Jonathan Moeller's Blog, page 302

FROSTBORN: THE FIRST QUEST cover art

Here is the cover art for FROSTBORN: THE FIRST QUEST, the short prequel novel that newsletter subscribers will get for free when FROSTBORN: THE EIGHTFOLD KNIFE comes out.

So this is, of course, an excellent time to subscribe to my new-release newsletter!

-JM

Frostborn: The First Quest

Now editing FROSTBORN: THE FIRST QUEST, the short prequel novel I’m going to give away to newsletter subscribers when FROSTBORN: THE EIGHTFOLD KNIFE arrives (so if you haven’t subscribed to my new release newsletter yet, now is an excellent time to do so!)

THE FIRST QUEST was interesting to write, because in THE GRAY KNIGHT, Ridmark Arban is twenty-eight, but in THE FIRST QUEST, he’s only nineteen. People change quite a bit between nineteen or twenty-eight, so it was interesting to write Ridmark at an earlier stage of his life, before certain things had happened to him.

Also, the villain. The Warden of Urd Morlemoch is waiting…and he likes games, you see.

But his opponents, alas, tend not to appreciate the Warden’s games so much.

-JM

Thursdays of SWORD & SORCERESS 28 – the Suzan Harden interview

As I have done for several years in the past, I will be running interviews with my fellow contributors to Sword & Sorceress 28.

It’s fun to do, and a good chance for the writers to talk about themselves and their work. This week’s interview is with Suzan Harden.

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Tell us about yourself.

People are never sure what to make of me. I grew up on a working farm in Ohio Amish country, and I’ve argued a case in federal court. My music collection ranges from Mozart to Above the Law. Right now, I play a real-life Mary Cooper, except my addiction is Pepsi Max and my Genius Kid wants to socialize. It’s amusing when he tries desperately to ignore his weird mom’s obsession with zombies.

Oh, and I sent an e-mail to our esteemed editor Elisabeth Waters, reassuring her that I would not to submit any zombie stories to her. *grin*

Tell us about your S&S 28 story.

People aren’t sure what to make of Justice Anthea either. Girls born blind are forced into the service of the Temple of Balance. Anthea has been trying to get out of her position for years. When she was a teenager, she cast a spell to give herself sight. But since she had no reference point, her magic didn’t turn out the way she expected. Her range of visibility is in the infrared spectrum. I had a ton of fun dealing with an investigation from that point of view.

Can you share an excerpt from your story?

The tinkling bells that lined her cloak announced the girl’s presence as I ate my breakfast. “Justice Anthea, may I speak with you privately?”

Most Orrin inns were incredibly noisy, but the crowd here grew even more boisterous. It wasn’t often a priestess of Love addressed a priestess of Balance in a public business. Not that I could tell if her cloak was the appropriate red silk. At least, not the way most people saw the color. But the clientele went out of their way to speak loudly and ignore us.

The dry musk of pigs underlaid her expensive perfume. I spooned the last bit of eggs into my mouth. Even if her odor hadn’t given her away, she didn’t bother to sit or give her name as an equal should.

Maybe she was too cocky about her deception. Or she was too frightened.

After dabbing the corners of my mouth, I smiled. I couldn’t see her face with the heavy veil she wore, but I delayed long enough to detect her bare hands shift from dark gold to bright orange as they heated with her nervousness.I should have waited for Luc to return from the bathhouse, but curiosity got the better of me.

“Of course, sister.” I held out my own hand, which she took and assisted me in rising from the bench. Just as anyone with decency, or the appearance of such, would help a blind woman to her lodging.

We carefully climbed the steps to the room Luc and I rented for the week, her to demonstrate her solicitude to the crowd in the common area, me to maintain the illusion of my sightlessness. Once we gained the second floor and I released my hold on the banister, my free hand slipped into the folds of my robes and grasped the handle of my dagger.

I led the way into the sleeping chamber.

“Justice, I have—”

To anyone else, my actions flowed so fast they would have seemed magic. With a swift kick, I shut the door. Before it slammed, I shoved the girl against the cheap plaster that covered the walls, my left forearm pressed against her throat. The tip of my dagger flipped up her veil before the point settled at the fragile join of her ear and jaw.

I didn’t need her sharp gasp to know my hood had fallen back with the speed of my movements.

“Goddess, what are you?” The tremor in her voice matched the rapid throb of her artery under my blade. Everyone expected the milky white orbs of the sightless, like the rest of my order. Only Luc ever had the courage to tell me that no human’s eyes were the color of blood.

Would you say fantasy needs to reflect real life, or offer an escape from it?

In a word, “Yes.”

What are your preferred tools and environment for writing? (Typewriter, computer, pen, coffee shop, and so on.)

The only must-have writing equipment for me is caffeine. Above sixty degrees outside, it’s iced black tea with no sugar or Pepsi Max. Lower than sixty, it’s hot Irish breakfast tea, raspberry or peppermint mochas, or pumpkin lattes. Anything else is optional.

How many drafts of a story or novel do you typically write?

The bull cookie answer I give other writers? Twenty.

The real answer? One.

Have you tried any self-publishing projects yourself?

“Justice” is the first piece of my fiction that ISN’T self-published, though I think the term “indie publishing” is more accurate. I don’t do everything myself. I hire freelancers for some aspects, such as editing and covers. Personally, I enjoy being my own publisher because I’m making money writing what I love!

If offering advice to a new writer, would you suggest they pursue traditional publication or self-publication?

I would fall back on the ancient Delphic maxim, “Know thyself.” The direction a new writer should take really depends on (a) the writer’s comfort level with her entrepreneurial skills and (b) what she expects in terms of a writing career. Things have changed so much in the publishing industry over the last three years that any other writing advice could be irrelevant tomorrow.

But the former attorney in me would add READ and UNDERSTAND the f***ing contract before you sign or click anything!

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Thanks, Melissa, for the interview.

Check out our interviews with past S&S contributors – , , , Sword & Sorceress 25, Sword & Sorceress 26, and Sword & Sorceress 27.

And the novel featuring my Sword & Sorceress character, spy and assassin Caina Amalas, is now available for free in all ebook formats: Child of the Ghosts.

the battle is joined

I have my garlic, my holy water, my oaken stakes, my crossbow loaded with bolts forged from pure silver.

I think I am ready to upgrade to Windows 8.1.

-JM

The Rough Map of the Frostborn

I do not enjoy drawing, and I don’t particularly like to draw maps for my books, since they feel constraining. That said, a map is one of the most commonly requested items for both DEMONSOULED and THE GHOSTS. Since I’m planning to do about 14 (or 16) books in the FROSTBORN series, I figured I would start out right and have a rough map for the series.

So here it is! (Click on the image for a bigger version.)

I’m not planning to include the map in the actual ebooks – the image file is 3.3 megabytes, which would drive up the download costs considerably – but I will have a link to it. At some point I hope to hire a trustworthy artist to make a prettier version of the map. But for now the map should give you a good idea of the location of Andomhaim’s various regions and cities.

-JM

the importance of endings

(This is a longish post on the craft of writing – feel free to skip if it doesn’t interest you.)

The final novel of a popular series came out today, and while I haven’t read it, I know a few people who have, and it has been interesting to watch their sheer rage over the ending. This reflects, I think, a very important rule about the writing of fiction. Namely:

Under no circumstances can your ending leave the reader feeling cheated! Furthermore, an ending must not betray the story that preceded it, and it absolutely must provide emotional resolution to the story. It doesn’t matter whether or not you have a happy ending, a sad ending, or some mixture of the three – there has to be emotional resolution that does not leave the reader feeling cheated.

Now, there are people who argue that such endings are unrealistic, and that fiction must be as realistic and gritty as possible. But that’s nonsense. Fiction, by definition, is unrealistic. Storytelling is like stage magic – it’s an illusion, a trick, but like stage magic, the audience wants to be fooled.

To continue the metaphor, having a “realistic” ending that cheats the audience is a bit like a stage magician performing the “sawing a woman in half” illusion – only that he actually does saw in her half. And as the audience stares at him in shock and dismay, the magician informs them that in real life, women who are actually sawed in half die of shock and/or blood loss, and furthermore, if they are not intelligent enough to appreciate the ending, well, that is their problem.

I’m sure you can think of a few books or movies like that – stories where the writer killed off the entire cast or wrecked the setting out of spite, or betrayed the story to make a heavy-handed political point with the ending. There was a remarkably lame sitcom from the 90s called DINOSAURS, which ended with the cast freezing to death to Teach A Valuable Lesson about environmentalism. Another good example is M. Night Shymalan’s film THE VILLAGE, where all the mystery and horror of the story only turns out to be a humbug. Or THE SOPRANOS series, in which case the ending simply didn’t make any sense whatsoever.

A good counter-example is the BREAKING BAD television series. While I was not a fan of it (too nihilistic for my taste), it was nonetheless an excellent example of the craft of storytelling – the ending, while partially tragic and partially hopeful, provided excellent emotional resolution to the crisis of the story. Hugh Howey‘s SILO saga (of which I wholeheartedly approve), or Brandon Sanderson’s MISTBORN books (which I enjoyed greatly) both had tragedy and hope in equal measure in their endings, but they had endings with emotional resolution to the conflicts of the story.

There is a lesson for writers in all of this. If you are a writer, you can get away with a lot during a story, but only if you have a properly satisfying ending.

-JM

Free Fiction Tuesday – DRIVEN

This week’s story for Free Fiction Tuesday is DRIVEN, and it’s available at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, and Amazon Canada. It’s about an inventor who builds a car that requires neither gasoline or electricity. The inventor claims it will put an end to war and pollution…but the car’s technology has a price he might not be willing to disclose.

-JM

cover art for FROSTBORN: THE EIGHTFOLD KNIFE

Editing is underway for FROSTBORN: THE EIGHTFOLD KNIFE, and this seems like an excellent time to share the cover art, done by Clarissa Yeo.

If all goes well, the book should be out in November.

-JM

Don’t Open The Door

Today I am going to tell you a story about the dangers of opening doors.

Long ago, when this world began, there were just the high elves. They believed that God had put them upon this world to care for it and maintain it, for God had indeed created this world for a purpose. A great darkness had been sealed away within the skin of this world, in a place the humans would one day call the Black Mountain. It had been given to the high elves to guard this prison and act as caretakers for this world.

And they did.

For spans of time so vast that no human tongue has the vocabulary to describe it, the high elves kept watch over this world, dwelling in great bliss and splendor as they went about their task.

But for some of us, that was not enough.

Those high elves, the proud ones, the ambitious ones, used their spells to examine the Black Mountain, to consider the darkness sealed within as a bored child might pick at a scab. And in time they probed too deeply, and the darkness spoke to them. At first they spurned it. But still it whispered to them, promising them all the secret desires of their hearts if they would be set it free.

And in time the darkness reached out and possessed one of them, and its summoners fell to their knees and worshipped the incarnated darkness as their new god.

The dark elves had been born, and they tried to free their god from its prison.

The high elves made war upon us. For millennia this war waged, laying much of the world waste. Spells beyond the capacity of the human mind to understand shattered the land, and mountains crumbled and deserts froze and forests burned. The high elves had the mastery, and drove their sundered cousins back mile by mile.

Yet the darkness walked among its servants in a body of flesh, and whispered its secrets into our ears. It taught us spells of necromancy, of shaping flesh and bone into weapons of death.

And it taught them the secret of opening doors between the worlds. For there are as many worlds as there are stars in the night skies, and as many kindreds that live upon them. The great wizards of the dark elves opened the doors between the worlds, and brought forth new kindreds to serve them as slaves and soldiers.

The orcs were the first. Strong and fierce and hardy, they made superb slave soldiers for the dark elves, and the wizards brought hundreds of thousands of them through the gates. Then came the beastmen and the manetaurs. They were fiercer, and harder to control, but served well as shock troops. Halflings were weak, too weak for battle, but made fine servants for our more useful slave warriors. The dwarves proved impossible to control, and soon rebelled and sided against us, but they were a rare error. We brought other kindreds through as well, binding them to our service.

And one day, we found the urdmordar.

We had never seen anything like them. They wore the form of spiders, yet wielded mighty dark magic. They disdained the use of tools and weapons, yet had intellects of genius, and dominated lesser creatures with ease. They feasted upon living flesh like any rude predator, but were so cunning and so clever that they remained hidden, and their victims rarely knew their true foes.

What slaves they would make! With their power, we would at last crush the high elves and claim the victory.

And so we opened the door to their world and brought the urdmordar through to ours.

Fools, fools, fools.

For the urdmordar were too powerful to control.

They swarmed through the gate, and devoured the dark elven wizards that sought to bind them. For the dark elves were the rightful masters of this world, mighty in sorcery and wisdom and without peer, but the urdmordar saw them as only one thing.

Food. And, perhaps, as tools.

Within five years the dark elven kingdoms had been enslaved and forced to serve the urdmordar. Our armies of slaves transferred their allegiance readily enough. The high elves briefly rejoiced, thinking they had found an ally, but the hunger of the urdmordar was insatiable.

One by one the high elven kingdoms fell, until only Cathair Solas remained.

And then the urdmordar met a new kindred coming up from the south.

The humans, the exiles of Old Earth, the heirs of Arthur Pendragon. Heedless of the ancient conflicts of their new world, they blundered into the path of the urdmordar.

And the destiny of this world was altered.

-The Warden of Urd Morlemoch

(A preview of FROSTBORN: THE EIGHTFOLD KNIFE, coming next month.)

editing now underway for FROSTBORN: THE EIGHTFOLD KNIFE

I finished FROSTBORN: THE FIRST QUEST today (the prequel short novel I’m going to give away to newsletter subscribers), so editing for FROSTBORN: THE EIGHTFOLD KNIFE is now underway.

I have to admit, writing two novels back-to-back was a bit of an exertion, but fortunately one that was within my reach.

Now for some math. I started writing THE EIGHTFOLD KNIFE on September 13th, and since then I have written 138,599 words, which averages to just about 3,959 words per day for the last 35 days.

There’s a reason I’ve gone through twelve laptops in the last thirteen years.

Watch this space for some previews of THE EIGHTFOLD KNIFE in the next few days.

-JM