Tag Archives: Questionable Minds

December 7, 2022 · 5:11 am

Let No Man Put Asunder: Finding the Sweet Spot

So last month I finished the first chapter of my rewrite of my second novel, Let No Man Put Asunder. I rewrote it once some 15-20 years back; I’d have rewritten it again by now except most of the manuscript is gone. I did get a couple of chapters beyond the cutoff, but somehow every attempt to progress further hit a mental dead end.

This version though is a radical break. My protagonists, Adrienne and Neil, were mostly in good shape when the bad guys kidnap them into another dimension. To their surprise, it turns out that a weekend of death and danger (the story moved pretty fast) also gave them things that were missing in their life. Fresh adventures would have lain in wait …

New protagonists Paul and Amanda aren’t in such great shape. Mandy has been de facto mother for her five siblings and caregiver for her terminally ill dad since she was fifteen — as we learn in the first chapter, Mom decided terminal illness wasn’t something she wanted to deal with and walked out. However it’s been twelve years and Mandy’s recovered from Mom’s betrayal (but has not forgiven her at all).

Paul is in much worse shape as his big blow came less than two years ago. His academically prominent parents pushed him to excel from elementary on. He’s had no social life, has no idea who he’d be if he didn’t have his nose buried in books all the time, so finally he told them, right before senior year, he was taking a year off after college. When he arrived back at school Paul discovered his folks hadn’t paid his tuition, had broken the lease on his apartment and drained the joint bank account they used to provide him with ready cash. But no problem, just take back your foolish decision, son, and everything gets back to normal!

He didn’t take it back.

The Adrienne/Neil version had a first chapter set here on Earth, then we were off into other, wilder dimensions. I’m not sure that’s the way I want to go. The town of Blue Ivy, where Mandy and Paul meet in 1976, feels like a good setting. It’s a grimy industrial town but it also has several colleges, with the usual college/townie conflicts. It seems a shame to just forget about it and go elsewhere, particularly in America’s bicentennial year (I don’t know if I’ll keep using that year but if I do, I should be able to make something of it).

The trouble is, I don’t want to go the urban fantasy route. I enjoy reading books where the normal world is just a shell hiding a reality full of magic but I don’t seem inclined to write them. Southern Discomfort is closer to intrusion fantasy: the normal world works much as we see it but something magical has intruded in, disrupting things. In Questionable Minds there’s no hiding: the world is full of psychic powers but they’re being wielded in plain sight.  In Atoms for Peace the mad science that’s made the world so different from our 1950s is also commonly known. In Impossible Takes a Little Longer, super-powers are the same way.

If I set Asunder on Earth, I want it feel like magic is an intruder, not a regular resident. That was doable in Southern Discomfort because the magic almost all stems from the elves Olwen, Aubric and Gwalchmai and it’s limited to one small town in Georgia. Asunder has a lot more magical people running around with much flashier powers. And the different characters — Mountebank, Grainge, Cordelia Winters and Hypatia, to name four — don’t fit into the same magical mythos. They didn’t have to in the original version and I see no need to change that. But it would, again, make an odd urban fantasy

So do I go urban fantasy anyway and find some way to make it work? Go back to dimensional jumping and kiss Blue Ivy goodbye? Maybe make Blue Ivy some kind of Hellmouth where, like Sunnydale, things are weirder than the rest of the world?

There’s also the practical point that I’d like my protagonists isolated, at least for the first few chapters. That’s harder to do in a setting where they know everyone.

Normally I’d plunge ahead and pants these questions as I go but the first chapter ends with Mandy and Paul falling through a magical gate of some kind. I need to know where they land.

Wish me luck!

#SFWApro. Cover by Samantha Collins, rights to the image are mine.

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November 29, 2022 · 5:15 am

Trends go in, trends go out, they turn you into sauerkraut

As I think I’ve mentioned before, I have no great skill at writing for the market — stuff that fits current trends and styles (see here for some discussion of that topic). The few times I think I’ve hit the sweet spot the editorial response is either “everyone’s doing that now” or “no, that’s not quite right for the genre.” It’s a topic I thought about recently in relation to Questionable Minds and The Impossible Takes a Little Longer. Both of them were a little more novel when I completed the early drafts, less so now. They’re still good (at least, Impossible should be when it’s done) but their relationship to the market has changed.When I finished Questionable Minds some twenty-plus years ago, steampunk was still in its infancy as a genre. Had it sold to anyone it would have stood out because being steampunk stood out, plus a psi-based steampunk book wasn’t something I’d seen done. It still isn’t, though I might be wrong about that (there’s so much steampunk available now I know I haven’t seen a fraction of it).

The point is, the reaction to a steampunk novel in 2022 is going to be different from if it came out in 2002. I’ve seen reviewers who are sick and tired of books all being set in London, for instance. Genre conventions and tropes have become more standardized; will not having dirigibles or more advanced technology be a turnoff for some readers? Is my novel more gaslamp fantasy than steampunk science fiction, and if so, will readers be annoyed I mislabeled it? I’m not agonizing over these questions — it really is a good book, after all — but they do make me curious.

Or consider my superhero urban fantasy, The Impossible Takes a Little Longer. When I finished the original novel back in the late 1990s, superhero novels were few and far between, particularly if you eliminate Marvel and DC tie-in novels. There’s a lot more of them now which means being a superhero story, by itself, won’t stand out. On the other hand nobody’s going to roll their eyes at the idea of a specfic novel about superheroes.

My treatment of superpowers is different in multiple ways (here’s one) from most of the superhero novels I read. But different, by itself, isn’t magic: it’s possible to be different, original, or unique and still suck. What ultimately matters is that the book’s good, not where it fits in the market. Because I can’t control the market, or predict what it’ll be like when Impossible is finally done. I have to think about marketing  — Questionable Minds was my first real attempt to do so — but my top priority is having something worthwhile to sell.

I have a feeling this post was a little rambling, which may reflect that analyzing the market, let alone fitting it, isn’t my strong suit.

#SFWApro. Cover by Samantha Collins, all rights remain with current  holder.

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November 22, 2022 · 5:00 am

Writing to sell (and a discount sale!)

No, not writing stories with an idea of what will sell sell, but things like cover copy, Amazon online blurbs, and ads. I put in a lot of work during the countdown to publishing Questionable Minds. I browsed Amazon ads when they pop up in my FB feed, and they pop up a lot. It was primarily to get a sense of how other authors push books online, though it’s also just part of my love for books in general. When I worked at Waldenbooks in the 1990s I’d read the back copy of lots of books just to see what they were like. “Men’s adventure” books, Sweet Valley High, Babysitters Club, serious literature. It’s one of the things I miss about bookselling — sure I could do it in a bookstore but I rarely have that much time.

The style in promotional copy has changed a lot. Author Gail Z. Martin (I know her from cons) says it’s due to Amazon allowing all kinds of searches so including really nitty gritty specifics about tropes and subcategories helps grab readers. Thus romances (I’ve no idea why I get so many — it’s hardly my first pick) break down into subcategories such as grumpy single dad, grumpy boss, grumpy neighbor, grumpy single-dad neighbor. Plus lists of tropes such as enemies-to-lovers, friends-to-lovers, bullies-to-lovers (that one makes me want to vomit), smoldering romance, sweet and gentle romance, frazzled single parents, etc.

So, here’s mine: ”

Enter a “steam-psi” Victorian world where newly discovered “mentalist” abilities are changing everything — and they’ve given Jack the Ripper a path to absolute power.

In Victorian England, 1888, some say Sir Simon Taggart is under the punishment of God.

In an England swirling with mentalist powers — levitation, mesmerism, human telegraphy — the baronet is unique, possessing mental shields that render him immune to any psychic assault. Even some of his friends think it’s a curse, cutting him off from the next step in human mental and spiritual evolution. To Simon, it’s a blessing.

Four years ago, the Guv’nor, the hidden ruler of the London underworld, arranged the murder of Simon’s wife Agnes. Obsessed with finding who hired the Guv’nor, Simon works alongside Inspector Hudnall and Miss Grey in Scotland Yard’s Mentalist Investigation Department. Immunity to telegraphy, clairvoyance and mesmerism are an asset in his work — but they may not be enough to crack the latest case.

A mysterious killer has begun butchering Whitechapel streetwalkers. With every killing, the man newspapers call “the Ripper” grows in mental power and in the brutality of his attacks. Is murder all that’s on his mind or does he have an endgame? What plans does the Guv’nor have for the Whitechapel killer? And if Simon has to choose between stopping the Ripper and unmasking the Guv’nor, how will he decide?

Questionable Minds is set in a Victorian England struggling to preserve the social hierarchy while mentalism threatens to overturn it. The cast of characters includes Dr. Henry Jekyll (and yes, his friend Edward Hyde too) and multiple other figures from history and fiction. It has a tormented, morally compromised protagonist, serial-killer villain, a devoted father-daughter relationship and a passionate but complicated love affair.

Trigger Warning: Multiple brutal murders. Nineteenth-century sexism and imperialism. A child in danger.”

I think it works. I hope I’m right. I’m also thinking of going back and redoing the copy for Atlas Shagged and Atoms for Peace and seeing if that can juice sales any. Can’t hurt! Questionable Minds is available in ebook on Amazon or other retailers. Or there’s the paperback.

And while I’m promoting myself, I’ll note that McFarland iscoffering 40% off all titles through November 28, including all my books such as The Aliens Are Here. Use HOLIDAY22 as the code at checkout!

#SFWApro. Covers by Samantha Collins (t) and Zakaria Nada.

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November 18, 2022 · 4:30 pm

The third axe man almost did me in

Not for the first time, I find this cover by Billy Graham embodies the way I can think I have everything handled, then discover otherwise. This week everything was going great, then Thursday and Friday rose up to bushwhack me.

Normally when Plushie has his eye checkup, TYG takes him. Wednesday she said that as she’d have to take a business call in the middle of his Friday afternoon appointment, I’d need to come along and deal with the eye-vet. As it’s some distance, that guaranteed the loss of Friday afternoon for any productive work.

That may have contributed to the stress that made me wake up a little before midnight Wednesday, I had a cup of tea, then headed back to bed, only to have Trixie wake up and insist on leaving the bedroom to join me. That, plus Wisp coming in later, killed my sleep and left me a little glazed over Thursday. I had a couple of errands, including visiting an opthalmologist to check out their eyeglass selection, but I was in no shape to drive. Friday, the schedule didn’t work out either; I can get some of the work done tomorrow but the spectacles-shopping will have to wait until next week.

Despite all that, I managed to put in a full week’s worth of work and it was good work. Impossible Takes a Little Longer is progressing slowly but the latest revisions really add a lot of oomph. Likewise Bleeding Blue looks better after another draft; Don’t Pay the Ferryman does too but the changes once again have me wondering what the right ending is. But it’s there, I just have to write and rewrite until I find it.

I also started work on a new/old story of sorts. A while back I was playing around in my head and came up with a couple of characters I liked. As an experiment I’m plugging them into an old novel I’ve been meaning to rewrite for years, Let No Man Put Asunder. It’s an odd choice as a)I really love the original leads in that book and b)the storyline started changing in other ways. Not because of the new leads, but it’s inching towards an urban fantasy/Neverwhere feel where all the magical action is going on below the surface of the seemingly placid city of Blue Ivy in 1976. I’m not sure if that’s the way I want to go, but I’ll play with it when I have more spare time and see what develops.

And, of course, Questionable Minds is now out! Not only that, but three or four people promptly bought a copy, plus a few other friends who’ve said they intend to soon. I am, of course, delighted. Thanks to all y’all, including MA Kropp.

I signed up for a blog tour through Otherworld Ink. While I have no way to measure yet whether that turns into more sales, I got extra promotion on FB and some blog tour posts done:

It feels very good. And on that note, have a great weekend.

#SFWApro. Questionable Minds cover by Samantha Collins. All rights to images remain with current holders.

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November 18, 2022 · 5:29 am

The high note of the week

I know I covered this Monday but it’s still cool I’m now a published novelist. And I have copies of my books to prove it.You can get Questionable Minds as an ebook on Amazon or other retailers. Or there’s the paperback. Either way, I think it’s excellent, though I concede I may not be objective.

#SFWApro. Cover of Questionable Minds by Sam Collins.

 

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November 14, 2022 · 5:19 am

The Story Behind The Story: Questionable Minds

As today is the launch date of my first published novel, Questionable Minds (available as an ebook or paperback), my usual Monday political post will go up tomorrow. For now, it’s the story of how I came to write it.IIRC, the original idea for what became Questionable Minds was born sometime in the early 1980s. I’d seen Sean Connery in The Great Train Robbery my junior or senior year at Oberlin and much enjoyed his role as the roguish thief organizing the first robbery from a moving train. In his trial, after a judge demands to know what could have led him to violate every principle of law and decency, Connery simply shrugs and says “I wanted the money.”

My initial idea was to take the Connery character (based on a real character in the Michael Crichton nonfiction account of the theft) and have him work for the government — go where the police can’t go, do things the police can’t, that sort of stuff. The initial adventure, prompted by some nonfiction I’d read, would have involved the Hindu Thuggee cult setting up shot in London. In hindsight I’m very glad I never sat down and wrote it as I can’t think of any way it wouldn’t have been racist as shit.

Instead the idea lay fallow in the back of my brain. When it finally resurfaced it had two key differences. First, my poacher-turned-gamekeeper protagonist had become Sir Simon Taggart, baronet, old-money and impeccable pillar of the establishment. Second, the concept that Simon lived in an England where psychic powers — mentalism — worked. My original concept had been intrusion fantasy — supernatural elements intruding into the mundane Victorian world — but my revised idea meant the world was no longer mundane.

What led to the change? I’m not sure, but most likely reading some of my reference books about the Victorian age jump-started my original idea.  The book’s villain became Jack the Ripper, then I threw in Jekyll and Hyde, Helena Blavatsky, and multiple other elements. Plus lots of borrowing from Arthur Conan Doyle, being the Holmes fan that I am.

At the time I finished the original draft — late 1990s, I believe — steampunk was still a new concept. I hoped building my book around psi powers rather than tech would make it stand out. League of Extraordinary Gentlemen hadn’t come out so me incorporating assorted fictional characters into the book would, I thought, be a plus too. Of course, as some of them were Sherlock Holmes characters (though not Holmes or Watson himself) and they were still under copyright, perhaps it’s good I didn’t sell it, though I imagine the publisher would have red-flagged that.

In any case it didn’t sell. I was particularly frustrated by one publisher who asked for like three chapters at a time, asked for more whenever I prodded them, then finally said no. That stretched the process out waaaay beyond what was reasonable.

Ditto a company who held the book for a long time, then told me, when I checked back, that they’d reserved it for the publisher’s personal review — expect an answer in four months. When six months passed I checked … and checked again … and again … and finally said that having had no answer, I chose to withdraw it from consideration. Late can happen for legit reasons; not responding when prodded is, in my experience, a huge red flag. The publisher’s curious response was that she was sorry we couldn’t reach an agreement — meaning what? They’d sent me an offer and I hadn’t heard back? Or that she and her people couldn’t reach an agreement whether to buy? I’m guessing the latter.

Finally, success! I submitted to an e-book publisher, got accepted and they told me they’d be back in touch by the following summer to discuss edits and possible changes. Summer passed, no contact. I checked back, they were going out of business. They apologized for not notifying me sooner but did return all rights.

I tried a couple more publishers after that without success, but I still believed the book was good (after all, at least one publisher liked it!). So finally, rather than chase after small publishers who probably didn’t have that much to offer me (not a slap at small publishers, honestly. But when the submission package calls for me to submit a marketing plan — well, if I could draw up marketing plans, I can’t see what I’d need them for) I opted to self-publish. I rewrote the book, rewrote again, edited the book and sent the manuscript through Draft2Digital for the ebooks (they’ll be available on Amazon eventually) and Amazon’s Kindle publishing for the paperback. Plus using One World Ink for promotional services. Plus, of course, my friend Samantha Collins who designed the awesome cover.

And now it’s done. Let’s see what happens …

#SFWApro. Copyright on cover is mine, rights remain with me.

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November 1, 2022 · 5:10 am

Standing alone

When I was a younger writer, I thought a lot about series. My second book would have kicked off a series if it had sold; a couple of later ones would too. One of my earliest published short stories, Where Angels Fear to Lunch, looked like it had potential to be a series; it did eventually generate a sequel short story, No Good Deed Goes Unpunished (the first story isn’t out anywhere online — well, not at the moment).

Unsold novels, however, do not turn into series. And few of my short stories generate enough interest to feel a sequel is particularly sellable. The exception is Atoms for Peace: I submitted the tenth story in the collection, Instruments of Science (actually the first chapter of a then current WIP) to Big Pulp more than a decade ago as a stand-alone. They asked for more. Ironically, the changes I made to the stories changed the original novel so much (titled The Brain From Outer Space) I was never able to get it back on track.

As I’ve grown older, my mind seems to generate stand-alones, not potential series. I look at stories that could generate sequels like One Hand Washes the Other, and nothing comes to mind. Partly because that story is an intensely dramatic turning point for the protagonist; I can’t make every story a turning point but I don’t usually want to write Just A Story about the characters. And partly, I suspect, because I’m older and I’d sooner write whatever fascinates me at the moment than just whatever sells. Of course, I don’t sell that much (yet!) so it’s not like there’s any overwhelming pressure to provide a sequel; as I’ve joked before, I’ve never been forced to choose between the magical realist novel I want to write and the lucrative werewolf raunch comedy movie script.

I do not think, however, that I’ve left any unresolved cliffhangers. I don’t think anything I’ve written doesn’t have a satisfactory ending concluding the arc, even if there are clearly more stories ahead. At the end of One Hand Washes the Other, my protagonist starts a new life as sidekick to a wizard, but his character arc for the story is complete. Atoms for Peace has an unresolved plot thread or two — will Steve ever find his brother? Will Dani and Steve tie the knot? — but I can’t see anyone feeling frustrated there’s no follow-up.

Which brings us to Questionable Minds. When I wrote the original “finished” draft more than twenty years ago, I thought that if it sold I could do lots of sequels. Maybe even follow Sir Simon Taggart’s daughter Ann growing up and becoming a hero in her own right. But it didn’t sell.

Perhaps self-publishing and putting in a modest amount of promotion will sell enough copies that a sequel becomes practical. I do have ideas for another book, maybe two.

But if not, I don’t think anyone will walk away frustrated. While Simon’s hunt for his wife’s killer remains a loose end, the ending does resolve some of his trauma over her death. As a character arc, I think that works to make it satisfactory even if it’s a standalone. And the main threat of the book, Jack the Ripper, is well and truly dealt with. I think I’ve stopped where it encourages people to want more (I can dream) but it doesn’t require more. Even if I write nothing more, I don’t think it’ll leave readers frustrated.

Less than two weeks to launch, woot!

#SFWApro. Covers by Zakaria Nada (t) and Samantha Collins (b) all rights remain with current holders.

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October 28, 2022 · 4:10 pm

I’m afraid the ducks won this round

I’d looked forward to this week as one where I could do some concentrated fiction with only minimal distraction. That’s not how it played out. It was in, short, one of those weeks where I was nibbled to death by ducks.

Monday went okay but Tuesday I had to work around some contractors doing a job upstairs. I’d also contacted a couple of companies for a small gutter-repair job and dear lord, it seems that’s one cut-throat industry around here. I received multiple calls and text from various companies besides the couple I’d actually contacted; as I was working on a stretch of Impossible Takes a Little Longer that required deep thought, the repeated distractions killed my momentum. I ended up canceling plans to go to writer’s group that night so I could relax, then  make up for lost time.

Wednesday, I had two appointments with gutter salesmen and sat through long description of why their Total Gutter Remodel (no mere repairs for me, nope!) was the best ever. Sales pitches automatically get my back up; one of them kept texting me repeatedly later to emphasize the Low, Low Options for financing or discounting the price, which didn’t put me in a better mood. Plus we had a contractor uproot and sand the stump of a holly bush out front — I thought we’d stump-sanded it when we had it chopped down a few years back, but apparently not. And we have plans for that spot.

These and similar little chores ate up the week and disrupted my ability to sit and think. I do have almost all of my promotional stuff for Questionable Minds done and Draft2Digital helped solve the formatting problems plaguing the text. However I didn’t have time to make all the adjustments; I’ll get that done Monday.

I did a big rewrite of one chapter of Impossible Takes a Little Longer and it definitely added to the tension. I’m not sure how some of the changes will play out but I’ll trust my gut on this one.

I also worked some on Obalus and made very slight progress. I know the broad outline of what Eleanor Holt has to do to redeem herself but I’m drawing a blank on the details still. In a better week I might have made more headway.

Overall, I fell well short of my goals for them month too. But November begins next week. A fresh month, a fresh chance to get it right.

#SFWApro. Covers by Frank Brunner (t) and Samantha Collins, all rights remain with current holders.

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October 26, 2022 · 5:07 am

Questionable Minds and characters out of context

As I’ve mentioned previously, Jekyll and Hyde play a large role in Questionable Minds. Henry Jekyll is a prominent reformer, dedicated to getting young women off the streets and into respectable working-class occupations. A number of his proteges are women with mentalist powers who for whatever reason became unemployable — alcoholics, violent temper, scandal in their past, etc. While there’s no “kill the muties” attitude toward mentalists, the upper classes feel very uneasy about the working class having powers, about women having powers. It doesn’t take much to turn a poor woman with powers into a pariah.Jekyll thinks he’s reburied Hyde and can live a life of virtue but guess what? Hyde resurfaces (I’m sure this isn’t a spoiler — would anyone be surprised?). Writing a post for a blog tour, it occurs to me Hyde comes off better in my book than he should.

He’s not a nice guy at all. He’s violent, hot-tempered and thoroughly self-interested (this becomes a major plot point). I refer in several spots to his crimes, including assault, theft, blackmail and rape. His crimes, though, happened in the past or offstage. On the printed page, he comes off closer to an antihero: cynical, mocking Jekyll’s hypocrisies, selfish but not monstrously so. And he’s up against Jack the Ripper, a far worse monster. Hyde would break a woman’s arm without thinking twice; Jack will slit a woman’s throat and he’ll think about what fun it is the whole time.

As far as I’m concerned, Hyde is a villain, but in the context of Questionable Minds he’s more sinned against than sinning. I think it works, and I don’t think any readers will assume I’m siding with Hyde (I sure hope not). It is an odd feeling though.

The same is true of Cohen and Dini, the FBI agents in Southern Discomfort. They’ve arrived in Pharisee GA to investigate the bombing that killed Aubric McAlister (an elf, though they don’t know that) and a rising black politician. The FBI director hopes to demonstrate J. Edgar Hoover’s old, racist FBI with its attacks on the civil rights movement is dead: the new, more liberal FBI is here! Cohen and Dini are very conscious that there are a lot of eyes on them and failure will not be graded on a curve.

Neither one is a racist but their politics are way to the right of mine. Dini still thinks the FBI’s war on communists and the anti-war movement was a good thing. Cohen, as she says in one scene, thinks the civil rights movement was wrong: even in a good cause, nothing excuses willfully breaking the law the way the protesters did.

In a different story, they could be — well, not villains but antagonists to good-guy leftwing protesters or activists. In Southern Discomfort they’re good guys whose goals nevertheless put them in opposition to Maria, my protagonist. As with Hyde, it’s unsettling to think that. A little more so as the FBI and its crimes are real and Edward Hyde isn’t. I don’t think it’s objectionable: I make their views and the ugly history of the FBI quite clear (sure hope so).

It’s up to the readers — Nov. 14 for Questionable Minds, some as yet unknown date for Southern Discomfort — to let me know if I handled things as well as I think I did.

#SFWApro. Cover by Sam Collins.

 

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October 19, 2022 · 5:30 am

Questionable Minds: writing an unjust society

How do you write about the past when the past is ugly?

Much as I love the Victorian era, it’s a long-distance affair; I would never want to live back then. Society was racist, sexist, classist, homophobic and imperialistic. I don’t want to live in a society like that; flawed as the 21st century is (and right-wingers are working to make it even more so), it’s better to live now. And from a self-interest perspective the odds are better that if I reverse-reincarnated I’d be a struggling member of the working class than that I’d be to the manor born. It’s 50/50 I might be a woman; I might also be black, gay, Indian, etc. Writing about the Victorian age poses a separate question: how do you write about a world like that? There are several possible approaches:

1)Present the world in all its brutal ugliness, without comment.

2)Ignore it, if your story makes that an option. No One Can Slay Her takes place in the late 1950s; even though it’s an alt.timeline (gay marriage is normal, magic works) I suspect the U.S. otherwise looks like it does in our world. However it’s a fantasy-mystery short story where Jennifer Armstrong’s trying to save her wife from a killer; I don’t include any discussion of American foreign policy or Jim Crow because they’re not relevant.

3)Make your protagonist one of the disadvantaged. Matt Ruff told Lovecraft Country from the POV of a black man in the 1950s; criticism of the decade’s racism flows naturally from that point of view.

4)Find some other way to convey you’re not down with the bigotry of the past. Your protagonist is abolitionist in pre-1860 United States, sympathetic to gays despite the attitudes of the time, etc. While this can end up looking like you’ve just transplanted modern-day liberals to the past, it doesn’t have to: there have been people who opposed injustice in every era, even if they weren’t personally affected. In one story I’m kicking around in my head, the female co-lead (teamed up with a younger guy) had an uncle with the gay-rights Mattachine Society so she’s more liberal on that point than the average person in the 1970.

I don’t think any of these are “the” answer; they’re all valid options depending on what sort of story you’re writing and what you’re comfortable with. I doubt I could pull of #1; I’ve had a character use the n-word once, in a short story in Atoms for Peace (Available at Amazon as an ebook and paperback and at other retailers as an ebook); I think it was the right choice for the character and the story but I still wonder about it.

In Questionable Minds, Sir Simon Taggart is mostly a conventional Victorian. The British Empire is a wonderful thing and the class system is perfectly acceptable. However he does believe that even the poor deserve decent lives and a chance to better themselves; he spends a lot on charity to put his money where his mouth is. He has conventional views on women, but the women of the cast are an independent lot. That Simon’s okay with this shows he’s less conventional than he thinks, though he still expects his daughter to follow a conventional aristocratic path — no, she definitely will not be working for Scotland Yard!

Supporting cast member Francis DuQuesne is a flaming radical by companion. He’s traveled overseas and has no illusions about the empire on which the sun never sets: it’s an oppressive system and he wants it demolished. He’s allied himself with the Si-Fan, the secret society to which Sax Rohmer’s Dr. Fu Manchu belonged (that isn’t a real Chinese name and I don’t use it in the book). As I’ve written before, Fu Manchu’s goal in the books wasn’t world conquest but overthrowing British imperialism — though from Rohmer’s perspective, that was enough to make him a villain. If I sell enough copies to justify a sequel, I’ll be dealing more with that issue (I have some vague ideas already).

Even so, the book certainly isn’t a scathing social critique. I don’t intend it to be an endorsement of the Victorian way of life, either; hopefully it doesn’t come off like one. I guess reader reactions in less than a month will tell me.

#SFWApro. Top cover by Samantha Collins, bottom by Zakaria Nada.

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