Helen Lowe's Blog, page 23
August 23, 2023
About The Characters: Meet The Minor Players In “The Wall Of Night” Series — Meet Narn
USA
The About The Characters post series focuses on the minor characters in The Wall Of Night series, in large part because:
“I think it’s the presence of the smaller characters that “makes” a story, creating texture around the main points of view.”
~ from my Legend Award Finalist’s Interview, 2013
Initially, the series focused exclusively on characters from The Heir of Night, but now I’m continuing on with minor characters from both The Gathering Of The Lost and Daughter of Blood — in alphabeti...
August 20, 2023
From The Backlist: Reflections on Minor Characters
As you know from last week, currently I’m deep in revising The Wall Of Night #4 (working title: The Chaos Gate.)
With another About The Characters post due on Thursday, it got me thinking about the importance of minor characters in storytelling, as well as the major ones.
And that reminded me (eventually!) that I’d penned a post on the topic away back in 2012 (gulp!), shortly after The Gathering of the Lost came out.
On tracking it down, I decided it was just as relevant now, as then...
August 16, 2023
FB Group Haarth Invites You — To “The Wall Of Night” Read-Along!
As mentioned on Monday, there is a private FB group called Haarth, that was formed by and for readers who want to hang out together and talk all-things, you know, Haarth. 
As also mentioned, although Group Haarth is a reader gig and I try not to peer over their shoulder, I love to support and share their initiatives, and give others “oot thar” the opportunity to join in, should they wish.
Rosie of Group Haarth
In this case, I don’t think anyone can give you a better headsup and the lowdown on w...
August 13, 2023
It’s Revision Update Time!
Update time!
Welp, to paraphrase an Aragorn / LoTR meme from forever ago (see The Very Secret Diary of Aragorn, Son of Arathorn ) the short version of the revision update is, “Still not done. … Not done yet.”
While we could leave it there, I thought you might be interested to know that I have divvied the revision up into seven (7) main tasks. Although not necessarily of equal size, in the past three (3) months I have completed two of them. (Hurrah for Team Revision — that’s me, myself, and I, ...
August 9, 2023
Q&A Thursdays #14: Bethany’s Question
For a while now, I’ve been reprising a Daughter of Blood (and by extension The Wall Of Night) Q&A series that featured in 2019.
Today’s question is from Bethany and focuses on a prince who made his first appearance early in Daughter of Blood.
USA
Bethany: The Swarm prince at the beginning of Daughter of Blood has snake hair. If you did it to make him creepy, it worked!
Helen: I wanted Aranraith to stand out, and not in a good way, so the serpent hair was part of achieving that effect. Arguably, ...
August 6, 2023
A Writing Quote From Margaret Atwood
~ Margaret Atwood, b. 1939
“…a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, teacher, environmental activist, and inventor.” — Wikipedia
~*~
So I guess there’s hope for me yet, when it comes to writing!
And I do agree that the more one writes, putting effort and thought into it, and consciously striving to improve, then by and large, improvement does follow.
As a reader, though, I’ve never really thought of it as somet...
August 2, 2023
New On Supernatural Underground — When Bros Go Bad
Yep, 1 August, Supernatural Underground post — yadda, yadda, am pretty sure most of you know the drill.
…in Fantasy
This month, I’m continuing my “band of brothers” theme for 2023 by taking a look at the darker side of the trope, i.e. not just when bromances go bad and brotherhoods fail, but why that happens.
… & history: Damien & Paddy in “The Wind That Shakes the Barley”
With some examples from Fantasy literature , of course — although I had to do another deep dive to come up with them. To fi...
July 30, 2023
What I’m Reading: “Curse of Shadows” by AK Wilder
I enjoyed Crown of Bones, the first book in AK Wilder’s Amassia series, but I think Curse of Shadows (Amassia #2) is an even stronger story.
The author writes as both AK Wilder and Kim Falconer. Some readers here may be familiar with Kim Falconer from the Supernatural Underground, where we both post. So I’m signaling upfront that we are friends-in-writing and fellow bloggers, “for the record.”
What The Amassia Series Is All AboutIn Crown of Bones (Crown), Ash and her comrades traveled far fro...
July 26, 2023
About The Characters: Meet The Minor Players In “The Wall Of Night” Series — Meet Namath
UK/AU/NZ
The About The Characters post series focuses on the minor characters in The Wall Of Night series, in large part because:
“I think it’s the presence of the smaller characters that “makes” a story, creating texture around the main points of view.”
~ from my Legend Award Finalist’s Interview, 2013
Initially, the series focused exclusively on characters from The Heir of Night, but now I’m continuing on with minor characters from both The Gathering Of The Lost and Daughter of Blood — in alph...
July 23, 2023
What’s A-Happenin’
Over the past few weeks I’ve been posting on Styling Characters in The Wall Of Night series:
The posts were sparked by a post in Kim Falconer’s More Than Meets The Eye series on the Supernatural Underground:
Currently, Kim has a new post in the series:
