Better "Bittersweet" Ending(s) for GAME OF THRONES

Once upon a time noted fantasy author George R.R. Martin told fans to expect a "bittersweet" ending for A Song of Ice and Fire. He specifically said that once a quest is completed one can't expect everything to be perfect. Although Lord of the Rings and A Song of Ice and Fire are often contrasted with each other, that comment reminded me of the LOTR ending in which the hobbits return from Mordor to find Saruman had ruined the Shire and even after it's rebuilt, Frodo leaves for the Undying Lands because having taken the One Ring to Mordor and surviving a continent-spanning war in the process, this world is no longer bearable for him.

Well, now the Game of Thrones television series on HBO is over. Going in I was already extremely annoyed with how the series piled on a conga line of contrived tragedies to break Danaerys and drive her crazy, culminating with the gratuitous destruction of King's Landing even though the city had already surrendered. I was thinking they were destroying a powerful female character they'd basically set up to be the messiah for the last decade in favor of Jon "Fail Upward" Snow, (and I wasn't the only one to think that--I most definitely was not). My students' graduation was that night so I didn't see the finale, but although the recaps do describe a "bittersweet" ending, some of the stuff they describe sounds absolutely stupid.

(photo courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter)

Danaerys: I expected there to be consequences for torching King's Landing, but I didn't expect her to go even more crazy before they came. Her ordering everybody who fought for Cersei down to the common soldiers to be killed and advocating an eternal war to free all enslaved people (and for her to basically rule the entire world) is ridiculous. Her goal from the beginning is the Iron Throne--where does world domination come in? She left Slaver's Bay for her ex-boyfriend Daario to rule without any intention of coming back, even though it would have made a good logistical base or source of funds for a continued war in Westeros.

If she needs to die, there was no need for her to get progressively more of a megalomaniac to make the viewers agree this was necessary. If you wanted a sad ending that does justice to her earlier humanitarianism, have Jon find her sitting on the Iron Throne having a total guilt-driven breakdown, remorseful for the havoc she wreaked when she went psycho but unable to be trusted not to do the same thing (or worse) again if she gets stressed out enough. Jon mercy-kills her no matter how much he hates to do it for the good of everybody, which seems to be something the series finale got right. Think Carol's "look at the flowers" execution of the unstable Lizzie from The Walking Dead.

(There's actually a GOT meme based on this, although I'd have said "look at the Iron Throne, Dany.")

The series finale (and the burning of King's Landing before it) sounds like the writers were just trying to beat Danaerys' alleged insuitablity to rule into the viewers' heads, much like they had Varys crap on the idea of a dual Jon-Danaerys monarchy that would be the obvious solution to Northern separatism, Jon's superior legal claim vs. Danaerys' superior military one, etc.

Bran: Bran has demonstrated even less interest in ruling (he refuses to be Lord of Winterfell even though he's the legal heir with Robb dead) and has vastly less experience in governing than Jon. And not only is he disabled (probably bad enough in a medieval world), but he seems disabled to the point of being unable to father children. Depending on where the spine break is, paraplegia can also cost one bladder/bowel control and sexual function, although there's nothing in the books or show to indicate Bran has to wear a diaper. Given the political instability (the dynasty that united the kingdom falls, the successor dynasty implodes in less than twenty years, and there's a prolonged civil war by rival dynastic claimants afterward), I would think the lords of Westeros would want a familiar, stable system. An elective monarchy in a continent that's never had that (outside of occasionally on the Iron Islands and at least one Great Council to select among Targaryens) this isn't. And then there's his becoming increasingly weird and inhuman in the process. Jon for all my issues with him would be a more realistic in-universe choice for king.

Arya: It's been established from the beginning Arya didn't want to be "a proper lady" at all, so her turning down Gendry's marriage proposal (especially the way he worded it with "be my lady") made sense. But when did she ever show any interest or aptitude for sailing? When has "what's west of Westeros" ever been an interest of anybody since Brandon the Shipwright, who I don't think is ever mentioned in the show? And why wouldn't Yara kill her at sea for publicly threatening her like she had earlier in the episode? I would imagine she'd be something like Dune's Master of Assassins for King Bran (Six Kingdoms) or Sansa (the North).

EDIT: A friend pointed out that in an earlier season she did say that she wanted to see what was "west of Westeros." My mistake. I'm keeping this entry here to retain what I thought might've been a better course of action and to show my fallibility.

Edmure: Why is Edmure offering himself up as the new king? The books establish him as a good peacetime lord who legitimately cares for his people, but he's a poor commander and the TV show emphasizes his incompetence with that whole "ignite Hoster Tully's funeral barge with an arrow" farce. After all the stuff that's happened to him, I could easily imagine that he knows this. And given his continued loyalty to his Frey wife (this is more in the books than in the show), he's going to have enough problems with the Riverlands. Is this just an excuse to have Sansa publicly humiliate him for a laugh?

Drogon: He didn't kill Jon why? Hell making Bran king would make sense if that happened.

However, it's easy to complain. Here's how I would have handled the last couple episodes to provide a "bittersweet" ending that's much less ridiculous.

*Make it more obvious that Cersei's propaganda campaign against Danaerys as a foreign invader has taken much deeper root among the elites and the common people. We see that in Season 7 with Randyll and Dickon Tarly, but that's just two nobles. If Cersei's nonsense had spread more widely, the armies moving south could find that the people simply do not trust Danaerys. If there are any incidents where the Dothraki rape and pillage, that would make things worse. These would be against Danaerys' orders, but that doesn't really matter where PR is concerned.

The fact that most people view the White Walkers as "grumpkins and snarks" means the fact that Danaerys' dragons saved Westeros from the Night King doesn't cut any ice (hee hee)--they think it's all made up. Varys sees this and between the likelihood the leader of the coalition would not be able to rule an increasingly xenophobic land and his own doubts about Danaerys' sanity (maybe we still get a "destiny" rant from her when he points out the PR problem she's having) starts spreading word around about Jon. Between that and a more obvious poisoning attempt, Varys gets executed in a situation that some viewers might think is a sign Danaerys is turning into her father.

*When Danaerys attacks King's Landing (provoked like in the show by Missandei's gratuitous murder), make the destruction of the city an accident. The bells are ringing and the Lannister main army is routing, but there might still be scorpion fire from the Red Keep from Cersei's die-hards. Danaerys attacks the Red Keep and accidentally triggers her father's wildfire stashes, utterly destroying the city to her shock and horror.

*Danaerys returns to her allies and they discuss that as word of this spreads, it will confirm forever in the eyes of both the elite and commons that Danaerys is the new "Mad Queen" and the rest of the continent will rise up against them. Danaerys could rule by terror via the Unsullied, the Dothraki, and Drogon, but that would require untold cruelty that would be too much for her and wouldn't really work in the long run. The Dornish held off the Targaryens via guerrilla warfare and there's always poison or other forms of assassination. Danaerys is stubborn (giving the viewers more worry that she actually IS the Mad Queen) but the guilt from the obliteration of King's Landing finally pushes her to agree to make Jon the new Targaryen king (even though he emphasizes he DOES NOT WANT IT) and return to Meereen with her loyalists. Danaerys has saved the kingdom from the White Walkers and the narcissistic tyrant Cersei, but she's lost the throne due to Cersei's dishonesty and the accidental destruction of the city confirming the "truth" of this in the minds of ignorant people.

So Jon is left mopier than usual on an Iron Throne he doesn't want and Danaerys retreats once more into exile. Perhaps someday there could be dynastic unification of the "Bay of Dragons" and Westeros with a marriage of Jon and Danaerys' children (or Jon and his heirs get the chunk of Essos Danaerys ruled by default if Danaerys really can't have children), but strongly imply this isn't likely to happen. Jon and Danaerys will have to marry other people, no matter their love for one another, for political reasons and to reduce the likelihood of future Targaryen insanity among their descendants. Very sad for everybody, although I could easily imagine Daario being happy to see her again.

*Alternatively, the PR situation hasn't gotten that bad (enough of the allies' leadership and common soldiers recognize the wildfire for what it is), but between the still severe backlash and Northern separatism epitomized by Sansa and all those skeptical peasants, it's still politically impossible for Danaerys to rule the Seven Kingdoms despite her military superiority. Jon resumes his rule from Winterfell, presumably with a dynastic marriage of his own (to someone from the North or perhaps the Vale), while Danaerys marries that new prince of Dorne (I'm guessing some distant member of House Martell since Doran and his son are dead) to stabilize her rule in the south and replaces the obliterated elites of the Reach and elsewhere with sellswords like Bronn, common soldiers who've fought well enough to be knighted, Dothraki (if they can adapt or if there's enough wasted land that can be left as pasture for their nomadic lifestyle), Northerners seeking better opportunities, etc. There're plans to eventually have Jon's children (and hers if she ever has them) marry to reunite the realm much like how Dorne joined the Seven Kingdoms through marriage, but imply with the Northern proto-nationalism that this isn't going to happen even though it worked before by making the ruler of Dorne a prince in his (or her) own right.

*Bran and Arya go with Jon, with Bran as the near-omniscient Master of Whispers and Arya as his enforcer. If Jon becomes the new king of Westeros, the Northern separatists are bought off with Sansa being elevated to Princess of Winterfell in the Dornish fashion. Tyrion, recognizing his multitude of mistakes as Danaerys' Hand, returns to Casterly Rock and Davos becomes Jon's new Hand either in the North or in King's Landing. If Danaerys stays in the south, perhaps Edmure Tully is brought in to become her peacetime Hand to buy off the Riverlands. There'd be an understanding that Grey Worm would have the military responsibilities so Edmure can focus on making a better life for the regular people, as one would think Danaerys based on her characterization early in the show would like.

*Ghost shows up, either having followed Jon south the whole time (Nymeria seemed to be doing pretty well in the Riverlands) or waiting for Jon in Winterfell when he returns. And he gets his pets. :)

What do you all think? This is a "bittersweet" ending that makes Jon and Danaerys suffer both politically and personally despite their victory, but at the same time it avoids the showrunners' character assassination (or rushed "character development" if you wish to be charitable) of Danaerys, along with the other bizarre character choices I listed above. In fact, it reminds me a lot of the eventual fate of the Federated Commonwealth from BattleTech--the best hope for human unification under rulers who respect human rights is thwarted by the villains' treachery and heroes' bad decisions even if said villains are ultimately beaten.

If anybody wants to do fan-fiction based on this premise, go ahead. I've already seen post-"Bells" fan-fic out there and this would certainly be better than petitioning HBO to re-do the final season.

Going Back to DragonCon...

This time last year, I was starting a new job and needed to focus on learning how to do that properly. The year before that, I was a graduate student at Georgia State paying for my M.A. by working as a graduate research assistant and didn't want to spend the money.

Things are a little different this year, so I'm going back to DragonCon! For those of you who aren't in the know, DragonCon is the big science fiction, fantasy, horror, comics, etc. convention in Atlanta every Labor Day weekend.

In 2008 I went to DragonCon and met representatives of the company holding the rights to the BattleTech science-fiction franchise. I spent the next year (I probably could have finished it faster) writing "Skirmish at the Vale's Edge," which tells the tale of the Clan Wolf invasion of the Oberon Confederation, and told them in person in 2009 that I'd submitted it.

(I also got a good reference from established BattleTech writer Loren Coleman, who vouched for me that unlike some other fan-fic writers, I wasn't insane and actually did believe in the rights of copyright holders.)

They ultimately accepted the story and it's now considered part of the BattleTech canon alongside books written by established authors like Michael Stackpole, Mr. Coleman, Blaine Lee Pardoe, etc.

This time around, I've got two completed novels--the post-apocalyptic steampunk Western Battle for the Wastelands and the Lovecraftian science-fiction/horror The Thing in the Woods--to pitch. I've got got two more incomplete projects, the horror/dark comedy/bizarro Little People, Big Guns (which I've blogged about under its original title Badgers vs. Midgets) and the science fiction Bloody Talons: An Oral History of the Avian War, that I can pitch as well. Even if they're not done now, I can get permission to submit them once they're done.

(Bloody Talons is the secret project I've been referencing in posts tagged with "aliens" and "alien invasion." It can be described as a cross between World War Z and Independence Day. I'm still going to keep the details close to the chest though, since it's maybe 1/3 finished.)

When I was at DragonCon in 2011 and 2012, I made contacts with publishers and pitched Battle. Although neither pitch panned out (I did get a "this is good" rejection from one publisher though), meeting representatives of publishers at conventions is a good way to get around the "no unsolicited submissions" bar. If you get permission, it's not an unsolicited submission anymore. Just be sure to reference that in the e-mail to be safe.

Furthermore, even if I don't sell anything as a result of my visit, it's a good way to network and learn. I've interacted with Michael Stackpole and Stephen Michael Stirling, both of whom are really cool guys, and learned about the craft of writing. I might acquire some interesting new books (which I could get signed, considering how many authors are there) and collectibles. And I just learned from my friend James R. Tuck that the Fire of Brazil near the hotel has a $10-12 lunch. Considering how those Brazilian steakhouses are typically $50+ I think I'll hit that up pronto.

It's going to be a fun weekend. :)

Playing In Other Authors' Sandboxes...

This morning I ordered a copy of the new short-story collection The Change: Tales of Downfall and Rebirth set in S.M. Stirling's Emberverse. This is not the first time Stirling has let other authors play in his sandbox. Back when I was in high school, when that wonderful place called Media Play still existed, I flipped through a copy of Drakas!, a collection of short stories other authors wrote in his Drakaverse.

I haven't started reading The Change yet beyond the first few pages and I don't remember Drakas! all that well beyond a few particularly interesting (or particularly silly) stories, but I do love the concept. Many authors have played in other authors' sandboxes before--I read Robert Jordan's Conan stories in high school and Brian Herbert has been filling in the blank spaces his father Frank Herbert left in the world of Dune--but short stories are different from letting another author write a novel-length work set in the same world.

A full-blown book is a pretty momentous--Brian Herbert's novels describe the Butlerian Jihad and much of Paul Atreides' reign as Padishah Emperor, stuff that was left out of his father's books completely or only alluded to. However, short stories allow for much smaller brushstrokes that wouldn't have large effects on the wider worlds.

For example, my BattleTech short story "Skirmish at the Vale's Edge," which I sold to BattleCorps and so it's now canon, depicts the relatively small Battle of the Jallington Vale described in a single paragraph in the Clan Wolf sourcebook. The good people from Catalyst Game Labs advised me to stay away from the major events and people, lest my story get nuked for contradicting established canon. Given how enormous the BattleTech world--like the Emberverse and the Drakaverse--is, there's plenty of blank spaces to fill without impacting people like Victor Steiner-Davion, Phelan Kell, etc. The same principle applies to the Emberverse and the Drakaverse as well. It's even been applied to Charlaine Harris's world of Sookie Stackhouse--see this collection Dead But Not Forgotten.

Perhaps someday my own work will be popular enough to justify similar projects. The world of Battle for the Wastelands I've plotted out thus far covers three generations and spans a whole continent, plenty of time and space for other writers to play in my sandbox without causing undue problems for the main plot. The world of The Thing in the Woods, although what I've plotted so far only covers a relatively short time period, could also host works written by other writers. The world depicted in my unfinished space opera The Cybele Incident and a current project I'm keeping under wraps for now also have plenty of space, especially the latter one.

All I need to do is make those projects successful enough. Time to get cracking. :)

Selling Online: Amazon.com and Half.com

When I was in college, I joined Half.com, using it to buy my textbooks more cheaply and sell them for more than I'd get if I relied exclusively on the UGA bookstore or the off-campus bookstores in Athens. This was largely a success, even with fairly obscure books like At Thy Call We Did Not Falter and 32 Battalion, which I used for my senior thesis on the end of apartheid and the role played by the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale.

Since then, I've bought and sold a few items here and there. Among other things, I've learned the lesson that if you want to keep more of the money Half.com gives you for shipping, ship as cheaply as possible. For small books, it's better to take a big manila envelope and pack the book into it with a lot of plastic grocery bags for cushioning rather than buy an expensive mailer from the Post Office. I actually lost money on shipping on my most recent transaction because of that.

I recently tried to post the BattleTech source-book Jihad Secrets: The Blake Documents, which I purchased in order to learn the (possible) fate of Clan Wolverine, a renegade Clan that was supposedly exterminated by the other Clans but in all likelihood managed to escape back to the Inner Sphere. Although I'm interested once more in writing BattleTech fiction, I'm not interested in the Word of Blake Jihad or the FedCom Civil War, so I figured it'd be better to make some money selling the book to someone who'd appreciate it more than letting it gather dust.

However, for some reason Half.com would not accept the ISBN number. Rather than let that get me down, I decided to post it for sale on Amazon.com.

Here is my seller page on Amazon. So far it's just Jihad Secrets that's available, but I might post other items that have been sitting on Half.com forever without selling. If you're interested in the Word of Blake Jihad and Clan Wolverine, I'd recommend buying it.

Back To BattleTech

This morning I ordered the Wars of Reaving BattleTech source-book from Barnes and Noble's website, finally remembering to use one of those e-mail coupons my membership entitles me to. Between the 20 percent off and the free express shipping, I saved $10. That covers around a fifth of the two years I've had a membership there, a lot more than 10 percent off an in-store purchase would.

Why am I discussing this purchase? Because I've decided to try my hand at BattleTech fiction once more. In 2009, I sold a short story entitled "Skirmish at the Vale's Edge," which covers one of the early battles of the Clan Wolf invasion of the Inner Sphere, to BattleCorps, the official tie-in site for BattleTech fiction. However, due to some matters I'm not going to discuss, I set aside some partially-written stories and focused on other work.

However, things changed and I decided to give one of those stories a look. The BattleCorps guidelines advise new writers to stay away from established characters and well-known areas of the BT universe, lest a good story be rejected for conflicting with established canon. "Skirmish at the Vale's Edge" describes part of the Battle of the Jallington Vale, which took place during Clan Wolf's invasion of the Oberon Confederation world of Drask's Den. That conquest is described in the 1990s Clan Wolf manual I own as being something resembling the Persian Gulf War--much of the Oberon army was destroyed from the air before ground combat even took place--and I'd researched the Gulf War a fair bit for other projects. There also appeared to be no mention of it beyond the entry in the Clan Wolf book, so it was fair game. And considering how they bought it, it all worked out.

My next story, "El Hijo de Hermano Abdullah," takes places in the Deep Periphery, in the wars between the Ummayyads and the Castilians. That aspect of BattleTech canon is also not well-developed, at least in comparison to the Inner Sphere. I pitched the idea to one of the BattleCorps editors, who suggested I purchase War of Reaving to see what's been going on in the Deep Periphery since then. Given how the Clan worlds are considered part of the Deep Periphery and I had heard there'd be some major doings related to the Ummayyads and the Castilians not mentioned in the Periphery source-book I bought for "Skirmish," I figured it would be a wise investment.

Plus the Wars of Reaving that ravaged Clan Space at the same time as the Word of Blake Jihad trashed the Inner Sphere could be a good source of stories. I am not a fan of the FedCom Civil War and WOB storylines and figured I'd center my BattleTech stories on the Clan Invasion Era in the Inner Sphere and the Periphery other times, but the WoR, which take place outside the Inner Sphere, would also work.

"Free express shipping" means 1-3 business days. Maybe when I get it, I'll review it here.

Jeffrey Stepakoff Dispenses His Wisdom

Last Saturday, I attended a seminar at a local library featuring Jeffrey Stepakoff, a novelist, screenwriter, and a professor at Kennesaw State University.  I figured someone with his extensive experience writing in several fields would provide much wisdom for a small fish like me, and I was correct.

Stepkanoff told the participants that they should stop thinking of themselves as being at the mercy of producers and publishers.  If producers and publishers did not have content, they had nothing.

"We are at the center, the epicenter," he said.

He said there are people right now looking to find the next big book or the next script for a big television show or film.  However, he said this doesn't mean that one shouldn't write well and produce good content in the first place.  He advised people to wait until their content was outstanding before putting it out there.  If it really is good, getting it published/produced is just a matter of time.

A professional writer shouldn't just start writing without planning.  One should know one's story and ensure the story works before one starts writing.  Writing a script that doesn't come from a good story is a miserable process that requires a lot more work--one has to come up with stuff as one goes along.  This is important when one pitches one's story to an editor--one should have a good story, not just a vague world.

Then he dropped a substantial bomb.  He said if one's novel or script isn't getting traction, even after years, chances are it's not that good.  Write well.  "Have your killer story," he said.

He advised those writing scripts to pay attention to what the market wanted.  If someone writes for cop shows, but the market is for comedies, one should ask if they've ever written something funny during one of their cop shows.  If they have, they can write comedy.  However, he said that doesn't mean one should take the novel one has been working on for 20 years and add vampires just because they're trendy.

Stepkanoff said if one thinks one's book is in the same vein as, say, Jodi Piccoult, one should study her work and who reads it.  If the book is unpublished, find out who Piccoult's agent is.  Examine the book jacket.

He warned even if one has a contract for a book, if it's not a good point, the publisher will only print a small number of copies and won't put a lot of effort into promoting it.  However, if it is good, one's editor will push for the publisher to promote it.  Most publishing houses put out around 1,000 books. How many books get first print runs of 20,000 to 50,000 copies?  Maybe 20, and of those, 15 will have been written by established authors.

Stepkanoff described the process of "selling in."  If the sales people hear from on high the publisher is psyched about the book, they'll push that one more so than the other 300 or so books they're responsible for selling.

He advised the writers they should have the book jacket in mind when they write the book.  One should think about where the book should go in the bookstore.  One's pitch begins with the author and will ultimately travel all the way to the book buyers.  Stepkanoff designed his pitch before he even started writing the book.  This doesn't mean one shouldn't have the writing space to develop good characters, but that one should have a good idea from the beginning.

He then advised writers to build a public persona.  Publishers don't want just an image, but a built-in fan base.  Editors are thinking about how to pitch a person.

(Hmm...I think my built-in fan base are Harry Potter and Transformers fans from my fan-fic, BattleTech people from "Skirmish at the Vale's Edge," Digital Science Fiction readers from "Coil Gun, people I know from Marietta because I grew up there, Griffin and North Fulton because I work there, and alternate-history enthusiasts due to my long posting history at AH.com.)

Audience members asked him if he wants them to write something that can be easily forwarded.  Stepkanoff said this was the case.  An agent once asked a colleague of his to tell her what to tell publishers.  The colleague was upset, until Stepakoff told him the agent had connections and does her things so he can live in Georgia nad have a good place with his family.  He recommended audience members to craft a killer letter.

Stepakoff then explained the differences between literary and film agents.  A Hollywood agent, especially one who works in television, invests a lot in a single writer.  A literary agent will work with a larger number of writers and, consequently, will not be as present in one's life.  New York agents are more accessible--although their Web sites often say not to e-mail them, it does work.

An audience member suggested the Web site Everyone Who Is Anyone, which contains contact information for many publishers and agents.  Stepakoff told people who approach agents and publishers via this method to wait until their product is darn good, as a favor to other writers who might use this site later.

Stepakoff suggested people join the Writer's Market Web site or purchase the large Writer's Market books to find agents in one's field.  One should also find books in one's genre and check out the acknowledgements section.  One should find the agency that represented the writer and then go to the agency's Web site to find an agent.

However, he advised them not to fire off crazy e-mails and to think long and hard about one's opening line.  Agents don't just get you jobs--they're your business partners.  You have to give them something.

He then discussed marketing.  Most writers aren't pushed hard by their publishers and if the publisher won't put the effort into promoting one's book, one should.  However, there needs to be a balance between time spent writing and time spent on things like Facebook, blogging, Twittering, or doing signings in bookstores.

He then had some advice about bookstores.  If one goes to a bookstore and tries to arrange a book signing, the staff will be much more interested in you if you can point out where the book is in the store.

"Make noise on the Internet," Stepakoff advised.  "Get people to review the book."

(That advice I've already implemented.  I've promoted "Coil Gun" and the collection it's in, the third Digital Science Fiction anthology, via contacts I've made on AH.com.)

Stepakoff is on the fence about spending one's own money on Internet advertising.  He recommended if one is in a niche market, one should focus on social networking, as well as focused events relevant to your topic.  He then said every writer should have a Twitter feed.

"Nobody knows what's going to happen to publishing," he said.

His informed opinion is that consumption of stories is not going to fall and that digital media is going to be remarkably beneficial to it.

(I can agree with this wholeheartedly.  My publications, including the well-paying BattleTech and Digital Science Fiction ones, were in primarily online markets.  I did make a couple of sales to a smaller print magazine, but the magazine went under before they could be printed.)

Stepakoff discussed electronic readers like the Nook.  Amazon is selling more e-books than print books these days and many people bring their e-readers into stores, see what interesting books are on the shelves, and download them electronically.

He suggested that independent bookstores conduct a public-service campaign.  People who go to bookstores just to see what books they can download don't know they're not supporting the bookstores.  He said people complained about the death of Borders, but had to be asked if they even bought books in the first place.  He said Barnes and Noble is trying to integrate more with the local communities and compared them to Whole Foods.  Barnes and Noble also promotes books by region.  The company promoted his book Fireworks Over Toccoa heavily in the South, where it has been selling well.

Stepakoff also discussed giving out content for free as a means of enticing readers.  He has a free e-book entitled "Love A La Carte," which he described as being the "deleted scenes" from his novel The Orchard.  It's the number-two free item on Amazon.com at the moment.  He suggested writers put their own content online or for free at a low price, but not to just spew low-quality stuff.

An audience member brought up James Patterson, who gives out the first few chapters of his books online for free--people will buy the complete product to finish it.

Stepakoff said Patterson's books are so well-designed, they hook readers.  He reminded the writers it's their job to get people to read the second page.

He also weighed in n book trailers.  He recommend they not mess with those and instead focus on social media, which is free.  Creating a quality book trailer is expensive and it involves putting faces on characters Hollywood would like to cast.  If one absolutely must do a book trailer, one should focus it on selling the writer, not just the story.

"Let the publisher pay for it," he said. "Let them do the professional version of it."

He suggested a better way to get one's name out there is to guest-write for blogs.  There is a correlation between this and a high Amazon author rating.

DragonCon 2011: Talks with Michael Stackpole

During this year's DragonCon, I attended two panels featuring Michael A. Stackpole, a science fiction writer noted for the Rogue Squadron series of Star Wars novels and the Blood of Kerensky BattleTech novels covering the Clan invasion of the Inner Sphere.

The first panel, I did not originally plan on attending because it was part of a series of writing workshops that one had to pay for.  However, Gary Henderson told me that one could attend individual sessions for $10 and since characterization is one of my weak points, I figured this would be a good idea.

The first panel I attended was about characterization.  Stackpole gave a presentation on the different types of characters out there, starting with roman a clef (based on real events and people, like Primary Colors: A Novel of Politics) before moving onto archetypes (stock characters), composite archetypes, and organic development of characters.

"You're going to use all of these techniques," he said.

One easy way to create a character is to combine a composite character is to take a real-world character and add--the example he gave was General Patton if he were a motorcycle-riding bad boy like the sort typically played by the young Marlon Brando.

However, one advantage of organic character development is that there's going to be character growth.

Another technique is deliberate design--Stackpole said it was like a composite characterization on steroids and said role-playing gamers do this a lot.

However, he warned against rigid adherence to a model because it would kill character growth.  "George Patton would never do that" is something one shouldn't ever say.

He also warned against complications--he said many roman a clef novels are written about students getting their master of fine arts in literature who sleep with their professors by master of fine arts in literature students sleeping with their professors and this leads to alienation-of-affection lawsuits and divorces when the professors' spouses read the novels and recognize the scenario.

He also said although archetypal stories are familiar and make readers comfortable, archetypal characters are often shallow and a sign of writers who don't challenge themselves.  Stackpole said he uses archetypes as place-holders and then elaborates on them to create real characters.

"Every character is the hero of their own story," he said.

Although I've most often heard this in regards with the characterization of villains, he said this can be used to generate additional material.  For example, what story would a fantasy hero's loyal retainer tell his children about his adventures?  Many short stories and novellas begin this way.

He then said that organic characterization has a big drawback--it takes up a lot of space/page-count and a lot might end up cut.

He also provided some more concrete advice.  He said if a secondary character begins taking over a story, one should give them their own story later.  He also said if killing off a character hurts you, it will probably hurt the reader.

I remember reading that George R.R. Martin wrote the infamous "Red Wedding" (in which the Freys and Boltons murder Robb and Catelyn Stark at Edmure Tully's wedding to Rosilin Frey, held in the Freys' castle) last of all the parts of A Storm of Swords.  Furthermore, many fans apparently reacted very strongly to the scene, including crying or throwing the book across the room.  I guess this proves Stackpole's point.

Stackpole also said writers need to be able to rationalize anything.  He said in his Age of Discovery novels, he said one race had nine gods in one book and ten in the second.  He fixed this by throwing in that members of said race didn't talk about the tenth god and this became a big deal in the third book.

"I had totally, totally blown that," Stackpole said.

However, he managed to turn it around so a flub looked like something that was planned ahead.

"That happens more than you care to remember and it's wonderful," he said. "It makes you look brilliant."

He then suggested something called "blitzkrieg characterization," a technique he said Stephen King used in From a Buick 8.  Basically, one lists two character traits and then a trait that flatly contradicts them.  The example he used was that of a well-dressed man who attended church on Sunday and Wednesday but should not be trusted with the collection plate.

"What this means is that you as the writer have them," he said.  People will want to read to find out more.

Stackpole ended his presentation with a character growth arc--have the character ask why they are, what they want to be, and what do others they think are.  The first two are connected, while the third can provide pressure on the characters.  I've read some discussion on the Song of Ice and Fire message-boards and they described Jaime Lannister's redemption arc in somewhat similar terms--he wants to be a great, honorable knight (and be perceived as such), but people think him an honorless king-slayer and suspect him of incest with his sister.  The fact his family has a rather bad reputation at this point doesn't help.  Reading the White Book chronicling the Kingsguard throughout history shows him how he's come up rather short. 

This supposedly drives his behavior later on the story, when he ends the siege of Riverrun without storming the castle or killing any rebels, rescues the female knight Brienne of Tarth from a bad situation (before, he was in the habit of calling her "wench" and was generally rude to her) and later dispatches her to find and rescue Sansa Stark, beats a man senseless with his golden artificial hand for insulting Brienne, rescues his brother from being unjustly executed, etc.

The second panel with Stackpole was about Robert E. Howard's Conan and Howard as a writer.  Something I found particularly notable was that Stackpole had written Conan the Barbarian, a novelization of the 2011 movie.  Stackpole is a man after my own heart--like me, he believes the 2011 film is a much better representation of Howard's mythos than the Arnold film.

He discussed how one novelizes a film and how he expanded on Conan's life story between Zym's destruction of his village and when we see Conan again as an adult.  This included consolidating the scene where Zym's minions chase Tamara on horseback--one simply can't write that shot-for-shot in a novel.  To write it, Stackpole wrote in the morning and read Howard's Conan stories and commentaries on them later in the day.  He finished the novel, which was contracted to be 80,000 words but came in after editing at 79,500, in 17 days, writing three chapters per day.  Much of the book is based on material not in the film--if it was solely based on the movie, it would only be 50,000 words long.

Unfortunately, the Fulton County library system doesn't seem to have it.  I'm going to have to order it off Amazon.com.

Just Got Paid for "Coil Gun"

I'm a very happy camper right now.  I just got paid $271.05 for "Coil Gun."

This is my first professional level sale, so I don't know how it goes with other markets, but my other sales were to lower-paying markets that did not pay as quickly.  Kudos to Michael Wills at Digital Science Fiction.  And this is my largest haul for anything I've written--the next biggest contender, "Skirmish at the Vale's Edge" (BattleTech), was $196.

(Which reminds me, I've got some more stories in mind for protagonist Arnold Hoefer, who was fairly well-received on the BT boards, and the Clan Wolf conquest of the Oberon Confederation in general.  Maybe I can get to work on those at some point.)

"Coil Gun" will be in the third edition of Digital Science Fiction, which will come out this August.  When it becomes available, I will promote the heck out of it via this blog, my Facebook fan-page, and other means.  Once print editions become available, I intend to head down to Griffin and do the book signings I promised my former co-workers at The Griffin Daily News so long ago.

World-Building Tip: Daily Life In...

I was listening to the Writing Excuses podcast on non-traditional settings at the gym the other night and they brought in author Saladin Ahmed, an Arab fantasy writer who writes stories set in a fantasy version of the Middle East (the main example being Throne of the Crescent Moon), not the standard fantasy version of medieval Europe that most high fantasy or epic fantasy stories are set in.

Saladin discussed world-building with the hosts and one thing he said had been very helpful to him was a series of books entitled Daily Life In... that dealt with different historical eras.  I made a note to myself to find these books and then forgot about it until this morning.

I just requested several books from my local library system, including Daily Life in Civil War America and Daily Life in Victorian England, which are part of a series on daily life in different historical periods.  Given how Andrew Sutter's environment is more like the Civil War U.S. or the Western frontier, books on that topic will be appropriate, while Grendel's capital of Norridge and the advanced civilizations Andrew will encounter in the later books after he crosses the Iron Desert are steampunk and therefore books on Victorian England will be appropriate.

It might even be a good idea to buy some of these books, although the actual Greenwood Press Daily Life series does not appear to have had a large print run and the average price of these books is $30+.  Still, if I was willing to shell out $50 for the BattleTech codex Clans: Warriors of Kerensky for research purposes (and at some point I need to write some more BattleTech fiction, since I got paid $196 for my story "Skirmish at the Vale's Edge"), these books might be worthy investments.

Luckily the local public library has a lot of them, so I can just request them whenever I need them.  For those of you who have access to good public libraries and are interested in improving your world-building, I'd check these out.

In addition to books dealing with daily life in the time period you're interested in writing about, primary sources from that time would also be a good idea.  I also requested The Civil War Notebook of Daniel Chisholm: A Chronicle of Daily Life in the Union Army 1864 to research what life in a more organized army would be like--it will be useful to improve the Merrill-army sections of Battle for the Wastelands and will be especially useful in the later books of the series where we see Grendel commanding troops in the field and Andrew rising through the ranks of another army. 

Bernard Cornwell based a lot of the Sharpe novels on The Recollections of Rifleman Harris, the memoir of an enlisted man in the British Army of the Napoleonic Wars.  I might try to get hold of that one as well--even though the technology in the world of Wastelands is around 50-60 years ahead of the Napoleonic Era, the two Sharpe books I have read (Sharpe's Tiger and Sharpe's Triumph) provided me with lots of useful bits of information, including stuff on the use of bulls for transporting heavy goods and how Napoleonic-era armies actually had smoke-bombs for infantry use (to mask advances under fire).

I hope you all find this useful.

The Four Writings I'm Most Proud Of

Decided to list the four completed works I've written that I'm the most proud of, in order of pride. Here goes, with spoilers contained therein...

The Skirmish at the Vale's Edge (BattleTech)

When I visited DragonCon in 2008, I found a booth for Catalyst Game Labs, the company that current produces the BattleTech game and licensed fiction, and figured this would be a good writing opportunity. However, I let the project sit by the wayside while I worked on other projects until spring/summer 2009. I decided then that I ought to have the story done by DragonCon 2009, so I could find the Catalyst people again and tell them I'd submitted something.

I purchased some BattleTech source-books online and went to work. I remember watching the BattleTech animated series when I was in elementary school (it was on UPN on Sunday mornings, before church), so I remembered the Clans. Given how new writers are encouraged to start out far away from the important characters from the books and games, I figured the Clan invasion of the Periphery was a good place to set a story.

The Clan Wolf conquest of Drask's Den reminded me a lot of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, which I'd researched extensively for my Gates of Vasharia project, so I went to work. I like to think my future biographers will have a field day with all the inside jokes--there's a city on Drask's Den named Carrollton, after the town where The Griffin Daily News is printed, while the protagonist shares a surname with my coworker at the Griffin paper.

I finished the story over the summer of 2009 and ran it through my Kennesaw and Lawrenceville writing groups twice and ended up submitting it to BattleCorps, the online BattleTech fiction compendium, a few days before DragonCon. After some tinkering, it went up on http://www.battlecorps.com/ in early October 2009. Since it's an older story, it can probably be purchased for $2.00 or so.

Four cents per word is not considered a "pro rate" (that's $0.05/word plus), so I can't count this toward membership in the Science Fiction Writers of America. However, it still came out very lucrative for me and I intend to write more. The protagonist proved to be very popular with the BattleCorps denizens, so I think we'll be seeing him again.

Best of all, my story is now considered BattleTech canon.  For those of you who need some clarification, that means it is now considered as valid as any of the source-books, gaming manuals, or novels as far as the history of the BattleTech fictional universe is concerned.  I've made a mark, albeit a small one, on one of the biggest gaming franchises out there.

Lord of the Werewolves (Harry Potter fan-fiction)

Although this is fan-fiction and therefore I cannot make any money on it (unlike my original story, "I am the Wendigo," which we'll discuss later), I do like this one. But before I describe why, some background.

In 2008, I wrote a novel-length Harry Potter fan-fic entitled "The Wrath of the Half-Blood Prince," which took place during the First War of the Dark Lord (in the timeline, the 1970s) and was about Snape.  More on that later.

In order to get ideas and share my own thoughts, I joined the FictionAlley web-site.  While I was there, I made the acquaintance of Kyli Ann Rasco, who was an active poster in the threads critical of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I did not agree with all criticisms of the last book, but one of the better arguments was that Lupin and Tonks were underused. All they did was get married, have a baby, and die (offscreen, no less), and Lupin acted like a total tool when he learned that Tonks was pregnant. Both of them could have done so much more--Tonks, a shape-shifter, could have been a hard-core Order of the Phoenix assassin, while Lupin, a werewolf, could have challenged the terrorist Fenrir Greyback for control of Britain's werewolf community.

Kyli and I started corresponding and so "Lord of the Werewolves" was born. We both came up with ideas, I wrote the chapters, and then sent them to Kyli for revision and approval.

I'm proud of this for several reasons. Firstly, it's probably one of the most character-centric things I've ever written.

Remus Lupin starts out the story the way he is in canon--a nice guy who doesn't have a lot of moral courage (werewolves are treated similarly to how those with AIDS were treated in the 1980s and he was so glad to have friends that he never stood up to them, even when they did bad things like bully the nerdy young Snape). However, there is a dark, violent side to his character (we see hints of it in the earlier books) that is unleashed when Tonks, injured in a battle with her mad aunt Bellatrix Lestrange, is denied medical treatment by prejudiced doctors and miscarries. After killing the two Healers, Lupin is forced to kneel before Fenrir Greyback to escape the vengeance of the wizarding legal system, now under the control of the Dark Lord.

Once he's realized how thoroughly he's screwed up, he begins planning something resembling Operation Valkyrie (the plot to overthrow Hitler)--he'll assassinate Fenrir Greyback, blame the Death Eaters, and turn the werewolves against the Dark Lord. In the meantime, as a rising star in Greyback's outfit, he becomes more assertive and aggressive, or as one of my readers described him, "darker and edgier." As another reader said, he ultimately "finds his backbone" and is able to stand up to both the Forces of Evil and the often-prejudiced Forces of Good.

I did not put as much thought into Tonks' characterization, but it's there. She starts out her usual spunky self, ends up in a very dark place as a result of her miscarriage and her husband's apparent abandonment, and pulls herself back together. She ends up using FiendFyre as a weapon of assassination, and is back to normal by the end of the story.

I also got to indulge my penchant for making truly awful puns. Here's a selection from a chapter taking place on Valentine's Day...

"Oh Merlin," Tonks said from underneath him. "Professor Lupin, I didn't think you still had it in you."

Lupin smiled.

"Well, you could say I was just hungry like the wolf."

Tonks giggled. That warmed Lupin's heart. He decided to keep the jokes rolling.


"Who knew Miss Tonks liked it on all fours?"

She laughed. "I admit, not my usual cup of tea. But damn."

"So nice, we did it twice."

Tonks laughed again.

The "hungry like the wolf" pun provoked much groaning from those who heard it. This selection also reflects character development on Lupin's part--in a chapter taking place during their honeymoon, it's Tonks who is the sexually-dominant one (due to being younger and much more energetic). However, in this one, some months after kneeling and swearing allegiance to Greyback, Lupin has shown himself much more willing to take charge, so to speak.

Here's the story, for those who want to read it:

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4764695/1/Lord_of_the_Werewolves

I am the Wendigo (original)

I wrote this one when I was a senior at the University of Georgia. In December 2006, I sold it to the webzine Chimaera Serials and it went up in January of 2007. I was ultimately paid $20 for it, which is somewhere between $0.01 and $0.02 per word.

Chimaera Serials died later in 2007 and the web-site ultimately went down within the last year. Somebody has posted it on an Internet forum and let it sit there for years as a free "calling card" to give out to people. I had to take it down in order to self-publish it on Amazon and it's available here.

I think "I am the Wendigo" is probably the scariest thing I've ever written. I think that's something to be proud of.

The Wrath of the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter fan-fiction)

I started writing this one after reading Sindie's "The Moment It Began," which I found via some fan-art on DeviantArt.com. It started out as a one-shot in which the Death-Eater-to-be Mulciber attacks Lily, not Mary Macdonald (as was the case in the canon timeline), and Severus Snape unleashes the titular wrath. However, there were enough people who wanted more that I continued the story, to the point that when finished (it took all of 2008 to write), it was longer than the first three or four Harry Potter books combined.

One reason I'm proud of this is how popular it is. It's gotten over 250,000 hits, it's been included in over 40 fanfiction.net collections, and hundreds of fanfiction.net users have included it in their "favorite stories" list. This means there are hundreds if not thousands of people who will remember my name when, someday, they see my original novels for sale.

It's also my first finished novel and showed me how to avoid letting projects fall by the wayside--I had a large number of fans who read, wrote reviews, and were expecting more. When you have people waiting for your next chapter, it provides an extra push to write it. I've put this principle to good use with my original fiction, using my two writing groups.

Although character growth and development was not my original concern when writing the story, there was enough of it that one member of FictionAlley pointed it out, in a most unexpected place--the Marauders!

For the record, I don't like the Marauders. I think they were a bunch of thugs, with James Potter in particular being the Gryffindor equivalent of Draco Malfoy. Only Lupin gets any sympathy because he was less involved with their bad behavior and went along with it because he was desperate to have friends, not because he was truly a bully or sadist.

However, this member of FA (whose user-name I cannot remember) said I did a really good job depicting the transformation of the Marauders "from bullies into men of character." I believe Rowling's intent was to depict James as having abandoned his cruel ways as a youth to become a heroic fighter against Evil and although this isn't portrayed very well in the books, I figured I ought to include it in the story.

Of course, at one point in their school days, Snape gives him a good working-over with Sectumsempra in a midnight-mugging-gone-wrong.... :)

I did give Snape a character-arc too. He starts out as being concerned only about Lily and his own position in Slytherin (in that order) and his initial breach with the Death-Eaters-to-be was, like his canon break, the former taking precedence over the latter.

Once away from the bad influence of his evil friends, he slowly detoxes from their selfish and racist ways and, seeing his abusive Muggle father's treatment of his witch mother, firmly represses any controlling attitudes he has toward Lily (although he immediately backs down when she calls him on "I won't let you..." in the books, that attitude is still there). He ultimately grows to the point he protects James from Arnold Trigg, whom he had taught Dark Arts and who had gone progressively insane as a result of his fiancee's death at the hands of the Death Eaters.

Lily gets a character-arc too. In a snippet in Deathly Hallows, when she criticizes Snape for what Mulciber did to Mary, she focuses on the fact it was "Dark Magic" more than what Mulciber actually did. The events of the war push her to be more flexible and less moralistic. After all, I could argue aggression using "Light Magic" (James' bullying of Snape, seen in flashback in Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix) is worse than self-defense using Dark Magic (Snape's retaliation using Sectumsempra).

I also tried to make Tobias Snape, Snape's abusive Muggle father, into a more complex character. Rather than making him an alcoholic vagrant, as is often done in Snape stories, I depicted him as a war veteran (the Suez Crisis and the Malayan Emergency, which would have taken place when he was a young man) self-medicating his Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder with alcohol and as a mill-worker whose livelihood is disappearing as British mills lose market share to cheaper foreign producers. He's also on some level insecure and frightened of his wife's supernatural powers, which explains why, when he's been drinking, he berates her and puts her down. He also has a secret love for musical theater.

(He's still a colossal jerk and I admit I teared up writing a scene depicting him drinking and ranting--it was that depressing.)

Here's the link if you want to read it:

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4026081/1/The_Wrath_of_the_Half_Blood_Prince

My Last DragonCon Post, Featuring Mike Lee, Food, and Other Stuff

I've been busy working on Escape from the Wastelands and stuff that caught my attention, so I haven't yet put up everything from DragonCon.  This post won't be as long and detailed as my last one because in the "What Women Want" panel, I spent more time writing down ideas for Escape inspired by the panelists' discussion than writing down what they actually said.

At DragonCon, there was a panel on writing for gaming universes that featuring Warhammer 40,000 author Mike Lee (who is absolutely hilarious and fun to talk to) and a father and son, one of whom was a writer and the other a graphic designer.  Here are some things I learned...

Firstly, gaming companies consider the licensed novels a marketing tool primarily.  Novels are timed with product releases--a novel about the Black Templars Space Marine chapter would be released at the same time as a new Black Templar gaming codex.  Time is tight--Black Library often gives writers 90 days to put out a novel.  Around three tie-in books come out per year.

Secondly, established characters are products and gaming companies are very protective of them.  It is rare for book characters to enter the game-canon (i.e. appear in codices, become playable characters, etc.) 

This is something I was already somewhat aware of due to writing for the BattleTech universe--new writers are advised to avoid using "name characters" like Victor Steiner-Davion because what they've been up to is documented to the nth degree.  Good stories have been rejected because they feature established characters doing something when established canon has them somewhere else.

That's why, in "Skirmish at the Vale's Edge," I invented an entirely new Oberon Confederation MechWarrior named Arnold Hoefer to be my protagonist and his Clan Wolf antagonists were names from the Clan Wolf codex who didn't have any established back story.  I intend to write more stories about Hoefer and the Clan Wolf characters and I can't imagine them crossing paths with any canon characters with the possible exception of Phelan Kell (who served as bondsman to Ulric Kerensky, the ruler of Clan Wolf, and was inducted into the warrior caste for saving his life) and then it would be very brief.

A fun fact I learned about Games Workshop's headquarters in Nottingham, UK, is that it is locally known as "the Reichstag."  It's a huge black building with a giant Imperial eagle (symbol of the Warhammer 40,000 Imperium) on it.  One can ask a local cabbie to take you to "the Reichstag" and he'll take you to GW.

During the discussion of the Warhammer 40,000 universe and the different strength levels of the diffferent factions, Michael Coker said something that at the time was absolutely hilarious:

"Every time the Necrons show up, the Imperium gets its ass handed to them.  Because they're the goddamn Necrons."

But back to writing stuff.  Lee described having to rewrite part of his novel Warhammer: Reaper of Souls to feature a character being near a burning city in order to accomodate a poster that depicted one of the characters from the novel near a burning city.  I guess this was to ensure continuity between the novels, the gaming canon, and the promotional materials.

The "What Women Want" panel gave me lots of interesting ideas for Escape, including elaborating on one character to make her a "strong female character" and making the racial situation in one of the nations more diverse.  However, as I said earlier, I was too busy writing those down to get a whole lot of the general advice.  The one bit of advice I can remember is that a trait women like in male characters is fatherliness/being a father.  I think they said there were too many "boy-men" in fiction.

I also got into a brief argument with one of the panelists about whether Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox's character from the live-action Transformers films) could be considered a strong female character or not.  My contention was that she was, based on her combat capability (hotwiring a car to pull a wounded Bumblebee back into the fight in the first movie and crushing the Decepticon imposter-bot "Alice" in the second).  I probably should have planned what I was going to say more before stating my disagreement, since I neglected to mention her loyalty to her father to the point of getting criminally cited for not testifying against him and her ruthlessness in torturing the Decepticon spy in the second film.

The author, whose name I cannot recall, said in response to my kill-the-Fembot defense that anyone could have done that, that her intelligence/mechanical skill was not elaborated on enough, and that she ended up needing to be rescued.  I don't agree with any of those points--in fact, I could make the argument that Mikaela is even more hard-core than Sam himself.

(I distinctly recall her referring to Sam as a "little girl" at one point.)

Also, if you're ever at the Peachtree Center building in Atlanta, be sure to check out Cafe Momo.  It has a buffet there where you can buy food by the pound.  This means meals are a bit on the pricey side, but they're really good and you can get a balanced meal (fruits/vegetables), which is pretty unusual at a mall food court.  When I was at DragonCon, I had at least two meals there and they were good, with the exception of some marble cheesecake I had to pay extra for.

Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning, I went to the Metro Cafe Diner.  The first time, I went with members of my Lawrenceville writing group and didn't eat anything.  The second time, I had a chicken-and-cheese quesadilla at the bar.  I now know that both salsa and honey mustard both make good sauces for the quesadilla, which was really good in and of itself.

Productivity Update (with some "Starcraft 2" Spoilers)

Submitted the first draft of Chapter Seven of Escape from the Wastelands to my Kennesaw writing group.  I've still got some tinkering to do with Chapter Six, though.  Much of Chapter Eight, including a sequence where Andrew must hide from a dirigible armed with a gatling gun, is already written.  I've also gotten chunks of the next few chapters, in which Andrew joins the insurgency of Alonzo Merrill and fights against the Flesh-Eaters, written as well.  After that, things get a bit spottier.

This morning, I came up with some additional material for "The Deferred Revenge of Catalina Merrill," a short story I'll write if and when I publish Escape from the Wastelands, much like how Stephen King wrote the short story "The Little Sisters of Eleuria" to tie in with his Dark Tower novels.  This story is rather different than my typical fare, since there is little action and it is centered around a female protagonist--Catalina Merrill, sister of Alonzo Merrill and concubine of Grendel, the Lord of the Northlands.  It's pretty heavily character-based rather than plot-based and will reveal aspects of both Grendel and especially Catalina that aren't covered in Escape.

The additional material also ties in with Alonzo Merrill's characterization in the primary Wastelands novels, as well as in two possible spinoff novels.  These are the first-person tales Grendel: The Life and Times of the First Lord of the Northlands and Rebel: The Life and Times of Alonzo Merrill.  Both would be in the style of Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West.

(Grendel will begin 40 years before Escape, when Grendel is a teenager, and chronicle his rise to power from his POV.  It will last until his death at Andrew's hands in the planned fourth novel.  Rebel will begin about a decade before Escape and follows Alonzo Merrill through the conquest of his homeland by Grendel and the captivity of Catalina, his insurgency against the Flesh-Eating Legion, and his ultimate triumph as an ally of Andrew.)

Multiple planned books and at least one short story, all dependent on whether Escape is ultimately successful.  This will certainly given me incentive to complete Escape and bust my behind selling it.  :)

Also tinkered a bit with my steampunk idea file, including some more data on how the Confederacy successfully seceded from the Union and how biplanes would be used in aerial piracy.

I'm also pondering a story pitch to Blizzard for a short story or even a novel set in the aftermath of Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty.  I don't want to give too much away, but it has to do with the fate of Infested Terrans who were within the blast range of the alien device that wiped out the ordinary Zerg and de-infested Kerrigan.  Some of the Starcraft novels describe how Kerrigan created Infested Terrans much like herself, creatures that retained their human memories and personality (to a point) rather than the mindless human bombs that most ITs become.  If they were in range of the device (which seems to have wiped out most if not all of the Zerg on Char), then they should be human again, just like Kerrigan.

When I was in middle school (and possibly early high school), I wrote some Starcraft fan-fiction, which despite the praise I got from my readers, was terribly marred by the fact that I played all three races' campaigns at the same time rather than in the order they were intended to be played and thus had a very skewed timeline. 

(For starters, I wasn't aware that Kerrigan had been infested due to Mengsk's treachery and that he and Raynor were no longer allies.  I didn't have any context for the "Emperor Mengsk" stuff, so I explained that away as being a fit of temporary insanity in a basically good man rather than malevolent power-grabbing on his part.  So essentially we have a democratic post-Confederate state and Raynor and Mengsk set off for Char to debug Kerrigan.  Ironically that ended up happening in SC2, only it's a different Mengsk, the Dominion is not a democracy, and Arcturus and Raynor are not friends.)

Once I played both the man game in its entirety, I started writing more canon-compliant stuff, including my own version of what I expected Brood War to be like.  It turns out I'd gotten the Raynor/Kerrigan partnership right, but I thought it would be against Mengsk, not the United Earth Directorate.  I did not anticipate Protoss involvement, nor did I anticipate Kerrigan being as evil as she was and ultimately betraying it.  The web-site ended up running into problems and the stuff I sent in was no longer posted, so I ended up abandoning the Starcraft fandom in favor of the Dark Angel one.

Now the goal is to get back in the saddle, only this time, to try to write licensed fiction for the company.  I've already done it for BattleTech, so I've got a good leg to stand on rather than old bad fan fiction (the Starcraft stuff) or recent good fan fiction (my two Harry Potter pieces).

(Catalyst Game Labs honcho Loren Coleman told me at the 2009 DragonCon that many companies look askew at fan-fiction writers because many think the characters deserve to be "free" and do not respect the fact that their creators are ultimately in charge of them.  He said he'd vouch that I wasn't insane and since Catalyst ultimately purchased my BattleTech story "Skirmish at the Vale's Edge," I imagine he was effective.  Blizzard might not be so understanding.)

I've found what I think is the main phone number of Blizzard (i.e. not the technical support hotlines), but there might be Blizzard personnel at DragonCon this year.  I think I'll work on my pitch and bring it to the convention.  While I'm at it, I should probably print some copies of "Skirmish at the Vale's Edge" and my one published original piece, "I am the Wendigo."  I think that would be much easier than calling people who might not want to hear from me.

Wish me luck.  :)