Hellbound Media at Bristol Comic Expo

Posted by Chrissey - 11th May 2012

Mandy and the Monster - comic cover artMatt Warner, Mark Adams and Tony Emson from Hellbound Media will be in Bristol this weekend at the Bristol Comic Expo. And, they’re releasing a brand new comic; Mandy and the Monster.

Mandy’s first appearance in The Monster Under the Bed is free to read right here on The Great Escape. Now she’s featuring in a full length comic with gorgeous art by Anna Penlund.

Hellbound Media will be joining the Small Press exhibitors in Brunel’s Old Station, near Bristol Temple Meads Station.

The expo also welcomes a host of famous guests including Marvel and DC Comics artist Lee Garbett, Dungeons and Dragons fantasy artist Anne Stokes,  Judge Dredd artist and Watchmen colourist John Higgins and many more. They’ll be on hand for signings and panels throughout the two day event.

It’s going to be a great event, and we hope to see you there!

An Interview with Author Steve McHugh & Book Giveaway

Posted by Chrissey - 4th May 2012

Book cover art for Crimes Against Magic by Steve McHughThis week The Great Escape welcomes, Steve McHugh, author of Crimes Against Magic, his debut urban fantasy novel.

Set in modern day London but with a host of historical and fantasy characters, the story creates a world in which the ancient and the modern don’t seem so far removed.

“It’s been almost ten years since Nathan Garrett woke on a cold warehouse floor with nothing but a gun, a sword, and no idea of who he was or how he got there. His only clue … a piece of paper with his name on it. Since then, he’s discovered he’s a powerful sorcerer and has used his abilities to work as a thief for hire. But he’s never stopped hunting for his true identity, and those who erased his memory have never stopped hunting for him.”

Read an extended review and excerpt from the book on Chrissey’s Great Escape.

Fiction editor Chrissey poses the questions and we invite you to get involved for a chance to win a copy of Crimes Against Magic (see below for details), so let’s get to it…

Chrissey: Many say that a writer’s first novel tends to reflect them as a person. Is there a lot of yourself in Nathan, the hero of your story?

Steve McHugh: We’re both about the same height. We’re both protective of our family and friends, and we’re both a little bit too much of a smart-ass for our own good, but that’s probably about it. I probably bite my tongue a lot more than Nate ever would. He’s sat around in my head for years, so he was bound to share a few traits.  Fortunately, none of the less pleasant aspects of his personality transferred back to me. I hope not anyway.

CH: The cast of characters in Crimes Against Magic is very diverse. Which character is your favourite?

SM: Other than Nathan, probably Dani. She’s the sixteen year old daughter of his neighbour and someone who looks up to Nate as a sort of refuge from the crap she deals with at home. She plays a pretty big part in the book and her dynamic with Nathan was a lot of fun to write.

CH: Was it hard to decide what kinds of fantasy creatures and abilities to include in the world you’ve created, and which kinds to leave out?

SM: In some ways, yes. I knew that I wanted werewolves, a few vampires and some sorcerers, but I wasn’t sure which others to put in. I created a few creatures of my own and wanted to use them too, so I kept the over all number of species as small as possible so as not to overwhelm.

I left out a Troll, a few Elementals and werelions. Oh, and originally there were Necromancers in the story too. Most of those will make it into the books after CAM. So, I still get to use them, thankfully. Especially the Necromancer, who was my favourite character that I had to cut.

CH: The main story takes place in present day England, but there is also a side plot set in Medieval France. How did you come up with this format?

SM: Do you remember the Highlander TV show? Every episode it would flashback to some point in Duncan’s life. I always loved that, I loved learning more about this centuries old person and seeing how he acted in those times gone past.

The idea was the same with Nathan. He’s 1600 years old, so I had loads of stuff that he’d seen and lived through and wanted to use some of it in flashbacks. Fifteenth century France was because I’d seen a programme about Agincourt and was interested in the time period. After a little research, I settled on it being around the destruction at Soissons and went from there.

CH: Do you have a favourite scene from the book?

SM: I have loads: The first time you meet Dani. The scene in the pub with Nathan and a woman I won’t spoil. And there’s a flashback part I’m very proud of which takes place next to a lake.

But probably my favourite is the scene near the end. It’s one long fight between Nate and a group of people and ends with a one on one brawl. It’s fast and brutal and ends in an incredibly vicious way.  I love that scene. I love Nate’s line before it starts, and I love how it ends.

CH: Crimes Against Magic pulls together a lot of world mythology and action in different time periods. Did you need to do a lot of research to get everything just right?

SM: For the flashback stuff, I did, yeah. I had to make sure that the language was as close as I could get it as possible. That it didn’t feel modern and that people used words they would have used. I look a few liberties with language here and there, but for the most part it’s fairly accurate.

The mythology thing was a whole different story. I have dozens of books on myths. Finding the right characters to put in was easy, finding the best way to have them interact, and how the myth and reality might differ was much more time consuming. Fun though.

CH: Can we expect to see Nathan return in future books?

SM: Oh yes. Book two: Born Of Hatred will hopefully be out before too long (probably 6 months at the latest) and then I’ve got book three: With Silent Screams. I have about another dozen after that all written plotted.  I just have to write them.

CH: Lots of writers are choosing to self-publish these days. What made you choose the self-publishing route instead of taking your book to a publisher?

SM: I did originally go the traditional route. I sent out queries and synopsis and got back a lot of form rejections, a few ‘thanks but no thanks’ and a few more ‘we like it, but it’s not for us at this moment’.

To cut a very long answer short, I just decided to try it for myself. To have the control over what I did. I figured if I didn’t do it, that I would regret at least not trying. So here we are. One day I may write something that I’ll try with agents, but at the moment I’m happy with Indie-publishing.

CH: What advice would you give to other writers working on their first novel?

SM: Join a crit group. That’s basically the best advice any writer can be given. Learn your craft by critiquing others and having yours critiqued. Accept any constructive criticism with grace and a thank you. These things will hold you in good stead for your writing career.

Oh and it’s also helps to have as many friends in the industry as possible. Their knowledge is invaluable to anyone starting out.

A good crit group will supply these things in spades.

 

We’d like to say a big thank you to Steve for taking the time to share his thoughts with us. We’re super excited about Crimes Against Magic, and we hope you’ll all go and get yourself a copy. And, of course, you can find out more about Steve’s books on his blog.

Crimes Against Magic is available to download from Amazon right now.

Book Giveaway

If you’d like to be in with a chance of winning a free copy of Crimes Against Magic, all you have to do is follow us on Facebook or Google+, or share the following on Twitter:

Win a copy of @SteveJMcHugh’s debut novel ‘Crimes Against Magic’ with @thegreatesc http://t.co/xUeeIRHJ #CrimesAgainstMagic

( Tweet this message! ) ( Find us on Facebook! ) ( Find on Google+! )

Closing date for entries is Sunday 13th May and the winner will be announced on Monday 14th May.

Art Competition deadline extended to 28th May!

Posted by Rich - 2nd May 2012

Good news! Due to a combination of heavy workloads, new jobs and a general failure to properly advertise, the deadline for entries to the Art Competition has been extended to Monday, the 28th of May.

So check out the rules and get entering!

Chrissey’s Writing Tips #5

Posted by Chrissey - 9th April 2012

AS REAL AS CAN BE – Character Profiling and Development

A girl hides her face behind her hands

Uncovering the hidden face of your characters can be a challenge. Click for image credit.

If asked what makes a good story, a lot of people would answer, good characters. We like to read about people we can empathise with or despise. A good character is one that balances detail and depth with realism and believability. The biggest pitfall to avoid is creating characters that are stereotypes or caricatures.

If you’re lucky, your characters will present themselves to you fully developed, but you may have to work at exploring the depths of their personality and fleshing them out. Either way, the chances are, you’ll want to keep track of all those ideas you have in some kind of character profile.

You might start with the vital statistics of appearance, height, weight, hair and eye colour etc, but what else do you include?

Here are my top five tips on character profiling and development:

1. Relationships

People are strongly defined by their relationships, be it family relationships, friendships or romance. Relationships have a formative effect on how someone’s personality develops, so ask yourself things like; what was my character’s relationship with his mother like? Did he have any siblings? How many girlfriends has he had and did those relationships end badly?

The more you understand about your character’s past relationships, the more you will understand how they will react to people and form new relationships in your story.

2. Habits

Physical and verbal habits can be a really useful way of giving your character an identity on the page. Particular gestures or turns of phrase can create a visual impression for the reader which stays with the character and encourages a sense of familiarity, and it can convey certain personality traits and emotions.

A character with a habit of ending their sentences with tag questions would come across uncertain or alternatively aggressive depending on the context.

Of course you want to avoid over using this, or having a character entirely defined by their habits.

3. Flaws

Nobody is perfect and your characters shouldn’t be either. Make sure you know what their flaws are, be it a propensity towards jealousy, or not trusting in their own abilities. These flaws are going to play a big part in your story as they hamper your character in their pursuit of their goals.

Think also about which flaws you want to address in the course of the story and which will remain static traits.

4. Personality

While it is often hard to put into words, it is worth attempting to write a description of your character’s personality. What are their defining character traits? How do they react to difficult situations? Are they selfish or generous, reckless or sensible, emotional or calculating?

There are some personality type tools/questionnaires on the web which can provide an interesting exercise. Try answering as your character and see what you can learn. Here’s one you can try – Free personality test by iPersonic.

5. First Draft and Editing

Often you may find you need to get to know your character. This is part of the process of drafting your story. You will know your character better by the time you have finished writing than when you started, so make sure to take advantage of this when you go back over the story to edit.

Another tool to use to get to know your character is to write short stories or flash fiction pieces about them. Write about the day they started their job, or the tenth birthday party where they developed their fear of clowns. It all gets you thinking and feeling like your characters and the more you do, the more they will flow onto the page as real and engaging people.

 

There is no limit to how much detail you put into your character profiles, or how much time and effort you spend developing their background and voice with practice pieces. But, don’t make the mistake of thinking all that detail needs to make it into the final story. Doing this extra work is not a way to provide more material for your story, it is a process through which you come to know your characters so well that you can create real, believable, multifaceted people for your readers to meet

Micro-fiction

Posted by Chrissey - 12th March 2012

I hope you all enjoyed the Ink Babe’s interview! One of the fiction formats they are including in their anthology is micro-fiction; short prose pieces with a story structure.

For those who haven’t come across micro-fiction before, here’s a bit about the format.

 

What makes micro-fiction different to flash fiction?

In some cases the terms micro-fiction and flash fiction are used interchangeably, but more often than not, micro-fiction is the extreme end of the flash fiction scale.

Flash fiction is commonly agreed to include anything under 1000 words in length; something shorter than the traditional short story that a reader can get through in a single five to ten minute sitting. Micro-fiction tries to create stories in just fifty or a hundred words.

Exact length limits to micro-fiction are a fuzzy concept. Some sites suggest anything up to 400 to 500 words is micro-fiction. Other’s say it must be less than 200, others less than 100.

Another term you may come across is “hyper-fiction.” This is sometimes used to refer to stories told in, for example, 140 characters (the length of a twitter message). But, it is also a term for fiction which uses hypertext links as a way of interacting with the reader; hypertext fiction, which can cause confusion.

 

What makes Micro-fiction different to Poetry?

Micro-fiction is prose. It does not have a verse structure, or rhythm of language like a poem, but it does have to obey all the grammatical rules of prose. Sentences must all be complete, speech must be properly punctuated with speech marks and so on.

Micro-fiction is also fiction. Where a poem can get away with painting a picture or describing a place, person or event, a fiction piece needs a plot. Therefore, even micro-fiction should tell a story with a beginning, a middle and an end.

 

What’s the point?

For readers, micro-fiction is an opportunity for a brief, intense encounter.

Some writers use it as an exercise to practice writing concisely or to capture a fleeting bit of inspiration that perhaps doesn’t lend itself to a longer piece of work.

One form of micro-fiction which is quite popular is the 50 word story which must be exactly fifty words in length. No more, no less. Tim Sevenhuysen is one pioneer of the format and runs FiftyWordStories.com, which features his stories and those by guest writers.

You might think that there’s no market for something so short, but there lots of micro-fiction anthologies out there. For example, Micro-fiction; an anthology of really short stories – Jerome Stern (ed). And, as the Ink Babes demonstrate, there is a place for micro-fiction alongside longer works in compilations with mixed formats.

There are also a lot of micro-fiction contests out there including small contests and give aways run by bloggers, so it’s a fun way to be creative, practice writing skills, discover new writers and network.

Want to read more about writing micro-fiction? Check out The Essentials of Microfiction by Camille Renshaw

 

Micro-fiction on The Great Escape.

This week we have a collection of 50 word stories by Chrissey Harrison for readers to enjoy.

If you’d like to see your micro-fiction on our site, send us a story under 100 words in length for a chance to be featured in our next micro-fiction collection.

Some of your submissions may also be offered the chance to appear in our first print anthology. See our submissions page for further details.