Author: Sarah A. Hoyt

And then, as I was watching McGyver, suddenly the mystery was solved. McGyver said that he didn’t plan things out in advance, because plans could go wrong… the very problem I had been pondering. Would it not be possible, then, that G*d solved the problem the same way McGyver does? I do not mean that on some higher plane, G*d is sitting there looking at earth and telling an angel “I need a paperclip, some bubblegum, and a fourth dimensional divine sphere”, but certainly a plan that you make up as you go along cannot go wrong. After all, if you aren’t certain what you are supposed to do next, then it’s hard for you not to do it according to plan; there isn’t a plan until you make one up, and then, of course, your actions in doing so almost necessarily assume you are going according to plan. Especially if we think of the universe as being, in a sense, a tremendous, complex game of solitaire, it’s impossible to know what cards are coming, but the skillful player excels in dealing with the cards as they come.
End conclusion? Our Author, who art in heaven, is in all likelihood a Pantser. He has a divine plan for you, certainly, but He might not know what it is yet. I was actually somewhat relieved upon coming to this conclusion, since it meant that the universe may be screwed up at times, but, if you take the long view, it’s awfully hard for it to go astray. Unfortunately, we probably ought to worry that, in the long view, history is also inexorably a story like “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress”, and not like “Pride and Prejudice”, which would be a wonderful thing if not for the fact that we are the characters, and so ineffability is weighted towards our living in interesting times. Any historian can easily confirm that history is very rarely boring, and in fact has more sex and violence then a Brazilian soap opera. 

It was while contemplating this train of thought that it occurred to me that most writers eventually go to a writer’s convention. Since G*d is reputed to be everywhere at once, we can probably assume that transportation would not be a problem in His case. Granted, your standard writer goes to a convention to network, maybe pick up some pointers on writing, although it is not unusual for them to go just because they want to have a good time and see some old friends. In most cases, G*d probably wouldn’t find that necessary. He already has the ultimate network, for starters, and I wouldn’t imagine He needs many pointers. But let’s face it… what’s the point of making a world if you can’t play in it occasionally? Most writer’s conventions are a lot of fun, even if they’re nerve wracking and even if you do go for business. 

So, next time you look around a convention, be on the lookout. Don’t worry if other conventions are going on at the same time, He’s probably attending both if He’s going at all. He’ll be the quirky bestseller who you can never quite remember the nametag of, although you’ll come away with the strange impression it said “Mr. Jaho Vah”, and subsequently determine He was Swedish on this basis (speculation as to G*d’s nationality ends there, although it might explain a lot if He eventually turned out to be American. I will say, however, that although it’s a lovely country, G*d is almost certainly not Canadian.). He’ll be the largish man who sits at the back of the inevitable “How to Build Convincing Worlds” panel, giggling occasionally in a strangely unnerving way. He may, perhaps, express slight disappointment with the angel food cake in the hospitality suite, and is adamantly certain He can do it better. He will know all the secret parties and show absolutely no problems with staying up all night during the convention. He will know all the editors and agents, perhaps hinting incredibly subtly at some shady events in their past that no one could possibly know about during casual conversation, until eventually they include Him in the dinner party out of self-defense. You can spot instantly whether you have also been included in this dinner party, because one member will order the fish and be very fond of the dinner rolls (if the restaurant did not serve either of these prior to your party’s arrival, this is another dead giveaway), and no matter how little of either you originally had you will need several doggy bags for what’s left over. Writers in attendance who have previously had careers that dropped dead will miraculously see them revived, and people who were previously condemned to the slush pile with good reason shall be healed. 

This, however, raises an uncomfortable possibility that there will also be demonic intervention. It is well known that the darker side of the occult attempts to thwart all things that the almighty does, which may well include taking a vacation. This is why preparation is of the essence. Firstly, be aware of evil forces when you see them. Keep in mind that small press editors, animé fanatics and filkers rarely invade cons en mass or travel in groups. Perhaps mischievous little tricks like the guest of honor being unable to get a badge will give it away, or if nothing else, loud groups of people who manifest outside your door at three AM to torment the three hours you have allotted for sleep. 

If demonic forces do invade the conference you are at, it is important to keep in mind the con-goers basic handbook for occult defense and survival, which I will include some excerpts from:

1: The basic field kit for a con-goer should consist of at least one standard bell, one book, and one candle (Your standard issue BBC. It is very rare that you will be able to see Monty python on this kit, however.) The bell can be of any description the user wishes, although a shop bell is not recommended unless one is fighting demonic influence in the dealer’s room. Religious books are preferred, although in most cases a Heinlein book or in a pinch even something by J.K. or J.R.R. can be used by a true believer. Care should be taken with pronunciation in versions of the bible written in the original Klingon, and throat lozenges are recommended. Sadly, Manga has not shown a great deal of potency although ones with higher age ratings may be used to amuse demons with short attention spans while you run away. For the candle, use your own discretion. Something suitably impressive is usually available in the dealer’s room. Flame throwers are effective, but you shall have to convince con authorities they do not work and put a big orange tag on them. NOTE: You should not include garlic, protective herbs, or silver bullets. In the first two cases because they have absolutely no effect on the forces of darkness, and the best usefulness you can expect out of them is they may be used to flavor you. Silver bullets would only be effective against werewolf demons, which are, unfortunately, a completely unconfirmed species. If you do choose any of the above, you should take the precaution of wearing a large, noticeable protective amulet. Not that this will do you any good, but it will make IDing your remains simpler.

2: Stay away from Foci of evil. If you feel an irresistible urge to go watch the filking hour, take a few deep breaths, and look up train wrecks on YouTube. You will receive the same perverse satisfaction, but with less danger.

3. Know your way around the con hotel. Because nobody needs to run into the middle of the J.K. vs. J.R.R. pajama challenge panel when they’re looking for the exit.

4.No matter how great the urge, do not attempt anything you saw on Buffy the Vampire slayer on actual demons. You should not take advice on fighting the forces of darkness from a girl who apparently went to the afterlife primarily to unwind in between huge climactic battles.

5.Avoid being badly plotted. Most writers know exactly what I mean. Do not do anything that you would not write a character doing because it would be obviously stupid. Do not under any circumstances become the best friend of anyone, since there are fifty-fifty odds that you will die in a crucial battle with the con-demons if you do. Do not develop a love interest, and if you start to, find the section of the hotel which still has cold running water and use it.

And finally:

6. Do not do something to annoy someone who can crush your career like a bug on a semi truck’s windshield. Because the prospect of being out of work in this business is probably worse than facing Satan himself. You are planning to survive, so be as plastically jovial as you usually are with people you don’t like and who have power over you, so that they remember how nice you were even in a crisis. Certain editors and bestsellers are probably at least as powerful as G*d, so even if you run into Him, do not bet you are saved.

Above all, remember that if you do run into the almighty, the little touches make the difference. For Catholics, a cross in your Starfleet insignia may garner some favor, for Jews, perhaps a nice yarmulke with Klingon sayings. Since writers tend to work on a “share and share alike” system, and helping newbies is common, you could get some sympathy from our Heavenly Author and become one of the few writers who actually appears to have G*d on their side. 

Major cons may attract more attention from the almighty, depending on how literally one takes “the first shall be last”. Keep in mind the above signs, and you should do fine. With a little preparation, you’ll be ready should Denvention turn out to be a religious experience.
Or, worst case scenario, a metaphysical warzone. 

To begin with let me tell you that there are people who think you shouldn’t plot the novel in advance, because it will rob it of “spontaneity.” This is roughly the equivalent of telling you that you should always drive off-road, or you’ll never go any place new.

While the roads have been laid out for years – or centuries – their sudden turns and the exits no one ever takes, can take you – and your readers – places they’ve never seen before.

There was a time people were enamored of formless plotting. Because I’m and evil b_tch (just ask the mini onions) I’ve always sort of assumed that people who use a very innovative form do so because they have no new content to pour into it.

I’m not talking here of things like “inventing” the novel format or even the type of play that Shakespeare (or, arguably, Kit Marlowe) created which was a new format relative to what came before. In both of those cases, the created thing, though different from what came before was the next logical step for it, and if we sit down over a cup of something at a con, I can make a credible case for the evolution of form being the result of a technical revolution. (The ability to print cheaply for the novel, for ex. Combined with a more wide spread literacy than ever before.)

No, the variations of form I’m talking about are the ones where “plotless” was in. Or my very favorite – a novel I was forced to read in college. And I use the term novel loosely – where, having got rid of the concept of plot and of unity of action, and of everything else, it got rid of “time.” I.e. nothing happens, because the novel is set in one static movement. No, I am not joking.

This sort of thing might be considered a triumph of will, or of the literary imagination. If your goal is to have literature professors swoon over you and to be the celebrated darling of the sort of literary society where your work is known only by twelve people with graduate degrees, then that is the path for you. Go forth and have fun.

However, this sort of thing is NOT a path to commercial success. And – at least for me – commercial success is far more than the ability to make money, keep cats and kids fed and a roof over my head. (Though I’m very fond of the roof over my head!) The thing is, no matter how many fan letters you get, or from whom, ultimately the only thing you can be sure of is that people are buying your books. Or not. If they’re buying your books, they’re spending money they could have spent on beer or wine, or frilly underwear. They forego something to read your story. And that makes it the most important thing, at least for me.

The second thing is to define a plot. In my years of writing and mentoring, I’ve ONLY come across one person who could genuinely be said not to have a clue what a plot was and who defined “novel” and “short story” by length. However, for all I know there are whole bevies of people like that out there. So, to begin with, a plot is a unit of action – something happens and it’s centered around something (character development, world change, whatever) so that it’s a cogent hole together and has a satisfying end which can be derived (though not guessed) from the beginning.

In a short story – or a movie – the plot can center around a single incident, or a single character change. In a novel, usually, there are a series of incidents leading to one big major incident of character or event (this is badly expressed, but I hope you can understand it) which in turn will resolve itself satisfactorily (which doesn’t mean happily, btw) and thus end the novel.

I’ve been told a good way to think about it, is that a short story is one incident that was significant to someone while the novel is THE incident that changed someone’s life. As a definition, this seems pat. If the novel were THE incident that changed someone’s life, then there would be no novel series. The best I can say for the difference between the two is that if your incident can be explained without getting us intimately acquainted with a lot of other characters and subplots, then you have a short. OTOH if to make sense of the event you need to introduce us to a cast of characters and a whole lot of subplots, you probably has a novel.

(I am aware this sounds a lot like “it is what it is” but you’ll have to trust me that you’ll know the difference when you see it.)

Anyway – if you read Campbell, you’ll find that The Hero’s journey is not so much a highway system as one of those outdated road maps you buy at dusty convenience stores at the back of nowhere, where you get to the actual place and find that there are new roads and the old roads have shifted, and perhaps the bridge is out.

You will find that most of these steps appear in most successful books. In fact, I have heard other writers say that it’s been proven by research that the human brain is designed to respond to stories that have these steps. I’m passing it along as I heard it, but I haven’t read the research myself.

I can tell you that a major movie corporation was using this structure, until it was “revealed” that they were using this structure, as per an internal memo. They then stopped it. Their movies haven’t been nearly as successful since.

Let me point out that these steps will be all out of order in some of the novels, or elided or alluded to in others. I’m just going to type the steps below. I will go into greater length on it, with examples, later – probably tomorrow, maybe Sunday. (You have NO idea how crazy things are just now, over here. Just be patient with me.)

1- All novels start in the ordinary world. This establishes what your hero’s life is like, before the adventure.

2- The call to adventure comes. This can be a disaster or a literal call, where a friend comes and says “Hey, want to come?” Or something good happening, like an engagement or a trip. Something that takes the character out of the “ordinary world”

3- Refusal of call. The character refuses the call or hesitates to go. This is sometimes short or even implied.

4- Meeting with the guide. This is not necessarily a guide. Some processes cal him a mentor. Think Merlin to Arthur.

5 – Crossing the Threshold. This is the “We’re in the soup or we’re not in Kansas anymore.” Think of Chicken run. “Put your heads between your knees…” You get the point.

6 – Tests, Allies, Enemies . This varies with what the novel is, but think of the fairy tale. The character meets with three people. Each of them gives him or her something that can be used on the journey. You get the point.

7 – Approach to the inner most cave – your character can literally go to the castle of the ogre, or whatever. In the case of a novel I’m now writing, this ogre is internal and facing it is the entrance to the inner most cave. My novels tend to be like this, so I tend to call this the “mirror moment.”

8 – The TEST. This is the greatest battle. The biggest love trial. Whatever. This is where your character is put through the white hot furnace and melts or not. What the trial is has been set since the beginning – the meeting with the villain, the crossing of the perilous chasm.

9 – Reward – your character gets the big reward he was hankering for.

Steps from this point on are usually fairly short, and my husband calls it “the cigarrette.” Many authors, particularly in mystery, ignore this, but books that don’t have them feel “incomplete.”

10 – Refusal of the return. The character isn’t ready to go back to the ordinary world.

11- Rescue from within – character calls on inner resources to adapt to changed situaton.

12 – Return

13 – Ressurection, real or imagined. I.e. – Your character might literally come back to life, or wake up or something. I’ve done that at least once. Or… well, think of the Bond coda. He’s attacked, and defeats this final enemy. Tada.

14 – Freedom to live in the “real world.”

Again, this is VERY sketchy, and there will be more to come.

If you have time and it would amuse you, go over your favorite book and identify the steps!

Some time ago a friend asked me if I would write a character of a specific type and I said “Well, I could in a short story. But since I have no personal knowledge or interest in this type of character, I could never write it in a short story. I’m not interested enough.”

THAT is your first cut. If you’re going to spend however long it takes you to write a novel with this person, he/she has to be someone you have minimal interest in. For a short story, where the time to write ranges from an afternoon to a few days, you don’t need to have a character that’s riveting. (Not that it hurts to.) An interesting situation will do.

So, #1 – have a character that interests you.

Now you have a character that interests you. Does this mean he/she will interest other people?

Possibly. It all depends on how you sell him/her.

Part of what attracts others in a character is determined by the others you want to attract. I’m not suggesting in any way shape or form that you let the audience dictate your character. HOWEVER please keep in mind that you have to give the right cues for the audience to pick up on who your hero is, and to be attracted to him/her.

Your military sf will have a distinctly different character from your YA fantasy. Or at LEAST you’ll present them differently.

#2 Present the character in a genre adequate manner. For instance, in an SF you’ll describe the male hero’s physical appearance in FAR less detail than in a romance. It doesn’t matter as much.

However, there are some rules that apply to all books, with the possible exception of literary, and there… well, I can’t help you.

At any rate, let’s say you have an “innocent” type character, a young girl just out in the world, who doesn’t know anything. She’s moving through a raging war zone and someone is always picking up and doing stuff for her. How long do you think this will be interesting? Unless you have one person who picks her up and stays with her for the whole novel (and then the novel is about that person, really) how long do you think before your readers start rolling their eyes?

At the opposite extreme, let’s suppose your character is a magical being with unlimited power. He can transform matter. He can stop hearts with a look. He can make rivers flow or stop. More importantly, he can command time, so he can go back and win any battles he’d lost before. If you’re thinking “oh, what’s the point?” you are correct. I could see doing a short story where this person comes to grips with the fact that this power makes him both more and less than human. But a novel? It would be Godzilla versus Bambi. Over and over and over again.

So… You want to be somewhere in the middle, right? Just like you want to both reward and punish your character? Well… yes. Though for a good character – I never understood the appeal of reading about an anti-hero as the main character, so I refuse to explain how to write one. Not because it’s not a valid choice, but because I plain don’t GET it – you usually have a character that’s great but has ONE fatal flaw. This, if you go back in time, is the way of the great heros of myth. Like… Achilles, of course, though there are others. In fact, that is the tried and true way to build a fascinating character. You take an almost perfect being and you use your plot to push at his one imperfection.

Consider superman. Knowing how capable he is, doesn’t it bring you to attention and full emotional involvement to see him under the effects of kryptonite? Would it have the same effect if he were joe schmo with no special powers? Of course not. There’s something tragic and grand in the perfect being brought low. We immediately want to see if he’ll get out of it, and we empathize with his plight. (Not sure why, but I’d guess in our minds we’re all great {G})

So if you have the innocent girl above, have her either have extraordinary cunning so she understands what she needs to do and is ready to face challenges, or have her already have all these abilities for some reason. (“Oh, my dad taught me sword fighting,” she said.) Then use her innocence as her fatal flaw which, despite her other qualities, imperils her.

OTOH it works equally well to have a character who is almost completely despicable, but has ONE redeeming feature. This last will give you not only a spectacular villain, but a great main character, if redemption is your goal. You push on that “flaw” in perfect badness, and that’s where your testing begins.

So – #3 Make your character better or worse than the common run of mortals. Then give him/her a flaw.

Now, you’ve made your character just so, and wrote your first three chapters. You show them to your wife/girlfriend/husband/boyfriend/corner store operator/stranger you kidnaped off the street to force to read your stuff. And they all tell you “I hate so and so. So and so sucks.” And you think “Ah, curse Sarah. She failed me.”

This is entirely possible, but the other part of it is that you might have presented the character wrong. Let me explain. Suppose you have the superman with ONE fatal flaw. Okay. So you start with the hero in the grip of the one force that will kill him.

Zorg was in the grip of the xron ray. He was weak, weak, weak. His arms were weak. His legs were weak. All he wanted to do was sit there and cry.

Riveting? Well, no. we have no idea who Zorg is, or why in heck we should care. You can – sort of. It occurs to me I JUST did this in novel I’m finishing. {G} – get away with it if this is a short section in the beginning, to indicate that your seeming superman is vulnerable. After half a page, he breaks free, lays waste to his enemies and… shazam! You have an interesting hero. OTOH I’d not have him meditate on how weak he is, but rather trying to break away. The grip of the force is shown against his efforts to escape.

So 4# Present character in a way we care about.

In this there are other caveats – in general, don’t show your character bored, despondent or defeated to start with. You can show all of that, but not right up front. We don’t know this person, and we don’t want to put up with his angst right up front. It doesn’t mean you can’t start with him/her in a problem. It’s QUITE all right to show him/her furious, vengeful, upset, as long as it’s an active sort of emotion. “I’m going to get that girl back if it’s the last thing I do,” as opposed to “Oh, she left me. I’ll sit here and cry my eyes out. Poor me.”

Also, your characters – even if you base them on your best friend, your wife, or your dog – cannot be “realistic.” Why not? Well, real characters are, in general, quite boring. If you don’t believe me, go and read your favorite book. Chances are the character there, with his/her hangups, interests or powers should he/she exist in real life, would either be locked up, in a madhouse, or dead. INTERESTING characters are exaggerated. The good are better than us. The bad are worse than us. The neurotic could not cross the street unattended in real life. And as for the hero of a romance… Well, if he existed in real life, we’d all flock to him. ALL of us. Even straight males.

(It is very important to remember you’re not writing real life. You’re writing fiction. Fiction needs to be interesting, have internal logic and be believable. Real life? Not so much.)

With that in mind, pay attention to how you describe the character too. For instance, let’s suppose that your character is ugly. For some reason, we are programmed to equate ugly with evil. We know this isn’t true – not in real life – but nine out of ten readers will perceive it that way. So if your character is ugly, make sure you describe ONE good feature right up front. “His face was ugly, craggy and scar-covered, but his eyes had a soft light that showed his caring disposition.”

#5 – Make sure your character is larger than life, and then present him/her in a way people will find appealing. Remember people in general like pretty, smart, strong people. It’s just a thing.

Am I done with the character? Oh, no, heck no. Unfortunately, though I could go in much more detail, it will only serve to confuse you right now. So let me go on with plotting, and then we’ll return to character later on. Meanwhile, go and study what others have done. Go read a few books and analyze your favorite characters. See if you can figure out how to steal the one feature that makes them appealing.

A caveat on this. I have ruined MORE novels – before I was ever published – trying to steal one particular character trick. This trick is to make the character seem despicable up front and then redeem him/her slowly so that by the time your reader likes the character he feels guilty for having misjudged him/her. Think Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice. This tends to create an unforgettable character. So, why did I ruin novels? Because it took me forever to figure out I needed to foreshadow his eventual transformation early enough and also that he couldn’t be the sole pov character or the main one till the transformation is accomplished.

When studying riveting characters and figuring out how to steal them, remember the details. :) Make sure you don’t mess up the formula.

Also, sad to say, your reader tends to attach to the first character on screen. I call this the “duckling factor.” Keep that in mind. For the rest, just think about what would turn you off/on as a reader. If you haven’t read in the past, ask for a reading list and you shall receive. I have some of the MOST literate readers in creation.

Okay, so you’ve checked and you are indeed possessed of 1, 2 and 3 and your character isn’t a screaming door to door evangelist who wears a duck on his head. Good.

So you think you’re all set. Right?

Not… precisely. It is possible to have all of the above and still go badly, seriously wrong. One of the ways you can go very wrong – and I hear it’s very common, though it’s not something that ever afflicted me personally – is starting your story oh… Forty pages before it starts. So you have your interesting character and your fascinating world noodling around in search of a plot.

Or you are young and most of your novels are Mary Sue – ie, character goes in and fixes everyone’s problems and everything comes up roses for him, her. And midway through the novel, all your readers have succumbed to sleep. Possibly a coma.

Or you have a vague idea that you’re supposed to drag your characters through hell and high water, because this will keep it interesting, and you do JUST that. I did this for years. Ah! You think you survived the rodents of unusual size! Try the sudden fires! My friend Kate Paulk – Hi Kate! – calls this plotting through dropping of walls. Every time your character crawls up on hands and knees, you drop another wall on him. Unless your readers are UNUSUALLY sadistic, they get tired of this too. (Of course, some readers ARE unusually sadistic, and you might get published at this stage.)

So, you’re not supposed to baby your character and make everything come up roses, you’re not supposed to torture him/her, and you’re NOT supposed to just write stuff about him/her noodling around. At this point I can hear you scream and pull your hair. Stop that. Combovers are unsightly. Have you looked at Donald Trump? Right. So, be patient and I’ll explain.

You’re supposed to BOTH torture AND reward your character, but you’re supposed to do it in a way that feels “right” and “deserved” and “logical” to the reader. Dave tells me we monkey-kind have a built-in sense of “fair play.” The world doesn’t always satisfy this, but our entertainment MUST.

There are several ways of achieving this. The first and easiest is the W curve. Only, it’s not exactly a W. More like those graphs on the walls of failing companies in movies, where you have peak, then valley, then lower peak, then deeper valley, etc. The valleys continuously descend, with each peak lower than the previous, because the general feel of the W curve is “things get worse.”

Now, just things get worse can feel like walls dropping on the character, even with the little peaks in between. So you need one extra ingredient. The “worse” must come from the character’s efforts to make things better. (This often happens in real life.)

I’m going to try this with a really stupid example, because it’s late and I want to go to bed. Let’s say you have a girl dressing up for the prom.

Bessie realizes her prom dress has a huge stain in the front (initial/percipitating problem) / She is a very proud girl (character flaw) and doesn’t want to ask mom for help/ she takes dress to bathroom, and tries to splash water on it (attempt to solve)/ the dye starts running off (Valley)/ she dries it with the hair dryer and it stops dripping die (peak, but lower than before.)/When the stain is completely dry, she realizes it’s much bigger than before (deeper valley)/ So she thinks she’ll pin some lace to it (attempt to solve.)/ She finds some lace (peak but lower)/her attempts to pin the lace on tear a hole in the dress (deeper valley.)

So, does this go on ad nauseum, till the line exits through the end of the paper? And then you just tack on a happy ending, where Bessie’s boyfriend shows up with a beautiful dress for her, right?

Well, stuff like that DOES get published, but I don’t recommend it. No, what you need here, is a “mirror moment” where the ascent starts again. It’s called mirror for two reasons – first because characters sees character flaw clearly. Second because it tends to mirror the other side. (Only not really, since this tends to be towards the end of the book, like 1/3 from the end.)

Bessie confronts her character flaw and decides to go to mom for help (attempt to solve and turnaround.); Mom doesn’t know what the stain is, but she tells Bessie to talk to her grandmother (you shouldn’t have someone solve the problem for your character. Anyway, small peak, as Bessie has hope); Bessie goes to talk to grandma who explains that a can of wax fell on the dress. She doesn’t think the stain will be coming off. (Valley.); While Bessie is distraught, she realizes that she’s looking at a picture of her grandmother in a dress from her debut. She remembers she saw the dress in the attic and asks grannie if she can wear it. (Attempt to solve); have Bessie triumph at the prom in her cool retro dress. (Whee.)

One odd thing about this small plot, because it’s very small and contrived, the black moment comes before the mirror. Normally it’s the black moment that forces the character into the mirror. You’ll find this out if you plot a more complex something with a more serious character flaw and consequences.

Anyway – that’s how you do the W. Are there other satisfying ways of plotting – of course. And ways to give that plot more depth and “feel of fulfillment” too. But this one is a basic and is usually embedded in the other, more complex plots.

Okay, now go and play with it. I’ll try to post more on this soon.

PS – I REALLY don’t get a share of royalties on this, but those of you considering a how-to-write book could do worse than to read Dwight Swain’s books on how to write. I’ve given away dozens of these, and they usually help and never hurt.

*****

His father had picked him up at the bus station, well away from the college, where Rafiel had asked to be picked up. He didn’t even know why, except, for a moment, with the barest of hesitations, he had thought of getting on the bus, of going somewhere – somewhere unknown. Of never coming back.

Only rationality had overcome him like nausea. There was nowhere he could go and be away from all humans – be away from all humans in such a way that he was sure he wouldn’t hurt them. The more he isolated himself, the more he would be likely to give in to the beast and to let it take over, let it submerge him. What he needed was to go home – to go back to people who knew what he was, and loved him nonetheless, and helped keep him safe.

He’d called his father on his cell phone, despising the way his voice shook at his father’s worried tone. And when his father had driven up in the old pickup, Rafiel had gotten in without a word, set his duffel bag at his feet, clicked the seat belt shut and hunched against the questions he knew would come.

Only they never came. And an hour later, on the highway, Rafiel had felt he needed to give his father an explanation – the same explanation he’d decided he’d deny him had he asked for one. “I can’t go through with this,” he’d said, hearing his voice hesitate and break, as it hadn’t in at least two years, and feeling much, much younger than his nineteen years. “I can’t, dad. I just can’t.”

His father, driving carefully under increasing snow fall, had only grunted and said nothing else, his eyes seemingly intent on the highway.

Was he upset? Rafiel had wondered, and then on that almost slapped himself. Of course his dad was upset. In a way, though no one had forced him into it, Rafiel’s decision to become a police officer had been as much a family inheritance as anything else. His great grandad – arrived in Goldport from some godforsaken German town or other, had been a beat cop. His grandad had followed in his footsteps. Rafiel’s father was the only one to have formal training as an investigator. And Rafiel – from his earliest childhood, hearing his dad discuss his cases at the dinner table – had never wanted to do anything else. Rafiel’s mom had named him after a literary character who thirsted for justice. Rafiel had grown up surrounded by mystery books, steeped in the idea that justice must be done.

He wrapped his arms around himself and moaned. “I can’t.”

His father grunted again. He kicked the windshield wipers up one notch. “What happened?” he asked at last. “What put the fear in you?”

Rafiel let out a long exhalation of breath. “I didn’t…” He stopped, because he felt tears pool in his eyes and drip down his nose. He wasn’t crying. No. He wasn’t crying. He refused to cry.

“There’s tissues in the glove compartment,” his dad said. “Cold is making your nose drip.”

Rafiel grabbed a tissue and rubbed at his nose and face. “I woke up shifted,” he said, his voice made firm by anger. “I woke up and I was a lion, in the middle of the hallway. Just… wandering around. There was no one. But if there had been…. I might have eaten someone, dad. I might have…” He bit his tongue, because if he went on, he was going to cry in earnest, and it would embarrass his father even more than it would embarrass him.

His father nodded. He said nothing. He turned his lights on medium, to avoid their being reflected on the increasingly thicker snow. “Let’s hope we make it home,” he said. “Before they close the pass. Your mom said she’d make dumpling soup.”

*****

They had made it just ahead of the patrols closing the gates on the highway. And now two days later, Rafiel was restless and lost. Confused, he thought.

Oh, it wasn’t his parents. They hadn’t said anything, really. His father had told him to call the college and explain he might not be able to come back before Christmas break, because the highway was closed, and it often stayed that way for two or three weeks. If needed, he’d said, Rafiel could claim illness. Just don’t make any hasty decisions.

But Rafiel didn’t think there was any decision he could make. The decision had been made for him. Six years and some months ago, he’d shifted into a lion – in his sleep, the first time. His body had changed shapes. His father and mother had seen it, that first time. There was no denying it, no telling himself it was all a dream, no matter how crazy it all seemed. It was what he was – a shape shifter. Maybe the only one. Maybe there were others. He didn’t know. Neither did his parents. They didn’t want anyone to know. At best, Rafiel thought as he walked along Fairfax Avenue through the frost of the gloomy evening – at the very best, he would be locked up in some lab and studied within an inch of his life. At worst… at worst people would go crazy and start hunting for creatures like him. It wasn’t the future he wanted.

And, after seven years of living with this – after seven years of learning to control himself and his shifts, and the animal that shared his mind and body, he’d thought he could survive college. It was only the dorm – so many people together, all the time, so many creatures that the half of his brain insisted on thinking of as meals or, at least, prey. He’d watched himself. He’d prevented himself from shifting. And then… And then he’d woken up in the middle of the hallway, in his lion form, padding softly along linoleum-floored hallways.

He shoved his hands deeper into the pockets of his tight jeans. So, he’d stay in Goldport. Not as a police officer. He would have to think of some excuse as to why he’d given that up. And he’d have to think of something he could do. Goldport had a college, but a law enforcement major was not offered. He would have to study something else. Perhaps teaching–

He had no more thought that then he flinched from the idea of children, all day every day, while the lion looked out of his eyes and judged them for plumpness. He clenched his hands on his jean-clad thighs. No. Perhaps he could take a course in advanced hermit-living or intensive reclusiveness, or something.

And his steps had brought him, insensibly to the door of the Athens, where he looked through the grimy, cold-befogged windows at the people sitting around cracked green formica tables, having the Athens’ patent battery-acid coffee. Groups of laughing students and rosy-cheeked teenagers, wool caps and scarfs stowed next to them on the torn vinyl booths. For a moment, he thought if he blinked, he’d see himself in one of the booths, Junior Highschool Rafiel with Alice…

On that thought, he pushed open the door, causing the bells affixed to the inside to tinkle. He would see Alice. He would talk to her. Surely they were still friends. He wouldn’t need to tell her the truth, but she could help him figure out what he was going to do with the rest of his life. She knew him better than anyone but his parents. They had been boyfriend and girlfriend since eighth grade. If Rafiel had thought he could ever marry, like people who didn’t turn into lions could, he would not even have thought of cooling it with her when he went away to Denver. As it was, he’d seized on the opportunity. But it didn’t mean he’d forgotten Alice.

The sudden rush of hopefulness as he saw a blond waitress come out of the back told him he hadn’t forgotten her at all. Not even a little bit.

But as the blond took a step into the restaurant, it became obvious she wasn’t Alice – much smaller-framed, and freckled. A girl from school. He struggled to remember her name, and managed it, just as she came close enough to recognize him and smiled, in surprise, “Rafiel!”

“Jen,” he said, smiling back.

“Wow, I didn’t even know you were back.”

“No, just… decided to come back for Thanksgiving,” he said. “Where’s Alice? Is she working?”

Jen flinched. She visibly flinched, and Rafiel started immediately, “It’s okay if she had another boyfriend or… I just want to see her as a friend.”

Jen looked up at him, startled, then seemed to observe him intently. “You mean no one told you?”

“No one told me what?” he asked, suddenly panicked, his heart beating in his throat. “What happened?”

Jen shook her head. “Alice has been missing for three weeks, Rafiel.”

“What?”

“She disappeared from her apartment. No one… The police…” She shook her head.

*****

His dad was in the garage, sleeves rolled up, doing something or other to his 65 Mustang convertible that he’d been working on every weekend for the last three years, salvaging pieces from the junkyards, sanding away rust, priming.

He’d made great progress since Rafiel had left in early August. The convertible was now shiny red all over, and his dad seemed to be installing leather seats – proper leather seats, not the fuzzy-green-shag seats that had come with it when his dad had bought it, and which his dad had said must have been home-recovered Thunderbird seats.

He looked up to see Rafiel in the doorway, and looked a little embarrassed as he always did when caught fussing with the car. He cleaned his hands – which looked perfectly clean – with a nearby rag. “It’s almost done,” he said. “Come spring, I’ll have the vinyl top replaced by this little old guy who says he’ll do it for five hundred, on weekends, and then I can take your mom for some drives with the top down.” He started to smile at the idea, but his features froze as he looked at Rafiel. “What’s wrong?”

“How come you didn’t tell me about Alice, dad?”

“What?”

“Alice Harten. Don’t tell me you didn’t know she was missing!”

“Oh. That.” His dad seemed to become suddenly very tired. He sat down on the driver’s seat, his feet out the door, resting on the floor of the garage. “I didn’t think you needed any more trouble…”

Rafiel tripped down the steps into the garage and dropped to sitting on the bottom step. “What is it, dad? What happened? Where did she go?”

“Damned if I know,” his dad said. “We’ve… asked everywhere. At first we thought, you know, she’d gotten tired, had a fight with her boyfriend, left town. But there’s no sign of her having left, and no sign of her anywhere else. Her credit cards haven’t been used.” He shook his head. “It’s like she vanished into thin air.”

“Boyfriend?”

“Are you going to take up about that?”

“No. No. How could I? I left her. I knew… It was likely to happen. Who is it?”

“Carl. From the basketball team? Carl Leuten?”

“Uh.” Rafiel nodded. He and Carl looked alike enough at a distance. Both were more athletic than bookish, neither was stupid. Perhaps it was not surprising.

“She’s been living with him. About a block from the Athens. Just down the street. They rented an apartment. Her dad doesn’t approve, but… I don’t think he was that upset about it. They’re nice kids, Carl and Alice, and Carl says they wanted to get married. Just, when they finished their associate degrees. He’s studying to be some sort of computer repair technician.”

“You’ve talked to her father? Carl? Her mom?”

“We’ve talked to all of them. Even the grandmother that lives out of town.” His dad sighed. “Do you want to read the reports? I brought them home. I planned to look them over, I thought… perhaps there was something I’d missed. I know it’s not strictly right to let you see them, but perhaps you can see something I missed.”

Feeling numb and more than a little lost, Rafiel nodded.

****

There was nothing in the reports. His father said, calmly, the things he’d heard him say so often when other teenagers were missing. “Nine times out of ten when a teenager is missing, they’ve left,” he said. “Another boyfriend, a different job. Running away from home because they think themselves offended. Anything.”

“And this time is the tenth?” Rafiel said, pushing aside the piles of printed paper. Question, answer, evidence, deposition. And nothing in them. Nothing. Rafiel was only a beginning student, but he could see his father had followed up the case, flawlessly, by the book. Perhaps a little more energetically than he would have done had he not known the girl.

“Alice wasn’t the type to run away,” he said. “To take up with a new boyfriend, to skip town without telling anyone. She was not the type to run away if she was mad at her parents. Besides, I don’t think she was. A little impatient at her father, maybe, but she knew he was only trying to protect her.”

Rafiel nodded. Of course, he also couldn’t imagine Alice living with someone. In their time together, they hadn’t even got there. Heavy petting was about the extent of it. Of course, part of it was Rafiel’s heart-felt conviction that he should not marry. He should not have children. He should not risk creating anyone else who would be born with the beast inside; who would be incapable of controlling himself, of being fully a human.

It was the same reason he’d told Alice, in the end, that they should cool it. She had agreed, almost too readily. Perhaps she had never been that interested in him as a husband. Just as a highschool boyfriend. Rafiel Trall, sports star, cool guy on campus. Or perhaps she thought he had never loved her, or that he gave a damn that he had the money to go to a four year college and she didn’t.

He bit his lip. Wherever she was, he hoped she wasn’t thinking of him as a snob, or doubt that he had loved her – loved her despite his best efforts to control it. That he loved her still. If they could get her back…

“Anything ring any suspicious bells, dad? When you talked to people?” He had grown up with his father’s talk at the kitchen table. He knew what his father called his bells. It was some feeling of suspicion, never justified by what was happening, exactly, and yet almost always accurate.

“Well,” his father said. He dug into his pocket and brought out his cigarette pack. He’d once been a pack a week smoker, but he’d cut it down and now smoked only on weekends and only outside of in the kitchen – per his wife’s decree. He turned on the fan over the stove, piously, though he sat at the table with his cigarette. “I don’t know.” He blew a ring of smoke, something that used to fascinate Rafiel when he was a very little boy. “I don’t know. I would hate to…”

“Come on, dad,” Rafiel said. “It’s just me.”

His father looked at him, seriously, as if evaluating him – as if Rafiel too were a stranger, perhaps a suspect. It was so intent, so searching, that Rafiel almost blurted out that he’d been at college and he could prove it. He controlled himself with just a shuffle in his seat showing his discomfort.

“It’s the boyfriend’s place,” his dad said. “Look… it’s nothing…”

“Blood? Some other woman’s belongings? What was it?”

His dad shook his head. “Just too clean. Really clean. Not the whole place. It’s just one of those student apartments, you know, small kitchen, living room, tiny bedroom. The living room and the bedroom were a mess – well, not really, but you know…” He allowed his lips to quirk. “Like you keep your room.”

Rafiel shrugged. A book here, a book there, a bit of dust. His mom didn’t dust in his room, not since she’d thrown out his chem notes in his Junior year. “But the kitchen?”

“The kitchen was sparkling. Shining. Old vinyl tile on the floor washed till it shone white. It smelled of cleaners.” He shrugged. “Look, it’s nothing.”

“It could be a lot if someone was killed in that kitchen. If there was blood,” Rafiel said.

“Or maybe they had a mess there, of any sort, and cleaned,” his dad said. “They didn’t report her missing for three days, you know. They had heard all the stuff about how we wouldn’t do anything for three days, anyway, and she was over eighteen.”

Rafiel nodded. The clean kitchen had triggered his father’s sense for something out of place. Rafiel couldn’t think of anything but an attempt to hide blood. “Did you bring a black light in?” he asked his father. “And the reactive spray?” There was a spray that reacted with hidden blood, which would then shine under black light.

His father gave him a quick, embarrassed grin. “Once. Quickly. I had Carl go and find a picture, you know, so I was left alone.”

“And?”

“Nothing.”

“Bleach and certain cleaners will change the blood,” Rafiel said. “So that…”

His dad didn’t say anything. Of course that was what was bothering him all alone.

*****

Middle of the night, and Rafiel lay awake in his room. The neighbor had set up one of those displays that should be worthy of the death penalty – particularly when set up before thanksgiving. Multicolored lights chased each other around the steep roofs of a house of Edwardian design, while Santa Claus and his elves sat in improbable neon on the roof.

On the front lawn, the reindeer and sleigh – fully illuminated, of course – competed with a family of ducks dressed as Victorian Carolers and not only lit up in horrible glory, but also emitted a faint jingle of Christmas music. Or at least they’d been until ten o’clock, when, by city ordinance, the sound had to be turned off or down. Now the ducks of Christmas had fallen silent.

And yet, Rafiel could not sleep and he got up and paced his bedroom, from dusty desk to bed cluttered all about with the report he’d borrowed from his dad once again. He wanted to read it. He was sure there was something there.

Because the thing about the kitchen being clean and the blood would presume that Carl killed her, and this was not something that Rafiel could even imagine Carl doing. Not even on drugs. Well, okay, maybe on drugs. Maybe that was why the kitchen was so clean. Because they’d been cooking meth. But he couldn’t imagine that either. Not Carl and Alice.

They were both serious. Rafiel knew Carl less than he knew Alice, of course, but he would say both of them were – or appeared to be – much more serious than himself. He could imagine them grimly saving to buy their first car or their first house. He couldn’t imagine them dealing drugs.

He walked again, from the desk – set in front of the window, through which the riot of lights spilled – to the bed, and then back. The black light hadn’t found anything. Perhaps it was drugs. Perhaps Alice had skipped town to escape being arrested. Or perhaps it was blood; perhaps the black light hadn’t picked up anything because it had been cleaned up. If there were some other way of telling.

In his mind, clear, stark, the idea of the lion. Of what things felt like to the lion. Of the lion smelling. Some smells were always very clear to the lion. Blood was one of those.

Rafiel had never turned into the lion on purpose, and certainly never to figure something out. But now the idea had come and lodged, and he could not avoid it. If there was blood there – if there had been blood, the lion would smell it.

He turned to his father’s report and got the address. He didn’t worry about finding the key. If Alice had been living in the house, he was fairly sure he could find her emergency one. In case she got locked out. She had a limited number of places where she liked to hide the spare key, but she always hid one, because she often forgot her keys.

Taking off his pajamas, he slid into a t-shirt and jeans. He was going to go hunting. He was going to go hunting as a lion. Heaven help him, but after all these years of keeping the beast down and keeping the beast hidden, he was going to shift on purpose, and he was going to use the abilities of his shifted self.

****

He rang the doorbell, first. And knocked at the door for a while. He had no intention of breaking in, unless he were sure there was no one in there. People got nervous when that happened. And he never, ever, ever wanted a human – other than his parents – to watch him change. He was helpless when he was between states, incapable of either speaking or forceful action. The last thing he needed was to be caught in that space and attacked. And he knew damn well that half the people attacked when they were scared.

After some minutes, he looked in the logical places and ran the key to ground under the flower pot next to the door. Alice’s habit of always leaving a key to her home in a place she could find came from – she said – her being so absent minded she often found herself locked out. Rafiel did the same at his parents’ house, though his reason was more that he often found himself out of doors and in lion shape.

He opened the door to the apartment, finding it a little hard to believe – truly believe – that Alice had been living with someone else, that she’d been living in a place he’d never before seen.

The apartment was crowded with furniture – most of it looking like garage sale finds. An old tv held pride of place, faced by two plastic chairs imperfectly covered in some Indian print throws. There were books everywhere, which made sense, and none of them was called how I plan to run away from my boyfriend. None of them was called how to kill your girlfriend for fun and profit, either, for that matter.

He made a circle of the living room, looked into the kitchenette where floors and counters and stove were indeed sparklingly clean, though there were now several plates, and a couple of empty noodle packages on the counter.

The bathroom was as Rafiel expected bathrooms to be in a student apartment, at least if one of the students was Alice, who would keep it from getting downright filthy. But no one had taken the trouble to make sure it sparkled, either. It was just a bathroom, with a bit of dust in the corners and a bit of grey mold here and there between the tiles.

And then clockwise from there, the bedroom, which was Alice’s bedroom from her father’s house – white bed, with princess draperies, and matching white dressers and desk. For some reason, seeing it gave Rafiel a cold feeling in his stomach, and made his eyes mist over.

He couldn’t take it. Not as a human, he couldn’t stand there and think. And besides, he had come here to change into a lion and to see what the lion’s nose might tell him.

He undressed quickly. It seemed odd to undress in the apartment of some guy he barely knew, but he undressed and dropped his clothes behind the sofa, and then he stood there and willed himself to change. It wasn’t easy. It was never easy. Sometimes, with the moon right and the right emotions taking over, it could happen almost instantly. This time, it happened slowly, almost painfully, his will driving his body to do something it didn’t want to do.

First came the cough, the spasmodic twisting and wrenching that changed his body; the grind of bone against bone; the splitting pain of the muscles swivelling to new positions.

The lion behind the sofa growled, softly, and padded a careful route between furniture that all looked to him like strange, looming animals. Rafiel, in the back of the lion’s mind, analyzed the smells and the feelings.

There was a smell of old food and a smell of – Rafiel winced – semen from the bedroom, and a smell of old food from the living room, popcorn mingling happily with cheap noodles and canned soups. And then… and then near the kitchen, he smelled it.

Blood. Not fresh, but bright, a symphony that overpowered all other thoughts. Blood, which to the lion smelled like prey, the hunt, and…

Rafiel forced the lion back behind the sofa, step by step. Then forced the change again, against the lion’s will, against the pain in his body. His face set and grim, he went back to the kitchen. He thought you wouldn’t need the black light. Carl wasn’t used to cleaning. He’d used bleach, clearly, but he’d forgotten that stoves and refrigerators weren’t attached to the floor, and that liquids would run beneath.

He pulled the stove forward, looked behind it. His knees went weak, his stomach curled, and he punched the wall, hard, over the stove.

****

“What?” Carl asked coming in, which, of course, made perfect sense, because he wouldn’t expect a stranger in his home. Rafiel, feeling a hundred years old, was sitting on one of the plastic chairs, his hands in his lap.

After the first moment of surprise, Carl seemed to recognize him. “Rafiel. You’re in town. Alice is… Alice is not… that is…”

“I know,” Rafiel said, his voice croaking. “Alice is dead.”

“She…” Carl ran his hand back through his hair, in utter confusion. “She… No! She… disappeared. The police are trying to find her. Maybe she tried… maybe she wanted to leave me.”

“No,” Rafiel said. His voice was very still. “Alice never left here.” He got up. He led Carl to the kitchen. Rafiel had set two blades on the rickety card table that served as a dining table. “I’m guessing you killed her with this knife,” a pointy, sharp knife. “And you dismembered the body with this,” a vicious, heavy cleaver.

Carl’s mouth had dropped open. He made a lurch towards the knife, but Rafiel interposed an arm. They were much the same build, but Rafiel was more muscular. Nights as a lion, running did that. Carl crashed against his arm. He looked up. Again, his hand went up, nervously.

“It’s her blood all behind the stove,” Rafiel said. “And I bet you if we pulled up the linoleum we’d find her under there blood too. Those cuts would allow it to leak under there.” He felt very tired. Beyond anger. Carl had to be mad. It was the only explanation. Rafiel had dated Alice for years. Oh, he’d never slept with her, but even if he had… he couldn’t imagine her doing or saying anything that would deserve that kind of treatment. “I bet you they’ll find blood on those knives, Carl, and then they’ll look for the body. Where is it? What did you do with Alice?”

“It wasn’t Alice!” Carl said. A thin wail. He didn’t so much sit down as fall on his behind. “It wasn’t. It was… a lion. I…”

“A… lion?” Rafiel asked, his voice breaking as it hadn’t in years.

“I woke up in the middle of the night, and she wasn’t in bed, and I thought that was weird, and I got up… and there was this lion, in the kitchen. And I… I didn’t even know I was awake. I… I took that knife. It didn’t attack me. I thought… I had limited time, and I stabbed it before… before it turned on me.” He looked up at Rafiel, his eyes looking as though he were staring at untold horrors. “But then… but then, as the lion died, it changed… and it was Alice!” The last word was outraged, a sound of complaint. “It was Alice, and I’d killed her, and … and all I could do was get rid of the body. Yeah, I chopped her up and I…” His eyes looked glazed. “So much blood.”

Rafiel found he had his phone out of his pocket and had speed dialed his dad.

It must have taken a considerable time, but it seemed to him the police car arrived almost immediately. He left his dad and his partner – both in their pajamas! – talking to Carl, and went outside. In the cool dark of the alley behind the apartment building, he tried to vomit, but ended up sobbing.

****

“She was like me,” he said. “All along. We could have…” He didn’t even know how that sentence ended. We could have had litters of little lions? No. We could have shared our lives and supported each other? Perhaps.

His father refilled Rafiel’s coffee cup and looked concerned. “No use beating yourself up over it,” he said. “There was no way you could have known. She wouldn’t tell you, anymore than you’d tell her. And then, perhaps it had never happened before you left. For you it started at twelve, maybe she only started last year.”

“If I hadn’t left, she’d never have lived with him and she…”

“No one forced her to live with him, Rafiel. You’re not responsible for other people’s life choices.”

“I know,” he said. And he did. He wasn’t responsible for other people’s life choices, but he was responsible for his own. And if there were more people like him out there, how many of them were prone to suffering this kind of assault? How many of them were unprotected? How many might be killed – or kill – in the grip of the shift? Or just get lost and need a figure in authority to protect them. “You… you found her then?”

“Yeah, in the city dump, where he said he took the bags,” his father said.

“He… What will people… I mean…”

“People will think he went crazy. Insanity defense is notorious for failing in Colorado, but in this case…” His dad shrugged. “… no one forced him to dismember her and get rid of the body.” He paused. “But it’s a bad thing, Rafiel. I don’t think the boy would murder a person, in cold blood. And I don’t think it will be considered murder. Man slaughter, probably. A few years of psychiatric care and he’ll be out. And now he needs psychiatric care. Whether he needed it before or not.”

Rafiel nodded, but he still felt the sense of terrible waste, the awful loss of a path not taken. You weren’t responsible for other people’s choices, but you were responsible for yours.

“When do you think the road will open, dad?” he asked.

His dad looked surprised. “The pass?”

Rafiel nodded and sipped his coffee.

“Weatherman said probably tomorrow.”

“Good. I think I’ll go back to Denver. The… dorm and all… a matter of self-control.”

“I see,” his father said.

It was Rafiel’s choice to become a figure of authority, someone who would be law to those like him. Sometimes the only law. And perhaps prevent a tragedy like this from happening ever again.