Who's Right? Who's Left?

Random fantasy ethics question ...

Imagine a situation where two fathers are planning an arranged marriage, but know that one half of the couple is in love with someone else. Who's worse:

Father #1, who is only now finding out about the existing romance, and is leery of the arrangement - but still agrees.
Father #2, who knew beforehand and has seen the couple together, but is a veteran of arranged marriage himself, fully confident it works, and has no qualms.

No "both" or "equally," please. If you had to say one's decision was more condemnable than the other - which would it be?

There's a basic question here about viewpoint, intent versus action, and ... I am curious what people think. For context in this setting, arranged marriages are a dwindling practice, but still accepted, esp. among the nobility.

As a sidebar, there are other factors to this debate, and I had a tough time narrowing down which ones were relevant without favoring one side or the other ...

Thursday Thoughts

This was a rough week, and it came out in the writing / editing output - or lack thereof. I just completed my worldbuilding, with the exception of putting a few more dates into the timeline as I work with characters. The various backstories are so dependent on sequence, I needed a timeline to make sure that things could happen in the right order without time travel, and to discover some things that I didn't know happened at almost the same time. Ahem. Most of this will never see the light of day, but I'd hate to have said: X happens before Y and after Z, A happens before Z, but after Y ... wait.

I got the rare treat of finishing the timeline and thinking to myself, "Oh, that character is only eighty-nine. Good."

With Scylla and Charybdis, I am working on the last leg and rapidly approaching the sequence of scenes I recently decided needed a larger change - so nervous about that. Could be subconsciously procrastinating so I don't reach them. I wouldn't put it past me!

4/21 - 4/27
Pages Edited: 28

Last Post Addendum ...

And trademark hard copy submission signature: purple ink. No, I don't generally work in purple (twould be unprofessional) but my signature always is.

Honestly, I should have done that for my Sails & Sorcery signing, but I think if I ever sign books in the future (ha!), I'll have to make sure I have a purple pen on me.

Once More Into The Breach ...

Having received my first rejection for Journal of the Dead on a submission to a publisher, I'm now going the query route. In the past, while I've had a list of agents I definitely wanted to submit to, my research beyond that has been a bit scattershot. I decided to go into this time with a Battleplan (tm), and despite the headaches of the past few days (both literal - oww, allergy season! - and figurative - flooding under the garage steps has had me changing towels every few hours), I've come up with a system and information I'm happy with.

First, I set up an Excel spreadsheet with columns for agency name, agent, genres represented, method of contact, submission package desired, other notes, and then a personal ranking. (Actually, the ranking is the first item - on the far left hand side.) Then, I went back through the agencies I submitted to last time and reviewed their sites, adding this information into my sheet. I removed a few agencies from the list, mostly due to inaccurate information - the agent had left, no longer taking fantasy, etc.

Next step, I went trawling the net for other agencies. As a point of interest, I usually avoided agents that didn't have an obvious net presence. This isn't laziness (that's my story and I'm sticking with it - no, really), but more that I feel in this day and age, having that internet platform is important. I'm not terribly good at it myself, but I have a website, a blog and a facebook page. (Actually, I have three facebook pages - personal, author and harper. Oh, the travails of multi-tasking.) Anyone who has less presence than I do makes me leery.

(As a sidebar, I've already found Facebook's character limit on updates annoying, so I will not be joining Twitter. 140 characters? It takes me more than that to say hello!)

Originally, I had added a column for whether or not the agent accepted simsubs, but discovered that only one or two even wanted to be notified, so I moved that info into my notes and deleted the column. One thing I should have included and didn't was whether the agent sent rejections (or whether no reply was considered a rejection) and length of response time. I added a column for that and will add this information in as I make submissions. I also added a color code and a column for JoD to track the kind of responses I get. Why color and not words? I like color. It's also easier to get a quick picture.

Even though I have the summary, I'm still going to consult websites as I submit. Want to make sure I address more specific needs that I can't put in a simple spreadsheet. Still, it will speed me up. The best thing about the sheet thus far is one horizontal line fits perfectly on my widescreen monitor, with room to make notes for 4-5 projects. (I sincerely, sincerely hope I won't need those extra lines, because if I don't have an agent by then I may stab myself, shoot myself and hurl myself off a bridge while drinking poison ... but there it is.)

I decided from the start I wasn't going to do the typical method of submitting to a rash of places at once - but neither was I going to be dumb and simply submit to two or three at a time, because that takes forever. (There was a time I didn't know this. We do not speak of this time.) So the plan was to submit to perhaps five or six to start, and then every time I receive a no response, send out two more. This keeps momentum going and means I'm doing it in small, manageable chunks - critical, with the number of other balls I'm juggling in my life. Obviously, I will reach a point of overwhelming mass, at which point I'll just do a 1:1.

As it so happens, my rank 1 (highest priority) list has seven agencies on it - one of which is currently closed to queries, but I know from prior experience that they close and reopen regularly. Six is a perfect number to start with, and I'm hoping to get the email letters out today. Whether the snail mail letter gets out tomorrow depends on if I have enough postage in-house. Tomorrow and Tuesday are insane days, so it will be Wednesday before I can get to the post office ...

Thursday Thoughts

Clunky bits, meet my red pen!

I've been pleasantly surprised with how far I've gotten on the editing of Scylla and Charybdis. It definitely will need more editing and probably a few outside eyes, at least on the first chapters ... but making a good start. However, Who Wants To Be A Hero? is looming at me, and I can't figure out when is a good time to make headway on that one. I don't want to wait too long, but I don't want them to meld together ...

My word count this week does not include a little over six thousand words of worldbuilding, in the messiest, most disorganized funnel cake sprawl of note-jotting I've committed in a while. The file itself is in decent order, but the way I put it in ... not so much. I keep looping back to add other information, nuances, address questions I forgot ...

Part of it may be the fact that this isn't a full construction. I've built what I need of the world, which means that global elements, magic, etc are deeply outlined, as well as the countries in which the story actually takes place, while other countries are etched just enough that I can toss in spice and refer to them consistently ... and beyond my partial world map, here there be dragons - metaphorically, not literally (although you never know ...). I know the name and general character of two places beyond the map - that's it.

I don't usually do maps; I needed this one because the geographic orientation of the lands is opposite similar locations on Earth, so I wanted a visual to keep me from reverting.

4/14 - 4/20
Pages Edited: 32
Word Count: 1,004

On Writing and Skepticism

I think my years of writing fantasy have contributed to my skeptical view of the world, in particular spiritual concepts.

On the face of it, this might seem like a contradiction in terms, but it starts with how I approach new information. History facts and geographical nuances can spawn new stories (or how about the typo "left at the alter," which I added to my mental file recently) ... but so can mythology, religion, pseudoscience and modern "fringe" beliefs such as past lives. When I read about these things, my first reaction is not, "I believe that: it could be true," it's, "This would make a great story ..."

When I look at such concepts, what I often see first is not potential enlightenment or a way of understanding how the universe works. Instead, I see drama, cost, consequence, plot barrier and tension.

And I've taught myself to structure beliefs, higher powers, etc into a plausible world system. When you approach concepts with the mindset that anything is equally possible, the corrolary is that no single possibility stands out as truth. I am openminded: anything could be possible. But I am also unconvinced: (almost) everything just sounds like a good story to me, not an expression of reality.

Thursday Thoughts

This weekend, I treated myself to a break from editing to work on a new short story and to read through the project I'm thinking of rewriting so I could take notes. Yes ... I consider it a treat, and that's how I thought of it.

The short story is for the Fantasy-Writers.org "act of folly" April monthly challenge - more detail on their site. I'm playing with the idea in that the character is deliberately attempting to do something foolish and keeps getting thwarted. The story is also as-told-to an unidentified third party, so there are occasional present tense / pseudo second person interjections when she stops to explain or apologize to the listener. The identity of the third party is important to the resolution of the story, so I'm hoping it all works.

Being stumped over fantasy calendars again. I hate these: it's a no-win situation. You have the unappetizing choice between a) using our calendar and having it stick out like a sore thumb among all the non-Earth concepts; b) inventing a calendar and forcing the reader to wade through a bunch of gratuitious month-names (at least); or c) using bland, obvious names like firstmonth, secondmonth, etc.

I'm pondering doing a variant on the Earth calendar: instead of January, February, March, it'd be Janum, Februm, Maren ... does anyone think this is viable, or would it just draw you out of the story MORE than using conventional months?

3/7 - 3/13
Pages Edited: 29
Word Count: 5,242

Just The Messenger

I sold "Just The Messenger" to the new Darwin's Evolutions anthology series! Anthology will go into production once it's full, so date entirely unknown ...

It's Raining Men

Male characters occupy a slightly unusual place in my fiction. The majority of my characters are female, and typically, I find that the women in my cast have larger, more distinct roles. This used to be a ridiculous ratio: in fact, I had a collaborator who said to me, "I know why the villainness wants my character: he's the only male left!" I've since achieved more balance, but I have a bias and I'm aware of it. (In fact, when writing Scylla and Charybdis, I realized I had chapters in the supposedly male-dominated region that were shy on men, so I gave one of the characters a sex change. My editing notes thus include the observation, "Make sure Justin is male. No, really.")

I also find that my male characters tend to fade into the background or simply fail as interesting figures more frequently ... but when they work, they form a high percentage of my best creations.

From "The Sintellyn Medallion," main character Tieruko is a figurehead king who realizes his past as an evil overlord's unwilling apprentice isn't entirely over. From "Journal of the Dead," foreign ambassador Razentis Ara-Anaxiar treats the deadly politics of the novel like a game, but still manages to be an engaging and likeable ally (I hope). From "Scylla and Charybdis," the Tweaker named Flick comes on like comic relief, but soon proves himself to be fiercely loyal with an immense heart. And in my novella / novelette "Shadow Play," narrator Irun is an expatriate legal representative who has lost his faith in the world ... almost.

Not sure what accounts for the dichotomy. Maybe it's the freshness of it: when a male character works, really works for me, it's uncommon enough that inspires me. Does that mean some day, I'll lose this aspect? I hope not.

Thursday Thoughts

This week, I've been struggling a lot with the difference between what I need to do to further my goal of producing a (hopefully) publishable novel, versus what I want to do as a writer on a story playground. Now, don't get me wrong on this: I'm not contemplating projects I'm not passionate about or choosing based on marketibility. Instead, I know I should focus on editing, then focus on writing a single project ... but my brain wants to do prep-work / worldbuilding now, and it really wants to sink into both novel ideas, not one.

I am starting to resent this dichotomy. I want to be a professional author, but I write because I love it. Obviously, there's going to be parts of writing that are like eating your green vegetables - rejection letters come to mind - but it shouldn't be this hard or pervasive: something I will be spending months on. I shouldn't spend this much time angsting over this. Do I stick to my plan and fidget because there's so much else I want to do? Do I let myself off leash and accept that the next few projects are going to take a while? (I'm also concerned about if I take too much time editing, I will simply look at the whole thing and think, "The writing in this is crap.)

It's not a race, and I already have projects out there. Any advice?

(I think part of it is I've been editing solid for the whole past week, so my creative brain is playing caged beast ...)

3/31 - 4/6
Pages Edited: 32

Facebook!

After having had several people tell me it's a good tool for marketing, I've (somewhat reluctantly) signed up over at Facebook. You can find me at Lindsey Duncan for personal ... Lindsey Duncan, Celtic Harp ... and Unicorn Isle: Lindsey Duncan. Please feel free to friend, like, stalk me or whatever the heck it's called.

Honestly, right now I am too sick to focus on anything else. ;-)

Multiple Long Projects?

There is a question here, and a plea for your point of view - please read!

Having finally settled on the novel project I want to write - need to write, because it's been brewing and incubating for so long that if I don't tackle it now, it will be never; need to write, because it's the book that embodies the genre-blending (mystery in fantasy) I want to be all about - I had a horrible thing happen to me. I looked at an old manuscript (actually from a collab) and was blown away. We won't speak of the horrible craft in some of the writing, but apart from the fact that some facts needed to be foreshadowed or built up more firmly, earlier (naturally, because hey, I was pulling this stuff out of thin air) ... wow.

And I got so enthused, so delighted, in reading ... in remembering ... in finding side stories I had written and lighting upon alternate interpretations ... I can't remember being this gungho in a while, though granted I'm not sure if I'm just not remembering accurately. But I cannot find any downside, and that's a rarity. Some small concerns about cliche elements, but with this idea, I think I can fix those elements with ease.

I've thought about trying to write both books simultaneously (yes, I know, I know!) but the concerns are primarily: a) confusion of concept and b) I'd end up editing them both almost at once, and I'm already approaching that situation. I'm not sure that the first is an issue: they're both conspiracy / court intrigue concepts, but this is an area which I am so familiar and obsessed with that I think I might be able to better handle the similarity than someone for whom it might be two experiments. And in details, they are very different.

So for the writers out there: how many have you have seriously tried to write two novels at once? How did you figure out when to change between them? How did you keep the two separate? How did you handle the editing processes? Would you do it again?

Anatomy of an Idea: First Contact

This story was inspired by the concept of synesthesia - which is experiencing a sensation associated with one sense (ie, sight or hearing) through a different sense. For instance, one might hear color or taste music. It's a genuine clinical condition, but also has broader application.

Back to fantasy-writers.org and their monthly story challenge. This was a prompt I had suggested: first contact. Why should science fiction have all the fun of first encounters? (It doesn't, but that may be a popular perception.) Of course, as the person who came up with the prompt, I wanted to take it one step further, and decided to take the phrase "first contact" literally - the first time a character experiences touch.

This led me into deciding why a character would find themselves in that situation, and I decided this stringent purity had been forced upon the character from infancy. Description and metaphor are generally based in things familiar to us - we don't make comparisons between two foreign objects. Instead, we familiarize the new by comparing it to the known.

So in "First Contact," physical sensations, from passing breezes to fabric against skin, are phrased (back to the first paragraph again! Have faith in me, it's all interconnected) in terms of sight, sound and occasionally smell, the way the narrator would think of them. It was challenging to come up with descriptions in this vein that were evocative, realistic, but seamless enough that they didn't throttle the reader over the head with their cleverness.

I realize that quoting Shakespeare is extra high-falutin', but one line stuck in my head when I started to conceive this story and would not let go, and I finally succumbed to placing it at the beginning:

But then there was a star danced, and under that was I born ...

One ... Two ...

A one-two punch today: First, ParABNormal Digest purchased "The Herd Mentality," the infamous psychic vampire unicorn story. I cannot even write the phrase "psychic vampire unicorn" without grinning like an idiot. It will be in their second issue, September 2011.

Second, Golden Visions' April print issue, with my story "First Contact," is now available here at the bottom of the page. Note that the print and online versions are different - I'm in the former.

Thursday Thoughts

I finished "Scenting Rain" today - thanks to everyone who contributed a sentence for its sprawling expanse! It finished at a whopping 17,000 (and some change) words. I am more copacetic than I would have expected about being saddled with a bear-to-sell novella. Of course, it will probably shrink 2k or so in the editing, but still no chance of getting it under the 10k mark. I'd have to go through and delete random words.

One of the interesting elements to the story, for me, is an ordinary one: Gerune's not too bright. She means well and she tries hard, but she tends to miss nuances and alternate explanations. She is so fixed on things happening a certain way that she doesn't see different paths. Hopefully, I've made this human and realistic rather than irritating, but I don't think you necessarily see stories where the character is slow on the uptake that often.

As is typical for me, the story is definitely open-ended in its conclusion. The main story problem(s) is / are solved, but there's clearly a lot else to do ...

Finished an insane five chapters editing this week. My observations are that I'm going to need a draft where every time I see a continuity issue, I bookmark my place and skim through the rest of the manuscript to make sure I've adhered to it. I think this is best done as a separate pass through the manuscript. I'm fixing or tweaking too much else in this one.

I'm just starting to edit "Stolen Moments." I read it through yesterday to get an overall sense of it, and while it has some rough edges and needs some tightening, there's a lot of intriguing stuff going on. I have a good feeling about this one, but the cynic in me remembers that last year, I didn't even get a story held by Sword & Sorceress (unlike the first 2-3 years), so I'm not holding my breath.

3/24 - 3/30
Pages edited: 27
Word count: 3,008

Prequel Pitfalls

I've seen a number of prequels in the past little while, most from television - but I think most of the same factors apply to books, as well. (Except maybe for the fact that their recent popularity may be enhanced by the ease with which an actor can be made to look younger, with little touchups of easy CGI if necessary - which, of course, a book doesn't have to worry about. See "Surrogates," which - whatever you think of the storyline, and of course it's not a prequel - has some of the most amazing-yet-subtle CGI in movie-making.)

On the face of it, a prequel is a great concept. Any good story, in my opinion, has a sense that it is neither the beginning nor the end of the characters' lives: the things happened to them before the curtain lifted and things will continue to happen after it falls. There's a fine line between a story that lives in this way and a story that doesn't feel like it starts at the right spot ... but to me, I would rather trend towards too much backstory than too little.

Then, of course, there's the unintentional prequel - when you're forced to read book two and then come back to book one. This happens a lot with mysteries: those long-running series, good luck finding all the books, in order, in print. I've pretty much resigned myself to picking up whatever number I can find, and I hate - hate hate hate - reading things out of order. And because the mystery is so important, the mystery novel has an obligation not to spoil previous volumes, while still providing the reader with enough context to operate. Anne Perry's "Callander Square" does a marvelous job of discussing the events in "The Cater Street Hangman" without revealing a key aspect of the murderer in the previous book.

In fact, just to confuse the prequel issue further, I like to read things in chronological order, so I'll tend to start with the prequel ... but we digress.

I think prequels suffer from some potential pitfalls above and beyond regular volumes, and there are two that jump out at me:

1. That's All There Is? The events of the prequel seem too small / cramped to live up to all the foreshadowing and complexity of the hints in the main storyline. This is always going to be a big risk, because the reader (/ viewer's) imagination will probably create scenarios more interesting than what the writer can provide. Often, what we don't see is more powerful than what we do. But more generally, this can apply to situations that don't havethe right proportion of time or immensity. It's like finding out the mysterious vendetta that's been keeping our hero and villain at each other's throats for years is a parking space.

The "White Collar" prequel episode fell into this category for me. I felt that the now-time association between the characters suggested a far longer and deeper connection than could be summarized / presented in a one-hour episode. Even now, I sort of ignore the whole backstory episode and pretend there's more to it.

2. Too Tidy. The prequel takes in / explains every single little event in the present storyline. Sometimes the events even torque unnaturally to make sure that something is covered. Additionally or instead of, there is almost no content in the prequel that doesn't pertain to or lead into the main storyline. Life doesn't work like this. It's too neat, too contrived - even in storytelling. I stop believing in it ... and it loses one of the prime virtues of backstory, to flesh out the world with the unseen but present.

Not a prequel / main story situation per se, but this was part of my problem with "Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter:" the whole alternate history was so entirely fixed / predicated on vampires that I had trouble buying into it. Sure, that's your subject matter, but the entire span of a person's life is more varied than that.

These aren't insurmountable problems, but they're definitely a significant concern and an impact upon (my) enjoyment of a prequel. What do you think, folks? Is there another pitfall I've missed?

Thursday Thoughts

So much has happened within the course of the novel pages I've edited this past week, and yet I have little to say. I'm conscious of the fact that I'm not cutting as much as I wanted to and often adding chunks of explanation and emotional insertions - but I am still fixed on the point that whatever the length, it needs to be as strong as it can be. Four more chapters this week. Not going to promise (even to myself) that I'll keep that pace ...

I'm still finishing "Scenting Rain" in between times, but have a lot else I've been tackling, such as reviews and editing a story that I intend to submit to Triangulation: Last Contact. (Everyone who read "Last Requests," by the way - thank you so much. It's a much stronger story now, and all my niggling doubts have been addressed.) I'm down to one last sentence to use in "Scenting Rain," and I just realized I'll need to switch POVs one more time to get it to happen. Curses! But we are looking at a sprawling novella - currently a little over 14k, likely to go over 15k, and probably shrinking back to 13-14k in editing.

That makes my total count of novellas / novelettes (technically it's a novelette, but that term sounds so dainty) written for publication: two. The other is "Shadow Play," and while I'm sure much of the style / feel is similar, the outlook on the world espoused by the characters could not be more different.

3/17 - 3/23
Pages Edited: 19
Word Count: 1,258

Sword & Sorceress 2011

It's that time of year again: I prepare to charge up the submission shores of Sword & Sorceress. This year, submissions are limited to two (assuming the first is rejected within the submissions window) ... and I am breaking my brain trying to figure out which stories best fit the style of the anthology. The combination of trying to categorize and identify my own style versus assessing what I've found in stories by others maddens me. I've never been very good at it. I certainly don't have a gut-level feel for it.

I have read three Sword & Sorceress anthologies: XVII, XXI (the first one edited by someone other than Bradley) and XXIV, edited by the reigning red pen, Elisabeth Waters. So I've encountered a fairly wide range of the stories selected. The most significant feature is that the stories have a strong bias towards female narrators - though not exclusively. A majority, but not a distinct majority, feature warriors and battles. Others involve quests, puzzles, and quieter adventures. Though personal battles rather than global stakes - usually considered a defining feature between sword and sorcery and high fantasy - predominate, some of the stories involve princesses, kingdoms, the fate of the world, etc ... which sort of stretches the point of calling it "Sword & Sorceress," to me. Conclusion: it's not just for swashbucklers and fight scenes (and better for it).

At present, my definite contender is:

Stolen Moments: Mantisia, an unusual child who ages a year in a day, stows away with an adult friend when he goes to pay a mysterious debt. I do have concerns that this story might be a bit experimental (gah, that word!) for Sword & Sorceress: it's in first person POV with each scene narrated "immediately" - so that it starts with a (albiet precocious) seven year old narrator and vocabulary and progresses throughout. However, my favorite stories in XXIV were the ones that tread different paths in regards to setting, and I think (hope!) this would have a similar kind of interest. Seven thousand words. Ouch.

The other three are wrangling around with each other:

Kept Woman: An assassin assigned must pose as one of thirty-some royal brides, but how will she react when she develops feelings for the first among their number? Story also comes in around 7k; I know longer tales are handicapped, and I'm reluctant to submit two in that range. This is one of my older stories, too, though believe me it'll get a thorough polish ...
Note Taking: Among a people where music is language, Ecca is handicapped by her lack of pitch ... but this unassuming servant girl may be the only one who can break the language barrier with a foreign people. I think the feel of this one is on the right track, but - and this is a big but - there is no magic in this setting. At all. I don't think I've seen a secondary world sans magic in any of the anthologies. For me, this is a short story - 5k.
Dancing Day: A group of young teleporters who lose their abilities upon maturity must keep the traditions of their conquered city alive ... but how can one dance the Silver Tree with no instruments to play? (Look, Lindsey is obsessing about music!) I can't put my finger on what makes me uncertain about this one. Well, length, at least - yet another story in the 7k range. Unfortunately, that seems to be my sweet spot for length.

As an aside, I did have this whole problem figured out - but the original story I had intended to set aside for story #2 sold. (Well, good news bad news ...) So back to the drawing board!

Anyone who has experience with Sword & Sorceress and is better at eyeballing, I would love some advice. Currently my plan is to bang my head against a wall until I hurt myself and do some divination with the blood.

Thursday Thoughts

Today is the busiest day of the Celtic musician's year. I only had one job, but it was a marathon: two hours at lunch, then another two and a half hours at dinner, with my trio. I also turned down at least three other jobs that intersected. Might have been more, I lost count. Which is all to say that I apologize in advance if this post is in gibberish. Or Gaelic (same difference).

First week, off to a good start: four chapters edited, and more thoroughly than I had initially intended. What I usually do is take a printed manuscript, read it through once to get the macro sense of the story, then read it through again taking hand notes and creating an outline. The outline contains macro-level corrections I need to make; the hand notes are typically line edits. These steps are already done. Then I address the hand notes in the manuscript. That's the step I'm on. As I finish each chapter, I'm going back over it again to see if I've edited in anything strange, if I skimmed lines I should have read more closely because I didn't mark them on the printed pages, etc.

I had something wise and enlightening I was going to say in this post, which I have forgotten. Oh, well.

3/10 - 3/16:
Pages edited (computer manuscript, which is about 750 words / full page): 21
Word count: 2,069

The Eyes Have It

One of the best things about writing fantasy is the ability to create cultures and peoples, and one aspect of that - though far from the most important - is physical appearance. Now, I know racial type is a hot-button topic in fantasy, with some people increasingly concerned about how the genre is white-and-European-centric, and arguably even some characters who are physically different are just western folks "painted" - but I'm going to skirt that issue in this post, just as I skirt it in my writing. Not because I'm afraid or unaware of controversy, but because ...

... why limit yourself to Earth types? Some components of physical appearance are tightly tied to evolution and adaptation to a particular clime, such as skin color and physical type - that is, longer, thinner body types disperse heat better and are more suited to hot climates. Others, however, have no correlation in necessity. Genetics may have a hand in it, dominant traits coming to the fore ... but who says that the same traits have to be dominant or recessive in your world? If magic gets to be a gene (and in some worlds, it really is), why not play further with the rules of inheritance? Why not make a culture / race that has no direct parallel in the real world?

I've done this in several different ways. Mixing up types in a way not usually seen in our world is one. The Alayins, the dominant people in "Journal of the Dead," are dark complected with light hair and eyes. The few dark-eyed characters are treated with some fascination by the cast. Another way is specificity - for instance, a race that only produces blondes. Or capitalizing as a physical or cultural feature something that isn't usually considered part of a distinct type. On Trianor, the Sikan standard of beauty revolves around the feet. A final way is simply to pick something that doesn't exist in the real world - genuinely yellow eyes, dominant polydactylism ... actually, I think I'm going to mark that for future use - and make it racial.

When I do imitate an Earth type, it's either out of laziness (I admit it!), or because I want to evoke a specific parallel. For instance, in the world of the Seventeen Seas, Ilkanae is supposed to be reminiscent of ancient Greece, and the reader should get that feeling quite strongly. And in "Who Wants To Be A Hero?" the parallels were necessary both for the feel of the story and to support some of the real-world cultural / mythological jokes. Destia is basically pre-Revolutionary America if it were a Greek colony instead of an English one ... well, okay, that's not exactly a parallel ...

This all comes up because I've been editing "Scylla and Charybdis" and noticed Gwydion has brown eyes. There was a time, when I was a young writer, when I hated brown-eyed characters. Part of it was because I didn't see any variety in it: you could have brown eyes, hazel eyes or ... brown eyes. Later, obviously, I realized there are a lot more variations. Another part of it, I think, was self-identification. I have grey eyes, which tend to greener or bluer depending on what I'm wearing. Yes, I am this close to being the fantasy cliche of the girl with the mood-ring eyes.

Sidebar about "Scylla and Charybdis:" I very consciously mixed real-world ethnic types (since it's science fiction) with both appearances and names, as a demonstration of how those types had fused over the centuries. To do it to every character would have made it look like a circus, but there's a reason I have a redheaded Upala Manuel. The city of Nissyen has a mostly-assimilated Native American population - but this is never said directly in the text. It's left implied with the names and faces.

Back to the brown-eye controversy, I actually started consciously forcing myself to create characters with dark eyes, and I was all proud of myself when I had a narrator as such. Yes, I was young and silly, but it's a place I came from and a door I used to have shut for no other reason than instinct. Now I like exploring unusual combinations, not as a way of making the characters superficially special or diverse, but as one more way of expressing the possibilities of a secondary world fantasy ... and reminding readers that they're not in Kansas any more.