S.G. Browne

One of the questions I’ve been asked several times at my readings and signings since the launch of Fated has been a variation of:

Did I model my characters after the gods in Greek mythology?

I didn’t start writing Fated with the intention of channeling Zeus and Aphrodite and Dionysus. And I hadn’t thought about the possible influence before. But when I sit and think about it, I realize that even though I may not have consciously infused the characters in Fated with the attributes of the Greek gods, it’s possible that my familiarity with the mythology played a role.

A quick recap for the uninitiated:

Fated is a social satire about fate and destiny told from the point of view of Fate, who deals with the majority of the human race fated to live normal, mediocre lives. Or, more often than not, worse than mediocre.

Drug addicts. Criminals. CEOs of oil companies.

He doesn’t get the Winston Churchills or the Michael Jordans or the Thomas Edisons of the world. Destiny gets those. And she loves her job while Fate hates his. He’s like a government worker who can’t quit and who doesn’t have any opportunities for promotion. Meanwhile, Destiny enjoys shepherding her humans to fame and fortune and award-winning careers. This makes for a sullen and discouraged Fate, who also has a five-hundred-year-old grudge with Death and has regular lunch dates with Sloth and Gluttony.

In addition to Fate, Destiny, Death, and the Seven Deadly Sins, Fated is populated with numerous other personified concepts, including Karma, Lady Luck, Secrecy, Failure, Temptation, Honesty, Wisdom, and Love. Any emotion or attribute, any deadly sin or heavenly virtue, is an immortal creature with a specific job to do in relation to the human race.

The idea behind all of the different characters is that Fate and Destiny are not allowed to get involved in directing the lives of their humans but instead are charged with assigning the futures of their humans at birth and adjusting them accordingly along the way. Those adjustments are made in response to how their humans deal with the challenges thrown at them by the other characters in the book. After all, it’s the way in which humans deal with their luck or anger or temptation that ultimately determines their fate or destiny.

Which brings me back to the question about Greek gods. Much the way Zeus and Hera and Apollo and the rest of the Mount Olympus HOA often cavorted and connived and behaved inappropriately, the immortal characters in Fated exhibit rather human attributes. And they don’t perform their jobs with the wisdom and integrity and good judgment you’d expect from gods.

Of course, the characters in Fated aren’t gods, but they’re definitely flawed like their Greek cousins, with hang-ups and addictions and emotional baggage, not unlike the humans they’re in charge of overseeing. And to that extent, I think that’s what makes them, and the Greek gods, so appealing to me. They’re like us. They’re not some perfect example of enlightenment.

They’re narcissistic and paranoid and lazy.
They’re manic-depressive and passive-aggressive and lactose-intolerant.
They suffer from ADD and bulimia and alcoholism.

Although Fate and Destiny and the rest of the characters in Fated are immortal beings and have been around since before the first Neanderthal set himself on fire, they aren’t immune to human behavior. It’s kind of like what happens when someone moves to a new region with a different dialect or accent or way of living and they start talking and acting like the locals. After dealing with humans for tens of thousands of years, my immortals have taken on a lot of our less-than-desirable qualities. Which I think makes them even more appealing.

So yes, the gods of Greek mythology definitely had an influence on the immortal characters who populate the pages of Fated. And personally, I think that’s a good thing.

(NOTE: This blog post originally appeared on the website Fantasy & SciFi Lovin’ News & Reviews)

Well, it’s launch day for Fated and of course the wireless network at the house of the friend I’m staying with in Portland has decided to quit functioning, leaving me with the Limited or No Connectivity warning for the last 90 minutes. This is me grumbling and swearing silently. So I’m typing this up at my friend’s in the hopes I can get to a Barnes & Noble or someplace with wireless and post it. And since you’re reading this, apparently I was successful.

First of all, yes, I’m excited. And anxious. While I personally feel that Fated is my favorite book I’ve written to date, and while it’s received some solid reviews, releasing a book into the wild can be a bit frightening. Especially when you’re first book happened to be about zombies at the time when zombie fiction blew up and your next novel has nary a zombie to be found.

A friend of mine once wrote that writing a book and having it published is like jumping off a cliff. You have to just surrender yourself to the fall because you have no control about what’s going to happen. You can only hope the landing is a soft one – a velvet-lined canopy filled with down pillows and not a dumpster filled with broken glass.

But as I said, I’m excited and looking forward to sharing my new novel with everyone who read Breathers and with new readers who haven’t yet had the pleasure of meeting Andy and Rita. So for everyone old and new, meet Fabio, the protagonist of Fated. Fabio, this is everyone.

I’ll be kicking off my book launch tonight at Powell’s in Beaverton before heading up to Seattle for a couple of signings.  For details, you can check out my full list of events.

I hope to see all of you somewhere along my path.

We’re at the one month mark before the official release of my second novel, Fated, though I did receive my first copy of the book in the mail the other day, which you can tell I’m just a little happy about. The picture doesn’t do the cover justice, which is a matte coating with an overlay that gives it a great texture. And the colors, especially the spine, really pop.

Once I receive my author copies I’ll be having some contests for giveaways, so stay tuned.

In the meantime, if you live in Oregon, Washington, or California, below are the dates and general info for my 2010 West Coast Tour.

Things kick off on November 2nd with the official release at Powell’s Books in Beaverton, OR. I’ll be reading, talking, signing, and hopefully doing some audience participation giveaways. So if you’re in the neighborhood, come on out and play!

While up in the Pacific Northwest, I’ll also be doing signings in Seattle (11/3) and Lake Forest Park (11/4) before returning to California for the San Francisco Book Launch Party at Borderlands Books (11/6), followed by signings in Capitola (11/8), Fremont (11/10), San Francisco again (11/12), Pleasanton (11/13), Roseville (11/16), Campbell (11/20), Santa Barbara (12/3), Burbank (12/4), San Diego (12/11), and Pleasanton again (12/18). A full list of details can be found by checking out my Events Calendar.

I’m also planning trips in 2011 to states east of California, including Florida, Texas, and New York, among others, and will post updates on my web site and via this e-mail newsletter once I have more information.

As always, thanks for the support. I hope I get a chance to see and meet all of you at one of my upcoming signings.

Okay, so here I at at the Haunted Mansion, sitting on a soft couch with down pillows in a room that’s at least twice the size of my apartment in San Francisco. I could park three cars in here and still have enough space to stage Jesus Christ Superstar.

Picture windows as big as Napoleon Bonaparte’s ego are filled with evergreens, in front of which sits a couch where Kim Richards and Dan Weidman relax and drink wine and tap out their own thoughts on laptops. Loren Rhoads sits on one side of them on a love seat that’s as soft as the Pillsbury Dough Boy wrapped in velvet and Chris Colvin sits in one of the straight back chairs that’s reserved for those who have misbehaved.

To my right, Weston Ochse talks to Sephora Giron and Eunice Magill about teaching writers how to write and Yvonne Navarro walks in to tell us dinner is ready while Rain Graves takes a picture of all of us.

This is how the Haunted Mansion Writers Retreat weekend begins.

The idea for Fated started out as something completely different than what it eventually became. Actually, it was almost an accident. An idea born out of another idea that ended up being somewhat less brilliant than when I initially started writing it down.

Late in the evening of September 10, 2003 (it was actually 10PM – I have the entry in one of my journals), I sat down to write out an idea for a short story that had popped into my head. The entry starts out:

“Story about a man in his late thirties who has spent his life avoiding risks until some supernatural event intervenes.”

This brilliant idea goes on for almost a full page until I realized, and actually wrote down, that the idea sounded much better in my head before I watched SportsCenter on ESPN to see if the Giants beat the Padres. (They did, 7-1.)

At that point, I had no idea where I was going with the original idea. But not wanting to give up on whatever it was that prompted me to sit down and write in the first place, I kept journaling, coming up with an occasional “maybe this” and a few “maybe thats” until I stumbled upon the idea that my main character lived in Manhattan and had first hand knowledge about certain events because he’s Fate. I even had him aspiring to be a writer so that he could tell the truth about the fact that no one, not even fictional characters, control their own fate.

I rambled on a bit with that, trying to figure out if he was human, if he had a childhood, if he socialized with humans, if he went out on dates – throwing out ideas that at the time didn’t really go anywhere but that’s what writers do. Throw things at a target and hope something sticks. Then I turned on the TV and watched the rest of SportsCenter.

The following July, I was sitting on a bench at an outdoor shopping mall, watching people walk past and wondering what their futures held for them. I hadn’t pursued the idea about Fate from the previous September, but as I started writing, I realized the ideas were connected. Five minutes later, I’d scribbled out a narrative on a page of a yellow-lined notepad about a character who can see what everyone will be like in fifteen or twenty years. This would eventually become the opening chapter to Fated.

I didn’t actually start working on the novel until more than two years later, in December 2006, after I’d moved to San Francisco. I wrote the first half of Fated (40,000 words) in three months, struggled for another nine months to squeeze out the next 20,000 words, then pumped out the last quarter of it (another 20,000 words) in January 2008. I finished the first draft of Fated on February 2, 2008, the day before the New York Giants upset the previously undefeated New England Patriots 17-14 in Super Bowl XLII.

I guess they were fated to lose.