Territories Not To Be Charted

During this last three days, I've been sporadically attending events at WorldShift Summit 2025, and one of the bits that I attended and found interesting was a talk titled "Writing Identities Not Your Own: Speculative Fiction", hosted by author Alex Temblador. During the course of the talk, there were points raised regarding sensitivity readers, research, and making the choice just not to write something (a choice that more authors should follow). I remember commenting in the chat about some areas that I had decided not to touch in my speculative writing, but the thought persisted. It also came to mind with other things I'd encountered, including a discussion within the PBS Storied YouTube posts, and this video from Overly Sarcastic Productions on urban fantasy.

So, I'll freely admit that in my early writing, I didn't have the full sense to not use certain pieces of belief systems or history. I used them, and thank all the deities that writing will never see the light of day. It's not just that it's subpar in quality, but it also ignores.some very basic rules of etiquette regarding cultural representation. There are some things which are relatively open for the usage, such as belief systems or pieces of history that are so far removed from the present day they might as well have happened in another realm. Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, the pre-Roman Celts, the pre-Christian Norse, and Japan.

But there are some pretty large areas where I don't feel comfortable treading. Many of these are places not only with active and living participants in a belief system, but also countries which have been victims of 19th and 20th Century colonialism, and places where there is already a literary tradition which is finally breaking through to a worldwide audience. You may call foul for having mentioned Japan, but I've noticed that unless an adapter is wholly disrespectful or malicious, Japanese people don't seem to mind as much when their Shinto beliefs are used for fiction. I may be wrong about this, please correct with examples if so, but their attitude seems a lot more--to mix metaphors--laissez faire.

So here are a few big examples of stuff I won't touch for some reason. Extant believers

*Native America: This is a very solid line that I've drawn for myself. The Native American belief systems are a much-denigrated, much-misrepresented, and much-persecuted way of seeing the world. Some of its symbols, such as dreamcatcher charms or what in English is called the "wendigo", have bled into popular culture while losing most of their significance to those who first spoke of them. They're frequently used in a context which is more than a little racist, and while I'd want to avoid those if I chose to use them, I'd rather not use them at all out of respect for the Native American populations whose living believe systems it is. As an example in this article, I won't focus on the Navajo yee naaldlooshii beyond this mention, since it's already misused and abused enough. Unlike a...certain culturally deaf author who shall not be named.

*Africa: A broad one with another very solid line. The rich and varied cultures of Africa have been one of the greatest victims of colonial attitudes during the 19th Century, which saw them as brutish and uncivilised because they were different in how their societies worked, how their knowledge was preserved, and what they chose to believe in. But just a brief look at the history of one country, take Ghana as an example, shows multiple cultural groups, rich history and artistic legacies, and deep folklore and mythology. Many will know of Anansi, a spider trickster from Akan folklore, but this figure is so much more fascinating than just his stories. And I wouldn't want to use Anansi because there are hundreds of thousands from within the Akan people who could write about him far better than I.

*The Indian Subcontinent: Now I must make the line a bit fuzzy here not because I feel I can't write about the culture, at least from the perspective of an outsider, but because its folklore, mythology and religion is dense and far more intricate than someone not versed in that tradition could understand. And on top of that, unlike what might seem like parallel belief systems such as Ancient Greece and Rome, the Hindu sampradaya, plus others such as Jain Dharma or the Sikh or the teachings of Buddha, are a still-practiced and active religion. According to some surveys, the Hindu faiths collectively are the third-largest practiced religion in the world. And while some pieces of fiction have butchered this religion for entertainment (looking at you, Temple of Doom), I prefer not to.

*Abrahamic tradition: I'd initially labelled this section "Jewish traditions", then realised this easily extends across multiple belief systems which fall under the Abrahamic umbrella Today more than ever, there are a lot of hair-triggers surrounding use of perceived misuse of this belief system in a speculative medium. I don't want to use the Golem as it's deeply embedded in aspects of Jewish history and folklore. I'm steering well clear of Islamic belief systems as there is a lot of nuance and strong opinions that I don't want to tread on. There are some aspects of Judeo-Christian beliefs that people have become less tetchy about, but even then I'm not comfortable using them in a big way. As a reference or a template, sure. But unless I really do have a lot of confidence that I'm writing it correctly or in a suitably tongue-in-cheek style, I'd rather not

*South American pre-colonial: This is a more fuzzy example, as the belief systems native to that area, while still practiced to a degree, aren't the mainstream anymore. But there is a ton of aspects that either isn't readily accessible, or just can't be accessed at all. The belief systems of pre-colonial South America are rich and intriguing, filled with nuance and depth. But due to a combination of time's unfriendly march, and systematic destruction by the Spanish of that culture in a brutal wave of oppression and conversion, little primary evidence survives. We have clues, a few surviving documents, and a mountain of deeply-biased accounts from Spanish colonials with a vested interest in painting the peoples of South America as brutal savages. So while I might use a reference to them, I wouldn't want to portray the deities in fiction any more than the people who worshiped them. It feels disrespectful.

*Mainland China: This is a tricky one in a different way, as there are some aspects of Chinese tradition which have become very much internationalized through the popularity of fiction such as Journey to the West and Water Margin. I also admit that I created a story on this very blog which was a tongue-in-cheek homage to Journey to the West. But there are still some parts of its culture and belief systems I don't want to handle. It's even more important as aspects of that old culture seem to be under attack from its present government, meaning it may become increasingly up to diaspora populations to preserve them. There is a prominent example of a Western take on "Chinese" folklore, BioWare's Jade Empire, which I used to like but now just find deeply uncomfortable. It does have a slight escape clause in that it's not specifically using Ancient China, but still too close for comfort. Might have been more tolerable if they had Chinese creatives on the writing staff.

So, there we are. Some bits I don't want to touch, and some of my reasoning for it. These cultures are beautiful and rich, and they should be shown to the world where possible. And as a White British man, that isn't a task I should take on. It should be done by writers who can take those traditions and weave stories of their own devising, stepped in their own cultural background which will lend it a depth impossible otherwise.

Oh lord, I really wrote that...

"Nobody's perfect." It's a very common phrase. It's a joke, an excuse, a trope and a cliché. But it's also an unfortunate, literal fact. Personally, I dislike perfection. I think of it only as an unobtainable abstract. Leaders creating a "perfect" society, creatives striving for that "perfect" project, people trying to lead "perfect" lives. Aiming for perfection is an easy recipe for inferiority complexes.

At the same time, maybe try not to make colossal mistakes which undermine what you're trying to do. Let's start this off with what triggered these thoughts. The use of the word "female" as a noun. It's actively insulting, especially today, and it makes reading some pieces of fiction more difficult unless you put in a metric tone of cultural relativism or some hefty world-building that explains why they aren't using some other noun to describe an entire gender. This is present in Mass Effect because obviously 'woman' can't be applied to non-human non-male members of a society, right? Except when the writers slip and do use that, and wouldn't translation devices approximate for humans so that genders would be described using their own words--and I'll save this for November.

The mainspring is that Emily Inkpen made a point about men who use "female" as a noun. I assume in their everyday speech and writing. She, with impressive restraint, told them to get off her feed and unfollow her as she didn't have the time. I thoroughly understand, using "female" as a noun is just insulting. But then, a penny dropped. I have read some older literature, and as was raised during a recent discussion for an in-progress project related to this event here, I let some of my archaic inspiration leak into how the characters were talking. And I checked: had I used "female" as a noun? And...well, the results were slightly mixed. More usually I realised I'd been using the word "female" as an adjective, but sometimes it did seemingly slip. I haven't checked to see whether I was doing it to help characterise the person in the writing, but regardless the point stands.

For those who don't get what I've been going on about, let me define noun and adjective as simply as I can, as I'm by no means an expert in the technical side of language. A noun is a word used to refer to something, that being an object or a named person or a location in a sentence. So "noun went to noun" or "have you seen noun". There is the further distinction between common and proper nouns. For proper nouns, think of all the esoteric terminology in fantasy and sci-fi. Meanwhile, an adjective is a word which defines a noun, so "an adjective noun" or "out with that adjective noun", or even "noun, adjective, did this three times".

This was something else Emily Inkpen brought up on a reply through one of her socials, where she was pretty angry at the people trying to defend the use of "female" as a noun, probably without realising that the examples being used were technically "female" being used as an adjective. As in "a female voice", or a "female creature". In the Cluster Cycle, I was faced with the unenviable task of creating three other distinctly not-human species for humans to interact with, and I didn't want to use the terms "man" and "woman" to refer to their traditional genders. Mostly because to me, those words are strongly linked with the word "human".

Now, to deliberately use "female" as a noun is insulting and degrading. One might use it in a character's dialogue to signal as such. One shouldn't use it willy-nilly in their own speech, or their prose description, or whatever else. So when I came across those points, I felt more than a little embarrassed. I'll have to be extra careful going forward, because I know I might end up slipping again. I might write something unintentionally insulting and belittling. And today, with many people on a hair trigger, I need to be more aware of that.

I can take a small comfort in the fact that when double-checking, I found that I generally used both "male" and "female" as adjectives, which seems acceptable. I don't know if there's been any update on that, because not only are cultural taboos changing at lightspeed these days, but English is an inherently difficult language because it's both extremely gendered and gender-neutral enough that it causes problems. It's not like French, German, Japanese, Chinese, and dozens of other languages where gender is baked into words and grammar.

All I can do is remember that before it became an excuse and a cliché, the phrase "Nobody's perfect" had a real meaning. And while I can't be perfect, I can try not to be an insensitive author.

My first awards ceremony (and my first award....ever)

So, on Thursday 24 July 2025, I attended my very first awards ceremony; the Pen to Print Awards 2025. It took place in the Learning Centre in Barking, a town on the outskirts of London. And I had enough fun there that I feel the need to dedicate this week's blogpost to it. I'll recall as much as I can, but apologies if I forget some names.

A small introduction may be warranted. Pen to Print is a publicly-funded initiative which effectively sponsors writers and creatives who are residents of the UK. Their goal is to foster and expose new talent, be that in poetry or prose, accepting fiction and opinion pieces for their magazine, and of course hosting their awards for competitions they run. They have been going for close to a decade at this point, and their awards are varied and offer genuine exposure. The full list of winners and runners-up can be found here on Pen to Print's Instagram. This post is more of an emotive impression from an audience member.

The event that I attended on Thursday took place in a medium-sized conference room on the building's second floor, and while it was very hot, it was nice meeting fellow writers and publishers, and talking shop about aspects of publishing and writing. I was sure it would be an enjoyable evening regardless of what happened regarding me personally. At 7 PM, the ceremony started, with an opening speech from the main organizer Lena Smith, and from the sitting mayor of Barking and Daganham, Princess Bright. The first event was a special "Staff Writing/Poetry Award" as the organizers of the event weren't allowed to participate but it was felt that something should be done for them. The winner was Mazedda Bellevue for "Seasons Of Life", with the runner-up being Samiul Kayes for "Echoes Of Gaza". For the major awards after this, many of them were announced in a semi-joking manner using a golden envelope. It brought a chuckle to everyone, considering how meme-worthy the Oscars have become.

Then came two Speech And Drama performances on either side of the second award, which I'll get to at the end of this piece. Basically, we were given the performances, which were basically a monologue of sorts with some mild dramatization, then we were given paper slips to vote on which we preferred between Liyana Abhram's poem "A Walk In The Woods", and the monologue "News from France" by Julian Walker. Both were lots of fun to listen to. Next was the "Michael Feld Award", named for a local notary and patron of the arts, which was aimed at supporting the work of young people. There were two nominees; Key Stage 2 student Sanjana Arunkumar with "Rumble And Grumble" (which was a fun and funny little skit) and Key Stage 3 student Lurmaya Mathews with the poem "Chaos" (a visceral dramatization of what felt like a massive anxiety attack). "Chaos" proved the overall winner.

Then came the intermission, with snacks and drinks and talk. After that, and some minor drama with the mislaying of the voting bag, we were able to cast our votes. Liyana Abhram proved the winner, with a narrow margin that required a recount to make sure of the result. Then came the "Adventurous Voices" competition, which was split across three age groups and featured writing on a particular theme. There were nearly a dozen entrants who got some form of recognition on that stage. The winners in this category Daisy Higgins with "Elara And The Enchanted Rainforest!" in the Primary School category, Musfira Sharif for "Who Am I?" in the Secondary School category, and Patrick Blosse for "Off The Beaten Path" in the Adult category. All great pieces to hear.

For most of these that weren't orated on the platform, we got an audio sample of the winning pieces, which was more than incredible to listen to. The "Portry" award was given to Gillian Davies with "When The Streetlights Blinked To Life", a piece that can best be described as a nostalgic trip through pre-internet teenage urban life. Truly nostalgic. For the "Short Story" award, the winner was Lianne Warr with "Mouse", and...wow. The sample for that was positively chilling to listen to.

Closing out the ceremony was the Book Challenge awards. Basically a challenge to write a full novel in twelve months, with further mentoring and consultation as part of the prize. As it was ongoing, they instead had finalists appear, giving them awards for their efforts. The finalists were The Revenge Pact by Yana Yanovic, Misery Loves Company by Gulnaz Abdullah, Vigilantes Anonymous by Nick Burdett, The Fisherman's Daughter by Lee James Broadwood, and Elderwood by Ruth Frendo. There were no samples, but it was a nice way to round things off with the awards. The ceremony closed at around 9 PM with a final message from Saima Ashraf, including a poetic message relating to the current times of discord and fear being fostered by authorities the world over.

But, and I've saved this for last not to deprive anyone else of their deserved recognition, I was also the recipient of an award. All the way back in March, I submitted an audio play I'd created, "The Angry House", to their Audio Play Competition, which was being done in association with Alternative Stories. You may know them for Emily Inkpen's Dex Legacy series alongside other creations. It was just something I threw together in a brief amount of time, and I'll probably be able to share more about it later. But, in a moment that left me genuinely speechless, I won their award. And part of the prize is that "The Angry House" is going to be produced as a full audio play. The interval and the immediate aftermath before I returned to my hotel was both strange and...oddly euphoric. The nitty-gritty business aspect of what comes next starts after today, but for now I feel like I've arrived in a sense.

This is still a start, but a start is better than nothing. And it's likely the same for everyone else who has gotten exposure and validation through these awards.

This is overwhelming in and of itself, and it's taken me till today for it to truly sink in and for me to find the words to express it. There's nothing like the thrill of getting your first award, especially when you're sure you won't get it. I just froze momentarily when the words "Thomas Wrightson for The Angry House" were read out by Councillor Bright, and I had a photo taken with the award and the mayor. And then, remaining on stage by choice, I heard an audio sample created by Chris Gregory and Emily Inkpen of Alternative Stories, demonstrating a part of what would eventually become...a thing that everyone can listen to. It's an indescribable sensation, hearing your words for the first time being spoken by someone other than you. I imagine that's also how many of the other winners felt.

It may be a ways to go there if you live in distant parts like I do, but it's also worth it if you can. It's a fun event, with a chance to hear great pieces of work across a variety of genres, and perhaps begin either your journey outright, or the next part of it. Here's to the future, whatever that may hold. And congratulations and best to all those who submitted, and all those who have seen this recognition on an evening I won't soon forget.

Author Talks S3 E3: The Glorified Dystopia

So. This was a topic that came to mind due to the...everything that's happening. This episode of my one-person podcast looks at a phenomenon that's been going on for the last several decades; turning what are actually truly terrible times for everyone involved into visual appealing masterworks that I'm sure everyone would be totally happy living in to get that fashion. So sit back, grab a cool drink depending on where you are, and hopefully find something to enjoy or even laugh at in this one person's scripted rant.

YouTube and Spotify links are below (as hyperlinks because this blog can't handle links properly).

Spotify Version

YouTube version

I name thee...

What happens when the name of someone or something vanishes into the past, irretrievable even by linguistic reconstruction?

Well, we tend to create new names. We're a very verbal species, and consequently names are important. Every culture in the world has names or terms for something, always with a rich cultural and social history behind it. But something that struck me some months ago as an interesting facet of how names work is that, sometimes, a name can be completely lost. And when that happens, it lends an interesting level of depth to something which might otherwise appear shallow or inconsequential.

Apologies for bringing it up, but a certain overly popular urban fantasy series by a non-kosha author has an antagonist whose name is so deeply feared that speaking it is considered like an unlucky omen or even a curse. So they are referred to using the epithet "[They] who shall not be named". Believe it or not, this erasure of names through fear or social prejudice is nothing new. Several periods of Ancient Egypt made a habit of rubbing out inconvenient periods, such as systematic attempts by pharaohs after Tutankhamen to destroy evidence and memories of the Amarna Period represented by him and his father Akhenaten. There is also the the notorious Venetian Doge Marino Faliero, who was not only executed but subjected to Damnatio memoriae, basically erasure from official memory with associated punishments.

The mythic power of names is also very common. From the Ancient Egyptian myth of Ra's true name being learned by Isis and granting her great power, to traditions among the Ainu people of Japan for children to have a false name for the first few years to deter evil spirits, to old fairy tales like that of Rumpelstiltskin, to modern interpretations from le Guin and Paolini where knowing a name literally gives someone power over it. There is even an interesting superstition surrounding bears, where to speak its real name was to make it appear. So they used a term that now is rendered as...bear. There were similar superstitions around speaking the names of deities like Hades and Persephone. Don't exactly want to attract attention from the literal king and queen of the Underworld.

Sometimes, names just aren't recorded because the type of language it was preserved in wouldn't have survived, or suffered a devastating blow. While there are plenty of names surviving for Aztec and Mayan mythical and legendary figures, many others don't have surviving names. The picture heading the article is of a figure commonly called either Teotihuacan Spider Woman or the Great Goddess of Teotihuacan. We don't know her by any other name, there's even debate as to whether she was really a goddess, but unlike the Flayed God (Xipe Totec) or the Feathered Serpent (Quetzalcōātl/Kukulkan) she doesn't appear to have cognates in later cultures. In fact, most of the deities identified around Teotihuacan have few or not later equivalents. We don't know their names, they're only known by modern epithets. The civilisation of Teotihuacan left precious little of their pictographic writing, and we also have little left of the writing of the later Aztec culture of the region because...Spain happened.

Historical and political figures have also done this on purpose. The most obvious example is the 'disappearance' of former colleagues of Josef Stalin who fell foul of his regime, which is almost certainly happening in other countries under present or attempted totalitarian rule. And in other cases, certain names related to the development of advances or technologies may be left out due to the inconvenient light they shine on an established cultural narrative. But there is also a more personal example, that of George I's wife Sophia Dorothea of Celle. Long story short, it was a deeply unhappy cousins marriage of state, Sophia Dorothea allegedly had an affair, and she was divorced and imprisoned for the rest of her life. Here, the damnatio memoriae was more by personal choice than official decree, in as much as George I didn't talk about his wife. Or his own complicity in the event.

There is an interesting aspect of the loss of names that stems from cultural norms, and that is China. Xiran Jay Zhao touches on this in their videos on Fu Hau, Qin Shi Huang, and We Zetien, but women's names in Ancient China were typically not recorded, though I don't have the resources to go into detail on exact cultural or social reasons. But it means that, while there are many prominent women in Chinese history, we know them more by titles or honourifics than by their actual names.

And don't think this is some far off and distant thing that we now totally never do. Erasure of names or faces from something is happening all the time. Particularly if said figure is involved, whether justifiably or not, in either negative cultural movements or criminal activities. From the games industry alone (my hobby area), there is the dropping of the voice and likeness of Pierre Taki from the international version of Judgment, the removal of Michael Jackson's musical contributions to Sonic the Hedgehod 3, or the scrubbing of Hideo Kojima from the marketing of Metal Gear Solid V. While the reasons behind these erasures vary wildly, and I have my own feelings on this kind of thing, it is both an understandable reactions from corporations wanting to protect their products and sets a worrying precedent in this digital media age.

For a long time, names and words were considered to have literal power. In some circles historically, you didn't say 'damn' to someone unless you really, really were prepared for them to be damned to whatever underworld equivalent existed. Today, one could argue they still have. Writing, whether fictional or journalistic (can be interchangeable, discuss if you wish), influences people's perceptions of a subject or person.

This post is getting rambling, but it is an extremely deep field of potential study that I only just seriously though about as I was writing this, and I realised there's a huge amount of additional research that could be done into the concepts of damnatio memoriae, the somewhat-related Streisand effect. But I'll leave on a final note relating to someone else who wrote about unspeakable things. H. P. Lovecraft commonly wrote about terrible and unknowable forces that drive one mad by mere knowledge of them. But here's the kicker; his creations would've been far more terrifying if they hadn't been named at all. If we didn't have anything but epithets to attach to the humanoid squid-faced dragon thing, we might actually be scared if we saw its idol.

Year So Far: June 2024

So, in what's becoming a minor habit, I sum up stuff that's been going on for me in the first half of 2025, which has been...a year. For a lot of people. So here are the things I've been doing or managed to achieve. Think of it as something that everyone can read and think "Huh, I guess we can do something even in 2025."

Completed dev edits on my third book: My third Cluster Cycle book, The Murderer's Lament, has completed its development edits and is back with my publisher Roan & Weatherford. This was an...interesting one, since it's a murder mystery and I was expecting it to be picked to pieces, but instead most of it was more about tone and delivery proper punch, or eliminating redundancies with characters or exposition. It was fun to do, and gave me more confidence in the series going forward. Still gotta get through the last two, and who knows what'll happen with them.

Started the new series of Author Talks: More details here, but it's been fun and challenging creating a fully-scripted, more professional series of my one-person podcast, choosing a topic or piece of fiction to discuss each month between May and November this year.

Got some stuff done around the house and garden: After last year brought a cascade of upsets, setbacks and illnesses (culminating in five back-to-back flus one of which became pneumonia), I've actually been able to properly help with parts of the garden. Getting the vegetable area sort of prepped and usable, netting up our fruit bushes, bringing other parts of our large area under control again.

Decided to take a rest, didn't go as planned: Last year, I went to BristolCon and had a blast, but I realised I needed to take a year off that event at least for my love and enjoyment of it to still be present. You know, like needing to take a break from a food you really like so you can still enjoy it. I know I disappointed several people, but it was either that, or I wasn't going to enjoy it. But things happened, and it's not going to be as complete a rest as I imagined.

Found full comfort with my sexuality: I'd realised it fully and openly last year, but now I'm truly comfortable with the fact that I'm bisexual. It can be difficult to become comfortable, even for someone like me who doesn't have any hangups of LGBTQIA+ communities. Heck, I've got multiple family members who fall within that spectrum, and a wider family as a whole who is accepting in the best way. But...still took some time to realise about half of my fictional crushes were truly on men, and that I have certain types. It's made my bristling feelings about still-pervasive bisexual stereotypes even sharper, but that's a story for another time.

Got shortlisted for an award: This is EXTREMELY recent, nothing may come of it, and I don't think I can say which award yet (don't know the protocol for it), but I actually got shortlisted for something and I've been invited down to the ceremony next month. First awards ceremony of any kind I'll have attended in that capacity, which is insane.

Played a couple of really neat games: I know that sounds exceptionally trivial, but for me games are a part of my life and entertainment, and also part of my media/story intact. First, Baldur's Gate 3. For a long time I've wanted to have my own time with it, but my last Larian experience put me off their products...just, in toto. But I gave it a shot, and I actually completed it. Wrote a whole blog post about it. And I've decided to do a second playthrough and try to take it easier and not let it impact my work...as much. Hopefully. Seriously it's a real time sink. Second was Atelier Lulua: The Scion of Arland, which was a delightfully cozy if deceptively deep experience that informed something that I'll detail further down.

Reduced my news intake: That may be misleading, but it's more along the lines of "Get my news from reliable and undramatic sources, and don't stress over them too much." The world right now is terrible. The United States' current leadership is attempting regress the country at record speed, the people of the Near East are suffering en masse at the hands of their governments, and Ukraine is still partially occupied and in the middle of a war. So I needed to filter some stuff out, stop checking certain sites, but also not cut myself off from everything. It was for the sake of my mental health, and I think it's working.

Started a new fantasy project: Trust me, I've got LOADS of stuff in the pipeline with my publisher, maybe too much, but I wanted to write something that would distract me from the everything everywhere all at once going on right now. And I decided on a cosy fantasy inspired by the chill vibes of Atelier Lulua and the rest of its series. The music of Atelier has been one of my go-to writing aids for this project alongside the soundtrack for Frierin: Beyond Journey's End. The premise is a practitioner of "transmutation" (an art combining "magia" with real-world aspects of alchemy) teaching an unlikely apprentice as part of a challenge. Also, I named my lead Khemia. She's a dragon. And I didn't realise until yesterday that I named her after a part of the Greek origin of the term alchemy: khēmía.

Perhaps started a sci-fi project: This one's still a little wobbly, but I also wanted it to be lighter in message if not in outright tone. This one is set in a possible alternate history 1912 where alien species arrived on Earth thirty years before and are well into the process of integrating, granting humans new technology and exposing them to a wider range of social norms. As for why I chose 1912? Well, it's part of the belle epoch of Europe, a time of great change in other parts of the world and...something else happened that maybe can be used to differentiate this timeline from our own.

Aaaand that's it. I hope you enjoyed this summary, found some measure of encouragement that things can be done, and that you will press on and find comfort and courage. Deep down, I do think we can survive these times. It's just difficult to see the end of the tunnel when blocked by obese bodies or overinflated egos.

Coming up: My second 30 Days of Pride

 Last year, I did a thing. On each day of June (aka Pride Month), for thirty days, I highlighted a creator of fiction--principally writers/novellists but that varied a little here and there--who was confirmed to be on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum. This year, I've decided to do it again. Only this time, I'm going to be a little broader. I'm going to include authors (but not the same authors that were featured in either the social media posts or the round-up blog post at year's end), and composers and artists and others I feel a worth trumpeting in a month of variety that (despite what Google might want you to think) is very much real and very much still important.

So, here are my ground rules, which are mostly the same as last year but include some extra little bits potentially.

Rule 1: The creatives in question need to be confirmed either through their own words/actions, or personal anecdotes, to be on the rainbow spectrum. That means some figures with question marks over their head will not be counted. There may be some compelling evidence surrounding these people, but there's no confirmation about it and it's still a debated topic. It similarly rules out straight creators who wrote LGBTQIA+ characters. I may well miss some creatives that could have been better included on the list, and if so I apologise. Also, if you're wondering why some are not on here, check out last year's post which is both the main 30 I chose, and some named honourable mentions.

Rule 2: I'm going to try and provide a mixture of authors/creatives from across time periods. It would be surprisingly easy to go for a lot of classic and mostly now-dead creatives, but that would be too easy. Also it would be doing a disservice to multiple current creatives. I also hope to get a descent amount of BIPOC creators into it, so it can be shown it's not just whites who fall along the spectrum.

Rule 3: Unlike last year, where I restricted the list to authors and novellists and writers and the like, this year has no such restriction, and if anything will mainly focus on creatives in other fields. But I also don't want to go for the big and obvious names. So you may think "Where's Lady Gaga?", and I say "That's too easy." I want people who may still be well known, but aren't in your face all the time. I also will still be focusing on creatives, so don't expect a huge amount of theatrical performers on the list. Again, you might ask "Where's Ian McKellan?", and to that I say, "Plenty of lists exist for theatrical and film/television performers already."

Rule 4: A short rule, but simple. Some of the added breadth means I might end up accidentally including two creators who worked on one project or all projects together. I don't want the same names to be repeated all the time. This isn't to diminish their impact, but I want diversity in subject as well as representation in gender, sexuality and nationality.

Rule 5: I will try and say positive in general, but due to the fact this will be dealing with LGBTQIA+ figures from across history, some element of sadness or tragedy will inevitably make its way in. That, for the moment, is just the reality of things. Especially in the 19th and 20th Centuries when the terms and classifications became solidified, and consequently there was a set identity to discriminate against and criminalise.

After the 30 days, specifically on 6 July, I will be publishing a blog post bringing together slightly fuller textual versions of all the creatives I talked about. I may even have some honourable mentions which either don't fully fit the criteria, or have extenuating circumstances. Like last year, this may all crash and burn. But I hope it doesn't, and that I can contribute to the visibility of demongraphics that are under renewed attack from politicians, the media, and public figures.

So, here's to Pride Month. Hopefully we don't have a war in the middle of it all.

Coming relatively soon: Author Talks Season 3

Long title, I know. But this has been a while coming. I've had to rethink and re-evaluate how I want to do this. I'll leave earlier more ad-hoc episodes up if only for comparison's sake, but I want to switch to a more scripted and less chaotic style. There are a number of concepts that have rattled around one way or another for the next set of episodes for my one-person podcast where I talk about things, and occasionally read short stories. I don't know exactly WHEN the new episodes will start appearing, as it will take longer due to needing to actually write and research the things. But I want to start getting them out by May/June this year, and between six and twelve episodes if everything goes to plan.

Here's a preview for anyone interested of a few things I'll likely be talking about or doing.

*The romanticizing of terrible futures: This is a bit of a potentially hot topic now, with Russia being Russia, China being China, and America becoming something horrible. Mech wars. Dystopias. Cyberpunk. Grimdark. Aren't they supposed to be a warning, not a template?

*Looking back at my writing journey from scribbling in an exercise book to...being published. Yikes.

*A short story from one of the classic older authors. I've done Lovecraft, Wells, Porges. Might try someone else now.

*Research books. They are important, and they aren't necessarily all non-fiction. Battle Royale anyone?

*Something of mine. Maybe a sample from an upcoming work, perhaps one of my pieces of short fiction. Depends.

*A writer and fan's perspective deep dive into a fictional universe I have deep knowledge or direct experience or. Or maybe more than one to compare and contrast. Whichever, expect both praise and critiques.

Want to check out the rest of Author Talks? I'll link the Spotify and YouTube versions below so you can dip into terrible sound quality, stuttering, adlib things, and for several episodes a fountain of bloopers.

https://open.spotify.com/show/1Fwq88YhRd0NYz6pZAnK9Z#login

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCPsNUSX2K2ZMvfhlx3HIWZNYyoU0mQ5G

My Favourite Women in Fiction

It's Women's History Month, and many others are far more qualified and important in talking about the women of history who stood out and continue to inspire, especially in times when social freedoms and qualities are or are attempted to be walked back by wannabe kings. But one thing I think I can comment on is the women I encountered in my life through fiction, the women who left an impression on me. These are the figures who influenced by taste towards including either female leads, or having women in prominent/dominant positions, or having a large female representation in the cast.

This list isn't comprehensive, it's meant to be scholastic, it's a day late for International Women's Day, and I'm just one bisexual white British man with opinions. I'm not the final say, and shouldn't be, and I'm not in a position to speak about minorities outside liking some characters in fiction who belong to them. I also know my taste in fiction is occasionally more mainstream than it should be. Want to know more about writing female characters from a female perspective, please check out Emily Inkpen, who is creating a series of articles on her blog about writing female characters, including the pitfalls men fall into (I admit, I've probably stumbled into them myself)

So, without further ado, my list in no particular order.

• Kathleen "Kitty" Jones: The third protagonist of Jonathan Stroud's Bartimaeus trilogy, introduced in the second book The Golem's Eye, Kitty helped elavate this series from an enjoyable romp to a solid favourite. After seeing the oppressive control of magicians first-hand, and having the ability to negate their power somewhat, Kitty becomes a keystone in the growing conflict between magicians, their djinn slaves, and commoners. She is a standout, though I won't say how much as that's spoilers.

• Tehanu/Therru: I couldn't not put an Ursula le Guin character here, and she's amazing. A child who is taken in by Tenar after being horribly scarred by an abusive family, Tehanu's journey through her titular book at The Other Wind is one of self-actualisation and recovery from trauma. I could put her adoptive mother Tenar in here as well, but Tehanu gets extra points for also being a dragon. Even the debabably terrible Ghibli film based on le Guin's books manages to create a more than serviceable Tehanu.

• Ursula Morrow: A recent find from Gareth Powell's Future's End that was a lovely surprise. She's a great character, snappy yet not invulnerable, and dealing with several issues at once in a way that doesn't feel overly dramatic or silly. There is also the AI character Chris who presents as female, but I chose Ursula as she is the lead, and she is very much the one in control of things by the end of the story.

• Queen Elizabeth I: Yes, she's a historical figure, but the version played by Glenda Jackson in Elizabeth R is more than a little fictionalised, despite the series avoiding some of the regular traps surrounding her and Robert Dudley. Not all, but enough that isn't not egregious. As played by Jackson, Elizabeth is a presence, a forceful character at once liberated and burdened by her position as head of church and state. I find myself unconsciously comparing other fictional or fictionalised queens to this portrayal.

• Buffy Summers: An obvious pick, and again an old one. And sadly from a writer whose reputation has gone downhill in recent years following revelations about his behaviour and character. But I'll still say Buffy's someone who was part of my culture growing up, and the one I engaged with the most. Xena was also around at this time, but it was Buffy I connected with. I also saw most of the final season, which left me with a solid impression of a woman who grits her teeth and does what is necessary in the face of a seemingly impossible threat.

• Romana: Another oldie, sorry. But an oldie I adore. A Doctor Who character explicitly created as a foil and equal to the time-travelling alien, Romana (full name, Romanadvoratrelundar) is my favourite companion in the whole series. She does fall into the distressed companion trope a few times sadly, but she also has the brains and wit to not sit quietly or whimper about it. She often escapes on her own, or saves the Doctor, and having someone who can return the Doctor's technobabble shot for shot is something the recent series has...sadly lacked. The Doctor needs someone who won't stand being talked down to again.

• Yú Xiùlián and Yù Jiāolóng: I couldn't pick between these two lead women from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, probably the archtypical modern wuxia. The central emotional conflict of the film revolves around these two, the role of women in both Qing Dynasty-era and modern Chinese society, and their respective attitudes towards the men in their lives. Both are tragic in different ways, but they were also incredible examples to me of women who struggled against a system in contrasting ways: Xiùlián with calm and quiet determination, Jiāolóng through brash and open rebellion.

• Catwoman: I just adore her, and if I ever get the chance, I'd love to write a Catwoman story of her just doing her own chaotic-good thing. I've got four versions that stick in my mind and are something which brings a smile to my face. The 1960s version played by three different actresses--Julie Newmar, Lee Meriweather, and the glorious Eartha Kitt--is pure unadulterated camp. Michelle Pffeifer's version from Batman Returns is certainly something, but not a favourite as she's a bit too dark. Halle Berry's 2004 version is...an acquired taste, like her film, but she's a lot of fun. And Ann Hathaway's version in the third of Nolan's Batman films is the one bright spot in a very dull film--if only she didn't have the most forced Batman romance ever.

• Adèle Blanc-Sec: I admit, I've never encountered the original comic version, only the interpretation that came from Luc Besson in his 2010s movie. Again, unfortunately, another product from a problematic creator. But I have to honestly say, I really like Adèle, portrayed with suitable verve and spunk by Louise Bourgoin. She is still feminine by the standards of her character's time, but with an added touch of devil-may-care and couldn't-give-an-F that elevates her above the standard protagonist for this kind of adventure. Not perfect, but worth a watch, and a favourite for good reasons.

• Lightning: I came to the Final Fantasy series by way of the movies, with my first game exposures being the divisive Final Fantasy XIII and the wider Fabula Nova Crystallis concept. This was once an unpopular opinion, but I really like Lightning. She's not a perfect character, but she was deliberately written that way. She's quick to anger, withdrawn, pushy, but ultimately admits and seeks to atone for her mistakes. Her evolution across three games from stoic soldier to penitent divine warrior to saviour of the world is an arc I found engaging and enjoyable.

• Zero: A character from the niche Drakengard series who...might raise eyebrows. She is a foul-mouthed ex-prostitute and criminal who is revived by mystical forces to destroy humanity. She grudgingly works against this assigned fate, though due to how the story is told, she initially comes off as a psychopath hunting down her sisters and slaughtering anyone in her way. She is also caustic at best and abusive at worst to her companions. But beneath the F-bombs and casual talk of sex, there is a real depth to her, and her attitude is one I actually really like. A refreshing breath of foul-mouthed yet good-hearted air.

• Lara Croft: I've saved her for last as I did a whole video on her and uploaded it onto my YouTube channel on her fictional birthday last month. Lara isn't perfect; she's got a lot of archaic elements attached to her character, has suffered from being created by and managed by men for a chunk of her lifetime, is highly sexualised in a lot of her marketing, and she likely doesn't reflect much of the pushes for diversity present today. But she's the one who made me fall in love with games as a story medium, and solidified my love of women in fiction. Video linked below.

A honourable mention goes to the female incarnation of Commander Shepherd. I didn't want to include this in the main list, still not sure why, but I think this for me is the definitive Shepherd. Yes, she houses several problematic American military stereotypes, but Jennifer Hale's performance and the overall writing quality lift her up to a pedestal her male counterpart can't hope to touch. Also (as shown in the image above) Nilin from Remember Me. I really like her, but there are some SERIOUS issues with her writing that constantly undermine what she was trying to be.

When you see the movie first...

I was born in 1994, the era of not just two or three, but at least six different mediums of storytelling. There's books obviously, but also radio, film, television, the stage, and the youngest format: video games. When something is a success in one area, it's become a certainty that it will be transposed into another, either through a media expansion or an adaptation. And as I had specific dyslexic problems which prevented me from reading text properly, and not much of a "gamer", I encountered those two mediums through film and television. So I'll go in order with five adaptations that I saw/heard/experienced, how I felt at the time, and what I think now I've encountered the original.

*Pride and Prejudice (1995): We saw this on the OG broadcast, it was part of my early television life through our VHS recordings, and I think it still stands as THE best Austin adaptation of the period, if not of all screen time. It accurately adapts the novel's content and a vast chunk of its dialogue while trimming some of the original book's fat. That book, while still a great and insightful read over 110 years after its authorship, can wander a little and be a chore if you're not cued into some of the social aspects Austin is satirising.

*Lord of the Rings (2001-2003): I'd never encountered Tolkien's fantasy classic until now, except as an intimidating cover of a compilation of all three books in type so small I could barely read three words together of the old-fashioned prose. I remember enjoying the films as they released, and I still consider the Extended Editions as definitive fantasy experiences which did the impossible: they turned a rambling and often tiring narrative into a digestible sweeping epic, cutting out inconsequential or bumbling episodes (Bombadill, the wild men or whoever they were) and giving added prominence to other female characters (Arwen, Eowyn) without breaking the narrative. I'm not a huge Tolkien fan, he's too traditionally Nordic for my tastes, but I will always have a liking for the movies. When I've the time.

(I won't comment on The Hobbit, as that could've been nicely told in one film)

*Murder Must Advertise (1979): The radio version of what has ended up being my favourite out of Dorothy L. Sayers' seminal detective series is still sound. BBC Radio tends to be sound with its adaptations of sometimes extremely complex stories. But there are some where the book, and even the 1973 television version, trumps it. For one thing, Miss Meteyard was completely butchered, going from a spunky copyeditor to one of the secretaries, and some parts of the contrast that the book is built on between the undercover Wimsey, the employees of Pym's Publicity, and the "Bright Young Things" was sadly lost in translation. Still a descent introduction, but it feels like an incomplete package.

*Blithe Spirit (1940): I remember this being a kind of background staple of my mid-teens, as I found the writing delightfully funny. I didn't know anything about the original play's author Noel Coward, but this interpretation of his ghostly black comedy still ranks high for me. I will say the ending change feels a little unnecessary, there is some rearrangement or rewriting for the sake of the filmic presentation, and some of the American censorship it got was just idiotic (though we might be entering a new era of that sadly). But after having listen to several full performances of the play Blithe Spirit, this film holds up as a solid adaptation and a great piece of entertainment in its own right.

*Lara Croft - Tomb Raider (2001): I saw this by accident on live TV, when I knew nothing about the gaming and cultural phenomenon that was Lara Croft, and...it's okay. It's very much carried by Jolie's performance in the role and how sassy the writing is. I was bought the sequel a few years later, and while the story is much worse, the chemistry that exists between the two leads--right up to its somewhat tragic conclusion--has stuck with me for years. The games are different, especially since they changed continuity so much. Heck, I made a whole video on Croft for a reason. But I don't regret watching this. Lara Croft was my introduction to both strengths and weaknesses of female leads.

Looking at "Status Lymphaticus"

As someone who decided to write a book in my science fiction space opera The Cluster Cycle inspired by Golden Age detective stories, it's probably safe to say that I do enjoy them. Picky I am, but I also am willing to try new things. One of the series that I drew on was the Campion novels written by Margery Allingham, one of which sent me on a small rabbit hole of research. The 1937 novel Dancers in Mourning has enigmatic detective Albert Campion investigating the harassment of west end musical star Jimmy Sutane, and later the death of faded actress Chloe Pye staying with him and other friends at his country house. The key point of her death is that while she was attacked by someone, her death was caused by "Status Lymphaticus", described as a condition which left her fatally vulnerable to stress or shocks or sudden frights.

I had never once heard of "Status Lymphaticus". There's no Wikipedia entry on it, no surprises there, and some research found only academic and medical papers. In the December 1917 paper "The Cause of Sudden Death" by Douglas Symmers M.D., the condition is described as:

...a constitutional hereditary anomaly characterized anatomically by certain external peculiarities of configuration, by hypoplasia of the cardiovascular apparatus, by hyperplasia of the thymus gland and of the lymphoid tissues in other localities, and, incidentally, by congenital structural defects in different viscera. Clinically, the condition is not infrequently terminated by sudden death on apparently trivial provocation, oftenest in children, but occasionally in adults.

This description, translated into more average language, is how Chloe Pye's cause of death is explained to Campion and others in Sutane's household. The key point is that anything could have caused her death at any moment, but someone triggered it by attacking her, then attempted to cover it up. The paper quoted above says the condition was recognised by two different doctors in New York and Vienna. This, and other acknowledgements of the condition such as Sidney Elisabeth Croskery's medical degree thesis which made reference prominent reference to it, shows it was clearly taken as medical fact at the time.

However, medical science moves on. Just as Freud's theories have become generally discounted or outright proven wrong over time, so some concepts in medical knowledge have been refined, redefined, and corrected.

Symmers appears to have been the originator of this, since he wrote another article on the condition for The American Journal of Surgery in 1934, and was also entered into The Principles and Practice of Medicine using a similar definition. Both of these would make easily-accessible sources for Allingham to reference for Dancers in Mourning. By the 1950s and 60s, the condition seems to have been in the final stages of complete debunking. Indeed in 1954, English doctor H. C. Dodwell published a three-page article in the BMJ on the condition subtitled "Growth of a Myth", in part as the refutation of another doctor's work. Dodwell cites multiple textual real-world reports between the 1870s and the 1940s, attributing the creation of "Status Lymphaticus" to a combination of selective quotation in reference books and misunderstandings/misinterpretations of findings relating to the lymphatic system. He further notes the popularity of Symmers's description, but notes a lack of detail for corroboration in the face of other medical findings, ultimately concluding that while sudden deaths did indeed happen, the attributed cause didn't exist. In reflection of recent advances in medicine and psychology, Claire Hilton, Royal College of Psychiatrists's historian in residence, described "Status Lymphaticus" in a 2019 article as having been "‘invented’ to fulfill social needs" and having "crept into the culture of the lunatic asylums."

So today, and indeed technically for as long as it was supposed to exist, "Status Lymphaticus" doesn't exist. It's an outdated medical concept intended to explain sudden and otherwise difficult to explain deaths, and according to Hilton forms one of socially constructed medical conditions.

In relation to Dancers in Mourning, there is also the legal angle to consider. My sister did studies in law earlier in her life, so we talked it over from that angle, as she had to write an essay on the laws surrounding death resulting from assault, even if death wasn't the intent. People can die from shock or fright, but typically it takes several hours. The thing about that is when she applied it to Allingham's story, holes appeared in parts outside "Status Lymphaticus" existing. In the text, Campion says that the actress's death wasn't murder, although further deaths occur as the culprit tries to cover their tracks. But in such cases legally, given the result of the assault on Chloe Pye, it would be treated as a possible murder charge. Likely leading to a manslaughter conviction, or even a murder conviction, which in the 1930s was a literal death sentence. No matter the intent, the result was Chloe Pye's untimely death.

So looking at the novel from the modern medical perspective, "Status Lymphaticus" is as outlandish as Arsenical immunisation is in Sayers' Strong Poison. Chloe Pye could have died instantly from shock or fright, but not specifically from that named condition. It would be more a combination of elements acting on a pre-existing heart weakness, such as the brain freezing up and effectively killing the heart. One of the better summations of this is the definition from the Merriam-Webster online dictionary:

hyperplasia of the lymphatic tissue formerly believed to be a cause of sudden death in infancy and childhood but now no longer recognized as a genuine pathological entity
called also lymphatism

So, is there a point to this long look at a pseudo-medical condition now debunked and refuted? Well, when one looks at the things people believe from singular powerful individuals in a field today, one can draw a parallel with Douglas Symmers and his grand diagnosis of "Status Lymphaticus". Doesn't matter how clever you are, how high up you are, how much evidence you seem to have. You can still get things wrong.

Writing and working for a future beyond sorrow.

Poetic title, I know. But it's the kind of thing I need to write after the events of the American election. I won't dignify the current president elect by mentioning their name (an expletive is the closest I want to get at the moment of writing). Suffice to say, they should never have gotten this far. It appears the world is going through terrible times in more ways than one. I couldn't do anything about it since I live in the UK, but seeing it happen to a country where our family has friends, where my very liberal publisher is based, makes me feel very anxious and depressed. We're going to see four more years of that certifiable person's actions in office, self-serving policies that make everyone suffer.

One might ask: What's the point of writing? But let's remember, people write things because they feel motivated to do so. I'm fortunate as the UK is--relatively speaking--all right. Not perfect, not by a long way, but still okay. There are loads of books that were the better for the writing, even when the country they came from had a vested interest in not letting such books be published. All Quiet on the Western Front released in 1929, its sequel The Road Back in 1931, both when Nazism was beginning to gain ground in Germany. Many anti-nationalist and anti-oligarch pieces of media have seen success in countries which have those institutions engrained within them, like Japan and even China. And when McCarthyism and the so-called "Lavender Scare" were gripping America, fiction was created that pushed back against that reality.

Fiction is a means to vent frustration, but it is also a means for people to see something that could be made into a reality. There are reasons why some books helped galvanise popular movements against something that had previously not seen a consistent and conscious move against it. Film makers broke the Hayes Code, writers can topple and ridicule regimes. It's not going to be easy for anyone. For the moment, a power has appeared in America that taps into the country's worst aspects. Elitist culture, ingrained sexism and xenophobia, unwillingness to change in any meaningful or radical way, a political system just as likely to be a rotting snake eating its own tail as a dragon sailing over the world.

There are possible (perhaps foolish) silver linings. Firstly, this is the second term, so the incoming president legally can't run a second time unless there's some kind of sacrilegious change to the law and constitution. Secondly, it is possible members of the incoming incumbent party will actually restrain the more idiotic decisions (not very probable, but one can hope). Thirdly, most horrifyingly, the new incumbent has a vested interest in not provoking too major a conflict with the other two oligarch-driven world powers currently in the world. Fourthly, cultures and attitudes surrounding sexuality and gender once firmly pushed to the sidelines have become accepted enough to the mainstream that there should be some level of pushback to attempts at censorship (indeed some of the most radical pieces have come out in the most conservative times). Finally, perhaps most hopefully, America managed to survive last time. And of course, it could all go to the deepest and coldest bowls of hell in a hand basket.

I won't say don't rage. You should rage, though not in a way that gets you easily demonised and shut up. There are dark years ahead, but for the sake of people I know in America, I will continue working towards my degree. I will continue writing about worlds where it's completely okay to be LGBTQIA+, to be non-White, to be any gender or gender-nonconforming, to be disabled, to be different in some way, shape, or form. Being different isn't a crime. We need to remember that for the next four years, spread the word for the next four years, try not to trap ourselves in any kind of echo chamber for the next four years. And maybe, during and even at the end of those four years, things can be changed for the better.

Image copyright: Square Enix. Source: SaGa Emerald Beyond

Meet...wait, who are you supposed to be again?

 This blog post has been brought to you by...me! My next book, Lost Station Circe, is releasing in July. This very month (sorry I've still got no date beyond that, my publisher is very busy). The first one, Starborn Vendetta, is available now from anywhere that sells books.

After an earlier post on ensemble casts, a comment from fellow author Stephen Cox got me thinking about a problem with ensemble casts I didn't even think of when I created that post. Emblematic, considering how many points there are about...large casts. Pardon me for mentioning the tainted name of Harry Potter, but it is an example that can help demonstrate something quickly. We get introduced to A LOT of characters in its first book alone, ten or twenty beyond what might be called the core cast. Just imagine if over half of them had never been developed further, which is almost what happens. It suffers somewhat from that problem where characters are just names, except when the story suddenly needs them not to be. Here begins what might be the ensemble cast's crippling blow: too many named characters in the kitchen.

Not every grand arcing saga needs a huge cast of characters, and not all large casts are equal, especially when it comes to an ensemble where each of them technically is supposed to have enough screen time to develop as their own people. There are plenty of examples I've either seen for myself (Firefly, Blast of Tempest) or heard about (Leverage) that succeed in developing an ensemble. But what about those that just...fumble it? Not to take too easy a potshot, but while it focuses largely on its two leads, Avatar seems technically to be attempting an ensemble between its human and alien factions. It's certainly got the runtime for an ensemble film. But outside...five characters, the other ten or so are very underdeveloped. I know there are deeper core problems with the story of Avatar, but this is one that could have made the story more digestible and enjoyable. And from what I've heard, the sequels aren't fixing the problem. Contrast it with a similar us-versus-them film Tora! Tora! Tora!, which with a noticeably shorter runtime manages to tell a compelling and heartbreaking two-sided narrative around the entry of Japan into World War II with the bombing of Pearl Harbour.

Video games are easier to forgive in this regard, as you play as one person in a medium still holding a stigma of 'story not important', so underdevelopment is less of an issue. But I shall compare two of my favourite games with ensemble casts, many of which get roughly equal amounts of screen time outside the main cast, and may come across as shallow if the player doesn't follow their optional content. Nier: Automata has one of my favourite casts, especially when you go through their side quests, but some remain underdeveloped, specifically the Commander and Anemone. They are introduced as key players, but we get little to nothing in terms of solid story and development compared to the Operators, Pascal, or Adam and Eve. And they play just as big a role in the story as the Operators, Pascal, or Adam and Eve. Meanwhile Mass Effect has an entire trilogy's worth of space to deal with its characters, and many characters move onto different things after the game where they are introduced (assuming they survive, ala Urdnot Wrex). But it suffers from a "tell, don't show" approach to its characters and world building that can REALLY drag things down, and its DLC characters show clear signs of having less attention given to them through resource issues.

I didn't want to use a bad example above, but contrast two good ones. Ensembles are difficult to get right, and it's very easy for characters to fall by the wayside. Either through forgetfulness, or necessity. Sometimes casts grow so large (insert any long-running shonen anime here) that it becomes borderline impossible to keep track of everything. You can come back and think "Wait, what, who were you again?" Good writing can compensate for that, but not always.

Now for the point where I talk about my book Lost Station Circe, where I employ an ensemble cast. And I ran into a problem straight away. Because of how the story was going, my initial core cast of seven with roughly equal screentime exploded into one of somewhere above twelve, which was stretching my ability to create a compelling story for them. I had to make some tough choices, and some that initially had a longer and more defined role needed to be scaled back to allow for fuller focus on others. It's still not perfect (IMO perfection is an unobtainable abstract so looking for it is a fool's errand), but it was either that, or the story was going to get hopelessly confusing and some of the parts I felt were essential to the story would need to be cut for time.

So...this is a thing. Following something up based on someone else's comment. Apologies if it's a little odd, unusual, not quite as polished as it might be but it's more about writing what I feel than some of my other blog posts. I also hope it's enjoyable, and that it makes you think about how a cast is written. Not ensemble fits into a story, but then not every story needs an ensemble. If you try to squeeze an ensemble where it doesn't fit, you get...well, great difficulty remembering who the heck this or that character is supposed to be. No matter how engaging the writing, it was very difficult remembering why I should be caring about Parvati Patel.

Meet the Ensemble

Characters. They are the backbone of any story. Whether Joyce’s Ulysses, or the epics of Tolkien and Martin, or the most realist and modernist of novels that make you want to curl up and think about how we live in a society, it’s borderline impossible to write a story without at least one character. It’s relatively easy for many to write about the singular first-person narrator’s path through life, or a love story with two or three people, or some conflict of one versus either another one or a group of many. The real challenge, and perhaps the most rewarding style for readers and writers alike, is the ensemble cast.

Art from 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim

What do people, be they authors or readers, mean when they talk about an “ensemble cast”? Ensemble as a term can apply to groups of people (musical ensemble), or groups of objects such as buildings (an industrial ensemble). In fiction, it tends to refer to a group of characters that gets roughly the same amount of focus each across a story. The frequency of the ensemble depends on the medium. In film, where focusing on one character is easier, ensembles tend to be the subject of grand scope titles, or smaller independent productions. Ernest Mathijs in his essay ‘Referential acting and the ensemble cast’ argues that ensembles are an important tool for eliciting emotion in film, and applies the term both the groups of protagonists, or monster swarms such as zombies and vampires.

In television, the ensemble is almost required in many contexts, particularly sitcoms. Think of Friends or Cheers, where even with a debatable “main” character or couple, there was a large cast of primary characters who got roughly equal screentime. Video games naturally skew away from ensembles as their design places narrative focus on one character, the playable lead. Only in a few, like the Mass Effect series, 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim or Final Fantasy XIII, do we get roughly equal focus on a large cast. And even these examples tend to have representative characters: Mass Effect may be an ensemble, but Shepherd’s the star attraction.

For ensemble casts, books are paradoxically easier and harder. Easier because there is less creative and functional restriction than there are for film, television and video games. The imagination is limitless, and so are the number of characters one can put into a story. But that strength is also a weakness. The imagination is limitless, but writing skill isn’t even in the best writers. Creating one, two or three characters and a number of smaller side characters is easier than giving each character the time they deserve, especially if you’re doing it in a single book. For instance, the Bartimaeus trilogy thrives on the development of a small core cast.

This contrasting ease and difficulty means that, if the writer can’t juggle so many different characters, there are going to be those who fall by the wayside. Or, worse still, if for some reason the cast isn’t downsized, the whole comes across as underwritten. There are exceptions and workarounds. A series following the same characters, as in films and especially television and video games, can afford to spread itself out. Sometimes, unusually, shallow characters or a lack of development and explanation can be a stylistic choice. There’s also the gnarly question of whether the antagonist can count as part of an ensemble.

There is also a natural preference to go for the trials of a single character. Juliet McKenna’s Green Man series is all about one man’s urban magical adventures, and it works as that. People can have limited storage space in stories for names and events, my sister being one of them, and keeping track of more than three to five characters can be tricky to say the least. I know people who have trouble keeping track of the characters of Dune and Foundation and other great series with more than one lead character. Including me TBH.

So, like the best essays, I can’t just leave it without some opinions. Can you write good ensembles? Yes, take a stab at writing a large cast with depth without letting too many of them drop, and don’t be afraid if that’s not the way you go naturally. Must you? I’d question there being a dictate to write in a way you’re not comfortable with, as it always produces subpar work. Can villains be part of an ensemble? Maybe, but they’re a bit of a wildcard.

And as a coda, the thing which drew me to this topic in the first place. It was during the first stage edits of my upcoming book Lost Station Circe. I have to be a bit vague with some of this, because—to quote our lady of non-linearity River Song—“spoilers”.

The story started with a small group of characters, two or three, as I’d done with my debut Starborn Vendetta. But as I looked through the cast during the writing and editing process, a tight-knit seven person crew aboard the rundown cargo ship Benbow, my views began to shift. I saw them less as side characters, and more as characters in their own right. I pushed this further in the edits, and by the time it was going through line edits towards release, I had a cast of seven individual characters that, I hoped, were developed and believable.

If you reached this point, thank you for reading. And I hope you either enjoy some of the stories I mentioned, or encourage you to seek them out.

An early inspiration - Tomb Raider: Legend

 

Back in 2006, before I had even an inkling of what I might do for a career, I played a game that's recently seen an uptick in popularity with its release on the PlayStation Plus service. But for me, Tomb Raider: Legend is more than simple a game. More than any book or television show or great piece of movie history, it's a piece of media that helped inspire me to become a writer.

I first encountered Tomb Raider through its 2001 movie, which is okay if a little schlocky. I got Legend soon after its release, and after some frustration with its QTEs, I fell in love. Not simply with its gameplay, but with the dialogue, the story, and with Lara herself. She was unlike any character I'd ever experienced before. She was classy and confident, caring yet hard-edged, acrobatic and voluptuous without feeling particularly exploitative. Some of my favourite parts were the banter she had with her research team back at her mansion in Britain. There was some slightly forced family drama in there, but it was never on a distracting level, and Keeley Hawes's performance sold it and the rest of the journey Lara took across the world.

A chunk of the lines from this game live in my head. "I do my best thinking jumping off cliffs.", "Alistair, meet Tiwanaku. She's a lovely pre-Incan civilisation, currently in ruins.", "It's authentic enough for its age, but it's age isn't entirely authentic.", "Anyone between me and that stone dies.", "Basic etiquette: never arrive at a party empty-handed.", "Death by irony is always painful. Amateurs.", "Grand entrances are always impractical. It's what makes them grand.", "There's no distinction between stupid and charming with you, is there?", "All those satellites and computers just to perfect the science of talking to one's self.", and (in response to a villain asking if she's deaf) "I don't know, let's see. Try begging for your life like you did the last time we spoke."

What I picked out above are just me cherry-picking lines that work well in isolation. There are longer exchanges that are generally reinforce this image of a woman with attitude, and it's all done with nary a curse word. I can remember actively seeking to trigger optional in-level dialogue just to tear the two assistants chip in about something or argue over some of the scenery. Or Lara's propensity for climbing to extreme heights or going along unstable platforms while thinking nothing of it.

I remember wanting to create a character like Lara for myself. I'd always leaned towards creating stories, but this was a true catalyst. Within the next four years, I was scribbling stuff down in earnest, writing on a hand-me-down computer in the old Notepad format, then OpenOffice. Now I'm a published author using Microsoft Word to create stories and characters some might imagine puts Legend to shame. But I disagree. Nothing can shame Legend. It's a piece of history and art that's worthy of remembrance. There are reasons outside its story and characters, but those are the big ones.

For me, forever more, Lara Croft will remain this Lara Croft. Not the busty slight sociopath of the early titles. Not the rather whiny origin character of the second later reboot. But this one, a confident and sassy aristocrat who kicked ass, looked after her friends, and was able to be profound and quippy when exploring some ancient temple behind a waterfall in the depths of tropical Africa.

Plan: 30 Days of Pride

Hi. So, in my attempt to do something that is close to my heart and identity, I've decided on doing this. During Pride Month this June, I intend--as someone who fully realised their bisexuality within the last year--to do one post a day on my socials highlighting an author/creative that falls on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum. One per day, for thirty days, using the hashtag #30DaysOfPride. Now, this isn't a small task, and it's also open to being royally messed up if I just set about it randomly, so I'm setting up a few ground rules.

Rule 1: The creatives in question need to be confirmed either through their own words/actions, or personal anecdotes, to be on the rainbow spectrum. That means some figures with question marks over their head, such as T. H. White, will not be counted. There may be some compelling evidence surrounding these people, but there's no confirmation about it and it's still a debated topic. That also rules out Shakespeare, since we really can't be sure about him either. See this video from J. Draper on that subject, which I heartily agree with. It similarly rules out straight creators who wrote LGBTQI+ characters. I may well miss some creatives that could have been better included on the list, and if so I apologise.

Rule 2: I'm going to try and provide a mixture of authors/creatives from across time periods. It would be surprisingly easy to go for a lot of classic and mostly now-dead creatives such as Noel Coward, but that would be too easy. Also it would be doing a disservice to multiple current authors. I also hope to get a descent amount of BIPOC creators into it, so it can be shown it's not just whites who fall along the spectrum.

Rule 3: They must have created some kind of original story in a form that is a narrative with words. This can be a graphic novel, a book or short stories, plays, or a video game. It doesn't matter the genre, but it must be a written narrative. There are a number of famous LGBTQIA+ artists, actors, singers, and similar. But this quest is for writers, the ones who can move with words. This isn't to devalue these others' work, but only to highlight creatives of narrative-based fiction. This also partly rules out non-fiction.

At the end of the 30 days, which is a Sunday and thus my usual blog posting time, I'll be bringing together all the creatives mentioned, and including a section of honourable mentions. The honourable mentions are to help incorporate some which I really wanted to include, but don't quite fit in with what I want to attempt with this. I don't know whether this will work out, but I really want it to be...something. An attempt by me to highlight a group that for a very long time has needed to work either in secret or under a veil of obscurity. And now they--we--are coming into the light.

Here's to Pride Month.