A.J. Maguire

Category: Uncategorized

  • Abandoning or Embracing Cliché’s

    I love high stakes stories.

    I love when the heroes have to battle against all odds and sacrifice all of themselves to reach the end goal. And I love when that end goal is “life as we know it” or Armageddon.

    And I love the hero who is plucky and normal but housing some extraordinary power. The “chosen one” or the “you were born to be this” trope. I eat that stuff up when it’s done well.

    Sometimes even when it’s done poorly. We can call them popcorn novels for me – great fun but not a lot of substance to them.

    The problem is, as a writer, I know it’s cliché.

    I know the moment my character reaches a height that she couldn’t possibly have reached on her own, that I’ve crossed into the “chosen one” trope, and while every single fiber of my being is buzzing with delight because I LOVE those stories, I have to yank myself back. Or at least tailor things to try to disguise this trope.

    Trenna in my Sedition series – and in that first book particularly – was a chosen one trope. I tried to disguise it with magic amnesia and the fact that she was the General of an army, but it’s there if you look hard enough.

    Elsie Delgora in my Witch-Born duology was clearly a chosen one trope – especially in the final novel – but I tried to disguise it with birthrights. This was likely not as well disguised as I’d hoped, but I do still love that first novel… probably because I love the cliché.

    And today I’m staring at the final chapters of Darkside of Bright, struggling with the desire to make poor Nora Grayson more than an empath counselor. There are things to like with both versions of the character, and in truth there is a path that I can take where her story becomes a series and more is revealed about her origins with each book, but the writer in me is still conflicted.

    What’s so wrong with letting her just be Nora? Draw on the empath, on her ability to read and understand relationships and their complexities, and I get a story about relationships and how they shape us as people.

    Let her be more, and I can still get that story about relationships while also opening an adventure that drives into the heart of Fairy. BUT, I fall into the trope hard. So hard it will undoubtedly be mentioned by reviewers. Not that I should permit reviewers to dictate what and how I write, but that’s a whole different conversation. Suffice, even my own inner critic would be on top of this one, sneering at the “unoriginal” “just like all the other books on the shelf” plotline.

    At this moment, I am reminded of Stephen King. In his book On Writing, he admits that many people criticized him for writing horror. They asked him why he would waste his talent on that genre, and yet, here he is still writing horror. Because that’s what he loves.

    I’m certainly not in the same league as Stephen King, so please don’t think I’m comparing myself to him. But you know what? Even cliché’s and character tropes are a part of a writer’s toolbox. They only go wrong if you’re not paying attention to crafting your novel.

    So I’m going to take that trope and play with it. We’ll see where it leads. Maybe only people like me will love it, or maybe I’ll nail it. Either way, it’ll be fun to write.

  • Wrapping up Camp Nano 2021

    Why yes, I did technically win Camp Nano this year. But the novel is not quite done.

    I do have a few scenes left to write, so the forward motion continues. However, the breakneck speed to reach 50k is going to taper off.

    There are obvious pros and cons to participating in NaNoWriMo, and as someone who has done this multiple times a year for many years now, I feel comfortable admitting them.

    #1 – Pro – Nano offers a great deal of encouragement to writers. They are an undeniable cheerleader that helps keep you focused and moving forward.

    #2 – Con – Writing for the sake of getting words on the page is not the same as writing to tell a good story. It does require massive editing after the book is done. (At least for me it does.)

    #3 – Pro – Even if you miss the deadline and you don’t make those 50k words, you showed up to the screen/notebook/typewriter and that is ALWAYS a win.

    #4 – Pro/Con – Most books are more than 50k words and therefore most books require writing beyond the given 30 days. However, given that the lovely people at the National Novel Writing Month’s headquarters grant multiple “camps” like this one in addition to the normal November WriMo, you have multiple opportunities to get it done.

    I listed this last one as both a Pro and a Con because it can be extremely difficult to find the drive to finish a novel if you have put it away for a couple months while waiting for the next WriMo. I do recommend finishing the work to completion, then using the next WriMo for a full rewrite/edit if you need to.

    I’m sure there are more I could list, but those are the mains and you can see that the pro’s definitely outweigh the con’s in here. I have enjoyed using Writing Months since the first year I found them (2007 or 2008, I’m not sure) and I will continue to use them as long as I have tales to tell.

    For now, however, I have a book to get back to.

  • Week 4 – Camp Nano 2021

    I shall open with a small confession.

    I have an amazing husband. He not only works full time, but he enjoys spoiling me with expenditures that I would normally not afford myself. For instance, a year’s worth of Master Class where I can listen to Neil Gaiman chat about storytelling is not something I would permit myself to buy unless it was for my birthday or a holiday.

    Granted, I have many other options for authors and creators to learn from with this year’s long subscription that I fully intend to take advantage of but I would be lying if I didn’t mention it was Neil Gaiman’s name that prompted me to ask for it.

    What does this have to do with my Camp Nano progress?

    Everything! And… nothing.

    During my lunch breaks, I have been listening to one lesson at a time and while I do lean heavily on the idea that there is no better teacher than experience (aka – you learn to write by writing and reading) there is something to be said for listening to the experience of others. And what I have been gleaning from Mr. Gaiman’s class has mostly been permission to explore, to trust your instincts and write that first draft because it doesn’t need to see the light of day until I’m ready.

    Basically, permission to fail. In the failing, I can stand back up, dust the prose off, and find those parts of my characters that are truly interesting.

    We authors tend to be terribly critical of ourselves, and it is so difficult to ignore that sniping little (or loud) voice as we’re working on the first draft of a tale. Mr. Gaiman’s class has been a comfort during my lunches to the point that my Nano board shows I get more words on the page in the afternoon than I do in the morning. It has been a pleasure and I highly recommend it and his books.

    Certainly his books. Stardust being my favorite, with Sandman a close second and the Norse Mythology vying for a place as well. If you do the Norse Mythology, go to audible. Let him tell you the tale himself. It’s amazing.

    WIP Word Count:: 51265 (In case anyone really wanted to know. Technically I’ve won, but the novel isn’t finished yet so I refuse to count it.)

    To my author friends out there, go forth and write! Enjoy the writing! Fail and look for the interesting bits!

    To my fellow Nano’ers, we’ve got this!

  • Book Review – Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

    Why yes, I picked up this book after binge-watching the Netflix adaptation. I’ll take stories however I can get them.

    I will note, however, that I do not often choose to check out the book after seeing the story in some other media format. This is because my TBR pile is ever growing and there are so many tales in the universe already, I will never get to experience them all.

    I will not explain how the book differs from the adaptation. That verges on SPOILER to me, and we all know I hate spoilers.

    What I will say is that the adaptation sticks very closely to the core of the novel. And that, while I am still hunting for certain characters to make their appearance in the novels, I thoroughly enjoyed both the book AND the Netflix series. I haven’t read through the last two books yet, so my review is for the first novel only – Shadow and Bone.

    This is a graceful novel, with neat, clean prose and a vividly imagined world. Descriptions aren’t too heavy, and I would say it is safe for younger readers. Some of the politics from the Netflix series haven’t reached me yet, so I am curious when they will arrive.

    As a side note, I fell in love more with Mal in the book than I did in the Netflix series. That’s probably because I have long been a Ben Barnes fan and wanted desperately to see his character rise from the dark of his past and overcome it. But, well, given he is literally bound to shadows, he will tragically remain in the dark.

    So, of course, after reading the book I watched the first season again and fell in love with Mal appropriately. Even if the Ben Barnes fan in me whimpered to let him go.

    If you enjoy fantasy, I highly recommend this book.

    And the Netflix series.

    Do both. I promise you won’t be disappointed.

  • Looking Back

    Looking back at the works I’ve written, I see stories that missed the mark because I did not have a handle on my craft. I see characters who were not fleshed out well enough, and scenes that never grounded the reader inside them, allowing them to experience it. I see fragments that make more sense to me because I have all the backstory whereas readers do not.

    I see a lot of embarrassing things.

    And while I may cringe at these, there is a part of me that rejoices in the fact that I do see them now. Seeing the mistakes for what they are means that I have grown in my craft.

    In ten years, when I look back on works I am writing now, I hope I see new mistakes instead of old ones. I hope that I am writing better then than I am now. And I truly hope that is always the case.

    To my fellow authors out there, I hope that is always the case for you too.

    To the dear readers out there who don’t see what I mean, bless you. May you only be delighted over and over by the tales brought to you.

  • Book Review – Uprooted by Naomi Novik

    Our family has been a fan of Ms. Novik since the dragon Temeraire chose William Laurence as his Captain, so I’m not sure why it took so long for me to start Uprooted. I will make a brief note that this book has a small section that is not terribly appropriate for younger readers, so reading this was a private affair instead of a shared experience.

    That’s just fine by me. I read faster on my own.

    I will say that I deeply enjoyed this novel. It is the first book that made me frustrated with my Kindle when the battery alarm dinged at me. And I suppose that’s one of the better arguments for physical books instead of the digital format, but I could also pick up right where I left off on my phone, so I did have a backup.

    Agnieszka and the Dragon were great fun to watch as they prickled at each other, and the threat of the Wood was terrifying. I don’t do spoilers, you’ll have to read the novel yourself, but the magic system and the political boundaries were all very well done without imposing a ton of information on the reader. I will say that there is a lot within this novel that is left unexplored and I would love to see more novels in future. (I don’t think the author is planning to do that presently, but insofar as my mind goes, she always has that option.)

    All in all, I closed the book satisfied and rate it 5 of 5 – with that warning again that younger readers likely shouldn’t thumb through it.

  • Killing Darlings

    I’m not certain who first coined the phrase that writers must “kill their darlings” but I find myself staring down the barrel of my proverbial gun today. With my shelter book finally completed – yes, that only took me all of COVID and then some to finish – I am on to the next project!

    Or, projects, really.

    For the entire month of May I have opted to work on Story Bibles, Outlines, and World Building for the Werewolf Wedding novel and Tango Five, the third installment of the Tapped Series.

    For my dear, lovely readers who have showered me with their love of Enemy Souls, I thank you. And I am deeply grateful that the book delivered a satisfactory story! This was the second installment of the Tapped Series and I am excited to be working in the science fiction realm again, preparing for the third novel. And, as I often do, I have begun reading the series from the first book onward, taking notes to reference technology and character development.

    I do already have a vague story bible written in respects to the Tapped series, but I have found that nothing prepares me better for writing the next book, than reading the ones that came before. I’m not sure how other authors who work with series of novels handle this portion of the process, but this is what works for me. Even if I do cringe sometimes, recognizing that I have learned so much more about the craft of writing since the first book was published.

    Available at Barnes & Nobles and Amazon!

    So where does Killing Darlings come into all this?

    Well, for the Werewolf Wedding novel, if you must know. For fans who have been following along this whole time – by the way, I love you all and I hope you keep reading and adventuring and reading some more – you will remember a novel by the title Melody of Bones. Also known as my dragon novel.

    After a great deal of debate, I have decided to kill this novel. It is, in fact, a little darling.

    A two-plus-year darling that I have nursed and attempted to sell and simply gotten no where with. But the really cool elements of the novel fit perfectly into the story I am telling with Nora Grayson, and I know that both stories will be told better by doing a Dr. Frankenstein move and piecing them together.

    Does it hurt?

    Yes.

    Egads, yes.

    I love Prudence Alturas and her tragic tale as an exiled dragon.

    But if I do this right, I’ll get to tell her story better than my first attempt.

    So here is me, pulling the official trigger and killing off a darling. I hope to have a new draft completed by the end of July, with several more novels waiting to step up to the plate.

    For my fellow authors out there, I hate to say it but… they saying is right. Sometimes we really do have to kill our darlings.

  • The Courage It Takes

    Writing is not for the faint of heart.

    When I started this whole writing thing, I was a child who thought it was great fun. One assignment from a teacher in the sixth grade opened the world of fiction to me and I played around with all the fantasy, making shallow stories that grazed through fluffy adventures without digging into the scary stuff.

    Dragons were scary enough for my 12-year-old mind.

    It is only now, sitting some thirty years later, that I have come to understand the perils of a writer’s life. Nevermind the hours of labor that go into every story, that is an expected price every author must pay for quality work. Nevermind the outlines that get trashed, or the characters who drive the story in an unexpected direction, or the false starts. Nevermind the criticism bound to find us, or the false praise we must learn to ignore. These are all part of the job.

    The true peril of a writer’s life is exposing truth. We must be honest with ourselves about who we are, about the world we live in, and about humanity in general.

    In the movie Shadows in the Sun, a young man is sent after an author who wrote one novel and then produced nothing more for many years. When confronted with why he had not written anything else, his response was something along the lines of; “I had nothing more to say.”

    This has stuck with me.

    I do understand that some novels are meant for fun. There is nothing inherently wrong with fluffy adventures. If I want to stay in the shallows and play there, I am welcome to do so. And so is everyone else, for that matter.

    But I have found that each novel I have written has drifted further and further from those shallows. Maybe this is due to age, or maybe it’s a natural progression that every author encounters as they produce new novels. Either way, I have come to a novel that is drastically different from anything I have written before.

    This past month I have retreated from this novel, because the coward in me doesn’t want to go through it. I am confronted with the choice to turn the novel toward the fluff, or to brace myself and continue on its current path.

    Do I want the novel to say something?

    Am I brave enough?

    To my fellow authors who have been where I am sitting today, I salute you. And I hope you will meet me on the other side of this thing, because whether or not I am brave enough, it seems that I am diving in.

    For those of you who are currently fighting with their novels, trying to decide if they too are brave enough to make this dive, I cannot make that choice for you. But remember that there is nothing wrong with playing in the shallows if that is what you enjoy most. When you’re ready, the depths will be waiting for you too.

  • The Year of COVID

    Normally this is my favorite post of the year. The moment when I look back on all the work I managed to get done and begin planning out the next projects. I look forward to it. I make notes of things I deviated from, new projects started, projects scrapped, and generally remind myself that I do enjoy this whole writing process.

    This year…

    I am learning to be forgiving, both of myself and the people around me. Because I know we’re all struggling to find our footing on what feels like slippery slopes.

    So instead of looking at what I tasked for myself this year, I’m going to hone in on my major victories, give them a brief nod, and move on.

    My number one victory this year was putting out Enemy Souls. It has done quite well and continues to accumulate positive reviews, which I have to admit I love. For those unaware, it is a sci-fi romp through Saturn that highlights the Barlow family as they struggle to carve out a living while on the run.

    My second victory was completing National Novel Writing Month. But I have to admit that the very last week of the month, the day before Thanksgiving, I lost a beloved dog and switched projects as a matter of dealing with the grief.

    Sad, yes.

    Still a victory.

    Because when I am finished with this project and it makes its way to readers across the globe, everyone will know who Molly was and what made her special.

    Which brings me to the whole moving on portion of the post.

    With the world still unsteady, COVID still ravaging the population, I have decided not to make any future goals beyond the novel in front of me. The goal is simply to finish this book, and I’ll figure out where to go from there.

    For my fellow authors out there, I hope you have managed to hoard your writing time this year. I hope you have still gotten words on the page, even if it’s only 500 a week like me. And I hope that in the coming year, you are able to add to those words every day.

    For all my fellow humans, I hope you stay safe. I hope those you care about stay safe. And I hope that, if you have already lost someone, that peace makes its way to you.

  • Kicking of NaNo 2020

    I ended the first day of Nano 2020 at 3244 words. Which is excellent. I do admit that I am not doing a straight-laced Nano this year. Instead of starting from scratch on a brand new manuscript, I have unearthed the thing I started earlier this year that COVID derailed.

    Remember when I was doing that whole serial novel of Castle of Three Kings?

    You know, the one where I had to just kind of stop because suddenly I was a teacher, a parent, an employee, and all my writing time was sucked dry?

    Yeah, that thing!

    I am going to finish it. That’s my Nano Goal.

    But I am also going through it and updating it with the things I have been learning in the Apex Writers classes. Because writing is a craft that constantly grows as we improve. (Brief shout out to David Farland for his excellent classes. He’s an amazing author as well, so if you haven’t read his work, I have to highly suggest Rune Lords.)

    SO!

    For those of you who were following along and became disgruntled when I had to duck out of updating, guess what? I’ll be shoving them back up chapter by chapter until I’m all caught up and the whole thing is available. I will mention that this will be for a limited time only, so the novel will only be available for FREE at Wattpad (because I like Wattpad better than the other formats out there) through the end of the year as I complete this draft.

    Here’s the link, if you’re interested.

    Now excuse me, I have more work to do. Happy Writing, everyone!