Author Interview: Tracie McBride

Today’s guest is fantasy author Tracie McBride, renowned for her reality-twisting stories.
 
1. Describe the flavour of your fiction in six words.
Dark speculative fiction launching from reality.
2. What do you enjoy most about writing fantasy fiction?
The license to make stuff up!
3. Many people enjoy reading stories about undead creatures – ghosts, vampires, zombies. What do you think is the appeal?
I think the appeal differs from reader to reader. Some are fascinated by the possibility of a continued existence after death; some find the idea terrifying or abhorrent, yet feel compelled to explore or that terror.
4. Have any of your stories been inspired by mythology? 
I have a story coming out in Dagan Books’ FISH anthology in January 2013 which was inspired by a Maori mythological creature, the taniwha. I use the term “mythological” loosely; some Maori believe that taniwha exist.
5. In “Last Chance to See” published in Undead: Ten Tales of Zombies (edited by Rayne Hall) the main character gets reincarnated for twenty-four hours to say farewell to her friends and family. Where did the idea come from?

“Last Chance to See” has a deeply personal origin. One of my aunts was diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer. The family organised a small reunion, and I drove with my three young children from one end of the North Island of New Zealand to the other to see her (you can do that in one day if you start early; New Zealand’s not very big). It felt something like a wake, only with the “guest of honour” still present and participating. There was more laughter than you might expect, naturally a few tears, some blackly funny moments as my aunt told us of her experiences going shopping for something to wear in her coffin, and even although it was a momentous and meaningful occasion, the banal necessities of life still had to be attended to. I got to thinking – what if everybody had the chance to say goodbye to their loved ones before they departed for good? 
 
Thank you for answering our questions, Tracie. May 2013 bring you many more twisted ideas for great stories!
About Tracie McBride
Tracie McBride is a New Zealander who lives in Melbourne, Australia with her husband and three children. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in over 80 print and electronic publications, including Horror Library Vols 4 and 5, Dead Red Heart, Phobophobia and Horror for Good. Her debut collection Ghosts Can Bleed contains much of the work that earned her a Sir Julius Vogel Award in 2008. She helps to wrangle slush for Dark Moon Digest and is the vice president of Dark Continents Publishing. She welcomes visitors to her blog at http://traciemcbridewriter.wordpress.com/. 

Guest Post: Rayne’s Five Favourites: Short Story Collections

Rayne Hall has published more than forty books under different pen names with different publishers in different genres, mostly fantasy, horror and non-fiction. Recent books include Storm Dancer (dark epic fantasy novel), Six Historical Tales Vol 1, Six Scary Tales Vol 1, 2 and 3 (mild horror stories), Six Historical Tales (short stories), Six Quirky Tales (humorous fantasy stories), Writing Fight Scenes and Writing Scary Scenes (instructions for authors).

She holds a college degree in publishing management and a masters degree in creative writing. Currently, she edits the Ten Tales series of multi-author short story anthologies: Bites: Ten Tales of Vampires, Haunted: Ten Tales of Ghosts, Scared: Ten Tales of Horror, Cutlass: Ten Tales of Pirates, Beltane: Ten Tales of Witchcraft, Spells: Ten Tales of Magic and more. 

Her short online classes for writers intense with plenty of personal feedback. Writing Fight Scenes, Writing Scary Scenes, Writing about Magic and Magicians, The Word Loss Diet and more. 

For more information about Rayne Hall go to her website. 

Here are five short story collections I enjoyed, each by a different contemporary author, each published recently in ebook format.  The selection is highly subjective, based on my personal taste. I like stories which are creepy, quirky, twisted or dark, or which allow me to peek into different cultures and faraway places.

These are easy-to-read, entertaining stories, but they have a bite to them.  Paranormal elements – vampires, zombies, fairies, ghosts, sexbots, magical cupcakes – are woven into everyday reality. Some of the stories have dark or erotic content  – nothing overly graphic, but unsuitable for young readers.

I enjoyed Exile where a vampire gigolo tempts an older woman with eternal youth.

  

I wouldn’t read stories on the bus – I’d get travel-sick if I tried – but there are many other occasions when there’s just time for a quickie read. Since I take my Kindle almost everywhere these days, it’s handy to have short story collections like this. The stories are short, but not too short. I felt I was getting a good complete story with every one.

Some of the stories resonated more with me than others, some I didn’t care for, others I loved. But that’s ok. The collection contains a lot of stories, and it’s fun to choose favourites. My favourite was the ghost story Beware of Tuesdays because the suspense is high, and after reading it I kept thinking about the nature of this haunting.

What I liked particularly: The beginnings are vivid, immediately introducing the characters, the location and the premise, so I was hooked from the start. The pacing is perfect and the stories keep up the interest (at least, this reader’s interest) throughout, and there’s no dull middle. The narrative voice changes from story to story, always appropriate to the main character’s perspective.

                      
                       

These stories deal with cultural contrasts and different societal traditions in an intelligent, sensitive way. Many of the characters experience some kind of culture clash, for example, they grew up in one culture and now learn to adapt to another, or they belong to one culture and their family to another. The stories are about the characters’ way of conciliating and integrating these cultures.

I like the vividness and sensitivity, and I felt I learnt quite a bit about the concerns of people who come from those cultures. In places, the stories are sad, but the overall tone is uplifting.

The story which stuck in my mind long after reading is Dasi. It has an interesting structure, told backwards from when the narrator is a 78-year old widow to when she’s a 14-year old bride, and it is at the same time gentle and shocking.

4. Intelligent and Entertaining: Ghosts Can Bleed by Tracie McBride

I love the stories, every one of them. Each develops a ‘what if’ scenario, sometimes taking a very basic idea and spinning it out into a plot. The ideas a surreal, but utterly plausible. Based on human nature, I can believe these bizarre things are really happening.

The stories are intelligent and entertaining. Some are thought-provoking, too. Many have a paranormal, fantasy, science fiction or horror element.

My favourite yarn in this book Last Chance To See which offers an original take on the undead state.


  
These stories are a little sad in places, but filled with hope and beauty. They’re set on the south coast of England where I live, so I can personally relate to the location.

My favourite is Three-Ply Fantasy Special, a sensitive piece about an older person with a domineering daughter. I first read this story more than two years ago and still can’t get out of my mind.

  
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 I’m delighted to have discovered many excellent short story collections and anthologies recently – far more than ever before.
A few years ago, most publishers would not touch single-author short story collections. This kind of book didn’t sell in big enough numbers to cover the costs of printing, paper, storage, transport and shelf space.

But things have changed. With the advent of e-books, these costs no longer apply, and single-author story collections have become viable ventures. Many get published, and some are very good indeed.

Another benefit of the internet age is the ease of communication between readers and authors. Many authors include an e-mail address at the back of the book, inviting readers to get in touch. I’ve corresponded with the authors of these books, something which would have been unlikely in the days of snailmail.

I liked some of the stories so much that – wearing my Editor hat – I selected them for inclusion in my themed anthologies. You’ll find, for example,  a story from The Fairy Cake Bake Shoppein Bites: Ten Tales of Vampires, and one from Ghosts Can Bleed in Haunted: Ten Tales of Ghosts.


the country breathed a timeless life

“The low, undulating Danish landscape was silent and serene, mysteriously wide-awake in the hour before sunrise. There was not a cloud in the pale sky, not a shadow along the dim, pearly fields, hills and woods. The mist was lifting from the valleys and hollows, the air was cool, the grass and the foliage dripping wet with morning dew. Unwatched by the eyes of man, undisturbed by his activity, the country breathed a timeless life, to which language was inadequate.

All the same, a human race had lived on this land for a thousand years, had been formed by its soil and weather, and had marked it with its thoughts, so that now no one could tell where the existence of the one ceased and the other began. The thin gray line of road, winding across the plain and up and down the hills, was the fixed materialization of human longing, and of the notion that it is better to be in one place than another.”

— Isak Dinesen, Winter’s Tales

Guest Post: Danger in the Dark

Rayne Hall has published more than forty books under different pen names with different publishers in different genres, mostly fantasy, horror and non-fiction. Recent books include Storm Dancer (dark epic fantasy novel), Six Historical Tales Vol 1, Six Scary Tales Vol 1, 2 and 3 (mild horror stories), Six Historical Tales (short stories), Six Quirky Tales (humorous fantasy stories), Writing Fight Scenes and Writing Scary Scenes (instructions for authors).

She holds a college degree in publishing management and a masters degree in creative writing. Currently, she edits the Ten Tales series of multi-author short story anthologies: Bites: Ten Tales of Vampires, Haunted: Ten Tales of Ghosts, Scared: Ten Tales of Horror, Cutlass: Ten Tales of Pirates, Beltane: Ten Tales of Witchcraft, Spells: Ten Tales of Magic and more. 

Her short online classes for writers intense with plenty of personal feedback. Writing Fight Scenes, Writing Scary Scenes, Writing about Magic and Magicians, The Word Loss Diet and more. 

For more information about Rayne Hall go to her website. 

Does your story have a scene of danger or horror? Is it scary enough? Do you want your readers to fear for your main character’s safety? Here’s a simple technique on how to make a scene seriously frightening:

Turn the lights off.

Darkness makes people nervous, and everything is much more frightening in the dark. Can you change the time or location of your scene so it happens in darkness? The darker, the better. Absolute darkness is the scariest, when the protagonist sees nothing at all and has to grope their way. However, partial darkness can be spooky, too, especially with flickering lights and shadows.

Some ideas: 

A windowless room

Night time

Drawn curtains

A power-cut

Fuel shortage

Energy conservation

Candles burn out

Wind blows candle

Lantern falls into abyss

Bullet shatters light-bulb

Canopy of trees blocks out the sun

New moon

Clouds veil the moon

Solar eclipse

Thick smoke

Sandstorm

Lights turned off for love-making

Deep cave

Hiding in a dark closet

Flash-light battery dies

If the storyline permits, let the darkness increase gradually:

Dusk gives way to night

The camp-fire burns down

Clouds thicken

In the dark, humans are deprived of the sense on which they rely most: seeing. Other senses sharpen, especially hearing. Your point-of-view character suddenly hears a lot more noises. These sounds add to the scary effect. In the next lesson, we’ll explore how to make the most of sounds.

If the darkness is absolute, the point-of-view character relies on her sense of touch as she gropes her way around. Describe how the walls, the furniture, the trees feel to her fingers, and how the ground feels underfoot. Smells also become more noticeable in the dark, and you can give the reader an intense experience by mentioning a smell or two.

Darkness often brings low temperatures. Chills can increase the scare factor, so mention the cool breeze brushing your heroine’s arms, the cellar’s icy stone walls, the cold water dripping from the ceiling of the cave, the chill creeping through the thin soles of her shoes.

This technique suits almost any story, whether you want to send mild shivers across the skin of the paranormal romance reader,  chill the thriller reader’s bones, or make the horror fan’s heart thump.

Does your work-in-progress contain a frightening scene? Could you make it scarier by darkening the setting?  If you want feedback for an idea or have questions, leave a comment and I’ll reply. I’ll be around for a week and I enjoy answering questions.

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