A Sneak Peek of My Dystopian Sci-Fi Thriller "Old Soldiers"

As most folks know, I tend to have a lot of irons in the fire at any given time. And while my latest novel Painted Cats just dropped, the noir mystery sequel to Marked Territory where we follow NYC alley cat Leo on the latest case that's grabbed his curiosity, I've got another book that's going through layout and preparation right now!

So I thought I'd give you a bit of a preview of that one today... especially since it's pretty different from my most recent releases.

A broken man, in a broken world. What's not to love?

What's "Old Soldiers" About?

The new book takes place on an Earth that's been devastated by its first interspecies war with an alien fleet. Contact was made with an alien species called the Hyperion (an energy-based life form that remains inscrutable to humans even after the war), and it went poorly. Humanity had to devise every doomsday weapon it could, and fling them right into the Hyperion's teeth... and one of those weapons were the Myrmidon. Alien-human hybrid soldiers who could interface with captured technology, which grew to superhuman size, displayed highly advanced strength, and which boasted a number of other strange abilities... the Myrmidon may not have been the force that turned the tide, but they did their part.

That's all ancient history, though. The novel picks up nearly a decade after the end of the war, with humanity trying to put the pieces back together. Most of the Myrmidon didn't survive, and those who did have found themselves in a world that wasn't made for them. Tools of government propaganda, they are simultaneously regarded as heroes, and feared as dangerous weapons that might go off at any moment. Suffering from night terrors, and the burden of knowing he can't save his brothers and sisters from ending their own lives, Pollux is just trying to hold his life together.

When an assassination attempt goes awry, though, it's like he's finally woken up! Reflexes programmed into him by countless drill instructors kick back on, and it's like he's come out of a dream. Someone is gunning for him, and possibly for those closest to him. Gathering the others to his side, Pollux intends to get to the bottom of the conspiracy... and those who woke the sleeping giants will wish they'd just let these old soldiers fade away.

And since we're all thirsting over 9-foot-tall pale creatures created by weaponized weird science at time of writing, fans of Lady Dimitrescu may find themselves feeling right at home as we follow Pollux and the few comrades-in-arms he has left.

EDIT: Old Soldiers is now live, and ready for you to purchase your copy if you enjoy the preview!

A Snippet, For Your Reading Pleasure

The Babylon Gate had been a symbol of hope, once upon a time. A huge edifice built from heavy gauge materials, the Gate had originally been fronted with a bas-relief of angels frolicking in polished clouds. It had been a promise of safety for everyone who entered. That promise had never been tested, though, and as the years fell away, the Babylon Gate had faded. Now the angels leered from their perches, and the laurels on their brows had withered and darkened like forgotten funeral wreaths. All told, the Gate looked like an ancient mausoleum for some long-dead titan, rather than a passage to safety from the threats of the world above.

I was twenty meters from the gate when its halogen eyes blinked to life. The search lights swiveled in recessed sockets, squealing as they brought their beams to bear on me. I stopped, hunching my shoulders as a gust of wind drove a slick of rain against the back of my neck. An alarm warbled from the Gate; a buzzard with a craw full of cancer. I held my hands up, and listened for the tell-tale clank of the remote defense system coming online. Despite the entrance's appearance, I knew the guns were regularly cleaned, and regularly used.

“Identify yourself,” the Gate demanded, a bored voice demanded from the inset speaker system.

I straightened my shoulders, and snapped off the appropriate reply. “Pollux, Myrmidon, 698254.”

The Gate was silent while it considered my request. One minute passed. After two minutes, the Gate's eyes rolled back behind their protective cauls, and the street was left in relative darkness. Two minutes after that, the cannons slid back into their protective sheaths, and a low groan came from the base of the Gate as one of the walking doors shuddered aside. I lowered my head, and entered.

The inside of the Babylon Gate had seen even less maintenance than the outside. The foot lights flickered like dying fireflies. The rubber mats had rotted away in places, exposing the concrete underneath. Floor vents that had once been smooth and efficient creaked like broken shutters, and belched noxious clouds of decontaminating mist as I walked past them. The Argon-72 stung my eyes, and tried to crawl up my nose as I splashed through a puddle of stagnant water. I stepped through a sensor array, and no alarm bells went off. Either it had decided I could pass, or the array was dead.

The concourse beyond the intake hall was built to the same, grand dimensions as the rest of the Gate, but whatever looks it had left were lost in the shadows. Load-bearing caryatids watched me pass with their tarnished, marble eyes, and rusting copper nymphs rasped nonsense words at me from dried-up fountains as air blew through their empty pipes. Old shards of glass crunched under my boots, and a few moldering sleeping bags sat slumped against the walls like discarded cocoons. Ashes and soot stained corners where campfires had been lit. I paused, standing on the south side of a column. All I heard was the muted noise of the outside world, and all I smelled was the damp must of an unused place. I doubled my pace, picking my way down dusty corridors, and striding past old, stone benches carved to look like ancient wood. I crossed the central mosaic without glancing down at the faded map of the city's boroughs, and approached the Hundred-Yard Stairs.

The Stairs were the central feature of the Babylon Gate, and they had been designed with the city's population in mind. While not quite as wide as their namesake, the Stairs could swallow a battalion without hesitation. The steps had been carefully carved to minimize falls, and despite both extensive use and subsequent neglect, they were bedrock solid. Most of the brass handrails had been destroyed, and a majority of the light sconces had been shattered, but the stairs themselves were as strong as they'd ever been.

I descended quickly. The first and second landings were empty, but the sour ghost of toke smoke left behind by pipe users haunted the rafters, and chafed at the inside of my nose. I paused on the third landing, and checked the hieroglyphics on the walls. They'd changed since I'd last been down this way.

The mural of the red serpent on the far wall had been the most recent piece of artwork four months ago. It had been marked out, with black X's drawn through the eyes by whoever had taken the turf from the Scale Kings. A black, upraised fist with spikes on the knuckles had been stamped over the serpent, but the Brass Knuckle Brotherhood's tag had been crossed out with a green paint pen. Two crude skulls with lumpy berets were drawn a little further along the wall, their jaws open in either screams or laughter. The artist had more enthusiasm than talent, but the mark got the point across. I touched my thumb to the paint, and felt the residual moisture beneath the skin. The new tribe had marked its territory no more than three days ago. I turned away from the urban cave paintings, and continued my descent.

I smelled the next landing before I saw it; a mix of body odor, and burning industrial waste. The floor space was clotted with supine forms. They reclined on busted cushions, leaned into corners, and sprawled with their heads on folded coats. Flick torches and strike-anywhere matches flared, warming glass pipes and ceramic bowls. Chapped lips sucked at half a hundred poisons, and blew out little pieces of the tokers' souls in a chemical rainbow. I took shallow breaths through my mouth, and tried to keep as much of the haze out of my lungs as possible. A few eyes rolled to follow me, but most of the hop heads either didn't see me, or figured I was part of their self-inflicted stupors.

Downwind from the addict's lounge was the cot shop. Ragged curtains hung from twine nets strung across the ceiling, providing minimal privacy for the minimal space you could rent. Some of the residents let out loud, wet snores I could smell from the center aisle. Others made noises that told me the occupants were wide awake, and engaged in vigorous activities. A boy with a for-rent look glanced my way from a cane chair at the end of the hall, and the two clock girls opposite him raised their heads when they heard my boots. The girls' eyes went wide, and the boy swallowed hard. I gave them a nod, but didn't slow my pace.

There was more, of course. Even after midnight, the Stairs were jiving. The gambler's hall had faro at one end, and dice at the other. On the next level down, a juke played party ballads while patrons dipped drinks out of an all-sorts barrel. Some people spilled their drinks when I walked in, and a few spit them out. A couple of the patrons froze in their seats, and at least three of them legged it down the stairs like I was some kind of specter. No one drew a weapon, though. It seemed that whoever the new management on the Stairs was, they were smart enough to keep the “no bullets, no blades” rule that had been common practice ever since the McNamara Bloodbath had shut the whole place down two years back.

I was most of the way to the lowest level by the time a welcoming party met me. There were six of them, and they were all local boys. They wore dirty dungarees bloused into steel-toed boots, and each one had a gear belt slung around his hips. The only other thing universal about them were their green berets, each one set with a skull. Some were Jolly Roger medallions, others were hoodoo fobs, and one had a unit patch where the skull was wearing its own cap, but every one of them had their band's flash firmly pinned in a place of honor. They rounded the base of the stairway, and were five steps into their charge when they came to a stumbling halt. They were breathing hard, but none of them seemed tired. They all had weapons, but hadn't drawn them yet. I stopped four steps up from the front-runner, a burly bruiser with a heavy scar across the bridge of his nose, and gave the pack a once-over.

“Help you?” I asked.

“Got word we had a Gate crasher,” the leader said, his words coming a little short as he tried to get his breathing back to normal.

“I'm just passing through,” I said.

“Got to pay the toll,” one of the others said. He was rangy, younger than his compatriots, and I could see the chip on his shoulder quite clearly from where I was standing.

“Is that right?” I asked the leader, tilting my chin toward the loud-mouth.

The party's speaker shrugged his left shoulder, and gave me a you-know-how-it-is smile. His right hand never strayed far from the sidearm hanging at his hip.

“Way I remember it, you paid to go up. Coming down was free if all you did was sight see.”

“New management, new rules,” the back-seat talker said. A few of the others nodded, but no one said anything.

“Is that the way it is?” I asked the one with the nose scar.

“That's the policy,” he said.

I nodded once, showing him I understood. The others relaxed slightly.

“What's the toll?” I asked.

The leader named me a figure. The others nodded approvingly. The young gun in the back was grinning, showing two poorly-formed silver teeth in his top row. I smiled, and approached the group until I was a single stair away. I rested my hand on the railing, a ten centimeter-thick bar of wrought iron bolted to the concrete. I rocked my hand gently, and the railing didn't wobble.

“Here's my counter-offer. Get out of my way, or I will make absolutely sure five of you won't be doing anything but popping pain pills and shitting in a bag for the next four months.” I squeezed my hand into a fist, and the railing twisted out-of-true in my grip. I pulled, and four support bolts snapped off like dandelion heads. “The sixth goes to the cold room. Any one of you tries to drag iron, I make him eat it. You receiving?”

I looked from one face to the next. The street soldiers had seen their share of trenches and blood, and anyone who was part of a crew that took the Stairs would need some serious hard cases to keep control of such sought after territory. They were fighters, and had probably been fighters most of their short lives. I watched as they looked at the malformed piece of pig iron in my hand, and re-calculated their odds of survival. A sallow-faced shooter took a smoke out from behind his ear, lit it, and folded his arms. One of his compatriots slid his hands into his back pockets, rolling out his neck like he was bored. His pulse beat hard in his neck, though, putting the lie to his relaxed pose. The others followed suit, leaning against the walls, tucking their thumbs behind their belts, or lacing their hands behind their heads in a show of getting their breath back. The kid in the back was squeezing his pistol's grip hard enough to turn his knuckles white, but when he looked in my face, he saw something that made him let go like the weapon had given him a shock.

The team's point man looked at the others, then back to me. He blew out a long breath, and stepped aside. I let go of the railing, and it thudded into place with a heavy clang. I nodded, dusted off my hands, and brushed past them. I didn't run, but I tuned my ears for the sound of metal clearing nylon. No one pulled the pin. I was out the front door two minutes later, standing on the upper deck of Babylon Proper.

Would You Like More of My Work?

While Old Soldiers isn't out yet, I have plenty of other stuff you can sink your teeth into while you wait for it!

If you're a fan of super soldiers and you want something short and snacky, check out my recent (and free) piece Waking Dogs, a World Eaters tale from the Warhammer 40K setting. Or if you'd prefer some fantasy fiction with a military bent, take a look at The Irregulars, a Pathfinder Tale of mine from Paizo. There's also my short story collection The Rejects, if you're one of those rare folks who genuinely enjoys short stories. And if you prefer audio, my story Almost was dramatized by A Vox in The Void, a channel you should really give some love to.

If you're looking for some books, there's my cat noir mysteries Marked Territory and Painted Cats that I mentioned above, as well as my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife that came out a few years back. That's by no means all of my work out there right now, but if you want to check out everything else I've been a part of, give my Amazon author page a glance and I'm sure you'll find something to fit your tastes!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing! 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!

The Challenges of Writing Modern Fantasy Without a Masquerade

If you've read most modern fantasy, you're familiar with the Masquerade. It is, in short, the idea that the vampires, werewolves, fey creatures, witches, wizards, etc., move among the masses without being seen by the general population. Whether it's by magic, by constantly staying in the shadows, by manipulating media to make their very existence seem ludicrous, or just the idea that a majority of people will not believe what their own eyes tell them, the Masquerade is a common theme in a lot of modern fantasy because it serves two, important purposes.

The first is that it allows the author to keep our world, and its history, intact. If the supernatural community was kept behind the curtain, then as far as we know our history happened more or less how we think, giving the writer carte blanche to make edits and changes as the story progresses. This immediately gives the audience a foot in the door, as they know the real world, and can add the fantastic elements to it as the story progresses. The second thing it does is that it creates the illusion that this fantastical world could exist right under our noses. All you need to do is walk down the right alley on the right night, and you could find yourself in this world, too.

Oh dear... just how did you wind up in a place like this?

However, there are writers and readers alike who've grown sick of the Masquerade. They want modern fantasy stories where the magic and the monsters walk out in full daylight, and where there's no secret about who and what they are. And while you most certainly can do that, it is by no means an easier task to accomplish. The Masquerade does a lot of unexpected heavy lifting for you, and removing it means that burden falls squarely on your shoulders.

Before we get into it this week, make sure you sign up for my weekly newsletter to stay on top of all my releases. Also, speaking of unusual modern fantasy stories, my second hard-boiled cat novel dropped, so if you enjoyed my Maine coon heavy Leo's adventures in Marked Territory, then you are going to have an absolute ball with Painted Cats!

You Will Need To Re-Write History

In The Gold Bug by Edgar Allan Poe a man drops a golden scarab through a skull nailed to the end of a tree branch. The difference between one eye socket and the other, once the characters take 30 or so paces out in a particular direction, is the difference between an empty hole in the ground, and finding a king's ransom in buried treasure.

That situation is sort of what you deal with when you do away with the Masquerade. Because it's going to change history, and the further back you go, the more changes will be made.

The difference a few inches can make.

As an example, say that supernatural creatures have only been in public for a short period of time. This is, more or less, the sort of setup we have in True Blood. For while vampires have been around forever, they finally stepped out of hiding (along with a lot of other creatures), and the world is still changing to reflect this impact. But all the time they were hiding behind the curtain? Well, that history remains intact.

But go further back with it, and see how that alters things.

For instance, what would happen in vampires came out of hiding in the 80s? Or if werewolves were public knowledge in the 60s? After decades of being part of the world, how does their presence alter things? Are certain types of movies just not allowed to be made due to public outcry, with schlocky trash considered vamp-sploitation? Have civil rights progressed for supernatural creatures? Can they serve in the military, or in public office? Has science been able to understand anything about these creatures? Can lycanthropy cure cancer? Is there a push to use more plastic and aluminum in public spaces so that fey creatures aren't hurt by touching iron? Are vampires limited in the places they can live due to the widespread nature of churches? Are there hate groups that focus on these creatures?

You could go back even further, too. What effects did these creatures have on world events like the Great Wars? Are they found across the world, or only in certain places, and how has that shaped culture there? Have laws needed to be changed for life sentences (or life appointments) for creatures that are functionally immortal? The earlier the Masquerade dropped, the more the presence of the supernatural will alter the course of how the world developed.

You're Generally Better Off Making Your Own World

My two cents on this issue is that if you don't want to do a massive amount of world building for an alternate historical timeline, but you still want a modern fantasy world where elves, orcs, shapeshifters, etc. are a part of the day-to-day world, then you should just make your own, unique setting. Because at the end of the day it's usually a lot easier than trying to ask how things would have been different of Rome had been ruled by elves, and the Germanic tribes had been united by orcs come down from the mountains, and how that changed the events of the past few thousand years on Earth.

On the one hand, this is not a small undertaking. You need to dope out finance systems, technology, political relationships, cultures, and a thousand other things just to make the world feel like a real, lived-in place. At the same time, though, you're free to make those things regardless of what Earth's actual timeline was like, and without trying to mold our real world history, nations, etc. to fit what you're trying to do with your fantasy. It gives you total freedom to get as weird and wild as you want to!

Yeah, Smith and Wizards just dropped this beauty. You wanna talk trash now?

Unless your story needs our real world to act as the foundation for some reason (either to provide that extra escapism of the fantasy within reality, or to try to make a statement on how history might have gone differently with one or two fantastical alterations to the timeline), you shouldn't feel tied to using the world we all know and live in. Because unless it's required that you have New York, or Chicago, or Tokyo as a touch stone for some reason, don't tie yourself into knots to make them part of your setting.

Instead, take us to new places we've never seen before. Places where elven private eyes carry spell-slinging side arms, where werewolf orcs act as muscle for the mob, and where gnomish scientists try to crack the code of creation using a combination of ancient spells and a large hadron collider. Because that's going to be way more interesting, refreshing, and unique than another Shadowrun homage where in the year 20XX the event happened, and now there's ogres, trolls, elves, etc. in the real world because we want them here now.

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!

"Painted Cats" is Now Out, Marking The First Sequel I've Ever Published!

Last year my novel Marked Territory dropped to a little bit of fanfare among my regular readers. The book followed my protagonist, a Maine coon alley cat named Leo, as he stuck his whiskers into some problems going on over on the south side of the Bronx. A church mouse and her friends were dealing with a territorial dispute with a pack of mangy mutts. Nothing wrong with that, things like that happened every day... but why here? The church wasn't worth barking over, much less fighting, and the deeper Leo dug the less sense everything made.

For those who want a slightly deeper dive, Rissy Reviews did a pretty great video on it recently. So if you haven't seen it yet, go check that out now!

What folks might not know is the ink was barely dry on my contract when I started work on the sequel. I finished it around Christmas last year, got it to my publisher once I'd made some adjustments, and now it brings me great pleasure to say that Painted Cats is available for all my avid lovers of hard-boiled detective stories, cats, and books that combine the two!

So What's This One About?

While Marked Territory established a lot of Leo's neighborhood, and some key facts about the world, Painted Cats gives us a very different kind of mystery to dig into. An old flame of Leo's named Delilah comes around asking for a favor; it seems a friend of hers has gone missing, leaving her kitten behind. While Mischief has seen some hard times, and made her share of bad decisions, she loves Trouble. If she hasn't come back for him, that means something is really, really wrong. While he's leery of what he might find, Leo agrees to go looking.

Reasons you should read the sequel (beyond it just being another of Leo's adventures in NYC) include:

- More heads of animal crime families (cats, possums, and even a reference to one run by snakes that I hope to get to in future sequels).

- A night spot for gay animals to mingle, meet, and eat.

- The adorable Trouble, who may end up recurring in future stories if the audience takes a shine to him.

- Celebrity animals, who earn their owners a living with their picture-perfect grooming.

You know, just in case you needed another reason to go out and buy your copy today.

Wait... Isn't This The Second Sequel?

For folks who want to get technical, there is a prequel to both of these novels. The short story "Stray Cat Strut" in the short story anthology From a Cat's View was Leo's debut into the world of fiction, and the first glimpse anyone got into his world of street beasts. The fact that I sold out of this book entirely at the first convention I brought it to was why I decided to expand Leo's adventures in the first place!

For those who are wondering, no, you don't have to read any of these stories in any particular order. I set out very specifically to mimic the style of serial detective stories like the Spenser series, or arguably Sherlock Holmes, where the order in which you choose to take in the cases won't affect your grasp of the narrative too much. There might be references to characters you haven't met, or to things that were said in other stories, but you can usually infer what happened or didn't happen without too much difficulty.

Which one should you start with? Well, I'll generally recommend Marked Territory as the official starting place since it was written to give a wider introduction to Leo's world, but if you wanted to start with either of the other two you could always fill in the blanks later.

In either case, I'm super excited to have gotten this far. For all the folks out there who've supported me, thank you. And for those who want to see even more of Leo's adventures, well, get your copy, leave a review, and tell your friends about the series! I'll keep writing them as long as people keep reading them.

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 noir thriller Marked Territory, its sequel Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife as well as my recent collection The Rejects!

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!

Evil is Boring (And Your Story Deserves Better)

We've all seen this story before. It's the young idealist versus the Evil Empire in their snappy uniforms and insidious weapons of mass destruction. It's the empty waste of fire and filth that births monsters that fill the ranks of the Dark Army. It's the mummified husk of an ancient sorcerer who serves the Gods of Wickedness. From the Empire, to Mordor, to Mum-Ra, some of our most popular stories have a clear good guy, and a clear bad guy. Right versus wrong, good versus evil.

This week I wanted to talk about that. Because while there's nothing wrong with having two clear sides on an issue so your readers can figure out where the lines are drawn, this is a trope I think far too many of us lean on in our work. In short, the idea that our bad guys are evil... well, because they're Evil!

Well, our holy books explode with hellfire. So that's probably a bad sign, I guess...

As always, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my shiny content sent straight to your inbox! And if you have a little spare dosh lying around, consider becoming a Patreon patron so I can keep doing what I'm doing.

Evil As a Fact Feels Lazy

I blame a lot of things on Tolkien, but honestly he feels like the tip of the iceberg on this topic. From Christian scholars slanting and re-writing pagan mythologies so there was a clear good v. evil dynamic (look no further than the changes to Loki made by Sturlson), to the explosion of knightly tales in the Romantic period, a massive amount of our stories have this dynamic in place.

And what makes it boring is that this capital-E evil is a default. It's a placeholder for actual motivation and purpose held by our villains. And the more detailed and involved our heroes become, the more bland and boring Evil may seem. Because no matter how many skulls are on the warlord's armor, or how fearsome the demons they command are, it can leave the audience scratching their head and asking, "Okay, cool aesthetic... but why?"

Seriously... what are you getting out of this?

No one is evil for the sake of being evil. Not only that, but evil is not a universal constant across all peoples and cultures. Taken on a wide enough scale, the very idea of evil as a force becomes almost meaningless... and that can really bring down the story you're trying to tell.

Take one of the most basic versions of this concept; a knight in shining armor standing against a fearsome foe. Sure, you can just say, "Well, it's a dark army of the undead ruled over by a necromancer who's going to kill everyone because they're evil," and just leave it at that. And there's definite stakes to that confrontation... but it's kind of like a burger with no condiments. You can eat it, and it might be a good experience, but you could make it so much better with a few added spices.

What does this necromancer hope to gain in their victory? Why did they join this conflict in the first place? Why have they chosen this particular method to achieve their goals instead of something else? If we don't have answers to this, then our villain is just some nebulous bad thing that our hero is opposing, and we never have to really think about their actions because hey, whatever the hero does has to be better than the army of the Horned King over here, right?

The Broader The Population, The Worse It Gets

Having an evil god, or a powerful evil enemy, is one thing. Having an entire evil nation, though, is where things can really start to fall apart. Because whether we're talking about a regime of fantasy fascists who bind devils to their service, or a nation of orcs that are seen as brutish, backward, and wicked, there will always be nuance in these populations. By not providing that nuance, though, you just have a big lump of people that are painted with a big brush, and we don't have to think about who they are, what they're doing, or what their place in the story is other than as plot-filler villains.

I'm a respected member of my community, you know.

This is something I've been tackling myself while working on my fantasy RPG setting Sundara: Dawn of a New Age, and I thought I'd offer some tips based on what's worked for me thus far.

As an example, Ironfire: City of Steel is a place that's built on forging Dragon Steel. That's the primary industry, and in the city's early days it was a target for a bandit army that wanted that valuable resource. This conflict escalated to violence, and the city employed several free companies of mercenaries to defend itself. This led to Ironfire becoming the center of the mercenary trade in the region, and it is the presence of so many freelances for hire that has kept the city safe from outward attack as it's grown.

There was no need for an evil, outside force there. No need to make the antagonists bloodthirsty cannibals dedicated to a dark god of murder. A simple economic interest (one side has a valuable resource, and the other wants to take it by violence) was more than enough to stir that conflict and cement the city into both the setting, and the reader's memory.

These are the kinds of conflicts I set up, planting the seed of the challenges unique to the different locations one might come across. In Moüd: City of Bones we have a city deep in the desert run by a guild of necromancers. The challenges are not liberating the city from the black-robed wizards who dabble in the dark arts, but finding relics buried beneath the city, and helping to keep the elements at bay so the living can still survive in this particularly harsh environment. In Silkgift: City of Sails we have a place whose primary industry is innovation and invention, but whose government provides food, shelter, and enrichment for all citizens. As such, industrial espionage, and attempts to sabotage creations that could upset the status quo beyond the city are far more common. And in Hoardreach: City of Wyrms we find a place where refugees and outcasts of every sort are taken under the wings of the Cooperation of 5 dragons. It's a place where there's friction, yes, but also where plotting and machinations of outside forces may try to sabotage this "monstrous" place before it grows too powerful.

Broad social ills can be a part of a given society. Whether it's exploitation of the lower class, human trafficking, chattel slavery, or similar awful institutions, we all know full well that these things can and do happen. Political systems based on fear and hatred, like fascist movements, are also something that can happen. However, it's important to examine the role of these elements in a society, to ask what affect these things have on the story, and to use them to put things into context. Don't just front-load a location or culture with these things so we don't question the actions of our hero who opposes these cultures. That's just cheap shock to code these cultures or nations as evil without having to use the word.

Don't Be Afraid To Ask Questions

To be clear, it's still very possible to have a conflict in a story where one side is clearly in the wrong. Whether it's a more powerful entity trying to force people off their land, one class of people exploiting another, purges over ethnic identity or religion, and so on, and so forth, these are all bad things. However, all it usually takes is a glimpse into the motivations of the antagonists to see the structure of these conflicts at play. It lets us see what our hero is fighting against, rather than just keeping the villains in the dark, as it were.

And, as always, this is your story. If you want to have light side v. dark side, there's nothing to say you can't just do that. Angels and devils, the whole nine yards, if that's the structure you want then it's your story.

All I'm suggesting is taking a moment to pause, and ask if that is the best frame for your conflict. Because if you decide to use it after careful consideration, more power to you! Just don't assume that it will automatically make your story better just because it's worked for other stories in the past.

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, 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!

I No Longer Roll The Dice With My Work (Because I Can't Afford To)

Being an author is a lot like playing the lottery. I've said that before, and generally it means I'm referring to what happens with your finished product. Because no matter how much time, energy, sweat, and grit you put into your book, there's no telling whether you'll find your audience for it or not. It's impossible to say whether the algorithm is going to defeat you, or lift you up so that everyone can see your work so you can become this week's success story.

Today, though, I wanted to talk about something else. Because there's a weird situation for many authors (especially those of us who are just starting out), where we rely heavily on chance and luck to even get our work published in the first place. And now that I've decided to step out of that particular game, I wanted to mention how frustrating it can be to participate in.

Come on baby... we REALLY need a contract this time...

Before I get too far into things, though, remember to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all of my latest updates sent right to your email! And if you want to help me take even more of the gambling out of my monthly earnings (so that I can keep my landlords happy), consider becoming a Patreon patron today!

Hitting The Jackpot Once is Hard Enough

The first thing I did when I started my career as a writer was look for open calls for short stories. The way these work is that a company will put out a theme, a word count, and a general description of the sorts of fiction they're looking for, and writers can submit their work. Editors go through the pile, pick the ones they want, and those stories will go into the anthology. Smaller companies tend to offer a royalty split among all contributors (which amounts to almost nothing unless they sell a lot of books), some will pay authors a flat fee for the story, and some very few will give you a flat fee and a royalty.

What a lot of writers will quickly find is that unless you are very lucky, you probably don't have a short story laying around that's exactly what an open call is looking for. If you're fortunate, you can retool something you've done to fit. Most of the time you're going to have to write something entirely from scratch, submit it, and then pray to the typewriter gods that you catch the editor on a good day and your story gets picked.

This exact same process happens on a larger scale for novels. So while you might spend a year or more penning a manuscript, there's no guarantee that it will get picked up. You have to find a company that seems to be interested in your kind of book, submit a pitch, and cross your fingers that you get a call back. Worse, a lot of companies have a policy that you can't submit the same book to other agencies, so you're stuck in limbo until they make a decision.

I did manage to get lucky a few times.

For years I went through this process with short stories and novels. Some of my stories hit the mark, like "Stray Cat Strut" which was picked up for From a Cat's View. A lot of short stories I wrote got re-purposed, and managed to find a home in other collections. However, after several years of dancing this dance I had enough content left over to publish The Rejects, which were all the dark little darlings that hadn't managed to find an editor that wanted to give them a chance to shine.

So, to recap, you need to complete an entire piece of work (short story or novel) before you can do anything. Then you ship that piece of work off to a publisher that you hope will be interested in it. Most of the time you have to wait till they say yay or nay before you can move on. This process of back and forth querying can take months in some cases, or years in others. And at the end of the day, your piece might not get picked up by anyone. Ever. Period. Meaning that, from a return-on-investment perspective, all that time in writing, editing, submitting, etc. was just energy thrown into a pit.

Honestly? I don't have time for that anymore.

I Wish I Had a Better Solution

I started thinking about this because a few weeks back a friend of mine tagged me in an open call for short horror stories. It's been a while since I applied to one of these calls, but as I was looking over the terms, payment, timeline, excitement started bleeding out of me. I realized why soon enough.

Because if an editor had tapped me on the shoulder and offered me a spot on this project, I'd have been all in. Being told I had to compete with a group of other authors of varying skill levels and experience to maybe get chosen and get a check? For something that was going to take several weeks to a month of my labor? No. I don't have the margin of error to deal with that anymore.

The pandemic forced me to make a lot of changes, and one of those was putting the majority of my energy into books, fiction, RPG supplements, and stories. Because, simply put, the "safe" clients I was ghostwriting for all shut up shop and stopped paying their bills, while gamers and readers demanded more content as fast as I could put it out. It's why, if you keep an eye on my release flow, you've probably noticed more stuff coming out at an increased clip since roughly this past winter.

I've built up a base of clients and contacts over the years, and at this point in my career if I have an idea that I think will do well I don't have to put together a proposal, submit it to a slush pile, and wait several months for a response from a publisher. Because I either know the platforms where I can put these projects together myself, or I have contacts that I can shoot an email to and ask, "Hey, Charlie, had one of those crazy ideas. If I put it together, would you be interested?"

Either way, publication is going to happen, so the only die I have to roll is trying to make sales once it's out.

Just say the word, and I'll get it done!

I try to be a realist on this blog, which is why I feel it's important to point out once again that who gets published is almost never a matter of talent or quality. Sometimes all you have to do is write in a certain subgenre a publisher thinks will be popular. Sometimes you just need to do something one editor loves (or hates) for them to accept or kill your story. An editor might have had a bad day, or be under pressure, which alters their reading experience. It could even be the order your story was read in, meaning that it got forgotten in a backlog, or stayed with an editor because it was the last one they read.

So many of us believe editors are like Anubis weighing a soul against a feather to determine worth, and that they have some special gift or insight that only lets the talented and deserving get published. They don't. Editors are people, and their decisions are often just as much up to chance, mood, and whim as any other person's. Sometimes they publish great stories from really good writers. Sometimes they publish drek. And sometimes the drek is what sells millions of copies, while the new, unusual, or outside-the-norm gathers dust in a discount rack because the drek is what the reading public was willing to shell out money for.

To cut a ramble short, this pandemic has caused me to write more than I ever have before. At the same time, though, I've grown increasingly mercenary with the projects I take on. Because when the words coming off my desk decide whether my landlord gets paid, and if I have food in the cupboard, I don't have time or energy to waste on open calls that might pay me, if I get accepted. Maybe. Half a dozen months from now.

And the fact that so many people in my profession are forced to run that gauntlet as a matter of course to "prove themselves" or "pay their dues" is something I wish I could change. I don't know how, but I've reached a point where submitting and waiting is no longer possible. I'm sure there are thousands of writers out there for whom it was never possible because you can't take a gamble on a "maybe" when you need your bills to be paid for sure.

Just some professional thoughts for the week.

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 noir thriller Marked Territory, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife as well as my recent collection The Rejects!

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!

Genre is More Often a Marketing Concern Than a Story One

If you go into any bookstore you find pretty rigidly segmented shelves and sections for genre. Sometimes you'll see two genres sharing space (fantasy and sci-fi tend to be bunkmates in this way), but even then all it usually takes is a glance at the cover art to know which genre label is getting slapped onto which book.

Libraries are also quite fond of this specificity of category.

While genre can be a useful tool, I think it's worth reminding people that it's still pretty new in terms of fiction. Hell, sci-fi didn't even exist as a concept until the fairly recent past (a lot of folks credit Mary Shelley and her infamous Frankenstein for birthing the genre in the first place), and less than a hundred years ago you still had fiction magazines referring to sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and other mixed genres simply as weird fiction.

So if you're getting all caught up in what genre your story is or isn't, just remember that genre is a lot like gender roles. It's real, in the sense that we made it real, but it can be ignored if the existing system of labels simply doesn't conform to the tale you want to tell.

Genre-Fluidity in Writing

At its core, genre is a classification system. However, it's often been used to pare down and define genre fiction for the purposes of marketing and sales, rather than out of some purer, ideological devotion to providing a tool for understanding storytelling themes and tropes. That's more of a side effect.

What kind of book is it? Ummm... well...

The issue a lot of writers run into is when they start using genre to control what is allowed in their stories, rather than to help define those stories using widely-understood themes and terms. Whether it's automatically assuming that fantasy stories must have a pseudo-European Middle Ages flair to them, assigning any book with a romantic subplot to the romance category, or flatly stating that ax-wielding barbarians cannot get in fights with sentry robots while confronting alien beings from beyond the stars because it's an unholy union of too many genres, this sort of mental block often trips up a lot of creators.

This is sort of like guys who won't wear certain colors because it's "not manly," or women who worry about whether cutting their hair a certain way means they aren't feminine enough. Because if it makes you happy, then you should rock whatever style you want, regardless of the "rules" society expects you to follow (spoken or unspoken) have to say about it.

Another way genre purity is like rigid gender roles? Most of the assumptions and rules are a lot newer than we think, and have zero resemblance to earlier norms.

For example, as recently as the 1920s pink was considered a masculine color (something changed over the ensuing decades via Freud and others). High-heeled shoes were originally invented for men, and let's not even get started on powdered wigs, and the other bits of fashion favored during that era. Everything from dresses, to elaborate hair styles, to beard grooming that we would now consider "feminine" have had strong masculine connotations in the past. Hell, even makeup was used pretty widely between genders until the mid-1800s when it was declared a women's only product.

What does that have to do with writing rules and genre conventions? Everything. Because looking at what genre was and wasn't over a long timelines shows that a lot of our classifications are simply made up to suit the tastes of organizations, editors, and publications who shape the business of fiction. Sort of like how "psychological thriller" exists because the academy didn't want the horror movie Silence of The Lambs to win best picture, so they had to make up a whole new category to shunt it into. When you realize that there are no rules except the rules you choose to use, it can be a very freeing experience when it comes to shaking off the boundaries of your stories.

So with that in mind, and in the spirit of all things weird and unclassified, get strange with your stories! Write dwarves that have French accents and specialize in swashbuckling! Create starships driven by fairy dust! Write vampire private eyes who still go to museums to catch up on what was going on when they were young! There are no limits except those which you impose yourself!

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, 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!

"The Gamble of Sisyphus" or "How Many Goddamn Books Do You Need To Write!?"

As punishment for cheating death, Sisyphus was tasked with rolling an immense boulder up a hill. A challenging task, for certain, but one he was capable of completing. One would imagine he set to with gusto as he strained and pushed, finding the best face to roll the stone up the incline. Perhaps he lost his grip a time or two, and backslid somewhat, but eventually he made it to the top.

And the stone rolled right back down to where it was.

You can imagine the annoyance on Sisyphus's face. The consternation. The frustration of all that effort gone to waste when the goal had supposedly been within his grasp. But he walked back down the hill, muscles trembling, and he set to again. Maybe he tried a different grip, took a different path, or tried using different shoes. In the end, it didn't matter, because the boulder rolled right back down the hill again. And again. And again.

If you're an author, chances are good that Sisyphus is probably your muse. Because no matter how you tone your craft, how hard you push, or how jacked your prose has become, chances are good that when you reach the pinnacle and finish your book that your only reward is going to be walking right down that hill to do the whole goddamn thing over again.

Just write the book. "Is there money at the top this time?" There... could be, I suppose...

As always, for those who want to stay on top of all my latest releases don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter. And if you want to help me break this particular cycle so it's that much easier for me to get my own boulders to the top of the hill, consider becoming a Patreon patron to offer your support!

How Many Does It Take?

Folks who know me know that I keep pretty damn busy when it comes to content. So not only do I currently have two novels out right now (my sword and sorcery book Crier's Knife, and my noir mystery book that happens to be about cats, mice, rats, raccoons and more in NYC Marked Territory), but I've got one more getting prepped for release, and a fourth manuscript I'm going over right now. I've got a collection of short stories, The Rejects, out as well. And in addition to all of that nonsense I run two blogs, my Vocal archive is approaching 200 articles, and my name officially appears on over 100 roleplaying game supplements for sale.

And even with all of that nonsense going on, do you want to know a secret? I'll be surprised as hell if my earnings for the entire year even break 5 digits.

Stepping back to look at that fact is, in a very real way, like watching the boulder roll back down the hill one more time. Because I've been pushing it up the hill for years now, and I've gotten pretty good at that part of it. I like to think that I've cut my style, bulked my prose, and that I've got lean, tasty plots where they need to be rippling and muscular. There are even some people who cheer me on from the sidelines, waiting to see just how I get the boulder back up the hill this time.

But there is a part of my brain that just wants to pull a Maximus, hurl my sword out into the ether and bellow, "Are you not entertained?!"

Seriously, just tell me what you want, and I'll make it happen!

The cold, hard truth that I've stated several times on this blog is that there is no knowing what will be a commercial success when you're a writer. Your first book could skyrocket to the top of the charts and make you a household name in the snap of the zeitgeist's fingers. You could write five, or ten, or twenty, and remain utterly unknown except to a small handful of people who see you at cons. Your book might sit for years in obscurity, only to be raised up by the next generation of critics who adore your work, resurrecting a project you'd all but forgotten about.

It's all a roll of the dice. Talent helps, dedication is good, and attention to detail with marketing, collaboration, interviews, getting reviews... all of that helps stack the odds in your favor. But the bones of the issue is that what makes you money and what doesn't in the world of publishing is nothing more than blind, unpredictable chance.

And it's one thing to know that, academically. But it is very cold comfort to remind yourself of this fact as you walk back down the hill, your fingertips throbbing and your mental muscles aching, whispering that it's the next one, for sure. The next one has to be the one!

You're Not Alone in This

My purpose in sharing all this with people this week is because I've been trying to talk to other creators about this feeling for months now, and every, single person I spoke to intrinsically knew what I was talking about. Not only that, but most of them are dealing with it in some capacity or another.

So if you are having trouble rolling that rock back up your hill, if you catch yourself wanting to break down and ask what's the point, I see you. And I don't have a solution, but I want you to know that you can get that sonofabitch up the hill. Because you won't know if this is the one until you haul it up there or not.

Can't win if you don't play the game.

For folks who see their friends struggling with these boulders, and who want to help, I've provided a handy list in 10 Concrete Ways You Can Help The Authors You Like. A shorter version, though, is to provide emotional support when they need it, financial support if you can by becoming a patron or buying their books, and to boost their signals so they can find more people who want to help.

Because, honestly, the struggle isn't the rock. Rolling the rock up the hill is a breeze once you've done it a few times. But that rock is a lot lighter when you aren't worried about paying your rent, buying food, covering your taxes at the end of the year, and the thousand-and-one other little worries that drag you down and make the task so much harder.

You want to see your author soar? Help take those ankle weights off, and watch those rocks really roll!

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 noir thriller Marked Territory, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife as well as my recent collection The Rejects!

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!