My latest short story release is in Fossil Lake: An Anthology of the Aberrant, out now from Daverana Press. Mishipishu: The Ghost Story of Penny Jaye Prufrock is set in a place modeled after somewhere I know and love: a summer camp I went to many times during my childhood. It’s one of 37 stories and poems in this anthology of the aberrant.
Penny has spent most of her summers at Camp Zaagaigan, a place that offers her refuge from the rest of her life, which seems to fall apart more every year–but next year she’ll be thirteen, and too old to come back. Fearful that growing up is going to cost her everything she loves, she escapes into imagination, and she’s even got an imaginary friend to share her journey: a fossilized creature she dredged up from the sediment at the bottom of Lake Mishipishu. Mythology, though, is a double edged sword, and Penny may not be prepared for the consequences if she follows her new friend too far into the lake.
Setting a story in a real-world place was a pleasure and a challenge. On one hand, I didn’t need to spend a lot of time worldbuilding the setting: I simply dredged my memories and had a full map of the camp, a ready-made stage on which to enact my story. It was also very easy to add a lot of sensory description, because my memories are still very vivid: the feeling of the sand on the beach, the smell of the campfire, the sound of the waves slapping against the dock. On the other hand, the major change requested by my editor was to cut out some of the unnecessary description that wasn’t critical to understand the story. I probably could have gone on for twice as long if I’d wanted to describe every aspect of the camp that I’d enjoyed as a kid; but bogging the story down in irrelevant details wasn’t doing it any favours. The final version of Mishipishu is leaner, meaner, and ready to sink its fangs into you.
If you’d like to meet the lake monster of Camp Zaagaigan, and the other horrors that can be found in Fossil Lake, you can order your own copy of the ebook right here for only $2.99.
I loved going to summer camp each year. But sometimes, what you love can be the death of you.
So, you killed someone? You have a dark past, present or future? That’s okay. You too, can still get the girl and find love!
Don’t believe me? Let’s look at what makes a character a bad boy or anti-hero and see if we can discern why the women swoon for them. Because they are, I promise. And your flaws are part of the attraction.
First, what defines a bad boy, anti-hero or what some call Byronic Heroes. We know the bad boys – the guys you can’t bring home to meet the parents. They may wear too much leather, have a disregard/disrespect for authority (and that includes dear old dad), brood, be rebellious, or be one of those long-haired music types. We know them by their clothes, their hair, their motorcycle, their attitude, their criminal record. And damn if they don’t draw us in with their sexy bad boy ways. Think James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause, Judd Nelson in The Breakfast Club, or Brad Pitt in Fight Club.
Anti-heroes are those characters who lack conventional heroic qualities. They possess both good and bad qualities. They show us what real human nature looks like. We root for them to redeem themselves and though they are not someone we can look up to, we like them and fall for them anyway. These guys are also the ones you may not want to bring home, but we want them despite their flaws. Think Vin Diesel as Riddick in any of the Riddick films, Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow in The Pirates of the Caribbean, or Harrison Ford as Han Solo in Star Wars.
Byronic Heroes are those who are proud, moody, cynical, vengeful, miserable and yet capable of deep emotion and strong affection. They can be obsessive, tortured and arrogant, yet we have to believe that our love can change them. Think Mr. Rochester (too many great actors have done this role – take your pick) from Jane Eyre, Hugh Jackman as the Wolverine from the X-Men, Laurence Olivier or Tom Hardy as Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, or Gerard Butler as the Phantom in Phantom of the Opera. And let’s not forget Tom Hiddleston as Loki in Thor. They’re all just so irresistible!
So, why do we women-folk want them? I think it’s that we like a bit of the dark with our sweet. Too much nice can get cloying. Too much bad is not healthy for us. They may be murderers after all. But, if you can find that perfect balance, or kid yourself into thinking that you have, then voilá – love.
Something caused these guys to be like they are, we reason. They had rough childhoods. Some girl tap-danced all over their heart. They were orphaned, beaten, had bad role models… whatever. But something caused it – they weren’t born bad. We have to believe that if we want to believe we can help them on their road to redemption or believe that we will be the catalyst that spurs that redemption. It’s terribly romantic.
Okay, I may sound a bit snarky on this, but really I’m not. I buy into this all the time. I love these characters. I love these guys. I love the pure optimism and hope in it all. Jane Eyre totally saves Mr. Rochester and they live a long happy life together. Yes, they go through their share of tragedy and heartache, but still… at the end, they’re together, in love and she was the reason for his redemption. What isn’t to love about that?
In Buffy the Vampire Slayer (don’t roll your eyes – that show rocked!), Spike is a villain through how many seasons? He kills humans without remorse. Kills slayers with glee and much future boasting. He’s cruel, sarcastic, and if he can mess with you in any way, he will and smile while doing it. Even at his rottenest, we like him. He’s funny, sexy, and gets away with doing all the awful things we wish we could. But he cares deeply for Drusilla (who’s a total wacko) and later, Buffy, so we know he isn’t all bad. And who of us didn’t have a thing for him the minute he showed up in Season 2, Episode 3? Later, he becomes Buffy’s sex-toy, and then friend and at the end of the series, Spike is a hero of sorts. He and Buffy aren’t always nice to one another, but ultimately they bring about change for the better in each other.
Han Solo is a mercenary. He’s selfish and self-serving. He’s a sexy space cowboy with the coolest wingman ever. He’s a womanizer, street smart criminal, and hangs with the wrong crowds. He is not Dudley Do-Right, but under that gruff exterior beats the heart of a romantic softy who was willing to give up the love-of-his-life to his best friend when he thought that was what she wanted. Yes, indeed. This is a guy I can fall for. With ease. And don’t friendship, a worthy cause and the love of a good woman bring about a better Han? Yes they do. Love scores again.
Characters – the moral here is that even if you’re a killer, cruel, selfish, broody, and have loads of flaws, you can be redeemed and there’s a gal out there just waiting to be your salvation! Mind you, not all of the bad boys and anti-heroes can be redeemed, but that won’t slow the women down from trying.
Writers – characters don’t have to be perfect for readers to love them, want them, want to be them and find them emotionally relatable. Flaws add depth and are more interesting. Perfect characters are boring, so explore the dark side a little and see what happens.
We live in a world of great literary traditions, including one of my time-tested favourites: cannon fodder. Ah, cannon fodder. Those secondary characters with a sole purpose, no matter whether they’re given one scene or ten, which is to show how dangerous the situation is and to up the tension.
I’ve been spending a lot of time with Homer’s Iliad lately, in preparation for an oral storytelling show in June, and it struck me how Homer understood the importance of making that cannon fodder matter. And, in The Iliad, there is a lot of cannon fodder. But no one is killed without giving us an idea of who they are. Of who they leave behind, of which parent will never greet them back home again. This shows us the unrelenting and absurd horror of war, and how no one really wins. It’s effective because he makes us care about every body thudding on that battlefield in one or multiple pieces (seriously gory stuff).
So, whether you’re writing a mystery, an adventure story or even a romance, keep in mind a few tricks to make readers care about those secondary characters before they kick the graveyard dust.
We love those who are loved. Let us see those characters through the eyes of a character we love. In Destiny’s War, the third book in my latest series, I kill off a new character early on in the story. But he was loved by a character who had been in all three books and readers felt the loss through her (I know – I got several angry e-mails about it. Happy Angry Mail, I call it. Or HAM, because it makes me hungry and happy all at once.)
Never underestimate sympathy. There are many ways to relate to a character and pity is a strong emotion that can’t be underestimated. Don’t lay it on so thick that we can’t breathe through the melodrama, but imagine this:
Scenario 1: Joe breaks up with his beloved Kate and he’s trying really hard to get his life back together. Just as he works up the courage to ask Natasha out (she said yes!), he gets killed.
Scenario 2: Joe is super happy. Everything is great and he has a new kitten! He dies.
Scenario 3: Kate left Joe to avoid his downward spiral from his drug addiction. He checks into rehab and writes to her every day, even if she doesn’t write back. He promises he’ll do right by her, even if that means leaving her alone forever. If she doesn’t come to pick him up when he’s leaving rehab, he’ll never bother her again, even though he’ll always love her. The day before being released, still having heard no word, he’s killed.
Which scenario elicits the most sympathy from you and why? Notice how the second example is really going from a good situation to dead. The first and third showcase trying to get back out of a dark pit, which we can all relate to and it can even make us root for that character. Rooting is good – it’s shattering when people don’t get the chance to succeed at their goals after working so hard. And the third scenario is the longest, most detailed account, with all its ups and downs. But is it too high and too low for cannon fodder? Be aware of how each one affects you – they all show tools you can use in your own writing.
Make their quirkiness our own. Or vice versa. Agent Coulson on The Avengers was sympathetic in part because he was the fan boy, and not another blank-faced agent. He got the job done and he also had his stack of collectible cards. If Hilary Hill had died, we wouldn’t have cared as much. She was great, of course, but not quirky, and quirky is a very human trait.
Make us feel their loss. By giving them something we want sooooo bad, we’ll feel that loss. This goes back to the sympathy point. Ted just received his first publishing contract. It’s six figures (wow!), a great publisher, and is getting him out of a tight financial situation. Before he gets to hold that book in print, he gets hit by a drunk driver. How many of you are seeking publication? Did that resonate? Pick a backstory that will work with the people who will be reading your novel. It doesn’t have to be usual or predictable, but it has to resonate in some way with your main story, characters and readership. Ground the cannon fodder deeply in the rest of your story for maximum impact.
We root for the downtrodden. We like seeing the little guy win. We root for the underdog. Pick one of a gazillion Hollywood movie about sports for an example of that.
Those are just a few ideas to make those characters stand out, so that they’ll matter to your readers by the time they’re murdered in the Great Cause of Story. Even villains deserve some care with this – put shades of gray in your story to make their deaths really pop. And because you love your cannon fodder, you want their deaths to mean something to the reader.
Guest Writer Bio:
Marie Bilodeau recently launched the third book in her award-winning space opera Destiny series (Destiny’s Blood, Destiny’s Fall and Destiny’s War). She is also the author of the Heirs of a Broken Land, a fantasy trilogy described as “fresh and exciting” by Robert J. Sawyer, Hugo award-winning author of WAKE. Her short stories have appeared in several magazines and anthologies and have also been nominated twice for the Aurora Awards. Marie is also a professional storyteller, telling adaptations of fairy tales and myths, as well as original stories of her own creation. She’s a passionate advocate for paper airplane contests, peach desserts and caffeine consumption.
What’s the draw to love and murder? Why does it add such spice to our favorite stories?
I sat down to write a tale. A love story. Not a romance, because that’s something completely different, but a story with love and heart and something a little special. Then I threw in a heavy dose of murder.
Well, “heavy” might be misleading. I based the story on it. Two broken people who find each other and fall madly, cosmically in love, and crisscross the country on a murder spree. Kissing. Dreaming. Whispering their secrets to each other. Wiping blood spatter from their faces and slipping in pools of it, leaving red footprints behind them.
Pretty much your typical love story, I suppose. With blood lust and, hopefully, sympathetic characters.
I’m not alone in this. In February, this month of love and hearts and cupids with arrows, I’ve been reflecting on the love-and-murder relationship, and the way it goes hand-in-hand.
Take Romeo and Juliet. Take, also, its unofficial sequel: West Side Story. What would these stories be without the murders or Tybalt and Mercutio, Riff and Tony? Think about Kind David and Bathsheba. And moving away from romantic love into the area of platonic love, what about Of Mice and Men? Can a greater love story really ever be told? And murder is right in the heart of it. Without murder, that story would be a charming little tale about two good buddies. Sweet and fairly wholesome, but certainly not intricate or memorable.
What makes it that makes the chaos compelling, I wonder? Love and death, romance and murder, they go together so beautifully. Why, even Valentine’s Day is somewhat loosely based on love and death. We’re told many versions of the story, but one of the most popular is that Saint Valentine dared marry young couple in secret at a time when marriages were illegal. As punishment, he was thrown into the dungeon. The story goes that he fell in love with the jailer’s beautiful daughter and smuggled her notes signed “From your Valentine.” Or that, while imprisoned, he received notes and thank you cards from the young couples he had married. Eventually, the most popular theory says, he was beheaded for his crimes.
Crimes of passion. You’ve heard the term. And perhaps that is why death and love are so tightly bound together. Nothing can end a love like death can. It’s the most brutal ending to the most intense and fiery of desires. Edgar Allan Poe famously write about his young bride who died tragically. In his poem “Annabel Lee” he even went so far as to claim that the angels of heaven, driven mad with jealousy, murdered his bride. Passion against passion. Love and the greatest anti-love there is. It’s like a volcano and the ocean coming together and destroying everything. A thing of terror. A thing of beauty.
The intensity demonstrated by linking together such polar opposites as adoration and murder is nearly unfathomable. Love is supposed to conquer all, but death does the same thing. All you need is love. Love makes the world go round. But the only thing you can depend on is death and taxes. Anais Nin tells us that love never dies a natural death, but death spares no one. Take the two biggest conflicting forces, set them at war in a story, and watch the sparks fly. You may love the sparks. They may be deadly. But they’ll be beautiful.
Guest Writer Bio: Mercedes M. Yardley wears stilettos, red lipstick, and poisonous flowers in her hair. She likes to do a little bit of everything, and writes dark fantasy, horror, nonfiction, and poetry. Mercedes minored in Creative Writing and worked for four years as a contributing editor for Shock Totem Magazine. She is the author of the short story collection Beautiful Sorrows, the novella Apocalyptic Montessa and Nuclear Lulu: A Tale of Atomic Love and her debut novel Nameless: The Darkness Comes. Nameless just released this month and is Book One in The Bone Angel Trilogy. Mercedes lives and works in Sin City, and you can reach her at her website, www.mercedesyardley.com.
Do you love the dark?
A guest post by Mercedes M. Yardley.