Verisimilitude

A fictional universe can be one story or many. Continuity is an issue either way. Consistency validates and inconsistency invalidates. Effects are meaningless if regardless of cause.

I write fiction. I create imaginary universes. I make the effort to maintain continuity. I do make mistakes. I correct directly, by changing what I wrote, or indirectly, by crafting an explanation in later stories.

Continuity is important whether a story is realistic or fantastic. Realism is dispelled without it. Fantasy is rendered simply ridiculous without it.

TO BE CLEAR: An alternate version of a fictional universe is its own universe, unless the fiction explains the imagined reality as a multiverse.

Consequences matter. A universe without consequences cannot be taken seriously. One with dire consequences can be, if explained logically.

My fiction is usually action-adventure. If it is horror, it is usually as survival horror. The stories are about life and death as an adventure. The heroes live and nameless baddies die. The villains live to muster more goons for the heroes to slaughter.

If I kill a hero or a villain, they stay dead. If they appear in another story, it is in a prequel. To do otherwise is to negate the consequence of death in the fiction. The entire universe loses its edge, becoming too safe to be taken seriously.

An imagined reality must be in the likeness of reality, whether in its image or not. The make-believe is unbelievable otherwise.

Making a Book Inside and Out

Writing a novel is not easy. You need an idea to start with. It shall change as you write it into a story. You must show what you mean with words, and words are not pictures. The reader must imagine what the words tell them.

Designing a cover for a novel is not easy. It must attract attention and hold it, to make people want to read the synopsis and flip through the pages. The font and illustration must have an immediate and a lasting effect on whoever glimpses them. The words and picture should match the story they represent.

I write books and illustrate the covers. I create the title fonts.

It took me fifty days to write the 66,266 word novel The Wayward School for Girls. I created the font in the meantime. I illustrated the cover in a day. I edited the manuscript and cover afterwards. I am never entirely satisfied. At some point I must finish the project. Deciding when is not easy. Lingering doubts bother me until I am preoccupied with the next project.

Writing a book is hard work. Illustrating its cover is hard work. Creating its title font is hard work. Doing all of them myself is especially hard work.

I have been told that I am wasting time creating fonts when countless fonts are already available. I am told my covers would be better if professional artists illustrated them. Alas, I yearn to do what I do even if wasting my time to make something amateurish.

My writing began as drawings. My creativity has come full circle. Though never satisfied as no artist ever is, I am satisfied at heart. My work is my own, and that means everything.

Tales of Courageous Terror

Our favorite legends are heroic or scary. Our favorite fiction is likewise. We love stories that thrill us, especially when they are about life and death.

My favorite stories are heroic and scary, especially when they are weird. The protagonists may seem ordinary at first but prove extraordinary by surviving strange horrors. They slaughter the monsters that normally slaughter normal people with pathetic ease.

Ambient horror is my favorite. Suspense is secondary. Shock is tertiary. I bask in a gloomy setting that is eerily silent or I hear strange noises. I prefer long moments of uneasy tranquility to the thrills of sudden terror.

My favorite monsters are normal people. They are dehumanized by the evil, one way or another. They are scary because what happened to them can happen to anyone. We realize the people we know can be turned against us.

There should be sexiness in fiction, both in its pictures and its story. Beautiful girls assure this quality, no matter their roles a characters. They are usually protagonists as victims or the heroine. They are sometimes the villains. They are seldom the monsters.

Strange or ugly can be sexy.

Women with soulless black eyes are unsettling but still attractive. Their strangeness adds to our interest. A deathly complexion, a monstrous countenance, horns or fangs are all weird but can make a comely form especially interesting. Bodies can be sexy whether dead, undead or alive.

The best story is an actual story. Its characters have parts to play in a grand scheme. There is a point to everything. The obvious and subtle alike are meaningful.

An action-adventure as a horror story is about a hero against monsters. Unlike most people, the protagonist is prey that kills his predators. He may be on a quest to save the world… or someone he loves… or himself. He may be clueless but resourceful. His adventure is what it is regardless: a terrifying test of his prowess.

My Wayward Novel

The most popular fiction is about people killing other people. The context varies greatly. Murder is the theme of the very distinct genres of mystery and horror. Combat is the theme of war dramas and action-adventures alike.

I wrote a novel about little girls killing droves of baddies. They slay monsters, cyborgs and lunatics. Most of their victims are normal people, however: boys and girls their own age. The boys are post-apocalyptic survivors that have become cannibalistic savages. The girls are brainwashed foot soldiers of villainy.

In fiction: Men are the usual victims of combat deaths. Women are the favorite victims of murders. Children are slaughtered in droves in reality, but seldom in fiction.

I wrote what I wrote reluctantly. I did worry about mindless backwash, mindful that it could incite self-righteous indignation from those who would not read it. My biggest problem was my own sensibilities, however. Context is everything. Making it appropriate for children to kill and be killed, even as fiction proved difficult.

Honesty is the best policy, especially when writing something innately questionable. I solved the problem quite simply: I wrote about how adults turn children into thralls. The means of indoctrination is primarily through public education, so the story is about a school. The brainwashed children grow up to be the foot soldiers of causes not their own, hence, girls as the foot soldiers of villainy. Boys are more apt to become angry by the methods that work on girls, so become criminals, as in savages.

The Wayward School for Girls is written. I have illustrated its cover. I shall see what comes of this strangely violent novel. I am pleased with the product regardless. It was a labor of love. I am better than anyone who would hate it.