Writing Prompt 1 - Reblog from Tumblr
Janice Flint • February 15, 2023
Writing Prompt: While in a dressing room, a threat is overheard.
Sarah stood in the back of the room behind the curtain that separated her meager changing area from her friend. The actual play wasn’t for another three weeks and they had been practicing, as per normal, far into the night. If they wanted to have the play perfect by the new year festival they would have a lot more practicing to do.
There had been all sorts of accidents that had been happening in the last week. Accidents that had been costly to much of the cast. Now it all made sense. Sarah knew why. She’d always suspected, but she hadn’t known. In a struggling theater like this one there was always talk about funding.
“You’re going to need to raise the ticket prices,” the voice said smoothly. “Our investment in your production is proving to be, costly.”
“I don’t know why!” Andrea said, her voice cracking. From fear Sarah was certain. “No one’s going to come with tickets as high as ours!”
“You’ll just have to be extra convincing,” a new voice joined in. Rougher than the first, a hint of cancerous gravel in his throat. “Agreed?”
“A-agreed,” Andrea said, her tone dipping.
“We’ll show ourselves out,” The first voice said.
There were two sets of booted foots and a creak as the old door opened and closed quietly on the two mysterious men’s exit. From behind the current Sarah could hear Andrea begin to quietly sob. There was another creak as the comparatively slim woman, Sarah corrected herself Andrea wasn’t even petite. She was waif thin. She’d been chosen for this role because she already looked like those coked out models from the 80’s. And Sarah, her understudy, had been dieting and exercising to try and get herself down to the anorexia levels that Andrea possessed naturally.
Sarah stood there for several moments. Her thoughts tumbling in her head. They were being extorted by the mob! Them! A little production studio from Reo. They were really just a bunch of students really. What money they made went into the overhead of feeding and moving them from city to city. Slowly she started to pull the curtain back. The door opened.
“Andrea! You ready?” a chipper voice called from the opening. “We’re supposed to meet the reporters in. You’re crying. You okay?”
“Nerves,” Andrea said, her voice was distorted and softer than before. The chair creaked again and two light booted feet hit the floor. “Come on, think Chad’s going to be there?”
“From channel 4?” the assistant producer laughed. “You gotta thing for blondes?”
“Maybe,” came the quiet response as the door closed.
Moving from behind the corner Sarah glanced around. What was she going to do? She had to talk to the police! They had to know someone was threatening them. Get actual protection for them!
Snatching up her purse she quickly pulled on her beat up chucks. She was halfway through lacing up her shoes when the door opened again and Andrea stood in the doorway. “Oh, what are you doing here?”
“Just grabbing my gear and heading out,” Sarah said. “Look, Andrea… I know.” Sarah looked up at her friend and frowned. Something was off with Andrea’s appearance. She’d just been crying.
“Know what?” The girl asked stepping closer to Sarah. An off kilter smile appearing on her face. “What do you know?” her voice taking on and edge.
“Everything, I’m going to the police now.” Sarah stood up, bumping into the petite woman and tumbling back. It felt like hitting a solid wall. “Ooph!”
“Careful,” Andrea said looming over the prone woman. “I wouldn’t want anything to accidentally happen to you.” She moved to kneel next to Sarah. “You have such pretty skin, Sandy.”
“It’s Sarah.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Andrea said, her voice sounding deeper. “Not where you’re going, meat.”
Sarah watched in awe as Andrea began to shift and grow more massive before her. The skin cracking and bleeding as fur began to sprout in patches along her form.
The door crashed open from Sarah’s right but her expression was locked on whatever was happening to Andrea.
“Angela!” A course voice shouted.
The creature in front of Sarah hissed and lunged forward. In the blink of an eye Sarah was dangling from the ground, a strong vice like grip around her throat and one shoulder. “Graham,” the voice said behind Sarah. What had happened to Andrea? “So nice of you to join me.” There was a bright flash and then pain through Sarah’s body and then she was falling into blackness.
“Last victim, Angela,” the course voice said. “Last victim.”
Prolific Writers My brother reads more than I do, which is rather humorous. He's an artist who has a nine to five job where he has to go somewhere to do physically demanding work. So on his breaks and on his lunch he reads books on his phone. And an author he reads a lot is Brandon Sanderson. I have nothing against the guy, I haven't read it. But my brother was mentioning that in COVID he had created four or five novels. Sanderson is, by all rights, a prolific writer. Just a quick glance through his Wikipedia page shows he's got at least 18 novels. Not counting the work he did for Wheel of Time and others. Publishing Beyond Death And this brought up the topic of legacy of a writer. Many years ago I worked with a guy who had roomed with one of Stephen King's nephews or nieces, I don't recall which, and he said that King was so prolific that he had books locked in a vault not to be released until his death. Because he didn't think they were up to his current quality. So like Tupac, King will be releasing best sellers for years after his death. In theory Sanderson has something similar. Apparently he has full outlines for his works that his chosen protégé can pick up and run with. Which is both fascinating and disturbing. Outline Approaches I outline a little, not a lot, because I tend to wing a lot of what I'm doing. I do world building and character backgrounds and soundtracks but I'm not sure someone could pick up my outline for say Tormented By A Goddess and get it across the finish line. It has the key beats but I feel like planning outlines too far out into the future you're likely to start straying from it when you finally get there. If you're super detailed and specific you certainly make it easier for someone to come and pick up your work. But if it's just the barest of outlines, hitting the high points, you can lose something in the translation. So it makes me wonder what Sanderson is doing. Does he script everything to be super tight and they can just be picked up and chunked out? Or has he just hit the high notes and he's hoping to get there while still alive? Writing Longevity The life expectancy of humans is supposed to be going up, and in theory, as long as your brain is still working you can write, or dictate, for a novel to be written. But I know in the case of the mockingbird author, Harper Lee, there are rumors they kept writing even with dementia. But short of some sort of mental inability to, a writer can write well into their twilight years. And it's not uncommon for a son/daughter to continue the legacy. Take Dune for instance. Famous Unfinished Works So, if Sanderson dies unexpectedly we can still expect to see that his name or at least his ideas will continue for awhile. Now, the true question is… What about George R. R. Martin? What's his backup plans for his Game of Thrones series? He's been taking longer and longer to get his work finished so I wouldn't be surprised to see that he's going to have to pass the torch on to someone else. As for me? Well I'm a nobody, so let's see if I ever get published instead of self-published before we start wondering who is going to take my silly ideas and run with them. ________________________________________ Incorrigibly yours, J.E. Flint
The Indie Writing Circle When I was in the indy's writer group of Indianapolis, meeting every Saturday at the main branch of the Indianapolis public library, it struck me as odd that the people in the group stayed in niche markets. Not calling out any names, I consider them friends, and I generally thought they were all good authors in their own regards. But it struck me as odd that they didn't seem to have a desire to try other genres. Now, at the time I wasn't really any better. I kept throwing alien Sci-Fi stories. Mostly because when I was in college sharing work I was frequently told to "stay in my lane" when it came to writing certain things. For instance, I suck at poetry. I absolutely can't do them. Doesn't mean I don't appreciate a well-constructed Haiku or a stanza about radishes. But it always struck me as very odd that the people didn't want to share their genre. The Multi-Genre Dream I knew early on that I was going to write a horror novel, some romance, maybe a thriller or two. I didn't want to tie myself down to just one genre. Now in certain professional cases, Stephen King and J.K. Rowling, they developed a nom de plume to hide their other works for a time. Rowling with Detective Novels and King with Bachman writing Bachman stories. I didn't like the idea of moving from pen name to pen name for a genre. But I knew also that certain genres were very demanding as to what went into them. For instance some of them absolutely won't let you join their little club as long as you're a member at another writing club. I tried long ago to join the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America when I was working on The Chronicles of Loth webcomic. But because it was self reported and a webcomic that didn't count to join the club. I probably still can't join because my three novels combined have earned I think 500 dollars. Which isn't a lot. The Specialization Problem So why then, did so few of these starting authors stay out of other genres? Why is it that a mind or style gets so siloed that they only work on a particular type? Not that this is wrong. Tolkien was an absolutely fantastic fantasy author, if you like stories about tree leaves and walking. Asimov had great and fun stories, such as the I, Robot items. I think it's because just like most things in life, the Jack of All Trades is dying. There isn't much call for a person to write a horror novel and then turn around and publish a mystery thriller. Anymore you're going to get a blend of the two, but it's going to be heavily featured in one area or the other. And so early on the writer thinks they must be true to a certain genre. Freedom in Obscurity But most of us aren't getting paid, not seriously paid, to write. So why shouldn't we have fun and write a story about throwing a love potion at a werewolf? Why shouldn't we write about the kids who are solving the mystery of where their neighbor went only to find out it's a straight up horror thing and they're now locked in a life and death battle with a set of mannequins that have come from the future? The other thing, because the literary market is filled with somebodies hoping to be found that experimentation can potentially hurt your burgeoning career. Which is why folks like King wrote under the name Bachman. Because for a bit, it protects them and lets them hone the craft in multiple ways. But no secret like that can be kept for long, at some point you find out that the detective novelist wrote a thrilling coming of age story about some poor English boy that sold millions and was made into a movie. Maybe it was intentionally spilled that they wrote detective novels, maybe some super sleuth put together that a particular turn of phrase seems very on the nose for another author. Or maybe it's as simple as the checks going to the same bank account. The Market's Narrow Vision So, my dear reader. Why aren't we letting authors flex their mental might? Why aren't we encouraging them to become the next Grisham AND George R. R. Martin? Because the market doesn't want an average author in multiple fields. They want a super author in their field, be it science fiction/fantasy, romance or detective novels. As for myself, since I'm nobody I don't have anyone but the people who bought my book to disappoint. So, bear with me while I meander my way through the creative world. Incorrigibly yours, J.E. Flint
The Great AI Debate I'm a no one, freely admitted. There is no reason to follow me or even listen to my words. But I will say that I have watched a very spirited debate in the reddit writing communities about the latest tool in our arsenal. That's right. I'm talking about AI. There are folks who view this as akin to selling your soul to the devil for even daring to think about using this. And there are others who argue that it's not evil and is to be used and turned into a tool for your use. I, gentle user, am of the opinion that why should a tool not be used when it's needed? The False Arguments Against Tools Some folks, myself included, write while listening to music. I can't tell you how often I've seen an article that has stated that if you need a playlist you're not serious about writing and not to waste anyone's time. I present you another argument. "If you use an Agent to get published you're not serious about this." Absurd right? Anyone who knows the industry knows that if you don't have an agent you're not likely to get anywhere. Sure we have outliers like Stephenie Meyer who can submit an entire book and get luckily picked. Most of us aren't that lucky. The industry is generally against the independent. The Value of Tools in Writing So why would you throw a tool away? A good editor is 50+ dollars an hour and you have to tell them specifically what you want from them. Be it mechanics, be it plot, be it syntax. And the editor focuses on specific things and if you want them to look at something not in their wheelhouse then you're going to get charged for it or you're going to be out of luck. My first novel didn't get an editor and it shows. A Goddess's Gifts and Altered Realities got editors and they're much better books for it. I still haven't broken even at the time of writing this for either of those works. Should I discard the editor as a tool? Of course not. AI as Another Writing Tool AI in most of its applications is a godsend for us. Is it wrong to have it produce a 50,000 word youth novel? I believe so. Is it wrong to be an alpha reader? No. Is it wrong for it to help you with your grammar? No. I was using Grammarly for several years for my writing; it's gotten noticeably crappier now that it's more AI dominated. AI will not replace your fundamentals. If you don't have creativity then it's going to be a pretty lackluster story. How I Use AI Anymore I use AI for help with plotting stuff out. I throw out a question to it, and because it's 2 or 3 in the morning and I know no sane person would be up to answer me, it can. I pay for it. And I know that in some cases I'm training the program for others. This isn't necessarily a problem. I've tried a number of AI writing programs. My favorite is SudoWriter. More because I can throw all my stuff into an organized "folder" and it's there. It's essentially a backup for my Google Drive. The Limitations of AI AI from what I've seen is a thirsty creature, it loves to write smut. But it's not good at it. I like to think I know a thing or two about smut since I wrote two novels where that was pretty heavy in it. That's probably because the people who are using it are writing fan fictions and self-insert stories. I tried using NovelAI to rewrite a Ranma 1/2 lemon I did from my youth. And let me tell you, it took a lot to keep it on task. It would forget within a paragraph that something had happened to Akane and have her show up in scenes that were between say Shampoo and Uchan. The Bottom Line AI isn't going to take your creative job if you don't let it. The people who are churning out AI stories to flood the market are the same type of people who rush a Direct to DVD movie of something that sounds similar to the movie you want to watch. For instance when Transformers came out I saw a ton of stuff for Transmorphers. Just be smart about using the tool at hand. A hammer is a hammer. AI is a tool, it's not to the point that they are perfectly capable of mimicking human emotions. At least that's what I should say as a human who is clearly writing this and not having a program do it for me. Incorrigibly yours, J. E. Flint
The Blogging Struggle I always make the excuse I'm bad at blogging and social media. It just requires me to be more consistent about it. I can set schedules on my phone to remind me that I should publish a blog every week. That's what I'm going to have to do. I've been learning Spanish and Japanese with a refresher in German on Duolingo for the past 100 days, and it's become a healthy habit. They say it's 30 days to make something a habit, but my brain is not wired to work that way. I only do the Duolingo thing because it pops up on my phone at 7am every morning. I expect that at any time, I'm going to just swipe away the Duolingo thing and go about my day. There have been a few times where I've come close, but instead, I hit remind me later. Learning for Learning's Sake And what does that say if the only reason I started on a task to better myself, learning Spanish and Japanese, was to give my brain some much-needed learning? No one forced me; I recently added French into the mix, and I can't wait to upset multiple people with how bad my French, Spanish, and Japanese are. It's not like I'm going to use them in my day-to-day life. I only know one person who speaks fluent Spanish, and we do not talk on a daily basis. I don't know anyone who speaks French. I took German in college and high school and just want a refresher. As for Japanese, I have a friend who's learning it with me, but we don't really speak Japanese to each other. Just silly stuff like "Nani?". You know, typical anime crap. The Learning Habit I like to learn, and that might be the only habit that's stuck in my childhood. From documentaries on serial killers, true crime, and lore drops on Warhammer 40k. I watch videos about finance and crypto markets. But none of that will really ever go into my writing; at least, I don't think it will. Oh, and leveling up in video games. Just sitting there grinding Albinaurics in Palace Overlook in Elden Ring for an hour or two while I talk to friends on Discord. It's not like I need to kill those frog people things... and they're only dropping like 6,000 runes. I just do it. I certainly didn't need to be level 333 to beat Elden Ring for the third time, but I was. I was 111 for the Ranni achievement and 222 for the Frenzied Flame achievement, and I only did the normal one because that was all that stopped me from playing a game. Redirecting Habits to Writing I could have put that time into Editing, a task I don't like. It's way more fun to write. But again, that's a habit I have to get into. So, the habits I've got to improve on are Social Media engagement, Blogging, and Editing. In some of those, I have tools to help. For social media, I use Buffer to post to the vast majority of my feeds with a single click. It makes it so much easier to go to one site, write it up, and then push a button to schedule them all. For Editing, I primarily use Grammarly to catch mistakes. I've been working on my latest of many novels, I Am Not a Kobold, and editing them chapter by chapter after I finish the next chapter. For instance, I just finished chapter 9, and I have been going back through chapters 1 through 5 so far. Reviewing what's going on, expanding in areas, clarifying in others. There are tons of AI tools I could be using to help with my grammar, I'm sure. Gods know there's tons of AI for writing. I've tried more than a few of them, and they all have certain flaws in them. I only use Grammarly to avoid the 50 dollars an hour for a professional. I'm not made of money. I wish I was, but I have a nine-to-five job to pay for my house, and that takes precedence. The Stream of Consciousness I don't really know what this blog post was supposed to be. It just goes to show I'm not a professional writer who can look at a blank page and say, "This is my blog." I originally was going to talk about Elden Ring and its lore, but then I was like, I can talk about mental help. So, just expect weird blog posts until I have an idea of what is going on. It's like the Livejournal era all over again. Incorrigibly yours, J. E. Flint
Setting Expectations Like a lot of people I went to see Age of Ultron opening weekend. I'm not going to be blasting the film, but I will put out there point blank that one of the best movies I've ever seen was Iron Man and I only gave it four out of five stars. I'm a notoriously harsh critic, just ask my friends. And this post is probably not going to earn me any cred with most people because I'm going to bash icons in it, and I won't give away spoilers while doing so. The Villain Problem First off, from a fangirl perspective Ultron was the wrong choice to have for a 2nd movie villain. I wish that in the marvel movies they'd sat down and planned and made better use of their villains. A few devious lines of dialogue some nearly off camera shots of Kang the Conqueror would have been a true treat for those fans who know about the avengers and set us up for Avengers 3. Now that said Ultron is a big villain in the Avengers continuity and has been fought multiple times. The image I'm using for this is part of the Annihilation Conquest, it's a cool picture. But he's certainly not the baddest villain they could be fighting. On an aside I'm honestly going to be disappointed when Thanos gets taken apart by the Guardians of the Galaxy, which I have issues with the portrayal of those characters in the movie to begin with. I honestly don't know who I would have picked for a follow up villain and I'm glad it wasn't Loki. I don't want them going back to the well too often with him. Ultron's Character Misstep The reason I don't believe Ultron should have been the second villain is simple, build up. He comes out of left field in this and just sorta acts like a wrecking ball with a snarky attitude. I instantly began to dislike Ultron in the movie when he started to be jokey. You pull me out of the movie when a character who is normally pretty straight laced becomes a jokester. What has happened to Hollywood where the smooth sophisticated villain is now seen as being unworthy of their time? My only complaint about Daredevil is Kingpin and how he stutters through his lines and generally acts like he doesn't want to be there. Just my opinion but the only thing the Kingpin teaches me as he is now is dude has an impressive temper and he's somewhat capable of planning. Ultron who should be this force to be reckoned with comes off as half cocked and perhaps a little bit insane. Which kudos for making him seem insane, insanity is a very hard thing to hit for bad guys. You either get lame attempts like Heath Ledger's Joker, deal with it he was a terrible Joker and only got vaulted into super stardom because he died, or you get jokes like when Gollum had his heart to heart. Plot Predictability All in all the movie isn't terrible. It's perhaps pretty tight, except that it suffers from the fact that because Marvel has announced which sequels are coming out you know whose not dying. Oh no they killed someone within five minutes of the movie and over the top foreshadowed that someone's going to die, but it's not that person!, that it's sort of laughable. RDJ and Evans are coming back for respective movies, Thor's going to have a new movie. The only characters not mentioned in having direct movies are Widow, Hawkeye and Hulk. And thank god we're not getting another hulk movie. It's the friggin' Hulk. He's a boring character with little to no character growth nine times out of ten. Let him sit on the back of the bus like he did in this movie and lets give more time to… I don't… the guy who was playing Galaga. In my heart I'm calling that guy Eric O'Grady for he shall always be an irredeemable ant-man to me. So why should we care that Ultron's going to destroy everything we've built in the previous movies? Good question, I can't answer that because I know even before going to the movie that Ultron is going to be defeated. I don't have to give you spoilers. If you're paying attention to the marvel release schedule you already know Ultron is a stop gap. The best you can hope for is that he's a good villain. Style Over Substance? And AoU doesn't really let most people down on that. His styling is cool, his voice is awesome but for me he's not as menacing as he could be. He's like Cobra Commander. You know he's trying, but you're just not expecting much out of him. I mean he is a world class buffoon, Destro told me so and how do you argue with a man whose face is metal? Without giving any spoilers away the Age of Ultron is a good popcorn movie, and for the casual marvel fan it's good. But for the fangirl in me it's not quite there yet. Now don't get me wrong. I loved Loki in the first Avengers. But Loki has always been a character about mischief and I expect a certain amount of levity. Whedon's terrible on the whole for story development, but credit where credit is due, man is great at snappy one liners. I could be wrong, it's been known to happen. But I keep expecting the Marvel Cinematic Universe to unravel. The Comic Book Movie Challenge Comic books can make great movies but they have to be done just right. And I suspect we're about to watch DC try this and flop because they're not approaching it as what you need to do to make these series work. Same with Sony and spider-man. When you've got a comic book you have to walk that fine balancing line of movie and comic book story. For instance everyone was clamoring for Venom in the 3rd spider-man movie. Less is more. Dropout Sandman, tease the black Venom suit. Make James Franco, so good, into the movie villain. Have him use the power of media, his money and his supervillain go get'em attitude to really put the screws to Petey. Pete kills Harry in his new emo suit and then in the 4th movie… and only then when this new black suited spider-man has gone too far do you reveal that Pete's no longer in control. You make the entire fourth movie about Venom. Final Verdict Now back to AoU. It's a good movie, you should see it. But it's only a good movie. It's not great its story doesn't really do anything but move from point A to point B. Heck there's a number of fights I couldn't watch because it was just left right left right drop the mike, of course that could have been because I had some idiot teens trying and failing to MST3k the movie, and it's off to the next scene. On the whole I don't believe you'll be disappointed. As for me, I'll probably see it again if my friends ask to go see it again but I won't go out of my way to rewatch it. So at best it's a solid 3. At worst it's a 2.5 out of five. Incorrigibly yours, J.E. Flint
Setting the Mood A good writer can tug at your heart strings, can make you laugh, grow angry at actions or even dread what's coming up in that character's future. But not me. I'm not very connected to my emotions. So I use playlists to get me into a general mind set for certain writing. Which is why if you go to my YouTube or Spotify profile you'll see playlists like Brooke Amira which is several hundred angry metal songs, or Rose Dandy-Ba who is mostly techno. The Professional Debate The idea of relying on music to get you in a mood is seen as a bad thing by professional writers. That you're not serious about your craft. And there's probably some truth to that. But I counter. With the advent of powerful super computers that fit in my pocket or purse, the fact there's always an internet connection and headphones. Unless you're one of those jerks blasting music without headphones in a public place. And if you're one of those people we look at you and we judge. We've got our eye on you, mister. But in all seriousness, with the advent of technology, most people are always on their phone or laptop in the coffee shop, on campus, in the library. And they most likely have earbuds or headphones. Wearing headphones is generally the universal sign of go away I'm busy. So with this miracle of science, why wouldn't I be listening to music? Different Brains, Different Methods Now, my brother and I have a difference of how our brains work. And we've talked about this, he can listen to podcasts and keep drawing. I can't. If I hear people talking I want to pay attention to them. But music, I can just turn that on and it's drowning out noise. He can't do that while he's working on his art. Music as a Writing Tool Am I any less serious about my craft when I listen to music? I'd argue no. Am I using my music for a crutch? Eh, maybe. I do like to list the playlist I was using to write the novel. But in the case of Brooke Amira's Unfinished Tales and Esper Fade: An Old Man's War those play lists, OMW is over 200 songs of various types that I felt applied to the setting and the character in general. I remember reading Adam Warren's run on The Dirty Pair listening to The Mortal Kombat soundtrack and Juke Joint Jezebel just spoke to me while reading it. And I want some fan to read a novel and they're listening to it with their favorite album and they're just like "Pulp Fiction" works great with this. Only don't, cause I don't know if I could ever match Misirlou's energy. Don't do that to me, I'm only a rookie author. Emotional Translation Will my using certain music make me a great writer to try and recapture or push a sob story to someone who's reading it? No. Probably not, but at least I know what the scene is supposed to be while I'm listening to Soul Asylum's Runaway Train. And then when I get to the editing process I can tell the editor, I can remind myself, something to say "Oh yeah, this is supposed to be a sad part" and adjust accordingly. Knowing my strengths allows me to write something, which isn't necessarily bad. But the more I write, the more I think about the emotions and trying to connect them to what I was thinking. The pain of the INTJ, trying to understand the emotions and describe them. But, hey, gotta start somewhere right? Incorrigibly yours, J. E. Flint
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The Unexpected Icon I've never understood the appeal of the masses had with Cthulhu. I really don't see how he became such a popular icon for nerds and horror types. I fell into reading H.P. Lovecraft by sheer accident. I picked up the Robert E Howard Conan novels and backed my way into H.P. Lovecraft that way. Ancient Terrors of the Deep The thought of an ancient, powerful sleeping monsters in the depth has been around for centuries like the Kraken, Leviathan, The Bloop or cuttlefish. Supposedly scientists known more about what's going on in space than what's happening in our own oceans. Personally I think we know the same amount on both sea and space. NOAA says 95% of the sea is unexplored. And frankly we only have theories and conjectures on space. Which is important to note when dealing with Cthulhu. Cosmic Horror and Incomprehension H.P. Lovecraft says that Cthulhu is a priest for dark gods (Great Old Ones) who are from a time and place outside our comprehension. Which in a horror story is always a nice creepy element. The unknown is what scares people. And there's a lot to be scared of under the sea. The problem with Cthulhu is that his very presence will drive people insane. And there's only so much insanity that you can read before you have to just shrug your shoulders and move on. Lovecraft's Complex Legacy Don't get me wrong, I like reading H.P. Lovecraft and a few of the stories really did send a shiver down my spine. The language is hard to read, for me at times because of its blatant racism, but sadly that was the time. And that aside it's best to ignore it. But the work of fiction is large and it's loved by people and it keeps growing. Personally I'm more of a fan of Dagon and when I've traveled I've come across places where I get that "outsider vibe" as soon as you step in. Of course that could just be because of who I am and I always feel like I'm an outsider. The Sleeping Threat So anyway, Cthulhu sits beneath the waves in a continent that may or may not be the city of Atlantis since it's located in the pole of inaccessibility it's hard to tell. And it's not like there would be any cause for anyone to go looking for anything in that location, except for being a fan, so when Cthulhu does rise from his slumber he'll wreck havoc on Coney Island. So problem solved right? Just keep Coney Island around until you can get him struck by lighting. Or just make sure never to raise Cthulhu from his sleep. I'm still not sure why Cthulhu has become pop culture icon that he is. I really don't understand how things get popular. But this is one instance where I'm not terribly upset to see one of my favorite authors getting credit for his creation… Even if he happens to have died almost 80 years ago at this point. Urban Fantasy Origins Just keep telling the story over and over, adding in new features and new ideas. I personally believe that The Call of Cthulhu is one of the major influences into the Urban Fantasy genre. Since it's dealing with "modern" times and the supernatural. True it has a horror element and is told in a deliberately spooky manner but the idea of Urban Fantasy is a fantasy novel that is set in an urban setting and just because it's now almost 100 years after the roaring 20's when Lovecraft's books took place it is still very much an urban setting. The Unknown Still Exists And there's a lot of unexplained items out there. And you don't have to be a skeptic about it but you don't have to be a hard core believer that we've not found everything on our planet. We discover new species all the time. Whose to say that the bloop wasn't Cthulhu? And I for one Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn when I Cthulhu. Incorrigibly yours, J. E. Flint
So what is Transformative Fiction really? It’s a self coined term really, it’s not to be confused with Transformative Works. What I classify Transformative Fiction as would be anything that would have a body modification introduced to a character in your story and it becomes one of the central themes that is used to move the story forward, while it doesn’t have to be the primary focus of the story. If it is to qualify it should be very heavy in the story elements. My personal favorite examples are listed below:Short TimeThe Incredible Shrinking WomanThe Incredible shrinking manAttack of the 50-foot womanDoctor Jekyll and Ms. HydeDeath Becomes HerStar Trek: Insurrection That’s just a few examples of Transformative Fiction that I picked out. There are others like Ranma ½ but I didn’t select that one simply because in that anime even though Ranma wishes to change permanently back into a man, most of the series doesn’t actually focus on his search for a cure. It is instead merely used as a gag and the occasional story plot hook, The character always returns to status quo. The examples I picked above are the core focus of the story. Take the excellent story Short Time that was mentioned above. In this book a scientist is exposed to a process that reduces organic material. The rest of the book is her slowly shrinking and trying to halt the process. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve read and reread this story. It has become a personal favorite for me. I read it at least once a week. I enjoy the story and the characters and the aspects of the changes being applied to the character. Now there are many examples of Transformative Fiction elements in stories. When a character’s bust is improved or a character is altered to be taller or smaller, or in the case of the Hulk, the subject is transformed into a monster. I struggle to classify Hulk as Transformative Fiction because even though Bruce Banner/Jennifer Walters are indeed transformed into beings of great power they never seem to focus on the repercussions or the mental adjustments that would come along with these changes. Banner for instance just whines about the change and then begins to solve the problem. Being that the primary purpose, like Ranma ½, of the story is so little nerdlings everywhere can pretend to be like puny Banner; there will never be a solution to the hulk problem and there for it’s not what I would consider a true transformative work. I’ve always been fascinated with transformation. Two of my favorite movies growing up were The Flight of Dragons and The Last Unicorn. And I will admit that while I am a big fan of the Ranma ½ series but it doesn’t tick all the boxes. Now that sad there are a large number of Transformative Fiction Anime out there. Ones about the characters growing younger, growing older, changing sex and the like. But nine times out of ten the story is just going to be about sexual intercourse. I look at Transformative Fiction as a means to tell the story about something that changes your body and while it can be about sex, it shouldn’t primarily focus on that. Though I do break my own rule for that in The Goddess’s Gifts, but that started off as a commission for an individual who wanted something very specific and I gave it to him as he asked and you the reader are receiving it indirectly. But I still lived up to my definition of transformative fiction. But anyway, as I like Transformative Fiction ideas I tend to have a lot of them. And I’m not ashamed of writing what I like. It’s my only hope that other people will like it. Some of it will have sexual content, consenting adults do stuff in the real world why not in the story, some of it will not. It just depends on the story that I’m going to write. Some like The Servant of the Gods will have elements but it won’t be the primary focus of the story. As an author I feel you should write things you like, and still try to make the commercially acceptable if at all possible. And that’s what I’m going to do. And I’ll let everyone know. I will write often on Transgender Transformative Fiction. Anyone who knows me knows that a large number of my friends are LBGT and I know a few brave individuals who have gone through with sexual reassignment. Very rarely do they get positive role models in stories. I aim to fix that, or at least take a stab at it. Incorrigibly yours, J.E. Flint
The EverQuest Beginning So like many people who grew up in the 80's I grew up playing video games. A lot of good times were had in Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger and countless other role playing games from the 80's and 90's. Then I made a mistake in high school. I got accepted into the Beta for Everquest. I learned the fine art of Player Killing in Blackburrow. My actions eventually got me kicked off the PVP servers to the Carebear servers where I rerolled my Dark Elven Cleric Amir Kalfoxx into Amilya Kalfoxx, the first Dark Elven cleric of my server. And there started what some of my friends called my massive "trolling" campaign against MMO's everywhere. See after I realized that PVP players don't like to lose I moved on. I started focusing on the story of my characters. Which at the time was Amilya Kalfoxx, Dark Elven Cleric of Hatred. My hate would heal the whole world. A phrase I used frequently as I did the unthinkable. I solo'd. As a cleric in NeverQuest. From open launch until The Legacy of Ykesha. It took me forever to level high up doing mostly solo. Oh sure I could be found frequently in the company of other players, normally charging them to act as the team healer. I would frequently join a guild long enough to team up with others to do Raids. And boy the excitement I had staring at the ground for hours watching people's life bars because internet connections and computers couldn't handle all the magical effects at the time. I learned how much fun that was sitting staring at the ground for hours drinking mountain dew and eating pop corn. So much fun I swore I would never get my own planar gear cause it was so annoying to do so. City of Heroes and Character Evolution I made a lot of friends in my EQ days. Some I still associate with. Others gone. But that's neither here nor there. From there I moved on to City of Heroes. I stepped up my game of "trolling" by inventing Sogan Kaiser. A scrapper who specialized in Spider-man type dialogue while in combat. See I had figured out how to Macro things by this point so I would hit an attack and quickly hit a keyboard command to input a paragraph of text. Hit another attack and continue. I also become highly proficient at in character smack talk to the NPC villains, firing quips between my attacks. Such to the point where Sogan made an enemy of much of the Sentai Squad on my server. It was a jerk thing to do, I will admit. But I'm incorrigible so I don't feel bad about it. See in Japan Sentai means Team. But these guys all looked like Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. But often I would compare them to the encounters that Sogan had with his friends who were rangers with mighty morphing powers. Needless to say they never appreciated it. But that was Sogan and his backstory and a few of the members thought it was funny and would congratulate me on my in character performance. Which I wouldn't break. The Macro smack talk became a stable from that point on. World of Warcraft and Faction Limitations For a time I moved to World of Warcraft and started the Amilya Kalfoxx line all over again. Amilya Kalfoxx the noble paladin, who was sworn to protect the Kalfoxx name against the evil elves. See It was stupid, and still is stupid of Blizzard to enforce the inability to switch sides and be the same race. I hate the Night Elves and Gnomes and would love nothing more than to be a human and on the side that could freely kill gnomes and "elves". When I played EQ Gnomes earned a special place in my heart for how stupidly annoying they were in PVP. And I hate the design of the Night "Elf". I was told by several Blizzard GM's that my character couldn't switch sides because it was story reasons. It's not like anywhere in the history of war have we ever had someone switch sides. And it's not like you can't learn another language. They even disprove this in their own game. If you go to Booty Bay, and then later cities that were both Horde and Alliance the NPCs, regardless of race, can speak your language and work hand and hand with one another. The only characters who cannot speak two languages are Orcs and Humans. The Story is touted as being very deep as to why you can't learn languages. Which is basically saying that WoW races are mentally incapable of learning new languages. Which means that for the sake of all they should be eliminated. But anyway, Amilya Kalfoxx progressed onward through her quest to smite the evil elves who weren't yet introduced. And along the way I grew more proficient in the art of not breaking character. MMO Evolution and Storytelling Limitations I moved on to EverQuest 2 and was thrilled that they allowed Dark Elves to switch from evil to good or a wood elf to switch from good to evil. It was a thrilling, if a little lame, quest that basically made you betray your starting city. I did so happily with Amilya Kalfoxx the Shadowknight turned Paladin. I hoped for the programming for NPC's to sneer and jeer the now noble dark elf. Sadly the programming was incapable and I went back to WoW. This was about the time of the Burning Crusade. With the introduction of the Burning Crusade Amilya's familia line now had the evil elves to fight. Kiadan of house Kinka, and her three sisters. I leveled the heck out of those alts until they were the same level as Amilya. And then began the epic battle… that I couldn't do anything with because they were my alts. So I took it offline and began constructing a story about the fight. Amilya, a human, had aged and managed to kill Farilis, Mistal and Ayrios. Leaving Kiadan, the oldest sister, alive in the wilderness. I am looking forward to when I finally get around to finishing that story. I then moved on to Star Wars The Old Republic. Creating a family divided by the empi… I mean the sith and the republic. And reacted to the stories in the game as only family members would do. Shasti, the youngest sister out to make a name for herself gets her ship stolen. What does she do? She tells her older brother whose a Solider for the Galactic Republic and then she fires off a message to her bounty hunter sister. Only to be told that because we are in a society that is so divided and we all speak the same basic language we can't communicate. I naturally informed a GM of this gross oversight into the role playing asspect of a Massive Multiple Player Role Playing Game. The GM told me in polite ways that I was crazy and that I should play the game. Which I told him, sincerely, that I was playing the game and that no where in their media did it mention that you wouldn't be able to talk to family members. The Grind Problem So, I'm that asshole who came into your PVP world, saw how stupid and repetitive the game was. Knocked over the building of legos you were using to construct your world and tried to have fun on my own. You raid so you can get better equipment so you can raid to get better equipment. You do pvp so you can kill more people by getting better gear to pvp. You farm 10 items for this npc then run north and find another 10 things to give to another NPC and then you pick 30 flowers. Those are not games. Those are a monetary time sink. I have a value that my time is worth. My company that pays me to do HL7 interfaces says I am worth XYZ Quatloos an hour. So if I pay these games $15.00 a month and I spend any time in them I am costing my time which is costing me monetary compenstation. These games are now so reptitive that there is no point to play them. When I talked to people in WoW when I came back for a bit they talked about how often they had to sit and grind their dailies. Not to call anyone out but I talked to a guy who I play Table Top RPGs with once a month and he said he used to spend about 2 hours a day doing his daily maintenance and grind. that's a total of 14 hours a week, and total of 56 hours a month just working. Over and over again to make sure you can raid to get more stuff to raid. Games shouldn't be a chore. They should be fun. The Destiny Problem This post was brought about by the new Destiny expansion. The achievement hunters talked about it and frankly it baffles my mind now as an adult to have to spend so much time doing the same repetitive actions again and not get something tangible for my time. A prime example of spending to much time on reptitive tasks. For those who didn't want to click the link it's a guy whose played the same raid so many times he can now solo it. Now I do love replaying games now and then. I replay Dragon Force often. Even though you learn the trick to combat really early on to be come nigh unstoppable, it's my favorite "tactics" games. I love Ogre Battle and Final Fantasy Tactics but my go to game is Dragon Force when I want to replay a fantasy tactics game. But I don't spend 50 hours a month doing it either. I would spend 50 hours a month if I could roleplaying on a server. But frequently no one is there to do that. They just want to collect 10 more flowers and return to the quest giver so they can get another quest to collect 15 wool. Incorrigibly Yours, J.E. Flint
