Author Line-Up for Spells: Ten Tales of Magic Anthology

As announced in my last post, my short story A Magical Melody is appearing in Spells: Ten Tales of Magic, an anthology edited by Rayne Hall, and released 28 October. You can find it on Smashwords and shortly on Amazon.

Being as it's ten tales, there are nine other authors apart from myself.  All of my readers are, of course, well-acquianted with me; opinionated, dragon-obsessed, friendly neighbourhood writing adviser, usually juggling any impossible number of writing projects with an insane number of workshops, and still trying to help out my fellow writers with beta reading and critiques. 

If you'd like to know about the other authors, some of whom have impressive credentials, you can check them out here on the blog of fellow Ten Tales author, Jeff Hargett.

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Spells: Ten Tales of Magic

Spells: Ten Tales of Magic is an anthology edited by Rayne Hall, released 28 October - and my short story A Magical Melody is part of the collection!

Some of you may have seen an earlier incarnation of A Magical Melody on my blog as part of the A-Z Blogging Challenge, but Spells: Ten Tales of Magic will feature the revised (and therefore improved) version. The original (first draft) version is no longer available on my blog, pending the release of the anthology. A publication date is not yet confirmed, but is expected to be later in October.

I'm delighted I was asked to submit a revised version of A Magical Melody, and even more pleased to have it accepted. The story did deserve a bit of polish - and in fact, the concept of the world intrigues me enough I'll probably revisit it in future for a novel of its own. 

I've shared the cover here with you, but the official cover reveal was done yesterday on the blog of fellow anthology author, Cherie Reich. You can find the original launch, complete with an interview with the cover artist, here.

You can find the anthology on Smashwords and shortly on Amazon.

In the meantime, another anthology in the series edited by Rayne Hall, Haunted: Ten Tales of Ghosts is free at Amazon from 23 - 27 October. If you're interested, you can find it here for US Kindle and here for UK Kindle. 

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Does the Reader Need to Like Your Main Character?

Of course not. How could you possibly write a character everyone would like? No one likes everyone they meet, and the fact a given person doesn’t like another person isn’t even necessarily a commentary on that second person’s character. It’s just that some personalities are incompatible. It boils down to personal preference. 

I saw this question debated in a fantasy writing forum, spawned off a conversation I had on Twitter following a #writetip I posted. I was sad to see most of the writers who commented did so on the basis of their own personal experiences, characters they did and did not like, and how that impacted their liking of the book, instead of taking a more objective and analytical view.

I suggest this is the wrong question. The right question is ‘does your character need to be likeable?’.

How do we distinguish a likeable character from one we like?

Liking someone (including a character) comes down to your own personal preferences of qualities and characteristics you find desirable in a person. Essentially you are asking would this character be your friend, if they were real. Likeable, on the other hand, means capable of evoking empathy or sympathy.

One commentator on the forum observed they didn’t like Frodo. I can’t say as I especially like Frodo either. If I listed my all-time favourite characters, Frodo wouldn’t be on that list. Does that mean he’s not ‘likeable’?

I don’t think it does. Frodo’s character isn’t repellent, disagreeable, nasty, or otherwise have elements which would make a reader actively dislike him. In general, his character has the potential to be liked. Whether you do or don’t like him comes down to your personal preferences. Given the definition of likeable I’ve mentioned above, to avoid confusion it may even be better to say ‘relatable’.

When we rephrase the question ‘Is Frodo relatable’ I think the answer is a resounding yes. He’s a little guy, bowed down by the weight of the world’s problems, venturing out from the only safe home he has known, to do battle with demons he can’t comprehend. You can easily take the fantasy out of the context by making the demons and the problems figurative instead of literal. Who can’t relate to that? To some degree, nearly all of us will have some sympathy for his plight – even if we don’t like him, personally.

Why is it important to make your character relatable?

Bearing in mind I am only talking about genre fiction here (literary fiction being a different kettle of fish), your character should be relatable because they are driving the action. In many cases, the reader keeps reading because they want to see what the character does next, how they solve their problems, how they overcome conflict, how their decisions make things better or worse.  If we don’t have empathy or sympathy for the character, if we don’t care at some level what happens to them, if we aren’t invested in that character, then why would we keep reading to learn any of these things?

The short answer is, for most, they wouldn’t. Once upon a time, I probably did, and I learned I wasn’t the standard, but nowadays my time is too precious. If I don’t care, I won’t bother to find out.

The problem is exacerbated if the main character is actively unlikeable, pathetic, whiny, or any one of a number of undesirable qualities, because really, who likes to spend any amount of time in the company of someone like that?

A few case studies to consider:

• Dexter – basically a serial killer, but we like him, or empathise with him, why? Because he has ‘The Code’. He only kills people who deserve it. Vigilante justice, but ‘good’ resonates more with us than ‘lawful’ in many cases. What he’s doing may not be strictly right, but we understand it, we relate to it, and, secretly, we probably applaud it;
• Rincewind from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld – a pathetic, useless and cowardly wizard who can’t perform magic or, for that matter, even spell the word ‘wizard’. Why do we like him? His cowardice is brutally pragmatic, and when you listen to him, he starts to make you question the intelligence of all those ‘heroes’ who rushed in against insurmountable odds to rescue the princess. Not only is Rincewind often right, but he’s funny – his insights are clever, and entertaining. Everyone likes the funny guy – even if often Rincewind is the butt of the joke;
• Riddick in Pitch Black – this one is a little less obvious, and harder to explain. Riddick is very much a ‘dark hero’. Why do we relate to him? A little bit, because we understand where he’s come from, and the tough circumstances he’s had to survive. A little bit, because he could have killed the other survivors at any time – and he didn’t. Surely he would have had a better chance without them, so why did he ever saddle himself with the burden of saving their lives? We have to ask the question, and suspect an answer. Even at the end, when he did make a break for it, and looked out for himself, he couldn’t go through with it. It’s that part of him, the good buried deep inside, that we relate to, and we follow the story to find out which side of him wins out.

As well as being relatable, no character should be irredeemable. Would Riddick work if we believed he was a bad apple all the way through, if he had abandoned everyone to die? No, of course not. Would Rincewind work so well if he didn’t save the world? Though he may be dragged to it, and forced against his will, at the end Rincewind accepts his fate with weary resignation and does what he can, little though it may be. If neither character showed any compassion or concern for others, they would fail completely.

You don’t need to like a character. But I do believe you need to understand and relate to characters in genre fiction, and most especially the protagonist. 

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The Way of Shadows - Review by Ciara Ballintyne

 Club Fantasci met last week for its second G+ Hangout and first successful hangout! You can watch myself and co-hosts Dionne Lister and David Lowry discuss The Way of Shadows by Brent Weeks here. If you've read the book, join us on our Goodreads page - start your own discussion threads or join the ones already going.  

The song I chose for The Way of Shadows is Standing Outside the Fire by Garth Brooks. The song is a metaphor for how life without love is an empty existence. I chose it because this is exactly how Durzo tries to live, and how he teaches Kylar to live, for their own safety - but ultimately, the fire of love draws them like moths to the flame. Despite themselves, they can't live in that empty, loveless existence.  

~

Cenaria is not a place you’d like to grow up – but the backstreets, of the worst district, of the most corrupt city in the world, is the place Azoth does. Ruled by a weak, arbitrary king, and effectively run by the Sa’kage, the underworld criminals, Cenaria is rotten to the core, the very epitome of a dog-eat-dog world, and it leaves its mark on many of the characters.

Azoth, orphaned, surviving on the streets in a gang run by a boy who uses rape and cruelty as a means to control other children, is both moulded by his early experiences, and yet defies them. It is the fear and terror of his childhood, the raping of one friend, the deliberate maiming and scarring of another, that drives him to apprentice to Durzo Blint, the best wetboy in the city. The sheer misery and terror of these children’s existence is enough to make a reader want to cry, and this is important, because it’s this background that makes us forgive Azoth’s future as a trained killer. 

Blint refuses to train Azoth unless he can kill the boy who tormented him; the nasty piece of work, or ‘twist’ as is the slang in the book, deserves everything he gets and more, but it isn’t an easy task for Azoth. When he completes his task, if too late to save his friends Jarl and ‘Doll Girl’ from their own torments, Blint takes Azoth in, gives him the name Kylar, and teaches him the black trade of death and all the lessons that go with it. Assassins have targets; wetboys have deaders. A wetboy cannot love. Life has no value. Despite the lessons Blint teaches him, Kylar cannot move past the basic decency that led him to share his meagre food with his street-friends. Though he learns to kill, surely, he cannot always take the actions Blint would take, or urges him to take.  

Durzo Blint is, at first blush, irredeemable, corrupt, cold-hearted. But the author gives us enough clues to know the man is not as cold and callous as he’d like us to believe, but rather only desperate to ensure everyone does believe he is cold and callous. Bitter experience has taught him love is weakness; if you love someone, they can be used against you, hurt to make you comply. It’s not that Blint doesn’t care; it’s that he dare not let anyone know he cares, and most especially not his enemies. 

These two are supported by a host of other characters; Momma K, the retired whore pulling the strings of the city; Count Drake, an example to Kylar that one can turn away from the darkness; Elene, Kylar’s childhood friend ‘Doll Girl’; Logan, the impeccably ethical heir to Duke Gyre; the duke himself; the king, and his family; the prophet, Dorian Ursuul, and his friends, desperate to divert an horrific future; and the God-King Garoth Ursuul, architect of that future. 

Of them, Elene and Logan are two least affected by the corruption in Cenaria, but while I admire and like Logan, Elene annoys me. Logan always tries to do the right thing, but doesn’t necessarily expect others to live by his code. Elene, who knows she has been saved from a life of prostitution, poverty and cruelty only by Kylar’s sacrifices, presumes to judge him for the deeds he has committed in making those sacrifices. Where Logan comes across as a pillar of morality, Elene appears only self-righteous and judgemental, and expecting all to live according to the word of her One God. It is hypocrisy to be simultaneously grateful for the life one has, and judge another for the acts committed to give one that life.  

The events of the book centre around six magical artefacts called ka’kari, made to fix people who would otherwise be brilliant mages, but who are ‘broken’ and have no way to access their power. As a side effect, the ka’kari also grant immortality. The God-King wants one to extend his rule into eternity; Durzo, blackmailed by the God-King who takes his lover, and later his daughter, hunts one to try and save their lives; Kylar inadvertently calls one to himself because he is broken, but would give it to Durzo if he could. Everyone seems to want it, and no one can get their hands on it, and the price is paid in blood by many.

And so, Durzo and Kylar, loving each other like father and son, are driven against each other. Durzo must take the ka’kari to save his daughter, but doing so means the death of Kylar. Kylar would give it to him if he could, but he can’t, and he must stop Durzo’s end-game or watch his best friend, Logan, die.

Which is the better wetboy? Can either bring themselves to kill the other? What are the secrets Durzo hides, about himself, about Kylar? What is the secret of the ka’kari? What is the conflict between Momma K and Durzo? Plots within plots weave about plots, intrigue within intrigue. Keeping up with all the schemes, who is on whose side, who is betrayer or betrayed, will keep you on your toes and turning the pages. 

Though the book is not perfectly written (it is a debut novel), the story is compelling enough, the characters likeable enough, despite all their flaws, and undeniably real enough, to immerse you in the story and have you hanging on to know what happens next. 

The emotional importance of Kylar’s and Blint’s relationship and affection for each other could have been cranked up a notch to add to the conflict, but admittedly that’s difficult to do when both are trained killers who conceal their emotions. Nevertheless, a must-read fantasy book, especially if you like assassins!

Reviews by all my co-hosts are available on the Club Fantasci website - follow the links to read reviews by Dionne and David. 

October's Book of the Month is The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers. The book is in print, but so old you'll likely have to order it online as you'll have trouble finding it on the shelf. The copy I've stolen... ahem, borrowed, from my Dad is a hardback, so it's like to be damn near as old as I am! 

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