A.J. Maguire

Tag: Fantasy

  • 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?

     

  • 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.

  • The Editing Domain

    The single greatest lesson I’ve learned as a writer is how to eat humble pie.  Editing, even self-editing, forces me to look at my own silly nonsense and try to make it something readable.  I mean, there are honest mistakes like the one I ran across this morning …

    “Staring at hew as though …”

    Which should have read like this — “Staring at him as though …”

    (By the way, thank you Word Program for assuming I meant “hew” there.  Go team failure!)

    Typo’s happen.  I know that.  I write everything by hand first so when I’m actually typing things I’m not really looking at the screen.  So I can forgive myself — and often laugh — at such mistakes.

    But there are other mistakes that make me blush.  Mistakes dealing with a very broken mythology that require an Alpha/Beta Reader to come along and tell me the harsh truth in the nicest way they know how.  And really, my Alpha’s and Beta’s are awesome.  They know me well enough to know how to crush my soul without making me cry.

    Or … well … I cry on the inside.  But normally it’s a frustrated — “Why would I write that in there?” cry and not a “They all hate me and I want to go eat worms” cry.

    The editing domain for me comes in two parts.  The first part is the most extensive and it requires absolute focus.  I sometimes loathe myself for the fact that I have to print out the pages so that I can mark on them, but I try to make up for that by recycling.  (What can I say?  I have a Go-Green spirit and a ruthless work ethic warring each other.)

    Anyway, during that first editing pass I can’t split my attention between projects.  Which is frustrating because I like to have multiple projects going on at the same time.  But when I hit the second editing pass things go really quickly.  Generally, all the work is already done and all I have to do is transcribe it onto the computer.

    Which, in turn, frees up my brain power.  And since I’m on the second pass of Dead Magic right now I was able to finish the rough draft for Tapped this week.   I have to admit that I surprised myself with Tapped.  I wasn’t expecting to have it done until the middle of the summer.

    But hey!  It’s done!  That leaves me with Usurper to finish before the end of the year and a couple of mountains to climb.  I’m starting to think I didn’t challenge myself enough with my New Year’s Goals or something.

    All I can say is … I own 2013.

  • Deadlines

    If you’ve been following my Blog then you know I have a deadline of March 1st for my book Dead Magic to be edited and in the (virtual) hands of my publisher.  Dead Magic is the sequel to Witch-Born and, I think, the last book in the world of Magnellum.

    Probably.  More than likely it’s the last one.  We’ll see.  I said Sedition would be a stand-alone and I’m working on its third book now.

    In any case, I am right on target for my March 1st deadline.  So don’t worry!  (Trust me, if I were worried about it I wouldn’t be pausing to write a blog, I don’t care what the Marketing people have to say.)  But the whole deadline thing got me to thinking about how deadlines have really altered my writing habits.

    Honestly, if you’re one of those writers who just writes whenever and shrugs about when they might get their manuscripts finished, then you need to start making some deadlines.  I used to be that way, too.  Until I learned that a deadline — even a self-imposed deadline — means that I really do get more done.

    Some people might groan and say that stress can stifle their creativity, but it really does work.  Sometimes we need to stress ourselves out.

    It’s almost as good as the best advice I ever read about writing.  I can’t remember who wrote the book, but the advice was to write yourself into a corner.  By that I mean, write your characters into an impossible situation.  People don’t care about run-of-the-mill situations after all, they want to see what these characters will do when they are faced with impossible situations, terrible choices, and the like.

    Best.  Advice.  Ever.

    But next up is writing with deadlines.  Contracts are fun and they make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside when you can say; “Oh, this one is on contract so I have to get it done.”  However, even inside a contract you have to make deadlines.

    Rough draft done by December.  Edits done by March 1st.

    Those are really vague deadlines, but they work.

    So!  I highly recommend deadlines.

    And, of course, writing yourself into a corner.

  • “Swan Song”

    As with all the shows I watch, I had to pick out my favorite episode of Supernatural.  For Doctor Who it was Midnight.  For Quantum Leap it was the last episode — though I haven’t watched that show in ages so I might change my mind after a re-watch.  And for Supernatural it has to be “Swan Song.”

    I’m not going to give any spoilers — I hate spoilers — but I might hint at some things.  If you catch on because of my hinting I sincerely apologize and give you permission to revoke all my Netflix rights for a month.

    Now then, let me tell you why I loved “Swan Song” the best.  If you’ve already seen the show then you know all about the whole Apocalypse problem Sam and Dean (our two intrepid heroes) were struggling with.  The writers of the show managed to take a global threat — the end of the world — and turn it into the most intimate of problems by pitting Sam and Dean against each other.  (Kind of.  Watch the show and you’ll understand.)

    But the reason I love that episode the most is because of one line delivered by Dean.  One simple, heartbreaking line:

    “It’s OK, Sammy.  I’m here.”

    No, Sam’s not dying at that moment.  You’d expect that line to be delivered by someone holding their brother’s guts in with a towel or something, but that’s not what happened.  Not remotely.  In fact — mild spoiler alert — the line is delivered while Dean is getting the snot beat out of him.

    It was beautiful.  Everyone told me I’d start to cringe at the show when Angels showed up, but they were wrong.  The path the writers put these two characters on sort of required the other end of the spectrum to come into play (i.e. Angels and the God question) so it made perfect sense.

    (By the way, we can thank that nasty flu bug for me getting through all 7 seasons of Supernatural in the past three weeks.  I couldn’t concentrate to get any writing done and I barely managed to keep up on my homework, so that left a lot of hours to kill whilst bedridden.  I’m better now, so don’t worry.  Edits on Dead Magic are progressing at a steady rate.)

    So!  Swan Song is my favorite Supernatural episode ever.  It’s not one you can watch without seeing the road leading up to it, though.  If you’ve never seen the show, you should.  Start at the beginning and plow right through.  (It’ll help if you’re sick or something and can’t do much else.)  I promise, it’s worth it just to get to that moment with Sam and Dean.

  • Tragedy

    As I’ve been consumed by Doctor Who for the last few weeks I couldn’t help but start dissecting what it is about that show that I truly love.  Aside from it being funny and quick, the Doctor stands as one of the most tragic characters I’ve encountered.  He is alone, the last of his kind, floating around all of time and space in a blue box that’s bigger on the inside than it is on the outside, and armed with nothing more than a sonic screwdriver and an indomitable hope for humanity.

    In the midst of all the fun and quirky bits of the show, Doctor Who maintains his tragic streak.  Perhaps the most profound episode I’ve found so far is the one titled Midnight by Russell T. Davies.  This one is in the middle of the fourth season and I have to admit that Davies is a genius.

    WARNING : There are spoilers ahead.  If you haven’t seen that episode, don’t read further.

    Davies put the Doctor in a little box that is not bigger on the inside than it is on the outside with a group of strangers on their way to see some diamond falls.  And then he broke the box — Davies, not the Doctor — and watched as the human elements of the story spiraled out of control.  We get the lady Sky suddenly possessed by some other kind of life-form that learns very quickly by mimicking the people around it.  Granted, it is creepy to have someone copy everything you say as you’re saying it, but the real genius of the story isn’t the alien trying to learn so much as the reactions of the rest of the people on board.

    Basically, we had a whole show that didn’t really move out of the box and managed to remain intense and profound.  By the end we’ve seen a breakdown in humanity as the focus turns from stressful “Well, now we have to wait for rescue” to “Survival of the fittest” until nearly everyone is trying to throw the Doctor out of the ship (where he will die).  The tragedy of this story isn’t necessarily the death of one of the characters, but the ugly desperation that infected everyone.

    These humans that the Doctor finds so much hope and affection for are also capable of horrible things.  He’s not naive enough to not be aware of their capacity for evil, but there is so much disappointment in him when he sees them turn the wrong direction.  So the tragedy comes around when his hope for the best in humanity is tarnished by the actions he sees.

  • Goodreads Giveaway Starts in 1 Day!

     
    That’s right! This is my year of Giveaways — mainly because I won’t have anything new coming out this year since I’m hard at work with school and my writing is going a little slower than normal — but this is great news for some lucky winners out there. 

    The first Giveaway is for 2 copies of Sedition — my first book. 

    If you don’t win, don’t worry! I have two other completely different books that will be scheduled for Giveaway’s throughout the year. And! Somewhere, at some point, I’ll give away a package deal with both Sedition and Saboteur included. I’m not sure where — likely at Coffee Time Romance — but that won’t be until we’ve gotten through Witch-Born and Saboteur at Goodreads.