Humans in Costume

There are several reasons why I don’t read or write High Fantasy. In this post I’m going to rant about humans in costume. The Fantasy market is saturated with High Fantasy, which is overdone with LOTR or Middle Earth races, cultures, societies, etc… Come on! What happened to the creativity in Fantasy stories? Where’s the imagination? Nothing irks me more than going to B&N looking for a good Fantasy read and having to sift through gazillions of books with Elf’s, Dwarf’s, Dragon’s, Orc’s, runaway Princesses, and pubescent wizards. The societies are assuredly feudalistic and the personalities of the characters, regardless of race, are humans in costume. You can take any of the gazillion Elf characters and beneath their physical appearance they are human…with the human flaws, emotions, traits, personalities, etc…

I write the stories I like to read. One of the things I strive to do is make my alien character something other than a human in a costume. This is not an easy thing to do, and inevitably the character still hates, laughs, desires, etc… as humans do. So what makes the character not a human in costume? Typically, it is some non-human ability or predilection of a human extreme (i.e. such as an addiction to extracting pleasure from the pain of others [as Keepers do in my Low Fantasy epic ‘The Bounds’]). Vampires, although overdone, are a good example of characters with a nonhuman predilection for blood. So my message to all the indie Fantasy and Sci-Fi writers is to tap into that imagination and create that little something in your Elf-like, Dwarf-like, Xxyzinite, or [insert random letters here] –race that is “nonhuman”.

My daughter is an avid Fantasy fan. If she’s not reading Martin’s ‘Song of Ice and Fire’, she’s playing World of Warcraft or The Gathering (Magic) cards. She wants to write a Fantasy story (High Fantasy) that has been bottled up in her head for awhile.

My philosophy is stop talking about it and “just do it”. Yeah, really deep, motivating, and thought provoking, but I try to think back when I first began to put my story to paper. Was it that difficult to start? What was the catalyst? I’m sure this is different for each person writing their first story.

For me, I began writing when I was stationed in South Korea. It was an ‘unaccompanied’ assignment—meaning my family would not join me. Separation from my family was my catalyst. I discovered I was a creature that needed those I love close to me. I wrote to Cathy constantly and I began writing her poetry to better express what she and the girls meant to me.

Writing letters and dabbling in poetry does not translate into an epic, Low Fantasy story. No, but I attribute this as the trigger. Like my daughter, I also had a story in my head and never really knew what to do with it. When faced with another duty assignment that would separate me from my family, I resigned my commission and left the military. In that three month span of unemployment—post military and pre software engineer for a large IT company, I wrote. That was another discovery I made, I am not a creature meant to sit idle…I needed to do something. I wrote my story. I wrote the first book of ‘The Bounds’. Of course it was really rough, but I did it.

So what can my daughter do to start writing her story? Does she need a catalyst…something that happens that propels her to write? All I can say is “just do it”, and give her all the support and advice I can. I can’t conjure her catalyst.

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Coming Soon from Jeffery Moore

Jericho Solus by Jeffery Moore

“They watch me—the feeling as acute as a sharp, cold blade against my skin.

I may have lived an ordinary existence, but I can fight. Though my memory is

like a beast cowering in the shadows, I know in my core I can fight, as if it’s what

I’m wired to do.Her breaths echo in my dark cell. Is she real?  She fills my

emptiness with heat, and God help the people that harm her.

I am the Solus.  My name is Jericho, and killing is what I do best.”

Jericho’s captivity begins a journey to a forgotten past, forgotten comrades, and forgotten love. His remembrance pulls him back in time to reveal an unexpected metamorphosis to his current state. As memories move Jercho back through history, his captors propel him forward into a surreal world, until both timelines combine to expose who and what Jericho is.