Welcome, dear listeners. We’re back to horror, and going for something different today. Inevitably, we find ourselves covering quite a lot of fiction by dead white males, including the weird works of Hope Hodgson and Lovecraft. We can’t kick the period/pulp habit. But today we have two living, contemporary female authors with us – Anita Stewart and Clarissa Johal for our first Scary Women feature. Not only are they cool people to know, but they’ve notched up a lot of books between them, and they write horror that’s a bit different from our usual fare. Have a look…
greydogtales is about the weird, and about the creative urge. We celebrate what others create, be they women, longdogs or even men, and encourage our listeners to get involved. Last autumn, during the October Frights blog-hop, we met a number of neat female authors who do not obsess about Cthulhu stealing their minds (generally) but who produce the sort of fiction they want to produce. From paranormal worries to full-blown horror, their stories are what they do.
Women are not defined by men (it’s true, you know), and writers in this field are certainly not defined by the opinions of a decrepit Yorkshireman who happens to produce weird fiction. We wanted to have some women speak about the genre in which they chose to write, and why. And, in the process, see if they thought that gender affected their writing. Simple as that.
So we’re very pleased to have Anita and Clarissa with us, so we can get the low-down. Both of our guests have novels and anthologised stories available.
Writing as A F Stewart, Anita writes horror, SF and fantasy, and is from Nova Scotia, Canada. She also versifies.
Clarissa is from the United States, and writes tales of the paranormal (when she’s not on her trapeze).
greydog: Welcome, both of you. Let’s start with the overall view. The markets, and to some extent the fans, often like to label their favourite authors. Gothic, urban fantasy, dark fantasy, paranormal romance and so on. What do you call the genre(s) in which you write, regardless of other people’s labels?
clarissa: Paranormal without the romance, gothic horror without the gore. Simple as that. There may be some romantic tension, but if you’re looking for full-blown romance, look elsewhere. My characters keep their clothes on, and the bedroom door shut.
anita: As I write in a few genres, the labels tend to change depending on the story or book, but overall I generally use the labels dark fantasy or horror. I’ve also been known to sneak into the genres of paranormal, gothic, sci-fi, steampunk, poetry, and even non-fiction. I’m a bit fickle that way. And similar to Clarissa, I rarely write romance, or romantic scenes. My characters kill each other more often than kiss one another (although sometimes they do both).
greydog: So why these areas? By that we mean if fantasy and adventure, why weird fantasy and adventure? And if exploration of character, why use dark or scary fiction to go there?
anita: I never set out to write dark and scary fiction. I wanted to write epic fantasy, but I kept killing off my characters (often quite gruesomely), and exploring darker subjects in my writing. To me, the darker aspects of human nature were more compelling, delving into a character’s choices and questionable actions, and their consequences. Eventually I accepted it as inevitable, and declared myself a writer of all things dark and macabre.
clarissa: The genre chose me—flat out. I started out writing fantasy. Mid-way through a book I was working on, I was hit by two characters (Cronan and Lucas; my death spirit and guardian from Between) who didn’t fit. I kept setting them aside, but they’d come back, stronger than ever. I gave in, and began writing my first paranormal novel. It took me a year to complete, and it was accepted by a publisher three months later. I joke that I was pulled into the Otherworld with Between. I’m on my sixth book, and the ideas come to me faster than I can write them down.
greydog: We started out with the same intentions, but also went dark and weird somewhere along the path. When you entered the field, were you affected by the market presence of other women already writing in the genre?
anita: Not really. As I said, I never made a conscious decision to write the scary stuff, I stumbled into it. Any market influence would have been by example of good writing, no matter what gender. For example, one of my one of my biggest writing influences is Ray Bradbury. Another is Agatha Christie. The only consideration I gave to gender was with my pen name, and using my initials instead of my full moniker. That decision was in part to be gender neutral, and not to be pre-judged—I’m a woman writing fantasy, so I must write romantic stuff (which is about as far from the truth as you can get).
clarissa: I have to say, I rage against being pigeon-holed as a paranormal romance author. Again, it’s very difficult to write paranormal without people assuming you write romance. I love men in all their forms, but shirtless men will never grace my book covers.
greydog: We’ve heard it said that there is an area of paranormal and horror fiction which is dominated by male writers and readers, perhaps a bleaker, nastier section of the field. Do you think that’s the case?
anita: Possibly. I have found many female writers in the horror genre tend to lean more on the side of psychological horror as opposed to the gorier realm. (Though not all. I myself like to dabble with the blood and guts from time to time. In fact, I sometimes run a character body count on Twitter when I write a book.) That leaves the sub-genres of gore, slasher horror, and the so-called ‘torture porn’ open for the men to dominate. Though any discrepancy may simply be a matter of numbers, with horror in general still being dominated by the male writers.
As for the paranormal genre, that might be a matter of skewed perception. If you’re a woman and you say you write paranormal, I believe there’s still a tendency for people to automatically think ‘paranormal romance’, whether or not it’s true.
clarissa: There’s a definite sector of horror that’s hard core, and I do see the glut of that being written by men. However, there are women in that market too—and they can be just as twisted and evil, if not more so.
greydog: Let’s sneak down to character level. Do you feel more involved writing a female character, or does it make no difference what gender the character is?
clarissa: My characters tell me what to write, not vice versa. They come to me perfectly formed, and I usually dream their back stories. Because of that, I feel a connection to each and every one of them—male and female.
anita: I’m involved with every character, regardless of whether they are male or female. They all invade my head and talk to me, and tell me their stories. Although I do tend to find writing female characters easier (no doubt due to first-hand experience and all). I did deliberately put female characters front and centre with the Killers and Demons sequel, though. I figured why should the male villains have all the fun.
greydog: They shouldn’t! But on that point, there’s been a lot of talk about how well males can write female characters. The cheap way of writing so-called ‘strong’ female characters is to make them as axe-happy as the men and swear more. That may be fun, but it’s not exactly the answer. What makes a female character ‘strong’ for you?
anita: Generally I write my characters from a human perspective, as opposed to specific gender roles. I don’t approach characters as strong or weak, but well-rounded, with virtues and flaws both, be they male or female. I did, however, have to tackle this gender issue with Althea, the main character from my book Gothic Cavalcade. Her character has a background that could be viewed as stereotypical (a woman with a troubled and traumatic past) and it’s one of the few stories I wrote with a romance. So I needed to tread carefully, as not to turn her into a wishy-washy girl looking for a man to save her, or a hardened cliché. I needed a strong character, someone who survived evil, but still maintained a fragility of spirit. So I opted to make her cautious, even shy, in nature, but hopeful and sensible. A character whose choices lead her back to confront her past and eventually realise she can destroy it. And as the story plays out, her new love interest becomes her emotional guidepost, but not her saviour.
Also, I don’t think “axe-happy” women should necessarily be dismissed as a short-cut to a strong character. There’s no reason why female characters can’t be as action oriented as male ones. A character I’m currently writing, Doyle, is seriously lethal. But she has much more to her personality including slightly misguided loyalty, a sense of obligation, doubts, misgivings, and a maternal side that precipitates a change of heart and a change of allegiance. I think if you want strong female characters, then write them as fully realized human beings. And if they want to swing axes, let them.
clarissa: I find those particular characters annoying. If brandishing a weapon and dropping the f-bomb makes you strong, anybody can do that, it’s not a skill—sorry. Strength comes from within. A strong character (in my opinion) approaches a tough situation with their smarts. That said, I’m a pretty damn good fencer.
greydog: We’ll be careful what we say, then. Our fencing épées are rusting in mother’s loft (yes, we really did have some, but we were rubbish!).
And we suspect that we know the answer to the next question, from what you’ve both already said, but we’ll go there anyway. Do you feel that you write primarily for a female audience?
clarissa: I write stories for readers—I really don’t focus whether they’re male or female.
anita: In a word, no. I write for whoever likes dark fantasy and horror, with guaranteed dead bodies and little to no romance. I’m not picky, I’ll take any readers, female, male, alien, zombie…
greydog: Are there other female writer(s) in the field, early or contemporary, whom you admire?
anita: I admire fantasy writer, Jennifer Roberson very much (and if you’re looking for strong female characters, Del from her Tiger and Del series is a perfect example), and Morgan Llywelyn, who writes terrific historical fantasy and fiction. A recent favourite of mine is writer J. A. Clement, author of the On Dark Shores series; she’s a brilliant writer. And I have to give a shout-out to some fellow horror authors, Clarissa Johal, Ash Krafton, Angela Yuriko Smith, and Nina D’Arcangela, to name just a few.
clarissa: My favourite authors are male—Brom, Neil Gaiman and Robert Holdstock. There are a handful of classical authors I enjoy too, but again, all male.
greydog: Rob Holdstock was a great loss – Mythago Wood, just to name one book, was a seminal work in the eighties. Despite that, I remember talking to him about writing TV scripts to pay the mortgage, which always seemed unfair. Nice guy and a fellow zoologist, curiously enough.
Finally, as we’ve got you here, where next for both of you? Tell us what we might be seeing in 2016.
clarissa: I’m working on a paranormal novel, Poppy. My readers really liked a side-character from Struck, and kept asking for her story. Usually, I don’t do sequels or spin-offs, but decided to give it a go. Unbeknownst to me, Poppy had a story to be told! Here’s a peek at the blurb:
A red-headed, pink-loving mortician who speaks to the dead.
A socially awkward funeral director.
Poppy and Dante from Struck are back.
Something is lingering around Skyview Funeral Home–and it’s stealing souls of the departed. With Dante in tow, Poppy is determined to put a stop to it. Will she be able to protect those who are trying to cross over? Or will her soul be next?
anita: I’m working on three novels, in various stages of completion, at the moment. I have two steampunk books, one horror tinged book titled The Duke’s Assassin, one more of an adventure novel, called Racing the Hellfire Club. I’m also working on the first book in a dark fantasy series, called The Prophecy of Seven. Hopefully at least one will be finished sometime next year.
greydog: Many thanks for your time, Anita and Clarissa, and lots of luck with these projects.
We’ve put a couple of additional links to books up on the right-hand sidebar, but if you want to explore, Clarissa and Anita have author’s websites and Amazon pages as well, which can be found here:
Next week on greydogtales – probably more lurchers, and weird stuff by someone who isn’t around to complain… uh, what we mean is ‘a classic author’. That sounds better, doesn’t it?