Jessica Werner's Blog, page 4

Guest post “Meet the Villains”

A few days ago my dear friend Jonathan Snyder has written a guest post on this blog “You Have to Torture your Characters!”. Now I had the honor of writing a guest post for him!

The post I chose will talk about writing an interesting Villain character! So head on over to “The Musings of the Crazy One” and read “Meet the Villains”.

Again, thank you Jonathan!

Filed under: Guest Post, iamwriting, Writing, writing tips Tagged: guest post, iamwriting, writing, writing tips

You Have to Torture your Characters!

So tell me, did you look at the title and go, “What the hell is he talking about?” If so, then mission accomplished, if not, then why are you still reading?

Hello all! I am Jonathan Snyder and I have been dying to tell you all why you must torture your characters for the sake of a good story! This is also the first time I have ever written a guest blog and so I extend my uttermost thanks to Jessica Werner for this opportunity.

Let’s get back to torturing characters. For the record, I am not referring to medieval style methods or worse, Fifty Shades of Grey. I am referring to the concept that you have to make your character go through tough times to succeed in their goals.

Have you ever stopped and thought about some of your favorite characters outside of the context of their story? In honor of the new Star Wars movie, take Luke Skywalker for instance. His only home and two loving relatives were destroyed by Stormtroopers, he’s been thrust in to a giant galaxy by himself, not to mention he has to find out his parents were horribly murdered and became the most feared man in the galaxy. Even his mentor gets slaughtered after a few weeks together. That’s a lot of stress! Characters need to go through hardship to grow and become more than they are. To be unchallenged is no way to find out who or what they are. Like real people, characters need experience and adversity to be molded to their full potential or in the case of villains, to crack and break in to the monsters they become. They must be tortured by life and their enemies to become better. Not only that, it makes for great stories!

Now, after all this stuff about making sure your characters suffer horrible things, there is one final rule that I feel must be remembered. No matter what you do to your characters, you need to reward them in the end. Give them what they are striving for or find a way to make sure what they did was worth it all. Luke became part of something greater and in the end came to understand what being a Jedi means. Do not just torture your characters and never give them anything in the end, unless you’re trying to mimic Russian literature.

So, there you have it! I hope you enjoyed this post and have a great time sitting at your computers thinking, “So, what horribly thing can I do to you today?”

 

 

Filed under: Guest Post, Writing, writing tips Tagged: GuestPost, writing, writingtips

Ongoing Worlds: Fall Festival V is coming!

Some of you already know – the rest will learn now – that I am an avid Roleplayer. I have been filling evenings with this fun activity for over 20 years, be it Pen & Paper, IRC, Forum or EMail. For about 3.5 years I am member of the fantastic Star Trek PbeM UFOP: Starbase 118, and this upcoming Saturday, we are hosting the Ongoing Worlds: Fall Festival V.

That’s right, the 2015 Simming Fall Festival will be held on December 5th from 8:30 AM to 5:30 PM EST (1:30 PM to 10:30 PM GMT). Ongoing Worlds is proud to announce that UFOP: StarBase 118 will be hosting, with James Drysdale serving as chairman. You may remember that UFOP also hosted the 2013 festival, which was wildly successful. For a few short hours in December, the entire simming and online role playing community will come together to share ideas, role play, and join in a few trivia games–all in IRC chat rooms. James and UFOP will be on point to make it all happen.

Now why am I telling you that. First and foremost, this even it a lot of fun, and very informative with discussion chats for not only those that enjoy roleplaying, but also for writers. While the chats are based mostly on what roleplayers want to talk about, hosted by great people all over the community, some subjects can be interesting for everyone who builds worlds on paper.

I will be hosting two chats myself and invite you to join me for the following discussions:

Chat 1:

SESSION TIME: 9am Pacific / noon Eastern / 5pm GMT

SESSION ROOM: #FallFest2

SESSION NAME: Writer’s block and how to break through the wall

SESSION DESCRIPTION: Writer’s block is common among writers, no matter if alone or in a group. Let’s take a look at different techniques to break through

Chat 2:

SESSION TIME: 1pm Pacific / 4pm Eastern / 9pm GMT

SESSION ROOM: #FallFest1

SESSION NAME: Developing Relationships in Roleplay

SESSION DESCRIPTION: The chat will be about developing relationships in Roleplay: romantic, friendship and even fiends

The chatrooms will be available through a web-based chat client that you do not need to download. Simply go here and connect.

A full schedule for all chats, trivias and so on can be seen here!

I am looking forward to the chats and hope to see the one or other of you there! Mark your calenders for Saturday, December 5th!

Filed under: Fun, iamwriting, Ongoing Worlds: FallFest V, Stuff about me, Writing Tagged: Chat, Discussion, Event, Fall fest, OW:FallFest

Sra’kalor revision is now available in print!

A little more than a week ago, I have released my revision of Sra’kalor! As promised it is now available in print as well.

I have received my proof copy and all went well, so now you can head on over to Lulu, and grab yourself a copy as a perfect-bound Paperback!

You can find Sra’kalor in print here.

What can I tell you, it’s a great feeling holding it in my hands and smelling this wonderful book smell. See for yourself!

Filed under: Paperback, Release, Revision, Sra'kalor, Writing Tagged: iamwriting, paperback, Sra'kalor, writing

Get Sra’kalor for 50% off for Black Friday Weekend!

It’s Black Friday and that means everyone wants to get some great deals! And I want to join in.

For this weekend you can get Sra’kalor (Ashwood Falls Part 1) for 50% off on Smashwords.

To get the great deal:
head on over to Sra’kalor on Smashwords. If you do not have an account yet, you should make one, they have a great variety of fantastic books!
click the buy button. That puts the book in the cart.
when you are directed to the cart, you see a little box at the bottom that says “Coupon code”, put this code into the box: YT84F
hit the “Apply Code” button on the right

Now you can check out and after completing the purchase you can download the book right away in different e-reader formats such as: mobi, epub, pdf and more.

Hope you’ll enjoy your little treat! Have a fantastic weekend!

Filed under: Black Friday, Deal, ebook, Sra'kalor Tagged: 50% off, Black Friday, ebook, novel, smashwords, Sra'kalor

4 of 5 Stars Review for Sra’kalor!

My dear friend Jonathan Snyder, a fellow writer and sounding board for my crazy ideas, has agreed to give Sra’kalor a try, even though it is not his kind of genre. One of the many things I like about him, is that he is very honest, so I am super excited that he gave Sra’kalor a 4 of 5 star rating!

I am not a big supernatural fantasy fan, but I have to say that I was very pleasantly surprised in what I found in those pages. A good friend of mine asked me to read her book and it turned out to be a great suggestion! Jessica Werner’s Sra’Kralor, the first book in the Ashwood Falls series is a very interesting take on the supernatural creatures living in our world theme. It follows the story of Alana who has a mysterious ability that her family cannot deal with and when she turns eighteen, she is placed on a bus and sent to the nearby city of Ashwood Falls. If she thought her life could not get stranger, she would be in for a big surprise.

You can read more of his review on his blog “The Musings of the Crazy One” here. Head on over and check it out!

Filed under: ebook, novel, Reviews, Sra'kalor Tagged: Book review, novel, review, Sra'kalor

Sra’kalor Revision is out now!

As I have told you before, I have been working on a revision for my first book Sra’kalor, and it is finally out! I have taken comments and reviews to heart and improved my first novel.

The story is the same and has not changed, but many many grammatic and spelling errors have been fixed with the help of an editor, the lovely Emily Roller. I am rather grateful for her help, since writing in English is not as natural as it would be for a native speaker. I am excited and thrilled for this revision!

For now the updates are in place for the ebooks on smashwords and amazon. An update for the print edition on Lulu will come soon, since the test delivery usually takes a while. So head on over and grab your own copies:

Sra’kalor on Smashwords

Sra’kalor on amazon

And while you hopefully enjoy the first book, I will keep working on the second! Read you soon!

Jessica

Filed under: ebook, iamwriting, novel, Release, Revision, Sra'kalor, Update Tagged: bookrelease, iamwriting, novel, paranormal, release, Revision

Sra’kalor – Revision in the works!

As you might remember from my last blogpost, there are exciting things at the horizon for me, all kinds of different projects. One of them, I can finally share with you!

Sra’kalor – which I have released in March this year – is undergoing revision! The fantastic editor Emily Roller, has been working hard on the novel and I have just received the final edit. That means that I will be able to soon release an even better Sra’kalor!

I hope that this will be really soon and I’ll be busy to make that happen! Stay tuned and get ready for the freshly edited Sra’kalor, part one of the Ashwood Falls Trilogy!

Filed under: Coming Soon, ebook, iamwriting, novel, Release, Sra'kalor, Writing Tagged: coming soon, iamwriting, novel, release, Revision, Sra'kalor

The wrath of the cold

Remember when I posted to tell you that I’ll be writing more here and soon? Yeah, a day later I got struck down by a nasty cold. One would think that mother nature values us keeping promises. ;)

Well I got sick and if you ever tried to think properly with a brain full of snot and pains you know how that goes. Then when I thought it’s finally over, it came back with a laughing “fooled ya!”

That is where I still am. But I am starting to get better. Slowly. Very slowly. At least I get in the mood for writing again and I cannot wait to continue on my projects, as soon as my body lets me.

I hope you all are doing better! Enjoy the cozy autumn time.

Filed under: Stuff about me

Writing and writing more!

I have been quiet, but only here. That is because I have been busy and still am with working on several stories at once, that are all super exciting for me!

Of course, one thing I’m writing is the second book of my “Ashwood Falls Trilogy.” I just recently rewrote a full chapter, because I did not like how it had turned out in the first place and continued from them on. I still have a lot more in my mind for this book, so I will continue being busy with this one.

Another story I am working on is a short story I had on my mind for a while, which is actually a twist on a fairy tale. I won’t spoil you now, but I am having fun with this. Not only because I like fairy tales, but also because it is different from what I usually write.

And then my dear friend and fellow Author Jonathan Synder is working on “Blood in Space”, a Sci-Fi based Role play system, which I find super interesting and would love to play myself. I have been a huge role player for over 25 years and so I almost freaked out when he asked me, if I’d be interested in writing a novella in the world of “Blood in Space”. Of course I said yes, and I have begun to work out a story featuring one of the species he has invented for this system. I will be able to tell you more about it, as I progress. Right now it is still in its fledgling stages.

The reason I have not told you about all these fantastic developments yet is, because despite my nature to write a lot, I do keep occupied with the actual writing so much, that I forget to share the good news! But knowing that you really would like to hear more from me, otherwise you would not check in here, I’ll try to update this blog more often and share more interesting news with you!

But now I am going to return to getting the jumble of words down into my file, maybe interrupted by an hour of watching the newest Doctor Who. It’s been too long! Until next time!

Filed under: iamwriting, Stuff about me, Update, Writing Tagged: ashwood falls, blood in space, fairy tale, i am writing, iamwriting, jonathan snyder, writing news