she was over whelmed with requests and had to delete a bunch, unread; or maybe my pitch didn’t catch her attention and she deleted it. Who knows? In any case, I re-queried and made sure to re-target my pitch, and it worked! I’ll do the same for the other 100 who haven’t replied.
Here is a look at the full spreadsheet:
Kickstarter Before & After Photos
I have officially sent off all 100+ mailers to 17 different countries and as many states! Here is what our dining room table looked like at the height of mailing frenzy in December. Now it’s online and Amazon does the shipping! (Whew!)
Here’s what it looks like now. We can use our table for dinner again! 🙂 🙂 🙂
THE JACK OF SOULS Animation!
I asked Luke Shea, freelance animator/artist, to make a trailer for THE JACK OF SOULS. Due to my inexperience as an art director, what we ended up with is more of a YA primer to the world of the Jack, but whatever it is, it’s really fun, and Luke is amazing. (That’s also his voice as the narrator!)
Check it out here:
What’s Your Favorite Style of Book Cover?
Since I may be looking to create covers for my own epic fantasy novels, I am curious what sort of cover the top sellers use, and which my friends prefer. To make the choice easy and define the conversation, I’ve identified four main categories in top-selling fantasy novels:
1: The Definitive Character Close-up
2: The Open-ended Character Silhouette / Back View 
3: Otherworldly Landscape w/ Optional Foreground Figure
4: The Fantasy Icon
And below I’ve assembled a collection of thumbnails for each category. (Most of these I gleaned from Amazon’s top 30 epic fantasies — the ones with the “Look Inside” graphic. Those without the graphic are from B & N and Kobo.)
1 – DEFINITIVE CHARACTER SHOT (single figure, close-up to medium shot)
PROS & CONS
+ clear, definitive view of character
+ simple and uncluttered (good for thumbnail)
+ can include action and dramatic hooks
– leaves little of character’s appearance to imagination
– defines race*
*I suspect covers that don’t define the race of the main character–that leave race ambiguous–may appeal to a wider readership.
2) OPEN-ENDED CHARACTER SILHOUETTE OR BACK VIEW (medium shot)
PROS & CONS
+ some setting, fairly simple, high contrast good for thumbnail
+ leaves character appearance and race to imagination
+ can have action and dramatic hooks
– absence of face / fewer details of appearance may provide fewer emotional hooks
3) OTHERWORLDLY LANDSCAPE (long shot, optional lonely figure(s) in foreground)
PROS & CONS
+ inspires dreams of fantasy setting, defines nothing of character appearance
– provides no emotional hook via characters, action or drama
4) ICON COVER (thematic emblem only )
PROS & CONS
+ defines nothing of character appearance or even setting — the true black box cover
– provides no emotional hook via characters, action, drama, or setting
HAVE THOUGHTS ON THIS?
Leave a comment below! : )
Short Story Award
I just learned that my short story, “Outside the Game,” won first place in the Southwest Writers International Writing Competition! 
Many thanks to David Levine and Fairwood Writers, who helped me develop it.
“Outside the Game” is an alternative first chapter to The Jack of Souls, set in the same place the novel begins, but an hour before the events that start the novel.
I wrote it as a tool to gain attention for the novel (and because Harric is so much fun to write about!).
Here’s the link, if you want to check it out:
http://www.southwestwriters.com/contest/sww-annual-international-writing-contest/
THE JACK OF SOULS won first place in the PNWA Competition!
A week ago last night, I learned that my fantasy novel, The Jack of Souls, won the Pacific Northwest Writers Association’s unpublished novel competition for the Science Fiction/Fantasy category. I’m just getting over the shock, so I feel I can post it. 
The announcement ran after they cleared plates from the awards dinner at the conference. Before announcing winners, they announced the names of all eight finalists and their novels, ala Oscars format.
It took a long time. Cruelly, they served no wine at the tables.
As they listed each finalist and the title of their novel, I imagined a door of probability slowly closing. Six years ago I submitted to the contest and didn’t even make the finalists, so now with each finalist name, it seemed the door closed a little more. When they announced the second place winner, only a crack of light remained, so it was extremely surreal when they announced my name next and I saw The Jack of Souls on the screen.
I rose and accepted the award and sat again. I know this because I found myself at the dinner table with the same people I’d eaten with, the award folder in my hands.
Here’s the link to the results of all the category winners for the competition:
http://www.pnwa.org/?page=2014contestwinners
An agent/editor party followed, where I met some fun and interesting people including the agent who judged the contest. Good things in the offing!
THE JACK OF SOULS is a Finalist in the PNWA Competition!
Good news! Some of you know that I’ve written a fantasy novel called The Jack of Souls and have entered it in contests to refine and have fun with it before publishing.
This week I learned it’s a finalist in the Speculative Fiction category of the Pacific Northwest Writers Association’s writing contest!
I’m very grateful to make it this far, and it feels especially good because I didn’t make the cut last time I entered, six years ago. Winners are chosen by professional agents and editors in the field and are announced at a dinner on July 17.
In case you’re interested, here’s the link: http://www.pnwa.org/?page=2014finalists
Go, JOS!
Word Spotlight
Contraption.
This is a word to inspire stories. Today my son and daughter locked themselves in a room to do a “project.” Periodically, they left the room for the basement and returned with cardboard boxes, pieces of old toys or bits of insulation or string. When I asked if I could come in, my daughter said, “No, I’m building a contraption.”
I love that word.
Review: Assassin’s Gambit, by Amy Raby
I met Amy and Assassin’s Gambit in a Seattle critique group called Seattle Writers Cramp, where I was able to be a beta reader. Though I am not a romance reader, I really 
appreciated this story for its strong fantasy elements, its strong female lead, and especially for the risks Amy takes in developing sympathetic yet damaged main characters.
If you are a romance fantasy reader, I very much recommend this. And if you like it you’ll be glad to know it is part of a series (Hearts and Thrones) for which she has three other books out at the time of this review: Prince’s Fire, Archer’s Sin, and Spy’s Honor.
Though I didn’t have the good fortune of beta reading the others, I imagine they’re as carefully and imaginatively drawn as Assassin’s Gambit.
Let me know if you read it. I’d love to know if you agree!
Review: The Dispossessed, by Ursula Le Guin
The Dispossessed was recommended to me by Mark Seidl and Rebecca Edwards, with whom I traveled last summer on a Vassar History tour through Yellowstone and the surrounding area.
I confess it took me a while to adjust to the pace of the book, which I want to describe as lyrical and reflective. But once I settled in to that rhythm, I adored this book. It felt like a long meditation on the dehumanizing affects of capitalism.
To give you a taste of what I mean, here’s a line or two that I underlined for later pondering:
(I read the Harper Perennial Classics edition): 
(PHILOSOPHY SPOILER ALERT! If you want to read it and haven’t, stop now!)
“They think if people can possess enough things they will be content to live in prison” (138).
“…his anxieties as a property owner made him cling to rigid notions of law and order” (202).
“‘The law of evolution is that the strongest survives!’
‘Yes, and the strongest, in the existence of any social species, are those who are most social. In human terms, most ethical'” (220).
“The trouble with Odonianism (communal anarchy), you know, my dear fellow, is that it’s womanish. It simply doesn’t include the virile side of life. ‘Blood and steel, battle’s brightness,’ as the old poet says. It doesn’t understand courage–love of the flag” (286).
“We know that there is no help for us but from one another…You have nothing. you possess nothing. You own nothing. You are free. All you have is what you are, and what you give…We have no law but the single principle of mutual aid between individuals” (300).
“I think that’s why the old archisms used women as property. Why did the women let them? Because they were pregnant all the time–because they were already possessed, enslaved!” (332).
“There is nothing, nothing on Urras (capitalist/nationalist planet) that we Anarresti need! We left with empty hands, a hundred and seventy years ago, and we were right. We took nothing. Because there is nothing here but States and their weapons, the rich and their lies, and the poor and their misery. There is no way to act rightly, with a clear heart on Urras. There is nothing you can do that profit does not enter into, and fear of loss, and the wish for power. You cannot say good morning without knowing which of you is ‘superior’ to the other, or trying to prove it. You cannot act like a brother t0o other people, you must manipulate them, or command them, or obey them, or trick them. You cannot touch another person, yet they will not leave you alone. There is no freedom. It is a box–Urras is a box, a package, with all the beautiful wrapping of blue sky and meadows and forests and great cities. And you open the box, and what’s inside it? A black cellar full of dust, and a dead man. A man whose hand was shot off because he held it out to others” (346-7).
And of course this gorgeous simile:
“In a pen by himself the herd sire, ram or bull or stallion, heavy-necked, stood potent as a thundercloud, charged with generation” (206).
So many times I saw images of present day American capitalism reflected in these lines. Though written in 1974, it seems not much has changed, or if it has, it’s become more relevant, not less.
This is one I’ll put on the “keeper” shelf.
An Unsympathetic Protagonist – Meditation 1.0
I recently attended an author reading of a humorous supernatural fiction novel that shall remain nameless. After hearing several chapters from the beginning and middle, I found my self thinking, “The main character’s voice is hilarious, but the dude is a douche, a parasite who makes a living ruining other people’s lives; he never shows remorse for it, never justifies it, nor in fact does he ever give us the sense there is need for justification.
It brought up a question I have as a writer that is still not fully resolved. It is based on the assumption that a protagonist must be a sympathetic character. I used to think this meant the reader has to like the main character, or identify with her/him. A wise writer friend of mine suggested that we don’t have to like them, per se–nor particularly identify with them–but we do have to be able to sympathize with them, at least in some small way.
Breaking Bad
I suppose that’s why the protagonist of Breaking Bad was able to keep people with him for x seasons; he was despicable in many ways–more and more as the seasons passed–but viewers sympathized with his troubles and miseries. Likable? No. Sympathetic? Quite.
If I Laugh, Do I Sympathize?
Back to the supernatural novel. The only thing this protagonist had going was that he was funny as hell. His snarky voice made me chuckle. But sympathize? I don’t know.I suppose the roots of the word sympathy mean literally, “to feel with.” I guess if this unlikable protagonist is making jokes and I’m laughing, I’m sympathizing with him–literally “feeling humor with him.”
But that reasoning makes me dizzy and I still don’t feel I sympathized with him.
Not Funny Enough
So I bought the book based on the chuckles I got from the reading, but only read halfway through before I put it down. NOTE TO SELF: Turns out, funny isn’t enough to form that emotional attachment with a protagonist I need to want to spend a lot of time with them.
To be fair, the author seems to have cherry picked some of the funniest passages in the book to read to us, so maybe I lost sympathy simply because the rest just wasn’t funny enough. I was there for the cherry passages of hilarity, then…the ick showed through.
Until I meet another such character who is much funnier, I won’t know the answer.
Corollary Observation: The Comic Get-Out-of-Jail-Free-Card
A funny narrator can get away with much that would spoil a story with an ordinary narrator. for example, info dumps of exposition cause readers to skim ahead, or sigh and doggedly push through in hopes such dumps won’t come often.But I’ve read info-dumps that were so funny I didn’t care at all. My friend Craig has that knack. I could read his exposition all day.
So I remain undecided as to whether an unsympathetic protagonist can be similarly redeemed by being very, very funny.
If you know examples of characters that fit that bill, let me know! I’d love to hear your thoughts below.
SQUEEEEE! Quoth the Ringwraiths
My kids are finally old enough to watch Jackson’s The Fellowship of the Ring! Naturally, I excavated the extended version ( I ‘d carefully sheltered it from the family DVD bin that accelerates the laws of entropy), and we had a family movie night.
Watching it, however, I relived my initial disappointment with its world building at the level of sound. Specifically, I found myself rolling my eyes when the Black Riders showed up. Why? Because the sound engineers had an opportunity to imply worlds of weirdness with the sounds emanating from the ringwraiths, but instead used what has become the clip art of scary monster sounds — the high-pitched squeal of pigs.
Clip-Audio
It’s everywhere. Think about it. The sound of velociraptors in Jurassic Park? Pig screams. The six-armed invaders from Cowboys and Aliens? Pig screams. The weird proto-alien-squid monster aborted from the heroine of Prometheus? Pig screams! The mile-high Kaiju of Pacific Rim? Freaking pig screams! It doesn’t seem to matter if the creature is as big as the Empire State Building or as small as a terrier, it’s going sound like a psycho pig.
It’s as if the last time anyone put any effort into world building on the level of sound was when William Friedkin recorded the screams of pigs herded for slaughter for use in The Exorcist. Back then, this sound was original and brilliant and effective. Now it is the clip-audio of monster sounds. It’s as if Friedkin’s feat of sound imagination was so awe-inspiring that even Peter Jackson could find nothing more appropriate for the ghosts of the ancient kings of Middle Earth than the sound of shrieking swine.
(To be clear, I don’t know if he actually recorded pigs, per se–chances are a synthesizer could create it from scratch–but the two are virtually indistinguishable.)
I wish I could dub Teletubby tracks over it; I swear that would be scarier. (Or imagine a velociraptor making Teletubby sounds… Gives me a shiver!)
Visual Trumps Audio
I have to assume that Hollywood is so “visually” focused that it undervalues the value of sound in world building. But when I refer to sound as an element of world building, I think of it as a visual component. For example, when Legolas draws his funky elvish blade, and it goes schwing! in a perfect C major, I visualize clean, honed, shining steel. When the orc draw’s its blade it better not sound the same. For that we’ll need a gritty, metal-on metal scrape, so we visualize a rusted, blood-caked machete of a blade, which implies as much of orc culture as the schwing does of elves. (Wait…Okay, you know what I mean.) My point is this: sound choice can economically imply layers of visual detail, just as word choice can in prose.
What if the Audio had been as Brilliant as the Visuals?
Consider the layers of eerieness one could imply about the bizarre half-life of the ringwraiths if their sounds had instead been alluring or musical, like mournful pipe organs? Or flatly metallic? Or distant whispers like urgent messages heard through a long pipe? Or if they’d been utterly soundless/sound devouring as in Joss Whedon’s wonderful Buffy episode, “Hush?”
But no one does that any more. Even Cameron and his visually resplendent bioluminescent Avatar forests used the pig-scream clip-audio for the calls of his four-eyed flying mounts. (Look out! Flying pigs!) The aliens in Whedon’s Avengers were apparently from a pig planet, too. Those aliens, along with the invaders in Aliens and Cowboys, are obviously of highly intelligent, technologically advanced species, yet they had no discernible language or patterned vocalizations other than pig screams. And while I’m thinking of it, the advanced race of squid-headed aliens in Independence Day? Pig screams.
Bright Spots in Hollywood Monster Audio?
1) District 9’s aliens! Huzzah!
2) … ( Anyone…? Anyone…?)
Turn it Upside Down
Instead of striving for something “scary” sounding (sounds that are harsh, threatening, violent), I humbly suggest we do the opposite. Try giving the monster a voice that is lovely, or even ridiculous. Ever hear the voice of America’s favorite bad ass raptor, the American Bald Eagle? It’s not the haunting Kii! Kii! dubbed in for its appearance in Hollywood films or Colbert’s title sequence (that cool sound is actually the sound of a red-tailed hawk). The bald eagle’s voice is the fruity piping of a seagull on crack: “Keetle- KEETLE-keetle! Keetle-KEETLE-keetle!”
Hard not to giggle, the first time you hear it. But give that sound to a monster as it tugs the guts out of someone’s family dog, and the discordance would be quite chilling.
What’s Next? 
In less than a week we get to see The Desolation of Smaug and find out what the spiders in Mirkwood sound like! …Anyone want to make a guess?
Please let it be Teletubbies.
Re-imagine the Familiar
Tolkein’s Legacy
The reason you don’t see lots of new Tolkeinesque stories of halflings and dwarves and elves in the book stores is that those things have been done. Most people want something new. It isn’t that dwarves and elves and halfllings can’t be used in stories any more, it’s just that if you use them, you probably need to re-invent them in some unexpected–even iconoclastic–way in order to make them fresh again for the reader.
One could argue that the genre of urban fantasy is largely the result of just such a need for newness and rethinking. Black Blade Blues comes to mind, with its investment-banker dragons–what a wonderful re-imagining that is! (Who are the hoarders of gold today–the symbols of greed–if not the Gordon Geckos?)
I recently took my kids to the wonderful Crest Cinema to see the animated film, Rise of the Guardians, in which the artists reimagined the all too familiar figures of Santa and his elves. How did they reinvent them?
Santa became a burly, tattooed Russian with a rolling Russian accent, a huge rough laugh, and the words Naughty and Nice tattooed on his massive forearms. 
His “elves” were replaced with teams of huge and hairy yeti, who were responsible for all the toy making (as well as any fistfights that needed staffing).
Okay, there were elves present–the standard cliche elves with tiny bodies, cute faces and pointy ears and hats–who laid about (drunk, in my memory) and idle, as a kind of window dressing, but even that was a reinvention of elves.
As a result, the old tropes were again fresh and entertaining, and in some cases can even cause us to question our assumptions about the familiar (do Russians have a different idea of Santa?).
Another Fun First Contact Scene
The excerpt below is also from Mary Sisson’s Trust (see previous posting).
This scene actually precedes the one in the previous post (sorry–out of order, I know). it is actual moment of first contact when Daring Attack sees Trang and his marines before they have the universal translator present.
Since the universal translator is not yet in the scene, language is not the thing being held up in the “mirror” for us to examine. Instead, Daring Attack focuses on our physical form, which, to him is very strange as his species is an eye-less quadruped with no “head,” to speak of. His first guess is that the humans might be Mechanical Aliens (i.e. remotely operated drones operated by a third species of alien that can’t move around in air).
Excerpt One
He was closer to the Mechanical Aliens now. He could hear them.
“Oupa oupa oupa!” said one.
“Oupa oupa,” replied another.
The aliens were mostly sticking near their vehicle, folding something up. But one of them began walking closer to where Daring Attack was. As it came closer, Daring Attack realized with a start that it had only two legs.
A Two-legged Alien, not a Mechanical Alien, he thought. Unless the Mechanical Aliens also have only two legs.
No, he decided, as he watched the alien tip forward, lurch a leg underneath itself to keep itself from falling, and then repeat the process. It was a miracle the thing didn’t just flop over and wriggle about helplessly on the ground. This two-legged thing is too bizarre to have been ignored.
(And then later when they find the translator and can talk to him)
The Two-legged Aliens said they were happy to see him, which made Daring Attack wonder if he had overreacted when they surrounded him—maybe they had just been curious. In any case, after a few minutes of conversation with the diplomat, the four in the brush stepped back out into the clearing.
Not that talking to them was any less unnerving. Close up, Daring Attack could see that the aliens had this ball-shaped appendage that was connected to the rest of their body by only a slender stalk, which looked like it could be chopped through in an instant. This appendage never stopped wobbling—it would wobble when they talked, it would wobble when they were silent, and when they walked, the appendage wobbled atop their wobbly, lurching bodies.
It made Daring Attack dizzy.
God I love that. Those last four of five lines had me laughing out loud.
The First-Contact Mirror
Some of the best spec-fic holds up a mirror in such a way that we see aspects of our species/culture anew. Often this is accomplished by showing first contact. Ursula Leguin’s Left Hand of Darkness comes to mind, with its human diplomat arriving at a planet of hermaphrodites; also Larry Niven’s Ringworld, with its humans, puppeteers, and kzinti.
The First-contact Mirror
I recently found a hilarious first-contact mirror in Mary Sisson’s novel Trust (sequel to Trang), which follows the human diplomat Phillipe Trang as he interacts with five or six different species of alien.
In these scenes, inter-species communication is made possible by a Universal Translator device, which struggles to decode the expletives of the human space marines assigned to protect Trang. Since the POV in the scene is that of the alien, the results are hilarious and thought provoking.
Excerpt from Trust
(Setting: Trang and his marines meet the alien (named Daring Attack) near their crash site on a wild and remote part of an alien planet as a giant T-rex-like thing referred to as a “Giant Mankiller” approaches through the jungle. The dialogue starts with the marine nick-named Princess).
“I cannot see it,” said Noble Person, who was holding a machine to its face.
“Of course not—if it was that close, we’d be dead,” said Daring Attack.
“What distance—” Noble Person stopped.
“His units for measuring length—” said the diplomat.
“I am knowledgeable of that fact,” said Noble Person. “If the carnivore continues toward us at the rate of travel at which it is currently traveling, at what time will it reach us?”
“His units for measuring time—” said the diplomat.
“May it remain for eternity in the mythological place where the spirits of the ignoble dead reside!” said Noble Person.
“I express my regret,” said the diplomat.
(The marines then launch surveillance drones and show the video to Daring Attack):
“There it is,” said the alien holding the sheet.
“Sacred digestive by-product,” said Noble Person.
Daring Attack tried not to dwell on the fact that he was risking his life for people who worshipped digestive by-products. Instead, he noticed a large dark blob on the sheet.
“Mythological figure who regained life after being dead for three days and is engaged in reproductive activity, it is large,” said the other alien.
“Is that the carnivore?” asked Noble Person.
Daring Attack looked at the blob. Was that the Giant Mankiller? He couldn’t tell.
(When the marines send armed drones to attack the Giant Mankiller, the marines watch through video monitors, muttering…)
“Draw closer on, you small individual conceived in a socially inappropriate manner,” said the alien. “Draw closer and obliterate that buzzing flying insect that is engaging in reproductive activity with you.”
Has it gone insane? Daring Attack wondered.
After I was done howling with laughter, these are some of the things I found myself thinking about:
Why do humans use feces and sex in expletives? Okay, we’re primates, we like to throw poo, and now that we have words to do it with, we don’t need to get our hands dirty. I get that. But sex? Do all human cultures do that, or just puritanical Western ones? For that matter, do (puritanical) Islamic cultures do that? Do Hindis? Do the Chinese? The Japanese? Maori? Australian Aborigines? Are we all sex-and-potty mouths?
If you are fluent in these cultures, please comment and share.
The Joys of Verisimilitude in World Building
The Muse of Invention
One of the best things about speculative fiction is the joy of pure invention, riffing off of patterns we see in the Nature. The florescent flora of Miranda, in Avatar, comes to mind–stunningly beautiful, inspired perhaps by some of the bio-luminescence of the sea.
(Image of flora in Avatar) (Image of florescent sea anemone)
Michael Swanwick’s Stations of the Tide
Here is a passage from Stations of the Tide that I thought beautiful, inspired perhaps by the symbioses we see among sea creatures–from whales to crabs–like barnacles, remoras, and whale lice.
The orchid crabs were migrating to the sea. They scuttled across the sand road, swamping it under their numbers. Bright parasitic flowers waved gently on their armor, making the forest floor ripple under a carpet of multicolored petals, like a submarine garden seen through clear fathoms of Ocean brine.
Open Letter to Drew, Whose Last Name I Never Knew, Who Was Murdered in Our Neighborhood Spot, Cafe Racer
May 30, 2012
Dear Drew,
I saw you at Racer on days I came to write. One night you performed with your band, and I was impressed with the raucous creativity and character in your music. You kind of freaked me out, to be honest. The piercings, ink all over your hands and arms, weird-ass red dot make-up on your nose and cheeks. (Who does that? How does a guy like that get work to support his art?)
But I also admired it. I saw that I shared a similar dedication to creativity, and thought often about the different paths we took, both artists, but my path so safe, yours without any compromise I could see. And yet, don’t all paths require compromise? Don’t all ways exact sacrifice?
I took a cigar break one night on the bench outside the Racer, and you left the bar to have a cigarette. We exchanged a few words of greeting. When you finished your cigarette, you muttered, “Fuuuck…” and went back in. As in, “What the fuck do I say to a cigar-smoking dude without tats or nose rings and face dots, a guy with kids and a house?” Worlds of experience separate us. Or do they? Turned out, you were totally non-judgmental and open in later conversations. Interested even in the dermally unadorned. Eventually I hoped to learn where you came from, what influenced your decisions, when you chose your path, and what the deal is with those fucking red dots.
Your band mate, I think, was with you sometimes. She plays the fiddle, doesn’t she? She’d sit at the bar with an iPad while you drank and talked. Once on a Sunday morning I found the two of you two sitting outside, nursing beers, staring through a fog of cigarette smoke at a dressed-up young family crisply pushing a stroller up the street. The lady’s high heels clicked and echoed in still air between the buildings. They refrained from looking over at you, which made me smile.
“Better hurry up,” I said to you. “You’ll be late for church.”
“I got my church,” you said, toasting your can. “Church of Rainier.”
It wasn’t the first time I saw you at the bar before noon. Today was the last; through the photos from the security camera in the café I see you in your usual place at the middle of the bar, slumped and smiling like you just woke up and came down for pleasant company and a beer to ease into consciousness. The photo is taken from the moment the asshole entered, before anyone knew what he was up to. Ironically, I had been thinking of taking a day to write this week, and if it hadn’t been for a trick of rescheduling at work I might have been there today. I might have been the girl in the left side of the frame, above the asshole with the gun. We can see the paperback she holds (I wonder what she was reading, and why she’d come in that day. Was she stopping in for a quiet read before work? Taking a break from studying for her nursing exam—seems like there are lots of nursing students at Racer, poring over physiology texts). The guy a couple stools down was also reading.
They showed a second security frame with a more frontal view of the asshole’s face as he’s leaving. The time log at the bottom shows it was almost exactly a minute later. All the stools are empty now. Several are toppled. None of your companions remain at the counter, nor is the chef behind the counter, or the girl with the paperback at her chair. Her phone remains on the table in perfect alignment with the edge, as if she’d been waiting for the screen to light up. Your beer sits alone, exactly where it was a minute before.
I’ll never get to learn what brought you there. Never know what the hell was up with the red dots, or if our differences were illusion. I’ll never get to overcome my fear of your weirdness to see if we’re brothers. I’ll never know you. The rest is silence.
I’ll end this with a valediction from As You Like It, a play in which the character Touchstone is sometimes played with red dots on nose and cheeks.
Hereafter, in a better world than this, I shall desire more love and knowledge of you.
Rest in peace, Drew. No, scratch that. Why should the next world be restful? Burst upon it singing and inspiring spirits, as you did here in our neighborhood cafe.
Stephen Merlino
World Building Primer: THE TOUGH GUIDE TO FANTASYLAND, by Diana Wynne Jones
One of the best primers on fantasy world building I have seen is Diana Wynne Jones’s Tough Guide to Fantasyland. Wikipedia describes it as a loving sendup of common fantasy tropes, which it is, but it can also beread as a cautionary primer for writers against unexamined fantasy clichés. 
Years ago the book was recommended to me by the leader of Seattle Writer’s Cramp, Steve Gurr, when he pointed out some arbitrary apostrophes I’d inserted into place names or secondary character names in the novel I was submitting for critique at the time. (His point about the apostrophes wasn’t that one ought not use apostrophes in imaginary place names, but that if I am not a linguist, like Tolkien was, I might consider doing that sparingly. (And yes, Jones does have a humorous entry on Apostrophes in the book.)
I read all of Tough Guide to Fantasyland and found numerous inspirations to reconsider elements of my worldbuilding which I had not before examined.
Some of My Favorite Examples
COLOR CODING: is very important in Fantasyland. Always pay close attention to the color of the CLOTHING, hair and eyes of anyone you meet. It will tell you a great deal. Complexion is also important: in many cases it will be color coded too.
1. Clothing. Black garments normally mean EVIL, but in rare cases it may mean sobriety, in which cases a white ruffled collar will be added to the ensemble. Gray and red clothing mean that the person is neutral but ending to EVIL in most cases. Any other color is GOOD, unless too many bright colors are worn at once, in which instance the person will be unreliable. Drab color means the person will take little part in the action, unless the drab is also torn or disreputable, when the person will be a loveable rogue.
2. Hair. Black hair is EVIL, particularly if combined with a corpse-white complexion. Red hair always entails magical POWERS, even if these are only latent. Brown hair has to be viewed in combination with eyes whose color are the real giveaway (see below), but generally implies niceness. Fair hair, especially if it is silver-blonde, always means goodness.
3. Eyes. Black eyes are invariably EVIL; brown eyes mean boldness and humor, but not necessarily goodness; green eyes always entail talent, usually for magic but sometimes for music; hazel eyes are rare and seen generally to imply niceness; gray eyes mean niceness and healing abilities (see HEALERS) and will be reassuring unless they look silver (silver-eyed people are likely to enchant or hypnotize you for their own ends, although they are not always EVIL); white eyes usually blind ones, are for wisdom (never ignore anything a white-eyed person says); blue eyes are always GOOD, the bluer, the more good present; and then there are violet and golden eyes. People with violet eyes are often of Royal, and, if not, always live uncomfortably interesting lives. People with golden eyes just live uncomfortably interesting lives, and are usually rather fey in the bargain. Both these types should be avoided by anyone who wishes for a quiet life. Luckily it seldom occurs to those with undesirable eye colors to disguise them with ILLUSION, and they can generally be detected very readily. Red eyes can never be disguised. They are EVIL and are surprisingly common.
4. Complexion. Corpse-white is evil, and it grades from there. Pink-faced folk are generally midway and pathetic. The best face-color is brown, preferably tanned, but it can be inborn. Other colors such as black, yellow, blue and mauve barely exist.
So, if a character is wearing green, is blue-eyes and brown-faced, you will probably be okay. CAUTION: do not apply these standards to our own world. You are likely to be disappointed.
CLOTHING: Although this varies from place to place, there are two absolute rules:
1. Apart from ROBES, no garment thicker than a SHIRT ever has sleeves.
2. No one ever wears socks.
COATS: do not exist in Fantasyland–CLOAKS being universally preferred–but TURNCOATS do.
CLOAKS: are the universal outer garb of everyone who is not a barbarian. It is hard to see why. They are open in the front and require you at most times to use one hand to hold them shut. … etc.
Amazon Link
Consider reading this aloud to like-minded geek friends.
Light Brushstrokes in STATIONS OF THE TIDES
I take a lot of inspiration and instruction from Michael Swanwick’s Stations of the Tide. The book is full of fantastic inventions that he limns with only in the lightest brushstrokes. I referred to his “surrogate” technology in the post on “Filtering Setting Through Character POV”. In this post I want to share two other examples: one of the “jug” dwellings in the riverbanks on Miranda; the other of a drug/toxin derived from 
a bacterium or micro organism.
First, the jugs.
This far east, the farmland was too rich to squander, and save for the plantation buildings, most dwellings hugged the river. Unpainted clapboard houses teetered precariously on the lip of a high earth bluff. Halfway down to the water, a walk had been cut into the earth and planked over to serve a warren of jugs and storerooms dug into the banks itself (176).
He doesn’t tell us what a jug is. He just refers to them, because his POV character, the bureaucrat, knows what they are, and would not pay them any particular notice, so we don’ t get to either. It isn’t until eight paragraphs later when the bureaucrat is inside a cafe that we learn.
…In a niche by the table a television was showing a documentary on the firing of the jugs. There was antique footage of workers sealing up the new-dug clay. Narrow openings were left at the bottom of what would be the doors, and to the top rear of the tunnels. Then the wood packed inside was fired. Pillars of smoke rose up like the ghosts of trees and became a forest whose canopy blotted out the sun. The show had been playing over and over ever since its original broadcast on one of the government channels. Nobody noticed it any more.
“The heat required to glaze the walls was—” The bureaucrat reached over and changed the channel (176-177).
What I love about this is that he trusts me as a reader enough to let me hang for eight paragraphs before I find out what it means. Yes, I had to read the first description twice, because I didn’t know what a “jug” was, but there was enough context for me to assume it was some kind of dug-out dwelling space, and that was enough for me to go on till I got some more description.
He could have explained it right away: …a warren of storerooms and jugs, ceramic-walled rooms carved from the clay and baked in place with massive internal bonfires or something, but that would have bogged down the action at hand.
In the end, was this neat invention relevant to the action at hand? No. in that regard it’s a throwaway detail. But in terms of sustaining the protagonist’s sense of alien landscape and people, a kind of stranger-in-a-strange land vulnerability and therefore tension—it was.
Here’s how he introduces the drug/toxin.
Pouffe sat opposite the two of them, his back to the land. His face was puffy and unhealthy in the window light. His eyes were two dim stars, unblinking…
Gregorian walked over to Pouffe, and crouched. He cut a long sliver of flesh from the old shopkeeper’s forehead. It bled hardly at all. The flesh was faintly luminous, not with the bright light of Undine’s iridobacteria but with a softer, greenish quality. It glowed in the magician’s fingers, lit up the inside of his mouth, and disappeared. He chewed noisily.
“The feverdancers are at their peak now. Ten minutes earlier and they’d still be infectious. An hour later and their toxins will begin to break down.’ He spat out the sliver into his palm, and cut it in two with his knife. “Here.” He held one half to the bureaucrat’s lips. “Take. Eat.”
The bureaucrat turned away in disgust.
“Eat!” The flesh had no strong smell; or else the woodsmoke drowned it out…He obeyed (232).
(The bureaucrat then experiences hallucinations, out-of-body experience, into-Gregorian’s memory experience, like the pensieve in Harry Potter, and that’s all we get.) He could have had Gregorian explain what the toxins do, and how they work—he could have had the bureaucrat muse on what he knew of feverdancers, but he doesn’t. We are left to assume all that from these few clues, and it is enough.
Light brush strokes, carefully limited by the POV character’s POV.