Rachel Neumeier's Blog, page 119

Solutions to the dialogue Tag

A post at Writer Unboxed: A Dozen Solutions to the “Dialogue Tag”

What an odd title! Solutions to the dialogue tag. I’m sure the author means, solutions that help in fixing up bad dialogue tags, or something like that. Dialogue tags are not, of course, in need of a solution in general. You have to have enough to let the reader easily follow which character is saying what. I’m sure we’ve all had the experience of reading a tag-free section of dialogue and getting confused and having to back up and count lines to see who said something. You know what prevents that problem? Correct use of dialogue tags.

Of course I wrote a post about this quite some time ago. Let me see. Oh, here: Dialogue Tags: The Bad, The Visible, The Audible, And The Absent. Among other things, I hit overuse of “said” in that post, but the problem was not entirely due to use of “said” — it was due to lack of variation in sentence structure AND the use of “said.” I also provided what I consider some great examples of dialogue, with appropriate tags, including movement tags.

I’m quite sure movement tags are one of the “solutions” proposed in the linked post. Let’s just see …

In other eras, that was accomplished by verbs and adverbs.  People didn’t just speak; they screamed, snarled, muttered, and moaned. Nowadays, though, the neutral said is preferred.…

Yeah, uh huh, see my linked post for how to screw up dialogue by using “said.”

“Said” is not preferred. Smooth use of all dialogue tags is preferred. Right now, three short paragraphs into this post, and I’m already feeling argumentative, even somewhat hostile. The post really put my back up with that facile “said is preferred.” Let’s see if it manages to say anything I agree with. …

Good heavens, this post is defining “dialogue tag” to include only movement tags.

Enter the dialogue tag—an extra phrase that precedes or follows an utterance. With a sigh. Lifting an eyebrow. Her voice growing shrill.

Who in the world defines “dialogue tag” in a way that excludes “he said”? I mean, what?

And look here! The very first suggestion is to use VERBS, exactly as the post said was too “high-drama” just a few paragraphs above!

FIRST, let’s look at some strategies that include a line of dialogue. Use an evocative verb instead of “said”

 “Actually, it’s not okay,” Ellen snapped.

The verb snapped is economical, conveying a tone of voice and the emotion behind it in a single word.

What happened to “said” is preferred?

Okay, I have to admit, the rest of the post does in fact manage to show many useful techniques for delivering the same line of dialogue. It really does. Here, look:

“Actually,” Ellen said, her voice cold, “it’s not okay.”

“Actually,” Ellen said. She dropped the words like chips of ice into a bowl. “Actually, it’s not okay.”

I do like that, but I would adjust it this way:

“Actually,” Ellen said, dropping the words like chips of ice into a bowl. “Actually, you know what, it’s not okay.”

But moving on, here are a couple more suggestions for the same line:

Ellen’s smile disappeared. “Actually,” she said, “it’s not okay.    

Ellen pulled in her breath and shifted the phone to her other hand. “Actually,” she said, “it’s not okay.”

Plus lots of movements that permit the dialogue to be left out entirely, conveying the idea that whatever it was, it wasn’t okay. Like this:

Ellen crossed the boarding area in three quick strides and banged her palm against the wall.

FINE. I think it’s useful to take the same line and present it in a lot of different ways. I just think it’s both unnecessary and stupid to start by saying “said is preferred” without pausing to consider the obvious problems with restricting the use of other verbs, especially if you’re going to go right on and suggest that other verbs are actually peachy. Of course the post says “if used sparingly,” but that’s true of practically everything, including “said.” Seriously, click through to my other post to see how to make “said” as obtrusive as possible.

This post doesn’t admit that adverbs in dialogue tags are also okay, but they are. That, too, is addressed in my linked post. I will draw a deep breath here and add, if used sparingly.

The overall rule is:

Use dialogue tags, including said, including other verbs, including adverbs, including absolutely everything, smoothly, in order to convey the proper feel of the sentence to the reader while preventing the tags from becoming obtrusive.

This post is okay. Parts of it are good. But as always, better advice is to open ANY beautifully written novel and look at what excellent stylists actually DO when they are actually writing. Then throw away ALL advice about how you should write and what’s passé in modern novels and just write effective prose.

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Over at BVC —

A post of mine just went up on Book View Cafe’s blog: When the Point of View is Not Carried by the Protagonist

This is a topic I’ve hit before, but this particular take on the topic is new, not a copy of anything I’ve posted here.

Bonus pictures of Elli, a dog I bred twelve years ago. I placed her in a pet home when she was a puppy, but I had her back for five weeks recently because her owners’ lives are complicated right now. She’s a very easy guest and a sweet dog, and I actually feel somewhat bereft because she just went back to her owners a few days ago. But I’ll get her back for a few weeks in January and February, so that’s fine.

I’ll just step up on a soapbox long enough to add: this is an illustration of one of the many reasons that, if you buy a purebred puppy, you should go to a reputable breeder rather than a backyard breeder. When your life gets complicated and you don’t have a relative able or willing to babysit your dog for a month or two at a time, who can you call? You can call the breeder.

Under some circumstances, I’d probably ask a fee for babysitting a dog. But under other circumstances, I won’t. I didn’t this time. Elli slept on my couch along with my horde. I crushed biscuits for her (she has only a few teeth left, but is otherwise in great shape, with no significant heart murmur, so that was nice to see). I took her for a walk every day, for a run when the weather was nice, to the park once, and clipped her, did her nails, and bathed her before I sent her home.

Off the soapbox now! Back to the actual topic of the post! This separation of protagonist from pov has fascinated me since I read the Lymond chronicles for the first time. Click through if you also find that technique interesting.

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A (really) early guide to gifts for writers, from Terrible Minds

An entertaining post.

The original purpose of doing Gifts For Writers was that year after year so many of those gift lists comprised only entries like, “omg they like notebooks and pens and more notebooks and probably a candle.”

I’m immediately wondering: do many writers actually still use notebooks? Because, I mean, really? I don’t. But maybe I’m unusual and most writers do? I do have a (minor, generally) tendon issue with my right thumb that sometimes makes it uncomfortable to write, which may have made me reduce my use of notebooks. I mean, I remember using notebooks a lot, once. But maybe that’s why I’m slightly boggled at the thought of using a notebook for anything.

However, that’s not the part of the post that caught my eye. This is:

If you want fancy, weird, wonderful chocolates — and trust me when I say truly they are some of the best morsels of delight I have ever put into my slavering maw — then you should look no further than Bon Bon Bon. They give you these little single-box peculiarities…

I haven’t mentioned this, but I’m re-reading all of Laura Florand’s chocolate romances right now. This is causing me to go through more chocolate than usual. My preference for basic everyday chocolate is 78% Lindt. I’d be more than willing to branch out if I happened across fancy, weird, wonderful chocolates.

And this:

Not sure how long it’ll be open, but currently you can get *blows trumpet made of apples* HEIRLOOM APPLE GIFT BOXES from Scott Farm in Vermont. You can also buy something called a “medlar,” which is tempting.

I actually did get a box of interesting apple from Scott Farms years and years ago, before deciding what apple trees to plant myself. One of my beautiful fancy apple trees (Mutsu) did not do well — wow, was it ever susceptible to apple-cedar rust — so I replaced it with a much more resistant apple variety, Liberty. The apples aren’t as good, but the tree is problem free, as advertised. We do spray, incidentally. But in a bad year, your susceptible trees will suffer no matter what you do, which perhaps advertising copy from tree nurseries may not make clear.

I remember reading advice once to cut down all cedar trees within some distance of the apple trees … a quarter of a mile, maybe? That made me laugh, in a grim sort of way. Even if you own all the land for a quarter mile in all directions — we do — there are literally thousands of cedar trees in that circle. Not very practical advice.

Anyway, current apple trees at my home: Liberty, Fuji (much better right off the tree, too sweet a week later), Pink Lady (a tremendous storage apple — the apples will still be good in March), Honeycrisp (eat them fast, but they do last for a few weeks), Goldrush (another storage apple, better after a month or so), and Hokuto. That’s one you won’t see anywhere. It’s a Fuji x Mutsu cross. It doesn’t bear every year, and the apples are better some years than others, but it’s a nice tree to have.

Of these trees, Pink Lady is the one I would recommend. It bears every year. Way too heavily; you have to thin the fruit hard in June, but this is still a plus. The apples are relatively pest-free with reasonable care, birds don’t hit them nearly as hard as the sweeter, earlier Fuji and Honeycrisp, and, as I say, Pink Lady apples store for months. If I were only going to have two trees of this set, it would be Pink Lady and Goldrush. Goldrush generally doesn’t bear as heavily and has a quite different flavor, but is otherwise similar to Pink Lady. That is, birds don’t hit it hard, and the apples store well and are even better for baking.

We did, by the way, eventually escalate to THREE strands of electric wire to keep the squirrels out of the orchard. That worked. This year we’re rolling in apples. I picked almost the last of them yesterday — about fifty or so. I’ve got about a hundred stored at my house and the rest are at my mother’s house. Apple dumplings for Thanksgiving!

Moving on:

I wanted nicer, cushier socks for running, and someone recommended Thorlos, and now I am recommending them to you, as well. I don’t just use them for running. I wear them for walking. For standing. For sitting. They are like HUGS for your FEET from a SOCK ANGEL. Seriously, there’s something very nice about giving yourself comfortable footwear. That’s a decidedly old person thing to say, I do recognize …

If you’re getting older, might as well embrace Old Person comforts. I should get my mother socks like this. I bet she’d really like them.

I’m sure there will be many, many posts on “gifts for writers,” most perhaps emphasizing notebooks and pens. Like Chuck Wendig, I personally vote for kitchen items and chocolate. And books. Just because I’m barely reading anything doesn’t mean I don’t want more books!

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Spear Carriers

From Writer Unboxed: Spear Carriers

[S]pear carriers can be hard to handle without throwing off your readers’ sense of proportion.  Truly anonymous strangers with no dialogue aren’t much of a problem.  Though no one is going to think the waiter who brings your heroine lunch is going to turn out to be a key player in the plot, you often have to pay more attention to your background characters.  How do you keep from calling more attention to them than they deserve?

Good question! I mean, you first have to decide how much of the reader’s attention this minor secondary character actually does deserve. After that, you have to try to nudge the reader into paying the right amount of attention to that character, from basically zero attention to both noticing and liking (or disliking) the character.

I’m currently editing a story in which one of the main characters, a king, meets with various bureaucrats, scientists, and courtiers who need to populate the palace but have no real impact on the story.  The author’s first instinct was to not give them names, so readers wouldn’t think they were more important than they were.

Reasonable enough, except that the king would have known their names – he had been working with some of them for years.  So in scenes from the king’s point of view, it felt inauthentic to refer to them as “the master of records” or “the chief guard.”  They needed names and a sense of what the king thought of them – hints of personality and backstory.  But not enough to distract from the main characters in the story. The palace needed to be staffed, not stuffed.…

Right! Sometimes it makes no sense not to give a character a name — failing to provide a name almost calls attention to the character. It depends, though! I mean, who’s read The Book of Atrix Wolfe by Patricia McKillip? Everyone, right? Remember how McKillip hardly names anyone the protagonist interacts with, and how she turns that into something important about the protagonist? I’m having trouble here because I don’t want to give that character’s name. She’s nameless to herself, and everyone else is nameless to her as well. It’s an amazing way to build that character’s strange, alienated sense of self and place.

Come to think of it, Susannah Clarke did something very similar in Piranesi, where she never gives the first-person protagonist’s name. Again, that’s an essential part of building the character and the world.

What a strange and effective technique! That wasn’t what I was thinking of when I saw this post. I just thought of it when considering when we name secondary characters, especially minor secondary characters, and when we don’t. That really is a puzzle.

This post offers a technique for handling minor characters that I haven’t seen explicitly detailed before:

Another way to get around the problem is to make all of your minor characters memorable.  If even the waiters and the taxi drivers stand out in readers’ minds, then readers are less likely to assume they’re important than if only one or two of your minor characters are developed in more detail.  Readers who know your methods will accept the sharply-drawn spear carriers and think nothing more of them.

Interesting! The author of the post points to Sue Graftan as an author who does this. I’ve read a couple of her books, but not recently. If I pick up another of hers now, I hope I notice this.

I probably name a good many very minor characters. Often it seems strange not to. Let me think. Okay, when Ryo met the other seven men of Esau’s file, only Laraut introduces himself to Ryo, and thus to the reader. I left the others nameless, at least right then. That was an accurate forecast of Laraut being a little more important to the story than the others later. More important to Ryo, actually. Later, I gave the names of Ryo’s family and friends, but often didn’t name other characters. A cousin, a great-uncle, references like that rather than names. Even though Ryo thinks of his mother as “my mother,” because she’s an important minor character, it would have felt really odd to me not to work in her name so the reader would know it.

Hmm. In Keraunani, I don’t believe I ever give the names of all the men of Esau’s file, even in the backstory timeline where those men are around. If they were more important to the story, of course they got names. Otherwise, no. Although once Esau addresses one of them by name. (“Pelas, what happened to you? Forget how to duck?”) The man to whom he’s speaking is completely unimportant to the story, but it would have been weird for Esau not to speak to him by name at that moment. That’s how that very minor character got a name.

And so on. I think if I went through and counted, there would be any number of characters like “a soldier” and “a young woman” and “a cousin” and so on. I think that when I name a character, it’s fairly obvious from the amount of detail given whether that character is going to be at all important. In fact, sometimes I set a character up to possibly be important later, and then that doesn’t happen, and I go back and strip some of the detail out of the story. So I think that’s how I handle minor characters — by adjusting the amount of detail with a fairly conscious eye toward their story importance.

I will add, sometimes I have a real desire to build up a character you all have barely met. I don’t mean characters like Esau. Not only do I have a clear idea of what he’s like, the reader probably does too, just from what we’ve seen of him in Tuyo. I mean much more minor characters than that. For example, remember Talon Commander Sigaur Talat? You may well not remember him at all, even though you’ve met him at least once. He appeared briefly at the beginning of Tarashana and had a slightly bigger role in Nikoles. Anybody remember that he’s missing a hand? Anybody wonder how that happened? I actually have a good idea about that. Maybe someday I’ll work that as a detail into a novel, or write a story in which we see how that happened, or something. I haven’t found a chance to do that yet, even though you’ll meet Talat again in Karaunani.

Same thing with any other series. For example, I have a story in mind about Bea Stanton, the pilot that Ethan hired in Copper Mountain when he suddenly needed a plane. I put in more detail about her and then had to take some of it out because it didn’t enhance the book. But I still left in a little, because the thing is, I know quite a lot about Bea. Maybe someday you will too.

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Finished! More or less

Okay, I have indeed finished Keziah’s story for the Black Dog collection. I’m not sure I like the ending. I mean the actual last few paragraphs. It can be hard to get that part right. I’m going to let this story rest for one week and then read through it, smooth out a few things, and see if the ending looks okay at that point and fiddle with it as necessary.

I don’t usually do this, but at the moment, the story goes along as usual and then says Keziah’s Father’s Name instead of, you know, an actual name. I didn’t want to take time to look up names and pick one, plus I need to read through Keziah’s first story and make absolutely sure I never referred to her father by name before. I don’t think I did. But I’m not positive. Gotta make sure before giving him a different name because that would sure be embarrassing. He doesn’t actually appear in this story, by the way, but he is referred to by name.

There are a few other details like this. I bold that sort of thing to make sure I go back and check things and make final decisions about details and look up the Latin phrase for GET OUT and whatever else I didn’t want to do while actually putting words in a row. If you’re ever beta-reading for me and see something bolded, this is always why. Anyway, I need to handle all those details. But the ending will be the only part that requires significant thought.

I really, really like the ending of Ethan’s story in particular. By the way. I’m setting that story last for various reasons, but one reason is that I particularly like that ending and want to leave readers with that moment.

Oh, and I wrote a short pamphlet! “Dimilioc for Dummies,” a guide for guests, involuntary or otherwise, who might visit Dimilioc. Miguel wrote it, of course. I’m not sure whether KDP can handle pamphlet-style insets; or rather, I’m not sure I know how to make it handle that sort of thing, but I expect I’ll get it in the collection one way or another. It starts like this:

Welcome to Dimilioc!

Whether you’re here as a prisoner, hostage, liaison, or guest, your stay will be more comfortable if you know what to expect and how to behave while you’re here. This pamphlet should serve as a useful guide to interacting with Dimilioc wolves, with the Pure, and with human people who are members of or connected to Dimilioc.

You’ve probably read the introductory pamphlet “Black Dogs for Dummies,” so you should be familiar with Dimilioc’s historic role in the supernatural community, with the difference between Dimilioc wolves and ordinary black dogs, and with the ten basic rules for interacting with black dogs—

Actually, I wouldn’t mind a review of those rules.

Oh, okay, sure. …

It’s funny and possibly useful for a guest. Or I think so.

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Chronic and Pervasive Misuse of a Word

A brief post by Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff at Book View Cafe: What’s in a Word: a Writer’s Rant

Anybody got a guess about the near-homonyms she might have in mind? It’s not a pair of actual homonyms. Chronic and pervasive misuse, remember.

I will add, not the obvious its/it’s; two/too/to; they’re/there/their. Those are in a category all their own. Something else, not those. For the purposes of this post, these don’t count. Also, they’re true homonyms, and this isn’t.

The most common near-homonym mistake I see, by a HUGE margin, is Effect/Affect. Nothing else comes close. Definitely nothing else comes close in actual published books. I had to resolve this confusion way back when I was writing my master’s thesis. Ever since then, I’ve never made a mistake with these two words AND I’ve been extremely, possibly excessively, sensitive to effect/affect mistakes. This is one that leaps off the page for me.

Next one for me is probably Accept/Except. I think I see that one enough to call it at least moderately chronic and pervasive.

The one Bohnhoff points out isn’t either of those. Want to guess?

…

…

…

Her pet peeve for this post is tenet/tenant.

I’m trying to remember whether I’ve ever seen those words mistaken for each other. I probably have? But I wouldn’t have thought of those. What do you all think? Have you seen this mistake? Enough to call it chronic and pervasive misuse of the words? I’m quite curious. Now that my attention has been drawn to this mistake, maybe it will start jumping out at me.

But probably never to the same extent of Effect/Affect.

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Yay, progress! And Choices to be Made

So, yesterday I took a good look at Keziah’s story for the upcoming Black dog collection, and whew, everything has worked itself out.

I’ll need to do a fairly minimal amount of revision — I dropped one really obvious ball, not sure how I didn’t realize that at the time I wrote the draft — and then I’ll have to finish the story. But! I now know how it ends, so obviously that’s handy when writing the ending.

I won’t need to write three more scenes, either. One more. So I’m certainly pleased about that. Given this progress, I will either finish this story today or certainly by Monday.

Finishing this story will give me four that are finished. This runs me right into a dilemma.

Choice A) Finish up these four, beta reads, proofreads, boom, done! Collection can come out in December, probably. Almost certainly.

Choice B) Finish up these four, but also make a very serious attempt to complete the story that is currently from Grayson’s point of view. Very possibly put off releasing the collection until next year.

This choice is complicated because currently I’m doing something in Grayson’s story that sets up stuff I need for the fifth novel, Silver Circle. However, there are different ways to cope with that.

–I could ditch this story and put the plot element I actually need into Silver Circle’s backstory.

–I could have the most important events of this story take place during Silver Circle, from someone else’s pov.

–The important events could take place during the novel, but offstage, so we just hear about them.

I don’t even have to utterly ditch the idea I had about the relationship stuff I was working on for Grayson’s story. I could show that relationship developing from the outside, as other characters catch meaningful glimpses during the events in Silver Circle. I thought of that just this second, as I typed this post. And now that I’ve thought of it, that is actually a kind of fun idea.

For that matter, a fifth collection and/or extended epilogue — or both — could well appear some time after Silver Circle comes out and if I felt like it, a Grayson story could appear in that.

At the moment I kind of think I might be leaning toward Choice A and then doing something or other to put the events I need into Silver Circle. That may be the easiest thing to do at the moment, a reasonable thing to do overall, AND, bonus, I could then finish up this project and at once turn my attention to something else. So many projects! So little time!

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Discoverability

Discoverability is, as I think everyone agrees, the Holy Grail when it comes to writing. That’s true for both traditionally published and self-published authors. It’s true for everyone.

Thus, this post by James Scott Bell at Kill Zone Blog certainly caught my eye: How to Get Discovered When Nobody Knows Who The Heck You Are

I’m pretty sure that I’m already routinely doing the stuff that simultaneously fits into both of the following categories:

(a) I know how to do it, and

(b) I don’t hate doing it.

This includes writing the actual books, blogging here, and buying promotions via promotion sites. It doesn’t include any kind of social media, because while I don’t dislike Twitter, say, the more time you spend doing stuff on social media, the less time you spend writing. Or something, anyway; time has to give somewhere. Also, it turns out I personally can’t focus on writing properly if the outrage meter is constantly turned up, and social media is really terrible that way.

I am keenly aware that there is a huge amount of other stuff that fits into a third category:

(c) I’m willing to believe it’s important, but I don’t know how to do it, don’t want to learn how to do it, and/or hate doing it.

One story of the past year or so is an ongoing attempt to move one thing at a time from (c) into the (a+b) category. After I really know how to do something, I’m likely to hate it a lot less, after all. But I don’t expect to frequently stumble upon something I’m not already doing and think, Wow, yay, that sounds like something I’d be happy to do starting tomorrow! I doubt that this Kill Zone Blog post will prove to be an exception, but hey, sure, let’s see what this post has to say. Let me see, looks like eleven points, so I guess he started off to do ten, probably, and then added an extra. So let’s see what comes first …

1) Use a loss leader. Sure, probably, though that depends on having a series. And I’m not sure whether it would be useful enough to set first books permanently to 99c or free or whatever. Maybe it would. Maybe I’ll try that for an extended period eventually.

2) Use Kindle Select.

Yes, I’m feeling like this is probably correct. I’ve gone back and forth with pulling everything out of KU and going wide with it all, but I don’t think that’s going to happen very soon, if at all. I’m probably not going to put out the Tuyo series through BVC because I want to leave it in KU. Tuyo and Tarashana between them get at least as many KENP reads as everything else put together.

The Black Dog series, not sure. The next ones I’ll do through BVC are The Sphere of the Winds and Door into Light, because those are not in KU anyway. (I ought to have done them first, but I didn’t think of that.)

Pulling Death’s Lady out of KU has definitely dropped royalties for that series, even though sales immediately went up. I’m going to use that series to try different wide strategies and the Tuyo series to continue trying KU strategies and we’ll see how everything looks in another year. Or two.

3) Grow your email list.

YES, I KNOW. Everyone says this. This falls solidly in category (c). I promise, I absolutely vow, that I will for sure do stuff to make this happen next year. The Facebook group Wide for the Win recently had a series of posts about this and I copied a lot of information from those posts. Putting off doing stuff with that now is self-indulgent in a sense, but also means I can focus on writing, so not entirely self-indulgent.

4) Write a lot of books (as fast as you comfortably can)

WHEW. I’m happy to make this a priority for the next year or two. Or more. If this were the only thing that had an effect on discoverability, I’d be really pleased.

I will just note that someone on Wide to the Win says what worked for her is bringing out a new book every month — sometimes two books per month.

I don’t even disbelieve that. I bet she really is doing that. Not via ghostwriters and plagiarizing either. Short books, I’m sure. Romances, I expect. But I bet she is truly writing a book a month (sometimes two.) If you wrote an average of 10,000 words per day (yes, I know), you could write a book in two weeks and revise in two weeks (I know). I’ve seen too many writers claim they can routinely hit 10,000 words per day to think this author is making that up. Besides, I’ve done that … like, about four times, maybe, ever. But I have done it.

Anyway, a book a month, ha ha ha, no. That’s not happening for me. But with reasonable luck, and depending on decisions about completed and semi-completed manuscripts I have sitting here and there, I should certainly bring out at least three books next year: Keraunani, Tasmakat, and Invictus — that last is the mostly-completed SF novel I want so much to work on. I hope to also complete and release Silver Circle, but I’m going to prioritize Tasmakat because first, I want to, and second, as I said, the books in this series are blowing away all my other titles in KENP pages read, so it’s a practical choice as well.

I’m still intending, but not guaranteeing, that the 4th Black Dog collection will come out this year. If it doesn’t, then very early next year.

Anyway, yes, it’s quite clear that the more work you have available, the better.

5) Covers Yes, I’m really happy with the Tuyo / Tarashana covers and varoius others, but this is both more difficult than one might expect (it turns out) and probably important.

6) Back cover copy. Actually, I think I’m okay with this. But no doubt this is something that could always be better. And it does fall in the category of (a+b) — stuff I’m fine with spending time on.

7) A+ Content. I have no idea what the post is talking about. Add it to (c) above.

8) Author page on Amazon. Yay, I already have one. It turned out to be showing weird things when I first took a look at it. This was the same time that Amazon kept telling me that Black Dog ranked pretty highly in the category of video games. It took several efforts to get rid of that category, add more relevant categories, and fix the author page.

9) Price. An ongoing dilemma right there.

10) Social media. Not a good place to sell books, says Bell in this post. But, he adds, that could be a statement that has lost validity, so don’t write it off. That seems probably correct to me.

11) Advertising. I have personally found some paid promotion services to be very useful. The Black Dog series is still way up in KU reads because of the promotion in October. The effect is quite obviously still working its way through the series, too.

I have not had any luck with ads. I haven’t landed a BookBub ad for Tuyo and haven’t found Amazon or Facebook ads useful (at all). Results, I hear, vary. I don’t know that I will ever learn enough about this to find ads useful. I still want to get a BookBub ad, but I gather that may not be possible with anything in KU. Failing that, I need to actually learn to use the other tools at BookBub. That is another thing I will try to do next year.

Meanwhile! Bell’s conclusion:

Getting noticed in the roiling sea of content can seem a daunting task. You know why? Because it is. There are over 3,000 new books that come to market every day. It’s therefore crucial that you manage your expectations and keep moving forward. 

I’m not sure whether that’s overall a pessimistic take or an optimistic take on discoverability. Manage your expectations = pessimistic. Keep moving forward = optimistic. Either way, it seems like an accurate summation.

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Publishers, sheesh

Here’s a blog post by Alma Alexander at Book View Cafe: Closing the Circle

I’m going to pull out the part of the story that struck me the hardest:

I went to New Zealand, and I made the acquaintance of several editors there. … this guy said, we’ll publish this. But yikes, a quarter of  a million words! You’re a newbie! Split that puppy and we’ll do a duology! That is what happened, ladies and gentlemen, back in the days of the close of the old millennium and the dawn of the new one. The duology – now known as “Changer of Days” volume I and volume II. …

But the drawback was that the first half of this thing which was now book I ended on a wholly unintended cliffhanger from hell …

I moved to the States, and so did my work – and “Changer” got picked up and republished, still as a duology, by Harper Collins. …

At some point the publisher in their infinite wisdom decided to let book 2 … go out of print. Remember that cliffhanger? That was all that existed now. You could still buy book one but what you could NOT buy was a conclusion.

I mean, honest to God, this is the kind of thing that gives traditional publishing the worst of bad names. This. Not the gatekeeping function. That is fine. Not how hard it is to get traditionally published. That’s fine too. As many people defend both of those factors as hate them. But this? Letting the back of a duology go out of print while keeping the front half in print?

Sheesh.

So, anyway, Alma has brought out Changer of Days, both halves, in one volume. That’s now available.

Took her seven years to get the rights back to the first book. I wonder how she did that. I’ll have to ask sometime. Regardless, I’m sure it’s a great relief to her to have the whole thing available again.

While I’m on this subject, for several years at least, the FIRST and THIRD Griffin Mage books have been available in audio format from Audible, but the SECOND book is not available.

Yes, I have mentioned this problem to Hatchette from time to time. Now that I’m thinking of it, I should do it again.

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Keraunani: finished, part 2

Okay, so, this weekend I had a satisfying time going through this whole manuscript with everyone’s comments and critiques in mind. I’m glad to say that the story has gotten a pretty enthusiastic thumbs up from everyone who’s read it so far. The three readers all commented on and emphasized different things, as is, of course, always the case.

Kim asked me to better clarify the different kinds of marriage recognized by the Lau. This was tricky. It’s all pretty well defined in my head, but it’s always difficult to have characters think explicitly about things everyone knows. I hope the story includes enough to satisfy readers who are curious about this. I don’t think there’s enough to bore readers who don’t care.

Kim also suggested a couple of REALLY OBVIOUS changes to where I’d made chapter breaks. Her suggestions were completely correct and work much better than where I’d put those breaks initially. Revising those breaks took longer than everything else put together, but the effort was very much worthwhile.

Mary Beth made me understand some things about the deeper narrative structure that I hadn’t clearly conceptualized, which was very helpful. Sometimes I’m amazed what I can miss while writing a novel.

Sharon Shinn told me she loved it, but hello, maybe I should add a kiss. So I did. I just sent her that scene to see what she thinks, but probably the finished version is going to include that kiss. I think (not completely sure) that this is the first on-camera kiss I’ve ever put in a book. It’s still barely there, but yeah, it’s there.

Anyway! I’m pretty sure this is the final version, or as nearly as makes no difference. It’s a bit longer now — 98,000 words or so, plus I’ve added the first fifteen pages or thereabouts from Tasmakat. That part may change before January, but I’m pretty happy with that scene as it stands.

The story is certainly going to remain fundamentally in the braided narrative format, with a backstory narrative alternating with the present-day narrative. Although Lalani plays a large role, her presence is reduced as the story continues and as we see what else about Esau’s backstory, what other relationships, have caused him to become the man he is and why he and Keraunani are right for each other. Although the romantic element is certainly present, I think those of you who like an adventurous story will be quite pleased with this book. I certainly am. Honestly, this was tremendous fun to write.

The chapters do strictly alternate, so that should be clear, but I’m aware that this kind of narrative structure can still be disorienting to the reader. I’ve changed the backstory narrative to a different font, which I hope will help orient readers as they turn pages. I think everyone will certainly turn pages, often in a hurry. I’m definitely chortling as I envision you all hitting some of the chapter breaks — I hope you find those breaks more fun than frustrating — anyway, you all know that this story is fun, not tragic, which ought to help when I occasionally break a scene in the middle of the action.

Several people have asked me whether I wrote this book from front to back. That’s a very reasonable question considering the format. The answer is No. I wrote chapter 1, chapter 2, then most of the backstory narrative, then stepped back and wrote most of the present-day narrative, then rearranged where chapter breaks took place and fiddled around with making the backstory more clearly support the present-day narrative. Then I wrote most of the last chapter, paused, and finally wrote that last scene. It was not exactly difficult, but it was intense in a different way than, say, the bandit scene.

Things that still need to happen:

1) I’m going to drop this into KDP, get a review copy, let my dad read it for fun, ask my mother to read it for typos, and fix whatever she finds.

2) Then I’m going to correct those typos, get another review copy, and go over it in paper myself with a fine-toothed comb.

3) After THAT, I will ask some of you to read through the manuscript for any remaining typos, which, see above, ought to be in short supply by that time.

4) If the cover artist can guarantee me a cover in January, I’ll see if I can put the book up for preorder with a blank or fake cover.

The animal on the cover is going to be a falcon, by the way. That will work. I mean, I deliberately tweaked the story to make sure it would work, and it will. It’ll be something like a prairie falcon — definitely not a falcon that is obviously male, such as a male kestrel.

Below, the first page or so of Keraunani.

Esau rode into Pitasosa alone, on a bay gelding, with a pretty black mare on a lead rein. He wore the uniform and the weapons and the attitude of a professional soldier, which he was; and the badge of a commander, which might overstate his rank by just a bit; and the colors of the new lord of Lorellan, to which he was not remotely entitled.

The new lord of the county, Barent Rava Picat, had been a provincial magistrate in some county way south, then later taken an appointment as a lord magistrate of the king’s court in Avaras. Picat wasn’t exactly nobly-born, but he shared about three drops of blood with the king, being some kind of distant cousin’s by-blow on the wrong side of the bed. One or another of his various qualifications had led Soretes Aman Shavet, Regat Sul, king of the summer country, to hand him the county of Lorellan when the king declared every member of the previous lord’s family attainted and vacated the title. Hard on the family, but a lot of ’em had wound up thoroughly enthralled, and the king, reasonably enough, didn’t trust any of them with the job of hammering the county back into good shape and good sense.

Esau had twice gotten a chance to look over the new lord, when Lord Gaur had met with him, sorting out one thing and another. Barent Rava Picat had impressed him as a hard-eyed, cold-mannered, sharp-witted man who wasn’t likely to miss much and was even less likely to put up with any kind of nonsense. Esau didn’t intend to encounter him on this visit. Definitely not while wearing his colors. That would be awkward.

No real chance of that, though. The new Lord Lorellan was not in Pitasosa. He was in Tarasan, the capital of the county, deeply engaged with sorting out ten thousand problems which the previous lord had left behind when he’d enthralled a few thousand people and made a bid for the crown. That kind of gods-hated mess would probably take forty years to put right. There was a job Esau was glad enough to leave to someone else.

His own job was simple: Get to Pitasosa, find a girl, get her out of this town and away from the disaster that was about to come down like a big, big hammer on way too many people here. Marry her real quick, nice and tight and legal, so there’d be no questions later about the babe she was carrying. Then he could just set her up someplace where she’d be safe and comfortable, and he’d be done.

It was a lot of trouble to go to for one girl and her brat, that was his personal opinion, but from time to time Esau had gone to considerably more trouble for a lot less reason. He figured the whole thing ought to take less than a month, counting travel time, and then he’d wind up with a solid tickmark on the good deed side of the ledger and a very nice bonus for the successful completion of an independent mission. He’d also wind up with a wife, sure, but as long as she had a thimbleful of common sense, there was no reason either of them should be any particular inconvenience for the other. …

As I’m sure you realize, Esau’s blasé attitude about this mission is rapidly shown to be deeply mistaken.

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