Magic system design is crucial for a fantasy author. You want something that has internal consistency and preferably looks and feels different from other magic systems. By the way, Brandon Sanderson in his Mistborn saga has one of the best-designed magic systems I've ever read. If you haven't read them, do so. They are excellent.
I'm not saying my magic system is even close to his, but I did give it a lot of thought before I started writing, and I've continued to tweak it as I go along. I didn't want Dafydd to feel like a D&D style wizard who tossed around fireballs and called down lighting bolts. I wanted him to use his magic tactically and to give some thought to how he could use his powers.
In the first story, I said he could create potions, do divination-style magic and read auras. I also said that he needs time to do his magic. He can't pop off spells at a moment's notice. He needs time and set-up. As you'll see in the book I'm writing now, I break that rule, but for a specific type of magic. My husband actually came up with a way he could use that type of magic in combat, and I'm looking forward to writing the climactic fight scene in that book where he tries something new.
But until then, I've stuck with the original rules. When I write fight scenes, I have to think carefully about Dafydd and what he'll do. I can't make him sit on the sidelines while Paul does all the fighting. Basically, I've dealt with it by having him augment himself and Paul with potions (enhancing speed, strength and reaction). He uses pepper spray to good effect against a werewolf, and he's used his magic to trick and misdirect.
Sometimes I have him avoid the fight entirely and save someone, freeing Paul up to so what vampires do best. Beat the tar out of bad guys!
Of course, he uses his magic outside of combat. Aura reading has come in very handy while talking to other vampires, and I have a scene where he uses ritual magic to track someone down.
Check back next week when I'm going to post a draft of one of the fight scenes from The Case of the Lost Werewolf Puppy. You'll be able to see both of them in action. I'd love feedback on what you think of how I've written Dafydd and his magic.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Editing and Producing the Best Possible Product
I'm on several ebook forums, and lately there's been a lot of discussion about the quality of self-published works. Most of the discussion has been very distressing to me as an author and sometime editor.
First, let me be very clear. Every author, self-published or traditional, has an obligation to produce the very best product for readers. Anything less is unacceptable, and readers have every right to reward other authors who keep quality in mind.
Okay, now that I've said that, let me also say that editing is tougher than it looks and can be VERY subjective. Many of the people who slam authors for mistakes have obviously never written or edited professionally. It's easy to sit in your armchair with a book and a red pencil, finding errors in a book you never wrote or edited.
It's impossible for an author to proof his or her own work, beyond a certain point. I saw that in spades this week. I was doing a mostly final rewrite of The Case of the Haunted Vampire, and I had been very careful in my re-read and rewrite. Then I pulled out the critiques from the online critique group, Critters. Mostly the story received high marks for professionalism and editing/writing quality. The readers found several grammatical/tense/consistency errors. I had missed all but one in my last re-read.
You know what else was interesting? None of them found all the errors they found as a group. It took eight people to find the errors I corrected yesterday. There's probably a few more out there. I have hired a professional editor for a final review, and I'll bet she'll find some of them. Will she find everything? Probably not.
And this was a work that most readers said was very high quality.
Those were just the objective errors. What about the subjective stuff? A couple of readers commented on my use of tense. One even asked if I had originally written the story in present tense and rewritten it in past. Ugh, no. I wrote part of one story once in first person, present tense. It was an interesting experiment, and I learned a lot, including that present tense is a bitch to both read and write. I went back recently to re-read that story and found a bunch of places I'd slipped into past tense. Never again.
But back to this story, which is told in first person, in a very conversational style. I did use present tense a few times, because it's what we do when we speak. An example is when Dafydd was talking about Annie's, the diner he was going to. I wrote "Annie's is pretty well known as a gay hangout." One of the readers called me on it. Another noted the tense shift but indicated it was okay if I was doing it for style reasons. I was doing it for stylistic reasons. Think about it. Annie's exists today. If I were telling the story to a friend about going there, I'd probably say "We went to Annie's last week. It's a great place to eat!" I wouldn't use past tense in the second sentence, so I had Dafydd use present tense as well.
Subjective, eh? Six different editors would probably give me seven or eight opinions.
What's the point of this rant? Simple. Authors need to have a commitment to writing the best possible story and making it as perfect as possible. If we do that for you, readers, will you give us a bit of leeway and understand it's impossible to make a work perfect, even when we give you our best possible effort?
Thanks!
First, let me be very clear. Every author, self-published or traditional, has an obligation to produce the very best product for readers. Anything less is unacceptable, and readers have every right to reward other authors who keep quality in mind.
Okay, now that I've said that, let me also say that editing is tougher than it looks and can be VERY subjective. Many of the people who slam authors for mistakes have obviously never written or edited professionally. It's easy to sit in your armchair with a book and a red pencil, finding errors in a book you never wrote or edited.
It's impossible for an author to proof his or her own work, beyond a certain point. I saw that in spades this week. I was doing a mostly final rewrite of The Case of the Haunted Vampire, and I had been very careful in my re-read and rewrite. Then I pulled out the critiques from the online critique group, Critters. Mostly the story received high marks for professionalism and editing/writing quality. The readers found several grammatical/tense/consistency errors. I had missed all but one in my last re-read.
You know what else was interesting? None of them found all the errors they found as a group. It took eight people to find the errors I corrected yesterday. There's probably a few more out there. I have hired a professional editor for a final review, and I'll bet she'll find some of them. Will she find everything? Probably not.
And this was a work that most readers said was very high quality.
Those were just the objective errors. What about the subjective stuff? A couple of readers commented on my use of tense. One even asked if I had originally written the story in present tense and rewritten it in past. Ugh, no. I wrote part of one story once in first person, present tense. It was an interesting experiment, and I learned a lot, including that present tense is a bitch to both read and write. I went back recently to re-read that story and found a bunch of places I'd slipped into past tense. Never again.
But back to this story, which is told in first person, in a very conversational style. I did use present tense a few times, because it's what we do when we speak. An example is when Dafydd was talking about Annie's, the diner he was going to. I wrote "Annie's is pretty well known as a gay hangout." One of the readers called me on it. Another noted the tense shift but indicated it was okay if I was doing it for style reasons. I was doing it for stylistic reasons. Think about it. Annie's exists today. If I were telling the story to a friend about going there, I'd probably say "We went to Annie's last week. It's a great place to eat!" I wouldn't use past tense in the second sentence, so I had Dafydd use present tense as well.
Subjective, eh? Six different editors would probably give me seven or eight opinions.
What's the point of this rant? Simple. Authors need to have a commitment to writing the best possible story and making it as perfect as possible. If we do that for you, readers, will you give us a bit of leeway and understand it's impossible to make a work perfect, even when we give you our best possible effort?
Thanks!
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Rethinking Marketing Strategy
When I started this series, about a year and a half ago, my original plan was to write a series of novellas, which I would bundle together, three or so to a "book." The first piece, The Case of the Haunted Vampire, cooperated, coming in at about 16K words, a bit short for a novella, but close enough.
The Case of the Lost Werewolf Puppy, the second work, was supposed to be about 20-30K words. Unfortunately, that story didn't cooperate, and I realized about 15K words in that I was working on a full novel. Its current word count is about 90K, firmly in the short novel range. I'm not planning to be an epic novel writer, and 80-100K is a good length for a light, genre novel, as this one is.
This all has left me with a bit of a quandary. There simply isn't enough plot to the first novella to allow me to lengthen it. But the second was always intended to be number two in a series. I don't want to market Haunted Vampire as something it isn't, although with e-books, it's difficult to tell how long a book is until you've bought and downloaded it. Deceiving my readership isn't going to win me more readers.
I've been noticing a lot of authors releasing "prequel" novellas and short stories lately as a way to market a longer book in a series. I've decided this will work well for me.
Lost Werewolf Puppy is going to become the actual first book in the series. I'm pretty sure it stands alone, and I've got some beta readers willing to confirm that for me. Haunted Vampire is now a prequel work. Readers will probably want to see how Paul and Dafydd met, and that's the story I tell there. In hindsight, it's not the best story to be first. Lost Werewolf Puppy has lots of action and more character development. It's a good "first" in the series.
My pricing plan remains the same. Haunted Vampire will be .99 on Amazon and Barnes and Noble (where I can't price a book as free), but it will be free on Smashwords, so I can tell people about it as a freebie intro. Lost Werewolf Puppy will be $2.99 everywhere, as will subsequent books. I'll experiment with putting the longer works on sale, and we'll see how it goes.
I think this will work and allows me to adapt to the changing lengths of the stories in the series. I may have a few novella ideas later, and I can always treat them the same way. Offer them up for .99 or free.
And in case you were wondering, the next book is already in progress. About 16K words in two weeks of writing. Obviously, it's going to be another novel, and it's going to be good. We're finally going to find out who Paul really is and how he became a vampire. There might even be a bit of romance in it. ;)
The Case of the Lost Werewolf Puppy, the second work, was supposed to be about 20-30K words. Unfortunately, that story didn't cooperate, and I realized about 15K words in that I was working on a full novel. Its current word count is about 90K, firmly in the short novel range. I'm not planning to be an epic novel writer, and 80-100K is a good length for a light, genre novel, as this one is.
This all has left me with a bit of a quandary. There simply isn't enough plot to the first novella to allow me to lengthen it. But the second was always intended to be number two in a series. I don't want to market Haunted Vampire as something it isn't, although with e-books, it's difficult to tell how long a book is until you've bought and downloaded it. Deceiving my readership isn't going to win me more readers.
I've been noticing a lot of authors releasing "prequel" novellas and short stories lately as a way to market a longer book in a series. I've decided this will work well for me.
Lost Werewolf Puppy is going to become the actual first book in the series. I'm pretty sure it stands alone, and I've got some beta readers willing to confirm that for me. Haunted Vampire is now a prequel work. Readers will probably want to see how Paul and Dafydd met, and that's the story I tell there. In hindsight, it's not the best story to be first. Lost Werewolf Puppy has lots of action and more character development. It's a good "first" in the series.
My pricing plan remains the same. Haunted Vampire will be .99 on Amazon and Barnes and Noble (where I can't price a book as free), but it will be free on Smashwords, so I can tell people about it as a freebie intro. Lost Werewolf Puppy will be $2.99 everywhere, as will subsequent books. I'll experiment with putting the longer works on sale, and we'll see how it goes.
I think this will work and allows me to adapt to the changing lengths of the stories in the series. I may have a few novella ideas later, and I can always treat them the same way. Offer them up for .99 or free.
And in case you were wondering, the next book is already in progress. About 16K words in two weeks of writing. Obviously, it's going to be another novel, and it's going to be good. We're finally going to find out who Paul really is and how he became a vampire. There might even be a bit of romance in it. ;)
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Finished the First Draft!
I finished the first draft of The Case of the Lost Werepuppy on Monday. It was an odd experience. I knew I was getting close. When I finished my writing last Saturday, I knew I had just a few more scenes left. I needed to do some wrap up after the climactic battle, and Dafydd had some soul-searching to do. Several people had just died for his fight, and that's never an easy moment for a character.
I sat down on Monday (having seen X-Men First Class on Saturday), and I knew the scene was going to have some of the feel of the Charles/Erik scene in the library (except both Paul and Dafydd were drinking Scotch--no wine for Paul in my scene--and the chessboard was absent.) Ehm. I digress. Think I enjoyed the movie?
Anyway, that dialogue scene turned out to have a couple of surprises for me. I'd been mentally roughing out the scene the night before, and I knew I wanted Paul to finally reveal how old he was. When I was writing on Monday, I literally typed, "I was born in..." and then pulled out my notes. Remember, Paul is based on an historical character, and I had his actual birthday.
That was when I got my shock. Paul's date of birth was September 10. The scene I was writing took place on September 9. Remember my post of last week on resources? The date of the story was driven by full moon phases, and I hadn't remembered Paul's date of birth. It was one of those things I cut and paste into Evernote to refer to later.
It's funny how things work that way. Kind of like it was meant to be, huh?
My other surprise came when I finished the scene. I was done. I mean really done. I'd wrapped up the theme and the story in that scene. I needed a couple of paragraphs to resolve one last plot point, but I decided it could all happen off-screen. It didn't need to be shown.
So I was done. And I'm very glad these guys are in a series. You know the feeling you get when you finish a really good book? One of those you never want to end? Finishing this one felt exactly like that. I'm hoping that means it will be as good for my readers as it was for me.
But it's not really done. It still needs editing. I kind of figured out my themes as I went along, and now I need to go back and strengthen them. Plus fix inconsistencies, crappy wording and make my fight scenes obey me. I hate writing fight scenes. Good thing I can rewrite them passably.
Oh, and just because I could, I started working on the next book yesterday. I do my best writing in the morning. Editing I can do anytime. Might as well use my time wisely.
One final link to X-Men. Want to see what Paul looks like in my head?
It was kind of eerie watching the movie. This was pretty much exactly how Paul has looked to me. Even down to the slight head tilt. And Fassbender is almost exactly the same height and has the same color eyes as the historical Paul. In real life, Fassbender's hair is lighter than Paul's, but in this role, even that is right. Eerie.
I sat down on Monday (having seen X-Men First Class on Saturday), and I knew the scene was going to have some of the feel of the Charles/Erik scene in the library (except both Paul and Dafydd were drinking Scotch--no wine for Paul in my scene--and the chessboard was absent.) Ehm. I digress. Think I enjoyed the movie?
Anyway, that dialogue scene turned out to have a couple of surprises for me. I'd been mentally roughing out the scene the night before, and I knew I wanted Paul to finally reveal how old he was. When I was writing on Monday, I literally typed, "I was born in..." and then pulled out my notes. Remember, Paul is based on an historical character, and I had his actual birthday.
That was when I got my shock. Paul's date of birth was September 10. The scene I was writing took place on September 9. Remember my post of last week on resources? The date of the story was driven by full moon phases, and I hadn't remembered Paul's date of birth. It was one of those things I cut and paste into Evernote to refer to later.
It's funny how things work that way. Kind of like it was meant to be, huh?
My other surprise came when I finished the scene. I was done. I mean really done. I'd wrapped up the theme and the story in that scene. I needed a couple of paragraphs to resolve one last plot point, but I decided it could all happen off-screen. It didn't need to be shown.
So I was done. And I'm very glad these guys are in a series. You know the feeling you get when you finish a really good book? One of those you never want to end? Finishing this one felt exactly like that. I'm hoping that means it will be as good for my readers as it was for me.
But it's not really done. It still needs editing. I kind of figured out my themes as I went along, and now I need to go back and strengthen them. Plus fix inconsistencies, crappy wording and make my fight scenes obey me. I hate writing fight scenes. Good thing I can rewrite them passably.
Oh, and just because I could, I started working on the next book yesterday. I do my best writing in the morning. Editing I can do anytime. Might as well use my time wisely.
One final link to X-Men. Want to see what Paul looks like in my head?
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Research Tools For Writers
First some cool news. This blog is now available in a mobile version, so don't hesitate to drop by on your cell phone or tablet. It looks good and loads fast!
Today I wanted to share some cool resources I've found for research. How did writers manage before the Internet?
Since I am writing about vampires (and werewolves in the latest book), sunrise and sunset times are obviously important. Did you know there's a site that lists those? I can search for the times on a particular day, and not just in DC. I can find that information for anywhere.
Moon phases have also been important for this book. I wanted to set the book in roughly the fall time frame, during a relatively recent year, and I really wanted the full moon to fall on a Friday. Pretty specific, huh? Well, I was able to search for moon phases on the same site, and I discovered that September 2009 fit all the criteria. So if you were wondering when I set the book and why, now you know!
What about historical weather? This one took me a bit longer to track down. I don't want to pay for the information if I can avoid it, and until this week, the only sites I found charged subscription fees. Then I found Weather Underground. Mouse over the "Local Weather" tab, and you'll find the option to search for History Data. It's free, and they give you an hour by hour recap. Now I know that it was overcast with light wind during my final fight scene. No rain at the time of the scene, but it had rained a few hours earlier, so there might be some slick spots. Bet I can use that to build some tension.
Wikipedia is, naturally, one of my go-to sites. Just a couple of days ago, I was describing my werewolves, and I needed to know how big to make them. A quick Wikipedia search on "gray wolves" gave me what I needed. I wanted them just a big bigger than gray wolves, so now my werewolves are about 6 feet long and 3 1/2 feet tall at the shoulder.
But the coolest resource so far has been Google Maps. Want to see where my final climactic battle is held? Follow this link and click on Satellite view. Cool, isn't it? While I'm writing the scene, I've got this map open, and I use it to storyboard the action.
Of course, great resources can't substitute for a good story and well-crafted writing. A writer could overdo references to time, place and weather. But having an idea of the exact time in which to place the story has given me some good ideas. And I think they've made the story better.
What about you? Any writing resources to share?
Today I wanted to share some cool resources I've found for research. How did writers manage before the Internet?
Since I am writing about vampires (and werewolves in the latest book), sunrise and sunset times are obviously important. Did you know there's a site that lists those? I can search for the times on a particular day, and not just in DC. I can find that information for anywhere.
Moon phases have also been important for this book. I wanted to set the book in roughly the fall time frame, during a relatively recent year, and I really wanted the full moon to fall on a Friday. Pretty specific, huh? Well, I was able to search for moon phases on the same site, and I discovered that September 2009 fit all the criteria. So if you were wondering when I set the book and why, now you know!
What about historical weather? This one took me a bit longer to track down. I don't want to pay for the information if I can avoid it, and until this week, the only sites I found charged subscription fees. Then I found Weather Underground. Mouse over the "Local Weather" tab, and you'll find the option to search for History Data. It's free, and they give you an hour by hour recap. Now I know that it was overcast with light wind during my final fight scene. No rain at the time of the scene, but it had rained a few hours earlier, so there might be some slick spots. Bet I can use that to build some tension.
Wikipedia is, naturally, one of my go-to sites. Just a couple of days ago, I was describing my werewolves, and I needed to know how big to make them. A quick Wikipedia search on "gray wolves" gave me what I needed. I wanted them just a big bigger than gray wolves, so now my werewolves are about 6 feet long and 3 1/2 feet tall at the shoulder.
But the coolest resource so far has been Google Maps. Want to see where my final climactic battle is held? Follow this link and click on Satellite view. Cool, isn't it? While I'm writing the scene, I've got this map open, and I use it to storyboard the action.
Of course, great resources can't substitute for a good story and well-crafted writing. A writer could overdo references to time, place and weather. But having an idea of the exact time in which to place the story has given me some good ideas. And I think they've made the story better.
What about you? Any writing resources to share?
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Figured Out the Ending!
Just a quick update this week.
The disadvantage of not being an outline writer is that I sometimes have only the vaguest idea of how to get from point A to point B in a story. For the current book, I knew who the bad guy was and that I wanted Paul and Dafydd to thwart his dastardly plans. Revealing the plan step by step was easy. Actually wrapping it up, though? That was tough.
I hit the point while writing this morning where I had to make some decisions. I'd gone as far as I could go without deciding exactly how I wanted to story to end.
As usual, I let my characters tell me. I actually wrote Dafydd asking the question, "What do we want to accomplish here?"
As soon as he asked the question, I knew. One of the other characters supplied the answer, and we're off. It was easy to plan out the final stages of the book. Everyone has their tasks. Now we just lure the bad guy's henchman (actually henchwolf) off for a big boss battle to end the book with a bang.
And of course leave the big bad around to come back with another dastardly plan in a later book.
It feels really good to finally know how to end this darned thing!
The disadvantage of not being an outline writer is that I sometimes have only the vaguest idea of how to get from point A to point B in a story. For the current book, I knew who the bad guy was and that I wanted Paul and Dafydd to thwart his dastardly plans. Revealing the plan step by step was easy. Actually wrapping it up, though? That was tough.
I hit the point while writing this morning where I had to make some decisions. I'd gone as far as I could go without deciding exactly how I wanted to story to end.
As usual, I let my characters tell me. I actually wrote Dafydd asking the question, "What do we want to accomplish here?"
As soon as he asked the question, I knew. One of the other characters supplied the answer, and we're off. It was easy to plan out the final stages of the book. Everyone has their tasks. Now we just lure the bad guy's henchman (actually henchwolf) off for a big boss battle to end the book with a bang.
And of course leave the big bad around to come back with another dastardly plan in a later book.
It feels really good to finally know how to end this darned thing!
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Dramatic Tension and Pacing
I've been on a real roll this month. I've written close to 14K words, and I still have two more writing sessions planned before the end of April. I should come close to 16K words, which, I think, is the most I've ever written in one month. The book is starting to come to a close, and I'm estimating about 80K words for the first draft. If I can keep up the pace, I'll finish it next month.
I've been a bit slow this week because I had to go back and add an entire scene. Keep in mind that, although I have written a couple of novels in the past, they were a long time ago. I'd never been in business, and I didn't think about things like "commercial viability." I wrote what I wanted to write and hoped an editor would like it. I'm certain when I go back to look at those early novels, I'll see that they are lacking the punch that would make them successful.
I do know something now about what makes people read and enjoy books, but I'm still learning. The best way to learn what works is to read books in my genre, and I've been listening to The Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher. They are also urban fantasy and are fairly close to what I am writing. If you like his series, you'll probably like mine. What Butcher is very good at is dramatic pacing. He knows when to break up exposition with having a bad guy kick in the door and launch into a fight scene. Last week, I was listening to him as I was VERY slowly driving on I395, and, fortunately for my sanity, the bad guys showed up and Harry Dresden had to kick some supernatural butt.
That got me thinking. How many fight scenes or other scenes with dramatic tension did I have in my book? I realized I didn't have enough, and then I went over the book to figure out where I could add one. I found a spot and added a scene where Paul and Dafydd have to fight off three werewolves. I'm pretty pleased with it. My challenge with fight scenes is figuring out how to use Dafydd. He's not a combat mage, but I don't want to have him sit on the sidelines and have Paul do his thing. I'm happy with what I came up with, and we'll see if my beta readers agree.
The downside of adding a major scene like that is going back to incorporate references to it throughout. A scene like that doesn't happen in a vacuum. It has consequences, and working that out has taken some time. But what's really good is that I think I have an idea of where my final scene will happen. Now I need to travel to the scuzzy side of DC (with a friend) to find just the right location for my finale.
I'm excited to be getting close. But I'm not so excited about the coming editing part. Writing is way easier than editing!
I've been a bit slow this week because I had to go back and add an entire scene. Keep in mind that, although I have written a couple of novels in the past, they were a long time ago. I'd never been in business, and I didn't think about things like "commercial viability." I wrote what I wanted to write and hoped an editor would like it. I'm certain when I go back to look at those early novels, I'll see that they are lacking the punch that would make them successful.
I do know something now about what makes people read and enjoy books, but I'm still learning. The best way to learn what works is to read books in my genre, and I've been listening to The Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher. They are also urban fantasy and are fairly close to what I am writing. If you like his series, you'll probably like mine. What Butcher is very good at is dramatic pacing. He knows when to break up exposition with having a bad guy kick in the door and launch into a fight scene. Last week, I was listening to him as I was VERY slowly driving on I395, and, fortunately for my sanity, the bad guys showed up and Harry Dresden had to kick some supernatural butt.
That got me thinking. How many fight scenes or other scenes with dramatic tension did I have in my book? I realized I didn't have enough, and then I went over the book to figure out where I could add one. I found a spot and added a scene where Paul and Dafydd have to fight off three werewolves. I'm pretty pleased with it. My challenge with fight scenes is figuring out how to use Dafydd. He's not a combat mage, but I don't want to have him sit on the sidelines and have Paul do his thing. I'm happy with what I came up with, and we'll see if my beta readers agree.
The downside of adding a major scene like that is going back to incorporate references to it throughout. A scene like that doesn't happen in a vacuum. It has consequences, and working that out has taken some time. But what's really good is that I think I have an idea of where my final scene will happen. Now I need to travel to the scuzzy side of DC (with a friend) to find just the right location for my finale.
I'm excited to be getting close. But I'm not so excited about the coming editing part. Writing is way easier than editing!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)