Jonathan Moeller's Blog, page 279
November 30, 2014
MASK OF SWORDS now available!
I am pleased to report that MASK OF SWORDS is now available at Amazon, Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, Amazon Canada, Amazon Australia,Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Apple iTunes, and Smashwords.
Read the first chapter of MASK OF SWORDS right here.
MAZAEL CRAVENLOCK has prevailed over terrible foes and now rules the Grim Marches with a firm hand. Yet ancient evils are stirring in the shadows, freed at last by Mazael’s own deeds of valor. Unless Mazael fights with all his strength, the world will fall.
ADALAR is weary of war, has seen too many friends and comrades die. Yet dark forces are stirring in the shadows, and unless Adalar defends his lost home, those under his protection will perish.
SIGALDRA is the last holdmistress of the Jutai nation, the final defender of her people. Now the darkness comes to devour the final remnant of Sigaldra’s home and family. Even Sigaldra’s courage may not be enough to turn aside the shadows.
For the goddess has been freed at last, and her servants are eager to slay in her name…
-JM
November 28, 2014
November 27, 2014
Thanksgiving short story superswarm!
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
I’m thankful and grateful for many things this year, and to celebrate the holiday, I’m giving away five short stories for the next two days – GHOST CLAWS, GHOST OMENS, THE THIEF’S TALE, THE MAGE’S TALE, and THE PALADIN’S TALE. Links are below!
GHOST CLAWS
Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon Canada , Amazon Australia.
GHOST OMENS
Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon Canada, Amazon Australia.
THE THIEF’S TALE
Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon Canada, Amazon Australia.
THE MAGE’S TALE
Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.ca, Amazon.com.au
THE PALADIN’S TALE
Amazon.com, Amazon UK, Amazon Canada, Amazon Australia.
-JM
November 24, 2014
final update for MASK OF SWORDS
MASK OF SWORDS is done! Look for it to start appearing at the various retailers this week. The good Lord and the weather permitting, the new-release newsletter (with coupon code for a free short story) should go out on Friday.
Until then, here’s the book description for MASK OF SWORDS:
MAZAEL CRAVENLOCK has prevailed over terrible foes and now rules the Grim Marches with a firm hand. Yet ancient evils are stirring in the shadows, freed at last by Mazael’s own deeds of valor. Unless Mazael fights with all his strength, the world will fall.
ADALAR is weary of war, has seen too many friends and comrades die. Yet dark forces are stirring in the shadows, and unless Adalar defends his lost home, those under his protection will perish.
SIGALDRA is the last holdmistress of the Jutai nation, the final defender of her people. Now the darkness comes to devour the final remnant of Sigaldra’s home and family. Even Sigaldra’s courage may not be enough to turn aside the shadows.
For the goddess has been freed at last, and her servants are eager to slay in her name…
-JM
November 22, 2014
MASK OF SWORDS table of contents
The final table of contents for MASK OF SWORDS:
Chapter 1: We Are Free
Chapter 2: The Lord of the Grim Marches
Chapter 3: War Unending
Chapter 4: The Last of the Jutai
Chapter 5: Old Friends
Chapter 6: The Iron River
Chapter 7: Tunneling
Chapter 8: Hrould
Chapter 9: Bones and Ashes
Chapter 10: Painted Masks
Chapter 11: The Circle
Chapter 12: Prophecy
Chapter 13: Surrender
Chapter 14: Heart’s Blood
Chapter 15: Siege
Chapter 16: Wrath of the Demonsouled
Chapter 17: Fall
Chapter 18: Charge
Chapter 19: A Mask of Swords
Chapter 20: Debts To Pay
Epilogue: A Rigged Game
-JM
November 21, 2014
2014 Writing Progress
Once MASK OF SWORDS is done, I will have written seven novels this year.
GHOST IN THE COWL, GHOST IN THE MAZE, GHOST IN THE HUNT, FROSTBORN: THE MASTER THIEF, FROSTBORN: THE IRON TOWER, FROSTBORN: THE DARK WARDEN, and MASK OF SWORDS.
Also, I wrote the last half of FROSTBORN: THE UNDYING WIZARD in January, and I’m really hoping to get most of the rough draft of GHOST IN THE RAZOR written in December yet.
-JM
a free FROSTBORN story for the weekend
It’s Friday, so let’s have a free FROSTBORN story! THE PALADIN’S TALE is free on Amazon today through 11/23/2014. Links below!
-JM
November 19, 2014
MASK OF SWORDS paper edition
Looks like the paperback edition of MASK OF SWORDS will weigh in at about 247 pages.
The fact that it will be available just as the Christmas shopping season starts is, of course, purely coincidental. 
-JM
November 18, 2014
MASK OF SWORDS first chapter
I need to update SOUL OF SWORDS with a bonus chapter from MASK OF SWORDS, so this seems like an excellent time to share the first chapter here! Click on the link to read.
-JM
November 17, 2014
Stop Yer Whining! – three rules for self-pitying characters in fiction
Recently, I read a thriller novel about a middle-aged female detective we’ll call Cheryl. Having spent all her twenties and thirties working hundred-hour weeks to make detective, Cheryl wound up driving away her husband, and by the time she was forty-six, lived alone with no major relationships in her life. Cheryl admitted that her woes were entirely of her own making, but spent a lot of time feeling sorry for herself.
Which got me to thinking – how much self-pity is too much in a fictional character? Or, more specifically, how much self-pity is acceptable in a protagonist or a main character? If the villain feels sorry for himself while committing crimes, that can be part of his malevolence. (Think of the ungrateful debtor from the Bible, who was forgiven a debt of millions yet threw a man into prison over a trivial debt.) Yet self-pity is generally an annoying quality in the main character.
For some readers, no amount of self-pitying is acceptable, and they will immediately reject a book with a whiny protagonist. Yet one aspect of the human condition is that people feel sorry for themselves and sometimes complain about it. In Real Life, this can last for years – I once met a man who inevitably brought every conversation back to the social difficulties he suffered in high school twenty years ago. However, in fiction, this can become tedious. No one wants to read a 300 page novel about a protagonist who spends all his time whining and feeling sorry for himself.
I think there are three rules for a protagonist to feel self-pity without alienating the readers.
First, the character needs to have something worth self-pity, something significant enough that the reader will not feel contempt for the character. A character who feels pity because, say, his family died, will be far more sympathetic to the reader than a character who feels bad because all the treadmills are full at the gym or because McDonald’s ran out of chicken nuggets at lunch. In other words, the nature of the self-pity cannot inspire contempt for the protagonist in the reader.
For severe problems (death, injury, illness, financial ruin, mortal peril, and so on) this is easy. It becomes harder with a less threatening problem. For instance, consider the the classic love triangle – a woman trying to sort out her feelings for two different men. If the writer is not careful, the woman can quickly become unlikeable if she spends too much time dithering or bemoaning the necessity of the choice. The trick for self-pity is to make it understandable, even in problems that are not life-threatening. In THE KING’S SPEECH, the protagonist is in no physical danger, but after seeing all the suffering his speech impediment has caused him, it is entirely understandable that he feels sorry for himself and doesn’t want to try and overcome his impediment at first.
Second, if the character feels sorry for himself because of something he did, he needs to own up to it at some point. In Cheryl’s case, her self-pity was not annoying because she freely admitted that all her problems were her own fault – her obsessive focus on her job (in the fine tradition of dogged detectives everywhere) had driven away her husband, alienated all her friends, and left her alone. Now, if she had blamed everyone else for her problems while denying her own culpability in them, that would quickly have become annoying and made her a less compelling character. Cersei Lannister from A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE is an excellent example of such an unsympathetic character. Her misfortunes in the fourth and fifth books are almost entirely her fault, yet at no point does she realize that the blame lies with herself.
Third, the self-pity can be made part of the plot, allowing it to be overcome as part of the protagonist’s character arc. The essential nature of storytelling, boiled down, is about a character who faces a conflict as a result of a problem and resolves the conflict. This can be as kinetically violent as Conan of Cimmeria killing the evil sorcerer Tsotha-lanti, or (to cite another example from the Bible) as quiet as the prodigal son reuniting with his father after squandering his inheritance. Self-pity can be part of the conflict to be overcome. Properly handled, the self-pity can become part of the protagonist’s character arc.
The parable of the prodigal son is an excellent example of this. After moving to a foreign land and squandering his inheritance, the prodigal son spent time bemoaning his fate and feeding pigs to support himself. Like the detective Cheryl or Cersei Lannister, his problems were entirely of his own making. (Though to be fair, Cheryl had been hunting down murderers while the prodigal son had been partying with prostitutes.) However, unlike Cersei Lannister, the prodigal son realized that his problems were his own fault, and traveled home to beg forgiveness of his father.
To sum up, I think the best use of self-pity in fiction is as part of a character’s arc, as something that is eventually resolved one way or another. Like any other storytelling tool, it can be overused, but when employed well, it can contribute to a powerful story.
-JM
