Sarah Scheele's Blog, page 14

Just Plain Strange: Viltan and Ethan

For the series of really odd characters who come in pairs, Viltan and Ethan make a textbook addition. Ethan first appeared in very, very early drafts as Essie’s outer-space twin counterpart. She had one and Ryan had one (Rianna.) But Ethan’s personality went in a weird direction that isn’t necessary based on his role as Essie’s twin. He’s . . . silent, yet opinionated. He’s calm, but seems tense all the time. (Or are people just tense around him?) And while most of his activity is making friends with people, he’s somehow hostile.

Viltan isn’t explained at all. He showed up in a later draft of the story, in which Tarvelas also first appeared, after the plot with the twins was created. He had a lot of interest in Tarvelas and some of that still lingers in the final book. He’s never offered anything to the story and doesn’t have a reason to be friends with Essie’s twin—yet they are definitely friends. They seem inseparable. His duplicitous nature seems almost random and guaranteed to do nothing but get him in trouble. It almost strains credibility that he wouldn’t find another way to occupy his time.

But Viltan and Ethan do lend a lot of color—albeit, mostly shades of gray and orange (gray because Viltan is always trying to hide who he is and orange because that’s the color of Ethan’s hair)—to the areas around King Karpalff’s city of Nofalla. So they’re both likable characters, although a strange duo.
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And there will be more updates.

Frenemies to the Max

Ryan and Essie’s relationship has always been deep, the central focus of a surprisingly scary story. But it’s possible I didn’t realize until after the book was done just how funny they are. Nobody wants to be thrown into an adventure together less than these two.

Although Essie claims to be friendly, few of us have enough self-insight to get an analysis of ourselves right. That’s one of the reasons we need other people. A little perspective never hurt anyone. And a ten-year-old girl is certainly not going to have that level of insight about herself.

Essie isn’t trying to reach out to Ryan. She thinks he should be corrected. But Ryan absolutely won’t allow that. He’s not going to be corrected by her. Quite the opposite, he thinks Essie is rude, hopeless, a little annoying, and dead wrong about everything. (Especially about him.) Ryan thinks he is perceptive about things that require intelligence and education. Whereas all Essie does is drift around getting herself—and him—into endless trouble . . .

It can be funny how little we understand ourselves. Adults as well as children. We can get so worked up about why our relationship to some other person is a close one, but we don’t accurately describe what’s going on. Since children have even less of an objective view on themselves than adults do, Ryan and Essie emphasize a human character quality that isn’t at all diminished with age or experience.

We may try to hide it, but sometimes we’re as silly as they are. And as human.
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And there will be more updates.

Victoria: A Tale of Spain Preorder

I'm so excited that Victoria: A Tale of Spain is now available on preorder at several retailers. Seven of my books are currently distributed to a lot of big (and small) ebook retailers, and this one is joining the list! It is finally up and running after a lot of wrangling with the story. In some ways it's still a pretty flawed book, but not every story is perfect! And even with the flaws, there's some good stuff in there too. 

Visit the book page for a link to all stores.  
Victoria: A Tale of Spain

​And there will be more updates. 

The Birthday Present and Victoria: A Tale of Spain Preorder

I'm so excited that The Birthday Present and Victoria: A Tale of Spain are now available on preorder at several retailers. Seven of my books are currently distributed to a lot of big (and small) ebook retailers, and these two are joining the list!

The Birthday Present includes another novella added at the end, "Millhaven Castle." The new edition helps streamline the title and gets rid of that old label for a series that never materialized. But I included MC because it helps round out the story told in The Birthday Present. 

Victoria: A Tale of Spain is finally up and running after a lot of wrangling with the story. In some ways it's still a pretty flawed book, but not every story is perfect! And even with the flaws, there's some good stuff in there too. 

Visit the book's pages for a link to all stores.  
The Birthday Present
Victoria: A Tale of Spain

​And there will be more updates. 

That Hidden Girl Series: Lucy and Bella

After the merge of Victoria and the old “Alyce” story, The Hirado became an overriding theme that linked the stories and Webster’s comedy about bothering Victoria (and everyone in the castle) now mirrored Diego and Bruno’s funny antics in what had once been “Alyce.”

But the secondary girl remained only in the “Victoria,” part of the story. Actually, secondary GIRLS, since the whole idea of Lucy’s inclusion is that she helps Victoria understand more about Bella. This is because such a secondary girl didn’t appear in “Alyce,” at all and Victoria was written to add some needed characters and clarify the kind of situations that appeared in “Alyce.” The secondary girl who is a hidden character is incredibly important to a story’s balance and without this character the “Alyce” story was incomplete and unclear.

Bella/Lucy help explain a lot of Victoria’s relationships. The Hirado points out that she doesn’t really know Bella well at all. The Hirado leads her to travel with some English tourists, who include a girl named Lucy that he thinks is similar to Bella in many ways. But Victoria doesn’t know her and might be more objective about a stranger. Victoria is shocked to find that people view Lucy’s family negatively and pick on her. Afterwards, Victoria becomes a lot more careful.
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The Hirado seems to know an awful lot about both Lucy and Bella and to be unusually interested in them. Sounds rather creepy. Victoria doesn’t think about how either girl might feel about that—she’s just shocked to realize she has been seeing Bella in a very fake way. And once the stories were tied together, the point of Bella and Lucy’s characters, even if we still don’t know much about them, became more clear.

And there will be more updates.

Not Quite the Hero ~ Horace

Since three of my sci-fi adventure books are hitting virtual bookshelves, I’ll switch gears and do another “Not Quite the Hero” post. This time the focus is the vintage-era drama Bellevere House and Horace Carter. Anyone familiar with Jane Austen at all knows this character is based on Henry Crawford from Mansfield Park. (After all, the first letters of their names are the same!)

Everyone loves the drive Henry brings to the plot and I really enjoyed turning him into Horace Carter. Horace was just a great person to write about, because he’s so entertaining. Like Henry, he’s the sort of type you love to see in a book—debonair, a little bad-boy, perhaps quite flawed, but ultimately has a good heart. I’m not sure that person is quite realistic, but he’s what makes novels so great. I wanted to give him and Maria a happy ending because I just couldn’t stand for him to be sad at the end—but of course he shouldn’t end up with Fanny/Faye.

Besides, Horace deserves some gratitude for all that he offers the story. He’s a perfect side character and almost embodies the guy who just missed being the hero. But without him the book would almost fall apart and would be a good deal less fun. Sometimes if we look at someone’s flaws too much—even if those flaws are real—we can overlook their good qualities and we shouldn’t. There’s more to almost everyone than meets the eye.

And there will be more updates.

Chronicles of Palladia and Facets of Fantasy Preorder

The first two books in the Chronicles of Palladia series are finally coming to more retailers outside of Amazon! They're being released along with Facets of Fantasy, which was first published in 2009 and which contains a shorter version of City of the Invaders, "The Trouble with Taranui." Taranui was the original story from which Palladia sprang, so it makes sense to release these books together. For the first 5 years of publishing I didn't even do ebooks, so these three, especially Facets of Fantasy, took a while to come to a broader audience. For a detailed description of the books and purchase links to several stores, you can visit the book's website pages.

City of the Invaders
​Consuela
Facets of Fantasy


Visit your preferred store and snap up the preorder price of $0.99 before the books go up to the regular list. They are already available on Amazon and are discounted there to match. Preorder goes through end of May, with a book finishing its preorder run every 3 weeks.

And there will be more updates.

And Then There Was Lord Timson

Lord Timson is one of the defining characters of Facets of Fantasy. He gives “Millhaven Castle” its slightly-dippy, humorous tone, and he puts the other stories into a framework. Facets should be viewed as a complete story told in five chunks, instead of a set of unrelated stories. And this means Lord Timson’s mildly funny effort to invite random villagers to a dance in the hopes of finding ONE (Alyce, of course) because she might threaten his throne actually has reference to the other four stories as well.

When I wrote “Alyce,” as a remake of Millhaven Castle, Lord Timson was of course there and his plot about inviting-Alyce-for-a-silly-reason was reiterated. But King Felipe, although funny, isn’t quite the same. It’s Lord Timson’s role within Facets that gives him importance—without the addition of other stories around him, King Felipe has a different meaning. In The Birthday Present & Millhaven Castle, a shorter book I published before Facets of Fantasy, the same situation occurs—just in a nutshell. "Millhaven Castle" is joined to a very different story, Dystopian-sci-fi, and when that happens Lord Timson comes into his own.

In short, Lord Timson ties the books he is in together. He appears in the last story and culminates what we’ve learned along the way from a similar character in previous stories. For instance in Facets, Isadore Halogen; the Dragonak; Lord Andre; and King Thazan all have a shared interest in a shady way their family gets and keeps power, is very angsty and secretive, and has unexplained interest in other characters that gives away how anxious he is. But when Lord Timson comes along, it suddenly takes a light tone. It’s not viewed as at all dramatic or threatening to anyone. It’s just . . . just an imposition on other people’s time.

Which is also funny, because Lord Timson is a particularly useful villain. I’m sure he’d be quite disappointed to know that. 
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And there will be more updates.

The World of Palladia

The Chronicles of Palladia is something I’m very excited about going forward. Finding a good story to tell is about finding a need that other authors aren’t meeting. No group of authors can fully meet the demand from everyone, no matter how talented those authors are. So there must be a story out there that is being underrepresented.

At first I didn’t notice Palladia much and when I did, the thoughts quickly faded off into lack of interest. The whole idea began as a simple short story in the Facets of Fantasy collection and even after I expanded it into a longer book I felt this book, City of the Invaders, would quickly disappear. When I changed an old fake-history rom-com into the Palladia world (Consuela), I of course thought, “where is this going?” so I talked a little bit last year about a possible series. But City of the Invaders just couldn’t hold my attention and I decided a series wouldn’t be practical or interesting.

But then, while my designer was working on a new cover for the very new Victoria: A Tale of Spain, I realized I wanted one for Invaders too. And when it popped out, I was surprised. It didn’t look like I expected. I’m not one of those book-cover jerks, but maybe I’d been staring at that old cover so long I hadn’t noticed the story developing beneath it. Palladia could perhaps be a science fiction world that wasn’t like the others on the market—something people might need because it was different.

So I’m going to pull the two drifting book ideas I already have out into the Palladia world. One of them into a third Chronicles of Palladia story and another into a longer, standalone novel using the Palladia world. There is now a website page for the Palladia WIP.

And there will be more updates.

City of the Invaders Cover Reveal

I'm pleased to announce that City of the Invaders, in preparation for a more complete series and additional Palladia books in future, has had an overhaul of the cover! The lovely cover produced by my designer really wows me and helps to bring out the quality of this exciting futuristic adventure. Consuela also got a mild tweak so the fonts line up and now both books will be released on multiple platforms. So excited! 

And there will be more updates.