Of my two stories in the Ceaseless Way anthology, Impossible Things Before Breakfast is a romantasy. Fiddler’s Black started out that way but it didn’t want to stay light and cute and funny.
Writers often talk about characters taking over the story and dictating their arc. I have the same sense about stories: they know what they want to be and part of my job as a writer is figuring out what that is and adjusting my ideas if necessary.
I’ve been a fan of Abba since my teenage years. A long time ago, listening to their song “Dum-Dum-Diddle” gave me the idea for a story. The singer tells us how she’s crushing on the guy next door to her but he doesn’t even notice her — all he ever does is practice his violin. If she could only be the violin, “I think then maybe/You’d see me baby/You’d be mine/And I’d be with you all the time.”
That concept didn’t last past the first draft. Because the fiddler is a descendant of Erich Zann (from one of Lovecraft’s stories) and when my protagonist Kat walks into his apartment — she needs sleep and he won’t stop playing — she finds herself plunged into a literal world of darkness. Worse, Kat has an ugly history and now it’s coming back to confront her … (and no, I don’t think the spoilers that follow really spoil the story).
Kat’s past wasn’t part of the first few drafts but developed as I kept rewriting. Working on Undead Sexist Cliches led me to think a lot about redemption and how badly our society handles it. If you’re an average person who commits a felony, there’s no redemption: you have it on your permanent record, it’s a hundred times harder to get a job and even if you’ve served what’s supposed to be a just punishment, you don’t get a fresh start. If you’re a celebrity or a famous white guy, redemption is automatic — come on, he lost his job, hasn’t he suffered enough? Never mind whether he apologized, has made any steps toward redemption or done anything to avoid going down the same path again.
Kat did something horrible and over the course of the story, she finally faces up to it. She still has to do the work to redeem herself. What does that entail? Well, I honestly don’t know myself. I start her on the road but I don’t know how it should end. As her author, I can say that after the story ends, she will figure it out.
Cover by GetCovers, based on concepts by Arden Brooks
Forgot to mention the title comes from “Fiddler’s Green,” the world of the dead where there’s perpetual dancing and fun (variously attributed as a belief to sailors and cavalrymen)