Uneven Break

that thorn guy

“I never sleep. Not ever.”

“Just resting your eyes?” She snuggles closer.

“Not even that.” I’d rather stare blind at the night. At least that’s natural. Just an absense of light. The darkness behind eyelids is another matter.

“Well, if you’re not going to sleep, can you listen out for the cat.” She yawned and stretched under the covers. “I think he’s locked in. If you could-” She trailed off into another yawn.

I don’t sleep. I have never slept.

The sounds of her breathing grow regular and deep. Outside the muted buzz and roar of traffic. A distant television muttering. Words always seem more important when you can’t quite catch them.

They say that without sleep you first go mad. And then you die.

I’ve been lying to her all day. All week. For the three weeks since we met. That I don’t sleep might have been the first…

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Top Ten Writing Mistakes Editors See Every Day

Stephen Carver

In addition to writing and teaching, one of the things I do for a living is to evaluate manuscripts for their suitability for publication. I read fiction (and non-fiction) across several genres, and write comprehensive reports on the books. I try always to guide the author towards knocking his or her project into a shape that could be credibly presented to literary agents, publishers and general readers. You know how Newman and Mittelmark introduce How Not to Write a Novel by saying, ‘We are merely telling you the things that editors are too busy rejecting your novel to tell you themselves, pointing out the mistakes they recognize instantly because they see them again and again in novels they do not buy,’ well they’re right; I am one of those editors.

However good the idea behind a novel, when the author is still learning the craft of writing – like any…

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A Note on Magical Crime – /r/worldbuilding challenge ‘Con Men’

Magical crime – the scourge of our society. Textures: Renee, flickr: Different, Stained, Ratty.

(Brescester Gazette, 11 Harpa 1,985 IC)

‘After recent events, it is evident that young gentlemen of fortune, living in Ludlin as the stewards of their parents’ trade concerns, take good care not to entangle themselves in any attempts on their lives and their property. The case of Alexei Volkovsky, son of Tirsk shipping magnates, and Vladimir Voronov, chairman of the Marcaster match factory owned by his parents’ concern, is a particularly grievous “confidence trick”.

‘The two young gentlemen were recently solicited by the philanthropist Simon Seymour, warden of the Lockley workhouse, to contribute towards repairs to the dormitory roofs at the similar Swellwater institution. The trouble began when both men arrived at the workhouse to discuss terms with the mistress there, Mrs Portia Wragg. Boris Silnov, formerly Volkovsky’s valet and erstwhile secretary to Mr Seymour, invited them into a tavern opposite the workhouse, claiming Wragg was indisposed. Upon entering the “nip”, the gentlemen were approached by Silnov’s associate, Harold Frinton, posing as a country yeoman named Farrell, offering to buy the gentlemen drinks. Fortunately, Voronov spotted that Frinton had drugged the rum procured from the tap, alerted Alexei, and declined to drink his measure. The robbers then showed their true colours and tried to force it down their throats. The patrons of the bar intervened in the following brawl; both Frinton and Silnov were arrested and await trial.

‘Such attacks occur quite frequently to men and women both of property and of none, and this case would not be of note aside from two factors. Firstly, the wealth of the victims causes unease for many such individuals remaining in the city after the tragic disappearances of Michal Piech and Anselm Lederer, believed to be the victims of these “skinners”. Usually, the victims of such crimes are gulled, drugged or abducted and crudely stripped of their clothes and belongings. Their bodies are most often thrown into the river. Piech’s house was looted and his valet Tarczowski kidnapped and murdered in a workhouse where he was being held captive by the mistress, the “Witch of Pendlebury” Aushra Vainyté.

‘Secondly, Frinton posed as Farrell presumably to evade identification if the crime was successful, as he was hitherto a respected Lockley courier with government patronage. However, this disguise was particularly notable because it was a magical mask, a physical changing of the features in the manner of the known sorcery allowing people to change into animals. Such powers pose a dire threat to the victims of crime. For good reason, witchcraft alone is no reason to prosecute a person. Frinton and Silnov went beyond the boundaries of lawfulness when they conspired to drug, rob and probably then kill their genteel victims by mundane means. However, the magical element of this crime stands out as worrying. Accordingly, attention must be turned by the Diet, Service and Provincial Cabinets to formulating a law against the practice of magic inimical to social relationships, lest the most heinous crimes should go unpunished.’

Kupolinés

After the evening meal, backs began to straighten and eyes brighten. A shower had crossed Carraig Dubh shortly before supper, but the evening sky was now cloudless. Giedre was up to her arms in water when Stanislovas came to her and told her that the dishes could wait until the morning.

The “colonists” were being given back their shamans to go with the priests that had accompanied them to the vast “compound” in the Carriger mountains. The day before, a wagon had come from the fortress, bringing him back from prison, an emaciated figure in remnants of town clothes besieged by eager men and women begging him for a charm against midges or a word from their dead relatives. He’d been hustled away by soldiers before Stanislovas and Ursula had got to him.

Those who had been older children and adults when they had been deported talked all day in the fields and all night in their cabins about finally being allowed to practise magic again without the fear of being birched for it – or worse. The first solstice festival, Kupolinés, permitted in ten years of exile had only been announced a week ago, not time enough to organise anything large.

The glade where the festival was to take place was a mile away. As dusk fell, the inhabitants of four villages were all on the road together, dressed as much as they could in old town clothes or motley made out of them. Children picked flowers from the roadside and decorated their hair. Men and women whispered amorously to each other. Giedre trotted alongside her adoptive parents, absorbing their excitement without quite knowing what to expect.

There was a curious glow in the air as they approached the priests’ grove. Respectfully allowing the shaman his space, the clergy they had been permitted to keep from their own indigenous worship of Lapiukas stood to one side as the villagers entered the space. Visiting priests of Lugh, the local Galtarai name for the fox-god, stood by their side. Giedre resentfully eyed the soldiers feeding a massive bonfire; the shaman was meditating by it, his rags replaced with clean, new traditional dress and a fur hat styled to look like a fox, the image of their fox-god. Someone behind her muttered “witch” at him disparagingly, but most were smiling.

The moon rose over the mountain to the west. An owl hooted. As if on cue, the shaman stood, raising his arms to the sky. Stragglers still poured into the glade, but everyone fell silent. “protecting” the grove.

The oak tree around which the shaman had tied garlands of flowers erupted with the lights. At first, Giedre thought them merely the fireflies she’d seen on previous visits to the grove, but they twinkled with varying colours, which fireflies didn’t do. With the clatter of wings, the lights took off into the inky sky, scattering to the four winds.

Murmurs started up. The question on everyone’s lips was: Are we freed?

(Image texture courtesy of .Brooke.Anderson., flickr, ‘T 85’)

Cross-post from /r/magicbuilding: Brainstorming – How does the supernatural affect your world’s natural or human-created landscape, or the natural bodies of its practitioners?

This is a big plot-point in the Dungeons and Dragons setting Dark Sun, where ancient magic battles had destroyed the planet, draining life-force from it and turning it into a gigantic dustbowl with a silt sea.

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Magic creates – but does it draw its power from anywhere? Do your wizards drain mana from the land, or does the very existence of supernatural energies warp the landscape?

In my world, magic has an effect on physical and mental health, which justifies IMO religious tenets promoting careful use of magic, or use of magic only at the gods’ direction. Even a shaman who carefully regulates their contact with spirits can end up going mad and ending their career in an asylum talking to thin air. Someone exploiting a talent which gives them useful divinatory information might suffer a sort of aphasia if it’s misused or taken for granted. (An in-universe saying is ‘if you exploit magic, magic exploits you’.) Physical magic such as telekinesis, teleportation/spirit-walking and transmutation has a physical pay-off in terms of fatigue or even coronary overload. So this topic also covers how magicians moderate and balance their use of power with concerns for their person, for other people, and for their environment.

Also, I had an idea, based on my own inability to draw out realistic street plans, as regards the old ‘if a tree falls in the forest…’ conundrum. If a city street is unobserved, does it shift slightly? Can a person get lost simply because the fey want them to be misdirected? Does magical energy in the world alter physical reality to the extent that things become uncertain? I know this sounds a bit like something out of Discworld, but I think with translating some folklore into fantasy fiction, it could be an interesting plot device.

So questions, as usual:

• Is magic environmentally unfriendly? What, if any, life-force does it take from the world, and if it does have an impact, what step do magic-users, druids, priests etc take to husband resources and pay the environment back for its sacrifices? Are there any anti-magic groups which protest the magical equivalent of fracking?
• Does magic have odd effects on a person’s body? Do people have different tolerances, strengths, or weaknesses? Are there any socially-imposed restrictions on its use? Are there magical doctors who know how to recognise the impact of too much magic use on a particular person?
• Can magic influence the natural or human-created environment? Are there mischievous – or even evil – sprites which confuse travellers by shifting roadways? Kind angels who will alter the flow of a river to prevent a disastrous flood destroying human crops? Are weather or even climate patterns altered by magical catastrophes? Does magic actually do this itself as a neutral or ‘super-natural’ force warping normal physics or physical realities?

Ellipses . . . The Silent Killer

Ryan McSwain

We all have our pet peeves. I know a woman that can’t stand the sound of someone rubbing a balloon. My dad has this thing about poor technique in the application of Elmer’s Glue. I’ve heard some great rants about inconsistent numbering in movie sequels.

I hate ellipses in dialogue.

My hatred for this punctuation borders on the irrational. If the third person narrator starts in with the ellipses, so help me, I will pull the eject lever.

Let me be clear: I don’t want to throw out the ellipsis altogether. It serves an important purpose in quoting sources, and the ellipses has a different effect when used in the word balloons of a comic book. My rant is directed only at the use of ellipses in a narrative.

Yes, there are even times an ellipsis is the perfect choice for character dialogue. But if you’re cramming the things into…

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The News: /r/worldbuilding challenge

Another flash fiction
worldbuilding challenge from reddit.

How do people in your world learn about current events? Are there town criers, griots, Twitter? How easy is it to spread information and what effect has this had on your world?

Next week’s challenge is “The News” (courtesy /u/Conpermiso). No Huey Lewis jokes, please.

UPDATE! I WON!

—

“Tell me whether these opinions are banned, Lovell,” Gustave Peterson asked, putting three sheets of neatly written manuscript down on the censor’s desk at the Brescester Gazette.

Lovell Wilson made a face. “Whose is this?”

“A man I met at a writers’ association reception,” the eminent journalist said. “Magnus Edison. Currently writes for Pears.”

“A hack novelist then. Writing for the kiosk novelettes.”

“Nothing illegal in that,” Peterson teased. The censor’s oily scalp and pince-nez spectacles came right out of the nightmares of most journalists, a crabby little man sent from the Service to harry them out of unfortunate persuasions. “Some people I know call us the nobs’ dish-rag.”

Wilson grimaced. “Your friends would be inclined to scepticism of more than just our paper. I had that Hugo Montgomery back at the Bureau demanding to know why I allowed you to print the exposé on the militia. I simply pointed out to the good captain the Empire wasn’t served by incompetence in its gendarmes.”

That article had brought the policing of the whole city of Ludlin under scrutiny for the first time at least since the war. It hadn’t just been him that had thrown light on the manner in which the General Strike had been handled, but it felt like journalism had finally had the power to change things. Montgomery had weaselled out of direct censure, but that just meant the Ministry of Justice had answered for their treatment of internee workers and had even been forced to release some.

He watched as the censor skimmed the document. Wilson was a fast reader; some said magically fast, to process so many articles in a day and still know their contents down to the last letter. “What do you think?”

“The annexation of the Littoral States has not really been critiqued from the humanitarian point-of-view,” Wilson answered. “I’d think it was permitted to question whether the economics are sound – in such a way as to encourage adjustments. But to strike a pose on this subject in this manner requires a slightly defter touch than this man Edison has. He rants and raves and encourages resistance. You might be able to write a piece that sets out the case for a gentle hand on the native populations, but not one which goes beyond accepting that it’s in their states’ best interests to become part of the Empire.”

Peterson smiled. “Then I’ll work from his manuscript…”

“I can’t have that,” Wilson replied. “You can work from your memories of it.” He whisked the papers away and locked them in his desk drawer.

‘Allowed by Censor, 7 November 1904’. Texture: ‘Ancient’ by Duncan Johnston, nacnud, flickr

***

“…and that is how the article left my possession,” Peterson answered the barrister from the witness box, looking at the nervous young man and his gallows-faced client in the dock. “I cannot see that a censor would have passed Edison’s work to the banned journals, so I would have to conclude that he himself held another copy and submitted the texts to them when he was rebuffed.”

Flash Fiction/Reddit challenge: Colours

Another /r/worldbuilding challenge.

‘In your world, do black and white correspond to good and evil? Is blue the color of the clergy? Does a six-color rainbow flag indicate that you’re a member of a specific minority group? Is there an impossible, rarely glimpsed color associated with magic? Are purple dyes a symbol of royalty due to their rarity and expense, as in the ancient world?

‘In your world, what is the cultural significance of “Colors“?’

—-

Excerpt from ‘Plans for the restoration of the mural at the Achawa Defiladzka Station’, 1,997th year, Insulan Calendar, by Tadeusz Kozlowski

Colour

While colour is an emotive issue for political reasons, its spiritual and folkloric resonances must be considered paramount in any fair depiction of national costume and mystical energy. The ribbons of the maypole design thus represent the four colours of angelic manifestation as well as having provincial significance, where they are an inescapable part of national culture.

• Green for Lisak – Salvatka
• Orange for Fricka – Brest
• Red for Minerva – Krovotka
• Blue for Odin – Allemund

Missing from this list is Galtargh, which has historically taken the green of Lisak-Frey as the predominant colour in its national life. However, representing the province in this work of art means we need a fifth colour to add to the maypole. My instinct is to go for a yellow ribbon to symbolise the rising sun in the east, coupled with the orange setting sun motifs evidenced in the folklore of the western province of Brest.

Sketch for the Mural

Political considerations mean that we need to tread carefully with the costume of the dancers we intend to depict. Provincial symbols were misappropriated by the nationalists and imperialists. It goes without saying that the pre-revolutionary flag, the single gold star on a blue field, must not appear in the design. Our emblem, however, the revolutionary five red stars on a white field can be easily inlaid as a replacement.

Given the preliminary sketches received, care must be taken to make sure masculine folk dress cannot be confused with the pre-revolutionary militias, who used national colours to their own ends in the northern provinces. Thankfully, neither the navy coats of the Breston gendarmes, nor the brown coats of the Galtarai corresponded to a national emblem. However, the blue-grey of the Allemundischer constabulary should be avoided, and the men representing Krovotka and Salvatka should have some other more recognisable marker of their nationality than a red or green coat. It certainly helps that our Commonwealth law enforcement officers wear neutral colours.

Some effort should be made to represent the parts of our Commonwealth where nationalities blend and mix to form new peoples. The vostochni Salvats [Minervan worshippers] and the Dnivki region of Krovot worshippers of Lisak should be included as intertwined ribbons. Humanity is by no means strictly divisible into separate nations. Likewise, the fluttering coloured ribbons of the maypole should intertwine and even merge into a true mosaic of peoples, representative of Insula throughout history as well as in the current times.

The Escritoire

A story written for this reddit /r/worldbuilding competition, a prequel short to Ludlin and introducing a new character, Sister Alfrieda, who gets a scene or two in the revised version in the works.

‘How do you keep your valuables safe behind closed doors in a world where magic like Knock is common? How do you keep your files secure when hackers can slip past the most stringent firewalls and overload the best daemons? How do you prevent intruders when the average man can teleport as easily as taking a step? Let’s talk about “Locks & Security“.’

The Escritoire

Andrew Russell took the key out of his pocket and dropped it onto the desk in front of Sister Alfrieda. “He got into my escritoire. I cannot have him rifling through my papers. If I have to resort to sorcery, then so be it.”

“Your conscience troubles you for a good reason, Andrew,” Alfrieda said, picking up the delicate item. “You believe you failed Robert Ashworth, but I think he needs the respite of an asylum rather than the rigours of a workhouse. It’s a shame Simon seems so unconcerned with your privacy, but these things happen for a reason.”

She held the key to the light. “Sorcery is not forbidden as such. It’s a tool to be used wisely, and most of us avoid using it for frivolous purposes. But the blessing of a talent is meant to be used in service of the divine.”

A flash of light ran down the key shaft, counter to the room’s illumination. “Shall we test it?”

They left the convent and crossed the lane back to the workhouse. In the lodge, Russell’s antique, lacquered writing desk sat in his bedroom. Alfrieda inserted the key in the lock and turned it. She felt the lock click, but when she tried to open the screen, it held fast. When Russell attempted to open it, it sprang open at a single push upwards.

Under lock and key

He rolled the screen back down and locked it, afterwards holding the key lightly in his hand as if he wanted to drop it in the darkest corner of the room. Alfrieda suddenly felt her turban sag and had to rearrange it before it fell out of its elaborate folds. The silver filigree fastener at the back had come undone. Was this some sign that she should not have meddled in this affair?

A pink-and-grey blur was visible at the outer limits of her vision. “I fear you’ll need a new clasp,” Simon Seymour said. “I just happen to have one that I was going to give to a lady friend, but I can always find her another gift. Oh, by the way, your desperation to keep me out of your private papers is understandable, Andrew, but there’s no more need to protect Ashworth’s particulars. He died today at Osbourne after the electric current they were using to treat him was applied too …enthusiastically. I’m so very sorry.”

With that, Seymour turned away, descending the stairs to his own apartments.

Russell dropped the key into his pocket. “He’s wrong,” he said without turning back to the nun. “There’s always a need for the security of information belonging to the vulnerable. With that address I could at least have told his relatives of his whereabouts.”

Alfrieda nodded. She opened out Seymour’s brooch and replaced the old clip with it, which turned out to have broken. Almost immediately, the turban knitted itself tighter around her head – not tight enough to hurt, but tight enough that she understood who exactly was in charge.

Musing: What’s in a Cover?

Dimanagul shows off some graphic work I put together in GIMP. I hope at some stage to offer commissions, so if you are interested, please message me at louise.stanley@live.co.uk.

Memories of a Dimanagul

If there’s one aspect of writing I haven’t spent time exploring, it is the finer details of a successful cover.   From my experience certain genres have go to covers, like how fantasy typically has the main character looking doleful surrounded by miscellaneous Fantasy imagery.

A general accepted cover widely popular across all genres is the isolated object of importance, spot light is optional.   I pride myself on my limited artistic (drawing) talents and being a general wizard in Photoshop, but I don’t know the fundamentals for success.

Time for studying.

Thankfully, Crowqueen, a fellow writer I’ve crossed paths frequent times on the fantasywriters Subreddit, has graciously taken a stab at making covers for some of my B.O.S.S. stories.  She has had marginally better luck demystifying book cover hoodoo.

I’m a ways out from settling on one for Two Destroyers, but it is never too early to start considering my…

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