The End of Year Post

2022 is drawing to an end, so it is time for a proper ‘end of year’ update. This is not just about looking back, though, but also, perhaps even more, about looking forward to 2023. The past is solidly written in stone, after all, while the future is merely sketched into ever-changing sand. I do know what happened this year, but I do not know what will happen in the next. Therefore, I can and will speculate about it. I do have plans, as that is my nature. I always have plans, captain. (I must keep this one in mind, sounds like a good one-liner for a villain…)

For me personally, 2022 was a rather stressful year — and so it obviously was for the world as well, what with the remainders of COVID clinging on and the war in Ukraine and too many other fires burning to name them all here. This has led to my sabbatical during November and December. I needed the rest and I feel much recovered now after two months of doing just what I want and working on my own fan projects. After all, I plotted and finished two long Star Wars fan-fiction novels and a set of three short stories about the same characters.
From now onward, I’ll be careful to give myself breaks throughout the year, just a week or two here or there for my own projects and for gathering new energy and inspiration. Perhaps I’ll make use of my release months for that — I need about half the month for revisions and editing and can then use the other half for relaxation. After editing, I’m usually very ready for some relaxation, anyway — it’s my least-favourite part of writing and self-publishing.

I may take part of January off as well, even though I’m not quite certain about it right now. I will see what the next days bring and how I feel about returning to “Scholomancer” now. Releases will definitely resume with “The Necromancer’s Notebook”, the second volume of stories about Isadora Goode, in February. My release schedule has shifted by one book like this, which means I already have all the manuscripts I plan to release during 2023 written and do not have to worry about my releases this year. That should also help with overtaxing or stressing myself out.
The schedule for 2023 is as follows: “The Necromancer’s Notebook”, February, “The Lady of the Dead”, May, “DI Colin Rook”, August, “Changing Plans”, November. That’s one set of novellas, two sets of short stories, and one novel.

As far as new projects go — well, I do have plenty plotted out already. I could write one book every month of 2023 (which is unlikely) and I would still have some left over. That is only if I do no plot out anything new — as I certainly will. Therefore, finding something to write shouldn’t be difficult, I have a lot to choose from. There’s a lot of different stuff, too, from my Lovecraftian “The Crew” over the Cultivation novel “Shadow and Sun” to much lighter fare such as “On An Adventure”. I will definitely get back to all of it in time, but I have no order planned out right now. I will write the stories as I feel like it.

I’m sure I caught myself just before I could develop another burn-out. I’ve had one a little less than ten years ago and I’d rather avoid another, so one of my personal goals for next year is not to overwork myself again and accept that I might have to set aside writing for a little while when my life gets overwhelming in other ways, as it did this year. The last thing I want or need is being burned out again and hardly being able to do anything. Burn-out and depression are horrid conditions and having the lighter of them once was plenty already, thank you very much.

To a good 2023, an end to the war in Ukraine and the oppressive regime in Iran, and more focus on the long-term problems of the world! For me personally, I want a calm year without medical or other emergencies and the chance to simply concentrate on my writing and, perhaps, projects like creating 3-book collections of my past stories or my own website. Have a good 2023, everyone!

On Self-Publishing

Self-publishing still has a bad reputation. It’s something to feed one’s vanity. It’s clearly ‘lesser than’ being published by a proper publishing house. It’s not something a serious author would do. While this used to be true in the past, at least to a degree, modern means of publishing — including self-publishing — have opened up new avenues for books to reach their readers. Self-publishing is better than its reputation (and then there’s the topic of indie publishing, too).

Some authors choose self-publishing to keep control over their work. The moment an author signs a contract with a literary agency or a publishing house, they do lose control over their manuscript and that can be really bad.
Usually, contracts leave the author little influence as to where, when, and if the book ever sees the light of day. The literary agency chooses which publishing houses to offer the manuscript to. The publishing house decides on when and how to publish the book, usually sets the genre and sub-genre, may make severe changes to the text and change the title. The cover might severely misrepresent what the main character is supposed to look like or give people completely wrong expectations of what the book will include.
Yet, in the end it is the author who gets blamed for all of this — it’s their book, after all, and their name is on the cover. An author who has been through this, perhaps even several times, might choose to self-publish or indie publish instead and keep control of their manuscript.

Some authors self-publish because their book is part of a niche market. Big publishing houses usually do not serve the niche markets and the only way to get the book out can be to self- or indie publish it.
Publishing houses have only one interest: to make money with their books. This means that they’ll be on lookout for possible future bestsellers. They look for books similar to what they already publish, similar to what sold well in the past. While this might be short-sighted, it’s how the business works. Well-known authors with a lot of bestsellers under their belt are wanted — and often can take more influence on how their book will look in the end. New authors who are focused on the same audience as other best-selling authors also have it easier to be published, because the publisher expects that their book will perform similarly well.
Everyone whose book is written for a more niche market, on the other hand, stands little chance to get published that way. The niche market doesn’t turn a lot of profit, the publishing house might not even want to be connected to it (such as a conservative publisher not wanting to publish homosexual romance stories). Self-publishing or indie publishing are the way out and bring those books to their niche audience, enriching the book market.

Self-publishing is also a lot of work. It’s not just about writing your manuscript and all is done.
After writing, the first step is usually editing the text. This can and usually will include content editing, copy editing, and line editing (as I have no printed versions of my books, I do not line edit, but I have to do the other two). Content editing is looking into the content — making sure that there are no illogical parts in the story and all threads are tied up nicely in the end (or as nicely as is possible in a series). Content editing might include rewriting big parts of a text, especially for discovery writers. Copy editing means looking for typos, wrong words, and every kind of grammar mistake. This is usually the most tiring process, as you need to go over the text several times to be sure to catch them all (or at least most of them). Line editing, finally, happens once the printing is organised and gives the editor (in self-publishing, the author) the chance to make sure that there are no widows or orphans (single last or first lines on the page belonging to a longer paragraph) and, ideally, no chapters ending with one or two lines on a new page. As said above, I do not do the last one myself, as I’m not self-publishing in print so far.
Writing a blurb is the next step, so there is a way to advertise the book to the reader on the platforms on which it can be bought. This is something entirely different from writing a story — this is advertising and needs a new skill set.
A book needs a cover, so then it’s about creating a cover for your book. This might be easier if you have a series going and have kept a template, but it still needs work every time you want to put out a new book. Design is also a different skill set from writing a book.
After all of this is done, the next step is to actually put the book online. I personally put my e-books up at Amazon and use Draft 2 Digital for the rest. By now, D2D also does Amazon as a platform, but I don’t want the work of pulling all of my books from my Amazon account to re-upload them through D2D. This can take quite a while, depending on how well your program can format and what way you upload. I personally am quite happy I can upload the .epub format after making it with Scrivener by now.
After this, there’s still advertising to do (also not a regular skill for an author) and a website to keep working and updated these days. This is something I have to look into again, as my Google-sites website just doesn’t really cut it.

The difference between indie publishing and self-publishing, by the way, is that most of the steps above are done by hired professionals if you have the money to do indie publishing instead. Like this, the author doesn’t need to learn all the other skills, but they have to pay people who have them.

In the modern day, self-publishing is no longer just a vanity project. It can be, but it’s much less likely to be one these days than it might have been in the past. There are good reasons for self- or indie publishing. The author can keep control of their own manuscript and make sure it is not advertised wrongly or changed beyond recognition. The author can write for a niche market which the publishing houses ignore. It’s a lot of work — or costs a lot of money —, but it is perfectly viable and can be the best choice for any and all manuscripts.

Character Arcs

Character arcs are important. That’s something which basically every bit of writing advice will tell you. Yet, which character can or should have a character arc? Which character absolutely needs one and for which character would it be a waste of time? Let’s find out.

Generally speaking, the main character, the protagonist, the hero, should always have a character arc.
Always? Okay, superhero comics and pulp stories usually get away with not giving them an arc, mostly because everything is set back to zero at the end of every story — that goes for deaths, romantic developments, and also all other kinds of character arcs. It’s not that it is forbidden, it’s more that it’s not considered necessary. Pulp and comic-book heroes usually are developed enough for their adventures and don’t need to find new skills or associates to master them. Hence, there is no need for character development. It could be there — and, sometimes, it is —, but it’s not necessary to make the story work.
Classic character arcs for the hero are usually upward arcs — arcs that make the character a better person. They can include — but are not limited to — overcoming fears and other flaws (such as more undesirable character traits), building a new relationship, or developing a new skill. Romance arcs, for instance, are usually all about building a relationship and can include overcoming a flaw so the relationship has a future.

Love interests are another group of characters who often do get a character arc — also an upward one which makes them ‘better people’ in the long run. This is especially true if the love interest is male and falls into the ‘brooding’ category.
A full character arc for the love interest, though, is more likely in a romance-based story and less likely if there’s just a romantic sub-plot somewhere. In the romantic sub-plot, the main plot often provides the reason for the couple to get together in the end, even if it might feel ‘unearned’ from the protagonists side.
What should be avoided is turning the female love interest from a confident and able woman into a helpless damsel, just so the male main character can save her and ‘win’ her that way. There are other, better ways to bring two people together than making one the passive trophy to be ‘won’ by the other.

The last big group of characters who might get a character arc are — the villains! Yes, villains can have two different types of character arcs.
More commonly known is the redemption arc in which the villain stops being a villain and becomes one of the good people instead. Good redemption arcs are hard to do, though, and quite often they include the death of the villain — after doing something for Team Good (think of Darth Vader, for instance). Others take the longer, harder route and give us a full redemption with the villain turning hero (a great example would be Prince Zuko from “Avatar: The Last Airbender”).
What if the villain is not supposed to be redeemed? No arc at all then? No, for this case, there’s still a possible character arc — a downward one. A downward arc is the opposite of the upward one — instead of making the character a better person, it makes the character a worse person. The character commits more and more atrocities and proves themselves to be someone who can only be vanquished — and possibly killed — and never redeemed.

In addition to these three groups of characters — hero, love interest, and villain — some other characters might get a character arc of some kind. The most common two would be the sidekick and the mentor.
A sidekick could come into their own over the course of a story — which would set them up as a possible main character in the sequel — or at least lose a bad trait or gain a good one. Their arc usually isn’t as strong as that of the main character, but it might still be there and enrich the story.
Even though the mentor is normally the one giving life lessons, some of them still have something to learn. “Kung Fu Panda” has mentor Shifu learn that sometimes his regular methods of teaching might fail while different ones might yield results when he finds out that food is a good motivation for his new student to give his best. Shifu goes with it and thus trains the new Dragon Warrior successfully.

Character arcs are often referred to as ‘internal arcs’ in opposition to the main story arc which is usually an ‘external arc.’ This simply refers to whether or not the arc is mostly driven by visible action. Taking the One Ring to Mordor is an external action and this is the main arc of “Lord of the Rings” whereas Frodo’s development as carrier of the ring is mostly internal as the One Ring influences his character.
A story needs an external arc so there is something happening, so there’s tension and stakes. It might or might not have an internal arc for any and all of the main characters. Even romance stories need that external arc, which is often about overcoming an obstacle on the way to the ‘happily ever after.’

Character arcs are important for main characters like hero, villain, and love interest. All of them can profit from a good character arc that makes them visibly grow in some way (even if it might be growing worse in case of the villain). Some other characters might profit from a character arc as well. That doesn’t mean that ‘henchman 275’ or that merchant who sells the hero some provisions also need a character arc. Before you give someone a character arc, ask yourself whether it will enrich the story or not. If it does, put it in. If it doesn’t, leave it out.

Taking a Sabbatical

You might already have noticed that I haven’t been writing any blog posts lately (for a little over a month now to be more precise). I’ve found myself almost burned out after the year I’ve had so far and I’ve taken a sabbatical to recover. That did include abstaining from my blog and doing the mere minimum (mostly set up before the sabbatical) for my Facebook page.

My real life this year has been hard — my dad was diagnosed with stomach cancer at the end of the last year and went through several surgeries and a stint of chemotherapy from January to September. I didn’t go through all the physical parts of this, naturally, but there was a lot of work to pick up and a lot of care going on as well. Not that I’m complaining — I’m glad I could help him. Only … it doesn’t lead to a lot of spare time for writing and editing and doing all the other stuff which needs doing if you’re a freelance writer.
I forced myself to go through all of it, releasing a new book in February (when my dad had major surgery), May (when his last surgery was just finished), and August (when he was in the middle of his chemotherapy). I simply had no strength left in November, so “The Necromancer’s Notebook” will be released in February next year. I can live with that.
I also pushed myself with writing until I barely could bring myself to go on, despite being all geared up for the stories I wanted to write. Strangely enough, when I re-plotted and rewrote an old Star Wars fan-fiction in October, I was burning for it. I was putting in two chapters a day, Monday to Sunday (I normally take the weekends off from writing). I wanted to finish this and I did — only to continue with part two right afterwards. I wrote into November, pushing the time at which I would start editing — until I realised I didn’t want to edit. Well, I never want to edit, but this time, I just couldn’t find the energy, so I decided ‘no editing and no releasing this month’ and I was all the better for it.

Yet, what this has shown me is that I can write. It’s not that I have lost the ability to really finish a writing project, it’s just that right now I can’t be bothered with commercial projects and need to find my way back to my love of writing and telling stories. That is what my sabbatical will be for, recovering the fun of writing and getting more motivated again.
I will try to get back to regular writing in January — it might take longer, I have two fan projects in the pipeline and they might take up the time until towards the end of January. Even so, I can also start anew in February after the editing. Editing usually motivates me to write more.
I find myself looking forward to writing more already, which is a good sign. I want to write again and I want to tackle a project. I enjoy myself at the keyboard (and I’ve grown fond of Scrivener’s composition mode, too, but more of that at another time). My sabbatical is definitely going in the right direction and that is good.

So far, I’ve only pushed my release schedule back by one book — shifting “The Necromancer’s Notebook” which has been written quite a while ago from November to February.
It’s not as if I was missing out on enormous sales numbers, either. I make little money with my books so far, although it’s getting better. It’s not as if there’s troves of fans who are crying themselves to sleep at night because the book isn’t out yet (although I can say that it’s fun).
It’s also that I wasn’t so much not looking forward to editing the book — I do like the stories in this novella collection and I do like Isadora very much — , it was that I just couldn’t find the motivation to start with it at all. Normally, I can at least tell myself ‘it has to be done and the sooner you start, the sooner you’ll be done,’ but not this time. This time, I couldn’t motivate myself at all.

I’ve had a burn-out before, too, and I didn’t want to get down to that again — once was one time too many.
Therefore, I hit the emergency break and got off before it could get to that point. I’m getting better and that is good. I need this time, so I’m taking it. If other authors can publish a book every five years (or so), I can publish three books a year instead of four every now and then.
The last time, by the way, I didn’t publish four books, was when my mum lost half her lung to cancer. I find that real life and family take precedent over my publishing business. Deal with it.

Blog posts might not be quite as regular for a while longer now, but I’ll try to get some up. I actually have three more of them plotted and can write them. I might also take the time to do so before I return to my Star Wars fan-fiction and give my characters a new adventure with less Sith and more investigation. I’m enjoying my sabbatical after several years of basically no breaks and I will return to work when I have recovered enough. Luckily, I have the freedom to do so.

Winging It

Recently, I had an amiable online discussion with someone over whether or not George Lucas had already planned out how the Force works by the time the first Star Wars movie was released. I’m still pretty sure he was winging it, given he couldn’t be certain whether or not he’d get to make more movies in the universe. That led me to thinking about winging it as a such when you’re a writer.

I tend to do it regularly myself while I’m writing. When I stumble across a one-off object or other detail, I make it up on the spot without really thinking about it. That then sometimes comes back to haunt me when the object, skill, or other detail later needs to be expanded on. Luckily, I’m quite good at winging that, too, and add more detail and depth even if I didn’t do so originally. That might be due to my past as a discovery writer, though.
Even though I do plot by now, my plotting is not set in stone. Therefore, I might suddenly find that I need to introduce something to finish a scene, just a little detail that is important for the moment, but won’t really play a role long-term, since my general plot usually is not affected by changes to a scene as plotted originally. I still know where I’m going, even if I might take a slightly altered route.
In my experience, those ‘spurt of the moment’ additions are fine. They exist simply to enrich a scene, not to make any important changes to the overall story. For that, I can wing it. Sometimes, though, I’m wrong and it turns out that the detail becomes much more important as the story progresses.

In such a situation, there is one big danger, which is to overthink things to make up for under-thinking them before. After just having thrown the thing in the first time, it gets to be developed far further and into something far more complicated than it needs to be and the end result is not working out as it should.
This has happened to me, too. When I first wrote the basic outline for “Stray” (the first novella featuring Gabrielle Munson), I didn’t think much about the necromancy in the story — there was no reason to, as she was mostly on the run and would only use her powers to find out who really had done the murders by asking a victim. When I expanded into other stories, when the first book took shape, I began to realise that I needed to go deeper. I began to overthink.
I tried to write down a whole essay on how necromancy worked, tried to make it all logical and invent rituals which I wasn’t going to need any time soon. Then I took a step back and realised it wasn’t necessary. I needed to write Gabrielle’s skills as a necromancer and an alchemist down to keep them in mind. I needed to make sure I wasn’t writing one thing in one story and the opposite in another. I didn’t need a full magic system for her skills — she uses them little enough. I had overthought and I had to stop doing that.

If you don’t keep notes of the details in your stories, you might also run into a situation where the audience will wonder why your main character doesn’t just use a skill or object shown in a prior story. It’s important to keep track of skills which your recurring characters have shown, in case you need to use them again when they would normally be used again instead of the new solution you want to implement in your plot.
This goes twice for any kind of skill or special object you have given a character in a pinch. As you’ve been winging it, there was no planning this out in advance and you’re probably not expecting to ever use it again. If you’re writing a series, though, you should write it down so you will remember it — parts of the audience definitely will.
Sooner or later, you might put the character into a similar situation and again wing it and write something else in to help that character. Fans of the series will remember that magical object or advanced technology or little-mentioned skill which the character used the last time and they’ll be surprised to see it doesn’t make an appearance. They might even get sarcastic about it, realising you’ve forgotten.

One thing you should never do is wing an important or recurring aspect of the story. When you want to implement something for good, it needs to be thought-out or you will sooner or later be in trouble. Skills and special objects need to be balanced, otherwise they will lower the tension and that is never a good thing. Relationships or backgrounds of recurring characters need to be able to survive the stories or change accordingly. It is always possible to add more details later, but the foundation must be sound.
This should go without saying, but you don’t always know which part of a recurring character is going to become the most important over time. Even if you plan out a full series, while writing it, you might find that there needs to be a certain shift. It has certainly happened to me, see the necromancy in “Theoretical Necromancy”.
Before you give a major character a skill or object, you especially need to think about how it can be used. Even if it’s normally limited, if there’s a way to misuse it, that way has to be eradicated. If one character’s skill or object completely cancels out another character’s skill or object, there might need to be changes. Balance is important for both the stakes and the tension and that means the protagonists must appear under-powered compared to the antagonists.

‘Winging it’ is a solution for small details that are not used for long in a story. Sometimes, you just need to make something up on the spot. Yet, if the detail is a skill or object that might return at some point or be useful again, it pays to keep a note on it, especially in a series. You never should try to wing something important for the story, either, because it will always come back to bite you later on. Always…

Sherlock Holmes And Count Dracula Deep Dive

This deep dive follows right on the coattails of a blog post on how not to use supernatural elements in a story (which was also about a Sherlock Holmes novel). In “The Classified Dossier —Sherlock Holmes and Count Dracula” by Christian Klaver, there are a lot of supernatural elements, but they’re well-incorporated in the four stories and they actually work out well.

There will be spoilers, as I want to dive into how the book deals with its ample supernatural content!

This book dives fully into the supernatural from the beginning, as Count Dracula appears in the first chapter of the first story — to seek Sherlock Holmes’ help. In most novels which include Sherlock Holmes and Dracula (and you might be surprised at how many there are), they are set against each other. Not so in this book. In this book, they’re on the same side.
While there have been rare cases where they were not directly on opposite sides of the board (“A Betrayal in Blood”, in which Holmes tries to figure out the whole Dracula affair, springs to mind), they usually are not working together. Dracula is considered a villain (for good reasons) and Holmes is a hero — they’re not supposed to be on the same side of anything. Normally, it is Holmes who comes to the aide of someone threatened by Dracula (often one of the Vampire Hunters around van Helsing) and takes up the fight against the undead count.
This book, on the other hand, does it well by making Dracula a client who wants Holmes to help him find his wife Mina (yes, that Mina). They’re not knocking about together for mutual friendship and Holmes doesn’t always like his clients — he’ll still work for them if the case is interesting or the stakes are high enough. The stakes in this case certainly are high enough.

Vampires are also introduced as people with an infection. They are still alive, but they have a changed body which barely breathes and has a seriously slow heartbeat. The audience hears it from Dracula, but later on also from Watson, who is turned into a vampire, too.
As the story is still told from Watson’s perspective, this also means the audience comes to understand the differences between humans and vampires as Watson does. Watson is a rare vampire who keeps his personality and morals after the change while most vampires who make it through the first ‘animal’ stage of the change become predators with little left of their convictions as humans. They are intelligent, they remember their past, but they don’t care about human morals any longer. Mary Watson (who turns her husband) becomes an example of that.

In the climax, I would have liked for the big bad in the background, the ‘Mariner Priest’ to have been someone else, though. Moriarty is just a villain in the Sherlock Holmes canon, not the only villain. Anyone else would actually have been better — except perhaps for Irene Adler.
It’s not that Moriarty (who had apparently just become a vampire before Reichenbach) doesn’t make for a good villain. Cold-blooded mastermind and vampire is a dangerous combination and he comes up with an interesting solution to the ‘animal’ stage of the vampire transformation. Yet, ‘it was Moriarty all along’ is just too common to still be a proper plot twist by now.

One thing which breaks things up a little is the influence of Lovecraftian horror in the second story (this plot will eventually be taken up again in the sequel), yet this also shows that the oceans — where Moriarty is floating about with his followers — are more dangerous than one might think.
This also means there are more supernatural powers around than just the vampires (the Jekyll-Hyde transformation will follow in the sequel) and gives Holmes and Watson something to do while the main plot is brewing in the back and coming around again eventually.
Personally, I think that introducing the deep ones and Dagon is a nice idea, given the whole ‘vampire ship on the seas’ situation and the title of ‘Mariner Priest,’ which could very well point to a Lovecraftian background and makes for a nice red herring.

While each of the four stories which the book is comprised of is self-contained to a degree, all four also form a larger story of a kind. They fit together, boosting Watson’s understanding of his new powers and Holmes’ understanding of the supernatural which in the end make the victory possible. They also introduce the audience to a wider world than just ‘vampires exist.’ There’s deep ones out there. There’s vampires. There’s supposedly other creatures as well.
The world is much larger and stranger than the regular person is aware of — and Watson is now inevitably part of this larger world for good and has drawn his closest friend into it, too (although Holmes is still fully human). Now, Holmes and Watson also have to keep a secret from the world — Watson’s change. He has new needs — and I still don’t know what Holmes has told Mrs. Hudson about that teapot of warm chicken or cow blood which Watson now takes in the evening when he gets up. He has new powers, but also new weaknesses.
Watson works through his new relationship with his wife Mary eventually (it helps that she dies, it doesn’t help that he’s the one who has to kill her to save his friend) and has to face the fact that he will probably spend more time in this world with Kitty Winters (who has also been turned) or the Count and Countess Dracula than with his best friend. Holmes refuses to be turned early on, claiming he’d be a huge danger for mankind as a vampire.

The author is also excellent at dropping hints for what will happen. It’s never too obvious and always close to when it becomes important, which is how I love my foreshadowing.
Especially in the last story when the big confrontation happens, there is a hint dropped which enables the whole twist in the end — the simple mention that Holmes and Dracula are the same height and build and both have a similar facial structure. This is what brings Moriarty down in the end — thinking he’s caught the human Holmes, but really having brought the vampire Dracula too close. A lot of things established before, like a vampire having next to no scent for another while a human has a strong one or vampires having a much stronger sense of smell than sight, play a huge role in that situation.
All of this is mentioned before and enables the audience to see how clever the plan which Holmes and Dracula come up with really is.

Unlike “The Dartmoor Horror”, “Sherlock Holmes and Count Dracula” makes the best of its supernatural aspects. Every aspect is useful. Every aspect plays its role in the story. Even the seeming tangent of the deep ones and the Lovecraftian horror has its use. This is ‘supernatural Sherlock Holmes’ done right.

Doing Nothing With A Plot

“The Dartmoor Horror” by Joe DeSantis is a Sherlock Holmes novel which does include supernatural aspects within the story. It is also an unofficial sequel to “The Hound of the Baskervilles”. This is not about how supernatural elements can’t be introduced into a Sherlock Holmes story. I’ve seen that done very well in other books (look out for a deep dive on one of those soon). It’s about the way in which the supernatural elements are used — a way that makes them surplus to requirements.

There will be spoilers in this post! I can’t discuss the plot threads without talking about what is happening.

The main plot of the story is sound. Jack Stapleton (the lost child of the lost Baskerville brother) has survived the events of “The Hound of the Baskervilles” — which would be possible, as he is lost in the Grimpen Mire, so there’s no body. Stapleton, who knew the mire like the back of his hand, might very well have made it to the tin mine in the middle and hidden from the authorities there. He’s still after the Baskerville fortune, which also makes sense, although I’m not quite sure how he would have claimed it after Sir Henry’s death (Costa Rica was mentioned, though). Stapleton has an assistant in Murphy, a character mentioned as being shady and knowledgeable about the moor in the original book. That, too, pans out.
The romance sub-plot between Sir Henry and Laura Lyons also works out. While it’s not the most natural thing for them to connect, it’s still believable and well-handled. With both of those plot threads working as they should, the whole novel is standing on solid feet. Both of these threads also don’t need any supernatural element to work, as you might already have noticed.

Now for the supernatural elements. Keep in mind that the original novel had a supposedly supernatural element in the hound already, but made it turn out to be something natural instead (a specific dog breed which Stapleton had bought and trained). The basic possibility of using supernatural elements in a sequel is there. After all, the story of Sir Henry and the hound has a scientific background, but there’s still Sir Hugo being killed by a Hellhound centuries earlier.
The Hellhound is back in the sequel, this time as a real, physical creature which, in an interesting twist of fate, becomes a guardian and protector for Sir Henry. Yet, I can see how that would work out if used well.
The second element is an ancient bog witch who is raised by Murphy with his grandmother’s help (Murphy has been exiled from his clan, but is still Romany) and who apparently was alive at the time of Sir Hugo already. She is the more unnecessary of the two elements, as there’s nothing she does which can’t be done without her.

The Hellhound could work nicely within the narrative. It has been around to ‘punish’ evil members of the Baskerville family before, from Sir Hugo onwards. This is hinted at in “The Hound of the Baskervilles” already where several strange deaths on the moor are mentioned. Yet, if the hound kills the evil Baskervilles, why should it not also protect a good one?
Within the story, Sir Henry does a lot of good for the nearby towns and villages, taking care of the repairs to the local church and having specialists do repair work on the local roads. For a poor community living in the middle of a large moor, that is certainly a blessing. He also treats the hound well when it comes to him, starving and injured. This is what wins the hound’s loyalty and proves he’s worthy of its protection.
In addition, Stapleton is a Baskerville as well (otherwise the main plot would make no sense) and certainly one on a level with Sir Hugo himself. By protecting his new friend, the hound could very well also return to its job of punishing the evil members of the family.
In a better use of the hound, it would come to Sir Henry’s aide in the big climax and either kill Stapleton like it killed Sir Hugo or at least drag him into a bog in plain view of others, so it is clear this time around that he’s really dead. That is not what happens, though.

Unlike the Hellhound, the bog witch has no practical use within the story. I personally always approve of a little necromancy on the side, but there is no reason to have the witch there. She does nothing which no other established character could be doing instead.
In the story, the witch kills two people, one by luring him into the bog (which is what she enjoyed doing before she died in that bog herself) and one in a more direct way (presumably by strangling or breaking his neck, the audience doesn’t ‘see’ the death). Yet, before she’s raised from the bog, Stapleton has already committed two murders himself. He’s not shy of doing it and he’s certainly capable of it, too. He doesn’t need the witch to do his dirty work, as he’s perfectly capable of doing it himself. In addition, one of the witch’s two victims (two more are suggested, but it’s not clear whether she’s killed them, too) is superfluous and the other one could just as well have been waylaid and killed by Stapleton.
Frankland, Laura Lyons’ estranged father, is lured off the track on his way back home after telling Laura he doesn’t approve of her divorce and new engagement to Sir Henry. He is lured into the bog and sinks slowly while the bog witch watches. Apart from how that is not how swamps and bogs work, there is no reason why Stapleton on his own or with the help of Murphy couldn’t just overpower Frankland and put him in the bog. The end result would be the same.
The second victim, the superfluous one, is an old man who has seen Murphy move about on the moor at night, mostly to bring Stapleton food and water and to get his marching orders from his boss. This character is never mentioned before, he has not caught Sherlock Holmes’ eye already, and his murder is not noted in any way. His death has no influence whatsoever on the outcome of the story. This murder is pointless and unnecessary and should simply have been left out.
With that, the witch has completely lost her use for the story. Her first victim could just as well have been killed by Stapleton (who murdered with his own hands before already) and the second victim could simply have been left out completely.
In the end, the bog witch tries to kill Sir Henry and the Hellhound comes to his aide, grabbing the witch and bearing her into the bog. The hound could just as well have done that with Stapleton. Stapleton is again fleeing into the Grimpen Mire and supposed to have been killed when taking a misstep after Holmes has moved his new markers. To be honest, I would have preferred a confirmed death the second time.

Unfortunately, “The Dartmoor Horror” is a good example of how not to do supernatural elements in a story. The Hellhound and the witch cancel each other out and become pretty superfluous that way. The Hellhound could have been a nice addition to the story, a nod to the legend which is read out to Holmes at the beginning of “The Hound of the Baskervilles”, but it hasn’t been used that way. The witch isn’t needed in a story where the villain has already proven he’s able to kill before she’s even raised. She is neither a tool for the villain nor a mentor or other useful helper.

A Body Isn't Necessary

At the beginning of the year, I wrote a post about how ‘there must be a body.’ I was referring to S.S. van Dine’s “Twenty Rules of the Detective Story” and to my own experience with a cosy mystery without a murder which was horrid as a mystery novel (it was a nice romance novel, though, even if that wasn’t planned, I’m sure). S.S. van Dine claimed that a detective story must have a body ‘the deader, the better.’ After reading the book, I had to agree with him. After reading another two books, I now have to disagree to a degree.

I recently read two mysteries by Shanna Swendson from her ‘Lucky Lexie’ series which didn’t feature a body at all. In one case, there was a suggestion of murder and there not being a body was the point (“Case of the Vanishing Visitor”) whereas the other case didn’t even suggest a murder (“Case of the Curious Crystals”). Yet, none of the stories lacked in tension, stakes, and enjoyment for the reader.
Tension and stakes, of course, are what makes us enjoy a story. We want to read on because there’s something at stake and we enjoy the story more and more as the tension rises and pushes our own engagement with the characters and their possible fates. Now I think that the failure of the book mentioned above wasn’t not to have a murder, it was not to have stakes for the main characters and thus no raising tension. There was no personal involvement and there was nothing horrid to happen if the stolen fireworks weren’t found. The two books mentioned in the last paragraph, though, manage to build up stakes and tension wonderfully.

In “Case of the Vanishing Visitor”, Lexie seems to have met a woman who got herself killed afterwards. Given that Lexie can speak to ghosts and the woman is not to be found, dead or alive, it seems as if, perhaps, Lexie met the woman after she’d been killed already, but in the end, the facts don’t add up and it turns out that the woman isn’t dead and was never in danger of dying, either. Yet, the way the story handles the plot is excellent and you go through the uncertainty and the worry with Lexie as she tries to find the woman, dead or alive. It’s, therefore, not horrid when the woman turns up alive — it’s rather something you’re glad for after going through the story and learning about all the bad things that might have happened to her.
In “Case of the Curious Crystals”, no dead body is even suggested. A wave of strange thefts runs through the town and sows distrust between the regular ‘townies’ and the descendants of the sideshow crew (this is part of the town’s world-building and discussed from the first book of the series onwards — ‘Curious Crystals’ is the second book). Lexie needs to find out who steals cheap 1930s costume jewellery and why and so she stumbles over a try to sway the jury of an upcoming court case. The story has stakes — at least for Lexie and her love interest/local cop Wes, as both don’t condone influencing the court even if it’s not a murderer going free. More importantly, if the case is not solved, the tension between the townies and the sideshow descendants will only rise and one day might end in the severe injury or even death of an innocent person. That can’t be allowed. There’s stakes, there’s tension, there’s a satisfying end, so there’s a good book.
The other three of the five cases in the series (so far — fingers crossed here) do include at least one murder each, so it’s not as if the author has gone for lower stakes in general. The stakes in the two ‘body-less’ cases also don’t feel low at all. Sure, it might be more threatening if you’re caught in a bed-and-breakfast in a storm with a murderer, but watching as people distrust their neighbours simply for their pedigree can also be scary.

Lexie only has a personal involvement with the first case — she has found the victim, she is the person from out of town, and she is standing to gain something from their death (not that she knew and not that she needs them dead as it turns out). In all other cases, her interest in the case as the editor and reporter of the local weekly newspaper get her involved and she strives to solve the crime for the sake of solving it as well as for a more satisfying article in the newspaper. Not to mention that the ghosts of the victims want her to solve it so they can pass on. Then there’s the ghost of the former owner and editor of the newspaper, a delightful 1930s business woman, who will not be satisfied unless the newspaper brings out the news before the gossip mill can.
Nevertheless, all cases are engaging and interesting. They’re being brought to her attention in a suitable way, pulling her out of the regular life in town she has grown used to. They are challenging her by not being simple ‘open and shut’ cases. They involve friends and neighbours and her understanding of justice as well as her wish to make every edition of the newspaper as good as it can be. Not to mention that they bring her into closer contact with the charming and handsome Wes…

It is easier to make high stakes and rising tension when there is a murderer on the run, of course. In a cosy mystery (which is probably not the kind of detective story S.S. van Dine was thinking of in his semi-serious list), the stakes don’t have to be that high and the tension can rise much more slowly. In the end, the stakes must be high enough to engage the audience. The tension must rise fast enough to make them want to read on. If that is happening, you can have a good cosy mystery without a body and people will still enjoy themselves while reading it.

Supernatural Cosy Mysteries

I have liked cosy mysteries for a long time already, yet there is one big problem with them: keeping it believable that a regular person would get drawn into several murder investigations. In more recent years, I’ve found myself drawn more towards supernatural cosy mysteries and those where the profession of the main character makes it easier to explain them being drawn into murder investigations. Quite often, those overlap in my book collection. Why the draw to the supernatural, though?

Suspension of disbelief is probably one of the main reasons. With a supernatural story, I am already doing more suspension of disbelief while I’m reading it — I have to believe in witches, demons, or other supernatural beings. It’s easier to move on from that to the idea that a regular person (well, a regular supernatural being) could be drawn into several criminal investigations.
I am already stepping away from ‘real’ life when I’m opening a book where the main character is a witch or a fury or can speak to ghosts. From there, the idea that they are also stumbling over dead bodies and get drawn into solving the mystery of the dead isn’t that far-fetched. Especially someone who speaks to ghosts would be a draw for every ghost who needs a wrong righted — and what bigger wrong is there than being murdered?
Things also might work differently among supernatural beings. Perhaps they don’t have the same government structure. Perhaps they are much more tight-knit and need to keep the whole case from regular law enforcement. There are options and with that, it is easier to keep believing for longer.

In addition, of course, quite some of my favourite supernatural cosy sleuths, such as Eden Fury, are already working within the legal system or are at least researchers by profession and character.
Of course it is only natural for a law-enforcement agent to investigate a murder in their town. It’s their job when all is said and done. Of course a reporter and editor will not allow themselves to be send away from the scoop that will make people buy the next edition of the local newspaper. Of course the defence lawyer of the town will look into a crime their client is accused of.
This works without the supernatural element, too, of course. Yet, it helps explaining why someone is stumbling over corpses and needs to figure out how the murder happened and who did it for what reason.

It’s not that I need for magic to be present in every moment of the story or only want to have supernatural beings all around. Most of the stories I’ve read have supernatural people mingle discreetly with normal people, so there’s also humans who are completely unaware that there is something like magic or vampires or whatever. Yet, supernatural elements play their part and usually play it well.
With Eden Fury from the Federal Bureau of Magic, it’s often less about the case as a such (although the case will be solved by the end of the book) and more about the shenanigans which happen with her family made up of witches, demons, vampires, angel-hybrids, and other supernaturals. With Jayne Frost, it’s about the daughter of the ruler of the North Pole stumbling over cases while she’s just trying to manage a toy shop and decide which one of the two possible lovers she should choose (she chooses a third one in the end, by the way).
Human life and supernatural elements mingle in those stories and I love that very much, because being a witch or a vampire or a fury or Jack Frost’s daughter doesn’t mean you’re not also, deep down, a human being with a love live and your own wants, needs, and fears.

World-building is another aspect for me. Every book has to build a bit of the world, has to give the reader a framework of how things are, of what to expect. There is a world someone lives in — a town or village in most cosy mysteries —, which needs to take on shape so the audience knows where the characters are going, who is living and working where, and how they are connected. It’s about the streets and landmarks as much as about the families and friends.
One big world-building problem with all cosy mysteries is that cosy mysteries are usually set in a small town or a village (US authors seem to favour the town whereas UK authors seem to favour the village) where not that many murders should be happening. That takes some serious suspension of disbelief of its own — which I also find easier to do when supernaturals are involved. It seems to me that in a village or town filled with supernatural beings, there is a higher chance that things might heat up and end in a murder or other serious crime. A fight between two regular men in a bar will most likely lead to a few black eyes and other bruises. A fight between a vampire and a werewolf, on the other hand, could very well leave one of them dead as they’re much stronger and have predatory instincts.
A book with supernatural content has more world-building to do to integrate the parts which are not ‘real’ with the parts which are. Often, it is much more detailed for this reason and gives me a better feeling for the town it’s all set in. It’s a town with werewolves and vampires in it, so there are going to be things which are different and things which are as you’d expect them to be. It’s fun to find out more about that as I dive into the stories.

Cosy mysteries will always have problems when they reach a certain number of stories. In the end, it might be easier to believe that someone has just stumbled over their tenth (or seven-hundredth — looking at you, “Murder, She Wrote”) body if they also have witchcraft at their disposal or live in a town full of supernatural creatures. If they’re in a profession where contact with crimes is a thing, it’s even more believable for them to stumble over several murders over time. I love cosy mysteries in general and find I can follow series with supernatural aspects for longer without getting all ‘she’s found another body again?’ about it.

Mr. Straight White Dude

Over the course of the last one-hundred-and-twenty or so years, a standard hero has emerged in storytelling: the straight white man. Or, as I call him, Mr. Straight White Dude. Even in many stories not written by white men, the hero is a straight white man or seen as one because nothing is said otherwise and he’s the standard hero figure. Why is that and why is that bad?

I could blame “The Hero With A Thousand Faces” for this, but that would not be true. While the book has had an influence on many writers, it’s not that influential. Yet, the western world as a such is.
As most of what amounted to ‘literature’ and later on storytelling in other media such as stage plays, movies, TV, or computer games was created by people from either Europe or North America, the overwhelming majority of main characters fit with the creators or whom the creators pretended to be: straight white men. The only literature genre where the straight white man normally is not the main character is romantic literature. Here, it is the straight white woman, which is not much better (but a little).
The problem with this is that everyone who is not a straight white man, everyone who can’t immediately see themselves in Mr. Straight White Dude, does hardly feel represented. With the large majority of heroes being incarnations of Mr. Straight White Dude, other people aren’t considered regular hero characters. They can take other roles, such as the damsel (usually the straight white woman), but not the main spot, not outside specific genres.
We can do better than that and we should do better than that. Mr. Straight White Dude has worked long and hard and deserves an extended holiday now.

The overwhelming presence of Mr. Straight White Dude is not doing the stories any favour, as it were. By narrowing down the idea of who can be the hero, the stories limit themselves. Mr. Straight White Dude has a certain set of regular skills (usually martial ones) and a certain way of dealing with his problems. He also has a limited amount of different faces — mostly those of a handful of white male actors who regularly play the action hero.
Diversity doesn’t just mean different skin colours, genders, or sexual orientations. It means filling up the ‘toolbox’ of the author. A fighter has a limited reservoir of skills, as does a healer, a diplomat, a spy, or any other character class (to dip into RPG jargon). Yet, a group made up of all of them will have a wide range of possible solutions for any kind of problem which might crop up in a story. A fighter can defeat a group of thugs. A healer can patch up someone who has important information. A diplomat can get the group past a guarded roadblock. A spy can creep ahead and spy on the evil mage in their lair. Imagine overcoming all of those problems with just one of them.
Mr. Straight White Dude has proven over and over again that he can handle saving the day (or the world). Considering there’s many other people in the world, it is time for him to take a break and let others get to the day- (or world-) saving.

There is no change, however, until people make it happen. This means that instead of relying on Mr. Straight White Dude, authors would do well to choose other heroes for their stories. Every story which is not focused on him is a story which broadens the idea of what a hero can look like or what it means to be a hero in the first place.
There are authors (and especially production companies) who shy away from that, rather going with what ‘has always worked.’ They play it safe. Don’t be one of them, though. A lot of people will enjoy books with a more unusual hero, with a hero who, perhaps, is closer to them than Mr. Straight White Dude. There is a market for it and it’s easier for your story to stand out that way as well.
Replacing the standard hero with another one — someone who has not been through a million stories already —, not only gives the author something new to work with, but also gives the audience something new to get into and enjoy.

One argument against using someone else than Mr. Straight White Dude is often ‘there were no [enter other social groups here] in this place,’ especially in historical fiction. Yet, even changing one aspect of Mr. Straight White Dude (the straight, the white, or the male) helps. A straight white woman is a step in the right direction. A straight black man is a step in the right direction. A gay white man is a step in the right direction. There are choices, even if some might be minor ones.
The more aspects you’re able to change, the better — and every fantasy or science-fiction setting should allow you to change many aspects. Yet, every change is good. Using a female main character makes changes to the story. Using a POC character makes changes to the story. Using a gay character makes changes to the story. Each of them also makes different changes to the story.
Every change undermines the idea that Mr. Straight White Dude is the only hero out there and nobody else can take his place. Every change makes it more likely for Mr. Straight White Dude to be able to take a much-deserved sabbatical.

First and foremost, even if it’s the last point here, remember that characters are characters. Not male, not female. Not white, not POC. Not straight, not gay. They are characters and should be created to fit with the story. Or they are characters and the story should be created to fit them, depending on what comes first for you, the story or the main character.
Don’t make stereotypes but fully-realised characters and you’re already mostly in the green. The more you step away from the standard, the more you will take your character and your story in the right direction.
Mr. Straight White Dude deserves a long holiday.

Mr. Straight White Dude has had a long and successful career. He still can have a lot of work in the future, too, but it is time to move past him and discover a wide world of other heroes who do things differently and are part of different social groups. Expand your writer’s toolbox and dive into a more diverse set of heroes. Expand the range of your stories and allow them to stand out.

My Writing Process

First of all, a disclaimer: This is my writing process, it doesn’t have to work for everyone. It probably won’t work for everyone. It might not even work for me in a few months or years. Things change.
Currently, though, it works well for me and allows me to write quickly (in most cases) and efficiently, to plan out my stories and get them done well.

For quite a while, I was a discovery writer or ‘pantser’ (I like the first term better). I just set out writing without a real plan. I had an idea where the story was going, I had a character or a scene or a basic plot I wanted to incorporate and the story would just grow out of it.
This isn’t a bad way of writing per se — I have completed quite some stories that way. It is, however, a way which means a lot of revising afterwards to get contradictions and continuity errors out of the story. Plotting makes that part easier.
These days, my process includes a lot of steps before the writing (and just one afterwards), which makes the writing as a such easier to do. Yet, when I started out, I wouldn’t have been able to get the stories written after that much preparation. Life can be weird.

My writing process goes like this: first, I gather ideas, then I draw up a rough outline, then I plot the scenes and sort them into chapters, then I write the story, and finally I revise and edit it. In addition to that, there’s research which can come in at any point in the story. I do most of it during the plotting process, but sometimes I do it earlier and sometimes I still have to do it while I’m already writing or in the editing process.
The process is longer, but also means that by the time I have to sit down and do the writing — the longest part of it —, I know exactly what will happen when. That doesn’t mean I never make changes to the scenes as they’re plotted, never change them, move them, or break them up into two or more smaller scenes. It means that I have a good idea of how the story will run and can see any problems with the plot long before I start the writing process. It saves me a lot of time in revision and editing.

My writing starts in Scapple, a whiteboard software from the same company which also does Scrivener, my writing software. That’s not the main reason why I use that one, though. I simply like quite some of the features such as easy stacking and transfer of formatting.
In Scapple, I open a new file and simply throw down my ideas for the story as notes — whatever I have, be it characters, scenes, specific plot ideas, a summary of what the story should be about. Once I have them all down, I can then sort them out.
I make notes for the main characters and, perhaps, give them names already. Sometimes, I work with descriptions like ‘detective,’ ‘murderer,’ ‘damsel,’ or ‘villain.’ For finding names all through the process, I love using the Random Names Generator online. There are a lot of different settings and you can get five suggestions at once, too. I do take more time with main characters, but there’s also a lot of side characters to name and there the generator definitely comes in useful. I might also make notes of what to research if I need to get deeper into a topic (such as, for instance, the exact wording of how to get Baba Yaga’s house to turn around and open for you).
Once I know the characters and have sorted out the basic plot, I sit down and write a rough outline of the story, putting down what I want or need to happen when and sort it out until I have a narrative, unpolished as it might be.

At this point, I usually switch from Scapple to Scrivener (or at least I also open Scrivener). For a stand-alone project or a project which might become a series, I open a new project and put everything in. I have my own template for Scrivener which offers all I need and nothing I would have to delete anyway. If it’s going to be part of a series I’ve already worked on, I simply add it to that project. That’s one thing I love about Scrivener — the possibility to make large projects with a lot of data work.
In Scrivener, I put down all I have in Scapple, usually starting with the characters. At this point, if not earlier, at least the important characters get their names. Those get a character sheet of their own from me whereas side characters get a space on a list. I make notes for my research or put down what I have already. At this point, I might also download pages I need for reference — like monster pages from the Lovecraft wiki for “The Crew”. Like this, I begin to fill up my notes and research folders.
After that, or sometimes parallel to it, I write down the scenes, referencing the rough outline as I do. Every scene gets a short description in the synopsis and a place in the narrative. I sort the scenes into chapters and build up the structure of my project like that. By the end of this, the story is ready for writing, even if I might not get to it immediately.
At this point, most projects get a bit of rest, whereas I usually go through the process so far in a relatively short time of either days or hours. Not all research might be done, but I’m mostly clear on what I will be writing.

The longest and most tedious part of the process comes next: Actually writing the story, of course. I can write reasonably fast and I write full-time, so I can definitely get a project done in a good time, provided all goes well (with “DI Colin Rook” it didn’t).
I usually try to write one to two chapters a day — my chapters are between 2,500+ (novellas) and 3,000+ words (novels). I normally take the weekend off for other things, so that’s five days a week and usually eight to ten chapters per week, too. In a week, I can write between 24,000 and 30,000 words of a project.
Most of my projects clock in at between 60,000 and 90,000 words as the target and usually a few thousand words above that once written. I can, therefore, produce a book in a month if nothing bad happens. That doesn’t mean it always works. I usually calculate two months for a project, what with real life and other things happening. Some days, I don’t get down to writing, some time every month I don’t really feel like it (other women may understand why).
I end the writing process by compiling the first draft for personal use and then letting the project rest some. It is never a good idea to go into a big project and edit it right after you’ve finished writing. Distance is good for the judgement.

The last step then is the revision, editing, and release of the book. After a few weeks or months (the latter is better), I pick the book up for the last part. I release a book four times a year and use the months in question (February, May, August, November) to edit the project in question.
First, I go over the text in a content edit and revise what needs to be revised. Usually, there’s only small things coming up, but I’ve had a few cases where chapters had to be added or rewritten.
Once this is done, it’s time for three rounds of copy edit to check for wrong words (misspelling usually isn’t a problem because of the spellchecker in Scrivener), weird sentences, and other grammatical issues. I have to keep an eye on my sentence length as well and I know it. I do the copy edit backwards, starting with the last scene and working my way to the first. Like this, I’m less likely to be distracted by the story and can focus on the actual words much better.
Afterwards, the book gets another general check and the release version is compiled. As I only do digital books, I don’t have to do a line edit. Somewhere within the editing process (or sometimes earlier), I also produce my cover design which is then added to the release.

This is my current process for writing my books. It’s not set in stone, of course, in a year it might be completely different again. Yet, for the moment, this split between Scapple for the early work and Scrivener for the rest works well for me, as does doing a rough outline and then the synopsis for all scenes so I can see the development of the story. Nothing is set in stone there, either, though, as I might find I need another scene or need to move a scene during the writing or the editing process.

Choosing a Project

Right now, I’m between projects — the release of “The Haunting of Winterthorne Hall” is done and I have not yet started a new book. By next week, I’ll have started it, of course, but right now, I’m not quite sure what to write next. For me, that is a common problem once I’m done with a book this way or that, either with writing or with releasing.

It’s not that I’m out of projects — quite the opposite. I have a long list of projects which are fully plotted and prepared, but do still need to be written. That’s of course the longest part of the process, even with my high output.
Even if I finished writing a project each month (not editing and not taking time off), I would have to write for the next 26 months to finish the projects I think I could release — and some more if I add stuff that is either fan-fiction or erotica. Given that I regularly have more ideas for new stories, both within and without my established series, there is always a lot of choices.

It’s always a bit of a challenge to choose the next project. I wouldn’t go through the long process of plotting and planning and preparing a project (more on that next week) unless I want to write that story, so I am motivated to tackle each of my projects. Yet, the motivation isn’t always a guarantee for swift work.
“DI Colin Rook”, for instance, was a project I wanted to write, so I chose it several months ago. Yet, the writing was drawn out, because I found myself hard-pressed to get down to it on many days. It took me a long time to finish the story — both because of me not being able to stay focused on it and because of things in real life.
Burning for a project, as I often am at the beginning of it, doesn’t mean I will breeze through — although on the other hand, I managed to write the novel “Changing Plans” within three weeks of focused work. Writing can be a strange craft.

My strongest contender at the moment is another collection of short stories which might, in time, become a series: “Scholomancer”.
It’s one of several sets of shorts I’ve plotted recently and I do like the basic idea and the characters I will have to work with. Anne is interesting on her own, a powerful mage trained as one of ten Scholomancers of her generation (based on the legend of the ‘Devil’s School’). Necro, her cat, is actually an elder abomination caught in the shape of a fat red tabby. They tend to squabble a lot and Necro’s laziness (which might or might not be connected to his current body shape) means he’s no easy Deus Ex Machina for the story which would make it boring.
Another book high on the list would be “Sword and Dagger”, a fantasy police procedural novel which might as well turn into a series, too.
It’s a buddy-cop situation in which Greg, an assassin who has too many morals for his job, has to team up with Javier, the guard captain, to prove his innocence and solve two murders. It does have a few nice situations and a budding friendship (not to mention a possible career change for Greg). I could expand it into a series of fantasy police procedurals, which could be fun to write as well.
Both of those books will be written in time, no doubt. I plan to finish all my projects at some point (even though there probably will be new ones by the time I’m through with those 26+ ones). Yet, the big question is ‘what shall I write next?’ and that one I can’t answer that easily.

There is no logical way to determine what I should write next.
It’s not about working my way through the projects as they’ve been planned and plotted. Quite some came about around the same time, so which one to choose in such a case?
I want to write all of the stories, too, so there’s no ‘do the least-wanted first’ or ‘do the most-wanted first.’ It’s hard to judge the intensity of motivation and it changes day by day. I was very motivated for “DI Colin Rook”, but often found myself unable to work on the story afterwards — and by that I mean I was sitting in front of the project for hours without getting anything written.
Because of Colin, I do want to write another set of short stories, but there’s more than “Scholomancer”, too. I could write “The Crew” which is a clear stand-alone, as is “Fallen Angel”.
I could get back to Maddie and write her second set of scoops or I could write a third set of missions for John Stanton. I have two more novella collections lined up for Isadora Goode and a novel and a set of short stories for Gabrielle Munson.
I could write one of the many stand-alone novels I’ve plotted. “The Black Friar of Milton Manor” would be fun to write, I’m sure. “Sun and Shadow” would allow me to step into the world of cultivation novels.
A lot of different choices and no logical way of choosing — that’s anything but fun, but I have to get through it every time and I will do so, too, this time.

It’s not always easy to choose a new project. Sometimes, it’s easy because there’s one you want to write more than all others. Sometimes, you simply want to continue a series or you want to go by the age of the project and do the old ones first. Sometimes, you’ve promised to write a book next — to yourself or other people. There’s no way that always works and choosing the project you’re most motivated to write doesn’t always mean smooth sailing and a quick success. It can take a lot longer than you think or it could be over in a heartbeat…

Return to Liesel Van Helsing

Liesel Van Helsing is not a widely-known character, she’s a comic heroine who fights monsters (like her father, the original Van Helsing) and basically kicks ass and takes names. I came across her in a Humble Bundle of digital comics (delivered as .pdf files) and I recently dived back into the digital stack to have fun. I had forgotten how much I like the world of Liesel Van Helsing, despite the obviously ‘male-gazey’ designs of the female characters (at least there’s a lot of them). Here are a few reasons why I like her and her world so much.

The comics come with a lot of characters, recurring as well as non-recurring. There are villains (like Dracula himself) who make an appearance more than once, but it’s mostly Liesel’s friends who are around regularly, helping her fight or being drawn into a situation and making the best of it.
The design of the female characters, as mentioned above, seems to be more for the male gaze than for the female one, but that is pretty much a given for comic books. Yet, despite tight-fitting clothes and skin showing where a fighter should not show skin (like the midriff), the characters are well-written and have depth. They have their own problems, they have their own dreams, they have their own goals. Sometimes, those goals align when they work together, sometimes they don’t — just as in real life.
It’s also not that Liesel can’t fight on her own — she very much can —, but that many of the enemies she is facing as bosses in the stories simply are too powerful to be taken down by one more or less normal person (all characters, including Liesel, show some superhuman or supernatural tendencies, but then, that goes for the villains as well).

I do enjoy the way they work with each other, too. They support each other, they’re not trying to prove they’re better, stronger, or faster than the other one. It’s all about the monsters, about getting them down. It’s not about who kills more vampires, it’s about getting all those vampires killed. It’s a group effort and nobody tries to use it to make themselves look better than the rest.
The characters have different strengths, too. Some are physically strong, sometimes to a point where it’s not realistic, but this is a comic series about vampires, werewolves, and other supernatural creatures. It’s not unrealistic in this context for a descendant of Henry Jekyll to morph into a super-strong and super-ripped self at times. Some are excellent shots and agile to boot, taking out enemies long-range while they’re avoiding being hit. Some have strong magic at their disposal (or they are part demons themselves). Some are mentally strong and can go on despite all the things which have happened to them. They all make do.
By supporting each other — even if, as in two of the story-lines, the original meeting wasn’t very positive —, they manage to take down enemies who are by far too strong for one fighter alone.
There are male characters, but they aren’t put up as the ultimate saviours (even though Hades, for instance, ought to be extremely powerful). They might fight alongside the women, but they never take the central role and push Liesel or other female characters out of the limelight.

The stories include a lot of different enemies, too, not all of which need the same kind of treatment. We have Dracula and his daughter (who is Liesel’s half sister), of course, because whom else would we have as the nemesis for a character named ‘Van Helsing?’
We have Frankenstein’s creature. We have werewolves. We have different kinds of vampires (because Dracula is not the only bloodsucker and not all vampires must be his offspring). We have undead beings with great power (such as a proper Egyptian Queen Reborn — take that, “The Mummy 2018”). We have low-class demons. We have creatures from all over the world, as Liesel lives in the early twenty-first century and can just hop into a plane.
The villains are well-balanced between being powerful (as they ought to be) and still having a weakness that can be exploited by Liesel and her friends in the end. They make the heroes work, which is always good, and they have the upper hand for quite some of the story. Especially Dracula’s daughter proves herself to be a dangerous adversary (perhaps more so than Dracula himself who seems to underestimate Liesel a lot despite prior encounters). All in all, the villains are very satisfying in the stories, because a story with a weak villain is no fun, especially in a comic book.

The graphic design of the series is very much early twenty-first century, which means a gorgeous use of colours and details, a free use of panels, and great inking. Sometimes I would wish for the female characters to be drawn with less revealing clothes, but that, too, was normal at the time and I can’t fault the artist for going with the flow there. At least Liesel, Robyn, and all the others look gorgeous, strong, and confident, so there’s that.
The storytelling is good as well. Sometimes, comics give the impression of hurrying over some aspects which are hard to put into a picture, but the artists do a good job with portraying the inner workings of their characters through facial expressions and the occasional thought bubble or suchlike. Sure, Liesel and the others don’t get that much of a character arc in most stories, but that isn’t necessary — it’s a comic book, not a novel focused on personal development. Comics are about action first and character development twenty-second or so.

If you come across the comics somewhere, like in another Humble Bundle (they’re doing very nice comic bundles — I’ve bought several from them), you might want to give them a closer look. I know that I’ve been entertained by them the first time I read them and I have been entertained by them when I reread them recently, too. They’re fun to read, have gorgeous artwork, and women working together instead of trying to out-do each other for the sake of a guy is always a good thing to see.

Non-Combatant Characters

There are definitely stories which need a main character who is capable of fighting the fight and doesn’t need any diplomatic or other less martial skills. There are many, however, which are fine without it, too. Many of those stories get a strong fighter where a smart speaker or a stealthy thief could do just as well. Non-combatant main characters can be interesting to explore and offer a whole host of new plot points to use that would never work with your regular fighting-form hero.

There are a few genres where a fighting-form hero is not only the default, but also a necessity. You won’t get a proper action movie without a hero who is ready for all that action, obviously. And while you may play the ‘Greenhorn in the West’ trope card in a western movie or novel, you will eventually get them up to fighting-form because the genre demands it.
On the other hand you have stories which almost never feature a fighting-form main character. Romance stories are more focused on emotions and drama than on fighting your way through a horde of enemies. Political thrillers are building the tension on the manipulation of people, not on the ability of the main character to kill twenty enemies before breakfast.

It is said that if you only have a hammer, every repair job will look like a job for that hammer and that is true — you need a full set of tools to have the right one to apply to any repair job to do it right. The same is true for characters.
If you have a fighter or a group of fighters as the main character(s) in your story, every problem will be solved with fighting, either directly (against enemies) or indirectly (by only offering tasks that need fighting to be done). Every time your character(s) get into trouble, they’ll draw their weapon(s) and get down to killing or at least disarming enemies.
If your main character(s) or at least the most major one are non-combatants, though, they will have to find new ways to solve a problem. Violence will not do. They might have to talk people into letting them pass where a fighter would merely draw their weapon. There might be a tense scene in which they sneak past a gaggle of powerful guards who are looking for them. They could look around for another way to where they need to go or find out whether there’s another place to get what they’ve come for to this one.
There’s more than a hammer.

Another way of having a main character who is non-combatant and still get in all those sweet sword duels or shootouts is to have them have a bodyguard. Instead of featuring the fighter as the lead character, make them a backup for the lead character.
In a way, that happens in the 1999 version of “The Mummy” — it is clear from the structure of the movie that the main character isn’t Rick, but Evie. It’s her actions and decisions which drive the story and she is the one who is responsible for the rise of the mummy in question. Rick is her bodyguard. Rick is the one who in the climax takes on Imhotep and gives her the time to find and read the right lines to turn Imhotep mortal again. He gets to kill Imhotep, but it would never have happened without Evie’s actions. Evie is a librarian, not a fighter, but Rick is a former soldier, so fighting is how he made money in the past.
Not only does the bodyguard give you the chance to work in some of those sweet fight scenes, it also opens up new plot lines. What if the bodyguard is captured and the main character is suddenly on their own? What if the bodyguard betrays them and delivers them to the enemy? What if they fall in love with their bodyguard? The potential is endless (well, almost).
If you need or want all those fights, but want to have a main character who is not into them, a bodyguard might be the answer.

If you decide to use a more ‘fight friendly’ genre and want to go with a non-combatant, one of the biggest questions to ask yourself is ‘what can they bring to the table instead?’
In a noir detective story, your detective might be less of a fighter and more of a talker. They might know a lot of dangerous people and be able to hire or borrow muscle for when they need it. Or they might be sly and sneaky and avoid being attacked by not being where they’re supposed to be. They might also be very fast runners — until their luck runs out.
In an ‘old west’ setting, the non-combatant lead might instead be making friends. There’s no need to fight the ‘locals’ when you’re friends with them. There may be no need for a shootout when the main character can prove that the owner of the biggest farm paid those cattle thieves for stealing from all the other farms. Yet, for that to work, the character needs to have the right skill sets and the right traits.
I’ll admit that I can’t see a way to use a non-combatant in an action scenario, although it might be possible to construct all action around someone running and hiding instead of fighting.

When you plot a story, you can go about this in several different ways. You can already have a main plot in mind and build everything else, such as characters and setting, around that plot. You can have a character in mind and build everything else, such as plot and setting, around that character. You can also have a certain setting in mind and then go looking for the plot and characters that will go best with it.
If you plan to use a non-combatant character, you will most likely be building the plot and the setting around the character. In such a case, you can easily leave yourself a chance to make sure that the character can survive all possible conflicts they get into. That can take the shape of the conflicts being social or otherwise non-violent, but it can also take the shape of a bad-ass bodyguard to protect the main character.

The next time you’re looking for a main character for a story, consider a non-combatant. Even if you don’t go through with it in the end, it might still give you a new insight into what you could include in the story that is not bound to the main character being a fighting-form hero.

Myths & Monsters Review

“Myths & Monsters” is a collection of horror-themed short stories by Scottish author William Meikle. I have to admit that I had the book in my ‘to read’ stack for a long time without really getting into it. That is more of a ‘me’ problem, though, because I just have so many unread books in my stack and some just slip out of sight. Now I regret that, as the stories are great and I have certainly enjoyed myself while I was reading them — in that uneasy way in which you enjoy horror stories where people are killed and maimed. Meikle fuses monsters and mythological creatures from all over the world with his Scottish homeland and the Scots and creates short, poignant, and readable stories of monsters, myths, and humans.

Every now and then, I love reading some short stories. While I’m also a fan of novels and novellas (and comic books and audio books and graphic novels), the nice thing about a short story is that it is short. A small, nice package to enjoy in a short time (an hour or less) which is a lot of fun if it is well-crafted. Meikle’s stories are always well-crafted, no matter the length.
When I just want to curl up on a rainy and cold day or when I’m not feeling too well, a short story is the best choice for me. It doesn’t demand that I devote a lot of hours to it in one go. It gives me quick gratification while I’m having a cup of coffee or tea and let the world around me fade into the background for a little while. While I can certainly wait for my gratification, sometimes a quick shot is welcome as well.
Many people do not give short stories the respect they deserve. A short story needs to be very well-plotted, because there’s not much time and space for mistakes. It is much harder to write a good short story than it is to write a good novel. The novel forgives a few weak plot points, the short story does not. Every word, every sentence, every scene counts.

As these are horror stories, not all of them end well for the main character or characters. There are only two stories which share the same main character (the first and the next-to-last one) and both of them don’t necessarily have a good ending, either, even if the character survives.
That doesn’t mean, though, that the stories are exceptionally depressing or dark. They are horror stories and that means that not everything will end well for everyone. Within the story, you will find monsters and mythological creatures which are not always nice towards humans and often enjoy killing, maiming, or even eating them. Yet, we humans do have a tendency to survive even against the worst odds, as many monsters have had to learn the hard way over time.

I’ve first read several pastiches by William Meikle — he’s written several Sherlock Holmes, Professor Challenger, and Ghost Hunter Carnacki stories as well.
I find his Professor Challenger much more palpable than the original by Doyle and like how he has the three characters he’s worked with cross paths every now and then. One of the stories in “Myths & Monsters” does include Challenger, Malone, and Carnacki, although they can’t find out what the message given to them and several others means — until history makes it clear what ‘three and thirty at three thirty’ means.

Meikle loves to set his stories in Scotland or to use characters from Scotland in them. That’s not a bad thing — Scottish people have travelled far and have seen much, in real life as well as in this collection. The Scottish highlands are also a great place to set a horror story in. He has a great way with words and has mastered the way of pulp writing. That is not a negative thing at all. Meikle writes in a way that makes you want to follow the story, to read on, even if you don’t really have the time or have something else you need to do. It’s a good thing, therefore, that this book is full of short stories.
Another great thing about the book are the illustrations at the beginning of every story. They are beautifully done and always connected closely to what the story is about. While they’re not the main draw for me, they certainly add to the overall atmosphere of the book.

“Myths & Monsters” is a book for people who love short stories and enjoy horror stories where not everything ends well. The stories are well-written and span a wide range of monsters and mythological creatures. There are some which are tinged with Lovecraftian horror (like the second one) and others which follow a much more traditional path. Give the book a chance as you should be able to read most of the first story through the ‘Look Inside’ feature on Amazon. I had a fun time with the book and I’m sure many of you will have one as well.

What Makes Good Horror?

What indeed? It’s not that easy to define what constitutes ‘good horror,’ as horror is a personal experience. There are a few general fears which we all — or almost all of us — have in common (among them seem to be spiders). Then there are common ones like heights or being caught in a narrow, locked space, which both very much goes against our survival instinct. Others are more specific and often connected to our past, such as someone who has sustained a severe dog bite being afraid of dogs. Of course, a dog like Cujo from the Stephen King novel of the same name can scare us all. Danger breeds fear and fear can be turned into horror.

One way of invoking fear that almost always works out is to put the main character into a helpless situation. Sometimes, that includes them not knowing they’re in danger — while the audience does, of course —, or making use of the monster being much stronger than them and being able to overwhelm them physically. Having the character be alone — physically or simply because nobody else believes in the danger or nobody else can see it — is also a good way to manage that.
Helplessness makes the audience worry more for the character, but it shouldn’t go too far — if it seems too obvious that the character can’t survive, there won’t be a satisfying way to make them and it won’t be that much of a surprise or shock for the audience if they don’t (horror movies are supposed to have a high body count, after all, so deaths are expected).
The bus situation in the second “Jeepers Creepers” movie is a good example of helplessness. Not only is the bus of the sports team stuck in the middle of nowhere, the Creeper also goes for the adults first. The students, already in their late teens but not yet experienced adults, are left alone and can be depended upon not making optimal choices in this situation (honestly, many adults wouldn’t, either). The students are stuck alone on a lonely road and are hunted by something which looks scary and intimidating and has already proven its strength and resilience. They are, by all measures, helpless food, at least until the first victim’s family arrives.
Horror set in modern times can make it harder to have someone completely on their own, as smartphones and the internet make it easier to stay in touch even if you’re physically alone somewhere. Research is much easier and so is calling for help.
Of course, the villain could be able to block technology, making the smartphone useless, which could be much more of a horror to a modern-day protagonist than to someone born during the 1980s or earlier. There might be no reception in the area or the phone can have been taken or destroyed. Yet, the fact alone that a phone might go offline could make people come to the character’s aid because they worry about a missed call or can’t get a connection when calling the character.
On the other hand, suddenly being without phone and internet contact can be scary on its own, being cut off from everyone, not being able to easily look up information. For someone who isn’t used to the time before the internet, this can definitely be a heavy restriction and add to their helplessness. For everyone, being hunted by a monster and not being able to call for help is scary.

One big discussion in horror is whether or not to hide the monster. Should the audience ever see the monster before the big showdown in the end? Should it, perhaps, even be hidden from them at that point?
One reason why people keep the monster hidden is that uncertainty creates more tension. What if the monster is ten feet tall? The audience will gasp and then say ‘oh, I was worried it would be twenty feet, ten feet I can deal with.’
There’s always a moment of relief when the monster is finally revealed because we all tend to imagine something to be more horrible than it is in the end. What we can picture in our mind will be tailored exactly to fit with our own biggest fears. Whatever the writer or filmmaker can put up will never match that. It will never be precisely what we fear.
On the other hand, the audience wants to see what the main character is up against. No matter whether it’s Pennywise from “IT” or whether it’s your run-off-the-mill zombie, at some point the audience wants a visual, whether in actual pictures or in descriptions.
Show or don’t show? I would always say ‘show.’ Show early or late? That depends a little on how you work the whole story. If you want to establish the precise threat early, perhaps in a scene where the main character isn’t present, so the audience always knows what kind of danger awaits them and the main character doesn’t, show it early. It’s a good thing that King, for instance, shows us Pennywise and the danger he presents especially to children early on. The death of one main characters’ little brother also creates a personal connection between monster and main character.
If you want for the audience to be as much in the dark as the main character is, drop hints, but don’t show the monster until late. Have the audience read about the hissing breath as something disappears from the scene of murder. Have a victim talk about the ‘horrid face’ they saw right before they expire. In a visual medium, show a distorted shadow or a scaled limb in a quick shot. Then, towards the end, have the reptilian zombie monster jump out of the ground and latch on to the main character’s best friend — shock reveals are great reveals for monsters.

In every story, the odds should be stacked against the main character to a degree by the time the climax rolls around — that is where tension for the climax comes from. The main character must be invested in the situation and prepared to go all in.
Yet, in a horror story, the chances for the main character should be in an even worse state. It must be as likely, if not more so, that the main character will die and the evil will win as it might be that they’ll survive and be victorious. Many horror stories have an ambiguous ending. The main character dies, but takes the monster down with them. The main character kills the monster, but the body disappears (that’s the slasher way). The monster wins, but is mortally injured as well. The main character fails, but someone else takes up the mantle in the last scene, suggesting that the monster’s victory might have been short-lived. The main character gives in and joins the evil side, because why not?
The less likely it seems that the main character can win, the more the audience will be on the edge of their seat. Yet, there must be a chance. The situation can’t be completely hopeless. The main character must be able to make a difference, if perhaps at the price of their life.

What makes good horror? It’s not the body count alone, although horror stories often sport a high one. People tend to die when monsters and murderers roam the area. Yet, a few poignant, emotionally important murders can be much better than a long string of unknown deaths.
As mentioned above, it matters that Pennywise’s first victim in “IT” not only is a child, but also the younger brother of one of the protagonists. Pennywise has killed thousands, as becomes clear over the course of the story, but that is not what the protagonists are thinking about — it’s their friends and relatives who fall prey to Pennywise who motivate them. They are not righteous monster hunters, but people who have lost loved ones and are prepared to end Pennywise’s reign of horror because of that.

When you want to write horror, the first step should be to look into your own heart. Whatever you fear most, you’re not alone in that fear. It is much easier to write a horror story where the horror comes from a fear you really feel, so you can portray it well. In this case, ‘write what you know’ has merit. Being helpless and alone makes people more vulnerable, whether they are physically far from everywhere or just not taken seriously by others. Show your monster when it is time, as it is extremely hard to get away with never showing it. Ramp up the odds against the main character. Splatter a few bodies around, or a few more, but don’t think quantity is all in this case. Most of all, even if the topic is serious: have fun with the story, it will be much easier to write that way.

Leaving a Message

Does a story have to have a message? That’s another topic which can get people arguing a lot. Some say that a story is just entertainment (and it certainly should be entertaining, no doubt about that), others say that it needs to say something about life, too. At any rate, every story tells us what the author endorses or not. Or it doesn’t. It depends on whom you ask.

Real life rarely makes sense. It is not supposed to, either. Things happen. Some of them can be influenced by the people they happen to, some can’t. Real life has no structure, it doesn’t go for the big climax in which everything is resolved. It just is.
A written story, even one ‘based on real events,’ on the other hand, has to make sense to people. If we’re reading a newspaper article, we’re not expecting for it to have some kind of closure, some kind of proper ending, we’re not expecting that there will be something deeper to the story. If we’re reading something written as fiction, on the other hand, we expect for it to follow certain rules, to have a plot structure to it, even if it is ‘based on real events.’
An author using real events will still push certain aspects of those events to the forefront, those which the author feels are important to the situation, and they will also omit or play down other aspects of the events, feeling that those are less important to the story. In doing so, they give a sort of meaning to the story they’re telling, they focus the audience on the parts which they find important and direct attention away from the parts which they find unimportant.

There are some stories where the author clearly doesn’t endorse the actions of the main character. Those usually feature what is known as ‘unreliable narrators’ — the character tells us a story, but we’re made aware early on that they might be bending the truth to fit with their narrative and not everything they say can be taken at face value. One of the most well-known cases of this is “Lolita” which, unlike what some people might think, does not at all endorse the grooming of an underaged girl to become an adult man’s lover.
Apart from those stories, though, authors are usually thought to endorse the actions of their main characters. Whatever ‘Team Good’ does is usually considered something the author is okay with, unless there is a negative outcome that is meant as a punishment for the decision. When ‘Team Good’ gets away with burning down the Evil Corp. © headquarters, it is safe to assume that the author thinks they should, despite committing arson.

Likewise, the way a situation plays out, which approaches to solving a problem are rewarded with success or punished with failure, is normally connected to the way the author sees the world. The author’s morals and life philosophy usually have an influence on what kind of solution a main character tries and whether or not a certain type of solution succeeds.
If a character tries a violent approach to a problem, like standing up to a bully and hitting the other character, and is rewarded for it by reaching their goal of being left alone, it can be assumed that the author approves of the approach. If, on the other hand, that same approach only gets the character in question sent to the headmaster and given a lot of detention, it can be assumed that the author thinks it’s the wrong way to solve the bully problem.

Some people might pull the ‘Death of the Author’ card out of their pocket here — that we shouldn’t look at the author, only at the text.
Yet, when it comes to messages delivered by a story, ‘Death of the Author’ isn’t going to make a difference, even if you use the principle the right way, which is rarely done. Even without knowing anything about the author’s life or other books they’ve written or their Twitter account or anything else, the story itself displays its message.
The way a story handles violence, crime, bigotry, and other topics is a message in itself. If the good guys get away with violence, the message is that violence in that situation was the right choice. If the good guys steal from the bad guys and it works out for them in the end, then the message of the story clearly is that stealing from the bad guys was okay in this specific situation.
Note that I’ve said ‘the good guys.’ An author letting a villain get away with something for the time being doesn’t mean that the author endorses that action. The villain is a villain for a reason and is allowed to do bad stuff without immediate punishment. As a matter of fact, many stories depend on the villain doing bad stuff and getting away with it at least for quite a while.
Endorsement is bound to the actions of the main character/hero, not the actions of their antagonist/the villain. People usually don’t assume that the author endorses everything the antagonist does without being punished for it. As an antagonist needs to do bad things so that the protagonist can oppose them, an antagonist getting away with things is a necessity for many types of stories.

To put it all together again: a story is crafted, so every part of it is under the author’s control. This means that everything happening in the story is happening as it does and with the ramifications it has because of the author’s decision. This means that, willing or unwilling, every story an author crafts sends a message about the author’s view of the world, their morals, and their values. That doesn’t mean that every story has to be highly moral or ‘teach the reader a good lesson.’ It means, however, that you as a writer always leave a message for the readers in your stories, no matter whether you want to or not.