Kyle A. Massa

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The Similarities of Playing Magic: The Gathering and Writing Fiction

October 7, 2019 /

I’m sure you’ve heard of writing. Question is, have you ever heard of Magic: The Gathering?

Magic is the world’s most popular trading card game (and also its first). Created in 1993 by doctoral student Richard Garfield, the game has millions of players all over the world. Players bring customized decks to the table and battle their cards against one or more opponents.

I like Magic. And I like writing fiction. And the more I do both, the more I realize how similar the two activities truly are. They both feature…

Endless Decision Making

When playing Magic or writing fiction, the player/author makes numerous decisions. In Magic, players start with seven cards in hand, then draw a random one from the top of their deck each turn. As a Magic player, every turn presents new decisions to be made, chiefly which of your cards you should play, and in what order. Your opponent’s decisions will further influence your own.

In writing, your only opponents are time, procrastination, and the occasional cup of coffee spilling on your keyboard. Still, there are plenty of decisions to make, probably even more than when playing Magic. For example: What are your characters going to look and act like? How does the setting influence them? What adjectives should you use to describe your protagonist? What’s your protagonist’s cat’s name (very important)?

Decisions, decisions. In both Magic and writing, they’re everywhere.

Contextual Factors

This is one of the coolest aspects of both Magic and writing: individual components change value based on what’s around them. Let’s start with Magic.

Let’s pretend that Magic cards are game pieces. The power level of pieces in most games are flat and predictable: a pawn advances at most two spaces at a time, and a queen moves as many spaces as she wants in any direction. In no game of chess has a pawn ever been more powerful than a queen.

Magic is a great game (the greatest, in my opinion) because its pieces vary in power level depending on what’s around them. For example, goblins appear frequently in Magic. In some decks, they might be annoying little attackers that don’t contribute very much to the game. However, in decks where they’re surrounded by more goblins, they might suddenly become a lot more powerful.

Everything’s contextual in writing, too! Take genre, for instance. If an author writes a novel about zombies, that author had better be aware of all the other zombie stories that have come before, after, and simultaneously. An author might write the best zombie story ever—yet if it comes out in the same year as ten other really bad zombie stories, it could easily lose value for the audience.

So Many Goddamn Rules

Magic and writing have a heck of a lot of rules. Let’s start with Magic.

In Magic, players strive to bend the rules in ways that are either competitively advantageous or just plain cool. No, this does not mean cheating (though that was certainly an issue in the game’s infancy). It means that players seek ways to combine cards in new ways for amazing results.

For example, consider the cost of cards. Magic is essentially a resource management game: players are allowed to play one land card per turn, and these land cards allow them to play their other cards. The game is designed so that, generally speaking, more powerful cards require more land cards to play. If players can find ways to play expensive cards sooner than usual, they can expect good results.

In writing, there are also tons of rules. Grammar, for instance, dictates how you express your ideas on the page. Then there are the rules of storytelling, which almost always come up when writing fiction.

Of course, as is the case with Magic, the fun part of writing is learning the rules, then breaking them. Fiction usually isn’t that interesting when it follows the template you expect it to follow; it’s often more compelling when the story diverges from established norms.

These are two of my all-time favorite subjects, so I’d better stop myself before I start rambling (if I haven’t already). If you like Magic, you might like writing fiction. If you like writing fiction, you might like Magic. Try ’em both!

Kyle A. Massa is a speculative fiction author living somewhere in upstate New York with his wife and their two cats. He has written two books and numerous short stories, both published and yet-to-be published. He enjoys unusual narrative structures, multiple POVs, and stories about coffee.

Why You Should Be Reading Flash Fiction

September 30, 2019 /

Ernest Hemingway

Just like the name implies, flash fiction is short enough to read in an instant. But if you’re not reading it, here’s why you should be.

Opinions vary on what length qualifies as flash fiction. Some markets say 300 words max, some say 500, others say 1,000. Whatever the case may be, flash fiction has to be really short—which is not to say incomplete. Rather, many flash pieces still have the elements of traditional literature (character, plot, conflict, setting), only they’re condensed. Think of them like shorter short stories.

The form has existed for quite a while, though it wasn’t known as “flash fiction” until 1992, when James Thomas, Denise Thomas, and Tom Hazuka published their anthology Flash Fiction: 72 Very Short Stories. Despite the its relative mainstream obscurity, many high-profile authors have written flash fiction, including Kurt Vonnegut, Ray Bradbury, Joyce Carol Oats, Ernest Hemingway, and H.P. Lovecraft.

In many ways, flash fiction bears a strong resemblance to poetry. Some of my favorite flash pieces create a mood or feeling instead of focusing on narrative, just as some poems do. Others feature complete stories with beginnings, middles, and ends. It’s a flexible form, and one I enjoy very much. In fact, I included three flash pieces in my short fiction collection, Monsters at Dusk.

Thanks to the internet, flash fiction’s popularity has only grown. There are numerous online magazines devoted solely to flash fiction, and quite a few popular markets that publish flash from time to time. Just to name a few: Apex Magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Flash Fiction Online, and NANO Fiction.

If you’d like to challenge yourself as a writer, flash is a great way to do it. It might sound easy to write 500 words, but when you sit down and think about all the components of a good story, it can be difficult to cram everything in.

Furthermore, with such limited space to work with, your language must be razor sharp. In general, readers are far more forgiving of bland language in long-form narratives. It’s easy to skip a poorly-written section of a novel. But when a piece only lasts about a page or two, that poor writing sticks out like a fly in your drink.

Flash fiction is a unique form which will, in my opinion, only grow in popularity in the future. Word counts are shrinking, attention spans are decreasing, and concision is becoming more and more essential. Try some flash fiction and see if you agree!

Kyle A. Massa is the author of the short fiction collection Monsters at Dusk and the novel Gerald Barkley Rocks. His stories have appeared in numerous online magazines, including Allegory, Chantwood, and Dark Fire Fiction. He lives somewhere in upstate New York with his wife and their two cats.

Looking Back at Your Old Work

September 16, 2019 /

Writing

I was going through some old files the other day when I came across one called “Pleasant Street.” It’s a roughly 2,000 word short story I wrote about six years ago. In fact, it was my first serious attempt at writing a short story.

Which is why I was so afraid to read it again. I think of it sort of like those photos your mom takes of you when you’re a kid and you still have that mushroom haircut. Most of us would rather forget it ever happened.

Let me start by saying this: “Pleasant Street” is worse than a mushroom haircut.

The Synopsis

We begin with our protagonist, Officer Greene. He’s a young, naive, and, as we’ll soon find out, frustratingly stupid, police officer. (Note: Officer Greene is a lame, lame protagonist. And heavy-handed symbolism is going to be a running theme with this one.)

In the first scene, a senior officer explains that Greene will be “walking the beat” along the titular Pleasant Street. Of course, “walk the beat” is a term I picked up from Law & Order. I kind of doubt anyone actually uses it. Anyway, this story is sort of like a B-horror movie. Best not to think too hard about it.

Greene goes door to door to introduce himself to the neighborhood. (Do police officers actually do this? Probably not.) One of the goofier lines from this section: “Pleasant Street was nothing but pleasant.”

Officer Greene meets a guy by the name of Frank Wolf (remember that heavy-handed symbolism I was talking about?), who invites him in for a meal. And Greene, being the hard-working fellow that he is, decides, What the hell? I’ll take an extended lunch break. 

Mr. Wolf feeds Greene a stew described as “absolutely delicious,” though we don’t know what’s in it yet. Greene decides it’s time to get back to work, and on the way out, Mr. Wolf says, “…you’d better get going! In this day and age, if you don’t stay on top of your work, you’ll get eaten alive!”

Have you solved the mystery yet? Probably. And there are still about fifteen hundred words to go.

The following day, Greene runs into a homeless fellow by the name of Roger. Roger, whose hair sticks up in two points and makes him look like a “dirty little bunny rabbit,” tells Greene something to the effect of, hey, my friend went missing on this street. Dialogue, dialogue, and then Roger says, “Aright, man. Just watch yer back. There’s somethin’ weird cookin’ on this street.”

At this point, the story actually gains an unintentional element of humor. There are so many hints about what’s happening, yet Greene is too damn stupid to connect the dots.

For Greene’s third day of work, he decides to ask the residents of Pleasant Street if they know anything about this missing homeless dude. He goes to Mr. Wolf first, who rather unexpectedly says, “Have I seen him? Well, sure I have, Officer.”

I’ll say this for myself: I wrote my characters with consistency. Greene is a dope throughout the whole story, so even at this point, he needs an explanation.

Mr. Wolf proudly explains that he’s two-hundred years old, and that he owes his long, prosperous life to his diet. When Greene asks what that diet consists of, Wolf answers cheerily, “Why, human flesh, of course!”

So then Greene pukes all over the floor, and while he’s doing that, Mr. Wolf offers him the classic bad guy choice.

  • Option A: Join us (or, in this case, eat hobos with us and live forever).
  • Or, Option B: We kill you.

Greene might be dumb, but at least he has morals. He chooses Option B, at which point Mr. Wolf smacks him upside the head and everything goes black.

In the final scene, Greene awakens in a pot of water. He hears a match light, and then smells something which reminds him of “the smell of burgers his father used to make in the summer.” And then the story ends. Yum.

I think I meant for the ending to be tragic and horrifying. However, most readers would be so frustrated with Greene by this point that they’d probably cook him themselves.

The Takeaways

I’ve gotten better at writing short stories since then. In fact, I just released a short story collection entitled Monsters at Dusk. (No, “Pleasant Street” did not make the cut.) I think Monsters has the best work I’ve done so far. Sure, I might look back at it with shame 10 years from now. But if I do, at least then I’ll know I’ve improved.

Read through some of your old work, just to remind yourself how far you’ve come. When you collect rejections and nothing seems to be working out, you might make the mistake of thinking that you’re not improving.

But you are! Do yourself a favor and read some of your old stuff once in a while. You’ll be amazed at how far you’ve come. And, at the very least, you’ll get some good laughs out of it.

Kyle A. Massa is the author of the short story collection Monsters at Dusk and the novel Gerald Barkley Rocks. His stories have appeared in numerous online magazines, including Allegory, Chantwood, and Dark Fire Fiction. He lives somewhere in upstate New York with his wife and their two cats.

The Stories Behind the Stories of “Monsters at Dusk”

September 9, 2019 /

Stories behind the stories of monsters at dusk

If you follow me anywhere, you’ve probably been blasted with news of Monsters at Dusk. Yep, it’s officially out and available for purchase.

If you’ve already bought the book, thank you. This post will hopefully add to your enjoyment of the stories. If you haven’t yet purchased it, perhaps this post will pique your interest.

Here’s some insider info on each of the 10 stories in Monsters at Dusk. No spoilers for those who haven’t read them just yet.

Several Messages from Abby to God (Regarding Her Cat)

Every weekday morning, I wake up and write. Most days I plan what I’ll write. Some days, I don’t. For the latter, I wander around the page. I discovered this story while wandering one morning.

This story was inspired by a feeling I think many people experience: that of a beloved pet dying. For some, especially children, their favorite dog or cat passing is their first run-in with death. Furthermore, it’s difficult to reconcile belief in a loving God when that God has ostensibly just snatched your best friend away.

That’s where it started, though it changed a lot in the telling. After submitting a completed draft to my writer’s group, my fellow writers asked for a stronger ending. Therefore, I spent a great deal of time refining both the middle and end. I’m hoping I achieved a sense of rising tension feeding into a satisfying conclusion, all without losing the humor the piece carries throughout.

The epistolary style was super fun to write. The short, pithy letters in which characters relay information to one another is modeled after Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’s Dangerous Liaisons. Except instead of feuding nobles, this one’s about God, Satan, a kid, and a cat.

Also, if you read my first book, Gerald Barkley Rocks, you might notice some feline overlaps here and there. Hope I’m not going overboard with the cats…

Unbelievable

“Unbelievable” first appeared in the January 2017 issue of Chantwood Magazine. It began with two characters arguing in a car. The theme (and therefore, the title) only revealed themselves as I wrote.

This spontaneity actually works quite well for the piece, I think. After re-reading it, it feels like the characters get a definite sense of, “What the hell is going on?” And any story where I get to poke fun at skinny jeans is a good story, in my book.

We Remember

This is likely the most personal piece in the collection (and also the most depressing). I tried to imagine what it would be like to lose all memory of my wife. Not fun, but I think it made for a moving story.

The entwined theme of water and memory came from an article I thought I read when I was a kid (though I’ve had trouble finding it since). As I remember, the article’s author posited that memory is actually a liquid chemical within the brain, and that it’s pumped whenever we need to recall anything. When we forget, it’s because that liquid memory has evaporated.

I always thought that was an interesting theory, so I played with it symbolically in “We Remember.” What if there was a monster that lived off those memories? Thankfully, I made up enough water metaphors to fill a 3,000-word story. Hopefully not too many, though.

Large Coffee, Black

If I don’t know what I’m going to write in the morning, I look for inspiration from my surroundings. In the morning, I’m usually surrounded by two things: cats and coffee. I write about the former often enough. Now for the latter.

The monster here is metaphorical. Perhaps it’s our main character, perhaps it’s his obsession, perhaps it’s our titular beverage itself. It might even be love, which is a pleasantly surprising subtheme I stumbled upon somewhere in my later drafts. Whatever it is, I think it’s more fun if I let the reader decide. Your call.

A Good Fit in Penbluff City

As I’m sure you can tell, this story is a smaller slice from a larger pie. I intend on returning to this world, sooner rather than later.

I’ve followed professional sports all my life. The thing I love most about them: stories. Each season brings heroes and villains, ripe conflicts, betrayals, moments of heroism, and victories against the odds. Furthermore, there’s the business aspect, a world which we catch only minor glimpses of here and there. With this story, I’m bringing that business side of sports to epic fantasy.

I don’t normally care for this style of pitch, but I’d describe this world as Moneyball meets The Lord of the Rings. It was fun writing, and I look forward to more of it in the future.

Alice

Funny story behind this one. It was originally entitled “David” and it’s one of the oldest stories in this collection (circa 2014). And, once upon a time, it was also accepted for publication.

This was around 2015. A magazine called Lakeside Circus gave “David” the green light. Yet then several months passed without further updates. I emailed a couple times to check the status, but still no word. Finally, in June, the sad news arrived: Lakeside was closing down permanently.

Next came an odd cycle. I submitted “David” to about seven publications. It was rejected by them all. By then it had been several years since the piece’s initial acceptance, and I was beginning to lose faith in it. As a result, I tinkered with it constantly. I even changed the name to “Alice.” Didn’t help. Nobody wanted to publish it.

Finally, I shelved it. There it sat until this year, when I was digging through my archives for an as-yet unnamed short story collection. I read it again and decided maybe it wasn’t so bad after all. I think I saw a glimmer of what the editors of Lakeside Circus saw in 2015. I hope you see it, too.

Thespian: A Tale of Tragedy and Redemption in Three Acts

This is another reprint, first appearing in the November 2016 issue of Allegory Magazine. It was inspired by a conversation I had with my dad after he saw the Spielberg film The Adventures of Tintin.

Here’s the gist: My dad was blown away by the quality of computer imagery in the film. He theorized that eventually, perhaps in the near future, this technology would improve so much that one could build your own cast and settings completely digitally. If that happened, actors and actresses would go the way of Blockbuster Video. So I decided to write a story about an actor going obsolete.

Another metaphorical take on our theme here. Technology is the monster, at least to our hero Joel. Poor guy.

Virus/Affliction/Condition/Curse

This began with a simple question: How would the American legal system handle werewolves? I know. I probably have too much time on my hands.

Really though, this is one of my favorite stories from the entire collection. It’s heavily inspired by Ted Chiang’s “Liking What You See: A Documentary.” Basically, I wanted a cluster of vignettes collected by a shared theme. In this case, werewolfism.

The fun of this story was discovering the characters in each segment. Some, such as ad executive Giovanni Fressi, were devised long before the actual writing began. Others, like attorney Mandy Stackhouse, developed on the fly. (Mandy is my personal favorite.)

After submitting to my writer’s group, I got a great deal of feedback requesting some thread to tie the mini-stories together. That’s when I added the bookends about the narrator and her connection to her mother. You’ll notice a constant theme of family, with at least one familial reference in each segment.

Wings

This one is the least funny and most outright horrifying one in the collection. It was previously published in the June 2016 edition of Five on the Fifth. It’s what’s classified as “flash fiction” since it’s under 1,000 words.

The challenge with such a short form is telling a complete story. Therefore, I feel one must rely on mystery and implication to really get there. Neither character is named or described significantly. Same goes for setting. Really the questions I want readers to come away with are twofold. First, why would someone do this to someone else? And second, why would anyone agree to it?

The Megrim

The novella of the bunch. It’s influenced by Terry Gilliam’s The Brothers Grimm, starring Heath Ledger and Matt Damon. I only saw the film once and don’t remember liking it overmuch, yet the creepiness of kids disappearing into the woods stuck with me.

I based the dynamic between the two main characters around that of Mulder and Scully in The X-Files (one of my favorite shows ever). One is a believer, the other is a skeptic.

Aside from a few tinkerings with the plot here and there, this one actually developed quite well the first time around. I think that’s because I had a solid grasp on both the main characters, their relationship, and what their roles would be in the story.

That’s All!

Hope you enjoyed learning a little more about the stories of Monsters at Dusk. It’s available now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords.

Kyle A. Massa is the author of the short story collection Monsters at Dusk and the novel Gerald Barkley Rocks. His stories have appeared in numerous online magazines, including Allegory, Chantwood, and Dark Fire Fiction. He lives somewhere in upstate New York with his wife and their two cats.

“Monsters at Dusk” Arrives This Friday

September 2, 2019 /

Cover designed by Nathan Rumsey

Well, it’s finally here.

Monsters at Dusk, the short story collection I’ve been working on for the past nine months, is finally releasing this Friday, September 6th.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t like waiting. Therefore, I’ve set up a preorder for the book. It’s available today.

To preorder your copy, simply click this link. Enter your purchase information, then Amazon will send a Kindle ebook copy of Monsters at Dusk straight to you as soon as it’s ready.

Friday’s main release will include versions from Barnes & Noble and Smashwords, plus a paperback edition from Amazon. If you’d prefer one of those, please wait to purchase until Friday.

Next week, I’ll delve deeper into the stories behind the stories of Monsters at Dusk. Until then, hope you enjoy it!

Kyle A. Massa is the author of the novel Gerald Barkley Rocks and the forthcoming short story collection Monsters at Dusk. His stories have appeared in numerous online magazines, including Allegory, Chantwood, and Dark Fire Fiction. He lives somewhere in upstate New York with his wife and their two cats.

10 Stories, 10 Samples

August 26, 2019 /

Monsters at Dusk

Alternate title for this post: The Monsters at Dusk sampler platter.

Why? Because, with short story collection Monsters at Dusk just 11 days away from release, I’d like to add something new to the menu. Today, I’d like to share the titles of all 10 stories. In addition, these titles come with a brief peek at each story.

If you like the sampler, don’t forget to order the main course on September 6th. Here we go!

Several Messages from Abby to God (Regarding Her Cat)

Dear Mr. Satan,

My name is Abby Thymes and my cat Pickles just died. I herd about you at Sunday skool and they said you’re kinda meen but also kinda magical I guess so I thought I’d say hi. I think Mr. God’s maybe taking a nap becuz he didn’t anser me.

Have you seen my cat Pickles down there? If you have could you send him back? If you do I would like you a lot and I would lissin to loud music with screeming and screechee gitars and stuff. My brother lissins to that stuff and he says it’s your favrit music. I’m sorry I don’t spell very good.

Anyway please send Pickles back. If not I’ll be really really mad at you.

Sincerealy,

Abby Thymes

Unbelievable

Anyway, once back at his dorm room, [Toby had] thrown on his clothes, some flip-flops, his backpack, whatever, and he’d dashed out the door. He smelled like his childhood dog Ambrose used to smell after rolling in the mud, but there was no time to care. If he was late again, the honorable professor Simon R. Briggs would fail him. And then probably murder him, just because he had tenure and he could get away with it.

We Remember

In my dream, I lie in bed beside you and I remember the outdoor concert where we first met, how hard it poured during the encore. I remember watching Troll 2 with you, our first B-movie, and laughing hard enough that cream soda gushed from my nose—still the only time it’s ever happened. I remember how hot it was the day we got married, how we all (especially me) sweat through our clothes. I remember the first time we kissed, and how my heartbeat never quite slowed around you since.

Large Coffee, Black

Some people flavor their coffee with sugar, milk, creamer, and the like. Osbourne truly hates those people.

A Good Fit in Penbluff City

Pren isn’t royalty, by the way. But that doesn’t mean she can’t feel like royalty. After all, she’s the closest thing to it these days. She’s a billionaire: first as a player, then as a landowner, now as a team owner in a sports league. And there’s no bigger sports league than the Greater Questing League.

Alice

Why would it do that? Never heard of an animal crying before, have you? That would require being sad, and being sad means you’ve got emotions. Animals only have about three: they’ve got scared, they’ve got hungry, and they’ve got horny—and don’t tell Gram I told you that last one. Animals don’t have the mental know-how to feel anything else.

Thespian: A Tale of Tragedy and Redemption in Three Acts

I was jobless, worthless, a base wretch and nothing more. My tyrannical landlady ousted me from my apartment, you see, just a day after my release from the theater company. The old bag cited three months without rental payment as motivation. She even cast me aside without so much as a “Good luck, and break a leg!”

Virus / Affliction / Condition / Curse

“Yeah, I worked on the werewolf Super Bowl commercial.” Giovanni Fressi frowns for a moment, then says, “Why? You wanna complain about it?”

Wings

“I can give you wings,” he said.

That was all. That and an enigmatic smile, a smile that might’ve been warm or predatory or indifferent. All he wanted was an answer. A yes.

I gave it to him.

The Megrim

When the first child vanished in the night, I called on the High Temple for aid.

Piebald the Cobbler laughed at me for doing it. “You’re always worrying, Pureman,” he said the following day as we trudged over fresh snow. “Too much for a young man like you. I’ve got a boy of my own. These children, they go wandering, they come back. Once this one starts missing his sweets and his bed, he’ll return.”

Yet a day passed without sign of the child.

[You can read even more from this one here.]

That’s all for now…

But you can buy the entire book on ebook or paperback September 6th. Look for it then!

Kyle A. Massa is the author of the novel Gerald Barkley Rocks and the forthcoming short story collection Monsters at Dusk. His stories have appeared in numerous online magazines, including Allegory, Chantwood, and Dark Fire Fiction. He lives somewhere in upstate New York with his wife and their two cats.

An Early Look at “Monsters at Dusk”

August 19, 2019 /

Monsters at Dusk

I’ve been teasing a new book for the past few months. I’m happy to say it’s nearly here.

The book is called Monsters at Dusk. It’s a short story collection (well, technically six short stories, three flash fiction pieces, and one novella). Each story concerns a different monster, some literal, some metaphorical, some you’ll recognize, others you won’t. A handful of these stories have been published around the internet; most are unpublished and original. Here they are, together for the first time. Kinda like The Avengers in 2012.

But you can’t have a book without a cover. So that’s why I asked my good buddy and eminently talented designer Nathan Rumsey to do this:

Nathan did the cover for my first book, Gerald Barkley Rocks, as well. Don’t ask me which I love more—it’s like choosing between kids. To learn more about the making of this one, feel free to read last week’s blog post, “Creating the Cover of ‘Monsters at Dusk’.”

Now what about the cover copy? I’m glad you asked, kind reader. Here’s a little more info about Monsters at Dusk:

There’s no monster under your bed, but there are several in this book.

The first short story collection from “Gerald Barkley Rocks” author Kyle A. Massa, “Monsters at Dusk” offers answers to several important questions, such as:

Do vampires use Snapchat?

What happens when a demonic cat declares war on God and Satan?

Is someone drinking your memories? If so, are they tasty?

If a mad scientist offers to build you a set of wings, should you accept?

Can sports franchises set in epic fantasy worlds make better hiring decisions than real ones?

How would the American legal system handle werewolves?

What is a Megrim and why does it keep taking everyone’s kids?

Balancing fantasy, science fiction, horror, and humor, each of the collection’s 10 stories concerns a different monster—some familiar, some original, some literal, some metaphorical, all strange and wonderful in their own way.

Monsters at Dusk arrives Friday, September 6th, on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, and in paperback.

Kyle A. Massa is the author of the novel Gerald Barkley Rocks and the forthcoming short story collection Monsters at Dusk. His stories have appeared in numerous online magazines, including Allegory, Chantwood, and Dark Fire Fiction. He lives somewhere in upstate New York with his wife and their two cats.

Creating the Cover of “Monsters at Dusk”

August 12, 2019 /

A book without a cover is like a burrito without a tortilla. For quite some time, that’s what I had with Monsters at Dusk.

That’s the title of my upcoming book, by the way. It’s a collection of short stories (and one novella), all about—you guessed it—monsters. I had the stories, I had the title, and I even had the pretentious quotes at the beginning. But that was just the filling. I needed to wrap it all up before anyone could take a bite.

Enter Nathan Rumsey. Nathan is a designer, a former co-worker, and a good friend of mine. He designed the cover of my first book, Gerald Barkley Rocks, and he did a fantastic job. (If you haven’t seen it, please do check it out. And while you’re looking at the cover, you could, you know, buy the book. If you feel like it.)

The Cover of Gerald Barkley Rocks

I had a specific idea in mind for Gerald Barkley Rocks and Nathan executed it brilliantly. I can’t remember the exact description, but it went something like this…

Yo Nathan! I’m looking for a spinning vinyl record on a turntable. The color red is essential to the book, so I’d like that to be a key element of the cover as well. Perhaps the needle is scratching a line of blood into the disc? Also, since the book has a mostly amusing tone, I don’t want the cover to feel too creepy. Looking for more of a lighthearted feel.

He turned that description into this gorgeous cover…

Nathan absolutely nailed it, as you can see. The only part that didn’t quite work was the needle scratching blood on the record; Nathan tried it, but it didn’t translate well to the cover. Especially in thumbnail size, the record needle looked more like a water cooler.

Luckily for me, Mr. Rumsey translated the needle idea to the title font instead. Notice the droplet of blood that hangs from the letter C in “Rocks.” Love it!

What’s more, I appreciate how Nathan addressed the challenging bits of my description. For example, how does one make a bloody cover lighthearted and not creepy?

Nathan did. He used bright colors that contrasted with the black background. Furthermore, he used a faded font that suggested retrocelebrationism over anything more sinister (like how I coined a new term there?).

But enough about the past. Let’s focus on the future.

The Cover of Monsters at Dusk

Here’s an approximation of my description for Nathan:

Ahoy Nathan! This time around I’m writing a short story collection. As you can guess from the title, each story is about a monster. Dusk (or more generally, times of transition) is a key theme.

Since it’s several stories in one, I don’t want a specific character or monster from any one story featured too heavily. I want something slightly creepy, yet also somehow humorous, because these aren’t straight-up horror stories. Other than that, I have no strong opinions or ideas. Hope that helps!

Clearly not the most descriptive description. Yet I was lucky to be working with a creative guy who can make a lot from a little. I sent three stories from the book to Nathan, then waited.

A few weeks later, Nathan presented a handful of concepts. There were many more than these, but here are several of those rough sketches:

Monster at Dusk Sketches

The concept was totally cool. In the top middle row, for example, I like how you can see the sun dipping below the horizon line. Furthermore, I was intrigued by the placement of the title, particularly the way the word “Dusk” creeps along the ground. My only concern here was that the word “Monsters” would be difficult to parse, especially in thumbnail size.

The bottom left image really caught my attention. I loved how the title was composed of early evening light passing through a window. The tree in the background gives that slightly creepy tone I mentioned in the description without branching into horror.

I told Nathan I was intrigued. He delved deeper and returned with more concepts.

Looking pretty good now, huh? Nathan worked his magic again, this time fleshing out the colors and adding a few more experimental elements. Here I loved how it was now much easier to read the book’s title. And again, I enjoyed the placement of the words along the floor and wall.

For the images along the top row, I wasn’t sure how I felt about the faces in the darkness. They achieved that subtly-creepy-yet-slightly-humorous tone I mentioned, yet they felt a bit too on-the-nose. However, I knew Nathan was onto something with these concepts.

The bottom row really got me thrilled. The tree in the reflection returned again, along with the cool font climbing up the wall. Also, the extra windows disappearing out of frame gave the image a broader sense of space.

In the middle image, you might also notice a creepy fellow wearing a bowler hat. Nathan threw that in there and confessed he wasn’t sure if I’d like it. I totally did. It wasn’t a specific character in any of my stories, yet I felt it embodied many of them: Uncanny creatures that aren’t always obvious monsters.

Next up…

Here you can see the design solidifying. We’ve got the contrast of dark negative space with bright colors in the reflection, which brings your eyes to the title. The words also move all the way up the wall, making them less cramped. The creepy guy did disappear in this iteration, though I promise he returns in the finished product. The other sweet innovation: the slippers. See them in the bottom right-hand corner?

This is one of the many moments when Nathan’s work amazed me. The slippers are perfect. They have little monster jaws on them and they’re a classic bit of bedtime attire—that connects the book’s two most important themes. Also, they’re kind of funny, which fulfills the humor request. A+ work.

So all that leads us to the finished product. If you’re subscribed to my newsletter you’ve already seen this. If not, here it is for the first time. Ladies and gentlemen, I give to you the finished cover of Monsters at Dusk!

Now that’s a perfect burrito.

It’s all here: Creepy guy, the monster slippers, the tree (now slightly out of focus), the cool title font, even a nightstand with a plump little spider. Notice too that the font on my name is the same from Gerald Barkley Rocks—Nathan shrewdly added that to give the covers a bit more continuity. I also dig the purple color palette because it gives the sense we’re lost somewhere between late afternoon and nightfall. Or, ya know, dusk. The gradient color of the light bolsters this effect.

I’m thrilled to finally share this cover with the world. Thank you so much, Nathan. I love this cover!

If you’re looking for an amazing designer, I could not recommend Nathan highly enough. Check out his website (a work of art in and of itself) for more information.

To buy this cover and everything underneath it, Monsters at Dusk releases Friday, September 6th. If you’d like to get even more hyped for its release, don’t forget to read the excerpt.  More to come!

Kyle A. Massa is the author of the novel Gerald Barkley Rocks and the forthcoming short story collection Monsters at Dusk. His stories have appeared in numerous online magazines, including Allegory, Chantwood, and Dark Fire Fiction. He lives somewhere in upstate New York with his wife and their two cats.

Don’t Get Stumped: 5 Ways to Beat Writer’s Block

August 5, 2019 /
Throes of Creation

Leonid Pasternak’s “Throes of Creation”

Writing’s always fun when you have something to write. But when the well runs dry, you might find that you’ve got writer’s block.

But what is writer’s block? Is it even a real phenomenon? And if it is, what can we do about it?

As the late Sir Terry Pratchett once said, “There’s no such thing as writer’s block. That was invented by people in California who couldn’t write.” Okay, possibly. But I think there’s also a common misconception about writer’s block in general: that it’s a condition where you are literally incapable of writing. I don’t believe in that either, Terry.

I do believe, however, in writer’s stump—and I’m not talking about trees. Writer’s stump means you just get stumped—like on a math problem, or with a difficult riddle. It happens to every writer, probably even Terry Pratchett.

So what can we do about it? Here are a few ideas.

1. Try Working on a Completely Unrelated Project

For me, this method works really well. I think that’s because I remain in the writing state of mind, even though I’m not working on my main project.

To get started, try writing something completely new, like a flash fiction piece or a short story. You could even try writing about how difficult it is to think of something to write, so long as you’re putting something on the page/screen. You might find that it changes your mindset from I can’t write to I’m struggling with this particular piece right now, but I’m still a good writer.

The other side of this coin is just stepping away from writing entirely—but just for a little while, I hope. If you’re feeling especially enraged about your writing, Nicolas Cage-style, then you might want do something else for a while.

2. Look to One of Your Favorite Works for Inspiration

I find this one either works really well or just pisses you off (Cage-style pissed? See previous paragraph). For example, I might pull my hardcover of American Gods down from the shelf, pick a random paragraph, read it, and say to myself, “Wow. When I grow up, I want to write like that.” And then, hopefully, I’ll go back to my piece with a smile and newfound inspiration.

Or, on another day, I might read the same random paragraph and exclaim, “Wow. When I grow up, I will never, ever be that good. Woe is me.”

Your reaction to this method will probably depend on your temperament or what kind of mood you’re in on that particular day. Be careful with this one.

3. Look Back at Something You’ve Already Written

Similar to number 2, but try it with your own work. I would suggest picking something you wrote a while ago and were always very proud of, but haven’t looked at for a while. That way, you might surprise yourself with some especially crackling pieces of dialogue, or a beautifully-written image.

This one is especially effective because writer’s stump is often just a symptom of self-doubt. You get stuck, which makes you wonder if you’re actually a good writer, and suddenly, you have no good ideas anymore. By looking back at a good piece, you’ll see that you’ve already written some amazing stuff, so there’s no need to feel like you can’t write.

Or, for a little fun, try revisiting a piece you wrote when you first started  writing. I did that once, and it was awesome. You come out of the experience realizing that you’ve improved a ton more than you might realize.

4. Ask yourself, “What is this piece really about?”

This, like the other tricks I’ve mentioned, is certainly not foolproof. But it’s one of my favorite techniques. If you sit back and look at your story as a whole, not just as one event leading to the next, you might spot the way out of the stump you’ve gotten yourself into.

I think Stephen King sums this method up perfectly in his nonfiction masterpiece, On Writing. He describes a particularly nasty case of the block when writing The Stand thusly:

“I liked my story. I liked my characters. And still there came a point when I couldn’t write any longer because I didn’t know what to write…I circled the problem again and again, beat my fists on it, knocked my head against it…and then one day when I was thinking of nothing much at all, the answer came to me…If there is any one thing I love about writing more than the rest, it’s that sudden flash of insight when you see how everything connects.”

Just taking a step back and looking at the big picture sometimes makes all the difference.

5. Grind it out!

This method isn’t for everyone, but I think it’s worth a try sometimes. If you’re writing a novel and can’t think of a way to get your character from Point A to Point B, just plop her/him at Point B and figure out the “how” later. You might find that the answer comes to you as a result of your subsequent writing. Furthermore, this avoids the blank-stare-at-the-screen-or-page moment, which just leads to more of the same.

Closing Thoughts…

The stump/block, in the words of Arnold Schwarzenegger, is one ugly you-know-what. Thankfully, there are many ways to defeat it. I’m certainly no expert, but I like to write about writing and the methods I’ve listed here sometimes work for me. How do you fight the block? Feel free to leave your favorite techniques in the comments below.

And keep on writing!

Kyle A. Massa is a speculative fiction author living somewhere in upstate New York with his fiancee and their two cats. His stories have appeared in numerous online magazines, including Allegory, Chantwood, and Dark Fire Fiction.

The Curious Case of Why Short Story Collections Don’t Sell

July 29, 2019 /

Short Story Writer

“Short stories are loose change in the treasury of fiction.”

That’s what J.G. Ballard wrote in the introduction to his Complete Short Stories collection. Considering the dwindling attention spans of many readers, you’d think that short stories would be more popular than ever. But when’s the last time you saw someone reading a short story collection? Just like Ballard wrote, it seems short stories are the pennies, nickels, and dimes of literature.

So why don’t short stories sell?

First, I think it’s about the characters. Take a series like A Song of Ice and Fire, for example. Fantasy fans and non-fantasy fans alike revere that series in large part because of the characters. They’re dense, they’re layered, and they evolve over the course of many volumes. In short stories, however, you don’t have hundreds of pages to devote to character development. That’s not to say that short stories don’t have good characters—it’s just that, with such limited space, writers must focus on a few key characteristics rather than many.

Furthermore, I think agents and publishers are less likely to go for collections because they don’t have the potential for a series. This one’s a no brainer: once readers get attached to the first book in a series, you’ve got them locked in to buy the rest. The Harry Potter series, for instance, only got more and more popular with each new release. And once the series ends, publishers can package the whole thing into a box set for even more sales. All told, that’s a heck of a lot of money.

And another thing: authors often use short story collections to explore different styles and genres, which is the opposite of what they do with novels. Another truism of the publishing industry states that once an author makes it big with one book, she/he should pretty much rewrite that story, only make it a little different this time. For readers, this is a good thing; you can pick up a novel by an author you know, and you’ll probably end up liking it.

Short stories don’t necessarily follow that rule, though. Things like second person narrative and interview style, which rarely work in long-form narratives, suddenly spring to life in a short story. Authors also tend to explore subjects they stray away from in their longer fiction. Roald Dahl is a great example. Sure, you know him as the guy who wrote James and the Giant Peach and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. But have you ever read his short fiction? Just to get a taste (sorry for the pun), try Lamb to the Slaughter. It’s a clever short that includes murder, adultery, deception, and dinner.

Or, in other words, good fun.

Will short stories ever sell like novels do? Maybe not. Historically, the novel has always been far more popular, and, for the reasons listed above, I can see that trend continuing for a long, long time.

But don’t let that stop you from trying short fiction, if you haven’t already. There’s an elegance to a good short story, a brevity and directness that many novels are missing. Some of the greatest short stories I’ve ever read say much more with far less.

So, for J.G. Ballard’s sake and the sake of short story writers everywhere, always hold on to that loose change.

Kyle A. Massa is a speculative fiction author living somewhere in upstate New York with his wife and their two cats. His stories have appeared in numerous online magazines, including Allegory, Chantwood, and Dark Fire Fiction.

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