A.J. Maguire

Tag: AJMaguire

  • Quests

    So there I was trying to take a nap because I’m either coming down with something nasty or have finally developed allergies — Hopefully I’m just getting sick.  I really don’t want to look forward to a seasonal allergy every year — when I opened my eyes and saw something strange on my bookshelf.

    Image

    Do you see it there?  Right between Jennifer Crusie and the Fantasy Reference Guide …

    It’s an old hardback notebook.  I kept squinting at it, trying to figure it out what in blazes it was when it hit me; it was the first notebook my mother ever gave me.  I’d already shown an interest in writing with “Noises Next Door” and “Noises in the Night” so she bought me this notebook to write in.

    Author’s note:  I was like twelve when I wrote those stories, people.  The titles are bound to suck.  And trust me, the stories were awful, too. 

    So I got up and pulled out that book and started reading the whole six chapter story I wrote in the sixth grade.

    It’s title?  Quest for Bravery … (with “bravery” spelled wrong, no less.)

    I used far too much punctuation and too many people were shouting, and for reasons I can’t understand I actually chose to write in cursive.  (I don’t think anyone writes in cursive anymore.  Not straight cursive, anyway.  I use a bastardized cursive-plain-text-print myself because I know that nobody else has a chance of understanding it.  It’s called author security.)

    The story was about a girl — yes, I’ve always written strong female fighters — who, for reasons I don’t explain in the story, is beholden to a wizard.  Said Wizard’s name was Henry because that was the oldest sounding name I could come up with at the time.  (Again, I was twelve.  And anyway, aside from Prince Henry how many “Henry’s” do you know that aren’t getting up there in years?)

    So anyway, the girl in the story was named Amanda Forcalmer (points to me for not using my own name that time) and she basically served Wizard Henry.  And for six whole chapters she got to meet a prince, fight a dragon, save a princess and then leave said prince.  (Again, points to me for not writing a romance.)

    It was really horrible writing-wise and I laughed as I read it.

    And then I started thinking about how many quests I have been privileged to go on both in my real life and in my writing life.  In real life I have jumped in the ocean in Alaska (that’s cold, by the way), swam in the Caribbean twice, lived in Hawaii, traveled from coast to coast, and been in the Army.  While none of those can be categorized as a “quest” per se, it has been an adventure in learning who I am as a person.

    In my writing life I’ve quested for the Ebony Blade in Sedition, fought against prejudice and for the safety of family in Saboteur.  I’ve hunted for nobility in Witch-Born and learned how fickle Fate can be in Dead Magic.  I confronted the demons of inner self in Deviation and am neck-deep in the quest for self-understanding in Persona as we speak.

    And I’m only 34 years old.

    We writers tend to bemoan how lonely our jobs can be.  We set out to tell a tale that no one else can.  We might get research and inspiration from the people around us, but in the end we’re alone as we write it.  And yes, the solitary act of writing can be hard sometimes.  But it is totally worth it.

    Because we writers are uniquely blessed.  We have quests like no one else in the world.  We create worlds in order to draw out and pinpoint certain aspects of human character.  We see reality differently.  We see people and what motivates them because we understand that the underlying motivation is what dictates what we do as human beings.

    So if you’re a writer then embrace that solitary time.  Take that quest that no one else can and share it.

  • Persona is Live!

    That’s right!  You can now read Chapter One of Persona at either its Wattpad link or the Story Blog.

    And just as I promised, I’m going to post the Fact vs. Fiction rundown for the story here.  You can find it on a separate page on the story blog as well, but for those who prefer Wattpad I thought I’d smack it up here as well.

    Fact Vs. Fiction

    Chapter One – Fact vs. FictionFiction:  Persona’s original draft had Megan in an airplane and getting shot down into the sea.  Obviously that changed because it wasn’t really normal for a passenger like Megan to be on an airplane going from place to place back then.  So!  I decided to let her get sunk instead.

    Fact:  The SS Ceramic was a real ship.  If you take a look at Uboat.net you can find the SS Ceramic.  When it sunk just after midnight on the 7th of December, 1942 (yes I made the date the same) it actually had 133 fare paying passengers on board, which is exactly what I needed for my fictional Megan Crossweathers to be there.

    That’s just the fare paying passengers, there were actually many more people on board, to include nurses in Queen Alexandria’s Imperial Nursing Service.  You’ll notice I put that in the chapter as well.

    I chose not to mention the 12 reported children on board the ship for several reasons.  First, it breaks my heart.  I’m a parent myself and I just can’t read/write books that highlight the death of a child.  Second, there just wasn’t enough time between Megan’s seasickness and the sinking.

    Fiction:  Regardless of whatever Captain Denton Gray might have been up to, there’s no way one man and one woman would have taken a boat on their own.  With so many people abandoning the ship they would have likely joined in with one of the other boats.  However, for the purposes of the book I needed to get Denton and Megan away from everybody else.

    Fact:  The sole survivor of the SS Ceramic was Sapper Eric Munday of the Royal Engineers.  The only reason he survived is because Henke — the dude in charge of U-515, the U-boat who sunk the Ceramic — surfaced at around midday to find many of the lifeboats had capsized in the massive storm.  He ordered for the first survivor who reached the U-Boat to be taken on board, which happened to be Munday.

  • The Countdown is On!

    That’s right!  In just four days I’ll start posting Persona as a serialized novel online for free.  I have to admit, I’m excited.  I’ve got a seven week buffer, which means I have seven chapters edited and prepped so that if life gets in the way, or if I just need a little break, I can take one and not miss the weekly deadline.

    I’m considering an audio version but I’ve only got the one little microphone and, let’s be frank, the idea of anyone listening to my voice nonstop for twenty minutes makes me a little self-conscious.  For now I’m only guaranteeing the story blog, which you can find here and the Wattpad version.

    I can’t give the Wattpad link yet because it hasn’t been created, but early Tuesday morning it’ll be here.

    The amazing Chris Howard has been hard at work on the cover art for Persona and here’s what we’ve got so far …

    Cover Art by Chris Howard
    Cover Art by Chris Howard

    Honestly, I love it.  It absolutely captures the tone and heart of the book.  This guy is amazing.  You should really check out his stuff.

    And now I have to confess that I’ve decided this blog will be echoing the Fact vs. Fiction page on the story blog for the duration of Persona’s serialization.  The reason I’ve decided this is because I am a single parent who works full-time and goes to school full-time.

    Time is tight and while I have a seven chapter buffer, I don’t have a blog buffer.  If I want to get the fact vs. fiction stuff up at all, I have to sacrifice something.  And trust me, I can’t sacrifice lego playtime with my kid.

    Besides, it’s still a blog post about writing so I’m not really cheating here.

    So!  Here we are with four days left to go.  The story blog is already set up so if you want to sign up via email it’s ready to go.  That just means you’ll get the story delivered directly to your email every Tuesday.

    I’m still working on how to upload a PDF version that can be downloaded and delivered to your eReader of choice.  (If anyone knows how to do that, please say so.  I’m a little lost myself.)

    See you all in four days!

  • Serializing Novels via R.J. Blain

    Just as I promised, I have a guest post from R.J. Blain today on serializing novels.  For those of my awesome, wonderful, perfect Readers who don’t know what it means to serialize a novel I’ll go ahead and explain.  Serializing a novel would be sorta like when stories were posted in the newspaper week after week.  (Think Jo in Little Women, she did that for a while.)

    Since I’ll be serializing Persona (that’s the WWII project I’ve been talking about and yes, I know I changed the title like five different times.  I’m a writer.  Until it’s published it’s subject to change.) But because I’ll be serializing Persona starting in June I asked the lovely and talented (and slightly crazy) R.J. Blain to talk a little bit about her experience serializing novels.  

    R.J. Blain has not one but TWO novels being serialized at present (which really blows my mind), and she has some great things to share.  

    So!

    Meet R.J. Blain — 

    Art by Chris Howard

    There are a lot of things a writer needs in order to be successful. Having the ability to put words on the page is just the start of the journey. Reaching out and connecting with those who want to read your stories is almost as important as the words that you’ve put on the page.

    It’s also a lot harder.

    Let’s face facts: Most writers are introverts. Some of us are introverts with extrovert tendencies, and there is a reason for this – those who spend their time writing aren’t spending their time socializing. An extrovert often finds this process uncomfortable. Introverts find this process uplifting.

    For some of us, it just caters to our special brand of insane, but that’s a different story altogether.

    I have two different novel serializations on my website, and AJ asked me to step up to the plate and talk about the process of preparing and releasing a serialized story.

    I might have winced a little when AJ told me of her plans to serialize a piece. A hundred and one thoughts fluttered through my head, and each subsequent one unsettled me even more. Then, after going through a gauntlet of eulogies for her sanity, I started to grin.

    A post on the process of serialization? I can so work with that.

    My name is R.J. Blain. If you spot my sanity anywhere, please return it to Montreal, Quebec. I’m sure someone from my household will retrieve it. Eventually.

    I started serializing my story, Zero, (http://rjblain.com/zero-a-science-fiction-web-serial/) in January of 2013. Almost six months in, I was 5-10 minutes late on two updates, flirted with the devil many more times than that, and had posted two bonus scenes. I update every Wednesday.

    When I set out to write Zero, I went in trying to accomplish three things: High-quality writing, consistent updates (every Wednesday), and telling a good story. That last point is important: It’s the manifestation of wanting to connect with people who want to read things I write.

    The rule of three quickly crashed down on me. I had the updates in the bag. I’m pretty good about sitting down and doing what I need to do. I don’t work with a buffer, and I get quite the adrenaline rush when I realize it is 5 pm on a Wednesday afternoon and I haven’t even started my update for Zero.

    I drove myself to epic-levels of stress trying to accomplish the quality I wanted. I want to write a story that people enjoy reading, and the requirement and desire to produce quality writing was equivalent to wearing concrete shoes while skydiving over the Hudson.

    So, I admitted defeat and crossed high-quality off of the list. I just couldn’t spend the amount of time editing fresh draft. In exchange, I am having a lot more fun with the story now that I’m not as worried about the quality. Knowing myself as well as I do, I’ll never be able to totally abandon my desire for quality.

    This is a good thing.

    Songbird (http://rjblain.com/serial-a-romantic-fantasy/) is another experimental piece I’m serializing because of a dare. Terrible reason, but a fun story, and one that plays by different rules than Zero. When I went into Zero, I knew I wouldn’t be updating Songbird consistently. It’s a fly-by-night, pop out of a dark corner and shout, “I’m BATMAN!” at unsuspecting victims type of story. Like Zero, it’s an experiment: Could I write a traditional fantasy with strong romantic elements?

    On the surface, these two stories aren’t that much different. Zero is a soft science fiction. Songbird is a romantic fantasy. One uses political sciences and some futuristic tech, the other includes magic. To me, most science is magic because I don’t understand it more than half of the time.

    Realistically, these two stories are completely different. I don’t write them the same way. I don’t prepare them for serialization the same way. I didn’t even conceptualize them the same way. The most valuable lesson I’ve learned as a writer over the years is that while there are a few elements of my method that carry over from project to project, no one novel is the same as another, and these two stories are my proof of it. (Every writer is different, so this is commentary about me and me alone.)

    Zero started with three days of plotting, planning, prepping, and world building. When I started scene 1, I had a good idea where I was going. I even had some ideas on how to get there. I had the main characters, and I had a rough idea of how they’d meet despite coming from such different worlds. I had Easter eggs prepared, puns planned, and a roadmap complete with a set of directions.

    Songbird started with nothing. I sat down, picked up my pen, and I started to write. I knew nothing of Kara, even less about Ranik, and I really don’t know where they’re going or if they’ll make it to the same destination at the same time.

    It took me three or four updates before I started loathing Zero due to how I was writing it.

    I never fell out of love with Songbird.

    I feel back into love with Zero, and I feel that the story has a whole-new dynamic because of it.

    I don’t get to write on Songbird even a quarter of how often I’d like to.

    Zero is a patient friend and companion, showing up for a date every 7 days, whether or not the weather is nice. It’s that guy, you know. The one that sits outside at a café on a rainy day waiting for his girl, who shows up disheveled and several hours late.

    I’m convinced Songbird is staging a revolt as the result of neglect.

    Zero is drafted directly to the computer. Songbird is written by hand in a moleskine journal and transcribed to the computer scene by scene.

    One author, two stories, and two very different writing processes to bring these stories to life.

    If you’re planning on releasing a serial, I strongly recommend that you do so knowing what you’re getting into. If you’re going in without a buffer, expect stress. Expect needing a hellish amount of dedication and enthusiasm to push through the bad days. Expect the strong desire to burn the project with fire when you are forced to work on it when you don’t want to.

    Don’t expect the process to be easy. Don’t expect a high number of people coming back to your site week after week. Even if they do, most of them aren’t going to comment, aren’t going to notice you, and they aren’t going to hold your hand. Expect to have a silent audience, one that you engage only through the words you’ve written.

    Expect to get a glimpse of the world of publication, where you are forced to forge connections with people without ever having the chance to talk to them directly.

    Even if you only have one person who sees the story through to the end, that is one more person you have supporting you, even if you aren’t aware that they are there in the shadows. This was one of the hardest things for me when I started serializing Zero and Songbird. I’m an introvert with extrovert tendencies. I want to be noticed. I want my readers to reach out to me. I want to forge those connections.

    I want people to read my stories.

    For me, this was the most valuable lesson I’ve learned so far serializing my stories: I write because I want to be read. I want to entertain someone.

    I want to forge connections with people.

    The hardest lesson I’ve learned so far serializing my stories is that most of the time I’ll never know for certain if I succeeded at making these connections.

    That’s okay, though. It’s okay because I don’t need to know that it’s happening to be aware of the fact that it is, even if I’m not told this is the case to my face.

    In a way, novel serialization is a leap of faith. It’s a risk. It’s a challenge. Success is hinged on the will of others and my ability to connect with people I’ve never met.

    Is novel serialization right for you?

    Only you can answer that question. Just don’t make the mistake of thinking that knowing one person’s method (or lack thereof) will give you the keys to the universe and to success. It won’t.

    If you decide to serialize, make your own way. Forge your own path, and never stop writing.

    Good Luck.

    ~R.J. Blain (http://rjblain.com)

    (Special thanks to R.J. Blain for luring me into a guest post with chocolate.  I totally dove into the trap when she promised Godiva’s.  And, just as a side note, I’m sooo glad I’m not crazy enough to jump into serialization without a buffer.  I have no idea how she does it, but I would have slammed my head into a wall by now.)

     

     

  • Choices

    Well, tomorrow I’m going to have a guest post from RJ Blain, who is another relatively insane author I’ve been stalking on Google+ for a while now.  (I don’t think it’s really stalking when she’s in another country, but … eh … we’ll let her decide where the creepy boundary is.)

    Anyway, you’ll love her.  She’s crazy and likes chocolate.

    I thought about putting the post up tonight but had one of those “writer” moments today that I just had to get out.  Honestly, it’s amazing I can remember this eureka moment since a bird quite literally attacked me thirty seconds after I had it.

    I’m not kidding.  This little black bird flew right into my back.  I thought maybe it was an accident but it came back and proceeded to dive bomb me again.  I nearly swung my sandwich bag at it, but thought I might get bird-crazy on my Italian Subway sandwich somehow and decided to just run instead.

    Yeah.  I ran from a bird.  I’m not proud.

    In my defense, it had beady black eyes and reminded me of those nasty crow things from Snow White and the Huntsman.

    Where was I? … Oh, yeah … the Eureka moment.

    One of the elements that is severely lacking in my fiction (or at least my early fiction, I have been working on this) is that of choice.  What I mean by that are major choices, choices that the character knows won’t end well no matter which direction they pursue.

    ALERT:  The following examples are spoilerific!  DO NOT READ if you hate spoilers. 

    Example #1:  Doctor Who The End of Time.  That’s like the last episode David Tennant was in and he gets to a point where he has to choose between shooting the Master, or Rassilon (Timothy Dalton’s character).

    For a dude who has spent the last several years adamant about not killing anyone, this is seriously a bad decision for him.  We get to see him flipping between aiming the gun at Dalton or the Master and then Dalton again and then the Master.  (And in the end he chooses neither, but … eh … it was the fact that he was put in the position to have to make such a choice that added tension to that climax.)

    Example #2: Supernatural What is and What Should Never Be.  Poor Dean Winchester finds himself having to make a very serious decision in the end of this episode.  He was attacked by a djinn and is in this dream world where his mother is alive and his family is mostly intact while the djinn slowly consumes his blood.

    For a guy who has a history of putting his family (and innocent lives) in front of himself, he is suddenly confronted with a choice; stay and live in the “world” that has been created for him, or gut himself in the dream in order to wake up.

    Of course, there’s no guaranteeing that he’s right and that he’s in a dream at all, so the decision also has the fear of mortality laced into it.

    Sweet, holy tension, batman!

    Dean delivers this wonderful line just before he goes to shove a knife into his gut, too —

    “No, I’m sure.  I’m like … ninety percent sure.  I’m sure enough.”

    ….

    You see what I’m saying here, right?

    It’s all about choice.  In fact, we can sum plot up as being Character A must choose Path A, B, or C.

    All right, so that’s an oversimplified look on plot, but it really does work.  Characters are defined by the choices they make — at least the good one’s are.  So my eureka moment today was when I realized that I hadn’t really given my characters tough enough choices to make.

    Rock, meet hard place.

    And then the bird attacked me.

    There might have been more to that eureka moment but I was busy running.

    You can’t get avian crazies when a bird dive bombs you, right?  It’s not like a freaky bird plague I should be worried about?

     

  • Research

    This week I rewrote almost all of Chapter One of the WWII project, which I think I might title Sullied Heritage instead of Crossweathers, but we’ll see.  (Many thanks to Tressa Green for taking a moment out of her day to  help me brainstorm.)  In the middle of the rewrite I came across several problems that deal completely with research.

    I couldn’t for the life of me find record of the Elaine, though I know I found it in an obscure book several years ago.

    That wasn’t too much of a problem, I just started researching different boats that sunk and came upon the Ceramic.

    However, the Ceramic sunk right around midnight and there was a massive storm going on at the same time (which accounts for how many souls were lost at sea after the sinking).  The original draft had the boat sinking in the late evening with the sun setting.

    So my rewrite had to change the time, date, and weather.  But all of that is really OK with me because I feel like it’s a stronger chapter because of it. (Of course, I’m rewriting stuff that I wrote almost ten years ago, so it’s bound to be stronger now.  I think I could sneeze a sentence better now than I wrote back then.)

    All of these changes got me to thinking about how different it is to research things today.  Ten years ago I was in the library a lot and even purchased several books on WWII to help me.  I do still love the library, but a lot of the information I need is far easier to get a hold of via the internet.

    Such as the rationing in both America and Germany.  Or the names of which boats were taken down by submarines in the Atlantic.  Or the bombing in Ulm in 1944 (which I didn’t know about until I started this research).

    There are some things that I learned through people, though.  Such as the yellow pill that was rubbed into margarine in order to make it look like butter.  (I’m not kidding.  Apparently that’s real.  I’ll never look at margarine the same way.)  Or the eyeliner women used in order to draw a line on the back of their legs so that they appeared to be wearing pantyhose.

    I say all that to get to the main point, which is that I super love the Googles.  I got more information out of one night of research than I had in hours scouring the library ten years ago.  And it inspired me to add a Fact vs. Fiction page onto the story blog for the WWII novel (which is still scheduled to begin release June 1st.)

    This page will take what I put in the story — such as the sinking of the Ceramic — and explain what really happened versus what I chose to include in the book, with a little bit about why I chose to do it that way.  It’s mostly for those history buffs out there.  Or people who might be curious.  And, of course, for me, since I find the whole process of researching this novel fascinating.

  • Trunk Novels

    I’ve gone through and deleted most of my trunk novels.  To be honest, several of them were dissected; meaning I took characters I enjoyed or a concept I thought was cool and then placed them inside a different book.

    In fact, Nelek Dyngannon from the Sedition series came from a trunk novel.  And the concept of the “tapped” came out of my alien abduction story.

    But there is one trunk novel that I just can’t seem to let go of.  I keep telling myself that I’m going to re-write it.  It’s my World War II story and I started it at least ten years ago.  I have close to ninety thousand words recorded from that story, but it’s all in bits and pieces.  There are sections missing — important sections, too.

    And there are at least three different endings I could choose from.

    I could assign this book as a “little darling” or I could attribute my inability to let it go to the fact that I love WWII history.  (Not that I love all the terrible things that happened, of course.)  But for whatever reason, I just can’t seem to drop it.

    So … I think I’m going to go ahead and start the rewrite this summer.  I’m already on the last leg of Usurper (Hurray! The characters have reached the mainland and are headed to war!) and the second book in the Tapped series is already underway.  (Meaning it’s been outlined and I’ve decided which POV characters I’ll have.)

    Now, because this is a trunk novel and what I could consider a “little darling” I am going to do something different with it.  I’ve been hunting for a project that I could post online for free via Wattpad and a story blog for some time now and this one seems to fit.

    For one, I have no real hopes of it ever getting published.  As much as I love history, particularly WWII history, the book is utterly fictional and I fear many people prefer to read WWII books that are at least loosely based on a true story.  We’ve been spoiled by Band of Brothers and other such stories.

    For another, there are elements in the story that stretch the boundary of belief.  For example, the original story-line had our heroine (because yes, I have to write a female protagonist, we all should understand this by now) getting shot down in a plane over the Baltic, where she was picked up by the Nazi’s.

    That story line was rejected during one of my gazillion edits ten years ago and changed to having her boat sink — the Elaine, by the way, which is a real boat that was really sunk — but even that story line makes my “suspension of disbelief” feel like it’s getting thrown into the atmosphere.

    See what I said about a re-write?

    I’m actually still struggling with the idea of keeping the book in this particular format (the boat sinking sequence) or going ahead with writing a new opening sequence.  It’s sort of like having to stress the Fiction in Historical Fiction rather than stressing the History.  The boat sinking makes for a great, exciting opening, and it seems to be my style to start things in the middle of the action.

    But, while the Elaine was a real boat, the people I have written are entirely fictional and the idea of Nazi’s taking in a half-drowned American woman and not assuming her to be a spy is a stretch.  Granted, the book starts prior to America entering the war, but still … Yeah …

    Side note — I did read about how the Allies planted fake information on a body and let it float to the enemy, who took the bait and thought the information was real.  Which, to me, was supremely clever.  What’s more convincing than a dead body?

    So!

    Starting in July (probably) I will set up the WWII story — titled Crossweathers, by the way — on Wattpad and give it a story blog.  I’ll post a chapter a week after that.

    I know some people manage to put two chapters up a week (LJ Cohen, for example) but I am still in school and have other deadlines to meet as well.

  • Graphic Detail

    As I’ve set aside my science fiction while readers are going through it I picked up Usurper again.  That’s the third book in Trenna Dyngannon’s series for those unaware.  Trenna is, by all appearances, my most popular character and I have to admit I love writing her.  She’s gritty and tough and vulnerable all at once … and funny.

    Diving back into this High Fantasy novel I noticed a stark contrast between the amount of graphic detail I provide with Trenna as opposed to my science fiction. It may be because I’ve “lived” in the world of Dyngannon for so many years that I see it more clearly, but I’m not sure.

    Science fiction … or at least space science fiction … tends to limit my graphic detail to what you can see on a space ship.  If you’re not in the pilot’s nest looking out the viewport then basically there’s just ship … more ship … and, Oh, look, even more ship … to see.  Which, I’m sure you can all imagine, can be a challenge.

    Now that I think about it, this probably explains the drastic difference in word count between my 100,000 word High Fantasy novels and the 65,000 word Science Fiction.  Reading through the manuscript again I can see how this story (the science fiction story) is more involved with the characters and their growth than my previously published fantasy novels.

    So there was really a trade-off.  What little I have involved in graphics was made up for in the personal journeys of the characters.

    That said, having written the science fiction I can now see how I am implementing what I learned about the “personal journey” into my current fantasy novel.  I believe this will make for a stronger all-around book in Usurper and am excited to see how it turns out.

    For the science fiction, I am challenging myself to take the whole book through a purely “Graphic Detail” edit.  That means I will be focusing completely on description.  I’ll probably even use a different colored pen.  (Pardon me as I squee.  I do adore having any reason at all to use different colored pens in my editing.  Red just … you know … hurts sometimes.)

  • All Part of a Balanced Diet

    In the terms of a friend of mine (L.J. Cohen, author of The Between, which I totally recommend for any YA fans out there) I managed to finish the “gut-renovation” of my latest science fiction novel.  It’s only on the second draft and is now in the hands of my Alpha Readers.  (I love you, Alpha’s!)

    As I was in the middle of this gut-renovation I found myself yanking out several info-dumps in the middle of the manuscript.  While it was necessary for the rough draft to have all that information in there because I’m not exactly a scientist (as in, my brain nearly melted during science class last semester), I knew I couldn’t keep it all in the novel.

    Info-dumps are notoriously boring.  And a boring book is nearly always relegated to propping up an uneven table or, in the case of Armageddon, kept for fuel during the subsequent nuclear winter.

    However, I did have to find new and clever ways to explain the science behind space travel and the notorious “tapped” soldiers who star in the novel.

    At least I like to think some of it was clever.  My Alpha’s will let me know here in a couple of weeks if I succeeded.

    But it really got me thinking about how novelists have to find the appropriate balance between how much information is too much information.

    Let’s go ahead and assume the novelist in question has taken a permanent marker to all the info-dumps in the manuscript, they still have to find a way to get the truly important stuff on the page.  And preferably in an interesting way.

    For me the trick came in two parts.

    Part One : Identify what the (highly intelligent, wonderful) Reader needs to know for this book in particular. 

    Tapped is the first installment of a much longer series.  It is the introduction and therefore has to set the ground rules for the rest of the books.  For those of you who are writers, you know how difficult it is to introduce a world, or in this case a galaxy, that is complete with political systems, travel considerations, scientific progress, and the impact everything has at the individual human level.

    So!  I boiled everything down to three main points of interest that the Reader would need to understand in order for the novel to make sense.

    #1) They had to know the human race was stretched across the universe and that inter-stellar travel was a regular thing.  (This was easily achieved since 3/4 of the book takes place on a “jumper class hauling ship.”)

    #2) They had to know there was a war that split the human race into two different factions; that of the Consulate, which regulates everything from Jupiter through Gliese (an earth-like planet very, very far away) and that of the League, which regulates Mars and Earth (the last bastions of freedom.)

    Author’s note:  I totally wanted to use “Coalition” instead of “League” but it sounded too much like “Consulate” and I wanted to make sure they were all separate in the Reader’s mind. 

    #3) They had to know how “tapped” soldiers were made and what they could do.  (This was also easy and fun because … yeah … most people know I love a good fight scene.)

    Part Two : Identify the least amount of information needed in any particular scene. 

    The first part looked at the book as a whole, the second part looked at each individual scene while I was editing.  In this part, I really only asked what was affecting the individual characters on the page.  Because if the character’s weren’t affected by the science or politics, then the Reader didn’t need to be either.

    The result is that the characters actually interacted with the three main points I needed the Readers to understand for the book.  Which, I hope, made for a more solid and interesting book.

    Like I said, I’ll know here in a little bit if I actually succeeded at this.

  • Dead Magic Coming Soon!

    In preparation for Dead Magic’s release … which is apparently coming sooner than I’d imagined … I’ve decided to start adding some content.  You’ll noticed on the top bar that I’ve added a new page called “Magnellum” which is the world in which Dead Magic is centered.

    Also, on the sidebar (under the title Blogroll) you can see a link to a teaser/snippet page.  That will actually take you to a page with ALL my books on it.  You can click through and read teasers of each one that has been published to date.  Including a small teaser page for Dead Magic, which I will edit and make bigger after its release.  (Right now you can read the very first scene of the book.)

    When I have an actual date for its release I will start another release party.  (I can’t believe it’s been a whole year since I’ve done one of those.)  And I’ll do some Giveaway’s and throw out a bunch of free content delving deeper into the world of Magnellum.

    In the meantime, the Magnellum page on the top bar goes through a list of the noble Houses in Magnellum.  I won’t lie, the political spectrum of Magnellum was difficult to create.  We get to see the noble society at its peak in Witch- Born, but in Dead Magic I got to dive into the history behind Magnellum and really work on the mythology behind what created the Witch-Born race in the first place.

    It actually took me several passes at the manuscript before I was able to settle on something that both made sense and entertained me as a writer.  (I mean, if I don’t find it entertaining then who else will?)  I’m not going to spoil the book before it’s even come out, so don’t worry.  We all know how I feel about spoilers.

    However, as an author, mythology and world building are the two most enjoyable and most frustrating parts of the writing process.  During the first draft I’m just having fun with the characters and running through what I call the “bare bones” of the plot.  So at that point world building and mythology are a ton of fun.

    When I get into the second pass of the book and start really looking at the mythology is when I get frustrated because it almost always needs to be fixed.  That’s when the real work happens for me as a creator.  I may know the characters of the story but I don’t really know the story yet, you know?  So there are weeks and weeks of brainstorming what parts of the mythology need rewriting and — most importantly — how I can take that mythology and turn it into something intimate for the characters on the page.

    Because a neat mythology doesn’t necessarily make a great story.  That mythology has to work with the characters.  It has to shake them up somehow, and that’s what I was looking to do in Dead Magic.  I’m hoping I managed it.  We’ll see what readers say.

    As with everything I write, I wouldn’t ever publish anything because I always think something needs to be improved.