No, "Suffer The Children," Is Not Some Secret Sign of Q-Anon Support (A Rebuttal)

For folks who don't follow my fiction releases as closely as my other work, I've been slowly creating audio dramas of several pieces of short fiction over on my Daily Motion channel (which you should subscribe to if that sounds like your bag). The project started with Dead Man's Bluff (a weird Western about a gambler whose past comes back to haunt him), which is a short story out of my collection The Rejects which dropped back in 2020. Since that story seemed relatively popular, I figured I'd follow it up with another story from the collection, Suffer The Children. A modern-fantasy noir story about an angel trying to do his job among the dark hearts of Hollywood, I figured it would be a nice, self-contained tale to add to the collection.

Until Q-Anon people started showing up in the comments. Which is why I wanted to take a moment to talk about this story, what it's actually about, and why I'm disturbed at this particular reaction.

Before we get into it this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron!

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What Is "Suffer The Children"?

I wrote this short story perhaps 5-6 years ago when I was trying to get into a modern fantasy noir anthology. My story didn't get chosen for that collection, sadly, and I didn't have much luck placing it with other publishers. That's how it wound up in The Rejects in the first place, as that book is an anthology of stories that never quite seemed to get picked up, but which I didn't want to sit on any longer.

What's the story about? Well, the story follows Malachi, an Old Testament angel stalking the streets of Los Angeles. He follows a guy carrying what seems to be a stolen baby to a sketchy building that absolutely reeks of wealth. A cult made up of big-name executives, highly-paid entertainers, and others are there, worshiping the god Moloch. The baby is to be the latest sacrifice made by this newest acolyte. Malachi manages to invoke old laws, and make a point that there are certain lines that are not to be crossed, while avoiding an all-out war with another god whose worship extends back to the time when the world was young, and many powerful entities walked the earth.

Every time you save an innocent, you get a new feather on your wings.

Ideally I wanted to dip a toe into the water to see if Malachi was popular enough as a character (and if folks wanted to see a modern fantasy setting that focused on Middle Eastern gods and mythologies rather than the usual Celtic, Norse, etc., gods that permeate the genre) to warrant writing novels about. Since The Rejects is a relatively small short story collection that hasn't gotten a lot of reads and reviews, I figured that making an audio drama version of this tale might breathe a little life into Malachi and get folks interested in more of his adventures.

Then The Q-Anon People Arrived

If you don't live in America you may be less familiar with the political movement/crackpot conspiracy referred to as Q-Anon. An extremely truncated version is that an anonymous person claiming to have/be a secret source in the United States government started dropping tidbits of information they claimed revealed deep-seated wickedness not just in the government apparatus, but around the world. The conspiracy reads like a greatest-hits of the most unhinged ideas that people have ever believed in America, rolling up the remnants of the Satanic Panic, The New World Order, antisemitic conspiracies like the Protocols of The Elders of Zion used by the Nazi party during WWII... basically, if you can find something absolutely absurd that Americans have used to make themselves feel in on some kind of worldwide secret, its DNA has wound up in the Q-Anon movement somewhere.

Buried in a lot of the various parts of this conspiracy is an obsession with protecting children. Not in real, meaningful ways like backing policies that would improve schooling, or fund community centers, or ensure that school lunch is free to all, or preventing school shootings, though. Rather, Q-Anon uses children as victims of extreme situations that are just as absurd as the monsters in most fantasy novels. Perhaps the most ridiculous of these is the Adrenachrome conspiracy theory, which posits that leaders of the Democratic Party, so-called Hollywood elites, and others who aren't aligned with Q-Anon's politics, kill children in Satanic rituals in order to harvest their blood, and then either drink or inject it in order to keep themselves younger and extend their lifespan.

This conspiracy theory states, with a straight face, that anyone who isn't ring-wing enough in their political believes is a literal devil-worshiping vampire. I could not, in my wildest imaginings, come up with something that utterly ridiculous... so I'm more than a little annoyed that this seems to be the crowd that was most responsive to my story.

Moloch Isn't The Democrats... It's Capitalism

Judging from the comments folks were leaving, they completely misinterpreted the symbolism I was trying to go for, and what was being said in this story. All they seemed to see was that an angel (which they identified as a hero) kicked open the door to a cult meeting, killed a guy who had kidnapped a baby to sacrifice it, and then left, saving that kid from a grisly demise.

And that does happen... but it seemed like a lot of their takes were that this was a, "Hollywood is full of groomers," story, or, "Yeah, show those liberal elites that God is coming for them," story. It is, to be very clear, neither of those things. What it is however, it an indictment of capitalism, the power of the wealthy, and how most of those who abuse their authority are never punished for their actions.

You know, noir shit.

Rank has its privilege, as the saying goes.

I could have set this story in Chicago or New York just as easily as Los Angeles, but I chose it primarily because L.A. is one of the cities with the richest history of noir stories, and because a literal angel in the City of Angels amused me. I did not choose it to make some statement on the so-called liberal corruption of Hollywood, and how it's a godless place that's lost its way.

Is Hollywood corrupt? Absolutely! From abuse of performers, to sleazy backroom deals, to the exploitation of children, Los Angeles is famously corrupt... and that's just in the real world. But that corruption doesn't just come out of nowhere. It is, by and large, caused by pursuit of the almighty dollar. It's caused by people trying to take land, to exploit their workers, by always trying to double-cross someone in a business deal, or to get special exemption for their particular sins. The very reason Hollywood is the center of the American film industry, after all, is because people making movies didn't want to pay Thomas Edison the fees for using his camera, so they set up on the opposite coast and told him to come and get it if the money meant so much to him.

But back to the story.

Who is Moloch? As a god, he's a king that gives wealth and material success to those who sacrifice to him. In the old days this was rain, crops, and good animals, but in the modern world it's become gold, record deals, movie contracts, and high-yield stock portfolios. And people who come to him sacrifice children for his favor... but the driver Malachi is following isn't one of these elite. He isn't some hungry young star trying to make a name for himself. He's a down-on-his-luck social worker kidnapping kids to try to trade them for a step up the ladder.

It's a single, throwaway line, but in it we see a lot about the L.A. that Malachi lives in, and how it isn't too far from the one in the real world. We see that social workers aren't well paid, and that they don't have either upward mobility in their field, or any kind of guarantee on basic necessities. We see a system so overcrowded by orphaned and unwanted children that when they go missing no one seems to notice or care. We see a world where people are desperate, and where if they lose their jobs there's nothing to stop them from ending up on the street before they can try to get back on their feet. We also see that it's the guy on the bottom, the one who didn't have the money, resources, or prestige, who gets punished when he gets caught by an authority figure. The rest of the cabal did far worse than Manny did, and while they might be scared of what Malachi could do to them, they know they're functionally untouchable. They have the protection of their king, and angel or no, Malachi can't take that head-on even if he might want to.

Moloch represents a corrupt hierarchy of wealth, and those whose power insulates them from the consequences of their actions. He's capitalism, and the way that those who climb high enough in the pecking order are basically above the law more often than not. It represents everything an angel of the lord should be against, given how the gospels demanded giving away wealth, feeding the people, caring for your neighbor, and loving one another.

So, if that sounds like the sort of thing you'd get a kick out of, give the video a watch, and subscribe to my Daily Motion channel! These things are hard as hell to put together, so getting the numbers to justify the time and energy to put together the next one would help. And if you find yourself in the market for even more audio dramas, check out the Azukail Games YouTube channel where I've got 20 some-odd more of them for your listening pleasure!

Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

That's all for this week's Craft of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

And to stay on top of all my latest news and releases, collected once a week, make sure you subscribe to The Literary Mercenary's mailing list. 

If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!

Everything Old is New Again (Take Your Story Back to Basics)

An obsession among writers is that many of them feel their work has to be new, different, or unique in some way. They are always striving to re-invent, to re-imagine, or to alter the perception of an idea, a genre, or a story. And sometimes that genuinely leads to fresh perspectives and fun concepts that hadn't been explored on the page before... other times, though, it just leads to contorting something to try to make it look different without asking if it's actually more interesting to see it from that perspective.

So I wanted to take this week to suggest a trick I've been using a lot, and which I've had pretty good results with. In short, take whatever genre, tropes, story, world building, etc., you're using, and examine what it was before its latest incarnation. Because sometimes going all the way back to basics can really make you stand out.

You want vampires in your book, you say?

As always, before we get too deep into today's topic, remember to subscribe to my newsletter if you want to get all of my content sent to you every week. And if you want to help keep the blog going, consider becoming a Patreon patron... even a small donation makes a big difference.

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Elves, Vampires, Magic, and More!

Practically everything we use to tell our stories is built off of things established by earlier creators. Whether you're taking inspiration from the works of Tolkien, Howard, or Burroughs to write fantasy, you're drawing on folklore to populate your stories with monsters, or you're looking at folk heroes and ancient propaganda to form your semi-historical narratives, all of us are getting our ideas (if not our understanding of the raw elements of story) from somewhere.

However, as time has gone on, the ideas present in a lot of these stories have grown and changed, becoming different from what they originally were. And though it seems paradoxical, you can actually make a story feel more unique and different from its contemporaries by using something old in a new way.

Because I took my own advice on this one.

Folks who've read my novel Crier's Knife have said it has a distinct feeling of the bastard child of a pulp fantasy novel combined with a Western, which was very much what I was going for. However, in order to give it that old-time, sword and sorcery feeling I rewound the clock on how magic has often been depicted in fantasy novels. Rather than using Vancian magic (which became extremely common thanks to its prevalence in fantasy RPGs), or more modern "spell point" magic (where wizards, sorcerers, etc. have a certain pool of power they can draw on to achieve whatever effects they need), I used more ritual magic that was far more common to stories in the 1940s and before. Where the method of the magic isn't explained at all, and where the ingredients, actions, and sacrifices demanded are meant to give the audience the feeling of the spell rather than walking them through the internal logic of what it is supposed to do.

Aesthetic magic, if you will.

This is far from the only example of me using this method in my own work. It's also showing up a lot in my Sundara: Dawn of a New Age setting for Pathfinder and DND, and you can clearly see it in the elves and orcs books I've released where I've attempted to take some elements of Tolkien's original creation and show them in a different light. However, you've also seen this strategy at work if you've read Salem's Lot by Stephen King, where the celebrated author eschews the evolution of the sexy, tortured vampire and gets back to basics with a riff that's much closer Bram Stoker's original novel. You see this in more modern werewolf stories that reach back to the idea of a curse where the host has no control over what happens, and you could even see it in romance novels where the Norseman is the love interest because of his grooming and personal care just as much as because of his sword arm or linguistic skills.

There's two reasons this strategy works.

The first is that for older readers, they're seeing something familiar in a new light. It can bring back nostalgic feelings, and give them a new twist on an old recipe. The second is that for some readers, either due to their age or experience (or lack thereof) in the genre, your work will be the first time they've seen things written with those older aesthetics, rules, or sensibilities in place, which will make it feel new and unique to them.

In either situation, you come out ahead.

So if you're wracking your brain trying to re-invent the wheel, consider for a moment if you might actually make more progress (and get more interesting results) using an earlier design rather than attempting to build off of the version everyone already knows today.

Looking For Additional Reading?

If you're looking for additional stuff to check out before you go, might I recommend the following?

- 5 Tips For Creating Fantasy Towns and Cities: I've been up to my elbows in professional fantasy world building for most of this year, and these are the tips I've found most useful for making sure places feel organic, no matter how fantastical they are.

- The Silver Raven Chronicles Part One: Devil's Night: A free fantasy short story, this tale begins in the old quarter of the city of Kintargo. A rumor whispers in the corners of a ghost risen from the past to take Cheliax to task for allowing devils into its heart, and its throne room. Most don't believe it... but one of the city's dottari finds this ghost is all too real when it steps out of the shadows with a message for her to spread to her fellow enforcers. They are no longer welcome in his city.

Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

That's all for this week's Craft of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my cat noir novel Marked Territory, its sequel Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

And to stay on top of all my latest news and releases, collected once a week, make sure you subscribe to The Literary Mercenary's mailing list. 

If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!

Evergreen Content, Book Sales, and You! (Making More Sales By Avoiding Cheap Gimmicks)

If you're a fan of genre fiction, then you've probably noticed how trends tend to wash through it from time to time. Vampires were big in the early 90s, for example, and on the heels of Anne Rice they were absolutely everywhere. Then they petered out for a while. Steampunk got really big around the time the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen film broke, spurred on by books like Boneshaker. Dozens of series have aped the enchanted school setting of the Potterverse, now, and we were up to our ears in YA dystopias after the success of The Hunger Games.

Numbers are up! Quick, get into that slush pile and grab EVERYTHING with a zombie in it!

Everyone has their own taste in fiction, and sometimes you're looking for a very specific flavor. But if you read a lot of the books that come out in rapid succession after something hits big, hoping to ride that wave onto the bestseller list, you're going to notice that nine times out of ten the only thing they have to offer is they belong in the same genre. They've got brass gears and clockworks, zombies, romantic vampires, and so on and so forth... but there isn't much to make them stand on their own two feet.

The problem with a cash-in book is that it's trying to imitate the identity of books that came before it. These books often lack a strong identity of their own, and thus they can feel sort of like a good book's mildly attractive cousin; not a negative experience, but not one that really sticks with you. Certainly not one you'd review and recommend to others. Even if a writer didn't set out to write a cash-in book (perhaps they just clung too tightly to the established story structure and beats of a genre mainstay, such as how roughly 87 percent of hopeful fantasy authors think they need to write a Lord of The Rings homage) they'll wind up with the same problem.

Evergreen Content, and Telling Your Own Story

There's a concept I came across as a blogger, and it's one that is heavily steeped in the marketing side of things; evergreen content. Basically the idea behind content that's evergreen is that it never goes out of style, so people are always going to be looking for it. Because when something stops being relevant, and goes stale, the traffic's going to drop off, and it stops generating income. On the other hand, something that pulls a steady stream of views, reads, and sales is always going to be an earner, allowing you to get paid for it for years to come.

Which is, of course, the dream.

Give you an example of what I'm talking about, here. The article What Was The Satanic Panic? The Forgotten Witch Hunt of The 1980s is a piece of evergreen content because it discusses a period of time in history. This moral panic is over, so the facts about it aren't going to change. At the same time, though, it's a distinct event that remains relevant since it's tied to American history, pop culture, and the stigma associated with everything from Dungeons and Dragons to violent video games. As long as there are moral panics in the United States (a trend that goes back to the founding of the country, and shows no signs of stopping), then this particular article will be relevant.

Contrast that with the blog post 3 Ways Pathfinder is Losing Its Identity With The New Playtest. This post was a flash-in-the-pan piece that was a reaction to the playtest for the second edition of the Pathfinder roleplaying game, and it had a very short shelf life. The playtest was only out for a year, so anything this article had to say was only relevant for that brief period of time... on the other hand, there was a lot of interest in the subject, and in that short period it did draw quite a lot of views and reads. But no one's come back to it since the full game was released because anything is has to say is no longer valid.

So what does that have to do with your book?

Well, take a step back and ask what the primary selling points of your book are. Is it a solid story that stands on its own as a mystery, an adventure story, or a tale of the macabre? Or is your major selling point that you have zombies in it? Because if that's the case, then you're probably not going to get a lot of traction when that gimmick is no longer pulling in audiences the way it did when The Walking Dead was a fresh network success. You might see some renewed interest when the shambling undead come back into style, but it can take years for that tide to come back in.

What Makes A Book Evergreen?

Unfortunately, this is the part where I shrug my shoulders and gesture vaguely at the market. However, I do have a few general recommendations on how to hold off your book's freshness expiration date as long as possible.

- Don't Hang Your Story Fads and Gimmicks: The key here is that it's perfectly fine to include elements that might be part of a fad, but not to make that the whole of your story. Write a spy novel that happens to have vampires in it, rather than a vampire novel about spies, if you see what I mean?

- Keep Your Story Authentic: When steampunk first started getting popular, lots of people tried to get in on the genre by randomly including brass accents and gears in their setting descriptions and cover design to widen their story's genre labels. While this gave it the appearance of being part of the genre, it was the literary equivalent of just putting on a cheap plastic mask so you could say you were wearing a costume at the bar. Rather than gluing some superficial elements onto your tale, develop what makes it truly unique; people know when they're being pandered to, and generally they don't like it.

- Make It Stand Out: There's nothing worse for your shelf life than just aping what other books are doing, even if you're trying to follow in the footsteps of the classics. While it's important to be able to look at enduring books and ask what makes them last, it's equally important to spin those into your own story instead of just trying to trace them while changing a few minor details. For example, there are probably hundreds of Lord of The Rings imitators out there, but only one of them is Stephen King's Dark Tower series.

Like, Follow, and Stay Tuned!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing! If you'd like to see more of my work, take a look at my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife!

If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!

Don't Oversell Your Twist (No One Thinks You're Clever)

Generally speaking, I don't think it's a good policy to bad mouth other writers. We all work ridiculously hard, and just because one person's stories may not be to my taste, that doesn't make them a bad writer. However, I sometimes come across an example that is too perfect not to use to illustrate a point I want to make.

To that end, I'm going to talk about The Border Lords by T. Jefferson Parker.

Does this scream vampires to you?

The Setup and The Oversell

The general setup, in case you didn't pop over to check out the Amazon preview, is that there's a federal sting operation going on in California to try to stop the flow of gang enforcers and a new brand of machine pistol that are coming up from the cartels in Mexico. When an undercover agent goes rogue, and starts dishing out his own brand of high-caliber justice that leaves a wake of cartel bodies in his wake, it's up to his former comrades to track him down, and get to the bottom of what's happening.

Solid hook, I'm down.

Ah, but there's a twist!

Instead of any of that stuff I mentioned, though, the book opens with a priest outside of a cave full of bats in South America. He enters, and extracts a bat for some use that isn't made clear. We then get into the whole story of an agent going rogue and mowing down cartel gunman as he reaches progressively higher levels of insanity. It's revealed that he crossed paths with this unusual priest, and that the priest spent a great deal of time with him. Filled his head full of odd ideas, and even got him to drink a special blend of something that the priest made himself. Not long after this, our undercover operative starts feeling stronger, hearing strange noises, and growing more violent and aggressive. He is repulsed by water and bright light, as well, in case the bat cave was too subtle.

Rather than being treated like a subplot, the whole question of where this agent's enhanced strength, impossible perception, and bizarre sensory sensitivity is coming from becomes one of the main issues of the book; especially when his wife starts displaying similar tendencies and abilities. And the author kept randomly drawing our attention to copies of Dracula being left around the set dressing.

As gimmicks go, it wasn't necessarily a bad one. Was one of our protagonists turning into a vampire, or had he simply contracted rabies? You could get a couple of chapters out of that arc, or more if you played your cards close to the chest. The problem was that the twist was so oversold, and it took so long to resolve, that it became more annoying than intriguing.

Back to Chekov's Gun Again

As I said back in Make Sure Chekov's Gun is Actually Loaded (Trimming The Fat in Your Story), anytime you draw your audience's attention to something, that detail should come back around to be important later. Like how you don't spend a lingering shot on a rifle in act one if you aren't going to take it off the wall and shoot it in act three.

The first major issue with the twist in this book is that it played hard to get for so long that by the time it was revealed you simply didn't care. The back and forth over whether it was science or magic, a disease or a supernatural template, would have been cool if it was either more subtle (descriptions from witnesses who saw him in action claiming the agent was more than human, for instance, instead of constantly putting the audience in his POV), or if it was resolved quickly instead of hemming and hawing for most of the novel. I had it as an audio book, and there was barely a CD left to go by the time it was finally dropped that no, it's just rabies.

Shots fired.

The other issue was that the twist wasn't driven by the cast and their experiences; it was driven by the meta narrative. Chapter upon chapter describing how it was hard for the agent to shower, or to drink water, and the references to vampire novels, and so on and so forth. A mystery isn't really a mystery when you get to watch someone commit the crime in real time from a god's eye view. Rather than letting the reader try to put the pieces together by judging from the aftermath, working alongside the investigators as they watched security camera footage, showed up at hotel rooms, and tried to track down their operative's movements, the reader was just told what was happening, but not why it was happening.

In short, rather than letting the tension build, and slowly giving out information so the audience could follow along at a steady pace, the author just pulled back the curtain and asked us practically from chapter one, "Is this man a vampire, or simply mad? You decide!"

If it had been a minor subplot, or something that had been resolved quickly, that would have been a neat little twist. Drawn out for the length of the book, with what felt like at least a third of the total text dedicated to it, the whole science-or-magic thing eclipsed and spoiled the rest of the plot, which was supposed to be about gun runners and gang lords across the Mexico border.

The best way to describe this twist is to imagine it as garlic powder. A pinch of it would have added a nice little zing to the story I was otherwise enjoying. As it was, a third of the meal was just garlic seasoning. And that's enough to kill any vampire book quite dead.

Quick and Fast, or Long and Slow

Twists and subplots are the seasoning of your story. They add much needed flavor, and enhance the experience. However, seasonings cannot stand on their own. So make sure that your story is solid and meaty without them, and that you either add the spices slowly over a long period of time to draw out the flavor, or that you get a quick, sharp tang before you get back to the rest of your meal. Because people aren't here just to eat the spices; they're here for your actual plot, and the characters who are part of it.

It takes practice, but this is definitely something I would recommend all writers do. Because we so often get caught up in our own brilliant plot strings that we don't notice when things have turned into one, big, useless tangle.

That's all for this week's Craft of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife!

If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!

Fantasy Writers, If You're Just Changing Something's Name, Don't Bother

How many times have you been reading a book, and come across what sounds like a really unique fantasy race? They're mysterious, they seem to be powerful, and there are whispers about fallen empires and hidden civilizations that might provide a clue to the current plot. Maybe you start getting excited, wondering when the big reveal for the Gethredgi is going to happen. Then, when our heroes find themselves in the depths of a darkened forest, they're suddenly surrounded by strange, shadowy shapes. Then one of them steps forward... and it's just an elf.

Ears? Check. Strange instruments? Check. Perfect hair? Big check on that.

It doesn't just look like an elf, though... it's an elf through and through. Nature loving, aloof, unusual but alluring, etc., etc. Basically the only thing different is the name, and it turns out that all the smoke and mirrors about lost empires or shadowy rumors was just a trick to keep them off-screen long enough that the reader didn't realize your big lead up was to a copy-paste of the same creatures we've seen since Tolkien put his stamp on the genre.

This is a problem that a lot of fantasy writers run into. They want their world and setting to feel different and unique, but they don't want to stretch too far outside of the tropes established by Tolkien, Dungeons and Dragons, and other fantasy mainstays. Because yes these short, burly, bearded master craftsmen who live in the depths of the earth and tend to be warriors are still a thing... but we're calling them the Sha'an instead of dwarves. And these big brutes who like to fight, are hard to hurt, and have a lovely combination of green skin and tusks totally aren't orcs... they're, uh, the Miskai.

If you've ever found yourself doing this, I want you to slap yourself in the face. Hard. Now stop doing this, because you're not doing yourself or your work any favors.

The Name Isn't What Makes You Unique

Too often writers confuse changing the traditional name of something with actual innovation (note that this also applies to minor cosmetic changes, like giving your elves silvery hair, or making your dwarves gray-skinned). If you haven't actually gotten down under the skin of a story element and altered the way it works and functions, then you haven't actually made something new or unique. You've just stolen a car, spray-painted it a different color, and are now trying to tell us it's a different car.

What's worse is that nine times out of ten you're just going to piss off readers because you're essentially expecting them to treat these minor alterations as if they somehow get you away from the accepted mythology surrounding these creatures.

Make your orcs rum-running, dirtbike-riding anarchists, and NOW you've got our attention.

Interestingly, though, if you leave the names the same but change everything else, you'll find that you both have a whole new monster on your hands, and that your readers will be excited about it.

As an example, take vampires. There have been a lot of different versions of them over the years, and we've seen them re-invented time and time again. We've seen them portrayed as the undead, the strigoi, as shambling, zombie-like creatures, as carriers of a plague, as immortal beauties, and we've seen them as split-faced, whip-tongued monstrosities.

Any time there was a huge change in these creatures, they were still called vampires. Whether it was moving from a mystical to a biological explanation, taking them from monsters to sex symbols, or making them from beautiful creatures into hideous freaks, there were huge shifts in the mythology, weaknesses, strengths, powers, and even appearance of these creatures. But they were always called vampires as a way to deliberately play on audience expectations, which would then be subverted.

By changing superficial things, though, you're doing the opposite of that. You're promising your audience that your creatures, magic system, wizards, what have you, are totally different, but then giving them the same old same that they're used to.

Don't Be Afraid To Stay The Same (Or To Change)

Too often genre writers are overly concerned with uniqueness and originality in terms of the tropes they're using. While you should definitely think about those things, what's more important is the story you're telling, and the characters whose journey we're following. As I said back in Your Fantasy Novel Probably Sucks, and Professor Awesome's University Explains Why, everything about your setting is the backdrop against which your story is actually happening. So while unique cities, bizarre magic systems, or a ground-up re-imagining of fantasy race mainstays will be unique, they won't be the things that keep your readers reading.

They'll read for your story, and your story is (or at least should be) about characters.

So if you get too bogged-down in worrying that your elves are too Tolkien, or your demons are too Moorcock, and your rebellious princess just feels like punk rock Disney, take a moment, and ask the important question; are your characters compelling? And if you feel the answer is yes, ask if leaning on these other tropes weakens your story.

If it doesn't, don't give yourself an ulcer over trying to re-invent the wheel.

Because sure, if your orcs look just like the Uruk-hai, and your elves are master archers, some people are probably going to roll their eyes a bit. But if your characters are good, and your story is solid, people are more than happy to walk down a road that has a few familiar sign posts on it.

And if you really want to give them a different experience, don't just throw on a different coat of paint. Dig deep, and go nuts with it!

That's all for this week's Craft of Writing installment. If you have examples where a creator tried to seem new and different by just slapping some new labels onto existing tropes, and it really didn't work, leave them in the comments below! For more of my work, go check out my Vocal archive where I write about gaming, sexuality, geeky things, horror, and a ton of other stuff, too. To stay on top of all my releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter. Lastly, if you'd like to help support me and my work, consider either Buying Me A Ko-Fi to leave a one-time tip, or consider joining The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page, which is my bread-and-butter for making content just like this. Either way, there's a free book and my gratitude in it for you.

Don't Be Afraid To Change The Rules When You Write Your Story

How many times have you sat down to write a story about something really popular, but you can't think of a way to make your story different from any of the others already out on the market? You want to write a zombie apocalypse, but you don't want to just fade into the horde of other cannibal outbreak books. Maybe you really like this idea for a modern fantasy story about a witch investigator, but sexy witches who use occult rituals are a dime a dozen. Or you've got a really cool concept for a vampire novel, but you're worried it will just get swallowed up by all the Anne Rice imitators out there.

If you find yourself in this situation, get out your pickax, and dig a little deeper. Upset the foundation stones of the story you think you're writing, and question the rules you accept without thinking. You might find a whole, unplumbed subbasement waiting for your creative touch.

Careful, some of these holes go down pretty far.

A lot of the time when we want to write within certain genre lines, we restrict ourselves without even thinking about it. So, before you get discouraged that your book sounds like everyone else's, take a moment to question the pillars holding up those other stories, and ask if they're supporting anything in your book... or if they're just big, ugly impediments.

Change Is Different

To help you get an idea of what I'm talking about, let's return to those previous examples I used. Let's start with the zombie apocalypse.

So, you've got the dead returning to walk the earth. They destroyed society, and their virus is transmitted by a bite. Maybe, if you're hip, everyone on the planet already has the virus, so they rise when they die even if they weren't bitten as long as there's a lot of the body left intact. In the face of such a well-trodden setup, you feel like the drama of your story is going to get swallowed up in the indifference to zombies. So, change that up.

Well, I guess I don't really NEED the pseudo-scientific angle...

Change it how, though? Well, let's start with the "plague" part of the zombies. Toss that out entirely. There is no scientific reason for the dead to walk, so break with tradition there. Maybe, instead, it's a curse. Maybe demons have possessed the corpses, and are wreaking havoc. Maybe no one knows why they come back at all... they just do! Perhaps that means society has broken down into pragmatists, religious fanatics, and post-modern shamans, putting their faith out there along with their guns to stay one step ahead of the slavering hoard. While not a gigantic change, it's enough of a change that it might get people who are all zombied-out to read your back cover, and give you a chance to make your pitch.

You can do this with pretty much any cornerstone of a genre. Take the witchy investigator. You don't want your story to be just another hard-edged-Wicca story where witches are misunderstood, and she has to use her powers for good. So, question why you'd use that setup. Make your protagonist a traditional, Halloween-style, sold-her-soul-to-Satan-for-power witch. Give her a canary that is actually a horrible demon in disguise, and make the struggle for her soul a genuine point of contention. She has to deal with what she gave up for power, and her only solace might be to use those infernal gifts to do some kind of good. By changing that single pillar of the genre, you've made something that's pretty damn different.

Or take the vampire example. Vampires are a mythology that's existed in practically every civilization across the world. The sort of Anne Rice/Vampire The Masquerade setup is relatively recent. If you want to avoid falling into those tropes, then ask why you're using that kind of vampire at all? Why not use old English folklore, and make them the risen dead who were werewolves in life? Or people who were cursed at the time of death, and so may not rest? Is it a strain on the psyche not to devolve into a ravenous monster, thus adding the element of loss of humanity that drives many horror stories? Or is being a vampire something that only a select few can become? Whether by birth, genetic activation, or some other sort of sorting principal? Bonus points if you don't actually call your character a vampire, and you step away from the powers/weaknesses we've associated with the monster archetype since Bela Lugosi did his thing.

You Might Need The Pillar, But If You Don't, Knock It Down!

There are no rules to good writing that anyone can agree upon, but a lot of us will use existing shorthand to bring across big aspects of our stories. However, if those boundaries are getting in the way, toss them out! Your private detective doesn't have to be a former cop with a busted nose and a drinking problem. Hell, make him a guy with a bad heart who was way too smart for the written exam, but who couldn't pass the physical. Don't want your fantasy wizards to feel like every other spellslinger out there? Change up your magic system, and do away with the fireballs and lightning bolts that have dominated our covers ever since Dungeons and Dragons got popular.

Be different. It's your story, so before you conform to any guidelines or preconceptions, ask if those things are genuinely supporting the story you're telling. If they're not, then toss them out!

That's all for this week's Craft of Writing. Hopefully it got some wheels turning in my audience's minds. If you like what I have to say here, and you want to keep up on all my releases, then follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter. Lastly, if you want to help support me here, then consider contributing to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page. Or, if you'd rather, you could Buy Me A Coffee, instead! Either way, I'll be happy to send you a free book as thanks for the support.

Making Immortals Interesting

A long time ago, when I was still fresh to the author mantle and light-headed from being added to Goodreads (my page is here if you're curious), I began my first ever blog. It was called "Notes From the Editor's Desk", and it was meant to provide a humorous look at all the things editors have to look at that writers might not even know they'd doing wrong. It was short-lived, but while it was around it was liked by several people. Not only that it gave me a chance to be snarky, and to say the things I wasn't allowed to say to writers I was editing. Well, now that this blog's been up and running for a while I'd like to bring back the spirit, but hopefully garner a little more interest than I did the first time around.

All that said, we're going to tackle an immortal question today. Namely, what the fuck do you do with them?

Immortal as Lover

We've seen this trope from Tolkien to Twilight, and yet it never seems to creep other people out the same way it does me. A character whose age is measured in centuries somehow falls in love with a person who lacks experience, along with the ability to shrug off time, and it is very rarely questioned. Vampires, elves, demi-gods, djinn, demons, angels, and the list goes on and on.

Because this just screams long-term commitment.

This is, at least for me, where the suspension bridge of disbelief snaps and my imagination takes an Indiana Jones style tumble into croc-infested waters. On the one hand, sure, it's a nice sentiment that love might stretch across gulfs and unite two souls. But when Hugh Hefner does this we call him a dirty old man. In purely human experience anything more than a few decades one way or another tends to make people look askance, and wonder how long that older partner is going to dote on his latest play toy before moving on.

That's kind of the problem with immortal couples when one partner is very obviously outside the bicentennial club. Unless both characters have similar longevity, or the immortal in question is very young, chances are good that what we are seeing is simply a passing fancy. Because when one lives for several hundred years, humans are kind of like kittens. They're adorable, they're cuddly, and you can have some good times, but one day you turn around and they're just giving up the ghost. That's how time moves when you're ancient, and the more times you've gone through the process, the less and less attached you're capable of becoming.

Possible Fixes

While I don't advocate people do this, there are ways to make this more believable. Two were already mentioned; make both partners immortal, or make your immortal a younger member of the breed. This can make the inevitable loss truly heart-wrenching, rather than just more run-of-the-mill grief. However, if a writer insists on going the Lolita route with this, the best possible fix is to make the connection believable.

Why do people fall in love? Well, once their brains have calmed down and gotten all that pesky dopamine cleaned out, it's because of respect, similar feelings and opinions, shared activities, and what they add to each other's lives. Have the younger character win the immortal's interest and admiration by standing out in some way. If you have an elven general who wrote the book on tactics, have her out-flanked by a younger, but talented human. The competition and respect for skill creates a starting place for a meeting of the minds, which might lead to a meeting of the hearts. Remember it should be because of what a person does, not because of what they are. For Twilight fans, smelling good doesn't count.

Immortal as Time Capsule

Of all the ways to depict immortals, this has to be one of the most ham-handed in existence. Writers essentially treat characters like a snap shot of their last heyday, and the immortal has refused to progress further for some unknown and unknowable reason. Sort of like your grandparents.

In my day everyone wore brown robes, and we were happy.

Think about your grandparents for a minute though. Sure you probably had to explain Google to them a few dozen times before they could do a search without finding a hundred porn sites and a thousand viruses, but I'll bet you they figured out how a DVD player worked just fine. They probably dressed in fashions that made sense for this day and age, and they probably spoke in modern vernacular. I'd lay you odds they even did weird things like read the newspaper and watch the latest in television programming.

This is where the time capsule immortal sort of falls apart. In order for a sentient individual to remain so firmly planted in the past there cannot be any change in its surroundings. One of the main reason Dracula wants to go to London is that it's the future, and he's sick of being the lord of a dying past. He adopts English speech, English dress, and while he's exotic and foreign, no one remarks on how 3rd century he is. He successfully blended in with the Victorian era despite having been alive and slaying since a time when the newest cultural development was the crusade.

How to Fix This

The easy way is to take that desire you have to make a quirky character who will act as a mouthpiece for charmingly out-of-date statements, and crush its windpipe with a cinderblock. That is a bad reason to make a character, and doubly so if he or she doesn't actually contribute to the story at large.

Next, decide whether or not the character is capable of changing. It's been suggested for vampires in certain role playing games that they are frozen in the moment they were destroyed, which makes it hard for them to adjust. But even if that's the case, camouflage is important to someone who lives forever. So, if the character can't change, then he or she needs to go somewhere that fact won't be noticed or remarked upon. Wild mountains, crumbling castles, isolated frontiers like Alaska or Siberia make sense. If you're in downtown New York wearing ruffled sleeves and carrying a sword cane though, people are going to notice. People like the authorities, which could blow apart any sort of cover.

Not all immortals live in modern fantasy worlds. In fact, some of them live in worlds of their own. This is quite possibly the easiest way to make time capsules believable. A wandering sidhe prince, a plane-hopping demigod, or an ancient wizard with a pocket dimension all his own don't have to abide by your customs. In this case the strange differences the audience sees are more culture shock than anything else. Immortals are free to display unusual knowledge like proper spoken Latin, or out-of-date skill sets like broadsword fighting. They might even feel more comfortable surrounded by the art and architecture of their times. Just remember, everyone is shaped by their environments and cultures. Even if they're the ones setting the standard.

Immortal as Deus Ex Machina

We've seen this one a lot too. The Great and Powerful Whosey-Whatsits will know what to do, if only he/she/it/they were here. Hell, the entirety of the character of Dr. Who practically is this trope. That doesn't mean you're allowed to slap it into your story and claim it's groundbreaking.

Everyone forgets that the Tin Man has to watch everything die. After they gave him the capacity to love.

How to Fix This

Immortal characters can, and should, have knowledge or skill far beyond the mortal ken. Elves aren't born with the ability to shoot three arrows simultaneously and bulls-eye with all of them. They got there the same way anyone else did; practice. 150 years of practice just happens to go a pretty long goddamn way. However, it's important to remember that assholes, rejects, the socially outcast, and the downright curmudgeonly make it to old age as well.

How do you think the immortal got to be immortal? Careful planning and sheer determination is good, but cowards can live forever as well. Just remember that any character who is reduced to a set of stock abilities, or a singular purpose is probably not going to be terribly interesting. Sure Lancelot was the guy who had sex with the queen. He was also the strongest of all Arthur's knights, a brutal Gaul, and he enjoyed playing the flute as well. Everyone, even immortals, should be real. Just like real people, not everything about them is positive.

Final Thoughts

Immortality is a very, very messy thing. It is quite possibly the oldest MacGuffin in human history, stretching back to the Epic of Gilgamesh. That said, immortality is kind of like alternative history that's able to walk and talk; you have to figure out every little detail in your head to make it work. Is the immortal also indestructible? What powers does it possess? Is it a ghost in the shell that reincarnates, or is it a single being that was genetically modified through either chance or science to defeat age forever? And lastly, perhaps most importantly, is immortality a requirement to make the story work or is it just a thing you wanted to slap on for a coolness factor?

For those interested in past "Notes From the Editor's Desk" entries, either go to the page on the right, or click this link here. If you're interested in keeping updated with yours truly, follow me on Facebook, or jack yourself in at my Tumblr, where I welcome any and all questions or queries for other elements to add to this newest section of The Literary Mercenary. As always, thanks for stopping by.