Michael A. Stackpole's Blog

I’ve been writing a lot of stories set in my In Hero Years… I’m Dead universe. They’re prequels to the novels and deal with a variety of characters early on in their careers. It’s been a challenge because IHY ends their careers, so I know the direction in which I have to pitch them, and these stories are the launching pads.

I’ve listed the various stories in rough Chronological order below. Why rough? Because I have some stories that I’ve not written yet which slot into spaces between some of the ones I’ve already finished and published. However, nothing in the later stories will ruin the earlier ones—I’ve had enough experience down through the 32 years since my first novel saw print to learn how to avoid doing that. Also, the stories fall into different eras, and I am deliberately using the time gap and events that occur during it, to set up later stories and foreshadow stories all over the place.

Much of this work has also appeared as part of Scratch!, my Patreon project. Hit the link there if you want to check that out.

Also, please know, the links below are Amazon affiliate links, so I get a little bit extra if you buy through these links. The new stories are all part of the Kindle Unlimited program, so if you subscribe to it, you can read as much as you want.

So, I do have new material out, and below are the links to finding it easily.

Story Titles in Chronological Order

Need To Know

In Service Days

Field Trip

Easy as Pie

Lost Hiker

Ill Met in Lyttleton

Capital City Crime: Haunted City

Capital City Crime: Cold Comfort

Capital City Crime: Cruel Summer

Capital City Crime: Bounty Grove

Capital City Crime: Yskarion

In Hero Years… I’m Dead

Rick Loomis

In Memoriam

Rick Loomis passed away last week. He was a man of passions, and one who had that rarest of combinations: the ability to learn and the ability to laugh at himself. He was sharp and insightful and capable of surprising you.

I knew Rick for forty-two years. He was a friend and mentor, a shining example of the best of our industry; and yet a down-to-earth human being who took pleasure in even the simple things in life. Without Rick, and the opportunities he gave me, I would never have known the success I have enjoyed.

As a boss, Rick was rather unique in the industry. Even back in the 1970s he actually paid his employees for time spent working at conventions. He also gave us money for food—usually $3 because you could get a Mountain Dew and a hot dog inside the hall for that price. And when Flying Buffalo did well at a convention, he’d take the crew out to dinner at a nice place and happily cover it. He was always fair, generous and grateful.

One time, in the 1980s, Rick submitted a project to the productions department. If I recall correctly it was a solo adventure in the style of Buffalo Castle, the first solo RPG adventure. The difficulty was that the solo adventures we were producing at the time had progressed beyond that style of adventure, so Rick’s own production department rejected it. Rick accepted that with good grace. And then, later that year, an unnamed game designer came up to the booth to complain about how the Flying Buffalo productions department had rejected a project said game designer had submitted.

Rick, with a proud smile on his face, said, “Well, they’ve rejected things I’ve written, too. I trust my people.” And that was the end of that.

I used to go to a lot of shows with Rick and got to see his dedication to the industry through his involvement with GAMA. He helped found it and served on the board throughout the life of the organization. I’m certain he was the longest-running President, and it will be a good long time before anyone else comes even close to eclipsing his mark. He saw the industry through lean times and helped usher it into a time of its greatest prosperity; then stepped aside to let new, younger blood shoulder responsibility for it. As an emeritus member of the board he served as the organization’s institutional memory; always offering good and cogent advice based on his past experience.

Rick, like the industry, was capable of growth and change, yet he never abandoned his core values. As the GAMA trade show grew in importance and formality, Rick kept pace. We were preparing to go one year and I mentioned to Rick that I’d bought a new suit to wear there. He thought for a moment, then said, “Oh, I suppose I should do that, too.” I handed him the card of the guy who had taken care of me at Men’s Warehouse and off he went. The new suit looked great and Rick was even happier because he had his Arizona trademark, a bolo tie, that went with it. He was willing to play the game for the good of Flying Buffalo and the industry, but wanted to make sure everyone knew he’d not forgotten where he was from.

Rick was also one of those good friends who was proud of what his employees and former employees did. He’d always allowed us to freelance for other companies on our own time. He was always happy to point out what Liz Danforth or Steve Crompton or I were doing as we moved on. Rick always had a kind word for my books, and even told others about them. We were part of his family, always would be, and he was proud of that fact.

Even over the last year, in the face of dire medical news, Rick was unfailingly upbeat and forward thinking. Along with Steve Crompton, he organized the Kickstarter relaunch of Mercenaries, Spies and Private Eyes. Our last face to face conversation covered his plans for the future, for Flying Buffalo and for the industry. At a time, under circumstances, when so many people would turn inward, he remained committed to the future and his legacy.

I don’t honestly think there will ever be a true measure of Rick’s impact on the industry, simply because it is so broad it defies quantification. He published the second RPG ever, opening the door for every other RPG to be published. He rescued Nuclear War from obscurity, cementing card games as part of our industry from the start. He created computerized Play-by-Mail gaming, which is arguably the creative well from which all computer MMOs have flowed. StarWeb was one of the first games using licensed content (Berserkers by Fred Saberhagen). He founded the Game Manufacturers’ Association. Whenever the opportunity presented itself, he helped people in the industry with sound advice.

It will be difficult to attend shows like Origins and Gencon knowing that Rick won’t be there. I’ll find solace in the knowledge that without him, without his hard work, those shows, and the industry they sustain, might well have long since vanished.

Rest well, Rick.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

To the GAMA Board,

It is my great pleasure to have been part of the gaming industry since 1972 when I first discovered it. In 1977 I sold my first article, in 1978 I sold my first game design and in 1979 began working for Flying Buffalo, Inc.. In 1985 I was able to go freelance and since that time I have made my living through creative arts including game design and game based fiction. My work has been honored with Origins awards, and in 1993 I received the GAMA Meritorious Service award, and was a first ballot inductee into the Academy of Gaming Arts and Design Hall of Fame. I have worked long enough in this industry to have survived many of the companies for whom I worked, and have continued to enjoy fruitful associations with what companies remain.

A long time ago, to honor the industry which gave me my start, I made a personal pledge to serve it however I could. I have been a long time volunteer. I have been an advocate for gaming in perilous times. With Loren Wiseman’s help, in the late 1980s and early 1990s I successfully led the fight against the religious right and their attempts to censor and abolish the games we create, enjoy and share. I still take pride in gamers reporting to me that The Pulling Report enabled them to fight back against anti-game bigotry even to this day. Though the work is difficult, I have been pleased to continue the fight as part of the Industry Watch Committee of GAMA.

The greatest privilege I have had is to serve on the Board of Directors, initially for three years as an elected member, and the last eleven as an Emeritus member. I feel the Emeritus role on the board is a crucial one, since board turnover requires a repository of knowledge so we can avoid the pitfalls of past mistakes, and maintain the benefits of what we have learned in past times.

I regret that I must now tender my resignation from that post.

I have not reached this decision based on any political divide within the Board. I have come to it because the Board is broken. Since June, the board has had more meetings than ever before, and has done less than ever before. In one recent meeting, it took the board 45 minutes to word a resolution empowering a committee to hire a lawyer to negotiate with another lawyer. Three-quarters of an hour, in a meeting scheduled for two hours, which stretched to four.

The board is broken when the organization’s membership indicates its will; and then the board commissions a poll to second guess the membership’s will. When that poll comes back confirming what the membership wants, the board hires a lawyer to tell them they can ignore the membership. 

The board is broken when it, having previously enjoyed robust and detailed discussions about GAMA harassment policies, down to the minutia of the structuring of an investigative team to be in place at our shows, chooses only to censure an officer who physically assaulted a female security guard.

The board is broken when, in wishing to discuss me in email, without my being aware of the chain, they actually send it to a list which includes me. (Thought I’d let you know about that so you didn’t think your emails were leaked to me.)

This is not a decision reached easily, and one that comes with profound sadness. During my time in the industry, I have seen incredible change for the better, and an incredible resilience to recover from all manner of disasters—economic, social and board-generated. I have great belief that the gaming industry will survive and thrive in the future. It is bigger than any one person, or a board. It can be defined only by the pleasure and joy it brings everyone it touches, and, therefore, will be eternal.

My resignation is effective 3 PM, 5 January 2019

Michael A. Stackpole

First, for everyone who has been so patient for any update about the sequel to Talion: Revenant, thank you. I’ve talked to a lot of you at conventions, or via Twitter and other services. Your forbearance and interest have pushed me to to find a way to bring Talion: Nemesis to you. Though it has taken a long time, and my schedule keeps running into delays, I’ve finally found a way to make the sequel work.

Scratch! is a project I’m starting to deal with a number of issues that the current writing business environment has created. I don’t want to bore you with all the details (at least not right now, that can wait), but the business really demands that writers be as creative as they can in both their writing, and in their business planning. Scratch! is one such answer and, with your help, it’s really going to change how I work and deliver material.

Short form: Scratch! is a magazine of serial fiction which, through Patreon, you pay for monthly. Talion: Nemesis is going to be the focus, but I have lots of other stories ready to go. Issue Zero is a sample and you can download it for free, just to get a sense of what I’m talking about. And the more folks subscribe, the more fiction you get.

Please click on the links above and take a look. I go into more detail via the Patreon page and, again, that’s where you can get the free sample.

I am really enthused about this new project and all it portends for the future. I have a solid 18 months of material stacked up already, so I’m set for this to ramp up. Thanks for taking a look, and for joining me in this new enterprise.

As I remember it…

Way back in late December 1976, I started playing Tunnels & Trolls from Flying Buffalo, Inc.. I’d previously tried to play D&D, but I wasn’t acquainted with miniatures gaming, thus having a book that told me “a horse may move 2 inches,” made no sense whatsoever. T&T was the only alternative out there, and had the added advantage of having Solitaire Adventures. Being as how RPGs were all but unknown back in those days, being able to play by myself was a huge advantage.

Buffalo Castle by Rick Loomis was the first solo adventure, and I played that thing to death. Fairly quickly I decided to take a shot at writing a solo adventure myself, and began corresponding with Ken St. Andre—T&T’s designer and author of more solo adventures. With his encouragement I wrote two solos that were very reminiscent of Buffalo Castle. I typed them up and send them off to Rick and Ken for comments. (I suppose, somewhere around here, I have the typescripts of them, but part of me hopes I don’t. They were pretty basic.)

While Rick and Ken were kind about what I’d produced, Flying Buffalo didn’t want to buy either. But Ken did offer to let me write an article on designing a world. I agreed, and in the process designed the city of Gull and its surroundings. That article came out in 1977.

It launched my publishing career.

I decided to try another solo adventure, and wanted it to be different. I didn’t want to have the adventure underground, so I decided to set it in this city I’d newly created. I also decided that instead of just having choices of direction (north, south, east, west), I wanted moral choices. “If you choose to head toward the scream for help, choose 5B…” I wanted players to be making choices based on who they imagined their characters to be. And while that sounds wickedly insightful, I pretty much thought those choices were a lot more exciting than street directions. (Later, as the Flying Buffalo solo adventure line editor, I’d formalize the desire for heroic choices because players really responded to them.)

City of Terrors consisted of roughly a dozen different adventures. I’d written something that dwarfed the previous solo adventures primarily because I had so much fun writing it, I used tons of words. Luckily both Ken and Rick liked it, and by the end of 1977 agreed that Flying Buffalo would publish it. Rick turned the manuscript over to both Liz Danforth and Rob Carver for illustration, including the collaboration on the cover. (The above illustration also includes coloring by Steve Crompton.)

The first printing had two separate editions, including 300 signed/numbered copies. The book came out at the end of summer in 1978. It’s had a UK edition and a Japanese edition that I know of for certain. The one pictured above is the latest edition, which was part of the T&T Kickstarter program. As nearly as I know it’s seldom been out of print. Back when Flying Buffalo ran polls, COT usually came in first or second in terms of favorite solo adventures.

One of the fun things is that the trio of characters on the front, from right to left, were modeled after Rob Carver, Liz Danforth, and me. The city of Gull comes back in another solo adventure, Sewers of Oblivion and featured in my story “Wind Tiger” in the anthology of Tunnels & Trolls fiction, Mages’ Blood and Old Bones. Gull also gets a passing mention in my novel Talion: Revenant.

Next year will be City of Terrors‘ 40th Anniversary.[image error] I’m still very proud of it. In a recent trip back to Vermont to clean out of family home, I ran across notes when when I was writing it and they made me smile. Even now, at various book signings, someone invariably comes up with it, citing it as where they started reading me. And that, too, brings a smile.

Note: the above links lead to Amazon, and if you purchase these or other products subsequent to using the link, I will get a small affiliate fee.

Yesterday’s election, and the campaign leading up to it, generated a lot of stress. I offer this story as something I hope you’ll enjoy, and that might give you a moment or two free of the pressures of the ordeal we’ve all been through.

Field Trip

The pressure plate, as all pressure plates are wont to do, clicked when he stepped on it. The sound was almost imperceptible, like the half-centimeter give under his foot. It had been meant for someone of his weight or greater. No playing child would have set it off, but then no child would be playing at midnight on a rooftop overlooking the Haste Museum of Modern Art in Capital City.

No, this trap was meant for me.

Merlin, as Lemuel Lyttle was known when plying his avocation, froze. Less because to do anything else might cause the boobytrap he’d triggered to go off, then because he caught himself thinking incorrectly. The trap hadn’t been set for him specifically. He was a completely unknown quantity in Capital City. The Chartreuse Claw had set the trap, and neither he nor any of his known associates were clairvoyants.

Hidden beneath the hawk-beaked mask he wore, concealed within the dark brown, Robin-Hoodish hood, his expression changed only slightly. The line of his lips flattened grimly. His nostrils flared minutely. His pale green eyes tightened. A hundred different solutions to his immediate problem flashed through his mind, but he discarded each in turn. They became more outlandish and more desperate, each demanding more improbable combinations of the tools he had stashed in his work belt.

I am well and truly stuck.

“How acrobatic are you, son?”

A shiver raked his spine, not because of the voice, but because he’d not heard the speaker approach. Either the man had been completely silent or, worse yet, had been waiting and watching undetected. Merlin wasn’t certain which mortified him more, then realized either fell second behind being caught in the trap.

Merlin didn’t even turn his head. “Pretty good. If you were to come up on my right and extend your hand, I could press into a handstand. I’m not sure that would get us clear, though.”

“Nice idea, but I’m not sure I’m that good, son. How are you on a balance beam?”

“Good.” Relief flooded Merlin’s reply. “Real good.”

“Then we have a plan.” The silhouette of a man appeared off to Merlin’s right, holding a ten foot length of inch-wide angle-iron. “If you’ll just come up on your tip-toes, I’ll slide this beneath your heels. I’ll put some weight on either end and you should be able to walk off.”

“Ready.”

The metal bar scraped along the roof and brushed beneath Merlin’s heels. It seemed as if it took forever to get into place. His calves began to burn. He knew that was more nerves than reality, so he fought panic. Panic will kill me.

“Okay, son, you can rest your heels. Got some bags of cement under this tarp here ought to do to weigh things down.” The voice remained deep, but added a kindly and even bemused tone. No hint of strain from carrying the cement sacks, either, though they had to run fifty pounds each. “There, I think you’re good.”

Merlin turned and walked along the angled edge. He resisted the urge to do something showy, like cartwheel off. Mostly because it wasn’t his style. The rest was because of his mortification at having been caught in the first place. That wasn’t something that merited celebration.

Merlin smiled, though that remained hidden under the mask, and extended his hand toward his savior’s silhouette. “Thank you for rescuing me.”

The man stepped from shadow, and though the light was not of the best quality, there was no mistaking his identity. The tawny-brown uniform featured a feline mask with whiskers and alert triangular ears. A dark-brown paw-print rode in the middle of his broad chest, and a utility belt made from a World War II era web-belt and canvas pouches circled his waist. The mask and cowl only covered the upper part of his face, leaving his grin on full display.

He shook Merlin’s hand. “Pleased to meet you. I’m Puma.”

“I-I know you are…” Merlin’s heart pounded. “I-I mean, of course you are. You’re Puma. You just saved me. You’re Puma.”

“Easy, son, I put the tights on one leg at a time, same as you do.” Puma pumped Merlin’s hand solemnly, bringing his left hand over to complete the grasp. “And you are?”

“Oh, geez, I’m nobody. I mean, I’m Merlin, that’s what I call myself.”

“You’re an Arcanist?”

“No, but you’re not the first to ask.” Merlin covered half his face with his left hand. “I’m named after the bird, not the magician. Probably a bad choice for a name, but I’ve always liked the bird so…”

“I understand, son.” Puma’s smile broadened warmly. “I chose my name for the same reason. Always liked mountain lions, but that’s a bit of a mouthful. Glad I didn’t pick Cougar because of the car they rolled out. Now, of course, there are those sneakers…”

“Yes, sir.” Merlin looked back at the pressure plate and the museum beyond as Puma released his hand. “You were up here waiting for the Chartreuse Claw’s men to hit the museum?”

“No, I actually got in touch with a heroine—she likes to be called a hero, now, I guess, too. Feminism, and she’s right. Gold Valkyrie. Claw upgraded his weaponry for his henchmen, and Val needs a good, high-profile collar. I’d shot Claw a note telling him to be good and leave the museum alone. That’s why he set that trap. Meant it for a cat and caught a bird.”

“A pigeon.” Merlin shook his head. “I should have thought.”

“What, that he’d boobytrap the most-likely spot for staking out the museum? Maybe.” Puma shrugged. “Fact is, he hid this one well, under tarpaper and poured tar. Came up through the ceiling in the loft below. That’s how he armed it, from there, too. I’d already switched it off. I was waiting for the guys to come take it out.”

Merlin’s head slumped forward. “So it wasn’t even armed?”

“Doesn’t mean it couldn’t have gone off.”

“And you just let me walk into it?”

“Truth is, son, family is visiting and we have a young granddaughter in the house, so I didn’t sleep much today.” Puma shook his head. “I’d not have let you walk into that trap, but I was resting my eyes. The click woke me. Thought it was the guys.”

“The guys?”

“Couple of retired heroes. They clean up a lot. Lairs mostly, the occasional trap. The city has a fund they don’t talk about.” Puma glanced at the clockface glowing in the museum’s tower. “You drink coffee? I have something I have to do in a couple of hours, but we could get a cup and chat.”

“I’d be honored, sir.”

“You don’t need to sleep?”

“I’ve trained myself to get by on four hours a night.”

“And you don’t have grandkids…”

“No, sir.” Merlin smiled. “I just am one, but I’m pretty sure my grandfather doesn’t lose a wink thinking of me.”

Merlin followed Puma through the night with a bit more ease than he’d ever have expected. Capital City’s urban sprawl made prowling fairly easy. Merlin’s normal territory, Lyttleton, had an alley. One. A short one. Capital City had an endless labyrinth. Sure, the big city alleys had garbage piled here and winos sprawled there, but for undetected movement, they worked really well.

Where they had been blocked off, fire escapes and drainpipes offered access to rooftops. When their path deviated from a direct course to their destination, as Merlin later figured out, it was only so Puma could share vistas of the city at night. He’d pause long enough for Merlin to get a eyeful and then some; then he’d be off again.

They finally descended worn concrete steps in an alley and entered a basement establishment which clearly had been a speak-easy during Prohibition. A massive automaton raised a clawed hand to keep Merlin out, but Puma caught the robot’s wrist. “He’s with me. He’s good.”

Merlin smiled at the robot, whose glowing eyes went from red to a warm gold. “Thank you, sir.”

“Don’t mention it. We can get a seat over there, that booth.”

The bar hadn’t been redecorated much since Prohibition, save for adding a yellowed re-election poster for FDR and a couple more that encouraged buying war bonds. There was literally nothing in the decor, from furnishings to pictures, paintings and posters, to suggest heroes would congregate there. This despite the fact that even the bartender wore a domino mask, and everyone else donned a costume. The only concession to it being a hero headquarters was the way every booth was shadowed from the outside, but softly lit from within.

Merlin seated himself in a booth in the far corner while Puma pulled his cowl back and went to the bar. The booth was prime real estate, and given the crowd of folks in the establishment, it surprised Merlin that it was unoccupied. But then, as heroes nodded and waved at Puma as he returned with two steaming coffee mugs, Merlin realized that booth always remained empty when Puma wasn’t using it.

That surprised Merlin, but only for a second. There’s no one more deserving of such an honor.

Puma’s bare face bore redness from where the mask had pressed against flesh, but was otherwise unremarkable. The hero, who had begun his adventures fighting in Europe against the Nazis, had started the transition beyond middle age. He didn’t have the pallor of men desperately hungering for retirement, but his features no longer had the chiseled quality most folks would have ascribed to a hero. Whoever made a memorial statue of him would doubtless edge them up, matching legend to image.

Merlin pulled his hood back and peeled his mask off. “I guess this is okay, right. What?”

Puma shook his head. “You look younger than I expected.”

“I’ve been trained for a long time.” Merlin shrugged. “Since I could walk.”

“It’s not you, son.” The elder hero smiled. “You all look young to me. Makes me very happy, tell the truth. Gives me hope for the nation.”

Merlin frowned. “Do you mean because of the anti-war protests and the President’s resigning?”

“Those are just symptoms. Having been though a war, I can understand why folks are protesting against them. Some folks might see war as necessary, but there’s never been a war that isn’t cruel.” Puma sipped his coffee. “No, it’s the criminals get me down, sometimes. Their progression, you know. You look at how they move from Jesse James or John Dillinger and now we have folks like the Red Army Faction and Symbionese Liberation Army. Heck, the Irish Republican Army has just chugged right along, and we just got this Black September group. They’re the tip of the iceberg, and when villains like Sinisterion get involved, well, it’s a new world. A dangerous world.”

Merlin nodded. “You’re right, sir.” Merlin drank some coffee, and swallowed despite the brew’s bitter bite. “This is good.”

“You don’t lie well, son. This coffee would melt barnacles off a battleship’s hull. Will keep a man awake, though.” Puma grinned. “Not my intent to sound curmudgeonly, either. I do have hope. New folks like you are the reason. So, tell me, how did you happen to be up there, watching the museum?”

“Ah, well, sir, I’m in town on…” Merlin wanted to say business, but it would sound silly. “…on a field trip to the museum. A high school field trip. Our Art Department got awarded some sort of grant to study at the Haste. Once we got there I, ah, noticed some folks at the museum who didn’t seem to belong. I sketched a couple faces and they reminded me of some pictures I’d seen of Chartreuse Claw’s known associates…”

“You studied up on villains working Capital City before you came?”

“Well, not exactly.” Merlin frowned. “I spent this summer organizing files, projecting who would be most likely to come to my town and why. The Claw usually hits art museums. We don’t have one, but he’s been known to rob private collections. We do have some of those.” Like my aunt’s.

“And you just happened to remember what henchmen looked like?”

“I have kind of an ididic memory.”

“That’ll stand you in good stead.” Puma fished a well-thumbed notebook from a pouch. “I make notes.”

Merlin’s eyes widened. “You were there, at the museum. In disguise. I didn’t see you, but I saw that notebook.”

The older man flipped the notebook open to where a page had been torn out. “Slipped my note to Claw into one of his henchmen’s pocket. He never felt a thing.”

“Wow.”

“Have to always keep them guessing. If they think you’re one step ahead of them, they’ll make plans so complicated that they can’t help but break down. For example, most of them figure that you’re going to be tough to kill. Bullet to the head would do it, but they make these elaborate, Rube Goldberg deathtraps that for want of a spring here or cog there, let you get free.”

“Yes. I mean, that makes sense.” Merlin blushed. “I haven’t had much experience with deathtraps. None, really.”

“Nothing to be embarrassed about, son. I wish I knew a lot less about them.” Puma laughed easily. “Deathtraps are the part of all this I like the least. Comes a point when you decide you’ve faced your last and you retire.”

“Is that what happened to ‘the guys?’”

“I’m not sure their careers ever got far enough for that to matter.” Puma toyed with his mug. “Mister Chromium and Asynchrony Lad. They have powers, but not terribly useful ones. The Lad can stop time for anything he holds between his hands, which makes him good for bomb disposal. Mister C can do weird things with any metal he touches, provided he’s touching chromium at the same time. They were out in the desert when the A-bombs were tested. Anyway, Mr. C has trouble getting balances right—needs an ingot to do anything useful, and those aren’t easy to haul around. The Lad likes things quiet, so in a fight he’s not much. But when it comes to dealing with bombs and explosives and traps, they’re aces.

“But, I think you are trying to get me to tell stories, when I want to hear about you, Merlin.”

“Not much to tell, sir.” Merlin grasped the mug in both gloved hands. “I don’t have powers, just a lot of training. I was, I guess, modeled on you. I mean, I’m no where near…”

“I consider it a compliment, son. A huge compliment.” Puma nodded. “Your parents must be proud.”

“I would hope so, sir. They died when I was young.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Got to say, I’m not surprised. I knew, really, which is why I said what I said.”

“I don’t understand.”

Puma pointed casually around the room. “Like as not, the majority of the folks here are orphans. Heroing isn’t easy. There’s not a parent worth the name who would wish this life on a child. Most would be horrified to see what we go through. Mine, God bless them, don’t know and won’t know. And I’d never ask a child of mine to do this.”

Merlin nodded. “I have a friend. He has powers. His parents don’t like the idea of his being a hero at all.”

“Tell him to go easy on them.” Puma shook his head. “I don’t have a child in the family business, but when I sent my son off to Southeast Asia, just about tore my heart out. Your friend’s parents will feel that every time he goes out.”

“I’ll tell him, sir.”

“I’m sure you will. You’re a good boy.” Puma smiled. “I mentioned I have something I have to do. Small job. Would you like to come along?”

Would I? Who do I have to kill? Merlin didn’t even attempt to hide his surprise, or the smile that quickly devoured it. “It would be an honor.”

“The honor will be all mine.” Puma finished his coffee. “I’ll let you throw the first punch and, if we’re lucky, that’ll be the last one, too.”

***

Merlin followed Puma through the somnambulant city. They remained off street level for the most part, moving from roof to roof. They only touched ground when an alley was too wide for them to make the leap. Aside from a few outraged cats and some stoned kids staring at the stars, no one noticed their passing.

Merlin was glad he wore a mask, because his grin wasn’t the sort of thing a superhero should have on his face. Here he was, moving through the Capital City night with Puma. It was like having Micky Mantle asking some no-name rookie to have a catch. Just watching Puma move so fluidly through the shadows contrasted so sharply with the nice man in the bar, that Merlin had a hard time reconciling the two of them being one person.

Will I ever be that confident?

There’d been a point in Merlin’s training when it stopped being a game and became something real. Instead of playing at cool things, he understood why he was being trained. At that point he realized how difficult it was to do what he was being trained to do—and yet Puma had been wearing the mask for almost thirty years. Merlin used his example to keep going when he wanted to quit. Every day his awe of Puma had grown.

And now, here he was, arm’s length from his role model, joining him in an adventure. He couldn’t wait to get back to Lyttleton to tell Grant all about it. Grant would understand. He is probably the only person who can.

Puma padded over to skylight and crouched. He waved Merlin forward, then pointed. Decades of cigarette smoke and city grime had deposited a yellowish stain on the glass. It distorted but couldn’t hide the four men in the warehouse space below, shifting big boxes full of cigarettes. They had plenty of room to store the boxes. Aside from a card table, some folding chairs, a side table with a hotplate, a janitorial sink, and rusting steel pillars, the storage area remained empty.

Three of the men didn’t look like much, but the fourth, a tall, powerfully-built redhead, clearly was running the operation. All four of them wore leather jackets with Bank Street Bombers spelled out on the back—which Merlin took as being very bold or very stupid and possibly both. They were working hard, but not industriously. Merlin figured it would take another couple of hours for them to get everything stowed away.

Puma pulled back and kept his voice low. “You think you can keep Winkin, Blinkin and Nod occupied?”

“What’s the plan?” Merlin jerked a thumb at the skylight. “Thirty foot drop to the floor and then… Did I say something wrong?”

Puma scrubbed a hand over his mouth. “You’d do a drop like that through broken glass?”

“I’ve been trained for a forty-five on concrete.” Merlin glanced down. “You saw something I didn’t down there.”

“I did.” Puma gave his shoulder a squeeze. “The loading dock side door is open. We’ll take the fire escape down, go in that way. Not as flashy as your idea, but what little cartilage I have left in my knees will appreciate it more.”

“Good point. Breaking an ankle is not a good way to start a fight.”

“Unless it belongs to one of them.”

They descended undetected and reached the loading dock easily. Merlin grabbed a push-broom and unscrewed the stick, giving him a staff roughly five feet long. Puma nodded and tugged at his glove cuffs. Like Merlin’s gloves, they had lead shot sewn in over the knuckles. That added heft that made it seem as if they were punching with bricks.

Puma yanked the door open and pointed directly at the redhead. “Surrender now, you and your friends, and this doesn’t have to end badly.”

The redhead dropped the box he’d been hauling and balled his fists. “You deal with the brownie, boys. Puma is all mine.”

Merlin wanted to protest that he wasn’t a brownie, but the trio of Bombers boiling at him forestalled his comment. The fight wasn’t like in the movies. There Bruce Lee would spin the staff slowly, pacing like an encircled tiger, then explode into his opponents, scattering them. The Bombers just came on like a wave, giving Merlin no time for theatrics.

He cut to his right, moving away from the center of their line. He struck with the stick fast and hard, three times. He lashed the nearest man knee, hip and face, spinning him back into his buddies. One of them went down in a tangle of limbs, but the other kept coming.

Merlin flipped the stick around, then leaped, using it as a pole vaulter would a pole. He caught the next Bomber with both feet in the chest. The man flew backward, hitting the edge of the card table. It went over and he landed hard on a metal folding chair, which groaned as it twisted out of shape.

The third man had regained his feet. He’d had martial arts training, or had watched Bruce Lee in the movies. He snapped a kick at Merlin’s head, but Merlin had seen it coming. He corkscrewed down beneath the flying foot and swept the man’s back leg with his own. The Bomber landed hard on his tailbone. His yelp descended into a painful groan, then he just stretched out on the floor.

Merlin rose, stared hard at all three Bombers to keep them down, then turned to watch Puma.

Puma and the redhead squared off. The hero surrendered six inches and forty pounds to his opponent. The redhead opened a few wild swings, which Puma slipped or ducked. Puma pulled his arms in close as the redhead settled down and rained a flurry of punches on him. Nearly as Merlin could see, Puma blocked all of them, save for a heavy left hand that caught the older man in the ribs.

The redhead paused after that punch. He’d thrown it before in countless fights. It had always been a winner. The disbelief on his face made that fact clear as day. Puma was tougher than anyone he’d gone toe-to-toe with before.

“Good one, son.” Puma nodded. “Done now.”

“I haven’t even started, old man.”

“Wasn’t a question, son.”

Faster than Merlin could follow, Puma delivered a quick combination to the redhead’s belly. He stepped into each punch, driving the man back. Each blow sounded like rumbling thunder. With each punch the redhead’s shoulders curled in a bit. By the third he’d dropped both hands to cover his stomach.

Puma’s fourth punch splashed the man’s nose all over the middle of his face. The redhead’s knees wobbled, then he just folded up in on himself. He hit the floor heavily, bounced a little, then lay on his side with his nose dripping blood.

Puma turned around toward the other Bombers. “Oh, good, Merlin, I see you didn’t have any trouble with them. You boys better remember his name. You’ll be hearing a lot of it in the future. Tell your friends.”

Merlin nodded toward Puma’s ribs. “You okay?”

“Epsom salts are my best friend.” Puma smiled. “You did good, son. Very impressive.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“You’re welcome.” The older man sighed. “And now for the grand finale.”

“Call the cops?”

“Not unless we have to.”

Puma picked up the folding chair, bent a leg back to a useful shape and set the chair down. He hauled the Bank Street Bombers’ leader into it, then dug an ammonia ampule from his belt and cracked it under the man’s bloody nose. The unconscious man started, his eyelids fluttering, then he snorted blood over his shirt front.

Puma produced a handkerchief from a pouch. “Here you go, son.”

The man stared at it, then spat at the floor. “Get that away from me. You get away from me.”

Puma’s fist closed around the folded square of white cotton. “I don’t believe we’ve met before, but I know who you are. Eric Henderson. Your parents are Don and Helen.”

Eric looked up, his eyes angry slits. “I don’t have a father.”

“That’s not true. I served with your father in Europe.”

“Bully for you, then. You saw more of him than I ever did.” The beaten man snarled. “You weren’t there in Korea.”

“No, I wasn’t.”

“So, you let him die.”

The accusation hit hard, slumping Puma’s shoulders just a bit. “I was very sorry to hear about your father’s death. I sent your mother a note, telling her what a wonderful man she’d married.” Puma lifted his chin. “I said I hoped that you would be just as noble a man as he’d been.”

“You didn’t get your wish.” Eric spat bloody phlegm to the floor, hitting his own sneakers. “No one gets what they want.”

“Here’s what I know, son.”

“Don’t call me that. I ain’t your son.” The man shook his head. “I ain’t nobody’s son.”

“Is that what this is about, Eric? That your father died defending his country when you were eight?” Puma opened his left hand. “Your whole life spent acting out because your father died? You didn’t think you could be as good and noble as he was, so you spend every day of your life proving that you aren’t?”

“Screw you.”

“How tough is it to be good?” Puma pointed at Merlin. “See that young man over there? He lost both his father and mother when he was younger than you were when your father died. Every day he works at being good. It’s the right thing to do, and the right way to honor his parents. He could be like you, trapped in a dirty, damp store room shifting boxes of moldy coffin-nails, but he isn’t. He sits in a tower, working hard, to make something of himself. He works hard to keep the world safe, just like your father did.”

Eric sneered in Merlin’s direction. “Must be nice being teacher’s pet.”

Puma held a hand up to forestall any comment. “You’re just full of spite, aren’t you? I hope your boys here take note. They look up to you, Eric. You might not like it, but you’re responsible for them. You tell them this would be an easy score? You tell them that boosting cigarettes wouldn’t attract any notice? And you boys believed him? You believed a man who hates himself so much he’s doing everything to push people away and make them hate him?”

The thugs at Merlin’s feet looked around at each other, grumbled and shrugged. “We didn’t have nothing else to do.”

“And think of how much good you could have been doing?” Puma squatted, coming down to Eric’s eye level. “They’d have done anything you told them to do. You think you can’t do anything, but you can lead them. Being a leader, that’s a talent. You got that from your father. And don’t say you didn’t because it’s clear. You also got your left hand from him.”

Eric stared vacantly down at the red spittle on his sneakers. “Next birthday, I’ll be as old as he was when he died.”

“You don’t want to be joining him. It would break his heart. Your mother’s heart, too.” Puma rose slowly and held the handkerchief out to him. “And your sister, didn’t I just see she gave birth to a boy? Donald Eric Cooper? I don’t know his dad, but I know that a boy in this world could use an uncle. A strong uncle, one who’s learned lessons the boy doesn’t need to learn. Don’t you want to be that uncle, Eric? Wouldn’t that be better than being the uncle no one mentions, save when he’s getting out of jail?”

Eric sighed heavily. “It’s not that easy, man. You say ‘be good,’ like that’s all we have to do, but it ain’t.”

“Son, even the things that look easy aren’t easy.” Puma smiled. “You saw how easily Merlin there whipped your three friends? How hard do you train, Merlin? How many hours per day, how many years?”

Merlin wanted to keep his voice deep and forbidding, but sensed it wasn’t the time for that. He let himself sound like what he was: a seventeen year old kid. “Fighting, two hours a day four times a week, one hour every other day, for the past twelve years. At least, that’s what I remember.”

“And you go to school and do other things, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

Puma nodded. “Just ten hours of training will make you lots better at fighting than you are now, Eric. Ten hours of anything will make you loads better.”

“What if I train so I can kick your ass?”

“You can try. Chances are you won’t, since I have a head start on you.” Puma shrugged. “What I think you’re going to find is this—that being good is rewarding in and of itself. It may not be easy, but it’s not as hard as you think it is. Smile instead of frowning. Do something nice for folks, make them smile. If you ask yourself how can I make the next person’s day better, then do it, you’ll make your world better.”

“You didn’t make my world better, tonight.”

“We stopped you making someone else’s world worse.”

The smartest of the henchmen nodded. “He’s got a point there, Eric.”

“Shut up, Marty.”

Puma shook the handkerchief out and draped it over Eric’s knee. “Thing of it is this, son: I understand. Merlin here understands. That’s not going to be true of everyone. There’s other heroes who will bust you up badly, or send you to an institution where they rewire your brain. They won’t give you any options, but I will. I will let you walk away. I’ll report that we found the stolen cigarettes and that will be that. I’ll give you another chance. I’d take you at your word that you’ll be good.”

Eric blinked, then looked up. “You’d trust me?”

“I would.”

“Why?”

“I trusted your father. And I trust the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

Eric picked up the white handkerchief and wiped blood from his nose. “What happens if I backslide?”

Puma rubbed a hand over his own ribs. “I’m not sure I’m wanting to take another of your punches, so I’ll likely just give Merlin a call, see if he fancies a visit to the city. But let me tell you this. These questions you’re asking, these objections you’re raising, they’re just something you want someone else to knock down for you. You want to change your life. You know it’s the right thing. For yourself, for your boys, for your nephew. Thing is, you knew my answer before I said it. Now you know why you asked, and why asking more questions is just wasting time.”

Eric looked down at the bloodstain, then nodded. He made to hand the handkerchief back to Puma.

Puma shook his head. “Keep it. I borrowed a thing or three from your father. Time for me to make that debt right. Go on, now. Be good.”

Eric stared at him for a moment, then turned and headed out. His crew trailed behind him, confused but relieved and even jocular. What Merlin had originally taken to be a group of unrepentant hardcases turned out to be a bunch of normal guys who just worked odd jobs.

Merlin waited for the sound of their footsteps to die. “Did you really know his father?”

“I did. All I said was true. It would kill his father to see Eric the way he is.” Puma sighed wearily. “He’s been a concern of mine, but nothing seemed to get through until tonight. That’s your doing. I think Eric thought no hero would be chasing after small-fry the likes of him. I have. You’re his future. Between that and his nephew, he didn’t have much choice.”

“Kind of like me.”

Puma smiled. “Meaning?”

“You told him I lost my parents when I was very young.”

“You told me, remember? And here you said you’d trained for a dozen years.” Puma winked at him. “That means you started when you were five or six. That’s younger than when Eric’s father died.”

“Yes, sir, that’s true.” Merlin glanced down at his hands. “But I didn’t mention any tower. You did, which means you know where I come from. You probably have figured out who I am. I’m also going to guess you somehow arranged for that grant that got my class here, so you could check me over. Am I right?”

“Your brain is a bit more dangerous than Eric’s left hook.”

“Why the deception, sir?” Merlin cocked his head. “With what you know, you could have gotten a message to me. We could have talked in Lyttleton or here.”

Puma smiled. “Let’s see if you can work that out, Merlin.”

The young man frowned behind his mask. If meeting in and of itself wasn’t the focus, what was? Testing him under combat conditions was part of it, but that could have been done anywhere, and covertly, too. It must have had to do with Eric…

Merlin nodded, then glanced up. “You wanted me to see Eric. You wanted me to see that mercy can be a useful tool?”

“That’s one part of it. Maybe the rest is too tough. Not that you’re not smart, but there’s some stuff not many folks know. Not even Eric.” Puma leaned on the chair Eric had vacated. “During the war I had a partner on a couple of adventures. He called himself Forest Fox. He started in the Ardennes, during the Battle of the Bulge. He did a lot, then got promoted from Sergeant to Lieutenant. More responsibility, so he dropped the heroing.”

“That was Eric’s father?”

“Right.” Puma’s head bobbed for a moment. “Eric has his father’s build, his father’s fight. I always hoped that he’d turn out all right. That maybe I could tell him about his father’s secret. But if he’d known before tonight, he’d have just made himself into a villain. That’s the easy way, and he would have taken it.”

Merlin’s breath caught in his throat. In a heartbeat, a sense of betrayal washed over him. He forced it aside and glanced back at the doorway, then at Puma again. “You wanted me to see what it would be like if I took the easy way. You wanted to warn me off being a villain?”

“That’s certainly another big part of it. Most of it.” Puma, hand on his bruised ribs, shifted his shoulders stiffly. “And I wanted to see, were you to take the easy way, if I could stop you. Not sure I could now, and in another couple of years, not at all.”

Betrayal tried to come back on Merlin, but he held it off easily this time. It wasn’t the compliment that allowed him to do that. The realization that he’d studied his friend Grant to determine the same thing did the trick. Puma holds himself responsible for the actions of those he’s inspired. That’s not his burden, but his willingness to accept it is amazing.

“You’re never going to have to worry about me, sir.”

“I’d come to that conclusion, son, happily.” Puma smiled. “So let me leave you with one more thing to think about. Some folks—most folks—are worth saving; but a whole legion of them don’t have a solid grounding when it comes to gratitude.”

“I’m not sure I understand, sir.”

“You will.” The older man chuckled. “I’ve chased down purse snatchers and returned purses to women who want to know why I let the criminal break the strap on the purse. I’ve seen parents happy when I return a kidnapped child, then turn angry when they realize I’ve tracked some mud into the house; or I’m leaking blood on their carpet. I put it down to stress, but there are times I wonder why I do it.”

“What’s your answer?”

“Well, I figure that I can do somethings others can’t. Those things need doing. Therefore, it’s my responsibility to do them. People’s gratitude, or lack thereof, really doesn’t factor in.” Puma shrugged. “Might seem foolish, but that’s what I think and I’m a bit too old to go changing my ways now.”

“I hope you know I’m smiling behind this mask. Even in my town, we have folks like that. Not bad, just sometimes lacking perspective. But they bleed red like everyone else, so you have to save them.” Merlin opened his hands. “Maybe that’s the true burden of being a hero—having to save folks you might not want to.”

“Because it’s the right thing to do.”

“Yes, sir.”

Puma came around from behind the chair and draped an arm across Merlin’s shoulders. “I think, son, you’ll be good, very good.”

Merlin was happy he’d not removed his mask, because the flush of his cheeks would have lit the basement like neon. “I’ll do my best, sir. I’ll follow your example.”

“You humble me, son.” Puma smiled. “Now you should get back to your hotel. Dawn will be here soon enough.”

“I’m used to not sleeping, sir.”

“But I’m not.” Puma gave him a solid pat on the back. “How about this: next time you come to the city, we can see what the Chartreuse Claw is up to. Maybe we’ll see if we can’t get him to rethink his line of work.”

“I’d like that, sir, very much.”

“So would I, son, so would I.”

***

This story first appeared in the anthology Heroes. Merlin appears in a bunch of new stories set in the universe of In Hero Years… I’m Dead. Puma appears in those stories and in the novel. If you’ve not read that book, the image below (or the one above) will send you over to Amazon and the link to the Kindle version of the novel. It’s the Delux version of the book, by the way, which includes an 8,000 word essay about how the book got written—the Director’s Commentary on the book, if you will.

Thanks to Chantelle Osman of Sirens of Suspense for suggesting I share a story today.

This October, I’ll be teaching a NANOWRIMO Prep class for the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing at Arizona State University. In the past I’ve offered similar classes (alone and in conjunction with Aaron Allston) to get writers all organized for National Novel Writing Month. The task of writing a 50,000 word novel inside a month (a month complete with holidays), can be daunting. Organizing yourself ahead of time is critical to successfully starting and finishing a novel in a month.

Can you do it? Sure. I’ve written a bunch of novels inside thirty days, and most of the ones I’ve done come in at roughly 100,000 words. I, Jedi, by way of example, came in at 167,000 words and got written in thirty-one days. Granted, writing that novel was my day job at the time, and wasn’t the first novel I’d written, but based on that experience and more, I have a really good idea about how you get past obstacles and turn out a good novel in a short period of time.

The class description explains things in a nutshell. In short, the class will cover time management, plotting and characterization skills so you don’t run into that wall of wondering “what do I do now?” More importantly, because this class is in person, we’ll be able to discuss issues and answer questions, working each writer through their personal situations and showing them how to refrain from letting the work bog down.

I am really excited about this class. NANOWRIMO is a great experience for writers, and I’m really happy about helping writers attain the goal of producing their novel. If you are in the Phoenix area, please join me and your fellow writers for class that will push you even closer to writing a novel.

Let me dust off the blog here.

One of the reasons I’ve not been blogging with any regularity is that I’ve been heavily involved with the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing at Arizona State University. I’m the director of the Science Fiction/Fantasy wing of the Center’s Your Novel Year program. This is an 18 month long certificate program, conducted online, in which students go from a blank page to a finished novel. They work primarily with me, and then are mentored by other authors and editors, to have their dream of writing a novel come true.

It’s been very rewarding and educational for me to be designing and working on this program. Each year I get to select a dozen or so students from among all the applicants to the program. I look for skills and talent, then get to step them through the arduous task of learning how to write on a professional level. Watching the progression of the students has been amazing, and I have high hopes for all of them.

In one of the open chats we have running, one of my students asked a great pair of questions:

When you are working on/in a new universe, how do you keep from getting overwhelmed with all of the stories that are there to be told? How do you wade through the backstories of various characters to truly share the now story?

I was going to reply in that chat but realized there’s no simple answer to the above because writing is a process. The answer is going to be a bit long, so I decided to share it with all of you, too.

Here are the things which I think are important.

Ideas are cheap: All of us, when we have an idea that’s clearly brilliant, are prone to put it on a pedestal, or make it central to whatever we’re doing. This is something that beginning writers often fall prey to—jealously guarding that golden idea because it’s so valuable. You can tell if you’re that fixated on an idea by being reluctant to share it in case someone else wants to steal it.

Fact is that any idea we have can be improved. This usually happens in combination with other ideas. A really good question to ask yourself is “How can I use [this idea] to achieve [a goal]?” It gets you looking past the glowing spark of an idea toward practical uses for it

Story and world development is a cyclical process. You get an idea, you begin to work with it, the idea changes and/or forces changes in other ideas. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. This continues in the writing, too. That results in a lot more ideas and stories spinning off.

For example, in the DragonCrown War novels, I had my main character in the first book wearing a mask because, basically, I thought it was a cool idea. But then I had to think about the practical applications of it. If he has this great mask, and goes to a public bath, what does he do with it? Can’t wear it in the bath, so I created bathing masks. Practical solution. And we had to have curtain alcoves in homes, so folks on the street couldn’t see into a home where folks might be running around unmasked. And so it went, with masks being laden with a lot more meaning and consequence.

Thus, even if you have an outstanding idea, how you work it into the story, or build the story around it, means you’ll be doing a lot of development. Just having the idea is only be beginning.

Write all the story ideas down. When developing a story, I start with a notebook and jot down everything. I make maps and charts, record statistics, figure out the monetary system and do everything a good gamemaster does in developing a world. When I get a story idea I flip (usually) to the notebook’s last page and jot down that idea. As I build the world and story up, I grab those ideas and work them in, or further refine them.

The best stories to tell have an emotional component to them. We’ve all read stories which are, in essence, a series of events. Take, for example, H. G. Wells’ The War of The Worlds. It’s entirely a series of events that happen to the narrator. To Wells’ credit, characterization and emotional storylines weren’t really a big thing back when he was writing.

Character growth is very important in books today. I do my best, in every novel, every novella, every story, to have a growth arc for at least one character. This means I look at the emotional impact the events will have on each character. I make sure their reactions are in character, and that they learn something from the experience. I’ve found that stories which allow me to do that are far more rewarding to write and read than stories that do not. When I find a story that’s emotionally laden, I know I’ve found something I need to write.

Really, when you think about it, it’s the emotional aspect which elevates a tale from a dry cascade of points in time into a meaningful and relatable story. Since stories are supposed to communicate to the reader, this is an enviable type of tale to create.

So, in short, write everything down, massage it, find the emotional connection, and write. Not only respect the fact that this is a process, but indulge it. The results will be better than you first imagined.

Let me state from the outset that I have zero interest in awards. While they are an honor when fairly awarded—and it would be fun to have that merit badge in my collection—the reality is that in the big game, Hugos, Nebulae and other awards really mean nothing to the life of a working writer. Aside from having an editor decide to include your winning story in an awards anthology, the economic impact is pretty much zero. As Jerry Pournelle once commented, “Money will see you through times of no awards better than awards will see you through times of no money.”

That said, it would have been easy for me to blissfully ignore the rabid puppy hijacking of the Hugo awards. As many others have noted, SF awards have always been political. The Sad Puppies and the Rabid Puppies are far from the first people to ever stuff a ballot box to get their friends (or themselves) on the ballot. And a study of winners cross-correlated to the geographical location for both them and the convention produces a bias for “home town heroes.”

The reasons I can’t ignore the current controversy are legion, but chief among them is having to own responsibility for what’s going on in my field. To be silent is to be complicit, apathy is approval. Because I care about the field, and the state of humanity, I am sharing my thoughts.

I grew up in the Sixties and Seventies and was smart enough, perhaps precociously so, to understand the effects that the Civil Rights movement (being the movement to promote equality for everyone) would have on my life. Redressing centuries of oppression would require, I reasoned, a minimum of three generations. Because of my situation, I’d be smack-dab in the first generation, and that meant things would get a bit bumpy.

Generation One: To work toward equality and a stronger society, those who were in the privileged class would be required to share power and opportunities with those who had little of either previously. Having been trained as a historian, I knew this wasn’t anything unusual, but that in earlier times this power sharing had generally been accomplished by non-governmental means. Disadvantaged parties banded together to create secret societies, criminal associations, and political machines. They gnawed away at the current power structure. This is seen most easily by studying how the Irish integrated into the American political landscape. This process began in the middle of the 19th Century and culminated in the election of John F. Kennedy as President in 1960. And yet, discrimination against Irish and Catholics did not vanish—and are alive and well today.

Thus, as I became a thinking adult, I understood that were I to apply for a position and if I was deemed just equal to another candidate, I might get passed over. Fact is, that’s the reality of any employment situation, which is why working as hard as you can to do better is a winning strategy.

I’ve heard a lot of carping about the inequity of affirmative action. People complain about how it’s not fair, since white males born when I was didn’t do any oppressing. Why should we pay for the sins of others?

“Why me?” isn’t the question that needs to be answered. The question is, “Do you want this society to become stronger or not?” I figured out that I was strong enough to endure a little unequal treatment so folks who had endured far more could have an even chance at success. Just as I’d not oppressed anyone, neither did those who sought fair treatment deserved being treated as some underclass because of skin color or gender. And there are those who will claim the pendulum has swung too far, but I’ve always found that to be the whine of thwarted entitlement and frustrated privilege. I mean, really, if you see yourself as superior, pull on your big boy pants and work hard like everyone else trying to make a buck.

Of course, every candidate who is passed over feels he was more than equal to the competition. Thus the choice becomes either acknowledging that they were just equal or, gosh, inferior to the competition; or that they were discriminated against. Guess which ego-salving choice is the easiest to accept?

What I accepted is that things would be rougher for me than they might have been in the past. But I was okay with that. My career choice minimized the effect of affirmative action. Entrepreneurs—especially freelance creatives—face such an uphill struggle that going a more traditional route would have been easier. But this was the life I chose, and because I made that choice, I realized I had no right to whine about how I got treated.

Puppies take note.

Generation One forced people of diverse cultures and genders into community together. From the very first I don’t think there was anyone who thought this sort of affirmative action would result in Harmony and Enlightenment en masse or would be without pain. People got jostled and smacked around. People got upset. People retrenched and went underground with their prejudices. That was predictable, to be expected, and ultimately didn’t mean anything. That’s because Generation One was prep for Generation Two.

Generation Two: Because people were forced to work together in Generation One, their children had opportunities to get to know each other as people from their first moments of cognition. Kids don’t start out with prejudices, they learn them from their parents. And as they grow up, and grow to be distinct from their parents, they adopt their own opinions and coping mechanisms. Generation Two kids grow into adults that see diversity as normal. It’s about who the person is on the inside, not the outside, that matters.

Sure, there’s going to be complaining; but that’s normal. A suck-up at work is always going to be a suck-up. A whiney asshole will always be a whiney asshole, regardless of gender, skin-color or sexual preference. And we’ll always be suspicious of that which is unfamiliar—a survival trait that helped get us into this mess in the first place. (If the Neanderthal had that trait, Homo Sapiens likely wouldn’t have wiped them out.) There will be tension—there will always be tensions—but they ease.

Until recently, I used to play indoor soccer here in Phoenix (a Generation Two sport if there ever was one). I played on a co-ed team. There were players on other teams that I absolutely loathed because I only saw them in an adversarial situation. They might celebrate putting the ball past me, but I’d see that as gloating. There was one player, in fact, from Europe, who was arrogant and mouthy and, unfortunately for me, hugely skilled. I could have bricked over the entire mouth of the goal, and he’d still get it past me.

And he gloated. During the game. After the game. Before the next game. Insufferable.

Then something miraculous happened. Someone told him who I was. Turned out, he was a huge Star Wars fan. He’d actually read my X-wing novels and loved them. And from that point forward he still scored, but didn’t gloat. On those occasions where I filled in on his team, he was incredibly encouraging and helpful. Why? Because we’d found a way to connect.

Generation Two is all about creating those connections.

Generation Three: Generation Three is where we’re headed now. I don’t have children (of which I am aware), but their children would be Generation Three. They’d be growing up in a world that still had prejudices, but they’d not be immediate or automatic. Growing up in the internet era, they’d have friends that they only knew through reading their blogs or chatting with them in IM. They might not even know the physical nature of the person they’ve become friends with. Contrary to certain opinions, this doesn’t spell the end to civilization.

Unless, of course, you define civilization from a reactionary position and declare anything smacking of progress as deviant, corrupt, corrosive and blasphemous. There have always been people who have done that. There always will be. According to studies cited in John Dean’s Conservatives Without Conscience, approximately 23% of the human population is conservative by nature and highly resistant to change. These people, regardless of gender, gender preference or skin color are as much victims of their genetic makeup as, well, the people they pigeonhole because of their genetic makeup.

The problem for them, quite simply, is in the numbers. More of us look toward progress, and accept change as good, than exist in the reactionary reservoir of humanity. That reactionary forces slow things isn’t always bad—the pace of change especially now really demands that we take some time for proper reflection on the consequences of our actions. Given that tech can now allow us to wipe out our own species, and most of the rest of the world, thoughtfulness isn’t a vice.

To me, the oddest part about the Rabid Puppies and their lamenting that they don’t get awards is that they’re pointing to the wrong reason why they’re left out in the cold. It’s not because they’re an oppressed minority. It’s because they don’t write the kind of work that gets awards. The Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy awards have traditionally been handed out to new voices addressing new ways of telling stories, addressing new issues and new technology. When geographical bias is factored out of the awards, over and over again they go to works which are imaginative, well-written and, more often than not, of diminished popularity. After the fact they might become classics, but their more-likely fate is to go out of print despite having won an award.

I’ve been working in this field since 1988 (when my first two novels came out). I’ve never been short-listed for an award of any sort in the field. Why? Because I write series fiction. Because I write fantasy. Because I write military SF. Because I write franchise fiction. I’ve been just as solidly frozen out by the literary establishment as any of the puppies, but it doesn’t bother me.

Why not?

1) Awards don’t move the needle on sales.

2) I can’t eat awards.

3) Awards are not a referendum on quality of writing.

4) Awards reflect notoriety during a mote of time, neither conferring immortality nor success upon the recipients.

5) Readers who only read or respect award-winning authors and their work are outside my target demographic: that being people who want to read a rousing good tale that, maybe, will allow them to reflect on an issue or conundrum now and again.

I get the fact that some of the Puppies are writing the sort of SF which they grew up reading and enjoying. Some of the real classic SF. They love it. They want to write it. I have had many writers and students tell me that’s all they want to do: to write the sort of classic stories that they grew up reading.

Fact is, I love old time radio drama. I could easily write radio dramas and record them as podcasts and make them available to anyone who wants them. I’d have fans who liked them as well, but none of us would ever expect those dramas to become “mainstream” or to be treated as anything more than quaint nods to what had been done 80 years previously. There’s no rational person who could look at the current landscape and assume that the case would be otherwise.

As I’ve told many writers and students, it’s fine if you want to write the SF you loved when you were a kid. If you want to sell your SF, get a time machine and sell to editors back then, because today those stories aren’t cutting it. That is simply a fact, just the same as the fact that any writer who couldn’t do characterization after 1988 had his career die, no matter how big he was before that point in time. We are dealing with market realities, and while they might seem utterly unfair and arbitrary, that’s the real world. Suck it up.

Writers write. Professional writers write and get paid for their output. That’s it. Writers existed before there were awards, they’ll exist and keep writing long after awards have faded away or, worse, there are so many awards that everybody wins one. And, at that time, there will be a sliver of the community that bitches about winning an award they didn’t want to win. (And if you don’t believe that, come on over to the gaming industry. We have examples. And dice.)

The one thing the Puppies did get right was their name: Puppies. Puppies are immature, are full of sound and fury signifying nothing, tend to chew up things they shouldn’t, and make messes everyone else has to clean up. The problem is that the discussion they pretend to be having is an adult discussion, which requires serious consideration and thoughtfulness. That’s something Puppies aren’t capable of, and thus it falls to the rest of us to see to it that they are not rewarded for their misbehavior.

I love science fiction and fantasy. I love its ability project into a future as a cautionary tale. I love that it takes me away from the everyday. I love that it introduces me to people who are nothing like me and allows me to see life through their eyes. If SF/Fantasy has a mission beyond entertainment, that’s it. SF is the literature of diversity. Anyone who doesn’t understand that and rejoice in it will forever, alas, be sad.

Up to this point, the High Intensity Writing Workouts have focused largely on characters and dialogue. Characters are the lifeblood of any story. We read for characters. If a writer can get them done correctly—making them believable—then the writer will have a career.

What most writers don’t realize is that the worlds we create—no matter how close to ours or how distant from it—are also characters. They develop more slowly, and all actions impact on them. Worlds also impact on characters. They require a lot of energy to change on any permanent basis.

One of the most fun things I do as a writer is to develop worlds. Because of my gaming background, I actually like designing things right down to the tiniest details. While a character in a book might not care about the exchange rate on credits between worlds, a player-character in a game will thrive on such a thing. I often find it’s these details that really make a world alive, and certainly mark it as different from our world.

I also like politics and depicting it in books. Politics, at its most basic, is the use and manipulation of others and power to attain yet more power. If you want to know how any society works, just pick out the concentrations of power and look at how people gather more or how people steal it away.

I did this when I was writing the Star Wars™ X-wing novels. Ysanne Isard looked at the New Republic and knew that to gather power and legitimacy (a force multiplier of power), they needed to take the Imperial Home world. To do this they would need to preserve their human/alien coalition. Since they were focused on freeing aliens from slavery/forced labor, if they accomplished their goals they would destroy wealth—another source of power. Thus, if they succeeded in taking Coruscant, they would be short cash.

Isard realized that she could use the lack of capital to fracture the human/alien coalition. She created a disease that attacked only non-humans, and could be cured only through the use of Bacta. Bacta, because it was controlled by a cartel, spiked in price as the demand spiked. Thus, either the New Republic had to bleed itself dry of money, or face charges that the humans didn’t care about the aliens, shattering the alliances that had been the source of the rebellion.

As the writer, I looked at the situations that existed in the Galaxy Far, Far Away, applied some simple questions to them, and used the results to set fairly titanic forces to work. The results, in this case, spanned four novels.

The Workout:

Choose a world. It can be this one, or one of your own design. Study it for concentrations of power. Usual suspects are places that have a lot of wealth, have a ton of believers, or areas where commodities in short supply are controlled. Nationalism is essentially a religion in this regard.

Once you’ve picked out a target area, write out the answers to the following questions:

1) Who has the power and how do they manifest the power? (The Pope, for example, has money and believers. He manifests the power through guidelines that proscribe or encourage certain behaviors—being charitable, starting a crusade, boycotting certain books, excommunication for certain offenses.)

2) What would disrupt this power/situation? (For the Pope, we could have a schism, we could have Jesus return and repudiate Rome, we could have a series of scandals that undercuts the Pope’s credibility, we could have alien envoys show up noting that early revelations were a hoax some of their teens played on primitive man.)

3) What would be necessary to disrupt this power, and what are the steps needed to make that happen? (In the above example, hackers crack a Vatican bank, see that certain churches are laundering money for criminal cartels and that a network of monasteries and convents is being used for human trafficking. An intrepid reporter begins to dig, gets evidence, releases it to the world. Here we’d break things down into discovery and revelation steps, so we can plot the story more easily.)

4) What is the reaction going to be from the power structure under attack? (How ruthless will the Vatican be? How ruthless will the cartels and traffickers be?)

5) If the drive to disrupt the power is successful, what is the likely end-state? (Here either the reporter is discredited and killed, with the scandals buried through various means or power of the church is shatter, the organization fragments, but the church continues in the person of splinter churches much as the Baby Bells continued after AT&T got broken up.)

Note: In the example above, I’ve looked at a monolithic concentration of power being broken up. Just as valid is the drive to concentrate smaller sources of power into larger supplies. In this case, where I’ve used the word “disrupt,” you’d substitute “integrate.” If there are many answers to the first question, you’ll integrate power and build an empire, as opposed to taking one apart.

The great thing about these five questions is that the answer to the last sets a condition that allows you to start from the beginning and go again. This works especially effectively if you alternate between disruption and integration. It also helps if you answer the questions for yourself, as the writer, and then from the point of view of any of the characters attempting such a monumental task.

Bonus: If you look at any world, change one element of it, then look for power and apply the questions, you can do some really cool world design work. For example, if people could fly, clearly the shoe industry and modern airlines would be very different, if they existed at all. In a world where humans can fly, what would be a power center that we don’t have now?

No matter what you decide to do with a world, looking at the consequences of a change, and how folks affected by that change will resist it, is the best way to create a living world around your characters.

©2015 Michael A. Stackpole

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I’m really enjoying writing and sharing these exercises. I hope you’re finding them useful. I really want to thank everyone who has retweeted the notices, and especially those who have turned around and bought something out of my online store, like 21 Days to a Novel. The fact that these exercises caught enough of your interest for you to invest in your writing is a great incentive for me to continue.

If you’re serious about your writing, you’ll want to take a look at my book, 21 Days to a Novel. It’s a 21 day long program that will help you do all the prep work you need to be able to get from start to finish on your novel. If you’ve ever started a book or story and had it die after ten pages or ten chapters, the 21 Days to a Novel program will get you past the problems that killed your work. 21 Days to a Novel covers everything from characterization to plotting, showing you how to put together a story that truly works.