Writing Merriment

Writing the Fight Scene

I’m a fourth degree black belt in Taekwondo. Sometimes when I read a fight scene, I see it falling short of greatness. I thought to write down a few basic principles that I think every writer should know.

1. When weapons are drawn, the fights escalate to be about the weapons. I recently read a scene from a peer where some thug drew a knife and then proceeded to jab the protagonist in the chest with his finger. The writer was a good writer, and so nothing bad against them, but this just doesn’t make sense. The minute someone draws a knife, the knife must become the focal point.

2. Once weapons are in play, don’t ignore them. I read another scene, by another really good writer, where the character pulled a knife and it kind of disappears for a while and then comes back again. Simply put: everyone focuses on a weapon. If it falls, people actually try to pick it up (sounds dumb, but it’s true.)

3. People who swing wildly sometimes lose. It’s called “broadcasting”. A good fighter tries to keep moves tight and quick. The person who lets you know they are fighting is sometimes the person who ends up hurt.

4. Speaking of broadcasting, if the fight does involve weapons and supposedly the fighters are experienced, they will try to keep the weapons in front of them. Pulling the weapon back behind the person, then swinging it forward again is wasting time and broadcasting the strike. Sorry, Luke Skywalker, I’d take you out in a light-saber battle in a second.

5. Physical fights are usually a series of escalations. Note the word “usually”. Sometimes people fly off the handle. You know your characters. But usually things start with words, will move to some form of contact, and move in stages from there.

6. Avoid long dialogues. When angry, people don’t tend to turn into eloquent speakers. If the dialogue is long or flowery, something will feel off to the reader.

7. Use short sentences. It’s the same reason for the dialogue, except the narration should be quick. To the point. Powerful.

8. The obvious blows are the ones that fail. Too many times I’ve seen writing where the female protagonist escapes a rape situation with a good knee to the bad guy’s groin. For starters, any guy in the process of doing something so horrid as a rape is already thinking about their private parts. Perhaps a bit too much. And any guy who’s been hit there once in their life becomes a master at deflecting blows to that region. They could be dead on their ass drunk, and their hand will fly to protect that spot in a flash. Instead, hit other vulnerable spots. People talk about the eyes. That’s true, if you happen to have a fork or knife in your hand, a fast blow to the eyes will stop anyone. But don’t forget the throat. You don’t need a weapon for that. A hard blow to the throat will at the very least stop someone’s breath for a few seconds (and it could easily be much more damaging). Then knee them in the groin.

9. Noise is the best protector of a weaker character under attack in a public place. Someone trying to harm someone else will attempt to do it in a private place. Often attackers try to move their victims accordingly. Lots of noise is sometimes better than even a knee to the groin.

10. People can be immobilized. Many martial arts teach secrets of immobilization. Our joints usually only work in one way, and a weaker person can immobilize a bigger person, if they know what they’re doing.

11. The force of a blow isn’t only dependent on the amount of effort an attacker makes. If you’re writing a story with an abusive husband beating his wife, he may wrongly believe that if he holds back a little, it doesn’t hurt her as much. That’s because we’re conditioned to judge the strength of our blows based on our own bodies. And body mass means quite a lot, but many people simply don’t understand that. This can be important if two people collide, a blow can be devastating even if the person put little strength behind it.

12. In real life, fights don’t sound like they do in the movies. We are so conditioned to believe certain sounds, that people actually add them to movies. That “bam” you hear when Joe punches Bob is not realistic, especially if it’s Batman.

13. Sometimes movies also have characters do stupid fight moves. They look pretty, but that’s about it. Don’t write those into your story. Take for instance if someone is running up behind you. You make a fist and stick your left arm out (I feel like this is the Hokey Pokey). Now you remain facing forward (stupidly because the bad guy’s approaching you from behind) and you swing at the elbow, back-fisting the bad guy just as he reaches you. Picture your left arm making a “L”. Got it? Seen it in any movies? I’ve seen it knock out people in dozens of movies. Yeah right- only on the big screen.

14. Sometimes movies will also exaggerate the importance of a blow. I see this a lot- one character doing unrealistically high damage to an opponent using a legitimate blow. Be careful that someone who has 100 pounds over an opponent doesn’t get flattened by any kick or punch that doesn’t look like the person put their full body strength into it. Speed is important to succeed in making a blow, but to knock a person off their feet, power and strength is more important. The exception is knock-out techniques- those don’t necessarily require strength, but speed (see below).

15. People don’t fight fair- unless it’s a martial art competition, but sometimes not even then.

16. Size matters. I wish it didn’t. But it does. There are some martial arts that train a person how to deal with someone bigger. But most martial arts are based on developing skills to deal with a person your height, weight and sex. The more skills you develop, the further outside your range you can go- but there’s a limit. I’ve seen many black belts. And I’d wager money on a 6’5” 300 pound thug against a nine-year-old black belt any day. Some writers ignore this and let their protagonist just be a master at fighting and go unchallenged. These tend to come across more as silly, however. The closer in proximity a person is, the more size makes a difference. Which leads to the next point…

17. Range is important in a fight. How close are the opponents? Just a few inches one way or the other can completely change the nature of a fight. For instance, a kick boxer will want to be just out of arm’s range. The minute the sumo wrestler hugs the kick boxer, the dynamics change entirely. If you write a scene with the POV of an experienced fighter, and that character isn’t paying attention to range, then something’s wrong.

18. Everyone has an element. Think how that might manifest in a fight scene. If I’m on a boat swaying violently due to a storm and I have to fight a sailor, I don’t think it matters that I’m a fourth degree black belt. I think I’d get my ass whipped.

19. Choose verbs with hard consonants if you can. I hope it goes without saying try active verbs and avoid passive voice.

20. Pain is a key factor in determining within seconds how most fights end. Fights don’t tend to last long, but a lot can happen in just seconds. And if you write a fight, and your character has someone trying to hurt them, unless they are very lucky (and it might seem unrealistic if you’re not careful), you’d better be ready to write pain. And by the way, an experienced fighter expects pain. An inexperienced fighter is shocked by it.

21. It is possible to knock a person out with one blow. Maybe, if the blow causes a fast and violent twist to the head- there’s supposedly a spot in the lower jaw that could do the trick with a nice side punch. But it’s not easy, and the key is moving the head fast so if a person is braced, it’s more difficult.

22. Some fighters will sacrifice their weaker arm to win. You might see this in a knife fight. The last thing someone wielding a knife (or a broken bottle) on an unarmed opponent expects is for the opponent to rush them. And they will also expect that once the knife hits a target it will disable the person. But if the knife hits an arm, the fighter still has a chance. An experienced fighter will protect vital areas of the body (like the head), but will sometimes also force an attack on non-vital areas in order to get the jump on their attacker.

23. If you’re writing the POV of an experienced fighter, the character will focus on staying mobile. I already mentioned range, but keeping from getting pinned into a corner is important. If one person is fighting multiple people, they will try to line them up so that they only have to deal with one blow at a time. The fighter will try to stay on their toes and get the better position.

24. If you want the reader to feel like they are inside a fight scene, be very careful of too much analysis. Too much analysis gives the impression that things aren’t happening quickly. A deep and close POV is necessary in most fight scenes.

25. Combinations matter. By combinations, I mean using multiple blows, often times to different targets. The opponent blocks the first few, but the last one comes as a surprise and hits. On a related point…

26. Every fighter has favorite combinations that they’ve practiced repeatedly. If they don’t, then it’s clear they aren’t an experienced fighter. Keep this in mind if you have the POV of a fighter.

27. Sliding matters. Not only have I studied Taekwondo, but I also spent over five years studying Aikido. Unlike Taekwondo, Aikido is “pure self-defense”. That is, there are no punches, kicks or strikes taught from an offensive perspective. It’s all about using your opponent’s energy against them, to blend with an attack and redirect it. That involves careful timing. It’s surprising how much difference a few inches can make, and often an experienced fighter will slide on their feet in rhythm with an incoming attack in order to get the right timing to respond.

28. Rhythm matters. I know some fighters that lull their opponents with a rhythm. They’ll strike 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, with the same tempo and beat. Then, they’ll strike 1-2-3-4, varying the speed (hopefully for the faster) at the end. This has the effect of tricking the opponent, and it sometimes works.

29. Sometimes the best defense is to avoid an incoming strike. Make no mistake, there are fighters that can strike hard enough to break any bone in the human body. To deflect this strong of a blow with a single arm is nothing short of suicide. An experienced fighter will block blows to the head, but will also try to move out of the way whenever possible.

30. This is an important point: most experienced fighters will avoid fighting if they can. Violence is horrible and is not a good solution.

Hopefully, some of these pointers help!

Gregory Mark Henry
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Developing Reader Empathy for a Character

By gmhenry

I’ve been thinking hard about the topic of developing reader empathy for a character. It isn’t that I’m an expert in this area. This is an area that as a writer, I need the most work and improvement on. But one thing I can do is read and think about how other writers seem to master this area. I’d like to share my conclusions and find out from others what they think.

It boils down to doing four things. The first is to develop strong visceral emotions for the POV character, especially during significant turning points. The second is to provide a clear understanding of what the characters wants at any given moment. The third is also provide a clear understanding of what holds the character back. The fourth has to do with spurring the imagination: the reader needs to be able to visualize the character, imagine how they walk and talk and behave. I’m certainly not the first writer to emphasize the significance of each of these assertions individually. This is my list, however.

The strong visceral emotions are important. As the writing instructor Margie Lawson (check out her website ) says, these must represent uncontrolled physical reactions for a POV character. Strong emotions affect us physically as well, and these turn into excellent “show”s.

Having a clear understanding of what the POV character wants in the moment is crucial as well. We need to root for the character. But there’s a subtle point here, and I’ve seen many blogs that seem to skip over this small detail- the notion must be precise, a deep notion isn’t enough. For instance, in a current WIP, my protagonist wants to find her missing mother. Unfortunately, we need more, because the reader isn’t exposed to what finding the mother might be like. The reader needs to have enough clarity to be able to imagine the scene where the POV gets their desires. It doesn’t matter if the reader is right or wrong, or how closely it matches the author’s view. All that matters is that there’s enough data to capture the reader’s imagination.

Similarly, the reader needs to have clarity in terms of what holds the POV character back. Conflict is essential for fiction. In my opinion, it’s the most important thing. If a character wants to ask out the cute new girl in class, it won’t work for the reader if the reader ends up thinking, “Good grief, just ask her.” For many novels, one expects there to be growth in a character, where they learn how to deal with things that previously held them back. This means that the character must be involved in the solution to whatever problems they faced. If a reader is unable to summarize that character arc after reading the novel, to some extent the author has failed.

The last element has to do with capturing the reader’s imagination. Ever notice how much fan fiction some stories generate? How is that possible? The reader needs to be able to imagine the character. I once wrote a series of seven novels which I read to my children and I’ll never forget something my oldest said during a scene in the seventh novel: “I knew the character would say that- it’s exactly how I imagined them to respond to that situation.” And I did a Snoopy dance in my head, because I knew I had made the character real enough, three dimensional enough, to enable a reader to get them. Readers need to see the characters in their head: how the character talks, walks, and behaves. That doesn’t mean they need every detail, they just need enough to take over where the writing lets off.

Anyways, this is my understanding based on novels I’ve read that I’ve enjoyed. I am curious what others think, because as I’ve said, I’m learning here myself. Do others think this list is complete? Let me know. We’re all here to learn.

Gregory Mark Henry
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More On Echoes

By gmhenry

Just a quick note… I’ve received a ton of feedback on my previous blog post on echoes and repeated words. I’m going to use this to create some nice enhancements, as well as provide some additional details on how to install this and run these utilities.

I’m also looking at other utilities that provide similar functionality and seeing how they compare. Perhaps it’d be useful to do a quick post on what else is out there and different ways to take advantage of this.

If there are particular enhancements people would like to see, of course let me know.

I will say one thing that seemed unclear – the utility is designed to find words that are in close proximity, as opposed to words that are overused in general. If you know words you overuse in general, a simple search is “good enough”. But I think both types of analysis can be useful.

Another bonus is my utility doesn’t require the internet. That may not seem to matter too much these days because everyone has internet (how are you reading this blog?) But some writers have told me that when they get writing and editing they intentionally try to keep from browsing the internet, as it’s a distraction. If this helps those writers, then that’s a big bonus in my opinion.

I’d also like to thank everyone who’s given this a try and given me comments. I appreciate it.

Gregory Mark Henry
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Posted in General Writing | 2 Comments

Echoes and Repeated Words in Close Proximity Utility

By gmhenry

Echoes and Repeated Words in Close Proximity Utility

Sometimes as writers, we get words stuck in our heads. We think, “this scene is about desperation”, and we use the word “desperate” twice without realizing it. This is natural, and hard to catch. Most writers with any sense participate in critique groups, and it’s likely that another writer will find what we miss. They’ll comment on it, call it an “echo” or “repeated word”, and suggest you put your thesaurus to work.

I’ve been searching for software to help identify echoes in advance. Computer software can solve this problem, unlike more complicated writing problems, because echoes can be identified by just comparing words. There are two computer-based solutions for finding echoes: a pricey one, and one that is free, but only solves part of the problem.

The first solution is to buy a program or a subscription to a service that does some form of computer-analyzed critiquing for you, such as AutoCrit Editing Wizard (AutoCrit.com). And it will cost money. Sometimes a little, but sometimes a lot. The second solution is to study the word frequency using another tool, which may require uploading your prose into someone else’s PHP-based website. This gives you the words you use most frequently (and who knows what they do with the material you just uploaded.) Then, you return to your original document, do a search for those frequently used words and inspect each case to see if two identical words are close together. This last process is tedious and prone to missing infrequently used words that you used in close proximity.

Shouldn’t the utilities themselves tell you when two words are nearby without costing an arm and a leg? If you’re analyzing a 20 page selection of your novel, and you use the word “look” 20 times, but once per page, then… Well, you could do better, but it’s not nearly as bad as accidentally using the word “desperate” five times in one paragraph. Nevertheless, the second solution, which is based on word frequency, will flag “look” as more important than “desperate”. This isn’t what we want for this particular problem. And the key to a better result is based on proximity. The idea behind searching for echoes is to find repeated words that are close together. Finding words that you abuse is a different problem, and one should address it separately.

It’s possible that some great solutions exist, and I’ve simply not found them. It wasn’t for lack of effort. I created my own technique, and I’ll share it with other writers. I’m not a VBA programming expert (VBA is a language one writes Microsoft Word macros in). But I’ve been going over the Microsoft documentation (pity me), and working at it, and I believe I have a solution. I have written a Word macro. If you use Microsoft Word at any stage in your writing process, you can run this macro with a single mouse click and the utility will highlight words that you’re using repeatedly within some proximity range. You can make your adjustments, if you deem any change is necessary, and then with a second macro, you can remove all the highlighting.

Of course, determining what defines “close proximity” is something with which I could use assistance. If anyone is interested in this project, or thinks this might help them, drop me a comment, “like the page”, send it to your friends, or use the contact form I have on the website to send me an e-mail with suggestions. Many tedious tasks can be automated in Word, and I’m willing to help other writers. Especially since many writers probably wince at the idea of programming in VBA or any other language. Consider a few examples: if you have problems with smart quotes, extra spacing, clichés, repeated phrases (as opposed to just words), not varying sentence lengths enough, etc.. Computers can be programmed to automatically find all these problems and even offer suggestions. Sure, we’re a long way from a computer matching what humans can do in terms of critiquing, but there are still many things that a computer can locate. Let the computer do some work for you.

You might wonder what the catch is. After all, a service like AutoCrit might cost about $120/year. I looked at what it did and realized I could program a great deal of that functionality- building a few macros like the one I’m providing now. I remember in grade school studying the history of various gold rushes. Typically, the prospectors didn’t get rich. Instead, the service industry blossomed. There’s no use kidding ourselves, the real money in writing isn’t actually writing, but offering services (classes, programs, contests, talks, how-to books) to other writers.

I’m approaching this from a different angle. If this work (and yes, it is a lot of work!) is helpful to you as a writer, keep your hard-earned money. You deserve it. What I want is to get better at writing. That’s it. Plain and simple. If this helps you, find a way to help me. Doesn’t matter how and it doesn’t have to be today. Promise yourself to buy my novel when I get published someday. Offer me critique suggestions, website advice, social media hints, share with me your writing wisdom, anything you think makes sense. I want to learn. I need to get better at my craft.

So, how does it work? Well, if you don’t know how to use a Macro in Word, I may have to supplement this blog with some instructions. Tell me you’re interested, and I’ll blog the instructions in greater detail.

Until then, I’ll distribute both the VBA code and a sample Word template file “WritersWord97Template_byGMH.dot”, as well as a copy of my “Quick Access Toolbar” (it’s a file called Word.QAT.) If you don’t know how to install Macros yourself, it’s okay. You can start Word up with the template (think of a .dot file as like .doc file, but it contains a template for using Word), and the Macro which is called “WordsInCloseProximity” is pre-installed in the template I provide. You can use my custom Writer’s toolbar, or run Macros via a different method. To use my custom Writer’s toolbar, backup your copy of Word.QAT and replace it with the one I’m distributing. The location of Word.QAT depends on the OS:

In Windows XP, the .qat toolbar files are saved in the following location:
C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Office
In Windows Vista, the .qat toolbar files are saved in the following location: C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Office

The advantage of accessing a Macro via the toolbar is it only takes one mouse click to run each macro. If you want to try mine, I’ll be redundant intentionally: be sure to backup your old toolbar first, just in case you don’t like mine. Replace the toolbar file (Word.QAT) before opening the template (WritersWord97Template_byGMH.dot). The custom toolbar has a paintbrush icon- that runs “WordsInCloseProximity”. It also has a hand icon- that runs “RemoveAllHighlighting”.

For security reasons, sometimes Word disables Macros when loading a document. That’s because some macros contain viruses. These are virus free, but if you download this from some other location beyond my control, you might wish to verify the file size hasn’t changed (the first version of the zip file is 25779 bytes.) It doesn’t hurt to run a Virus Check on the files if you’re uneasy. But the Macros won’t work if Word disables them, so once Word starts, you might see a warning message saying “Macros have been disabled” at the top of the screen. Enable them for this document.

If you don’t want to change your toolbar, you can still run the Macro in any file copied into the template I provide (WritersWord97Template_byGMH.dot). And you can use the sample template for as many documents as you want. But your “normal” default template for Word won’t change and won’t have these macros (you can alter that, but that’s another set of directions). To manually run the Macros when you don’t have the toolbar just follow this sequence: in the latest Word, click on View, Macros, View Macros, and pick which Macro name (WordsInCloseProximity or RemoveAllHighlighting) and click Run. There’s lots of web documentation that goes into instructions with far more details.

You can download WritersWord97Template_byGMH.dot in the zip file located at http://www.gregorymarkhenry.com/WritersTemplate_byGMH.zip . Inside, are four files:
1.) The first version of the VBA macro (if you want to install this manually) (WordsInCloseProximity.vba).
2.) the Word template file “WritersWord97Template_byGMH.dot”
3.) My optional custom toolbar (Word.QAT).
4.) A license file for usage (license_file.txt). The license file just requests that people don’t use this in a commercial product that would charge writers. Please support me in this.

If you have trouble or suggestions or would even like to collaborate- send me some comments, and I’ll add more details and refinements in a later blog.

Gregory Mark Henry
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Posted in General Writing | 5 Comments

Vampires and the Secrecy Paradox

By gmhenry

Vampires and the Secrecy Paradox

Vampires among us? Why not? I suppose some might hope for such a thing, especially given the tremendous amount of fictional attention vampires receive.
In many traditional stories, vampirism is secret. That is, only a select group of humans knows about vampires. Most of society would scoff at such a thing. Characters have said things like, “We can’t get help! No one would believe that Count Evil is a vampire!” This always amuses me. First of all, the premise that you cannot get help by telling the truth doesn’t account for stretching the truth. Would the police come if you had evidence that Count Evil *thought* he was a vampire and was about to drink some innocent’s blood? Of course they would.

But what makes a secret a secret? The primary thing that keeps a secret is to keep the number of people who know it at a minimum. And so, many stories use the premise that the minute Count Evil realizes that you’re on to him, he tries to kill you. That way, his secret remains safe. Such a concept isn’t realistic since there’s always someone willing to investigate a mysterious death. Perhaps not every mysterious death, but if Count Evil makes a habit of killing people who witness him killing people, eventually that’s going to work against him (remember that Count Evil has been doing this vampire thing for centuries). Then again, it is a story about vampires, so perhaps people are willing to take some leaps of faith.

This is the premise behind your typical Dracula story. Count Evil has made the mistake of messing with our protagonist, who investigated a mysterious death more closely than others did. Count Evil now has to kill the protagonist in order to keep the secret, but something goes wrong, and Count Evil, despite being a thousand years old, forgets when the sun comes up, and gets burned to a crisp.

Whether you as a reader are willing to swallow all this is your choice. The thing that often leaves me wondering, however, is not why there aren’t more protagonists out there realizing that Count Evil is a vampire, but what are all the other vampires in the world doing? I’ve come across a few stories that propose that Count Evil is the first and only vampire. I’m happy to accept this. After all, the author can make whatever they want with the vampire legend as long as they are consistent. The consistency, however, breaks when during the course of the story, Count Evil manages to create two new vampires. It leaves me doing a little mathematics. If Count Evil is a thousand years old, and Count Evil creates two vampires in a story that takes place over a week period, then it is possible that Count Evil may have personally created over a hundred thousand vampires. Of course, it gets worse. Now suppose each of these vampires also create vampires at the same frequency of Count Evil. How long would it take for the entire world to get populated by vampires? Less than half a year. That’s right, the guy’s a thousand years old and we witness him doing something that would overturn the entire human population in less than half a year. Naturally, at some point prior to the human race becoming extinct, the secret would have gotten out.

This leaves one with an inevitable conclusion, which is slightly counter-intuitive. Most authors explain why humans don’t know about vampires. That’s interesting, but the truth is that the puzzle has nothing to do with the humans. It’s the vampires themselves that may present the contradiction, and it all falls out of a little mathematics.

Many authors get around this by proposing vampires that don’t have an appetite for creating new vampires. Truthfully, that is the only possible explanation for this apparent contradiction. In these stories, vampires only turn those who are most “deserving” of the dark gift. One might argue that the problem of secrecy is now solved, however this brings us back to our original premise.

In my humble opinion, one of the most interesting things about vampires is that they have personalities. Unlike other “monsters”, the vampire doesn’t just have a human form, but can think like a human and respond like a human. While making them far more interesting as a potential villain (or protagonist depending on the story), this has a consequence. What motivates each human is different and depends on the human, and if vampires share this individuality with us, then the same can be said for vampires. The consequence then is this- some crazy vampire would fail to grasp the importance of the secret and let it out.

Vampires, if they really want to keep the secret, could form their own set of “laws” regarding the secrecy. If a vampire posed a threat to the secrecy, the vampire society would kill this rogue vampire. That would work up to a point. Eventually, you’d find a self-destructive vampire that didn’t care. This vampire would expose the secret, and die in the process, but once the secret is exposed, it is exposed. This is a probabilistic argument- the greater the population of vampires, the more likely someone would breach the secret.

Unless, of course, the world’s population of vampires is extremely small. I’ve seen this work in a few stories, and as long as no new vampires are created, unless the circumstances are extraordinary in some fashion, I think this is a wonderful solution to the Secrecy Paradox.

There are other solutions to the Secrecy Paradox- including not making it a secret to begin with. That works for me, but if the premise of the story is that vampirism is known to the world in year 2011, but it wasn’t known in 2000, or 1950, I’m still left wondering how could the Secrecy Paradox apply back then?
I present a solution in one of my recent novels in progress. It may not be perfect, but it is unique at least.

Gregory Mark Henry
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Posted in Vampire Fiction | 1 Comment

Good and Evil Vampires

By gmhenry

Good and Evil Vampires

I love reading vampire fiction. I enjoy all vampires. It may appear from some of my entries that I only prefer types that fit into a certain mold. That’s not really true. I’ll take any mold an author wishes to give. In many respects, I’m probably more tolerant of different vampire types than most people. The only thing I ask is that the author make some effort to make whatever type of vampire they create consistent with the world in which they create it. If the vampire is three thousand years old, I don’t want them to act like a co-worker; I want them to show some wisdom. After three thousand years, they’d better know what they want and I’d be shocked if they didn’t behave in a self-respecting fashion. Another example is if the vampire must feed frequently, and in large quantities, which results in making many new vampire fledglings, then I expect to the world the vampire lives in to be highly overrun with vampires.

When people find out that one of the techniques I employ as a writer to keep vampire populations to a minimum is fighting between the vampires, they’ll sometimes ask me who are the good vampires and who are the evil vampires (before reading my material naturally).

My answer is that there are no good vampires and evil vampires. From a human perspective, I suppose almost every vampire in most stories might be considered evil on some level. Sure, many stories purport “good vampires” that may appear to contradict this claim. Notice, however, that I said from a human perspective. Joe Vampire, who is supposedly good, has a difficult time not killing someone when he bites them. Please don’t tell me that’s good. I’ll accept that they are wrestling with their darker side, and that they have a conscience, perhaps. Or, how about Betsy Vampire who only kills rapists, child molesters and murderers. I’m sorry, but these aren’t good creatures. I remember one novel (which I won’t name) where the protagonist, a vampire we’ll call Gina (I’m changing the name), only kills someone who threatens her, and attacks, but leaves living, dozens of others. By the end of the novel, I was repulsed, not sympathetic, with Gina. And it wasn’t because I didn’t like Gina. I didn’t like how the humans in her life blindly accepted her as “good”.

However, this is all from the human perspective, which is irrelevant to the vampire. From their perspective, it should never be about good and evil. I make this claim because I don’t often meet people that think about doing something because it is good or evil. For some reason, some people think villains should. In truth, people think about what they want and what they’re willing to do to get it. I may want money, but I’m not willing to steal to get it. It all boils down to character motivation. Why should a vampire character be any different? Each vampire must have some history, and some desire, and create some plan that they believe will help them accomplish their desires.

In one of my projects, I have some vampires that have conflicting desires than the human protagonist does. Does that mean that they are evil? Well, if you asked the protagonist, the answer would be a resounding “yes!” I’m certain, however, from their perspective, they’re not evil. They have nothing against the protagonist. Why should they? Villains, who automatically hate the “good guys”, create disbelief. Similarly, if all the “good guys” think the protagonist is wonderful, this also creates disbelief. Real life doesn’t work like that, so why should vampire fiction?

Gregory Mark Henry
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Posted in Vampire Fiction | 1 Comment

Vampires and the Notion of Steady State

By gmhenry

Vampires and the Notion of Steady State

I had the wonderful good fortune to tour Australia in the summer of 2008. One of the things that stuck out in my mind were the constant reminders of how people had inadvertently altered the local ecology by introducing some invasive animal or plant that wasn’t native like the European bunny rabbit. These innocent little fuzzballs, without their natural predators, had run wild over the continent, eating and destroying the native habitat. It all goes to show you, everything in nature must have a balance.

Imagine that you pick up today’s copy of the New York Times, and there on the front cover is the amazing announcement, “Vampires Exist for Real!” This could be a good thing or a bad thing. It largely depends on what kind of vampires we’re talking about. If it’s Stoker’s vampires, then you’d best start sharpening all your stakes. What really amazes me, however, is how many stories are written where there is no way that vampires wouldn’t immediately destroy the human ecology.

For example, in some stories, vampires are easily created. Just a few bites (or even one!) from the offending vampire, and you have a new one. This new one has a sudden craving for blood, and it must bite someone else. Then they become a vampire. This process continues, until before you know it, the entire world should have fangs. Of course, realistically, the vampires would first create human farms and sell human blood at such a premium that broke vampires might easily starve to death.

I’ll write about population growth models elsewhere, but sometimes I wish authors would take just a little time to investigate the mathematics behind their story. Perhaps my perspective as an aspiring author is unique because I’ve a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics, but the point is that if you have any population that grows in an unbounded sense in proportion to its number, and to make matters worse is filled with immortals who can die only by accident, the numbers very quickly add up. How quickly? Start off with just one vampire. You can even call him Dracula if you like. Let’s say that once a year, Dracula meets some interesting human, perhaps named Lucy, and decides to make a new vampire. Let’s pretend that no one stakes Lucy or Dracula, and they are both pretty happy together, but after another year, each of them gets a craving to create a new mate. Again, that’s not so much. I’ve seen stories where the vampire creates three or four vampires in a matter of days. Let’s keep our vampire population “controlled” though and keep it so that they only get this urge once every year. Let each vampire create a new vampire, but no more often than that. Again, this frequency of fledgling vampires is far less than your typical Dracula story. So, what’s the population after an insignificant blink of an eye in a vampire’s centuries of existence- just twenty-five years? Thirty-three million. In less than thirty-five years, they’d have overrun the entire human race.

Naturally, vampires might be reluctant to create new vampires if it puts them in a position where they might starve to death. This implies that the vampires must have some degree of control, which in my opinion makes for much more interesting fiction anyhow.

Nevertheless, if you imagine that these vampires are reluctant to increase their numbers too fast, what’s stopping the humans from wanting to do the same? In some stories, the only disadvantages to being a vampire is that the vampire must avoid daylight, and they must drink blood. In return, they gain immortality and immunity to disease (although in many stories, they gain many more things as well). Some authors throw a monkey-wrench into the mix, by suggesting that vampires are evil, and so only evil people would aspire to become one. The problem with such moralistic arguments is that humans have never been known to agree on most theological issues. While most people agree that killing other people is wrong, if vampires hide any wrong-doing from society (as they would), then what evidence would a human have that they are evil? If the author doesn’t depict a world where such evil is obvious, then there will always be some portion of the human population that would embrace this new species with open arms and an exposed jugular. The flip side is that if the author depicts strong incontrovertible evidence that vampires are vicious, evil killers, then the result of such an announcement would be widespread vampire hunting.

Even if you believe that people would be fearful of vampires, and avoid them regardless of how well the vampires tried to adjust, what about the portion of the human population that is terminally ill? How many terminally ill people would balk at a chance to live forever and be cured of their disease just because the minister at their local church proposed without proof that vampires are evil? Some brave souls certainly would avoid the vampires. However, many would not. There are people that spend billions of dollars on age-hiding medications, surgeries, make-up, etc.. Just how tempting would it be for some rich person not to approach a vampire and say, “Here’s a million dollars if you can make me forever young?”

I know that in some modern stories, vampires have come out of the coffin, so to speak. For instance, Kim Harrison’s, Charlaine Harris’, or Laurell K. Hamilton’s. One must ask a serious question – what is keeping the vampire/human population of the world fixed? Wouldn’t the introduction of this new element completely overwhelm the human population? Or, perhaps, wouldn’t the human population ban together to completely destroy this new element?

This brings me to an important notion- the notion of steady state. Everything must have balance. For every new vampire that is created, an older vampire must somewhere be dying. Why? Because vampires live longer than humans (in most stories). The consequence of this is that there must be some reason for the population to be what it is, not just in the beginning of a story, but before the story takes place, and fifty years after the story ends. Unless, of course, the author wishes to write about the fall of humanity or perhaps the fall of vampires.

One must keep in mind not just the desires of the vampires, but the desires of the humans. A steady state vampire population needs to make sense on two levels- in terms of the vampire reproductive/destruction rates, and in terms of the humans that surround them.

Gregory Mark Henry
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Vampires and Money

By gmhenry

Vampires and Money

Someone once asked me why all the vampires in my stories are wealthy. The quick answer is that not all of them are wealthy, as that would be ridiculous. However, the average vampire has a lot more money than the average human, and the older the vampire, the greater the gap. This isn’t because I’m into escapism, vampires aside. This is just a practical observation about our economic system.

For starters, our economic system is based on the human life span. Think about the types of the big debts that most humans accrue- mortgages, raising children, medical expenses. Just when you think you’re getting ahead, something called life comes along and gives you another surprise. If everyone lived forever, many things would have to change in order to maintain some kind of balance.

Vampires don’t have to worry about everyone living forever. They only have to worry about vampires living forever. What to do? Make long-term investments. They say it takes money to make money. That’s probably true. What does it mean to the vampire just starting in the world? It means that if they put aside just a small amount of money each day, after a long period, they’ll have a lot more money to invest than even the most frugal person starting with similar means.

One might argue that the same could be said for people, but people aren’t always the wisest with their money. This would explain why there might be some poor elder vampires in the world no doubt. However, people learn from their mistakes, so why can’t vampires? Perhaps for the first seventy years they might make all kinds of stupid investment choices- like putting all their eggs into one basket. If a human did the same, they’d be broke. Nevertheless, the amazing thing about many investments is this – if you want short-term gain, you must take higher risk. If you want long-term gain, the risk is lower. A vampire trying to make investments over a two hundred year period could easily make the most conservative choices available and still come out ahead. Just think about one investment choice- real estate. It’s true that if you purchased a home in the Bay Area at the wrong time, you could be paying two million for a dinky place and never able to sell it for anywhere near that amount. However, I don’t know of many places that if you purchased land years ago, where the value of that land would not have grown considerably. Remember, the Louisiana Purchase was only fifteen million dollars. Alaska cost around seven million. I’ve read countless stories where the vampires were around during these purchases. Perhaps they didn’t have millions to spend at the time, but the point was that no matter how much land they did buy, it’d be worth a fortune later.

The only downside to being a vampire investor is how do you keep your long-term investment in a society that knows nothing about vampires? This would be a problem that the vampires must have thought about, and they must have developed creative solutions for. Why? Because large amounts of money buys answers. It always has. Now suppose that society knew about vampires. That would mean vampires wouldn’t have to inherit (and be potentially taxed) on money to themselves anymore. Plus, if the vampires do live forever, I’m willing to bet some rich guy wouldn’t approach a vampire with the proposition, “I’ll write you a blank check in return for immortality.” It’d be yet another reason why even the poorest vampire should have some funds.

So, the next time you read a story with a bunch of four hundred year old vampires that are just as broke as Joe Plumber, you might want to stop and wonder why.

Gregory Mark Henry
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Vampirism and the 5 year rule

By gmhenry

Vampirism and the Five-Year Rule

When I started graduate school at Cornell, I had no idea how I’d get from inspiring student to Ph.D.. Making matters interesting, my thesis advisor, Prof. Charlie Van Loan, already had tenure and no personal stake in my success. In fact, the three students he had before me never made it (with him at least). One dropped out of school, and two others left him to graduate later with someone else. Moreover, the person who dropped out advised me that my subject matter was a dead one, and people who had preceded me had already solved all problems. Of course, he was wrong, and gave up, which is why he dropped out of graduate school. I just remember working hard; I literally tried hundreds of topics and ideas before graduating. It took five years.

Later in life, my oldest daughter Elizabeth started Taekwondo. I joined her, as did my middle daughter, Rosey. Unfortunately, my oldest dropped it. But within five years, both Rosey and I had black belts and were on our way to our second degree black belts.

I’ve recently completed a vampire series of seven books (I’ve written ten books altogether, but seven of them are from a series.) Each book in the series stands on its own and has a distinct beginning, middle, and end. A reader can read each book in the series before any of the other books (although reading the last books first may spoil much). The series does have an overriding theme, and unlike a television series, the characters and situations change over time so that the living conditions and circumstances of the protagonist in the seventh book are vastly different from the first book. I also pushed myself to make every conflict in each book different from the others. I didn’t just create a formula and rubber stamp it a number of times, but instead I created seven different novels. Nevertheless, the process took just over four years.

Medical school (ignoring residency) takes around five years.

A person spending three or more hours a week can probably get good at a foreign language in around five years.

I call this the five-year rule. The basic premise is this- if you want to do something, don’t give up, but persist at it for at least five years. After five years, your perspective on it may be different. Of course, this isn’t to say that if you hate something you should force yourself to do it. Time is too precious for that. However, if you doubt or feel uncertain about something, simply trying for a year may not be enough.

I often wish children realized this. Persist at something, and within a few years, you may not have mastered it, but you’ll have something to show for your efforts.

Yet I can name a number of fictional vampires sporting ages of several hundred years that may have no special skills other than the ability to speak several languages. What are they doing with their time?

George Bernard Shaw tells us “Youth is wasted on the young.” Such a theme is perfect in a vampire story, but often when reading vampire fiction I believe that there should be a corollary to this statement, “Immortality is wasted on the vampires.” This belief centers around the concept of this five-year rule. If a vampire were to put their mind to it, think of all the things that they could accomplish. Unless, of course, learning and growing as an individual doesn’t hold value to them, which would be the case for some vampires. There is something about the “bad boy/girl” image where the vampire is just a fascinating monster, and there is always room in fiction for another example of this. And while I may have some vampires that fit into that category, I feel that some of my more interesting vampires are interesting because of their perspective on life and learning.

Gregory Mark Henry
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Why Ten Vampire Novels?

By gmhenry

Why Ten Vampire Novels?

Here’s a question I get- why did I write ten vampire novels?

When I was at the 2009 Willamette Writers conference, I spoke to two agents who both made the assertion that it’s a bad thing for a potential first-time author to write a large number of novels. It demonstrates a lack of focus- editing a novel takes a huge amount of time and only experienced authors can create multiple works of art. For most of us normal mortals, a single novel takes so much time it would be like trying to get five Ph.D.s. Furthermore, if an aspiring author has completed a series of novels, he or she will be resistant to criticism that implies changes in the novels that appear later (“I can’t do that; it would change the meaning of book 3”).

When I started my first novel, I discovered something quite profound about myself: I don’t know how to write well. I made every possible mistake. I used “purple prose”. I never showed a situation, I just told each situation. Most of my characters were clichés that engaged in dialogue without doing a single character action.

How is a person supposed to learn? I needed to keep practicing. After completing my first novel, and spending ten years editing it, I started an interesting new technique in 2005. I started a series of seven novels. After I wrote each novel, instead of fixing the obvious problems, I would try to address those issues as I wrote the next novel. On August 30, 2008, I finished the first draft of a series of seven novels. Am I unwilling to change the first novel if it implies contradicting something in the other six? The next six are already obsolete. I’m constantly cannibalizing them, pulling things from them to make the first in the series more interesting. Stephen King wrote that every novelist must write at least two novels for every novel sold, and combine the best of these into a single piece. For an inexperienced author as myself, perhaps seven was a good implementation of King’s idea. I wrote seven in the series to learn, but I edit the first novel in the series to make it good.

It’s all about learning. I took some writing courses at the local community college (both noncredit and credit.) I joined writing groups. I volunteered for the 2009 and 2010 Willamette Writers Conference. I’ve read everything I can get my hands on with regard to writing. The one consistent advice from nearly every writer’s resource is the same – write, write, write. These days, I spend an inordinate amount of time editing my first novel in the series of seven, regardless of whether it implies changes in the other novels or not, and sometimes I write new things just to practice. I completed a first draft of my ninth novel in July 2009, and even though it had nothing to do with my previous eight, I still learned a few important techniques. I decided to play “Nano” in 2010, and started and finished a first draft of my tenth novel in November 2010.

After writing ten novels, I confess I still have a lot to learn and that’s why I keep practicing. I write new things occasionally to practice, but focus on editing the first in my series of seven to learn how to edit.

Gregory Mark Henry
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