Showing posts with label Urban Fantasy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Urban Fantasy. Show all posts

30 October 2013

Revenge Fantasies, Anyone?

This month's theme is Digging up Bones: Releasing our Ghosts through Writing. Though I write paranormal and fantasy romance and am about to release my first urban fantasy, I'm not a supernaturally inclined person. I'm not much of a believer, though worldbuilding and researching various phenomena remains fascinating, and I certainly don't knock people who have different beliefs than me.

But releasing ghosts through writing could also refer to stress or memories. Or journaling, as pointed out by A Catherine Noon (http://paranormalauthors.blogspot.com/2013/09/dem-bones-dem-bones.html). Me, if I have ghosts I need to release, it's probably all the dad gum revenge fantasies that occasionally play in my head like movies.

I don't know that this is a particularly writerly trait--perhaps just a surly, mean one--but it does give rise to some interesting situations in my writing. I won't say whether or not any scenes in my books are taken directly from real life, but the feelings of frustration, the fist shaking at the lack of justice in the world, and the way difficult situations frequently turn out for the worse are things we can pour in stories if we choose.

Things we can even rectify, in a way real life doesn't allow.

Anybody else out there enjoy a good revenge fantasy?

***

On that note, I'd like to share the first couple pages of my very-soon-to-be-released urban fantasy, THE WHOLE TRUTH (http://jodywallace.com/books/the-whole-truth/) , where our heroine, who can see lies but has never met anyone like herself, realizes that her real life is about to change. To find out what wrongs she gets to rectify in the course of her story, I hope that this book will go live on Amazon and Smashwords in the next couple days!


*** EXCERPT FROM: THE WHOLE TRUTH ***

Chapter 1
I see shadows. But not dead people.

When they found me, they weren’t ninjas, just garden-variety men in black. Excuse me, people in black. The frustrating part wasn’t that they invaded my home but that I should have been expecting it. After all, I’m the only person I’ve ever met who can do what I can do. Besides write advertising copy. Anybody can do that as long as they have a penchant for buzz words and hyperbole.

No, as far as I know, I’m the only freak like me in existence. I should have been ready for this to happen. I should have had a bag packed, with stylish travel wear and airline-friendly cosmetics.

But I didn’t. They caught me completely unaware. I’m stupid that way, even if I can discover any truth by asking the right questions.

I got home from another late night, after a normal week at work, if there is such a thing. I unlocked the door, cursed it when it stuck, and had almost kicked it shut when I noticed them.

A man and woman I’d never seen before were in my living room watching my newest indulgent purchase. Wait, technically that would be my new Kate Spade purse. While it’s sparkly, it doesn’t do any tricks worth staring at. They were watching my widescreen TV.

The man rose when he noticed me, as if he always stood when a female entered the room. He inhaled audibly but made no sudden moves.

Had I surprised their….illicit TV viewing?

“What the hell are you doing in my house?” I asked from the safety of the foyer. I would have taken off without asking questions, but they didn’t seem aggressive. I mean, they’d been absorbed in Andy Griffith.

The man’s lips parted slightly. Then he gave a sharp nod.

“Cleopatra Giancarlo?” he asked, smoothing the lapel of his expensive suit.

“Maybe.” I propped the door open with my toe, tensed to run. “Maybe not.”

“I see you were working late again, Miss Giancarlo,” he said.

“Working late isn’t a crime.” Unless you were a mobster or something. When the man didn’t respond, I continued.

“Who are you people?” Let them try to claim they were friends. Let them try to lie to me. I didn’t step away from the door.

The man glanced at the woman. She shrugged.

“My name is John Arlin. This is my partner, Samantha Graves. We’re happy to meet you, Miss Giancarlo.”

Their actual names, and they were honestly happy to meet me.

Samantha reclined against the arm of my sofa with my cat—my cat!—in her lap. I hoped Boris got hairballs all over her spiffy tweed.

She smiled at me. Her teeth were unnaturally white. “Shut the door,” she said. “You’re letting in mosquitoes.”

I backed onto the porch, only to notice a gigantic man in a dark suit step out of a vehicle at the curb. He was nearly twice as tall as the car. He waved.

Safer inside or outside?

Outside lurked their giant. Inside I could see their masks if they lied. I went in, closed the door, and held my keychain at the ready. I’d read somewhere you could stab people in the eyeball with your key to incapacitate them. Provided you had the guts to do so.

“Please don’t feel threatened. We just want to talk.” John adjusted a sleeve and glanced at his watch. His dark jacket parted to reveal a crisp white dress shirt and…

Did I see a holster?

“You’re in my house without my permission. I feel threatened.” I inched into the room, toward the phone, my cell having disappeared in the depths of my work satchel three days ago. I knew it was there because I could call myself. I just couldn’t find the damn thing.

“I apologize for that. Time has become critical, and it was expedient to meet you in private, instead of making an appointment.”

Was it true? I squinted, trying to detect the shadow that formed around the faces of any liars in my line of vision. No darkening. He was being honest.

It occurred to me that John and Samantha could be the people who wanted to buy the house from my landlord. The old coot threatened to sell the place out from under me every time I complained about the parking lot, if you could call a ten foot wide section of rubble a parking lot.

John continued. “Dinner’s in the fridge. Pastrami and jack on sourdough.”

Good guess…but the sandwich put him out of the running for home buyer. “You didn’t break into my house to talk sandwiches. Why are you here?”

“We have some information for you about an opportunity,” he said. “Will you hear us out?” He had yet to display a mask, the shadow veneer that appeared in front of a liar’s face, which did ease my nerves. That didn’t mean I was going to let my guard down.

“Cut the solicitous crap. What do you want? My television?” I doubted it, because their car outside wasn’t big enough to transport it, but bravado seemed smarter than fear. “Take it, I have renter’s insurance.”

He stepped closer, and I became aware of the fact he was tall, not to mention built. I was short. Could I key-poke his eye or not? More like his throat. Wasn’t the spot between your collarbones vulnerable? I patted my non-key-holding hand against my breastbone to check, my heavy work satchel thumping my hip.

John picked up my cordless telephone from the bookcase next to the couch and extended it to me. “The minute we make you nervous, dial the police.”

“I’m nervous right now.” I pressed various areas on my throat to test which was most stickable. Nervous people did that, protected their throats, or their boobs. I guess they were protecting their hearts, not their boobs.

“Sorry.” He tilted his head down. “Would you prefer to eat first? You must be hungry. We got the sandwich from Mazio’s.”

How could they know my favorite eatery was a dive three blocks down on the east end?

An ugly suspicion rose in me. A nightmare of a thought. They knew all these things about me because they’d been spying on me. Watching where and what I ate, how late I stayed at work.

“I’d prefer that you leave,” I told him.

“We’ll leave as soon as we talk to you.” He stepped closer, still offering the phone.

“I think you should go now.” I snatched the phone but John held onto it, keeping me within arm’s reach. His nostrils flared and his pupils dilated, and for a minute I got the distinct impression he was smelling me.

“John,” Samantha warned. “You’re creeping her out.”

He shook himself. I returned to the relative safety of my foyer with the handset. Since Mondo was in the street, I could make a run for the neighbor. So what if he wasn’t home? They wouldn’t know that.

Oh, wait. They probably would. My fingers found the nine. I pressed it, then a one. John pursed his lips and fingered his Snoopy tie. Snoopy?

They waited to see if I’d dial a third number. If they meant me harm, would they give me the chance to call for help? Maybe I should hear them out.

We all stared at each other until Samantha said, “What a soft, fluffy cat. Is this Boris or Natasha?”

I contemplated the additional digit on the phone. “Why do you know all this stuff about me?”

“We know all sorts of things about you. That’s what we’re here to discuss.” The woman slid Boris off her lap and rose.

First thing I noticed was she was really short, too.

Second thing I noticed was she had on four-inch heels, Manolos, which meant she was actually shorter than me. Mine were two-inch kitten heels, the same rose pink as my tiered ruffle skirt and blouse.

You know, that thing about secret servicemen in black isn’t true. Samantha had on a tweed suit. I know tweed’s the new black, but I was pretty sure John’s Snoopy as the Red Baron tie wasn’t regulation at Ye Olde Agency.

“You guys aren’t from the CIA, are you?” I asked. “FBI? NSA? Homeland Security?” The main reason I’d kept myself to…myself was my inherent fear of the government and what they’d want from me if they found out. You could only tip off the cops so many times before they got suspicious, and pretending to be psychic only works on television.

Samantha Graves smiled, and her long-lashed, blue eyes twinkled as if we were sharing a joke. She had a perfect, shiny black bob without a hair out of place, and she couldn’t be more than a size three. I could hate a woman like that.

“That’s correct, we’re not from any of those places. May I call you Cleopatra?”

“Not unless you want me to finish dialing 9-1-1 for the murder I’d be forced to commit.”

I had yet to see a glimmer surrounding either of them. They had yet to answer any of my pertinent questions.

Shit.

They knew.

FMI and eventual buy links: http://jodywallace.com/books/the-whole-truth/

***

Jody Wallace
Author, Cat Person, Amigurumist
http://www.jodywallace.com  * http://www.meankitty.com  

19 December 2011

A World of Our Own


Greetings, Kittens!

Welcome to the world. Which world would that be exactly? Well, that’s the question isn’t it? We open a book, turn on a show, or sit back as the lights dim in a theater, and wait to find out which world we’ll be transported to next.

It doesn’t matter if it’s 10,000 years in the past, or 10,000 years into the future, we want the storyteller to transport us so thoroughly that we feel we’ve known this place all along. We recognize the elements, and the players, and like the lives we live every day, we wait for the moment of the extraordinary in the ordinary, and the mundane in the fantastic.

We fall in love with shadow governments, interstellar galactic battles, hidden paranormal subcultures, alternate historical records, time traveling archeologist, dimension hopping demons, immortal brooding heroes and prophecy defying heroines, all because someone makes us believe. We care about the people and we see how their world has shaped them, even as our world has shaped us. And there’s the interesting point, our world shapes us, but our world is not the same as the person next to us.

Everything we read and watch, absolutely everything, has built a new version of the world as experienced by the protagonist. A dying and broke chemistry teacher forced to cook meth in the desert, is as foreign, as an amoral vampire choosing a new beloved and changing a child to create an immortal family, is familiar. In the former, the worldbuilding is invisible, but crucial, due to it’s familiarity within the foreign decisions of the protagonist. In the latter, it’s obvious, the fantastical elements setting it apart, but it ultimately relies on its subtleties and familiar human story for its strength.

In a series, the challenge comes not only in building the world, but in showing it as both a constant and evolving concept from the protagonist’s point of view. My TherianWorld faces this challenge on two levels. Each of the paranormal romances deals with a different triad who relates to the shifter dominated world based on their own breeds and experiences. They are lighter and relationship focused, like many of our own lives. The urban fantasy on the other hand is darker, harsher and as they say, there will be blood.

But has the world changed? No, not at all. The perception of it has turned on its side, very much as my view of the world in day to day life is different from a soldier deployed overseas, or a police officer in the inner city of Chicago. We see the world from where we stand in it. As a federal agent specialized in retrieval and assassination, the world has a vastly different filter for Dante, than for any other hero or heroine I’ve written in the romances to date—and it should. But as the relationships in her life move to the forefront, her filter will be altered. The trick is to show that the world is constant and she is changing within it. I look forward to pulling it off. Wish me luck.

~X

21 May 2009

Anyone Want Some Free Reads?

Long, long ago, before blogs were a twinkle in any author's eye, I maintained a genre fanzine called the Science Fiction Romance Newsletter. In that fanzine, I attempted to start a pick-a-path science fiction romance story, but it didn't get very far off the ground. The germ for that story has since been transformed into a book named MEGAN'S CHOICE (http://www.jodywallace.com/books/meganschoice.htm), still with the interactive structure, and is for sale at Red Sage--but that's not what I’m here to talk about today.

A few of the BTV authors were discussing the lapses in motivation and creativity that can strike authors on occasion. We came up with the idea to attempt a pick-a-path here at BTV. Authors like Jess Granger are having great fun with similar writings (check out her Ethel the Space Pirate: http://www.jessgranger.com/fun-stuff/ethel-1), and there is always the excellent Choose Your Own Romantic Adventure by author Christina Crooks: http://www.christinacrooks.net/cyora.html. In 2008 I participated in a Round Robin with a group called the Manuscript Mavens: http://www.ericaridley.com/download_rr-08-valentine-romance.php and I could have sworn there was a zombie round robin floating around somewhere, but Google isn't cooperating for me right now so I can't link to it.

To initiate the pick a path, I think we'll start by introducing you to our female protagonist, but the rest is up in the air, including the subgenre. What would you, the BTV readers, like to see as additional elements in our serial fiction? Here are some paranormal staples to consider:

Shifters
Vampires
Fey/elves
Psychics
Epic fantasy
Demons
Aliens
Magic users
Water-folk
Dragons
Ghosts
Genies
Immortals (like Highlander!)
Futuristic setting/technology
Zombies
Gods/goddesses
Time travel
Genies
Reincarnation
Superheroes/Mutants/Genetic alterations

It may be that several BTV authors participate in the round robin, and it may be that only one or two of us post chapters on a regular basis. Either way, at the end of each new scene, you'll have a chance to select one of three directions for the next scene in a poll in the sidebar. After a preset time, the poll will be taken down and someone will compose the next scene. We have worked together before as writers when we put together the free anthology DUNVEGAS (http://carolanivey.com/dunvegas/), and I look forward to the creative experiences to come!

Please voice your preferences in the comments (including potential authors) or there's no telling what I'll pick.

Jody W.
http://www.jodywallace.com
SURVIVAL OF THE FAIREST--Now In Paper, Samhain Publishing
LIAM'S GOLD--In Electrons, Samhain Publishing

08 April 2009

Dabwaha

If anyone has been following Dabwaha recently, you'll know that Patricia Briggs's Iron Crossed beat out Joanna Bourne's The Spymaster's Lady to win, though not by a lot.

I actually voted to have Patricia Briggs's Cry Wolf win, just fyi. But I happen to be a big fan of both finalists.

Briggs has been writing fantastic urban fantasy for a while. Her world has werewolves and coyote shifters (the main female protag) and vampires and witches and many other beings. Each type of person is fully realized and well-thought-out. No type is wholly bad, or wholly good. The Mercy Thompson series allows Briggs to explore these different parts of her world because Mercy is a coyote, not really a part of any one society, though she has close ties to werewolves because she was raised by their leader. (Cry Wolf is part of Briggs's Charles and Anna series and is more closely focused on werewolves. Since I love werewolves, that's great too.)

Brigg's books have romantic elements, but they're not romance.

The Spymaster's Lady is certainly romance. It's fantastically written with close attention paid to detail, as well as language. There are some clever twists and I completely fell for the heroine and her ingeniuty. I don't read a lot of historical romance, but when I do and I love it, I really love it.

Anyway, there were a lot of good books listed for Dabwaha and I'm going to try to read a few more of them than I have, especially Blue-Eyed Devil by Lisa Kleypas and The Price of Desire by Jo Goodman. Both Dear Author and Smart Bitches ran Dabwaha, and they'll probably run it next year. I'll be keeping an eye out for it. It was a lot of fun!

23 February 2009

Urban Fantasy: Sex & Violence. Really?

A question has been preying on my mind since a recent con. At this con, I got a preview of a few different lines of upcoming books from various publishing houses. There was a lot of urban fantasy being shown off but there was a sameness to the plots and subject matter that I found disturbing.

First, the paranormal detective thing has been done to death already, hasn't it? There were a few dozen books that featured someone who investigated paranormal disturbances. Isn't that getting old? The other big trend was the story about the "kick ass heroine written in the 1st person." Um... isn't that getting kind of tired too? I mean, the first few of these kinds of books were interesting and made a big hit, but really, do we need dozens of clones out there to bore us to death? Am I the only one who feels this?

So I got a bunch of free books at this event and settled down to read. For books that were marketed as "romance" there sure wasn't much romance -- just a lot of sex and even more gratuitous violence. And I do mean violence. Turn-your-stomach gore (well, my stomach, at least) and the introduction of sympathetic characters, getting you to like them, then blowing them away in gruesome ways a page later.

Tsk. Tsk.

Um... last time I checked, that wasn't what you call "standard" in a romance novel. Was it? Did I miss the memo?

And why did these supposed "romance" authors feel the need to make me sad every other page by intrducing a new character only to blow them away, hurting their existing characters and making me sorry I ever picked up the damned book?

I'm not a pure Pollyanna. I can take bad guys getting their just deserts or supporting characters having hard times to support the story, but this is above and beyond. This is violent destruction of every good character in the book.

Does this trend disturb anyone else? I mean, I read romance to escape the harsh reality we live with every day. I want for the good guys to win in my romance books. I want people to find love and happiness. It doesn't have to be easy, but it should be true happiness at the end of the book. Not "we're happy together, but all our friends and family have died in horrible ways because of us."

Am I naive? Old fashioned? Out of touch?

Because that's the way I've been made to feel. It seems like traditional publishers won't touch a "feel good" book. It seems all they want is sex (I'm all for that, of course, as long as there's love in there somewhere) and lots of gratuitous violence in their urban fantasy/romance stories.
Am I wrong?

I'd really appreciate some opinions on this as it's been bothering me for quite a while. How do you all think of urban fantasy romance? Does it require "gritty" death scenes on every other page? Does it require a writer to absolutely TORTURE (and I mean TORTURE) their main characters? Or can it possibly have a less bloody death toll and some characters who actually end up truly happy? Or must every supporting character be blown away like a "red shirt" on Star Trek?

I seriously want to know what you think. Comment me, baby. ;-)

13 January 2008

The Normal in Paranormal...

I was raised on preternatural fiction where the paranormal was hidden from the masses and everything that happened was covert and known only in legend. If mortals did happen to know about the creatures who slunk through the night, it was usually because they hunted them. Whether given holy charge by “the church”, or enlisted by an elite group within the government, the handful of warriors holding the truth were vigilant and ready to come to the rescue whenever the need arose. The rest of the world was clueless outside of gypsies, psychics, goths and various “fringe” groups who counted creatures of the night among their unending conspiracies.

Then fiction changed. More and more often stories began to emerge where the paranormal was part of the normal. These alternate realities where the grocer up the block is part goblin and the night watchman at your bank is part vampire began to grow in popularity and I found myself beginning to prefer them. When I stopped to look at where the appeal originated; I realized that we live in an age of instant communication and a known preternatural community seems more realistic.

It’s harder to believe that a vast global coterie of vampires, werewolves, demons, faeries, necromancers or anything else could exist and do their world machinations without ever being caught. I mean honestly, you know that the local cabal would be featured on a YouTube video before they could say carpe nocturne. So a world where everything is out in the open seems like the kind of thing that could happen.

If all of our “unknown phenomena” were to stand up and announce themselves tomorrow, we’d get caught up in trivialities of them and leave plenty of room for their more nefarious doings to go unnoticed. That’s not to say that they still wouldn’t get caught from time to time, but just as our human governments hide secrets, the preternaturals would be able to spin it all by giving us smaller sins to dwell on while the larger ones stayed behind the curtain.

I’m still drawn to stories where there’s a small handful of clannish shapeshifters, or a rare breed of non-traditional vampire that have been very careful to keep secrets on the down low. I also like the middle ground of the “open secret” where nothing has been revealed on the news, but there’s no doubt that more is going on than meets the eye and everyone knows it.

But more and more, I find the rich worlds built around an open truth and the search for acceptance within it to be a fascinating study of human behavior. Sometimes it’s done directly with a human protagonist at the center of things, but there’s the growing phenomenon of the non-human protagonists reacting to the world around them and their place in it. It allows Urban Fantasy to explore the same social mores once the sole province of Science Fiction.

How do you think the current wired world has impacted fantasy, and is it for good or ill in your opinion?


Modern Paranormal Ramble Done

~X

Xakara.com

04 November 2007

Paranormal Marathons and the Future of Television

DVR is the greatest thing since sliced bread. In fact, it goes Modern Medicine, Harnessing Electricity, DVR, Sliced Bread, and Everything Else. While dealing with illness, deadlines, and the rest of life, my DVR stacked up five weeks worth of Supernatural and Blood Ties for my weekend viewing pleasure. Yay. Now where I love to catch my favorite shows every week rather than go longer between fixes, there is something supremely satisfying about a good preternatural marathon.

Following the adventures of Sam and Dean on Supernatural as they battle the forces of hell on earth, well, it makes my job seem rather relaxing in comparison. The show has everything you could want in a good urban fantasy; preternatural beasties, handsome heroes, sex, violence, and a frantic deadline as Dean’s deal with a crossroads demon bears down on them and his one year to live winds down. Add in an ever-expanding gray area of what exactly is good and evil and--who is on what side--and you have the makings of a wonderful series exploring the human condition through inhuman characters and situations. All while providing lovely eye-candy in the form of the Winchester Brothers and the inhuman hotties they track down on a regular basis.

The Lifetime series Blood Ties is another orgy of otherness that is a personal fave and one I’m oh-so-happy to have caught up on. Here we have another exploration of what it means to be human as seen through the non-human lens of vampire Henry Fitzroy and the supernatural forces he and human private detective Vicky Nelson track down each week to bring to justice. But the monster-of-the-week isn’t the most compelling thing about Blood Ties for this watcher. This, as the fact it’s on Lifetime might give away, is a show about relationships above all else.

Vicky has a past relationship with her former partner on the police force, Mike Celluci. The on-again/off-again relationship is given long term distance when Vicky quits the force due to her degenerating eyesight. The two are brought back together when her new enterprise as a private detective takes the sudden supernatural twist of a demon seriel killing in the city. Just as they rejoin one another’s lives, Henry enters Vicky’s life as the only one willing to believe what’s going on because he himself is part of the preternatural community of things that go bump in the night.

The attraction between Henry and Vicky is obvious from the beginning, as is the fact that Mike wants what he and Vicky once had, along with what they never quite achieved. It leaves Vicky caught between two men and her own fear of commitment. Watching her try to have both without committing to either is worth the price of admission alone. Meanwhile, Henry and Mike develop a begrudging respect over time and the mental dance between the three of them makes for the best scenes in the series in my opinion.

Shows like Blood Ties give me hope for the future of urban fantasy and paranormal romance on television. It’s a story we’ve seen a thousand times yet placed in a paranormal setting that makes it new again. Its success could open the doors even wider for new and varied shows proving there really is something for everyone if studios are merely willing to take the chance. (And it doesn’t hurt that the better UF/PR does on television, the more likely we are to find viewers seeking books while their shows are on hiatus and that means more readers for us. But really, it’s the future of television I’m looking out for, honest.)

With more and more shows deviating from the mainstream each season, and more finding their audiences each fall and summer, I think we’re at the tipping point of taking over the airwaves the way UF and PR are taking over the bookshelves. I know that the statistics say we have fewer people reading, but the shows out now are shaping the imagination of future readers and I can’t help but think that there’s a middle ground between the watchers and the readers that will soon be hit upon. It’s a great time to be paranormal and there are great shows displaying the value of what we love for all to see.

Okay, back to soaking up a few episodes before heading out for the vampire shift at work.

Paranormal Marathon Ramble Done

~X