Hameji Cycle – Page 13 – One Thousand And One Parsecs

Trope Tuesday: MacGuffin

holy grail — The Holy Grail of MacGuffins. Literally.

So the hero has crossed the threshold of adventure, thwarted the trickster, evaded the vamp, and met with the goddess. He may have lost his mentor and descended into the deepest dungeon, but by calling on the supernatural aid he received at the beginning of the quest, he has passed the final test, found atonement with his father, and come back stronger than he ever was before.

So now that that’s all done, what’s left? Just one thing, really–he has to receive the ultimate boon, or in other words, get the MacGuffin that he came out questing for in the first place.

A MacGuffin is an object whose main (sometimes only) purpose in a story is to motivate the plot. It is usually something that everyone is chasing after, whether it be a ticking time bomb, a briefcase full of money, a priceless artifact, or some sort of superweapon. Basically, it can be almost anything–that’s kind of the point. If you can replace an object with something completely different that serves the exact same plot purpose–for example, a priceless stolen Picasso with a priceless stolen Dead Sea scroll–then it’s a MacGuffin.

Like it or not, MacGuffins are everywhere in fiction. It’s such a prevalent trope, it even has its own Wikipedia page. One of the most famous examples, at least in the Western literary tradition, is the Holy Grail. Another example is the One Ring from Lord of the Rings–it could just as easily be a bracelet, or earring, or any other wearable artifact (though admittedly, if it were a necklace and Gollum had to bite off Frodo’s head, that would change the story quite a bit). The MacGuffin page on tvtropes lists nearly 30 subtropes, from Egg MacGuffin to I’m Dying, Please Take My MacGuffin.

So what does this have to do with the hero’s journey? The last phase of the initiation cycle (basically, all the stuff between the departure and return) is known as the Ultimate Boon. It not only represents the achievement of the hero’s quest, it represents receiving something to bring to the people back home. As Joseph Campbell pointed out:

The gods and goddesses then are to be understood as embodiments and custodians of the elixir of Imperishable Being, but not themselves the Ultimate in its primary state. What the hero seeks through his intercourse with them is therefore not finally themselves, but their grace, i.e., the power of their sustaining substance…This is the miraculous energy of the thunderbolts of Zeus, Yahweh, and the Supreme Buddha, the fertility of the rain of Viracocha, the virtue announced by the bell rung in the Mass at the consecration, and the light of the ultimate illumination of the saint and sage. Its guardians dare release it only to the duly proven.

According to Vogler, the hero has to return home with something to benefit himself or the community–otherwise, the whole journey has been a waste of time. Before entering the return phase, then, the hero has to receive the object of his quest.

At this point, it’s worth pointing out that tropes are neither good nor bad. Just because a story revolves around a MacGuffin doesn’t automatically make it cheap or formulaic. Tropes themselves are value neutral–what matters is how you, as the author, use them. Some of the greatest and most inspiring stories of all time make heavy use of MacGuffins.

Because the MacGuffin is a plot-centric trope, when you really understand how it works, you can do some interesting writerly things with it. Michael Moorcock, for example, used this trope to formulate a method for writing a novel in just three days. Would you like to be able to write a novel in three days? Gosh, I’d like to. And before you write that off as formulaic crap, remember, it wasn’t just anyone who came up with this method–it was Michael Moorcock.

In my own work, the best example of this trope would have to be Stella from Bringing Stella Home. As you might have gathered from the title, Stella serves as a MacGuffin for her brother James (specifically, in The President’s Daughter flavor). She does have her own character arc, of course, but as far as James’s storyline is concerned, she could just as well be his mother, or cousin, or <insert kidnapped loved one here>. I did a similar thing in Stars of Blood and Glory, an as-yet-unpublished sequel to Bringing Stella Home, but it should be coming out in January or February of next year so you’ll have a chance to read it then.

Trope Tuesday: Came Back Strong

This trope, also kown as apotheosis, is by far my favorite part of the hero’s journey.

Up to this point, the hero has faced a lot of tests and trials. Some of them he’s passed, some of them he hasn’t, but the setbacks haven’t yet been enough to stop him. Sure, the costs have been high–he may have lost a friend or mentor, for example–but at least he’s still in the game. Then, just as he experiences the power of love (meeting with the goddess) and reconciles with the ultimate power in his life (atonement with the father), what happens?

He dies.

This may be literal or metaphorical, physical or spiritual–but whatever form it takes, the hero has to lose something significant, up to and including…well, everything. After all, there are so many things worse than death. While all the other failures up to this point left him more or less intact, this one completely shatters him–and in the process, transforms him.

Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, the hero comes back from the dead, often with a level in badass. By dying, he gains that last piece of knowledge, experience, or resolve that he needs to defeat the big bad and gain the ultimate boon of his quest. Whoever or whatever he was before, that person wasn’t strong enough to pass the test–but now, he is.

When done well, this is a stand-and-cheer moment of the best possible kind. It’s the culmination of everything the hero has gone through, not just in terms of plot, but character as well. Years from now, you might forget everything else in the story–even the parts that you loved–but you’ll remember how you felt when you got to this part.

One of my favorite examples of this trope is in the clip I posted from the Matrix. Seriously, when Neo realizes that he is The One, that is one of the best moments in all of cinema. The Empire Strikes Back also has a moment like this, though since the movie is essentially a tragedy, there’s a lot more emphasis on Luke’s death (falling through the gas mine shaft after confronting Darth Vader) than his resurrection (getting a new hand and reuniting with his friends). The oldest examples, of course, come from mythology–Odin gained the ability to use magic by sacrificing himself on Yggdrasil, and before returning to Ithaca, Odysseus first had to journey to Hades to pay his old friend Agamemnon a visit.

So as writers, how are we supposed to get this trope right? I’m by no means an expert, but my gut instinct tells me that the way to nail it is to be as excited about this moment in the story as we want our readers to be when we get to that point. Even though storytelling is ostensibly just making stuff up, it’s not something you can fake–if you aren’t excited about your own story, how do you expect your readers to even care?

Fortunately, this is often the part of the story that drives us to write everything else. There have definitely been times when I could hardly wait to get through the other stuff and finally write the chapter where this happens. Bringing Stella Home was a big one–and that’s all I can say, at the risk of giving spoilers. Star Wanderers is another one, though it wasn’t until I was midway through Fidelity that it really came to me. Desert Stars was more of a Heroic Second Wind, which is basically Came Back Stronger without the death. However, there was definitely a transformation, both for Mira and Jalil.

So yeah, I really, really, REALLY love this trope. When done well, it’s one of those things that can turn a run-of-the-mill adventure story into something both soul-searching and powerful. You can definitely expect to see me play with it a lot in the future.

On the verge of another story

So with Star Wanderers coming to a close, at least as far as the actual writing is concerned, I’ve recently found myself back in that weird writerly place where I don’t have any pressing projects to work on. Whenever this happens, I find that it’s generally a good idea to start something new.

Until just a couple of days ago, though, I wasn’t sure which project to start. At first, I thought I should do the sequel to Stars of Blood and Glory, since I’m currently getting that one ready to send off to my editor, but beyond a tentative title (Empress of the Free Stars) and a really awesome opening scene, nothing has really sparked for that one. With time, I’m sure my ideas will come together, but for now it’s just not ready to come out of the incubator.

So then I went back to The Swordkeeper, going back over the ideas that had sparked that one. I started the opening scene back in March, but it’s currently lackluster, and none of my attempts at worldbuilding have gotten me anywhere. For the past six months, I haven’t really touched it.

But when I took the time to just think about the story, something amazing happened. All my ideas came together, and the ending just came to me–not just for the first book, but for the entire series. Seriously, I must have spent hours staring out across the Georgian countryside from my farmhouse balcony, totally in awe of the story in my head.

A similar thing happened to me last summer with Stars of Blood and Glory. It took me a few months to finally get around to writing it, but when I did, the first draft flew out in just a matter of weeks. I’ve since made a few relatively minor fixes to the beginning and added some scenes that were missing, but otherwise haven’t made any substantial changes, and the comments from my first readers so far confirm that that’s the right decision.

So if all goes well, I’ll finish up with Stars of Blood and Glory by the end of this next week, and restart The Swordkeeper soon after that. Things are looking good, and I can’t wait to get immersed in this next story. It’s a fantasy, so that’s going to be a major shift, but I think it will help to keep things fresh.

Anyhow, that’s all for now. More later.

Update on STAR WANDERERS and other projects

So I’m back in Kutaisi again, recharging my netbook battery due to some chronic electricity problems out in the village. Seriously, I think I heard a transformer explode this morning. Anytime it rains, you can prettymuch expect a blackout here in rural Georgia. Hope for the best, plan for the worst–but that’s the subject for another post.

Anyhow, here’s where things currently stand with Star Wanderers:

Part III: Sacrifice is almost ready for publication, and will hopefully be up in a few weeks. I’m just waiting for some feedback from my first readers, to make sure there aren’t any major problems. I made some pretty big changes to the story after getting some helpful feedback I got from my friend Laura, so I don’t want to put it out until a few other eyes have seen it in its current form. Of course, I’ll need some help with proofreading, so if anyone wants to exchange services (proofreading or formatting), just shoot me an email.

As for Part IV: Homeworld, I’m currently wrapping up the 2.0 draft and should have it finished by the end of the week. I’m really excited about this story, especially the ending I have planned and the way I want to bring together all the threads from the first three parts. You know that moment when a story just comes together naturally, without being forced or anything? Yeah, that’s what I’m experiencing right now. It’s awesome.

So the plan is to publish Star Wanderers: Sacrifice (Part III) sometime in mid-late October, and to publish Star Wanderers: Homeworld (Part IV) sometime in November. As with parts I and II, they will both be free via Smashwords for the first two weeks to subscribers of my email newsletter. To sign up, fill out the form in the sidebar ——–>

This isn’t the end of the Star Wanderers series, of course. I’ve already completed the first draft of a parallel novelette to Part I: Outworlder from Noemi’s point of view. I’d also like to do stories with the other characters, like Samson or Mariya. And of course, there’s the omnibus for parts I-IV, which I’ll probably release early next year. If you’d like to see a story from any particular point of view in this universe, let me know–I’m always open to new ideas.

In the Gaia Nova series, I’m hoping to publish Stars of Blood and Glory by January. I’ve been in touch with my copy editor, and things are looking good for a 2012 release. I need to make another quick revision pass first, which I’ll probably finish in October, and then we’ll see about getting the ball rolling.

So that’s where things stand right now. I’m happy to see that sales are trending up on all the platforms where I’m published, which means that I can reinvest more in new titles and put them out more frequently. And my teaching schedule here in the village is pretty light, which means I have lots of time to write–that is, when we actually have electricity. And even when we don’t, there’s always pen and paper.

That’s just about it for now. My battery’s almost at 100% and it’s starting to get dark, so I’d better go. See you all later!

Trope Tuesday: Wicked Cultured

nemo — What Captain Nemo does in his spare time, when he isn’t terrorizing the world of maritime shipping.

This week’s Trope Tuesday series post is by request from a reader.

Evil villains aren’t always grotesque, brutish, foaming-at-the-mouth barbarians. Quite often, they are wealthy and aristocratic, with exquisitely refined tastes and an extraordinary degree of eloquence. It isn’t just that evil is cool (though it may overlap with this), or that the barbarians have finally developed a fashion sense–it’s that the more refined and cultured a character is, the more evil they are as well.

This happens a lot more often than you might think. Magneto (X-men), Lucius Malfoy (Harry Potter), Hannibal Lector (Silence of the Lambs), Ganondorf (Zelda), Captain Nemo (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea), the Godfather (the Godfather), Kane (Command & Conquer), President Shinra (Final Fantasy VII), the Merovingian (The Matrix Reloaded), Grand Admiral Thrawn (Star Wars: Heir to the Empire and The Thrawn Trilogy), Khan (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan), Vetinari (Discworld), Captain Hook (Peter Pan), the Phantom (Phantom of the Opera) and every James Bond villain ever all fall squarely into this trope.

So why does this happen? I can think of a few reasons, though I’m sure there are others.

First, it hearkens back to the age-old romanticism vs. enlightenment debate. This is especially true of the fantasy genre, which tends to hearken back to a medieval golden age before the modern, industrial world, when life was simpler and people tended to live in picturesque rural villages instead of dense urban cities. If your hero is a farmboy in a world of knights and wizards, or a barbarian hero who strikes first and asks questions never, chances are that anyone with a sense of refinement or culture is going to find themselves on the wrong side of the story.

Second, it hearkens back to the mad scientist and the cautionary tale of science gone horribly wrong. As you might expect, this is much more common in science fiction, especially the classic dystopian stuff. The more scientific and enlightened a character, the more cultured they tend to be as well. In stories where science is bad, then, it should come as no surprise that these characters are also evil.

Another good reason to use this trope is to indicate that the villains are members of the Empire. Culture tends to happen when people of diverse talents and backgrounds are brought together, and the best way to bring them together is through conquest. Just look at the Romans. Almost every empire throughout history, no matter how brutal, has always produced an increase in some degree of culture. Even the Mongols gave way to Kublai Khan and the Silk Road. So in stories where the Evil Empire comes into play, having your villains be cultured can be a good way to show that.

The biggest reason for this trope, though, is that it makes the villains more complex and interesting. If being evil always meant living in a cave and eating raw meat, then every story would read like a badly written RPG, where the heroes keep grinding until all their stats are at 9999 or higher. And honestly, you have to admit that there’s something a little bit eerie about that guy who gets totally absorbed when playing the organ.

I haven’t played with this trope in a major way yet, but it does come into play a bit in Desert Stars, though only in a minor way. In Bringing Stella Home and Heart of the Nebula (forthcoming), Lars is pretty much the opposite of this (the Gentleman and a Scholar trope, though he did drop out of college). Probably the best example would be Heloise from Star Wanderers: Fidelity (Part II). She’s wealthy, fashionable, and decorates her apartment with wallscreen monitors that cycle through artistic photographs of deep space nebulae. She’s also one of the more dangerous female characters I think I’ve written. Who knows–maybe she’ll show up in another story before too long.

Back in Georgia

Hey, just a quick post to let you guys know how I’m doing.

I made it out to the village yesterday, met my new host family and got more or less settled. Due to some mixups, I ended up in Sairme (WAY up in the mountains) before making it down to Baghdati, but everything worked out well and I got to see some beautiful Georgian scenery at the same time.

My new host family is great! It’s a 35 year old guy and his mom, living on a farm in a village with all their uncles and cousins and stuff pretty close by. The guy, Dato, is way cool–he does IT at the school, farms his mom’s place, and otherwise just hangs out in the village. We played nardi last night–I actually beat him on the first go, then he slaughtered me twice. Then his aunt played him and things got really entertaining.

The house is WAY different from the apartment where I was living before. Much more spacious. It’s a couple hundred years old, though, so the wires are attached on the outsides of the walls and stuff. We’ve also got chickens all over the place. I’ll be sure to post some pictures, probably in a week or two.

I think I’ve hit it off pretty well with the family. They’re impressed that I already know a bit of Kartuli, especially the aunt. Things got a little tense when I turned down the wine and told them I can’t drink because my religion forbids it, but I don’t think it will be too much of a problem (though this being Georgia, you never know).

The mom is an awesome cook. This morning, she made one of the best breakfasts I’ve ever had in my life. The house is old but comfortable, I’ve got all the space and privacy I need, there’s a lot more nature out here in the village–I think I’m really going to like it here. What’s more, Kutaisi is only a short half-hour marshrutka ride away.

After I’m through here, I’ll walk up to my old host family’s place and drop off some gifts: specifically, some RAM for their broken down computer. Then I’ll head over to my old school, say hi to my old coteachers, run downtown to pick some stuff up, then head back out to the village. Tomorrow, I’ll meet up with a friend of mine to get some stuff for camping, then head out the next day to go backpacking in Borjomi or Tusheti. That’s the plan at least.

Oh, and about the trip to Ani: I tried to get down to Kars, but couldn’t find a bus. I ended up in Akhaltsikhe, the Georgian border town, but the only way out was to catch a taxi to the crossing ($$$), catch a taxi on the other side to the Turkish town on the other side, and from there to catch a bus down to Kars (about 140 km). I was traveling alone, didn’t know any Turkish, it was about mid-afternoon and I didn’t have a backup plan, so I ended up aborting and headed back to Tbilisi.

Oh well–it happens. I’ll try again, though, probably in a few weeks. This time, we’ll meet up in Georgia, where I actually know how to get around.

In other news, I bought three author copies each of Genesis Earth, Bringing Stella Home, and Desert Stars before I left the US. They’re signed and numbered, and if you want to buy one of them, just shoot me an email (joseph [dot] vasicek [at] gmail [dot] com). The #1 copies are already sold, but the #2 and #3 copies of each book are still available. You can buy them from me at the current Amazon paperback price, and I’ll have my parents ship them out to you.

That’s all for now. Take care, and I’ll see you guys around!

Trope Tuesday: The Vamp

Also known as the temptress or the seductress, the vamp is one of the more dangerous characters the hero meets on his journey. A devastating beauty who is as evil as she is sexy, she uses her feminine wiles to exploit men’s flaws to her own advantage. If the hero falls for her, he will be destroyed.

Unlike the femme fatale, her more neutral counterpart, she is completely evil and cannot be redeemed. This is because her role in the story demands it. She generally makes her first appearance in the initiation phase of the hero’s journey, after the hero sets out on the adventure but before he masters the unfamiliar world. In many cases, she represents a leave your quest test or a secret test of character.

Joseph Campbell thought this character was so important that he dedicated an entire phase of the monomyth to her:

When it suddenly dawns on us…that everything we think or do is necessarily tainted with the odor of the flesh, then, not uncommonly, there is experienced a moment of revulsion: life, the acts of life, the organs of life, woman in particular as the great symbol of life, become intolerable to the pure, the pure, pure soul. The seeker of the life beyond life must press beyond (the woman), surpass the temptations of her call, and soar to the immaculate ether beyond.

As such, the vamp represents the more carnal elements of the hero’s nature, which he must reject or overcome in order to be transformed. Confronting her is an important part of the story because it gives him an opportunity to recognize his flaws and master them. It isn’t easy, though–the vamp is an extremely deceptive character, and often plays tricks like the wounded gazelle gambit to confuse the hero and gain his sympathy.

While often a female character, there are a few male examples of this character. Mr. Wickham from Pride and Prejudice is one of the more obvious ones. Basically, the vamp can be of any gender, so long as s/he is someone the main character finds sexually enticing. Because of the traditionally male-centric nature of the hero’s journey, however, she’s almost always female.

Also, I think it’s important to add that it’s not just the vamp’s sexiness that makes her evil, it’s the way that she uses it to manipulate and undermine the hero. If she starts out evil but has a heel-face turn later in the story, she doesn’t fulfill this trope. Likewise, if falling for her wouldn’t make the hero fail, then she doesn’t fulfill the trope either.

I’ve played with this trope a little bit in my own work, but not in a big way yet. Heloise from Star Wanderers: Fidelity (Part II) probably fits this trope the best, though her appearance is fairly brief. Tamu from Bringing Stella Home might appear superficially to be one, but she’s actually more of a fair weather mentor for Stella (and has good reasons for choosing the life of a Hameji consort). And of course, Mira from Desert Stars doesn’t fit this trope at all, seeing how much she changes by the end.

Trope Tuesday: The Trickster

After the hero crosses the threshold of adventure and finally sets out on his journey, he passes through a long phase that Campbell called “the road of trials.” This is often where the meat of the story happens, but it doesn’t fit squarely into any one trope because of all the possible directions where the story can go. For that reason, I think it’s more useful to think in terms of who the hero meets, not what the hero does.

The Trickster is often (though not always) one of the first characters the hero encounters upon entering the lands of adventure. He is almost always male, though sometimes he can change shapes and even sexes (for example, Loki, who turned into a mare and conceived Odin’s horse). His role in the story, though, can range from mentor (Merlin, Yoda, Mary Poppins) to bad guy (the Joker, the Homonculi, Grand Admiral Thrawn) to the hero himself (Prometheus, Bugs Bunny, Bilbo Baggins).

Obviously, the Trickster is a very slippery character. You can tell who he is, though, by whether he meets these two basic criteria:

completely unpredictable
not beholden to any authority

In this way, the Trickster often stands in stark contrast to the people of the ordinary world that the hero left behind. Which makes sense–having just crossed the threshold of adventure, the hero needs to leave his old mentality behind and be exposed to new experiences and ideas. For that reason, the Trickster’s antics often serve to teach the hero an Aesop, helping him to learn and grow.

That doesn’t mean that the Trickser is harmless. Quite the contrary–he’s a dirty, lying cheat, capable of taking any disguise and throwing the victims of his pranks into any moral quandary just for laughs. He’s not necessarily a jerkass–he may even be more of an ally than an enemy–but he definitely is not to be trusted.

Like most things associated with the hero’s journey, the amazing thing is just how prevalent this trope is. It’s even cropped up in some of my own work. For example, in Bringing Stella Home, Ilya Ayvazyan is a trickster of the playful hacker variety. In Star Wanderers, Samson is a blithe spirit who doesn’t necessarily have Jeremiah’s best interests at heart…though his girlfriend (the one at Alpha Oriana) is a lot more sinister. I’m not sure if anyone fits this trope in Desert Stars, but you could probably make a case for Lena or Amina–or better yet, Ibrahim.

Of all the major character archetypes, though, the Trickster is the one I feel like I know the least about. If you have anything else to add, I would like to hear it!

Alright, hit me up…

I’m just about ready to release Star Wanderers: Part II–the story’s been revised and proofread, the cover art is finished, the formatting is ready to go–all that’s left is figuring out the book blurb. Which is where I could use your help!

Here’s what I’ve got so far. What do you think?

IS FIDELITY WORTH THE PRICE OF FREEDOM? CAN LOVE TAKE ROOT BEYOND THE STARS?

Oriana Station: a bustling frontier settlement between the Outworlds and the Coreward Stars. A popular port-of-call for free traders and independent starfarers alike—and the latest target in the aggressively expansionist plans of the Gaian Empire.

Life was simple for Jeremiah and Noemi before they arrived. Though neither of them speak the same language, they’ve reached an understanding of each other that goes beyond words. But when the colonial authorities make them into second-class citizens of a fractured empire, even that might not be enough.

Their newfound friends in the immigrant community can only do so much. With Noemi and her people depending on him, Jeremiah must find a way back to the Outworlds—before they lose everything that they came for.

I’m going with the family on vacation at the end of the week, but if all goes well, I should have it released before then. Newsletter subscribers will be able to download it for free on Smashwords for the first two weeks, and I’ll make Part I available for free while pricing Part II at $2.99. When Part III comes out, I’ll drop the price to $.99.

In other news, I typeset and formatted Bringing Stella Home for CreateSpace this morning, and ordered the proof just a few hours ago. With luck, it should come in the mail by the end of the week. This is the third book I’m releasing in print, and the last one for the rest of this year. I’ll be sure to post pics and links for where to get it once it’s ready.

In still other news, the Mars landing was totally worth staying up for last night. A truly awesome moment for the whole human race. And yes, I’ve been using this excuse all day.

Hey, at least I got the blurb done! :p

When men cry, or in defense of damaged characters

I recently read an amazing blog post by Shannon Hale titled “Why boys don’t read girls (sometimes).” In it, she makes a number of excellent points about how our society stigmatizes boys who read “girlie books,” and why that’s harmful.

Perhaps the most moving part of the post was at the end, where she described an experience at one of her book signings where she saw a boy hanging back and asked him if he would like her to sign one of his books. The boy’s mother jumped in and said “yeah, Isaac, would you like her to put your name in a girl book?” The boy’s sisters all laughed at him, shaming him for reading anything that ran against their strictly defined gender roles.

In direct contrast to Shannon Hale, Dave Farland released a “daily kick” newsletter a couple of days ago where he advises writers to never let their characters cry. In it, he states:

Whatever problem [the character has]—whether terminal disease or sociopathic neighbor or anything else—the problem must be faced with courage. This means that your character can’t cry about it, no matter what the source of pain…Any time that a character breaks down, we as an audience may cast judgment upon that character.

Now, I have nothing but respect for Dave Farland. I’ve been following his “daily kick” emails for years, attended dozens of his convention panels, and even interviewed him once for an online magazine. He’s been a very influential writer to me personally, and his advice has had a huge impact on my writing.

But on this issue, I think he’s dead wrong.

Even if you don’t have any problem with the idea that men should never cry–a disturbing belief that harms men by forcing them to hide their true feelings, and harms women by teaching men that compassion and empathy are signs of weakness–even if you’re comfortable living in a culture that accepts this belief, there are still instances where having a man cry in your story can be both moving and poignant.

livres-l-homme-de-jerusalem-36 — Cross his woman, and he’ll blow your brains out–quoting scripture while he does it.

The best example of this that I can think of comes from David Gemmell’s The Jerusalem Man. No one–and I mean no one–writes manlier heroes than David Gemmell. And among his characters, Jon Shannow ranks as one of the manliest.

In The Jerusalem Man, Jon Shannow is a lone gunman roving the post-apocalyptic wastelands of Earth on a spiritual quest for the city of Jerusalem. Near the beginning of the book, he comes across a frontier woman under attack from bandits. He stops to defend her homestead, and she shows her gratitude by inviting him into her bed.

Jon Shannow is a middle aged man, but because of the post-apocalyptic setting, this is his first sexual experience, and it moves him to tears. For me, that was one of the most poignant moments of the book. It didn’t take away anything from his masculinity throughout the rest of the story–indeed, it added significantly to it when the woman got kidnapped and he determined to rescue her.

I’m sure there are other examples that you can think of. Certainly in real life, this notion that men should never show their feelings is both harmful and outdated. To say that in fiction, no characters should ever cry–female characters as well as male characters–that’s just so wrong it’s infuriating. If crying is so taboo that it’s even forbidden in the pages of a book, then something is wrong with the culture, not the story.

In 2008, I attended a fascinating panel at LTUE in which Tracy Hickman and a number of romance and fantasy writers discussed how to write romance in science fiction and fantasy. Tracy explained that in all the novels he writes with Margaret Weis, she does the fight scenes and he does the romantic ones.

He then went on to talk about how there’s a whole side of life that our culture has shut men off from–a feminine side which is present in all of us, men as well as women. The way he explained it, romance is not just the “kissy bits,” but a vital and enriching way to see the world–a paradigm that infuses everything with feeling and passion.

It makes me think of The Princess Bride, where even the action scenes with Inigo Montoya have a certain romantic flair to them. In the old days, the term “romance” described not only love stories, but action & adventure stories as well. In modern times, we seem to have forgotten all the old qualities like honor, love, sacrifice, loyalty, heroism, and compassion–even though they still make for the best stories.

Of course, our characters need to have courage. But courage is not the absence of fear–it’s pressing on in spite of it. And crying is not always a sign of weakness–it can actually be a sign of great emotional strength. And if it’s true that the best literature helps us to see our world in a new light, giving us a greater understanding and appreciation for the human condition, how is it “courage” for anyone to hide their true feelings?

So do the characters in my stories cry? Hell, yeah! I don’t have them hide their feelings just because some readers might look askance. Some of them cry more than others, and many of them don’t hardly cry at all, but those who do cry do so because the story demands it.

Even though I write science fiction, I do my best to infuse my stories with romance–not just the “kissy bits,” but that depth of feeling and passion for life that made me fall in love with books and reading in the first place. Star Wanderers is a great example of that, and so is Desert Stars.

And yes, in case you’re wondering, I’ve read a lot of “girlie books.” They’re some of my all-time favorites.