Category: holidays

            Well, it’s that time of year again.  Time to cue up that playlist of holiday music and pick out your stack of favorite movies.  Maybe you go a little more unconventional with your choices, maybe you stick to the classics, but whatever your flavor is, I’m sure there’s a lot of them.

            Hell, holiday movies are pretty much a solid, dependable genre at this point.  Just between Hallmark and Netflix, I think there’s forty or fifty new ones just for this year alone.  I worked on one ten years ago and it still gets heavy circulation.  People go nuts about the “plague” of superhero movies, but seriously—Christmas movies are the real machine.
            Anyway…

            We laugh at a lot of these and roll our eyes because they often feature some kind of painful romance.  And that’s what I wanted to talk about.  Where that awkwardness comes from and why these stories kinda keeps us at arms length rather than pulling us in.
            The standard Christmas movie goes something like this.  A young woman (it’s almost always a woman) falls for a guy who’s a few weeks away from getting engaged, married, etc.  The two of them have chemistry, while his girlfriend/ fiancé rages away at her job or as a larval Bridezilla or maybe just as a generally awful, awful person.  Eventually the guy comes to see the error of his ways and our two impossibly good-looking people end up together just in time to kiss on Christmas Eve.

            I’ve talked about this general type of romantic triangle once or thrice before, and before we dive in at might be worth going back and glancing over that real quick—it sums up the ground rules of how and why these triangles work.

            Y’see, there’s a really basic flaw in how a lot of these holiday movies set up that triangle.  It’s why they always come across as a bit weird and the protagonists always seem a bit… well, wrong.  And I think it’s one of those things that’s really easy for me to avoid once I see it all laid out

            Let’s use that basic structure up above for our example.  Our test story, so to speak.  Amy (A) has a meet-cute with Bob (B), who is in a relationship with Kat (C, just to keep you on your toes).  Amy and Bob have chemistry, Kat is bordering on (if not openly) awful and clearly wrong for Bob.  And it’s Christmas because… y’know, that’s when this always seems to happen.

            Now, normally in a romantic triangle situation like this, our protagonist would be Bob.  Bob, after all, is the one who needs to make a choice here, right?  He needs to be active and decide if he wants to be with Amy or Kat.
            But…

            Our protagonist is Amy.  And the only way I can make Amy active in this situation is to make her… well, kinda unlikable.  If she does anything to improve things with Bob—all those standard romance bonding moments like long talks and quiet dinners and heartfelt discussions about shared passions—it kinda means she’s undercutting Bob’s relationship with Kat.  Which is a little rough, morally, no matter what we think of Kat.
            And geeeeez, if things get physical to almost any level, well, now they both look bad.  Amy’s making moves on somebody in a relationship.  Bob’s in a relationship and hooking up with someone else.  I mean, how bad does Kat have to be for us to be cool with Bob cheating on her?  And if she’s not that bad, then… well, yeah, he’s a jerk.

            And, yes—sometimes odd things happen between people in really specific situations.  Everybody reacts differently to stress and fear and all that.  Firm embraces may happen.  Maybe even a kiss or odd proclamation.  But that’s a reeeeeeeeeeeeeeally fine line.  Scary fine.  It’s so easy for that situation to go from understandable and excusable to what-the-hell inappropriate.

            Y’see, Timmy, when Amy’s this point in the triangle, she isn’t the one with a choice to make. Not a real one, anyway. She has two options. She can do nothing (which ends the story pretty quick) or she can try to disrupt Bob and Kat’s relationship. Those are her only paths, as far as our plot goes, and neither of them is a great one from a storytelling point of view.

            I think when writers do this, they’re confusing the outcome with the choices that lead to it. We’ve all heard “the ends justify the means,” but this tends to ignore the fact that the means I use also determine what kind of end I get. There are tons of ways Amy and Bob can end up together, but a lot of them can be paths that make one of them—or both of them—characters we don’t really like or care about. In some cases, we may even be actively rooting against them. Cause they’re horrible people.
           Don’t worry about outcomes. Outcomes are the conclusion of a story.  Think about the path to that outcome. The choices my character has to make in order to get there. 

            Because those choices are my story. They’re my plot.  And if there aren’t any real choices, or they’re all being made by supporting characters, or they’re the wrong kind of choices, or they’re just all bad ones… well…

            I shouldn’t be too shocked if people think it’s a bad story.

            Speaking of stories, here’ s one last reminder that books make fantastic holiday gifts, and to maybe check this out if you’re having trouble affording things this year.

            Next time, I wanted to talk a little bit about time.

            Until then, go write.

            Well, it’s that time of year where some ugly truths must be addressed.  Artists only get to make art because they get paid.  Artists get paid when people buy their art.

            I’m going to talk to you about buying stuff.

            However…

            While I do one of these lists every year, I find myself in a weird place right now.  Y’see, I technically haven’t had anything new come out this year.  Which hasn’t happened in… well, about ten years.  I think the last time I didn’t have something new come out—a novel or a story in an anthology or something—was back in 2007.

            Granted, I do have things out in new formats.  Paradox Bound came out in a wonderful paperback this year.  My second novel ever—The Eerie Adventures of the Lycanthrope Robinson Crusoe—finally came out as an audiobook.  But new stuff…

            Look, next year’s going to be crazy.

            Anyway, I figured as far as my s own stuff goes… just look at last year’s list.  Or the links above.  That covers just about everything.  Plus, I’m doing my usual holiday deal/promotion with Dark Delicacies—get in touch with them in the next two weeks or so and you can order a personalized, autographed book.  If they’ve got it, you can buy it, I’ll sign it, and they’ll ship it to you.

            What I thought I’d talk about instead—sort of combining two annual posts into one—is a bunch of the other books I’ve read this year.  There’ve been one or two I didn’t like, a bunch that were really fun, and a couple that were just friggin’ amazing.

            So let me tell you about those.  Then you can go pick them up for somebody special or just add them to your own holiday wish list.

The God Gene by F. Paul Wilson is the latest book in his ICE Sequence series.  It’s a wonderfully creepy story about a missing scientist and evolution.  If you or someone you love likes sci-fi thrillers, this is a great one.  And I think the new one comes out in five or six weeks, so if you like it, there’s barely any wait ‘til the next one.

Kill All Angels is Robert Brockway’s freakin’ masterpiece conclusion to his Vicious Circuit books.  The story of an aging punk rocker and a Hollywoodstuntwoman trying to save the world from Lovecraftian cosmic entities who can unwrite your entire existence.

One of Us by Craig diLouie is a modern masterpiece.  Seriously.  It’s X-Men meets To Kill A Mockingbird, about mutant children growing up in the deep south.  It’s dark and beautiful and—unless something happens in the next four weeks—unquestionably the best book I read this year

Lipstick Voodoo by Kristi Charish is a bit of a cheat on this list.  I got to read it early for blurbs, and it’s not going to be out until early next year.  But if you like the undead, urban fantasy, a bit of naughtiness, and a bit of mystery… you might want to save a gift card for this one.

I kinda stumbled across Copperhead.  It’s a comic book/graphic novel series by Jay Faerber, Scott Godlewski, Drew Moss and it’s just magnificent.  I’ve seen “western/frontier in space” done many times and many ways, but never as well as this.  It’s fantastic visual storytelling and seriously, Netflix… what the hell?  Why aren’t we all binging this right now?

Damn Fine Story by Chuck Wendig is the only non-fiction book on this list.  it’s a wonderful (and very entertaining) piece about the art of storytelling.  Not writing, but the act of telling stories and narratives and so on.  Chuck says a lot of stuff about character and dialogue and structure that I’ve said here on my ranty blog, but he says it in a much more entertaining way.  It really is a must-have book if you’re interested about any form of storytelling.

The Tiger’s Daughter by K. Arsenault Rivera is about two girls with grand destinies ahead of each of them who decide to forge one together.  It’s a beautiful, truly epic story of love, demons, and women with swords.  In my top five of the year, no question.

Atomic Robo by Brian Clevenger & Scott Wegener is one of those comic series I’ve heard about for years but never read until I got a volume as a housewarming gift.  It’s about a sentient robot built by Nikolai Tesla who now carries on his creator’s work of trying to improve the world while also fighting assorted super-villains and monsters out to destroy it.  It’s ridiculously fun and something for the sci-fi/pulp lover in your life.

The Grey Bastards by Jonathan French is a fantasy novel I first heard about a year or two back (Jonathan and I have the same editor).  I’m not usually much of a fantasy guy, but the idea of this was so clever I had to check it out.  Orc gangs that ride actual hogs and patrol their territories, with all sorts of gang rivalries and politics.  It’s fun, exciting, kinda sexy, and just fantastic.

I Only Killed Him Once by Adam Christopher is yet another series ender.  The final story of Ray Electromatic, the robot detective turned hitman in 1950’s Hollywood. This time Ray’s on a case that might lead him to the secrets of his past… but first he has to get his current “client” to stay dead.

Girl Like A Bomb by Autumn Christian is another cheat.  This is a fascinating book about what it really means to be your best, mixed with a healthy dose of sex-positivism (new word?  You know what I mean…), and what it’s like to be the person with the unusual superpower that controls all of this.  Unfortunately for you, this is another “save a gift card”  one—it’s up for preorder now and on sale in the spring.

Constance Verity Saves the World by A. Lee Martinez is more fun with the woman blessed (or cursed) to have a life full of excitement and adventure who really just wants to enjoy settling in to her new condo with her accountant boyfriend.  These books are so much friggin’ fun and if there’s any justice in the world we would see them on the big screen.

            And real quick, you also can’t go wrong with Heroine’s Journey by Sarah Kuhn, Kill the Farmboy by Delilah Dawson & Kevin Hearne, Zeroes by Chuck Wendig, or any of the Sandman Slimbooks by Richard Kadrey.  And I may add to that previous sentence in the next week or two.

            And there you have it.  A bunch of my favorite things I read this year (even if they’re not available quite yet).  Please feel free to add any favorites of your own in the comments below.

            And also, despite all the reference links up above, please think about going to your local bookstore or comic shop to pick up one of these or get it ordered for you.  It may cost you a dollar or two more—and I realize dollars can add up fast this time of year—but you’re supporting local businesses and not the monolithic corporate giants.  That’s something you can humblebrag about until New Year’s Eve, easy.  “Oh yeah–I look for stuff on Amazon, but then I only buy from my neighborhood store.”

            And also-also—if this is all too much for you, financially, please don’t forget my regular Black Friday offer.

            Happy Holidays.

            Back to writing-related stuff on Thursday.

            So, hey, at the risk of being a bit of a killjoy, let’s talk about Black Friday and the holidays and being poor for a couple of minutes.

            Actually, no.  Let’s talk about moving and forgetting your wallet.

            Well, about me moving and forgetting my wallet.

            Because it happened.  As some of you know, I bought a house this year.  But I was also trying to finish a book, which meant I didn’t really have time to move.  So for a few months my partner and I did this slow dance of packing up a few things and driving them down to the house whenever we could.

            I was doing this back in June and noticed about halfway through the drive that I was low on gas.  And quickly discovered I had forgotten my wallet.  I shouted in the car a lot, and then the dread creeped in.

            Dread I was, alas, all too familiar with.

            I spent the next hour watching the gas gauge creep down, hoping I was going to make it and just kinda knowing I wouldn’t.

            I ended up at the Arco gas station just off Via de le Valle.  No gas.  No money.  Just trapped and powerless.

            That’s what being poor is.  Pretty much a constant feeling of being trapped and powerless.  Of having no agency, as some might like to say.
            And, yeah, I’m speaking from experience. I grew up kinda poor at points in my childhood, but when I became a full time writer I was very poor for almost three years. Phone-shut-off-and-stealing-toilet-paper-from-the-library poor.  All-our-shopping-at-the-99-Cent-Store poor.  I had a chance to sit down with Shane Black for a coffee or two as part of a work assignment and I had to turn it down.  I didn’t have enough money to buy a coffee, and possibly not even enough to get me across the city to where he was.  Yeah, I didn’t have enough money to go work.
            Being poor is just a constant feeling of tension.  Of being painfully aware of what you don’t have and what you can’t do.  And in today’s climate… hell, for the past ten or fifteen years, a lot of people have made it painfully clear that they judge you because of that.  They find you lacking as a person because of your poverty.

            And it’s even worse at the holidays.  Because so much of the holidays is about giving, and when you’re poor you just… you’ve got nothing to give.  It doesn’t matter how much you care about that person, it doesn’t matter how much you want to.  It doesn’t matter because you’ve got nothing.

            And again… you can feel people judging you over it.  At every office party or gathering of friends or family dinner.  Judging you for being trapped and powerless.
            It sucks.
            At which point… I would like to tell you about the redheaded woman in the sundress who came to my rescue.  She parked across from me at the Arco, started pumping gas, I begged her to take pity on someone moving and if she could spare three dollars.  Three dollars of gas could get me home.  Or to the big empty house that would hopefully soon be home.

            And she smiled and said sure.  And offered me her credit card.

            Dead serious.  She just swiped her credit card on my pump and told me to pump whatever I needed so I could get where I was going.

            Thank you, mystery redhead.  You were—and are—fantastic.

            There are good people out there.  People who want to help.  Especially at this time of the year.

            So if I can help some of you avoid feeling that miserably low this season—the low I had to feel for those Christmases—I’d like to do it, as I have on Black Fridays past.

            If you’re feeling trapped and powerless because you can’t afford gifts for your family or friends, shoot me note at PeterClines101@yahoo.com.  I’ve got sixteen or seventeen random books that I’ll autograph to whoever you want and mail out to you—or to someone else, if you need it shipped.  I’ll even gift wrap if you need it.  I’ll send them out for as long as the books last (or until it gets too close to the holidays). You can request a specific book but I can’t promise anything on that end. 

            You know what?  I’ve got two or three audiobook sets, too.  Those big wallets of CDs.  If audiobooks work better,  just say so.  I still can’t promise which one you’ll get, but if it’d be better for the person you’re gifting, just say so.

            And look—every year people offer to chip in and help me out with this.  You don’t need me to do that.  You can go be fantastic people all on your own.  I guarantee, there’s a toy bank or gift bank or food bank or some kind of program within ten miles of you right now.  You could help out with that.
            Again, this is only for those of you who need some help getting gifts for others. The people who are pulling unemployment, cutting back on everything, and feeling like trapped because they can’t afford gifts for family or friends.  It’s not so you can recommend someone who might like a free book.  You could do that for them, too—go get them a book.
            Also… I’m also doing this on the honor system, so if you’re only trying to save yourself some money or score an autographed book, I won’t be able to stop you.  Just know that you’re a deplorable person and you’re taking a potential bright moment away from someone who needs it this holiday season.  And you’ll probably burn in the fiery pits before Krampus feeds your cajun-fried corpse to a squale.

            Happy Holidays.

            Okay as we inch closer to a happy Halloween, I wanted to take a moment to address something I see pop up a lot in horror stories.  Not only horror stories, but in my experience it seems the most common with them.

            Plus, as I said, it’s the season…

            Remember this story?  A bunch of people get mysteriously summoned to some remote location (often some kind of mansion), start getting picked off by some kind of ghouls or ghosts, and then discover—oh, crap!  We’re the descendants of the people who did this awful thing fifty/ a hundred/ two hundred years ago.  And now these ghosts want their sweet vengeance.

            I’ve seen a few variations off this, and you probably have, too.  Phoebe’s perfectly happy to live in everybody’s shadow… until she isn’t. Yakko’s seemed perfectly sane… until it’s revealed he’s been completely mad the entire time we’ve known him!  That statue’s sat quietly in the museum since the 19th century… until sundown today, when it opened a portal to hell.

            So here’s my important question for you.

            Why now?
            Why is this happening now?  What made super-shy Phoebe decide this is the week she has to ask Wakko out to the upcoming dance?  Why did Yakko’s mask of sanity finally slip away?  Why did the ancient portal open in the museum tonight?  Why did the ghost choose this weekend to send out the summons to its deadly party? 
            Why now… and not a dozen times earlier? Why not six days ago?  Or six months ago?  Or six decades, in some of these cases?

            The real issue here is motive.  Why is my character doing this?  And a big part of motive is knowing why they’re performing these particular actions at this particular time.  Even for things like ghosts or ancient portals, something has to be kicking them off.

            Let’s look at those ghosts again (it is Halloween, after all).  I mean, those ancestors did their awful thing a hundred and fifty years ago.  There’s at least five generations between them and my characters.  Has everyone been getting mysterious invites out to the old mansion?  How the hell did any of them ever have kids, then?  Or have the ghosts been really incompetent up until now when it comes to reaping sweet vengeance and none of my relatives ever bothered to mention it?

            And if mom and dad and grandma and grandpa haven’t been getting invites… well, what’ve the ghosts been waiting for?  Is tonight an anniversary of some kind?  A cosmic alignment?  Did one of the realtors spill an urn of ashes or unlock the attic or decide they’re bulldozing this place on Monday?

            I’ve touched on this idea before—plot being active while story is more passive.  Even if the ghost are my antagonists (and dead), they’re still characters with their own story.  What’s happened that’s made them finally spring into action?  Either they’ve been doing it all along—which would imply a history and a bunch of evidence from previous attempts—or something has changed.  Drastically changed, in some cases. What outside force has caused this story to happen now instead of… some other time?

            Y’see, Timmy, writing a book—any kind of book—is kinda like solving a crime.  I need to know all the motives.  All the answers to what and whyand how and when.  I may not have characters blatantly explaining them within my story, but they should definitely be there if people look for them.

            Because if they’re not there…

            Well, then I’m writing a really lifeless story.
            Next time…

            Holy crap.  Next time is November.  The year’s almost over.

            But more importantly (for some of you)… it’s NaNoWriMo.
            Have a Happy Halloween

            And go write.