Don't Touch That: The 3rd Rail in Fiction

Once upon a time, I went hunting for my first house. The neighborhood was a mid-city mix of '50s brick army housing and '80s vinyl townhouses. What you got depended on the block. But there was one house, one oddball house straight out of a French fairy tale. No, no, not the castle. The cobbler's cottage. Oh, how I loved that cottage. I'd ogled it for years, and when finally came on the market, I rushed to see it. It was at the tippy top of my budget, but that meant it was in reach. Any improvements could be made over time as I rebuilt my coffers, right? Sure.

The inside...needed love. A lot of love. And a pry bar. A jackhammer. A plumber. Okay, it was full gut on the inside. Faux wood beams were shedding their foam. The green shag carpet had known many a cat. The windows whistled their own tunes. The kitchen listed toward the backyard. The wiring was older than I was, so were the appliances. Then there were the walls.

Asbestos walls.

I was crushed. You can't remodel a house while you're living it if it has asbestos walls. And I knew if it was loud and proud on the walls, well, it'd be hidden in all the nooks and crannies of the home too. It'd have to be a full-gut and abatement all at once. Alas, that would be well beyond my budget for a quite a few years.

My friend laid his hand upon my shoulder and said, "Hey. Don't look so sad. You can still live here. Just don't lick the walls."

That's pretty much my stance on dealing with third-rail topics in my writing. Yes, of course, there's risk involved. However, I can and will still have the dangerous oogey-boogey topics in my writing as long they're pertinent to the story and advance the plot. If I let go of the third rail, and the story still flows without that to power it, then I didn't need that shock, that jolt, that trigger. Including certain topics purely for the sake of being "edgy" breaks the unspoken contract between author and reader. It's careless and sloppy craft. It's like face-planting in the trail of cat turds embedded in the shag carpet.

Remember, you can still live the house of your fantasies.

Just don't lick the walls.

Third rails in fiction

Surely you're familiar with the concept of thew third rail? that's the one that carries a lethal charge on subway rails. Hit that puppy and you'r4 cooked.

Applied in this case it means what subjects are too dangerous for you, the author to touch? Are there any? Do you touch them anyways?

That's going to differ for everyone but trust me on this, the third rail is a very dangerous rail. It might seem innocent as it lies there doing nothing but humming softly, but it's a damned killer.

Let's look at a recent incident on social media, shall we?

A writer posted that he was fairly certain he wrote dark fantasy, but several people had disagreed with him. To find an answer from a group that follows dark fantasy fairly well, he gave a brief synopsis, explaining that several of the characters at the beginning are enslaved. degraded, forced to remain naked at all times and some are raped.

Now, kids, what is YOUR first reaction to those words? In a few cases the first reaction was outrage, a promise to never read the author and disgust that said author would use child/adolescent rape as a method of tittilating the readers. All of which would be perfectly understandable if the author had posted a scene from the book which, in fact, used the violent rape of minors as a method of generating arousal in the readers. Which might actually have be4en the plan. But the responses were to a sentence that mentioned that characters are forced to be naked and some of them are raped.

It's a completely knee-jerk reaction to a scene that was mentioned, but never posted.  Another response was simply that the reader was sick to death of rape scenes in fantasy novels being justified by the historical accuracy of what likely happened in the past and would no read any novels that dealt with the subject matter.

Again, I can understand that. The need to mention it in that post is a personal choice. For me, I don't much like dealing with rape in books. The closest I've come in years was one female character killing the four men who thought she would be easily attacked. That said, sadly, there is a historical precedent for these mattes and a lot of fantasy authors like to add a certain level of reality to their fantasy.

That's one example. Here's another: HBO is coming out with a new series by the same folks who produced GAME OF THRONES. The series is called CONFEDERATE and the premise is an alternate history where the south won the Civil War and how different the world might look. Judging by the one trailer I saw it looks like a second civil war is on the buildup, but that's purely conjecture on my part.

I have seen several people posting that this show needs to not be made.that it will be nothing but an excuse to show rape scenes against African American women and that it will glorify slavery and degrade African Americans as much as possible, despite that fact that at least two of the screenwriters are, in fact, African American. Again, there have been no previous and to my knowledge there has only been one teaser trailer revealed so far.  The articles I've read protesting the notion seem sound enough, but the assumption, automatic in this case, is that the show will be all about glorifying white supremacy.

That's like saying GAME OF THRONES glorifies necromancy and the genocide of giants without ever having seen an episode. Unless the author of the article in question has seen the show (and no claim was made to have seen the show or a script or anything else) I don't understand the assumptions being made.

Rest assured, if I wrote a story in which Hitler had won WWII I would not be writing a tale in which the white lifestyle was the best and condemning all others as fools.  I'd be showing how demented and broken the Third Reich was at the end and telling stories of the underground intending to end the regime.

There are endless variations of this theme. Endless groups who will gleefully shoot down anything that is different or steps on their flavor of the month. "How DARE you write about a 40 year old man and his 18year old lover?" First, Ew. Second, if I decided to write about it i would. I would also aim for realism in  the piece.

Look, forget the commercial aspects for a second. I write the stories I want to read. I am unabashedly glad to write about the weird and the wonky. IO have no despite at all to write about the love between a man and his mule, but if I did decide to write about it, I can promise you there would be no sex scenes revolving around the issue. That's my personal taste.

But I write HORROR, and I have written some rather dark stuff in my time that involved torture, rape and violence against children. All of those scenes took place "off screen," because that's my preference. Horror is all about the taboo. I am not all about the gross out. If a writer is, if you are, more power to you, but don't expect me to join in on that particular "fun."

Write what you want to write, but understand that there are often consequences to your actions. Sometimes those consequences come in the form of publishers or distributors banning you.

In one case, while writing for White Wolf's "Book of the Wyrm," I added several scenes in which trinket were designed that could corrupt small children. One distributor refused to carry the book because of the scenes I'd written.  Personally, I took it as a compliment.

Being banned did not hurt my sales that month, but sometimes that changes.

The only sort of censorship I firmly believe in is self censorship. There are plenty of subjects I simply will not write about, but that's up  to the individual.

My latest sale is mentioned below. It is very violent. I am nod the least bit upset about that fact. Your mileage may vary.


I wrote PULPED for this anthology:

What Dangerous Topic Jeffe Longs to Write

Marcella, sister SFF Seven bordello mate and longtime crit partner, sent me this amazing glitter card. She's been reading - and giving excellent insight on - this series from the very beginning. If I'd had more time, she would have been top in my thank you's in the acceptance speech. I remember hitting midpoint on that book, The Pages of the Mind, panicking and sending it to Marcella. Braced for her to tell me I'd gone horribly wrong, down some twisted path of no return, I opened her email reply. In which she scolded me for stopping where I did and to keep going, dammit.

I tell you, folks, there's nothing better to keep you sane than good writing friends.

Our topic this week at the SFF Seven regards Third Rails in Genre Fiction: What subjects are too dangerous for you to touch? Or do you touch them anyway?

I love that whoever suggested this topic used the metaphor of the third rail - the electrified rail that provides current to the train. Touch it at your grave peril. Without it, there's no power.

What makes a subject "too dangerous to touch" has everything to do with reader response. We might cavalierly chant that rules are made to be broken, but in truth the rules are there to keep us from touching something lethal that might get our fool selves killed. At the same time, art is a way of communicating - and sometimes that means shocking people and touching a nerve. 

The third rail I haven't touched yet but really want to? Bestiality.

Did you flinch? Yeah. It's a dicey thing.

Bestiality is sexual contact between humans and animals. All other squick considerations aside, bestiality violates the Golden Rule of Consent. An animal is unable to consent, thus is strictly off limits for sexual contact. 

BUT...

See, I write about people who can shift into animal form. And the blurring of lines between human and animal natures is a theme with me. If a shifter retains human awareness in animal form, then they can consent. And it seems natural to me that, in a relationship between shifters, sex in animal form would be part of that.

I haven't gone there yet, but that third rail is right there, humming with power. I'm just gonna have to touch it... 

It's gonna burn SO good. 

Like 'Aliens' with More Romance and Less Gore

The title of my post says it all for me. This is what I tell people when they ask me what I write.

I have two tropes or overriding recurring themes and have ever since I started writing at the age of 7.

1. True love with a Happy Ever After ending.
2. Science fiction. A strong man and a strong woman battling the usually life or death odds and surviving together. See Rule #1.

My first ever story featured a strong willed princess (with flying cats and flying horses) and a riverboat captain. Alas I can't recall what they were battling, although I strongly suspect something like the Id Monster from "Forbidden Planet" because that movie was imprinted on my brain at an early age. (On late night TV, folks.)

"Ever After" is my favorite version of the Cinderella fairy tale.

Every single one of my books revolves around a strong hero and heroine in  a tight situation, who grow to respect each other and then fall in love and have an HEA after the last alien is vanquished (or in the case of my ancient Egyptian novels, the last demon falls.)

Including my newest scifi romance, TWO AGAINST THE STARS.

It's what I want to read. it's what I want to watch on TV or at the movies...I had basically that situation in my real life for many years, until my husband was killed in an accident...well, not the aliens or the demons, but true love from high school onward, and us getting through all the life challenges together.  A team.

So, there you have it.

The Little Matchsitck Girl Theme

Remember the story of the little matchstick girl? The cheery tail of a child peering into the windows of the houses she's sold matches to - all of them golden, warm and inviting - and then (SPOILER!) she freezes to death. If you were like me, you grew up wondering why the hell an adult would read that damned story to you.

Then you started middle school or junior high. Awkward preteen that you were, aching to find where you belonged - and possibly secretly hoping you could make yourself into one of the cool, popular kids - did you came to comprehend the story? Did you stand on the outside looking in they way most of us did? Maybe everyone does that at some point in their lives.

Was it that sports team you desperately wanted to make but didn't? Or the prom you so badly wanted to attend but no one asked or those you asked said no, so you pretended you didn't really want to go anyway? It could have been being skipped over for promotion, a longing to end up on a best seller list, or maybe (mission accomplished for Jeffe!) a golden statuette of your very own.

Why am I reminding you of the ache that accompanies wanting but not yet having? Because that pain point is where my stories happen. Every single one is, on some level, about wanting, not having, and either coming to terms with that, or becoming the person who is worthy of winning the wanted thing. Whatever it may be. Of course, I'm perverse enough that getting what you wanted is never, ever the end of the story. It usually comes just prior to the black moment, because I'm a terrible human being that way.

In any case, my characters start a story suffer various types and stages of alienation. They're all of them searching for a place to belong. A few require a bit of redemption before they're fit to belong anywhere. But without fail, they all start out as that little matchstick girl, nose pressed against the frosty glass while killing cold and isolation gnaw at their hearts.

Did your family read The Little Match Girl when you were a kid? Do you remember how you reacted? Is it healthy for a kid's story to haunt someone into adulthood? Asking for a friend.

Recurrent Theme/Trope: The Chosen One

All the stories I

love love love 

are tales of good-versus-evil. 

I know, 

from a certain point of view, 

perhaps every story 

is good-versus-evil, 

so to put a finer point 

on my thought, 

I'll say that whether 

it's the everyday Joe 

opposing evil, 

or some mystical savior 

sent from on high, 

those Chosen Ones 

appeal to me.

  

But too often 

those Chosen One's 

have been male.

It's a big part of

WHY 

I write. 

In the last 20 years 

we've had a few women 

in that role filmwise 

either directly 

{Leeloo in 5th Element, c.1997} 

or arguably 

{Alice in Resident Evil franchise, 

Katniss of Hunger Games, 

Selene of the Underworld franchise}. 

Most recently, 

Diana of Themyscira 

has rooted herself 

as a badass, 

legit, female 

Chosen One 

to be Reckoned With.

I've been writing female 

Chosen Ones since 2009 

when Persephone Alcemdi 

-- "the Witches Messiah" -- 

first hit the shelves with 

VICIOUS CIRCLE. 

I've continued that trend with 

Jovienne 

released earlier this year.

It manifests in writing a

strong female character

who has a big destiny,

and showing her

facing her fears,

stepping up and

confronting evil

in addition

to the day-to-day 

struggles of her life.

Weed Themes in Writing: Not That Kind of Weed

No, not the kind you roll, the kind growing through your driveway. The kind you face down with a cannister of Round-Up, yet stay your trigger-finger lest you nuke the toads in the process. The kind when you rip the leaves from the stems still has a wide and deep root system waiting to grow another sprout or twelve. The kind that starts in the meadow and eventually pops up by the porch.

Try as you might, those weeds are survivors.

They're integrated into the soil of your imagination. Germinating while you're plotting. They don't need water or fertilizer; minding or tending. All they need is you focused on making the garden bloom, clicking out the word-count, sentences flowing, scenes growing, climaxes building, chapters swelling, denouements wrapping.

When you're done, and surveying the fields of your creation, you might not see them. You might not be aware that in midst of the herbs and flowers you meant to cultivate, are the weeds of themes that are intrinsically part of the way you look at life.

It might take a reviewer to point them out. 

Once you spot those weeds, raise a glass to them. Now you see the enduring power of nature.

Your nature.

What's it all about?

The topic for this week is what's your recurring Thieme and what's it all about.

Defiance, I suppose. At the end of the day I think every story should be about growth and the best forms of growth often come from adversity. In the SSEVEN FORGES series the Sa'Ba Taalor and the people of Fellein end up in a war that changes things substantially in the world of Fellein.

There are fights, skirmishes and finally a war that alters the paradigm drastically. On both sides, there are fighters who want change and those who want things to stay the same, but none of them can possibly be all right. There fore, defiance.

In THE LAST SACRIFICE, the first book in the TIDES OF WAR series it is one man fighting against impossible odds, against the gods themselves.

The themes have changed over the years. Most of what I write these days is more fantasy oriented and testosterone fueled than it used to be, but at the end of the day, exploration of characters through extreme situations has always been the framework of my writings.