"Santa Claus Is Leaving Our Planet" Allusion Key

Last week I posted my Christmas story for this year, "Santa Claus Is Leaving Our Planet." Introducing that story, I challenged the reader to first find the correct TV show referred to, and then to find all seven of the allusions to that TV show in the story. If you haven't read that story and attempted to find those references, I recommend doing so before reading further here. If you've read the story and are here to see if you found them all or you don't care, you just want the answers, then read on. If you'd like, post in the comments how many out of eight you got right.

Follow the dots a little ways down to start!

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1) “. . . Santa's sleigh is like a time machine. Santa could be the Doctor for all we know.”

~This is the overt reference to the TV show, Doctor Who, to which I added seven other allusions. The other TV references mentioned or alluded to are Star Trek: the Original Series (in the discussion about how their dad read/sang the song like William Shatner and Andy calls him Captain Kirk) and Mission Impossible (Samantha says, “I have a mission for you, should you decide to accept it.”) Any other references were purely unintentional.

2) He paused, waiting for a reply that didn't come. He was not amused.

~In the 2006 Dr. Who episode, “Tooth and Claw,” Rose tries to get Queen Victoria to say “I am not amused,” a saying attributed to her but without much historical evidence. Rose finally get her to say the phrase at the end of the episode.

3) The corners of his mouth turned up. “Does that mean I get to tape you into a box?”
“Something like that, about the size of a phone booth, I’d suspect. Plus you'll get to ride in Santa's sleigh.”

~The Doctor travels around in a time machine/space ship called a TARDIS, an acronym for “Time And Relative Dimension In Space.” TARDISes can appear outwardly like any common item, but the Doctor’s became stuck as a British police call box—a type of phone booth exclusively used for contacting the police. However, one never sees any other TARDIS (that I recall) look like anything other than a police box until the modern reboot, and is likely that the “stuck” explanation was a later addition from the modern Dr. Who episodes.

4) Santa: “Time is a squishy, slimy reality. Has to be for me, you know.”

~In the 2007 episode titled, “Blink,” the Doctor uses the phrase “wibbily wobbly timey wimey” in explaining how time “operates.” My version here, though not nearly as memorable, should be enough to trigger that connection in any Doctor Who fan.

5) Santa held up a finger. “. . . Not everyone is as smart as me.”

~The Doctor usually sees himself as the smartest and most “clever” person in the room. And usually he’s right. But in recent years that arrogance has been mitigated to a degree, usually by the influence of his companions.

6) Santa nodded. “Now get a seat and hold on. This time-warp stuff gets a little tricky.”

~The Doctor would like to think he’s in full control, but sometimes his time travels don’t go as planned as the TARDIS has a mind of its own. Most notable is the first episode when Matt Smith becomes the Doctor, “The Eleventh Hour” in April of 2010. He miscalculates in returning to young Amy the promised few minutes after he left. Instead he arrives several years later when she’s a young adult. Whoops!

7) Santa pulled a lever, flipped a switch, spun a couple of dials, and then banged on the dash. Lights flashed randomly across the console. A huge tube, swirling with every color of the rainbow, materialized before them.

~Anyone who’s seen the controls of the TARDIS and how the Doctor goes around flipping this switch, pulling that lever, spinning various dials in seemingly random fashion, and sometimes banging on the controls to get them to work, will get this allusion of Santa operating his sleigh for time-warp in a similar fashion.

8) Santa: “Besides, I believe they’ll understand you better than you might think.”

~In Doctor Who, the TARDIS generates an automatic translation effect so as to allow the show’s writers to use English for all alien species and still be relatively realistic. So if Samantha was with the Doctor, she’d have no problems communicating with the aliens in a common language. Santa’s comment to Samantha allude to that aspect of Doctor Who.

The final question to answer: Is Santa Claus from Gallifrey?

Idealism v. Realism

This week I watched the Batman v. Superman movie, Dawn of Justice. I had heard plenty of negatives about it, so I went in with eyes wide open. There are some problems as far as plot goes, for sure. Most movies tend to have them to some degree, but I'd heard that it had too many story lines going, little character development, and deviation from past character history both in comics and movies.

And to a degree, I can understand what they are saying. Without revealing any spoilers, one big difference is the character arc for Superman. This was evident in the first movie, Man of Steel. Traditionally, Superman has been portrayed as a highly moral, righteous, and benevolent god-like being. Why does he use his powers to help people instead of satisfying his own self-interest? Because, he is innately good at heart.

But in Man of Steel, what you get is a more self-absorbed Superman, who ends up involved in the destruction of a lot of property and life, despite his desire to do the right thing. In other words, he's more like us than the selfless, moral, and ethical hero he'd been portrayed previously. That theme continues in Batman v. Superman. As a matter of fact, it is the premise for most of the city protesting Superman, and why Batman sees him as a threat and tries to take him out.

However, this gives Superman a character arc, room to grow. The basic movie plan is that no one is fully faultless and can resist temptations without a struggle. When they find an established, near-perfect character to depict, it is rare to see them stay that way.

Case in point: Faramir in the Lord of the Rings. In the book, he appears to easily resist the temptation to take the ring back to Gondor, and sends the two hobbits off to continue their journey. In the movie, Faramir desires to take it, commands his men to take the two hobbits and the ring back to Gondor. It is only an attack from the Nazgul that he comes to his senses and lets them go. Peter Jackson's reason for that change is that it diminishes the power of the threat for anyone to be able to resist the ring's pull without much effort.

Certainly it made for more tension and interest in the story. It also makes it more “real” in that we know no one who doesn't struggle with temptation to do the wrong thing, to do what is best for one's self-interest, not even within our own lives. We all have our points where we struggle with certain temptations, even if we don't give in to them. Even Jesus struggled with temptations in the desert and in the Garden of Gethsemane.

That said, our stories have a history of putting in the strong character, who may not “grow” through the plot, but act as the ideal of what we should say, do, and be.

Many Christian fiction stories, especially the romance genre, have these characters. Some would say to the other extreme: they never cuss, act unbecoming, avoid sexual situations, always act appropriate in all situations. The perfect Christian.

The problem with that approach, if taken too far, is few can identify with the person. Consequently there is a temptation for the digester of such a story to feel they can't be that person. Give them some faults, temptations, sins and then not only will the reader/watcher identify with the character, but will see the way to grow with the character to reach a more ideal state of being.

That is in part what I think the director is shooting for with this new version of Superman. Without giving anything away, Superman does show the good in him in the end of Batman v. Superman and it is truly heroic. He proves his selfless core. The big difference you see between this Superman and previous versions was the struggle to get to that point as opposed to being there on day 1. It becomes gold refined in the fire as opposed to an innate goodness that everyone sees at first glance. In that sense, we can identify more with his own struggle to figure out what his place in this world is.

It highlighted for me the friction between a perfect role model and real life.

Superman has always been portrayed as an example of virtues to follow contrasted against the gritty realism where it seems evil rules—no one has pure motives. That's the part Batman plays in this film. He's lost all hope that justice can prevail despite all his efforts to combat the evil in his city. In the end, Superman reignites that flame of hope in him.

Good fiction will not be on either extreme of the idealism v. realism spectrum. Just like we experience in reality, most people have their selfless acts and goals to strive for as well as temptations, ugly behavior, and blind spots to their own sins. When a character is portrayed as being purely evil with no redeeming qualities, it isn't realistic. Likewise a character who appears perfect in all points is no one we've ever met either, aside from Jesus Christ Himself.

So what do I think of this modification to Superman and Batman's character arcs, which differ from previous renditions?

First, I can understand people's aghast at seeing Superman smashing through buildings and not saving everyone, even intentionally killing the villain in Man of Steel.

That had never been Superman before. Superman shouldn't be intimidated into doing wrong by a villain. Even Batman doesn't escape this change. For the first time we see Batman regularly toting a gun and shooting people, not to mention the firepower in his car. Batman kills people in this movie, mostly bad guys, but that is a change from the traditional Batman we've seen before.

Second, while that might be a shock to many people's view of the two heroes, it does give room to see their growth to the “Bright Side.”

You catch a glimpse of it at the end of Batman v. Superman. You see the rise from despair to a joyful hope. It does give the viewer a taste of their journey as to how and why they chose to use their abilities for helping others instead of trying to control everyone for their own pride—the definition of a villain.

Third, we finally get to see heroes struggling with what it means to make life and death decisions that can have devastating consequences.

Fighting evil is a messy business and frequently there aren't any perfect solutions to fixing a situation. Doing the right thing can end up hurting someone else and it isn't always clear what the right thing to do is. For instance, Superman could have killed Lex Luther several times in this movie. Doing so would have prevented many others from dying at the hands of Doomsday who Luther brings to life.

But Superman can't kill someone purposefully without a very good cause, as he did at the end of the Man of Steel movie. Fighting to stop Zod may have been the right thing to do, but resulted in whole buildings coming down on who knows how many people, at least in part by Superman's heat vision. It was more like Godzilla than Superman. It shocks our sense of justice that everything isn't packed into a neat and tidy box by the time the movie is over, but that is reality.

To see their character progressions makes the virtue they demonstrate more forceful, inspiring, and that maybe I too can rise above self-interest and use my abilities and resources to help others rather than hording them for my own pleasure and means. So while the previous versions of these heroes have their value in being role models for our kids, they don't always have the inspirational force that our children can be that person. Rather, sometimes it may do the opposite when they become teenagers and discover that they are not all that super of a man or woman. Because they've not seen Superman battle the evil within as he does the evil without. It came naturally to him.

So I'm content to see where this goes before pronouncing final judgment.

It is obvious there will be more character growth in future movies. While Batman v. Superman has its problems, I recommend to see it. So much happens it might take more than one viewing to catch it all. At first it can seem all over the place, but there is a reason for the madness within the movie, save perhaps for some of the future Justice League characters making cameos here and there (why they don't join in and help like Wonder Woman, who knows?)

Without casting aside the value of the previous versions of Superman, I do see the added value of watching our heroes face the real-life difficulties and consequences of their decisions and actions, and struggle with how to overcome them within themselves. They can be just as heroic in that version as the more pure and virtuous heroes we've come to love.

What do you think? Where on the scale of idealism and realism do you think the characters should fall?

Growing Through Tragedy

Good stories are about people encountering conflict and how dealing with it causes the character(s) to become more than they are. Usually stories take that to the extreme. I've often said if I had half of the bad things happen to me that Sisko does in Reality's Dawn, I'd be in a mental ward.

Sometimes, however, bad things do happen to us. Most of us have experienced them. If you haven't, you likely will at some point. The rain falls on the good and the bad. God hasn't promised to prevent tragedy from raining on His children, despite what some prosperity gospel preachers might say.

The real question when tragedy hits isn't "Why me?" It's "Who will I become because of this?"

Like my fictional characters, how will facing painful situations help me to grow as a person? If fiction, especially Christian fiction teaches us anything, it should teach us that attitude.

Earlier this year I revealed that I discovered my wife of 29 years had been having an affair, back in May 11, 2011 upon the release of our book, Healing Infidelity: How to Build a Vibrant Marriage After an Affair. I'd consider that trauma the worst I've had so far in my short life. The betrayal left a wake of destruction for both of us, which after two years, we still deal with.

While there are plenty of negatives from it, God has also made me, made us, better people for having gone through it. Our recovery has made us and our marriage stronger than it has ever been.

This year I'm faced with a new betrayal. My body. I've been officially diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease. It has already cut my typing speed in half. As the years go by, I can expect it to get worse and worse, barring a medical breakthrough. Currently there is no cure, nor do they know what causes it in most cases. It is currently the second largest neurological disorder in the world, so I have plenty of company.

I debated telling very many about this. I'm not doing so to get sympathy. Prayers would be appreciated, though. Nor is it a "woe is me" lament. I mention these things for two main reasons.

One, because these events, bad as they are, have become part of my identity. If you want to know me, those events along with many others make me who I am today. I'm not going to introduce myself to people as a guy with Parkinson's, like some gay people tend to do. But it is part of my history. Barring God removing this "thorn," it will be my future.

Two, to show that God can take what was meant for evil and bring good out of it. God can use this disease to make me a better person, closer to Him. He can use it toward my salvation.

How? I probably don't know all the ways He'll do that. But I've already got one plan in mind. I want to write a fiction book using a person with Parkinson's as the main character and donate the proceeds to the Michael J. Fox Foundation.

The point is the big crisis we face in life can make us or break us. That is the point of most of our stories. It is the point of our lives. That is how we grow.

What crisis in your life has God used for your good?

10 Day Novel Challenge: Day 8, 9, 10

As I'm writing this, today would be the start of day 10. Day 8 was another long day with too much to do, and I couldn't even get to the writing of the novel. Our phones came in, so after waking up at 10, and spending from 12:30 pm to 7:30 pm helping wife clean houses, eating, I then spent the rest of the time until 5:30 am activating the three phones, setting up email and the like, getting data and contacts transferred, installing needed apps, etc. Needless to say I didn't have the energy to make a blog post about it.

So today I started thinking. Originally, I'd planned to keep going on the novel and finish it even though it would take longer than 10 days. However, reality set in. I have an edit that came in on a novel that needs to get done within a month. I also planned on doing final edits and publishing Virtual Game, the third novel in the Virtual Chronicles series, during October. I can't afford to take another 10-20 days to finish this novel, which is the pace I'm currently working at. Fine for a NaNo pace, but this isn't even going to be close to 10 days. So finishing this, doing the edits, and being ready for NaNo in November just isn't going to happen. Something's got to give. Since the edit is for my publisher, that comes before finishing this novel.

Bottom line: I took the 10 day challenge and lost. Primarily due to slower typing than I used to have, but even at my old typing speed, I still would have only reached 20 something thousand by this point. This past week turned out to be the worst week of the year to attempt this because I've had much less time than normal to devote to such a project. No way I could have known that going in, but it is what it is.

So my plan now is to put this story on the shelf and schedule another 10 day writing challenge to finish it when I can devote more time to it. For now, I'm done with this challenge. I'll get back to a regular blog posting schedule (I've an interesting short story I'll be posting here once I can get it edited), get my novel edit done in the next few days, edit and publish the third novel of the Virtual Chronicles series, plan my novel for NaNo and get that done in Nov. I've got so many projects in the oven right now, its crazy. On top of that, this week, I came up with another novel idea I want to explore in the near future.

I should adjust the above statement a little. I say I "lost," but not really. True, I did lose the challenge itself. Didn't even come close to reaching the goal. But the truth is I mainly won. First, I've got a 10K start to this novel I didn't have before. It is shaping up to be a fun adventure story, and is exciting to see the world and characters develop. I'm liking the story. My main challenge is going to be to make time for it in the near future to finish it, and not forget about it with everything else going on. But the challenge was fun, logging it was educational, and I had fun even if it was mixed with some disappointments and setbacks. I hope those of you following my logs enjoyed reading about my experiences. Some day, however, I will write a novel in 10 days. Now it is a challenge I intend to conquer. Just not at this time. I will live to fight another day.

So the final ending tally on my 10 day challenge is 10164 words in 17.8 hours of writing. Thanks for taking the journey with me.

10 Day Novel Challenge: Day 7

Rose up from my slumber at noon. Received shortly the news from my son that he made a 92 on his final and a B for this latest block at Le Cordon Bleu. Very proud of him as he was struggling with it. Went through my morning routine and checked emails/blogs as I ate breakfast.  Did the dishes, and found out wife would be coming early to pick me up. I proceeded to get ready.

She arrived about 2:40. We head off to clean a house. 3:40, I head out to pick son up from Austin. But we meet on the furthest reach of the bus route, so it is a one hour round trip, not a 2.5 hour round trip. Arrive back in town, stop by the AT&T store to get a sim card for switching phones between wife and son.  I drop him off at home, and head off to meet wife at second job. Arrive there at 5 pm. We work and return home a little before 8.

Son studying to be a chef prepares us a lovely chicken and green bean dinner with some type of wine sauce. Delicious. I watch an episode of DS9 while I eat and catch up on emails.

By now, I'm thinking I should be going after the novel, but I'm feeling drowsy and having a hard time motivating myself. I also think wife may be going to bed soon. Instead, I get interested in the Michael J. Fox show. I would have liked to have watched it, but we don't get much in the way of TV. So I settle for watching a 40 minute interview with Michael done about  a month ago.  Being that the has Parkinson's and I likely do too, I'm very interested in what he is doing. He's had it for 20 years.

As a matter of fact, I have an idea that I will at some point, write a story where the protag has Parkinson's, and donate all proceeds to Micheal's foundation. A future project out there somewhere.

Anyway, I finally start to write at 12:30. Go till 1 am to add 287 words to it. Put wife to bed and get my cashews and prunes. Hot tea I made earlier while doing the dishes from dinner. I'm back at the computer at 2 am and type solid until 3:30, another 886 words. Decided to call it a night since wife expects me to be ready at 12:30 to go clean two more houses. Figures the week I pick to do a 10 day novel challenge ends up being one of the heaviest work load in the last year for me, leaving me limited energy and time for writing. And at my speed, that's a killer on the challenge. I usually have two to three days a week with no work. No days this week.

So my totals for today is 1173 words in 2 hours, averaging 587 words per hour.

10 Day Novel Challenge totals for Dragon City:

Day 1: 2281 words in 3.5 hours (652 w/h avg.)
Day 2: 1907 words in 3.25 hours (587 w/h avg.)
Day 3: 1494 words in 3 hours (498 w/h avg.)
Day 4: 2071 words in 3.45 hours (600 w/h avg.)
Day 5: 0 words in 0 hours (0 w/h avg)
Day 6: 1238 words in 2.6 hours (476 w/h avg)
Day 7: 1173 words in 2 hours (587 w/h avg)

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Novel Progress: 10164 words in 17.8 hours
Words per Hour: 571
Words per Day: 1452

10 Day Novel Challenge: Day 6

Thought about titling today as day 5b.  But decided to keep going  with regular numbering.

Drug myself out of bed at noon. Good almost 9 hours sleep. Started pot of beans going in crock pot, fixed breakfast, and read emails/scanned blogs while eating.  Discovered my package had arrived, but not time to check it out. Had to be ready to go at 1:30, so not much time. Wife showed up a bit late, so we rushed off about 1:40 pm to clean a big house and an office. Returned home a little after 8 pm.  By 8:30, we're eating beans with mushrooms. I catch up on emails while eating.

About 9 pm, I open the Dragon Speak Naturally box up, and proceed to install it. That takes a while, then I go through setting up a profile, registering with support, activating it, and training it to my voice. Start doing some test runs in Libre Office Writer. First problem I had was it kept putting in multiple "well" and "him" mixed in with my words. Tried the help file, but it was no help. Googled it, and came across an article about it. Said it was related to nose and mouth breaths on the mic, and to reposition it.

About the time I tried that, it started giving me a hookerr_nonotifywindow error and stopped working. Another Google search turned up an incompatibility with Adobe Acrobat 10. Followed its instructions and got it working again. Another try, this time with the mic positioned well to the side, I had less insertions of those words, but still there. I'm beginning to think this mic is picking up too much background noise.

By this point, it is 11:30 pm. Wife is getting ready for bed and she needs some attention as she's depressed about the car situation. Not just the hassle of figuring out what we will do, but she really liked that car, so she's in some form of grieving over it being gone. So I spend some time with her until she heads off to dream land.

I move operations into the living room, since I can't talk while she's sleeping. I decide the headset I have is better than the one that came with the program, so I give that a try. No more stray words are inserted randomly, so I decide to attempt some novel writing with it.

I get started at 12:39 am. It is a little slow, because it keeps plugging in the wrong words, failing to put in spaces, capitalize sentences, and such. Plus, I've got to teach it my character's names, like Roth and  Selene. It works, but obviously I've got to get used to it. But I seem to be making a lot of corrections in the text. I stop after 40 minutes of reading. I entered 190 words using that method. An average words per hour of 317. Nowhere near blazing. I can see it can be fast, but make take a little further training to get up to speed.

Meanwhile, I feel I've spent enough time tonight on the thing, and decide to go back to regular typing so I can hopefully get over 1000 words tonight. I move all my stuff back into my room, and start working on the novel at 2:20 am. I go at it solidly for a couple hours, stopping at 4:24 am. I put in an additional 1048 words.

That makes a total for the day of 1238 typed in 2.6 hours. Tomorrow I should have more time, but do have to help wife clean a house and pick up son from Austin to spend the weekend with us. But hope to have more time overall to work on the novel. I may spend some time with Dragon Speak, but unless it starts speeding me up, may not keep using it for this novel. Maybe in time it will work for me.

10 Day Novel Challenge totals for Dragon City:

Day 1: 2281 words in 3.5 hours (652 w/h avg.)
Day 2: 1907 words in 3.25 hours (587 w/h avg.)
Day 3: 1494 words in 3 hours (498 w/h avg.)
Day 4: 2071 words in 3.45 hours (600 w/h avg.)
Day 5: 0 words in 0 hours (0 w/h avg)
Day 6: 1238 words in 2.6 hours (476 w/h avg)

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Novel Progress: 8991 words in 15.8 hours
Words per Hour: 569
Words per Day: 1499

10 Day Novel Challenge: Day 5

I've decided I'm going to take a mulligan today. I feared this might happen. But subsisting on 3 hours of sleep and awake since 7 am this morning, my brain says to me, "What? You want to create something! Hahahahahahahaha!!"

Up at 7, despite the protest of my body, wife and I head out to clean two houses. One of them a small one-hour job. We're done by 11:30 am. We rush to make the 1:15 drive into Austin in 1:10, pick up son from Le Cordon Bleu, and zip down Lamar to arrive at the MHMR building 2 minutes after 1 pm. (Mental Health and Mental Retardation Dept.) Due to him exhibiting some signs of high-functioning autism, we wanted to have him tested, so if he was, he could get additional help. After 3.5 hours of discussions and testing, the psychiatrist determined that he fell in the "unlikely" category, which means essentially, yes, he does exhibit some signs, but not enough to diagnose him as autistic or having aspergers. So that done, we grabbed a bite, took him grocery shopping, dropped him off at his apartment, and took the 1:15 drive back home.

Needless to say, we were tired. But we did discuss the options with our car situation. The mechanic called on our way to Austin to tell us the engine is toast, as I feared. Won't go into all the details here, but it puts us in a pickle. We'll be one-carring it until we come up with a solution. Not likely the "ideal" will work, but maybe God will make a way. Sad  thing is in the last three months we sunk a good bit of money into repairs and maintenance. My wife wants to go siphon out the gas as we'd just filled it up.

The other task was to call our cell phone company to ask a question, then go online to order phone upgrades. Doing this for son in Le Cordon Bleu. He will like this phone or else. There won't be any way to get another for a while.

That took me to around 11 pm. Wife went to bed early. I wanted to go to bed, but I take a pill at 4 am, and I don't want to take it too early. So I piddled around until 2. I thought maybe I'd jump in and get at least a few words in today, but as I said at the beginning, my brain says, "No writing for you!" So at 2 am I start writing this post, so I can hit the sack early and get in some serious sleep before I wake up to tackle cleaning another couple of buildings with wife tomorrow. Who knows, if I wake up early enough, I might get in some writing in the morning and make it a big number day.

Also to look forward too, Dragon Speak Naturally is coming in tomorrow. I'll probably get to try out that tomorrow and see if it improves my word count or not. So with that I'll sign off.

Totals for today: Nada

10 Day Novel Challenge totals for Dragon City:

Day 1: 2281 words in 3.5 hours (652 w/h avg.)
Day 2: 1907 words in 3.25 hours (587 w/h avg.)
Day 3: 1494 words in 3 hours (498 w/h avg.)
Day 4: 2071 words in 3.45 hours (600 w/h avg.)
Day 5: 0 words in 0 hours (0 w/h avg)

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Novel Progress: 7753 words in 13.2 hours
Words per Hour: 587
Words per Day: 1551

10 Day Novel Challenge: Day 4

This turned out to be a very weird day. What I expected was to get up, run some errands after morning routine, go help my wife clean a house for 2-3 hours, return home, eat dinner, and dive  into the novel.  But as life has it, it didn't want to operate according to my plans.

Woke up at noon. Wife almost immediately calls to deliver the news that her car died at the end of the street and wouldn't start. So she had to take my car. She'd called our two mechanics we use, and gave me the number of a towing company I could call after I check it out. So I walk to the end of the block and try starting it. The starter is turning, but not the engine. Not a good sign. Could be anything from a broken timing gears to a cracked shaft, or some other oddity. So I call the tow truck, make sure nothing  is valuable in the car, and return home to eat breakfast, look at email, respond to blog post, check blogs, FB, etc.

With me stuck at home and wife not needing me to work, due to some space being freed in her schedule, I figured at least one good thing would come of this. I could spend more time writing. So at 3:30 pm I open up my writing database and Libre Office novel file, grab my smoothie, and start typing. 5 minutes later, my wife calls to remind me of the documents we need to gather for the meeting in Austin tomorrow. So I stop at 3:35, adding a whopping 35 words to the novel, and shift gears. (This is why I like writing at night. No such distractions.)

I spend the next 1.75 hours going through paperwork, making calls, on the phone with various people, filling a folder with needed papers. At 6:10 pm, I'm off to the races on the novel again. That takes me to 7:17, a little over an hour, throwing in another 652 words to the story.

Wife comes home, we lazily heat up TV dinners, eat, chat, I watch a few YouTube videos while I eat. At 7:17, I return to writing. Sort of, anyway. Not sure what came over me, but I was obsessing over where this character should come from instead of Bethany, Oklahoma, that would be close to some mountains within view. After viewing a few places on Google street view, settled on Fort Collins, Colorado. (The wonders of modern technology. It might have taken days of looking through books at the library to figure out what I did in 40 minutes at my desk.)

With that out of my way, I really returned to writing the novel at 10:20 and typed for another hour, clocking in another 573 words. I took a break to spend time with the wife and see her off to bed. Eat some ice cream. At 1:25 am I'm back to writing with my bowl of cashews and prunes. Didn't bother with the hot tea because I knew I wouldn't get far on it since it is going to be an early night. Stopped at 2:45 am, another 811 words fed into the hungry novel beast.

Spending one hour writing this blog, then I'm off to bed. I'm turning in early because I've got to be up at 7 am tomorrow, work with wife all morning, then all afternoon will be traveling to Austin to take care of personal needs of my son in Le Cordon Bleu there. Expect to return home late afternoon or early evening. So it will be a long day for me with a little over 3 hours of sleep again, but no nap. I don't know how long I'll be able to work tomorrow night. We'll see.

Today's totals is 2071 words in 3.45 hours, for an average of 600 w/h. Better, even though I didn't feel it was buzzing along. And so far I'm liking the story and characters. Fun to see these stories develop.

10 Day Novel Challenge totals for Dragon City:

Day 1: 2281 words in 3.5 hours (652 w/h avg.)
Day 2: 1907 words in 3.25 hours (587 w/h avg.)
Day 3: 1494 words in 3 hours (498 w/h avg.)
Day 4: 2071 words in 3.45 hours (600 w/h avg.)

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Novel Progress: 7753 words in 13.2 hours (587 w/h avg.)

10 Day Novel Challenge: Day 3

Woke up today at 7 am with a little less than 3 hours of sleep under my belt. Hard to convince your body that, yes, you really do need to get up. But I did. I try to get closer to four hours on Sunday morning, but creating yesterday's blog post took longer than expected.

Went to church, coffee hour afterwards, then arrived home around 2:30 pm. Hit the sack until 6 pm. Talked with wife, went out to eat, then went grocery shopping. By a little after 12:30 am, had the groceries put away, the garbage taken out, and some hot gunpowder green tea brewed.  Finally checked email and blogs for the first time today, responded to one email. While wife had her computer time and got ready for bed, I clocked in 45 minutes on the novel, from 1:15 to 2 am, putting in 429 words. Part of that time I spent getting an idea of where I was going next and rough idea of how it would happen. I'm now past the point I'd written to those many years ago. So it is all new, and though I have an idea of what will happen, it can often take turns into ideas or plots/subplots I'd not expected.

Took a break to send the wife off to sleepy land, get myself some cashews and prunes, and return to my writing. Began typing anew at 2:45 and went until 5 with only some bathroom breaks. Added another 1065 words in 2.25 hours.

Total for the day: 1494 words in 3 hours, for an average speed of 498 w/h. Not great, worst average yet. But my fingers don't seem to be very lose tonight. Plus the words were, for a while, coming in spurts instead of flowing. I actually was rolling better toward the end, but I need to get some sleep in. Though my wife only needs me for 2-2.5 hours of work tomorrow, I have several errands to take care of. I'm hoping I'll get an earlier start on the novel tomorrow evening.

So the novel now stands at 5682 words, about where I'd hoped to be close to the first day to be on track. We'll see if we can't at least put in more time tomorrow and make better progress.

10 Day Novel Challenge totals for Dragon City:

Day 1: 2281 words in 3.5 hours (652 w/h avg.)
Day 2: 1907 words in 3.25 hours (587 w/h avg.)
Day 3: 1494 words in 3 hours (498 w/h avg.)

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Novel Progress: 5682 words in 9.75 hours (583 w/h avg.)

10 Day Novel Challenge: Day 2

Today the alarm went off at noon so I could take my meds. Saturday mornings tend to be time for wife and I to eat breakfast together and talk, among other things. She'd already eaten, but we spent time together until around 2:30 pm when she ran off to take care of errands. I checked and responded to emails and scanned blogs.

However, I had to get ready for church. I'm Orthodox Christian, for those not aware. I do a bulk of the Byzantine chanting for Vespers on Saturday evenings and Matins Sunday morning. So I worked on getting that ready, which left me an hour and a half for a shower and preparing to leave by 5 pm. Made it there, had the service, we drove back to our city (45 minutes each way), and stopped at a local restaurant for dinner. Returned home around 8:30 pm.

After checking some more emails and responding to an entry on my blog, I finally started working back on the novel right at 10 pm. I made progress, but was broken up by several breaks due to wife and food distractions. One 45 minute block netted me 286 words. After a 10 minute break, I put in another whopping 10 minutes to add 184 words. We took an ice cream break of 30 minutes while talking. Then I typed for another 10 minutes to include 97 words. By this point, I feel like I'm going no where fast.

I took another break to see wife to bed, which took almost 30 minutes. Do we see an inverse pattern here? The breaks are getting bigger than the writing times. But by 12:15 am, with wife fast asleep, I could focus more fully on writing. I typed until 1:45 to increase the story by 900 words. That's better.  About this time I realize I had a problem with topography. Mark for later correction. I wanted mountains. But not in the center of Oklahoma will I get them. lol.

Responded to another up-late writer's comment to my blog. Her comment got me to thinking. At this pace, I'm not going to come anywhere close to finishing this in 10 days. I'll be lucky to do it in 20. So I took my break time to research and purchase with money from my writing account, Dragon Speak Naturally. Should arrive Wednesday since I have Amazon Prime. Might take a little getting used to, but if it works as billed, could get my word count up to speed and stand a better chance of getting close to my target. Meanwhile, I'll have to muddle along with my fingers.

Returned to writing at 2:55, put in another 240 words by 3:31 before calling it a night. Since I've got church in the morning, I have to wake up at 7 am. Normal Sunday routine is to crash for a good 3 hour nap upon returning home, get up to check email, eat dinner and go grocery shopping with wife (a required activity). By then it will be around 10 to midnight before I get back to this.

For today, however, I spent 3.25 hours of writing time to crank out an additional 1907 words. That clocks in at 587 words an hour.

10 Day Novel Challenge totals for Dragon City:

Day 1: 2281 words in 3.5 hours (652 w/h avg.)
Day 2: 1907 words in 3.25 hours (587 w/h avg.)

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Novel Progress: 4188 words in 6.75 hours (620 w/h avg.)

The Light, The Dark, and the Gritty

I'll admit it up front. I don't thing most of my stories, save for a handful of short stories, are gritty. There are dark parts here and there, but few have accused me of writing horror. I can count on one hand how many dark horror short stories I've written. Most of what I've written is a lighter, funner, and punctured with humor. Even my one zombie story, "Confessions of a Zombie's Wife," is more funny than scary.

So I've begun to think about what makes a story dark or gritty. Honestly, dark is easier to get. It is a story that highlight's evil in its fullness. Whether through a creepy monster or a deranged mad man, evil is brought to life. For the writer who is a Christian, with the hope of contrasting it to the light, and ultimately overcome by the Light.

But gritty is a little harder for me to define. Judging by what some Christian authors have said, gritty is any story where the characters cuss or have sex. The more graphic, the grittier the story is.

But I'm not so sure. Another definition of gritty is making the story more realistic, which for some seems to again center around adding cussing and sex. Sure, realistic is also getting your facts correct, avoiding plot holes, and believable dialog, but few would contend those things necessarily make a story gritty. Yet it would seem many would equate gritty as being more true to life.

But I'm still not so sure. Seems something else is missing from the definition.

Being gritty appears to be a good thing. When a reviewer says a story is gritty, that is usually a compliment. Often gritty is followed by words like "compelling" and "raw emotion." Therein probably lies the root of it.

One of the objectives of a good novelist is to engage the reader in experiencing those raw emotions. The more the reader feels their power, the more real the story becomes for them, and the grittier it will feel. That would be true whether we are talking about death or sex.

But wait. There's more! You can't take a happy moment and infuse it with gritty raw emotions without muting the joy of that emotion. Likewise, interjecting joy into a mother grieving over the loss of her son would lessen the impact and believability of that moment emotionally.

So it isn't merely a raw emotion, but gritty is experiencing the raw emotions of darkness. Much as bliss or joy is experiencing the raw emotions of light. Both are realistic within their domains.

The astute reader may have picked up on my title's play on another well known title. A movie called, "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly." One of my favorites. You can see the link there as well. The Ugly is the result of the Bad, not the Good. Likewise, the gritty is a result of the dark, not the light.

In short, anything that portrays graphically the dark is gritty. Take for example the movie "Saving Private Ryan." I didn't watch it, mainly because of what other people said about it's graphicness of war. From what I've been told, that is gritty.

A more nuanced comparison would be the Star Trek series and the most recent version of Battlestar Galactica. The former, as conceived by Gene Roddenberry, was an optimistic view of human evolution. People tended to get along better, and man had grown past emotions like greed and bigotry. So much so, man no longer worked for money as in a capitalistic system, but exhibited the epitome of a communist society where everyone works for their own betterment while all needs are covered by the society.

Meanwhile, in Battlestar Galactica's universe, people are operating with all sorts of pure and impure motives, trying to get the best of each other. Oh sure, Star Trek had some of that. Especially in the later series. They discovered you had to have some conflict to have a good story. But those were usually considered to be an aberration. Not the norm.

So by and large, Star Trek has been criticized for not being gritty enough. That is, not conveying a compelling emotional sense of man's depravity, and therefore not as "realistic" feeling.

They say that a writer is the worst judge of his own work. So what say you, those who have read my stories? Do you consider any of them gritty? Or lighter fare? What is your definition of gritty?

How to Write for the Glory of God

If you are a writer who is a Christian and have been involved in discussions with like-minded writers, I'm sure you've heard this statement before: "My goal in writing is to glorify God."

I'm not saying this isn't a valid goal, but that it gets misused. In short, my response might be, "That doesn't means what you think it means." Here are three of the messages sent by that statement that I see as misusing it.

If you're writing for any other reason, you're on the wrong track.

In confusing overall vision with purpose-goals (more on that in a bit), people tend to dismiss any other reason—like entertainment—as an inferior goal that denies the goal of glorifying God.

Quality doesn't matter since I'm doing it for God.

Most people probably don't literally mean this or wouldn't come out and say this, but it is the message sent if the statement is in response to someone's goal to improve their writing or set a high bar for quality work. Some do use the phrase to mask laziness.

Any story that fails to present the Gospel and refer, allude, or represent Jesus is failing to write for the glory of God, and is inferior.

The phrase tends to be code words for "true Christian writing" that directly promotes God and the gospel in the proper way. I'm not saying this type of writing should be avoided (I've written some of it), but that can be a worse witness to God than a story that never mentions Him. Being overtly Christian in content does not qualify as glorifying God.

In my experience, people who use that phrase often don't fully understand what they are saying or they wouldn't use it when they do.

The key point often missed is the route to glorifying God in our writing is by successfully fulfilling the purpose of the work.

It should be obvious and clear that not just our writing, but our whole life should be done for the glory of God. Therefore, that isn't a goal for a specific part of our life, but a purpose for all our lives. But how does any one part fulfill that life-vision?

Let's use the example of our driving. Yes, our driving should glorify God. How does it do that? By successfully navigating one's passengers to their destination as safely as possible. By obeying traffic laws out of consideration for others' safety. By acting as if everyone else on the road is more important than yourself. To let your light shine through your actions. By effectively and successfully fulfilling the purpose of driving a vehicle: to get people and cargo safely and efficiently to their destinations, including others on the road, in a Christ-like manner.

We glorify God when we effectively fulfill the purpose of a task in a manner that provides a good witness to what God has done in our lives. To look at it from another angle, what we do, we do unto God. So whether one is witnessing, singing, cooking, reading, or writing, we give our best offering unto God in each task.

For fiction, what is its purpose? For some writers, they admit to only writing to please themselves. They don't care if anyone else is ever interested in reading it or have any message they wish to communicate to the masses. For them, if the story pleases them, it has fulfilled its purpose. But still, what is that purpose?

It is the same as anyone who picks up a work of fiction to read: to be entertained. Whether your audience is yourself or a group of readers, the main purpose of a fiction story is to entertain that audience. If it fails to do that much, if fails to fulfill its purpose.

"But I'm a reader, and I like fiction with a message." All well and good. I'm not saying other goals cannot exist alongside entertaining your audience. Rather, if your story is boring, doesn't engage the reader, few are those who will ever read that message. It is unlikely you'll continue reading a message oriented story if you find it boring and bland, no matter how much you prefer message-oriented fiction.

If fiction fails to entertain, it fails at everything else, including glorifying God. Because that is the main point of reading fiction. In some cases, not entertaining can be a bad witness for God, especially if it includes a gospel presentation or uses Jesus as a character.

It is the equivalent of putting a Christian bumper sticker on your vehicle and driving rudely. You'll do more damage to God's glory than help it.

In effect, not to have entertainment as the primary goal of writing fiction is to fail to glorify God. Being entertaining doesn't mean it replaces the purpose of glorifying God in your writing. It means it supports it.

That is why as a fiction author, my goal is to first entertain. Doesn't mean there aren't other issues of content that could effect how well a story glorifies God. Only that if I fail to be entertaining, I've already lost that battle no matter how well I execute the rest.

Instead, I allow God to use a story for whatever message He might have for people, even if it is to plant a seed, make someone realize being a Christian doesn't equate with boring, inferior stories, or whatever. Because if my work doesn't get read, whatever messages I have will not be heard.

For me, that does not glorify God. To fulfill that goal, I have to write engaging and entertaining fiction stories.

How do your goals in writing support glorifying God in your stories?

Show, Don't Tell?

The common writing "rule," show, don't tell, has taken a beating in recent times. When I started writing fiction in 2006, it wasn't long before I heard about the suggested mode of writing. Usually from a critiquer who pointed out I was in telling mode here or there.

But I've noticed there has been a growing backlash to this mode of writing. Why is it being rejected as a valid guideline for new writers to write fiction? I think for the following reasons:

1. Extreme usage in critique groups. One such person attempted to tell me that one should have no telling in fiction, everything had to be shown. So he would point out any telling, and appeared to refuse to offer any other constructive feedback until I "fixed" this one issue. If a person encounters too many like that, it is easy to overreact to the opposite extreme and throw the baby out with the bathwater.


2. Show, don't tell is the answer to every issue. Related to the above, some critiquers go overboard to using show, don't tell for the solution to any number of unrelated writing problems. Writers hearing "You're not showing here, just telling," when addressing a character's dialog only shows they don't know what they are talking about, using the rule as a crutch because they don't know what else to say. Enough of those, and a writer is tempted to ditch the rule as lame simply because they encounter people who are using it lamely.


3. Hate any perceived rules. Some folk are just anti-rule. Any perceived guideline that says one should do X, Y, or Z in writing automatically gets push back. "I'll show them" attitude prevails. Especially true if the person gets someone saying you always have to do it this way if you want to keep a reader's attention.


4. Lazy writers not looking to improve. Some writers don't care. They just want to write a story and have everyone praise them. They aren't looking for critiques. They don't want to know how to improve their writing. They feel what comes natural to them is correct for them, and any effort to write differently is artificial. So they don't gain the writing skills through practice, including knowing when and how to show instead of tell.

If you've fallen into one of these reactions to the show, don't tell rule, maybe it is time to take a step back and gain a balanced perspective. The last group may find this the hardest to do, so let's look first at why one needs to show in fiction, instead of tell.

Non-fiction conveys information; fiction conveys an experience. Few pick up a work of fiction hoping to learn how to grow a garden or how to change the starter in a car. Not that one can't learn how to do those things from a work of fiction, but that's not the reason most buy a fictional story. They buy a fictional story to be entertained. To be immersed into another person's world and experiences. To see the world from a different set of eyes.

The showing mode of writing is not an efficient means to convey information. This is why non-fiction doesn't use much, if any, showing. Even the stories told in a non-fiction book are told in telling mode, because the point is to illustrate a truth, not have the reader experience another person's life. For instance, you'll note the stories in the Bible are primarily told not shown.

However, to have a reader sink into another person's world, to see from their eyes, showing becomes critical. Telling can't effectively do that. To accomplish its goal, fiction has to be primarily showing, using telling when needed. In short, to experience another person's world, you have to convey to the reader what they are experiencing, not simply what happens to them.

A quick example. This would be telling: "Paul saw the dagger as it sank into him." It conveys the information of what happened to Paul efficiently. It does not convey what Paul experienced.

Showing would be more like this: "Paul saw the sun glint off a blade flashing his direction. He jerked back, but a pain echoed through his nerves, his skin numbed, and warmth flowed down his side, soaking his clothing. His knees buckled as darkness swept over him."

The showing doesn't efficiently convey what happened, but it does efficiently tell you what Paul experienced, thus providing emotional impact. Emotional impact is the key to entertaining fiction. Without showing, there would be little emotion conveyed, and would not be as entertaining as it could be. If a person ditches showing for one of the above reasons, then you need to be honest with yourself. You are writing fiction as if it were non-fiction.

Some will tell me, "But this writer did it effectively." Usually they are pointing to a "classic" written years ago. An omniscient narrator used to be the standard story telling mode, which involved more telling. In that day, an author didn't have to compete with more emotionally engaging stories, so writing in telling mode could still stand out, not to mention the number of published books back then per year was smaller, so easier for a well-told story to stand out.

This is not true today. You are competing with story-tellers who know how to engage their reader's emotions through effective showing. This is why you'll hear if Tolkien were submitting his Lord of the Rings book today, it is unlikely he'd gain a following. By today's standards it has a lot of problems. But you'll notice even in that work, Tolkien does show, even if it is not as much as most authors do today.

So, how does one know when to tell and when to show in fiction? I have the following general guidelines I use once I've finished my first draft and am ready to edit.

How critical is the phrase, sentence, paragraph in the movement of the story and/or character arc? The more important to these goals, the more important it is to show instead of tell.

For instance, let's say we need to get Jane to answer the telephone. The call itself moves the story forward. The ensuing conversation provides a clue to the mystery, but the fact she answers the phone isn't important other than the fact she does it. It isn't something the reader needs to experience for the story to move forward.

Indeed, to show that would likely bore the reader if they read, "A ringing echoed through Jane's head. The phone! It must be him. Her shoes snapped against the wooden floor, creaking the planks under her weight so much she wondered if she would fall through them. She wrapped her fingers around the smooth, black dial phone. A cold plastic greeted her hands. The ringing ceased as she lifted the receiver, lighter than she expected. 'Hello'?"

Unless you are building tension for a big moment/reveal, you're building emotional investment for nothing. People don't notice that level of detail unless it is new or they sense a moment of importance. You're convincing the reader something important is about to happen, and when it doesn't, they'll tend to wonder why the emotional investment was made. If you simply need to tell the reader that she answered the phone, it would be more efficient to say, "The phone rang. 'Hello'?"

To maintain the pacing of your story. Related to the last point, sometimes you need to move your characters from point A to B, but nothing happens during that time which moves the story forward. So to show all the detail of that trip would bore the reader. Reducing the trip down to a handful of descriptive words and a telling summary will keep the pacing of the novel from bogging down into drudgery.

Transitional paragraphs. Often you have a transitional paragraph between scenes that requires moving through a period of time to the next scene were story-moving dialog/action will take place. Like the last reason, it would be pretty boring to show someone on watch all night when nothing happens of significance. A simple, "George struggled to fight off sleep until the first rays of dawn arrived and Henry arrived to relieve him," gets the reader quickly through an otherwise uneventful time frame with little loss of interest.

Dialog. It is rare that you hear someone talking in showing mode. When is the last time you heard someone describe their reaction to a joke like this: "My gut tightened. I squeezed my lips tight in hopes of blocking the impending spray of coffee from my mouth. But the pressure grew to the point of shoving my lips apart. Hot liquid careened into his face." No, instead you're more likely to hear, "I laughed so hard I spewed coffee all over him."

Dialog is predominately telling. Leave the showing for the narration if you don't want unnatural dialog littering your story. Included in this is a character telling a story to another. Unless the story goes into a full flashback, in-story mode, a story told by a character in the story would tend to be more telling than showing, unless they were attempting to dramatize it.

Non-fiction. If you are writing non-fiction, one naturally uses telling mode to communicate information effectively. But there are times in fiction where a writer may want to convey some information. Back story is often given in more telling mode, often by a character. Dishing out back story needs to be in short bursts, on a need-to-know basis. You don't want long paragraphs of back story, so you don't want to show it unless there is a good reason to do so. When you need to convey information, a telling mode gets the job done much quicker.

Creating emotional distance. There are times a writer may need to create emotional distance. Especially if it is something that the point of view character is not that emotionally invested in or you want to minimize the impact on the reader. For instance, if you have a rape scene, to minimize any emotional reactions from readers who have gone through it, it could be told instead of shown.

One could come up with other instances of using telling instead of showing, but if you want your scenes to have emotional impact, in-the-story feel, you need to ensure important story-moving segments are shown instead of merely told. The uniqueness of reading a story is the immersion into another's experience, another's thoughts, another's worldview. Movies can't easily accomplish this. If you fail to take advantage of this strength in your stories for one of the reasons listed at the beginning, you'll shortchange the reader, and not give them a reason to read the next book, much less finish the one in their hands.

Do you think some of the negative attitudes toward show, don't tell are a valid reaction or an over-reaction?

Top Ten Ways Authors Bore Readers

Some act like writing a novel is easy, based on how many authors are published each year among self-published titles and the quality in many of them. There are so many ways an author can fail the reader and bore them to sleep. Here are my top ten ways us authors can bore our readers.

10. Boring start to the story.

Nothing like a massive info dump or display of the author's research to get a reader yawning before he reads past page one. . . if he makes it that far.

9. Boring movement through the middle of the story.

Despite a great start, the story bogs down into daily life and seems to be going nowhere. It appears the author is just adding filling to make the story long enough to be labeled a novel. "Whoops! Can't get to the ending yet. Let's have them talk about politics. Yeah, that will be interesting." Right.

8. Boring ending to a story.

An otherwise great story does a free fall at the end either by failing to add unexpected twists to its resolutions and/or not resolving the primary story arcs at all.

7. Boring characters.

Nothing says, "sit back and fall asleep" faster than all characters sounding alike, sounding like the author, stereotyped, and/or annoying. Go ahead. Make my day.

6. Boring dialog.

When your computer could write more compelling dialog, you know you're in trouble. In real life, small talk is engaging. In a novel, small talk will have most readers wondering when the author is going to return to telling the story.

5. Boring action.

When the reader slodges or skips long sections of action sequences with little character/story building, he will more likely equate your novel with a B-rated Kung-Fu movie than an exciting story. When you hear your son saying what mine said upon hearing a story read to him, "He took a whole paragraph to say they got off their horses," you know you're boring your readers.

4. Boring descriptions.

Nothing halts progress like pausing a story for a litany of static scenic descriptions. We might as well watch paint dry. Descriptions should paint an active picture in story, not pull out to fill in every little detail whether important or not for the sake of realism.

3. Boring climax.

Few things are more frustrating to a reader than having a story build to a climax, then having it putter out. Instead of emotional payoff, the reader gets emotional frustration, and a bad case of book-throwing.

2. Boring conflict.

So your protagonist needs to save his bedroom from roaches. Okay, maybe I can identify with that dilemma, but do I care? Not likely. Not unless, perhaps, they are aliens invading our world through a dimensional portal in the walls of your room. Low stakes for the characters means low stakes on keeping a reader interested and entertained.

1. Wasting the reader's time.

Not to mention any money spent to acquire the book. If your story is boring (You did catch that theme, didn't you?), that means the reader will regret having spent the money for the book, and the time to read it, however far they may have foraged through it. Creating an entertaining story is the first task of a fiction writer. Fail there, and you won't gain a solid following.

What other things authors do that bore you to tears?

Non-Fiction Readers Less Empathetic than Fiction Readers

Recently, at the Speculative Faith blog, I posted an article on how fiction affects the brain in the same way real-life experiences do. While non-fiction can transmit information, fiction transmits experiences that give context and concreteness to that information. The very reason so much non-fiction relies heavily on short story snippets to illustrate their points.

But those short story snippets are no replacement for total immersion into a story. At best they can illustrate the point being made, but the reader is not often lost in a story by which they experience the truth. This is where novels shine and non-fiction is severely limited.

This fact is highlighted by an article from NBC News by Meghan Holohan, titled, "Getting lost in a novel means you're more empathetic." She makes the following observation based on scientific studies:

People who lost themselves in the fiction showed more empathy than people who did not become as involved in fiction or read nonfiction.

“[W]hen we get lost in a book, we are in another world, in which we can freely experience the character’s feelings and thoughts as if they were our own, through which we ‘learn’ how other people think and feel about problems in life. This again can be transferred to real life, so by reading a book and getting involved in the story, we are able to sympathize with other people,” Bal says.

Chalk up another point to the benefits of reading fiction. Not only do those who eschew fiction in preference of non-fiction lose out on experiencing reality from different perspectives, a broader cultural exposure, and increased brain functioning, but also lose out on the opportunity to break out of our ego-centric focus. Fiction gives us the opportunity, as my mom always used to say, to "walk a mile in their moccasins." Or as St. Paul would say, "Treat each other as more important than yourself."

Do you think those who are more empathetic lose themselves in fiction, or does losing oneself in fiction makes one more empathetic, or both?

Sex Sells

We all know it. That title alone probably brought you here. It has become common place in many movies to have a sex scene or two. Many books, especially in the general market, have them. Some more descriptive than others.

The Christian market's response appears to be "don't indicate it happens at all." Even in the romance novels, hints that a couple have had sex, even when married, are absent. The buyers of those books read them primarily because they don't have to worry about running into a sex scene, among other "naughty" things.

Somewhere in the middle is a group of writers who want to offer a more "realistic" but not "erotic" set of stories. Show that it happens, but not end up writing erotic porn into their stories. I've seen various views presented, including those in the past on Mike Duran's blog to most recently in a series of articles on the Speculative Faith blog about Vox Day's new book, Throne of Bones, published by an imprint of Marcher Lord Press.

I'd sum them up like this:

No show. Among those willing to go further than nothing, one group doesn't mind indicating it happened or is about to happen, but don't show anything about it. Perhaps the most you're likely to get is kissing and holding hands. Then a statement, if any, that he took her to his bed. The rest you fill in for yourself. Scene break, and you are on the other side of the event. Note: this is what one might refer to as the Biblical model, since this is how the Bible tends to speak of a couple who has had sex.

Stop short. That is, more showing is done to indicate where this is headed. Some heavy petting, maybe touching in more suggestive ways, but the scene cuts away before anything too erotic-like happens. Maybe a telling statement tacked onto the end, but usually not. It is real obvious what happens after that. This is more natural for fiction in that if one is going to show it, then it comes across as more realistic. The "no show" method can appear like someone is purposefully avoiding it and coming across unrealistic. After all, the Bible isn't fiction, and mostly tells rather than shows.

Crack open the door. In this version, the reader follows the characters into the sexual act, but very scant detail is given or more allegorical terms are used. It might be as brief as "he pulled her under the sheets and enjoyed his wife's love." This would use language more like that found in The Song of Solomon. One must keep in mind, however, that the Song of Solomon isn't describing a specific encounter, but is more a teaching on faithfulness to one's spouse, and therefore to God. It isn't going there to tell a story, but to instruct readers.

The primary issues with both the "stop short" and "crack the door open" models is where is the cut off point? At what action in the "stop short" method have we crossed over into a lead up to sex and are getting into the act itself? Once you crack the door open, how far is too far before it becomes erotica?

Some of these can be "gray" areas. For instance, in my novel Reality's Fire, I used the "stop short" method for showing that a married couple who have been apart for a long time were about to have sex. I had them involved in some semi-heavy petting right before cutting away. One of the last actions I had written was him running his hand along her thigh. My editor felt that crossed a line. I was okay cutting it, even though for me, it seemed minor. But that represents that gray area. Some draw the line slightly differently.

That said, it is easier to draw a line with that method than the latter. Certain actions will obviously be crossing that line. If I'd had him groping intimate parts of her body rather than sliding a hand along her thigh, there is no doubt we would have cracked the door open and followed them into a sex act. There is some gray area, but not a lot. Only on the boarder between heavy petting and sexual acts. Most people will know the difference.

But the "cracking the door open" method has its problems in there is no well defined boundary when one has gone too far. Some will find any description of a sex act, no matter how medical, allegorical, or brief, to be too much. Such an intimate act is reserved only for the couple, and to crack open the door on the bedroom is invading their privacy and causing the reader to be voyeuristic.

Some might accept my brief example above as fine, but balk at referring to any body parts, or touching any of them. Others are fine with the body parts or touching, but any descriptive words that convey emotions or feelings would put them into erotica-land. Each person would have different boundaries as to what is too much. So, it is much harder to write with that method and not cross lines.

One also has to consider the unique nature of this act. Unlike a lot of other things: violence, greed, gossiping, eating ice cream, etc., a couple in bed together is an intimate act. Few of us would (or should) feel comfortable sitting in a chair watching their married friends have sex.

Most of us, sitting with the family watching a movie, will feel real uncomfortable when a hot sex scene comes up. "Don't look kids!" But if we are in the room alone, a different feeling arises. Suddenly it is okay, because we're adults and can handle these things. But is it any different, really? When reading about it in a book, are the mental images it creates any less voyeuristic?

The key for me is based upon the following guidelines in my own writing:

Is it gratuitous? That is, does the scene further the plot and/or characters or is it tacked on adding little to the plot? This can be a fuzzy line. What may not be to me could be to an editor or reader.

For instance, the above mentioned sex scene, to me it would have come across as unrealistic to not have that there (more on that in a moment). Removing it and the consequences of that act would have drastically changed what happens. So some case could be made that it furthered the plot. But I could have left that out, even though it would have created a gaping hole. As a sub-plot, it wasn't essential to the main plot. But the initial reason I put it in there is it would have felt extremely unnatural to ignore it based on the circumstances in the scene. Some, however, may conclude the scene was gratuitous. For me, it had a distinct purpose in furthering the story, so it wasn't gratuitous.

Does it promote a sinful lifestyle? When take as a whole story, does a sinful encounter, and this goes for showing all sinful actions, not just immoral sex, give the appearance of endorsing that sin? I've said before: It isn't where a story starts that makes it Christian, but where it ends. I have no problem showing sin, but its negative consequences and moral failure should be shown as well. Otherwise, I'm not being realistic within a Christian world view.

Does it end up drawing the reader into reading pornography? For me, whether an affection can be done in public or not is the key. What happens in the bedroom, stays in the bedroom. Even for fictional characters. Strictly speaking, when the actions and descriptions move into experiencing a sexual act, it becomes pornographic. Once you've gone there, you've drawn the reader into sin, not just observing it. If it would be sinful to watch in real life, so should it be in fictional life.

Is it realistic? Hold on before you jump on that and let me explain. I'm not one to suggest because people do it, we need to show our characters doing it all the time. That would be violating the gratuitous rule. For the same reason we don't show our characters going to the bathroom very often, or taking a bath, or think all the random and meaningless thoughts that go through our heads everyday. Why? Because we'd have one ultra boring book on our hands, and it would take a mega-volume to write it that way.

No, fictional stories are very unrealistic. Few people are put through what most fictional characters endure. How many times in your life have you saved Earth from annihilation? You would have multiple times if you were the Doctor (Doctor Who). If everything that happened to Sisko, my protag in Reality's Dawn, had happened to me, I'd be in a mental ward. Not riding off into the sunset to my next adventure.

But despite that, we give stories the appearance of realism. What destroys that isn't failing to include every bit of realistic activities possible, but to include any that would destroy the illusion of realism. Big difference there. That's why I said to have a husband and wife who have been apart for months, suddenly be together again for a short time and avoid thinking about sex would have broken that sense of realism. It would be expected in that situation. To not go there would have felt artificial.

So I wouldn't include those things to be realistic, but I would to maintain realism in the story.

The issue for me in moving from "stop short" to "crack the door open" is in necessity. Rare would be the plot, short of writing an erotica book, that would require us to follow a couple into the sex act. It is enough to know that it happened whether through telling or cutting away. Much beyond that is venturing into pornography.

Where are the lines you draw as a reader? As a writer? If you are both, do they differ?

The Pain of Paradise

Josh breathed heavily as he lugged an urn of water into the clearing. Milnore's black house lay in the center of it, surrounded by axes, grass cutters, a small plow, and a wooden storage shed toward the back. Green, knee-high grass surrounded the small house.

Milnore exited the house. "Josh, I'm going to town for supplies. Finish filling the water urns and then work on your transport spell."

Josh groaned. "Master, I've practiced that spell hundreds of times. Can't we do something else?"

Milnore stopped his progress toward the trail and turned toward Josh. "Basics first, my apprentice. You have to know it so well that you can do it without thinking."

Josh sighed. He mumbled the words of the spell he'd been taught. His perspective shifted from the edge of the clearing to the porch of the house. "How's that, Master? Now can we move on?"

Milnore stroked his beard. "Not bad. But there was a slight delay in recalling the words. Keep working on it." The wizard turned to continue his journey to town.

Josh shook his head as he let out a breath. "This may be the only spell I ever learn."

"Then learn it well," returned the wizard's voice from the forest.

Josh opened the door and entered. He wound around the couch perpendicular to the fireplace, and set the urn of water next to its companions by the kitchen basin. He turned to get a drink of water before practicing his spell when he noticed a book lying on the kitchen table.

He stepped toward it, and examined the open page. The title at the top said, "Revealing Aura Spell."

Josh raised his eyebrows. "This is Milnore's spell book!" The wizard always kept it hidden. He must have been using it and forgot to put it away before leaving.

Josh flipped the page. "Mental Communication Spell" labeled the page. "Cool. I could use that with Sisko at some point." He grabbed some paper and ink, then copied it down, and stuffed it in his vest pocket.

He flipped through a few more pages until he read, "Visit Parallel Worlds Spell." Josh widened his eyes. "Really? There are parallel worlds we can visit?" He studied the words.

Then he read, "Warning, remember the following words to return from the spot you entered: Reverse the last spell I uttered. Which means, you can't cast any spells in between."

Josh smiled. "I can do this. I'll just go there and come back. What could go wrong?" He read over the spell, memorizing the words.

Once he thought he had it down well enough, he stepped back and stood straight. He whispered, "Worlds of old and times abound, pick one for visiting today, we pray."

The furniture of Milnore's house vanished. Trees and dense foliage replaced them. Birds tweeted happy songs as wind grazed the grass and leaves of the trees.

Josh gazed at the wonder. Every tree, every branch, every leaf, shown as if it had a light of its own. Indeed, he could see no sun in the sky, but light existed around everything.

"Where am I?" he wondered aloud.

"Paradise," a hissing voice said behind him.

Josh turned to see a long lizard-looking creature wrapped around the branch of a tree. Its tiny claws held tightly to stems. Its face flared when it talked.

The creature moved closer. "Would you like to partake of my tree? It is delicious and will make you the most powerful wizard ever."

Josh stared at the fruit of the tree. "Really?" It did look enticing. It begged to be eaten. "How can it do that?"

"By making you like God, the most powerful wizard of all."

The most powerful. That was tempting. Josh shrugged. It was just a piece of fruit. Worst that could happen, he'd eat some food. Best, he'd become the most powerful wizard ever.

He reached out to pick some of the luscious fruit.

"I wouldn't do that, if I were you," a new voice rang out.

Josh jerked his head around to see a man clothed in bright light walk toward him. Josh had to squint. "Who are you?"

"I am man. Don't eat of that tree. It is commanded by my creator to not eat of it."

Josh reached and grabbed one of the fruits. "What's the harm? It's just fruit, isn't it? Why can't we eat of it?"

The radiant man waved a hand at Josh. "Because, the creator said the day we eat of it, we shall surely die."

The lizard hissed. "Surely you shall not die."

Josh realized not only where he was, but what time. "I don't think that is a good idea." He withdrew his hand from the fruit.

The lizard flicked its tongue and slid out of the tree, and fell on Josh, wrapping himself around Josh. "Take me to your world."

"I think you're already there." Josh mumble the words of the transport spell. His perspective shifted to further away from the tree. The long lizard fell to the ground, then climbed back onto the tree.

Josh gasped. "I've done another spell! I can't get back."

The man lifted his hands. "We're in paradise. Why the desire to go back?"

He did have a point. And yet..., "Sorry. I don't belong here. I need to get back to my world and time."

Josh rubbed his forehead. "Maybe if I do it twice?" He opened his mouth and stopped. "Wait a minute. If I do that twice, it will only undo the undo spell." Josh stomped his foot on the ground. "I'm trapped here!"

The man shrugged. "Not a bad place to be trapped."

"But you don't understand. Look at me? Do I look like part of this world?"

The bright human rubbed his chin. "You are clothed with something other than light. Why is that? We're you not created?"

Josh smiled. "Uh, long story." He snapped his fingers. "At least I can stop it. I can change history."

The man cocked his head to the side. "Change history? What is history?"

Josh pointed at him. "Right, you don't have much of it yet."

A rolling thunder shook the ground and caused the trees to sway. But in the midst of the noise, Josh could hear a voice say, "Josh, where are you?" A brilliant light grew as the being approached. Josh cringed at the sound of the voice, and shielded his eyes. The pain grew unbearable, so he ran to a fig tree and ducked into its leaves. He gripped the trunk, and shut his eyes, praying he wouldn't die.

"Josh, what have you done? Why are you here?"

Josh tried to steady his shaking body, to no avail. "I'm sorry, Lord. I can't get back."

"Use 'next to the last.'"

Josh almost opened his eyes, but slammed them shut. It was all he could do to not focus on the pain searing his body. He'd have serious burns if he survived this. "I don't understand, Lord." He hated asking the question, for he couldn't bear the thunderous voice speaking to him.

"In your spell, Josh. Next to last."

"Oh!" Josh winced from the sound of His voice. "Good idea, Lord."

The pain vanished. Josh cracked his eyes open. The blazing light no longer filled the area. He relaxed his grip on the tree, though his arms and legs still shook from the experience.

The shinning man spread the fig leaves apart and stuck his head in. "Of course it's a good idea. He is God, after all."

Josh stood on shaking legs and pushed his way into the clearing. "I thought I was going to die." He examined his arms. "Why, I don't even have as much as a sunburn."

The man's forehead wrinkled. "Have you already eaten from the tree before?"

"Who? Me?" Josh stretched his fingers and arms, attempting to get the shakes out. "Not really. Well, in a manner of speaking, you could say I did, through..." Josh froze for a second. "It's a really long, long story. So long, it would take at least 66 books to tell it all."

The man crossed his arms. "You are a strange fellow. What is a book?"

Josh bowed. "You'll find out." Josh shook his hand. "Thanks for your help. I'll take my leave now." Josh stood straight. "Reverse the next-to-the-last spell I uttered." The forest vanished and Milnore's kitchen reappeared before him. Josh let out a long breath. "Whew. That was close."

"I don't think we've finished with close yet."

Josh turned to see Milnore sitting on the couch, his arms crossed. Josh hung his head. "Sorry, Master. I shouldn't have gone there."

"What did I tell you to do?"

Josh stared at the floor. "I did do a transport spell while there. Quite nicely, if I do say so myself."

Milnore nodded. "The Hebrew word for man is 'adam'."

Josh stared at the wizard. "You know where I went?"

Milnore smiled. "Of course. Don't you think I tried it myself once. I nearly ate the fruit."

Josh nodded. "If it had not been for Adam, I would have too."

"Remember that. Spells you are not ready for can bring about nasty curses."

Josh nodded. "Yes, sir." But he did meet God in person and still lived. That was an experience he'd never forget. And didn't want to repeat, at least until he was ready for it.

Blogging and Platforms

I can't help it. I hate using the word "platform" or "tribe" to describe my readers. To me it makes it sound like my fans are nothing more than a launching point to my success. Of course, my success as a writer in sales is totally in my fan's hands. And I know what having a platform means. It isn't what some people may think it means. But I've been giving this some thought of late. Would appreciate any input from folks, especially readers who venture forth to read this.

Platform is more building a following to prepare to launch your next book(s). Not to increase sales of existing books, though if that happens, few authors are going to squawk about it. The goal, however, is to grow a base of interested followers so that when that new book comes out, you will have developed a relationship with potential readers who will likely be more inclined to not only give your book a try, but to become part of the "tribe" and promote it through reviews and telling others about it through their contacts. It primes the pump for a good book to get some traction.

The problem has been for fiction writers that this process is more designed for non-fiction. People who have an interest in how to raise platypuses, for instance, give someone with a book on that topic a natural focus to their blog. Since non-fiction tends to be topical, any blog about it focuses on that topic. But what does a fiction writer focus on? Our goal isn't to inform on a specific topic, but entertain people with a good story.

When I started this blog, initially I figured it would be an easy way for people to follow my announcements on short stories being published, or other milestones in my writing life. I wasn't looking to gain a huge blog following. It was primarily to be a "news about my writing and coffee adventures" blog. The coffee part never took off though I'm still drinking it. As I progressed in my blogging experience, I heard you should have more than just that if you want people to read it. They need to have something to come there for. Okay, that sounded logical, so I began doing a series of articles on various topics. Writing tips, book reviews, opinion pieces on writing topics, among other things thrown in here and there. All intended to give my blog some value. That has worked to a degree, but not like gang busters.

One thread that grew was some how-to articles for writers. My most popular post of all time was how to set up Open Office to write novels by using it to do what a lot of writing software does, like automatically renumbering chapters when you move them around. It has only been surpassed in a month twice, currently during this month by two other how-to articles on creating a mobi file and uploading to Amazon, and using Open Office and Calibre to create ebooks. The popularity of these articles led me to write the book How to Make an Ebook: Using Free Software, which has been my best seller.

All well and good. Still, that is mostly targeting writers. While writers are often avid readers themselves, they represent only a tiny fraction of the total readers out there. Those coming here to find my how-to articles are not in the mindset to grab my fiction while they're at it. So while the non-fiction sales and how-to articles are great, that doesn't build any kind of platform for my fiction.

So what kind of platform does a fiction writer build? I've heard two main responses to that question...no, three...three responses. One, "I don't know." Two, "You can't build a platform for fiction, that is only a non-fiction process." Three, "A fiction author him or herself is the 'brand' and you've got to sell yourself."

However, I think those responses are focused on the outward symptom. What are other successful bloggers in fiction doing? Well, this one talks about issues. This one does book reviews. This one talks about various things in their life. This one broadcast their varied opinions on all sorts of topics. But that is just what they do, not what makes their blog interesting to readers and fans.

What does a fiction writer do? What is their goal? To entertain. What does a fiction writer have to do to generate a following through their blog that builds their platform? Be entertaining. Whatever you are talking about, be fun to read. Engage the reader. Whether your blog represents a buffet of things, or a narrow focus, if you fail to make it entertaining, what will motivate them to think your fiction will be anymore entertaining? If you are entertaining, what better advertizement do you have that you can do the same in a novel?

I think what many of us fiction writers do is read post about building platforms that are by nature non-fiction focused. Instead of asking why do people want to read my book—because it is entertaining—we copy others and think it is about dishing out information. We think it is about what topics we write about. But the fact is, if I can write an entertaining post about going to the bathroom, that accomplishes the goal just as much as writing about politics in an entertaining way. It doesn't so much matter what you write about, only that it be entertaining. That is what will build a platform for fiction writers through blogging. That is what successful fiction writer blogs do: they are entertaining.

This hit home to me today while reviewing my blog's statistics for the past month. As I noted above, my most popular articles have been my how-to articles. But this past month my unique page views have broken 1000 for the first time since I started this blog. In part because several articles have hit over 100 unique views when in the past it has been around a couple. One of those articles surprised me, for it is my Christmas fiction I wrote last month, and it has broken 100 views currently. Yes, a piece of fiction broke into the territory previously dominated by how-to articles. Why? Because it is entertaining. The story actually has comments saying how entertaining it was! Imagine that. This is what will give me fiction readers, not how-to articles.

So, having given this a lot of thought, and leading you through my thought processes in a probably not-that-entertaining way, here is what I've decided to do with my blog in the coming year that I hope will not only generate more followers and readers of the blog, but a platform that will be more aligned with fiction.

1. No matter what I write about, I will focus on it being entertaining. That has to be the number one goal.


2. I will do a fiction story a month, probably a flash fiction, but I'm not guaranteeing it will only be those.


3. I will do something funny. Whether that be a "comedy" routine, or a character interview, etc., once a month.


4. I will endeavor to post once a week, around Monday or Tuesday, not counting announcement posts, or future how-to articles, so readers will know what to expect.

I'll do this for a year and evaluate the results in January 2014, assuming I'm still alive and kicking by then.

This post doesn't count. So I'd better get busy and do one for this week. Thanks to all who are reading.

Why do you read the blogs of fiction authors?

How Storytelling Conveys Truth Better than Non-fiction

That is the title of my first guest article at the Speculative Faith blog. I stumbled upon a website discussing the way descriptive storytelling affects the brain, and it gelled some concepts in my head. Being I'd been invited to do a guest blog, I wrote the article for that blog. Check it out if you get a chance.

How Storytelling Conveys Truth Better than Fiction

Hallow Fright

Decided to offer a free Halloween story this year to my fans. It's around 1300 words, so not long. Enjoy!

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"Ouch! Mom, that hurt."

"You can thank me later." She yanked again on Tulek's rough hair. "Now hold still like a good little orc, and I'll give you some more."

Tulek smiled. He'd not messed up his hair for nothing. After all, he had to look good for Halloween. "Ouch!"

She put the brush down and wiped her finger-claws on her apron. "That's enough. Don't want to make you look primed and proper, like those vampires."

Tulek frowned and hopped off the stool. He sat at the table next to his little brother, Jukel, already chewing his bat innards. But he turned his attention to his plan for the night.

His mother's thoughts appeared to be there as well. "Tulek, you remember what your dad said about tomorrow?"

"Yes, ma'am." But he knew she'd tell him again anyway. She never believed he remembered anything. Well, sometimes he had to admit, he forgot things, but really?

"For your coming of fright day, he's signed you up for a bed. Did he go over with you what to do under that bed?"

Tulek nodded. "Yes, ma'am. Once the lights are out and the parents have left, I make growling noises and shake the bed."

She stared at him. "You should appreciate this opportunity. Your father worked hard to get you an easy shot like that. Do you want to get your fright by jumping in front of a car or eating someone?"

Tulek grimaced at the thought of eating a human. They tasted horrible. "No, ma'am."

She nodded as she pulled her apron off and set it on the counter. "I should hope so. Now finish your bat and go enjoy your last Halloween as a little orc. I've got to help your father with his lunar array project." She walked down the hallway of the cave. "Can't let those werewolves get a jump on getting to the moon's energy."

Jukel let his bat skin fall to the plate. "Are we going to go now? Huh? I want some candy."

Tulek swallowed. "Right after I get my first fright."

"But Mom said that was tomorrow, not tonight."

"I know."

"And you can't get a fright on Halloween."

"So they say." Tulek ripped the last of the intestines from the bat and gulped it down with some poison ivy juice.

Jukel shook his head. "Dad will not like this. No, no, no."

Tulek swung his head around. "You didn't tell Dad, did you? Or Mom?"

Jukel's long nose flared. "No, of course not. I'm not ready to lose any limbs."

Tulek relaxed, but pointed a finger at Jukel. "And don't you forget it, either."

Jukel dropped from his stool. "I still think it is a waste of time."

"That is precisely why I'm doing it."

"What? To waste time?"

"No, silly. To prove it can be done."

Jukel grabbed his bag and slid his feet into his shoes. "My life goals are so much more practical. Candy."

Tulek laughed. "You don't understand. But that's okay. Keep it simple, until you no longer can." He breathed deep before grabbing his own bag and heading for the door.

# # #

Tulek scanned the horde of children accompanied by their parents. Halloween, the one night an orc could mingle freely with humans and not scare them. Many of his kind, as well as vampires, werewolves, and other monsters, joined the kids for trick or treating. But it also was the night hardest to get one's first fright. A day off for most monsters, but not him. Not tonight. Tonight, he was set on becoming a man-orc.

Jukel pulled on Tulek's coat. "Come on. If we wait much longer, all the candy will be gone."

"Just a minute. First things first."

"We've been waiting for several minutes."

Tulek huffed. "Okay, okay." He scanned the area for a good target. He saw a small group of girls, unattended by any adults. He smiled. They would be the best bet. "Stay here. Watch and learn."

Jukel frowned, but nodded, and then sat on a small tree stump.

Tulek followed the girls and caught up to them. One dressed as a witch, typical pointy hat, broom, and black dress. Another girl arrayed as a fairy princess Please! One of them wore a pirate outfit, eye patch and broad-flat hat. The girls, looked to be around eleven or twelve, giggled among themselves as they gawked at other costumes and discussed their candy hauls.

Tulek leaped in from of them, extended his claws, and yelled out a big, "Aaaaaaarrrrrrrgggg!"

The girls screamed and ran away. Tulek grinned. He knew he could do it. Then his smile sank into a frown. "They're laughing!"

Jukel had walked to where he stood. "Of course. That's why it's hard to scare anyone on Halloween. They don't take you seriously."

"I know that." Tulek growled. "But I just thought I could be different. Though I could prove to Dad that I don't need an easy job. That I'm as good as anyone."

"Don't take it hard. At least you have tomorrow. It'll be like taking candy from a baby."

Tulek stared into the stars. He blinked. "What did you say?"

"You have tomorrow."

Tulek smiled. "No, after that."

"What? Like taking candy from a baby?"

He snapped his fingers. "That's it. You're a genius, little brother."

"Can I get that written in blood?"

"I'll write it with my decomposed flesh if this works. Wait here."

Jukel shook his head. "Here we go again."

Tulek spotted a child dressed as a dragon. He'd just hopped out of a car. The perfect target. Tulek crossed the street and approached the child.

The kid's eyes peered from behind the dragon mask and he paused, watching Tulek.

As Tulek drew close, he stopped. "Have some good candy, kid?"

The child clutched his bag to his chest. "Uh hu."

Tulek bared his teeth and flexed his claws. The kid shrank back, his feet shaking. Hard to see his facial expression behind the mask, but he looked scared. Tulek had his fright!

The child stepped back. "Don't take my candy!"

Tulek lunged forward and grabbed the bag from the child's hands, ripping the paper. Two pieces of candy fell to the sidewalk. Tulek grinned at the fake dragon snout. "Boo!"

The kid's fake dragon mouth opened. Tulek knew it was to scream.

A whoosh of fire engulfed Tulek's face. The smell of burning flesh flooded his nose. Heat seared his head. Pain soared through his skull. He dropped the bag and fell backward, screaming.

As Tulek lay on the ground, writhing, he heard the kid running to the car screaming, "Mommy, I got my first scare, on Halloween!"

# # #

Tulek spit in the urn by the side of his bed. They'd taken him to an orc hospital. He had to spend a few days recovering, which meant he'd miss his appointment for an easy scare. Now he'd be seen as a total failure instead of the hero he wanted to be.

His dad and Jukel entered the room. His dad smiled. "Heard you tried to take candy from a dragon."

Tulek growled. "I didn't know he was a real dragon. Could have sworn he wore a costume."

Jukel giggled. "He did wear a costume. A dragon wearing a dragon costume. How cool is that?"

"Not very." Tulek stared out the window. "Sorry for ruining your Halloween."

Jukel pulled closer to his brother. "But have you seen your face yet?"

Tulek raised his hairless eyebrow. "No."

Jukel grinned and grabbed a mirror laying on a stand next to the bed. "Look!"

Tulek took the mirror and placed it in front of him. A horrid mess of charred flesh stared back at him. If he'd been human, it would have made him throw up.

Tulek's widened his eyes and turned to Jukel. "With this face, I can scare anyone!"

Jukel nodded his head. "Isn't it cool?"

His dad patted Tulek's chest. "Good job, son. You should have no problem getting your first fright now. Thanks to some dragon-based plastic surgery."

Tulek turned back to the mirror and caressed his face. "This is so cool." Yes. Now he would stand out and be the hero after all.