The Utility of Love now available!

Book-COVERwebDavid here. My first published work, “The Utility of Love” is now available to the public in the Shadows of the Emerald City anthology, edited by JW Schnarr, published by Northern Frights Publishing. The story is a retelling of the Wizard of Oz, but the Tin Man is two stories tall and does not hesitate to kill if it can benefit him.

There are 19 stories in total in this anthology, appealing to a wide variety of tastes. It’s supposed to be available on Amazon in the very near future, but in the meantime you can order it directly from the publisher. If you do pick up a copy, stop by here after you’ve read it and drop us a line. We’d love to know what you think!

If you’d like to see reviews, here’s a list:

Apex–5 stars!
http://www.apexbookcompany.com/blog/2009/10/review-shadows-of-the-emerald-city/

Wanderings–mentions my story as must-read:
http://www.wanderingsmag.com/rvw_ShadowEmerald.html

Senses Five–mentions my story before any other as a standout:
http://www.sensesfive.com/2009/10/15/shadows-of-the-emerald-city-review-by-greer-woodward/

Innsmouth Free Press
http://www.innsmouthfreepress.com/?p=2440

Strange, Weird, and Wonderful (it’s a ways down in the PDF):
http://strangeweirdandwonderful.bravehost.com/3Site/Fall09.pdf

Niche Game: The Lost Vikings 1 & 2

Niche games: Âwe’ve all played them. ÂThey’re the games that you remember for a long time because they’re so unique. ÂSometimes they’re the only ones ever made like them. ÂOther times they were trailblazers for their kind of gameplay. ÂBut what they have in common is the bravery to try something new, allowing them to rise above the imitators. ÂEven though there might be newer games with shinier graphics, these games are still worth playing because they’re something different, something special.

The Lost Vikings

In the mood for a puzzle game? Give The Lost Vikings and/or The Lost Vikings 2 a try. I originally played both on the SNES, but they’ve been on several other platforms, including PC, Playstation, Sega Genesis, and Nintendo DS. It a 2-D platform-based puzzle game based around time-traveling Vikings.

The Lost Vikings was developed by Silicon & Synapse, which has since been renamed to the well-reknowned Blizzard, and was distributed by Interplay.

In the intro sequence, the three Vikings are abducted from their homes by the evil alien overlord Tomator. They manage to escape through a time portal which takes them to to Prehistoric times. You control each of the Vikings, one at a time, and you must work your way to the exit. All three have to be at the exit or you can’t move on. Each Viking has his own unique abilities, and you’ll have to use each of them to fullest advantage to make it through the levels.


Baleog the Fierce is the guy on the left on the title screen with the yellow mustache. He’s the fighter of the group. He can attack enemies with his sword or his arrows. He can also hit switches with his arrows from a distance. Erik the Swift is the guy in the middle with the red beard. He’s the most maneuverable of the group. As his name suggests, he does run faster than the others. He’s also the only one in the group who can jump (I guess the other guys are weighed down by their gear). He can lower his head like a battering ram, which can knock down walls and kill some enemies. Olaf the Stout is the, uh, stout guy on the right with the shield. He’s the defender. His shield can block most enemies and projectiles. In addition he can raise his shield above his head for the other Vikings to use as a platform and this allows him to hang glide slowly down from high places. You can switch between any of these Vikings at any time with the push of a button, and the screen will zoom to their location. But always keep in mind that the Vikings you’re not directly controlling are simply standing there immobile. If you leave them in danger they will die.

The game is infused with a good sense of humor. The expressions when the Vikings fall too far is cartoonish and comical, and at the end of each level they bicker amongst themselves and make fun of each other.

As the game progresses, you travel through a series of time periods, each with their unique puzzle sets and enemies. The game keeps a great amount of variety this way. So in the “sweat shop” stages, there is a magnet crane which any character can jump in to move metal blocks around. If Olaf moves his shield above his head it can also be used to carry him around. Each time period has inherent features like this to keep things interesting.


Finally at the end the Vikings return to Tomator’s ship for a final confrontation. This is the only real boss battle in the game as each Viking faces off against Tomator using their own unique skills, and finally facing up against him with their skills combined in a single confrontation. To finally use the warriors’ skills in combat is gratifying and challenging after being up against

Each Viking has three bars on their health meter which can be replenished by eating food that can be carried with you. There are also lots of environmental dangers that cause instant death, so beware! If one of your Vikings dies, then you will not be able to complete the level, but you are still free to explore with your remaining characters as long as you want, letting you scout ahead. When you’re finished you can quit and restart. When you do this you’ll see a traditional Viking funeral with a burning ship, and then lightning bolts will strike and bring the dead Vikings back from the dead. Why? I don’t know, but the burning ship sequence is cool. There is no limit to the number of times you can restart a level, so

The game is on a password-based system, so all you have to do to come back to a level is remember a 4 digit password. This game is reasonably challenging. If you’ve never played it before, some of the levels will take you multiple tries to make it through. Some of the puzzles and levels are downright difficult, though the game never stopped being fun.

Unfortunately, this one’s not available for download for Nintendo Wii’s Virtual Console, but finding this game shouldn’t be any trouble, and shouldn’t cost you too much as long as you don’t demand a factory-sealed copy. A quick eBay search comes up with dozens of hits for multiple systems, most with “Buy It Now” prices under $20, as long as you are okay with “acceptable” condition. Alternatively, you can always search around for an emulator and a ROM for this game.

The Lost Vikings II

This article’s a two in one! The Lost Vikings II (known as Norse by Norsewest on certain game systems) is similar in most ways to the Lost Vikings. The first game was one of a kind, like nothing I’d ever seen before. The sequel was more of the same, but enhanced. If you liked the original, try this one out to fill your Lost Vikings craving.

In this one hey’ve done a nice job adding some new features to keep things fresh. Tomator abducts the Vikings again to enact revenge. The Vikings see him coming this time and get away in a fight, stealing some futuristic equipment on their way. Erik the Swift gets a new helmet that lets him breathe underwater and boots that let him jump once in mid-air. Baleog gets a bionic extendable arm which can grab things from a distance and allows him to swing from strategically placed swinging points. Olaf has a shrinking device that allows him to enter small spaces. Also, he has been eating gassy foods and has gained the “ability” to fart, which allows to smash certain blocks, and give him a boost in mid-air.

In addition to extra abilities, there are two new characters they pick up as they travel. Fang, a werewolf, can attack with his claws (nice to have another attacker in the group), can climb walls, and can jump. Scorch, a dragon, can “fly” to a limited degree, which is really just five midair jumps. He can also use his wings to glide slowly down to land safely from heights, and he has fireball projectiles.

The concept is basically the same. Your group travels through different time periods. Only 3 characters are in any given level, and all 3 characters must reach the end of a level to complete it. And, once again, you return to Tomator’s ship for a final confrontation. Easy peasy? Not so much. This game is as much a challenge as the last one, well worth the time it takes to complete.

Unfortunately, this one’s not available for download for Nintendo Wii’s Virtual Console, but finding this game shouldn’t be any trouble, and shouldn’t cost you too much as long as you don’t demand a factory-sealed copy. A quick eBay search comes up with dozens of hits for multiple systems on both games, most with “Buy It Now” prices under $20, as long as you are okay with “acceptable” condition. Alternatively, you can always search around for an emulator and a ROM for this game. Enjoy!

Raising Dead Authors: J.W. Schnarr

JWS ProfileJ.W. Schnarr writes horror stories from his home base of Calgary. He has been published in a variety of places, including Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, Night of the Giving Dead, and Midnight Echo, to name just a few. As if that wouldn’t keep him busy enough, he is also the evil mastermind behind Northern Frights Publishing, an Indie publisher specializing in small market genre fiction and non-fiction. Hot off the press: Shadows of the Emerald City, an anthology of horror short stories related to The Wizard of Oz. The anthology has experienced a slight delay in release date, but will hopefully be available on Amazon in the next day or two.

If you’re not sure if you want to read the anthology, check out the reviews so far:

Apex rates it as 5 stars, and says she liked every story, a rare thing indeed.

Senses Five mentions my story, “The Utility of Love” as the first of the must-reads in the antho.

Wanderings Magazine also mentions my story as a standout.

Innsmouth Free Press.

Strange, Weird, and Wonderful (it’s a ways down the PDF)

You can follow Mr. Schnarr through his blog. To find out more about Northern Frights Press, visit their website or become a fan on Facebook.

David Steffen: Shadows of the Emerald City is the first anthology Northern Frights has published. Â If you had to do it all over again, what would you do differently?

JW Schnarr: There are a TON of things I would do differently. This has been a huge learning curve for me. We had issues with software, contracts, correspondance, editing…the list goes on and on. I knew it was going to be like this though, and I got some great advice from A.P. Fuchs at Coscom Entertainment and Jacob Kier at Permuted Press. The ultimate goal for this anthology was to put out a book people would be interested in reading while ironing out the dozens of little hitches and problems that pop up during the birthing process.

David: What kinds of unique challenges has small press publishing provided?

JW: For me, most of those challenges came on the business end of things. I’m also flying pretty much solo, as I think a lot of Indies are. That creates all kind of challenges with the work needed to put a book together. It seemed never ending for about two months…and then one day I looked up and realized I could see the finish line. Also, trying to put a marketing plan together on a budget has been a challenge. I imagine all Indie publishers have similar challenges facing them: the biggest one is simply cutting through the glut of books being published to reach our audience.

David: Since NFP doesn’t have a huge marketing department, how have you market it?

JW: I’ve been doing a bit of viral marketing through social networking sites, and keeping discussions going in places like facebook and on forums. A large part of my plan has been reviews, and getting the word out that way. I think reviews are a really helpful marketing tool because it exposes people to the books while giving them in depth information and honest opinions on whether the book is worth finding or not.

David: How did the submissions for Shadows of the Emerald City compare with your expectations, in quantity, quality, subject material?

JW: Well, first off, there was a lot more porn in my inbox than usual. I had a bunch of submissions where writers had turned poor Dorothy into a sexual deviant…of all persuasions. It was really entertaining, but many of the stories fell short in just one or two little things and were swept away by more rounded tales.

I really had a lot more content than I thought we were going to get as well–I guess the subject matter set off a lot of matches in people’s heads. In the end, I had over 70 stories to choose from, all good, but unfortunately not all could make it. It really surpassed my expecations on all fronts, as far as quality, quantity, AND subject material.

David: How did you choose the theme? Why the Wizard of Oz?

JW: You know, I can’t say for certain when exactly I decided on this theme. The idea had been bouncing around for a little while, but I didn’t know all the ins and outs of Public Domain use until I really started researching. At one point I was actually deciding on whether to try this with Alice in Wonderland instead, but with the movie coming out I was kind of worried that the book would get snowed under and lost amidst all the hype of the movie.

NFP Anthologies are all going to be themed, and I really think an entertaining niche can be filled by letting writers explore the worlds of some of the most influential minds in the last hundred years or so. And hopefully some people went back and read some of Baum’s work in the process of creating new parts to his world. From the subject matter and responses I got, I know they did. Other publishers may be doing Zombies…We’re going a step further and bringing dead authors back to life.

David: Why did you start Northern Frights Press? What are your goals for NFP?

JW: NFP has its roots in a business plan I made up about a year ago to publish and market my own books. At some point I realized that I could easily turn the project into an Indie Press, something I’ve wanted to do since I was in high school. I love writing, but in College I realized I also loved editing and publishing as well. This has been a perfect mix for me, and allowed me to justify spending all that money on college getting a journalism arts diploma.

My goals for NFP center around a two year business plan where I’ll be growing our product base and getting the word out with new anthologies, novels, and electronic release in the coming months. NFP is going to continue to refine the publishing process, put out quality work from quality writers, and hopefully become a presence in the convention scene at some point. if, along the way, I can earn enough money to take a day off or two from drywalling, well, then it will have all been worth it.

David: After Shadows, what next? What’s the next theme?

JW: The next two themes are actually linked. Both are taken from classic science fiction written by the great H.G. Wells–War of the Worlds, and The Time Machine. I’ve gotten Artist Gavro Krackovic back to do these covers (he did the cover for Shadows of the Emerald City) and we’re currently exploring some ideas on how the books should look. I’m giving him the full covers to work with this time, so expect something amazing, front and back.

War of the Worlds: Front Lines will have a harder sci-fi/horror edge to it and focus on the wars between humanity and alien forces…not just the H.G. Wells aliens, but all aliens. And the stories will hopefully take place on as many different fronts and battlefields as can be imagined.

Timelines: Stories Inspired by H.G. Well’s The Time Machine is going to be a softer science fiction collection. I’m picturing dark, moody or introspective pieces, as well as the kind of horror that sneaks up on you. Hopefully these two books will compliment each other in style, and the covers will reflect that.

David: At what point in your life did you realize you wanted to be a writer?

JW: I was very young when I started writing. However it wasn’t until I was 12 or 13 that something happened that made me start thinking seriously about a life as a writer. We were doing a writing assignment in English class, and I remember I wrote some little thing about a monster hiding in a row of bushes that attacks a boy dropping his date off at her home. The teacher made me read it to the class, and just as I reached the part of the story where the creature reached out and grabbed the kid by the throat my teacher roared and scared the living piss out of the entire class. When I looked up, among all the babble and excited laughing there was this underlying realization that I actually had their attention, and they understood what I was trying to convey. This is a classic reader/author relationship of course, but at the time it was all new to me. I was hooked right there.

David: If you had one piece of advice to give aspiring writers, what would it be?

JW: READ!!! Read everything you can get your hands on. I have met too many writers who say they have no time for reading and can’t understand why their work isn’t growing the way it should. Honestly how can you expect to write well if you never read? Would you expect a musician who never listened to a note of music to be able to compose? Every published story and novel out there has a little blueprint in it for publishing your own stories and novels. Learn from those who have come and gone before you. Eventually you’ll start seeing the successful things they did with their work and be able to apply those things to your own.

David: What was the last book you read?

JW: At the moment I’m digging through The Encyclopedia of Mass Murder (research for my novel) but recently I read The Time Traveler’s Wife and it was fantastic. I don’t usually go for love stories, but there was enough science fiction in there to keep things interesting. I’ve been on a bit of a literary kick this year, stepping out of my more familiar stomping grounds of horror and golden age sci fi and picking up things like The Life of Pi and The Kite Runner. maybe I’m just turning into a suck.

David: Your favorite book?

JW: Tough call. I am Legend or The Hellbound Heart maybe, though both were novellas. My favourite book for years was Blue World by Robert R. MacCammon, but I’d feel like a traitor if I didn’t include a Stephen King or Poppy Z. Brite novel. There are so many good ones, it’s really too hard to decide on one.

David: Who is your favorite author?

JW: See answer above. Can I make a list? If so, it goes like this, in no order: Clive Barker, Richard Matheson, Poppy Z. Brite, Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, H.P. Lovecraft, Robert R. MacCammon. Right below this unholy alliance of writers there are probably several hundred waiting in the wings to take over a top spot.

David: What was the last movie you saw?

JW: Transformers 2! there’s a cheapo theater right by my house that shows movies like a month or two before they hit the video shelves, and for 20 bucks we can get movie passes, popcorn, and drinks…and she gets skittles. The theater is a grungy little thing that attracts all kinds of unsavoury people, but it has a feel to it that you can’t get anywhere else except in Forest Lawn, Calgary. Anyway, I thought the movie was alright, I tried not to think about the plot too much and focused on the robots instead.

As for recent DVDs I’ve watched, I picked up used copies of The Unborn and Last House on the Left…I probably could have spent my money better elsewhere. I was looking forward to Last House, but I watched the unrated version and the five hour long rape scene in the middle of the movie really pissed me off to the point where I didn’t really care what happened to anyone after that. Seriously when did that become entertainment? The Unborn was kind of fun…Monster and I made a game of picking out the continuity errors, and there seemed to be a lot of them.

David: What is your favorite movie?

JW: Conan the Barbarian. I can recite the entire movie line for line. I can even drop the music ques and horse/sword noises, if you want. I’ve probably watched it 200 times. People think it’s cheesey but it really captured a great feel for Howard’s writing…it’s moody and bleak, and enough blood gets spilled to fill a swimming pool. Plus, James Earl Jones as a Demigod in control of a doomsday cult? That’s two words: Awe. SOME!!!

David: Do you have any upcoming publications?

JW: Well the ones mentioned already are coming out in the next few months. Shadows and Light (Pill Hill Press) is out already I believe, and ASIM and Midnight Echo are both October issues, so those should be right around the corner if they’re not out yet. As work on Shadows of the Emerald City intensified I was kind of forced to put my short stories on hold, but there will be more coming soon! I promise!

David: Can you tell us about any works in progress?

JW: Currently I have two projects on the go. I’m working on a novel called Alice and Dorothy that answers the question: What if Alice Pleasance and Dorothy Gale were two real people who met and fell in love in a mental institution? It was originally my cast off idea for Shadows of the Emerald City and I realized I could tell the story as like a rock n’ roll style highway novel with lots of drugs, shooting and hot lesbian sex. I’m also putting together a short story collection of mostly previously published work. I’ll be adding some new stories of course, and those will both be on the ground running in the Spring of 2010.

David: Thank you for taking the time to answer some questions, JW.

JW: Anytime! Remember kids: Support Indie Press! Show some love so we can continue to love you back!

Niche Game: Body Harvest

Niche games: Âwe’ve all played them. ÂThey’re the games that you remember for a long time because they’re so unique. ÂSometimes they’re the only ones ever made like them. ÂOther times they were trailblazers for their kind of gameplay. ÂBut what they have in common is the bravery to try something new, allowing them to rise above the imitators. ÂEven though there might be newer games with shinier graphics, these games are still worth playing because they’re something different, something special.

Body Harvest was released in 1998 by DMA Design, the company that later became Rockstar North, the makers of Grand Theft Auto III. This isn’t at all surprising if you play the game as the style is very similar with a wide open world, open-ended game play, a large collection of weapons, and the ability to acquire any vehicle you see. The graphics weren’t terribly impressive, even for the time, which might explain why this awesome game has been overlooked by so many.

The story begins in 2016, and humanity is on the brink of extinction, at war with an insect-like alien race. Every 25 years for the last century aliens have returned to Earth for one day and sealed off an area of the Earth behind an impenetrable shield which prevented any outside help from entering the area. The poor humans outside watch helplessly as the humans within are slaughtered, every single one.

Now, in 2016, the aliens are back again, poised to wipe out the last remnants of the human race. The human race has finally perfected time travel technology, and they’re able to send one soldier back in time to single-handedly take on the alien threat.

First stop, Greece in 1916. Shortly after you arrive, you receive an alert of suspicious alien activity in the area. Hordes of helpless local civilians are being dragged kicking and screaming out of their houses by bloblike aliens which are carrying them towards a bug the size of a tank to have their bodies harvested for unknown reasons. Many other aliens are defending the big “harvester” bug. Your job is to destroy the big bug as soon as possible, the more humans it harvests, the closer the aliens are to reaching their agenda. There’s a meter on the screen that keeps track of casualties. If you let too many people die, game over.

In each time period the vehicles and weapons are at least a semblance of era-appropriate, which gives a nice excuse for increasing the firepower of weapons and quality of vehicles as time goes on. Besides stopping Harvester waves, you also must defeat a major boss at several stages in each year. This will drop a teleport beacon to make transport easier as well as opening a hole in the shield to progress to the next level.

When this game first came out the ability to switch between such a multitude of vehicles had never been seen before. From normal cars, to tanks, helicopters, various boats, airplanes. There’s even an alien UFO. Weapons all have a variety of different stats. Most of the weapons are pretty standard fare, machine guns, shotguns, rifles, all with their strengths and weaknesses. My favorite weapon by far is the sun shield, a mythological weapon stripped from a Greek statue. It reflects and focuses the light of the sun into a powerful weapon. It requires no ammo, can cause damage as far as the eye can see, and makes quick work of even boss characters.

Besides the action component, there is also some degree of puzzle element. From time to time obstacles will block your progress and you must find a way through or around them, such as finding dynamite to blast a path through a rockslide, or to find a rifle to blast an alien sitting on the distantly perched tram car to free it to move. You can move indoors in certain places, sometimes finding people to talk to, or having to find switches to secret passageways inside. These challenges aren’t terribly difficult but they lend some welcome variety to the gameplay.

Most of the game has a reasonable challenge level. The progression of difficulty of the enemies escalates well with the progression of weapons and vehicles. The boss battles are epic struggles, but not impossible. But, alas, I never finished the game. There was a challenge in the 4th world that proved too much for my then-teenage gaming skills. It involved hauling a heavy explosive on the back of slow and unmaneuverable vehicle. I was given ample time to clear the path before driving it, but somehow new aliens ‘ported in and detonated the explosive no matter what I did. I would like to retry it now to see if I can overcome it now.

Getting your hands on this game won’t take much effort. Unfortunately, it is not available for a Nintendo Wii’s Virtual Console download. At least not yet. Finding a copy used shouldn’t be difficult at all. A quick eBay search comes up with many results, some of them with “Buy it Now” prices of about $7, so if you have an N64 console, you’re set. If you don’t have the console, you might be able to find an N64 emulator and a ROM for the game.

Especially considering the low price tag buying this game used, if a lover of a good action shoot-’em-up with bug-eyed aliens, you can’t go wrong. Enjoy!

Flash Faction Online Staff Member

I’m now officially a slush reader for Flash Fiction Online. I’ll be part of a team that collectively helps the editor judge the stories that come in. For anyone who hasn’t heard of them, they are an online monthly magazine which publishes several flash stories per issue. Flash stories are 1000 words or less, and let me tell you, it is not easy to get a full story into just 1k! Many of the staff has a preference for speculative fiction, but they accept submissions of any story under 1k, so literary, mainstream, romance, mystery, anything is fair game.

I think it’ll be a fun opportunity to sample the editorial side of submissions. The duties shouldn’t be too onerous. I’m at the 2nd level of the slush reading, so the worst stuff will be filtered out before it gets to me. And each submission is 1100 words or less, so even if I don’t like the story, it doesn’t take very long to determine. I’ve been through my first round of judging, and was pretty pleased with the experience. I’ve said for a long time that one of the keys to becoming a better writer is to read and critique other people’s work, so this will be a good way for me to do that. When I feel I have feedback that could be useful for the writer, I’ll try to send some back their way–personal feedback is so rare it’s so nice to receive when you get it.

And, for those of you aren’t familiar with FFO’s slush reading procedures, the stories are anonymous, with no author name attached to them. If I see a story come through and I already know the author, I must choose not to rate it, so you may want to think twice before telling me that.

-David

Panoramic Words: Mark J. Ferrari

FerrariPhoto by Gabriel Berent

Mark J. Ferrari is a writer whose first novel, The Book of Joby, is available from Tor.

The Book of Joby is about a new incarnation of the age-old wager between God and Lucifer, but the stakes are higher than ever before. If Lucifer wins, he gets to destroy the Earth and create it the way he wishes to. The subject of the wager is God’s chosen champion: Ânine-year-old Joby Petersen. Lucifer has to corrupt him by his fortieth birthday to win the bet.

I really enjoyed this novel, one of the few that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed since I started writing. Mark takes on the divine with a nonchalance reminiscent of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, but in a way uniquely his own. I can’t wait to find out how it ends.

Also, check out Mark’s website for artwork, excerpts from The Book of Joby, and more.

Mark, thanks for agreeing to this interview.

David Steffen: Where did you get the idea for The Book of Joby? Had it been in your head for a long time before you wrote it?

Mark J. Ferrari: The Book of Joby accumulated something like a fossil bed, one layer at a time over many, many years. In part it was simply inspired by the kinds of experience I had as a kid reading fantasy. ‘What would I do if I were that character in the middle of such a story? Would being that protagonist turn out to be as much fun as it was to read about, or would being a hero turn out to be a lot more frightening and confusing than the stories make it sound?’

Many, many years later, I found myself living in a tiny, isolated, and unbelievably picturesque coastal town in Northern California. If there are any magical places on this real earth, that place is one. Living there, it became easy , almost inevitable , to find myself once again contemplating the magical potential of everyday life , of living inside some remarkable story. During my 15 years there, I was profoundly privileged to be welcomed very deeply into the life of a community that the flocks of tourists filling our town’s streets never see. At no time in my life have I ever felt as fully ‘at home’ as I did living in that town, and do not expect ever to feel so much at home again. I have never encountered such a concentration of exquisitely creative and idiosyncratic individuals, nor found children so full of life and expectation, creative play, so prone to dream aloud, or so comfortable with themselves and each other as I did doing volunteer work with that small town’s schools. Those students taught me as much or more about what life could be, maybe should be , about what I might do , even about who I was, than anyone anywhere ever had before , and I was in my mid thirty’s by then.

One year, three of those children, among the town’s brightest and best, died in separate, unrelated accidents, spaced almost exactly two months apart. It began to seem ‘intentional’ in some horrible way. The town’s official population at that time was 1,100 people. We nearly all knew each other personally. To say that the community was rocked by this triple punch does not begin to do the ordeal justice. Because of my long involvement with the town’s schools, and thus these children and their families and friends, I was invited more deeply than one might expect into the grieving processes that all of us were touched by to one degree or another. By far the greatest impact these events had on me came not from the deaths themselves, but from the remarkably genuine, probing, and communal ways these kids’ families, friends, and community dealt with their loss. At some point in life, I suspect most people are moved to ask such questions as, Why do such bad things happen to such good people? If there is a God, why doesn’t he intervene? What does one do about anger , one’s own, or other peoples? What is justice, and how much ought one do in pursuit of it? How much control can we have over the world around us, and how far should one go to seize such control? That year these questions were asked on an almost daily basis by an entire community for ten months or more.

This novel does not even attempt to answer any of those questions. It was merely inspired by all of them. Watching that remarkable community struggle with these questions in their own remarkable ways left me changed in many ways, and set me to imagining what the protagonists in the books I have always loved to read would do in an adventure where absolutely nothing ever went as it ‘should,’ for reasons no one could explain or even guess at. One night, as I lay in bed, I realized that the biblical story of Job was the perfect framework to hang such a story on, the Arthurian icons and ‘fairy worlds’ of my childhood fantasies, the perfect character set in which to clothe that remarkable community of eccentric saints and bodhisattvas. The rest tumbled out almost of its own accord.

Some have leapt to the assumption that because I framed the story in such an overt Judeo-Christian format, that the novel is intended to be ‘Christian literature.’ But this is actually not the case. As I have no interest in championing or attacking Christianity, or any of the worlds other vast array spiritual traditions, you will find both very sympathetic and very unsympathetic ‘Christian’ characters in the novel, as well as sympathetic and unsympathetic liberal and conservative, rich and poor, male and female, young and old characters.

A tale imbued with such overtly ‘religious’ cast and subject matter cannot avoid suggesting theological statements , intended or otherwise – but some aspects of the story clearly depart from standard Christian doctrine. And my primary ambition while ‘playing in this field’ was just to use ‘stories and archetypes’ from my own American culture’s mythology rather than from the Celtic, Norse, or Asian mythologies so many of our novels co-opt. For more about this aspect of my intentions in The Book of Joby, see the FAQ page on my website.

David: Did you submit directly to publishers, or did you submit to agents first?

Mark: I submitted to neither, actually. My particular path to publication was as ‘unusual’ as it is probably nontransferable.

While writing the book, I was extremely fortunate to have significant editorial help from a well known and respected freelance editor named Debbie Notkin, whom I had known for many years. Working with her over several years and various versions of this book was not only crucial to my own education about how to write well, but also, I suspect, lent a certain credibility to the project along the way. People in the business probably figured that if Debbie had been helping me with this, it might not be a total fool’s errand.

Also, because I’d been known and generously welcome for a number of years in the science fiction/fantasy community as a professional illustrator, I was allowed opportunities at various science fiction conventions I attended to do readings from this book while it was still in progress. Thus, by the time it was finished, lots of people, some of them established authors and professional editors, already knew of its existence and had heard that it was ‘pretty good’ from those who’d come to my readings.

Within months of completing the manuscript, virtually before submitting it to anyone at all, I was approached by a mid-sized science fiction/fantasy publisher who had already been aware of the ‘work in progress’ for some time. They wanted to publish it, and seemed a very good fit at the time, both for me and for my rather unusual book. Their offer helped me to solve the age old conundrum about not being able to get a publishing deal without an agent, and not being able to get an agent without a publishing deal. Because I had an offer, I was able to secure the services of a good agent to whom I was recommended by a friend and author already represented by her. I worked with her and the publisher very happily for nearly two years preparing for a pretty well publicized release date as one of their “spotlight selections” for 2004.

Sadly, a month and a half before The Book of Joby was supposed to hit store shelves, the publisher announced that , for reasons still unclear to this day , they would have to cancel a number of their intended 2004 titles, including mine. This seemed like pretty bad luck at the time, but it has become axiomatic with me that one can never tell what one’s luck means ‘at the time.’ My agent took the by then very well publicized book straight to Tor, who expressed their interest quickly. In hindsight, it seems clear to me that by mishandling things as they did, that earlier publisher probably accelerated my career path considerably.

David: Any advice on finding and dealing with agents?

Mark: Yes. Know who the agents you want to approach are, what kind of writing they sell, and how effectively they sell it, before approaching them. Then expend the time and care to find one you feel comfortable with, who really seems to like YOU the way you are, and who is generally enthusiastic about what you are already writing, the way you are already writing it.

I think most agents will and should provide their authors with editorial input , which should be seriously considered, especially by those of us who are new to publishing. In general, however, you want someone interested in representing ‘what you write,’ not what you ‘might write instead someday if pressed hard enough to do so.’ The agent/author relationship is a partnership, and if it is to work, each must make an effort to help the other succeed in all sorts of ways. But at the end of the day, you are paying someone to HELP YOU sell YOUR work. If an agent seems chronically unhappy with you or what you write, keep looking. One is unlikely to effectively promote you or your work to others if they do not like the person or the product much themselves.

David: Can you give us an overview to how the process worked from submission to publication? How long from the day you dropped it in the mailbox to Tor to the day one could buy it in a bookstore?

Mark: As I’ve said, I was unusually fortunate in never having to drop anything in a mailbox, and suspect that part may have taken quite a while, if I’d had to go that way. As for the rest, though, from the day Tor said they were interested in purchasing the book until the day they actually provided and signed a contract was nearly a year. From the time the contract was signed to the day the book appeared on bookshelves was about two more years.

The process may be less glacial for a more established author, but there are A LOT of time consuming things that have to happen between the day a book is bought and the day it hits store shelves. At a large publisher there are already dozens of books in the pipeline when yours shows up. And all those must be completed before yours is. Then, in addition to all the arduous editing and production tasks involved in simply creating thousands of copies of a book, there are even more complex marketing and distribution agreements and logistics that have to be negotiated and executed before release. In short, Rome ain’t sold in a day. And selling Fresno can take even longer.

Along the way, the author will likely be asked to re-write large portions of the original manuscript for all sorts of reasons. Then a galley will be sent to the author to be read through page by page for errors, which must all be corrected and sent back. Then a second galley sent so the author can check the corrections and all else one last time before printing. You may think that when the first draft is done and sold, you’re done too, but even the author has LOTS of work ahead of him between that bright moment of sale, and publication.

David: In what environment do you prefer to write? In coffee houses? At home? With music?

Mark: Back when I had a quieter, more private ‘home,’ I liked to write in a kind of studio I had set up there. At the moment, I rent a room in a boarding house full of students, which is not conducive to concentration. Currently, my favorite place to write is a beautiful graduate library reading room on the University of Washington campus several blocks from where I live. Wherever I do write though, music is a MUST for me. Mostly soundtracks, classical, or other ‘narrative,’ ‘non-lyrics’ stuff. Happily, we live in an age where all the music you will ever want or need fits comfortably in a laptop, accessible anywhere through a pair of headphones.

David: How did you react when you received your first offer from Tor?

Mark: I was phoned with the news while driving between Omaha, NE and Portland, OR on business, and was ecstatic, though the cell signal died in the middle of my agent’s announcement, and I had to wait several hours for the remaining details.

David: If you could give only one piece of advice to aspiring writers, what would it be?

Mark: Read! A lot!

Write what you love , not what you think will sell , just the way you’d really want to read it.

If your satisfaction or persistence as a writer is dependent on the approval of others, or on some level of monetary reward, don’t even attempt to publish.

Write for your own enjoyment. If that is not enough incentive, move on to something else you enjoy more. If however, you love the act of writing itself so much that you literally can’t help doing it, and would go right on even if no one ever published you, or ‘approved’ of what you wanted to write, or of how you wanted to write it, or paid you a cent , then who can stop you? Write away and enjoy it like crazy. The rest , if there is any rest , will be frosting.

David: More specifically, what advice do you have for writers who’d like to get a book deal with Tor?

Mark: First of all, FINISH writing a book. Don’t bother Tor – or any other publisher – before you have done so at least once.

Second, when your manuscript is finished , and you’ve had some time to reflect on it, and revise and polish appropriately, and you’re pretty sure it’s really ready for the light, look at what Tor has been publishing lately, and ask yourself, “Does what I’ve written , and what I want to write , bear ANY resemblance to ANYTHING they’re publishing?” †I didn’t do that. The jury is still out on just how remiss of me that was, and what it may cost me in the end. But these days I’m thinking it’s probably unwise even to try hitching yourself to a publisher who doesn’t already publish the kind of thing you want to write.

When you’ve done all the above, and still wish to proceed, go to Tor’s website, read their submission guidelines carefully, and follow them to the letter. While doing that, get online and start researching agents. When you find some who represent authors writing stuff like what you want to write, read their submission guidelines carefully, and follow those to the letter too.

Then pray for luck, and see what happens.

Or, I suppose you could try my route instead. Just secure the services of a brilliant editor willing to teach you how to ‘write much gooder,’ then parlay your rep as an illustrator into several years of convention readings from your unfinished book, (which had better be much, much gooder than expected by then), attract the attention of a nice midsized publisher before you’ve even completed it, get an offer from them right out the gate when it’s done, get an agent on the basis of their offer, get abandoned by that first publisher , through no fault of your own – just before publication, and have your agent take it to Tor instead. If I wrote that in a novel, though, it would be rejected by the editor as ‘improbable’ or worse.

If all else fails, look for unique side and back doors of your own. If you don’t know what I mean by that †return to paragraph one of this answer.

David: What did you do to help market your book?

Mark: I read from it , for years – to anyone who’d listen. I talked about it , for years – to anyone who’d listen. When Tor bought it, I told everyone who’d listen. When it was released, I gave up four months of income and put my entire, not inconsiderable, book advance right back into a self funded, seven states, coast to coast, book tour. For four months, I did trade shows, (arranged by Tor), radio shows at 5AM, (arranged by my agent), many book store appearances for anywhere from 60 to 3 people, (arranged by me), high school talks in places like Potter, Nebraska (population 150), home book group appearances, science fiction society meeting addresses, (all also arranged by me). And on all the planes and trains in between, I talked about all of it to anyone who would listen. When I get email from a fan, I make sure I answer every one , the minute I read it, if at all possible. I made sure I had a website focused on the novel and its progress that people would want to visit , at least, back when I could afford the webmaster to run that.

How much good has all that done? I’ll never know. While ‘on tour,’ I inadvertently lost my job for another five months after coming home, so it’s made me poorer financially than I ever imagined, but the book sold many times what is considered ‘normal’ for a first fantasy novel by an unknown author. Tor is responsible for most of that, I’m sure, in the way they marketed the book to the big chains and independent book sellers before it was released, but no one can say I wasn’t also willing to work hard to encourage my own success , to however much , or little , effect. There is much more I could have done , especially online – had I known what I know now, and I will try to do it all better next time I get the chance.

David: You have quotes on your cover from Kevin J. Anderson and David Farland. How do you get those awesome quotes?

Mark: Kevin Anderson has been a supportive friend for many years, and was kind enough to support my book in that way , though, I do not believe he would have done so if he hadn’t meant what he said about it. The rest of those generous quotes were arranged by Tor, and I am grateful to all of those authors for their kind opinions.

David: Have you tried your hand with short stories?

Mark: Not much. Writing epic novels does not intimidate me much. Trying to write anything worth saying in under 400 pages scares the hell out of me. I regard the ability to do so as a superpower, and the people who do it well , Jay Lake, for instance , as superheroes of the first order.

As it happens, however, I did recently write a story that is only 7,800 words long , almost short enough to be a legitimate short story. I have no idea whether it is any good, but am having myself fitted for a tight, neoprene suit as we speak , just in case.

David: You were an artist first. What made you decide to take up writing? When did you start? Was it easier or harder than you expected it to be? And how does the creative experience of being a writer differ from that of being an artist?

Mark: They are not that much different to me. They are both ‘story telling’ activities, and , for me at least , both very ‘visual.’

I have always loved to read and write as well as draw. In Junior high, I often turned in History and Science reports that were 90 to 100 pages long , fully illustrated. My teachers grew noticeably older during the few years I was with them. Basically, I am a compulsive story teller, and after years of trying , very enjoyably and profitably most of the time , to tell my stories one slowly rendered frame at a time in pictures, I finally figured out that one book is worth thousands and thousands of pictures. When a head-on collision back in 2000, between myself on a mountain bike and large panel truck, ended my ability to render pictures in colored pencil, (my specialty back then), it just gave me some kind of ‘permission’ to turn to writing instead. I have found that I enjoy this new art form even more than I enjoyed the last one, and frankly, I am still creating pictures , many more of them much faster than I used to, in fact. I’m just doing it in words now. Anyone who knows my artwork, and has read my novel will tell you that they are both very ‘visual.’

As I’ve also mentioned on my website, while the hardest part for me about illustration was often getting started, the hardest thing about writing has often been making myself stop. Quite literally. It’s like watching a long movie in my head, which I’ve got to translate to paper as quickly and expressively as possible. Time almost ceases to exist while I’m at it. There have been occasions when I’ve sat down at my desktop after breakfast and looked up half an hour later to find the sun setting. Knowing this, it may come as no surprise to learn that half my writing process is subtractive. All this stuff gushes out, and I spend nearly as much time trying to remove the huge amounts of ‘literary packing peanuts’ in which the actual story is left swimming.

David: Do you still work on the art as well as the writing?

Mark: Yes. For a day job, I do digital background and interface art for computer games at Griptonite Games in Kirkland, WA. Since my digital art process does not involve hand rendering, (I don’t use a ‘tablet.’), my biking accident hasn’t had any impact on that.

David: Do you have any upcoming convention appearances?

Mark: I hope to be at World Fantasy Con on Halloween weekend, Orycon in November, and both Norwescon and Westercon this year.

David: What do you like to do when you’re not reading or writing?

Mark: Everything else. I love to travel when I have the finances for it. I like to backpack, bike, ski, and swim. I love books, music and film. When I had an apartment of my own, I loved to cook and ‘entertain.’ Back when I had a yard, I liked to garden. I am a very ‘social’ person, with an amazing number of really unusual and remarkably achieved friends. As a person , and a writer – I think it’s very desirable to have as large and creative a life outside of writing as possible , since that life provides most of the raw materials my stories are made of. Lose your ‘life outside of writing,’ and I’ll bet you soon have little or nothing vibrant to write about either.

For instance, last winter I lived for a while in a genuine ‘flop house:’ boarded up windows, rats the size of house cats, heroin addicts, meth freaks , even an excrement artist, (though, conveniently, he was involuntarily committed a few weeks after I moved in , literally scooped off the street into a van by ‘authorities’ while he was punching windows out of parked cars in front of the building one day). I am certainly glad to be out of there now, but talk about MATERIAL! That winter will enrich all sorts of novels, including the one I am currently working on.

David: What was the last book you read?

Mark: The last few were Tigerheart by Peter David, (Funny, moving, dramatic, EXCELLENT!), The Solitudes by John Crowley, (Lyrical, quietly but powerfully magical – often ‘just beyond one’s line of sight’ , which I love most.), and Snake Agent by Liz Williams, (Inventive and very entertaining.)

David: Your favorite book?

Mark: Not a fair question. Impossible to answer ‘accurately.’ But among my top pantheon are , in no meaningful order: Little Big by John Crowley, Songs of Earth and Power by Greg Bear, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clark, The Last Light of The Sun by Guy Gavriel Kay, Once and Future King by T.H. White, Galveston by Sean Stewart, Od Magic by Patricia McKillip, The Sparrow by Mary Dorea Russell, The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint by Brady Udall, Life of Pi by Yann Martel, and anything at all by Ursula LeGuin,

David: Who is your favorite author?

Mark: An even less fair or answerable question, but if I must slice the baby up that way, it’s a tie between Ursula LeGuin and John Crowley. Why oh why do you ask such things?

David: What was the last movie you saw?

Mark: The last several were all best called ‘forgettable.’ The last INTERESTING movie I saw was called 500 Days of Sunshine , which was funny, uncomfortable, and wrenching by turns, and bore a more ‘realistic’ resemblance to any kind of actual ‘romance’ I have ever experienced in life than any movie I can remember seeing before.

David: What is your favorite movie?

Mark: More and more unanswerable questions! On my top shelf AT THE MOMENT are: Brick, The Fall, Kung Fu Hustle, The Bubble Boy, and Pleasantville. Yes, I know , a VERY mixed bag. So, David, which of last spring’s flowers do YOU think was prettiest? †Last summer’s fruit most delicious? †last night’s stars most twinkly? â€

David: How is the next book coming along? Do you have an estimated timeline of when it will come out? Can you tell us a little bit about it?

Mark: The next book , currently , is called TWICE. I think you know more than most about it already. Feel free to tell your readers why. It’s a single volume, stand alone, ‘urban fantasy’ about a man who may or may not have been beaten to death by a troll in an alleyway on the night of his 50th birthday, a very ill-conceived ‘dying wish,’ and what happens after he awakens to find his poorly conceived wish granted. †It’s brilliant, of course , or will be when it’s finished , thanks in part to YOU. Not sure what else to say at this point.

Happily, the first 200 pages went to my editor at Tor about a month ago, and I heard last week that they are interested in buying and publishing it. Hooray! †If I were to finish the last two-thirds in the next six months, and Tor were to sign the contract one day later, given past experience, it might be out†two years after that?

Publishing, like life in general, seems to be a crap shoot, partner. But I still have high, high hopes. †We will see what the future brings.

Thanks for your interest, your help with the current manuscript, and your questions, David! I am hoping that your own writing and publishing endeavors all go well and weller!

J Mark

Niche Game: E.V.O. The Search For Eden

Niche games: Âwe’ve all played them. ÂThey’re the games that you remember for a long time because they’re so unique. ÂSometimes they’re the only ones ever made like them. ÂOther times they were trailblazers for their kind of gameplay. ÂBut what they have in common is the bravery to try something new, allowing them to rise above the imitators. ÂEven though there might be newer games with shinier graphics, these games are still worth playing because they’re something different, something special.


Summed up, E.V.O. Search for Eden is an experience-based action sidescroller based loosely on the process of evolution. It was released in North America in 1993 by Enix America Corp.

The intro of the game is a conversation with Gaia as she sends you on a mission to help evolution along. Strange crystals have suddenly appeared all over the world that, when eaten, cause creatures to suddenly evolve into extremely powerful creatures that no others can compete with. These unnatural animals are interfering with the natural course of evolution set forth by Gaia. She sends you to help her remove these obstacles to allow the natural course of life to continue.

The game begins with you controlling a minnow, small, toothless, with weak skin and not many health points. Nearby are the weakest creatures in the sea, jellyfish. At this point they’re a challenge, taking several bites to finish off, and you’re likely to be stung several times in the process. At this point you can only take a few tings before you die. When you defeat one it turns into a meat item. By eating it you replenish your health points and increase your evolution points. You can also eat plants to replenish your health points, but those don’t carry evolution points.
The real uniqueness of the game comes from the evolution system. At any time you can access the evolution menu and spend your evolution points. You can upgrade many parts of your body. Upgrade your jaws to increase the damage you inflict when you bite, your body size to gain more health points at the cost of maneuverability, your tail to gain speed. You can even add a horn to give you a weapon to ram enemies with, or a glowing lure that dangles from the front of your head and attracts weaker enemies into the reach of your jaws. There’s no set order that you have to upgrade these things. You can upgrade incrementally, stepping each component of your body step by step, or you can pick just one or two components and save up for the most expensive version, leaving you a tiny minnow body with needle-toothed “Fierce jaws”. This makes the game play very customizable, you can replay multiple times with different strategies for different gameplay experiences.

If you die in the game, you’ll never see a “Game Over”. Gaia resurrects you, taking away a portion of your evolution points as a penalty. This is good for those players who want to challenge themselves and take risks.

You travel the first world, a series of levels, as a fish. In every world there’s at least one mini-boss and then a final boss, and you must upgrade wisely to be able to defeat these powerful enemies. In the second world you start at the base amphibian body. In later worlds you become a reptile, and eventually a mammal.

Besides these major generic forms, you can take more specialized tracks of evolution. Mastering the game doesn’t require you to become a bird, but you can become one. In this way you can avoid many of the conflicts, though that may not be the best strategy, as you don’t get evolution points unless you kill, and it may leave you unprepared for the boss battles.

Yes, you can become a human, and I’ve done it. It requires an obscure and unlikely series of upgrades that I won’t spell out here. There are clues in the game how to do it, or you can always look it up yourself. Me, I didn’t care for the form. The four-legged mammals in the game have the ability to bite or to kick with their hind legs, which is a major advantage. The kick knocks enemies to a distance giving you time to maneuver. The human lacks this kicking ability, so even though its rock hammer is powerful, I don’t like it as much. Me, I prefer more outlandish forms, with big needle-like teeth, horse legs for strong kicks, and nice tough rhinoceros skin.

The game can be as challenging as you want it to be. If you want it to be more challenging, then you can try making it through the game with minimal upgrades. In the later levels you’ll be fighting creatures far superior to you. If you can defeat the final shark boss in the ocean stages with just the minnow form, that is impressive indeed. Or you can make sure you’re upgraded to the highest form of every body part. This will take extra time because of the experience building necessary, but for most players the boss characters should not be insurmountable if you take some time to experience build.

The final boss of the game is a long, long battle, and takes a great deal of time and learning of the boss’s fighting patterns, but it’s that much more satisfying because of it. Overall this game is so unique and fun that I would recommend it to anyone.

If you want to find a copy of E.V.O., it will take a little work. Unfortunately, this game has not been added to the list of games available on the Nintendo Wii’s Virtual Console. It is still possible to find a cartridge of the game, but it will cost you. I found my copy in a pawn shop for $30, and that was 10 years ago, so I guarantee it will be harder to find and more expensive than that now. A quick eBay search as I’m writing this article showed two entries: a “buy it now” price of $70 and an auction with the current price of $44. It’s listed as “rare”. The best way to play the game is to find an SNES emulator and a ROM for the game so you can play it on your PC. This is often a challenge in itself, as many of the sites that have ROMs available are no longer maintained and suffer from link rot. It may take multiple tries to find sites that can provide a useable ROM.

But however you find a copy, it’s well worth the effort to play this amazing game. Enjoy!

Through Another’s Eyes: The Narrative Lens

written by David Steffen

The most compelling stories draw the reader in, leaving the body in a trance, as you immerse completely into a character’s mind. This is the biggest advantage that books hold over movies. A movie can show us a story, but even the best movies maintain a certain distance–you see the story through the eye of the camera, not the eyes of the character.

Movies have their own advantages, particularly for speculative fiction. A complex fantasy city can be shown in a matter of seconds, which might take chapters of drawn-out prose to describe in detail. Subtle facial expressions are presented without interpretation so that the watcher can interpret in any way they wish. The cinematic view can vary so that battlefields or other large-scale scene can be seen from far above without a character to carry us there.

Emulating film in writing is an easy trap to fall into, especially for beginning writers. Cinematic writing is characterized by overly long descriptions of complex settings and impartial narration as though attempting to show what a camera would see. But to write fiction in this manner is to sell yourself short. No one can portray a story in a film-like manner as well as film itself can. It’s like trying to write a story with French words using English grammar, it just doesn’t work. I’m not saying you can’t tell about the same story, the same characters, the same events as you could show in the movie. But you need to use different methods to reach its full potential.

I like to imagine prose as a narrative lens that allows you to see through the eyes of the character. And not just see, but to experience what they experience. Using this method, every description, every beat, every line of narration is an opportunity to characterize your point of view character.

To illustrate what I mean, I’ll describe a scene, and show how the narrative lens can be used to good effect. Imagine a Medieval time period, with an opening scene at a grand ball in a palace. All the royalty are decked out in garish attire, women with hairdos three feet tall, elaborate frilly dresses with padded rumps. The men’s clothes are nearly as elaborate as the women’s. The palace is richly decorated with marble pillars, satin curtains, and a great dome that rises high above their heads.

In a film, all of this would be given to the viewer in just a few images, and the scene would be shown in an identical way no matter who the point-of-view character is. After a few seconds it could get right on to the characters and the story. That’s the greatest strength of film, the ability to convey a complex setting in just a few moments.

How would it be described in writing, using the narrative lens? Well, that all depends who the character is. No character will notice every detail of the setting or the people around them. They will notice only a subset, but the choice of what subset serves as characterization. I’ll describe what each character sees and you can guess what role they might play.

Sarah barely describes the hall at all, mentioning a marble pillar only in passing as she’s watching someone move through the crowd and disappear behind it. She notes the scent of her wine as she scans the crowd. She notes women wearing the latest fashions, and those wearing clothes laughably out-of-date. The servers are invisible to her, though she may take a glass of wine from time to time, it will come to her hand with no mention of the server’s appearance. ÂWhen she speaks to people, she not only hears what they say, but the political undercurrents, a flip of the eyelashes that mark a veiled insult. She focuses most of her attention on minute behaviors of others and herself, and understands the significance behind each of them. A street urchin bumps into her, and she only looks at him for a moment, notes his smell, and then he disappears from her notice again. ÂShe ignores him after that, absorbing herself in examining her dress for stains the urchin might have left.

Louis can’t stop staring up at the ceiling, which is so tall he’s surprised there aren’t any clouds hanging under the roof. He smells hundreds of kinds of food, a few familiar, most of them entirely strange. The marble pillars fascinate him, the swirling patterns through the stone. He stares openly at a dress’s rump padding and can’t help but laugh. He looks servers in the eye. He sees a man with a grandly trimmed mustache and wonders if his dad has ever had a mustache like that. The shininess of polished shoes fascinates him.

Godric enters the hall. He notes the hall, but only to point out that the furnishings aren’t as nice as the palace he was at last week. He notes the quality and size of gemstones in the ladies’ jewelry. He notes the number of windows and their height from the floor. Unlike the duchess, he notices the pillars. Unlike the urchin, he doesn’t care about the swirling patterns in the stone, but considers the spacing and thickness, the way the shadows would pool when lit by just a few torches. He notes the hardness of a man’s eyes and the confidence of his stance. He notices servers’ entrances, the quality of the candlesticks, and the number of armed guards.

The woman is a duchess, the boy a street urchin, and the man an accomplished thief. Notice how the details of what each person described served to hint at their roles before any description of their clothing or their occupation was given. Note also, that if you exchanged some of the descriptions in each section, it would seem out of place. If the thief notes that the ruffles on a woman’s dress are an outdated style, then that would seem odd. Perhaps he’s a strange thief who is actually interested in ladies’ fashion, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but to keep the point of view tight, this has to be a conscious choice by the writer. It shouldn’t be included merely because the writer wants to show off his knowledge about fashions of that era, but because the character himself would notice it.

If that’s too extreme of an example, with too archetypal characters, consider a modern scene. A husband is doing the dishes when he’s confronted by his wife. She accuses him of cheating on her.

From her point of view:

Susan frowned. “Tell me the truth.”

Tom pulled a handful of silverware out of the sink. Drying them one by one, he stacked them in the drawer. “The truth is… complicated.”

Notice the lengthy description of his silverware drying and putting away. She’s noting his every move, because every moment he doesn’t respond only implicates him further. Every word in those sentences, which translate to some delay in the reader’s mind, is another line of evidence to her, so she’s watching every tiny detail.

From his point of view:

How could she know? He’d been so careful, only calling from pay phones, bringing an extra shirt to the office in case of lipstick stains, going to the gym after work to give him an excuse to shower. She couldn’t know. She couldn’t, and that was that.

Notice he doesn’t mention the silverware at all. He’s at the moment of the accusation, and his mind is racing, trying to mentally assemble what evidence she might have against him. His hands are moving of their own volition. He’s not aware of them, so he can’t mention them.

Also, the space of the description is of utmost importance. Long passages give the sense to the reader of a passage of time, regardless if that was the writer’s intent. If a scene is described in excruciating detail, then not only should the character himself be interested in that detail, he should also have the time to describe what he’s seeing.

Consider a scene where our hero clashes swords with enemy fighters. He takes down an enemy warrior and happens to catch a glimpse of Gorlack, the enemy commander. Gorlack is eight feet tall, with a ring through his nose, and six arms. The battlefield is a spray of blood from his ceaseless slaughter. His armor is decorated with human skulls, many of them marked where they’ve been gnawed by teeth. In the eyes of each skull, a gemstone. In each hand, a deadly weapon. Gorlack arches his back and gives a bellow of rage before returning to the carnage.

If they’re really on a crowded battlefield full of enemy soldiers, then this passage suggests that the hero has been standing there gawking for quite some time, probably half a minute or more, and he’s lucky he hasn’t been stabbed through the back by now. To keep the narrative lens firmly in place, this description would have to be shortened significantly, and perhaps split across several paragraphs as he steals glances at Gorlack while he fights enemy soldiers.

If you’re struggling with fitting characterization in a story, or you’re afraid the narration is too dry, give the narrative lens a try. A writer’s toolbox always has room for one more technique.