The Next Big Thing

Andrew Williams graciously invited me to be next in the Next Big Thing blog hop. He got it from Eric J. Guignard, who got it from Erik T. Johnson, who caught it from John F.D. Taff, who doesn't really remember where he got it from.

If all infections diseases were so fun and productive to spread, we'd have no need for modern medicine. I guess that's why they think of memes as a life form. The symptom of this disease is that I will be posting the answers to ten questions about my current work in progress. As a reader, you have no need to fear -- I will not be spreading this infection to you. If you never engage in the unsafe act of writing fiction, you are inoculated.

My writer friends, on the other hand, are completely exposed, and I have infected tagged four of them who will be acting out their symptoms next week on December 19th.

Hey, at least it's not a pyramid scheme...

...or IS it?

Now for the questions...

What is the working title of your next book?

Emerald City Iron. The theme grew nicely out of the working title, so it is now firmly the title.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

This novel is a sequel to my last novel, Emerald City Dreamer. I wanted a simple monster-hunting plot to parallel Sandy's inner growth, and so used the most horrifying monster I'd ever encountered in all of my fairy lore research - the Nuckelavee. Because I never can be too mean to Sandy.

What genre does your book fall under?

Urban Fantasy.

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

Scarlett Johansson would make a pretty decent Sandy, as long as she's wearing reading glasses.

Only with auburn hair.

Phaesyle should be played by Elle Fanning.

Woops, did I accidentally trick you with enigmatic phrasing again?
I'm such a faerie!

Kirsten Dunst has the perfect face to play Gretel - round and youthful, almost childlike.

Only with round glasses and an accent.

Jamie Hyneman of Mythbusters might make a good Hollis, if he had long white hair and shaved everything below his nose instead. Philip Seymour Hoffman has the right versatility and subtly as an actor, but not quite the right face.

Hollis is likely to glare, like this. Also he is just as likely to make something nerdy and cool...

...but this guy can actually act.

Emily Haines, lead singer in Metric, would make a perfect Jina. I wouldn't want anyone else to play this part.

Everybody just want to fall in love.
Everybody just wanna play the lead.

Jett would be a difficult role to fill, given her other-worldliness. Aside from having elfin features, she is half-Japanese, half-Irish. Matsushima Nanako or Yuko Takeuchi might come close.

She's a thousand years old..

...but you'd never know it. Maybe it's Maybelline.*
(*Actually, it's glamour created by feasting on the will of dreamers.)

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

While hunting down a dangerous faerie sea monster, Sandy Windham gets help from a therapist and discovers why her inner demons won't stay dead.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

I will self-publish Emerald City Iron to retain creative control of the series.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

This is a very short novel. My target was novella and it went long. I took my time, editing old scenes as I continued to write new ones. I began plotting and outlining in mid-September, and I finished the final scene in mid-November. So about two months. Now I'm doing final cleanup, which is going really quickly.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

To be honest, I don't read enough Urban Fantasy to make a comparison. I do try to be unique, crafting deeply psychological UF, and so far, I haven't run across anyone else doing that. If you have, please let me know in the comments and I'll check it out.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

Folklore. And I drew very strongly from my own experiences with hunting faeries personal growth and trauma recovery. Metaphorically, Sandy's struggles in Emerald City Iron mirror my own during the past year. I learned as much from her as she learned from me.

What else about the book might pique the reader's interest?

Seattle. Faeries. Danger. New characters. Thematic metaphors. Harpoon cannons. Squirt guns. Beach battles. Surprises. Tir Nan Og. Angry elves. Abandoned buildings. Drinking. Hallucinations. Cellar Demons. Bodies. Mutilated cattle. Explosions. Boats. Seagull poop. Trespassing.

Tag, You're It

The following four authors are totally cool, and they're all working on the Next Big Thing. Be sure to visit they're blogs on December 19th to catch a glimpse of their projects.

John Nakamura Remy
Andrew Rosenberg
Elf Sternberg
Jennifer Brozek

Shelving Emerald City Hunter, Starting Novellas

Indie writing is a great experiment. The old formulas are being remixed in new electronic test tubes. The new media and models of distribution via ebook are changing reader habits, which are changing the industry.

As a new writer, I have taken lots of risks. My horror novella, Make Willing the Prey became the prequel to my urban fantasy novel, Emerald City Dreamer. This is the sort of shenanigan that is simply not done in the publishing world, and there are good reasons for that. I was aware of the risks when I made that choice. Hey, I've got a long life. Might as well waste it in style.

According to tradition, the next step is to write a trilogy or series matching the pace and format of Emerald City Dreamer. And that was my plan, the plan I've spent the last few months (okay, year) following. I have a draft of Dreams by Streetlight Book 2, Emerald City Hunter, and have invested many, many hours in editing it.

Plans change.

Emerald City Hunter, as written, takes place eighteen months after Emerald City Dreamer. A lot has happened in that time, and the characters begin ECH after huge changes. Changes I haven't written about. Changes I gloss over and sum up. As with ECD, it follows four point-of-view characters with a complex interweaving plots.

Frankly, it tries to do too much.

Too many stories in my Dreams by Streetlight world demand to be told, and sometimes I try to tell them all in a single project. Emerald City Hunter can't tell all of them.

This is a difficult decision, because it is a huge risk. Writing and publishing is a slow occupation, and I will not see the results of my decisions for years to come. Yet here it is: I will pause Emerald City Hunter. Instead, I will write a few novellas that take place during that eighteen month gap. They will be single-POV with simple plots told across 10-15 scenes.

There will probably be three novellas.

The first will be an adventure plot, featuring Sandy, doing what she does best: Fighting the fae. She will have a single antagonist, and will work closely with her friends and allies to that end. She will also begin her healing process. My working title is, Emerald City Iron.

Jett may need a novella all to herself, since she has grand designs that need to be begun properly. And the third will be another monster hunting story, either from Jina or Sandy's POV.

Novellas are an order of magnitude simpler, which I hope will speed up the release cycle, and let me do tiny projects (like short stories) in between. It also gives me space to really focus on the characters that you've come to love, rather than speeding past them like I tend to do in the fast-paced novels. I can cover a few of the background story elements I tried to cram into Emerald City Hunter, to make room for everything else.

Most importantly, I think this may bring back some of the "fun" to my writing process. Sandy needs a couple of monster-hunting romps, don't you think?

Blog Tour - June 11th to July 9th

Starting next week, on June 11th, I start a month-long blog tour.  My schedule is pretty packed.  This list may change.

This blog tour was made possible by Bewitching Book Tours.  Roxanne has made everything easy, and I am pleased at how many doors she was able to open for me.

What is a blog tour?  During the month, Emerald City Dreamer will be featured on many different book blogs, in the form of reviews, author interviews, and guest posts.  It's a great way for readers to see what book bloggers think of my novel and to learn more about me.  I hope you will check out some of these great blogs, as they are a way for you to learn more about other books.

As these dates pass, I will update the links to point directly to my post.  For now, they point to the blog.


June 13 

ReaWrite – Promo

June 15 

Rabid Reads - Five Reasons to Be Afraid of Faeries – Guest post
Rabid Reads Contest Winner

I Just Wanna Sit Here and Read – Spotlight

A Dream Within A Dream – Promo and Review

June 18

Fang-tastic Books - Six Things to Take Along on a Faerie Hunt – Guest post

Books, Books, and More Books – Review

June 21

Roxanne’s Realm – Promo
It's Raining Books – Giveaway

June 22

The Creatively Green Write at Home Mom - Where Do Ideas Come From – Guest Post 

June 23

JeanzBookReadNReview – Author Spotlight and Promotional Spotlight

June 25

The Full Fang – Interview

June 27

The Speculative Salon – Interview

June 29 - 8pm
Debut Live Author Reading at Wayward Coffeehouse
Babbling About Books - Part of This Complete Breakfast - Guest Post

July 3 

Manga Maniac Cafe – Interview

Everything to Do With Books – Review

Coffee Addicted Writer – Review

July 5 

Book Reviews, Fiction Reflections, N' More – Interview and Review

Fiction Fascination - Four Faeries That Should Keep You Awake At Night – Guest Post

July 9 

Bornean Bookworm Reads - Musing About Muses and Music – Guest Post

The Wormhole – Interview

Simply Infatuated – Interview and Giveaway

Scarcity Mentality vs. The Abundance of Ideas

Writers get asked all the time, "Where do you get your ideas?"

To most active writers, ideas are easy. They flow faster than we have time to write them. Anyone can get ideas. 

Some people seem to have a zero-sum notion of ideas, that there is a set number, and once those run out, they're all gone. This leads to lots of idea-stifling behaviors. It is a notion that proves itself. Imagine if we had a scarcity notion about muscles, that each of us has a top limit on the number of motions we can make, or pounds we can lift. We'd all sit around because we think it's healthy; meanwhile our muscles atrophy, and sure enough, after walking a few paces, we'd collapse, having "run out" of muscles.

Ridiculous, yet it is something most people believe about a muscle we call the "brain".

Like any other muscle, the Ideaceps Major gets stronger the more you flex it. The brain only likes to do work that it thinks you find useful. All ideas need are a little attention, a little appreciation. Don't judge your ideas, don't stuff them away. Just jot them down, or reflect on them for a moment and thank them for being so brilliant. Your brain will kicks in and give you more. It's that simple.

Let's look at some idea-stifling behaviors that come from zero-sum thinking:

The Unworthy

Some think good ideas only come to those magically blessed to receive them. They believe themselves unworthy for inspiration. When an idea pops into An Unworthy's head, she thinks, What a stupid idea! After such abuse, her brain naturally assumes that thinking of ideas is a useless skill, so it resorts to thinking up ideas rarely, and only on accident.

The Hoarder

Hoarders get ideas that they think are good. In fact, they think they're such good ideas, they grow paranoid, afraid someone will steal them. So they keep them secret.

This comes from the mistaken belief that ideas are unique. Once an idea is given to one person, it is reserved forever, as if the idea gets patented right then and there, restricted from anyone else's use. No one else could possibly think of such a good idea simultaneously.

I used to be a hoarder. I've had dozens of million-dollar ideas I kept to myself. A year or two later I would see my product idea on the store shelf, or my story idea in someone else's book. eCigs? Yeah, I thought of those. I didn't know a thing about atomizers, but I imagined a delivery system of flavored nicotine that looked cool without the smoke, that would come in all colors. I even thought of the LED to simulate the ember.

Ideas are out there for the picking. Just because I think something up doesn't mean it's mine. Someone else will think of it, too.

The Perfectionist

Some hoarders keep their ideas in reserve for "someday". I'm not talking about those who have so many ideas they have to pick and choose which ones to work on – I'm talking about people who have one or two great ideas, but wait for the day when they can get it perfect. The idea gets put away, never to be seen again.

This also stems from the zero-sum notion. This is my one perfect idea. This is my Ringworld or Snowcrash or Foundation, and it will make me rich and famous.

An idea is just a small piece of the craft. There's prose, pacing, setting, characters, plot, editing, grammar, and voice. When the idea is so perfect, the other ingredients may feel unworthy. It is tempting to put a good idea on the shelf until the perfect time, when the stars align.

Sometimes as I write, I am tempted to reject an idea for a character, or setting, or twist that otherwise fits. Why? Because it seems too perfect, to "big" for the story at hand. I may be tempted to save that idea for later. Oh, I think, That twist is far too cool to throw away on a simple scene in this novel. I should save it for a story all of its own!

But I know better. I fight this temptation. If this story inspired that idea, it belongs here. That idea has some magic to it, some energy. If I set it on the backburner for the day when I can supposedly do it justice, it will grow stale, and possibly die completely. My current project will want for lack of that energy.

Abundance

Trust. Trust that ideas will always be available. Those ideas are here for me today, and new ideas will be there for me tomorrow. As I reward my brain by giving its ideas life, so it will reward me.

There is no upper limit on the number of ideas I will have in my lifetime. Time is the real limitation, an actual zero-sum. I flex my Ideaceps Major all the time and my brain has given me notebooks full of seeds. There is no end to material I can work on, as long as I keep working. That's the hard part. That's the limited resource. Time and work.

Ideas don't make success. Success comes from the implementation and marketing of those ideas. That is much more difficult. There's a reason why eCig-makers in China are raking in the dough for my idea. Let them. I don't care. Lots of people think up the same ideas at the same time, and he who acts on it wins. That guy in China put in all the work, and I can buy an eCig and puff away. I get to use their inventions or read their stories and not have to invent or write it myself.

I've got plenty of other ideas I can act on.

Wayward Reading - June 29th

Two exciting announcements this week!

Reading at Wayward Coffeehouse

I am booked for my first debut live author reading at Wayward Coffeehouse in Seattle with my friend, horror author Michael Montoure!

Michael has a long background of doing readings at Seattle venues and at cons in various places.  His short story collection, Slices, is awesome, and available at Amazon in Kindle and print.

I have performed an author reading once before, but on video.  This will be my first live performance.

I will be reading three pieces:

• Let the Bugs Work Themselves Out,  a sci-fi short story about ants and hackers.
• The Metro Gnome, a story set in my Dreams by Streetlight world, about a gnome on the 358 bus.
• An excerpt from Emerald City Dreamer.

Details: Wayward Coffeehouse in north Seattle.  June 29th, 8pm-10pm. Directions

The other announcement is my book blog tour, starting next week.

New Cover for Make Willing the Prey

Make Willing the Prey had an old cover, and while it was good enough, I wanted something updated and in-line with my Dreams by Streetlight series.  In other words, it needed to match Emerald City Dreamer.  But since this is a prequel, and a bit more scary than Urban Fantasy is supposed to be, I also wanted it to say, "Horror".  Hopefully I've pulled that off here.

I used stock photos that I paid a few bucks for over at pixmac.com.  I used the Gimp for the background art, and Inkscape for the layout.  Inkscape worked out much better in almost every way than my last tool, Scribus. Overall, the project took around six hours, and an extremely low level of skill.

I will be uploading it tonight, so the book should be refreshed tomorrow.

Here is the old cover, since I can't throw anything away:

Emerald City Dreamer Launched!

Today am pleased to announce the release of my first full-length novel, Emerald City Dreamer, on Amazon Kindle.  I am twice as pleased that the timing, by chance, brought it up right after midnight on St. Patrick's Day.  I love synchronicities, and the past 24 hours has shown me several.  Every new epoch of my life is peppered with synchronicistic events, and the fact that St. Patrick's Day is America's celebration of the Emerald Isle is a nice twist. While my novel contains no leprechauns, there are korrigans, lutins, and one Irish-Japanese elf.

Emerald City Dreamer will show you the world of the fae from the perspective of both faerie hunters and faeries alike, revealing the conflict between iron vs. rain, science vs. art, facts vs. imagination, and the potential of dreams vs. unforgiving facts of cold-hard reality.

The main character, Jina, is a rock star, who exudes dream-energy, or toradh, that the faeries crave.  Little do they know she is also hell-bent on destroying them.

Emerald City Dreamer is Book One in a series, Dreams by Streetlight.  My novella, Make Willing the Prey, is a prequel, Book Zero, which covers Sandy and Jina's traumatic backstory.  It doesn't really matter which order you read them in, although the writing in ECD is better.  I wrote ECD intending it to be read first, so if you're not sure, start there.

(Note, Make Willing the Prey leans a little closer to the horror genre than urban fantasy -- i.e. it is scary.)

Emerald City Dreamer is available on KDP Select aka Amazon Lending Library, which means if you have Amazon Prime, you can read it for free.  I also have tentative plans for a print version in the near-future.  Also, if you're new to the ebook "thing", you can download Kindle software to just about any device - including smart phones and PCs.  My favorite Kindle platform is my Android phone.

It was over a year and a half when I first began my notes and outline on this project.  What a long journey.  This week I've worked every waking moment to get it out on time.  Last night I shed tears of joy and sat stunned in disbelief as I finally clicked the "Done" button on Kindle Desktop Publishing.

For all the people who helped and supported me, I wrote a long list of acknowledgements in the back pages of the novel.  I'd like to again thank my family, the Cloud City Wordslingers, my beta readers, and of course my readers.  No gratitude is ever enough, although I guess there's such a thing as "annoyingly too much".  :)

What will I do to celebrate this accomplishment?  I will force myself to stop working, just for today, and take a much-needed sanity break.  I plan to play RoboTek HD on my newly inherited iPad (I told you there were synchronicities) for the rest of the day.

Please enjoy reading my book.  If you like it, please tell your friends.  And feel free to review me on Amazon, Good Reads, your blog, and anywhere else.

Final Cover... (or IS it?)

This is what I went with.  I had a number of people offer feedback, and my friend Michael Montoure even did his own fantastic design, which I borrowed some ideas from.  I took all of your advice, except one good suggestion from two people, relating to the title, which would have been too time-consuming to implement with the tools I used.

Everything is uploaded to Amazon and pending publication.  Look forward to an announcement tomorrow.  It's a perfect synchronicity -- tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day, and my book is about faeries!  How's that for lucky charms?

Cover Draft - Judge This Cover

Here it is, at long last:

This is a low-res JPEG draft of my cover with layout.  I am not an expert at design, although I know a couple of the basics.  Please let me know what you think, and if there's something I could do better, please let me know!

This was designed with the Amazon site in mind.  I made sure the title and my name are both readable at super-tiny thumbnail sizes.  I also wanted it to look good at Amazon's medium thumbnail size, and work as a trade-paper cover in a large size.  (It may need slight tweaks for the trade paper version.  My focus was on the initial ebook release.)

Please leave feedback in the comments.  Thanks!

Emerald City Dreamer Cover Art

One of the best parts about going indie is having full control over the cover art.  My artist is Ana Cruz, (DeviantArt profile) and I was able to explain to her my vision, and work with her until the cover art for Emerald City Dreamer was perfect.  She was a joy to work with.  I am very proud of the final product:

I will be doing design myself, which includes cropping and adding the title.

Some people may wonder how this process works.  I will tell you.

I went to DeviantArt.com and searched on "fairy", not only to find an artist, but to get an idea of what kind of cover I wanted.  I had recently browsed the sci-fi/fantasy section at the bookstore to see what current trends were, so I didn't end up with something out of date.

By browsing here, I decided I wanted a photo manipulation style, and then I let my visualization processes stew for a while until I imagined my character in the pose I wanted, with props and background.  I made a terrible sketch in pencil just so I could remember the details, bookmarked the artists and images I liked, and waited a few months.  (I was still running the manuscript past my fellow Wordslingers, and publication was still far off.)

When I returned to the process, I ruled out the artists I had bookmarked for various reasons, so I had to start over again -- this time I searched for "photo manipulation".  I chose three artists based on these criteria:  1) I liked their art, 2) they seemed professional -- i.e. they presented their gallery in a professional manner, they listed the fact that they took commissions, they had their own website, and they had a portfolio of previously commissioned work.

Here are some examples of what I looked for.  Notice the sidebars are well laid out, contain links to offsite profiles including a professional website, and they state she offers artistic services.  Deviant Art hobbyists often do amazing work, but will not list their credentials or mention commissions.  They may or may not be able to do a great cover for you, and who knows if they can act professionally.

I contacted these artists with a professional, serious email, stating my intentions and asking for details such as timeline and price.  I settled on one artist, but her workload was full, so I started the process again, contacting three more artists, at which point I found Ana.

What impressed me most about Ana was her professional attitude in her email replies.  She stated that she always produces a "sketch" or outline of the art before spending too many hours on it, so that if there were foundational corrections, it saves time and money.  That showed me that she'd given this lots of thought.  If you are commissioning cover art, I would strongly recommend you request this of the artist.  Given that this is a digital image, my "sketch" was full color and consisted of the basic model standing in front of the basic background.  Details such as her hair, props, touch-ups, color-finishing, etc. had not yet been done.  The feedback I gave at this level greatly improved the direction of the image, so I was able to get exactly what I had envisioned.

As an indie writer, my toolbox needs to include the ability to describe an image to an artist in sufficient detail to get what I want.  I'd had some practice on a tattoo I got just a few months before starting this, and I quickly learned not to be fuzzy on any detail.  It forced me to really dive in and not gloss over anything I thought might be important.  Ana was a perfect fit, because she was able to listen.  She got it all, including the facial expression I wanted -- which I thought would be impossible to achieve.

The next time I do this, I will plan ahead a lot further.  It's difficult when you're in the middle of the second draft of a novel to think about the cover art, and to commit to getting started on that piece, especially when you're full of uncertainties and self-doubt.  But the process did take three or four months.  Fortunately, I was far enough behind on the revisions, line edits, and everything else, that it didn't matter.  Of course in the future, now that I've gone through the full process, I should be able to better plan the timing of everything.

They say you should also begin marketing efforts long before release date, and I don't even have a release date.  I've been reluctant to commit to anything until certain things are done -- and it feels weird to market without a cover.  For my second novel, I will be better prepared on all levels.  This novel has very much been a learning process.

Urban Fantasy Short Stories Roundup

Indie Urban Fantasy has a monthly newsletter.  You can sign up here, and read the archives here.

I've been writing short stories there every month since August.  All but one all are set in my fae world, the same as Make Willing the Prey and my work in progress, Emerald City Dreamer and Emerald City Hunter.  In fact, two of the characters, Jett and Perstin, are both in Emerald City Dreamer.

Some of these are whimsical and some fall into the creepy/scary category.  That's just how faeries are.

Right After Feeding Time

Vivian is a crazy cat lady and a witch.  Will her powers protect her when she meddles with forces she does not understand?

The Thief at 619

Perstin is a pygsie with a penchant for painting.  But the supplies he uses aren't exactly his...

The Metro Gnome

Buses are the perfect place for gnomes who love books. Too bad nobody ever reads anymore.

Cold Hunger

It lives in the woods, and it is always hungry.

I hope you enjoy!

Interview with a NaNoWriPire

I've got too many words to write this week for my NaNoWriMo novel, a dark fantasy about an Empire ruled by vampires. (I'm at 27,460 words!) So instead of writing a post, I'll just paste this lost transcript from the Belle Art: Ghost to Ghost podcast.

As you all know, Belle Art ran a popular late-night paranormal podcast. She disappeared last June under mysterious circumstances, along with every copy of every podcast she ever recorded. These transcripts survive. They were of a show taken exactly one year ago, today.

BELLE: Hello world! Welcome to late-night Ghost-to-Ghost with Belle Art. That's me. Tonight we have a special show. In studio with me, I have Vlad the Improbable, a vampire from our sinister city, New York. I have a ghost, Henever Mones, from his old haunts here in Seattle. We have Gary Plotter, a self-proclaimed White Warlock who flew all this way from London.
GARY: On a broom.
BELLE: Yes, purportedly on a broom.
GARY: Why won't you believe me?
BELLE: I'm skeptical about such things.
GARY: Sigh.
BELLE: And lastly, I have a werewolf on the line, calling in from Nevada, who refuses to give his name. And what do these fiends have in common? They are all participating in an annual competition called NaNoWriMo. Vlad, would you care to explain?
VLAD: Yes, and may I add that your skin is so, very... very... succulent.
BELLE: That's enough, Vlad. I'm wearing garlic, so just answer the question.
VLAD: But of course. NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month. Every November, thousands of people... and unpeople... sit down to write a novel in just thirty days.
BELLE: And what constitutes a novel? How do you "win" NaNoWriMo?
VLAD: Why, you must write 50,000 words between midnight November 1st and November 30th, of course!
BELLE: That seems impossible. How do you do it?
WEREWOLF: Eeennnnnnnngrrrrowww!
BELLE: Interesting, werewolf. But I'm afraid I can't understand you.
VLAD: It is a simple matter of patience, something my kind has aplenty. It is a mere 1,667 words per day.
BELLE: Yes, but if you have other things going on in your life.. or... ahem... death... like jobs, families, hobbies... Isn't it hard to write that much?
HENEVER: It is impossible to write that much, when you cannot hold a pen.
WEREWOLF: GRRRRRRR!
BELLE: Fascinating. Vlad, what do you do for a living?

VLAD: What a silly question.
BELLE: I'm sorry. What do you do during the day?
VLAD: ... You mean, at night?
BELLE: Yes. You know what I mean. Just answer the question.
VLAD: Aside from sucking blood, I'm an investment banker. So I have some flexibility. I take a few days off in November to help me get through.

BELLE: Don't you mean nights?
VLAD: What?
BELLE: You take a few nights off in November...  Anyway, what is your story about?
VLAD: It is about a succulent young thing who wanders into a dark and scary castle all alone... And who should she find there? But a scary, evil, repulsive, terrifying monster!
BELLE: A vampire?
VLAD: No, of course not. She finds a vampire hunter!
BELLE: Oh, scary.
VLAD: Yes. It is firmly in the horror genre. 
BELLE: And you, Henever.  Brr, why is it suddenly so cold in here?
HENEVER: Sorry about that.  I'll stop.
BELLE: Thanks.  That's better.  Henever, what do you do for a living?
HENEVER: I'm a ghost writer.
BELLE: I see. And what is your novel about?
HENEVER: My plot feels so transparent. 
BELLE: Come on, you can tell us. NaNoWriMo is just for fun. Don't take it so seriously.
HENEVER: I'm writing a ghost-apocalyptic tale where everyone is dead. Everyone.
BELLE: Everyone?
HENEVER: Everyone.
BELLE: And how far along are you?
HENEVER: I'm so far behind. I'm at 2,500 words. I got to the part where everyone died, and then, well... Everyone was dead.
BELLE: I see. And you can't have much of a story without any characters, right?
HENEVER: You got it.
BELLE: So why don't you write about the ghosts of all the dead people?
HENEVER: Why... I never thought of that!
BELLE: Glad to be of help... Henever? Where did you go? Oh well. And Werewolf. What do you do for a living?
WEREWOLF: Grrrrnnnnaaarrrrr!
BELLE: Hmm. And what is your novel about?
WEREWOLF: Ennnggggrraaarrr!
BELLE: You don't say... well. And you Gary. What do you do for a living?
GARY: I am a Private Warlock.
BELLE: Uh-huh. And what does that mean?
GARY: People come to me for all manner of wizardly services, such as tracking down mysterious magical murderers.
BELLE: Uh-huh. What's your novel about?
GARY: You don't believe me.
BELLE: I'm not sure why you're so surprised. Do many people believe that you're a warlock?
GARY: No, but you're Belle Art. You're sitting here interviewing a ghost and a vampire, and you didn't question their magical credentials.
WEREWOLF: GRRRRRaarrrrwrr!!
GARY: And a werewolf.
BELLE: That's because vampires and ghosts and werewolves are real. But warlocks? I'm sorry, but I think you are more likely a paranoid schizophrenic with a mental disorder.
VLAD: No offense against those of us with mental disorders!
BELLE: No offense intended.
VLAD: ...
WEREWOLF: ...
BELLE: ...
GARY: Anyway, my novel is a memoir, based loosely on my life as a warlock, my upbringing as an orphan, my status as the one foretold to defeat an evil warlock, my time at warlock school, and the friends I've made along the way.
BELLE: Hahaha! Who's going to want to read that? What a ridiculous story.
VLAD: Back to me. Aren't I hansom? And your skin is very, very... veiny.
BELLE: Well that's all the time we have today, folks. If you're interested in doing NaNoWriMo next year, visit their website at NaNoWriMo.org! Get away! I have a cross! And a stake! Back!
GARY: I'll turn him into a newt. There. Is that better?
BELLE: Yes, thanks. But I still don't believe in you.

My NaNoWriMo Page

Argentina Gnome - Creepy Reality? Or Just a Hoax?

Ghosts get all the press.  Every paranormal show on Discovery Channel is poltergeist this, and haunted that.

We like to read about vampires, werewolves, and witches.  Some of us even like to pretend that they're real.  So when evidence of non-ghostly supernatural folklore appears in the media, it catches my attention.

In 2008, the small town of Guemes, Argentina gained notoriety when The Sun (UK) reported that a gnome had been captured on film. According to The Sun, locals had been plagued by this little gnome for some time.  The boys who captured this video were minding their own business when they heard a sound, as if someone where throwing rocks.  When Jose Alvarez, who had been playing around with his phone camera, saw a movement in the grass, he pointed it towards the sound.  And that's when he captured the gnome:



Now The Sun is not always known for its reliable reporting.  It's sort of a mix between an American celebrity tabloid and a real newspaper, focusing on real news and politics, alongside gossip.  It is also the 10th highest circulated paper in the world.  This makes it, as a source, somewhat questionable... but also potentially reliable. So I did a little more digging.

You might be wondering why they believe in gnomes, traditionally a Norse myth, halfway across the world in Argentina.  Well they don't believe in gnomes exactly -- that's The Sun's choice of translation.  Their word for fairy or goblin is "duende", which combines Mayan, Portuguese,
and Spanish fairy mythologies.  And some believe they wear "large hats", tho not necessarily pointy ones.

There are several other films, and you can find even more if you search for duende instead of gnome.





Then I found an oddity. A version of the famous film, listed by a number of Spanish-speaking YouTube users, but this one has subtle differences that indicate The Sun version is edited:



This version contains different lighting, a flashlight beam that bounces off the gnome from time to time.  And the strange gait of the gnome in this version is somehow less convincing.  It looks like The Sun did some kind of editing, which makes this video less believable.  Or at least less creepy.

And finally, the most interesting footage of all, was of a much smaller gnome. Watch this, and then watch it again and notice the small dark spot that looks like a crack in the wall. If you imagine a gnome-shaped piece of paper being pulled by a string, you can easily see how this video is most likely a hoax:



To me, this video indicates that at least one group of kids thought a hoax would would be fun to try to pull off.  Which casts doubt on all the other videos.

Nevertheless, if this blog post on Sciencebuzz.org has any credibility, belief in duendes is strong in the region, with many people claiming to have seen them, much like Bigfoot in the Pacific Northwest and ghosts throughout the US.  For that reason, we can expect to see more footage of South American gnomes, be they real or hoaxed.

And speaking of gnomes living in modern cities, I've written a short story called "The Metro Gnome", which will appear in this month's Indie Urban Fantasy Newsletter. Be sure to sign up!

Urban Fantasy is the New Folktale

Folktales in the past did not always begin "Once upon a time, in a land far away". When medieval German mothers told their children tales, they often began, "Just down the road by the old church, there lives a witch", or "When I was as old as you, I met a dwarf in the woods."

The tales were told about the surrounding region, and often involved people you knew. Your church might have been built by a giant, who made a deal with a Saint, who had to guess the giant's name or be taken to hell. The weird child that lived at the neighbor's farm might be a changeling. Your own father might have seen his cows milk run dry because he hadn't shown proper hospitality to the "Good People".

It's only been in the times of skepticism, the days of science and technology, when everything demands an explanation, that the fairytales have become about bygone eras. And fantasy, which inherited the tradition of the fairytale, has become about bygone days on distant worlds or in alternate universes, where the horse is the most common mode of transportation, and people never ask the question, "How does it work?"

Urban fantasy puts the magic back into familiar settings -- but this time, those settings are familiar to us, here in 2010, not to the farmers and weavers of hundreds of years ago. It puts the dwarf in the parking garage, the elf in the sewer, the werewolf in the mall.

It lets us ask the questions (hopefully all in good fun), is that guy a vampire? Is there a troll in that dumpster? Can I become a witch?

This genre puts a new spin on an ancient tradition. The message is: there are horrors and wonders all around us, in spite of technology (or maybe because of it). In spite of the fact that science tells us it cannot be so.

And the authors have to work hard (and usually do a good job) of making us suspend disbelief, of explaining the unexplainable, just enough that we buy it. Just enough that we never ask, "But... how does it work?"

Just like 200 years ago, we might have believed a story that the magic beans Jack traded for a miserable cow had grown into a beanstalk, without asking the same question.

The Science of Faeries (Part III)

In The Science of Faeries Parts I and II I discussed the historical background of the science of faeries, recounted a fairy sighting of my own, and listed a number of theories about what faeries really are, be they hoaxes, folk memories of long-lost tribes, or real creatures.

In this final part, I will discuss what Evans-Wentz called the "Psychological Theory", and what I prefer to call the "Psychic Theory" to avoid confusion with theories that discuss the subconscious mind.  At the time "The Fairy Faith of Celtic Countries" was written, the words "psychic" and "psychological" were often synonymous.

Evans-Wentz spent many years traveling the Celtic countries and cataloging their beliefs and fairy sightings.  He noted the similarities between them all, and concluded that there is another world, a forth dimension.  Beings who exist in that world cannot be seen with physical eyes, but can be seen with psychical eyes.  Seers, those who practice the art of seeing, or who have a natural talent for it, can easily see these forms.  Non-seers, in the presence of such a being, may sense it in some way, beyond sight.  Seeking some explanations for this, our imaginations will go to work.  Our minds will offer up some vision, based on our context, our cultural frame of reference, and thus we will "see" a fairy without truly seeing it.  According to Evans-Wentz:

The visualization of the non-seer is a makeshift, a psycho-physical reaction to a purely psychical stimulus.

and:

It is that all such apparitional appearances ... are equally due to a telepathic force exerted by an agency independent of the percipent.  This outside force to whom it is thus transmitted, and causes him to project out of some part of his own consciousness (which part may have passed over into the subconsciousness) a visualized image already impressed there.  The image has natural affinity or correspondence with the outside stimulus which arouses it.

Thus the creature you see will be based in large part upon the culture of the region you were raised, but may also have something to do with the nature of the creature itself.  While looking at the same fairy, a Scottsman would see a redcap.  A troll for the Norwegians.  The Welsh would see a coblynau, and in Brittany (an area of northern France) would rank higher in corrigan sightings.  Leaving the Celtic countries, an Arab might see a djinn, an Inuit may see an ijiraq, and in Japan, they would see a kappa.

All of these creatures, and many hundreds more, look and act very different from one another, and yet ofttimes their behaviors are described as the same: Capricious, likely to steal away children and replace them with one of their own, likely to mess with your sense of time, equally able to curse or bless you on a whim, and so on.

In some cases, Evans-Wentz concludes that these are nature's memories, an energy residue of some past event, that can be re-witnessed or sensed and seen in our own way.  But he is quick to point out that most fairy sightings seem to be of autonomous beings.  On this, he states:

Fairies exist, because in all essentials they appear to be the same as the intelligent forces now recognized by psychical researchers, be they thus collective units of consciousness like what William James has called 'soul-stuff', or more individual units.

And given the ubiquitous fairyland stories, he concludes that "fairyland exists as a super-normal state of consciousness into which men and women may enter temporarily in dreams, trances, or in various ecstatic conditions."  Our eye for dreams and religious experiences is thus the same as our eye for fairies.

I began this series by stating that I am a skeptic.  I still am.  It is more likely that fairies are a folk-memory of a long forgotten tribe that is sometimes perpetuated by hoaxes and hallucination.  I am as willing to believe that my own fairy-sighting was the product of an overactive imagination as it was a projection of my mind onto a being of energy to explain what I could sense but could not see.

Nevertheless, the latter explanation holds a certain magic, a meaning that goes beyond the happy accident that is evolved human life.  Part of me wants to believe... Do you?

The Science of Faeries (Part II)

In The Science of Faeries Part I, I discussed the historical background of the study of fairies and fairy lore.  As promised, I will now discuss the major theories and schools of thought about what faeries are.  

But first, I will recount the time I saw a fairy.  It was the magical summer of 1997, the best time of my life, and the worst time of my life.  I was going through a number of hardships, but I also had a great set of friends.  We had well-developed imaginations, and even though we all came from different religious backgrounds and had different beliefs, each of us passionately believed in the unseen.  My most unexplainable experiences (both positive and scary) happened that year.

We were adventuring in Eastern Washington, north of our home town, and decided to visit Palouse Falls.  We hiked above the falls, where the small river has carved a beautiful canyon.  The very rocks seemed to cry out in joy at our presence. We saw hornets as long as my index finger, and one of the boys cut his hand on basalt shale, but that didn't stop us from trekking along the railroad tracks, down the long slope, and into the canyon.

Here the river broke into several smaller streams, forming a microcosm of mini-canyons and tiny waterfalls.  I stood at the bottom of one of these tiny falls, and that's when I saw it: a tiny bridge spanning the gap over the water, and a 2 inch winged fairy sitting on the arch.

How I saw it is difficult to explain.  I only half saw it with my eyes.  The other part of me knew it wasn't there, and that I merely imagined it.  It was as it my mind projected it outward until it existed.  Another way to put it is that it seemed as if something was there, but the only way I could perceive it was with my imagination.  It was not light that hit my eyes, but some other form of energy that I both sensed and created in a feedback loop of viewer/creator. 

Sound crazy?  When I read Evans-Wentz's "The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries", that is exactly how many others described it, 100 years ago. I also saw similar descriptions of modern-day fairy sightings in the documentary The Fairy Faith (2000).

Does that mean I believe in faeries?  Maybe.  I'm not sure.  I am a skeptic, after all.  But I do know that something important happened that day.  Even if it was all in my head, that's meaningful.

Which leads us to the theories.  Some of these are scientific, some pseudo-scientific, and some flat out religious.  Listed in reverse order of Occam's Razor (which states that the simplest explanation fitting the facts is most-likely to be true):

The Materialist Theory - Fairies are physically real beings that live under hills or in forests.

The Theological or Hades Theory - In the context of Christianity, fairies are real, and they are are demons, fallen angels or the unjudged souls of the dead.

The Psychic or "Psychological" Theory - Evans-Wentz's favorite.  Fairies are some form of energy-beings that we can sense but not "see", so we perceive them by projecting our expectations.  An Irishman would see a selkie.  An Arab would see a djinn.  Someone from India may see a deva.

The Pygmy Theory - Fairies are a folk-memory of an undiscovered prehistoric diminutive race that were driven out of Celtic lands by invading European Homo Sapiens.

The Mythological/Druid Theories - Fairies are a folk-memory of the Celtic pagan gods or the Druids.  They are a way of talking about subjects otherwise censored by the encroaching culture of Christianity.

The Animistic/Naturalistic Theory - Fairies are a cultural remnant of pre-monotheistic beliefs in animistic spirits as a way to explain the world, and/or a subconscious projection of animistic symbols a la Carl Jung.

The Pathological Theory - Fairies are entirely imagined, hallucinated, a result of misfiring neurons or diseased minds.

The Delusion and Imposture (Fraud) Theory - As with mediums and psychics, those who claim to see fairies are out to hoax us for fun and profit.

Evans-Wentz does not discuss all of these (not all had been postulated in his time), but he does rule out several: The Pygmy Theory, The Mythological and Druid Theories, Naturalistic Theory, and Delusion/Imposture Theory.  He favors what he called the "Psychological Theory", which I call the "Psychic Theory" to avoid any confusion with Jung's Archetypes and Collective Unconscious.

He spends a good deal of time discussing this theory, so I'd like to spend more time on that.  Stay tuned for the Science of Faeries Part III in two weeks!

The Science of Faeries (Part I)

The world is not only stranger than we suppose, it is stranger than we can suppose. -- J.B.S. Haldane, evolutionary biologist

The "science of faeries". An oxymoron? 

Not really. 

Don't get me wrong.  I am quite the skeptic, a big fan of James Randi and Christopher Hitchens.  All of this is fantasy, right?  The only scientists who believe in fairies are pseudo-scientists.  

But there was a time in the past when credible scholars did give credence to the possibility of the existence of faeries.

It was the time of rampant mysticism, the revival of the occult, the heyday of séance and mesmerism.  Nikola Tesla performed feats of magic with electricity, letting a million volts arc visibly through his body in public displays.  Science fiction dawned with writings about living monsters being created from dead tissue and explorers finding giants and dinosaurs far beneath the earth.  (Could one argue that Urban Fantasy was the original form of science fiction?)

During this era, almost nothing was known about the realities of our world.  Knowledge we now take for granted was merely conjecture.  The airplane had not been invented.  The nature and composition of the moon and the planets were pure speculation; Venus was thought to be populated by intelligent life.  Penicillin had not yet been discovered, nor were there adequate means for storing food long term, nor were phones common, nor did electric appliances exist.  It was a time of discovery and invention.  Wide-eyed scientists left no stone unturned in looking for the next big breakthrough.

This was the zeitgeist during which scholars legitimately studied faeries.  

Some of the most credible people of the time, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes) participated in fairy investigations, and the now-defunct Fairy Investigation Society had members like Walt Disney.  No one knew and few suspected that the Cottingley Fairies were a hoax.

Anthropologist Walter Evans-Wentz thankfully took the time to travel all the Celtic countries around the turn of the 20th Century.  He gathered the dying and complex lore of a people who genuinely believed in fairies.  They lived their daily lives with superstitions that acknowledged the pervasive and ever-present fae, the way today people operate with knowledge that the internet exists.  Set out the milk, make a sigil before milking the cows, do not refer to them by name lest they hear.  That's the hill where the fair folk keep their fort, and do not disturb that clump of trees.

These were not tales that begin "Once upon a time in a land far away," but rather "I saw the good people and hundreds besides me saw them fighting in the sky" which was said to cause the 1847 famine, and "my husband...often saw the gentry going down the hill to the [sea] strand."

These stories are documented exhaustively in Evans-Wentz's book, "The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries".  They are accompanied by a number of scholarly theories and conclusions drawn from the author's experience and these first-hand accounts.

In Part II of The Science of Faeries, I will describe the major theories and schools of thought that explain the gentle folk.  Some are more scientific than others.  Of course I will detail Evans-Wentz's favored theory, which is my own personal favorite, which I partially base my stories on.  I will also describe my own encounter with a fairy. 

The Science of Faeries Part II and Part III...  

Anatomy of a Magic System

I posted over at Indie Urban Fantasy last week, on the topic "Anatomy of a Magic System".

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. -Arthur C. Clarke

At my writer's critique group last week, one reviewer asked of a fellow-novelist, "Your character used a lot of magic here. What does it cost your character?" Like any good writer, he had an answer -- an answer he assures us will be made clear in a later chapter. 

There are two types of magic in fantasy genres: Mystical and Scientific. 

Mystical Magic unapologetically has no explanation. As readers, we are asked to suspend disbelief for the sake of the story. Magic just is, and you shouldn't question it. Gandalf appears out of nowhere, The Force is present in all things, and Excalibur is stuck in a stone because that's just how it is.

Scientific magic has a system, rules which a caster must follow, and reasons (implied or express) for its existence. As readers, we are let in on these secrets (more or less), and the plot itself is driven or bound by an internal consistency. Vampires must drink blood, mages must recharge their mana supply, and water spells always beat fire. 

Traditional fantasy exists in a self-contained world, so it's easier to believe mystical systems.  It's set so far in the past, or in a completely alternate reality, that it we don't always need an explanation. Magic just is, and that's ok. The evil overlord is evil because he ... well... isn't it obvious? Needless to say, there are many examples of scientific magic in traditional fantasy, for instance The Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind, The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan, and His Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman. But we're just much more likely to see Mystical, especially in older works.

Contemporary magic systems are more likely to use scientific magic. In the context of technology (cars, cellphones, computers), modern characters are used to having their questions answered (like "Where is that blue light coming from?" and "How does this telepathy stuff work, anyway?") If the character doesn't know (or at least ask), the reader will not suspend disbelief when the demon is summoned or when the second law of thermodynamics is broken.

In order to make the reader believe that the character believes, the writer has to explain. Or at least give the sense that there are rules, and that those rules are being followed. 

The explanations themselves can be scientific in nature (genetics, radiation, toxic chemicals, or untapped human powers) but not necessarily. The important thing is that magic follows some set of consistent rules, and that those rules match some kind of internal logic.

A good magic system must contain a few basic elements. The easiest, and most obvious, is power. Magic can bring about the improbable and impossible. Mystic magic operates this way, as well. We don't really need a complex set of rules for this to be true.

The next most important piece is the cost of magic. If magic were free, then why don't witches rule the world? Wizard duels would go on forever, with nary a clear victor. So magic has to cost something. By default, it is assumed magic costs energy, be that in the form of mana, MP, blood, or just the need to eat more than usual. But some systems get delightfully more creative. Sometimes overuse of magic leads to a karmatic cost. Or one of my favorites (and the one used by my fellow critique-group novelist in the example above) you pay for magic by slowly losing your sanity.

You also need a believable (and hopefully interesting) casting method. It's kind of boring if your mage walks around snapping his fingers to shoot fireballs or make kittens disappear. Isn't it more interesting when there is some kind of ritual, chant, or coveted magic item? Harry Potter wouldn't be nearly so entertaining without the silly magic words. I love innovative spellcasting methods. One of my favorites was from the Myst video game series, where spells had to be sketched in a book before they could be made real.

Limitations. Magic must have some limits. Again, we wouldn't have a plot if a vampire with a year's supply of blood, or a mage standing on the world's strongest ley line, could instantly take over the world. In some systems, spellcasters are bound to the class of magic they are trained in (Necromancers can't heal and druids can't raise the dead.) Fast zombies die easily, and while slow-zombies are impossible to kill.. at least they're slow. I especially love spellcasting characters who always need a certain material to work with. I can't help but think of the anime series, Read or Die, in which the protagonist can only cast spells that affect paper. It's really fun to see how she resolves problems with this limitation!

Weakness is the last requirement. Superman has his kryptonite, vampires have their sunlight and stakes, werewolves have their silver, and faeries have iron. Not only do mythological characters need weaknesses, but so does their magic. This is often a paper-rock-scissors pattern of white magic beats black, air beats water, brains beat brawn. In my urban fantasy system, faeries depend upon human credulity in order for their magic to work. In the face of willful disbelief, their power crumbles.

What are your favorite magic systems? What is your favorite magical weakness, limitation, cost, or casting method? I'd love to hear it!

Anatomy of a Magic System

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. -Arthur C. Clarke

At my writer's critique group last week, one reviewer asked of a fellow-novelist, "Your character used a lot of magic here. What does it cost your character?" Like any good writer, he had an answer -- an answer he assures us will be made clear in a later chapter. 

There are two types of magic in fantasy genres: Mystical and Scientific. 

Mystical Magic unapologetically has no explanation. As readers, we are asked to suspend disbelief for the sake of the story. Magic just is, and you shouldn't question it. Gandalf appears out of nowhere, The Force is present in all things, and Excalibur is stuck in a stone because that's just how it is.

Scientific magic has a system, rules which a caster must follow, and reasons (implied or express) for its existence. As readers, we are let in on these secrets (more or less), and the plot itself is driven or bound by an internal consistency. Vampires must drink blood, mages must recharge their mana supply, and water spells always beat fire. 

Traditional fantasy exists in a self-contained world, so it's easier to believe mystical systems.  It's set so far in the past, or in a completely alternate reality, that it we don't always need an explanation. Magic just is, and that's ok. The evil overlord is evil because he ... well... isn't it obvious? Needless to say, there are many examples of scientific magic in traditional fantasy, for instance The Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind, The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan, and His Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman. But we're just much more likely to see Mystical, especially in older works.

Contemporary magic systems are more likely to use scientific magic. In the context of technology (cars, cellphones, computers), modern characters are used to having their questions answered (like "Where is that blue light coming from?" and "How does this telepathy stuff work, anyway?") If the character doesn't know (or at least ask), the reader will not suspend disbelief when the demon is summoned or when the second law of thermodynamics is broken.

In order to make the reader believe that the character believes, the writer has to explain. Or at least give the sense that there are rules, and that those rules are being followed. 

The explanations themselves can be scientific in nature (genetics, radiation, toxic chemicals, or untapped human powers) but not necessarily. The important thing is that magic follows some set of consistent rules, and that those rules match some kind of internal logic.

A good magic system must contain a few basic elements. The easiest, and most obvious, is power. Magic can bring about the improbable and impossible. Mystic magic operates this way, as well. We don't really need a complex set of rules for this to be true.

The next most important piece is the cost of magic. If magic were free, then why don't witches rule the world? Wizard duels would go on forever, with nary a clear victor. So magic has to cost something. By default, it is assumed magic costs energy, be that in the form of mana, MP, blood, or just the need to eat more than usual. But some systems get delightfully more creative. Sometimes overuse of magic leads to a karmatic cost. Or one of my favorites (and the one used by my fellow critique-group novelist in the example above) you pay for magic by slowly losing your sanity.

You also need a believable (and hopefully interesting) casting method. It's kind of boring if your mage walks around snapping his fingers to shoot fireballs or make kittens disappear. Isn't it more interesting when there is some kind of ritual, chant, or coveted magic item? Harry Potter wouldn't be nearly so entertaining without the silly magic words. I love innovative spellcasting methods. One of my favorites was from the Myst video game series, where spells had to be sketched in a book before they could be made real.

Limitations. Magic must have some limits. Again, we wouldn't have a plot if a vampire with a year's supply of blood, or a mage standing on the world's strongest ley line, could instantly take over the world. In some systems, spellcasters are bound to the class of magic they are trained in (Necromancers can't heal and druids can't raise the dead.) Fast zombies die easily, and while slow-zombies are impossible to kill.. at least they're slow. I especially love spellcasting characters who always need a certain material to work with. I can't help but think of the anime series, Read or Die, in which the protagonist can only cast spells that affect paper. It's really fun to see how she resolves problems with this limitation!

Weakness is the last requirement. Superman has his kryptonite, vampires have their sunlight and stakes, werewolves have their silver, and faeries have iron. Not only do mythological characters need weaknesses, but so does their magic. This is often a paper-rock-scissors pattern of white magic beats black, air beats water, brains beat brawn. In my urban fantasy system, faeries depend upon human credulity in order for their magic to work. In the face of willful disbelief, their power crumbles.

What are your favorite magic systems? What is your favorite magical weakness, limitation, cost, or casting method? I'd love to hear it!