Karen Azinger's Blog: The Silk & Steel Saga, page 6

Renaissance Festivals!

Renaissance Festivals are a great way to get your medieval on! For a writer, they are a source of inspiration and renewed wonder. From the music to the costumes to the greetings as you walk from craft booth to game booth, festivals are fun and rich with medieval trappings. For a fantasy writer, they are a great way to discover little details that make a story feel real. I especially love to watch the jousting and the clash of steel on the tournament field. Two years ago, I went to the Mercer Island festival and watched the Seattle Knights joust. Last weekend I went to the Canterbury Festival in Silverton Oregon and watched the Imperial Knights clash arms on the tournament field. Brightly painted shields, colorful surcoats, dented armor, caparisoned horses, the pageantry of knights on the tournament field is always a wonder to behold. Festivals are held all across the US and all around the globe. So do a search online and find the nearest renaissance festival and treat yourself to medieval time! I'll be posting photos from the Canterbury Festival on my two Facebook pages. Stop by and visit and share the wonder.
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The Power of Back Story

Creating great fantasy is equal parts world building and character building. Characters are the true heart of any story. The deeper and more complex the characters, the more soul-catching the story will be. We all love to read about brilliantly strategic queens, dauntless knights, corrupt kings, and scheming princes, for it is the characters who sweep us away on tides of emotion. They make us weep for loves lost, shock us by their betrayals, and thrill us when crowns are won or lost, but none of this happens unless the reader truly cares for the characters. So how does an author create characters that are both fascinating and believable? One way is by creating a compelling backstory.

Backstory is essentially the character’s background, but for literary purposes it is far more than just the character’s place of birth, his family status, or his schooling. To create a powerful backstory, a writer needs to give his characters emotional landmarks. It is the triumphs and the scars of life that forge the very soul of the character. These emotional landmarks steer the character’s choices like a relentless compass. They give the character hidden depths and make them believable and intriguing. One of the best examples of a powerful backstory is Professor Snape in Harry Potter. Snape’s abiding love for Lilly explains all his actions, all his difficult choices. To be truly effective, the author must be consistent in how backstory influences a character’s decisions. Everything must make sense in the light of the reveal.

I’ll tell you a secret about backstory…it’s a secret! Who doesn’t love a good secret? Secrets are delicious story questions. The more secrets your characters have the more they will tantalize your readers. Give your characters lost loves, or thwarted ambitions, unfulfilled dreams, secret fears, or skeletons in their closet. An example of a great secret in Game of Thrones is 'who are Jon Snow's parents?' This question haunts the character through all the books, delighting fans with the chance to defend their own theories.

The fantasy genre provides authors with iridescent dimensions that other genres don’t have. Rare magical talents, secret skills, or a royal bloodline are often hidden in the backstory of fantasy characters. But no matter the genre, backstory provides powerful questions that weave beneath the plot and draw the reader through the story.

In my epic fantasy, The Silk & Steel Saga, you’ll find characters with secret pasts, hidden powers, suppressed loves, shocking bloodlines, and buried crimes. From the brilliant Queen Liandra, to the seductive Priestess, to the cunning Lord Raven, you’ll empathize with the good and pray they prevail but you truly feast on the bad who are utterly compelling.

The forgotten peoples of Erdhe

Another important dimension of the Silk & Steel Saga are the pockets of forgotten peoples in the kingdoms of Erdhe. Overlooked and often persecuted, these forgotten people develop unique counter cultures that seem strange and mysterious at first contact. An example of this can be found on the Isle of Souls, where the council of mystics uses a shocking test to confirm their fortunetellers. Those who succeed gain ‘spirit hands’ for the lintels of their shops…while those who fail pay in flesh and blood. Borrowed from the mystics of India, this trial is the type of cultural detail that gives the Isle of Souls a sense of depth and realism.
To develop cultures for my forgotten peoples, I often draw on experiences from my travels around the world. As a writer, I need to not only develop these alternate cultures but I need to "show them", not just "tell them". "Showing" a culture is usually done in the details. Details that confuse, or shock, or surprise the point of view character as well as the reader. These detailed differences are the key to making an alternate cultures believable.
In the Silk & Steel Saga, readers will discover many forgotten peoples with their own unique culture.

Meeting George Martin

What authors would you most like to meet? My top three are JRR Tolkien for his Lord of the Rings, Frank Herbert for Dune, and George Martin for Game of Thrones, the three authors that inspired my own writing. Sadly, time and fate make the first two impossible without a time machine, but not the third. Back in 2004, GRRM posted on his website that he planned to attend Foolscap, a small but cool fantasy conference in Seattle. Since this ‘con’ was within easy driving distance, I immediately signed up to attend. And then I contacted the con organizers and begged and pleaded to be put on a panel with George. I told them that I was an epic fantasy author and although my Silk & Steel Saga was not yet published, it was inspired by Game of Thrones. My pleas worked, and the organizers put me on a panel to compare Game of Thrones to Lord of the Rings. Wow! My first con panel and I’m sitting next to George Martin! It was an amazing experience. I followed George around the conference, attending every one of his panels, listening to his chapter reading, and getting him to sign all my SOIAF books. That night, I was one of a handful of fans to join him for drinks after the con. George was gracious and fascinating, keen to answer any question about his works or his writing methods. It was an amazing con, one I’ll never forget. So if you have an author you’d love to meet, consider attending a fantasy con. You never know who you might meet or what you might learn.

Inspired by George Martin's Game of Thrones

When I finished reading George Martin’s Storm of Swords, I desperately wanted more, but George takes a long time between books, and I really could not find anything else on the bookstore shelves that satisfied my craving. So I decided to write my own epic medieval fantasy, something similar but different. The first thing I borrowed from George was writing each chapter from the perspective of one point-of-view character. I love this writing style, the way it lets the reader and the author get deep into the character. It makes the story intimate and very personal, where the reader understands the dreams and fears of every POV character. The second thing I borrowed from George was complex plots and strategies. I wanted to write a big sweeping saga full of twists and turns that would surprise, shock, but also delight the reader, grabbing hold of your imagination and never letting go. But there were some things I wanted to do very differently. I wanted more women in the saga, not just women to bed and/or wed, but women that make a difference. From a sword-wielding princess, to a seductive priestess, to a queen who rules by coin and guile, to a silver-haired grandmother who wields knitting needles and knives, I wanted to explore how women gain, keep, and wield power in a medieval world. I wanted my saga to be a fast-paced sword-wielding adventure, but I also wanted it to be full of deeper meaning, so my saga explores the mechanisms of evil, the overarching theme the books. If the avatars of good cannot recognize or understand evil, then they will not prevail. And last but not least, I agree with George that some characters must die to make the risk real…but not all of them. If you love Game of Thrones like I do, I hope you will consider reading The Silk & Steel Saga. I’d love to hear how you think the two sagas compare.

The power of Theme

In my opinion, a writer’s secret weapon is theme. Theme is the underlying message. Theme is what elevates a good book to a great read. To learn about theme, I studied Frank Herbert’s Dune, how he wove the themes of religion and environmental science into his settings, his characters, and his plots. If done well, your theme should permeate your book, from the plots to the characters to the dialogue to the settings. My epic medieval fantasy, The Silk & Steel Saga, has many themes woven through it. One of the main themes is to explore the mechanisms of evil. Evil is not just a horde of ugly orcs brandishing swords. In my saga, those who walk on the Dark side are beautiful, smart, and manipulative…which makes them scary as hell. The avatars of good must recognize evil and foil their mechanisms in order for good to have a chance to prevail. The second theme of the saga is prejudice, how stupid, cruel and wasteful it is. In the Silk & Steel Saga, those who are overlooked often make the greatest difference. And the third theme is how women gain, keep, and wield power in a medieval world. This third theme also influenced the very name of the saga itself, Silk And Steel Saga, with the acronym of SASS, I hope you will agree that the women in my saga have plenty of sass! As a reader, themes are the key to truly understanding a good book, as a writer, themes are the key to elevating a good book to a great book.

Branding your cover artwork

If you are a writer who has also become a publisher, you’re suddenly making decisions about your covers. Consider “branding” your cover artwork.

What is branding? “Branding” is defined as the process of creating a unique identity for the product in the consumer’s mind. Creating a successful brand is the holy grail of modern marketing. It is also the hallmark of a successful author.

As an author seeking to amplify your success, you can brand your cover artwork by following four simple rules:
1. Use the same style of font for all of your covers
2. Use the same size of font for all of your covers
3. Use the same location for your name and title on all of your covers
4. Choose artwork that clearly reflects your genre

These simple rules will enable you to use different cover artists and still achieve a sense of branding. For example, I have published five books in the fantasy genre using two different cover artists, an award-winning artist from Australia (Greg Bridges) for my epic fantasy The Silk & Steel Saga and an up and coming graphic artist from Oregon (Peggy Lowe) for my short story collection The Assassin's Tear. Even though the artists are different, the common font size, common font style, and common font placement, make these books seem like they belong to the same author. I’ve branded my covers.

Big Sale on The Steel Queen!

Big Sale on The Steel Queen, only $2.99 on Amazon for the e-book! Now is the perfect time to start the medieval epic fantasy, The Silk & Steel Saga! http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0060AMHKU

Characters with will power

Have your characters behaved as you expected them to, or have you ever been surprised by the twists and turns your plot takes? I set my characters on a path but they definitely have a will of their own. It is one of the things that makes writing so much fun. When I write a character I really put myself in that character’s boots and try to push the plot envelope. By understanding the characters drivers, his wants and needs, I find myself writing new plot twists as each character tries their best to live large. In some ways, writing is kind of a collaborate effort between myself and the characters to see where the plot will go. I believe my books are much stronger and much more interesting because I allow my characters to live and breathe and exert a will of their own. But as the author, I’ve got an agreement with my characters. The one thing they cannot violate is the underlying themes of the saga, so all my characters, the good, the bad, and the ugly, play within the themes. I believe the underlying themes are what gives this saga a sense of depth, complexity, and realism. The themes make the characters real and the plot twists believable.

The Art of Poisoning

"Like seduction, the Priestess took poisoning to an art form. Any assassin could slip hemlock into a flagon of wine but it took an artist to design the perfect death. Part of the secret lay in understanding the possibilities of each poison. Symptoms could range from the dramatic to the subtle, from tortured convulsions and visions of gods to falling deep into a fatal sleep. And then there was the choice of dosage, strong enough for an instant kill, or parceled out to appear like a lingering malaise. But the real finesse came in the delivery, like slipping into a garden to paint baneberry on an apple just before it was plucked, one bite away from death. The Priestess smiled. She prided herself on creative kills, death by design, the artistry of murder." Excerpt from The Poison Priestess, the fourth book of The Silk & Steel Saga!