J.M. Robison's Blog, page 10

Should main characters die?

Should main characters die? Should they be brought back to life?This closely correlates with my other postTo Kill or Not to Kill Characters. First, I want to touch again on WHY a main character dies:WHY:To emotionally jar your reader. Humans love drama. We love to be emotionally jarred. I can prove this because since Adam and Eve, the world has gone through periods of war and periods of peace, over and over; through the bible, through our own recorded history, and even in our individual lives. It’s impossible for humans to maintain the same homeostasis. We war because we have this deep need to shake up our emotions. We have peace because our emotions need a break. And then we want them shaken up again.So main characters die to jar the reader. Now be careful doing this, because you dance the fine line of pissing off your readers. You have to take the readers’ emotions into account; they have invested a deep connection to your character and they don’t want your character to die any more than they want their real life best friend to die. So when you kill a main character, make sure it MAKES SENSE. Humans hate senseless deaths, in real life and in books.The rules of killing your main character:1)Make sure your main character's deathMAKES SENSEand isREALISTIC. You WILL lose readership if your main characters die because they choke on their mashed potatoes (note I said MAIN character. I have no ruling on how SIDE characters should die at this moment.) When does it make sense? When they are a soldier and they die in battle (the situation is realistic and makes sense: soldier=battle). When they are a gang member and they die in a knife fight (the situation is realistic and makes sense: gang=knife fights). When they are kidnapped by the antagonist and go through a series or tortures (the situation is realistic and makes sense: the kidnapped=endless sadistic possibilities for the antagonist).2)If you kill them, don't bring them back to life. Here's why...{a}:A good book to show my example comes from Dragons of Autumn Twilight (Dragonlance). In this book, 2 main characters both die, and they are brought back to life by magic. I was emotionally disturbed by the first death (but accepted it because it made sense to the situation. She was fighting a dragon. Pretty easy to die there.) But she was so easily brought back to life, that when the 2nd character died, I didn’t care at all because I knew he’d be brought back to life too. And he was.Humans revere death with a certain ceremony. We might dig mountains into deep pits, we might figure out how to make it rain when we want, but if there is absolutely the one thing we cannot change, it is death. Though I miss my father, I would be horrified and so emotionally broken if he came back to life that I'd be forever mentally changed. And that is because I’ve revered his death with the proper ceremony already. I've sealed that box. We even bury beloved animals though in nature wild dogs eat each other when they die. We bury them because we need that ceremony, that transition from one existence to another for our own closure and sanity.So don’t bring characters back to life. Unless you do. Then follow this rule:RULE:Just like their death MADE SENSE and was REALISTIC, make their resurrection MAKE SENSE and be REALISTIC. Don’t just kill a main character because he looked sexy when he died and bring him back to life because you still need him in the story. Harry Potter's death made sense in the last book. And so did his resurrection.In another book of mine, the second chapter you see an object and this object is referenced throughout the story so you know it’s still there, but still have no idea what it is. Then toward the end, main character #1 dies. After his death, main character #2 finally realizes this strange object she’s been carrying around has the ability to bring him back to life, and she uses it and he comes back to life.I get away with doing this because it wasn’t random. It was a planned out from chapter 2, and that helps reassure readers you had everything under control and it was written into the story to happen. It MADE SENSE when he was brought back to life after you realized his death and his resurrection were written into the story, even if you didn’t realize it until the end.JM Robison is the author ofThe War Queen, published by Tirgearr Publishing.

To kill or not to kill characters

Why should you kill characters? When should you kill characters? How many characters should you kill?WHY:For me, I kill characters when they stop being useful to me. Harsh? If they aren’t paying the rent, I can’t afford to feed them anymore and they’ve got to go. Because if I keep them despite their uselessness, they become extra baggage hanging off my arm that is annoying to me and the reader who also has to suffer through their uselessness. People don't like useless people.I was beta reading a story for someone and they had 6 main characters, a couple bad guys, and side characters. This book was a 3 part series, and I read them all. And only one person died, and it was a bad guy. I was SO STUNNED that the author of this story actually killed someone beside the nameless soldier in battle that I congratulated her. But the actual issue was that those 6 main characters she had were all useless. All of them faded to the background in books 2 and 3 so the whole story could have carried on without them. She kept these characters even though they served no purpose and I could not figure out why.Think of it this way… Imagine you have a new litter of puppies. They are so cute and everyone loves them. They are great fun but as they get older, you realize you need to give some of them away for whatever good reason you have. Now you just have 2 of these growing puppies. They bark a little but your neighbors don’t mind because it’s an accepted hazard for owning a dog, and everyone goes on about their life.Now imagine instead the same new batch of puppies, except you don’t get rid of any of them. You keep them all and they grow up, and they each demand your time and attention with food, water, and play time. And all of them bark all the time. Now your neighbors hate you and they hate your dogs because they are constantly barking and keeping your neighbors (and you) awake at night and nobody is happy and your neighbors are just praying for the day your dogs are gone.Now trade this puppy analogy for your characters. Your characters need nurturing just like a real dog needs play time and water. If you don’t nurture your character, it will fade to the background and hang there like a burr, irritating you and irritating the reader. Everything in a story should serve a purpose. EVERYTHING. (Now Mrs. Pederson can rest in peace because I said this.) If a character serves zero purpose, either don’t create it or get rid of it in a meaningful way.So why do you kill a character? Because everything (and everyone) must serve a purpose, must earn their keep and pay their rent because you can’t afford to feed them if they aren’t working. If they can’t pay the rent, kick them out. Blood suckers, anyway.WHEN:I disagree with Game of Thrones (I’ve seen only 2 episodes and those were by mistake), who kill anyone for any purpose. Readers want a character they can grow with, invest their emotional account on. Readers want to see a character struggle in the beginning, watch how they conquer their demons, and see them rise victorious at the end. You can’t do that if you kill them off. It’s heartbreaking and I don’t have the emotional stability to accept that as being okay in my screwed-up life where I think characters are real people (which is why I don’t watch GOT. Also because of the incest which deeply bothers me).With that, characters should die WHEN it matters. Again, I disagree with GOT who kill characters on a whim. I hate that. Characters, in a sense, are real people. We hate death of real people we know when it appears senseless (a car crash, a suicide, my father who passed away with post-polio leaving my mother nearly destitute). Now, you think of the common soldier who dies in combat. That death hurts less to us because it doesn’t come as a surprise, and when they die we say meaningful things like, “He fought for his country/he died with honor/I am proud he gave his life for me.”The same thing for characters. If the reader has invested their emotional account on your character, and the character randomly meets his demise by choking to death on his mashed potatoes, the reader is going to be pissed off and you’ll risk losing your readership. But if you take that same character who dies in some way that MAKES SENSE, the death still hurts but the reader accepts it as the natural part of life. It doesn’t even have to be valiant and noble, but it has to make sense to the reader and to the situation.So when? When the death is realistic and makes sense to the situation the character has been put into (like a battle. That’s an easy one.)HOW MANY?I think GOT kills too many. I thought the story I beta read didn’t kill enough. So how do you know? If you have 5 main/side characters who go to battle, it is HIGHLY unrealistic for no one to die. Because you take 5 soldiers in real life and have them charge into a fire fight, chances are high that at least one of them will die.So when you choose how many, think of a percentage for yourself, and to help out I will give you examples of how many I kill. In my novel, The War Queen, I have 2 main characters and 5 side characters. I kill off one side character (because he stopped paying his rent) and I grievously wound one of my main characters (because, duh, a battle, and I don’t kill off main characters because of my above reason for the WHY). So when you choose how many, make it realistic. If they go to battle, one should likely die or at the very least get very hurt. The hint here is to be REALISTIC (which is the same answer for WHEN a character should die). Compare it to real life. How many people have you known that have died, and in what way? Use that same percentage for your story, because nothing is more realistic than real life.So how many? If they cease serving a purpose, kill them (or have them exit the story somehow. Don’t cling onto them if they stop paying their rent.) And if the death is realistic to the situation.JM Robison is the author ofThe War Queen, published by Tirgearr Publishing.

Villains are made, not born

The inspiration for this blog post comes from The Wizard’s First Rule by Terry Goodkind. It came about at the part where character X is kidnapped by Mistress A. Mistress A declares she will “train” X by inflicting massive pain upon him. Like any logical person, X asks her,“And what is the purpose of my training, Mistress A?”To which she replies:"To teach you the meaning of pain. To teach you that your life is no longer yours, that it is mine, and I can do anything I want with it. Anything. I can hurt you in any way I want, for as long as I want, and no one is going to help you but me. I'm going to teach you that every moment you have without pain is a moment only I can grant you. You are going to learn to do as I say without question, without hesitation, no matter what it is. You are going to learn to beg for anything you get." To which she also says, “I enjoy it when a man makes it hard.”Why does Mistress A have this desire to inflict pain on others? What is her goal for doing so?It’s not enough for the character to say, “I enjoy it when a man makes it hard.” You need to address the REASON why she enjoys it, otherwise she’s a rebel without a cause, an antagonist with no GOAL. To be a realistic antagonist, a goal and the reason for wanting that goal need to be addressed.See these examples. Read them all or just a few.1) Take real life villains. I choose ISIS – the Islamic terrorist group infiltrating every country. Their GOAL is to kill everyone who does not follow their religion. The REASON is because their religion tells them to kill everyone who does not follow their religion. There is a clear goal and a clear why. Thus, our real life antagonists.2) My sister-in-law, JJ. JJ is an attention hog, to the point she will intentionally create massive drama so she can be in the center of it, because everyone will see her. What’s her GOAL? To be the center of attention. What is the REASON for that goal? Because she’s a narcissist.3) Hitler killed Jews due to claims they had turned against Germany during the First War. Also that they were behind the downfall of Germany in WWI. His GOAL was to kill the Jews. The REASON was because he believed they had turned against Germany during the First War. (Note that a villain’s claims don’t have to be true, only that the villain believes them to be true.)4) In a fantasy book of mine, the villain wants to kill every race of people that are non-human. That’s his GOAL. The REASON is because he has the deep subconscious belief that he’s a fallen god and those non-humans he wants to kill were a mistake he created.5) In another fantasy book of mine, the villain keeps a wizard imprisoned so my villain can harvest the wizard’s magic. The GOAL for doing this is to harvest the wizard’s magic. The REASON the villain wants to harvest the wizard’s magic is so my villain can use the magic to create money and make himself rich._______________________________They all have the same elements in these examples, even the real-life villains: they all have a GOAL and a REASON for wanting that goal.Below are the excuses – disguised as reasons - villains may use to justify their goal:EXCUSE FOR BEHAVOIR: They want power (such as “taking over the world”)GOAL: Kill everyone who opposes themEXCUSE FOR BEHAVOIR: They love to inflict pain on othersGOAL: to inflict pain on othersI call them excuses - instead of reasons – because those still open up questions as to WHY. WHY do they want to take over the world? WHY do they love to inflict pain on others?See these excuses changed into reasons:REASON FOR WANTING POWER: He was beholden to his captors for 20 years and, finally freed, wants to reclaim his dignity and prove to himself he will never be beholden to anyone again.GOAL: Make as many people as he can conquer be beholden to him.REASON FOR LOVING TO INFLICT PAIN ON OTHERS: Someone hurt her. Badly, and for so long that the pain became an additional sensation she could feel, and she forced that sensation to thrill her so began craving it instead. She did that because it’s much easier to handle a thrilling sensation than a painful one. She wanted to show other people what this amazing sensation was, so she kidnapped them and inflicted pain on them because that is how she learned how amazing the sensation of pain can feel.GOAL: Share with others the thrilling sensation of pain_____________________________We shy away from giving villains reasons for their goal because – at the very core of it – that villain likely suffered as a victim at some point in their life, and that suffering was a direct cause for them growing into a villain. Human nature doesn’t like seeing suffering, and to see the villain suffering before they were a villain makes us want to pity them instead of hate them, and we are supposed to hate the villain, aren’t we? I saw a quote that said, “Evil queens are the princesses who were never rescued.” A villain is never born. A villain is made by outside forces. You noticed my picture of Walter White from Breaking Bad. He didn't start out as a villain. He was dying of cancer and his wife nagged at him to pay for treatment. Cancer treatment is expensive. So Walter White produced meth and sold it to pay for it. And the villainy began.PRACTICE THIS:As you go about your year, find the villain in books and movies and find their REASON and their GOAL. Here are some ideas to get you started:Darth VadarVoldemortThe JokerCaptain HookYou might be surprised that there are a lot of villains who have a goal but lack the reason for it. For further advice on making realistic villains, see thisBLOGRight. Back to reading The Wizard’s First Rule and enduring an insufferable villain while she tortures character X without a reason.

What Makes The War Queen Different From Other Fantasy And Romance Novels?

I pride myself in writing a book with unique elements you don't see (or see very little of) in other fantasy romance books.First of all, what is The War Queen about? 300 years ago, the people dethroned their king and queen to prevent another tyranny. Now instead, the people nominate a State Head every three years and Altarn is the first female to hold the position. She’s used to tolerating the biases of men but Kaelin, the State Head of his territory, has declared her incompetent and has even, according to Altarn, threatened to steal her land – she believes he wants to make himself king. Believing she must “dethrone” Kaelin, Altarn rides to her last ally to ask for aid in the war against Kaelin she knows is coming. But in her absence an army launches an attack… and it’s not Kaelin’s.Taking advantage of the startling situation, Kaelin kidnaps Altarn so he can take her land without her in the way. Soon realizing he needs her help to fight this army instead, he releases her and, since Altarn’s army is too small to win the war alone, she is forced to accept his help, but payment for his help will be her land. No one believes Kaelin is secretly trying to make himself king, so after the battle is won, alone in her knowledge and lacking allies, Altarn must become the War Queen of legend to dethrone another king… though she unexpectedly dethrones his heart instead.SO WHAT MAKES THIS DIFFERENT FROM OTHER FANTASY ROMANCES?1-This is a clean romance (no sex - not even the "behind closed doors" sex. Period. It doesn't happen -, no petting, no nudity). You might feel this is not unique, but consider for a moment our reality... it is 2016. I picked up a young adult novel - a romance - and these teenagers engaged in sex. Why are authors writing books about teenagers engaging in sex being normal? And the world wonders why we have a growing rate of teenage pregnancies.Anyway, off my soap box. There is no sex in The War Queen, yet it is a romance. So how did I write a sexless romance? Here's my secret: sex does not make a romance. Passion makes a romance, and you can have passion without sex. If you write it well, the readers will feel the passion without seeing it.I am not ashamed to hold to my core values about waiting to have sex until after marriage and keeping it sacred within the bedroom and not aired in books or TV.2-The War Queen is a romance, but it is also fantasy. Staged in a made-up world, my heroine and hero engage in a battle. The unique part about this battle, is my weapon system and the method to deploy them. I call this weapon the "shorn" and those who wield the shorn are called "shredders". A shorn comes in a pair and is a wing-shaped blade, serrated on the outside. It looks something like this:With the shorn it's not so simple to charge forward and slash and slice like you might a sword. No. The shorn's effectiveness comes when a long, single line of shredders stand shoulder to shoulder, waiting for the cue of 500 violins behind them to dance.This dance is strategic, and all shredders know it. When the cue in the music is given, the shredders draw their shorns and "dance" in sync against the front line of the enemy. Would you like to see what this looks like? Play the link to the song I provided and read a passage taken out of The War Queen while you do so:_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Listen to this song:While you read this excerpt taken from The War Queen:A nervous violin player fidgeted close to Altarn, pacing in small movements about his area, clenching his instrument and bow in his gloved hands as if he might use them as a weapon.“Eldic.” Altarn’s voice slashed through the cold dark.The violinist looked up.“Play.”The lad nodded as if on instinct instead of willingness. Altarn could almost hear his bones scream in protest as he set the instrument under his chin and the bow against the strings. The first draw on the bow sang shakily, giving away the nervousness of the player. But the cold sound sliced through the air like a blade, reaching wide and far in the weightless silence of the falling snow.The reverse pull on the bow brought a sound more confident, and Altarn relaxed her shoulders, having not realized their tension.The music bloomed as the player soaked in its power, and he dipped and plunged to the intensities of each pitch. The song cried through the cold with a haunting strength, absorbed by her soldiers who shifted and squared shoulders, feeding off the pleasant distraction from the fear beating in their ears.At her signal, the boy played the command for the archers. A shower of arrows burst from the cliff in a falling storm of daggers. Even with the dim moonlight she couldn’t tell how many Foreigners the arrows felled. Two more volleys followed. The army was closer, so close in Altarn’s tunnel vision that she swore she could reach out and touch them.“Prepare.”The player transitioned smoothly into a quicker pace with distinct turns in the chord. The violinists, flutists, and drummers mingling below with the army replied.They started out of tune with late players finally joining in—the new volunteers. But they caught on quickly enough for Altarn’s anxious satisfaction.She looked at Kaelin to see what he thought of it, but his head was already in motion as if trying to catch the sound, to dissect it, because the song caused something to stir within the soldiers that no battle cry could do.The Foreigners lurched forward.“Draw!” Altarn shouted unnecessarily, barely able to pinch the creep of fear invading her heart.The player changed the tune. The sound echoed within the formation. A distant hiss joined the song as shredders unshouldered their shorns. Shredders stepped forward as dual wielders stepped back.Altarn looked beyond their heads to see if the switching of weapons to the vanguard had any effect on the Foreigners. It did. Their advancing line stopped.“Rush in line, start on cue.”The player communicated this through the song to the players ahead. The song made three jumps. On the third jump, the shredders lurched forward as one.The front line of the Foreigners turned around and ran.Altarn could not hear the whinny of escaping horses or the shout of officers that must be spitting fire upon their fleeing troops. But it didn’t matter. Five paces and the shredders converged on the vanguard. The scream of metal echoed back to her on the hilltop. Her viewpoint showed Huilian’s army succumbing to the first strike; there was too much flying metal they were not prepared for.The fact that most of them were turned around helped. Their frontline established once again, they set their shields but the teeth on the edge of the shorns pushed them aside. In a deadly dance, the shredders whirled in sync like a daggered whirlwind.___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________3-Something lacking in today's literature are female protagonists. I don't know why that is. Maybe women are supposed to be the romantic reward for the male protagonist? Because people still find females weak or too gentle to be effective characters against the dark forces of whatever beguiles them? Whatever the reason, female protagonists are sorely lacking in literature. I'm proud to say Altarn in The War Queen is a female and is the protagonist AND is in charge of an entire state, similar to America's President and you get to see her leading an army to battle. I had the pleasure of writing about her struggles and how she overcomes them.4-Another thing I made unique to The War Queen is I did not make my hero handsome. Not unique you argue? Please look at every Hollywood male star and every romance book you've ever read. Are all the men not handsome/perfect in every way? Certainly I'm not the first to break this ideal, but think upon a book or a movie where the hero is not handsome. Did you find one? Maybe. But for that one there are 30 others where the hero is handsome.I could spend three pages explaining why I made my hero NOT handsome, but I'll let you choose for yourself if you want to read about it by going to this BLOG.My hero is introduced to you in this passage:______________________________His sleeveless shirt, in typical Ruid fashion, showed off their trademark tattoo of smoking ribbons up his right arm. The tall neck of the shirt buttoned around his throat and the sharp angles on his face and hard muscle on his naked arms testified to his time in soldiery.He’d been on the road for a while, because the thick chunks of copper-brown hair in disarray about his skull matched a dusty goatee and several days’ worth of stubble under his chin. A crooked nose from an old break added to the handful of years he had over her. Altarn’s hackles prickled as he came close enough for her to see his eyes were blue.______________________________If you think that passage described him as handsome, that is up to you. As the reader, you have a right to understand the story as you want. But note I did not write it that way.FINAL NOTE:Don't think you can have a romance without sex? Do you consider violins in battle as being too strange to be effective? Doubt my heroine can fall in love with my hero because he's not physically appealing? Read The War Queen and judge for yourself and comment your feelings on this blog. No fear. I love talking with readers about all the good, the bad, and the ugly. Especially the ugly!

War Queen fun facts

(O) I conceived the idea for The War Queen In 2008. I'd gone for a midnight walk to the pillars above ISU campus in Pocatello, ID. I'm fairly imaginative and always creating stories and scenarios in my head, so while sitting beneath the pillars by myself, I imagined that some god had fallen on the pillars and that's why they were broken. And thus Fangbor came to be.

One thing to understand about me as a writer; I am a pantster 100% (which means I write by the seat of my pants instead of having a clear outline before I begin the story.) For me, as long as I have a shady beginning, questionable middle, and blurry ending, I dive in and begin writing. For the War Queen, I had a beginning and a middle, but no ending. This usually isn't a problem for me, since I've never had trouble creating the story as I write it. But so far in the story, I had ideas right up to where Altarn and Kaelin revealed themselves for who they really were, but after that I had no idea, and continuing to write wasn't producing any more ideas for me, so I stopped writing.

I sat on The War Queen for 7 years. I mused about it sometimes, but it stayed in a notebook shoved in my bookcase and I really can't say how it survived 4 moves. I wasn't writing it and really didn't care to finish.

I was on writing.com one day, browsing through their contest listings so I could enter one, and I found a short story contest. "Well," I thought, "I've only written 20 pages in The War Queen and have no idea how to continue, so I could turn it into a short story, I guess."

I started to work it together in my mind how I wanted this short story to go. In the process of thinking about it, this thought punched me in the throat: "Kaelin kidnaps Altarn." An explosion went off in my head, and idea after idea tumbled into my hands and within 3 hours I had step-by-step process on how my story would end, to include all my side characters, their names, and word-for-word dialogue. I've never had a story come so clear and easy to me before.

I never did enter that short story contest.

(O) The only reason why I made Herten blind was so I could practice writing scenes using every sensory but sight, because as writers we rely too heavily on sight and not enough of the other senses. Making him blind forced me to exercise those other senses.

(O) Ratavia's comment about Jessom "should have been a woman's monthly bleed-rag" I took directly from my aunt. A guy told my aunt that he was God's gift to women, and she replied, "Then you missed your calling in life. You should have been born a tampon."

(O) Jessom saying, "he needed to ride the horse before he bought it" comes directly from something a guy said to me. This guy was moaning the fact that he feared his girlfriend might be pregnant, and so I replied with perfectly sensible wisdom, "You should probably not have had sex with her before you married her, then." And his reply, "You have to drive the car before you buy it."

(O) I hate romances. I think they are cheesy and predictable. So much to my dismay, then, when 3 beta readers for The War Queen told me, "What a great romance!" Romance? I didn't write a romance. I wrote a fantasy. Wanting to prove them wrong, I googled the elements of a romance... and The War Queen qualified. I was so mad. It took me 3 months to come to terms with this. I'd been rejected for publication 40 times already, and when I started pitching my story as a fantasy romance and not just a fantasy, 2 agents requested to read my whole book and I secured a publishing contract with a publisher.

(O) Ruidenthall's tattoo I took from a soldier I knew by the name of Austin Powers (Thank you, SPC Powers!) He had a tribal sleeve tattoo on his arm and I liked how it looked.

(O) I didn't know what the belldew flower looked like until the 5th draft.

(O) I created the shorns and the musicians to deploy them because I'd written a lot of battle scenes already in other stories of mine, and I felt the whole sword-charge-at-the-front was cliché and boring. I created the shorns and the musicians to bring a fresh take on how battles might be fought, and I like to be as original as possible.

(O) While creating the shorn, I wanted a metal that was super lightweight but super strong, could be mined easily and found in abundance and cheap to manufacture, and I wanted it copper-colored because, you know, I can. Nothing in real life matched my needs. And then I thought, "This is a fantasy. I make stuff up all the time." I named my creation lithalium.

(O) I was a deputy sheriff at the time I wrote my 1st draft to The War Queen. I worked in the county jail and for a full month it was my job to escort an inmate to court for her trial. Every day for a month I sat in the back of the court room for 8 hours with my only job being to make sure my inmate didn't get out of hand, which she never did. With all this extra time on my hands in the court room, I wrote the 1st draft to The War Queen in a notebook by hand. Weird enough, that's probably why my first chapter has a court scene in it.

(O) I've had to learn some skills while writing The War Queen that have no bearing on my real life, namely how to make shoes, dye clothes, and home pigeons.

Read deleted scenes from THE WAR QUEEN

If you've read The War Queen, I have 2 deleted scenes for you to read. They were deleted because I had to cut 10,000 words during the editing stage and these 2 scenes didn't hold enough weight to earn their stay, so here they are:

http://jmrobison.wixsite.com/jmrobiso...

Save a Life. Write a Book.

I’m a happy person. My father also passed away too soon, my car was repossessed, I was fired from a job some years ago, deployed twice with the military (11 months away from family each time), and I live paycheck to pay check. But I’m happy. I deal with these stressors easily, and continue on with life as if nothing has happened.I’ve also written 7 booksIn these books characters die – sometimes horribly. Yes, I do that on purpose sometimes – characters are put through impossible situations that they somehow work out, face challenges, make mistakes, rise above, fall, and conquer.There is great therapy in writing about those thingsHumans are a destructive force: It should come as no surprise to any of us that we have, and have seen others, snap into aggression in an instant. You are the goddess of sunshine and flowers, and then the store you were trying to reach before they closed had closed 30 minutes early (8-5 actually meant 8-430, apparently). No longer the goddess of sunshine and flowers, you pound on the door, scream that you hate Elko, NV, and you begin to call their phone number so you can leave a nasty gram for them to listen to Monday morning when they open to hear how upset you were about their false advertising about their times.Humans build up stress: We build upon and we build upon until the straw that broke the camel’s back, and we explode. Ever watch Anger Management? There’s an analogy about a cashier who listens to complaining customers day after day, year after year and does nothing. Until one day they snap and shoot up the whole store.Humans need an outlet: It’s impossible to go through life and NOT get stressed out, but stress is like a 10 pound weight, sometimes heavier, and once you pick it up, you’ve got to put it down eventually, and sometimes you put it down on someone’s face, or throw it across the room and put a hole in the wall.What kind of an outlet do humans need? There are many outlets, but consider MY outlet. I’ve written 7 books. And I’m happy, remember? Because when I’m really upset, I create a fictional character fashioned after the person I’m angry with, and then kill them (the character, not the real person). I can write out all the details of how it is done and I can laugh manically while I do it.But nobody got hurt. And I feel remarkably betterWhen I’m upset and I sit down to write, I stop being upset because it is impossible to write while concentrating on how upset I am. It is one or the other. So I write, and stop being upset, and I feel better when I'm done.So save a life. Write a book. And consider this, ever heard of a serial killer author? Me neither.BACK TO MUSINGS

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Actual Historical Events Used in the Last Wizard

Since I based this story off of a real time period and place (Victorian Era England), I wanted to be as accurate as possible in my facts, and as an extra bonus I wanted to involve real historic events. Below are the events used in The Last Wizard:_______________________________________________________Wars of the RosesA series of dynastic wars for the throne of England. They were fought between supporters of two rival branches of the royal House of Plantagenet, the Houses of Lancaster and York. They were fought in several sporadic episodes between 1455 and 1487, although there was related fighting before and after this period. The final victory went to a claimant of the Lancastrian party, Henry Tudor, who defeated the last Yorkist king, Richard III, at the Battle of Bosworth Field.95 ThesesThe Ninety-Five Theses on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences were written by Martin Luther and are widely regarded as the initial catalyst for the Protestant Reformation. The disputation protests against clerical abuses, especially nepotism, simony, usury, pluralism, and the sale of indulgences. It is generally believed that, according to university custom, on 31 October 1517, Luther posted the ninety-five theses, which he had composed in Latin, on the door of All Saints’ Church in Wittenberg, Germany.THESE NUMBER 94: Christians should be exhorted to be diligent in following Christ, their Head, through penalties, death, and hell.Victorian EraThe Victorian Era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria’s reign from 20 June 1837 until her death, on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities, and national self-confidence for Britain. Within the fields of social history and literature, Victorianism refers to the study of late-Victorian attitudes and culture with a focus on the highly moralistic, straitlaced language and behavior of Victorian morality. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardian period.AUTHOR NOTE: With the exception to girls being tied into their dresses, locked in their rooms at night, and using certain perfumes dependent on their courting status, all other social expectations were based on the actual decrees put out by Queen Victoria.Middle AgesIn European history, the Middle Ages, or Medieval period, lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the collapse of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery. The Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history: Antiquity, Medieval period, and Modern period. The Medieval period is itself subdivided into the Early, the High, and the Late Middle Ages.

Win Prizes with Future Contests

FAN ART (Contest Currently Closed)There will be a call-out for War Queen fan-art. At that time, I will be accepting art that features some theme/item/character related to the War Queen. All skill levels will be accepted. Every submission (you can submit more than one art), will go through a judging process held by myself. I will choose which art I like the best and the winner will receive a miniature pair of shorns affixed to a wood plaque (just like the one Altarn gives Kaelin when he comes to Blindvar, wink wink.)All entrants, regardless of winning, will have a place on this blog with a link you provide me where people can find you on social media or art-related business website (like Finearts America, Deviant Art, etc.)FAVORITE LINE FROM BOOK (Contest Currently Closed)Upon reading the book, if there are lines that really strike you as having personal meaning to you and/or you just simply like it for whatever reason, then mention the line and explain why you like it. You may have multiple submissions. For every favorite line you share with me, your name will go into a drawing. The winner will receive Kaelin's belldew flower necklace.You may submit more than one favorite line, but each line must be accompanied by an explanation why you like it. If I can tell someone is doing this just to have their name submitted multiple times to increase their chances at winning, that line will not be counted.GO BACK TO GOODIES