I got interviewed by the awesome Mary DeSantis, friend and fellow author. Check it out here: BAM!
It's alive! The book launched today. You can get it at these locations:
Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B016X3YAVW Paperback: - http://amzn.to/1QqK5qu Barnes & Noble: http://bit.ly/1QqlrGq iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1060598186 Kobo: http://bit.ly/1IRStwJ 24 Symbols: https://www.24symbols.com/book/x/x/x?id=892688 It took a bit, but it finally made it! My short story, "All Aboard" was recently published in Sirens Call Publication's anthology, Horror: Odd and Bizarre. It's a story about a small Utah town and a railroad that appears one night in the center of town. No one can figure out what it means or who built it. Things ramp up when citizens begin to disappear and others receive train tickets for a one way trip. Check it out here.
I'm shifting gears a bit with this post. I'd like to introduce a good friend of mine from grad school, Deanna Dee. She's the author of the wonderfully successful geek romance books, The Games of Love series. Her new book, Finish Him, comes out November 17th. You can pre-order it here. I wanted to give every one a chance to get to know her, so I conducted an interview. I hope you enjoy getting to know her. After, you should go check out her books! Tell us about your books and stories, what sets them apart from others? I like to think of my stories as “romances for the romance sidekicks.” My female leads are the quirky best friends or brainiac sisters found in many other romances, and my leading men are the nerdy friends or dorky brothers. They say the lines and do the things that the heroes and heroines don’t usually get to do, and it’s so fun being able to put those characters in the spotlight. What is it about geek culture that you’re drawn to?I’ve always been a bit of an oddball. Dungeons and Dragons kept me grounded as a kid. I filled my weekends and summers with imaginary worlds. I could be anyone I wanted, and I could always emerge victorious. Geek culture is where fantastical things happen. In a way, it’s home. Your books incorporate table-top RPG’s. What’s your favorite table-top RPG, and do you have a particular gaming experience you would like to share? To this day, Dungeons and Dragons remains my favorite table top game. As for a gaming experience, here’s one from college. My party of four (including myself) had to climb a ladder. Our dungeon master allowed us to make a roll to use either athletics or acrobatics to do this. We needed at least 5, which was fine for me and one of the other members since our skill bonuses were more than five. The other two members, however, had 1s and 2s bonuses in acrobatics and athletics. Once I and the other high-bonused character had climbed the ladder, our dungeon master said “it’s so easy a five year old can do it.” The other two members proceeded to roll the most 1s and 2s I’ve ever seen in my life. Did I mention this was also a stealth mission? I actually had to sneak attack on the guard because my fellows failed their rolls so many times, they fell off the ladder. Good times. Favorite villain and what it is about this villain that you are drawn to?Awesome question! Scar from The Lion King. There’s a story there, and I want to write it. What happened in his past that made him who he is? So what draws me to him is the knowledge that I can imagine the cute cub he was and how differently his life could have turned out. Who are some authors, or some books that you think everyone should read at least once? Why those choices? Skullduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy. This man is a genius. This series is so well-crafted. I lost track of the number of jaw-dropped moments I had while reading. Brandon Sanderson. There’s nothing I’ve read from Sanderson that I didn’t love. From epic fantasy to dystopian super heroes, he does it all well. Where can people find you online? I can be found at the following haunts. Website: http://ddgeekwriter.blogspot.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ddgeekwriter Twitter: http://twitter.com/ddgeekwriter Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/13466746.Deanna_Dee?from_search=true&search_version=service Final question, if you could have a superpower, what would it be and why? Another awesome question! Shadow manipulation. I love the image of whipping darkness around. Shadow cloaks, knives, portals—the possibilities are endless! Here it is! The awesome cover art created by Syneca Featherstone. It's for my debut novel, Consequence. Here's a snippet about the book:
Tobias Evard Warner II fights his way through a nightmare infested wilderness at the onslaught of the apocalypse in order to get back home to his family. He’ll sacrifice anything to ensure their safety, even if it means his own soul. Dark Fantasy Press is publishing the novel. Check them out here: http://www.darkfantasypress.com/ There was a recent thread on Facebook in a group run by Seton Hill University college friends where some questions about firearms recently came up. Before that thread ever posted, I was already playing around with the idea of doing a multi-post series on guns and writing. I've done a blog post before on guns, but it was geared more toward self-defense rather than writing. My intent with this series would be to give authors a basic course on firearms, their operation, use, and other information based around the senses with the hopes that it would help said authors create realistic scenes involving firearms. Nothing beats hands on training, but this might help in a pinch. However, this is a larger endeavor, so before I start into this project I would like to know if this is something you'd like? I would run a blog post on each of the following: revolvers, semi-automatic pistols, shotguns, bolt action rifles, and semi-automatic rifles. Each post would involve some basic terminology, common calibers and what they mean, different uses for each type of weapon, and perhaps even a video of said weapon's operation (maybe even fire it at something as well). What do you think? Vote below please. I recently had the pleasure of sitting on a panel at the Life, the Universe, & Everything Symposium. The panel was entitled: "So You Want to Write Horror?" One of the questions was, how much horror should you put in your writing? It was a question that begged a specific answer, but needed to be answered in a fortune-cookie-eqsue manner. So, how much horror should you put in your writing: as much as the piece calls for.
You might be thinking, thanks oh wise one, your answer is about as valuable as a punch to the throat. Let me elaborate before you gasp for air and tear up from my, oh so wise wisdom. Horror covers such a broad swathe with everything from psychological to shock and gore. How much horror, and what type of horror to insert into your story depends on what kind of audience you are writing for. Are you writing visceral, gory, and debauched horror in the same vein of Edward Lee, or are you writing a slow, creeping psychological horror more reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe? Whatever you are writing, and whomever you are writing for, the story is going to dictate how much is too much, and what's just right. If you have submitted to different publishers who specialize in the horror genre, you have probably seen the following statement in the submission guidelines; no gore for gore's sake. There's a reason for this, and it's because readers and editors can spot that poor attempt for cheap shock a mile away. Gore has its place in fiction. For example, if I'm writing a book about zombies, I know that there is an expectation for gore. Zombies are gross, they eat the living, and you just need to throw in some juicy bits (pun intended). However, if I'm writing a slow, creeping horror, it doesn't make sense to have a dude in a hockey mask slashing up teenagers who are having sex in a tent every other scene. Your horror has to match your story in the same fashion. Unfortunately, there is no quadratic formula out there to calculate this, and it will change from story to story. I'm going to dip in the vague, mystical pot of advice again and say that it is a feeling that has to match the flow the story. Take the Goldilocks approach and put in the amount that is "just right." How do you figure out this secret of finding what is just right, and knowing how a good story should flow? You could either go on a lifelong quest of tracking down the Illuminati and raiding their secret, underground library to find the dark spell that would grant you the knowledge, or you could simply read books in the genre. Regardless of what genre you write, you need to read other authors of that genre. Read what came before, read what's happening now. You need to know what is selling, what has sold, what are some of the common tropes of the genre. It will help give you a feel for what some of that great literature looks like, and as well as some examples of bad writing. Don't worry, it's all research and it will all help in the long run. One of the panelists brought up the point that horror is about fear, and I couldn't agree more. H.P. Lovecraft said, "The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown." Deep down, if you are writing horror, you are trying to tap into that fear of the unknown and present in such a way that it entertains (or at least disturbs) your readers. This is both easy and difficult at the same time (I know, I know, even more worthless Zen-like wisdom). Everyone is different and everyone is afraid of different things. Things that don't necessarily scare me, might immobilize someone else with fear. What does this mean? It means that while you won't scare everyone, you will scare some folks. To make things easy and fun, (because, let's face it, writing should be fun, otherwise why do it) just write what you find scary and/or enjoyable. If you get caught up in the web of trying to please others, the tentacled god of the industry will drag you down into a dark abyss from which you might not be able to crawl out. Have fun. If Hollywood has taught us anything about fighting, it's that you can fight for hours, take tons of damage, or do amazing acrobatic feats with gravity defying flying kicks. While admittedly, that makes for great visual action, it is a fairly unrealistic portrayal of how fighting actually works (unless you're some sort of superhuman). I want to break it down for authors who strive to create realistic fight scenes and avoid the Hollywood cliches. You might be asking yourself, well, C.R. Langille, who are you and what makes you an expert? Great question. While I may not be an "expert" perse, I've practiced different fighting arts for over 17 years. I was a Wing Chun Kung Fu practitioner for over 9 years, I've been grappling for 2 1/2 years, I was a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism and fought in what they called heavy combat for a over 6 years. In other words, I'm familiar with what it feels like to don a full suit of armor and fight folks at combat speed and strength, both in single combat and in group settings. Does it make me an expert, no, but I know my way around a fight and I know what it takes to fight. The first thing I want to touch on, is the gas tank. Not for your car, but for your body. It takes an incredible amount of energy to fight, both physically and mentally. There are factors to consider that you can control, and others that you can't. For example, breathing is probably one of the most important factors of a fight. If you don't continue to breathe, you run out of energy quicker. Sounds easy, right? Wrong. I have seen amazing athletes gas out because of breathing when they fight, where as I've seen somewhat out of shape folks continue forward. Why is this? It's because the art of breathing while fighting takes practice. It's something that early on you have to make a conscious effort to do until it is just second nature. The key, is relaxation. Sounds counter-intuitive, but the more relaxed your fighter is, the longer they will maintain gas in the tank. Don't believe me? Shadow box for one minute straight. Really focus on breathing, staying loose. You know you're there if you can keep up a conversation. Then, give yourself a bit to cool down and try it again, but go ahead and tense up when you throw your strikes. If you did it right, then you'll see the difference. You might ask, but if I'm relaxed, my strikes won't hit with power. Wrong again. It's hard to explain how or why this works, but if you watch highly skilled fighters compete, it almost looks effortless. You can hit faster, harder, and save more energy when you relax. This doesn't mean that you can go on forever, but you will be able to fight on longer. So what does that all mean for writing about fight scenes? If you want to add some realism, keep all of the above in mind. Is your protagonist someone who has never fought before? If so, keep the above in mind. How long are they going to be able to fight before they can't breathe anymore? Granted, most fights don't last very long, but your fighter might not last more than a minute if they are tense and hold their breath. Want to know what it feels like? Go for a run, and try not to breathe while you're at it. When you run out of gas, your mind starts to cry out for you to stop, and the simplest of actions become labor intensive. Your mind will trick you into giving up sooner and you start to listen. If they are practiced, then show that in your writing. In the first major fight, have them think about staying relaxed, or how they kept their breathing in check. Breathing and relaxation are all things that you can control, albeit with practice. There are factors that are going to be out of your control during a fight, things like adrenaline dump. Have you ever watched a professional fight, and near the end of the first round, or in the second round one of the fighters just seems to lose the energy to do anything? More than likely this is adrenaline dump. When the body knows something crazy is about to happen, it dumps a bunch of adrenaline through your system, basically your body dumps a ton of adrenaline into your system in a response to the upcoming battle. However, if the battle lasts more than a minute or so, then that adrenaline can sometimes lose its desired effect and leave you exhausted. I’m sure there is a better, medical explanation for this, but that’s the C.R. Langille diagnosis in a nutshell. So what does this mean for your writing? This factors into larger battles more than anything. Your protagonist might be ramping up mentally before the battle, so much so that the body will dump adrenaline too soon. This means that soon after the battle begins, your main character will have an adrenaline dump and lose energy. Another point, is fighting in armor. Armor restricts your mobility while offering protection. Armor is heavy. Even lighter armor is going to wear on the body after awhile, especially if your character is wearing it all day long. It takes an amount of physical conditioning to wear that throughout the day and not have negative side effects later on. If your character is wearing a helmet, it might restrict visibility or dampen hearing ability. Finally, it's hot. So there is a hydration issue, as well as the threat of heat stroke depending on the locale. Hell, depending on the locale there is the issue of freezing to death. Think about it, you get into a heated battle in the snowy wastes and win the day; however, you worked up a big sweat. Next thing you know, your cold and shivering, and then you're sleeping the long sleep. So what does this mean for your writing? Don't have your protagonist in full plate armor doing acrobatics. They also shouldn't be able to have full peripheral vision if they are wearing a full faced helmet. Take into consideration the stresses of wearing armor all day, or what the environment is doing to your character in that armor. I think sometimes we forget the details and just go with it; however, if you add that level of realism into your writing, it will get the reader thinking about it. Finally, let's talk about getting hurt. When you fight, you get hurt. You are going to feel it the next day. Muscles get strained, bruises may appear, or there could be things internally that start happening. The body can take a lot of punishment before it shuts down, but that doesn't mean we don't feel that punishment. You may or may not feel things during the fight. I don't know how many times I've grappled, sparred, or whatnot and woke up the next day feeling like a dump truck hit me. It gets worse with age, but it happens at every level. My jaw was sore whenever I ate food or talked for three days after taking a couple hits to the face during a sparring session: the other guy was even wearing boxing gloves. I've had my elbows click and be sore for months after getting armbarred during grappling. While fighting in armor for the SCA, I took a shot to the leg with a "sword" that left a bruise that didn't go away for two weeks, and that was with the armor on.
Bottom line, if your characters end up fighting, just take a moment later to talk about how their body held up. Did they get injured? Well then don't forget about that later on when you have them trying to spring up a mountainside. Keep it fun, keep the action going and don't bog the narrative down with details, but keep it real as well. Your readers will appreciate it. Now go write. Well guess who's going to be a panelist...this guy. That's right; hide your sanity, leave your common sense at home, and bring some sort of recording device, because I'm going to be sitting on some panels (and not nice wooden ones).
This year I'll be attending the Life, the Universe, & Everything Symposium in Provo, Utah. While there, I'll be on the panel for "So You Want to Write Horror?" on Friday, Feb 13 (fitting, right?), as well as the panel for "The Magic of Minis" on Saturday, Feb 14 (hopefully it's about the use of miniature figurines in role-playing games and not the magic of mini candy bars. Because, let's face it... mini candy bars are not magical). So if you are going to the symposium, come stop by and learn some mystical knowledge (or at least be entertained for an hour or two). I was recently involved with the creation of an anthology. As a group, the Utah Regional Chapter of the HWA, of which I am the Organizer, decided to create an anthology to help spread some horror. Inside this fine piece of work, are fourteen tales written by authors who have a Utah connection. That means they either live in Utah, have lived in Utah, or have family in Utah. The tales are a collection of Utah horror, many with an Old West vibe. My story, "The Demons We Bring" can be found inside. It's the prequel to "Horishi Tom" so if you are familiar with that tale, you can reacquaint yourself with Jeremiah Redford as he tries to find a way to bring his family back from the dead.
After we decided what the theme would be, we put out an open call for submissions. I think we gave the authors a couple of months to get stories back to us. At that time, we didn't quite know who would be the editor/editors. The majority of the Utah HWA submitted stories, as well as a decent number of folks who were outside of the chapter. Once the submission process came to a finish, we reached out to find folks who want to be readers to decide which stories would be kept for the anthology. Due to a lack of volunteers, it ended up being me and two other folks from the chapter. Since I had a story submitted, I didn't vote on my own piece. We went with a simple Yes/No vote. If a story ended up with two no's, then it was out. Basically, that meant if any of the other readers didn't like my story, only one would have to say no then I would have been out (since I wasn't voting on my own piece). After the stories were selected, we needed editors. Once again, due to a lack of volunteers, it came down to me an another Utah HWA member. Once again, I left my story alone and let the other volunteer do the editing. It was strange being a reader and an editor on a project that had my own story involved, so I did my best to mitigate. The editing process involved multiple passes between the authors and us. It was a lot more involved than I thought it would be and required a lot of communication between the other editor, as well as with the authors. Luckily, one of our members owned Griffin Publishers, LLC and helped us out with the formatting and publishing of the anthology on Create Space. Another member was good friends with Carter Reid and was able to hook us up with an original piece of art, custom-made for the anthology. Carter, I just want to say that you are an awesome fellow for doing this. Please check him out at his website where he creates a zombie web-comic. While at times it was a major pain in the ass to get this project finished, I kind of liked it. Maybe I'm a sucker for punishment, but I think I might do another anthology. This time I'll try and tackle it by myself (don't worry, my stories wont find their way into that one). You can pick up a copy of the book here: http://griffinpublishers.com/publications.html or you can come see us at FanX in Salt Lake City, January 29-31, or Life, the Universe and Everything in Provo, Utah in February and get signed copies at a discounted rate. |
AuthorC.R. Langille writes horror, fantasy, urban-fantasy, dark fantasy, and is considering stepping into the sci-fi realm. He has a grasp of survival techniques, and has been a table-top gamer for over 16 years. Archives
August 2023
Categories
All
|