Paul Jessup has opened up a fundraising project over at kickstarter. The goal is a good one: to set up a web-site that will specifically hunt down, review, and promote weird books.  Not just fantasy books but all weird books.  And as the weird slips out of the mainstream, slips into the back alleys of small presses (and there seems to be more than enough trouble there) anything that can get the word out about good fiction seems worth supporting.

The full pitch for the project can be found here. So far the project’s been going a few hours and he’s already raised over $100.  All told he’s looking for $2,500 and every little bit helps.

“First up is the nonfiction, “Telling Stories in the Wake of Postmodernism” by Jonathan Wood. Wood has a concise summary of the implications of postmodernism–some of which I’m not even aware of–and eventually gets to discuss the options in telling interactive stories. It’s the latter which catches my attention, and Wood cites mediums like video games and hypertext as one of the viable forms. It’s an interesting discourse and take on the subject, with the references remaining unobtrusive.”

“”Ephemera” by Jonathan Wood can be challenging to read and it’s an interesting combination of mystery along with your horror and fantasy. Overall however, I got confused as there are two plots taking place, and while the discourse is an interesting technique, isn’t exactly the most accessible. Yet this confusion is also perfect for the story as it captures the clash and fusion of minds of its main character. While some readers might appreciate this form-function synthesis–and it takes great skill for Wood to pull it off–I’m not fond of this format.”

Which is generally nice to hear.

Next up, more excellence.  Mr Jeff Vandermeer (along with the intrepid Mr. Matt Staggs) has put together the sweetest of books: Booklife, which is launching shortly (I believe).  It is only marred in one place by a relatively stupid quote from me.  Despite this it is ful of great advice for authors, especially those just moving into the professionally creative part of their lives.  In fact it was on the strength of the book that I finally moved over onto Wordpress, which has made me very happy.

Anyhoo, for more information about this fascinating little book (I chewed through it in about3 days) you can now head over to http://booklifenow.com/ which just launched today.

Next up, for reasons of full discolsure as well as hideous self-pimpage, I have been included in another of Mr Vandermeer’s projects, the charity anthology, Last Drink Bird Head.  It’s got over 80 writers, most of whom are far more famous and talented than I, which makes it a real honor to be in their company, all donating pieces of flash fiction about the idea of “What the crap is Last Drink Bird Head?”  It’s full of really lively cool stuff, and includes authors like eter Straub, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Brian Evenson, Henry Kaiser, Gene Wolfe, Hal Duncan, Jeffrey Ford, Rikki Ducornet, Holly Phillips, Stephen R. Donaldson, K.J. Bishop, Michael Swanwick, Ellen Kushner, Daniel Abraham, Jay Lake, Liz Williams, Tanith Lee, Sarah Monette, Conrad Williams, and Marly Youmans.  To name a few.

What’s more all the proceed go to charity. Whoot!

And while on the subject of anthologies, I think I have totally failed to mention the anthology Hatter Bones, put together by Paul Jessup.  There are several reasons for this, mostly due to my general concern that the publishers are a bunch of eejits.  This may be false, and if so I apologize.  However, you may notice Mr Jessup’s name oddly absent from the cover despite the very hard work he put in, which is but one of the oddities.  It’s a patchy antho, through no fault of his that I can tell, but there are some real gems in there.

There’s something in there by me (hence the mention) but you’ll also find stuff by Matt Cheney, Darin C. Bradley, Ekaterina Sedia, Cat Rambo, Jason Sizemore, Lavie Tidhar, Forrest Aguirre, and Becca De La Rosa, so I strongly recommend at least considering spending some of your pennies.

And that’s quite enough from me, so I shall be quiet.

The Farrago team have been exceedingly good to me.  They are responsible for my first published stories and my first go at editing. Darin Bradley and his team are excellent people.  I’m sad to see the zine go.

It therefore makes me very happy to be involved in Farrago’s final send-off.  I’ve got two pieces up in this final issue.  One’s a short story titled Ephemera, and the other is my first piece of nonfiction, called “Telling stories in the wake of post-modernism.”

By a certain irony, Ephemera is one of my most aggressively postmodern stories, and the essay is much more interested in finding a way past some of the roadblocks I see postmodernism throwing up in storytelling without retreating into the naivety of modernism.

Hopefully some people will like the story.  Its experimental and postmodern and all that Farrago stuff, so I imagine the audience will be limited, but hopefully it will find a few people to love it.  I’m actually much more interested in reaction to the essay, as I suspect it will be rather antithetical some people I know.  Still it comes out of discussions at the old Broken Circles blog (which involved Darin Bradley, Paul Jessup, Mark Teppo, Ekaterina Sedia and several others) so it is near and dear to my heart.

The Lester Dent Pulp Paper Master Fiction Plot

This is a formula, a master plot, for any 6000 word pulp story. It has worked on adventure, detective, western and war-air. It tells exactly where to put everything. It shows definitely just what must happen in each successive thousand words.

No yarn of mine written to the formula has yet failed to sell.

The business of building stories seems not much different from the business of building anything else.

Here’s how it starts:

1. A DIFFERENT MURDER METHOD FOR VILLAIN TO USE
2. A DIFFERENT THING FOR VILLAIN TO BE SEEKING
3. A DIFFERENT LOCALE
4. A MENACE WHICH IS TO HANG LIKE A CLOUD OVER HERO

One of these DIFFERENT things would be nice, two better, three swell. It may help if they are fully in mind before tackling the rest.

A different murder method could be–different. Thinking of shooting, knifing, hydrocyanic, garroting, poison needles, scorpions, a few others, and writing them on paper gets them where they may suggest something. Scorpions and their poison bite? Maybe mosquitos or flies treated with deadly germs?

If the victims are killed by ordinary methods, but found under strange and identical circumstances each time, it might serve, the reader of course not knowing until the end, that the method of murder is ordinary.

Scribes who have their villain’s victims found with butterflies, spiders or bats stamped on them could conceivably be flirting with this gag.

Probably it won’t do a lot of good to be too odd, fanciful or grotesque with murder methods.

The different thing for the villain to be after might be something other than jewels, the stolen bank loot, the pearls, or some other old ones.

Here, again one might get too bizarre.

Unique locale? Easy. Selecting one that fits in with the murder method and the treasure–thing that villain wants–makes it simpler, and it’s also nice to use a familiar one, a place where you’ve lived or worked. So many pulpateers don’t. It sometimes saves embarrassment to know nearly as much about the locale as the editor, or enough to fool him.

Here’s a nifty much used in faking local color. For a story laid in Egypt, say, author finds a book titled “Conversational Egyptian Easily Learned,” or something like that. He wants a character to ask in Egyptian, “What’s the matter?” He looks in the book and finds, “El khabar, eyh?” To keep the reader from getting dizzy, it’s perhaps wise to make it clear in some fashion, just what that means. Occasionally the text will tell this, or someone can repeat it in English. But it’s a doubtful move to stop and tell the reader in so many words the English translation.

The writer learns they have palm trees in Egypt. He looks in the book, finds the Egyptian for palm trees, and uses that. This kids editors and readers into thinking he knows something about Egypt.

Here’s the second installment of the master plot.

Divide the 6000 word yarn into four 1500 word parts. In each 1500 word part, put the following:

FIRST 1500 WORDS

1–First line, or as near thereto as possible, introduce the hero and swat him with a fistful of trouble. Hint at a mystery, a menace or a problem to be solved–something the hero has to cope with.

2–The hero pitches in to cope with his fistful of trouble. (He tries to fathom the mystery, defeat the menace, or solve the problem.)

3–Introduce ALL the other characters as soon as possible. Bring them on in action.

4–Hero’s endevours land him in an actual physical conflict near the end of the first 1500 words.

5–Near the end of first 1500 words, there is a complete surprise twist in the plot development.

SO FAR: Does it have SUSPENSE?
Is there a MENACE to the hero?
Does everything happen logically?

At this point, it might help to recall that action should do something besides advance the hero over the scenery. Suppose the hero has learned the dastards of villains have seized somebody named Eloise, who can explain the secret of what is behind all these sinister events. The hero corners villains, they fight, and villains get away. Not so hot.

Hero should accomplish something with his tearing around, if only to rescue Eloise, and surprise! Eloise is a ring-tailed monkey. The hero counts the rings on Eloise’s tail, if nothing better comes to mind. They’re not real. The rings are painted there. Why?

SECOND 1500 WORDS

1–Shovel more grief onto the hero.

2–Hero, being heroic, struggles, and his struggles lead up to:

3–Another physical conflict.

4–A surprising plot twist to end the 1500 words.

NOW: Does second part have SUSPENSE?
Does the MENACE grow like a black cloud?
Is the hero getting it in the neck?
Is the second part logical?

DON’T TELL ABOUT IT***Show how the thing looked. This is one of the secrets of writing; never tell the reader–show him. (He trembles, roving eyes, slackened jaw, and such.) MAKE THE READER SEE HIM.

When writing, it helps to get at least one minor surprise to the printed page. It is reasonable to to expect these minor surprises to sort of  inveigle the reader into keeping on. They need not be such profound efforts. One method of accomplishing one now and then is to be gently misleading. Hero is examining the murder room. The door behind him begins slowly to open. He does not see it. He conducts his examination blissfully. Door eases open, wider and wider, until–surprise! The glass pane falls out of the big window across the room. It must have fallen slowly, and air blowing into the room caused the door to open. Then what the heck made the pane fall so slowly? More mystery.

Characterizing a story actor consists of giving him some things which make him stick in the reader’s mind. TAG HIM.

BUILD YOUR PLOTS SO THAT ACTION CAN BE CONTINUOUS.

THIRD 1500 WORDS

1–Shovel the grief onto the hero.

2–Hero makes some headway, and corners the villain or somebody in:

3–A physical conflict.

4–A surprising plot twist, in which the hero preferably gets it in the neck bad, to end the 1500 words.

DOES: It still have SUSPENSE?
The MENACE getting blacker?
The hero finds himself in a hell of a fix?
It all happens logically?

These outlines or master formulas are only something to make you certain of inserting some physical conflict, and some genuine plot twists, with a little suspense and menace thrown in. Without them, there is no pulp story.

These physical conflicts in each part might be DIFFERENT, too. If one fight is with fists, that can take care of the pugilism until next the next yarn. Same for poison gas and swords. There may, naturally, be exceptions. A hero with a peculiar punch, or a quick draw, might use it more than once.

The idea is to avoid monotony.

ACTION:
Vivid, swift, no words wasted. Create suspense, make the reader see and feel the action.

ATMOSPHERE:
Hear, smell, see, feel and taste.

DESCRIPTION:
Trees, wind, scenery and water.

THE SECRET OF ALL WRITING IS TO MAKE EVERY WORD COUNT.

FOURTH 1500 WORDS

1–Shovel the difficulties more thickly upon the hero.

2–Get the hero almost buried in his troubles. (Figuratively, the villain has him prisoner and has him framed for a murder rap; the girl is presumably dead, everything is lost, and the DIFFERENT murder method is about to dispose of the suffering protagonist.)

3–The hero extricates himself using HIS OWN SKILL, training or brawn.

4–The mysteries remaining–one big one held over to this point will help grip interest–are cleared up in course of final conflict as hero takes
the situation in hand.

5–Final twist, a big surprise, (This can be the villain turning out to be the unexpected person, having the “Treasure” be a dud, etc.)

6–The snapper, the punch line to end it.

HAS: The SUSPENSE held out to the last line?
The MENACE held out to the last?
Everything been explained?
It all happen logically?
Is the Punch Line enough to leave the reader with that WARM FEELING?
Did God kill the villain? Or the hero?

It should be noted that there is no actual steam in the story and neither are there punks, but apparently that isn’t necessary for the genre.  I could call it faux-Victoriana, but I suspect that makes me sound like an asshole.

Anyhoo, it’s up, it’s my wife’s favorite of all my stories, which makes it near and dear to my heart if not yours.

Here’s the opener so anyone who clicks through knows what they’re getting into:

I did it.  It’s my fault.

And I’m not sorry.

So, should you be in the mood for audio fiction, clockpunk, non-linear storytelling, family sagas, and/or a murder mystery then this might be a story for you.  If you’re not, then it’s probably not, but you can listen to it for free, so what the hell.

Also, this is one where I think the title actually helps.  Titles usually kill me slowly so I sort of throw tack on the first piece of crap that sticks to the wall, but here I hope it actually adds something to the story and gives a hint at what I was trying to write about.

But it’s got me back to working hard on the novel outline I’m doing at the moment, so if that’s the only upshot, then I’m still pleased.

Such as this:

More of his awesome can be found here and here

Yes, that’s right, I’ve gone from collecting X-Men comics to Batman ones.  Marvel to DC.  I risk the wrath of fanboys everywhere.

There are a couple of reasons for this.  I came onboard with X-Men (and comics in general) about 5 years ago.  There was a big cross-over event going on written by Brian Michael Bendis.  It was thoroughly entertaining and I was hooked.  And I loved the big splashy-ness of X-men, the unrepentant afternoon soap qualities combined with fantastic action.  X-Men provide big stupid drama of all kinds in a completely loveable form.

And the line-up!  Wolverine is just frickin’ awesome no matter how many bad movies you put him in (I haven’t seen the Origins movie.  Yet…).  Cyclops is a perfect foil.  Beast (always my favorite) is just always cool, the total Mary-Jane character for every high-school nerd.  The ever-returning Jean Grey.  It goes on and on.

I read the Essential Collections, with Chris Claremont’s initial run on the book, which is magnificent.  Though now, for whatever reason, his stuff comes across as the rantings of a dribbling maniac, back then it was powerful stuff.  The original Dark Phoenix saga is powerful stuff.

The problem is, I don’t think it’s really been topped.  In over 20 years.  It stands there clearly marking–”this is about as good as it gets.”  The X-Men constantly teeter on the edge of greatness, they have the potential for greatness, but they seem mired in mediocrity.  Astonishing X-Men (currently penned by the genius Warren Ellis, previously by Joss Whedon) manages it from time to time, but that only comes out every 2 months.  6 issues a year.  That’s not enough to buy my loyalty.

So, I started two-timing the X-Men, and now the dumping procedure is complete.  Make mine DC.

I’ve gone for Batman for a couple of reasons.  Partly it’s due to the recent Batman reboot, with Bruce Wayne gone and a newbie stepping into the Dark Knight’s shoes.  It’s a good starting point to come in, and I love the new guy’s insecurities, the weaknesses, the flaws.  They’re fresh, and you can feel the freshness.

There’s also the fact the flagship title is written by Grant Morrison who was responsible for the best run of the X-Men this decade.  If he was still working on the X-Men I’d probably still be reading it.  Another writer is Paul Dini–one of the masterminds behind the original Batman cartoon which still ranks as some of the best TV around.

And I’ve always loved that Batman is a self-made man.  His only superpower is mega-wealth.  He wasn’t born with any abilities you and I don’t have.  Now, obviously, it is impossible to become Batman, but the fanboy part of me can pretend that it is theoretically possible, and I love that message.  Anybody, if they try, could be Batman.  How fucking empowering is that?

And finally, and probably, mostly, there is Gotham City.  How can you not love Gotham City?  New York seen through the fractured lens of madness.  More noir than any depiction of L.A. could ever be.  Home to more psychotics than you could shake a stick at,and shaking a stick ain’t that hard.  A city of endless shadows, of fathomless darkness.  It’s brilliant, and brutal, and it feels just like the sort of place heroes should be, down in the pits being damaged and damaging things right back.

So, yeah, I’m a convert.  Cape and cowl, people.  Cape and cowl.