novelist — Blog — An Aria of Words With Eugene the Author

This topic, along with power scaling, intentional design, interactive dynamics and a few others is something of an obsession of mine. It’s a topic that I’m very passionate about that I’ve held off on writing a piece on because in all honestly, my life is stressful enough without inviting needless animosity, but, let it never be said that Eugene the Author shies away from risk and discourse.

Authenticity of narrative, if I’m being completely honest, is something I feel is lacking in much of the global landscape. To tell that story, I’ll begin with another.

In my time as an independent author, I’ve had the pleasure of being told by Christian publishers that I’m entirely too worldly and something of a disgrace to the faith, and by secular publishers that I’m entirely too Christian and need to shut up about all this God stuff and cater to more easily monetized views of the world.

Personally, I find both perspectives amusing, truly. One of my personal mantras is “authenticity over everything”, which is to say that I will always pass no matter how big the potential payday if I have to compromise the authenticity of my narrative, my characters and my values to get there.

When demoing upcoming paranormal horror mystery Wired for Ruin, I was told by Christians that the story was antagonistic and pandered to modernity. There are sections of the narrative that deal strongly with some of the harm a few of the protagonists suffered at the hands of Christians, and aspects of the narrative that highlight ways that we can, while still holding our values, do a far better job of outreach, empathy and loving one another regardless of views, background, orientation, etcetera.

I also was told “how dare you depict an openly gay couple and not once have a scene where the protagonist tells them it’s wrong to be what they are!”

Now, on the flip side, whether subscribing to a different theism, agnosticism, or atheism, I had secular people tell me “Yeah I’m not reading a book by a Christian/with a Christian lead/that has positive Christian values/that depicts Christianity in a positive light”, and was told the narrative was distracting, weak, divisive, phobic for having Christianity portrayed positively.

Hey, look at that, I’m uniting people!

A lot of the protagonists in my retinue are female leads of varying age and ethnicity. To be quite honest, this was somewhat accidental. I consider my novels to be broken up into four primary "ages" in history. The True Mythology series encompasses the warriors of legend that helped forge the world the protagonists live in today. The Era of Conflict is how the high holy orders that stand above all the others were established. The Modern Age is where you dear readers come in, with such fascinating reads as the upcoming Murder the Citizens: Hunger, Tribus Dulce, Ochre Alleycat, Pretty Little Whispers, In Defense of the Heart. These stories take place in or around the bubble of 2017, plus or minus ten or so years.

Well, when I began writing all of these narratives, I realized that I had a bit of an abundance of male leads and not enough female leads. What's more, an over abundance of narratives that seem only to know how to sell a female lead by stripping her of her clothing and having her defined by little more than sexuality and ambiguity cemented the necessity for a higher caliber of heroine.