Mediator Ayala Storme kills demons by night and handles PR by day. She avoids Mediator luncheons and a fellow Mediator who’s been trying to get in her pants for years. She does her job. She keeps her sword clean and her body count high. But when a rash of disappearances leads her to discover that Nashville’s hellkin are spawning a new race of monster on human hosts, Ayala will be the first line of defense against these day-walking killers. That is, until one of them saves her life. Dodging the Mediators and the demons alike, Ayala’s new knowledge of the hybrids’ free will challenges everything she’s ever known about her job. Racing the clock and trying to outrun her comrades and enemies alike, she’s not sure who will catch her first…

* * *

Lesson the First: It’s Okay to Play God

When I first started writing, I was a die-hard pantser. I wrote two and a half books you will never ever ever see, and I did it resting in the soaring butt-ress of my trouser bottoms. (#butts)

Some people can keep on that way and their work flows and molds itself into the elegant forms of a glass sculpture that started out a vase and turned into this platter of perfection.

Hahaha, not me.

Those first 2.5 books started out like books and grew into Cthulu-esque page monsters with plots dangling from every orifice. I tried to query one of them. I’ll sit here and eat popcorn while you imagine how that went.

Yep.

When I went back to STORM after a long hiatus, the central feature of the book had to go. I’d learned that from a blunt literary agent at a conference who wasn’t even talking about that book. For the first time, I looked at my book and told it that it needed to be what I wanted it to be instead of what it’d slimed all over the page — and lo and behold, the dangling plots retracted, the drips of ink coagulated into words, and when I was done I had the strongest book I’d written at that point.

Through that, I learned that I could be god in my fictional worlds. (Maybe in this one too. YOU’RE NOT MY MOM.)

Lesson the Second: You’re the Only One on the Racetrack

I’ve got a lot of really successful friends.

(Hi, Chuck.)

Like…even present host-face excluded? I have a self-published author friend whose books are perpetually at least eight out of the top twenty books in her category on Amazon. She just owns that list. Always. She just hangs out there and kicks her feet back and watches editors not buy urban fantasy knowing her readers are just slavering for her next book.

I know a lot of authors who are just…everywhere. Doin’ their thing and doing it WELL.

On release day, STORM cracked the 10,000th rank on Amazon, and I cried because I was so excited and happy and overwhelmed. My trad published book didn’t do that when it came out last year, even though I’d put together a 40 stop blog tour and basically was wearing my rib cage as a hat by the end of it.

I had this…moment after I shared a screencap of my book at #9388 on Amazon’s paid Best Seller rank where I thought, “There are 9387 people ahead of me. Most of my friends’ books LAUGH at numbers like this as they go speeding by. I look like a fool.”

But then I took a deep breath and looked back to December where over 80 people, some friends and some strangers, literally saved me from losing my car and probably my home. Those names are listed in the back of STORM. All 80 of those people got an ARC of Storm and almost half of them bought the book anyway.

You’re the only one on the track, and the only bunny you’re chasing is the one you put there for yourself. That’s the only one that matters. You chase that bunny, keep your eyes on it, and never forget that for the people who seem to be ahead of you, there’s someone who seems to be ahead of them. We’re all chasing our own bunnies, and art is not a zero sum game.

Lesson the Third: It’s Okay to Walk Away

STORM was offered a publishing deal.

It was with a small press that had a stellar reputation. They told me and my agent that it’d be published in print and ebook, and we felt great about it. But then the terms changed very suddenly, and we decided to back out.

Had I not had a conversation with an author friend at Capclave the week before about just that, I don’t know that I would have had it in me to walk away, even though it was the right thing to do for my book.

What he told me, sitting on a couch on the last day of a long, grueling weekend where he’d had some serious ups and downs, was that it’s okay to walk away. That they should want you as much as they want them. So often in publishing we turn to the relationship metaphors, but it’s really true. If you want the sweet romantic footrubs and tuna melts in bed with The Bachelor blasting on the TV but their idea of romance is a mud pie and a beatific smile? The metaphor kind of fits. Ain’t nobody got time for that.

It’s okay to walk away if you don’t think someone will be good to you. It’s also okay to walk away if they’re just not right for you.

Lesson the Fourth: Sometimes You Need a Bunny

Those bunnies. They just keep GOING. And going and going like tired 90s references.

STORM gave me something to chase again. I took a beating in 2014, and not just because of the aforementioned shenanigans. The decision to put STORM out on my own rejuvenated me in a lot of ways. It was a terrifying decision for me, not unlike sticking a hand into a dark hole on the side of the tree. (PS: I know what’s in those. Spiders. Spiders are what’s in those.)

I learned a lot of things I didn’t know I was capable of doing. Thank the Scrivener gods for having useful tools, because without them I would have been holding that bunny between two shaking hands and snotting all over it.

For the last three months of 2014, I felt like the biggest failure in this galaxy. I was stalled on my new manuscript. Broke and about to lose my car and the single room I rent. Going through a divorce. Dealing with [redacted because reasons, gah] and generally feeling like no matter what I did, it would never be enough.

For eight years now, I’ve worked 80-130 hours a week (I actually clocked a 130+ hour week just two weeks ago) because I want writing to be my career…but I also like eating, and so do my cats. I came to a broken, broken place in December, yo. Things were not good.

STORM became my bunny. It became my way of fighting back, of chasing this thing I’ve been chasing for so long (far, far longer than these last eight years).

And funny story? On STORM’s release day, SFWA announced they’re gonna start letting self-published and small press published authors join their club. While not strictly relevant to me at the moment, it felt like a nice indication that doing my thing could dovetail with the other dreams that still stick in my head.

Lesson the Fifth: Sometimes the Goal is Just Past the Tape

A few years ago, if you’d asked me what my writing goals were, I would probably have told you sort of pompously like a jackass that “BOOK ON SHELF BECAUSE SHELF.”

I wanted to see my books on a shelf. I think to me the shelf was always a metaphor, but I was totes McGotes missing the point.

The shelf was never really the goal — and when I had this epiphany about eleven days ago, I wanted to put myself on a shelf without any dinner.

The shelf had been the tape for me at the finish line. This thing by which I would measure success. Each book I’d written from book 1-3 I’d thought it would be The One. Until the epiphany.

Which was this:

Readers are the goal. The shelf might be a way to get the book to them, but the shelf is not the ultimate goal. Because if a book’s on a shelf, it’s not open in anyone’s hands. (This also goes for digital shelves.) The readers are the real goal, and to get to them, there usually isn’t just ONE book. Few people write a single book, snag a hefty book deal, and waddle off to the bank to a chorus of adoring, angelic fans pelting them with rose petals and whisky.

There’s not a THE One. But there are many. There’s the one that you first finish. There’s the one that’ll get you an agent, if that’s what you want. There’s the one that’ll get you a publishing deal. There’s the one that will bring you your first tweet that happened at 4:30 AM, where you wake up to see it and someone’s yelling at you for keeping them up all night because your book was SO DAMN GOOD. There’s the one that will bring your first email from a reader telling you that your book moved them. Changed them. Saved them. There’s the one that breaks 10,000 on Amazon’s rankings for the first time. Or the one that, while you’re signing them in line, someone breaks down in tears and tells you that they wouldn’t be here without those words you wrote.

There’s the one you’ll write and go back and read and feel real pride at the world you built from nothing. There’s the one people will tattoo onto their skin. There’s the one that will make you a friend you never thought you’d meet. There’s the one that will break you to write, but heal others to read.

It’s probably not going to be just one book. There isn’t just ONE that will do all those things, most likely.

But writing just one story was never the bunny, was it?

* * *

Emmie Mears: Website | Twitter

Storm in a Teacup: Amazon | B&N

Veranix Calbert leads a double life. By day, he’s a struggling magic student at the University of Maradaine. At night, he spoils the drug trade of Willem Fenmere, crime boss of Dentonhill and murderer of Veranix’s father. He’s determined to shut Fenmere down.

With that goal in mind, Veranix disrupts the delivery of two magical artifacts meant for Fenmere’s clients, the mages of the Blue Hand Circle. Using these power-filled objects in his fight, he quickly becomes a real thorn in Fenmere’s side.

So much so that soon not only Fenmere, but powerful mages, assassins, and street gangs all want a piece of “The Thorn.” And with professors and prefects on the verge of discovering his secrets, Veranix’s double life might just fall apart. Unless, of course, Fenmere puts an end to it first.

***

ONE: I AM NOT A PANTSER; IN WHICH I EMBRACE OUTLINING

I wrote two now-trunked novel-resembling-things before I started working on Thorn of Dentonhill. They were not novels. Novels have a structure, a plot. These were more “a collection of things that happen to people who may or may not be characters”. I’m saying they weren’t good, but in a way I could learn from. One of the things I learned was to abandon my romantic notions of “I’ll just write and see where it takes me.” It took me to a mess that only looked like a novel if you squinted and looked at it sideways. So I realized I needed to outline my next attempt at a novel.

TWO: I HATE THREE-ACT STRUCTURE; IN WHICH I FIGURE OUT HOW TO OUTLINE

I found a lot of guidelines and advice out there of “how to outline a novel” fantastically unhelpful. Because so many boiled down to “Three Act Structure: That’s Your Outline.” What’s three act structure? It’s a beginning, a middle and an end. Frankly, that doesn’t tell me much I didn’t already know. Especially since the “middle” part of three acts tends to be “Rising Action: More Stuff Happens”. What kind of stuff? STUFF. Stuff that RISES.

I also studied the Hero’s Journey, but I also found this less than helpful in coming up with an outline structure— it was a tool for analyzing stories, but not for building them. It was like trying to bake cookies using only the nutritional information as a guide.

So I did my own story-hacking, studying books, movies, comics, television— taking them apart and figuring out what all the moving parts were. I emerged from this with a powerful, flexible outlining tool at my disposal: a twelve-part story structure.

THREE: EMBRACE THE HERO’S FLAWS; IN WHICH I GO WITH THE STUPID CHOICES

There’s a pair of tropes out there called “the idiot ball” and “the idiot plot”. The gist of both involve plots and twists that only work if the character is stupid. However, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing— sometimes your character needs to do the stupid thing. Sometimes it’s the most in-character action they can take.

Veranix is a guy who keeps doing the stupid thing. He can’t help himself.

There are several points in the story where the smartest thing Veranix could is just walk away, let it go. He knows that getting himself involved in stopping drug dealers or street toughs or even a sociopathic circle of mages is incredibly stupid, and on any given night it would be best for him to head back to campus, get a good night’s sleep and study all day. But then he’ll see one more dealer working, one more addict overdosing, one more victim crying for help— and off he runs into the fray.

FOUR: LOVE EVERY CHARACTER; IN WHICH EVERY PLAYER HAS HIS DAY

There’s an adage out there that every villain is the hero of their own story. Way back in the day, I was a stage actor, and more than once I played “2^ndSoldier” or “Citizen #4”. Small parts, but I treated them like they mattered. I considered every role to be someone who has a rich life outside of the scope of the play. That was the same mindset I took with every character, regardless of their role. The obnoxious prefect who keeps getting in Veranix’s face; the grizzled street boss who wasn’t expecting a fight, but is ready for one; the three Rose Street Princes who are part of Colin’s crew; even two random constabulary officers who wander onto the scene. All of them could be their own hero. And more to the point, I let myself really enjoy getting into each and every one of them.

FIVE: SIZE MATTERS; IN WHICH I BULK UP

I started the process of querying my finished manuscript, woefully unaware that I had made a glaring mistake, until I got this response from one agent: “I really like the book. I read it all today. Bad News: It’s too short for sale at this point. It’d need to be at least 20k longer for most houses.”

Yeah, I had absorbed bad information about how long a novel needed to be, and Thorn was way too short. So I had to make it longer without losing pacing or tightness. Add muscle and bone. Armed with that knowledge, I dove back in, whipping it into shape and proper size.

When I had that done, you better believe that agent was the first one I sent it to. He’s who represents me now, he’s who sold it, and it’s thanks to him that the book is what it is today.

***

Marshall Ryan Maresca grew up in upstate New York and studied film and video production at Penn State. He now lives in Austin with his wife and son. His work appeared in Norton Anthology of Hint Fiction and Rick Klaw’s anthology Rayguns Over Texas. He also has had several short plays produced and has worked as a stage actor, a theatrical director and an amateur chef.

Marshall Ryan Maresca: Website | Twitter

Thorn of Dentonhill: Amazon | B&N | IndieBound | Goodreads

Title says it all.

Fuck your pre-rejection.

Don’t know what I’m talking about? See if you’ve ever done this:

You wrote something. Maybe you edited it. Maybe you didn’t. Maybe you didn’t even finish it. Then, you concoct a series of reasons inside your head why nobody will give a hot wet fuck about it. Nobody will wanna read it. Nobody will wanna buy it. You’ve got your reasons — maybe one reason, maybe a whole catalog full of them. And frankly? They all sound good. This isn’t the one, you tell yourself. It’s not yet right. And soon it becomes smart because, hey, you don’t want that thing you wrote out there. This is a sound business decision. This is a practical creative decision. Not everything you write is going to be aces. And so you open a drawer and you chuck this manuscript into it. It lands on top of five, ten, twenty others. A cloud of dust kicks up like an allergenic mushroom cloud — poof. And then you close the drawer.

That is pre-rejection.

You have killed the thing you created because you imagine its inevitable rejection.

It’s the same way you don’t ask that guy out because you already know how he’ll say no, and it’ll be embarrassing, and jeez even if you did date, he’d probably be a jerk, and even if he wasn’t a jerk, the marriage you’d eventually have would suck, and the kids would be shitheads, and it’d end in divorce and misery and death.

Don’t take that job — you’ll only get fired.

Don’t move to a new house — probably be haunted.

Don’t step outside — ha ha ha, you’ll probably just fucking die. (And so many ways to die! Flu ebola measles stabbing shooting planking rabid bears assassin bugs arsenic in the water shanked by a free range Gary Busey, and so on, and so forth.)

The glass isn’t half-empty or half-full — it’s just full of scalding hot cat urine! YUM.

Except, yeah, no.

Pre-rejection is bullshit.

It’s a control thing, a power trip, a grotesquely pessimistic fantasy. I know, you’re saying, uhh, it’s not a fantasy, weirdo — except, au contraire, panda bear, it is a fantasy. It’s much easier to reject ourselves than it is to weather the crotch-kicks delivered by someone else. You could far easier slide a knife across your open palm than let someone else do it — it’s so much better when we control the pain that’s sure to come. It’s comforting, easy, lazy even to just get that rejection out of the way now rather than later.

Fuck that static.

The pain isn’t sure to come.

Maybe it will, maybe it won’t.

But if you’re going to do this thing, you need to get hard to it. You need to be not just ready for rejection — you need to be willing to embrace rejection. Not your own — but proper rejection. Rejection you don’t control. You need those calluses and scars. Rejection is always a part of who we are and what we do, and that’s not just in writing. That’s in life. What, you think you’ll get every job? Every date? Every bit of approval from every corner of your life? Life isn’t just a series of hand-jobs and clit-tickles, folks. You will be rejected. It is part of what we do. It is proof that you are doing what you love. It is evidence of the fight you contain within you.

You must defeat the urge to pre-reject.

I’m not saying everything you write is going to be perfect. Far from it. But rejection is clarifying. And it feels awful at first — until it feels awesome. Awesome because this is what successful people go through. Writers who get published are writers who have collected ten rejections (or more, many more) for every one acceptance. Cherish your rejections. Hell, collect ’em. Staple-gun them to your chest like merit badges for a particularly psychopathic branch of the Scouts. Certainly this also doesn’t mean you should send out any old piece of laundry you have hanging around in the hopes some drunken editor will buy it accidentally. But the signs of pre-rejection don’t linger at just one story left unsent. It’s when those start to pile up. It’s when you go beyond feeling that this one isn’t right and start crafting a morbid, macabre fantasy about all the terrible things that’ll happen when you send this manuscript and all the others out.

How do you defeat it?

Practice, for one. Stop thinking so much. Stop worrying. Start submitting. Editors need material. Agents need material. Readers need stories to read.

Let other people read the work. Let them send it out, if you must.

Don’t worry about the things you can’t control. Control what you can — and no, that doesn’t mean to pre-reject, it just means, write the best story, and find your feet with writing.

You didn’t get published, you didn’t win the award, you got a bad review.

Repeat after me:

That’s all right. I can try again. I can get better.

But you have to give yourself the chance to try again.

You don’t get better by just chucking manuscripts in a drawer.

You need the agitation.

You need that fear, that uncertainty, that courage.

You need input from other human beings. Which means:

Fuck your pre-rejection.

You want to get rejected? Do it the old-fashioned way.

Let someone else reject you. Take your shot. Worst you can do is fail. And failure fucking rocks.

Sure, maybe you’ll get rejected. But maybe, just maybe, the opposite will happen.

How else do stories reach their audiences, you think?

I met Leanna this past year at Phoenix ComicCon (which you should go to because holy tacos, awesome). She is one of the most wonderful people and without further invitation will join you in a game of making up harsh-sounding German words to delight and amaze. Further, she kicks an infinite cabinet of asses when it comes to writing, and so today — on the release date of her newest, The Eterna Files — it makes sense to have her here to guide you poor little penmonkeys toward the light of writing whatever the sweet hot hell you want. And so, without further shenanigans:

* * *

Every genre of fiction seems to think it is the red-headed step-child of fiction. I know this because I’ve written nearly all of them. I’ve been shelved on different bookstore shelves despite writing consistently Gothic, Gaslamp Fantasy since my 2009 debut, The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker. Every genre has a tendency to snark at other genres. But none so begets the snark as the great GOTHIC NOVEL. *Cue Dramatic musical flourish*

Wikipedia’s definition of Gothic Fiction is fair, if not limited as a historic account. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_fiction)

When I first read Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto, it was liberatory. “You mean I can DO all this CRAZY shit in a book? Enormous helmet of prophecy falling from the heavens to flatten a dude?! Who gets away with this?!” Gothic fiction has all the wild, sweeping abandon that remains the perfect fit for me as a writer, actress, Goth, and Edgar Allan Poe fangirl. While I don’t go so far as spear and magic helmet, I’ve got some capital-D-Dramatic stuff in my work. The Gothic posits the horrific and the beautiful as just a hair’s breadth away, entirely coined and mirrored. The shift from gorgeous to grotesque is dizzying and thrilling.

A core problem with the traditional Gothic is that women are, for the most part, mere victims and plot devices with no agency or minds of their own. My mission as a modern woman writing Victorian Gothic is to give my ladies agency; let them be the knight in shining armor and a British Lord can be the damsel in distress (that specifically refers to my DARKER STILL where I pay homage to The Picture of Dorian Gray sans vapid suicidal female). In THE ETERNA FILES, my debut with Tor Books, I add more Mystery and Horror elements into my Gothic Victorian, Gaslamp Fantasy context. I hope my readership will delight in characters from my other series making cameo appearances in ETERNA as I further my ongoing fascination with the Believer and the Skeptic, the precipice of life and death and the possibilities of the human Spirit.

While I might be updating some tropes for our century, bias towards the Gothic is a given. (Even Jane Austen was a hater with Northanger Abbey.) Many of my big-industry reviews go a little like: “it’s a fun, well-written Gothic novel, but, you know, Gothic novel and all”. I won’t defend my own work, but I will defend that the Gothic is a legit genre, love it or hate it, and if you look at what popular fiction we’re still reading from the 18^th and 19^th Century; Gothic, baby. It’s hot in TV and film right now too, with Penny Dreadful going into season 2, Guillermo del Toro’s new dark Victorian series for Amazon (I can’t wait!), with the films Crimson Peak (Oh, Hiddleston, stop – no don’t stop — with the hotness) and the announcement of Poe Most Die, and Poe’s work has garnered a new musical on Broadway, Nevermore. (I’ve got a musical too. Srsly, I do: http://strangelybeautifulthemusical.com)

I’ve a thick skin about the genre not being taken seriously, because I’m not blind to its overreach. But that’s why I adore it. Trying to toe that very fine line between tension, intensity and melodrama is a delicious task. I’ve not always balanced it perfectly but I love the challenge every time, poking and reveling in the genre simultaneously. Healthy doses of self-deprecation go a long way; a survival skill I learned “coming out” as Goth in rural Ohio. (Note: Being “Goth” doesn’t preclude “Gothic” novels, I just happen to be/do both.) I was approached on the campus green of Ohio’s Miami University in my fishnets, choker and combat boots with: “Hey! You were in our subculture discussion in my English class! Someone was like: ‘hey there’s that one Goth girl on campus.’” In a school of 16k students I was holding down the one-woman subculture. (But, to clarify, I’m one of the old school Perky Goths, ok, so you Emo kids can go take a hike while I burn down the Hot Topic).

All this to say, You Be You. You Write You. It is said in Ye Olde Hallowed Annals of Writerly Bull that Thou Shalt Write The Book of Thy Heart. Truly. Do. Because life as a professional artist is HARD. You have to delight in what you’re writing and slaving away over because there are moments when that’s all you have. Take your craft deadly seriously, but not yourself, and not necessarily your genre. Wink at it, have a total blast, revel and wallow, and be only as indulgent as your editor allows. Try to be objective, and don’t be hurt if people think your cup of tea tastes like poo. With any luck, passion, love and creativity will shine through. For my part, I can only hope the wild expanse of whatever foggy moor I’m frolicking in will bring loyal readers, who don’t mind the eerie abandon, back time and again to my dark and stormy night.

Oh, hey, and please buy a copy of THE ETERNA FILES. It’s pretty important to my career. I have lots of swooning and flailing and running out into rainstorms to do and I can’t do it without your help.

You can get a fancy, signed, personalized copy of ETERNA and ALSO support an amazing local indie bookstore that does a lot for its community, WORD in Brooklyn: http://tinyurl.com/eternawd (Please put any personalization requests in the “comments” section).

Cheers, thanks Chuck and Terrible Minds for the space to Goth out, and Happy Haunting!

* * *

Leanna Renee Hieber: Website | Twitter | Facebook

The Eterna Files: WORD | Amazon | B&N | Indiebound

Story has shape.

We’re often told it has a two-dimensional shape — a common rise (gentle or swift) of a hill, or a scalene triangle. But I call shenanigans on that. I say utter donkeytrousers. I scream to the heavens: heinous skullfuckery! A story has a three- or even a four-dimensional shape. It has movement. It has architecture. It’s not something flat on a piece of paper, but it’s something you can get your hands around, something that moves through space and time.

Admittedly, sometimes the shape of my story manifests as:

a) “Howling haboob.”

b) “Corpulent humpback whale”

c) “Hefty bag full of liposuction fat.”

And that’s okay, as long as this stays inside the first draft. But given my very tight schedule of never-ending deadlines (seriously — it’s deadlines all the way down for my 2015), I am forever in search of ways to make the first draft sing and to make editing even better, faster, like some upgraded Terminator, like maybe a Terminator that got merged with a Xenomorph and a Predator. So, I’m a little bit obsessed with the idea of shaping the story as you go. Having the instinct enough to see what the story looks like now and should look like going forward. Every story of mine gets an outline, and that’s a vital part of my process — but this ain’t my first goat dance.  The best outline will never survive contact with the enemy that is the day-to-day writing of a book. It’s easy to sketch out what the thing is gonna look like — but you still have to sit there at the potter’s wheel and shape the wet clay of this motherfucker as you pump the pedal.

I thought, hey, this might make an interesting post.

So, below you’ll find some shapes of narrative. Ways to consider the story not just in an outline, but also as you write and further, during the editing process. Use these as you see fit, or fling them into the howling haboob.

The Peaks And Valleys Of Jagged Mountain

Behold this photo:

That is the Yangzi River Gorge.

(Original photo by Peter Morgan.)

I want you to actually focus on the left, upper quadrant of the photo. There you might see:

And if you stare at it really hard, you will see Jesus flying a hang-glider into Mecha-Hitler’s mountain fortress, firing a pair of TEC-9 submachine guns. You might need some LSD to see that. That’s usually how I see all the Magic Eye paintings — I just drop acid and stare. “I see the connectedness of all things as represented by a spinning fractal wagon wheel in space,” I say. And the guy next to me says, “I see a dolphin.”

That guy didn’t get the good acid.

But I digress.

Regardless of whether or not you see Gunner Jesus, what I want you to see is a narrative shape. A structure for your story. At the simplest level, this structure might be expressed as: action, inaction, action, inaction, and so on. But at the more complex, more meaningful level, what it means is that you have these peaks and valleys, right? The peaks are moments of tension, conflict, action, pain. The valleys are moments of temporary resolution, release, dialogue, development. The peak is the sharp intake of breath; the valley is the exhalation of that breath. A peak steals the oxygen; the valley returns it. (And a story requires oxygen because oxygen is what fuels the fire that will sometimes be required.)

This gives us rhythm.

We need rhythm in our stories, just as we need them in our sentences. One sentence is short. Another takes its time getting to the point. A third sentence takes even longer, meandering and roaming and taking its sweet fucking time because it has to. Narrative is like that. It needs this… variance. This disruption. Without rhythm, it’s just mad, monotonous ululating. We don’t just want a predictable rise and fall because at that point the shape might as well be a straight line. And here you’ll note, too, that this isn’t just like an EKG pulse beat. Note the overall rise of the line. One peak is higher than the last; the next valley is deeper or wider than the one before it.

Even the most batshit thriller, action movie or horror novel needs the downbeats to counterbalance the sharp upticks. A story that’s just go go go breakneck speed is a horse that cannot sustain its gallop. You’ll break the beast’s back with that kind of pace. The downbeats, too, have a secret function: on a roller coaster ride, the hills are the rush, but the valleys are where we learn to anticipate the next hill.

Because we know the ride isn’t over.

The Vomit Comet Roller Coaster

Speaking of roller coasters, here’s a video:

You really only need to watch the first minute or so to get where I’m going.

First lesson: stories are not straight up and down. They go left. They go right. Stories aren’t just pure rise and fall — like roller coasters, they twist, they juke right, they double back on themselves, you barf at the top of a loop, the barf hits you at the bottom of the loop. They go in ways you don’t expect because subverting expectation is something every great story does at some point or another.

Second lesson: watch the way this one goes up, then back, then builds momentum to overcome its first twist and loop. Now, imagine how that applies to a narrative structure. Imagine the tale launching forth toward its first moment of danger, fear, conflict (“inciting incident,” if you care to label it as such) and then watch how it doubles back. Does that mean the story delves into a flashback to give us context for the conflict? Does it invoke some sense of backpedaling or some kind of serious fallback for the character? No idea. But that flashback, backstory or pitfall is what helps us launch the narrative forward again — this time with greater velocity.

Third lesson: every roller coaster is different, and so is every story.

As you’re writing, imagine the tale as a roller coaster. When is it time to build momentum? When is it time to let the momentum carry the tale? When to take a turn, a twist, a loop? What does a loop mean for the flow of the story? Examine, too, the various roller coasters across the country for a lark. Some are classic — up and down and side to side, a slow clacka-clacka-clacka until the fast rattle-bang fall. But some are fucking monkeyshit thunderpants in that the track disappears entirely or you go upside-down or you have to go back in time to help your parents meet and you have to teach them how to make love to one another lest you were never born. (Additional reading: 7 Most Terrifying Roller Coasters In The World.)

The Clockwork Ouroboros

Let’s think a little about loops.

Story as a line — jagged, rising, roller coaster track, line of cocaine across the abs of a male stripper named Randy, whatever — is interesting, and that relative shape works a lot of the time. But let’s look at the idea of a loop. A snake biting its own tail (tale?), maybe, or a spiraling shape corkscrewing ever inward. Think of the parts in a pocketwatch: lots of loops working together. (Many loops, interestingly, with teeth. Jagged teeth like, say, on the peaks of a mountain…)

Now, let’s talk about Chekhov’s Gun.

Which is, paraphrasingly, if you show a gun in the first act, that gun better go off by the third.

Chekhov’s Gun is not about a gun.

It’s about everything inside your story.

What it’s saying is that all the parts of your story should have a chance to come back into the story again and again. It means you do not introduce an element — plot, character, object, twist — without come back to it later. It is the ultimate in hunting and killing: use all parts of the goddamn animal. A supporting character is made meaningful by reiterative inclusion, and an inclusion that continues to move forward (here again: peaks, valleys, twists, turns). It’s not just that a gun introduced will go off later — it’s that every piece of the story is a trap you spring, every character is one who can threaten the plot or change the story, every object worth mentioning is an object worth revisiting. The wheel turns, the gears spin, the loops double back on loops.

What this means, practically speaking is:

Every new thing you introduce should also be complemented with an old thing that will return. I feel my way along the dark forest of writing a new book like this pretty frequently, now — am constantly seeking those opportunities to use the LEGO pieces I already have rather than seeking out new ones. You’re trying to breed familiarity and continuity — good world building and narrative design is stitched together in a layered thread count rather than in a single straight line forward with no way back. Stories should always look back. Find ways to let the snake bite its own tail. Find ways to reenergize old ideas and consistently reintroduce elements you’ve already put on the table. I find nothing so pleasing as returning to a world for a second book, because every element of the first story is a rabbit hole I can fall down again.

And I can bring the audience with me, every time.

Salt, Sugar, Fat

If you wanna make food that people can’t stop eating, you concoct a ratio of salt, sugar, and fat. The three of those things do a sexy tango on your tongue and you undergo a dopamine braingasm. After which you’re all like, “Just one more,” and you say that after every chip of Doritos Habenero Demon Jizz Fiesta flavor that you shove in your fool mouth. Just one more, crunch. Just one more, crunch. Repeat until you’re left with an empty bag and fingers dusted and discolored with Dorito pollen and then you feel intense shame and weep uncontrollably except your tears are just spicy sweet fat running down your cheeks and then diarrhea and probably also you die? Because of Hemorrhagic Diabetes. So delicious.

(Bonus reading: Salt Sugar Fat, a book on the processed food industry.)

Just as the salt-sugar-fat combo makes for tasty, addictive food —

It can make for tasty, addictive storytelling, too.

Roughly a third of each in your story.

Whoa, wait, stop slathering your book in bacon grease and dusting it with Hawaiian sea salt and dark demerera sugar wait no hold on keep doing it. Put it in the oven first. Roast it up. Caramelize the pages. Mm. Yeah. Do it. Do it now. Do it slow.

*eats your book*

*wipes mouth*

No, no, wait, what I mean is — consider these as metaphors.

Salt: grit, conflict, pain, attitude.

Sugar: sentiment, emotion, sweetness.

Fat: backstory, extraneous character dialogue, description.

(Those who say all fat must be cut are wrong. Many of the best stories have some element of fat — because fat is essential. Fat lubricates. It is umami — it gives depth to the flavor you already possess. Certainly a book should not have too much fat, because too much fat is frequently just gross — a single flavor without complexity.)

Consider the story as season to taste. As you write, think: do I have enough of each to form maximum addiction? Look to the stories you’ve loved — books, films, comics. Think about how the ratio works there. Different genres and stories will express different ratios. (50% salt, 30% sugar, 20% fat? What happens when you increase one and decrease another? What effect does that have on the overall feel of the story?) This is crucial in the edit, too — is there value in adding more sweetness to a character? Or is the character already too sweet and needs a little salt to rub in the open wounds? Is the story too lean, too practiced, too tender? A lean cut of meat dries out, and so can a too-lean story, too — we like little deviations and imperfections in the narrative, and so you may add fat to compensate.

The goal, after all, is to keep the reader reading.

And so: what narrative flavor combinations achieve that best?

* * *

There you have it. A handful of new ways to get your hands around the story. Again, the goal: just to think about new ways to organically feel the shape of your story. How to sculpt it as you go — curating it, pushing it, urging it to take a meaningful shape other than FORMLESS SLURRY OF OLD YOGURT INSIDE A RUSTED VAT.

* * *

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I know, I’m about three or four years late, but I just saw You’re Next this weekend. Horror movie. Kind of a slasher film meets Straw Dogs — a wealthy family convenes at their big-ass vacation home in the middle of nowhere, and a group of animal masked weirdos attempt to kill them one by one. It’s not a perfect movie, but it is a damn good one — and one that does some nice things with narrative structure. The film features some twists — not epic jerk-the-wheel twists like you find in Cabin the Woods (a movie I love more for its moxie than for its execution), but twists that pivot the story but never change what the story is.

I recommend the hell out of it and I wish I’d watched it sooner.

(Was it Sunil who recommended it to me most recently? Sunil? Maybe?)

We’re at a point where a lot of the big budget horror stuff is just kinda junky. Maybe it always was. Some of the more popular horror films released to theaters recently start off scary but quickly devolve into a similar pattern — they drift from horror into something approaching fantasy. (Or at least something silly.) And that’s not bad, always, but it’s not usually what I’m looking for. And then there’s the fact they’re remaking Poltergeist. I’m not sure why anybody would want to remake a movie that still holds up. You remake movies: a) that had potential but did not live up to that potential b) were awesome but are really showing their age or c) are movies to which you can really bring something new to the table. (Ghostbusters falls into that last category, I think.)

Anyway.

Point is, a lot of really cool, kick-ass, weird, wonderful, scary horror is being done in the margins — direct-to-video, indie, small film releases.

So: here I am, hanging out a sign.

The sign is dripping with blood.

I’m taking recommendations.

Good, small, even edge-case horror.

Double points if it’s available on Netflix streaming.

Let’s hear your recs, folks. I showed you mine, you show me yours.