Inspiration is Painless

One piece of advice I give aspiring writers is to read frequently, but to read outside your genre of choice, because you’ll often find inspiration from unexpected sources. A gunfight in a Western might might inspire a confrontation in a science fiction story. A love scene in a romance novel might inspire more emotional depth for a similar scene in a spy thriller.

An example I can cite related to my vampire fiction is the novel MASH written by Richard Hooker. For those not familiar with MASH, it’s a wartime comedy that tells the story of army doctors doing their best to stay sane during the Korean War. It inspired a Robert Altman film starring Donald Sutherland, Elliott Gould, and Sally Kellerman, which in turn inspired a TV series starring Alan Alda, Wayne Rogers, and Loretta Switt.

One of the things that stood out for me about the book and the movie is that the protagonists weren’t altogether likable characters. They got out-of-control drunk, were intolerant, and they could be cruel, self-absorbed, and mean-spirited. Despite that, Hooker made us care about the characters through the humorous situations he put them in and the realization that all of us can be like these guys at our worst. Now, I’ll note that I grew up with the TV series where the doctors were generally played as likeable, good-hearted rogues, so to see their darker counterparts in the book and the movie was interesting from that point of view as well.

In my vampire novels and stories, I faced a similar challenge. By their nature, vampires are not heroic figures. They drink the blood of mortals to survive and my vampires are mercenaries who fight wars for profit. The lesson from MASH was that if you want the reader to sympathize with less-than-likeable characters, you need to help the reader understand how the characters became who they are. In MASH, Hawkeye, Trapper and Duke were doctors just beginning their careers when they were thrust into a war zone. No wonder they went a little crazy! A dangerous vampire might have started as a likeable or even heroic human. How would you behave if you suddenly became a creature of the night?

Another element I found interesting about the novel and movie MASH were their episodic qualities. A series of almost unrelated events were dovetailed together to create a narrative arc. I think this is often how life actually feels and I like telling stories this way. What’s more, Dragon’s Fall: Rise of the Scarlet Order was originally contracted as a series of five-stand alone novellas that came together and formed a narrative arc. By necessity, it had to be something of an episodic novel and an episodic novel like MASH helped me learn how to tell that kind of story.

Finally, just as an aside, when I found the original cover art for MASH shown above, I discovered another thing it has in common with Dragon’s Fall. Both novels were published in Canada!

I’ll wrap up today’s post with two links. First, there’s a great new review of Dragon’s Fall at http://enchantedspark.com/wordpress1/2013/05/02/dragons-fall-rise-of-the-scarlet-order-by-david-lee-summers/. Be sure to drop by and check out Melinda Moore’s thoughts on the novel. Also, there’s just a little more than one week left in the Goodreads giveaway for Dragon’s Fall. If you haven’t signed up for the giveaway, do so now at http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/50183-dragon-s-fall-rise-of-the-scarlet-order.

A Christmas Carol

When people think of Christmas, I suspect that ghost stories and paranormal literature are not the first thing that pop into their minds. Despite that, one of the most beloved works of paranormal literature is indelibly associated with Christmas and, in many ways, shaped the way we think about the holiday. I’m referring, of course, to A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.

You might not immediately think of A Christmas Carol as paranormal literature, but at its core, it’s a ghost story—and at times a rather frightening one. Portrayals of Marley’s ghost and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come were two of the most frightening ghosts I’d ever seen in film and they’re even more frightening when you read Charles Dickens’s original story.

What’s more, A Christmas Carol features one of the most honest and straightforward depictions of a man facing his own mortality and figuring out what his life will mean. That particular theme is one of the things that drove me to write paranormal fiction. Even when the novel isn’t frightening, its portrayal of bygone love and friendships is bittersweet and touching, as can happen in many of the best paranormal stories.

While reading about A Christmas Carol, I discovered that Dickens funded the book’s publication himself. Apparently he did this for two reasons. He was in a dispute with his publisher over earnings from The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit and he wanted to get A Christmas Carol out quickly. Although A Christmas Carol was a popular and critical success, it didn’t earn Dickens as much money as he hoped.

Even more interesting was how the book helped to alter the celebration of Christmas. In the 1820s, Christmas in England was barely celebrated. Businesses stayed open and Christmas Carols were considered a nonessential religious custom. Over the course of the 1830s, caroling grew in popularity. In 1841, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert introduced Christmas Trees to England. By 1843, the country was ready for Dickens’s depiction of Christmas as a joyful time that families spent together and soon adopted it as the norm.

I find it inspiring to think that a self-published novel of ghosts, bittersweet romance, and redemption can change the way a whole country—indeed much of the world—thinks of a holiday like Christmas. If your only experience with A Christmas Carol is through the movies—even though many of them are quite good—I encourage you to seek out the book. It’s one of the special few that I enjoy reading time and time again.

I hope that if you have any encounters with ghosts, vampires, or other paranormal entities this holiday season, they are as beneficial for you as they were for Ebeneezer Scrooge.

Happy Holidays from the Scarlet Order Vampires!

‘Salem’s Lot

Around Halloween I like to sink my teeth into a good vampire novel. This year, I decided to dive into a book I’ve been meaning to get to for quite some time, ‘Salem’s Lot by Stephen King. The photo below is one of the early mass market paperback editions, the one I have in my collection.

‘Salem’s Lot tells the story of a writer named Ben Mears who returns to a town where he had a horrifying experience as a child so he can exorcize some personal demons. Soon after he arrives, strange things begin to occur. A young boy named Ralphie Glick disappears and soon afterward his brother Danny dies. In the meantime, two men have purchased the Marsten House, which literally looms over the town. After Danny’s death, people around town begin contracting strange symptoms that look a lot like anemia. We eventually learn that the men who purchased the Marsten house are a vampire and his Renfield-like servant.

King takes his time with the first half of the novel, introducing us to many of the town’s residents, most of whom have the proverbial skeleton in the closet. Even though these are flawed characters, King gives us enough information to care about them.

It was interesting for me to consider the protagonist, Ben Mears. As editor of Tales of the Talisman Magazine, quite a few stories come across my desk featuring writer protagonists. Typically these stories set my teeth on edge because they feature a wildly idealized image of a writer that’s far more successful than the story’s author will be if they don’t improve. From that perspective, I found Mears refreshing. Although the character had some success it was clear his more recent books weren’t doing as well as earlier novels. King himself had recently found success with Carrie and I couldn’t help but wonder if he was channeling some of his own fear. Would Carrie be the height of his success? Would he eventually disappear into obscurity? The lesson here is that to make a successful writer character, don’t make that writer more than you are.

As for the overall plot of ‘Salem’s Lot, it felt like a Hammer film set in a small Maine town. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. I like Hammer films and I enjoyed seeing how the vampire manipulated the members of this small, rural community. In many ways, that reflects many of the Hammer films, where Dracula would manipulate villagers that seemed to exist out of time. Still, it’s hard to say King added much to traditional vampire lore, or even carried it much beyond what was shown in the movies.

Two things in particular stood out for me about King’s vampires. First, I really liked the way he was able to portray them as both alluring and revolting at the same time. That really captures the spirit of the old vampire folklore. Also, I like the fact that King’s vampires had very phantom-like qualities and could even disappear. One thing that’s really become a trope of modern vampire fiction is to spend time telling us why none of the folklore about vampires is correct. King joyfully embraces the folklore and makes it a seamless part of the narrative.

Overall, I found ‘Salem’s Lot to be a satisfying vampire escape. It’s hard to call it a groundbreaking novel, but there were parts I found very effective and the overall metaphor of a vampire manipulating a village out time was particularly successful.

Have you read ‘Salem’s Lot? If so, I’d love to hear what you thought.

Kenneth Branagh’s Frankenstein

Recently, the question was raised about film adaptations of favorite books. Because of that and because I just recently reread Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, I thought it would be fun to watch Kenneth Branagh’s 1994 adaptation of the novel, which attempts to be closer to the book than many earlier adaptations.

Despite the movie’s attempt to be more faithful to the book than other interpretations, there are some key differences. For example, in the novel, Henry Clerval is a friend from Geneva who joins Victor Frankenstein at college in Ingolstadt after the monster is created. In the movie, Clerval is a fellow medical student that started about the same time as Victor. Another difference is that Professor Waldman dies in the movie and his brain is used for the creature.

Another key difference between the film and the book is that time is significantly compressed in the movie. In the novel, years pass between Victor’s arrival in Ingolstadt and the penultimate scene that occurs on the night of his wedding to Elizabeth. Also, The action happens over a much wider range of geography. In the movie, all of this seems to happen over the course of weeks and the settings are confined to Ingolstadt, Geneva, and the North Pole. Also, Branagh expanded significantly on the penultimate scene—the moment that leads Victor to chase the monster across the ice of the North Pole.

The time compression makes some sense given the scope of a movie as opposed the scope of a novel. For the most part I had no problem with that, though I might have enjoyed it more if they had found a way to compress it a little less.

An interesting element of the novel is that in spite of the fact that Victor is reanimating corpses, it doesn’t really explore the theme of immortality or life extension. The corpses are treated simply as inanimate matter. The movie not only explores this theme but pulls it to the forefront, which explains the reason for the change to the penultimate scene.

I thought the cast of the movie was great. Branagh himself played Victor, Helena Bonham Carter was Elizabeth, Robert DeNiro was the creature and John Clease was Professor Waldman, and that’s just the beginning of the fine cast. Many of them give over-the-top performances, but really that seems to fit the fact that the story is a Gothic romance.

The bottom line is that the book and the movie have key differences. Although I enjoyed the book more than the movie, I’m hard-pressed to say that one is “better” than the other in this case. The movie explored the important themes of the novel and even expanded on one that seemed neglected. It got the period right and provided gorgeous visuals of everything from the lab to the Frankenstein manner in Geneva to the Swiss Alps.

I hesitate to judge whether Kenneth Branagh’s adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein would be enjoyable for someone who hasn’t read the book, but as someone who has, I found it an engaging way to spend two hours reliving a novel I enjoyed.

Frankenstein Revisited

While working on a new story a couple of weeks ago, I decided to go back and reread Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein. I was particularly interested in revisiting Victor Frankenstein’s motivations in the novel and descriptions of his laboratory and working conditions. It’s been nearly 20 years since I last read Frankenstein and it was fascinating to take a fresh look at this novel that has had such a strong influence on both science fiction and horror.

The photo shows my cherished copy of Frankenstein illustrated by Berni Wrightson, introduced by Stephen King, and published by Marvel Comics. It’s a beautiful edition and reprints are widely available. For my reread, I downloaded a copy from Project Gutenberg, so I could more easily carry it around on my Kindle. Here is their page for Frankenstein: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/84

The plot of the novel has often been obscured by the famous Hollywood adaptations, so a brief, hopefully spoiler-free synopsis is worthwhile. The novel opens as Captain Robert Walton is leading an expedition to the North Pole. They see a mysterious figure traverse the ice on a dog sled. Some time later, the ice breaks up and they find another man on a dog sled barely alive, floating on the ice. They pull the man aboard and discover he’s Victor Frankenstein, a scientist from Geneva, Switzerland. Frankenstein proceeds to tell Walton how he came to be at the North Pole.

Frankenstein was a happy youth, surrounded by friends, including his adopted cousin Elizabeth Lavenza and their friend Henry Clerval. He reads extensively and discovers books about alchemy in his father’s library. Once he reaches his teens, Frankenstein goes to university at Ingolstadt where he learns about then-modern science. He gets the idea to combine his knowledge of alchemy with modern natural philosophy concerning chemistry and electricity to create life. He creates a body from cadavers and soon succeeds with his plans. However, he is so horrified by his creation that he turns from it and it runs off into the night.

Frankenstein goes on about his life for about two years, then is called home when his little brother is found murdered and the prime suspect is the family’s beloved housekeeper Justine. There is a trial and Justine is condemned to death. Soon after the trial, Frankenstein is hiking among the glaciers and is reunited with the monster, who tells him what he’s been doing for the past two years.

The monster went to a village and quickly found himself shunned. He hides near a small cottage and observes the DeLacy family. Observing them over the course of a year, he learns to speak, read and write. However, when he finally decides to make himself known to them, he is chased away. Some time later, he rescues a little girl from a stream, only be shunned and chased away by her father. All of this causes the creature to seek revenge on the man who created him.

The novel had much more impact on me now than it did twenty years ago. Some of that is simply that I’ve read more widely and understood more of the references. Some of it has to do with the fact that I’m now a parent. In many ways, the novel stands as a critique of people who create a child, then abandon it to their own self-interest. The creature is intelligent, but he doesn’t know love and he doesn’t learn to govern his violent emotions.

Frankenstein’s motivations were fascinating. His childhood interest in alchemy is scorned by one professor, while somewhat indulged by another. Together, this leads to Victor finding a way to merge the ancient arts with modern science. After he creates life, and the creature has gone out into the world, it’s interesting to see the way that the society of Frankenstein’s day allowed him to avoid responsibility for his creation until it was too late. There may have been no TV, computers, or video games, but Frankenstein found plenty to occupy himself with for large periods of time between encounters with the creature.

The creature himself appears doomed to his fate by his horrific appearance, but I find myself wondering if he would have turned into the “vile daemon” of the novel if he had been nurtured by a loving father rather than scorned as an unwanted child.

The experiments themselves were also interesting. Shelley avoids detailed description of the apparatus. It’s clear chemistry and cadavers are involved. Likewise, it’s implied that electricity is used, but she doesn’t explain in detail. What I found particularly interesting is that Frankenstein creates life not in a remote castle as depicted in the movies, but first in his apartment in Ingolstadt, then later attempts to recreate his experiment in a two-room thatch hovel in the Orkneys.

Perhaps more interesting than the experiments from a writer’s perspective were the descriptions of travel and how long it took to get from one place to another and how readily this time was accepted by people. There are some good tidbits here for writers who want to explore historical fiction.

Although the novel is often cited as discussing the problems of science gone wrong, the line that sticks with me most from was spoken by the creature to Victor: “You are my creator, but I am your master; obey!” To my mind, that’s the line that brings the novel home to everyone. How many of us have, at one time or another turned away from our parents or even God—no matter our specific religious beliefs—and made just that demand?

If you only know Frankenstein from the movies, you should definitely go check out the novel. If it has been some time since you’ve read the novel, I think it’s one worthy of a second look. I definitely enjoyed rediscovering this classic novel.

The Big Picture

Claudia Rhyes wrote a thoughtful review of Dragon’s Fall: Bondage for the Manic Readers Website. After summarizing the story, she says, “The first thing I noticed while reading this story was how well written it is.” She goes on to say, “The suspense is very good and I kept finding myself wondering what Theron was and why Alexandria kept having these strange feelings about him.” You can read the entire review at Manic Readers.

In the review, Ms. Rhyes notes that there was relatively little sex for a book marketed as erotica. Of course “erotica” is different things to different people and how a book is marketed is ultimately the purview of the publisher. In my mind, Dragon’s Fall is a series that interweaves history, adventure, and sex to tell the story of three vampires and their relationship with one another. My guiding principal was that the sex scenes should feel natural in the context of the story and not be gratuitous.

Ms. Rhyes also expresses a desire to know more about the vampire Theron’s motives. It’s a fair point and in retrospect, I could have spent more time allowing Alexandra to learn more about Theron. However, looking at the big picture, Dragon’s Fall is not a story of Alexandra and Theron, it’s a story of Alexandra and the vampires Draco and Roquelaure. In fact, in the first draft of Dragon’s Fall, the story of Bondage was told in only two paragraphs. After looking at that early draft, I felt Alexandra’s story deserved more than that!

As for Draco, we’ll meet him and even learn a little more about Theron, in The Dragon’s Quest. Roquelaure will show up a little further along. As for exploring Theron’s motives in more detail… hmmm… I’m beginning to get an idea for a short story…

Bondage Reviewed at Romance Junkies

Dragon’s Fall: Bondage has been reviewed at Romance Junkies. The reviewer, Chris, gave the novella 4.5 out of 5 blue ribbons. Chris calls Bondage “A thoroughly engrossing, fast-paced and laudably well-written read” then goes on to say, “Happily obsessed with this series, I am waiting on tenterhooks for the next installment!” Read the complete review at the Romance Junkies Website.

Thanks, Chris, for the great review! A nice way to kick off the new year!