Fletcher DeLancey's Blog, page 6

To POV or not to POV

One of the greatest tricks in writing is allowing the reader to view the story through the eyes of one or more characters. Unless the author is using the omniscient voice (meaning, a narrator who knows everything and can see into every character’s head), a character’s point of view (POV) will necessarily be influenced by what that character knows, what prejudices she has, how she sees the world, whether she likes or trusts the person she’s speaking with, etc.

POV can get very complex if the author is so inclined. For instance, she can use what is called an “unreliable narrator,” a character whose point of view is sufficiently skewed that the reader eventually realizes that some (or all) of what this character says and thinks is incorrect. Unreliable narrators can be so untrustworthy that when the reader finishes the book, the entire story has been thrown into doubt (The Fight Club is a good example of that), or they can be just a little fallible, such as the narration of a young child whose lack of life experience colors her interpretation of events.

In truth, all characters with a point of view are fallible to some degree, because no character can know absolutely everything and interpret all conversations and events with perfect accuracy. Readers often enjoy knowing that they have more information than Character X, and can root for X to figure things out. Of course, it’s also possible to take this too far and end up with readers getting tired of X’s ongoing ignorance. I’ve read a few books that led to me shouting, “Oh, come on! Nobody’s that dumb!”

In addition to deciding just how much a character can know and understand, authors must also decide how many characters are given a point of view. In the romance genre, it’s most common to give a POV to both main characters, allowing readers to enjoy both sides of the budding relationship. Other genres may tell the entire story from one character’s POV, or divide the narration among three or four characters.

The Chronicles of Alsea may take place in a science fiction setting, but amidst the politics and world-building is also an epic love story or two. Did I follow the romance convention in giving both lovers their own POV? Nope. Not in Books 1–3 (though I’m doing something a little different in Book 4 right now).

In Without A Front: The Producer’s Challenge and its second half, Without A Front: The Warrior’s Challenge, Lancer Andira Tal is the main narrator. She shares narration duties with four secondary characters, but hers is by far the most important, and given that she is the planetary leader, you might think that her narration would be very reliable. And it is, for the most part—but Tal can be a little arrogant, a little too sure of her own rightness, and that colors her view of Salomen Opah, the land owner in a lower caste with whom she falls in love.

Salomen Opah never gets her own POV. For some readers, that can be frustrating, especially if they are accustomed to always seeing both sides of a romance. But there are advantages to withholding a POV. It creates a journey of discovery, as the reader learns about Salomen at the same rate that Tal does. It allows for mistakes and misunderstandings, later cleared up as Tal’s (and the reader’s) knowledge of Salomen grows. It makes the story more complex—everything is not laid out right on the surface for the reader to see.

But the best benefit, I think, is that a main character with no POV can become a vessel for the reader.

One of the great joys of reading is projecting ourselves onto a character and imagining ourselves living that life, that adventure, that romance. It is often easier to envision this when a character has no POV to contradict our expectations. Salomen is an easy character to inhabit because the reader is never privy to what she thinks, only to what she says. She is also an easy character to love—for readers who are inhabiting the swashbuckling Tal instead—because we don’t know everything about her, and that allows us to project the characteristics we find attractive onto her. A number of readers have written to say that Salomen is their favorite character, and while that might be because of her temper, or her stubborn unwillingness to let Tal get away with arrogant delusions of grandeur, or her great capacity for loving and protecting those she loves, it may also have a lot to do with the fact that she is always a bit of a mystery…and readers love to fill in the blanks.

*****

You can buy Without A Front: The Warrior’s Challenge (and its first half, Without A Front: The Producer’s Challenge) at most retailers, including Amazon and Barnes & Noble, or you can get it straight from Ylva Publishing. Here is the blurb:

Lancer Andira Tal made Alsean history when she accepted the producer’s challenge to work a holding as a field laborer. She should have known that the peace of Hol-Opah couldn’t last. Now her hosts are cleaning up blast debris and she’s searching for both a traitor and a missing member of her family.

Just as she thinks she’s solved one of her problems, Tal falls into a meticulously planned trap that threatens her title, her new family, and her freedom. To top it all, she loses her greatest support right when she needs it most. There’s no possible way out, so she’ll have to do the impossible—and the clock is ticking.

…or, for those who are more curious about Salomen, this book could be characterized as “the one in which Salomen and Tal finally consummate their romance and Salomen comes into her true power—which is far greater than anyone imagined.”

The Ylva Author Blog Hop continues tomorrow with Emily O’Beirne, author of A Story of Now. Go check her out on Jove Belle’s blog!

It’s time for the Cocktail Hour!

I’ll be pulling up a chair and a crisp gin and tonic for my interview on the Cocktail Hour tonight — it’s at 9 p.m. WET (that’s Western European Time; best time zone acronym in the world) and 4 p.m. EST. You are welcome to watch it live by following this link to the Google Plus page. If the timing doesn’t work for you, the ladies at the Cocktail Hour will upload the video on YouTube and their own web site within a couple of days, and they also make an MP3 podcast available.

All of which is to say, there are plenty of ways to watch or listen, and a Cocktail Hour interview is always fun. In theory we will be discussing Without A Front: The Warrior’s Challenge, but I suspect we’ll talk about both volumes of the book as well as what is coming next (because yes, there is already a Book 4 in progress). I will also be fielding audience questions, which is the reason for the gin and tonic.

I hope to see you there, or if not, that you will avail yourself of the post-event options and watch/listen at your leisure. Oh, and just to warn everyone: unlike the last interview, which occurred right after Without A Front: The Producer’s Challenge was published, this one will be full of spoilers.

The Caphenon on sale today

Looking for holiday gift ideas? How about The Caphenon ON SALE for today only at Ylva’s Super Sunday sales. A different book is featured every Sunday this month, today it’s The Caphenon, and the price is just $2.99. That is two-thirds off the normal $8.99 price.

Let me repeat: The Caphenon is on sale for $2.99 right now, and only today.

Go get some for your family and friends!

Female android, male hero

I’m reading a sci-fi story by an author who has sold over one million copies of his books. It’s a decent yarn, with plenty of action and description but zero character development. It’s also remarkably sexist, though I suspect the author doesn’t realize it.

Here is the end of Chapter 1, in which one of the two main (and male) protagonists activates an android.

It slithered apart, expanding in volume into its preprogrammed shape…that of a petite human female dressed in a trim, dark grey uniform. It stepped down off the pedestal and looked questioningly at [Hero 1], yet said nothing. It just batted its long eyelashes and smiled naively.

Really? An android that holds the physical form of a female, but is in fact an asexual machine, bats its long eyelashes and smiles naively. I have to give the author credit for his efficient use of language: he required only six words to paint an android as a weak, helpless female unconsciously using her feminine wiles, and to demonstrate his own sexism.

This, by the way, is a repair android. It’s designed to integrate itself into machine and computer systems to assess viability and effect repairs. I guess the eyelash batting is some sort of secondary purpose? Maybe it provides air movement for cooling delicate machine parts.

After coughing over that paragraph, I turned the page and found this opening line for Chapter 2:

He stood tall and impassive, sunglasses obscuring his eyes but not his stern expression as he oversaw the recruits running laps on a dirt track in the middle of a grassy field on a crystal clear day.

So the sexless android bats “her” eyelashes and smiles naively, but the manly hero is a tall, impassive, and stern leader. I’d bet he wears his sunglasses at night, too.

Two chapters later we have another android/hero interaction:

When he finished he darted off after [Hero 1], nearly running into the android on the outside of his quarter’s door.

“Colonel, I have the requested weapons,” it said, smiling coyly. “I assume they are for you?”

“Thanks,” [he] said, grabbing the box from her.

Apparently this android is more advanced than the prior one, since it has progressed from smiling naively to smiling coyly — a clear escalation of sexual intent. Let’s have a quick review of the Oxford definition of coy:

adjective (especially with reference to a woman) Making a pretence of shyness or modesty that is intended to be alluring: she treated him to a coy smile of invitation.

The author made a brief attempt at keeping the android asexual by using the pronoun “it,” but then failed spectacularly just two words later with the ridiculous “smiling coyly.” And two sentences after that, the author slips up and uses the pronoun “her.”

The supposed heroes in this story are cardboard cutouts of manly men with no actual character traits outside the stereotype, and so far there are no females to be seen other than a single token soldier and these (cough) “asexual” androids. And this is the kind of sci-fi story that sells a million copies. No wonder female authors have a hard time getting any traction in the genre.

The Warrior’s Challenge is in the wild

Without A Front: The Warrior’s Challenge has entered its pre-release phase, meaning that for the next two weeks, it is being sold in e-book format exclusively in the Ylva store. After that, it will be available everywhere, including Amazon and Barnes & Noble. (If you are looking for the paperback edition, it has been sent to the printers and we’re hoping it will be on Amazon by this time next week.)

We worked hard to get this book out in time for Thanksgiving, and that work paid off when I realized how much happiness we have brought into some readers’ lives. With permission, I’m reprinting a Facebook post that made my morning today:

I would say I’m sorry for the fact that her family will be ignored, but…I’m not sorry at all.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Without a Front – The Warrior’s Challenge (Chronicles of Alsea – Book #3) by Fletcher DeLancey

Lancer Andira Tal made Alsean history when she accepted the producer’s challenge to work a holding as a field laborer. She should have known that the peace of Hol-Opah couldn’t last. Now her hosts are cleaning up blast debris and she’s searching for both a traitor and a missing member of her family.

Just as she thinks she’s solved one of her problems, Tal falls into a meticulously planned trap that threatens her title, her new family, and her freedom. To top it all, she loses her greatest support right when she needs it most. There’s no possible way out, so she’ll have to do the impossible—and the clock is ticking.

The post Without a Front – The Warrior’s Challenge (Chronicles of Alsea – Book #3) by Fletcher DeLancey appeared first on Ylva Publishing.

Warrior’s Challenge cover art!

The full paperback cover art for Without A Front: The Warrior’s Challenge is ready to go, and it’s lovely!

In addition, the print layout PDF has been exhaustively vetted and approved, so all that is left now is to look over the e-book files. We are on track for our pre-publication date of 25 November, giving folks a chance to grab the book from the Ylva Publishing bookstore in time for the long Thanksgiving weekend. The e-book, at any rate — we are dependent upon the printer for our paperback availability.

Our hope is to have the paperback available for pre-order by the first week of December, and have both e-books and paperbacks available for general purchase (meaning, not just Ylva Publishing but also Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc.) by 9 December.

One thing reviewers have noted about the prior book, Without A Front: The Producer’s Challenge, is that it is slower-paced than The Caphenon. Which of course it is, since it focused more on culture and family, and on setting the stage for the second half. Without A Front: The Warrior’s Challenge takes all of that set-up and runs with it, combining the intimacy of Producer’s Challenge with the action of The Caphenon (though perhaps not on a global scale). For all the folks who were left hanging at the end of Producer’s Challenge — fear not, you have only a week remaining before finding out what happened and what will happen. I feel certain you will enjoy the heck out of this ride.

Announcing the release of Without A Front: The Producer’s Challenge

It has been a long time coming, but I’m delighted to announce that the sequel to The Caphenon has just been released! Or perhaps I should say pre-released, because for the next two weeks, Without A Front: The Producer’s Challenge is solely available at Ylva Publishing.

Buying from Ylva is great for readers who want digital files, because you get all three formats (epub, Kindle, PDF) for the same price, and it’s great for authors, because we aren’t paying a huge overhead to Amazon and so we get a larger share. If you are holding out for a paperback copy, that should be available on Amazon next week. (Since those come from the printer, we don’t have exact control over the scheduling.)

On 23 October, the book will be available on all platforms and several retailers, including in Kindle format on Amazon. But you don’t have to wait that long.

Now then, I’m going to let you feast your eyes on this lovely cover, and then tell you a bit about the book…

Readers who have been following my work since the fanfic days know that I wrote the original version of this book back in 2006. This version is far superior for several reasons. First, I’m a better writer than I was nine years ago. Second, I had to rewrite this book to fit into the world I created for The Caphenon, which meant increasing the scope of its world-building and expanding the cast of characters. The epic romance that anchored the story is still there and better than ever, but the sci-fi wrapping, the consequences of the events of The Caphenon, the overall scope — those are new and bigger and more complex.

Readers who have never seen this book before will find themselves sucked right back in where The Caphenon left off. The events of that story had to have consequences, and they will continue to ripple through the series. Without A Front: The Producer’s Challenge focuses on Lancer Tal as she works to heal her war-torn world and simultaneously bring it into the future. Not everyone is happy about the new technologies, particularly the producer caste — and one producer becomes a bigger problem than all the others. Tal comes up with a novel solution to that problem, which leads her to both a sanctuary and the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. But her choices in The Caphenon have left her politically vulnerable, and sanctuary and dreams are distractions.

As a responsible author, I must issue a warning here. This is volume one of Without A Front, and that means…yes, it ends on a cliffhanger. The story is entirely resolved in Without A Front: The Warrior’s Challenge, which will be published in November. We deliberately scheduled the two books to come out within a few weeks of each other for just this reason. If you buy the first one now, you haven’t long to wait before finding out what happened…and you won’t be left hanging at the end of volume two. I am not that cruel, unlike some famous authors we will not name.

The Ylva store works with both PayPal accounts and bank cards. I would caution readers against using PayPal’s eCheque, because PayPal does not tell you that eCheques can take a week to clear the bank, and the store cannot send the goods until the check clears. Nobody wants to wait that long.

And finally, because everyone loves a sneak peek…have a look at the first 29 pages of Without A Front: The Producer’s Challenge in either PDF or epub.

Without a Front – The Producer’s Challenge (Chronicles of Alsea – Book #2) by Fletcher DeLancey

When the Voloth invaded Alsea, Lancer Andira Tal thought the hard part would be fighting off a technologically advanced army.

It wasn’t. In the aftermath of war, Alsean society is deeply divided and Tal is facing issues no Lancer has ever dealt with before. How to rebuild, what to do with the Voloth prisoners, when and how to release the new technologies—the pressure is building and Tal is showing cracks, which her enemies are glad to exploit.

The most divisive of the new technologies are the matter printers, desired by some castes and feared by others, especially the producers. When a challenge gives Tal the opportunity to bring the producers to her side, she leaves the capital to work in the fields of Hol-Opah. There she finds an unexpected sanctuary—and the promise of something she has wished for all her life.

But sanctuary and dreams are distractions, and Tal’s inattention may cost her everything.

The post Without a Front – The Producer’s Challenge (Chronicles of Alsea – Book #2) by Fletcher DeLancey appeared first on Ylva Publishing.

The blonde and the brunette

I love fan fiction. Fanfic and I go way back, to that time when I was asking questions nobody wants to ask themselves (such as, “Is my entire life a lie?”) and was convinced that nobody could understand how I felt.

Fanfic let me know that not only were there people out there who could understand, there was an entire community. They were secretive and hardly ever used their real names, but they were out there—and like any community, they told stories. Lots and lots of stories.

I was enraptured by these stories, which I could not find anywhere but online. Not in the book racks at the grocery store, not in the magazine racks, not in any “regular” bookstore. Even Powell’s, the largest independent bookstore in the world, devoted exactly two shelves to lesbian fiction when I first looked for stories there. Not two shelves for lesbian romance, or two shelves for lesbian mysteries, but two shelves for all lesbian fiction ever written in human history. Two.

Many of us would never have known our stories were out there were it not for fanfic, and many authors would never have made the jump to publication without it—including me. The importance of fanfic to our community cannot be overstated, but unfortunately, it has a reputation for not being “real” literature.

While I could do a whole separate post on why that is and why it shouldn’t be, this post is about one issue in particular that makes many fanfic stories less than they could be.

The joy of fanfic is that authors learn from each other. The great limitation of fanfic is that…authors learn from each other. Without the helping hand of paid editors, authors absorb habits from each other and perpetuate them. And nothing, but nothing screams “fanfic author” quite as loudly as eschewing proper nouns and pronouns in favor of descriptive nouns.

In other words, using “the blonde” instead of “Jane,” or “the brunette” instead of “she.”

I recently read a story in which a single paragraph contained references to the blonde, the brunette, the doctor, and the senator. The way it was written, I thought there were four women in the room. In fact, there were only two.

Here is a (slightly exaggerated) example of how such writing typically reads:

The blonde poured two fingers of whisky into the glass and handed it to the brunette. The doctor took the glass and raised it with an expectant look. The senator lifted her own glass with a smile. “To clarity in writing,” said the blonde.

Use of “the blonde” and “the brunette” probably originated in Xena fan fiction, where “the blonde” became a common substitute for Gabrielle and her uber representatives, while “the brunette” became a substitute for Xena and her ubers. From there, it invaded other branches of lesbian fiction, so we now have “the redhead” and “the cop” and many other substitutions for names and pronouns.

There is a good reason for these substitutions, which is unique to lesbian (and gay) fiction: pronoun issues. Unlike heterosexual fiction, where the female and male protagonists can be easily referred to as she and he, or her and him, lesbian fiction has she and she, and her and her. This can get very confusing very quickly:

Jane poured two fingers of whiskey into the glass and handed it to her. She took the glass and raised it with an expectant look. She lifted her own glass with a smile. “To clarity in writing,” she said.

Now, here’s the same paragraph with female and male characters:

Jane poured two fingers of whiskey into the glass and handed it to him. He took the glass and raised it with an expectant look. She lifted her own glass with a smile. “To clarity in writing,” she said.

No confusion there.

Use of “the blonde” and “the brunette” was an early effort to avoid the pronoun problem, and that strategy has perpetuated through the entire genre. Some writers sought an alternative to what they recognized as a poor writing habit, only to go to the opposite extreme and overuse names instead:

Jane poured two fingers of whisky into the glass and handed it to Evelyn. Evelyn took the glass and raised it with an expectant look. Jane lifted her own glass with a smile. “To clarity in writing,” Jane said.

Neither substitution is a solution. The only solution is not to substitute at all, but to write around the issue—to use a mix of names, pronouns, and careful arrangement of the text to make it clear who is speaking or acting:

Jane poured two fingers of whisky into the glass and handed it to Evelyn, who accepted it and raised it with an expectant look. Smiling as she lifted her own glass, Jane said, “To clarity in writing.”

The truth is, it’s harder to write lesbian or gay fiction than it is to write straight fiction. Pronouns work fabulously when there are two characters on the page who don’t share the same gender, but we don’t often have that luxury. We have to work much harder to smooth out our writing, but there’s a silver lining: mastering this technique and learning to avoid the shortcuts makes us much better writers.

And fanfic should be better, because that’s the training ground for our published authors. It’s our outreach to those people who can’t afford to be seen buying or reading a lesbian book. It’s a huge part of our community, and so important to so many people. So let’s get rid of the blonde and the brunette, and get down to the craft of telling our stories.