Sarah Scheele's Blog, page 8

A Tale of Two Families

I haven't posted on A Year with the Harrisons in a while so I'll do so while it's being promoted this month. PLUS, it is currently part of the Spectacular Summer Giveaway. If you missed getting a copy of Harrisons in the Children’s Book Giveaway a couple of weeks ago, you can snag it today. But you should check out this giveaway in any case. It's an all-genre event with romance, fantasy, some short stories, books about cooking, contemporary novels, and adventure. Harrisons is a YA comedy that really brings grownup and younger readers together, so it has been in two pretty different collections this month. This giveaway is more for adult readers than the last one and has a great set of books.

Check it out here. And if you try to download A Year with the Harrisons and it doesn’t work because you're already subscribed, use this link for a direct download. But only for my book. Be sure to check out all the others at the link above.
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A Year with the Harrisons is a story about people who are hiding from their past. A lot of the situations in the book are funny, as the characters' bumbling through relationships is often amusing. But like many dramas, coming of age stories, and women’s fiction, complicated family ties that lead to many plot twists are essential to its structure. The two central plots involve two branches of a Texas family, the Harrisons, who haven’t dealt with things about their past relationships to other family members. The plots parallel through the characters of Joe Harrison, a homeschooling father of three teenage girls, and his first cousin once removed, Betty Harrison, a former celebrity who now works at a local diner. While both of these people quietly move in very different spheres, blending in with their chosen social circles, they really have a lot of connection to each other. A connection that can’t be denied and that never goes away.

They are both tied to Betty’s mother, a famous pop singer. But Betty has left her mother to pursue a separate life and has never dealt with any of the emotions about that painful split. She’s a single mother whose young daughter attends an ordinary small-town school. Joe moved into an unusual lifestyle of home-education for his children and has almost cut himself off from the outside world. The girls are isolated and have few friends except at church, since Joe, unlike Betty, has become very religious. You’d never think to see either Joe or Betty that they even knew each other. But of course that's how the story begins, not how it ends.

This is mostly a very cheerful book, because Betty and Joe do end up making good decisions. There are a lot of young people in the book, with prominent plots focused on teenage girls as well as a bit of mild romance between Joe’s daughter Letty and a football player. But these core relationships among the older people build a foundation for the story. Except for the pastor Dr. Bunsen, a minor character whose effort to change the ministries at his church fails, everyone in the circle of the Harrison family and the Shotgun family (who shadow them throughout the book) end up finding there’s always a solution to things if you just deal with them. Betty becomes close to her mother again, all the young people grow into their budding new lives, Joe proves more knowledgeable than anyone anticipated, and the villain, Mr. Shotgun, conveniently pops off.

Perhaps a bit of a contrivance on that last one, but I’d certainly like to think it was at least a little bit real. Facing things is always the best way because when confronted with a direct accusation of identity almost everything bad will immediately disappear. There’s a reason why light always turns trolls to stone.

And there will be more updates.

In a Nutshell: Lucy and Lord Harry

This week I'm examining The Birthday Present in more detail and The Birthday Present and Ryan and Essie are both on sale. They are priced at $0.99 each, which is the lowest price they've had in about a year. Both are in group sale events and not only can you find some new authors (or maybe authors you’ve noticed for a while and this time their book is on sale!), you can see what types of books are similar to mine. Market context has historically been a little hard to get on these two books, specifically, so I encourage you to check out these sales.

The Summer SFF Bargain Books promo has The Birthday Present and emphasizes fairy tales, academy stories, military sci-fi, and attractive protagonists on the covers. It has mostly adult books, but with a few YA sprinkled in. Click here to visit it.

The Marvelous and Magical Fantasy promo has Ryan and Essie and a good list of intelligent, thought-provoking fantasy (think A Wrinkle in Time) that doesn’t sacrifice adventure while exploring ideas. It has books for all ages from children's to adult. Click here to visit it.

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I am starting a little series, In a Nutshell, based off of the Five Central Characters series that has been going on monthly. It explores some of the central five characters for each book in a more detailed way. And for The Birthday Present the ones to look at are Lucy from “The Birthday Present” and Lord Harry from “Millhaven Castle.”

In “Birthday Present,” it isn’t told from Lucy’s POV as much as from that of one of the boys at the military school she visits. Her important relationships are with the human beings in the colony she comes from. Aure, the other focus of the story, relates mostly to the culture he oversees, including the boys Lucy befriends. But Lucy has a job to do towards changing the society Aure has created. She is a very attractive and brave person in spite of her faults. She can be a bit stubborn, she is around very dangerous things without seeming to realize it, and she argues a lot. But that doesn’t negate her courage and her dedication to doing the best she can. She’s a well-intentioned girl even if she’s a bit overwhelmed by the things around her, and you don’t have to be perfect to do a good job or to stand up for what’s right.

In "Millhaven Castle," it’s similar in that the POV character, Alyce, isn’t quite what motivates the story. She is grabbed by the protagonists, Lord Harry and those around him like his brother. Lord Harry drives the story and his relationships with other Capsells determine a lot of what he does. Alyce sort of walks right into a situation that has a lot of anger bubbling up within it and she doesn’t quite understand because Harry is a very angry and moody person, but he tries to restrain it by acting in a jerky manner, all fits and starts. He is quick-tempered, often interrupts, and behaves oddly because he’s upset about things around him. He helps Alyce to show his disapproval of his brother, does not really explain why he’s helping, and does not let her see what a caring person he can really be. His inability to explain his motives is a hint they might not be 100% good, but he is viewed as a sympathetic character anyway.

So, both characters show there is a lot of subtext within The Birthday Present book. Both the stories have many relationships that are only hinted at. But sometimes it’s best to write that way because readers will be smart enough to figure out what’s going on.

And there will be more updates.

More and More, They Are

This month A Year with the Harrisons is going to be in two free book promotions, one for adults and one for children. Normally I only do one promotion per book, but Harrisons is a really neat story because it is peppered with grownup characters who have a lot of pizzazz and a larger than life flair and with teen characters who belong to real-world conversations about society, education, and family. So both adults and teens can really enjoy it, making it cross over into both categories.

This week's promotion is the June Children’s Book Giveaway, which has lots of books for young people ranging from preschool to young adult. A Year with the Harrisons, obviously, is YA so it’s a bit on the older end of the spectrum here. Click here to visit this great giveaway if you enjoy children’s and YA books and would like to grab some while they’re free. Just subscribe to author’s newsletters.

You can download Harrisons along with the other books. If that doesn’t work, click this link instead for a direct download. But only for my book. Be sure to check out the others!

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It’s certainly time to start greasing the publishing wheel again and breaking some ground for new books. While there are always things that could still be developed about my older books, audiences reinvent themselves naturally over time anyway. So in a way, there’s no “end” to it. For example, just look at the many film and TV adaptations of Emma or Pride and Prejudice. While some things remain constant, there are also abundant differences as time goes on. Each new version builds on older ones, as some characters go through many phases and develop in surprising ways.

Similarly, while my older books are still active entities, with ups and downs, I want to write more books because there are so many characters I haven’t explored yet. As we go month-by-month through the five central characters of each book I’ve published, what really shows is that each story is unique. They offer different characters for readers to relate to. After all, books aren’t relevant unless they echo our relationships in real life. We’ll feel about characters the way we feel about ourselves and the people around us.

When someone responds to a character, they think this little avatar tells their story. And I get more ideas as I go places and live life—ideas for characters. Somewhere, out there, there is always someone new to write about--their relationships, loves and hates, friendships and adventures, the genre they like to read, the historical era they’ve claimed as theirs. Wherever I go, I look for a new story to tell because so many people who deserve to have their story told haven’t appeared in my work yet. I don’t write about everyone, of course. That would be beyond my capacity and pretty exhausting too, to understate. But like most authors, I belong to a particular set of people. I call this a “dimension,” probably because of a residue left on me from writing so much speculative.

Central Five: Victoria: A Tale of Spain

Victoria: A Tale of Spain started as a rework of “Millhaven Castle.” Before MC got published, there had been a much longer manuscript about Alyce and I wanted to include a few things from that unpublished book in a rewrite. The resulting story, called “Alyce,” was followed by a draft of Victoria a year later and (briefly) an early draft of Consuela. But “Alyce,” rather than an MC rewrite, became about totally different characters even though they appeared under the same names at first, like Alyce and Lord Harry. Realizing I had a unique story springing up where it hadn’t been expected, I merged these new characters into Victoria and dropped the MC names to finalize an independent book that has, I’ll admit, some of my personal favorite characters out of what I’ve written.

It’s tricky to define the five central characters for a book in which people’s initial idea of these characters as part of the Millhaven Castle world has been replaced as the story moved into its own identity. But some things have remained constant and have risen to the top:

There Is Life After Beta

My books were, practically speaking, in a beta phase at the time they were first made public. I rarely used beta readers beforehand and would present my ideas in “published” form and then get some feedback about them. The books received the usual gamut of initial responses that happen to a new story. But since I was writing stories that were formative during their first run, these early reactions, even if they lingered in reviews or commentary, became outdated after the books entered a second phase. Once it began this second phase, each book went through a unique development based on its needs. But it was always geared towards finding the story— the finished product—out of that original beta publication.

Syncing was required for The Birthday Present and Facets of Fantasy. When I learned these volumes of shorter stories were to be viewed as contiguous, in a sense—as linking together in some way instead of serving as unrelated shorts—the task was to untangle them from each other and find the right combinations that reflected this core linkage.

Longevity was important to A Year with the Harrisons, since it dealt with what was potentially a flash-in-the-pan topic. It was presented very informally at first, a serialized weekly installment run on my FB fan page. About 8 years later I felt there had been enough real interest for me to proceed with a publication.

Context was necessary for the Palladia books (City of the Invaders & Consuela.) Both of them were shown early on as short little sketches and while their storylines were on the right track, there just wasn’t enough detail. Information about a larger world was needed, and eventually a more dramatic underlying structure around these stories began to appear.

Definition was important for Victoria: A Tale of Spain and The Test of Devotion. When these two first went public, they were vague on some of the character development and didn’t always clarify what needed to be understood about the personal relationships in the stories. For this reason, they were some of the most confusing for readers. As they developed, the books that emerged differed from the initial drafts in ways that made the stories clearer.
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Accessibility was central to Bellevere House and Ryan and Essie. Both stories were shown sufficiently and neither of them needed more time or structural organization. But in both books, the story was very subtle and deeply embedded. So they faced a communication problem, with readers not being able to access the story immediately. Connecting readers to these books has been a priority.

And there will be more updates.

The Friends You Don't Want to Make

As I talk this week about expanding the Palladia Series into a trilogy, City of the Invaders is available for FREE in a group giveaway. Until the end of the month, you can catch it along with 50 other sci-fi, fantasy, YA, and dystopian books in the May Fantasy Giveaway promotion. This really is a steal for loading up on some great free books. Just subscribe to author's newsletters. City of the Invaders is #1 in the Palladia Series and I've highlighted the series throughout this month, so this is a perfect time to get started on it! Just follow this link.

If the link doesn't work (it works for already-subscribed addresses about half the time) use this instead for a direct download. But only for my book. Be sure to check out all the others at the link above.

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It took a while for Consuela to really make the switch to the Palladia world. After all, transplanting a story from one genre to another can be a bit of a shock and the readers picking up these characters need to get used to seeing them in a high-tech world instead of the Italian coastal scenes of the beta version. But the underlying types of people shown do belong to Invaders’ world of criminals and city-states, because riff-raff and politics, as I mentioned earlier this month, are vital to Consuela. And after the story settled in for a bit, I started to think about doing another Palladia book. But I didn’t until I was sure the transition was working. What would the third book be about? It would have to be something that built on both Invaders and Consuela. And in any case, assuming these two books did go together, maybe the story ended there.

Now, of course, that the world is settled on action-adventure and crime, with a dash of politics, a bunch of new characters have popped out of lurk spots like the riff-raff they are. You’d think that after two books detailing shady dealings, educated subcultures mingling with crime lords who run everything, and a bit of backstabbing and subterfuge, we had seen all the criminal types anyone would ever need to. But no, there are plenty more. One of the hallmark traits of Palladia is that there really are a LOT of people who participate in this lifestyle. Perhaps more of them than are strictly needed, which creates many of the problems in this future society. But they certainly do exist.

The third book, title still pending, is currently being planned to include some of the outer-space colonies mentioned in the earlier books, but never visited—especially Alphea (Mars.) The Alpheans have a mysterious and very high-tech colony. But I want to include some of the Palladian types like the EC as well, in the form of a young lady who is a bit of a clueless fan of Alphean culture and finds herself befriending a well-off Alphean family who aren’t quite what they seem. (Well, they are what they seem to be, namely rich and Alphean, with two young people among them she becomes good friends with. But there’s more to them than that.) And of course, there’s a criminal heist going on with a mismatched team of squabbling hustlers, including a young orphan who definitely has a mind of her own and seems to have forgotten she’s only thirteen. Since it’s Palladia, there will be plenty of opportunities to shoot people or steal their money. Or maybe both.

Preview: This Merry Summertime

Last month I mentioned that I will be publishing a little collection of shorts this year. To reveal more information, the anthology will be called This Merry Summertime and will contain 7 short stories and satirical comedy scripts, and one novella. The satirical comedy scripts are very short screenplays that tell a typical, cliché story in a funny way. But they are creative, with invented characters, and explore the genre as well.

The title was chosen because the storylines for every piece take place during the summer. A couple have scenes in the spring or early autumn, but the bulk of the story has a warm summer feeling to it and several stories are set exclusively in the warm months of the year.

The 7 pieces are titled:Sarcophagus: An Epic Paranormal Fantasy (Satirical script)Ella Substituted (Short Story)In the End the Story Ended: Dramatic Comedy by Shakespeare (Satirical Script)Movies at the Beach (Novella)The Destiny of Princes (Satirical Script)Everwood: An Allegory (Short Story)A Matter of Life & Hair: A Western Romance (Satirical Script)
Actually, the idea of publishing these blindsided me without warning. A very few of you might have been around long enough to remember some of these little skits, which were shown to a few blog readers about 6 years ago. But the concept behind these shorts wasn’t serious at the time and they returned to my USB flash disk where they remained buried up until last month. I thought of them as a rather wistful memory of a very different time in my publishing career, one that was rich in personal relationships but much less professional than it has since become. Everwood briefly appeared in a now-out-of-stock single of "The Amulet of Renari", because at the time I wasn’t sure if Renari would fit permanently with the other Facets stories. But it ended up doing so and Everwood went back into the USB disk.

If I ever stumbled on any of these while sorting my files, publishing them never occurred to me. But then, like a motorcycle coming sideways out of a forest, these stories zoomed back into view. And the next thing I knew, I was compiling them together and preparing to publish them. Movies at the Beach requires a little trimming because it’s a bit too long and it will still be the longest in the book when it’s done. But the changes I’m doing are slight and basically these little skits are resurrecting themselves. In terms of the imagery of a motorcycle trying to run you down, they mean business too. At least, that doesn’t sound like a vehicle that wants to be argued with.

And there will be more updates.

Central Five: Consuela

Before I go into the five focus characters in Consuela, the second Palladia book, you should know there's a flash sale of $0.99 fantasy books going on this week only. It lasts May 4-10 and includes over 30 books in high fantasy, urban fantasy, general fantasy, and a bit of sci-fi. This is a good bundle for anyone who likes fantasy and it has an excellent lineup of books. To check it out (who knows, maybe you'll find something discounted that you've had your eye on!) follow this link.

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​Consuela was originally brainstormed as a historical story but turned into a sci-fi book instead—a slightly rambling adventure set in the future. Its thread of humorous moments might seem a deviation from a genre that always takes the issues it explores very seriously. But part of dystopian’s magic is that tales of a near-future world easily become so pertinent, as if that future was already present to a degree. There's really nothing quite like this unique genre. And if a hypothetical future society has such a tangible reality, then we must feel it's a place we could potentially live.

Consuela, in addition to exploring a bit more about daily life in the future—which, of course, is why it’s here—has a stronger political plot than Invaders. Politics are very important to the story. If there ever comes a future society that has a bad government and is mostly filled with crime, it’s likely to have some pretty busy relationships springing from that bad government. Plus, the abundance of criminals in Palladia means people who make laws are likely to be friends with people who break them. Illogical, yes. But it certainly adds to the fun.

The Easter Bandit

As people in my state (Texas) are talking about opening businesses back up, with limitations, life is returning to a tentative pretense of normal. Of course, if you’re required to visit parks only in limited groups wearing masks the definition of "normal" is open to interpretation! But along with all the hard and sad things during the storm of the virus during April in the US, there were little things that were less grave and sometimes even a bit funny.

​Like the toilet paper craze that started immediately and is still a problem. Last week was the first in which I saw even a little of it on the shelves at my local grocery and there were still no disinfecting products like hand sanitizer. In fact, people got to the hand sanitizer long before we did and we rely on a tiny bottle we dug out of an old purse. (We rarely used hand sanitizer before, which was why we didn’t buy any quickly enough.) We tried to restart our chest freezer, which we hadn’t used in 4 years, because we had some extra ears of corn as a gift. We usually freeze extra corn until we can use it, but that takes space. So the freezer . . . oh wait, scratch that idea. Nada. That freezer was a no-show. And freezers were also sold out everywhere unless you wanted one the size of an entire room or a tiny one that only stores medicine!

A Book That Stands Alone

Ryan and Essie, chronologically, was published between Victoria: A Tale of Spain and The Test of Devotion. And ordinarily I group the books in pairs based on when they were published. The two story collections; the first two Palladia Series books; and the two novels about American 20th-century life are all natural fits for each other and it also happens they were published in adjacent years.

But Ryan and Essie doesn’t match the feel of either Victoria or Devotion. In fact, it’s incompatible as a mystical fantasy story set in deep space. These two books, meanwhile, have much in common with each other and were published very close together. So I’ve paired them as a couple and moved Ryan and Essie farther down in the list towards more recent books in spite of its technical time of publication. This is because it’s now the only one that doesn’t have a partner. (You have 9 books and you’re working in pairs of two, this is bound to happen!