From the Magister's Notebook: Under the Hood of a Novel Part Two

I was going to write about what happens when your characters start talking when you least expect them to, and I may get to that. But for the moment, I want to talk about something I touched on in the last edition of Under the Hood: inspiration. But this time, I'm talking about the inspiration of finding your own voice in a world that doesn't seem to believe it is possible to be original anymore.

I tend to believe that in all of us, there's a small voice that says "I want to be the next Tolkien or Asimov or Patterson or King..." and so we read what they're writing and learn from them. In fact, according to Stephen King in his memoir, On Writing, "One learns most clearly what not to do by reading bad prose- one novel like Asteroid Miner... is worth a semester at a good writing school, even with superstar guest lecturers thrown in" (p 104). He also points out that reading good writing also teaches, so you should read both.

I've seen other authors say, over and over again, half of the craft of writing, is reading. And that means reading stories in the genre one intends to work in. At the same time, as you read you worry that you're never going to sound like the good stuff, and you're always going to sound like the bad. 

Well that's half right. You're never going to be Stephen King, or J.R.R. Tolkien, or Isaac Asimov. You are going to be you, with your own experience and your own voice. You will tell the stories you are passionate about. Some of them will be average, some of them will suck (I know it's both hard and easy to believe), and then there will be those that will be great. Accepting all those possibilities, including the one that it may be GOOD, is hard. But it will happen, and it will happen more and more as you keep writing, which is important. 

All of this: reading, writing, making mistakes, learning, and making more mistakes is how a writer, any writer, finds her voice. And no matter what the media personal relations people will want you to believe, there will never be another (fill in great author's name here). But there will be you, and if you write with passion, truth, faith in your material, and an understanding that perfection is impossible, but reaching for it anyway will bring out the best; you'll do fine. 

I close out on something another favorite never-be-another writer one put in the mouth of a character named Delenn- "Faith manages." And in our world, it truly does.

Works Cited

1) Stephen, King. "On Writing." On Writing: a memoir of the craft.New York City: Scribner, 2000. 104. Ebook.

Copyright Penny Horwitz, 2014

Magister Art: The Villain Part One

Every hero needs a villain, and these are two that who plague Nick and his friends:

This, is the Servant of Belial, or more simply the Servant. The story is he made pacts with demons, though no one knows if one of those "demons" was actually the god Belial. All those at the time knew was he was dangerous, and something much more and less than human. 

When he was finally defeated, the victors attempted to destroy his body, the anchor for his spirit and thus his power in the world. The best they could do was severe it into six sections, moving them constantly, and as the world grew ever bigger via trade and travel, hiding the pieces in mystic prisons on the different continents. 

Each piece contains a part of the consciousness of the being, and he transcends space and time, so the prisons were not just hiding holes. They were warded against the Servant's ability to breach, and this begin to reassemble itself.

As of this writing, the one of the prisons in the United Kingdom was breached during the Battle of Britain, and the other in a suburb of Chicago was breached in the summer of  2010 CE.

The concept for the Servant was that he was featureless. The drawing reference for his was face the poster from Peter Jackson's The Frighteners. There was supposed to be nothing left of humanity in him. He's also a creature of shadows which crawl and smoke greasy around him, and his victims.

Hungry again, always hungry, never whole, but the Something knew how to feed now, knew where the leavings needed to go in this new-old place. It has done it before when it has escaped or has it done it yet, the Something is unsure. All it hears are sirens and all it smells is fear.-The Servant, Magister: The String

Art Copyright: Richard Price 2014
Written Content Copyright: Penny Horwitz 2014

From the Magister's Notebook: Partial Prologue of The String

What follows is the opening of the prologue of the String. It's in first person point of view though that does not carry on into the rest of the narrative.... I'll let him speak for himself however.

Prologue: Inheritance

Beginnings suck. It’s the God’s honest truth. Beginnings are boring as sin. They’re usually slow, plodding, and by the time you reach page three, you’re begging for something- anything- to happen, including having your skull explode if only to relieve the tedium of the exposition.

Most storytellers will avoid all this by dumping their poor audiences in the middle of the action, then catch them up on the relevant back story later. I mean, how many people would give up the excitement of a Star Destroyer chase for a long and boring opening on how the plans got in a certain princess’ hands in the first place?

But not every story is lucky enough to have an eye popping space battle to hang its opening on. Mine certainly doesn't. But what it does have is the rare ring of truth. This isn't the kind of truth you’ll find in the phone book, at the mall, or the nightclub or bar you frequent. It’s not the kind of truth the daily grind world was designed to deal with, but it’s there, just the same. And pulling back that particular curtain of reality can change you. It can make you stronger, or it can break you into a monster.

Me? I was lured in by an attractively baited string and my own overdeveloped sense of duty. My name is Nicholas Whitehall… Follow me, I’ll show you what I mean...

Art Copyright: Richard Price 2014
Written Content Copyright: Penny Horwitz 2014

From the Magister's Notebook: Under the Hood of a Novel

What happens when you take a vague reference to a movie, a germ of an idea for a piece of fan fiction, a love of history, a dark role playing game, and sequel to a popular computer role playing game?

Magister: The String

I will admit, it truly was a weird confluence of events. I'd heard vaguely of the movie Frequency and the high concept, being father and son talking to each other between past and future. Intriguing in and of itself, but I started turning it around in my head, looking at it kind of like one would look at the different facets of a gemstone. Then the idea came, instead of talking to each other, what if they were sharing experiences over time? Not memories, but actually being in the other person's head as events took place? Weird, but I needed a reason as to why this was happening, and since my obsession.. er interest of the time was one Wesley Windham-Pryce of the television series Angel, I had my guinea pig. And since the show had a supernatural bent, it was easy to come up with a villain. A demon, caught between two time periods, committing murders to gain enough power to break free.

Great, wonderful, and since I'd spent most of my life studying the Second World War, Wesley's partner in all of this would be a young RAF pilot, injured during a raid at the time of the Battle of Britain: Thomas Whitehall. Again, amazing, since I could even write in a dog fight scene for Wesley to experience. Very cool!

Then I made the mistake, or had the good fortune, depending on your point of view, to discuss this with my circle of fellow writers. One suggested I "file the serial numbers off" and actually write it as a stand alone short in my own universe. And since one of the reasons I got into fan fiction was to hone my skills as a writer (and satisfy my addictive need to be a storyteller), I decided to give it a shot. Resetting it in the suburbs of my hometown was easy. Explaining how the protagonist had a connection with the pilot (a great uncle who'd just passed) worked well, but the story just didn't feel right somehow. So I played with it once and a while, trying to find the angle that would bring the story to life.

At the same time, my overheated imagination had always been fascinated with the mythology of the World of Darkness, created by White Wolf Publishing. Of special interest to me was the creation story of the vampires, and how they all descended from the first murderer: Cain. Again, I began to play with this story, turning it into a redemption myth of Cain seeking one pure soul out of all the vampires who had descended from his line, and when he had found that one, that soul would be the key to his redemption. Again, I began to strip away the trappings of the World of Darkness, and Cain became someone else looking for similar redemption. I won't say whom, that would spoil the story.

The pure soul went through many iterations, finally becoming Ariella Goldstein, a Jewish survivor of Ravensbrück concentration camp. She was rescued by a vampire who, at the time, went by the name of Martin Drake. As a vampire, she fought back against the Nazis and their supernatural allies. But what set her apart from her kin was she had kept her faith, and it had been rewarded. Holy symbols wielded by true believers (the only way such things would work) did little to deter her. And Ariella, herself, could call upon divine grace for aid. It was something she rarely did, but it marked her as other.

Now I had two stories which were partially set in World War Two, but that nephew, the protagonist who was supposed to bring them all together still had no voice, until Atton Rand. I had begun playing the sequel to the popular game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. The second installment, called The Sith Lords, featured a character by the name of Atton Rand, who was a Han Solo-like character, with a much darker past. But as much as I liked his story, it was the voice that sealed the deal. And suddenly my protagonist became this smart mouthed patrol officer from the Chicago Police Department, who had inherited his late great uncle's estate and fortune. In honor of the voice artist who'd inspired me, I gave my protagonist his first name: Nick. And the bones of the Magister finally fit into place. Flesh, the form of the shape of the prose came soon after, and Magister became a mostly reality.

As of this writing (April 16, 2014) Magister: the String is at 40,000 words, give or take, which feels to be about two thirds done. There have been a lot of surprises along the way, things that I'd planned far in advance that changed radically, and I hope, for the better.

Even as I'm rereading this, I realize I sound a bit pretentious, but I figure that's okay. I've only told this story to a few people before, and mostly in pieces. So being able to share the whole thing is almost as exciting as the idea I may able to share Magister someday. I'm hoping though, if there's anything anyone takes away from my little tale is that inspiration strikes in the strangest places, and never discount anything. Creativity never exists in a vacuum.

Okay, done being pretentious now.

Art Copyright: Richard Price 2014
Written Content Copyright: Penny Horwitz 2014

From the Magister's Notebook: Magic and Science in Arcane Chicago

"Any sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic"- Arthur C. Clark

Merriam-Webster defines the word supernatural as:

"1. Of relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe; especially : of or relating to God, or a god, demigod, spirit, or devil
2. a: departing from what is usual or normal especially as to appear to transcend the laws of nature
    b: attributed to an invisible agent (as a ghost or a spirit)" (1)

In many works of urban fantasy, magic and science tend to be diametrically opposed. In some cases, the mere presence of magical energy can cause technology not only to malfunction, but to burn out entirely. There are also several magical beings, such as the Fae, who have issues using their ability in a world where iron and steel are common building blocks.

However, this does not always have to be the case. In Nick Whitehall's world, the physical laws play an important part in the use of magic, even if it cannot be perceived by current instrumentation, thus appearing to transcend them. Two laws which play a large part in working magic are the Laws of Conservation of Energy and Conservation of Matter.

Magical energy is generated by people. Every emotion, every thought, even the very act of living leaves a tiny amount of residual magic in the surroundings. Further, there are places where all of this energy seems to collect and pool. It is, perhaps, not surprising that mankind is unconsciously drawn to those places, and begin to congregate there. This creates a constant loop: as the magical pools get stronger, more people are drawn there, which only feeds the pool even more. There are many such places in the world, but one of the most powerful resides under the city of Chicago, Illinois. (There are even those that argue that this is why the Cubs never win the World Series. That The Billy Goat Curse laid upon that team in 1945 is fed constantly by the pool!) In olden times, pools like this never grew too powerful, for not only were there fewer people to feed them, but there were more people who could draw upon it, even if only in a minor way. But in the modern world, the number of people who can tap such a pool are few in number, and more people are concentrated in smaller places than ever before. For a place like Chicago, the result is that the city sits on one of the most potent concentrations of magical energy in history, just waiting to be tapped.

So what can you do with all that energy? Well, the easiest thing to do is turn it into other kinds of energy. Just as in the mundane world, turning one form of energy into another is a fairly simple matter, but in the magical world, you have a limitless pool to start from. This makes it appear that a mage can summon, from seemingly out of nowhere, fire, electricity, light, or even magnetic fields. Indeed, this is often the first manifestation of magical energy for a young mage. Many is the time that a young mage set fire to an object (usually involving a hated task) without meaning to! With a little more concentration and skill, the forces can be controlled. In this way, thermal energy can be drained from objects to create intense areas of cold, machines and electronic devices can be powered or overloaded, and perhaps most importantly, kinetic energy can be manipulated. Which brings us to the next step: matter manipulation.

Once you can move an object (or objects) around, the potential to alter them is there as well. Obviously, given everything that has been stated so far, the easiest thing to do is alter the physical state of the matter. Liquids can be quickly evaporated or heated, water frozen instantly, that sort of thing. More difficult is physical manipulation. Beyond just moving things around, materials can be gathered and compressed, or dispersed. Air can be pressurized and then released to form a pressure wave like a gust of wind, the various pieces of a car separated and blown apart, the water sucked out of an object to rapidly dry it. This creates a variety of offensive and defensive options for a wizard, beyond simply blasting things with raw energy. It should be noted that by combining matter and energy manipulation, effects can be created that neither could do on its own. For example, with a great deal of time, effort, and energy, weather manipulation becomes possible on a limited scale. Most practitioners avoid this, however, as tinkering with weather patterns can have far-reaching effects.

For a truly powerful mage with a very large pool of energy, transmutation of matter now becomes possible. The easiest form of this (if such a thing can be called easy at all), is to re-arrange atoms like lego bricks. For example, the carbon atoms in, say, a piece of coal could be separated and re-arranged to form a diamond. This requires an intense amount of focus and concentration, as you are literally building the diamond crystal atom by atom. Obviously, the more closely related the final and initial forms are, the easier this is. Also, the mage performing the transmutation must know exactly what he is taking apart, as well as how he wants to put it back together. This requires at least a basic understanding of chemistry and molecular structures.

Even more difficult still, and a task that has only been accomplished by a handful of mages in known history, is transmutation from one material to another, such as the fabled “lead-to-gold” of alchemical lore. To perform this requires altering material on the sub-atomic level, which requires power far beyond the reach of most mages. One possible way to do it is to slowly add or remove protons from the necessary atoms in the form of hydrogen (which, for those of you who need a reminder, is an atom with 1 proton and 1 electron). Hydrogen is readily available from any source of water, so is plentiful to work with. By adding or subtracting protons, an atom can be transformed from one element into another. Again, it should be stressed that this requires an ENORMOUS amount of magical power, far more than all but the most gifted of mages can handle safely. It is far easier and safer to simply find another source of whatever elemental material you wish to have, and manipulate it as is. It has been theorized that an EXCEPTIONALLY powerful mage with an ENORMOUS pool of energy could create matter from pure energy as per E = mc2, and then back again, but the dangers in doing so would be incredible.

In the end, to paraphrase Morpheus from The Matrix, some laws can be bent, others can be broken. But a mage does so at his own peril. And breaking natural laws can have far ranging effects that are not limited to changes in the natural world. It may be that the mage himself will bear the scars of his actions, so such things are never undertaken lightly.

Works Cited 

1."Supernatural." Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 11 Apr. 2014. <http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/supernatural>.

Copyright Art: Richard Price, 2014
Copyright Written Content unless otherwise noted: Penny Horwitz, Joel Ruggaber, Masters of Science, Chemistry, Illinois State University.

From the Magister's Note Book: Building the Real World, with a Twist

One of the most complicated problems of writing urban fantasy is that in most instances it takes place in real life locations, many of which may be familiar to the reader. Some writers work around this issue by creating their own locales. DC comics, for example, created places like Gotham, Metropolis, Central City, and others so they may design these areas as they wish. Kalayna Price also uses this convention in her Alex Craft series.

Other authors such as Laurell K Hamilton, Jim Butcher, and Anne Rice write in well-known locales.

The biggest problem is not only understanding the geography of your chosen location, but understanding the culture of the area, and its story.

All cities have a personality of their own, even where they're close by, Washington and Baltimore are a good example, Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco all have very different personalities. Knowing these things is one of the great responsibilities of a writer, especially one who will be making creative additions to these locations.

One of the things I loved about Laurell K. Hamilton's work was that Saint Louis had that living feeling. The street names, the Fox Theater where Anita and Richard go to see Guys and Dolls. There is a wonderful sensation, in a way, that you could walk into Saint Louis, turn a corner and find the Vampire District (or Blood Square, but don't use that name in mixed company).

The point, of course, is the setting should be a living breathing entity, not just a collection of buildings located on a map.

Some of the things I've found helpful are going into the city itself. Many have architectural and historic tours. Of course reading is also key, but try and find books about the city's history, and not just travel guides. There tend to be books that are for tourists that'll take you off the beaten path.

Then there's dialect. If you're close to the city you're writing about, listen to how people talk.

Here's a good example:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/kristinchirico/words-that-have-a-completely-different-meaning-in-chicago

And since this is a discussion of urban fantasy, know your area's urban myths and legends. There are numerous books out there that discuss the topic For myself, Ursula Bielski's Chicago Haunts has been a treasure trove of lore, written in the style of a folklorist rather than a ghost hunter.

It all comes down to research of course, but making your setting another character in your book, one that will help encourage the reader to believe the fantastic behind the curtain of the mundane makes it all worth it.

Copyright Penny Horwitz 2014