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Editor’s Notes: Catching the Vision
BY JESSICA SHEN
Vision Boarding:
Oftentimes we may find that we lose inspiration, or have trouble visualizing parts of our story, whether it’s a character, or a room, or the whole scene itself.
For you crazy creative types with overactive imaginations, this probably isn’t ever an issue for you (lucky you!). But if you’re like me, pretty good at putting two words together, but sometimes maybe not so great at picturing exactly what it is I’m trying to say, you may find vision boarding to be helpful.
The term “vision boarding” is typically used to describe a process in which you articulate a vision or inspiration for your life by literally cutting and pasting things to a board—whether it’s a picture of the beach or a pithy quote.
These visions can be anything from “I want a new car!” to “I want to form deeper relationships with my family!” You then choose words and images that help you achieve these goals, and refer back to the board to affirm that vision.
Now, this may sound a little hippy-dippy to you—I know it did to me when I first heard about it—but hear me out. Let the vision for your board be as broad as your story, or as focused as a single character, and you may find that it can help and inform your writing.
If it helps you to be hands-on, go back to your science-fair days and pick up a posterboard from your local drug store, a couple different magazines, some stick glue, and go nuts! If you’d prefer to use a tool from the digital age, Pinterest can be an amazing resource (and it’s free!). One of the authors I am currently working with is using it for this exact purpose—to help her articulate what her story looks like.
If you have the time, I would encourage you to vision board each character. What are his or her likes or dislikes? What does he find inspirational? What actor would you choose to play her?
There are endless ways to make use of a vision board. It may not work for everyone, but the next time you’re having trouble finding inspiration, try it out. It may help you visualize your story in a way that you might not expect. And, as a bonus, when that book gets picked up for publishing, you have ready-made inspiration for your cover art!
Jessica Shen lives, works, writes, and edits from her laptop in northern California. Her latest project, Mr. Gunn & Dr. Bohemia by Pete Ford, was released in October, 2013. Her next project, Kingdom City by Benjamin Ireland, is slated for release in February 2014.
Featured Friday: Sanguinaria
BY R. M. RIDLEY
There was something about the way she moved that made Jonathan sit up and take notice, and it wasn’t the sway of her hips. She had a lithe economy of motion that made his fight-or-flight response vibrate more than a spider’s web in fish-fly season. Perhaps it was that which made him get up, or maybe it was just good manners. Either way, Jonathan was on his feet for his new client.
She introduced herself as Philomena Serkan, and then settled into the chair he offered. She was tense: he could see it in the tightness of her bright red lips, and read it in the depths of those dark eyes, but she waited for him to make the next move all the same.
Jonathan pulled out his silver cigarette case and, flipping it open, extended it towards her. She demurred, so he slid out one for himself. It was tiny and controlled, but the flinch had been there and he’d been expecting it
Forsaking politeness now, Jonathan walked to the window, giving her a view of his back, and him a view of her reflection in the smooth surface of the case—or it would have, if she’d had one.
“I can’t say as I’ve ever had a Strigoi for a client before,” Jonathan said as he turned back to face her.
Unflinching, she held his gaze.
“Is that a problem for you?”
Strigoi feed on the emotions carried in the fluids of humans, fear pulsing through pounding blood being the mainstay, and the addiction to that feast, he understood, was hard to forsake.
“No. I don’t abide killers to live but I’m not speciesist. I can’t afford to be.” Jonathan thought about how much of his own body had been mutated over the decades because of his addition to magic. “It would, in fact, be almost hypocritical of me by this juncture in my life.”
She tilted her head slightly, and Jonathan thought of the cat that hunted the back alley
“Yes, I see your point.” For a heartbeat, the tension in her face was eased by a slight smile.
“Besides,” Jonathan expounded, “you came to me, which means you know who I am, and what I do. If you were the type that took lives to live your own, you won’t have come to me—there are others in New Hades.”
“I’m glad we have an understanding.”
“So, then Mrs. Serkan, why are you here?”
“My—husband—has been taken, Mr. Alvey.”
Jonathan had heard the pause but wasn’t sure what it implied.
“Is he . . . ?”
Her slim chin descended a fraction.
A mated pair: Jonathan was intrigued. It was rare for two abstaining Strigoi to keep company, as they often obtained their sustenance through tears. Though not as bountiful, tears could hold the hunger at bay, which is why they found human partners to spend their time with.
Jonathan thought of the old saying, that the eyes were the windows to the soul. If they were, then wouldn’t tears be the soul’s blood? And how heady a drink would that be?
She was watching him and he couldn’t help but feel like a mouse under paw.
He wondered how her desire for the blood, her addiction, compared to his own. Her addiction fed her. His fed off him, slowly changing him, atom by atom, into something—else. It didn’t matter; what mattered was why she was here.
“Tell me how it happened.”
***
Jonathan moved quickly once his client had left. The story she had told was not one he had enjoyed. It wasn’t the tale itself but what it implied: four men, a van, and a net made of silver chain—all this meant they weren’t amateurs. They had done this before, knew what their targets were, and how to immobilize them.
He made sure that his doctor’s bag was properly stocked, then took his shoulder holster off the closet door and strapped it on. Checking the magazine to be sure it was loaded, Jonathan shrugged on his jacket and headed down to the street.
Strigoi were a type of vampyre (one of many—though none were much like the western icons—which made them predators; quick, strong, and agile. It had been this that had tipped him off when she’d first entered his office, the way she moved.
They lived long lives, and he knew the one who that had just been in his office wasn’t as young as she looked—he doubted her mate was either. That he had been caught was just another sign the men who took him were not amateurs.
***
His Lincoln took a few tries to start, but it was early summer and that made it easier to convince the old girl to turn over. He pulled into traffic and headed north.
If Philomena’s husband had been taken—and not just killed, as she said—then there were few reasons to do so, the primary one being, ironically enough, to harvest its blood.
Strigoi had the ability to manipulate emotions in humans, to enrich the food on which they fed. This had lead to a revolting habit, developed by some human vermin, of injecting Strigoi blood to gain the ability to control, or force, emotion in others. It was used primarily as a date rape facilitator and the feeling of power gained by its effects made it addictive, like a psychopath gets addicted to killing.
Like anything else that was addictive, if there was a demand, there was someone supplying. Jonathan had dealt with a group dealing the stuff, many years back; apparently the lesson he had made of them had been forgotten. If anyone was trafficking Strigoi blood in the city of New Hades again, there was only one place they would be doing it: Blacklight. And that’s where Jonathan was headed.
Blacklight was no-man’s land. It was the worst neighborhood in New Hades; a city notorious for its seediness. New Hades city council had done all it could to eradicate the place—short of bulldozing it. In the end, they had turned off the area: stopped the flow of water and power, leaving it a dark blight.
Blacklight—By the gods, he hated that place.
Jonathan didn’t relish going into an area where all you had to do to commit suicide was stop your car but, as it was still daylight, he thought he would be able get in and get what he needed before the residents could gather in force.
He had a reluctant contact there: a dealer who was his source for what happened in that part of the city. Most of the residents wanted to kill him: they didn’t appreciate magic much in Blacklight, and so hated him simply for what he was. They certainly didn’t like people poking their noses in—a habit Jonathan seemed quite unable to quit.
In New Hades, as in most cities, there was a market for illegal goods and there were people to cater to it. But if you were looking for something that was not only illegal, but also unconscionable, then you had to risk going into Blacklight.
The things that were sold on those dark streets, a rotting maggot wouldn’t deign to crawl over. Unfortunately for Jonathan, to find who was supplying those types of goods, you had to go to the ones who were trafficking in them.
Daryl Zadok, his less-than-eager associate in Blacklight, was on the high-end side of what got traded in the area, and although Jonathan knew he wouldn’t stoop to selling Strigoi blood, he would know who was. If Jonathan was really lucky, Zadok might even be able to cut out the middleman and tell him who was supplying.
***
Zadok lived in what had once been a post office. The only way that Jonathan knew of getting into the small building was through the back door. The alley that lead there was choked with discarded wrappers, old cigarette butts, and small bones mostly stripped clean of their flesh. Rot and mould lay heavy in the air, like an abandoned slaughterhouse.
After too many unwanted visits from Jonathan, Zadok had gotten clever: the metal door to his place no longer had a handle—just the key slot—and it now opened out, making kicking it in a futile exercise.
Jonathan wondered at just how clever the bastard had become and scrutinized the door for wards. He was actually shocked to find one scratched a bit down from the lock.
Like most protection wards, it was scratched partly on the door and partly on the frame, so that if the door opened, it would break the ward and cause a nasty side effect—in this case, a bolt of energy equivalent to licking a defibrillator.
There was a small gap between the frame and the door, not much use for a pry-bar but enough that it had need to be filled in with a bit of putty for the ward to connect frame to door.
Zadok’s upkeep of his protective measures left something to be desired however. The putty linking door to frame was cracked, causing the ward to flicker like a light bulb with faulty wiring.
Jonathan knelt down and opened up his doctor’s bag of tricks. He took out a piece of chewing gum and popped it into his mouth, enjoying the spearmint flavour as he ripped a sheet of paper from his small notebook.
He opened a jar of petroleum jelly that was infused with silver dust, and dipped the tip of his finger in. Onto the scrap of paper, Jonathan carefully traced the part of the ward that connected to the door. Satisfied that it was a match, he stuck the gum on the back of the paper and stood up again.
With infinite care, he brought the paper perpendicularly towards the ward on the frame. Slowly, he brought the two together and sighed when he felt the ward on the door connect with the stronger half he had just drawn on the paper. Making sure he kept contact, Jonathan lowered the paper until he was able to stick it to the frame with the gum.
“That’s the ward. Now how the hell am I going to open this damn door?”
Jonathan hated standing out there. He felt exposed and knew that it wasn’t just his paranoia that made him think he was being watched. He was running through spells in his head when the door flew open, almost cracking him in the face.
A man darted out the door and ran full speed down the alley: he hadn’t even noticed Jonathan, partially obscured by the door as he was. Jonathan hadn’t gotten a good look at the man who had dashed away but it was good enough for Jonathan to know it wasn’t Zadok. Daryl Zadok didn’t have the flat faced, bulging eyes, and thin lips most Blacklight denizens seemed to possess.
Jonathan drew his gun as he stepped inside, easing the door shut with his fingers. He wasn’t sure what to expect, but finding Zadok tied to a toppled chair wasn’t really it.
Zadok looked up, his face set in a snarl, but his eyes betrayed the fear he felt.
“Oh, it’s you.” Zadok slumped. “Never thought I’d say it, but thank the gods.”
“Seem to have caught you at a bad time.” Jonathan didn’t bother to smother his laughter.
“Don’t suppose you stopped the guy?” Zadok growled.
“And get the neighbourhood to hate me even more? Why would I want to do that?”
“He stole, four pounds of—” Zadok snapped his mouth shut. “You going to help here?”
“What’s that famous line . . . quid pro quo, Claris?”
“For hell’s sake, Alvey, at least prop me back up.”
Jonathan ignored his request and started snooping around, giving Zadok time to appreciate his current predicament.
“Fine. What is it you want?”
“Someone’s dealing Strigoi blood.”
“That’s awful news.” He almost sounded sincere.
Jonathan crossed the room and pointed the gun towards the floor. “Yeah, Zadok, it is.”
“What makes you think I know, anything?”
“You’re a lowlife who deals to lowlifes. I’ll enjoy shooting you, Zadok, but if I’m wrong, and you don’t know anything, I’ll be the bigger guy and dial nine-one-one for you. If you’re lucky, maybe you can drag yourself, and that chair, far enough out of here that the ambulance will actually pick you up.”
“You’re a heartless bastard.”
“That’s what the prosecution said at my murder trial, so I guess it must be true.”He answered, knowing Zadok would catch the reminder that if Jonathan were willing to kill his own father, he wouldn’t have any qualms over a snitch.
“I tell you anything about the operation, and they’ll know it was me.”
Jonathan gritted his teeth. Until now he had tired to ignore his gut instinct as to why Serkan’s husband had been kidnapped, hoping he was wrong about the blood harvesting, Zadok’s reference to an ‘operation’ made it clear his guts had, regrettably, been right.
“It isn’t like you’re subtle about shaking me down, Alvey. You know a little discretion would really help me out.”
“Yeah, making sure I’m not hampering your ability to perform transactions is what keeps me up at night.”
“Hey, it would help you too, you know. I mean people didn’t know I talked to you, I would be able to tell you more.”
There was a sound logic behind Zadok’s argument, but Jonathan frankly didn’t care. Zadok would keep his ear to the ground no matter what because it was who, and what, he was. Jonathan didn’t have to make it easy for him.
“I’ll make this simple: you tell me who’s dealing the stuff, and I won’t shoot you in the knee and then do my Sammy Davis Jr. impression on it.”
“What if I don’t know, huh? Ever thought of that?”
“What if I paint you with grave mould and virgin blood and call up a revenant to tear the flesh from your bones? Ever thought of that?”
“You’re not well, you know that? How can you even threaten that?”
“We’re talking about sick freaks harvesting Strigoi blood for a date rape drug. In comparison to that, I think I can live with just about anything I can imaging doing to you.”
***
Zadok talked. In the end, Zadok always talked, and he knew more than just who was dealing—he knew where they were holding the Strigoi. A short drive to one of the old warehouses that made up the borderlands between Blacklight and the city proper, and he was there.
The people who had taken the Strigoi were not as good as Zadok about keeping people out. The door not only had a handle, it had no wards or alarms—it also opened in.
Not knowing what he was facing in there, he couldn’t ready a spell, so Jonathan drew his weapon, clasped it two-handed, and took a deep breath.
A well-placed kick and the door cracked open, with Jonathan moving through it a second later. He quickly scanned the room: two men were sitting to his right at a dilapidated kitchen table, one was standing by the back wall by a half open door, and a fourth was crouched in the grim beside the Strigoi, who was restrained in a heavy wooden chair.
The man by the back started to move towards him, even as the two rose from their seats, revealing the small vials they were filling with blood from a larger container.
“I wouldn’t try it. I can shoot a fly off dog shit. Think what I can do when I’m aiming for the shit.”
The men paused and Jonathan had time to notice more details; the way one of the men working at the table hands shook—withdrawal but not from blood use, that the other had latex gloves on, afraid of getting the blood on him—of experiencing what he supplied. He also saw that the room behind the half closed door was a filthy washroom. Jonathan checked that man’s bare arms and saw the scars.
He didn’t hesitate in shooting the man.
The man went down with a scream. Jonathan had pegged him high on the left side, avoiding anything critical, but making sure he didn’t have the concentration to use the foreign blood now coursing through his veins.
“Get up.”
The glared at him and Jonathan felt the tug in his head but it was faint and only lasted a second.
“Try that again the next one is through your skull. Now get up. ”
Once the man had managed to get to his feet, leaving a smear of blood on the doorframe, Jonathan motioned, with the gun, for the man to join his two friends. When the two had become three, he nodded at the one on the floor.
“Your turn. Back up three paces, then get up and join your partners.”
The man shuffled back, revealing the gallon bottle on the floor that was slowly filling with blood from a tube in the vampyre’s arm.
The Strigoi himself sat taunt with pain. The hallow dark splotches under his eyes and the way his lips were drawn tight made his face looked cadaverous. The ends of the chair arms were grooved and bloody from were he had clawed at them.
Jonathan approached the Strigoi as the fourth man backed up. When he was close enough, Jonathan took one hand from the gun and began to unwrap the chain from around the creature’s wrists.
The Strigoi gave a hiss of pain and Jonathan stopped what he was doing.
It took him a second to remember that he still had the petroleum with its magically charged silver on his finger, which was now smeared lightly over his entire hand.
Apparently, even with sliver wrapped around his wrists, the charged stuff bit a little deeper. Jonathan stored that piece of information in the back of his mind as he wiped his hand on his pants as thoroughly as he could.
“Sorry, Mr. Serkan” he apologized, “Had to do a bit of spell work earlier.”
A moment later, the first chain fell to the floor. It wasn’t thick chain, it didn’t have to be, it was the silver that had kept him there. When both arms were free, the Strigoi tore the tube from his arm. The wound healed too fast for Jonathan to even see.
“Can you get up?”
“I can walk, as long as it’s out that door.”
“Then do so. Once you’re out, wait for me. I’ll bring you to Philomena.”
The Strigoi rose unsteadily but, after resting a hand on the chair for balance, kicked out his foot, sending the gallon jar into the air momentarily before crashing into a jagged puddle of dark red.
After looking at each of the four men as though to burn their images into his brain one last time, the Strigoi nodded and headed for the door.
Jonathan stood between the door and the men, his gun raised and sighted. They each, all four of them, twitched, caught between action and inaction, fear and courage. And that was what inspired him: them being caught by fear.
These men, who captured the things that had spawned stories of terror, and used their blood to do terrible things, they spawned fear, and he would use their own fears to undo them.
“Now each of you drink one of those vials.” the effects weren’t as strong, or fast, ingesting the stuff but it worked, and Jonathan wanted that.
The man he had shot looked suspicious but grabbed the nearest one and drank. Reluctantly, the other did as well, but the man with the latex gloves looked at the vial before him like it was Ebola.
“Drink up or I’ll put a hole through your gut and pour it in myself.”
With a trembling hand the man brought the container to his lips and squeezing his eyes shut, emptied it into his mouth.
Jonathan switched his grip and held the gun one handed in his left. He wasn’t as good left-handed, but he’d be able to drop the first one who moved.
He raised his right hand in front of him and brought his ring and middle finger together. Slowly, he began to rub them against each other, his summoning gesture, and before he even began to speak, the power seared through his bones.
Adrenaline- ecstasy born of fire – pumped through his arteries, and his drug that was magic spiked his veins, blooming in his brain like a wild rose, petals of blood red.
In ancient Greek, he summoned Deimos – bringer of dread – and smoke wreathed around his fingers. He moved his digits faster and black lightning speared through the cloud of smoke that now engulfed his hand.
The men swallowed hard. Stared with eyes wide and glassy. They were unable to look away from the energy Jonathan was summoning. Fear—primal and raw—flooded their minds, driving out the ability to think.
Jonathan came to the end of the curse and the smoke whipped out in four separate tendrils to wrap around each man’s head. One scream, voiced by four throats, filled the warehouse. The sound tore at the walls, scratched at the windows, and rent the air.
Jonathan turned away, and flinging open the door, strode into the night. Serkan stood only a few steps away, his eyes looked beyond Jonathan, to catch a glimpse inside his prison before the door swung shut again.
“What did you do?”
The Strigoi’s tone was controlled, emotionless, and Jonathan knew he was fighting the urge to rush in there, and feed off the emotions surging out of the men.
With a gentle hand on the back, Jonathan turned him and they both walked to the car.
itself but what may be hiding in it. It is not the creatures which scare man the deepest, but his own fears of them. I gave them that. I fed them your blood, showed them their fears, and magnified them a hundred fold. They are prisoners now to their own minds—and thanks to your blood—each others.”
Behind them, the door open and they both swung around to look. The man at the door suddenly clung to the frame as a drowning man would to a buoy. He slowly began to sink to the ground, eyes wide, his whimpers audible in the still night air. Slowly, inch-by-inch, the man pushed himself back into the warehouse, until he couldn’t be seen any more.
“What was that?”
Jonathan opened the car door for his guest and as he crossed to his side of the vehicle replied, “I believe that was agoraphobia.”
He got in and started the car. “Time for you to go home, Mr. Serkan.”
As he hit the gas, the magic was already fading—blooms withering while the thorns grew. The need to call up the power, the irresistible pull to use, throbbed deep within his bones. He grabbed at a pack of smokes on his dashboard and fished out a flattened cigarette.
The first inhalation calmed his nerves just enough that he could push back; temporarily burying one addiction under an other. It wouldn’t last long but it covered the immediate pain.
Jonathan looked at the Strigoi sitting beside him and wondered about the cravings hidden there.
“Are you alright to drive?” Serkan asked, turning his head only after the words were spoken.
“Yeah.” Jonathan looked away, “Yeah, I’m a functioning addict, don’t worry.”
“Aren’t we all.”
For now. Jonathan thought. For now.
The End
R. M. Ridley lives with his wife on a farm in Ontario, Canada. The X gladly announces their contract with Ridley to bring his whole series of Jonathan Alvey works to print, the first volume of the series to appear later in 2014.
Ridley’s first short story, “A Case for Custody,” appeared in Shades and Shadows: a Paranormal Anthology, released in October, 2013.
Editor’s Notes: A Voice of Reason (part 2)
BY PENNY FREEMAN
In my last post, we talked about how choosing the words your characters say helps to develop not only their history, but that of the world around them. In reviewing it, one perfect example of this popped into my head: TV’s Firefly, and its spin-off movie, Serenity. In this series, the screenwriters created an interesting historical backstory simply with the characters’ vocabulary. They interspersed the English with Chinese explicatives and other easily decoded words to hint at a world where the Chinese culture had become dominant.
Today, we’ll discuss how to give your characters regional or cultural “accents” to help develop your writing voice. This can be a perilous proposition, and is done badly far more often than done well. The author must learn to strike a delicate balance between communicating with the reader, allowing the reader to forget the author exists, and giving their characters the desired patois.
The trick: moderation. In spelling, choose one or two particular characteristics of the dialect you want to reproduce, and use it consistently. DO NOT go all out and try and write phonetically. It just doesn’t work. For the reader, the focus then becomes about the letters on the page, rather than the character’s voice in their head.
Here’s an excellent example of how not to do it. (Fortunately for Ms. Talbot, Josie makes only one appearance in the story that goes on to redeem itself.)
From “Tropic of Cancer” by Neve Talbot, in Mechanized 
Masterpieces: a Steampunk Anthology (2013)
Returning to the house from the lagoon, as I strode around the veranda, the sound of voices coming through the open windows of Bertha’s bedchamber arrested my steps.
“I tell you, Josie, the man has the touch. He sets me ablaze.”
“Dat leedle toad, madame? Oh, no. How cood he?”
Bertha laughed. “Not all men can be breeding studs, Josie.”
“Eben so . . . I would nebbah—”
“You do not understand, my girl. The man is an engineer. He makes a science of pleasure. I have never before had such a lover.”
“And Meestah Rochestah?”
“Mr. Rochester is a silly little boy, afraid of his own shadow.”
“Den, why do ye let dat ape touch ye?”
“Because Rottstieger is not here, wantwit. And Rochester—his physique surpasses Julian’s—all of Julian. He is not without promise.”
“Den, ye muds let me hab Julian. You hab no fuddah use ub him.”
“There you are wrong. Should I find the perfect man, with Herr Professor’s technique, Julian’s good looks, and Rochester’s stamina . . . well. Then, you could have my black. But until then, I require all three, especially since Rottstieger has been away for so long.”
“But Rochestah—he will find ye out.”
“Josie, one simply disappears into the cane fields, and Julian has such an appetite by noonday.”
“Rochestah—he promise us a house een down—a proper English house. Ye must mek heem do eet.”
“Patience, my girl. He cannot keep us here forever. After I have trained him up, then you shall have him for a plaything. And then, he shall be so wracked with his silly English guilt, I shall have him wrapped around my finger. He shall have you every night and do whatever I say all day long.”
The maid tittered. “Oh, madam. I could nebbah like heem. He be far too oogly.”
“Close your eyes, you simple thing. The face is not the business end of a man . . . or an ape for that matter.” A chuckle, deep and sensuous. “. . . and betimes one simply must have the beast.”
So, what’s the right way to convey cultural diversity in language—your character’s voice? Here are a few tips:
• Spelling: choose one or two common phonetic alterations in your spelling. For instance, Ms. Talbot could have chosen to substitute ‘a’ for ‘er’ at the end of sentences, so ‘never’ would have been ‘neva’. However, be consistent, and be sparing.
• Foreign words: slide in one or two foreign words in contexts the reader will understand, such as endearments or explicatives as in Firefly. Again, use moderation. Often authors will tell themselves that since they’re repeating the English translation in the very next sentence, they have addressed the difficulty while giving the story an “authentic” feel. Yes, it improves the reader’s comprehension/understanding, but it also jerks them out of the narrative as they look to the author to enlighten them. In good writing, the author vanishes; they become the unseen puppetmaster allowing the reader to suspend their disbelief. Don’t spoil that by making the strings obvious, or, worse still, demand the reader follow your directives, expecting them to make the puppets dance. They won’t. That’s not the show they came to see.
• Idioms. Does your foreigner mangle common phrases? Is it raining dogs and cats? Agatha Christie’s Poirot, for all his brilliance, is great at this.
• Speech patterns. Different languages follow different rules, but often times the speaker doesn’t quite perfect the translation. For instance, some languages might not use ‘be’ verbs. Others might not use pronouns but always use proper nouns, even in when speaking of themselves. Some languages invert the subject and predicate of a sentence. Easily name an example of this you can. You hear Yoda’s voice in your head. Admit it. Allow these differences to seep into the English and you give the speaker a foreign flair.
• Vocabulary. Never mind foreign languages. Regional dialects can be just as distinctive. Does your character eat potatoes or spuds or taters? Cookies or biscuits? Do they drink soda or pop or Coke? Fizzy drink, anyone? Do deliveries come in a lorry or truck or van? Would they say, “I slept in this morning because I caught a cold,” or “I had a lie in as I took a chill?” For that matter, do they vomit, throw up, or get sick?
• Punctuation. Is your character terse? Do they talk in short, clipped sentences, or do they run on and on at lightning speed and never seem to pause to draw breath so you just want to wave your hands and scream STOP! Are they always quick with an answer . . . or, do they pause to think? D-d-d-do they st-st-stutter? Or . . . or . . . or do they stammer now . . . now and again? Do they flit about from one thought to another—this is one of my worse habits—too many dashes. Even silence can speak volumes about a character. All these examples are crammed into one paragraph, and, as you can see, use the tactic too much and it starts to look gimmicky. Moderation.
My last example is an excellent one. Author Anika Arrington achieves the near impossible by writing in the vernacular, in first person, in present tense, all while allowing the reader to forget she’s even there. Without stooping to write a crusty old salt’s dialect phonetically, she allows the reader to hear his voice in their head, in all its sea dog glory.
The following excerpt is from the short story, “Sense and Cyborgs,” also found in Mechanized Masterpieces: A Steampunk Anthology (2013). As you read it, note how she follows the above rules. (I’m making this long as she’s such a pleasure to read).
From “SENSE AND CYBORGS” by Anika Arrington
No one makes cyborgs like they does in Singapore. That’s why we set sail there when the Cap’n lost his leg. We were sailin’ round the Horn, see, takin’ ships as they come for Her Majesty’s Navy. Privateerin’ ain’t exactly the most honest way for a sailor to make his wage, but least it’s legal.
Well, one great Portuguese tub proved too spirited. One minute we had them on the run, pullin’ the best of their cargo from the hold, the next, our first mate is screamin’ to heaven on high. In all fairness, the cap’n is her husband, but the shrill nature of the female voice ain’t exactly intimidatin’.
“Harris! Harris! Help me!” she’s wailin’ and there’s all manner of fear in her face and blood on her hands. We gets him to his cabin, and she turns to me like I got to know which way’s north now.
“He’ll be all right, Dashwood,” I tells her. “Just do what ye can for him, and I’ll get the crew goin’. Where’re we bound?”
“The Orient,” she says, without no waitin’.
“There’s only one man that can do what we need.”
The only question be’n would the Cap’n make it, and it’s dicey there for a bit. Caught a storm not twelve hours after he regained consciousness, at which point he passed right back out, if you please. The first mate’s still screamin’, but in the way that meant we ain’t moving fast enough for her tastes.
They say it’s bad luck havin’ a woman aboard, but when Mrs. Margaret Dashwood-Campbell gets in high dudgeon, it’s like sailin’ under the command of that Greek Athena, Goddess of War and Wisdom, a thing out o’ legend.
“Mr. Harris, get that sail into position, or your wrinkled brow will spend the journey to Singapore on the Maiden’s head!”
“Aye, Dashwood!” is all you can say, and hop to it.
We all knew she were worried for the cap’n, so we soldiered on, but two days of tossing on the high seas was nearly all we could take. Lucky for us, the storm blew itself out without leaving us becalmed.
Tweren’t easy makin’ fast sail at half rations for so long. Even havin’ the monsoons wid us, there’s more than a few unkind things said ‘bout the cap’n and his first mate.
“Ain’t right sailin’ under a woman,” says Beakman one day at mess. “It’s her bein’ on board got the cap’n hurt. Now only God knows where we’re sailin’ to. I don’t like it. I won’t stand it much longer.”
“Beakman, you are as daft as Harris is old,” says Martin—who ain’t more than three summer’s my junior. “It was Dashwood saved the captain’s life, and we’re sailin’ to Singapore. Everyone knows that.”
“So she says, how do we know she ain’t sailin’ us all to our doom?” Beakman pipes back.
“’Cuz more than one man on this boat can navigate, you great lump,” I puts in. “Just cause you gots kelp and not much else ‘tween yer ears don’t mean the rest of us can’t read a star or two. Now quit yer yammerin’ ‘fore Dashwood finds outs, and decides to clean her knives on yer face.”
In the end, we touched the docks in west Singapore, sweet as you please, ‘bout an hour before sundown, and not sixteen days after the cap’n was injured.
Singapore is a swarm of bodies bumpin’ and jostlin’—a great mix o’ peoples wid all different faces. First Mate Dashwood sets us a haulin’ them heavy crates of goods down, and in the midst of the bustle she calls Martin, Beakman, Boarhead, and meself aside. I enters the cabin, and there’s the captain all laid out in a wooden box. His face beat up and the color of the sail. His leg is missin’, just a great wad of bandages. Next to him is a long package wrapped up so’s we can’t tell what’s in it, but mark me if it ain’t just the size to be the leg that ain’t there.
“He’s dead?!” I asks.
“Of course I’m not dead, you water-logged moron!” he sits up, and shouts at me before he winces and drops back down.
“You think we can just move him through the streets, and no one will say a word?” Dashwood says looking me in the eye. “You think Captain “Dagger” Campbell would be allowed to hobble about looking for someone to bolt him up?”
I feel the shame of my stupidity burnin’ me neck.
“’Course not, ma’am.”
“Do I look like a ma’am to you, Harris?!” she hollers. She grabs the nearest object, being a sexton with all the fine etching, and heaves it right for my face. She’s a dapper hand with the thrownin’ knives she is, but the sexton’s a mite big, see?
I catch the sexton, and cut me hand in the process. Ain’t nothin’ worse than a cut in a man’s hand. Makes all work harder, goes to infection faster than anything I know. Well, I suppose the cap’n’s leg is awful bad, but my cut hand feels like a stiff price for callin’ the first mate “ma’am”.
“Sorry Dashwood, just trying to be ‘spectful.”
“Well, you can ‘spect me by putting the lid on and shouldering my husband off this tub.” She gestures at all of us, and we goes to work.
When a man is bein’ lifted in the glory after a skirmish or durin’ some good drinkin’, he’ll stay perched up on the shoulders of two men and hardly weigh two stone. But when he’s near death like the cap’n, laid out in the wooden box, it took all four of us to bear him aloft. And no light thing it were, neither. The dock swayed ‘neath our feet as we left the gangway. Beakman’s knees buckled, and the captain nearly hit the drink.
“Move it along, you louts!” Dashwood hollers, and we know there’s a man out of a job or worse if the cap’n goes tumblin’.
We follows Dashwood away from the crush of the pier, the hawkers of the markets, and the patrols. More than once we had to hold up while some group or other went past, the stillness addin’ to the cap’n’s weight. And I notices that we go straight past the surgeon’s street. I see a few walkin’ past us there with a bit of work done on an arm or a leg. You see a man with a bandage or a rag holdin’ some bit of hisself together, and you knows he’s goin’ straight for the street of the butcher surgeons. That’s where they can patch any hurt.
A man crosses our path, so’s we come up short, and you can hear the heavy fall of one foot that’s made of something weightier than flesh and bone. Each physic puts his mark on his work. Some you can see, like the lad with the tree of cogs etched in platin’ on his arm, but others don’t like folk knowin’ where their work been done.
That’s Dashwood. No one knows why or when or what for, but when her gloves and her sleeves part a bit you can see there’s something shinin’ where the flesh ought to be. But she don’t turn for the street of the medics.
We wanders back alleys and weaves ‘tween houses barely standin’. It’s darker here, no lamps, and we stumbles more than walks as we carries the cap’n onwards. The smell of opium slithers about here and there. We huffs and gasps as we does our best to keep the cap’n from banging about in his injured state. Finally, Dashwood stops at a door. It’s all bamboo and thatch, and there’s an elephant with a dirty great cog rising off its back painted in gold. She knocks twice, and the door opens ever so slightly.
“Please tell the admiral that Dashwood begs a favor, and expects a return on her investment.” The words is crisp and sharp with the tension only a long history of deeds and words with a person brings.
Name an example of the best writing of dialects you have come across? What is the worst? I’ll get you started. Worst: Sir Walter Scott doing Scottish accents. Best: Charles Dickens. Or, worst, Charles Dickens doing Cockney accents;, best Sir Walter Scott. Both gentlemen came on too strong early on, then refined their craft as their careers progressed.
Next week: dodging the grammar police.
Editor-in-chief Penny Freeman lives, writes, edits, and markets from her home in southeast Texas. She currently supervises several editorial projects, including our most recent invitation-only anthology contest, Mechanized Masterpieces 2: An American Anthology. Her latest release, Legends and Lore: An Anthology of Mythic Proportions, was released October 2014.
Xchyler Publishing Takes Teslacon by Storm!
BY JESSICA SHEN
We are back from an amazing weekend at Teslacon, and boy did we leave with some great memories! This is a little belated, but I wanted to take the time to collect all my impressions before writing up this blog. First, here is a quick recap of our weekend:
Thursday: Diane Jortner of our Marketing team and I met up with the inimitable Penny Freeman, Editor-in-Chief Extraordinaire, at our vendor room late Thursday afternoon. We spent the evening setting up our booth for the opening of Teslacon 5 the next day.
Alyson Grauer, author of On the Isle of Sound and Wonder (OISW) , stopped by for a quick minute to say hello, and we also introduced ourselves to our booth neighbors and met some of the lovely Teslacon staff. We were all pooped by the end of the night with all the travelling and set-up, so we went back to our hotel rooms for some much-needed rest.
Friday: We opened up our booth at 10AM. I finally got to meet Scott Tarbet, author of A Midsummer Night’s Steampunk (AMNS), as well as “Tombstone” in Shades and Shadows, “Ganesh” in Terra Mechanica, and, in upcoming anthologies, “Year of No Foals” in The Toll of Another Bell, and “Nautilux Redux” in Mechanized Masterpieces 2: An American Anthology (MMAA); as well as Megan Wiseman, author of the short story “The Clockwork Ballet” from Mechanized Masterpieces: A Steampunk Anthology (MMSA) and “Downward Mobility” in Legends and Lore. One of Megan’s short story will also appear MMAA.
Many of the con-goers were still at work at the beginning of the day, but traffic picked up considerably as it wore on. We had a game planned out to get patrons more involved in our booth as well as those of our neighbors, and also had drawings each hour for a free e-book (the entry fee was to sign up for our forthcoming newsletter).
Friday was the first day anywhere that we were selling On the Isle of Sound and Wonder* (as an exclusive pre-release to Teslacon), and man, did it fly off the shelves! By the end of the day, we were down to a measly one cpoy of the thing (our display volume). We had particular luck selling it as a twofer with Scott’s A Midsummer Night’s Steampunk, another Shakespeare-inspired novel (as you might have guessed by the title).
Our three authors were there at varying times of the day to sign books, which also helped with our sales. I modeled leggings printed with Egle Zioma’s gorgeous cover art for On the Isle of Sound and Wonder, and was able to sell a couple pairs, too (If you want to buy ‘em, let me know! We also have art posters available). After we closed up shop, Penny treated us to a lovely team dinner.
Saturday: The big day! We started out the day with much fanfare, all of us bedecked in our Steampunk finest. As we had sold out of all our copies of OISW, we pushed our other Steampunk offerings hard—MMSA, Terra Mechanica, another Steampunk anthology, AMNS, and Pete Ford’s Mr. Gunn & Dr. Bohemia. We had another game to play, which involved several of the Teslacon cast members, but it required a significant amount of effort from the patrons, and so it was not as successful as our vendor game from the previous day. We were able to sign up more people for our newsletter, though, which was great.
We left our booth in the capable hands of Diane’s husband (thank you for your help, Larry!) and headed off to hold our panel, Voyage of Discovery: From Inception to Published Work**. Unfortunately we had some technical difficulties and were not able to load our PowerPoint presentation, but luckily we were able to work around that with the help of Google Drive. We talked a lot about how to get published and what to expect during the editing process. We had a good number of attendees, and had the chance to interact with many of them during the Q&A session as well as afterwards.
Aly’s presentation, Sound and Wonder: Steampunking Shakespeare in Fiction***, came directly afterwards. As a high-profile cast member and all-around cult personality, Aly had a large audience at her panel. She discussed the process of writing and editing her story, as well as how she handled the source material, Shakespeare’s The Tempest. After answering some questions from the audience, she read an excerpt of her novel. All in all, both presentations went smashingly well. We wrapped up the night with presales of the hardcover edition of her book, and said goodbye to Diane, as she had to make the long drive back home.
There was a ball to cap off day two, but Penny and Scott and I were too tired from the eventful day, so we had dinner together and then called it a night. Aly and Megan had far better things to do.
Sunday: Our last day 🙁 We were able to push our Steampunk offerings some more, as well as getting some more presales of OISW. The highlight of the day: we met a family of a mother and father and two young boys who were the most excited I had ever seen anyone of their age be about books and reading and writing. They chatted with me for probably five to ten minutes, words tumbling over each other like they couldn’t talk fast enough about what they were reading, and what stories they wanted to write. They gave me hope for the younger generation!
The Vendor Room was open until about 3PM, but we ended up taking down our booth around noon, as both Penny and I had afternoon flights to catch. We ended up with significantly fewer books than we arrived with (just a few small boxes—unbelievable!), which meant that not only did we get our books out to the people, but Penny didn’t have to lug home an extra piece of luggage! After we got all cleaned up, we said goodbye to Teslacon, and Penny took me to the airport.
Whew. Well, that didn’t end up being very quick, did it? If you can stand it, stick around for a little bit longer to hear my impressions!
Xchyler Publishing’s first foray at Teslacon was an amazing experience. The Teslacon staff was incredibly helpful throughout the entire process, from submitting our presentation months before, to helping us get customers to our booth (shout-out to the Bob the Barker, the best in the business [James Nettum], we couldn’t have done it without you!).
Teslacon may not be the biggest Steampunk convention out there, but it certainly has the most heart. The event was very family-friendly, and there was a wide range of attendees, from babies to grandmothers—and everyone was dressed to the nines and acting in character, from Steampunk Iron Man to period-accurate Suffragettes. The variety of panels and activities was unparalleled, and the vendors had obviously been chosen by the quality of their wares rather than their quantity or low price. All in all, Teslacon was very well-organized, and the draw was such that even some of the hotel staff was dressed up!
We at Xchyler learned a lot during those few days. One of the biggest takeaways was the power of a new book release—hyping the release of On the Isle of Sound and Wonder, and Aly’s star power, drew a lot of people to our booth. Among the other lessons we learned, having authors at the booth available to sign books also worked very well in our favor. While we were very happy to have sold out of all our copies of OISW, we wish that we had brought more so that we could have sold out on the third day, instead of the first.
With the technical difficulties that we experienced, we now know to bring backups upon backups, so that we don’t have to be at the mercy of the fickle tech gods. We had also concocted personas for ourselves and for our team (X-ISLE: Xchyler International Society of Librarian Explorers!), but did not push that as much as we could have.
We met so many wonderful people, and most importantly, we were able to get our name out there! I hope that we have created some lasting fans, and I’m sure we met some future authors. It was the first time that many of the Xchyler team had met, and what a way to do it. I am so thankful that I get to be part of such a fantastic team, both in staff and our authors. Until next time, Wisconsin!
(l-r) Penny Freeman, Megan Wiseman, Diane Jortner, Scott Tarbet, Alyson Grauer & Jessica Shen. (Yes, you can buy those nifty t-shirts on the wall! Email us for more information).
*Don’t miss out on the worldwide release of Alyson Grauer’s On the Isle of Sound and Wonder on November 21st! Check out the trailer and attend our release party here!
**The video of our full presentation will be available soon! Don’t forget to check back!
***Watch Aly Grauer read an excerpt from her novel at her panel!
Editor’s Notes: Stop Taking Things So Seriously!
BY SHAUNTEL SIMPER
DISCLAIMER: If the following advice seems frivolous, awesome. I’m genuinely happy for you! Go out and write and enjoy every moment of it.
To the rest of us, consider this: when is the last time you wrote something for you? It’s far too common to get psyched out and think too much on what everybody else will think. So, instead, begin with the intention of never showing anybody. You are the sole audience member—what do you want to read?
You see, once upon a time, a younger Shauntel collaborated with a friend on a story writing prompt that was never meant to see the light of day. It became somewhat of a boredom buster, and the story building process continued steadily, with no real drive or deadline other than the occasional poke from her friend to get her to finish the next section and send it back for said friend to continue, and so forth.
Our intention was never to hit 500,000 words on that silly thing. It took two years. But it happened, quite accidentally. And it’s one of those little sources of secret pride I hold about myself.
There is a time and place for angst and dramatics in the writing process. Getting emotionally invested in your story often results in raw, compelling material, the likes of which often best serve to inspire and captivate an audience.
But . . . that’s some serious work. And it’s exhausting. If that’s all you do, writing stops being fun.
That’s my keyword for today: fun. Writing is supposed to be fun! And sometimes we get too bogged down in our own melodramatic minds to see that.
Remember that sci-fi epic you dreamt up when you were twelve? Flesh it out, give it a name, and enjoy yourself. Is it clichéd? Dull? No one else has to even see it. Just have fun with it.
Remember that fluffy romance you started writing when you were fifteen? Give it an ending! Work through the kinks or keep it campy. That’s up to you.
Remember when the ending to that one TV show failed you? Go write a new one. That subplot that was too terrible for words? Fix it. Those two characters that were meant to be but never seemed to have a chance? Write them a happily ever after.
Now, hide it away for no one to see. Keep it as your hobby, your de-stressor. Having something that’s just for you can be a precious thing. Or, don’t. It’s your choice. If it seems like the right thing, send it into the world. Maybe your future best-seller is masquerading as that Twilight alternate ending you thought of (see: Fifty Shades of Grey).
Pet projects can be fun, and they can break up the monotony when your novel feels dull. When it comes to writing, any practice is good practice. And, if you’re feeling just a bit brave, a little collaborative writing never hurt anybody. Then it’s two people who have a secret hobby, and that’s always more fun.
Shauntel Simper just returned from the literal Last Frontier, Alaska, and is excited to put her editor boots back on. She graduated from Eastern Arizona College but plans on continuing her education before life gets crazy, and currently lives in a little apartment in Arizona with too many roommates and works more jobs than you do. She really did write a 500,000 word story, and, no, you can’t read it.
Shauntel’s diving headlong into work on Mechanized Masterpieces 2: An American Anthology, slated for release in February 2015.
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