Home on the Strange

One of the choices I’m conscious of when starting a story is the setting, especially the community who lives and works in that setting, and the protagonist’s relationship to it. This is true regardless of the genre: historical, mystery, fantasy, romance and especially stories involving the paranormal. Where do non-human characters fit into a human-centered social structure? Or do they?

The current trend for all things cozy got me started on this train of thought. In case you haven’t noticed, we have cozy romances, cozy mysteries, cozy fantasies, cozy horror, cozy science fiction, and probably cozy serial killer true crime because why not? Everything else that can be bundled up in a cottagecore quilt is being tucked into the guest bedroom with a cup of hot chocolate. It’s as if the reading world opted for a collective hug.

What do I mean by cozy? Right now, readers are craving lighter fare, with more character-driven, humorous narratives and less blood and angst. The focus is on community, with a defined location (often a small town), lots of atmosphere, and a detailed backdrop that highlights who the protagonist is to the people around them. They’re part of the landscape, with a role to play and people to care for. For those craving a sense of home, this is pure catnip.

This is a far cry from the romance of the stranger who rides in, saves the day, and rides out again. The lone wolf figure comes to do a job, but leaves nothing personal behind other than maybe a pining love interest waving a hankie as the hero’s horse carries them into the sunset. This has been a predominant narrative for some time, spawning a zillion Westerns, private detectives, spies, and other action/adventure types. It’s the idolization of the individualist rather than the community. Although the better examples of this narrative will show character development, it’s not always the focus. After all, if the protagonist has an epiphany and wonders why they have commitment issues, the series would be over.

The appeal of the loner has been a puzzle to me (and I fully admit my personal tastes are showing here). Although I love a good action hero/heroine, I do have questions about a main character without a family or friend group, however irregular that might be. Did they experience a life-altering tragedy? Recently moved to another planet? Undiagnosed narcissism? Bad hygiene? They should have connections somewhere or be trying to create some. Even Dracula had his brides.

This is basic survival stuff, and connection means safety in the wild, where life is hard and humans look tasty. Which brings me back to why community matters in paranormal stories, where not everyone is human. If cozy books are at one end of the hearth and home spectrum and Mr. Lone (Were)Wolf Cowboy at the other, there is a lot of real estate in between. Not everything has to be gingham and tea—a gritty urban fantasy can have a strong sense of place and community, too.

The original Frankenstein’s monster was a wonderful illustration of how the uncanny tried to cope in our world, and how that world pushed him into the monster role. All those found family narratives—so incredibly popular in YA—exist for a reason. Misfits dream of being understood every bit as much as (or more than) the rest of the kids. The relationships we build or fail to build—frustrating, silly, joyous, or painful—ultimately define us. Our refusal to provide love and community defined Frank’s creation until it turned on its creator.

Poor monster. While I’m glad to have read the book, it made me sad. No wonder readers love to return to places and characters that lift their spirits. It’s the same for authors. I like to know that Joe is at his bar, that Lore can outfit the guest bedroom with reasonable furniture, and that Holly will pick up the phone to help with more esoteric problems. I want to know my friends are there and that their world is ultimately in balance.  Until, of course, I toss a problem their way just so things don’t get too dull. The best kind of story world is not always perfect, but it’s welcoming once you’re an insider. Even on a bad day, you have friends who have your back—even if they’re a swamp monster. And really, what more could you want?

Pretentious Mappage

Novelists frequently ask themselves where their book is going. Several answers frequently spring to mind:

• Splat against the wall
• Into the recycle bin
• It has packed its bags because you, its creator, are unspeakably lame and it has, y’know, dignity to consider

That said, the question frequently refers to either unresolved plot issues (my sympathies) or a question of geography. Literally, where are your characters going? Left or right? Do they go by cab or can they go on foot? Is that the same as what they did a hundred pages ago, or has the distance inexplicably increased due to narrative requirements? (Bad author! No cookie!)

Back in the day, every self-respecting fantasy novel came with a map. Back then, such paperbacks were meaty specimens, difficult to open flat, and half the landscape disappeared into the spine. Nonetheless, it was possible to visualize where our trusty band of misfit companions blundered their way through Perilous Landscape. Tracing my way between wizardry and danger led to much satisfying geekage. I imagined leading my army of unicorns/trusty knight/talking animals into the story and solving everything much better than the fool writing the book. So there.

The custom of including maps dwindled along with “cast of character” pages and glossaries. And, maybe reader tastes changed. I actually had an editor proclaim these appendices as “pretentious”, claiming that the average book buyer would be scared off by extras. Personally, I think cost might have played a role, too. Anyway, I’m happy to say that the era of independent publishing has brought many of these features back, and not just to impress and/or terrify the public.

Even when not actually part of the finished product, maps help authors remain consistent over a series. This wasn’t such a consideration when writing The Baskerville Affair as that was based on 1880s London, and a good historical map and a few walking tours worked just fine. The Hellion House series is a different matter. The landscape is based on a version of London that departed wildly from history as we know it in about 1590 or so.

There are excellent artists and many software products that help with cartography, but there’s a lot of background work first. Even the best designer can’t chart something simply by reading my mind. Sadly, almost five books into a series is a bit late to start cataloguing all the places and references to how long it takes to get from A to B.

I started by drawing my own map. No, it’s not pretty, but I got the basics down—the wall, the mages’ gridline of silver to conduct the magic from the Citadel to the city defenses, major roads, the airfield, the cemetery, and important houses. I added some of the other spots, like the police station, that show up more than once. It’s enough of a start that I can seriously consider aesthetics. Maybe something nice to include in a future book? At the very least, maybe my characters will stop falling into the river when I give them bad directions.

Would the guilty protagonist please raise their hand?

I am, more or less, a plotter. That is, someone who knows the plot before starting to write. Despite what that sounds like, I do not necessarily know the story. Oh, I can do the sticky notes and the spreadsheets or what have you, but suddenly there’s Tobias and his giant mechanical beastie when he had no business wrecking the opera house. I didn’t plan on it, but at the end of the day there were 3,000 words of unmitigated chaos.

Over the years, I’ve come to tolerate such literary joy rides. Characters have strong ideas about their destiny. They know where they want their adventure to go and, if I’m very nice, they sometimes send a memo so I can keep up. Where things get especially tricky is when these ulterior motives not only alter the plot but also the core of the story.

Explanatory sidebar:  A plot is literally what happens in a book. English instructors like to graph a lopsided parabola to illustrate mounting conflict and eventual resolution, and sometimes we pay for special writing software to do more or less the same thing.

Fancy plotters will point out that there are internal and external plots, and plots for each protagonist and the villain, and they all weave together in glorious literary macrame. Fancy plotters make for long books that kill spiders real good.

Short or long, plots can be plotted and more or less followed by hapless novelists without injury. The exception is caused by plot bunnies. These beasts lure the unwary with enticing irrelevancies, whereupon entire books and their writers may be lost, alas, down a black hole.

But I ramble. Back to the story, which is not the same thing as a plot. It’s more than theme or symbolism or the prize at the bottom of the box. A story is what the book is actually about, and may not be what the writer expects when they sat down to start drafting.

I was reminded of this again in my latest work in progress. Following an unauthorized (literally, the author had no idea this was coming) and rather foolish move, my protagonist’s agonized choice connected a dozen throw-away incidents and resolved the entirety of what came after. In other words, it made everything come together—not separate from the plot, not instead of the plot, but giving the events a texture and resonance I did not foresee.

What do I mean by this? Stories have a central idea, theme, philosophy, or direction. It doesn’t have to be too explicit (and probably shouldn’t be) but it shows up in how the characters and the story world function. The steam barons in the Baskerville Series exist to show the impact of capitalist cannibalism, but so do a lot of other elements that accumulate over the trilogy’s narrative. There’s not one flashing sign, but many bits and pieces that add up to a pervasive evil. The moment that pulled them all together for me is when I realized the significance of the automatons, which had rattled around for hundreds of pages. Then, all of a sudden, Lord Bancroft went off script. It was then I understood the intersection of magic and technology and grief and greed.

Strange as this may seem, every good story has a moment when one’s characters stop being puppets, take over the keyboard, and make meaning of the prose. This happens only after the book has been rambling on long enough to get to know the cast of characters on a gut level. Their psychology has deepened to embrace its own logic and, perhaps, agency. In short, they’ve developed the capacity to surprise their creator. Yes, this can be mightily inconvenient but also intensely revelatory.

The best move is to step back and let it happen. Perhaps it is a function of the author’s subconscious. After all, there are usually bits in place like train tracks with destination TBA. I’m always adding in throwaway details I think will end up on the cutting room floor, but they almost always get used during the protagonist’s unplanned tour de force. Suddenly these tidbits make sense, like foreshadowing we didn’t know we were creating. They end up part of the essential structure.

I don’t understand the phenomenon in any real sense. All I know is that the cast goes rogue and when I recover steering, the elements of story have lined up better than before.

Oh, the horror of it all!

I’m writing this in October, a few weeks before the heart of spooky season. Already the mercantile machine is pushing Halloween treats from candy corn to Children of the Corn. I wanted to write Children of the Candy Corn, but someone else got there first.

In any event, it has me pondering the function of horror in art. Yes, I know finer minds than mine have written entire books on this, but I’m thinking from a personal perspective. There are entire subgenres that don’t ping on my personal radar. Chopping people to bits while they’re still alive doesn’t push my entertainment buttons. Nor does ambulatory decomposition. I used to love a good plague story until I lived through one. In other words, I’m picky as a consumer and a creator. I want my horror just so, and I want it to pull its creative weight whenever it’s pressed into service.

This is why, in my opinion, so much horror falls flat. The threat (demon, evil house, weird neighbors, giant bug, fungus as a dramatic character, and on and on) is relatively interchangeable. Whether or not it is verbal and/or has a backstory (the bug was unloved as a grub), it wants to kill/dominate and not much else. It scares us a little or a lot, but in the end we just want it to stop munching the cast. We don’t care about its feelings.

What I want in a good monster is the killing machine, but with an artistic and emotional purpose.

Take vampires, that old horror standby. They are not, generally speaking, vegans. They are apex predators, and we are lunch. This is fine. Like Chekov’s gun, one should not introduce a loaded vampire to the proceedings unless one intends to use it. But it needs to do more than be broody and lethal.

Enter Dracula. For the era in which he was birthed upon the page, he is a sophisticated monster. He definitely bites, has a well-defined plan, and is a master manipulator. He represents a halfway point between stock villain and real personality. We get glimpses of his history, but admittedly the reader receives a limited account of his feelings and motivations as compared to the other characters. Our response to Dracula is largely filtered through their experience. How they respond to him and uphold their own self-identities is what really makes him an interesting villain.

But what about paranormal romance vampires, such as in the Dark Forgotten series? Modern readers need a well-rounded character for a romance to engage, so authors have work to do. When I create a vampire protagonist, I try to make that individual sympathetic without diminishing their dangerous instincts. They have their own goals, wants, and desires, but they are still wolves, not golden retrievers. A “safe” vampire, in my opinion, negates the thing that makes them compelling.

And what is that secret sauce? As with Dracula, the struggle between human and non-human impulses is what makes the vampiness of the vampire fascinating. More often than not in paranormal romance, that struggle is taking place within the vampire character. How can they reconcile their instincts and their heart? It’s what makes them mad, bad, and dangerous to know—and oh, such fascinating forbidden fruit.

The same can be applied to any kind of monster. For werewolves, please see The Company of Wolves, a brutally beautiful 1984 film based on a work by Angela Carter. It takes the schoolroom right out of Red Riding Hood and has a lot to say about our animal nature.

The struggle to remain what we believe ourselves to be is the primary occupation of the kind of horror I prefer—what makes us human, or not, and how that sometimes means crossing lines we didn’t even know were there. Good art challenges our assumptions and makes us think. Tearing away our carefully-constructed self-image is uncomfortable, and good horror does that gently, insidiously, or with a force of eleven out of ten.

It’s a good kind of awful.

Detours on the Road to Camelot

If you want to see what society is worried about, look at the bestseller list. A scan of best-selling fiction reveals our current anxieties and fantasies. Who are our heroes? Are we looking for white hats? Or are we in one of those phases where a tattered gray hat holds the most fascination?

Stories have always been like that—we concoct the legends we need in the moment. When I wrote the Camelot Reborn series, I kept that in mind as I scanned the source material I referenced. Arthurian legend has many attractions, but consistency is largely absent.

One FAQ is whether King Arthur and Camelot really existed. What we know is sketchy at best. There’s some thought that Arthur might have been a fifth-century Welsh warlord who may or may not have led a miliary expedition in France, but take that with an ocean’s worth of salt. It’s enough that Arthur is the folkloric equivalent of a Swiss army knife with a persona for every occasion.

Scholars refer to the vast body of Arthurian legend as “The Matter of Britain.” The earliest mentions are in Celtic literature, but the first fulsome text is the Historia Regum Britanniae (aka History of the Kings of England) by Geoffrey of Monmouth. This fanciful account appeared around 1136 AD and established the framework of Arthur’s story as we know it. Here we find Merlin, Guinevere, Sir Kay the seneschal, and Excalibur (though Geoffrey calls it Caliburn). Geoffrey’s work is all about Britain’s heroic antecedents and Arthur’s job here is to be royal and mighty. Interestingly, Lancelot is missing.

For good old Lance, we turn to the Frenchman Chretien de Troyes, who wrote a twelfth-century cycle of stories about Arthur and co. At the time, courtly love was trending. This involved an Unattainable Lady ™ who is infinitely desirable but unapproachable (probably because she’s married to someone else) and therefore the Suitor Who Burns With Passion™ is doomed to deliciously painful yearning. Kind of like a love triangle that got run over by a spiteful unicorn. There is poetry. Thank heavens there were no movie channels.

Anyway, this is where Lancelot’s doomed love for Guinevere enters the picture. Not all the early Lancelot stories feature this romance, suggesting he predates de Troyes as a figure in medieval legends. That said, there are other constants among the various works about him:  Lancelot was raised by a supernatural female (the Lady of the Lake, who appears as Niniane or Nimueh or even a mermaid), and he rescues assorted ladies in distress. No doubt there’s a knightly quota of damsel-rescuing required. It’s worth noting that in this Gallic version of the story, Arthur (English king) is a third wheel and Lancelot (hot French knight) is the man of the hour.

As time goes on and the bloom of courtly love fades, Lancelot becomes a troubled character. The darker parts of his legend—the betrayal of Arthur, the destruction of Camelot, guilt and madness—are later additions. Much of this material comes into English literature via Malory’s Morte d’Arthur. When we get to later authors like Tennyson, it’s clear what was once seen as romantic if unrequited love has become morally compromised. Only the purest of the pure, Galahad, succeeds in the Grail Quest whereas reprobates like Lancelot fall by the wayside. For the record, I always found Galahad vaguely irritating.

When I came to write Enchanted Guardian, I kept with the less angsty versions of Lancelot—the rescuer, the true friend, and the man who owed allegiance to the Lady of the Lake. Not that he doesn’t have problems—it wouldn’t be a compelling story otherwise. For one thing, there’s not much call for knights in the twenty-first century. At least, not until the dragon shows up.

Figgy adventures

With all the back to school vibes around, I began to wonder what the experience was like for kids in the time of the Hellion House books, or at least the Victorian era. There were differences in curriculum, but the experience of leaving summer freedom behind for the drudgery of the classroom would be consistent. No doubt back to school was woe and excitement in equal measure then as now.

Not surprisingly, the details of the experience depended a lot on who you were. There were boarding schools and day schools, and arrangements around meals provided by the school varied, especially between the economic brackets of the attendees. I did a little investigation into the kind of desserts/puddings kids would get (any excuse to research old recipes). There were intriguing names, such as “spotted dick” and “roly-poly.” They tended to be starchy and filling, with preserves or dried fruit as the primary interest. This makes sense, because a) children are bottomless pits b) the dishes could be cheaply produced in bulk and c) preserved fruit made sense in an era without reliable refrigeration and a still-evolving network of rapid long-distance travel.

Currants and raisins were the most common fruit in the recipes I found. Another staple was dried figs, which tended to appear on more upper-class menus. This interested me as I had a bag of dried figs and no idea what to do with them. In the spirit of deep research (and fridge cleaning) I looked around for period options and their modern equivalents to concoct an enjoyable, historically-adjacent treat. I ignored the figgy pudding of Christmas carol fame because where, o where, is my pudding basin? and also it’s still too warm for any dish I need to douse in alcohol and set on fire.

Happily there were plenty of non-flammable options. The first effort out of the oven was an apple and fig tart. It had some interesting features, including a layer of ground almonds at the bottom of the pie to soak up a yummy maple syrup sauce. Though promising, it wasn’t quite a five-star result. I like my pie fillings ooey-gooey and this was too dry and under-stuffed. Different apples and changing up the proportions would be necessary to make a properly sinful filling. I will give this one another go.

The second option I’m happy to share because it is a nicely-textured loaf that tastes like autumn. It rose well, has a moist crumb, and properly balances the sweet and spicy elements. This recipe soaks the dried figs in black tea to soften them, which imparts a faintly smoky taste that pairs beautifully with the other seasonings. I highly recommend grating the nutmeg fresh for maximum pop.  I could see the students at the University of Londria wrapping a slice in a napkin to eat while they bolted to their next class.

Here’s the recipe for that one. Pro tip: be sure to cut the woody stems out of the figs

Preheat oven to 350F

Sift:

1.5 cups of flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg (grated fresh)

Cream:

1/2 cup butter

2/3 cup brown sugar

Add: 3 eggs and 1 tsp vanilla

Then add the dry ingredients a bit at a time, along with:

1.5 cups of dried figs, chopped and soaked in very hot black tea for a half hour (then drain before adding to recipe)

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Pour into a greased loaf tin and bake for 50 minutes

Cool on a wire rack before slicing.

Enjoy!

Mermaids in the rain

The mermaids have left. Maybe the rain will bring them back, or maybe we need better snacks. Then again, I’m cautious about what they consider good eating.

It’s time I thought more about creatures of the deep, or even denizens of the shallows. The rain pounded on the skylight this morning in an all-too-brief reprieve from the drought. In years past, I’ve considered the Pacific Northwest summers too wet and dreary, but these days I take the sun for granted. It’s the drooping garden that reminds me the elements need balance, and that water needs our full attention.

It’s the element that embodies birth, dreams, and emotion. Creativity. Mystery. Drama. I don’t write about it as much as I could, although it has made a splash here and there (pun intended).

Nimueh, the Lady of the Lake in Enchanted Guardian is a water fae and a perfect symbol of the element.  She has lost her capacity for emotion and to heal, she returns to her lake and is reborn anew—amid big feelings, high-stakes romance, jealousy, redemption, and drama. There is nothing small or quiet about water elementals.

After all, what is adventure without the high seas? In the Corsair’s Cove series, pirate Daniel Blackthorne faces a ticking clock—either he plays cupid or dies a final death. And in Shatter, there is Captain Maxwell Stokes of the ghost ship Solitude, locked in an inexorable struggle with the Sea King. This is another tale of rebirth and transformation in the most fundamental sense. And sea monsters. And hot dudes with tridents. And fish and chips.

But the Dark Forgotten series—in all its citified glory—is bereft of watery creatures. They can’t skulk about on street corners like a vampire or even a wolf. The backyard swimming pool is too small for a kraken, and selkies require at least a beach, preferably with unsuspecting sailors to torment.

Yet, the urban landscape should be big enough for all the elements, including the cauldron of creativity, rebirth, and dreams.  Maybe it just takes a little more work, a little digging to hit the wellspring of the unconscious that feeds all that feeling. Maybe we just need to listen more closely to hear the mermaids singing over the downtown traffic.

Perhaps I can hear them after all, in the sound of the rain.

Price of Admission

(From the story universe of Hellion House)

To prospective students at the University of Londria:

Thank you so much for expressing interest in attending our institution. We are more than delighted to escort you on a guided tour of the campus on Tuesday next.

Please note: since the fall of the Citadel and withdrawal of protection by the Conclave, there are changes in campus policy and practice. The tour will begin at three o’clock sharp. Please be punctual so that the tour, which is expected to take two hours, may commence and therefore conclude well before sunset. Those more than ten minutes late will be dropped from the guest list.

All college gates are closed and locked at dusk for security. Visitors are advised to clear the grounds before that time. Furthermore, visitors are encouraged to plan for emergencies, specifically defense against the Unseen. The University of Londria is not responsible for incidents of a predatory nature, so please arm accordingly.

This tour will be conducted on foot. Ladies are encouraged to dress in footwear suitable for running.

Yours most sincerely,

Bertram Miles, Esq.

Assistant Dean of Admissions

The Univeristy

The existence of Londria’s university arose organically out of the earliest books. As soon as Olivia Fletcher existed, so did her academic aspirations and therefore an institution where she could realize them.

This is a departure from the typical Victorian milieu, where the female of the species exists to cast a warm, fuzzy glow at the heart of the home and occasionally die of consumption (artistically, of course). Londria is under siege by monsters, and therefore women share in the work of survival, regardless of class.

That said, there is still pressure, in the uppermost income bracket, to devote oneself to the role of society wife. This may include promoting familial advancement through marriage, arranging salons, and designing witty canapes, which does constitute a full-time occupation even without the demands of social media. Nevertheless, everyone starts out with an education aimed toward a paid occupation. An individual with sufficient means and intelligence would attend university. For those without means but with outstanding brains, scholarships are available.

As humans rely on technology (and magic) to keep the Unseen from devouring all and sundry, the study of science and engineering receives the most attention. After all, someone has to design all those clever ray guns. Yes, there are faculties of literature and fine art, although they enjoy less emphasis. Humanity differentiates itself by the stories it tells itself and the beauty it creates, but not getting eaten is still top of the to-do list.

Campus

The university’s original buildings are old, built before the Great Disaster that occurred in late Tudor times. Clever observers recorded that was the moment everything went dreadfully awry, mostly due to dragons and other hungry monsters, and building programs were diverted to making a great big wall. Civic buildings took a back seat. Ergo, the core of the campus is medieval, much like Oxford or Cambridge, but smaller.

As Londria is a walled city, real estate is at a premium and the university aims to support itself with kitchen and rooftop gardens wherever they can be accommodated. There are limited open lawns and playing fields, and what exists is multi-purpose and carefully scheduled to maximize access. However, the span of the river safely within the city walls is popular for boating, and there is a very popular rowing club dedicated to mayhem and occasional water sports.

Buildings adjacent to the university were absorbed as the student population expanded, but with resources at a premium very little was torn down and rebuilt. One exception is purpose-built residences on site for students. In addition, faculty might reside in town or have rooms on campus. Olivia’s professors reside in Starling Hall, with their personal quarters attached to the study where they tutor students.

There is, of course, a main library as well as faculty-specific collections. However, given the cost of producing and shipping books in general, the libraries do not lend out their treasures freely. Most required reading happens on-site.

Student Life

University is (in general) the time for many young people to find mentors, lovers, and their first defining pratfalls and victories. For Olivia, the highly competitive Faculty of Mathematics offers her the environment she likes best – structured, rational, and with clear markers of achievement and hierarchy. She knows where she fits in. For the first time, she has a serious suitor and a set of friends that is uniquely her own. She exists beyond her siblings and her home.

Sadly, in Queen’s Tide, that precious structure is shattered and her inner resources are tested because, well, the plot requires blood. Authors are horrible. Readers are ravening beasts demanding trial and tribulation in the name of entertainment.

There will be a fictional characters’ union meeting shortly after the university tour, assuming anyone survives.

Megastore of the Monsters

Buffy the Vampire Slayer alleged that the Hellmouth was beneath the school gym. This makes sense if you’re Buffy’s age, but that Hellmouth is for beginners. The real, adult version lurks somewhere in the junk food section of the local big box store.

Necromancy was in the air this weekend as I strolled from the parking lot to the land of discount everything. Or maybe I was catching the scent of French fries and unfocussed rage as 10,000 overtired adults crammed shopping carts into a single lane aisle. Being an author, it made me daydream of monsters. Not just zombies (that metaphor for consumerism has been done and done again), but the rest of the fright night crew.

What would one find at a discount warehouse for paranormal creatures? For mummies, perhaps a crate load of moisturizer and bougie laundry detergent made for Egyptian cotton. For vampires, bulk eyeliner and flats of juice boxes of blood with wee bendy straws (kept far from the garlic display). In the book department, why not have towers of that latest bestseller beach read, The Golden Crypts of Summer? Each volume comes with a bonus gift of complimentary sunscreen, SPF 1000.

Werewolves came to mind a lot, especially when I encountered piles of huge, fluffy dog beds. Heck, I wanted to curl up in them as a quivering heap and dissociate from the chaos. But offerings for our trusty shifters wouldn’t end there. Perhaps there would also be flea collars disguised as neckties, or spiky goth collars with tracking devices for those moonlit nights when events get out of hand.

Not to mention all the tasty treats at the fast-food concession. Entrails with mustard! Bun optional! I mean, that’s kinda what hot dogs are, anyway, right?

Come Halloween, the little ones would have endless choice of pre-packaged, horrifying costumes. Parents would have to deal with whines of “Puleeez can I go as a tax accountant, Daddy?” as they paw at the bagged pinstriped jacket and comb-over wig hanging on the peg board. But what if mom says no? Does the overwhelmed little pup melt down for a howl in the manner of all toddlers of every species?

But that pup is pack. I imagine all the adults in the store howling back to comfort that tiny, bruised heart. I like to think this monsterized version of the big box is a less scary place than the human one I left with my shopping cart of hard-fought plunder.

Useless (or not) to a Degree

Debate abounds around careers and jobs and the correct educational path to achieve success. This isn’t new, nor is philosophizing about what success actually looks like. I’m a writer. In my case, success is gathering enough minutes into uninterrupted hours to actually get some work done, and there’s no certificate that can make that happen.

On that note, I am occasionally asked what degree one should take to be a writer. Honestly, that depends a lot on one’s tastes and the options available. A degree is a fabulous achievement and a worthy end in itself, but is not to be confused with a career destination. Put another way, what it says on the box isn’t always what it will mean for your ambitions. This is especially relevant when it comes to the ambiguous domain of the arts.For instance, when I attended university, the Creative Writing department was having a good existential wallow. Anything with a linear plot and clear resolution was shaken from the soles of their Birkenstocks with scorn. They published a well-regarded literary magazine that left me bored and confused. For me, who wanted to write classic adventure stories, it wasn’t a good fit.

I took myself to the English Literature department and signed on for four years spent reading books, which is what I did everyday anyway. It was bliss. Plus, it taught me things I wanted to know. We studied plot structure, literary technique, the use of language for effect, and how great works both reflected and changed societal attitudes. We studied comedy and drama and how plots with a bit of each weaved together to keep the audience’s appetite engaged. And, we studied characterization, from Homer to Shakespeare to Dickens and Austen. The material ran the gamut from antiquity to living authors to romantic poets and Victorian gothic fiction. Nothing was off the table, and it was up to me to decide where to focus. What a banquet!

Not every new author would be as besotted as I was, but I loved learning how to break down a work of literature and analyze what made it tick. More than that, I loved the autonomy to like what I liked without apology. I spent my time between semesters workshopping a series of totally unpublishable novels using what I’d studied. Those books will never see daylight, but they formed me as an author. When I graduated, I still had lots to learn about specific genres, but I came away with a voice and a respectable toolkit of techniques.
Today, universities have more options. There are degree programs in popular fiction. There are also tons of on-line workshops and conferences, which is infinitely more doable for most than signing on for four years steeped in literary criticism. I recognize that I was extremely lucky to have scholarships, indulgent parents, and the kind of time that only exists when you’re nineteen.

What I realize in retrospect is that I was operating on a very old method of teaching, which was copywork. Art students used to learn their brushwork by reproducing the masters. I was learning by studying and replicating as well. This method doesn’t need a degree, just good observational skills and a wide appetite. I personally recommend learning a bit of literary analysis, but I’m biased.

The point is, think about what you read and don’t stick to the familiar. Look at poetry, drama, and essays as well as fiction. The real value of my degree was examining a huge variety of material. However you choose to study—formally, casually, with a specialization or ad hoc—it’s about stockpiling your brain with ideas and the skills to make them work. Future you on book 40 will be thankful, because you won’t be repeating yourself.

A certificate in a frame is nice, but its real value is whether or not it contributes to your artistic survival skills. That’s up to you. Keep bringing new content to the table. Don’t get stuck in a genre echo chamber. Keep readers engaged by offering them something fresh. In the end, serving your audience is what matters.