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URBAN

More bang for your fang,

more vamp for your tramp By Pat Hauldren

Fantasy, and especially , are hot on today’s market. In this class, we’ll define Urban Fantasy, explore the markets available and how each market expects different aspects of the same . We’ll also study the current publications in the genre, including adult, YA, and children’s subgenres, and compare our own manuscripts to these. At the end of this workshop, you will understand the Urban Fantasy genre and be on your way to writing an urban fantasy with flare. Throughout the class, we’ll work on improving our manuscripts to meet market needs. The audience for this workshop will be writers of Urban Fantasy, , Science , Fantasy, etc. The only pre-requisite for this class is an interest in Urban Fantasy as a genre.

See more of Pat Hauldren’s workshops at www.pathauldren.net

Email: mailto:[email protected]

Page 2 of 35

Contents Introductions, Lesson 1, & Assignment 1...... 4 1.1 Introductions ...... 4 1.2 Lesson 1 ...... 5 1.3 Assignment 1 ...... 6 EXTRA CREDIT 1: A little history of the Fantasy genre ...... 7 LESSON 2 ASSIGNMENT 2 ...... 10 LESSON 3 : UF CHARACTERS ...... 12 CHARACTERS ...... 12 THE PROTAGONIST ...... 14 ASSIGNMENT #3.1 ...... 14 EXTRA CREDIT 3.1: ...... 15 Characters By Elizabeth Bowen ...... 15 EXTRA CREDIT 3.2 GETTING CREATIVE: Creature Shop 101 ...... 18 Creature Shop 101 ...... 18 EXTRA CREDIT 3.2 EXAMPLE ...... 19 Example for UF intro characters: antag & protag ...... 19 TO KILL A WARLOCK ...... 19 LESSON 4: WORLDBUILDING ...... 20 4.1 SETTING ...... 20 ASSIGNMENT 4.1 ...... 20 EXTRA CREDIT: GEOGRAPHICAL ARCHETYPES ...... 21 1. The City ...... 21 QUESTIONS TO PONDER: ...... 25 LESSON 4.2 WORLDBUILDING: , MIGHT, & MAHEM ...... 26 What is magic ...... 26 How do we make magic believable? ...... 27 ASSIGNMENT 4.2 MAGIC & THE ...... 27 LESSON 4.3 WORLDBUILDING: MYTHOLOGY & RELIGION ...... 28

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ASSIGNMENT 4.3.1...... 28 EXTRA CREDIT & ASSIGNMENT 4.3.2: Joseph Campbell ...... 29 ASSIGNMENT 4.3.2...... 29 ASSIGNMENT 4.3.3...... 30 ASSIGNMENT 4.3.4...... 30 ASSIGNMENT 4.3.5...... 31 LESSON 5: MARKETING AN URBAN FANTASY ...... 32 PUBLISHER EXAMPLES ...... 32 ORBIT BOOKS: ...... 32 ACE/ ...... 32 Baen Books ...... 33 Tor ...... 33 PUBLISHERS’ CHART ...... 34 LESSON 5: KEEP WRITING! ...... 35

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URBAN FANTASY: More bang for your fang, more vamp for your tramp©

Introductions, Lesson 1, & Assignment 1

1.1 Introductions Hello, and welcome to the Urban Fantasy workshop! I’m so glad you are all here. 

I’ll start off with introductions. I’m Pat Hauldren, (some of you may know me as Alley, either name works fine), and I write novels and short stories. I’ve published poetry, short stories, Japanese Noh Drama, and I have several gigs where I write about different topics from hockey, women’s sports, the SyFy Channel, as well as on writing and speculative fiction.

Currently, I have five agents who’ve asked me for full manuscript submissions even knowing that I haven’t finished my current novel yet. One agent asked me to change a previous novel into an . Now, all I need is more time in the day!

As for workshops, I’ve been on the board of several of my local workshops, including my local RWA chapter, and founded a few workshops. I also teach writing both online and live. I’m very excited about November later this year because I’ll be teaching three different Saturday writing workshops in The .

You might ask, why are you teaching THIS particular workshop?

Because, the more I write in the speculative fiction genre, the more my work leans toward Urban Fantasy (UF) and so I had to do some research in this area and figure out what makes a good UF? What elements are common? What does it share with the Fantasy genre? And where does it differ? Who is taking UF? And how do they define UF? (Different publishers/editors have different requirements.) And we’ll go over all of these in this class.

And so I’ve been studying Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Mythology/Religion (just finished a class on it last spring), and even delving (more) into Joseph Campbell and his series on mythology.

In this class, we’ll take your manuscript or story and analyze the UF elements and see how we can punch it up (ergo the “more vamp for your tramp, more bang for your fang” subtitle ). There are so many,

Urban Fantasy: More bang for your fang© by Pat Hauldren Page 5 of 35 many, many UFs out there now. It’s so popular. Our mss must outshine the millions of other submissions out there.

In this class, there’s one caveat (well, I’m sure I’ll think of more later ). I’m not the know-it-all on UF, F, or anything else. Please don’t be shy in offering information, asking questions, and participating in this class. I like teaching classes because I learn as much from the students as the students do from me. So pipe up and let’s discuss topics. There are no dumb or stupid questions. And I want to learn as much as you do. 

You can find out more about me at www.pathauldren.com .

So now it’s your turn. Who are you and what do you write?

1.2 Lesson 1 Our lesson today is rather simple.

Urban Fantasy (UF) has certain elements that make it UF instead of just Fantasy or Paranormal, although these genres often bleed over into each other. There is no real line-in-the-sand we can draw for Urban Fantasy other than to say that it’s:

1. A fantasy 2. In an urban setting

So we could say that UF is a fantasy in a specific setting.

NOTE: However, we can’t say “always” and “never” and “only” when we are speaking of any genre. Where your book will be marketed isn’t always up to the author. Often, the editor and/or agent, will decide where you book will be shelved. So read the invisible “mostly” and “usually” in any statement in this class. There are always exceptions, new trends, marketing strategies and they may change at any moment.

Let’s look at #1: A fantasy

This means that the story has fantastical elements. And the term “fantastical” could be specific or it could be rather vague. The story could be so contemporary as to seem like a standard modern story, and the fantastical elements could be implied, or not even the main part of the story, perhaps some whimsical element.

 But for this class, we’ll deal with stories that have the fantastical element as an integral part of the story.

What are fantastical elements? I can’t name them all, but think of things like , , magic, ability, time travel, even talking toasters.  The elements are almost endless, and only limited by our imaginations.

Now, let’s look at #2: In an urban setting.

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Most UFs are set in a contemporary time period and in a city, but that’s not exclusive. As more and more UFs fill up the bookshelves, more and more variations on a theme widen the “usual” elements. So if your UF isn’t in a city, or the burbs, not to worry. Maybe it’s a small town, on a farm, or at an Antarctic research station, all are valid for UF. (However, if yours is on an orbiting space station, on the moon, or somewhere that’s not where humans normally abide, reconsider niching your story in the UF market.)

So, while the setting might not be in a city, per se, UF occurs where humans normally reside, at least most of the story should be there. Think of the usual UF as if the main character was you or I and we’re living our everyday lives, with some fantastical element(s) thrown in.

 According to Library Journal, "traditional urban fantasy" arose as an acknowledged sub-genre in the late 1980s and early '90s.i There’s been plenty of time for growth and change, so don’t limit yourself.

And because there is such a wide variety of UF, the time period isn’t as limiting as it used to be. Works of the genre may also take place in futuristic and historical settings, real or imagined. Authors Marie Brennan and have set urban in Elizabethan and Victorian London respectively.ii

What are the current bestselling Urban Fantasies?

Just for fun, I researched a bit on what UFs are listed on today’s NY Times Bestseller list. I found two, and they are two big names:

--Dead Reckoning: ’ latest Sookie Stackhouse novel (#11)

--Hit List: Laurell K. Hamilton’s latest Anita Blake, Hunter novel (#20)

What does this list tell you about UF?

1. That urban fantasy sells, even just fantasy (George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones series is also a biggy and now a series on HBO). 2. That urban fantasy will probably sell for a long, long time. Look at how many books these authors have out!

What do these books have in common?

1. Female protag 2. Urban/contemporary setting 3. Other genre bleedovers, pulling in readers of mystery/crime/detective as well. 4. First person

1.3 Assignment 1 How does your manuscript fit in with the above 4 items common in the two current bestsellers?

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EXTRA CREDIT 1: A little history of the Fantasy genre

With the British publication in Oct. 1955 of THE RETURN OF THE KING (1956 in the US), completing the LORD OF THE RINGERS trilogy, fantasy underwent a profound change. Although the impact and influence of Tolkien’s famed chronicle was initially a muted, underground one, its paperback appearance in 1965 from Ballantine in the US (compounded by an earlier semi-pirated edition released by Ace, which took advantage of a lapse in the copyright registration of the trilogy) was to make it in effect one of the twentieth century’s major “cult” books and transformed the fortunes of the genre for better and for worse.

The year 1977 can in fact be seen as a turning point for that area of fantasy charted by Tolkien. Not only was this the year when both and Hancock broke in to print, it was also a year that saw the publication of the first trilogy of the CHRONICLES OF THOMAS COVENEANT by Stephen Donaldson. This (at the time) young American author deliberately set out to write an adult fantasy within the standard framework.

The Thomas Covenant character is a writer suffering from leprosy, who is transported to the Land where he becomes an important pawn in a particularly well drawn battle between good and evil. Donaldson’s innovative concept was to make his a man of many doubts, a complex, questioning, at times even cowardly person at odds with the customary bouts of heroism so prevalent in the average fantasy fare. So Covenent’s progress through the Land also becomes a metaphor for his reconciliation with humanity. Donaldson’s initial trilogy, despite its gargantuan length and a style that is often verbose and tiresome, is nonetheless a major achievement. Seldom before had characterization in the quest fantasy genre been so acute, and readers evidently responded and identified with the complex and often-contradictory Covenant.

A final, almost definitive trilogy in the Tolkien tradition began appearing in 1984 with THE SUMMER TREE, BOOK ONE OF THE FIONAVAR TAPESTRY by , a Canadian author with undeniable links to Tolkien: in 1974-75, he spent a year in Oxford assisting Christopher Tolkien in his editorial construction of the posthumously published THE SILMARILLION. The FAIONAVAR TAPESTRY is a rich blend of suspense and sorcery inveigling five twentieth-century students into a shadow world where the conjured elements of power and magic are inextricably wedded to the all-too-human figures who must wield them or confront them. Kay synthesized the human frailties introduced to the genre by Donaldson.

Some think that the genius of Tolkien’s fantasy theme has been diluted over the years, but no one can doubt that the fantasy genre is a large and profitable business. Which is why we are here, right? 

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Science Fiction has also interfaced with fantasy. The connection between the two genres has always been a very close one, to the extent that the Nicholls ENCYCLOPEDIA postulates that SF is a part of the fantasy real and remains as indivisible from it as fish from fowl.

Adventures on another planet owe little to science and rationality and more to magic or exoticism. Prime examples are ’s WITCH WORLD series, Anne McCaffrey’s DRAGONRIDERS OF PERN and other novels, or Marion Zimmer Bradley’s adventure on the alien, yet , world of Darkover. These books demonstrate how fantasy and science fiction coexist with imaginative storytelling to create a genuine feel of the fantastic. Other writers like Jennifer Roberson, Piers Anthony, Fred Saberhagen, Melanie Rawn, Sanuel R. Delany, Julie Czernada, Larry Niven, and Glen Cook (and many more) are some of the writers in the category who navigate this rewarding interface.

Another interface common in the post-1957 fantasy has been with the historical novel, grappling with the of Arthur, Guinevere, and their Round Table acolytes. From Malory and Tennyson onward, the figure of Arhtur Pendragon has inspired so many historical and fantasy wriers that their tales could make up their own sub-genre. The fascination in this particular myth lies in its uncommon blend of Celtic elements, romance, and Christian .

And from there sprouted faeries and of all ilk. Fantasy writers broke free of facts and set loose their imaginations on the embroidering of all types of mythologies: Greek, Roman, Norse, Chinese, Oriental, Central European, ad nauseum. Some of the founding authors in this area include Jane Yolen, Ursula LeGuin, even Neil Gaimon ().

One type of modern fantasy writing that began as an essentially British prerogative is the animal . Richard Adams with added much new perspective to what had been until then essentially an area of children’s writing, and his successors soon combined this new tradition with other subgenres to mixed effect, like Bach’s JONATHAN LIVINGSTON SEAGULL.

Shared world fantasies has taken a deep root, thanks to the increasingly social aspects of the field with conventions and workshops. Authors share tales such as the THIEVE’S WORLD anthology in 1979 created and edited by (the now deceased) Lynn Asprin (whom I have met and was a very funny guy).

From the romance of the nineteenth century, the commercial sea change of pulp between the two world wars, the coming of age of in its abbreviated and more violent sword-and-sorcery incarnation, the exemplary harnessing of myth by Tolkien that became an obtrusive landmark, to the complex multi-stream that fantasy is today, the field has traveled a long and exciting way.

Young Adult fantasy—the most recent of fantasy subgenres to enjoy critical acceptance—is best understood in relation to the emergence of young adult literature and the prior origin and development of children’s literature, in particular children’s fantasy.

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The major reason for the current preference for “young adult” is that, as it conveniently function as an umbrella term for anything and everything teens read, it also lends dignity and respect to that reading material. If you are writing Young Adult as a genre, be sure to examine your intended market’s criteria for age grouping. What a 15-year-old teen reads is different from a 13-year-old pre-teen (tween?).

You could say YA literature is merely another way of exploiting a segment of the population that is too self-conscious and too liberal with its money. Yet, the fact remains that narratives are being written, published, and reviewed, and made available to those in passage between childhood and adulthood, whatever that actual boundary of years may be.

One author that has exploded on the scene is Rosemary Clemente-Moore, with her college-aged protagonist exploring her contemporary world impeded by fantastical elements. Other established authors in the fantasy field jumped on the horse, like Neil Gaimon, producing both adult books, young adult books, and even children’s books.

Why does YA fantasy flourish?

Because it satisfies two genuine needs of the audience, it is designed to reach: aesthetic and psychological.

YA fantasy at its best is very effective storytelling, providing believable characters, stimulating description, original setting, and distinctive writing. Young people yearn for guidance, even if they don’t outright ask for it. They yearn to be adults, free of their current restrictions and afflictions from acne to grounding. YA literature speaks to those concerns, letting the reader know she or he is not the only person with those problems. Here’s some more you might like, just for fun. (IRON KING, THE GIVER, LINGER, FIRELIGHT, THE MAZE RUNNER)

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LESSON 2 ASSIGNMENT 2 Back to Urban Fantasy

Urban Fantasy, that which we are studying here, draws from all the history fantasy has to offer and is virtually limitless in its variations. Urban Fantasy began as “contemporary” fantasy, where the character is on Earth, with a mundane existence (mundane in this instance doesn’t mean boring, it means everyday, of THIS world) .

Some books that are urban fantasy would be Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake Vampire Hunter and Merry Gentry series, ’s Rachel Morgan series, Jeaniene Frost’s Night Huntress series, and ’s . For young adult books this would be 's The Darkest Powers series, House of Night series, by P. C. and Kristin Cast, and The Immortals series, by Alyson Noël.

The creatures that play a part in this genre are vampires, were- people/shifters, and faery creatures more so in the urban fantasy realm than in any other type fantasy sub-genre. Some inventive authors have even crafted tales with unique creatures that are not the norm, such as for example.

While there are not that many TV shows or movies under this genre, some notable ones would be and , and for TV shows and for movies Underworld, Blade, and Hellboy.

The Urban Fantasy genre and Paranormal fantasy can be blended and difficult to separate. Each bleeds over into the other. Vampires, shape-shifters, , , and anything with supernatural abilities share their existence somehow with the mundane-living protagonist.

Their tropes can also be blended, and yet we can separate them sometimes by how much of one trope, or characteristic, is used in the story.

So in Lesson 1 we looked at 4 characteristics of UF:

1. Protag – usually female, spunky, mundane, quirky, yet strong-willed or unique in some way 2. Setting—usually urban: city, suburb, but can be rural with some publishers 3. Genre Bleedovers—pulls from other genres like crime, historical, detective, , etc. 4. Viewpoint—first person mostly

And today I’m adding two more characteristics:

5. Fantastical elements—must contain something that moves the protag out of the mundane into the fantastical, such as vampires, werewolves, , , angels, anything “fantastic.”

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6. Romance—99% of the publishers out there today publishing “urban fantasy” are expecting a romance thread throughout the story.

Let’s look at an example of another bestselling author, Patricia Briggs. I’m excerpting the first paragraph from her book, Moon Called in her Mercy Thompson series:

“I didn’t reliaze he was a at first. My nose isn’t at its best when surrounded by axle grease and burnt oil—and it’s not like there are a lot of stray werewolves running around. So when someone made a polite noise near my feet to get my attention I thought he was a customer.

How does this, in just the first paragraph, fit in the UF characteristics?

1. Protag is female, strong, a little different, you’ll see in par 2 that she’s working on the engine of her Jetta. 2. Setting is contemporary (mundane). We can tell because there’s axle grease and burnt oil, so we know from the first paragraph, it’s probably taking place around something like a car or truck or in a repair shop, that sort of thing. 3. Bleedover isn’t evident yet, but we can assume that she and the werewolf are gonna team up to accomplish something, right? 4. Viewpoint is in first person right off the bat. 5. The fantastical elements thus far is the werewolf, setting us up immediately for their relationship, whatever it turns out to be. 6. And a possible romance in that relationship, though it’s hard to tell just from the first paragraph.

See how much is said and implied in one little first paragraph, the most important paragraph you’ll ever write?

ASSIGNMENT 2

How does your first paragraph compare with these 6 UF elements?

If you wish, post your first paragraph and then list how it complies with these 6 characteristics.

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LESSON 3 : UF CHARACTERS

CHARACTERS As in any genre, characters are key to creating a strong story. Indeed, characters are the story.

Characters can be human, nonhuman, even non-living. In some stories, setting is character, in others, a theme or object might be a character. In Urban Fantasy, as with most stories, characters are character (though there can be other aspects).

In 1927, E. M. Forster wrote a major consideration of the craft of fiction writing called Aspects of the Novel and introduced the divisions of characters into ‘flat’ and ‘round.’

Flat characters have a single characteristic that does not change throughout the work—Mrs Micawber was Forster’s example; she can be summed up, he said, in the statement, “I never will desert Mr. Micawber.”

Round characters have several characteristics, some of which may be (or seem to be) contradictory—in the end they are like people, unpredictable, but in a convincing way.

All characters are selected to fulfill the necessities of plot. No characters are truly unpredictable, none are truly rounded, and the best are a selection of traits.iii

“What is character but the determinant of incident,” Henry James wrote, “and what is incident but the illustration of character.”

Whether the writer begins with an intriguing situation for which she invents characters not only capable of doing those Elizabeth Bowen was born in 1899 in Dublin and raised in England. Her things which must be done in the story but of being uniquely first book, a collection of short tested by the situation, or whether a writer begins with a stories titled Encounter, was fascinating character for whom she invents a situation in published in 1923. Thereafter she produced plays, reviews, eleven which that character will be revealed or exposed, the result is novels, nine collections of short substantially the same: stories, and eleven volumes of nonfiction, and she worked as a Plot and character must meet and fit exactly. reporter for the British Ministry of Information during the Second World “Each character is created in order, and only in order, that he War; by night she was an air raid or she [or it in our case] may supply the required action,” warden. Awards for her work included the CBE (Companion of the Elizabeth Bowen wrote in her Notes on Writing a Novel. British Empire). Bowen and her Those who maintain otherwise are deceiving themselves. husband, Alan Cameron, had no children. Bowen died in 1973 and is Traditional fiction is primarily concerned with character. It buried with her husband close to the reveals character by focusing on its development, its critical gates of the Bowen family land, Bowen’s Court, in County. moments of awareness or awakening (see The Writers

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Journey by Christopher Vogler), its recognition of itself. It reveals character through its interaction with life and life’s processes. Most fiction intends us to marvel at the complexity of human nature or the variousness of human and nonhuman behavior; it seeks to elicit the nod of agreement at the revelation of the human animal or of life, or the shock of recognition at, in Hemingway’s phrase, “the way it was,” for are not the emotions and situations we write about in Urban Fiction not the imagination of a human mind for a human mind?

This has been the basis of literature since Gustave Flaubert invented the modern fiction in the mid- nineteenth century, an invention that subsequently was improved and extended by Henry James and James Joyce, and others.

Urban Fantasy, as does Fantasy in general, expands upon those literary foundations.

“Every good writer knows that the more unusual the scenes and events of his story are, the slighter, the more ordinary, the more typical his persons should be. Hence Gulliver is a commonplace little man and Alice is a commonplace little girl. If they had been more remarkable they would have wrecked their books.” ~ C. S. Lewis

Characters are not only the reasons for the story in Urban Fantasy (in the sense that their complexity or uniqueness is often what the story is about and if that aspect were taken away, there would be no story), they are the story. Their resemblance to people in real life itself gives an essential feeling of reality to the story. Even if the characters are nonhuman, the reader must identify with the characters as if they were, at least in some respects, just like humans.

Forster said that character “harmonizes the human race with the other aspects of work.” (Meaning the rest of the story.) This quality of character in Urban Fiction (and fiction in general) is essential for the reader to “become the character.” Other aspects contribute to that feeling of reality, or of the readers’ transportation to that form of fictional reality—the setting, the events, the language, the dialogue—but the verisimilitude of the characters is a major factor in the story’s acceptance by the reader.

∞ H. G. Wells attempted to naturalize his fantastic stories by using ordinary people and an enveloping fog of commonplaces, tricking the reader, he said, “into an unwary concenssion to some plausible assumption” which allows the author to “get on with his story while the illusion holds.”

∞ Robert A. Heinlein provided a wealth of everyday detail about his future worlds and from this built up a convincing picture of a different social or technological situation.

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∞ Naomi Novik convinced us that her Chinese-British dragon Temeraire could speak English (and several more languages) and maintain unwavering loyalty to his friend, Captain William Laurence.

∞ China Mieville made us cry in Perdido Street Station at the state of the cruelly do-winged birdman seeking to have his flight restored, and filled his world with human-insects and other weirdly modified humans, from cactus to bird to frog to ant-men.

Urban Fantasy has almost no limit to the types of characters it hosts: aliens, mythological, paranormal, etc., yet one thing is always true:

REALISTIC CHARACTERS SHOULD HELP OBTAIN THAT SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF, THAT UNWARY CONCESSION, REGARDLESS OF THEIR STATE OF BEING, HUMAN OR NONHUMAN.

THE PROTAGONIST

A protagonist is a Greek word meaning “one who plays the first part or chief actor.” The main or central character in a novel is the protagonist, around whom the events of the story revolve and whom the audience is intended to most identify with.iv

In by Stephanie Meyer, the main character was Bella, a teen doing things all teens do, experiencing the angsts and travails all teens experience, to one degree or another.

Twilight begins with a common element for her protagonist, the new kid in school, which helps to reveal her character in a new situation. For my own interests, this book began a little slow, but to a teenager, this book hit home, because it tugged on any teen’s concerns: parent’s separation, new town, new school, new friends, feeling left out, lonely, yearning for acceptance, to stand out, to be special, yet not ostracized, and so on.

ASSIGNMENT #3.1 1. Who is your protag? 2. What are his or her main characteristics and how do you think they help the reader identify with? 3. How will those main characteristics come into play as essential parts of the story?

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EXTRA CREDIT 3.1:

Characters By Elizabeth Bowen ARE THE CHARACTERS, then, to be constructed to formula—the formula pre- decided by the plot? Are they to be drawn, cut out, jointed, wired, in order to be manipulated for the plot? No. There is no question as to whether this would be right or wrong. It would be impossible. One cannot ‘make’ characters, only marionettes. The manipulated movement of the marionette is not the ‘action’ necessary for plot. Characterless action is not action at all, in the plot sense. It is the indivisibility of the act from the actor, and the inevitability of that act on the part of that actor, that gives action verisimilitude. Without that, action is without force or reason. Forceless, reasonless action disrupts plot. The term ‘creation of character’ (or characters) is misleading. Characters pre-exist. They are found. They reveal themselves slowly to the novelist’s perception—as might fellow-travellers seated opposite one in a very dimly-lit railway carriage. The novelist’s perceptions of his characters take place in the course of the actual writing of the novel. To an extent, the novelist is in the same position as his reader. But his perceptions should be always just in advance. The ideal way of presenting character is to invite perception. In what do the characters pre-exist? I should say, in the mass of matter (see PLOT) that had accumulated before the inception of the novel. (N.B.—The unanswerability of the question, from an outsider: ‘Are the characters in your novel invented, or are they from real life?’ Obviously, neither is true. The outsider’s notion of ‘real life’ and the novelist’s are hopelessly apart.) How, then, is the pre-existing character—with its own inner spring of action, its contrarieties—to be made to play a preassigned role? In relation to character, or characters, once these have been contemplated, plot must at once seem over-rigid, arbitrary. What about the statement (in relation to PLOT) that ‘each character is created in order, and only in order, that he or she may supply the required action?’ To begin with, strike out ‘created.’ Better, the character is recognized (by the novelist) by the signs he or she gives of unique capacity to act in a certain way, which ‘certain way’ fulfils a need of the plot.

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The character is there (in the novel) for the sake of the action he or she is to contribute to the plot. Yes. But also, he or she existsoutside the action being contributed to the plot. Without that existence of the character outside the (necessarily limited) action, the action itself would be invalid. Action is the simplification (for story purposes) of complexity. For each one act, there are an x number of rejected alternatives. It is the palpable presence of the alternatives that gives action interest. Therefore, in each of the characters, while he or she is acting, the play and pull of alternatives must be felt. It is in being seen to be capable of alternatives that the character becomes, for the reader, valid. Roughly, the action of a character should be unpredictable before it has been shown, inevitable when it has been shown. In the first half of a novel, the unpredictability should be the more striking. In the second half, the inevitability should be the more striking. (Most exceptions to this are, however, masterpiece-novels. InWar and Peace, L’Education Sentimentale and À La Recherche du Temps Perdu, unpredictability dominates up to the end.) The character’s prominence in the novel (pre-decided by the plot) decides the character’s range—of alternatives. The novelist must allot (to the point of rationing) psychological space. The ‘hero,’ ‘heroine’ and ‘villain’ (if any) are, by agreement, allowed most range. They are entitled, for the portrayal of their alternatives, to time and space. Placing the characters in receding order to their importance to the plot, the number of their alternatives may seem to diminish. What E. M. Forster has called the ‘flat’ character has no alternatives at all. The ideal novel is without ‘flat’ characters. Characters must materialize—i.e., must have a palpable physical reality. They must be not only see-able (visualizable); they must be to be felt. Power to give physical reality is probably a matter of the extent and nature of the novelist’s physical sensibility, or susceptibility. In the main, English novelists are weak in this, as compared to French and Russians. Why? Hopelessness of categoric ‘description.’ Why? Because this is static. Physical personality belongs to action: cannot be separated from it. Pictures must be in movement. Eyes, hands, stature, etc., must appear, and only appear, in play. Reaction to physical personality is part of action—love, or sexual passages, only more marked application of this general rule. (Conrad an example of strong, non-sexual use of physical personality.)

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The materialization (in the above sense) of the character for the novelist must be instantaneous. It happens. No effort of will—and obviously no effort of intellect—can induce it. The novelist can usea character that has not yet materialized. But the unmaterialized character represents an enemy pocket in an area that has been otherwise cleared. This cannot go on for long. It produces a halt in plot. When the materialization has happened, the chapters written before it happened will almost certainly have to be recast. From the plot point of view, they will be found invalid. Also, it is essential that for the reader the materialization of the character should begin early. I say begin, because for the reader it may, without harm, be gradual. Is it from this failure, or tendency to fail, in materialization that the English novelist depends so much on engaging emotional sympathy for his characters? Ruling sympathy out, a novel must contain at least onemagnetic character. At least one character capable of keying the reader up, as though he (the reader) were in the presence of someone he is in love with. This is not a rule of salesmanship but a pre- essential of interest. The character must do to the reader what he has done to the novelist—magnetize towards himself perceptions, sense-impressions, desires. The unfortunate case is, where the character has, obviously, acted magnetically upon the author, but fails to do so upon the reader. There must be combustion. Plot depends for its movement on internal combustion. Physically, characters are almost always copies, or composite copies. Traits, gestures, etc., are searched for in, and assembled from, the novelist’s memory. Or, a picture, a photograph, or the cinema screen may be drawn on. Nothing physical can be invented.(Invented physique stigmatizes the inferior novel.) Proust (in last volume) speaks of this assemblage of traits. Though much may be lifted from a specific person in ‘real life,’ no person in ‘real life’ could supply everything (physical) necessary for the character in the novel. No such person could have just that exact degree of physical intensity required for the character. Greatness of characters is the measure of the unconscious greatness of the novelist’s vision. They are ‘true’ in so far as he is occupied with poetic truth. Their degrees in realness show the degrees of his concentration.

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EXTRA CREDIT 3.2 GETTING CREATIVE: Creature Shop 101 The purpose of this exercise is to jumpstart some creativity into action. These are to be done as quickly as possible. Don’t spend too much time on any one question. Answer off the top of your head. You can come back later and fill in any areas you might have skipped.

Creature Shop 101 1. Create a character—create a character of any kind that is not a human. It can be a human hybrid or a completely different creature. Describe this creature physically. 2. Clan—this creature isn’t completely alone in the world. Create a clan or family tree for it. Sketch it out quickly, don’t think too much about it right now. 3. Positions of Power—Make a list of the clan’s positions of power. Describe the requirements for and function of each position in the clan, as well as how these requirements and functions have changed through the clan’s history. 4. Creature personality—what does it daydream or fear? Strengths or weaknesses? Favorite foods and secret hiding places? This is internal stuff, the creatures emotional makeup, not physical. 5. Create a name—create up to 3 names that might work for your creature character. 6. Inherited Behavioral attributes—what has been passed down to this character from its ancestors? These can be physical and/or mental/emotional. 7. Invent friends—how are they different from the first character and how can you use them to play off the first character? These might be the sidekick, or “red shirts” eventually. 8. Senses--What would your character notice in the room you’re in right now? How is this characters’ senses better than a humans’? What is special? Pick one or two, but don’t overpower your character. 9. Weaknesses—name one or two major weaknesses of this character. Just like us, your creatures will have their weaknesses. Could be from emotional trauma, or something as simple as no fingers to grasp things. 10. Where does it live and why? 11. What is its loyalty? 12. What might be its ultimate sacrifice? 13. Is there a Prophecy involved? Something that is bound in fate? 14. Draw your character. If you can draw (I can’t LOL), sketch out the physical appearance of your character. Maybe it’s hairy or may it has spikes or maybe it’s got 4 arms, whatever. Stick figures count. 15. Map—While you might not use a map in your novel, try sketching out a map of some scene in your novel or something you just made up. Maybe it’s a streetmap where your creature meats another main character or has an important event. Maybe it’s where the creature lives, escapes to, fears, or gets caught up in something.

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EXTRA CREDIT 3.2 EXAMPLE

Example for UF intro characters: antag & protag Here is an excerpt of H. P. Mallory’s TO KILL A WARLOCK. Use it to answer some of the questions about the info needed in the first paragraph, and how fast we should introduce our antagonist.

TO KILL A WARLOCK http://www.amazon.com/Kill-Warlock-Dulcie-ONeil/dp/1453791760/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1311282578&sr=8-4

1st par intro protag/setting/problem:

“Sam was a witch and a pretty damned good one at that. I’d give her twenty minutes—then I’d be back to my old self.”

Intro antag: on page 2

“Was it Fabian who boogered you?” she asked.

The mention of the little bastard set my anger ablaze. I had to count to five before the rage simmered out of me like a water balloon with a leak. I peeled myself off the wall and noticed a long spindle of green slime still stuck to the plaster; it reached out as if afraid to part with me.

(some stuff here then…)

Fabian was a warlock, a master of . The little cretin hadn’t taken it well when I’d come to his dark arts store to observe his latest truckload delivery. I knew the little rat was importing illegal potions (love potions, revenge potions, lust potions…the list went on) and it was my job to stop it. I’m a Regulator, someone who monitors the creatures of the Netherworld to ensure they’re not breaking any rules. Think law enforcement. And Fabian clearly was breaking some rule. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have turned me into a walking phlegm pile.

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LESSON 4: WORLDBUILDING

4.1 SETTING Part of building your Urban Fantasy (UF) world is the setting.

According to Wikipedia:

In fiction, setting includes the time, location, and everything in which a story takes place, and initiates the main backdrop and mood for a story. Setting has been referred to as story world or milieu to include a context (especially society) beyond the immediate surroundings of the story. Elements of setting may include culture, historical period, geography, and hour. Along with plot, character, theme, and style, setting is considered one of the fundamental components of fiction.

I sincerely know of no story that doesn’t have a setting. Can you? Whether it’s outer space, Earth, or inside a character’s head, setting is created whether we consciously wrote it or not.

Setting can be simple--a car, a street, a building, an operating room—or complex—Jupiter, a space station, in a character’s mind (very internal), under the ocean, in a volcano.

The setting of most UF books today is the city or suburbs (which I will include loosely as part of a city). Some might occur in the country or woods or on a farm, and that would be more “contemporary” fantasy, because it’s happening in current time, than UF, but as always we have bleedover and the lines get blurred. Don’t worry if your book is not in the heart of a big city. Today, UF can be set in any contemporary theme as long as it deals with contemporary characters (even if there are non- contemporary characters).

So in the beginning, setting is simple. It is place.

ASSIGNMENT 4.1 4.1.a Where does your book begin? A city? The suburbs? The country? Give us some information about this place, just some geographical and physical information (not related to your character).

4.1.b How does this place connect to your protag? Why do we begin here? What makes THIS place essential to the beginning of the story?

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EXTRA CREDIT: GEOGRAPHICAL ARCHETYPES Topographical symbolism in the world of story

1. The City According to Pericles, “all things good” flow from the city. As storytellers, we know that the inverse is often just as true. The city is simultaneously man’s most calamitous act and greatest achievement. Everything wondrous about civilization is to be found here, but so is everything vile, horrific, and evil. In the city, there are museums, theater, opulence, commerce, transportation on a mass scale, cinema, literature, cuisine, music, opera, fashion, art, poetry, dance, education, universities, and all varieties of intellectual, creative, cultural, and economic pursuits. In the city there are parks, shops, amphitheaters, and architectural wonders by the score. But there is also abject loneliness, despair, poverty, crime, addiction, depravity, murder, conspiracy, violence, and degradation. It is the very best of who we are and the very worst. The city is the perfect modern tale kingdom, because in one shot you can show the highest of the high socially and economically (the skyscraper) and the lowest of the low in the subways, sewers, and street life.

These days, we have the option of choosing cities with different social significance. Here are some ideas on some major US cities:

San Francisco is the perfect locale for extraordinary love stories, sex crimes, and murder mysteries since it has long been identified in the public’s mind as being tolerant of decadence and gender- bending lifestyles with movies like POINT BLANK, DIRTY HARRY, BASIC INSTINCT, TIME AFTER TIME, and so on and with TV shows like MONK. And books like ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac, MALTESE FALCON by Dashiell Hammett, THE KITE RUNNER by Khaled Hosseini, THE JOY LUCK CLUB by Amy Tan, and BIT ME: A LOVE STORY by Christopher Moore.

Los Angeles is synonymous with glamour, glitter, greed, and gangs with movies like PULP FICTION, AGAINST ALL ODDS, TERMINATOR, and LETHAL WEAPON, TV shows like 24, L A LAW, V (the original series), CALIFORNICATION, and even THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES. And in books like L. A. CONFIDENTIAL by James Ellroy (well, quite a few by him are set in LA), GET SHORTY by Elmore Leonard, LAUGHING GAS by P. G. Wodehouse, THE DAY OF THE LOCUST by Nathanael West, THE PLAYER by Michael Tolkin, and many more.

Philadelphia is old money, high society, and social climbing. Philly can be easily replaced with Boston, which as similar traits, except that Boston has the added distinction of a rich Irish heritage, and Ivy League Affiliations.

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Chicago used to be known exclusively as mob territory or the hotbed of political cronyism (and even selling political seats LOL). Recently, directors John Hughes and Robert Redford have shown it to be an ideal setting for middle class angst, teenage chicanery, and sometimes all three as in the example of Paul Brickman’s RISKY BUSINESS.

New Orleans is as “Olde Worlde” as you can get (in the US at least), so it can accommodate more exotic, erotic tales of sensuality, sex crimes, racial tension, political corruption, and even a little bit of gothic horror and its own special version of voodoo. Think EASY , A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, THE BIG EASY INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE.

Las Vegas, Reno, and Atlantic City are all flash and little substance—perfect locales for stories about man’s lower impluses and additions. Think OCEAN’S 1, LEAVING LAS VEGAS, FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS.

London is about Cinderella stories, sex crimes born of rigid oppression, political scandals, rebellious youth, and the escapades of the rich and Royal, as well as the misadventures of the bourgeoisie. (TOM JONES, FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL, THE CRYING GAME, THE ELEPHANT MAN, HOWARD’S END, NOTTING HILL, ’s NEVERWHERE (in the London Underground), V FOR VENDETTA, DOCTOR WHO (sometimes), THE DA VINCI CODE (some scenes in London), and many more.

Paris is rich with tales of the artist’s struggle, along with sophistication, fashioin, passion, sexual perversity, romance, and international intrigue. In Hemingway’s words, it is “a moveable feast.” Think MOULIN ROUGE, FUNNCY FACE, A MAN AND A WOMAN, LES MISERABLES, A TALE OF TWO CITIES, THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL, PINK PANTHER, LAST TANGO IN PARIS, AN AMERICAN IN PARIS, and so on.

Washington D.C, Baltimore, Virginia and vicinity are the citadels of power—perfect for stories of high-placed corruption, political conspiracies, or intense investigations by the FBI or Secret Service. Think THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER, CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER, ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN, ADVISE AND CONSENT, THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, DR. STRANGELOVE, AVALON, DINER.

New York is the Big Apple (and who doesn’t want to take a bite out of that?) and is fit for almost anything. For references of New York at its breathtaking best, watch films like BREAKFAST AT TIFFANYS, HOW TO MURDER YOUR WIFE, THE THRILL OF IT ALL, TAXI DRIVER, MARRIED OT THE MOB, DOG DAY AFTERNOON, and a billion more I’m sure. And books like THE THIN MAN by Dashiell Hammitt, DOC SAVAGE pulp series, THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald, A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN by Betty Smith, THE FOUNTAINHEAD by Ann Rand, I, THE JURY by Mickey Spillane, METROPOLIS by Elizabeth Gaffney, THE DARK TOWER VI: SONG OF SUSANNAH by Steven King, SMALL

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TOWN by Lawrence Block (recommend reading his how to write books), THE PRINCESS DIAIRES (series) by Meg Cabot, CITY OF GOD by E. L. Doctorow, and too many more to mention .

Miami is to the Colombian Drug Cartel what Chicago was to the Irish/Italian/Jewish mobsters of the prohibition era, with the swaggering gold- chained set of cocaine cowboys, drug runners, renegade airplane pilot, and linen-clad sleuths. Miami is a major center, worldwide, for Spanish-language television and film production. Miami and Miami Beach are the queen cities of Florida mysteries. Their old image often was of a row of elders, sitting on the porch of a once elegant hotel or waiting for a bus. The newer image is a style conscious place where world famous celebrities congregate in exclusive clubs. There is an element of danger, drugs and illegal immigrants are part of the scene. The television series MIAMI VICE contributed to the Miami image: the blue sea, the white buildings, bright sunny days, sunsets, and handsome detectives in rumpled white suits ferreting out villains. Miami today is internationally famous, a center of commerce, the gateway to Latin America. Mysteries set in Miami tend to be hard-boiled, with two elements: the outrageous and the humorous.

The Keys--These Caribbean islands have attracted action since the days of pirate ships carrying treasures roamed the seas. No place has more atmosphere than Key West, the southernmost tip of the United States. The influence of Papa Hemingway who once lived on the Key is still felt, with the Hemingway festival an annual event. The island has a culture of its own that mystery authors like John Leslie portray.

Think SCARFACE, ACE VENTUREA, GOLDFINGER, BURN NOTICE, DEXTER, ADIOS TO MY OLD LIFE by Caridad Ferrar, BIG TROUBLE by Dave Barry, DARK HORSE by Tami Hoag, RUM PUNCH by Elmore Leonard (actually at least 10 novels of his are set in Florida).

Atlanta, St. Louis, Kansas City, Houston, and Omaha are often viewed as marginal places and are therefore almost interchangeable. If you can spin a compelling yarn about any of these lesser-known cities, you might be forever linked as the writer who made so-and-so exciting again, kinda like Sookie Stackhouse in . For Houston try BLOOD MARKS by Bill Crider, REQUIEM FOR A GLASS HEART by David Lindsey, MOVING ON by Larry McMurtry (several by him).

Seattle and Denver are interesting locales as depicted in moves like SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE, AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN, but haven’t really impressed upon the general public anything distinct or archetypal.

Dallas (my “hometown”) has a sort of mercurical feel. At one point, during the URBAN COWBOY craze, Dallas had the chance to emerge as something other than its flashy, somewhat tasteless namesake. It has all the amenities of any big city with a natural association with oil: big cars, big hair, big business, technology, and shit-kicking cowboys. While Dallas seems like a great locale for many stories, it has yet set itself to something immediately distinct (other than killing presidents). Sometimes, knowing the background and history of a city or area can offer up a deluge of potential literary subjects. Unlike most large cities in the world, which were situated on some defining geographical feature, Dallas was based

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Men (and women) of money made Dallas while its neighbor, Fort Worth, developed on quite a different route and the two are as different even today as ever. Big names of Dallas might include Stanley Marcus, H. L. Hunt (who crawled around on his knees in his office for exercise), Jerry Jones, who’s from Arkansas, but is as synonymous with Dallas nowadays as his “Boys.” The personality of Dallas has changed very little in the past 50 years. While the Dallasite might wear cowboy boots with his 3 piece suit, the Fort Worth native has dung on his boots, or at least, would like to be remembered as such.

For some literary fare in Dallas, try Pat Ellis Taylor, who in 1983 made a brief slpash on the Dallas literary scene with AFOOT IN A FIELD OF MEN, or the works of Ben Fountain. A Dallas Morning reporter, Doug Swanson put out a series of gritty crime novels (BIG TOWN). Harry Hunsicker wrote STILL RIVER, THE NEXT TIME YOU DIE, CROSSHAIRS. Then there are books like NORTH DALLAS FORTY by Peter Gent, FORTUNE IS A WOMAN (Dallas in the great depression). Fort Worth has some literary authors who’s novels occur in the town like Laurie Moore’s mysteries COUPLE GUNNED DOWN-NEWS AT TEN, JURY RIGGED, CONTABLE'S RUN (her Constable series). Laurie knows whereof she writes because she’s an attorney in Fort Worth, as well as being trained as a police officer, and a DA Investigator. (If you’re into crime mysteries, check her out, she’s a hoot, as we say  www.lauriemooremysteries.com .)

Dallas is ripe for literary discovery (at least, I think it is, since I’m rather biased LOL) and I’m using the DFW (short for Dallas / Fort Worth) as the backdrop to my own current UF novel.

Movies and TV shows have helped put Dallas and Fort Worth in the public’s awareness like DALLAS, THE LATHE OF HEAVEN, WALKER, TEXAS RANGER, NECESSARY ROUGHNESS, and most recently, the cancelled show THE GOOD GUYS.

Nashville is the Country Western scene’s answer to Hollywood.

Memphis is getting some attention with the TV show MEMPHIS BEAT.

Detroit is the “Motor City” and heavily identified with major industrialization, the Motown Sound, blue collar workers, labor Unions, and urban blight. BLUE COLLAR, ROBOCOP.

San Diego is most notable for The Hotel Del Coronado, used in SOME LIKE IT HOT, GRAND HOTEL, and THE STUNT MAN.

Probably the least filmed urban location in the US is Minneapolis/St. Paul, which offers not only some incredible landmarks, but a burgeoning music scene, opera house, children’s theater, The Mall of America, and one of the hippest museums in the world. (Check out the Coen brother’s FARGO.)

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So there’s some food for thought .

QUESTIONS TO PONDER: 1. Why is your novel set in a particular area. What is the history, ambience, etc., that contributes to picking that specific city or locale? Even if you don’t give lots of info in your novel about this, do give it some thought. 2. Location should mirror the novel’s theme in some way. How does yours? 3. Are there other books in your genre that mirror the city/theme/character/plot similar to yours in some way?

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LESSON 4.2 WORLDBUILDING: MAGIC, MIGHT, & MAHEM What is magic?

Magic is that special power that is unexplainable in any other way.

According to Wikipediav:

- Magic is the claimed art of manipulating aspects of reality either by supernatural means or through knowledge of laws unknown to science. It is in contrast to science, in that science does not accept anything not subject to either direct or indirect observation, and subject to logical analysis, whereas practitioners of magic claim it is an inexplicable force beyond logic. - Magic has been practiced in all cultures, and utilizes ways of understanding, experiencing, and influencing the world somewhat akin to those offered by religion (which we will discuss Saturday with Mythology), though it is sometimes regarded as more focused on achieving results than religious worship. Magic is often viewed with suspicion by the wider community (in today’s society), and is commonly practiced in isolation and secrecy.

While science fiction as a genre deals with science, most fantasy, as a genre, deals with some type of magic or altered reality. Urban fantasy deals with the supernatural as part of present day society in some way. It may not be magic per se, as in spells and witches and such, but anything “not normal” or supernatural, is included in today’s topic of magic.

Whether your characters are werewolves, vampires, fallen gods, etc., all have some supernatural aspect to one degree or another. Werewolves, for instance, are all supernatural and somehow they “magically” metamorphose from a human into a wolf and back again, while vampires, once they are changed into one, are always vampires (until they attend a witches gathering and get their memory zapped, aka True Blood ).

Magic users and the supernatural may use talismans, tokens, even or other ritualistic tools. They may write sigils or symbols, and even incorporate science into their supernatural elements. They may be good, such as a shaman who were often considered negotiators between the gods and humans, or evil, as in voodoo, sticking pins in a doll to cause another harm. They may even kill and eat live animals, sometimes even live beings.

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Magic, and the supernatural, is as complex as the people or beings utilizing it.

How do we make magic believable? Fantasy as a genre really took off in the 20th century with Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings and greatly influenced the fantasy genre. While today, LoTR would be marketed as a “medieval fantasy” subgenre, still, Tolkein’s world has tainted, for good or bad, our world’s view of fantasy and magic. Even the great fantacists C. S. Lewis and Michael Moorcock were influenced by Tolkein.

At first, books on the supernatural were free to go anywhere and do anything, which is fine, but they did it without consequences, which is probably why many readers found fantasy as a genre difficult to grasp. As humans, our very existence is based on cause and effect, actions and reactions, and most of all, consequences, whether physical, mental, emotional, or psychological.

And as humans, we must have some grounding, some foundation upon which to grasp, even when reading a fantasy.

For today’s market, magic or the supernatural will work best when dealt in such a way: cause and result, action and reaction. While this may seem too scientific, it is really an author’s best tool to dramatize a fantasy and urban fantasy story, because who cares about a protagonist who can wield all the power he or she wishes with no consequences? She’ll immediately defeat the bad guy and we’ve finished the book at chapter one.

But with consequences, then we have a dilemma. The protagonist must struggle to do her duty. The antagonist can’t just zap his enemy into Kingdom Come. And so, we have a story. 

ASSIGNMENT 4.2 MAGIC & THE SUPERNATURAL 1. What are the magical elements in your story? 2. What are the consequences to the use of those magical elements? (Each should have at least one consequence and it doesn’t have to be even handed. Some could have more than one effect, some very little, some very great.) 3. When is your supernatural element (at least one) introduced in your novel? 4. How does your supernatural element help the antagonist at the beginning of the novel? (Remember, the antag is at his “height” in superiority in some way at the beginning.) 5. How does your supernatural element help the protagonist at the climax? (If you don’t know yet, guess. It might give you some ideas for later.)

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LESSON 4.3 WORLDBUILDING: MYTHOLOGY & RELIGION Humans cannot exist without trying to explain the unexplainable. At first, it was about the sun and moon, the stars and weather. Why did stuff fall down? Why did the sun follow a pattern through the sky? Why did the moon change shape? Why do tides follow a moon’s pattern?

Eventually, humans got good at explaining the everyday stuff and moved on to more complicated ideas. What happened after death? Why did we die? Why are we born and not hatched? Why is she crazy and I’m not? Why must humans live together to survive?

One person’s mythology is another person’s religion.

One might say the earth was created in a day, animals, plants and people within a week. Someone else might say no, it’s millions of years’ worth of development, trial and error. And yet another person might say our world rides on the back of a turtle.

Society and culture rely on a rich heritage of mythology and religion. Humans cannot BE human without them, even if only some of the people believe the same, others still have beliefs, stories, mysteries that can’t be explained any other way.

For this discussion, I’m saying that religion is that which is worshipped currently, while mythology is that which is not currently worshipped. Because who’s to say that today’s religion isn’t tomorrow’s myth?

“The first function [of mythology] is to reconcile consciousness to existence or to reject existence. The second function is to present an image of the universe through which the sensed meaning, or power, or nature of life will be rendered. The third function is to validate and maintain a certain given moral order, and it is here that the mythologies differ greatly from one place to another. And the fourth and final function is to harmonize and deepen the psyche -- the psychological structure and experience of the individual”. -- Joseph Campbell

ASSIGNMENT 4.3.1  Does your novel have mythology or religion? Explain.

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EXTRA CREDIT & ASSIGNMENT 4.3.2: Joseph Campbellvi One of the best resources for studying mythology (and thereby religion) is the works of Joseph Campbell.

Joseph Campbell was no therapist—not by a long shot. Although he inspired and motivated millions from all walks of life, he embraced his role as a scholar and teacher in the classical sense, devoting his time to reading, writing, and lecturing.

Once, Campbell’s friend, Alan Watts, asked him what type of meditation he practiced. Campbell replied, “I underline sentences.”

Nevertheless, later in his life, Campbell became increasingly interested in as a kind of compass for self-actualization. At the Esalen Institute, a center for nontraditional education in California, he often lectured on the power of myth to shape and inform an individual’s life. Many of these lectures—rich tapestries woven from literature, psychology, and philosophy in Campbell’s signature erudite style—offered guidance that went well beyond his famous dictum, “Follow your bliss.”

Here are a few of his suggestions culled from Pathways to Bliss, a compilation of his Esalen lectures and seminars edited and published posthumously under the auspices of the Joseph Campbell Foundation.

REALIZE YOUR SHADOW Drawing from Jungian psychology, Campbell thought of the “shadow” as the center of the unconscious, the part of the self that harbors repressed ideas, desires, and potentials that society doesn’t allow you to express. It’s your personal dragon—one that other people recognize instinctively, but that you don’t ordinarily recognize. You don’t have to act on the shadow, says Campbell, but you do have to accept and embrace it. Otherwise, you experience what Jung called “enantiodromia” (Greek for “running in the opposite direction”)—a neurotic attempt to restore balance between the conscious and the unconscious. The typical midlife crisis or disillusionment of a young idealist can be enantiodromia in action.

ASSIGNMENT 4.3.2  How might your protagonist and/or your antagonist be enantiodromia in action?

HAVE COMPASSION FOR THE WORLD AND THOSE IN IT You might expect perfection from the world and from the people in it, but you’ll never find it. In fact, imperfection becomes the very quality that evokes love in human beings; compassion embraces imperfection.

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As St. Paul wrote, “Love beareth all things.” Campbell acknowledged that you might not be able to bear all things—but you can at least try.

ASSIGNMENT 4.3.3  Does your main character have compassion or at least try? What about the antagonist? Does he/she try?

FIND YOUR PERSONAL MYTH

“Mythological images are the images by which the consciousness is put in touch with the unconscious,” said Campbell.

For some people, the world’s great religions provide a mythic structure by which to live by. But for others, the fragmentation of contemporary society forces them to seek out a personal mythos within their own psyche. That means finding the symbols that put you in touch with the deepest part of yourself.

Jung, for example, kept a dream journal to record the images that recurred again and again. Those images became the basis for art, stories, or meditation. They might defy simple rational analysis, but they can yield a multitude of meanings upon repeated consideration.

ASSIGNMENT 4.3.4  What does your protag & your antag believe in and why?  If this is an urban fantasy, they must come up against the major religions of the current time period. How do they deal with that?  Do you have a prophecy or a fortune teller type character in your story? Someone who might foretell bad stuff will happen or even a motherly type who can read the character better than the character can read her/himself?

DON’T TRY TO LIVE YOUR LIFE TOO SOON

Finding your personal myth, said Campbell, is a matter not only of following your bliss but also of knowing what stage of life you’re in. He liked to tell an anecdote about a lecture he gave on Yeat’s and Dante’s lunar and solar metaphors for the transit of life from infancy, through maturity, to old age.

A woman came up to him afterward and said, “Mr. Campbell, you just don’t know about the modern generation. We go directly from infancy to wisdom.” Campbell replied, “That is great. All you’ve missed is life.”

Life entails a rigorous journey beset with trials, like that of Christ, the

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Buddha, or Arthurian knights.

“...the origin of the mythological symbols is not pseudo-scientific, pseudo-historical. They spring from the psyche. They are not the consequence of observations, they are the consequence of observations misinterpreted through projections from the human psyche... the imagery of myth is the imagery through which our own nature, our own conscious nature, communicates with our consciousness, and they have in the past, when the symbols have been received simply and naively without criticism, operated to keep the conscious programs and life in touch with the unconscious motivations, but when these symbols are removed, as they have been for us, there takes place a disconnection”. -- Joseph Campbell

ASSIGNMENT 4.3.5  What kind of symbolism does your world or character have? o for life’s transitions? (Are elders revered, the insane shunned, children protected, teacher’s respected, warriors ignored after war?) o for different types of power? o For gods and/or goddesses or god-like beings? o To explain the unexplainable?

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LESSON 5: MARKETING AN URBAN FANTASY

PUBLISHER EXAMPLES Let’s look at some of the publishers of Urban Fantasy (in no particular order) and see what they publish, if it’s on the NY Times Bestseller list, and what their requirements are:

ORBIT BOOKS: About: “Orbit is a leading publisher of Science Fiction and Fantasy, with imprints in the UK, US and Australia. We publish across the spectrum of Science Fiction and Fantasy – from action-packed urban fantasy to widescreen ; from sweeping epic adventures to near-future thrillers.”

Unsolicited Submissions? No

Online Submissions? No

Accepts: science fiction, fantasy, urban fantasy, space opera, epics, near future thrillers

Authors of Orbit: (just examples) Karen Miller, John Scalzi, Kate Elliot, Ian M. Banks, Greg Bear, Jennifer Rardin

Let’s take a quick look at Jennifer Rardin’s Urban Fantasy BITTEN IN TWO:

First paragraph:

“Holy crap, do you smell that?” I asked. I leaned away from the square, sun-bleached building and spat, but the creeping stench of death and rot had already made it down my throat.”

Notes: The paranormal element is already introduced with “creeping stench of death,” not a big thing, just a hint that something is dead and it’s been there longer than it should.

ACE/ROC BOOKS About: founded in 1953 by A. A. Wyn, and is the oldest continuously operating science fiction publisher in the United States. With Donald A. Wollheim as editor, it issued some of the most outstanding science fiction writers of the 1950s and 1960s, including Samuel R. Delany, Philip K. Dick, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Robert Silverberg.

Unsolicited Submissions? Yes

Online Submissions? Yes

Accepts: science fiction, fantasy, urban fantasy, space opera, epics, near future thrillers, high tech, historical

Authors: Laurell K. Hamilton, Charlaine Harris, Jack McDevitt, Joe Haldeman, Charles

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Stross, William Gibson, Jim Butcher, Patricia Briggs, .

Let’s look at Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden series, DEAD BEAT.

First paragraph:

‘On the whole, we’re a murderous race.”

Notes: Implies a lot in very few words. This isn’t your grandmother’s . And, you get the immediate sense of the narrator’s sarcastic sense of humor.

On Butcher’s first page, Dresden enters his apartment and his furniture and belongings are in disarray. Already, there’s a dilemma before the end of page 1. (Maybe that’s why he’s a bestseller?)

Page 2, a beautiful woman enters (who else LOL) and the story gets going.

Baen Books About: We publish only science fiction and fantasy. powerful plots with solid scientific and philosophical underpinnings are the sine qua non for consideration for science fiction submissions. As for fantasy, any magical system must be both rigorously coherent and integral to the plot, and overall the work must at least strive for originality.

Unsolicited Submissions? No? (they used to) Not sure what they want now.

Online Submissions? Yes

Accepts: science fiction, fantasy, (unsure on the UF)

Authors: Sharon Lee & Steve Miller, John Ringo, David Drake, Poul Anderson, David Weber, Lois McMaster Bujold, Catherine Asaro, Eric Flint, , Fred Saberhagen

Tor About:

Unsolicited Submissions? No? (they used to) Not sure what they want now.

Online Submissions? Yes

Accepts: science fiction, fantasy, (unsure on the UF)

Authors: Patrick Rothfuss, Lena Meydan, Dan Wells, Mercedes Lackey, Brandon Anderson, Michael Swanwick, Orson Scott Card, , L. E. Modesitt Jr., Diana Rowland

~~ These are the types of information (at a minimum) that urban fantasy writers should be paying attention to. What are the publishers’ needs? Do they accept unsolicited submissions or do you need an agent? Will they take electronic/email subs or must it be printed? Etc.

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PUBLISHERS’ CHART Here’s a quicky chart I made up that you can finish filling in:

ACCEPTS 1st time PUBLISHER IMPRINT OF? URL UF/PARA? NOTES UNSOL? author? ACE/ROC fantasy, science fiction, horror, uf, hard sf, space opera, , urban / moder alternate future,

ANGRY ROBOT http://angryrobotbooks.com/ fantasy time travel, etc. no AVON BAEN BANTAM BERKELEY DAW DEL REY EOS GALLERY

HENRY HOLT & CO MacMillan http://us.macmillan.com sf, f, romance no paranormal central theme HQN Harlequin eharlequin.com romance must be romance no yes JOVE JUNO KENSINGTON/ZEBRA female-focused other worlds, fantasy, romantic contemporary, subplots to LUNA Harlequin eharlequin.com urban enhance story variety of genres, currently needs including commercial MIRA Harlequin eharlequin.com literary fiction no ORBIT POCKET POCKET STAR SIGNET SPECTRA

ST. MARTIN'S MacMillan http://us.macmillan.com sf, f, romance no Tor/Forge Starscape, Tor Teen

TOR Books http://us.macmillan.com

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LESSON 5: KEEP WRITING!

This isn’t really a lesson. Just a note to say goodbye and thank you for attending this class. I’ve had a great time and learned a lot from all of you.

This isn’t all there is to Urban Fantasy, but I hope this information will get you going and keep you thinking about how to improve your work and make it shine!

All the best to you and

Keep Writing!

Pat Hauldren www.pathauldren.net

i Wikipedia.org ii Wikipedia.org iii From ‘The Craft of Science Fiction’ edited by Reginald Bretnor, in the essay ‘Heroes, Heroines, Villains’ by James Gunn iv Wikipedia.org v http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:RWS_Tarot_01_Magician.jpg vi http://www.jcf.org/

Urban Fantasy: More bang for your fang© by Pat Hauldren