Guest Post by Barbara Galler-Smith

I love history. I love perusing artifacts in museums. I love reading books and news bites of cool archaeological discoveries. You name it–if it’s old I am probably interested in it whether it be an old crumbling bit of textile, a 1500 year old castle, or ruins and petroglyphs of a long-gone people. It all has something to say. Most of all, I love trying to puzzle out in some Sherlock Holmesian manner just what it means in terms of people’s lives.

So, when writing a novel, getting ready to write by doing research is half the fun. Some novels require a little research and others a lot. Historical novels usually require a lot.

Only two real “rules” apply to writing historical fiction of any kind, whether it be science fiction, fantasy, alternate history, mainstream, or romantic: Get the history right whenever possible, and use common sense when making up the rest.

Of course you don’t have to build a world–it’s already there just waiting for you to put your characters in it.

Getting the history right isn’t just checking a couple of links on Wikipedia–though that is a start. Good research is complicated and time-consuming. Visit large libraries, especially academic ones which have significant collections of books, research journals, and other support materials. Take advantage of interlibrary loans. Talk to fans of the era. Talk to experts. Experts, in fact, usually love to talk about their subjects, and they are often kind and forthcoming with little known and fascinating facts that almost never make it into the history books.

If you possibly can, go to the place you are writing about. If that’s not possible or practical, look at modern and historic maps. Your local college or university may have a map library that will fill in all those geographical holes for you. Also pick your friends’ brains–someone you know will have been right where you want to place your scene or chapter. Once you get the geography right, you may have to bend it a little to fit the story, but that’s all right–you’re writing a novel, not a factual academic treatise.

Look at old photographs or paintings from the period you are writing about. The style of dress of the people in medieval or renaissance paintings is the style of the times. Note the foods, how the houses are represented, even what the animals look like. Those paintings are a slice of life provided free and detailed by the artist.

In our historical fantasy trilogy, The Druids Saga (Druids, Captives, Warriors), Josh Langston and I had extra problems. We had three cultures to research, one well-documented, the others not. After weeks of investigation on what Romans were like: clothing and footwear, what they ate and drank, their social, economic, political structures, religion(s) and family life, and even their bathing habits–we had to do it all over again, this time for the Celts in non-Roman areas, and then compare and contract that with “civilized” Celts and Celt-Iberians who had been Romanized for over a hundred years.

Then we had to make up the religion practised by the druids of Europe in the 1st century BC. Since we don’t really know exactly what the Gauls believed, we first examined what outsiders like Julius Caesar said about them and what modern archaeology tells us. Then, and most importantly, we looked at ancient practices still alive today, and the rites and rituals that go hand in hand with them. We made one big assumption–people haven’t changed much in 2000 years. Ancient ways remain in areas isolated from the modern world. We reasoned backwards–that if people do certain things now, then it’s likely they did similar things then.

We are still a superstitious and fearful lot. Spirits, ghosts, otherworldly creatures were real to many people back then, too. So, we looked at superstitions. We looked at symbols, signs, and even tattoos. We looked at coming of age ceremonies around the world noting that coming to womanhood and manhood are deeply important moments in a person’s life, and thus throughout history have had many rituals and rites associated with them.

All that research went into a big pot of information which we mined sometimes liberally but more often barely skimmed the surface of it to only add flavour to the narrative. We tried to encompass a broad spectrum of social behaviours, sometimes for colour but mostly to enhance the overall story and make it seem “true”. It all has to seem plausible.

You must do the same. Characters shouldn’t do what is not normal for real people to do.

If you decide to use real events and real people, there is some dispute over whether you can put words in historical figures’ mouths. While others have disagreed and called it disrespectful of the real person, I say go ahead. Just make sure you don’t change what they are known to have said, or make them speak in uncharacteristic ways.

In “Druids”, the first of our trilogy, we lucked out with Quintus Sertorius, a real Roman general. His character and life were outlined neatly for us by the Roman historian Plutarch. Sertorius’ life in Iberia provided a rough outline of how our heroine’s story would go set amidst the unrest at the beginning of the 1st C. BC.

One word of caution, our world view today has changed in ways nearly unimaginable to people who have not been exposed to concepts like civil rights, the sanctity of life, or environmental conservation. Today’s readers would be horrified at “real” history-its filth, superstition, disease, and cost in terms of human suffering. We have only to look at places in the world right now in which brutality is the meal of the day. Right now, enslavement or murder of one ethnic group is only a short airplane ride away–not a millennium or two ago. Fiction, especially genre fiction, set in brutal times or places may not be popular unless filtered through modern sensibilities and made more palatable. Verisimilitude is important. Sticking to the absolute truth in every horrid detail can be too much.

And one last word–we all suffer for our art, but please do not inflict your months of suffering research on unsuspecting readers. They’re just looking for a good story.

“Druids”, “Captives”, and “Warriors” (coming in august 2013) are published by EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing. They are available in both paper and electronic versions. http://www.edgewebsite.com/

***

Barbara Galler-Smith lives in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. She’s an award winner author, a long-time member of Edmonton’s largest speculative fiction writers group, The Cult of Pain, and co-founder of a group designed for emerging speculative fiction writers called The Scruffies. She’s also a Fiction Editor for On Spec: The Canadian Magazine of the Fantastic. Along with US writer Josh Langston, she’s the author of The Druids Saga– an historical fantasy epic trilogy: Druids (2009), Captives (2011), Warriors (coming August 2013).

Yes, that is a TARDIS on my necklace.

Once Upon a Fairy Tale

March 25, 2013

fictorians

Guest Post by Julie Ann Avila

Julie Ann and her garden gargoyle Argyle

So, you’ve decided to dip you quill into the ink pot and try a fairy tale. Now, where the wicked step-mother to start? Ah, at the beginning…

What are fairy tales? Fairy tales are a genre of literature, steeped in the traditions of oral story telling. They are fictional stories with elements of folklore, magic, and fanciful plot courses. Similar fairy tales are found across many cultures, but they tend to take on the unique seasoning of the particular culture in which they are written. Originally, fairy tales were targeted for adults, then children, and now enjoy an audience of both. Fairy tales tend to be more elaborate than fable and more enchanted than parables. And most importantly of all, fairy tales need not feature a fairy.

Why have fairy tales endured? The answer depends on who is doing the interpreting. Some believe fairy tales have staying power because the principle characters are strong Jungian archetypes with adventures dipping into our strongest desires, deepest fears, and shared experiences. Feminists look to fairy tales as a way of understanding gender inequalities, and historians see the tales as ways of preserving a cultural heritage, through custom and legend.

What are the elements common to fairy tales? Ten elements occur throughout classic fairytaledom. Let’s take a look at each one:

1) Special opening and closing words are often found in fairy tales. Beginning with “Once upon a time…” and ending with “…and they lived happily ever after” are common to the genre, but occasionally there are surprise endings.

2) A Goodie is one of the principle characters. This character may be kind, innocent, brave, and/or clever. He or she often helps or is helped by others during the story. The character is often poverty stricken, trying to eke out a living or in the roll of a servant.

3) A Baddie is another principle character. The character may be the wicked step-mother, an evil queen, a witch, a ravenous animal, or someone consumed by greed or power. This character usually loses in the end.

4) A Universal Truth runs through the story. This often relate to common experiences (growing up), shared hopes (to have enough of something vital: food, shelter, love), or universal questions (good versus evil, origin stories).

5) The plot is focused on a problem that needs to be solved. The problem can be a conflict between characters, values, or a quest.

6) The resolution of the problem often demonstrates a value or teaches a lesson. The outcome is important to the culture in which the tale was written. Some examples include kindness over cruelty, humility over pride and simplicity over greed.

7) Magic, enchanted objects (wands, spinning wheels, beans), magical creatures (giants, goblins, trolls) and words (remember Bippity boppity boo?), and talking animals (wolves, pigs, bears) are essential elements to a fairy tale. Magic may be a positive or negative element in the tale.

8) Royalty is another common element to classical fairy tales. Castles, Queens, Kings, Princesses, and Princes are plentiful.

9) Repeated numbers or patterns of events abound. The numbers 3 and 7 are common to many fairy tales; 7 dwarves, 3 pigs, 3 bears, 3 attempts.

10) Common motifs run through many fairy tales. These include tricksters, journeys, riddles, monsters, guardians, quests, sleep states, helper characters, and a setting usually in the past.

Is your quill hovering over the ink pot? Are you wondering if you should bother? Yes, give it a dip! Writing fairy tales is fun, fun, fun! Because we live in a wondrous age far beyond the dreams of Perrault, Andersen, and those grim Grimm Brothers, we NEED modern fairy tales to reflect our cultural reality.

How do go about writing a modern fairy tale? It easy! Let your imagination off its leash and fiddle with all the classical elements. Try a new magical opening and ending. A favorite opening in my fairy tales has been “Once upon a twist in time…”Flip a goodie into a baddie and vice versa. That sweet little girl wasn’t really so innocent.

Look to lesser featured truths. What is the cost of security? Invent new magical systems, enchanted objects, words, and go beyond the talking animal. Technology would be a fun place to investigate. While royalty may be rare, the royal status of celebrity, athletes, and entrepreneurs is quite the cultural rage. Give another number a try. Personally, I love the number five.

While the past was historic, the present is amazing, and the future? Well, the future is anything you can imagine. So, don’t be afraid to leap into a unique setting. A line from one of mine, “Every time the old grey cat meowed, Matilda T. Bartholomew was transported fifty five seconds into the future. It wasn’t until he purred that she could restore her missing time, and PG Grey tips was a very crabby cat.”

What can you add to the collection of common motifs of the genre? I can hardly wait to find out!

***

Julie Ann Avila writes across many genres, but her favorite genre is that of the fairy tale. Her fairy tales have featured time travel, visiting aliens, the Loch Ness Monster, and at least one hundred and five other permutations (even a fairy or two). She lives in Kirkland, Washington with her husband, three children, a very smart dog, a less than interested cat, two chickens, and an upside down goldfish. Life is never dull.

James Bond and Kitchen Fires

March 23, 2013

fictorians

Guest Posts 1 Comment

Guest Post by Kim May

What do Robert Ludlum, Vince Flynn, Kathy Reichs, and Michael Jackson have in common?

Thriller.

The thriller genre has a fount of wisdom and literary tricks just waiting to be tapped. So, why are thrillers so popular? Besides being fast-paced, they’re, well… thrilling. They often involve occupations we don’t see on a daily basis. Intelligence agency operatives, the Secret Service, commandos (who are thankfully not commando), and cut-throat lawyers are often at the center of these heart-pumping tales. All of these are real occupations, and while it doesn’t require the reader to stretch his or her imagination, it’s still far enough into the realm of the unknown to fulfill the same fantasy role as a wizard or rocket jockey. It also means that the conflict is easy to understand. The reader doesn’t have to be a rocket scientist to know why a missing nuclear warhead is a bad thing.

Another draw you’ll find is an exotic location. Think of James Bond. Is he content saving the world in good old London town? No, he’s jetting to every enchanting and mysterious locale on the planet. (Coincidentally, this also provides him with a bevy of beauties to tap.) Granted, the secret lair inside a hollow mountain or Q’s conveniently placed and well-disguised labs probably doesn’t have real-world counterparts, but it’s certainly fun to think they do. I know my imagination runs amok every time I pass gated stairways and mysterious doors. You never know; there may be a super-secret ninja training room inside a donut shop. These things happen.

I realize that neither of these are monumental concepts, nor are they only found in thrillers. Sci-fi and fantasy are just as loaded with exotic locales and professions, many of which are more exciting than those found in reality. For some of us, James Bond in space is a lot cooler than James Bond in the jungle. But I have to admit that not everyone has the imagination required for sci-fi or fantasy-I have family that fall in this category-and there are times when it’s nice to unplug the brain and just be entertained. This is something that thrillers are really good at.

Not every thriller has an exotic location or mind-blowing dilemma. It’s not unusual to find one set in the town next door, or a major metropolis that thanks to TV and movies; we’re very familiar with despite never setting foot there. When the danger is close to home, it can increase the tension. For example, in the Jack Ryan novels by Tom Clancy, one of his most nail biting conflicts wasn’t when Jack was smuggling Russian submarines or fighting South American drug cartels. It was when a vengeful foe tried to kidnap his family. Whether we have been in that situation or not, it’s one that we are socially aware of, scared of, and wouldn’t wish on our worst enemy. When it happens to someone we care about, such as the hero of a story, we cease caring about the pot roast burning in the oven because we NEED to know how it ends.

The biggest draw for this genre, and what should be employed more in other genres, is the use of hooks and cliffhangers. If you look at how a thriller is structured, you’ll see that just about every chapter ends with a hook-a burning question or perilous situation (that may or may not involve anthrax) which causes you to turn the page instead of feeding the dog, fetching the kids from soccer practice, or putting out the kitchen fire (seriously, they should put warnings on these things). Hooks are a handy way of entrancing readers. They’re the fabled chemical inside KFC’s chicken that makes you crave more. Can you think of a good reason not to put that in your stories (excluding kitchen fires)? I didn’t think so.

So, if this storytelling tool is so tried and true, why are they not employed in other genres more often? In short, I don’t know. I suspect it may be because we don’t always look outside our chosen genre, but that’s a topic for another day. Regardless of the reason, it does make this the perfect time to use hooks, cliffhangers, and realistic conflicts in your fiction. Thanks to technology, our readers have a lot of entertainment options at their fingertips. Not only are we competing with daily life for the reader’s attention, we’re also competing against every game, social network, and cat video on the internet. Using the draws of the thriller genre will put us ahead of all that. All of the writers I mentioned at the beginning are very good at doing these things and it’s why their work consistently tops the charts. Yes, even Michael Jackson. His ability to thrill audiences got him crowned the King of Pop. I see no reason why we couldn’t be similarly crowned.

***

Kim May writes sci-fi and fantasy but has been known to pen a gothic poem or two. She works at an independent bookstore and dog/house sits on the side. A native Oregonian, she lives with her geriatric cat, Spud, and spends as much of her free time as she can with family and friends. If you would like to find out what she’s working on, please visit her blog at http://ninjakeyboard.blogspot.com/

On Urban Fantasy

March 22, 2013

Colette Black

Colette Black Fantasy Genres Reading Science Fiction The Writing Life 2 Comments

When people used to say Fantasy Fiction, the automatic response was, Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, David Eddings or someone along those lines. In the last few years this has changed. Though the greats of the past are still acknowledged, many people would say, Stephenie Meyer, Kim Harrison, or J.K. Rowling. The shift toward urban fantasy, as well as their blockbuster movie counterparts, is changing the sff (science-fiction/fantasy) arena.

First off, what is urban fantasy? The loose definition is any fantasy that takes place in an urban setting. Personally, I have trouble counting anything that isn’t somewhat contemporary, and earth-based. So my definition would be: a fantasy story with a strong magical or supernatural element that takes place in a current, realistic, setting.

Is urban fantasy new? Not entirely. I remember reading, “The Monk” in a college literature class, and to my way of thinking, it was eighteenth century urban fantasy. Set in the time period, it’s about a monk’s struggle between his fanatic adherence to religion and his lust for a young girl. There is sorcery, demons, and if I remember correctly (it’s been a few years), Lucifer himself has a nice little tete a tete with our villain, making it the ultimate paranormal urban fantasy of its time. I gave it five stars on Goodreads. But, of course, those types of books were rare until the 20th century and it wasn’t until around the 1980’s that urban fantasy became a recognized subgenre. Even then, I doubt it was recognized by the majority of young people. When I declared fantasy my favorite genre in the mid-80’s I was still getting looks of shock and surprise by my classmates who didn’t know the difference between their concept of fantasy–erotica–and the literature definition–magic and other-wordly adventures.

Why the sudden craze? In my opinion, Harry Potter and Hollywood. Sure, there were plenty of sci-fi movies that had done well, even phenomenal: Star Wars, Star Trek, Back to the Future. But how many fantasy movies had caught the public eye before HP: The Sorceror’s Stone arrived on the scene? Wizard of Oz and Mary Poppins became classics, but they were the exceptions among a long line of flops. I don’t think even these movies, as great as they were, had people lined around the theaters, dressed up like characters from the movie, or purchasing merchandise as if planning to redecorate an entire house with it. Harry Potter came along and people made money, lots of it. And thus, in my opinion, started the bandwagon. And it’s a bandwagon I don’t mind. I love urban fantasy. One of my first adventures with it was Terry Brooks, Word and the Void series. And I love the number of YA series that are coming out, as well as their cheesy, amazing, blockbuster hits. I can’t wait to see Cassandra Clare’s, Mortal Instruments, put to film. As long as urban fantasy books continue to captivate readers and the movies continue to bring in hordes of dedicated fans, then we’ll continue to see the rise in their publication and acquired movie rights.

What’s next? Of course, nobody knows for sure, but I know what I’d like to see: more steampunk-type books on the screen and variations of it in literature, as well as alternate histories/futures with impossible but amazing scientific elements. Also, I’d like to see Sci-fi re-emerge on the middle grade and young adult level. I’d like to see romance-heavy sci-fi books like, Across the Universe (the sci-fi one by Beth Revis), made into movies. I’d like to see middle-grade and YA readers entranced with space again without feeling like they have to have pH.D’s in science in order to enjoy the journey; something like Gini Koch’s Alien series, but for a YA audience. Brandon Sanderson’s middle-grade Alcatraz series would fit into what I have in mind.

I hope that as you continue to look for the next urban fantasy book to fall in love with, that you’ll also open your mind to some of the other amazing bends that are building on the sff front. Please share a comment and let us know what books you’ve liked best in urban fantasy and let us know your predictions for the future.