Rachel Neumeier's Blog, page 42

Inner conflict

A post at Jane Friedman’s blog: How to Write Compelling Inner Conflict

In the story, our characters may try to ignore or suppress the distress they feel, but eventually it grows to the point where they must resolve it. But internal conflict is called conflict for a reason: the character is pulled in different directions and doesn’t know what to do. And when the right or best decision means a harder road, the choice becomes even more difficult to make.

This post, and this paragraph, caught my eye because (once again) of Year of the Reaper. This is something that the author, Lucier, does really well, and it’s a big part of what I mean when I say the characters seem emotionally real. There are some GREAT dilemmas in this story, and by great, I mean difficult. Some of them took place in the backstory and some take place during the course of the story, and man, they are hard.

But not all of them! Lucier builds her characters via dilemmas right from the beginning. Here’s Cas: should he bury the dead body of this random person? It will be an annoying task that will take time and effort. It’s a small dilemma. Cas is presented with a lot more dilemmas during the course of the story. We get to know him not only by watching him act fast in an emergency, but by watching him make decisions. Sometimes he makes a wrong decision, or at least not necessarily a right decision, and that’s important too.

Emotional reasoning is where the character weighs and measures each factor related to their situation—their beliefs, facts about their circumstances, personal experiences, past teachings, the people involved, any possible consequences … the whole nine yards.

Yes, sometimes. And sometimes the character doesn’t have time to weigh anything; they have to act right now, this minute, with huge consequences riding on their actions. But this is still emotional reasoning and making hard choices is still involved. I think there’s a lot to be said for putting your protagonist in a situation where they have to think fast and act right now. That tells the reader a lot about that character.

Not that carefully laid plans aren’t important too. Let me see. All right, in RIHASI, in the first chapter, Rihasi is moving deliberately ahead with plans designed and laid out over the course of years. This is still an emotionally fraught situation, however. In the second chapter, Kior decides on the spur of the moment to intervene when a stranger is about to step into danger. Then, shortly afterward, he has to make a different decision about whether to accept this offered job, and he does weigh up a lot of factors, but his decision is largely driven by emotion here too. They are both driven by a sense of what is right, even though they are very different people.

Emotional reasoning plants readers in the character’s perspective, helping them understand the why behind a decision. They get a private viewing of the character’s inner struggle and vulnerability, which fortifies the reader-character bond. 

Bringing the reader into the protagonist’s head is something I’ve worked on from the beginning. Bring the reader more into the protagonist’s head is advice my agent gave me for my first book and it’s also advice an early reader gave me for RIHASI. Nobody but Spock makes decisions logically, and generally not Spock either, really. Decisions are always made for emotional reasons, and opening those reasons up for the reader to see is definitely something that creates compelling, sympathetic characters.

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Subtitles are also hard

Okay, given that I’m definitely splitting SILVER CIRCLE in two, probably with at least a moderate cliffhanger at the end of the first book, I need to come up with subtitles. These are necessary partly to warn readers that Part 1 may end in a cliffhanger. I think basically all readers everywhere understand that if a book says Title: Part 1, that indicates that the book is pretty likely to end in the middle somewhere, with a resolution to follow in Part 2. This implicit warning helps prevent reader frustration.

For that purpose, “Part 1” and “Part 2” serve as well as any other subtitle. But that’s not very … what’s the word … evocative. Artistic. It seems to me that subtitles are better if they’re real subtitles. But what should the subtitles actually be?

Please vote:

First Option

SILVER CIRCLE 1: Before the Storm

SILVER CIRCLE 2: Shattered Skies

***

Second Option

SILVER CIRCLE 1: Conflagration

SILVER CIRCLE 2: Restoration or Consecration or Reclamation or something like that. Or the reverse: Detonation or something like that. It’s not like the entire second book will be peaceful, after all. It will contain the plot climax, and then probably

***

Third Option:

SILVER CIRCLE 1: The Calm

SILVER CIRCLE 2: The Storm

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Day and Clair go to new homes

So, Day left me last week … off to a new life of adventure! His people hope he becomes The Complete Lapdog, and I think he probably will. He seems a LOT like Ishmael to me, and Ish is certainly a great lapdog, at those moments my lap is not otherwise occupied by a laptop. Anyway, I do predict Day — whose name is now Bear — will do great in that department.

He also reminds me of his mother — he is very thoughtful, you can see him thinking. She was exactly the same at his age. The kind of dog who sees something odd and sits down to contemplate the strange object. What is that thing? What does it mean for me that the thing is there? Could this be a good thing? If invited to do so, I will go investigate the thing with confidence.

This is the exact opposite of reactive, by the way. A reactive dog has a huge emotional reaction to whatever; a lot of owners find reactive dogs difficult to handle. These are the dogs that have a fit of barking and lunging whenever they see another dog, for example, or whenever someone comes to the door. The opposite, thoughtfulness, doesn’t get recognized, which is a shame, because it is a highly desirable personality style. If this anti-reactive personality got recognized, you could use Morgan or Bear to illustrate The Thoughtful Puppy.

Bear, with one of his new people, on the car ride to his new home.

He really does like to be right next to your face.

Clair is leaving me this Friday, [sob], but she is going to join two cousins, as well as a new human family.

Hmm. Let me see. The two older ones are Leda’s puppies, and Morgan is Kimmie’s daughter, and Kim and Leda are full sibs, so Clair is actually a full first cousin once removed to her new “older siblings.” It gets hard to keep track!

Anyway, Clair is certain to bring a certain joie de vivre, not to mention a touch of mayhem, to her new home. She is ultra cute, but she has also hit the bounce-away stage and has turned into Little Miss Independent. It’s nice to see her gain so much confidence. She now needs to learn to come when she’s called! I need to make liver brownies and teach them all to come!

Mayhem, I tell you

I know she looks very peaceful in the above photo. Let me show you Clair in her Machiavellian persona, where she is clearly Planning Mayhem:

A mastermind plotting her next crime

 

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What kind of book is this? Judging a book by its cover

So, there I was, skimming through a list of fantasy novels due to be released this year, and here is one that caught my eye:

Since the cover presents both an image and a title, we’re really judging the book by both simultaneously. What do you think? I think that including the word “anguish” on the cover is HIGHLY indicative of the novel’s tone, or if it isn’t, whoops! Because I definitely peg this novel according to this word choice. I peg it as AVOID AVOID AVOID.

What else contributes to this impression of NOT FOR ME?

The dark colors. This is a beautiful cover, it’s an intriguing cover, a good-looking cover, but it’s dark dark dark. Either this novel is grimdark or it’s going to be a slog through a dystopian setting to get to a halfway tolerable ending. That’s what the cover suggests to me. “Anarchy” is not carrying a lot of weight one way or another, not for me. That’s a fairly neutral word, for me. “Anguish” is anything but neutral. “Children of” is just pretty generic as far as the structure of a fantasy title. Oh, I see that this author has “Children of” in all her titles for this series. Children of Blood and Bone. Children of Virtue and Vengeance. And now Children of Anguish and Anarchy. This is the third book of the series. It’s the final book, says the description.

This is a bestselling series, it turns out. Starred reviews from every direction. Hmm. Looks like the first book has 23,000 ratings, 4.6 star average.

Here’s the description:

They killed my mother.
They took our magic.
They tried to bury us.

Now we rise.

Zélie Adebola remembers when the soil of Orïsha hummed with magic. Burners ignited flames, Tiders beckoned waves, and Zélie’s Reaper mother summoned forth souls. But everything changed the night magic disappeared. Under the orders of a ruthless king, maji were killed, leaving Zélie without a mother and her people without hope. Now Zélie has one chance to bring back magic and strike against the monarchy. With the help of a rogue princess, Zélie must outwit and outrun the crown prince, who is hell-bent on eradicating magic for good.

Danger lurks in Orïsha, where snow leoponaires prowl and vengeful spirits wait in the waters. Yet the greatest danger may be Zélie herself as she struggles to control her powers and her growing feelings for an enemy.

I mean, this sounds … sort of promising … except I am so suspicious of the tone implied by the dark covers (all three covers are dark) and the emphasis on death, vengeance, and anguish, that I am very hesitant to try the first book. By “hesitant,” I mean I won’t look at it seriously UNLESS one of you here says, “Oh, no, that’s all very misleading, the book is fantastic, you should definitely try it!” If that happens, then sure. Otherwise, no.

However, since it’s a bestselling fantasy, let’s take a look at the first page of the first book and compare it to the other first pages we’ve looked at recently. The first bit is a prologue, very short, and then the real story begins after the ——– break.

***

I try not to think of her.

But when I do, I think of rice.

When Mama was around, the hut always smelled of jollof rice.

I think about the way her dark skin glowed like the summer sun, the way her smile made Baba come alive. The way her white hair fuzzed and coiled, an untamed crown that breathed and thrived.

I hear the myths she would tell me at night. Tzain’s laughter when they played agbon in the park. Baba’s cries as the soldiers wrapped a chain around her neck. Her screams as they dragged her into the dark.

The incantations that spewed from her mouth like lava. The magic of death that led her astray.

I think about the way her corpse hung from that tree.

I think about the king who took her away.

———————————————————

Pick me.

It’s all I can do not to scream. I dig my nails into the marula oak of my staff and squeeze to keep from fidgeting. Beads of sweat drip down my back, but I can’t tell if it’s from dawn’s early heat or from my heart slamming against my chest. Moon after moon I’ve been passed over.

Today can’t be the same.

I tuck a lock of snow-white hair behind my ear and do my best to sit still. As always, Mama Agba makes the selection grueling, staring at each girl just long enough to make us squirm.

Her brows knit in concentration, deepening the creases in her shaved head. With her dark brown skin and muted kaftan, Mama Agba looks like any other elder in the village. You would never guess a woman her age could be so lethal.

***

What do you think?

I think I’m tired of seeing almost every single sentence broken into its own special paragraph. This seems to be in vogue. I wasn’t aware of that and now I’m tired of it. That didn’t take long. I just think this thing about one-sentence paragraphs gets old in a hurry. Also, I don’t like that sentence about spewing like lava. I suppose that’s meant to indicate that the protagonist has internalized hatred of magic from the conquerors of her people. To me, this seems thoroughly jarring given the surrounding sentences.

The actual story then begins in a way that looks pretty generic. However, overall, not bad.

Here is a comment from a three-star review (I specifically went straight to the three-star reviews): “Each character has been traumatized, and they re-live the moments of brutality in their dreams and inner voices. Repeatedly. Constantly. Over and over, to the point where both Zélie and Amari would likely be diagnosed with PTSD in real life. … The obsessive single-mindedness of each of these characters is so similar that it’s hard to keep track of which point of view we’re reading at any given time. The tone is uniformly overwrought, with the characters experiencing primarily extreme emotions of fear and hatred, with extra helpings of distrust and betrayal. Adeyemi does attempt to bring a couple lighter moments of respite later on, and even some romance, but both are thoroughly unconvincing, since the primary mission of the book seems to be to convey just how hopelessly grim and harrowing life is with the relentless violence and even torture.”

And there we go: dark cover image, “anguish,” and a single review that indicates both cover and title accurately represent the tone. Therefore, nope, not for me. However, obviously all the above appeals to a lot of readers; hence the bestseller status and the 4.6 average star rating. And that is what the title and cover are supposed to do — indicate tone and genre to the reader, so that those who will love the book pick it up and those who won’t skim on past it and pick up something more to their taste. Therefore, I’d call this a successful title and cover.

I also find this interesting just because of the juxtaposition with the book I recently reviewed here, a darkish fantasy called Year of the Reaper by Makiia Lucier.

What is the difference? Why did I feel drawn to read this book, while the first cover strikes me as suggesting something too grim for me? Part of it has to be the pale fog in the background. This lightens the overall tone of the cover, even though it’s also emphasizing dark colors. Another is possibly the artist’s decision to move the figure farther away from the viewer. The Children of Anguish one is really good. I like it a lot. I wonder, though, if centering the face implies, to me, less action and more angst? Giving the drow figure a mace does seem to me to imply more action.

I do suspect that the Reaper cover’s resemblance to Michael Whelan covers is also making this cover very appealing to me. I’m not sure whether anybody else gets a Whelan vibe here? But after going to the linked site and skimming through Whelan artwork, I still do think this cover would fit right in.

Regardless, indicating the tone of the story is definitely the cover’s number-one job. And don’t put “anguish” in the title unless you want to shove away certain readers. But it’s a good choice for making sure that the readers who pick up your book are the ones who may revel in anguish and love it when your characters constantly dwell on grim backstory.

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Aaargh, do not let this happen!

So, I was looking at Makiia Lucier’s other books, and check out this description for Isle of Stone and Blood:

Ulisesasked, “How can I look at these maps, see this riddle, and do nothing?They are my brothers.”

Elias reached across the table and flicked aside two shells with a fingertip.The map curled into itself. “It’s bound to be a goose chase. Youknowthat?”

“Or a treasure hunt,” Ulises countered, “and you’ve always beengood at those.”

Nineteen-year-old Elias is a royal explorer, askilled mapmaker, and the new king of delMar’s oldest friend. Soon he willembark on the adventure of a lifetime, an expedition past the Strait of Cainand into uncharted waters.Nothing stands in his way…until a long-ago tragedycreeps back intothe light, threatening all he holds dear.

The people of St. Johndel Mar have never recoveredfrom the loss of their boy princes,kidnapped eighteen years ago, both presumeddead. But when two mapssurface, each bearing the same hidden riddle, troublingquestions arise. What really happened to the young heirs? And why do the mapsappear tobe drawn by Lord Antoni, Elias’s father, who vanished on thatsamefateful day? With the king’s beautiful cousin by his side–whether hewantsher there or not–Elias will race to solve the riddle of theprinces. He willhave to use his wits and guard his back. Because sometruths are better leftburied…and an unknown enemy stalks his everyturn.

What the heck happened here? This is absolutely inexcusable. This book was published in 2018 and this horrible spacing hasn’t been corrected? What even is this? And who is the publisher? Oh, look, Clarion. That’s an imprint of Harper Collins. Aren’t they supposed to be professionals? Yes? And they put that description up on Amazon and LEAVE it there for six years without correcting it? This is disgraceful. If I were the author, I would be seriously incensed.

You know what else? The first book, the ebook is $14, which is terribly expensive for a YA fantasy ebook, but much stupider than that, the SECOND book of the duology is $8.50. The first book is almost twice as expensive as the second! !!! Whose brilliant idea was that? Wow, Clarion Books, are you making traditional publishers look completely incompetent or what?

Anyway, I got a sample of the first book. AFTER checking to be sure the sample does not have the insane spacing problems of the description, because good grief.

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Recent Reading: Year of the Reaper by Makiia Lucier

Okay, so … is this the first fantasy novel I’ve read this year? … Maybe? Wait, not quite. I beta read Sage Empress for Sherwood Smith, and before that, Tribute, because it’s a semi-prequel; and more recently I beta read a sequel to Evarran’s Bane for Sylvia Kelso. And before that, I read the Lavender’s Blue series by Cruise and Mayer.

I’m not sure I’ve read a lot else this year. Bits of various nonfiction books. The Cruelest Miles. I honestly can’t remember anything else right now.

So why Year of the Reaper?

a) A good while ago, I posted about the book for some reason, maybe the opening of the novel, I don’t remember.

b) I pulled out the cover because it is totally fantastic.

c) Someone here said they read it and it was really good.

d) So I got a copy, a hardcover because it was half the price of the ebook. (I KNOW, marketing departments make weird decisions!)

e) And there it was, sitting on my coffee table, in hardcover, with this great cover.

So it kept catching my eye, which is the point of putting a great cover on a book, of course, and I kept remember someone saying they loved it (sorry! I don’t remember who!), so I read it. And I really loved it! But let me start by just mentioning something that sort of worked, in that it did its job, but I am really puzzled by this:

Who is the drow? We agree this is a drow, yes? He – or she, this figure strikes me as ambiguous – looks exactly like a drow, except I suppose the ears are less pointed, but despite the rounded ears, wow, is this obviously a drow or what? So, who is this? Answer: This is a great cover which it totally, one hundred percent unrelated to anyone or anything in the book, except the protagonist does carry a mace. That mace does not look at all like this mace, but that seems fair, as the protagonist does not look anything whatsoever like this ebony-skinned figure in the cloak.

Is it possible the people in this novel are ebony-skinned? And the author doesn’t mention this because they are all ebony-skinned and therefore no one finds this worthy of note? Answer: No. For one thing, it is impossible that any author would fail to mention this and just depend on the cover to guide the reader’s vision of the characters. Also, people in this novel go white with shock. Their hair can be brown, not just black. They definitely do not have ebony skin and silver-streaked black hair. All right, maybe the figure on the cover is standing in deep shadow? Answer: no. This figure has skin the same color as the mace, and only a little bit less shiny. This is just obvious from looking at the cover. I don’t buy the shadow theory. On top of that, the protagonist who carries a mace is a big, burly guy. This is very clear from the story. That lightly built drow on the cover cannot be the same guy.

Ordinarily, a severe mismatch between cover and story might really annoy me. As it is, I’m like, whatever, great cover, great story, too bad they have nothing to do with each other, but fine. Actually, what I know happens sometimes is that the publisher has a cover on file and, rather than commissioning a new cover, they say, “Hey, this one has a person with a mace, it’ll work great!” and slap it on the book where the protagonist carries a mace. Or at other times, they tell the cover artist, “Figure with a mace,” and the cover artist does whatever the heck they want with this limited instruction. I wonder if something like that happened here. Since I really love the cover, it works for me anyway. If I’d been the author, I’d have been tempted to say, “Wait one second while I just nip back and make the characters ebony-skinned drow, be done in a jiffy!”

Second quibble: The protagonist’s name is Cassia. I’m fine with ending a masculine name with an -a, as you have no doubt all realized; and I’m also fine with giving a male character a name that looks feminine to the American eye. What I wonder is: did the author know that “cassia” is a real word? It is the name of the spice that is sold as cinnamon in America (and probably other regions). Cassia is the less expensive spice. It is stronger, more “cinnamon-y” and less complex in flavor than true cinnamon, which is sold as “Ceylon cinnamon.”

Yes, the protagonist’s name is actually Cassiapeus, and he thinks of himself as Cas, but the name Cassia does nudge at my sensibilities harder than say, Maia in The Goblin Emperor, because Maia doesn’t mean anything to me and Cassia does. Also, Cassiopia is another real name, and that is so similar to Cassiapeus that it gets in the way as well.

But let’s set quibbles regarding the packaging aside and go on to the many things that made me love the story! These things include the setting and backstory, the protagonist and other characters, and the plot.

The setting and backstory:

All right, so we have just suffered through the Black Death. It’s been awful. There is a brief prologue in which everyone is dying and then a flashback in which a lot of people die, and wow, this is a grim backdrop to the story. People are coping, but a lot of towns lost half their population. It really was the Black Death, no fooling, though no one calls it that.

This works really well, and part of the reason it works so well is that the author, Makiia Lucier, somehow manages to avoid an overly gritty or grim feel even though there has been a lot of awful stuff happening. It’s an impressive feat. This is a book that anyone should read if they want to see how to include terrible things in the backstory without making the story itself extremely grim. Part of this involves not shining too merciless a spotlight on the various horrors. Part of it is not dwelling on the various horrors. Everything that happened, happened, and everyone thinks of it and is aware of it, but this isn’t the same as the author dwelling on all this.

The Characters:

Besides that, the story is filled with lots of characters who are decent people, mostly trying to be nice to each other and find a way to do the right things even when the situation becomes pretty complicated. There are villains, yes, but you don’t have to keep holding yourself tense against the expectation that everyone is going to stab everyone else in the back. People are really happy to see the protagonist turn up because they thought he was dead, he’s really happy to see them because he was afraid they might be dead. People aren’t saccharine, but they are mostly real people who are really family and friends. They feel emotionally real and they are people you like spending time with.

The grimness of the recent backstory gets even grimmer for Cas. He was taken prisoner, betrayed, imprisoned, tortured, got the plague, recovered, and here he is, returning home after a brutal three years. He is not untouched or unaffected by everything that has happened. But the author manages to completely avoid a feeling of angst even while Cas struggles to deal with and overcome all that awfulness. And how does Lucier achieve this? That is exactly what a writer might want to pay attention to. This would be a great book to read along with something filled to the brim with angst, just to see how differently the emotions are handled. Cas does not dwell. He is not focused on himself. He is also kinder than he realizes himself, not just in moments of heroism (he does have those moments, though!) but in moments when, for example, he forces someone greedy to sponsor a new orphanage. The chance came up and he’s the kind of person who would think of doing that and then who would do it. At the same time, he is definitely dealing with the emotional fallout of everything that happened and everything that is happening now.

So, this is a story where people feel things deeply, but the tone is not angsty at all. I loved Cas, and his brother, and Lena, and the king, and the queen, and honestly this is a great character-driven story even though the plot is also central.

The Plot:

All right, so, the actual plot. For a while I had a sinking feeling that I was going to be writing comments that reluctantly emphasized Extreme Character Stupidity. No! I am happy to say that I did NOT figure out who shot that initial arrow, I did NOT figure out who was behind the strange plot, this was a plot twist that took me completely by surprise even though it instantly made sense. I would be curious to know how many readers figure it out before the big reveal.

Incidentally, I can look into my handy crystal ball and see a conversation that might have gone a lot like this during the revision of this novel:

Beta reader: “I love it, but, Makiia, I don’t really believe she would do some of the things she does. Yes, what happened was traumatic, I get that, but was it really THAT traumatic? Because … I’m just having a hard time with this, that, and the other.”

Makiia: “Hmm, well, let me make what happened MUCH MORE traumatic. There!”

Because … wow. The thing that happened was certainly awful enough to provide justification for this very important plot element. If no conversation like that took place between the author and a beta reader, then I bet an internal conversation like that took place within the author’s mind. “I need to provide motivation that actually makes sense even though I’m designing a world where most people are pretty nice to each other and trying to do the right thing, even though this character did not start out evil. What would be so awful that it would work here?” I may imagine this was possibly a beta reader’s input because it’s similar to one comment I got from a beta reader, something along the lines of, “Can this thing Rihasi did be even better justified, so that the reader can see she honestly had no choice but to do it?” Answer: “Hmm, well, let me provide a REALLY SOLID and much more personal justification. There!”

So that feeds into something I’ve maintained for a long time: that practically any plot element can be justified if the author is determined to get that element into the story, but that it can be very helpful to be told, “This may not quite work yet; can you think again and come up with a more solid justification?” Because you can, generally, but sometimes you need to be told you’re not quite there yet.

So Year of the Reaper is great to just read and enjoy, but I do think it also offers a look at certain things that a prospective author might want to consider: A setting with seriously grim elements, but the story does not itself become too gritty or too overwhelmingly grim; worldbuilding that feels almost more historical than fantasy; characters who have suffered terrible things, and who are recovering emotionally in believable ways, but who are not consumed by angst; murder-mystery style plotting with nice red herrings and a clever twist; and a justification for that twist that lifts it from unbelievable to pretty believable. Plus, the falling action shows how to tie up loose ends so that the reader is not anxious about certain things; leave a hook for a possible sequel; and resolve the central relationship plotline in a satisfying way; all briskly, but without a truncated feeling.

Some of the last lines of the author’s note at the end say, “Year of the Reaper is a hopeful tale, a story of friendship and family and the resilience of the human spirit.” I agree. The story this most reminds me of is The Goblin Emperor, though it’s quite different. I want to pick up something else by this author. If any of you have read more of her work, I would welcome comments.

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Whoa, abruptly planning a serious promotion

Update: COMPLETED the second-to-last proofing pass through RIHASI. Many tweaks, a good handful of typos, whew. One more proofing pass and also I need to finalize the paperback, hardcover, and epub files.

BUT, ALSO

Okay, so, I did not expect this, but WHOA, BOOKBUB PROMOTION COMING UP.

The thing about a BookBub promotion, the first thing is, it is very, very expensive. I am talking up above $700 expensive for a promotion. This is because their mailing list is absolutely enormous — about 20 million people, as compared to Freebooksy’s mailing list of about 400,000.

The second thing about a BookBub promotion, it is very, very difficult to get one at all. You apply, they turn you down, you apply again, they turn you down again, and on we go. This is because everybody applies for them, including traditional publishers on behalf of whatever books they’re pushing.

Other things make approval much less likely: being exclusive to Amazon makes it far harder. Not having any reviews from Kirkus and Booklist and whatever lowers your chances. (I have a good many reviews from Kirkus and Booklist, including starred reviews, but not for self-published titles.)

Last year, I read some stuff about BookBub promotions. This year, I am trying to knock various things off my No, Seriously, Do It List. This is the list for things I know I ought to do, but don’t want to fool around with. Trying to get a BookBub featured deal was on that list. In April, I re-read stuff about BookBub ads and thought fine, now’s the time, I suppose, and began applying. I made a spreadsheet to keep track because here are the suggested rules:

A) Apply first for a featured deal promo at $0.99 for whatever title.

B) They turn that down, so apply for the same book for a featured deal free promo.

You can’t apply for the same book for thirty days at the same price, but you can apply again at once at a lower price. Therefore, you apply for a $0.99 deal and then a free deal for the same book. You can apply for deals at higher prices, but you’re not likely to be approved regardless, and raising the price means you’re even less likely to be approved. Therefore, the suggestion is, try $0.99 and then free and then

C) Move on to the next book and try again the same way. Repeat. Repeat. Each rejection takes about four days, and each time you see a rejection, you apply again for something else.

D) You can apply JUST for the US or JUST for international or for both. How many times have you applied? Are you applying just for the US, which is the most effective place to do a promotion and less expensive than applying for all regions? If you’re applying for just the US and everything is being rejected, try all regions.

E) Still being rejected for everything? Try offering a boxed set or omnibus for $0.99.

Following these rules, beginning in April, I submitted TUYO twice, TUYO again as an audiobook for Chirp, which is the audio part of BookBub; then MARAG twice, then INVICTUS #1 twice, then INVICTUS as a boxed set, then NO FOREIGN SKY at $0.99, but not for free because it is a standalone and that would be semi-pointless. That’s nine rejections so far. Then I skipped THE YEAR’S MIDNIGHT because its KU term expires at the end of May and I did not want to get any kind of promo that might intersect with the day the term expires. Instead, I submitted the Death’s Lady trilogy omnibus for $0.99 and boom! That got accepted. For all regions. I practically fell out of my chair.

So I had previously made up my mind that if I got ANY acceptance, I would take it no matter how expensive it was, because otherwise why even bother applying. So I paid for this promotion and immediately pulled up the omnibus file and updated the back matter. The endnotes now include a link to my newsletter, a link to my Patreon, and a link to SHINES NOW. The “Also By” section now has complete and updated links to everything. Then I uploaded the new omnibus file at KDP and previewed it and tweaked various things. There was no page break after the ToC, I don’t know how that happened. Now there is. I did not preview every single page because good Lord above, it’s a thousand pages or thereabouts, I can’t bear the thought, especially since I know I DID preview every page when I uploaded the file the first time. I checked all the breaks between one book and the next.

I’m going to have to lower the price by hand in order to have the price drop occur in all regions, so I’ll do that a few days before the promo is due (May 26th). That will drop me to the 35% royalty level because that’s the rule for a $0.99 book when you drop it by hand rather than using a countdown deal. How many omnibus books do I have to sell to break even for this enormously expensive promotion? Quick arithmetic yields the answer: 2034 copies. However, I’m going to drop the price of the fourth book to $2.99 for the duration (that is the lowest price at which you can get 70% royalties), so sales there should also help offset some of the cost. Also, the increased visibility ought to pop the whole series up in KU for a while, so KU pages read should also go up as a result of this promotion. Also, my overall visibility as an author should benefit; no way to calculate how useful that will turn out to be.

… And the bottom line is, I won’t know whether this promotion was actually a good idea until after it’s over, and yes, that does make me nervous. It would be A LOT better to get a promo like this for TUYO, where there are eight other books in the series. BUT FINE, this is my first chance to see how BookBub works for me, and although these promos are not as career-changing as they used to be, they are reputed to USUALLY pay off for the author.

I’m now going to go attempt to get promotions via other promo sites. This is widely regarded as a good idea, even though it will of course cost extra money. I have two weeks to arrange those. Many of the best promo sites sell out way before that, so I’ll just have to see what I can do.

Puppy post later this week!

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Subject to change

A post at Kill Zone Blog that made me smile in recognition: Subject to Change With Noticing

A friend of mine, a #1 NYT bestselling writer, once remarked to me, “I didn’t plan on killing this character. I started writing the scene and found him dead.” …

Don’t just be about imposing your plans on the story to the detriment of happy surprises. Be ready to shift and move. This applies to all types of writers. A planner might resist changing the plans, while a pantser might resist going down a rabbit trail. … When in doubt, add a character. (Remember Raymond Chandler’s advice to bring in a guy with a gun?) Whenever I’ve come to a “thin middle” the first thing I do is add a character. A minor or secondary character who shows up, with an agenda and a backstory, is the fastest way to fight second-act drag.

I am here to tell you, you don’t need to be in doubt to add a character. Characters proliferate in every direction. Every now and then I do in fact resist adding a character … RIHASI is 176,000 words for crying out loud, the last thing it needs is another character EVEN THOUGH A NEAT SCENE SUGGESTED ITSELF TO ME LAST NIGHT. No. That scene is not happening.

But, it was really entertaining to watch characters suddenly appear.

The most noticeable with RIHASI was … look, at one point, Rihasi and Kior are approaching a town, and Kior says, basically, “Let’s hang back a bit and not crowd the people in front of us; that’s obviously a high noble and his entourage.” Rihasi then glances up and says, “Oh, that’s probably Prince Sekaran and his daughter Illiethani.”

You know why that carriage was there? It was there as SCENERY, so that the world would have PEOPLE in it, full stop. It was like describing the wall and the gate and the mountains to either side. It was exactly like that. “Oh, by the way, there are people present in the world.” That’s it! AFTER I put that carriage on the road, I thought, “Oh, hey, I can think of one very high ranking person who might be fun to meet! That could be Sekaran! Oh, I can mention his daughter and start to get her set up for when she becomes a real character in some future book!”

And thus Sekaran stepped into the novel. Once he was there, he needed stuff to do and a fair bit of the plot suddenly reoriented itself around him. And thus the book became longer. This is a major source of unexpected words for me.

Once the story moves into Avaras – the king’s city, the capital — almost at once, Kior bumps, by chance, into a mercenary named Bereket, and that was supposed to be just a brief appearance and Bereket was supposed to disappear again after that. But, nope. He had some fun lines — he’s very cynical, and curious as a cat — and I thought, “Oh, you know what, Bereket is available for this plot twist I didn’t see coming until I was nearly there, but here I am and I can give this to Bereket.” Then, once he was there, playing a role that important, I thought okay, fine, and gave him more to do. He’s kind of fun. We might at least glimpse him in a later book.

Then Rihasi and Kior ran into some trouble in Avaras and needed cover to get out of the city and boom! Hamathani and Vakareos and the rest appeared, and took a fairly important part for a couple of chapters — important enough that I thought maybe I better mention them in the epilogue — and by the time I finally wrote the epilogue, they were central to it.

Which I didn’t have in mind AT ALL until I was re-reading the whole book at the end, because I wrote the epilogue very, very late, like the day before I sent the novel to first readers. [And it turned out to be not quite finished because I’d forgotten I got tired and quit with about a page left to write, and the fastest early reader therefore tripped over the not-quite-finished bit because she read the book so fast she got there before I sent the updated version, 24 hours later.]

Subject to change indeed! I had some of the core of the story in my head when I started, but whoa, did the periphery change and change again during the writing process!

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Update: Puppy Post

Sorry, totally forgot to post about the puppies this past Monday!

Better late than never, right?

So: when you stack a dog, you want the dog in this pose:

Eve, many years ago

I keep this picture of Eve as a teenage puppy up on my Cavalier website because I pull this picture out to say, “This is what the structure of a trotting dog ought to look like. Deviations from this are probably bad.” Then I point out whatever features, such as the very smooth, elegant sweep of the topline — good shoulder layback, good length of back compared to loin (the back extends to the last rib; the loin is the part between the ribs and the pelvis), good croup, this is really a very nice topline. I point at the rear angulation and say, look, this is correct angulation, this is how the rear legs ought to look; if the rear legs look straight and don’t have these angles, the dog will never move properly and is at very high risk of serious orthopedic problems as it ages. I talk about the forechest — that’s the part of the chest in front of the front legs, of course; basically the breastbone — and the depth of the chest — for a trotting dog, the chest should come down to the level of the elbow (this dog’s fluffy underline makes her chest look overly deep, which it is not). The fur does create illusions. This puppy does not have flat feet, that’s an illusion created by the fluff on the toes.

Eve is a good comparison when looking at current puppies. Of course, she knew how to stand properly. Getting little puppies to stand is difficult. It’s nice to try, because whatever you see at eight weeks is probably close to what you’re going to get as an adult. Some people prefer to look at ten weeks. I look at eight, nine, and ten weeks, and of course I watch the puppies stand and move in the yard. These puppies have all been standing and moving really well — I don’t mean cutely, I mean correctly.

So, let’s take a look!

Star declines to stand on the table

Well, sometimes that happens. This puppy will stand next week, I expect.

Next!

Clair has her rear feet a little too far forward, but this isn’t bad.

Clair is about a pound lighter than the other puppies. She might be “light in bone,” but in fact I think she will turn out fine. I’ve had six puppies as small as this at her age and they all turned out small-medium rather than overly small or light. Her head is pretty. Her ears might be a little low-set, though it’s a bit hard to judge because she is uneasy about the table. She is short-bodied (“cobby”), which is good as long as the shortness is in the loin rather than the back. If she were standing really correctly, I think you would see a better topline, but this isn’t bad. Her croup is definitely good. Rear angulation is good. Her shoulder is at least okay. Her shoulder might be a little straight, the junction between neck and back is a bit abrupt, but on the other hand, she has decent length of neck, so probably her shoulder isn’t *too* straight. She is reaching forward a bit to get the tidbit; that will stretch the neck out and create the illusion on a less ideal topline. I think she is probably just fine.

Day looks really nice

I think his head looks really big here, but it’s an illusion created by the angle. He wouldn’t stand straight, so I snapped this and called it good. He’s a much more solid puppy than Clair — he’s an even five pounds as of yesterday — tons of “bone” and heft. He’s got a fine neck and shoulder, which is important because a good shoulder is important to correct, efficient movement. Good pasterns too. His croup might be a hair steep compared to Clair, but he hasn’t got his rear set perfectly. I really, really like this puppy. I’m probably a bit biased because I also like his very stable, very mellow personality. He’s a lot like my Ishmael.

Joy is not a bit worried by the table

This puppy is SO CUTE. I am super biased here because, I finally realized, she reminds me so much of my Pippa. That same gung-ho attitude. She really is very joyful and happy. She has much less fluff than the others. They all have the “fluffy puppy coat” allele. Joy has the “smooth puppy coat” allele. This is totally trivial as they will all lose the puppy coat at about five months and be short-coated for a bit as they gradually grow out their adult coat.

Is Joy’s topline just a tiny bit dippy right behind her shoulder? Or is that her coat? Hard to say, but it’s better not to see a dip. Why? Because a dip behind the shoulder means the shoulder is steep. That means the front movement will not be ideal. She won’t reach as far forward as she should, reducing the efficiency of her gait. She doesn’t seem to have a lot of forechest either — again, that implies a straight shoulder. On the other hand, her length of neck is good, so the shoulder probably isn’t *that* straight. Next time I stack her, I will try to make sure her front legs are set perfectly and then check shoulder angle and forechest by touch, more reliable than by eye.

It’s very freeing to plan not to breed a puppy. I don’t have to feel like I need to keep the puppy that’s the best breeding prospect. I can keep this puppy even if I see structural imperfections. I’m not going to be doing Agility with her, I’m not going to hike the Adirondack Trail. She’ll be fine if I decide to do Rally because you don’t have to practice jumping a lot for Rally. If I DID breed her — not going to — but if I did, I would be looking only at boys with all the shoulder layback in the world. GREAT shoulders. It’s hard to get really good shoulder layback and easy to lose if you don’t breed for it. And that has functional consequences, it’s not just cosmetic. A pretty head is purely cosmetic, and is also a lot easier to get than a good shoulder. Even if this puppy’s shoulder is a bit straight, though, she’ll be a great pet.

Standing like a rock

Muse has a really nice topline and much more forechest. The forechest is the part in front of the front legs, obviously. It’s the breastbone part, basically. Short body, cobby build, lots of bone. He’s got his rear legs spread wide apart here, not really set under him properly, but I think this dude might have the best structure of the lot, except maybe the other b/t puppy. He’s monorchid right now. If that doesn’t change, he couldn’t be shown or bred. For a pet, it doesn’t matter. And that could easily correct over the next month or so. Excellent puppy.

There you go, a brief segue into stacking and evaluating puppies! Next week, once more the focus will be on pure cuteness.

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Titles are hard

A post at Kill Zone Blog: Finding the Right Title: Words of Wisdom

This post is by Dale Ivan Smith, who says, I enjoy coming up with titles for my novels and stories …

I sure don’t! Titles are really hard!

Dale continues, but it can be a lot of work.

Yeah, it sure can. The linked post offers advice, including:

Go on Amazon and look up books similar to yours … words have inflection, mood and color. 

Grab the reader emotionally. Two titles that do it for me: The Unbearable Lightness of Being and The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.

I really love that first one. The Unbearable Lightness of Being. I’m not sure that title makes me want to read the book, but I’m sure I really like the title, so that’s also interesting. I mean, that just really liking the title doesn’t make me also want to take a look at the book in question.

Make a list of key words that appear in your book. Is there something you can build on? For our book A Killing Rain, the title came when I heard a Florida farmer describe that drenching downpour that can kill off the tomato crop and we used it in the book. The title was there all the time and we didn’t see it at first.

That can work, and you know what can also work? If you come up with a few words or a phrase you like and you find a place to put that in your book. Boom! Now it looks like you took the phrase from within your book, but really it’s the other way around: you put that phrase in the book SO THAT you could use it as a title. Full disclosure: I did that with No Foreign Sky. Maybe I’ll wind up doing it again for the sequel; I have no idea what I might call that, but it will need to have the same feel.

Never get emotionally attached to a title. It’s the worst thing you can do because it probably will be changed. Or needs to be. Because your first title is usually, as T.S. Eliot said, a prosaic every-day thing. You can do better. It’s there. You just have to dig deep. Sweat out that great title that Eliot called the “ineffable, effable, effanineffable deep and inscrutable singular name.”

Effanieffable! I can’t decide if I like that or hate it. It’s an interesting coinage either way.

Great titles:

A Ring of Endless Light

One Hundred Years of Solitude

The Sun Also Rises

The Left Hand of Darkness

I like poetic titles, as you can see. Titles I think are not so great:

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. Boring, and, bonus, I can never remember how to spell either “Jonathan” or “Norrell” and have to check or else risk getting it wrong, and this is annoying.

Everything with “Daughter” in it, such as The Bearkeeper’s Daughter. Fine book, terrible title. I really dislike all the “Somebody’s Daughter” and “Somebody’s Wife” titles. If the book is about the person, name it after her! And in the example I mention here, the book IS NOT ABOUT HER ANYWAY. It’s an AWFUL title. (But the book is still good, though!)

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