Terrorizing Real Places with Clowns and Mayhem

I have a tendency to take real-life locations, particularly places I've lived in or visited, and insert them into my works of fiction. I usually take substantial liberties with these locations, playing with the geography and timeline. I enjoy this perhaps more than I should. Let's take a look at a few real-life locations that I've inserted into my novels and discover the terrible things I've done to them.

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Shadows of Tockland

This novel contains three real cities (all of them located in Northwest Arkansas) but moves them into a post-apocalyptic world and fills them with danger, violence, clowns, and plague. Isn't that nice?

Mountainburg

This small town has inspired locations in two of my novels: Shadows of Tockland and Mary of the Aether. In Shadows, it becomes a steam-powered, gas-lighted town on the edge of civilization. When the novel opens, a small traveling circus has come to town, and that's where our protagonist first meets our clown heroes.

In reality, it's a small, quiet town with a strange dinosaur park. It's also home to the Dairy Dream, which inspired the Dinky Dairy in Mary of the Aether.

West Fork

In Shadows of Tockland, West Fork is a city of strange hat-wearing, plague-ridden hillbillies. In real life, it a town of about 2,000 people that is chiefly known for Riverside Park, where you can dive off bluffs and splash around in the White River.

Fayetteville

In Shadows of Tockland, Fayetteville has been transformed by plague and war into a walled fortress city trying desperately to keep the sickness of the world at bay. The name has been reduced to Fayette, and the people have become hostile to everyone. In real life, Fayetteville is almost certainly the greatest city in Arkansas and is the fifth-best place to live in the U.S. Much of the action in the novel takes place in and around Dickson Street, so when the plague hits, watch out for Dickson Street, people. It's doomed!

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The Ribbon Tree

Bartlesville, Oklahoma

This small Oklahoma town is where I grew up and went to high school. I have strong memories of this place in the years 1987-1991. It has changed a bit since then, with new roads being built and some old businesses disappearing from the face of the earth. The version of it in the novel has had its geography messed with. Tuxedo Trailer Park, the setting of the story, is a fiction. It doesn't really exist, though it is based on a much smaller trailer park where a friend of mine lived. I've also placed a strange alien power in its midst and set it loose to ruin lives, so that's fun.

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The Vale of Ghosts

Siliven

Since this is a fantasy novel set in a completely different world, you might be surprised to discover that one of the primary locations in the story is based on a real place that I once visited. Siliven is a smallish town designed and built in a grid, where the north-to-south streets are numbered neatly from One to Ten. In the very center of the town, there's a large open plaza that serves as a meeting place. It's where a lot of significant events occur in the book series, and the dominant building there is the local church.

Believe it or not, Siliven is based on the city of La Plata, Argentina. Although La Plata is vastly larger than Siliven, it's layout is the same general idea. As you can see in the photo below, the streets of La Plata were designed and built in a grid. At the heart of the city, there's a large plaza which is dominated by the Cathedral of La Plata. If you took La Plata and shrunk it down significantly and moved it into a vague fantasy setting, you'd get Siliven.

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West Fork is the scene is a brutal struggle with plague-ridden hillbillies. Fayetteville (Fayette) is the sight of a fierce gun battle involving a clown troupe, an army, another army, and a mob of maniacs. Bartlesville is invaded by weird ribbon-like creatures that stir up all kinds of evil, grief, and hatred. Siliven (La Plata) is haunted by ghosts and eventually terrorized by a weird cave-dwelling monster.

See how fun it is?

The Reappearance of Long-Lost Short Stories: Cakey and the Rubes

One of my more well-reviewed novels is a post-apocalyptic circus story called Shadows of Tockland. Before it was a novel, however, it was a short story I wrote in 2009. Now, the sad thing about this particular short story is that it was slated to appear in a circus-themed magazine called Sideshow Fables, but the magazine went defunct shortly before the issue with this story appeared. Consequently, although I sold it, nobody ever read it. However, a modified version of this story appears as an incident in the novel.

So without further ado, here is the original short story:

Cakey and the Rubes

By

Jeffrey Aaron Miller

The knife wobbled as it spun, and Cakey the Clown knew he was going to miss the catch. He fought the instinct to reach for the straying blade. He had three others in the air and couldn’t afford to catch one at the expense of the others. And if it did fall, the crowd would love it. Nothing the rubes liked better than danger. He let it go. The handle of the knife brushed the tip of his middle finger and headed for the ground.

It was a one in a million shot. With the sound of Telly tumbling head over heels behind him, and Karl making rude noises at the women in the front row, Cakey felt the blade of the throwing knife pierce the thick leather of his oversized shoe and impale itself in his foot. It felt like an electrical jolt running up his leg. Then came a burst of agony, as if he had plunged his foot into ice cold water. He lost all of the knives. They bounced and clattered on the stage.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Telly said, finishing a backward somersault and landing on one foot. He was as yet unaware of the tragedy unfolding beside him. “The All-American Clown Crew Revue!”

Cakey bit back a scream. His first concern was for the rubes. He glanced up at the crowd to gauge their reaction. A sea of scabby faces, and all eyes on him. Some gaped, wide-eyed, in shock, but quite a few shook with excitement, thumping their knees with their fists. One young boy laughed so hard, he fell out of his chair. All of them had patchy hair, missing teeth, dirty faces, threadbare clothes, but they had paid their pennies. That was all that mattered.

Cakey saw the new kid, Daniel, standing in the back corner, covering his mouth with both hands. Baptism by fire. And then Cakey’s leg crumbled, and he went down. His vision dimmed, but he saw a puddle of blood on the stage, and Annabelle rushing to his side. Telly strode to the edge of the stage, raised himself up straight and tall, all four feet of him, and waved his top hat in the air.

“That will have to conclude tonight’s performance, ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “We hope you have been duly entertained.”

And the last sound Cakey heard before he passed out was a symphony of boos and hisses.

* * *

Daniel tried to keep out of the way. He took the chair in the back corner of the trailer behind the sink. Cakey had his foot up on the table, a mug of some frothy brew in his hand, while Annabelle tended to his foot. The knife had pierced right between his first and second toe, but she kept saying it looked worse than it was as she washed and cleaned it.

“Well, kid, that’s your first taste of circus life,” Telly said. He sat at the dressing table, removing the grease paint from his face with a rough hunk of a sponge. “What do you think?”

“I don’t know,” Daniel said. “Is it always like that?”

“I had to call it off early,” Telly said. He slipped the rainbow-colored wig off his head and set it on a wooden stand beside the mirror. “Other than that, yeah, that’s pretty much how it goes.”

Karl, who stood near the door of the trailer folding up his costume, let out a great guffaw. “The rubes love it when we get hurt.”

Daniel didn’t like the look of Karl, a great big barrel of a man with a thick moustache and a broad face, and he liked his act even less. Karl performed as Touches the Clown, and his whole shtick consisted of making inappropriate comments and rude noises at the audience. His makeup was a mess, and he had done a sloppy job of removing it. He still had streaks of white by each ear and along his neck.

“The danger is part of the act, kid,” Cakey said, wincing as Annabelle wound a makeshift bandage around his foot. “They eat it up.”

Of all the clowns in the show, Cakey impressed Daniel the most. He carried himself with authority, and the makeup on his face, which he had not yet bothered to remove, looked as smooth as a layer of acrylic paint.

“What did you expect it to be like?” Telly asked, rising from the makeup table and patting down his face with a washcloth.

“I don’t know,” Daniel said. “More like I read about in the history books, I guess. Circus clowns are supposed to be silly and have fun and make people laugh.”

“This ain’t a history book,” Cakey said. He waved his hands at Daniel and turned to Telly. “Where’d you pick up this kid?”

“Back in Winslow,” Telly said, unbuttoning his coat. “Don’t worry about it, Cakey. Go easy on him.”

“History books, he says,” Cakey replied with a look of disgust.

Daniel, feeling a flush creeping up his cheeks, averted his gaze.

“He’ll be fine,” Telly said, tossing his coat onto a stool and flopping down on a couch. “I got his shtick all worked out. Disturby the Clown, we’ll call him, and his whole thing will be that he’s cuckoo. That way, he can be the butt of the gags, and if the audience ain’t having a good time, he can really ham it up, make ‘em worry, see?”

Daniel didn’t like the sound of any of that. He could juggle a bit and do some acrobatics, but being the butt of gags didn’t sound like fun. He envisioned being slapped and kicked and knocked around while all the diseased townsfolk laughed and clapped. No, that was not what he had signed up for, not at all.

“They’re sick,” he said. He was only thinking out loud and didn’t mean to be overheard. “They’re all sick.”

“Who, us or the rubes?” Cakey asked.

“The rubes,” Daniel replied, with the briefest of hesitations. “They’re sick, and they’re entertained by sickness.”

Karl laughed and slapped his enormous belly with both hands. Annabelle, done wrapping Cakey’s foot, rose and turned to Daniel, smiling sympathetically. She performed as Bubbles the Clown and was the straight man. She knocked the other clowns around, threw pies in their faces and berated them. Offstage, however, she was soft-spoken and withdrawn, and beneath the makeup she had a pretty, apple-cheeked face.

“Every town’s got its sickness,” she said, reaching over and patting Daniel on the knee. “That’s how the world is these days. Lots of diseases.”

“You mean, like, real diseases?” Daniel said. “I was speaking sort of metaphorical.”

Annabelle nodded. “Didn’t you see all the sores on the people? Lots of places are like that.”

“Don’t any of you ever get sick?” Daniel asked. “Going from town to town with all these diseased people?”

“The risk goes with the job,” Cakey said. “You ask a lot of stupid questions, kid.”

The comment stung, and Daniel swallowed a sudden lump in his throat. “But, ain’t any of you ever died from catching something?”

Cakey waved his hand in a great big circle over his head. “Nobody in here has ever died,” he said. “Look, you got any other questions? Ask them now and then shut up for a while, would you?”

“Go easy on him,” Telly said.

Cakey ignored Telly. He carefully set his bandaged foot on the floor and leaned forward, resting both arms on the tabletop. “Any more questions, kid?” he said, leaning forward and glaring at Daniel. “Get them all out of your system.”

Daniel shrugged, but Cakey kept right on staring. “Er…I did sorta wonder a few things, I guess.”

Cakey made a rolling gesturing with the one of his hands.

“Well, I did sort of wonder why they all keep calling you by your stage name,” Daniel said. “Touches is Karl offstage, and Bubbles is Annabelle, but they all keep on calling you Cakey.”

Karl laughed again and stamped one foot. “Kid, Cakey don’t go offstage. He’s a clown day and night, on stage, in the trailer, or takin’ a crap in a ditch by the side of the road.”

Cakey smiled at this and grabbed the lapels of his clown costume. “That’s right. Part of my shtick used to be juggling these little birthday cakes. I could keep ‘em all in the air without the candles going out. That’s where the name comes from. But the rubes don’t go in for that sort of cute stuff anymore.” He shrugged. “Anyway, I kept right on being Cakey because that’s who I am. What’s the point of being two people?”

“Is that why you haven’t taken off your makeup?” Daniel asked.

Cakey’s smile died. “It ain’t makeup,” he replied, running a gloved finger down the side of his face from temple to chin. None of the colors smeared. Smooth as acrylic paint, his white face, the great blood-red smile, and the big blue eyebrows.

“It’s all a tattoo?” Daniel asked. His awe for Cakey had grown so much, he felt dizzy with it.

But Cakey sneered at him and turned away. “This kid ain’t gonna make it in the Clown Crew,” he said out of the side of his mouth.

“I think he’ll be just fine,” Annabelle said, patting Daniel on top of the head. “Give him some time, and he’ll toughen up.”

“He won’t,” Cakey said, taking a big swig from his mug. “He’s a soft little boy. Telly, send him home to Mama.”

“The kid stays for now,” Telly said. He had picked up a couple of small wood blocks from a table near at hand and idly juggled them as he spoke. “He needs time to prove himself. If he turns out to be a wash, we’ll toss him. No big deal.”

“I won’t turn out to be a wash,” Daniel said. “I swear.”

“The rubes like danger,” Cakey said, finishing off his drink and slamming the mug down on the table. “They like it when we get hurt. They like it when we act crazy. They want deranged stuff. That’s what they want these days. It don’t matter what you read in a history book. Times have changed. Can you handle that, kid?”

Daniel took a deep breath. The honest answer was that he didn’t think so. He wanted to be silly and fun, not deranged and dangerous. But he couldn’t bring himself to disappoint Cakey, so he shrugged and said, “I guess so. Sure.”

“Sure, he says,” Cakey replied with a shake of his head. Karl laughed. “You’ll disappoint. I can tell.”

“He won’t,” Annabelle disagreed, giving Daniel another pat on the head.

A noise arose from outside. Voices and the sound of bodies shuffling through high grass. Telly lurched to his feet, losing the blocks, which bounced off his shoulders onto the couch. Karl fell into a defensive posture, fists raised, as if he thought invisible people had entered the room to attack them. Annabelle rushed over to the trailer’s single window. Cakey, however, didn’t move, a strange little smile on his face.

“What’s that?” Daniel asked. Angry voices, drunken voices. His heart pounded in his chest, and he had to fight an urge to dive under the table.

“Rubes,” Telly said, as he ran over to a prop trunk in the corner and started rooting around. “Karl, where’s my shillelagh?”

“It’s in there,” Karl said. “Keep looking.”

Telly dug down to the bottom of the trunk and, being so short, nearly fell in. He caught himself on the metal lip and came up with a shout of joy, wielding what appeared to be a walking stick. The shillelagh was covered in knots and tapered to a point on one end. Telly took a few practice swings with it and turned to Karl.

“If they come to the door,” he said, “let ‘em in.”

Karl grinned. “Sure thing, boss. I’ll even give you the first crack.”

The rubes outside were close enough now to make out what they were saying. One particularly loud individual, his deep voice booming but his words slurred, shouted, “We never got our money’s worth!”

“Yeah, we’s ripped off,” cried another.

“Send them clowns out here and give us our money’s worth,” a third said. “We paid for an hour of clownin’, and we only got twenty minutes.”

“What’s happening?” Daniel asked, hating the tremor in his voice. He had hunkered down in his chair as low as he could go and drawn his knees up to his chest.

“Sometimes the rubes don’t pay us enough, and we gotta bust heads,” Telly said, taking another swing with his shillelagh. “Other times, they don’t think we entertained ‘em enough, and they try to bust ours.”

“It’s another part of the job, kid,” Cakey said. He had yet to get up from his seat. “Let me guess, you don’t like this part either?”

“No, not really,” Daniel said.

Annabelle pulled back the curtain and peeked outside. She turned back around, eyes wide, and said, “Whole bunch of them surrounding the trailer. Drunk or sick or both.”

“Does it look like they mean to attack?” Telly asked.

As if in answer, they heard a cry go up from the crowd, and something thumped against the trailer’s single door.

“Give us what we paid for,” someone shouted. “Or give us our money back!”

More pounding on the door. Shouts and laughter came from all sides. Telly took his place in front of the door and raised the shillelagh high up over his head.

“Open the door and let the rubes in,” Telly said.

Karl smiled, nodded, and opened the door. A grizzled-looking drunk with a long black beard stood on the step, a long oozing sore on his forehead and a rheumy look in his eyes. He had a rock clutched in one meaty fist, and he drew his arm back to throw it.

“Clowns,” he spat.

Telly brought the shillelagh down with a deep and satisfied cry, and it smacked the drunk right on the mouth. A loud crack, a burst of blood, and the drunk, eyes crossing, fell backward.

“Nice to meet you,” Telly said.

The drunk landed on the grass with a groan, and an immediate cry of outrage went up from the crowd. Karl slammed the door shut and turned to Telly, laughing.

“Beautiful,” he said, clapping the much smaller man on the shoulder.

“But, of course,” Telly said with a bow. “One rube down, 99 to go.”

The outcry of the rubes became the sound of all of them rushing the trailer. Annabelle reached over to the dresser and picked up a jar of cold cream and held it in her hands. Telly raised his weapon for another blow. And, now, at last, Cakey rose, favoring his wounded foot, and turned toward the window, his empty mug dangling from one hand. Daniel, wanting nothing more in all the world than to sink into the ground and out of sight, nevertheless made himself stand up. He intended to find a weapon and join the others, but it took all his effort just to stay on his feet, and his hands clutched desperately at the rim of the nearby sink.

“Brace yourselves,” Telly said.

On all sides, bodies smacked into the walls, and the whole trailer rocked. Daniel almost went down, but his iron grip on the sink kept him up. Cakey winced as he was forced to put weight on his bandaged foot.

“Kill the clowns,” one of the rubes screamed. “They got Reginald! Knocked his teeth out! Kill the clowns!”

The crowd began rocking the trailer, and the axles squealed in protest. Annabelle stumbled into the dresser. A coat rack fell with a clatter.

“Open it,” Telly said.

      Karl opened the door, and a sea of leering, diseased faces peered in. Bodies were pressed up against the side of the trailer in a heap. Dirty faces, stained clothing, toothless mouths. Arms reached through the open door, fingers clawing along the frame. Telly took a step back to avoid the grasping hands and began swinging away. The shillelagh thumped off arms, chests, necks, faces, and with each blow, the crowd’s frenzy intensified.

“Karl, help,” Telly said.

Karl had ducked behind the door to avoid the hands, but he stepped out into the open now and raised both fists. He had big hands, rough knuckles.

“Come get your money’s worth, rubes,” he said, and began punching wildly into the crowd.

Telly and Karl timed their blows to avoid each other, moving like some kind of strange clockwork machine. First shillelagh, then fist, then shillelagh, then fist. Bodies thrashed, voices cried out.

“You need more help?” Cakey asked from his place beside the table.

“Wait your turn,” Telly said.

And then one of the rubes had Karl. His caught the collar of his shirt in his hand and drew him to the door. Other hands reached for him, grabbing hair, moustache, grabbing flesh. Annabelle cocked her arm back to throw the jar of cold cream, but Karl was blocking her view.

The trailer’s single window shattered, and glass rained down onto the couch. Annabelle screamed.

A body lunged through the broken window, a long, lanky old man with wild eyes and scabby lips. Annabelle was closest to him, and she heaved the jar at his head. It struck him on the forehead and bounced away, but he scarcely noticed. He reached for her with both hands.

“Want our money back,” he said in a voice as thick as sand.

Annabelle fell back against the dresser to avoid him. And now Cakey made his move. He spun on his good foot, and, in one graceful pirouette, brought the empty mug up and around, smacking the old man across the nose. Blood burst from one nostril, but the old man only grinned, showing three crooked teeth.

Karl, meanwhile, despite his considerable bulk, was being pulled into the crowd. He kept punching with one hand, but his other hand was caught. Telly spun his shillelagh around, pointed end first, and began jabbing it through the narrow space between Karl’s legs. Rubes cried out in pain, and some fell back, but always more moved up to replace them.

“They’re gonna take me,” Karl said.

“Nah, they ain’t,” Telly said, speaking through clenched teeth. The end of his shillelagh sank into a foot with a wet thunk.

And Daniel, still clutching the sink with both hands, kept trying to get his feet to move. He had no weapon, and the only thing near at hand was a dirty ceramic bowl floating in murky water. The old man in the window grabbed a handful of Cakey’s orange hair and gave it an almighty tug. It was not a wig. Cakey snarled in pain and drove the mug into the old man’s face again and again.

“They got me,” Karl cried again. He was in among them now, one leg and one arm poking out of the sea of rubes. They slapped at him, clawed at him, screamed in his face, and, all the while, Telly jabbed away.

Cakey smashed his mug into the old man’s face until it broke into pieces, but the old man had a firm hold of his air and was trying to drag him to the window. Annabelle picked up a wooden wig stand and threw it at the attacker, but it bounced away without effect. The old man’s free hand shot up and snagged her wrist and drew it toward his mouth.

“Money back,” he said in a voice filled with blood and sickness. He drew her hand into his mouth and bit down, and she howled in pain.

“Damned rubes,” Cakey said.

Daniel felt something wet in his hands and glanced down. The bowl. He had grabbed the bowl out of the sink without realizing it. Dirty water dripped onto the dusty floor of the trailer. The fear worming in his gut melted into a strange and steely cold.

Karl had disappeared into the crowd. Daniel heard him yelling, heard rubes crying out in pain, but he was gone. Telly was standing in the open doorway now, swinging the shillelagh for all he was worth. Rubes fell left and right with smashed teeth, busted lips, broken noses.

“Back, you rubes, back,” Telly said. And then one of them reached out and snatched the shillelagh and pulled it from his grasp.

Meanwhile at the window, the old man, surprisingly strong for one so thin, managed to pull Cakey off his feet. He still had Annabelle’s hand in his mouth, shaking his head back and forth like a rabid dog trying to rend flesh.

Daniel took a deep breath, held it a moment, and unleashed it in a howl of fear and anger. He leaped away from the sink, kicked a chair out of his way, and dove for the old man. At the last second, the old man released Annabelle’s hand and turned to him, a look of almost-concern on his face. Then Daniel brought the edge of the ceramic bowl down against his face with his full weight behind it.

The wet and nasty sound of the impact made a strange harmony with the almost musical shattering of the bowl, and the old man went limp. Daniel fell against him, then slid off onto the arm of the couch.

“That’s for you, rube,” he said, landing in a heap among shards of glass.

Cakey picked himself up, grunting in pain. The bandage on his foot was soaked with blood, but he grabbed the old man by the hair and pushed him out of the window into the waiting crowd.

“There’s your money back,” he cried, shaking a fist at them.

Daniel turned to the door. Telly was picking up whatever was near at hand and flinging it at the rubes. His top hat, shoes, a makeup brush, a small pillow, a stool. One of the rubes had his shillelagh and swung it at him but missed. Others reached for him. Daniel examined the bowl in his hands. It had shattered right down the middle, leaving a jagged edge. Good enough. He ran for the door.

“Telly, move,” he said.

Telly glanced over his shoulder, saw him coming, and tumbled out of the way. Daniel grabbed the bowl in both hands, thrust it out in front of him, and charged the crowd. Half a dozen bodies were crushed together in the open doorway. They saw him coming and seemed taken aback. The one with the shillelagh lifted it, then seemed to reconsider and stepped back. Daniel charged right into their midst and drove the jagged edge of the bowl into the mass of diseased faces.

Howls of pain, and the shillelagh fell to the ground. The bowl broke into fragments, and blood spurted. Rubes fell back from the door, one of them clutching his neck.

“Kill the rubes,” Daniel screamed. He threw the pieces of the bowl into the crowd, then stooped and picked up the shillelagh. “Kill every dirty rube!”

He unleashed his full fury on the few still standing in the doorway, bringing the shillelagh down again and again, aiming for eyes, noses, smashing someone’s fingers against the doorjamb.

“Here’s your money back,” he cried, echoing Cakey. “Here’s your money back, your filthy rubes!”

Something in his demeanor broke through the fog of sickness and alcohol. The rubes drew back from the door, clutching bruised faces and bleeding noses. The crowd parted right down the middle. But Daniel kept on swinging, hitting the door, the frame, the floor, hitting nothing at all.

“That one’s insane,” one of the rubes said. “Get away from him.”

“Dirty rubes,” Daniel howl. “Come get what you paid for!”

He took a last great swing, hit the door, and snapped the shillelagh in two.

The rubes didn’t seem to notice that the weapon was broken. Many of them were already fleeing, others backing away, some crawling around on the ground and moaning. Karl reappeared, bloody lip and black eye, and stumbled into the trailer. Daniel moved out of his way, but his whole body felt electric. He spun wildly, swinging his hands, looking for someone to hit. Cakey and Annabelle gaped at him from their place beside the broken window.

“They’re leaving, kid,” Telly said, picking up the broken pieces of his shillelagh. “Hey, kid, the rubes are leaving.”

Karl finally stepped over to him and grabbed his wrists.

“Kid, it’s over,” he said. “We scared ‘em off.”

Daniel gave a last great cry then broke into a sob, but he fought back the tears. He didn’t want to cry. He wanted to smash someone in the face. Karl tried to draw him into an embrace, but Daniel slipped out of his grasp and stumbled across the room, collapsing into his seat beside the sink.

“Karl, get the engine started and get us out of here,” Telly said, pushing the door closed with his shoulder. “Let’s head up the road a piece before we stop for the night. I don’t think those rubes will come back, but it’s better not to risk it.”

Karl nodded and crossed the room, stepping around Cakey and Annabelle, over the toppled chair and coat rack, pausing beside Daniel long enough to give him a worried look. Then he passed through a heavy curtain. The trailer was one of three, all connected in a line to the hitch of an old modified Hummer. As Annabelle picked up bits of broken glass, and Telly stuffed the pieces of his shillelagh back into the trunk, Daniel sat and trembled. After a moment, the engine of the Hummer roared to life. A few rubes remained. Daniel heard them moaning in pain outside, but the crowd had gone.

A shadow fell over him. He glanced up. Cakey was standing there, grinning broadly. Daniel returned the look.

“You did good, kid,” he said.

He thrust his hand out, and Daniel grasped it.

“I’m real proud of you,” Cakey said.

And Daniel, despite his trembling limbs and racing heart, despite the little knot of molten lead in his belly, burst out laughing. He wanted to leap up and hug Cakey and hug Annabelle, lift Telly onto his shoulders and dance around the room.

“Welcome to the circus,” Cakey said, and laughed along with him.

My Trouble with Genres

So I tend to write things that are not easily categorized into specific genres. I meld elements of fantasy and science fiction, various sub-genres, with my own peculiarities. It's possible that this has sometimes served as a hindrance to my success since publishers prefer easy categories. In fact, one of my better novels (Shadows of Tockland) was once rejected by a major publisher for not having enough science in the science fiction. Just take a look at how the various genres factor into my novels.

Shadows of Tockland

Post-apocalyptic science fiction with very little actual science. It also deals quite a bit with the history of clowning. It's also got zombies, in a manner of speaking. Hard to categorize.

Garden of Dust and Thorns

Technically, it's a fantasy novel because it involves magic, but it has almost none of the trappings of the fantasy genre. It's also got some elements that smack of science fiction.

The Vale of Ghosts

The biggest mishmash of genres I've ever written. At times, it almost feels like a young adult novel, with its young, alienated female protagonist and her various misadventures, but it's clearly not written for a young audience. It involves magic, so that makes it a fantasy novel. I sometimes classify it as paranormal, because it involves, in a way, the spirits of dead people, but it's not an easy fit with your typical paranormal novel. There are numerous elements of horror throughout, but it also has a few science fiction concepts.

You see what I'm talking about. The same goes for most of the novels I've written. Even when I do limit myself to a specific genre, I tend to avoid the trappings of that genre. Maybe it's been a hindrance at times, but I can't help myself.

The Meaning of Monologues

Let's talk about character monologues. In any story of significant length, there will be moments in which characters pause in the middle of the action in order to present a lengthy discourse, aka wall of text, to the reader. What possible reason could a writer have in unloading a paragraph of uninterrupted speech? Often it's a way to disguise exposition or to present back story. Other times, it's a moment to simply state the theme of the story in a way that won't take readers out of the scene.

We all do it. Even in an action-packed story, a character will pause at some point to speak at length about thematically significant things. Can I give you a few examples from my own books?

How about the time Aiden Tennant speaks in massive blocks of text about his life and his hopes and dreams? Mary responds now and again in order to break it up into digestible pieces, but it's basically Aiden downloading all of the thematic elements related to his character, in paragraphs such as the following (which proceeds after his confession about loving comic books and fantasy novels):

“So here’s the thing,” he said. “It’s gonna sound really weird, but the truth is I want all of that stuff to be real. Maybe it isn’t, but I want to believe in it, all of it. Nobody really believes in anything. My parents don’t believe in anything. They just breathe and eat and work. People like Kristen Grossman don’t believe in anything. Most of the people in Chesset go to church on Sunday and hear all of these wild, weird stories, but I don’t think they really believe a word of it. Some guy raised a staff and parted the ocean in two?” Aiden raised both hands over his head and waved them around, miming the old story and drawing more laughs from Kristen and the twins. He did not seem to notice them. “They don’t really believe that happened. They wouldn’t even want to live in a world where that kind of stuff was possible. They all want bland, they like bland. Not me. I don’t want a boring old world where all anyone ever does is grow up and work some awful job for no money and spend Friday evenings watching high school football games and recalling the so-called glory days until they die. They can keep that kind of life. Even if there aren’t any real aliens or wizards or magic or whatever, I want to read about them and pretend. It’s better than nothing.”

Or how about the time in The Vale of Ghosts when the mayor speaks for eight hundred minutes during a public meeting? What a perfect opportunity to clarify the nature of the conflict that will drive the rest of the novel. Here is the second paragraph out of six in which the mayor speaks:

“None of us can stand here and pretend we do not know,” the mayor continued. “What unfolded here two days ago is no mystery. Haven’t our ancestors passed down to us a thousand warnings about the vale beneath the ridge? The east, the west, and the south are closed to us. Only the land to the north is open. And not only did they warn us, but they left the ten relics of the prophet to protect us. Those who came before did all they could to keep us safe. Only deliberate disobedience, only mischief and defiance, bring trouble here.”

Then there's that time in Shadows of Tockland when David Morr gets a little speech from the ringleader of the circus about the nature of clowning and the different types of clowns, but really it's all foreshadowing the character conflicts that are to come. This long discourse is split up into reasonable chunks by David's brief responses, but otherwise it's just a huge thematic presentation of the novel itself:

“Onstage, whiteface clown is the boss. He’s the smart one, the bully, orders around the others. In our troupe, Cakey is the whiteface....whiteface clown is at the top. At the bottom, you’ve got the auguste,” Telly said. “The auguste clown is typically the dimwit character, the goofball, the idiot. Whiteface likes to slap him around, harass and threaten him, maybe toss a pie in his face. Karl is our auguste clown. He plays a character called Touches. Onstage, Touches takes a lot of crap from Cakey. That’s how it goes.” 

“Karl is pretty huge,” David said. “He doesn’t have to take crap from anyone, I wouldn’t think.”

“Onstage and offstage, kid,” Telly said, waving him off. “I told you, don’t get confused. Now, in between the auguste and the whiteface, you’ve got the contra-auguste. Contra-auguste is typically trying to win the whiteface clown’s approval, caught in the middle, you might say. Annabelle is our contra-auguste, performing as Bubbles.” 

“Got it.” 

“As for me, I’m the ringmaster,” Telly said. “The ringmaster’s job is to keep the other clowns bouncing off each other. A manipulator but never a victim. That’s me. And that ends lesson one. Now, did you write all of that down?”

Or how about that one time in Garden of Dust and Thorns where the protagonist screams the central theme of the entire book at another character for an extended length of time?

“You wanted to see the Garden in ashes, you’ll get your wish,” she said. “Revel in the death of the world, Sindaya. Revel in it. I tried to tell you. I pleaded with you, with you and with the others, pleaded with you to look around you, look at what you are destroying, and you would not hear it. Celebrate as your Lord of Dust and Sand and Misery eats into the Garden, celebrate and laugh as you pierce the bodies of innocent people who did nothing to offend you, whose only sin was living in the shadow of the wall. Wretches and pigs, all of you. Vile monsters!”

And that, folks, is what a nice monologue is all about. It's a chance for a character to just spell it all out without it feeling like a wall of dull exposition. Done right, readers won't even think outside of the character. They'll just be swept up in the scene.

To be fair, it doesn't always take a long paragraph to pull this off. It can happen in a sentence or two, such as the time in Dreams in the Void where the villain reveals the theme and plot in one short little statement:

“You’re…you’re already becoming like me,” he said. “Everyone is. There is only one mind now…only…”

Right to the point. Thank you, monologues.

Cakey's Love Letter to Rubes

Hello, rubes.

And you say, "Wait. Rube? What is a rube? To whom are you referring?"

Why, I'm referring to you, friend.

And you say, "How can you call me a rube?"

Well, do you work for the circus? Are you circus people? Are you a clown? A trapeze artist? A big old burly roustabout? Heck, are you a regular old carny, smelling of corn dog grease and body odor? No? Well, then you are a rube. A common folk. Are we clear? I hope you can live with it, my dearest sweethearts, because I intend to call you a rube until the end of time.

Now that we've worked that out, let's move on.

My name is Cakey the Jacked-Up Clown. You heard that right. I'll say it again, slowly. Cakey. The. Jacked-Up. Clown. My specialty is knife juggling, but I'm also fairly skilled at acrobatics and street fighting.

You might not know this, but every clown has a unique "face." That's right. No true clown would ever copy the face of another. My face looks as follows: A big blue unibrow that covers half my forehead, a little green dot on the end of my nose, a blood red mouth that is smiling on the left and frowning on the right, a big puff of orange hair. By the way, it's not a wig, and it's not makeup. It's my actual face.

As for the costume, it changes. Sometimes I wear the big poofy yellow one. Sometimes I wear the big poofy patchwork one. It depends on my mood. There's a blue one, a pink one, a clear cellophane one, and a plastic trash bag I wear on holidays.

For the last few years, I've worked for a traveling circus called The Klown Kroo. The terrible spelling in the title is the fault of a big cinder block fellow named Karl. It's a long story. Anywho, when we come to your town--and we will, rubelings, we will--I highly recommend you plop down your centavos and come see us. It'll be two hours of the most intense and troubling entertainment you've ever witnessed. Knives will be thrown, plates will spin, a tiny little man in a top hat will prance about, a big guy will harass some rubes in the front row. It'll be all-around good family fun with minimal suffering. I promise.

Oh, I know what you're thinking, "Cakey, we can't come and see the show. It's not safe to congregate in public places these days! Too many people with brain-sickness wandering about! We might get bitten or stabbed!" Fair point. And you're right, as far as the biting and stabbing goes. However, I swear to you this solemn oath, my rubes: The Klown Kroo will do all in its power to fend off any errant sicklies who wander into the tent. We want our rubes to be relatively safe while they enjoy the show, and I promise you will be as relatively safe as you can possibly be!

At least until the end of the world. When the end of the world comes, we're all doomed, and no one will be able to help you. But until then, come and enjoy the show.

By the way, if you have a brain worm infestation, please don't come. In that case, you're better off wandering into the forest never to return. In fact, two out of every two doctors say the best medicine for brain sickness is being lost forever far from civilization, clothing optional. That's science, folks, and who are you to question science?

Alright, that's about all I've got to say to a rube. To be honest, it's hard to relate to rubes. Mostly, I just want your pennies and dimes and your rapt attention. But I like you as much as I am capable of liking you. When the ever-night comes, I will remember that you came to my show, and I will not hunt you down like a hoot owl in the night. Fair enough?

Good.

Sincerely,

Cakey the Jacked-Up Clown, Esq.

not a picture of me

P.S. -- They wrote a book about my adventures. Read it. Just click the stupid picture below. *Ugh* There, I pitched it. Can I go now?

My Favorite Characters

I love a good character. Actually, I love writing a good character as much as reading about one. Now, what makes a character "good" is highly subjective, and in particular what I enjoy about writing a certain character may not translate into what readers enjoy, or don't enjoy, about the same. In general, what makes me enjoy writing a particular character usually has to do with a combination of a quirky personality and clear (to me, the author) motives. To that end, here are some of the characters that I've most enjoyed writing over the years.

Cakey the Clown (aka Gavril Tugurlan) 

This will come as no surprise to those who have read the novel, I suppose. In the end, Cakey stands out quite a bit for his weird antics and strange behavior. The particular iteration of Cakey that appears in my novel Shadows of Tockland is a genuine weirdo, driven by a mysterious childhood, some Roma prophecies with apocalyptic leanings, and a significant amount of psychological trauma and guilt. All of this combines to create a character who is fearless, overly confident, occasionally threatening and dangerous, hard for other characters to like, but also quite talented (at juggling knives and other useful things).

Kristen Grossman 

Now, here's a character that some readers just do not like at all, but she is one my favorites. In the Mary of the Aether series, Kristen is the protagonist's "best" friend, and by "best" I mean "sort of a nuisance and sometimes a bully and too often present." She is sarcastic, and sometimes it is not clear if the sarcasm comes from genuine meanness and hostility or if she's trying, in a lame way, to be funny. Readers that see her as just a bully who is constantly insulting everyone tend not to like her. As the author, of course, I understand that a lot of this comes from fear and pain, and by the second novel, Mary of Shadows, it should become clear to readers that she has a profound sense of abandonment tied to her father. Though that doesn't excuse her behavior, as the author, I always knew that there was, under the crust of sarcasm and annoyance, a tender-hearted soul who yearned to do something awesome in life. At the same time, the sarcasm was fun to write, I must admit.

Kuo 

If you've read Children of the Mechanism, you know that it is a dark and relentlessly bleak novel about child slaves living and working in a vast factory, lorded over my cruel robots called Watchers. Because of their strange childhoods, all of the characters exhibit unhealthy emotional development, reacting to things in unnatural ways, but none of the major characters is stranger than the one called Kuo. Now, as an author, I am fully aware that Kuo is most likely suffering from some kind of genuine mental illness, probably schizophrenia, among other things. However, along the way he has some major revelations about his world that set in motion all of the events driving the plot. His compulsion, his shifting view of the character called "Rel" (part-real and part-hallucination), and ultimately his drive to fulfill his purpose make him, for me, a compelling character.

Vyshe 

I can't say too much about this character because he is the antagonist in an unfinished fantasy series of mine called The Archaust Saga. The first volume, The Vale of Ghosts, is available, but I've done little to promote it. Mostly, I am waiting until the second volume is closer to completion. I'm about two thirds of the way through that one. Anyway, let me be frank, Vyshe is a despicable creature who does terrible things. I don't like him as a person, but his motives are weird, and his skill-set is unusual, and his personality makes him a real oddball. He is up to all sorts of shenanigans in the second volume. He creeps me out, and he is gross and vile, but as a villain, I am truly enjoying writing about him. Not to say I won't be relieved if and when he gets defeated. But I won't say much more about him at this time.

Anyway, I've enjoyed far more of my characters than this, but these few are among my favorites. Getting into the headspace of a character as you write about him or her is part of the fun of creating novels, but the author's experience of a character is often quite different from a reader's experience of the same. For my readers out there, which of my characters, if any, have you enjoyed? Are your feelings about the ones in this list different than mine? Let me know.

The Joy of Chapter Titles

Although it may seem like a minor aspect of writing a novel, I really enjoy creating chapter titles. I think a good chapter title has a profound effect on the reader. Ideally, it should give some ominous inkling of what is to come without revealing too much. Done right, the reader reaches the end of a chapter, turns the page, sees the title of the next chapter and says, "Uh oh."

For example, in my novel Shadows of Tockland, one of the main characters, an oddball circus performer by the name of Cakey, keeps talking about some terrible impending event called the "ever-night." He is vague about the particulars, but he is convinced this event is coming and that it will be catastrophic. And then, all of a sudden, readers turn a page, and there is the chapter title: Ever-night. *cue ominous music*

In Children of the Mechanism, the characters keep descending deeper and deeper into a massive factory, encountering stranger and more terrible things as they go. Then, all of a sudden, readers turn the page and see the next chapter title: The Bottom of the World. They've reached the bottom. What awful thing will they find there?

It might be something subtle. In my Young Adult novel Mary of Shadows, there is a chapter early on called The Worst Person in the World. My hope is that when readers see it, the title piques their interest--The worst person in the world? Who could that be?--and makes them want to keep reading to find out.

Now, with all of that said, I believe I have just created my own personal favorite chapter title. I can't give any context for it because I'm not done writing the novel. This new story has a little bit of the vibe of Children of the Mechanism, if not quite so bleak and oppressive. But I think maybe the title will be interesting all by itself. Behold:

The Sweet Embrace of a Thousand Monsters

Oh, the Shadows! Oh, the Tockland!

Once upon a time, I wrote a book about a troupe of clowns who end up fighting through a city filled with zombie-like hordes and an army with tanks. What would possess an otherwise sane person to write such a book? Well, unfortunately, an exploration of the origin of this particular book will only cast doubt upon my sanity. Nevertheless, let's go.

So the origin of the book Shadows of Tockland starts with a character named Cakey the Clown, AKA Cakey the Jacked-Up Clown. This is a character who precedes the writing of the book by many years. In fact, Cakey came into being on Halloween night in 1999, and here is what he originally looked like:

You see, I was invited to a friend's Halloween party out in the country, and I didn't have a costume. So another friend of mine went with me to Wal-Mart to find something, but Wal-Mart was down to slim pickings on the Halloween aisle. I wound up with this strange clown makeup that had to be water activated in order to be applied. Well, I didn't have any water, but I did have a bottle of Sprite. So I used Sprite to apply the makeup as my friend drove down this rough and bumpy country road, and the end result is the picture you see above.

Because the makeup was all clumpy and caked on, I called myself Cakey the Jacked-Up Clown, and even though it was just a one-time gimmick for a Halloween party, the idea and the name stuck with me. Cakey began to appear each year at Halloween parties, taking on a slightly different appearance each time (all of them fairly disturbing so apologies in advance):

Now, of course, because I have an overactive imagination, this character began to take on a life of his own in my brain. I began to work out a storyline for him. Who is Cakey? Where does he come from? Why is he a "jacked-up" clown? This led to me to create a whole strange world for Cakey. And that led me to create an extremely crude website full of amateurish flash cartoons called The Klown Kroo (a fragment of which survives right here).

Now, that early version of Cakey and The Klown Kroo was just a joke, but eventually, I decided to take the idea seriously. Could I actually transform this silly concept into a serious novel? For years, I worked out various ideas. Initially, I intended to set the story in a twisted version of the modern world. Later, I toyed with the idea of some kind of pseudo-mythological setting.

Eventually, I gave up on Cakey (and writing) for a few years, but after Mary of the Aether was published, I returned to the concept. By that time, I had become somewhat obsessed with the post-apocalyptic genre, so I decided to translate Cakey into that setting. An idea began to form in my mind of a clown troupe facing hostile crowds in some kind of wasteland.

In transforming Cakey from a silly cartoon to a believable character, I realized the only reasonable explanation for his behavior is that he is in some sense mentally ill or at least deeply damaged. But nobody wants to read about another deranged, violent clown, so I gave Cakey a strong (if skewed) moral foundation. He is not a nihilist by any means. Instead, he is driven by an almost prophetic conviction about his own destiny. And that is how we wound up with a character that The Brass Rag called "a demented poet."

But one of the key changes that came about in crafting the novel was that I shifted the narrative perspective away from Cakey and onto a newcomer. Cakey is too damaged to give a reliable point-of-view and too self-justifying to offer a clear understanding of himself. So David Morr became the protagonist, and as a newcomer, he offers an unfiltered view of Cakey and the rest of this ragtag group of weirdos. 

The completed novel, Shadows of Tockland, proved to be too baffling for most publishers. I got a host of responses that said similar things: "this is well-written and the characters are interesting, but we don't know what to do with it." One publisher said it didn't have enough science fiction to be considered science fiction. Another said it was really good but they had no idea how they would market it. A post-apocalyptic adventure novel about a clown troupe just didn't have mainstream appeal, they said, no matter how interesting it was.

So the book sat on my hard drive for a couple of years. Finally, I decided to just release the thing as an e-book, and that brings us to today. Shadows of Tockland is currently a Kindle exclusive. It hasn't gotten the attention of Mary of the Aether because it is a strange concept, but it just might be the best thing I've ever written. Check it out.

My Protagonists Meet Proust, Part Two - Cakey the Clown

Okay, so in my last blog entry, I talked about this interesting fellow:

That is none other than Marcel Proust, who is known, at least in part, for a questionnaire that he filled out in a journal. That questionnaire is sometimes used by authors to interview their characters as an exercise in fleshing out personality and motivations. I decided to do this with some of my own characters.

Last time, we asked these questions of Mary Lanham, the protagonist of the Mary of the Aether series, so go check that one out, if you haven't.

This time, we are going to ask these questions of my weirdest character. Yes, it's time to ask the Proust questions to Cakey the Clown. Now, Cakey is a character who appears in my e-book, Shadows of Tockland, but I actually created him years ago (roughly 2000). If you haven't read the book, he turns up in a traveling circus when the protagonist, David Morr, runs away from home and joins up.

Let's see what Cakey has to say.

Cakey the Clown - Shadows of Tockland (interviewed as he was at the beginning of the novel)

What do you consider your greatest achievement?

When I finally decided to stop being two different people and became one person, that was my greatest achievement. You see, we are all divided into two. There is the person that exists onstage, when the audience is watching, and there is the person that exists offstage, when nobody is paying attention. It became clear to me that the man I was offstage was a construct, a fake, an empty suit, a deflated balloon, so I set him loose. Now, the person that I am onstage is the only person and my only self. I am one, complete, whole, clear. There is no mask, only my real face.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

When you finally perceive the moment of destiny, the decision gate toward which events have been pulling you, the exhilaration is like nothing else. And when you finally enter that gate and turn in the direction of fulfilling your purpose, the sublime moment is so beautiful and perfect that every single thing that ever happened to you suddenly and forever makes sense. I have not reached that moment yet, but I feel it drawing near.

What is your current state of mind?

To be honest, I have grown impatient with a lot of things, restless and ready to embrace the future. I have always known that the ever-night is coming upon the world, and all of these elements, from plague to war, are dragging humanity toward it, kicking and screaming. And I have always known that I will be in the pivotal place when it arrives, and I am ready to be there. Rubes and foolishness and nonsense and noise are all distractions that wear on me, as I wait for my moment to arrive.

What is your favorite occupation?

I don't really believe in the concept of occupation. You do what you are, and you are what you do. So if what you are doing is not making you what you are, then you are doing the wrong thing. That is why the rubes are always unsettled. But as for me, I do what I am at all times. When I'm juggling onstage and the rubes are captivated, I am not merely entertaining them. I am embracing myself, my destiny, my future, and the moment that is coming.

What is your most marked characteristic?

Sanity. Sometimes I think I might be the only sane person in the world. Why can't the rest of them see the divided self? Why can't the rest of them see the ever-night that is coming? Why can't the rest of them see how every single thing that happens is drawing us to a pivotal moment? Why can't they see that what looks like a mask might, in fact, be a real face, and that the so-called real face might be the mask?

When and where were you the happiest?

I'm not thinking about the happinesses of the past. The past was only a staircase leading me to a greater height. I will be happiest in the future, when I get where I know I am going. In a way, in some dimension, the future has already happened, so that is my happiest moment, there before me somewhere, as if it has already been.

What is it that you most dislike?

The dull inability to perceive the future that infects almost every single human being in the world. The distraction with tragedies of the past and hardships of the present. Don't they know how to shed these things from mind and memory and march forward? And certainly my fellow performers should get this. But they don't. They don't.

What is your greatest fear?

I have transcended the place where fear festers and have gone into a realm where fear becomes fodder for a building electrical certainty. If I hadn't ripped away the second-self, if I still allowed myself to step offstage and become that other person, then fear would still dominate.

What is your greatest regret?

This is a stupid rube question. Regret? How can you have regret when you are driven every step of the way by destiny? When you are onstage, there is no time for regret. Why? Because you are in the middle of the show, building toward the end. Do you get it now?

Which talent would you most like to have?

The ability to breathe on other people and make them comprehend everything that I have come to know. Trying to explain it is like pounding on a steel wall with a foam hammer. Conversations always tip over the edge and fall sideways into foolishness.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

To be a rube. To live offstage. To wallow in that offstage self. Which is exactly what the whole world does.

What is the quality you most like in a woman?

If I met a woman who could perceive that every single event that happens is only pulling us inexorably toward a pivotal moment of destiny where we confront the ever-night then indeed that would be a woman of rare quality. There are no accidents, no mistakes,no griefs, no tragedies, only steps leading to destiny.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?

I don't deplore anything in the onstage self, and that is the only person that I am anymore. But that other self, the one I buried, the one who climbed offstage at the end of the show, I deplore everything he was and every trait he possessed.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?

Milling about like animals on a highway, oblivious to the truck bearing down on them. That is the trait of all people, it seems, and why? Why am I the only one who gets it?

What do you most value in your friends?

There are fleeting moments when I feel like my fellow performers almost accept what I am and what I have realized, and those are valuable moments.

Which living person do you most admire?

I have to say my grandmother, though I have never really known her. I don't even know if she is still alive. I don't know what happened to her. There are only stories that I have carried with me, but she is the one who placed destiny upon my face when she bathed me in the cerulean waters of the Suceava River and called me a child of destiny. I have a memory of it. I'm sure I do. 

And that is Cakey the Clown, people.