Sandra Ulbrich Almazan on bringing #Beatles #magic to her #fantasy novel, SCATTERED SEASONS

Creating complementary main characters is a skill which, if mastered, can lead to great fiction. Today Sandra Ulbrich Almazan explains how she developed the women in her new novel, Scattered Seasons.

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From the Fab Four to the Fem Four:

Designing a Quartet of Characters

by Sandra Ulbrich Almazan

It happened nearly twenty years ago, while I was reading Mark Hertsgaard’s A Day in the Life: The Music and Artistry of the Beatles. I read a description of the Beatles’ four-fold synergy and thought I’d like to write a story about a quartet working together to create literal magic. From that idea, I slowly came up with a group of four women who each had a type of magic associated with a different season. They were originally called Season Lords, but I changed their name to Season Avatars for a gender-neutral term.

While the magic concept was important, even more important was creating a group of characters with different but complementary personalities. There are different tropes for doing this, such as the Four Element Ensemble, the Four Temperament Ensemble, or even using blood types.  (Warning: all these links lead to the fun but time-sucking TV Tropes website.) I chose a simpler method, which I’ll refer to as “Brain-Body-Heart-Soul.”  This was also inspired by a description of the Beatles. (Fans may disagree on who played what role within the group. I see John as the brain, Paul as the body, George as the soul, and Ringo as the heart.) Each of the four Season Avatars plays one of these roles within the group.

Gwendolyn, the Spring Avatar, is also the leader of the group. Her job is to heal people and coordinate the magic shared by the Avatars so they can perform tasks togethers. As a noblewoman, she’s had the most formal education of the four, so she’s the “brain.”

Jenna is the Summer Avatar and has plant magic. She’s the most sensual of the quartet (so she’s the “body”) and frequently has to remind Gwen to have fun and not focus constantly on her duties.

Ysabel, the Fall Avatar, has animal magic. As the heart of the group, she’s friendly and warm. She’s a diplomat who wants everyone to get along and will mediate when the others argue among themselves. Gwen and Jenna tend to argue a lot, so sometimes they need a go-between.

Finally, Kay, the Winter Avatar with weather magic, is the soul of the group. Although all of the Avatars originally obtained their magic from the God or Goddess associated with their season, she is the most pious and the least likely to question her God’s will.

Of course, it wouldn’t be satisfying to make each character one-dimensional, a person fit only for a certain role and no more. Each of the Avatars comes from a different type of family and a different background. Some of them have talents in non-magical areas, such as music, drawing, or sewing. They all have different personal challenges to overcome as they learn to work together. Each of them will get her own book, starting with Gwen in Scattered Seasons, to tell her part of the overall story.

I look forward to introducing them to you.

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Learn more about Sandra Ulbrich Almazan on her blog or on Facebook.

Purchase Scattered Seasons on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

D. Aviva Rothschild writes speculative fiction about The Beatles!

My respect for originality and the unusual is boundless, so my hat is definitely doffed to today's guest. D. Aviva Rothschild writes novels about John, Paul, George, and Ringo that go way beyond fan fiction.

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With Strings Attached, or The Big Pink Job, is a wholly original and problematic work of fantasy. By “wholly original,” I mean that it only superficially resembles other works of fantasy. If you know about TV Tropes, there's a trope about Standard Fantasy Settings. By those guidelines, Strings is almost 100% noncompliant. I have to admit, I was kind of startled to find that out.

Before the “problematic” part, the story in a nutshell: our four heroes awaken on another planet, 16 years younger and completely terrified. They're on the planet C'hou in Ketafa, a quasi-Victorian society where magic is genuine (and illegal), and where the gods returned 25 years ago, except they're fake. The reader knows the four were placed there as the subjects of a poorly set up alien undergraduate psychology project. After things go sour, the four end up across the sea in Baravada, a dying quasi-medieval anarchistic utopian dystopia (yes, really). Meanwhile, the aliens are kicked off their project for cheating and join up with a gamer in order to have access to the four. Ultimately, thanks to the aliens and the real gods, the four are empowered and charged with finding three pieces of a statue that have been scattered across other planets. This will remove a curse on Ketafa that prevents the real gods from seeing the continent. If the four don't do it, they don't go home. It's just too bad they detest Ketafa. And they're pacifists, so death and destruction are not options even though they've collectively been gifted with enough power to wipe out a city before breakfast. And not everyone wants them to succeed.

Straightforward and hopefully kind of interesting, right? Well... here's where the “problematic” part kicks in. The book falls, however unwillingly, under the rubric of fan fiction because the four protagonists are the Beatles. Well, the ex-Beatles, since it's set in 1980.

Did that suddenly negate your interest in the book? I know it does for a lot of people. And the fantasy aspect turns off a lot of Beatles fans who just aren't into that sort of thing. So, hello small (but devoted) niche audience.

I hate sounding defensive about Strings, because it's quite a decent book and I'm very proud of it. Over the 29 years it took me to write, I put a ton of research into getting their personalities as true to life as possible—no Hard Day's Night or Yellow Submarine Beatles for this writer, thank you! And they grow and change; the men at the end of the book are not the same as when they first arrived. If you know your Beatles history, there are subtle references scattered throughout, but they won't hit you over the head (no characters named Strawberry Fields or nonsense like that). On the fictional side, the two C'hovite societies and the secondary characters are as fully fleshed out as I could make them, with multiple sets of slang and some truly alien viewpoints. C'hou has a mysterious and tragic backstory that I'll be expanding in the two sequels (it's a planned trilogy). And Big Issues get explored: the nature of good and evil, the effects of power on people, addiction.

People have suggested that I change the characters. That would certainly make the book easier to sell. But I don't want to change them. I tried once, and failed. I'm just not interested in writing about four other people (just changing the names isn't enough) in this situation. The Beatles are smart, funny, profane, and emotional; they make excellent characters, and I'm committed to the trilogy as designed.

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Try before you buy! Half of With Strings Attached is posted on D. Aviva Rothschild's website, where you will also find purchase links for all formats.

You can also buy it as a Kindle ebook on Amazon or in print and as ebook on Lulu.