Pros and Cons of Shared Universes

Quan

The Marvel Cinematic Universe was, and still is, a huge phenomenon in the world of entertainment. Never before had there been such a collection of disparate, interconnected standalone movies that all shared the same universe, which culminated in films that brought all of the franchises together. The formula was so successful that other studios sought to create their own shared universes, with not nearly as much success. But this innovation in film is just an iteration of something that had been done many times before in comic books and literature.

I define a shared universe as a collection of standalone story franchises that all interact and inhabit the same storyspace. This is different from an epic series with multiple books like Dune, or a franchise that creates multiple spinoffs like Star Trek. In a shared universe, each property can and often does work independently of any other entry into the franchise and is not dependent on familiarity with any other franchise for its own relevance. It’s like Nancy Drew having frequent team-up stories with the Hardy Boys: these are two well-established franchises that sometimes interact.

This was something that hadn’t been tried before at a major level in film, but shared universes are commonplace in literature and comic books. The most notable examples I can think of are the Marvel and DC comic book universes, Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, The Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts franchises, and the collection of worlds and characters that define the popular trading card game Magic: The Gathering. This is a model that can be very lucrative at many levels if handled correctly. But can be disastrous if mishandled. So the question becomes whether this is a model you as a writer would want to pursue for your stories, as well as how to pull it off successfully.

WHY YOU SHOULD DO IT:

Cross promotion and marketing

Sometimes the best way to promote franshises is via other franchises. This is why successful TV shows often have “backdoor pilots,” which are episodes of the show specifically designed to spotlight a new cast of characters in hopes of sparking interest in a spinoff show. The familiarity of a property your audience is familiar with could be a great launching pad for a new property.

Franchising and branding possibilities

In many cases, the whole is very equal to the sum of its parts. Having a solid lineup of independent franchises compose your shared universe creates a feeling of community that your audience can relate to.

When one thinks of the Discworld, they probably think of their favorite book subseries like Commander Vimes & the Watch, but other series will also come to mind like the 3 Witches, Moist Von Lipwig, Rincewind & The Wizards, Susan Sto Helit, and Tiffany Aching. That familiarity only strengthens the brand of the Universe as a whole.

Building fanbases for characters and plot arcs

The added exposure of having franchises interconnected with other franchises allows for more of your audience to develop a connection with them. You can really build the fanbase of a franchise by tying it into a larger world. Likewise with plot arcs that resonate. Many of Magic: The Gatherinsg’s Planeswalker characters gained popularity and notoriety from interacting with their resident superteam The Gatewatch, as well as though the epic War of the Spark storyline.

Building a following

A shared Universe is a great way to build a following for multiple franchises at once. Your audience will take an interest in seeing what new characters and elements will be included in your universe, as well as how the established elements wold react to them.

WHY YOU SHOULDN’T DO IT

Connections can become overly convoluted and confusing

The more elements you add to a universe, the more potential there is for things to get confusing. It can become a puzzle figuring out how everything and everyone fits together and relates. In he 80s and 90s, DC Comics had to have two massive comic book events to clean up their convoluted issues: the first one dealing with their plethora of different versions of the same heroes and worlds (Crisis on Infinite Earths), and then one to fix their inconsistent historical timeline (Zero Hour). You have to keep careful track of each element you introduce into your universe, and that in itself comes with issues, as I will elaborate on in a couple of paragraphs.

Forcing your audience to follow everything

A big problem with shared universes is that a newbie may see all of the interconnected franchises and feel intimidated. If there is no real jumping on point, they will feel that they have missed too much to get on board, or that following all of the disparate stories just to see how they connect or so that they won’t be left in the dark when a story comes down the line that references the past is too intimidating. This was a problem that some people had with Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. Those films were rewards for longtime fans, but newcomers had a hard time figuring out what was going on and why.

Keeping track of all the details

Your bookkeeping gets way more extensive with a shared universe, because there are so many more story details to keep track of. Everything has to be consistent across franchises, especially in areas where they overlap. And fans of your shared universe will quickly cry foul if they find something that doesn’t line up correctly. It can be quite tedious to double check everything to make sure there are no discrepancies, especially if your universe consists of a lot of interacting franchises.

The story never ends

Another issue that might become a problem is the pressure to continue adding to your universe and keep it growing. It becomes increasingly harder to add a standalone story, because your readers will always ask what ramifications that story will have on the universe overall, and if any future changes in the universe will have an effect on what happened in that story. This is an area where the dreaded story retcon can come into play, where you literally change the events of your past stories ipso facto to better fit your current narrative. As a general rule, you want to avoid retcons unless there is truly no other way to make what you have now work within the current narrative.

Here are some offhand examples of well-done shared universes.

Marvel and DC comic universes

Marvel Cinematic Universe

DC TV Universe (BKA The Arrowverse)

Harry Potter/Fantastic Beasts

Terry Pratchett’s Discworld

Magic: The Gathering Multiverse

The Glass Movie trilogy

The Law & Order series of TV shows

The Chicago shows series of TV shows

Th CSI series of TV shows.

In a future post I will offer some quick tips on creating your own shared universe, and ways to avoid certain pitfalls. I will also talk about how I approached creating a shared universe for two of my webcomics, The Seizure and Weekend Heroes.

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Catch Them In The Feels: Adding Emotional Impact to a Scene

Quan

A staple of fiction is the tragic scene. It’s when something happens within a story that truly tugs at the heartstrings of the reader and gets them to feel the raw emotion of whatever is happening. You’ve seen it everywhere from movies to video games to comics and novels. Some entire franchises were built on these moments.

But generating that emotional response is a tricky thing to accomplish. it can be overdone and underdone. It can feel artificial or manipulative. It can lack the necessary punch or feel soulless. So the question is how do you as a writer craft together a moment that truly, naturally elicits an emotional response from the reader?

There are many ways to approach a moment with this intent. It does not always have to be something tragic. In Terry Pratchett’s Snuff, a young, delicate goblin girl does a gesture of kindness and trust for Samuel Vimes. The moment is handled with intimacy and tenderness, from the demure girl’s movements to her haunting, profound proclamations of hearts needing to give. The girl was portrayed as delicate, precious and fragile, with a big, trusting heart for the hero of the story. I know when I read it, I truly felt for this little goblin in a way I rarely felt for secondary characters, and I truly wanted Vimes to do the right thing for her. It was a mesmerizing scene.

I tried to accomplish something similar in The Hand You’re Dealt. The scene where Jay is feeling great about a recent job interview only to have his hopes crushed moments later was something I drew from real life experience. So it was easy to articulate his slow realization that his interview did not go as well as he thought, and all of his hopes and plans for the future were dashed in that moment. But I chose to portray that moment through the eyes of his girlfriend Tika, as she witnesses his dejection firsthand and feels helpless and unable to console him. She cares for him, so she emphasizes with his despair, and in that scene she literally cries the tears he is trying to hold back. After finishing the first draft of that scene, I read it to my wife, who is not a fan of my writing in any way, shape or form. But the scene actually brought a tear to her eye because it actually took her back to that very moment where she was at my side and something similar happened to me. (How that failed to make her more interested in reading my stories I will never know, but I digress).

So the question is how do you as a writer add just the right amount of pathos and emotional resonance to a scene, without overdoing it? How can you craft a scene that truly tugs at the heart strings?

Invest the reader in the characters involved.

You don’t want your emotional moments to feel cheap, or that you manipulated the reader. Things have to come naturally within the flow of the story. To achieve this you must take the time to establish your characters and make them relatable to the reader. Take the time to fully develop the characters involved and give them a true voice and some depth of personality throughout the story leading up to your big emotional event.

Go big, or go small.

Larger-than-life events of grand importance to the story can get emotive responses because of the stakes involved. The big moments in your story are big for a reason, and you can let the gravity of the moment reflect in your characters’ behaviors. But you can also get an emotional response in quieter, more intimate moments. When moments are more intimate, there is an inherent connection with the reader, almost a feeling that they are witnessing something that they really aren’t supposed to see. This adds to the resonance because it feels as if the story is truly letting its guard down and inviting the reader into its inner workings. With an intimate moment, there are no other distractions from the moment to dilute or water down its emotional impact.

The devil is in the details.

Body language, choice of words and actions, facial expression, vocal inflection, even cadence of speech and the inherent rhythm of the flow of action can all have an effect on how emotional a scene is. Something even as simple as the goblin girl’s key phrase “Hearts must give” evokes an emotive response. Even the smallest details can add to the emotional impact of a moment.

Let it breathe.

Don’t fall into the temptation of trying to tell the reader what to feel. Present the action of the scene, and if you can get into the heads of one or more of the characters, all the more better. But you don’t want to overdo it. When a reader feels they have been manipulated and forced to feel a certain way, that can take them out of the story. Make the moment feel organic, like it was a natural progression from what had happened leading up to it, and then let the moment create the resonance for itself.

Read it over.

Once you’ve finished your scene. Read it back over and let someone else read it (or like I did, read it aloud to somebody else). The best way to tell if it tugs at the reader’s heart strings is to literally see if it tugs at a reader’s heart strings. If somebody else is reading or hearing the scene, get feedback from them on how the scene makes them feel, if their feeling is logical and if the scene makes sense.

To illustrate my point, here is the Terry Pratchett book in question. Pratchett had a great way of getting you to emphasize with unlikely characters, and he does it again with the goblins in this book. Check out “Snuff.”

Snuff, by Terry Pratchett

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Is Women in Refrigerators A Neccessary Evil?

Quan

Okay, I’m going to get a bit controversial with this post. I’m going to talk about a very touchy subject among writers and readers. I’m talking about Women in Refrigerators.

For those who don’t know, Women in Refrigerators, or “Fridging,” is when an established secondary character – usually a woman – is killed off or violated in a gruesome way, for the sole purpose of motivating your central protagonist. The phrase got its origins in one of my all-time favorite comic books, Green Lantern. In this particular issue the girlfriend of Green Lantern Kyle Rayner was assaulted by one of his enemies while he was away. She was brutally murdered and shoved into a refrigerator, all for the purpose of making Kyle mad. This incident brought to light a trope where a female character is seemingly needlessly victimized (usually in a gruesome way) for the sake of the protagonist’s motivation.

Why is Women in Refrigerators a bad thing? The biggest problem with fridging is that it takes an established, presumably well-developed character and reduces her (or him, in some cases) to nothing more than a plot device. It is really a disservice to the character to victimize them in such a way, and when a character’s death or violation is handled poorly, it can leave a very bad taste in the mouth of the reader. Add to that the larger social connotations of the fact that this primarily happens to women, and you are creating a very bad feeling for the reader which has very little to do with your actual story. The perception of women in society as needing the protection of men moreso than men needing protection is also part of why this trope has been used so much. It’s only in the last few decades (let’s say starting in the 1990s) that women have been consistently portrayed as not needing a man’s protection or presence. And most protagonists that have benefited from Women in Refrigerators have been men.

But let’s do a deep dive into this trope. There are reasons why this has become a storytelling staple.

First of all, it works. Readers can get more invested into the protagonist when someone he or she cares about is endangered. And the point of everything is to get the reader invested into the protagonist. WIF is not a new thing, and has been done since there were stories to tell. One can argue that the stories of Orpheus, Persephone and Hercules all had women fridged, You can also argue that women were fridged in the Shakespeare plays Othello, Hamlet, and King Lear. It’s been done umpteen times in Television and movies (Game of Thrones and Se7en, for example), and even in video games (Final Fantasy 7 comes to mind). And of course, the trope was first given a name through comics and has many, many examples of it (Gwen Stacy, Elektra and Barbara Gordon, for starters, and let’s throw in Sue Dibny too)

But let me point out that it’s not just women that can get fridged. Though they are the vast majority. For instance, in that very same Green Lantern comic book, Kyle’s gay friend was assaulted by homophobic bullies, and all it really served was to piss Kyle off and show how badass he can be. And in Magic The Gathering, a huge motivation for Gerrard’s decisions to kick off the Weatherlight saga came from his male elf friend Rofellos getting murdered. And as of this writing, Batman’s butler Alfred was just murdered for the sake of furthering a Batman story (although I’m quite sure he will be resurrected somehow sooner or later) Also, violating children is the big no-no in storytelling, but there are instances where even that was exploited to motivate the hero.

So why do I call this a necessary evil? I think that fridging an established character raises the stakes of the story more effectively than endangering a flat supporting character. And an actual violation adds way more urgency than just endangering the character. This also provides a venue (when done well) for exploration of the protagonist and their supporting cast ‘s psyches and reactions to the violation, which can provide some great character depth if handled properly. For a violation to have true meaning, the reader has to actually care about the character getting violated. So you have to establish them for that.

And yes, I am guilty of fridging characters in some of my stories. (beware – spoilers ahead) In The Leopard Man, Ashlynn’s best friend Tesenga was murdered in front of her while they were running from some criminals. I needed to show how dangerous her pursuers were and why getting caught by them was not an option, and also to introduce that possibility when she actually does get caught by them. In Double Entry, I hint at something bad happening to a close friend of Calloway, which would have served as his motivation if I had ever written that spinoff book starring him. I admit I fridged a couple of people in Godmode. Sylvia’s death didn’t really motivate Elijah because he could barely remember her by the time he found her corpse, but his coworker Mr. Snitsky was directly under his protection when he got killed (pretty gruesomely too, I may add). I did this to raise the stakes of Elijah’s situation, and show how dangerous the monsters really are. It also gave me an excuse to show off Elijah’s darker side and make him question whether he was the bigger monster than the creatures he was fighting.

But if Fridging is so bad, then how as a writer can you add that resonance yet avoid falling into the trope? That is tricky and there are no easy answers. There are some excellent solutions in this article (https://www.standoutbooks.com/fridging/ ) that I want to build on.

1. Have her fight back. Don’t let your character be a victim. Give her some agency and response to the issue she is dealing with. If your villain is going to violate her, then make him earn that victory. This way your character isn’t some hapless damsel in distress that couldn’t fend for herself. In a life-or-death situation, people will use anything and everything they can get their hands on to survive. Let your character do the same.

2.Make her more vital. John Wick went on a murderous rampage because someone killed his dog and stole his car. Don’t let your character be a pet or a possession. In addition to fleshing the character out, you must also establish that this character is a vital, important part of your protag’s life, both before and after the traumatic event. Let your protagonist, and even other supporting characters, depend on this person for important stuff. She has a more vital role than being there just to die and make the hero feel bad. This also can make the reader more attached to the character which creates more resonance when the tragic event happens.

3.Show how everyone ELSE is affected by what happens. When a recurring secondary character in the second MacGyver TV show was murdered by a serial killer, there was literally less than a quarter of a segment devoted to how MacGyver and his team felt about losing one of their valued coworkers. And there was no mention of her at all in subsequent episodes, despite the murderer appearing many times afterward as a recurring antagonist. This trivialized her death, and in effect trivialized her life. Your character has relationships and interactions with not only your protagonist, but everyone else in the story. Something bad happening to her will naturally have an effect on everyone she has interacted with. She is/was somebody’s friend, somebody’s sibling, somebody’s spouse, or somebody’s mother. There are emotional connections that need to be addressed.

4.Bring her back. Obviously if a character is dead, this is normally not an option. But in the case of another traumatic violation like rape or mutilation, don’t allow that character to remain in that traumatized state. Empower her to recover and come back from her trauma, maybe with some obvious physical and emotional scars, but restored to her place of importance in the story. Jack Ryan’s wife was forced into a traumatic car accident in Patriot Games, but she was not killed, and she was able to recover and encourage Jack to “go get em,” which provided him with all of the motivation he needed to get the job done without needlessly killing off his wife and children. And even if your character does die, there are ways to “bring her back” from that, too. You just have to be creative. You don’t have to let the villain have that victory over her.

5.Don’t do it to a woman. The perception of a fridging changes drastically with something as simple as doing it to a man instead of a woman. Consider having the traumatic event happen to one of your protagonist’s male supporting characters instead of the female one. There are a lot of layers that can be explored when it is a man that is violated and victimized. Especially with perceptions of male strength and the idea of toxic masculinity and machismo. In society, a man that can be overpowered and violated “like a woman” isn’t really considered a “man.” You can do some things with that to add some extra depth to your story.

These are just a few ideas off the top of my head on ways you can get that same effect without using this trope. And if you disagree with any of this, feel free to call me out on my BS and explain any alternatives you can think of. All opinions and options Can make for great tools for writers to hone their craft, and that includes myself.

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Interview with Todd Sullivan

Quan

I am always looking for new authors to interview. I enjoy picking their brain and gaining their insights into the processes of writing, publishing and marketing stories. Horror writer Todd Sullivan was one of the first to reach out to me about a possible interview. Check him out here.

What inspires your writing?

I’m inspired by the world around me. Most of my influences, I have direct contact with. I wrote about Korea because that’s where I lived for ten years. I’ll write about Taiwan as I continue to meet people and experience the culture of the country. If a reader was so inclined, they could read my fiction over the years and follow the progress of where I’ve lived over my lifespan. It’s all there, in the words, like a map.

What is your process of developing characters?

As my mastery of fiction craft has developed, my style of developing characters has changed. Like my inspiration, generally my main characters are based upon people I’ve met. But real life people are only the jumping off part. The characters themselves are not reflections of these individuals in the least.
In the past, I would write very short stories about characters as I was developing them. I picked up this technique from a university professor I met twenty years ago. It’s very useful and very effective, but lately, I’ve found that I don’t have to do that anymore. And when I say lately, I mean in the last year or so. I see fiction narratives in my head quite clearly now. Practicing the craft for my lifetime, I suppose, has given me this ability, as well as the ability to edit more in my head before I even put it on the page.

Did you start with a story outline or did you make it up as you went along?

I don’t outline, and I don’t ask any one I teach writing to to do so with their fiction. Just write the story. People can get caught up with outlining and never finish a story. Plus, that’s what editing is for, to give greater shape to the first pile of words you put down on the page.
One thing I would advise, and have done, if I feel like I’m getting stuck in a story, is to go ahead and write the ending. That way, you now have something to aim for, even if that ending changes as you get closer to it.

What researching methods did you use?

Part of the reason why I developed the practice of writing from direct experiences is because I hated researching when I was young. I didn’t have patience for it. Things have changed now, though. You can research a subject that you want to put in story by simply using the internet. Between google and YouTube, you can get a lot of good information on almost any topic known to man. Because of this, I’ve taken to researching quite a bit, which gives me a greater breadth of what I can include in my fiction.

Did you draw on personal experience?

I draw on my personal experiences, as well as the experiences of people I meet.

How did you publish?

BUTCHERS was published by Nightmare Press, and my fantasy novella, HOLLOW MEN, will be published by Mocha Memoirs Press.

Why did you do it that way?

For business ventures, I simply think it’s better to work as a group. Self-publishing limits your influence to only the people you meet. Publishing with a publisher, at the very least, doubles the reach of your writing.

How long did it take you to land representation?

I’m not represented by an agent.

Who did your cover and marketing?

Holly Wholahan did the cover for BUTCHERS, and Nightmare Press is doing a fantastic job of marketing.

What are some of the methods you have used to generate interest in your book?

Social media events, future book signings, interviews, book reviews.

How did you find a unique approach to familiar subjects like Vampires and the Occult?

BUTCHERS fuses the western vampire mythology to Korea culture to create a unique blend. I feel confident that I’ve written a unique spin on an undying narrative.

What aspect of the book writing process did you find the most challenging?

Finding time to write is challenging. I write every day, usually in the morning as soon as I wake up. I do feel that this is when my conscious mind most easily enters different realms. But usually, I only write about an hour a day, and that means my pace isn’t very fast for completing projects. Sometimes, however, when I suddenly have a lot of time on my hands, I finish projects at a much more heightened speed. I would love to get to a point where I can enter into a new reality for six months, then do nothing but write three months, then enter into another reality in search of new material for another half a year. That would probably be an ideal writer’s life for me.

Did you use beta readers? How did you secure them?

I’m very big on beta readers, and I pray that I never get to the point where I can’t have a variety of regular people reading my writing and giving me honest feedback. Granted, I would like to have a growing audience, but I still hope that I can always get regular readers to give their thoughts. It’s so much better than professionals only, who I feel can lose touch with what a general reader actually wants in their fiction.

How many revisions did it take to get a publishable book?

I wrote BUTCHERS over four months, but the idea started about five years previously. And I wrote my first vampire story as a child, of which BUTCHERS is its far distant descendant. Basically, I’ve been working on this vampire narrative for my lifetime, and BUTCHERS is only the first of many more to come.

What are you writing now?

I’m writing a fantasy novella tentatively titled DEARTH. It has a long road ahead of it until completion.

What is your advice to other writers?

Master the technique of writing a great first line.

Download your copy of Todd’s Novella BUTCHERS now!

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Writing Musical Stories via Concept Albums

Quan

I ‘m a bit of a music buff, and I’m a sucker for concept albums. Even in this single-dominated music world. I absolutely love it when an artist takes the time to craft together a cohesive, thematic music project where every song is interconnected and all of the parts combine to make a greater whole. Most of my favorite concept albums are stories, with each song being a chapter. I think this takes a lot of thought and planning, and not every artist can pull it off. And the better ones are really engaging, with a LOT of layers to them. I eat that stuff up. I even managed to put together my own concept album telling an action-packed story as my super-spy alter ego, Agent 008 ½.

For those of you that enjoy songwriting, or for you prose writers that have thought about getting into songwriting, This may be an interesting exercise to help stretch your writing muscles. Songwriting is a different animal than prose writing, and even to so extent poetry writing. You have a much more limited framework with which to get your point across, and your words have to fit a specific cadence and rhythm, which puts another limit of which words you can use and how many. You also have a length limit in that most songs usually follow a 3 verse structure broken up by choruses, refrains and bridges. And at some point in time music will be involved, so your song has to actually fit the music it is being written (or you have to craft or find music to fit the lyrics). Now take those challenges and multiply them by about 10, and try to make all of these songs fit together in a cohesive narrative. It is quite a puzzle to solve, but for those that are up to the challenge, it can be quite the rewarding experience.

So if you’re interested in writing a concept album, the question now becomes, “where do I start?” here is the process I went through when creating mine. Some concept albums are more thematic than linear (Secret Life of Plants by Stevie Wonder or Petsounds by The Beach Boys), but this article focuses more on albums that follow a narrative path.

  1. Consider the source. All concept albums tell a story of some sorts. So the first step is figuring out what story you want to tell. So take a deep look into your source material and parse out the most essential elements. For me, it was taking your typical James Bond movie and boiling it down to its most used tropes. Each of those tropes became a subject for a song.
  2. Figure out your format. What does each song represent in the context of your story? I treated my album like a musical novel. Each song was a chapter driving the narrative forward. But this is not the only approach you can take. For the Root’s Undun album, every song was a vague memory of a dying man, but with more emphasis on what he is thinking and feeling in that moment.
  3. Make a list. Now comes the simple part. List what each song is going to be about. Once you have enough songs listed to tell your story, then the real work begins.

After those steps, then it’s a matter of just writing the songs. It helps to have some music to write to or at least have a song format in mind. You might also want to cross check you songs to make sure details of your story stay consistent. I made sure to plant details in earlier songs that become crucial elements of latter songs (i.e. many of the gadgets mentioned in my Q-branch ode “The Quartermaster” are used a few songs later in “On the Run”). This helps make the project sound more like a compete project and not just a collection of loosely related songs.

Then there is the actual music. When searching for or composing the music, you want to make sure that the music is not only consistent from song to song, but that it also fits the overall mood you want to set with your lyrics. My concept album drew direct inspiration from the James Bond movie scores by the legendary composer John Barry (except with some Hip-Hop flair added).

Now, you don’t actually HAVE to put your lyrics to music. You could just make your concept album a collection of songs or poems. Essentially, you could say that the epic poems of The Illiad, The Odyssey and Hiawatha are concept albums that just haven’t been set to music. I even took my lyrics for my album and self-published them as an illustrated chapbook. But if you can put your story to music, it would enhance the narrative that much more. I would essentially be like recording a built-in audiobook.

For examples of good concept albums, here’s a list (in no particular order) of a bunch of my favorite concept albums:

  1. Good Kid, m.A.A.d. City, by Kendrick Lamar
  2. To Pimp a Butterfly, by Kendrick Lamar
  3. Undun, by The Roots
  4. 12 Reasons to Die parts 1 and 2, by Ghostface Killah
  5. American Gangster, by Jay-Z
  6. Disposable Arts by Masta Ace
  7. The Long, Hot Summer by Masta Ace
  8. Black Materia, by Mega Ran
  9. Language Arts, by Mega Ran
  10. River City Random, by Mega Ran
  11. Gotham Down vols. 1-3 by Jean Grae
  12. Love and Divorce, by Babyface and Toni Braxton
  13. Prince Among Thieves, by Prince Paul
  14. Deltron 2000, by Del the Funky Homosapien and Dan the Automator

Finally, since I’ve explained how I put my concept album together, aren’t you wondering how the final product came out? Give my album “You Only Die Once” a listen here, and if you like it, then download it.

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Vanity Press, Thy Name Is Mudd

Quan

My first novel, The Leopard Man, was published through a nefarious book publisher called PublishAmerica. Some of you may know of them and their reputation. I did not renew my contract with them and have since self-published The Leopard Man, even offering it for free on my website. This is an account of my experiences good and bad putting a book out through PublishAmerica.

1. I had just spent 9 months working on my new manuscript. It was an involved process, and I was very proud of the story. But I was intimidated by the process of seeking an agent and publisher. I had failed previously with two other manuscripts, and I wanted desperately for this one to succeed. I was also unemployed, and I was spurred on by the rags-to-riches stories of Tyler Perry and Michael Moore. They succeeded by working hard and believing in their dreams, and I wanted to do the same. I was jobhunting when I came across an ad for PublishAmerica on Careerbuilder.com. I was a little wary, wondering why a book publisher would be on a job hunting website, so I looked them up. I thought I was researching them. I visited their website, where they implicitly said they weren’t a vanity press. So I took their word for it and sent my query and then my manuscript to them. They accepted it without any problems. I was elated to have my book coming out, and told all my family and friends as much.

I missed a few clues that something was wrong. First of all, I had to edit my own book. In addition to that, I only got a $1 advance, they offered a bare minimum (not even that) of promotional support, I had to approach bookstores myself to get the book stocked. Also, The family & friend list idea seemed unprofessional, and I didn’t see any books by this publisher in bookstores near me.

I had made plans to go on a deep, involved marketing campaign. I had read Terry McMillain’s article on self-promotion, and took it all to heart. I was determined to make this book a bestseller, if I had to do everything myself (which I eventually had to do anyway). I had gotten quotes from various publicists. I had contacted numerous Writers conferences about setting up booths or doing appearances to promote my book. I had found an alumni from my college who would help me set up shop in Chicago. I had talked to an uncle who had a Movie producer friend about maybe getting the producer to buy the movie rights. I designed my own book cover, and programmed the promotional website myself. I told everyone at my high school reunion about my book and signed everyone up to my mailing list. I contacted both my Creative writing professors (Jonis Agee, who wrote Strange Angels) and a novelist who was an old classmate of mine (Anne Mallory, who wrote Masquerading the Marquess) about reading my manuscript and endorsing it. I was going to approach my church about endorsing the book, and had planned on taking out ads in local newspapers and magazines. I had gotten price quotes from merchandisers for book-related items like t-shirts and mugs I could give away or sell. I talked with a local bookstore about having a book signing the month my book was released. I had even talked to some music producers I knew about putting together a movie-styled score for my novel. I was thinking up sequels to the book, also.

Then a strange thing happened. I was applying for the Poets & Writers author database and was rejected. They said my credentials weren’t good enough. I wondered why, so I looked up the rules. It said “we don’t accept book published through Vanity Presses…like Publish America.” My heart hit the floor. “vanity press” is one of the most reviled phrases in the writing community. And I felt that I had basically been lied to.

That’s when I did some REAL research on Publish America. I googled them and found a plethora of information, mostly from authors complaining about them or warning others not to do business with them. There were complaints logged in the BBB about them. There was an extensive pro vs. con site about them, with the vast majority of comments being on the con side. Book Reviewers, magazines and industry resources didn’t consider their books as legitimate. Book stores would not carry anything published by them. Legitimate agents and publishers held any works done through them against you when considering future books for publication. Basically, publishers like PA don’t make their money off of actually selling books, they make their money off of the author buying the books from them. And my book was under contract with them for seven years. I saw my hopes and dreams of being a full-time author slipping out of my hands.

I was despondent for about two weeks. I was embarrassed that I had asked my Teacher and Friend, both established authors, to endorse what they could have easily seen as hack work. I was ashamed to be telling people of a book they couldn’t go to their nearest Borders (back when brick and mortar bookstores were a thing) and buy, especially since a great deal of my friends and family didn’t have access to Amazon.com, where my book was being sold at. I canceled the majority of my promotional plans. No more writers conferences. No more movie deal. No hiring of any publicist. No merchandising or ads in any publications. No book signings. I even canceled the soundtrack project. I stopped updating the website. My story covered some powerful topics – one of which I got the permission of a lady who had been through a very traumatic experience to use in my story, and I felt that I had let her down in not getting the issue addressed. I was on the verge of abandoning the book – and my writing – altogether. I had even gotten to the point of questioning how good the book really was, and whether I had what it took to be a successful writer.

Then a few things happened. First, I had gotten a response from the classmate, saying she loved my story and would gladly endorse it. I had told her what happened, and she gave me some words of encouragement, saying that this misstep didn’t have to be the end of my writing career. Some of the friends and family on my mailing list said they sympathized with what happened to me and would support me and tell people about my book. And then the book actually arrived. Vanity Press or no Vanity Press, NOTHING can compare to the feeling of seeing your first book in print. It’s an amazing thing. On top of that, I gave one of my two complimentary copies to Ashlynn, my wife’s teenaged niece, who allowed me to base the heroine of my novel on her mannerisms, opinions and personality. Seeing her face light up as I gave her the other copy of the book reassured me that I did the right thing in getting the book out. It inspired me to redouble my efforts to promote the book, if only to see how I could make the most of my situation.

I decided not to go all-out to promote the book like I had originally planned. I didn’t have the time or funds to sink into a huge promotional campaign (especially if I was doing it all myself), and this was before internet and social media book marketing became a viable thing to do. but I did manage to make some things happen. I approached a few libraries in my hometown and told them about my book. They ordered a few copies and even asked me to autograph one! I got a kick out of seeing my book on their shelves next to Grisham, Clancy, McMillan and Tyreese. I continued to update the website, adding Anne’s endorsement and even moving the site to my personal website when the domain expired. I contacted my college’s alumni magazine and they reported the debut of my novel and how to get ahold of it. I joined up with Amazon’s marketing partnership to help direct visitors to my site to Amazon to buy the book. A middle school English teacher who heard of my plight invited me to speak about it and creative writing in general to classes of young writers at a few schools in Ann Arbor. I still went to one of the conferences – the Sweet Auburn festival in Atlanta – and passed out postcards and flyers promoting my book. And, of course, I wrote this article.

A supporter of PA once said that they were satisfied with PA. The company treated them nicely, and they were happy to have their book published. And that really is fine and dandy…if all you want to do is get a book published. For those hoping to make a career out of writing, however, Publish America’s sordid reputation is a serious detriment. I learned that from experience. If I had it to do over again, I would have taken a more serious look at them, and checked around before sending or signing anything. It wasn’t all bad, though. For one, I did sell a few books: the libraries bought a couple, and a couple of family members bought books. I didn’t get much in Royalties, but with all of the money I spent writing and promoting the book, it counts as a huge benefit for me come tax-time. Since I lost more than I made, I can write all of that off and get some of that money back. I still get a kick out of seeing my book in the library, and my wife’s niece was so happy to be the star of her own novel that she took her copy of the book with her everywhere she went, up until she started attending college.

And I haven’t stopped writing. I’ve since gotten two other novels published with legit publishers or e-publishers, and I made sure I did my homework on them before I signed anything with them. Red Rose Publications, King Jewel and Necro Publications have been very good to me and my novels. My contract with PA finally expired, and I now offer that book as-is as a free PDF download on my website, www.quanwilliams.com. And now I am seeking an agent for two fantasy manuscripts I have completed as of tis posting, and I am , I promisecrrently writing follow-ups to both of them, But when I do finally garner the interest of another publisher, I promise to look before I leap into a situation with a suspect publisher. I don’t want to publish in vain again.

The book in question, The Leopard Man, is available as a free download here.

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Asimov, Zelda and Grandfathering Continuity

Quan

One of the many past times I like to indulge in is playing classic video games. I am particularly fond of the Legend of Zelda series of open world adventure games. I enjoy that series and games like it for many reasons, chief of which is that the exploring scratches a problem-solving itch: it’s reassuring to know that problems and obstacles in life have solutions, just so long as you know where to look to find them.

But that’s not why I brought up Zelda.

The thing that ties Zelda into this blog is the lore, mythology and backstory running through the games. Over the course of 19 disparate games, which really had (for the most part) nothing in common aside from a guy named Link rescuing a girl named Zelda from a monster named Ganon (or Ganondorf, in some games), an epic, generation-spanning mythology was created with tons of fascinating twists and turns. What makes this even more fascinating is that most of these games were created in a vacuum, with seemingly little regard for the storyline of the games that came before it. Despite that, the masterminds at Nintendo were able to link (pardon the pun) every official Zelda game into a cohesive storyline that makes all of the games feel like one epic narrative.

So what does this have to with you as a writer?

If you ever find yourself with two stories that are only tangentally related, or aren’t really related at all, and you’re wondering if you can somehow tie them together, then Zelda proves that it is indeed possible. Sci-Fi legend Isaac Asimov did something similar when he found a way to link his three biggest book series (Robots, Galactic Empire and Foundation) together via his latter Foundation novels. So let’s break down how these two franchises did it.

1. Find common threads that connect your stories. If you look hard enough, you may find themes or tropes that your disparate stories have in common. With Zelda it’s simple: Link, Zelda and Ganon. Almost every Zelda story flows from this trio of characters. And the games that don’t feature all three have good reasons not to. Nintendo’s solution was to create a curse of reincarnation, where Ganon was fated to always reincarnate every generation or so, and there would always be a Zelda and a Link fated to oppose him. For Asimov, the natural evolution of his universe and the progression of mankind were what tied his worlds together. You could envision a scenario where a civilization that used sentient robots could find a way to expand into a galactic empire, and the Foundation concept could be seen as a natural evolution of the empirical concept. He even insinuated as much in the first two Foundation novels.

2. Pay attention to detail so you can explain inconsistencies and incompatibilities. Inconsistencies and incompatibilities are things that routinely plague dense continuities, timelines and universes. If something gets big enough or lasts long enough, you are bound to find stuff that doesn’t quite mesh together. This is a routine problem that plagues massive comic book-styled universes like with Marvel, DC and Magic: The Gathering. Asimov had this problem long after he passed, and his estate commissioned three of his friends and peers to write new books in the Foundation saga. Their goal was to fill in gaps, explain inconsistencies and modernize the mythology to gel with current technological trends (i.e. there was no such thing as the internet when the Foundation books were written, so now how does the internet fit in the psychohistory of the future? Their solution was a galaxy-wide web that crumbled into disrepair towards the beginning of the Foundation series) For Zelda, it was a matter of taking ideas and concepts that were hinted at in Link To The Past and Ocarina of Time (the two most foundational Zelda stories) and placing them in future games while expanding on their history and roles. The roles of the three goddesses (which started off as unspectacular gems Link quested for in Link To The Past) and the importance of the Master Sword (Which was really just one of a few sword upgrades in Link To The Past) was greatly expanded upon in future games.

3. Make a story that ties everything together. This is a simple and obvious way to link your stories. If you can craft a story explaining how everything links together, then you can help your readers connect the dots and see how everything ties together into one larger narrative. Origin stories can do a great amount of heavy lifting by showing how everything got its start. The Zelda franchise did this masterfully with Skyward Sword, which illustrated how all of the mythos that form the basis of Zelda originated, as well as creating the reincarnation vehicle that would carry the narrative from game to game and through various settings and scenarios. Asimov did the same thing with Prelude to Foundation, which firmly and definitively established that Foundation was set in the universe of the Galactic Empire books, while also including a key character from the Robot books to establish that those stories were also part of the narrative.

4. Decide what and what not to reference. Sometimes you’re going to run into elements that just won’t fit no matter how hard you try to explain them away. It’s at this point where you need to be judicious about what you reference and what you just retcon away or leave to the reader’s imagination. It’s okay to let some things be mysterious and let the reader ty to connect the dots in his or her own headcanon. The analyses, theories, conversations and debates among Zelda faithful about where things fit in the three distinct timelines that comprise the majority of Zelda games provide fuel for the fandom between games, and only serves to strengthen the franchise. Breath of the Wild claiming to have happened so far along in Zelda history that all previous games had faded into (pardon the pun) legend only added more fuel to the debates, with questions like “why did the merfolk-like Zora race evolve into the avian Rito race when the world was submerged in Wind Waker, only to show up alongside the Rito in Breath of the Wild?” Likewise, Asimov’s Robots/Empire/Foundation saga left a lot of unanswered questions that his successors tried to address in their Foundation books (with varying degrees of success).

5. Create a timeline. This was done masterfully with both Zelda and Foundation. And is often used when sorting out major events in large sagas. When you create a timeline of the events in all of your stories, you can easily show how events in one story lead to or influence events in other stories, and readers can see the progression of things and gleam the bigger overall picture. Zelda’s taking the three possible outcomes of Ocarina of Time and splitting them into three different timelines to fit games into was brilliant.

When done well, linking your disparate stories can breath new life into your older stories. Readers new to your mythology will have reasons to go check out your older material to see for themselves how it all connects. And the meta-narrative is great for building the brand of your saga. You might even be able to take themes and ideas established within your newly created continuity and mine them for new stories. The two novels I am seeking representation for as of this writing are separate and happen in seemingly unrelated universes, but I have snuck in Easter eggs and hints in both stories (and plan to in future stories as well) that more than hint that the two worlds are somehow connected.

You do run a risk of confusing your readers if you only haphazardly try to connect everything. So if you are going to go this route, make sure you do it with the utmost care.

This time I’m giving a double recommendation. This official Zelda compendium outlines the narrative that connects every official Zelda game from the very first Legend of Zelda all the way through a Link Between Worlds. And Asimov’s Prelude To Foundation provides the framework of that informs everything you read about in all of his Robot, Galactic Empire and Foundation novels. I strongly recommend both books as examples of what I’m writing about.

Zelda: Hyrule Historia on Amazon

Prelude to Foundation on Kindle

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Interview with W.D. Burns

Quan

I pay my bills as a Freelance Graphic Designer. Many of my clients are authors looking to put together, publish or and/or promote their books. Mr. Burns is one such client. I worked with him to produce his crime fiction trilogy The Wee Hours, along with an as yet unpublished trilogy based on his life story. This is an interview with him about his writing process.

What inspires your writing?

I started writing poems when I was in my early twenties, then I wrote a short story and submitted it to Readers Digest. It wasn’t accepted. In 1991 I began writing my life story which was originally titled G-Money. In the mid 70’s I was accused of being responsible for 23 bank robberies on the Eastern Seaboard – from Maine to Florida. The “G” stood for government money. I later made my life story a trilogy and titled it Some Kind of Crook. The Wee Hours was a creative and fun trilogy based on my growing up on the mean streets of Baltimore, Maryland. It’s a mixture of well known after hour clubs, actual places, and characters that I created.

What is your process of developing characters?

When I create a character (male or female) it’s important the reader has a mental vision of the persons size, color hair, age, and most important “personality.” For instance, Nicole Redman was was your typical single mother raising her daughter in the suburbs of Glen Burnie, Maryland in the quiet neighborhood of Blossom Hills when her daughter was killed by a hit and run driver while playing hopscotch in the street. The raw emotions and the changes that a desperate Nicole goes through in search of her daughter’s killer is heart wrenching.

What was the earliest inspiration for you to write The Wee Hours?

I started the Wee Hours in a house in Blossom Hills, 108 Dupont Ave. That was my parents house when I was 8-9 years old. A young boy was killed while riding his bicycle when he was struck by a car that came over the hill. I made “the story” starting from that point.

Did you draw on personal experience? How much of it did you use?

Much of my books are based on my life experience. Dominic “Crowbar” Coroza was tried and acquitted for taking a prostitute out of the Wee Hours and killing her, but Stormy is a name that I created. I once owned three lots on Great Exuma in the Bahamas. John Leder’s island, Norman’s Cay, was 15 miles away.

How did you publish?

I published my books through Createspace (a division of Amazon) and Barnes and Nobles with a publishing company I started with my devoted wife Bonnie (Mega House Publications). My life story Some Kind of Crook is not available at this time.

Why did you do it that way?

I found that some Mills (book publishers) were only interested in printing books and offered to print my books at a cost to me, depending on how many copies I purchased. While other publishers only wanted to offer 6-8% royalties. By opening my own company my royalty is closer to 40%.

Who did your cover and marketing?

J. D. Williams typeset my books, created the book covers, and acted as my agent putting the books on Amazon and Barnes and Nobles. His services are extremely reasonable and he also offers bar codes, ISBN numbers, and proof reading.

How many revisions did it take before your book was ready to publish?

I revised my books three times. As a first time writer I made novice mistakes.

There are four seasons and your story has to take that into consideration. The Wee Hours begins in 1968. Dancers didn’t wear g-strings, there were no cell phones, no Ponderosa Steak Houses, and a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken came with mash potatoes and gravy, Cole slaw, and rolls. Interstate I-75 wasn’t built and 9-1-1 hadn’t been thought of….although I used it thinking my readers would probably never notice.

How important was it to tie important historical people like Pablo Escobar into the story?

If you want your story to be believable include names with your characters that people can relate to such asJohn Leder and Pablo Escobar. I made up names of biker clubs rather than risk offending them. But in some instances most of my readers will know which biker club I’m referencing in real life. For instance, there was only one club known for making Crank (Crystal Meth) in a cabin in Pennsylvania.

What are you writing now?

My name is William Burns #189577. I am serving a Life sentence in Michigan for an arson that I did not commit. Twenty-one years ago I turned down plea offers of 10 years, 5 years, and 2 years with credit for 6 months served. The M.D.O.C. has placed all of my books on the restricted list and I have filed a Civil Complaint in federal court listing nine (9) M.D.O.C. employees. At this time, I am no longer writing. I welcome and will promptly respond to emails sent through JPay.

What is your advice to other writers?

My advice to anyone thinking about writing a book is that if you think you can’t – you are probably right. There are more negative influences than positive ones. Think positive! You can do it – I did. Set realistic goals. Write ONE chapter, then do another. Never make a chapter more than 15-20 pages! And try to plan ahead. Always leave the reader ‘wanting’ to read the next chapter. Write it as though it’s a Soap Opera. As you create a character write down his/her description, age, birthplace and date, siblings and their ages for future reference. As the years in your book progress remember that your characters age too. Being in prison allowed me to write one chapter a day. Never go backwards! Edit and make changes after the story is written. Good luck!

Be Sure to check out W.D.’s debut novel, The Wee Hours, at the link below!

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Plotting the End of Your Story

Quan

If you were ever wondering how to end the story you are writing, I may have some ways to help. I had a couple of tricks for figuring out the endgame of a couple of books. For Double Entry, at the penultimate scene, I literally had my protag voice out how I was feeling. I didn’t know what was going to happen next, so I had him literally tell that to his love interest, and wrote her reaction. It came together well, allowed me another moment to let them bond, and reinforced some of the themes I had been pushing in the book. Having them talk also clarified how the primary antagonist was going to behave during the final confrontation. So sometimes if you don’t really know where a story is going, it’s okay to let your characters articulate your uncertainty or frustration. It might lead to some new insights.

The other trick was to envision what a follow-up to the story would look like. If/when your book gets a sequel, what are some of the themes and ideas you’d explore? Where would you take your most important characters? If someone dies, how would they be remembered in your sequel? How would the sequel make things worse for your hero or heroine? Now, with those ideas germinating in your head, grandfather your climax and denoument to set up those threads in your potential sequel. Maybe you want your protag hellbent on revenge against his arch-nemesis in the sequel…so maybe the bad guy needs to do something deserving of revenge at the end of your current book (just an example. I’ve been talking with people in my James Bond fangroups on Facebook on why many of us have On Her Majesty’s Secret Service as our favorite bond movie, so that’s on the brain). And this would work even if you don’t intend for the book to get a sequel. I specifically let Calloway (my main antagonist in Double Entry) get away because I liked the idea of doing a hardboiled action-crime follow-up that was a complete shift in tone and theme from Double Entry, where Calloway goes on a mission to undo the mess he made in DE, with predictably disastrous, violent results. I never wrote the sequel because that would require more knowledge of the inner workings of drug gangs in Portland, OR than I have the stomach to learn, but leaving the door open for that sequel is what helped me decide Calloway’s fate in Double Entry.

I’m also a proponent of “just follow you character around and see what happens.” The only issue with that is knowing when to stop following. Where is the jump-off point where you know the main character arc of the journey has been completed, and a new one is about to start? For that answer, you have to look at where the journey started. When did the central problem present itself, and has the problem been resolved? The jump-off point, and therefore the ending of that arc, is when the prevalent problem comes to its resolution. And as a writer, you should be able to tell when that moment happens.

These are just a few of my go-to techniques for finishing stories. Please comment with any that you may have come up with. Here’s a book from Wizards of the Coast that handled its ending particularly well.

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MORRISONING: Presenting Wild Ideas the Grant Morrison Way

Quan

In my list of top ten favorite comic book writers, Grant Morrison is in my top three, along with Fred Perry and Christopher Priest. There are very few projects his name is attached to that I won’t read or haven’t already read. I first became a fan of his with his epic run on JLA, and have devoured everything of his from his since, from his Invisibles book to his work on X-Men, Batman and Superman.

What I love about his style of writing is that he is able to concoct these wild, mind-blowing, larger-than-life concepts and ideas and make them seem not only feasible, but natural within the confines of the story. That is the true mark of a good storyteller, and it is one of the essential aspects of telling good stories in the genres of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

Morrison has taken mundane police procedural tropes and expanded them to a cosmic scale in Green Lantern. He has taken some of the crazy, noncanon ideas of the campy Silver Age Batman and made them legit for today’s dark and gritty Batman…while also giving him a son! He has turned the core tenet of X-Men on its head by making Mutants trendy in the Marvel world and humans the endangered species. He gave the Justice League a grander, more epic rogues gallery and introduced the idea of the League being a new Pantheon. He told you that every conspiracy theory you heard of or were afraid of was real in Invisibles. He broke the fourth wall with Animal Man before Deadpool made breaking the fourth wall cool. He write a book about cyborg killer mechs piloted by household pets that just want to go home in We3. He quantified, populated and mapped 52 alternate realities in DC’s Multiversity. And this is just a small sampling of the ways he expanded the lexicon in his stories.

So the question is how can you introduce mind-blowing ideas and concepts into your stories that will wow the reader? Here are a few ways to do it:

1. TAKE THE FAMILIAR AND TWIST IT

Morrison Famously did this with his take on an alternate version of Wonder Woman. He wrote a version of Wonder Woman that is a stark contrast to the current “Warrior princess” iteration that has come to define her, and developed her as a more youthful, pacifist hero akin to how she was originally portrayed back in the 40s.

You can do this in your stories by taking a convention or idea that people have assumed goes one way, and portraying it in a totally different light. When your readers expect a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, give them a peanut butter and turnip sandwich instead.

2. NEW EXPLANATIONS FOR ACCEPTED CONVENTIONS

Morrison’s fascination for Superman knows no bounds, and at every opportunity he is reexamining and reinterpreting what makes the Man of Steel so iconic from different perspectives and angles. And with each examination – whether it be normalizing all of Superman’s wacky Silver age abilities in All-Star Superman or having him team of with 51 other versions of himself in Final Crisis, he comes up with different reasons why Superman is the one great constant of herodom.

This is where you have the opportunity to take something ordinary and make it fantastic. Take that peanut butter and jelly sandwich and convince people that the unique combination of peanuts and fruit is the secret elixir of enhanced knowledge if eaten in the right balance with some rare fruit you just found out about on Google at exactly noon Pacific time on Friday the 14th. Hey, it worked for the Da Vinci Code, right?

3. EVERYTHING YOU KNOW IS A LIE

Morrison did this best with Batman and the X-Men. With both he introduced concepts that turned both franchises on their respective heads, that are still being used by creators years later. Making Batman a type of legacy character, first with Bruce being exiled through time and influencing entire generations, then with introducing a legit heir, letting his first protoge wear the cowl for an extended period of time, and having Bruce publicly acknowledge that he was funding Batman, broke many Bat-taboos and created new possibilities that have been mined for future stories. Likewise with the revelation that humans were the true endangered species in his New X-Men run, which also flipped the Wolverine-Jean Grey-Cyclops love triangle into a Jean Grey-Cyclops-Emma Frost love triangle, revealed an evil twin sister to Charles Xavier…and introduced the idea of secondary mutations.

You can do the same. Take some established convention, idea, genre or trope and invert it, and see what comes of it. The high fantasy manuscript I am seeking an agent or publisher for as of this post is a meta-critique of many conventions and tropes used in JRPG video games. And I am currently developing a new comic book series about a team of superheroes strictly forbidden from doing any actual crimefighting. So tell people that your Peanut butter and Jelly sandwich was not intended for human consumption.

4. MAKE THE WILD SEEM MUNDANE

This is basically the opposite of the first technique. Instead of making a normal convention fantastic, you take a fantastic concept and present it as normal. Crossgen Comics’ book “Mystic” was set on a modern world where magic was the source of energy rather than electricity. It is a weird concept to wrap one’s head around, but in the story it is presented as a perfectly normal, everyday thing. Doing this serves to make your wild ideas understandable and relatable to the reader, and you aren’t just hitting them over the head with some new concept that would stretch suspension of disbelief. And when you do this, you often don’t have to do a lot of explaining of your wild idea or how it works. It’s just something that is woven into the fabric of your setting from the start. The peanut butter in your peanut butter and jelly sandwich comes from a rare peanut plant that once granted eternal life but was diluted over the aeons into just a regular peanut.

5. GO BIG. THEN GO BIGGER.

Morrison’s biggest claim to fame is that he is the guy that takes a concept and blows them out to larger-than-life proportions. It has been a formula that has been done before Grant, but he was one of the few able to do it with a style and flair that added gravitas and made the concepts truly mind-blowing. It was his idea to send the Justice League one million months into the future to meet their future selves, in a mind-blowing, time twisting tale where the only way they could save the world from Superman’s future greatest enemy was to literally create that enemy in the past.

When coming up with your crazy ideas, ask yourself how outlandish or unbelievable you can get with your concepts. What is the most far-out, unbelievable problem your protagonists could find themselves up against? What is the weirdest, wildest situation they could find themselves in? Now ask yourself how they get out of it. Take the filters off. Take the limits off. Let your imagination go anywhere and everywhere. Then find a way to explain it and make it believable. (Doctor Who does this on a regular basis) Every bite of that peanut butter and jelly sandwich creates an infinite number of different realities where the jelly changes into different flavors as you bite it.

These are just a few ways you can incorporate mindblowing concepts into your stories.

Give them a try and see what kind of wild ideas you can bring into reality. And while you’re at it, go eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Here is a fascinating book from Morrison studying the idea of superheroes and linking them to modern mythology. It’s the basis of a lot of his wild ideas.

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