Interlude: A Guest Post by Barb Caffrey

by Stephanie Osborn
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

With Thanksgiving behind us and Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa approaching fast, here's Barb Caffrey to tell us more about An Elfy On The Loose!

~~~

The Importance of Ghosts in AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE

By Barb Caffrey

When Stephanie Osborn and Aaron Paul Lazar approached me regarding holiday guest blog opportunities, I wasn't sure what to say. What haven't I talked about yet with regards to my comic young adult urban fantasy/romance novel AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE?

And then it hit me. Ghosts. I haven't talked about them, and they play an important part in the ELFY duology (AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE is book one, with book two scheduled to come out in April of 2015).

"But Barb," you protest. "Your book sounds like it has so much going on as it is. It's a comedy. It's a romance. It's a mystery. It's an urban fantasy. It has alternate universes—" (I wrote a blog about this for Stephanie a while back, and it's a good one.) "And now, it has ghosts, too? How do they fit in?"

Yes, AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE has ghosts. Specifically, there's a ghost character named Egbert who takes an inordinate amount of interest in my hero Bruno the Elfy and his romantic companion Sarah (formerly known as Daisy). And it's partly because of Egbert the ghost that Bruno and Sarah have a chance to win the day.


But he's not the only ghost in play. (Nope; that would be too easy!) There are other ghosts alluded to in AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE, including Bruno's parents and possibly a few of Sarah's relatives…and they all matter.


You see, Bruno can communicate with the dead. (Me being me, I called him a Mage of Communication, the shorthand for that being—you guessed it—a Communicator.) And that's why these ghosts can help him out…or at least interfere in his life.


The reason this intrigued me initially is simple: Bruno had no idea he could communicate with the dead before he came to our version of Earth. He also had no idea that he was an Adept of an unusual kind, that his powers were both formidable and dangerous, and that he had many enemies—nor did he understand that the aircar accident that had badly injured him and killed his parents had been engineered by a high-ranking member of the Elfy High Council in his home Elfy Realm…someone who has some rather unusual ties to Egbert.


So here he is; a short, magical Elfy in the Human Realm (otherwise known as our Earth). He doesn't know what's happened to him. He doesn't even know why he's there. But he meets Sarah, he's immediately drawn to her— and she to him—his teacher Roberto the Wise tries to rescue him (with disastrous results), Sarah hides Bruno, a Dark Elf shows up…


And then we meet Egbert. We don't know why he's there, either, as he doesn't identify himself right away. But we know he's friendly, we know he has taken an interest for some reason in both Bruno and Sarah, we know he understands the Elfy Realm (even if we don't know why), and we know that he, too, has power. So he can, indeed, affect the outcome—years after his own death—and he can help Bruno figure out exactly why Bruno is in the Human Realm at all.


Now that I think about it, there are some few parallels between Egbert and Charles Dickens' character The Ghost of Christmas Past. Like Dickens' ghost, Egbert knows what happened in the past. And he wants a better outcome for the living…while they still have time.


Granted, my characters Bruno and Sarah are being threatened by a Dark Elf, a being inimical to Elfys and humans, not their own past as is Ebenezer Scrooge. Bruno in particular is under immediate threat due to Sarah's parents' hostility toward all Elfys. And there's a reason Egbert cares about these two—a pressing, compelling reason that I refuse to spoil.


But there are parallels nonetheless, because in AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE (as in Dickens' A CHRISTMAS CAROL), ghosts matter. Only a few remain able to make their wills be known and their wishes understood, but those few continue to be important and influential.


In our world, of course, the only way a person can matter after his or her death is in our memories. Or, if you believe in the positive Afterlife, perhaps our deceased loved ones can do something there that helps us out in some way we'll never understand until we rejoin them.


But in my conception, ghosts—at least some of them, like Egbert—can still do things to bring about positive change. That creates more drama, more suspense, more surprises…and sometimes, more laughs as well. Because in AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE, some people are so irrepressible that even death itself cannot keep them down.


In conclusion, if you've been looking for a magical, heartwarming, suspenseful, romantic, and riotously funny story—with ghosts—that's like no other this Christmas season, look no further.

Because AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE is here.

~~~

BARB CAFFREY is a writer, editor and musician from the Midwest. She is the author of the humorous urban fantasy/romance AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE, and is the co-author of the Adventures of Joey Maverick series (with late husband Michael B. Caffrey). Other stories have appeared in HOW BEER SAVED THE WORLD, STARS OF DARKOVER, and BEDLAM'S EDGE. Barb is a huge baseball fan (Go, Brewers!), reviews books at Shiny Book Review, follows politics, is mystified by the Maury show, and wonders when her little dog will ever stop doing "the paw trick."  Find her at Elfyverse, Facebook, or Twitter.

Folks, I'm responsible for seeing to it that Barb connected with my publisher to get An Elfy On The Loose into print -- I can say without doubt it is a fun romp! Go have a look, and seriously consider it for a holiday gift for friends, family -- and yourself!

-Stephanie Osborn
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

Interlude: An Elfy On The Loose, A Guest Blog by Barb Caffrey

by Stephanie Osborn
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

Like fantasies? Like mysteries? Like comedy? Put 'em together and you have Barb Caffrey's An Elfy On The Loose. Bruno is a young Elfy, a creature from another dimension, and he's been dumped into our dimension with little to no preparation. While here, he encounters young Sarah, a human who is not what she seems, and Sarah's parents, who are not nice people at all...

~~~

Bruno watched Sarah run through the grass while still carrying the backpacks, and wondered why she had so much energy when he had none. Could Roberto have been right? Could she be draining my energy and using it for herself? Although if she is, she can’t possibly know it…maybe she needs training. Although he didn’t know how Elfy girls got their training in magic, much less how a Human girl would get any.

Bruno knew that girl and boy Elfys were sent away to separate schools at the age of twelve. Bruno himself had been held back and home-schooled by his parents, not for being slow, but rather because they hadn’t trusted the school system. Bruno had never been sent to a segregated, all-boy Elfy school until he turned sixteen. That was right after his parents had died in a fiery aircar crash, after he’d become a ward of the state.

Many Elfys used magic frivolously, almost as if it was going out of style, and they didn’t want to use technology. Yet his people had aircars, while Sarah’s realm, the Human-Earth Realm, didn’t. Elfys would use toasters, light rail, and buses, when they wouldn’t use electricity to heat their homes (why pay for electricity if the magic was free?) and only used modern plumbing for elaborate, sybaritic layouts. He wondered if the Humans had those, too. He simply hadn’t had enough time on Sarah’s Earth…he needed to know more!

If the Elfy High Council was going to just send him out, why allow him to be so woefully unprepared? This was just silly!

Bruno rubbed at his head, and frowned. He felt a headache coming on; surely, this meant he should stop thinking so hard. He vowed to ask as many questions of Roberto, providing Roberto found them anytime soon (wherever they were), as he needed in order to make the headache go away.

This avowal immediately made him feel better.

But he still had no idea where he was. He didn’t recognize anything, except green grass, yet he had the oddest feeling. He wasn’t sure, but he thought they somehow had made it back to the Elfy Realm after all, and the not-knowing made him dizzy.

Sarah had stopped and appeared to be weaving on her feet. Bruno jogged the equivalent of three city blocks to get to her, hoping she’d not fall before he made it.

“Bruno, I feel…sick,” she gasped when he was only a few steps away. He sprinted toward her and turned her around; her greenish-white face was alarming. He told her to let the packs fall, then gently helped Sarah lay down on the ground.

“Will you two help me? I need a pillow for Sarah,” he asked the backpacks. Before he could feel too silly about asking backpacks, of all things, for help, a fluffy white pillow appeared in the air by his right hand. Maybe the packs had more power here for some reason? Bruno reached out and caught it before it hit the ground. “Thanks,” he said over his shoulder to the backpacks, as it never hurt to be polite.

He went to Sarah, knelt on the grass, and put the pillow under her head.

He started stroking her long, black hair, just to soothe her. He remembered, distantly, that his mother had used to do the same thing when he was a wee small Elfy and ill from eating some herb he wasn’t supposed to…anyway, he stroked. He talked, mostly nonsense, and tried not to think about the two of them in the middle of nowhere, one very ill and one mildly so. After all, considering Sarah’s sudden illness and his own headache and dizziness, wasn’t it more likely than not that they’d both been exposed to something? He wasn’t a completely stupid Elfy.

“Sarah, hold on,” he said as he continued to stroke her hair. “Somehow, Roberto will come. I know he will!”

“Why are you so sure, Jonny-wonny?”

“Please don’t call me Jonny-wonny, Sarah, or I’ll start calling you Daisy again,” he threatened, smiling to take the edge off his very real threat.

“All right…Bruno,” she gasped, and tried to smile. It was a feeble thing, like to her real smile as a tiny birthday candle on a cupcake was to a candelabrum.

“Don’t try to talk, Sarah,” he soothed, and continued to stroke her hair. This was very like petting a cat, he mused. Except Sarah didn’t claw when she was done with the petting.

He tried not to panic, but he had no way to treat her illness, and no way to get her any help. He felt completely useless, as he had no healing magic…very few did outside of the clerical orders, and even Roberto himself had very little.

He propped the backpacks behind him and asked them to stay put. They did. Then he fell asleep, her cradled on his lap (with the pillow between) and his arms around her. Lost on a sea of too-green grass, with no way out in sight.

~~~

An Elfy On The Loose would make a great gift for anyone -- adult, young adult, or older child. Check it out for YOUR holiday gift-giving!

-Stephanie Osborn
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

Elements of Modern Storytelling: Character Development, A Guest Blog by Barb Caffrey

By Stephanie Osborn
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

I'm pleased to welcome back Barb Caffrey, book reviewer, editor extraordinaire, and newly-published author of the delightful fantasy/romance/comedy/mystery genre-crosser, An Elfy On The Loose. Today she talks about character development, and she does so from a broad range of experience in literature.

~~~

Barb:

Without characters, you don't have a story.

I mean, think about it: Who'd remember the Harry Potter series if Harry Potter wasn't there? Or his buddy Ron Weasley? Or his other buddy, Hermione Granger? And that's just the good characters.

What about the enigmatic Severus Snape, the villainous Voldemort, or Harry's own uncle and aunt? Without them factoring into the equation, how would the seven books about Harry Potter interest anyone?

No, books are built on characters. It can't be any other way.

Even in a story where it's all about one man's struggle against the elements – such as Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea or the movie 127 Hours, the true story of hiker Aron Ralston (who had to amputate his own arm in order to survive) – you still must buy into the main character's dilemma. You have to care about Hemingway's old man. You have to care about Aron Ralston (as played by actor James Franco). Or the story doesn't make any sense.

And it's always been this way.

Consider, please, that Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales were all about characters. The ones we remember best, such as the stories about the gregarious and lascivious Wife of Bath, are because the characterization was so strong, people just couldn't help getting sucked into the tale.

The biggest and most obvious example, though, is the Bible. There are so many memorable stories there – stories of Moses, of David and Goliath, of Samson and Delilah, of wise King Solomon, and of course last but certainly far from least, Jesus of Nazareth. Most of these stories have narratives we completely understand.

For example, Moses tells the Egyptian Pharoah that if the Pharoah doesn't let Moses's people go, Egypt will be afflicted. The Pharoah doesn't listen, Egypt gets ravaged, and finally after a great deal of suffering, the Pharoah tells Moses to take his people and go.

Mind, if this particular story wasn't in the Bible, we'd see it as a story of action, adventure, mayhem, perhaps even as fantastic...but it works predominantly because we believe Moses is a grounded, down-to-Earth person who's telling the flat truth at all times. We also believe the Pharoah doesn't understand who – or Who – he's messing with, so when the Pharoah (and by extension, all of Egypt) gets his comeuppance, the reader can clap and cheer. (Or at least want to do so, which is one reason why the Bible is among the best-selling books of all time.)

But there's a different Biblical story I'd like to discuss, and that's the story of Job. He's a guy who seemingly has it all at the beginning of his story, and is described as being both "blameless" and "upright." He has a good family, lots of money, lots of property, is well-respected, and has many friends. But because his life is so comparatively easy, Satan turns to God and says, in essence, "Hey, Job has it really easy. I bet he'd not be so good if he had nothing at all."

God's reply is to cause Job to be afflicted with a great deal of unnecessary suffering. Job has no idea why he loses everything, why his family suffers right along with him and most of them die – all he knows is that God has apparently forsaken him, when Job himself hasn't done anything at all to deserve this. And all but a few friends desert him, too – and the few friends left all believe Job must've done something to cause this, even if they don't know what.

Job, though, really is as good as God said he is. So Job keeps being himself, tries to help others, and while he's obviously and understandably upset at all the undeserved misery that's befallen him and his family, he doesn't lash out at other people.

Because of Job's exemplary behavior, eventually much is restored to Job, though Job never gets a true answer as to why this happened. Instead, God basically stays above the fray and says Job cannot judge God – and Job accepts this.

Now, why does much of this story work, even to modern readers who don't accept that a Deity figure would ever behave in such a peremptory way? Well, it's simple: We all know people who've suffered unnecessarily cruel things. We don't know why this has happened. Often, the ones suffering get hectored by their friends, the same as Job was, and that just adds insult to injury. And finally, we respect a man who has shown he truly is good, deep down, in all the ways that count – because anyone can be a good person when there's no adversity in his life.

But it takes a very strong person indeed to be good when everything's stacked against him.

In Job's story, we have two main characters – God, who we can't possibly understand, and who even says so. And Job, who we definitely do understand . . . so if we didn't buy into Job's character, why would the story of Job still be resonating millennia after it was originally written down?

Job's story in particular illustrates why characterization is so important. Because if you don't have someone memorable to build a story around (like Job, Moses, Harry Potter, the Wife of Bath, or my own Bruno the Elfy), what good is the story? Who will remember it? And why should anyone care?

So when you sit down to write, make sure your main character – whether he's human, Elfy, completely alien, Godlike, or many other disparate things – is memorable. Because without that, you can't possibly interest a reader.

~~~

Well, it seems appropriate at this point to simply say, "Amen"...

If you haven't read Barb's new book, An Elfy On The Loose, by all means, do so!


-Stephanie Osborn
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

Characterization in AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE, A Guest Blog by Barb Caffrey

By Stephanie Osborn
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

We're getting ready to start talking about a different element of modern storytelling: character. As she has a new book out, a book with strong characters and more than a hint of romance, I asked Barb Caffrey to write an additional blog article -- not just about how characters work in telling stories, but specifically about how HER characters were designed to interact in her new book, An Elfy On The Loose. Consider this as a kind of segue from Romance to Character Development in our Elements of Modern Storytelling series.

~~~

Characterization in AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE

Or, Why Bruno the Elfy Is So Much Fun to Write

By Barb Caffrey 

If you've read my novel AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE – or even if you've only heard about it a little – you probably are aware that my main character, Bruno the Elfy, is quite an intriguing character to wrap a book around.

Why? Well, Bruno didn't exactly start out as a hero-type. He's short: he's only three feet tall. He doesn't think he has any appreciable magical skills at the start of AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE, either, and this is a problem considering he comes from the magical race of Elfys – and all of them seem to have at least some magic. (Bruno doesn't realize the reason he doesn't seem to have magical talent is because he's been intentionally mistrained by the orders of the Elfy High Council.) And while he's young – the equivalent of a teenager in human terms – he thinks of himself as jaded, worldly-wise, and experienced.

Of course, many teens do the latter. And it's because of their lack of experience when teens think they already have experience that the story of AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE originally came to me.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Actually, Bruno the Elfy came to me in a dream. I had just read an anthology about Elves, where the editor – whose name escapes me – said (my best paraphrase here), "These aren't your typical Elfie-welfie types of Elves. They actually do things."

And Bruno piped up with, "It's not like that!"

I noticed that Bruno was dressed all in black. And he proceeded to tell me earnestly that while the Elfys in his culture liked to rhyme (thus the nonsense term "Elfy-welfy), he, himself, did not. And while the Elfys in his culture liked loud clothing – the louder, the better – he, himself, obviously did not.

Then I found out he was trapped in a haunted house in California. He'd been sent there by the Elfy High Council, a rather mysterious bunch of people from another dimension I'd get to know (and mostly dislike). His teacher, Roberto the Wise, did not agree with the decision to maroon Bruno on our Earth, and was trying to get him back...but Bruno had met Sarah – a young, Human girl, and his eventual love interest – and Bruno didn't want to leave her behind.

Just knowing that much gave me an insight into Bruno's character. He's loyal, almost to a fault. He is a good judge of character. He doesn't know much about himself (as most teens or teen-equivalents truly don't), but he does know this: He believes in good things – love, friendship, and ideals.

And as I went on, I learned that Bruno is also a scholar – as Roberto's one of the foremost scholars in the Elfy Realm, that's no surprise. Bruno has a lot more magic than he thinks, something Roberto knew but couldn't directly tell him due to the wishes of the High Council. And there truly is a conspiracy against Bruno.

All of that helped me as I tried to figure out more about what Bruno's doing in that haunted house. Much less more about the diminutive and enigmatic Sarah, who surely must be a whole lot older than she seems – but why? And again, what's she doing there at all?

Many young men of whatever species would probably run away from Sarah, no matter how attractive she is and no matter how short she is – which has to be an attraction for Bruno, no matter how much he denies it – because there's something obviously wrong there. Sarah's parents are awful, and not just to her. They have trapped Bruno for no reason except that he's an Elfy and they apparently don't care much for Elfys. So you'd think Bruno would just want to get away from that whole situation, run to Roberto, and forget about Sarah, her dastardly parents, and that whole, strange, screwed-up house…

But Bruno doesn't do that.

Even though he's not a prototypical hero-type, Bruno believes in fairness. As Sarah has been kind to him, he judges her for what she is along with what she's done – and after Roberto's attempt to rescue him goes horribly wrong, Sarah does her best to hide Bruno from her family. That, too, works in her favor.

And as they get to know each other during this desperate crisis, they realize they have a lot in common. They both have magic. They're both a wee bit older than they thought. And they both believe in the same things – love matters. Family, no matter how screwed up, matters. (Though no one should suffer abuse. Ever.) And good can indeed win over evil, providing you're careful, smart and willing to work with others for the benefit of all.

But none of it – not one blessed thing – would work without Bruno. He is a fully realized, multidimensional character with likes and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses, and seems like someone you might just know...that is, if he weren't so short. And it's because of this that you can buy into his adventures, you can buy into his romance, and you can buy into the fact that this young Elfy just might be able to save everyone if he just can figure it out in time.

That, to my mind, is why Bruno is so much fun to write.

~~~

Interesting, every bit of that, Barb. In fact, Bruno rather reminds me of one of the main characters from a true fantasy classic -- Frodo Baggins, of J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy. Short, diminutive male of a non-human race; not possessed of great magical powers, or really, great powers in general; trapped in a situation for which he didn't ask; yet responsible, loyal, and determined.

Folks, be sure to check out An Elfy On The Loose.

-Stephanie Osborn
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

Special Guest Blog: Parallel Universes, by Barb Caffrey

by Stephanie Osborn
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

Barb has been participating in the Elements of Modern Storytelling series of blog articles. She is a professional book and music reviewer, as well as recently having her first book published, An Elfy On The Loose. She pitched an interesting guest blog at me and I liked it -- a lot! So here it is for your enjoyment.

~~~

"Why Use Parallel Universes in Fantasy?"

by Barb Caffrey

Some readers of my debut YA urban fantasy/romance novel, AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE, have had one question: Why did you use the parallel universe theory for the location of the Elfy Realm?

But first, you need to know what the parallel universe theory is.

The parallel universe theory – that there are universes like our own, that developed much like our own, but history went differently there so it's possible to have different versions of the same person, perhaps, or different races emerging from what is substantially the same world – has been used to great effect by many science fiction novelists in the past, including Stephanie Osborn herself in her Displaced Detective series.

But fantasy novelists have not used it very often.

Instead, novelists such as L.E. Modesitt, Jr., Alan Dean Foster, Barbara Hambly, and more recently, Christopher Nuttall, have sent people from our world into a completely different fantasy world, one where the rules are completely different. That allows for magic. It also allows for science, too, as brought in by the protagonist – most particularly by Modesitt, Jr. and Nuttall. But primarily, this is to account for the alienness of the world and everything within it.

As a plot device, that's fine. But it's not the one I came up with.

Why? Well, I gravitated far more toward the theory that eldritch beings have always been a part of our world. (Hence the Bedlam's Bard universe as conceived of by Mercedes Lackey, Ellen Guon and Rosemary Edghill.) But I didn't think the idea of Underhill would work for me…and besides, the idea had already been done very well.

So I decided that each race would have its own Realm, which is all a version of Earth. In addition to the Elfys and the Elfs (do not call them Elves in the Elfyverse, or that will get you killed most unpleasantly), there's the Trolls, the Dwarves, the Orcs, and many, many more, all living on various parallel dimensions of Earth and going by these names: The Elfy Realm. The Elf Realm(s). The Dwarven Realm. And so on.

I figured it's much easier to have one world that's split via the parallel universe theory than it is to send someone somewhere else where nothing is familiar whatsoever. I liked the idea that the supposedly familiar could also be intensely strange – as the Elfys, at first, know very little about us, the Humans, and we definitely know even less about them. And I really liked the idea that a magical being like a Dark Elf – that is, a being committed to violence and darkness and death for its own sake – would "pass" as Human because we've forgotten that Dark Elfs exist.

As to how I got around the magic part, considering our world does not seem to be magical? Well, as many other novelists have done, I said that magic exists, but our world has mostly forgotten about it.

The theory of parallel universes, in short, enhances my story because it gives me a huge canvas to play with. Bruno's upcoming adventures include a trip to the Elfy Realm (he must tell off those twits comprising the Elfy High Council somehow), and future novels have adventures in the Troll Realm, more in-depth looks at the Elfy Realm, and of course a great deal continues to go on in our own world, the Human Realm…

So despite there being much magic and mystery involved in the creation of AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE, underneath it all lies a solid principle of physics – even if it's not used exactly as most physicists would probably approve. And yes, I did it deliberately, because it fit the story and worked as a plot device and gave me a great deal to work with.

My view of the question I started with is simple: Rather than asking, "Why did you use the parallel universe theory," why not ask why other fantasy novelists haven't used the parallel universe theory?

That question is exactly why I used it.

 ~~~

And that's also why I liked it so much. The universe Barb created is different, and unique, and that's fascinating...as well as darn good writing. An Elfy On The Loose is a great book, guys. Give it a try and you'll see what I mean.

-Stephanie Osborn

http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

Book Release: An Elfy on the Loose, by Barb Caffrey!

by Stephanie Osborn
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

Today is the official release date (and book bomb) for Barb Caffrey's new novel, An Elfy on the Loose! Barb is something of my protege, and when I read the original manuscript (which became An Elfy on the Loose and its sequel), I knew we had to get this into print. So I paid it forward; just as Travis Taylor helped me get published by submitting to publishers he knew, so I did for Barb. And here we are today, and I'm almost as proud as she is! I'm going to quote the review I posted at Amazon, and every word of it is truth:

This book has almost everything: fantasy, mystery, romance, suspense, thriller, paranormal, you name it -- and that sounds like it would be a hodgepodge, doesn't it? But it isn't. Everything flows together beautifully, leaving a fascinating story that will keep you on the edge of your seat! I highly recommend it, and since I don't usually write book reviews, that's saying a good bit!

What I didn't know was how Barb came to write the book in the first place, so I asked her to tell me in her guest blog for today!

~~~

"On the Writing of AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE"

by Barb Caffrey

To discuss how I wrote AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE – much less why I wrote it in the first place – I need to discuss the most important person who's ever been in my life: My [late] husband, Michael B. Caffrey. Because without him, AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE – much less the entirety of the Elfyverse – would not exist.

Michael was a much more assured writer than I was when I met him back in 2001, as he'd written two full novels and was working on another one. (I've managed to extract two stories from his first novel, and those stories,  A Dark and Stormy Night and On Westmount Station, are available at Amazon as e-books.) Michael also was an accomplished editor, and was probably the best person I could've been around as I started to seriously write fiction.

However, when we married in 2002, the novel I was working on wasn't AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE. I had no idea that I was about to write AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE, either, nor that I'd write more than 240,000 words in the space of about thirteen months.

So what happened to jog loose the story of Bruno the Elfy and Sarah, his Human companion and friend? And why did I listen back in September of 2002 when Bruno popped up and said, "Hey, over here! I have a story to tell?"

Back then, Michael and I had just gotten back to San Francisco, California, which had been his home for many years, from a lengthy honeymoon visit with my family. And I'd read an anthology about Elves where the anthologist said something to the effect of, "These Elves aren't your normal Elfie-welfie stuff, either." While the name of that anthology didn't stick, the thought of what, pray tell, "Elfie-welfie stuff" might be apparently did, as it wasn't three hours after I closed the book that Bruno appeared.

When a character appears, fully formed, it's best to listen to what he has to say. But all I knew, when I started writing, were three things: Bruno liked to wear black – when his race, the Elfys, mostly loved bright colors. He was the equivalent of a teenager. And he did not like to rhyme, even if all the other Elfys did.

Even so, that was enough for me to start writing what I then called "The Elfy Story." I wrote the first six parts or so – less than chapters, about a thousand words per part – alone. Michael took a hand when I got to the seventh part because I had some sort of problem I couldn't immediately solve, and he got intrigued. Then he figured this story had legs, and he wanted to help me figure out where it went.

What did he do, exactly? Well, I have an Elfy Lexicon in the Bilre language – Bilre being what the Elfys speak, of course – and I wouldn't have that without Michael's help. He also helped me hash out how the Elfys are governed, and what their society is like. Trade is a must, and whoever Trades with all the other races can be a very wealthy and powerful person, but knowledge, too, is essential – because if you don't know what's likely to be important to each species, how could you possibly relate? (Or Trade, either?)

In figuring all of that out, we decided that the Elfyverse must be a true multiverse, where the various races tend to have worlds (or levels) of their own. And each race is different; for example, I knew from the beginning that Elfys were a type of shorter Elf (no Elfy is taller than four feet, two inches unless he or she is of mixed blood), but didn't have the same set of strengths and weaknesses as the Elfs (never Elves, as if you call them that in the Elfyverse, the Elfs will charcoal you for your presumption). And I knew that we had at least three races involved – Elfs, Elfys, and Humans. But as time went on, I knew the Dwarves were present (as they built air-cars), as were the Trolls, and maybe even the Ogres...

Still, world building aside, why should anyone care about Bruno just because he's an Elfy and from a magical society? You'd think that someone who has magic, and a lot of it, would be too hard to root for, right?

Not in Bruno's case. He's an orphan, a ward of the state, and because of a past traumatic brain injury, he doesn't remember everything he should. Further, most of what he's been told about himself is wrong. Worse yet, the Elfy High Council is so afraid of Bruno's potential magical power that they've intentionally mistrained him before sending him off to the Human Realm (our Earth), intending to maroon him there forever.

Despite all this, Bruno never completely loses his sense of humor, which appealed to me. He refuses to give up – it's just not in him – and that, too, appealed to me. So I kept writing...and my husband kept editing.

As I wrote, I learned that Bruno had landed in a house that was haunted. And where he mostly couldn't do magic. And where he only had one friend: the strange Human girl Sarah, with whom he had to make common cause due to her loathsome parents (as one of my friends put it, "Sarah's parents are straight out of reality TV"). They're in a bad situation, but it quickly gets worse when Bruno's mentor Roberto tries to rescue them, but instead ends up getting captured himself by Sarah's terrible parents. Who are themselves in thrall to a Dark Elf, who's up to no good...and then, of course, they fall in love, and everything gets better in a weird way because that's what love does, despite everything else going to the Hells in a handbasket.

With all of that going on, Bruno and Sarah realize they have to gather allies. But how can they? Bruno's new to the whole Human Realm (our Earth), while Sarah's been told her whole life that she's unimportant and way too young to be bothered with. And they need both Elfy and Human allies, which isn't going to be easy...

But somehow, some way, they will do it – or die trying.

With this huge, complex plot, I could've easily gotten lost. Fortunately for me, Michael was there every step of the way. He told me when I'd get frustrated, "Don't worry. The story will come." Or he'd tell me jokes in a similar way Bruno tries to do with Sarah from time to time in AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE (where do you think I got that from, hm?). Or he'd help me draw diagrams when I tried to figure out why the Elfy High Council did anything at all...plus, he edited what I wrote, gave me excellent advice, and heavily edited nearly all of Dennis the Dark Elf's dialogue to make it even nastier and more hissable.

What more could anyone ever ask from her spouse than that?

So, in closing, if you enjoyed any part of AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE, please remember my husband Michael. Without his presence in my life – without his understanding, patience, and love – this novel would not exist. Because I'd not have known enough about love to write it.

~~~

And there's her story, and it's delightful and wonderfully romantic. And so is her book! I urge you to purchase An Elfy on the Loose for your Nook or Kindle right away! Like I said, we're book-bombing her today anyway, so what better time to buy, than to help a new author? Go forth and read!

-Stephanie Osborn
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

Elements of Modern Storytelling: Romance, A Guest Blog by Barb Caffrey

by Stephanie Osborn
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

Today's take on romance as a part of modern stories is rather unique, since Barb Caffrey (a new Twilight Times author, and now something of a protege of mine, as well as an excellent editor in her own right) looks at the history of romance itself, and how that factors into storytelling over the centuries. Her first book, An Elfy On The Loose, by TTB, will be out soon! (Rumor has it the release will be in June -- which seems appropriate!)

~~~

Barb:

When Stephanie Osborn asked me and a number of other writers to talk about romance as an element of storytelling, I wasn't sure what to say. Sure, there's the obvious – romance has been around forever in one fashion or another, and many novelists and playwrights have written about it. Geoffrey Chaucer had an ironic and bawdy take on it with his stories of the Wife of Bath (who was married many times more than once and proud of it, too), while Shakespeare had so many different takes on romance – failed and, every so often, one that actually works – it's hard to keep track of them all.


Courtly love, though, used to take different formats than it does now. In the 13th and 14th Centuries, women were to be adored from afar and put up on pedestals. Troubadours and Trouvéres sang to court ladies, and some lost their hearts to them, no doubt...but most did absolutely nothing about it for a wide variety of reasons.

Actual marriages were usually made for business considerations – say, if two people from adjoining farming families married, land would be settled upon them from the existing family farms. Or if a prosperous merchant family trained an apprentice from a different family and that apprentice wanted to take over the family business, usually he'd have to marry in.

So how did romance as a thing actually come to be? Well, feelings and hormones aside, the lot of women from early on was probably none too good in most societies. Being bartered in marriage was by far the least of these ancient women's worries. But as our world matured and societies became more stable, there was more leisure time available – especially in the upper classes – and people started to think.

Why couldn't marriages be made where both people respected and liked each other? Why, if everything else was equal, couldn't a suitor actually romantically care about his proposed wife? Wouldn't that be beneficial to all concerned?

Slowly, societal mores changed, and as they did, storytelling changed with it. This is when we started to see tales like Chaucer's, where the older Wife of Bath tells younger, prospective brides and grooms that love is not all it's cracked up to be – but sex has its charms all the same.

So there was a two-stranded theme to romance as of that moment: Love, and sex. If you can get both at the same time, more power to you; but if you can't, sex by itself along with respect and a bit of liking beats whatever's in second place.

We see that now in contemporary romances of all descriptions, but most particularly in erotic romance. There, the sexual act is much more of a player, and the romance behind it usually doesn't signify too much (though in the best erotic romances, both are intertwined).

In other romances, love is usually shown to be a melding of sexual attraction (hormonal), liking and mutual respect. The latter two take time to engender, but once you have them, they build and build and build...

In my own work, which is relentlessly cross-genre but I suppose you could call "humorous romantic urban fantasy," that's the tactic I use. My hero and heroine in AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE, Bruno and Sarah, get to know each other during an extremely stressful period in both their lives. The more they know about each other, the more they like each other...and as both are at the right age for a romance, it's not surprising they have one. It's my own conceit that a young man of whatever species (Bruno is an Elfy, a type of shorter Elf) would worry far, far more than he is usually given credit for when it comes to romance, in order for people to laugh a bit while remembering their first attempts at dating and romance.

Personally, whenever I try to write a story without some element of romance in it, I find it much harder. Romance is part of the human condition, and whether you're in the far future (as is my late husband Michael's character Joey Maverick, hero of "A Dark and Stormy Night" and "On Westmount Station"), the not-so-distant past (as with Katharine Eliska Kimbriel's Night Calls series, set in early 19th Century Michigan), or the present-day (as with Stephanie Osborn's own Displaced Detective series or my own AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE), romance is possible because the human condition doesn't change all that much over time.

Even in stories where romance isn't part of the main theme, such as Rosemary Edghill's Bast novels about a Wiccan detective in modern-day New York (collected in BELL, BOOK AND MURDER), romance still plays an integral part. Who's dating whom and who's sleeping with who has to be factored in by Bast as she does her best to solve mysteries; who wants whom, and why, also must be considered.

Don't think that because your story doesn't contain a well-developed romantic strain that romance doesn't matter to you as a storyteller. Sometimes the absence of romance tells you more than its presence.

To sum up, the way we express things now has changed from Chaucer's or Shakespeare's time. Women have far more of a say in our governments, we have more say as to who we marry and when (at least in the West), we can and do own businesses and we often direct our own affairs. But our need for connection, for closeness, and for understanding has not changed.

Whether you're talking about a romance between a traditional male-female couple, a same-sex romance or a romance between two aliens we can barely comprehend, romance still matters and must be taken into account regardless of genre.

So long live romance! And may we continue to see it in all its various forms as long as stories are told.

~~~

Excellently said! And a nice historical brief on romance through the ages, both in story and in real life. I look forward to posting a blog about Barb's new book, An Elfy On The Loose, when it's released!

-Stephanie Osborn
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com