#93. Unexpected Insights From Fantasy Con and a Heap of New Short Stories

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Hello imaginative people. I’m Anna Tizard and this is episode 93 of Brainstoryum. As promised, I am recording this in rather ninja fashion (although not in literal ninja-style fashion)—I’m squeezing it in because I have just got back from Fantasy Con which took up all of four days, well, three and a half days, all in, and it was amazing. I got to meet some wonderful people, fellow authors. It’s so nice to just be among your tribe. I would’ve liked more mingling opportunities—I find it quite difficult to go up to complete strangers, and the timetable was jam-packed so it was often a case of diving from one panel talk to the next.
 
I did have a badge made up that said, “Do you write short stories?” and this was quite a good conversation-starter at times, because some people would go up to me and say “Yes,” and then I could tell them about Brainstoryum, ask about what they wrote, give them a business card, a Brainstoryum badge and, when I was feeling brave enough and they looked genuinely interested, I’d offer them my weird, hairy-looking (it looks like an alien) sock that I’d turned into a shoulder bag, and filled with writing prompts that were curled up into little scrolls. So—a strange moment, but lots of fun and a way to try and give people a sense of what I do on this show.
 
One of the highlights was eating my lunch, starving hungry, and not quite in the mood for just plonking myself down on a table of a random group of people in this huge, huge hall, so I’m eating on my own and this guy comes up to me and says, “Are you the one that uses Exquisite Corpse?” and I was like, “Er, yeah? How did you know?” But of course, when you sign up to the convention, you’re invited to put your photo and details of what you write on the Fantasy Con website, and this guy had been scrolling through, and the detail jumped out at him because he plays Exquisite Corpse with friends. So it was incredible to have this impromptu discussion with someone who already knows all about the craziness of Exquisite Corpse.  (Hello Derek, if you’re listening!)  And it was also reassuring to me that my author photo isn’t so out of date that a stranger cannot pick me out of a crowd based on that picture.
 
A lot of panel talks were on fascinating topics that I didn’t necessarily know that much about, and these were the sorts of talks I was drawn to because—I want to learn, I want to find out stuff I don’t know. Examples were representation (or lack of representation) of disability in fantasy worlds, immortal villains that you can’t really kill off (hadn’t really thought about that), ecology in fantasy, tropes in urban fantasy, and so on. And there were a few that I felt were so very much me, that I had to go: New Frontiers explored experimental fiction and extreme oddness. A lot of it was based on unusual, perhaps more literary movements and styles like slipstream and fragmented narratives, which I don’t really write so much of, but when the panel were saying at the end, “Ooh, you know, we don’t really know if there are any more movements to come in this experimental area of fantasy, like, everything’s been done,” I was like, “Nope!” and I had to go up and speak to them afterwards and tell them about what I do. Because even if I don’t write in an experimental style—I want people to be easily absorbed into my stories, find them easy to read—my methods of coming up with them are pretty experimental. I can’t find anyone else who does what I do (except my wonderful talented listeners).

I also feel like in so many of these literary magazines that print short stories, the tone is so often bleak. Dark is one thing, but we need more colour and fun in our lives, not more bleakness. And using a fun word game to create writing prompts: this is far more likely to get your imagination flowing in unexpected directions that tend towards fun and not necessarily depressing stuff, you know what I mean. (Come on people, let’s have fun with our imaginations, that’s the whole point of reading, so let’s work from that angle with our writing and inspiration.) Anyway, I’ll step off my soap box for a moment there, and give you one last anecdote from the weekend:
 
Joanne Harris (who is most famous for Chocolat, which many people do not realise is fantasy—read it, and the series it’s a part of, and you will know it is fantasy. It has some very weird magical realism elements in there.) So I went to the interview of Joanne Harris and apart from being blown away by how proactive she is in advocating for authors’ rights, which was very interesting, she said something so weird that I had a dream about it that night! It may have been, um, partly caused by me having fish and chips at, like, nine o’clock at night and going to bed shortly afterwards, but still, what she said is weird enough: to get into the writing zone for a particular book, because Joanne Harris often has 2 or 3 projects on the go at any one time, she doesn’t meditate, or stretch or go for a run, or listen to particular music, anything like that. She creates a scent for a character in that book.

Yes, you heard that correctly!

She makes a fragrance based on the main character, and then smells it—opens the bottle, takes a sniff—and that’s how she keeps this association going with the character and the feel of the story she’s writing, and revives that feeling every time she’s ready to sit down and work on it. Apparently, this method is taken from Stanislavsky’s works on method acting—I have some background in acting during my late teens but I’ve never heard of this; maybe I just didn’t read quite far enough into Stan the Man’s works (which is what we always called him).
 
So I did, yes, fuelled by late-night fish and chips, and the strangeness and wonder of listening to Joanne Harris speaking, dream of being at a bar where you could order a cocktail of fragrance rather than an alcoholic drink, which was mixed in front of me using these little dark bottles, and then you could sort of enter a different character’s mind by smelling this fragrance… Gosh, there’s a story in that, for sure.
 
Anyway, that’s surely yabbering about Fantasy Con for now… Will I have more to report back on in the next show? Quite possibly. I have all these thoughts and ideas swimming around my head and they just need some time to settle before I can work out what I’ve learned from being at this, the first convention I’ve ever been to.
 
*****

Right, before we try for another three rounds of Exquisite Corpse, I have some fantastic short stories sent in by my listeners based on the prompt, “the moustachioed collector”.
 
Paul Monteith wrote:
 
“The shopkeeper's bell jingled when the door to The Stache & Tash Emporium opened. Standing by the cash register, shopkeeper Guido saw Mr. Sly enter.

"Afternoon, Guido. Wearing the Magnum today," Mr. Sly remarked.
 
Guido ran a finger over his thick, bushy, well-groomed moustache. "Yes, I woke up feeling playful & flirtatious, the Magnum best fit my mood."

"Right, right," Sly said as he walked by mannequins sporting various lip dusters, muzzlefuzz, and whisker lip curtains. "I have some new product if interested, Guido."

"Always interested," he replied, as he rubbed his hands together eagerly. "What you got?"

Mr. Sly opened his trench coat. Guido's eyes widened with delight when he saw a variety of Ziplocked moustaches hanging from Sly's coat lining. "Is that a Sam Elliott?"

"That it is," Sly said. "Removed Mr. Elliott's tache using my new laser depilatory knife. Didn't feel a thing, didn't know it was gone till he looked in a mirror."

"It's beautiful. And that, that tache there?" Guido said, pointing.
 
Sly chuffed delightedly. "Why, that's a Charlie Chaplin, preferred over the Adolph among discerning mustachioed collectors like yourself."

A look of sadness came over Guido. "So many lip brows, so little time."”
 
Oh! This is quite creepy, you’ve brought the scene alive with these deliciously monstrous characters. Thank you, Paul Monteith.

Nick Vracar wrote:
 
“The man peeled off his pencil mustache, and replaced it with a thick handlebar. He massaged it into place with his thumbs and spoke between his fingers. “I am, what can you say, a collector of sorts. I collect things. Possessions. You say she is a person. She is not. She is mine.”
 
Ooh, nasty! A snapshot, chilling and very Halloween. Thank you, Nick.
 
Eric Montgomery wrote:
 
Brad said he used to work in wine, but he spoke about fermentation the way most people talk about resurrection. His moustache caught the hop dust like gold glitter, each curl groomed to perfect symmetry. He wore it like a signature, as if the rest of him were only there to frame it. Brad was always scribbling in his notebook, tasting from tanks he wasn’t assigned to. One night, I found him crouched beside a fermenter, murmuring like a priest at a graveside. By morning, the batch was gone. The valves were still sealed.

“Probably the moustachioed collector,” our master brewer joked, half-asleep over his coffee. I laughed too, until I opened the cooler and saw bottles labeled with our names. Each one capped. Each one certain of what it’s become."
==
Ooh, so what’s inside these bottles at the end? There’s this lingering uncertainty. It feels quite disturbing. Thank you, Eric.
 
Right, well I think it’s time to delve once more into spaces never imagined before… Into connections that don’t yet exist… into the Socks of Destiny.
 
SOCKS OF DESTINY ORGAN JINGLE
 
This part of the show is un-transpose-able! There's much giggling and rustling of paper as I pull words at random from the Socks of Destiny to create three unique sentences according to the rules of Exquisite Corpse, going: “Describing word—noun—action—describing word—noun.” Today’s resulting sentences are:
 
1. The cryptic jerboa (desert mouse) bound the silver-eyed scrutiny.
2. The delicious pink fairy armadillo bargained with the one and only savanna.
3. The sun-warmed porter vocally straffed (strained) the fuming page.
 
After some initial brainstorming, I use the "pause button" (at length!) to draft a scene or short story, using one of these as my chosen writing prompt. Here goes (fingers crossed)…
 
*****

He held the page over the smoke, his fingernails already dirtied by it.
 
The fumes unfurled, pungent enough to make him choke. So he held his breath, leaned in closer to watch, the rims of his eyes red with the long nights. The amber tongue of this candle the only light to see by. Shadows danced against the wall, but his gaze did not waver.
 
The smoke coiled upwards in a question mark, as it licked the surface of the paper.
 
Scorings, faint, almost invisible, brushed with a delicate, dark brown tint, settling deeper into the indentations.
 
Finally, the words he’d been waiting for.
 
He exhaled, and the candle flame sputtered low as if darting for cover. He chuckled, his human jaw sliding into a long, lizard-grin.
 
In one motion, he stuffed the page into his mouth then chewed hard.
 
His tongue lapped around the edge of his knife-sharp fangs, ready for his next meal. It would be so much easier now that he had the gift of speech. Well, not quite the English language. But whenever someone spoke to him, they would hear whatever they expected to hear. Really, it was an illusion that reached more into his victim’s minds than it did into his bodily form. But no matter. His transformation was good enough to pass.
 
Next stop: a quiet hotel bar, for some lonely soul to show herself to him.
 
He sniggered deep in his throat, threw on a jacket, and blew out the candle.

**
 
The bar looked too bright and busy, so he lurked outside the front, away from the sounds of laughter, and lit a cigarette. A security guard watched him from the doorway, in that non-obvious way they had, in between nodding and smiling at couples and singles strolling up the steps.
 
The smoke lingered, bitter, in the lizard-man’s throat, like the promise of words unsaid. The next one will be mine, he told himself.
 
And sure enough, there she was: little black dress, nervous on tight shoes, fumbling with her phone as if looking for an excuse to go up the steps. The security guard smiled his encouragement at her. The lizard-man smiled wider, and stepped out of the shadows.
 
A hotel porter, a skinny young thing in a red suit, crossed his path, heaving a suitcase on behalf of some white-haired lady. The older woman darted up the steps, barely glancing at security with all the self-assurance of the rich. The porter struggled with the suitcase as its wheels caught on a step—blocking the creature’s view of his next meal. Thinking “Excuse me,” he let out a short rumble of noise from his chest, hesitating then ducking to one side.
 
“Wait--what did you say?” The porter stared at him, startled. Blue eyes stood out from a heavily tanned face.
 
The lizard-man hid the quail of anxiety in his chest, shrugging limply. He murmured again, chewing the edges of this strange language they spoke, willing her to interpret some vague nicety, a touch of an apology.
 
But the woman glared, stood up straighter. “I’m not sure I get your meaning, sir.”
 
The lizard-man gulped back surprise. They hear what they expect to hear. So what was this porter expecting?
 
That’s when he noticed the rings around her eyes, the shadows like bruises. Fine lines pressed brackets around her mouth, where many times she had forced a smile she didn’t feel like giving.
 
Yes, a hotel porter had seen a lot of life. Human behaviour was something she had learned to brace herself against. Her expectations were tainted.
 
From her neck dangled a pendant, a shield knot. An ancient ward against evil.
 
As if in answer, a knot formed in his throat. This was not what he’d been expecting.
 
****
 
And that was how “The sun-warmed porter vocally straffed (strained) the fuming page.” Sort of. I have to say, I found this one quite difficult to write. I mostly enjoyed that first image of the smoking candle staining the page (because I looked up the word ‘fuming’ and it’s also a method of exposing—usually wood—to ammonia fumes in order to produce dark tints, so that tempted me away from the ‘anger’ type of fuming and towards something quite different). But when I tried to write the ‘sun-warmed porter’ I couldn’t quite settle on this character, and I came up with a few different versions, but they kept feeling like a separate idea to this lizard-being.
 
Anyway, it’s useful sometimes to reflect on what does work and what doesn’t work so well, that’s all part of our learning journey as writers, and in a way, what I’ve written here could be treated a springboard all of its own. All you have to do is ask questions.
 
What happens to this lizard-man now that his cover is blown? Does his visual disguise begin to quiver and fail now that he’s lost some of his confidence? Feel free to use this as a writing prompt on its own if this idea intrigues you. I promise you, from experience I know that whatever you write will be different to whatever anyone else comes up with, because your imagination and writing style are unique.
 
If you do write something based on this, and would like to share, say, up to 250 words on the show (so it could be an extract or just something really short), drop me a line as per usual, or have a go at… let me see… the silver-eyed scrutiny, now that is an interesting word combination. What could that mean? Scrutiny of what? And by whom? How can their eyes be silver, or have a quality related to silveriness?
 
Go to annatizard.com, hit the contact button on any page footer, but make sure you submit by the Friday after the release of this show.
 
Oh, and don’t forget that Saturday 8th November is the last day on which you can get “I” For Immortality, an award-winning and deeply creepy novel, for a super-low price to celebrate the spooky season.
 
Until next time, go forth and be inspired!