S.L. Armstrong's Blog, page 21

What's In A Name?

I have a confession: I never have trouble naming my characters. I don't. Their names are usually the first part of their personality I create. Names pose no trouble for me. My co-author, though, agonizes over it or just lets me do the choosing. XD

I also don't pay much attention to the names other authors use. Although, really, some of the names… I know authors want to be unique, but in a contemporary or historical novel, there are limits to the uniqueness of a name! And spelling. Holy hell, the way some people will choose to spell a name is a travesty. Judgmental, me? Nah.

Names can also be confusing to keep track of. My suggestion? Spreadsheets. Spreadsheets are a boon, and they are an author's best friend. I have one spreadsheet that contains all names I've used, where I've used them, and names I intend to use. I'm a collector of names, really. I see one mentioned somewhere, or I'm just browsing a names site, and suddenly, I have another dozen names to potentially use. Male and female.

Now, with my Egaea characters, those names are unique. Some of them started life as real names. Some were real names we then altered the spelling of to fit the fantasy world. Others were taken from a name generator or were plucked directly from my brain. That's one world I don't worry about names with so much because it's pure fantasy. The only rule I have is naming convention. The Elves and Maith tend to have Gaelic root names or were generated. The Varan have short, clipped names, usually with an apostrophe separating the syllables. The Humans have traditional, Old English names. The Dragons and Griffins are usually named by their riders, so tend toward the same naming conventions as the Elves. The Drak have more reptilian or highly unusual names. The Spiders—when gifted with a name—tend to have the same conventions as the Elves. Each race has it's own way of naming their people, and I try to keep that in mind when creating a new character among those races.

With Otherworld and its characters, all but the half-human character are named after plans and naturally occurring things. That was easy to form a list of, but it's hard to choose. You don't want to name a male faerie Daffodil. >.>

Some of my favorite names I've used (or will use)? Bastian, Nahele, Gabriel, Grey, Matthew, Roderick, Gideon, Bleidd, Gauwyn, Justyn, Jasyn, Keegan, Payton, Faye, Victor, and Rosaleen.

I name my characters what I like and don't let any fads dictate what I do or don't use. I don't stress over names all that much, and it seems I'm one in a minority. I'll thank my stars for that!

Gaming the System

Authors know that creating sockpuppets and rating your own books higher on any site is just silly. It's quite ridiculous, as most readers will say that they pay no attention to the overall rating or any rating without a review attached. Unless you plan to write up a dozen reviews—all saying something different and meaningful about the book—doing this is just a waste of time. Instead, write your next book, make it better than the last, and learn from your mistakes.

Then there is trolling. Now, I've seen authors apply this to anyone leaving a less than a 4-star rating for their book or their friends' books. In reality, trolling is when someone goes through and rates all of one type of book or one author's book a 1-star. There's nothing behind it but jealousy, pettiness, and bitterness. Someone rating a book a 1-star does NOT immediately mean they're a troll. It's usually other authors who have sockpuppet accounts who go around downrating other authors' books. That's trolling. Remember that, okay?

Something else I've noticed that I'm finding disturbing. Authors reviewing their friends. Now, this isn't to say that it's necessarily a bad thing, but it's becoming a trend I've noticed. A couple 1-star reviews show up on an author's account somewhere, and then there's a call to arms! Friends are asked to review the book, uprating it. This, to me, is just as bad as author sockpuppets. Your friends, honestly, aren't going to give your book a 1-star review. They just aren't. Again, a rating is being artificially inflated because an author's ego has been bruised, and they've no qualms about enlisting their buddies to just positively rate the hell out of their book.

Finally, there's those blog posts, forum posts, and Tweets of 'For a review, I'll give you my book free!' Don't try to buy reviews. I wince every time I see it. I don't ask anyone to review my books personally. Storm Moon Press sends out my books when they're ready to a list of reviewers they work with. I don't approach a reader and ask them to review my book in exchange for anything. A bought review usually isn't an honest review.

Authors need to let go. Once your book is written, move on to the next one and let your previous baby grow up. It's part of publishing your work. Not everyone will like your book. Be big kids and understand this. NOT EVERYONE WILL LIKE YOUR BOOK. Let that hit your ego now. People have varying tastes, opinions, and expectations and no one author can meet them all flawlessly. Swallow it down. It's a bitter pill because authors have big egos. We want to be loved, want our work to be sought after and praised, but that isn't the reality. Gaming the system isn't cool, and it makes me—the reader—less likely to engage with an author or buy their book when I see them bashing reviewers on Twitter or begging their friends for reviews or exposed for their sockpuppetry.

Let go. Love the whole process from the absolute high of being accepted to the cheek-flushing embarrassment of a snarky, thorough negative breakdown of your book. Negative reviews sell books, too. Take a deep breath, close your eyes, count to ten, and let it wash over you.

And then go back to writing your next great book.

Yes, Another Post About Editing

Editing. I talk about it a lot. It's my job. It's part of my writing and publishing career. It's the cornerstone of a great book. Editing is—in my opinion—the single greatest tool in an author's kit. The trick, though? You can't edit yourself, and you need experience to be a good editor.

Editing is an art. It's not just knowing the English language (which is also important). It's also knowing characterization, pacing, and plot. It's seeing where a story lags and knowing how to pull it back on track. It's being able to tell your personal preferences and an author's voice. It's about taking what was good and making it great.

I shy away from buying books in my own genre now unless All Romance eBooks is doing some sort of massive sale or rebate. Otherwise? I don't feel I get my money's worth. Books riddled with common grammatical errors (with publishers trying to hide their lack of knowledge by saying it's their style – really? Incorrect grammar is now a style?), poorly constructed romances, badly written characters, and usually half-baked books. I literally mean half-baked. A lot of these books needed to stay in the proverbial oven another couple months.

But publishers just seem to want quantity, not quality. When a novel—at one of the most successful publishers in this genre—can be picked up in January and released as 'finished' in April, something's getting lost in the shuffle. It takes time to edit well and with an eye to the all-encompassing bigger picture. Then again, most of the epublishers either use other authors (which is fine for proofreading, but not for formal editing) or use editors of poor quality with no formal experience. While I agree that editors must cut their teeth somewhere, it's probably best that it not be doing final edits for some time. And with how this genre chooses to pay its editors…

I understand there is a level of 'to each their own', but when a publisher asks me to pay for a product, I expect that product to be whole and complete, thoroughly edited, and decently packaged.

Now, to the heart of this little rant: editing is necessary. No one is beyond good, professional edits. An editor who knows the genre, who has experience editing fiction, and who understands how a story is meant to unfold. Just because this is romance is no excuse for bad books. None. Developmental editing isn't about making authors rewrite their fiction into what the editor or publisher wants. It's merely a toolkit. It's part of the process.

Developmental editing looks at the bones and meat of a story. It helps shore up a foundation that may be a little wobbly. It may be an entire gut process that helps an author understand their idea better, how to tell their story in a concise, engaging way. No author is perfect, and every author—EVERY AUTHOR—can benefit from an experienced fiction editor's developmental comments.

Once that's done, line editing is necessary. Grammar, punctuation, syntax, commonly confused words, and basic continuity are all things a line editor—who should NOT be the developmental editor—will (or should) catch. These areas are areas I feel publishers should be more strict on instead of reinventing grammar rules around their lack of knowledge (OMG, don't get me started ranting on the abuse of commas, the wiping out of the semicolon, or the use of 'then' as a conjunction). Yes, the English language does change, but it's slow to change, and what changes is very specific. Split infinitives, ending sentences with prepositions, and starting sentences with conjunctions have been hard-won battles for style over grammar (as well as holdovers from our Latin roots).

But eradicating punctuation marks and arbitrarily changing the part of speech a word is isn't about style. Authors need to let go a little when it comes to the line editing, as grammar is part of writing. Not everyone knows everything about grammar, and the line editor is bound to catch something somewhere. Stop sprinkling in commas because you want to control how a reader reads the book. Instead, put them where they are needed grammatically and lean on your storytelling ability to lead the reader instead of unnecessary punctuation and italics.

I've said this before, but I think it bears repeating. Say it with me: The editor is not my enemy. The editor is not "stifling your creative voice" by telling you that affect is not the same as effect or that you've made a comma splice or left a participle dangling. A good editor is merely trying to ensure that you are able to express yourself and your ideas in as clear and concise a manner as possible. Their goal is the same as yours: to increase the sales of your book. That means more money in your pocket. And who wouldn't want that?

Love and Age Difference

In about three weeks, I turn thirty-two. My husband just turned thirty-four. There's not much of an age difference between us, though I do like that he's just a bit older than I am. What I find interesting is that no one thinks anything of the age difference now, but when we got married, I was seventeen and he was nineteen, and many people couldn't understand our relationship.

Within my fiction, most of my characters share this small age gap. Two to four years in age difference is common, unless one character is a vampire. Then, age difference doesn't really play a part in my mind. Nikola, from Rachmaninoff, was almost five hundred years old, and Aric was nineteen. If I really thought about it, that would be squicky, but because the age difference is shone through a paranormal light, it doesn't seem so bad.

My largest age difference not set in a paranormal setting is Cade and North from my upcoming western, Lessons In Cowboy. Cade is forty-two, has three grown kids, and his ranch. North is twenty-four, successful in country music, but is still just starting out in life. When they meet, it's a real clash of reality. Cade has lived and settled his life. He even has two grandkids. It's something that North loves about Cade, as Cade adds a stability to his own life North has never had. But, when I first imagined them, I got some serious negative feedback over the fact that there was an eighteen-year age difference.

Which I find amusing. These same people read and writing paranormal fiction where there can be hundreds of years in age difference, but this contemporary simply squicked them. Well, some people find love with those significantly older or younger than themselves, and I just don't see a reason they shouldn't be represented in fiction. Why must it be two forty-year-olds who fall in love instead of a forty-year-old and a twenty-two-year-old? What is lost or made less in their relationship because of age? If two people are in love, then two people are in love, and I'm not going to remove that from my fiction because some people get their panties in a bunch.

Ultimately, love is love. Age is just a number. Cade and North will get their happily ever after, and their age plays only a small part in their relationship as a whole. They are not the last of the large age difference love interests K. Piet and I plan to write, but they were a lovely start!

How Long Should A Chapter Be?

As K. Piet and I work through our two works in progress (Stalemate and Mae), I find myself considering chapter lengths. A while back, and author emailed me to ask how long her chapters should be, and my response was, "A chapter is as long as it needs to be." I'm not sure that was much help, but I found myself asking the same question a couple of weeks back.

Stalemate is set up in a very specific way. Each 'chapter' is a move and countermove from a chess game. This means that each section—the move and countermove—are about 800 words each, leading to a 'chapter' that is between 1,000 and 1,800 words, depending on the moves made. It makes for very short chapters, and we worried it might seem choppy. Now, feedback has told us the chapters aren't, but it's still a constant worry in my mind.

On the other hand, Mae (working title only) is more traditional. The chapters average about 2,000+ words each. They flow for us, and each one comes to a comfortable, natural conclusion, and so I don't question their lengths quite as much. It makes me wonder if it isn't the length of Stalemate's chapters, but the fact that we are fitting them into a very specific pattern instead of letting them flow one into another. It goes against how we've been writing thus far, and so it may seem stranger to us than it does to a reader.

Chapter lengths are such arbitrary things. I had one author tell me anything below 5,000 words was a 'short' chapter and that they wouldn't be happy with it. Of course, those I shared that sentiment with thought the same way I did: 5,000 words per chapter would make for a long-ass book, and long-ass chapters. I prefer 2,000-3,000 words per chapter, as anything longer can feel like I'm not making any progress as a reader. I view chapters as progression marks, as places I can stop, set aside the book, and easily come back to. Having long chapters only makes it feel like a chore to read (and I tend to think the author might be a little pretentious and wordy, thus making me less likely to buy another of their books).

Eh, I dunno. Chapters serve purposes. Short chapters tend to make me feel like the book is tight and fast-paced (when well-written, mind you). Long chapters tend to make me feel like the book is tedious and overthinking itself. It's that middle ground I like, that place of good pacing, wonderful dialogue, excellent language choice, and a sense of accomplishment throughout the reading. That's what I want as a reader, though as an author… that sweet spot is hard as hell to hit, and I think—not for the first time—that I'm being too hard on myself as an author and on the books I read as a reader.

In the end, yes, my original advice to that author is the right answer: Chapters will be as long or as short as chapters need to be, and I need to stop overthinking the whole thing. XD

Happy Valentine's Day!

Today is Valentine's Day. It's a day people either love or hate. I've always enjoyed the holiday, even if it was made up to take advantage of consumerism. It's a pleasant day for me. No chocolates or cards or flowers, but a nice day to just remind the one who holds my heart how much he means to me.

It's also a day to celebrate—in my mind—the happily ever after part of the romance formula. There was a thread in a group recently about how someone was tired to happily ever afters, but I didn't quite understand why they were so tired of them. Why else would you read a romance? Why would you enter the genre and not seek that? It makes little sense. I know there are authors who are pushing the boundaries of what makes a romance, but the genre has a firm stance on that, and part of it is that happily ever after (or a happily for now).

Why read or write in a genre whose tropes and formulas you shun? I don't understand it. I read other genres—horror, fantasy, young adult, and some limited science fiction—and in those genres, I go in with certain expectations. It's no different from expectations when I pick up a romance novel. An author who does not deliver on those expectations (thus breaking the reader-writer contract) is an author I never read again.

Unless the blurb makes it clear the book does not adhere to the genre rules, I feel cheated when I read a romance with no happily ever after, no love. I want a complicated book with a plot, but at the end, I want all the struggle, pain, and angst the characters have gone through to pay off with them riding out into the sunset! To not offer that is to renege on the agreement between reader and author when writing in genre fiction.

There are several publishers I don't buy from because they have a habit of misrepresenting their works. There are several authors I no longer buy because they have shirked the genre formula without adequately warning for it before purchase. I don't read to feel bad. I read to escape my daily life and to enjoy a happy story about two (or more) people in love. If that isn't the base story an author wants to tell, or a publisher wants to publish, more power to them, but don't call it a romance just so you can take my money. It'll piss me off and result in a bad review of the product.

So, Happy Valentine's Day to everyone, whether you like or don't like the holiday! I like it because it's a holiday that makes me feel good, just like the romance novels I've been reading since I was fourteen. It's a wonderful feeling, and I hope authors and publishers keep me feeling this way for a long time to come!

The Bestseller List

Something I see often is authors announcing they're bestsellers. On Twitter, on blogs, on groups, on the covers of their books. Everyone and their brother seems to be some sort of bestseller, and they all want everyone else to know about it. Of course, that's their prerogative, but it grates on me. I know what you're thinking… sour grapes, right? Well, no. Two of my titles have been on bestseller lists, too, but I don't put much in those lists, so I don't feel the need to scream it from the mountaintops.

Why? Well, bestseller lists are only a barometer of sales. While this may mean something to some people, it means nothing to me. All it means is that the title sold a lot of units. That doesn't mean it's a good book. That doesn't mean it's a well liked book. It doesn't mean anything other than it sold a bunch of copies. In my book, that isn't success. It's money.

Yeah, yeah, money matters. And it does. I like knowing something I've created is selling well, but it isn't the ultimate measure of success for me. For me, success is in how many people like the book. My two bestselling titles are the two with the lowest Goodreads ratings. While people may shun Goodreads as anything other than a cesspit (and, I admit, it does have its skeevy qualities that I think could be fixed if those who ran the place gave a shit), it isn't a bad place to get a general idea of what readers think.

So, every time I see someone post about their book being on yet another site's bestselling list, I shake my head and sigh. Outside validation is great, and high sales are nice for the pocketbook, but I want more than that. I want to be proud of what I've written. I want readers to really enjoy the books I offer. I want to know I didn't compromise my own style or vision in favor of achieving that bestselling title. In short, I want to write for the joy of writing, not some monetary measure of success.

Blog Tours, Blog Tours Everywhere

Once a year, I participate in a month-long blog tour for Storm Moon Press. We spend thirty or so days visiting a blog or two each day with blog posts, giveaways, and interviews. Only once a year. The rest of the year, we'll do guest posts or interviews on blogs in our genre, but we don't do blog tours again until October rolls around and we do our annual one.

This is because, for a blog tour to be effective, it needs to not happen EVERY DAMN DAY. It needs to not be for EVERY BOOK, especially in this genre when an author has the potential of putting out a new book every other month. It also needs to not drag on for MONTHS at a time. I say this as a reader of many blogs, as well as an author and publisher to participates in such events.

Every time I log into Goodreads or Twitter or onto a mailing list, I see yet another blog tour or blog hop. Honestly? I ignore them now. I think a lot of people ignore them unless they're already fans of the author or there's something being given away. Neither of those reasons are reasons to have one. I look at a blog tour as a way to reach new readers as well as reconnect with old ones. It's supposed to promote a new book, not giveaway free shit at every stop. Free is good, but free needs to be done with a conservative hand.

But, at this point, I just roll my eyes and click 'delete'. No one seems to have anything new or interesting to say—especially not on the fourth month-long blog tour—and I've better things to do with my time. The posts are usually pointless (as they have to be when you have to come up with that much content), and the comments are sparse unless there's a giveaway. And even then, the comments are just entries into the giveaway, not conversation. Where has all the conversation gone?

If you're going to do a blog tour, do it smart. Quick, concise posts that are interesting or funny. Keep it short. Do a five day tour of a couple of blogs that you usually don't post on. Get conversation going. Do minimal giveaways that require those who comment to add to the conversation. If not, I'm just going to delete the invite or announcement, and I'm likely going to avoid you as promo-whore who just smears their name all over the internet thinking it'll get you sales.

My Philosophy

I'm putting on my publisher hat for a moment.

Storm Moon Press is author-centric. We pride ourselves on asking our authors' their opinions, their needs. We like including them on just about all aspects of the production of their book. We work with awesome editors. Our cover artists are amazing. The typesetter we work with is exceptional. Together, we all make beautiful books. Storm Moon Press is something very dear to me, something I've poured countless hours and dollars into, and I'm proud of it.

The thing I'm most proud of? When an author comes back to me after we've published something of theirs and says, "I loved the press and the process so much, I want to give you my next manuscript." That is the greatest feeling. We are trusted, and we never want to let our authors down. Creative differences aside, Storm Moon Press is bent on only publishing great stories by amazing authors with outstanding voices. It's all subjective, and we understand that, but we're happy with what we've done, and we'll not stop.

As an author, I'm very reader-centric. I like engaging my readers. I like asking them questions, hearing their thoughts. It's quite an experience to exchange a couple emails as someone deconstructs one of your characters in ways you never imagined. When I write something, I always keep in the back of my mind, "Will a reader like this twist? Is this too much? Will the reader go with me on this?" I strive to never make my reader regret giving me the trust they have when they pick up one of my books.

I push the envelope at times. I try new things. I add twists and turns to keep the book exciting while seeing it through to the end vision I have. But, always, the reader is in my mind. I don't write just for me. I don't write for an audience of millions, either. I write, quite honestly, what I—as a reader—would love to see, and I hope that the reader goes along with me on that journey.

It's not an insular, solitary environment anymore. Writing and publishing, things that were one shrouded in business and creative license, have been flayed open and laid bare. The face of publishing is changing rapidly, and a lot of people are getting left behind. Writing is becoming a much more easily achievable goal, with publication just a click away. Publishers have stopped caring about authors, and I think many authors are forgetting about their readers. Publishers must remember where their product comes from, and authors need to remember whose money makes up the royalties.

Books are a commodity. A luxury item. In a time when the economy is poor, a good book at a reasonable price is a highly sought after gem. Publishers owe authors and readers that good product, and authors owe their readers the respect the author-reader bond affords. Make sure you're sending your manuscripts to a press who knows what side the bread is buttered on, and that you're delivering a damn fine product to readers who are spending their hard money on your creative baby.

Work with author-centric presses that produce high quality books, and be a reader-centric author and listen to what your readers have to say. You may find your experience in this business a pleasant one rather than a frustrating battle if you find that wonderful balance.

Vampires, Classically Captivating

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: vampires are not dead.

What's dead is badly written, poorly conceived vampires who do nothing but moon over some vapid-minded main character. Give a vampire a new twist and there will be interest. Vampires, like shifters, are an enduring archetype that readers and writers will never stick into a trunk and forget under the bed. Even if nothing new is added to the mythos, writing a complex, deeply rich vampiric character can be enough to earn praise and sales.

Originality is needed. Depth is needed. What I'm tired of reading are same old romantic trope vampires. I wrote that trope when K. Piet and I did Rachmaninoff, and while I'm not sorry we did it, it's a ho-hum novel. It's not great, and maybe if we hadn't set out to tell the traditional vampire love story, it would have had a better shot at success with readers. But we didn't. We did what we knew, what we loved to read sometimes, just to see if we could. Since Rachmaninoff, though, I've not had a desire to revisit such classic tropes.

Let me introduce you to my vampires, both past, present, and upcoming! (Because I'll never give up my vampires, not ever.)

Nikola is from Rachmaninoff, and he is as classic a vampire as you can get. I love his stuffy, formal attitude, and he was a good foil for Aric's younger, rasher, more modern sensibilities.

Bastian, from Other Side of Night: Bastian & Riley, is more of a college kid who happens to be a vampire. His vampirism is seen more as a disease, something that impedes his life a little, but it's secondary to school and romance.

Judas is my most non-traditional vampire, and there are no other creatures like him. He's from The Keeper (and, eventually, the sequel, The Keeper's Heart).

Havva, a vampire from the Other Side of Night series, she's ruthless, decadent, and cold, reveling in what she is and what she can do.

London, from my short The Vampire's Boy (and who will eventually be given his own novel with Jasper), is a powerful vampire who's been around for a while. He's sadistic, commanding, and deadly, and he doesn't do anything by halves.

Jasper, also from my short The Vampire's Boy, is a half-breed. He's a vampire whose turning wasn't finished, and so he's half-vampire, half-human, but not in a good way. He's more like a human stuck with immortality and a pesky need for blood.

Orion, from my short Orion, is a vicious vampire who looks like a thirteen year old boy. He has no care for anyone or anything other than the kill and his creator, Alaric. However, it's Orion who is the master in their relationship, something he never lets Alaric forget.

Alaric, also from my short Orion, is old, tired, and had thought he'd seen and done it all until he met Orion, fell in love, and created his master when he turned the young man.

Seth, from my short Unwilling Compromise, is a relatively young vampire who is smack dab in the middle of a turf war between vampires and werewolves. He winds up the pet of the Alpha wolf who takes control of Cleveland, and he's practical enough not to turn away a chance to live.

Gideon, currently only found in my short Temptation Calls, is a vampire too old, too scarred, to care about social graces. He's clawing his way to the top, intent on never being so weak as to be someone else's toy ever again.

Morgan, found in a couple of my shorts, is a vampire who is at the very bottom of the food chain who falls in love with a powerful woman who isn't from his own world or plane of existence. He's from the same world as Gideon, and both of them will eventually have their own books, plus appear in each other's (and other satellite books in the series).

Samuel, from All Grown Up, and is probably one of the only vampires from the Advent: Collected Shorts book that won't get his own novella or novel. He's a classic sort of vampire in a clockworkpunk sort of world. I may or may not revisit him, but for now, he's very quiet and pleased in my head.

Meh'al, from the World of Egaea books, is not a vampire… really. He sort of is. He's genetically a creature that feeds on some vegetables and meat, but his race's (the Varan) primary source of nutrition is blood. They have sharp teeth, red eyes, pale skin and hair, and live in a frigid landscape.

Ky'ahn, also from the World of Egaea books, is a Varan, but female. She's also mid-level in the social hierarchy, and so when an Elf pays attention to her, it throws the whole social structure into chaos.

Kyran, also from the World of Egaea books, he is a created creature. He began his life as a Maith, but through the meddling and cruelty of a Shadow Elf, he is twisted into the perfect predator that never sleeps, never eats, is strong, fast, and needs blood to survive.

That's it… so far. XD I want to play with psychic vampires at some point, and I love incubi (which, to me, is just a lust vampire). It's fun to play with creatures that hunt and feed off other, use them, love them, and I won't ever give them up. You can tell me vampires are done to death, dead horse that needs no more beating, but I say, no, vampires still thrive, still captivate, and always will.