Lorina Stephens's Blog, page 4

12:30 – 1:30PM Plotting vs Pantsing: A False Dichotomy

This panel will explore the line between plotting and pantsing, the benefits and disadvantages of each approach, and how to figure out what approach will work best for you.

Moderator Lex Vranick

Panelists: Sienna Frost, KJ Harrowick, KL Bone, Laura Nettles

2:30-3:30PM Understanding POVs: How To Choose the Right POV for a Story

Learn how to choose the right character to tell your story + how to choose between first, second, and third person POV.

Moderator Jade Benjamin

Panelists:Avery Ames, Lorina Stephens, A.P. Hawkins

4-5PM Group Dynamics: How To Write Scenes with Several Characters

Discover effective techniques for creating scenes with 5+ characters.

Moderator Charlie Knight

Panelists:Kaki Olsen, Jenn Gott, Caitlin Marceau, Neve Maslakovic

5:30-6:30PM Nailing the Ending: How To Write a Satisfying Story Conclusion

Learn how to wrap all of your story threads up into a satisfying ending.

Moderator CM Lockhart

PanelistsBarbara A Barnett, Tanya Gold, Ari Augustine, Diana Pharaoh

Sign up for Making the Habit: How to Build a Writing Routine

6:30-7:30PM Discord afterparty!!!

Celebrate the end of the event, chat about what you’ve learned about drafting, and generally have fun with the group!

How the panels work

All panels are hosted on Zoom. The first half hour will be devoted to questions from the moderator and the second half hour will be a Q&A session with audience questions.

In order to protect both our panelists and our participants’ privacy, video and audio streaming will be limited to panelists. Questions can be asked via the chat function instead.

What it costs

Storycrafting Sessions: Drafting is 100% free. However, there’s a lot of work that goes into making one of these events happen. We also need to pay for things like new webcams, storage space, and other tools to make these conferences work.

If you want to help us continue to host these events, there are a few ways to support us:

Supporter tickets. These are Pay What You Can tickets for our panels. Anyone who buys these tickets will gain access to our Conference Companion printable workbook.Ko-fi contributions. You can make a one-time payment right here on Ko-fi. The best part about this method is that we get to keep all of the money!Supporting membership program. You can join our monthly subscription program to support all of our endeavors AND gain access to cool perks like voting on panel topics at future events. Other perks include access to our Weeknight Writers Pro Discord and monthly Discord workshops.

Of course, all of this is voluntary. We understand that the past couple of years have been incredibly financially difficult for a lot of people and we don’t want you to feel pressured into giving us money that could be better spent feeding your family. If you do have something to spare, though, we’ll be grateful for your contribution.

Our commitment to safety

We take our panelists’ and participants’ safety and enjoyment seriously. This means a few things:

We do not tolerate hate speech of any kind.We do not tolerate spam. There will be designated areas for promoting your projects and sharing your social media accounts; posting this type of content outside of these areas will get you banned.We do not tolerate harassment or invasive questions targeted at our panelists or participants.We do not tolerate personal insults targeted at our panelists or participants.

We hold both panelists and participants to these standards. We can and will ban anyone who we consider to be endangering the safety of others, not just from this event but from all future events.

Our commitment to fun

We also want to make sure that everyone has fun during the conference! We aim to create a welcoming atmosphere in both our Discord servers and our panels.

This time around we’re hoping to have even more fun in the Discord server with planned discussion questions and activities.

Sign up for Plotting vs Pantsing: a False Dichotomy

Sign up for Understanding POVs: How to Choose the Right POV for Your Story

Sign up for Group Dynamics: How to Write Scenes With Several Characters

Sign up for Nailing the Ending: How to Write a Satisfying Story Conclusion

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Published on February 23, 2023 11:12

Caliban audiobook on Google

The main news

The main news is I’ve released Caliban in audiobook on Google Play. Why is this remarkable news when I already have Caliban available in audio at Audible, Amazon, Apple and Kobo?

Caliban It’s remarkable because it would appear Google no longer accepts narration outside of their AI narration service. Perhaps I’m mistaken and completely missed where I’d be able to upload my own files. But no matter at this point, because I took another deep dive into Google’s AI narration, and goodness me they have expanded that creative service. Now, not only are you able to choose gender and age range in English-speaking American, British, Australian and Indian accents, but you’re also able to choose a different narrator for every voice in your work.

As much as I’ve been railing against the proliferation of every new intrusion of AI into the arts, I do have to admit with some chagrin AI is here to stay, will develop, grow, and become more intuitive. Just look what Google’s been able to do with their AI narration in a very few months.

Is the narration as good as a human voice?

For now, I have to say no, Google’s AI narration isn’t as good as a human voice, and that’s because their AI program hasn’t yet learned how to inflect emotion, or interpret the author’s clues as to whether a person is upset, angry, joyous, or if the character is whispering, growling, yelling, or any of the gamut of human emotions a good writer conveys in their prose.

But I do also have to say AI narration is perfectly acceptable. It’s clear, if flat. And the program is teachable, in that you are able to correct pronunciation, to a certain degree. There was an instance regarding the word tear, which can be to cry, or to rip. I was on about the tenth audio correction when I finally gave up, because the AI program wasn’t picking up the clues in my voice.

The cost

At this point Google is offering their AI narration services free of charge. You will forgive me for some skepticism. It’s just that I remember when Google’s Business Suite was free back some 12 or so years ago. Last year the tech and media giant decided to monetize that feature, and all of us who were using the free version of Google Business Suite were now faced with either paying for some level of subscription, or lose not only access to all of Google’s feature like Maps, Calendar and such, but you also were unable to access your Gmail account. For me, that was a knife to the throat and I reluctantly, and with some anger, had to choose a subscription which would serve my needs, while still not have me shilling out trailer-loads of cash.

So, indeed, Google’s AI service is free for the moment. But I am pretty certain in a few years it won’t be. And then we’ll all face the choice of paying the giant some form of subscription for the use of their AI voices in previously published work, or have that work disappear.

Cynical? Very definitely. But not without cause.

the choice is yours

So the choice is yours, dear reader, whether you choose to purchase the audiobook of Caliban from Audible, Amazon, Kobo, Apple, or Google. The first four retailers offer my narration of Caliban. Google’s audiobook is all AI, in a cast of voices. Of course, Google has discounted the audiobook of Caliban to $16.95CA, as compared the competition at $25.00.

Whichever you choose, I’d really love to hear what you think of not only the novel, but the narration. You can leave a comment on this blog post, through Facebook, review through the retailer, Goodreads, or LibraryThing.

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Published on February 03, 2023 11:47

OverDrive and Libby

When a service isn’t exactly a service

Anyone involved in the publishing industry will tell you there’s just so much to know, and that knowledge has been changing rapidly from the beginning of the 21st century. Now, it seems, I’ve stumbled across another bit of knowledge which has left me surprised.

When ebooks were first becoming a thing, there were only a few ways in which a reader could obtain them, quite aside from the ever-prevalent piracy. Then because of the ease of inventorying ebooks, we started seeing an increase in the number of purchasing and lending services available to readers. One of these is OverDrive. And for many indie authors and publishers, signing up to have your catalogue streaming to OverDrive seemed a smart choice, because OverDrive sold itself to aggregators like Smashwords as a one-stop eLibrary service.

That’s where things get interesting. For years I had my own books, and those of authors I published, streaming to OverDrive. I thought I was offering them, and myself, great exposure to the digital lending library world. Imagine my utter surprise, then, when two weeks ago I learned that while your titles may be available to libraries through OverDrive, that doesn’t mean that your library actually has them in their digital collection. You, as the reader, have to request your library obtain these phantom, digital books through OverDrive.

A system fueled by capitalistic greed

That headline sounds like a broadcast for a political manifesto. But it’s not, in this case. It’s simply a statement of fact.

Consider this: when a library system orders a copy of a print book, they pay for it once. They can then loan that copy out until the book disintegrates. An author, in Canada, is paid a royalty through the Public Lending Rights Program, based on the presence of a title in public library catalogues that are consulted during the annual PLR survey. Those payments come from the PLR’s funds, which are generated through public taxation.

However, when a library system orders a copy of an ebook, it may be that the ebook distributor, like OverDrive, set circulation limits, so that after a certain number of times an ebook has been downloaded, the library system is required to purchase the ebook all over again. According to an article on Goodereader.com: Some have circulation limits, before the title has been purchased again, while others allow for one copy for every user. Digital content cannot be purchased for a one time fee and loaned out an infinite number of times.

I am not certain if an author is entitled to PLR royalties on ebooks. If anyone reading this knows the answer to that question, please leave me a comment. I’d love to be informed.

Where do indie books fit into that eBook marketing infrastructure?

I’m not sure. I haven’t been able to find out that information as yet. However, what I do know is that my own ebooks are available through OverDrive. That’s good. Sort of. What isn’t good is that those same ebooks aren’t necessarily available through any library system. A reader has to request the ebook. And then the library has to decide whether that’s something they’re going to do, a decision most likely affected by shrinking library budgets across Canada because of municipal policies which have been increasingly undermined the ability of our public libraries to offer services.

What you can do as a reader?

Make that request to your library for the ebooks you would like to read which aren’t yet available on Libby or Sora. A list of my books on OverDrive is here. Of course, it would tickle me silly if you were to request any or all of my ebooks.

And if you do manage to get your library to obtain these ebooks, and you download them, I’d really appreciate reading about your experience either by leaving a comment on this blog, emailing me, or leaving a message through my Facebook page.

And while you’re at it, inform your municipal government that your library matters, that funding for your library matters.

Cheers! And happy reading!

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Published on January 16, 2023 12:56

Review: All the Quiet Places, by Brian Thomas Isaace

All the Quiet Places by Brian Thomas Isaac
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Brian Thomas Isaac’s debut novel comes with a long list of awards and almosts:

Finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction
Longlisted for the 2022 Scotiabank Giller Prize
A National Bestseller
Winner of the 2022 Indigenous Voices Awards’ Published Prose in English Prize
Shortlisted for the 2022 Amazon Canada First Novel Award
Longlisted for CBC Canada Reads 2022
An Indigo Top 100 Book of 2021
An Indigo Top 10 Best Canadian Fiction Book of 2021

And it is for this reason I chose to read this much-acclaimed novel.

My decision was met with disappointment and even frustration. I shall enumerate for those who care to read:

– The writing was flat, like reading a 14 year-old’s English literature assignment. There were no literary devices to engage and evoke response. There was no emotion. Only events and facts. It was almost like reading a statement from a person suffering from PTSD.

– There was no character development, no nuance, no tying character to environment and situation. It was simply a recounting of events.

To illustrate: early in the novel there is a death of the child-protagonist’s friend and relative. It is a tragic event. But there is no emotion whatever involved in that event, or that crucial scene. No reaction. The boy drowns. The friend finds him. The families pack up and move on.

In the early portion of the novel there is a hint of the misery about which Steinbeck wrote so well in The Grapes of Wrath. But unlike Steinbeck, Isaac fails to evoke any sense of social injustice, of rage, of misery. It’s all just events moving across a flat cinematic landscape. And more’s the pity, because there is much about which to rage, to engage, to evoke response. But instead Isaac’s novel remains in the flatline grey zone of a could-be great.

At about the halfway point the writing, characterization, and plot arc had become so predictable, stereotyped, and tedious I started speed-reading just to get through it, hoping at some point to find some nugget, some gem to engage my pathos, my investment.

And in the end, in this hopeless tale, hopelessly written, is a hopeless finality which loses all impact because as a reader I wasn’t invested.

Certainly the plight of Canada’s First Nations people is worthy of examination, of our engagement, of our call to action. And that has been done very eloquently and powerfully by writers like Thomas King, Joseph Boyden, Richard Wagamese, and more. But Isaac? Sadly, his is a whisper of a voice among a forest of giants.

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Published on December 21, 2022 05:00

Review: The Henna Artist, by Alka Joshi

The Henna Artist by Alka Joshi
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Joshi creates an interesting story about a young woman’s struggle to find a place in the restrictive and classist society of India. The author deals sensitively, and in the end devastingly, with herbal preventative contraception tisanes, the moral and societal landmines which explode in the heroine’s life, and the destruction of her livelihood which had been primarily as a henna artist of great talent and repute.

Joshi write with authority and believability, and certainly this is a novel worth exploring.

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Published on December 19, 2022 05:00

Review: Temeraire Series, by Naomi Novik

His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Reader note: I’m reviewing the entire nine novels of the Temeraire series in this review.

Such a surprise awaited when I flipped to the first page of His Majesty’s Dragon: Napoleonic naval adventures married seamlessly and believably to an aerial component via dragons. All disbelief suspended. Stunningly delightful.

That surprise was further augmented by Novik’s impeccable research, the solidity of her character and plot development. All my usual cynicism evaporated. Of course there are sentient dragons populating the globe. Of course Napoleon added those dragon recruits to his troops to great effect, as did the British, and the Swiss, and the Russians.

And of course the Chinese revered and recognized dragonkind, built their cities to accommodate their draconian neighbours, gave them rights and employment, allowed them to create their own hierarchies and culture.

In short, Novik’s world building is some of the best I’ve ever read. This is fantasy married to alternate history at its peak. There is no peer for this, in my opinion. She has created a canon of work I believe will endure through time, come to be homed with classics like Adams’ Watership Downs, and Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.

And in light of the fact I am such a very difficult reader to impress, it comes as astonishment that once I’d read all nine novels, I immediately, without hesitation, and with great delight, began the first in the series and swam my way through the entire series once again, relieving that joy.

It has been a very long time since I have been this mesmerized and delighted by a fantasy series, or frankly any literary work.

If you’ve never read the Temeraire series, you should. Right now. Go. Acquire His Majesty’s Dragon, and then settle in for a delicious, entertaining, utterly believable adventure you’re never going to forget.

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Published on December 15, 2022 05:00

Review: Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga, by William W. Fitzhugh

Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga by William W. Fitzhugh
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

If you’re interested in all things Vikings, Fitzhugh’s book should be a staple in your library. Rich with photographs and impeccable research, this is where your research regarding the Vikings should start. An invaluable resource which is clearly written.

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Published on December 14, 2022 05:00

Review: Last Song Before Night, by Ilana C. Myer

Last Song Before Night by Ilana C. Myer
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

While Last Song Before Night is a remarkable first novel for Ilana C. Myer, it is also one which, for me, doesn’t quite live up to what I believe is Myer’s full potential as a writer.

The plot line is a good one, albeit not particularly new: old magic lost, a new menace, innocents led to suffering and slaughter, a reluctant heroine. These elements are the stuff of epic stories, and the reason we return to them over and over again.

And certainly Myer’s prose proves lush and evocative.

So, why am I raining all over this parade, you ask. Well, because, and again this is purely my own perspective, Myer relies too heavily upon known tropes and literary devices. One could as easily be reading a Guy Kay novel, or any of a myriad of other fantasy novels. It is all so familiar. And one wearies of the familiar and longs for the startling.

A good escapist read. Comfortable. Familiar. But left me wanting the entrée after the appetizer.

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Published on December 13, 2022 09:08

The Rose Guardian in audiobook

For audiobook lovers

After months of laborious recording and mastering audiofiles for distribution through ACX, I was met with further frustration when it seemed the Amazon-owned distributor had upped their technical requirements, which would mean another several weeks for me to remaster all 60 tracks of The Rose Guardian.

The Rose Guardian audio

I spent a day fussing with, and frustrated about the problem. I put a sample track through the extra mastering steps provided through the ACX workshop tutorials. The resulting quality was very tinny, and I knew would not pass vetting. All that work, for what I’d hoped was a very quality narration; truth be told I probably spent a total of a steady month recording and mastering. Then to be met with further difficulty.

And there, in the background, the very simple solution to all that bother: Google’s AI generator for audio.

A familiar platform

Google’s audio AI generator isn’t new to me. I’d used it for And the Angels Sang and was very pleased. As a content creator I can choose from a number of male or female voices, in a few accents, in a number of age ranges. The resulting recording is very listenable. It’s not the sort of radio-play, depth of voice you’re going to find with a good human narrator, but it’s perfectly fine for listening to an audiobook while on a commute, or doing chores, or on an exercise routine.

The added benefits of Google’s AI audio

From a business perspective, the added value of Google’s audio platform is that as a creator you are free to download the files and distribute the audiobook through other channels. There’s no exclusivity clause.

At the moment, auxiliary distribution markets for audiobooks are a bit limited. Even so, in the same day the Google audiobook for The Rose Guardian was created, I was able to upload that same production to Kobo, and overnight have that vetted and accepted.

If you’re thinking you can then do that through ACX, not a chance. The platform very resolutely refuses any AI generation. Which I’m thinking may not play well for them in the future, given the scope of indie publishers working on tight to non-existent budgets. Seems a little odd, from another perspective, given the parent company, Amazon, very widely embraces indie publishing, has their own print and ebook platform which allows millions of books to reach a huge and global market. But not so much with audio. How much you want to bet that in a year or two there will be an AI offering available through Kindle Direct Publishing?

An obvious solution

So for me Google’s AI narration was an obvious solution to the pickle in which I’d found myself. In less than a day I had a fully narrated audiobook, vetted and up for sale on Google Play platform. Just like that. And as I said before, was able to upload that audiobook to Kobo, and by this morning the audiobook was live through that website.

Going forward

I’m pretty sure I’m going to pack away my narration hat for any future audiobooks. The expenditure in time and effort is disproportionate to the return I’m likely to realize from any sales. And as I said, the quality of Google’s audiobooks is pretty good.

With that in mind, you’re going to find in the coming months all the rest of my catalogue available in audiobook. I’ll have links to those marketplaces on every book page. And as the markets expand, I’ll be adding my content there as well, and keep you informed.

Gift giving

Given the season, why not support one of your local authors and gift either a print, ebook, or audiobook to those on your list? In doing so, you’ve not only given a very special gift, but given a gift to the author whose work you’ve purchased. I’d call that a win/win.

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Published on November 17, 2022 12:01

New Audiobook!

the Rose Guardian in audiobook

That’s right! I’ve finished mastering the files for my magic realism novel, The Rose Guardian, uploaded them to ACX, and am now awaiting approval. That should take about 10 business days, and if I’ve done my job well, the audio version of The Rose Guardian will be available by November 26, 2022. How wonderful is that?

The Rose Guardian audio

The recording is a little over eight hours in length, so it’s a good long listen.

Where you can purchase your copy?

The audio version of The Rose Guardian will be available on Amazon, Audible, iTunes, Kobo, and Google Play.

Who narrates the audiobook?

I do! Figured since I narrated Caliban, I might as well continue to narrate my own work. After all, I do understand the nuances of the work, and perhaps that may inform the narration a little better. While it’s a lot of work, and I very much appreciate what voice artists bring to their productions, it’s also kind of fun, and I think you’re going to find listening a pleasure.

In the meantime…

The Rose Guardian is still available in trade paperback and ebook, either directly from me on this website, or through most online retailers. Of course, if you buy directly from me, you’ll be helping to support another writer.