Coyote Con

[Babs M] 9:01 pm: All right, let’s get started. Tonight is a special Thursday edition of Coyote Con with multi-published writer Gary Braunbeck. Welcome, Gary!

[GaryBraunbeck] 9:01 pm: I think this is going swimmingly thus far, don’t you?

[GaryBraunbeck] 9:01 pm: Thanks for having me.

[Babs M] 9:01 pm: Everyone certainly is happy to be here.

[Babs M] 9:02 pm: Even the evil mommies in the crowd.

[GaryBraunbeck] 9:02 pm: What? Joan Crawford is here?

[basletum] 9:02 pm: lol!

[GaryBraunbeck] 9:02 pm: Everyone say it with me…No wire hangers!

[Babs M] 9:02 pm: Hahaha….Could you tell us a little about yourself? I’m sure most of us know you write horror stories…what else should we know?

[GaryBraunbeck] 9:03 pm: I’ve written quite a bit of mystery, science fiction, suspense, and — believe it or bot — some romance over the course of my career.

[GaryBraunbeck] 9:04 pm: Yes, there will be typos tonight.

[Babs M] 9:04 pm: I sprayed, darn it!

[Babs M] 9:04 pm: And I see you teach with Pennwriter Tim Esaias at Seton Hill?

[GaryBraunbeck] 9:04 pm: I had a lot of trouble learning how to read in my early years, which is why I tend to read more slowly than the average reader.

[GaryBraunbeck] 9:05 pm: Yes, indeed. I’ve been with SH for 6 years, Tim has been there, I believe, nearly 10.

[GaryBraunbeck] 9:06 pm: In fact, today was the day we had to turn in term grades.

[Babs M] 9:06 pm: What would you say is one of the most common mistakes of beginning writers?

[GaryBraunbeck] 9:08 pm: There are several of them, but the one I see most often is … homogenized. They tend to write about what’s hot at the moment rather than bring their own personal vision to the page.

[Babs M] 9:09 pm: How does that particularly apply to horror writing? You mean, everyone doesn’t have to write about vampires at the same time?

[GaryBraunbeck] 9:11 pm: No … these days it’s zombies. Lots and lots and lots of zombies. Some with the shredded flesh of Jane Austen and Mark Twain (among others) in their teeth.

[RonHorsley] 9:11 pm: I don’t know about Gary, but from my viewpoint, all writing including horror has its ‘trends,’ and a lot of new authors gravitate towards them. Probably moreso in genres like horror where new authors want to ‘hit it big’ as quickly as possible so they write what’s going to probably sell best at the moment.

[Babs M] 9:11 pm: What does a writer of zombies have to do to stand out in such a crowd?

[Muffie79] 9:12 pm: Sexy zombies?

[GaryBraunbeck] 9:12 pm: Try telling their stories from a new, original angle.

[GaryBraunbeck] 9:13 pm: Example: when I was asked to write a zombie story for a chapbook publisher, I started off with some typical zombie setups — only everything was being told through the POV of a dj trapped in his radio booth. And from there, it evolved into something completely different from a traditional zombie story. I won my third Stoker award for that piece.

[cesarcarlos] 9:14 pm: “We now Pause…” great story

[GaryBraunbeck] 9:16 pm: I want to clarify my point about homogenized horror a bit. The biggest problem comes when a new writer sits down and say to him- or herself, “I’m going to write a horror story.”

[GaryBraunbeck] 9:17 pm: Because whether they know it or not, by specifying the type of story it has to be, they will unconsciously begin employing traditional horror tropes that very probably have no business being in the story. They hobble the piece before it’s even begun. That’s why I always tell my students, “Forget genre,” when they’re beginning a new piece. Let the story go to where it needs to go, thematically and organically; don’t graft elements onto the narrative that have no business being there.

[Babs M] 9:20 pm: That’s a great suggestion.

[GaryBraunbeck] 9:21 pm: Nothing original can be created in a vacuum, and when a writer sets out to write a specific type of story, he or she creates their own vacuum. It’s defeating the point of trying to establish not only an original narrative, but a distinct narrative voice, as well.

[Babs M] 9:21 pm: Can you speculate about what upcoming trends might be beyond zombies? It seems like so much of what is going on in the real world is pretty scary these days.

[GaryBraunbeck] 9:24 pm: Yes, what’s going on in the world is scary, but there’s always something scary going on.

[GaryBraunbeck] 9:25 pm: I would like to see horror become better balanced by finding a way to make the terrors within as petrifying as those without.

[GaryBraunbeck] 9:26 pm: For instance; Tim Lebbon just released a brilliant novella entitled The Thief of Broken Toys that’s one of the most powerful studies of individual grief I have ever read. He makes the world outside the narrator as gut-wrenching and oppressive as the battle with his grief inside. Horror needs to start facing more of the human darkness within; grief, anger, hopelessness, violent thoughts, etc. — and I mean grapple with these things, not toss them out for window-dressing.

[GaryBraunbeck] 9:28 pm: That said, there could always be a resurgence of Evil Clowns.

[GaryBraunbeck] 9:29 pm: Or possessed wombats.

[Babs M] 9:29 pm: What then should a writer do who wants to write something scary? Not necessarily genre horror, but wants to explore something and make it as terrifying to the reader as it is to him or her? Where’s a good place to begin?

[GaryBraunbeck] 9:30 pm: Within themselves — seriously. You cannot consciously scare a reader if the subject you’re dealing with doesn’t scare or disturb you. If you have a character who is, say, contemplating the murder of a sex offender who’s just moved into the neighborhood, you have to find that element of reckless hatred and judgmentalism in yourself that you’ve felt toward someone or something in the past, dredge it up, and direct it toward the character and thus the goal of the story. The emotions have to be authentic, you cannot disturb a reader through affectation.

If you can honestly and directly convey your fear of something on the page, the reader will experience that fear along with your character.

[basletum] 9:31 pm: Evil Clowns rock!

[basletum] 9:31 pm: (sorry)

[basletum] 9:35 pm: Evil clowns with tourettes rock too.

[basletum] 9:35 pm: (couldn’t help myself)

[cinriter] 9:35 pm: Personally, I want Braunbeck’s Possessed Wombats.

[GaryBraunbeck] 9:36 pm: I suddenly have the hiccups. This has nothing to do with the discussion, but I felt compelled to share.

LucySnyder] 9:36 pm: (Gary does sound rather like a possessed wombat right now!)

[Muffie79] 9:37 pm: Gary, eat a spoonful of sugar.

[Nicole Cushing] 9:37 pm: I want to know if Gary has any advice to assist a writer keep moored to the world outside of fiction…

[Nicole Cushing] 9:37 pm: That is… I find that there’s almost a delirium that comes with fiction-writing and with Gary’s work (in particular, the Cedar Hill stories), there’s a tremendous amount of investment in this “un-real” world…

[Nicole Cushing] 9:38 pm: how does a writer balance that investment, along with investment in stuff like…oh…doing the laundry? How do you “un-moor” yourself?

[GaryBraunbeck] 9:38 pm: I go through the same thing whenever I’m working on something — that delirium you speak of. Everything you do in your daily life not only keeps you grounded, but it allows the good old subconscience to work out story problems that you may being having trouble with. There is a great quote from William Goldman that I long ago adopted as my personal mantra.

[GaryBraunbeck] 9:40 pm: “Life is material; you just have to live long enough to figure out how to use it.”

[GaryBraunbeck] 9:41 pm: This keeps me solidly grounded with one foot in the real world, and one in the un-real. Does that help you at all?

[Nicole Cushing] 9:41 pm: yes, thanks!

[cesarcarlos] 9:41 pm: Hi Gary, you mentioned Tim Lebbon’s novella as a great example, are there any other contemporary novellas you believe are particularly good at portraying fear, dread, etc.?

[GaryBraunbeck] 9:42 pm: Off the top of my head: Ray Garton’s “Dr. Krusadian’s Method” and “Monsters”; Dan Simmons’s “Iverson’s Pits”; Stephen King’s “The Things They Left Behind” (a brilliant example of merging the fears within with the fears without); Sarah Pinborough’s “The Language of Dying.” These are all first-rate examples.

[Muffie79] 9:44 pm: How do you deal with the darkness dredged up by bringing up (lots of ups here) all that inner ugliness?

[GaryBraunbeck] 9:45 pm: In all seriousness, sometimes I can’t deal with it. But most of the time, when it’s all up here on the surface and I’m trembling or crying or raging or whatever, all I have to do is look down at my feet and I’ll see one of our cats lying there, keeping me company, or I’ll hear Lucy typing in her office, or the sound of her lovely voice as she speaks with someone on the phone.

[GaryBraunbeck] 9:47 pm: and I remember how blessed I am to have such a good life, one that allows me to do the thing I am best at, and love dearly.

[GaryBraunbeck] 9:48 pm: There’s also the meth lab I’m building, if all else fails…

Babs M] 9:48 pm: LOL…um no illegal stuff here, folks….

[Muffie79] 9:48 pm: Is there a cathartic effect?

[GaryBraunbeck] 9:49 pm: Yes, it’s cathartic. A lot of writers think that the idea of catharsis or self-exorcism through their work is pretentious or a lot of horseshit, I am not one of them. Horror, of all forms of storytelling, is by its core nature a cathartic genre — the reader ends the book or story feeling drained, as if they’ve faced something terrible and come out into the light all the stronger. for it. It’s a little hard to achieve that effect if the writer him- or herself doesn’t experience some personal catharsis during the writing of the piece.

[basletum] 9:50 pm: Do you feel that psychological horror will make a comeback after people get jaded by the gratuity of slasher flicks, etc.?

[GaryBraunbeck] 9:52 pm: That is my fervent hope. A lot of what is being vomited onto the screens these days has been called “Torture Porn” (an apt description) because it follows the structure of a porno film, only instead of enduring the dialogue scenes so you can get to the something-something, you endure them so you can get to the endless, gratuitous torture.

[GaryBraunbeck] 9:54 pm: They’re dehumanizing, and, yes, I hope that more thoughtful, psychological horror will make its way to the forefront.

[GaryBraunbeck] 9:54 pm: Though I have to confess that I did like the first 2 SAW films quite a lot; they justified the ugliness of their torture scenes and had the underlying vindictive morality of the old fairy tales.

[GaryBraunbeck] 9:55 pm: After the second one, though, they degenerated into pointless bloodbaths.

[tina_writes_thecleanwhitepage] 9:56 pm: Gary, do you have any advice about seeking publication of the horror novel?

[GaryBraunbeck] 9:57 pm: Put together a proposal package–the first 3 chapters (or 50 pages, whichever comes first) along with a synopsis of the rest of the story (no longer than 1-and-a-half pages, single-spaced) and send it out to as many agents and publishers as you’d like.

[GaryBraunbeck] 9:58 pm: If you send out 10 proposal packages, odds are pretty good that at least one agent or publisher is going to want to see the rest. Don’t limit yourself to to just the big house, though; also look for first-rate small press publishers, such as PS Publishing, Subterranean, Apex, etc.

[tina_writes_thecleanwhitepage] 9:59 pm: Did you start by getting an agent?

[GaryBraunbeck] 10:00 pm: Nope. Sold my first 6 books on my own. That got some agents’ attention.

[GaryBraunbeck] 10:01 pm: I will add, however, that in the marketplace today, it’s best if you have an agent.

[tina_writes_thecleanwhitepage] 10:01 pm: Thanks Gary. I’ll keep plugging.

[cesarcarlos] 10:01 pm: I read once that novellas were “the best format for horror”. Do you agree with this or do you consider format irrelevant?

[GaryBraunbeck] 10:02 pm: I think the novella length is the perfect length for fiction. It allows you the room to explore more deeply characters and their relationships, as well as the theme and a sub-plot or two, without the temptation of getting windy and losing focus, as many are wont to do when writing a novel. For me, the novella is the perfect length.

[cesarcarlos] 10:03 pm: Thanks, Gary.

[basletum] 10:03 pm: Regarding publishers and agents whose guidelines say “no simultaneous submissions”, is the proposal package considered a “submission” or is only the full manuscript a submission?

[GaryBraunbeck] 10:04 pm: The proposal package counts as a submission — however, a query letter doesn’t count as such — you can fire off as many of them as you’d like.

[basletum] 10:04 pm: Cool! Thanks!

[Babs M] 10:04 pm: Since you live right there…are you going to be at ContextCon any time in the near future?

[spot_writes] 10:05 pm: Isn’t Lucy teaching a workshop at ContextCon?

[basletum] 10:05 pm: Yep

[LucySnyder] 10:05 pm: Yes, on Urban Fantasy

[spot_writes] 10:06 pm: (sorry I got excited!! I’m going!)

basletum] 10:06 pm: Toldya’

[GaryBraunbeck] 10:06 pm: Definitely. This coming Context, that begins on August 27th, will also mark Lucy’s and my 6th wedding anniversary — we met at Context

[LucySnyder] 10:06 pm: And Gary is teaching an advanced short story workshop

[Muffie79] 10:06 pm: We should have cake.

[LucySnyder] 10:06 pm: Workshop link.

[spot_writes] 10:06 pm: *swoons*

[GaryBraunbeck] 10:06 pm: It’s going to be a lot of fun.

[LucySnyder] 10:06 pm: We definitely should have cake!

[GaryBraunbeck] 10:06 pm: Would anyone mind if I mentioned some upcoming publications?

[basletum] 10:07 pm: go for it!

[Babs M] 10:07 pm: please do

[Deena] 10:07 pm: Please do!

[Deena] 10:07 pm: (If I get to come, I will bring a cake. I’ve discovered an incredible recipe for home made icing.)

[LucySnyder] 10:07 pm: Deena, you must come!

[Deena] 10:07 pm: I really, really want to.

[Muffie79] 10:07 pm: Just bring the icing.

[GaryBraunbeck] 10:07 pm: Apex Books will be releasing a non-fiction book (part memoir, part movie reviews, part writing tips) entitled To Each Their Darkness in October

[LucySnyder] 10:08 pm: To Each Their Darkness pre-order link.

[spot_writes] 10:08 pm: Lucy, Gary, Deena, Cake. Could it get better??

[GaryBraunbeck] 10:09 pm: and December will see the release (also from Apex) of the 6th Cedar Hill novel, A Cracked and Broken Path, which will close out this branch of the cycle. And it only took 24 years.

[basletum] 10:09 pm: wow!

[Muffie79] 10:09 pm: Folks, preorder To Each Their Darkness. It rocks.

[LucySnyder] 10:09 pm: I should mention that the first 100 preorders of To Each Their Darkness gets a free signed hardcover limited edition book

[GaryBraunbeck] 10:09 pm: Early 2011 will see the 3rd Cedar Hill collection from Earthling, as well as the novella “Clipper Girls” from the gang at Tasmaniac Publications.

[cesarcarlos] 10:10 pm: Congrats on the anniversary and on the upcoming pubs! My question: I know some foreign writers are quite popular in the US (in particular many British authors). From your perspective what do you think the odds are for a foreigner (unpublished) to publish in the US?

[GaryBraunbeck] 10:11 pm: If said writer has been published in his or her own country, and they find a good agent to represent the foreign rights, I’d say the odds will be in his or her favor. It may take some time, but I think their chances are solid.

cesarcarlos] 10:12 pm: Thanks Gary, cant wait for Cedar Hill Vol. 3!!

[GaryBraunbeck] 10:13 pm: CH #3 will be titled The Carnival Within, btw.

[Babs M] 10:12 pm: What a lot of information to assimilate! Thank you, Gary, for taking the time to share with us. Even those of us who don’t write horror, necessarily have plenty to take away. Good luck with your new publications!

[Deena] 10:13 pm: Thanks, Gary, this was great. Lucy, thanks for coming too

[LucySnyder] 10:13 pm: Sure, thanks for having us!

[spot_writes] 10:13 pm: Thank you both! It was very interesting.

cinriter] 10:14 pm: Thanks, both! And congrats on YOUR Stoker, Lucy!

[Nicole Cushing] 10:14 pm: g’night

[LucySnyder] 10:14 pm: Thanks, Lisa!

[basletum] 10:14 pm: Gnight! See you two at Marcon!

[cesarcarlos] 10:14 pm: Bye!

[Muffie79] 10:14 pm: Sweet dreams, everybody!

[GaryBraunbeck] 10:14 pm: My thanks to all of you. I had a blast, and hope that all of you found this as interesting and fun as I did. Goodnight!

[tina_writes_thecleanwhitepage] 10:14 pm: Thank you Gary!

[GaryBraunbeck] 10:14 pm: Thanks for logging in all the way from Ireland, Tina!

[tina_writes_thecleanwhitepage] 10:15 pm: My pleasure Gary!

[spot_writes] 10:15 pm: Goodnight everyone.

[GaryBraunbeck] 10:15 pm: I have to go tend to the wombats and evil clowns now…

[basletum] 10:15 pm: Evil clowns with tourettes.

[tina_writes_thecleanwhitepage] 10:15 pm: Nothing scarier than a clown after midnight