Atheism in Television

The following article is a reprint of an article I wrote for the Godswillchurch website last year. The article is no longer available through Godswill, but I found it on the Internet Archive. 

Several years ago, I determined to create a fiction series about an atheist private detective. As an atheist, I felt that the world needed a realistic heroic character that had no need of a religious belief system to base his or her good deeds upon. I began writing the series a decade ago, and in that time, I’ve noticed that perhaps some others had the same or a similar idea; especially in the television writing field.

Popular atheism as depicted on television.

Recently, it seems to me that television has made something of a leap forward in the portrayal of atheists, at least in the fictional realm. Numerous characters have either expressed atheistic ideas or have declared themselves to be atheists and that skepticism is a vital part of their character identity.

Granted, some have done so only in passing, Chris Colfer’s character, Kurt Hummel, on the television show Glee announced his atheism on one episode where the plot involved his father dealing with a heart attack. The issue of his disbelief was handled tactfully and respectfully by the show’s writers, and then was never mentioned again. Meanwhile, several other characters on the show frequently talk about their own Christianity or Judaism, and in a more recent episode, the Kurt character was unfortunately shown being superstitious about the color shirt his father wore at a follow-up visit to the doctor. Superstitiousness is a decidedly unskeptical characteristic.

Another series where the issue of a character’s atheism was handled matter-of-factly was the Joss Whedon space-western, Firefly. Whedon is an atheist himself, so the fact that his alter-ego, Malcolm Reynolds, is also one should not come as a surprise; however, Whedon deftly handles the topic by also introducing a minister with a questionable past, a naïve ingénue, a self-assured prostitute, and a primal wild-woman character to struggle with the ideas of morality, evil, lust and other vagaries which the religious would otherwise reasonably have to consider as pat and settled. In one memorable scene, the wild-child, River, is seen cutting up the minister’s bible to reassemble it in a way that would make it internally consistent. “Bible’s broken,” she tells him. “Doesn’t make sense.”

Other current programs featuring atheist protagonists include Bones (Temperance Brennan played by Emily Deschanel,)The Good Wife (Alicia Florrick played by Julianna Margulies,) Dexter (the title character portrayed by Michael C. Hall,)The Big Bang Theory (Sheldon Cooper played by Jim Parsons,) Family Guy (Brian Griffin voiced by Seth MacFarlane,) Scrubs (Dr. Perry Cox played by John C. McGinley,) House (the title character played by Hugh Laurie,)The Cleveland Show (Cleveland Brown Jr. voiced by Mike Henry,) and one probable atheist on The Mentalist (Patrick Jane played by Simon Baker.)

The Mentalist never directly addresses Jane’s belief-system; however they frequently walk that line. A comparable program, Psych, features the identical premise, a fraudulent psychic working with the police to solve crimes. Even the theme song to that show joyfully declares “I know you know that I’m not telling the truth.” On a personal note, this plot device represents a dilemma for me. On the one hand, it’s entertaining to see the conceit that psychic talents have merit lampooned as being simple parlor tricks. On the other hand, in real life, we as skeptics know that self-declared psychics are self-serving ghouls. Do I root for the hero who is in many ways no better than an evangelist at a tent revival, or do I ignore the fictional chicanery to admire the theme of “psychics aren’t real?”

Another unfortunate issue with atheistic characters on television is that so many of them get their atheism from a lack of empathy. Bones, Dexter, Doctors House and Cox, and Sheldon Cooper are all emotionally stunted characters, and one is an outright sociopath. Also, it seems that when the writers want to humanize the characters, they often do so by resorting to having the characters temporarily question their atheistic resolve. In a recent episode of Bones, the character dealt with a traumatic event by receiving visions of the ghost of her dead mother. The Sheldon Cooper character frequently deals with shock or fear by calling out to “the God he doesn’t believe in,” as the show’s Hindu character, Raj, once put it.

Atheists in classic TV fiction.

Also, it should be noted that it’s not as if atheism as a characteristic in fiction is entirely new on television. The character of Mike Stivic played by Rob Reiner on All in the Family in the 1970s was a lapsed Catholic atheist. In the mid to late 80s, the series Moonlighting featured Cybil Shepherd in the role of Maddie Hayes, an atheist. In 1999, the teen comedy/drama Freaks and Geeks featured the atheistic character Lindsay Weir played by Linda Cardellini.  Battlestar Galactica, which ran from 2004 to 2009 featured the atheist character Billy Keikeya played by Paul Campbell. In fact, all of these characters were much better drawn, more rounded, empathetic characters than most of the atheists we see in television today. Yet they were fewer and further between.

In film, it often seems that atheistic characters are only played by real-life atheists who often create the characters for themselves to portray. Woody Allen often writes the characters he portrays as atheists. Jodie Foster portrayed the role of an atheist in the film version of Carl Sagan’s novel, Contact. Kevin Bacon played an atheist in Flatliners. Simon Pegg wrote and played an atheist in Hot Fuzz. Each of them has a spot on the list of atheist celebrities. Even Spencer Tracy, an atheist, was chosen to portray the atheistic lead, Henry Drummond, in Inherit the Wind.

In other fiction: novels, comic books, video games; we seldom come across sympathetic or heroic atheistic characters. They do exist of course, Tony Stark (Iron Man,) Holden Caulfield (The Catcher in the Rye,) Robert Langdon (The Da Vinci Code et al,) and sub-textually most of what has been written by John Updike are some notable examples. But I suspect that most of the modern fictionalized characterization of atheists as emotionally stunted intellectuals or cynical social outcasts originated in the character of Sherlock Holmes.

Arthur Conan Doyle’s groundbreaking private investigator is the archetypical forerunner of Robert Langdon, Temperance Brennan, Gregory House, Sheldon Cooper, and others in that he is emotionally stoic, quirky, smugly superior, and obsessively focused on the problem at hand. Like Tony Stark, Holden Caulfield, Henry Drummond, Malcolm Reynolds, Dexter Morgan, and others; Holmes operates from his own moral center. The rules don’t have to be apparent or understandable to others, so long as they are “internally consistent” and make sense to him.

Having been written for a mass audience during the Victorian era in British history, Sherlock Holmes was not an overt atheist. He expressed disdain for philosophy and cared little for the interpolations of social mores onto his objectives, but he never said in so many words that he rejected the concept of God or heaven. Rather, he simply ignored the topic. Holmes’ creator, Arthur Conan Doyle, was not, himself, an atheist per se. He spoke against organized religion, but he was a believer in spiritualism. Still, he created a character who had no need for such considerations as the heliocentrist vs. geocentrist debate (A Study in Scarlet.) Holmes also quoted the bible, but never insisted on its veracity. This tradition of ignoring metaphysical questions and postulates has generally persisted in the genre Holmes spawned. With popular fictional detectives from Phillip Marlow to Sam Spade to Nero Wolfe to James Rockford, the reader/viewer is seldom ever privy to the religious views of the gumshoe. In fact, when confronted with philosophies of a religious nature, the detective character more often than not either expresses disinterest in or disdain for the religious pontifications of the holier-than-thou.

With this history in mind, and with the new openness toward non-belief as an impetus, when creating my own fictional detective series I  determined to make my detective an overt atheist, disdainful of the pontificators, distrustful of the devout, and willing to say so in so-many words. His moral foundation is unimpeachable despite his “European” attitude toward monogamy. His patience for the religious delusions of others is predicated solely on their patience for his lack of same. Yet still, he shares the same observational talent, the same obsessive single-mindedness to task, and the same abundance of quirky habits that have become staples of the genre.

The one trap of writing a fictional atheist that I wanted to avoid was making him socially awkward. To that end, I gave my character a stubborn charm that a certain type of intellectual beauty finds irresistible. He’s a lothario but not a heart breaker. He’s careful and caring about the kind of woman he courts, preferring a more worldly type over the slavishly adoring.

I also determined to create a foil in the form of an intelligent and religiously neutral woman who genuinely does not see the appeal he holds for so many. She narrates the stories, the Watson to his Holmes, with more social awkwardness on her end than his. Through her eyes we come to understand both POVs, his atheism and the theistic individuals (both good and bad) that he interacts with in his casework.

Today’s audience, one hopes, is finally primed to accept an atheistic character who simply is. In real life, theists and non-theists interact daily. Believers and non-believers work side-by-side often sharing jokes and family stories, neither one knowing or caring if the other shares their belief-system unless it somehow comes up in conversation. So why should fiction writers be afraid to create atheistic characters who simply are? After all, there was a time when the homosexual down the street was portrayed as the confirmed bachelor; gay couples never came to dinner on the Dick Van Dyke Show; none of the Brady kids ever questioned their sexuality or mentioned “that one time at camp.” Yet today, every show has a gay neighbor. Stan on American Dad has dinner with the gay couple that reads the news. Every teen-centered show from 90210 to Glee deals with the personal drama of coming out to mom and dad, some shows on an almost weekly basis. That more than almost anything has probably affected the zeitgeist leading to the almost universal acceptance of homosexuality in the upcoming generation. Hopefully fiction can do the same thing for atheism. It’s worth a shot.

Banned Books Week Top 10

It’s banned books week. With that in mind, and with no further ado, here is my personal list of my top ten favorite banned books. In no particular order...

Alice in Wonderland I loved this book for so many reasons. The poetry was fantastic. The imagery and the humor were top notch. The concept was (for it’s time) utterly unique and creative. Plus the John Tenniel illustrations were ridiculously glorious.

The Catcher in the Rye At one point in the book, the narrator sees an obscene word written on a wall at his sister’s school, and is mortified that she might see it. Ultimately he realizes that you can never protect children from seeing depravity. It’s part of life. Still, many censors tried to shield the kids in their charge from seeing this book that notes that it’s a sad fact that kids see things like this book every day.

The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck is a genius. This book should be mandatory reading in the US Congress before any discussion of immigration reform and migrancy. The book takes its title from a line in the song The Battle Hymn of the Republic, which borrowed the term from the biblical book of Revelation 14:19-20. In the book, people are starving and others are destroying food in order to artificially inflate prices. Man’s inhumanity to man in pursuit of the almighty dollar is apparently something we shouldn’t be allowed to hear or read about.

Cartoon by the Center for Individual Freedom

1984 A book from the 1950s about a future society that created the word Newspeak which accurately predicted such government euphemisms as "enhanced interrogation" in lieu of the word torture. 1984 also predicted the NSA or “Big Brother” and perpetual war and bread & circuses as a means of controlling the masses.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Ironically, this book which was ahead of its time for trying to make the idea of the equality of the races palpable to the masses is frequently banned because – even though it was published at a time when the word was in common use and the people in the book who use it are being portrayed as buffoons – it contains the N word.

Catch 22 ███ book was funny, irreverent, smart, and populated by some of ██ most interesting and believable characters in history. ██ best part, considering that it would ultimately be itself so often ██ victim of censorship, is that Yosarian actually is forced to be █ censor at one point and makes █ game of it because he thinks censorship is stupid. To ██ day, because of having read Catch 22 while █ high school student, I sometimes find myself randomly playing “death to articles.”

Fahrenheit 451 Are you sensing a theme? Fahrenheit 451 is yet another book about the futility of censorship which is often the subject of censorship. In this case, the title so specifically calls that concept to mind (it’s the temperature at which paper ignites) that it was parodied as the title of a 2004 film by Michael Moore.

The DaVinci Code At the height of its popularity, this book which was written as fiction sparked a flurry of books written specifically to disprove the book’s fictional premise. Let me make that point clear. The book was fiction. The premise was fictional. Yet, religious people were so threatened by it that they wrote books and made films to discredit the book’s made up arguments.

Rights of Man Thomas Paine was driven from America by those who hated his apostasy. Which is ironic given the fact that the American Revolution, which guaranteed many of them the right to practice their religion, was predicated on the Enlightenment-centered idea that there are no divine rights of kings and that freedom to believe or disbelieve is a basic human right. This idea only gained traction thanks to Paine who made them accessible and understandable through the pamphlets he wrote championing the ideas of revolution and liberty.

Candide Anything Voltaire has a hand in is brilliant, but Candide is the crème d la crème. The book snipes at empire, at religion, at socio-economic policy, and at philosophy in equal measure. It is particularly successful at skewering the philosophical idiocy of the then very popular ideas of Joseph Leibnitz. Best of all possible worlds my ass.

Okay, that's my list. YMMV.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to cultivate my garden.

Author Interview: K.J. Bryen, Author of Lokte

K.J. Bryen lives in Oklahoma City with her loving husband, Adam. By day, she works at a news station. By night, she is a writer of young adult novels and supernatural thrillers. She loves any book that immerses her into a world she doesn't want to leave, and she hopes to be able to do that for her readers. She's also a coffee addict and a chocolate fanatic. She loves to meet new people, so hit her up on Facebook, Twitter, or Goodreads. You can also visit her website or blog to find out more about her books.

K.J.’s novel, Lokte, was released on September 12. K.J. describes her book thus:

Marianne Garcia is a struggling actress in New York City. With a dead career and her mother dying of cancer, she begins to lose faith in a better life.

That is, until Logan Lokte shows up.

The mysterious Logan offers her everything she has dreamed of, promising that he can not only make her a famous actress, but can stop the cancer spreading in her mother's body. All Marianne has to do is sign a contract.

Marianne doesn't believe in magic, and she has lost all faith in miracles. But why does she find herself strangely drawn to him? Who is Logan Lokte? And if she were to sign his contract . . . what would the consequences be?

In this tale of passion, murder, and deceit, Marianne's decision thrusts them both into a spiral where choices are crucial, and evil comes from within.

But they also must learn that, in life, not every door is locked.

Who are your influences?

 I've had a lot of influences on my writing, both writers and people from my everyday life. The author that has most inspired me for my supernatural thriller is Ted Dekker, who I find to be a phenomenal writer. In my day to day life, I have a lot of people who encourage and influence my writing, both friends and family. Probably the biggest influence is my husband. He bears with me through all my ideas, good and bad, and tells me his honest opinion. He also reads my original rough drafts as I am writing, and tells me what he likes and dislikes about it. I'm sometimes afraid his opinion is affected by the fact he only reads my rough drafts, not my completed novel . . . Hopefully one day I will write a novel and edit without his reading through it, so that he can read a polished version :)

When did you begin writing?

 I've been writing since I first learned to write. My first story I wrote when I was about four or five. It was drawn with marker and was mostly pictures, but ever since then I've wanted to be a writer.

How do you come up with your stories, characters, character names, POV, etc?

Honestly, it just depends. I have no idea where my stories come from. I guess from the deep reservoirs of my mind. Characters, I often base off of people I know. For example, Marianne Garcia, one of the main characters in Lokte, I would say is a reflection of myself in some ways. We both have a lot of similar traits. I also sometimes get ideas for scenes in my novels from things I see or hear; I've been inspired by songs and images.

Do you work from an outline?

Yes! If I don't at least have a basic outline of the story, my books would be terrible! I always need a plan, so that I can have the best structure for my book and don't have discrepancies.

 Tell me about your favorite scene in your novel.

Honestly, this was a very intense novel to write, and I have a lot of favorite scenes. One of my favorites I would say was the ending of the book. It was very powerful, and very emotional. You can ask my husband. I was glued to my computer the entire day, shaking the whole time

Can you tell us a little about your writing philosophy?

Not sure if I could pick just one philosophy. One thing I always try to remember when I write: while the book is for readers, it's also for you. Write your beliefs, write what you feel. That's what keeps me sane half the time.

 Have you ever tried writing in any other genres?

Yes, I will be focusing primarily on two genres, Christian Supernatural Thrillers, and Young Adult Paranormal/Horror. My next project is a young adult horror series.

Do you have any interesting writing-related anecdotes to share?

I'm honestly not sure. I will say that my husband is a music writer, and we have had lots of friendly debates on who is more intense when they're in writing mode. I still think I am :)

Introducing Thrills and Mystery

I was recently struck with inspiration in the form of an idea for a new paradigm for online publishing. What I have come up with is a project that can benefit all mystery genre writers, a website designed to promote and expand the audiences of writers of thrillers, action/adventure, and other dark tales of murder and lesser crimes. Currently in ALPHA testing, I have built a website called ThrillsandMystery.com. It is presently under construction and not yet available to the public. 

When the page is live, authors will submit stories to vie for inclusion in a five-times-a-year anthology. The process begins when a third of each submitted story is posted on a publicly accessible forum where readers can comment on the story, sort of like real-time beta readers. They might offer input on character development, pacing, clarity of theme, or anything they think will help the writer to rework the piece to make a more enticing read. Obviously, it’s up to the writer to apply or ignore reader advice. After the story-ration has been available for critique for a minimum of one month, it can move on into the voting stage. During the voting stage, a larger story-ration will be posted on a dedicated page for a particular issue of the anthology, but the last third will be held back. Readers then use that two-thirds of a story to determine whether they want to read the conclusion. If they are hooked, they vote for the story. The six to eight stories receiving the highest number of votes appear in the next issue of the anthology. 

It's a simple idea, but it is designed to usurp the traditional model where editors and publishers decide what the reading public gets to enjoy. In addition to getting the stories they want, readers also benefit by finding new writers to read. Writers benefit by potentially acquiring new fans. Stories benefit by gaining the direct insight and input of readers. The site will hopefully go live some time in October, and readers of this blog will be among the first to know. 

The anthology will be published once every ten weeks with a winter issue in early January, a spring issue, a summer issue, a fall issue and a holiday issue to follow. Since the main purpose is to help readers and indie writers to discover one another, the costs will be extremely low, and copies will be available for purchase on the site, or from all online retailers. A paper version will also be available, but at a more substantial price. Stay tuned to this site for updates and additional news.

Guest Post: Was Frankenstein a zombie, or a sci-fi cyborg? by Leah Rhyne

Today's guest post comes to us from Leah Rhyne. Leah is a Jersey girl who's lived in the South so long she's lost her accent...but never her attitude. After spending most of her childhood watching movies like Star Wars, Alien(s), and A Nightmare On Elm Street, and reading books like Stephen King's The Shining or It, Leah now writes tales of horror and science fiction. Her first novel, Undead America Volume 1: Zombie Days, Campfire Nights, released in the fall of 2012, and it’s sequel, No Angels, released in the fall of 2013. The final book in the trilogy is coming in 2014. She writes for LitReactor.com, The Charleston City Paper, and for herself at www.leahrhyne.com. Leah lives with her husband, daughter, and a small menagerie of pets. In her barely-there spare time, she loves running and yoga. 

Her horror/sci-fi novel, JO, was released yesterday, and I will be reviewing it for my Halloween posting on this blog. Here's the blurb:

Jolene Hall is dead – sort of. She can walk, think and talk, but her heart doesn't
beat and her lungs stopped breathing ages ago. Her body’s a mosaic of jagged wounds and stapled flesh. 

Jolene Hall has a choice: turn herself in to the authorities, led by a suspiciously handsome police officer, or team up with her roommate Lucy and her boyfriend Eli to find a way to save herself. To Jo, the choice is clear. She’d like to know who turned her into a monster, and she’d like to live to see another sunrise. 

But that choice has drastic repercussions. 

On a trip deep into the snowy White Mountains, to a hidden laboratory filled with danger and cadavers, Jo and Lucy find more reanimated girls. Part body, part machine, run by batteries and electricity, these girls are killers, created by a shadowy Order with a penchant for chaos...and murder. 

To make matters worse, a photo on a wall of victims reveals Lucy is next in line to be "recruited” into this army of beautiful, walking corpses.
When Jo’s physical condition takes a turn for the irreparable, and the Order kidnaps those she loves most, she must sacrifice herself to save them all.

I began writing my novel, JO, after a dream in which a dead girl appeared in my old college dorm room, asking if I could smell how dead she really was. The dream, while mildly disturbing, was entertaining enough that an idea grew for a girl who was transformed into a semi-cyborg-monster-thing, and the how’s and why’s obsessed me for the next year and a half while I wrote and edited, wrote and edited.

Once the book was complete and I began the “how shall I publish this one” discussion in my head, I began reaching out to agents.

“Nope,” I heard back, on more than one occasion. “JO is just another zombie book, and we’re all full up on zombies.”

Well, no, I thought. Not really. She’s more like an updated, modern-day Frankenstein monster. In fact, while writing the book, the working title, thanks to a comment by a friend, was Pretty Frankenstein (which I dropped in respect to copyright laws and such).

My own clear miscommunications about my book’s intent aside, this response led me to the question: was the Frankenstein monster a zombie? Or was he more what I imagined: an old-school cyborg, running on electricity and just begging for an updated telling?

Let’s look at the evidence.

Dr. Frankenstein was a (mad) scientist with dreams of bringing a man back to life. To achieve his goal, he surgically spliced together body parts of different people who died from different causes, and (somehow) wired him up for electricity. We all know the brain was the final piece, and (somehow) that abby-normal brain was chosen instead of a normal one.

The monster lay on a table, all sewn together and awaiting a spark to wake him up. That spark came in the form of lightning – electricity. Somehow, deep inside his body, he was wired for electricity, as evidenced by the metal knobs on Boris Karloff’s neck in the 1931 movie version.

Once awake, the Frankenstein monster is hardly zombie-like. Though he grunts and groans and lumbers about, there are thought processes evident in his actions. The little girl and the flower are the best examples, but so are his anger, his rage. He’s not a mindless beast trying to eat his way through all the brains in town. No. His anger is directed at the man who created this hellish existence for him, and his fear becomes palpable when he’s chased by an angry mob.

The zombies I know of are all pretty mindless. Their focus is on one thing: food. Nowhere in the Frankenstein book or movies do we ever even see the monster eat.

I think the answer is clear: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is an early work of sci-fi that could beat even Jules Vern or Orson Wells at their own game. Robot-man runs amok is just as cool as 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, at least in my opinion. The monster himself is merely a cyborg, and a sad one at that.

Those are the ideas I tried to capture in JO. I’d love to share those ideas with you, and hear back from you what you think!

Book Review: Fire Sign by M. A. Petterson

Dr. Anja Toussaint is a woman with secrets. Large areas of her skin are covered in burn scars, yet for reasons known only to her, she is compelled by fire. As the arson investigator for the police department in an anonymous city under the Fire Marshal’s office of an un-named state, she utilizes her impressive knowledge of the mechanics of fire and her almost empathetic understanding of the arsonist mentality to stop and to hopefully capture those who are pathologically driven to burn things.

When the same timed and carefully-placed method is used to burn several churches, Anja is teamed with Sgt, Gil Dolan, a bitter and less-than-ept career cop who acts as her liaison so that she might have access to the evidence. The two have an unamicable history which colors their team dynamic in a way I’ve never encountered in fiction before.

Fire Sign by M. A. Petterson is a novella which serves as introduction to a series which promises to thrill and entertain for several novels to come. The characters are dark and nuanced in a way that makes them fascinating and realistic, but I doubt that I’d want to invite any of them to a picnic, but that’s okay. The descriptions of the fires and the explanations of the science are very well-handled. In a very short space, Petterson manages to build a complete world with solid back story, intricate office politics, and interesting possibilities for the future.

Petterson has firefighting training from time spent in the maritime services, although eye problems prevented M.A. from continuing to peruse it as a career. However clearly the training and experience “took” well enough that the book has a clear voice of authority.

They say that a story should only be as long as the space needed to tell it, and I generally agree, but I feel that Fire Sign may have been just a bit too short for its own good. While each page is well developed and fascinating, and even though the story has a completed arc, there were aspects which could have been better fleshed out. I also feel it could have benefited from a more thorough denouement. I don’t want to give anything away, but things happen to the Gil character during the climax that needed to be explained. Specifically, how did he get from point A to point B and then from B to C. He just seems to show up.

Petterson is donating a portion of each sale to several camps for burned children through a self-created charity called Anja’s Kids. Full disclosure, my own daughter was burned on her face at the age of five when a candle’s flame caught her hair. She has a large scar on her forehead which she can usually disguise with her bangs, but many other children are less fortunate. My daughter has attended one such camp in the past, and benefitted greatly. These camps offer burned children a safe place to share stories, build friendships and move on with the understanding that they are not alone. So, while I would normally complain that $2.99 is too much to charge for a novella this brief, given the objective and the destination of the funds, maybe Petterson is not charging enough.

You can purchase Fire Sign at Amazon, and you can find out more about Anja and Anja's Kids at http://www.mapetterson.com/ The next book in the series, Soot Angel, is due in September.

Excerpt

   O’Reilly joins me as I sit in the observation booth. The burn-building is packed with closed-circuit television cameras and microphones. I intend on monitoring Dolan carefully. I don’t want to kill the pathetic sergeant, just motivate him to scuttle off somewhere far from me.

   “Friend of yours?” O’Reilly asks.

   I just smile and activate the cameras and mikes. Every hallway and every room is now portrayed in gray on the monitors. They should spring for color, I think, but I know the budget is tight.

   Dolan stands alone in the vacant hallway, staring down a simulated motel hallway lined with doors on either side. I can hear him breathing through the mask, calmly and evenly. That will soon change.

I toggle the switch initiating the exercise.

   A sudden whoosh breaks the silence as flames gush out of a doorway halfway down the hall.

   “Oh, yeah,” Dolan says. “Let the party begin.”

   He strides to the first door and rattles the knob, but it is locked. Then he slams the Halligan tool between the door and sill and wrenches it open.

   I watch his progress on another monitor.

   “Hey,” he calls out. “Anyone here?”

   He sweeps the room quickly, looks inside the bathroom closet, but the room is empty. He jogs back into the hall.

   The air roils with smoke now.

   Dolan reaches another door, pounds on it, tries the knob. The door swings open.

   He enters and spots a figure in the corner, slumped in an overstuffed chair, long auburn hair drooping over the head.

   “Score one for the gipper,” Dolan says, racing to the rescue.

   He reaches down and soon finds he’s cradling a skeleton wearing a wig and dress. A cigarette dangles from bony fingers, touching the scorched armrest.

Author Interview: Elise Abram, author of The Revenant

Elise Abram

Today I am taking part in a blog tour for Elise Abram whose new book, The Revenant, came out on the tenth of July. Elise describes her story as a YA paranormal novel set in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Zulu is a revenant, killed and resurrected more than 100 years ago. His only companions are Morgan the Seer and Kat, a modern teen who can see auras. Together they work to save the people in danger in The Seer's dreams. But when Morgan, a powerful necromancer is raised from the dead, the trio realize the people most in need of saving are themselves.

Teacher of English and Computer Studies by day, wife and mother by night and author whenever she can steal some time, Elise Abram is the proud author of Phase Shift, The Mummy Wore Combat Boots, and Throwaway Child, available on Amazon and KoboBooks. She pens a blog about literature, popular culture and the human condition whenever the muse moves her at eliseabram.com.

And now, here's our interview.

Who are your influences?

Anne Rice, Cathy Reichs, and Margaret Atwood would have to be my biggest influences. Rice for her descriptive prose, Reichs for making science and technology accessible and Atwood for her skill at incorporating contemporary themes in her writing. And I can't forget Stephen King for modeling how to write about the gore.

When did you begin writing?

My first memory of writing was winning an award for my rendition of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves in grade 2. I also remember reading a book about kids who find a treasure map which sends them on a quest in grade school that sparked me to write a similar tale, but I can't for the life of me remember the name of the book. Then there was the novel I tried to write in high school, but never finished. There was a period of a decade or more when the only writing I did was technical, essays and archaeological reports and such. It's only been about 12 or so years I've seriously tried to make it into a second career of sorts.

How do you come up with your stories, characters, character names, POV, etc?

Many of my stories come from the world around me. Throwaway Child comes from the travesty of native residential schools in Canada. The Mummy Wore Combat Boots comes from the growing number of youth obsessed with the realistic world of gaming fantasy over reality. Phase Shift was influenced by "Star Trek", "Stargate", "Sliders" and the like that offer up duplicate worlds, change one variable, and explore what happens. I usually name my characters based on personality traits. Malchus, the antagonist in The Revenant, for example, comes from "mal" which means bad or unpleasant.

If I think hard enough about a story, the point of view usually just comes to me. If ever a story isn't working, I might try on a different point of view to see if it flows better another way.

Do you work from an outline?

I work from a vague outline. I sometimes jot ideas down when I think of them so I don't lose them. Most of the time I know where I want to begin, where I want to end and major plot points in the middle. The transitions from point to point usually fill themselves in as I write.

Tell me about your favorite scene in your novel.

Since my favourite scene in The Revenant is the climax, I can't tell you too much about it because I don't want to reveal any spoilers. The climax is the archetypal battle between good and evil. I can tell you it involves a kidnapping, zombies, a sword fight, and someone dies, but that's about it. I still cry every time I read it.

Can you tell us a little about your writing philosophy?

If you subscribe to the "you're not a real writer if you don't write every day" school of thought, you're only going to tear away at your confidence. The truth is, life happens. Everyone has to deal with school or work or family responsibilities and days, weeks, even months may go by without ever writing a word. Even though you never sit to put proverbial pen to paper, it's okay as long as you don't abandon your story. I'm always writing in my head, trying to visualize scenes and listen for character dialogue. When I finally sit down to write, the story seems to write itself. Thanks to Nanowrimo, I've also trained myself not to worry about editing as I write. My goal is to finish the story and worry about the editing later.

Have you ever tried writing in any other genres?

Though I prefer writing science fiction and paranormal/supernatural, I've also written police procedurals. Palmer Richardson, one of my Phase Shift characters, is a forensic anthropologist, someone who figures out what happened to a person in life, from their bones after death. Because he freelances with the Metropolitan Toronto Police Department, it's really easy to take his skill-set and use them in real-life scenarios to solve murders. He usually teams up with Detective Constable Michael Crestwood, who pops up in my sci-fi archaeology stories as well.

Do you have any interesting writing-related anecdotes to share?

I often think back on my writing "career" and think about how much more difficult my accomplishments to date would have been without the use of the Internet. But more than the research, I want to talk about the connectivity of the digital age, and I don't mean the role it played in helping me find a publisher. People, other authors and bloggers, have been amazing in their support. I think this really speaks to community and the connectivity of the world. All you have to do is reach out; the worst that will happen is someone says "no." In planning my blog tour, the amount of bloggers--total strangers--who offered to open up their web pages to me, be it in an interview such as this one, a guest blog post, or a much needed review, the response has been nothing short of welcoming, warm, and supportive, and I am truly grateful to everyone who offered a hand, no matter how small, along the way.

Excerpt: 

   Barb grunted a low grunt.

   Malchus heard something that sounded like cracking bone. He stood and walked slowly around to face Barb. She was working to frantically shove the remnants of whatever she had in her hands into her mouth. Blood covered the lower half of her face and her hands and dripped down her forearms, off her elbows, and had begun to pool on the floor. The sleeves of her sweater, rolled up her arms and above her elbows, were saturated.

   Having pushed the last of whatever it was she had been eating into her mouth, Barb set to licking the blood off her fingers and then from her forearms. She rolled down her sleeves until they covered her hands, and then placed the material into her mouth and sucked the blood from them as well.

   “Barb!” Malchus said, sickened in spite of himself.

   Barb looked up at him, eyes wide with fear, the cuff of one of her sleeves still between her lips.

   “What are you eating?” he said, sounding calmer than the thump of Hal’s heart would indicate.

   “Rat.” The sweater cuff fell from her mouth when she spoke. She licked her lips, and as if realizing there was still blood to be had on her face, wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand, looked at it, then pressed it against her mouth and sucked.

The Revenant is available at the following online locations:  Amazon, B&N, Black Rose Publishing. You can follow Elise and her writings through her page on Goodreads.