Author Archives: mary

The newest volume of the Aurora-Award winning Tesseracts series is available online today!

Tesseracts 18: Wrestling with Gods examines the intersection between speculative fiction and religion. It’s my honour to be part of this prestigious series with a story entitled Burnt Offerings.

Corporal Pasharan was destined to spend the rest of his life in a military sanitarium were it not for his tale of a near-death experience with a god. Now sanctified as a Shaman, he’s been equipped with cutting-edge technology and the freedom of cyberspace. He can never dare admit that his tale was a fabrication, or that he remains unconvinced about the existence of any form of deity. When a young soldier converts to another religion and risks the wrath of her theo-political superiors, Shaman Pasharan must find his own kind of faith to make a choice between truth and power.

The title of the anthology was a big inspiration: Wrestling with Gods. I knew I wanted to write about a character whose relationship with his faith wasn’t an easy one. I started thinking: what would it be like for an agnostic character in a ministerial job? What if he didn’t have the luxury of resigning over his doubts, because he counted on that job not just for livelihood but survival? That got me thinking about the intersection between faith and power; between privilege and faith; between speaking the truth and the fact that honesty can sometimes get people killed when the wrong folks are listening.

For the main character’s dependency on his job: I had a hemiplegic migraine one day and decided to waste time on the internet. A while later I realized: here I am chatting to people who don’t even realize I’m sick. Nobody notices facial droop or slurred words on the computer, and I had a lot of fun despite being in no fit shape to go anywhere. I put that experience into my main character as well: he’s disabled, but his role as Shaman to a technology god gives him this incredible power and authority in a virtual environment. And yet all the time he’s very aware that his physical body makes him face pain, limitations, and dependency on others.

I’m a Wiccan with primarily Christian family and in-laws, and I have an amazing family that believes in respectful discussion and mutual understanding. In the real world, I’ve seen cases of people horribly persecuted just for being Christian, and cases of people who call themselves Christian harassing and demonizing people of other faiths. I think every faith is capable of having both immense good and immense evil done in its name, and I tried to represent this in my story. The theo-political complex my main character lives under is a Pagan religion. The Kin are my idea of what an organized, institutionalized, corrupt Paganism would look like, and they’re kind of a mixture of Asatru and Catholicism with a bit of eclectic Paganism thrown in.

You can get your own copy of Wrestling with Gods today on Amazon Kindle. Paper copies will be available starting in March (Canada) and April (US).

Choosing Your Battles

December 3, 2014

mary

Making Progress as a Writer Mary Pletsch Reflection Self-Awareness Successes The Writing Life No Comments

2014 has brought me an odd mixture of success beyond expectation and abject failure.

My goals for 2014 were to duplicate my short story sales for 2013 (six stories, five under my real name) and to complete a novel.

Over the past year, I’ve sold eight speculative fiction short stories under my own name, and an additional two stories and a novella in another genre under a pseudonym.

And I haven’t come anywhere close to completing a novel, though I have two partial attempts and several outlines.

In 2015, my goal is to choose my battles.

I’ve already set parameters for my short story submissions. As a rule, I submit only to paying markets. (I do allow for exceptions—for example, if proceeds from sales go to support a charity I feel passionate about, I’m willing to write a story in lieu of a donation to the cause). But overall, at this point in my career, I feel my writing is strong enough that I should be earning money in exchange for my work, not just a free copy of the finished product.

This statement is not to denigrate anyone who is writing as a hobby. I spent many years writing fan fiction and giving it away for free. For myself though, last year, I decided that if I’m good enough to be paid and I want to earn some of my living this way, I needed to to focus my efforts on markets that represent income opportunities.

I’m excited to have my first SFWA (Science Fiction Writers of America)-qualifying story coming out in the second half of 2015. It’s a short story called “Folk Hero” that will be appearing in Apex Magazine.

In 2015, I want to refine my parameters further. I want to limit my short story writing and focus it on pro markets.

This plan is going to be challenging for me. Pro markets are highly competitive. I may not make six sales in 2015. However, I am at a point in my career where quality is more important than quantity.

I want to take a large portion of the time I spent on short stories this year, and spend it on completing a novel. I’d also like to do another novella under my pseudonym.

Long term, I believe novels represent the best income opportunities. I don’t regret spending the past two years focusing on short stories. The short stories have given me the opportunity to practice writing story arcs, strengthen my beginnings and endings, and explore different genres. They have forced me to learn to be concise: to introduce characters, establish their world, and immerse the reader in their conflict, with a minimum of wordiness or filler. And they have provided me with validation. I can do this. I can sell my writing. I have seen my work in print.

Validation, though, has a dark side. It would be relatively easy, I think, for me to set and meet a goal to replicate my 2014 success in 2015. It would make me feel good. Short term, it would make me feel better than dedicating my year to a novel. Long term, though, I see my career focusing on novels. It’s time for me to play the long game and focus on long-term rewards.

I have my validation. In 2015, it’s time to move on and take another step towards making that vision a reality.

In January I wrote about the importance of maintaining one’s health. In December, I think I’ve done well in that regard. I suffered hand and wrist injury in the summer, recovered in the fall, and now use a brace to prevent future injuries. I’ve struck a balance between a part time job, a sustaining family life, and accomplishing my writing goals. Health-wise, I’m in a good place to achieve my goals in 2015.

Kneeling in the Silver Light

November 11, 2014

mary

The Writing Life 4 Comments

This year marks the 100 year anniversary of the beginning of the First World War. Today, Remembrance Day, was initially chosen to mark the end of hostilities of the First World War (November 11, 1918). In modern times this day honours members of the armed forces who have died in the line of duty.

As a commemoration of the 100 year anniversary of WWI, Alchemy Press has assembled a collection of dark fantasy stories set during the war, entitled Kneeling in the Silver Light: Stories from the Great War. I’m proud to contribute a short story entitled “On the Side of the Angels.”

I’m Canadian by birth and German by ethnicity. I’ll never forget the point in my childhood when I tried to sort out who on my family tree had been “good guys” and who had been “bad guys” during the wars. I remember feeling saddened to learn that preachers on both sides of the First World War used religion as propaganda to convince their congregations that God was on their nation’s side.

My Pletsch grandfather, a devoted Christian and member of the Gideons International, exposed me to a lot of Christian philosophy. My father encouraged me to wrestle with faith and ask hard questions rather than teaching me to parrot dogma. He also told me, very memorably, that the Book of Revelations is really trippy and weird, and that there was some seriously bizarre and scary stuff going on in Bible times.

So when I set out to write a dark fantasy story set in the First World War, my first idea was what it might truly mean to be “On the Side of the Angels.”

Here’s a taste:

***

Our R.E.8 biplane fell from the sky like the morning star from heaven.

The two-seater aircraft’s radial engine streamed tongues of flame as we plummeted to earth. I clung to the observer’s chair, as though if I held on tightly enough I might halt our descent, or at least preserve myself.

I hoped that Sam was alive and working the controls; prayed he was diving on purpose, to put out the flames. At any second, I told myself, he might pull out of the fall. Building g-forces whispered in my ear, warning me it was already too late – we would rip off our wings if we tried to level out.

The jagged lines of the trenches spun in dizzying circles far below, growing larger before my eyes. The side of my face burned from relentless gusts of hot air. I wrenched my gaze away from the rapidly approaching ground and saw fire on the wing beside me, fire on the fuselage.

The fabric covering the R.E.8’s skeleton was treated with dope to stiffen it, and the stuff was highly flammable. We would go up like a torch.

We could be roasted to cinders before we ever hit the earth.

And the pilot’s seat was in front of mine, closer to the engine.

I lifted my head though I did not want to, though I knew my eyes would behold horrors, and I imagined a grinning skeleton in Sam’s chair, or worse yet, a blackened lump of meat.

I looked against my will and there was Sam, looking back over his shoulder and smirking at me, while all around him a corona of flames crackled like hellfire. I could smell my own hair scorching as the forward fuselage blazed, and yet he reclined in his chair with regal majesty.

“Daniel. Do you want to live?” Sam shouted, and somehow I heard him over the shriek of the wind and the guttural roar of the furnace.

Of course, of course I did.

I should have prayed to Jesus for my deliverance, but I sat as one struck dumb. Then Sam held out his hand to me, and I…I reached out and clasped it, in hopes that Sam could save me.

***

Kneeling in the Silver Light is available in both paperback and ebook, and you can order your own copy here.

And to all our veterans…thank you.
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Not What I Signed Up For

November 5, 2014

mary

The Writing Life 1 Comment

(Trigger warning for discussion of sexual abuse and rape in the following article.)

A friend of mine is a big fan of romance novels. These aren’t my usual choice of reading material, but I accepted her offer to try a few. I wanted to understand my friend’s interest, to figure out why these books had so much appeal, and, I’ll admit, I was curious.

The first three books entertained me easily enough. I could see the selling points of these modern-day Cinderella stories. Usually, a hardworking but not particularly well-off young woman would catch the eye of a rich single bachelor. He’d sweep her off her feet into a whirlwind of luxury and excitement (I laugh at the lavish descriptions of houses and hotel rooms, gowns, and meals; the upper-class lifestyle is as much a selling point as the man himself) and there would be hot sex. Then a misunderstanding would split the couple apart, until the end when true love conquered all.

Then came the fourth book.

In this book, a woman agreed to a prearranged marriage. Bizarre wills, marrying for desperately needed money and familial obligations are common plot devices to force contact between heros and heroines who initially don’t like each other beyond their sexual attraction to one another, so I thought nothing of it. Until the wedding night scene.

Usually, this scene is one of seduction, in which the woman indulges her secret sexual attraction. In this case, the wedding night read to me as a sexual assault. I couldn’t believe what I was reading. The heroine didn’t want the encounter, didn’t enjoy the encounter, and was deeply upset afterwards. Shocked, I flipped to the end of the book. She was going to get the creep thrown in jail and marry the butler, right?

Nope. At the end of the book, the heroine was head over heels in love with her rapist.

This wasn’t an old book, either, reflecting the social values of 1900…or even 1999. It had been written the same year I’d read it.

Now, a caveat. I don’t have a problem with dark fiction or dark themes in stories. I know several real-life abuse survivors who’ve told me they like to read and/or write fiction with themes of assault because fiction gives them a safe arena in which to explore, understand, and come to terms with their emotions. Fiction is a place where no real people are harmed in the creation of imaginary stories, and people can enjoy certain acts occurring in fiction–including war, murder, natural disasters, etc–that they would never want to have happen in real life.

What bothered me was not that there was rape in a story, but that there was rape between the lead characters of a story that had been presented to me, the reader, as a sweeping romance. Following the happily-ever-after convention of these novels, I was expected to believe that in the second half of the book, the heroine would forgive and fall in love with her rapist, who would love her in return.

I don’t usually stop reading books halfway through, but this one, I did. I did not want the writer to convince me to believe in this “romance”. My idea of a happy ending, at that point, was to see the “hero” locked up behind bars. A rape scene, and a woman falling in love with her rapist, were not what I had signed up for when I picked up what I thought would be a light and fluffy love story with a side of sex.

On the other side, I’ve read a murder mystery story that also broadsided me, in a good way. I’m not going to identify the book, for fear of spoilers, but it is the first of a trilogy.

The premise is that the hero, a young man whose nature puts him at a high risk for becoming a serial killer, finds that murders are being committed in his neighborhood. He’s both fascinated and repelled that someone is doing the very thing he’s struggling so hard not to do. He both appreciates the killer’s work, and understands that his family and schoolmates are at risk, and that is a Bad Thing.

Halfway through the novel, it’s revealed that the killer is a supernatural being.

Up until that point, the reader had expected to enjoy a book in the vein of “Dexter”…a serial killer murder mystery set in the real world. At the moment of revelation, though, the reader realizes s/he is reading an urban fantasy or magic realism novel instead–a story set in a world where a certain form of supernatural being truly exists.

As a speculative fiction reader and writer, I was all on board for supernatural beings! The realistic start to the book made the supernatural villain seem more real and more frightening. The shock I felt paralleled the main character’s surprise when he discovered that creatures he’d thought mythical were actually real. The supernatural angle also enhanced the story. Now there was a logical reason for this disturbed teenager to investigate murders…because he’d seen the monster, while the police weren’t even considering the possibility of a supernatural killer because they did not believe in such things.

I’ve seen mixed reviews of the book. Some readers felt disappointed by the supernatural angle. These people had signed up for a realistic serial-killer story and received monsters instead, and they wanted nothing to do with a supernatural story. A lot of other readers, though, were really impressed at the risk the author took, and the way it paid off, giving them the first genuine shock they’d had in years of reading mysteries.

Whether readers loved or hated the book seemed to depend to a large deal on how open-minded those readers were, and how willingly they’d accept the existence of a supernatural being in an otherwise realistic story.

In rare cases, the risk run by confounding expectations can pay off. In most cases, though, it’s a bad idea to mislead your readers about what kind of story you are telling. Even the abovementioned serial killer murder mystery still had a serial killer, a mystery, an investigation, and a crime spree that needed to be ended–all the classic elements of a murder mystery. Readers still got what they signed up for, just with a little supernatural flavour thrown in.

Readers trust authors and publishers to satisfy their desire for a certain type of story. Whether that be fantasy, action, romance, or mystery, readers pick up books because they’re hoping for a certain type of experience. Giving readers a story that satisfies that need will encourage them to come back in the future for more.