Anne Lyle's Blog, page 18

Romance in fantasy

Maybe it's a cliché to write a romance-themed blog post for Valentine's Day, but the celebration is rife with clichés so I thought, why not?

In medieval and Renaissance times, a romance was not a love story but "a long fictitious tale of heroes and extraordinary or mysterious events, usually set in a distant time or place" (freedictionary.com). Sounds awfully like the modern-day definition of the fantasy genre, doesn't it? However when it comes to the modern definition of romance, you tend to find readers divided on the subject.

On the one hand you have the "girl cooties" school of fantasy, inspired by the work of Tolkien, who spent most of his life in the male-dominated circles of the early twentieth century English education system. Such books seem designed to appeal to the adolescent male, with female characters who are at best an idealised Other, and at worst a collection of sexist stereotypes. This is a gross generalisation of course, and there have been lots of fantasy novels with strong female characters, but there are nonetheless still plenty of readers who dislike any hint of romance sullying their heroes' testosterone-soaked adventures.

In the opposite corner you have the new kid on the block, paranormal romance, which seems designed to appeal mainly to female readers. Owing more to the Gothic novels of the early nineteenth century, these are love stories first and foremost, with the fantasy elements typically providing the obstacles between the lovers. I suspect that part of their rise in popularity, as with m/m romance, lies in the fact that modern Western couples face few obstacles in their relationships compared to previous generations. "(S)he's a vampire/werewolf/angel/zombie" has replaced "our parents would never allow it" as the star-crossed lovers' angst du jour.

But what of the middle ground? What are the fantasy novels that fall between these extremes, and where do you draw the line? This question occurred to me after reading Ten Ruby Trick by my friend Julia Knight. For the most part this is a fun swashbuckling adventure, like the old movies I used to watch on Sunday afternoons. Sure, there's a romance between the hero, Van Gast, and the tricksy pirate captain Josie, but the love scenes are fairly infrequent and not terribly steamy.

In many respects, therefore, it's not that dissimilar from my own novel The Alchemist of Souls – and yet Ten Ruby Trick is published by Carina, an ebook imprint of Harlequin, whereas I'm published by SFF imprint Angry Robot. So what makes Julia's book romance and mine not? I pondered this for a while and realised it was all down to the characters' motivation. In Ten Ruby Trick, both Van Gast and his enemy Holden are motivated by their love for Josie; if it wasn't for their feelings, there would be no plot. In The Alchemist of Souls, the romance is confined to a subplot. Take it away, and you would still be left with Mal's main storyline, which has nothing to do with romance (though it is ultimately concerned with love, loyalty and responsibility). It's a subtle distinction, but one that makes all the difference in how the book is marketed.

What about you? Do you like romance in your fantasy, fantasy in your romance, or do you prefer the two genres to stay separate?

SFX Weekender 3

When some one says "science fiction convention", what's the image that springs to mind? TV celebrity guests, with fans queueing for autographs? People dressed as Imperial stormtroopers and random anime characters wandering the corridors? Crowds of geeks roaming around stalls piled high with t-shirts, paperbacks and Doctor Who action figures? The SFX Weekender is all this, but with a very British twist: the venue is a Pontin's holiday camp in North Wales.

As a result it was a very different experience to the kind of conventions I'm used to. No snug hotel bedroom with a fully catered breakfast in the morning; I slept on the most uncomfortable sofa-bed in the UK, needed a hot water bottle to stay warm at night (luckily I was forewarned and took one with me) and had to cook my own bacon sandwiches in the morning (oh, the humanity!). On the other hand, my chalet-mate Lou Morgan makes a much better cup of tea than any hotel kitchen

I also found all the cosplaying just a little unnerving, especially the five-foot-tall Dalek who accosted us on our way into the complex on Friday morning, demanding that we open the door for it or be exterminated. Suddenly I was a terrified six-year-old again and just wanted to hide behind the sofa! On the other hand the guy in the Alien costume, who must have been at least eight feet tall in his stilted legs, didn't scare me at all, simply adding to the atmosphere of the con. Not everyone went the whole hog costume-wise; my friend Laura (right) opted for the low-key look, adding a pair of elf-ears to her normal ensemble.

I felt decidedly under-dressed as a result, though I was there at least partly in my professional capacity as a debut author so I didn't want to look like just another fan. Since my book's not out until next month, I just did one panel, "How to Get Published". I got somewhat nervous as the time approached; attendance this year was up to 4000 people, and both main rooms had seating for hundreds! As it was, the stage lighting was so bright one could hardly see the audience, so it wasn't all that scary after all.

It was great to catch up with the regular convention crowd, and Lou Morgan and Amanda Rutter were excellent chalet-buddies. I also met some more people I previously only knew online, including the jet-lagged and bemused Sam Sykes, and the lovely Stacia Kane, who turned out to live not that many miles from me.

Other highlights included a sing-along screening of "Once More With Feeling", the Kitschie awards with Jared Shurin and Anne Perry (the latter in a gorgeous dress), the crowded but author-tastic Gollancz/Orbit chalet party, and of course the Saturday night disco with Craig Charles, where I boogied on down with Tom Pollock, Sophia MacDougall and China Mieville (shameless name-drop) until my feet were sore. Also, thanks to Jared I can now vouch for the fact that Kraken Rum (provided by the Kitschie sponsors of the same name) is delicious!

Will I be going back next year? I think so – it's an awesome convention in its own way, and by then I'll have at least one book out, perhaps two, so I'll no longer be in that "not quite a published author" limbo. However I'll be giving serious consideration to booking alternative accommodation, and damn the expense. Conventions are exhausting enough, without adding extra backache and sleeplessness to the mix!

The Merchant of Dreams is handed in!

Sound the trumpets! Throw the confetti! I have hit my deadline!

Yes, after months of meandering through rewrites and then a gruelling eight weeks of further editing, I finished this initial draft of The Merchant of Dreams and sent it to my editor – one whole day ahead of schedule! I'm slightly worried I may have set a dangerous precedent here, but honestly, I'm convinced that Parkinson's Law applies just as much to writers as anyone else. If you don't take deadlines seriously, you're not very likely to make them.

Back in October I had serious doubts that I could turn my shambles of a rough draft into anything fit to be shown to my editor. There were huge gaping holes in the narrative, and as per usual I had very little idea of how to get from the middle of the book to the ending that I'd planned. So I set myself targets. I decided I would use NaNoWriMo to plough through the rough-drafting of the remaining scenes, then spend December and January methodically editing it into something readable. So that's what I did.

I knew I needed about 32 chapters if the book was to be a sensible length, so I gave myself two days per chapter to do the edit, which seemed reasonable. I then marked every chapter deadline (in black) on my Doctor Who calendar by my desk, and recorded every completion date – red for behind schedule, green for on or ahead. The results speak for themselves:

January 2012 on my Doctor Who calendar

As you can see, my progress was pretty erratic – sometimes it took me a whole week to complete a chapter, other times I'd manage two or even three in a day. In part this was down to the unevenness of the material – some chapters were in a much better state than others – but there was also the small issue of being ill for substantial spells. Nothing serious, just minor viruses, but anything that lowers your concentration is deadly for writers. Overall, though, the target of two days per chapter worked out well.

I'm honestly not sure I could have done it without those implacable black digits daring me to fail, so I'm definitely going to do this again when I start work in earnest on the next book. That Book Three deadline is already looming…

Web Presence 101.5 – Twitter

As mentioned in my last post about social media, Twitter is my favourite social network. I tend not to use the main website, as (like Facebook) the interface is full of stuff I don't want to see, e.g. trending topics, but there are plenty of third-party applications for computers, smartphones and so on.

Twitter icon by Mirjami Manninen

I know that some people find Twitter confusing, perhaps because individual posts (tweets) are so short and the interface is pretty sparse. It's best to think of it as somewhere between live chat and Facebook – I find it a more immediate experience than the "big content" social networks, and the ability to easily direct comments to your friends using the @ "mention" function feels more friendly than Facebook, which often feels to me like shouting into a void.

Another thing I like about Twitter is that I can follow, say, a big-name author without them having ever to acknowledge my presence, and likewise I don't have to "friend" every random user who wants to follow me. It's very like socialising at a party, where you can hover on the edge of a conversation or have a long one-to-one chat, depending on your level of acquaintance.

In addition, the very simplicity of Twitter means that I don't have to worry about the complex privacy issues surrounding Facebook. A Twitter account holds your tweets and a brief biography – that's it. One caveat is that you need to remember that unlike FB, Twitter is completely public. There is a DM (direct message) facility which can be used for private, one-to-one tweets, but anything else you say is visible to the entire Internet. Writer, beware!

So, how do you go about using Twitter to network as a writer? Rule one: do not spam your timeline with promos for your books. This bears repeating: do not spam your timeline with promos for your books. In particular, if someone is kind enough to follow you back, do not DM them with invitations to buy your book. This is really, really poor netiquette and will lose you followers.

This is not to say that you can't promote your book at all, because that's part of the reason people follow you – to get the latest news from the horse's mouth. But make it just one small part. Talk about how your writing is going, retweet useful/cool/funny posts about your areas of interest (see the article on blogging), and most of all, interact with your followers and the people you follow. Capture people's interest first, and then they won't mind the occasional promo tweet.

One tool I find really useful is Hootsuite, which is a web-based Twitter client. Its multi-column interface allows you to see incoming and outgoing tweets, direct messages, mentions, etc all on one web page, and you can hook it up to multiple accounts, both on Twitter and other social networks such as Facebook. Even more useful, you can schedule tweets to go out when you're not online – very handy if you want your book announcement to be seen at a busy time of day in another timezone, but don't want to stay up all night.

Once you've got the hang of it, you can be more creative with Twitter. I'm currently running a second account, @MalCatlyn, in which I tweet in the persona of the protagonist of my Night's Masque novels. Of course this is an additional commitment on top of my normal social media presence, and thus not to be recommended unless you really love Twitter and have the time to spare.

How to get started

Obviously you need an account first – go to twitter.com to register. Note that usernames are not case-sensitive – I registered as 'annelyle', but I usually write it as 'AnneLyle' for greater readability, and all the links still work.

Once you've created your Twitter account, use the "Who to Follow" page to find people:

Maybe you know someone who's on Twitter (like me!), so you can just look them up and follow them.
Try searching for your favourite authors' names – but beware that other people might have the same name and have claimed the username first (e.g. author Adam Christopher tweets as @ghostfinder because his name was already taken). There are also a few fake, identity-thieving account around. Read the mini-biography attached to the account and check out the user's timeline to see if they look like a real person or a spambot
Similarly, type writing (or whatever) into the "Who to Follow" search box and browse the results for interesting feeds
The best Twitter users maintain public lists of good people to follow. When you find an account to follow, see if they are on any lists (the "Listed" number on their profile) and follow the links to find out who else is on that list.

Once you've got a bunch of people to follow, sit back and watch your timeline spool away. Don't be too anxious to jump in, but at the same time, don't be afraid to reply to others, retweet stuff, or just introduce yourself. E.g.

@AnneLyle Hi! Really looking forward to reading The Alchemist of Souls

As with most social media networks, you can import your blog's RSS feed into Twitter, which will ensure you have a steady flow of tweets in addition to general chatter. I useTwitterfeed, as it's very easy to set up.

Before you know it, people will start following you back – though some of them will undoubtedly be pornbots! Don't worry, though, you can block unwanted followers. Some people leave the bots in their follower list to make the numbers look higher, but personally I would rather know that 99+% of my followers are real people who might actually be reading my feed.

Happy tweeting!

Stop SOPA

To mark the Internet strike in support of Stop SOPA and similar campaigns, I'm hiding most of the hyperlinks on this blog. Because that's what the internet will look like if this kind of legislation goes through.

Why? Because SOPA enables any site owner to be prosecuted if their site links to one that contains copyright-violated material. Have you checked every page of every single website that your blog has ever linked to? Thought not. SOPA or its successors will force bloggers to stop linking to other sites or accepting comments, for fear of prosecution; it will cripple social media for the same reason; it will make search engines illegal. It will effectively kill the Internet that we know and love.

This isn't just a US problem; it affects us all. The US controls the core infrastructure of the web, for example the central DNS databases that tell all our computers which physical machine a web domain like www.annelyle.com maps to. They blacklist your domain, you're screwed, whether your website is based in New York, London, Delhi…

President Obama has apparently said he won't sign SOPA – but the big industries behind it won't give up. Please lend your support. Thank you.

An ARC in the flesh

On Saturday I finally got my hands on a physical ARC of The Alchemist of Souls, which was pretty thrilling, let me tell you!

Of course I've seen the cover art before, in gorgeous high-resolution, and read the text a gazillion times – but it was still an extraordinary feeling to flip through the physical book and see my words there. Much as I love ebooks for their portability and resizable text, I do feel sorry for authors who don't get to hold a paper copy of their book in their hands.

Speaking of which – he's a big bugger! I knew that 140,000 words was considered on the long side for a debut novel, but it's not until you hold your brick of a book in your hands that you realise just what that means. 500 pages. 35mm of shelf space. No-one's going to overlook that on the shelves of Waterstones.

Here's an interesting comparison with two similar debut novels from a few years back  (The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie and The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch). Well, waddya know, they're exactly the same size!

OK, so the print in mine is slightly larger, which means the book is shorter, but at my age I approve of readable-sized print

Just seeing my book next to those two awesome – and, let's face it, wildly successful – novels gives me the shivers!

The spine and back are lovely too, bearing a beautiful damask-like pattern (which on closer viewing appears to be elaborately carved stonework) and of course more of the same exquisite lettering as the front cover. I've manipulated the picture below slightly to exaggerate the contrast on the pattern, otherwise it's hardly visible in a photo, especially with light reflecting off the high-gloss finish.

Click for a close-up of the damask pattern

Finally, the back cover, with the plot description (written by yours truly) and Angry Robot's now-traditional "File Under" box.

In case it's not clear in the photo, the box reads:

File Under – Fantasy

Midsummer Magic * Skrayling

Double Trouble * Comedy of Terrors

My thanks again to Marc Gascoigne at Angry Robot for wrapping my unworthy prose in such a delicious package

Anyway, the ARC now has pride of place in my SFF bookcase, where it will await the arrival of its swankier (but somehow less cool) brethren, the final print versions, in April!

Book review: Among Thieves, by Douglas Hulick

I first came across Among Thieves when talking to my editor about the cover design for The Alchemist of Souls. Marc was thinking of commissioning Larry Rostant, who does a nice line in brooding historical dudes, and used the UK cover of Among Thieves (below) as an example of the look he was going for. Then I met Doug himself on Fantasy Faction, and he was such a nice guy that I couldn't not read his book. I'm very glad I did, as it turned out to be right up my (dark, rat-infested) alley!

Among Thieves is the story of Drothe (no surname – he's too cool for that!), a "Nose" or informant in the pay of one of the crimelords of Ildrecca, the capital of a Renaissance-like empire. There are hints of a wider world outside, but the action of the book is confined to the city itself, particularly the seedier quarters where a "shadow empire" of organised crime holds sway. Drothe works for an Upright Man, one of the lower-level bosses who have carved up the city between them but who are themselves pawns in a larger game played by the Gray Princes, near-legendary figures known only by epithets such as "Longreach" or "The Piper's Son". Hulick's use of historical thieves' cant, supplemented by invented slang, gives shape to what could otherwise be a bewildering array of forgers, fences and hired muscle, as Drothe investigates what seems to be a minor mystery (an undecipherable code found on a smuggler) and finds himself way in over his head.

This is certainly the most action-packed book I've read since The Swords of Albion – poor Drothe rarely escapes a chapter without another chase or fight (and a good deal of resultant pain and injury). The pace develops gently at first, allowing the reader time to get to know the world, but by the halfway mark the plot revelations and action set-pieces are coming thick and fast. The fight scenes in particular are very detailed – Hulick is an aficionado of renaissance swordsmanship – indeed almost a little too detailed and blow-by-blow, but this is first-person narrative so I'm willing to cut Drothe a little slack for being hyperaware in combat. I know from firsthand experience (not fighting, I must add) how time really does seem to slow down when your adrenaline spikes!

It's not all swordplay, however; this is a world of magic too, from minor charms used by the criminal fraternity to spells of earth-shattering power forbidden to all but the emperor. Mostly, though, magic seems to cause more problems than it solves – an approach I heartily endorse. (On a purely personal level, I was interested to note the parallels between this book and my own, though I won't go into detail here for fear of spoilers – you'll just have to read them both )

Overall, a cracking debut, and I'm really looking forward to reading the sequel, Sworn in Steel, which is due out later this year.

Looking forward, looking back: 2011/12

One of the advantages of a long-running blog (or a diary, for that matter) is that you get to look back on previous years' New Year resolutions and laugh – or cry.

Now, this main blog of mine has only been going for about fifteen months, but my writing journal goes way, way back to the summer of 2005, so I have quite a few resolutions to look back on. For the first few years, my only – and perpetual – goal was to finish a novel and get it submitted, but in 2010 I finally achieved that – yay! – and was able to move on. I still post minor progress reports to my writing journal, but I've decided that my annual goals are hopefully interesting enough to the wider world to make it onto this main blog now.

So, what did I aim for in 2010? Obviously I achieved my lifetime ambition of getting picked up by a publisher, but as Dean Wesley Smith says in his recent post, that's not a goal, it's a dream. Goals should be something within your control, otherwise you'll be overly discouraged by failure. My real goal was to write a sequel as good as the first book (the one that had already attracted the interest of Angry Robot) – something that is surely within my control. The question is, have I achieved it?

Right now that's hard to say. I'm still working on the second draft of The Merchant of Dreams, and I'm pretty pleased with it so far. The plot is sufficiently intricate, I think; there's even more swashbuckling action than in The Alchemist of Souls; and once more I'm putting my characters through the emotional as well as the physical wringer. The proof of this pudding, though, will be in the reading, so I'll just have to wait to find out what my editor and beta-readers think.

As for 2012, my goal is pretty much the same as last year, funnily enough. I have one further book under contract, and I'd like to tie up this trilogy with a climax worthy of its predecessors. After that it'll be time to think about my next writing project in earnest, but I don't have any solid goals related to that right now. Maybe next year!

What about you? Do you set goals – and have you achieved any of them?

Book giveaway: December winners

So, I've done the draw for the final book giveaway of 2011, and the winners are David (How to Write Fantasy & Science Fiction) and Jess (The King of the Crags).

Thank you to everyone for entering, and keep an eye out for more goodies in 2012! You never know, I might have a copy or two of The Alchemist of Souls to give away

Book Three has a title

I'm very happy to announce that Book Three in the Night's Masque trilogy has had the stamp of approval* from the Robot Overlords, so I can finally reveal the title:

The Prince of Lies

I can't really say anything more about it at this stage – for one thing, it's only a brief synopsis and some scribbled notes! However I can reveal that I'll be starting work on it in earnest in spring 2012, as soon as the completed draft of The Merchant of Dreams has gone off to my editor Marc Gascoigne. Well, OK, maybe I'll allow myself a little downtime first. There's a bottle of Venetian Prosecco in the dining room with my name on it…

Happy New Year!

* with a big metal foot, presumably