I'll be guest hosting a virtual book launch. Join the fun to win some great prizes

Hello, everyone. 

My fabulous friend, fellow children's and YA author LM Preston, will be having a book launch for her new sci-fi novel Explorer X - Beta, and I'm going to be one of the guest hosts. Drop by for a chance to win lots of wonderful prizes, including an electronic copy of my latest fantasy novel,Toren the Teller's Tale. This will be my first virtual book launch, so I am super excited about this. Hope you'll drop by.  

Book RELEASE PARTY! Join in on the FUN!

Saturday March 31st is the Facebook Jam PARTY!


I'm so excited to announce the details about the star studded guest that will be running the party at my Explorer X-Beta Facebook Release Party!

Here's the PARTEE - link to here the buzz:
http://www.facebook.com/events/263303783743646/

Spotlight Author Guest Hosts Keeping the Party Rolling will be:
LM Preston to kick it off - Yours Truly

12pm-1pm (EST) - LM Preston party kickoff

1pm-2pm - Willow Cross

2pm-3pm - Leah Diane Hutchinson

3pm-4pm - C. Lee McKenzie

4pm-5pm - Norwood Holland

6pm-7pm - Alivia Anders

7pm-8pm - Alicia 'Kat' Dilman

8pm-9pm -KaSonndra Leigh

9pm-10pm - Kristi M Worrell

10pm-11pm - Shevi Arnold

The Party Rundown!
11 hour marathon of Spotlight Authors, trivia games, food, itunes gift cards, list of freebie party favors, interactive chatting, singing, dancing, nonstop games, music, prizes and free stuff!! Author segments each hour that are themed and more giveaways!!!

Also having a Twitter release party on Tuesday April 3th, sponsored by #AAMBCBookParty so follow that hashtag on 4/3 if you want to party more :-D

Virtual Tour Schedule for Explorer X-Beta More Prizes More Fun:

April 8th: Mariah @ A Readers Adventure
April 8th: The Plot Thickens
9th: Angie @ My Four Monkeys
10th: Glenda @ Book Reader's Heaven
11th: Krystal @ Live To Read
12th: Nicole @ Purple Peguin Reviews
13th: Shelia @ Shelia Deeth
14th: Luke @ Luke Reviews
15th: Andrea @ So Many Books, So Little Time
16th: Stormi @ Books, Movies, Reviews. Oh my! (Guest Post Only)
17th: Dee @ Book Zone

LM Preston,YA SciFi Author
www.lmpreston.com
Blog: http://lmpreston.blogspot.com/
Tweet Me: http://twitter.com/LM_Preston
Facebook:http://tinyurl.com/2fev6qc

My Books
Explorer X - Alpha, The Pack, BANDITS
Read Excerpts: The Pack, Bandits, The Pack-Retribution, Explorer X-Beta

Writing stories for and about kids that overcome the impossible...

Indie publishing is harder than it looks...

New issues keep cropping up when you indie publish. Here's an example.

We donated a paperback version of Dan Quixote: Boy of Nuevo Jersey to our local library, but we couldn't find it on the shelf. It turns out that because it's a paperback, it was shoved into a paperback carousel. It's humorous, realistic contemporary children's fiction, but it was jammed into the fantasy carousel. And when I say shoved and jammed, I mean it. The book had been damaged because it didn't quite fit. It was just a bit too tall.

There are two things we learned from this.

First, write the genre on the back cover or the spine. This makes it easier for librarians to know where to put it.

Second, don't make your paperback any bigger than 5.25" wide by 8" high. It's okay to make a hardcover book bigger, but paperbacks are likely to be put on carousels, and they will get damaged if they're any bigger than that.

Now I need to reformat the paperback of Dan Quixote: Boy of Nuevo Jersey to the right dimensions, and I should resubmit the cover so that it says "children's humorous fiction" on the back. I'll probably readjust the price so that I can sell it in more markets. (Createspace gives a different royalty for each market, and the price I gave the book made it only available through Createspace and Amazon.)

We're also having a hard time working things out for Lightning Source so we can get hardcover editions of Dan Quixote and Toren the Teller's Tale, but that's a whole other issue.

Some illustrations from Toren the Teller's Tale

Toren the Teller's Tale book release!

Toren the Teller's Tale is about a magical storyteller and her struggle to accept the magic within herself. It's a literary fantasy about the greatest magic of all: the magic of stories. It's about the magic that takes us to strange new worlds and allows us to experience that world through another's eyes. It's about the magic that makes us think, feel, laugh, fall in love, and discover things we never knew about ourselves. 

I'm very excited to announce that Toren the Teller's Tale is now available for download in two parts! 

You can pick up book one, Toren the Apprentice's Tale, Amazon,  BN.com, Smashwords and the Apple iBookstore for just $1.99.  My husband and I are currently working on making the complete novel available for download and in paperback. 

I'm now on a Bewitching Book Tour to help promote the book. Thanks so much to all the bloggers below, as well as Roxanne Rhoads, who runs Bewitching Book Tours; and Trista DiGiuseppi, the author of Nails Jane, who also hosted me on her blog. It's very much appreciated.

Dec 19 Guest Blog

Flutey Words
http://authoraubrie.blogspot.com

Dec 20 Promo

Read2Review

http://read2review.com/

Dec 21 Guest blog

http://www.darkangelwritingtools.com/

Dec 22 Interview

JeanzBookReadNReview 

http://jeanzbookreadnreview.blogspot.com/                  

Dec 22 Guest Blog 

Natalie Cole Bates

http://natalienicolebates.blogspot.com/

Dec 23 Promo

Roxanne's Realm

www.roxannesrealm.blogspot.com

Dec 26 Guest Blog

Fang-tastic Books

www.fang-tasticbooks.blogspot.com

Dec 27 Guest Blog and review

The Wytch's Mirror

http://thewytchsmirror.blogspot.com/

Dec 28 Promo and Review

Book Briefs 

http://bookbriefs.blogspot.com

chelle2006@aol.com,

Dec 29 Guest Blog and review

Lissette E. Manning
http://www.simplistik.org/lissetteemanning

December 30 Guest Post

Lisa’s World of Books

www.lisasworldofbooks.net

Dec 30 Guest Blog

Mad Moose Mama
http://www.madmoosemama.blogspot.com

January 2 Promo and Excerpts

Reader Girls

Review
Sharon
www.swillett.com

swillett11@yahoo.com

The Story Behind Toren the Teller and the Tale

Toren changed my life.

I don’t know how old I was when I first became a storyteller, but I do know I was quite young. I remember telling my youngest cousins and my older cousins’ children stories when I was about ten. I loved the excited look on their faces, how my stories drew them in and captured their imaginations and their hearts. I also remember telling stories to the younger children on the van ride to school. I particularly remember one little girl who would ask over and over, “What happened next?” It was such a delightful question to answer.

As I was growing up, I read anything and everything I could get my hands on. I read encyclopedias and science magazines, because I was very curious, and couldn’t read enough about this world. I also read a ton of comic books, particular collections of Peanuts strips. My favorite books were funny, fantasy or science fiction. I loved the works of Peter S. Beagle, Ursula Le Guin, Anne McCaffrey, J.R.R. Tolkien, Gene Wolfe, Harlan Ellison, Douglas Adams, Isaac Asimov, Orson Scott Card, John Barth, Thomas Pynchon, and so many others.

But while I enjoyed these books, I kept looking for one about a girl like me, a girl who loved stories and loved telling them. I knew stories were magical, perhaps even the most magical thing we can experience. I couldn’t possibly be the only one who felt like this, could I? And who better to write about this particular magic than a storyteller? But the more I looked, the more I realized the book I so desperately wanted to read did not exist. No one had written it yet.

When I was seventeen, my family had moved to Jerusalem, and I had just started college. That first year I studied Hebrew and a variety of other subjects, like Advanced Algebra, Political Science, and Computer Programming. My plan was to eventually study filmmaking, because I wanted to be a director.

You see, I didn’t just love storytelling on paper: I loved it in all its forms, and I thought that movies were the best way to tell a story, because they brought so many of those forms together: with and without words, visually, and through music. I studied the movies I enjoyed, and I tried to figure out how they worked. I still read books, but I read them mostly for entertainment. These were books of my choosing, books that made me laugh and cry, think and feel.

This one night, a book had kept me up late. It was sometime after midnight that my head felt heavy, and I laid it down on the open pages. I looked out of the window of my room. The moon was big and full, far above the horizon. I stood up and walked to the window. I leaned on the windowsill and thought again about that book that didn’t exist, the one about a storytelling girl like me. I closed my eyes and made a wish.

When I turned around, a young woman was standing behind me in my room.

Although she was short, there was something about her that seemed larger than life. She was amazingly beautiful, with her long, dark, curly hair, and her olive-colored, almond-shaped eyes. She was wearing a garment the likes of which I had never seen before.

I asked her for her name.

She said something, but it wasn’t in English. I didn’t understand.

I shook my head.

She slowly reached up and touched my forehead with the tips of her fingers. She closed her eyes, and for a moment, she gave off a golden glow. It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.

“Thank you,” she said, with a voice that reminded me of honey. “You have taught me your language. Both of them, in fact.”

I felt like I should apologize. “I’m still learning Hebrew.” 

 “And now so am I.” She smiled. “I understand you wanted to meet me.”

“I did?”

“A girl like you who understands the magic of stories?”

I was so stunned and happy and excited I couldn’t speak.

“You have taught me your language and about your world,” she said. “How should I repay you?”

Of course, there could only be one answer to that question. “Tell me your story.”  

“I can do better than that.”

Again she touched my forehead. She closed her eyes, and I closed mine. Her name was Toren, and her story flashed inside my mind. I saw, heard, smelled, tasted, and felt all of it. When she pulled her hand away, I was laughing and crying.

I was in awe.

She smiled at me and bowed her head. She looked out the window, and I followed her gaze. A part of me expected to see something magical on the other side. When I turned around again, however, she was gone.

Her story remained with me, and I treasured it. I re-experienced it whenever I was lonely or bored and wanted to be reminded of the magic of stories.

But, like everyone else, I had my life to live. I couldn’t study film, because the university only offered that as an M.A., so I studied English Literature and Theater instead. By the time I had graduated, I realized I didn’t really want to direct movies. I earned a teacher’s certificate, but I didn’t enjoy teaching. Instead I first became an editorial cartoonist, and a comic-strip magazine editor; and then I became an arts-and-entertainment writer, and a consumer columnist. I got married and had two children. I was very happy.

Unfortunately, I had to leave my job and my old life behind when my family moved to New Jersey in search of a better education for my autistic son. I didn’t know what to do. If I couldn’t write, edit, or illustrate for a newspaper or magazine, who was I? What was I?

A few months passed before I realized the answers to those questions. I was still the little girl who loved telling stories to the other children in the van on the way to school. Toren’s story had given me so much joy over the years. And I had been selfish. Somewhere in the world there had to be someone just like the girl I had been, someone who desperately needed a story about the greatest magic of all. It wasn’t just Toren’s story. It was my story, too, and the story of every storyteller who’s ever lived.

Perhaps it’s your story too.

Fantasy, Science Fiction and the Many Worlds Theory

Before the Many Worlds theory, the separation of fantasy and science fiction was clear. If a story was based on science and scientifically plausible yet not currently possible, it was science fiction. If a story had elements that weren’t based on science and that were not scientifically plausible—like magic, dragons, vampires or ghosts—it was fantasy. The division was clear, and which shelf every book belonged on was simple.

Then along came science fiction writers who used some of the elements of science fiction but sometimes fudged the facts or went beyond what was scientifically possible. So science fiction was divided into hard and soft science fiction. Hard science fiction stuck with what was scientifically possible, and soft science fiction went into the realm of the scientifically impossible. Both were still based on science, but where they went from there on was different.

As time went by, the science in some science fiction became softer and softer, to the point where it was given different labels, like space opera, sci-fi, speculative fiction (or spec-fic or simply SF), or science fantasy. Star Trek, at least after the original TV series, is science fiction. Star Wars, though, is a space opera. Science fiction movies and TV shows that are very weak on their science are generally considered sci-fi. Speculative Fiction tends to be more literary and deal more, as the name implies, with “What if?” rather than what could be. And science fantasy is fantasy with science fiction elements, like Doctor Who. Doctor Who has had episodes with ghosts, vampires, werewolves and so on, usually giving pseudo-scientific explanations for them. You can’t argue that things in Doctor Who are scientifically impossible, because it’s not meant to be science fiction. Stick a bunch of planets in the Earth’s sky without gravity on Earth going haywire, and that’s fine. It’s science FANTASY, so it doesn’t have to follow the laws of science.  

But let’s step back in time a little before all this was going on. In 1957, Hugh Everett formulated a theory that reconciled the indeterministic behavior of subatomic particles with the laws of physics. This theory, which he called the theory of Universal Wavefunction, was later renamed by Bryce Seligman DeWitt and popularized as the Many Worlds theory. According to the Many Worlds theory, our world is one of many—perhaps even an infinite number of worlds—that are like our world but different in ways both big and small. Expansions of the Many Worlds theory have taken this even further by saying that many of these worlds might not even follow our laws of physics.

I repeat: according to expansions of the Many Worlds theory of physics, there are many--perhaps even an infinite number of--worlds out there that don’t follow our laws of physics.    

The Many Worlds theory was both troubling and exciting for the science fiction community. It was exciting because it opened up so many new possibilities. There could be alternate histories, like 19^th century worlds with 21^st century technology, or to put it another way, there could be steampunk. Time-travel paradoxes no longer existed, because instead of traveling back in time to a world where you weren’t meant to exist yet, you would travel sideways in time to an alternate world to which you were always meant to have time traveled. In a scene near the end of the most recent Star Trek movie, the two Spocks are having a laugh at Kirk because the older Spock managed to convince Kirk that his meeting with the younger Spock would cause a time-space paradox, which according to the Many Words theory couldn’t happen. But the meeting of the Many Worlds theory and science fiction was also troubling, because how do you define hard science fiction as being different from soft science fiction, science fantasy, and even fantasy if EVERYTHING (except for paradoxes) is scientifically possible?

I think the distinctions between fantasy, science fiction and science fantasy remain the same, but with one exception: fantasy that uses science to explain the fantasy in it can be science fantasy or even science fiction.

Back when I was in college, I fell in love with a science fantasy series by Gene Wolfe: The Book of the New Sun (Shadow & Claw: The First Half of 'The Book of the New Sun'). This series starts out as a pure fantasy novel--or at least it seems to--in a world similar to our middle ages but with other-worldly magical elements. As the story progresses, there are hints that this is not a fantasy world based on the past, but a future world based on our own. In one scene, the main character, Severian, is served what appears to be coffee from an office coffee cart. Because he doesn’t know what this is, he gives the coffee and the cart different names, but we can tell from his description what it is. In another scene, he comes to a path with broken bits of black asphalt. Again he doesn’t know what this remnant from our world is or why it’s there. The reader, however, recognizes this as a hint that long ago this world had paved roads, so long ago that anyone encountering them would not even be able to recognize one as a road. It takes four books, but by the end of the series, we know that this isn’t a fantasy world based on the past but a future world, a science-fiction world in every sense.

The novel I’m currently editing, Toren the Teller’s Tale, is a fantasy based on a literary interpretation of the Many Worlds theory. Because if the Many Worlds theory and its expansions are true, every story--no matter how fantastic--could also be true. They might not be true here, but they could be true on alternate worlds. And if they are true on alternate worlds, then that makes stories spyglasses to those other worlds.

But what does that make the storyteller, the person who lets you see through that spyglass? Some sort of bridge to that other world, perhaps, but a limited one. The storyteller can only take you there in your mind, not physically lead you there. If the storyteller is a filmmaker, he can also show you that world in a way that lets you see and hear it, yet physically you still remain in this world.

But what if--those two favorite words in speculative fiction--what if there were a storyteller who could read and retell physical objects, and even people? What if there were no difference between a word that storyteller told and the object, a story she told and the world that story was about? What if a storyteller could be an actual bridge to the worlds of her stories? What if?

That is the question Toren the Teller’s Tale attempts to answer. It’s the Many Worlds theory in literary terms. It’s metafiction--as in fiction dealing with fiction--but what else is it? Is it a fantasy novel? Is it science fantasy? Or is it a work of speculative fiction? I leave it up to the reader to decide. Opinions may change as the series progresses, because this is meant to be the first book in a trilogy.

Whatever shelf you decide to put it on, I hope you enjoy it.  




Toren, from the soon to be released Toren the Teller's Tale by Shevi Arnold

The Princess Bride and the Storyteller

My favorite movie is The Princess Bride. It has everything. To quote the storytelling grandfather in the movie, “Fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles . . .”

 What’s not to love? 

I shared this movie with my daughter when she was about ten, and it became her favorite too.  Like me, she knows the hidden meaning behind those three little words: “As you wish.” 

Every once in a while the subject of my favorite movie comes up, and people tell me I should read the book. William Goldman wrote the screenplay for The Princess Bride, which was based on his novel. I’ve been meaning to read it for decades, but never got around to it. Recently, I was participating in a Twitter chat for writers, when someone once again told me that I had to read the book. So I opened up my web browser to Amazon, found a used copy, and bought it on the spot.

Once it arrived in the mail, it sat on the shelf for a few weeks, because I was busy with other stuff. I had my own novel to edit, information about publishing and social media for writers to study and put into practice, and there were family obligations. But I kept seeing that book on the shelf. “Read me already,” it said.  

So I finally started to read it, and I told my Facebook friends they could stop pestering me about it already. That post received a lot of “likes,” but then someone warned me about the book.  

 While I knew many people who said it was their favorite book, I've also heard from many who said that the book isn't as good as the movie. I just didn’t know why. William Goldman wrote both, so how different could they be?

My Facebook friend explained: “The theme of the movie is ‘true love conquers all’ while the theme of the book is the more difficult and frank ‘life is not fair.’ One is a fairy tale and the other most definitely is not.”

Oh.

That almost put me off of reading the book.

But I started reading it anyway, and I discovered something rather surprising—William Goldman seems to have liked the movie better too.

I say this because the edition of The Princess Bride that I bought is the 30^th anniversary edition, which includes both the introduction to the 25^th anniversary edition and an even newer introduction.

First, to truly understand The Princess Bride, you must realize that this is a story within a story. The internal story of Buttercup, Westley, Inigo and Fezzik is almost identical in the movie and the book. Where the book and the movie differ is in the external story, the one about the storyteller and the audience. This is metafiction, and that’s probably one of the things I love the most about The Princess Bride. 

In the book, the storyteller is the character of William Goldman. Not the author, but the character. You can tell it’s the character, because in the book he has only one child, a boy named Jason, when in fact the real Goldman wrote The Princess Bride for his daughters. But that’s not all. The full title of the book is The Princess Bride, S. Morgenstern’s Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure. In the book, William Goldman writes about how he came to abridge S. Morgenstern’s classic tale. However, S. Morgenstern doesn’t really exist. He’s as much a fictional character as Westley and company.

In the movie, a grandfather reads Morgenstern’s book to his sick grandson. Grandpa explains that this is the book his father used to read to him. At first the grandson is hesitant, but then he really gets into the story. In the very end of the movie, he asks Grandpa to come back and read the story again. Grandpa gets the final line in the movie, which is “As you wish.”

From a storyteller’s point of view, there could be no better ending. How could it end better than a request for more?

But the book doesn’t end that way.

Nor does it end with the much beloved last lines from the movie’s internal story: “Since the invention of the kiss there have been five kisses that were rated the most passionate, the most pure. This one left them all behind. The End.” That isn’t even in the book.

The book ends almost in the same place as the internal story, but with the storyteller pointing out that “in my opinion anyway, they squabbled a lot, and Buttercup lost her looks eventually, and one day Fezzik lost a fight and some hotshot kid whipped Inigo with a sword and Westley was never able to really sleep sound because of Humperdinck maybe being on the trail. . . . But I have to say, for the umpty-umpth time, that life isn’t fair. It’s just fairer than death, that’s all."

That’s not exactly a fairy-tale kiss or an “as you wish.”

So why are the two endings different? And why do I think the real Goldman preferred the movie ending to the original novel’s ending, aside from the obvious answer, which is that Goldman wrote the screenplay years after he wrote the novel?

In the introduction to the 25^th anniversary edition, Goldman—the character and the real author—talks a lot about the making of the movie, as well as some of the other movies he wrote. One of them was Marathon Man, which is a story involving a Nazi in New York City, a Nazi who kills and tortures some good people in the story. The Holocaust proves that life isn’t fair, but it’s fairer than death. It proves that it might be better to tell your children not to believe in fairy tales. One-and- a-half million children were killed by the Nazis, in part because these children believed that grownups don’t hurt children. They believed in that fairy tale, and the Nazis used it against them. Only those who could see beyond that fairy tale survived, and I think that might have been part of the reason for the novel’s original ending.  

But the storyteller in the original novel isn’t Grandpa. He’s a screenwriter named William Goldman, whose son Jason doesn’t want to read Morgenstern’s novel. The character of Goldman in the novel has fond memories of his father reading the story to him, but when he picks up the actual book, he discovers that his father had only read the good parts. So Goldman sets out to abridge Morgenstern’s tale, all the while commenting on what he left out, what his father left out or put in, and what he thinks of all of it. This matters a lot, because, as I’ve already said, the movie and the novel have almost the same internal story. It’s only this external story that changes.  

But in the introduction to the 30^th anniversary edition, Goldman is now a grandfather. Not only that, he’s shared The Princess Bride with his grandson, who loves the story as much as his grandfather does. It took 30 years, but eventually the storyteller from the book evolved into the storyteller from the movie.

And although the novel still doesn’t end with “As you wish,” chronologically, it kind of does. Because chronologically, the most recent event, which is found in the 30^th anniversary edition’s introduction, is Goldman offering to make his grandson’s birthday wish come true. “As you wish.” And what his grandson requests is something every Princess Bride fan dreams of: a trip to Florin to see the sword that was forged for the six-fingered man, Fezzik’s gigantic clothes, and many other wonders from the story. The grandson gets his wish, and we get to go along for the ride.    

But what about the theme, you ask? Is the theme different for the 30^th anniversary edition too?

This edition has a few chapters from a supposed sequel to The Princess Bride, which is entitled Buttercup’s Baby. There’s not much of it here, but what is here is all about love, particularly the love we feel for our children. Fezzik loves Buttercup’s baby so much that he’s willing to give his life to protect little Waverly. That’s not romantic love, but it is true love.  

So in the end, while life isn’t fair, love makes it bearable. And that truly is love conquering all: the unfairness, the torturers, the Nazis, and even death.  

Stories within stories: from Scheherazade to Toren

For as long as I can remember, I've loved fantasy.

I've loved high fantasy, low fantasy, epic fantasy, sword and sorcery, urban and paranormal fantasy, portal fantasy, fantasies about hidden worlds inside our world, humorous fantasy, magical realism, and more. But I think that of all the different kinds of fantasy, metafiction is probably the kind I've loved the most.

I remember when I was a little kid listening to the story of Scheherazade for the first time.

In the ancient Persian story called The Thousand and One Nights, Scheherazade bravely volunteers to marry the king, even though she knows that the king will likely have her beheaded in the morning. But unlike the many ill-fortuned royal brides that have come and gone before her, Scheherazade has a plan.

After the wedding, she asks the king to let her bid her sister, Dinazade, goodbye. As instructed by Scheherazade, Dinazade asks Scheherazade for one last story. Scheherazade tells half the tale, while the king overhears.

When the sun comes up in the morning, Scheherazade says she can’t finish her story because it’s time for her to die. The king, however, wants to hear the end of the story, so he lets her live another night.

On the following night Scheherazade finishes the first tale, and then start a second. So the king lets her live another night, and so it continues for 1,000 stories told over 1,000 nights. By the time Scheherazade runs out of tales to tell, her stories have softened his heart and made him fall in love with her. He rescinds his decree and makes her his queen.

While some of the stories inside One Thousand and One Nights--like Aladdin and Sindbad--are more famous than the story about Scheherazade that frames them, I always liked her story best. Scheherazade was smarter and braver than the women and girls in most of the fairy tales I knew. Sleeping Beauty just waited for her prince. Cinderella was a doormat to her stepmother and stepsisters. Snow White did housework for the dwarves and stupidly took an apple from a stranger. Rapunzel had to be rescued, and so did little Red Riding Hood. The Little Mermaid died because she cared more about a self-centered prince than he cared about her. This was all before Disney and others fixed (in my opinion, although I know many disagree) these fairy tales with movies like Hoodwinked and Tangled. Scheherazade was the only story-book with a backbone I knew. Not only was she smart and brave, but she taught me that the magic of stories was greater--and more real--than any magic could be. I loved her. I wanted to be her.

As I grew up, I continued to look for other stories like Scheherazade, stories about the magic of storytelling. I also wanted them to have smart and brave heroines, and I soon became frustrated, because I couldn’t find any. The closest I found was one short story in John Barth’s Chimera, which was the story of Scheherazade as told by her sister, Dinazade. (It’s an adult book, but I was seventeen and ready for adult books. I didn’t discover A Little Princess until much later.) Chimera was good, but it wasn’t exactly the book I was looking for. I just couldn’t find that book. And if I couldn't find it, I knew I had to write it. Which is how I started to write the story of Toren the Teller in my head when I was seventeen. It's the book I'm now editing for publication and plan to e-publish in a few months.

I continued to read as many stories about stories as I could find. Back then there wasn’t a word for them, but nowadays they’re called metafiction.

What is metafiction?

According to Encarta, metafiction is “fiction writing that deals, often playfully and parodically, with the nature of fiction, the techniques and conventions used in it, and the role of the author." In short, metafiction stories are stories about stories, writing, or storytelling. It’s the storytelling equivalent of art on art.

Metafiction goes back many hundreds of years. Beyond One Thousand and One Nights, which is believed to have taken form about the 8th century, there’s Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, which is from the end of the 14^th century. One of the earliest works in English, The Canterbury Tales is about people who tell each other stories while on a pilgrimage.

Don Quixote, which was written in the early 1600s and which many consider the first novel, deals with a man who believes all the made up stories he’s reads, so it could also be labeled metafiction.

Between the 16^th and 17^th centuries, Shakespeare’s Hamlet has a play within the play, and so does A Midsummer Night’s Dream. A few centuries later, Hamlet was taken a step further in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, which is a play about a play with a play in it.

In Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass , which were written in 1865 and 1871, Lewis Carroll included parodies of poems that were famous in his day, marking those books as metafiction.

Some have even argued that Homer’s The Odyssey, guessed to be from about 1170 BC, qualifies as metafiction. That’s how long metafiction existed before there was even a label for it.

For me, reading stories about stories is like looking at a watch with the back off and seeing the marvelous cogs and springs exposed. You can see how all the pieces move as it ticks, ticks, ticks. Metafiction gives you a chance to peek behind the scenes. The magic of storytelling is exposed for all to see, and that's what I love about it. Because this is the real magic: not in the wizards and dragons that some fantasy stories are about, but in the act of storytelling itself.

Today there are so many stories about stories. Some of them are books, while others are songs, plays and movies. You don’t need to know what metafiction is to be touched by the special magic of stories about stories. Here’s a quick list of just a few.

Children’s Books:

·                     The Monster at the End of this Book

·                     Frances Hodgson Burnett's A Little Princess

·                     Cornelia Funke’s Inkheart

·                     The Neverending Story

Adult Books:

·                     The Illustrated Man

·                     Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

·                     Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next series

·                     Jasper Fforde’s Nursery Crime series

·                     Everything written by Tom Robbins, like Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

·                     Everything written by John Barth, like Chimera

·                     Jorge Luis Borges’s short stories

·                     Kathryn Stockett’s The Help

Movies:

·                     Inception

·                     Isn't She Great

·                     The Truman Show

·                     Shrek

·                     Romancing the Stone

·                     Capote

·                     Shakespeare in Love

·                     Miss Potter

·                     Becoming Jane

·                     Finding Forrester

·                     Finding Neverland

Some—perhaps even most—of the people who have enjoyed these books and movies never really stopped to consider whether they were stories about stories. But they still enjoyed that magical peek behind the scenes.

Of course, as you can see from this list, not all metafiction is fantasy. Hamlet isn’t (okay, except for the part with the ghost), and neither is The Help. But I think that adding fantasy to metafiction gives writers more room to explorer the nature of stories.

Like Tigger in an old Disney Winnie the Pooh movie, fantasy lets you turn the book sideways to help a character get out of a very tall tree. It lets characters have conversations with their writers. It lets metafiction be all that it can be.

Do you have a favorite story about storytelling or a storyteller? If so, which one?