Jeff Wheeler's Blog, page 4

Cover Reveal – Harbinger Book 5 (Broken Veil)

This is it! The final cover art reveal for the last book in the Harbinger series. I can’t wait to share the final chapters of this saga with you. It’s going to be epic!

Book 5 of The Harbinger Series: Broken Veil (coming June 11, 2019)

Enjoy!

 

Pre-order now:

https://amzn.to/2AMMSHT

 

Guest blog: Charlie N Holmberg

I’m pleased to announce a guest blog today from my good friend Charlie N Holmberg. She and I taught a class together last spring at the Storymakers 2018 conference called “The Anatomy of a Short Story“. She’s a great presenter and we had a lot of fun delivering the class together and with our friends from Deep Magic. We distilled the ingredients of a great short story, but these elements also work in fiction of any length. So I invited her to come by my blog and share with all of you what we shared with our class. Enjoy!

One Serving of Short Story, Please

Guest post by Charlie N. Holmberg

 

Today’s readers are so on-the-go, so busy, that many don’t have time to sit down to a whole novel. We need something that can pack the same punch while we commute to work or sit on the can, and so we turn to short stories. The higher demand for these short, punchy pieces of fiction has more and more writers turning to them for fun and income, but the recipe for writing one is not the same we follow to write a book. It’s like skipping lunch for an energy bar. It has the same ingredients—tension, great characters, and consistent pacing—but in smaller, stronger quantities.

 

Bite One: The Beginning

 

Make sure it tastes good, or the reader won’t finish! Great hooks are critical for short stories. A reader doesn’t have the time or the patience to “see if this gets good.” It needs to start good. The shorter the story, the quicker the hook. This first bite also needs to orient the reader so she knows exactly what flavor (genre and mood) she’s getting. The beginning of a short story should establish some form of sympathy for the protagonist, as well as reveal the central conflict of the tale.

 

Bite Two: The Middle

 

This is where our energy bar gets chunky. Fruit, chocolate, nuts—whatever it is, it’s an obstacle. Something that stops the conflict from being resolved and/or prevents the protagonist from achieving his goal. The reader wasn’t aware this quick meal was going to change, and now we’ve amped up tension and worry. This build of suspense is what’s going to make a reader take that last bite, so it’s critical!

 

Bite Three: The End

 

Ah, the bite that brings it all together. The flavor meshes with the rest of the bar, but there could be something startling in there. Something our consumer wasn’t expecting at all. Maybe, even, something they can’t put their finger on. One nice thing about short stories is that their creators have a little more bend with their endings as opposed to a novel. Maybe this whole time the reader wasn’t eating an energy bar, but a parfait! *gasp*

 

In other words, it’s a great thing to surprise the reader, so long as their quick meal fulfills the promises it made in bite one. And we want a strong aftertaste—also known as emotional resonance—that keeps the story in the reader’s mind even after he’s put it down.

To quote The Emotional Craft of Fiction: How to Write the Story Beneath the Surface by Donald Maass:

 

“Why is it important to look at fiction writing through the lens of emotional experience? Because that’s the way readers read. They don’t so much read as respond. They do not automatically adopt your outlook and outrage. They formulate their own. You are not the author of what readers feel, just the provocateur of those feelings. You may curate your characters’ experiences and put them on display, but the exhibit’s meaning is different in thousands of ways for thousands of different museum visitors, your readers.”

 

To end, here are some baking techniques for the creation of a short-story-energy-bar:

 

Use a single point of view
Eliminate unnecessary characters
Crunch your timeline
Condense worldbuilding
Utilize succinct sentences

 

I am an outliner, and I highly recommend outlines for short stories, as they keep the writer from meandering too far from the heart of the story. Being able to see your recipe from start to finish will also help you establish clarity in your prose and plan out plot twists, all of which will make for a more enjoyable story. And if the reader likes her meal, she’ll definitely come back for more.

 

Hungry yet?

 

Thanks Charlie! Her newest book (Smoke & Summons) is available now on Kindle through Amazon First Reads.

 

Charlie and I will both be teaching again (different classes this time) at Storymakers 2019. (May 9-11 in Provo, Utah).

Registration begins Jan 23rd!

 

Charlie N Holmberg

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A new Kingfountain story

In the author’s note at the end of The Poisoner’s Enemy, I promised to write one more story about one of my all-time favorite characters–Ankarette Tryneowy, the Queen’s Poisoner. I’m pleased to announce that it ended up being more than a short story, more like a novella, and it will be featured in the Winter 2018 issue of Deep Magic. It was so fun to enter that world again, to go into the story of a character that so many of you love so much.

So, that issue will be published on December 11, 2018. You can find it here:

https://amzn.to/2TiVX2L

I’m also pleased to announce that two of my stories (The Beesinger’s Daughter and Metamorphistry) are featured in the new print anthology that we’re doing in Deep Magic. It’s available on kindle or paperback. If you order the paperback version, you can get the e-book as well for only $0.99 through the Kindle Matchbook program. This is the same for all my books actually. If you order the print version, the Kindle version is discounted. This anthology is impressive – 23 stories and novellas, the best of the best stories we published over the last two years including stories by Charlie N Holmberg, Maria V Snyder, and DK Holmberg. They also include stories by authors you don’t know but will be glad you discovered.

Link: https://amzn.to/2RSVeDM

It’s a great book to add to your collection.

If you haven’t picked up the newest book in my Harbinger series, it launched this week. IRON GARLAND is taking the world by storm right now. And the next book, PRISM CLOUD, comes out in March, just around the corner. The fifth and final book in the series is also finished and going through edits right now with my publisher. This is truly an epic story. I think you’ll love it.

Until later!

-Jeff

 

Adventures in China

I’m back home again! I’ve just returned from a month-long visit to China, where I was invited to be part of the 2018 International Writing Program in Beijing. It was truly an amazing experience. This was my 3rd time to China (the previous two visits happened when I worked at Intel), but my first time as a tourist as well. I attended with authors from many other counties (Italy, Greece, Croatia, Peru, Colombia) and we were hosted by the LuXun Academy of Literature.

Because of some school vacations, I brought my family with me during the first two weeks of the trip and we got to see some amazing sights. We visited the Great Wall, Forbidden City, Summer Palace, Temple of Heaven, ate scorpions at Wangfujing alley, and saw some amazing sights.

This picture is from Summer Palace – known as the “stone boat”. I had researched it while writing Silent Shield (book 5 of Kingfountain). This is the boat that crossed to the palace where Trynne went to rescue Evie. It was so amazing to be at the place that I had written about!

During my stay, I did some appearances with my Chinese publisher (six of my books were translated into Mandarin this year). I went to one of the top bookstores in Shanghai and interviewed with many Chinese publications. At the bookstore event, I got to meet the “Stephen King” of China, Cai Jun–he’s sold over 15 million books over there. Quite impressive. We had a dialogue between us and then asked questions by the audience. The bookstore, as you’ll see in the pictures below, was amazing.

This was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I learned so much about Chinese culture and got to meet some of my Chinese fans. Even better, I got to see the sights with my family and expose them to the Beijing subway system, chopsticks, and some amazing food. We will never forget this experience.

While we were there, I was inspired by much of the scenery and locations for the next project I want to write. Now that I’ve finished writing the final book of Harbinger (Broken Veil), I’m ready to sink my teeth into something new. I’m going to weave into my story some fun things I learned about while visiting China as well as other story ideas I’ve been stewing on this last year.

It’s great to be back but I wouldn’t have traded this experience. I made some new friends, checked off some bucket list items, and now I’m ready to get back to work and write some books.

 

Cover Reveal – Harbinger Book 4 (Prism Cloud)

I’ll say it, this is my favorite cover so far in this series. It my even be my favorite book in the series too.

Book 4 of The Harbinger Series: Prism Cloud (coming March 5, 2019)

Enjoy!

 

Pre-order now:

https://amzn.to/2D7J7jV

New adventures

A few days ago, I was reminded unexpectedly about how many adventures we go through in our lives. Some we see coming. Others catch us by surprise. But often we come across mile-markers on the road of life that remind us of where we’ve come from, or signs that point the way going forward.

As an example, we attended a family reunion at Bear Lake last week. Seeing the nieces and nephews growing up is a reminder of how time flies. We did some things we haven’t done before (like riding in a 6-seater ATV). Not knowing where the path is going to take you, having to backtrack and go another way, certainly reminds me of my publishing career. But a truly neat experience happened when we stopped for raspberry shakes in town and ran into a young man who we’d known as a missionary years ago. That we recognized and remembered him, and he remembered us and our names, made it a sweet reunion–and not just because of the shakes!

New adventures await as well. I’ve been invited to Beijing for the International Writing Program as a guest speaker in September. I’m hoping to wrap of the final book of the Harbinger series while I’m there. It should be fun as well as educational. My next post will probably be from there.

Which brings me to what triggered this post to begin with. I was searching for an old e-mail this week and came across many of the query letters I sent years ago. Among those were also many rejection letters too. As I looked at the dates (June 2008) I realized that I’ve been on this journey for more than 10 years. Even more if I go back to high school. I get asked for writing advice a lot, but for me the thing that has stuck out the most is the need to stick to it. To not give in to discouragement or rejection. Keep trying, keep writing. Some of the people who rejected me 10 years ago are people I know in the industry now. I have no hard feelings. It was all part of the amazing journey that we (you and I) have been on together. Thanks for sticking with me along the bumpy ride!

You never know what’s around the next corner!

-Jeff

P.S. I’d like to say a personal welcome to baby Brandon Tayt Miller, who was born a few days ago and was named after Jon Tayt from the Covenant of Muirwood series. Maybe he’ll read this blog post someday!

 

 

Childhood Memories

Can you remember where you were when you saw Star Wars for the first time? I can. I was at the Century theaters in San Jose, California in 1977. The movie theater looked like the Death Star and my imagination was fired up when the music began and then a huge Star Destroyer flew overhead.

I grew up watching the original Battlestar Galatica, Lost in Space, and the TV show Buck Rogers. Star Trek re-runs was a Saturday afternoon ritual usually followed by hamburgers and soda in my house. All of these shows, and many more like the Bionic man and woman, made me a geek at heart and a storyteller.

I recently finished watching Netflix’s re-make of Lost in Space.

Part of me is glad that I didn’t have to actually wait week to week to see what happened next. The acting was great, the special effects superb, and the tension in each episode continued to ratchet-up. It’s good story telling full of human drama and a family with problems.

There’s only one thing I didn’t like about it. The swearing. Thankfully, I subscribe to VidAngel and could bleep out the profanity so I could show it to my kids.

And that’s the point of this post.

I miss the days where I didn’t have to do that. Where I didn’t have to cringe while watching a show, not sure what might come out of someone’s mouth. And it made me think about what creative people are using to inspire the next generation. Watching all these shows, as a kid, fired up my imagination. And yes, there were swear words back then too. It’s changed though. Dramatically.

I have a distinct memory of running around in the back yard repeating over an over a line from Star Wars, the scene where Han and Luke are trying to save Princess Leia and she blasts a hole into the garbage chute, Han curses at her, and she says, “someone’s gotta save our skins…into the garbage chute, flyboy!” Over and over, I get repeating the lines, including Han yelling at her, until my mom came out and asked me what I was saying. Then she told me that I was swearing and that I probably shouldn’t be yelling it across the neighborhood like I was. I still remember feeling chagrined because I didn’t even know what I was doing.

I believe words do have an effect on people. Maybe you’ll agree after this little video:

I still loved the new Lost in Space and recommend watching it and I hope Netflix produces another season.

When I was a teenager, some of those words began to enter my vocabulary. The more adult things I watched, the more it affected my language. I dreaded that something might slip out at home. There was always the threat of getting my mouth washed out with soap. Seriously. When I was sophomore, I felt bad enough that I wanted to do something about it. But it was difficult. Your brain becomes wired to think a certain way. Then I remember hearing some advice and I took it. If you want to break a bad habit, hold yourself accountable. So I decided that if I swore, I’d pay $5 to anyone near me. I kept some cash in my wallet. Yes, I did slip sometimes. There was one kid in one of my classes who wanted the money and he goaded me. But after about $20, the habit was broken. I had to think hard not to do it, but losing the cash was a painful incentive to stop.

And so I did. It’s harder than you think. Try it for a week if you don’t believe me.

I don’t think it’s wrong to picture someone’s kid in mind when writing a book or planning a TV show. I was only six when Star Wars came out and yet it’s inspired me my entire life. We don’t have to continue to adult-up content, hoping to make it appeal to an older audience too.

But let’s keep in mind the kiddos and what we’re inspiring them with. Ok?

 

Cover reveal: Book 2 of the Harbinger Series

I know book 1 isn’t even out yet, but here’s the cover reveal for book 2 of the new Harbinger Series. I hope it continues to broaden the scope of your imagination as you see things in this world that you haven’t seen before.

I have enjoyed writing these characters and their story just keeps getting better and better. I’ve finished book 3 and am hard at work on book 4 right now so that you (dear reader) will not have to wait long in between them. I’m excited to share these with you.

There is also some news that any fans of Landmoor and Silverkin will be excited to hear. I sold the audio rights to these two books and they are being produced as audiobooks. We’ve chosen a capable and skilled narrator to bring these characters to life. Watch for news in the future when this will be available.

I will be at LDStorymakers in Provo, UT next week. If you happen to be there, stop by and say hi! I’ll be giving away some ARCs of Storm Glass there.

 

Dreams come true

March has been an amazing month so far, one where dreams literally have come true. I spent a great weekend in Seattle at Emerald City Comic Con and met some fans as well as authors who have inspired me for years. I visited my publisher and fellow authors at Amazon headquarters, signed a few books, and even appeared on some panels. My favorite was undoubtedly being on a panel with Terry Brooks and Robin Hobb. They were both so gracious and kind and I’m still pinching myself that it happened.

I  heard that there will be a video for the panel we did together, so I’ll post it when I find out that it has happened. As if that wasn’t enough publicity, I was also interviewed by the East Idaho Times and talk about writer’s block and other topics. You can read that article here: Bestselling local author gives advice on beating writer’s block

And I also wanted to let you know that there is a massive sale going on for my Kingfountain series (both kindle and print) until the end of the month. Some of the Muirwood books are on sale too.

The Kingfountain series: http://amzn.to/2GeBZlO

Legends of Muirwood series: http://amzn.to/2IIQXPz

Thanks to the fans who came by to meet me during Emerald City Comic Con. It was so great to see you in person. I consider it a privilege to write for you and I wish I could visit all of you in whatever city you may be in. I promise I will try to make my next series just as compelling as the ones you’ve already finished. I’m over half-way done writing The Harbinger Series so that you won’t have to wait long between books. Hopefully you’ll enjoy it as much as my first readers have.

 

Each day is a blessing. Dream big – sometimes they do

 

Cover Reveal: Book 1 of the Harbinger Series

It’s a little strange to be announcing a new series when I’m half-way done writing it and haven’t even told you, my dear fans and friends, what’s going on. But since Amazon won’t let me keep secrets from you (the pre-order page is up, after all), I thought I’d take a moment this morning and announce my new series by showing you the awesome cover art.

Ta-da!

For those interested, the pre-order page is here and it contains a little blurb about the story. Read it at your own risk! http://amzn.to/2EAtDlp

I hope you look forward to this new series. As an author, I’m always pushing myself and my imagination to new limits. The Harbinger series is a 5-book series. There will be some time gaps in between each book so you can watch how these characters progress. Another thing that is different is that there are two protagonists telling the story. They each have a different perspective and background and see the world differently. I think you’re going to love both of them but they are different and unique and so fun to write! Sometimes I can’t decide which of their stories I want to tell more.

To read the Harbinger series, you don’t need to have read any of my previous books. Ever since high school, I’ve been a fan of Charles Dickens and have grown to love other famous British authors like Jane Austen, Elizabeth Gaskell, the Bronte sisters, and Anthony Trollope. And I’ve always wanted to write a story set during an age like that. Except with magic and re-inventing things to make it feel new and exciting and…as always…unpredictable.

As I said, I’m already half-way through the series. Each will be published a couple months apart, like my other books have been, so you don’t have long to wait.

Get ready for an adventure that will take you places you could only dream about!