Behind the Writing: PART 1: Characters or Situations?

The following is the first in a three-part series about the craft of writing, specifically characters and situations, why we write stories, and how to refill the creative well. These conversations took place in early October 2015 with author Mark Boss and myself.

Mark Boss at PC Creative Con 2K15

Mark: We were talking the other day about characters. You read Stephen King’s “On Writing,” and he says he always starts with a situation; I started thinking, how predominant is that? How many authors start with a situation versus starting with a character? When you told me about your Alabama trip, it seemed like the seed of it, the germ was the character first. What triggered that idea, and then did you build the situation around that character?

Tony: I think that story came out of inundating — immersing myself in a bunch of unrelated ideas. I’m in Birmingham, and there’s a lot of stuff about the Confederacy, it’s an iron town — that whole blacksmithy, iron works, steam era feel to it. And I’m reading a lot of steampunk. All of those things fed into the mulcher, and then, driving home, seeing those old Southern city names —

Mark: Specifically, Jemison and Thorsby. Were they in that order?

Tony: Yes.

Mark: Because you might not have thought of it (if they were in the reverse order).

Tony: Right. That came from character first, from a mixture of the names and a time period I had floating around in my head. So in a way, the situation was kind of already there. I was primed to find a story that was steeped in the Old South.

Mark: Which is quite a departure, because I’d say most steampunk, maybe 90 percent of it, is Victorian England. At best, they cross the Channel to France. So Steampunk-USA is a departure.

Tony: With my Caliban stories, it definitely came out of character first. I was 14 years old and wanted to write Doctor Strange. Before I knew it, I wasn’t writing about the wizard, I was writing about the kid he trained and the development of his potential as a magic-user. Over the years, both of those characters kind of developed in the back of my head. — So, how about you, Mark? Character or situation?

Mark:  Looking at the last few books, I realize I’m going more ‘situation.’ My thing was a “what-if.” What if all these bad things happened at the same time? I love zombie things, and zombies were very big at the time. And yet I thought, okay, what if we ramped it up? Because one apocalypse is not enough for me. That’s just too slow. I want to see us get devastated. So you throw in aliens — the classic thing of alien invasion — and then you throw in a robot uprising, and then we’re starting to get it boiling. We’ve brought it up to temperature. Then I started thinking, everyone is going to be caught in this, but we don’t want to follow the people who just sit in their basement and wait for it to stop. We want to follow people out there actually doing things. The books jump around a fair amount to different characters. Even so, I tried to focus on the excitement: Let’s go look for the most important things happening or the most fun things happening. That was more a situation thing, but I had never thought hard about it until recently.

In the next post, we’ll address the question: Why do we make up stories?

Check out Mark's blog "Chimp With Pencil"<<
Mark's website<<
and his Amazon author page<<

GIANTS IN THE EARTH — Now available on Kindle!

Ritualistic child murders bring FBI profiler GABRIEL STREET and occultist SIR ARTHUR MAGUS to the town of Junction, Alabama, just as a young woman seeks shelter on her estranged father's farm. REBECCA CALIBAN is pregnant, tormented by the belief her dead husband came to her in the night, leaving her with child. She descends into madness as the investigators battle the killer, an ageless shapeshifter preying upon the innocent in service to a forgotten god.

... Darkness haunts young Tom Caliban, who grows up in the shadow of his mother’s mysterious death, raised by his grandfather. Unaware of Tom or his connection to their shapeshifting enemy, Magus meets each year with the men who helped him battle the Changeling — but distrust begins to grow between them.

... A traveling preacher walks into Junction one summer day, shouldering a rugged cross and promising souls to his unseen Lord. And as Becca’s child reaches his 18th birthday, a new church rises on the site of the Changeling's pyre — and a girl goes missing in Junction. The souleater rises, its hungry call stirring the restless souls haunting the tiny town — including one spirit who has been searching the halls of the hospital for her lost child these past 18 years.

Previously serialized as three novellas, GIANTS IN THE EARTH is the first volume in an ongoing series, The Caliban Cycle. This edition, gathering the entire tale together, includes never-before-published bonus material that includes notes from the author about the origins of the tale and a sneak preview excerpt from the sequel story, AND THE MOON INTO BLOOD, which will be published in early 2016.

Tonight! 'The Souleater' rises!

The thrilling conclusion of GIANTS IN THE EARTH debuts on Amazon Kindle tonight at midnight for only 99 cents!

In the third and final chapter of "Giants in the Earth," the ancient souleater has risen, and its hungry call stirs up all the restless souls haunting the tiny town of Junction, Alabama — including one spirit who has been searching the halls of the hospital for her lost child these past 18 years.

Having barely survived the creature's rebirth, Sir Arthur Magus delves into the tunnel below the ruined church, seeking the prison that held the souleater all these centuries. Down in the dark, he discovers a legacy tying it to Tom Caliban and the hilltop grove where only truth may be spoken.

Tom’s spirit has separated from his gravely injured body, just as Magus and his few remaining allies must stage a desperate last stand against the Great Old One on the sacred hilltop — and not all of them will survive the encounter.

Also tomorrow: Part 2: The Child goes on sale FOR FREE for 5 days!

Coming Sept. 1: The final chapter of GIANTS IN THE EARTH!

Coming to Kindle on Sept. 1!

The third and final part of "GIANTS IN THE EARTH" will hit Amazon Kindle on Sept. 1 for only 99 cents! (The book is now available for pre-order!) For now, if you want to find the first two parts, visit my author page!

I've experimented with serializing this novel, the first book in my ongoing series, The Caliban Cycle, to see if it helps the book get traction that my previous efforts haven't enjoyed. So far, it seems like it's working — but the flipside of that is that so am I, constantly working to get the word out about this series, consistently working to ready the next installment.

The book will be released on Kindle in its entirety — with added bonus content! — on Oct. 1, and it will be published in paperback format Nov. 1. I hope to make a hardback edition available in time for Christmas, maybe on the heels of releasing a standalone story of young Arthur Magus to Kindle on Dec. 1.

The final chapters of the sequel novel, "AND THE MOON INTO BLOOD," are currently in the hands of my critique group, and I will begin the editing process on that book ASAP.

...And I can't wait to get going on my next project, a steampunk adventure unrelated to The Caliban Cycle! ...And then start work on the third Caliban novel. ...And then...

Reviewer: Simmons' latest is fearful symmetry

S. Brady Calhoun of The News Herald reviewed "Giants in the Earth" this week.
>>Here's the article<<

"The thing that strikes you first, like classical music in the back of your mind, is the dreamlike and lyrical quality of 'Giants in the Earth.'"

Thanks, Brady!

Early success for 'The Changeling'

I released the first segment (of 3) of The Caliban Cycle on July 1 as an Amazon Kindle book. The Changeling shot to No. 91 in the US Horror category over the next couple of days, but has been in a slow decline since then. If you haven't purchased a copy, please do (it's only 99 cents). And if you have, then please leave a review; not only would I appreciate the feedback, but each review helps the book find an audience by convincing the Amazon robots that readers would like to discuss this one.

Thanks!

Reflections on a week of import

Father and Son

PANAMA CITY BEACH — My son, Nathan, turned 27 earlier this week. I don’t know about how you respond to the passage of such dates, but that day made me look back at myself at 27 and try to imagine where I thought life would take me then.

I turned 27 in 1991, just a month after Nathan’s third birthday and couple of months before my daughter was born. I was back in college after several years of working for a retail outlet — on my way to a degree in Journalism, finally, and working freelance for a couple of local publications to help cover the bills.

Two years later, I would be hired by The News Herald and move my little family to Panama City. But in ’91, we had a spitz puppy named Everest and lived in a house owned by my mother, and I had dreams of making it as a reporter and novelist.

I still do.

Looking at my 51st birthday looming now, it would be easy to say the best days are in the past and to worry what the future holds. But I have to say, we (as a family) have weathered some dark days in the interim, and we hope for some great ones still to come.

As I sit here, writing this on the day my latest novel begins its serialized release on Amazon Kindle, I know that there are still stories to tell — indeed, more than I will ever have time to write down — still milestones to reach and wonders to witness. The marriage of children and birth of grandchildren, for instance. The next laugh at a lunch table.

I have more close friends today than at any time since high school. I have great expectations for my children, and a certain assurance that they have acquired the skills and strengths they will need to flourish even when I’m gone.

At 27, things were just getting started and I was struggling to find my way. At nearly 51, though some days can make me feel my age, I still have a sense that things are just getting started. I still struggle, still have worries. But most days the path is there, if I take a moment to see it.

How about you? Are you finding your path? Can you look back and see the trajectory that brought you here?

Peace.

Check out Tony’s latest fiction by visiting Facebook.com/TheCalibanCycle for details.

Reminder: Launching the Caliban Cycle

Tonight at midnight, the first installment of The Caliban Cycle goes live on Amazon Kindle. Just 99 cents for more than 30,000 words of mystery, Lovecraftian horror, occult detectives, Southern Gothic generational drama, ghosts, shapeshifters, Creek Indian and Christian belief systems, all intermingled into a page-turning and vivid adventure.

The Caliban Cycle is what I'm calling an ongoing series of novels about Tom Caliban, who doesn't get properly introduced until the beginning of Part 2, which will go live on Kindle Aug. 1. The first book is titled "Giants in the Earth," and will be serialized (in three segments released a month apart) through Sept. 1. Part One is "The Changeling."

>>Here's a collection of blogs about the series<<

>>Here's the Facebook page dedicated to the series<<

>>And here is the Kindle link in case you missed it above<<

Launching 'The Caliban Cycle'

I have made a Facebook page live today for getting out the word on my new series, THE CALIBAN CYCLE.

On this page, you will get regular updates on the series, which will be serialized on Kindle before being gathered into print editions. You'll find photographs of locations in the real world that inspired portions of the story, as well as media inspirations and more. You'll see artwork based on various iterations of the story (I've been rewriting it since I was 14). You'll see promotional artwork by the talented JOHN RUSSO, who is designing the covers, and others who contribute. You'll be invited to book launch events and readings, as well as given exclusive access to special content.

Book One of The Caliban Cycle is called GIANTS IN THE EARTH and details the circumstances of the birth and childhood of Thomas Michael Caliban, possessing the power of a modern-day Merlyn, and destined to become either a force for light or darkness in the world. The novel was a quarter-finalist in last year's Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest. Some of the reviews included:

"Beautiful writing, really terrific. Love the description of the car crash and its immediate aftermath.
Sweet character-building for Arthur Magus. ... Super beginning to what promises to be a great story. Really looking forward to reading it."

"The writing is great, it really shines. ... I'm stumped. I can't find anything weak about it. ... This is a very well written piece. As long as the rest of the book is as strong as this excerpt, it could go to print right now and I'd want to read it. From the use of italics to the unhurried pacing and switching of story back and forth between characters, the whole thing is quite a treat."

Part One: THE CHANGELING, will be published to Kindle on July 1, and an exclusive print edition of The Changeling will be available Aug. 1 at Panama City CreativeCon to mark that day's e-publication of Part Two: THE CHILD.

>>Read more about the series in these blog entries<<

Quick updates

Here is my column this week, which looks at the Sketch Crawl in Panama City and some of the words being sold at Floriopolis as part of the Space Between Words exhibit.

And here's my column from last week, which basically looked at the upcoming Summer Theatre Program at Gulf Coast State College.

Watched the first two episodes of a new sci-fi/space bounty hunters TV series, KillJoys, which has a sort of Firefly element. Extremely low budget, but interesting. I'll watch more of it when it hits TV this summer on Syfy.



I'm still doing the Fiction Fest at Friday Fest on June 5. We're adding new authors, and getting background on them in updates to the event page; check it out.

Received a rejection note this week (from a horror publisher I submitted my initial CALIBAN novel to) that managed to make me feel good about the work despite the "no." The note included the chain of comments from each of the publisher's reader/editors. Such as:
...First several pages well written, story seems cool if he can pull it off...
...Pass but ask if he has anything else. I'm just not that into Cthulhu and Lovecraftian stuff. ...
... we appreciated your style and strong writing skills, and invite you to submit other works if you have them.

As I said on Facebook, it's a weird feeling, knowing they liked the story (and my telling of it) but decided to wait for something else. I'll take this one as a win, despite the obvious. Thanks for the consideration, and just you wait until you see what else I have in store...

Peace.

Writing Caliban: New ideas come from creative research

(I've decided to do a regular bit here in which I'll give you a look at my writing process. We start with a chapter in the second Caliban Cycle novel, which I'm currently working on. Don't panic: You didn't miss the first Caliban Cycle novel. It hasn't been published yet.)

I had in mind a scene that would take place in a vampire bar in London, as one of my characters seeks a "ground level" informant that might have a lead for him. I thought I might call the bar The London Underground.

So before I started writing the scene, I hit up Google for some info on the actual London "Tube" system, learning about its age and some of the travails of its construction — and it struck me that it would have been almost infinitely easier in the 1860s to build an elevated railway over existing roads and between low-rise buildings than to tunnel underneath those roads and buildings. Workers had to remove tons of earth (without causing sinkholes, cave-ins and the collapse of structures above), shore up walls of clay, pump out ground water, pump in fresh air, electricity and heat, build platforms and so forth — most of which would not be necessary if building an El train.

Conclusion: Subways were invented by vampires for the express purpose of allowing them to travel anywhere in the city without exposing themselves to the sun. Who but a vampire would think underground travel is preferable to open air travel? That led me to the next idea...

If subways are actually for the benefit of vampires living in the cities, then their bars and hangouts would be accessible through these same tunnels. That meant I could place my vampire bar along the Underground route; but now I didn't want to call the bar by the same name.

Ramses 2 and Tekhit

What emblem or name would be appropriate for a vamp nightclub? I wanted to avoid ones I'd seen or heard in movies or books or comics. I didn't want something obvious or cliche. It occurred to me that beer was at least as old as one of the characters in this story — the Egyptians fed it to their slaves to keep them mollified — so I looked for a heiroglyph that represented beer or partying. I found Tekhit.

Tekhit, according to this source, is the Egyptian goddess of beer. Her name translates as both "drunkeness" and "slaughter" — and what creature would equate slaughter with drunkeness more than a blood-drinker?

So bar would be called Tekhit, and her heiroglyph would be its emblem. More so, I decided there's a Tekhit club in every major city; it's a franchise; it's the Hard Rock Cafe of vampire clubs. Thus, my characters would be meeting at Tekhit London, sampling vintage 1972 harvested from a willing donor.

Also, what good is a bar scene without a fight? They'd do that too.
...And so it goes.