Read

When people ask me what advice I'd give to new writers, the first thing out of my mouth may seem counterproductive, but it's essential.

Read.

Read, read, read, READ.

However, there's a catch.

Read what you're interested in writing...but also read everything else. Why? Simple. To learn.

I've learned story structure from literary types like Mark Twain and Raymond Carver. I've learned unusual devices from the beat writers. Nonfiction has given me all sorts of insights into how the world works, but also personal experiences of all types. Never, ever underestimate the personal truth recorded in a memoir. For the longest time I binge-read how to and self help books, not just for entertainment value, but because I was fascinated. I just couldn't shake the feeling that even if they didn't change my life, I might be able to use some of that information somewhere.

 Horror has helped me learn to build tension, Sci-Fi has taught me when to rely on research and when to go with the romance of the situation.Anthologies have given me access to authors I never would have known otherwise. Romance has taught me the up and downside to writing with a formula in mind, as well as when research would have helped a plot along and given characters more to do.

Here's the thing. By writing, you learn by doing. By reading, you also learn by doing...by experiencing. You make the journey from acknowledging that something doesn't feel quite right in an author's pacing to realizing just what the bump in the road is (in your opinion, anyway). You discover different ways of approaching the same genre or the same theme. You're allowed to see what tropes are overdone, and you might get insight into how you could change things up a bit, or discover something that hasn't been done enough. By reading everything, you can see what's out there, but also slowly discover where you fit into the giant scheme of things.

I've discovered some beautiful descriptions and stories in short folklore narratives and poetry. I've found amazing storytelling devices in comics and graphic novels, things that aren't usually applied to traditional fiction. Same with the format of long-running manga and even (dare I say it) fanfiction. Think of it - there has to be reasons that certain things appeal to people, so by taking a peek you can see how you can make that work for you.

You also can get an idea of things you aren't comfortable with, or maybe, find hope in examples of how you could approach styles that you never would have tried on your own. Nancy A. Collins and Clive Barker gave me courage to be more graphic in my horror, and Neil Gaiman gave me permission to go back to my love of folklore and start using that as a foundation in my various fantasy work.

You just never know what's going to help you until you start looking.

With that in mind, don't neglect the acknowledgements. People drop some interesting references and names in those at times. I discovered Ray Bradbury, my favorite author, because he was mentioned in a forward in a Stephen King collection. I collect all sorts of industry names by perusing these sections. Pay attention if an author gives you backstory in a short story collection. Places, events, little asides - all of these may turn up gold.

Even if you're not a writer, read everything. By doing this, you slowly expand your comfort zone and your awareness.You'll fall in love with other worlds, open up emotions in yourself, maybe see things in slightly different ways. Why is that important? I'd like to think that it expands tolerance. You never know whose story you're going to end up relating to and who will change your life.

Years ago I passed by the new arrival section in the library and glanced up at the Nikki Sixx photography book/memoir This is Gonna Hurt. At that point in life, I had some fairly strong opinions about Motley Crue. I loved the music, but interviews I read left me cold. I couldn't look away from the cover of that book, though, and as I flipped through it, I was thunderstruck. I think I read that thing in less than a day, then read it again. And again. I still go back to that book because it encourages me in an aggressive way to be more creative, to be better, and I need that. It made me realize that by pre-judging the author because he was in a certain band with a certain stage persona, I was acting in a way that was against what I believed in: empathy, tolerance, and giving people a chance. It gave me back my love of Motley Crue, actually, but it also led me to others. By name dropping artists like Lita Ford, it made me realize that rock isn't just a dude's game, which helped to further get the chip off my shoulder. It introduced me to people like Amy Purdy, who modelled for the book, and the challenges she's overcome in her life - plus, that provided research for a title I was working on, as well. I've gotten so much gold from that book over the years, and it never would have happened if I'd just wrinkled my nose and walked on by.

I'm not saying you have to love everything or even finish everything. Just get out of your comfort zone and read, read, read.

So what do you love to read? What else could you be reading? What's your favorite title? Do you have something that came out of nowhere for you, something that you never dreamed you'd like until you read it?

What are you reading?

***

As an aside, I will also be here Saturday, June 20, with books in hand and MMP swag at the ready. If you're close by, come see me at the Midwest Authors Syndicate table!

10x10 Genre Change

This month, I’m doing something completely different. No 10x10, however that may come into to play again next month or the month after.

I did something completely different this month. I haven’t done anything drastic like throwing my laptop through a window, breaking every pen or burning notebooks full of stories. Sometimes, though, to readers, what I’ve done is a capital crime.

I changed genres.

The short story I wrote is as far away from Dragon’s Champion as it could possibly be. If you bought Dragon’s Champion (and a great big THANK YOU! If you did), and you bought what I just wrote based on that experience… You might want to hunt me down.

It’s not fantasy. It does not feature a bravely sassy girl setting out to save herself. There is bravery in the story, but… I’m not sure whether to call it dark fantasy or horror. I have 2 Beta Readers (those lovely people who read our work before we send it out to tell us if it sucked or not), and I’ve only heard back from one.

The one who has gotten back to me took it too personally. She knew that it is essentially a “Wyndie’s working something out and this is what happened.” She also knew the situation that caused it. What she forgot though, is that I am a fiction writer. When I work something out in my fiction, I take it, twist it away from myself and then set it free. At some point, it stops being about me and becomes completely the story. Of course, her reaction tells me something about the story as well.

I love this story.

I think it has power and grace, but then again… I don’t read enough dark fantasy or horror to be a good  judge. My other Beta Reader, she not only reads it she writes it.  If she thinks along the same lines as I do, it will go out for submissions.

Until then, I’m working on several other things. I’m coming to realize that I just might be an eclectic writer. That’s ok, many writers are. The trick is to balance it out so that the readers don’t expect one thing and get another.

What do you think? Does it annoy you when your favorite authors switch to a genre you don’t like? Or are you game to follow them no matter what? If you write, in what genres do you write?

(Just noticed in an odd coincidence, this post is 10 paragraphs!)

You can find me at http://wynwords.wordpress.com/ where I blog books, writing and parenting

You can catch my debut story, Dragon's Champion ,at Mocha Memoirs Press

Having the Tables Turned: A Writing Prompt from Siobhan Kinkade

So last month, after her interview, Siobhan Kinkade forgot to give me a writing prompt so we could properly turn the tables and put me in the hot seat. She has since remedied this, hoo boy...This proves that sometimes I should keep my big mouth shut!

So this month is kind of a part two of last month where I respond to her challenge and write a little something with the prompt she's given me. Sigh. I'll put her prompt in bold, and go from there!

***

It was a dark and stormy night and the fairies took over the stripper pole. It was the only recourse when Beltane fell on a moonless, rainy night and the last Maypole in town had been bulldozed decades ago to make way for a rest stop. It wasn't the best solution, to be sure, but tradition had to be kept and the local strip was closer to the Faerie mound than the nearest field. Quietly they emerged from what unsuspecting mortals took to be an over-sized speed bump misplaced in a back alley. Through the years they adapted to life in the city, so pixies and elves, brownies and sylphs, redcaps and trolls emerged from their underworld home, all dressed for a night in the seedier part of town.

They grouped together in a lump, all staring up at the flashing sign for Tit-tania's with eyes that were blue, green, yellow, orange, and black. Round and slit pupils widened and contracted at the convenient name. It was all the sign they needed that they were where they needed to be. 

The mortals inside never knew what hit them, especially when gold coins pelted the dancers into fleeing the stage. The elfin maidens that took their place may have been dressed in club wear, but they moved with the grace of the ages-old and whirled around the poles with a fire that no mortal could replicate. Pixies swirled about their heads like sparks of light, so fast that their movements burned a trail of an after-image around the dancers' heads,the streaks mingling with the long hair.  The brownies chugged beer since no ale was available, and trolls watched gaping mortal men out of the corner of their eye. The age of sacrifice and tithe was over, but if one of them reached a grubby hand for a Fae maiden, then they were more than happy to remind the humans why they were unworthy.

Businessmen, young men who were barely out of boyhood, old men with nothing better to do...they all gaped in awe at the display going on around them as the creatures in the audience joined hands and circled the perimeter in a dance as old as time. A particularly mischievous sprite cut off the blasting music and poised itself at the edge of the stage, pipes in hand. The sweet music drew the spurned human women back towards the stage to watch, tears streaming down their face as they viewed the grace that they'd never have. Their human audience stared, unable to reach for wallets. They didn't need to; their admiration was something the celebrating Folk hadn't had for a long, long time. 

Into the night they danced and celebrated, invoking envy, nostalgia, and a heartbreak for the old days. Troll and lawyers guzzled liquor together, brownies hit on strippers jokingly, and all celebrated and danced to the ancient music, enjoying the holiday though most couldn't even remember what it was. 

Just as fast as the Folk had arrived, they disappeared. Leaves were left where their coins had been thrown and none of the club's patrons could rightly remember what had happened or how much time had passed. They only had a strange memory of joy and an even stranger heartbreak of missing something they could not name. 

***

Whew, mission accomplished! As always, you can find me in the following places:

Blog  Facebook  Twitter

Next month I'll be back with another interview!

WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE: Where, on the map, is YOUR Fantasy?

by Balogun Ojetade

“Map Fantasy” is an umbrella term I use for the Fantasy subgenres of High Fantasy, Heroic Fantasy / Sword & Sorcery and Sword and Soul. If you ever see a book whose cover depicts a guy fighting a dragon, or a freakishly muscled warrior staring off into the distance as a buxom
woman kneels at his feet, crack that mug (in Chicago, where I grew up, we call objects “mug”) open and I bet the first thing you find in there is a map.

You have just discovered a book of “Map Fantasy”. Now, there are exceptions; my own Sword & Soul novel, Once Upon A Time in
Afrika does not have a map (although it does have a glossary). So do not send me any rants or “I told you so”-s. If you still do, know that you are crazier than a mug (yep, we use it like that, too).

Genre is primarily a marketing tool that publishers use to attract a certain demographic of readers and brick-and-mortar bookstores (yes, some still exist) use to categorize books on their shelves.
Secondarily, genre is convenient shorthand – based on typical tropes and themes – to tell readers
what type of book they are about to read.

So, what are the tropes of Map Fantasy?

In general, Fantasy uses the magical or the spiritual as an element of setting or plot. Oh yeah, and
people wield Big Ass Swords.

In High Fantasy, Elves, dwarves, Halflings and other non-human, albeit humanoid, races often
abound and an epic quest is quite common. Of course, the recounting of this quest usually
requires multiple books. The Lord of the Rings and the role-playing game, Dungeons and
Dragons are examples.

Before The Lord of the Rings and High Fantasy, there was Heroic Fantasy, which began with the
pulp hero, Conan, the Barbarian, whose “mighty thews” first appeared in Weird Tales magazine
in 1932.

Back then, speculative fiction wasn’t as clearly defined by genre and subgenre. Fantasy and
horror often lay in the same bed, so Heroic Fantasy was bloody…very, very bloody and magic
was – and often still is – wielded solely by the forces of “darkness”.

Sword & Soul – African-inspired Map Fantasy – is less confined by tropes and can include
elements of both Heroic and High Fantasy. Sword & Sorcery can be quite bloody and magic is
often wielded by the forces of good and evil.

Let’s examine these subgenres a bit closer and see how they are similar and how they differ.

Their Covers

Covers are an easy way to tell the subgenres apart.

On High Fantasy covers, look for men and women wielding swords and dressed in shining armor
– women are usually dressed in the compulsory chainmail bra – and fire-breathing dragons,
unicorns and electricity-wielding Lords of Darkness. You might also find a Castle, looming in
the misty distance, or a wizard with a long, white beard and a pointy hat.

On Heroic Fantasy covers, you will find nearly naked men burying their axes and swords into
the skulls of other bloody, mostly naked men, or into the pallid flesh of some creature that looks
like it crawled out of the Devil’s toilet. You will also find full-breasted, nearly naked women
kneeling at the hero’s feet, with her arms wrapped around his mighty thews. Oh, and as for those
creatures that crawled out of the Devils toilet, those mugs usually have mighty thews, too.

On the covers of Sword & Soul novels, you may find the things you find on the covers of High
and Heroic Fantasy, with one huge difference:

The hero will be Black.

The Effect of Saving, or Finding, a Mug Whether saving a princess or finding nine powerful, magic rings, the heroes of High Fantasy will also save the world. High Fantasy is usually driven by its setting and the world is all-important.

Heroic Fantasy is less magnanimous. The effects are usually personal. If Conan saved the world,
it’d be by accident, and he might curse Crom for allowing him to do so, because, in Heroic
settings, the world isn’t worth – or is beyond – saving. Heroic Fantasy is usually character-
driven.

In Sword & Soul, the heroes are usually of higher morals than the heroes – or anti-heroes – of
Heroic Fiction. They may – or may not be concerned with saving the world, but whether the
characters or on a seafaring safari, wandering a vast continent, or battling for the hand of a
princess in a grand tournament, they are, most certainly, character driven.

The Setting
In High Fantasy, the world – yes, the entire world – looks, smells, sounds and acts like Medieval
Europe. The places of good are rolling shires and an occasional stony underworld ruled by
dwarves as strong – and sometimes as hard – as the stone and ore they mine. Kings are brave and
wise and the people are hardy and simple. Of course, there is a Dark Lord just waiting to pass a
shadow over the land.

Heroic Fantasy is a bit more willing to experiment. Medieval Europe abounds, but there are
also other earth-based societies on the fringes. These societies are usually barbarous, grimy
wildernesses (how a wilderness can be grimy is beyond me), swarming with thieves, or exotic
lands in which cultists make sacrifices to naked deer-headed goddesses or monstrosities that
would make Cthulhu soil his knickers. Farms? Hell, agriculture? There is none. I guess plant-life
has a hard time growing when it’s watered with blood.

Sword & Soul is usually set in a city or village based on a real city or village found in ancient
Africa. The people in the story are usually based on the real people who populated the real
setting the story is based on. Thus, most writers of sword and soul are well-versed in history, or,
since they are a lot who often communicate with each other and freely exchange information,
they contact another writer who is well-versed in history, particularly African history.

Its Inhabitants
In High Fantasy, humans are generally the baseline. Humans can be bad or good, in league with
the Dark Lord, ambitious, timid, brave, or cowardly. Basically, they’re people. White people.
Other non-human races exist and their existence is usually a stereotypical one. Dwarves are
drunken, hardy louts who never forget a friend or enemy; Elves are usually arrogant and quite
delicate, despite the fact they have lived, for eons, in the forest; Orcs are evil, stupid, dark-
skinned brutes who are, most likely, servitors of the Dark Lord.

On occasion, one of the other humanoid races will “rise above” his or her stereotypical nature
and act more human (i.e. more white). This “exceptional humanoid usually becomes the sidekick
of the protagonist, eventually earning the respect of all and proving that all people can transcend
their “lowly” upbringing.

Where High Fantasy stories usually veil their racist messages in the actions of its humanoid
races, Heroic Fantasy shrugs its shoulders and screams “Who gives a crap?” as it openly
embraces its racism and sexism. Jungle-residing cannibals, mysterious and treacherous
“Orientals” and sexually insatiable witches are fodder for the mighty thewed heroes’ swords,
clubs, axes and penises. Non-humans are rare. If they do exist, they are usually monstrosities
best left unnamed.

In Sword & Soul, humans are usually the baseline. However, non-humans also often exist and
inhabit the world. These non-humans may be heroes, villains, or just weary travelers looking for
a bed and a hot cup o’ joe.

Monsters of various sorts exist in all three milieus. Vampires, demons, zombies and strange
creatures, whose bodies are half in our world and half in some other world, roam the planet. In
High Fantasy, monsters are varied and quite common. In Heroic Fantasy, monsters are usually
less common and a lot meaner. In Sword & Soul, monsters are usually based on creatures from
African folklore and are thus stranger – and often more frightening – to Western readers.
Magic

In High Fantasy, magic can be rare, like in The Lord of the Rings, or it can be so widespread that
one has magical steeds and magical weapons and magical burger joints. Magic is used to heal the
sick and feed the poor, or to infect the healthy with a plague and turn the poor into a shambling
horde of zombies. It might be hereditary, or it might be learned from a wise old wizard or an
arcane text.

In Heroic Fantasy, on the other hand, magic is usually rare, unpredictable, and is often evil. It is
accessible to anyone who is willing to sell a bit of his or her soul to some demonic entity. In fact,
Heroic Fantasy is often concerned with the triumph of the sword over sorcery.

In Sword & Soul, magic is linked more to the spiritual than to the arcane. Magic is usually the
gift – or curse – of some god, or of some powerful ancestor. It can be as common as it is in High
Fantasy, but is always more common than it is in Heroic Fantasy.

The Hero
In High Fantasy, the protagonist is often marked by ancient prophecy to rise to greatness and
to remove the shadow that blankets all the mountains and shires. Often, the hero is an ignorant
farm-boy, who happens to live somewhere out of the Dark Lord’s grasp. Usually, some town
drunk or ne’er do well is secretly the person charged with protecting and teaching the boy when
the time finally comes for the lad to take up his quest.

The hero of Heroic Fantasy is the anti-hero. The best of Heroic Fantasy’s heroes lives by a code
of honor, but will go against that code if need be. Taking a quest because it is “the right thing to
do” is unheard of. Quests, in Heroic Fantasy, are taken for the money, or for sex, or for revenge.
In Sword & Soul, quests are taken for the reasons in both High Fantasy and Heroic Fantasy, but
the hero is usually more like the heroes of High Fantasy in morality and more like the heroes of
Heroic Fantasy in attitude.

The Villain
We have already seen the Dark Lord throughout this work. Evil, in High Fantasy, is an ideal; a
force that must be vanquished. The Dark Lord is an embodiment of that force, so he must also
be destroyed. There are clear delineations of what is good and what is evil in High Fantasy; very
black and white.

In Heroic Fantasy, the villain is usually just a tad bit more unpleasant than the hero. The hero,
however does not wield magic and the villain does. He is not evil for evil’s sake. The villain in
Heroic Fantasy most likely wants power, or booty (money and the other booty), and figures the
best way to get it is by sending his horde of undead warriors to acquire it for him. If you had a
horde of undead warriors at your disposal, you just might do the same.

In Sword & Soul, good and evil is more complex. This is probably because, in most traditional
African societies, good and evil is not really dealt with;appropriateness is. If bandits invade
a hero’s house and attempt to rape his mother, to do nothing, or to run and hide would be
considered “evil”, because it is an inappropriate act in regard to the situation. To kill them
all would be considered appropriate, thus good. If our hero runs next door and kills one of
the bandits’ grandmother, then that would be considered inappropriate, thus evil. In Sword &
Soul, the hero is often forced to deal with such complexities, which makes for some powerful
storytelling.

Where do I get started?

By now, you are surely wondering where you can pick up some of these wonderful books to
read (if not, you are crazier than a mug). While there are works from High and Heroic Fantasy
that I enjoy, I have loved Sword & Soul since I sought it as a child while creating people that
looked like me in the world of Dungeons and Dragons and finding Charles Saunders’ Out of
Africa article as a young man in Dragon Magazine (I did not know Charles was Black back then)
and I have grown to pen a Sword & Soul novel myself and several Sword and Soul short stories.
Thus, I give you a few must have titles to get you started:

Imaro, volumes 1 – 4 by Charles R. Saunders
Imaro is the tale of the titular outcast, wandering warrior and his search for a people and a
community to call his own. Written by the Founding Father of Sword & Soul, Imaro is an
exciting series that is often compared to the works of Robert E. Howard and Edgar Rice
Burroughs, but, in my opinion, transcends all of the works of those authors and is some of the
greatest writing in print.

Changa’s Safari, volumes 1 and 2 by Milton J. Davis
Driven from his homeland as a boy, Changa Diop travels the 15th Spice Trade world seeking
wealth and adventure. Together with his companions and crew he crosses the Indian Ocean to
fulfill his dreams and destiny. His dhows filled with the treasures of the East, Changa begins his
journey home. But adventure waits with the winds, changing his fortunes and friendships in ways
he could not have imagined.

Griots: A Sword & Soul Anthology by 14 Authors; Edited by Charles Saunders and Milton
Davis
Fourteen writers; fourteen artists; one unforgettable anthology! In Griots, Davis and Saunders
have gathered together fourteen stories, written by new and seasoned writers, to answer the
question: What is Sword and Soul? Each story is accompanied by illustrations to give vision
to the prose. A first of its kind, Griotsis an anthology that lays the foundation and expands the
definition of Sword and Soul.

Once Upon A Time in Afrika by Balogun Ojetade
Once Upon a Time in Afrika tells the story of a beautiful princess and her eager suitors.
Desperate to marry off his beautiful but “tomboyish” daughter, Esuseeke, the Emperor of Oyo,
consults the Oracle. The Oracle answers, telling the Emperor Esuseeke must marry the greatest
warrior in all Onile (Afrika). To determine who is the greatest warrior, the Emperor hosts a grand
martial arts tournament inviting warriors from all over the continent. Unknown to the warriors
and spectators of the tournament a powerful evil is headed their way. Will the warriors band
together against this evil?

“Magic and mayhem. Gods and glory. Witches and warriors. Once Upon a Time in Afrika has
all this, and much more. It is Sword and Soul at its finest, casting a long shadow over the ‘jungle
lord’ and ‘lost city’ motifs that have previously prevailed in fantasy fiction set in Africa”
-Charles R. Saunders, author of Imaro & Dossouye, creator of Sword and Soul

“Balogun Ojetade represents a powerful new voice in Sword and Soul. He’s a master storyteller
with an engaging, exciting style. Once Upon a Time in Afrika is well worth the read.”
-Milton Davis, Author of the Meji duology and Changa’s Safari Volume One and Two