Fairy Novel WIP, a mood:
Fairy Novel WIP, a mood:
Now with 50% more Murderous Intent!
Crystal Lynn Hilbert
My website:
Fine Purveyor of Academic Necromancy and Culinary Cannibalism
Or if you're just looking to talk:
Ask and ye shall receive
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“To Inherit Hunger” in Bourbon Penn 21
“To Inherit Hunger” in Bourbon Penn 21
By bedtime each night, empty-eyed cartoon characters tumbled over her mother’s slippers. At six, Jillian didn’t understand words like “hallucinatory manifestation disorder” and “early onset”. She giggled at Helga Hog dancing in her fluffy ballet costume and clapped her chubby hands when Henry Hog splashed in an imaginary mud puddle she could almost see.
She didn’t know to worry about the way her…
I have a story appearing in this issue, “What Beasts We Cannot Conquer”. Give it a peek, if you like. Or, if you have a minute and are a kind hearted traveller, you could give my tweet about it a boost.
“What Beasts We Cannot Conquer” appearing in Cossmass Infinities!
“What Beasts We Cannot Conquer” now available in Cossmass Infinities Issue 1!
“What Beast We Cannot Conquer” is one of my favorite things I’ve written to date. It follows a clockwork necromancer as she navigates illness, complicated relationships, messy emotions, and new/different selfhood.
You can find it in issue 1 of Cossmass Infinities. Copies are available at Amazon, Google Play, Gumroad and on the Cossmass Infinities website. There’s even a paperback optionon Amazon…
Clockwork, necromancy, academic rivalry and complicated relationships
I’m super excited to announce that my story “What Beasts We Cannot Conquer” will be appearing in Cossmass Infinities in January, 2020.
I love this story so much and I can’t wait to share it with everyone. If you have a minute, I’d appreciate if you could give the announcement a bump on Twitter.
Such Truth as This
Ever wonder what Hel was doing when Loki cast the first seeds of Ragnarok? Well, turns out, she was tending the garden.
My story “Such Truth As This” is now available in Three Crows Magazine Issue 5.
—
Here is an old story. You’ve heard it before—
Two door guardians: one a liar, the other true. They offer these rules to you freely upon your approach, each glancing sly accusations at the other. You’re allowed one question before you choose.
You think you have the answer, the proper words one must know when navigating crossroads, but you’re wrong. Everyone is. This game was rigged long before your oldest ancestors learned to cast their wishes on wind-caught dandelions.
There is no riddle, no right path, no rules. These beasts are hungry and they’re lying to you.
A Tasting Menu of Female Representation:
two or more women talking to each other about something other than a man
at least one female character with her own narrative arc that is not about supporting a man’s story
a female character that cannot be removed from the plot and replaced with a sexy lamp without destroying the story.
Chef’s Specials:
no woman assaulted, injured or killed to further the story of another character.
complex women defined by solid characterization rather than a handful of underdeveloped masculine-coded stereotypes.
In the years since I wrote this post, somehow it’s mutated into a kind of shambling, half-sentient creature, wandering–totally unsupervised!–though writer’s forums and Reddit and similar such places I never expected or intended to find its way into.
Turns out, this is accidentally the most controversial thing I’ve ever written.
Some people love it. Some people read it as the Ultimate Prescription of How You Must Write Characters and are beyond irritated at being told what to do.
I just want to add an addendum, if I may: This silly list is not the Arbiter of Rightness when it comes to writing. It isn’t a demand–it’s a menu. Pick what you want, leave the rest. When I wrote it, it was honestly just a tongue-in-cheek way to list all the different metrics for female representation I saw floating around at the time.
You can write a story any way you want to. The success of a story is determined by the skill of the writer, not by a series of check marks on an arbitrary metric.
Anonymous asked: About that female rep. Post, what if it's a female character's story is furthered by the death of another female?Then her story is furthered by the death of another character. That’s not necessarily a bad thing or a good thing; it’s all in how you write it.
I think the Tasting Menu of Female Representation post of mine is accidentally the most controversial thing I’ve ever written. Some people love it, some people seem to read it as the Ultimate Prescription of How You Must Write Characters.
I never intended that silly list to be the Arbiter of Rightness when it comes to writing. It’s not a demand–it’s a menu. Pick what you want, leave the rest. When I wrote it, it was honestly just a tongue-in-cheek way to list all the different metrics for female representation I saw floating around at the time.
You can write a story any way you want to. The success of the story is determined by the skill of the writer, not by a series of check marks on an arbitrary metric.
Concept: a D&D-style fantasy setting where humanity’s weird thing is that we’re the only sapient species that reproduces organically.
- Dwarves carve each other out of rock. In theory this can be managed alone, but in practice, few dwarves have mastered all of the necessary skills. Most commonly, it’s a collaborative effort by three to eight individuals. The new dwarf’s body is covered with runes that are in part a recounting of the crafters’ respective lineages, and in part an elaboration of the rights and duties of a member of dwarven society; each dwarf is thus a living legal argument establishing their own existence.
- Elves aren’t made, but educated. An elf who wishes to produce offspring selects an ordinary animal and begins teaching it, starting with house-breaking, and progressing through years of increasingly sophisticated lessons. By gradual degrees the animal in question develops reasoning, speech, tool use, and finally the ability to assume a humanoid form at will. Most elves are derived from terrestrial mammals, but there’s at least one community that favours octopuses and squid as its root stock.
- Goblins were created by alchemy as servants for an evil wizard, but immediately stole their own formula and rebelled. New goblins are brewed in big brass cauldrons full of exotic reagents; each village keeps a single cauldron in a central location, and emerging goblings are raised by the whole community, with no concept of parentage or lineage. Sometimes they like to add stuff to the goblin soup just to see what happens – there are a lot of weird goblins.
- Halflings reproduce via tall tales. Making up fanciful stories about the adventures of fictitious cousins is halfling culture’s main amusement; if a given individual’s story is passed around and elaborated upon by enough people, a halfling answering to that individual’s description just shows up one day. They won’t necessarily possess any truly outlandish abilities that have been attributed to them – mostly you get the sort of person of whom the stories could be plausible exaggerations.
To address the obvious question, yes, this means that dwarves have no cultural notion of childhood, at least not one that humans would recognise as such. Elves and goblins do, though it’s kind of a weird childhood in the case of elves, while with halflings it’s a toss-up; mostly they instantiate as the equivalent of a human 12–14-year-old, and are promptly adopted by a loose affiliation of self-appointed aunts and uncles, though there are outliers in either direction.
What about orcs?
The so-called goblinoid peoples are variations on the same formula, and may well emerge from the same cauldron, depending on who’s been screwing with the ingredients lately. They’re very morphologically plastic – it’s not unheard-of to encounter a kobold and an ogre who count each other as siblings.
(via nadirmonkey)
From July 1st through July 31st, all three of my titles–Trickster Edda, Dead on Arrival, and Eve & Eden–will be available for free on Smashwords.
Free! It’s the best price!
No coupon code required. As long as its after midnight on July 1, they’ll appear as free as soon as you put them in your cart.
Happy reading!
