Ode to fanfiction

In 1997 I attended LoneStarCon2 (which was the nickname-type thing of the WorldCon that was held in San Antonio that year). Not sure what the panel topic was, but one discussion drifted toward where writers get their inspiration, and after lots of experting and panelisting, the panelists asked for audience questions. Intrepidly stupid, I raised my hand and asked what they thought of writing fanfiction as a way to, you know, learn the basics, practice, find your voice.

Bad move, younger-me.

The pros were all a unified voice in declaring the villainy of fanfiction. Terms like "lazy" and "derivative" and "waste of time" were thrown around. I think "illegal" might have been uttered. I slunk off afterward, embarrassed...but undaunted.

See, I was already writing fic when I asked that question, and I was probably hoping for personal validation -- yeah, good start, kid! -- as much as anything. Technically I'd been fanficcing in secret since I was five and wrote a story about Han Solo. It always seemed like a natural thing to do. Like doing football at school and then going home and playing some Madden. Or diligently practicing guitar and also playing Rock Band on the XBox. One source of joy did not, in my mind, nullify the other.

It still doesn't. I still believe writing fanfiction is real writing. I mean, last I checked, writing was about making words into sentences into scenes into stories. Fanficcers absolutely do that.

There. So I'm a proponent.

This week SFF Seven asks what fandoms I'd write for. My answer: any that inspire me to read between the scenes. So far those have included Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, Star Wars, Firefly, Heroes, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, The X-Files, Pinky and the Brain, Farscape, and the rebooted Battlestar Galactica. Some of those fics were novel-length stories. Most were flash-fiction or drabbles (stories told in exactly 100 words). Some were poems -- I experimented with several of the major forms, including sonnets and odes and even limericks. I did character pieces, action-heavy adventures, romances, angsty weird bleak things, incredibly silly things, and plenty of "I bet you can't" challenges. Mostly, I made words into sentences into scenes into stories, and in the process, I learned.

I believe that anything you do with words is an opportunity for learning and growth as a writer. It doesn't matter if the thing you create is sellable or even shareable. In fact, sometimes it's best not to. Share, I mean.

However, despite that sage advice, I'ma break it right now. Here's a  River Tam POV Firefly (post-Serenity, but no spoilers) piece I wrote a really long time ago. I share it here because I'm not ashamed of my fanfiction past and also because this particular piece is about found family and faith in myself, two things fanfiction gave me:

"Thanks From the Inside"

God, these are my thanks,

whispered so no one else will hear

and launched into the vasty Black

like a love-bladed boomerang.

I read it all, you know, the Book,

both paper and sinew,

and understand the origin of things.

It all comes from you, apparently, so here:

Thanks for the genius 

that cushions my solitude;

for the sometime intrusion of others,

who share this strange space;

for the brother who learned to be fearless;

for the thrum of home beneath my feet;

for this family, better than the last;

and for the Captain's fierce love

that keeps us aloft.

New Release: ORIA'S ENCHANTMENT by @JeffeKennedy #Fantasy #Romance

As proof Jeffe put in a lot of work last year, her second release for 2019 dropped this week. The fifth installment of her Sorcerous Moons fantasy romance series continues the adventure, the passion, and the challenges of Oria and Lonen's love.

ORIA'S ENCHANTMENT
Sorcerous Moons, Book 5

The Temptation of Power
No longer a princess and not yet a queen, the sorceress Oria welcomes the rush of power the ancient mask brings her—though the obsessive connection to it frightens her and alarms her barbarian husband, Lonen. But retreat is not an option. She must wrestle the magic to prevent an annihilating war, even if she must make the ultimate sacrifice.

A World in Flames
If Lonen wants to reclaim his throne—and save his people from destruction—he must return by sunset on the seventh day. What he thought would be a short and simple journey, however, leads them deeper into the mountains—and Oria deeper into the thrall of foul magic. Until he must choose between two terrible paths.

A Heart-Wrenching Choice
Struggling with conflicting loyalties, Oria and Lonen fight to find a way to be together… lest they be separated forever, and their realms go down in flames with them.

BUY IT NOW:  Amazon |  Nook |  Kobo

If you haven't started this amazing series yet, pick up Book 1, LONEN'S WAR today!

If I was going to write Fan Fic....,

If I was going to write Fan Fiction who would I want to write and why?

Hmm. The Universal Monsters. I grew up watching and loving those movies. Frankenstein's Monster, Dracula, the Wolfman, the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde, The Mummy. All of my earliest memories of these iconic characters are wrapped up in the stories, effects and make up that Universal put together to make me afraid (never really worked, I was always just thrilled).

Iconic doesn't begin to cover it for me.  Alec Ross and Eric Powell are two of my favorite artists and they've done a crack up job of showing WHY I love these characters. I think it's fair to say I would not be the writer I am today if it hadn't been for the Universal Monsters.

Jeffe's Sly FanFic Move

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is "If you were going to write fan fiction, what show/characters/etc would you write?"

Now, I'm not an author who got her start by writing fan fiction. I totally respect that many writers developed their chops that way, but it frankly never occurred to me to do that. I fantasized plenty about the books I read, made up stories in those worlds where I got to be the hero - but I never thought to write them down. It seemed wrong to me.

The intervening years have seen a huge growth in the world of fan-fiction writing, and a legitimizing of it. Still, I've never done it and don't think I ever would.

That said...

In my Sorcerous Moons series, I gave my heroine a winged white lizard Familiar, who breathes fire and communicates with her telepathically. This is totally my version of Anne McCaffrey's fire lizards and dragons from her Pern books - one of my favorite daydream subjects.

So ... maybe the line between homage and fan fiction is a fine and narrow one. But it's an apropos topic for me, because ORIA'S ENCHANTMENT, book #5 in the Sorcerous Moons series, just released. Buy links are going live as I type this, but you can find them here as they're available.

The Temptation of Power

No longer a princess and not yet a queen, the sorceress Oria welcomes the rush of power the ancient mask brings her—though the obsessive connection to it frightens her and alarms her barbarian husband, Lonen. But retreat is not an option. She must wrestle the magic to prevent an annihilating war, even if she must make the ultimate sacrifice.

A World in Flames

If Lonen wants to reclaim his throne—and save his people from destruction—he must return by sunset on the seventh day. What he thought would be a short and simple journey, however, leads them deeper into the mountains—and Oria deeper into the thrall of foul magic. Until he must choose between two terrible paths.

A Heart-Wrenching Choice

Struggling with conflicting loyalties, Oria and Lonen fight to find a way to be together…
lest they be separated forever, and their realms go down in flames with them.

Playing Favorites? A Few Characters Come to Mind

This week’s topic is who is my favorite character from all my own books…given that I have well over 25 published works, each with quite a cast of characters, that’s a tall order, to pick just one. I’m in agreement with what someone said earlier this week – the book I’m writing at the moment is my favorite and therefore I guess it would follow that the people in those pages are also my favorites.

But that makes for a very short post! The general wisdom when asked a test-like question is to go with the first answer that comes to mind and so I’ll share with you that Johnny Danver from Mission to Mahjundar and Hostage to the Stars immediately showed up. He was the secondary character in Mission, the intrepid and loyal Special Forces sergeant accompanying the hero on a mission to a primitive planet to search for survivors of a crash in a remote mountain area. Mike the hero, who is also Johnny’s cousin, gets himself entangled in all kinds of adventure and problems, after falling in love with a princess on her way to an arranged marriage…and Johnny is there guarding his six (watching his back) through all of it. Saving his bacon a few times…

Readers had been asking me for Johnny’s story for a long time and I wanted to give him a chance to be front and center but had to wait for just the right story to come along. Then I got inspired by some research I was doing on how our present day Special Forces conduct rescues of hostages and there was the perfect framework. So Johnny gets pulled from a well-deserved retirement back on his home world (he volunteers in order to keep his cousin Mike at home with his pregnant bride) and rushed off to be an advisor for a hostage rescue…and nothing goes smoothly after that.

Turns out the alien warlord had more than one hostage from the Sectors but the team of soldiers he’s with only cares about the one woman they were sent in to retrieve. Johnny’s not having that.

Here’s the pivotal moment:

     “Just fyi, I’m goin’ for the other woman,” Johnny said. “You have a nice flight home to base. Don’t forget to tell them I’m here. Good luck to you, Ms. Immer.”

     “Who the hell do you think you are, sergeant?” The captain’s voice was tense and angry. “You don’t get to change mission parameters to suit yourself. I don’t care if you’re in the goddamn Special Forces or not, I gave you a direct order. We’re not going after any other civilians this trip.”

     “No, you’re not, I see that.” Johnny couldn’t keep the contempt out of his voice. “In my branch of the service, we don’t leave people behind. In case it’s escaped your notice, I’m not under your command. Special Forces operates independently.”

     Holding his pulse rifle where it could conveniently be considered a threat by Captain Scortun if he was feeling paranoid, Johnny backed away. None of the other soldiers wanted to challenge him.

     “We’re not waiting for you,” Scortun yelled. “When our shuttle lands, we’re gone.”

     “Good riddance,” he said under his breath, as he faded into the underbrush and slipped away down the steep hillside.

I’m also quite fond of Mara Lyrae, a tough no-nonsense business woman in Wreck of the Nebula Dream, who refuses to get off the ship in one of the few lifeboats because there are children trapped in debris and she won’t leave them to die. She and Nick the hero set off to rescue them and the adventure spirals from there. Mara, an agent for the interstellar Loxton company, is full of surprises all through the novel.

Here’s one such moment: Nick opened his pack, literally throwing his spare uniforms and few personal possessions onto the deck, coming up with his blasters. Cradling one awkwardly in the crook of his arm, he buckled the belt and holster on.

     “What will you do with the spare?” Khevan worked to buckle his own gun belt on, slamming the ominously red, ornate blaster in place in the holster with a satisfied smile.

     Nick considered for a minute. “Thinking I’ll give it to Mara.”

    “She has a level head,” was Khevan’s approving assessment. “I believe she’d use it effectively.”

     “Use what effectively?” Mara rejoined them. “Oh, the blaster?” Reaching out, she took the weapon from Nick, expertly checking it over, noting the charge level, flicking the safety off. She hefted it, taking a bead on a particularly garish tote bag across the hold. In a blur of motion, she fired a quick, low-level shot right through the center of the bag.

     Mouth hanging open, Nick gaped at her. “Fast learner?”

    “Loxton agents take training on the civilian version of this.” She chuckled at his expression. “Didn’t you know? We’re licensed to carry concealed weapons all the way up to the civilian Mark Fifteen. This kicks harder, but it’s basically the same, yes?”

One of my favorites from my ancient Egyptian paranormal novels is Tyema, high priestess of Sobek in a remote province, who ends up going to Pharaoh’s court in Thebes at the god’s command. Tyema has crippling anxiety as a result of a childhood trauma, yet overcomes the challenges to carry out the mission from Sobek and resolve her relationship with the dashing Sahure, a high ranking noble who teaches her to drive a chariot. I really enjoyed the many aspects of writing this story and depicting Tyema’s personal growth over the course of the novel. Plus of course I always enjoy writing novels set in ancient Egypt.

Here’s a moment where Tyema demonstrates her inner strength:

     Tyema sat back in her chair as the men discussed the arrangements for the procession. The city officials were also silent for the most part, apparently in the meeting to receive instructions, not to make suggestions. She had no opinion about the parade, the local Sobek priests knew their own city and how to organize things here. Perhaps she would have put the second troupe of dancing girls before the sacred image of Sobek, not after as they were going to do, but Tyema had no feeling it mattered to the Crocodile God, so she only nodded when Pharaoh courteously asked her opinion.

     The high priest continued his rundown of the sequence of events. “And when we arrive at the temple, I’ll greet you with the hymn of the seventh hour—”

     “After I’ve sung the hymn of the Abundant Nile,” Tyema said. She felt a tightening in her gut, sure now they would be in opposition. He’d rather I played no part in the day’s ceremonies. He probably wishes I’d just sent the crocodile with only old Hotepre for escort. Well, for that matter, so do I, but the Great One wanted it otherwise.

     The older priest cleared his throat for a moment, blinking. Clearly he wasn’t used to being interrupted. “No need for you to exert yourself, I’m sure. It’s one of the older, less well known hymns after all.  You can sing a brief blessing on the bask at the end of the ceremonies, if you wish. Now then, as I was saying—”

     "The Great One Sobek particularly enjoys the ‘Abundant Nile’, since it praises his efforts to keep the life giving waters flowing freely,” Tyema said, cutting across his words, her voice clear. “As he is sending his crocodile to you, personally selected by him, we need to thank him appropriately.”

        The men from the Theban temple gawked at her. Color becoming even hotter in his gaunt cheeks, the high priest blew out a breath. “My dear girl, we’re duly conscious of the honor the Great One does us here at Thebes. I merely see no need to slow the tempo of the ceremony with additional music. The crowd will naturally wish to see the crocodile installed in the pond as soon as possible.”

       “As High Priestess, it’s my responsibility to conduct the crocodile to your temple and to make the official transfer in proper order,” she said, not at all abashed by his dismissive manner. When it came to anything regarding her duty to Sobek, Tyema felt as if some measure of his strength ran in her veins, and no condescending old man from Thebes could silence her. “I’ll sing ‘Abundant Nile,’ after which you can sing whatever you feel is most appropriate to accept the gift of Sobek and then we’ll proceed to the pond. Whether our audience is one person or ten thousand people, we must honor the Great One Sobek properly.”

        "Well,” Pharaoh said, his voice solemn but his eyes twinkling, “The list of songs is decided then.”

Character Love

Corvid  wants you to know that I have the attention span of -- well -- maybe a kitten. I am easily amused, it seems. Therefore, when the conversation turns to which character has been my favorite to write, the answer is as easy as it is pathetic: Whoever I'm writing currently.

Maybe it's a remnant from the acting days where you inhabited one character, shook it off, and picked up another one, sometimes all in the same show. Or maybe it's just that I feel like it's necessary to fall a little bit in love with each character in the process of writing them. If I can't, who else is going to?

I have great fondness for characters in the midst of finding their power - especially when that power is in something utterly unknown to them. Edie thinks her great strength is in knowing how to blow stuff up, and to some extent, she's right, but her real strength is . . . oh. Right. I can't tell you that without screwing up the story.

The book I'm prepping to sub right now has a heroine who doesn't even know who she is. She doesn't know her own name, having been orphaned as a child and picked up to be reared by a circus troupe. She's out of her depth living in New Orleans at the start of the Civil War with a creeptastic foster mother. She thinks her power is her ability to overlooked. She's wrong.

Which of the two is my favorite? No clue. I'm working on both stories, so both characters take up space in my brain, which is part of that falling in love thing I mentioned earlier. Would it be a complete copout to say I love them both equally, just differently?

Favorite characters to write

So, about two-and-a-half years ago, the question came up of "Who is your favorite character to write?" And, at the time, with An Import of Intrigue on the horizon, I answered Corrie Welling, because Corrie is so much fun to write.

And she still is.

Of course, so many characters are fun to write, and over the course of writing The Way of the Shield and now Shield of the People, I've really come to enjoy writing Jerinne Fendall, the young Initiate that Dayne takes under his wing. If things had taken a different path with my writing, I could see a YA-series centered around Jerinne. As is, she gets a lot of plot focus in both the Maradaine Elite books so far.

Which is why I had so much fun writing A Parliament of Bodies, because, as it is a Maradaine Constabulary novel, it features the fabulously foul-mouthed Corrie Welling, but since it crosses with the Maradaine Elite cast, it also has Jerinne Fendall.

Including a bit where Corrie and Jerinne work together.
If you've been following either series, I think you're going to love this book. Until it breaks your heart, which I'm told it might. Fair warning.

---

The city of Maradaine is vexed by the Gearbox Murders: a series of gruesome deaths orchestrated by a twisted mechanical genius. With no motive and no pattern, Inspectors Satrine Rainey and Minox Welling—the retired spy and untrained mage—are at a loss to find a meaningful lead in the case. At least, until the killer makes his most audacious exhibit yet: over a dozen victims in a clockwork deathtrap on the floor of the Druth Parliament.
The crime scene is a madhouse, and political forces conspire to grind their investigation to a halt. The King’s Marshals claim jurisdiction of the case, corruption in the Constabulary thwarts their efforts, and a special Inquest threatens to end Minox’s career completely. Their only ally is Dayne Heldrin, a provisional member of the Tarian Order, elite warriors trained in the art of protection. But Dayne’s connection to the Gearbox Murders casts suspicion on his motives, as he might be obsessed with a phantom figure he believes is responsible.
While Satrine and Minox struggle to stop the Gearbox from claiming even more victims, the grinding gears of injustice might keep them from ever solving these murders, and threaten to dismantle their partnership forever.


Goodreads Page for A PARLIAMENT OF BODIES
Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, IndieBound and more!

The favorite character I will never write

My favorite character to write doesn't exist yet. She may never exist. Actually is very likely to never exist. Let me explain.

You know how folks who aren't writers sometimes assume that fictional protagonists are the writer in a thin disguise? Like, erotica writers must be really bendy kinky people, or romance writers must live in perpetual sugarplum happily ever afters, or horror writers must have a sort of terrifying personal dark side that edges way too close to psychopathy? If you are a writer and have experienced this deluge of assumption, you know how head-desking it can be.

No, for the seven gazillionith (but not final) time, I do not write myself. I mean, I don't, personally, for lots of reasons, not just because I'm boring and kind of a shitty human. There's also a stigma to writing blatant self-inserts. You've heard characters accused of being Mary Sues, right? (If you don't know the term, you can Google it. Even the wikipedia gives a thorough enough definition. Basically, it's an insult.)

So anyhow, when this week's SFF Seven topic came up -- my favorite character to have written -- I thought about it a lot. See, I love all my characters, but all of them were equally challenging to write, and I'm not sure I have a favorite. Finally, I asked one of the best writers I know how she would answer that question. Here is what my pre-teen such-an-amazing-storyteller child said:

"My favorite character would probably be Summer, because she's basically me in the story, but when the bullies come for her she always knows what to say. And also she kicks their asses."

No, you're right, she didn't say that last part. I made that up. She phrased it way more tastefully, something like, "Summer defuses the situation and teaches the bad guys the error of their ways" or whatever. Regardless, although the character is clearly an author surrogate, in the fictional situation, as opposed to real life, she is in control and succeeding. Being the hero. Giving herself the win and accepting the adulation and approval her real-life psyche has yearned for.

You know, like George Lucas's Luke Skywalker.

Or Clive Cussler and Stephen King who have actual characters with their names.

Or that old-school Star Trek fanfiction author's Mary Sue.

I've never tried writing myself, or characters who are almost or an idealized version of me. But I'm just like anybody else on the planet: it sure would be a cool thing to win, to read a story where I see myself achieving power or success. To single-handedly lead the rebellion and kill the villain and save the people I love.

I'll never do it, of course -- see above about my utter boringness and unsuitably for heroism -- but yeah. Kiddo is right. If I did write a surrogate, my very own private Mary Sue, she would be my favorite, too.

She would be me, succeeding.