David M. Samuels's Blog, page 8
June 28, 2019
(FREE Fantasy Stories) Three Nights in Faral-Khazal (Only 10 Copies)
What do a royal chef, an embalmer, and a career thief have in common? Three Nights in Faral-Khazal is a triptych of standalone (but interconnected) stories in the same fantasy city.
1. The Deadliest Dish
Chef Kaira fears she’ll soon be feeding worms when she forgets an important dish for a diplomatic banquet.
2. Banquet of the Emblamer.
Tariki is an ambitious embalmer who will stop at nothing to contain the secret he’s unleashed at a dinner party.
3. Ups and Downs
Emelith the Finder runs into an ex-partner on her heist to steal an heirloom from the Hanging Graveyard of Faral-Khazal.
I would love to hear your feedback on Amazon or Goodreads, be it good or bad!
Writing Characters’ Hands/Arms
The condition of one’s hands can tell us a lot about a person. Here’s a list of phrases to get your brain jogging:
“Spindly fingers”
scuffed knuckles
stubby/thick fingers
Callused (“callused hand corrected my grip…”)
Slim fingers
Manicured
Painted nails
Broken nails
Spotted hands
Filed back my nails
Long-nailed finger
“Long fingernails stained red with henna”
Soft hand
Inkstained fingers (‘my fingers from which the ink had not been entirely washed”
Long-fingered
thick-fingered
“thick, hairy hand”
Scuffed knuckles
Dirt under nails
“Richard saw the marks of rings still pale on his bare fingers.”
Thyra’s curled fingernails were as long as gelder’s knives
Fingers bent from needlework
Thick forefinger
Slim-fingered hands
Fingers of steel/ice
His skinned knuckles
My hands scarred and stained from the tints and varnish I use on the wood
Knobs of her wrists and elbows protruding under her skin
Long of limb
__-limbed (“stout-limbed”; twig-limbed)
Thin arms
“pipestem arms”
“…a long parchment scroll resting like a relic in his walrus arms.”
“The apothecary pointed with that long arm of his”
Stumpy arms
DISCLAIMER: None of the longer excerpts belong to me. The intention here is to get your brain jogging, not directly insert quotes into your work.
June 20, 2019
Writing Characters’ Teeth
Then cuts the thread with her teeth, etching more deeply the tailor’s notch in her left front tooth” (Angela Slatter)
The way the teeth reached forward as if they were racing to get ahead of the nose (KJ Parker)
tar-stained teeth
Gap-toothed
A sailor with fewer teeth than fingers and only one hand (Rob J. Hayes)
Chipped teeth
Underbite
Uneven teeth
His own teeth square and yellow, like those of a horse
Toothy (grin)
Snaggletoothed (an irregular or projecting tooth)
“half-rotted teeth”
White teeth inset with tiny jewels
“a run of teeth”
Long teeth
“Saw his teeth were filed across the front with killer’s grooves”
Broken-toothed grimace
Sharp-toothed smile
Horse teeth/buckteeth
No front teeth
Pearly white teeth
Crooked set of teeth
Regardless of how much grain or loaves of bread a single soldier might have received, he will undoubtedly suffered from worn teeth, a problem faced by every Egyptian. The bead contained a high level of grit, introduced either in the flour as it was milled or as mind-blown sand and dust. This wore down the enamel of the teeth causing at best some discomfort and pain, at worst serious abscesses and infections that could prove fatal (Osprey Collection on Egyptian Architecture)
Stubby-toothed
“Gave a smile that showed every one of her pointed teeth
“He beamed at her, his teeth bright white against his tanned skin.”
She smiled crooked old teeth at him
DISCLAIMER: None of the longer excerpts belong to me. The intention here is to get your brain jogging, not directly insert quotes into your work.
IMG: https://www.deviantart.com/sambriggs/art/Vampire-s-Final-Death-II-308391487
Priest of Bones by Peter McLean (Book Review)
In a genre overcrowded with generals, kings, and mighty wizards, Priest of Bones stands apart as a picaresque breath of fresh air.
Returning home from a bloody war, Tom Piety reestablishes his crime family’s presence in the underbelly of Ellinburg.
Part-time priest and full-time hoodlum, Tom brings to mind Wintrow Vestrit from Robin Hobbe’s Liveship Trilogy, or the Thirteenth God from Lies of Locke Lamora. The intersection between priesthood and crime is a fascinating one, and I only wish I saw a bit more of Piety’s priestly side throughout the work. Granted, he took up the mantle under duress rather than as a vocation.
If you enjoy Joe Abercrombie’s Logan Ninefingers chapters, you’ll probably dig Piety’s internal voice. Sure, there are a few pet phrases that occur one time too many (to my mind), but isn’t that what makes a quotable line? (“I have a bad feeling about this,” etc).
Onto the rest of the Piety Family. Tom’s brother Jochan is introduced as a loose cannon ready to go kablooie at any moment, but by Act 2 this demeanor struck me as all spark and no fire. Sure Jochan goes off the rails once or twice, but earlier on Peter McLean excelled at portraying Jochan as a man teetering on the abyss of insanity. Then again, this is only Book 1 of 3, so plenty of time for Jochan to go apeshit later on.
I think my favorite character (the one I wished had more showtime) was Aunt Enaid. Right from the point she’s introduced at the abbey, I fell in love. I’m talking Olenna Tyrell love:
““I’ll have you switched to within an inch of your life for that!” / “Switch this,” Aunt Enaid said, and punched the Mother Superior in the face.”
Another scene w/ Aunt Enaid:
“She turned and spat on the floor, and never mind that we were in her own kitchen.”
Then there’s a bunch of ex-soldiers who joined up with the Pious Men (name of the gang). Surprisingly, I wasn’t confused at all by the number of side characters. The simple nicknames and tactful stage direction helped with that, I think.
Besides Sir Eland, who “was about as noble as my morning shit,” the Pious Man who interested me most was not a man, but a boy. Billy the Boy, whose magical abilities enshroud him with a layer of creepy tension. Here McLean excelled at giving me the creeps and continually adding one layer of tension upon another: “Billy stood with the fire at his back, outlining him in flame like the devil Old Kurt feared him to be.”
The characters and worldbuilding overshadow what is – in my opinion – a rough plotline. I found myself worrying more about each character’s lives/daily actions than the overarching political crisis. In fact, the characters are so distanced from the plot that none of them are present at the site of the climactic scene.
And you know what? That’s totally fine. Again, this is the first book of three, so I expect things will align more clearly later on.
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Three Nights in Faral-Khazal: A Trio of Tales (Anthology Release)
What does a royal chef, an embalmer, and a career thief have in common? Three Nights in Faral-Khazal is a triptych of standalone (but interconnected) stories in the same high fantasy city.
1. The Deadliest Dish
Chef Kaira fears she’ll soon be feeding worms when she forgets an important dish for a diplomatic banquet.
2. Banquet of the Emblamer.
Tariki is an ambitious embalmer who will stop at nothing to contain the secret he’s unleashed at a dinner party.
3. Ups and Downs
Emelith the Finder runs into an ex-partner on her heist to steal an heirloom from the Hanging Graveyard of Faral-Khazal.
June 15, 2019
Weasel-faces, Angel-faces, Lean and Pinched and Goblin-faces [Fantasy Writer’s Sheet: Faces]
A little description can go a long way in fleshing out a character. Here’s a phraselist intended to get your brain jogging
FACE DESCRIPTIONS
FACE DESCRIPTIONS
“Bird-boned face”
Broad face
Egg-shaped skull
Broad-featured – wide nose and lips
Flat-faced
elfin (small and delicate, typically with an attractively mischevious charm| N an elf)
Hawk-faced
Heart-shaped face
Aquiline (of an eagle)
Squash-faced
goblin-faced
Sharp-faced
The shadowy angles of his face
Narrow face
High bones of his face
round
Squarish (head)
“Her face, oval, thin and bright, shone lily-pale between wings of black, curling hair.”
“Cold determination sharpens the elegant planes of her face”
“No older than ten, she had the round flat face, dusky skin, and golden eyes of Naath,”
“Her furrowed brow cleaving otherwise warm features”
Unlined face (fresh-faced)
Pinch-faced
Sharp-boned (face/figure)
“Heavy-browed, broad nosed and slab-jawed like a prizefighter.”)
Pinched features
“The planes of his face are so sharp they should gleam like metal in the sun”
Lean-faced
“slopes of her cheeks”
Angular
Planes of his/her face (“The steep, golden planes of her face…”)
squarish
Comely ([typically of a woman] pleasing to look at)
_-featured (Sharp, delicate, fine)
Sagging cheeks
Little/small face (children phys)
_-cheeked (lean; full; hollow; bone; red)
His pale features seemed rather too small and crowded together
Weasel-faced (face with unattractively thin, sharp or pointed features)
___-faced (thick-faced; fresh-faced; blank-faced; round-faced)
He gave me what was intended to be a withering look, though it wasn’t very effective. Brasti’s a little too handsome for anyone’s good, including his own. Strong cheekbones and a wide mouth closed in a reddish-blond short beard to amplify a smile that gets him out of most fights he talks his way into. His mastery of the bow gets him through the rest. But when he tries to stare you down, it looks like he’s pouting. (Simon de Castell)
High-low cheekbones
FOREHEAD
Broad forehead
High/low forehead
Sloping forehead
Thick/heavy-browed
OTHER PHRASE LISTS BY ME:
HAIR: https://wordpress.com/stats/post/572/storyscriptorium.wordpress.com
Img by Manzi Jackson: https://www.kuruart.space/manzi-jackson-1
DISCLAIMER: None of the longer excerpts belong to me. The intention here is to get your brain jogging, not directly insert quotes into your work.
June 11, 2019
6 Tips for Adding Life to Your Locations
One of my favorite writing resources, Mythic Scribes, recently shared some great tips on using your locations to bring your story to life. Here is my summary. As always, you are encouraged to check out the original post for more.
The whole point they are making is that by giving your readers a chance to insert themselves into a location or scene, they’ll make it their own, bringing it to life in their heads. It’s no longer just a description, but a place that exists in their mind, and which they helped create themselves.
As to how you can accomplish that, here are the tips:
1. Level of Detail
Don’t get bogged down in details. Quite often in writing, less is more. This is definitely the case with locations. Readers aren’t stupid. Unless something is completely outlandish, most people will be able to fill in any blanks in the…
View original post 1,223 more words
June 8, 2019
Japanese Castles by Stephen Turnbull (Illustrated by Peter Dennis)
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June 7, 2019
Strike up a Sprightly Tune! [Fantasy Writer’s Cheat Sheet: Music]
They say to write what you know, but what’s a tone-deaf writer to do when (s)he wants to add a little music into the work in progress? Whether it’s a raunchy drinking song soldiers march to or a ballad fit for royalty, music can add another dimension to your setting and world at large. Here’s a list of phrases and terms to get your mind jogging:
TYPES OF MUSIC
Bar song
Raunchy folk song
Carols (a religious folk song or popular hymn, particularly one associated with Christmas)
Riff (a short, repeated phrase, frequently played over changing chords or harmonies or used as a background to a solo improvisation)
A comic Egyptian tune
Ditty (a short simple song)
Strain//snatch/note/bar/verse/chord of music
Refrain (repeating phrase in a song; essentially a chorus)
Lullaby
Cadence (sequence of notes or chords comprising the close of a musical phrase; “the final cadences of the Prelude”)
Aubades (a poem or piece of music appropriate to the dawn or early morning)
Nursery rhyme
Paean (1; any song of praise, joy, triumph 2; a hymn of thanksgiving for Greek deity, foremost being Apollo)
Fugue (a musical composition in which one or two themes are repeated or imitated by successively entering voices | a disturbed state of consciousness in which the one affected seems to perform acts in full awareness but upon recovery cannot recollect the acts performed)
Elegy (a song or poem expressing sorrow or lamentation especially for one who is dead)
War song/marching song/barracks song
Battle-hymn
Threnody (song or lamentation for the dead)
Polyphony (a style of musical composition employing two or more simultaneous but relatively independent melodic lines)
Elegy (a song or poem expressing sorrow or lamention especially for one who is dead; a pensive or reflective poem that is usually nostalgic or melancholy.)
Rhapsody (a portion of an epic poem adapted for recitation | highly emotional utterance; highly emotional work; effusively rapturous or extravagant discourse)
Lullaby (“Her murmured words sounded like a lullaby in my ear”)
Drumbeat
PARTS OF INSTRUMENTS
Chords on his horsehair strings
Catgut (strings musical instrument/stitches)
Two of the strings had gone soft
Soundbox (belly of lute)
Soundbox was cracked
mouthpiece (flute)
lutestring/harpstring
Drumhead
TYPES OF INSTRUMENTS
Little wooden clappers they held in their palms
Sistrum (a musical instrument of ancient Egypt consisting of a metal frame with transverse metal rods that rattled when the instrument was shaken)
Clarion (medieval trumpet with clear shrill tones; sound as if made by a clarion)
Cymbals (instrument consisting of a slightly concave round brass plate struck against another; “clash/crash of cymbals”)
Castanet (a percussion instrument used especially by dancers that consists of two small shells of hard wood, ivory, or plastic quality usually fastened to the thumb and clicked together with other fingers | Rome)
Viol (a musical instrument of the Renaissance and baroque periods, typically six-stringed, held vertically and played with a bow.)
Bongos
fiddle
[Mycenaean Greece] in the lyre’s simplest form a sound box is made out of a tortoise shell with a hide stretched over the hollow underside. The sound was produced by plucking the strings, usually seven in number, either with the fingers or with a plectrum
War-drum
Tabor (a small drum with one head of soft calfskin used to accompany a pipe or fife played by the same person)
Organetto (small organ)
[Mycenaean Greece] Another wind instrument was the syrinx, which consisted of a number of pipes bound together. Variations in pitch were made by blocking the inside of the pipes with wax at different intervals; somewhat crude instrument whose invention was attributed to the goat god Pan. It was especially popular among shepherds
Gongs
Kettledrum (a large drum shaped like a bowl with a membrane adjustable for tension | “The redcoats discharge their muskets with deep hissing booms, like handfuls of sand hurled against a kettledrum.”
Harpsichord (musical instrument by means of a keyboard; type of piano with two layers of keys)
Carillon ( a set of bells in a tower, played using an automatic mechanism)
Crumhorn (medieval wind instrument with an enclosed double reed and an upward-curving end, producing an even, nasal sound)
Tambour (a small drum)
Double-flute
Zither ( a class of stringed instruments. Chinese instrument)
Psaltery (an ancient and medieval musical instrument like a dulcimer but played by plucking the strings with the fingers or a plectrum)
Bassoon (woodwind instrument in the double reed family)
Mandolin (stringed instrument in the lute family)
Woodharp
Fiddle
Trumpet
Oboe (a woodwind instrument with a slender, tubular body, played with a double-reed mouthpiece)
A set of box pipes
Spinet (a small harsishcord with the strings set obliquely to the keyboard, popular in the 18th century)
[Mycenaean Greece] the most common wind instrument was the aulos. This is often identified with the flute, although the sound it producd was actually closer to that of an oboe. The aulos consisted of a hollow pipe made out of wood, bronze, bone, or reed. It was pierced with holes for the fingers and fitted with a reed mouthpiece. Auloi were usually played in pairs. The chorus of Greek drama sang and danced to the accompaniment of an Aulos player, who also piped soldiers into battle
VERBS MUSIC
Opened on the pipes (Sebastian de Castell)
Stilled them with another chord
Struck up a tun
Accompanying him on the pipes (Sebastian de Castell)
“Wove them into a song”
Musician taps a foot when they play
Beat out (“Drums beat out a rhythm”)
The drummers kept up a threatening rhythm
Plunged into a cheerful riff (Nicholas Eames)
Drummers beat out a swift rhythm
Each note hung quivering in the air (Nicholas Eames)
Picking out the notes
Flinging wild tunes into the night air
His fingers coaxed the music
Brushed the strings
Strumming away
Lute strings rang
A soft opening chord (Nicholas Eames)
Playing their hearts out
Piped a few notes (flute)
“Announcing his presence with a mighty strum” (Alan Gordon)
“Musicians intertwined their own instruments in and around his melody”
“He plucked a sad chord from his harp”
“Plucking out the first haunting melodies of” (Eames)
Drew from
Took up
Lute sang beneath her fingertips
Opening notes were left shivering in the air
Flattened his hands on the strings to stop their quivering
Song rolled on
Lifted a horn to his lips
“Keeping the beat by tapping my foot on a tambourine”
Tuning his guitar
Fiddled with the tuning
MUSIC SOUNDS
Rapid melody
Lively
Sprightly
Frantic
Jaunty
Warbly
Meandered
tuneless
Spiraling
cascading
Swirly
Discordant (incongruous) (“…but now Simon detected a discordant note, something out of place.”)
Gentle
Tone-deaf
Sweet (as birdsong)
Playful
twanging
Sonorous (1; capable of giving deep resonant sound; 2; rich and full in sound; 3; high-flown; grandiloquent)
Plaintive (sounding sad/mournful)
Alto (a voice, instrument, or part below the highest range and above tenor; highest male singing voice; contralto is lowest female singing voice | “Arrick’s rich alto voice filled the room…”)
Falsetto (a method of voice production used by male singers; esp tenors; to sing notes higher than their normal range)
Skirling
Trill/trilled (A quavering or vibratory sound; esp on rapid notes)
Tambourines rattled/shivered
Rattle of drums
Blast of trumpets
SINGING
Yodeling (accent/singing)}
Humming
Operetta (a short opera)
Voice rose in song
Croaking
Aria (a long, accompanied song for a solo voice, typically one in an opera or oratorio)
“Began tunelessly humming a marching song”
Warbled ([of a bird] sing softly and with a succession of constantly changing notes; to sing in a trilling or quavering voice
Belting out the verse
Plainchant (monophonic rhythmically free liturgical chant in Christianity)
DANCING
Gambol (run or jump about playfully)
Caper (skip or dance about in a lively or playful way; a playful skipping movement)
Swayed in time to the music
“Lost herself in the steps”Tapped foot
Tapping out the beat on his thighs
Tarantella (a rapid whirling dance originating in southern Italy)
Galliard (a sprightly dance with five steps to a phrase popular in the 16th and 17th centuries)
“The floor had been strewn with sand for dancers” in elaborate patterns (Robin Hobb)
Jig
“Let the music take her”
MISC
Harmonize
Harmonics (also harmonic adj | having or related to, characterized by a harmony)
Syncopated (displace the beats or accents in music or a rhythm so that strong beats become weak and vice versa)
Crescendo (the peak of gradual increase in a musical passage)
Fanfare (short ceremonial tune or flourish played on brass instruments, typically to introduce something or someone important)
Tremolo (the rapid reiteration of a musical tone or of alternating tones to produce a tremulous effect)
String quartet
DISCLAIMER: None of the longer excerpts belong to me. The intention here is to get your brain jogging, not directly insert quotes into your work.
Img by @Boaillustration
