Genres - Steven R. Southard (Poseidon's Scribe)

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Don’t Refuse Your Muse

Is your brain in a rut? If so, you’re not alone. Today I’ll examine this tendency and suggest what you can do about it.

For all its desirable features, the human brain suffers from a love of the familiar and a fear of the unknown. This served as a good survival trait for our ancestors in their world, but it’s no advantage for a writer today.

This hard-wired preference probably prevents many people from becoming writers in the first place, since that can be a scary unknown. Even for those of you who’ve chosen to writers, this unfortunate brain feature keeps you using the same vocabulary words, writing about the same topics in the same genres, writing stories with the same themes and using very similar characters. It thwarts your creative urge, putting you at war with your muse.

As I’ve said before, your muse gets bored with the familiar and seeks the new and fresh. She grabs your arm and pulls you away from the safe and the known, beckoning you to explore the untrodden path. Her brain is wired in a different way.

Perhaps you disagree, thinking you don’t suffer from the malady I’ve described. You deny being a creature of habit who rushes to the familiar and avoids the unknown. Fine. Here’s your test. Tonight, before going to bed, hide your toothbrush. Let’s see how Mr. or Ms. Creativity handles things the next morning. Good luck!

For a great illustration of the problem, I encourage you to read “The Calf Path” by Sam Walter Foss. This poem paints an amusing metaphor of how our brains work.

Advertising Director Gina Sclafani wrote about dealing with the phenomenon. I find it interesting how she thought at first the task would be easy, since she prided herself on being open-minded. Then she well describes the difficulty, the inner resistance, to any steps outside the mind’s comfort zone. In the end, she’s glad she did, because the rewards are great, but she warns it is a journey pitting one part of your mind against a powerful counteracting part.

Here’s a three-step method you could try as a writer to push yourself out of your comfort zone. I’ll illustrate it with story genres, but it could also work with characters, themes, settings, style, or any aspect of story-writing in which you’re stuck.

1. Make a list of story genres you’d never consider writing about. Include the ones you find stupid, abhorrent, unseemly, etc. It’s no big deal, right? After all, you’re never going to write in any of these genres.

2. Spend five to ten minutes thinking through each genre on your list. Think about each one as follows: “I’ll never write in this genre, of course, but if I were to do so, here’s the story I’d write…” You needn’t write down any of these ideas, just think through them.

3. Now let some time pass. A few days, weeks, or even months. This allows your muse to do her thing. You might well find she’s yanking on your arm and leading you down an unfamiliar path toward writing in one of those unwanted genres.

A similar thing happened to me. I knew I’d never write in the horror genre. Then I noticed a publisher seeking stories for an anthology to be called Dead Bait. I dismissed it, but my muse didn’t. She worked on the idea for a story she made me write called “Blood in the River.” I’m still not a horror story writer, but it felt good to get out of the comfort zone.

One final thought. At one point in their lives, each of history’s greatest contributors (think of da Vinci, Shakespeare, Bach, Edison, Einstein, etc.) had to leave a comfort zone in order to develop his or her eventual talents. Imagine the loss to mankind if one of them hadn’t taken that step? What if you could become a popular, successful, or timeless writer if only you stretch your mind in a direction it doesn’t want to go?

You’ll have to excuse me. This calf-path I’m walking along is nice, but some woman wearing a chiton is tugging at my sleeve. “What’s that? Where? But that’s off the path and looks terrifying to—

Poseidon’s Scribe”

April 21, 2014Poseidon's ScribePermalink

The 7 Types of Genre Writers

Some time ago I stated there were two types of great writers—pioneers and giants. What about all the writers who aren’t great? Today I’ll expand on my pioneer/giant idea and discuss seven types of writers, as they apply to genre fiction. I’m not going to list any authors here, but I’ll bet certain names will come to mind as you peruse each type below.

1. Pioneers. These are writers who start a new genre of fiction by themselves. They discover it. They often have difficulty finding a publisher initially, since the publisher doesn’t know what to make of a book that doesn’t fit established categories. Such authors may never be known for the quality of their writing, but will always be remembered as the first to discover a genre.

2. Copiers. Authors in this category pretty much follow in the footsteps of the Pioneers. They recognize a new, ripe genre and suspect it might appeal to readers; they don’t stray from ground already trod by earlier writers. Their books need not be outstanding, just available right away, and designed to appeal to readers hungry for that genre.

3. Formulists. This type overlaps Copiers a bit, and consists of writers who use a standard plot and only a few basic character types, and stick with them in novel after novel. Sometimes Formulists develop these models on their own, and sometimes they pick up formulaic plots and archetypal characters from others. Often such authors can develop a loyal following that remains with them.

4. Surveyors. While the Copiers and Formulists ply their craft along well-traveled paths, the Surveyors are interested in exploring the far reaches of the genre. They look to the boundaries, experimenting with stories that barely fit within the genre’s borders.

5. Giants. These are authors of great skill who begin writing in an established genre and make it even more popular. It is these authors whom we look back on and identify them with the genre itself.

6. Combiners. After a genre is well-established and explored, and perhaps starting to get a bit stale, Combiners come along to mix the genre with other genres. Such books can take the form of mashups and be intended as humorous. It’s possible for Combiners to end up creating new subgenres.

7. Nostalgists. Some genres eventually run their course and die out, or at least trail off to a minimum. Westerns seem to be headed this way. Nostalgists can come along with books that harken back to the dying genre, attempting to revive it, perhaps with new twists.

I don’t mean to imply there’s anything wrong with any of these types of writers. All are legitimate. There’s room in the various genres for each of them, and they can all make money.

Which type of writer, you’re asking, am I? At first I dabbled in various genres, responding to my muse’s whisperings. Lately it seems I’ve written mainly in the Alternate History subgenre, and my stories focus on people’s interactions with technology. I’d have to say I’m more of a Copier than any of the other types. Maybe most authors are of that type.

My turn: which type of writer are you, or which do you aspire to become? In my listing, did I miss any types? Leave a comment for—

Poseidon’s Scribe

December 15, 2013Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Meet the Punk Family

If you’re into science fiction, particularly alternate history or speculative fiction, there are some interesting sub-genres to be aware of. They all have -punk in their name: cyberpunk, clockpunk, steampunk, dieselpunk, and atompunk.

I’ve blogged about steampunk before, but here I’ll step back and introduce the Punk family.

Cyberpunk. This term describes fiction involving a world of the near future where computer technology has made life miserable and degraded society. Author Bruce Bethke is credited with coining the term in 1980 in connection with his short story “Cyberpunk.” Major writers of cyberpunk include Pat Cadigan, William Gibson, and Bruce Sterling. Some cinematic examples of cyberpunk are 1984, Blade Runner, Mad Max, the Terminator movies, and Tron. In my graphic I’ve depicted it as the parent of the Punk Family since it came first.

Clockpunk. This refers to fiction set in a time when metal springs are the primary technological energy storage mechanism, an era prior to the invention of the steam engine. A player of the Generic Universal RolePlaying System (GURPS) invented the term. Clockpunk authors of note include Jay Lake, S. M. Peters, and Terry Pratchett.

Steampunk. This subgenre depicts settings with steam-powered mechanisms, often in time periods similar to the nineteenth century. Author K. W. Jeter invented the term in 1987. Early giants of steampunk literature include James Blaylock, K. W. Jeter, and Tim Powers, though there are many, many writers continuing in their footsteps. Movie examples of steampunk include Atlantis: The Lost Empire, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, The Prestige, Sherlock Holmes, Van Helsing, and Wild Wild West. I think it’s fair to say this child of cyberpunk has surpassed its parent and all its siblings in popularity. It has spawned a culture all its own with jewelry, clothing, art, music, and dedicated conventions in addition to books.

Dieselpunk. In Dieselpunk we see the gasoline-based technology of the 1920s, 30s, and 40s. Game designer Lewis Pollak came up with the term in 2001. Authors of dieselpunk include David Bishop, Robert Harris, Brian Moreland, and F. Paul Wilson. Some examples of dieselpunk movies are Rocketeer and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. As with steampunk, dieselpunk also comes with its own visual style — art deco.

Atompunk. This refers to fiction set in the exuberant post World War II age, the Atomic Age. I couldn’t find anything about who coined the term. Some atompunk authors are Adam Christopher and Dante D’Anthony. I don’t know of any atompunk movies made since the sub-genre emerged, but many science fiction movies of the 1950’s can be thought of as proto-atompunk. There are associated visual styles with atompunk, too: Googie Architecture, Populuxe, and Raygun Gothic.

There are other, lesser known, members of the Punk family: Decopunk, Biopunk, Nanopunk, Stonepunk, Nowpunk, Splatterpunk, Elfpunk, and Mythpunk. Perhaps if these attract sufficient readers, I’ll blog about them too.

The ‘-punk’ aspect of each of these is meant to convey that these are not celebrations of the technology in question. The idea in these stories is to convey dark and disturbing faults in the societies driven by the technology, and by extension, to point out analogous problems with our own modern society.

My steampunk stories include “The Steam Elephant,” “The Wind-Sphere Ship,” (call that one Iron Age steampunk), “Within Victorian Mists,” “A Steampunk Carol,” “The Six Hundred Dollar Man,” and the upcoming “Rallying Cry.”

I’ve written a couple of clockpunk stories too: “Leonardo’s Lion” and “A Tale More True.”

Perhaps you’ll enjoy getting to know the Punk Family. They’re an odd bunch, but they’re getting more famous every day. Leave a comment and explain what you think about them to the world and to—

Poseidon’s Scribe

November 24, 2013Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Books in the Shadows

Recall the brouhaha in February and March 2012 between PayPal and Smashwords? It’s been a year and a half since then; time for a retrospective look.

It started when PayPal told Smashwords to remove all content referring to bestiality, rape, and incest from its website or else its customers could no longer buy books using PayPal. The problem for PayPal was that it was backed by major credit card companies; all of whom had reputations to uphold. They couldn’t be seen as permitting, let alone advocating, what many customers saw as smut.

That put Smashwords in a real bind. PayPal wasn’t just a means for paying for books on the site; it was integral to the site. Accordingly, Smashwords notified all its authors of the change in policy and engaged in negotiations with PayPal. The negotiations got into the minutiae of defining bestiality, rape, and incest.

Meanwhile a funny thing happened. People reacted. In a big way. The internet backlash campaign against PayPal rose up with the power and immediacy of a tidal wave. By the thousands, people signed petitions, wrote angry blog rants, and cancelled their PayPal accounts; whole organizations formed to fight this one issue.

By mid-March it was over. PayPal reversed its stance.

So, problem solved, right? We can all move on?

Not really. Just a couple of weeks ago, the British bookseller W.H. Smith shut down its website due to a problem involving pornographic books. Using the search term ‘daddy,’ like a child might do, resulted in some book choices that were, let’s say, inappropriate for children.

So the fight continues and will likely go on as long as there are books, and people. Each side in this war has a valid point and a principle worth defending. One side seeks to keep adult-themed books out of the reach of minors. Failure, as they see it, leads to moral decay and the collapse of civil society. The other side strives to defend freedom of expression. Failure, to them, leads to book-burning and thought control.

The boundaries of what’s acceptable have been shifting for centuries, even millennia. What is appropriate for children? To what lengths shall we go to protect them? These questions are ageless.

What’s new today is the explosion of adult interest in pornographic books, the ease of electronic searches for books, and the fact that children are often more adept with the internet than their parents.

I don’t bring this up because I have some magic answer, nor am I taking sides. I’ve written one story that young children shouldn’t read, and that’s “Blood in the River” in the horror anthology Dead Bait. I’m trusting parents not to purchase a book of horror stories for their toddlers. So far I haven’t written anything else that could be described as erotic or pornographic. If I do, I’ll publish it under another name.

My point is only that this ain’t over. Battle lines will shift; skirmishes will erupt at the borders of the eternal culture conflict; periods of peaceful equilibrium will end with further clashes and uprisings.

For me, the danger lies at both extreme ends of the spectrum. I think there should be a way for parents to protect their young children from exposure to porn (and parents need to define that term ‘porn’ for themselves). Similarly, I don’t want society (especially the government) to ban porn for adults.

That’s my take on the books of the shadows. What’s yours? Leave a comment and let your views be known to the world and to—

Poseidon’s Scribe

November 3, 2013Poseidon's ScribePermalink

The Techno-Thriller, a Tribute to Tom Clancy

Author Tom Clancy died earlier this week on October 2nd at the age of just 66. During his writing career he reinvented and popularized the genre known as the techno-thriller.

You can read all about Clancy’s life elsewhere; my purpose today is to mention how he and his work influenced me.

When his first book, The Hunt for Red October was published in 1984, I was completing my first (and last) tour as an officer aboard a submarine and headed for two years of shore duty.

The novel didn’t really become popular at first, but the publisher, U.S. Naval Institute Press, was used to leaving books out and available for longer periods than traditional fiction presses were. Good thing, too, because the book eventually caught on and became a best-seller.

The U.S. Navy benefited from that novel, I think, because it popularized the military at a time when it still suffered from the post-Vietnam stigma, and it rode the wave of the expansion of the military led by then-President Reagan. It was a heady time for the submarine service.

I recall a cartoon at the time depicting a young woman addressing a naval officer seated at a bar table, drinking beer. He wore sunglasses and had winged aviation insignia on his uniform. She was asking, “Are you a submariner, like those guys in Red October?” and he responded, “Yeah, babe.” The caption read, “The first recorded instance of an aviator impersonating a submariner.”

I enjoyed the book, and my familiarity with submarines probably heightened my appreciation for it. I went on to read the first six of Clancy’s books, through The Sum of All Fears. Although Hunt is the shortest of his works (I think), readers should not be intimidated by the length of his novels, for they are split up into short sections and chapters, and Clancy writes with considerable tension so that you won’t want to stop reading.

In the mid 1990’s, when Tom Clancy’s fame was assured, he actually spoke to the local writing group in my area, of which I was a member. He waived his usual speaking fee, which was probably thousands of dollars. Unfortunately for me, I was away on travel for my day job at that time and missed his talk. I heard it went well and that he was inspiring.

As I mentioned, Clancy took the genre of techno-thriller to new heights. Some complain about the lengthy paragraphs he devotes to describing how technology works. But as an engineer, I never minded that. I disagree with those who assert that technology itself becomes a character in Clancy’s novels. He well knew that people operate technology, and he created memorable characters who had been well trained to work with the sophisticated equipment.

In fact, Clancy lavished much attention on those lowest in the military hierarchy. His novels are filled with enlisted men from humble backgrounds who operate complex machinery with skill and great competence. I think he greatly admired American enlisted men and women, and at one point I believe he said they were the real difference between the U.S. and Soviet militaries. He said you’d expect officers from both countries to be top-notch, and they were, but it’s the American enlisted who far exceeded their Soviet counterparts.

Almost all of my stories deal with characters grappling with technology, too. Moreover, many of my characters are low on the social pecking order, as are Clancy’s enlisted characters. None of my works can be called techno-thrillers, but I think Clancy’s works did influence mine in some way.

Rest in peace, Mr. Clancy, and thanks for the pulse-pounding excitement! You gave many enjoyable hours to millions, and to—

Poseidon’s Scribe

October 6, 2013Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Blog Hop – The Next Big Thing

Many thanks to Charlotte Holley who tagged me to participate in The Next Big Thing blog hop. I didn’t know what a blog hop was but it seems like fun. In this one, authors answer questions about their Work in Progress (WIP) and people can follow the links along and see what various writers are working on. That way readers can anticipate and check back later to buy the books they’re interested in. It’s possible that one or more authors in this chain may really be working on The Next Big Thing!

When you’re tagged for this particular blog hop, you post your answers the following Wednesday and tag five other authors for the following Wednesday. Here are my answers:

1. What is the working title of your book? “A Tale More True”

2. Where did the idea come from for the book? If I recall correctly, I was thinking about fanciful trips to the Moon in early literature. I’m a fan of Jules Verne, but he’s actually a latecomer to that topic. While researching, I came across references to Baron Münchhausen. My story then sort of sprang into my head.

3. What genre does your book fall under? It’s alternate history, in the subgenre of clockpunk. I’ve not written much clockpunk, my story “Leonardo’s Lion” being the exception.

4. Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition? There are three characters of interest. The protagonist is Count Eusebius Horst Siegwart von Federmann. Count Federmann could be played well by actor Chris Hemsworth. He’d have to speak English with a German accent, but doesn’t have to do it well, since it’s a comedy. Count Federmann is a brooding character, angry at and jealous of Baron Münchhausen. The Count is intelligent, determined, and optimistic, but lacks sense.

Shia_Labeouf The Count has a young French servant named Fidèle, and I’ll select Shia LaBeouf for that role. Mr. LaBeouf would have to speak English with a French accent, but not an especially good one. Fidèle is full of life, but has the sense to fear danger, though he’s always respectful of nobility.

The character Baron Hieronymus Carl Friedrich von Münchhausen only appears briefly at the beginning and end of the story. Since it’s a cameo role, I’ll splurge and pick Robin Williams. I need an older character of plain appearance who’s able to speak English with a German accent and captivate an audience with his words alone. Robin Williams played the part of the King of the Moon in the 1988 Movie “The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen.”

5. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book? A man is so angry about the self-aggrandizing lies of Baron Münchhausen that, just to prove the Baron wrong, he constructs a gigantic metal spring and launches himself to the Moon, where he learns about the nature of Truth.

6. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency? I will offer it to Gypsy Shadow Publishing to be included in my What Man Hath Wrought series.

7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript? I’m not done with the fist draft yet. I researched, planned, and outlined the story for about a month. First and second drafts will take another month.

8. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre? It’s a light-hearted clockpunk tale, so there aren’t many comparable stories. Perhaps the closest thing is that movie, “The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen.”

9. Who or What inspired you to write this book? The muse speaks. I listen and write it all down as fast as I can.

10. What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest? Come on—intense jealousy, a space voyage in 1769, and weird Moon creatures. What more do you want?

At this point I should mention which authors I’m tagging next in this blog hop, but I was unsuccessful in getting any to participate. I think the hop has been going for about thirty weeks now, with most authors tagging five others. If you do the math for such a chain, you’ll see how, theoretically, we’d pass the population of the earth in Week 15, and by Week 30 there would be over 2 with 20 zeroes participants.

There only seems to be that many budding authors in the world. So much for theory. As Yogi Berra said, “In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.”

So I won’t be tagging anyone else. This strand of the chain ends here, with my alter ego, a guy I like to call—

Poseidon’s Scribe

December 19, 2012Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Romancing the Short Story

Bet you didn’t expect me to write a blog entry on writing romance short stories, did you? Well, for one thing, if you desire to become an author, you should learn to write about anything, even topics or genres you know little about or have little interest in. You never know what you’ll end up being good at.

Second, it’s hard to ignore the fact that the romance genre has a vast and insatiable readership. Perhaps not so much in the short story length as in the novel length, but again, what if you’ve got a potentially great romance writer inside you, but you never try the genre to find out?

And, it turns out I have written a couple of short story romances. “Within Victorian Mists” is a steampunk romance, and “Against All Gods” is a romance story set in Ancient Greece. So I am nominally qualified to discuss the topic.

To figure out what’s special or different about romance short stories, let’s start with basics. Any fictional story must have certain elements, including character, plot, conflict, setting, style, and perhaps theme. We’ll dispense with the last three by saying that romance stories can take place in just about any setting, be written in any style, and can explore just about any theme.

Romance stories are character-driven. The characters must be intriguing and complex. The point-of-view character should have aspects with which readers can identify and empathize.

The plot is the emerging love between the characters. Choose your events such that they enable the characters’ love to either develop, or be tested, or both.

The conflict is the protagonist’s struggle to attain love itself, not the sexual act or the fleeting emotions of love, but the deep and shared realization that the two major characters cannot live without each other.

In a short story, you’re going to have to be choosy. It’s very difficult, in just 1000 to 10,000 words, to encompass the typical progression of a love story in its entirety, from the first meeting, through the burgeoning attraction, through the testing or challenge, to the final realization of love. There’s a natural pace to the process of falling in love, and the short story length doesn’t fit that pace as well as the novel length does.

Consider selecting one vignette, one emotion-charged event of a larger love story, and leave the earlier parts as backstory, and just hint at the later events. To explain what I mean, let’s consider what Christie Craig and Faye Hughes describe as the plot points of a romance story, the events that sum up to the plot arc:

Introduction/meeting
First acknowledgement of attraction
First acknowledgement of emotional commitment
Dark moment (what I’d call a test of love’s strength)
Resolution

Your short story could consist of just one of those events, and hint at the rest. Charge your story with emotion, and ensure the protagonist experiences an internal change in the direction of love, and that could be sufficient. It might be all you can manage within a short story format.

Have you written a romance short story? Submitted it for publication? Leave a comment and let me know what happened. When you began writing did you ever think you’d write a romance? No? Neither did—

Poseidon’s Scribe

November 11, 2012Poseidon's ScribePermalink

The Modular Author

I’ve written before about the conflict between the way readers want authors to be, and the way authors’ muses want them to be. Now I’ll carry those thoughts forward to conclusion.

As a reminder, readers want you (as an author) to be consistent in genre and style so when they pick up one of your books, they know what they’re getting and aren’t surprised. On the other hand, writers’ muses are creative and get bored with sameness; they’re always seeking something new and different; it’s always possible for an author’s ideas to run dry, and that’s another reason for writing in several genres.

There’s a conflict, a disconnect, between the desires of the people in each camp. I think it’s a little much to expect readers to change. They’re the customer, after all, and the customer is always right.

One possible answer is the use of pen names, also called nom de plumes or pseudonyms. There are many other reasons you might use one, but we’ll just discuss one today. The idea is to create a persona, an alter ego, another version of yourself. The author going by that fictitious name is a specialist in a particular genre, a specific type of story. That’s that persona’s brand.

A downside of pen names these days results from (1) our lives being recorded on the Internet to a great degree, and (2) readers’ desire to know their favorite authors in as personal a way as possible. Those facts make it difficult to prevent people from finding out the real author behind the pen name. Authors these days are expected to have their own websites, with their picture and a list of future appearances; some of those things might be difficult for a nom de plume to pull off. Further, curious and persistent readers even go to the extent of analyzing writing to determine if two apparently different authors are really one person.

But to dismiss these disadvantages for a moment, are we headed for an end state where most authors actually have multiple names, several personas, each cranking out stories according to his or her particular brand? That would seem to please both authors and readers. This was foreseen, in a way, by Alvin Toffler in his 1970 book Future Shock. After observing the increasing number and amount of temporary, throw-away material products, Toffler introduced the concept of the “Modular Man,” a disposable person. In the future, all people would form several personas, try them out, and discard them as they please.

Is the literary world now reaching Toffler’s future? What if you created a separate name under which you wrote romances, another name for horror, and one more for science fiction. For each name, there would be a website for which you wrote blogs and connected with curious readers by e-mail. Perhaps with some photo manipulation you could get away with posting pictures of these ‘virtual authors.’ Some of them might be male, others female–in fact all of them might be the opposite gender from your real one. Each one could write stories and blog entries in a different style according to their various personalities.

Difficult? As a fiction author, you’re used to creating multiple and varied people. The only difference here is you’re not creating characters in stories; you’re creating other versions of yourself, where each version is an author. One or more of those versions could be quite outrageous, edgy, and controversial. Why not?

As of today (so far as you know) I have not plunged into that future/present to any significant extent. I’m sure others already have. As for the one who signs my blog entries, that’s really a job title, not a name. It is my attempt at an alternate persona, my nod at creating a modular author. Leave a comment and let me know if you would like to have a portfolio of alternate writing personas, if you do it already, and how many such modular authors you maintain. Though it’s not really me, but kind of is, I’m—

Poseidon’s Scribe

October 21, 2012Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Change the Past in 5 Steps

Some time ago I blogged about historical fiction, but today I thought I’d discuss Alternate History fiction, or AH. In this genre, the author supposes some historical event turned out differently and it affected all subsequent history; the story then takes place in that altered world. Other names for this genre are Uchronia, Allohistory, and Counterfactuals.

To find out more about AH definitions and terms, go to this great site. For lists of AH stories to read, go here, where they’re listed not only by author name, but also by the date of historical divergence. The Uchronia.net organization also issues an annual Sideways Award for the best AH fiction.

The alternatehistory.com site distinguishes AH from other genres, such as Secret History, Future History, Time Travel, and Parallel World stories. Many of my short stories are Secret History, where the altered event does not affect subsequent history. I would classify my stories “Alexander’s Odyssey,” “The Sea-Wagon of Yantai,” “The Vessel,” “The Steam Elephant,” “The Wind-Sphere Ship,” and “Leonardo’s Lion” as Secret Histories. More about that genre in a future blog entry.

My story “Within Victorian Mists” is AH, since it features a Nineteenth Century inventor coming up with lasers and holograms, and demonstrating them on a large scale. I chose to have the story take place at the Point of Divergence (PoD), but I could have set the story at some later time.

Would you like to write an AH story? Here are some steps you might follow:

1. Choose the Point of Divergence. Select a historical event and imagine it turned out some other way. Many people choose wars, since much is known about them and they have clear and significant influences on history. Instead, I generally choose events associated with technological development. I suggest you avoid the over-used events such as World War II and the American Civil War, or come up with a unique take on these. Consider opting for a time in history you’ve studied to some extent. It’s a good idea to select a plausible outcome for the event, or come up with an explanation that makes it plausible. Having the Incas sail east to conquer Spain, for example, would take some explaining.

2. List as many consequences for the new historical outcome as you can. How would this altered event affect national boundaries, culture, language, technology? What subsequent events might happen as a result? Start to map out a logically consistent chronology of subsequent history along the most probable and plausible lines.

3. Figure out when and where to set your story. It can take place around the time of the PoD or relatively long after. For a story set long after the PoD, keep in mind no empire lasts forever, and cultures and languages always change.

4. Write the story as you would any other, with engaging characters, vivid settings, tight plots, a conflict for your protagonist to resolve, and the aim of passing the So What? test. The story can be a romance, steampunk, western, horror, mystery, or anything, really, but it must take place in the alternate world you’ve created. You need to be consistent with the norms of that world. There’s no need to show the reader the PoD, or even refer to it in the story, so long as the reader can understand it from context.

5. Avoid the AYKB trap. Also resist the urge to have characters speculate on how things might have been if the PoD event had turned out differently.

AH is a fun genre, with infinite possibilities and good readership. Did this blog entry help you understand how to write an AH story? Do you disagree with things I’ve stated here? Leave a comment and let me know. In the meantime, there’s a new version of the past about to be written by–

Poseidon’s Scribe

July 22, 2012Poseidon's ScribePermalink

A Mystery to Me

Do you love reading mysteries? Ever think of writing one?

The genre was invented by Edgar Allan Poe and popularized by Arthur Conan Doyle in his Sherlock Holmes stories. It remains a popular genre with a devoted readership.

The mystery genre is hard to define. All fiction involves an element of mystery, since there’s always a conflict and the reader doesn’t know how the protagonist will resolve that conflict. Here we’ll speak of stories where the focus is on the puzzling aspects of the conflict, which is often a crime or some unexplained phenomena. In addition, the sleuth in the story uses attention to detail and deductive logic to solve the mystery.

In your mystery story, make sure the mystery itself is something important, something the reader will care about. That’s why there are so many murder mysteries, and so few involving a missing 99¢ comb.

Before writing your story, develop various timelines or storylines:

1. First is the actual timeline of events in which the real perpetrator commits the act. This must be logical and in accordance with various character’s motivations. As author, you’ll be the only one who knows this one.

2.a., 2.b, 2.c, etc. You may need a series of fake timelines, in each of which one of the other suspects could commit the act. These need not be completely logical or reflect character motivations exactly, but at first your sleuth won’t know that.

3. A timeline pieced together by your sleuth, formed through evidence and logical deduction.

4. You might even have a separate timeline that is revealed to the reader. However, Timeline 4 usually matches Timeline 3.

Most mysteries involve the commission of a crime. To do so, a criminal must have means, motive, and opportunity (MMO). The challenge for the sleuth is that either (1) several people seem to have all three, or (2) nobody seems to have all three. Of the three necessary parts of MMO, motive is often the first part presented to the reader.

Among frequent readers of the genre it’s considered unfair to (1) withhold evidence from the reader that the sleuth knows, including specialized skills or knowledge, or (2) have the sleuth confront the guilty suspect with insufficient evidence (that wouldn’t gain a conviction in court) but still the criminal breaks down and confesses.

Your writing challenge is to present the reader with all the evidence needed to solve the mystery, but to make the puzzle difficult enough that the reader would rather just read to the end to see how the sleuth cracks the case. Bear in mind the necessary evidence need not be emphasized in your story, just present. It could be buried in the middle of a paragraph. Or you could distract the reader’s attention with some dramatic action that happens to include a piece of evidence easy to gloss over.

The genre has been so well explored, it’s difficult to think of mysteries that haven’t been done. For example, I wish you luck in thinking up a new version of the locked-room mystery, where a crime is committed in a sealed enclosure where the only entries are locked from the inside.

For that reason, writers of mysteries these days seem to be focusing on the character of the sleuth, or the setting. In today’s market, the way to set your mystery apart is to have a very compelling sleuth. The minimum attributes for this character are: (1) attention to detail, and (2) an ability to deduce a chain of events from disparate facts. Or you could have two sleuths working together, each of which has one of these traits.

Another way to distinguish your mysteries from others is to use a historical or unusual setting. Depending on how far back a time you choose, it could present a real challenge for your sleuth due to the lack of modern crime investigation technologies.

Did this blog entry inspire you to write a mystery story? Leave me a comment and let me know about it. Just make sure the answer to whodunit isn’t–

Poseidon’s Scribe