MATTHEW C. LUCAS

I have a soft spot for the Norse myths. They were the go-to stories my parents would read to me at bedtime. Odin, Thor, Loki, Frey, and all the rest of the Aesir, they're like old friends. 

Any author who would put together yet another book of Norse myths faces some daunting challenges. First, it's been done a lot of different ways already. Second, there's not much of a coherent story arc in the overall body of stories with which to work (the primary source material for most Norse mythology books, the Eddas, are a hodgepodge of collected stories, songs, and poems). Basically, there's the creation story, some origin stories for individual gods, some random adventures, and then everyone dies at Ragnarok. Being myths, there are also inconsistencies and "plot holes" throughout (e.g., if Loki can just up and change himself into a mare in one myth, why does he need to borrow a cloak of falcon feathers to turn into a bird in another?). Finally, fans of the Norse myths (myself included) are going to read any rendering closely, critically, the way fans tend to do. So an author who hopes to set these very old and very popular stories in a fresh light has their work cut out for them.

Neil Gaiman's Norse Mythology is excellent work. The book is a tight, delightful compilation of the most notable Norse myths. The prose is thoroughly Gaiman, through and through: droll, well-paced, and accessible to modern readers without coming across as trite. Gaiman also manages to weave some connective threads here and there to link the stories together somewhat. The final product is almost (but not quite) a re-imagining, rather than simply a re-telling, of the Norse tales. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

A little more polish on a few spots here and there could have made this charming book shine even brighter. The All-father, Odin, gets shortchanged with a somewhat flat characterization and relatively few lines (which is curious, because he's probably the most fascinating of all the Norse gods). And at times Gaiman's prose voice bleeds into the dialogue. I would have liked just one or two more stories. But these are small complaints and easily overlooked for a book of mythology that was both readily familiar and wonderfully new. 

I'm pleased and thrilled to announce that John Yonder and Captain Far's next adventure will be published by the good folks at Ellysian Press. Book 2 of the Yonder & Far series, tentatively titled The Tarot Tale, has been accepted by my publisher. More strange fae, more deadly battles, more Custom, and the 1800 presidential election set the stage for Yonder, Far, and Mary Faulkner's next exciting tale. 

So apparently Amazon has put my epic fantasy novel, The Mountain, on sale. Not something my publisher (or I) had planned, but it's appreciated nonetheless. I don't know how long it will last, but you can get a physical copy of The Mountain for $10.08--more than half off the initial list price of this 700+ page book. Click the book cover image for a link to the Amazon page.

- Matt

Most of the stuff I've written is in third person (non-omniscient) with multiple points of view (usually focused on 3-4 main characters and perhaps a couple of secondaries). It's a natural form for story-telling. And it's fun. It allows the author to craft scenes around the most effective perspective; it lets you change the "voice" of the writing from scene to scene; it gives you a chance to explore different characters more deeply. Maybe because it comes so naturally, and because it has so much utility, I've just gravitated toward 3rd person POV.

But twice I've ventured into first person POV for novels. The first one was based on a short story ("Don't Call Me Godless"), and I finished it about a year ago (I've been shopping it around for the past five months). The second one is my current work in progress. Here's what I've figured out about writing in 1st person.

It's a lot more organic. There's almost this sleight of hand you get to play with a first person POV, where you (hopefully) end up fooling the reader by pretending to be the narrator. The old saw, "show don't tell" just seems a little easier in the first person. I'll also say that for a discovery writer who constructs a good amount of plot structure during the writing process, 1st person POV is a much more straight-forward form. The story line has to be set around one set of eyes, from one experience, and, more or less, along one plot line. It's almost like you're putting together a recipe for a cookbook. So there's less wasted time on scenes, characters, etc. that end up getting cut later on.

But there's also a challenge that I've been struggling with. When you write a whole novel from one character's first person POV, you'd better like that character. A lot. Because you're going to be spending a lot of time with him or her. There's no taking a break from the main character in these kind of stories. If the main character's kind of flat, or dull, or annoying, or a trope, then it's going to be a long 12 months of writing. 

Like all the choices that get made during the writing process, there are pros and cons to writing in the first person. I'm not sure it's something I'll do on a regular basis, but I do like the exercise of trying something different.

For those who grew up in the 80's and remember fondly the fun of Choose Your Own Adventure books (those illustrated chap books told in the 2nd person where the reader is poised with a choice on each page and, depending on her or his choice, flips to a different page), there was a really good article in the New Yorker telling the "backstory" (so to speak) of how these books came to be...The Enduring Allure of Choose Your Own Adventure Books

Thoughts and prayers for all the folks on the southern Gulf Coast. 

I'm middle-aged. Which means I'm probably prone to complain about things a little more than I used to.  I'm also a writer, which means I'm a little bit sensitive to how language gets used. So indulge my grumping for a moment, because I expect many of you may share this sentiment.

There are some really annoying platitudes that have gotten bandied about lately. I'm not talking about a trendy word (such as "like," which the current crop of teenagers invoke to a degree that would make Shaggy Rogers blush). I mean the phrases of the zeitgeist that I keep running into. They're terrible. Banal. Useless. Here are the five that irk me the most.

1. "It is what it is." I don't know of any more pretentious sentiment than "it is what it is." On its own terms, the sentence is redundant meaninglessness. Like saying A = A. You could just stop with "It is." But of course that's not what's meant by this little piece of modern witticism. A person only invokes "it is what it is" when he or she wants to convey understanding of something that is unfortunate or difficult without, you know, necessarily understanding it. It's pretend profundity. Try turning it around by asking, "well, what exactly is it?" They'll curl up like a turtle because they don't really know and have nothing to say.

2. "I'll fight you on this." Here's another bit of LARPing parlance that I've been hearing more and more frequently. It's always expressed with feigned earnestness, usually by a person who's never actually thrown or taken a punch. What it really means is that the topic or point of view or opinion under discussion is one that actually instills some kind of feeling on the part of the speaker, and he or she is unlikely to change their mind about it. That's it. They don't actually want to get into a rumble. Which is what's so grating about "I'll fight you on this" because, growing up, "I'll fight you" were three words that usually preceded an actual fight. Again, turn this around on the speaker and say, "Okay, there's a boxing gym down the road. Meet you in twenty minutes." 

3. "You do you." This is of a piece with "It is what it is," but salted with a little more insult. I suppose it's the modern equivalent of the old Southern expression, "Well, bless your heart" (which was never really meant as a blessing). Anyway, I don't like it.

4. "Follow your truth." I'm not going to get into metaphysics versus linguistics; I'm not going to hash through Arisotlean versus post-modern or emotivist worldviews. Here's the thing, though. For most people, "truth" carries an objective component to it. It's supposed to express an accepted point of (potentially) mutual understanding. But the animating sentiment underlying "Follow your truth" is idiosyncrasy. It's literally a call to celebrate a subjective ontology. Which is all well and good. But let's keep words expressing objective commonality apart from words of individual possession. Because "your truth" carries about as much meaning as "my universe." 

5. "It takes a village." This is a fine old African proverb that got turned into a book title that, in turn, became an overused piece of triteness to trot out whenever someone scolds someone else's kid. It's a lovely sentiment but, much like Orff's O Fortuna, it just got overplayed.

Okay, that's it for the rant. Feel free to add any I may have missed. I promise, I won't "fight you" over it.

- Matt

Haven't been as dutiful as I should on the blog-front. An out-of-town conference followed by an unexpected (but fortunately brief) illness set me back a bit.

But by way of a quick update: I've finally finished the self-edits to the second book of the Yonder & Far series. Tentatively entitled, The Tarot Tale, it's a fun story that melds the political intrigues of Yonder's realm with the political intrigues of the 1800 election.

Now that I've (finally) finished and sent that manuscript off, I've decided to return to a novel I started poking at about 10 years ago. It's more contemporary and set in Florida, but it's definitely got a weird/speculative vibe to it. It ran into a wall at about the 1/3 point, and over the years I kinda half-heartedly tried to slog it along, but it just wasn't writing. Now I think I've finally figured out a good middle act that gets around the blockage (by which I mean, I'm basically re-writing what I've started). But I'm excited to be working on it.

There's a new website that curates "best of" lists for novels called Shepherd.com. Basically, authors create a top-5 list of books (best summer reads set in Iceland, best gothic mysteries with an animal sidekick, that kind of thing). My own contribution--best historical fantasy with a twist of myth and magic--is up now. The link is here. 

Matt's List of Best Historical Fantasy with a Twist of Myth and Magic